Disqus - Latest Comments for Nils

Re: Kicking Ass

Nils — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:38:24 -0000

Thanks for the summary of Kathy's talk. It's great to have her back!

Re: Concordia LEED Platinum Portland Home

Nils — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:39:43 -0000

I think it needs to be staged, too. The empty kitchen just looks kind of sad.

Re: DEMOfall 08: Plastic Logic creates a flexible and thin display

Nils — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:47:52 -0000

I've been waiting for one of these since I first read about E-Ink the company back in the late 80's. I'm disappointed it's taking so long to get to market, but I've always thought electronic paper could make a significant change in how we interact with the world. This could definitely be combined with Swype for a killer laptop replacement, as well.

Re: Accept_360.version++; clean_up_interface();

Nils — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:15:20 -0000

Oren - thanks for the shout out! And yes, we're working on the last issue you brought up - integration with dev tools.

Nils

Re: Ontic Oren » Living the ultimate online agile workflow

Nils — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:32:47 -0000

Oren - Great post! Your listing of the tools you're using, how you're using them, and why you're getting such benefit is really valuable! We're looking at Confluence ourselves, as well as Jira, and now I want Balsamiq!

Nils

Re: If you love it, you don't know much about typography

Nils — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:46:17 -0000

There was one great shot in the video of a coffee cup (I think - it was short) that had *both* Comic Sans and Algerian, which is another highly overused typeface. I personally kind of like Comic Sans, although I certainly don't think it should be used everywhere. I use it as my IM client typeface, for example, but wouldn't write a document with it.

Re: How tweet it is…

Nils — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:57:38 -0000

so far, mostly on Twitter as a listener. Don't have many RL friends here, so my tweets are pretty much general interest when I do them

Re: How tweet it is…

Nils — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:58:37 -0000

Also, I don't tweet about work-related things at all - haven't figured out how to balance "inside the kimono" activities with what my public should hear about.

Re: Tim Ferriss interview

Nils — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:51:46 -0000

Incredibly inspiring interview. I'll be going out (to the local bookstore) to get the book today. Right now I'm starting a transition from a traditional job to (at least one) business of my own, as well as helping my wife with her home-based consulting business. So this is coming at a great time for me - where I need to fix my traditional job, as long as I still have it, and make sure my new venture produces value but leaves me with more of my life.

Re: everything in the sky - Incredible SprintCam v3 showreel, filmed at...

Nils — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:19:09 -0000

Any idea was the music is? I love the accordian!

Re: Awaiting the results of our LEED Certification.

Nils — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:32:55 -0000

Congratulations on getting this far, and good luck with the energy savings sections. That's the most important thing, imho (as you can see if you take a look at my blog).

Re: How to build an energy efficient small business: Part 1

Nils — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:38:13 -0000

I'm just seeing your blog for the first time (Zemanta hooked us up!) and I thought this was a particularly good entry. You guys are really putting the effort in to be sustainable - it's very impressive.

I also really liked your post about using Coach Wooden's pyramid for your team, even though it's not a sport team at all!

Re: Energy Storage for the Backyard

Nils — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:26:48 -0000

Peter - great post! Thanks for keeping an eye on this. Solving this distributed storage of renewable energy problem will be THE major way we can address climate change, imho. (That is, along with efficiency.)

Re: Energy Storage for the Backyard

Nils — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:26:48 -0000

Re: Solar Power Wins Enthusiasts but Not Money

Nils — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:03:05 -0000

A few comments:

1. The article claims in the text that solar supplied 0.01% of the electricity used in the US last year. However, the infographic puts the percentage at 0.1% - ten times as much.

2. It's very likely that solar energy technology and research and development is hitting an inflection point right now. Many labs are announcing breakthroughs on a weekly basis (e.g., according to the MIT's Technology Review Emerging Technologies newsletter, for example).

3. If so, solar energy could be in a mode right now of doubling its contribution every year or so. That's pretty significant - starting from 0.1% in year 0 (this year) and doubling every year leads to a contribution of - well not much in the next two or three years - but about 25% in eight years. The power of exponential growth is pretty amazing, as we've all experienced with our computers, cell phones, music players, etc.

4. Even if solar power's contribution doubles only every two years, in ten years it will still have made a significant impact - five doublings is 3.2% - not huge but no longer trivial.

For more on exponential growth like this, I recommend listening to one of Ray Kurzweil's talks about "the singularity" - they can be found in various places on the web.

Of course, this is a bit simplistic, as the demand for energy is likely to grow as well, so solar's contribution may not grow quite as fast. On the other hand, solar has a lot of venture and business backers right now (Nanosolar, Kyocera, Google, Cypress Semiconductor) so R&D breakthroughs could come a lot *faster* than a doubling rate - that sometimes happens when new technologies suddenly get traction - hit the tipping point - for whatever reason.

Nils

Re: A Passiv Haus in Urbana, Illinois

Nils — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:49:45 -0000

A recent article about Katrin's house on Fine Homebuilding's Green Building Advisor site addresses some of the questions above, in particular about the shading of the south-facing windows. Katrin found they did need some shading in the summer, and found a grape arbor to be effective. (http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/homes/first...)

It's definitely an interesting read.

Re: The Archdruid Nails It: Energy Conservation, Not Efficiency, Is Key

Nils — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:00:18 -0000

Re: Jevon's Paradox. Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute says that if you carefully run the numbers, in most practical situations, Jevon's Paradox doesn't apply. For example, people don't drive more just because they have a hybrid car that gets a lot more mileage - we have real lives that require a certain amount of driving, so if we have a hybrid, we actually end up using less gas.

[you, the individual, may end up using less gas; we, the society, end up using more gas, because everyone buys a hybrid. Lovins is committed to maintaining a certain level of 'Happy Motoring' to maintain 'real lives'; this is fine, it just doesn't do anything for curtailing gas consumption mjo]

Re: Nanotech Breakthrough Could Offer More Efficient Energy Storage

Nils — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:32:02 -0000

Actually, re: making graphene, Technology Review had an article in April on making larger sheets of graphene using essentially a paper-making process. So there is some hope of a scalable method. My personal hope is that someone creates a nano-assembler to make graphene sheets. There's currently a lot of research on self-assembly and nano-assembly of carbon nanotubes, which are a lot like graphene, only rolled up.

Also: Agree with Flubber that it's great to see carbon in a good light. I think it's such a waste to put CO2 into the ground to sequester it - much better to sequester carbon into useful things like carbon fiber, buckytubes, and graphene (and wood). It does take some energy to get the carbon out of CO2, but there's really quite a lot it could be used for.

Re: Survey: The Volt- Would You Buy One?

Nils — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:21:20 -0000

My big problem is that it's GM - as I was just telling my brother-in-law on Sunday, I would never buy a GM car, just based on quality and the driving experience. But, I'm happy to give the Volt a chance - maybe GM can change its spots with this vehicle. I don't think the price tag is too high (would be fine with it lower, of course), as it will be a status symbol at least here in California for the first year or two.

Re: 30-Fold Increase in Solar Power Possible by 2016, If Solar Industry and Utilities Collaborate to Make it Happen

Nils — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:30:34 -0000

The “30-fold” number is interesting. If solar power doubles about every 18 months, then in eight years it will be about 32 times bigger. Where have I heard that “doubling every 18 months” idea before? Oh yeah, it’s Moore’s Law! It’s about time that a legit organization (as opposed to, say, my blog Barrier Busting) comes out with a prediction of a Moore’s Law-type growth rate for solar. And it means that in 15 years, if the doubling rate stays constant, solar will be about 120 times where it is now - and will be providing a very significant amount of our energy.