It's over 19 years old, but this video is a brutal but hilarious commentary on Microsoft's inherent dysfunction when it comes to product naming and packaging. Still on point decades later.
There’s also solar thermal panels that heat up a liquid circulating in the system and cut out the need for a battery - and can just store the heated liquid.
Efficiencies and effects are at the point where taking a photon, converting it into an electron, and using that electron to pump heat is more efficient than turning that photon perfectly into kinetic energy.
Similarly, in mild weather, it is more efficient to burn hydrocarbons and turn it into electricity to run a heat pump than use that hydrocarbon for it's heat energy directly.
Thermal solar panels have the advantage of being very simple and surprisingly effective. But if you're lacking space to put up both solar cells and thermal, you can use combined panels which have a solar cell with a backing thermal system. The interesting thing is that these combined panels outperform solar cells even when it comes to electricity generated because solar panels loose efficiency as they heat up, so cooling them actually improves efficieny. Combined panels are much more expensive, though.
The problem with thermal solar panels is that you can use its heated water only if it gets warmer than the water in your system, which is not always the case, especially in winter.
Compared to nearly 100% usable energy from normal solar panels.
Furthermore if you have a heatpump you can convert this electric energy into heat energy with a factor of >3 (COP).
Yeah but if you're in a northern climate your solar panels are only generating like 10% of their summer capacity in the winter anyway due to sun hours/angles... winter is just tough for capturing solar energy in general.
Gold is also one of the best heat conductors so if it got really cheap it could be used a lot in industry and electronics. Anything from cookware to heat sinks!
If there’s one thing I learnt from HN it’s how many people can’t comprehend this. Is it a byproduct of growing up in a very transactional or selfish environment?
Yes. First being a YouTube creator became a business, then twitch, tiktok, twitter. GenZ basically grew up with everything being/becoming a business "opportunity". Making money is the goal for "creators", to the point where ads have become normalized and not having a sponsor is leaving money on the table.
Gold has been going up for years now. I don’t know how much TikTok influencers influence the price. Seems to be mostly central banks and the falling apart of the international order that’s driving a neutral and unsanctionable tradeable asset up.
reply