I am working on an app that needs some GIS features. Spatialite and GDAL cover my use case. You can even eliminate GDAL if you don't retrieve data as binary but it is useful in other places too.
iirc panasonic had one generator. small scale internal combustion engines are popular because power to weight ratio allows the same design to be used in other equipment and it has near instantaneous power regulation.
Sadly finding a Philips MP1002C Stirling engine generator is almost impossible. Not to mention that they are loud and only output around 200w, which is nothing compared to a Honda 2200i.
A stand alone generator need not be mobile, so it needn't be that light weight. In fact it probably would benefit being integrated with a home's heating and cooling system to utilize waste heat.
What it does need to do is be relatively maintenance free, and run off a variety of heat sources (such as pellets, woodgas or solar thermal). This is where I think Stirling engines shine...you can gasify all of your waste organic matter into dirty gas that wouldn't normally be fit for an internal combustion engine, but work fine for a swirl burner which can be used on an external combustion engine such as steam or stirling.
Riding a bike works like that. 2-3 minutes is a huge difference in terms of power output required. Headwinds can sap your power. Going slightly above your average feels like a headwind. A coach potato like me can output about a hundred watts on a good day so if you have money to spare and want to go faster, buy upgrades. 3 watts here, 2 watts there and you are at +10% ;)
Wait, so you're telling me "don't buy upgrades, ride up grades" is a lie?
I am joking, of course, but I think you're completely right in that for beginners, a small investment in upgrades (or even just a good solid bike) pays for itself in huge boosts of performance.
Of course, after that, then buying more and better things is just bad for your wallet ;)
I took up biking as an adult again by biking with rental bikes in Mexico City (government owned) and they are built like tanks for durability, not for riding pleasure.
When I finally got on a "real" bike, I flew. I was much faster and agile than my bike-riding friends. Because I couldn't upgrade the bike, I had to upgrade myself, and these investments are compatible with any kind of bike (or sport, actually).
It reminds me of one video (unfortunately I can't find it at the moment) where journalist vs pro rider were racing each other with different bikes - road, city bike, old lady's bike.
What was surprising that pro on lady's bike couldn't match layman journalist on proper road bike. Basically all the energy spent on women's bike goes to flexing (heating) the frame. City bike built like tank was better as at least it was sturdy.
However it also shows that good bike is so much more important as you would think pro would match you riding anything with two wheels.
I'm really interested in that video. I assume that the women's bike was a steel model, since steel is supposed to be the most flexible common frame material.
Also curious about all the people who say "no surprise considering the bike".
I agree to all points. For point 6. Mapbox is a big contender for ESRI's current position.
For 8. Openstreetmap, GDAL and associated open source ecosystem offers a solution to proprietary format and API of the month problem to a degree. It is not surprising that there is no money flowing if mapping is not a core business of the users.
Aerial and satellite imagery is the heavily regulated and lucrative part of any mapping solution. If you are allowed and able to obtain that, you can probably get by just selling the raw imagery without geospatial processing.
Mapbox tries to replace Google maps, ESRI is different category which is only slowly challenged by enterprise vendors (Azure and other clouds) and FOSS: PostGIS and other sptially enabled databases which have more and more geo features, making specialized GiS to a niche.
I write and maintain some OpenLayers API (OSM) Javascript, used in a product.
OpenLayers was selected after Google started charging 10x for their maps API, grayed out the existing tiles, then required a credit card on file. Since the API key can be "view sourced", that was totally a non-starter, along with the always-changing ToS. Way too many moving goal-posts.
(Part of the reason non-free is a problem is that any testing ends up costing money, and the more testing you do, the more $$, which is a disincentive to do testing. But just staying on top of lopsided ToS gets old fast when you can just replace it.)
Using a combination of OpenLayers and SO sample code, I've been able to do everything I wanted to do and am happy with the final result, but usually it's some of the toughest programming of the month.
This hyperbole got me thinking, what is the industry size really as share of the world economy?
Germany is often cited as the most heavily automotive leaning economy. WP says the industry employs around 800k people. Germany's total workforce is cited at 44 million.
Well I did a better research and yea, you are right. Traditionally, all bottles have something like "80 proof" on them. Apparently, it is not English proof but French proof which is same as ABV.
Is that right? I haven't seen things other than spirits use proof as a measurement rather than ABV. I don't know about Turkish kolnya but colognes are typically 70-90% ABV.
