This is total non-sense. There are so many deserted areas in the US and all over the planet -where radiance is actually a lot higher- where to install solar panels.
Transmission losses are not negligible, so power generation generally needs to be near people.
If the power could be used to create and concentrate ammonia, much of needed generation could be shifted to farms. Of course farms have other uses for sunlight, so wind is a better choice there.
Generating ammonia with wind power eliminates the problem of intermittent availability. You only produce ammonia when there is power for it.
Making your transmission line a lot longer doesn't scale your losses by that much surprisingly. The main transmission losses are at the conversion points and in the utility voltage cabling at the end, having long distance interconnects really only loses a percent or two over having short ones.
That's just a very naive simplification of a huge branch of electrical engineering.
To have low power losses in long distances, you use high voltage. The higher the voltage, the bigger (and more expensive) the "conversion points" need to be. Power losses will also be bigger.
To simplify greatly, having low-loss transmission lines costs more money, more equipment, more investment, more time. That's why it makes more sense to build the power source closer instead.
>That's just a very naive simplification of a huge branch of electrical engineering.
Anything I am going to squeeze into a comment on hacker news regarding the subject is likely to be. So are you against the concept of continent wide grids and transmitting power long distance from sparsely populated equatorial desert regions to the more populous temperate ones?
Your objection has merit, but this discussion seems to be focused on "what should we do going forward". While we currently suck at good & economical long distance transmission, this hardly seems to be based on physical limitations. Thus, if it is a worthy goal, we can & should guide our economies towards mastering that tech and driving prices down, kind of like we did with e.g. solar panels.
That's awesome, this definitely helps. And if you don't own a house you can also take part on this by offsetting your emissions buying Forest Carbon Credits. At Pachama (YC W19) (Pachama.com) we're working to make it easier, cheaper and more reliable to certify and monitor carbon credits from Forest Projects, and then to make it easier for anyone to buy those credits.
We're also hiring!
Feature-wise Bandhub can be thought of as a combination of Facebook and YouTube with added specialized features for music collaboration.
(1) COMMUNITY FEATURES: Each user has a profile, you can follow/be followed, there is a news-feed, etc. The "posts" are exclusively music collabs, so you stay up to date on collabs your Bandhub friends are making, what's new, etc; you can comment and so on. You can search for collabs ( e.g., artists/styles/etc ) and create/share playlists. Also, there are interest groups ( e.g., "punk rock style covers" ). And there are added features specific to music collaboration ( e.g., "my list of collabs to participate" )
(2) THE MUSIC COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: There are two parts to it
(a) A collaborative GarageBand with video. When you open a collab in "STUDIO MODE" you get to a web-based multitrack audio/video editor - with many of the features of a DAW, but way simpler to digest. You can send/receive individual audio-video tracks, set the audio mix, enhance it with effects, determine which tracks stay/go, etc.
(b) Bandhub Recording App: when you want to record a part (called 'tracks') for a collab (e.g., the bass part), you use our Bandhub Recording App ( native app available for PC and Mac ). You connect your mic or instrument to the computer and using the computer's webacam you record audio+video through it. While recoding, you will hear the other parts of the collab (e.g., the drums and guitar) as backing tracks so you can play on top of them and stay in sync. When you are done, the track gets inserted in the collab in draft mode. You don't have to edit timelines for synchronization or use complex audio/video editing software at all. It's actually super super easy to use.
It'll be interesting to know. You can't make calls from the plane to transmit location. You can however, do it when you detect the luggage has landed, based on altitude and/or airport coordinates.
Yes, there are several devices that accomplish the tasks of the individual features that our product includes. But there were no solution with everything integrated in one single product.
The Uber idea is great. We actually thought of something similar. Hopefully we can make it happen soon
Are there recurring costs for 3g/4g connectivity? What's the coverage area?
What is "37 Watts lithium ion battery"? Is it 37 watt-hours?
Could I achieve similar tracking ability to dropping an old Android phone into my suitcase, with a tracking app installed on it? How would this hack fall short compared to your product's tracking feature?
Initially there will be no additional cost for the basic level service. We might offer a premium version down the road. Still defining coverage but aiming to have a practical global coverage.
The battery's capacity is 10,000 milliamps per hour.
Yes, there are many hacks you can do to achieve a similar tracking ability. We want to provide a comprehensive solution in which the location tracking is just a part of it.
"37 Watts lithium ion battery" is meaningless as a capacity.
As is "10,000 milliamps per hour".
You likely have a 10 amp hour, 3.7 volt battery yielding a capacity of 37 watt hours. This is about the same capacity as an ordinary smart-phone (perhaps a bit larger, I think an iphone is 5 or 10ish ).
Those units are very different from milliamps per hour (which is basically a nonsense unit) and watts (which are a unit of energy per time, therefore saying nothing about how long the battery will last).
I'm just trying to address the confusion here. Battery capacity is a relatively mundane detail, and I don't necessarily expect the people writing marketing copy to understand electrical terminology.
Yeah iphones are pretty small. I seem to remember some of my Sammys and Motos having in the 9-12 range. 37 might actually be approaching some small netbooks.
The capacity for energy storage is volts * amps over time. So a 10 amp hour battery at 3.7v holds less energy than a 10 amp hour battery at 12v. Together it makes watt-hours. That's the best way to measure storage capacity.
Say your luggage is misrouted or mishandled. Does knowing the GPS coordinates actually help? In the end you still need to get the airline / airport to properly process and return the luggage. I somehow don't imagine that there exists a process now to get that information to the right places. Knowing that your luggage is stuck in London when you're in Tokyo doesn't really un-ruin your vacation, so I'm not sure about how that aspect is being marketed.
It will help the airline know where the bag is, and ideally get it back to you faster. At the moment they don't have simple ways to know that information, which is crazy.
Agree. I have specific stories in which it did make a difference, but it's just anecdotal data. To make it a solid solution we should work in partnership with the airlines (which we are planning to do)
Few questions. First off, also a Startup Chile alum that was building a service in the travel industry. Congrats on WeHostels.
This technology obviously has use cases outside of tracking luggage, I'm curious if those use cases were included in your YC app and/or if it came up during the interview.
Will the carry on need to be turned off during takeoff and landing?
Do you have an SLA? Like, what if I take it somewhere there isn't cell service?
Are you concerned your luggage will become targeted by criminals expecting valuables?
Thanks!! Startup Chile mafia ftw.
Yes, we included all the features and future ideas in our YC application. In the interview we talked about the vision for the company and I think the partners liked it. Although to be honest I felt that the interview didn't go well at all.
Yes, we have a system for auto-turn-off at take-off.
When there isn't service we will be able to tap into a bluetooth network if available. If not it will wake up and send location as soon as it can.
We think the lock, id and location tracking will actually provide more security against any criminals.
First off we have filed for patents for the main aspects of the invention. But most importantly, we think that they will have a harder time because they don't have a software and electronics expertise internally. Plus, we think it will take a "startup ethos" of rapid iteration and closeness to the customer to get the product right.
What exactly did you patent? Phone in a suitcase? Phone with big battery in a suitcase? GPS .. in a phone? Phone in a suitcase, with big battery and no screen .. with a gps?
Actually, they are in better position to be acquired by the existing bigger luggage companies in few years. It is a lot easier for the bigger luggage companies to acquire them than create a software/hardware group.
When we sent the YC application we hadn't launch the campaign yet. By the time we had the interview with the partners the campaign had been live for some days and was starting to take off. It definetly helped there to show that we were "making something people want".
I'm the founder of Pachama (YC W19) where we're working to help make this market efficient and accountable.