KleerKut

I understand that they have a lot of volunteers and it isn't easy to get a consensus. Maybe they should have thought of that first? Or perhaps just make a decision and let it be known it would be happening in X period of time that unless there was significant outrage that they were going to do X? Even if they were never going to cash out of the deal, they could have used it to pay other bounties to get work done. Or sit on all that money until it evaporates.

"but we did not want to get paid for working on a passion project" If they didn't want the cash in the first place they could have put it towards something else open source. Plus they are complaining about not getting paid while saying they didn't want to get paid. This would scare away anyone wanting to help if they are going to go about things this way, but I don't know because apparently I didn't read the article.

I too strongly dislike the lack of replaceable bulbs in newer LED fixtures. It's outrageous how many things in modern construction shave a few cents here and there to get the initial cost down, and the long term costs are enormous. Once the house is sold it's someone else's problem and that mentality is disgusting.

This type of thinking, "One person might be frightened, so let's continue to make cyclists pay with their lives" is unfathomable. It's even more incomprehensible that it seems to come mostly from motorists wanting to dictate how all pedestrians 'shall obey' because the are second class citizens. "One could argue" all kinds of things without data and get nonsensical laws passed that affect other people and not themselves.

Furthermore, sidewalks already exist in vastly larger coverage of most cities, where bike lanes do not. Most places don't want to pay for bike lanes, and those that do rarely maintain them in the US. They have never run a street sweeper over the bike lanes where I live, and if they had, they would have hit the concrete spill that's been there for over 3 years and likely damage the street sweeper. It's outrageously dangerous if you don't know it is there because it is between the roadway and a turning lane, so if you get ejected in either direction you are possibly roadkill either way.

I'm even all for having no limit on watts or horsepower. If I want to haul a heavy trailer with a custom bike that draws 10kW but can't break 20 MPH, I should be allowed to do so. Having the torque to quickly get through an intersection saves lives and impatient drivers are less likely to make dangerous maneuvers if people can get out of their way quickly. Cars don't have HP limits, they have speed limits, and those same clowns who risk themselves and everyone around them for fun are always going to do what they want regardless. I feel it would be better to make speed limit laws stronger and get rid of the laws that pit pedestrians against other pedestrians over antiquated statutes.

Concentrators are actively trying to put more of the suns energy (an thus UV degradation) on the cells than can be achieved by simply aiming the cell at the sun. It greatly depends on the type of cell being used, with many technologies having a shorter lifespan than polycrystalline and monocrystalline cells, but they don't last forever out in the sun. A panel boxed up in a warehouse isn't likely to have discernible cell degradation in 10 years. A panel flat on a roof having off-axis light will degrade more, one on a solar tracker will degrade more still, with the benefit of more power per unit time during that shortened lifespan. Add in concentrators and it will degrade more still. Much like anything else. I'm getting no sun indoors, get more standing in my yard, get even more standing near water where it reflects back at me and get sunburn (degradation) quicker in that environment.

Obviously it makes sense to aim the panels at the sun, and having a method to seasonally adjust the tilt can be done for very cheap. It can be made to last the life of the panels without repair, and it isn't an outrageous loss of performance if it was forgotten for a few weeks. Active sun trackers can potentially cost more than the panel itself, even more so when factoring in installation and setup. If it fails aiming to one extreme, there will be a substantial loss in power even compared to a panel with a fixed mount. That failure is likely to happen more than a couple times in the life of the panel, unless you replace parts before failure (even more cost), or add concentrators (more cost) to increase output and decrease panel life (more cost yet again). Unless there is a specific reason for all of that cost and complexity, such as space constraints or other factors, then it is cheaper to just lay out more panels. If a new technology comes out where they can stop UV degradation without a large impact on power output, or weight, or cost, then I'll be interested. For my use case I'd rather reduce my energy usage and lay panels in the sun with seasonal cleaning and adjustment.

The other thing is that solar concentrators burn the cells out quicker, it isn't magic free energy. Spending a significant amount more money just to squeeze out more power from the cells doesn't make sense for all applications.

Calling for legislation to recycle batteries without regard to the order of the 3 R's seems quite wasteful and likely to inhibit innovation with small scale solar and smaller electric transportation. Reduce, reuse, then recycle seems like a better idea than skipping the first two steps.