evironment

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  • Hyperspace Beacon: Post mortem

    by 
    Larry Everett
    Larry Everett
    06.28.2011

    When a company ends a project or when a theatre production ends, the producers and directors will usually do an analysis of the project. They will give a rundown of what performed well and what performed poorly. The idea is to ensure that the next project delivers better results than the previous one. Granted, we will not be able to sit in on the official post mortem meeting for Star Wars Galaxies, but we can do our own analysis of what happened. As I said above, the idea is to take what we learned from the previous project and apply it to the next one. In the eyes of a Star Wars MMO fan, the next project will be Star Wars: The Old Republic. Now to be fair, I already have a series of articles that feature the mistakes SWG made that we don't want to see in The Old Republic, so this time around, I figured it would be best to show off the good things SWG did that should probably be repeated in SWTOR. This is by no means exhaustive, but it's a couple of the big ones in my mind.

  • Researchers develop air conditioning that's 90 percent more efficient, bone chilling

    by 
    Laura June Dziuban
    Laura June Dziuban
    06.20.2010

    Everybody loves maxing out in the sweet chill of their air conditioning in the hot summer months, but it's inefficient, expensive, and extremely unfriendly to the environment. The good news today, however, is that researchers have developed an air conditioning system that could be up to 90 percent more efficient than standard setups. How so, you ask? The new tech, called DEVap, uses liquid desiccants to make dry air using heat and evaporative coolers take dry air and make cold air, making it far easier to cool already dry climates. Additionally, DEVap uses salt solutions in place of environmentally naughty refrigerants, CFCs, and HCFCs -- the main contributors to global warming. The tech is still in the lab, so until then you'll just have to keep fanning yourself off (or having your friend do that for you).