Beat that Slot Machine

Slot machines are very popular in the casinos. Everybody seems to be drawn by the look and the feel of playing it by spinning the wheel. The thrill of playing a slot machine keeps anyone coming back either they win or not. Here are a few reminders to make your game worthwhile and at the same time increase your chances on hitting the jackpot!

Make sure that you know what machine you are playing. This may sound stupid but there are a lot of players that have missed knowing that they were not able to play the exact amount of coins for the most favorable payment there is.

Be sure to go for the highest reimbursement there is. This is a gamble. There are chances that the fates are on your side. Go ahead, play and win!

Always play the maximum coins. Normally, jackpots are paid on the maximum coins played. This way, not only do you get the chance of hitting the jackpot but also you get a high payback.

Remember to see the payback percentage whether in a casino or online. Some are even offering as high as 90% or more.

Keep in mind how much you are willing to gamble. It is always wise to plan how much you are going to spend. With the thrill of playing and hopes of hitting the jackpot, your money could be gone in seconds.

There are machines that require inexpensive games. These are the single pay line machines. This way, you could still play and have the chance on hitting the jackpot but doesn’t risk of losing all your money.

Try playing on two or three-coin slot machines. This way you could maximize the playing time of your money.

If you have a small budget for playing the slots, avoid playing the progressive slots online. Their payouts are much lower than the regular slot machine does. Plus, they could max out your budget in a few playing minutes.

You hit on jackpot at the first spin. It is likely for you to hope on playing for another round. But as it is, this is a game of chance. You are not sure if you would be hitting on the jackpot the second time or the third, etc. If you win, take the money and quit, don’t fall into giving back the money to the machine.

The rules on beating the slot machine simply works the same way as spinning a regular wheel that has to stop and produce a matching pattern of numbers or pictures in some case. So go ahead, have fun, spin the wheel and hit the jackpot!

New solar fuel machine unveiled

23 December 2010 Last updated at 19:11 By Neil Bowdler Science reporter, BBC News In the prototype, sunlight heats a ceria cylinder which breaks down water or carbon dioxide A prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun's energy into fuel.

The machine uses the Sun's rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported.

Conventional photovoltaic panels must use the electricity they generate in situ, and cannot deliver power at night.

Details are published in the journal Science.

The prototype, which was devised by researchers in the US and Switzerland, uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder lined with cerium oxide, also known as ceria.

Ceria has a natural propensity to exhale oxygen as it heats up and inhale it as it cools down.

If as in the prototype, carbon dioxide and/or water are pumped into the vessel, the ceria will rapidly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, creating hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide.

Hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, for example, while a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to create "syngas" for fuel.

It is this harnessing of ceria's properties in the solar reactor which represents the major breakthrough, say the inventors of the device. They also say the metal is readily available, being the most abundant of the "rare-earth" metals.

Methane can be produced using the same machine, they say.

Refinements needed

The prototype is grossly inefficient, the fuel created harnessing only between 0.7% and 0.8% of the solar energy taken into the vessel.

Most of the energy is lost through heat loss through the reactor's wall or through the re-radiation of sunlight back through the device's aperture.

But the researchers are confident that efficiency rates of up to 19% can be achieved through better insulation and smaller apertures. Such efficiency rates, they say, could make for a viable commercial device.

"The chemistry of the material is really well suited to this process," says Professor Sossina Haile of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). "This is the first demonstration of doing the full shebang, running it under (light) photons in a reactor."

She says the reactor could be used to create transportation fuels or be adopted in large-scale energy plants, where solar-sourced power could be available throughout the day and night.

However, she admits the fate of this and other devices in development is tied to whether states adopt a low-carbon policy.

"It's very much tied to policy. If we had a carbon policy, something like this would move forward a lot more quickly," she told the BBC.

It has been suggested that the device mimics plants, which also use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create energy as part of the process of photosynthesis. But Professor Haile thinks the analogy is over-simplistic.

"Yes, the reactor takes in sunlight, we take in carbon dioxide and water and we produce a chemical compound, so in the most generic sense there are these similarities, but I think that's pretty much where the analogy ends."

The PS10 solar tower plant near Seville, Spain. Mirrors concentrate the sun's power on to a central tower, driving a steam turbine

Daniel Davies, chief technology officer at the British photovoltaic company Solar Century, said the research was "very exciting".

"I guess the question is where you locate it - would you put your solar collector on a roof or would it be better off as a big industrial concern in the Sahara and then shipping the liquid fuel?" he said.

Solar technology is moving forward apace but the overriding challenges remain ones of efficiency, economy and storage.

New-generation "solar tower" plants have been built in Spain and the United States which use an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto tower-mounted receivers which drive steam turbines.

A new Spanish project will use molten salts to store heat from the Sun for up to 15 hours, so that the plant could potentially operate through the night.

View the original article here