Slashdot Mirror

There's another kind of heavy diesel-electric vehicle that's been around for decades: diesel locomotives.

I keep wondering how light passenger cars got the hybrid treatment first and long-haul trucks still haven't, when the first successful experience in the field clearly pointed to the latter being the ideal candidate.

planes can fly faster and use less fuel when they can go with the air stream.

Planes seem to have to go at a given rpm to be efficient, which seems to be cruising speed (close to max) for a commercial airline flight.

I would bet airlines don't slow down the planes because it would be less efficient and jet fuel cost money.

Heck! Maybe they could even run out of fuel if they flew slower to meet the timetable like most other transportation modes do.

Here is what I found so far:

efficiency:
http://www.thermopedia.com/con...

fuel reserve:
https://science.howstuffworks....

fuel cost:
https://www.indexmundi.com/com...

Since you did not provide a source, I found an article on Politifact's site which contained a few of these numbers here. It seems to ramble, and appears to be an opinion piece.

There are some better statistics that you can examine from the Associated Press, The Atlantic, and WalletHub, and The Tax Foundation

The Tax Foundation tracks the numbers back to 1981.

https://people.howstuffworks.com/which-states-give-the-most-the-federal-government-which-get-the-most.htm

After reading all of these, I am inclined to believe that you were fishing for something that would reinforce your opinion.

You can't fool all the people, all the time.

I can't speak to your experience, but I do know that modern cars generally perform better than old cars. To take your 1966 example, the fastest American car was a Corvette with a 427 cu. in. engine and a 4-speed transmission. I found specs showing 0-60 in 5.6sec and 1/4 mile in 13.4sec @ 105mph.

That just barely beats out a 2017 Honda Accord 4dr Touring that also goes 0-60 in 5.6sec but does the 1/4 mile in 14.2sec @ 103mph!

dom

Modern landfills are constructed in such a way to prevent things from decomposing. As that leads to all sorts of problems and can end up polluting the area and ground water. https://science.howstuffworks....

Can I get a recipe complete with required equipment list for the manufacture of LSD or methamphetamine off the internet too since all information is just so legal now?

Yes, you can. Or would you prefer detailed instructions direct from the U.S. government?

The preferred method is:

An alkali metal, preferably sodium, is oxidized with ferric nitrate in liquid ammonia to form the alkali metal amide, e.g. sodium amide. The dry acid H is added and after a few minutes the resulting alkali metal salt is mixed with the desired organic halogen compound R Hal. 2 to 10, preferably 3 to 5 atoms of alkali metal and 2 to mols, preferably 4 to 6 mols of the organic halogen compound are used per mol of acid.

The ammonia may be evaporated a few minutes after addition of the organic halogen compound. To isolate the compound I the reaction mixture is shaken between Water and ether and the aqueous phase filtered through a tale layer. The procedure which is then followed depends on the acid and the organic halogen compound used. The isolation of l-methyl-D-lysergic acid in pure, crystalline form is particularly simple, it being sufficient for the aqueous solution to be brought to a pH value of 4.5 to 5 with acetic acid. Otherwise, the aqueous solution may be evaporated to dryness and methanol poured over the dry residue, the inorganic salts and the small quantity of l-methyl-isolysergic acid present going into solution and the l-methyl-D-lysergic acid remaining undissolved.

HowStuffWorks provides another helpful description. Quick, call the police, because I've posted a mass of not-illegal information right here...

World gold reserve is about 170,000 tonnes, and production is about 1500 tonnes per year.

Other posters have put $130B of gold at around 2000 tonnes (I haven't checked this.) Having no expertise in this field, I'd think that is enough to shift the gold price by a percent or two, but not to crash it. It is comparable to annual production but pretty small compared to world reserves.

I invite someone to look up real time gold prices and find out when this news broke, and see if the price shifted in response. The existence of this ship wreck gold is fairly speculative, so it may not have an effect yet. If the gold does exist, news of how much there is will probably come out slowly, making it hard to isolate the effect of this find from other influences on gold price.

Sadly, it is a known fact that the bullshit meter starts to fail in the elderly:
https://health.howstuffworks.c...

This is why they are preyed on by utter shitbags who are the real villains in this story.
The scammers who prey on our most vulnerable and the greedy idiots at WU who helped them should rot in jail in some third world shithole.,

Say what you want about how it's really their fault and they should have known better. If you're lucky you'll live to be 77+ and you can feel the pain of having earned wisdom only to have it fade away, to have contributed all your life and have it mean nothing. The lack of sympathy in this thread is appalling.

It all depends on your frame of reference. You can pick a frame of reference where the earth is perfectly still. Granted, it's a non-inertial frame of reference which make celestial mechanics a bitch to deal with, but you can do it, and it will work.

How do you make the retrograde motion of planets work in a geocentric system? You really going to try to make planets jumping around in space "work"?

I'd suggest you do a quick primer on frames of reference in the theory of relativity. But who knows, maybe Einstein was wrong about all that stuff...

Bringing up Special Relativity when the subject is rotating non-inertial reference
frames doesn't really help your case. You might want to dial down your smugness.

It all depends on your frame of reference. You can pick a frame of reference where the earth is perfectly still. Granted, it's a non-inertial frame of reference which make celestial mechanics a bitch to deal with, but you can do it, and it will work.

How do you make the retrograde motion of planets work in a geocentric system? You really going to try to make planets jumping around in space "work"?

I'd suggest you do a quick primer on frames of reference in the theory of relativity. But who knows, maybe Einstein was wrong about all that stuff... An Earth-centered frame of reference is perfectly valid as the GP stated; the math is ugly, and the motions of the planets become extremely complex from an equation standpoint, but it is completely consistent and nothing "jumps" around. Unless you think Einstein is wrong?

On the other hand, you do have the occasional "fossil" city like Pompeii which instead of being ground to dust, had the evidence of its existence preserved somewhat by in volcanic ash...

Just like fossils aren't "bones" that have been preserved, you might expect the evidence of a pattern of a defunct city to be preserved somewhat in the presence of some short-term event like a volcanic eruption (rather being ground to dust by weather over time).

The fact that we have not founds such evidence, doesn't preclude the existence of a mechanism for such evidence (however unlikely it is to occur) to exist.

Source: https://science.howstuffworks....

It is, disproportionally in the Arctic. So there is less sea ice there and the difference between the Arctic air and the more southerly air is less pronounced than usual. A larger differential in air temperatures drives stronger Polar Vortex winds. The Polar Vortex is a circular wind pattern that is strong enough to trap the cold air, keeping it in the Arctic where it belongs. When the Polar Vortex weakens, that cold is able to leak out and freeze the middle latitudes.

The key to note though is that the overall global average temperatures are rising, due to the extreme warming at the poles. Occasional colder than normal weather in more temperate areas are nowhere near enough to put a damper on the rising global average.

Other Polar Vortex related cold spells occurred in January 2014 and February 2015.

Links:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/what-is-this-polar-vortex-that-is-freezing-the-u-s/

https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/polar-vortex1.htm

http://science.time.com/2014/01/06/climate-change-driving-cold-weather/

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/polar-vortex-explainer/63115

https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/polar-vortex-april-2016-cold-outbreak-east

https://phys.org/news/2014-01-weakened-polar-vortex-blamed-american.html

Well, they don't have central nervous systems, but there is some evidence that plants do feel pain.

Except when you look at some industries/rackets, you wonder why is this so expensive. And if you look, it's completely crooked. For example caskets, which somehow have a 500% markup -- charged the families of the recently deceased too.

So yeah, I agree with you -- some things are cheap because someone along the line isn't getting a fair deal. Other things are expensive because some rich asshole along the way is lining his pockets and paying off the right folks.

We cannot answer the first question because the manufacturers won't tell us.

Gee, if only there were a device you could use to measure the components of a vapor. And if only there were well known techniques for measuring a statistically relevant sample of e-cig vapors to get a general idea of what's in them.

Very cute, there. If you knew more about mass spectrometry you would likely know the statistical difficulties native to the method. However even if you were able to do absolute quantification of every component in a single sample, the e-cigarette market is so thoroughly un-regulated that there is no way to assert that sample as being representative of anything. A company can make a formula "ABC1" and sell it today that has a given mixture, and then sell a completely different formula "ABC1" tomorrow with all the same labels. On top of that there is no reason to expect that one company's "ABC1" is similar to their "ABC2", or that something called "ACB1" from another company is at all similar to either.

So I honestly have no data about the physics of how an e-cig works. However, I'd be very, very suprised if there are anywhere near the reactions going on in a battery powered e-cig versus combusting tobacco. If I were building an e-cig, I'd use the lowest power possible to vaporize the fluid.

One model is described at howstuffworks.com. This one they describe uses a heating element, which correlates well with verified reports of people being burned by them. It's not combustion, but it is high enough temperature to ionize the liquids so they can be inhaled.

But I'd be really, really surprised if any chemical reactions at all occur, let alone combustion or ionization. Do you have any reason to believe otherwise?

We've been able to observe chemical reactions between charged gas phase-ions for over half a century now. After all, what is an ion but a molecule with a non-zero charge? Anything with a non-zero charge will have a tendency to seek out another molecule to resolve that charge to zero.

I suspect you can count the number of detectable chemicals on your fingers and toes

That's making some pretty huge assumptions about the manufacturing process used by the companies selling the e-cigarette liquids (amongst other things).

Nov 2001 howstuffworks.com threw up the idea of a 'penny per page' when visiting websites. http://computer.howstuffworks....

Looks like that day is fast approaching. Washingtonpost.com blocks me as I use a hosts file or ADblocker browser on Cell, so I ignore/avoid them. A Payment Request API will allow them to now pull from a previously setup account. Once it starts, all will be looking at it.

Regenerative braking captures far more than 15% the energy from braking ...

That's not what I've read:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/...
http://proev.com/LLPgs/LLei000...

Some things just arent possible in actuality regardless of "the demand" for those things.

I've been waiting for my flying car as long as I can remember, but the history goes back much further http://auto.howstuffworks.com/...

http://entertainment.howstuffw...

web sites are covered under BMI/ASAP licensing. These are RIAA organizations with blanket licensing agreements. The numbers were created for restaurants, not for something YouTube scale.

Oooh, something you've never heard of. Must be made up! You know everything. Except for common things, like licensing agreements through companies over 100 years old.

No, I'm not saying that's what YouTube is doing. I'm saying that's a common thing people do to pay minimal licensing to play works publicly. Simple, easy, and cheap. Works out about right for the numbers given, seems like YouTube could be over-paying, but then, they have to do something for those that upload songs that aren't under BMI or ASCAP.

My understanding is that they don't occupy a vital niche in the food-chain or otherwise in the ecosystem.

Google is your friend. I knew the answer to this already, but was surprised by how readily available source material was to support my response.

A few notable items:

http://www.nature.com/news/201... http://io9.gizmodo.com/what-if... http://science.howstuffworks.c... https://www.theguardian.com/gl...

Etc.

You were surprised? Yeah, I was too, particularly as to the data you provided, since I believe the point you were trying to make is mosquitoes are necessary and vital to our ecosystem.

Some of your articles hint that eradication would not create an ecological impact. Some also stated that eradication efforts are "not worth it unless there was a very serious public health emergency."

Perhaps the true question is how many humans will have to become infected or die until the latter statement rings true?

Perhaps we look at history to answer that. The mosquito has long been known as the deadliest animal on the planet. They have killed countless humans through the ages. It carries over a dozen diseases, including malaria, which still kills over a million people every year. Now Zika has been added to that infamous list.

Sad when you consider the innocent victims of Zika are babies suffering from microcephaly. The fear of that affliction alone is a form of terrorism when it comes to people wanting to start a family. Imagine the other impacts of areas known to be Zika-prone. Think your home value would not plummet if they found a 300% increase of Zika cases in your zip code? Impact local business that rely on humans being outside but now aren't due to increased fear of infection? I'm willing to bet it would. Much like the global concerns surrounding the Ebola outbreaks a few years ago, humans can get rather panicky when it comes to increased chances of being exposed to a life-threatening disease. Perhaps rightly so.

It would appear that we are doing something now to counter the threat, likely because enough revenue is at risk. Efforts have to be financially justified when it comes to preventing harm or death these days. If we do nothing in response to increased risk, then the mosquito will simply stand as yet another form of population control.

My understanding is that they don't occupy a vital niche in the food-chain or otherwise in the ecosystem.

Google is your friend. I knew the answer to this already, but was surprised by how readily available source material was to support my response.

A few notable items:

http://www.nature.com/news/201...
http://io9.gizmodo.com/what-if...
http://science.howstuffworks.c...
https://www.theguardian.com/gl...

Etc.

While I feel like part of me dies when I see signs and documents at work printed in Comic Sans, interestingly It can be a big help for people with dyslexia. With e-readers, either Comic Sans, or an official dyslexia font can open up a whole world of books.

What did I miss?

Alleged racial discrimination against customers, though to be fair, traditional taxi services have the same problem.

AI is the dumbest term, and always has been.

"Artificial cognition" would have been better, but here's the rub: it biases the conversation towards the perceptual foundations of intelligence: the auditory and visual systems. And there was no way back in the 1950s to build either. Not enough tubes. Not enough aircraft hangers. Not enough Hoover dams.

But you could build a very primitive chess computer, and then pretend that from the top of this skinny beanstalk, one could directly assault the penthouse suite of adaptive intelligence, or its supreme overlord, AGI.

So the cart was placed way before the broomstick pony on day one. This term has done untold damage to the profession ever since.

10 Games That Take Minutes to Learn and a Lifetime to Master — clickbait exhibit 1

Ah yes, your grandfather's tube-compatible "napkin AI" writ large.

No, farmers aren't. The agricultural industry, of which John Deere is a part, is. The giant conglomerates who control farming are. But the actual people who get upset when they're told they can't fix their John Deere tractor so it can run on methane have virtually no pull whatsoever.

What you're saying is akin to saying movie directors have huge amounts of political power because the studios do. They don't, and farmers don't either.

When in a hole, quit digging.

Ever heard of the Iowa caucus? Ever been to Iowa? That's a big part of the power of farmers.

http://people.howstuffworks.co...

I might agree with the sentiment. I'm sure I'm not the only one, whether people realize it or not. I'm talking about http://science.howstuffworks.c.... But I've never had a conversation about it - is there a way to get rid of DST while still allowing some sun after work?

We should keep the DST times all year. It will still be dark when leaving work in the winter, it'll just happen closer to lunch.

I might agree with the sentiment. I'm sure I'm not the only one, whether people realize it or not. I'm talking about http://science.howstuffworks.c.... But I've never had a conversation about it - is there a way to get rid of DST while still allowing some sun after work?

>> All that wasted space

What wasted space? A battery is a battery, whether its built in or not.

Besides the REAL benefit is the $700 invisible new phone tax every 2 or 3 years you actually avoid just because your built-in battery inevitably cant hold a charge any more.

http://electronics.howstuffwor...

I used to think that sleeping in space would be great, but I recall running into an article that said that astronauts had difficulty sleeping. Here's one article that details the reasons: http://science.howstuffworks.c...

"Humans aren't compatible with HFCS, and there's little left to debate on that shit."

This assertion is based on what? It's a problem of scale, not compatibility.

One source
"One misconception about HFCS stems from its name. In fact, HFCS isn't that much different than standard, processed white sugar. A commonly used form of HFCS contains 45 percent glucose and 55 percent fructose [source: Warner]. White sugar is split 50-50 between glucose and fructose. HFCS is higher in fructose than conventional corn syrup, which is 100 percent glucose. But other types of HFCS, especially those used in non-soda products like certain breads, are 58 percent glucose and only 42 percent fructose [source: Warner]."

Another
"In small amounts, HFCS shouldn't be any more harmful than regular sugar. The fructose in HFCS, though modified from glucose, is structurally and in all other ways the same as natural fructose. Additionally, HFCS has nearly the same makeup of fructose and glucose as table sugar (most HFCS has 55 percent fructose, compared to 50 percent found in table sugar). But there does seem to be a connection between the use of HFCS and obesity and type-2 diabetes, so what gives?"

"The biggest problem is that HFCS is being added to food items that don't normally have sugar and that you wouldn't even describe as sweet -- crackers, for instance. So, not only are we chugging down lots of sugars with our sodas, but your PBJ sandwich could have HFCS in each of its three ingredients. Meal after meal, day after day, all of this extra sugar adds up, and that, and not necessarily the qualities of HFCS itself, is likely one reason why rates for obesity and diabetes have climbed since the introduction of HFCS. (Other factors are in play as well, such as decreased activity and exercise levels and increased fat consumption.)

So what can we do? Well, for starters, do everything you're already supposed to do. Get regular exercise, watch your fat intake and get regular medical checkups. Next, it wouldn't hurt to mimic the practices of those strange (and rare) individuals in grocery-store aisles who read the labels of the food they are purchasing. Once you get in this habit, you will likely be shocked to learn just how much of your regular grocery purchases contain high-fructose corn syrup. If nearly all of your food contains concentrated sugars, it stands to reason that you'll be eating too many sugars. And if you want to go crazy, eat some fruits and veggies. You'll get all the glucose you need (not much), and these healthier alternatives will take the place of the less healthy foods now flooding our markets and grocery stores."

"Humans aren't compatible with HFCS, and there's little left to debate on that shit."

This assertion is based on what? It's a problem of scale, not compatibility.

One source
"One misconception about HFCS stems from its name. In fact, HFCS isn't that much different than standard, processed white sugar. A commonly used form of HFCS contains 45 percent glucose and 55 percent fructose [source: Warner]. White sugar is split 50-50 between glucose and fructose. HFCS is higher in fructose than conventional corn syrup, which is 100 percent glucose. But other types of HFCS, especially those used in non-soda products like certain breads, are 58 percent glucose and only 42 percent fructose [source: Warner]."

Another
"In small amounts, HFCS shouldn't be any more harmful than regular sugar. The fructose in HFCS, though modified from glucose, is structurally and in all other ways the same as natural fructose. Additionally, HFCS has nearly the same makeup of fructose and glucose as table sugar (most HFCS has 55 percent fructose, compared to 50 percent found in table sugar). But there does seem to be a connection between the use of HFCS and obesity and type-2 diabetes, so what gives?"

"The biggest problem is that HFCS is being added to food items that don't normally have sugar and that you wouldn't even describe as sweet -- crackers, for instance. So, not only are we chugging down lots of sugars with our sodas, but your PBJ sandwich could have HFCS in each of its three ingredients. Meal after meal, day after day, all of this extra sugar adds up, and that, and not necessarily the qualities of HFCS itself, is likely one reason why rates for obesity and diabetes have climbed since the introduction of HFCS. (Other factors are in play as well, such as decreased activity and exercise levels and increased fat consumption.)

So what can we do? Well, for starters, do everything you're already supposed to do. Get regular exercise, watch your fat intake and get regular medical checkups. Next, it wouldn't hurt to mimic the practices of those strange (and rare) individuals in grocery-store aisles who read the labels of the food they are purchasing. Once you get in this habit, you will likely be shocked to learn just how much of your regular grocery purchases contain high-fructose corn syrup. If nearly all of your food contains concentrated sugars, it stands to reason that you'll be eating too many sugars. And if you want to go crazy, eat some fruits and veggies. You'll get all the glucose you need (not much), and these healthier alternatives will take the place of the less healthy foods now flooding our markets and grocery stores."

trucks and buses tested in Germany and Finland emitted about 210mg NOx per kilometer driven, less than half the 500mg/km produced by diesel cars that meet the highest "Euro 6" emission standards.

The current standard for diesel passenger vehicles in CARB states (California Air Resources Board, which sets the limit for California and 16 other states) is 0.05 grams/mi, which is 80 mg/km.

And if you're curious, here's how much the cheating 2.0L VW diesels were emitting. If the Euro 6 standard is 500 mg/km (0.310 g/mi), it looks like the 2015 VWs were already in compliance, and the 2013-2014 VWs were just barely out of compliance.

You're taking very specific examples and suggesting there must be nothing of relevance at all, which is a blatant fallacy. You're simply trying to convince yourself you're right, when in fact you're completely wrong.

Pretty much the entire field of aerodynamic modelling of cars, pretty much the entirety of material science related to cars starts with things like Formula 1 and NASCAR and gets us where we are now - with ever more fuel efficient cars, due to using lighter materials, and due to being more aerodynamic and so on and so forth. I don't know why you also think the design of a birdcage frame is irrelevant to highway situations, understanding of crumple zones and so on and so forth is in itself an example of something that was driven by the need to protect drivers when racing cars.

As cars go faster and faster, and need to be more and more fuel efficient, learning about everything from heat dissipation, to wait minimisation, to energy conservation is always being led by racing because they're at that forefront of trying to win the race. Typically the transformation follows a clear pattern - technological advancements turn up in something like a Formula 1, or NASCAR vehicle first, then they end up in high end sports cars quite quickly, from there they move into common consumer vehicles.

For example, the fact most modern cars don't really rust much, if at all is precisely because they use more plastics, more composite materials and so on and so forth that simply aren't effected by rust because they're also lighter. These materials and use of them in motor vehicles stems from the need to get race cars faster by carrying less weight, this is a prime example of the sort of technology transfer that started out in racing, and moved to high end sports cars, and is now in just about every car you'll find in a car lot that was made in the last 10 years.

Even if a consumer car doesn't need to go as fast as many race cars, it can still typically gain efficiency instead of speed from those technologies, because more fuel equals more weight, which means you need a more powerful engine which will typically be heavier also meaning you get stuck in a loop of competing problems, unless you improve fuel efficiency. This is no different to the problem with consumer cars, only people don't want to max out at 200mph, they do at least want to go further on less fuel.

But you don't have to take my word that you're wrong, there's more than enough written on the topic from independent sources if you're willing to do a simple search. Here are some examples:

http://www.engineering.com/Lib...

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/...

Wow a slight increase even though cinema prices have skyrocketed years. None of which changes anything I said.
The industry is spending more on marketing in a pathetic attempt to compensate.
They could try to make better movies but they seem to think spending more polishing a turd is better.
Maybe get your head out the movie industry's ass before commenting next time.

http://entertainment.howstuffw...
http://www.hollywoodreporter.c...
https://variety.com/2016/film/...

FWIW, CDs are made like that. DVDs are not, so, I think you're.. stretching the truth a bit.

http://electronics.howstuffwor...
https://www.clir.org/pubs/repo...

I always get a kick out of people who have no clue what they're talking about.

That article you linked is written by someone who claims yoga can heal the body of illnesses such as Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Here's some reading material:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://science.howstuffworks.c...

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/C...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...

http://contrailscience.com/

Now to my point:

Why in the hell would we deplete California's forestry? What's the endgame, buddy? Even if it was true(which it isn't), there's no reasonable explanation as to why we would want to destroy an entire ecosystem. If anything we'd want to bio-engineer MORE rain so we have MORE trees because that would make us MORE money! It's completely asinine that people would think that it's some grand global conspiracy to destroy millions upon millions of acres of trees in the most populous state in the US. It doesn't benefit anybody!

But please... continue with your wackjob conspiracies.. What's next.. the Illuminati are out to destroy the Almond industry?

If you google "what are the forces of nature" the first result says there are 5.

When I searched for "what are the forces of nature" (without the quotes) in Google just now, the first result was the Wikipedia disambiguation page for "Force of nature", which says "In physics, there are four fundamental forces." as the second line. The second result is the Wikipedia page for Forces of Nature , a romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock, and the third result is for a HowStuffWorks page entitled "What are the four fundamental forces of nature?".

Below that are some news articles about this "maybe a fifth force" story.

Improvements at the track have frequently made their way into improvements for the rest of us.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/...

Except for the blind spots.

NHTSA says there are over 800,000 blind spot accidents in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 300 fatalities. That's why higher-end cars are coming with blind spot detectors now. Note that Japanese taxis mount the side mirrors on the front of the car to eliminate the blind spot. The image is smaller (boo hoo, you can't read the front license plate), but you can immediately see any vehicles in your blind spot. The taxi companies have found such a big improvement in safety due to those mirrors that they use them even though it looks dorky.

Everyone arguing that side mirrors are superior needs to come to grips wit the fact that unless you mount the side mirrors on the front of the car, they are simply not a very good solution to the problem. If cameras can eliminate the blind spot, they will be a huge improvement to safety. Any aesthetic or fuel consumption improvement is just gravy - the important thing is the safety improvement. Even the argument that camera viewscreen require a different focus distance can be addressed by mounting a mild lens in front of the display.

They do look the part! I'm not too certain, but I thought that crocs and dinosaurs shared a common ancestor, but somehow they are not considered dinosaurs, although they are very closely related. That page and some others around the net claims: "you know that many scientists agree that birds, not crocodiles, descended from dinosaurs".

But I don't know for sure.

You pay taxes on your lease payments and down payment. Sales tax still applies. Sure, maybe you only pay for 1/4th the value of that $400K Bentley over a 3 year lease, that means you've only paid a little more than twice the median household income in the US for your car. So your consumption tax on that single vehicle would still outweigh most people (all but the top 10% in terms of income).

The answer might surprise you. According to an in-depth study by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, hybrid cars do, in fact, require more energy to produce than conventional cars, emitting more greenhouse gases and burning more fossil fuels during the manufacturing process. The production of hybrid batteries, in particular, requires much more energy than producing a standard car battery and results in higher emission levels of gases like sulfur oxide [source: Burnham et al].

But do the environmental impacts of hybrid vehicle production outweigh the long-term benefits of driving a cleaner running automobile? That answer is a resounding "no." If you drive both a conventional and hybrid car for 160,000 miles (257,495 kilometers), the conventional vehicle requires far more energy to operate and emits far more greenhouse gases over its lifetime, significantly canceling out any imbalance during the production stage [source: Burnham et al].

Basically, to be that awesome "green citizen", you'll need to drive that electric car near 160,000 miles. Something that would take ~10 years or so to do. A more recent study looks at cost of ownership and appears to have an approximately $10k difference between gasoline and electric over 5 years.

I'm not disagreeing with you. The example I was looking for was something along the lines of the Diary of Anne Frank. Perhaps it is a lot more cloudy that I initially thought. Especially since Anne Frank is dead and the copyright if applicable would be inherited by her legal heirs.

That makes sense. I've found an article Do you lose the right to privacy when you die?, which seems to conclude, more or less, yes. Apparently in the USA at least there is specific legislation covering medical records, death-scene images are covered because they might be distressing for relatives, and unauthorised access to an electronic account is covered on that basis. In general, though, people don't have a right to privacy after they die.

But here is a different scenario. Suppose it is security footage of a house fire instead of a diary and the rest was the same outside of it being footage like this http://www.theblaze.com/storie... Do you think the privacy angle would be any different even though you or the home owner would essentially own the footage originally?

Since they were watching the footage 20 minutes after evacuating, I guess the camera was accessible via the Internet. I'm given to understand that a right to privacy under common law depends on having a reasonable expectation to privacy (e.g. you don't have a right to privacy in a room with a window facing a busy street, with the curtains open). I'd wonder if someone could have a reasonable expectation to privacy if they had a camera connected to the Internet and it was unsecured. This article suggests there is no right to privacy in USA for unsecured webcams: Controversial website feature shows alarming lack of webcam security. I don't know if the camera in question was unsecured though.

Otherwise, if the camera was secured, or the footage was obtained from the property itself, I'd guess that a right to privacy covers footage inside an empty home, but I don't know.

Actually, this is great advice, and good to hear it's working for you. I read this about it and think I'll give it a go myself.

Experimental program not instantly profitable? Say it isn't so!

So, is the experiment a success in your opinion? They've extracted a total of about $52 million dollars worth of material for the cost of $100 million...

Do you expect it to become profitable some time in the future?

I'm sure they can improve the efficiency of the extraction process.

They'll need to not just improve, but double it just to break even. That recycling is a fraud is increasingly obvious — even its cheerleaders have to cite consumers' liking products made from recycled materials to support claims, that it is profitable. Those with a totalitarian streak acknowledge, that without increasing government oppression (such as banning plastic bags in supermarkets) the recycling is too difficult and expensive.

Apple is not doing it for (direct) profit. They expect clueless customers to feel better — and buy more — thus helping the profit indirectly.

Yes.

The Raptor's two Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 engines pump out 35,000 pounds of thrust each (compare that to the 25,000-29,000 pounds of thrust for each engine on an F-15). Combined with the sleek aerodynamic design, the engines allow the Raptor to cruise at supersonic speeds with less fuel consumption than any other aircraft.

So the technology is out there.

Would you or have worked on tech which could enable torture?

You may be expecting an unqualified "no", but the right answer is it depends. The unacceptable kinds of torture are those, which leave the subject dead or damaged. (And I mean real damage — not as in "needs counseling"). It may be useful to confine the definition of "torture" to such methods only — as was done by some people already.

Waterboarding is certainly not damaging — a rough arrest by a police may be far more harmful to the suspect — and still be justified. Likewise, a prolonged criminal investigation may be far more damaging psychologically. And don't even get me started on the exploding use of "Hellfire" missiles (pun intended) by the highest-placed opponent of waterboarding:

no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing [emphasis mine -mi] of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.

Don't know about you, but I'd rather be waterboarded by mistake, than killed by the same mistake.

Dealing with the government is rarely pleasant, but waterboarding does not cross any real lines. If the duly-elected President charged with protecting us deems it necessary, his subordinates better get on with it. Or resign. As George Orwell pointed out decades ago:

"Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Where does that put you morally and ethically?

Whether it is useful is another question, but "morally and ethically" there is nothing wrong with it. Deal with that.

This is why you don't run an evil corporation and get a bad reputation. It sticks with you for years, and years, and decades afterwards. There are people today who are still angry at the Ford Motor Company for what they did with the Ford Pinto, and that was in the 1970s. Calling for a megabillion dollar corporation to be treated fairly, when they themselves never felt any obligation to do any such thing, is asking rather a lot.

A long time ago I read an article on Howstuffworks.com titled "How Penny Per Page Might Work" http://computer.howstuffworks.... coming across it again I found it amusing they had taken a large article and split it into many sections with lots of right pane and middle page advertising.

Seems if things continue it may be a business model of some sites in some future time. But it's rare for an article to be restricted to one site, even if it's a summery.

A common sense approach is to use a HOST file, yet many sites have started seeing mine as an ad blocker, and honestly surprised as while I've satisfied the request of going to that site, I just don't make it further than the localhost itself.