Slashdot Mirror

My local newspaper - http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/ - is going out of business in a couple of weeks. I think that all newspapers are headed in this direction and it's just the smaller ones that are going belly up first. You should go into some other line of business, like car repair or computer programming.

You misunderstood me entirely. I never once said that they didn't pay for malpractice insurance, I said that they stopped accepting payment from third parties such as Medicare/Medicaid. This is not a subtle distinction. Pay attention.

Here's an article on the kind of thing I'm talking about: physicians refusing to accept third party payment, decreasing their patient load, and making more money.

Here's one on the shitty reimbursement rates of Medicare/Medicaid and private insurance.

You don't understand insurance at all.

I dunno how they got this many violations, unless they were already using one of the very few loopholes (ie pre/ex customer). I built the do-not-call for my company (a newspaper*) and it took me all of 2 days to build and code the php. It's really simple to understand I wish I could show you how easy it is, but it's got a password.

The way it works is there is 2 postgres databases, one for local do-not-calls (the people we called who told us to bugger off) and the national list (the people who told everyone to bugger off**). The php searches the local list first, as it's faster and more strict as we can't call anyone on that list for any reason, if the number isn't found it then searches the national list, if the number is found there we cannot call them unless they were at one point a customer with us (and there is a big red dialog that explains that on the page).

follow the logic? The phone reps _must_ lookup every number everytime they call out. Since starting the DNC we havn't had 1 single violation.

*http://www.kingcountyjournal.com

**the national do not call list, in case you misunderstood that. :-)

Also, if you are going to be paying money to fuel your car would you rather pay it to American farmers and corporations or foreign oil barons and corporations

Or foreign governments that sponsor Al qaeda activities *cough*Saudi Arabia*cough*.

One has to wonder if the day comes where their revenue stream starts to dries up, they will start to get a lot more friendlier to the U.S. and get serious about removing terrorists like they do somebody who steals an apple out of one of their markets.

When I saw this in the news, I was all over it. This really could be an opec-buster if we wanted it to be.

I did RTFA by the way. You can buy it for $10 from Science. What makes this thing intriguing is it's simplicity. The artcle does not have a picture per se, but a simple schematic.

At one end is an auto injector where the ethanol is enjected and a port where oxygen (air) would be sent in. The mixture flow hits the heated tube (at 300 F) and is vaporized. As it travels through the tube it is heated to 1700 F then the mixture encounters the catalyst where the reaction takes place and hydrogen is produced.

C2H5OH + 2H2O + 1/2O2 --> 2CO2 + 5H2

The total time for the mixture to travel through the tube is 50 milliseconds

As can be seen, the conversion is complete. If you "burn" ethanol, you're going to have undesirable particulates. While CO2 is a "greenhouse gas", it still is a lot cleaner than burning gasoline.

I should mention here that the article is all chemistry and no mechanical details are given. But one really does get the sense you could knock one off in your garage. You will need college chemistry to understand the details, but it is straight forward. It's a pretty complete article.

The "secret sauce" is keeping the ethanol from catching fire.

There is a lot of FUD in the comments here about how enviromentally unfriendly/uneconomical growing corn is.

Ethanol is being made from other sources, like super enviromentally friendy switchgrass that can grow in 3/4 of the US

Advantages to this technology;

1) It's going to be quiet, and with a quiet fuel cell, would be appropriate for a small powerplant in a house. It would be more quiet than the furnace that blows air through your house.

2) It is an efficent process. Coupled with the high conversion rates and efficeint fuel cells it becomes economically viable.

3) Ethanol can be distributed easily using current distribution channels.

4) Ethanol is a renewable energy source, that could boost the farm economy, give jobs to Americans, lower the trade deficit, and give us something to export for a change. It does not need to be "found", it's "grown".

5) There are straightforward engineering solutions to the few problems that might remain.

Drawbacks;

1) It takes 1700 F heat for the process

2) Large companies are not going to want to see you leave the grid, and will do anything to influence corrupt politicians to tie it in red tape. Expect to see legislation because "it is a fire hazard".

3) It does produce CO2. However, it can't be any worse than what natural gas, coal fired plants produce. This also might be mitigated by the development of inexpensive CO2 scrubbers.

I find it apropos that news of this breakthrough appears on the same day that Opec decides to cut back production.

Current price for a gallon of ethanol is $1.30. A gallon of gas is headed to record levels.

People are going to start looking at ethanol technology pretty hard when gas hits $2.50 a gallon.

If I were OPEC, I'd be shaking in my boots.

Apparently his server is made out of Lego too...

here's a mirror.

Jobs in many industries will go unmanned.

Personally I think it would be nice if when our experienced Air Force pilots get displaced by unmanned craft, that these guys can find jobs in the space program.

No surprise he can get good info on .NET.

Mercury News Jan 19, 2003

Eastside Journal May 15, 2002

or google for fry's renton for more hits.