Slashdot Mirror

Often omitted in the discussion of alternative or modified energy sources is the concept of energy return on investment (EROI). It's defined as the ratio of energy provided for useful work divided by the energy required to extract and process the fuel source.

If one expends energy overprocessesing the fuel, the net energy contributed to the system is reduced. For example, it's been published that ethanol requires 70% more energy to produce than it provides.

Given that the global economic system exists almost exclusively on the ever-diminishing stored potential energy of the earth, it seems that reducing the EROI of an energy source should be avoided.

Michael.

This one? I guess so, but I had to start up IE to see if I was correct; my usual browser is Safari..

-John

How thrilling.

All I know is I saw some kid outside sitting outside talking to it.

I heard it say that it's just a bill, yes it's only a bill, and as I stated before it's sitting on Capitol Hill. It went on to describe a long, long journey followed by a long, long wait and I believe it summarized its feeling by saying that it hoped and prayed that it will, but today it is still just a bill.

My assumption is that it wants to become a law, undoubtedly motivated by their fancier ribbons.

The full story can be found here.

Michael.

Every once in a while, I'm really motivated by a Slashdot post, and explore the problem further with some quick and light research and writing. By the time I've finished, most readers and moderators have long since left the post for fresher news and I'm left with a relatively small audience. In the spirit of Slashback I thought I could reincarnate those old posts for a second viewing.

While risking my Karma for something that could be seen as off topic, I do think it adds value to Slashdot and really doesn't fit anywhere else.

Ecosystem and Economy: In response to the standard environmentalist-versus-economist arguments that were flying about in a previous Slashdot post in reference to a Daily Telegraph article, I sought out a fresh viewpoint based on reductionism and the conservation of energy.

Social Network Theory: A Slashdot post led to a Register article, which was steeped in an unusual amount conspiracy theory. Suggesting that Google was gamed by a group of A-list bloggers, perhaps it is all simply just a result of social networks. This is a new topic to me, so if you know anything about social network theory, I'd love it if someone could take me to school.

First-Generation TiVo: In a discussion concerning second-generation TiVos I thought I'd whip up a quick script that would allow people to see what I'm currently watching as proof that my house wields the mighty sword of TiVo modding.

Mystery Treasure: I also put a not-so-well hidden page on my site to see if anyone would gravitate towards it, but it as of yet remains undiscovered. Hint: MSIE users will not get far. Consider it pay back for not doing PNG transparency. :P

Michael.

Every once in a while, I'm really motivated by a Slashdot post, and explore the problem further with some quick and light research and writing. By the time I've finished, most readers and moderators have long since left the post for fresher news and I'm left with a relatively small audience. In the spirit of Slashback I thought I could reincarnate those old posts for a second viewing.

While risking my Karma for something that could be seen as off topic, I do think it adds value to Slashdot and really doesn't fit anywhere else.

Ecosystem and Economy: In response to the standard environmentalist-versus-economist arguments that were flying about in a previous Slashdot post in reference to a Daily Telegraph article, I sought out a fresh viewpoint based on reductionism and the conservation of energy.

Social Network Theory: A Slashdot post led to a Register article, which was steeped in an unusual amount conspiracy theory. Suggesting that Google was gamed by a group of A-list bloggers, perhaps it is all simply just a result of social networks. This is a new topic to me, so if you know anything about social network theory, I'd love it if someone could take me to school.

First-Generation TiVo: In a discussion concerning second-generation TiVos I thought I'd whip up a quick script that would allow people to see what I'm currently watching as proof that my house wields the mighty sword of TiVo modding.

Mystery Treasure: I also put a not-so-well hidden page on my site to see if anyone would gravitate towards it, but it as of yet remains undiscovered. Hint: MSIE users will not get far. Consider it pay back for not doing PNG transparency. :P

Michael.

Every once in a while, I'm really motivated by a Slashdot post, and explore the problem further with some quick and light research and writing. By the time I've finished, most readers and moderators have long since left the post for fresher news and I'm left with a relatively small audience. In the spirit of Slashback I thought I could reincarnate those old posts for a second viewing.

While risking my Karma for something that could be seen as off topic, I do think it adds value to Slashdot and really doesn't fit anywhere else.

Ecosystem and Economy: In response to the standard environmentalist-versus-economist arguments that were flying about in a previous Slashdot post in reference to a Daily Telegraph article, I sought out a fresh viewpoint based on reductionism and the conservation of energy.

Social Network Theory: A Slashdot post led to a Register article, which was steeped in an unusual amount conspiracy theory. Suggesting that Google was gamed by a group of A-list bloggers, perhaps it is all simply just a result of social networks. This is a new topic to me, so if you know anything about social network theory, I'd love it if someone could take me to school.

First-Generation TiVo: In a discussion concerning second-generation TiVos I thought I'd whip up a quick script that would allow people to see what I'm currently watching as proof that my house wields the mighty sword of TiVo modding.

Mystery Treasure: I also put a not-so-well hidden page on my site to see if anyone would gravitate towards it, but it as of yet remains undiscovered. Hint: MSIE users will not get far. Consider it pay back for not doing PNG transparency. :P

Michael.

Fascinating!

I know only of the properties of diamond, as I've used it for a substrate in planar microwave active antenna arrays. As a dielectric it provided very low loss and an amazing thermal conductivity. (The only complaint is that the relative permittivity was a bit low.)

I am unfamiliar with the concept of phonon conduction but will add it to my queue of things to research. I find material science very interesting.

Thank you for your comment.

Michael.

Viral gene chips, betcha' can't eat just one.

Michael.

I'll be waiting for the DirecTiVo version of these services as well.

I was surprised to see that caller-id display on the screen isn't a standard feature yet. I've implemented on-screen caller id by means of the ncid daemon, which receives broadcast information from my Linux server. It's a very useful feature.

If you're interested, you can even see what I'm watching on my TiVo right now.

Michael.

As an experiment I've grown wheatgrass and catnip for my evil cat, as incentive for him to stay out of the other plants.

I've found that I had good results if I let the seeds do their initial sprouting and growth underneath a sheet of clear plastic wrap. The trick is not to get too eager and remove the plastic wrap to soon. The plastic wrap is a perfect way to even out the sporatic waterings that are inevitable when you're slashdotting.

Michael.

Treasure

High electrical conductivity and high thermal conductivity tend to run together. For instance copper has an electrical conductivity of 5.8x10^7 S/m and a thermal conductivity of 200 W/mK.

A notable exception is diamond with a low electrical conductivity on the order of 1 S/m and a high thermal conductivity of 700 W/mK.

Because of diamond's superior thermal conductivity and low electrical conductivity, it functions as an excellent material for use in a heat sink.

What interests me is, that by adding free electrons by doping the diamond with oxygen is he seeing actual superconductivity or just the high conductivity one would expect, if diamond had free electrons.

Michael.

Visit das Schlößl.

The specific energy of a NiMH battery is approximately 70 Wh/kg (250 kJ/kg).

In comparison a realistic methanol fuel cell has a specific energy of 700 Wh/kg (2.5 MJ/kg).

A methanol fuel cell has roughly ten times the specific energy. However I've heard that the energy density in (J/L) is only on the order of a factor of two better. Can anyone speak to this?

Michael.

Previous Slashdot Science post on Ecologoy and Economy

The size of a dollar bill is 6.6294 cm wide, by 15.5956 cm long, and 0.010922 cm in thickness.

A stack of one dollar bills worth $97.8 trillion would be 10 billion meters high or slightly more than 25 stacks of bills that each would reach to the moon.

Laid end-to-end the bills would stretch 15.25 trillion meters. That's long enough to stretch from the sun to pluto almost three times over.

That many dollar bills would cover the entire 68 square miles of the District of Columbia in a pile of bills two feet deep.

Oh, wait. Now I get it.

Michael.

• No & in function call unless necessary.
  
  
• Split long lines using hard return; try to respect the 72th column margin (this is kind of a soft limit).
  
  
• Scripts should use strict, and run -w. Documentation should come in .pod format, documentation about script internals should be in comments.
  
  
• Refer to the Lire::Program manpage for more details.

The referenced Register article, which chronicles the "Googlewashing" of the term "second superpower", is an excellent example of social network theory and its effect on language.

Unfortunately, the Register incorrectly assigns the blame on alluded conspiratorial behavior of webloggers. In fact, the phenomenon is not the result of a conspiracy, but a natural consequence of the dense network that interconnects bloggers.

The critique of the Register article along with an introduction to social network theory is provided here .

Michael.

I was hoping that my writeup on the transliteration of numbers of arbitrary bases would be included in slashback to continue my avalance of visitors. This morning I was up to 36 unique visitors. Not bad for staying up to 3:00 am writing. :^)

Hey, maybe this counts as making into a slashback!

Michael.

I was really inspired by this question. It's a wonderful mix of mathematics and linguistics. Because a quick post to Slashdot couldn't cover it in enough detail, I wrote up some thoughts I had on the subject, which you can find here. Also included is information on how Americans and Europeans differ in their transliteration of base-ten numbers.

Here's an excerpt:

How does one transliterate numbers of arbitrary bases? For example the number "562" is transliterated as "five hundred and sixty two" but how would one transliterate the hex number "0xDEADBEEF"? The text below attempts to answer that question using two methods. The first is a rigorous and technically accurate method but is difficult to use. The second is technically less rigorous but is simple to use ...

Michael.