As is often the case, heavy metals can occur in mixed deposits--several different kinds of minerals in one deposit.
After looking through the images more closely, something stood out that I should have noticed immediately--this isn't one facility, but four. They simply share a resource deposit. Look near the dike and it is obvious that each section has it's own access road up and over the dike where they become inter-connected by a wide road that extends the full length of the images.
If you'll look at one of the images that shows the entire facility, you'll notice that the rectangular area that contains structures is roughly divided into four mostly equal areas. Each of these areas has totally different structures--the left most has the "shakers" and the the building I suggested might contain individual centrifuges. The next area contains only the long buildings, but also has neat rows of processed materials, perhaps the tailings from testing these structures. The next area has a large single facility, maybe suggesting a more refined process or merely the desire to keep our eyes off of the more telling equipment. The right-most image shows yet another sort of facility that combines the long row buildings with an adjacent building of moderate size.
Perhaps the Chinese have located a region rich in numerous materials, each requiring a different method of processing, and this odd facility is simply co-located because the ore is of mixed content.
Another aspect that backs up a dry-mining location is the fact that there is a sizable community just "down-stream" from the facility--dry-mining techniques (including the recycling of centrifuge slurry) would prevent waste from entering the waterways located near that community, provided that tailings were redeposited on the opposite side of the dike after processing.
I think you are correct--the geography and topography give it away.
If you'll look at the image with the least zoom, you'll see that the facility is built at the edge where two different alluvial fans intersect--the "softer", darker soil is the newer alluvial fan that has eroded down into the much older deposits. There is also a natural formation that runs along this boundary that appears to be a dike--a naturally formed wall--that extends down into the earth. It kind of looks like the Great Wall of China if it were to be viewed top down.
The boundary between these two alluvial fans is essentially a cliff that has exposed the lower layers of of the older deposits at the top of the images. This is an ideal location to find exposed deposits, deposits that otherwise would have been hidden far beneath the ground had erosion not exposed it.
I suspect this is a "dry mining" facility that is going to be mining some substance from this location. That dike is important--since the flow of that alluvial fan appears to come from the top of the map, that means the dike would act as a sort of "trap", much like the riffles in a miner sluice-box--heavier elements would become trapped behind the dike while lighter material flowed over the top to be washed away by the lower elevation alluvial erosion. Much of the excavation in the images that is not associated with a structure appears to be centered around this dike.
The long structures, located in several locations, appear to have individual units inside them (some of them are in construction and have not yet had a roof installed, allowing you to see what appear to be shallow pits, one after the other, lined up inside). These could be "shakers", what amount to a crude centrifuge that uses gravity instead of centrifugal force, to perform an initial separation of materials. Normally, heavy metals are separated in centrifuges after being mixed into a slurry, but that would be difficult in this location--I don't see a drop of surface water in any of these images. That being said, processing would be focused on methods that used as little water as possible.
Another clue is the large "U"-shaped building. This building is located centrally, downhill from the majority of the other operations and has another interesting feature--several small structures that are located a ways away, but have clearly visible tracks (construction or merely vehicle marks) that all lead back to that building. I suspect these are well-heads that tap water located underneath the floodplain that the facility is located on. This water would be used for final separation in centrifuges located inside the main building. The central gate-like feature could be the final distribution point of a two-armed processing facility.
So, my guess is either barium mine, or a lithium mine. Any heavy metal, really, even gold. Any dry-mining facility would look similar at this stage of development--the tailing piles visible are just the start (sample shafts). The real tailing piles will show up once the facility is active.
I agree the article is lacking, but not necessarily wrong.
Perhaps the idea is something along the lines of a Fresnel lense--individual surfaces that act to direct light that normally emits from the sides of the LED and direct it more towards the end where it is concentrated for purpose in use. I can easily see 55% of the light emitted by an LED being wasted if it is going in a direction that is not of benefit to the purpose of the device. If you'll look at an LED flashlight, the LED itself protrudes up into the reflector to take advantage of the light coming from the sides of the LED. For the purposes of this article, perhaps the light coming from the sides of LEDs is considered waste. Maybe this technology (somehow feels wrong calling it that, knowing the source of the discovery) would make it possible do away with reflectors all together, in some applications.
Pad all communications with cut/paste from various, unrelated news articles and such, for and aft, randomly alternating how much is padded on each side.
Or, you can do what I do and use a different font for each letter.
" These chinese fcukers are starting to realise how much the West depends on their cheap products and are throwing their weight around..."
Cheap products like iPhones and iPads? What do you think they make those things out of? Rare Earth metals are used extensively in our modern gadgets, gadgets that we pay them to make for us. Seriously, where the heck do you think they are supposed to get the materials to make this stuff? Sell it to us so we can sell it back to them? Why not use it in the products they make?
It makes no sense to sell the raw resources when you are the primary consumer of those resources, especially if you're economy is reliant on the products derived from those resources.
China putting a crimp on drilling mud could have some interesting effects, I'm sure. What makes little sense is the complaining about a shortage in hospitals, where a dose is less then an ounce, when oil drillers are pumping the stuff into the ground by the ton...daily...all over the world. Unless of course somebody wants us to get excited about China stepping on the hose without us finding out where the real shortage is.
I wonder who that might be. I also wonder who submitted this story.
"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
Correlation, accurate or not, can lead to other conclusions that simply get us thinking in another direction. Causation can be determined later--the important aspect is thinking things out in a different way.
It worked on me. It got me thinking about something called "Mad Hatter's Disease" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_hatter_disease ) and even "Minimata Disease" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimata_Disease ). Both are examples of neurological damage as a result of toxic substances being ingested. Both of these "diseases", in light of current events--random mass-shootings, seem somehow relevant to this article. Perhaps the people that are going around shooting people for no apparent reason are our modern-day Mad Hatters. Is there some commonality that might be of a chemical nature amongst all of these people? Pharmaceuticals? Environmental pollutants?
Mad Hatter's Disease had some very peculiar effects, most being of a social nature--shyness, irritability, etc--that aren't readily apparent until someone else is involved. If that person is a loner by nature, nobody would be the wiser until it was too late.
Maybe the problem isn't guns or mental illness, but simple poisoning? Has anyone checked these people for something like this?
So a group of corporations create an entity to promote a "paperless" work environment and simultaneously start enforcing some patent through a shell company to literally extort people to drive them away from competing technology--paper.
Fortunately, for all of us that think this shit is ridiculous, they've kindly supplied us with a list of the people responsible. It's right there in the summary...
Since I switched over to Win7 from XP, I've gotten into the habit of letting Windows find the drivers for everything when setting up a new machine. Just plug all that shit in and see what happens--9 times out of ten Windows nails it and the device simply works. My wife has this elderly HP All-in-One Printer/scanner that comes with a massive package of software, all of which installs with the drivers if I use the provided install disk. I ended up with numerous services running that were almost never used.
Last night I set up a brand new computer for her and simply plugged the thing in, letting Win7 check the MS servers for drivers--even though the thing is elderly MS found drivers for every aspect of the device (5 in total). It works perfect and there is no crap on the machine now. Nothing but print-spooler running. This also saved me about 10 mins installation time, and that was only one device.The nice thing about this? If MS keeps up with drivers like this, old devices from Goodwill stores and the like can be used even if the driver disk is nowhere to be found--MS has in effect become a clearing house of drivers that work.
Even the driver for my video card that Win7 found was only one version older then the latest one available at the manufacturers website (Perhaps MS stays clear of the newest ones until the bugs are worked out, after all, the only reason they provide the driver location service is to get people to stop blaming THEM when their hardware doesn't work--Vista was a learning experience for MS, apparently).
Just checking. For a moment there I thought I heard jackboots. Turns out some of my Stormtrooper extras left the set and were upstairs raiding Mom's refrigerator (I'm sure the Hobbits had something to do with it).
And where the FUCK did these "Flag this comment as inappropriate" buttons come from?
This a joke? What the hell happens if I push it? Seriously! Is Slashdot now removing posts because someone pushed the button? What the hell ELSE would that little button do? Flag ME as whining, little bitch? Or perhaps an overly-sheltered, introverted, basement-dwelling...oh, never mind.
*Sigh*...I could find a million inappropriate posts on Slashdot, but we all survived them pretty much intact.
" However, there is a place for big art too, and nobody is going to make The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars in their basement."
And for good reason--as a kid, I wasted an entire summer making The Lord of the Rings in my basement, only to realize that I couldn't fit it up the damned stairs. As a result of this, my first episode of Star Wars (Star Wars: Return of the King) will have a bit of a fantasy element to it.
"And, since I'm on a caffeine deficient rant-binge, where the hell are my mod points?"
Ever since Slashdot changed the format of the threads a while back, moderation has changed to something that always seems to value short UID numbers over anything else. Perhaps it is the fact that without cookies, by default you see no posts less then +2--the rest is hidden until you monkey with the slider at the page header.
Posting anonymously is unlikely to get anything you say modded upwards, insightful, interesting or otherwise. This was not always the case. But, oddly, as you say, even logged in the moderation points seem seriously lacking.
The same effect that you point out with submissions is also present in posts--unless your UID is less then a million, there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to moderation anymore, and I think the Hidden/Visible default settings are entirely to blame. I don't even bother commenting in threads much anymore (anon or not). Something changed with the re-formatting. I'm not entirely sure what that was, but it broke the moderation system in my humble opinion. It honestly feels like my posts are not visible anymore.
And please, don't say "maybe you just don't have anything to contribute"...I often received moderation points in the past (even a few negative ones)--now my posts seem to basically ignored. Not much incentive to post when I don't think anyone is even able to see my posts.
"It's the fourth planet--planet e--that the scientists suggest might be another life-bearing world, even though it's about four times as massive as Earth."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean that the gravitational pull on surface dwellers would be four times that of Earth? That would complicate any colonization plans...
That got me thinking though--how, exactly, do we deal with high-gravity environments? One tactic could be to use generational acclimatization--our first colonization target planets would be marginally higher gravity planets, followed by the next higher gravity planet and so on. This would allow each successive generation to acclimate to the next colonization target planet. It might take a dozen colonized planets to get some of humans adapted enough to survive such a planet as the one discussed in the article (wild-ass guess), but it puts things in the realm of possibility. This has the added advantage of allowing each colony the option of sending colonists back to the previous colony OR the next in the colonization list.
Just south of there, at Rancho Del Oso (a portion of Big Basin State Park), there is a spring that a pioneering family built their homestead around. That spring almost completely stopped flowing after the Loma Prieta earthquake, while further down the coast near the epicenter in the Forest of Nisene Marks some long dry springs started flowing again.
If you cut the flow in one place, it will flow somewhere else--or build up pressure until something blows.
I wonder if there are new hot springs somewhere in Haida Gwaii.
"Rather, I'm a person who likes to get his money's worth."
Good for you. Really, I mean that. All of those old components that you save and use later are a little bit of good karma for you.
I've been managing to keep 4-5 computers going (one for each of our family members and a shop machine) and we only buy a new machine maybe once every 5 years. I save every single component, I reuse, repurpose, etc. I don't throw anything away until it is broken beyond use. But, I do not collect other peoples junk. We occasionally buy single components to upgrade--a video card here, a monitor there.
After 20 years of doing this, I've finally run out of hard drives. Them old platters just get tired of spinning, I guess. But, I can say that I've added the bare minimum of waste to the environment, I've saved our family a lot of money and I feel good about it.
Interestingly, the moment I leave the Desktop PC market and enter the tablet or smartphone market, I lose the ability to continue doing this.
I've been to the Newberry Crater--it is relatively remote as far as Pacific North West volcanoes go. It is in the eastern part of the state, far from any major population center. Most other volcanoes in the PNW are neither shield volcanoes nor are they remote--some, such as Mt. Rainer, are directly upstream from major population centers of the South Puget Sound area. Newberry is ideal for such a pilot project, although I'm sure some of the locals will disagree.
Me, I'm all for it--we're killing ourselves burning hydrocarbons for energy. ANY research into alternatives is good. Not doing anything, or even just maintaining the status quo, isn't good enough anymore. We should have started investing in alternatives long ago, but there is little incentive for the rich to change their tune, and we all know oil is the root of all that wealth.
Why the fuck would any self-respecting god need technology? I was always under the impression technology was humanity's attempts at mitigating our shortcomings as NON-Gods.
Slashdot Mirror
As is often the case, heavy metals can occur in mixed deposits--several different kinds of minerals in one deposit.
After looking through the images more closely, something stood out that I should have noticed immediately--this isn't one facility, but four. They simply share a resource deposit. Look near the dike and it is obvious that each section has it's own access road up and over the dike where they become inter-connected by a wide road that extends the full length of the images.
If you'll look at one of the images that shows the entire facility, you'll notice that the rectangular area that contains structures is roughly divided into four mostly equal areas. Each of these areas has totally different structures--the left most has the "shakers" and the the building I suggested might contain individual centrifuges. The next area contains only the long buildings, but also has neat rows of processed materials, perhaps the tailings from testing these structures. The next area has a large single facility, maybe suggesting a more refined process or merely the desire to keep our eyes off of the more telling equipment. The right-most image shows yet another sort of facility that combines the long row buildings with an adjacent building of moderate size.
Perhaps the Chinese have located a region rich in numerous materials, each requiring a different method of processing, and this odd facility is simply co-located because the ore is of mixed content.
Another aspect that backs up a dry-mining location is the fact that there is a sizable community just "down-stream" from the facility--dry-mining techniques (including the recycling of centrifuge slurry) would prevent waste from entering the waterways located near that community, provided that tailings were redeposited on the opposite side of the dike after processing.
I think you are correct--the geography and topography give it away.
If you'll look at the image with the least zoom, you'll see that the facility is built at the edge where two different alluvial fans intersect--the "softer", darker soil is the newer alluvial fan that has eroded down into the much older deposits. There is also a natural formation that runs along this boundary that appears to be a dike--a naturally formed wall--that extends down into the earth. It kind of looks like the Great Wall of China if it were to be viewed top down.
The boundary between these two alluvial fans is essentially a cliff that has exposed the lower layers of of the older deposits at the top of the images. This is an ideal location to find exposed deposits, deposits that otherwise would have been hidden far beneath the ground had erosion not exposed it.
I suspect this is a "dry mining" facility that is going to be mining some substance from this location. That dike is important--since the flow of that alluvial fan appears to come from the top of the map, that means the dike would act as a sort of "trap", much like the riffles in a miner sluice-box--heavier elements would become trapped behind the dike while lighter material flowed over the top to be washed away by the lower elevation alluvial erosion. Much of the excavation in the images that is not associated with a structure appears to be centered around this dike.
The long structures, located in several locations, appear to have individual units inside them (some of them are in construction and have not yet had a roof installed, allowing you to see what appear to be shallow pits, one after the other, lined up inside). These could be "shakers", what amount to a crude centrifuge that uses gravity instead of centrifugal force, to perform an initial separation of materials. Normally, heavy metals are separated in centrifuges after being mixed into a slurry, but that would be difficult in this location--I don't see a drop of surface water in any of these images. That being said, processing would be focused on methods that used as little water as possible.
Another clue is the large "U"-shaped building. This building is located centrally, downhill from the majority of the other operations and has another interesting feature--several small structures that are located a ways away, but have clearly visible tracks (construction or merely vehicle marks) that all lead back to that building. I suspect these are well-heads that tap water located underneath the floodplain that the facility is located on. This water would be used for final separation in centrifuges located inside the main building. The central gate-like feature could be the final distribution point of a two-armed processing facility.
So, my guess is either barium mine, or a lithium mine. Any heavy metal, really, even gold. Any dry-mining facility would look similar at this stage of development--the tailing piles visible are just the start (sample shafts). The real tailing piles will show up once the facility is active.
Interesting considering this article:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/01/09/0449218/worldwide-shortage-of-barium
"I've got a honeypot set up"
So does Homeland Security...thousands of them.
I agree the article is lacking, but not necessarily wrong.
Perhaps the idea is something along the lines of a Fresnel lense--individual surfaces that act to direct light that normally emits from the sides of the LED and direct it more towards the end where it is concentrated for purpose in use. I can easily see 55% of the light emitted by an LED being wasted if it is going in a direction that is not of benefit to the purpose of the device. If you'll look at an LED flashlight, the LED itself protrudes up into the reflector to take advantage of the light coming from the sides of the LED. For the purposes of this article, perhaps the light coming from the sides of LEDs is considered waste. Maybe this technology (somehow feels wrong calling it that, knowing the source of the discovery) would make it possible do away with reflectors all together, in some applications.
Pad all communications with cut/paste from various, unrelated news articles and such, for and aft, randomly alternating how much is padded on each side.
Or, you can do what I do and use a different font for each letter.
" These chinese fcukers are starting to realise how much the West depends on their cheap products and are throwing their weight around..."
Cheap products like iPhones and iPads? What do you think they make those things out of? Rare Earth metals are used extensively in our modern gadgets, gadgets that we pay them to make for us. Seriously, where the heck do you think they are supposed to get the materials to make this stuff? Sell it to us so we can sell it back to them? Why not use it in the products they make?
It makes no sense to sell the raw resources when you are the primary consumer of those resources, especially if you're economy is reliant on the products derived from those resources.
Barium Sulfate is also HUGELY important in oil well drilling mud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drilling_fluid#Composition_of_drilling_mud
China putting a crimp on drilling mud could have some interesting effects, I'm sure. What makes little sense is the complaining about a shortage in hospitals, where a dose is less then an ounce, when oil drillers are pumping the stuff into the ground by the ton...daily...all over the world. Unless of course somebody wants us to get excited about China stepping on the hose without us finding out where the real shortage is.
I wonder who that might be. I also wonder who submitted this story.
"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
Correlation, accurate or not, can lead to other conclusions that simply get us thinking in another direction. Causation can be determined later--the important aspect is thinking things out in a different way.
It worked on me. It got me thinking about something called "Mad Hatter's Disease" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_hatter_disease ) and even "Minimata Disease" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimata_Disease ). Both are examples of neurological damage as a result of toxic substances being ingested. Both of these "diseases", in light of current events--random mass-shootings, seem somehow relevant to this article. Perhaps the people that are going around shooting people for no apparent reason are our modern-day Mad Hatters. Is there some commonality that might be of a chemical nature amongst all of these people? Pharmaceuticals? Environmental pollutants?
Mad Hatter's Disease had some very peculiar effects, most being of a social nature--shyness, irritability, etc--that aren't readily apparent until someone else is involved. If that person is a loner by nature, nobody would be the wiser until it was too late.
Maybe the problem isn't guns or mental illness, but simple poisoning? Has anyone checked these people for something like this?
Yeah, no kidding.
So a group of corporations create an entity to promote a "paperless" work environment and simultaneously start enforcing some patent through a shell company to literally extort people to drive them away from competing technology--paper.
Fortunately, for all of us that think this shit is ridiculous, they've kindly supplied us with a list of the people responsible. It's right there in the summary...
http://www.paperless2013.org/about.php
The timing of these two articles on /. was no accident--somebody is trying to publicly out these fuckers, and rightfully so, IMHO.
Where is the rationality in buying a product that doesn't suit your needs?
The two most rational posts in this thread so far are from ACs and no mod points for either.
What gives?
"Don't buy a surface?"
AC, or not, mod up please. Simplest solution possible.
But please, keep Tom Cruise the fuck away from it...
"The only thing that will push the public as a whole to care is if holywood makes a movie about it and makes it glaringly obvious what's going on."
Hollywood already made that movie and it had little effect, probably because it was before it's time and had no real relevance to the general public.
The movie?
"1984"
Maybe it's time for an updated version that includes current technology.
"Indeed"
Win7 64-bit here.
Since I switched over to Win7 from XP, I've gotten into the habit of letting Windows find the drivers for everything when setting up a new machine. Just plug all that shit in and see what happens--9 times out of ten Windows nails it and the device simply works. My wife has this elderly HP All-in-One Printer/scanner that comes with a massive package of software, all of which installs with the drivers if I use the provided install disk. I ended up with numerous services running that were almost never used.
Last night I set up a brand new computer for her and simply plugged the thing in, letting Win7 check the MS servers for drivers--even though the thing is elderly MS found drivers for every aspect of the device (5 in total). It works perfect and there is no crap on the machine now. Nothing but print-spooler running. This also saved me about 10 mins installation time, and that was only one device.The nice thing about this? If MS keeps up with drivers like this, old devices from Goodwill stores and the like can be used even if the driver disk is nowhere to be found--MS has in effect become a clearing house of drivers that work.
Even the driver for my video card that Win7 found was only one version older then the latest one available at the manufacturers website (Perhaps MS stays clear of the newest ones until the bugs are worked out, after all, the only reason they provide the driver location service is to get people to stop blaming THEM when their hardware doesn't work--Vista was a learning experience for MS, apparently).
Thanks for the response, #5.
Just checking. For a moment there I thought I heard jackboots. Turns out some of my Stormtrooper extras left the set and were upstairs raiding Mom's refrigerator (I'm sure the Hobbits had something to do with it).
Happy Holidays.
And where the FUCK did these "Flag this comment as inappropriate" buttons come from?
This a joke? What the hell happens if I push it? Seriously! Is Slashdot now removing posts because someone pushed the button? What the hell ELSE would that little button do? Flag ME as whining, little bitch? Or perhaps an overly-sheltered, introverted, basement-dwelling...oh, never mind.
*Sigh*...I could find a million inappropriate posts on Slashdot, but we all survived them pretty much intact.
FUCK YOUR STUPID BUTTON.
" However, there is a place for big art too, and nobody is going to make The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars in their basement."
And for good reason--as a kid, I wasted an entire summer making The Lord of the Rings in my basement, only to realize that I couldn't fit it up the damned stairs. As a result of this, my first episode of Star Wars (Star Wars: Return of the King) will have a bit of a fantasy element to it.
"And, since I'm on a caffeine deficient rant-binge, where the hell are my mod points?"
Ever since Slashdot changed the format of the threads a while back, moderation has changed to something that always seems to value short UID numbers over anything else. Perhaps it is the fact that without cookies, by default you see no posts less then +2--the rest is hidden until you monkey with the slider at the page header.
Posting anonymously is unlikely to get anything you say modded upwards, insightful, interesting or otherwise. This was not always the case. But, oddly, as you say, even logged in the moderation points seem seriously lacking.
The same effect that you point out with submissions is also present in posts--unless your UID is less then a million, there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to moderation anymore, and I think the Hidden/Visible default settings are entirely to blame. I don't even bother commenting in threads much anymore (anon or not). Something changed with the re-formatting. I'm not entirely sure what that was, but it broke the moderation system in my humble opinion. It honestly feels like my posts are not visible anymore.
And please, don't say "maybe you just don't have anything to contribute"...I often received moderation points in the past (even a few negative ones)--now my posts seem to basically ignored. Not much incentive to post when I don't think anyone is even able to see my posts.
From the article...
"It's the fourth planet--planet e--that the scientists suggest might be another life-bearing world, even though it's about four times as massive as Earth."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean that the gravitational pull on surface dwellers would be four times that of Earth? That would complicate any colonization plans...
That got me thinking though--how, exactly, do we deal with high-gravity environments? One tactic could be to use generational acclimatization--our first colonization target planets would be marginally higher gravity planets, followed by the next higher gravity planet and so on. This would allow each successive generation to acclimate to the next colonization target planet. It might take a dozen colonized planets to get some of humans adapted enough to survive such a planet as the one discussed in the article (wild-ass guess), but it puts things in the realm of possibility. This has the added advantage of allowing each colony the option of sending colonists back to the previous colony OR the next in the colonization list.
"I used to live in Pacifica California..."
Just south of there, at Rancho Del Oso (a portion of Big Basin State Park), there is a spring that a pioneering family built their homestead around. That spring almost completely stopped flowing after the Loma Prieta earthquake, while further down the coast near the epicenter in the Forest of Nisene Marks some long dry springs started flowing again.
If you cut the flow in one place, it will flow somewhere else--or build up pressure until something blows.
I wonder if there are new hot springs somewhere in Haida Gwaii.
"Rather, I'm a person who likes to get his money's worth."
Good for you. Really, I mean that. All of those old components that you save and use later are a little bit of good karma for you.
I've been managing to keep 4-5 computers going (one for each of our family members and a shop machine) and we only buy a new machine maybe once every 5 years. I save every single component, I reuse, repurpose, etc. I don't throw anything away until it is broken beyond use. But, I do not collect other peoples junk. We occasionally buy single components to upgrade--a video card here, a monitor there.
After 20 years of doing this, I've finally run out of hard drives. Them old platters just get tired of spinning, I guess. But, I can say that I've added the bare minimum of waste to the environment, I've saved our family a lot of money and I feel good about it.
Interestingly, the moment I leave the Desktop PC market and enter the tablet or smartphone market, I lose the ability to continue doing this.
I've been to the Newberry Crater--it is relatively remote as far as Pacific North West volcanoes go. It is in the eastern part of the state, far from any major population center. Most other volcanoes in the PNW are neither shield volcanoes nor are they remote--some, such as Mt. Rainer, are directly upstream from major population centers of the South Puget Sound area. Newberry is ideal for such a pilot project, although I'm sure some of the locals will disagree.
Me, I'm all for it--we're killing ourselves burning hydrocarbons for energy. ANY research into alternatives is good. Not doing anything, or even just maintaining the status quo, isn't good enough anymore. We should have started investing in alternatives long ago, but there is little incentive for the rich to change their tune, and we all know oil is the root of all that wealth.
Well, Googling that was a waste of time...
Why the fuck would any self-respecting god need technology? I was always under the impression technology was humanity's attempts at mitigating our shortcomings as NON-Gods.