Thanks a lot for your story. I had a similar experience in Germany. It was definitely feces on the wall:-/ I spent half a night in a cell, only knowing that the charge was something like "sexual assault" and that a witness said I kinda looked like the culprit. You *really* don't want to land in jail as a foreign rapist, even for just a night. They released me after 4 hours, not telling me anything else. I received a letter after 1 month, inviting me as a "witness". Those assholes actually wanted to take pictures of me, and I realized too late I was still a suspect. My lawyer asked for the files, and told me the sexual assault was "boob gropping", and that the victim described the culprit as being 16 (I was 28 at that time) and about 20 cm shorter than me. WTF? Oh yes, fuck the police.
Yes, light pollution sucks big time. If you can see bright stars, you can surely see Venus, Saturn and Jupiter. They're pretty fun to look at, even with a small and cheap dobsonian (e.g. http://www.telescope.com/Teles...). I love mine, and it helps me connect with our sky even in a light polluted area. I can also see some of the brightest nebulae and galaxies. I'm pretty sure you'd be able to see Catalina with it even from the Sprawl.
You know why China has to build about 1 coal power plant a week? That's because the US and Europe moved all their manufacturing industry there. You want to help China stop building new coal power plants? Buy less stuff from there. That sucks, because I love tech gadgets but I do buy much fewer gadgets since I realized the hidden environmental impact they have.
:D First, that was a joke. Then, Ms. Inverse's logic is supposed to be flawed anyway, just like Mr. converse's. You cannot talk about corollary in those cases, because the propositions are independent from one another. The GP (hi! we know each other from another post:D) wrote the term corollary when he was actually talking about the inverse. Finally, black people are a subset of "people who are not white", but I have a hard time finding "people who are not good who are not bad" to show that bad people are only a subset of "people who are not good".
Getting rid of the neighbour is not the solution if the neighbour is doing nothing wrong. And the corollary, of course: Getting rid of the neighbor is a great solution if they are doing something wrong
Mr. Converse: Hello kids, I'm Mr. Converse. I'm a misleading fallacy of logic. You may have seen me before, while you were taunting your best friend for being fat. While it is true that if you eat like a snooty porker you will become fat, it is not logically true that if you are fat you had necessarily eaten like a snooty porker. Maybe your friend has a glandular condition, a natural affinity for a higher weight plane, or maybe having a friend like you has made his hypertension medically significant. Jerk.
Ms. Inverse: Hello you little kids, I'm Ms. Inverse. I put the word "not" in front of both halves of a logical statement, to come up with something that looks right but isn't true. Let me give you an example... White people are good, therefore black people are bad. Isn't that easy? Now you don't have to read either Mein Kampf or the Bible.
The ContraPositive: Hello Kids! I'm the contrapositive! I'm not the inverse, and I'm not the converse, I'm both! And unlike inverse and converse, I'm true! Yay! You know how if daddy sleeps with that secretary bitch again mommy will leave him, like mommy promised during the last session? Well, if mommy hasn't left yet then daddy hasn't slept with his secretary again. It's 100% true! Daddy must have done something else to make mommy cry. I wonder how mommy got those bruises?
Remember: Only the Contrapositive is your real friend. Mr Inverse and Ms Converse are just out to touch you in those special places.
Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. I agree that the matrix I linked to is not entirely objective. To me, it boils down to :
* oil has a huge energy density compared to pretty much everything except nuclear power
* oil is really cheap
* oil is easy to extract, easy to transport and easy to store This is what makes oil so addictive to our society. No other alternative come close when you take those 3 points into account.
You talk a lot about demonstrations, and say we would just need to scale it up. The burden of proof is on you, proving that it's possible to power millions of cars in a small concentrated area such as Paris with just renewable energy. It might be possible, but you'd need so much land around the city that it would severely impact many other aspects of your post-oil society, including food production. Let's agree it's possible, would it be desirable? Do 12 million people really need to commute 2 hours a day in order to stay in front of a computer, even if it means less arable land for all the others?
I'm not trolling, I do work in a research center, and you didn't take the time to read the very insightful article I linked to. You can find a list of no less than 20 alternative energy sources, with detailed description and why they all kinda suck in some way when compared to fossil fuels. Please take a look at it before you send me to lmgtfy.
The website I linked to is from Jean-Marc Jancovici (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marc_Jancovici), probably one of the most knowledgeable engineers on peak oil and climate change. I agree that his website looks like shit, but it's because it's vintage, and he's too busy writing books, talking at COP21 or working at the shift project (no link because you wouldn't bother to read it) to update the design. For any question related to energy, I'd expect his insight to be at least as valuable and accurate than anything you'd find on bbc.
With accurate tracking systems and concentrated photovoltaics, you're talking about a factor 500 reduction in cell size: http://www.soitec.com/en/techn...
The added bonus with 2-axis tracking systems is that you can use concentrated photovoltaics. You use a combination of cheap fresnel lenses with extremely efficient cells. Those cells are very expensive per m2, but you only need a few mm2 because of the 500x concentration factor. And it can become cost-effective in sunny places such as Arizona, Spain and Israel. http://www.soitec.com/en/techn...
Also, why "forget" about electric vehicles for [lots of people]? Just some hand-waving to avoid thinking about obvious solutions? Perhaps nobody told you that France is a world leader in nuclear power?
Nuclear power doesn't look too good in France : the new EPR plant is a botched job in 3 different countries, old unsecure powerplants are still running, young engineers aren't interested to work in this field and Areva probably will have to layoff many employees. Cars need a fuckton of energy, and if you want to provide it via electricity, you'd need twice the amount of nuclear powerplants that France has. Forget about it. Sure, cars could be half as big, have less power and be used more efficiently. It might make sense then, but only then, to have some electric cars. But it also won't magically save Paris from a shitload of environmental and social problems. If you want some more information : http://www.manicore.com/anglai...
Inacurate but funny description nonetheless.:D I don't see myself being anywhere on the one-dimensional political spectrum. Capitalism isn't inherently bad, but it sure is when the only goal is to maximize short term profits. I happen to work in a research center, mostly on renewable energies and building efficiency. So I love and embrace new technologies, but I also know and accept what they cannot do. I don't want to ban all non-electric vehicles in Paris, but since there will be a time soon when it won't be economically or technically feasible to power all those cars in such a concentrated area (once again, ever heard of peak oil, climate change or petrodollars funded terrorism?), now might be a good idea to look for alternative answers. Kill the messenger if you want, but the reality is that Paris isn't prepared at all to cope with upcoming challenges.
Oil is dirty and it sucks and other things are already cheaper. There is no need for a weird imagined oil supply catastrophe in order for people to switch to cheaper, cleaner, better fuel sources. That is happening already.
Exactly. A friend of mine did a few months of work and travel in Australia. One of her jobs was to dump perfectly ripe red tomatoes, and pick the green ones and send them to Europe.
Doing so more often would to shutdown part of the economy & is not a step anyone except the radical greens are willing to take
Ever heard of peak oil? Parisians will have to do so some day soon anyway. Forget about electrical vehicles for 12 million people in such a concentrated area. Now would be a good time to sell the overpriced flats in Paris. This city is probably the less resilient one in France.
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe you're just one of those pricks driving Porsche, and you don't notice that all Porsche owners you know also are pricks. ;)
Also : projects like these can be very beneficial after 10 or 20 years, but shareholders want ROI now or during the next quarter at the latest.
Isn't it too early to say so?
Thanks a lot for your story. :-/
I had a similar experience in Germany. It was definitely feces on the wall
I spent half a night in a cell, only knowing that the charge was something like "sexual assault" and that a witness said I kinda looked like the culprit. You *really* don't want to land in jail as a foreign rapist, even for just a night.
They released me after 4 hours, not telling me anything else. I received a letter after 1 month, inviting me as a "witness".
Those assholes actually wanted to take pictures of me, and I realized too late I was still a suspect.
My lawyer asked for the files, and told me the sexual assault was "boob gropping", and that the victim described the culprit as being 16 (I was 28 at that time) and about 20 cm shorter than me.
WTF?
Oh yes, fuck the police.
PS: RIP Ian, and thanks for the hard work.
Yes, light pollution sucks big time.
If you can see bright stars, you can surely see Venus, Saturn and Jupiter.
They're pretty fun to look at, even with a small and cheap dobsonian (e.g. http://www.telescope.com/Teles...).
I love mine, and it helps me connect with our sky even in a light polluted area. I can also see some of the brightest nebulae and galaxies.
I'm pretty sure you'd be able to see Catalina with it even from the Sprawl.
Note: Not just tomorrow/today. It's just that the comet will be close to Arcturus as seen from Earth.
Haters gonna hate.
I work with Ruby everyday, and it feels fun everyday.
Thanks for the hard work!
https://xkcd.com/801/
git pull what?
git pull https://github.com/**/*.git ?
You know why China has to build about 1 coal power plant a week?
That's because the US and Europe moved all their manufacturing industry there.
You want to help China stop building new coal power plants? Buy less stuff from there.
That sucks, because I love tech gadgets but I do buy much fewer gadgets since I realized the hidden environmental impact they have.
https://xkcd.com/1379/
:D :D) wrote the term corollary when he was actually talking about the inverse.
First, that was a joke.
Then, Ms. Inverse's logic is supposed to be flawed anyway, just like Mr. converse's. You cannot talk about corollary in those cases, because the propositions are independent from one another. The GP (hi! we know each other from another post
Finally, black people are a subset of "people who are not white", but I have a hard time finding "people who are not good who are not bad" to show that bad people are only a subset of "people who are not good".
Mr. Converse: Hello kids, I'm Mr. Converse. I'm a misleading fallacy of logic. You may have seen me before, while you were taunting your best friend for being fat. While it is true that if you eat like a snooty porker you will become fat, it is not logically true that if you are fat you had necessarily eaten like a snooty porker. Maybe your friend has a glandular condition, a natural affinity for a higher weight plane, or maybe having a friend like you has made his hypertension medically significant. Jerk.
Ms. Inverse: Hello you little kids, I'm Ms. Inverse. I put the word "not" in front of both halves of a logical statement, to come up with something that looks right but isn't true. Let me give you an example... White people are good, therefore black people are bad. Isn't that easy? Now you don't have to read either Mein Kampf or the Bible.
The ContraPositive: Hello Kids! I'm the contrapositive! I'm not the inverse, and I'm not the converse, I'm both! And unlike inverse and converse, I'm true! Yay! You know how if daddy sleeps with that secretary bitch again mommy will leave him, like mommy promised during the last session? Well, if mommy hasn't left yet then daddy hasn't slept with his secretary again. It's 100% true! Daddy must have done something else to make mommy cry. I wonder how mommy got those bruises?
Remember: Only the Contrapositive is your real friend. Mr Inverse and
Ms Converse are just out to touch you in those special places.
Thanks a lot for your detailed answer.
I agree that the matrix I linked to is not entirely objective.
To me, it boils down to :
* oil has a huge energy density compared to pretty much everything except nuclear power
* oil is really cheap
* oil is easy to extract, easy to transport and easy to store
This is what makes oil so addictive to our society.
No other alternative come close when you take those 3 points into account.
You talk a lot about demonstrations, and say we would just need to scale it up. The burden of proof is on you, proving that it's possible to power millions of cars in a small concentrated area such as Paris with just renewable energy.
It might be possible, but you'd need so much land around the city that it would severely impact many other aspects of your post-oil society, including food production. Let's agree it's possible, would it be desirable? Do 12 million people really need to commute 2 hours a day in order to stay in front of a computer, even if it means less arable land for all the others?
Spoiler: You need a lot of water to build big cities in the desert. Las Vegas and Dubai are as far from being sustainable as possible.
I'm not trolling, I do work in a research center, and you didn't take the time to read the very insightful article I linked to.
You can find a list of no less than 20 alternative energy sources, with detailed description and why they all kinda suck in some way when compared to fossil fuels. Please take a look at it before you send me to lmgtfy.
The website I linked to is from Jean-Marc Jancovici (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marc_Jancovici), probably one of the most knowledgeable engineers on peak oil and climate change. I agree that his website looks like shit, but it's because it's vintage, and he's too busy writing books, talking at COP21 or working at the shift project (no link because you wouldn't bother to read it) to update the design.
For any question related to energy, I'd expect his insight to be at least as valuable and accurate than anything you'd find on bbc.
With accurate tracking systems and concentrated photovoltaics, you're talking about a factor 500 reduction in cell size:
http://www.soitec.com/en/techn...
The added bonus with 2-axis tracking systems is that you can use concentrated photovoltaics. You use a combination of cheap fresnel lenses with extremely efficient cells. Those cells are very expensive per m2, but you only need a few mm2 because of the 500x concentration factor. And it can become cost-effective in sunny places such as Arizona, Spain and Israel.
http://www.soitec.com/en/techn...
Nuclear power doesn't look too good in France : the new EPR plant is a botched job in 3 different countries, old unsecure powerplants are still running, young engineers aren't interested to work in this field and Areva probably will have to layoff many employees.
Cars need a fuckton of energy, and if you want to provide it via electricity, you'd need twice the amount of nuclear powerplants that France has.
Forget about it.
Sure, cars could be half as big, have less power and be used more efficiently. It might make sense then, but only then, to have some electric cars. But it also won't magically save Paris from a shitload of environmental and social problems.
If you want some more information :
http://www.manicore.com/anglai...
Inacurate but funny description nonetheless. :D
I don't see myself being anywhere on the one-dimensional political spectrum. Capitalism isn't inherently bad, but it sure is when the only goal is to maximize short term profits. I happen to work in a research center, mostly on renewable energies and building efficiency. So I love and embrace new technologies, but I also know and accept what they cannot do.
I don't want to ban all non-electric vehicles in Paris, but since there will be a time soon when it won't be economically or technically feasible to power all those cars in such a concentrated area (once again, ever heard of peak oil, climate change or petrodollars funded terrorism?), now might be a good idea to look for alternative answers.
Kill the messenger if you want, but the reality is that Paris isn't prepared at all to cope with upcoming challenges.
Would you please enumerate the oh-so-wonderful alternatives?
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
It is not the first time a population has to move because of adverse climate effects. It happened all the time through the history of humanity.
Plot twist : there's nowhere else to go now, because of the 7+ billion humans.
Exactly.
A friend of mine did a few months of work and travel in Australia.
One of her jobs was to dump perfectly ripe red tomatoes, and pick the green ones and send them to Europe.
Ever heard of peak oil? Parisians will have to do so some day soon anyway.
Forget about electrical vehicles for 12 million people in such a concentrated area. Now would be a good time to sell the overpriced flats in Paris.
This city is probably the less resilient one in France.