Which would you prefer -- a set of steel control arms with a 3 year life at a cost of $75 plus labor each time, or a set of aluminum control arms with a ten year life at a cost of $150 plus labor?
Next time you have to replace the ball joints on your Passat, you'll pay the price for fancy aluminum suspension parts. The ball joints (a part that needs regular replacement) are "fused" into an aluminum suspension piece. That part is very expensive, and you have to replace it all as one (a long long time before the aluminum part fails).
I agree with you that it works out that way when you calculate it. However, I did a report on this for a course last fall, and that's what my research turned up. I'm not really sure how that works, but it's possible that there's a large difference between theoretical density of liquid methane, and the real one. It's also possible that the temperature/pressure at which it's commonly liquiefied are where gas and liquid are in an equilibrium. I found no explanation for this.
Re:Things to remember
on
Gas Goes Solid
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Actually methane hydrate is much better for transportation than liquid methane for two reasons.
First, it actually contains more energy per unit volume than liquid methane.
And second, it is much more difficult to liquiefy methane than to form the hydrate phase. Liquid form requires very very low temperatures, and very high pressure, while the hydrate phase can be attained at around the freezing point at much lower pressures.
Transporting methane in the hydrate phase is very attractive for countries that don't have their own power sources (southeast Asia). 1 cubic metre of methane hydrate holds 160 cubic metres of gaseous methane.
However, the infrastructure to use it efficiently is still under heavy development so it'll be a while before we see methane hydrate being used on a large scale.
I'm just about done my second year of chemical engineering. The more I think about it, the more it seems like people who write software have nowhere near the same responsibility for their work as traditional engineers do. In one of my classes we learned about a mine tailings dam in Spain that ruptured, causing a huge biological disaster. The chief engineer was to blame and basically had no chance of getting an engineering job ever again. It may sound harsh, but that's the price you pay when you screw up big time. What happens when there are glaring security holes in software? Is the company that made the software ever held liable? Sure, they say in their licences that they're not responsible for anything. But if you saw a bridge, and it said that the company that engineered it didn't guarantee anything about its safety, would you cross it? This wouldn't even come up because you wouldn't hire an engineering company that didn't guarantee its work. Personally I don't think that computer programmers should not consider themselves engineers unless they will guarantee all work that they do, and are willing to put their career on the line for it.
I've tried linux many times. It started with redhat 5.whatever, and I've basically tried all the redhat versions, a couple mandrake ones, and lycoris.
Anyway, what keeps me coming back to windows is usually the speed at which I can do things. Navigating directories is a prime example. In windows, I double click my computer and it's there instantly. I haven't found a gui program for linux that's that good. When I switch directories, it's instant. This can take only a split second longer in linux, but I notice it. Also, the directories in windows are a lot more intuitive and easier to read. They have real words and are capitalized. I don't have to scan a list of 3 or 4-letter abbreviations that all look the same at first glance.
Other things that keep me coming back is how easy it is to watch movies and use IM programs. For linux, to watch a divx, I usually have to use the command line and figure out which input and output options to use and type it all up. If there was a movie player in linux that had the power of mplayer and a nice stable powerful gui like windows media player, I'd be set.
As far as IM programs go, I've tried most of them. And probably the thing that bugs me the most is file transfers. It rarely ever works. I remember it used to work decently with licq a couple years ago, but it doesn't work so often before. I use icq and msn all the time and I need to send school-related files all the time to people that don't know how to use ftp. I haven't found an msn client that will send files at all. Even trillian working through wine crashes when I want to send or receive a file. Another thing that bugs me about the IM programs is their general lack of integration with KDE, which I like to use. Some of them dock nicely in the panel and don't take up a spot in the taskbar, but many others don't. When you use both msn and icq all the time, it sucks to have them both sitting in the taskbar when they're just as well off in the tray.
I'm a person that likes to use a gui for everything. However, I also like to get things done efficiently. Somehow, the fact that I can navigate directories faster on the command line faster than I can with konqueror irritates me. In windows, it's instant, and there's no way that I could do it faster in a console.
Other than these small things, I like linux. Pretty much everything else I do could be accomodated by linux (except maybe converting to and from Word and Excel XP reliably). I don't really play many games, and the one that I do play often (good old space cadet pinball) probably works with wine anyway, so that's not an issue with me. I listen to music, watch southpark episodes and movies, use msn and icq, and make spreadsheets and word files.
Anyway that's my 2 cents. I've been trying to use linux for all my needs for about 5 years and I haven't been able to switch completely yet. And if I can't switch completely, it's not much use to use linux for some things, and windows for others. It's inefficient to dual boot. So that's why I still use Windows, despite great efforts at using only linux.
Note that if the companies that make mp3 players with hard drives just have a sample or intro mp3 on them when they get shipped, the $21 per gig levy is gone. If they don't do this simple little thing, then a 5 gig mp3 player would have a $125 levy imposed on it.
Slashdot Mirror
Next time you have to replace the ball joints on your Passat, you'll pay the price for fancy aluminum suspension parts. The ball joints (a part that needs regular replacement) are "fused" into an aluminum suspension piece. That part is very expensive, and you have to replace it all as one (a long long time before the aluminum part fails).
I agree with you that it works out that way when you calculate it. However, I did a report on this for a course last fall, and that's what my research turned up. I'm not really sure how that works, but it's possible that there's a large difference between theoretical density of liquid methane, and the real one. It's also possible that the temperature/pressure at which it's commonly liquiefied are where gas and liquid are in an equilibrium. I found no explanation for this.
Actually methane hydrate is much better for transportation than liquid methane for two reasons.
First, it actually contains more energy per unit volume than liquid methane.
And second, it is much more difficult to liquiefy methane than to form the hydrate phase. Liquid form requires very very low temperatures, and very high pressure, while the hydrate phase can be attained at around the freezing point at much lower pressures.
Transporting methane in the hydrate phase is very attractive for countries that don't have their own power sources (southeast Asia). 1 cubic metre of methane hydrate holds 160 cubic metres of gaseous methane.
However, the infrastructure to use it efficiently is still under heavy development so it'll be a while before we see methane hydrate being used on a large scale.
Someone should alert him that there are new members of the axis of evil spreading evil packets to the unsuspecting public.
Is this the weapon of mass destruction of the future?
I'm just about done my second year of chemical engineering. The more I think about it, the more it seems like people who write software have nowhere near the same responsibility for their work as traditional engineers do. In one of my classes we learned about a mine tailings dam in Spain that ruptured, causing a huge biological disaster. The chief engineer was to blame and basically had no chance of getting an engineering job ever again. It may sound harsh, but that's the price you pay when you screw up big time. What happens when there are glaring security holes in software? Is the company that made the software ever held liable? Sure, they say in their licences that they're not responsible for anything. But if you saw a bridge, and it said that the company that engineered it didn't guarantee anything about its safety, would you cross it? This wouldn't even come up because you wouldn't hire an engineering company that didn't guarantee its work. Personally I don't think that computer programmers should not consider themselves engineers unless they will guarantee all work that they do, and are willing to put their career on the line for it.
161 Comments and not a single one modded above 2. Maybe those movies were forgotten for a reason, hm?
I've tried linux many times. It started with redhat 5.whatever, and I've basically tried all the redhat versions, a couple mandrake ones, and lycoris.
Anyway, what keeps me coming back to windows is usually the speed at which I can do things. Navigating directories is a prime example. In windows, I double click my computer and it's there instantly. I haven't found a gui program for linux that's that good. When I switch directories, it's instant. This can take only a split second longer in linux, but I notice it. Also, the directories in windows are a lot more intuitive and easier to read. They have real words and are capitalized. I don't have to scan a list of 3 or 4-letter abbreviations that all look the same at first glance.
Other things that keep me coming back is how easy it is to watch movies and use IM programs. For linux, to watch a divx, I usually have to use the command line and figure out which input and output options to use and type it all up. If there was a movie player in linux that had the power of mplayer and a nice stable powerful gui like windows media player, I'd be set.
As far as IM programs go, I've tried most of them. And probably the thing that bugs me the most is file transfers. It rarely ever works. I remember it used to work decently with licq a couple years ago, but it doesn't work so often before. I use icq and msn all the time and I need to send school-related files all the time to people that don't know how to use ftp. I haven't found an msn client that will send files at all. Even trillian working through wine crashes when I want to send or receive a file. Another thing that bugs me about the IM programs is their general lack of integration with KDE, which I like to use. Some of them dock nicely in the panel and don't take up a spot in the taskbar, but many others don't. When you use both msn and icq all the time, it sucks to have them both sitting in the taskbar when they're just as well off in the tray.
I'm a person that likes to use a gui for everything. However, I also like to get things done efficiently. Somehow, the fact that I can navigate directories faster on the command line faster than I can with konqueror irritates me. In windows, it's instant, and there's no way that I could do it faster in a console.
Other than these small things, I like linux. Pretty much everything else I do could be accomodated by linux (except maybe converting to and from Word and Excel XP reliably). I don't really play many games, and the one that I do play often (good old space cadet pinball) probably works with wine anyway, so that's not an issue with me. I listen to music, watch southpark episodes and movies, use msn and icq, and make spreadsheets and word files.
Anyway that's my 2 cents. I've been trying to use linux for all my needs for about 5 years and I haven't been able to switch completely yet. And if I can't switch completely, it's not much use to use linux for some things, and windows for others. It's inefficient to dual boot. So that's why I still use Windows, despite great efforts at using only linux.
Portent
Make that $105.
Eddy
Note that if the companies that make mp3 players with hard drives just have a sample or intro mp3 on them when they get shipped, the $21 per gig levy is gone. If they don't do this simple little thing, then a 5 gig mp3 player would have a $125 levy imposed on it.
Eddy