It is a lot harder to get an executable sent over e-mail to run on the system, but it is still possible. Running Linux does NOT make one immune against this kinds of attacks.
You could write an SELinux policy to prevent outbound access except to certain binaries that only root can chance. I dunno, maybe Windows can do that too.
By my understanding that is how many Windows firewalls work, which is why there is all the time the message like "program x tries to make outbound connection, allow/deny". I'm not working with Windows much though.
If firewalls work that way already, it should be trivial to only allow root/administrator to be able to give such permission, and you are there.
The next step is to not only have the user not run as administrator, which is probably near impossible to do. And it will be really hard to close all the other permission escalations that are possible - all ways for an attacker to either gain permission from the firewall to connect to the outside world, or to simply stop the firewall all together.
The real solution is of course to have a company-wide firewall shielding your LAN from the Internet and only allowing connections on certain ports to certain external sites. Whitelist only, that is. With maybe an option for certain users to log-in to the firewall to gain more open access. Or requiring a log-in to the firewall to get Internet access in the first place.
It is a lot harder to get an executable sent over e-mail to run on the system, but it is still possible. Running Linux does NOT make one immune against this kinds of attacks.
I'm quite sure Linux is easier to secure than Windows, the core error this hospital made was not as much running Windows, as not closing off all access to the Internet. It just doesn't go together with sensitive patient data. Those Linux computers your Belgium hospitals are working with also should be shielded thoroughly from the open Internet.
I wonder why I would need permission from an RIAA or equivalent to stream MY (as in legally bought/licensed/self-made/whatever) music/video from MY music player to MY computer over MY wireless connection as opposed to using MY wire.
This "streaming" I read as streaming within your own home, say from your Zune player to your PC. And that's where I would not expect to have this kind of licensing restrictions.
Even more so: I would more likely see this to be a function that works OUTSIDE of the US only due to licensing restrictions, as the RIAA only has powers within the US. Or at least that's where they are supposed to be limited to... but then they are American so they may not care too much about that. Anyway I wouldn't think of licensing restrictions when something convenient is allowed specifically in the US only.
Yes that will do the job:) But it will not produce oil.
Assuming molten iron is used, the temperature is so high that the polymers will completely decompose into the single atoms (possibly as ion). Carbon will dissolve in the iron, and can be removed by blowing oxygen (or air, cheaper) through the liquid iron. Then it burns to CO2. Hydrogen can also be burnt off to water vapour that way. Chlorine I can imagine will form a salt iron: FeCl2 or FeCl3 (Fe(II) or Fe(III) - the latter more likely as Fe(II) readily oxidises to Fe(III)), and again I can imagine that iron chloride can not dissolve in molten iron. No idea whether that part is true or not, I'm a chemist who is not doing chemistry at all now and who has never studied metals. I've done mainly organic chemistry.
Part of this info comes from an episode of "Invention Nation" where the guys go to a plant that processes wood to produce hydrogen: the carbon will oxidise to CO (carbon monoxide) before the hydrogen oxidises to water, so by regulating the oxygen supply they burnt the carbon but not the hydrogen. Something like that. Quite neat a trick. The heat produced in the process kept everything nice and not, not sure if they had to continue heating the mix after start-up.
The molten iron process produces synthesis gas (a CO and H2 mix) which can be used to produce oil, look at the Fischer-Tropz (sp?) process for example. Synthesis gas can also be produced by heating coal with water in absence of oxygen (H2O + C --> H2 + CO)
And you obviously don't know what a catalyst is doing really.
A catalyst will never, ever make a reaction go the other way than it would naturally do. What a catalyst is doing, is lowering the energy barrier for a reaction to take place, increasing the speed of a reaction. In some cases without a catalyst the energy barrier is so high that a reaction would be so slow that it basically does not occur.
You can however change the favourable end products by increasing the temperature - in the extreme, when temperature is high enough, all atoms will break bonds with each other and go free. This is what is done in oil cracking: heat it up, so smaller molecules are more favourable than larger molecules in terms of energy and entropy.
Another way to crack molecules is to use radiation like IR. IR with the correct wavelength will energise and resonate the bonds of molecules to the point of breaking, thereby cracking the molecules. Again a catalyst can help in this process, lowering the energy required to get enough resonance to break a bond. As the reaction takes place inside the molecule there may be not much a catalyst can do in this case, or the reaction is fast enough by itself that adding a catalyst is not helping enough to justify the cost.
The energy barrier to re-make the bond is at low temperatures so high that it can not be formed anymore. That is why ethylene gas is stable, and will not spontaneously polymerise to polyethylene. This in contrast to e.g. styrene or terephtalates which do tend to polymerise over time when stored at room temperature.
The chlorine will not be "liberated" to Cl2 as it is not chemically stable in this case. As soon as there would be a Cl2 molecule in the mix, and it finds a hydrocarbon with a double bond, it will react with this hydrocarbon. And double bonds there will be plenty of considering it is a cracking process. So no chance to get Cl2 gas out of it without taking special measures beyond just thermal cracking of the plastic.
You are correct for the fact that many plastics can be recycled. Almost all plastics can be recycled. But they have to be pure, and that's where the problem is.
Many packing films are multi-layer products: one layer for strength, one on top for gloss, another on the bottom to make it sealable, one more as moisture/oxygen/smell barrier, etc. This kind of plastic product is very hard to recycle, and often only to very low-end products. Fuel recovery is not that bad an idea.
Another issue is that it is often not known what plastic a product is made of. That becomes even more an issue when it is all mixed, such as post-consumer waste like we are now dumping in landfills or burning in incinerators. Those plastics need sorting (difficult if you have no way to tell what it is), washing, etc. A lot of work, very expensive to do, and as sorting is never 100% you will again end up with relative low end applications for the recycled plastic.
A lot of the plastics collected in USA and Europe is shipped to China for recycling, especially the post consumer waste. These fractions often have a negative price at the source: Chinese users pay a little bit for the material, but less than transport cost let alone collection cost. Sorting cost is high, recovery rates low. Pyrolysis may well be a cheaper and even environmentally favourable solution for these mixed plastics compared to shipping them to China or India for recovery.
Any higher-value stream will not go for pyrolysis. Higher value as in post-industrial wastes (they are generally clean and pure), or sorted fractions from domestic (think PET bottles (soda, water), HDPE bottles (soap, milk), PE film (wrapping film, shrink film, carrybags) or agricultural film). Those fractions are now being traded and recycled on a commercial basis.
Plastic-to-oil is nothing new, there are many commercial implementations on the market already. The problem is that the price of crude is still too low to make it economical.
This new process may make it as cheap as $10/barrel but that does include collection cost of the plastic of course. This assumes they get the plastic delivered to them for free. Someone is going to pay to sort out the plastic from domestic waste, or to collect it separately, or whatever. And for the truck to get it to this factory. I'm quite sure they shaved off a lot of overhead to come to this low cost.
On the envion.com web site, PVC is mentioned as one of the major components of their feed stock. This indeed surprised me, you are right, the chlorine is an issue. If burned it may produce dioxins (very very poisonous stuff), or hydrochloric acid that wreaks havoc on any metal parts it comes in contact with, such as the internals of your engine.
Either they have a way to remove the chlorine later, or they take care of it in another way - this is not mentioned on the web site. At least I couldn't find it. If there is really chlorine in the product then I'd not want to use it at all. And I also doubt it could pass any environmental standards when used in engines due to the dioxin problem.
For most plastics, the making is energetically favourable. That's a fact. You often will have to heat up the monomer mix, and usually add a catalyst to help the reaction, but the reaction itself should be producing energy, not consuming it.
Cracking the plastics back to oil-type chunks does need a bit of energy to be added.
And finally to put things into perspective (as you obviously know nothing about the chemistry of plastics), the amounts of energy involved in these reactions are nothing compared to the energy released when burning the oil/plastics. Plastic itself is a fantastic fuel, it's just impractical to use as is in internal combustion engines.
It will make more sense to start mining landfills. Much easier to get to, and more material to dig up. A large part of the waste that goes into landfill is plastic. And a lot of organic waste; that can even be used as fuel for the pyrolises of plastics.
And as a nice bonus you will find all kinds of valuables in it, metals mainly, from discarded electrical devices and batteries.
I suppose it will partly depend on the language used. I've been programming mainly in Python, which means you're quite far from the hardware. In the documentation you can see here and there some OS dependencies, but those are generally minor and quite rare. I don't recall having ever seen processor-dependencies. So most python software will run on OS-X, Windows, Linux, etc on basically any processor supported by the OS and the Python interpreter. Which is really cool, this allows me to write programs on my Linux/x86 system and on my OSX/ppc system without having to worry really about the OS let alone the underlying hardware.
If you've been using something like C then you're closer to the hardware so you may run into hardware specific issues. And you will certainly run into OS specific issues as your code talks directly to the OS. I haven't used C myself so don't know too much about that really.
I have seen something similar going on in The Netherlands, where KPN (traditionally the only fixed-line telephone provider) has been forced to give access to other companies to their network, at good rates. Those rates are determined by the government, periodically reviewed, and are cost plus reasonable profit for the maintenance of the existing network.
It took a while, but first the IDD providers got in - users had to dial a four-digit prefix to select the carrier. Then those IDD providers also started to provide long-distance calls, with the same four-digit prefix. Then small devices came that would dial that prefix for you automatically and transparently. And now even that is not necessary anymore, users can directly set the IDD and long-distance carrier. And are billed by that carrier.
The same of course for ADSL services provided over the POTS network. First KPN's own povider Planet Internet was basically the only one, now there are dozens or even hundreds competing on the ADSL market, providing great choice for the consumer.
The only problem left is that because KPN owns the cables, so it is always a KPN technician that comes to your home to make necessary connections. And the communication between you (consumer that wants a connection), ISP (that has to set up your account) and KPN (that has to connect the cables) is not always going perfectly well.
What Microsoft could (should?) do with Windows 7 is implement touch thoroughly, so that it can be used as drop-in replacement for the mouse. E.g. all current mouse functions (click/doubleclick/grab) can be done with touch functions. This making a mouse obsolete when using e.g. a tablet PC (an 8-9" tablet sounds cool to me).
Secondly they should provide an api to access the touch functions easily, just like an application can now access mouse and keyboard input. Developing such an api is of course not that easy, but certainly can be done.
Then there is nothing in the way of coming with applications that can use it. I can imagine that a thorough touch-replacement of the mouse (maybe add some zoom function or so with the touch functionality that a mouse can not do) is already enough for a hardware maker to start using it by adding a touch screen on their tablet PC. When the api is there it is up to developers developers developers to do something with it.
With the inroads Linux is making on netbooks already, indeed a good touch-interface could be great for future net-tablets. Start with replacing the mouse functions with touch functions and work from there I'd say.
Is the air in the US different from the rest of the world? Or why would streaming over WiFi not be possible outside the US? And how would the Zune know where in the world it is? Does it call home or so? If so why is something so important not mentioned in the general description?
When the iPod was first released almost a decade ago, it also hit the headlines of/. (and the editor didn't think much good of it). Still it was there, and mainly because Apple was and is relevant, not because the iPod was relevant at the time. It turned out to be a massive success.
When the Zune was first released, it also hit the headlines on/. Again not because the Zune matters, but Microsoft matters. For better or for worse, Microsoft still matters. It's a huge company, (one of) the richest in the world, dominating the desktop computer software world. It has also been a long time since MS came out with the first zune, so reasonable to have it on the headlines again.
Still I guess it will be a failure. They're again trying to copy Apple, and of course by copying they always play catch-up.
It's really cool and daring they opt for OLED screens, an emerging technology. Unfortunately I don't think OLED is there yet compared to traditional LCD screens. They still have to produce their own light, not using ambient light for the display (like e-ink). Brightness and lifetime are poor. But it will give a boost to the tech and that's cool.
No modern browser: the IE6 core is really outdated, many pages will not display well if at all.
No app store: how are users going to customise/personalise the device? MS is going to write apps themselves - that leaves us to the imagination and creativity of MS what can be done with it. Many ideas will be thrown away because they are "not good enough" - for the iPhone if only one developer out of possibly millions thinks it's a good idea then they will write it and put it in the store, if only for their own use only.
It's a nice try but unfortunately two years behind the times, and not even a price to reflect that: a phone/mp3 player/laptop from two years ago costs typically less than half of it's current version. That compels me for one to buy those "outdated" models, I don't think it's worth the price. The new Zune costs almost as muhc as the iPod Touch, it's direct competitor, so even there no advantage.
MS now please go back to the drawing boards, and start over again. Have a look at the iPod/iPhone/i*, copy it to start with, and MAKE IT BETTER. That's all. And no it's not easy.
And that is most certainly not true. I don't think beta testers' negative comments are ignored - unless the company is totally stupid. Because that is what you are doing beta testing for, to get the problems exposed before you go to mass production. Ignoring those comments would make beta testing useless.
A remark I got from someone talking to pop music bands about relations between artists and the media. When the media are writing a review of your album/concert/whatever, there will be positive and negative aspects in it. The positive aspects is what you (the artist) quote in your own marketing material, the negative aspects is what you (the artist) look seriously at and learn from.
Exactly the same for reactions from beta testers: the negative reactions are where you have to work on to improve your product, the positive reactions are what you use in your marketing. Of course you are not going to use negative comments in your marketing, it is marketing after all, you have to sell a product, not kill it before it has a chance be born.
and get a bunch of MS "partners" to agree to save all their documents in.docx format to push their own standard.
Which would not be a bad thing in itself, as long as.docx would be a workable, well-published and free standard (free as in free from copyright/patent/trademark/whatever licensing). From what I have read on/. it fails on all three. I don't even care who designed the standard, as long as it is a proper standard. Even having a few open standards for word processing documents wouldn't be a problem - look at how many image formats we have. Let the best standard win - only to be taken over by an even better standard. It's competition we need really, and open and free standards are an important part in that.
What do we care?
They may use OO.o, their own version branded Symphony, or what-ever.
You should care. It demonstrates that even a massive company like IBM is able to use a largely open source application suite in place of MS Office.
Open source is a nice extra; to the primary thing of a computer is that it works. It has to do the job. Windows is doing the job for many people and I guess there will always be a market for the system.
The key here still is the open file format, which gives users more choice in what software to use. Many users like MS Office - well good for them. But it would be nice for those MS Office users to be able to exchange files with all us non-MS Office users. And for that we need an open format.
The battle should not be "get rid of Windows" or "convert everyone to Linux". That is a religious type battle and we all know what can come from that (just have a look at the mess in the Middle East for example). The battle should be "we are using different software but we want to be able to exchange information with each other". Word processor files are pretty much the final frontier as in another thread here is discussed: most other major formats (music, video, graphics) have a set of standard, open and widely supported formats already.
For example when it comes to music, I can download an mp3 file (the de-facto standard), and play it on virtually any computer, any O/S, and many other devices. Video the same. Graphics also. Somewhat-formatted text as used in web pages also pretty much works out of the box. That one is not fully there yet but we're close. For final formatted text we're there already with pdf and ps formats. Not iso standard afaik but open and well documented, and supported well by many applications for many OSes.
The only problem left is the doc format for file exchanges between word processors. It is well supported nowadays by a.o. OO.o, but it's a hack. Using odf or another fully open and free standard would solve that one too. Even Word supporting odf well and defaulting to it's use would be fine, except we can't trust Microsoft in that.
If only say 20-30% is using not MS Office but another word processor and using.odf to exchange files, that may be enough already to have Word change it's ways. Look at what happened to IE when FF got 15% or so: they suddenly dropped all extras and went highly (for IE that is) standards-compliant and so far continue to move into that direction. And in the end that is what counts. Many people still use IE, many will continue to do so. Good for them. I like FF, others like Chrome, yet others Opera or whatever obscure browser: we can all do so without problems.
They may use OO.o, their own version branded Symphony, or what-ever.
The real point here is what EVERYBODY misses and that is that they are mandating saving in Open Document Format. That's what's important. They are a major company and they are now supporting an open format, which has by now maybe a dozen word processors supporting it.
For what I am concerned they continue using MS Word in half of their business, and save the documents in ODF. Then people who have some special needs can take their special-needs-word processor and have no problems with compatibility. Linux/Mac users are also happy. Maybe there are Solaris users around even - they will be happy not having to boot Windows just to read an e-mail attachment.
Remember folks, it's the use of open standards that counts. Not the actual implementation - as long as that implementation is correct and follows the standard well, I'm happy. MS Word's lock-in with its doc format is the problem, not MS Word as such.
Only if ext3 is not in your way with userIDs and so.
I have been reading a bit in this discussion and come to the following conclusion on what a proper FS for removable media should have:
No userID or groupID. They vary between computers (same name, different UID - and not everyone can become superuser on their computer! Quite irritating anyway to have to open a root shell to read your own files). The security is physical here (you can only read the files when you have that device in your possession), if you wish to do more then encryption comes in play. That gives you a username/password combination to enter specifically to open that device.
Preservation of other file attributes such as creation date, writeable (read-only) and executable bits. The second to make a file read-only if you so wish, the last to not be able to execute any file that is not set executable explicitly. And even that could be overridden.
Support for large files: >4GB.
Support for "all" operating systems, or at least Linux, OS-X and Windows. The rest will follow soon enough.
And of course all the modern goodies: optimisation for SSD (writing all over the place to share the load), robustness against corruption in case of power outages (or removing the device when writes are in progress: a more common scenario but the same effect), and more of the like.
Now all we have to do is find some developers to design and implement this, and secondly to convince MS that it is a good idea to include in Windows. Though a special driver may also fit the bill, I hear Windows users are quite used to hunting down and install drivers for all their obscure hardware anyway.
And until we have this removable-FS, we will be stuck with FAT32 because it doesn't care about userIDs, and just works on any computer. After all it's one of the very very few FSs that are supported by Windows.
That are asymmetric connections, so extra horrible when you want to upload large stuff. This is not a business option either. It seems they have dedicated connections, otherwise I can't understand the high price the article mentions.
The pigeon had a 4 GB card, but they would have only a couple hundred MB per day to transfer.
Their ADSL carried 4% of that amount of data in just over two hours time, that comes down to 23,861 bytes per second (I am being liberal here by taking 4GB = 4x1024x1024x1024). At 8 bits per byte that is 190.887 bits per second. Or 186 kbit/s. That is less than three ISDN lines bundled (64 kbit each). Even in the US that speed may not even qualify as "broadband" (I don't know the exact norm over there, just that some ISPs want to lower the minimum speed that can be called "broadband" there, and US internet connections are not known for their great speeds). 186 kb that is what I get on my 3G mobile connection when the connection is poor.
According to the article linked from the previous/. posting, they pay about R45000 a month for their ADSL lines. That is almost USD 6,000. A lot of money for Internet service I would say, and that would be "business ADSL", not even dedicated lines. I currently pay just under USD 60 per month for a 2M/2M ADSL business line in Hong Kong. And South Africa may not be rich, it is also certainly not a developing country.
And to make it really interesting: at this speed they would be able to transfer 1.92 GB per day only. So the transfer of 4 GB of data would take more than two days.
Now they have only a couple hundred MB of data to transfer, say 300 MB for sake of the argument. That amount of data would take about 3h40m to transfer over their current line... I can imagine they are not happy with that. They should really considering sending a pigeon (or someone in a car, may be more reliable but likely slower than the pigeon) once a week carrying a 4GB or 8GB memory card. And ditch the ADSL or at least go for a cheaper option.
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It is a lot harder to get an executable sent over e-mail to run on the system, but it is still possible. Running Linux does NOT make one immune against this kinds of attacks.
You could write an SELinux policy to prevent outbound access except to certain binaries that only root can chance. I dunno, maybe Windows can do that too.
By my understanding that is how many Windows firewalls work, which is why there is all the time the message like "program x tries to make outbound connection, allow/deny". I'm not working with Windows much though.
If firewalls work that way already, it should be trivial to only allow root/administrator to be able to give such permission, and you are there.
The next step is to not only have the user not run as administrator, which is probably near impossible to do. And it will be really hard to close all the other permission escalations that are possible - all ways for an attacker to either gain permission from the firewall to connect to the outside world, or to simply stop the firewall all together.
The real solution is of course to have a company-wide firewall shielding your LAN from the Internet and only allowing connections on certain ports to certain external sites. Whitelist only, that is. With maybe an option for certain users to log-in to the firewall to gain more open access. Or requiring a log-in to the firewall to get Internet access in the first place.
I'm sure there exists spyware for Linux as well.
It is a lot harder to get an executable sent over e-mail to run on the system, but it is still possible. Running Linux does NOT make one immune against this kinds of attacks.
I'm quite sure Linux is easier to secure than Windows, the core error this hospital made was not as much running Windows, as not closing off all access to the Internet. It just doesn't go together with sensitive patient data. Those Linux computers your Belgium hospitals are working with also should be shielded thoroughly from the open Internet.
I wonder why I would need permission from an RIAA or equivalent to stream MY (as in legally bought/licensed/self-made/whatever) music/video from MY music player to MY computer over MY wireless connection as opposed to using MY wire.
This "streaming" I read as streaming within your own home, say from your Zune player to your PC. And that's where I would not expect to have this kind of licensing restrictions.
Even more so: I would more likely see this to be a function that works OUTSIDE of the US only due to licensing restrictions, as the RIAA only has powers within the US. Or at least that's where they are supposed to be limited to... but then they are American so they may not care too much about that. Anyway I wouldn't think of licensing restrictions when something convenient is allowed specifically in the US only.
Yes that will do the job :) But it will not produce oil.
Assuming molten iron is used, the temperature is so high that the polymers will completely decompose into the single atoms (possibly as ion). Carbon will dissolve in the iron, and can be removed by blowing oxygen (or air, cheaper) through the liquid iron. Then it burns to CO2. Hydrogen can also be burnt off to water vapour that way. Chlorine I can imagine will form a salt iron: FeCl2 or FeCl3 (Fe(II) or Fe(III) - the latter more likely as Fe(II) readily oxidises to Fe(III)), and again I can imagine that iron chloride can not dissolve in molten iron. No idea whether that part is true or not, I'm a chemist who is not doing chemistry at all now and who has never studied metals. I've done mainly organic chemistry.
Part of this info comes from an episode of "Invention Nation" where the guys go to a plant that processes wood to produce hydrogen: the carbon will oxidise to CO (carbon monoxide) before the hydrogen oxidises to water, so by regulating the oxygen supply they burnt the carbon but not the hydrogen. Something like that. Quite neat a trick. The heat produced in the process kept everything nice and not, not sure if they had to continue heating the mix after start-up.
The molten iron process produces synthesis gas (a CO and H2 mix) which can be used to produce oil, look at the Fischer-Tropz (sp?) process for example. Synthesis gas can also be produced by heating coal with water in absence of oxygen (H2O + C --> H2 + CO)
And you obviously don't know what a catalyst is doing really.
A catalyst will never, ever make a reaction go the other way than it would naturally do. What a catalyst is doing, is lowering the energy barrier for a reaction to take place, increasing the speed of a reaction. In some cases without a catalyst the energy barrier is so high that a reaction would be so slow that it basically does not occur.
You can however change the favourable end products by increasing the temperature - in the extreme, when temperature is high enough, all atoms will break bonds with each other and go free. This is what is done in oil cracking: heat it up, so smaller molecules are more favourable than larger molecules in terms of energy and entropy.
Another way to crack molecules is to use radiation like IR. IR with the correct wavelength will energise and resonate the bonds of molecules to the point of breaking, thereby cracking the molecules. Again a catalyst can help in this process, lowering the energy required to get enough resonance to break a bond. As the reaction takes place inside the molecule there may be not much a catalyst can do in this case, or the reaction is fast enough by itself that adding a catalyst is not helping enough to justify the cost.
The energy barrier to re-make the bond is at low temperatures so high that it can not be formed anymore. That is why ethylene gas is stable, and will not spontaneously polymerise to polyethylene. This in contrast to e.g. styrene or terephtalates which do tend to polymerise over time when stored at room temperature.
The chlorine will not be "liberated" to Cl2 as it is not chemically stable in this case. As soon as there would be a Cl2 molecule in the mix, and it finds a hydrocarbon with a double bond, it will react with this hydrocarbon. And double bonds there will be plenty of considering it is a cracking process. So no chance to get Cl2 gas out of it without taking special measures beyond just thermal cracking of the plastic.
I'm working in the plastic recycling industry.
You are correct for the fact that many plastics can be recycled. Almost all plastics can be recycled. But they have to be pure, and that's where the problem is.
Many packing films are multi-layer products: one layer for strength, one on top for gloss, another on the bottom to make it sealable, one more as moisture/oxygen/smell barrier, etc. This kind of plastic product is very hard to recycle, and often only to very low-end products. Fuel recovery is not that bad an idea.
Another issue is that it is often not known what plastic a product is made of. That becomes even more an issue when it is all mixed, such as post-consumer waste like we are now dumping in landfills or burning in incinerators. Those plastics need sorting (difficult if you have no way to tell what it is), washing, etc. A lot of work, very expensive to do, and as sorting is never 100% you will again end up with relative low end applications for the recycled plastic.
A lot of the plastics collected in USA and Europe is shipped to China for recycling, especially the post consumer waste. These fractions often have a negative price at the source: Chinese users pay a little bit for the material, but less than transport cost let alone collection cost. Sorting cost is high, recovery rates low. Pyrolysis may well be a cheaper and even environmentally favourable solution for these mixed plastics compared to shipping them to China or India for recovery.
Any higher-value stream will not go for pyrolysis. Higher value as in post-industrial wastes (they are generally clean and pure), or sorted fractions from domestic (think PET bottles (soda, water), HDPE bottles (soap, milk), PE film (wrapping film, shrink film, carrybags) or agricultural film). Those fractions are now being traded and recycled on a commercial basis.
Plastic-to-oil is nothing new, there are many commercial implementations on the market already. The problem is that the price of crude is still too low to make it economical.
This new process may make it as cheap as $10/barrel but that does include collection cost of the plastic of course. This assumes they get the plastic delivered to them for free. Someone is going to pay to sort out the plastic from domestic waste, or to collect it separately, or whatever. And for the truck to get it to this factory. I'm quite sure they shaved off a lot of overhead to come to this low cost.
On the envion.com web site, PVC is mentioned as one of the major components of their feed stock. This indeed surprised me, you are right, the chlorine is an issue. If burned it may produce dioxins (very very poisonous stuff), or hydrochloric acid that wreaks havoc on any metal parts it comes in contact with, such as the internals of your engine.
Either they have a way to remove the chlorine later, or they take care of it in another way - this is not mentioned on the web site. At least I couldn't find it. If there is really chlorine in the product then I'd not want to use it at all. And I also doubt it could pass any environmental standards when used in engines due to the dioxin problem.
For most plastics, the making is energetically favourable. That's a fact. You often will have to heat up the monomer mix, and usually add a catalyst to help the reaction, but the reaction itself should be producing energy, not consuming it.
Cracking the plastics back to oil-type chunks does need a bit of energy to be added.
And finally to put things into perspective (as you obviously know nothing about the chemistry of plastics), the amounts of energy involved in these reactions are nothing compared to the energy released when burning the oil/plastics. Plastic itself is a fantastic fuel, it's just impractical to use as is in internal combustion engines.
It will make more sense to start mining landfills. Much easier to get to, and more material to dig up. A large part of the waste that goes into landfill is plastic. And a lot of organic waste; that can even be used as fuel for the pyrolises of plastics.
And as a nice bonus you will find all kinds of valuables in it, metals mainly, from discarded electrical devices and batteries.
I suppose it will partly depend on the language used. I've been programming mainly in Python, which means you're quite far from the hardware. In the documentation you can see here and there some OS dependencies, but those are generally minor and quite rare. I don't recall having ever seen processor-dependencies. So most python software will run on OS-X, Windows, Linux, etc on basically any processor supported by the OS and the Python interpreter. Which is really cool, this allows me to write programs on my Linux/x86 system and on my OSX/ppc system without having to worry really about the OS let alone the underlying hardware.
If you've been using something like C then you're closer to the hardware so you may run into hardware specific issues. And you will certainly run into OS specific issues as your code talks directly to the OS. I haven't used C myself so don't know too much about that really.
TFA quotes up top 82% recovery, the envion.com website indicates an average of 60% conversion. 1400 lbs out of 2000 lbs that would be 70% conversion.
And the amount of energy needed for cracking is not much.
Absolutely true.
I have seen something similar going on in The Netherlands, where KPN (traditionally the only fixed-line telephone provider) has been forced to give access to other companies to their network, at good rates. Those rates are determined by the government, periodically reviewed, and are cost plus reasonable profit for the maintenance of the existing network.
It took a while, but first the IDD providers got in - users had to dial a four-digit prefix to select the carrier. Then those IDD providers also started to provide long-distance calls, with the same four-digit prefix. Then small devices came that would dial that prefix for you automatically and transparently. And now even that is not necessary anymore, users can directly set the IDD and long-distance carrier. And are billed by that carrier.
The same of course for ADSL services provided over the POTS network. First KPN's own povider Planet Internet was basically the only one, now there are dozens or even hundreds competing on the ADSL market, providing great choice for the consumer.
The only problem left is that because KPN owns the cables, so it is always a KPN technician that comes to your home to make necessary connections. And the communication between you (consumer that wants a connection), ISP (that has to set up your account) and KPN (that has to connect the cables) is not always going perfectly well.
Indeed, that should be the way forward.
It is not a chicken-and-egg problem, really.
What Microsoft could (should?) do with Windows 7 is implement touch thoroughly, so that it can be used as drop-in replacement for the mouse. E.g. all current mouse functions (click/doubleclick/grab) can be done with touch functions. This making a mouse obsolete when using e.g. a tablet PC (an 8-9" tablet sounds cool to me).
Secondly they should provide an api to access the touch functions easily, just like an application can now access mouse and keyboard input. Developing such an api is of course not that easy, but certainly can be done.
Then there is nothing in the way of coming with applications that can use it. I can imagine that a thorough touch-replacement of the mouse (maybe add some zoom function or so with the touch functionality that a mouse can not do) is already enough for a hardware maker to start using it by adding a touch screen on their tablet PC. When the api is there it is up to developers developers developers to do something with it.
With the inroads Linux is making on netbooks already, indeed a good touch-interface could be great for future net-tablets. Start with replacing the mouse functions with touch functions and work from there I'd say.
streaming via wi-fi available in U.S. only.
This is a more remarkable quote.
Is the air in the US different from the rest of the world? Or why would streaming over WiFi not be possible outside the US? And how would the Zune know where in the world it is? Does it call home or so? If so why is something so important not mentioned in the general description?
When the iPod was first released almost a decade ago, it also hit the headlines of /. (and the editor didn't think much good of it). Still it was there, and mainly because Apple was and is relevant, not because the iPod was relevant at the time. It turned out to be a massive success.
When the Zune was first released, it also hit the headlines on /. Again not because the Zune matters, but Microsoft matters. For better or for worse, Microsoft still matters. It's a huge company, (one of) the richest in the world, dominating the desktop computer software world. It has also been a long time since MS came out with the first zune, so reasonable to have it on the headlines again.
Still I guess it will be a failure. They're again trying to copy Apple, and of course by copying they always play catch-up.
It's really cool and daring they opt for OLED screens, an emerging technology. Unfortunately I don't think OLED is there yet compared to traditional LCD screens. They still have to produce their own light, not using ambient light for the display (like e-ink). Brightness and lifetime are poor. But it will give a boost to the tech and that's cool.
No modern browser: the IE6 core is really outdated, many pages will not display well if at all.
No app store: how are users going to customise/personalise the device? MS is going to write apps themselves - that leaves us to the imagination and creativity of MS what can be done with it. Many ideas will be thrown away because they are "not good enough" - for the iPhone if only one developer out of possibly millions thinks it's a good idea then they will write it and put it in the store, if only for their own use only.
It's a nice try but unfortunately two years behind the times, and not even a price to reflect that: a phone/mp3 player/laptop from two years ago costs typically less than half of it's current version. That compels me for one to buy those "outdated" models, I don't think it's worth the price. The new Zune costs almost as muhc as the iPod Touch, it's direct competitor, so even there no advantage.
MS now please go back to the drawing boards, and start over again. Have a look at the iPod/iPhone/i*, copy it to start with, and MAKE IT BETTER. That's all. And no it's not easy.
And that is most certainly not true. I don't think beta testers' negative comments are ignored - unless the company is totally stupid. Because that is what you are doing beta testing for, to get the problems exposed before you go to mass production. Ignoring those comments would make beta testing useless.
A remark I got from someone talking to pop music bands about relations between artists and the media. When the media are writing a review of your album/concert/whatever, there will be positive and negative aspects in it. The positive aspects is what you (the artist) quote in your own marketing material, the negative aspects is what you (the artist) look seriously at and learn from.
Exactly the same for reactions from beta testers: the negative reactions are where you have to work on to improve your product, the positive reactions are what you use in your marketing. Of course you are not going to use negative comments in your marketing, it is marketing after all, you have to sell a product, not kill it before it has a chance be born.
and get a bunch of MS "partners" to agree to save all their documents in .docx format to push their own standard.
Which would not be a bad thing in itself, as long as .docx would be a workable, well-published and free standard (free as in free from copyright/patent/trademark/whatever licensing). From what I have read on /. it fails on all three. I don't even care who designed the standard, as long as it is a proper standard. Even having a few open standards for word processing documents wouldn't be a problem - look at how many image formats we have. Let the best standard win - only to be taken over by an even better standard. It's competition we need really, and open and free standards are an important part in that.
What do we care? They may use OO.o, their own version branded Symphony, or what-ever.
You should care. It demonstrates that even a massive company like IBM is able to use a largely open source application suite in place of MS Office.
Open source is a nice extra; to the primary thing of a computer is that it works. It has to do the job. Windows is doing the job for many people and I guess there will always be a market for the system.
The key here still is the open file format, which gives users more choice in what software to use. Many users like MS Office - well good for them. But it would be nice for those MS Office users to be able to exchange files with all us non-MS Office users. And for that we need an open format.
The battle should not be "get rid of Windows" or "convert everyone to Linux". That is a religious type battle and we all know what can come from that (just have a look at the mess in the Middle East for example). The battle should be "we are using different software but we want to be able to exchange information with each other". Word processor files are pretty much the final frontier as in another thread here is discussed: most other major formats (music, video, graphics) have a set of standard, open and widely supported formats already.
For example when it comes to music, I can download an mp3 file (the de-facto standard), and play it on virtually any computer, any O/S, and many other devices. Video the same. Graphics also. Somewhat-formatted text as used in web pages also pretty much works out of the box. That one is not fully there yet but we're close. For final formatted text we're there already with pdf and ps formats. Not iso standard afaik but open and well documented, and supported well by many applications for many OSes.
The only problem left is the doc format for file exchanges between word processors. It is well supported nowadays by a.o. OO.o, but it's a hack. Using odf or another fully open and free standard would solve that one too. Even Word supporting odf well and defaulting to it's use would be fine, except we can't trust Microsoft in that.
If only say 20-30% is using not MS Office but another word processor and using .odf to exchange files, that may be enough already to have Word change it's ways. Look at what happened to IE when FF got 15% or so: they suddenly dropped all extras and went highly (for IE that is) standards-compliant and so far continue to move into that direction. And in the end that is what counts. Many people still use IE, many will continue to do so. Good for them. I like FF, others like Chrome, yet others Opera or whatever obscure browser: we can all do so without problems.
What do we care?
They may use OO.o, their own version branded Symphony, or what-ever.
The real point here is what EVERYBODY misses and that is that they are mandating saving in Open Document Format. That's what's important. They are a major company and they are now supporting an open format, which has by now maybe a dozen word processors supporting it.
For what I am concerned they continue using MS Word in half of their business, and save the documents in ODF. Then people who have some special needs can take their special-needs-word processor and have no problems with compatibility. Linux/Mac users are also happy. Maybe there are Solaris users around even - they will be happy not having to boot Windows just to read an e-mail attachment.
Remember folks, it's the use of open standards that counts. Not the actual implementation - as long as that implementation is correct and follows the standard well, I'm happy. MS Word's lock-in with its doc format is the problem, not MS Word as such.
Only if ext3 is not in your way with userIDs and so.
I have been reading a bit in this discussion and come to the following conclusion on what a proper FS for removable media should have:
And of course all the modern goodies: optimisation for SSD (writing all over the place to share the load), robustness against corruption in case of power outages (or removing the device when writes are in progress: a more common scenario but the same effect), and more of the like.
Now all we have to do is find some developers to design and implement this, and secondly to convince MS that it is a good idea to include in Windows. Though a special driver may also fit the bill, I hear Windows users are quite used to hunting down and install drivers for all their obscure hardware anyway.
And until we have this removable-FS, we will be stuck with FAT32 because it doesn't care about userIDs, and just works on any computer. After all it's one of the very very few FSs that are supported by Windows.
That are asymmetric connections, so extra horrible when you want to upload large stuff. This is not a business option either. It seems they have dedicated connections, otherwise I can't understand the high price the article mentions.
The pigeon had a 4 GB card, but they would have only a couple hundred MB per day to transfer.
Their ADSL carried 4% of that amount of data in just over two hours time, that comes down to 23,861 bytes per second (I am being liberal here by taking 4GB = 4x1024x1024x1024). At 8 bits per byte that is 190.887 bits per second. Or 186 kbit/s. That is less than three ISDN lines bundled (64 kbit each). Even in the US that speed may not even qualify as "broadband" (I don't know the exact norm over there, just that some ISPs want to lower the minimum speed that can be called "broadband" there, and US internet connections are not known for their great speeds). 186 kb that is what I get on my 3G mobile connection when the connection is poor.
According to the article linked from the previous /. posting, they pay about R45000 a month for their ADSL lines. That is almost USD 6,000. A lot of money for Internet service I would say, and that would be "business ADSL", not even dedicated lines. I currently pay just under USD 60 per month for a 2M/2M ADSL business line in Hong Kong. And South Africa may not be rich, it is also certainly not a developing country.
And to make it really interesting: at this speed they would be able to transfer 1.92 GB per day only. So the transfer of 4 GB of data would take more than two days.
Now they have only a couple hundred MB of data to transfer, say 300 MB for sake of the argument. That amount of data would take about 3h40m to transfer over their current line... I can imagine they are not happy with that. They should really considering sending a pigeon (or someone in a car, may be more reliable but likely slower than the pigeon) once a week carrying a 4GB or 8GB memory card. And ditch the ADSL or at least go for a cheaper option.