If the U.S. tripled the capacity of our electric grid,
What do you mean here? Put 3x as much windpower on the grid? Increased the amount of power the grid can move by a factor of 3? Interconnect the regional grids so that places not servable by wind turbines can be plugged in?
Why not simply collect grass clippings at curbside as part of regular garbage collection and run them through pyrolysis to convert it to viofuel?
Commercial sites could be encouraged to truck it to central processing facilities by simply making it free to dump grass, etc. there... instead of their having to pay a dump.
I think this deals with everybody's objections.
However, I think of this as more of a eco-friendly way to get rid of landscape waste than as a way to get energy... but every little bit helps.
We've all seen the talking points from the PR firms of the chemical and oil industries... your regurgitation of them adds nothing new.
If you're a "concerned citizen" who is reciting them and NOT getting paid, you're an idiot as well as a troll. Go check out Techcentralstation for how to get on the gravy train.
More recently I read that the abiogenic theory is quietly but not publicly accepted by most scientists involved, because the leading biogenesis adherents are highly influential.
Ever seen what happens in forums/newsgroups when a whacko on the wrong side of an issue asserts that he's getting lots of support from the community in e-mail from people too shy to speak out in public? Sounds like the same thing is happening here.
Scientists are not especially shy, and the researcher who can prove abiotic oil by showing the oil industry where to drill for it would probably become a multimillionaire in very, very short order... along with collecting some interesting prizes along the way.
The phrase that stuck in my mind was that abiogenesis is just "waiting for a few more obituaries," or words to that effect. I tried to find that article but no luck.
Don't bother, the International Energy Agency is NOT figuring this into their projections and has suddenly gone from "peak oil in 2050 maybe" to "start looking at alternative fuels RIGHT NOW" in the last couple of weeks.
Abiotic is dead, mourn it for a few seconds amd move the fuck on.
Your source of information appears to be *AA press releases... and is wrong.
If you oened the physical media, you had essentially a perpetual and reassignable license to it... if I bought a Metallica CD, I could resell it to you or a used record store and neither the band nor its label had any recourse.
The DMCA and similar legislation made it possible to use technological means to add licensing restrictions beyond what previous copyright laws assigned.
The problem with SS is minor. It'll keep paying out benefits at the future promised levels up to 2042 without changes. So there is time to fix the problem right, anyone who tells you different is after your vote or your money and should have the same credibility as an RIAA spokesdroid.
Basically, the real problem with SS is that the administrators don't have the flexibility a private enterprise pension fund has to change defined contributions, eligibility, or payments, as all of this stuff is defined by Federal law.
So every decade, the economy and the demographics change... and "Social Security is in peril" headlines follow. A few minor changes and a lot of political posturing later and the headlines go away along with the problem. The only serious real problem with SS at this point is that the GOP wants to reorganize it in such a way that favored "approved" investment funds will receive worker contributions and collect percentages for fund managment. Bush wants to borrow $2T to finance the changeover.
If the GOP doesn't manage to put across their privatizing program, aka "guaranteed annual income for favored investment funds" scheme, a few minor adjustments will be made and SS will be good to go for another 10 years or so. I've seen this happen a couple or three times since I got into the workforce, and I'm not exactly excited about the "CRISIS". If SS isn't piratized, there isn't going to be a problem. Period. (If you trust Rush Limbaugh's economic analytis skills, let him invest your money... and let us know what happens)
This isn't to say that we need a privatized old-age pension scheme. The Thatcher government tried this in the Reagan era, the Brits found out that universal private old=age pension put a great many people into the market who have no business in it, and they're discussing remodeling their pension system using the US SS program as a model.
The adjustment for increased longevity is sort of obvious, raise the retirement age. People living a few centuries might wind up pursuing many careers, or getting very, very, very good at one.
How about turning your toaster on, turning the gas valves on your rangetop on, and turning the ignitor OFF?
How about turning your hot tub up to 210 degrees F? (99C for furriners)
how about turning your refrigerator up to 100 degrees for a few hours a day... and cooling stuff off just before you get home.
I think the smart building concept is wonderful... but those who can probably should roll your own until you are certain that the security problems have been solved.
These companies don't want to do business with google?
I agree that google should give them exactly what they demand... in abundance.
The idea that any major corporation in a nation with peculiar laws should be permitted to in effect, censor the content of the rest of us doesn't deserve support.
Perhaps it's time for google.fr to replace its eearch page with a single page with no search box... saying "We will do business in France when your nation adopts laws compatible with technological civilization. If this is a problem for you, contact (insert home phone numbers for the President and the most powerful elected public officials in the French government.)
While Google has devolved from it's "do no evil" PR statement (try reporting a Usenet spammer empowered by Google to them... YOU try it, they don't really give a shit... if you want to post MAKE MONEY FAST, use googlegroups)... choosing up sides in a situation like this isn't hard at all.
talking points to recycle? The community of real scientists is united on the question of whether anthropgenic climate change is going on, it is.
Do you doubt the laws of physics as well? Do you think that George Bush can annul them at will? Do you think Rush Limbaugh can explain them away?
Your ability to boot Windows XP all by yourself doesn't make you a scientist. Or even an intelligent being whose opinions deserve respect.
You're either an idiot or an astroturfer who believes whatever the PR firm whose payroll you're on tells you.
If you're an idiot... I'm sure that a bit of research will show you which PR firms will pay you to spread the disinformation in your posts. There's quite a lot of money in this if you do it right, as a look at TechRepublic will show you... Techrepublic is the blogspace arm of a lobbyist firm.
If you're going to propagandize, you might as well get paid... otherwise you are really a fucking moron.
I'm a classical cynic. That means, among other things, I have little patience for modern cynicism, which is as ersatz as it is shallow. You're a modern cynic.
Your basis of criticism of "modern cynicism" appears to be that it's reality-based, i.e. based on making reasonable inferences based on the observable behavior of real people.
My viewpoint is based on real examples of the actions of real people along with a URL where the motivations of those real people can readily be ascertained.
Your post appears to be based on ninth-grade civics classes with an implicit plea "have patience, it's very hard to do this sort of thing right." while the available evidence shows that by and large, few if any legislators have interest in doing things "right" for the majority of their consituents or alternately, limit the definition of "constituent" to major campaign contributor.
While reality-based cynicism may be ersatz and shallow by your standards, at least I don't have to resort to elaborate rationalizations to support it.
But those of us who have not sold our souls to a belief in humanity's worst are quietly working to achieve humanity's best. Why don't you join us?
I'm working on an alternative energy project relating to biofuel and I've gotten far enough that I'm looking for development funding. What are you producing besides hot air?
Not that the average small business or SOHO user should need a case other than:
that white box is much more cost-effective
if the box breaks in warranty, you know who to go to with it and you can hassle them in person about it. The average user doesn't need a national service network for this. The corporate user might be better off building an ad-hoc local support network, judging from reports about major vendor customer service.
if the vendor goes out of business, it's all standared parts so any competent PC tech can fix it.
If you go TCPA, what happens if your vendor goes down and you need crypto-based support to fix machine internals? I suggest looking at HP if you think this impossible, there are a great many people who are dubious as to whether or not HP will survive Carly Fiorina for long.
It spreads because it reflects people's experience and the news, pretty much regardless of where people get their news.
You're telling us essentially, that laws are created by public servants whose only interest is the public good, and that these public servants get their campaign funding from corporations whose only interest is making the USA or wherever a better place to live?
Like to explain to us how the DMCA or the bankruptcy bill or laws forbidding municipalities to build their own broadband services even where there is no interest by private companies are doing so fits your version of how and why law is made?
Do you think nobody here knows about campaign financing detabases like OpenSecrets where we can find out for ourselves who are buying our poiiticians? "The good of the public" is the least likely motivation for a law to be passed.
The public contempt for the legal profession exists because it is deserved, and the people in law who deserve most contempt are the people who make it. As for why most legislators are lawyers... in general, an election gives the voter the choice between lawyers for any statewide or Federal public office.
Just as in the Soviet Union, one could vote for the Communist of one's choice.
on a product that a handful of graphics artists love, and everyone else who's tried the product runs screaming away in horror.
Perhaps this has something to do with an FOSS development team that really doesn't care what the users think or what users who would like to be able to use this stuff to make a living with need.
If an application doesn't do what the allegedly intended userbase needs it to do, putting a million hours into it is a circle jerk for the development team, not a useful contribution to Open Source.
Doesn't matter how many person-hours go into a project if the end result isn't useful to the developers and a handful of other people. If the GIMP development team find it it adequately supports their graphics needs, cool. Don't waste the time of the user community telling me how k3w1 and l337 it is... until the software will back up those words.
Certainly, I'd like to see GIMP turn into a usable professional-grade product on a par with Photoshop. I'd also like to see hell freeze over, I've never seen that happen, either. Which will happen first?
Since I've got work to do (for instance, editing screen shots for Yet Another Linux How-To article in progress), I've got an X-Window with Win4Lin/W98SE in it up all the time and I run Windows graphics program in it when I need serious vector or raster graphics.
I'm pinning my hopes on Linux alternatives to GIMP I've heard about in their early stages and that someday, Inkscape will be ready to replace my copy of Corel Draw.
As for "surly leech"... I've got an article published which will actually give a novice user the ability to make Linux backups using either a mirror drive or DVD (and my piece tells people how to make a backup individual files/directories can be recovered from)... and I'm about to have a similar piece published on how to actually get the Linux multimedia apps a typical user needs running at the same time.
IOW, I've actually written useful Linux documentation that doesn't take being a propeller-head to use. There isn't anything wrong with man files (info is an abomination) for the experienced Linux user, but to seize turf from MS, documentation adequate for the person who just bought a box with Linux preinstalled because he's sick of Windows malware needs to be provided.
Yes, I got paid. That's because my writing is worth paying for. There are a number of people paid by all the major commercial players in the Linux area, and they don't apologize for getting paid, either.
What have you done for Open Source lately? Anything? Or are you just another fanboy?
Slashdot Mirror
What do you mean here? Put 3x as much windpower on the grid? Increased the amount of power the grid can move by a factor of 3? Interconnect the regional grids so that places not servable by wind turbines can be plugged in?
Commercial sites could be encouraged to truck it to central processing facilities by simply making it free to dump grass, etc. there... instead of their having to pay a dump.
I think this deals with everybody's objections.
However, I think of this as more of a eco-friendly way to get rid of landscape waste than as a way to get energy... but every little bit helps.
Wouldn't it make sense to subsidize a few bloggers to spread the "good word"? (see also TCS)
The posts that look like collections of talking points created by ad agencies probably are.
replacing petroleum with renewable energy sources is a pipe dream.
See above. Unless you're figuring on our running out of sewage any time in the foreseeable future.
We've all seen the talking points from the PR firms of the chemical and oil industries... your regurgitation of them adds nothing new.
If you're a "concerned citizen" who is reciting them and NOT getting paid, you're an idiot as well as a troll. Go check out Techcentralstation for how to get on the gravy train.
For real information from actual scientists working in the field, the rest of slashdot can check out:
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://www.altenergyaction.org/
Ever seen what happens in forums/newsgroups when a whacko on the wrong side of an issue asserts that he's getting lots of support from the community in e-mail from people too shy to speak out in public? Sounds like the same thing is happening here.
Scientists are not especially shy, and the researcher who can prove abiotic oil by showing the oil industry where to drill for it would probably become a multimillionaire in very, very short order... along with collecting some interesting prizes along the way.
The phrase that stuck in my mind was that abiogenesis is just "waiting for a few more obituaries," or words to that effect. I tried to find that article but no luck.
Don't bother, the International Energy Agency is NOT figuring this into their projections and has suddenly gone from "peak oil in 2050 maybe" to "start looking at alternative fuels RIGHT NOW" in the last couple of weeks.
Abiotic is dead, mourn it for a few seconds amd move the fuck on.
Biofuels either grab CO2 out of the atmosphere or intercept CO2 which would have gone into the atmosphere.
That's why scientists accept biofuel as carbon neutral.
WIND POWER IS NOT A UNIVERSAL SOLUTION.
Replace Outhouse Express with almost anything else, put some time and thought into porting address books and mail folders...
Major security problems would remain, but this would make the most dangerous problems disappear imemdiately.
If you oened the physical media, you had essentially a perpetual and reassignable license to it... if I bought a Metallica CD, I could resell it to you or a used record store and neither the band nor its label had any recourse.
The DMCA and similar legislation made it possible to use technological means to add licensing restrictions beyond what previous copyright laws assigned.
I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
chortle. If the story were true, it would be just another case of a retailer ignoring public demand and Darwinizing himself.
Now go back to your bosses at that PR firm and tell them you failed again.
I found this post as metamod, and I now go to give this tale the review it deserves.
So every decade, the economy and the demographics change... and "Social Security is in peril" headlines follow. A few minor changes and a lot of political posturing later and the headlines go away along with the problem. The only serious real problem with SS at this point is that the GOP wants to reorganize it in such a way that favored "approved" investment funds will receive worker contributions and collect percentages for fund managment. Bush wants to borrow $2T to finance the changeover.
If the GOP doesn't manage to put across their privatizing program, aka "guaranteed annual income for favored investment funds" scheme, a few minor adjustments will be made and SS will be good to go for another 10 years or so. I've seen this happen a couple or three times since I got into the workforce, and I'm not exactly excited about the "CRISIS". If SS isn't piratized, there isn't going to be a problem. Period. (If you trust Rush Limbaugh's economic analytis skills, let him invest your money... and let us know what happens)
This isn't to say that we need a privatized old-age pension scheme. The Thatcher government tried this in the Reagan era, the Brits found out that universal private old=age pension put a great many people into the market who have no business in it, and they're discussing remodeling their pension system using the US SS program as a model.
The adjustment for increased longevity is sort of obvious, raise the retirement age. People living a few centuries might wind up pursuing many careers, or getting very, very, very good at one.
And they want to make ISPs require TCPA for Internet access?
I'm sure that TCPA advocates will be telling us that this is impossible...
Of course, the Titanic was unsinkable, too.
How about turning your hot tub up to 210 degrees F? (99C for furriners)
how about turning your refrigerator up to 100 degrees for a few hours a day... and cooling stuff off just before you get home.
I think the smart building concept is wonderful... but those who can probably should roll your own until you are certain that the security problems have been solved.
I agree that google should give them exactly what they demand... in abundance.
The idea that any major corporation in a nation with peculiar laws should be permitted to in effect, censor the content of the rest of us doesn't deserve support.
Perhaps it's time for google.fr to replace its eearch page with a single page with no search box... saying "We will do business in France when your nation adopts laws compatible with technological civilization. If this is a problem for you, contact (insert home phone numbers for the President and the most powerful elected public officials in the French government.)
While Google has devolved from it's "do no evil" PR statement (try reporting a Usenet spammer empowered by Google to them... YOU try it, they don't really give a shit... if you want to post MAKE MONEY FAST, use googlegroups)... choosing up sides in a situation like this isn't hard at all.
Do you doubt the laws of physics as well? Do you think that George Bush can annul them at will? Do you think Rush Limbaugh can explain them away?
Your ability to boot Windows XP all by yourself doesn't make you a scientist. Or even an intelligent being whose opinions deserve respect.
You're either an idiot or an astroturfer who believes whatever the PR firm whose payroll you're on tells you.
If you're an idiot... I'm sure that a bit of research will show you which PR firms will pay you to spread the disinformation in your posts. There's quite a lot of money in this if you do it right, as a look at TechRepublic will show you... Techrepublic is the blogspace arm of a lobbyist firm.
If you're going to propagandize, you might as well get paid... otherwise you are really a fucking moron.
However, we can destroy our technological civilization, and watching current trends indicates that this is what's going on.
Google on "Hubbert peak"... or try reading the happy news at to see what's really going on.
If breathing out of gas masks is the worst thing we have to put up with by 2020, we as a species are far luckier than we deserve.
Your basis of criticism of "modern cynicism" appears to be that it's reality-based, i.e. based on making reasonable inferences based on the observable behavior of real people.
My viewpoint is based on real examples of the actions of real people along with a URL where the motivations of those real people can readily be ascertained.
Your post appears to be based on ninth-grade civics classes with an implicit plea "have patience, it's very hard to do this sort of thing right." while the available evidence shows that by and large, few if any legislators have interest in doing things "right" for the majority of their consituents or alternately, limit the definition of "constituent" to major campaign contributor.
While reality-based cynicism may be ersatz and shallow by your standards, at least I don't have to resort to elaborate rationalizations to support it.
But those of us who have not sold our souls to a belief in humanity's worst are quietly working to achieve humanity's best. Why don't you join us?
I'm working on an alternative energy project relating to biofuel and I've gotten far enough that I'm looking for development funding. What are you producing besides hot air?
You're telling us essentially, that laws are created by public servants whose only interest is the public good, and that these public servants get their campaign funding from corporations whose only interest is making the USA or wherever a better place to live?
Like to explain to us how the DMCA or the bankruptcy bill or laws forbidding municipalities to build their own broadband services even where there is no interest by private companies are doing so fits your version of how and why law is made?
Do you think nobody here knows about campaign financing detabases like OpenSecrets where we can find out for ourselves who are buying our poiiticians? "The good of the public" is the least likely motivation for a law to be passed.
The public contempt for the legal profession exists because it is deserved, and the people in law who deserve most contempt are the people who make it. As for why most legislators are lawyers... in general, an election gives the voter the choice between lawyers for any statewide or Federal public office.
Just as in the Soviet Union, one could vote for the Communist of one's choice.
What are the sources for your assertions other than statements of the Bush Administration, and why should we believe either them or you?
Perhaps this has something to do with an FOSS development team that really doesn't care what the users think or what users who would like to be able to use this stuff to make a living with need.
If an application doesn't do what the allegedly intended userbase needs it to do, putting a million hours into it is a circle jerk for the development team, not a useful contribution to Open Source.
Doesn't matter how many person-hours go into a project if the end result isn't useful to the developers and a handful of other people. If the GIMP development team find it it adequately supports their graphics needs, cool. Don't waste the time of the user community telling me how k3w1 and l337 it is... until the software will back up those words.
Certainly, I'd like to see GIMP turn into a usable professional-grade product on a par with Photoshop. I'd also like to see hell freeze over, I've never seen that happen, either. Which will happen first?
Since I've got work to do (for instance, editing screen shots for Yet Another Linux How-To article in progress), I've got an X-Window with Win4Lin/W98SE in it up all the time and I run Windows graphics program in it when I need serious vector or raster graphics.
I'm pinning my hopes on Linux alternatives to GIMP I've heard about in their early stages and that someday, Inkscape will be ready to replace my copy of Corel Draw.
As for "surly leech"... I've got an article published which will actually give a novice user the ability to make Linux backups using either a mirror drive or DVD (and my piece tells people how to make a backup individual files/directories can be recovered from)... and I'm about to have a similar piece published on how to actually get the Linux multimedia apps a typical user needs running at the same time.
IOW, I've actually written useful Linux documentation that doesn't take being a propeller-head to use. There isn't anything wrong with man files (info is an abomination) for the experienced Linux user, but to seize turf from MS, documentation adequate for the person who just bought a box with Linux preinstalled because he's sick of Windows malware needs to be provided.
Yes, I got paid. That's because my writing is worth paying for. There are a number of people paid by all the major commercial players in the Linux area, and they don't apologize for getting paid, either.
What have you done for Open Source lately? Anything? Or are you just another fanboy?
of his getting a job in the Bush Administration or the Republican National Committee/
People bugged out by the hundreds of thousands, and the offending policy was changed within days.
MS denied the story later, you can believe the demial if you please, but if you do, "want to buy some land"?
IMHO, NO, WE CAN'T TRUST THE SOURCE
Remember, I can only respond to what you said, not what you meant.