The idea of buying a good turntable and purchasing some viynl records intrigued me, as I like to explore different interesting things like that--until I saw the price tag. $10,000+ for a high quality turntable setup, with the best setups costing $50,000+? While I would buy a setup like that if I had money to burn, it's absolutely not needed. I use a Technics SL1200MK5 Turntable (about $450-480) and Ortofon Concorde cartridges (about $125-140), played through an old, very modest amp and speakers. None of it is anywhere near audiophile quality - the turntable and cartridges are from years spent as a DJ - and the results are great.
The enjoyment I get out of it isn't just about the audio quality (although in some cases it is much better on vinyl). It's hard to explain, but the act of digging through a crate full of records, handling the vinyl, dropping the needle, even the light crackling sound you get on old records during the silent moments, it all adds to the experience. It's much more involved than just dropping in a CD or playing a file.
And, as a great bonus, you can pick up all sorts of old music you otherwise wouldn't have heard for pennies at a pawn shop, thrift store, Goodwill, etc. I made a habit of going through the records at thrift stores, buying anything with an album cover that interested me or made me laugh. Most of it was horrible, but for anywhere from 50 cents to $1.99 each you're not out much.
there is also a company out there (sorry, I can't remember the name) that will take the cremated ashes of a relative and turn them into a diamond. LifeGem. They made news a while ago for creating diamonds from locks of Beethoven's hair.
That said, I've seen some very, very high quality diamonds (I forget the correct way to refer to it, but it was around 2 carats, no inclusions, and a D - completely colorless. Essentially, diamonds don't come any higher quality). Side by side with a nice piece of moissanite, I'd take the moissanite. A quick search on it will find better sources and images that show why, exactly, but I don't want to link to a commercial site and seem biased.
I thought it was fairly standard when doing usability trials to include a wide range of users, with a wide range of abilities. What's good for the n00b might not be right for a poweruser. Agreed, 100%. At the risk of starting a flame war, the same could be said for almost any user interface - Gnome vs. KDE vs. OS X vs. Windows Vista vs. Windows XP being the most contentious of them here on Slashdot I imagine (listed in alphabetical order to avoid preferential treatment). Some are designed to be used for power users out of the box, some for beginners, but the true strength of an interface is flexibility. Design an interface that works for many people by all means, that's great. What is even better is to let people work out a system that works for them. Don't force the user to adapt to your interface, let the interface adapt to the user in a way that makes sense for them.
Bringing it back to the concept of 52 button remotes, I simply don't think that's needed. Half the number of buttons, provide a more intelligent, context aware system, and I imagine many people would have an easier time using it. Watching many older and/or less tech savvy people using a remote, it seems to me like a large portion of their time is used up staring at the huge array of things sitting in front of them - at least 75% of which don't have anything to do with what they're doing. Programmable touchscreen remotes are a step in the right direction, but without the tactile input it's severely lacking (even if you know the layout, you still need to look down to verify what you're doing).
I believe the largest remote I've had was 50 buttons, and I could use it to do anything I wanted to blindfolded (going as far as changing advanced settings on my receiver, I knew the settings it had and the way it cycled through options). Hell, I've got 40 buttons worth of joystick hooked up to my PC at the moment, and know all of them well. That's easy enough for me. I'm pretty far from the standard user though, and I would never expect someone who just wanted to sit down and watch some TV or a movie to deal with that.
Heh, flamebait? I guess I forgot my sarcasm tags... I suppose the "everyone makes mistakes, and it really shouldn't be a big deal" subtext was a bit subtle, and not even the preview button can help me out with that. *shrugs*
As an aside, who discovered "snorting" as a delivery mechanism for drugs (as opposed to eating or smoking)? And why do people only snort certain drugs, what makes those particular ones suitable? There's a surprisingly detailed history on the insufflation page over at Wikipedia. As for what makes something suitable? Water soluble, with small enough molecules to make it through the mucus membrane, and that doesn't cause an unbearable amount of irritation. I'm sure I'm missing quite a few things that would factor in to it, but I believe those are the most important ones.
Since this involves glasses with LEDs mounted on the sides, I'd love to see this combined with the variousglasses out there for stereoscopy.
Polarized filters and LCD shutters aren't anything new, and I'm sure they've been combined with head tracking before... But I don't think it's ever been quite as accessible as it is now. Stereoscopy + head tracking + a pointing device like the Wii remote could make for one hell of game.
I'm still kicking myself for not visiting this place the last time I was in CA. I was there to visit with my girlfriend at the time and meet her family - it turns out her dad made a pretty substantial donation to the museum. I believe it may have been a T/16, but that's just a guess - my memories of talking to him about it are pretty hazy. I tried to find out more on their website, but unfortunately they don't have anything mentioning donations on there (though his name is on a plaque at the museum from what I hear).
Okay, so Google is the all-seeing eye, grabbing up bits and pieces of data from the people who use it - yes, I know. That said, they did sponsor one talk that I found very interesting, and now seems like an appropriate time to share it. Policy@Google - Digital Search & Seizure
How much is it going to take for people to stand up against this? Lots of people may be upset and complaining about it, but as Thoreau said: "The are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
KDE4 is not out yet. What KDE4 devs call a "release candidate" is not the same normal definition of a release candidate. That may be the case, and I can't say that I've checked out RC2 yet - so I'm not exactly the most qualified to comment on this. That said, if what was said about configuring the panel is true, I'd say it's a big problem. After all, judging by the KDE 4 RC2 release notes, "The codebase is now feature-complete".
I'll probably give it a go tomorrow, and I hope my experience proves the GP wrong. I've mainly been using GNOME, loading up a KDE session here and there, but it just hasn't thrilled me for the most part. I'm really hoping KDE4 changes that.
Given the forces experiences at takeoff on a 747 (roughly.25 g from the reference I found), it would only require about 12 minutes to of constant acceleration to reach mach 5. I think most people could handle 12 minutes of.25 g for getting up to speed and slowing down. Doing some back of the napkin quality math, that means flying to anywhere in the world in less than 4 hours it seems.
There's a lot to overcome to get to that point. That said, if it's within reach, and if it can be done without major sacrifices when it comes to fuel economy, then it's certainly worthy of the time and effort. Unfortunately you're spot on when it comes to the capacity of airports, and that would be one area that would need drastic improvements if this became commercially viable.
Disclaimer: I've been drinking, and my numbers could very well be wrong. What I came up with was.25 g = 2.4525 m/s^2. 12 minutes later, that leads to a velocity of around 3,950 mph (a little over mach 5). Using the Google Maps "drill through the earth" thing, I came up with a distance of around 12,250 miles to go from one point to the furthest point possible. Anyway, take this with a grain of salt - mod down if my numbers seem wrong, but please hesitate and make sure this is at least somewhere near correct before you mod up (there's enough blatantly wrong information sitting at +3 to +5 as it is).
So? When was the last time you saw anyone use 'sardoodledom' (one of the other nominees)? That's quite a conundrum. I'm not trying to start a blamestorm here, but it appears you may be an apathetic charlatan. Sardoodledom.
Yep, completely offtopic, and I deserve to be modded down. Go ahead, I've got karma to burn. Before you do, please at least watch the videos I linked. If you do, I think you may just understand why I consider it brain bleach.
Same shit every Christmas just with a different name. Kids want the same 'cool' toy, so mothers (and some times fathers, but usually mothers) turn up at Toys 'r' US at 3am every day waiting for the next shipment then end up in near fist fights over it. It's been going on for as many years as I can remember, the only difference is the cost of the wii is much greater than the cost of a Furby or Buzz Lightyear was. It's getting worse as far as I can tell. Watching news in this area just before black friday, I saw stories that featured:
* All hotels near shopping malls being booked solid.
* People spending days mapping out shopping malls on graph paper, down to every isle in every store, and where the items they want to purchase are.
* A woman saying that this is here first year really going out, and saying that her planning was "more like a military action than a shopping trip".
* A woman saying that if they saw someone who had an item she wanted, they may get knocked out.
I had never seen anything like that in this area, and this was all from people who I'm sure are your average, suburbanite, soccer mom types. It seemed like they really had a bloodlust for bargains, and they weren't afraid to admit it. Whether that's because of a change in media coverage or a change in attitude, I can't say. What I do know is that it's absolutely disgusting, and it's a symptom of so many things that are wrong in society in my opinion.
i'd much rather the surgeon be worrying about keeping me alive while under the knife, not worrying about how many sponges he has used. I agree completely. I would absolutely want the surgeon focused on keeping me alive = but I certainly wouldn't complain if they had an intern stand around and keep track of things like that. Good learning experience (getting to watch all sorts of surgeries), they get to do something that could potentially save my life, and I don't have to worry about them being in a position to make a critical mistake. Another pair of eyes watching for simple mixups seems like a winner to me.
Chances are that was EMLA cream (Eutectic Mixture of Local Anesthetics). Basically a lido/prilocaine topical. According to the linked article, it numbs around 3-5mm deep after being in place for 60-120 minutes. Less for thicker skin, or anything deeper then the dermis. I'm guessing they slapped it on there, had you wait a few minutes (far less than an hour I'm sure), and then did the draw.
Why the hell they would bother is beyond me. The only reasons I can think of would be to help someone who was nervous think they'd be numb, or to add another thing to bill for. Applied properly, it does help a bit - takes things down from a sharp sting to more of a dull one in my experience. Nothing amazing in any case.
It's been a while... I was just reading through some older comments, and I just wanted to assure you that this is far from FUD. If you feel like verifying it, check out the zip code 83843, 84844, 99163, 99164, or 99165 on zap2it - I believe any of those should return correctly. FOX used to be channel 9 - you won't find it anywhere on the list now though.
In a few weeks, this market will have gone almost a full year without FOX. They pulled it off of cable December 14th, and after a week or so of getting static on the channel, they later replaced it with Turner Classic Movies.
In their defense, as a token gesture they did give people a week or two of some free crappy network that played repeats of old football games for a while if I remember right - all the while trying to convince people that they were better off, and that they should pay more money than they already were so that they could continue getting that handout once they took it away.
Here's an old article about the situation. The only thing I've seen since then was a large marketing campaign showing TW workers saying "we apologize for the inconvenience", the football repeats, and some more "yeah, sorry, we suck" ads. Even those have vanished lately.
Tried games with and without DX10, let me tell you ain't nothing to be excited about that I saw. I couldn't agree more. I've got a pretty decent gaming rig (Dual boot Windows/Linux - each has their own RAID-0 setup on 10k RPM SATA-II drives, with swap for Windows on the Linux RAID and vice versa. 8800GTX. E6700 stable at up to at least 3.3ghz, though I run it at 3ghz with active cooling that keeps it around 25C-30C fully loaded. 2gb PC2-9600 RAM.)
I tried out Vista for a few games, and just found that it wasn't worth it. The improvements in quality were marginal from what I could tell. Certainly not worth switching over from XP for my gaming platform. I suspect that by the time I may be motivated to make the transition, WINE or Cedega will likely take care of me just fine.
Been a while since I checked replies, but just let me say, thank you! I was struggling to remember the name of those things when I first posted... That was one of the things presented to me on one of my first days in a glass shop - somewhere between flame polishing, pulling points, puntys, and "mushroom beads".
I first found out about them by accident. Had a mason jar full of water at my bench that was mainly used to quench and break off glass that I didn't need. Had a drop form on accident, and the guy who was standing over my shoulder basically said "oh shit! check this out!". I didn't have a hammer and vice around, but I had my steel workbench, and ending up cracking a cheap graphite marvering paddle over it, before snapping the tail on it and watching it self destruct.
Glass is an amazing thing... In that form, it's almost indestructible. At the same time, I can take a piece of it that I could throw against a cement wall and not break, put a scratch in it, and then snap it like a twig in my hands. I wish I had Airgas - or anyone with decent prices nearby. I'd love to break out my torch... When I bought it, Airgas was 3 blocks away. I didn't have a place to set up shop at that time. Now that I do, if I want LOX I have to have to get it from somewhere 2 hours away, at more than twice the price.
In any case, I would have loved to have seen those lightbulb sized drops. I'd gladly pay for the chance to take a sledgehammer to one, just out of curiosity.
The problem with the business platform is that it was built for the sole purpose of selling services, therefore when it eventually works and there's less demand for services (data recovery, repairs, etc.) it must be tagged as obsolete and replaced by something newer and shinier but still defective in order to generate again a strong demand for services. Elliot Carver: Mr. Jones, are we ready to release our new software?
Jones: Yes, sir. As requested, it's full of bugs, which means people will be forced to upgrade for years.
Elliot Carver: Outstanding.
Portland, OR has a fantastic mapping tool that is just begging to have it's features copied by Google Maps. Practically everything that is public record is on Portland Maps. Everything from the owners of buildings, assessed values, property taxes, type of building. Even the type of foundation, number of fireplaces, plumbing, etc. is available for some buildings. And current/past building permits, nearest schools and parks. And then there's a map of the flood plains, utilities (water and sewer, down to drinking fountains and manhole covers), crime rates, and on and on.
It's certainly not viable for Google to go through adding that level of detail, but a quick look at the level of information available on that site really makes Google Maps look pretty poor in comparison. Having all of that information is available as an overlay layer for Google Earth is a nice touch though.
Agreed, and the NIMBY attitude affects everything from solar cells and wind turbines, to coal, to nuclear. I've been amazed by hearing people who say that having a wind turbine somewhere nearby somehow hurts them because it's an "eyesore". Maybe if it was in front of your oceanside house, and blocking your view? Yeah, okay. But I've heard it from people who live in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to view but... Well, nothing! The NIMBY attitude sucks.
Yucca Mountain does have it's issues however. Fault lines and fractures could mean contamination of the water table. In any case, my overall point was the cost of maintaining storage facilities compared to the cost of investing in renewable energy... Even assuming Yucca Mountain has no seismic activity that causes problems, how much is it going to cost to keep it in good repair until the radioactive waste is no longer a threat?
As I said, some radioactive waste can take upwards of a million years to decay to safe levels. Even assuming it only took one person, at $8 an hour, to keep things running and provide security, that's a cost of $700,800,000,000. For one person, over it's lifetime, and with a very low rate of pay you're looking at almost a trillion dollars. Multiply that by how many people would really be required to operate and secure the place. And then add in construction and upkeep. Oh, and add in the cost of building nuclear plants. Oh, and mining, refining, storing, and securing fissile materials, as well as transporting it there.
Once you've done that, ask yourself - is it better to make a massive long term investment in nuclear power, or is it better to spend a couple extra bucks and work on developing renewable energy now?
Nuclear is an excellent short term fix, but cold war frightfuls and hippies with no evidence damn it on near-superstition alone. I only lived through the last years of the cold war, and I am very liberal and in general a pacifist. I guess that makes me a hippy, and I'll wear that title with pride. That said, not all hippies are unwashed, uninformed idealists, ignoring all evidence in favor of our ideals. In fact, I know lots of people who would call themselves "hippies", who absolutely hate the stereotype that goes along with the word.
As far as nuclear? Well, you're half right - it is a short term fix. I'm not concerned about meltdowns, especially in more modern plants. And even given the reports that people have been able to sneak into plants, I'm not worried about terrorist attacks against nuclear facilities... But what does concern me is the long term problem - storage of nuclear waste.
Some waste will be a hazard for millions of years. Given the storage issues at places like Hanford, which has only been operating since 1943, planning for millions of years seems so far beyond our capabilities that it's absolutely insane to count on that.
Sure, technology will improve, containment procedures will improve... But look at it in the long term. How much is building that nuclear plant going to cost? Okay, maybe that's less than what building renewable energy would. Now, add in how much is it going to cost, over the next million years, to keep the radioactive waste isolated.
Wind, solar, hydrogen - that's the future, and that's where money should be going. The more money that goes to it, the cheaper it will become. More investments mean more R&D money to improve efficiency, and more sales means the law of scales takes over - parts become cheaper, more competition lowers prices, and on and on. Add in the benefit of distributed power generation, and it seems obvious to me. It may cost a bit more in the short term, but it's well worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
The enjoyment I get out of it isn't just about the audio quality (although in some cases it is much better on vinyl). It's hard to explain, but the act of digging through a crate full of records, handling the vinyl, dropping the needle, even the light crackling sound you get on old records during the silent moments, it all adds to the experience. It's much more involved than just dropping in a CD or playing a file.
And, as a great bonus, you can pick up all sorts of old music you otherwise wouldn't have heard for pennies at a pawn shop, thrift store, Goodwill, etc. I made a habit of going through the records at thrift stores, buying anything with an album cover that interested me or made me laugh. Most of it was horrible, but for anywhere from 50 cents to $1.99 each you're not out much.
That said, I've seen some very, very high quality diamonds (I forget the correct way to refer to it, but it was around 2 carats, no inclusions, and a D - completely colorless. Essentially, diamonds don't come any higher quality). Side by side with a nice piece of moissanite, I'd take the moissanite. A quick search on it will find better sources and images that show why, exactly, but I don't want to link to a commercial site and seem biased.
Bringing it back to the concept of 52 button remotes, I simply don't think that's needed. Half the number of buttons, provide a more intelligent, context aware system, and I imagine many people would have an easier time using it. Watching many older and/or less tech savvy people using a remote, it seems to me like a large portion of their time is used up staring at the huge array of things sitting in front of them - at least 75% of which don't have anything to do with what they're doing. Programmable touchscreen remotes are a step in the right direction, but without the tactile input it's severely lacking (even if you know the layout, you still need to look down to verify what you're doing).
I believe the largest remote I've had was 50 buttons, and I could use it to do anything I wanted to blindfolded (going as far as changing advanced settings on my receiver, I knew the settings it had and the way it cycled through options). Hell, I've got 40 buttons worth of joystick hooked up to my PC at the moment, and know all of them well. That's easy enough for me. I'm pretty far from the standard user though, and I would never expect someone who just wanted to sit down and watch some TV or a movie to deal with that.
Heh, flamebait? I guess I forgot my sarcasm tags... I suppose the "everyone makes mistakes, and it really shouldn't be a big deal" subtext was a bit subtle, and not even the preview button can help me out with that. *shrugs*
Oh... Wait...
Carry on then.
Since this involves glasses with LEDs mounted on the sides, I'd love to see this combined with the various glasses out there for stereoscopy.
Polarized filters and LCD shutters aren't anything new, and I'm sure they've been combined with head tracking before... But I don't think it's ever been quite as accessible as it is now. Stereoscopy + head tracking + a pointing device like the Wii remote could make for one hell of game.
I'm still kicking myself for not visiting this place the last time I was in CA. I was there to visit with my girlfriend at the time and meet her family - it turns out her dad made a pretty substantial donation to the museum. I believe it may have been a T/16, but that's just a guess - my memories of talking to him about it are pretty hazy. I tried to find out more on their website, but unfortunately they don't have anything mentioning donations on there (though his name is on a plaque at the museum from what I hear).
Hmmm... I'll have to look into this some more.
Okay, so Google is the all-seeing eye, grabbing up bits and pieces of data from the people who use it - yes, I know. That said, they did sponsor one talk that I found very interesting, and now seems like an appropriate time to share it. Policy@Google - Digital Search & Seizure
How much is it going to take for people to stand up against this? Lots of people may be upset and complaining about it, but as Thoreau said: "The are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
Note to mods: When I lived in Portland, I knew a real bearded woman. I'm pretty sure this should be insightful, not funny...
You meet some interesting people when you know some of Ken Kesey's old friends.
I'll probably give it a go tomorrow, and I hope my experience proves the GP wrong. I've mainly been using GNOME, loading up a KDE session here and there, but it just hasn't thrilled me for the most part. I'm really hoping KDE4 changes that.
Given the forces experiences at takeoff on a 747 (roughly .25 g from the reference I found), it would only require about 12 minutes to of constant acceleration to reach mach 5. I think most people could handle 12 minutes of .25 g for getting up to speed and slowing down. Doing some back of the napkin quality math, that means flying to anywhere in the world in less than 4 hours it seems.
.25 g = 2.4525 m/s^2. 12 minutes later, that leads to a velocity of around 3,950 mph (a little over mach 5). Using the Google Maps "drill through the earth" thing, I came up with a distance of around 12,250 miles to go from one point to the furthest point possible. Anyway, take this with a grain of salt - mod down if my numbers seem wrong, but please hesitate and make sure this is at least somewhere near correct before you mod up (there's enough blatantly wrong information sitting at +3 to +5 as it is).
There's a lot to overcome to get to that point. That said, if it's within reach, and if it can be done without major sacrifices when it comes to fuel economy, then it's certainly worthy of the time and effort. Unfortunately you're spot on when it comes to the capacity of airports, and that would be one area that would need drastic improvements if this became commercially viable.
Disclaimer: I've been drinking, and my numbers could very well be wrong. What I came up with was
Sorry, someone had to do it (w00t!).
Heh, your sig couldn't be more fitting. Bravo, sir. Bravo.
Now then, where is that brain bleach so I can wipe Don't Copy That Floppy from my memory...
That's right... there it is.
Yep, completely offtopic, and I deserve to be modded down. Go ahead, I've got karma to burn. Before you do, please at least watch the videos I linked. If you do, I think you may just understand why I consider it brain bleach.
Roots!
Damn you, I only came here to post that. I'd spend my last mod point on you, but you're already +5. Bastard.
* All hotels near shopping malls being booked solid.
* People spending days mapping out shopping malls on graph paper, down to every isle in every store, and where the items they want to purchase are.
* A woman saying that this is here first year really going out, and saying that her planning was "more like a military action than a shopping trip".
* A woman saying that if they saw someone who had an item she wanted, they may get knocked out.
I had never seen anything like that in this area, and this was all from people who I'm sure are your average, suburbanite, soccer mom types. It seemed like they really had a bloodlust for bargains, and they weren't afraid to admit it. Whether that's because of a change in media coverage or a change in attitude, I can't say. What I do know is that it's absolutely disgusting, and it's a symptom of so many things that are wrong in society in my opinion.
Chances are that was EMLA cream (Eutectic Mixture of Local Anesthetics). Basically a lido/prilocaine topical. According to the linked article, it numbs around 3-5mm deep after being in place for 60-120 minutes. Less for thicker skin, or anything deeper then the dermis. I'm guessing they slapped it on there, had you wait a few minutes (far less than an hour I'm sure), and then did the draw.
Why the hell they would bother is beyond me. The only reasons I can think of would be to help someone who was nervous think they'd be numb, or to add another thing to bill for. Applied properly, it does help a bit - takes things down from a sharp sting to more of a dull one in my experience. Nothing amazing in any case.
It's been a while... I was just reading through some older comments, and I just wanted to assure you that this is far from FUD. If you feel like verifying it, check out the zip code 83843, 84844, 99163, 99164, or 99165 on zap2it - I believe any of those should return correctly. FOX used to be channel 9 - you won't find it anywhere on the list now though.
In a few weeks, this market will have gone almost a full year without FOX. They pulled it off of cable December 14th, and after a week or so of getting static on the channel, they later replaced it with Turner Classic Movies.
In their defense, as a token gesture they did give people a week or two of some free crappy network that played repeats of old football games for a while if I remember right - all the while trying to convince people that they were better off, and that they should pay more money than they already were so that they could continue getting that handout once they took it away.
Here's an old article about the situation. The only thing I've seen since then was a large marketing campaign showing TW workers saying "we apologize for the inconvenience", the football repeats, and some more "yeah, sorry, we suck" ads. Even those have vanished lately.
I tried out Vista for a few games, and just found that it wasn't worth it. The improvements in quality were marginal from what I could tell. Certainly not worth switching over from XP for my gaming platform. I suspect that by the time I may be motivated to make the transition, WINE or Cedega will likely take care of me just fine.
Been a while since I checked replies, but just let me say, thank you! I was struggling to remember the name of those things when I first posted... That was one of the things presented to me on one of my first days in a glass shop - somewhere between flame polishing, pulling points, puntys, and "mushroom beads".
I first found out about them by accident. Had a mason jar full of water at my bench that was mainly used to quench and break off glass that I didn't need. Had a drop form on accident, and the guy who was standing over my shoulder basically said "oh shit! check this out!". I didn't have a hammer and vice around, but I had my steel workbench, and ending up cracking a cheap graphite marvering paddle over it, before snapping the tail on it and watching it self destruct.
Glass is an amazing thing... In that form, it's almost indestructible. At the same time, I can take a piece of it that I could throw against a cement wall and not break, put a scratch in it, and then snap it like a twig in my hands. I wish I had Airgas - or anyone with decent prices nearby. I'd love to break out my torch... When I bought it, Airgas was 3 blocks away. I didn't have a place to set up shop at that time. Now that I do, if I want LOX I have to have to get it from somewhere 2 hours away, at more than twice the price.
In any case, I would have loved to have seen those lightbulb sized drops. I'd gladly pay for the chance to take a sledgehammer to one, just out of curiosity.
Jones: Yes, sir. As requested, it's full of bugs, which means people will be forced to upgrade for years.
Elliot Carver: Outstanding.
Obligatory Tomorrow Never Dies.
Portland, OR has a fantastic mapping tool that is just begging to have it's features copied by Google Maps. Practically everything that is public record is on Portland Maps. Everything from the owners of buildings, assessed values, property taxes, type of building. Even the type of foundation, number of fireplaces, plumbing, etc. is available for some buildings. And current/past building permits, nearest schools and parks. And then there's a map of the flood plains, utilities (water and sewer, down to drinking fountains and manhole covers), crime rates, and on and on.
It's certainly not viable for Google to go through adding that level of detail, but a quick look at the level of information available on that site really makes Google Maps look pretty poor in comparison. Having all of that information is available as an overlay layer for Google Earth is a nice touch though.
Agreed, and the NIMBY attitude affects everything from solar cells and wind turbines, to coal, to nuclear. I've been amazed by hearing people who say that having a wind turbine somewhere nearby somehow hurts them because it's an "eyesore". Maybe if it was in front of your oceanside house, and blocking your view? Yeah, okay. But I've heard it from people who live in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to view but... Well, nothing! The NIMBY attitude sucks.
Yucca Mountain does have it's issues however. Fault lines and fractures could mean contamination of the water table. In any case, my overall point was the cost of maintaining storage facilities compared to the cost of investing in renewable energy... Even assuming Yucca Mountain has no seismic activity that causes problems, how much is it going to cost to keep it in good repair until the radioactive waste is no longer a threat?
As I said, some radioactive waste can take upwards of a million years to decay to safe levels. Even assuming it only took one person, at $8 an hour, to keep things running and provide security, that's a cost of $700,800,000,000. For one person, over it's lifetime, and with a very low rate of pay you're looking at almost a trillion dollars. Multiply that by how many people would really be required to operate and secure the place. And then add in construction and upkeep. Oh, and add in the cost of building nuclear plants. Oh, and mining, refining, storing, and securing fissile materials, as well as transporting it there.
Once you've done that, ask yourself - is it better to make a massive long term investment in nuclear power, or is it better to spend a couple extra bucks and work on developing renewable energy now?
As far as nuclear? Well, you're half right - it is a short term fix. I'm not concerned about meltdowns, especially in more modern plants. And even given the reports that people have been able to sneak into plants, I'm not worried about terrorist attacks against nuclear facilities... But what does concern me is the long term problem - storage of nuclear waste.
Some waste will be a hazard for millions of years. Given the storage issues at places like Hanford, which has only been operating since 1943, planning for millions of years seems so far beyond our capabilities that it's absolutely insane to count on that.
Sure, technology will improve, containment procedures will improve... But look at it in the long term. How much is building that nuclear plant going to cost? Okay, maybe that's less than what building renewable energy would. Now, add in how much is it going to cost, over the next million years, to keep the radioactive waste isolated.
Wind, solar, hydrogen - that's the future, and that's where money should be going. The more money that goes to it, the cheaper it will become. More investments mean more R&D money to improve efficiency, and more sales means the law of scales takes over - parts become cheaper, more competition lowers prices, and on and on. Add in the benefit of distributed power generation, and it seems obvious to me. It may cost a bit more in the short term, but it's well worth it.