There's an inconsistency in your post. You're basing your figures for renewables on current energy usage rates and current technologies, but you're saying that if we use coal we have to reduce energy consumption. We have to reduce consumption regardless. Sooner or later we're going to be on all renewables. Why not invest in it, cut consumption so we can do it sooner, rather then completely mining everything out of the ground and destroying a fair chunk of the environment?
How exactly is France's power system safe? And it may be zero-carbon POWER yet there are still significant carbon emissions, which is the actual problem. You're the one living the idiots dream my friend.
"Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc."
I did say "renewables". Including Hydro.
"As much as he wanted solar, he couldn't afford it. Why? The payback period (without subsidies) is 100 years!"
You'd be very stupid to take an economic argument on this topic. You think burying all our CO2 is going to be cheap? You think it's going to get rid of all our emissions? No and no. I'm sure the calculations he made did not factor in the rising cost of energy due to the implemention of sequestration, the future scarcity of oil and coal, more wars being fought for energy, etc. etc.
Hundreds of years if our current consumption levels don't increase. Since energy consumption increases exponentially...
We also don't have enough "underground caverns" to fit hundreds of years worth of CO2. In addition searching and mining for more and more coal resources is going to have detrimental effects on the environment as a whole. All my points still stand.
"many of them are just as immune to rational argument"
Your statement hinges on the fact that coal industry has indeed given any rational arguments to support the burying of CO2 (A very literal way of 'burying your head in the sand', don't you think?). Let's step back and look at the problem. The main issue we have the moment is global warming being caused by an excess of greenhouses gases, predominantly CO2 in the atmosphere. We need solutions. Renewable energy is a solution. Cutting back on energy usage is a solution. And yes, even sequestration is a solution. However, what are the best and most effective solutions to take? Cutting back our usage can be done now and it can have significant effects in the area of reducing CO2 output. Renewables are already a proven technology and lack only significant funding to make them more common. That said, in many countries and states funding is significant and renewable energy targets are set to be met. Now let's look at sequestration. Is it proven? Only in laboratories. Which if you consider the scale and possible ramifications of the process is a fairly useless sticking point. Is it safe? Well you decide for yourself. Pumping millions of tonnes into underground caverns? Versus building windmills, hydro plants and solar farms. Does it solve our problems? In the short term it prevents CO2 from immediately going into the atmosphere but burying it can't continue indefinitely, and it does nothing to reduce our reliance on coal - a finite source.
The idea virtually is a scam, it's the coal industry asking for grants and subsidies all across the world to support a dying business instead of looking the facts in the face and realising that renewables are the way of the future. No amount of exaggeration (Moonbeams?) on your part will change that.
Why should we? Sequestration has only been proven effect in labs, and the coal industry accepts that it won't be completely up and running by 2030. Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free. Carbon sequestration doesn't get rid of the fact that we're un-sustainably mining the earth, creating vast amounts of CO2 and then *hoping* that when we bury it underground there won't be any negative consequences.
"Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives."
This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise, and instead of looking to the REAL future like some companies (BP?) they'd rather try and flog of unproven and, even in theory, ridiculous ideas to the public.
Considering the fact that I'm just a regular user who doesn't run a server or data centre or anything particular storage intensive (relatively speaking) and I bought a 1TB (1000GB) last year, I'm wondering whether this claim is as "WOW!" as it appears to be on the surface. Surely there's at least 1 million users (1 million x 1 thousand = 1 billion GB, or 1 yottabyte) who've bought a 1TB hard drive? Or even 10 million who've bought 100GB hard drives. And this is just home users mind you. There must be thousands, if not millions, of companies around the world with servers and data centres with plenty of gigabytes of storage being purchased every year.
According to them, their brand spanking new ULTRA OMEGA SUPER DEATH RAY (Advance Taser) does not in fact rely on "voltage". However according to the site they link you too: http://www.taser.org/m18l.html/
"50,000 Volts, 18 Watts and 133 MilliAmps of measured power is instantly discharged into the subject. The electrical discharge pulses in a revolutionary new method of advanced EMD power (Electro-Muscular Disruption) that no subject has ever been able to overcome. The EMD power surge instantly disrupts the central nervous system and results in the subject falling to the ground in spasms of involuntary muscular convulsions. "
How does "50,000 volts being instantly discharged into the subject" = "does not rely on voltage"?
Calling blog posts articles sets a pretty dangerous precedent. It puts someone's personal viewpoint on the same level as say, an article from a respected published like Reuters and can create lots of FUD and unnecessary debate.
Now I know this is Slashdot and there's many of you itching for an argument, waiting to pounce and say "Well the media is stupid and has bias too". That is correct. However, when we read an article from a respected news source, as opposed to someone's personal blog, we are assuming that they have some kind of qualification, have done certifiable research and the article has passed through some kind of review process. You can't assume any of that with a blog post.
The idea of putting advertising in games, regardless of whether it's optional or not is an interesting one. It comes back to the question of motivation. If a studio designs a game, we assume they (programmers, artists, texturers etc.) are doing it because a) they enjoy it and b) they believe they're creating a cultural icon made up of lots of different artistic elements like sound, visuals and animation.
Now I think it's fairly accepted that anything that "Sells out" (ie. uses the artistic medium purely for profit) isn't really regarded as art. These days that may seem less the case and I bet you're all waiting to cite examples of particular genres of music and film which contain product placement, but in my opinion and I think the opinion of many of those who both create and appreciate true art (Whether it be film, music, paintings, whatever) those particular examples fail to be art and end up being advertisements in themselves.
I think that placing ads in the artistic medium of videogames negates the inherent artistic nature of them, as concern grows over whether the creators of the game were making it because of the above reason or purely to make money.
Then again maybe I'm just sick of seeing the same bunch of #%@&head corporations ripping off their workers, consumers and the environment and infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Gaming should be a form of escapism. It's hard to escape our intense, competitive, profit driven world when there's Coca Cola and Microsoft billboards in my supposedly "alternate" universe.
The forum thread is interesting because it's full of irate users lambasting Creative for their drivers and their attitude towards "Daniel_K". However, how many of them are that upset that they will stop purchasing Creative products? We can bitch and moan all we like but if we/they/people continue to buy Creative's products regardless of how rubbish they are, regardless of buggy, feature crippled drivers and regardless of their attitudes towards their customers, they're going to think they have the prerogative to continue in this fashion.
I, for one, bought an X-Fi sound card. Buggy drivers and constant issues regarding gaming made me put it away. Reading that this was a common issue across the board made me decide not to buy Creative again. There ARE alternatives out there. Cheaper, better quality alternatives. Just for example, I replaced my X-Fi with an HT Omega Claro. http://www.htomega.com/index.html
I never stated that it did. I'm merely pre-empting a lot of posts along the lines of "Oh god it's the end of the world another large ISP is destroying our right to download Linux ISO's."
This isn't specifically throttling p2p traffic. It's using a proxy load balancing system to spread the load during peak hours which may lead to congestion. ISP's all over the world do it, in Australia the 2nd and 3rd biggest ISP's - Optus and TPG both implement transparent proxies for load balancing.
Obviously doing it before the traffic reaches wholesalers is a tad unethical, and I'm not condoning it, but the issue shouldn't be confused with specifically targeting p2p traffic.
Yeah, except the point is to make it easy for Windows users to install Ubuntu so as to drag them away from this DRM infested and buggy hell and into the wonderful paradise of Linux.
I remember hearing about this in past updates, but no info in the summary. I've tried to install Ubuntu a number of times on my PC and laptop but I always ending up having graphics card errors and the fixes I've tried either failed, were too convoluted and time consuming or just way above my depth of knowledge. I've heard that that 8.04 will solve a lot of these issues as well as making Ubuntu even more painless to install.
Strange thing, I was re-reading Rendezvous with Rama last night...
I don't know if "I'll miss you" is the right thing to say since I never knew him and he hadn't been writing for a while but after reading his novels and short you do come to realise he was a visionary. It is a sad day but we should reflect on his contribution to society and geeks worldwide.
It has the 9th largest GDP in the world by volume, it's growth rate is 8.1% and the percentage of the population below the poverty line is 7%, less than in the United States.
So please forgive us for not understanding your joke since it made absolutely no sense.
Slashdot Mirror
I was worried I'd have to actually buy Spore.
It isn't going to cost $126 million to sequester all our carbon... that's merely how much the DOE is awarding in grants for a few specific projects.
Sequestration won't be in place for another 20 years at least.
There's an inconsistency in your post. You're basing your figures for renewables on current energy usage rates and current technologies, but you're saying that if we use coal we have to reduce energy consumption. We have to reduce consumption regardless. Sooner or later we're going to be on all renewables. Why not invest in it, cut consumption so we can do it sooner, rather then completely mining everything out of the ground and destroying a fair chunk of the environment?
How exactly is France's power system safe? And it may be zero-carbon POWER yet there are still significant carbon emissions, which is the actual problem. You're the one living the idiots dream my friend.
"Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc."
I did say "renewables". Including Hydro.
"As much as he wanted solar, he couldn't afford it. Why? The payback period (without subsidies) is 100 years!"
You'd be very stupid to take an economic argument on this topic. You think burying all our CO2 is going to be cheap? You think it's going to get rid of all our emissions? No and no. I'm sure the calculations he made did not factor in the rising cost of energy due to the implemention of sequestration, the future scarcity of oil and coal, more wars being fought for energy, etc. etc.
Hundreds of years if our current consumption levels don't increase. Since energy consumption increases exponentially...
We also don't have enough "underground caverns" to fit hundreds of years worth of CO2. In addition searching and mining for more and more coal resources is going to have detrimental effects on the environment as a whole. All my points still stand.
"many of them are just as immune to rational argument"
Your statement hinges on the fact that coal industry has indeed given any rational arguments to support the burying of CO2 (A very literal way of 'burying your head in the sand', don't you think?). Let's step back and look at the problem. The main issue we have the moment is global warming being caused by an excess of greenhouses gases, predominantly CO2 in the atmosphere. We need solutions. Renewable energy is a solution. Cutting back on energy usage is a solution. And yes, even sequestration is a solution. However, what are the best and most effective solutions to take? Cutting back our usage can be done now and it can have significant effects in the area of reducing CO2 output. Renewables are already a proven technology and lack only significant funding to make them more common. That said, in many countries and states funding is significant and renewable energy targets are set to be met. Now let's look at sequestration. Is it proven? Only in laboratories. Which if you consider the scale and possible ramifications of the process is a fairly useless sticking point. Is it safe? Well you decide for yourself. Pumping millions of tonnes into underground caverns? Versus building windmills, hydro plants and solar farms. Does it solve our problems? In the short term it prevents CO2 from immediately going into the atmosphere but burying it can't continue indefinitely, and it does nothing to reduce our reliance on coal - a finite source.
The idea virtually is a scam, it's the coal industry asking for grants and subsidies all across the world to support a dying business instead of looking the facts in the face and realising that renewables are the way of the future. No amount of exaggeration (Moonbeams?) on your part will change that.
"Why can't we do both?
Why should we? Sequestration has only been proven effect in labs, and the coal industry accepts that it won't be completely up and running by 2030. Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free. Carbon sequestration doesn't get rid of the fact that we're un-sustainably mining the earth, creating vast amounts of CO2 and then *hoping* that when we bury it underground there won't be any negative consequences.
"Never wanting to compromise or find some benefits in alternatives."
This is less a compromise and more the coal and mining industry refusing to accept their imminent demise, and instead of looking to the REAL future like some companies (BP?) they'd rather try and flog of unproven and, even in theory, ridiculous ideas to the public.
Considering the fact that I'm just a regular user who doesn't run a server or data centre or anything particular storage intensive (relatively speaking) and I bought a 1TB (1000GB) last year, I'm wondering whether this claim is as "WOW!" as it appears to be on the surface. Surely there's at least 1 million users (1 million x 1 thousand = 1 billion GB, or 1 yottabyte) who've bought a 1TB hard drive? Or even 10 million who've bought 100GB hard drives. And this is just home users mind you. There must be thousands, if not millions, of companies around the world with servers and data centres with plenty of gigabytes of storage being purchased every year.
To be honest, I can't see a 7-year old being that excited about particle physics and the daily routine of scientists at Fermilab.
In fact I can't really see anyone being interested in the daily routine of scientists at Fermilab...
Extremely suspect site.
According to them, their brand spanking new ULTRA OMEGA SUPER DEATH RAY (Advance Taser) does not in fact rely on "voltage". However according to the site they link you too: http://www.taser.org/m18l.html/
"50,000 Volts, 18 Watts and 133 MilliAmps of measured power is instantly discharged into the subject. The electrical discharge pulses in a revolutionary new method of advanced EMD power (Electro-Muscular Disruption) that no subject has ever been able to overcome. The EMD power surge instantly disrupts the central nervous system and results in the subject falling to the ground in spasms of involuntary muscular convulsions. "
How does "50,000 volts being instantly discharged into the subject" = "does not rely on voltage"?
Calling blog posts articles sets a pretty dangerous precedent. It puts someone's personal viewpoint on the same level as say, an article from a respected published like Reuters and can create lots of FUD and unnecessary debate.
Now I know this is Slashdot and there's many of you itching for an argument, waiting to pounce and say "Well the media is stupid and has bias too". That is correct. However, when we read an article from a respected news source, as opposed to someone's personal blog, we are assuming that they have some kind of qualification, have done certifiable research and the article has passed through some kind of review process. You can't assume any of that with a blog post.
The idea of putting advertising in games, regardless of whether it's optional or not is an interesting one. It comes back to the question of motivation. If a studio designs a game, we assume they (programmers, artists, texturers etc.) are doing it because a) they enjoy it and b) they believe they're creating a cultural icon made up of lots of different artistic elements like sound, visuals and animation.
Now I think it's fairly accepted that anything that "Sells out" (ie. uses the artistic medium purely for profit) isn't really regarded as art. These days that may seem less the case and I bet you're all waiting to cite examples of particular genres of music and film which contain product placement, but in my opinion and I think the opinion of many of those who both create and appreciate true art (Whether it be film, music, paintings, whatever) those particular examples fail to be art and end up being advertisements in themselves.
I think that placing ads in the artistic medium of videogames negates the inherent artistic nature of them, as concern grows over whether the creators of the game were making it because of the above reason or purely to make money.
Then again maybe I'm just sick of seeing the same bunch of #%@&head corporations ripping off their workers, consumers and the environment and infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Gaming should be a form of escapism. It's hard to escape our intense, competitive, profit driven world when there's Coca Cola and Microsoft billboards in my supposedly "alternate" universe.
The forum thread is interesting because it's full of irate users lambasting Creative for their drivers and their attitude towards "Daniel_K". However, how many of them are that upset that they will stop purchasing Creative products? We can bitch and moan all we like but if we/they/people continue to buy Creative's products regardless of how rubbish they are, regardless of buggy, feature crippled drivers and regardless of their attitudes towards their customers, they're going to think they have the prerogative to continue in this fashion.
I, for one, bought an X-Fi sound card. Buggy drivers and constant issues regarding gaming made me put it away. Reading that this was a common issue across the board made me decide not to buy Creative again. There ARE alternatives out there. Cheaper, better quality alternatives. Just for example, I replaced my X-Fi with an HT Omega Claro. http://www.htomega.com/index.html
Ahaha. Yes I know, but I have to try. No offense taken.
I never stated that it did. I'm merely pre-empting a lot of posts along the lines of "Oh god it's the end of the world another large ISP is destroying our right to download Linux ISO's."
This isn't specifically throttling p2p traffic. It's using a proxy load balancing system to spread the load during peak hours which may lead to congestion. ISP's all over the world do it, in Australia the 2nd and 3rd biggest ISP's - Optus and TPG both implement transparent proxies for load balancing.
Obviously doing it before the traffic reaches wholesalers is a tad unethical, and I'm not condoning it, but the issue shouldn't be confused with specifically targeting p2p traffic.
Same thing happens when Ubuntu's partitioner screws up. Oooooh, karma burn!
No, seriously, Vista blows.
http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.04/
Torrents are down there at the bottom.
http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-beta-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-beta-desktop-i386.iso.torrent
Yeah, except the point is to make it easy for Windows users to install Ubuntu so as to drag them away from this DRM infested and buggy hell and into the wonderful paradise of Linux.
I remember hearing about this in past updates, but no info in the summary. I've tried to install Ubuntu a number of times on my PC and laptop but I always ending up having graphics card errors and the fixes I've tried either failed, were too convoluted and time consuming or just way above my depth of knowledge. I've heard that that 8.04 will solve a lot of these issues as well as making Ubuntu even more painless to install.
Anyone have any more info on this?
This is blatantly off-topic but I wouldn't try to argue that the US was a "liberal democracy" before 2001.
Strange thing, I was re-reading Rendezvous with Rama last night...
I don't know if "I'll miss you" is the right thing to say since I never knew him and he hadn't been writing for a while but after reading his novels and short you do come to realise he was a visionary. It is a sad day but we should reflect on his contribution to society and geeks worldwide.
RIP.
It has the 9th largest GDP in the world by volume, it's growth rate is 8.1% and the percentage of the population below the poverty line is 7%, less than in the United States.
So please forgive us for not understanding your joke since it made absolutely no sense.