Since you are an academic, you would know that there are worse consequences for an academic than getting sued. Loss of professional reputation is, IMO, worse than this. Something that would definitely happen if you happen to use someone's work without properly attributing it to them.
The review process is usually capable of weeding this out when it comes to experimental results etc., but when it comes to software, this is a little harder for a reviewer to spot. It is really up to the user of that software as to whether they value their academic reputation over something like that.
There is no good reason to not cite it (unless it slipped your mind - not likely to happen, or you set out to steal other people's work, in which case, the plagiarist has no business being an academic). By citing other people's work, you only increase the visibility of your own paper (setting aside other considerations - given how citation tracking systems work).
So, not only is it improper to not cite someone's software / paper, but also it is harmful to you, even if you do not get caught.
The announcement that Mac ads involving "I am a Mac, I am a PC" infringe Microsoft's patent US PTO 123456789, but Apple would be welcome to sign an indemnification deal that allows Microsoft to sell coupons to TV watchers to watch Mac ads.
The response to the latest opengl release has been, to put it mildly, underwhelming. A number of opengl developers in the blogs I have read have declared intentions of moving over to directx. This is the way for opengl developers to get a bigger share of the open source developer mindshare and development effort to make up for the egg they laid earlier this year.
Materials used for solar cells are not opaque at all wavelengths. What gets through one layer can be absorbed in the next. You can also build stacks of solar cells (look up tandem cells if you have the time and the inclination).
You misunderstand.
I am not going to say that this story is true or false. I am only going to address your point. A photovoltaic's efficiency is determined by many components - absorption, charge conversion, charge separation and charge collection. So, yes, in principle you can increase one of those factors 500 times, and still have the overall efficiency below 100%. The reason is that the 500x figure (if true) is an absolute value. The efficiency is a relative value (commonly referred to as a power conversion efficiency - its the ratio of the generated electrical power and the input radiant optical power (multiplied by some factors)).
You can have immense absorption capability but that does not mean anything if you cannot :
a) Actually form a charge pair for the photon absorbed;
b) Effectively separate the charge pair (otherwise they recombine, giving off light (if the material permits it) or heat).
c) Collect those charges with any degree of success.
I do not know the precise device structure that this kid proposed, but in general, when you put in dissimilar conducting materials in a blend (I mean those that conduct electrons and those that conduct holes), you end up hurting your charge collection efficiency pretty badly.
No matter what, if this story is true, it deserves to be investigated for actual device applications. Mere absorption is not enough for making good solar cells.
I am an independent, who was leaning towards Obama until he decided to gut the Bill of Rights by voting for the FISA bill. Obama is a gifted speaker, an articulate advocate of many things that I think are sorely needed for our country to survive, and his election will help put the darkest part of our history behind us (a country that rejects that ambulance chaser Jesse Jackson, but elects a self-made man like Obama is a country with its ideas about race finally straight).
Further, I used to be a McCain diehard (in 2000, even voted for him in the primaries and sent money to his campaign, and thought for about 2-3 years after that America had missed an opportunity to put a man better than Bush or Gore in office).
However, the idea that Obama spins more than McCain of vintage 2008 is so absurd that I had to read the summary twice to make sure. With the world in turmoil and our economy on the bronk of total collapse, Sen. McCain talks about pigs with lipsticks and supporting a 25% share of world's oil consumption (today) with 3% of the world's reserves of oil (available 10 years from now). Further, he insistently lies about running mates who support bridges to nowhere before opposing them and cleaning up Wall Street greed when he and his economic soulmate, Phil Gramm, helped create this deregulation disaster that has wiped out 10% of our GDP in less than a week. Give me a break.
Lying a proven falsehood into truthful existence after all the evidence to the contrary is in your face is a skill that not even that detestable Hillary Clinton quite mastered. What does is it say about McCain of honorable memory that he is even less trustworthy to a former supporter today than a widely reviled say-anything politician on the other side of the aisle ?
Obama lost my vote and unless McCain exceeds his already impressive collection of unsuitable policies, lies, and calculated distractions and looks like winning (God knows how dumb some of our people are), he won't get it back. However, a claim that Obama spins more than McCain is proof positive that this software does not work.
Before I say anything on this matter, I would like to point out that I am NOT comparing our government to the Nazis.
However, in the 1930s, a lot of German and other central European scientists (mainly Jews) left their countries and moved to the US. The US, until early 1930's did not have too many Noble Laureates. It did not even have too many top schools (comparisons between Harvard and Gottingen (to pick just one example)) were laughable. Hitler changed all that. The cream of German talent moved to the US. They powered the Manhattan project, and then the space program. A second wave of German emigres came to the US via CIA's programs targetting German Nazi scientists. Von Braun, the father of the Apollo program designed German V1 and V2 rockets during the war (just an example).
The situation is very different in the US today. However, the academics you somewhat mock as being idealists are what I consider to be the canaries in a coal mine. If their laptops are being confiscated on re-entry to the US after visiting Mexico or Europe or East Asia for a conference, they are not going to simply sit by and twiddle their thumbs. After a misspent youth travelling all over the world (mainly the middle east and India), I am exposed to these people on a regular basis. A few that I know are already making plans to move to Canada or in one or two cases, even South Korea. It does not help that the funding for physical sciences has been cut almost every year for the past 5-6 years. They are finding it harder to get research funding and have to put up with this bullshit everytime they re-enter the country. One of chief rising stars in a field that a friend of mine works on, who is of Indian descent (US born, father from India, mother American) was recently stopped in New York and put through the third degree just because he had bought his air tickets only a week before travelling to Italy for a conference and he had made a last time quick visit to his father's family in India.
You piss people off in this fashion and they will ultimately decide staying is not worth it. Add Bush's well-known hostility to science, and the fact that McCain is currently favored to be the next President with a running mate who is a creationist, these are not very happy times among the "elite" you mock. Initially, those of foreign descent will leave (and if you have been paying any attention, that is a majority of our recent science and engineering faculty hires), and then native born Americans will follow suit. Its not as if the rest of the world lives in mud huts. Canada, Europe, China, Russia, South Korea, India etc. all have made major investments into their science programs while we have been revisiting the theory of evolution in this country.
The other issue is the supply of good graduate students. I am the only American graduate student in my division here. Majority are Indians, Chinese and Koreans, with a fair smattering of East Europeans and Canadians. If this incoming stream dries up (and it already is down in relative terms since 9-11 among every nationality except Indians and East Europeans), who do you think is going to really work in these labs ? American Idol addled local kids who think that deciding what car to buy is the hardest decision at 16 ? I fear for our country. We are sinking and nearly half our country is far too stupid to realize it.
PS: No, I am not voting for Sen. Obama since his FISA surrender.
The only solution I see is for India to reabsorb Pakistan and Bangladesh (Given the much faster population growth that has happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh this would result in a country that is 45% Muslim) and modernise their economies so people are more interested in buying KFC at malls than at blowing up other people in the name of religion. Frankly once we get rid of the feudal elite in Pakistan the Pakistani people would be much happier under Secular Indian rule than the Landlord-Army mafia they live under nowadays. I hope my Afghan friend understands I do know a bit about these issues.
As someone who has lived and worked in India for a few years, I think that this prescription is at once naive, impractical and belongs in the realm of "won't happen".
While it is true that Muslims and non-Muslims of India have by and large lived with each other for centuries, and that Muslims have in the past ruled (and with one or two exceptions) terrorized the rest, the levels of dislike between Indian non-Muslims (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and even Christians) and non-Indian Muslims (Pakistani and Bangladeshi) are deep and centuries old. I would even go as far as to say that levels of hatred between many north Indian non-Muslims (especially Sikhs) and Pakistani Muslims exceed the levels of animosity I have seen between Jews and Muslims (and yes, I have lived in the middle east as well). At best, there is hearty distrust and long list of unsettled scores. If what you suggest were to be implemented, they would have a major genocide on their hands that would make Rwanda and Bosnia look like a walk in the park.
To add to this, most Indians I know (and I did ask this question many times when I was there) would not want Pakistan and Bangladesh back. Already illegal immigration from Bangladesh is a serious law and order and social problem in India. The way they see it, they have played by the rules for 60 years, and are reaping the benefits of focusing on education etc., and the trouble-making Pakistanis (especially) can go **** themselves (paraphrasing the words of a fairly senior IT manager at Infosys I interviewed once). After current realities of worldwide Islamic terrorism (about which Indians have bitterly complained for years, long before these became our problems), the chances of such attitudes changing are at best miniscule. They may share many languages, food and a great deal of history, but they also share a sincere and deep loathing of each other.
We do need to rescue Pakistan from the effects of the succession of bad choices they have made over the decades, but I do not think we can look to the Indians to help us on this.
... the bug was their own fault for not recording votes to memory when the cards are uploaded in 'certain circumstances' -- something their initial analysis missed
Would that "certain circumstance" be every tenth person to vote a certain way by any chance ?
1 Yes oil from air and water is endothermic. I said it takes a lot of power to make. The key here is that I am not thinking of hydrocarbons as an energy source but as a storage and transport medium. As such it beats the daylights out of batteries. You will never make an electric 747.
Even as a storage medium, these are not exactly ideal because I know of no process that can efficiently convert them into electricity (which is the final energy form of all non-jet powered locomotion systems) with an efficiency of greater than 30-40%. We would be much better off coming up with a more efficient battery rather than heavily endothermic process of making oil that is hard to convert efficiently into usable energy. As to electric 747's, that won't happen for totally different reasons - you cannot run a jet engine on electricity - you need an actual thrust.
2. GMs products and Ford for that matter don't suck. Take a look at JD Powers and or Consumer Reports. A lot of GMs cars are getting ratings as good as Toyota and Honda. Over all Toyota and Honda make more cars with good ratings but the new vehicles from GM and Ford are getting just as good ratings. The concept that GM and Ford unreliable cars is outdated. The Ford Fusion actually beat the Camery for reliability for a year or two. I think Toyota may have matched it now but they are still neck and neck.
When I was buying a car I ended up with a Mazda 3 not because it was made in Japan and it was but because it was the best combination of price, millage, and features for me. The real key for me was that it was a hatchback and for some reason they don't sell well in the US.
But if I had decided to go with the slightly bigger car the Ford Fusion/Milan would have probably been my choice. Great car, very safe, and a good price. The millage is about the same as the Toyota as well.
I didn't buy anything from GM because frankly I didn't like their cars. It wasn't the quality as much as the styling and some of the trade offs.
I don't think I would buy the Volt. Not because it is made by GM but because it looks like it comprises visibility for styling. But then that is one of my big complaints about the Xb from Toyota as well. What is it with these mail slot windows!
I want glass and lots of it. You can not avoid what you can not see.
Now that is a comment I can mostly agree with. Maybe it is just anecdotal, but the average number of trips to the garage, etc. for a GM or a Ford, is a lot more than the similar figure for a corolla or a civic. Maybe this is skewed by a lot of older cars still in the fleet, and these changes at GM and Ford are really recent. I would still wait quite a few years before I trust any of these SUV loving companies with any of my cash. I am not sure that Ford is even going to be around for much longer. Their "genius" SUV/truck strategy is coming home to roost. To a somewhat lesser extent, that is true for GM as well.
Don't know if that is true, but Hillary Rosen, former chief of RIAA, is a prominent Hillary Clinton advisor. I will leave it to you ascribe her motivations or Hillary's motivations.
"(if you can make it out of air and water, apply for a patent)"
Can't is old tech and pretty basic chemistry.
Oil is a hydrocarbon.
Split the hydrogen from the water and the Carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere. Combine the Hydrogen and Carbon into chains and you have oil.
The fraction of carbon dioxide in air is 0.04%. Carbon dioxide is a very stable molecule. Which means it takes a lot of energy to crack it. Going from bond strengths alone, and assuming that octane is your final product, the relative strengths of the C=O bond and the C-C and C-H bonds tells you that this process is likely to be endothermic. Which means that it takes more energy to produce it than it would put out (unless the conversion process was 100% efficient, in which case it would be energy neutral - CO2 is the final product of the combustion process). But you understand that (as you say), so why even bring this strawman up ?
Sorry, but such considerations are among those than do not bode well for ethanol, and there you are starting with a more complex hydrocarbon and at least do not have to break the carbon oxygen double bond.
I will grant you that the process might exist, but ain't going to produce anything worthwhile.
As far as not wanting to buy a Volt because it is made by GM is frankly just EVIL.
1. GM pays their employees well and provides very good benefits and do most of their manufacturing in the US.
2. The quality and reliability of their cars have gone way up.
3. GM invented most of the current emission controls that are on modern automobiles today.
4. Here is GM trying to build a very fuel efficient car with world class tech and JUST because it is GM you refuse to buy it?
Nice.
I am not going to buy a crappy car from an American company but I am sure not going to dismiss a US company out of hand.
There is nothing evil or good about GM. They treat their employees well, so (that only means that I do not reject them out of hand without looking at other things)? Their products suck. Why would I trust a company products which have a new technology, when they can't even produce cars using a 100 year old technology that are reliable ? They might not be as crap as they were 10 years ago, but they still are far worse than Toyota or Honda, etc. If I pay extra for an EV, I want it to last. Sorry, these are engineering/economics decisions based on that company's track record. False national pride has no place in these considerations.
And that was all said in the 70s just the dates changed. Yes Oil out of the ground will reach a maximum production rate. But you can make it out of coal, and out of air and water if you have enough cheap electricity.
Once it reaches a maximum production rate, it means that the rate of oil production can only decline from there onwards. Which means supplies shrink. No need to be a Ph. D. in economics to figure out what happens when demand is rising (unlike the 1970s, US is no longer the dominant consumer of oil - so what we do here only partially affects the global demand) and supplies are declining (rate undetermined).
Yes, you can make oil out of coal (if you can make it out of air and water, apply for a patent), but the throughput of the process is anemic and will never match even a fraction of oil production out of the ground. Further, we need coal for other things - ~50% of our electricity is made from coal. So, even if you are able to find a process with enough throughput to convert coal into oil to make a dent in the oil supply, you will pay for it with higher electricity prices as demand pressure on coal rises.
As I said the far more intersting story is the number of people that are signing up to get Volts.
That is important. People converting cars themselves? Been there done that. Had a friend in High School whose father converted an old Renault to EV in 81.
Fair point. I myself will be getting an EV (though probably not the Volt, given who makes it). I presently drive a hybrid, but I can see that even its days are ultimately numbered.
Old, over hyped news. And just wait. I predict that once alternative fuels start coming online and EVs are just about to reach the market Oil will drop like a rock and you will see gas in the US at about $2.10 a gallon and people will be over joyed to pay it. And in less than five years they will be buying big pickups and SUVs again.
We have already seen what having Iowa as the first in the nation does, our alternative fuel experiment with corn based ethanol has already raised food prices (over and above price of transportation). Ditto for hydrogen powered fuel cells, as most of the hydrogen in the world is made from natural gas. The problem is that people are trying to solve N problems (N=number of cars on the road) with exhaustible source of fuel. The way out has always been electric - since that is what every internal combustion engine ultimately produces for locomotion (haven't heard of jet powered cars), and all these irrelevant and dangerous alternative ideas have gotten in the way, clouding the thinking.
As to gas at $2.10 a gallon, well, never say never, but its not likely. If oil drops because EVs have put such a massive dent in the demand that demand decline outpaces supply decline (see above), some idiots will definitely buy gas-powered SUVs. However, even if you lower the price of gas that way, the continual decline in the supply is a fact of life post-peak, and the demand will always have to contend with a continually falling ceiling (the decline rate of supply). Which won't work with increase in Osama-loving-idiot driven gas-powered SUVs. I am not saying that there aren't any idiots. 80% of people do not like the direction of the country, and about 42% want to put the Republicans back in charge of the white house. That is at least 22% idiots. Now, if you can run a money-making industry for a while powered by the 22% idiotic part of the population, best of luck.
I think we are in for some interesting times.
What you fail to account for is that oil is a limited resource, and most analysts agree that either the oil peak is already here, or we have already passed it, or will get to it in 5-10 years.
A commodity's price falls upon demand shrinkage if the supply does not shrink with it at a rate as fast or faster. When you get past the peak oil production, the rate of decline of oil production could very well exceed the rate of drop of demand in short order. Given increasing human population, and the explosion of automobile, air, and other fossil fuel dependent modes of travel across the world (which is currently in the process of changing about 3 billion people from an early 20th century lifestyle to a 21st century lifestyle in India and China), its hard to see how much overall drop in demand we could sustain long term.
So, no, this is no hype - when you run out of something, you run out of something. We did not run out of supplies in 1960-2000. We are facing that now. Add unfavorable geopolitics to it, and you have a real big problem on your hands.
1950s - quiz shows were so tough that they puzzle minds of some of our best today.
Today - Are you smarter than a 5th grader ?
As a nation, we are becoming prouder to be stupid, and I hold our political leadership, more prominently, the Republicans, responsible for making it cool to be stupid.
Please. Capitalism is the ultimate parasitic system. The capitalists add no value. They perform no labor. They reap the rewards of others' labor. Without workers capitalism could not exist, because the entire system is based on the exploitation of labor. Capitalists are the very definition of parasites.
Then maybe you can please stop being a parasite and stop using that capitalist keyboard on a computer running some software produced by capitalists or generous people who are capitalists in their main line of living ?
PS: in anticipation of others' diatribes, the USSR, China and Cuba are not and never were socialist. They were/are capitalist--because they employ the capitalist mode of production (exploitation of workers, accumulation of capital for accumulation's sake). Only in their systems there's one big capitalist: the state. These regimes merely use the language of socialism to lull workers into accepting the status quo--much as capitalists in the US and Western nations talk about "democracy" to delude their workers into thinking they're free. It's much easier to control people with these illusions in place.
I am engineer, and if I cannot see any practical applications of your nice theories, then all you say is pretty meaningless.
Utopian and scientific socialism have little to do with each other.
Would be fitting too. I have travelled, worked and at times lived in many countries all over the world. In no country did I find this "I-am-*ing-ignorant-and-that-makes-me-a-cool-real-American" attitude. Its the reason why keep electing morons. Its the reason when 95% of the people unhappy with the two party system dutifully turn in every election, and choose, ahem, one of the two parties.
Bush is not the cause of our latest troubles. He is just a loudmouthed, embarrassing symptom. I fear for America. We survived British colonial rule, we survived European interference, we survived Nazism, we survived Communism; others things being equal, I think we would even survive Islamic fascism. However, I do not think we will survive this proud-to-be-stupid anti-intellectualism now so widespread in our ailing society.
I see these racist rednecks driving oil guzzling trucks and SUVs, and then I see these freedom always liberals turning around and making excuses for the most misogynistic, homophobic philosophy that we confront today. The future is not bright.
Slashdot Mirror
Its also called a tinfoil hat.
Since you are an academic, you would know that there are worse consequences for an academic than getting sued. Loss of professional reputation is, IMO, worse than this. Something that would definitely happen if you happen to use someone's work without properly attributing it to them.
The review process is usually capable of weeding this out when it comes to experimental results etc., but when it comes to software, this is a little harder for a reviewer to spot. It is really up to the user of that software as to whether they value their academic reputation over something like that.
There is no good reason to not cite it (unless it slipped your mind - not likely to happen, or you set out to steal other people's work, in which case, the plagiarist has no business being an academic). By citing other people's work, you only increase the visibility of your own paper (setting aside other considerations - given how citation tracking systems work).
So, not only is it improper to not cite someone's software / paper, but also it is harmful to you, even if you do not get caught.
Would the Great Depression qualify as the honorary hen in this case (though prevalent reports at the time ascribed that task to the Wall Street) ?
Memories of 1929, and all that.
The announcement that Mac ads involving "I am a Mac, I am a PC" infringe Microsoft's patent US PTO 123456789, but Apple would be welcome to sign an indemnification deal that allows Microsoft to sell coupons to TV watchers to watch Mac ads.
The response to the latest opengl release has been, to put it mildly, underwhelming. A number of opengl developers in the blogs I have read have declared intentions of moving over to directx. This is the way for opengl developers to get a bigger share of the open source developer mindshare and development effort to make up for the egg they laid earlier this year.
Materials used for solar cells are not opaque at all wavelengths. What gets through one layer can be absorbed in the next. You can also build stacks of solar cells (look up tandem cells if you have the time and the inclination).
You misunderstand.
I am not going to say that this story is true or false. I am only going to address your point. A photovoltaic's efficiency is determined by many components - absorption, charge conversion, charge separation and charge collection. So, yes, in principle you can increase one of those factors 500 times, and still have the overall efficiency below 100%. The reason is that the 500x figure (if true) is an absolute value. The efficiency is a relative value (commonly referred to as a power conversion efficiency - its the ratio of the generated electrical power and the input radiant optical power (multiplied by some factors)).
You can have immense absorption capability but that does not mean anything if you cannot :
a) Actually form a charge pair for the photon absorbed;
b) Effectively separate the charge pair (otherwise they recombine, giving off light (if the material permits it) or heat).
c) Collect those charges with any degree of success.
I do not know the precise device structure that this kid proposed, but in general, when you put in dissimilar conducting materials in a blend (I mean those that conduct electrons and those that conduct holes), you end up hurting your charge collection efficiency pretty badly.
No matter what, if this story is true, it deserves to be investigated for actual device applications. Mere absorption is not enough for making good solar cells.
I am an independent, who was leaning towards Obama until he decided to gut the Bill of Rights by voting for the FISA bill. Obama is a gifted speaker, an articulate advocate of many things that I think are sorely needed for our country to survive, and his election will help put the darkest part of our history behind us (a country that rejects that ambulance chaser Jesse Jackson, but elects a self-made man like Obama is a country with its ideas about race finally straight).
Further, I used to be a McCain diehard (in 2000, even voted for him in the primaries and sent money to his campaign, and thought for about 2-3 years after that America had missed an opportunity to put a man better than Bush or Gore in office).
However, the idea that Obama spins more than McCain of vintage 2008 is so absurd that I had to read the summary twice to make sure. With the world in turmoil and our economy on the bronk of total collapse, Sen. McCain talks about pigs with lipsticks and supporting a 25% share of world's oil consumption (today) with 3% of the world's reserves of oil (available 10 years from now). Further, he insistently lies about running mates who support bridges to nowhere before opposing them and cleaning up Wall Street greed when he and his economic soulmate, Phil Gramm, helped create this deregulation disaster that has wiped out 10% of our GDP in less than a week. Give me a break.
Lying a proven falsehood into truthful existence after all the evidence to the contrary is in your face is a skill that not even that detestable Hillary Clinton quite mastered. What does is it say about McCain of honorable memory that he is even less trustworthy to a former supporter today than a widely reviled say-anything politician on the other side of the aisle ?
Obama lost my vote and unless McCain exceeds his already impressive collection of unsuitable policies, lies, and calculated distractions and looks like winning (God knows how dumb some of our people are), he won't get it back. However, a claim that Obama spins more than McCain is proof positive that this software does not work.
Before I say anything on this matter, I would like to point out that I am NOT comparing our government to the Nazis.
However, in the 1930s, a lot of German and other central European scientists (mainly Jews) left their countries and moved to the US. The US, until early 1930's did not have too many Noble Laureates. It did not even have too many top schools (comparisons between Harvard and Gottingen (to pick just one example)) were laughable. Hitler changed all that. The cream of German talent moved to the US. They powered the Manhattan project, and then the space program. A second wave of German emigres came to the US via CIA's programs targetting German Nazi scientists. Von Braun, the father of the Apollo program designed German V1 and V2 rockets during the war (just an example).
The situation is very different in the US today. However, the academics you somewhat mock as being idealists are what I consider to be the canaries in a coal mine. If their laptops are being confiscated on re-entry to the US after visiting Mexico or Europe or East Asia for a conference, they are not going to simply sit by and twiddle their thumbs. After a misspent youth travelling all over the world (mainly the middle east and India), I am exposed to these people on a regular basis. A few that I know are already making plans to move to Canada or in one or two cases, even South Korea. It does not help that the funding for physical sciences has been cut almost every year for the past 5-6 years. They are finding it harder to get research funding and have to put up with this bullshit everytime they re-enter the country. One of chief rising stars in a field that a friend of mine works on, who is of Indian descent (US born, father from India, mother American) was recently stopped in New York and put through the third degree just because he had bought his air tickets only a week before travelling to Italy for a conference and he had made a last time quick visit to his father's family in India.
You piss people off in this fashion and they will ultimately decide staying is not worth it. Add Bush's well-known hostility to science, and the fact that McCain is currently favored to be the next President with a running mate who is a creationist, these are not very happy times among the "elite" you mock. Initially, those of foreign descent will leave (and if you have been paying any attention, that is a majority of our recent science and engineering faculty hires), and then native born Americans will follow suit. Its not as if the rest of the world lives in mud huts. Canada, Europe, China, Russia, South Korea, India etc. all have made major investments into their science programs while we have been revisiting the theory of evolution in this country.
The other issue is the supply of good graduate students. I am the only American graduate student in my division here. Majority are Indians, Chinese and Koreans, with a fair smattering of East Europeans and Canadians. If this incoming stream dries up (and it already is down in relative terms since 9-11 among every nationality except Indians and East Europeans), who do you think is going to really work in these labs ? American Idol addled local kids who think that deciding what car to buy is the hardest decision at 16 ? I fear for our country. We are sinking and nearly half our country is far too stupid to realize it.
PS: No, I am not voting for Sen. Obama since his FISA surrender.
The only solution I see is for India to reabsorb Pakistan and Bangladesh (Given the much faster population growth that has happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh this would result in a country that is 45% Muslim) and modernise their economies so people are more interested in buying KFC at malls than at blowing up other people in the name of religion. Frankly once we get rid of the feudal elite in Pakistan the Pakistani people would be much happier under Secular Indian rule than the Landlord-Army mafia they live under nowadays. I hope my Afghan friend understands I do know a bit about these issues.
As someone who has lived and worked in India for a few years, I think that this prescription is at once naive, impractical and belongs in the realm of "won't happen".
While it is true that Muslims and non-Muslims of India have by and large lived with each other for centuries, and that Muslims have in the past ruled (and with one or two exceptions) terrorized the rest, the levels of dislike between Indian non-Muslims (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and even Christians) and non-Indian Muslims (Pakistani and Bangladeshi) are deep and centuries old. I would even go as far as to say that levels of hatred between many north Indian non-Muslims (especially Sikhs) and Pakistani Muslims exceed the levels of animosity I have seen between Jews and Muslims (and yes, I have lived in the middle east as well). At best, there is hearty distrust and long list of unsettled scores. If what you suggest were to be implemented, they would have a major genocide on their hands that would make Rwanda and Bosnia look like a walk in the park.
To add to this, most Indians I know (and I did ask this question many times when I was there) would not want Pakistan and Bangladesh back. Already illegal immigration from Bangladesh is a serious law and order and social problem in India. The way they see it, they have played by the rules for 60 years, and are reaping the benefits of focusing on education etc., and the trouble-making Pakistanis (especially) can go **** themselves (paraphrasing the words of a fairly senior IT manager at Infosys I interviewed once). After current realities of worldwide Islamic terrorism (about which Indians have bitterly complained for years, long before these became our problems), the chances of such attitudes changing are at best miniscule. They may share many languages, food and a great deal of history, but they also share a sincere and deep loathing of each other.
We do need to rescue Pakistan from the effects of the succession of bad choices they have made over the decades, but I do not think we can look to the Indians to help us on this.
... the bug was their own fault for not recording votes to memory when the cards are uploaded in 'certain circumstances' -- something their initial analysis missed
Would that "certain circumstance" be every tenth person to vote a certain way by any chance ?
1 Yes oil from air and water is endothermic. I said it takes a lot of power to make. The key here is that I am not thinking of hydrocarbons as an energy source but as a storage and transport medium. As such it beats the daylights out of batteries. You will never make an electric 747.
Even as a storage medium, these are not exactly ideal because I know of no process that can efficiently convert them into electricity (which is the final energy form of all non-jet powered locomotion systems) with an efficiency of greater than 30-40%. We would be much better off coming up with a more efficient battery rather than heavily endothermic process of making oil that is hard to convert efficiently into usable energy. As to electric 747's, that won't happen for totally different reasons - you cannot run a jet engine on electricity - you need an actual thrust.
2. GMs products and Ford for that matter don't suck. Take a look at JD Powers and or Consumer Reports. A lot of GMs cars are getting ratings as good as Toyota and Honda. Over all Toyota and Honda make more cars with good ratings but the new vehicles from GM and Ford are getting just as good ratings. The concept that GM and Ford unreliable cars is outdated. The Ford Fusion actually beat the Camery for reliability for a year or two. I think Toyota may have matched it now but they are still neck and neck. When I was buying a car I ended up with a Mazda 3 not because it was made in Japan and it was but because it was the best combination of price, millage, and features for me. The real key for me was that it was a hatchback and for some reason they don't sell well in the US. But if I had decided to go with the slightly bigger car the Ford Fusion/Milan would have probably been my choice. Great car, very safe, and a good price. The millage is about the same as the Toyota as well. I didn't buy anything from GM because frankly I didn't like their cars. It wasn't the quality as much as the styling and some of the trade offs. I don't think I would buy the Volt. Not because it is made by GM but because it looks like it comprises visibility for styling. But then that is one of my big complaints about the Xb from Toyota as well. What is it with these mail slot windows! I want glass and lots of it. You can not avoid what you can not see.
Now that is a comment I can mostly agree with. Maybe it is just anecdotal, but the average number of trips to the garage, etc. for a GM or a Ford, is a lot more than the similar figure for a corolla or a civic. Maybe this is skewed by a lot of older cars still in the fleet, and these changes at GM and Ford are really recent. I would still wait quite a few years before I trust any of these SUV loving companies with any of my cash. I am not sure that Ford is even going to be around for much longer. Their "genius" SUV/truck strategy is coming home to roost. To a somewhat lesser extent, that is true for GM as well.
Don't know if that is true, but Hillary Rosen, former chief of RIAA, is a prominent Hillary Clinton advisor. I will leave it to you ascribe her motivations or Hillary's motivations.
Look up the meaning of word "sarcasm". Last time I checked, it was under "S".
On FISA. Now he wants to spend more good money after bad on the white elephant called the shuttle.
Bush should break off diplomatic relations with such an evil country. That will show them ...
"(if you can make it out of air and water, apply for a patent)" Can't is old tech and pretty basic chemistry. Oil is a hydrocarbon. Split the hydrogen from the water and the Carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere. Combine the Hydrogen and Carbon into chains and you have oil.
The fraction of carbon dioxide in air is 0.04%. Carbon dioxide is a very stable molecule. Which means it takes a lot of energy to crack it. Going from bond strengths alone, and assuming that octane is your final product, the relative strengths of the C=O bond and the C-C and C-H bonds tells you that this process is likely to be endothermic. Which means that it takes more energy to produce it than it would put out (unless the conversion process was 100% efficient, in which case it would be energy neutral - CO2 is the final product of the combustion process). But you understand that (as you say), so why even bring this strawman up ?
Sorry, but such considerations are among those than do not bode well for ethanol, and there you are starting with a more complex hydrocarbon and at least do not have to break the carbon oxygen double bond.
I will grant you that the process might exist, but ain't going to produce anything worthwhile.
As far as not wanting to buy a Volt because it is made by GM is frankly just EVIL. 1. GM pays their employees well and provides very good benefits and do most of their manufacturing in the US. 2. The quality and reliability of their cars have gone way up. 3. GM invented most of the current emission controls that are on modern automobiles today. 4. Here is GM trying to build a very fuel efficient car with world class tech and JUST because it is GM you refuse to buy it? Nice. I am not going to buy a crappy car from an American company but I am sure not going to dismiss a US company out of hand.
There is nothing evil or good about GM. They treat their employees well, so (that only means that I do not reject them out of hand without looking at other things)? Their products suck. Why would I trust a company products which have a new technology, when they can't even produce cars using a 100 year old technology that are reliable ? They might not be as crap as they were 10 years ago, but they still are far worse than Toyota or Honda, etc. If I pay extra for an EV, I want it to last. Sorry, these are engineering/economics decisions based on that company's track record. False national pride has no place in these considerations.
And that was all said in the 70s just the dates changed. Yes Oil out of the ground will reach a maximum production rate. But you can make it out of coal, and out of air and water if you have enough cheap electricity.
Once it reaches a maximum production rate, it means that the rate of oil production can only decline from there onwards. Which means supplies shrink. No need to be a Ph. D. in economics to figure out what happens when demand is rising (unlike the 1970s, US is no longer the dominant consumer of oil - so what we do here only partially affects the global demand) and supplies are declining (rate undetermined).
Yes, you can make oil out of coal (if you can make it out of air and water, apply for a patent), but the throughput of the process is anemic and will never match even a fraction of oil production out of the ground. Further, we need coal for other things - ~50% of our electricity is made from coal. So, even if you are able to find a process with enough throughput to convert coal into oil to make a dent in the oil supply, you will pay for it with higher electricity prices as demand pressure on coal rises.
As I said the far more intersting story is the number of people that are signing up to get Volts. That is important. People converting cars themselves? Been there done that. Had a friend in High School whose father converted an old Renault to EV in 81.
Fair point. I myself will be getting an EV (though probably not the Volt, given who makes it). I presently drive a hybrid, but I can see that even its days are ultimately numbered.
Old, over hyped news. And just wait. I predict that once alternative fuels start coming online and EVs are just about to reach the market Oil will drop like a rock and you will see gas in the US at about $2.10 a gallon and people will be over joyed to pay it. And in less than five years they will be buying big pickups and SUVs again.
We have already seen what having Iowa as the first in the nation does, our alternative fuel experiment with corn based ethanol has already raised food prices (over and above price of transportation). Ditto for hydrogen powered fuel cells, as most of the hydrogen in the world is made from natural gas. The problem is that people are trying to solve N problems (N=number of cars on the road) with exhaustible source of fuel. The way out has always been electric - since that is what every internal combustion engine ultimately produces for locomotion (haven't heard of jet powered cars), and all these irrelevant and dangerous alternative ideas have gotten in the way, clouding the thinking.
As to gas at $2.10 a gallon, well, never say never, but its not likely. If oil drops because EVs have put such a massive dent in the demand that demand decline outpaces supply decline (see above), some idiots will definitely buy gas-powered SUVs. However, even if you lower the price of gas that way, the continual decline in the supply is a fact of life post-peak, and the demand will always have to contend with a continually falling ceiling (the decline rate of supply). Which won't work with increase in Osama-loving-idiot driven gas-powered SUVs. I am not saying that there aren't any idiots. 80% of people do not like the direction of the country, and about 42% want to put the Republicans back in charge of the white house. That is at least 22% idiots. Now, if you can run a money-making industry for a while powered by the 22% idiotic part of the population, best of luck.
I think we are in for some interesting times.
What you fail to account for is that oil is a limited resource, and most analysts agree that either the oil peak is already here, or we have already passed it, or will get to it in 5-10 years.
A commodity's price falls upon demand shrinkage if the supply does not shrink with it at a rate as fast or faster. When you get past the peak oil production, the rate of decline of oil production could very well exceed the rate of drop of demand in short order. Given increasing human population, and the explosion of automobile, air, and other fossil fuel dependent modes of travel across the world (which is currently in the process of changing about 3 billion people from an early 20th century lifestyle to a 21st century lifestyle in India and China), its hard to see how much overall drop in demand we could sustain long term.
So, no, this is no hype - when you run out of something, you run out of something. We did not run out of supplies in 1960-2000. We are facing that now. Add unfavorable geopolitics to it, and you have a real big problem on your hands.
meet Jerry.
Curious minds want to know.
1950s - quiz shows were so tough that they puzzle minds of some of our best today.
Today - Are you smarter than a 5th grader ?
As a nation, we are becoming prouder to be stupid, and I hold our political leadership, more prominently, the Republicans, responsible for making it cool to be stupid.
Please. Capitalism is the ultimate parasitic system. The capitalists add no value. They perform no labor. They reap the rewards of others' labor. Without workers capitalism could not exist, because the entire system is based on the exploitation of labor. Capitalists are the very definition of parasites.
Then maybe you can please stop being a parasite and stop using that capitalist keyboard on a computer running some software produced by capitalists or generous people who are capitalists in their main line of living ?
PS: in anticipation of others' diatribes, the USSR, China and Cuba are not and never were socialist. They were/are capitalist--because they employ the capitalist mode of production (exploitation of workers, accumulation of capital for accumulation's sake). Only in their systems there's one big capitalist: the state. These regimes merely use the language of socialism to lull workers into accepting the status quo--much as capitalists in the US and Western nations talk about "democracy" to delude their workers into thinking they're free. It's much easier to control people with these illusions in place.
I am engineer, and if I cannot see any practical applications of your nice theories, then all you say is pretty meaningless.
Utopian and scientific socialism have little to do with each other.
Or with real life on this real planet.
Would be fitting too. I have travelled, worked and at times lived in many countries all over the world. In no country did I find this "I-am-*ing-ignorant-and-that-makes-me-a-cool-real-American" attitude. Its the reason why keep electing morons. Its the reason when 95% of the people unhappy with the two party system dutifully turn in every election, and choose, ahem, one of the two parties.
Bush is not the cause of our latest troubles. He is just a loudmouthed, embarrassing symptom. I fear for America. We survived British colonial rule, we survived European interference, we survived Nazism, we survived Communism; others things being equal, I think we would even survive Islamic fascism. However, I do not think we will survive this proud-to-be-stupid anti-intellectualism now so widespread in our ailing society.
I see these racist rednecks driving oil guzzling trucks and SUVs, and then I see these freedom always liberals turning around and making excuses for the most misogynistic, homophobic philosophy that we confront today. The future is not bright.