That little comment would get the secretary fired/tranfered so fast.... Not fair, but don't think it won't happen. I dated an office bookkeeper... As a result, she got demoted to a receptionist job that she hated, and quit. I married her, and quit as well. I went to work in IT, and we lived happily ever after.:-)
I guess what I'm saying is, don't lie about something like this. If there isn't a relationship there already, don't say a word. You'll just be screwing up some poor underpaid, undereducated or underemployed person's life.
Forge is right about the ambition part though. The only way out, short of finding a new job, is to convince them of the following:
1. One of the other people in the office is a better choice.
2. You're irreplaceable right where you are.
3. They're not idiots for choosing you, just not fully informed. Pin this on the departed manager if you can, but don't push it.
For those that say, "Just get a new job". I say, what if the guy has stock options? It might force him to leave quite a bundle of cash on the table. If this were a larger company, I'd say take the promotion, and then lateral transfer out to some other division. But a small shop doesn't have the opportunity. There may be room for some concessions. Find a way to give a boost to the 2nd level manager's career/ego/whatever. Perhaps a small reorganization, where he takes most of the staff load, and you manage the "skunk works".
I think the one of my biggest complaints against advertising in general is it's tendancy to carpet bomb people without mercy. I mean you really just can't get away from the stuff if you want to.
When I stop and evaluate the sheer volume of advertising that gets directed at me it gets quite depressing. The energy content of the paper advertising directed at my house via junkmail and my one newspaper subscription is probably at least a measurable fraction of my home heating energy needs.
I could go to all the trouble to get removed from mailing lists and the like, but that would eat up as much of my time as throwing the crap out. So I basicly end up saving my energy to direct it at a few serious offenders. I've got a short list of rules I try and apply.
1.If it gets advertised on the sunday comics page ad flap, I boycott.
(A certain "B-label" tire company is screwed.)
2. If I get a phone call that I did not solicit, I boycott.
(Yes, I need new windows, thank you for informing me which vendor to avoid...
click)
3. If I get targeted due to what I consider to be highly confidential
information, I boycott. (Home equity loans... Faaassstt!!)
4. If you sell highly confidential information about me, and I am
able, I will boycott you. (I've left 2 banks over this, and I'm trying
to find a way to punish my home loan vendor. Funny thing is, the banks were probably breaking the law.)
5. If I stop doing business with you, and you harass and persue me, I not only boycott, I activly try and damage your reputation with my peers.
6. If you engague in "blitz" tatics, I'll usually seek some form of retribution. These offenders are usually movie advertisers. My retribution is usually to go to the matinee' and reduce their profit, if it's a movie I want to see. If it's crap I'm not interested in, I'll avoid doing business with the "market channel" they're using to get at me. This keeps me out of McDonald's and Burger King quite a bit, which may end up improving my health....:-)
So I guess the coming changes in net advertising will force me to add some more rules to the list. I'll probably start with page exit popup windows. Those seem particularly obnoxious, in that they would hold me captive against my will for a brief period of time. When I want to leave, I don't want anything slowing me down. Viewing a page before getting at content at least has some sort of pavlovian reward to it. Multiple pop-up windows will get old quick.
The huge Altamont wind farm is visible right outside my front door, 30 miles NE of Silicon Valley. Guess what.... The windmills aren't turning. There's not enough wind during the winter. Dam California's nice weather...:-)
Now during the summer.... When there is enough wind... It's because it's 105 deg./F on the other side of the hill. My house will be at a nice balmy 95 deg./F, and the frigging computers, *nix, wintel or otherwise will BSOD/crash/watchdog, and what have you... due to the heat. I'm keeping my A/C thank you very much.
But I tell you what... I'm going to quit reading slashdot, and pick up the phone and start soliciting bids to replace my vintage 1968 central A/C and furnace. I think it's time.:-)
Kilauea is where they train new vulcanologists. It's dangerous, but safe enough for grad students that have signed liability limiting contracts with their schools. Sheild volcanos are at least somewhat predictable. Stratovolcanos are way too dangerous. Something like 4 scientists are lost every year to S.V.'s.
As for which to study... They study the ones that kill people, destroy property, and alter climates on a global scale. When was the last time you heard someone mention that kilauea's eruption was going to depress global tempuratures by 2 degrees for the next couple years? Sure it destroys people's houses, roads, churches, etc... But nothing compared to the effects of say Mt. Pinatubo's 1991 eruption.
Uhhh-oh... I must be getting old. I've stopped absorbing new slang... No matter... I'll just buy one of the new bullet proof, light weight titanium SUV's that are just around the corner. Hopefully they won't get so light they drop diesel engines as an option. Nothing more fun than having a lowered Honda Civic DX (Don't forget the Type R sticker) pull up next to you at a stop light, both windows rolled down, playing that really loud distorted rap. Light turns green, romp on the accelerator, a little turbo lag, and rich injector mix builds up some nasty exaust. The turbo spools up just about the time the exaust pipe is level with the driver's open window. The plume shoots in one window and out the other.:-)
Hmmm... Titanium turbine wheels might eliminate the turbo lag. Probably affect my timing somewhat. I guess I still have a few years of fun left.
MCI used to call me every other day, trying to get me on the "friends and family plan". Funny thing is, I never make long distance calls. My entire family lives in my local toll region. I finally told them that point blank. I just said "No really, I make like 1 long distance call a year, and I'm thinking of dropping long distance capability on this phone line altogether. I'll just use my cell when I need it." I haven't heard from them in months.
get the feeling a lot of the times that they're just playing with high
tech equipment, allowed to make whatever "statement of fact" they feel like (with absolutely no consequence
to the correctness of it), and change it whenever it suites them to do so. Plus they get paid to do this! I think I
picked the wrong profession...
I suspect you underestimate the distortion imposed by the technically ignorant journalists through which much of your information gets filtered.
Scientist: Wow... all these meteorites are roughly the same young age, and we think they all came from Mars. That's wierd. Hmmm...
Journalist: (bold 36 point headline) Mars is young! Scientists are baffled. Debate rages. Useless sound bites at 11.
This is one of the more clue'd in threads I've read so far.
A couple of the questions I want answered are:
1. What about partial resetting of the the isotope clock, either by the ejecting impact, or atmospheric entry to earth. How does the K/Ar dates compare to Rb/Sr, which has a higher temp. threshold. It's really easy to screw up K/Ar dating of samples that have been reheated. Doing the mineral seperations needed for some of the other dating techniques (U/Pb, Rb/Sr, Nd/Sm) is difficult on small sample sizes like these. It also seems to me that any sample that leaves mars and hits earth has sailed through two potential clock resetting events with narrowly defined energy windows. First, it gets hit hard enough to leave mars, but not get immolated. Second, it traverses similar "tranfer orbits" between mars and earth. Third, it hits earth's atmosphere, is big enough to survive entry, but small enough not to vaporize on impact. Now there's probably a wide range of solutions to each of these problems. But I suspect the most common solutions are going to have really similar energies. Translation... Really similar amounts of heating.
2. I'd like to see some more data on the cosmic-ray aging process for space flight. Sounds iffy, errr... interesting... (thinking inverse square law...)
Finally... I think the Mars researchers are spending way too much time studying itty bitty samples that are of very poor quality, and attrocious provenance. We need to go to mars and return a couple hundered pounds of rocks. And a trained geologist needs to collect them. The difference between the samples collected by Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 is like night and day. Not to knock Neil & Buzz... It just wasn't their thing.
I say we 'open source' science, and put them (the scietists) on usenet and mailing lists that are easily accessible.
We're here... But you're asking for teachers, not scientists. Scientists investigate basic knowlege in the pantheon of disciplines. Engineers figure out useful ways of applying that research. Teachers instill knowlege in the ingnorant. Scientists are often terrible teachers.
know that potassium-40's half-life is 1.3 billion years? Even over 10 years, that's a part-per-billion experiment.
You know nothing about particle physics do you? Even done the way you seem to imply, it's trivial with a modern mass spectrometer.
know that there wasn't argon trapped in the rock along with the potassium in the first place?
(sigh... creationists keep using the same arguments over... and over... and over... Never anything new.) Ok... One more time.... It probably does contain non-radiogenic argon. The atmosphere certainly does, and the samples get collected and processed in the atmosphere. At least up until the point at which you place the sample in the argon collection vacuum chamber. But here's the key point. Listen carefully... ONLY Ar40 IS THE PRODUCT OF K40 DECAY! That means you can use the Ar36/Ar38 ratio, which is a constant (more reasearch for you to do...) to subtract out any contamination, including any excess Ar40 that was picked up from the atmosphere.
Some good scientists admit these assumptions up front
Ok... I'm not even going to reply to you anymore. "Good Scientists" != icr.org. These are the same fucking idiots that dumped a bunch of goldfish in salt water in an attempt to figure out how fresh water fish survived the great flood. (hint - The goldfish died)
So you go on believing whatever you want about the age of the earth. But don't expect anyone with any serious scientific credential to even talk to you. The age of the earth is no longer even debated in geologic academia. It's 4.55 +- 0.2 billion years.
Temkin
(Formerly an intern at the USGS branch of isotope geology)
Sendmail is hosed and SIMS won't be ready for the beginning of the semester.
Now there's an interesting thought. Can carnivore keep up with SIMS? A packet sniffer can catch the packets, but sustained operation requires both capture and analysis. SIMS's MTA can be quite a handfull.
Stallman's original goal was to destroy AT&T by creating an unencumbered Un*x like O/S. The whole mantra about openness & freedom, etc... All developed later. I'm not trying to take anything away from what the man has done. As with many good things, he's gotten better with time. Almost like a fine wine aging.
But don't forget for a moment... The original motive was revenge. You can sum up most of his talks from 1984 through 1988 in the phrase "AT&T must die".
All of which reminds me... It's time for me to send him another check.
Yeah, I know... But I was feeling particularly self-rightous last night, and I felt like venting. So I engaged in some troll-flame therapy. Just as long as he/she doesn't send me a bill...:-)
Let's see here... I first logged into BSD Unix when I was a freshman in high school... That's like 1982 or 1983... My first Linux kernel was 0.95a in winter/spring of 1992.... Hmmmm... 1982...1992....
BSD Artistic License - 1981??? GNU GPL - around 1985.
Oh... And before you quote Stallman... Remember, there are some people lurking here on Slashdot that remember what his original goal was. The one he doesn't talk about anymore...(Hint - It involves AT&T)
They used solaris x86 instead of the "real" solaris running on sparc processors.
It's like >80% common code. The SPARC chips just give you associative cache, hardware contexts, 144/288 bit ECC memory paths, etc... Solaris x86 is "real"... It's the x86 hardware that's a joke.
BSD people have an odd obsession with their inferiority complex.
Conversely... Linux bigots have a strange superiority complex....
But seriously... BSD should run rings around both Linux and Solaris. At least until they have to start managing structure locks and kernel access. Then they'll be where Linux was four years ago... Or Solaris back in 1992.
Now on a 4-way or larger multiprocessor box... Solaris is going to kick serious butt. It's at that point that the overhead from the thread management starts really paying off. Sadly, this is also the point at which the x86 hardware usually folds.
Diesel exhaust is a major factor in particulate matter pollution
That's the point. The TDI doesn't produce those particulates. It's one of the cleanest diesels ever made. Particulates are the black crap you see spewing from the stack of a semi. As for the diesel smell, I've never noticed it from a VW either. The VW TDI engine is different from any other diesel made. Diesel != Bad. Most of them just need some serious work.
My prediction on the "breakthrough" needed : a theoretical understanding of how convection works.
Last post honest....
I was reading somewhere last year that someone holds a patent on a mixed fluid process. I believe it was water and ammonia. The plant ran in the same sense of heat -> superheat -> extract work -> reheat -> extract work -> condense, at which point, the ammonia became superheated by the latent heat of vaporization from the condensing water, the two seperate, and the ammonia goes through one more turbine before getting reintroduced to the water and going back to the boiler. The problem being, try building a powerplant/turbine that can work off of "wet" ammonia vapor, with a pH greater than 10. Superheated steam is corrosive enough without adding a strong base. I remember thinking at the time that this problem might be solved by using some form of designer water soluble fluorocarbon (fluoronated alcohol?) in place of the ammonia.
The distinction is that efficiency is measure by the formula eff = WORK_DONE/HEAT_INPUT
and not eff != HEAT_TRANSFERED/HEAT_INPUT (which is what most people tend to think).
Hmmm....This Geologist turned computer geek is willing to capitulate. I'm guilty of thinking about the individual heat exchanger, and not multiple stages of heat exchange. However... Going back to one of your earlier posts, you stated that power plant effeciency was maxed out around 40%. I claimed 10% possibly recoverable, you claim 20% under certain conditions. This stregthens my assertation that there's still research and improvements to be made in power plant design.:-)
So if we use electric cars AND we have a coal-burning power plant as our source
Uggg... Sorry... West coast lifer here. The only coal fired power plants I've seen are on TV. I think there's one near the Grand Canyon, but that's 1000+ miles away, and I've never been there. No arguments from me though... Coal == Bad. Unfortunately, there isn't a good alternative for much of the country. Solar panels are not likely to contribute significantly any time soon.
For the record, I don't have a problem with vegetarians... just fanatical vegans. For those that don't understand the difference, a vegetarian doesn't eat meat. A vegan doesn't eat anything that was animal derived. No milk, cheese, eggs, etc... They're the fanatical religious fringe, that tends to get involved with illegal forms of activism such as cutting down ranchers fences.
The insurance industry needs to start charging an INSANE amount of money for covering urban commuters with SUVs
The problem being, there's no legal mechanism that allows for regulation with this kind of granularity. Back in the early 80's, they made all gas stations put vapor return nozzles on their pumps in California. Great idea for urban areas. But out in the sticks... The gas station near my family's ranch sit adjacent to something like 40000 acres of fir trees. You can bet those trees put out several orders of magnitude more hydrocarbons (turpentine from the pitch) than the gas station. There used to be 4 gas stations... The mom and pop places folded due to the cost of converting the pumps, leaving the one big corperate owned station. But that didn't matter one bit to the urban people that supported those regulations. I could go on and on with similar examples of urban voters screwing over rural folks with dumb regulations. Don't get me started about moutain lion & coyote hunting restrictions. Suffice to say, I haven't seen a deer on our property in almost 5 years, and I don't walk in the woods without a pistol.
the majority of new cars sold in the US are SUVs
Some power-hungry fringe of society would like you to believe this. Really. The thing about statistics is, they're really easy to lie with. You see, SUV's are lumped in with light-trucks. So if Joe's construction company buy's a fleet Ford F-350 pickup trucks, they get counted in with the people buying RAV4's. Now really, do you think a RAV4 and a 6500lb. F-350 belong in the same class of vehicle? Of course not. They're lumped together because they serve someone's political agenda. Sort of like the dead 17-year old drug dealing gang member is a "child killed by handguns". Yea... sure. Think for yourself man... Don't be one of the "sheeple".
No doubt, SUV's have risen in popularity. But it's because the compact cars being sold today, are just not utilitarian enough. Try fitting 2 adults, 4 kids and a two soccer nets into a honda accord. It doesn't work. You can do it in a minivan, but you'll find that the minivan has many of the same problems the SUV does, and they're not cheap. So it comes down to two choices... Uncool minivan that can crush a sub-compact, or a trendy SUV that can crush a sub-compact. If you're going to make decisions for people, please remember to wear the brown shirt with arm band, and the jack boots.
Also... Suppose I didn't spend the extra $10K on the SUV. I'd have spent it on something else, like most people. The cost of whatever I did buy would then get adjusted upwards due to demand. So Ford soaked me for $10K extra on a Expedition. That means they can sell 5 sub-compact Focus models at a $2000 loss, making those vehicles easier to afford for those that don't make my obcene hi-tech salary. It's welfare for capitalism. They will sell those sub-compacts at a loss to make them more attractive and keep their EPA CAFE figures in line.
I leave you with one more thought... I've been driving for 15 years. I have never caused an accident. My one speeding ticket was 14 years ago, given to me for driving a 40hp VW bug too fast, not a SUV. I've been in two accidents, both times I was rear ended while driving a pickup truck. Both times, I walked away. Both times, the insurance company had to replace my bumper at a cost of less than $500. Both times, the vehicle at fault was totalled out at a cost of more than $10,000.
Now... You want to explain to me again why I'm a high risk, and need to pay more?
Holy moley... your SUV uses a constant 260hp? Wow, you are one badass mofo. Before you go and get all math-a-matical on us, you might to sit and ponder this one a little more.
God, I'm glad someone questions my assumptions! Sheesh... I was starting to get worried about the Slashdot crowd's techie reputation. Yes, you've been baited...
To answer your question... No... Nor is the engine capable of producing 260hp over more than 10% of it's operating RPM range. But it get's over 200 for a fair chunk, and while towing uphill, you use quite a bit of it for extended durations. I live in California, where we have at least a working idea of what a mountain is supposed to be. Towing a trailer over Donner Pass will have you into the throttle rather heavily for better part of an hour. The point is, a gasoline/diesel/*thanol engine is capable of those extended periods of high output. Nobody has come up with a battery or other storage device that can do that. So, while I may not use that capability on a daily basis, it is there, and when I need it, I need it.
think about this: put regenerative electric motors into that SUV
I'd love to. Been thinking about this for years. I ride a diesel-electric driven train to work every day. (You didn't think I drove the SUV all the time did you?) The elegance and effeciency of a locomotive is just wonderful. Second only to a ship in terms of effeciency. The engine produces exactly the amount of power needed, runs at near constant (low) RPM, and can be tuned for maximum effeciency at that speed. There's no mechanical coupling to the wheels, just a 80+% effecient system of electric motors. Detroit sould have switched to this years ago. Rumor has it, one of the big three will introduce a hybrid electric full-sized truck in the next 5 years. I'm waiting with cash in hand.
with a flywheel for energy storage
That'd be cool as a booster. Definitly reduces the size of the engine needed, and gives you a place to dump the regen-brake power. Nice thing about flywheels, energy stored goes up exponentially with RPM. Let us know when you've come up with a bearing design that will work, and have figured out a crash worthy safty cage that doesn't cancel the benefits. Graphite flywheels are probably the place to start, since they just turn into hot dust when they shatter. But they need to spin really fast... So the bearings are really important.
solar film covering the top...
I have this little 10 watt amorphous solar cell that I use to run my ham radio station. It's pretty nifty. Thing is, it needs to be pointed at the Sun +-5 degrees, or the output current drops in the toilet. So unless you can always park in a parking space tilted towars the sun, I think you'll be wasting a great deal of money. A few years back, I attended SEER in Willits, CA, and they had a large collection of electric car convertions. Since I was a young snot-nosed kid at the time, I asked one of the owners why he didn't put solar panels on the roof. He said it would take upwards of a month to charge the car to travel 50 miles. Not economical.
see if a light bulb doesn't ding over your head
"ding ding"... Round three....
Electricity isn't just for whiny vegans.
(OT comments about gas chambers & firing squads deleted..)
(the theoretical limit is about 60% depending on in/out temp ratios)
Errr... I'm pretty sure it's 50%. Bring mass of water A at 100 deg C in contact with equal mass of water B at 0 deg C, and you end up (ignoring losses) with two masses of water at 50 deg C, not one at 40 and one at 60. A powerplant is usually using a gas/liquid gas/vapor heat exchanger, but that just generally changes the mass flow rate of the lighter gas vs. the heavier vapor/liquid. Another way to sum up, once the tempurature of the two working fluids is the same, no heat tranfer occurs between them.
Slashdot Mirror
Ferries??? Yea.... Right.... The bering straight in winter isn't anything I'd be boating on.
Temkin
That little comment would get the secretary fired/tranfered so fast.... Not fair, but don't think it won't happen. I dated an office bookkeeper... As a result, she got demoted to a receptionist job that she hated, and quit. I married her, and quit as well. I went to work in IT, and we lived happily ever after. :-)
I guess what I'm saying is, don't lie about something like this. If there isn't a relationship there already, don't say a word. You'll just be screwing up some poor underpaid, undereducated or underemployed person's life.
Forge is right about the ambition part though. The only way out, short of finding a new job, is to convince them of the following:
1. One of the other people in the office is a better choice.
2. You're irreplaceable right where you are.
3. They're not idiots for choosing you, just not fully informed. Pin this on the departed manager if you can, but don't push it.
For those that say, "Just get a new job". I say, what if the guy has stock options? It might force him to leave quite a bundle of cash on the table. If this were a larger company, I'd say take the promotion, and then lateral transfer out to some other division. But a small shop doesn't have the opportunity. There may be room for some concessions. Find a way to give a boost to the 2nd level manager's career/ego/whatever. Perhaps a small reorganization, where he takes most of the staff load, and you manage the "skunk works".
Temkin
I think the one of my biggest complaints against advertising in general is it's tendancy to carpet bomb people without mercy. I mean you really just can't get away from the stuff if you want to.
When I stop and evaluate the sheer volume of advertising that gets directed at me it gets quite depressing. The energy content of the paper advertising directed at my house via junkmail and my one newspaper subscription is probably at least a measurable fraction of my home heating energy needs.
I could go to all the trouble to get removed from mailing lists and the like, but that would eat up as much of my time as throwing the crap out. So I basicly end up saving my energy to direct it at a few serious offenders. I've got a short list of rules I try and apply.
1.If it gets advertised on the sunday comics page ad flap, I boycott. (A certain "B-label" tire company is screwed.)
2. If I get a phone call that I did not solicit, I boycott. (Yes, I need new windows, thank you for informing me which vendor to avoid... click)
3. If I get targeted due to what I consider to be highly confidential information, I boycott. (Home equity loans... Faaassstt!!)
4. If you sell highly confidential information about me, and I am able, I will boycott you. (I've left 2 banks over this, and I'm trying to find a way to punish my home loan vendor. Funny thing is, the banks were probably breaking the law.)
5. If I stop doing business with you, and you harass and persue me, I not only boycott, I activly try and damage your reputation with my peers.
6. If you engague in "blitz" tatics, I'll usually seek some form of retribution. These offenders are usually movie advertisers. My retribution is usually to go to the matinee' and reduce their profit, if it's a movie I want to see. If it's crap I'm not interested in, I'll avoid doing business with the "market channel" they're using to get at me. This keeps me out of McDonald's and Burger King quite a bit, which may end up improving my health.... :-)
So I guess the coming changes in net advertising will force me to add some more rules to the list. I'll probably start with page exit popup windows. Those seem particularly obnoxious, in that they would hold me captive against my will for a brief period of time. When I want to leave, I don't want anything slowing me down. Viewing a page before getting at content at least has some sort of pavlovian reward to it. Multiple pop-up windows will get old quick.
Temkin
The huge Altamont wind farm is visible right outside my front door, 30 miles NE of Silicon Valley. Guess what.... The windmills aren't turning. There's not enough wind during the winter. Dam California's nice weather... :-)
Now during the summer.... When there is enough wind... It's because it's 105 deg./F on the other side of the hill. My house will be at a nice balmy 95 deg./F, and the frigging computers, *nix, wintel or otherwise will BSOD/crash/watchdog, and what have you... due to the heat. I'm keeping my A/C thank you very much.
But I tell you what... I'm going to quit reading slashdot, and pick up the phone and start soliciting bids to replace my vintage 1968 central A/C and furnace. I think it's time. :-)
Temkin
Kilauea is where they train new vulcanologists. It's dangerous, but safe enough for grad students that have signed liability limiting contracts with their schools. Sheild volcanos are at least somewhat predictable. Stratovolcanos are way too dangerous. Something like 4 scientists are lost every year to S.V.'s.
As for which to study... They study the ones that kill people, destroy property, and alter climates on a global scale. When was the last time you heard someone mention that kilauea's eruption was going to depress global tempuratures by 2 degrees for the next couple years? Sure it destroys people's houses, roads, churches, etc... But nothing compared to the effects of say Mt. Pinatubo's 1991 eruption.
Kilauea is pretty.... But boring.
Temkin (BS Geology)
What the hell is "bling blingin"?
Uhhh-oh... I must be getting old. I've stopped absorbing new slang... No matter... I'll just buy one of the new bullet proof, light weight titanium SUV's that are just around the corner. Hopefully they won't get so light they drop diesel engines as an option. Nothing more fun than having a lowered Honda Civic DX (Don't forget the Type R sticker) pull up next to you at a stop light, both windows rolled down, playing that really loud distorted rap. Light turns green, romp on the accelerator, a little turbo lag, and rich injector mix builds up some nasty exaust. The turbo spools up just about the time the exaust pipe is level with the driver's open window. The plume shoots in one window and out the other. :-)
Hmmm... Titanium turbine wheels might eliminate the turbo lag. Probably affect my timing somewhat. I guess I still have a few years of fun left.
Temkin
MCI used to call me every other day, trying to get me on the "friends and family plan". Funny thing is, I never make long distance calls. My entire family lives in my local toll region. I finally told them that point blank. I just said "No really, I make like 1 long distance call a year, and I'm thinking of dropping long distance capability on this phone line altogether. I'll just use my cell when I need it." I haven't heard from them in months.
Temkin
What company will Sun buy next? SGI.
I'm sitting here trying to think of one core competency of SGI's that Sun lacks, and can't source elsewhere. I'm drawing a blank.
SGI is going down.
Temkin
get the feeling a lot of the times that they're just playing with high tech equipment, allowed to make whatever "statement of fact" they feel like (with absolutely no consequence to the correctness of it), and change it whenever it suites them to do so. Plus they get paid to do this! I think I picked the wrong profession...
I suspect you underestimate the distortion imposed by the technically ignorant journalists through which much of your information gets filtered.
Scientist: Wow... all these meteorites are roughly the same young age, and we think they all came from Mars. That's wierd. Hmmm...
Journalist: (bold 36 point headline) Mars is young! Scientists are baffled. Debate rages. Useless sound bites at 11.
Temkin
This is one of the more clue'd in threads I've read so far.
A couple of the questions I want answered are:
1. What about partial resetting of the the isotope clock, either by the ejecting impact, or atmospheric entry to earth. How does the K/Ar dates compare to Rb/Sr, which has a higher temp. threshold. It's really easy to screw up K/Ar dating of samples that have been reheated. Doing the mineral seperations needed for some of the other dating techniques (U/Pb, Rb/Sr, Nd/Sm) is difficult on small sample sizes like these. It also seems to me that any sample that leaves mars and hits earth has sailed through two potential clock resetting events with narrowly defined energy windows. First, it gets hit hard enough to leave mars, but not get immolated. Second, it traverses similar "tranfer orbits" between mars and earth. Third, it hits earth's atmosphere, is big enough to survive entry, but small enough not to vaporize on impact. Now there's probably a wide range of solutions to each of these problems. But I suspect the most common solutions are going to have really similar energies. Translation... Really similar amounts of heating.
2. I'd like to see some more data on the cosmic-ray aging process for space flight. Sounds iffy, errr... interesting... (thinking inverse square law...)
Finally... I think the Mars researchers are spending way too much time studying itty bitty samples that are of very poor quality, and attrocious provenance. We need to go to mars and return a couple hundered pounds of rocks. And a trained geologist needs to collect them. The difference between the samples collected by Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 is like night and day. Not to knock Neil & Buzz... It just wasn't their thing.
I say we 'open source' science, and put them (the scietists) on usenet and mailing lists that are easily accessible.
We're here... But you're asking for teachers, not scientists. Scientists investigate basic knowlege in the pantheon of disciplines. Engineers figure out useful ways of applying that research. Teachers instill knowlege in the ingnorant. Scientists are often terrible teachers.
Temkin (B.S. Geology - hydrogeology, low temp geochemistry, and isotope geology)
know that potassium-40's half-life is 1.3 billion years? Even over 10 years, that's a part-per-billion experiment.
You know nothing about particle physics do you? Even done the way you seem to imply, it's trivial with a modern mass spectrometer.
know that there wasn't argon trapped in the rock along with the potassium in the first place?
(sigh... creationists keep using the same arguments over... and over... and over... Never anything new.) Ok... One more time.... It probably does contain non-radiogenic argon. The atmosphere certainly does, and the samples get collected and processed in the atmosphere. At least up until the point at which you place the sample in the argon collection vacuum chamber. But here's the key point. Listen carefully... ONLY Ar40 IS THE PRODUCT OF K40 DECAY! That means you can use the Ar36/Ar38 ratio, which is a constant (more reasearch for you to do...) to subtract out any contamination, including any excess Ar40 that was picked up from the atmosphere.
Some good scientists admit these assumptions up front
Ok... I'm not even going to reply to you anymore. "Good Scientists" != icr.org. These are the same fucking idiots that dumped a bunch of goldfish in salt water in an attempt to figure out how fresh water fish survived the great flood. (hint - The goldfish died)
So you go on believing whatever you want about the age of the earth. But don't expect anyone with any serious scientific credential to even talk to you. The age of the earth is no longer even debated in geologic academia. It's 4.55 +- 0.2 billion years.
Temkin
(Formerly an intern at the USGS branch of isotope geology)
Great, but you forgot the most important chapters!
Chapter 5: Case studies in career timing. Knowing when to move on.
Chapter 6: Obfuscating your reference trail, ensuring that your past doesn't haunt you.
Temkin
Sendmail is hosed and SIMS won't be ready for the beginning of the semester.
Now there's an interesting thought. Can carnivore keep up with SIMS? A packet sniffer can catch the packets, but sustained operation requires both capture and analysis. SIMS's MTA can be quite a handfull.
Temkin
Two weeks late... But here goes...
Stallman's original goal was to destroy AT&T by creating an unencumbered Un*x like O/S. The whole mantra about openness & freedom, etc... All developed later. I'm not trying to take anything away from what the man has done. As with many good things, he's gotten better with time. Almost like a fine wine aging.
But don't forget for a moment... The original motive was revenge. You can sum up most of his talks from 1984 through 1988 in the phrase "AT&T must die".
All of which reminds me... It's time for me to send him another check.
Temkin
Further... If you run your own Sendmail daemon, and it happens to be v8.11.0, and has TLS configured. Can they even scan your headers?
Temkin
Yeah, I know... But I was feeling particularly self-rightous last night, and I felt like venting. So I engaged in some troll-flame therapy. Just as long as he/she doesn't send me a bill... :-)
Temkin
not as time tested as linux
Now that's funny.... How old are you?
Let's see here... I first logged into BSD Unix when I was a freshman in high school... That's like 1982 or 1983... My first Linux kernel was 0.95a in winter/spring of 1992.... Hmmmm... 1982 ...1992....
BSD Artistic License - 1981??? GNU GPL - around 1985.
Oh... And before you quote Stallman... Remember, there are some people lurking here on Slashdot that remember what his original goal was. The one he doesn't talk about anymore...(Hint - It involves AT&T)
Temkin
They used solaris x86 instead of the "real" solaris running on sparc processors.
It's like >80% common code. The SPARC chips just give you associative cache, hardware contexts, 144/288 bit ECC memory paths, etc... Solaris x86 is "real"... It's the x86 hardware that's a joke.
BSD people have an odd obsession with their inferiority complex.
Conversely... Linux bigots have a strange superiority complex....
But seriously... BSD should run rings around both Linux and Solaris. At least until they have to start managing structure locks and kernel access. Then they'll be where Linux was four years ago... Or Solaris back in 1992.
Now on a 4-way or larger multiprocessor box... Solaris is going to kick serious butt. It's at that point that the overhead from the thread management starts really paying off. Sadly, this is also the point at which the x86 hardware usually folds.
Temkin
That weight limit is merely a manufacturer RECOMMENDATION.
Make sure you explain that to your insurance company after you get in an accident. They love to use it as an escape clause when possible.
Temkin
Diesel exhaust is a major factor in particulate matter pollution
That's the point. The TDI doesn't produce those particulates. It's one of the cleanest diesels ever made. Particulates are the black crap you see spewing from the stack of a semi. As for the diesel smell, I've never noticed it from a VW either. The VW TDI engine is different from any other diesel made. Diesel != Bad. Most of them just need some serious work.
Temkin
My prediction on the "breakthrough" needed : a theoretical understanding of how convection works.
Last post honest....
I was reading somewhere last year that someone holds a patent on a mixed fluid process. I believe it was water and ammonia. The plant ran in the same sense of heat -> superheat -> extract work -> reheat -> extract work -> condense, at which point, the ammonia became superheated by the latent heat of vaporization from the condensing water, the two seperate, and the ammonia goes through one more turbine before getting reintroduced to the water and going back to the boiler. The problem being, try building a powerplant/turbine that can work off of "wet" ammonia vapor, with a pH greater than 10. Superheated steam is corrosive enough without adding a strong base. I remember thinking at the time that this problem might be solved by using some form of designer water soluble fluorocarbon (fluoronated alcohol?) in place of the ammonia.
Cheers,
Temkin
The distinction is that efficiency is measure by the formula eff = WORK_DONE/HEAT_INPUT
and not eff != HEAT_TRANSFERED/HEAT_INPUT (which is what most people tend to think).
Hmmm....This Geologist turned computer geek is willing to capitulate. I'm guilty of thinking about the individual heat exchanger, and not multiple stages of heat exchange. However... Going back to one of your earlier posts, you stated that power plant effeciency was maxed out around 40%. I claimed 10% possibly recoverable, you claim 20% under certain conditions. This stregthens my assertation that there's still research and improvements to be made in power plant design. :-)
So if we use electric cars AND we have a coal-burning power plant as our source
Uggg... Sorry... West coast lifer here. The only coal fired power plants I've seen are on TV. I think there's one near the Grand Canyon, but that's 1000+ miles away, and I've never been there. No arguments from me though... Coal == Bad. Unfortunately, there isn't a good alternative for much of the country. Solar panels are not likely to contribute significantly any time soon.
Cheers, and thanks for the thermo refresher!
Temkin
As an SUV hater (and a vegetarian :)
For the record, I don't have a problem with vegetarians... just fanatical vegans. For those that don't understand the difference, a vegetarian doesn't eat meat. A vegan doesn't eat anything that was animal derived. No milk, cheese, eggs, etc... They're the fanatical religious fringe, that tends to get involved with illegal forms of activism such as cutting down ranchers fences.
The insurance industry needs to start charging an INSANE amount of money for covering urban commuters with SUVs
The problem being, there's no legal mechanism that allows for regulation with this kind of granularity. Back in the early 80's, they made all gas stations put vapor return nozzles on their pumps in California. Great idea for urban areas. But out in the sticks... The gas station near my family's ranch sit adjacent to something like 40000 acres of fir trees. You can bet those trees put out several orders of magnitude more hydrocarbons (turpentine from the pitch) than the gas station. There used to be 4 gas stations... The mom and pop places folded due to the cost of converting the pumps, leaving the one big corperate owned station. But that didn't matter one bit to the urban people that supported those regulations. I could go on and on with similar examples of urban voters screwing over rural folks with dumb regulations. Don't get me started about moutain lion & coyote hunting restrictions. Suffice to say, I haven't seen a deer on our property in almost 5 years, and I don't walk in the woods without a pistol.
the majority of new cars sold in the US are SUVs
Some power-hungry fringe of society would like you to believe this. Really. The thing about statistics is, they're really easy to lie with. You see, SUV's are lumped in with light-trucks. So if Joe's construction company buy's a fleet Ford F-350 pickup trucks, they get counted in with the people buying RAV4's. Now really, do you think a RAV4 and a 6500lb. F-350 belong in the same class of vehicle? Of course not. They're lumped together because they serve someone's political agenda. Sort of like the dead 17-year old drug dealing gang member is a "child killed by handguns". Yea... sure. Think for yourself man... Don't be one of the "sheeple".
No doubt, SUV's have risen in popularity. But it's because the compact cars being sold today, are just not utilitarian enough. Try fitting 2 adults, 4 kids and a two soccer nets into a honda accord. It doesn't work. You can do it in a minivan, but you'll find that the minivan has many of the same problems the SUV does, and they're not cheap. So it comes down to two choices... Uncool minivan that can crush a sub-compact, or a trendy SUV that can crush a sub-compact. If you're going to make decisions for people, please remember to wear the brown shirt with arm band, and the jack boots.
Also... Suppose I didn't spend the extra $10K on the SUV. I'd have spent it on something else, like most people. The cost of whatever I did buy would then get adjusted upwards due to demand. So Ford soaked me for $10K extra on a Expedition. That means they can sell 5 sub-compact Focus models at a $2000 loss, making those vehicles easier to afford for those that don't make my obcene hi-tech salary. It's welfare for capitalism. They will sell those sub-compacts at a loss to make them more attractive and keep their EPA CAFE figures in line.
I leave you with one more thought... I've been driving for 15 years. I have never caused an accident. My one speeding ticket was 14 years ago, given to me for driving a 40hp VW bug too fast, not a SUV. I've been in two accidents, both times I was rear ended while driving a pickup truck. Both times, I walked away. Both times, the insurance company had to replace my bumper at a cost of less than $500. Both times, the vehicle at fault was totalled out at a cost of more than $10,000.
Now... You want to explain to me again why I'm a high risk, and need to pay more?
Temkin
Holy moley... your SUV uses a constant 260hp? Wow, you are one badass mofo. Before you go and get all math-a-matical on us, you might to sit and ponder this one a little more.
God, I'm glad someone questions my assumptions! Sheesh... I was starting to get worried about the Slashdot crowd's techie reputation. Yes, you've been baited...
To answer your question... No... Nor is the engine capable of producing 260hp over more than 10% of it's operating RPM range. But it get's over 200 for a fair chunk, and while towing uphill, you use quite a bit of it for extended durations. I live in California, where we have at least a working idea of what a mountain is supposed to be. Towing a trailer over Donner Pass will have you into the throttle rather heavily for better part of an hour. The point is, a gasoline/diesel/*thanol engine is capable of those extended periods of high output. Nobody has come up with a battery or other storage device that can do that. So, while I may not use that capability on a daily basis, it is there, and when I need it, I need it.
think about this: put regenerative electric motors into that SUV
I'd love to. Been thinking about this for years. I ride a diesel-electric driven train to work every day. (You didn't think I drove the SUV all the time did you?) The elegance and effeciency of a locomotive is just wonderful. Second only to a ship in terms of effeciency. The engine produces exactly the amount of power needed, runs at near constant (low) RPM, and can be tuned for maximum effeciency at that speed. There's no mechanical coupling to the wheels, just a 80+% effecient system of electric motors. Detroit sould have switched to this years ago. Rumor has it, one of the big three will introduce a hybrid electric full-sized truck in the next 5 years. I'm waiting with cash in hand.
with a flywheel for energy storage
That'd be cool as a booster. Definitly reduces the size of the engine needed, and gives you a place to dump the regen-brake power. Nice thing about flywheels, energy stored goes up exponentially with RPM. Let us know when you've come up with a bearing design that will work, and have figured out a crash worthy safty cage that doesn't cancel the benefits. Graphite flywheels are probably the place to start, since they just turn into hot dust when they shatter. But they need to spin really fast... So the bearings are really important.
solar film covering the top...
I have this little 10 watt amorphous solar cell that I use to run my ham radio station. It's pretty nifty. Thing is, it needs to be pointed at the Sun +-5 degrees, or the output current drops in the toilet. So unless you can always park in a parking space tilted towars the sun, I think you'll be wasting a great deal of money. A few years back, I attended SEER in Willits, CA, and they had a large collection of electric car convertions. Since I was a young snot-nosed kid at the time, I asked one of the owners why he didn't put solar panels on the roof. He said it would take upwards of a month to charge the car to travel 50 miles. Not economical.
see if a light bulb doesn't ding over your head
"ding ding"... Round three....
Electricity isn't just for whiny vegans.
(OT comments about gas chambers & firing squads deleted..)
Electricity fuckin' rocks.
Amen.
Temkin
(the theoretical limit is about 60% depending on in/out temp ratios)
Errr... I'm pretty sure it's 50%. Bring mass of water A at 100 deg C in contact with equal mass of water B at 0 deg C, and you end up (ignoring losses) with two masses of water at 50 deg C, not one at 40 and one at 60. A powerplant is usually using a gas/liquid gas/vapor heat exchanger, but that just generally changes the mass flow rate of the lighter gas vs. the heavier vapor/liquid. Another way to sum up, once the tempurature of the two working fluids is the same, no heat tranfer occurs between them.
Temkin