You're right but you got the details about the car wrong. Here's how all the energy from the gasoline eventually gets turned into heat.
An ICE turns 30% of the gasoline's energy into kinetic energy at best. The rest is turned into waste heat, dissipated through the radiator and other engine cooling devices, exhaust and engine itself. This is why EVs are so much better, they turn well over 95% of the energy from the battery into kinetic energy.
The drivetrain heats up due to inefficiency (can cost another 20-35% loss all-together) and this heat is lost to the atmosphere, sometimes with the help of gearbox & diff coolers.
When you slow your car down, the car's kinetic energy is turned into heat in the brakes (and engine if you use engine braking), which is then dissipated to the atmosphere.
A very small amount is turned into tire heat (more when you change speed or direction) and an immeasurably small amount is turned into heat through air resistance.
Even if it were a horrible burning death ray, that's not so bad. With a good aiming system and maybe an emergency "flare-off" that can project the energy widely if something does terribly wrong, I think it could be safe enough.
The "too much energy" thing sounds VERY VHEish. The more fossil energy we could replace with fusion, the better, and the more excess energy we have (after, say, using much of it to lift the entire world into a post-scarcity utopia) the more we could use for carbon sequestration, or even recreational mech battles if we really have too much. Until we have some really nutty amount of energy that meaningfully heats the earth's atmosphere through waste heat it's absolutely not too much.
You didn't read what I linked to or don't understand the issue. Or you're one of those "only surface temps matter" types. The warming is still right on schedule, it's just being absorbed by the oceans and reduced temporarily by the La Nina effect.
If you look to climatology for weather forecasts it will always be wrong somewhere. Generally the predictions have been pretty good:
But keep trying to mislead with fudged statistics (discussed elsewhere in this thread) and spread FUD. The great thing about science is that it doesn't care what you believe.
Humanity has already pulled it off. Since the first Homo Sapiens was known (about 43k years ago), the Solar System has moved roughly 31 light years.
We haven't left the star so that's not even slightly clever in a low-brow kind of way.
I think we're nearing the apex of that few decades effort. I think over the next few decades we will see some degree of evidence for AGW, but it'll be considerably less effect than claimed by AGW advocates of the past few decades. At that point, the con will gradually fold and we can then begin rational discussions of what to do about AGW, if anything, in context with the other serious problems we will have.
Another example of your cleverness. AGW denial is as stupid as creationism at this point.
All the problems you've listed are very short-term and tiny in comparison to any part of interstellar spaceship construction. Yes we're good at reacting to immediate problems that can be handled by a megacorp or two and are compatible with our short-term thinking. Interstellar travel can never be one of these.
it won't actually affect human civilization. [...] It's be a major struggle. Food will be different. Shorelines will change. Land values will change. But no one will die. Data won't be lost. Electricity will still work.
Are you serious? Food will be in shortage (better check on how jellyfish handle ocean acidification), land values will change radically and there will be so much death. Especially when competition for dwindling resources gets the wars started. Some data will be lost and some electricity will stop working in those wars.
So I say this: let's make this problem as big as it can be. Let's see what happens, and how things change. Let's learn everything there is to know -- enough to know how to do it intentionally on venus, how to reverse it on mars, and how to control it on a per-region basis on earth.
And if we continue our record of failing at long-term "tragedy of the commons" type problems? What then? We don't know where to find another habitable planet, other than that it will be many lightyears away, and we have no way of traversing those distances on timescales relevant to a civilization.
What you want are cars that are so fuel efficient that they can burn orange juice, saliva, and urine.
Unless you find a way to split or fuse the atoms in those materials, there isn't enough energy in them for any kind of human transportation device.
also believe that these kinds of struggles are good to have -- pushing civilization into space exploration.
Are you so sure that humanity could ever pull off interstellar travel? Let's not even look at the problems of how much energy and material is available to us. It requires long-term thinking and generational sacrifice, and we can't even deal with a measly few-decades-long effort to stop global warming. You want to burn this planet down to force the issue? I think we need some practice at handling big, long-term problems first.
GW can be our first baby step towards being able to project-manage interstellar travel.
LOL the line about the toxic grenade light bulbs was the best. Property destruction LOLZ!
I'll second the new car thing though. It's much better to keep an old one with decent mileage on the road. Not because of battery manufacturing in particular, but the energy and materials that go into building any new car.
I knew that when I wrote the post. They'll take out everything involved in the use of the chemical weapons except for the warheads themselves. This doesn't rule out using the warheads to make chemical IEDs or launch suicide attacks but it makes Syria's neighbors safer, and hopefully the attack will deter the Syrian government from using them again.
Actually now that I wrote that, the Syrian government could start storing the related equipment with the warheads...their chemical ammo depots will be the safest places in the country when the US & friends start blowing shit up. I wouldn't be surprised if they've done it already.
The US government doesn't even want to do this, they would much rather do nothing right now.
But, a little more than a year ago Obama made a calculated bluff to discourage the Syrian government from using chemical weapons. Unfortunately they called that bluff shortly afterwards, but the US government tried to ignore it. Recently, the Syrian government made a mockery of that bluff, and now the US government has to take action to maintain credibility. This is for maintaining credibility, and since they have to blow some stuff up in the process, crippling the Assad regime's capability of using chemical weapons, conveniently eliminating the only thing that could draw them into this conflict again. Nothing more.
I predict that when this is over (which will be soon) the US government will keep very, very quiet about Syria.
It doesn't do anything for most Americans, you're the first to mention the civilian slaughter in this discussion at the time of writing and I'm 9/10ths down the page.
Sadly the US wants the Assad regime to win because he's a nice stable, western-world-friendly mass-murderous dictator and the civilians sort of look like scary Islamists. That's why they've been so hesitant to respond to an actual WMD use that would normally have the US government shitting ALL THE bricks. They want to let Assad quench his bloodlust on the population.
Deserts and the Arctic have a fully habitable atmosphere, 1G gravity, even other lifeforms and liquid water...while Arizona and Alaska can be pretty depressing, they're really not the same thing as living in a metal can in the murderous void of space.
Rising penalties? I just came in to say they got off easy. Administrative leave, OH NOES! They were making money deep into the 6-figures annually and caused a major fuckup that could have cost millions, if it didn't.
A friend of mine used to work at a bakery. Someone there got fired because they forgot to put the lid back on a drum of flour for a few minutes.
Good point. Unless it's a written company policy to deny people boarding who have tested positive for explosive residue, there could be room to argue that in court.
I saw the summary just before I went to lunch...came back and tried to find details on the Google GX3200 autonomous car. Results for "google gx3200 -uber" give nothing about any cars.
Refresh page and...yeah, it was a bunch of marketing bullshit.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right but you got the details about the car wrong. Here's how all the energy from the gasoline eventually gets turned into heat.
An ICE turns 30% of the gasoline's energy into kinetic energy at best. The rest is turned into waste heat, dissipated through the radiator and other engine cooling devices, exhaust and engine itself. This is why EVs are so much better, they turn well over 95% of the energy from the battery into kinetic energy.
The drivetrain heats up due to inefficiency (can cost another 20-35% loss all-together) and this heat is lost to the atmosphere, sometimes with the help of gearbox & diff coolers.
When you slow your car down, the car's kinetic energy is turned into heat in the brakes (and engine if you use engine braking), which is then dissipated to the atmosphere.
A very small amount is turned into tire heat (more when you change speed or direction) and an immeasurably small amount is turned into heat through air resistance.
Even if it were a horrible burning death ray, that's not so bad. With a good aiming system and maybe an emergency "flare-off" that can project the energy widely if something does terribly wrong, I think it could be safe enough.
The "too much energy" thing sounds VERY VHEish. The more fossil energy we could replace with fusion, the better, and the more excess energy we have (after, say, using much of it to lift the entire world into a post-scarcity utopia) the more we could use for carbon sequestration, or even recreational mech battles if we really have too much. Until we have some really nutty amount of energy that meaningfully heats the earth's atmosphere through waste heat it's absolutely not too much.
You didn't read what I linked to or don't understand the issue. Or you're one of those "only surface temps matter" types. The warming is still right on schedule, it's just being absorbed by the oceans and reduced temporarily by the La Nina effect.
If you look to climatology for weather forecasts it will always be wrong somewhere. Generally the predictions have been pretty good:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/comparing-global-temperature-predictions.html
But keep trying to mislead with fudged statistics (discussed elsewhere in this thread) and spread FUD. The great thing about science is that it doesn't care what you believe.
Humanity has already pulled it off. Since the first Homo Sapiens was known (about 43k years ago), the Solar System has moved roughly 31 light years.
We haven't left the star so that's not even slightly clever in a low-brow kind of way.
I think we're nearing the apex of that few decades effort. I think over the next few decades we will see some degree of evidence for AGW, but it'll be considerably less effect than claimed by AGW advocates of the past few decades. At that point, the con will gradually fold and we can then begin rational discussions of what to do about AGW, if anything, in context with the other serious problems we will have.
Another example of your cleverness. AGW denial is as stupid as creationism at this point.
All the problems you've listed are very short-term and tiny in comparison to any part of interstellar spaceship construction. Yes we're good at reacting to immediate problems that can be handled by a megacorp or two and are compatible with our short-term thinking. Interstellar travel can never be one of these.
it won't actually affect human civilization. [...] It's be a major struggle. Food will be different. Shorelines will change. Land values will change. But no one will die. Data won't be lost. Electricity will still work.
Are you serious? Food will be in shortage (better check on how jellyfish handle ocean acidification), land values will change radically and there will be so much death. Especially when competition for dwindling resources gets the wars started. Some data will be lost and some electricity will stop working in those wars.
So I say this: let's make this problem as big as it can be. Let's see what happens, and how things change. Let's learn everything there is to know -- enough to know how to do it intentionally on venus, how to reverse it on mars, and how to control it on a per-region basis on earth.
And if we continue our record of failing at long-term "tragedy of the commons" type problems? What then? We don't know where to find another habitable planet, other than that it will be many lightyears away, and we have no way of traversing those distances on timescales relevant to a civilization.
What you want are cars that are so fuel efficient that they can burn orange juice, saliva, and urine.
Unless you find a way to split or fuse the atoms in those materials, there isn't enough energy in them for any kind of human transportation device.
The tradition of having an incompetent idiot for CEO since Gates left the position (he was evil, but not stupid).
No need to worry about Microsoft recovering, they're doomed. Long live Elop!
also believe that these kinds of struggles are good to have -- pushing civilization into space exploration.
Are you so sure that humanity could ever pull off interstellar travel? Let's not even look at the problems of how much energy and material is available to us. It requires long-term thinking and generational sacrifice, and we can't even deal with a measly few-decades-long effort to stop global warming. You want to burn this planet down to force the issue? I think we need some practice at handling big, long-term problems first.
GW can be our first baby step towards being able to project-manage interstellar travel.
It's no sign to cheer:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming
Fun fact: During the dust bowl, our monied overlords thought it would be socialist to ship water to the victims.
LOL the line about the toxic grenade light bulbs was the best. Property destruction LOLZ!
I'll second the new car thing though. It's much better to keep an old one with decent mileage on the road. Not because of battery manufacturing in particular, but the energy and materials that go into building any new car.
If the route is flat and the GP is extremely patient / has a short work day it's doable. Maybe 1.5-2 hours each way.
Few vehicles that could be any good offroad were called "SUVs," most predate the term.
His body doesn't count as a man-made object, or this wouldn't have broken the record.
That's kind of what the CoinJoin idea amounts to.
Well then, not a radical improvement but still a small one. The US patent system would do well to have the same change.
I knew that when I wrote the post. They'll take out everything involved in the use of the chemical weapons except for the warheads themselves. This doesn't rule out using the warheads to make chemical IEDs or launch suicide attacks but it makes Syria's neighbors safer, and hopefully the attack will deter the Syrian government from using them again.
Actually now that I wrote that, the Syrian government could start storing the related equipment with the warheads...their chemical ammo depots will be the safest places in the country when the US & friends start blowing shit up. I wouldn't be surprised if they've done it already.
The US government doesn't even want to do this, they would much rather do nothing right now.
But, a little more than a year ago Obama made a calculated bluff to discourage the Syrian government from using chemical weapons. Unfortunately they called that bluff shortly afterwards, but the US government tried to ignore it. Recently, the Syrian government made a mockery of that bluff, and now the US government has to take action to maintain credibility. This is for maintaining credibility, and since they have to blow some stuff up in the process, crippling the Assad regime's capability of using chemical weapons, conveniently eliminating the only thing that could draw them into this conflict again. Nothing more.
I predict that when this is over (which will be soon) the US government will keep very, very quiet about Syria.
Hahaha no, they're not stupid or insane.
It doesn't do anything for most Americans, you're the first to mention the civilian slaughter in this discussion at the time of writing and I'm 9/10ths down the page.
Sadly the US wants the Assad regime to win because he's a nice stable, western-world-friendly mass-murderous dictator and the civilians sort of look like scary Islamists. That's why they've been so hesitant to respond to an actual WMD use that would normally have the US government shitting ALL THE bricks. They want to let Assad quench his bloodlust on the population.
Link:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19362
Deserts and the Arctic have a fully habitable atmosphere, 1G gravity, even other lifeforms and liquid water...while Arizona and Alaska can be pretty depressing, they're really not the same thing as living in a metal can in the murderous void of space.
Rising penalties? I just came in to say they got off easy. Administrative leave, OH NOES! They were making money deep into the 6-figures annually and caused a major fuckup that could have cost millions, if it didn't.
A friend of mine used to work at a bakery. Someone there got fired because they forgot to put the lid back on a drum of flour for a few minutes.
Good point. Unless it's a written company policy to deny people boarding who have tested positive for explosive residue, there could be room to argue that in court.
I saw the summary just before I went to lunch...came back and tried to find details on the Google GX3200 autonomous car. Results for "google gx3200 -uber" give nothing about any cars.
Refresh page and...yeah, it was a bunch of marketing bullshit.