Yes, we had a very warm summer in april-june, then autumn started around the end of june and it's been one of the longest autumns ever. Still no sight of winter, although we're supposed to get some this week. Maybe.
Yes, and it was very reassuring too, because last year they told us that the winter was so extraordinarily cold because of global warming, with all sorts of interesting explanations about global warming actually causing more extremes, and therefore colder winters too. So this year, all my fears about global warming were put to rest because of this extraordinarily warm winter.
The X-15 was rocket-powered, so not technically a jet. A jet engine takes outside air and adds fuel to it, the X-15 carried both the fuel and the oxygen. I know, I know. you could call the exhaust from a rocket a "jet" as well, but that's not what's commonly understood as the definition of a jet.
Most cases? A320 (39800 ft), B737 (35000-41000 ft), B747 (45000 ft), hell, even a BAe 146 can make it up to 31000 ft! Oh, and the Concorde, a plane from 1969, could cruise at 60000 ft.
The jet I'm currently flying (A320, a pretty ordinary passenger jet) has a maximum cruising altitude of 39,800 feet, I've flown business jets at 47,000 feet and according to Wikipedia, a russian jet once made it to 123,520 feet. Now I'm sure there are probably a few jets who can only make it up to 26,600 feet, but I would hardly call that "most jet aircraft". So even that comparison is totally wrong.
Buoyancy in air is caused by a slight difference in the total momentum from collisions with air molecules below and above the object. The air above has a slightly lower pressure, which means the (lots of) tiny molecules slam into the balloon slightly less frequently (density) and/or with slightly less speed (temperature) than those below. This difference matches the weight of a similar volume of air, which is logical in a stable atmosphere. That's why objects lighter than air go up.
As soon as the balloon starts moving up, though, the equation changes very quickly. The speed vector of the balloon will increase the relative speed of the molecules above, and decrease the relative speed of those below. This will reduce and eliminate the buoyancy effect rather quickly, resulting in a stable speed after a few seconds. So this is not just a matter of making a better balloon, streamlining it, reducing friction, etcetera. Sure, friction doesn't help, but the real problem is much more fundamental. The very reason why the balloon is being pushed up in the first place, disappears as soon as the balloon reaches a speed that is still very, very slow.
What if your password is "I'm never gonna give up my password, you f*cking police pig"? Would be kind of hard to give the password without getting a fine for offending a police officer. They would be requiring you not just to incriminate yourself, but even to commit an actual offense! Surely that has to be against the law?
I believe I read somewhere that China was the fastest growing market for Apple, and there are plenty of other markets too. Solving the problems of the US might indeed not be their biggest concern. I imagine that for every laid-off US worker who can no longer afford an iPhone, there will be a new Chinese customer. OK, maybe not the actual person building the iPhone, but the entire country's average prosperity seems to be going up quickly enough to make my assumption likely.
If they could sell the same number of iPhones with the same amout of success for $20-$50 extra, don't you think they would already be selling them at that higher price? I don't think Apple just slaps an arbitray price on their products. In reality, if iPhones were made in the U.S., they would have to sell them for pretty much the same price, so the difference would be coming out of their profits. And from what I read, that difference is closer to $65. How much are they making on an iPhone? Sure, they would still retain some profit, but not nearly enough to keep their stock from plummeting.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing. It's merely a logical consequence of the capitalism that Americans love so much.
But how is this different from the old policy? Most plants WERE designed for a lifetime of 40 years or even less, and many HAVE been extended beyond their planned lifetime because they were deemed safe enough to continue. I can only hope that the standards for "safe enough" have been improved, but knowing how big money works, I have my doubts even after such a disaster. They'll just move the generators in a few plants one floor higher up and say "there, that fixed it, it's safe enough to continue". And, by the way, apart from the first reactor, the others were all less than 40 years old anyway so the question would not even have come up.
I wish they had driving rules like that: you should obey the speed limit unless you deem it's safe to go faster.
Wouldn't it be far better to have a hard limit so that nuclear power plants are guaranteed to be replaced by new, safer models? "Safe enough" is not good enough if much, much better alternatives are available.
I converted using Google, so I assume they use US gallons. My absolute record is 4.6 l/100 km (51 mpg) over a 40 km stretch of highway, busy enough to keep my speed around 90 km/h but not so busy that I had to brake often. The return trip was 4.8, so it wasn't because it was downhill or downwind. But when you're actually in a city, starting and stopping all the time, I can get nowhere near the Prius' economy. Then again, at 100 mph, the Prius consumes more. But you are right, of course, that diesel has more energy in it. It's really weird that it's cheaper, it should be the other way around. But then the truck drivers would be up in arms, so that must be the reason.
Some roller coaster... a 15 meter dive in 2.5 minutes, then a 180 meter dive in 12 minutes. Then five lunges "in quick succession" (again minutes for a coupe of dozen meters, I would estimate). I think the author of that article has never been on a roller coaster. Also, even if a whale goes straight down, it will still be pretty close to 1g. Boooooring...
The strange thing with hybrids, though, is that if I drive my wife's Prius in city traffic (not too congested so you can actually drive), with my totally different driving style (much more agressive), I still get the same mid-40s average as she does. The energy recuperation, and the use of the electric motor for accellerations, really seems to be extremely efficient. That all goes out the window on the (European) highway though: at 100 mph, my Mercedes diesel is actually more economical. But below 70, the Prius beats mine without any effort. In the city, my car's in the low thirties (which apparently is still pretty good compared to American cars)
Continuously Variable Transmissions haven't come close to automotive implementation yet
Really? The Mercedes A-class I drove a little while ago had a CVT that seemed to be pretty well implemented, and you might check the list on Wikipedia, starting in 1923 and including more than a dozen in the last decade or so. Even some American models.
Yes, that's precisely why this IBM patent is so bad imho. People will be forced to eat what other people, often very badly informed, consider to be healthy while it may actually be bad for you to eat that stuff. Most companies using such a system would immediately start giving penalties for fat and calories because everyone "knows" that they are bad. O, and anything containing cholesterol, obviously. Never mind recent scientific discoveries changing things from the "good" to the "bad" column or vice versa all the time, they'll take decades to trickle down to the idiot who gets to decide what you should eat today.
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So partly to help conserve these animals, they are going to transfer them from their native habitat and sterilize them?
Yes, we had a very warm summer in april-june, then autumn started around the end of june and it's been one of the longest autumns ever. Still no sight of winter, although we're supposed to get some this week. Maybe.
Yes, and it was very reassuring too, because last year they told us that the winter was so extraordinarily cold because of global warming, with all sorts of interesting explanations about global warming actually causing more extremes, and therefore colder winters too. So this year, all my fears about global warming were put to rest because of this extraordinarily warm winter.
I knew someone was going to reply something like that :-)
OK, I admit, I was lying, I wasn't in the act of flying at that precise time.
The X-15 was rocket-powered, so not technically a jet. A jet engine takes outside air and adds fuel to it, the X-15 carried both the fuel and the oxygen. I know, I know. you could call the exhaust from a rocket a "jet" as well, but that's not what's commonly understood as the definition of a jet.
Most cases? A320 (39800 ft), B737 (35000-41000 ft), B747 (45000 ft), hell, even a BAe 146 can make it up to 31000 ft! Oh, and the Concorde, a plane from 1969, could cruise at 60000 ft.
The jet I'm currently flying (A320, a pretty ordinary passenger jet) has a maximum cruising altitude of 39,800 feet, I've flown business jets at 47,000 feet and according to Wikipedia, a russian jet once made it to 123,520 feet. Now I'm sure there are probably a few jets who can only make it up to 26,600 feet, but I would hardly call that "most jet aircraft". So even that comparison is totally wrong.
You certainly didn't waste any apostrophes.
Nope, wouldn't work.
Buoyancy in air is caused by a slight difference in the total momentum from collisions with air molecules below and above the object. The air above has a slightly lower pressure, which means the (lots of) tiny molecules slam into the balloon slightly less frequently (density) and/or with slightly less speed (temperature) than those below. This difference matches the weight of a similar volume of air, which is logical in a stable atmosphere. That's why objects lighter than air go up.
As soon as the balloon starts moving up, though, the equation changes very quickly. The speed vector of the balloon will increase the relative speed of the molecules above, and decrease the relative speed of those below. This will reduce and eliminate the buoyancy effect rather quickly, resulting in a stable speed after a few seconds. So this is not just a matter of making a better balloon, streamlining it, reducing friction, etcetera. Sure, friction doesn't help, but the real problem is much more fundamental. The very reason why the balloon is being pushed up in the first place, disappears as soon as the balloon reaches a speed that is still very, very slow.
What if your password is "I'm never gonna give up my password, you f*cking police pig"? Would be kind of hard to give the password without getting a fine for offending a police officer. They would be requiring you not just to incriminate yourself, but even to commit an actual offense! Surely that has to be against the law?
I believe I read somewhere that China was the fastest growing market for Apple, and there are plenty of other markets too. Solving the problems of the US might indeed not be their biggest concern. I imagine that for every laid-off US worker who can no longer afford an iPhone, there will be a new Chinese customer. OK, maybe not the actual person building the iPhone, but the entire country's average prosperity seems to be going up quickly enough to make my assumption likely.
Just watch their stock when they make the announcement. A healthy reward is just not good enough these days.
If they could sell the same number of iPhones with the same amout of success for $20-$50 extra, don't you think they would already be selling them at that higher price? I don't think Apple just slaps an arbitray price on their products. In reality, if iPhones were made in the U.S., they would have to sell them for pretty much the same price, so the difference would be coming out of their profits. And from what I read, that difference is closer to $65. How much are they making on an iPhone? Sure, they would still retain some profit, but not nearly enough to keep their stock from plummeting.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing. It's merely a logical consequence of the capitalism that Americans love so much.
Yes, forget about fringe elements of christianity like, say, the Pope, for example.
There's a difference between religion and politics?
The constitution protects the rights of atheists and religious people of all varieties equally, and that includes the right to be rude
Funny how I initially misread that one. I was about to react "o, really?" before noticing the 'r'.
But if the silk is made by a caterpillar, you're OK with it? Not creepy? (Try to imagine the crawling caterpillar producing the thread)
gold cables are out of the question? Too bad, it would improve the quality of electricity a lot from what I heard.
But how is this different from the old policy? Most plants WERE designed for a lifetime of 40 years or even less, and many HAVE been extended beyond their planned lifetime because they were deemed safe enough to continue. I can only hope that the standards for "safe enough" have been improved, but knowing how big money works, I have my doubts even after such a disaster. They'll just move the generators in a few plants one floor higher up and say "there, that fixed it, it's safe enough to continue". And, by the way, apart from the first reactor, the others were all less than 40 years old anyway so the question would not even have come up.
I wish they had driving rules like that: you should obey the speed limit unless you deem it's safe to go faster.
Wouldn't it be far better to have a hard limit so that nuclear power plants are guaranteed to be replaced by new, safer models? "Safe enough" is not good enough if much, much better alternatives are available.
I converted using Google, so I assume they use US gallons. My absolute record is 4.6 l/100 km (51 mpg) over a 40 km stretch of highway, busy enough to keep my speed around 90 km/h but not so busy that I had to brake often. The return trip was 4.8, so it wasn't because it was downhill or downwind. But when you're actually in a city, starting and stopping all the time, I can get nowhere near the Prius' economy. Then again, at 100 mph, the Prius consumes more. But you are right, of course, that diesel has more energy in it. It's really weird that it's cheaper, it should be the other way around. But then the truck drivers would be up in arms, so that must be the reason.
Some roller coaster... a 15 meter dive in 2.5 minutes, then a 180 meter dive in 12 minutes. Then five lunges "in quick succession" (again minutes for a coupe of dozen meters, I would estimate). I think the author of that article has never been on a roller coaster. Also, even if a whale goes straight down, it will still be pretty close to 1g. Boooooring...
The strange thing with hybrids, though, is that if I drive my wife's Prius in city traffic (not too congested so you can actually drive), with my totally different driving style (much more agressive), I still get the same mid-40s average as she does. The energy recuperation, and the use of the electric motor for accellerations, really seems to be extremely efficient. That all goes out the window on the (European) highway though: at 100 mph, my Mercedes diesel is actually more economical. But below 70, the Prius beats mine without any effort. In the city, my car's in the low thirties (which apparently is still pretty good compared to American cars)
Continuously Variable Transmissions haven't come close to automotive implementation yet
Really? The Mercedes A-class I drove a little while ago had a CVT that seemed to be pretty well implemented, and you might check the list on Wikipedia, starting in 1923 and including more than a dozen in the last decade or so. Even some American models.
Yes, and $900 could pay for a LOT of doctor's visits too, so I'll just keep the old keyboard.
Yes, that's precisely why this IBM patent is so bad imho. People will be forced to eat what other people, often very badly informed, consider to be healthy while it may actually be bad for you to eat that stuff. Most companies using such a system would immediately start giving penalties for fat and calories because everyone "knows" that they are bad. O, and anything containing cholesterol, obviously. Never mind recent scientific discoveries changing things from the "good" to the "bad" column or vice versa all the time, they'll take decades to trickle down to the idiot who gets to decide what you should eat today.