More important than that, however, is the remaining fact that it broke in the first place. Complex systems have a way of doing that. When the consequences of failure are so dire, and very few human endeavors have consequences of failure anywhere near as dire as those involving nuclear energy, is it ever worth the risk?
Let's look at Three Mile Island. It failed, no doubting that. It also resulted in zero attributable deaths. Now let's look at automobiles. They're also complex systems, not nearly as complex as a nuclear facility, but still complex. They also fail. And that failure results in 40,000+ deaths per year in the United States alone. How about airplanes, one of those fails and you've got yourself 300 people. You want a really complex system, how about diplomatic relations. Those seem to fail a lot more often than nuclear plants fail and that results in thousands upon thousands of deaths per year. So yeah, there's danger in nuclear power plants but there's also danger in pretty much everything in life.
This is like banning a V-6 equipped Camaro because "it looks fast".
No doubt there are people who would like to do that as well; especially out here in California where there are many wussy lefties hard at work destroying the traditions, rights, and values that made this country great.
Especially because it's in California where a ridiculously fast (and fast looking) electric car is being designed.
Personally, I believe that if you really wanted to be a "good samaritan" you'd be carrying a knife, not a gun. Not only is it infinitely more useful in everyday situations, but there's significantly less chance of accidentally killing somebody with it.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this point. It does have the unfortunate effect of pointing out the truth that the band 311 brought out in 1995 that guns are for pussies. I'd wager that a lot more people don't have the stomach to stab somebody compared to those that could shoot someone.
Likewise, those who will not read a novel if a film has been made of it - a potted version, denuded of all subtlety, is all their mentality is equipped to cope with.
Simply because you prefer one medium of art over another doesn't mean that it is inherently better. The important aspect is the ability to understand and express your thoughts and opinions in meaningful ways. I have friends who've spent hundreds of dollars on books. I prefer to spend my money on music, it means more to mean and I get more out of music than I do from books. Others get more from the art of film than they do from books, still others find meaningful expression in paintings. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other, it's simply that one connects with the individual more profoundly.
Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Rebpulican Party. MSNBC is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. Frighteningly, the most credible news organization in the world right now is the BBC.
And CNN is the propaganda arm of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
But most Facebook users are sheep-le who won't give a second thought to this kind of thing.
It's less so that they're "sheep-le" and more so that they are not aware of technology. It's kinda like sending your car to the repair shop when you don't know shit about cars. My friend recently got bilked out of $500 because he was told he had to replace his part with a "certified" component. My friend didn't know any better so he went with what sounded reasonable but in reality it was a rip off. The same goes for most users of facebook, they don't know jack shit about computers, the internet, etc. and they don't know that when facebook updates their security measures that it's really just lip service.
Oddly enough, the pebble turns out to be 1.3 inches tall. A most remarkable coincidence, I'm sure.
The concern isn't with the fact that the measurement would be the same, it's with the fact that our ruler might not be accurate enough to deal with the interference of the mountain.
it is a plane that exists in all three dimensions.
Actually, it is a space, not a plane. A plane by its very nature is two dimensional. It could be an infinite collection of interacting planes in three dimensions but it is definitely not a single plane in three dimensions (that would be exactly what the rubber sheet analogy is).
If you shoplift a candy bar and get caught they don't just ask for the money...
And if I lift a whole box of snickers (48ct) I'm probably not getting a million dollar fine. Even if I lifted a whole pallet of snickers boxes (let's say 1000 boxes) I still probably wouldn't get a million dollar fine. While file sharing is indeed illegal the punishments for these crimes seem to fly in the face of the 8th amendments provision against cruel and unusual punishments.
And in a representative democracy we would have representatives from the Libritarians, Green Party, etc. But in this glorious nation of ours you don't get elected based on the representation of your district/state but on the majority/plurality (depending on your state) of your constituency. Try looking across the pond to see what a representative democracy looks like.
The only issue I see is that a lot of science is still in a theory state, (which young earth theories, intelligent design, and creationist theories are also).
The main problem that scientists have with ID and creationism is that to a large degree those ideas don't propose any scientific method of testing their statements. In my experience of science nobody has come up with a compelling argument for the creation of the universe. Even the Big Bang theory doesn't truly posit a beginning to the universe, simply a what happened at the earliest parts of our universe (think t=0+). But the Big Bang does have some interesting and compelling evidence to support its ideas and there is still good discussion about whether this theory is the right one. ID and Creationism are not going to get anywhere arguing the semantics that Darwin only proposed a "theory" of evolution. While it may be true that it is only a theory it isn't simply that because someone decided to call it that, there is compelling evidence for speciation, evolution etc. And arguing that evolution doesn't explain the origin of life on earth is also a pointless argument because evolution does not attempt to do that. While it is true that scientists can be dogmatic much of the science that ID and creationism attacks has a strong barrier of evidence that has yet to be taken down.
I didn't cover young earth (I assume that's a belief that the earth is ~6000 years old, if not, my bad) because the evidence is far too strong for any dispute (in my opinion).
Nukes...Wind...Solar...Oil... GeoThermal...Harness ocean waves...."Doesn't that take energy from the environment?"
That is indeed a true statement, not just for wave power but for every last thing that any person, animal, plant or thing does. Well, to be precise, it's all just conversions so maybe it's not taking it away but it's making it into something else.
... California is suffering economically. Despite the apparent opportunities of boundless land, minerals and eventually oil, the East leveraged its installed base of civilisation, knowledge and business relationships to stay dominant.
You do realize that in a listing of "World" economies California bounces between 6th and 7th. That would take three eastern states to match (NY, PA & NJ) assuming that you're talking north-eastern and not including Florida, then it's only NY & FL. And talk about leveraging power, without California there would not be a single democratic presidential candidate in recent history. Most of California's economic woes come from social programs such as one of the nation's highest minimum wages, increased health care provisions, etc. that are quite costly and have little to do with the business in the state and more with the political/social wills of the people. People from outside of California bash on it a little too much without realizing exactly what it provides this nation.
Wow, that's quite a statement. I bet they never thought there'd be a program that lets you tell the world stupid things about yourself in 140 characters or less. Sometimes old people just don't have any imagination.
You can't get more fun per dollar with any other car.
Unless you're 6'4", then you can't get more cramps with any other car. The Elise is probably the only reason I wish I wasn't tall, but I guess you can't have everything in life.
their car was panned HARD on Top Gear
hahaha, that's like relying on any of the cable news stations for clear and accurate news.
'As I've said before, the traditional business model has to change rapidly to ensure that our journalistic businesses can return to their old margins of profitability,' Murdoch said
Wait, let me get this straight, Murdoch can't run his business so he's asking other people to do it for him. It's called a consultant and they sure as hell ain't cheap. Seriously, if you claim to be a capitalist then make your business work or gtfo.
No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.
Show me an electric car that can exceed that? It doesn't exist. In fact the best EV ever made (GM EV1) is no better than a Prius (~50mpg) according to greenercars.org and falls short of an Insight (66mpg).
This is why a MPG comparison is pointless. How about a [kg-X / km], where X is any desired pollutant that you care to measure? Or perhaps a cost / km rating. That would be a pretty good one especially because electrical prices don't fluctuate quite as rapidly as do gasoline prices. Using MPG to compare electric and IC engines is like using weight to compare an adult and a child (that might be the worst analogy ever, sorry).
there is enough excess generating capacity during the night and morning to allow more than 80 percent of today's vehicles to make the average daily commute solely using this electricity...
Note when you read this that it INCLUDES California.
Note that when you read this it assumes that people will only charge their vehicles at these off peak hours. Good luck convincing a significant percentage of car owners to only charge when it's convenient (for the grid and not necessarily for them). We can't even convince a significant amount of car owners that fuel efficiency is important. I'm not against electric vehicles but it's not as simple as it seems. The only feasible way I see of significant numbers of electric vehicles is some form of grid intelligence to regulate the amount of power that those vehicles can pull at times other than off peak.
Slashdot Mirror
More important than that, however, is the remaining fact that it broke in the first place. Complex systems have a way of doing that. When the consequences of failure are so dire, and very few human endeavors have consequences of failure anywhere near as dire as those involving nuclear energy, is it ever worth the risk?
Let's look at Three Mile Island. It failed, no doubting that. It also resulted in zero attributable deaths. Now let's look at automobiles. They're also complex systems, not nearly as complex as a nuclear facility, but still complex. They also fail. And that failure results in 40,000+ deaths per year in the United States alone. How about airplanes, one of those fails and you've got yourself 300 people. You want a really complex system, how about diplomatic relations. Those seem to fail a lot more often than nuclear plants fail and that results in thousands upon thousands of deaths per year. So yeah, there's danger in nuclear power plants but there's also danger in pretty much everything in life.
Imagine if for the last three decades the US had been throwing as much money per capita into nuclear power as, say, France?
Even more impressively, imagine if the US had been throwing as much money as has been used to secure oil imports.
This is like banning a V-6 equipped Camaro because "it looks fast".
No doubt there are people who would like to do that as well; especially out here in California where there are many wussy lefties hard at work destroying the traditions, rights, and values that made this country great.
Especially because it's in California where a ridiculously fast (and fast looking) electric car is being designed.
Personally, I believe that if you really wanted to be a "good samaritan" you'd be carrying a knife, not a gun. Not only is it infinitely more useful in everyday situations, but there's significantly less chance of accidentally killing somebody with it.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this point. It does have the unfortunate effect of pointing out the truth that the band 311 brought out in 1995 that guns are for pussies. I'd wager that a lot more people don't have the stomach to stab somebody compared to those that could shoot someone.
Likewise, those who will not read a novel if a film has been made of it - a potted version, denuded of all subtlety, is all their mentality is equipped to cope with.
Simply because you prefer one medium of art over another doesn't mean that it is inherently better. The important aspect is the ability to understand and express your thoughts and opinions in meaningful ways. I have friends who've spent hundreds of dollars on books. I prefer to spend my money on music, it means more to mean and I get more out of music than I do from books. Others get more from the art of film than they do from books, still others find meaningful expression in paintings. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other, it's simply that one connects with the individual more profoundly.
even the recording industry would not likely press charges due to public backlash technically you are breaking the letter of the law.
You sure about that last part?
Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Rebpulican Party. MSNBC is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. Frighteningly, the most credible news organization in the world right now is the BBC.
And CNN is the propaganda arm of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
But most Facebook users are sheep-le who won't give a second thought to this kind of thing.
It's less so that they're "sheep-le" and more so that they are not aware of technology. It's kinda like sending your car to the repair shop when you don't know shit about cars. My friend recently got bilked out of $500 because he was told he had to replace his part with a "certified" component. My friend didn't know any better so he went with what sounded reasonable but in reality it was a rip off. The same goes for most users of facebook, they don't know jack shit about computers, the internet, etc. and they don't know that when facebook updates their security measures that it's really just lip service.
Oddly enough, the pebble turns out to be 1.3 inches tall. A most remarkable coincidence, I'm sure.
The concern isn't with the fact that the measurement would be the same, it's with the fact that our ruler might not be accurate enough to deal with the interference of the mountain.
it is a plane that exists in all three dimensions.
Actually, it is a space, not a plane. A plane by its very nature is two dimensional. It could be an infinite collection of interacting planes in three dimensions but it is definitely not a single plane in three dimensions (that would be exactly what the rubber sheet analogy is).
What would get them moving? Where would the energy come from? I hope my cluelessness about this doesn't confound you too much.
The purpose of the analogy is not to explain why they move but why their movement is curved.
The Wii has - by far - the most expensive controllers of the current set of consoles.
And the Wii has the most technically complex controller out there.
If you shoplift a candy bar and get caught they don't just ask for the money...
And if I lift a whole box of snickers (48ct) I'm probably not getting a million dollar fine. Even if I lifted a whole pallet of snickers boxes (let's say 1000 boxes) I still probably wouldn't get a million dollar fine. While file sharing is indeed illegal the punishments for these crimes seem to fly in the face of the 8th amendments provision against cruel and unusual punishments.
MYTH. Representative democracy != Republic.
And in a representative democracy we would have representatives from the Libritarians, Green Party, etc. But in this glorious nation of ours you don't get elected based on the representation of your district/state but on the majority/plurality (depending on your state) of your constituency. Try looking across the pond to see what a representative democracy looks like.
The directive is to make ID arguments in, quote, hostile websites.
Try this next time
The directive is to make ID arguments in "hostile website."
The only issue I see is that a lot of science is still in a theory state, (which young earth theories, intelligent design, and creationist theories are also).
The main problem that scientists have with ID and creationism is that to a large degree those ideas don't propose any scientific method of testing their statements. In my experience of science nobody has come up with a compelling argument for the creation of the universe. Even the Big Bang theory doesn't truly posit a beginning to the universe, simply a what happened at the earliest parts of our universe (think t=0+). But the Big Bang does have some interesting and compelling evidence to support its ideas and there is still good discussion about whether this theory is the right one. ID and Creationism are not going to get anywhere arguing the semantics that Darwin only proposed a "theory" of evolution. While it may be true that it is only a theory it isn't simply that because someone decided to call it that, there is compelling evidence for speciation, evolution etc. And arguing that evolution doesn't explain the origin of life on earth is also a pointless argument because evolution does not attempt to do that. While it is true that scientists can be dogmatic much of the science that ID and creationism attacks has a strong barrier of evidence that has yet to be taken down.
I didn't cover young earth (I assume that's a belief that the earth is ~6000 years old, if not, my bad) because the evidence is far too strong for any dispute (in my opinion).
Nukes...Wind...Solar...Oil... GeoThermal...Harness ocean waves. ..."Doesn't that take energy from the environment?"
That is indeed a true statement, not just for wave power but for every last thing that any person, animal, plant or thing does. Well, to be precise, it's all just conversions so maybe it's not taking it away but it's making it into something else.
... California is suffering economically. Despite the apparent opportunities of boundless land, minerals and eventually oil, the East leveraged its installed base of civilisation, knowledge and business relationships to stay dominant.
You do realize that in a listing of "World" economies California bounces between 6th and 7th. That would take three eastern states to match (NY, PA & NJ) assuming that you're talking north-eastern and not including Florida, then it's only NY & FL. And talk about leveraging power, without California there would not be a single democratic presidential candidate in recent history. Most of California's economic woes come from social programs such as one of the nation's highest minimum wages, increased health care provisions, etc. that are quite costly and have little to do with the business in the state and more with the political/social wills of the people. People from outside of California bash on it a little too much without realizing exactly what it provides this nation.
all the computer programs would be written
Wow, that's quite a statement. I bet they never thought there'd be a program that lets you tell the world stupid things about yourself in 140 characters or less. Sometimes old people just don't have any imagination.
You can't get more fun per dollar with any other car.
Unless you're 6'4", then you can't get more cramps with any other car. The Elise is probably the only reason I wish I wasn't tall, but I guess you can't have everything in life.
their car was panned HARD on Top Gear
hahaha, that's like relying on any of the cable news stations for clear and accurate news.
'As I've said before, the traditional business model has to change rapidly to ensure that our journalistic businesses can return to their old margins of profitability,' Murdoch said
Wait, let me get this straight, Murdoch can't run his business so he's asking other people to do it for him. It's called a consultant and they sure as hell ain't cheap. Seriously, if you claim to be a capitalist then make your business work or gtfo.
You don't need to understand fluid dynamics to assemble a plane.
No, but the person who designed that plane better well know fluid dynamics (or have really, really good luck).
No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.
Show me an electric car that can exceed that? It doesn't exist. In fact the best EV ever made (GM EV1) is no better than a Prius (~50mpg) according to greenercars.org and falls short of an Insight (66mpg).
This is why a MPG comparison is pointless. How about a [kg-X / km], where X is any desired pollutant that you care to measure? Or perhaps a cost / km rating. That would be a pretty good one especially because electrical prices don't fluctuate quite as rapidly as do gasoline prices. Using MPG to compare electric and IC engines is like using weight to compare an adult and a child (that might be the worst analogy ever, sorry).
there is enough excess generating capacity during the night and morning to allow more than 80 percent of today's vehicles to make the average daily commute solely using this electricity...
Note when you read this that it INCLUDES California.
Note that when you read this it assumes that people will only charge their vehicles at these off peak hours. Good luck convincing a significant percentage of car owners to only charge when it's convenient (for the grid and not necessarily for them). We can't even convince a significant amount of car owners that fuel efficiency is important. I'm not against electric vehicles but it's not as simple as it seems. The only feasible way I see of significant numbers of electric vehicles is some form of grid intelligence to regulate the amount of power that those vehicles can pull at times other than off peak.
People don't use gold for it's intrinsic value as a metal.
I have a $40,000 pair of speaker cables that beg to differ. Seriously!