"The masses" in this context are people who can afford to pay six figures for a joyride to take them to a tenth of the delta-V needed for orbit in an vehicle design that physically cannot scale to orbit.
Meanwhile, actual orbital vehicle development continues. The massive Falcon 9 has not only completed its one engine firing, its two engine firing, and its three engine firing, all flawlessly, but also it's five engine firing. Only one more static firing is scheduled before launch (all nine engines). The smaller Falcon 1, which would have easily reached orbit in its last test flight but for either the lack of a bump *or* the presence of an upper-stage baffle, now is designed both to prevent the bump *and* now has an upper-stage baffle. It will be launching within the next month with its first payload, and the Falcon 9 should launch by the end of the year. The Falcon series represents a two to three fold price cut per kilogram compared to similar sized launch vehicles after almost half a century of price stagnation.
But, based on my understanding of several recent different but similar situations involving movies and music, we can all safely assume that those people would not have bought the game to begin with.
We can also take comfort in knowing that the companies from whom the graphics were lifted probably keep the lion's share of the profit from game sales and the graphic artists make almost nothing, by comparison.
Also, if the guy at 'Limbo of the Lost' bought the game it is his to do with what he wishes because he didn't agree to any stupid 'don't lift graphics' clause and shrinkwrap licenses have never been proven in court anyway so no one has any legal standing to complain about anything. This includes if he wants to make a mashup of the game's graphics and his own cool gaming idea and call it 'Limbo of the Lost'.
And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control. Do I want DRM on my hard drive so I can play a game but keep me from taking screenshots? No! I'll never install Vista. If this was available in WINE I would play it but it isn't. I don't even run NDISWRAPPER!
So, in conclusion, no. I don't think anyone has stolen anything. Information wants to be free.
the "all knowing" geeks screamed that it was against all the laws of conservation of energy if a 10-50 watt AC unit could move 200 watts of heat... it was 'unpossible' they screamed.
So, your point about people who know nothing about how air conditioners work or the concept of COP is...? Because there are ignorant people out there, this is supposed to affect how physics works how?
You do see the difference between your case and this, right? The people you cite were claiming that something wasn't going to work despite physics saying it does. This company is saying that something is going to work despite physics saying it doesn't.
It an apples-to-oranges comparison. Does your customer work 12-14 hours a day and generally 6 days a week? Does she have to simultaneously juggle dozens if not more of issues at a time?
First off, she's a friend, not a customer. Secondly, no, she doesn't have a full time job or juggle dozens of issues at a time, because she has *brain damage*; she's on disability precisely because she *can't* do any of those things. But even she can manage to use a computer.
No, using a computer doesn't automatically make you an expert on tech issues. But it makes you basically a patsy for whoever you choose to be your advisors on the issue because you have no personal experience to compare it to. And McCain's advisors, by the way, are telco lobbyists.
What slam? That was 100% true. It took her a while to get used to things (scroll bars were a big challenge for her), but she does just fine now.
Go on, explain to me how someone who doesn't know how to use a computer is expected to remotely understand the issues at hand. At least Senator Ted "Tubes" Stevens, the butt of many jokes on this site, uses a computer.
It's amazing how much he's changed since then, isn't it? As a registered Democrat, I could actually respect the McCain of 2000. Now he's been voting against his own reform bills, supporting torture, supporting telco amnesty for spying on Americans, and pretty much everything else you could think of.
By the way -- the summary article got something wrong:
McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be
No, the McCain *campaign* is not a stranger to technology. McCain most definitely is a stranger to technology. When asked whether he was a Mac or PC person, he responded:
"Neither, I'm an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get."
That's right. A president who, this day in age, doesn't know how to use a computer. Makes his policies on tech issues make a lot more sense, though. Back in 1999, running for the White House, this was remotely excusable. Today, it's just sad. A year ago, I set up a older woman who has brain damage with a Linux desktop and net access and she uses it just fine.
Personally, I won't be happy with the classification until they make it a standard to refer to them as a binary. It can be "binary plutoids", or "a binary dwarf planet", or whatever exact terminology they want, but their barycenter lies between them, not inside one of them, and that should make them a binary.
Seerch cumpuny Heetta.se-a hes a noo Veb serfeece-a thet is better thun Guugle-a Iert tu shoo Svedee in a 3D feeoo. In Stuckhulm zeere-a, fur ixemple-a, ifery seengle-a booeelding es a reeleestic 3D mudel. Bork Bork Bork!
Veet zee help ooff rubuteecs frum Seeb und zee Svedeesh sufftvere-a fur cumpooter gemes Heetta.se-a seerch cumpuny hes defeluped a Veb serfeece-a thet shoos Svedee in 3D und vheech is cleerly better thun zee currespundeeng serfeece-a frum Guugle-a Iert.
Durectly in zee brooser, users cun zuum in, teelt und toorn zee flygffutugrefferede-a feeoos ecruss zee cuoontry. Veet zee help ooff elteetoode-a meesoorements imeges ooff zee lund ere-a creeted vhere-a zee muoonteeens und felleys eppeer veet genooeene-a feeleeng ooff dept.
Zee noo serfeece-a, vheech loonched Mey 29, is elsu ell booeeldings frum Stuckhulm, in zee furm ooff reeleestic 3D mudels. Bork Bork Bork!
Elthuoogh zeey cun be-a toorned und toorned und seee frum uny heeeght und ungle-a.
Leter thees yeer, incloodeeng zee secund eppeerunce-a ooff Sveden's lergest ceeties es a cumplete-a 3-D mudels.
Zee mejur cumpeteetur in zee shoo Svedee in 3D is Guugle-a Iert. Boot zeere-a ere-a oonly a foo duzee 3-D booeeldings frum Stuckhulm und a foo oozeer ceeties.
Guugle's 3D feeoo ooff Svedee ves elsu mooch looer qooeleety thun thet Heetta.se-a ooffffer. But in terms ooff imege-a resulooshun und elteetoode-a. Bork Bork Bork!
-- Ve-a hefe-a creeted 3-D feetoore-a tu geefe-a users a mure-a foon und mure-a reeleestic veys tu use-a oooor meps, "seys Rooee de-a Suoosa Breet vhu is preseedent und CEO ooff Heetta.se-a
Boot zee noo serfeece-a dues nut yet cufer ell plunned feetoores. Zeereffure-a, it's "sneek loonched" und gues by zee neme-a ooff "zee leb" oon zee cumpuny's vebseete-a.
Mureufer, sooch es sume-a 3D booeeldings reffeened vhee zee huooses ungles cun be-a a leettle-a cruuked und sume-a fecedes hefe-a bed sherpness.
Zee technulugy used ves defeluped by zee Svedeesh cumpuneees C3 Technulugeees in LeenkÃpeeng und Egency9 in Loolea.
C3 is a soobseediery ooff Seeb und defelup technulugy thet hes its ooreegin in seeker fur rubuts.
Zee technulugy is besed oon heegh resulooshun eereeel phutugrephy veet cereffoolly celeebreted cemeres. In oorder tu booeeld 3-D mudel ooff Stuckhulm, vheech cufers un erea ooff 200 sqooere-a keelumetres ves 60 000 imeges frum 600 metres ebufe-a sea lefel, vheech tuuk three-a deys.
Zeen, it tuuk oonly a foo mure-a deys tu ootumeteecelly creete-a 3-D mudel, vhere-a ifee indeefidooel trees ere-a inclooded.
Tummy Juhunssun vhu is preseedent und CEO ooff C3 knoo thet sume-a deffence-a in zee vurld hefe-a defeluped seemiler technulugy. Boot he-a is nut evere-a ooff unyune-a ilse-a vhu intrudooced zee technulugy fur ceefiliun poorpuses.
-- Ve-a eeem tu loonch oooor technulugy glubelly und beleeefe-a thet, fur ixemple-a, urbun plunners und booseenesses seemiler Heetta.se-a cun becume-a oooor coostumers, "seys Tummy Juhunssun.
Oozeer cumpuneees besed 3-D mudels ooff inture-a ceeties preemerily use-a lesermÃtneenger tu cullect 3D deta. Fur ixemple-a, Guugle-a und Meecrusufft fur zeeur serfeece-a Furtooel Iert.
It is a technulugy thet is mooch mure-a custly und teeme-a cunsoomeeng thun zee C3's vey.
Phutu und meppeeng serfeeces frum Guugle-a und Meecrusufft reqooure-a users tu instell speceeel sufftvere-a oon yuoor oovn cumpooter. In Guugle-a Iert in zee furm ooff a stund-elune-a prugrem und zee Furtooel Iert es a ploog vheech is efeeeleble-a oonly fur Veendoos.
Boot Heetta.se-a 3D roons durectly intu zee brooser by useeng jefetekneek und vurks fur must oopereteeng systems und broosers.
-- I theenk thet but Guugle-a und Meecrusufft mey hefe-a sume-a prublems veet sleep vhee zeey see-a zee noo serfeece-a frum heetta.
How long do you think it'll be before there are street level views of, say, Devil's Canyon, the middle of the Namib desert, or halfway up K2? The beauty of this is that it lets you get a map of virtually anywhere from the air. No, it's not perfect. It looks kind of like a cross between a Salvador Dali painting and Magic Carpet; around every corner I expect to see either a melting clock or a balloon picking up mana spheres;). But the fact is that it was able to be assembled with minimal computational effort from a resource (aerial photos) that is already widely available for many areas -- and, for areas where it's not, can be rapidly gathered. Sounds like a winner to me.
Agreed. Unless something better comes along, I'll definitely be rewarding them with my business the next time I need a laptop -- even if I planned to reinstall a different distro. At the very least, it lets you know that there's going to be good hardware support and shows that there's a market. Ooh, I hope they make some models with solid state drives...
I loved Jon Stewart's comments on allegations of elitism. To paraphrase:
"Doesn't "elite" mean "the best"? You applying for a position that, if you do a good enough job, people may carve your face into the side of a mountain. If you don't think you're better than us, why are you running?"
Not to mention that in the early US history, it was routinely upheld that states had the right to regulate weapons (the issue didn't come to a federal level until much later). The approach was different, mind you -- in Kentucky, the courts required a state constitutional amendment be passed (it was), while in Arkansas, the courts decided that the legislature could impose what bills they felt were appropriate. Items generally restricted were weapons designed to be easy to conceal -- pistols, dirks, cane swords, etc. Often there were commonsense exceptions -- in Arkansas, they left an exception for those who were "on a journey", for example.
I think there could be a legitimate argument made that the federal government doesn't have the right to regulate weapons without constitutional amendment (it depends on the reading), but you'd be hard-pressed to support that line of argument in relation to the right of states to do so.
That's not necessarily true. If two politicians felt they needed an expert on, say, managing the development of a large piece of code, one candidate might pick Linus Torvalds while another might pick Bill Gates. Both would certainly be qualified, but the one that would be selected is the one that lines up with your ideals on what the development should be like. If the candidate doesn't have an opinion on an issue that they're to be in charge of, that's especially dangerous, as they'll simply pick whoever exudes "qualified" the most, whether or not they're actually the best choice.
All executive power stems from the president, and all cabinet members serve at their discretion. The president's views are ultimately what matter.
I hear he's written a script, triggered by an X10 motion sensor in his front yard, that plays back an audio recording of him shouting, "Get the hell off my lawn!"
It makes me wonder if it's a fairly standard rocky planet apart from being of tremendous size. Anyone have any idea how much iron would compress on a planet that massive? The bigger the planet, the higher the density, even if they're made of the same materials.
It's pretty amazing to think of. I wonder what the surface of that thing is like? I didn't see any information on the article as to what star it was orbitting or how close, so I don't have any idea what it's surface temperature is like. I doubt it's too hot, or else I'd expect the planet to inflate like the hot jupiters do.
That's the cosmic microwave background radiation that they're trying to explain, not the structure of the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropy. A "dense fog" doesn't cut it.
AFAIK, Electric Universe doesn't even have a *hypothesis* to explain the cosmic microwave anisotropy. Which was, by the way, a huge vindication for Big Bang theory, since it was predicted in advance.
By the way -- has anyone else looked up CMEF, his source of funding? Right on the front page, a big pitch for cash:
The Company is privately offering 1,000,000 shares
Centre for Environmental and Energy Resources Sweden AB is raising funds, for demonstrate the scientific feasibility of Hydrogen-Boron fusion and production of net energy by selling shares. Please contact the company at arnold@cmef.eu to discuss investing.
Support a better future
You can help yourself, your country and future generations by supporting us (CMEF). You can assist us by sending a monetary donation. Any assistance you are able to provide will be appreciated. For more information click here
I'd be willing to wager that they don't have the $10m, and might not even have the $600k yet. In fact, their whole website is about how wonderful Focus Fusion and Lerner's work is. So, I mean, acting like you got a grant as though it's some sort of vindication of your technology when it's from what's virtually a fansite isn't exactly fair. It's just some Focus Fusion fans trying to raise money to fund it.
I'll just make a quick observation that the "Tree Power" guy managed to get funding, too.
I can't find anything on the net that says that. Provide references.
Here's one for Germany and one from South Africa. And to the other poster: Sure, it was in a war economy, but they only had to produce such huge amounts of fuel *because* they were at war. The amount they produced during that time would easily have met all their needs during peacetime with plenty left over for export; even with the monstrous consumption from planes and tanks, and the use of tech that had only been around for twenty years, they still produced half of their petroleum needs (92% of their aviation fuel needs) from Fischer-Tropsch, and only started running out when they lost air superiority and we bombed their plants to rubble. As for South Africa, they're not abnormally blessed with coal; world coal reserves are utterly monstrous (esp. in the US). They had a had a shortfall of about 40% of their oil needs, and made it up in just a couple years. And coal is hardly the only way you can make syngas. Burning virtually anything that has carbon and hydrogen in it with insufficient oxygen produces syngas. In the case of coal syngas, it has about 80% of the original energy of the coal. After Fischer-Tropsch, the resultant oil has about 60% of the energy of the original coal.
You act as if all of this is no big deal but the truth is that cost of fuel is skyrocketing and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. So, if it's not big deal then why is gas getting so expensive?
Once again, *read the freaking page* that I linked at the very beginning of this thread. It exists so I don't have to retype everything over and over and over again.
To me a solution to the problem isn't just replacing petroleum with some super expensive shit that nobody can afford
Since when is ~$30/barrel production cost "super expensive shit that nobody can afford"?
And the reason there are "doomers" as you call them, is that I was around during the 70's when OPEC showed us how they have us over a barrel.
If you'd *read the freaking page*, you'd have some interesting insights into that, such as how shale and bitumen cost almost $100/barrel back in the $70s, and now bitumen is $10-$30 a barrel and shale $20-40. You'd also familiarize yourself with the critical concept of lag between when decisions are made to increase capacity and when the capacity actually comes online. Or, you can just keep arguing against straw men. That's certainly your choice if you want to come across as refusing to debate the actual arguments the other person has made.
The government didn't do jack shit about it so we still have the same dependency now as we did 30 years ago.
Yeah, except for huge investments in technology and mileage improvements so dramatic that it took years for consumption to catch back up, absolutely nothing.
The government started doing "jack shit" when prices went back down. It's why we need a serious gas tax in this country, like they have in Europe -- to prevent low oil prices from being directly reflected in low gas taxes, so the incentive sticks around. The income could be used to directly offset payroll taxes so that you don't disproportionately hurt the poor -- only the wasteful.
I never said that I only get my info from the news. The point I was making is that if syngas is so promising, I should at least of heard about it in the news.
Since when does the news commonly go into detail on industrial processes? I don't see front page stories about lithium titanate batteries either, but that doesn't make them any less real and any less likely to change the nature of grid load balancing. If you haven't heard of syncrude made from syngas, which has fuelled *entire countries*, you are *WAY* out of the loop when it comes to oil production. Heaven forbid we actually have to start talking about things like tertiary oil recovery, proppant injection, reservoir conditioning, oil shows and seeps, gravimetric exploration, in-situ decomposition of kerogen, or half a million other topics on the same subject.
Syncrude is making up an increasing share of the world's *current* oil, and will continue to do so. If you fill up in the northern US, guess what? As much as half or so of what you're putting in your tank is probably syncrude (in this particular case, from bitumen cracking, most of that from Athabasca). In the southern US? You've still probably got a bit from the Venezuelan ultra-heavy coming out of the Orinoco Belt. *You're Already Using Syncrude*. Just because you don't believe in it doesn't change this fact.
You have failed to explain the reason why that is the case. So I can only assume that syngas is a bunch of bullshit and is an unrealistic solution for one or more reasons.
You know, like the fact that it *costs more per barrel*? Oh, heavens no! People always prefer to pay *more* money to produce something rather than less, right? What part of costing more per barrel didn't you understand?
Look, READ. Then come back here and debate. Not before then.
The term Peak Oil was coined in reference to petroleum found in the ground. It has nothing whatsoever to do with alternative fuels or synthetic fuels.
The classic dodge of the doomers: Preach the end of the world, and when your argument falls apart, narrow down the definition and cut back on the whole doom and gloom part. In common parlance, "Peak Oil" seems to mean whatever the person promoting it wants it to mean at the time, anything from "apocalypse" to a minor technical term with few real implications for the world.
[quote]On a completely unrelated note, if syngas is so easy and great, why aren't they doing it?[/quote]
They are, in South Africa and Malaysia. Due to current high oil prices, such syncrude plants are being built around the world. Syngas from coal ("coal liquefaction") or natural gas ("gas to liquids") produces oil for about $30/barrel. Syngas from wood waste or other waste cellulosic biomass produces oil ("green gasoline") for $40-70 a barrel. By comparison, bitumen produces oil for $10-30 a barrel, shale $20-40, and Saudi Arabian sweet crude, often under $5 a barrel. Syncrude is almost always dirtier to make, too.
I hear about bio-diesel, ethanol/E85, hydrogen, fuel cell, and electricity for fuel sources but nobody in the news EVER talks about syngas
And that's the problem; you're debating something that you just "heard about" "in the news", rather than something that you actually know anything about. And don't take this as me promoting oil; far from it (I'm actually on the waiting list for an electric car -- the Aptera Typ-1e). I just have a serious problem with facts being misrepresented.
However we were talking about peak OIL for fuckssake, not peak WIND power, nor peak COAL but peak OIL.
However for the last time, "for fuckssake", we're can MAKE OIL using either CO+H2 ("syngas", "town gas", "coal gas", "wood gas"... it has a bunch of names) -- the Fischer-Tropsch process, or CO2+H2+energy -- the Sabatier process. How many times do I have to explain this to you?
We can make oil. Oil can be made by us. Oil making -- it can be done by us. Concerning the making of oil, we can do it. Petroleo -- Si se puede!
What about this is hard for you to get through your head? It's what produced 60% of Germany's oil during World War II and most of South Africa's oil during the Apartheid Era.
Is that the sound of your brain breaking trying to get this concept through it that I'm hearing?
Oil is *Not* a finite resource (at least no more than energy itself is).
Wow, you're a fucking moron. Oil is a resource used to create energy, it's not energy in and of itself.
Wow, you're a "fucking moron" if you think that oil is the only source of energy on the planet.
You can talk about creating energy from other organic sources but we're talking about petroleum (you know...the stuff all our cars run on??) and you know it. That's changing the argument to suit your needs which means you don't actually have a valid argument.
Will you read the freaking page before you argue? No, seriously. Straw men tick people off. Had you read the page, You Would Be Aware Of The Fischer-Tropsch and Sabatier Processes, which make Oil (literally, not figuratively) from Syngas or CO2+H2, both of which can be produced in half a million ways so long as you have at least some alternative energy source.
Oh and yes I'm familiar with how "production from different regions rises and falls depending on market price"...it doesn't change the fact that it just eventually runs out. It also doesn't change the fact that when the price is sufficiently high, it's just not viable to use to power autos anymore. Lets pretend there actually is an infinite supply but if it costs $500 a gallon to extract it, it's not a viable energy source.
Had you read the freaking page, you'd know that such an extraction cost is physically impossible, since that's more than it would cost to make it from things like solar thermal or wind power and atmospheric CO2/electrolysis H2. Let alone thermolysis H2, let alone biological syngas sources.
In short, either *read the freaking page* or *stop arguing*, because you keep arguing against things that have already been addressed.
"These people" are me; I put my arguments there so I don't have to retype them all a million times. Had you actually read the page, you wouldn't have made a single argument that you just made, since they were all extensively covered by the page. The page is all about how production from different regions rises and falls depending on the current market price, and how oil prices are a balance between advancing technology and ease of production, with any price increase or tech exponentially increasing the available resource pool (leading to, for example, "multi-peak" producers like Canada). The entire page was about the fallacy of the "drinking glass" view of reserves that you're espousing -- that reserves of any resource (let alone one that we can synthesize) are not like water in a drinking glass that you sip and sip, and suddenly it's gone. It's all about the balance of technology versus ease of extraction, with scaling factors strongly favoring production.
Oil is *Not* a finite resource (at least no more than energy itself is). Again, had you read the page, you would have learned about the half million ways we can outright make the stuff -- from biomass (virtually anything organic -- fossil organics, wood gas, garbage, etc), from heat or electricity with CO2 from the air or the oceans, from power plants or industrial processes, and so on.
Had you actually read the page, you would have learned about China's oil production, their shift in oil-fired generation, their rates of coal extraction compared to ours (and how that relates to rates of resource extraction), and a dozen other topics related to them.
Slashdot Mirror
"The masses" in this context are people who can afford to pay six figures for a joyride to take them to a tenth of the delta-V needed for orbit in an vehicle design that physically cannot scale to orbit.
Meanwhile, actual orbital vehicle development continues. The massive Falcon 9 has not only completed its one engine firing, its two engine firing, and its three engine firing, all flawlessly, but also it's five engine firing. Only one more static firing is scheduled before launch (all nine engines). The smaller Falcon 1, which would have easily reached orbit in its last test flight but for either the lack of a bump *or* the presence of an upper-stage baffle, now is designed both to prevent the bump *and* now has an upper-stage baffle. It will be launching within the next month with its first payload, and the Falcon 9 should launch by the end of the year. The Falcon series represents a two to three fold price cut per kilogram compared to similar sized launch vehicles after almost half a century of price stagnation.
But hey, by all means, Slashdot is free to continue largely ignoring them (dedicating roughly the same number of articles to SpaceShipTwo, of which only minimal info has been released yet as the entire Falcon series through its history) and to keep reporting on every last detail from this unscaleable joyride.
But, based on my understanding of several recent different but similar situations involving movies and music, we can all safely assume that those people would not have bought the game to begin with.
We can also take comfort in knowing that the companies from whom the graphics were lifted probably keep the lion's share of the profit from game sales and the graphic artists make almost nothing, by comparison.
Also, if the guy at 'Limbo of the Lost' bought the game it is his to do with what he wishes because he didn't agree to any stupid 'don't lift graphics' clause and shrinkwrap licenses have never been proven in court anyway so no one has any legal standing to complain about anything. This includes if he wants to make a mashup of the game's graphics and his own cool gaming idea and call it 'Limbo of the Lost'.
And furthermore copyright law has been subverted by corporate interests and is just a shadow of what the found fathers wanted it to be. Copyright is OUR rights not theirs it makes sure WE get the copyrightable content but it has been changed around to give CORPORATIONS all the control. Do I want DRM on my hard drive so I can play a game but keep me from taking screenshots? No! I'll never install Vista. If this was available in WINE I would play it but it isn't. I don't even run NDISWRAPPER!
So, in conclusion, no. I don't think anyone has stolen anything. Information wants to be free.
As in I don't pay anything for it.
(P.S. -- I'm adding some skulls to this comment)
You mean things like voting against and then encouraging Bush to veto a waterboarding ban?
the "all knowing" geeks screamed that it was against all the laws of conservation of energy if a 10-50 watt AC unit could move 200 watts of heat... it was 'unpossible' they screamed.
So, your point about people who know nothing about how air conditioners work or the concept of COP is...? Because there are ignorant people out there, this is supposed to affect how physics works how?
You do see the difference between your case and this, right? The people you cite were claiming that something wasn't going to work despite physics saying it does. This company is saying that something is going to work despite physics saying it doesn't.
It an apples-to-oranges comparison. Does your customer work 12-14 hours a day and generally 6 days a week? Does she have to simultaneously juggle dozens if not more of issues at a time?
First off, she's a friend, not a customer. Secondly, no, she doesn't have a full time job or juggle dozens of issues at a time, because she has *brain damage*; she's on disability precisely because she *can't* do any of those things. But even she can manage to use a computer.
No, using a computer doesn't automatically make you an expert on tech issues. But it makes you basically a patsy for whoever you choose to be your advisors on the issue because you have no personal experience to compare it to. And McCain's advisors, by the way, are telco lobbyists.
What slam? That was 100% true. It took her a while to get used to things (scroll bars were a big challenge for her), but she does just fine now.
Go on, explain to me how someone who doesn't know how to use a computer is expected to remotely understand the issues at hand. At least Senator Ted "Tubes" Stevens, the butt of many jokes on this site, uses a computer.
It's amazing how much he's changed since then, isn't it? As a registered Democrat, I could actually respect the McCain of 2000. Now he's been voting against his own reform bills, supporting torture, supporting telco amnesty for spying on Americans, and pretty much everything else you could think of.
By the way -- the summary article got something wrong:
McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be
No, the McCain *campaign* is not a stranger to technology. McCain most definitely is a stranger to technology. When asked whether he was a Mac or PC person, he responded:
"Neither, I'm an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get."
That's right. A president who, this day in age, doesn't know how to use a computer. Makes his policies on tech issues make a lot more sense, though. Back in 1999, running for the White House, this was remotely excusable. Today, it's just sad. A year ago, I set up a older woman who has brain damage with a Linux desktop and net access and she uses it just fine.
Personally, I won't be happy with the classification until they make it a standard to refer to them as a binary. It can be "binary plutoids", or "a binary dwarf planet", or whatever exact terminology they want, but their barycenter lies between them, not inside one of them, and that should make them a binary.
And, for our Swedish readers, I'll translate it back for you.
---------
Heetta.se-a beets Guugle-a Iert
veet noo 3D-technulugy frum Seeb. Bork Bork Bork!
Seerch cumpuny Heetta.se-a hes a noo Veb serfeece-a thet is better thun Guugle-a Iert tu shoo Svedee in a 3D feeoo. In Stuckhulm zeere-a, fur ixemple-a, ifery seengle-a booeelding es a reeleestic 3D mudel. Bork Bork Bork!
Veet zee help ooff rubuteecs frum Seeb und zee Svedeesh sufftvere-a fur cumpooter gemes Heetta.se-a seerch cumpuny hes defeluped a Veb serfeece-a thet shoos Svedee in 3D und vheech is cleerly better thun zee currespundeeng serfeece-a frum Guugle-a Iert.
Durectly in zee brooser, users cun zuum in, teelt und toorn zee flygffutugrefferede-a feeoos ecruss zee cuoontry. Veet zee help ooff elteetoode-a meesoorements imeges ooff zee lund ere-a creeted vhere-a zee muoonteeens und felleys eppeer veet genooeene-a feeleeng ooff dept.
Zee noo serfeece-a, vheech loonched Mey 29, is elsu ell booeeldings frum Stuckhulm, in zee furm ooff reeleestic 3D mudels. Bork Bork Bork!
Elthuoogh zeey cun be-a toorned und toorned und seee frum uny heeeght und ungle-a.
Leter thees yeer, incloodeeng zee secund eppeerunce-a ooff Sveden's lergest ceeties es a cumplete-a 3-D mudels.
Zee mejur cumpeteetur in zee shoo Svedee in 3D is Guugle-a Iert. Boot zeere-a ere-a oonly a foo duzee 3-D booeeldings frum Stuckhulm und a foo oozeer ceeties.
Guugle's 3D feeoo ooff Svedee ves elsu mooch looer qooeleety thun thet Heetta.se-a ooffffer. But in terms ooff imege-a resulooshun und elteetoode-a. Bork Bork Bork!
-- Ve-a hefe-a creeted 3-D feetoore-a tu geefe-a users a mure-a foon und mure-a reeleestic veys tu use-a oooor meps, "seys Rooee de-a Suoosa Breet vhu is preseedent und CEO ooff Heetta.se-a
Boot zee noo serfeece-a dues nut yet cufer ell plunned feetoores. Zeereffure-a, it's "sneek loonched" und gues by zee neme-a ooff "zee leb" oon zee cumpuny's vebseete-a.
Mureufer, sooch es sume-a 3D booeeldings reffeened vhee zee huooses ungles cun be-a a leettle-a cruuked und sume-a fecedes hefe-a bed sherpness.
Zee technulugy used ves defeluped by zee Svedeesh cumpuneees C3 Technulugeees in LeenkÃpeeng und Egency9 in Loolea.
C3 is a soobseediery ooff Seeb und defelup technulugy thet hes its ooreegin in seeker fur rubuts.
Zee technulugy is besed oon heegh resulooshun eereeel phutugrephy veet cereffoolly celeebreted cemeres. In oorder tu booeeld 3-D mudel ooff Stuckhulm, vheech cufers un erea ooff 200 sqooere-a keelumetres ves 60 000 imeges frum 600 metres ebufe-a sea lefel, vheech tuuk three-a deys.
Zeen, it tuuk oonly a foo mure-a deys tu ootumeteecelly creete-a 3-D mudel, vhere-a ifee indeefidooel trees ere-a inclooded.
Tummy Juhunssun vhu is preseedent und CEO ooff C3 knoo thet sume-a deffence-a in zee vurld hefe-a defeluped seemiler technulugy. Boot he-a is nut evere-a ooff unyune-a ilse-a vhu intrudooced zee technulugy fur ceefiliun poorpuses.
-- Ve-a eeem tu loonch oooor technulugy glubelly und beleeefe-a thet, fur ixemple-a, urbun plunners und booseenesses seemiler Heetta.se-a cun becume-a oooor coostumers, "seys Tummy Juhunssun.
Oozeer cumpuneees besed 3-D mudels ooff inture-a ceeties preemerily use-a lesermÃtneenger tu cullect 3D deta. Fur ixemple-a, Guugle-a und Meecrusufft fur zeeur serfeece-a Furtooel Iert.
It is a technulugy thet is mooch mure-a custly und teeme-a cunsoomeeng thun zee C3's vey.
Phutu und meppeeng serfeeces frum Guugle-a und Meecrusufft reqooure-a users tu instell speceeel sufftvere-a oon yuoor oovn cumpooter. In Guugle-a Iert in zee furm ooff a stund-elune-a prugrem und zee Furtooel Iert es a ploog vheech is efeeeleble-a oonly fur Veendoos.
Boot Heetta.se-a 3D roons durectly intu zee brooser by useeng jefetekneek und vurks fur must oopereteeng systems und broosers.
-- I theenk thet but Guugle-a und Meecrusufft mey hefe-a sume-a prublems veet sleep vhee zeey see-a zee noo serfeece-a frum heetta.
How long do you think it'll be before there are street level views of, say, Devil's Canyon, the middle of the Namib desert, or halfway up K2? The beauty of this is that it lets you get a map of virtually anywhere from the air. No, it's not perfect. It looks kind of like a cross between a Salvador Dali painting and Magic Carpet; around every corner I expect to see either a melting clock or a balloon picking up mana spheres ;). But the fact is that it was able to be assembled with minimal computational effort from a resource (aerial photos) that is already widely available for many areas -- and, for areas where it's not, can be rapidly gathered. Sounds like a winner to me.
Agreed. Unless something better comes along, I'll definitely be rewarding them with my business the next time I need a laptop -- even if I planned to reinstall a different distro. At the very least, it lets you know that there's going to be good hardware support and shows that there's a market. Ooh, I hope they make some models with solid state drives...
I loved Jon Stewart's comments on allegations of elitism. To paraphrase:
"Doesn't "elite" mean "the best"? You applying for a position that, if you do a good enough job, people may carve your face into the side of a mountain. If you don't think you're better than us, why are you running?"
Not to mention that in the early US history, it was routinely upheld that states had the right to regulate weapons (the issue didn't come to a federal level until much later). The approach was different, mind you -- in Kentucky, the courts required a state constitutional amendment be passed (it was), while in Arkansas, the courts decided that the legislature could impose what bills they felt were appropriate. Items generally restricted were weapons designed to be easy to conceal -- pistols, dirks, cane swords, etc. Often there were commonsense exceptions -- in Arkansas, they left an exception for those who were "on a journey", for example.
I think there could be a legitimate argument made that the federal government doesn't have the right to regulate weapons without constitutional amendment (it depends on the reading), but you'd be hard-pressed to support that line of argument in relation to the right of states to do so.
That's not necessarily true. If two politicians felt they needed an expert on, say, managing the development of a large piece of code, one candidate might pick Linus Torvalds while another might pick Bill Gates. Both would certainly be qualified, but the one that would be selected is the one that lines up with your ideals on what the development should be like. If the candidate doesn't have an opinion on an issue that they're to be in charge of, that's especially dangerous, as they'll simply pick whoever exudes "qualified" the most, whether or not they're actually the best choice.
All executive power stems from the president, and all cabinet members serve at their discretion. The president's views are ultimately what matter.
I hear he's written a script, triggered by an X10 motion sensor in his front yard, that plays back an audio recording of him shouting, "Get the hell off my lawn!"
It makes me wonder if it's a fairly standard rocky planet apart from being of tremendous size. Anyone have any idea how much iron would compress on a planet that massive? The bigger the planet, the higher the density, even if they're made of the same materials.
It's pretty amazing to think of. I wonder what the surface of that thing is like? I didn't see any information on the article as to what star it was orbitting or how close, so I don't have any idea what it's surface temperature is like. I doubt it's too hot, or else I'd expect the planet to inflate like the hot jupiters do.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing how quickly seemingly unrelated things interconnect. Example:
Shortest path from Aptera Motors to Pop Tart
Aptera Motors
California
January 13
American Idol
Pop-Tart
4 clicks needed
Or:
Shortest path from Parking pawl to Fermionic condensate
Parking pawl
1965
Brazil
Chemistry
Fermionic condensate
4 clicks needed
The dates and lists help it out an awful lot; it'd be interesting to see the results if you could exclude them.
That's the cosmic microwave background radiation that they're trying to explain, not the structure of the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropy. A "dense fog" doesn't cut it.
AFAIK, Electric Universe doesn't even have a *hypothesis* to explain the cosmic microwave anisotropy. Which was, by the way, a huge vindication for Big Bang theory, since it was predicted in advance.
By the way -- has anyone else looked up CMEF, his source of funding? Right on the front page, a big pitch for cash:
The Company is privately offering 1,000,000 shares
Centre for Environmental and Energy Resources Sweden AB is raising funds, for demonstrate the scientific feasibility of Hydrogen-Boron fusion and production of net energy by selling shares. Please contact the company at arnold@cmef.eu to discuss investing.
Support a better future
You can help yourself, your country and future generations by supporting us (CMEF). You can assist us by sending a monetary donation. Any assistance you are able to provide will be appreciated. For more information click here
I'd be willing to wager that they don't have the $10m, and might not even have the $600k yet. In fact, their whole website is about how wonderful Focus Fusion and Lerner's work is. So, I mean, acting like you got a grant as though it's some sort of vindication of your technology when it's from what's virtually a fansite isn't exactly fair. It's just some Focus Fusion fans trying to raise money to fund it.
I'll just make a quick observation that the "Tree Power" guy managed to get funding, too.
I can't find anything on the net that says that. Provide references.
Here's one for Germany and one from South Africa. And to the other poster: Sure, it was in a war economy, but they only had to produce such huge amounts of fuel *because* they were at war. The amount they produced during that time would easily have met all their needs during peacetime with plenty left over for export; even with the monstrous consumption from planes and tanks, and the use of tech that had only been around for twenty years, they still produced half of their petroleum needs (92% of their aviation fuel needs) from Fischer-Tropsch, and only started running out when they lost air superiority and we bombed their plants to rubble. As for South Africa, they're not abnormally blessed with coal; world coal reserves are utterly monstrous (esp. in the US). They had a had a shortfall of about 40% of their oil needs, and made it up in just a couple years. And coal is hardly the only way you can make syngas. Burning virtually anything that has carbon and hydrogen in it with insufficient oxygen produces syngas. In the case of coal syngas, it has about 80% of the original energy of the coal. After Fischer-Tropsch, the resultant oil has about 60% of the energy of the original coal.
You act as if all of this is no big deal but the truth is that cost of fuel is skyrocketing and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. So, if it's not big deal then why is gas getting so expensive?
Once again, *read the freaking page* that I linked at the very beginning of this thread. It exists so I don't have to retype everything over and over and over again.
To me a solution to the problem isn't just replacing petroleum with some super expensive shit that nobody can afford
Since when is ~$30/barrel production cost "super expensive shit that nobody can afford"?
And the reason there are "doomers" as you call them, is that I was around during the 70's when OPEC showed us how they have us over a barrel.
If you'd *read the freaking page*, you'd have some interesting insights into that, such as how shale and bitumen cost almost $100/barrel back in the $70s, and now bitumen is $10-$30 a barrel and shale $20-40. You'd also familiarize yourself with the critical concept of lag between when decisions are made to increase capacity and when the capacity actually comes online. Or, you can just keep arguing against straw men. That's certainly your choice if you want to come across as refusing to debate the actual arguments the other person has made.
The government didn't do jack shit about it so we still have the same dependency now as we did 30 years ago.
Yeah, except for huge investments in technology and mileage improvements so dramatic that it took years for consumption to catch back up, absolutely nothing.
The government started doing "jack shit" when prices went back down. It's why we need a serious gas tax in this country, like they have in Europe -- to prevent low oil prices from being directly reflected in low gas taxes, so the incentive sticks around. The income could be used to directly offset payroll taxes so that you don't disproportionately hurt the poor -- only the wasteful.
I never said that I only get my info from the news. The point I was making is that if syngas is so promising, I should at least of heard about it in the news.
Since when does the news commonly go into detail on industrial processes? I don't see front page stories about lithium titanate batteries either, but that doesn't make them any less real and any less likely to change the nature of grid load balancing. If you haven't heard of syncrude made from syngas, which has fuelled *entire countries*, you are *WAY* out of the loop when it comes to oil production. Heaven forbid we actually have to start talking about things like tertiary oil recovery, proppant injection, reservoir conditioning, oil shows and seeps, gravimetric exploration, in-situ decomposition of kerogen, or half a million other topics on the same subject.
Syncrude is making up an increasing share of the world's *current* oil, and will continue to do so. If you fill up in the northern US, guess what? As much as half or so of what you're putting in your tank is probably syncrude (in this particular case, from bitumen cracking, most of that from Athabasca). In the southern US? You've still probably got a bit from the Venezuelan ultra-heavy coming out of the Orinoco Belt. *You're Already Using Syncrude*. Just because you don't believe in it doesn't change this fact.
You have failed to explain the reason why that is the case. So I can only assume that syngas is a bunch of bullshit and is an unrealistic solution for one or more reasons.
You know, like the fact that it *costs more per barrel*? Oh, heavens no! People always prefer to pay *more* money to produce something rather than less, right? What part of costing more per barrel didn't you understand?
Look, READ. Then come back here and debate. Not before then.
The term Peak Oil was coined in reference to petroleum found in the ground. It has nothing whatsoever to do with alternative fuels or synthetic fuels.
The classic dodge of the doomers: Preach the end of the world, and when your argument falls apart, narrow down the definition and cut back on the whole doom and gloom part. In common parlance, "Peak Oil" seems to mean whatever the person promoting it wants it to mean at the time, anything from "apocalypse" to a minor technical term with few real implications for the world.
[quote]On a completely unrelated note, if syngas is so easy and great, why aren't they doing it?[/quote]
They are, in South Africa and Malaysia. Due to current high oil prices, such syncrude plants are being built around the world. Syngas from coal ("coal liquefaction") or natural gas ("gas to liquids") produces oil for about $30/barrel. Syngas from wood waste or other waste cellulosic biomass produces oil ("green gasoline") for $40-70 a barrel. By comparison, bitumen produces oil for $10-30 a barrel, shale $20-40, and Saudi Arabian sweet crude, often under $5 a barrel. Syncrude is almost always dirtier to make, too.
I hear about bio-diesel, ethanol/E85, hydrogen, fuel cell, and electricity for fuel sources but nobody in the news EVER talks about syngas
And that's the problem; you're debating something that you just "heard about" "in the news", rather than something that you actually know anything about. And don't take this as me promoting oil; far from it (I'm actually on the waiting list for an electric car -- the Aptera Typ-1e). I just have a serious problem with facts being misrepresented.
However we were talking about peak OIL for fuckssake, not peak WIND power, nor peak COAL but peak OIL.
However for the last time, "for fuckssake", we're can MAKE OIL using either CO+H2 ("syngas", "town gas", "coal gas", "wood gas"... it has a bunch of names) -- the Fischer-Tropsch process, or CO2+H2+energy -- the Sabatier process. How many times do I have to explain this to you?
We can make oil.
Oil can be made by us.
Oil making -- it can be done by us.
Concerning the making of oil, we can do it.
Petroleo -- Si se puede!
What about this is hard for you to get through your head? It's what produced 60% of Germany's oil during World War II and most of South Africa's oil during the Apartheid Era.
Is that the sound of your brain breaking trying to get this concept through it that I'm hearing?
Oil is *Not* a finite resource (at least no more than energy itself is).
Wow, you're a fucking moron. Oil is a resource used to create energy, it's not energy in and of itself.
Wow, you're a "fucking moron" if you think that oil is the only source of energy on the planet.
You can talk about creating energy from other organic sources but we're talking about petroleum (you know...the stuff all our cars run on??) and you know it. That's changing the argument to suit your needs which means you don't actually have a valid argument.
Will you read the freaking page before you argue? No, seriously. Straw men tick people off. Had you read the page, You Would Be Aware Of The Fischer-Tropsch and Sabatier Processes, which make Oil (literally, not figuratively) from Syngas or CO2+H2, both of which can be produced in half a million ways so long as you have at least some alternative energy source.
Oh and yes I'm familiar with how "production from different regions rises and falls depending on market price"...it doesn't change the fact that it just eventually runs out. It also doesn't change the fact that when the price is sufficiently high, it's just not viable to use to power autos anymore. Lets pretend there actually is an infinite supply but if it costs $500 a gallon to extract it, it's not a viable energy source.
Had you read the freaking page, you'd know that such an extraction cost is physically impossible, since that's more than it would cost to make it from things like solar thermal or wind power and atmospheric CO2/electrolysis H2. Let alone thermolysis H2, let alone biological syngas sources.
In short, either *read the freaking page* or *stop arguing*, because you keep arguing against things that have already been addressed.
"These people" are me; I put my arguments there so I don't have to retype them all a million times. Had you actually read the page, you wouldn't have made a single argument that you just made, since they were all extensively covered by the page. The page is all about how production from different regions rises and falls depending on the current market price, and how oil prices are a balance between advancing technology and ease of production, with any price increase or tech exponentially increasing the available resource pool (leading to, for example, "multi-peak" producers like Canada). The entire page was about the fallacy of the "drinking glass" view of reserves that you're espousing -- that reserves of any resource (let alone one that we can synthesize) are not like water in a drinking glass that you sip and sip, and suddenly it's gone. It's all about the balance of technology versus ease of extraction, with scaling factors strongly favoring production.
Oil is *Not* a finite resource (at least no more than energy itself is). Again, had you read the page, you would have learned about the half million ways we can outright make the stuff -- from biomass (virtually anything organic -- fossil organics, wood gas, garbage, etc), from heat or electricity with CO2 from the air or the oceans, from power plants or industrial processes, and so on.
Had you actually read the page, you would have learned about China's oil production, their shift in oil-fired generation, their rates of coal extraction compared to ours (and how that relates to rates of resource extraction), and a dozen other topics related to them.
In short, read the bloody page before you debate.