Hardley Drivable would just spin it as necessary to remain competitive in the face of excruciating government regulation and the relentless costs of building an all-American machine for red-blooded Americans so we can keep kickin' ass and lookin' at titties. Oh, did we tell you about the titties?
And then Hardley owners simply stop thinking about anything but titties and the discussion is over.
I'm pretty sure regulated industries have people who are kind of reverse ombudsmen -- they get regulatory complaints and then go out and try to "fix" the problems and have significant escalation authority with which to do so. I'd guess that the number of outstanding regulatory complaints on file has serious impact on their ability to get rate increases or can spur investigations they don't want.
Sometime in the late 1990s the power company came and swapped the meters on the duplex I lived in. We never had any notice of the work to be done and naturally the power loss borked one my computers. I called the power company to complain but got nowhere. I filed a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission and I think in less than a week I had a very professional and insistent woman from the power company calling me to make amends (although she didn't offer me anything of value) in the hopes of getting me to rescind my complaint.
You actually mean "at will employment" where they can terminate your employment for any reason.
However, this gets further confused when you consider "termination for cause" -- are they firing you just to terminate your employment or is there some rationale for termination like insubordination, unexcused absences, criminal activity.
Most employers don't like terminating employment without cause because employees are often eligible for unemployment insurance which impacts their employer's premiums.
I think the key to decent maneuverability would be a propulsion system capable of providing great amounts of directional thrust, like having pairs of turbofans that could be rotated in any direction.
The problem of course with this idea is the fuel and mechanical complexity involved in something like that.
Helicopter-like flight is the right idea, but I think it's a power and propulsion problem. Helicopters are hideously mechanical and have maintenance schedules that would scare even a Ferrari owner.
I think you do need helicopter-like flight -- vertical takeoff and landing, forward and backward flight, side-side flight, etc. No flying car concept would seem to work without these. If you could get this in some kind of package that would work on a car the size of a full-size sedan, you'd only need the advanced aviononics that let you program in a desintation it will fly you to, avoiding all hazards.
Maybe they could have some kind of guided manual mode where you could fly it wherever you wanted but a set of safety and guidance systems kept it from crashing into objects or other cars (probably with active coordination with other cars) as well as obeying specific flight rules (height, speed, etc). Something like the go carts at an amusement park where you can "drive" within a set of constraints but without the restriction of a fixed course.
But the guidance and safety seem trivial next to the propulsion system that gives you six degrees of freedom in the size of a sedan.
I'm not entirely sure what the process is for converting films to digital video.
My suspicion is that the studio does this.
Based on the complaints about many early DVDs, I would wager that a lot were merely telecined -- a good print of the film was literally run through a projector and captured by a digital video camera. Any obvious glitches were edited out (reel changes, etc) and the final product was put through an MPEG2 compressor and used for mastering the DVD. It wouldn't surprise me if even some early DVDs of back catalog titles were made by digitizing the video masters used for making VHS tapes. They were probably D1-type digital masters and seen as "good enough" for DVD which wasn't any higher resolution, especially for back catalog titles that weren't considered blockbusters.
I'd wager it's only been relatively recently (since maybe the advent of Blu Ray) that they have gotten to the point where film scanning gets done on a frame-by-frame basis with any regularity, and many newer films would be shot on digital resulting in some kind of digital copy of the final edit being turned into a digital master at various resolutions for cable distribution.
I remember back in the early 2000s back catalog titles wouldn't even be available on DVD and out of print on VHS. Low and behold some would turn up on Cinemax or HBO and then a DVD would be released soon after. My best guess was that the studios were slowly going through their catalogs and digitizing them (either through a high-quality telecine or scanning) just so they could be shown at all.
I would imagine it's been a long time since major cable movie channels would ever bother with video tape, even D1 format, and if these films were to have any commercial value outside of a film festival where they could show extant 35mm prints the studios had to digitize their catalogs to at least DVD quality. Probably they've since switched to 1080p or higher depending on the title so they could do it once and make broadcast copies, DVD versions and HD versions for blu ray or streaming services.
I get that, but it seems like it would be something that would improve over time based on all manner of improvements.
The inputs might get better -- comparison pictures in the database, which I would imagine are for the most part DMV or passport photos may end up being very high resolution images or include 3D scan data. The on-site imagery will almost certainly end up at 4K resolution if not some kind of real-time 3D scanning. And comparison and analytics will get better as the processing involved gets better.
Better technology doesn't help enough now, but why should it never help? That kind of seems to be the bottom line argument, the error rate can't ever be improved.
But with facial recognition, the entire technology subsystems keep getting better -- high resolution cameras, faster processing which will enable improved and more sophisticated algorithms. It seems naive to say it doesn't work and can't work.
Our Comcast "business class" is 15Mbit/sec and we can stream HD video, which seems to average about 6-7 Mbit/sec, without any kind of noticeable issues with web access.
One user out of 10 on a 100Mbit connection shouldn't render it unusable.
My guess is this is something streaming services do themselves so that the content is pre-optimized for their specific streaming system and codecs.
Just about anything that's been on DVD ever should be "ready for digital streaming" which basically amounts to the streamer transcoding it themselves from the source file that the rights holder has.
I think the bigger issue is the rights holder stuff, which I think would be cleared up if studios and a handful of hollywood assholes would quit fucking around and thinking of ways to milk a 20 year title even further.
The problem with this model is that it doesn't account for the back catalog titles which aren't available streaming, either, or only show up for a month or two and then disappear.
I think a lot of times it's because they want you out of the room and into paying areas of the hotel, like coffee shops, restaurants and recreational areas where there are other revenue generating services to sell you.
People away from home without right-now kinds of workloads could easily relax in their room with a soda or beer bought outside the hotel and browse the web, chat with friends or whatever. If the Internet sucks they might venture down to the restaurant/bar to kill time, buy a coffee or use paid hotel services instead.
Value-centered hotels are also not competing with high-end hotels, they're competing with other value-centric hotels for the same value-conscious customers and wifi is not a terribly expensive thing to provide.
30kWh is just a guess based on a minimum of 12 hours without maximum solar output.
You're right, I could shave some of it off but then the lifestyles start changing. DVRs get shut off, computers (which I access remotely in a professional basis) need to get moved to paid hosting (which amounts to paying someone else for electricity).
I've done some of it -- lights are already 90% CFL or LED. Fridge is 3 years old and likely reasonable in terms of power consumption. Clothes dryer, furnace and stove are natural gas, although furnace is forced air which requires a blower motor. A number of common lights are on timers or motion switches so they're not left "on" when unneeded.
Hollywood largely treats women as disposable, and translating being today's 'it' girl into a career that doesn't slide into B movies and made-for-TV tearjerkers by the time you're in your thirties is a challenge.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if there's career advice that says to save doing nudity until either you've firmly established your artistic credentials or you need that publicity-boosting exposure from doing full-frontal in an "artistic" film.
Showing up naked in a bunch of internet photos upends this strategy.
Roughly 5 kilowatt-hours of usable deep cycle agm battery is like $2,300 and by "usable"I mean draining it to 50% -- I would suspect that's on the optimistic side if you want long life.
I have no idea what my non-full-sun needs would be, but maybe 30kw-h if you exclude central air conditioning.
Obviously a home system designed around 48v would be more efficient than a 12v based system but it's still close to $18k for 30kwh of 48v battery.
To make it at all realistic you would have to get super compulsive about re-engineering your entire energy use patterns. Which might not be bad, but that may mean things like no DVRs, a very small fridge, etc.
Secondly, it's a date. You do not want to be late for the date.
Unless you're seriously late, she'll make you wait. Every. Single. Time. Even after 14 years of marriage.
I think it's actually instilling good habits on people to arrive 10 minutes early.
Nobody wants their date to show up 10 minutes early. Since she'll make you wait anyway, she will REALLY be unprepared when you show up early. Plus it makes you look desperate and over-eager.
If you have to be early because of some compulsion, park a block away and then arrive at her door about 3 minutes late. A little anticipation on her part will go a long way.
I've been looking at very basic power systems for a small boat to provide nominal battery based power on the water and between inverters and batteries the solar side of it is trivial. It's the storage side that gets expensive.
Maybe the real reason they're upset is not that they're naked, but a combination of "there's pictures of me that I didn't get paid for" and "people need to keep their false image of me, not understand that half of them look just as good as me when I'm without make-up, stylist and professional photographer".
This!
I really believe that a lot of this has nothing to do with the celebrities being "ashamed" as much as it has to do with a desire to control their image, whether for professional advantage, sheer narcissism or some combination of both.
Jennifer Lawrence has been in dozens of revealing outfits, photoshoots, etc. It's not like she's some kind of prim and demure church lady who showers in the dark -- she's well aware of her physique and the professional value of the allure of showing skin and how much she shows.
That she hasn't done an explicitly nude scene seems less a question of her morals or her values than a question of how much she can wring out of merely appearing partially nude or establishes her "artistic" credentials before she does appear nude and re-invigorates her brand. It's not like only hack untalented actresses appear nude in films -- more than a few Oscar-winning and critically acclaimed actresses have done extensive nudity.
I don't think the nudity is the problem, it's that it spoils the long-term "reveal". The only actual embarrassment is the revelation of the depth of their self-absorption and narcissism they demonstrate in these photos.
The purpose of this document is to provide a final, comprehensive study of the contributing factors and epidemiology of the Alomal-137 (A-137) pandemic. CDC-Anchorage will continue to update this report at Internet and Skynet locations as long as our facility remains operational. As we are the only American facility still online in the Northern Hemisphere (other operational pandemic investigations facilities include several Scandinavian installations, McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, and CDC-Guam), we have taken responsibility for providing all currently known information to any accessible electronic distribution medium. This report replaces all previous A-137 notices originating from this facility.
This report is not a definitive version of the history of this epidemic; historical narrative provided in this report is purely the work of this office based on largely anecdotal evidence, with some hard factual data provided by many government and civilian agencies from around the world. The true nature and genesis of this disease will never be truly known; all the principal persons involved have been dead for over a year.
Anyone who does read this report is encouraged to contact our facility; our electronic address is cdcalaska@cdc.worldnet.un.gov. We can also be reached by most telephone exchanges, cell phone, short-wave radio and commercial television broadcast at one of the numbers/frequencies printed on the last sheet of this document. We maintain continuous updates and informational broadcasts on BBC World Service, operating out of Bush House in London on standard BBC WS frequencies at twenty minutes past every hour. We encourage anyone who reads this report, especially persons living in North America, to contact us by any means available; however, we cannot accept refugees at our location. Our facility guards are authorized to use lethal force in turning away refugees. Do not approach our facility.
The best thing about dogs is their uncanny friend-or-foe instinct.
The other afternoon we had the main front door open but the storm door closed and our dog, a 95 lb. pit bull/dane mix went nuts at the door. I looked outside, expecting to see a squirrel, chipmunk or rabbit close by in the front yard but saw nothing. The field of view is narrow and two seconds later a religious pamphleteer crossed into my view and started heading up the walk and the dog went REALLY nuts.
He doesn't react like this to neighbors or people he's never met that come over -- it's like he can sense the intent of people coming to the door and reacts more strongly to people with an agenda, like salespeople and others. We once had a really shady guy come to the door and I thought he was going to go through the door to get at him and not surprisingly the guy backed off quickly.
I'm sure its some kind of phermonal signaling or some other kind of instinctive thing. I don't doubt the dog would be relentless if someone actually tried to break in.
I've even noticed him reacting when our son is playing in the back yard and gets tackled or ends up being "it" in some game and yells out. I think if he could get to the action it'd be a big problem for the kid tackling him.
Why not use the fuel instead to pump and desalinate ocean water?
The Aral is problematic because it's far from the ocean, but you could pump and desal from the Black Sea to the Caspian and then pump from Caspian to Aral. It'd be 600 miles or so of total pipeline, but it would really depend on how much you could desal and pump and if that volume would even make a difference.
Won't these ultimately just be energy wars? We won't run out of water, just low energy input drinkable water.
The fight will be (err, maybe already is) over the energy resources necessary to do stuff like desal and purification.
And the summary says that the water was diverted for cotton farming which probably is more of a result of some bad central planning goal for self-reliance since most of the Soviet Union isn't great for cotton farming.
My first thought was that Prius drivers get pulled over for more or less political reasons, because the car is some kind of symbol for left-leaning environmentalism which you would mostly expect runs counter to the expected cop mindset of a right-wing anti-environmentalism.
Somewhere else in this topic there was a reply that this data represented self-reporting, so maybe there's some kind of higher rate of self-reporting by Prius drivers. Which itself could be be the result of the driver's perception of police harassment tied in with some kind of liberal political beliefs.
Another more practical explanation might be that Prius drivers are more conscious of fuel consumption and may tend to drive slower than traffic which might attract more-or-less legitimate police attention. I can't eliminate my own personal bias but after minivans it kind of seems like I run across Priuses driving slower than other traffic.
I think the usable yield is too low for individuals to get much out of it. The numbers vary, but on the low end it's something like 2.4 kg prepared opium per acre of poppies.
It seems like a lot until you do the math and realize its nearly 20 sq ft. per mg. of prepared opium. My average-sized yard is about 4000 square feet and filling it completely with poppies might yield a quarter kilo of prepared opium. I'm sure someone in a rural area might get away with an acre of it, but even then the labor involved would be huge and it still might seem weird to someone if you were growing an acre of poppies.
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Hardley Drivable would just spin it as necessary to remain competitive in the face of excruciating government regulation and the relentless costs of building an all-American machine for red-blooded Americans so we can keep kickin' ass and lookin' at titties. Oh, did we tell you about the titties?
And then Hardley owners simply stop thinking about anything but titties and the discussion is over.
I'm pretty sure regulated industries have people who are kind of reverse ombudsmen -- they get regulatory complaints and then go out and try to "fix" the problems and have significant escalation authority with which to do so. I'd guess that the number of outstanding regulatory complaints on file has serious impact on their ability to get rate increases or can spur investigations they don't want.
Sometime in the late 1990s the power company came and swapped the meters on the duplex I lived in. We never had any notice of the work to be done and naturally the power loss borked one my computers. I called the power company to complain but got nowhere. I filed a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission and I think in less than a week I had a very professional and insistent woman from the power company calling me to make amends (although she didn't offer me anything of value) in the hopes of getting me to rescind my complaint.
You actually mean "at will employment" where they can terminate your employment for any reason.
However, this gets further confused when you consider "termination for cause" -- are they firing you just to terminate your employment or is there some rationale for termination like insubordination, unexcused absences, criminal activity.
Most employers don't like terminating employment without cause because employees are often eligible for unemployment insurance which impacts their employer's premiums.
I think the key to decent maneuverability would be a propulsion system capable of providing great amounts of directional thrust, like having pairs of turbofans that could be rotated in any direction.
The problem of course with this idea is the fuel and mechanical complexity involved in something like that.
Helicopter-like flight is the right idea, but I think it's a power and propulsion problem. Helicopters are hideously mechanical and have maintenance schedules that would scare even a Ferrari owner.
I think you do need helicopter-like flight -- vertical takeoff and landing, forward and backward flight, side-side flight, etc. No flying car concept would seem to work without these. If you could get this in some kind of package that would work on a car the size of a full-size sedan, you'd only need the advanced aviononics that let you program in a desintation it will fly you to, avoiding all hazards.
Maybe they could have some kind of guided manual mode where you could fly it wherever you wanted but a set of safety and guidance systems kept it from crashing into objects or other cars (probably with active coordination with other cars) as well as obeying specific flight rules (height, speed, etc). Something like the go carts at an amusement park where you can "drive" within a set of constraints but without the restriction of a fixed course.
But the guidance and safety seem trivial next to the propulsion system that gives you six degrees of freedom in the size of a sedan.
I'm not entirely sure what the process is for converting films to digital video.
My suspicion is that the studio does this.
Based on the complaints about many early DVDs, I would wager that a lot were merely telecined -- a good print of the film was literally run through a projector and captured by a digital video camera. Any obvious glitches were edited out (reel changes, etc) and the final product was put through an MPEG2 compressor and used for mastering the DVD. It wouldn't surprise me if even some early DVDs of back catalog titles were made by digitizing the video masters used for making VHS tapes. They were probably D1-type digital masters and seen as "good enough" for DVD which wasn't any higher resolution, especially for back catalog titles that weren't considered blockbusters.
I'd wager it's only been relatively recently (since maybe the advent of Blu Ray) that they have gotten to the point where film scanning gets done on a frame-by-frame basis with any regularity, and many newer films would be shot on digital resulting in some kind of digital copy of the final edit being turned into a digital master at various resolutions for cable distribution.
I remember back in the early 2000s back catalog titles wouldn't even be available on DVD and out of print on VHS. Low and behold some would turn up on Cinemax or HBO and then a DVD would be released soon after. My best guess was that the studios were slowly going through their catalogs and digitizing them (either through a high-quality telecine or scanning) just so they could be shown at all.
I would imagine it's been a long time since major cable movie channels would ever bother with video tape, even D1 format, and if these films were to have any commercial value outside of a film festival where they could show extant 35mm prints the studios had to digitize their catalogs to at least DVD quality. Probably they've since switched to 1080p or higher depending on the title so they could do it once and make broadcast copies, DVD versions and HD versions for blu ray or streaming services.
I get that, but it seems like it would be something that would improve over time based on all manner of improvements.
The inputs might get better -- comparison pictures in the database, which I would imagine are for the most part DMV or passport photos may end up being very high resolution images or include 3D scan data. The on-site imagery will almost certainly end up at 4K resolution if not some kind of real-time 3D scanning. And comparison and analytics will get better as the processing involved gets better.
Better technology doesn't help enough now, but why should it never help? That kind of seems to be the bottom line argument, the error rate can't ever be improved.
But with facial recognition, the entire technology subsystems keep getting better -- high resolution cameras, faster processing which will enable improved and more sophisticated algorithms. It seems naive to say it doesn't work and can't work.
Something's wrong with your setup.
Our Comcast "business class" is 15Mbit/sec and we can stream HD video, which seems to average about 6-7 Mbit/sec, without any kind of noticeable issues with web access.
One user out of 10 on a 100Mbit connection shouldn't render it unusable.
Re-mastering for digital streaming?
My guess is this is something streaming services do themselves so that the content is pre-optimized for their specific streaming system and codecs.
Just about anything that's been on DVD ever should be "ready for digital streaming" which basically amounts to the streamer transcoding it themselves from the source file that the rights holder has.
I think the bigger issue is the rights holder stuff, which I think would be cleared up if studios and a handful of hollywood assholes would quit fucking around and thinking of ways to milk a 20 year title even further.
The problem with this model is that it doesn't account for the back catalog titles which aren't available streaming, either, or only show up for a month or two and then disappear.
I think a lot of times it's because they want you out of the room and into paying areas of the hotel, like coffee shops, restaurants and recreational areas where there are other revenue generating services to sell you.
People away from home without right-now kinds of workloads could easily relax in their room with a soda or beer bought outside the hotel and browse the web, chat with friends or whatever. If the Internet sucks they might venture down to the restaurant/bar to kill time, buy a coffee or use paid hotel services instead.
Value-centered hotels are also not competing with high-end hotels, they're competing with other value-centric hotels for the same value-conscious customers and wifi is not a terribly expensive thing to provide.
30kWh is just a guess based on a minimum of 12 hours without maximum solar output.
You're right, I could shave some of it off but then the lifestyles start changing. DVRs get shut off, computers (which I access remotely in a professional basis) need to get moved to paid hosting (which amounts to paying someone else for electricity).
I've done some of it -- lights are already 90% CFL or LED. Fridge is 3 years old and likely reasonable in terms of power consumption. Clothes dryer, furnace and stove are natural gas, although furnace is forced air which requires a blower motor. A number of common lights are on timers or motion switches so they're not left "on" when unneeded.
I think it boils down to career longevity.
Hollywood largely treats women as disposable, and translating being today's 'it' girl into a career that doesn't slide into B movies and made-for-TV tearjerkers by the time you're in your thirties is a challenge.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if there's career advice that says to save doing nudity until either you've firmly established your artistic credentials or you need that publicity-boosting exposure from doing full-frontal in an "artistic" film.
Showing up naked in a bunch of internet photos upends this strategy.
Roughly 5 kilowatt-hours of usable deep cycle agm battery is like $2,300 and by "usable"I mean draining it to 50% -- I would suspect that's on the optimistic side if you want long life.
I have no idea what my non-full-sun needs would be, but maybe 30kw-h if you exclude central air conditioning.
Obviously a home system designed around 48v would be more efficient than a 12v based system but it's still close to $18k for 30kwh of 48v battery.
To make it at all realistic you would have to get super compulsive about re-engineering your entire energy use patterns. Which might not be bad, but that may mean things like no DVRs, a very small fridge, etc.
Secondly, it's a date. You do not want to be late for the date.
Unless you're seriously late, she'll make you wait. Every. Single. Time. Even after 14 years of marriage.
I think it's actually instilling good habits on people to arrive 10 minutes early.
Nobody wants their date to show up 10 minutes early. Since she'll make you wait anyway, she will REALLY be unprepared when you show up early. Plus it makes you look desperate and over-eager.
If you have to be early because of some compulsion, park a block away and then arrive at her door about 3 minutes late. A little anticipation on her part will go a long way.
No, home scale.
I've been looking at very basic power systems for a small boat to provide nominal battery based power on the water and between inverters and batteries the solar side of it is trivial. It's the storage side that gets expensive.
Storage cost is expensive. Or is it merely meant to be a daytime use to cut utility consumption?
Maybe the real reason they're upset is not that they're naked, but a combination of "there's pictures of me that I didn't get paid for" and "people need to keep their false image of me, not understand that half of them look just as good as me when I'm without make-up, stylist and professional photographer".
This!
I really believe that a lot of this has nothing to do with the celebrities being "ashamed" as much as it has to do with a desire to control their image, whether for professional advantage, sheer narcissism or some combination of both.
Jennifer Lawrence has been in dozens of revealing outfits, photoshoots, etc. It's not like she's some kind of prim and demure church lady who showers in the dark -- she's well aware of her physique and the professional value of the allure of showing skin and how much she shows.
That she hasn't done an explicitly nude scene seems less a question of her morals or her values than a question of how much she can wring out of merely appearing partially nude or establishes her "artistic" credentials before she does appear nude and re-invigorates her brand. It's not like only hack untalented actresses appear nude in films -- more than a few Oscar-winning and critically acclaimed actresses have done extensive nudity.
I don't think the nudity is the problem, it's that it spoils the long-term "reveal". The only actual embarrassment is the revelation of the depth of their self-absorption and narcissism they demonstrate in these photos.
The purpose of this document is to provide a final, comprehensive study of the contributing factors and epidemiology of the Alomal-137 (A-137) pandemic. CDC-Anchorage will continue to update this report at Internet and Skynet locations as long as our facility remains operational. As we are the only American facility still online in the Northern Hemisphere (other operational pandemic investigations facilities include several Scandinavian installations, McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, and CDC-Guam), we have taken responsibility for providing all currently known information to any accessible electronic distribution medium. This report replaces all previous A-137 notices originating from this facility.
This report is not a definitive version of the history of this epidemic; historical narrative provided in this report is purely the work of this office based on largely anecdotal evidence, with some hard factual data provided by many government and civilian agencies from around the world. The true nature and genesis of this disease will never be truly known; all the principal persons involved have been dead for over a year.
Anyone who does read this report is encouraged to contact our facility; our electronic address is cdcalaska@cdc.worldnet.un.gov. We can also be reached by most telephone exchanges, cell phone, short-wave radio and commercial television broadcast at one of the numbers/frequencies printed on the last sheet of this document. We maintain continuous updates and informational broadcasts on BBC World Service, operating out of Bush House in London on standard BBC WS frequencies at twenty minutes past every hour. We encourage anyone who reads this report, especially persons living in North America, to contact us by any means available; however, we cannot accept refugees at our location. Our facility guards are authorized to use lethal force in turning away refugees. Do not approach our facility.
The best thing about dogs is their uncanny friend-or-foe instinct.
The other afternoon we had the main front door open but the storm door closed and our dog, a 95 lb. pit bull/dane mix went nuts at the door. I looked outside, expecting to see a squirrel, chipmunk or rabbit close by in the front yard but saw nothing. The field of view is narrow and two seconds later a religious pamphleteer crossed into my view and started heading up the walk and the dog went REALLY nuts.
He doesn't react like this to neighbors or people he's never met that come over -- it's like he can sense the intent of people coming to the door and reacts more strongly to people with an agenda, like salespeople and others. We once had a really shady guy come to the door and I thought he was going to go through the door to get at him and not surprisingly the guy backed off quickly.
I'm sure its some kind of phermonal signaling or some other kind of instinctive thing. I don't doubt the dog would be relentless if someone actually tried to break in.
I've even noticed him reacting when our son is playing in the back yard and gets tackled or ends up being "it" in some game and yells out. I think if he could get to the action it'd be a big problem for the kid tackling him.
Why not use the fuel instead to pump and desalinate ocean water?
The Aral is problematic because it's far from the ocean, but you could pump and desal from the Black Sea to the Caspian and then pump from Caspian to Aral. It'd be 600 miles or so of total pipeline, but it would really depend on how much you could desal and pump and if that volume would even make a difference.
Won't these ultimately just be energy wars? We won't run out of water, just low energy input drinkable water.
The fight will be (err, maybe already is) over the energy resources necessary to do stuff like desal and purification.
And the summary says that the water was diverted for cotton farming which probably is more of a result of some bad central planning goal for self-reliance since most of the Soviet Union isn't great for cotton farming.
My first thought was that Prius drivers get pulled over for more or less political reasons, because the car is some kind of symbol for left-leaning environmentalism which you would mostly expect runs counter to the expected cop mindset of a right-wing anti-environmentalism.
Somewhere else in this topic there was a reply that this data represented self-reporting, so maybe there's some kind of higher rate of self-reporting by Prius drivers. Which itself could be be the result of the driver's perception of police harassment tied in with some kind of liberal political beliefs.
Another more practical explanation might be that Prius drivers are more conscious of fuel consumption and may tend to drive slower than traffic which might attract more-or-less legitimate police attention. I can't eliminate my own personal bias but after minivans it kind of seems like I run across Priuses driving slower than other traffic.
I think the usable yield is too low for individuals to get much out of it. The numbers vary, but on the low end it's something like 2.4 kg prepared opium per acre of poppies.
It seems like a lot until you do the math and realize its nearly 20 sq ft. per mg. of prepared opium. My average-sized yard is about 4000 square feet and filling it completely with poppies might yield a quarter kilo of prepared opium. I'm sure someone in a rural area might get away with an acre of it, but even then the labor involved would be huge and it still might seem weird to someone if you were growing an acre of poppies.