Yes and, in the end, she may get out of this fine if she can get a Canadian version of the ACLU to help her (as you say, she has the publicity for it). But, how many people get abused like this every year and don't generate enough media coverage. Public Interest Groups don't have an infinite supply of funds and they only tend to defend cases like this if they are high profile enough to further their cause. We can't assume that the existance of Public Interest Groups fills the hole in individual civil liberties left by corporate personhood.
Actually, ever since gas prices in the U.S. have been sky rocketing American consumers have been turning to hybrid cars as a way to cut down on fuel prices. This article addresses a very real problem of consumers thinking that they will save money by buying a hybrid. Yea, they may be better for the environment but a great many American consumers don't care about that as much as whether or not they can afford to commute to work in the morning.
Yes, and according to Canadian law (so says the article), win or loose, she has to shoulder all of her own legal costs. So, unless she happens to be wealthy, she will end up with monumental debt and/or really poor quality legal defense. What does it matter if she wins or looses if she ends up living in the gutter when it's all over either way? The moral victory of winning means nothing when you're still hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from defending yourself in the trial and any other appeals the company may try. I fail to see much of a difference between that and simply agreeing to pay the $2 million in the first place, unless she happens to have a massive yearly income.
This is one of many reasons why treating corporations as "people" under the law (a.k.a. corporate person-hood) is a stupendously bad idea. Anti-SLAPP laws seem to do some things to mitigate this but Canada doesn't seem to have this kind of thing and even in places that have it the corporations are sometimes allowed to use the same laws against individuals when they libel them. Corporations aren't people. They are large, abstract, organizations driven solely by profit motive in which group mentality (much like the mentality that takes over in riots) is used to override the morals of the individual employees. Pair this with the sheer disparity of resources (both intellectual and fiscal) of a corporation versus the average person and you have a situation where the two parties are almost guaranteed to enter any legal battle with the corporation at a massive advantage.
I can't speak for Canada, but I was always taught that the U.S. was supposed to be all about the rights of the individual. Of course, it was our supreme court that started this ball rolling by declaring corporate person-hood in the first place (Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 1886)...
As I've stated before in other posts, the lab reports from multiple independant labs hosted on the Hydrino Study Group website http://www.hydrino.org/> bring up and answer most of the possible conventional explanations given by Mills' critics for how that excess heat could have been created.
Ok, I think I should specify again that I see the "Grand Unified Theory" issue and the "excess heat" issue as two separate topics. As much as I like the simplicity of his GUT over traditional Quantum Mechanics, I still find it rather far fetched that one guy has completely unraveled 50+ years of physics and had an entire alternate theory pop out of his head whole-cloth even if it was over a 10 year period (though I still think he should be given a fair chance to argue his case on that which I don't really see happening right now). On the other hand, I have seen nothing that counters the hard experimental evidence that suggests that, regardless of the underlying cause, he seems to have found a process that produces more energy than our understanding of traditional chemical reactions should allow for and that multiple separate labs have backed up.
Even if his GUT turns out to be wrong the experimental results seem to poke serious holes in present theory. His detractor like to poke holes in his theories and use his "100x" numbers to claim he's a crackpot but then they don't seem to be making any attempts to seriously explain where the excess heat is coming from either (they postulated a number of explanations but those have been shot down one-by-one in the various lab reports). Just because numbers are unusual doesn't make them wrong, especially when he apparently has experimental results to, at least partially, back his statements up. When the lone loony approaches the academic community and claims to have a theory that justifies re-writing all of modern physics theory it makes sense to consider him a crank. But, when that same loony comes back with experimental results verified by multiple major labs then its time to stop the ad hominem attacks and actually engage your brains to figure out what is actually going on.
There is, of course, a third option. It is completely possible for a theory to be proven wrong without an alternate theory being available to replace it. Science requires a theory to be falsifiable, it says nothing about having to have an alternate theory handy to use in its stead before you can acknowledge that the old one is incorrect. Quantum Mechanics, in particular, has been on pretty shaky ground recently. There have been a number of recent cases of high profile experiments producing results that don't track in any way with what QM suggests should happen.
As for why we never find hydrogen in the hydrino state, I have no idea. I'm sure Mills has some sort of an explanation for that in his GUT. As for whether that explanation makes sense, I'll leave that up to the physicists. Who, might I add, don't all declare Mills a crack-pot out of hand. I apologize for not remembering where I saw it, but somewhere on either the HSG or the Wikipedia page I came across a quote from a major physicist who has stepped forward to support the fact that modern physics equations don't, necessarily, rule out the possibility of at least one fractional electron state. Of course, he was also a long way from, whole-heartedly, supporting the theory.
As for the Wired link you mentioned, from the article:
The space agency is funding a study of an engine based on a novel conception of the structure of hydrogen, the central idea behind a maverick New Jersey researcher's Grand Unified Theory. This theory has been derided as a "crackpot idea" and "voodoo science" by respected experts in physics.
Mills' company is based in New Jersey. This engine idea NASA is investigating is Mills' design/technology. Later in the article they mention Mills and Blacklight Industries by name. They even named the rocket after his company:
Anthony J. Marchese, a mechanical engineering professor specializing in propulsion at Rowan University, is getting modest funding ($75,000) from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts to build and test a BlackLight Rocket.
The article references the other physicists as referring to his theory as being "crackpot science" and "voodoo scien
My point was that major corporate backers are, in general, more capable of performing due diligence when deciding to invest in a new technology. They are less likely to fall for a scam than that nice elderly couple down the street that most of the "free energy" cranks target for investment.
The backers themselves have been identified on the HSG site as well as in some of the news pieces as including Morgan Stanley, Westinghouse, as well as some utilities. Yet again, I simply abreviated that part because I didn't want to write a book (would it really hurt to read some of the linked to pages?;-) ). In fact, one of the articles directly quotes a Morgan Stanley representative. This might also explain why Westinghouse is one of the labs that tested a cell. Their investment may have resulted from the wording of the report in which the writer concludes by stating that the company should investigate the technology further. Of course, as all the other reports do, he refuses to support Mills' explanation of fractional electron states for as being the cause of the anomalous heat.
Nothing in the reports I looked at suggested that they were barred from looking inside. However, even if they were the argument has been largely mitigated. Some of the labs were able to run the cells constantly for months at a time. This would tend to disqualify the possibility that he's hiding a battery (another thing "free energy" cranks often try) or something similar. The point they make is that even if he was hiding a battery or something in the cell (or if the cell is working on some other principle than the one he claims) they are still putting out abnormal amounts of energy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is possible that he's running a hoax but, in my opinion, he's provided enough exposure of his tech to enough high profile, third party, labs to warrant a limiting on the anti-crank rhetoric.
Because the website isn't about science. The website is about his startup company that is supposedly trying to market the technology he is developing. The science is going on as a secondary thing because he is using his Grand Unified Theory in an attempt to explain the experimental results he has supposedly obtained.
If you look at the websites of many other, legitimate, corporations you will see that they very often use flash as well. Honestly, I found his companies website to be a decent use of the tech in a reasonably non-garish manner.
Ok, as I've already stated, I'm not claiming that his theories are all true. I'm simply claiming that third party labs have confirmed the excessive heat release. Some of the reports, supposedly, also confirm unusual spectrographic readings from the waste products of the cell. This would tend to suggest that something unusual is being created. I'll attempt to address all your statements:
His process makes new, unexplored materials? So that means this process has never occurred naturally before, at least on Earth? Otherwise we would have seen these materials before.
There is no reason this couldn't be true. His explanation (again, I'm only suggesting that his experimental results look reasonably confirmed and not that his explanation is necessarily true) is that these "hydrinos" are the cause of "dark matter". Since "dark matter" isn't found on Earth (as far as we know) then it stands to reason that hydrinos in general might be relatively rare around here. There have been a number of materials found in meteorites that don't occur naturally on earth. One example of this is the crystal Moissanite which is now sold as a diamond substitute and has to be entirely synthetically produced.
Why do I think that's unlikely?
I don't know and I don't care why you think that. This is a pointless rhetorical statement meant to elicit an emotional response that has no place in logical discourse.
As to him not angling for money, a common angle for money is to claim you don't need it. "I don't need your money." "I don't need your money." "I don't need your money." "Well, we're entering a greater phase of development. And although I don't need your money, with it we could accelerate our plans." Classic con. I mean, people are more happy to give their money to someone who already has some, not someone who is desperate for it.
Yes, it's also the way a legitimate startup company would look in the position he's claiming to be in. As I said before, there is no absolute proof that he's not running a hoax but the same can be said about any legit startup company as well. On the other hand, there also haven't been any blatantly obvious signs that he's running a scam as has been the case with past "free energy" cranks. In fact, the guy has been going on about this for ~10 years in which time no-one has come out with proof suggesting that he might be a total charlatan. Even most of his critics in the physics world tend to suggest that his theories are wrong while I have yet to see any attack his experimental results directly.
His stuff has been verified by a NASA lab? You think they would have come forward and said it isn't true if it weren't true. Well, I have to ask, if it isn't true, who would have come forward? He says "a NASA lab", not a specific one. Did you expect there is someone out there who checks with all NASA labs every time someone says they worked with any of them? Same with the other labs he mentions. Being non-specific is the scammers' best friend.
He didn't say "generic NASA lab", I did. I shortened the names because I assumed that anyone with half a brain would be able to go to the HSG website and look at the experiment reports that I clearly mention are hosted there. In those reports they specify the full names of the labs as well as the names of the people that ran the tests. They include the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland Ohio; Westinghouse STC in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania; and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. This time I will acknowledge clearly that there are, also, other reports from other labs hosted at the same location and you can be responsible for looking them up yourself.
Additionally, I want to mention that rumors of US government involvement or funding of his projects also means nothing. The government funded HAARP and MKULTRA.
Yes, this is why I mention three independent labs and alluded to others that were also listed on the HSG site.
There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding exactly what Mills is claiming. I'm not saying he's necessarily correct in his theory, but if you read his site and the Hydrino Study Group (HSG), both linked to by the Wikipedia article, they are much clearer about it.
After reading through the company page, the Wikipedia article, and the HSG last nigh (I found it linked to by a forum I frequent) I'll try to cover some of the most basic issues that are in dispute:
The article says he is a medic
The Wiki article, his company site, and the HSG all agree that he received a full Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard and that he spent time at MIT doing graduate Electrical Engineering work.
The Guardian article says he is claiming a 1000x increase in energy output over traditional fuel.
At some point while reading through either his site or the HSG I saw mention of the number being a 100x increase. This may be a case of the Guardian reporter doing some of that crappy science reporting we always hear about and accidentally adding an extra '0'. In general, Mills' claim seems to be that the process produces energy output higher that a chemical reaction but lower than a nuclear one.
People in this forum have been claiming that there is no explanation of what happens to the hydrogen after it's made into a hydrino
His company site, as well as the HSG, are specific in claiming that the process creates new, unexplored, materials that have potential uses in material science. This also ties in with his claims that his theory explains the existence of "dark matter" since he claims that "dark matter" are hydrinos with the electrons at extremely low levels.
People in this forum have been claiming he's angling for money like other "free energy" people.
Documentation hosted on Mill's site as well as comments on the HSG claim that he already has a great deal of funding from a number of major corporate backers. He has never, according to anything I've seen on any of these pages, looked for private donations like many of the other "free energy" scam artists. This doesn't mean he isn't running a hoax, but it lends doubt to that idea.
People in this forum claim there has been no experimentation done by outside authorities to prove his claims.
All sources agree that he has had a number of major, third party, labs (including a NASA lab, an MIT lab, and a Westinghouse lab) run experiments on his prototype hydrogen cell. The reports from these labs are reportedly linked to on the HSG. Mills has been doing this research for many years. If these reports were fabricated then it would be expected that someone from one of those labs would have stepped forward long ago to discredit them but no one has. Even his harshest critics in the physics world don't seem to be claiming his experimental results are fabricated.
The simple fact is that it has been well documented that something special is actually going on in these hydrogen cells that he's been sending out to be tested. Some critics have come up with a short list of possible, conventional, explanations for why the reaction appears to be producing more heat than a chemical reaction would seem to allow but most of them have been refuted by the labs doing the experiments.
While I'm as skeptical of his Grand Unified Theory as the next person (as convenient as it would be when compared to the mess that is Quantum Physics. Heck, even I understand most of it and I'm not even a physicist). The experimental results of his technology suggest strongly that there is something pretty special going on.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there seems to be a little more involved here than most other "free energy" claims or even "cold fusion". Maybe we should all put away the anti-crackpot rhetoric and give this guy a chance to prove his claims with actual high-minded discourse.
Actually, HDR rendering has nothing to do with the contrast limits of the physical display device. Even the best display devices have limits on how bright they can get. To some extent this is a good thing, if monitors ever became capable to representing something like the sun at true brightness then we'd have to worry about in-game bugs causing eye damage by setting the display brightness too high.
HDR is a technique that uses floating point values rather than integers to represent luminance values within the pre-rendered scene. These values are then compared to each other before the scene is actually rendered and the luminance of the individual portions of the rendered scene are assigned based on the relative brightness of each light source when compared to each others. Basically, if you have a bright floodlight and a small flashlight visible to the camera the floodlight should vastly overpower the flashlight and should probably max out the brightness of the physical display device. However, if you move the camera angle up a little bit and include the sun in the scene, then HDR would dynamically darken all the other lights in order to make the sun look like the brightest light source and the sun would then have taken the highest brightness setting of the display device.
Another effect that is created using HDR is glare. An example of this in the real world is when you look directly at a bright light source, like the sun (I don't really recommend trying this out with the sun because it might cause eye damage but a flashlight or a light bulb should work too). The light source tends to look larger than it actually is because the light drowns out anything around it.
HDR rendering has been hardware accelerated on the new last few generations of video cards, but only recently has performance been acceptable enough to actually implement into a commercial game.
There is a way to deal with it, it's called government regulation. There is a reason we have anti-trust laws and regulate important industries. As you've pointed out, major companies like power companies and oil companies can't be trusted to not abuse their position. For instance, CNN just ran an article today or yesterday about how Exxon just reported that their profit margin was up 75%!! The entire economy is suffering because of the increase in fuel costs and these vampires are price gouging while refusing to increase the number of refineries.
What we need to be doing is charging them with criminal price gouging and regulating the industry to force them to increase the number of refineries. I can understand their need to make a profit, but they were making plenty of profits before the fuel shortages. Now it has gone beyond profiting and into the realm of abusive business practices.
Personally, while I agree that oil is probably beginning to run out, I think many in the "Peak Oil" movement are guilty of spreading FUD in the hopes of selling more copies of their books. There is no reason to think that market forces wont force our economy to move away from Oil and onto something else. As for what that "something else" will be, I personally think it will be nuclear fission.
One of the worst "Peak Oil" sites I've ever read (created by a guy that happens to have a book out on the topic) tried to make it sound like nuclear fission couldn't replace Oil because the supply of nuclear fuel would run out too quickly. Everything I've ever seen suggests that there is presently about a 50-year reserve of fuel at present levels of use. This doesn't take into account unfound sources of uranium and sources we know about but don't include in "reserves" because they aren't as easy to get at. If we have to make use of sources that are harder to get at then the resulting price increase should still remain way below present price per Watt for oil and will result in, possibly, an exponential increase in the "reserve". This also doesn't take into account the possible use of fast breeder reactors or more efficient plant designs that would be used in any new plants built.
As for the "green" energy sources, most have a low power return ratio, limited viable locations, or haven't been proven to be energy positive (like Bio-diesel/Ethanol which some claim is only economical because of the massive subsidies that the U.S. government gives to agricultural companies). While I am sure we will make use of these "green" energy sources as much as possible, and will continue to improve the technology behind them, I don't think any of them will ever be able to take over the brunt of energy production now handled by fossil fuels.
To address your concerns regarding transportation, that is where the "Hydrogen Economy" really shines. I think advocating the building of new Nuclear power plants and the conversion to hydrogen vehicles is one of the few things President Bush has done right during his term in office. Even if fuel cell technology never materializes, it is completely possible to simply run traditional internal combustion engines on hydrogen (though less efficient). As for jets, I'm pretty sure we can design jet engines capable of running on hydrogen. Even if we can't, converting all other vehicles/power plants to Nuclear/hydrogen/renewable should free up a lot of what is left of the remaining oil supply.
Personally, while I agree that oil is beginning to run out, I think many in the "Peak Oil" movement are guilty of spreading FUD in the hopes of selling more copies of their books. There is no reason to think that market forces wont force our economy to move away from Oil and onto something else. As for what that "something else" will be, I personally think it will be nuclear fission.
One of the worst "Peak Oil" sites I've ever read (created by a guy that happens to have a book out on the topic) tried to make it sound like nuclear fission couldn't replace Oil because the supply of nuclear fuel would run out too quickly. Everything I've ever seen suggests that there is presently about a 50-year reserve of fuel at present levels of use. This doesn't take into account unfound sources of uranium and sources we know about but don't include in "reserves" because they aren't as easy to get at. If we have to make use of sources that are harder to get at then the resulting price increase should still remain way below present price per Watt for oil and will result in, possibly, an exponential increase in the "reserve". This also doesn't take into account the possible use of fast breeder reactors or more efficient plant designs that would be used in any new plants built.
As for the "green" energy sources, most have a low power return ratio, limited viable locations, or haven't been proven to be energy positive (like Bio-diesel/Ethanol which some claim is only economical because of the massive subsidies that the U.S. government gives to agricultural companies).
To address your concerns regarding transportation, that is where the "Hydrogen Economy" really shines. I think advocating the building of new Nuclear power plants and the conversion to hydrogen vehicles is one of the few things President Bush has done right during his term in office. Even if fuel cell technology never materializes, it is completely possible to simply run traditional internal combustion engines on hydrogen (though less efficient). As for jets, I'm pretty sure we can design jet engines capable of running on hydrogen. Even if we can't, converting all other vehicles/power plants to Nuclear/hydrogen/renewable should free up a lot of what is left of the remaining oil supply.
I will admit, I'm not a physicist. However, while I was studying Computer Science at college I had two occasions to study quantum computers. One occasion was a guest professor at my parallel computing class who covered how software would be developed for a hypothetical Quantum Computer and the other was a colloquium run by my CS department with another guest speaker discussing almost the same topic. The question of playing Doom on a quantum computer came up both times and they both agreed that quantum computers are incapable of performing all of the basic ops needed for a general purpose CPU. This was, supposedly, one of the reasons that there were such a limited number of algorithms in existence to justify the creation of a quantum computer in the first place (Shor's factoring algorithm and a few others).
As for running Windows/Couterstrike, it is perfectly possible to run both of those pieces of software on a Sun Sparc system. I am not now, nor was I then, suggesting that either piece of software would run on a Sparc out of the box but it is completely possible to take them and modify them to run on a different platform. The basic algorithms can be run on the Sparc CPU to produce the exact same output. My point wasn't to suggest that Intel/AMD processors are special compared to any other CPUs (Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, PIC, Cell, etc.). I simply used Intel/AMD as examples of two of the most well known general purpose CPUs. Truth be told, I didn't feel the need to list all general purpose CPUs ever invented nor did I think myself capable of listing them all without missing some. The point I was trying to make was that, while I can convert Windows/Counterstrike to run on a general purpose CPU like Intel/AMD/Sparc, I couldn't do the same for something like a nVidia Gforce GPU because, while they are very programmable and parallel processing friendly, they are missing some core ops needed to run generic software (this may have changed recently with the newest generation of GPUs). As I said before, my experience in hearing the guest professors discuss the specific topic of algorithm development for quantum computers led me to the belief that the same holds true for quantum computers.
It has been maybe six years since I heard those professors speak about quantum computing, so I am more than willing to grant that things may have advanced in the field of quantum computing algorithms and new ways may have been found to emulate the missing ops. However, I haven't seen anything myself to suggest that that is the case.
Quantum computers are great, in theory, but even if we are able to figure out how to build one that actually works they are only capable of solving certain types of problems. Our present understanding of quantum physics tells us that you can't design a quantum computer that can do all the same math problems as a generic Intel/AMD CPU (e.i. run Windows; play Counterstrike; etc.).
That being said, the problems that can be solved by quantum computers tend to be the ones that would take a regular CPU until the end of the universe to perform (break strong encryption, large traveling salesman problems, etc.). At some point, if we can make a quantum computer compact enough, we might end up having quantum co-processors built into out PCs but we'll probably never see the CPU of our PC replaced by a quantum computer.
The tech being discussed in the article would be directly applicable to making generic PCs run faster (though it could also have the potential to improve communication speeds with a hypothetical quantum computer as well). Another tech that will probably be leveraged to make generic systems faster is the replacement of silicon in computer chips with diamond. Since diamond can handle vastly higher temperatures than silicon, without melting, it is theoretically possible to push the clock speed on a diamond based CPU much higher than on today's silicon CPUs.
I think what they are implicitly saying is that "the people that matter" want to know where their food has been. In a democracy, the people that matter are the ones that are willing to get up off their @sses and make their opinions know. The "silent majority" make themselves irrelevant by actively choosing not to participate.
As of this posting, the post we are referring to has been moderated to (Score: 0, Troll). If you really want to read it go back to the first post in the thread that refers to the names and addresses and click on the green link at the bottom of the post that says "parent".
Basically, the original post in this thread claimed to have worked at MS during the development of the original Windows NT and have first hand experience with the original POSIX compliance project. Someone posted a response claiming to also have been working at MS during the same time period and to have attended the meeting that was referred to in the original post. He claimed that the meeting was run by "Storm" and that the CTO of NT project was "Magneto". He went on to mention that MS hides all documents that they don't want to leak out at "Professor Xavier's mansion" and further asks if the original poster had run into "Beast" while working at MS. Of course he used the characters' real names and the fictional street address of the mansion so that most people wouldn't realize he was full of crap.
Personally, I find this one of the worst types of troll because it spreads incorrect information in what is otherwise a reasonable sounding post. I can enjoy a funny troll as much as the next person. But, when it's presented in a way in which most people wouldn't realize it's not serious, then all it really does is promote false information.
Honestly, can't really take credit for it. My good buddy Google helped me out there. Something about the names just sounded off. Once I figured that out it wasn't too hard to figure that the address might be off too.
Every name listed in the parent is the name of a person from the X-Men comics.
Ororo Munroe = Storm Erik Lehnsherr = Magneto Henry McCoy = Beast
1407 Graymalkin Lane is the fictional address of Professor Xavier's mansion.
The parent post is a troll.
-GameMaster
Re:Easy counter measures, not worth killing whales
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Sonic Torpedo Defense
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There is no such thing as a perfect mirror or perfect sound absorbing material. If you make a strong enough laser or a strong enough sound source it will overcome the mirror/sound absorber almost instantly. That is the goal of anti-missile laser systems and this kind of anti-torpedo system. Not to mention, in the case of the mirror, if there is any kind of smudge or dirt on the mirror where the laser hits then the mirror becomes absolutely useless. What are the chances that a missile can be stored and launched in an absolutely clean-room conditions (every missile launch I've ever seen has involved large clouds of smoke and debris). Every time I've heard someone suggest coating a missile with mirrors to overcome anti-missile lasers I've seen it soundly debunked by someone that knows the magnitude of the actual forces at work.
They aren't trying to trick the torpedoes into thinking they've hit the ship. The article suggests that the shock wave is supposed to be so strong that it'll cause actual physical damage to the incoming torpedo. They figure that the damage will be sufficient to either destroy the torpedo outright or at least cause enough damage to break vital components.
I've always kind of felt that the difference between "fixing a problem" and some kind of sick Orwellian police state that drugs everyone up is all about whether the person gets to choose to take the treatment or not. If a person isn't a violent danger to everyone around him/her then I feel that it should be their choice over whether they are medicated for their condition. Granted social pressures may push people to get treatment but it should never be a requirement. On the other hand, I don't feel that we should withhold new treatments for things like ADHD, anxiety disorder, depression, etc. simply because we feel that it might be better for society, in the long run, to have the variations in personality.
Funny, that what I thought of at first too. Too much Star Wars as child I guess. I wonder if this could have civilian application in desert regions like the middle east or the Southwestern United States. I have to imagine that electicity might be a cheaper commodity in desert regions than water.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and, in the end, she may get out of this fine if she can get a Canadian version of the ACLU to help her (as you say, she has the publicity for it). But, how many people get abused like this every year and don't generate enough media coverage. Public Interest Groups don't have an infinite supply of funds and they only tend to defend cases like this if they are high profile enough to further their cause. We can't assume that the existance of Public Interest Groups fills the hole in individual civil liberties left by corporate personhood.
-GameMaster
Actually, ever since gas prices in the U.S. have been sky rocketing American consumers have been turning to hybrid cars as a way to cut down on fuel prices. This article addresses a very real problem of consumers thinking that they will save money by buying a hybrid. Yea, they may be better for the environment but a great many American consumers don't care about that as much as whether or not they can afford to commute to work in the morning.
-GameMaster
Yes, and according to Canadian law (so says the article), win or loose, she has to shoulder all of her own legal costs. So, unless she happens to be wealthy, she will end up with monumental debt and/or really poor quality legal defense. What does it matter if she wins or looses if she ends up living in the gutter when it's all over either way? The moral victory of winning means nothing when you're still hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from defending yourself in the trial and any other appeals the company may try. I fail to see much of a difference between that and simply agreeing to pay the $2 million in the first place, unless she happens to have a massive yearly income.
This is one of many reasons why treating corporations as "people" under the law (a.k.a. corporate person-hood) is a stupendously bad idea. Anti-SLAPP laws seem to do some things to mitigate this but Canada doesn't seem to have this kind of thing and even in places that have it the corporations are sometimes allowed to use the same laws against individuals when they libel them. Corporations aren't people. They are large, abstract, organizations driven solely by profit motive in which group mentality (much like the mentality that takes over in riots) is used to override the morals of the individual employees. Pair this with the sheer disparity of resources (both intellectual and fiscal) of a corporation versus the average person and you have a situation where the two parties are almost guaranteed to enter any legal battle with the corporation at a massive advantage.
I can't speak for Canada, but I was always taught that the U.S. was supposed to be all about the rights of the individual. Of course, it was our supreme court that started this ball rolling by declaring corporate person-hood in the first place (Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 1886)...
-GameMaster
As I've stated before in other posts, the lab reports from multiple independant labs hosted on the Hydrino Study Group website http://www.hydrino.org/> bring up and answer most of the possible conventional explanations given by Mills' critics for how that excess heat could have been created.
-GameMaster
Ok, I think I should specify again that I see the "Grand Unified Theory" issue and the "excess heat" issue as two separate topics. As much as I like the simplicity of his GUT over traditional Quantum Mechanics, I still find it rather far fetched that one guy has completely unraveled 50+ years of physics and had an entire alternate theory pop out of his head whole-cloth even if it was over a 10 year period (though I still think he should be given a fair chance to argue his case on that which I don't really see happening right now). On the other hand, I have seen nothing that counters the hard experimental evidence that suggests that, regardless of the underlying cause, he seems to have found a process that produces more energy than our understanding of traditional chemical reactions should allow for and that multiple separate labs have backed up.
Even if his GUT turns out to be wrong the experimental results seem to poke serious holes in present theory. His detractor like to poke holes in his theories and use his "100x" numbers to claim he's a crackpot but then they don't seem to be making any attempts to seriously explain where the excess heat is coming from either (they postulated a number of explanations but those have been shot down one-by-one in the various lab reports). Just because numbers are unusual doesn't make them wrong, especially when he apparently has experimental results to, at least partially, back his statements up. When the lone loony approaches the academic community and claims to have a theory that justifies re-writing all of modern physics theory it makes sense to consider him a crank. But, when that same loony comes back with experimental results verified by multiple major labs then its time to stop the ad hominem attacks and actually engage your brains to figure out what is actually going on.
There is, of course, a third option. It is completely possible for a theory to be proven wrong without an alternate theory being available to replace it. Science requires a theory to be falsifiable, it says nothing about having to have an alternate theory handy to use in its stead before you can acknowledge that the old one is incorrect. Quantum Mechanics, in particular, has been on pretty shaky ground recently. There have been a number of recent cases of high profile experiments producing results that don't track in any way with what QM suggests should happen.
As for why we never find hydrogen in the hydrino state, I have no idea. I'm sure Mills has some sort of an explanation for that in his GUT. As for whether that explanation makes sense, I'll leave that up to the physicists. Who, might I add, don't all declare Mills a crack-pot out of hand. I apologize for not remembering where I saw it, but somewhere on either the HSG or the Wikipedia page I came across a quote from a major physicist who has stepped forward to support the fact that modern physics equations don't, necessarily, rule out the possibility of at least one fractional electron state. Of course, he was also a long way from, whole-heartedly, supporting the theory.
As for the Wired link you mentioned, from the article:
The space agency is funding a study of an engine based on a novel conception of the structure of hydrogen, the central idea behind a maverick New Jersey researcher's Grand Unified Theory. This theory has been derided as a "crackpot idea" and "voodoo science" by respected experts in physics.
Mills' company is based in New Jersey. This engine idea NASA is investigating is Mills' design/technology. Later in the article they mention Mills and Blacklight Industries by name. They even named the rocket after his company:
Anthony J. Marchese, a mechanical engineering professor specializing in propulsion at Rowan University, is getting modest funding ($75,000) from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts to build and test a BlackLight Rocket.
The article references the other physicists as referring to his theory as being "crackpot science" and "voodoo scien
My point was that major corporate backers are, in general, more capable of performing due diligence when deciding to invest in a new technology. They are less likely to fall for a scam than that nice elderly couple down the street that most of the "free energy" cranks target for investment.
;-) ). In fact, one of the articles directly quotes a Morgan Stanley representative. This might also explain why Westinghouse is one of the labs that tested a cell. Their investment may have resulted from the wording of the report in which the writer concludes by stating that the company should investigate the technology further. Of course, as all the other reports do, he refuses to support Mills' explanation of fractional electron states for as being the cause of the anomalous heat.
The backers themselves have been identified on the HSG site as well as in some of the news pieces as including Morgan Stanley, Westinghouse, as well as some utilities. Yet again, I simply abreviated that part because I didn't want to write a book (would it really hurt to read some of the linked to pages?
-GameMaster
Nothing in the reports I looked at suggested that they were barred from looking inside. However, even if they were the argument has been largely mitigated. Some of the labs were able to run the cells constantly for months at a time. This would tend to disqualify the possibility that he's hiding a battery (another thing "free energy" cranks often try) or something similar. The point they make is that even if he was hiding a battery or something in the cell (or if the cell is working on some other principle than the one he claims) they are still putting out abnormal amounts of energy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is possible that he's running a hoax but, in my opinion, he's provided enough exposure of his tech to enough high profile, third party, labs to warrant a limiting on the anti-crank rhetoric.
-GameMaster
Because the website isn't about science. The website is about his startup company that is supposedly trying to market the technology he is developing. The science is going on as a secondary thing because he is using his Grand Unified Theory in an attempt to explain the experimental results he has supposedly obtained.
If you look at the websites of many other, legitimate, corporations you will see that they very often use flash as well. Honestly, I found his companies website to be a decent use of the tech in a reasonably non-garish manner.
-GameMaster
Ok, as I've already stated, I'm not claiming that his theories are all true. I'm simply claiming that third party labs have confirmed the excessive heat release. Some of the reports, supposedly, also confirm unusual spectrographic readings from the waste products of the cell. This would tend to suggest that something unusual is being created. I'll attempt to address all your statements:
His process makes new, unexplored materials? So that means this process has never occurred naturally before, at least on Earth? Otherwise we would have seen these materials before.
There is no reason this couldn't be true. His explanation (again, I'm only suggesting that his experimental results look reasonably confirmed and not that his explanation is necessarily true) is that these "hydrinos" are the cause of "dark matter". Since "dark matter" isn't found on Earth (as far as we know) then it stands to reason that hydrinos in general might be relatively rare around here. There have been a number of materials found in meteorites that don't occur naturally on earth. One example of this is the crystal Moissanite which is now sold as a diamond substitute and has to be entirely synthetically produced.
Why do I think that's unlikely?
I don't know and I don't care why you think that. This is a pointless rhetorical statement meant to elicit an emotional response that has no place in logical discourse.
As to him not angling for money, a common angle for money is to claim you don't need it. "I don't need your money." "I don't need your money." "I don't need your money." "Well, we're entering a greater phase of development. And although I don't need your money, with it we could accelerate our plans." Classic con. I mean, people are more happy to give their money to someone who already has some, not someone who is desperate for it.
Yes, it's also the way a legitimate startup company would look in the position he's claiming to be in. As I said before, there is no absolute proof that he's not running a hoax but the same can be said about any legit startup company as well. On the other hand, there also haven't been any blatantly obvious signs that he's running a scam as has been the case with past "free energy" cranks. In fact, the guy has been going on about this for ~10 years in which time no-one has come out with proof suggesting that he might be a total charlatan. Even most of his critics in the physics world tend to suggest that his theories are wrong while I have yet to see any attack his experimental results directly.
His stuff has been verified by a NASA lab? You think they would have come forward and said it isn't true if it weren't true. Well, I have to ask, if it isn't true, who would have come forward? He says "a NASA lab", not a specific one. Did you expect there is someone out there who checks with all NASA labs every time someone says they worked with any of them? Same with the other labs he mentions. Being non-specific is the scammers' best friend.
He didn't say "generic NASA lab", I did. I shortened the names because I assumed that anyone with half a brain would be able to go to the HSG website and look at the experiment reports that I clearly mention are hosted there. In those reports they specify the full names of the labs as well as the names of the people that ran the tests. They include the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland Ohio; Westinghouse STC in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania; and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. This time I will acknowledge clearly that there are, also, other reports from other labs hosted at the same location and you can be responsible for looking them up yourself.
Additionally, I want to mention that rumors of US government involvement or funding of his projects also means nothing. The government funded HAARP and MKULTRA.
Yes, this is why I mention three independent labs and alluded to others that were also listed on the HSG site.
-GameMaster
After reading through the company page, the Wikipedia article, and the HSG last nigh (I found it linked to by a forum I frequent) I'll try to cover some of the most basic issues that are in dispute:
The Wiki article, his company site, and the HSG all agree that he received a full Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard and that he spent time at MIT doing graduate Electrical Engineering work.
At some point while reading through either his site or the HSG I saw mention of the number being a 100x increase. This may be a case of the Guardian reporter doing some of that crappy science reporting we always hear about and accidentally adding an extra '0'. In general, Mills' claim seems to be that the process produces energy output higher that a chemical reaction but lower than a nuclear one.
His company site, as well as the HSG, are specific in claiming that the process creates new, unexplored, materials that have potential uses in material science. This also ties in with his claims that his theory explains the existence of "dark matter" since he claims that "dark matter" are hydrinos with the electrons at extremely low levels.
Documentation hosted on Mill's site as well as comments on the HSG claim that he already has a great deal of funding from a number of major corporate backers. He has never, according to anything I've seen on any of these pages, looked for private donations like many of the other "free energy" scam artists. This doesn't mean he isn't running a hoax, but it lends doubt to that idea.
All sources agree that he has had a number of major, third party, labs (including a NASA lab, an MIT lab, and a Westinghouse lab) run experiments on his prototype hydrogen cell. The reports from these labs are reportedly linked to on the HSG. Mills has been doing this research for many years. If these reports were fabricated then it would be expected that someone from one of those labs would have stepped forward long ago to discredit them but no one has. Even his harshest critics in the physics world don't seem to be claiming his experimental results are fabricated.
The simple fact is that it has been well documented that something special is actually going on in these hydrogen cells that he's been sending out to be tested. Some critics have come up with a short list of possible, conventional, explanations for why the reaction appears to be producing more heat than a chemical reaction would seem to allow but most of them have been refuted by the labs doing the experiments.
While I'm as skeptical of his Grand Unified Theory as the next person (as convenient as it would be when compared to the mess that is Quantum Physics. Heck, even I understand most of it and I'm not even a physicist). The experimental results of his technology suggest strongly that there is something pretty special going on.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there seems to be a little more involved here than most other "free energy" claims or even "cold fusion". Maybe we should all put away the anti-crackpot rhetoric and give this guy a chance to prove his claims with actual high-minded discourse.
-GameMaster
Actually, HDR rendering has nothing to do with the contrast limits of the physical display device. Even the best display devices have limits on how bright they can get. To some extent this is a good thing, if monitors ever became capable to representing something like the sun at true brightness then we'd have to worry about in-game bugs causing eye damage by setting the display brightness too high.
HDR is a technique that uses floating point values rather than integers to represent luminance values within the pre-rendered scene. These values are then compared to each other before the scene is actually rendered and the luminance of the individual portions of the rendered scene are assigned based on the relative brightness of each light source when compared to each others. Basically, if you have a bright floodlight and a small flashlight visible to the camera the floodlight should vastly overpower the flashlight and should probably max out the brightness of the physical display device. However, if you move the camera angle up a little bit and include the sun in the scene, then HDR would dynamically darken all the other lights in order to make the sun look like the brightest light source and the sun would then have taken the highest brightness setting of the display device.
Another effect that is created using HDR is glare. An example of this in the real world is when you look directly at a bright light source, like the sun (I don't really recommend trying this out with the sun because it might cause eye damage but a flashlight or a light bulb should work too). The light source tends to look larger than it actually is because the light drowns out anything around it.
HDR rendering has been hardware accelerated on the new last few generations of video cards, but only recently has performance been acceptable enough to actually implement into a commercial game.
-GameMaster
There is a way to deal with it, it's called government regulation. There is a reason we have anti-trust laws and regulate important industries. As you've pointed out, major companies like power companies and oil companies can't be trusted to not abuse their position. For instance, CNN just ran an article today or yesterday about how Exxon just reported that their profit margin was up 75%!! The entire economy is suffering because of the increase in fuel costs and these vampires are price gouging while refusing to increase the number of refineries.
What we need to be doing is charging them with criminal price gouging and regulating the industry to force them to increase the number of refineries. I can understand their need to make a profit, but they were making plenty of profits before the fuel shortages. Now it has gone beyond profiting and into the realm of abusive business practices.
-GameMaster
My bad, I thought using the back button had caused my post to not go through.
-GameMaster
Personally, while I agree that oil is probably beginning to run out, I think many in the "Peak Oil" movement are guilty of spreading FUD in the hopes of selling more copies of their books. There is no reason to think that market forces wont force our economy to move away from Oil and onto something else. As for what that "something else" will be, I personally think it will be nuclear fission.
One of the worst "Peak Oil" sites I've ever read (created by a guy that happens to have a book out on the topic) tried to make it sound like nuclear fission couldn't replace Oil because the supply of nuclear fuel would run out too quickly. Everything I've ever seen suggests that there is presently about a 50-year reserve of fuel at present levels of use. This doesn't take into account unfound sources of uranium and sources we know about but don't include in "reserves" because they aren't as easy to get at. If we have to make use of sources that are harder to get at then the resulting price increase should still remain way below present price per Watt for oil and will result in, possibly, an exponential increase in the "reserve". This also doesn't take into account the possible use of fast breeder reactors or more efficient plant designs that would be used in any new plants built.
As for the "green" energy sources, most have a low power return ratio, limited viable locations, or haven't been proven to be energy positive (like Bio-diesel/Ethanol which some claim is only economical because of the massive subsidies that the U.S. government gives to agricultural companies). While I am sure we will make use of these "green" energy sources as much as possible, and will continue to improve the technology behind them, I don't think any of them will ever be able to take over the brunt of energy production now handled by fossil fuels.
To address your concerns regarding transportation, that is where the "Hydrogen Economy" really shines. I think advocating the building of new Nuclear power plants and the conversion to hydrogen vehicles is one of the few things President Bush has done right during his term in office. Even if fuel cell technology never materializes, it is completely possible to simply run traditional internal combustion engines on hydrogen (though less efficient). As for jets, I'm pretty sure we can design jet engines capable of running on hydrogen. Even if we can't, converting all other vehicles/power plants to Nuclear/hydrogen/renewable should free up a lot of what is left of the remaining oil supply.
-GameMaster
Personally, while I agree that oil is beginning to run out, I think many in the "Peak Oil" movement are guilty of spreading FUD in the hopes of selling more copies of their books. There is no reason to think that market forces wont force our economy to move away from Oil and onto something else. As for what that "something else" will be, I personally think it will be nuclear fission.
One of the worst "Peak Oil" sites I've ever read (created by a guy that happens to have a book out on the topic) tried to make it sound like nuclear fission couldn't replace Oil because the supply of nuclear fuel would run out too quickly. Everything I've ever seen suggests that there is presently about a 50-year reserve of fuel at present levels of use. This doesn't take into account unfound sources of uranium and sources we know about but don't include in "reserves" because they aren't as easy to get at. If we have to make use of sources that are harder to get at then the resulting price increase should still remain way below present price per Watt for oil and will result in, possibly, an exponential increase in the "reserve". This also doesn't take into account the possible use of fast breeder reactors or more efficient plant designs that would be used in any new plants built.
As for the "green" energy sources, most have a low power return ratio, limited viable locations, or haven't been proven to be energy positive (like Bio-diesel/Ethanol which some claim is only economical because of the massive subsidies that the U.S. government gives to agricultural companies).
To address your concerns regarding transportation, that is where the "Hydrogen Economy" really shines. I think advocating the building of new Nuclear power plants and the conversion to hydrogen vehicles is one of the few things President Bush has done right during his term in office. Even if fuel cell technology never materializes, it is completely possible to simply run traditional internal combustion engines on hydrogen (though less efficient). As for jets, I'm pretty sure we can design jet engines capable of running on hydrogen. Even if we can't, converting all other vehicles/power plants to Nuclear/hydrogen/renewable should free up a lot of what is left of the remaining oil supply.
-GameMaster
I will admit, I'm not a physicist. However, while I was studying Computer Science at college I had two occasions to study quantum computers. One occasion was a guest professor at my parallel computing class who covered how software would be developed for a hypothetical Quantum Computer and the other was a colloquium run by my CS department with another guest speaker discussing almost the same topic. The question of playing Doom on a quantum computer came up both times and they both agreed that quantum computers are incapable of performing all of the basic ops needed for a general purpose CPU. This was, supposedly, one of the reasons that there were such a limited number of algorithms in existence to justify the creation of a quantum computer in the first place (Shor's factoring algorithm and a few others).
As for running Windows/Couterstrike, it is perfectly possible to run both of those pieces of software on a Sun Sparc system. I am not now, nor was I then, suggesting that either piece of software would run on a Sparc out of the box but it is completely possible to take them and modify them to run on a different platform. The basic algorithms can be run on the Sparc CPU to produce the exact same output. My point wasn't to suggest that Intel/AMD processors are special compared to any other CPUs (Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, PIC, Cell, etc.). I simply used Intel/AMD as examples of two of the most well known general purpose CPUs. Truth be told, I didn't feel the need to list all general purpose CPUs ever invented nor did I think myself capable of listing them all without missing some. The point I was trying to make was that, while I can convert Windows/Counterstrike to run on a general purpose CPU like Intel/AMD/Sparc, I couldn't do the same for something like a nVidia Gforce GPU because, while they are very programmable and parallel processing friendly, they are missing some core ops needed to run generic software (this may have changed recently with the newest generation of GPUs). As I said before, my experience in hearing the guest professors discuss the specific topic of algorithm development for quantum computers led me to the belief that the same holds true for quantum computers.
It has been maybe six years since I heard those professors speak about quantum computing, so I am more than willing to grant that things may have advanced in the field of quantum computing algorithms and new ways may have been found to emulate the missing ops. However, I haven't seen anything myself to suggest that that is the case.
-GameMaster
Quantum computers are great, in theory, but even if we are able to figure out how to build one that actually works they are only capable of solving certain types of problems. Our present understanding of quantum physics tells us that you can't design a quantum computer that can do all the same math problems as a generic Intel/AMD CPU (e.i. run Windows; play Counterstrike; etc.).
That being said, the problems that can be solved by quantum computers tend to be the ones that would take a regular CPU until the end of the universe to perform (break strong encryption, large traveling salesman problems, etc.). At some point, if we can make a quantum computer compact enough, we might end up having quantum co-processors built into out PCs but we'll probably never see the CPU of our PC replaced by a quantum computer.
The tech being discussed in the article would be directly applicable to making generic PCs run faster (though it could also have the potential to improve communication speeds with a hypothetical quantum computer as well). Another tech that will probably be leveraged to make generic systems faster is the replacement of silicon in computer chips with diamond. Since diamond can handle vastly higher temperatures than silicon, without melting, it is theoretically possible to push the clock speed on a diamond based CPU much higher than on today's silicon CPUs.
-GameMaster
I think what they are implicitly saying is that "the people that matter" want to know where their food has been. In a democracy, the people that matter are the ones that are willing to get up off their @sses and make their opinions know. The "silent majority" make themselves irrelevant by actively choosing not to participate.
-GameMaster
As of this posting, the post we are referring to has been moderated to (Score: 0, Troll). If you really want to read it go back to the first post in the thread that refers to the names and addresses and click on the green link at the bottom of the post that says "parent".
Basically, the original post in this thread claimed to have worked at MS during the development of the original Windows NT and have first hand experience with the original POSIX compliance project. Someone posted a response claiming to also have been working at MS during the same time period and to have attended the meeting that was referred to in the original post. He claimed that the meeting was run by "Storm" and that the CTO of NT project was "Magneto". He went on to mention that MS hides all documents that they don't want to leak out at "Professor Xavier's mansion" and further asks if the original poster had run into "Beast" while working at MS. Of course he used the characters' real names and the fictional street address of the mansion so that most people wouldn't realize he was full of crap.
Personally, I find this one of the worst types of troll because it spreads incorrect information in what is otherwise a reasonable sounding post. I can enjoy a funny troll as much as the next person. But, when it's presented in a way in which most people wouldn't realize it's not serious, then all it really does is promote false information.
-GameMaster
hehe,
Honestly, can't really take credit for it. My good buddy Google helped me out there. Something about the names just sounded off. Once I figured that out it wasn't too hard to figure that the address might be off too.
-GameMaster
Every name listed in the parent is the name of a person from the X-Men comics.
Ororo Munroe = Storm
Erik Lehnsherr = Magneto
Henry McCoy = Beast
1407 Graymalkin Lane is the fictional address of Professor Xavier's mansion.
The parent post is a troll.
-GameMaster
There is no such thing as a perfect mirror or perfect sound absorbing material. If you make a strong enough laser or a strong enough sound source it will overcome the mirror/sound absorber almost instantly. That is the goal of anti-missile laser systems and this kind of anti-torpedo system. Not to mention, in the case of the mirror, if there is any kind of smudge or dirt on the mirror where the laser hits then the mirror becomes absolutely useless. What are the chances that a missile can be stored and launched in an absolutely clean-room conditions (every missile launch I've ever seen has involved large clouds of smoke and debris). Every time I've heard someone suggest coating a missile with mirrors to overcome anti-missile lasers I've seen it soundly debunked by someone that knows the magnitude of the actual forces at work.
-GameMaster
They aren't trying to trick the torpedoes into thinking they've hit the ship. The article suggests that the shock wave is supposed to be so strong that it'll cause actual physical damage to the incoming torpedo. They figure that the damage will be sufficient to either destroy the torpedo outright or at least cause enough damage to break vital components.
-GameMaster
I've always kind of felt that the difference between "fixing a problem" and some kind of sick Orwellian police state that drugs everyone up is all about whether the person gets to choose to take the treatment or not. If a person isn't a violent danger to everyone around him/her then I feel that it should be their choice over whether they are medicated for their condition. Granted social pressures may push people to get treatment but it should never be a requirement. On the other hand, I don't feel that we should withhold new treatments for things like ADHD, anxiety disorder, depression, etc. simply because we feel that it might be better for society, in the long run, to have the variations in personality.
-GameMaster
Funny, that what I thought of at first too. Too much Star Wars as child I guess. I wonder if this could have civilian application in desert regions like the middle east or the Southwestern United States. I have to imagine that electicity might be a cheaper commodity in desert regions than water.
-GameMaster