Any particular instance is an implementation using physics. The program itself is math. As such it can be implemented on multiple different substrates. It can even be implemented isomorphically if the substrates have an identical interface. (Which is what, e.g., a java interpreter or a C compiler attempts to provide [Java slightly more successfully than C].)
This is why the same programs can be run on a Mac and a MSWind box and a Linux box. (If, or course, you choose a program whose complete interface needs are handled identically on all three systems.)
A part of the problem here is the use of the term "is", which has multiple different meanings, none of which precisely fit the universe in which we live. However, let me try...
A program implements a design in symbolic logic extended with various useful operations that were not included in, e.g., Russel's Principia Mathematica or Bool's Modern Logic. With the inclusion of certain extensions and the alteration of certain syntax rules conventional symbolic logic we call the resulting code C code, or Ada code, or Java code, or code written in some other conventional amalgamation of syntax rules and extensions to symbolic logic.
Binary code describes code used by some particular design of mathematical structure descendant from the design called "A Universal Turing Machine". (Note that calling a design a machine does not entail it being one.) Such a design can only act in the material universe when implemented in material form. It is intended that an isomorphism exists between the design and the implementation. Deviations from this isomorphism get called bugs. Binary code can be understood both as a large number expressed to base two and as a representation of a sequence of instructions to be executed by the instance of the design.
Note here that the program is math, but the execution of the program uses physics (and that what's being executed is not the program itself, but rather something intended as isomorphic to it).
Now consider a ROM. In a ROM the mathematical structure of the program is fixed into a physical form. (Math describes a series of relations between different entities, possibly otherwise undefined. Physics is differently constrained.)
Intel wanted to patent the code to a process, which it sold as a ROM. The ROM was only different from several other ROMs because of which particular code it contained. So the court decided that the particular configuration of switches inside the ROM was patentable. Everything else grew from that original decision. Including most micro-processors.
I don't know whether it was a good decision or a bad one. I didn't know at the time, and I still don't. Some of the follow-on decisions, however, were frankly stupid. They were done, generally, to make the decision tree simpler...and at the time they were made, they did, indeed, simplify the law. Oversimplify. Then other situations would arise, and decisions were made to be consistent with the previous decisions. UGH!! So we ended up with a bunch of spaghetti law that nobody understands (though some people can argue about very well). Nobody can understand it because it isn't self-consistent, but it's so complex that it's nearly impossible to prove that it's inconsistent.
The whole patentability of software needs to be redone practically from the beginning. Probably code that's embedded in ROMS should be patentable, but I'm not sure. Consider FPLAs, EPROMS, and EEPROMS. Those all look like their code should be copyrightable, but not patentable. But if ROMs aren't patentable, why would the equivalent circuit implemented with hard wiring be patentable?
Possibly one could say "binary code can be patented and not copyrighted, but source code can be copyrighted and not patented". But then what about the various kinds of interpreter, and what about assembler code, Hex representations, and all of the intermediates.
Probably the simplest reasonable answer is to just say that software cannot be patented. Everything else leads into a tangled jungle.
It's light enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Not sure about soft enough. OTOH, I also don't have any idea about clearance inside jet engines. Possibly it's small enough to go through in one piece, were it strong enough. In that, or analogous, case having a few small hard rigid parts shouldn't matter.
Actually, when I look at the hands I'm not very believing. They look rather incapable. Also, if it's 23 inches tall (I'm not sure what the 23 inches label referred to) then it's not going to be very capable of many human tasks.
OTOH, this is an alpha model (I think the label said 0.0.1alpha), so one may well expect many improvements before it reaches beta. Including even massive changes in the C&C interface.
It could have lots of nice features, but if it really does depend on Google's site being available (I haven't checked) that would be a killer for nearly anything I would be likely to write.
My applications sometimes need to run without internet access. (I.e., either local mode or LAN mode.) Anything that depends on external resources being available at run time is just unacceptable, whatever nice features it might have.
Sorry, but you're wrong about identical twins. Identical twins almost always have different DNA (though not VERY different). OTOH, to detect this you need to count the number of repetitions in some sections of highly repetitive DNA. Generally either one will have some deletions, or will have some extra duplications. Or both will have different changes.
Presumably sometimes this won't happen, and one would need to check for epigenentic marking differences. (Patterns of methylation or such.) Possibly some times they would actually be the same, but it's never been detected when closely examined (of course, that hasn't been done very often. [Twice?]).
Just because you dislike something doesn't mean it isn't true or appropriate. Liking this would be inappropriate, but how else than a terrible joke can one even approach the horror.
N.B.: Unless one trusts the accuracy of judicial conviction, one has only a guess as to who commits crimes. This is an example as to why trusting the accuracy of judicial convictions is dubious. What you have is evidence as to who was convicted, not who perpetrated the offense. You must guess what percentage of the convictions were accurate.
My general guess is that most police generally attempt to "catch" the actual criminal. But that, OTOH, once someone is caught, they do their best to convict him whether that's just or not. As a result my guess is that the rate of accurate convictions is higher than 50%...but less than 90%.
Just remember that Debian has had it's own problems. Something recent about openssl being weakened for several years, possibly?
I run Debian, too. THIS problem may not exist on Debian, but enough do that one shouldn't be smug...it's unwarranted. (Granted, I usually run testing...but I *EXPECT* that at least once during the testing cycle my system will get so hosed that I need to reinstall [or wait for a few days, and then update/upgrade again].)
The other option is to run Debian stable...and that's so stable that many consider it moribund. (Which is, of course, true. But it generally takes a few years to actually die. I think Potato is finally dead...but I'm not altogether sure. Sarge seems to be no longer available.)
FWIW, I just received an order of Pink Tie 6.1 that I ordered from CheapBytes, because there are some old games that won't run on newer systems. Of course, this will need to be run in emulation, and sealed from the internet, but it's still reasonable...and Pink Tie == Red Hat from a 3rd party (CheapBytes repackaged Red Hat 6.1 as Pink Tie 6.1... Red Hat no longer ships the older system, however.)
Each system/distro has it's own advantages and costs. It's appropriate that Red Hat be dinged over this mistake, but don't go overboard about it.
Pretty picture but no visible backing information.
Also, I believe that there are some reasons not to trust that site. I can't, however, remember the details off the top of my head. Since there's no justification visible for the graph, I don't need any grounds to distrust them.
Isn't that site owned by a Republican think-tank? (Heritage Foundation ) If so, then they are hardly an unprejudiced source of information. (I should check, but presumably somebody knows.)
I feel that you are either trolling, or using a very curious filter by means of which you select which screeds you will deem libertarian. I've seen some posts that match your description, but they are a very small minority of the posts that I deem to be libertarian.
I consider to be libertarian any opinion that opposes an existing or proposed law because it will infringe on the rights of some person or group of people. I don't think all such posts sane, but only a small minority of them fall into the group that you mention, and about half of the ones that do I would classify as anarchist rather than libertarian.
Odd. I find many of their other policies to be more repulsive than that.
The primary thing I dislike about the Libertarian party is that it, like the other parties, is in favor of increased centralized control. (Ignore the rhetoric, watch the actions. Admittedly this is a bit more difficult for a party so far out of power as the Libertarians are.)
Additionally, when I look at the order in which they choose to enact their platform, it looks to me like their primary goal is to make rich people richer. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a lousy primary goal.
Additionally, I've yet to see a Libertarian with an acceptable and workable proposal for HOW to disempower the centralized government. Much less one that would have a chance in congress, even if both houses were controlled by Libertarian members.
I think that the Libertarian party has an unusually high proportion of hypocrites, and since we are comparing them to other political parties, that's EXTREME.
I have two applications that run on MSWind95. They are the reason that I still have an MSWind95 box...they wouldn't run correctly on MSWind98.
Somehow *I* haven't been convinced about the great MS backwards compatibility. The two applications are: Passport Designs Encore music score editor, and MacroMedia Director 7 I tried upgrading to MSWind98 and timing problems were so bad that I switched back within a week.
Well, an alpha open source can't be behind closed doors. That would be a kind of oxymoron.
So what alpha means in this context is "all the features aren't locked down, and we don't guarantee that the api or included applications will be compatible with the next release, much less the official release version".
Personally, I'm quite glad that Mandrake is doing serious testing. They used to be my favorite distribution, then they got into financial trouble, and for a few years their Q/A was piss-poor. If they're doing decent testing again, perhaps their product quality will pick up also. (OTOH, they do then to be a bit excessive in their auto-magic configurations. But perhaps even there they were just being bleeding edge, as everybody seems to do that now.)
Actually, it isn't. A single Prius might not use much gas compared to a single Hummer, but lots and lots of Priuses still use lots and lots of gas.
A workable solution is not obvious, but it *is* clear that we aren't heading for one. Electric vehicles would work if there was a decent source of electricity. Such are possible, but progress in that direction appears slow and diffuse. The real stumbling block seems to be how to store large quantities of electricity, as the desirable ways of generation seem to all be intermittent. (I'm not including nuclear fission, as I consider that to be a "last resort" kind of thing, though if one allows breeder reactors it's probably better than coal.)
I think you're confusing MS with Apple. Apple caused multiple cheap platforms to appear, many of them with open specifications. It's true that the S-100 bus computers were due to die even before MS appeared, but there were already various contenders for the succession before IBM showed up. I'm not convinced that the IBM bus choice was the best, merely that it was the best funded.
It's my belief that without either MS or IBM paying any attention to the personal computer, we would in about the same amount of time arrived at a similar place, from the hardware point of view. Perhaps Commodore would have been the big winner, or Tandy...but that without the dominance provided by IBM, Digital Research could have been expected to dominate as the OS until BSD showed up. It's not clear that under this scenario that Linux would ever have appeared, as there wouldn't have been the huge abusive software monopoly to oppose, so BSD might well have been sufficient opposition.
If you accept fission reactors as a reasonable answer, then you *do* have an answer to "where does the energy come from?", but you'd better be including breeder reactors, or you'll run out of fissionables more quickly than you expect.
OTOH, many people consider fission reactors, especially breeders, to be insanely dangerous. I'm uncertain. Until we actually start dealing with reactor waste in other than an extremely temporary and ad hoc manner, however, I can't seriously consider fission reactors. It's impossible to project a reasonable estimate of the costs. Also, I'd need to get the government to stop providing them with free liability coverage. You can't cost things properly with that kind of a hidden subsidy.
The problem is, even with the battery: What's the SOURCE of the energy? I have the same problem with people proposing hydrogen powered vehicles. Other people have other issues, mine is "How did you get the hydrogen in the first place?" (Generally when you research it, they got it by burning natural gas.)
P.S.: What you're talking about is being worked on, but it will probably be a capacitor rather than a battery.
What you need to understand is that every single one of those oncoming crises is real, and there are several that you didn't mention, that are also true. It has to do partially with population, and partially with the costs of recycling.
OTOH, it's also true that every single one of them could be solved with sufficiently cheap energy. Solar panels are good, but they won't produce energy cheap enough to solve these crises. Wind power is still more expensive. But power satellites could be cheap enough. They'd need to be essentially maintenance free, but with sufficiently intelligent robots they could cut the cost of electricity to 1/10th (guesstimate!!) of the current cost.
The problem is, they'd be quite expensive to build. Especially the first one. And there might be problems with power transmission. (Don't want to kill the ozone layer while trying to save it.) So frequencies and power densities would need to be chosen carefully. Microwaves of certain frequencies find water transparent (both droplets and vapor) and can be received with better than 95% efficiency. Good enough? Maybe. Might need to improve the efficiency. Definitely need to check of unexpected side effects.
OTOH, there's also talk about cheaper solar cells of adequate efficiency. As long as we don't need too much electricity, that might suffice. We'd need to plate our cities with solar panels, but it would have advantages in temperature control. Might work.
Other work is proceeding on turning city sewage into diesel via algae ponds (and specially cultivated and selected algae). I'm dubious about how much fuel could be produced that way, but it's another source of energy, and if it's cheap enough then it will drive down the costs of other kinds of energy.
As I see it, the basic problem is thermodynamic. Using a material generally causes it to be more difficult to reclaim that it was to get it from the original ore. This means that you need to spend more energy. As the ores remaining get poorer, you need to spend more energy to extract fresh material. OTOH, with enough energy you could extract every element you needed from sea-water. (That's the dream pushing hydrogen fusion researchers.)
So there's lots of hopeful signs and approaches being followed. And they are as real (though less certain) as the crises.
P.S.: Crisis is a slightly inappropriate word here. What happens is that a certain resource becomes increasingly expensive. (Not scarce, really, but expensive to acquire.) It's thermodynamics again. This happens over an extended period of time. Have you noticed that petroleum has become more expensive? It isn't gone, and it probably never will be, but it's becoming more expensive to acquire. That's because the good "ores" have been depleted. (You don't find many oil fields in Pennsylvania any more. They've been depleted.) But even if the last source of drillable-for oil is exhausted, there will still be the oil-shales, and the price is now high enough (or almost high enough) to make extracting those oils worth the cost. But it takes a lot more energy to extract oil from oil shale that it does to just drill for it, even under the sea. So it will be more expensive. That's the kind of thing that will happen with the other resource "shortages".
I dealt with IBM (indirectly, admittedly) before DOS. They were inflexible, but not particularly litigious. They didn't may wholesale threats against their customer base. (Yeah, I know SCOX was even worse than MS...but then they were funded by MS.)
I didn't like IBM, and I cheered for MS when it began to rise...and up through about MSWind98 I defended them as "Not as bad as IBM used to be." Afterwards, however, that stopped being true. I've READ the bloody EULA that came with MSWind2000, and that's what caused me to switch to Linux. Linux didn't even have a viable word processor at the time, and I switched anyway, and created documents using Netscape's (Mozilla's?) HTML editor. (I never managed to pick up LaTex. I kept meaning to find time, but then StarOffice 5.2 appeared, and I've never gotten around to it.)
You're either an optimist, or you don't know your history. MS has a long history of backstabbing companies AFTER they've signed the contract.
I won't believe this until they are using a license that I trust, and the company (not certain developers, as happened on a previous occasion) is releasing the software. (If the company doesn't put it's name to it, it might be able to argue that it wasn't bound by the license.)
Skeptical? No. I'm just trying to rule out all the ways that they've previously used to backstab somebody. I'm certain that they're inventive enough to come up with new ones, though, so AFTER they've released code in a way that meets my requirements, I'll still wait a few years (5, maybe 10) to see who gets arrows in their back and how. Perhaps I don't trust them?
Slashdot Mirror
Any particular instance is an implementation using physics. The program itself is math. As such it can be implemented on multiple different substrates. It can even be implemented isomorphically if the substrates have an identical interface. (Which is what, e.g., a java interpreter or a C compiler attempts to provide [Java slightly more successfully than C].)
This is why the same programs can be run on a Mac and a MSWind box and a Linux box. (If, or course, you choose a program whose complete interface needs are handled identically on all three systems.)
A part of the problem here is the use of the term "is", which has multiple different meanings, none of which precisely fit the universe in which we live. However, let me try...
A program implements a design in symbolic logic extended with various useful operations that were not included in, e.g., Russel's Principia Mathematica or Bool's Modern Logic. With the inclusion of certain extensions and the alteration of certain syntax rules conventional symbolic logic we call the resulting code C code, or Ada code, or Java code, or code written in some other conventional amalgamation of syntax rules and extensions to symbolic logic.
Binary code describes code used by some particular design of mathematical structure descendant from the design called "A Universal Turing Machine". (Note that calling a design a machine does not entail it being one.) Such a design can only act in the material universe when implemented in material form. It is intended that an isomorphism exists between the design and the implementation. Deviations from this isomorphism get called bugs. Binary code can be understood both as a large number expressed to base two and as a representation of a sequence of instructions to be executed by the instance of the design.
Note here that the program is math, but the execution of the program uses physics (and that what's being executed is not the program itself, but rather something intended as isomorphic to it).
Now consider a ROM. In a ROM the mathematical structure of the program is fixed into a physical form. (Math describes a series of relations between different entities, possibly otherwise undefined. Physics is differently constrained.)
Go back and look at how this got started.
Intel wanted to patent the code to a process, which it sold as a ROM. The ROM was only different from several other ROMs because of which particular code it contained. So the court decided that the particular configuration of switches inside the ROM was patentable. Everything else grew from that original decision. Including most micro-processors.
I don't know whether it was a good decision or a bad one. I didn't know at the time, and I still don't. Some of the follow-on decisions, however, were frankly stupid. They were done, generally, to make the decision tree simpler...and at the time they were made, they did, indeed, simplify the law. Oversimplify. Then other situations would arise, and decisions were made to be consistent with the previous decisions. UGH!! So we ended up with a bunch of spaghetti law that nobody understands (though some people can argue about very well). Nobody can understand it because it isn't self-consistent, but it's so complex that it's nearly impossible to prove that it's inconsistent.
The whole patentability of software needs to be redone practically from the beginning. Probably code that's embedded in ROMS should be patentable, but I'm not sure. Consider FPLAs, EPROMS, and EEPROMS. Those all look like their code should be copyrightable, but not patentable. But if ROMs aren't patentable, why would the equivalent circuit implemented with hard wiring be patentable?
Possibly one could say "binary code can be patented and not copyrighted, but source code can be copyrighted and not patented". But then what about the various kinds of interpreter, and what about assembler code, Hex representations, and all of the intermediates.
Probably the simplest reasonable answer is to just say that software cannot be patented. Everything else leads into a tangled jungle.
Geckoman can eat Spiderman.
( http://www.google.com/search?q=gecko+adhesive )
Wonder if it has any titanium parts...
It's light enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Not sure about soft enough. OTOH, I also don't have any idea about clearance inside jet engines. Possibly it's small enough to go through in one piece, were it strong enough. In that, or analogous, case having a few small hard rigid parts shouldn't matter.
One of the other posts made that assertion, and nobody denied it. It's good to hear that it was wrong.
Actually, when I look at the hands I'm not very believing. They look rather incapable. Also, if it's 23 inches tall (I'm not sure what the 23 inches label referred to) then it's not going to be very capable of many human tasks.
OTOH, this is an alpha model (I think the label said 0.0.1alpha), so one may well expect many improvements before it reaches beta. Including even massive changes in the C&C interface.
It could have lots of nice features, but if it really does depend on Google's site being available (I haven't checked) that would be a killer for nearly anything I would be likely to write.
My applications sometimes need to run without internet access. (I.e., either local mode or LAN mode.) Anything that depends on external resources being available at run time is just unacceptable, whatever nice features it might have.
You don't think it might be a legitimate belief that they were being lied to? If not, why not?
Sorry, but you're wrong about identical twins. Identical twins almost always have different DNA (though not VERY different). OTOH, to detect this you need to count the number of repetitions in some sections of highly repetitive DNA. Generally either one will have some deletions, or will have some extra duplications. Or both will have different changes.
Presumably sometimes this won't happen, and one would need to check for epigenentic marking differences. (Patterns of methylation or such.) Possibly some times they would actually be the same, but it's never been detected when closely examined (of course, that hasn't been done very often. [Twice?]).
Horrible, yes. But, unfortunately, apt.
Just because you dislike something doesn't mean it isn't true or appropriate. Liking this would be inappropriate, but how else than a terrible joke can one even approach the horror.
N.B.: Unless one trusts the accuracy of judicial conviction, one has only a guess as to who commits crimes. This is an example as to why trusting the accuracy of judicial convictions is dubious. What you have is evidence as to who was convicted, not who perpetrated the offense. You must guess what percentage of the convictions were accurate.
My general guess is that most police generally attempt to "catch" the actual criminal. But that, OTOH, once someone is caught, they do their best to convict him whether that's just or not. As a result my guess is that the rate of accurate convictions is higher than 50%...but less than 90%.
Just remember that Debian has had it's own problems. Something recent about openssl being weakened for several years, possibly?
I run Debian, too. THIS problem may not exist on Debian, but enough do that one shouldn't be smug...it's unwarranted. (Granted, I usually run testing...but I *EXPECT* that at least once during the testing cycle my system will get so hosed that I need to reinstall [or wait for a few days, and then update/upgrade again].)
The other option is to run Debian stable...and that's so stable that many consider it moribund. (Which is, of course, true. But it generally takes a few years to actually die. I think Potato is finally dead...but I'm not altogether sure. Sarge seems to be no longer available.)
FWIW, I just received an order of Pink Tie 6.1 that I ordered from CheapBytes, because there are some old games that won't run on newer systems. Of course, this will need to be run in emulation, and sealed from the internet, but it's still reasonable...and Pink Tie == Red Hat from a 3rd party (CheapBytes repackaged Red Hat 6.1 as Pink Tie 6.1 ... Red Hat no longer ships the older system, however.)
Each system/distro has it's own advantages and costs. It's appropriate that Red Hat be dinged over this mistake, but don't go overboard about it.
Thanks, I'd been wondering whose IP he'd chosen.
(But I'd probably have been too lazy to check.)
Pretty picture but no visible backing information.
Also, I believe that there are some reasons not to trust that site. I can't, however, remember the details off the top of my head. Since there's no justification visible for the graph, I don't need any grounds to distrust them.
Isn't that site owned by a Republican think-tank? (Heritage Foundation ) If so, then they are hardly an unprejudiced source of information. (I should check, but presumably somebody knows.)
I feel that you are either trolling, or using a very curious filter by means of which you select which screeds you will deem libertarian. I've seen some posts that match your description, but they are a very small minority of the posts that I deem to be libertarian.
I consider to be libertarian any opinion that opposes an existing or proposed law because it will infringe on the rights of some person or group of people. I don't think all such posts sane, but only a small minority of them fall into the group that you mention, and about half of the ones that do I would classify as anarchist rather than libertarian.
Odd. I find many of their other policies to be more repulsive than that.
The primary thing I dislike about the Libertarian party is that it, like the other parties, is in favor of increased centralized control. (Ignore the rhetoric, watch the actions. Admittedly this is a bit more difficult for a party so far out of power as the Libertarians are.)
Additionally, when I look at the order in which they choose to enact their platform, it looks to me like their primary goal is to make rich people richer. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a lousy primary goal.
Additionally, I've yet to see a Libertarian with an acceptable and workable proposal for HOW to disempower the centralized government. Much less one that would have a chance in congress, even if both houses were controlled by Libertarian members.
I think that the Libertarian party has an unusually high proportion of hypocrites, and since we are comparing them to other political parties, that's EXTREME.
I have two applications that run on MSWind95. They are the reason that I still have an MSWind95 box...they wouldn't run correctly on MSWind98.
Somehow *I* haven't been convinced about the great MS backwards compatibility.
The two applications are:
Passport Designs Encore music score editor, and
MacroMedia Director 7
I tried upgrading to MSWind98 and timing problems were so bad that I switched back within a week.
Well, an alpha open source can't be behind closed doors. That would be a kind of oxymoron.
So what alpha means in this context is "all the features aren't locked down, and we don't guarantee that the api or included applications will be compatible with the next release, much less the official release version".
Personally, I'm quite glad that Mandrake is doing serious testing. They used to be my favorite distribution, then they got into financial trouble, and for a few years their Q/A was piss-poor. If they're doing decent testing again, perhaps their product quality will pick up also. (OTOH, they do then to be a bit excessive in their auto-magic configurations. But perhaps even there they were just being bleeding edge, as everybody seems to do that now.)
Actually, it isn't. A single Prius might not use much gas compared to a single Hummer, but lots and lots of Priuses still use lots and lots of gas.
A workable solution is not obvious, but it *is* clear that we aren't heading for one. Electric vehicles would work if there was a decent source of electricity. Such are possible, but progress in that direction appears slow and diffuse. The real stumbling block seems to be how to store large quantities of electricity, as the desirable ways of generation seem to all be intermittent. (I'm not including nuclear fission, as I consider that to be a "last resort" kind of thing, though if one allows breeder reactors it's probably better than coal.)
I think you're confusing MS with Apple. Apple caused multiple cheap platforms to appear, many of them with open specifications. It's true that the S-100 bus computers were due to die even before MS appeared, but there were already various contenders for the succession before IBM showed up. I'm not convinced that the IBM bus choice was the best, merely that it was the best funded.
It's my belief that without either MS or IBM paying any attention to the personal computer, we would in about the same amount of time arrived at a similar place, from the hardware point of view. Perhaps Commodore would have been the big winner, or Tandy...but that without the dominance provided by IBM, Digital Research could have been expected to dominate as the OS until BSD showed up. It's not clear that under this scenario that Linux would ever have appeared, as there wouldn't have been the huge abusive software monopoly to oppose, so BSD might well have been sufficient opposition.
If you accept fission reactors as a reasonable answer, then you *do* have an answer to "where does the energy come from?", but you'd better be including breeder reactors, or you'll run out of fissionables more quickly than you expect.
OTOH, many people consider fission reactors, especially breeders, to be insanely dangerous. I'm uncertain. Until we actually start dealing with reactor waste in other than an extremely temporary and ad hoc manner, however, I can't seriously consider fission reactors. It's impossible to project a reasonable estimate of the costs. Also, I'd need to get the government to stop providing them with free liability coverage. You can't cost things properly with that kind of a hidden subsidy.
The problem is, even with the battery:
What's the SOURCE of the energy?
I have the same problem with people proposing hydrogen powered vehicles. Other people have other issues, mine is "How did you get the hydrogen in the first place?" (Generally when you research it, they got it by burning natural gas.)
P.S.: What you're talking about is being worked on, but it will probably be a capacitor rather than a battery.
As I understand things it isn't actually energy negative. Just barely positive. It's still an extremely stupid policy.
What you need to understand is that every single one of those oncoming crises is real, and there are several that you didn't mention, that are also true. It has to do partially with population, and partially with the costs of recycling.
OTOH, it's also true that every single one of them could be solved with sufficiently cheap energy. Solar panels are good, but they won't produce energy cheap enough to solve these crises. Wind power is still more expensive. But power satellites could be cheap enough. They'd need to be essentially maintenance free, but with sufficiently intelligent robots they could cut the cost of electricity to 1/10th (guesstimate!!) of the current cost.
The problem is, they'd be quite expensive to build. Especially the first one. And there might be problems with power transmission. (Don't want to kill the ozone layer while trying to save it.) So frequencies and power densities would need to be chosen carefully. Microwaves of certain frequencies find water transparent (both droplets and vapor) and can be received with better than 95% efficiency. Good enough? Maybe. Might need to improve the efficiency. Definitely need to check of unexpected side effects.
OTOH, there's also talk about cheaper solar cells of adequate efficiency. As long as we don't need too much electricity, that might suffice. We'd need to plate our cities with solar panels, but it would have advantages in temperature control. Might work.
Other work is proceeding on turning city sewage into diesel via algae ponds (and specially cultivated and selected algae). I'm dubious about how much fuel could be produced that way, but it's another source of energy, and if it's cheap enough then it will drive down the costs of other kinds of energy.
As I see it, the basic problem is thermodynamic. Using a material generally causes it to be more difficult to reclaim that it was to get it from the original ore. This means that you need to spend more energy. As the ores remaining get poorer, you need to spend more energy to extract fresh material. OTOH, with enough energy you could extract every element you needed from sea-water. (That's the dream pushing hydrogen fusion researchers.)
So there's lots of hopeful signs and approaches being followed. And they are as real (though less certain) as the crises.
P.S.: Crisis is a slightly inappropriate word here. What happens is that a certain resource becomes increasingly expensive. (Not scarce, really, but expensive to acquire.) It's thermodynamics again. This happens over an extended period of time. Have you noticed that petroleum has become more expensive? It isn't gone, and it probably never will be, but it's becoming more expensive to acquire. That's because the good "ores" have been depleted. (You don't find many oil fields in Pennsylvania any more. They've been depleted.) But even if the last source of drillable-for oil is exhausted, there will still be the oil-shales, and the price is now high enough (or almost high enough) to make extracting those oils worth the cost. But it takes a lot more energy to extract oil from oil shale that it does to just drill for it, even under the sea. So it will be more expensive. That's the kind of thing that will happen with the other resource "shortages".
I dealt with IBM (indirectly, admittedly) before DOS. They were inflexible, but not particularly litigious. They didn't may wholesale threats against their customer base. (Yeah, I know SCOX was even worse than MS...but then they were funded by MS.)
I didn't like IBM, and I cheered for MS when it began to rise...and up through about MSWind98 I defended them as "Not as bad as IBM used to be." Afterwards, however, that stopped being true. I've READ the bloody EULA that came with MSWind2000, and that's what caused me to switch to Linux. Linux didn't even have a viable word processor at the time, and I switched anyway, and created documents using Netscape's (Mozilla's?) HTML editor. (I never managed to pick up LaTex. I kept meaning to find time, but then StarOffice 5.2 appeared, and I've never gotten around to it.)
So yes, I remember the old IBM. MS is worse.
You're either an optimist, or you don't know your history. MS has a long history of backstabbing companies AFTER they've signed the contract.
I won't believe this until they are using a license that I trust, and the company (not certain developers, as happened on a previous occasion) is releasing the software. (If the company doesn't put it's name to it, it might be able to argue that it wasn't bound by the license.)
Skeptical? No. I'm just trying to rule out all the ways that they've previously used to backstab somebody. I'm certain that they're inventive enough to come up with new ones, though, so AFTER they've released code in a way that meets my requirements, I'll still wait a few years (5, maybe 10) to see who gets arrows in their back and how. Perhaps I don't trust them?