It's not just western Europe, many eastern European countries are members of the Schengen Area. The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Greece are already members, Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU (and the Schengen Area) on January 1st 2007 and will have implemented the Schengen rules, which includes upgrading their borders with non-Schengen members, by March 2011.
"Our current mobile phones work at much lower frequencies, around 1.5 gigahertz. But, our material can also absorb frequencies that low, so you could block phone signals from outside and stop people's phones ringing during the movie," he said.
They said "can" and "could", not "does" and "will". There might be a switch. Or even different versions, which I guess makes a little more sense.
Wifi works at around 2.4 Ghz, GSM frequencies are between 380 Mhz and 2 Ghz, with the most frequently used frequencies being GSM900 (890-960 Mhz) and GSM1800 (1710-1880 Mhz).
From the article:
The paint contains an aluminium-iron oxide which resonates at the same frequency as wi-fi - or other radio waves - meaning the airborne data is absorbed and blocked.
I assume this means the aluminium-iron oxide resonates at around 2400 Mhz, which shouldn't interfere with normal cell phones.
Sea-faring vessels are a major contributor of greenhouse gas production due to a deficit in international laws and inherent inefficiencies at sea, such as barnacle build-up on hulls.
Sea-faring vessels are the single most efficient way of transporting goods we have. The reason they're a big contributor of greenhouse gas production is that our global economy requires that a lot of goods are transported around the world. Try transporting thousands of containers across thousands of miles by truck (please, don't actually try this, it's bad for the environment).
The IMO (wikipedia) is one of the most widely acknowledged international authorities on anything. They've made a lot of internationally respected laws, improving sea transport on many levels, including the environmental effects.
It's true that hull fouling is a problem for ships. It's also true that many (especially large) ships burn Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), which contains a lot of pollutants (like sulfur) and isn't as clean as, say, diesel oil. It's also true that ships burn a lot of HFO, and it's true that ships further pollute the seas by dumping garbage overboard.
However, while the amounts of HFO burned by, say, the Emma Maersk, are enormous (about 300 metric tonnes per day at full operation), this is almost nothing when compared to trucks. Assuming 300mt/day at a cruise speed of 25 knots (over 45km/h), that equates to roughly 30 tonnes per 100 km. A semi-trailer truck pulling two TEU containers runs at around 30 liter per 100 km (that's around 8 mpg, anyone that can confirm this number?). This means the Emma Maersk, carrying 14000 TEU, uses 1000 times as much fuel as a truck carrying 2 TEU, which makes this ship about 7 times as fuel efficient as trucks.
And another thing: with HFO costing 300-400 dollars per metric ton, the Emma Maersk burns up about 100,000 dollars per day when running at full capacity (this almost never happens, especially now with the economic crisis, but bear with me). That's about 3 million dollars a month in fuel. The Emma Maersk is crewed by a minimum of 13 seafarers, but let's take 20 for easier calculations, since it's probably closer to reality anyway. Suppose each of those 20 people earn 10,000 dollars a month (which is a lot - maybe the Captain, Chief Officer and Chief Engineer make this much... just maybe). That means total crewing costs for this ship would be 200,000 dollars a month, with fuel costs 15 times higher. What I'm trying to say here is this: it's in the companies' best interest to improve their fuel economy. A 7% increase in fuel efficiency would save them more money than not having to pay the crew. I'm fairly certain there are no cheap and easy ways to drastically reduce fuel usage, or they would have thought of it by now.
All of this is not to say that there isn't room for improvement in the maritime transportation business, far from it. This research and other research like it can and will do great things for the shipping industry and the environment. I just didn't like how the summary made the industry the bad guy here.
P.S. If you want to read more about the IMO's actions on air pollution: go nuts.
I've seen Wii's for 22x Euros at Media Markt this week. Media Markt has been selling them for 235 Euros for over a year (I bought mine last July for 235).
Still, 220 (it could be 229, memory fails me once again) Euros doesn't really equate to 200 dollars.
I've made this comparison in a few Slashdot posts, and I'm going to keep making it until it stops being relevant: at 220 Euros or about 320 dollars, Wiis are 60% more expensive in Europe than they are in the US.
The total mass of the oceans is about 1.4*10^21 kg. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5*10^18 kg. That means the oceans weigh about 300 times as much as the atmosphere.
So since there's 300 times as much water as there is air, and the heat capacity of water is 4 times larger, heating up the atmosphere by 1200 degree Celsius would take the same amount of energy as heating up the oceans by 1 degree Celsius. This may not prove or disprove your point, I just started thinking about numbers when you said "raising the temperature of a body of water by a few degrees".
The heat certainly doesn't disappear, but you're just pumping heat into cold water with this system. The transfer of heat from a warm to a cold substance is a process which increases entropy, which means it's a spontaneous process (it doesn't take any energy to do it).
Air-conditioning, on the other hand, transfers heat from a cold to a warm substance (the cooled air inside becomes cooler, the warm air outside becomes warmer), which is not a spontaneous process, meaning you're using extra energy. This extra energy is ultimately wasted as extra heat in the warm substance.
Also, the extra energy which A/C uses generally comes from burning fossil fuels at relatively low efficiencies, emitting even more heat into the atmosphere.
All in all, you're putting a LOT less energy (heat) into the earth if you're using a spontaneous process to cool your stuff.
If someone steals your car, do you call the car manufacturer and ask them to disable the car remotely so no one can drive it?
Some high-end car manufacturers offer this kind of service. And who knows, maybe this story will make Amazon think they can sell Premium packages, for people who are willing to pay more for the guarantee that they'll track down your Kindle if you leave it on a bus.
Yes, German summers are much cooler than in the Mid-Atlantic states of the USA. Berlin's average July temperature is around 18 degrees Celcius, while the low average temperature for Richmond, Virginia is 68.3 degrees Fahrenheit, which is around 20.2 degrees Celcius.
It might also be worth mentioning that the southern tip of Germany is around 47 degrees North, which is roughly the same latitude as Seattle and Quebec. Richmond is about 10 degrees closer to the equator, which (at least in part) explains the temperature difference.
Tens of thousands of metric tons of nuclear wasteâ"mainly spent fuel rodsâ"are sitting at power-plant sites while the federal government struggles to come up with a site to store it all.
Tens of thousands of metric tons isn't all that much for a country the size of the US. If you want to compare it to oil tankers: Oil tankers with a capacity of 80,000 metric tons can pass through the Panama Canal, and the largest oil tankers in the world have a capacity of 550,000 metric tons.
If we can make ships to transport these kinds of quantities of something, surely we can build lead-walled hangars that are big enough to store this crap for a couple of decades, which isn't even that much longer than the typical lifespan of one of those tankers.
Following that logic, every issue that's not the most important issue is a non-issue. This way of thinking lets corporations chip away at our privacy "because those other guys are doing something worse", until there's nothing left to chip away.
After RTFA (yes, I make semi-witty first posts before RTFA just because I can, sue me) I can only assume someone will post something about the pants being irrelevant because it's made for public outdoors advertisements.
If you are or were on the verge of making such a post, I would like to strongly urge you to reconsider who you're dealing with here.
Long-time Samsung fanboy speaking here, but I do NOT want advertisements to see my face. Reading my e-mails is where I draw the line. At least Gmail can't tell whether or not I'm wearing pants.
This is a logical continuation of conference calls and working from home. It's like going to a self help group meeting, without actually having to drive over there (saving time, money, and polar bears). That, and you have an additional layer of anonymity, which might help lower the threshold for newcomers who are too ashamed of joining.
I think a similar system could work very well for other groups such as AA and NA.
Slashdot Mirror
So yes, it'll be great for mouse clicks (binary), but I'll still own your ass in a video game in anything that uses a vector (analog).
But with this new technology, I can kick your ass in TetriNET while lifting weights!
You could go for even more immersion and say things like "I advance one longsword's length", and "always carry 6 longsword's lengths of rope".
It's not just western Europe, many eastern European countries are members of the Schengen Area. The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Greece are already members, Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU (and the Schengen Area) on January 1st 2007 and will have implemented the Schengen rules, which includes upgrading their borders with non-Schengen members, by March 2011.
How far and how fast can your radio go?
You can indeed. There's a small checkbox next to the send button, or at least that's what I saw in the developer preview.
"Our current mobile phones work at much lower frequencies, around 1.5 gigahertz. But, our material can also absorb frequencies that low, so you could block phone signals from outside and stop people's phones ringing during the movie," he said.
They said "can" and "could", not "does" and "will". There might be a switch. Or even different versions, which I guess makes a little more sense.
Wifi works at around 2.4 Ghz, GSM frequencies are between 380 Mhz and 2 Ghz, with the most frequently used frequencies being GSM900 (890-960 Mhz) and GSM1800 (1710-1880 Mhz).
From the article:
The paint contains an aluminium-iron oxide which resonates at the same frequency as wi-fi - or other radio waves - meaning the airborne data is absorbed and blocked.
I assume this means the aluminium-iron oxide resonates at around 2400 Mhz, which shouldn't interfere with normal cell phones.
How about an army base? You'd have most of those security measures, and lots more firepower to start killing each other when you go crazy.
Sea-faring vessels are a major contributor of greenhouse gas production due to a deficit in international laws and inherent inefficiencies at sea, such as barnacle build-up on hulls.
Sea-faring vessels are the single most efficient way of transporting goods we have. The reason they're a big contributor of greenhouse gas production is that our global economy requires that a lot of goods are transported around the world. Try transporting thousands of containers across thousands of miles by truck (please, don't actually try this, it's bad for the environment).
The IMO (wikipedia) is one of the most widely acknowledged international authorities on anything. They've made a lot of internationally respected laws, improving sea transport on many levels, including the environmental effects.
It's true that hull fouling is a problem for ships. It's also true that many (especially large) ships burn Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), which contains a lot of pollutants (like sulfur) and isn't as clean as, say, diesel oil. It's also true that ships burn a lot of HFO, and it's true that ships further pollute the seas by dumping garbage overboard.
However, while the amounts of HFO burned by, say, the Emma Maersk, are enormous (about 300 metric tonnes per day at full operation), this is almost nothing when compared to trucks. Assuming 300mt/day at a cruise speed of 25 knots (over 45km/h), that equates to roughly 30 tonnes per 100 km. A semi-trailer truck pulling two TEU containers runs at around 30 liter per 100 km (that's around 8 mpg, anyone that can confirm this number?). This means the Emma Maersk, carrying 14000 TEU, uses 1000 times as much fuel as a truck carrying 2 TEU, which makes this ship about 7 times as fuel efficient as trucks.
And another thing: with HFO costing 300-400 dollars per metric ton, the Emma Maersk burns up about 100,000 dollars per day when running at full capacity (this almost never happens, especially now with the economic crisis, but bear with me). That's about 3 million dollars a month in fuel. The Emma Maersk is crewed by a minimum of 13 seafarers, but let's take 20 for easier calculations, since it's probably closer to reality anyway. Suppose each of those 20 people earn 10,000 dollars a month (which is a lot - maybe the Captain, Chief Officer and Chief Engineer make this much... just maybe). That means total crewing costs for this ship would be 200,000 dollars a month, with fuel costs 15 times higher. What I'm trying to say here is this: it's in the companies' best interest to improve their fuel economy. A 7% increase in fuel efficiency would save them more money than not having to pay the crew. I'm fairly certain there are no cheap and easy ways to drastically reduce fuel usage, or they would have thought of it by now.
All of this is not to say that there isn't room for improvement in the maritime transportation business, far from it. This research and other research like it can and will do great things for the shipping industry and the environment. I just didn't like how the summary made the industry the bad guy here.
P.S. If you want to read more about the IMO's actions on air pollution: go nuts.
I've seen Wii's for 22x Euros at Media Markt this week. Media Markt has been selling them for 235 Euros for over a year (I bought mine last July for 235).
Still, 220 (it could be 229, memory fails me once again) Euros doesn't really equate to 200 dollars.
I've made this comparison in a few Slashdot posts, and I'm going to keep making it until it stops being relevant: at 220 Euros or about 320 dollars, Wiis are 60% more expensive in Europe than they are in the US.
Which do you think is better for the environment?
Secret option number three: join the Amish.
The total mass of the oceans is about 1.4*10^21 kg. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5*10^18 kg. That means the oceans weigh about 300 times as much as the atmosphere.
The heat capacity of water is about 4000 J * kg ^ -1 * K ^ -1. The heat capacity of air is about 1 kJ * kg ^ -1 * K ^ -1, or about 1000 J * kg ^ -1 * K ^ -1.
So since there's 300 times as much water as there is air, and the heat capacity of water is 4 times larger, heating up the atmosphere by 1200 degree Celsius would take the same amount of energy as heating up the oceans by 1 degree Celsius. This may not prove or disprove your point, I just started thinking about numbers when you said "raising the temperature of a body of water by a few degrees".
The heat certainly doesn't disappear, but you're just pumping heat into cold water with this system. The transfer of heat from a warm to a cold substance is a process which increases entropy, which means it's a spontaneous process (it doesn't take any energy to do it).
Air-conditioning, on the other hand, transfers heat from a cold to a warm substance (the cooled air inside becomes cooler, the warm air outside becomes warmer), which is not a spontaneous process, meaning you're using extra energy. This extra energy is ultimately wasted as extra heat in the warm substance.
Also, the extra energy which A/C uses generally comes from burning fossil fuels at relatively low efficiencies, emitting even more heat into the atmosphere.
All in all, you're putting a LOT less energy (heat) into the earth if you're using a spontaneous process to cool your stuff.
How is what Google does anti-competitive? Most of their services are free.
I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords.
If someone steals your car, do you call the car manufacturer and ask them to disable the car remotely so no one can drive it?
Some high-end car manufacturers offer this kind of service. And who knows, maybe this story will make Amazon think they can sell Premium packages, for people who are willing to pay more for the guarantee that they'll track down your Kindle if you leave it on a bus.
Yes, German summers are much cooler than in the Mid-Atlantic states of the USA. Berlin's average July temperature is around 18 degrees Celcius, while the low average temperature for Richmond, Virginia is 68.3 degrees Fahrenheit, which is around 20.2 degrees Celcius. It might also be worth mentioning that the southern tip of Germany is around 47 degrees North, which is roughly the same latitude as Seattle and Quebec. Richmond is about 10 degrees closer to the equator, which (at least in part) explains the temperature difference.
That's not that big of a problem. FTA:
Tens of thousands of metric tons of nuclear wasteâ"mainly spent fuel rodsâ"are sitting at power-plant sites while the federal government struggles to come up with a site to store it all.
Tens of thousands of metric tons isn't all that much for a country the size of the US. If you want to compare it to oil tankers: Oil tankers with a capacity of 80,000 metric tons can pass through the Panama Canal, and the largest oil tankers in the world have a capacity of 550,000 metric tons.
If we can make ships to transport these kinds of quantities of something, surely we can build lead-walled hangars that are big enough to store this crap for a couple of decades, which isn't even that much longer than the typical lifespan of one of those tankers.
At least 911 is still better than 01189998819991197253.
Following that logic, every issue that's not the most important issue is a non-issue. This way of thinking lets corporations chip away at our privacy "because those other guys are doing something worse", until there's nothing left to chip away.
I may have jumped to conclusions when I saw the words "LCD TV", "ads" and "cameras" in the same sentence. I thought it would be the new kind of TiVo.
After RTFA (yes, I make semi-witty first posts before RTFA just because I can, sue me) I can only assume someone will post something about the pants being irrelevant because it's made for public outdoors advertisements.
If you are or were on the verge of making such a post, I would like to strongly urge you to reconsider who you're dealing with here.
Long-time Samsung fanboy speaking here, but I do NOT want advertisements to see my face. Reading my e-mails is where I draw the line. At least Gmail can't tell whether or not I'm wearing pants.
This is a logical continuation of conference calls and working from home. It's like going to a self help group meeting, without actually having to drive over there (saving time, money, and polar bears). That, and you have an additional layer of anonymity, which might help lower the threshold for newcomers who are too ashamed of joining.
I think a similar system could work very well for other groups such as AA and NA.
Flintstones did it.