I really have to wonder if they even consider gaming the primary market for this next Xbox, or if they are thinking that the Xbox will find its way into homes primarily as a unified entertainment system. If the latter is their goal, they must believe that most families aren't going to own multiple expensive gaming devices, so once established they have a captive market on the gaming front.
Of course if they are wrong, they might literally cause the decline of gaming in society. If we operate on the premise that modern young people are "addicted" to media in general, and gaming in particular, Microsoft is assuming that they can spike the price in their drug and extract more from the junkies. In the real world when this happens, the junkies typically turn to crime (I suppose piracy in this case, though I'm not a big advocate of copyright), stop using, or move on to another drug (sometimes a homemade variant of the original).
What we might very well see in the future is a shift in media consumption habits away from the big publishers to smaller studios making games for pc and mobile devices, underscored by a drop-off in "traditional" gaming in general (as people start to see more value in a movie and a meal for $20 instead of paying $60 for a 10 hour long game). If the big publishers actually implemented a steam-style pricing model that could change, but I seriously doubt any will try. Companies very rarely evolve into an entirely different animal, and a Steam-esque change would be one hell of an evolution for the likes of EA and Activision.
Where I grew up (Minnesota) the combination of salt and ground heave in the winter does a huge amount of road damage, as I imagine it does in a great many states. Right now the gas tax is helping to offset that, but as vehicles using alternative power sources take over that revenue stream destabilizes. And there isn't a good argument for allowing that to happen; what I'm reading here is a combination of "But I don't wanna pay for it!" and "We should be punishing those gas users in whatever way possible!", neither of which refutes the fundamental truth that the roads need to be funded and the only "fair" way to do so it to tax based on benefit/use to/by the individual.
If you don't want to pay your share and thought your Prius was the ticket to getting out of it, tough. And while encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles isn't a bad goal, the price of electricity combined with falling battery prices and rising fossil fuel costs should do that anyway. Frankly, if you still want to do some social engineering why not do so blatantly with a tax credit/refund on electric vehicles that diminishes as income increases? That way there isn't a regressive tax on the poor, and the goal is clear as day.
Without commenting on the activity, I'll give my experience with this... When I was on the farm, groups of guys used to some around with giant nets and ask to capture all the pigeons in our barn. Theyd hang the net from the roof and spook the birds, causing them to fly across the barn into the net and be captured. We always let them, as it saved us the trouble of poisoning the disease infested things before they crapped all over everything.
Anyway, the hunters said they used the birds to train their dogs for pheasant hunting. You use the pigeon in place of a clay target, teaching the dogs not to be shell shocked and to grab the bird when it falls. Seemed like a plausible story to me. Plus, I've lived all over rural America and have yet to come across a pigeon breeding operation. Seems like that would be a lot of trouble to go through just to get a marginally more challenging target to shoot.
No one is preventing anyone from taking the course. Coursera is being prevented from offering the courses (until they fill out some trivial paperwork) due to consumer protection laws. Being a business (and a for profit at that) that deals in education (whether student driven, ad driven, university paid, whatever) consumer protection laws apply to them. Its an important distinction. If they were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts Coursera (or the Universities represented) could put everything they have up without offering certificates or insinuating they are a university and this problem would go away. The content isn't the problem, and their speech isn't being limited anymore than McDonald's is when they are prevented from running commercials claiming Big Macs increase the IQ of those that consume them by 150 points guaranteed.
And Minnesota residents have the right to decide if actual academic institutions can set up courses (online or otherwise) in their state. Thats the issue here, not the information. The fact that this is a collaboration with major universities is actually a strike against it, though it would take all of a week to fix the problem assuming everything is legitimate. Should the law be rewritten to only apply to universities charging money and/or offering "certificates" of some kind? Yeah, probably. But when the law was written 20 years ago I suspect the idea that MIT would be offering free education through magical supercomputers (considering we're talking pre windows 95 here, before the widespread use of internet even) probably wasn't seriously considered. But don't let the triviality of the paperwork or the reasonable circumstances get in the way of a good libertarian rant.
And where do you propose they get their hands on large quantities of gold/silver through the embargo? Plus, the only real way such a thing *might* work is if you smelted the coins using some crap metal like tin with a vanishingly small amount of precious metal. Because trading in pure precious metal would require salt sized grains (at best) for any reasonable transaction, with the price of metal in today's market.
The gold standard and similar ideas are moronic for a variety of reasons, but even ignoring their inherent faults those systems have to use paper notes backed by some scarce item (be it gold, gems, whatever) due to the fact that trading items that are by definition scarce in small amounts is difficult at best. Maybe when there were a few million people actively involved in the economy of the day (think Rome at its peak) this was doable, but a few billion? Not a chance.
I suspect this isn't complaining about what happened, but rather part of a long process of turning public sentiment in the United States in favor of war with Iran. Not that war will certainly happen, but the political establishment has decided that if Iran doesn't capitulate on the nuclear issue soon (6 months to a year, from the sounds of it) a war is inevitable. In their minds, a war might as well happen before the bomb rather than after it, as Iran will almost certainly try its luck against Israel at some point anyway (being Israel is a major hurdle to Iran's regional ambitions).
Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is a blatant effort to goad Iran into doing something stupid (like a largely pointless "cyber attack") just to manufacture a justification to allow immediate intervention. After all, without the justification the public can always grumble that there wasn't enough effort put into diplomacy, and since any attack to stop nuclear weapons production is going to be preemptive there really isn't a way to play that concern down other than having an ulterior reason for an attack. Trying to find a reason afterwards if you are wrong (like in Iraq, where WMD's were replaces with "well, Saddam was a crappy person anyway!") doesn't typically work well.
Yeah, fluff I say! Like that electricity, with its expensive lines! Why do they need that when a torch and icebox will do? Or phone lines! After all, most conversations can be done by letter just as well. And what a waste roads are, the moving carriage is little more than a toy. A horse is just as fast and doesn't need a paved way! The audacity of these bumpkins, being born outside of my privileged environment...
Eherm... got carried away. My point is, your lack of imagination can be applied to the most important technologies of the modern era. Its a good thing people in the past had more vision. If you don’t develop rural infrastructure you prevent those areas from ever seeing development. This forces people into densely packed cities, which past a certain point causes FAR more health and environmental issues than can ever be made up simply from living close together. With the advent of telecommunication we should be encouraging movement to rural areas, not discouraging it. And unless you have a crystal ball theres no way you can say with any certainty that a modern internet connection wont suddenly be just as important as phones or roads. What if Kahn Academy or the MIT lecture series really take off, and the oppertunity of high quality cheap education arrives if you have a video-quality internet connection? It seems more and more likely that could be the case.
Not to mention you're picking social winners and losers, essentially just accepting the creation of an underclass for your own perceived benefit. Don’t try and play it off as one guy living on Everest begging for internet, a sizable portion of the population lives in rural areas. And contrary to seemingly popular belief, not everyone moves to the country with a lot of money for the health benefits. Lots of people start there, and couldn’t scrape the money together to move to an expensive urban area (assuming they even had skills marketable in a city).
Its a murky situation. Presumably the costs you talk about are passed through the goods, and a rough profit per bushel comparison should tell you everything you need to know, including energy and land costs. Its tough here because "organic" makes money largely by being a higher priced niche product. Presumably the more mainstream it becomes the less profitable it will be, though if a significant organic farming infrastructure popped up that would help offset it.
Environmentally, its awful tough to pick a winner as well. If organics help reduce pesticide and fertilizer effects in settled areas, but require an increase in productive area that ends up established in a few million square acres of pristine rainforest, did the environment "win?" Frankly, probably not.
The big selling point for organic is human safety, but there has yet to be shown any kind of widespread human harm from modern pesticides. Speculation is rampant, but so far common pesticides, used properly, don't seem to pose any significant risk to people. Measured against the very real human harm from organic food causing a massive surge in food prices (from lack of supply or increased input costs, likely both), conventional farming seems to win for now.
Guessing youre the same AC who started this. Everything is toxic, in sufficient quantity. The link you give lists that particular pesticide as having no discernable carcinogenic effects and a very low toxicity relative to any reasonable exposure. Did you even read your own link? Pesticides in general do have some risk to humans.
The rule of thumb is that if it kills an insect keep an eye on it, because insects aren't that far from humans. Herbicides are by and large harmless unless you swim in the stuff. But the fear mongering you are doing isn't based on research. Its the same kind of conspiracy theory logic as the anti-vaccine crowd uses. This story is indicating an interesting side effect for a specific insect which ingests a toxin via an unforseen channel in a quantity not thought to be harmful. It could be a great example for a risk analysis course. It is not, however, a sky is falling moment for modern society, nor an "I told you so" moment for the GMO movement. If true, minor tweaks to the existing system fix the problem. Stop pretending its the end of the world.
Yes, you can switch to organic food. Note, however, that these are neonicotinoids -- they act on insects in the same way as nicotine (which used to be widely used as an insecticide, and is still used by organic farmers), but are designed to lower acute toxicity in mammals. So, assuming you're a mammal, rather than a honeybee, you might actually be choosing the more dangerous option. (Of course, with any pesticide, the levels of application are kept such that the amount in the final product shouldn't be harmful to humans, so the risk to you eating the produce is vanishingly small either way -- nicotine toxicity is more an issue for the farm workers applying the concentrated product.)
The FDA and EPA do a reasonably good job of making sure pesticides for food crops are pretty safe for humans, both acutely and chronically, because that's what they do. They don't test everything so thoroughly for honeybees, which is why it was assumed that if levels were kept below acute toxicity levels, there'd be no problem. It doesn't follow that it's a problem for humans.
Somebody mod this AC up, hes 100% spot on. Who modded the parent up anyway, its a wikipedia link from someone with an obvious paranoid bias. I mean he thinks corn is pollinated by bees for God`s sake (its wind pollinated).
If these studies are confirmed (and there are various critiques rolling in, so we'll see) they will tell us that the amount of neonicotinoid present in the kernel, a number so small as to be considered zero for the sake of human consumption, is just enough to essentially get bees drunk if fed directly to a hive in quantity (what the beekeepers are doing). The solution is to stop using HFCS in hives; make the things either gather pollen naturally or drink cane-sugar water. Its a pesticide... that it was lethal for insects which prey on corn was never in question. What is facinating is the potential secondary effect here. It might force the EPA to beef up its testing procedures (though I doubt it... pretty hard to discover something like this without large-scale testing).
I got to watch a very interesting lecture on this a month ago, so I'll chime in. Oh, you should cite something for your first claim, otherwise you're playing the "no true Scotsman" game.
For one, what was known as "fracking" up to very recently was done using straight wells, as in drilled straight down. Part of the reason these natural gas deposits haven't been exploited is that most shale (where the gas is locked in) is in very thin, very wide (ranging over hundreds to thousands of miles) formations. A vertical well only works if the shale is deep, which is a lot less common. Today's fracking is done by drilling down into a thin shale formation, then twisting the bit 90 degrees and drilling sideways a great distance. You then inject a fluid (mostly water and extremely finely ground silica, from northern glacial sand deposits) which, as I understood it, uses a combination of friction and pressure to cause micro-fracturing (fracking) all along the hole. Methane trapped in the shale flows via these fractures into the well, which at that point you just need to cap off and begin to process. Its incredible technology.
Anyway, back to your arguments (and those of a couple others). A large horizontal hole in the upper crust, purposefully cracked along its length, extracting large amounts of gas from the surrounding stone is absolutely changing the balance of crustal forces in that region. "But its only a little hole, and rock is big and heavy!" Its a system in close to perfect equilibrium, and we are altering it. A single shovelfull of earth can cause a mudslide, if the system is in balance. I see how it can be confusing, but fracking is probably causing some earthquakes.
And for those saying "who cares about Oklahoma," you should know that the largest shale region in the United States forms roughly a triangle with New Jersey, Pensylvaina (or was it Ohio... grab a geologic map if you care), and the Carolinas as the points. There are also good spots in other parts of the South. But my focus here is that New York is on top of this shale, as are many other major east-coast cities. The numbers for how great natural gas can be (because the US potentially has so much of it) are assuming the exploitation of the East-coast reserves. They might start in Oklahoma and the Dakotas, but it will come to your door very soon.
All that said, it still might not be dangerous. If you can find some way to reasonably quantify the damage from small earthquakes and have it paid for via a small tax on the producers (property devaluation would be trickier...) it could still be exploitable. What worries me more is that the fluid being used almost certainly has small amounts of something unpleasant in it, as if it didn't the fight over keeping the formula secret wouldn't be nearly this vicious. Also, methane leaking into the aquifer thats above the shale is a real concern. In theory, fracking is perfectly safe because you can seal the hole with a liner and cap, essentially re-plugging it and isolating the aquifer again (which the rock formation itself has done for eons, else there wouldn't be a lot of gas down there). But what happens when you increase the number of earthquakes in the region by over an order of magnitude? Do those caps stay in place? If no, then there is a real issue that needs to be resolved here.
"Idiot proof" - right there you just lost a couple points. Build a better nuclear reactor and the world builds a better idiot. Not that I'm against nuclear reactors, I just agree with the original premise - failures *will* happen with any system. Multiple independent fail-safes and dead-man systems are necessary for a system like this.
Theres some truth to that, but i meant it in the sense that human interaction isn't needed in the slightest, nor is any real mechanical action other than liquid flowing downward. Its not like "modern" (as in what operates now) reactors, where there is a time limit on the response within which some human being has to respond. Every human being could vanish from the earth in an instant, and a liquid sodium reactor would turn itself off 100% of the time. You take the human out of the equation.
For those who don't follow reactor tech and don't know whats being talked about, liquid sodium reactors use literally a vat of salts and radioactive material in a magma-like sludge. There is a plug at the bottom of the vat with a melting point that is well above operating spec, but well within reach if the reactor lost cooling. If all other failsafes are disabled, the plug melts and all the molten sludge runs into 2-3 smaller tanks. The reaction then stops being self sustaining, and you just have to recover the containment units and repair the reactor. Its literally idiot proof barring a fault line opening a chasm beneath the plant or a direct asteroid impact.
There are also gravity-fed means of cooling conventional reactors, but I wouldn't call any of them fool proof. Liquid sodium seems like the best bet to me from a safety standpoint, at least as far as using up existing nuclear material. Thorium reactors show promise as well, but since we have a ton of reusable nuclear material liquid sodium would be my choice from a practicality standpoint.
>>>meteorologists, veterinarians, heavy equipment operators, heavy equipment mechanics, small engine mechanics, welders, plumbers, geologists
No (they let the weather predictions to the weather bureau, same as us). No (they hire vets). Yes (as if that's hard). Maybe (some fix their equipment but most hire mechanics). No, maybe, no (plowing the earth does not make you a geologist).
I worked on a farm. It doesn't take a high IQ. If it did, most of humanity would have starved during the last 10,000 years of agrarianism. It's actually very simple (though time intensive). Which is why they propose crockpot theories like "Windmills make un's sick! I've got lists I downloaded off the conspiracy sites."
Working on farm is like any other menial labor, but owning and successfully operating a farm (being a farmer, rather than a hired hand) sure as hell takes a brain: especially running a small farm.
You don't hire all your vet work done and turn a profit at the end of the year; most farmers will have refrigerators stocked full of different vaccines, antibiotics, etc., and self-treat animals most of the time.
Its also cute how you dismissed small mechanics like an ass. I'm sure you're thinking about a pull start lawnmower, but diagnosing the problem on a grain conveyor in a feedbunk setup or a blower on a silo is a giant pain and definitely takes knowhow. And as for large mechanics, again, you don't just "hire a mechanic" and stay in business. Repair bills can be five figures in labor for really nasty problems on big equipment.
You also sure as hell do learn how to weld, do plumbing (and might even own your own backhoe attachment to do real work), and definitely know more practical geology than an average person. Fertilizer is expensive, and modern farms do extensive ground sampling (an agronomist does the actual sampling and analysis) to generate soil maps. Because "fertilizer" is a general term for you stupid city folk (see, I can be a patronizing ass too! No real offence intended city folks, making a point), and in reality there are a whole host of mineral deficiencies that can undermine productivity. A single field might need several different minerals in different areas, which are applied selectively to save money and maximize yields.
Theres more than that, but I wont get into it. The point I'm making here is this: people like you are the reason there is such a blind hatred of "city dwellers" (a friend of mine uses the term “cidiot” to poke fun at my now city dwelling self) in a lot of rural areas. Your mix of casual arrogance and ignorance (just stick a seed in the ground and it grows, right? Cause it’s that easy, and agriculture today is so much like agriculture a thousand years ago) really turns people off, and makes them more dismissive of your advice on topics you might actually be qualified to comment on. Ever wondered why a fair amount of farmers are willing to marginalize and dismiss science, even when it seems like it shouldn’t be controversial? Because people have marginalized and dismissed rural people for decades, especially university educated people who really should know better.
By the way, while I'm mentioning it, the term "flyover states" has almost certainly been involved in the decline in the democratic party in the Midwest (The DFL used to be huge where I'm from, now it is really struggling). It doesn't even matter what the conservatives are selling, when a farmer listens to a bunch of ignorant bullshit followed by a "flyover state" crack from some Northeast moron they instantly get the urge to cast a fuck you vote for a Republican in a national race. A lot (most, it seems like, but thats anecdotal) of local governments in the Midwest are majority democrats. Food for thought.
This happens with many places that work with at least moderately radioactive material (not just reactors). What you do is tape the building/site in question off and allow it to sit for 1-2 decades. In that time the radioactivity typically decreases by orders of magnitude from decay. I can't speak to the cost savings, but so long as the site is properly fenced the safety concerns from handling all that waste go down by a lot. It isn't a bad decision in theory, but many small outfits just go "woops, can't pay to clean this up" and stick the EPA with the bill. Which is ackward, because you can't very well require the funds for cleanup up front because it would make buisnesses that use radiation in any significant way (radiopharmaceutical companies, as an example) impossibly expensive to start.
But I suppose the point of this is to attack "evil nuclear," so I'm probably wasting my time even expaining the reality. That seems to be in fashion nowadays, reality be damned.
Application? How about an overhead drone carrying a payload thats roughly the same weight as now, except instead of blowing things up it just shoots you in the face. You dont have to carry a huge amount of munitions when 95% of the bullets will hit the target.
From now on, whenever you see a new military technology you should think about how it works with drones. For example, it probably isnt a coincidence that our new magnetic launch systems on carriers will allow lighter, more fragile aircraft (read, composite drones) to be launched. The official line is it does less damage to tradition aircraft, which it does. But the guys calling the shots on this stuff make war for a living, and the writing is on the wall as far as the future goes. "Lighter. Cheaper. Disposable"
I worry about this too. Not that I personally use it, but for a great many people (mostly poor and rural) OTA television is the only source of news and entertainment they have. They dont deserve to have public airwaves taken from them so that verizon makess more money, or so people in metro areas can download transformers in HD on their phone.
That being said this spectrum would be better off as data. The best solution would be to use it to offer free internet for personal use for the poor, as it has excellent coverage and is public property anyway. My parents finally got decent internet last month via Verizon, and though the data limits are terrible and the price high for home use, its a start. Probably more practical than burying fiber or cable into remote or poor areas.
Helium is the least reactive noble gas, and much lighter than air. Common sense says that it will rapidly leave our atmosphere. I dont remember the exact details (I had this brought up in a class once), but it was some combination of the ascending helium reaching escape velocity and solar wind peeling off anything that might try to settle in a super high orbit. The impending heium shortage is a well known problem, and a significant part of the reason I get an overwhelming urge to punch clowns in the face every time I see them handing out balloons.
And frankly, almost every alternative energy solution has serious if not fundamental flaws. If they didn't, we would already have been using them. Seriously, this "you're all just pessimists who work for oil companies and kick puppies" crap is getting old. Going off half cocked with some doe-eyed fantasy of a technotopian future filled with helium blimps and solar farms the size of small nations isn't going to fix anything. It took a hundred years and a lot of ignorance to get stuck in this energy policy quagmire, and logic dictates it will take twice that amount of time to get back out. You dont extract yourself from quicksand by thrashing about in a panic.
The body treats radioactive isotopes like any other particles: when ingested, it expells them almost immediately. There are specific exceptions, like iodine 131, that the body can mistake for the normal isotope (because your body only wants the iodine, the form means nothing), but even those are only harmful if ingested in very large quantities.
As an example, the posterchild for nuclear disaster, Chernobly, mostly resulted in a few dozen cancer deaths in children from iodine 131. Cows which eat grass covered in iodine 131 concentrate it in their milk. Children, who drink lots of milk, are also uniquely succeptable as they concentrate more iodine in their thyroid than adults (among other things). Had there been more care taken initially and more knowledge about the danger of thyroid cancer from iodine, virtually all the cancers could have been avoided (excluding the few people the Russians sent to die for the sake of expediancy. If you study the incedent, you'll learn how badly Chernobly was mismanaged and the crimes that were commited to calm the public quickly).
In short, dont worry so much. Even in the unlikely event you breathe or eat something, you will excrete it hours later. The old joke is that the biggest leathal force radiation brings to bear is anxiety. Your week of stress likely took more time off your life than walking through the Fukishima grounds would have.
Other posters have pointed out that this is the linear no threshold model, and we use it because it is the worst case scenario. Honestly, it is probably wrong. In fact, there has been recent speculation based on data from areas of the country with high natural radon concentrations that small doses of radiation are good for you. The theory goes that a small dose stimulates your body's natural genetic repair mechamisms, thus decreasing cancer occurance across the board.
We regulate using the worst models, assuming the highest exposure possible (example: if there is radiation in a stagnant lake we assume you drink that as your sole water source from birth to death, and regulate accordingly). Did you know peanuts naturally produce aflatoxin? Its a carcinogen. If you eat peanut butter toast for breakfast every day for most of your life, you have a measurable cancer risk increase. Radiation gets the press because it is abstract and scary. In reality, something mundane will probably kill you. And no one will care, because they will understand it. But god forbid you keel over within fifty miles of a nuclear plant. Because then the boogeyman (eherm, I mean radiation) must have gotten you.
I love technology of all kinds. I am also working on a graduate degree in health physics (radiation protection would be the more appropriate title, fyi). Frankly, assuming this isn't someone trolling slashdot, he really shouldn't bother. The fact that he had to ask if alpha radiation was a significant concern tells me he isn't even close to qualified to assess the risks a radioactive source poses.
Think of it this way.. If someone asked you "I want to write my own TV database scraper. What would the best type of programming language to learn be? Will I need a keyboard? Just fyi, I only have a small amount of time, as this isn't my career," what would your response be? The question he asked is on the same level. If you don't immediately recognize that, then you really have no business commenting on the subject. It would be like someone asking for the best statistical thermodynamics textbook, then making it apparent they didn't know basic algebra.
Ignoring for a second the obvious serious lack of knowledge, radiation monitoring equiptment of any quality is expensive and needs calibration. Which requires access to radioactive standard sources. A geiger counter tells you nothing, especially a crappy one. I have a natural uranium deposit not far from my home. A geiger counter would light up like a christmas tree near it. If you didn't understand what what was going on, or even worse, didn't have any understanding past "the needle is moving, oh no!", then the results would be at best worthless and at worst misleading. And in the end someone untrained would have wasted thousands of dollars for no reason.
Believe it or not radiation is a complex and not at all obvious thing. Most people haven't studied it in any significant fashion, in a university or otherwise. In the same way a doctor would never encourage someone to self diagnose, I would never encourage someone to measure radioactive exposure by themseves. It would be irresponsible for me to do so. And excuse all the comparisons, but I occasionally go to public outreach meetings and have become aware that people need things put in terms they understand. Especially smart people. Smart people tend to form an ignorant view, assume they are right, then assume some kind of conspiracy when they are informed they are wrong.
Personally I'm against huge investments in solar power because not only are the economics not favorable yet, but the realities of storing and transmitting solar power (ignoring the actual panel efficiency and production costs, which still aren't great either) at the present moment make it only marginally useful in very isolated areas. Its not a realistic solution for this generation, no matter how badly anyone wants it to be. With large breakthroughs in battery technology (pretty likely), panel efficiency and cost (pretty likely), and superconductor technology (maybe) in the next handful of decades it may be the perfect solution for the next generation. But huge expenditures and preferential legislation now would be a waste: the groundwork isn't laid and like most research you can't pump money in and expect results to scale with the investment.
That all being said, there are certainly legitimate uses for solar technology right now that doesn't involve industrial power. Solar is great for prolonged field applications where weight and accessibility are issues. This story is a perfect example. Solar powered electric fencers for small and medium livestock is another (up to horse size, I sure wouldn't expect to keep a bull in with one. Not enough juice for something that bends steel like candle wax). It a great time to start a small firm and expand the technology into peripheral markets like these.
What irritates me is when people insinuate there are massive conspiracies to destroy alternative energy like wind and solar in favor of coal and nuclear, and that the only justification for endorsing those "bad" technologies is financial or ideological. What is desired and what is practical very rarely coincide, and most mainstream alternative energy still isn't practical on a large scale. Its not a free market issue, I wholeheartedly wish that embracing wind and solar on a large scale was as simple as a change in tax code or a congressional mandate. But it isn't. And I don't care if oil companies, the NRA, the pope or the goddamn Illuminati say the same thing, it doesn't make the reality of it any less true.
Not even remotely true. In the area I come from, the creationist strategy is simply changing.
When I was just a child there was a community not far from my home that had maybe ten houses and an ultra-fundamentalist church with 50 or so members. I went to school with some of the members' kids, and it led to some very interesting conversations (and I was raised in a liberal-ish Lutheran congregation, so its not as though I'm at all hostile to Christianity).. Anyway, that congregation has something like quadrupled in size, and is currently adding on a youth center and a gym to "keep the kids out of sin." Presumably there will eventually be an ultraconservative private school there, since the people that attend that church are fed up with not getting their way in our local school districts (although I vividly remember having to watch creationist propaganda in eighth grade science class, though at that time no one said anything.). A friend of mine growing up, from a different church (hes baptist), told me in college he learns the biology textbook to pass the tests, but refuses believe any of it. I imagine that will be the line the private religious school will take too.
I guess the point I'm making is that creationist teaching is just going underground. These people are segregating themselves and becoming more radical, which is providing the illusion that the creationist line of thought is in decline and the attack on science is relenting. It isn't. Segregated communities are indoctrinating kids from day one, then sending them to conservative colleges and law schools where they are trained to enter government and undermine it from within. Representative Bachmann is a prime example, she doesn't even deny that was the mission of the law school she attended.
I'll end with this tidbit: ever wonder why ultraconservatives were pushing so hard for a school voucher system? Could it be that such a system would make it frighteningly easy for this type of behavior to flourish, by essentially subsidizing extremist institutions? Just my take on things of course, but it disturbs me as someone inside the scientific community.
I can't speak for the large operations, but on the small (thousand-ish) acre farm where I grew up we baled cornstalks just like hay or straw. The big cornstalk bales are piled off to the side where they are used as animal bedding (either in the feedlot sheds or pushed around in the fields for the roaming herds). It gives the animals a warm comfortable place to sleep, mostly just during the winter. Once it thaws or becomes too messy the shed is cleaned into a manure spreader, and flung onto fields that need it (either visibly or based on a soil analysis). Generally this results in the poo+cornstalks being plowed back in at the start of spring.
I know its not popular on here, but there is a point at which you just have to accept that humans change their environment, and there will be casualties. Rather than wasting a bunch of money fighting and regulating every industry on the planet, its probably more realistic to regulate enough to make the environment safe for people and buy separate reserves to set aside for animal habitat. Its not a solution I like either, but turning back the clock on over a hundred years of industrial progress just isn't going to happen.
Not to mention there is a law of diminishing returns on farm regulation: past a certain point, regulation make small scale farming infeasible. But large scale farms are far and away more likely to use "unfriendly" farming methods, largely because the connection to the land isn't there. If you over regulate (and its already happening) small farmers who are likely to care about the land get bought out by superfarms. Superfarms typically don't care about sustainability or the landscape. Two farms near us recently went under, and when they were purchased all the wooded areas that had been used for grazing were chopped and plowed under. The regulations that were supposed to help protect wildlife ended up doing tremendous harm.
Another example is Monarch Butterflies. Monarchs feed exclusively on milkweed, and the best place to find milkweed as I grew up was on fence lines (typically between cow-pastures). As farms merge and pasture is being plowed in favor of large straight fields that giant farm implements can drive easily, these areas are vanishing (the idea that the price of corn is diving these changes isn't entirely true, the fact is that even if corn was dirt cheap its more cost effective for a large farm to grow it in giant straight fields with giant implements). Not surprisingly, experts are now worried about declining Monarch populations. Food for thought, I hope.
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I really have to wonder if they even consider gaming the primary market for this next Xbox, or if they are thinking that the Xbox will find its way into homes primarily as a unified entertainment system. If the latter is their goal, they must believe that most families aren't going to own multiple expensive gaming devices, so once established they have a captive market on the gaming front.
Of course if they are wrong, they might literally cause the decline of gaming in society. If we operate on the premise that modern young people are "addicted" to media in general, and gaming in particular, Microsoft is assuming that they can spike the price in their drug and extract more from the junkies. In the real world when this happens, the junkies typically turn to crime (I suppose piracy in this case, though I'm not a big advocate of copyright), stop using, or move on to another drug (sometimes a homemade variant of the original).
What we might very well see in the future is a shift in media consumption habits away from the big publishers to smaller studios making games for pc and mobile devices, underscored by a drop-off in "traditional" gaming in general (as people start to see more value in a movie and a meal for $20 instead of paying $60 for a 10 hour long game). If the big publishers actually implemented a steam-style pricing model that could change, but I seriously doubt any will try. Companies very rarely evolve into an entirely different animal, and a Steam-esque change would be one hell of an evolution for the likes of EA and Activision.
Exactly this.
Where I grew up (Minnesota) the combination of salt and ground heave in the winter does a huge amount of road damage, as I imagine it does in a great many states. Right now the gas tax is helping to offset that, but as vehicles using alternative power sources take over that revenue stream destabilizes. And there isn't a good argument for allowing that to happen; what I'm reading here is a combination of "But I don't wanna pay for it!" and "We should be punishing those gas users in whatever way possible!", neither of which refutes the fundamental truth that the roads need to be funded and the only "fair" way to do so it to tax based on benefit/use to/by the individual.
If you don't want to pay your share and thought your Prius was the ticket to getting out of it, tough. And while encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles isn't a bad goal, the price of electricity combined with falling battery prices and rising fossil fuel costs should do that anyway. Frankly, if you still want to do some social engineering why not do so blatantly with a tax credit/refund on electric vehicles that diminishes as income increases? That way there isn't a regressive tax on the poor, and the goal is clear as day.
Without commenting on the activity, I'll give my experience with this... When I was on the farm, groups of guys used to some around with giant nets and ask to capture all the pigeons in our barn. Theyd hang the net from the roof and spook the birds, causing them to fly across the barn into the net and be captured. We always let them, as it saved us the trouble of poisoning the disease infested things before they crapped all over everything.
Anyway, the hunters said they used the birds to train their dogs for pheasant hunting. You use the pigeon in place of a clay target, teaching the dogs not to be shell shocked and to grab the bird when it falls. Seemed like a plausible story to me. Plus, I've lived all over rural America and have yet to come across a pigeon breeding operation. Seems like that would be a lot of trouble to go through just to get a marginally more challenging target to shoot.
No one is preventing anyone from taking the course. Coursera is being prevented from offering the courses (until they fill out some trivial paperwork) due to consumer protection laws. Being a business (and a for profit at that) that deals in education (whether student driven, ad driven, university paid, whatever) consumer protection laws apply to them. Its an important distinction. If they were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts Coursera (or the Universities represented) could put everything they have up without offering certificates or insinuating they are a university and this problem would go away. The content isn't the problem, and their speech isn't being limited anymore than McDonald's is when they are prevented from running commercials claiming Big Macs increase the IQ of those that consume them by 150 points guaranteed.
And Minnesota residents have the right to decide if actual academic institutions can set up courses (online or otherwise) in their state. Thats the issue here, not the information. The fact that this is a collaboration with major universities is actually a strike against it, though it would take all of a week to fix the problem assuming everything is legitimate. Should the law be rewritten to only apply to universities charging money and/or offering "certificates" of some kind? Yeah, probably. But when the law was written 20 years ago I suspect the idea that MIT would be offering free education through magical supercomputers (considering we're talking pre windows 95 here, before the widespread use of internet even) probably wasn't seriously considered. But don't let the triviality of the paperwork or the reasonable circumstances get in the way of a good libertarian rant.
And where do you propose they get their hands on large quantities of gold/silver through the embargo? Plus, the only real way such a thing *might* work is if you smelted the coins using some crap metal like tin with a vanishingly small amount of precious metal. Because trading in pure precious metal would require salt sized grains (at best) for any reasonable transaction, with the price of metal in today's market.
The gold standard and similar ideas are moronic for a variety of reasons, but even ignoring their inherent faults those systems have to use paper notes backed by some scarce item (be it gold, gems, whatever) due to the fact that trading items that are by definition scarce in small amounts is difficult at best. Maybe when there were a few million people actively involved in the economy of the day (think Rome at its peak) this was doable, but a few billion? Not a chance.
I suspect this isn't complaining about what happened, but rather part of a long process of turning public sentiment in the United States in favor of war with Iran. Not that war will certainly happen, but the political establishment has decided that if Iran doesn't capitulate on the nuclear issue soon (6 months to a year, from the sounds of it) a war is inevitable. In their minds, a war might as well happen before the bomb rather than after it, as Iran will almost certainly try its luck against Israel at some point anyway (being Israel is a major hurdle to Iran's regional ambitions).
Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is a blatant effort to goad Iran into doing something stupid (like a largely pointless "cyber attack") just to manufacture a justification to allow immediate intervention. After all, without the justification the public can always grumble that there wasn't enough effort put into diplomacy, and since any attack to stop nuclear weapons production is going to be preemptive there really isn't a way to play that concern down other than having an ulterior reason for an attack. Trying to find a reason afterwards if you are wrong (like in Iraq, where WMD's were replaces with "well, Saddam was a crappy person anyway!") doesn't typically work well.
Yeah, fluff I say! Like that electricity, with its expensive lines! Why do they need that when a torch and icebox will do? Or phone lines! After all, most conversations can be done by letter just as well. And what a waste roads are, the moving carriage is little more than a toy. A horse is just as fast and doesn't need a paved way! The audacity of these bumpkins, being born outside of my privileged environment...
Eherm... got carried away. My point is, your lack of imagination can be applied to the most important technologies of the modern era. Its a good thing people in the past had more vision. If you don’t develop rural infrastructure you prevent those areas from ever seeing development. This forces people into densely packed cities, which past a certain point causes FAR more health and environmental issues than can ever be made up simply from living close together. With the advent of telecommunication we should be encouraging movement to rural areas, not discouraging it. And unless you have a crystal ball theres no way you can say with any certainty that a modern internet connection wont suddenly be just as important as phones or roads. What if Kahn Academy or the MIT lecture series really take off, and the oppertunity of high quality cheap education arrives if you have a video-quality internet connection? It seems more and more likely that could be the case.
Not to mention you're picking social winners and losers, essentially just accepting the creation of an underclass for your own perceived benefit. Don’t try and play it off as one guy living on Everest begging for internet, a sizable portion of the population lives in rural areas. And contrary to seemingly popular belief, not everyone moves to the country with a lot of money for the health benefits. Lots of people start there, and couldn’t scrape the money together to move to an expensive urban area (assuming they even had skills marketable in a city).
Its a murky situation. Presumably the costs you talk about are passed through the goods, and a rough profit per bushel comparison should tell you everything you need to know, including energy and land costs. Its tough here because "organic" makes money largely by being a higher priced niche product. Presumably the more mainstream it becomes the less profitable it will be, though if a significant organic farming infrastructure popped up that would help offset it.
Environmentally, its awful tough to pick a winner as well. If organics help reduce pesticide and fertilizer effects in settled areas, but require an increase in productive area that ends up established in a few million square acres of pristine rainforest, did the environment "win?" Frankly, probably not.
The big selling point for organic is human safety, but there has yet to be shown any kind of widespread human harm from modern pesticides. Speculation is rampant, but so far common pesticides, used properly, don't seem to pose any significant risk to people. Measured against the very real human harm from organic food causing a massive surge in food prices (from lack of supply or increased input costs, likely both), conventional farming seems to win for now.
Guessing youre the same AC who started this. Everything is toxic, in sufficient quantity. The link you give lists that particular pesticide as having no discernable carcinogenic effects and a very low toxicity relative to any reasonable exposure. Did you even read your own link? Pesticides in general do have some risk to humans.
The rule of thumb is that if it kills an insect keep an eye on it, because insects aren't that far from humans. Herbicides are by and large harmless unless you swim in the stuff. But the fear mongering you are doing isn't based on research. Its the same kind of conspiracy theory logic as the anti-vaccine crowd uses. This story is indicating an interesting side effect for a specific insect which ingests a toxin via an unforseen channel in a quantity not thought to be harmful. It could be a great example for a risk analysis course. It is not, however, a sky is falling moment for modern society, nor an "I told you so" moment for the GMO movement. If true, minor tweaks to the existing system fix the problem. Stop pretending its the end of the world.
Yes, you can switch to organic food. Note, however, that these are neonicotinoids -- they act on insects in the same way as nicotine (which used to be widely used as an insecticide, and is still used by organic farmers), but are designed to lower acute toxicity in mammals. So, assuming you're a mammal, rather than a honeybee, you might actually be choosing the more dangerous option. (Of course, with any pesticide, the levels of application are kept such that the amount in the final product shouldn't be harmful to humans, so the risk to you eating the produce is vanishingly small either way -- nicotine toxicity is more an issue for the farm workers applying the concentrated product.)
The FDA and EPA do a reasonably good job of making sure pesticides for food crops are pretty safe for humans, both acutely and chronically, because that's what they do. They don't test everything so thoroughly for honeybees, which is why it was assumed that if levels were kept below acute toxicity levels, there'd be no problem. It doesn't follow that it's a problem for humans.
Somebody mod this AC up, hes 100% spot on. Who modded the parent up anyway, its a wikipedia link from someone with an obvious paranoid bias. I mean he thinks corn is pollinated by bees for God`s sake (its wind pollinated).
If these studies are confirmed (and there are various critiques rolling in, so we'll see) they will tell us that the amount of neonicotinoid present in the kernel, a number so small as to be considered zero for the sake of human consumption, is just enough to essentially get bees drunk if fed directly to a hive in quantity (what the beekeepers are doing). The solution is to stop using HFCS in hives; make the things either gather pollen naturally or drink cane-sugar water. Its a pesticide... that it was lethal for insects which prey on corn was never in question. What is facinating is the potential secondary effect here. It might force the EPA to beef up its testing procedures (though I doubt it... pretty hard to discover something like this without large-scale testing).
I got to watch a very interesting lecture on this a month ago, so I'll chime in. Oh, you should cite something for your first claim, otherwise you're playing the "no true Scotsman" game.
For one, what was known as "fracking" up to very recently was done using straight wells, as in drilled straight down. Part of the reason these natural gas deposits haven't been exploited is that most shale (where the gas is locked in) is in very thin, very wide (ranging over hundreds to thousands of miles) formations. A vertical well only works if the shale is deep, which is a lot less common. Today's fracking is done by drilling down into a thin shale formation, then twisting the bit 90 degrees and drilling sideways a great distance. You then inject a fluid (mostly water and extremely finely ground silica, from northern glacial sand deposits) which, as I understood it, uses a combination of friction and pressure to cause micro-fracturing (fracking) all along the hole. Methane trapped in the shale flows via these fractures into the well, which at that point you just need to cap off and begin to process. Its incredible technology.
Anyway, back to your arguments (and those of a couple others). A large horizontal hole in the upper crust, purposefully cracked along its length, extracting large amounts of gas from the surrounding stone is absolutely changing the balance of crustal forces in that region. "But its only a little hole, and rock is big and heavy!" Its a system in close to perfect equilibrium, and we are altering it. A single shovelfull of earth can cause a mudslide, if the system is in balance. I see how it can be confusing, but fracking is probably causing some earthquakes.
And for those saying "who cares about Oklahoma," you should know that the largest shale region in the United States forms roughly a triangle with New Jersey, Pensylvaina (or was it Ohio... grab a geologic map if you care), and the Carolinas as the points. There are also good spots in other parts of the South. But my focus here is that New York is on top of this shale, as are many other major east-coast cities. The numbers for how great natural gas can be (because the US potentially has so much of it) are assuming the exploitation of the East-coast reserves. They might start in Oklahoma and the Dakotas, but it will come to your door very soon.
All that said, it still might not be dangerous. If you can find some way to reasonably quantify the damage from small earthquakes and have it paid for via a small tax on the producers (property devaluation would be trickier...) it could still be exploitable. What worries me more is that the fluid being used almost certainly has small amounts of something unpleasant in it, as if it didn't the fight over keeping the formula secret wouldn't be nearly this vicious. Also, methane leaking into the aquifer thats above the shale is a real concern. In theory, fracking is perfectly safe because you can seal the hole with a liner and cap, essentially re-plugging it and isolating the aquifer again (which the rock formation itself has done for eons, else there wouldn't be a lot of gas down there). But what happens when you increase the number of earthquakes in the region by over an order of magnitude? Do those caps stay in place? If no, then there is a real issue that needs to be resolved here.
"Idiot proof" - right there you just lost a couple points. Build a better nuclear reactor and the world builds a better idiot. Not that I'm against nuclear reactors, I just agree with the original premise - failures *will* happen with any system. Multiple independent fail-safes and dead-man systems are necessary for a system like this.
Theres some truth to that, but i meant it in the sense that human interaction isn't needed in the slightest, nor is any real mechanical action other than liquid flowing downward. Its not like "modern" (as in what operates now) reactors, where there is a time limit on the response within which some human being has to respond. Every human being could vanish from the earth in an instant, and a liquid sodium reactor would turn itself off 100% of the time. You take the human out of the equation.
For those who don't follow reactor tech and don't know whats being talked about, liquid sodium reactors use literally a vat of salts and radioactive material in a magma-like sludge. There is a plug at the bottom of the vat with a melting point that is well above operating spec, but well within reach if the reactor lost cooling. If all other failsafes are disabled, the plug melts and all the molten sludge runs into 2-3 smaller tanks. The reaction then stops being self sustaining, and you just have to recover the containment units and repair the reactor. Its literally idiot proof barring a fault line opening a chasm beneath the plant or a direct asteroid impact.
There are also gravity-fed means of cooling conventional reactors, but I wouldn't call any of them fool proof. Liquid sodium seems like the best bet to me from a safety standpoint, at least as far as using up existing nuclear material. Thorium reactors show promise as well, but since we have a ton of reusable nuclear material liquid sodium would be my choice from a practicality standpoint.
>>>meteorologists, veterinarians, heavy equipment operators, heavy equipment mechanics, small engine mechanics, welders, plumbers, geologists
No (they let the weather predictions to the weather bureau, same as us). No (they hire vets). Yes (as if that's hard). Maybe (some fix their equipment but most hire mechanics). No, maybe, no (plowing the earth does not make you a geologist).
I worked on a farm. It doesn't take a high IQ. If it did, most of humanity would have starved during the last 10,000 years of agrarianism. It's actually very simple (though time intensive). Which is why they propose crockpot theories like "Windmills make un's sick! I've got lists I downloaded off the conspiracy sites."
Working on farm is like any other menial labor, but owning and successfully operating a farm (being a farmer, rather than a hired hand) sure as hell takes a brain: especially running a small farm.
You don't hire all your vet work done and turn a profit at the end of the year; most farmers will have refrigerators stocked full of different vaccines, antibiotics, etc., and self-treat animals most of the time.
Its also cute how you dismissed small mechanics like an ass. I'm sure you're thinking about a pull start lawnmower, but diagnosing the problem on a grain conveyor in a feedbunk setup or a blower on a silo is a giant pain and definitely takes knowhow. And as for large mechanics, again, you don't just "hire a mechanic" and stay in business. Repair bills can be five figures in labor for really nasty problems on big equipment.
You also sure as hell do learn how to weld, do plumbing (and might even own your own backhoe attachment to do real work), and definitely know more practical geology than an average person. Fertilizer is expensive, and modern farms do extensive ground sampling (an agronomist does the actual sampling and analysis) to generate soil maps. Because "fertilizer" is a general term for you stupid city folk (see, I can be a patronizing ass too! No real offence intended city folks, making a point), and in reality there are a whole host of mineral deficiencies that can undermine productivity. A single field might need several different minerals in different areas, which are applied selectively to save money and maximize yields.
Theres more than that, but I wont get into it. The point I'm making here is this: people like you are the reason there is such a blind hatred of "city dwellers" (a friend of mine uses the term “cidiot” to poke fun at my now city dwelling self) in a lot of rural areas. Your mix of casual arrogance and ignorance (just stick a seed in the ground and it grows, right? Cause it’s that easy, and agriculture today is so much like agriculture a thousand years ago) really turns people off, and makes them more dismissive of your advice on topics you might actually be qualified to comment on. Ever wondered why a fair amount of farmers are willing to marginalize and dismiss science, even when it seems like it shouldn’t be controversial? Because people have marginalized and dismissed rural people for decades, especially university educated people who really should know better.
By the way, while I'm mentioning it, the term "flyover states" has almost certainly been involved in the decline in the democratic party in the Midwest (The DFL used to be huge where I'm from, now it is really struggling). It doesn't even matter what the conservatives are selling, when a farmer listens to a bunch of ignorant bullshit followed by a "flyover state" crack from some Northeast moron they instantly get the urge to cast a fuck you vote for a Republican in a national race. A lot (most, it seems like, but thats anecdotal) of local governments in the Midwest are majority democrats. Food for thought.
This happens with many places that work with at least moderately radioactive material (not just reactors). What you do is tape the building/site in question off and allow it to sit for 1-2 decades. In that time the radioactivity typically decreases by orders of magnitude from decay. I can't speak to the cost savings, but so long as the site is properly fenced the safety concerns from handling all that waste go down by a lot. It isn't a bad decision in theory, but many small outfits just go "woops, can't pay to clean this up" and stick the EPA with the bill. Which is ackward, because you can't very well require the funds for cleanup up front because it would make buisnesses that use radiation in any significant way (radiopharmaceutical companies, as an example) impossibly expensive to start.
But I suppose the point of this is to attack "evil nuclear," so I'm probably wasting my time even expaining the reality. That seems to be in fashion nowadays, reality be damned.
Application? How about an overhead drone carrying a payload thats roughly the same weight as now, except instead of blowing things up it just shoots you in the face. You dont have to carry a huge amount of munitions when 95% of the bullets will hit the target.
From now on, whenever you see a new military technology you should think about how it works with drones. For example, it probably isnt a coincidence that our new magnetic launch systems on carriers will allow lighter, more fragile aircraft (read, composite drones) to be launched. The official line is it does less damage to tradition aircraft, which it does. But the guys calling the shots on this stuff make war for a living, and the writing is on the wall as far as the future goes. "Lighter. Cheaper. Disposable"
I worry about this too. Not that I personally use it, but for a great many people (mostly poor and rural) OTA television is the only source of news and entertainment they have. They dont deserve to have public airwaves taken from them so that verizon makess more money, or so people in metro areas can download transformers in HD on their phone.
That being said this spectrum would be better off as data. The best solution would be to use it to offer free internet for personal use for the poor, as it has excellent coverage and is public property anyway. My parents finally got decent internet last month via Verizon, and though the data limits are terrible and the price high for home use, its a start. Probably more practical than burying fiber or cable into remote or poor areas.
Helium is the least reactive noble gas, and much lighter than air. Common sense says that it will rapidly leave our atmosphere. I dont remember the exact details (I had this brought up in a class once), but it was some combination of the ascending helium reaching escape velocity and solar wind peeling off anything that might try to settle in a super high orbit. The impending heium shortage is a well known problem, and a significant part of the reason I get an overwhelming urge to punch clowns in the face every time I see them handing out balloons.
And frankly, almost every alternative energy solution has serious if not fundamental flaws. If they didn't, we would already have been using them. Seriously, this "you're all just pessimists who work for oil companies and kick puppies" crap is getting old. Going off half cocked with some doe-eyed fantasy of a technotopian future filled with helium blimps and solar farms the size of small nations isn't going to fix anything. It took a hundred years and a lot of ignorance to get stuck in this energy policy quagmire, and logic dictates it will take twice that amount of time to get back out. You dont extract yourself from quicksand by thrashing about in a panic.
The body treats radioactive isotopes like any other particles: when ingested, it expells them almost immediately. There are specific exceptions, like iodine 131, that the body can mistake for the normal isotope (because your body only wants the iodine, the form means nothing), but even those are only harmful if ingested in very large quantities.
As an example, the posterchild for nuclear disaster, Chernobly, mostly resulted in a few dozen cancer deaths in children from iodine 131. Cows which eat grass covered in iodine 131 concentrate it in their milk. Children, who drink lots of milk, are also uniquely succeptable as they concentrate more iodine in their thyroid than adults (among other things). Had there been more care taken initially and more knowledge about the danger of thyroid cancer from iodine, virtually all the cancers could have been avoided (excluding the few people the Russians sent to die for the sake of expediancy. If you study the incedent, you'll learn how badly Chernobly was mismanaged and the crimes that were commited to calm the public quickly).
In short, dont worry so much. Even in the unlikely event you breathe or eat something, you will excrete it hours later. The old joke is that the biggest leathal force radiation brings to bear is anxiety. Your week of stress likely took more time off your life than walking through the Fukishima grounds would have.
Other posters have pointed out that this is the linear no threshold model, and we use it because it is the worst case scenario. Honestly, it is probably wrong. In fact, there has been recent speculation based on data from areas of the country with high natural radon concentrations that small doses of radiation are good for you. The theory goes that a small dose stimulates your body's natural genetic repair mechamisms, thus decreasing cancer occurance across the board.
We regulate using the worst models, assuming the highest exposure possible (example: if there is radiation in a stagnant lake we assume you drink that as your sole water source from birth to death, and regulate accordingly). Did you know peanuts naturally produce aflatoxin? Its a carcinogen. If you eat peanut butter toast for breakfast every day for most of your life, you have a measurable cancer risk increase. Radiation gets the press because it is abstract and scary. In reality, something mundane will probably kill you. And no one will care, because they will understand it. But god forbid you keel over within fifty miles of a nuclear plant. Because then the boogeyman (eherm, I mean radiation) must have gotten you.
I love technology of all kinds. I am also working on a graduate degree in health physics (radiation protection would be the more appropriate title, fyi). Frankly, assuming this isn't someone trolling slashdot, he really shouldn't bother. The fact that he had to ask if alpha radiation was a significant concern tells me he isn't even close to qualified to assess the risks a radioactive source poses.
Think of it this way.. If someone asked you "I want to write my own TV database scraper. What would the best type of programming language to learn be? Will I need a keyboard? Just fyi, I only have a small amount of time, as this isn't my career," what would your response be? The question he asked is on the same level. If you don't immediately recognize that, then you really have no business commenting on the subject. It would be like someone asking for the best statistical thermodynamics textbook, then making it apparent they didn't know basic algebra.
Ignoring for a second the obvious serious lack of knowledge, radiation monitoring equiptment of any quality is expensive and needs calibration. Which requires access to radioactive standard sources. A geiger counter tells you nothing, especially a crappy one. I have a natural uranium deposit not far from my home. A geiger counter would light up like a christmas tree near it. If you didn't understand what what was going on, or even worse, didn't have any understanding past "the needle is moving, oh no!", then the results would be at best worthless and at worst misleading. And in the end someone untrained would have wasted thousands of dollars for no reason.
Believe it or not radiation is a complex and not at all obvious thing. Most people haven't studied it in any significant fashion, in a university or otherwise. In the same way a doctor would never encourage someone to self diagnose, I would never encourage someone to measure radioactive exposure by themseves. It would be irresponsible for me to do so. And excuse all the comparisons, but I occasionally go to public outreach meetings and have become aware that people need things put in terms they understand. Especially smart people. Smart people tend to form an ignorant view, assume they are right, then assume some kind of conspiracy when they are informed they are wrong.
Personally I'm against huge investments in solar power because not only are the economics not favorable yet, but the realities of storing and transmitting solar power (ignoring the actual panel efficiency and production costs, which still aren't great either) at the present moment make it only marginally useful in very isolated areas. Its not a realistic solution for this generation, no matter how badly anyone wants it to be. With large breakthroughs in battery technology (pretty likely), panel efficiency and cost (pretty likely), and superconductor technology (maybe) in the next handful of decades it may be the perfect solution for the next generation. But huge expenditures and preferential legislation now would be a waste: the groundwork isn't laid and like most research you can't pump money in and expect results to scale with the investment.
That all being said, there are certainly legitimate uses for solar technology right now that doesn't involve industrial power. Solar is great for prolonged field applications where weight and accessibility are issues. This story is a perfect example. Solar powered electric fencers for small and medium livestock is another (up to horse size, I sure wouldn't expect to keep a bull in with one. Not enough juice for something that bends steel like candle wax). It a great time to start a small firm and expand the technology into peripheral markets like these.
What irritates me is when people insinuate there are massive conspiracies to destroy alternative energy like wind and solar in favor of coal and nuclear, and that the only justification for endorsing those "bad" technologies is financial or ideological. What is desired and what is practical very rarely coincide, and most mainstream alternative energy still isn't practical on a large scale. Its not a free market issue, I wholeheartedly wish that embracing wind and solar on a large scale was as simple as a change in tax code or a congressional mandate. But it isn't. And I don't care if oil companies, the NRA, the pope or the goddamn Illuminati say the same thing, it doesn't make the reality of it any less true.
Not even remotely true. In the area I come from, the creationist strategy is simply changing.
When I was just a child there was a community not far from my home that had maybe ten houses and an ultra-fundamentalist church with 50 or so members. I went to school with some of the members' kids, and it led to some very interesting conversations (and I was raised in a liberal-ish Lutheran congregation, so its not as though I'm at all hostile to Christianity).. Anyway, that congregation has something like quadrupled in size, and is currently adding on a youth center and a gym to "keep the kids out of sin." Presumably there will eventually be an ultraconservative private school there, since the people that attend that church are fed up with not getting their way in our local school districts (although I vividly remember having to watch creationist propaganda in eighth grade science class, though at that time no one said anything.). A friend of mine growing up, from a different church (hes baptist), told me in college he learns the biology textbook to pass the tests, but refuses believe any of it. I imagine that will be the line the private religious school will take too.
I guess the point I'm making is that creationist teaching is just going underground. These people are segregating themselves and becoming more radical, which is providing the illusion that the creationist line of thought is in decline and the attack on science is relenting. It isn't. Segregated communities are indoctrinating kids from day one, then sending them to conservative colleges and law schools where they are trained to enter government and undermine it from within. Representative Bachmann is a prime example, she doesn't even deny that was the mission of the law school she attended.
I'll end with this tidbit: ever wonder why ultraconservatives were pushing so hard for a school voucher system? Could it be that such a system would make it frighteningly easy for this type of behavior to flourish, by essentially subsidizing extremist institutions? Just my take on things of course, but it disturbs me as someone inside the scientific community.
I can't speak for the large operations, but on the small (thousand-ish) acre farm where I grew up we baled cornstalks just like hay or straw. The big cornstalk bales are piled off to the side where they are used as animal bedding (either in the feedlot sheds or pushed around in the fields for the roaming herds). It gives the animals a warm comfortable place to sleep, mostly just during the winter. Once it thaws or becomes too messy the shed is cleaned into a manure spreader, and flung onto fields that need it (either visibly or based on a soil analysis). Generally this results in the poo+cornstalks being plowed back in at the start of spring.
I know its not popular on here, but there is a point at which you just have to accept that humans change their environment, and there will be casualties. Rather than wasting a bunch of money fighting and regulating every industry on the planet, its probably more realistic to regulate enough to make the environment safe for people and buy separate reserves to set aside for animal habitat. Its not a solution I like either, but turning back the clock on over a hundred years of industrial progress just isn't going to happen.
Not to mention there is a law of diminishing returns on farm regulation: past a certain point, regulation make small scale farming infeasible. But large scale farms are far and away more likely to use "unfriendly" farming methods, largely because the connection to the land isn't there. If you over regulate (and its already happening) small farmers who are likely to care about the land get bought out by superfarms. Superfarms typically don't care about sustainability or the landscape. Two farms near us recently went under, and when they were purchased all the wooded areas that had been used for grazing were chopped and plowed under. The regulations that were supposed to help protect wildlife ended up doing tremendous harm.
Another example is Monarch Butterflies. Monarchs feed exclusively on milkweed, and the best place to find milkweed as I grew up was on fence lines (typically between cow-pastures). As farms merge and pasture is being plowed in favor of large straight fields that giant farm implements can drive easily, these areas are vanishing (the idea that the price of corn is diving these changes isn't entirely true, the fact is that even if corn was dirt cheap its more cost effective for a large farm to grow it in giant straight fields with giant implements). Not surprisingly, experts are now worried about declining Monarch populations. Food for thought, I hope.