On old models, newer ones operate down below 5m/sec and effectively have no upper limit. The blades alter their angle of attack to keep the speed of rotation constant.
Maybe you should look into wind turbine design. Take a look at the second to last page of this product brochure from a modern turbine on sale from the largest manufacturer of wind turbines in the world. Please note the following; 1. the minimum wind speed is 3m/sec (so there are times when there is wind and no power) 2. The power generation increases till 13m/sec so there are times when the turbine is not creating full power 3. Even though the scale at the bottom of the grid goes to 30 m/sec the graph stops at 25m/sec. That is because altering the angle of the blades is not anough to protect the turbine and is must be stopped. Note that the third to last page has a cut out wind speed of 25 m/sec. That confirms the issue that the turbine must be stopped when wind speeds exceed 25m/sec.
Fortunately those are evened out by the very large amount of momentum in the blades, and the fact that they can vary their angle to accommodate different wind speeds.
Take a look at figure 5 from this paper. Notice how jagged the graph is. The power grid works by balancing load and generation. When generation fluctuates minute by minute it becomes much more difficult to manage that balance.
Why do you expect everything to be perfect and flawless from the very start?
Because it is the power grid and if the power generation is not perfect it can cause major disruptions in the grid. A good example of this is a that took out power to 7 states and one province. It was started by one plant going off line at a bad time.
Have you not noticed that we still don't have a good way to deal with nuclear waste, or pollution from coal burning?
From a generation point of view these points are irrelevant as they will not cause instability in the grid and blackouts.
If you live in a cold environment I bet you have at least one portable electric heater to supplement central heating on cold days. Also central heating still uses electricity to circulate the heat.
You seem not to understand the issue if penetration vs malware. It is not a linear correlation. One OS with 10% or penetration will not have 10% of the mallware. When a malware writer decides which OS to target they will almost always, much more than 90% of the time, choose the 90% penetration rater than the 10% penetration. There will be a few people who go against the norm but that is shown in the small number of OSX malware. On the other hand as the penetration increases so will interest in making malware. Say 20%80% I bet that most malware writers will still target the 80% and nowhere near 20% will be for the lower penetration OS., At 40%/60% the 40% OS will become much more viable as a target.
It all comes down to this; malware writer create malware for the biggest targets. As a target get bigger more malware will be written for it.
The issue with absolute numbers is that that do not take into account recent or future changes in penetration..What happened in the previous years where OSX penetration was stagnant does not matter as I am talking about is change. Considering that Apple penetration increased by 50% but malware creation increased 200% the exponential growth is already showing.
Not directly but most central heating systems use electrical fans or pumps to move air or water throughout the building. It is not as high a usage as electricity generated heat but it is still significant. Even a geothermal heat pump uses electricity to circulate coolant.
Take a look at page 10 of this report; http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-quarterly-threat-q1-2012.pdf. The number of new malware programs has almost tripled in 3 years. It is true the numbers are far from the Windows numbers but then so is the installation base and the OSX numbers are far from one or two..
There is a problem with using absolute terms such as "there is never a time when there is no wind anywhere". It is not about having no wind; it is about having enough wind at the right speed to fulfill energy needs. The "the no wind anywhere" argument talks about the absence of wind generated power but not the insufficiency of wind generated power.
Wind generators work in wind velocities between 5 m/sec and 25 m/sec. Fast enough to turn them but not so fast as to damage them. When winds get above 25 m/sec the blades are stopped to prevent damage. Also, wind turbines have an optimal wind speed. At less than that speed the turbine produces less energy. So there will be many instances where a wind turbine will not produce sufficient electricity to replace solar.
Another issue with wind power is that output is not constant as wind is not constant; there are gusts and lulls. The power grid works by balancing generation and demand. Minute to minute output from a wind turbine can vary significantly. When wind input is small these variable can be dealt with but as more wind generators come on line the control complexity increases exponentially. The one way to deal with this intermittent fluctuations is storage in things like pumped hydro or flywheels. These storage facilities cost money to build and operate.
Lets just take wind and solar in combination; Wind powered generation is decreased when wind speeds are low or high. How much redundancy in a wind power system would be required to make up for this variability so that the wind powered system can be relied upon to give a constant minimum supply? Easily at least twice. Cost of storage to even out wind fluctuations. Solar power is less in winter and during cloudy days. How much redundancy would be required to cover those low times? Easily at least twice. Power would have to be distributed much further to distribute power from areas that are windier/sunnier to other areas. There is a cost in that infrastructure.
To putt this all together, the cost of reliable solar/wind power is as follows; The cost of desired wind input*2 + the cost of desired solar input *2 + the cost of transmission lines + storage costs. Do you really want the cost of electricity to jump 4 (solar is already almost twice as expensive as conventional) or more times today's costs?
The mention of French nuclear plants brings up an interesting point. Germany has decided to close their nuclear plants as being unsafe. Where do you think they will be purchasing power when their solar and wind output is low. The source would most probably be French nuclear plants. So Germany thinks nuclear power is unsafe but has no problem purchasing nuclear generated power from another country; that seems a bit hypocritical to me.
The European Super Grid is a great idea but when it is night in Europe and Africa there is little or no solar power input. Note I say little because there will be a few plants that store heat to be used at night. To fulfill the vision of the OP there would have to be connections between Europe and North America so when it is night in Europe North America can supply solar power and vice versa.
Desertrec uses a 2000 km long DC transmission line across a very shallow sea to get power from Africa to Europe. Please note that this is a South/North line. When It is night in Europe it will be night in Africa so there is no transmission of power from daytime solar plants to night time users. To connect Europe with North America would require a 5000km transmission line through a very deep ocean that is seismically active. The engineering issues to connect Europe and North America are very different than connecting Africa to Europe. A 5000km transmission line has never been done and may not even be possible. There is a limit to how long a DC transmission line can be.
So planning for a very possible eventuality is a bad thing? It is not about the grid working perfectly. It is about planning for foreseeable times when solar and wind energy production will drop due to environmental factors. By touting production in optimal conditions they lull people into a false sense of security. Power production figures when weather conditions are perfect are usless numbers. The important numbers are what will happen in cases where weather is bad and production is down. If a system can not deal with low times it is not a valid solution.
And who is going to spend the billions, possibly trillions of dollars, to build the grid to move terawatts of power between continents? We can barely find enough money to keep our local grids reasonably healthy.
My point is that solar and wind power are dependent on the weather and the time of year. I am tired of articles touting the maximum output of solar and wind farms instead of the average output. Proponents also ignore the time when output will drop to zero. It comes down to how reliable to we want our electrical system to be. How many time a year is is acceptable to have blackouts or brownouts due to environmental conditions causing a drop in solar and wind power? Some people would say 0 is their acceptable number.
If the wind speed surpasses 25 m/sec turbines are shut down to protect them. http://www.bwea.com/pdf/briefings/technology05_small.pdf. In this case there would be little solar power and no wind power. Also a storm may just be heavy cloud cover with significant snowfall.
Face changes; A picture taken over 10 years ago is significantly different that mine today. Fingerprints change; scars, acids, growth all cause fingerprints to change significantly. Signature; My signature is rarely the same twice.
I just love it when a sensationalistics statistic is used. The article states a 153% increase in failure rate. How about you look at the pass rate; it would decrease from 99.99995% to 99.999875. That is a decrease of 0.000075%. That change is pretty insugnificant.
Talk to me in December when the sun is low on the horizon and there is a a major storm passing through Germany. How is that different than the quoted article? 1. Sun being lower produces less solar power. 2. Storms block most of the sun decreasing output of solar power plants 3. Snow accumulation can completely stop solar power production. 4. Winter causes higher demand for electrical heat. 5. Darker skies cause more use of lighting.
Taking the increased usage and decreased production into account power production from solar plants could easily drop from 1/3 or requirements to 5%. Instead of touting the optimal power output on a clear sky cool day they need to look at the worst case scenario. The issue with solar power is that you can not turn it on when you need it and that will never change.
Android is a mobile OS while Windows is a desktop OS. Trying to compare the two is comparing apples to oranges. I find it interesting how you completely ignore the growth of OSX malware as OSX is gaining popularity. Comparing a desktop OS to a Desktop OS is valid.
Malware is written for the largest target available; currently that is Microsoft Windows. If many businesses switched to *nix on the destop it would become more popular and more malware would be written for it. That would take one back exactly where Windows is today. It may be a short term gain to switch to *nix but as a long term solution it is doomed. This phenomenon can be seen with OSX. As OSX becomes more popular more malware is being written for it. Remember I am talking about *nix on a desktop and not server.
According to a couple of sites she was an attorney at King & Spalding in Houston and she calls herself "attorney at law" in a continuing education course. I attempted to find her through the Texas Bar but her name does not come up. Is she a lawyer or not?
I bet if the photographer walked into any lawyer's office and stated the case the lawyer would be happy to counter sue. Bowing to threats just lets the bullies get away with intimidation. There are laws against threats and baseless lawsuits. She would have to pay legal fees if something like this ever went to court. Hiding behind non-profit status does not make bullying OK.
Another avenue is that since she is a lawyer you could forward the communications to the State Bar association as baseless threats of lawsuits is an ethical issue. The Bar may not do anything but they may. If one does not try then it defiantly will never work. As Gretzky said "Every shot not taken will miss."
We are talking about medical equipment that would have to be certified by the FDA. That would mean that every GPS receiver and every implementation of local NTP would have to go through a rigorous and costly certification process. The following issues would have to be certified; 1. Is the device accurate. 2. How does the device interact with the software. 3. How does the device interact with every device receiving data. This is the hard part.
Secondly, is it even necessary? The issue seems to be that there is an offset between the clock on the equipment and actual time. How about at the beginning of the operation the doctor writes down all the times as stated on the medical equipment. If necessary these offsets can be applied later to normalize the times. This reminds me of the time when the US spent tens of thousands of dollars to build a pen that would work in zero gravity(it was pressurized with gas). When a cosmonaut was asked how they coped he said "In Russia we use pencil". Sometimes high tech just complicates the issue.
The point is that France attempted to spread their ban to the entire EU. Perhaps that is due to France trying to limit the production of corn in other EU countries so that can export theirs.
Even if the French do not eat much corn directly they eat it indirectly through the meat they eat.
Is it possible that the French ban is there to protect their own corn industry by suppressing the industry in other countries of the EU? Protectionism is bad for the EU economy.
The issue is that the ban in France was even overturned by their own courts as not being scientifically based. They then tried again to get it banned throughout the entire EU and failed again.
Here is a quote;"
EuropaBio, the European biotech industry group, urged French leaders to decide "whether they want to regain their position as a leader of agricultural innovation or support an anti-science agenda that weakens Europe's competitiveness" after a judgment on Monday from Paris's highest court.
You might also want to check this out. Notice how many countries have approved the corn.
Here is an interesting piece of information from this article;
“The new ban is not justified by scientific evidence,” John Combest, a spokesman for Monsanto, said in a e-mail today. The company does not market MON810 in France because “we seek planting where we have broad farmer and government support,” Combest said.
Now why would France want to ban something not even marketed in their country? Perhaps it is that they want to protect their own seed industry at the expense of growers in other EU countries.
Take a look at this article. The EU has yet to order France to lift the ban and nothing will happen till after the election and any new government has shown its intentions. That has not happened.
To summarize, the EU reviewed the corn last year and found no issues. France banned the corn, Their own courts overturned that ban. France banned it again. France applied to get the ban applied to all EU countries. The EU declined. That is where we stand today. The French ban is still in effect but there will be no EU ban.
In conclusion, the EFSA GMO Panel considers that, based on the documentation submitted by France, there is no specific scientific evidence, in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment, that would support the notification of an emergency measure under Article 34 of Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 and that would invalidate its previous risk assessments of maize MON 810.
Basically, the "significant imminent risk" standard is for the use of "emergency measure[s]". That does not mean that after study it will not be banned but that the emergency powers do not fit.
Care to provide a reference for autonomous drones? And by reference I mean make and model of a drone that actually exists or is even on the drawing board that is within the budget of a police department. As far as I can tell there are no autonomous drones that are anywhere within the budget of a Police Department to purchase one let alone hundreds of them.
Drones for surveillance can be told to just loiter around a specific spot with its cameras recording continuously on a specific area. If you want 24/7 coverage, have another drone take over when the first one gets low on juice.
Even is this is possible now there still has to be someone to watch all that video and find the important parts.
Drones are capable today of loitering a few km away from you, unseen and unheard, with optics easily capable of reading the text message off your cellphone screen while you are tapping away outside. Optics like this have been around for decades.
Reference please? I see no way a camera kilometers away can read test 1/4" high. Another issue is the the cell phone would have to be positioned exactly for the camera to see the text. Can you read the text through the back of the phone, side of the phone or through a person? It is hard enough for someone a few feet away to read someone else's test let alone kilometers.
Its only a matter of time before drones are small and cheap enough that you can have dozens of them flying around a city 24/7.
That may be true but what time period are we looking at? Five years? ten years? 30 years? The point is that right now authorities want to use a few drones that they can afford to replace expensive helicopters. Slippery slope arguments are invalid. There is no reason to stop something good happening now because in the future with many changes something bad might, may or possibly could happen. It is also possible that it will not happen and a good thing is squashed for no reason. If it is good now then do it. If things change in the future we can deal with it then. How many times do people have to say this; There is not privacy from visual surveillance when in public.
The word "automated" in the title has no use at all. Automation generally means to operate with as little human input as possible. All drones have a pilot and sometimes a separate camera operator. All a drone does is move the crew from inside the aircraft to on the ground.
The whole debate of drones being able to track an identifiable person at a protest is also bunk. Here are how individuals can be tracked without drones today; 1. From a helicopter (that could be described as a manned drone> 2. From rooftops 3. From the ground by following 4. From light pole mounted camera 5. From store mounted camera There is no expectation of privacy when on the streets. All a drone does is make it less expensive to have an eye in the sky. Helicopters are very expensive to operate. Perhaps the savings can go into more police to investigate lesser crimes.
To the slippery slope "it could be used to peak into ours homes" people; by that logic police should not have guns because they could be used to shoot people that disagree with the government. I agree that the laws dealing with how drones are used should be very strict and may already be covered by existing privacy laws. What I don't agree with is to deny the use of a tool because it could be misused. Any tool can be misused but the benefits must be weighted beside the risks. For example, most police officers do not have automatic rifles as they are too powerful for standard use but they do have pistols even though both can kill people.
A drone is just a tool, like a helicopter or police car, to be used for the safety of people.
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On old models, newer ones operate down below 5m/sec and effectively have no upper limit. The blades alter their angle of attack to keep the speed of rotation constant.
Maybe you should look into wind turbine design. Take a look at the second to last page of this product brochure from a modern turbine on sale from the largest manufacturer of wind turbines in the world. Please note the following;
1. the minimum wind speed is 3m/sec (so there are times when there is wind and no power)
2. The power generation increases till 13m/sec so there are times when the turbine is not creating full power
3. Even though the scale at the bottom of the grid goes to 30 m/sec the graph stops at 25m/sec. That is because altering the angle of the blades is not anough to protect the turbine and is must be stopped.
Note that the third to last page has a cut out wind speed of 25 m/sec. That confirms the issue that the turbine must be stopped when wind speeds exceed 25m/sec.
Fortunately those are evened out by the very large amount of momentum in the blades, and the fact that they can vary their angle to accommodate different wind speeds.
Take a look at figure 5 from this paper. Notice how jagged the graph is. The power grid works by balancing load and generation. When generation fluctuates minute by minute it becomes much more difficult to manage that balance.
Why do you expect everything to be perfect and flawless from the very start?
Because it is the power grid and if the power generation is not perfect it can cause major disruptions in the grid. A good example of this is a that took out power to 7 states and one province. It was started by one plant going off line at a bad time.
Have you not noticed that we still don't have a good way to deal with nuclear waste, or pollution from coal burning?
From a generation point of view these points are irrelevant as they will not cause instability in the grid and blackouts.
If you live in a cold environment I bet you have at least one portable electric heater to supplement central heating on cold days. Also central heating still uses electricity to circulate the heat.
You seem not to understand the issue if penetration vs malware. It is not a linear correlation. One OS with 10% or penetration will not have 10% of the mallware. When a malware writer decides which OS to target they will almost always, much more than 90% of the time, choose the 90% penetration rater than the 10% penetration. There will be a few people who go against the norm but that is shown in the small number of OSX malware. On the other hand as the penetration increases so will interest in making malware. Say 20%80% I bet that most malware writers will still target the 80% and nowhere near 20% will be for the lower penetration OS., At 40%/60% the 40% OS will become much more viable as a target.
It all comes down to this; malware writer create malware for the biggest targets. As a target get bigger more malware will be written for it.
The issue with absolute numbers is that that do not take into account recent or future changes in penetration. .What happened in the previous years where OSX penetration was stagnant does not matter as I am talking about is change. Considering that Apple penetration increased by 50% but malware creation increased 200% the exponential growth is already showing.
Not directly but most central heating systems use electrical fans or pumps to move air or water throughout the building. It is not as high a usage as electricity generated heat but it is still significant. Even a geothermal heat pump uses electricity to circulate coolant.
Take a look at page 10 of this report; http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-quarterly-threat-q1-2012.pdf. The number of new malware programs has almost tripled in 3 years. It is true the numbers are far from the Windows numbers but then so is the installation base and the OSX numbers are far from one or two..
There is a problem with using absolute terms such as "there is never a time when there is no wind anywhere". It is not about having no wind; it is about having enough wind at the right speed to fulfill energy needs. The "the no wind anywhere" argument talks about the absence of wind generated power but not the insufficiency of wind generated power.
Wind generators work in wind velocities between 5 m/sec and 25 m/sec. Fast enough to turn them but not so fast as to damage them. When winds get above 25 m/sec the blades are stopped to prevent damage. Also, wind turbines have an optimal wind speed. At less than that speed the turbine produces less energy. So there will be many instances where a wind turbine will not produce sufficient electricity to replace solar.
Another issue with wind power is that output is not constant as wind is not constant; there are gusts and lulls. The power grid works by balancing generation and demand. Minute to minute output from a wind turbine can vary significantly. When wind input is small these variable can be dealt with but as more wind generators come on line the control complexity increases exponentially. The one way to deal with this intermittent fluctuations is storage in things like pumped hydro or flywheels. These storage facilities cost money to build and operate.
Lets just take wind and solar in combination;
Wind powered generation is decreased when wind speeds are low or high. How much redundancy in a wind power system would be required to make up for this variability so that the wind powered system can be relied upon to give a constant minimum supply? Easily at least twice.
Cost of storage to even out wind fluctuations.
Solar power is less in winter and during cloudy days. How much redundancy would be required to cover those low times? Easily at least twice.
Power would have to be distributed much further to distribute power from areas that are windier/sunnier to other areas. There is a cost in that infrastructure.
To putt this all together, the cost of reliable solar/wind power is as follows;
The cost of desired wind input*2 + the cost of desired solar input *2 + the cost of transmission lines + storage costs.
Do you really want the cost of electricity to jump 4 (solar is already almost twice as expensive as conventional) or more times today's costs?
The mention of French nuclear plants brings up an interesting point. Germany has decided to close their nuclear plants as being unsafe. Where do you think they will be purchasing power when their solar and wind output is low. The source would most probably be French nuclear plants. So Germany thinks nuclear power is unsafe but has no problem purchasing nuclear generated power from another country; that seems a bit hypocritical to me.
The European Super Grid is a great idea but when it is night in Europe and Africa there is little or no solar power input. Note I say little because there will be a few plants that store heat to be used at night. To fulfill the vision of the OP there would have to be connections between Europe and North America so when it is night in Europe North America can supply solar power and vice versa.
Desertrec uses a 2000 km long DC transmission line across a very shallow sea to get power from Africa to Europe. Please note that this is a South/North line. When It is night in Europe it will be night in Africa so there is no transmission of power from daytime solar plants to night time users. To connect Europe with North America would require a 5000km transmission line through a very deep ocean that is seismically active. The engineering issues to connect Europe and North America are very different than connecting Africa to Europe. A 5000km transmission line has never been done and may not even be possible. There is a limit to how long a DC transmission line can be.
So planning for a very possible eventuality is a bad thing? It is not about the grid working perfectly. It is about planning for foreseeable times when solar and wind energy production will drop due to environmental factors. By touting production in optimal conditions they lull people into a false sense of security. Power production figures when weather conditions are perfect are usless numbers. The important numbers are what will happen in cases where weather is bad and production is down. If a system can not deal with low times it is not a valid solution.
And who is going to spend the billions, possibly trillions of dollars, to build the grid to move terawatts of power between continents? We can barely find enough money to keep our local grids reasonably healthy.
My point is that solar and wind power are dependent on the weather and the time of year. I am tired of articles touting the maximum output of solar and wind farms instead of the average output. Proponents also ignore the time when output will drop to zero. It comes down to how reliable to we want our electrical system to be. How many time a year is is acceptable to have blackouts or brownouts due to environmental conditions causing a drop in solar and wind power? Some people would say 0 is their acceptable number.
If the wind speed surpasses 25 m/sec turbines are shut down to protect them. http://www.bwea.com/pdf/briefings/technology05_small.pdf. In this case there would be little solar power and no wind power. Also a storm may just be heavy cloud cover with significant snowfall.
Face changes; A picture taken over 10 years ago is significantly different that mine today.
Fingerprints change; scars, acids, growth all cause fingerprints to change significantly.
Signature; My signature is rarely the same twice.
I just love it when a sensationalistics statistic is used. The article states a 153% increase in failure rate. How about you look at the pass rate; it would decrease from 99.99995% to 99.999875. That is a decrease of 0.000075%. That change is pretty insugnificant.
Talk to me in December when the sun is low on the horizon and there is a a major storm passing through Germany. How is that different than the quoted article?
1. Sun being lower produces less solar power.
2. Storms block most of the sun decreasing output of solar power plants
3. Snow accumulation can completely stop solar power production.
4. Winter causes higher demand for electrical heat.
5. Darker skies cause more use of lighting.
Taking the increased usage and decreased production into account power production from solar plants could easily drop from 1/3 or requirements to 5%. Instead of touting the optimal power output on a clear sky cool day they need to look at the worst case scenario. The issue with solar power is that you can not turn it on when you need it and that will never change.
Android is a mobile OS while Windows is a desktop OS. Trying to compare the two is comparing apples to oranges. I find it interesting how you completely ignore the growth of OSX malware as OSX is gaining popularity. Comparing a desktop OS to a Desktop OS is valid.
Malware is written for the largest target available; currently that is Microsoft Windows. If many businesses switched to *nix on the destop it would become more popular and more malware would be written for it. That would take one back exactly where Windows is today. It may be a short term gain to switch to *nix but as a long term solution it is doomed. This phenomenon can be seen with OSX. As OSX becomes more popular more malware is being written for it. Remember I am talking about *nix on a desktop and not server.
According to a couple of sites she was an attorney at King & Spalding in Houston and she calls herself "attorney at law" in a continuing education course. I attempted to find her through the Texas Bar but her name does not come up. Is she a lawyer or not?
I bet if the photographer walked into any lawyer's office and stated the case the lawyer would be happy to counter sue. Bowing to threats just lets the bullies get away with intimidation. There are laws against threats and baseless lawsuits. She would have to pay legal fees if something like this ever went to court. Hiding behind non-profit status does not make bullying OK.
Another avenue is that since she is a lawyer you could forward the communications to the State Bar association as baseless threats of lawsuits is an ethical issue. The Bar may not do anything but they may. If one does not try then it defiantly will never work. As Gretzky said "Every shot not taken will miss."
We are talking about medical equipment that would have to be certified by the FDA. That would mean that every GPS receiver and every implementation of local NTP would have to go through a rigorous and costly certification process. The following issues would have to be certified;
1. Is the device accurate.
2. How does the device interact with the software.
3. How does the device interact with every device receiving data. This is the hard part.
Secondly, is it even necessary? The issue seems to be that there is an offset between the clock on the equipment and actual time. How about at the beginning of the operation the doctor writes down all the times as stated on the medical equipment. If necessary these offsets can be applied later to normalize the times. This reminds me of the time when the US spent tens of thousands of dollars to build a pen that would work in zero gravity(it was pressurized with gas). When a cosmonaut was asked how they coped he said "In Russia we use pencil". Sometimes high tech just complicates the issue.
The point is that France attempted to spread their ban to the entire EU. Perhaps that is due to France trying to limit the production of corn in other EU countries so that can export theirs.
Even if the French do not eat much corn directly they eat it indirectly through the meat they eat.
Is it possible that the French ban is there to protect their own corn industry by suppressing the industry in other countries of the EU? Protectionism is bad for the EU economy.
The issue is that the ban in France was even overturned by their own courts as not being scientifically based. They then tried again to get it banned throughout the entire EU and failed again.
Here is a quote;"
EuropaBio, the European biotech industry group, urged French leaders to decide "whether they want to regain their position as a leader of agricultural innovation or support an anti-science agenda that weakens Europe's competitiveness" after a judgment on Monday from Paris's highest court.
You might also want to check this out. Notice how many countries have approved the corn.
Here is an interesting piece of information from this article;
“The new ban is not justified by scientific evidence,” John Combest, a spokesman for Monsanto, said in a e-mail today. The company does not market MON810 in France because “we seek planting where we have broad farmer and government support,” Combest said.
Now why would France want to ban something not even marketed in their country? Perhaps it is that they want to protect their own seed industry at the expense of growers in other EU countries.
Take a look at this article. The EU has yet to order France to lift the ban and nothing will happen till after the election and any new government has shown its intentions. That has not happened.
To summarize, the EU reviewed the corn last year and found no issues. France banned the corn, Their own courts overturned that ban. France banned it again. France applied to get the ban applied to all EU countries. The EU declined. That is where we stand today. The French ban is still in effect but there will be no EU ban.
This is the actual conclusion;
In conclusion, the EFSA GMO Panel considers that, based on the documentation submitted by France, there is no specific scientific evidence, in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment, that would support the notification of an emergency measure under Article 34 of Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 and that would invalidate its previous risk assessments of maize MON 810.
Basically, the "significant imminent risk" standard is for the use of "emergency measure[s]". That does not mean that after study it will not be banned but that the emergency powers do not fit.
The French are not big eaters of corn, anyways.
Considering France is the 7th largerst producer of maize in the world that may not be true.
Anonymous is for an open and free internet with one exception; criticize us and we will shut you down.
To me that is the height of hypocracy.
Care to provide a reference for autonomous drones? And by reference I mean make and model of a drone that actually exists or is even on the drawing board that is within the budget of a police department. As far as I can tell there are no autonomous drones that are anywhere within the budget of a Police Department to purchase one let alone hundreds of them.
Drones for surveillance can be told to just loiter around a specific spot with its cameras recording continuously on a specific area. If you want 24/7 coverage, have another drone take over when the first one gets low on juice.
Even is this is possible now there still has to be someone to watch all that video and find the important parts.
Drones are capable today of loitering a few km away from you, unseen and unheard, with optics easily capable of reading the text message off your cellphone screen while you are tapping away outside. Optics like this have been around for decades.
Reference please? I see no way a camera kilometers away can read test 1/4" high. Another issue is the the cell phone would have to be positioned exactly for the camera to see the text. Can you read the text through the back of the phone, side of the phone or through a person? It is hard enough for someone a few feet away to read someone else's test let alone kilometers.
Its only a matter of time before drones are small and cheap enough that you can have dozens of them flying around a city 24/7.
That may be true but what time period are we looking at? Five years? ten years? 30 years? The point is that right now authorities want to use a few drones that they can afford to replace expensive helicopters. Slippery slope arguments are invalid. There is no reason to stop something good happening now because in the future with many changes something bad might, may or possibly could happen. It is also possible that it will not happen and a good thing is squashed for no reason. If it is good now then do it. If things change in the future we can deal with it then.
How many times do people have to say this; There is not privacy from visual surveillance when in public.
The word "automated" in the title has no use at all. Automation generally means to operate with as little human input as possible. All drones have a pilot and sometimes a separate camera operator. All a drone does is move the crew from inside the aircraft to on the ground.
The whole debate of drones being able to track an identifiable person at a protest is also bunk. Here are how individuals can be tracked without drones today;
1. From a helicopter (that could be described as a manned drone>
2. From rooftops
3. From the ground by following
4. From light pole mounted camera
5. From store mounted camera
There is no expectation of privacy when on the streets. All a drone does is make it less expensive to have an eye in the sky. Helicopters are very expensive to operate. Perhaps the savings can go into more police to investigate lesser crimes.
To the slippery slope "it could be used to peak into ours homes" people; by that logic police should not have guns because they could be used to shoot people that disagree with the government. I agree that the laws dealing with how drones are used should be very strict and may already be covered by existing privacy laws. What I don't agree with is to deny the use of a tool because it could be misused. Any tool can be misused but the benefits must be weighted beside the risks. For example, most police officers do not have automatic rifles as they are too powerful for standard use but they do have pistols even though both can kill people.
A drone is just a tool, like a helicopter or police car, to be used for the safety of people.