Here's the problem. Gravity is only interested in moving stuff in one direction, down. At some water will have to move against the gradient. Does the process produce enough energy to do that? If it does, how much water do you need in how much space, but just as importantly, what is the rate of production?
Oh, we'll put it on the coast, people say. Do the mixing reservoirs have access to the ocean? Good luck with the tides.
Every process has a time component. That's why it's called a process. Some are fast and some are slow.
Your input to this otherwise closed system is the sun and hinges on how quickly you can convert the water's state into gas.
The evaporation of the water is not "sped up" by a greenhouse effect. A greenhouse is a natural consequence of water evaporating in a closed system. If anything, it will slow down as the humidity increases until it reaches an equilibrium with the rate set by how much water you're taking out of the water in the form of precipitation.
The only way to speed up the process is to add more energy. That's a lot of mirrors.
Here's the problem. At no point in that article does it mention the specifics of how much energy they are getting out of the process. How much of this energy is in say, a cubic meter of water given it's most favorable mixing and efficient generating conditions. Is it enough to move that cubic meter of water up, let's say, one meter? Do you know something about this process other than what's in the article and the first few google hits?
I read this summary extremely skeptical but after reading the article (which is pretty sparse on detail) it sounds simple enough to work. In principle.
The problem is this sentence:
Once he jump starts the cell with electric power, all that is required to produce electricity are sources of fresh and salty water and a pump to keep the water flowing.
Pumping water is a notoriously is a notoriously energy expensive process. That's why we try to use gravity as much as possible to move our water around. The question is if this process produces enough energy to offset the cost of moving in and out of the (presumably) mixing chamber. If the answer is no, then this grinds to a screeching halt right then and there.
This stuff about X process is equivalent to Y incredibly energetic phenomena is misleading. There's incredible amounts of energy locked up in just about anything. It's just that our technology is such that our extraction processes suck. We're terrible at it. Think about cars. Of all the ways we know of motivating four wheels, we choose to process processed hydrocarbons we dug up from the bottom of the ocean. There's basically an infinite amount of energy in the sky in the form of wind alone. We're just terrible at taking it out.
So some process that claims to potentially harness some percentage of the electrical energy of a 100 meter waterfall? I'd like to hear about it when they build the thing and it actually lights up a bulb. Till then, it's just a concept.
It used to be that if you looked at a map of undersea cables, West Africa was linked up with the lights going out at South Africa. The cables on the other side stopped in the Mideast. The only dark stretch was East Africa.
I learned a few years ago when I was working in Uganda that if you need reliable 'broadband' communications, you do not go through a Ugandan business. Socially, it's a dick thing to do but you're describing is what happens. You need to own your own modem and dish and your provider needs to be based outside of Uganda so when things go wrong, you can call someone who A.) knows what he's doing and B.) is accountable. That initial cost is going to hurt, but you'll be pulling your hair out a lot less. Of course, three years ago, bringing in equipment was easy and the law's probably changed to suit someone's pocketbook.
Kampala's a shark tank, but at least you can get services. I was last in Uganda late last year for the HEV outbreak around Lira. I spent four months with GPRS and bumming internet from other NGOs when I managed to get into town. 512k would've sounded good to me when I was stuck on 14k connection.
And now you're saying that people who barely speak or understand English, let alone the subtlties of the language, being paid to transcribe English, is 'technically sound' and 'the best way to do it'?...
I think it's more likely that these people speak better, more grammatically correct English than the average Brit or American.
I find it likely that the majority of these people who worked in these centers are young, recent college/university graduates who are doing this because they couldn't find another well paying job. This isn't a bunch of Angolans or Indonesians. We're talking about South Africans and Filipinos. The well educated South African and Filipino speaks, reads and writes excellent English.
For that matter, the same is probably true of Egyptians. Though I can't say that with any certainty because I don't know too many Egyptians.
It's an accurate statement. I don't know about 1951-1953, but no American soldier (ground combatant) has been killed by enemy aircraft since the Korean War. When the US engages in war, for the rest of its flaws and faults, it owns the sky.
As a former American infantryman, this is something for which to be grateful. As I understand it, being attacked from the air is a particularly unpleasant experience.
In relation to carriers, think about the following as well:
What two countries do the internet commandos use for the hypothetical Great Powers war scenarios to justify the F-22? Russia and China. Usually China.
Where would we be likely engaging the Chinese? Most likely, Taiwan straits. If the F-22 is going to be involved, how's it going to get there? In general, from where do you launch an F-22 sortie so that it has any relevance? The closest air bases are in the Philippines or Japan. That's a long trip.
China doesn't have to engage us in war. If they ever get pissed at the U.S., all they have to do is stop investing in our economy and call in all our notes.
We won't be able to buy ammo or fuel to attack or defend against anything, then. Instant capitulation.
Now, that's a scenario that we should be fear.
You got it backwards, dude.
When you owe the bank fifity thousand dollars and you can't pay it back, you have a problem.
When you owe the bank fifty million dollars and you can't pay it back, the BANK has a problem.
If in the extremely unlikely event China and the US ever get into it and the Chinese want to cash in the chips, it China that's in trouble, not the US.
Or at least it got him through a couple Ender/Bean novels.
This happens in just about every forum on the internet, military interest and non military interest. Keyboard commandos screaming about this or that until finally, someone asks, "Hey, just what IS your military experience?" A few weeks ago, I had some guy lecturing me about "realistic" tactics in BattleTech. It's one of those, "Really?!? What planet do you live on?" moments.
More F-22 = more planes that will never see combat
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
Give me more F22s and fewer F35s.
For what purpose? To never see combat against the advanced Chicom and Russky designs that don't exist (except on paper) for a hypothetical future war that won't happen? Sounds like the rational choice to me.
That video of the dining room was just realistic enough that I half expected a car alarm to go off. And then I thought I heard a siren, but instead, it was people cheering.
The key to it all is that kids own their machine, so all the admin stuff (networking, power management, etc.) *needs* to work within a consistent, simple GUI.
That said, from the first time I heard of OLPC, through all of its iterations and twisting and turning of the plot, I always assumed that OLPC was bound for failure. Not because I wanted them to fail. As little as I thought about the idea, implementation and execution, I thought that at least their heart was kind of in the right place, if a little misdirected.
I was never able to figure out just who the eventual product was built for. In a western or otherwise developed nation mindset, a child has belongings, receives an allowance or "walking around money" and has personal objects that are his or hers. Step outside of this privileged world and the notion of a child's right to personal property becomes a strange thing indeed.
When I set up a therapeutic feeding center in a disaster, conflict or famine hit area, much of the time, we have to get the people to feed their children right then and there. Why? Because if they don't, half that food's going to end up on the market. This applies to any aid good in most of the poorest countries. Plastic sheeting for sheltering IDPs and refugees? Within two weeks, you'll see that stuff as commercial building material in town.
So this notion of distributing laptops to the poorest of the poor, the kids who buy 5 sheets of paper at a time for school, is absurd.
Okay, so it's not for people who are THAT poor. The problem is that once you get into the range where some people wouldn't sell the laptop for money in order to cover other basics (such as school uniforms or supplies), you're in that class of nation that has extreme inequalities. This is the type of country where the family with a maid, a cook and a driver sees open sewers on his drive to school. Generally, these are the countries that are the most corrupt and the haves will take while the have nots will never get. Is this the type of country to which the OLPC was supposed to go?
The proposed models of distribution never made sense. The only thing that did was the mass-market argument made by some. The "put them in blister packs in the checkout rows at Walmart" crowd. Unfortunately, the realities of a commercial venture conflicted with the philosophies of the people running the show.
Uh... yeah... that would be why I mentioned the LRA specifically, and why I said that they're the exception. Did you not read that part of my comment?
I'm sorry, my point wasn't clear because I added a line between the sentence you quoted and my point.
The LRA is at the point of fading into irrelevancy. Aside from the Christmas massacres, their widespread campaign of terror has faded to the point that Northern Uganda is a relatively peaceful place.
That said, even during the peal of their terror campaign, I never feared or had a fear that the LRA would have lasting global social impact. Not the way I feel the fundamentalists of any stripe can and do. Here in the US, this would be the Christian right.
Yes, I remember your joke. I thought it was rather amusing. I'm not sure why you think you should be immune from flaming, though. Half the jokes I make result in similar responses.
I think you're reading too much into what I'm saying and what you believe my stance to be. I'm not saying that I should be immune from criticism. I'm saying that I made an irreverent joke about what I believe to be a silly idea. From two lines about purpose and the age the universe, people were crawling out of the woodwork, drawing all kinds of inferences regarding what they don't know about my religious beliefs and what they perceived to be a personal attack aimed at all Christians. It's very irrational and if that's the kind of fire that a single comment obviously made in jest can draw, then maybe something is wrong with the people who buy into that system of belief.
So far, no death threats, except for one obvious joker. I've had those on here before, too.
Slashdot is a completely different environment - you shouldn't take their animosity so personally. The whole point of this place is to discuss, disseminate, disagree and dispute. Getting upset when people use the site for it's intended purpose is just silly.
I'm taking it personally. What I'm saying is that it's an indicator.
Any internet discussion forum tends to polarize and pushes people to the farther wings of any given spectrum. That's a given. The anonymizing mechanism of the internet gives people the ability to say what they're thinking. Things that they wouldn't have the courage to say another's face IRL. I find this instructive.
One thing I've noticed the world over is that it's a very dangerous thing when a large enough group of people develop a persecution complex.
Nobody fears Christians any more. Well, ok, the LRA are an exception, but IN GENERAL, nobody fears Christians any more. We're just worried about government enforcement of religions of any kind. If theists had any common sense, they'd be just as opposed to it.
Really? Because I've spent a lot of time in Northern Uganda. I was there in Gulu during the worst of the night commutes, when children would walk kilometers each day to sleep on the streets of town so they wouldn't be kidnapped to turn into child soldiers.
Yesterday, here on Slashdot, I made a joke about the purpose of gas giants. People are still flaming me about my "anti-Christian bigotry."
I was never really afraid of the LRA. Not the way I fear the fundamentalist Christian right taking charge.
It's funny. When I was in the Army, we had respect for each others' religious beliefs, even though we still made fun of everyone's beliefs to their faces. Out here, I'm the enemy because I find the Fox News crowd to have disturbing implications.
Thanks, but no. Although it is a little churlish, at this point, I'm fascinated by the continuing responses of the [i]righteously indignant.[/i]
I especially like the ones that are lecturing me on religion, especially since my religious beliefs can be no more or less inferred from my comment than I could or should from the GP.
There's some mod(s) out there +1ing ACs for one line comments, including the AC that is basically flipping my apology the bird.
The score for the original comment is swinging up and down, so I'm guessing this is a polarizing issue, even though it was meant as a joke. Poor form, but a joke.
Hey, you know what? If that high horse you're on weren't so high, maybe you could see that apology that I wrote to the GP several minutes before you posted you counter diatribe.
I had a knee jerk reaction and I was wrong and I admitted it. If you read the following replies, you'd have seen that. Instead, you'd rather tell me that I'm foaming at the mouth.
Who's holds the moral high ground now? It ain't me, but it ain't you either.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the problem. Gravity is only interested in moving stuff in one direction, down. At some water will have to move against the gradient. Does the process produce enough energy to do that? If it does, how much water do you need in how much space, but just as importantly, what is the rate of production?
Oh, we'll put it on the coast, people say. Do the mixing reservoirs have access to the ocean? Good luck with the tides.
You're right. What's the point of life when we have to steal energy from the Earth in order to live?
If you truly care about the environment, you'd shoot yourself and return your chemicals back to the planet.
Don't forget to tell us how works out.
Every process has a time component. That's why it's called a process. Some are fast and some are slow.
Your input to this otherwise closed system is the sun and hinges on how quickly you can convert the water's state into gas.
The evaporation of the water is not "sped up" by a greenhouse effect. A greenhouse is a natural consequence of water evaporating in a closed system. If anything, it will slow down as the humidity increases until it reaches an equilibrium with the rate set by how much water you're taking out of the water in the form of precipitation.
The only way to speed up the process is to add more energy. That's a lot of mirrors.
Here's the problem. At no point in that article does it mention the specifics of how much energy they are getting out of the process. How much of this energy is in say, a cubic meter of water given it's most favorable mixing and efficient generating conditions. Is it enough to move that cubic meter of water up, let's say, one meter? Do you know something about this process other than what's in the article and the first few google hits?
I read this summary extremely skeptical but after reading the article (which is pretty sparse on detail) it sounds simple enough to work. In principle.
The problem is this sentence:
Pumping water is a notoriously is a notoriously energy expensive process. That's why we try to use gravity as much as possible to move our water around. The question is if this process produces enough energy to offset the cost of moving in and out of the (presumably) mixing chamber. If the answer is no, then this grinds to a screeching halt right then and there.
This stuff about X process is equivalent to Y incredibly energetic phenomena is misleading. There's incredible amounts of energy locked up in just about anything. It's just that our technology is such that our extraction processes suck. We're terrible at it. Think about cars. Of all the ways we know of motivating four wheels, we choose to process processed hydrocarbons we dug up from the bottom of the ocean. There's basically an infinite amount of energy in the sky in the form of wind alone. We're just terrible at taking it out.
So some process that claims to potentially harness some percentage of the electrical energy of a 100 meter waterfall? I'd like to hear about it when they build the thing and it actually lights up a bulb. Till then, it's just a concept.
It used to be that if you looked at a map of undersea cables, West Africa was linked up with the lights going out at South Africa. The cables on the other side stopped in the Mideast. The only dark stretch was East Africa.
I learned a few years ago when I was working in Uganda that if you need reliable 'broadband' communications, you do not go through a Ugandan business. Socially, it's a dick thing to do but you're describing is what happens. You need to own your own modem and dish and your provider needs to be based outside of Uganda so when things go wrong, you can call someone who A.) knows what he's doing and B.) is accountable. That initial cost is going to hurt, but you'll be pulling your hair out a lot less. Of course, three years ago, bringing in equipment was easy and the law's probably changed to suit someone's pocketbook.
Kampala's a shark tank, but at least you can get services. I was last in Uganda late last year for the HEV outbreak around Lira. I spent four months with GPRS and bumming internet from other NGOs when I managed to get into town. 512k would've sounded good to me when I was stuck on 14k connection.
And now you're saying that people who barely speak or understand English, let alone the subtlties of the language, being paid to transcribe English, is 'technically sound' and 'the best way to do it'? ...
I think it's more likely that these people speak better, more grammatically correct English than the average Brit or American.
I find it likely that the majority of these people who worked in these centers are young, recent college/university graduates who are doing this because they couldn't find another well paying job. This isn't a bunch of Angolans or Indonesians. We're talking about South Africans and Filipinos. The well educated South African and Filipino speaks, reads and writes excellent English.
For that matter, the same is probably true of Egyptians. Though I can't say that with any certainty because I don't know too many Egyptians.
Hate? WTF are you babbling about, man? I'd pay to see one that was capable of moving 10 tons because it'd be a damn cool feat of engineering.
You, OTOH, with a name like ArsonSmith, should stay the fuck away. ;)
Seriously who translated this?
It's an accurate statement. I don't know about 1951-1953, but no American soldier (ground combatant) has been killed by enemy aircraft since the Korean War. When the US engages in war, for the rest of its flaws and faults, it owns the sky.
As a former American infantryman, this is something for which to be grateful. As I understand it, being attacked from the air is a particularly unpleasant experience.
Whoops, meant to add, in this scenario, it's the Navy (and Marines) that's doing the lion's share of the air to air combat. In their F-35s and F-18s.
How much does this scenario mean? Jack shit. Because we're not going to get into a shooting war with the Chinese.
In relation to carriers, think about the following as well:
What two countries do the internet commandos use for the hypothetical Great Powers war scenarios to justify the F-22? Russia and China. Usually China.
Where would we be likely engaging the Chinese? Most likely, Taiwan straits. If the F-22 is going to be involved, how's it going to get there? In general, from where do you launch an F-22 sortie so that it has any relevance? The closest air bases are in the Philippines or Japan. That's a long trip.
China doesn't have to engage us in war. If they ever get pissed at the U.S., all they have to do is stop investing in our economy and call in all our notes.
We won't be able to buy ammo or fuel to attack or defend against anything, then. Instant capitulation.
Now, that's a scenario that we should be fear.
You got it backwards, dude.
When you owe the bank fifity thousand dollars and you can't pay it back, you have a problem.
When you owe the bank fifty million dollars and you can't pay it back, the BANK has a problem.
If in the extremely unlikely event China and the US ever get into it and the Chinese want to cash in the chips, it China that's in trouble, not the US.
Or at least it got him through a couple Ender/Bean novels.
This happens in just about every forum on the internet, military interest and non military interest. Keyboard commandos screaming about this or that until finally, someone asks, "Hey, just what IS your military experience?" A few weeks ago, I had some guy lecturing me about "realistic" tactics in BattleTech. It's one of those, "Really?!? What planet do you live on?" moments.
For what purpose? To never see combat against the advanced Chicom and Russky designs that don't exist (except on paper) for a hypothetical future war that won't happen? Sounds like the rational choice to me.
Who makes the F-22? LockMart. Who makes F-35? LockMart.
Parent post is obviously a joke to those decrying the loss of F-22 jobs.
Yeah, it's not like that liberal left lunatic John McCain guy knows anything about war fighting and fighter aircraft.
Here's a clue for you: Levin-McCain Amendment.
People like you are never wrong.
That video of the dining room was just realistic enough that I half expected a car alarm to go off. And then I thought I heard a siren, but instead, it was people cheering.
What a letdown.
The key to it all is that kids own their machine, so all the admin stuff (networking, power management, etc.) *needs* to work within a consistent, simple GUI.
That said, from the first time I heard of OLPC, through all of its iterations and twisting and turning of the plot, I always assumed that OLPC was bound for failure. Not because I wanted them to fail. As little as I thought about the idea, implementation and execution, I thought that at least their heart was kind of in the right place, if a little misdirected.
I was never able to figure out just who the eventual product was built for. In a western or otherwise developed nation mindset, a child has belongings, receives an allowance or "walking around money" and has personal objects that are his or hers. Step outside of this privileged world and the notion of a child's right to personal property becomes a strange thing indeed.
When I set up a therapeutic feeding center in a disaster, conflict or famine hit area, much of the time, we have to get the people to feed their children right then and there. Why? Because if they don't, half that food's going to end up on the market. This applies to any aid good in most of the poorest countries. Plastic sheeting for sheltering IDPs and refugees? Within two weeks, you'll see that stuff as commercial building material in town.
So this notion of distributing laptops to the poorest of the poor, the kids who buy 5 sheets of paper at a time for school, is absurd.
Okay, so it's not for people who are THAT poor. The problem is that once you get into the range where some people wouldn't sell the laptop for money in order to cover other basics (such as school uniforms or supplies), you're in that class of nation that has extreme inequalities. This is the type of country where the family with a maid, a cook and a driver sees open sewers on his drive to school. Generally, these are the countries that are the most corrupt and the haves will take while the have nots will never get. Is this the type of country to which the OLPC was supposed to go?
The proposed models of distribution never made sense. The only thing that did was the mass-market argument made by some. The "put them in blister packs in the checkout rows at Walmart" crowd. Unfortunately, the realities of a commercial venture conflicted with the philosophies of the people running the show.
I'm sorry, my point wasn't clear because I added a line between the sentence you quoted and my point.
The LRA is at the point of fading into irrelevancy. Aside from the Christmas massacres, their widespread campaign of terror has faded to the point that Northern Uganda is a relatively peaceful place.
That said, even during the peal of their terror campaign, I never feared or had a fear that the LRA would have lasting global social impact. Not the way I feel the fundamentalists of any stripe can and do. Here in the US, this would be the Christian right.
I think you're reading too much into what I'm saying and what you believe my stance to be. I'm not saying that I should be immune from criticism. I'm saying that I made an irreverent joke about what I believe to be a silly idea. From two lines about purpose and the age the universe, people were crawling out of the woodwork, drawing all kinds of inferences regarding what they don't know about my religious beliefs and what they perceived to be a personal attack aimed at all Christians. It's very irrational and if that's the kind of fire that a single comment obviously made in jest can draw, then maybe something is wrong with the people who buy into that system of belief.
So far, no death threats, except for one obvious joker. I've had those on here before, too.
I'm taking it personally. What I'm saying is that it's an indicator.
Any internet discussion forum tends to polarize and pushes people to the farther wings of any given spectrum. That's a given. The anonymizing mechanism of the internet gives people the ability to say what they're thinking. Things that they wouldn't have the courage to say another's face IRL. I find this instructive.
One thing I've noticed the world over is that it's a very dangerous thing when a large enough group of people develop a persecution complex.
Nobody fears Christians any more. Well, ok, the LRA are an exception, but IN GENERAL, nobody fears Christians any more. We're just worried about government enforcement of religions of any kind. If theists had any common sense, they'd be just as opposed to it.
Really? Because I've spent a lot of time in Northern Uganda. I was there in Gulu during the worst of the night commutes, when children would walk kilometers each day to sleep on the streets of town so they wouldn't be kidnapped to turn into child soldiers.
Yesterday, here on Slashdot, I made a joke about the purpose of gas giants. People are still flaming me about my "anti-Christian bigotry."
I was never really afraid of the LRA. Not the way I fear the fundamentalist Christian right taking charge.
It's funny. When I was in the Army, we had respect for each others' religious beliefs, even though we still made fun of everyone's beliefs to their faces. Out here, I'm the enemy because I find the Fox News crowd to have disturbing implications.
I'm going to try to be a nice guy.
One, I didn't bother reading most of your post. I only skimmed it to see if you picked up on the essential point, but it's fairly clear you didn't.
The primary focus of the affirmative action plan of the US Army and other branches is on recruitment, retainment and training.
Evaluation standards are not altered, for anyone of any race.
So to me, you clearly could not be bothered to learn about the specific subject on which you're writing.
Thanks, but no. Although it is a little churlish, at this point, I'm fascinated by the continuing responses of the [i]righteously indignant.[/i]
I especially like the ones that are lecturing me on religion, especially since my religious beliefs can be no more or less inferred from my comment than I could or should from the GP.
There's some mod(s) out there +1ing ACs for one line comments, including the AC that is basically flipping my apology the bird.
The score for the original comment is swinging up and down, so I'm guessing this is a polarizing issue, even though it was meant as a joke. Poor form, but a joke.
So far, no death threats.
Hey, you know what? If that high horse you're on weren't so high, maybe you could see that apology that I wrote to the GP several minutes before you posted you counter diatribe.
I had a knee jerk reaction and I was wrong and I admitted it. If you read the following replies, you'd have seen that. Instead, you'd rather tell me that I'm foaming at the mouth.
Who's holds the moral high ground now? It ain't me, but it ain't you either.