Once upon a time, people buying stock looked at a company and tried to decide the long time worth for that company. Essentially, did you, the investor, belive in the company and its products/services. For investing in it you got dividends if it was profitable.
That's a nice little fairy tale you are telling yourself. The reality is that people were day trading way back in the 1920s. The notion that investors back in the day were any different from investors today is demonstrably nonsense. Human greed hasn't evolved or changed in the last 100 years. The technology to facilitated it has advanced but the basic behavior of people in a stock market is no different today. It just moves faster is all.
So, now tell me, why a starting company would like those kinds of investors?
There have ALWAYS been short term investors who don't give a shit about the long term prospects of a company. This is nothing new. See the corporate raiders of the 1980s. I lived through that and I assure you that absolutely nothing has changed in the last 40 years except the speed on the transactions.
If you haven't figured out that all politicians are very similar and horrible people, I'm sorry for you.
Trump doesn't resemble any politician I've seen in my lifetime at least here in the US. He certainly doesn't resemble any previous president in the history of our country. So no, he isn't similar at all.
There was more abuse against civil rights in this country during Obama admin than during Trump - and Bush and Clinton were equally bad.
Is that what you tell yourself to help you sleep at night? Pathetic...
I remember when tablets started getting popular I thought they were just a fad.
Really? It seemed clear enough to me right away that they were going to be a strong market segment for a long time.
I think they lasted long enough to not be considered a fad, but I think the basic problem remains. They're not as convenient as a phone and they're not as usable as a laptop.
That depends entirely on what you are doing. A tablet is most useful for things where you might have used a clipboard or binder for previously. Think stuff like doctor's offices using them in patient rooms to record data. A phone doesn't have enough screen size and a laptop is too cumbersome. Tablets hit a nice form factor for tasks like that.
They also are nice for people who don't need all the bells and whistles of a laptop but for whom a phone is too small. My grandmother uses an iPad to do various tasks. She can't handle the complexity of a laptop and a phone is too small for her to see or use efficiently. The young and the elderly as well as the (ahem) technologically impaired tend to fall into this category.
A lot of sales people that come to my office these days use tablets and it's a good fit. A laptop is overkill and presents the company a needless administrative burden (read $$$) and security risk.
Short version is that there are a ton of non-trivial use cases where tablets are the best option.
A tablet is after all just a clunky phone or a crippled laptop.
Only if you are using it wrong. It's all about the use case. There are things you can do on a tablet that are awkward to impossible on a phone because of the screen size difference. There are tasks where using a mouse/keyboard is inefficient or unnecessary. Sometimes people don't need the extra complexity of a full blown PC because they are just doing some light web browsing or email or watching some videos.
You would not believe Trump if he told you the sky was blue.
I don't have to believe Trump about that. Fortunately a lot of what he lies about I don't have to believe because I can check to see if it is true. What's astonishing is how many lies he tells that are easily and transparently shown to be false. Even about things where there is no benefit to him lying beyond stroking his own ego. But worryingly he does it about things that matter too. So no, when someone is a pathological liar I tend to reflexively not believe them until I see evidence supporting what they say.
The problem with people who judge President Trump so harshly on such inane things...
Spare me. The man is in a position of immense power and what he says matters whether we like it or not. He tells little lies and big lies but the point is that he cannot be trusted.
At some point you stop convincing people that he is bad when they realize you are just petty.
If you haven't figured out by now that Trump is a horrible human being and a terrible president then you never were going to be convinced in the first place and will support him no matter how reprehensibly he behaves.
Why would I provide my roof (and have holes drilled into it and everything else) so someone else can install solar panels on it and then sell me the electricity that is generated?
Is this a serious question? The answer to why is easy. They give you a deal that benefits you. Why is not complicated. Now the devil is in the details of course but it's not hard to answer why you might do this. Seriously, you cannot figure this out?
Where's the advantage for the homeowner over just telling this lot to go way and continuing to purchase power as today without all of that gear on the roof?
Because it costs you more to keep buying power the way you do today. Aside from a few eco-fanatics, almost nobody is going to install solar panels unless there is a financial payback that makes sense for them. If someone wants to come to me and offer me a deal to install solar panels that costs me less on my electric bill, doesn't hurt the value of my home, doesn't tie me up in a restrictive contract, and costs me nothing up front or to maintain, then that is a deal I'll listen to and so would you.
So cool idea but the real question is how do they plan to finance it? Putting solar on that many homes will be a huge up front capital expenditure (with some ongoing maintenance costs too) and that money has to come from somewhere. Furthermore the payback on a system like this isn't going to be in a year or two. It's going to take a decade plus or minus a few years to break even under even the most optimistic of assumptions. So Tesla will have to raise a large amount of capital today for a speculative payback 10 years from now. Tesla doesn't have that kind of cash just laying around so they are going to have to either sell more stock or borrow it to raise the funds unless a government somehow finances it.
Really, JAXA has done something cool here, and the only context people can think of it in is nukes?
Nukes are the elephant in the room when it comes to orbital class and ballistic missiles. The reason people freaked out about Sputnik wasn't because people were saying "wow, look at the new options for communications!" No, it was because a missile that can launch a comsat can also carry a warhead and put it anywhere on the globe under an hour. It's dual use technology so we HAVE to consider the military applications whether we want to or not. If Japan can build one of these then (theoretically) so can North Korea or ISIS or some other group that currently lacks a warhead delivery system. And that is a BIG problem because the more nation states or terrorist groups that have these the more likely it is that some lunatic will actually put a warhead on one and use it. It's bad enough when it was just a few large nation states in a Mexican standoff.
The latest government shutdown makes it clear what cards you are going to play, I'm just waiting on your side to play the rest of the losing hand.
First off I reject your attempt to frame the issue as liberals being the ones unwilling to negotiate. It's the conservatives that refuse to accept anything other than total capitulation. That is what the Tea Party is all about. They proudly proclaim that they weren't voted into office to compromise and act accordingly.
We have all this because of gerrymandering. Both parties are guilty of this but the republicans have been more clever about it and it's a big part of why they currently control the House and a lot of state legislatures. They have drawn districts whereby they don't have to worry about losing to the other party. They only have to worry about losing in the primary to a more extreme candidate and the left is far less hell bent on ideological purity tests. You want to fix the partisan divide? Get rid of gerrymandering.
It's clear though, that the ultra partisan rhetoric is a bad idea for you guys in your efforts to get votes.
It's adorable that you think opposing Trump is somehow going to be a negative for the left. He's red meat to a hungry lion.
Being the partisan obstructionists or giving Trump a victory or two by working with him
It worked for the republicans under Obama so why shouldn't the left employ the same tactics to the same effect? Given the legislation that Trump and the republicans are proposing I'm totally fine with them obstructing this administration as long as needed. I think the republicans are going to get creamed in the upcoming election because their behavior has been thoroughly reprehensible and Trump is easily the worst president in my lifetime. (and that includes Nixon) Work with Trump? Hell no. I just want him out of office as soon as humanly possible.
Even in desktop mode, the start menu for Windows 10 is significantly different than that of Windows XP or 7.
Unless your criteria is essentially zero change then the start menu works in a familiar manner in Windows 10 from Windows 7 or even XP. No it's not identical but it's not wildly different and the changes they've made actually pretty ok in my opinion. It wasn't a hard transition and at this point I actually kind of prefer it. I certainly could pick some nits but nothing that makes me scream with frustration like Windows 8 did.
If you do not like the new start menu, Classic Shell is still a must.
Fair enough. To each their own but I've done both. I used Classic Shell and once MS dropped their more egregiously stupid changes then I stopped using it because it wasn't necessary anymore. I honestly don't think Windows 8 is usable without Classic Shell so I get where you are coming from.
You can have my Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell when you stop assuming I want a fucking interface like a tablet when I have a multi-monitor system
Windows 10 doesn't assume you want a tablet interface. The machine I'm typing on right now is a Windows 10 box and it's not much different interface-wise from Windows 7 for practical purposes. Windows 8 on the other hand did stupid table stuff and it sucked. You don't need Classic Shell with Windows 10 because it works more or less like it should straight out of the box.
take out your bullshit telemetry, and let me decide when I'll apply patches and reboot.
The telemetry stuff is a potentially reasonable argument. Your interface argument is not.
Liberals won't go for ANYTHING, short of capitulation, if the idea is suggested by conservatives right now...
Well when they start proposing ideas that aren't selfish, hateful, and/or idiotic then maybe there will be room for compromise. Let's not pretend the conservatives have any willingness to compromise. The Tea Party types keep moving the party to the right and voting pretty much anyone who even looks like they might negotiate with the left out of office. And evidently you had amnesia during the Obama administration when the conservatives basically refused to do anything or compromise in any manner.
Use salt-waterable plants to turn the Sahara desert green and you'll reach gigaton absorption. For perspective, the Sahara is about the size of the United States.
And where exactly are you planning to get the massive amounts of energy needed to somehow turn the Sahara green? What you think it's a matter of digging a few ditches and planting some ground cover? How do you think that is going to work economically and who is going to pay for it? What makes you think that even if you by some miracle succeed that there wouldn't be severe unintended consequences?
I love it when slashdotters propose ridiculous one sentence solutions to massive problems as if it's the most trivial thing in the world.
I am neither you're strawman fanboi, and not brainless in any event.
And yet that's what you tried and failed to label me as. "your beloved internal combustion engines"? Seriously?
Calm down. If you actually read what I wrote I never accused YOU of being a fanboi. I simply said *I* am not one. I said *I* do not think they are superior in all circumstances. It was a rhetorical device which you failed to understand.
As an internet troll, you just failed by using the same strawman on me twice, when it is obvious to anyone reading the posts that I am not claiming anything of the sort.
You really cannot be bothered to actually read and take a moment to comprehend the posts you reply to can you?
You say you are all about Els, but I'm beginning to think you are trolling me.
Sigh... Yes I'm a huge fan of EVs. I'm just not a brainless fanboi who presumes they are superior in all circumstances and at all times.
If you think that reduced range is a show stopper, ever wonder why you seem to get less miles per in the winter?
I'm well aware of winter versus summer fuel blends and their effects. I'm also aware that the effect of the changing blends is generally less dramatic than the effect of the range of EVs under the same cold conditions. Never argued that the reduced range was a showstopper but it is a consideration. That it's a consideration that each car buyer will have to determine for themselves. As EVs get longer ranges and bigger battery packs this concern will get mitigated. It also will become less of an issue as fast charging technology advances.
So your beloved internal combustion engines also get less driving range in the winter. Everywhere, not just the far north that some think dictates how the rest us us must bend the knee.
I don't know where you are getting the idea that I somehow love ICEs but that's an imaginary argument you are having with yourself. Pointing out that ICEs do in actual point of fact have some advantages under some conditions does not equal an argument against EVs nor does it equate to a love of ICEs. I'm simply soberly looking at the facts. All I pointed out was that ICEs are going to be with us for the foreseeable future and that they are more practical in some use cases both of which are undeniably true. It would be true even if oil wasn't hugely subsidized both directly and indirectly to the tune of trillions of dollars annually across the globe.
So, would you care to explain how I can go 400 miles between refueling in the summer, and less than 350 in the winter with my ICE car? I call that significant.
Because they change the fuel blend between summer and winter. Plus you lose a bit of mileage to traction slippage on snow if you live in an area where that is a thing. The winter blends are well understood to get worse MPG. Run the same fuel blend and you'd see fairly similar MPG, conditions allowing.
My understanding in Alaska is you can't generally drive all that far, or at least that most people don't.
Oh you CAN drive a very long way in Alaska. But given how shitty the weather is for much of the year there is little point for most people. There are a fair number of towns that get supplied by and can only be practically reached by plane.
My understanding in Alaska is you can't generally drive all that far, or at least that most people don't. My guess is the vast majority of people in Alaska would do just fine with a Tesla.
Over half the population of the state lives in or near Anchorage. So yeah they could drive a Tesla just fine as long as they didn't get too adventurous. But that is kind of besides the point. You aren't going to drive a Tesla in most parts of the state because the charging infrastructure simply doesn't exist and isn't likely to anytime soon. And that is fine. The goal should be to get MOST vehicles to be EV or PHEV. If a few non-EVs remain to deal with corner cases in our infrastructure that is perfectly ok.
I pay for Office365 at home because it's a cheap ($50/year or less) way to get 1TB of well-supported cloud storage with pretty solid clients on multiple platforms, and if I really feel like it I can bump to 5TB with a little juggling. Along with that I happen to also get access to the most widely-used office suite around, which has been used to create documents and spreadsheets that I regularly need to open.
So you are paying money to get well supported cloud storage you could get from countless other providers to use an office suite that is not cross platform? Rather contorted logic if you asked me but to each their own.
There's no official Linux client, but there appear to be multiple alternatives (https://linuxnewbieguide.org/onedrive-client-linux/) and frankly I mostly use Linux in VMs or for servers where I'm not interested in linking it to a personal account.
There are plenty of storage options that do work nicely with Linux and don't tie you to Microsoft. Nothing wrong with using Microsoft's options if you like them but don't pretend they are anything special when it comes to online storage.
We can but we won't because there is no economic case for running a power line to everywhere we could theoretically drive a vehicle including places where there are no roads like Antarctica or vast swaths of Alaska, Siberia, or northern Canada or the Sahara, etc.
Power lines and substations are nothing difficult to install.
Running power lines AND maintaining them out in the middle of nowhere is hardly a trivial endeavor even if we ignore the economic cost of doing so. It is FAR more expensive and environmentally damaging than shipping a occasional container of petrol to a random spot once in a blue moon.
Seriously, you are completely and utterly missing the point. The point is that it simply that there will remain corner cases where EVs are not viable. That is ok. It will not be practical within your lifetime or mine to extend our electric grid everywhere just in case someone wants to recharge an EV in the middle of some remote wilderness. It's totally OK that for corner cases like that we use an internal combustion engine. EVs will eventually be able to cover most destinations and for those that they cannot get to we use something else. EVs don't have to be able to cover 100% of possible destinations. 99% will do just fine.
.We can find a lot of specific cases where one or the other doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that we abandon EVs because they aren't universally applicable to every situation.
Who said anything about abandoning EVs? Certainly not me. How about actually responding to what I wrote instead of some imaginary argument in your head. We need all the EVs we can get in my opinion. I'm just stating the plain-as-day fact that EVs will not completely eliminate ICEs even under the rosiest of possible outcomes. But if we get to 95%+ I think we should all be very pleased with that.
Nothing against Open Office or Libre but most people in business swear by Microsoft Office.
No they don't. They just haven't bothered trying anything else and it's what their company gives them. Many of them don't even know there is another option.
It is a solid option when you do not get office through your work or want to pay the small monthly fee for the home edition.
It's a a better than solid option even if you do get MS Office. I have no idea why anyone would actually pay to use MS Office at home for non-work purposes. I use LibreOffice every day as I have standardized our company on it. Works great with no more problems than MS Office.
As I recall Open Office actually has a similar preloader available, but it's more obvious (leaves an icon in the tray) and I'm not sure if it's enabled by default - use office suites rarely enough that I always disable such things as being excessively expensive.
Libreoffice asks you if you want it enabled during installation. You can also turn it on/off from the settings as well.
Because they don't seem to have ever experienced the fun of keeping IC engines running in the extremes - usually cold
One could say the same about people experiencing the fun of keeping an EV running in the extremes (hot and cold). Most of those doing the discussing haven't done that either. There are problems with both and there are some extreme conditions which ICEs deal with better than EVs and vice-versa. EVs start better in cold but their range is significantly diminished which is not true of ICEs. Heat is a major issue too and can substantially reduce the life of a battery pack or electronics.
Isn't this where molten salt reactors come in? No material left over, no meltdowns, small.
There are serious problems and dangers with every fission reactor design. Molten salt and thorium reactors are no exception. They might be better but they aren't without risk.
Slashdot Mirror
Once upon a time, people buying stock looked at a company and tried to decide the long time worth for that company. Essentially, did you, the investor, belive in the company and its products/services. For investing in it you got dividends if it was profitable.
That's a nice little fairy tale you are telling yourself. The reality is that people were day trading way back in the 1920s. The notion that investors back in the day were any different from investors today is demonstrably nonsense. Human greed hasn't evolved or changed in the last 100 years. The technology to facilitated it has advanced but the basic behavior of people in a stock market is no different today. It just moves faster is all.
So, now tell me, why a starting company would like those kinds of investors?
There have ALWAYS been short term investors who don't give a shit about the long term prospects of a company. This is nothing new. See the corporate raiders of the 1980s. I lived through that and I assure you that absolutely nothing has changed in the last 40 years except the speed on the transactions.
If you haven't figured out that all politicians are very similar and horrible people, I'm sorry for you.
Trump doesn't resemble any politician I've seen in my lifetime at least here in the US. He certainly doesn't resemble any previous president in the history of our country. So no, he isn't similar at all.
There was more abuse against civil rights in this country during Obama admin than during Trump - and Bush and Clinton were equally bad.
Is that what you tell yourself to help you sleep at night? Pathetic...
I remember when tablets started getting popular I thought they were just a fad.
Really? It seemed clear enough to me right away that they were going to be a strong market segment for a long time.
I think they lasted long enough to not be considered a fad, but I think the basic problem remains. They're not as convenient as a phone and they're not as usable as a laptop.
That depends entirely on what you are doing. A tablet is most useful for things where you might have used a clipboard or binder for previously. Think stuff like doctor's offices using them in patient rooms to record data. A phone doesn't have enough screen size and a laptop is too cumbersome. Tablets hit a nice form factor for tasks like that.
They also are nice for people who don't need all the bells and whistles of a laptop but for whom a phone is too small. My grandmother uses an iPad to do various tasks. She can't handle the complexity of a laptop and a phone is too small for her to see or use efficiently. The young and the elderly as well as the (ahem) technologically impaired tend to fall into this category.
A lot of sales people that come to my office these days use tablets and it's a good fit. A laptop is overkill and presents the company a needless administrative burden (read $$$) and security risk.
Short version is that there are a ton of non-trivial use cases where tablets are the best option.
A tablet is after all just a clunky phone or a crippled laptop.
Only if you are using it wrong. It's all about the use case. There are things you can do on a tablet that are awkward to impossible on a phone because of the screen size difference. There are tasks where using a mouse/keyboard is inefficient or unnecessary. Sometimes people don't need the extra complexity of a full blown PC because they are just doing some light web browsing or email or watching some videos.
You would not believe Trump if he told you the sky was blue.
I don't have to believe Trump about that. Fortunately a lot of what he lies about I don't have to believe because I can check to see if it is true. What's astonishing is how many lies he tells that are easily and transparently shown to be false. Even about things where there is no benefit to him lying beyond stroking his own ego. But worryingly he does it about things that matter too. So no, when someone is a pathological liar I tend to reflexively not believe them until I see evidence supporting what they say.
The problem with people who judge President Trump so harshly on such inane things...
Spare me. The man is in a position of immense power and what he says matters whether we like it or not. He tells little lies and big lies but the point is that he cannot be trusted.
At some point you stop convincing people that he is bad when they realize you are just petty.
If you haven't figured out by now that Trump is a horrible human being and a terrible president then you never were going to be convinced in the first place and will support him no matter how reprehensibly he behaves.
Just remember to run a screensaver, otherwise you will have the "Intel Inside" logo forever burned into your vision.
I think there probably would be some idiots in Inte's marketing department that would regard that as a feature instead of a bug...
Too bad. I love that guy. America needs more full-on nuts who do crazy things with rockets and other such toys-- and I mean that sincerely.
You mean we need attention seeking whores with idiotic ideas who don't actually do anything? You're a big fan of the Kardashians aren't you?
I have no idea why anyone is giving this lunatic the time of day.
Why would I provide my roof (and have holes drilled into it and everything else) so someone else can install solar panels on it and then sell me the electricity that is generated?
Is this a serious question? The answer to why is easy. They give you a deal that benefits you. Why is not complicated. Now the devil is in the details of course but it's not hard to answer why you might do this. Seriously, you cannot figure this out?
Where's the advantage for the homeowner over just telling this lot to go way and continuing to purchase power as today without all of that gear on the roof?
Because it costs you more to keep buying power the way you do today. Aside from a few eco-fanatics, almost nobody is going to install solar panels unless there is a financial payback that makes sense for them. If someone wants to come to me and offer me a deal to install solar panels that costs me less on my electric bill, doesn't hurt the value of my home, doesn't tie me up in a restrictive contract, and costs me nothing up front or to maintain, then that is a deal I'll listen to and so would you.
So cool idea but the real question is how do they plan to finance it? Putting solar on that many homes will be a huge up front capital expenditure (with some ongoing maintenance costs too) and that money has to come from somewhere. Furthermore the payback on a system like this isn't going to be in a year or two. It's going to take a decade plus or minus a few years to break even under even the most optimistic of assumptions. So Tesla will have to raise a large amount of capital today for a speculative payback 10 years from now. Tesla doesn't have that kind of cash just laying around so they are going to have to either sell more stock or borrow it to raise the funds unless a government somehow finances it.
Really, JAXA has done something cool here, and the only context people can think of it in is nukes?
Nukes are the elephant in the room when it comes to orbital class and ballistic missiles. The reason people freaked out about Sputnik wasn't because people were saying "wow, look at the new options for communications!" No, it was because a missile that can launch a comsat can also carry a warhead and put it anywhere on the globe under an hour. It's dual use technology so we HAVE to consider the military applications whether we want to or not. If Japan can build one of these then (theoretically) so can North Korea or ISIS or some other group that currently lacks a warhead delivery system. And that is a BIG problem because the more nation states or terrorist groups that have these the more likely it is that some lunatic will actually put a warhead on one and use it. It's bad enough when it was just a few large nation states in a Mexican standoff.
The latest government shutdown makes it clear what cards you are going to play, I'm just waiting on your side to play the rest of the losing hand.
First off I reject your attempt to frame the issue as liberals being the ones unwilling to negotiate. It's the conservatives that refuse to accept anything other than total capitulation. That is what the Tea Party is all about. They proudly proclaim that they weren't voted into office to compromise and act accordingly.
Evidently you forgot the republicans shut the government down in 2013 for 16 days and threatened several more. That is the sort of tactics that happen when one party refuses to act like adults and negotiate and that party CLEARLY is the republicans right now. Not to say the dems haven't pulled some shady shit too but don't even try to argue to me that the movement of the republican party towards the far right has made them somehow the more reasonable group. You only could think that the republicans are the reasonable ones if you are suffering from massive confirmation bias.
We have all this because of gerrymandering. Both parties are guilty of this but the republicans have been more clever about it and it's a big part of why they currently control the House and a lot of state legislatures. They have drawn districts whereby they don't have to worry about losing to the other party. They only have to worry about losing in the primary to a more extreme candidate and the left is far less hell bent on ideological purity tests. You want to fix the partisan divide? Get rid of gerrymandering.
It's clear though, that the ultra partisan rhetoric is a bad idea for you guys in your efforts to get votes.
It's adorable that you think opposing Trump is somehow going to be a negative for the left. He's red meat to a hungry lion.
Being the partisan obstructionists or giving Trump a victory or two by working with him
It worked for the republicans under Obama so why shouldn't the left employ the same tactics to the same effect? Given the legislation that Trump and the republicans are proposing I'm totally fine with them obstructing this administration as long as needed. I think the republicans are going to get creamed in the upcoming election because their behavior has been thoroughly reprehensible and Trump is easily the worst president in my lifetime. (and that includes Nixon) Work with Trump? Hell no. I just want him out of office as soon as humanly possible.
Even in desktop mode, the start menu for Windows 10 is significantly different than that of Windows XP or 7.
Unless your criteria is essentially zero change then the start menu works in a familiar manner in Windows 10 from Windows 7 or even XP. No it's not identical but it's not wildly different and the changes they've made actually pretty ok in my opinion. It wasn't a hard transition and at this point I actually kind of prefer it. I certainly could pick some nits but nothing that makes me scream with frustration like Windows 8 did.
If you do not like the new start menu, Classic Shell is still a must.
Fair enough. To each their own but I've done both. I used Classic Shell and once MS dropped their more egregiously stupid changes then I stopped using it because it wasn't necessary anymore. I honestly don't think Windows 8 is usable without Classic Shell so I get where you are coming from.
You can have my Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell when you stop assuming I want a fucking interface like a tablet when I have a multi-monitor system
Windows 10 doesn't assume you want a tablet interface. The machine I'm typing on right now is a Windows 10 box and it's not much different interface-wise from Windows 7 for practical purposes. Windows 8 on the other hand did stupid table stuff and it sucked. You don't need Classic Shell with Windows 10 because it works more or less like it should straight out of the box.
take out your bullshit telemetry, and let me decide when I'll apply patches and reboot.
The telemetry stuff is a potentially reasonable argument. Your interface argument is not.
Liberals won't go for ANYTHING, short of capitulation, if the idea is suggested by conservatives right now...
Well when they start proposing ideas that aren't selfish, hateful, and/or idiotic then maybe there will be room for compromise. Let's not pretend the conservatives have any willingness to compromise. The Tea Party types keep moving the party to the right and voting pretty much anyone who even looks like they might negotiate with the left out of office. And evidently you had amnesia during the Obama administration when the conservatives basically refused to do anything or compromise in any manner.
Use salt-waterable plants to turn the Sahara desert green and you'll reach gigaton absorption. For perspective, the Sahara is about the size of the United States.
And where exactly are you planning to get the massive amounts of energy needed to somehow turn the Sahara green? What you think it's a matter of digging a few ditches and planting some ground cover? How do you think that is going to work economically and who is going to pay for it? What makes you think that even if you by some miracle succeed that there wouldn't be severe unintended consequences?
I love it when slashdotters propose ridiculous one sentence solutions to massive problems as if it's the most trivial thing in the world.
I am neither you're strawman fanboi, and not brainless in any event.
And yet that's what you tried and failed to label me as. "your beloved internal combustion engines"? Seriously?
Calm down. If you actually read what I wrote I never accused YOU of being a fanboi. I simply said *I* am not one. I said *I* do not think they are superior in all circumstances. It was a rhetorical device which you failed to understand.
As an internet troll, you just failed by using the same strawman on me twice, when it is obvious to anyone reading the posts that I am not claiming anything of the sort.
You really cannot be bothered to actually read and take a moment to comprehend the posts you reply to can you?
You say you are all about Els, but I'm beginning to think you are trolling me.
Sigh... Yes I'm a huge fan of EVs. I'm just not a brainless fanboi who presumes they are superior in all circumstances and at all times.
If you think that reduced range is a show stopper, ever wonder why you seem to get less miles per in the winter?
I'm well aware of winter versus summer fuel blends and their effects. I'm also aware that the effect of the changing blends is generally less dramatic than the effect of the range of EVs under the same cold conditions. Never argued that the reduced range was a showstopper but it is a consideration. That it's a consideration that each car buyer will have to determine for themselves. As EVs get longer ranges and bigger battery packs this concern will get mitigated. It also will become less of an issue as fast charging technology advances.
So your beloved internal combustion engines also get less driving range in the winter. Everywhere, not just the far north that some think dictates how the rest us us must bend the knee .
I don't know where you are getting the idea that I somehow love ICEs but that's an imaginary argument you are having with yourself. Pointing out that ICEs do in actual point of fact have some advantages under some conditions does not equal an argument against EVs nor does it equate to a love of ICEs. I'm simply soberly looking at the facts. All I pointed out was that ICEs are going to be with us for the foreseeable future and that they are more practical in some use cases both of which are undeniably true. It would be true even if oil wasn't hugely subsidized both directly and indirectly to the tune of trillions of dollars annually across the globe.
So, would you care to explain how I can go 400 miles between refueling in the summer, and less than 350 in the winter with my ICE car? I call that significant.
Because they change the fuel blend between summer and winter. Plus you lose a bit of mileage to traction slippage on snow if you live in an area where that is a thing. The winter blends are well understood to get worse MPG. Run the same fuel blend and you'd see fairly similar MPG, conditions allowing.
My understanding in Alaska is you can't generally drive all that far, or at least that most people don't.
Oh you CAN drive a very long way in Alaska. But given how shitty the weather is for much of the year there is little point for most people. There are a fair number of towns that get supplied by and can only be practically reached by plane.
My understanding in Alaska is you can't generally drive all that far, or at least that most people don't. My guess is the vast majority of people in Alaska would do just fine with a Tesla.
Over half the population of the state lives in or near Anchorage. So yeah they could drive a Tesla just fine as long as they didn't get too adventurous. But that is kind of besides the point. You aren't going to drive a Tesla in most parts of the state because the charging infrastructure simply doesn't exist and isn't likely to anytime soon. And that is fine. The goal should be to get MOST vehicles to be EV or PHEV. If a few non-EVs remain to deal with corner cases in our infrastructure that is perfectly ok.
I pay for Office365 at home because it's a cheap ($50/year or less) way to get 1TB of well-supported cloud storage with pretty solid clients on multiple platforms, and if I really feel like it I can bump to 5TB with a little juggling. Along with that I happen to also get access to the most widely-used office suite around, which has been used to create documents and spreadsheets that I regularly need to open.
So you are paying money to get well supported cloud storage you could get from countless other providers to use an office suite that is not cross platform? Rather contorted logic if you asked me but to each their own.
There's no official Linux client, but there appear to be multiple alternatives (https://linuxnewbieguide.org/onedrive-client-linux/) and frankly I mostly use Linux in VMs or for servers where I'm not interested in linking it to a personal account.
There are plenty of storage options that do work nicely with Linux and don't tie you to Microsoft. Nothing wrong with using Microsoft's options if you like them but don't pretend they are anything special when it comes to online storage.
And yet, we can run power to the same places.
We can but we won't because there is no economic case for running a power line to everywhere we could theoretically drive a vehicle including places where there are no roads like Antarctica or vast swaths of Alaska, Siberia, or northern Canada or the Sahara, etc.
Power lines and substations are nothing difficult to install.
Running power lines AND maintaining them out in the middle of nowhere is hardly a trivial endeavor even if we ignore the economic cost of doing so. It is FAR more expensive and environmentally damaging than shipping a occasional container of petrol to a random spot once in a blue moon.
Seriously, you are completely and utterly missing the point. The point is that it simply that there will remain corner cases where EVs are not viable. That is ok. It will not be practical within your lifetime or mine to extend our electric grid everywhere just in case someone wants to recharge an EV in the middle of some remote wilderness. It's totally OK that for corner cases like that we use an internal combustion engine. EVs will eventually be able to cover most destinations and for those that they cannot get to we use something else. EVs don't have to be able to cover 100% of possible destinations. 99% will do just fine.
.We can find a lot of specific cases where one or the other doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that we abandon EVs because they aren't universally applicable to every situation.
Who said anything about abandoning EVs? Certainly not me. How about actually responding to what I wrote instead of some imaginary argument in your head. We need all the EVs we can get in my opinion. I'm just stating the plain-as-day fact that EVs will not completely eliminate ICEs even under the rosiest of possible outcomes. But if we get to 95%+ I think we should all be very pleased with that.
Nothing against Open Office or Libre but most people in business swear by Microsoft Office.
No they don't. They just haven't bothered trying anything else and it's what their company gives them. Many of them don't even know there is another option.
It is a solid option when you do not get office through your work or want to pay the small monthly fee for the home edition.
It's a a better than solid option even if you do get MS Office. I have no idea why anyone would actually pay to use MS Office at home for non-work purposes. I use LibreOffice every day as I have standardized our company on it. Works great with no more problems than MS Office.
As I recall Open Office actually has a similar preloader available, but it's more obvious (leaves an icon in the tray) and I'm not sure if it's enabled by default - use office suites rarely enough that I always disable such things as being excessively expensive.
Libreoffice asks you if you want it enabled during installation. You can also turn it on/off from the settings as well.
Because they don't seem to have ever experienced the fun of keeping IC engines running in the extremes - usually cold
One could say the same about people experiencing the fun of keeping an EV running in the extremes (hot and cold). Most of those doing the discussing haven't done that either. There are problems with both and there are some extreme conditions which ICEs deal with better than EVs and vice-versa. EVs start better in cold but their range is significantly diminished which is not true of ICEs. Heat is a major issue too and can substantially reduce the life of a battery pack or electronics.
Isn't this where molten salt reactors come in? No material left over, no meltdowns, small.
There are serious problems and dangers with every fission reactor design. Molten salt and thorium reactors are no exception. They might be better but they aren't without risk.