On the other hand, if you're going to make a hybrid truck, you're likely to do it for your best selling line. The '1.5' ton truck is the best seller out there, over it's smaller cousin.
Then you have to ask yourself, wanting a truck, if you want to get the larger truck that, while costing more, does get better gas mileage than the lighter one.
A system where you drive your car on the train is different because it loads and unloads quickly
Sure about that? Is this system going to load everything from hummers to civics quickly and easily?
Trucks could use the rail system too, so this PRT would provide the needed extra capacity for which we're going to have to build more roads of some kind anyway. Traditional PRT only carries people, which doesn't work for someone with a load of plumber's tools or even a traveling salesman's display cases. But a car-carrying PRT would work for virtually everybody.
We already have ways to put trailers on traditional rails, we just need more of them going to more locations.
In addition, making the PRT system carry cars means that it's going to have to handle at least an order of magnitude more weight. This raises the cost for relatively little amounts of traffic. For things like the plumber, you go ahead and use the road system, or eventually - cargo pods. I'd imagine that fedex and UPS would love them. Cross country, no need for huge sorting centers, in two days.
so religion has little to do with it (although it does have a peripheral influence)
In other words, pretty much the same as post desegregation USA deep south.
The way I look at it. Of course, given it's ancient origins, you can also compare it to the 'Estates' of medieval europe, the old guild systems. Just hardened to a relatively extreme degree.
It ends up having religious trappings because that's how things are justified. Just like if you go back to the pre-civil war south, you can find preachers interpreting the bible to be in favor of slavery.
Secular? No country with a caste system is secular.
You still haven't broken the analogy. Back during the cold war we had a caste system as well, remember? It was based on the color of your skin.
By the same token, India is fighting their own caste system. Arguably it's a lot like our fight against discrimination; you run into problems that even with official government mandates that the people in the government positions to enforce that mandate are for the discrimination, so frequently ignore said mandates. Just like in our case, it's going to take generations, and it doesn't help that their caste system has been around longer than our country.
Uh, no. There are rail solutions that you put your car on, but they're very much long haul. Building a rail car to take your car results in enough added mass to eliminate the fuel savings.
With PRT you go with minimalistic pods*, and while building the track is more expensive than a road, it also has more capacity than a road and a far smaller footprint, which can actually make it cheaper, or even the only feasible method, in high density areas. The computer control allows you to have pods close enough, the design allows non-stop travel, etc...
Most of the highway system isn't overcrowded - it's only the bits in the cities.
*In some theoretical systems you could even own your own pod.
People, especially here in the US, are independent creatures. They prefer personal transportation to mass, and personal right now happens to be gas.
While people do often like their cars, as a person who has traveled by bus(both city and greyhound), train, plane, taxi, and car I have to say that there are reasons for so many people being almost glued to their vehicles.
To Wit: The alternatives suck. And the old saying: time costs money
For commutes, you're stuck using their schedule, not your schedule. When I had a *free* bus available, I mostly drove to work. Why? Because my work, despite being the one providing the bus, set the bus schedules in a paranoid fashion, resulting in adding 2 hours to my 12 hour work day. If it's simply added a half hour, I'd have taken it. The $2-4 saved back then just wasn't worth the time.
So, in any proposal to actually get people out of their cars, you have to acknowledge this. If you can make your theoretical public transport faster, cheaper, and more reliable than a car, you'd easily be able to get a large number of cars off the road.
That's why I like the idea of a high speed PRT system - you get the system's average speed above that of cars and a ticket that costs less than the gas to drive the same distance and you're gold. For an inner city system that'd often be 25-35 mph, for a interstate type system I'd want 100mph at a minimum*.
relax regulations on battery technology
Specifics?
*And a way to keep the same car when you stop to use the bathroom or even eat at a restaurant.
and allow more nuclear power plants
I agree with you here, but this reminded me of a local politician campaign add talking about 'adding more wind power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil'. I don't mind green energy by any means, but I detest fuzzy logic. Wind turbines produce electricity. Electricity, at this time, is insignificantly tied to our demand for oil. We could triple our electricity production and cut the cost in half and we'd barely reduce our demand for oil. At that, it'd be mostly people in the northeast switching from oil heating to electric. And they're already switching away from oil in many cases.
The efficiency advantage of an 'over expanded' engine decreases as the compression ratio increases.
Sure about that? I'd think that it'd increase, actually. Just that, like anything, you don't want to overdo it.
As for the power disadvantage - well, for things like the diesel generator for my building, it doesn't matter much, you just put a bigger engine in. It also wouldn't matter as much for a hybrid because you can use the electric parts to make up the power difference, but yeah, extra mass = extra fuel to move it, especially in city driving. So after a point, even if you could increase efficiency more by increasing the stroke you'd lose efficiency by increasing the size of the engine to give you the extra power.
I was just reading about some of the hybrid truck proposals.
One of the things mentioned was that many of them would come with the ability to output 120/240 VAC.
So you could come in with your(not necessarily small) truck, plug your jobsite electrical system into it and have a highly efficient generator without having to bring in a seperate piece of equipment.
As a bonus, the truck's systems would have it running the engine at optimal speed/power, for example - turning off the engine when demand is low and the batteries charged.
Fleet use wise, for many businesses that need a truck, but not the towing, for in-city use would be able to justify a hybrid on gas savings very quickly. Many of the trucks at dad's work only get 8-12mpg. Many could be pure electric for the mileage they do in a day.
For that matter, the Otto cycle isn't the most efficient for spark engines either. The Atkinson cycle, having a power stroke longer than the compression stroke, can be more efficient.
Though I don't think that that efficiency increase would be restricted to gasoline engines - it could also be utilized with a diesel engine.
Then again, I still remember reading about high-efficiency two stroke diesel engines should be able to meet emission standards without much effort. They use a turbocharger to flush out waste gases at the end of the cycle with fresh air, and no fuel is wasted(the major reason for fuel inefficiency and pollution with two stroke gasoline engines) because diesel isn't injected into the chamber until the end of the compression cycle anyways.
Could probably do this with gasline, you'd just need a diesel type injector for each cylinder.
No idea whether it'll actually come true, but I believe that both GMC and Ford are set to release hybrid trucks next year.
GMC Sierra Hybrid It's to be a 'light' hybrid, with a full size V8 to maintain towing capacity.
Ford F-150 hybrid Hydraulic? Note: Closer to vaporware, it's an older article, may have been canceled. Though with current gas prices, might be starting up again.
As others have noted, electric motors are actually quite good at providing low RPM torque, and it's not like you don't have plenty of mass and area with a truck to put a big battery and electric motor in capable of doing things like pull a stump out of the ground. If nothing else, all the proposals I've seen are for 'mild' hybrids, with full size engines.
Ah ha, trick example! I said density, not pressure, as it is the amount of atmosphere that matters, not the pressure it produces. It does not retain enough heat from the sun, nor produce enough convection from the equator to keep the CO2 at poles from freezing.
The fact that the max is also -5C, giving us a spread of 82 vs the Earth with a spread of 116 degrees tends to make me think that an atmosphere unable to retain heat isn't that big of a cause - the temperature does actually stay within a pretty stable range.
Claiming that an eccentric orbit taking us inside that of Mercury would make this planet unlivable is about as insightful a comment as sticking ones hand a fire and calling it hot. But an eccentric orbit that remains in the habitable zone, even taking us out to Mars orbit, wouldn't necessarily preclude the possibility of life.
True, however we already have temperature ranges from -72F to 136F(-57.8 to 57.8*). In either case, life is not very prevalent at those extremes, and they don't happen at the same spot.
The question of whether a more eccentric orbit would outrule life depends, like you said, on how eccentric the orbit is, what the orbital period is, etc... An orbit that gets mercury close while still being in the habitable zone on average would absolutely scorch the planet during the close pass, not to mention having a good chance of blowing away the atmosphere. On the far side you'd experience Mars level freezes - CO2 precipitating out of the atmosphere. Unless the star was small and the orbital period fast enough that the thermal mass of the planet could moderate stuff.
The habitable zone would most likely shrink, but there should be good regions for quite a ways.
Did you now that the Earth does in fact have an elliptical orbit, and that in January it is actually three million miles closer than it is in July?
To put it in context, the average is 149.6 million km, the min is 147.1, the max is 152.0. Or an orbital difference of 3.3% between min and max. Pretty close to a true circle, I think.
Did you also know that the primary reason there is solid carbon dioxide on Mars is the density of the atmosphere, and not the distance to the sun?
I call bull on this one. Pressure can lead to precipitation of gasses, but the atmosphere of Mars is very, very thin..7-.9 kPa, while the Earth at sealevel is 101 kPa. Carbon dioxide freezes at -78, while Mars reaches lows of -87. So yes, CO2 freezes on mars, much like water freezes on earth.
The tendency was around long before Star Trek was filmed; indeed, lots of classic sci-fi has 'aliens' so human we can cross breed. Of course, there's also good examples of true alien life.
Still, if we assume physics remain the same in other systems, we've discovered a lot of special attributes to carbon.
To reduce things a LOT, I'll consider three possabilities for life: 1: Rocky planet borne - we know it can happen, we're around 2: Gas Giant borne - the question becomes one of - can life form in one? Can they develop technology? We just don't know. Can suitable chemical reactions occur in some part of it? Would it work in far away giants, like ours, or close ones, like we've found orbiting other stars? 3: Space/Meteorite borne: Haven't found it yet, any life is going to have to deal with relative lack of resources to spread on, extreme variations in temperature, lack of atmosphere, etc...
Going on information we have now, we only know that a technological civilization can form on #1. It might be able to form on #2 or 3, but we don't know. Besides, we're most likely to be able to colonize #1, so it makes some sense to look for systems like ours.
Just because we're a 'one in a million' or even 'one in a billion' doesn't mean that we're unique, especially as there are so many stars out there.
Still, it does give us poor prosepects for colonizing other stars in the future. At least until we become independant of planets.
Heck, that leads into my theory why Earth wasn't colonized by intelligent life in the past - travel times are so long that by the time an alien race can make the journey, they're purely space bound, other than their home system. They don't want to come down on a planet. Then assume a bit of conservation like we are considering today, and systems like ours could be declared 'off limits' to allow new species to develop.
The LCDs and monitors, etc. are all an old patent related to onscreen volume display--you know, the bar graph?
I know LCD panels are oldtech, but I was figuring it might have to do with some twist on it, after all, there are multiple types of LCD panel. I've heard possibilities for MP3, encryption, etc...
But, the main reason not to teach creation myths as facts in publically funded schools is that you may miss some citizens' versions of the myths.
I think that I've highlighted a much simpler reason not to have them in science classrooms. Put it in English, mythology, history classes if you want.
Evolution belongs in a science room because it's a valid, accepted scientific theory, based on scientific principals, borne out in peer reviewed experiments and studies.
The various flavors of 'intelligent design' don't pass this standard. There's no serious study in ID in colleges. There's no breakthroughs associated with the theory. It doesn't fit observed facts as well as evolution.
Note: I will FULLY ADMIT that evolution doesn't really explain the origins of life. The way it's taught in class is like teaching Newtonian physics to students instead of Einsteinian physics - you can't expect the average grade school student to understand more without a thorough backing in stuff like biochemistry - which they don't have yet; many never will. Some of the funky DNA exchange stuff bacteria do, for example. It's very general for a reason.
Fishers and related: 118.4 per 100k. That means you're a bit over.1% likely to die on the job. Logging: 92.9. Just a smidgen less Aircraft pilots & engineers: 66.9.
A '1 in 12' chance - if that's per mission it's 8.3% likely to kill you. Assuming 1 mission per year.
If it's a 1 in 12 over the 5 year extension, 2 flights a year, it's not as bad. Assume any given astronaut only flies once a year, that's a.83% chance of being killed per year, discounting all other possible work related accidents. That's 833 per 100k.
Per one site the rate for deployed combat troops is ~633 per 100k, back before the surge and the drop in deaths.
In other words - they're estimating that being a astronaut is 8 times as deadly as any other non-military job large enough to keep statistics. And about a third higher than serving a combat tour in Iraq during the worst point.
Now, I'm not going to say that you can't find qualified volunteers even if you fully disclose this, but considering the other costs of a failed launch, we might want to consider safer alternatives. Sadly enough, that's the Russians right now.
Besides remote control tech, some sort of new take, perhaps. Maybe LCD display tech, or some technique in there? MP3 players, set top boxes, monitors? Maybe a tuner?
Of the major population and economic centers of the United States the only one that I can think of offhand that is not immediately vulnerable to a devastating natural disaster is Chicago.
But, on a percentage basis, what are the odds of an ice storm actually devastating Chicago? So much so that they STILL wouldn't be 'fully' recovered in 5-10 years? That large segments of the city would simply be condemned? I mean, I can understand some windows needing replacing, a lot of power work, etc... But nothing that'll take longer than a month to fix 99% of the damage.
Flood zones are known, for the most part. Determining the elevation of any given plat in New Orleans is simple. In the midwest a few towns have been relocated - sometimes only a few thousand yards. Why? Statistical analysis showed that their town happened to be built in a localized 'tornado alley' - the tornado percentages even a mile away being an order of magnitude less.
In Earthquake prone cities, building codes specify building methods to withstand earthquakes.
Back a hundred years ago, fire was the biggest devastator of cities. Thus the spread of fire codes. Heck, in California I think that they need to specify even MORE fire resistance on the part of homes built in areas subject to wildfires - along with mandatory/suggested fire breaks and such.
On the insurance side - most of the other risks people have insurance for, and aren't 99% dependent on the Feds to make their loss good.
If we weren't looking at bailing them out again, if they had private insurance, it wouldn't be as big of a deal.
I've been down on the coast a few times, and I've seen substantially different construction in many areas. Much more in the way of elevated living. Stick the house on TOP of the garage, etc...
Maybe some can't afford it, but like BitterOldGUy said, wages are going up over there.
And a lot of stuff over there is half the price it would be over here. I think that what I was trying to say is that eventually, while it might not be LCD TVs or highly shippable cell phones, but at some point the company will look at manufacturing costs in China and, for example, the rust belt in the USA and build somewhere in the midwest where labor is available and land inexpensive.
For that matter, there's small but established retirement communities for expat retired americans. Social Security goes a lot further in India, Mexico, etc...
These posts assume that India and China will continue to exist in their present form.
Your post assumes that this matters. I'm simply looking at population levels in a general manner, correlated with wage levels and support service availability.
China and India currently have the advantage of low wages combined with acceptable levels of support services(stuff like roads, electricity, etc...)
Whether China fragments into a dozen states or not, it doesn't matter as long as there isn't a huge amount of fighting. If there is, it'll create a pressure to keep jobs domestic or at least outsource to more stable areas(at the moment).
Well, at least you have a good username for your spiel.
I don't think it's quite as bad as you think. Frankly, I'm surprised that we've stayed up as high as we have, and some turning points have happened faster than I thought.
Basically, the Indians and Chinese are coming up far faster than we're coming down. It doesn't help us that we're outnumbered about 2 to 1 (Including Europe, Canada, and Australia along with the USA). It also doesn't help that we're looking at the generation that gained the maximum benefit from outsourcing - cheap goods while still having relatively high incomes.
So yeah, I figure it's going to be a while before those of us in the USA and rest of Europe see a rise in standard of living other than through sheer technological progress. Buying a second home might not be as feasable to much of the population any more, but on the other hand we have much more effective medical(if expensive), cell phones, faster computers, bigger TVs, etc...
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On the other hand, if you're going to make a hybrid truck, you're likely to do it for your best selling line. The '1.5' ton truck is the best seller out there, over it's smaller cousin.
Then you have to ask yourself, wanting a truck, if you want to get the larger truck that, while costing more, does get better gas mileage than the lighter one.
A system where you drive your car on the train is different because it loads and unloads quickly
Sure about that? Is this system going to load everything from hummers to civics quickly and easily?
Trucks could use the rail system too, so this PRT would provide the needed extra capacity for which we're going to have to build more roads of some kind anyway. Traditional PRT only carries people, which doesn't work for someone with a load of plumber's tools or even a traveling salesman's display cases. But a car-carrying PRT would work for virtually everybody.
We already have ways to put trailers on traditional rails, we just need more of them going to more locations.
In addition, making the PRT system carry cars means that it's going to have to handle at least an order of magnitude more weight. This raises the cost for relatively little amounts of traffic. For things like the plumber, you go ahead and use the road system, or eventually - cargo pods. I'd imagine that fedex and UPS would love them. Cross country, no need for huge sorting centers, in two days.
so religion has little to do with it (although it does have a peripheral influence)
In other words, pretty much the same as post desegregation USA deep south.
The way I look at it. Of course, given it's ancient origins, you can also compare it to the 'Estates' of medieval europe, the old guild systems. Just hardened to a relatively extreme degree.
It ends up having religious trappings because that's how things are justified. Just like if you go back to the pre-civil war south, you can find preachers interpreting the bible to be in favor of slavery.
Secular? No country with a caste system is secular.
You still haven't broken the analogy. Back during the cold war we had a caste system as well, remember? It was based on the color of your skin.
By the same token, India is fighting their own caste system. Arguably it's a lot like our fight against discrimination; you run into problems that even with official government mandates that the people in the government positions to enforce that mandate are for the discrimination, so frequently ignore said mandates. Just like in our case, it's going to take generations, and it doesn't help that their caste system has been around longer than our country.
Uh, no. There are rail solutions that you put your car on, but they're very much long haul. Building a rail car to take your car results in enough added mass to eliminate the fuel savings.
With PRT you go with minimalistic pods*, and while building the track is more expensive than a road, it also has more capacity than a road and a far smaller footprint, which can actually make it cheaper, or even the only feasible method, in high density areas. The computer control allows you to have pods close enough, the design allows non-stop travel, etc...
Most of the highway system isn't overcrowded - it's only the bits in the cities.
*In some theoretical systems you could even own your own pod.
Most of those 'light duty' trucks aren't much smaller than the full sizes.
Besides, the Sierra is at the bottom of the heavy duty truck, being equivalent to a F150/C1500.
People, especially here in the US, are independent creatures. They prefer personal transportation to mass, and personal right now happens to be gas.
While people do often like their cars, as a person who has traveled by bus(both city and greyhound), train, plane, taxi, and car I have to say that there are reasons for so many people being almost glued to their vehicles.
To Wit: The alternatives suck. And the old saying: time costs money
For commutes, you're stuck using their schedule, not your schedule. When I had a *free* bus available, I mostly drove to work. Why? Because my work, despite being the one providing the bus, set the bus schedules in a paranoid fashion, resulting in adding 2 hours to my 12 hour work day. If it's simply added a half hour, I'd have taken it. The $2-4 saved back then just wasn't worth the time.
So, in any proposal to actually get people out of their cars, you have to acknowledge this. If you can make your theoretical public transport faster, cheaper, and more reliable than a car, you'd easily be able to get a large number of cars off the road.
That's why I like the idea of a high speed PRT system - you get the system's average speed above that of cars and a ticket that costs less than the gas to drive the same distance and you're gold. For an inner city system that'd often be 25-35 mph, for a interstate type system I'd want 100mph at a minimum*.
relax regulations on battery technology
Specifics?
*And a way to keep the same car when you stop to use the bathroom or even eat at a restaurant.
and allow more nuclear power plants
I agree with you here, but this reminded me of a local politician campaign add talking about 'adding more wind power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil'. I don't mind green energy by any means, but I detest fuzzy logic. Wind turbines produce electricity. Electricity, at this time, is insignificantly tied to our demand for oil. We could triple our electricity production and cut the cost in half and we'd barely reduce our demand for oil. At that, it'd be mostly people in the northeast switching from oil heating to electric. And they're already switching away from oil in many cases.
The efficiency advantage of an 'over expanded' engine decreases as the compression ratio increases.
Sure about that? I'd think that it'd increase, actually. Just that, like anything, you don't want to overdo it.
As for the power disadvantage - well, for things like the diesel generator for my building, it doesn't matter much, you just put a bigger engine in. It also wouldn't matter as much for a hybrid because you can use the electric parts to make up the power difference, but yeah, extra mass = extra fuel to move it, especially in city driving. So after a point, even if you could increase efficiency more by increasing the stroke you'd lose efficiency by increasing the size of the engine to give you the extra power.
I was just reading about some of the hybrid truck proposals.
One of the things mentioned was that many of them would come with the ability to output 120/240 VAC.
So you could come in with your(not necessarily small) truck, plug your jobsite electrical system into it and have a highly efficient generator without having to bring in a seperate piece of equipment.
As a bonus, the truck's systems would have it running the engine at optimal speed/power, for example - turning off the engine when demand is low and the batteries charged.
Fleet use wise, for many businesses that need a truck, but not the towing, for in-city use would be able to justify a hybrid on gas savings very quickly. Many of the trucks at dad's work only get 8-12mpg. Many could be pure electric for the mileage they do in a day.
as that used by gasoline engines (the Otto Cycle)
For that matter, the Otto cycle isn't the most efficient for spark engines either. The Atkinson cycle, having a power stroke longer than the compression stroke, can be more efficient.
Though I don't think that that efficiency increase would be restricted to gasoline engines - it could also be utilized with a diesel engine.
Then again, I still remember reading about high-efficiency two stroke diesel engines should be able to meet emission standards without much effort. They use a turbocharger to flush out waste gases at the end of the cycle with fresh air, and no fuel is wasted(the major reason for fuel inefficiency and pollution with two stroke gasoline engines) because diesel isn't injected into the chamber until the end of the compression cycle anyways.
Could probably do this with gasline, you'd just need a diesel type injector for each cylinder.
No idea whether it'll actually come true, but I believe that both GMC and Ford are set to release hybrid trucks next year.
GMC Sierra Hybrid
It's to be a 'light' hybrid, with a full size V8 to maintain towing capacity.
Ford F-150 hybrid
Hydraulic?
Note: Closer to vaporware, it's an older article, may have been canceled. Though with current gas prices, might be starting up again.
As others have noted, electric motors are actually quite good at providing low RPM torque, and it's not like you don't have plenty of mass and area with a truck to put a big battery and electric motor in capable of doing things like pull a stump out of the ground. If nothing else, all the proposals I've seen are for 'mild' hybrids, with full size engines.
Ah ha, trick example! I said density, not pressure, as it is the amount of atmosphere that matters, not the pressure it produces. It does not retain enough heat from the sun, nor produce enough convection from the equator to keep the CO2 at poles from freezing.
The fact that the max is also -5C, giving us a spread of 82 vs the Earth with a spread of 116 degrees tends to make me think that an atmosphere unable to retain heat isn't that big of a cause - the temperature does actually stay within a pretty stable range.
Claiming that an eccentric orbit taking us inside that of Mercury would make this planet unlivable is about as insightful a comment as sticking ones hand a fire and calling it hot. But an eccentric orbit that remains in the habitable zone, even taking us out to Mars orbit, wouldn't necessarily preclude the possibility of life.
True, however we already have temperature ranges from -72F to 136F(-57.8 to 57.8*). In either case, life is not very prevalent at those extremes, and they don't happen at the same spot.
The question of whether a more eccentric orbit would outrule life depends, like you said, on how eccentric the orbit is, what the orbital period is, etc... An orbit that gets mercury close while still being in the habitable zone on average would absolutely scorch the planet during the close pass, not to mention having a good chance of blowing away the atmosphere. On the far side you'd experience Mars level freezes - CO2 precipitating out of the atmosphere. Unless the star was small and the orbital period fast enough that the thermal mass of the planet could moderate stuff.
The habitable zone would most likely shrink, but there should be good regions for quite a ways.
*That's an interesting coincidence...
Did you now that the Earth does in fact have an elliptical orbit, and that in January it is actually three million miles closer than it is in July?
To put it in context, the average is 149.6 million km, the min is 147.1, the max is 152.0. Or an orbital difference of 3.3% between min and max. Pretty close to a true circle, I think.
Did you also know that the primary reason there is solid carbon dioxide on Mars is the density of the atmosphere, and not the distance to the sun?
I call bull on this one. Pressure can lead to precipitation of gasses, but the atmosphere of Mars is very, very thin. .7-.9 kPa, while the Earth at sealevel is 101 kPa. Carbon dioxide freezes at -78, while Mars reaches lows of -87. So yes, CO2 freezes on mars, much like water freezes on earth.
I blame Star Trek.
The tendency was around long before Star Trek was filmed; indeed, lots of classic sci-fi has 'aliens' so human we can cross breed. Of course, there's also good examples of true alien life.
Still, if we assume physics remain the same in other systems, we've discovered a lot of special attributes to carbon.
To reduce things a LOT, I'll consider three possabilities for life:
1: Rocky planet borne - we know it can happen, we're around
2: Gas Giant borne - the question becomes one of - can life form in one? Can they develop technology? We just don't know. Can suitable chemical reactions occur in some part of it? Would it work in far away giants, like ours, or close ones, like we've found orbiting other stars?
3: Space/Meteorite borne: Haven't found it yet, any life is going to have to deal with relative lack of resources to spread on, extreme variations in temperature, lack of atmosphere, etc...
Going on information we have now, we only know that a technological civilization can form on #1. It might be able to form on #2 or 3, but we don't know. Besides, we're most likely to be able to colonize #1, so it makes some sense to look for systems like ours.
Just because we're a 'one in a million' or even 'one in a billion' doesn't mean that we're unique, especially as there are so many stars out there.
Still, it does give us poor prosepects for colonizing other stars in the future. At least until we become independant of planets.
Heck, that leads into my theory why Earth wasn't colonized by intelligent life in the past - travel times are so long that by the time an alien race can make the journey, they're purely space bound, other than their home system. They don't want to come down on a planet. Then assume a bit of conservation like we are considering today, and systems like ours could be declared 'off limits' to allow new species to develop.
The LCDs and monitors, etc. are all an old patent related to onscreen volume display--you know, the bar graph?
I know LCD panels are oldtech, but I was figuring it might have to do with some twist on it, after all, there are multiple types of LCD panel. I've heard possibilities for MP3, encryption, etc...
But, the main reason not to teach creation myths as facts in publically funded schools is that you may miss some citizens' versions of the myths.
I think that I've highlighted a much simpler reason not to have them in science classrooms. Put it in English, mythology, history classes if you want.
Evolution belongs in a science room because it's a valid, accepted scientific theory, based on scientific principals, borne out in peer reviewed experiments and studies.
The various flavors of 'intelligent design' don't pass this standard. There's no serious study in ID in colleges. There's no breakthroughs associated with the theory. It doesn't fit observed facts as well as evolution.
Note: I will FULLY ADMIT that evolution doesn't really explain the origins of life. The way it's taught in class is like teaching Newtonian physics to students instead of Einsteinian physics - you can't expect the average grade school student to understand more without a thorough backing in stuff like biochemistry - which they don't have yet; many never will. Some of the funky DNA exchange stuff bacteria do, for example. It's very general for a reason.
Let's make some comparisons, non-military:
Fishers and related: 118.4 per 100k. That means you're a bit over .1% likely to die on the job.
Logging: 92.9. Just a smidgen less
Aircraft pilots & engineers: 66.9.
A '1 in 12' chance - if that's per mission it's 8.3% likely to kill you. Assuming 1 mission per year.
If it's a 1 in 12 over the 5 year extension, 2 flights a year, it's not as bad. Assume any given astronaut only flies once a year, that's a .83% chance of being killed per year, discounting all other possible work related accidents. That's 833 per 100k.
Per one site the rate for deployed combat troops is ~633 per 100k, back before the surge and the drop in deaths.
In other words - they're estimating that being a astronaut is 8 times as deadly as any other non-military job large enough to keep statistics. And about a third higher than serving a combat tour in Iraq during the worst point.
Now, I'm not going to say that you can't find qualified volunteers even if you fully disclose this, but considering the other costs of a failed launch, we might want to consider safer alternatives. Sadly enough, that's the Russians right now.
Yeah, it seems to be pretty strange.
Besides remote control tech, some sort of new take, perhaps. Maybe LCD display tech, or some technique in there? MP3 players, set top boxes, monitors? Maybe a tuner?
Will Sisvel be held responsible if their claims are found groundless?
From the listing of devices seized, they must be spreading their patent claims pretty wide.
Either that or it has something to do in common with all those devices - maybe remote control?
Of the major population and economic centers of the United States the only one that I can think of offhand that is not immediately vulnerable to a devastating natural disaster is Chicago.
But, on a percentage basis, what are the odds of an ice storm actually devastating Chicago? So much so that they STILL wouldn't be 'fully' recovered in 5-10 years? That large segments of the city would simply be condemned? I mean, I can understand some windows needing replacing, a lot of power work, etc... But nothing that'll take longer than a month to fix 99% of the damage.
Flood zones are known, for the most part. Determining the elevation of any given plat in New Orleans is simple. In the midwest a few towns have been relocated - sometimes only a few thousand yards. Why? Statistical analysis showed that their town happened to be built in a localized 'tornado alley' - the tornado percentages even a mile away being an order of magnitude less.
In Earthquake prone cities, building codes specify building methods to withstand earthquakes.
Back a hundred years ago, fire was the biggest devastator of cities. Thus the spread of fire codes. Heck, in California I think that they need to specify even MORE fire resistance on the part of homes built in areas subject to wildfires - along with mandatory/suggested fire breaks and such.
On the insurance side - most of the other risks people have insurance for, and aren't 99% dependent on the Feds to make their loss good.
If we weren't looking at bailing them out again, if they had private insurance, it wouldn't be as big of a deal.
I've been down on the coast a few times, and I've seen substantially different construction in many areas. Much more in the way of elevated living. Stick the house on TOP of the garage, etc...
Personally, I love strawberries.
They grow great hydroponically, and they just go bad too quickly if I buy them from the grocery - it just takes too long coming from California.
Maybe some can't afford it, but like BitterOldGUy said, wages are going up over there.
And a lot of stuff over there is half the price it would be over here. I think that what I was trying to say is that eventually, while it might not be LCD TVs or highly shippable cell phones, but at some point the company will look at manufacturing costs in China and, for example, the rust belt in the USA and build somewhere in the midwest where labor is available and land inexpensive.
For that matter, there's small but established retirement communities for expat retired americans. Social Security goes a lot further in India, Mexico, etc...
These posts assume that India and China will continue to exist in their present form.
Your post assumes that this matters. I'm simply looking at population levels in a general manner, correlated with wage levels and support service availability.
China and India currently have the advantage of low wages combined with acceptable levels of support services(stuff like roads, electricity, etc...)
Whether China fragments into a dozen states or not, it doesn't matter as long as there isn't a huge amount of fighting. If there is, it'll create a pressure to keep jobs domestic or at least outsource to more stable areas(at the moment).
Well, at least you have a good username for your spiel.
I don't think it's quite as bad as you think. Frankly, I'm surprised that we've stayed up as high as we have, and some turning points have happened faster than I thought.
Basically, the Indians and Chinese are coming up far faster than we're coming down. It doesn't help us that we're outnumbered about 2 to 1 (Including Europe, Canada, and Australia along with the USA). It also doesn't help that we're looking at the generation that gained the maximum benefit from outsourcing - cheap goods while still having relatively high incomes.
So yeah, I figure it's going to be a while before those of us in the USA and rest of Europe see a rise in standard of living other than through sheer technological progress. Buying a second home might not be as feasable to much of the population any more, but on the other hand we have much more effective medical(if expensive), cell phones, faster computers, bigger TVs, etc...