Ones that think that NC-17 films might provoke violence, irresponsable sexual acts, too mature for a teenager*, or just wrong?
Pretty much the same as the religious groups, but without being able to simply say "That's EVIL!!!". There's no restriction for non-religious people to not have morals.
Generally speaking, the lower the rating of a film, the wider the potential audience. A good G rated movie has the whole familty there. Moving to PG/PG13 can cut your potential audience by 20%, R by 50%, NC17 by 80%. This is tempered a bit by the fact that adults have more money to visit theaters, and many enjoy the more adult higher rated films. But teenagers are a pretty wealthy crowd as well, and can't go to a NC17 film, but can go to a R.
Now, If I was a chain movie theater, I'd generally show the lowest rated films first. IE general release G films are guarenteed to be shown. Then PG's, moving up to R if I have enough screens(probably guarenteed). Now this would be moderated by expected viewership: Star Wars will be shown, regardless if a dozen G films are being released the same week. Depending on how conservative the area I'm in is, I'd consider showing NC17 films if I could reasonably guarentee that prohibited persons aren't going to get into the room showing it. This can range from the furthest screen in a more relaxed area, maybe with a seperate ticket taker/checker, to a different theater with no kids allowed in conservative areas. The problem with this is that you have to hire seperate ticket people, concessions, etc resulting in greater expense.
Having lived in the midwest for a while, I can tell you that the religious/moral umbridge folks can be quite vocal. When a 'juice bar' opened outside of town, taking advantage of a quirk in state law tying nude show laws with alcohol. No alcohol license, no rules against. They didn't have to spend a cent in advertising. They made the front page of the newspaper a week running from all the protests.
*Considering "Teen" covers anything 13-19, it's quite a range. Also, maturity levels between even the same age teen varies widely.
[i]The plans is for these newer contracts to be fixed-cost, with payments contingent on meeting pre-established milestones. I'm curious to see whether or not this new system will survive, as its success would cut back drastically on congressional pork.[/i]
Note: I've received training on fed.gov contracting in the Air Force. While my field was computer aquisitions, the training was fairly generic, covering construction, equipment, and services such as busing the base's kids to school, as well as care of the grounds. They're called 'performance based contracts' at the time.
If the contracts are written like I was trained, these companies won't get paid until the cargo is delivered to the station. As long as they arrive intact and on time, the fed.gov won't care whether they go up in one rocket or a dozen, or even shot out of a cannon. Old contracts would specify how the company was to do stuff. Obviously, this limits what cost saving measures can be accomplished. New contracts are supposed to specify what the goal is. They can also have conditions for marginal performance, or excellent performance warranting a bonus.
Example: Old Style: Start Driving specified route(attached) with XX passanger diesel school bus, pick up kids along route, drop off at y time. New Style: For given area, kids are to be moved by sheltered heated vehicle to the school. Pickups are not to start before x time, and they are to be dropped off by y time. Missed pickups of more than 3 children/month results in fine of $, missed pickup of 10 or more more than twice a year is grounds for termination of contract.
How about the fact that even with high efficiency solar panels you'd have a hard time supplying the electricity for the attached convienence store and lights, much less produce enough hydrogen for every car that comes by.
It'd better be better than $20 a payment in savings to make it worth it for me.
I wouldn't buy a car with this system
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High-Tech RepoMan
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· Score: 1
Like requiring a breathalyzer on board each car, or a GPS system, this assumes too much in the way of wrongdoing on my part for me to like it.
Of course, with my good credit and automatic payments, I'm not likely to get behind on payments, such that the system might cost more than it's worth. I hope the keypad can be used for other things as well.
For somebody with shady credit, though, it might be an option, though like what was stated, it'd probably be pretty easy to bypass if you know what you're doing.
Agnostic libertarian with a CCW permit here. I regularly carry a firearm. Just presenting my credentials.
You're stronger than I can. If I thought only of my family I'd go back to being a criminal.
And yet you can carry a firearm. Either you were never caught, you weren't much of a criminal, or you're carrying illegally, which means you're still a criminal. If you're following the law now, congratulations. I love it when people reform.
I would never kill. If I had to shoot someone in the foot or in the shoulder I would, but only in defense.
Now this, I have a real problem with. Either you're just spouting lies, or if you really carry, you haven't fully thought out what you're doing.
You say that you would never kill, but are you aware that, between the rigors of combat, random chance with bullet paths, body physiology, movement that you're: A: It's still possible you're going to kill them. By bleedout if nothing else. B: Far less likely to hit them C: Even if you hit them, you're far less likely to disable them, to stop them. Hits in the foot/shoulder are generally not only non-fatal, but are also non-disabling. The human body is designed to attempt to stay operational right up to death in cases of injury.
Now me, I've determined that if I'm going to use my firearm, I'm going to do my best to STOP the attacker, prevent him from being able to continue an assault, which translates to a CNS hit or rapid bleedout. Which is also fatal. I'm going to be aiming for the chest/head, which are far larger targets than extremeties, and don't move around as much.
Rothbard addresses these questions. If you're interested in a copy e-mail me and I'll mail you my copy to read.
This makes me interested, can you post the cliff-notes way that the government would fund the remaining services that it'll presumably provide? Or are you such that even police would be privitized?
Which is why I demand monthly budgets and operations reports from my church. Who did we help? How are they progressing? How are we cutting costs? How are we reaching out to others? I can't get this from government. I don't follow an organized Christianity.
Agreed. The very same views as you are part of the reason that I follow an agnostic view. The politicing that goes on when an organization that gets too large is horrible.
I think that 1, 2, and 4 are your choice. 3 is a bit wierd, but I'll agree with the general sentiment. Avoiding obsession, and blind obedience/faith is a good thing. 5 well, as long as your parents/other figures of authority are worthy of respect. See #3. 8&10 seem to almost go beyond Libertarian into anarchy. I believe that some taxation has to occur to provide for services such as military and police. 6 well, I believe in the alternate reading of "Thou shalt not commit murder". Sometimes there are evil people out there that need to be killed. The rest just seems to make sense.
Yeah, well, it's a case of us being among the first to write the legislation way back when and never getting around to updating it.
NIMF has a political agenda, ESRB doesn't, mostly
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The ESRB Gets An 'F'
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't really see anything the original post doesn't cover.
A more or less neutral rater(ESRB), pretty much the gaming version of the MPAA, gives games ratings. Just like the 'NC-17' or the old X ratings, Movies intending to have a presence on the mass market theaters will work with the board to get a better rating. They'll edit the movie to get down to an R or PG-13. A PG-13 movie has a much wider viewing audience than a R, so there's pressures to make films even milder if it's a marginal R. And, just like the MPAA, there are going to be oddities on how they rate certain marginal films. The rating is being decided upon by a board of humans, on what can be called a piece of art. You can't necessarily make up a metric based on number of deaths, that'd sink movies like the titanic, war movies having battlegrounds. Neither can you measure by 'punches thrown'(what if it's a documentary about a boxer?), amount of curse words, etc. It's all relative.
NIMF appears to be an organization of fear mongers, trying to control society through the cry of 'it's for the children!'.
If they want more games to be assigned an 'AO' rating, well, then they should actually work on convincing stores to stock them. Otherwise you'll get a number of 'borderline' games, where, just like in films, they edit and tweak to get the lower rating so they can actually have a physical presence in stores like Best Buy, Walmart, Target. Heck, even places like Gamestop and such don't stock AO games.
I was allowed to rent and watch R rated movies, with my younger brother, from when I was 12. My parents had to submit a signed letter with the rental place for me to be able to, but they did it. Why? They felt that I was able to handle the difference between fiction and reality. Of course, ratings were tougher back then, to the point that today, people today would scratch their heads and go 'They gave THAT an R?'.
If NIMF has it's way, it'd end up having to call for legal enforcement of the ratings systems, because adults would be ignoring them even more, like my parents did for the R ratings. Their only restriction was a verbal 'no horror films'. Of course, they usually watched with us.
Each one could probably go for $10-20k, if not more, just for the prosthesis. When mass produced, they're probably $1k to produce, so that's a pretty hefty profit that goes directly to the company selling it
Given the very same reasons that you mention, $1k is likely to be the starting point for the basic materials.
since each of these would require individualization to the customer (since everyone's amputation is different)
Every hand is going to be essentially custom built. Beyond the exact point of amputation, you have different hand sizes, finger lengths(best to match against other hand), skin color, etc...
You pay an expert $100 an hour for two weeks to construct your hand, and your labor cost is going to be around eight grand alone. I've read about foot/leg replacements, and each artificial leg is essentially a custom job. It's also almost an art form.
That being said, most of these biomedical research things come out of a research institute, funded by either gov't or private funding, and then when they think they can make a product out of it, hop to the business world and get productized. The R&D costs are largely paid for already, and the only costs are in bringing it to market, so it's not nearly as expensive as if they were paying for this from scratch. I only skimmed the website, so not sure where on this continuum this project is.
From my readings, Government research typically covers theoretical applications, basic science. Actual applications have to be developed by the company, then certification has to be obtained, mostly at great expense.
Remember, if the evil companies are actually making money hand over fist, then generally somebody else enters the field to get some of that money, reducing the cost for all.
Considering the cost of fake legs, I'd tend to say that $10,000-100,000 would be a closer aproximation as to the cost.
Think about it, would you sink the cost of a car into getting a hand if you've lost one?
As far as the war goes, well, it's generating attention, but the actual amount of amputations is a low fraction of those caused by diabetes alone in this country. Industrial accidents also play a role.
Now, yes, military wounded to tend to get the better limbs. This is both because the government can afford them, and the fact that you can be much more successful with them when you're working on replacing the leg of a young, otherwise fit individual.
I realize it's a bit of a liberal type thing to say (therefore by current thinking I must be a terrorist) but I hope one day we grow up as a race and stop trying to kill one another.
If nothing else it is just such a stupid, pointless, waste of resources.
It's not that liberal. Most conservatives think the same way. It's just that they think that violence is still going to be part of the equation for the forseeable future, and that it's best if the good guys(us) are better at it than the bad guys(the terrorists). The more the better. You don't want an even fight in war.
And before people start jumping on Bush bashing... I'll point out that many conservatives are pissed at Bush for being too liberal. They consider the whole Iraq/WMD issue to only be one of many reasons for going in. It took five years for them to pressure him into increasing border security(maybe). Look at the screams that erupted when he nominated Miers. *note: I'm not a republican, I'm a libertarian with some conservative tendencies.
Especially late at night. I wouldn't want to be afraid of waking up everybody else in the house/neighborhood when I have to go in the middle of the night.
What can I say? I'm demanding about the performane of my porcelain throne. I hadn't previously considered Decibals to be a needed metric...
The site you mentioned seemed more concerned with material after it left the toilet bowl and continued into the sewer pipes.
While it covered different types of toilets, it didn't seem to cover brands, models, etc. I'm not so concerned with how far the mass makes it down the pipes per flush, I'm concerned about it leaving the bowl in the first place without the usage of a plunger or resorting to flushing three times.
A locomotive is a little different in that you don't have a internal combustion engine providing force to the wheels. Instead you basically have a two-stage diesel generator which powers an electric motor. This is done to avoide the complex transmissions that would be necessary for a real diesel engine to work effectively in that environment.
While it's indeed not a 'standard' hybrid, it's still using an engine and electric motors. Addition of some batteries and you'd have an almost standard hybrid. Direct connection of the engine to the wheels is not a necessety. Indeed, not having a direct physical connection between the wheels and engine in a hybrid can vastly simplify the design.
I think you raise a good point with semis as well. I am immediately wondering about the possibility of a gas turbine/electric engine.
From what I remember, gas turbine/electric is what powers the abrams tank, and it's not exactly 'fuel efficient', though it provides the best ratio of size, power, and fuel flexability to be useful in a tank. Then again, if I remember right gas turbines can be tuned for more efficiency. I think you have to either sacrifice power or small size.
My bigger concern is that I have heard people touting diesel as a replacement for these electric technologies rather than something to be used along with them.
Well, I'll agree with this. My view is that as the price of oil increases, alternatives and conservative measures will be found and exploited. Each company, person will find their own measures.
Do I have favorites? Well, electric looks good for local, short range deliveries. I liked the idea that didn't pan out, at least currently, for high speed/power flywheels to replace batteries. The potential advantage would have been much higher charging/discharging capability.
Midrange, performance might be hybrid, ethanol, hydrogen fuel cell. Long range/heavy haul might be biodiesel.
But I think that it'll be the market and the realities when the price of oil finally reaches the point that people start switching in mass.
I'll also note that while it can work for a couple dozen cars within a given city, can you guess how much waste oil your average restraunt produces in a week? I'll give you a hint: A whole lot less than your average gas station dispenses in a day.
The whole biodiesel thing is about a widespread, commercially viable* alternative to diesel.
The main reason is that electric cars are just more energy efficient. You can do things with them to increase that efficiency that you just can't (easily) do with internal combustion engines. Things like regenerative braking.
Not so much for a semi going down the highway.
Biodiesel is great, but I don't see it as anything more than a solution for legacy support.
There's a distinct possibility that it'll be used for more than that. For example, there's no technical reason you can't have a diesel engine in a hybrid. Matter of fact, that's what's in modern locomotives.
Biodiesel engines, hybrid or not, are a potential solution for long haul uses like Trains, tractors, semis, etc.
Regular diesel was $2.79 a gallon; biodiesel was $3.06 a gallon
I'll note that prices of fuels can vary quite a bit by location. Transportation costs(distance to the refineries), taxes, subsidies, availability, individual station pricing all play a part. So Biodiesel can indeed be cheaper in one location and more expensive in another.
But anyway, even if biodiesel was half the price of regular diesel, wouldn't you want it cheaper still?
Yep. Better, Safer, Cleaner, Cheaper. All desirable. Makes moving stuff easier, allows economic benefit, etc. It's an advantage if it drops the price of biodiesel by even 1 cent a gallon.
According to you, there's a 27 cent difference right now, another 2 years and that might disappear, even solely from increases in the price of oil.
There is a limit to how many windmills you can build and maintain economically. And if nothing else, you can grow soybeans or whatever else makes good biodiesel or ethanol underneath the windmills.
I'm always for researching various options. Making the manufacture of biodiesel cheaper, and by the sound of it, more enviromentally safe, moves us that much closer to independance from our dependance on oil, much less foreign oil produced by countries that love our money while hating us.
As far as windmill power goes, I've said it before, but I'd love to see a national PRT system implemented. Removing the inefficiencies of batteries from the electrical system would be a major plus. Additionally, I'd love to be able to zip around and visit my parents without having to drive. I'm right at the point that they're about equal times, but driving is 1/4 the cost, even with today's gas prices. With a good book or something an 8 hour trip(at 100mph) wouldn't be bad.
Some mideastern countries see this. Saudi Arabia has mostly seemed more concerned with running their welfare* system. There are a number of other countries that are looking into nuclear power, not so much for the power, but because it greatly eases desalination. Enough desalinated water and you can irrigate even deserts for crops. Enough power and you can produce aluminum. Besides, even though it's cheap, why burn the resources you make 90% of your money from to fuel your own country, when you can use a different, non-polluting power source? I've also seen some countries pushing college and engineering technology very, very hard.
I said it was a sweet spot, not that it's a narrow sweet spot. I'll fully admit that there's a range where microwave ovens would operate more or less identically.
Or at least, that's what I was taught in high school science class.
The added value of an online journal over the researchers posting their own articles on their own website are multiple. I can think of: Collation of information, so researchers don't have to search the entire web. Fairer and more consistant elimination of quack, fake, and questionable research. Neutrality in peer review(research scientist can't just make bad reviews 'go away'. More reliable historical archiving.
It is such that, given the requirements for researchers/universities to spend thousands of dollars a year for these journals(many are very, very expensive), that going to an non-profit open based internet system may well be the correct choice, funded by grants and donations.
Do they have reviews or some sort of rating system available?
My grandparents have two toilets. One of them is a low flow, which doesn't get used for #2 because of the clogging problems it suffers. Of course, it might be an early model, but still. Anybody who's suffered from these problems are going to be very hesitant in purchasing one.
Some sort of rating system to help people understand that the specific model that they're getting is far superior to the one they had problems with at a friend, neighbor, relative's house.
Slashdot Mirror
Ones that think that NC-17 films might provoke violence, irresponsable sexual acts, too mature for a teenager*, or just wrong?
Pretty much the same as the religious groups, but without being able to simply say "That's EVIL!!!". There's no restriction for non-religious people to not have morals.
Generally speaking, the lower the rating of a film, the wider the potential audience. A good G rated movie has the whole familty there. Moving to PG/PG13 can cut your potential audience by 20%, R by 50%, NC17 by 80%. This is tempered a bit by the fact that adults have more money to visit theaters, and many enjoy the more adult higher rated films. But teenagers are a pretty wealthy crowd as well, and can't go to a NC17 film, but can go to a R.
Now, If I was a chain movie theater, I'd generally show the lowest rated films first. IE general release G films are guarenteed to be shown. Then PG's, moving up to R if I have enough screens(probably guarenteed). Now this would be moderated by expected viewership: Star Wars will be shown, regardless if a dozen G films are being released the same week. Depending on how conservative the area I'm in is, I'd consider showing NC17 films if I could reasonably guarentee that prohibited persons aren't going to get into the room showing it. This can range from the furthest screen in a more relaxed area, maybe with a seperate ticket taker/checker, to a different theater with no kids allowed in conservative areas. The problem with this is that you have to hire seperate ticket people, concessions, etc resulting in greater expense.
Having lived in the midwest for a while, I can tell you that the religious/moral umbridge folks can be quite vocal. When a 'juice bar' opened outside of town, taking advantage of a quirk in state law tying nude show laws with alcohol. No alcohol license, no rules against. They didn't have to spend a cent in advertising. They made the front page of the newspaper a week running from all the protests.
*Considering "Teen" covers anything 13-19, it's quite a range. Also, maturity levels between even the same age teen varies widely.
[i]The plans is for these newer contracts to be fixed-cost, with payments contingent on meeting pre-established milestones. I'm curious to see whether or not this new system will survive, as its success would cut back drastically on congressional pork.[/i]
Note: I've received training on fed.gov contracting in the Air Force. While my field was computer aquisitions, the training was fairly generic, covering construction, equipment, and services such as busing the base's kids to school, as well as care of the grounds. They're called 'performance based contracts' at the time.
If the contracts are written like I was trained, these companies won't get paid until the cargo is delivered to the station. As long as they arrive intact and on time, the fed.gov won't care whether they go up in one rocket or a dozen, or even shot out of a cannon. Old contracts would specify how the company was to do stuff. Obviously, this limits what cost saving measures can be accomplished. New contracts are supposed to specify what the goal is. They can also have conditions for marginal performance, or excellent performance warranting a bonus.
Example:
Old Style: Start Driving specified route(attached) with XX passanger diesel school bus, pick up kids along route, drop off at y time.
New Style: For given area, kids are to be moved by sheltered heated vehicle to the school. Pickups are not to start before x time, and they are to be dropped off by y time. Missed pickups of more than 3 children/month results in fine of $, missed pickup of 10 or more more than twice a year is grounds for termination of contract.
Well, I'd wonder if you were resigning if you were incompetent or made a mistake that caused the crash.
Otherwise, even if the system crashes the day after you submit your resignation, after all access has been taken away, you can still be suspect.
Nerds know about dead-man switches, time delays, etc.
Something as simple as a weekday timer, where it triggers if you don't log in each day.
Still, I'll say that he should take his two weeks and leave happy. Consider it two weeks vacation time. If he wants, he can try for more.
Pretty much the same here.
In the summer, I'll bike pretty much anywhere. During worst parts of the winter, I consider the walk/run to the car a trial.
How about the fact that even with high efficiency solar panels you'd have a hard time supplying the electricity for the attached convienence store and lights, much less produce enough hydrogen for every car that comes by.
It'd better be better than $20 a payment in savings to make it worth it for me.
Like requiring a breathalyzer on board each car, or a GPS system, this assumes too much in the way of wrongdoing on my part for me to like it.
Of course, with my good credit and automatic payments, I'm not likely to get behind on payments, such that the system might cost more than it's worth. I hope the keypad can be used for other things as well.
For somebody with shady credit, though, it might be an option, though like what was stated, it'd probably be pretty easy to bypass if you know what you're doing.
Agnostic libertarian with a CCW permit here. I regularly carry a firearm. Just presenting my credentials.
You're stronger than I can. If I thought only of my family I'd go back to being a criminal.
And yet you can carry a firearm. Either you were never caught, you weren't much of a criminal, or you're carrying illegally, which means you're still a criminal. If you're following the law now, congratulations. I love it when people reform.
I would never kill. If I had to shoot someone in the foot or in the shoulder I would, but only in defense.
Now this, I have a real problem with. Either you're just spouting lies, or if you really carry, you haven't fully thought out what you're doing.
You say that you would never kill, but are you aware that, between the rigors of combat, random chance with bullet paths, body physiology, movement that you're:
A: It's still possible you're going to kill them. By bleedout if nothing else.
B: Far less likely to hit them
C: Even if you hit them, you're far less likely to disable them, to stop them. Hits in the foot/shoulder are generally not only non-fatal, but are also non-disabling. The human body is designed to attempt to stay operational right up to death in cases of injury.
Now me, I've determined that if I'm going to use my firearm, I'm going to do my best to STOP the attacker, prevent him from being able to continue an assault, which translates to a CNS hit or rapid bleedout. Which is also fatal. I'm going to be aiming for the chest/head, which are far larger targets than extremeties, and don't move around as much.
Rothbard addresses these questions. If you're interested in a copy e-mail me and I'll mail you my copy to read.
This makes me interested, can you post the cliff-notes way that the government would fund the remaining services that it'll presumably provide? Or are you such that even police would be privitized?
Which is why I demand monthly budgets and operations reports from my church. Who did we help? How are they progressing? How are we cutting costs? How are we reaching out to others? I can't get this from government. I don't follow an organized Christianity.
Agreed. The very same views as you are part of the reason that I follow an agnostic view. The politicing that goes on when an organization that gets too large is horrible.
I think that 1, 2, and 4 are your choice.
3 is a bit wierd, but I'll agree with the general sentiment. Avoiding obsession, and blind obedience/faith is a good thing.
5 well, as long as your parents/other figures of authority are worthy of respect. See #3.
8&10 seem to almost go beyond Libertarian into anarchy. I believe that some taxation has to occur to provide for services such as military and police.
6 well, I believe in the alternate reading of "Thou shalt not commit murder". Sometimes there are evil people out there that need to be killed.
The rest just seems to make sense.
Yeah, well, it's a case of us being among the first to write the legislation way back when and never getting around to updating it.
I don't really see anything the original post doesn't cover.
A more or less neutral rater(ESRB), pretty much the gaming version of the MPAA, gives games ratings. Just like the 'NC-17' or the old X ratings, Movies intending to have a presence on the mass market theaters will work with the board to get a better rating. They'll edit the movie to get down to an R or PG-13. A PG-13 movie has a much wider viewing audience than a R, so there's pressures to make films even milder if it's a marginal R. And, just like the MPAA, there are going to be oddities on how they rate certain marginal films. The rating is being decided upon by a board of humans, on what can be called a piece of art. You can't necessarily make up a metric based on number of deaths, that'd sink movies like the titanic, war movies having battlegrounds. Neither can you measure by 'punches thrown'(what if it's a documentary about a boxer?), amount of curse words, etc. It's all relative.
NIMF appears to be an organization of fear mongers, trying to control society through the cry of 'it's for the children!'.
If they want more games to be assigned an 'AO' rating, well, then they should actually work on convincing stores to stock them. Otherwise you'll get a number of 'borderline' games, where, just like in films, they edit and tweak to get the lower rating so they can actually have a physical presence in stores like Best Buy, Walmart, Target. Heck, even places like Gamestop and such don't stock AO games.
I was allowed to rent and watch R rated movies, with my younger brother, from when I was 12. My parents had to submit a signed letter with the rental place for me to be able to, but they did it. Why? They felt that I was able to handle the difference between fiction and reality. Of course, ratings were tougher back then, to the point that today, people today would scratch their heads and go 'They gave THAT an R?'.
If NIMF has it's way, it'd end up having to call for legal enforcement of the ratings systems, because adults would be ignoring them even more, like my parents did for the R ratings. Their only restriction was a verbal 'no horror films'. Of course, they usually watched with us.
Each one could probably go for $10-20k, if not more, just for the prosthesis. When mass produced, they're probably $1k to produce, so that's a pretty hefty profit that goes directly to the company selling it
Given the very same reasons that you mention, $1k is likely to be the starting point for the basic materials.
since each of these would require individualization to the customer (since everyone's amputation is different)
Every hand is going to be essentially custom built. Beyond the exact point of amputation, you have different hand sizes, finger lengths(best to match against other hand), skin color, etc...
You pay an expert $100 an hour for two weeks to construct your hand, and your labor cost is going to be around eight grand alone. I've read about foot/leg replacements, and each artificial leg is essentially a custom job. It's also almost an art form.
That being said, most of these biomedical research things come out of a research institute, funded by either gov't or private funding, and then when they think they can make a product out of it, hop to the business world and get productized. The R&D costs are largely paid for already, and the only costs are in bringing it to market, so it's not nearly as expensive as if they were paying for this from scratch. I only skimmed the website, so not sure where on this continuum this project is.
From my readings, Government research typically covers theoretical applications, basic science. Actual applications have to be developed by the company, then certification has to be obtained, mostly at great expense.
Remember, if the evil companies are actually making money hand over fist, then generally somebody else enters the field to get some of that money, reducing the cost for all.
Considering the cost of fake legs, I'd tend to say that $10,000-100,000 would be a closer aproximation as to the cost.
Think about it, would you sink the cost of a car into getting a hand if you've lost one?
As far as the war goes, well, it's generating attention, but the actual amount of amputations is a low fraction of those caused by diabetes alone in this country. Industrial accidents also play a role.
Now, yes, military wounded to tend to get the better limbs. This is both because the government can afford them, and the fact that you can be much more successful with them when you're working on replacing the leg of a young, otherwise fit individual.
I realize it's a bit of a liberal type thing to say (therefore by current thinking I must be a terrorist) but I hope one day we grow up as a race and stop trying to kill one another.
If nothing else it is just such a stupid, pointless, waste of resources.
It's not that liberal. Most conservatives think the same way. It's just that they think that violence is still going to be part of the equation for the forseeable future, and that it's best if the good guys(us) are better at it than the bad guys(the terrorists). The more the better. You don't want an even fight in war.
And before people start jumping on Bush bashing... I'll point out that many conservatives are pissed at Bush for being too liberal. They consider the whole Iraq/WMD issue to only be one of many reasons for going in. It took five years for them to pressure him into increasing border security(maybe). Look at the screams that erupted when he nominated Miers.
*note: I'm not a republican, I'm a libertarian with some conservative tendencies.
There's no direct coupling. It more or less exactly like a battery. You can put electricity in, and can get electricity out.
The motor is purely internal and not coupled to any driveshafts. The whole system is built around the flywheel.
Oh and those flywheels are rotating at some insane velocities. They're made from carbon fiber because nothing else approaches the strength necessary.
And that could get annoying...
Especially late at night. I wouldn't want to be afraid of waking up everybody else in the house/neighborhood when I have to go in the middle of the night.
What can I say? I'm demanding about the performane of my porcelain throne. I hadn't previously considered Decibals to be a needed metric...
The site you mentioned seemed more concerned with material after it left the toilet bowl and continued into the sewer pipes.
While it covered different types of toilets, it didn't seem to cover brands, models, etc. I'm not so concerned with how far the mass makes it down the pipes per flush, I'm concerned about it leaving the bowl in the first place without the usage of a plunger or resorting to flushing three times.
A locomotive is a little different in that you don't have a internal combustion engine providing force to the wheels. Instead you basically have a two-stage diesel generator which powers an electric motor. This is done to avoide the complex transmissions that would be necessary for a real diesel engine to work effectively in that environment.
While it's indeed not a 'standard' hybrid, it's still using an engine and electric motors. Addition of some batteries and you'd have an almost standard hybrid. Direct connection of the engine to the wheels is not a necessety. Indeed, not having a direct physical connection between the wheels and engine in a hybrid can vastly simplify the design.
I think you raise a good point with semis as well. I am immediately wondering about the possibility of a gas turbine/electric engine.
From what I remember, gas turbine/electric is what powers the abrams tank, and it's not exactly 'fuel efficient', though it provides the best ratio of size, power, and fuel flexability to be useful in a tank. Then again, if I remember right gas turbines can be tuned for more efficiency. I think you have to either sacrifice power or small size.
My bigger concern is that I have heard people touting diesel as a replacement for these electric technologies rather than something to be used along with them.
Well, I'll agree with this. My view is that as the price of oil increases, alternatives and conservative measures will be found and exploited. Each company, person will find their own measures.
Do I have favorites? Well, electric looks good for local, short range deliveries. I liked the idea that didn't pan out, at least currently, for high speed/power flywheels to replace batteries. The potential advantage would have been much higher charging/discharging capability.
Midrange, performance might be hybrid, ethanol, hydrogen fuel cell. Long range/heavy haul might be biodiesel.
But I think that it'll be the market and the realities when the price of oil finally reaches the point that people start switching in mass.
I'll also note that while it can work for a couple dozen cars within a given city, can you guess how much waste oil your average restraunt produces in a week? I'll give you a hint: A whole lot less than your average gas station dispenses in a day.
The whole biodiesel thing is about a widespread, commercially viable* alternative to diesel.
*Someday, maybe. It shows promise.
The main reason is that electric cars are just more energy efficient. You can do things with them to increase that efficiency that you just can't (easily) do with internal combustion engines. Things like regenerative braking.
Not so much for a semi going down the highway.
Biodiesel is great, but I don't see it as anything more than a solution for legacy support.
There's a distinct possibility that it'll be used for more than that. For example, there's no technical reason you can't have a diesel engine in a hybrid. Matter of fact, that's what's in modern locomotives.
Biodiesel engines, hybrid or not, are a potential solution for long haul uses like Trains, tractors, semis, etc.
Regular diesel was $2.79 a gallon; biodiesel was $3.06 a gallon
I'll note that prices of fuels can vary quite a bit by location. Transportation costs(distance to the refineries), taxes, subsidies, availability, individual station pricing all play a part. So Biodiesel can indeed be cheaper in one location and more expensive in another.
But anyway, even if biodiesel was half the price of regular diesel, wouldn't you want it cheaper still?
Yep. Better, Safer, Cleaner, Cheaper. All desirable. Makes moving stuff easier, allows economic benefit, etc. It's an advantage if it drops the price of biodiesel by even 1 cent a gallon.
According to you, there's a 27 cent difference right now, another 2 years and that might disappear, even solely from increases in the price of oil.
There is a limit to how many windmills you can build and maintain economically. And if nothing else, you can grow soybeans or whatever else makes good biodiesel or ethanol underneath the windmills.
I'm always for researching various options. Making the manufacture of biodiesel cheaper, and by the sound of it, more enviromentally safe, moves us that much closer to independance from our dependance on oil, much less foreign oil produced by countries that love our money while hating us.
As far as windmill power goes, I've said it before, but I'd love to see a national PRT system implemented. Removing the inefficiencies of batteries from the electrical system would be a major plus. Additionally, I'd love to be able to zip around and visit my parents without having to drive. I'm right at the point that they're about equal times, but driving is 1/4 the cost, even with today's gas prices. With a good book or something an 8 hour trip(at 100mph) wouldn't be bad.
Some mideastern countries see this. Saudi Arabia has mostly seemed more concerned with running their welfare* system. There are a number of other countries that are looking into nuclear power, not so much for the power, but because it greatly eases desalination. Enough desalinated water and you can irrigate even deserts for crops. Enough power and you can produce aluminum. Besides, even though it's cheap, why burn the resources you make 90% of your money from to fuel your own country, when you can use a different, non-polluting power source? I've also seen some countries pushing college and engineering technology very, very hard.
*Some would say indoctrination
I said it was a sweet spot, not that it's a narrow sweet spot. I'll fully admit that there's a range where microwave ovens would operate more or less identically.
Or at least, that's what I was taught in high school science class.
The added value of an online journal over the researchers posting their own articles on their own website are multiple. I can think of: Collation of information, so researchers don't have to search the entire web. Fairer and more consistant elimination of quack, fake, and questionable research. Neutrality in peer review(research scientist can't just make bad reviews 'go away'. More reliable historical archiving.
It is such that, given the requirements for researchers/universities to spend thousands of dollars a year for these journals(many are very, very expensive), that going to an non-profit open based internet system may well be the correct choice, funded by grants and donations.
Do they have reviews or some sort of rating system available?
My grandparents have two toilets. One of them is a low flow, which doesn't get used for #2 because of the clogging problems it suffers. Of course, it might be an early model, but still. Anybody who's suffered from these problems are going to be very hesitant in purchasing one.
Some sort of rating system to help people understand that the specific model that they're getting is far superior to the one they had problems with at a friend, neighbor, relative's house.