"The author's entire argument is based on the dubious
leap: since we haven't observed any advanced civilization that they
don't exist and that they are not here. How does he know our present
science, theory or experiment, is sufficient for such observation?
Can bacteria understand what Slashdot is? There could far greater gap
than that between our present knowledge and a civilization which is
few billion years ahead of us..."
An so advanced, that they can easily avoid detection when they do
come to visit Earth !!
With whom would they choose to make
contact with? The below average IQ types elected to/running the
various governments/militaries around the world? Or would they
selectively contact the High-IQ types who pioneered
major advancement's in mankind's technology? I.E.
Those with scientifically trained minds, who've demonstrated
above average aptitude, and the ability think
outside the box, verses those who adhere to static
religious dogma?
Would those humans who've been contacted, spill the beans?
Given the world's current state of affairs, not likely.
"As someone who lives in the American Southwest... desert
isn't what you see in Wile E. Coyote people, desert just has to do
with rainfall The American southwest is home to some many protected
animals/plants and habitats. Also we're not talking about 92 square
miles, we're talking about 92^2 square miles, over 8000... This is
not a relatively small area, that's a state. "
The proposed solution is a solar thermal design. Solar thermal
installations use trackers that are spread out in a ratio of ~1 to 6
ratio. If they didn't spread them out, trackers would project
shadows on the adjacent units as the day progresses. The land underneath and between these
trackers is suitable for both wildlife
and/or farming.
"The United States experienced a steep decline in refining
capacity between 1981 and the mid-1990s. Between 1981 and 1989, the
number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss
of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to
15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased
from 69% to 87%. "
The wool has been pulled over your eyes.. 324 down to 140.. at
least 184 refineries closed in the last thirty years.. P.S.
One does NOT BUILD NEW refineries if one is STILL CLOSING surplus
facilities..
"I think you're confusing oil shale with plain old shale.
The Bakken is a traditional shale formation, so recovery costs are
not that high. Wells are generally economic as long as the price of
oil stay above around $70/bbl. And no this won't make the Dakota's
like West Virginia. The reason the Bakken is now economic is because
of advances in horizontal drilling. "
Old news(1970's)... we've known about
th US's vast oil shale desposits for a long time.. the
problem is that OIL recovery
from deeply buriedOil Shale is a NET ENERGY SINK!!!
At least one oil company (Shell) has
been experimenting for a long time in various unsuccessful attempts
to reverse that energy ratio. To date, no commercially viable
oil production has been produced from these deeply
buried oil shale deposits.
Which I don't see happening...
Novell's judgement.. ~30 million, plus interest..
IBM's judgement.. ~300 million or more..
SCOG will need to post both a appeal bond and a supercedeas bond.
It's unlikely that Judge Kimball will NOT rule in favor of any delay in the execution of judgements without a full bond amount being posted.
SCOG's lawsuit has cost IBM ten's of millions in needless/pointless discovery.. Hunting for the copyright violation that never existed..) I don't see the Court of Appeals granting the stay either.
I doubt that SCOG is capable of scraping up that amount of free cash to continue this fiasco.
"Gee, so, given that coal powerplants in the USA alone
produce 1.8 millon metric tons of CO2 per year, we would need 11
million of these devices installed in the US to make American coal
power carbon neutral.
+ Correction: I messed up the calculation, the actual number is
240,000 units - but stil, a ridiculous quantity. "
US Coal/CO2 emissions on the order of 2
Billion metric tons of CO2 per year... Ergo you're off by a
factor of 1000x.. (on the low side)..
Let's assume 1.8 MMT of CO2 covers just one boiler.. (out of a
thousand).. 240,000... 88 sq.. meter tracking arrays.. would
need to be spaced at a ratio of at least 5 to 1, depending on
latitude.
Math: 240,000 * 88(min foot array foot print ) * 6 (spacing) ==
126 M sq. meters per boiler.. or an area of 126 Sq Km.. per
BOILER.
Some how I think the local residents would object to having 49 Sq
miles per boiler covered with pipelines and large solar tracking
towers. (For a US average X1000... 49,000 Sq miles.. or 126,000 sq
km.)
Once you oxidized the resulting liquid
fuel, one would still have the net effect of releasing GHG into the
atmosphere. By all indications, Humanity needs to progress to
a Carbon NEGATIVE economy. 390ppm ->350ppm. So this
really isn't a long term solution.
======== Now for a real solution ===========
Meanwhile... once could accomplish most of the same effect by
putting up 12,000 sq km. of 20% eff, PV solar trackers in some high
desert regions (Space them out by x6) and DISPLACE ALL electric
generation sources in the US..
Naturally.. we would keep generation capacity like Hydro, Wind,
Biomass,. maybe some nuclear...etc.. I would also keep all
the NG/combined cycle plants as backups (fueled by H2, stored in
depleted NG fields.) Using spare electricity generation to
produce H2 via hybrid solar thermal/electrolysis
SO2 cycle. Note: The
H2S04/SO2 process originally envisioned nuclear power supplying the
thermal energy component, but desert solar thermal plants
could easily substitute as the heat source,
and the resulting SO2 gas stored underground awaiting excess
electrical generation.
Wind energy production should also be expanded by 50x..
Spare electric power would be used in highly eff SO2 +2H20
electrolysis(0.6V) phase to produce H2SO4+H2 .
Modern EV's are roughly 10x more efficient than ICE vehicles, and
could be used to manage grid demands on the renewable energy sources.
Note: Our society would experience a
significant reduction in overall energy requirements (~30%), once the
fossil fuel industry is displaced by high grade renewables.
"The judge in this case was looking for a way to say the
defendant was obligated to keep durable records of his misdeeds,
practically to the point of tapping the memory bus. "
The judges actions go even further.. He ordering TorrentSpy to
eavesdrop on Foreign
communications. A Criminal act, especially
in the EU.. As a consequence TorrentSpy collected just enough
information to prove that both the request and the torrent host were
OUTSIDE the USA in which NO US court has any business collecting
private data.
Remember TorrentSpy stopped servicing US IP addresses when
ordered to start collecting the data.
Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the
search features of the Torrentspy.com website.Torrentspy's decision
to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but
rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy
and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws.
We hope you understand and will take the opportunity to visit one
of these other fine websites:"
Technically, if the federal judge proceeds to trial, he would be guilty of several serious crimes. Extortion, spying, acts
of war, and privacy violations among the
many countries that use the Internet.
A suggestion to judge Cooper, I wouldn't go traveling outside the
USA, unless you want to be locked up for a very long time.
Meanwhile the MPAA just received a meaningless victory. No
foreign court will honor any judgment
against TorrentSpy that was based on it's refusal to follow court orders requiring the commission of a criminal act. Hopefully a significantly wiser circuit court will rule
the Coopers actions where inappropriate, remove him from the
case, and vacate all judgments. (Less
they too want to wish to dispose of their passports as well.)
Nuclear reactors don't work so well as a peakers.
They need to run at constant(24x7) power output range.
This often entails using steam turbine bypass valves and dumping the extra heat energy into the local enviroment.
As for your 200,000 MW claim.. Bogus..
Just how does the US's 104 reactors, with a rated capacity of ~100,300MW(e) (2006), actual 24x7 production @89,865 MW come even close to your claim.
"You are SO wrong it's not funny. We have enough uranium
to cover our current worldwide energy needs for around 100 years.
Throw out the envelope and get a calculator. "
Not even that long.. Current U ore supplies will last another ~40
years or so. We might get another 20 years out of reprocessing
spent fuel rods for their U and Pu content.
After we deplete the current high grade U ores down to 150ppm
level, mining, refining, (enrichment, construction, disposal, etc),
processes will start consuming more energy (fossil fuel) than it
displaces. Extracting those lower grades of U will only be feasible
where extraction is a secondary process.
I.E.. Phosphate production for fertilizer. (Producing enough fuel
to operate 10% of the world's reactors).
As a scientist/engineer, I used to be a pro nuclear a nuclear
advocate until I analyzed the amounts and types of radio-isotopes
stored in and around each N power plant site.. Each one represents
an exceptionally deadly hazard, especially if we are ever involved in
WW-III. An enemy could easily turn most of the U.S. into a giant
radioactive wasteland, (cut average human
lifespan down to a few decades), by taking out our reactor sites
with a few dozen small nukes.
Dependence on future breeder reactor
designs is another sick joke.. Reactors with similar characteristics
have an abysmal safety record, (meltdown & fire/major release of
radioactive isotopes, Windscale, Stana Suzana, Fermi.).
I don't think M$ will sue.. For a couple of major reasons.
1. A successful counter claim of Anti-trust could strip M$ of
it's patents and lots of money.
2. Nearly every Unix developer has a viable damage claim against
M$ thanks to the SCO/Baystar/M$ connections.
3. Claims issue applies to nearly all Linux/GPL developers, since
M$ employees have been distributing Linux within the M$ organization.
I.E. They've violated the GPL terms and
would be on the hook for tens, if not hundreds of billion dollars in
copyright damages(M$ Linux lab, etc).
4. Any claims specific to embedded apps vanished long ago.
Since the installation sequence for most S5/BSD Unix's included a
ram only/rom based kernel which predates M$
efforts by as much as 15 years.
5. Recent Supreme decisions about
derivatives has weakened
many patents which are minor deviations of pre-existing technology.
6. Many of the printer/copier manufactures are dropping Netbeiu
support in favor of a Unix style printer
transfers using Postscript, and PCL support. (no M$ tech)
Since this is NOT a cross licensing deal under which to hide the
payments, this payment for licensing could trigger items 1,2
and 3 immediately upon signing.
It's just another empty threat, because if M$ sued, they would open themselves up to copyright violations/liabilities exceeding their net worth. I.E. Vis-a-vee their Linux lab activities and their employees distribution of 50+ Linux Varients. (Using their linux actiities to improve M$ products, I.E. Copyright violations for PROFIT).
Now, some lawyers may want to argue this point.. But, does M$ really think it can prevail in all of the different jurisdictions around the globe? I doubt it.
Then there are other patent holders who hold a vested interest in Linux.. Do you really think they'll sit still while M$ attacks the code which enables their products.
The furball of lawsuits would probably result in an SCO outcome for M$, broke, deranged, hiding from their NEW creditors in bankruptcy court. Note: BC doesn't work all that well for multinationals as foreign courts will just seize their offshore assets.
Nuclear reactors are large complex machines that must continue to operate their cooling systems after the grid goes down or they WILL self destruct (meltdown).
A reactor uses a dozen or more large, 250 to 5000 HP, electrically driven pumps to keep those cooling systems operational.
Large amounts of thermal energy, (~%11 initially), is still being produced by the decay of short lived isotopes despite the complete insertion of the control rods. That thermal energy must be removed or it will boil away the coolent until the core becomes exposed and melting occurs.
It takes a considerable time of active cooling before a reactor output diminishes sufficiently enough to prevent the aforementioned outcome. As design criteria each reactor is equiped with several large backup diesel generators, (same as those used in the test), to keep those cooling systems operational after a grid loss.
It should be noted, that the NRC has never required nuclear power plants survive an EMP attack. Just how many N-plants will enter into a meltdown phase after such an event is a unknown/untested quanitity.
"The difference is that in the US, we have had
unemployment rates around 4% to 5% for most of the last twenty years.
It got really bad in the early 2000's (2000 to sometime in 2003) and
got all the way up to a horrific 6.3%. While in the EU-15 the rate
was at its lowest in 2006 (I don't have numbers for 2007) at 7.9%.
Basically, the answer is supply and demand. The US has had what was
considered "full employment" in the 1970's for most of the
last 20+ years. "
Europe measures unemployment rates
differently! If the U.S. measured it's rate using a
similar metric, US unemployment rates would be in excess of 15%.
For the most part.. The US government's
published unemployment rate is now a work of pure fiction. They
could state almost any number and Wall street would not catch the
deception.. The similar misdeeds apply to the published CPI and
GDP numbers.
P.S. If you measure GDP using the
traditional method (worker income) it comes out to be ~47%(6.3T,
2006$) that of the administrations munged spending numbers(13.3T,
2006$).
The needless destruction of the earth's biosphere is a crime beyond all other crimes. Who gave humanity the right to eliminate the habitate for countless numbers of animals and plants?
If your fear god's judgement, how do you think he will judge you after humanity foolishly exterminates nearly all life on this rare jewel of a planet we currently live on??
"The grid is actually remarkably efficient for an
energy distribution system - it loses only 9% of its energy input."
Nine(9) percent is an average loss!! The equation I^2R
determines the level of grid losses.
During peak usage times the current(I) increases by a factor 2 or
3 times that of the slack periods(nighttime.) This results in Grid
losses increasing into the 20 to 27 percent range during those high
demand periods. Nighttime Grid loss falls off into 3 to 4% range.
Power delivered by residentially installed PV does not suffer from
this effect since the resistance (R) between source and load is
significantly lower. I.E. Local PV displaces upwards of 1.34 times
that of centralized grid production.
I'm not surprised by Dyson's scientific layperson viewpoints.
He's made similar mistakes before..
Dyson's sphere enclosing a star concept would have suffered from a
fatal case of spheroid warming. (I.E. One has to dissipate
all that energy at the same rate it's generated or you end up as an
super sized plasma oven. )
Since their are no opaque surfaces on a
Dyson sphere, that eliminates
any losses in the RF, UV, and visible
spectrum. Leaving only the Black body
radiative path to dissipate the stars radiative
energy. Remember it's a sphere, any energy reflected is going to end
up on another part of the sphere, thus remaining within the overall
system.
P is power radiated per second in joules(watts). e
is emissitivity.. (1 = perfect radiator.)
q is Stephens constant == 5.6703x10^-8
watt/ m^2K^4 A is surface area in meters. Tr is
temperature of radiative surface in
Kelvins. Tc is temperature of
surrounding area.
ok.. let's plug in some earth type values.. and solve for Tr..
Let's see how hot it's going to get on the exterior of Dyson's
sphere!!
P == 1368watts/m^2 (solar flux @ Earth's outer atmosphere.) A
== 1 meter to dissipate that incoming solar
flux.. For a relatively
thin shell verses interior radii, the
interior verses exterior surface areas will be roughly
equal. e == 1 (assume ideal radiator.) Tc== 2.726
Kelvin (Current temperature of space, left over
from big bang.)
1368 = 1 * 5.6703x10-8 * 1 * (Tr^4 - 2.726^4)
dropping the 1's..
1368 = 5.6703 * 10^-8 * (Tr^4 - 2.726^4).
Expanding Tc and rearranging to solve for Tr.
(1368/5.6703 *10^-8 - 55.22) ^.25 == ~394 Kelvin..(Exterior
surface of Dyson shell). which is just a bit too hot for
most life.. 121C (250F)..
For example adding 1" layer of wood (R==1 ) to the interior
surface of the shell would increase interior temperature of a Dyson
sphere by another 241K ! Whoa, that's another 465F added to the
exterior temp @250F... damn that's hot.. ouch.. someone call the
fire department..
One should not forget that the shell thickness of a Dyson sphere
is going to be at least 100meters, if not thousands of meters
thick. The R value of such a surface would be extremely high..
Resulting in interior temperatures that would vaporise any known
material.
Summary.. Attempting to live inside a Dyson sphere isn't even
remotely possible.
"Let's have a quick lesson in correlation =/= causation, shall we?"
Windows OS has pentrated only a small percentage of the CPU based devices in use today.
I.E. Palm, PSP, Modems, Firewalls, Wireless gateways, Automobile computers, Linux systems, BSD based systems(apple), or less than 10% of the OS market for all CPU's.
That said, Windows Visa is a Bloated, Spyware'd, DRM'd turkey and it's defacto inclusion has negatively impacted recent PC sales.
"I think most really good programmers are humble in
describing their ability to absorb and integrate the concepts
necessary to be able to come up with programming solutions. Some
don't realize that the same traits that make them respond that way
end up leading them to discover things that others might miss.
Time and effort, of course, is a part of becomming a brilliant
programmer, but without some inate ability, all the time and effort
in the world won't help. So, I would say:
Those people who you hear about who are "naturally
talented" fall into one of two categories:
1) They are talented and spent a lot of time and effort turning
that talent into a skill."
Successful innovators would probably classify themselves as a
confident risk taker, and a perfectionist.
(Usually they have a background in the harder sciences, which
isn't forgiving of sloppy work or shortcuts.)
They often
self analyze and discard many tentative
solution vectors, as they perfect their innovation. Many of
the lessor solution vectors are often eliminated in a mental
simulation as they 're walking around the outside of a structure.
Major leaps of innovation usually occur when someone with a diverse
background introduces common techniques from one field of science
to another.
When they're completed the result often speaks for itself.
=====
It should be noted, that current methods of IT selection
and hiring often exclude these innovators from consideration.
(I.E. H.R. looking for pure IT/CS background, exact skill match,
no risk takers, etc. ) As a consequence of these poor HR practices,
innovation, product reliability, and quality has deteriorated over
the last decade.
"If you find that your patent has been violated, you have
to sue in a timely manner. You can't wait or the court will pitch out
your case because of the doctrine of laches. I suppose someone should
ask them how they intend to get around that problem. "
They have... M$ is/was already estopped from asserting patent
claims in most GPL'd Linux distributions!! This restriction was
imposed when one or more M$ employees distributed Linux throughout
Microsoft (Linux lab, etc).
In general corporations, (a virtual person), can't enter into the
GPL contract directly, (Corps have no physical presence
required to perform the overt act of physical copying/distribution which triggers/enables
GPL license(contract) terms), instead they become bound to GPL terms
via proxy, (employee(s) who were authorized
to perform the act of copying/distribution), and the common law
doctrine of respondeat superior. The
language of the GPL license(contract) makes
it clear that any such distribution among
many precludes asserting any patent claims in those
distributions.
Therefore M$ is already estopped, via promissory
estoppel, from asserting it's patent claims for most GPL'd linux
distributions. If M$ were ever successful in convincing a court
to the contrary, then it would be exposed to millions of copyright
violations for profit.
Given the obvious legal liability that M$ has already attached;
this press release is just restating Microsoft's intention not to incur
additional liabilities.
Jump to scene where HAL is informing Bowman and Poole about a impending failure of the ship's AE-35.
The crew EVA's, retreives the EA-35 and HAL proceeds to direct the crew through the diagnosis of the unit. HAL directed both the humans and other test/measurement equipment(computers) through the diagnosis. P.S. The computer also made judgement call about the human's reliability.
I think that movie covers nearly all of the patent claims.
As for humans directing computers who then direct humans, Email covers that...
Most of these benchmarks are targeted towards unified caches.. (Intel)
Meanwhile real world apps favor separate caches per core. (Where one user app isn't flushing cache entries of another app executing on different core.)
If they wanted to make it fair..
They should execute n-copies of each benchmark compiled separately using different module names. (no unified cache sharing.)
Next item.. Graphics & games. What are they really measuring?
The ability of some device driver writer to take advantage of some esoteric CPU optimization?
Last item they disabled Cool and Quiet on over clocked AMD configuration s it should have never been published.. I.E. They're simulating certain AMD configurations and aren't testing the real thing..
Slashdot Mirror
"The author's entire argument is based on the dubious leap: since we haven't observed any advanced civilization that they don't exist and that they are not here. How does he know our present science, theory or experiment, is sufficient for such observation? Can bacteria understand what Slashdot is? There could far greater gap than that between our present knowledge and a civilization which is few billion years ahead of us. .."
An so advanced, that they can easily avoid detection when they do come to visit Earth !!
With whom would they choose to make contact with?
The below average IQ types elected to/running the various governments/militaries around the world?
Or would they selectively contact the High-IQ types who pioneered major advancement's in mankind's technology?
I.E. Those with scientifically trained minds, who've demonstrated above average aptitude, and the ability think outside the box, verses those who adhere to static religious dogma?
Would those humans who've been contacted, spill the beans?
Given the world's current state of affairs, not likely.
"As someone who lives in the American Southwest... desert isn't what you see in Wile E. Coyote people, desert just has to do with rainfall The American southwest is home to some many protected animals/plants and habitats. Also we're not talking about 92 square miles, we're talking about 92^2 square miles, over 8000... This is not a relatively small area, that's a state. "
The proposed solution is a solar thermal design. Solar thermal installations use trackers that are spread out in a ratio of ~1 to 6 ratio. If they didn't spread them out, trackers would project shadows on the adjacent units as the day progresses. The land underneath and between these trackers is suitable for both wildlife and/or farming.
"The problem is refineries. We haven't built a new refinery in America in decades. "
no.. The oil companies have closed ~200 refineries since 1980.
see my other post on this subject..
"Big deal, we've got a huge, untapped reserve under the northern Midwest. Too bad we haven't built any new refineries in the past 30 years. "
Memos Show Oil Companies Closed Refineries To Hike Profits - Politics on The Huffington Post:
from an old deja link.. (referencing DOE website... link since removed.. I wonder why??? )
"The United States experienced a steep decline in refining capacity between 1981 and the mid-1990s. Between 1981 and 1989, the number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to 15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased from 69% to 87%. "
Current DOE refiinery stats. Indicates the number of large US refineries has droped to less than 135..
The wool has been pulled over your eyes.. 324 down to 140 .. at
least 184 refineries closed in the last thirty years.. P.S.
One does NOT BUILD NEW refineries if one is STILL CLOSING surplus
facilities..
"I think you're confusing oil shale with plain old shale. The Bakken is a traditional shale formation, so recovery costs are not that high. Wells are generally economic as long as the price of oil stay above around $70/bbl. And no this won't make the Dakota's like West Virginia. The reason the Bakken is now economic is because of advances in horizontal drilling. "
Old news(1970's)... we've known about th US's vast oil shale desposits for a long time..
the problem is that OIL recovery from deeply buried Oil Shale is a NET ENERGY SINK!!!
At least one oil company (Shell) has been experimenting for a long time in various unsuccessful attempts to reverse that energy ratio.
To date, no commercially viable oil production has been produced from these deeply buried oil shale deposits.
The resulting Kerogen recovered requires extensive cracking(in a H2 rich enviroment)/pryolysis energy input to make it into something useful.
It doesn't matter what the cost per Barrel for oil recovered frm shale is, unless you've tapped a source of free energy.
Which I don't see happening...
Novell's judgement.. ~30 million, plus interest..
IBM's judgement.. ~300 million or more..
SCOG will need to post both a appeal bond and a supercedeas bond.
It's unlikely that Judge Kimball will NOT rule in favor of any delay in the execution of judgements without a full bond amount being posted.
SCOG's lawsuit has cost IBM ten's of millions in needless/pointless discovery.. Hunting for the copyright violation that never existed..)
I don't see the Court of Appeals granting the stay either.
I doubt that SCOG is capable of scraping up that amount of free cash to continue this fiasco.
"Gee, so, given that coal powerplants in the USA alone produce 1.8 millon metric tons of CO2 per year, we would need 11 million of these devices installed in the US to make American coal power carbon neutral.
+ Correction: I messed up the calculation, the actual number is 240,000 units - but stil, a ridiculous quantity. "
US Coal/CO2 emissions on the order of 2 Billion metric tons of CO2 per year...
Ergo you're off by a factor of 1000x.. (on the low side)..
Let's assume 1.8 MMT of CO2 covers just one boiler.. (out of a thousand).. ... 88 sq.. meter tracking arrays.. would
need to be spaced at a ratio of at least 5 to 1, depending on
latitude.
240,000
Math: 240,000 * 88(min foot array foot print ) * 6 (spacing) ==
126 M sq. meters per boiler.. or an area of 126 Sq Km.. per BOILER.
Some how I think the local residents would object to having 49 Sq miles per boiler covered with pipelines and large solar tracking towers. (For a US average X1000... 49,000 Sq miles .. or 126,000 sq
km.)
Once you oxidized the resulting liquid fuel, one would still have the net effect of releasing GHG into the atmosphere. By all indications, Humanity needs to progress to a Carbon NEGATIVE economy. 390ppm ->350ppm. So this really isn't a long term solution.
======== Now for a real solution ===========
Meanwhile... once could accomplish most of the same effect by putting up 12,000 sq km. of 20% eff, PV solar trackers in some high desert regions (Space them out by x6) and DISPLACE ALL electric generation sources in the US..
Naturally.. we would keep generation capacity like Hydro, Wind, Biomass,. maybe some nuclear...etc..
I would also keep all the NG/combined cycle plants as backups (fueled by H2, stored in depleted NG fields.)
Using spare electricity generation to produce H2 via hybrid solar thermal/electrolysis SO2 cycle.
Note: The H2S04/SO2 process originally envisioned nuclear power supplying the thermal energy component, but desert solar thermal plants could easily substitute as the heat source, and the resulting SO2 gas stored underground awaiting excess electrical generation.
Wind energy production should also be expanded by 50x..
Spare electric power would be used in highly eff SO2 +2H20 electrolysis(0.6V) phase to produce H2SO4+H2 .
Modern EV's are roughly 10x more efficient than ICE vehicles, and could be used to manage grid demands on the renewable energy sources.
Note: Our society would experience a significant reduction in overall energy requirements (~30%), once the fossil fuel industry is displaced by high grade renewables.
Solar Irradiance verses Sunspots..
Ouch.. in a couple of years the Sun is going to add another 0.3 of Watts/m^2 to the Earth's energy imbalance problem!
With any luck the AGW deniers will finally get a clue !
"They could make a 9V battery, but they are going the way of the Dodo. "
Rechargeable 9V lithium ion batteries are available via mail order.
"The judge in this case was looking for a way to say the defendant was obligated to keep durable records of his misdeeds, practically to the point of tapping the memory bus. "
The judges actions go even further.. He ordering TorrentSpy to eavesdrop on Foreign communications. A Criminal act, especially in the EU.. As a consequence TorrentSpy collected just enough information to prove that both the request and the torrent host were OUTSIDE the USA in which NO US court has any business collecting private data.
Remember TorrentSpy stopped servicing US IP addresses when ordered to start collecting the data.
"Torrentspy Acts to Protect Privacy"
Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website.Torrentspy's decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws.
We hope you understand and will take the opportunity to visit one of these other fine websites:"
Technically, if the federal judge proceeds to trial, he would be guilty of several serious crimes.
Extortion, spying, acts of war, and privacy violations among the many countries that use the Internet.
A suggestion to judge Cooper, I wouldn't go traveling outside the USA, unless you want to be locked up for a very long time.
Meanwhile the MPAA just received a meaningless victory.
No foreign court will honor any judgment against TorrentSpy that was based on it's refusal to follow court orders requiring the commission of a criminal act.
Hopefully a significantly wiser circuit court will rule the Coopers actions where inappropriate,
remove him from the case, and vacate all judgments. (Less they too want to wish to dispose of their passports as well.)
"Yes, it is proven."
No it's not..
Nuclear reactors don't work so well as a peakers.
They need to run at constant(24x7) power output range.
This often entails using steam turbine bypass valves and dumping the extra heat energy into the local enviroment.
As for your 200,000 MW claim.. Bogus..
Just how does the US's 104 reactors, with a rated capacity of ~100,300MW(e) (2006), actual 24x7 production @89,865 MW come even close to your claim.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/usreactors2006.xls
"You are SO wrong it's not funny. We have enough uranium to cover our current worldwide energy needs for around 100 years. Throw out the envelope and get a calculator. "
Not even that long.. Current U ore supplies will last another ~40 years or so.
We might get another 20 years out of reprocessing spent fuel rods for their U and Pu content.
After we deplete the current high grade U ores down to 150ppm level, mining, refining, (enrichment, construction, disposal, etc), processes will start consuming more energy (fossil fuel) than it displaces. Extracting those lower grades of U will only be feasible where extraction is a secondary process.
I.E.. Phosphate production for fertilizer. (Producing enough fuel to operate 10% of the world's reactors).
As a scientist/engineer, I used to be a pro nuclear a nuclear advocate until I analyzed the amounts and types of radio-isotopes stored in and around each N power plant site.. Each one represents an exceptionally deadly hazard, especially if we are ever involved in WW-III. An enemy could easily turn most of the U.S. into a giant radioactive wasteland, (cut average human lifespan down to a few decades), by taking out our reactor sites with a few dozen small nukes.
Dependence on future breeder reactor designs is another sick joke.. Reactors with similar characteristics have an abysmal safety record, (meltdown & fire/major release of radioactive isotopes, Windscale, Stana Suzana, Fermi.).
I don't think M$ will sue.. For a couple of major reasons.
1. A successful counter claim of Anti-trust could strip M$ of it's patents and lots of money.
2. Nearly every Unix developer has a viable damage claim against M$ thanks to the SCO/Baystar/M$ connections.
3. Claims issue applies to nearly all Linux/GPL developers, since M$ employees have been distributing Linux within the M$ organization. I.E. They've violated the GPL terms and would be on the hook for tens, if not hundreds of billion dollars in copyright damages(M$ Linux lab, etc).
4. Any claims specific to embedded apps vanished long ago.
Since the installation sequence for most S5/BSD Unix's included a ram only/rom based kernel which predates M$ efforts by as much as 15 years.
5. Recent Supreme decisions about derivatives has weakened many patents which are minor deviations of pre-existing technology.
6. Many of the printer/copier manufactures are dropping Netbeiu support in favor of a Unix style printer transfers using Postscript, and PCL support. (no M$ tech)
Since this is NOT a cross licensing deal under which to hide the payments,
this payment for licensing could trigger items 1,2 and 3 immediately upon signing.
It's just another empty threat, because if M$ sued, they would open themselves up to copyright violations/liabilities exceeding their net worth. I.E. Vis-a-vee their Linux lab activities and their employees distribution of 50+ Linux Varients. (Using their linux actiities to improve M$ products, I.E. Copyright violations for PROFIT).
Now, some lawyers may want to argue this point.. But, does M$ really think it can prevail in all of the different jurisdictions around the globe? I doubt it.
Then there are other patent holders who hold a vested interest in Linux.. Do you really think they'll sit still while M$ attacks the code which enables their products.
The furball of lawsuits would probably result in an SCO outcome for M$, broke, deranged, hiding from their NEW creditors in bankruptcy court. Note: BC doesn't work all that well for multinationals as foreign courts will just seize their offshore assets.
Nuclear reactors are large complex machines that must continue to operate their cooling systems after the grid goes down or they WILL self destruct (meltdown).
A reactor uses a dozen or more large, 250 to 5000 HP, electrically driven pumps to keep those cooling systems operational.
Large amounts of thermal energy, (~%11 initially), is still being produced by the decay of short lived isotopes despite the complete insertion of the control rods. That thermal energy must be removed or it will boil away the coolent until the core becomes exposed and melting occurs.
It takes a considerable time of active cooling before a reactor output diminishes sufficiently enough to prevent the aforementioned outcome. As design criteria each reactor is equiped with several large backup diesel generators, (same as those used in the test), to keep those cooling systems operational after a grid loss.
It should be noted, that the NRC has never required nuclear power plants survive an EMP attack. Just how many N-plants will enter into a meltdown phase after such an event is a unknown/untested quanitity.
"The difference is that in the US, we have had unemployment rates around 4% to 5% for most of the last twenty years. It got really bad in the early 2000's (2000 to sometime in 2003) and got all the way up to a horrific 6.3%. While in the EU-15 the rate was at its lowest in 2006 (I don't have numbers for 2007) at 7.9%. Basically, the answer is supply and demand. The US has had what was considered "full employment" in the 1970's for most of the last 20+ years. "
Europe measures unemployment rates differently!
If the U.S. measured it's rate using a similar metric, US unemployment rates would be in excess of 15%.
Surging Jobless- and Fake Unemployment Numbers
~20% Unemployment Rate
For the most part.. The US government's published unemployment rate is now a work of pure fiction.
They could state almost any number and Wall street would not catch the deception..
The similar misdeeds apply to the published CPI and GDP numbers.
P.S. If you measure GDP using the traditional method (worker income) it comes out to be ~47%(6.3T, 2006$) that of the administrations munged spending numbers(13.3T, 2006$) .
It's the ultimate crime.
The needless destruction of the earth's biosphere is a crime beyond all other crimes. Who gave humanity the right to eliminate the habitate for countless numbers of animals and plants?
If your fear god's judgement, how do you think he will judge you after humanity foolishly exterminates nearly all life on this rare jewel of a planet we currently live on??
"The grid is actually remarkably efficient for an energy distribution system - it loses only 9% of its energy input."
Nine(9) percent is an average loss!! The equation I^2R determines the level of grid losses.
During peak usage times the current(I) increases by a factor 2 or 3 times that of the slack periods(nighttime.) This results in Grid losses increasing into the 20 to 27 percent range during those high demand periods. Nighttime Grid loss falls off into 3 to 4% range.
Power delivered by residentially installed PV does not suffer from this effect since the resistance (R) between source and load is significantly lower. I.E. Local PV displaces upwards of 1.34 times that of centralized grid production.
I'm not surprised by Dyson's scientific layperson viewpoints.
He's made similar mistakes before..
Dyson's sphere enclosing a star concept would have suffered from a fatal case of spheroid warming. (I.E. One has to dissipate all that energy at the same rate it's generated or you end up as an super sized plasma oven. )
Since their are no opaque surfaces on a Dyson sphere, that eliminates any losses in the RF, UV, and visible spectrum. Leaving only the Black body radiative path to dissipate the stars radiative energy. Remember it's a sphere, any energy reflected is going to end up on another part of the sphere, thus remaining within the overall system.
Stefan-Boltzmann's Law describes ideal black body radiation with the follow equation.
P = e * q * A * ( Tr ^ 4 - Tc^4).
Where,
P is power radiated per second in joules(watts).
e is emissitivity.. (1 = perfect radiator.)
q is Stephens constant == 5.6703x10^-8 watt/ m^2K^4
A is surface area in meters.
Tr is temperature of radiative surface in Kelvins.
Tc is temperature of surrounding area.
ok.. let's plug in some earth type values.. and solve for Tr..
Let's see how hot it's going to get on the exterior of Dyson's sphere!!
P == 1368watts/m^2 (solar flux @ Earth's outer atmosphere.)
A == 1 meter to dissipate that incoming solar flux.. For a relatively thin shell verses interior radii, the interior verses exterior surface areas will be roughly equal.
e == 1 (assume ideal radiator.)
Tc== 2.726 Kelvin (Current temperature of space, left over from big bang.)
1368 = 1 * 5.6703x10-8 * 1 * (Tr^4 - 2.726^4)
dropping the 1's..
1368 = 5.6703 * 10^-8 * (Tr^4 - 2.726^4).
Expanding Tc and rearranging to solve for Tr.
(1368 /5.6703 *10^-8 - 55.22) ^ .25 == ~394 Kelvin..(Exterior
surface of Dyson shell).
which is just a bit too hot for most life.. 121C (250F)..
121C (250F) exterior surface temperature translates into a interior temperature several orders higher since
all materials resist thermal energy transfer to some degree.
For example adding 1" layer of wood (R==1 ) to the interior surface of the shell would increase interior temperature of a Dyson sphere by another 241K ! Whoa, that's another 465F added to the exterior temp @250F... damn that's hot.. ouch.. someone call the fire department..
One should not forget that the shell thickness of a Dyson sphere is going to be at least 100meters, if not thousands of meters thick. The R value of such a surface would be extremely high.. Resulting in interior temperatures that would vaporise any known material.
Summary.. Attempting to live inside a Dyson sphere isn't even remotely possible.
"Let's have a quick lesson in correlation =/= causation, shall we?"
Windows OS has pentrated only a small percentage of the CPU based devices in use today.
I.E. Palm, PSP, Modems, Firewalls, Wireless gateways, Automobile computers, Linux systems, BSD based systems(apple), or less than 10% of the OS market for all CPU's.
That said, Windows Visa is a Bloated, Spyware'd, DRM'd turkey and it's defacto inclusion has negatively impacted recent PC sales.
"I think most really good programmers are humble in describing their ability to absorb and integrate the concepts necessary to be able to come up with programming solutions. Some don't realize that the same traits that make them respond that way end up leading them to discover things that others might miss.
Time and effort, of course, is a part of becomming a brilliant programmer, but without some inate ability, all the time and effort in the world won't help. So, I would say:
Those people who you hear about who are "naturally talented" fall into one of two categories:
1) They are talented and spent a lot of time and effort turning that talent into a skill."
Successful innovators would probably classify themselves as a confident risk taker, and a perfectionist.
(Usually they have a background in the harder sciences, which isn't forgiving of sloppy work or shortcuts.)
They often self analyze and discard many tentative solution vectors, as they perfect their innovation.
Many of the lessor solution vectors are often eliminated in a mental simulation as they 're walking around the outside of a structure.
Major leaps of innovation usually occur when someone with a diverse background introduces common techniques from one field of science to another.
When they're completed the result often speaks for itself.
=====
It should be noted, that current methods of IT selection and hiring often exclude these innovators from consideration. (I.E. H.R. looking for pure IT /CS background, exact skill match,
no risk takers, etc. ) As a consequence of these poor HR practices,
innovation, product reliability, and quality has deteriorated over
the last decade.
"If you find that your patent has been violated, you have to sue in a timely manner. You can't wait or the court will pitch out your case because of the doctrine of laches. I suppose someone should ask them how they intend to get around that problem. "
They have... M$ is/was already estopped from asserting patent claims in most GPL'd Linux distributions!!
This restriction was imposed when one or more M$ employees distributed Linux throughout Microsoft (Linux lab, etc).
In general corporations, (a virtual person), can't enter into the GPL contract directly, (Corps have no physical presence required to perform the overt act of physical copying/distribution which triggers/enables GPL license(contract) terms), instead they become bound to GPL terms via proxy, (employee(s) who were authorized to perform the act of copying/distribution), and the common law doctrine of respondeat superior. The language of the GPL license(contract) makes it clear that any such distribution among many precludes asserting any patent claims in those distributions.
Therefore M$ is already estopped, via promissory estoppel, from asserting it's patent claims for most GPL'd linux distributions. If M$ were ever successful in convincing a court to the contrary, then it would be exposed to millions of copyright violations for profit.
Given the obvious legal liability that M$ has already attached; this press release is just restating Microsoft's intention not to incur additional liabilities.
Or he could be adding in all the contractors, (not included in corp headcount), who are also loosing their jobs.
Jump to scene where HAL is informing Bowman and Poole about a impending failure of the ship's AE-35.
The crew EVA's, retreives the EA-35 and HAL proceeds to direct the crew through the diagnosis of the unit. HAL directed both the humans and other test/measurement equipment(computers) through the diagnosis. P.S. The computer also made judgement call about the human's reliability.
I think that movie covers nearly all of the patent claims.
As for humans directing computers who then direct humans, Email covers that...
Most of these benchmarks are targeted towards unified caches.. (Intel)
Meanwhile real world apps favor separate caches per core.
(Where one user app isn't flushing cache entries of another app executing on different core.)
If they wanted to make it fair..
They should execute n-copies of each benchmark compiled separately using different module names. (no unified cache sharing.)
Next item.. Graphics & games. What are they really measuring?
The ability of some device driver writer to take advantage of some esoteric CPU optimization?
Last item they disabled Cool and Quiet on over clocked AMD configuration s it should have never been published.. I.E. They're simulating certain AMD configurations and aren't testing the real thing..