Mysticism is a response to the unknown. Unfortunately it isn't a very useful response. It is much better to respond with empiricism and inquiry than carving stone idols.
Frank Capra did a series of science documentaries in the 50's that are quite amazing. Adults might find them a bit over the top, but for a seven year old they can be really mind bending. I know they had a big impact on me as a child.
Our Mr. Sun Hemo the Magnificent Unchained Goddess The Strange Case of Cosmic Rays
are available on DVD. The whole series had nine films, but I haven't been able to find the others.
Mostly it is the company you are buying the service from, and the contracts it has with terminating companies in the destination country.
One thing to be aware of is the prepaid cards are generally given the lowest quality of service routes. The phone company already has your money, so it doesn't really care whether the call goes through or not. If you are placing the call on a billable basis then the phone company doesn't get any money if the call doesn't go through.
Sounds sketchy to me. This is already how many types of armor penetrating munitions work. The jet of molten metal is created by a shaped charge. No need to carry around a few tons of foo-foo magnets, batteries, heaters, a vat of annoyingly hot molten metal and so on. While you are setting all that up I'll have blown off the target with a nice simple RPG and escaped.
In general production costs scale with a 0.7 exponent. That is production cost is proportional to Capacity^0.7. So in fact he production cost part of the total cost per gallon should decline as volume increases.
Now of course I am not sure what kinds of assumptions are being made here to get a $2.00 gallon cost at 50% conversion efficiency, And of course thermodynamics bars 100% efficiency.
It would be interesting to see what a CPI cost analysis would come up with for a full lifecycle cost.
Also - one thing that people forget is how much military budgets are influenced by the need to protect offshore petroleum sources. If that cost were brought into the calculation biomass ethanol might look pretty good.
delta upgrades is a great feature. However this is about the 4th version of SuSE that promises fast package management. I moved away from SuSE a couple of years ago because of slow package management and package management bugs.
I hope package management is SuSE really is competitive with other distros this time. Otherwise I enjoyed using SuSE.
If you are doing long runs near 120V lines using line level signals, the correct solution is moderately priced balanced (XLR) cabling, and equipment designed to work with such connections. Spending extra money on unbalanced connections is a losing proposition.
Wikipedia may breed unwitting trust in unwitting trusters should have been the article title. The simple fact is that ALL information provided by others should subject to evaluation and fact checking.
And that includes information from opponents of GM tech too - who in this case are looking like dupes of the Schmeisers and have lost several levels on the credibility meter.
"The respondents are the licensee and owner, respectively, of a patent that discloses the invention of chimeric genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup and cells containing those genes. Canola containing the patented genes and cells is marketed under the trade name "Roundup Ready Canola". The appellants grow canola commercially in Saskatchewan. The appellants never purchased Roundup Ready canola nor obtained a licence to plant it. Tests of their 1998 canola crop revealed that 95-98 per cent was Roundup Ready Canola. The respondents brought an action against the appellants for patent infringement. The trial judge found the patent to be valid and allowed the action, concluding that the appellants knew or ought to have known that they saved and planted seed containing the patented gene and cell and that they sold the resulting crop also containing the patented gene and cell."
I am sorry, but this windblown nonsense is a crock of bullshit. 95-98% is clearly a deliberate action to circumvent.
If Monsanto was going after somebody who had a small percentage of contamination, I would be mad at Monsanto too. But this was clearly a cynical action and even worse a program to manipulate public opinion with a campaign of disinformation using politically motivated media sources.
You really should read the Wikipedia article on this topic. The crop that got Schmeiser sued was 95%+ RoundUp resistant rapeseed. The only way that could have happened was an intentional informed effort to bypass Monsanto's patents. Accidental wind blown contamination does not give anything close to that result.
Nice rant but you lose all credibility when you blame GM for Monarch Butterfly population declines. It is well known that this was caused by illegal deforestation of the winter breeding grounds in Mexico.
I am aware of those proposals. They do not eliminate the regressive nature of this proposal because consumption as a percentage of income declines up to much higher income levels than the cash payments cover. While the cash payments cover some consumption basis they do not correct for the regressive nature of the tax above these levels.
While it sounds attractive because of its simplicity and the idea that it favors saving over consumption, a purely consumption based tax is an extremely bad idea that grossly favors the high income segment of the population to an extraordinary extent and will result in an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of the population - already a significant problem in the US.
There are other ways to encourage saving that don't have these problems such as 401K type programs that are have been successful. I think that the expansion of these programs is the correct mechanism to encourage savings.
The problem with repealing income tax in favor of higher sales taxes is that middle and lower income individuals have to spend a larger percentage of their income on day to day living requirements than higher income individuals do. So instead of a progressive income tax we would now have a flat or regressive tax policy.
The result of such a tax plan would be n acceleration in the already great imbalances in wealth between the upper income and middle income groups. This would be very bad public policy.
The superiority of HDTV over SDTV really isn't a matter of opinion. All you have to do is look at the technical specs. 1920x1080 non-interlaced vs. 720x480 interlaced is in fact a factor of 12+ in bit rate. That is a bigger factor than that between VHS and DVD.
Sure if you sit far enough back from a small TV you won't get the advantage. If you do that you can't see the difference between DVD and VHS either. Heck, if you sit far enough back a one-bit display (light bulb) will be indistinguishable from the best current possible displays. But if you follow the recommendations for seating distance the difference is very obvious.
I can understand reasons like 'can't afford it'. But to make comments like 'I can't tell the difference' isn't reasonable.
That is nonsense. I live in the Metro NY area and have a choice between multiple FIOS plans up to 50/20 mb and Cablevision Boost 38/5mb. My son lives in an apt building that is on Metro Ethernet at 50/50 which is included in the rent.
None of these plans have any per month use restrictions.
They can spread malaria, and have been banned due to this in Uganda
and other African countries.
They are very unsightly.
They require people to clean them up.
Several countries have banned the use of plastic bags completly. As usual with anything relating to the environment most of the US trails behind, clinging to outdated views.
1. Sea Turtles are going to go extinct anyway. 2. Malaria was a problem long before plastic bags. The solution to malaria does not have anything to do with plastic bags. 3. Then don't look at them. 4. Employment is a wonderful thing.
Plastic bags have a much smaller environmental impact than paper bags. So long as people insist on disposable bags they are the best alternative.
If you want to sequester carbon plastic bags are a far better choice. They are not biodegradable and require far less energy to manufacture than paper bags.
...and sit in a theater amongst a crowd of rude, nattering nabobs in a Cineplex with the choice of about 12 movies that you really have no interest in.
I'd much rather stay at home and watch a movie that I want to watch when I want to watch it in far more comfort and convenience.
Blue Ray isn't a big improvement, at least not big enough to get me to go get a new TV, a new player, new over-priced cables, and buy a bunch of massively over-priced movies (much less even think about replacing the ones I own). DVD was a large technological leap above VHS, and I still haven't managed to replace some of my old tapes yet, and now I'm supposed to worry about the whole damn mess again. I am sure that there are plenty of Luddities out there who will continue to resist technological change because they are just that way. But the fact is that HDTV's have now caught on in a big way, and have about 40% or the installed base of TV's. People really are sold that HD TV is superior to SD TV, and that is simply the truth.
And your description of the costs doesn't hold up if you are an intelligent consumer that has already sunk money into an HDTV. The cables are $6 if you buy them at a place like monoprice.com. HD disks are exactly the same cost as SD if your main source of disks is Netflix. All you are looking at is the price of a player; and I bet that Sony will have players at $200 by year end. The new 45nm cell processors are out, and the Playstation 3 is a seriously mature manufacaturing process now.
Slashdot Mirror
I found this clip on YouTube. It gives an idea of how spot-on the science was:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg
They spelled liquifaction correctly.
Mysticism is a response to the unknown. Unfortunately it isn't a very useful response. It is much better to respond with empiricism and inquiry than carving stone idols.
Frank Capra did a series of science documentaries in the 50's that are quite amazing. Adults might find them a bit over the top, but for a seven year old they can be really mind bending. I know they had a big impact on me as a child.
Our Mr. Sun
Hemo the Magnificent
Unchained Goddess
The Strange Case of Cosmic Rays
are available on DVD. The whole series had nine films, but I haven't been able to find the others.
Winged Migration is also quite good.
Mostly it is the company you are buying the service from, and the contracts it has with terminating companies in the destination country.
One thing to be aware of is the prepaid cards are generally given the lowest quality of service routes. The phone company already has your money, so it doesn't really care whether the call goes through or not. If you are placing the call on a billable basis then the phone company doesn't get any money if the call doesn't go through.
If I was firing one of these things I'd much prefer it if the hot metal and explosion were at the target rather than the launching point.
Sounds sketchy to me. This is already how many types of armor penetrating munitions work. The jet of molten metal is created by a shaped charge. No need to carry around a few tons of foo-foo magnets, batteries, heaters, a vat of annoyingly hot molten metal and so on. While you are setting all that up I'll have blown off the target with a nice simple RPG and escaped.
In general production costs scale with a 0.7 exponent. That is production cost is proportional to Capacity^0.7. So in fact he production cost part of the total cost per gallon should decline as volume increases.
Now of course I am not sure what kinds of assumptions are being made here to get a $2.00 gallon cost at 50% conversion efficiency, And of course thermodynamics bars 100% efficiency.
It would be interesting to see what a CPI cost analysis would come up with for a full lifecycle cost.
Also - one thing that people forget is how much military budgets are influenced by the need to protect offshore petroleum sources. If that cost were brought into the calculation biomass ethanol might look pretty good.
delta upgrades is a great feature. However this is about the 4th version of SuSE that promises fast package management. I moved away from SuSE a couple of years ago because of slow package management and package management bugs.
I hope package management is SuSE really is competitive with other distros this time. Otherwise I enjoyed using SuSE.
If you are doing long runs near 120V lines using line level signals, the correct solution is moderately priced balanced (XLR) cabling, and equipment designed to work with such connections. Spending extra money on unbalanced connections is a losing proposition.
Sounds like there could be a Darwin Award in this.
Why hasn't this been tagged whatcouldpossiblygowrong yet?
There are simpler ways. Ben Franklin used a kite to good effect. Long metal poles in the middle of a field also work.
Wikipedia may breed unwitting trust in unwitting trusters should have been the article title. The simple fact is that ALL information provided by others should subject to evaluation and fact checking.
And that includes information from opponents of GM tech too - who in this case are looking like dupes of the Schmeisers and have lost several levels on the credibility meter.
Because I read the Canadian Supreme Court decision too.
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2004/Monsanto-V-Schmeiser-Ruling21may04.htm
I quote:
"The respondents are the licensee and owner, respectively, of a patent that discloses the invention of chimeric genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup and cells containing those genes. Canola containing the patented genes and cells is marketed under the trade name "Roundup Ready Canola". The appellants grow canola commercially in Saskatchewan. The appellants never purchased Roundup Ready canola nor obtained a licence to plant it. Tests of their 1998 canola crop revealed that 95-98 per cent was Roundup Ready Canola. The respondents brought an action against the appellants for patent infringement. The trial judge found the patent to be valid and allowed the action, concluding that the appellants knew or ought to have known that they saved and planted seed containing the patented gene and cell and that they sold the resulting crop also containing the patented gene and cell."
I am sorry, but this windblown nonsense is a crock of bullshit. 95-98% is clearly a deliberate action to circumvent.
If Monsanto was going after somebody who had a small percentage of contamination, I would be mad at Monsanto too. But this was clearly a cynical action and even worse a program to manipulate public opinion with a campaign of disinformation using politically motivated media sources.
You really should read the Wikipedia article on this topic. The crop that got Schmeiser sued was 95%+ RoundUp resistant rapeseed. The only way that could have happened was an intentional informed effort to bypass Monsanto's patents. Accidental wind blown contamination does not give anything close to that result.
Nice rant but you lose all credibility when you blame GM for Monarch Butterfly population declines. It is well known that this was caused by illegal deforestation of the winter breeding grounds in Mexico.
I am aware of those proposals. They do not eliminate the regressive nature of this proposal because consumption as a percentage of income declines up to much higher income levels than the cash payments cover. While the cash payments cover some consumption basis they do not correct for the regressive nature of the tax above these levels.
While it sounds attractive because of its simplicity and the idea that it favors saving over consumption, a purely consumption based tax is an extremely bad idea that grossly favors the high income segment of the population to an extraordinary extent and will result in an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of the population - already a significant problem in the US.
There are other ways to encourage saving that don't have these problems such as 401K type programs that are have been successful. I think that the expansion of these programs is the correct mechanism to encourage savings.
The problem with repealing income tax in favor of higher sales taxes is that middle and lower income individuals have to spend a larger percentage of their income on day to day living requirements than higher income individuals do. So instead of a progressive income tax we would now have a flat or regressive tax policy.
The result of such a tax plan would be n acceleration in the already great imbalances in wealth between the upper income and middle income groups. This would be very bad public policy.
The superiority of HDTV over SDTV really isn't a matter of opinion. All you have to do is look at the technical specs. 1920x1080 non-interlaced vs. 720x480 interlaced is in fact a factor of 12+ in bit rate. That is a bigger factor than that between VHS and DVD.
Sure if you sit far enough back from a small TV you won't get the advantage. If you do that you can't see the difference between DVD and VHS either. Heck, if you sit far enough back a one-bit display (light bulb) will be indistinguishable from the best current possible displays. But if you follow the recommendations for seating distance the difference is very obvious.
I can understand reasons like 'can't afford it'. But to make comments like 'I can't tell the difference' isn't reasonable.
That is nonsense. I live in the Metro NY area and have a choice between multiple FIOS plans up to 50/20 mb and Cablevision Boost 38/5mb. My son lives in an apt building that is on Metro Ethernet at 50/50 which is included in the rent.
None of these plans have any per month use restrictions.
and other African countries.
Several countries have banned the use of plastic bags completly. As usual with anything relating to the environment most of the US trails behind, clinging to outdated views.
1. Sea Turtles are going to go extinct anyway.
2. Malaria was a problem long before plastic bags. The solution to malaria does not have anything to do with plastic bags.
3. Then don't look at them.
4. Employment is a wonderful thing.
Plastic bags have a much smaller environmental impact than paper bags. So long as people insist on disposable bags they are the best alternative.
If you want to sequester carbon plastic bags are a far better choice. They are not biodegradable and require far less energy to manufacture than paper bags.
...and sit in a theater amongst a crowd of rude, nattering nabobs in a Cineplex with the choice of about 12 movies that you really have no interest in.
I'd much rather stay at home and watch a movie that I want to watch when I want to watch it in far more comfort and convenience.
And your description of the costs doesn't hold up if you are an intelligent consumer that has already sunk money into an HDTV. The cables are $6 if you buy them at a place like monoprice.com. HD disks are exactly the same cost as SD if your main source of disks is Netflix. All you are looking at is the price of a player; and I bet that Sony will have players at $200 by year end. The new 45nm cell processors are out, and the Playstation 3 is a seriously mature manufacaturing process now.