I drove a Jetta TDI for a few years, yeah 42mpg with 99% biodiesel was nice. I think they've even improved the diesel emissions since then with the filters you piss in. Algae biodiesel could someday make a good fuel for cars. Current biodiesel is the next best thing, being practically carbon neutral, although we're a bit tight on land right now. I heard cows are gobbling up the amazon.
Hybrids have done a nice job of advancing battery, generation and electric motor tech. It's a small step to all electric cars, which could be the ideal choice for a car.
Lately though I take my bike and bus/trolley/train most places. Biking is the thing to do for health, environment, and cost. It takes more time, especially if you bike through trails and get stopped by moments of beauty in the canyons, but you can always farm gold later.
Thanks to evolving meat alternatives you can now enjoy steaks of similar texture and taste without the guilt of environmental destruction, animal suffering, world hunger, acceleration of drought, and looming heart disease. It may not look or taste exactly the same, but with an open mind and a sense of ethics one can overcome these prejudices and enjoy these healthy alternatives to animal flesh.
The cows will be reduced in number as markets shift away from the resource hungry and environmentally destructive sources of food. They may still live out their lives in some marginal lands, but no more rainforests will need to be leveled to grow all the soy and corn it takes to feed these miserable animals.
This kind of lighthearted fun and appreciation for knowledge in government is effective in getting young and old interested in civics and education. Not everything done in congress needs to be drab economics! The eclectic approach will produce results, and with measured feedback we can continue to promote what works. Don't shoot down new ideas before they've had their chance to shine.
What if dvorak (optimized for efficiency) were the dominant keyboard layout instead of qwerty (optimized for slowing typists so typewriters wouldn't jam)? Less carpal tunnel lawsuits maybe.
What if Steve Jobs played his game as smartly as Bill Gates? Maybe we'd be living in a fruitopia.
What if the Nintendo virtual boy had taken off? We'd probably have VR sex by now. It's time to bring back the virtual boy! er-virtual girl? virtual ds?
The question excluded cell phone service charges. An unlocked G1 can be had for about $400 with no contract or service charges, and it can be used as a wifi device without a sim card (I just tested this on mine). I can browse the web, use email, download apps from the market, download music, use maps, skype I'm assuming.
It's a bit high in the price range at $400, but the size and keyboard are nice and the app library is great and growing. G1 is usually $180 with a contract (min. $55/mo for 2 years)
I recently had my first physics class as a college sophomore, calculus-based mechanics. It was very fun and useful, as a computer programmer. This was my first lab class since high school and I was certainly inspired by each of the ~3 hour labs. The most fun was using a spring cannon to shoot a rubber ball through a ring, using kinematics equations my group of 3 was able to launch the ball precisely through the ring on the first attempt (we were scored by number of attempts).
We spent a total of about 30 hours on 10 labs throughout the semester. I found these to be a good length for keeping our attention and teaching each concept. It was nice to have access to a fairly new lab with laptops which we used to record and analyze sensor data. This all takes place in a very affordable California community college.
I know I haven't answered the question yet, just providing info on my experience for whatever it's worth.
Other interesting labs were: landing a ball in a small cup after rolling off a slope on top of a table. using a car with a fan attached to measure acceleration and velocity. colliding cars of different masses to measure impulse. calculating mass by measuring the velocity of a car being pulled by a mass on a string which was pulled down by gravity.
This class covered only mechanics. I imagine that labs in the fields of electromagnetism, waves and optics must be exciting in different ways. This first physics class left me wanting more, but those will have to wait, as they aren't required in my computer game design major.
One experiment could involve some rockets and landing a delicate payload safely. It has obvious applications. Other useful applications of physics should be sources of inspiration. A student should feel inspired by doing something useful with physics, something that they would use as a professional physicist, something to form the basis for novel applications of physics.
Something involving optics like capturing images of comets using a handmade telescope could be fun.
With the green energy revolution upon us, there could be some home made wind, tidal, and solar energy capture and storage systems to build.
It sounds cool to do all these space missions and build giant solar arrays to beam power to Earth, but I think it's more practical and cheaper just to throw some solar panels on rooftops and windmills by houses and across the midwest.
Home based power is reliable and available now, with no transmission losses. With the right loans, marketing, and government investment, people could just swap their electric bill for the loan on their personal power plant and voila, clean power to the people at virtually no cost. It would also create jobs as solar and wind plants spring up to fill the demand.
Stop building dirty coal and oil plants and start investing in solar and wind.
well if they had some space age, heat resistant pipes to shove down there into the magma, then run some liquid through the pipes to transmit the heat to a steamer, we'd have delicious vegetables in no time. i mean geothermal power. large scale geothermal.
it'd be pricey to make the first one, but it could be a big player in renewable energy. and unlike solar panels and wind mills which are like socialized energy because everyone controls the production, this could be a major central project for a greedy corporation.
then before you know it they drill to deep and there's a balrog running the streets.
Similarly, Logo can be a great way to educate programming skills, as well as artistic and problem solving skills. Logo can make spirograph-type art, and puzzles such as mazes can be navigated. I'm not sure if Logo has been developed as far as having AI, but it seems possible.
Logo may be more appropriate for younger audiences. Something with a similar artistic/programming approach for teens would be interesting. Maybe sodaplay or processing, although these maybe a bit too difficult.
Well here's a bit of information that most people try to avoid. That is, cholesterol not only clogs your heart, it clogs the blood flow into your brain. There was a study that showed lower rates of alzheimers/dementia among people taking cholesterol reducing drugs (statins). Of course, rather than depending on drugs, you could always lower your cholesterol intake and reap the longevity benefits of a plant based diet.
You're right that it's about quality, not quantity, but you're a little deluded if you think smoking and junk food means quality. To me, quality means being able to ride a bike or plant a garden. I still enjoy cookies and chips, but living healthy means I'll enjoy a high quality life for a large quantity of time.
When you're creaking with arthritis, taking pills, and worrying about heart problems at 40, I think then you might begin to understand my logic, only then it might be too late.
Unhealthy people may die sooner, resulting in less state-sponsored social security, but they will have less productive years, as they start having disability and treatment at a younger age. So, healthy people will have more years of productivity, making a greater contribution to society. The thought that dying sooner will lower medical costs may be true, and give people justification for their unhealthy lifestyles, but it fails to account for the loss of productive years of those lifestyles.
As people live healthier, they will have the productivity that they had in their 40's into their 60's or 70's. Medical progress could push this even higher.
So I'm assuming you must be vegetarian since most deforestation in brazil and elsewhere has been for cattle farms and the soybeans that feed them. I'm not sure how much of the world's soybean crop is for cows vs humans vs biofuels but I've got a feelings that the cows are winning here.
Re:It will be economically viable, one day
on
Filling Up On Algae
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· Score: 1
Perhaps if the emissions are being captured from a combustion power plant, the biodiesel produced by the emissions can be piped right back in to run the place.
That's just about zero emissions, since you're already piping the co2 into the algae, you could probably filter all the other pollutants pretty well.
And the major hurdle in making this economically viable is by giving it the same subsidies that the big oil companies get. Even more since it's got societal benefits.
What gets me is the long term costs haven't had much coverage. These hybrids need their battery packs changed at 80k which is quite expensive, and the best gas engines will be falling apart at 250k. A diesel engine meanwhile lasts well past 500k. Just the timing belt change at 60k and oil changes at 10k and they'll last just about forever.
Hm, penny-arcade.com is downish at the moment so I can't pull up their classic comic on the issue, but the punchline goes something like 'If video games aren't a form of speech, then why are you concerned with a message they may be sending?'
Don't know that a diesel hybrid would have a better engine life. A diesel engine is already a machine which will outlive the rest of the car, adding those batteries that'll need to be replaced with great expense isn't too appealing. Because diesels already get 50mpg, it's not so substantial a mpg gain per $ to add hybrid. It might happen someday, but don't hold off on picking up a TDI just because "it could be better"
Aye, Biodiesel is sold at Most major cities and can be used in any diesel (a 10$ fuel line upgrade may be required) I get 45mpg in my 97 Jetta TDI that I picked up for $9k a few months ago. If you've got a garage you can build or buy (~$3000) a biodiesel refinery to convert recycled vegetable oil into biodiesel for about 50 cents a gallon. The stuff is burned, the pollution is absorbed by next year's crop, and the cycle is practically neutral year to year. Biodiesel is the best fuel for transportation on Earth. Going into space, hydrogen fuel makes alot more sense.
Tisn't easy to measure the true cost of energy production. If it turns out all the coal we burn melts the ice caps and puts us into an ice age then the cost is really immeasurable. A good step in that direction though would be to end subsidies for energy production and to put that money into creating new jobs in the R&D and construction of new, cleaner energy sources. And I'm not talking about nuclear either, what a dangerous money sink that is.
If the Earth is so overpopulated now then perhaps we should stop developing AIDS cures, stop giving out flu vaccines, let God's natural course take away what modern medicine has been saving for centuries. Aging is a disease, the article lists the 7 conditions which are on a much smaller level, but not too dissimilar from catching a cold. When you cut yourself you bandage it.
Overpopulation problems have many potential solutions that will be explored and codified in the years leading up to the availability of this therapy.
I really don't think the job loss would be as great as those who are funded by the polluters (bush) always spout. It could actually bring in more jobs, and high tech jobs at that. There will need to be high tech retrofits on smokestacks, coal will invest more R&D jobs into clean coal, cleaner techs will get incentives that will allow them to be more competitve with the over-subsidized dirty power producers.
Getting companies not to switch from 22$/hour americans to 22$/month chinese isn't a matter of allowing businesses to pollute as much as they want. There are ways of taxing companies that move their business offshore (or conversely giving incentives to those who are onshore) that will make it less profitable to do so.
The real problem is even deeper though, because it really doesn't make sense to pay someone 22/hour when you can pay 22/month for someone else and a nominal transport/tarrif. Robotics is making it easier for unskilled/uneducated people to do all the hard work. That's progress. In the long run this can lead to a utopia where robots handle all the hard work and we can just lounge about (until the robots rise up and kill us all, that's another story) that's the future I hope to bring my grandchildren into, but if we don't cut down on pollution my grandchildren may not have the nice habitable planet we're now losing.
Medical Malpractice may have alot of fraudulent claims, but they've been the strongest force in improving healthcare over the years. Reform is needed, but making these overly broad claims about how evil 'people like john edwards' are for raising insurance costs, is nearsighted. A good example I heard on the radio was anesthetics, which once was very dangerous and killed many. Lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits got the medical industry to find out how to make anesthetics safe. Same with automobile safety. There was the case of a sponge left inside someone, how about putting an rfid chip in all such equipment and doing a quick radio scan before sewing up. If no lawsuits had been made, it wouldn't be worth the effort to fix that.
Slashdot Mirror
I drove a Jetta TDI for a few years, yeah 42mpg with 99% biodiesel was nice. I think they've even improved the diesel emissions since then with the filters you piss in. Algae biodiesel could someday make a good fuel for cars. Current biodiesel is the next best thing, being practically carbon neutral, although we're a bit tight on land right now. I heard cows are gobbling up the amazon.
Hybrids have done a nice job of advancing battery, generation and electric motor tech. It's a small step to all electric cars, which could be the ideal choice for a car.
Lately though I take my bike and bus/trolley/train most places. Biking is the thing to do for health, environment, and cost. It takes more time, especially if you bike through trails and get stopped by moments of beauty in the canyons, but you can always farm gold later.
Thanks to evolving meat alternatives you can now enjoy steaks of similar texture and taste without the guilt of environmental destruction, animal suffering, world hunger, acceleration of drought, and looming heart disease. It may not look or taste exactly the same, but with an open mind and a sense of ethics one can overcome these prejudices and enjoy these healthy alternatives to animal flesh.
The cows will be reduced in number as markets shift away from the resource hungry and environmentally destructive sources of food. They may still live out their lives in some marginal lands, but no more rainforests will need to be leveled to grow all the soy and corn it takes to feed these miserable animals.
Change is a concept whose time has come.
This kind of lighthearted fun and appreciation for knowledge in government is effective in getting young and old interested in civics and education. Not everything done in congress needs to be drab economics! The eclectic approach will produce results, and with measured feedback we can continue to promote what works. Don't shoot down new ideas before they've had their chance to shine.
Ok I'll join in,
What if dvorak (optimized for efficiency) were the dominant keyboard layout instead of qwerty (optimized for slowing typists so typewriters wouldn't jam)? Less carpal tunnel lawsuits maybe.
What if Steve Jobs played his game as smartly as Bill Gates? Maybe we'd be living in a fruitopia.
What if the Nintendo virtual boy had taken off? We'd probably have VR sex by now. It's time to bring back the virtual boy! er-virtual girl? virtual ds?
Your time spent imagineering alternate universes clearly shows that you have too much time on your hands.
The question excluded cell phone service charges. An unlocked G1 can be had for about $400 with no contract or service charges, and it can be used as a wifi device without a sim card (I just tested this on mine). I can browse the web, use email, download apps from the market, download music, use maps, skype I'm assuming.
It's a bit high in the price range at $400, but the size and keyboard are nice and the app library is great and growing. G1 is usually $180 with a contract (min. $55/mo for 2 years)
This is why we have different categories of planets.
Earth is the only Class M planet in the solar system.
Of course, with terraforming, Mars might join us in that someday.
Looking through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_M_planet
It seems like pluto should be a class K, or possibly a class D.
I recently had my first physics class as a college sophomore, calculus-based mechanics. It was very fun and useful, as a computer programmer. This was my first lab class since high school and I was certainly inspired by each of the ~3 hour labs. The most fun was using a spring cannon to shoot a rubber ball through a ring, using kinematics equations my group of 3 was able to launch the ball precisely through the ring on the first attempt (we were scored by number of attempts).
We spent a total of about 30 hours on 10 labs throughout the semester. I found these to be a good length for keeping our attention and teaching each concept. It was nice to have access to a fairly new lab with laptops which we used to record and analyze sensor data. This all takes place in a very affordable California community college.
I know I haven't answered the question yet, just providing info on my experience for whatever it's worth.
Other interesting labs were: landing a ball in a small cup after rolling off a slope on top of a table. using a car with a fan attached to measure acceleration and velocity. colliding cars of different masses to measure impulse. calculating mass by measuring the velocity of a car being pulled by a mass on a string which was pulled down by gravity.
This class covered only mechanics. I imagine that labs in the fields of electromagnetism, waves and optics must be exciting in different ways. This first physics class left me wanting more, but those will have to wait, as they aren't required in my computer game design major.
One experiment could involve some rockets and landing a delicate payload safely. It has obvious applications. Other useful applications of physics should be sources of inspiration. A student should feel inspired by doing something useful with physics, something that they would use as a professional physicist, something to form the basis for novel applications of physics.
Something involving optics like capturing images of comets using a handmade telescope could be fun.
With the green energy revolution upon us, there could be some home made wind, tidal, and solar energy capture and storage systems to build.
It sounds cool to do all these space missions and build giant solar arrays to beam power to Earth, but I think it's more practical and cheaper just to throw some solar panels on rooftops and windmills by houses and across the midwest.
Home based power is reliable and available now, with no transmission losses. With the right loans, marketing, and government investment, people could just swap their electric bill for the loan on their personal power plant and voila, clean power to the people at virtually no cost. It would also create jobs as solar and wind plants spring up to fill the demand.
Stop building dirty coal and oil plants and start investing in solar and wind.
well if they had some space age, heat resistant pipes to shove down there into the magma, then run some liquid through the pipes to transmit the heat to a steamer, we'd have delicious vegetables in no time. i mean geothermal power. large scale geothermal.
it'd be pricey to make the first one, but it could be a big player in renewable energy. and unlike solar panels and wind mills which are like socialized energy because everyone controls the production, this could be a major central project for a greedy corporation.
then before you know it they drill to deep and there's a balrog running the streets.
Similarly, Logo can be a great way to educate programming skills, as well as artistic and problem solving skills. Logo can make spirograph-type art, and puzzles such as mazes can be navigated. I'm not sure if Logo has been developed as far as having AI, but it seems possible.
Logo may be more appropriate for younger audiences. Something with a similar artistic/programming approach for teens would be interesting. Maybe sodaplay or processing, although these maybe a bit too difficult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
Well here's a bit of information that most people try to avoid. That is, cholesterol not only clogs your heart, it clogs the blood flow into your brain. There was a study that showed lower rates of alzheimers/dementia among people taking cholesterol reducing drugs (statins). Of course, rather than depending on drugs, you could always lower your cholesterol intake and reap the longevity benefits of a plant based diet.
Link to article about study
You're right that it's about quality, not quantity, but you're a little deluded if you think smoking and junk food means quality. To me, quality means being able to ride a bike or plant a garden. I still enjoy cookies and chips, but living healthy means I'll enjoy a high quality life for a large quantity of time.
When you're creaking with arthritis, taking pills, and worrying about heart problems at 40, I think then you might begin to understand my logic, only then it might be too late.
Unhealthy people may die sooner, resulting in less state-sponsored social security, but they will have less productive years, as they start having disability and treatment at a younger age. So, healthy people will have more years of productivity, making a greater contribution to society. The thought that dying sooner will lower medical costs may be true, and give people justification for their unhealthy lifestyles, but it fails to account for the loss of productive years of those lifestyles.
As people live healthier, they will have the productivity that they had in their 40's into their 60's or 70's. Medical progress could push this even higher.
So I'm assuming you must be vegetarian since most deforestation in brazil and elsewhere has been for cattle farms and the soybeans that feed them. I'm not sure how much of the world's soybean crop is for cows vs humans vs biofuels but I've got a feelings that the cows are winning here.
Perhaps if the emissions are being captured from a combustion power plant, the biodiesel produced by the emissions can be piped right back in to run the place.
That's just about zero emissions, since you're already piping the co2 into the algae, you could probably filter all the other pollutants pretty well.
And the major hurdle in making this economically viable is by giving it the same subsidies that the big oil companies get. Even more since it's got societal benefits.
What gets me is the long term costs haven't had much coverage. These hybrids need their battery packs changed at 80k which is quite expensive, and the best gas engines will be falling apart at 250k. A diesel engine meanwhile lasts well past 500k. Just the timing belt change at 60k and oil changes at 10k and they'll last just about forever.
Hm, penny-arcade.com is downish at the moment so I can't pull up their classic comic on the issue, but the punchline goes something like 'If video games aren't a form of speech, then why are you concerned with a message they may be sending?'
Don't know that a diesel hybrid would have a better engine life. A diesel engine is already a machine which will outlive the rest of the car, adding those batteries that'll need to be replaced with great expense isn't too appealing. Because diesels already get 50mpg, it's not so substantial a mpg gain per $ to add hybrid. It might happen someday, but don't hold off on picking up a TDI just because "it could be better"
Aye, Biodiesel is sold at Most major cities and can be used in any diesel (a 10$ fuel line upgrade may be required) I get 45mpg in my 97 Jetta TDI that I picked up for $9k a few months ago. If you've got a garage you can build or buy (~$3000) a biodiesel refinery to convert recycled vegetable oil into biodiesel for about 50 cents a gallon. The stuff is burned, the pollution is absorbed by next year's crop, and the cycle is practically neutral year to year. Biodiesel is the best fuel for transportation on Earth. Going into space, hydrogen fuel makes alot more sense.
Tisn't easy to measure the true cost of energy production. If it turns out all the coal we burn melts the ice caps and puts us into an ice age then the cost is really immeasurable. A good step in that direction though would be to end subsidies for energy production and to put that money into creating new jobs in the R&D and construction of new, cleaner energy sources. And I'm not talking about nuclear either, what a dangerous money sink that is.
If the Earth is so overpopulated now then perhaps we should stop developing AIDS cures, stop giving out flu vaccines, let God's natural course take away what modern medicine has been saving for centuries. Aging is a disease, the article lists the 7 conditions which are on a much smaller level, but not too dissimilar from catching a cold. When you cut yourself you bandage it.
Overpopulation problems have many potential solutions that will be explored and codified in the years leading up to the availability of this therapy.
I really don't think the job loss would be as great as those who are funded by the polluters (bush) always spout. It could actually bring in more jobs, and high tech jobs at that. There will need to be high tech retrofits on smokestacks, coal will invest more R&D jobs into clean coal, cleaner techs will get incentives that will allow them to be more competitve with the over-subsidized dirty power producers.
Getting companies not to switch from 22$/hour americans to 22$/month chinese isn't a matter of allowing businesses to pollute as much as they want. There are ways of taxing companies that move their business offshore (or conversely giving incentives to those who are onshore) that will make it less profitable to do so.
The real problem is even deeper though, because it really doesn't make sense to pay someone 22/hour when you can pay 22/month for someone else and a nominal transport/tarrif. Robotics is making it easier for unskilled/uneducated people to do all the hard work. That's progress. In the long run this can lead to a utopia where robots handle all the hard work and we can just lounge about (until the robots rise up and kill us all, that's another story) that's the future I hope to bring my grandchildren into, but if we don't cut down on pollution my grandchildren may not have the nice habitable planet we're now losing.
Medical Malpractice may have alot of fraudulent claims, but they've been the strongest force in improving healthcare over the years. Reform is needed, but making these overly broad claims about how evil 'people like john edwards' are for raising insurance costs, is nearsighted. A good example I heard on the radio was anesthetics, which once was very dangerous and killed many. Lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits got the medical industry to find out how to make anesthetics safe. Same with automobile safety. There was the case of a sponge left inside someone, how about putting an rfid chip in all such equipment and doing a quick radio scan before sewing up. If no lawsuits had been made, it wouldn't be worth the effort to fix that.
They could sell a VGA to TV dongle with it. These are probably already popular in poorer countries actually.