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User: phayes

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  1. Re:Hydrogen Generation on UK's Loughborough Uni Demos Hydrogen Motorcycle · · Score: 1

    I read papers written in the 60s that assured the people they were getting their funding from that fusion would reach the breakeven point in 15 years (with continued funding). I've read similar papers from the 70s, 80's & 90s. Allow me a titter as I read your assurances that "they can make it work" with fusion & as I stated waay back up the thread, you'd need a completely new design to use a fission reactor. Good luck finding the funding to have that designed & getting the first few built.

    The second law ref was because you stated that your power source would be fusion reactors (which still haven't reached breakeven after decades of research), so again, you're a twit.

    To be able to replace petrol you'd need to have build hundreds of your new reactors. Good luck siting all those reactors, everyone knows that people just love living next to fission reactors.

    I'm done here toadstool sitter, you're too dense to understand that wishing for something does not make it happen.

  2. Re:Hydrogen Generation on UK's Loughborough Uni Demos Hydrogen Motorcycle · · Score: 1

    Once you made it clear in a preceding post that you do not care about a constructive exchange of opinions/information but preferred to sit on that mushroom of yours and attempt to blow smoke rings up my ass, well yes I did conclude that you were a twit.

    I have a few personal friends who worked on the JET over the past few decades so I don't need a mental masturbation expert like you to learn what I knew long before you were out of your diapers. The JET, just like all the other fusion projects around the world has been promising and failing to deliver fusion for decades. Every fusion lab out there has needed "a lot more funding for the next couple of years so that they can work the bugs out" & that merely to hopefully attain the break even point where output will equal input. Fusion projects are just that: Projects. With lots of luck some day fusion will deliver on the investments made but it won't happen soon (within the next 1/4 or even within the next 1/2 century).

  3. Re:Hydrogen Generation on UK's Loughborough Uni Demos Hydrogen Motorcycle · · Score: 1

    Oh, I thought you were serious about the prospects of assisting the migration to a hydrogen based economy and being able to cheaply crack hydrogen from high temperature & pressure steam. Instead I see that your only interest is staring into the sun while you dream up stuff that somebody else somewhere in a land far far away should magically invent so you can say "wow, that's koool"...

    My point, should you choose to tear your attention from that big ball of gas in the sky, was that hydrogen production produces as much, if not more carbon emissions than gasoline. Contrary to what almost all people who are pro-hydrogen think (It's better than hydrocarbons because it only produces water when burnt), commercial hydrogen is produced by cracking methane, not water. Your far fetched direct cracking of water is irrelevant because you do not have the pixie dust needed to turn it into reality (possibly because you've been sniffing too much of it).

  4. Re:Hydrogen Generation on UK's Loughborough Uni Demos Hydrogen Motorcycle · · Score: 1

    No, it's not a byproduct of existing reactors. To allow temperatures and pressures that high they would have to be completely redesigned.
    Secondly, high pressure steam is extremely corrosive (There is a reason water has the nickname "the universal solvent"). Saying Gee, I don't see the problem, water is pretty innocuous at the temperatures I'm used to just shows how much you need to learn just to understand the problem, let alone the potential solutions.

    Last off, let me introduce you to the second law of thermodynamics, who you've apparently never met. Do you really thing that the work (as in energy expended to move/heat an object) needed to heat the steam that much comes free and that this wouldn't have a major impact on the efficiency/cost of the nuclear plant that is proposed to make it work?

    The obstacles that need to be overcome to be able to build a steam cracker may not be as difficult as that of a functioning fusion plant (the eternal It'll work in 15 years, just gimme lots of money to work the bugs out), but they're not all that far from it either.

  5. Re:Hydrogen Generation on UK's Loughborough Uni Demos Hydrogen Motorcycle · · Score: 1
    I see waaay too many people wishing away all the problems with converting to a hydrogen based economy by handwaving the big expensive problems away.

    By using nuclear energy to serve as a heat source to crack water vapor, you've removed the possibility of using that big expensive reactor to produce electricity relatively cheaply. I also doubt that the process has been debugged to the point where you could setup an industrial sized plant using it. Until the process has been industialized and commercial quantities are being produced from water, pretending that using hydrogen will reduce the carbon footprint is just self deception.

  6. Re:Hydrogen Generation on UK's Loughborough Uni Demos Hydrogen Motorcycle · · Score: 1
    All non-trivial amounts of Hydrogen are currently produced by cracking Natural Gas, aka Methane. See wikipedia's second paragraph on hydrogen.

    So, your supposedly green/clean water producing platform produces as much CO2 as a normal motorcycle.

  7. Re:So why don't the cops do anything? on Russian Police Know Who Wrote Gpcode Virus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Theres a world of difference between knowing who did something, and having enough proof to be able to arrest them, charge them and convict them.

    There is a only a world of difference in countries that have an independant judiciary. In Putin's Russia where the judiciary is only there to serve as a fig leaf for Putin's ambitions, there is no difference at all...

  8. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 1

    A text from the Washington Post and a translation from La Nouvelle Observateur? Those are your references? These are the same idiots that believed Pierre Salinger's word of Honow without any proof when he said that TWA800 was shot down by a US missile test. No wonder you're misguided, Lol. Avec un peu plus d'intelligence, tu serais presque débile...

  9. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 1
    Do you have a point? The Taliban used no US textbooks to, "ahem", educate schoolchildren & the kids that have used US textbooks are still kids.

    The only war I'm waging at present seems to be war on stupidity. You're losing.

  10. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 1
    Mighty powers of persuasion you have there. Thanks to people like you, the percentage of well educated women in Afghanistan reached the stupendous level of they achieved under the Taliban. That sure seemed to sway them when they refused to harbor Al Qaeda & displayed to the world how enlightened they were. I can only say Bravo...

    While you're living in your fantasy world some of us live in the real world where trying to put daisies into the mouths of all rifles will only get you shot in short order. It isn't fair, it isn't nice, but it's the world we live in. I don't idealize war, but I do know that preparing for it & sometimes waging it is a more successful tactic in preserving freedom long term than unilateral disarmament is.

  11. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 1

    Beat your wife recently? I didn't have to "conveniently omit" anything, as the current administration's desire to control Iraq has very little to do with the point I made. You however, by attempting to pull the covers over to your side of the bed with a convenient strawman are conveniently omitting something. Beat your wife recently? Would you like to explain how pacifist US lawmakers will change how all those the USA opposes militarily will change or are you going to miss the point of this message too? Beat your wife recently?

  12. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 1

    I hope they do. They will be much easier to target and given the power levels on these lasers, wearing a disco ball will make no difference whatsoever to the laser transforming their head into a ball of steam.

  13. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good luck with convincing the Taliban, Al Qaeda, North Korea, and that nice Putin fellow that because the USA has decided to no longer constitute a credible threat that they should do the same. I'm sure the Danish ambassador to Pakistan agrees whole heartedly with you that US congresscritters financing lasers is the root cause of evil in the world today.

  14. Re:Cartoon battlefield on US Congress Funds Laser Weapons · · Score: 2, Informative

    Lasers of the power levels that are being talked about in TFA don't slowly melt things. They deposit mega-joules of energy on the surface of objects they touch. Even the slightest imperfection will cause the surface to explosively sublime as if the first millimeter had magically turned into high explosives. Another attribute of these lasers is that the beam is of very short duration, hundredths of a second. Your mirrors, dishes, vases, etc would turn into shrapnel so fast & with such energy that you needn't worry about any reflections.

  15. Re:What have you done with Slashdot? on Questioning Google's Privacy Reform · · Score: 1

    Not unless the address is from a /24. Think smaller (sub/super)net masks...

  16. Re:Right on time ... for the price cut! on A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death Fiasco · · Score: 0

    I wish you luck with your 360, but from everything that has come out on the bugs MS left in the first 360's I suspect that only a small minority will make it to the age of my Xbox without RRODing. A colleague of mine has a Ferrari. The only reason it's still running is because he spends 10 times what he does on his other cars in maintenance (he doesn't mind as it's his passion). Sounds alot like what is needed to make the 360 work, and while that kind of effort is deemed worthwhile by some, they are a distinct minority...

  17. Re:Right on time ... for the price cut! on A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death Fiasco · · Score: 1

    I had the same intentions but I never used my xbox with XBMC as I found the fan noise too distracting/loud to make it worthwhile.

  18. Re:Right on time ... for the price cut! on A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death Fiasco · · Score: 1

    The planned obsolescence view is interesting too. Over 5 years after I bought it, I still have & occasionally play my original Xbox. This will likely be impossible for a majority if 360 owners & we all know that 360 replacements will stop very soon after MS brings out a successor to the 360...

  19. Re:Right on time ... for the price cut! on A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death Fiasco · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Too bad you're wrong.

    Microsoft is still recycling that enormous pile of steaming 1st gen 360s into the loop by sending them out as replacements for newer machines that die of RROD. So, you buy a newer 360 to attempt to avoid the problems that plague the older 360's but yours dies anyway (even the newer 360's have a failure rate of between 10% & 16%). You send it in to get repaired & you get a lemon back which will only last a year.

    With a process like this, you know that the RROD problem is never going away until MS both solves the problem (failure rate < 3%) in a new Xbox design and stops sending out the ticking timebombs as replacements.

  20. Re:Actually, shipping is free, at least in NA. on A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death Fiasco · · Score: 1

    I'd really like to hear from someone who has gone through replacing their RROD'ed 360 who isn't from the USA, though. MS's support policies outside the USA are often much less painless. As in: In the USA just call them on the toll free number. In France, Call them non toll-free, give your credit card number, & IF MS decides it's not their fault then they'll give you a chargeback.

  21. Re:Good thing they're not getting away with it! on A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death Fiasco · · Score: 1
    There is more truth in your joke than you suspect once you leave the USA. Here in France as well as in Japan from what I've read, the reliability problems that the 360 has have caused people to boycott it or to choose the PS3 instead. Microsoft's policy of abandoning the Xbox (look at how Sony has continued to sell & develop games for the PS2!) also caused people to avoid it. With Microsoft's plan to bring out a successor to the 360 as soon as possible, it's easy to deduce that the 360 will be orphaned as well in a year or two.

    I was one of the few people I know to have bought an Xbox in France (4 out of 40 households that had a console). I, & everyone around me avoided the 360 for the reasons given above & have either bought Wii's, PS3's or both, nobody bought the 360.

  22. Re:Whats so special? on Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors · · Score: 1

    My wife isn't. It was supposed to be a joke but I seem to have forgotten that this is /. where the only woman most guys know well is their mother. Tell us, is your mother superficial? No, no I take that back, I don't want to know. I'll leave now...

  23. Re:Whats so special? on Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors · · Score: 1
    Browning does not get the municipal gardeners sent in to water it for you. Letting anything take root & go to seed will get them sent in to cut it to slow down the seeding. The thing is, If you're not cutting it regularly, weeds will proliferate. Grass grows well when it is being cut regularly, most weeds do not.

    So, you're point is that women are superficial?

    ;-)

  24. Re:Whats so special? on Councils Recruit Unpaid Volunteers To Spy On Their Neighbors · · Score: 1
    People who are buying a house are willing to spend thousands of dollars to avoid living next to a slob who doesn't take care of his home, so it's not just eye candy. You might as well say "I don't understand why women place so much importance on personal hygiene, after all a hair cut, regular washing & brushing your teeth are just eye candy.

    Another point: if your yard is filled with weeds, the upkeep on all the lawns around it will cost more. People in those communities appreciate & spend major amounts of money on those lawns.

  25. Re:Where's the fire? on China Sets Sights On Rail Record · · Score: 1

    Because the USA is not in the 19th century anymore, that's why. The US no longer has the ability/will to expropriate with no recourse the people that are currently living/farming on the land needed to build new high speed trains anywhere where the population density is high enough to make a high speed train viable. Back in the 19th century we did, but most people consider it a good thing that abuse of power in this manner is no longer socially acceptable. China often pretexts that it should be able to make the same mistakes the west made when industrializing (pollution, social abuses, etc). This, much like the empires that the robber barons built, will certainly be a great achievement built at even greater social costs.