Available for free download from Hesperian in many different languages, it's an excellently thought-out medical guide that anyone can get benefit from.
But no generation IV reactors have been built yet. And, again from Wikipedia:
Generation IV reactors are a set of theoretical nuclear reactor designs currently being researched. These designs are generally not expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030.
Sitting around waiting for some future miraculous solution is not a sound method of planning.
Check your own facts next time.
As for fuel reprocessing, you may have a point, but it certainly raises the fuel cycle costs, so it may not be the silver bullet you assume.
It's a little known fact that uranium stocks are not exactly the "unlimited" thing they once were thought to be. Building NEW nuclear power plants by 2030 will be a bit useless when most estimates are looking at serious supply problems by about 2020. As usual, China's rapid increase in demand is a significant issue here.
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium):
Of the ten largest uranium mines in the world (Mc Arthur River, Ranger, Rossing, Kraznokamensk, Olympic Dam, Rabbit Lake, Akouta, Arlit, Beverly, and McClean Lake), by 2020, six will be depleted, two will be in their final stages, one will be upgrading and one will be producing.[33]
Goombah already does this to a certain degree. It finds other people with similar music collections to yourself and recommends songs/artists/albums that you don't already have. It does it by analysing your iTunes library. I've been using it for a little while, and have had some good recommendations already. http://www.goombah.com/
If people want a player locked into one store, they will get an ipod.
Well, that's not strictly true. I buy virtually none of my music from the iTMS, but I own an iPod: I much prefer Bleep, eMusic and Monotonik, all of which provide acceptable quality DRM-free downloads, not to mention countless other direct-from-the-artist sites.
And, of course, the same is true of the Zune, and most other players.
People will eventually get tired of this "format-war" bullshit, and just go for the providers that give them maximum freedom.
Er... because phone companies are idiots that never ever ever ever try to find out what their customers really want.
I have a phone that does all this rubbish too... only because when I went into the phone shop to replace my old phone that I lost, when I asked for "anything, so long as it doesn't have a camera and all that crap", they just smiled and said "We don't have any".
Although, some bright marketroids at some of the phone companies have started thinking "Hey, maybe less is more? Wow, what a concept!" and started selling (at a premium) new "Business-oriented phones" that DONT have a camera. Another company in the UK are selling mobile phones that have ultra-easy interfaces and only do 2 things: phone and text messaging.
I tell ya, when the revolutioncomes, these people should be the first up against the wall.
Don't be ridiculous.
Oil production will begin decreasing (meaning higher prices and shortages) somewhere around:
the end of the year
a couple of yearsfrom now
by the end of the decade
20-30 years
... depending on who you speak to. The first 3 scenarios are a complete and utter catastrophe which everyone should be panicking about. The last one is still not good news, and we need to work towards finding replacements. When oil-based transport stops, we're all in a lot of trouble, considering how dependent modern food-production is to it.
If you want to see where the justification for this opinion comes from, try googling for "Peak Oil" and reading a few articles. There's a few tinfoil hat articles, but some of the more disturbing predictions come from people like Colin Campbell http://www.peakoil.net/ and inside reports from Exxon and such-like.
This development is nothing but good news, if we can get some decent battery capacity and less carbon-intensive electricity production.
Carter's support of the Taleban was irrelevant to Al Qaeda. (Notice that they are two DIFFERENT groups).
I agree on your second point, but NO WAY is it anywhere near the truth that Carter only wanted to support the Taleban. The whole project involved funding Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets, in Afghanistan primarily, but also in all the surrounding "stans", Chechnya, etc. The idea was to "get a few jumped-up Muslims" in each of the satellite Soviet states to start wanting independence.
Democrats, republicans... no matter who runs your country, it always seems to be a bunch of complete and utter retards.
While we're on the subject of Carter: Why the hell did he gave the Taliban $500 million in 1979? (see "THE GRAND CHESSBOARD - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives," Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 1997.
What a monumentally stupid thing to do! And you guys wonder why Al Qaeda became such a problem?
Oh, no, I don't think it's JUST that NK got a bum hand... they could've planned MUCH better. The country is a disaster area and it could've been averted. For an interesting analysis of how North Korea and Cuba both responded to almost identical situations (oil being cut off), and how each went to the complete other end of the spectrum, check out: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/111703_k orea_cuba_1.html
And, I do think I really was implying that the USA was really trying to help a desperate nation avoid having to resort to selling WMDs, missiles and the like by making genuine offers of assistance. Don't worry, we're not all out here with the knives out for you yankees... I have a lot of respect for some of the genuine people in your country. The USA has been a symbol of truth and justice for longer than I've been around, that's for sure.
But hell, you gotta admit, NK was one of the poorest of all the commie countries, and they were all regarded as pariahs during the cold war... you think everything was frikkin' roses for them, and it's all their own fault? That's not the whole story, I think. Sure their leaders were dickheads, but so are a lot of politicians everywhere.
Man, the North Koreans went to communism because the alternatives at the time were worse in their eyes. Maybe it was was wrong, but fuck it, they're people. All most of 'em wanna do is bring up their kids and have food on the table.
I guess, all I'm really saying is this: if you chase a starving mongrel dog into a corner you can either give it a meal and try and tame it, or you can have it try to take your jugular out.
And, I guess I'm also saying: John Bolton is a complete fucking dipshit, and no help whatsoever.
You make it sound like North Korea was just dealt a bum hand, and its really not the fault of anyone in North Korea that they are in the shit heap they are in.
Gee, I don't think I did really... I said that they were crazy and senile. I don't think they did a very good job of dealing with their situation at all.
Sorry if I forgot to say this.
I do feel sorry for the average joe in NK, though. I think they've got a really hopeless government that doesn't really have too many good options, nor any bright ideas.
And I don't think it's the USA's fault that NK is in that position. It's Russia's and North Korea's if anyones. All I said was the USA tried to stop another desperate ountry from getting the bomb by offering a carrot, then took the carrot away. Hell, that's gotta annoy them, whether it's justified or not.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, most of the buddy-buddy relationships with other communist countries were scratched and it turned into "every man for themselves".
North Korea used to have a constant supply of oil and coal and other energy needs from Russia, but this was abruptly terminated when Russia started saying "Er, you gotta pay full price now". The North Koreans had no cash to pay with, and thus began the rapid spiralling decline of all their energy production, transport, manufacturing and most importantly, food production. Food production in particular was a double-edged sword, needing not only oil to harvest and transport food, but also petroleum products and energy to produce fertiliser for use in North Korea's poor soil. With most of the country starving, and most machinery lying idle and rusting, things have been getting exponentially worse. They now have peasants tilling fields by hand, emaciated, underfed, with no chance of anything changing, unless they join the army, where they are emaciated, underfed and using rifles.
With little or nothing to trade with, North Korea has resorted to high-profit, (relatively) low-staffing-requirements industries like missiles, nuclear power and weapons, and (possibly) any other sorts of chemical or bio weapons to fund their dismal little empire.
Thus we now have them in a position where they have nothing to lose, and a little bitter and twisted.
To the US's credit, there were attempts to try and help Pyongyang out of this dead-end situation, by offering assistance in building reactors that were more efficient and would not produce weapons-grade materials. Unfortunatley, the Clinton administration never came good with their promises, and then the Bush administration came into power and... well, you know the rest. With the likes of John "Deputy Dawg" Bolton doing negotiations with them it's a small miracle South Korea or Japan aren't small burning heaps by now. That's if NK actually do have any nukes. Who knows... the entire government is crazy and senile, so it's hard to guess what they are doing or thinking.
Much as I nowadays feel like thinking "oh, god, how could this guy be so daft as to trust his employer like this..." you gotta remember, this was really breaking new ground in its day, and it's been going on for 7 years. Not that this was THE ONLY case of it's sort, but it certainly got more publicity than any other before.
I for one used it's disastrous consequences to put the fear of god into a few HR people that tried to sell me on ridiculously worded contracts... and suceeded, too.
My heart goes out for this guy. Having been on the receiving end of greedy investors, and knowing full well what a pack of litigious, money-hungry morons can do, I admire his ability to stand up in the face of these people.
Sure, don't sign the contract that seems draconian, but you should at least also go back to the HR catbert drone with a professionally re-worded contract that doesn't suck... you'd be surprised how easily they give in a lot of the time. And if they don't give in, and you really do think you've got some good ideas, then you should NOT TRUST them to do the right thing by you. If it's not in a contract, then they don't have to, so they won't.
On the other hand, if you use the internet to get any type of english-language news, you read the New York Times and the Washington Post.
What UTTER rubbish.
Though I am concerned about all the issues you talk about, the New York Times and the Washington Post are the LAST place I would look for informative unbiased articles about these issues. They offend me with their dumb-arse, corporate-suckfullness. The NYT has had some of the most crappy excuses for journalism ever (Jayson Blair anyone?), and the Washington Post is just yet another fan-boy for a bynch of crap politicians.
Get a friggin' life, and try reading any one of 1000s of other online newspapers IN ENGLISH. Hell, even Xinhua has better reporting of copyright issues than NYT or WP, and it's a lot of reactionary commie claptrap!
This is almost as off-topic as the parent, but now seems like a good time to quote William Burroughs:
Beware of whores who say they don't want money. The hell they don't! What they mean is they want MORE money. Much more. These arre the most expensive whores money can buy.
The reason it's complaining about not having lib/tools.jar is because the version of Java you have is "Runtime-only". The other version, the "Developer version" includes the compiler and other assorted stuff needed to build things in Java.
So, you're doing the right thing by downloading "another version", just make sure that it's the developer version, though.
It's a system for building software, similar to "make". It's a way of scripting all of the steps required to deliver software in it's final state. A typical project-build for me often includes stuff like getting the latest library files that work with my code, compiling source to byte-code, byte-code enhancement (e.g for JDO object persistence), packaging into JAR files, inserting macros into config files and source code for server-names, test login and passwords, etc., then copying a myriad of files into various places, starting and stopping system services (like Tomcat), then executing tests, building JavaDoc documentation, then uploading all to a webserver. Maven automates the process of doing this. You can do the same sorts of things with Ant (which Maven uses, also), but after your 5th or 6th project you end up saying to yourself "hey, I keep writing the same stuff over and again", and improvements to your build process in one project don't get percolated through to the older ones. I'm certainly looking forward to adopting this in our work environment... I'm DEFINITELY spending far too much time writing build scripts, so it's people like me that need this. Apparently, you don't do much coding?
Anyone interested in theories of consciousness and how they might relate to artificial neural networks, you may want to check out "Radiant Cool" by Dan Lloyd. In this book he uses multi-dimensional scaling analysis of fMRI scans to predict past and future states of the same brain, as well as doing the same thing with artificial networks. It then uses the evidence from this research to propose what (to me, at least) is the first really solid explanation for what consciousness may actually "be". The book is written in 2 parts... the first one is a detective novel where the main character is a Phenomenologist and in the process of solving a murder finds a theory of consciousness. The 2nd part of the book is a factual appendix describing the work. Awesome stuff, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in neural nets and AI.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 the pi-top
Available for free download from Hesperian in many different languages, it's an excellently thought-out medical guide that anyone can get benefit from.
http://weblife.org/pdf/where_there_is_no_doctor.pdf
www.assembla.com
It's a monthly-paid service, available in a fully-functional free-for-individuals-with-a-few-projects mode.
But no generation IV reactors have been built yet. And, again from Wikipedia:
Generation IV reactors are a set of theoretical nuclear reactor designs currently being researched. These designs are generally not expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030.
Sitting around waiting for some future miraculous solution is not a sound method of planning.
Check your own facts next time.
As for fuel reprocessing, you may have a point, but it certainly raises the fuel cycle costs, so it may not be the silver bullet you assume.
It's a little known fact that uranium stocks are not exactly the "unlimited" thing they once were thought to be. Building NEW nuclear power plants by 2030 will be a bit useless when most estimates are looking at serious supply problems by about 2020. As usual, China's rapid increase in demand is a significant issue here.
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium):
Of the ten largest uranium mines in the world (Mc Arthur River, Ranger, Rossing, Kraznokamensk, Olympic Dam, Rabbit Lake, Akouta, Arlit, Beverly, and McClean Lake), by 2020, six will be depleted, two will be in their final stages, one will be upgrading and one will be producing.[33]
Goombah already does this to a certain degree. It finds other people with similar music collections to yourself and recommends songs/artists/albums that you don't already have. It does it by analysing your iTunes library. I've been using it for a little while, and have had some good recommendations already. http://www.goombah.com/
If people want a player locked into one store, they will get an ipod.
Well, that's not strictly true. I buy virtually none of my music from the iTMS, but I own an iPod: I much prefer Bleep, eMusic and Monotonik, all of which provide acceptable quality DRM-free downloads, not to mention countless other direct-from-the-artist sites.
And, of course, the same is true of the Zune, and most other players.
People will eventually get tired of this "format-war" bullshit, and just go for the providers that give them maximum freedom.
Er... because phone companies are idiots that never ever ever ever try to find out what their customers really want.
I have a phone that does all this rubbish too... only because when I went into the phone shop to replace my old phone that I lost, when I asked for "anything, so long as it doesn't have a camera and all that crap", they just smiled and said "We don't have any".
Although, some bright marketroids at some of the phone companies have started thinking "Hey, maybe less is more? Wow, what a concept!" and started selling (at a premium) new "Business-oriented phones" that DONT have a camera. Another company in the UK are selling mobile phones that have ultra-easy interfaces and only do 2 things: phone and text messaging.
I tell ya, when the revolutioncomes, these people should be the first up against the wall.
Christ is coming? Really? Quick, hide the porn...
Oil production will begin decreasing (meaning higher prices and shortages) somewhere around:
If you want to see where the justification for this opinion comes from, try googling for "Peak Oil" and reading a few articles. There's a few tinfoil hat articles, but some of the more disturbing predictions come from people like Colin Campbell http://www.peakoil.net/ and inside reports from Exxon and such-like.
This development is nothing but good news, if we can get some decent battery capacity and less carbon-intensive electricity production.
Yep. It's a sign o' the end times, if ever there was...
Fair enough. I guess the correct word would be "regime"... as in "Regime change".
I agree on your second point, but NO WAY is it anywhere near the truth that Carter only wanted to support the Taleban. The whole project involved funding Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets, in Afghanistan primarily, but also in all the surrounding "stans", Chechnya, etc. The idea was to "get a few jumped-up Muslims" in each of the satellite Soviet states to start wanting independence.
Hell yeah... you got that right.
Democrats, republicans... no matter who runs your country, it always seems to be a bunch of complete and utter retards.
While we're on the subject of Carter: Why the hell did he gave the Taliban $500 million in 1979? (see "THE GRAND CHESSBOARD - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives," Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 1997.
What a monumentally stupid thing to do! And you guys wonder why Al Qaeda became such a problem?
Oh, no, I don't think it's JUST that NK got a bum hand... they could've planned MUCH better. The country is a disaster area and it could've been averted. For an interesting analysis of how North Korea and Cuba both responded to almost identical situations (oil being cut off), and how each went to the complete other end of the spectrum, check out: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/111703_k orea_cuba_1.html
And, I do think I really was implying that the USA was really trying to help a desperate nation avoid having to resort to selling WMDs, missiles and the like by making genuine offers of assistance. Don't worry, we're not all out here with the knives out for you yankees... I have a lot of respect for some of the genuine people in your country. The USA has been a symbol of truth and justice for longer than I've been around, that's for sure.
But hell, you gotta admit, NK was one of the poorest of all the commie countries, and they were all regarded as pariahs during the cold war... you think everything was frikkin' roses for them, and it's all their own fault? That's not the whole story, I think. Sure their leaders were dickheads, but so are a lot of politicians everywhere.
Man, the North Koreans went to communism because the alternatives at the time were worse in their eyes. Maybe it was was wrong, but fuck it, they're people. All most of 'em wanna do is bring up their kids and have food on the table.
I guess, all I'm really saying is this: if you chase a starving mongrel dog into a corner you can either give it a meal and try and tame it, or you can have it try to take your jugular out.
And, I guess I'm also saying: John Bolton is a complete fucking dipshit, and no help whatsoever.
Gee, I don't think I did really... I said that they were crazy and senile. I don't think they did a very good job of dealing with their situation at all.
Sorry if I forgot to say this.
I do feel sorry for the average joe in NK, though. I think they've got a really hopeless government that doesn't really have too many good options, nor any bright ideas.
And I don't think it's the USA's fault that NK is in that position. It's Russia's and North Korea's if anyones. All I said was the USA tried to stop another desperate ountry from getting the bomb by offering a carrot, then took the carrot away. Hell, that's gotta annoy them, whether it's justified or not.
Well, most of the rest of the world call you "Yanks"... but I guess that'd be offensive to southern folk.
How about "Septic Tanks"? (Cockney rhyming slang for "Yanks")
Usually abreviated to "Seppos".
There's a really good reason for this.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, most of the buddy-buddy relationships with other communist countries were scratched and it turned into "every man for themselves".
North Korea used to have a constant supply of oil and coal and other energy needs from Russia, but this was abruptly terminated when Russia started saying "Er, you gotta pay full price now". The North Koreans had no cash to pay with, and thus began the rapid spiralling decline of all their energy production, transport, manufacturing and most importantly, food production. Food production in particular was a double-edged sword, needing not only oil to harvest and transport food, but also petroleum products and energy to produce fertiliser for use in North Korea's poor soil. With most of the country starving, and most machinery lying idle and rusting, things have been getting exponentially worse. They now have peasants tilling fields by hand, emaciated, underfed, with no chance of anything changing, unless they join the army, where they are emaciated, underfed and using rifles.
With little or nothing to trade with, North Korea has resorted to high-profit, (relatively) low-staffing-requirements industries like missiles, nuclear power and weapons, and (possibly) any other sorts of chemical or bio weapons to fund their dismal little empire.
Thus we now have them in a position where they have nothing to lose, and a little bitter and twisted.
To the US's credit, there were attempts to try and help Pyongyang out of this dead-end situation, by offering assistance in building reactors that were more efficient and would not produce weapons-grade materials. Unfortunatley, the Clinton administration never came good with their promises, and then the Bush administration came into power and... well, you know the rest. With the likes of John "Deputy Dawg" Bolton doing negotiations with them it's a small miracle South Korea or Japan aren't small burning heaps by now. That's if NK actually do have any nukes. Who knows... the entire government is crazy and senile, so it's hard to guess what they are doing or thinking.
Much as I nowadays feel like thinking "oh, god, how could this guy be so daft as to trust his employer like this..." you gotta remember, this was really breaking new ground in its day, and it's been going on for 7 years. Not that this was THE ONLY case of it's sort, but it certainly got more publicity than any other before.
I for one used it's disastrous consequences to put the fear of god into a few HR people that tried to sell me on ridiculously worded contracts... and suceeded, too.
My heart goes out for this guy. Having been on the receiving end of greedy investors, and knowing full well what a pack of litigious, money-hungry morons can do, I admire his ability to stand up in the face of these people.
Sure, don't sign the contract that seems draconian, but you should at least also go back to the HR catbert drone with a professionally re-worded contract that doesn't suck... you'd be surprised how easily they give in a lot of the time. And if they don't give in, and you really do think you've got some good ideas, then you should NOT TRUST them to do the right thing by you. If it's not in a contract, then they don't have to, so they won't.
What UTTER rubbish.
Though I am concerned about all the issues you talk about, the New York Times and the Washington Post are the LAST place I would look for informative unbiased articles about these issues.
They offend me with their dumb-arse, corporate-suckfullness.
The NYT has had some of the most crappy excuses for journalism ever (Jayson Blair anyone?), and the Washington Post is just yet another fan-boy for a bynch of crap politicians.
Get a friggin' life, and try reading any one of 1000s of other online newspapers IN ENGLISH. Hell, even Xinhua has better reporting of copyright issues than NYT or WP, and it's a lot of reactionary commie claptrap!
This is almost as off-topic as the parent, but now seems like a good time to quote William Burroughs:
Beware of whores who say they don't want money.
The hell they don't!
What they mean is they want MORE money. Much more. These arre the most expensive whores money can buy.
The reason it's complaining about not having lib/tools.jar is because the version of Java you have is "Runtime-only".
The other version, the "Developer version" includes the compiler and other assorted stuff needed to build things in Java.
So, you're doing the right thing by downloading "another version", just make sure that it's the developer version, though.
It's a system for building software, similar to "make".
It's a way of scripting all of the steps required to deliver software in it's final state.
A typical project-build for me often includes stuff like getting the latest library files that work with my code, compiling source to byte-code, byte-code enhancement (e.g for JDO object persistence), packaging into JAR files, inserting macros into config files and source code for server-names, test login and passwords, etc., then copying a myriad of files into various places, starting and stopping system services (like Tomcat), then executing tests, building JavaDoc documentation, then uploading all to a webserver.
Maven automates the process of doing this. You can do the same sorts of things with Ant (which Maven uses, also), but after your 5th or 6th project you end up saying to yourself "hey, I keep writing the same stuff over and again", and improvements to your build process in one project don't get percolated through to the older ones.
I'm certainly looking forward to adopting this in our work environment... I'm DEFINITELY spending far too much time writing build scripts, so it's people like me that need this.
Apparently, you don't do much coding?
I noticed recently that there has been an effort to translate the Creative Commons licence into Nederlands...
see: http://creativecommons.org/ for more info.
Waag Society in Amsterdam were having some seminars about this issue (though their site is a bit broken at the moment www.waag.org).
Anyone interested in theories of consciousness and how they might relate to artificial neural networks, you may want to check out "Radiant Cool" by Dan Lloyd.
In this book he uses multi-dimensional scaling analysis of fMRI scans to predict past and future states of the same brain, as well as doing the same thing with artificial networks.
It then uses the evidence from this research to propose what (to me, at least) is the first really solid explanation for what consciousness may actually "be".
The book is written in 2 parts... the first one is a detective novel where the main character is a Phenomenologist and in the process of solving a murder finds a theory of consciousness. The 2nd part of the book is a factual appendix describing the work.
Awesome stuff, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in neural nets and AI.