Actually it can be done electrically. I forget which way the charge should go, but if done right the calcium and aluminum is attracted to the metal, instead of rusting. Entire boats have been made by immersing a hull shape made of steel mesh into sea water and then putting a couple of volts onto it. It's much like a shellfish making its shell. It's been done to bridge abutments as well.
I think in fairness this is more due to the method of using steel reinforcing, without putting an electrical charge on the structure that would prevent the oxidation of the steel - and especially where they salt the roads.
Especially since it hasn't been duplicated, despite at least a century or two of trying, until now (maybe, we'll see if they're right...) And they used different kinds in different applications.
Indeed. I've learned more about metallurgy and corrosion (of several types) in the few years since I started messing about in boats and salt water than I ever dreamed possible. Short answer - in salt water, nothing lasts. Stainless steel resists rusting (oxidation) only as long as it is exposed to oxygen! (enquiring readers can look up "crevice corrosion"). Fiberglass is not waterproof, and in fact the water molecules that get inside some types of fiberglass can cause blistering as the water catalyzes the plastic to break down.
A couple of notes - it's "Gros Michel", and you're right, by all accounts it was a much tastier banana - more fruity. Cavendish is so unfruity it might as well be a grain. All Cavendish plants worldwide are clones - identical plants. Cavendish, like Navel Oranges, produce no seeds. The impact of this change was huge - Cavendish bananas are extremely sensitive to bruising so an entire new bush-to-ship-to-distributor-to-store system had to be developed, that protected the bananas from any stress. The bananas had to be shipped in clusters. The ships were even different.
But there are 700 other species of banana. There are at least two major research thrusts - genetic engineering (trying to engineer a resistant version), and selective breeding & hybridization (trying to breed a new banana by cross breeding existing plants with desirable characteristics). IMHO it would be at least as effective to just provide a wider range of bananas in the store at a reasonable price - so far all the alternatives have been 2X or 3X the price of Cavendish.
A company I'm looking at is also working on an epigenetic solution - exposing the undifferentiated stem cells to stresses that will hopefully encourage the banana plants to express their genes differently, including genes that provide resistance.
Nope, new to me. Thanks, interesting and worth knowing!
For those who don't know, a squib is a round that is missing the powder or something and misfires, so the bullet stays lodged in the barrel. Then if you don't notice the lack of bang/boom and try to fire again without clearing the jam, the old 'immovable object vs. irresistable force' conflict occurs. This can cause the gun to explode. See vids and pics online, and pay attention if the sound and feel of the gun don't meet expectations on a round - or if you notice nothing came out!
This makes me wonder what about when this occurs on an automatic weapon?
I was there in the days when "you won't get fired for buying IBM", and IBM VPs would get flown in to talk to your boss' boss' boss' to tell them that their 14th level underling was considering buying a non-IBM peripheral, and that while IBM encouraged fair competition, the presence of a non-IBM peripheral 'might' delay support response until it was proved that the peripheral had nothing to do with the problem, and "your company might have to be shut down while the problem was worked out." It was extortion, pure and simple. And it worked until they lost the anti-trust suit (which started in 1969, lasted 13 years!)
See where IBM is now. It could happen to Oracle. Customers don't like any vendor having them by the balls, even when they are nice about it, and Oracle has never, in my experience, been nice. But those are cool boats!:D
I never liked CFLs for several reasons, and they really didn't work in some places (like outdoors in cold climates). But now I'm catching LED replacements when they go on sale (I'm willing to pay $10, but generally not $15). My living room lamps are now all LED and they are indistinguishable from the incandescents they replaced, except they seem somewhat brighter! I generally get the dimmable ones so I don't have to worry about where I'm using a given lamp.
We replaced the floods in the conference room at my work with LED PAR30s, reducing the heat load in that room by the equivalent of 14 people - about the capacity of the room. But the dimmers in that room are not very good - we had to keep one old-style incandescent in the circuit to prevent the lights from blinking on and off when dimmed. Generally that's not a problem.
If you look at auto history (and in fact the history of most technologies) the process is the same. Those who have more disposable income are the ones who are most willing to pay extra for non-economic benefits including style, comfort, 'greenness', and new technologies. Many of those technologies were complicated, hard to maintain and otherwise not very practical for a long time, but they paved the way for newer, better versions. Examples include power brakes, power windows and locks, auto-dimming headlights (1960 Edsel had them), sequential turn signals (1968 Cougar), fuel injection (mechanical fuel injection goes back before WWII, but computers made electronic fuel injection practical for folks who couldn't keep a full time mechanic on staff). One might even include cars themselves, which at one time cost more than a very fine house but paved the way for the Ford, which could be purchased by the workers in the factories making them.
The market for suborbital tourist trips is presently limited to those who are willing to pony up $200,000, but that market is one of several that are helping to drive the technology and business models necessary to build a viable commercial space industry, which may in the long run reduce the cost of many things on Earth and improve the quality of life for everyone.
For me, I wasn't a fan at first because, well, let's face it - the early electric(ish) cars of the 21st Century (i.e., original Prius, whatever that Honda abortion was called) sucked, and boy did they suck hard. Lots of weird little electrical demons, crazy high price tags, and really nothing more than a status symbol for self-important douche bags who developed a 'my shit don't stink' attitude because, for some reason, they thought a 30 MPGe hybrid filled with rare earth metals was somehow more "green" than a 50 MPG diesel V-Dub.
Kinda like those 'hobby computers' back in the late 1970s - $2000 for an 8080 or Z80, in 1975 dollars. That's like $6000 today, they sucked, they had lots of weird little electrical demons, etc.:)
I had an electric car once - amazing power, great acceleration, roomy, comfortable, and cheap to buy and run - only spent $3.60 on electricity in a month. Only disadvantage - hell of an extension cord!
I used to live in Central Oregon, and knew the folks who founded Oregon Country Beef, a cooperative of what has become 'organic' beef. Back in the 1960s they stopped using antibiotics and feedlotting. All the cattle spend their entire lives out in the wild, living as they did before man. The density is kept low so the impact is actually positive - generally the land where these cattle live is in better shape than the non-grazed land. This approach extends to the whole life cycle. If a cow needs help having a calf, both the cow and the calf are culled from the herd. If they get sick, out they go. These cattle must survive on their own.
Over the 40 years, they have evolved a strain of cattle that need almost no care - they get moved from low to high elevations in the spring, and back down in the winter, and that's about it. They go directly from pasture to slaughter with no feed-based fattening. As a result their cost of production is lower than standard commercial beef, and their prices are higher per pound. (I suspect their weight is lower per unit but I don't know).
So, bottom line, 'organic' isn't necessarily more expensive to produce.
Yes. Add to that, since stopping the rampant growth of the federal bloat seems impossible, most folks feel that the only thing they have any power over is local and to a lesser extent state politics, so the cities, towns, counties and states are pushed ever harder to reduce their taxes while federal unfunded mandates increase costs without limit. Of course, since these local jurisdictions have less and less ability to serve due to their limited funding, there is ever more 'justification' to increase federal activities, and therefore, spending. DOC (Deity Of Choice) preserve us from federal do-gooders.
Sigh. I'd much rather spend money locally, where there is at least some potential for control.
That's actually a good thing. At present those power plants are not operating at optimal efficiency. So for the general good, it's better to increase utilization in that way, just as it is better in principal to run a manufacturing plant on three shifts, if the capacity can be utilized. It may suck for the guy whose car-charging rates just increased, but it is good for the guy next door that doesn't have an electric and whose rates are lower than they would be otherwise!
Yes. The Los Angeles area was called the "Valley of Smoke" by the native americans long before they were eradicated by the settlers. The combination of sunlight, pine tree emanations and temperature inversions created smog back then too. (The same name iyáang was also translated as 'poison oak place'. YMMV)
From my three-week experience renting one it's bigger inside than I expected, but as far as lightness of construction (and thriftiness), yes. I basically assumed that if I were in an accident on the freeway I would probably die. OTOH I haven't done any research on the crash test results so I could be wrong.
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Actually it can be done electrically. I forget which way the charge should go, but if done right the calcium and aluminum is attracted to the metal, instead of rusting. Entire boats have been made by immersing a hull shape made of steel mesh into sea water and then putting a couple of volts onto it. It's much like a shellfish making its shell. It's been done to bridge abutments as well.
I think in fairness this is more due to the method of using steel reinforcing, without putting an electrical charge on the structure that would prevent the oxidation of the steel - and especially where they salt the roads.
Especially since it hasn't been duplicated, despite at least a century or two of trying, until now (maybe, we'll see if they're right...) And they used different kinds in different applications.
Indeed. I've learned more about metallurgy and corrosion (of several types) in the few years since I started messing about in boats and salt water than I ever dreamed possible. Short answer - in salt water, nothing lasts. Stainless steel resists rusting (oxidation) only as long as it is exposed to oxygen! (enquiring readers can look up "crevice corrosion"). Fiberglass is not waterproof, and in fact the water molecules that get inside some types of fiberglass can cause blistering as the water catalyzes the plastic to break down.
A couple of notes - it's "Gros Michel", and you're right, by all accounts it was a much tastier banana - more fruity. Cavendish is so unfruity it might as well be a grain. All Cavendish plants worldwide are clones - identical plants. Cavendish, like Navel Oranges, produce no seeds. The impact of this change was huge - Cavendish bananas are extremely sensitive to bruising so an entire new bush-to-ship-to-distributor-to-store system had to be developed, that protected the bananas from any stress. The bananas had to be shipped in clusters. The ships were even different.
But there are 700 other species of banana. There are at least two major research thrusts - genetic engineering (trying to engineer a resistant version), and selective breeding & hybridization (trying to breed a new banana by cross breeding existing plants with desirable characteristics). IMHO it would be at least as effective to just provide a wider range of bananas in the store at a reasonable price - so far all the alternatives have been 2X or 3X the price of Cavendish.
A company I'm looking at is also working on an epigenetic solution - exposing the undifferentiated stem cells to stresses that will hopefully encourage the banana plants to express their genes differently, including genes that provide resistance.
Nope, new to me. Thanks, interesting and worth knowing!
For those who don't know, a squib is a round that is missing the powder or something and misfires, so the bullet stays lodged in the barrel. Then if you don't notice the lack of bang/boom and try to fire again without clearing the jam, the old 'immovable object vs. irresistable force' conflict occurs. This can cause the gun to explode. See vids and pics online, and pay attention if the sound and feel of the gun don't meet expectations on a round - or if you notice nothing came out!
This makes me wonder what about when this occurs on an automatic weapon?
But IBM did nearly go bankrupt, and it is not at all the same company that it was then, either economically or socially.
And end software patents. And a pony.
I was there in the days when "you won't get fired for buying IBM", and IBM VPs would get flown in to talk to your boss' boss' boss' to tell them that their 14th level underling was considering buying a non-IBM peripheral, and that while IBM encouraged fair competition, the presence of a non-IBM peripheral 'might' delay support response until it was proved that the peripheral had nothing to do with the problem, and "your company might have to be shut down while the problem was worked out." It was extortion, pure and simple. And it worked until they lost the anti-trust suit (which started in 1969, lasted 13 years!)
See where IBM is now. It could happen to Oracle. Customers don't like any vendor having them by the balls, even when they are nice about it, and Oracle has never, in my experience, been nice. But those are cool boats! :D
I never liked CFLs for several reasons, and they really didn't work in some places (like outdoors in cold climates). But now I'm catching LED replacements when they go on sale (I'm willing to pay $10, but generally not $15). My living room lamps are now all LED and they are indistinguishable from the incandescents they replaced, except they seem somewhat brighter! I generally get the dimmable ones so I don't have to worry about where I'm using a given lamp.
We replaced the floods in the conference room at my work with LED PAR30s, reducing the heat load in that room by the equivalent of 14 people - about the capacity of the room. But the dimmers in that room are not very good - we had to keep one old-style incandescent in the circuit to prevent the lights from blinking on and off when dimmed. Generally that's not a problem.
Isn't the Model S the one that Consumer Reports reported as the best car they had ever tested, for any price?
If you look at auto history (and in fact the history of most technologies) the process is the same. Those who have more disposable income are the ones who are most willing to pay extra for non-economic benefits including style, comfort, 'greenness', and new technologies. Many of those technologies were complicated, hard to maintain and otherwise not very practical for a long time, but they paved the way for newer, better versions. Examples include power brakes, power windows and locks, auto-dimming headlights (1960 Edsel had them), sequential turn signals (1968 Cougar), fuel injection (mechanical fuel injection goes back before WWII, but computers made electronic fuel injection practical for folks who couldn't keep a full time mechanic on staff). One might even include cars themselves, which at one time cost more than a very fine house but paved the way for the Ford, which could be purchased by the workers in the factories making them.
The market for suborbital tourist trips is presently limited to those who are willing to pony up $200,000, but that market is one of several that are helping to drive the technology and business models necessary to build a viable commercial space industry, which may in the long run reduce the cost of many things on Earth and improve the quality of life for everyone.
For me, I wasn't a fan at first because, well, let's face it - the early electric(ish) cars of the 21st Century (i.e., original Prius, whatever that Honda abortion was called) sucked, and boy did they suck hard. Lots of weird little electrical demons, crazy high price tags, and really nothing more than a status symbol for self-important douche bags who developed a 'my shit don't stink' attitude because, for some reason, they thought a 30 MPGe hybrid filled with rare earth metals was somehow more "green" than a 50 MPG diesel V-Dub.
Kinda like those 'hobby computers' back in the late 1970s - $2000 for an 8080 or Z80, in 1975 dollars. That's like $6000 today, they sucked, they had lots of weird little electrical demons, etc. :)
I had an electric car once - amazing power, great acceleration, roomy, comfortable, and cheap to buy and run - only spent $3.60 on electricity in a month. Only disadvantage - hell of an extension cord!
I'll be here all week - try the veal.
I used to live in Central Oregon, and knew the folks who founded Oregon Country Beef, a cooperative of what has become 'organic' beef. Back in the 1960s they stopped using antibiotics and feedlotting. All the cattle spend their entire lives out in the wild, living as they did before man. The density is kept low so the impact is actually positive - generally the land where these cattle live is in better shape than the non-grazed land. This approach extends to the whole life cycle. If a cow needs help having a calf, both the cow and the calf are culled from the herd. If they get sick, out they go. These cattle must survive on their own.
Over the 40 years, they have evolved a strain of cattle that need almost no care - they get moved from low to high elevations in the spring, and back down in the winter, and that's about it. They go directly from pasture to slaughter with no feed-based fattening. As a result their cost of production is lower than standard commercial beef, and their prices are higher per pound. (I suspect their weight is lower per unit but I don't know).
So, bottom line, 'organic' isn't necessarily more expensive to produce.
Yes. Add to that, since stopping the rampant growth of the federal bloat seems impossible, most folks feel that the only thing they have any power over is local and to a lesser extent state politics, so the cities, towns, counties and states are pushed ever harder to reduce their taxes while federal unfunded mandates increase costs without limit. Of course, since these local jurisdictions have less and less ability to serve due to their limited funding, there is ever more 'justification' to increase federal activities, and therefore, spending. DOC (Deity Of Choice) preserve us from federal do-gooders.
Sigh. I'd much rather spend money locally, where there is at least some potential for control.
That's actually a good thing. At present those power plants are not operating at optimal efficiency. So for the general good, it's better to increase utilization in that way, just as it is better in principal to run a manufacturing plant on three shifts, if the capacity can be utilized. It may suck for the guy whose car-charging rates just increased, but it is good for the guy next door that doesn't have an electric and whose rates are lower than they would be otherwise!
Yes. The Los Angeles area was called the "Valley of Smoke" by the native americans long before they were eradicated by the settlers. The combination of sunlight, pine tree emanations and temperature inversions created smog back then too. (The same name iyáang was also translated as 'poison oak place'. YMMV)
From my three-week experience renting one it's bigger inside than I expected, but as far as lightness of construction (and thriftiness), yes. I basically assumed that if I were in an accident on the freeway I would probably die. OTOH I haven't done any research on the crash test results so I could be wrong.
Don't see why not. Tesla could just cut a deal with the power company to buy wind & solar energy to power their *electric* plant machinery.
hippy farts
I'm doing my best! *eats more bean dip*
Indeed! :D When you hear a .22 go off, it's just a noise. When a .45 goes off, it's impressive and impossible to ignore.
Just for perspective, in the past (IIRC the fern/dinosaur epoch) the CO2 level was around 3000 ppm. And trees grew in Antarctica.
IIRC two of the top five industries (not counting production of fuels itself) are cement production and ocean shipping.
Theater.