They're in the business of national security. That's generally at odds with personal security and liberty. Those who would trust such a product from them are suckers.
From time to time I've read the idea of swapping batteries in EVs as the solution to long charging times. It doesn't make sense for several reasons:
1) The most obvious reason is that different makes and models of cars will use differing battery packs. It would be very difficult for a station to stock packs for all cars that might show up. 2) Even for packs of the same type, there will differences in quality. If you just bought a car with 200 miles of range, would you want to have someone yank out your shiny new battery pack and replace it with one that had deteriorated to 80 miles range? 3) These schemes assume that it will be really easy and quick to replace the pack. That's far from proven. My estimate is that you're looking at a minimum of 20 minutes. While designing an automated system to swap packs is possible if they are all the same, it seems very unlikely that they will be. 4) Advances in battery technology are making it increasing less likely that the swap can be done quicker than a recharge. In the case of capacitors, the potential recharge times will so short as to make swapping a laughable proposition. 5) The propane tank example is a poor one if you want to support the EV battery swap idea. Where I live, the price of a refurbished and filled propane tank is ~$10/gallon which is much more than the value of the propane itself. One of the major factors is the cost of testing/refurbishing/replacing the tanks returned by customers which can be in arbitrarily bad condition. 6) People seem to miss one of the main advantages of EVs which is that the paradigm of periodically going to a "gas station" to get energy for powering our cars will mostly go away. Most EV charging will be done at home and with perhaps some supplementation at our workplaces. The only "gas station" type charging that needs to be considered is for the 5-10% of driving which is outside of a reasonable EV range. This will go down even further as EV ranges get higher. 7) The interim step towards full EVs is plugin-hybrids. These will be on the road within a few years and will bridge the gap from today's technology to the availability of long-range full EVs with a network of quick charging stations for those relatively few trips that take one far from home.
So, simply put, there will never be a large infrastructure for swapping batteries in privately-owned passenger vehicles as a means of extending range.
... from the old tv comedy Get Smart. When caught in a lie and nobody is buying his bullshhit, he would would try to wriggle out of it: "Whould you believe [another lie]? No. Would you believe [yet another lie]?...
is that, as Chief Whitehouse Council, Harriet Miers probably signed off on the idea of going after the Onion. The thought of her on the Supreme Court gives me shivers.
Yep. Really dumb. Don't forget that over 50% of methane's energy content is in the carbon. So by "reforming" methane into hydrogen gas you've already lost most of it's energy. The article doesn't say what's being done with the carbon but it's probably emitted as CO2. Also, methane can be stored much more easily than hydrogen.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. There will never be an operational "space elevator" on earth. Before the miriad scientific, technical, logistical, political, and financial problems are solved, mankind will invent better, easier, less-costly ways to get into space.
[laughs] About 5% of what the US currently spends on welfare should be enough, 8-10% to be sure. The biggest obstacles will be getting a 'hunting license' to cut through red tape and to break a few enviromental regulations.
5% of the welfare budget? Care to cite a reference? Was the estimate done by the same people that estimated the cost of the ISS? Or the currently proposed (I won't say planned) mars mission? Or maybe the Iraq war? My point here is that cost underestimates are common; esp. when the estimates are given by those trying to sell the program.
What technique for deflection did you have in mind anyway? Is it proven? Are you referring to large earth impactors in general or just objects the size of 2004 MN4 (~400 m)?
I'll assume for a minute that you are referring to a method to blast the asteroid with one or more large nukes. Assuming for a second that you're smart enough to not suggest we try to blast it into a bazillion tiny pieces ala the fantasies Deep Impact or Armageddon then we'd have to be very careful not to break up the object into multiple large pieces. The more small blasts you want to try, the more the project costs. The longer it takes to figure it out, the harder the object is to deflect.
Let's say that a team of American scientists decides they know just how to do it with nukes. Also, assume it's within the US's ability economically. However, time is running out so we can't afford to get into a lot of drawn-out discussions with other countries. Cool if no other nations have serious objections. But what if the Soviets and Chinese become convinced that the American plan will undermine their own efforts to avert catastrophe or otherwise lead to disaster? How far would they go to stop the US if they thought the world's (or at least there own) very survival was at stake?
Unlikely you say? Nope. I'd say a scenario like the above would be almost assured. Remember, the specter of impending doom would make people desperate and less willing to listen to opposing opinions. Given enough time, we could eventually sort it out. 35 years probably isn't enough to get it all done.
I'd like to think not but I've lost much of my faith in American largess. Then wake up and take your blinders off.
It's highly arguable who's wearing the blinders. My statement is that the US might not go very far to save another region if it isn't directly in it's own interest. How much is the US doing to prevent the genocide in the Sudan? How much is it doing to help the many African nations with the Aids epidemic? Answers to both: "Not much."
I'm sure someone will come up with a good example where the world got together and solved a problem but overall history shows little that it's rare and difficult.
ROTFLMAO. Overall history shows quite the *opposite*. International cooperation on issues large and small have been growing for well over a century now. Most of the minor problems (not being able to mail a letter from Seattle to Lower Pantagonia) are long fixed, and we are making strides on the bigger ones.
My turn to ROTFLMAO. The postal service is the best example you can give? The fact that some industrialized nations have negative population growth doesn't mean the overall growth is within tolerable limits. As far as I know, only smallpox has been eradicated from the populace (though still kept alive in-vitro by a few mad governments). Polio, the other poster-child for the vaccination movement is making a comeback. AIDS is rampant even though we don't even need a cure or vacine to fight it. A little global cooperation could greatly reduce the incidence of AIDS but it's on the rise.
Fundamentally, humans don't cooperate well. We have systems in place to help but they were forged over many years. Even after millennia of civilization, war, tyranny, greed, and all sorts of ugly treatment of others rampant. Even the threat of global annihilation would be insufficient to convince mankind to turn over a new leaf in so short a time.
So your argument that, since someone has a dream of building a ship that can hold 130 people for a few months, we could therefore save the planet within 35 years?
There are incredible technological barriers to such an approach. I'd argue that you can't begin to call this a "success" until you've provided for the survival of at least 50% of the population. Using the number of 6 billion people living now (how many in 35 years?), that's 3 billion you'd have to save. How do you think we would build the 23 million space craft without running into the other problems I outlined? What about those left behind? Why would the earth necessarily be inhabitable within a few months? Projections I've seen suggest that a couple of years is more like it for a large impact.
Even if it were technically possible, you've ignored my argument that the nations of the earth could never complete such a huge engineering job in such a short time due to unavoidable political conflicts.
... that the world could successfully rally to protect the planet from an asteroid in 35 years.
First, as you say, new technology would have to be developed and perfected. Not impossible but it's very difficult to predict the pace of such things. If, in fact, it took 36 years we'd still be screwed. Almost making the deadline [pun intended] wouldn't cut it.
The biggest problem would be mustering the needed level of international cooperation. No doubt the cost of the program would be too much for even the richest nations to go it alone. How many years would go by before enough nations could get together and decide on a plan of action? What would the USA do if 20 years down the road more accurate estimates of the impact point proved that the asteroid was going to impact on the other side of the globe? Would the USA withdraw its participation? I'd like to think not but I've lost much of my faith in American largess. Anyway, balancing an enormous economic drain versus the morality of allowing a serious disaster to occur to someone else (possibly an enemy) would be a serious quandary for any nation.
The problems are certainly surmountable; in theory. The world's track record regarding other crises is spotty at best. How much progress have we made at: eliminating controllable diseases, controlling global population growth, controlling greenhouse gas emissions?
The list goes on and doesn't even address the more important but tougher issues like war and poverty. I'm sure someone will come up with a good example where the world got together and solved a problem but overall history shows little that it's rare and difficult.
So I don't think 35 years is really enough time. I'd say more like 300 years. At least in that much time one could hope for salvation from radically new technological advances such as anti-gravity or really really frickin powerful lasers in space.
Before we ever overcome the technical, political, and financial problems imposed by a space elevator, we will find better ways to get into space. You heard it here first.
And? Do you think there's something about magnets that would cause a NIC to stop working? I agree that it's weird to put magnets there but what's your theory about why that was causing a problem?
Don't say they would effect the data on the disk drive. For one thing, it won't. For another, you didn't say that he was getting disk errors.
Did the NIC start working when the magnets were removed?
Slashdot Mirror
Are you kidding? It's even better: a flying airplane.
My what a wondrous age we live in.
If standard incandescent light bulbs delivered 10% efficiency, we wouldn't be as important to switch to other types.
100% efficiency is about 683 lm/W. A standard 60W bulb gives about 14 lm/W or about 2% efficiency.
Google is turning into Microsoft.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3655398/A-dishwasher-on-Mars.html
Maybe. But then there's the established scientific principle:
He who denied it supplied it.
But for god's sake, I hope they don't forget the doll!
They're in the business of national security. That's generally at odds with personal security and liberty. Those who would trust such a product from them are suckers.
--scsg
Sounds to me like the UK is deep in enemy territory.
-scsg
Like I always say:
There's pretty much nothing that can't be accomplished if you have big enough balls.
... Umh, what were we talking about again?
From time to time I've read the idea of swapping batteries in EVs as the solution to long charging times. It doesn't make sense for several reasons:
1) The most obvious reason is that different makes and models of cars will use differing battery packs. It would be very difficult for a station to stock packs for all cars that might show up.
2) Even for packs of the same type, there will differences in quality. If you just bought a car with 200 miles of range, would you want to have someone yank out your shiny new battery pack and replace it with one that had deteriorated to 80 miles range?
3) These schemes assume that it will be really easy and quick to replace the pack. That's far from proven. My estimate is that you're looking at a minimum of 20 minutes. While designing an automated system to swap packs is possible if they are all the same, it seems very unlikely that they will be.
4) Advances in battery technology are making it increasing less likely that the swap can be done quicker than a recharge. In the case of capacitors, the potential recharge times will so short as to make swapping a laughable proposition.
5) The propane tank example is a poor one if you want to support the EV battery swap idea. Where I live, the price of a refurbished and filled propane tank is ~$10/gallon which is much more than the value of the propane itself. One of the major factors is the cost of testing/refurbishing/replacing the tanks returned by customers which can be in arbitrarily bad condition.
6) People seem to miss one of the main advantages of EVs which is that the paradigm of periodically going to a "gas station" to get energy for powering our cars will mostly go away. Most EV charging will be done at home and with perhaps some supplementation at our workplaces. The only "gas station" type charging that needs to be considered is for the 5-10% of driving which is outside of a reasonable EV range. This will go down even further as EV ranges get higher.
7) The interim step towards full EVs is plugin-hybrids. These will be on the road within a few years and will bridge the gap from today's technology to the availability of long-range full EVs with a network of quick charging stations for those relatively few trips that take one far from home.
So, simply put, there will never be a large infrastructure for swapping batteries in privately-owned passenger vehicles as a means of extending range.
... from the old tv comedy Get Smart. When caught in a lie and nobody is buying his bullshhit, he would would try to wriggle out of it: "Whould you believe [another lie]? No. Would you believe [yet another lie]? ...
I take it you've never heard of fuses and circuit breakers? Look them up. They're quite useful for providing protection from short circuits.
-scsg
They're acting as if they want to avoid rampant abuse and fraud. While it sounds great, I don't think America is ready for such a radical notion.
-- scsg
is that, as Chief Whitehouse Council, Harriet Miers probably signed off on the idea of going after the Onion. The thought of her on the Supreme Court gives me shivers.
- scsg
Yep. Really dumb. Don't forget that over 50% of methane's energy content is in the carbon. So by "reforming" methane into hydrogen gas you've already lost most of it's energy. The article doesn't say what's being done with the carbon but it's probably emitted as CO2. Also, methane can be stored much more easily than hydrogen.
- scsg
I've said it before and I'll say it again. There will never be an operational "space elevator" on earth. Before the miriad scientific, technical, logistical, political, and financial problems are solved, mankind will invent better, easier, less-costly ways to get into space.
- scsg
... so let's get rid of it.
- scsg
[laughs] About 5% of what the US currently spends on welfare should be enough, 8-10% to be sure. The biggest obstacles will be getting a 'hunting license' to cut through red tape and to break a few enviromental regulations.
5% of the welfare budget? Care to cite a reference? Was the estimate done by the same people that estimated the cost of the ISS? Or the currently proposed (I won't say planned) mars mission? Or maybe the Iraq war? My point here is that cost underestimates are common; esp. when the estimates are given by those trying to sell the program.
What technique for deflection did you have in mind anyway? Is it proven? Are you referring to large earth impactors in general or just objects the size of 2004 MN4 (~400 m)?
I'll assume for a minute that you are referring to a method to blast the asteroid with one or more large nukes. Assuming for a second that you're smart enough to not suggest we try to blast it into a bazillion tiny pieces ala the fantasies Deep Impact or Armageddon then we'd have to be very careful not to break up the object into multiple large pieces. The more small blasts you want to try, the more the project costs. The longer it takes to figure it out, the harder the object is to deflect.
Let's say that a team of American scientists decides they know just how to do it with nukes. Also, assume it's within the US's ability economically. However, time is running out so we can't afford to get into a lot of drawn-out discussions with other countries. Cool if no other nations have serious objections. But what if the Soviets and Chinese become convinced that the American plan will undermine their own efforts to avert catastrophe or otherwise lead to disaster? How far would they go to stop the US if they thought the world's (or at least there own) very survival was at stake?
Unlikely you say? Nope. I'd say a scenario like the above would be almost assured. Remember, the specter of impending doom would make people desperate and less willing to listen to opposing opinions. Given enough time, we could eventually sort it out. 35 years probably isn't enough to get it all done.
I'd like to think not but I've lost much of my faith in American largess.
Then wake up and take your blinders off.
It's highly arguable who's wearing the blinders. My statement is that the US might not go very far to save another region if it isn't directly in it's own interest. How much is the US doing to prevent the genocide in the Sudan? How much is it doing to help the many African nations with the Aids epidemic? Answers to both: "Not much."
I'm sure someone will come up with a good example where the world got together and solved a problem but overall history shows little that it's rare and difficult.
ROTFLMAO. Overall history shows quite the *opposite*. International cooperation on issues large and small have been growing for well over a century now. Most of the minor problems (not being able to mail a letter from Seattle to Lower Pantagonia) are long fixed, and we are making strides on the bigger ones.
My turn to ROTFLMAO. The postal service is the best example you can give? The fact that some industrialized nations have negative population growth doesn't mean the overall growth is within tolerable limits. As far as I know, only smallpox has been eradicated from the populace (though still kept alive in-vitro by a few mad governments). Polio, the other poster-child for the vaccination movement is making a comeback. AIDS is rampant even though we don't even need a cure or vacine to fight it. A little global cooperation could greatly reduce the incidence of AIDS but it's on the rise.
Fundamentally, humans don't cooperate well. We have systems in place to help but they were forged over many years. Even after millennia of civilization, war, tyranny, greed, and all sorts of ugly treatment of others rampant. Even the threat of global annihilation would be insufficient to convince mankind to turn over a new leaf in so short a time.
- sccg
So your argument that, since someone has a dream of building a ship that can hold 130 people for a few months, we could therefore save the planet within 35 years?
There are incredible technological barriers to such an approach. I'd argue that you can't begin to call this a "success" until you've provided for the survival of at least 50% of the population. Using the number of 6 billion people living now (how many in 35 years?), that's 3 billion you'd have to save. How do you think we would build the 23 million space craft without running into the other problems I outlined? What about those left behind? Why would the earth necessarily be inhabitable within a few months? Projections I've seen suggest that a couple of years is more like it for a large impact.
Even if it were technically possible, you've ignored my argument that the nations of the earth could never complete such a huge engineering job in such a short time due to unavoidable political conflicts.
- scsg
... that the world could successfully rally to protect the planet from an asteroid in 35 years.
First, as you say, new technology would have to be developed and perfected. Not impossible but it's very difficult to predict the pace of such things. If, in fact, it took 36 years we'd still be screwed. Almost making the deadline [pun intended] wouldn't cut it.
The biggest problem would be mustering the needed level of international cooperation. No doubt the cost of the program would be too much for even the richest nations to go it alone. How many years would go by before enough nations could get together and decide on a plan of action? What would the USA do if 20 years down the road more accurate estimates of the impact point proved that the asteroid was going to impact on the other side of the globe? Would the USA withdraw its participation? I'd like to think not but I've lost much of my faith in American largess. Anyway, balancing an enormous economic drain versus the morality of allowing a serious disaster to occur to someone else (possibly an enemy) would be a serious quandary for any nation.
The problems are certainly surmountable; in theory. The world's track record regarding other crises is spotty at best. How much progress have we made at:
eliminating controllable diseases,
controlling global population growth,
controlling greenhouse gas emissions?
The list goes on and doesn't even address the more important but tougher issues like war and poverty. I'm sure someone will come up with a good example where the world got together and solved a problem but overall history shows little that it's rare and difficult.
So I don't think 35 years is really enough time. I'd say more like 300 years. At least in that much time one could hope for salvation from radically new technological advances such as anti-gravity or really really frickin powerful lasers in space.
-scsg
Wait for the eye to pass over and launch through that. Piece of pie\h\h\hcake.
- scsg
I'd say that depends entirely on what human features one chooses to enhance. Think of the possibilities!
-scsg
Before we ever overcome the technical, political, and financial problems imposed by a space elevator, we will find better ways to get into space. You heard it here first.
-- scsg
And? Do you think there's something about magnets that would cause a NIC to stop working? I agree that it's weird to put magnets there but what's your theory about why that was causing a problem?
Don't say they would effect the data on the disk drive. For one thing, it won't. For another, you didn't say that he was getting disk errors.
Did the NIC start working when the magnets were removed?
-- scsg