I agree, we've known about plant pheremones for years. 'The private life of plants' talked about this 'plant sense of smell' and communication system and had nifty CG to explain. Maybe someone more planty than me can explain what the new result is?
Dear Mr Dipshit, Did I say that you can produce hydrogen without using another energy source. I suspect you are the same poster as the original person I replied too, with the same irrelevant person attacks and misunderstandings. Do you have to attack every person you meet? You must be very unpleasant to live with (or clinically depressed - you're displaying classic symptoms).
And there are plenty of other ways to produce hydrogen other than fission power: Given a high enough temperature it is quite practical to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen using an 'atomic sieve'. Producing a high enough temperature means a suitably large array of mirrors. You can turn water and carbon into CO and H2 (coal gas/producer gas) - this carbon can be produced from waste straw. Alternatively, you can produce hydrogen directly from the sun using algae in a low sulfur environment.
Converting fossil fuels to hydrogen is not necessarily a bad idea, as the resultant CO2 can be stored away underground (geosequestration); fuel cells are more efficient than ICEs, so if you can solve the hydrogen storage problem there will an efficiency gain too.
I think producing hydrogen is a currently an impractical way to transport energy, with all the associated difficulties with sealing, storage and safety. I'd rather transport my hydrogen on a carbon backbone.
Production of fossil carbon fuels is also not 100% efficient (in fact it is less than 1% efficient). You seem confused about the point of using hydrogen as an energy transport. The point is that there are lots of ways to produce heat and electricity, and only a few ways to connect them to your car. We want to do that without producing CO2.
Your logic would imply that we should never use any energy as no energy transformation is 100% efficient. Clearly a laughable position.
Perhaps the original poster didn't go to school, but you need to learn to avoid personal attacks.
I get the feeling from your post that you've never seriously ridden a bike for commuting. After reading that site and trying it out for a few years I've found that what he says is pretty much the truth for cycling. If you can identify issues with the vehicular driving article, please do flag them as NPOV!
I think the truth is simpler than this. I think there are roughly the same number of new programmers born now, per capita, as were born 20 years ago. It's just that 20 years ago, only the programming types would have had a computer.
(although to properly deal with greenhouse gas emissions, one would have to capture the water vapor)
This is a myth. Water vapour readily changes to and from vapour phase and only is a greenhouse gas in vapour phase. (They call this non-forcing or something). I know in my greenhouse that I can get the air to 100% humid in the afternoon (at say 30C), and as soon as night comes along the temperature drops and the water falls straight back out of the air. If all the current carbon fuels were replaced with hydrogen, the amount of water vapour released into the air each day would be akin to a small cloud (say a few km^3 STP).
Fuel cells also obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house, Andy. It's just that the hot temperature is the 'flame temperature' (say 5000K for hydrogen-oxygen) rather than the average temperature (1000K for petrol air). You are right that a hydrogen store leads to a better overall system, and also avoids producing carbon dioxide (which is believed to cause climate change).
Best case for locomotion ICE is around 15% in practice. Stationary engines and maritime engines can get higher efficiencies. Note that engine efficiency is often quoted in % of carnot efficiency (multiply by say 40% for steel cylinders).
(BTW, I didn't bother to fact-check this on Wikipedia -- so now's your chance to pounce)
Diesel engines are more torquey than petrol engines(for example, they idle at a lower speed). The problem is their narrow power band (hence the 100 gear changes behind that semi when you're late). If only we had a way to run the engine at a constant speed whilst delivering as much power as we wanted to the road... perhaps you can think of some contraption with electric motors?
Sending suitably high frequency EMR through a metal pipe is called a 'waveguide', and its pretty much the standard way to deal with microwave communication. In waveguide the sides do indeed absorb some energy, but with smooth sides and good conductors, the losses are quite small. You need to avoid certain gases, which interact with the microwaves, absorbing the signal. Water is probably the most notable, but with suitable choice of frequencies you can step around most gases (which is why we can send stuff through the air).
All the gas pipes in my city are made of plastic, making this whole idea quite improbable.
Next for me is either Mac or just throw everything I don't have in Linux into Linux. At least that way I stop paying a tax every few years to enrich people who have been very careless with security while at the same time trying to control everyone's market by bundling everything under the sun into it.
That fact that you are talking about this - rather than having already done it - is a strong predictor that you aren't really serious, and you'll probably buy Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Hunt for Pink October"
So it gives you the run time performance and portability of Javascript with the concise and powerful language constructs of Java?
I agree, we've known about plant pheremones for years. 'The private life of plants' talked about this 'plant sense of smell' and communication system and had nifty CG to explain. Maybe someone more planty than me can explain what the new result is?
As for the foundation, styrofoam sure can look like concrete blocks with a nice coat of gray paint.
Most houses around here have styrofoam+concrete foundation slabs.
If we make a new heart and slot it in you, everything is good. But if we make a new brain and slot it in you, are you still you?
Dear Mr Dipshit,
Did I say that you can produce hydrogen without using another energy source. I suspect you are the same poster as the original person I replied too, with the same irrelevant person attacks and misunderstandings. Do you have to attack every person you meet? You must be very unpleasant to live with (or clinically depressed - you're displaying classic symptoms).
And there are plenty of other ways to produce hydrogen other than fission power: Given a high enough temperature it is quite practical to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen using an 'atomic sieve'. Producing a high enough temperature means a suitably large array of mirrors. You can turn water and carbon into CO and H2 (coal gas/producer gas) - this carbon can be produced from waste straw. Alternatively, you can produce hydrogen directly from the sun using algae in a low sulfur environment.
Converting fossil fuels to hydrogen is not necessarily a bad idea, as the resultant CO2 can be stored away underground (geosequestration); fuel cells are more efficient than ICEs, so if you can solve the hydrogen storage problem there will an efficiency gain too.
I think producing hydrogen is a currently an impractical way to transport energy, with all the associated difficulties with sealing, storage and safety. I'd rather transport my hydrogen on a carbon backbone.
Here: http://www.powergeneration.siemens.com/en/fuelcell s They are actually hydrocarbon-air fuel cells (or indeed a range of other suitable reductants). And they exist (I've held one in my hand).
Production of fossil carbon fuels is also not 100% efficient (in fact it is less than 1% efficient). You seem confused about the point of using hydrogen as an energy transport. The point is that there are lots of ways to produce heat and electricity, and only a few ways to connect them to your car. We want to do that without producing CO2.
Your logic would imply that we should never use any energy as no energy transformation is 100% efficient. Clearly a laughable position.
Perhaps the original poster didn't go to school, but you need to learn to avoid personal attacks.
Induced demand means that adding more roads generally does not improve travel times or congestion.
I suggest you read this website:
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/index.htm
(ironically he was killed by a drunk driver, so perhaps his approach isn't perfect)
I get the feeling from your post that you've never seriously ridden a bike for commuting. After reading that site and trying it out for a few years I've found that what he says is pretty much the truth for cycling. If you can identify issues with the vehicular driving article, please do flag them as NPOV!
Use the sidewalk if there isn't a bike lane.
I agree with the rest of your points, but this is downright wrong. Riding on the footpath dramatically increases the chance of being killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling
I think the truth is simpler than this. I think there are roughly the same number of new programmers born now, per capita, as were born 20 years ago. It's just that 20 years ago, only the programming types would have had a computer.
(although to properly deal with greenhouse gas emissions, one would have to capture the water vapor)
This is a myth. Water vapour readily changes to and from vapour phase and only is a greenhouse gas in vapour phase. (They call this non-forcing or something). I know in my greenhouse that I can get the air to 100% humid in the afternoon (at say 30C), and as soon as night comes along the temperature drops and the water falls straight back out of the air. If all the current carbon fuels were replaced with hydrogen, the amount of water vapour released into the air each day would be akin to a small cloud (say a few km^3 STP).
Fuel cells also obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house, Andy. It's just that the hot temperature is the 'flame temperature' (say 5000K for hydrogen-oxygen) rather than the average temperature (1000K for petrol air). You are right that a hydrogen store leads to a better overall system, and also avoids producing carbon dioxide (which is believed to cause climate change).
Best case for locomotion ICE is around 15% in practice. Stationary engines and maritime engines can get higher efficiencies. Note that engine efficiency is often quoted in % of carnot efficiency (multiply by say 40% for steel cylinders).
(BTW, I didn't bother to fact-check this on Wikipedia -- so now's your chance to pounce)
Diesel engines are more torquey than petrol engines(for example, they idle at a lower speed). The problem is their narrow power band (hence the 100 gear changes behind that semi when you're late). If only we had a way to run the engine at a constant speed whilst delivering as much power as we wanted to the road... perhaps you can think of some contraption with electric motors?
I wonder what happens when when the RF signal hits a bend or a tee junction or a valve that isn't all the way open?
You get a reflection, which will interfere with the signal.
Actually, light is effected by photons. It is, however, affected by gravity.
Sending suitably high frequency EMR through a metal pipe is called a 'waveguide', and its pretty much the standard way to deal with microwave communication. In waveguide the sides do indeed absorb some energy, but with smooth sides and good conductors, the losses are quite small. You need to avoid certain gases, which interact with the microwaves, absorbing the signal. Water is probably the most notable, but with suitable choice of frequencies you can step around most gases (which is why we can send stuff through the air).
All the gas pipes in my city are made of plastic, making this whole idea quite improbable.
As a unit, watt-hours is energy consumption, not generation.
As a non-EE, I think this statement is silly. A watt-hour is a unit of energy, whether you are counting what you use or what you make.
With hindsight the characters were a bit steriotypical. Scotty the Scotish engineer (what else). Nurse Christine Chapel and Spock as the token Alien.
Or are they stereotypical _because_ they were on Star Trek?
Next for me is either Mac or just throw everything I don't have in Linux into Linux. At least that way I stop paying a tax every few years to enrich people who have been very careless with security while at the same time trying to control everyone's market by bundling everything under the sun into it.
That fact that you are talking about this - rather than having already done it - is a strong predictor that you aren't really serious, and you'll probably buy Vista.
We have a duplex printer.
I got my own proposal. Remember the chain rule from calculus?
d mV/dt = m dV/dt + V dm/dt
This is actually the product rule. If you're going to turn 21st century physics on its head, at least get your terminology right!
Whereas flying into the US they ask you a hundred times if you're a terrorist.
Customs official: "For the one hundredth time, ARE YOU A TERRORIST?!"
Passenger: "Oh, ok, I am. happy now?"