Tantalum, which is used in high-grade capacitors. Last I heard, it was mined in Africa by essentially slave labor, and the tantalum fields are small and owned by a cartel.
MOD PARENT UP!!! Talk about turnabout being fair play - use Microsoft's EULA against lawyers - the very creatures who were responsible for creating EULAs in the first place!
I would put them behind a firewall or NAT box and turn off every inbound port to them. Enable outbound ports one-by-one, as needed. (POP3 and IMAP internally, WWW to the outside world, whatever). Proxy the heck out of their WWW access, and require credentials.
Alternatively, run them under VMware hosted on a linux box. You can limit what XP can do fairly well that way. Good luck!
From my original post: "Not that it's a big deal, but they do emit literally terawatts of heat into the environment."
As for the water vapor comment, your assertion was that nuclear power plants are "...virtually pollution free (aside from carefully controlled solid radioactive waste). " Heat and water vapor emitted do count as pollutants, because they are both undesired emissions that change the environment. In the case of water vapor, that water must come from somewhere, altering that environment as well.
I live about 30 miles from the North Anna Nuclear power station in Virginia. It uses a huge man-made lake as a heat sink. There are definite environmental impacts, but they are quite a bit less harmful (imho) than an equivalent coal- or oil-fired plant. I have toured the plant, and don't give it a second thought.
As I said, I was picking a nit, not making a FUD-style statement. I'm about as pro-nuclear power as they come, but I believe saying that nuclear power plants are non-emissive is not quite correct.
There is probably more than 300GW of nuclear power being generated on earth. As a whole, the excess heat generated adds up to terawatts.
As I said in my original post, it's not a big thing. I was picking the nit that nuclear plants are nearly zero-emission - they're not. Heat and water vapor, remember?
Not to nitpick, but nuclear power plants are a huge source of pollution - heat. Not that it's a big deal, but they do emit literally terawatts of heat into the environment. Evaporative plants also emit huge amounts of water vapor, which can (slightly) alter rain patterns locally.
A nuclear water heater for my house. Give me an 80 gallon vertical cylindrical tank with a hemispherical concave bottom. Place a several kg sphere of vitrified Pu-238, and voila! 80 years of hot water. See this site for data on Pu-238 (used in NASA RTGs for years).
would be having one giant honking disk shared between several machines, each using a different partition. That should work, right? With a 120GB disk, I could have 6 machines with their own 20GB partition. For compute-bound clusters, the I/O throughput would probably be ok.
I'd like to see printers and the like use Java-based drivers that implement a standard interface. You could either load the java into your print spooler from the printer, or have the printer provide an RMI-accessible object that your spooler can talk to. Woohoo! Finally, OS and printer independence!!!
Re:Doesn't anyone read the article before posting?
on
10Gbps Wireless Transfers
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· Score: 3, Informative
Yes, we do. Do you? It uses optical means to generate the 120 GHz RF inside each unit, NOT BETWEEN THE BOXES.
Obligatory nit: Optical is RF. Just really high in frequency (THz).
You're assuming 100% efficiency. I was not. I was assuming that 1,600,000 J would need to be consumed to produce 1,200,000 J of useful work (75% efficient). That's wantonly optimistic - those critters are probably more like 20% efficient, if that. Your estimation of 1W = 4000J is fairly close - my text shows 1W= 4184J.
I agree that there exist lower cost alternatives to creating a genetically-based cure for (as you stated) basically a 3rd world problem. In my mind the success or failure of this research to produce a workable vaccine is secondary to the experience and expertise in creating genetic vaccines gathered by the attempt. This may open doors for the sucessful treatment of other 1st world diseases that are otherwise impossible to treat.
Re:More information about the anti-matter?
on
A Shocking Space Movie
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· Score: 4, Informative
Maybe because they're moving at identical speeds in opposite directions under the influence of a magnetic field?
Remember the Pontiac Fiero? It had a "revolutionary" "mill-and-drill" design that allowed the body panels to be swapped out quickly. As I recall, the holes for the body panel pop-in fasteners were all drilled at once in a giant pincer-like drilling machine. This insured that the panels would fit and line up properly every time. I remember 3rd party companies selling cool replacement panels to make your fiero extra-sexy.
You'll note that I very obviously made no mention of my views on flag-burning, yet most replies seem to benefit from some godlike insight into my opinion on the matter. Amazing, no?
Burning a flag is not unconstitutional, since it is not a form of speech to begin with. Unless otherwise illegal (fire ordinances, etc), burn away.
Remember, we are a country that at least claims to have the "rule of law". The only argument is what is considered under the "rule of law", and what's constitutionally protected as speech. If we lean too far toward covering actions, everyone will suffer from the actions of others. Remember that destruction of personal property has been already declared "free speech". You right to act ends where it effects my property and freedoms.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're saying that the AMU is a "carbon unit"? You're creeping me out in that Vger-turned-bald-chick voice...
I would put them behind a firewall or NAT box and turn off every inbound port to them. Enable outbound ports one-by-one, as needed. (POP3 and IMAP internally, WWW to the outside world, whatever). Proxy the heck out of their WWW access, and require credentials.
Alternatively, run them under VMware hosted on a linux box. You can limit what XP can do fairly well that way. Good luck!
From my original post: "Not that it's a big deal, but they do emit literally terawatts of heat into the environment."
As for the water vapor comment, your assertion was that nuclear power plants are "...virtually pollution free (aside from carefully controlled solid radioactive waste). " Heat and water vapor emitted do count as pollutants, because they are both undesired emissions that change the environment. In the case of water vapor, that water must come from somewhere, altering that environment as well.
I live about 30 miles from the North Anna Nuclear power station in Virginia. It uses a huge man-made lake as a heat sink. There are definite environmental impacts, but they are quite a bit less harmful (imho) than an equivalent coal- or oil-fired plant. I have toured the plant, and don't give it a second thought.
As I said, I was picking a nit, not making a FUD-style statement. I'm about as pro-nuclear power as they come, but I believe saying that nuclear power plants are non-emissive is not quite correct.
Here is a pic of the containment domes
There is probably more than 300GW of nuclear power being generated on earth. As a whole, the excess heat generated adds up to terawatts.
As I said in my original post, it's not a big thing. I was picking the nit that nuclear plants are nearly zero-emission - they're not. Heat and water vapor, remember?
Not to nitpick, but nuclear power plants are a huge source of pollution - heat. Not that it's a big deal, but they do emit literally terawatts of heat into the environment. Evaporative plants also emit huge amounts of water vapor, which can (slightly) alter rain patterns locally.
As opposed to a baryon, lepton, meson, or quark?
A nuclear water heater for my house. Give me an 80 gallon vertical cylindrical tank with a hemispherical concave bottom. Place a several kg sphere of vitrified Pu-238, and voila! 80 years of hot water. See this site for data on Pu-238 (used in NASA RTGs for years).
Here's your steenkin' link
The expression is per se, not persay. I hate it when people use a word they can't spell!!!
<rant mode="off">
I'd like to see printers and the like use Java-based drivers that implement a standard interface. You could either load the java into your print spooler from the printer, or have the printer provide an RMI-accessible object that your spooler can talk to. Woohoo! Finally, OS and printer independence!!!
Yes, we do. Do you? It uses optical means to generate the 120 GHz RF inside each unit, NOT BETWEEN THE BOXES.
Obligatory nit: Optical is RF. Just really high in frequency (THz).
wavelength = 0.1016m
c = 300x10^6 m/s
freq = c/wavelength
freq = ~ 2.95 GHz
Allowing for journalistic approximation, they could be simply aiming a 2.4GHz microwave oven magnetron at rocks.
A nit to pick: HF radio is from 3MHz to 30MHz. MF is from 300KHz to 3MHz. LF is from 3KHz to 300 KHz. Each band is a decade.
You're assuming 100% efficiency. I was not. I was assuming that 1,600,000 J would need to be consumed to produce 1,200,000 J of useful work (75% efficient). That's wantonly optimistic - those critters are probably more like 20% efficient, if that.
Your estimation of 1W = 4000J is fairly close - my text shows 1W= 4184J.
40W bulb * 8 hours = 40 J/s * 8 hr = 1,152,000 J
50g sugar * 4 Cal/g = 200 Cal = 800,000 J
Aren't they off by a factor of 2?
Why have them there if nothing is happening?
Prevention.
I agree that there exist lower cost alternatives to creating a genetically-based cure for (as you stated) basically a 3rd world problem. In my mind the success or failure of this research to produce a workable vaccine is secondary to the experience and expertise in creating genetic vaccines gathered by the attempt. This may open doors for the sucessful treatment of other 1st world diseases that are otherwise impossible to treat.
Maybe because they're moving at identical speeds in opposite directions under the influence of a magnetic field?
Speaking of car mods, have you seen some of the junk hanging off cars these days that is supposed to be "sexy"? Good lord!
Burning a flag is not unconstitutional, since it is not a form of speech to begin with. Unless otherwise illegal (fire ordinances, etc), burn away.
Remember, we are a country that at least claims to have the "rule of law". The only argument is what is considered under the "rule of law", and what's constitutionally protected as speech. If we lean too far toward covering actions, everyone will suffer from the actions of others. Remember that destruction of personal property has been already declared "free speech". You right to act ends where it effects my property and freedoms.
The freedom to convey ideas (verbal speech, sign language, writing, songs, poetry, etc.) are all protected forms of speech. Actions are not.
Real court cases that should not have been declared "protected":
There must be reasonable limits on the actions of all members of society - there should be no limits on the ideas of society.