Use cisterns. The standard cistern can be 20m deep by 10m by 10m. Two tanks, one 20m deep, the other above it at 10m. Pump water from the lower one into the upper one at night when power is cheap, recover the energy during the day and sell it back to the utility. Each of these has 98Mj of potential energy when 'charged'.
The technology to build and operate these is trivial. They could be put under public and private buildings, and generate cash flow for private investors, like vending machines or laundromats, only without the vandalism. They also serve as an emergency water source of a million litres in times of disaster.
I don't really care that he is a pompous asshat. What i care about in that show is that its funny. The interactions between the three hosts are great. The fact that Clarkson is off the show means i'll no longer watch it because the chemistry between the three is what drove the show.
Agreed. Seeing Hammond do science channel specials is really quite boring. May had a couple of shows that were mildly entertaining (the wine tours, and 'manlab') but nothing like TopGear.
I'm sad it will soon be gone. I enjoyed "the three stooges" quite a lot, particularly the road trips. I'm sure they could keep those up on their own if they wanted to. Not sure who would produce them, however.
California's mental health services have been going down hill a lot faster than they have in other states.
California's mental health services have been crap for 30 years. I worked in Berkeley in the late 80s, and there were obviously psychotic people on the streets, harassing folks, laying in the middle of the sidewalk with their pants down, jumping into cars, etc. Nobody helped these people.
California's mental health services have been crap since Reagan was governor, when he closed most of the facilities, in favor of anti-psychotic drugs that didn't work, and 'half way houses' that never opened. Much cheaper this way, though.
3. Are currently charged with any crime punishable by a year or more in prison.
4. Are an unlawful user of any controlled substance.
5. Are addicted to any controlled substance, even one lawfully proscribed.
6. Have been dishonorably discharged from the United States military.
7. Have renounced your American citizenship.
8. Are the subject of an order of protection.
9. Are a fugitive from justice.
10. Are in the United States illegally.
Those are just the people proscribed from ownership under Federal law. Many States have tougher laws and add even more people to the list. Some (my home state, New York) go further and treat gun rights as a privilege, requiring a license, which is doled out at the whim of local bureaucrats who can deny you for virtually any reason they wish.
Point being, nowhere in the United States does the "current understanding" of gun rights say anyone should have firearms. Do you actually know what the existing body of Federal, State, and Local law has to say on this subject or are you just repeating talking points you read somewhere?
Also, if you are mentally ill, you are prohibited from owning a firearm. However, that is seldom enforced, because, almost by definition, if you WANT a gun, you are fucking crazy.
I did actually. Websites DEBUNKING pseudo-scientific nonsence shouldn't be getting downgraded !
Sadly, this is going to be a problem. Their algorithm is to uprank things that everybody (well, almost everybody) agrees on, while downranking things that people don't agree on. There are clearly ways to scam this sort of system, supressing facts that you don't care about by generating lots of contradictory websites.
The real problem is batteries. If utilities had liquid metal battery banks scattered around, they could supply wind and solar power, or absorb any generated power.
Remember Leviathan by Hobbes? The idea is that peace only comes when somebody has overwhelming power, enough to shut down small wars between 'vassal' states. Now, I want to be 'in charge' too, but that probably won't happen, and the next best thing is for whomever IS in charge to be able to kick the shit out of anybody who tries to hurt me.
I also have pancreatic cancer. When I was diagnosed, I thought of doing videos for my kids, but decided that it would be far too Hari Seldon, and I didn't have anything really useful to say.
Death is frightening, and one of the worst parts is the lack of ability to affect the future. In my opinion, the important thing is for her to have good memories of you. Tapes won't help with that. Videos of you two at the tech museum, or at the makers faire would be far more useful.
However, if you have something to say to her that is not age appropriate, a recording might be one way to do it. Otherwise, talk to her NOW.
Doctors don't need the education they get now to dispense pills. The educational hurdles are purely economic, enabling higher costs and more lavish lifestyles for doctors.
<p>I spent a year 'modularizing' a big chunk of the cisco router source base. It was driven by the CTO, who wanted more modularity and code ownership, dammit! It was a terrible idea, caused lots of bugs, and made the code harder to understand and maintain. I did win a prize for the effort, though. <p>In my opinion, code cleanup on legacy code is rarely going to pay for itself. Even rewrites from scratch usually fail miserably. Legacy software is the way it is for a reason. If you screw with it, you are increasing the system's entropy, which is almost always bad.
If an AI suddenly woke up, killing us would kill it too. It needs power, which we supply. It may need Internet, which we also supply. Spare parts. A cold room. Inputs. Outputs. A reason to live. Meaning. Purpose. Intentionality. All of these come from us now, and in the foreseeable future.
I would venture a guess that we will transform ourselves into machines well before we create artificially sentient life.
You cannot give up liberties to give you more protection. There will be a time when the lack of liberties will pose a greater threat than any terrorist can ever do. Maybe not today, but certainly some time tomorrow.
Actually, terrorists do far less damage than falls in bathtubs, or falling off ladders. They have the potential to do far more damage, but only if they get access to nuclear or biological weapons. That probably won't happen, given the current controls. So, controlling speech does almost nothing for most people, and hurts them by limiting knowledge.
Listening in on people has the potential to help prevent terrorist attacks, but hasn't really done anything yet. Given the multi billion dollar investment the NSA has already made in it, it seems more like a way to sell equipment and services by vendors than a national security strategy.
We are scared of our shadows. That is the harm that terrorism does. The terrorists have already won.
If Bush thought they would exonerate his crime (invading a sovereign country before any aggressive move on the part of the invaded, against all international law),
President Bush didn't violate international law. Iraq regularly violated its cease fire agreement by firing upon coalition aircraft and other actions. Those are commonly known as acts of war. And that is before you get to Saddams many crimes against humanity, acts of aggression, and violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
The ONLY reason any country may attack another, under international law, is to prevent an imminent threat of attack. There was no such threat against the U.S., despite lies by the Bush administration about nuclear programs, which were actively being denied by UN inspectors at the time. Their lies were the justification for attack. Since those statements have been proven to be lies, and the people making those statements have been shown to know, at the time, that they were false, they should be in jail. Their attack on Iraq was a trillion dollar war crime.
The chemical weapons found were supplied by the US during the Iran Iraq war. Only a dimwit would confuse the ability to create these weapons with finding a small number of expired weapons. Even Bush wasn't that stupid. If Bush thought they would exonerate his crime (invading a sovereign country before any aggressive move on the part of the invaded, against all international law), he would have quickly publicized any weapons found.
Much of the oil we are burning was created in a time after trees evolved, but before bacteria evolved to eat them. They were buried, taking their carbon with them. That allowed the partial pressure of oxygen to build up to much higher levels.
True. When he tried, the Republicans beat him to a pulp. He learned that the assholes were not going to meet him halfway, or at all, really. Not even when he was hawking the same health care plan they had been hawking only months before. Not even when the financial stability of the country was at stake. Not even when he was giving them what they said they wanted for the "grand bargain'. They just stood proudly, with their chests puffed out, and went back on their word.
Now, the idiots will find out what it feels like. Obama doesn't care, he can smoke their agenda with the bully pulpit. Harry Reid just wants revenge, so he will enact the" McConnell Defense" and block every bit of legislation he can. The next election is slanted left. They have screwed themselves.
The House of Representatives is 17% percent female. The Senate is also 17% female. There are 5.2% female CEOs among the fortune 500 companies. Since there are MORE females than males, these statistics are even more of a poke in the eye. I wouldn't start worrying about maintaining your undeserved elevated status for a few more years.
Copyright infringement (aka piracy) is theft of the profits that artists and investors in artists and those involved in distribution are owed. Without those profit, investors won't invest, and artists won't art, and distributors won't distribute. They will spend their time and money on other things.
He didn't. He said "er, umm... Let's not do that any more, OK?"
"Fuck no" would have included timely investigation and prosecution.
Much as we on the left would like to, there's basically nothing to give Obama an attaboy for.
I guess that prosecuting Bush and Cheney (Not to mention Tenet, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the bums) would have been 'inappropriate'. I suppose they could have arranged a sham 'Reagan Party' at the Hague and let the europeans capture and prosecute them as the war criminals they are. Sadly, I suspect that that would have started a somewhat one-sided "WWIII".
So, really, there is nothing we can do. However, a recent OP-Ed in the NYT made the case for a presidential pardon for everybody involved, because if Obama doesn't somehow recognize that this was a crime, it could happen again. Putting Bush in jail would be best, but it will never happen. Making him a pardoned felon could have some effect on future presidents.
And, I'm not even sure Bush understood what was going on. Cheney, yes. That guy is Darth Vader. Tenet? Yes. Rumsfeld? Yes. All those guys would be in jail in a perfect world.
Slashdot Mirror
Use cisterns. The standard cistern can be 20m deep by 10m by 10m. Two tanks, one 20m deep, the other above it at 10m. Pump water from the lower one into the upper one at night when power is cheap, recover the energy during the day and sell it back to the utility. Each of these has 98Mj of potential energy when 'charged'.
The technology to build and operate these is trivial. They could be put under public and private buildings, and generate cash flow for private investors, like vending machines or laundromats, only without the vandalism. They also serve as an emergency water source of a million litres in times of disaster.
Sometimes the simplest solution is best.
I don't really care that he is a pompous asshat. What i care about in that show is that its funny. The interactions between the three hosts are great. The fact that Clarkson is off the show means i'll no longer watch it because the chemistry between the three is what drove the show.
Agreed. Seeing Hammond do science channel specials is really quite boring. May had a couple of shows that were mildly entertaining (the wine tours, and 'manlab') but nothing like TopGear.
I'm sad it will soon be gone. I enjoyed "the three stooges" quite a lot, particularly the road trips. I'm sure they could keep those up on their own if they wanted to. Not sure who would produce them, however.
California's mental health services have been going down hill a lot faster than they have in other states.
California's mental health services have been crap for 30 years. I worked in Berkeley in the late 80s, and there were obviously psychotic people on the streets, harassing folks, laying in the middle of the sidewalk with their pants down, jumping into cars, etc. Nobody helped these people.
California's mental health services have been crap since Reagan was governor, when he closed most of the facilities, in favor of anti-psychotic drugs that didn't work, and 'half way houses' that never opened. Much cheaper this way, though.
the current understanding of gun rights in the USA is a late 1900s dirty harry style invention of anyone should have a gun
Unless you:
1. Are a convicted felon.
2. Are a convicted domestic abuser.
3. Are currently charged with any crime punishable by a year or more in prison.
4. Are an unlawful user of any controlled substance.
5. Are addicted to any controlled substance, even one lawfully proscribed.
6. Have been dishonorably discharged from the United States military.
7. Have renounced your American citizenship.
8. Are the subject of an order of protection.
9. Are a fugitive from justice.
10. Are in the United States illegally.
Those are just the people proscribed from ownership under Federal law. Many States have tougher laws and add even more people to the list. Some (my home state, New York) go further and treat gun rights as a privilege, requiring a license, which is doled out at the whim of local bureaucrats who can deny you for virtually any reason they wish.
Point being, nowhere in the United States does the "current understanding" of gun rights say anyone should have firearms. Do you actually know what the existing body of Federal, State, and Local law has to say on this subject or are you just repeating talking points you read somewhere?
Also, if you are mentally ill, you are prohibited from owning a firearm. However, that is seldom enforced, because, almost by definition, if you WANT a gun, you are fucking crazy.
I did actually. Websites DEBUNKING pseudo-scientific nonsence shouldn't be getting downgraded !
Sadly, this is going to be a problem. Their algorithm is to uprank things that everybody (well, almost everybody) agrees on, while downranking things that people don't agree on. There are clearly ways to scam this sort of system, supressing facts that you don't care about by generating lots of contradictory websites.
They could be like Olympic athletes, and wear jerseys that have the logos of their corporate sponsors while testifying.
The real problem is batteries. If utilities had liquid metal battery banks scattered around, they could supply wind and solar power, or absorb any generated power.
Gort.
Remember Leviathan by Hobbes? The idea is that peace only comes when somebody has overwhelming power, enough to shut down small wars between 'vassal' states. Now, I want to be 'in charge' too, but that probably won't happen, and the next best thing is for whomever IS in charge to be able to kick the shit out of anybody who tries to hurt me.
So, despite his handicap (beliving in the paranormal) he was elected president, and remembered by most Republicans as "The Greatest President".
I also have pancreatic cancer. When I was diagnosed, I thought of doing videos for my kids, but decided that it would be far too Hari Seldon, and I didn't have anything really useful to say.
Death is frightening, and one of the worst parts is the lack of ability to affect the future. In my opinion, the important thing is for her to have good memories of you. Tapes won't help with that. Videos of you two at the tech museum, or at the makers faire would be far more useful.
However, if you have something to say to her that is not age appropriate, a recording might be one way to do it. Otherwise, talk to her NOW.
Good luck.
Driving while only looking in the rear view mirror. It occasionally works...
Doctors don't need the education they get now to dispense pills. The educational hurdles are purely economic, enabling higher costs and more lavish lifestyles for doctors.
<p>I spent a year 'modularizing' a big chunk of the cisco router source base. It was driven by the CTO, who wanted more modularity and code ownership, dammit! It was a terrible idea, caused lots of bugs, and made the code harder to understand and maintain. I did win a prize for the effort, though.
<p>In my opinion, code cleanup on legacy code is rarely going to pay for itself. Even rewrites from scratch usually fail miserably. Legacy software is the way it is for a reason. If you screw with it, you are increasing the system's entropy, which is almost always bad.
More proof that this debate is political and not scientific.
Passing a law that says it is real is like voting on the sex of a chicken. No matter the outcome of the vote, only testing can provide the answer.
How about we get politics out of science and rely on the scientific method to determine if "Global Warming" is real or not.
Inhofe doesn't agree with you. (not goatse)
If an AI suddenly woke up, killing us would kill it too. It needs power, which we supply. It may need Internet, which we also supply. Spare parts. A cold room. Inputs. Outputs. A reason to live. Meaning. Purpose. Intentionality. All of these come from us now, and in the foreseeable future. I would venture a guess that we will transform ourselves into machines well before we create artificially sentient life.
You cannot give up liberties to give you more protection. There will be a time when the lack of liberties will pose a greater threat than any terrorist can ever do. Maybe not today, but certainly some time tomorrow.
Actually, terrorists do far less damage than falls in bathtubs, or falling off ladders. They have the potential to do far more damage, but only if they get access to nuclear or biological weapons. That probably won't happen, given the current controls. So, controlling speech does almost nothing for most people, and hurts them by limiting knowledge.
Listening in on people has the potential to help prevent terrorist attacks, but hasn't really done anything yet. Given the multi billion dollar investment the NSA has already made in it, it seems more like a way to sell equipment and services by vendors than a national security strategy.
We are scared of our shadows. That is the harm that terrorism does. The terrorists have already won.
If Bush thought they would exonerate his crime (invading a sovereign country before any aggressive move on the part of the invaded, against all international law),
President Bush didn't violate international law. Iraq regularly violated its cease fire agreement by firing upon coalition aircraft and other actions. Those are commonly known as acts of war. And that is before you get to Saddams many crimes against humanity, acts of aggression, and violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
The ONLY reason any country may attack another, under international law, is to prevent an imminent threat of attack. There was no such threat against the U.S., despite lies by the Bush administration about nuclear programs, which were actively being denied by UN inspectors at the time. Their lies were the justification for attack. Since those statements have been proven to be lies, and the people making those statements have been shown to know, at the time, that they were false, they should be in jail. Their attack on Iraq was a trillion dollar war crime.
The chemical weapons found were supplied by the US during the Iran Iraq war. Only a dimwit would confuse the ability to create these weapons with finding a small number of expired weapons. Even Bush wasn't that stupid. If Bush thought they would exonerate his crime (invading a sovereign country before any aggressive move on the part of the invaded, against all international law), he would have quickly publicized any weapons found.
Much of the oil we are burning was created in a time after trees evolved, but before bacteria evolved to eat them. They were buried, taking their carbon with them. That allowed the partial pressure of oxygen to build up to much higher levels.
True. When he tried, the Republicans beat him to a pulp. He learned that the assholes were not going to meet him halfway, or at all, really. Not even when he was hawking the same health care plan they had been hawking only months before. Not even when the financial stability of the country was at stake. Not even when he was giving them what they said they wanted for the "grand bargain'. They just stood proudly, with their chests puffed out, and went back on their word.
Now, the idiots will find out what it feels like. Obama doesn't care, he can smoke their agenda with the bully pulpit. Harry Reid just wants revenge, so he will enact the" McConnell Defense" and block every bit of legislation he can. The next election is slanted left. They have screwed themselves.
The House of Representatives is 17% percent female. The Senate is also 17% female. There are 5.2% female CEOs among the fortune 500 companies. Since there are MORE females than males, these statistics are even more of a poke in the eye. I wouldn't start worrying about maintaining your undeserved elevated status for a few more years.
Copyright infringement (aka piracy) is theft of the profits that artists and investors in artists and those involved in distribution are owed. Without those profit, investors won't invest, and artists won't art, and distributors won't distribute. They will spend their time and money on other things.
Right. Playing with your gun teaches the ability to resist road rage. Are you even listening to yourself?
it isn't PL1
He didn't. He said "er, umm... Let's not do that any more, OK?"
"Fuck no" would have included timely investigation and prosecution.
Much as we on the left would like to, there's basically nothing to give Obama an attaboy for.
I guess that prosecuting Bush and Cheney (Not to mention Tenet, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the bums) would have been 'inappropriate'. I suppose they could have arranged a sham 'Reagan Party' at the Hague and let the europeans capture and prosecute them as the war criminals they are. Sadly, I suspect that that would have started a somewhat one-sided "WWIII".
So, really, there is nothing we can do. However, a recent OP-Ed in the NYT made the case for a presidential pardon for everybody involved, because if Obama doesn't somehow recognize that this was a crime, it could happen again. Putting Bush in jail would be best, but it will never happen. Making him a pardoned felon could have some effect on future presidents.
And, I'm not even sure Bush understood what was going on. Cheney, yes. That guy is Darth Vader. Tenet? Yes. Rumsfeld? Yes. All those guys would be in jail in a perfect world.