Yeah, hey had assets, the value of which I summed up here. The insignificant residual value of GM's foreclosed assets to bondholders was a tiny fraction of its psychological value to this country.
Technically true. However, BOND HOLDERS would have gotten something like 1 cent on the dollar in a liquidation sale of GM's office supplies, trademarks and machine tools to obscure Chinese industrial conglomerates. However, the total humiliation that the United States of America would have experienced in such a fire sale would have in the long run damaged our country far worse than these bond defaults. We'd have to erase "Apple pie and Chevrolet" from our vocabulary.
Anyway, BOND HOLDERS could have listened to my advice 10 years ago: Don't invest in a company that sells 1950's era body-on-frame vehicles that get 14 MPG for $30,000+. The slightest hiccup in the world's oil supplies or economy would tank that business model. And it did.
There was NO MONEY for the bond holders *or* the UAW to have "preference" over. The UAW got new money from the taxpayers. That's a different issue, but the bondholders didn't have a valid claim on this new money either.
confiscating the retirement savings of GM bond holders and giving it to the UAW
There were no savings of GM bond holders. GM went bankrupt, and its liabilities far outweighed any conceivable future profits. The bonds were already worthless, and the retirement savings were already lost.
The government may have wrongly given a bunch of taxpayer bailout money to the UAW, but that still doesn't mean that GM bond holders deserved any of the taxpayers' money either.
taking over the banking sector
Likewise, the entire banking sector was insolvent. Flat B-R-O-K-E. Either the US government, the Chinese government, or Middle Eastern investors were going to end up owning all of the pieces of that entire industry. The American people opted for the US government.
planning to ration health care.
Heads up: your health care is *already* rationed, by your PHB.
Leave it to engineers not to consider the ugly realities of supply-and-demand economics.
And leave it to random slashdot posters to not RTFA before posting bitchy comments:
The researchers also intend to try other semiconductor materials for the pillars and surrounding material. Javey says that the fabrication process is compatible with a wide range of semiconductors, and other combinations could up the efficiency.
Trying other semiconductor materials might also be important given cadmium's toxicity issues, Berkeley's Yang points out. Nevertheless, he says, "architecture is most important--materials we can continue working on. The beauty of this paper is the demonstration of how well the architecture works."
Physics: learn it, use it, benefit from it. (hint: application of kinetic energy would be a starting point to understanding this)
Ok, professor. We'll run an experiment to test this. Assistants will drop water balloons onto each of our heads from a height of 8 meters. I'll test the room temperature balloons, and you can test the frozen ones.
The amount of solar energy that the earth receives over a 48 hour period exceeds the sum total of all the energy used by humans since the dawn of civilization. This won't be a big deal.
It's been decades since I've worked on ISA bus stuff, but IIRC, IOCHRDY is essentially active-low. Any card can pull it down to add wait states to the current cycle, then they let if float back up when they're ready.
The main problem with the ISA bus is that it was never engineered in the first place. The people in the skunk-works PC project at IBM slapped it together by tacking a few TTL kludges onto off-the-shelf Intel I/O parts, probably without doing any formal timing analysis. That probably worked OK at the original 4.77 MHz, but within a few years the bus had been overclocked throughout the industry to 8MHz. (I think that Dell, then known as PC's Limited, tried pushing the ISA bus to 12MHz, but that bad idea was quickly dropped.)
One project task I had in the 1980s was to sit down and to a complete timing analysis of the IBM PC/AT bus (which added yet more kludges to the original PC bus to go from 8 to 16 bits) based on the circuit diagrams in their technical reference. Some of the timings just can't work using the worst-case specifications. The computers usually worked mainly because the odds of getting actual worst case behavior out of several chips is rather low. However, there was no shortage of incompatibilities and crashes with a lot of 3rd party ISA adapters.
Based on looking over the selection at my local library, I've concluded that it is possible to legally lend out CDs, but only if they are scratched up heavily enough to ensure that they can't actually be played.
Gaming? Tetris was no game. It was a highly effective Soviet plot to destroy the productivity of Western nations. This was achieved both by direct diversion of billions of man hours of work time, and by brainwashing: replacing the normal thoughts of the workers by images of falling blocks even when they were not using the program.
Coal produces about as much radioactive waste (due to thorium present in the coal itself), and it just gets spewed into the atmosphere so we can all breathe it.
False. You have zero credibility.
You're probably rehashing something you heard about coal plants releasing more radiation than is typically released by nuclear plants into the environment during *normal* operations. People aren't worried about normal operations: they're worried about abnormal events.
And don't tell me it's impossible to come up with a more cost-effective solution than 70's era soviet technology.
Given that most of the cost of nuclear power comes from the extreme safety measures built into the designs, and that 70's era Soviet projects heavily cut corners on those same safety measures, it very well just might be impossible.
This isn't meant as a direct contradiction, but then why are f1 engines 2.4L eight cylinders rather than six?
Because for race cars, power output is more important than fuel efficiency.
If there are rules limiting displacement like you have in racing, you increase RPMs to get more power. With higher RPMs and a fixed displacement, more valves and cylinders generally allow for better airflow and therefore more power.
Truth is, we're not getting any carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that has never been there before. IF carbon dioxide is heating up the planet, it's not going to be warmer than what we once had.
It wasn't in the atmosphere all at once. Most all of the carbon in the earth's limestone deposits has also been in the atmosphere at one time or another. However, if it were somehow all released into the air at the same time, this planet would look a lot like Venus.
Today's oil and coal was once carbon dioxide that floated in the atmosphere. What was life like back then? Pretty much the same as now, but more tropical.
During the most extreme episodes of prehistoric global warming, the oceans stagnated and became choked anaerobic bacteria. (These are the periods where much of the petroleum we use today was captured in sediments rather than recycled into the ecosystem.) With the resulting hydrogen sulfide bubbling out of the seas, life was pretty much the same as now, only you'd need a gas mask to survive.
We allowed breeder reactors or nuclear reprocessing at civilian reactors.
Where do you get that idea? RTGs run on Pu-238, a specific isotope of plutonium which has nothing to do with Pu-240 reactor fuel or weapon material.
This substance is only called plutonium because it has 94 protons per atom. It may have chemical properties in common with other isotopes with 94 protons, but its nuclear properties have no relation whatsoever. It is not a significant direct byproduct of nuclear reactors.
Breeder reactors and reprocessing efforts would in fact attempt to *avoid* creating this isotope, since it is not useful for fission, and it is extremely radioactive.
This isotope is made by irradiating specific components of nuclear waste. There is no reason to separate the precursors of Pu-238 or do this irradiation other than to specifically create RTG fuel. It would be esoteric and expensive regardless of which nuclear technologies are in widespread use.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, hey had assets, the value of which I summed up here. The insignificant residual value of GM's foreclosed assets to bondholders was a tiny fraction of its psychological value to this country.
BOND HOLDERS should be the new owners of GM.
Technically true. However, BOND HOLDERS would have gotten something like 1 cent on the dollar in a liquidation sale of GM's office supplies, trademarks and machine tools to obscure Chinese industrial conglomerates. However, the total humiliation that the United States of America would have experienced in such a fire sale would have in the long run damaged our country far worse than these bond defaults. We'd have to erase "Apple pie and Chevrolet" from our vocabulary.
Anyway, BOND HOLDERS could have listened to my advice 10 years ago: Don't invest in a company that sells 1950's era body-on-frame vehicles that get 14 MPG for $30,000+. The slightest hiccup in the world's oil supplies or economy would tank that business model. And it did.
There was NO MONEY for the bond holders *or* the UAW to have "preference" over. The UAW got new money from the taxpayers. That's a different issue, but the bondholders didn't have a valid claim on this new money either.
confiscating the retirement savings of GM bond holders and giving it to the UAW
There were no savings of GM bond holders. GM went bankrupt, and its liabilities far outweighed any conceivable future profits. The bonds were already worthless, and the retirement savings were already lost.
The government may have wrongly given a bunch of taxpayer bailout money to the UAW, but that still doesn't mean that GM bond holders deserved any of the taxpayers' money either.
taking over the banking sector
Likewise, the entire banking sector was insolvent. Flat B-R-O-K-E. Either the US government, the Chinese government, or Middle Eastern investors were going to end up owning all of the pieces of that entire industry. The American people opted for the US government.
planning to ration health care.
Heads up: your health care is *already* rationed, by your PHB.
What makes you so sure that other semiconductors wouldn't include more common elements like silicon?
Leave it to engineers not to consider the ugly realities of supply-and-demand economics.
And leave it to random slashdot posters to not RTFA before posting bitchy comments:
The researchers also intend to try other semiconductor materials for the pillars and surrounding material. Javey says that the fabrication process is compatible with a wide range of semiconductors, and other combinations could up the efficiency.
Trying other semiconductor materials might also be important given cadmium's toxicity issues, Berkeley's Yang points out. Nevertheless, he says, "architecture is most important--materials we can continue working on. The beauty of this paper is the demonstration of how well the architecture works."
I said 8 meters, Einstein.
I think that all your past head trauma may have affected you more than you realize.
Physics: learn it, use it, benefit from it. (hint: application of kinetic energy would be a starting point to understanding this)
Ok, professor. We'll run an experiment to test this. Assistants will drop water balloons onto each of our heads from a height of 8 meters. I'll test the room temperature balloons, and you can test the frozen ones.
Parts is parts.
The amount of solar energy that the earth receives over a 48 hour period exceeds the sum total of all the energy used by humans since the dawn of civilization. This won't be a big deal.
So why should you not be upset about this? What is the harm?
If the government can't be bothered to obey its laws, then why should I (or anyone else) obey them?
It's been decades since I've worked on ISA bus stuff, but IIRC, IOCHRDY is essentially active-low. Any card can pull it down to add wait states to the current cycle, then they let if float back up when they're ready.
The main problem with the ISA bus is that it was never engineered in the first place. The people in the skunk-works PC project at IBM slapped it together by tacking a few TTL kludges onto off-the-shelf Intel I/O parts, probably without doing any formal timing analysis. That probably worked OK at the original 4.77 MHz, but within a few years the bus had been overclocked throughout the industry to 8MHz. (I think that Dell, then known as PC's Limited, tried pushing the ISA bus to 12MHz, but that bad idea was quickly dropped.)
One project task I had in the 1980s was to sit down and to a complete timing analysis of the IBM PC/AT bus (which added yet more kludges to the original PC bus to go from 8 to 16 bits) based on the circuit diagrams in their technical reference. Some of the timings just can't work using the worst-case specifications. The computers usually worked mainly because the odds of getting actual worst case behavior out of several chips is rather low. However, there was no shortage of incompatibilities and crashes with a lot of 3rd party ISA adapters.
Isn't that what people said about Nikola Tesla?
For the first part of his life, those people were wrong. For the latter part of his life, those people were right.
But you can lend it out for free at the library?
Based on looking over the selection at my local library, I've concluded that it is possible to legally lend out CDs, but only if they are scratched up heavily enough to ensure that they can't actually be played.
Gaming? Tetris was no game. It was a highly effective Soviet plot to destroy the productivity of Western nations. This was achieved both by direct diversion of billions of man hours of work time, and by brainwashing: replacing the normal thoughts of the workers by images of falling blocks even when they were not using the program.
Coal produces about as much radioactive waste (due to thorium present in the coal itself), and it just gets spewed into the atmosphere so we can all breathe it.
False. You have zero credibility.
You're probably rehashing something you heard about coal plants releasing more radiation than is typically released by nuclear plants into the environment during *normal* operations. People aren't worried about normal operations: they're worried about abnormal events.
And don't tell me it's impossible to come up with a more cost-effective solution than 70's era soviet technology.
Given that most of the cost of nuclear power comes from the extreme safety measures built into the designs, and that 70's era Soviet projects heavily cut corners on those same safety measures, it very well just might be impossible.
At least RTF summary before you accuse people of mass hysteria. It says that aluminum beverage can liners contain BPA.
I hope you're right. I like being in the top 1%.
This isn't meant as a direct contradiction, but then why are f1 engines 2.4L eight cylinders rather than six?
Because for race cars, power output is more important than fuel efficiency.
If there are rules limiting displacement like you have in racing, you increase RPMs to get more power. With higher RPMs and a fixed displacement, more valves and cylinders generally allow for better airflow and therefore more power.
Here in the real world, the interstate commerce clause is what the SCOTUS says it is, not what 0123456 wants it to be.
That was over 1 billion years ago, before the Cambrian Explosion. It has no relevance to recent history when life flourished and settled the land.
Nor has all the stored carbon been dug up and released at one time in the last billion years. What's your point?
Truth is, we're not getting any carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that has never been there before. IF carbon dioxide is heating up the planet, it's not going to be warmer than what we once had.
It wasn't in the atmosphere all at once. Most all of the carbon in the earth's limestone deposits has also been in the atmosphere at one time or another. However, if it were somehow all released into the air at the same time, this planet would look a lot like Venus.
Today's oil and coal was once carbon dioxide that floated in the atmosphere. What was life like back then? Pretty much the same as now, but more tropical.
During the most extreme episodes of prehistoric global warming, the oceans stagnated and became choked anaerobic bacteria. (These are the periods where much of the petroleum we use today was captured in sediments rather than recycled into the ecosystem.) With the resulting hydrogen sulfide bubbling out of the seas, life was pretty much the same as now, only you'd need a gas mask to survive.
We allowed breeder reactors or nuclear reprocessing at civilian reactors.
Where do you get that idea? RTGs run on Pu-238, a specific isotope of plutonium which has nothing to do with Pu-240 reactor fuel or weapon material.
This substance is only called plutonium because it has 94 protons per atom. It may have chemical properties in common with other isotopes with 94 protons, but its nuclear properties have no relation whatsoever. It is not a significant direct byproduct of nuclear reactors.
Breeder reactors and reprocessing efforts would in fact attempt to *avoid* creating this isotope, since it is not useful for fission, and it is extremely radioactive.
This isotope is made by irradiating specific components of nuclear waste. There is no reason to separate the precursors of Pu-238 or do this irradiation other than to specifically create RTG fuel. It would be esoteric and expensive regardless of which nuclear technologies are in widespread use.