My point was: Q>1 is not an optimistic view on ITER. Q=infinity is.
And yes energetic breakeven has NOTHING to do with putting power to the grid. ITER simply hasn't got the means (turbines etc.) to convert the excess heat comming out of the reactor into electricity. So when you interpret breakeven 'as power (from the grid) in versus power (on the grid) out' ITER cannot archieve breakeven. Breakeven in the context of ITER can only be interpreted as Q=1. And that is NOT 'optimistically looking at ITER'.
Assuming that ITER and DEMO cannot overcome the instabilities is not an optimistic view either. Especially if you know that JET and other experimental reactors are succesfully managing these instabilities. That being said: ITER will investigate the instabilities and find out exactly when and were they occur so that they can be made absent in future designs like DEMO. ITER has plans to even create these instabilities on demand for the single purpose of studying the phenomenon. For that the walls of ITER are designed to withstand about 3 000 instabilities (or disruptions) and many parts of the vacuum chamber can be replaced for that purpose.
My last point was: why does anyone 'work on fusion' if he has such a limited confidence that the biggest experiment in the field will work. He states that he looks 'optimistically' at ITER and DEMO and then continues to assume that they will both fail. If ITER does not reach Q=10 it is officially a failure. Q=10 is their official target. If DEMO does not give reliable power due to disruptions it is a failure too. Since proving that fusion power can be done relibably and economically it the sole purpose of DEMO.
And yes ITER is an experiment. Its not a working prototype but it's not a research for fundamental science either. It can be best compared to Chicago Pile-1. The first fission reactor build at the university of Chicago. It too had no means to convert the excess power into electricity but it showed that controllable fission power was possible.
There is no indication that a fusion plant will be much more expensive to build than a fission plant (in fact it is an aim of the DEMO (successor of ITER)). But the wase handling is much cheaper since no high radioactive waste is produced.
So how you would archieve better prices per kW from a fission plant than a fusion plant is beyond me.
What you missed is this: ITER is planning on archieving Q=10 (10 more energy OUT than IN) in 2027. But a reactor that produces current on the grid (DEMO) for 2040. Could we accelerate that? YES! If we increase funding massively this could be done much more quickly and we could have the first current in the grid by 2030 or so.
I work in fusion,[...]. Optimistically let's look at the following: ITER is built and achieves breakeven (but no power tapping), then DEMO is built and demonstrates power to grid. You're still talking 20 billion dollars for a Fusion plant that (if built using Tokamak tech) will be fragile and prone to failure (disruptions, ELMs, and other physics issures). [...].
That is NOT 'Optimistically looking'. The target of ITER is not break even but Q=10. That is: 10 times more energy out than in. For each 50 MW in you get 500 MW out. Of course they are hoping to get more (Q=100, Q=1000, all the way up to Q= infinity (i.e. the plasma sustains itself and only the confinement + the addition of fuel en removal of waste keeps the reaction going)). So breakeven is NOT optimistic.
DEMO is then supposed to actually convert this excess heat into electricity. And 20 billion dollars is a lot of money but a fission reactor (I gather from a quick scan via google) costs somewere between 10 and 15 billion to build. So that's comparable. About the ELM's: of course the target of ITER is to overcome that issue and make the process reliable. If they cannot get that under control the reaction will stop and how would they archieve their target of Q=10?? Again you're not being optimistic at all. Honestly if you think so badly about fusion why waste your time on it?
past performance is not an indication of future results.
That is a good rule of thumb when INVESTING. [...]There is little reason to expect cost effective fusion power in the next several decades.
You have started off with the correct line of thinking: INVESTING. If you look at the ITER project it should be obvious that their prime concerns are not fundamental science things but rather engeneering things. They are building a reactor of which they are pretty sure it will deliver reliable fusion power. So what is between them and commerical fusion reactors (currently foreseen for 2035)? Mainly money. So yes it's still 30 years away. And it has been for some time. Why? You said it yourself: INVESTING.
Unfortunately you are wrong. Lowering the speed limit has been shown to increase safety. And pointing to one or two specific situations where you think it decreases danger doesn't make a difference in this.
That being said: driverless cars could pave the way to faster and more reliable transport by car. And with faster I don't necessarily mean higher speeds. I mean: less stops and obstructions. If all cars are self driving it would be possible to create traffic management systems that route you in such a way that you practically don't neeed to stop for traffic lights or anything. It will make you evade places where traffic is dense and so on. In this way the avarage speed would be much higher. And the biggest change will be: the actual speed at any moment in time will be of no concern to you or anybody else anymore. I're not driving! The only thing you care about is: when will I get there! The top speed of a car will probably not be shown on ads anymore. People will only care about the cost per km (or mile).
For me the impact of self driving cars on our daily life can hardly be understimated. Want another example? Car sharing. Currently it is not much in use. Why would you? Instead of having your own car on your driveway you need to fetch a car (with what??) and you have to put it back where it came from or you pay a premium price for having it droped off somewhere else... With driverless cars the car will come to you. Since the cars drive themselves it's also easier to have them maintained (it drives to the maintenace center automatically), cleaned (drives to cleaning facility at the end of the day) etc. So you get the car that you need at that moment (big, small, truck, MPV) delivered to your doorstep exactly when you need it. And you let the car drop you off where you need to be (e.g. town center) without having to look (or pay) for a parking spot. Simple. If you don't need a car often, then why would you still buy one??
Simple: A kWh is (here in belgium) approx. 6,5 eurocent. Let us count on 5 cents to be on the safe side (and for easier calculation) Your 10 MW windmill would theoretically produce 10 MWh every hour ==> 10 000 kWh = 50 000 eurocent or 500 euro per hour.
How long does it take to get to 10 million? Simple: 10 mil/ 500 = 20 000 hour or about 1 000 days which is about 3 years.
Yes this is a very crude calculation but one that shows that there is nothing wrong with te business case for a 10 milj/10 MWh wind mill.
I generally agree with the post above. Just a few remarks: * The post mentions that the benefit is "that you free yourself from the vendor". That is an illusion. You and the vendor are long term relationship. The contracts you make with the vendor should reflect that as should you attitude. In an atmosphere of distrust it is extremely rare to come to a win-win situation. Which is the goal you should be aiming for. * For every function, application or adaptation you should reflect on the following:
* Where does it belong? Is this part of the core functionality of the ERP or is this more a specific function, an add on?
* Which approach (add it to the ERP or impelement it through an interface) is easier? (Sometimes 'adding' a function is nothing more than configuration..)
* Which approach will most likely port well to the next version of the ERP?
* Check that request does not violate the foudations of the ERP. Often an organisation has a different datastructure than the ERP internally. Trying to fight the system by extending and modifying is works counterproductive. In this case: think outside the box.
it is happening, it is human-caused, but it isn't economical to do anything about it
The truth is that it's the 3rd option [option mentioned above].
Well if you read the IPPC report you would find out that it's the oposite. It's not economical NOT to do anything about it. The costs incurred by letting GW continue and fighting all the resulting changes are much higher than trying to minimize the impact as much as possible.
Really? A. Introduction B. Observed Changes in the Climate System C. Drivers of Climate Change D. Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes E. Future Global and Regional Climate Change
Do you know what this is? Its the table of content of the IPPC WG1 fith report SPM which stands for 'Summary for Policy Makers'. Want to hear more about the risks? Here is the table of content of the WG2 fifth SPM report:
A: Observed impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation in a complex and changing world B: Future risks and opportunities for adaptation C: Managing future risks and building resilience
Thses and more in depth reports that explain the underlying science are available at the IPPC site (www.ipcc.ch).
Either you decide that all this science is just crap (like many climate denialists seem to do) or you have to accept that global warming is a serious problem that is created by men for which the scientific comunity has provided huge amounts of evidence, warnings and pointers to possible causes of action.
No. Yes, I know science is a moving target. But certain things cannot be unexplained. Evolution e.g. is not a theory. If you look at fossile evidence collected over thousands of years that cover probably milions of lifeforms covering milions of years and you place them in time you see a pattern. This pattern is that it goes from a very few primiteve old species to more and more complex and a bigger number of more differentiated more 'modern' species.
This pattern cannot be undone. The explanation for it may evolve like it has. Darwin knew only the mechanism by which life evolved on a macroscopic level. Since then our knowlege of genetics have refined this view and has given us ways of exploiting this mechanism.
But even then the global statements of Darwin remain true.
Basically, if you claim that anything other than simple biology was at work in creating animals, then you lose your funding (and possibly right to call yourselves a school).
No, only if you make it those claims (because they violate the scientific method) in a class that you label as "science." Nothing is preventing a school from teaching it in a class labeled as "theology."
Which is as it should be. Remark that creationism as a new (way of teaching) religion would never have created such a big fuss. It's the insistence on labeling it as 'science' and thus teach it during science classes that made it so controversial.
I think a lot of people here are misunderstanding what the F-35 is doing and where the 'can't fly' comments are coming from. Basically, your average current F-16 and F/A-18 are still very maneuverable jets. They're relatively light when flown clean and so they are still competitive in this configuration. In order for these planes to go to war effectively, you need to hang a whole pile of mission equipment off of them. IR and laser designator pods, weapons, extra fuel. This makes them heavy, draggy, and slow.
Most modern competion (Typhoon, Rafale just to name two) have IR on board. Remark that not all versions of the F-35 have a gun standard on board, for some it must be mounted externally. As for fuel: the typhoon e.g. can do more on it's internal tanks than the F-35.
F-35s carry a lot of fuel and all of their mission equipment internally to preserve stealth. It also means it is less heavy, draggy and slow because the jet is aerodynamically clean when it is flown operationally.
No. Even in full combat mode the competition like Typhoon and Rafale (I refer to these since I know them best) are faster, more manouverable and have a better thrust to weight ratio (by a considerable margin). This translates in better acceleration and much higher top speeds (your 'clean' F-35 can reach only mach 1.6 because it is quite draggy).
I'm not saying it doesn't have it's problems. It's stealth is only refined in the forward hemisphere. It is expensive and I feel it is forcing countries to adopt smaller fleet sizes to buy it. It does IMO feature design compromises that are forced upon it from being a close to common a tri-service, VTOL capable jet. But, the politicians did that, not the designers.
I think the biggest problem is this: the internal weaponsbay has only 4 internal weapons points in 2 internal bays. So if one bay if filled with a bomb you 1) expect to hit your target from the first time and you are betting your mission on that and 2) you have only 2 (that's two. One two) missiles to defend yourself. If that's not sufficient? Then you will need the external pylons.
There goes your stealth. There goes your 'clean configuration'. There goes your 'first shot' and 'we don't need to be agile' attitude.
You're right about them not being for dogfighting over Canadian territories, the F35 is not that kind of aircraft. The F35 is a bomber that can run bombing missions without an escort (when not expecting to meet state of the art interceptors).
That's correct. So with all aircraft being replaced with F-35 who it going to keep the interceptors at bay?
Conclusion: F-35 is not a very capable plane. Dropping bombs without escort on the premise that you will 'not meet state of the art interceptors' is not a very hard thing is it? I'm sure that all of the competition for the F-35 can do that. And most of them can do the dog fighting too...
Fighter Jets became useless 20yrs ago. They're only still around because the current generals running the US military grew up whacking off to topgun.
That's a common misunderstanding. A fighter jet is not an offensive weapon. It doesn't serve to win the war. It serves to dominate the skies so that the rest (ground troops, bombers, helicopters, battle ships...) win the war.
So... does having a good fighter jet make you win the war? No. But not having them sure as hell makes you loosing it!
Without the protection of the jets any tank, ground operation, battle ship can be jumped at any time by an enemy jet and turned to ash.
Which brings us neatly to the F-35: it is meant and conceived as a stealth bomber but not as an air dominance fighter. So will it enable the US and it's allies to dominate the skies? For me that is the real question.
Well Flanders (one language!) has the paper trail too (except those few places where they still use the old voting computers). The rest uses a new voting system that does have a paper trail and that is just as performant as the German system.
In flanders too. The paper trail is only not available in the 20 kantons that still use the older e-voting system. The rest uses a new Linux based system that has a paper trail.
I don't get the love for paper and pencil. It's slower and it requires a lot of manual work. If all of this 'volonteer' work had to be paid for (with double pay since it's a sunday) I'm sure e-voting would be pushed much more agressively.
Anyways, in flanders we vote electronically and since we have already more than 15 years of experience we now have a very good and very capable system (these few exceptions notwithstanding).
I don't see what is stupid about electronic voting. The article seems to suggest that it is stupid to attempt electronic voting. And on the french speaking side the are convinced: they will not attempt any type of electronic voting. Even more: where electronic voting is currently used they plan on reversing to paper and pencil.
That is progress!
Flanders meanwhile has identified the shortcomings in the current system for some time and is moving to the Linux based system. Now it's allmost completely phase out. Iit is it offers good reliablility, improved user friendlyness with a touch screen and it prints out a voting slip that is then scanned at the ballot box just before the slip is put inside.
In this way the votes can be counted manually when discussions occur.
And yes: paper and pencil is cheaper. If you don't count all the 'volonteers' that have to spend their sunday evening on counting and recounting. Since they work practilcally for free while the support people for the voting machines do not.
When discussing storage of nuclear waste eveyone seems to think about storage underground first.
For me it seems that since we are talking about often 1000 years and more this is actually a bad idea. AFAIK there is no container capable of storing nuclear wase for so long. So it seems to me that it would be best to store it above the ground in a remote and geological stable and secure building but with the necessary processing capabilities for transferring the content to a new container when the curren one starts to leak.
And yes that will cost more that putting it in the ground and hoping for the best...
The/. article links to an article in the Huffington Post. If that is not enough the article links to a report of NOAA on which the aticle is based. If this report is not enough (its 25 pages, 6 of which are references) you will have to look into the souces of this report.
The data is explained. Now it's up to you to read the explanation.
Some parts of the world will get hotter which translates into dryer. But if the atmosphere contains more moisture that will have to go somewhere.
This means that precipitation will be more concentrated both in space (regions that are becomming exessively wet) and in time (periods of drought interleaved with massive rains). Both scenario's are quite dramatic. But not nearly as dramatic as your scenario: "simply" new rivers that would come into existence. That would have an enourmous impact on the region where such a thing would happen.
Think about villages that lie in the path of the new river. Bridges to be build, people being cut off from the rest of the land. So anyway you look at it there is nothing reassuring about all this (deserts, floods, massive rains & new rivers).
Slashdot Mirror
My point was: Q>1 is not an optimistic view on ITER. Q=infinity is.
And yes energetic breakeven has NOTHING to do with putting power to the grid. ITER simply hasn't got the means (turbines etc.) to convert the excess heat comming out of the reactor into electricity. So when you interpret breakeven 'as power (from the grid) in versus power (on the grid) out' ITER cannot archieve breakeven. Breakeven in the context of ITER can only be interpreted as Q=1. And that is NOT 'optimistically looking at ITER'.
Assuming that ITER and DEMO cannot overcome the instabilities is not an optimistic view either. Especially if you know that JET and other experimental reactors are succesfully managing these instabilities. That being said: ITER will investigate the instabilities and find out exactly when and were they occur so that they can be made absent in future designs like DEMO. ITER has plans to even create these instabilities on demand for the single purpose of studying the phenomenon. For that the walls of ITER are designed to withstand about 3 000 instabilities (or disruptions) and many parts of the vacuum chamber can be replaced for that purpose.
My last point was: why does anyone 'work on fusion' if he has such a limited confidence that the biggest experiment in the field will work. He states that he looks 'optimistically' at ITER and DEMO and then continues to assume that they will both fail. If ITER does not reach Q=10 it is officially a failure. Q=10 is their official target. If DEMO does not give reliable power due to disruptions it is a failure too. Since proving that fusion power can be done relibably and economically it the sole purpose of DEMO.
And yes ITER is an experiment. Its not a working prototype but it's not a research for fundamental science either. It can be best compared to Chicago Pile-1. The first fission reactor build at the university of Chicago. It too had no means to convert the excess power into electricity but it showed that controllable fission power was possible.
There is no indication that a fusion plant will be much more expensive to build than a fission plant (in fact it is an aim of the DEMO (successor of ITER)). But the wase handling is much cheaper since no high radioactive waste is produced.
So how you would archieve better prices per kW from a fission plant than a fusion plant is beyond me.
What you missed is this: ITER is planning on archieving Q=10 (10 more energy OUT than IN) in 2027. But a reactor that produces current on the grid (DEMO) for 2040.
Could we accelerate that? YES! If we increase funding massively this could be done much more quickly and we could have the first current in the grid by 2030 or so.
Good question! Head or tails??
I work in fusion,[...]. Optimistically let's look at the following: ITER is built and achieves breakeven (but no power tapping), then DEMO is built and demonstrates power to grid. You're still talking 20 billion dollars for a Fusion plant that (if built using Tokamak tech) will be fragile and prone to failure (disruptions, ELMs, and other physics issures). [...].
That is NOT 'Optimistically looking'. The target of ITER is not break even but Q=10. That is: 10 times more energy out than in. For each 50 MW in you get 500 MW out. Of course they are hoping to get more (Q=100, Q=1000, all the way up to Q= infinity (i.e. the plasma sustains itself and only the confinement + the addition of fuel en removal of waste keeps the reaction going)).
So breakeven is NOT optimistic.
DEMO is then supposed to actually convert this excess heat into electricity. And 20 billion dollars is a lot of money but a fission reactor (I gather from a quick scan via google) costs somewere between 10 and 15 billion to build. So that's comparable. About the ELM's: of course the target of ITER is to overcome that issue and make the process reliable. If they cannot get that under control the reaction will stop and how would they archieve their target of Q=10?? Again you're not being optimistic at all.
Honestly if you think so badly about fusion why waste your time on it?
past performance is not an indication of future results.
That is a good rule of thumb when INVESTING. [...]There is little reason to expect cost effective fusion power in the next several decades.
You have started off with the correct line of thinking: INVESTING. If you look at the ITER project it should be obvious that their prime concerns are not fundamental science things but rather engeneering things. They are building a reactor of which they are pretty sure it will deliver reliable fusion power.
So what is between them and commerical fusion reactors (currently foreseen for 2035)? Mainly money. So yes it's still 30 years away. And it has been for some time. Why? You said it yourself: INVESTING.
Unfortunately you are wrong. Lowering the speed limit has been shown to increase safety. And pointing to one or two specific situations where you think it decreases danger doesn't make a difference in this.
That being said: driverless cars could pave the way to faster and more reliable transport by car. And with faster I don't necessarily mean higher speeds. I mean: less stops and obstructions. If all cars are self driving it would be possible to create traffic management systems that route you in such a way that you practically don't neeed to stop for traffic lights or anything. It will make you evade places where traffic is dense and so on. In this way the avarage speed would be much higher.
And the biggest change will be: the actual speed at any moment in time will be of no concern to you or anybody else anymore. I're not driving! The only thing you care about is: when will I get there! The top speed of a car will probably not be shown on ads anymore. People will only care about the cost per km (or mile).
For me the impact of self driving cars on our daily life can hardly be understimated. Want another example? Car sharing. Currently it is not much in use. Why would you? Instead of having your own car on your driveway you need to fetch a car (with what??) and you have to put it back where it came from or you pay a premium price for having it droped off somewhere else...
With driverless cars the car will come to you. Since the cars drive themselves it's also easier to have them maintained (it drives to the maintenace center automatically), cleaned (drives to cleaning facility at the end of the day) etc. So you get the car that you need at that moment (big, small, truck, MPV) delivered to your doorstep exactly when you need it. And you let the car drop you off where you need to be (e.g. town center) without having to look (or pay) for a parking spot. Simple.
If you don't need a car often, then why would you still buy one??
Simple: A kWh is (here in belgium) approx. 6,5 eurocent. Let us count on 5 cents to be on the safe side (and for easier calculation)
Your 10 MW windmill would theoretically produce 10 MWh every hour ==> 10 000 kWh = 50 000 eurocent or 500 euro per hour.
How long does it take to get to 10 million? Simple: 10 mil/ 500 = 20 000 hour or about 1 000 days which is about 3 years.
Yes this is a very crude calculation but one that shows that there is nothing wrong with te business case for a 10 milj/10 MWh wind mill.
I generally agree with the post above. Just a few remarks:
* The post mentions that the benefit is "that you free yourself from the vendor". That is an illusion. You and the vendor are long term relationship. The contracts you make with the vendor should reflect that as should you attitude. In an atmosphere of distrust it is extremely rare to come to a win-win situation. Which is the goal you should be aiming for.
* For every function, application or adaptation you should reflect on the following:
* Where does it belong? Is this part of the core functionality of the ERP or is this more a specific function, an add on?
* Which approach (add it to the ERP or impelement it through an interface) is easier? (Sometimes 'adding' a function is nothing more than configuration..)
* Which approach will most likely port well to the next version of the ERP?
* Check that request does not violate the foudations of the ERP. Often an organisation has a different datastructure than the ERP internally. Trying to fight the system by extending and modifying is works counterproductive. In this case: think outside the box.
You're NOT a committee!
it is happening, it is human-caused, but it isn't economical to do anything about it
The truth is that it's the 3rd option [option mentioned above].
Well if you read the IPPC report you would find out that it's the oposite. It's not economical NOT to do anything about it.
The costs incurred by letting GW continue and fighting all the resulting changes are much higher than trying to minimize the impact as much as possible.
Really?
A. Introduction
B. Observed Changes in the Climate System
C. Drivers of Climate Change
D. Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes
E. Future Global and Regional Climate Change
Do you know what this is? Its the table of content of the IPPC WG1 fith report SPM which stands for 'Summary for Policy Makers'.
Want to hear more about the risks? Here is the table of content of the WG2 fifth SPM report:
A: Observed impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation in a complex and changing world
B: Future risks and opportunities for adaptation
C: Managing future risks and building resilience
Thses and more in depth reports that explain the underlying science are available at the IPPC site (www.ipcc.ch).
Either you decide that all this science is just crap (like many climate denialists seem to do) or you have to accept that global warming is a serious problem that is created by men for which the scientific comunity has provided huge amounts of evidence, warnings and pointers to possible causes of action.
As for the Cadillac: that may actually be a good idea ;-)
No.
Yes, I know science is a moving target. But certain things cannot be unexplained. Evolution e.g. is not a theory. If you look at fossile evidence collected over thousands of years that cover probably milions of lifeforms covering milions of years and you place them in time you see a pattern. This pattern is that it goes from a very few primiteve old species to more and more complex and a bigger number of more differentiated more 'modern' species.
This pattern cannot be undone. The explanation for it may evolve like it has. Darwin knew only the mechanism by which life evolved on a macroscopic level. Since then our knowlege of genetics have refined this view and has given us ways of exploiting this mechanism.
But even then the global statements of Darwin remain true.
Not in Biology class, no. Which is where the creationists want creationism to be taught.
Basically, if you claim that anything other than simple biology was at work in creating animals, then you lose your funding (and possibly right to call yourselves a school).
No, only if you make it those claims (because they violate the scientific method) in a class that you label as "science." Nothing is preventing a school from teaching it in a class labeled as "theology."
Which is as it should be. Remark that creationism as a new (way of teaching) religion would never have created such a big fuss. It's the insistence on labeling it as 'science' and thus teach it during science classes that made it so controversial.
Oops. Lots of mistakes.
I think a lot of people here are misunderstanding what the F-35 is doing and where the 'can't fly' comments are coming from. Basically, your average current F-16 and F/A-18 are still very maneuverable jets. They're relatively light when flown clean and so they are still competitive in this configuration. In order for these planes to go to war effectively, you need to hang a whole pile of mission equipment off of them. IR and laser designator pods, weapons, extra fuel. This makes them heavy, draggy, and slow.
Most modern competion (Typhoon, Rafale just to name two) have IR on board. Remark that not all versions of the F-35 have a gun standard on board, for some it must be mounted externally. As for fuel: the typhoon e.g. can do more on it's internal tanks than the F-35.
F-35s carry a lot of fuel and all of their mission equipment internally to preserve stealth. It also means it is less heavy, draggy and slow because the jet is aerodynamically clean when it is flown operationally.
No. Even in full combat mode the competition like Typhoon and Rafale (I refer to these since I know them best) are faster, more manouverable and have a better thrust to weight ratio (by a considerable margin). This translates in better acceleration and much higher top speeds (your 'clean' F-35 can reach only mach 1.6 because it is quite draggy).
I'm not saying it doesn't have it's problems. It's stealth is only refined in the forward hemisphere. It is expensive and I feel it is forcing countries to adopt smaller fleet sizes to buy it. It does IMO feature design compromises that are forced upon it from being a close to common a tri-service, VTOL capable jet. But, the politicians did that, not the designers.
I think the biggest problem is this: the internal weaponsbay has only 4 internal weapons points in 2 internal bays. So if one bay if filled with a bomb you 1) expect to hit your target from the first time and you are betting your mission on that and 2) you have only 2 (that's two. One two) missiles to defend yourself.
If that's not sufficient? Then you will need the external pylons.
There goes your stealth. There goes your 'clean configuration'. There goes your 'first shot' and 'we don't need to be agile' attitude.
Partly right, but still wrong.
You're right about them not being for dogfighting over Canadian territories, the F35 is not that kind of aircraft.
The F35 is a bomber that can run bombing missions without an escort (when not expecting to meet state of the art interceptors).
That's correct. So with all aircraft being replaced with F-35 who it going to keep the interceptors at bay?
Conclusion: F-35 is not a very capable plane. Dropping bombs without escort on the premise that you will 'not meet state of the art interceptors' is not a very hard thing is it? I'm sure that all of the competition for the F-35 can do that. And most of them can do the dog fighting too...
Fighter Jets became useless 20yrs ago. They're only still around because the current generals running the US military grew up whacking off to topgun.
That's a common misunderstanding. A fighter jet is not an offensive weapon. It doesn't serve to win the war. It serves to dominate the skies so that the rest (ground troops, bombers, helicopters, battle ships...) win the war.
So... does having a good fighter jet make you win the war? No. But not having them sure as hell makes you loosing it!
Without the protection of the jets any tank, ground operation, battle ship can be jumped at any time by an enemy jet and turned to ash.
Which brings us neatly to the F-35: it is meant and conceived as a stealth bomber but not as an air dominance fighter. So will it enable the US and it's allies to dominate the skies? For me that is the real question.
Well Flanders (one language!) has the paper trail too (except those few places where they still use the old voting computers). The rest uses a new voting system that does have a paper trail and that is just as performant as the German system.
And yes, flanders is also a part of Belgium!
In flanders too. The paper trail is only not available in the 20 kantons that still use the older e-voting system. The rest uses a new Linux based system that has a paper trail.
I don't get the love for paper and pencil. It's slower and it requires a lot of manual work. If all of this 'volonteer' work had to be paid for (with double pay since it's a sunday) I'm sure e-voting would be pushed much more agressively.
Anyways, in flanders we vote electronically and since we have already more than 15 years of experience we now have a very good and very capable system (these few exceptions notwithstanding).
I don't see what is stupid about electronic voting. The article seems to suggest that it is stupid to attempt electronic voting. And on the french speaking side the are convinced: they will not attempt any type of electronic voting. Even more: where electronic voting is currently used they plan on reversing to paper and pencil.
That is progress!
Flanders meanwhile has identified the shortcomings in the current system for some time and is moving to the Linux based system.
Now it's allmost completely phase out. Iit is it offers good reliablility, improved user friendlyness with a touch screen and it prints out a voting slip that is then scanned at the ballot box just before the slip is put inside.
In this way the votes can be counted manually when discussions occur.
And yes: paper and pencil is cheaper. If you don't count all the 'volonteers' that have to spend their sunday evening on counting and recounting. Since they work practilcally for free while the support people for the voting machines do not.
When discussing storage of nuclear waste eveyone seems to think about storage underground first.
For me it seems that since we are talking about often 1000 years and more this is actually a bad idea. AFAIK there is no container capable of storing nuclear wase for so long. So it seems to me that it would be best to store it above the ground in a remote and geological stable and secure building but with the necessary processing capabilities for transferring the content to a new container when the curren one starts to leak.
And yes that will cost more that putting it in the ground and hoping for the best...
The /. article links to an article in the Huffington Post. If that is not enough the article links to a report of NOAA on which the aticle is based. If this report is not enough (its 25 pages, 6 of which are references) you will have to look into the souces of this report.
The data is explained. Now it's up to you to read the explanation.
I don't see the contradiction.
Some parts of the world will get hotter which translates into dryer. But if the atmosphere contains more moisture that will have to go somewhere.
This means that precipitation will be more concentrated both in space (regions that are becomming exessively wet) and in time (periods of drought interleaved with massive rains). Both scenario's are quite dramatic. But not nearly as dramatic as your scenario: "simply" new rivers that would come into existence.
That would have an enourmous impact on the region where such a thing would happen.
Think about villages that lie in the path of the new river. Bridges to be build, people being cut off from the rest of the land.
So anyway you look at it there is nothing reassuring about all this (deserts, floods, massive rains & new rivers).