Tritium isn't plutonium. It decays relatively quickly [iaea.or.at]. Waiting eight half-lives eliminates over 99.5% of any radioactive material; for tritium that translates into less than a century.
It's hardly commercially viable to stockpile the stuff for a century though. Whilst beta particles are less damaging to biologicals than alpha particles and the helium threee isn't a problem the resulting free radical is.
Re:Next thing you know...
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
Dubya vs. Saddam in the ULTIMATE DEATHMATCH of the MILLENNIUM!!
Dubya apparently nixed this idea. There were reports that Saddam was prepared to fight a duel with the US president though.
Iraq posses no verifiable threat against the US or the UK.
Or against American or British citizens. When there are plenty of countries who do, some of whom are even supported by the American and/or British governments.
Or do you think Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Russia and China, all closer to Iraq, are posturing against the US while under such a suppossed ominous threat?
Iran, no friend of Iraq, is siding against the US on this issue. Then there's Jordan which also has a border with Iraq.
Makes me wonder how you can install a democracy if you aren't a democratic leader yourself.
A democratic leader would probably know that the concept of "installing a democracy" is meaningless. Indeed a democratic leader would be concentraing on their own citizens, even those who didn't help elect them. Only going and bothering another country if they were a threat to those people. By those criteria Iraq shouldn't even be on the radar on the US government.
Democracy is a culture which can only be learned by experience in a long time. You can't just put democratic institutions into a country and expect it to work without some democratic seeds in minds.
You can't impose "democracy" anyway. The concepts are fundermentally mutually exclusive. Let alone that it's most unlikely that the US wants a democratic Iraq. The US wants a pro-US government in Iraq. It's most unlikely that one which represented the Iraqi people would be anything other than strongly anti-USA.
Basically people have taped each others' CDs and records for years, and music still gets made,
Or even recorded it from the radio. Music was made long before there was any "record industry". Even now there is no shortage of musicians completly outside the whole thing.
We do see a lot of musicians as criminals though, they make vast fortunes from music that is likely to inflame racial tensions and advocate criminal acts
There are also plenty who can be seen only as "victims". For all their fame and sucess they wind up bankrupt, insane or suicidal.
this Texas Rep should choose his friends more wisely if he hopes to be re-elected.
Not so much of a risk in the US with a deeply entrenced 2 party system. Compared with parts of the world where an incumbent might easily find several disillusioned constituants standing against them at the next election.
I know the american judicial and political system can be pretty screwed up at time, but just how much support does this guy think he's going to get from his constituents (read votes),
So who are they going to put in his place? Someone from "the other party", who could be subject to just as much lobbying from the RIAA?
To compare, how long do you expect Jeffrey Skilling (former Enron CEO) to spend in jail for the $30 billion lost there . ..
Is he actually in jail, is it even likely he will wind up in jail anyway?
The real threat right now is spammers, not file traders.
Not to the RIAA. Their concern is their members business model being threatened by a new technology. They couldn't care less about a threat to the new technology and people's ability to use it effectivly to improve their lives and/or businesses.
Why not put them all in jails? or in pits, or use them as human shields on iraq, etc.
Why not have them clean up the mess in Iraq. Rather than expecting soldiers, or more likely, Iraqi civilians to do it.
The only good thing about this is that once Bush's out of office he can be jailed when he enters a country that supports the international court. Only problem is, after this war there's probably no country that wants to risk being bombed for abiding international law.
Or more likely once GW Bush is out of office he will never leave the US, probably won't even leave Texas.
I once read a page containing a suspect method for boosting the power of a motor by adding water. I don't remember how I ran across the page, but it was full of rambling by someone who basically had no idea how chemistry works but who had done some experimenting and may have stumbled on something...
Adding water to an internal combustion engine is a very well known technique to increase power. Notably on military aircraft.
However, when we want LOTS of hydrogen, we turn to our good old reliable friend, Nuclear Power. It is possible to construct a nuclear core which directly cracks water molecules, completely omitting the eletrolysis phase, and thusly improving the efficiency.
Leaving the problem of how to remove tritium...
All this, of course, is in the future. Right now, most hydrogen is refined from natural gas.
Hydrogen is interesting because it is clean, easy to produce
But it isn't an especially easy fuel to handle. Something which is a liquid at regular temperatures is much easier to transport.
(relatively speaking - we aren't good at making oil from raw materials)
You don't actually use the oil which comes out of the ground as a fuel. It is refined and processed to make a fuels. It's perfectly possible to use other organic chemicals as fuels. Alcohols and esters are common organic compounds which can easily be derived from biolgical sources. Including waste materials. Methane is produced by rotting garbage... We already have infrastructure systems for handling and transporting methane and liquid motor fuels.
We are not talking Cold fusion here, just liquid hydrogen, all you have to do is burn it, not split water.
Where do you get this liquid hydrogen from? Teleport it from Jupiter?
In order to get liquid hydrogen you need to first extract it from a compound containing hydrogen (e.g. water, hydrocarbons or acids). Then cool it to below it's boiling point.
Diesel is easier to manufacture than gas (lower emissions from processing plant, lower costs for consumers) so it is clearly the better fuel. Maybe with this stupid war we'll see more diesel vehicles sold.
There is no actual need for internal combustion engines to run on oil derived fuels anyway. The prototypes of both the diesel and gas turbine (jet) used vegetable oil. Spark ignition engines can run on alcohol, either pure alcohol or blended with petro-chemicals. There is even motor racing with uses methanol fueled cars.
We need to to focus on Diesel which can help us here and now instead of hydrogen/solar power which are decades off.
Diesel is used more or less exclusivly as the fuel for internal combustion engines in trucks, rail locomotives, ships, agricultureal machinary and construction plant.
Creating a gas/fuel cell hybrid if you will. But most of my original comment still remains: unless I can buy it at a dealer, I probably won't void my warrant by "modding" it.
A bigger show stopper is likely to be "where do I refuel it?"
It is about using Hydrogen, which is very combustible to enhance your engine's efficiency. Somehow you put hydrogen into your engine, it ignites, and thus you can use less fuel to get the same power. aka a Hydrogen Boost.
You are simply replacing some of the hydrocarbons in the fuel supply with hydrogen.
This is talking about making normal cars better.
At the expense of a far more complicated fuel system. Since one fuel is a liquid the other is a gas. So you can't simply pre mix fuel in a storage tank. As you could do with an ethanol & alkene mixture or even methane and hydrogen.
In practice these rules tend to only exist (or be enforced) with politically incorrect "hate speach". The most hateful of speach goes unchallenged where it is PC, sometimes to the point where anyone challenging it is likely to be accused of "hate speach". Also college campuses are not independent states, "illegal" only makes sense in the context of laws. Not rules, regulations, codes, etc.
Corporate censorship is oftentimes more insidious in that Government,
Sometimes it's hard to find a distinction. Especially where corporates have undue inflence over government.
because the Government has very clear lines on what should be censored and for whom.
At least in theory. That dosn't stop them interpreting "national security" to mean whatever is in the interests of the "government of the day" or even whatever is in the interests of certain government officials. (The latter including covering up high crimes and ineptitude.)
If you had argued that musicians have a right to make money off their work
They don't have any more right to make money than the record companies. They simply have the right to attempt to use their talent to make money including being able to freely enter into contracts for performances and recordings.
My tax dollars pay for my local libraries. I am therefor allowed to go to the library and have access to any and all of the material there, books or music. That doesn't mean I'm allowed to copy it or keep it. Copyright infringment is still taking place if you take a library book and copy it,
Your "tax dollers" paid for copyright laws too. Your employees could easily chance copyright laws in any way.
You go to the library, you check out an album, and you rip it at home.
To a library it would make perfect sense to be able to issue you with a copy of anything they had. No need for complex systems to track issues and returns, etc.
Furthermore, internet file sharing is no more guilty of destroying sales than libraries.
If libraries were a new invention they'd be just as much in the firing line...
These "books" cost more than your average library volume, although the library got a deal for buying lots of them at once. But I didn't understand why they'd bother. What's the point of getting electronic versions of a book at all? Those restrictions made the electronic copy functionally no different than the actual book
It's because publishers have a business model which assumes the limitations physical books. Hence they want the new technology to emulate the old.
For starters, you could axe the Shuttles and still keep the ISS in orbit, using Russian, European and American boosters (spend the $2-$3 billion it would cost to build a new Shuttle, or the $500 million each Shuttle launch incinerates, on reviving the Saturn V, one of the largest and most efficient - and safest - boosters the world has ever known).
Also it's "little brother" the 1B. Which is a prefectly good booster for getting people into orbit. Or possibly even cheaper install Soyuz, Proton, etc launch facilities at the KSC.
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Tritium isn't plutonium. It decays relatively quickly [iaea.or.at]. Waiting eight half-lives eliminates over 99.5% of any radioactive material; for tritium that translates into less than a century.
It's hardly commercially viable to stockpile the stuff for a century though. Whilst beta particles are less damaging to biologicals than alpha particles and the helium threee isn't a problem the resulting free radical is.
Dubya vs. Saddam in the ULTIMATE DEATHMATCH of the MILLENNIUM!!
Dubya apparently nixed this idea. There were reports that Saddam was prepared to fight a duel with the US president though.
Iraq posses no verifiable threat against the US or the UK.
Or against American or British citizens. When there are plenty of countries who do, some of whom are even supported by the American and/or British governments.
Or do you think Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Russia and China, all closer to Iraq, are posturing against the US while under such a suppossed ominous threat?
Iran, no friend of Iraq, is siding against the US on this issue. Then there's Jordan which also has a border with Iraq.
Makes me wonder how you can install a democracy if you aren't a democratic leader yourself.
A democratic leader would probably know that the concept of "installing a democracy" is meaningless. Indeed a democratic leader would be concentraing on their own citizens, even those who didn't help elect them. Only going and bothering another country if they were a threat to those people. By those criteria Iraq shouldn't even be on the radar on the US government.
Democracy is a culture which can only be learned by experience in a long time. You can't just put democratic institutions into a country and expect it to work without some democratic seeds in minds.
You can't impose "democracy" anyway. The concepts are fundermentally mutually exclusive. Let alone that it's most unlikely that the US wants a democratic Iraq. The US wants a pro-US government in Iraq. It's most unlikely that one which represented the Iraqi people would be anything other than strongly anti-USA.
The US has a higher proportion of its citizens in jail than any other country - in all of history.
This isn't just in comparison with other "democracies", this is of anywhere, including dictatorships.
It now looks like it's trying hard to keep anyone else from approaching this record.
This is something for the "land of the free" to be ashamed of, not proud of.
Basically people have taped each others' CDs and records for years, and music still gets made,
Or even recorded it from the radio. Music was made long before there was any "record industry". Even now there is no shortage of musicians completly outside the whole thing.
We do see a lot of musicians as criminals though, they make vast fortunes from music that is likely to inflame racial tensions and advocate criminal acts
There are also plenty who can be seen only as "victims". For all their fame and sucess they wind up bankrupt, insane or suicidal.
this Texas Rep should choose his friends more wisely if he hopes to be re-elected.
Not so much of a risk in the US with a deeply entrenced 2 party system. Compared with parts of the world where an incumbent might easily find several disillusioned constituants standing against them at the next election.
I know the american judicial and political system can be pretty screwed up at time, but just how much support does this guy think he's going to get from his constituents (read votes),
.
So who are they going to put in his place? Someone from "the other party", who could be subject to just as much lobbying from the RIAA?
To compare, how long do you expect Jeffrey Skilling (former Enron CEO) to spend in jail for the $30 billion lost there . .
Is he actually in jail, is it even likely he will wind up in jail anyway?
The real threat right now is spammers, not file traders.
Not to the RIAA. Their concern is their members business model being threatened by a new technology. They couldn't care less about a threat to the new technology and people's ability to use it effectivly to improve their lives and/or businesses.
Why not put them all in jails? or in pits, or use them as human shields on iraq, etc.
Why not have them clean up the mess in Iraq. Rather than expecting soldiers, or more likely, Iraqi civilians to do it.
The only good thing about this is that once Bush's out of office he can be jailed when he enters a country that supports the international court. Only problem is, after this war there's probably no country that wants to risk being bombed for abiding international law.
Or more likely once GW Bush is out of office he will never leave the US, probably won't even leave Texas.
I once read a page containing a suspect method for boosting the power of a motor by adding water. I don't remember how I ran across the page, but it was full of rambling by someone who basically had no idea how chemistry works but who had done some experimenting and may have stumbled on something...
Adding water to an internal combustion engine is a very well known technique to increase power. Notably on military aircraft.
However, when we want LOTS of hydrogen, we turn to our good old reliable friend, Nuclear Power. It is possible to construct a nuclear core which directly cracks water molecules, completely omitting the eletrolysis phase, and thusly improving the efficiency.
Leaving the problem of how to remove tritium...
All this, of course, is in the future. Right now, most hydrogen is refined from natural gas.
In other words petro-methane.
Hydrogen is interesting because it is clean, easy to produce
But it isn't an especially easy fuel to handle. Something which is a liquid at regular temperatures is much easier to transport.
(relatively speaking - we aren't good at making oil from raw materials)
You don't actually use the oil which comes out of the ground as a fuel. It is refined and processed to make a fuels. It's perfectly possible to use other organic chemicals as fuels. Alcohols and esters are common organic compounds which can easily be derived from biolgical sources. Including waste materials. Methane is produced by rotting garbage...
We already have infrastructure systems for handling and transporting methane and liquid motor fuels.
We are not talking Cold fusion here, just liquid hydrogen, all you have to do is burn it, not split water.
Where do you get this liquid hydrogen from? Teleport it from Jupiter?
In order to get liquid hydrogen you need to first extract it from a compound containing hydrogen (e.g. water, hydrocarbons or acids). Then cool it to below it's boiling point.
Diesel is easier to manufacture than gas (lower emissions from processing plant, lower costs for consumers) so it is clearly the better fuel. Maybe with this stupid war we'll see more diesel vehicles sold.
There is no actual need for internal combustion engines to run on oil derived fuels anyway. The prototypes of both the diesel and gas turbine (jet) used vegetable oil. Spark ignition engines can run on alcohol, either pure alcohol or blended with petro-chemicals. There is even motor racing with uses methanol fueled cars.
We need to to focus on Diesel which can help us here and now instead of hydrogen/solar power which are decades off.
Diesel is used more or less exclusivly as the fuel for internal combustion engines in trucks, rail locomotives, ships, agricultureal machinary and construction plant.
Creating a gas/fuel cell hybrid if you will. But most of my original comment still remains: unless I can buy it at a dealer, I probably won't void my warrant by "modding" it.
A bigger show stopper is likely to be "where do I refuel it?"
It is about using Hydrogen, which is very combustible to enhance your engine's efficiency. Somehow you put hydrogen into your engine, it ignites, and thus you can use less fuel to get the same power. aka a Hydrogen Boost.
You are simply replacing some of the hydrocarbons in the fuel supply with hydrogen.
This is talking about making normal cars better.
At the expense of a far more complicated fuel system. Since one fuel is a liquid the other is a gas. So you can't simply pre mix fuel in a storage tank. As you could do with an ethanol & alkene mixture or even methane and hydrogen.
I'll take the constitution of the Netherlands or Germany or actually most West-European countries over the US Constitution anytime.
On it's own a constitution is only "ink on paper". What's of more practical relevence is how the government actually acts.
This whole idea that the US is somehow the light of the world is so deeply arrogant, I can't even start to describe how irritating it is.
You don't need to, the signs are obvious. Why do you think that the US is so unpopular. Amongst governments and peoples who can't agree on much else.
Hate speech is illegal on most college campuses.
In practice these rules tend to only exist (or be enforced) with politically incorrect "hate speach". The most hateful of speach goes unchallenged where it is PC, sometimes to the point where anyone challenging it is likely to be accused of "hate speach".
Also college campuses are not independent states, "illegal" only makes sense in the context of laws. Not rules, regulations, codes, etc.
Corporate censorship is oftentimes more insidious in that Government,
Sometimes it's hard to find a distinction. Especially where corporates have undue inflence over government.
because the Government has very clear lines on what should be censored and for whom.
At least in theory. That dosn't stop them interpreting "national security" to mean whatever is in the interests of the "government of the day" or even whatever is in the interests of certain government officials. (The latter including covering up high crimes and ineptitude.)
If you had argued that musicians have a right to make money off their work
They don't have any more right to make money than the record companies. They simply have the right to attempt to use their talent to make money including being able to freely enter into contracts for performances and recordings.
My tax dollars pay for my local libraries. I am therefor allowed to go to the library and have access to any and all of the material there, books or music. That doesn't mean I'm allowed to copy it or keep it. Copyright infringment is still taking place if you take a library book and copy it,
Your "tax dollers" paid for copyright laws too. Your employees could easily chance copyright laws in any way.
You go to the library, you check out an album, and you rip it at home.
To a library it would make perfect sense to be able to issue you with a copy of anything they had. No need for complex systems to track issues and returns, etc.
Furthermore, internet file sharing is no more guilty of destroying sales than libraries.
If libraries were a new invention they'd be just as much in the firing line...
These "books" cost more than your average library volume, although the library got a deal for buying lots of them at once. But I didn't understand why they'd bother. What's the point of getting electronic versions of a book at all? Those restrictions made the electronic copy functionally no different than the actual book
It's because publishers have a business model which assumes the limitations physical books. Hence they want the new technology to emulate the old.
For starters, you could axe the Shuttles and still keep the ISS in orbit, using Russian, European and American boosters (spend the $2-$3 billion it would cost to build a new Shuttle, or the $500 million each Shuttle launch incinerates, on reviving the Saturn V, one of the largest and most efficient - and safest - boosters the world has ever known).
Also it's "little brother" the 1B. Which is a prefectly good booster for getting people into orbit. Or possibly even cheaper install Soyuz, Proton, etc launch facilities at the KSC.