You're right; storage is a real problem. We've become accustomed to electricity available at the flick of a switch, transport available at the turn of an ignition key, etc. It's less glamorous than the new methods of energy capture (new methods = solar, wind, biodiesel, etc) but there are very many people employed smoothing out the demand curve, so as to maximize the efficiency of the infrastructure we now have. For instance, if aluminum is only made in places and at times where electricity is cheap, much energy and money are saved. That means, at some point on the grid where there's not a lot of loss from the generation point (i.e. close to a power plant, but in other cases as well) and at times when demand is low (i.e. NOT when its a hot day and all of California turns on their air conditioners!). But it gets complicated, because the availability of energy graphs very 'step like' where as demand graphs more 'curved'.
There are parts of this planet where the wind blows almost constantly, strongly, and in one direction. One of these places is the Kerguelen Islands in the extreme south Indian ocean. These practically uninhabited islands (I believe the only human presence is some scientific outpost), owned by France, would be an ideal place to set up wind turbines to power industrial processes that require a great deal of electricity, such as aluminum production. Because of their remoteness, the transportation and labor costs would be high, but after some time they would start to decline, and other factories (such as metal plating) would be profitable to operate there.
Now, in regards to the original topic: I don't think this breakthrough is very practical. The amount of aluminum required is just too high. We might as well be using lead-acid batteries.
Thank you, AndrewRUK. I was too lazy to go dig out the references;)
I'd like to point out that I am not against the creation of more sovereign states. Far from it, I hope to do so myself some day. But it's a very tricky task and there is no shortage of organizations and vague forces against you. Such people will attempt to find any excuse to undermine any claim to sovereignty, and the two above mentioned treaties are very convenient and straightforward ways to slap down such projects as Sealand. Bates had a lot of fun out there in the channel but half a million pounds is a lot to ask for the grown-up's playhouse that Sealand is. It goes to show how ill-conceived The Pirate Party is and how their grasp greatly extends their reach.
Personally, I think that the Cult of the Dead Cow would have a higher success rate in trying to create a sovereign country.
Maritime law ("Law of the sea") states that artificial islands have no territorial waters. Therefore, it's all too easy for some powerful organization to lay seige to Sealand and starve them out.
Really, Sovereignty requires a bit more than just proclaiming yourself king. Even nations with more legitimate claims to nationhood have been strong-armed by the OECD's policy on tax-havens and money laundering. Do you think that Sealand would have much of a chance in that case?
If there was a really serious, well thought out effort towards making an enlightened and libre country I'd lend my support. But this isn't it. It's not even close.
Your shunning of the rural population is noted. I think you're being way too dismissive of their value to you as a suburban or urban person. Agricultural subsidies are ugly, but a necessity. While urban infrastructure is much more expensive per mile, there are many more miles of infrastructure in rural areas. However, rural infrastructure is necessary for getting agricultural products to the cities, and also for getting between cities.
I can tell you that many rural people are tired of paying subsidies for big cities: The huge construction projects like The Big Dig, expensive anti-crime programs to fight violence which is hardly a problem in most rural areas, and a host of other problems.
It's funny that you call their lifestyle 'cute'. I suppose for some retirees, second-home owners, and gentleman farmers it is cute. But the vast majority of them are hard working, honest and reasonably intelligent people.
Thanks for mentioning the Radmax! I was going to do so. It's a next-generation rotary, for those of who who haven't checked the link, that promises to solve a lot of problems with the Wankel engine and has a very high power to weight ratio. I'd like to see how well some other combustion improvements, such as the Atkinson cycle and the addition of small amounts of hydrogen into the combustion chamber. I'd also like to see how well this engine design would do when adapted to multi-fuel use, i.e. gasoline, diesel, kerosene, straight vegetable oil, or an alcohol.
Regarding taxes on trucks / SUVs. This is a silly idea.First of all, there are many people that do need trucks for one reason or another. For instance, hauling firewood doesn't work to well in your Prius. Or carpooling - supposedly a great thing - how many people can you fit in a Prius?
Another thing that irritates me is that there is not enough attention paid to the rural population's transportation needs. The rural population tends to have less income, yet has to travel longer distances in order to do shopping, go to the doctor, etc. and often for work. They often need the benefits that a real SUV is supposed to offer, including 4WD, larger wheels, etc because driving conditions can get really bad.
Rural people don't need to waste gas, but do need different vehicles than are often considered 'environmentally correct'. For instance, the Subaru Brat was a bit hit in Northern New England when it was introduced because it provided an inexpensive 4WD pickup with great gas mileage. We need more of these types of vehicles. Not just commuter cars.
Note: I don't even own a car. I am not defending any choice I have made.
Legacy users ought to fork the Fedora project in order to support their releases. Surely, there has to be enough talent out there to do this...oh wait, let me guess, you want other people to do the hard work for you, for free? Hrm...better try Ubuntu.
No, seriously, I don't use Fedora so I don't really care that much. But those feeling burned by this ought to unite and take over the legacy support.
I got tired of reading a lot of the BS posts here, and it's late, so I am just going to post what I know and hope that I am not duplicating too much of what has already been said.
Oil from Algae has great potential. Contrary to what one poster said, there are strains of algae that produce a very large amount of oil. Up to 70% of the dry weight, but more likely around 40%. My favorite algae is Botryococcus braunii because it creates Alkanes, which can be used directly as fuel or transformed into the chemical equivalent of the petroleum fuels we know and love - i.e. Octane, Kerosene, etc. This happens without the inefficiency inherent in the production of biodiesel.
It is true that the carbon so sequestered is again released into the atmosphere. This is unfortunate, but not as much of a problem as it seems at first glance. While the 'low hanging fruit' in terms of surplus CO2 is such industrial processes as fermenting of wine and coal-fired power plants, the secondary source of CO2 can be from everyday air - or air that's not as good as everyday, such as that in polluted cities. There is also the potential of creating an algae bioreactor inside an automobile's exhaust system. That's pretty far off in the future with what we've got right now, but possible.
The current state of the industry in algal fuel oil production is one of confusion. There are snake-oil salesmen (no pun intended) making wild claims about their proprietary, secret systems which are incredible (in the bad meaning of the word). These do not stand up to scientific scrutiny but seem to make headlines and sucker in some angel capital (or at least try to). Not all startups are frauds, however. There is some good progress being made by companies like Greenfuels Technologies. But there is a spectre haunting the market: the ghost of the coal-sands projects of the 1970s which spent billions of dollars without producing tangible returns. These were canceled during the Reagan era when gasoline became cheap again. People seem to have short memories. What would happen a company which produces these expensive fuels if the bottom drops out of the petroleum market? They'd quickly go bust. This is because there is not yet enough government incentives making it possible to compete with temporarily cheap petroleum. What is needed is thoughtful, large scale action by major governments around the world to develop the best alternative energy systems, be they wind, biofuels, even nuclear. For instance, the first thing needed is a moratorium on transportation fuel taxes, guaranteed for a period of time - say ten years. This means not only the removal of federal taxes on these fuels, but the prohibition of state and local taxes on them. Next, there needs to be encouragement for distribution of alternative fuels, such as local licensing boards requiring a certain proportion of fuel pumps to be alternative. There needs to be pressure put on the operators of large fleets of vehicles to utilize the fuels and vehicles for them, and incentives to make their refueling depots available for use by the public.
I could go into some of the technical details regarding the ideas I have on how to make various fuels in an economically viable manner. However, Slashdot isn't the place to go on at (even further) length. If you're interested in this type of stuff, there are several forums, such as Bio-Diesel Now, which I post on and encourage others to get involved with as well. Even so, as much as I'd like my ideas to be adopted, I'd also like some money for my inventions, so I am holding some thoughts back until I meet the right people to work with.
It's a shame that GreenFuels Technologies is right in the middle of the type of things I'd like to do in the algal fuels industry, and their offices are in the same city as me, but they seem to have no use for a computer techie as myself who would like to try his hand at a new industry (my inquiries about jo
Umm. Radio waves were predicted theoretically by Maxwell, and first generated intentionally by Hertz. All other names were developers of an already invented phenomenon.
Huh? What are you getting at? Maxwell and Hertz were scientists, not inventors. Scientists investigate natural phenomena, whereas inventors have a specific practical goal as their motivation.
And it is not entirely accurate to call Americans 'American'. Most of the early ones can be said to be 'of European origin'. They are the ones who ran away when living in Europe became a bit difficult.
Not really. Originally, 'native' meant someone who was born in a given area. In this sense, as I was born in the United States, I am a 'native American'. But a Native American has come to mean someone who is genetically and culturally descended from the people who populated North and South American continents (as opposed to 'American' meaning from the USA) prior to 1500AD.
While there is some room for debate as how the term 'European origin' can be used in this context, it is often used to mean a person who is not a 'native European', meaning they were not born in Europe. Things get interesting when you use the term 'of European descent', because you get into racial issues. Someone whose grandparents moved to England from Jamaica, and who has emigrated from England to the United States, is he considered Jamaican, English, or American? Generally, people label themselves with whatever is the most advantageous at the moment.
And as far as those who 'ran away when living in Europe became a bit difficult', that is an understatement. I hope it is purposefully so. Many of them left Europe with nothing more than their lives.
What is important is not that Fessenden broadcast a signal to ships at sea, but that he did it using an audio signal, i.e. music and speech. He invented radio telephony. Before Fessenden, radio was purely Marconi's radio telegraphy (morse code).
Also, it is not entirely accurate calling Fessenden Canadian. He lived in the US at the time of this breakthrough, and would for some time, before moving to Bermuda. He can be said to be of 'Canadian origin'.
I know much about Fessenden because of the house he had owned in Newton, Massachusetts during and after his Brant Rock experiments. After Fesseden's death, the house was sold to my mother's family, and she recalls that there was some strange laboratory equipment in the basement of that house, where she grew up. This house is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
When I was a kid, I used to listen and catalog all the broadcast stations I could pick up, starting with AM and FM and eventually (when my parents bought me a shortwave receiver), shortwave as well.
I recall that I was quite often able to pick up KDKA's Pittsburgh signal in Massachusetts. However, that is not the record distance on AM. Radio Moscow was a powerful pest of a signal, often wiping out everything at the bottom of the AM band. It was broadcast from Cuba. A couple of times I was able to pick up WHO in Des Moines (famous because at one time Ronald Reagan had been an announcer there).
Radio was much more interesting back then. Today, it's full of talk and religious broadcasts. Back in the late 70s and 80s, people actually listened to AM for music, and of course there was the interesting cold war propaganda of various types, mostly on shortwave.
During the ten seasons, the SG1 team has managed to piss off a lot of people, both on Earth and other places, and I don't mean just the Goa'uld. There's enough loose ends out there to weave together to create a practical united foe against SGC/Earth. For instance, what if someone survived from Euronda, joined up with some guys (The Trust or not - it would be interesting for us to find out what schisms happened within the NID/Trust/etc) who had become stranded off earth when using the second gate (i.e. we find out that O'Neill's double-crossing didn't clean up the whole nest of them), and manage to bust Loki out of whatever jail the Asgard are holding him in. Maybe they do some commerce with Ba'al. I'd love to see this, but it would become really confusing for people who haven't followed the series for ten years, unless it is very carefully written. This is in fact something I could do. I am available for hire:)
I checked out the oscar site. I am not impressed. There's a lot of flakes saying "no piston engine" and similar things in the forums. I wish their registration system worked so I could set them straight on their own forums. Much of the rational behind an OScar is for use in underdeveloped countries. But it's a shame. It's as though these people have no clue about what it's like in a developing country.
* There's not a lot many repair stations, and fewer that are reptuable when dealing with strangers. The car must be as easy to repair as possible, on the side of the road. This means to use as many standardized parts as is possible. There's a nice standard already available: NATO truck parts. Not sure how well it scales down to the consumer automobile, but that's not really important: It's more important to have buses and trucks in the developing world than cars. But there's also a need for moped and motorcycles. Cars are really secondary.
* Energy efficiency does have value, but not so much as other considerations. Without a good pool of qualified mechanics, many of these vehicles are going to be out of tune. There needs to be a design where the vehicles can be badly maintained and not self-destruct, and more importantly for the rest of the world: Not have horrible emissions.
* There needs to be a "base" which can be extended to a variety of uses. i.e., a tractor, a bus, an ambulance, a freight hauling truck, a refrigerated truck. It's much easier to work with wood in underdeveloped countries, so it should be easy to build a wood cabin on top of the truck frame.
* What has to be sheet metal, should be as easy to bend as possible. This rules out many of the the ultra-aerodynamic designs seen on the OScar project. You don't even have to go to Mexico to see cars have rust holes repaired with beer cars. This is what is going to happen and should be easy to do.
* The roads in underdeveloped countries are going to suck. This is another reason why NATO truck standards may be the best place to start. Imagine one of the Volkswagen beetles being touted by some people handling that death road in Bolivia. Ha ha! We need a good adaptation of existing suspensions of things like the Pinzgauer, but done inexpensively. At the very least, 4 wheel drive.
* Of course you have to use metric. And use as few sizes of screws/bolts as possible, so fewer tools and replacement bolts need to be carried in the toolbox which will accompany the vehicle everywhere.
* Forget the complex and compact engine compartment of modern automobiles. Once of the nice things about older (pre 1980) american cars is the spacious interior of the engine compartment - making them easy to work on. Modern cars require you to remove the engine to replace the spark plugs (well, I am exaggerating, but you get the idea).
* Vehicles need to be capable of using multiple fuels. By this I mean Diesel, biodiesel, straight vegetable oil, and kerosene. Another engine type might be able to use octane (gasoline) and several types of alcohols.
* There has to be a crank or similar way to start the vehicle with a dead battery.
* In such envirnoments lights tend to get broken. Have a backup system of LED lights for minimum driver navigation and detection by other vehicles in addition to the standard incandescent system. LEDs are tougher.
* There needs to be training programs for vehicle owners/mechanics. Manuals need to be published for such repairs, manuals that are able to survive the elements. Manuals should be bilingual, with English and the native language side-by-side.
* Horns needs to be manual, bulb-pneumatic types. It seems that some people think of horns as a way to say "hello". This needs to be discourages. It should take physical effort to make noise, to help keep the din to a minimum and to lend value to the actual noise being made, so that it gathers attention. You should have to expend a lot of effort to make a loud noise.
* CB radio or similar should be considered standard equipment i
Out where my parents live, not all networks provide reliable coverage. Verizon seems to be the best in that regards. Unfortunately, they're bad in terms of their pre-paid plans. I am hoping there is a pre-paid brand that resells Verizon service at more reasonable terms. If anyone can tell me which pre-paid brands use which physical networks, it would be most helpful.
Instead of just grinding up 4 year old computers, they can be put to other uses. There ought to be more effort put into reuse before recycle. For instance, if you have some old computer you need to get rid of, at least post it up on the free section of craigslist or freecycle first. You don't even have to make a big fuss about it. Just tell people to pick it up off your porch, or say you've put it on the curb for the trash collectors the next morning, someone hurry and get it if they want. Just communicate! It doesn't take much effort.
This doesn't go for just computers. You might be surprised how easy it is to get rid of everything from old clothes to building material to cellphones.
This article was not well written. It neglected to mention a very promising source of H2, and that is from algae. It has been discovered that depriving certain algae of oxygen and sulfur at a specific stage in its growth causes it to switch to an alternative, anaerobic, photosynthetic path.
But really, I am not so sure that Hydrogen is really such a great energy storage media due to the low temperature required to make it a liquid. Perhpas we can improve ways to entrap it in other liquids or solids, but that technology is far off. I think that the better fuels, for now, are biodiesel, SVO (straight vegetable oil), and Octane (the algae Botryococcus Braunii can create alkanes directly crackable to octane, i.e. good old gasoline!).
The farm industry has been wielding an inordinate amount of clout in influencing government interest in biofuels. They want to keep using corn and soy oils for biodiesel and alcohol, when these crops are quite inefficient when compared to the production capability of algae. While I agree that the greatest good of the country requires us to grow what appears to be a surplus of food (just in case there is a bad crop, we'll not starve), and that it is better to create corn/soy meal and oils from it, it would be inefficient to depend on these crops for all of our vegetable oil needs.
I am happy to see that the majority of people commenting to this article actually are correct when they clarify what Real Time means. This gives me new hope fot Slashdot. Thank you.
Now, whether or not it's a good business decision for Novell to go down this road is another question.
I've been been bankrupted by my involvement with a free municipal wifi project. For the better part of a year, I've been plugging away at developement, installation, and worst of all, attending endless meetings. The problem is that once you give the consumer (the public, the city, whomever) some free work, and talk about how you really like the open source movement, they think you'll do everything for free. They think that money just grows on trees for you, or that you are living in your parents' basement and content with it. Well, it doesn't work that way. Sure, I put in time and money towards seeing a worthy project get off the ground, but I am not going to carry the whole burden all the way to the projects completion. There needs to be some fundraising, and most especially, a system of paying for specific problems to be worked on.
I've basically dropped all work on the muni wifi project, but there's an effort on to find the next sucker to do some work on it. I doubt it's going to happen - the deadlines are long since missed, and they can't even get volunteers to update and freshen the web page. Cognitive dissonance at work here.
I really hope DUNC-TANK can reach the folks who realize that while there are many contributors, you need a few talented, full-time people to meet deadlines by coordinating efforts and delegating work. These people have real lives, and need to be paid.
It is encouraging that there may be "earth like" planets out there. But not so much as for us to find alien life as it is for us to have new planets to colonize. I say this because there are many possible configurations which can lead to intelligence. But let's top for a moment and figure out what defines the intelligence that we seek: well, it's difficult to figure out. Cats and dogs seem to have something, but also something missing. Well, that missing part is recursion in the thought process. It is what allows us to manipulate abstract concepts and to have our complex language. I really lack the time and space to go into the whole theory here, but you can look up what Prof. Marc Hauser of Harvard has to say on the topic.
Back to aliens: what is needed is a system which lends itself towards complex and changing conditions, such as an an environment with a temperature range which supports frequent phase changes of a major compent material (like water here on earth), some method of distributing materials around (volcanoes, rain, tides). There are going to be plenty of places like this in the universe, but what we eventually find to be intelligent life may not even appear to us as a life form at first, because it will be vastly different than anything we have likely experienced. except, well....
Viruses. It could be that the genetic system we now know of has orginiated elsewhere and adapted on this planet. This is the theory of Panspermia, which has a lot going for it. But even if panspermia exists, it is likely that the vast majority of intelligent life that we find in the universe will not be made of it.
NetBSD has really fallen behind in the embedded space. I blame some of this on Wasabi systems, who took NetBSD embedded stuff and went closed-source with it. They've got some NetBSD developers on staff. They've got an arrogant, anti-Linux attitude and pushy sales people. They have a really high price for their software, which still doesn't run on the platform I want to develop for (certain MIPSel chips). Linux does all of what I needed for free, does it well, and there's even OpenWRT in quite active development.
I was at a recent Linux Users' group meeting and a fellow there pointed out that NetBSD counts every variation of architecture as a different platform, where as Linux only counts major changes in architecure as a new platform. If you count the platforms in the same manner, then Linux is ahead...and far ahead.
But a biggest question is how much this portability really matters to a lot of people. I got rid of my Sun3 a couple of years ago, it was my last NetBSD machine. Sure, it's nice to have an OS that will work on old hardware such as this but so what? What is there to draw new developers and new energy to the project?
I don't think that NetBSD will 'die', but it could become so obscure that the vast majority of the planet doesn't know of it's existance. If maintenance dwindles to the point where a major security hole is discovered and not fixed, then there will be a sharp drop in the number of users.
As much as I find Theo DeRaadt an frustrating and conceited person, he's brought a lot of vitality to OpenBSD, enough so that it keeps going strong in spite of his disenfranchisement of many people. I think the only reason why some people stay with NetBSD is their strong hatred of Theo.
Kids these days...they think that four digit slashdot UIDs are old-school...back when I was young, we thought that three digit UIDs were newbies, and we used to count in roman numerals...
Seriously though..six digit UIDs are not old school
Slashdot Mirror
You're right; storage is a real problem. We've become accustomed to electricity available at the flick of a switch, transport available at the turn of an ignition key, etc. It's less glamorous than the new methods of energy capture (new methods = solar, wind, biodiesel, etc) but there are very many people employed smoothing out the demand curve, so as to maximize the efficiency of the infrastructure we now have. For instance, if aluminum is only made in places and at times where electricity is cheap, much energy and money are saved. That means, at some point on the grid where there's not a lot of loss from the generation point (i.e. close to a power plant, but in other cases as well) and at times when demand is low (i.e. NOT when its a hot day and all of California turns on their air conditioners!). But it gets complicated, because the availability of energy graphs very 'step like' where as demand graphs more 'curved'.
There are parts of this planet where the wind blows almost constantly, strongly, and in one direction. One of these places is the Kerguelen Islands in the extreme south Indian ocean. These practically uninhabited islands (I believe the only human presence is some scientific outpost), owned by France, would be an ideal place to set up wind turbines to power industrial processes that require a great deal of electricity, such as aluminum production. Because of their remoteness, the transportation and labor costs would be high, but after some time they would start to decline, and other factories (such as metal plating) would be profitable to operate there.
Now, in regards to the original topic: I don't think this breakthrough is very practical. The amount of aluminum required is just too high. We might as well be using lead-acid batteries.
Thank you, AndrewRUK. I was too lazy to go dig out the references ;)
I'd like to point out that I am not against the creation of more sovereign states. Far from it, I hope to do so myself some day. But it's a very tricky task and there is no shortage of organizations and vague forces against you. Such people will attempt to find any excuse to undermine any claim to sovereignty, and the two above mentioned treaties are very convenient and straightforward ways to slap down such projects as Sealand. Bates had a lot of fun out there in the channel but half a million pounds is a lot to ask for the grown-up's playhouse that Sealand is. It goes to show how ill-conceived The Pirate Party is and how their grasp greatly extends their reach.
Personally, I think that the Cult of the Dead Cow would have a higher success rate in trying to create a sovereign country.
Maritime law ("Law of the sea") states that artificial islands have no territorial waters. Therefore, it's all too easy for some powerful organization to lay seige to Sealand and starve them out.
Really, Sovereignty requires a bit more than just proclaiming yourself king. Even nations with more legitimate claims to nationhood have been strong-armed by the OECD's policy on tax-havens and money laundering. Do you think that Sealand would have much of a chance in that case?
If there was a really serious, well thought out effort towards making an enlightened and libre country I'd lend my support. But this isn't it. It's not even close.
Your shunning of the rural population is noted. I think you're being way too dismissive of their value to you as a suburban or urban person. Agricultural subsidies are ugly, but a necessity. While urban infrastructure is much more expensive per mile, there are many more miles of infrastructure in rural areas. However, rural infrastructure is necessary for getting agricultural products to the cities, and also for getting between cities.
I can tell you that many rural people are tired of paying subsidies for big cities: The huge construction projects like The Big Dig, expensive anti-crime programs to fight violence which is hardly a problem in most rural areas, and a host of other problems.
It's funny that you call their lifestyle 'cute'. I suppose for some retirees, second-home owners, and gentleman farmers it is cute. But the vast majority of them are hard working, honest and reasonably intelligent people.
Thanks for mentioning the Radmax! I was going to do so. It's a next-generation rotary, for those of who who haven't checked the link, that promises to solve a lot of problems with the Wankel engine and has a very high power to weight ratio. I'd like to see how well some other combustion improvements, such as the Atkinson cycle and the addition of small amounts of hydrogen into the combustion chamber. I'd also like to see how well this engine design would do when adapted to multi-fuel use, i.e. gasoline, diesel, kerosene, straight vegetable oil, or an alcohol.
Regarding taxes on trucks / SUVs. This is a silly idea.First of all, there are many people that do need trucks for one reason or another. For instance, hauling firewood doesn't work to well in your Prius. Or carpooling - supposedly a great thing - how many people can you fit in a Prius?
Another thing that irritates me is that there is not enough attention paid to the rural population's transportation needs. The rural population tends to have less income, yet has to travel longer distances in order to do shopping, go to the doctor, etc. and often for work. They often need the benefits that a real SUV is supposed to offer, including 4WD, larger wheels, etc because driving conditions can get really bad.
Rural people don't need to waste gas, but do need different vehicles than are often considered 'environmentally correct'. For instance, the Subaru Brat was a bit hit in Northern New England when it was introduced because it provided an inexpensive 4WD pickup with great gas mileage. We need more of these types of vehicles. Not just commuter cars.
Note: I don't even own a car. I am not defending any choice I have made.
Legacy users ought to fork the Fedora project in order to support their releases. Surely, there has to be enough talent out there to do this...oh wait, let me guess, you want other people to do the hard work for you, for free? Hrm...better try Ubuntu.
No, seriously, I don't use Fedora so I don't really care that much. But those feeling burned by this ought to unite and take over the legacy support.
Oil from Algae has great potential. Contrary to what one poster said, there are strains of algae that produce a very large amount of oil. Up to 70% of the dry weight, but more likely around 40%. My favorite algae is Botryococcus braunii because it creates Alkanes, which can be used directly as fuel or transformed into the chemical equivalent of the petroleum fuels we know and love - i.e. Octane, Kerosene, etc. This happens without the inefficiency inherent in the production of biodiesel.
It is true that the carbon so sequestered is again released into the atmosphere. This is unfortunate, but not as much of a problem as it seems at first glance. While the 'low hanging fruit' in terms of surplus CO2 is such industrial processes as fermenting of wine and coal-fired power plants, the secondary source of CO2 can be from everyday air - or air that's not as good as everyday, such as that in polluted cities. There is also the potential of creating an algae bioreactor inside an automobile's exhaust system. That's pretty far off in the future with what we've got right now, but possible.
The current state of the industry in algal fuel oil production is one of confusion. There are snake-oil salesmen (no pun intended) making wild claims about their proprietary, secret systems which are incredible (in the bad meaning of the word). These do not stand up to scientific scrutiny but seem to make headlines and sucker in some angel capital (or at least try to). Not all startups are frauds, however. There is some good progress being made by companies like Greenfuels Technologies. But there is a spectre haunting the market: the ghost of the coal-sands projects of the 1970s which spent billions of dollars without producing tangible returns. These were canceled during the Reagan era when gasoline became cheap again. People seem to have short memories. What would happen a company which produces these expensive fuels if the bottom drops out of the petroleum market? They'd quickly go bust. This is because there is not yet enough government incentives making it possible to compete with temporarily cheap petroleum. What is needed is thoughtful, large scale action by major governments around the world to develop the best alternative energy systems, be they wind, biofuels, even nuclear. For instance, the first thing needed is a moratorium on transportation fuel taxes, guaranteed for a period of time - say ten years. This means not only the removal of federal taxes on these fuels, but the prohibition of state and local taxes on them. Next, there needs to be encouragement for distribution of alternative fuels, such as local licensing boards requiring a certain proportion of fuel pumps to be alternative. There needs to be pressure put on the operators of large fleets of vehicles to utilize the fuels and vehicles for them, and incentives to make their refueling depots available for use by the public.
I could go into some of the technical details regarding the ideas I have on how to make various fuels in an economically viable manner. However, Slashdot isn't the place to go on at (even further) length. If you're interested in this type of stuff, there are several forums, such as Bio-Diesel Now, which I post on and encourage others to get involved with as well. Even so, as much as I'd like my ideas to be adopted, I'd also like some money for my inventions, so I am holding some thoughts back until I meet the right people to work with.
It's a shame that GreenFuels Technologies is right in the middle of the type of things I'd like to do in the algal fuels industry, and their offices are in the same city as me, but they seem to have no use for a computer techie as myself who would like to try his hand at a new industry (my inquiries about jo
Huh? What are you getting at? Maxwell and Hertz were scientists, not inventors. Scientists investigate natural phenomena, whereas inventors have a specific practical goal as their motivation.
And it is not entirely accurate to call Americans 'American'. Most of the early ones can be said to be 'of European origin'. They are the ones who ran away when living in Europe became a bit difficult.
Not really. Originally, 'native' meant someone who was born in a given area. In this sense, as I was born in the United States, I am a 'native American'. But a Native American has come to mean someone who is genetically and culturally descended from the people who populated North and South American continents (as opposed to 'American' meaning from the USA) prior to 1500AD.
While there is some room for debate as how the term 'European origin' can be used in this context, it is often used to mean a person who is not a 'native European', meaning they were not born in Europe. Things get interesting when you use the term 'of European descent', because you get into racial issues. Someone whose grandparents moved to England from Jamaica, and who has emigrated from England to the United States, is he considered Jamaican, English, or American? Generally, people label themselves with whatever is the most advantageous at the moment.
And as far as those who 'ran away when living in Europe became a bit difficult', that is an understatement. I hope it is purposefully so. Many of them left Europe with nothing more than their lives.
What is important is not that Fessenden broadcast a signal to ships at sea, but that he did it using an audio signal, i.e. music and speech. He invented radio telephony. Before Fessenden, radio was purely Marconi's radio telegraphy (morse code).
Also, it is not entirely accurate calling Fessenden Canadian. He lived in the US at the time of this breakthrough, and would for some time, before moving to Bermuda. He can be said to be of 'Canadian origin'.
I know much about Fessenden because of the house he had owned in Newton, Massachusetts during and after his Brant Rock experiments. After Fesseden's death, the house was sold to my mother's family, and she recalls that there was some strange laboratory equipment in the basement of that house, where she grew up. This house is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
When I was a kid, I used to listen and catalog all the broadcast stations I could pick up, starting with AM and FM and eventually (when my parents bought me a shortwave receiver), shortwave as well.
I recall that I was quite often able to pick up KDKA's Pittsburgh signal in Massachusetts. However, that is not the record distance on AM. Radio Moscow was a powerful pest of a signal, often wiping out everything at the bottom of the AM band. It was broadcast from Cuba. A couple of times I was able to pick up WHO in Des Moines (famous because at one time Ronald Reagan had been an announcer there).
Radio was much more interesting back then. Today, it's full of talk and religious broadcasts. Back in the late 70s and 80s, people actually listened to AM for music, and of course there was the interesting cold war propaganda of various types, mostly on shortwave.
During the ten seasons, the SG1 team has managed to piss off a lot of people, both on Earth and other places, and I don't mean just the Goa'uld. There's enough loose ends out there to weave together to create a practical united foe against SGC/Earth. For instance, what if someone survived from Euronda, joined up with some guys (The Trust or not - it would be interesting for us to find out what schisms happened within the NID/Trust/etc) who had become stranded off earth when using the second gate (i.e. we find out that O'Neill's double-crossing didn't clean up the whole nest of them), and manage to bust Loki out of whatever jail the Asgard are holding him in. Maybe they do some commerce with Ba'al. I'd love to see this, but it would become really confusing for people who haven't followed the series for ten years, unless it is very carefully written. This is in fact something I could do. I am available for hire :)
What Would Zardoz Do?
I checked out the oscar site. I am not impressed. There's a lot of flakes saying "no piston engine" and similar things in the forums. I wish their registration system worked so I could set them straight on their own forums. Much of the rational behind an OScar is for use in underdeveloped countries. But it's a shame. It's as though these people have no clue about what it's like in a developing country.
* There's not a lot many repair stations, and fewer that are reptuable when dealing with strangers. The car must be as easy to repair as possible, on the side of the road. This means to use as many standardized parts as is possible. There's a nice standard already available: NATO truck parts. Not sure how well it scales down to the consumer automobile, but that's not really important: It's more important to have buses and trucks in the developing world than cars. But there's also a need for moped and motorcycles. Cars are really secondary.
* Energy efficiency does have value, but not so much as other considerations. Without a good pool of qualified mechanics, many of these vehicles are going to be out of tune. There needs to be a design where the vehicles can be badly maintained and not self-destruct, and more importantly for the rest of the world: Not have horrible emissions.
* There needs to be a "base" which can be extended to a variety of uses. i.e., a tractor, a bus, an ambulance, a freight hauling truck, a refrigerated truck. It's much easier to work with wood in underdeveloped countries, so it should be easy to build a wood cabin on top of the truck frame.
* What has to be sheet metal, should be as easy to bend as possible. This rules out many of the the ultra-aerodynamic designs seen on the OScar project. You don't even have to go to Mexico to see cars have rust holes repaired with beer cars. This is what is going to happen and should be easy to do.
* The roads in underdeveloped countries are going to suck. This is another reason why NATO truck standards may be the best place to start. Imagine one of the Volkswagen beetles being touted by some people handling that death road in Bolivia. Ha ha! We need a good adaptation of existing suspensions of things like the Pinzgauer, but done inexpensively. At the very least, 4 wheel drive.
* Of course you have to use metric. And use as few sizes of screws/bolts as possible, so fewer tools and replacement bolts need to be carried in the toolbox which will accompany the vehicle everywhere.
* Forget the complex and compact engine compartment of modern automobiles. Once of the nice things about older (pre 1980) american cars is the spacious interior of the engine compartment - making them easy to work on. Modern cars require you to remove the engine to replace the spark plugs (well, I am exaggerating, but you get the idea).
* Vehicles need to be capable of using multiple fuels. By this I mean Diesel, biodiesel, straight vegetable oil, and kerosene. Another engine type might be able to use octane (gasoline) and several types of alcohols.
* There has to be a crank or similar way to start the vehicle with a dead battery.
* In such envirnoments lights tend to get broken. Have a backup system of LED lights for minimum driver navigation and detection by other vehicles in addition to the standard incandescent system. LEDs are tougher.
* There needs to be training programs for vehicle owners/mechanics. Manuals need to be published for such repairs, manuals that are able to survive the elements. Manuals should be bilingual, with English and the native language side-by-side.
* Horns needs to be manual, bulb-pneumatic types. It seems that some people think of horns as a way to say "hello". This needs to be discourages. It should take physical effort to make noise, to help keep the din to a minimum and to lend value to the actual noise being made, so that it gathers attention. You should have to expend a lot of effort to make a loud noise.
* CB radio or similar should be considered standard equipment i
Out where my parents live, not all networks provide reliable coverage. Verizon seems to be the best in that regards. Unfortunately, they're bad in terms of their pre-paid plans. I am hoping there is a pre-paid brand that resells Verizon service at more reasonable terms. If anyone can tell me which pre-paid brands use which physical networks, it would be most helpful.
Instead of just grinding up 4 year old computers, they can be put to other uses. There ought to be more effort put into reuse before recycle. For instance, if you have some old computer you need to get rid of, at least post it up on the free section of craigslist or freecycle first. You don't even have to make a big fuss about it. Just tell people to pick it up off your porch, or say you've put it on the curb for the trash collectors the next morning, someone hurry and get it if they want. Just communicate! It doesn't take much effort.
This doesn't go for just computers. You might be surprised how easy it is to get rid of everything from old clothes to building material to cellphones.
This article was not well written. It neglected to mention a very promising source of H2, and that is from algae. It has been discovered that depriving certain algae of oxygen and sulfur at a specific stage in its growth causes it to switch to an alternative, anaerobic, photosynthetic path.
But really, I am not so sure that Hydrogen is really such a great energy storage media due to the low temperature required to make it a liquid. Perhpas we can improve ways to entrap it in other liquids or solids, but that technology is far off. I think that the better fuels, for now, are biodiesel, SVO (straight vegetable oil), and Octane (the algae Botryococcus Braunii can create alkanes directly crackable to octane, i.e. good old gasoline!).
The farm industry has been wielding an inordinate amount of clout in influencing government interest in biofuels. They want to keep using corn and soy oils for biodiesel and alcohol, when these crops are quite inefficient when compared to the production capability of algae. While I agree that the greatest good of the country requires us to grow what appears to be a surplus of food (just in case there is a bad crop, we'll not starve), and that it is better to create corn/soy meal and oils from it, it would be inefficient to depend on these crops for all of our vegetable oil needs.
Too bad they only support Sangoma serial cards.
Screw this crap....anyone have a torrent for this?
I've actually never been in a WalMart. Yes, I live in the US.
I am happy to see that the majority of people commenting to this article actually are correct when they clarify what Real Time means. This gives me new hope fot Slashdot. Thank you.
Now, whether or not it's a good business decision for Novell to go down this road is another question.
If this works, it's a great idea.
I've been been bankrupted by my involvement with a free municipal wifi project. For the better part of a year, I've been plugging away at developement, installation, and worst of all, attending endless meetings. The problem is that once you give the consumer (the public, the city, whomever) some free work, and talk about how you really like the open source movement, they think you'll do everything for free. They think that money just grows on trees for you, or that you are living in your parents' basement and content with it. Well, it doesn't work that way. Sure, I put in time and money towards seeing a worthy project get off the ground, but I am not going to carry the whole burden all the way to the projects completion. There needs to be some fundraising, and most especially, a system of paying for specific problems to be worked on.
I've basically dropped all work on the muni wifi project, but there's an effort on to find the next sucker to do some work on it. I doubt it's going to happen - the deadlines are long since missed, and they can't even get volunteers to update and freshen the web page. Cognitive dissonance at work here.
I really hope DUNC-TANK can reach the folks who realize that while there are many contributors, you need a few talented, full-time people to meet deadlines by coordinating efforts and delegating work. These people have real lives, and need to be paid.
It is encouraging that there may be "earth like" planets out there. But not so much as for us to find alien life as it is for us to have new planets to colonize. I say this because there are many possible configurations which can lead to intelligence. But let's top for a moment and figure out what defines the intelligence that we seek: well, it's difficult to figure out. Cats and dogs seem to have something, but also something missing. Well, that missing part is recursion in the thought process. It is what allows us to manipulate abstract concepts and to have our complex language. I really lack the time and space to go into the whole theory here, but you can look up what Prof. Marc Hauser of Harvard has to say on the topic.
Back to aliens: what is needed is a system which lends itself towards complex and changing conditions, such as an an environment with a temperature range which supports frequent phase changes of a major compent material (like water here on earth), some method of distributing materials around (volcanoes, rain, tides). There are going to be plenty of places like this in the universe, but what we eventually find to be intelligent life may not even appear to us as a life form at first, because it will be vastly different than anything we have likely experienced. except, well....
Viruses. It could be that the genetic system we now know of has orginiated elsewhere and adapted on this planet. This is the theory of Panspermia, which has a lot going for it. But even if panspermia exists, it is likely that the vast majority of intelligent life that we find in the universe will not be made of it.
NetBSD has really fallen behind in the embedded space. I blame some of this on Wasabi systems, who took NetBSD embedded stuff and went closed-source with it. They've got some NetBSD developers on staff. They've got an arrogant, anti-Linux attitude and pushy sales people. They have a really high price for their software, which still doesn't run on the platform I want to develop for (certain MIPSel chips). Linux does all of what I needed for free, does it well, and there's even OpenWRT
in quite active development.
I was at a recent Linux Users' group meeting and a fellow there pointed out that NetBSD counts every variation of architecture as a different platform, where as Linux only counts major changes in architecure as a new platform. If you count the platforms in the same manner, then Linux is ahead...and far ahead.
But a biggest question is how much this portability really matters to a lot of people. I got rid of my Sun3 a couple of years ago, it was my last NetBSD machine. Sure, it's nice to have an OS that will work on old hardware such as this but so what? What is there to draw new developers and new energy to the project?
I don't think that NetBSD will 'die', but it could become so obscure that the vast majority of the planet doesn't know of it's existance. If maintenance dwindles to the point where a major security hole is discovered and not fixed, then there will be a sharp drop in the number of users.
As much as I find Theo DeRaadt an frustrating and conceited person, he's brought a lot of vitality to OpenBSD, enough so that it keeps going strong in spite of his disenfranchisement of many people. I think the only reason why some people stay with NetBSD is their strong hatred of Theo.
Kids these days...they think that four digit slashdot UIDs are old-school...back when I was young, we thought that three digit UIDs were newbies, and we used to count in roman numerals...
Seriously though..six digit UIDs are not old school