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User: WillAffleck

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  1. Admittedly, most of these were for Quaker groups on FBI Releases Secret Subpoena Information · · Score: 1

    and other supposed terrorists who are protesting our involvement in the Iraq War.

    Meanwhile, Osama is happily living in Pakistan.

  2. Re:The only question is copyright on Ideal EULA for Custom Software? · · Score: 1

    additionally, since it is literally impossible to amend such EULAs by the signer, they are not a true contract, which a real contractee can line out and initial with changes.

  3. Re:Or is it a good way to become oil-independent? on Tiny Biodiesel Reactors · · Score: 1

    Silliness, Photovoltaics give a much higher efficiency than that. Fuel cells are a great way to store that energy. Biodiesel is a great way to use leftover french fry grease, but large scale production is dumb.

    Good point, modern photovoltaics in fact do have higher net efficiencies at converting sunlight to electric power, than most biofuels currently available.

    However, the process of creating photovoltaic cells, especially the flexible film solar cells, does create a lot of pollution at the time of creation, which is minimal if viewed over the effective 20+ year lifetime, whereas biofuels created with agricultural products bioengineered for such use and grown in organic conditions without excess inorganic fertilizer have a lower pollution yield per KWhr created.

    However, if we look at using biofuel crops as a method of effective organic crop rotation, with low water usage crops, then it creates a net positive yield compared to photovoltaic cells.

  4. Re:Really? or why Universities Love Printers on Tiny Biodiesel Reactors · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Looks at printer sized bio diesel generator: ...REPLACE CYAN BIO DIESEL CARTRIDGE...

    This guy must really like printers.


    Actually, many scientific labs at state universities use printers and printer heads a lot - for example, a new sealed plastic crystal suspension device created at the University of Washington uses HP inkjets (cheap to get, and colored Husky Purple) to deliver reagants in controlled amounts into plastic tubes which are then sealed by laser.

    Every university has a section that recycles computers and printers - so it's easy to divert some of them for use in development of new technologies.

    Thus, using printer technology to create a biodiesel converter is not that unusual.

  5. Or is it a good way to become oil-independent? on Tiny Biodiesel Reactors · · Score: 3, Informative

    The energy returned on energy invested for biofuel is about 1/10th what it is for petroleum

    According to scientific papers searchable in ScienceDirect (if you have university access), the Netherlands is acheiving around 40 percent energy - and since it's derived from solar radiation (sun on plants), this is a lot more efficient than our current 30 percent usage of Canadian Tar Oil Sands, which uses barrels of oil to release more oil from the sands.

    So, from that perspective, it's more efficient.

    Now, it's true that the energy density is not as high, so long-distance movement of such fuels is not as useful as local power plant usage, or local heating. That's a function of caloric mass content and BTU/m2 - but we're only beginning to develop this source, so one can easily expect higher yields as we manipulate the plant genomes and conversion processes.

  6. Re:NaOH is a reactant not a catalyst on Tiny Biodiesel Reactors · · Score: 1

    doesn't it depend on the actual charge and resultant biochemical structure?

    for example, it could have a double positive charge ++ or even a negative ionized charge.

  7. Re:I think we should use animal fat on Tiny Biodiesel Reactors · · Score: 1

    It's more concentrated in terms of caloric value (energy).

    Plus, PETA's reaction would be hysterical.


    Well, first of all, the biodiesel reactor is the size of a credit card.

    For animal fat, well, I always use a frying pan - that's a bit bigger.

    And the global warming gas used in growing animals is a lot more than that in growing plants, so ...

  8. Will that be cash - or biodiesel? on Tiny Biodiesel Reactors · · Score: 4, Funny

    I find it interesting that the biodiesel reactor is - literally - the size of a credit card.

    Biodiesel car upgrade $50
    New fuel lines $80
    Energy independence ... Priceless!

    For a free fuel life, there's GTA
    For everything else, there's BiodieselCard.

  9. Re:HAHAHA on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    No, the same city council that hated the monorail sold the city's future bus service for 20 years to get an unvoted streetcar for Paul Allen, of Microsoft fame.

    They're in denial and most likely none of the incumbents will make it thru the election, as they all have less than 50 percent of the vote.

  10. Re:Let's Do the Timewarp Again on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 2

    it was just put up for a FIFTH vote this Friday - and most coverage was in the Sunday papers, so it's not a timewarp.

  11. Re:Does this mean they'll fix launch.yahoo.com bug on Firefox 1.1 Scrapped · · Score: 1

    Someone could write an extension that makes launch work in firefox, couldn't they? Someone wrote a script to make the videos play in xbox media center, so it's not impossible to make something that makes it work in other non-IE/non-Windows stuff.

    I'm using it on a laptop with WinXP and FireFox/Opera and was hoping to not use IE at all.

    Someone posted an extension, but I'm not sure if it's Linux - will try that and see - either way if it does work, it should be in the FAQ, not Obscured By Omission like MSFT does.

  12. People will never accept lossy VoIP on New Study Finds VOIP is Getting Better · · Score: 1

    just as they never accepted lossy formats like MP3, JPEG, and so on.

    Um, what's this iPod I see before me ...

  13. Racing from tyranny to freedom on Solar-Powered Cars Race fron Austin to Calgary · · Score: 2, Interesting

    too bad it's uphill, but at least most of the route is flat.

    One interesting impact will be that if you fail to make it all the way, you start off receiving more solar radiation (power) at the beginning of the race than you have at the end of the race, as you start closer to the equator than you finish at.

    Thus, a system with a slightly better power storage system (battery) and more efficient battery cycles, might have an edge in the race over a more efficient vehicle with a smaller battery storage and/or less efficient battery cycles.

    I remember being a founding member of SESCI, Inc. way back when, so this route is really fun ...

  14. I've seen code burning off the shores of Orion on Is Programming Art? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    elegent code structures destroyed in the Core Wars, slashdotted into non-existence, their crystalline object orientated shells collapsing from the fires of method calls overloaded to the point of breaking.

    And I've also seen rusting hulks of code, slapped together with variable names like A1, A2, A3, A4 - used for text, numeric, array, and object types at the same time.

    Programming is an Art and a Science. Darned few artists out there at the best of times, and not that many scientists either, sadly.

  15. Wednesday the 13th on Discovery Set to Launch July 13 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They were going to leave on July 4th, but someone pointed out the space highways would be crowded then, and liquid NOX prices would be higher.

    So they decided to go surfing for a week before, to beat the crowds.

  16. Re:Is it just me, or why not explain it better? on Eclipse 3.1 Released · · Score: 1

    well, we're still using version 9 of JBuilder, as the rest of the team is running the older SDK and our Java 1.5 code release isn't until July.

  17. Re:Come to think of it... on Eclipse 3.1 Released · · Score: 1

    I am a long time UltraEdit user myself. But almost none of my Java code goes into UltraEdit anymore. The Eclipse IDE is much, much more productive and it's code insight / refactoring support makes the difference. The debugger is pretty good as well.

    Most of my Java code is in the IDE - or occassionally I edit it raw in Star*Team.

    I do still use UltraEdit obviously. For example for testing the new Java 5.0 versions before eclipse supported it in their 3.1 alpha and beta versions. And it is much better for viewing log files, opening lots of text files, its hex editor is more advanced, it's support for.. well you get the gist.

    I do a lot more Perl scripting - since I'm a bioinformatician - so I find UltraEdit fits a lot of my needs. Have a lot of log files and text files - so probably why I use that.

    But for Java projects, you need an IDE to be productive. I think Eclipse is pretty good and pretty intuitive, but there are several other good (and sometimes free) solutions.

    Currently as I said I just use the ones with JBuilder and StarTeam since that's what the dev team in the other UW uses.

    But thanks for the info! Useful to know.

  18. Re:Well, that's probably why. on Eclipse 3.1 Released · · Score: 1

    I've since found out that most of the interest in this has been from March until June of this year, so considering I switched careers from standard development to Bioinformatics - even tho we use many of the same tools - it probably just looked like Yet Another Thing That Will Pass when I saw the email alerts from sys-con.

    So, next time someone submits a post, hopefully they'll include a brief description and a link to the faq and bugtraq pages.

  19. He who has the Biggest Speakers wins! on 13.1 Surround Sound Coming to a Home near you? · · Score: 1

    wasn't that what we said back in the 70's?

    But the reality is, it's not how big your speakers are, it's whether or not your room is configured correctly and the sound absorption and focus characteristics.

    That, plus you can have the best speakers in the world - but if you still watch the movie alone, you lose.

  20. Re:I'm going out on 13.1 Surround Sound Coming to a Home near you? · · Score: 1

    Why bother with any of this home theatre crap? It costs a lot of money and the standards are always changing, so there's always going to be something new/better on the horizon. Thank goodness I have decent theatres near where I live - I'm simply going to ignore home theatres and continue to enjoy taking my wife out on movie dates.

    That, plus the popcorn and butter won't get in your couch.

  21. We should terraform Alaska on Terraforming - Human Destiny or Hubris? · · Score: 1

    it's not like there's any life there anyway.

    Seriously, the concept of terraforming sounds great, until you realize that we have no idea if there actually is life on other planets, because we have not done a full scientific study of the entire planet involved.

    On the moon, we've only landed a few times - most has never even been seen closer than a few thousand miles distance.

    On Mars, we've never sent humans, and only landed a handful of probes which did not have the ability to fully sample the biosphere.

    For all we know, we landed on the equivalent of the Gobi Desert and Antartica - gee, no life, must be a dead planet, let's terraform Earth into something we Martians can use - thus goes the logic.

  22. Security may not be that great, but ... on Nokia and Intel Group Up To Develop WiMax · · Score: 1

    You will be essentially on a large LAN, what is to stop some person driving by your house from looking at your files.

    We already did that. After we finished reading them, the cops pulled us over for ROFL at what you had entered in them.

    Security by Obscurity - the latest choice

  23. Re:Just because they're out to get you on Broadcast Flag 2 - Electric Boogaloo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Citizen, the State thanks you for voluntarily reporting desecration of the flag. Please report to the nearest vaporization facility immediately.

    Yes, comrade. All hail the People's Republic of Bush!

  24. Just because they're out to get you on Broadcast Flag 2 - Electric Boogaloo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    doesn't mean you're paranoid.

    Sigh.

    The only flag I want is the one sewn on my old uniform.

  25. Saturday only final episode - not the Wrapup on Enterprise Finale Airing Tonight · · Score: 1

    So you should see two entries for Friday night - the first is the final episode. The second is the wrapup.

    The wrapup isn't showing on Saturday.

    Good luck!