12 feet is the "circular equivalent diameter" of their biggest pipe... which I read as the diameter of the circumscribed circle around this elliptical shape. Cut that circle in half, and we've only got six feet.
Since we're dealing with an ellipse, cutting it along its major axis will give us even less than that for headroom.
It seems to me that in all things, it is, and always has been, easier for humankind to gratify it's base urges than the (often) more constructive alternatives. Please - give me some examples to show me I'm wrong on this one.
The mighty internet and television makes realization of this tendency faster and thus even easier. What do we find on the web or on the tube? Intolerant opinion, born of hatred. Pornography. Violence. The technology of mass media has made it trivial for this sort of indulgence to reach anywhere, and in little time. The marketing of mass media (and the quest for higher rating$) has made it a certainty.
A shame, really. Finding goodness on the web or TV is the exception to the norm. It's out there, but it's limited and hard to find. But we shouldn't be surprised, given our track record.
...or from some other shady source. I doubt if the seller ever got this thing to work, other than powering it up and seeing that it was locked.
It sounds very suspicious to me. I've had friends who have had their car windows smashed so their company laptops could be 'appropriated'. Stereo, CD collection, etc. were left untouched.
My personal paranoia and suspicions aside, who would sell their HD to a stranger *without* first wiping the disk?
Way to go, BBC! Glad to see sensationalistic journalism is alive and well in areas other than the US. Call me a troll or mod this down as flamebait if you must, but I just can't stand bad reporting like this.
Co-chairman of the panel, Sir John Houghton "The 1990's were the warmest decade in the Northern Hemisphere for the whole millennium"
That's probably true. Indulge me in speculation that August will be the hottest month this summer... Doesn't the climate vary anyway? And I'm not talking about the annual variations in temperature, or even ones in the scope of 1000 years. Think of cycles in the tens to hundreds of thousands of years folks.
The BBC's Susan Watts "It's the American people who are the chief culprits in pumping global warming gases into the atmosphere"
I like it when a news source quotes it's own reporters for use as supporting material. And as a red-blooded American, I just can't wait to get home and fire up the pollution machine I've got rigged up on my roof. Puh-leeez.
Keith Shine, meteorologist "The overwhelming majority of people accept the evidence that the climate has warmed up"
The climate *has* warmed up, at least in terms of geologic time, and I'll go wayyy out on a limb and go along with the possibility that many people accept this. I guess this is rock-solid evidence in support of whatever point the BBC is trying to make.
Dr Robert Watson, IPCC Chair "We could conceivably be over-estimating the effect of human activity on the Earth's climate, but alternatively we could also be under-estimating it"
Aha. Glad they pulled a null statement like this out into it's own colored box for emphasis. Sadly, this is perhaps the most credible quote made in the entire article.
"We know enough to say climate change is a serious environmental issue," said Dr Watson.
Finally, the voice of reason. Here's another tip: cash-flow is important to the state of your personal finances.
[picture caption] Industrial pollution is the main offender
Hold on now - isn't that a cooling tower? If chemical or particulate matter is being emitted from that, there are a few engineers with a lot of work to do. On the other hand, if all those nasty cooling towers are actually producing enough thermal energy to melt the ice caps and affect the salinity of the planet's oceans, then somebody really designed some inefficient power plants... And correct me if I'm wrong, but are those windmills I see in the background?
It's not as if the BBC needed to fill inches on a page to justify their ad rates, right? So why was this article even written? It could have been about three sentences long, and made its legitimate points better. At least I can't pick on them for mixing up the depletion of the ozone layer with all of this...
So, basically, if we see something coming in the next century, we're fucked.
I dunno... a century is a nice long time, isn't it? While I agree we're f'ed in the near term, I
think a hundred years gives us some a reasonable chance.
This assertion requires that we either: (1) have a decade or so to prepare, once the killer is
detected; or (2) start developing good ideas very soon for such a contingency.
Let's not forget the Apollo program put a man on the surface of the moon in about a decade, and that
was because we *wanted* to do it, not because civilization depended upon it. Looking back a little
further, the supporting technologies (rockets, computers, communications, etc) were fairly young too.
I guess I'm a little more optimistic that it *is* possible to do something, at least in the time
frame discussed here. Now, whether or not we're smart enough to actually do somthing like this is
another (and unfortunately, political) matter...
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12 feet is the "circular equivalent diameter" of their biggest pipe... which I read as the diameter of the circumscribed circle around this elliptical shape. Cut that circle in half, and we've only got six feet.
Since we're dealing with an ellipse, cutting it along its major axis will give us even less than that for headroom.
Hobbits only, please.
It seems to me that in all things, it is, and always has been, easier for humankind to gratify it's base urges than the (often) more constructive alternatives. Please - give me some examples to show me I'm wrong on this one.
The mighty internet and television makes realization of this tendency faster and thus even easier. What do we find on the web or on the tube? Intolerant opinion, born of hatred. Pornography. Violence. The technology of mass media has made it trivial for this sort of indulgence to reach anywhere, and in little time. The marketing of mass media (and the quest for higher rating$) has made it a certainty.
A shame, really. Finding goodness on the web or TV is the exception to the norm. It's out there, but it's limited and hard to find. But we shouldn't be surprised, given our track record.
...or from some other shady source. I doubt if the seller ever got this thing to work, other than powering it up and seeing that it was locked.
It sounds very suspicious to me. I've had friends who have had their car windows smashed so their company laptops could be 'appropriated'. Stereo, CD collection, etc. were left untouched.
My personal paranoia and suspicions aside, who would sell their HD to a stranger *without* first wiping the disk?
This idea has also been applied to areas other than network routing. Do a search on 'ant colony optimization' to learn more...
Way to go, BBC! Glad to see sensationalistic journalism is alive and well in areas other than the US. Call me a troll or mod this down as flamebait if you must, but I just can't stand bad reporting like this.
Co-chairman of the panel, Sir John Houghton "The 1990's were the warmest decade in the Northern Hemisphere for the whole millennium"
That's probably true. Indulge me in speculation that August will be the hottest month this summer... Doesn't the climate vary anyway? And I'm not talking about the annual variations in temperature, or even ones in the scope of 1000 years. Think of cycles in the tens to hundreds of thousands of years folks.
The BBC's Susan Watts "It's the American people who are the chief culprits in pumping global warming gases into the atmosphere"
I like it when a news source quotes it's own reporters for use as supporting material. And as a red-blooded American, I just can't wait to get home and fire up the pollution machine I've got rigged up on my roof. Puh-leeez.
Keith Shine, meteorologist "The overwhelming majority of people accept the evidence that the climate has warmed up"
The climate *has* warmed up, at least in terms of geologic time, and I'll go wayyy out on a limb and go along with the possibility that many people accept this. I guess this is rock-solid evidence in support of whatever point the BBC is trying to make.
Dr Robert Watson, IPCC Chair "We could conceivably be over-estimating the effect of human activity on the Earth's climate, but alternatively we could also be under-estimating it"
Aha. Glad they pulled a null statement like this out into it's own colored box for emphasis. Sadly, this is perhaps the most credible quote made in the entire article.
"We know enough to say climate change is a serious environmental issue," said Dr Watson.
Finally, the voice of reason. Here's another tip: cash-flow is important to the state of your personal finances.
[picture caption] Industrial pollution is the main offender
Hold on now - isn't that a cooling tower? If chemical or particulate matter is being emitted from that, there are a few engineers with a lot of work to do. On the other hand, if all those nasty cooling towers are actually producing enough thermal energy to melt the ice caps and affect the salinity of the planet's oceans, then somebody really designed some inefficient power plants... And correct me if I'm wrong, but are those windmills I see in the background?
It's not as if the BBC needed to fill inches on a page to justify their ad rates, right? So why was this article even written? It could have been about three sentences long, and made its legitimate points better. At least I can't pick on them for mixing up the depletion of the ozone layer with all of this...
I dunno... a century is a nice long time, isn't it? While I agree we're f'ed in the near term, I think a hundred years gives us some a reasonable chance.
This assertion requires that we either: (1) have a decade or so to prepare, once the killer is detected; or (2) start developing good ideas very soon for such a contingency.
Let's not forget the Apollo program put a man on the surface of the moon in about a decade, and that was because we *wanted* to do it, not because civilization depended upon it. Looking back a little further, the supporting technologies (rockets, computers, communications, etc) were fairly young too.
I guess I'm a little more optimistic that it *is* possible to do something, at least in the time frame discussed here. Now, whether or not we're smart enough to actually do somthing like this is another (and unfortunately, political) matter...
Hmmm. Politicians... Fate of the world...