its agriculture. its nowhere near more complicated than that. growing coffee, as a sensitive plant, is orders of magnitude more complicated than jugs or ditches full of algae, and oil prices are certainly up there with coffee. what are the processing and distribution needs for say, palm oil from palm trees? how can separating volatiles from algae and water be more complicated? its about as dumb as doorknobs as you can get. a nuclear reactor, thats complicated. a jug full of ocean water, not so complicated
furthermore, you say the need to ramp up to huge production levels from nothing to satisfy worldwide consumption is daunting. what? who said that one day they are going to turn off the petroleum spigots like a lighswitch, and turn on the algae spigots to replace it all 100% in the span of a day? algae "distilled" octane will simply ramp up. its simple economics: as the price per barrel of crude goes higher and higher, there is more and more incentive to throw algae in jugs in the ocean, or grow algae in ditches full of ocean water in the desert. billions of more dollars orchestrating complicated logistical enterprises have been spent on far riskier ventures... such as digging for crude
meanwhile, we're talking about figuring out a plastic jug design and genetically modifying the algae correctly (granted: speculative there). but once you do that, the level of complexity and investment is well within the grasp of substinence farmers and fishermen
that's the best part of this very simple scheme: the new sources of our oil are the poor and rural of the third world. talk about incentive and reward
Figure out what will happen in a decade or two as india and china get richer and petroleum reserves get deeper. Meanwhile, you can "distill" the stuff out of ditches full of algae in the desert and plastic jugs in the ocean. Is it enough space?
Well, how much does it cost to dig a ditch? To make a plastic jug? How much space do we have in the deserts and oceans? Let supply and demand meet each other on a convenient price, and let production fill with algae as needed. Duh. Its not rocket science dude
But you knew that already, you're a genius at speculatuve back of napkin math, right?
assume a 100 gallon specially designed plastic container filled with high efficiency gm algae (speculative) makes a gallon of oil ever 3 months. obviously there are a million factors here, i'm just pegging a random number
now look at a map of the philippines and indonesia
where have you been all my life? this is such a dramatic reworking of how i understand the world. where would we ever be if you had not alerted us to this important breakthrough?
hold on, gotta catch my breath and process this...
can i say now that water is wet and get modded informative too?
obviously, solar energy is the ultimate renewable energy source
the ideal though is not to store or transmit that eletrically, but chemically (storage density, thermodynamic efficiency, etc)
i'm looking for the guy who turns poor fishermen in the philippines and indonesia (or anywhere access to shallow seas is easy) into the next sultans of brunei:
1. give them a bunch of specailly shaped clear plastic jugs, mini floating stills 2. they put a little gm algae inside the jugs 3. they throw the jugs in the ocean with anchors 4. they come back a month later, pick up the jugs 5. they are processed dockside directly into octane, in a low-tech facility
the guy, or gal, who figures out how to get algae to directly produce octane saves the world from itself geopolitically, environmentally, developmentally. then we have enough breathing room to master fusion
right now, the world is in an energy crunch. we will have more wars, the environment will suffer, there will be more poverty, until we get our act together on a truly large scale renewable energy source. too much renewable energy sources look at so far have been boutique, things that can never scale up
the cheap dig-it-out-of-the-ground era is over. oh of course, there's still more of it to dig out. its just too damn deep, and getting deeper every day, to call it cheap anymore
when you criticize all of its faults in a vacuum of anything else happening in the world at the time
but this sort of analysis is essentially useless, if your aim is to actually better the world
if you're just kicking around the usa, well then fine, that's an international pasttime at this point. but aren't you interested in actually making the world a better place? (one would assume you would be, with your critical eye towards international events)
so now, for you to graduate to high school level analytical thinking, your next homework project is: analyze the usa's actions in context, rather than a vacuum
maybe, just maybe, you'll find yourself criticizing the actions of some other players in the world. and then, beleive it or not, you might actually be using your critical eye for the betterment of the world, for progress, for a neutral unbiased view of human failures
or... you could just stick with looking at american failures, which again, that's fine. but that's getting to be a tired empty game at this point, doncha think?
skepticism is simply an innate resistance to something new. if you want a good example of skepticism, try conservatism, which is clinging to the way things used to work, because you reject a novel way to do things... which is not necessarily bad, btw
all societies exhibit a rate of change. that rate of change must not be too fast or two slow. if the change is too slow, the society fails to capitalize on developments in the wider world, and falls into poverty and backwardness. if the change is too fast, bad ideas are picked up before they are properly evaluated, and damage society with maladaptive concepts out of touch with human nature
skepticism is merely an innate human resistance to change. and depending on the context, that can be a good or bad thing. skepticism is not automatically healthy or helpful, although it often is
meanwhile, the idea that skepticism should or could be taught, when it is already in all of us, is rather silly. skepticism requires very little mental effort, all you have to do is resist another person's idea. this is not difficult to achieve. if you have ever spent any time around 2 or 3 year olds, you will find that skepticism is the default reaction to anyone or anything new
in fact, i would go so far to say that if there is any relationship between skepticism and teaching, skepticism needs to be UNLEARNED, untaught. a lot of people are obstinate and fall into stasis and mediocrity, simply because they are so skpetical to new and better ways to do things
however, due to human nature, peace is achieved only with a balance of force, not with an absence of force. In other words, to maintain peace, there will always be a need for armed forces in this world.
If you think it is possible to have a world where there are no armed forces, you are not adovcating for a peaceful world when you say that. You are in fact unknowingly advocating for a more brutal, injust and violent world. This is so simply because you have not yet made yourself acquainted with, or made peace with (no irony intended), certain ugly but unremovable aspects of fundamental human nature.
Or, you could try to remove those aspects of human nature in the name of peace. This sets you down the road to autocracy, and makes you an enemy of free will and free expression. If you wish to continue to respect the notion of free will and free expression, you must understand why a force of arms is always necessary to be at the ready, in the name of peace.
we must fund a NASA mission to go to Pluto, and nuke it into gravel
we are wasting far too much time and thought over this frivolous disagreement. the obvious solution is to simply destroy the object of this disagreement, and move forward again in peace and unity. we must salve the wounds we have savaged on each other in this truly barbaric and vicious debate
if you publish your info like that, before you know it, crank callers will be dialing "12" day and night, and you'll never get any sleep form the constant ringing
however, a lot of the responses here amount to attacking the RATIONALE for fighting terorrists and child pornographers
no: child pornographers and terrorists are real. furthermore, the desire to stop them is valid. both observations are 100% true
therefore, if you want to stop the implementation of bullshit moronic tactics, think up some SUPERIOR, EFFECTIVE tactics on your own. and watch bullshti tactics fade away
but if you think attacking the RATIONALE for doing works, you are just as dumb and out of touch with reality as the government bureacrats you are heckling. because the rationale for doing what they do is 100% sound. and is not going away. nor should it go away
you want to stop bullshit tactics? good for you. so propose some effective tactics. but attacking the rationale for these bad implementations is a failure on your part to understand reality just as much as the stupid government bureacrats fail to understand reality
people have a valid right to desire to stop child pornographers and terrorists. so put on your thinking caps and think up some good tactics. this is far more effective than being derisive to the rationale for doing what dumb bureacrats do
so the guy is catching pedophiles, in the act, and you are disgusted that he gets paid, as a reporter, to report on something interesting to the public
!?
even more amazing, as of this quote, you have been rated as 4, interesting
trying to understand how you or those who voted you up think is something i cannot begin to fathom
"Define 'irony': a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane, to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash." [referring to Lynyrd Skynyrd ]
Duncan Malloy: "Garrulous"? What the fuck is "garrulous"? Larkin: That would be loquacious, verbose, effusive... how about chatty? Malloy: (snorts) What's with dictionary boy, here? Larkin: Thesaurus boy, I think, is more appropriate.
Cyrus the Virus: Thanks Poe. You've proven to be a most useful mammal. Cameron Poe: "Many hands make light work." My daddy taught me that. Cyrus: You know what my daddy taught me? Poe: What's that? Cyrus: Nothin'. Poe: Self educated man.
Pinball: You the Swamp Thing? Swamp Thing: That's right. Pinball: You flyin' the plane? Swamp Thing: That's right. Pinball: It's amazing the shit you white trash know. Swamp Thing: That's right!
you understand my extrapolation, you understand my rationale. you want me to stop thinking, and simply blindly accept the static status quo
my mind tells me otherwise. extrapolating from previous evidence. so sorry if this horribly "unscientific" concept is anathema to you
with the way you think, you are probably qualified to clean the glassware in the autoclave for the real scientists. the ones who are always thinking outside the box
if this sounds pompous to you, so be it. you sound like a sheep to me
Slashdot Mirror
its agriculture. its nowhere near more complicated than that. growing coffee, as a sensitive plant, is orders of magnitude more complicated than jugs or ditches full of algae, and oil prices are certainly up there with coffee. what are the processing and distribution needs for say, palm oil from palm trees? how can separating volatiles from algae and water be more complicated? its about as dumb as doorknobs as you can get. a nuclear reactor, thats complicated. a jug full of ocean water, not so complicated
furthermore, you say the need to ramp up to huge production levels from nothing to satisfy worldwide consumption is daunting. what? who said that one day they are going to turn off the petroleum spigots like a lighswitch, and turn on the algae spigots to replace it all 100% in the span of a day? algae "distilled" octane will simply ramp up. its simple economics: as the price per barrel of crude goes higher and higher, there is more and more incentive to throw algae in jugs in the ocean, or grow algae in ditches full of ocean water in the desert. billions of more dollars orchestrating complicated logistical enterprises have been spent on far riskier ventures... such as digging for crude
meanwhile, we're talking about figuring out a plastic jug design and genetically modifying the algae correctly (granted: speculative there). but once you do that, the level of complexity and investment is well within the grasp of substinence farmers and fishermen
that's the best part of this very simple scheme: the new sources of our oil are the poor and rural of the third world. talk about incentive and reward
Figure out what will happen in a decade or two as india and china get richer and petroleum reserves get deeper. Meanwhile, you can "distill" the stuff out of ditches full of algae in the desert and plastic jugs in the ocean. Is it enough space?
Well, how much does it cost to dig a ditch? To make a plastic jug? How much space do we have in the deserts and oceans? Let supply and demand meet each other on a convenient price, and let production fill with algae as needed. Duh. Its not rocket science dude
But you knew that already, you're a genius at speculatuve back of napkin math, right?
assume a 100 gallon specially designed plastic container filled with high efficiency gm algae (speculative) makes a gallon of oil ever 3 months. obviously there are a million factors here, i'm just pegging a random number
now look at a map of the philippines and indonesia
golly thats a lot of shallow seas
i did not know oil is from dead plants
where have you been all my life? this is such a dramatic reworking of how i understand the world. where would we ever be if you had not alerted us to this important breakthrough?
hold on, gotta catch my breath and process this...
can i say now that water is wet and get modded informative too?
obviously, solar energy is the ultimate renewable energy source
the ideal though is not to store or transmit that eletrically, but chemically (storage density, thermodynamic efficiency, etc)
i'm looking for the guy who turns poor fishermen in the philippines and indonesia (or anywhere access to shallow seas is easy) into the next sultans of brunei:
1. give them a bunch of specailly shaped clear plastic jugs, mini floating stills
2. they put a little gm algae inside the jugs
3. they throw the jugs in the ocean with anchors
4. they come back a month later, pick up the jugs
5. they are processed dockside directly into octane, in a low-tech facility
the guy, or gal, who figures out how to get algae to directly produce octane saves the world from itself geopolitically, environmentally, developmentally. then we have enough breathing room to master fusion
right now, the world is in an energy crunch. we will have more wars, the environment will suffer, there will be more poverty, until we get our act together on a truly large scale renewable energy source. too much renewable energy sources look at so far have been boutique, things that can never scale up
the cheap dig-it-out-of-the-ground era is over. oh of course, there's still more of it to dig out. its just too damn deep, and getting deeper every day, to call it cheap anymore
because he started the pakistani nuclear program. and then on his own he decided to sell nuclear plans to north korea, libya, iran, etc.
he started the progream by stealing plans from... drum roll please... the netherlands, when he worked there as a professor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan
it's historical record
so lets all hail the cutting genius paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy strategists on slashdot and those who mod them up insightful
(rolls eyes)
when you criticize all of its faults in a vacuum of anything else happening in the world at the time
but this sort of analysis is essentially useless, if your aim is to actually better the world
if you're just kicking around the usa, well then fine, that's an international pasttime at this point. but aren't you interested in actually making the world a better place? (one would assume you would be, with your critical eye towards international events)
so now, for you to graduate to high school level analytical thinking, your next homework project is: analyze the usa's actions in context, rather than a vacuum
maybe, just maybe, you'll find yourself criticizing the actions of some other players in the world. and then, beleive it or not, you might actually be using your critical eye for the betterment of the world, for progress, for a neutral unbiased view of human failures
or... you could just stick with looking at american failures, which again, that's fine. but that's getting to be a tired empty game at this point, doncha think?
you can dress up what we're talking about in all the philosophical finery you want, but it's the same basic concept: "i resist this new idea"
its a skillset we all develop at age 2-3
it mostly needs to be untaught, that all new ideas aren't automatically bad
you resist it. you're skeptical
durrrrr
cuba dumped some of its prisoners on the usa during the mariel boatlift in the early 1980s (not all of the refugees were prisoners)
simply cede guantanamo bay back to cuba. "forget" to empty guantanamo bay out first. voila, new, "friendly" landlords
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+skepticism
you're some sort of saint in the fight against corrupt business abuses upon society
skepticism is simply an innate resistance to something new. if you want a good example of skepticism, try conservatism, which is clinging to the way things used to work, because you reject a novel way to do things... which is not necessarily bad, btw
all societies exhibit a rate of change. that rate of change must not be too fast or two slow. if the change is too slow, the society fails to capitalize on developments in the wider world, and falls into poverty and backwardness. if the change is too fast, bad ideas are picked up before they are properly evaluated, and damage society with maladaptive concepts out of touch with human nature
skepticism is merely an innate human resistance to change. and depending on the context, that can be a good or bad thing. skepticism is not automatically healthy or helpful, although it often is
meanwhile, the idea that skepticism should or could be taught, when it is already in all of us, is rather silly. skepticism requires very little mental effort, all you have to do is resist another person's idea. this is not difficult to achieve. if you have ever spent any time around 2 or 3 year olds, you will find that skepticism is the default reaction to anyone or anything new
in fact, i would go so far to say that if there is any relationship between skepticism and teaching, skepticism needs to be UNLEARNED, untaught. a lot of people are obstinate and fall into stasis and mediocrity, simply because they are so skpetical to new and better ways to do things
the ego develops on its own, it is a fundamental facet of our biology. selfishness is very much a component of natural behavior in the animal world
;-)
without understanding this simple concept, your opinions, that you hold in great regard, are simply dysfunctional, and yet you cling to them anyway
how very egotistical of you
however, due to human nature, peace is achieved only with a balance of force, not with an absence of force. In other words, to maintain peace, there will always be a need for armed forces in this world.
If you think it is possible to have a world where there are no armed forces, you are not adovcating for a peaceful world when you say that. You are in fact unknowingly advocating for a more brutal, injust and violent world. This is so simply because you have not yet made yourself acquainted with, or made peace with (no irony intended), certain ugly but unremovable aspects of fundamental human nature.
Or, you could try to remove those aspects of human nature in the name of peace. This sets you down the road to autocracy, and makes you an enemy of free will and free expression. If you wish to continue to respect the notion of free will and free expression, you must understand why a force of arms is always necessary to be at the ready, in the name of peace.
inventing cutesy acronyms (like "spit") vastly increases awareness in the media and in funding
in this thread gets its very own link in intellipedia
go for it!
would be to author software to circumvent chinese censorship, and distribute it widely
shouldn't be too hard to distribute, just hack in
censorship is a special wonderful combination of hypocrisy and a lack fo self awareness and a lack of awareness of true human nature
we must fund a NASA mission to go to Pluto, and nuke it into gravel
we are wasting far too much time and thought over this frivolous disagreement. the obvious solution is to simply destroy the object of this disagreement, and move forward again in peace and unity. we must salve the wounds we have savaged on each other in this truly barbaric and vicious debate
if you publish your info like that, before you know it, crank callers will be dialing "12" day and night, and you'll never get any sleep form the constant ringing
trying to stop child pornographers, or, in another recent slashdot article, terrorists, with bullshit tactics, is of course absurd
however, a lot of the responses here amount to attacking the RATIONALE for fighting terorrists and child pornographers
no: child pornographers and terrorists are real. furthermore, the desire to stop them is valid. both observations are 100% true
therefore, if you want to stop the implementation of bullshit moronic tactics, think up some SUPERIOR, EFFECTIVE tactics on your own. and watch bullshti tactics fade away
but if you think attacking the RATIONALE for doing works, you are just as dumb and out of touch with reality as the government bureacrats you are heckling. because the rationale for doing what they do is 100% sound. and is not going away. nor should it go away
you want to stop bullshit tactics? good for you. so propose some effective tactics. but attacking the rationale for these bad implementations is a failure on your part to understand reality just as much as the stupid government bureacrats fail to understand reality
people have a valid right to desire to stop child pornographers and terrorists. so put on your thinking caps and think up some good tactics. this is far more effective than being derisive to the rationale for doing what dumb bureacrats do
so the guy is catching pedophiles, in the act, and you are disgusted that he gets paid, as a reporter, to report on something interesting to the public
!?
even more amazing, as of this quote, you have been rated as 4, interesting
trying to understand how you or those who voted you up think is something i cannot begin to fathom
you were joking, right?
it's actually "Make a move and the bunny gets it."
Con Air has some of the best dialogue in a movie ever
my other favorite from Con Air:
"Define 'irony': a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane, to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash." [referring to Lynyrd Skynyrd ]
Duncan Malloy: "Garrulous"? What the fuck is "garrulous"?
Larkin: That would be loquacious, verbose, effusive... how about chatty?
Malloy: (snorts) What's with dictionary boy, here?
Larkin: Thesaurus boy, I think, is more appropriate.
Cyrus the Virus: Thanks Poe. You've proven to be a most useful mammal.
Cameron Poe: "Many hands make light work." My daddy taught me that.
Cyrus: You know what my daddy taught me?
Poe: What's that?
Cyrus: Nothin'.
Poe: Self educated man.
Pinball: You the Swamp Thing?
Swamp Thing: That's right.
Pinball: You flyin' the plane?
Swamp Thing: That's right.
Pinball: It's amazing the shit you white trash know.
Swamp Thing: That's right!
you understand my extrapolation, you understand my rationale. you want me to stop thinking, and simply blindly accept the static status quo
my mind tells me otherwise. extrapolating from previous evidence. so sorry if this horribly "unscientific" concept is anathema to you
with the way you think, you are probably qualified to clean the glassware in the autoclave for the real scientists. the ones who are always thinking outside the box
if this sounds pompous to you, so be it. you sound like a sheep to me