When speaking of the electrolysis of water to supply hydrogen, you have to address not just cost but also energy issues. Because of thermodynamics, you have to expend slightly more energy hydrolysing water than you can get out of the hydrogen when it recombines with oxygen. So, at best, hydrogen from hydrolysed water is an energy storage medium, not an energy source.
If, on the other hand, these H2 reserves can ever be mined in some efficient way, they would be a good source of H2 fuel. I personally doubt that this H2 will ever be liberated in a cost/energy efficient manner, however.
Don't worry about oxygen. As others have pointed out, we have been engaging in "destroying" oxygen for many many years already, and there is still plenty of it. This is true for a reason:
In fact, the single biggest and most important biological and geological change in Earth's history was probably when plants first began to spew oxygen which, at the time, must have been HIGHLY TOXIC to most life forms. Prior to that time, almost everything on Earth was in an (electrochemically) reduced state. Over some geological period of time, everything converted to an oxidized state. Most organisms must have become extinct or relegated to marginal environments when this happened.
However, eventually a new class of organisms arose which was able to take advantage of the new, oxygenated environment with the use of aerobic respiration. The rest, as they say, is history.
Hmmm. I'm assuming that most of your comment is mostly not directed at me personally, since I very seldom moderate, and when I do I set newest first, threaded, -1. Next time I'll try flat. I'm not that big of a slashdot person.
And when I said "best solution of the bunch," I meant for this thread only. But since you probably can't read minds, you didn't know that;-)
Anyway, I certainly agree that there are problems with moderation. Sometimes I see sarcastic but topical and cogent comments at -1, and I see too many 5's and 4's. Comments at 2 or 3 very seldom deserve further upward moderation. A 5 should be profound or hilarious, or whatever.
First of all, your claim that RF can cause cancer is somewhat dubious. It is well known that ionizing radiation can cause cancer, but I don't think there is any solid epidemiological support for the assertion that RF causes cancer. Studies have been done, and some have concluded that their is a very slight risk, while others have concluded that the risk, if any, is smaller than the experimental uncertainty. Whenever something like this happens, it usually means that there is no significant risk. I mean, if you can barely measure it in a well designed study, then it isn't that important.
Anyway, there are already exposure guidelines for RF, and if the chip doesn't exceed these, then there is no need for any new studies.
I'm not defending the chip or any potential use of it, I'm just defending the FDA's decision.
You are correct that the constitution is tweakable, but if you don't have the constituency to update the 2nd ammendment then you have to live with it. Sorry.
And while it is possible that the founding fathers were wrong about some things, I think it is extremely dangerous to start making end-runs around constitutional provisions just because a simple majority (or less) believes it is a good idea. In effect, this would mean that we don't have a real constitution, but just majority rule, and it might mean that some laws are enforced and some not.
Keep in mind that the constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land in the USA. EVERY peace officer takes an oath to uphold it, as do most or all public officials. If we don't want that to be the case, then we need to change the constitution officially by the mechanisms set forth in the constitution. If you lack the political support to change the constitution, then you need to question wether you have the right to do it at all.
I would like to clarify/amplify the Japanese internment issue. US citizens, not Japanese citizens, were interned solely because they were of Japanese descent.
Personally, I don't have a problem with rounding up, or at least surveilling, foreign nationals residing in the US in time of war, provided that any rounded up are treated reasonably well. And provided that the war has been declared by the Congress.
But the internment of US citizens of Japanese descent during WWII was a travesty, and was not justifiable either morally or legally. And in retrospect, it appears to have been totally unecessary from a practical perspective, too. That is, I don't believe any evidence has ever emerged of spying or sabotage by any Japanese Americans during the war. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)
As far as criticizing the president goes, that is still perfectly legal.
If it were a potato chip (food) then I could see why the FDA might need to approve it. But it is a microchip. I believe the FDA was correct to say that the implantable chip is outside its perview.
I mean, if you are against the chip for privacy reasons, then be against it for privacy reasons. Don't pervert the mission of the FDA to support your agenda for something that has nothing to do with food or drugs or public health.
I have pacific bell ADSL. We pay about 50 bucks I believe (not sure because my wife pays that bill), and I almost always get over 100 kilobytes per second download speeds on long ftp downloads.
Contractually, I am not sure what our download speed is stipulated to be. We haven't had too many problems with pacbell here in Santa Cruz, CA, although we had endless problems in Monterey, and we eventually had to give up.
Their name servers seem to work OK now, and they seem to have finally sorted out their news servers (although they require a password login now), and they dumped all the news groups that have MP3s. I don't download MP3's, so I don't care. I only know about it because they sent out a mailing to all their subscribers. They may have dumped the warez groups, too, I'm not sure (I don't download warez, either...).
MM --
Re:Exclude the MPAA and others like it
on
GeekPAC
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Would the NRA accept contributions from Handgun Control?
Why not, as long as there were no strings attached.
Having said that, though, I think it would be a mistake for the geekpac to allow generous donors to directly appoint people, as described in the draft.
It could definitely lead to a form of sabotage, where increasingly wimpy people are appointed by those who don't agree with the aims of the organization. Then if the apointees are kicked out, who knows, the donor might sue or something.
Richard Feynman related a similar story in one of his autobiographical books ( _Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman_ and _What do you Care what Other People Think_ ).
It was something like this. He said that whenever he or one of his physicist friends questioned a math student about any assertion, the math student always said "it's trivial." So they always teased the math students by saying that mathematicians could prove only trivial theorems. It was all good natured, though. Feynman was not anti-mathematician or anti mathematics.
Your criticism of the Supreme Court is unfair. They take free speech very seriously. Flag burning, vulgarly disparaging the draft, etc., are all protected.
In this case, no judge has heard a single argument from the defendants, as far as I can tell. The problem here is that the defendants don't have the resources to mount a defense, so they are forced to settle. But they probably can counter-sue.
And as far as I know, the truth is always a sufficient defense against libel and slander.
I read in my study guide (from the arrl) for the general license that you can send data files over the amateur bands, even if they contain music. (provided that you are not comitting an otherwise illegal act) you just can't broadcast on phone.
It also said that in addition to the space shuttle, repeaters that pick up the space shuttle are exempt from the prohibition against broadcasting music, provided the music originates from the space shuttle broadcast. That is to say, the repeaters don't have to get off the air just because the space shuttle starts transmitting incidental background music.
Nowadays, there are three types of ham license available: technician, general, and extra. I don't currently have any amateur (ham) license, but I am studying for the general license.
The technician license doesn't require you to copy or send morse code. The other two require you to be able to copy Morse code at 5 words per minute. Theoretically you should be prepared to send at 5 WPM, too, but apparently they assume (reasonably) that if you can copy at 5 WPM, you can send at 5 WPM.
Check out the Amateur radio relay league's website for more details. (arrl.org)
I tried to by a desktop-type system from Dell without an MS OS, and the salesman said that it was impossible. I found another much smaller company that was willing to do it and ordered my two computers from that company instead.
I think Dell might offer linux on some of their models, but not the ones they position as desktop boxes.
How do you think we will ever develop that technology if we don't take steps now? When you don't study and play (in a scientific/engineering way) with technology, you won't see advances in that technology.
Besides, no one is talking about deep space exploration. We are only talking about going to the end of the solar-system or so.
Your point is valid, but I don't think anyone would do this at 400 MHz. You should use 2-5 GHz as a reference. This would shrink the antenna down quite a bit, but it would still be a pretty big antenna compared to an infra-red laser diode.
On the other hand, 1 degree is MUCH wider than a laser. Or at least much wider than any laser I am familiar with.
You are off by a factor of 1000, unless by "ms" you mean "microsecond." In the electrical engineering community, at least in the U.S., "ms" is universally understood to represent milliseconds.
In general, I think propagation delays due to light-speed are not going to cause problems in any line of sight system (or other short-range). What will cause delays is complicated reframing schemes where entire packets or frames are cached before being re-transmitted. There is no reason to think that the repeaters for these laser systems would do any thing like that. They probably would just connect a decoder to another amplifier, and the delay would be measured in the 10's of nanoseconds, at most.
Slashdot Mirror
No no no.
B io BookPS.html
Photosynthesis made simple:
6H2O + 6CO2 ----> C6H12O6 + 6O2
No problem.
http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/
MM
--
When speaking of the electrolysis of water to supply hydrogen, you have to address not just cost but also energy issues. Because of thermodynamics, you have to expend slightly more energy hydrolysing water than you can get out of the hydrogen when it recombines with oxygen. So, at best, hydrogen from hydrolysed water is an energy storage medium, not an energy source.
If, on the other hand, these H2 reserves can ever be mined in some efficient way, they would be a good source of H2 fuel. I personally doubt that this H2 will ever be liberated in a cost/energy efficient manner, however.
MM
--
No no no.
As far as gasses go, photosynthesis takes 6 waters, and 6 CO2s and liberates 6 O2's. There is no crisis.
Check this link. MM
--
Don't worry about oxygen. As others have pointed out, we have been engaging in "destroying" oxygen for many many years already, and there is still plenty of it. This is true for a reason:
Plants liberate O2 during photosynthesis.
In fact, the single biggest and most important biological and geological change in Earth's history was probably when plants first began to spew oxygen which, at the time, must have been HIGHLY TOXIC to most life forms. Prior to that time, almost everything on Earth was in an (electrochemically) reduced state. Over some geological period of time, everything converted to an oxidized state. Most organisms must have become extinct or relegated to marginal environments when this happened.
However, eventually a new class of organisms arose which was able to take advantage of the new, oxygenated environment with the use of aerobic respiration. The rest, as they say, is history.
MM
--
Hmmm. I'm assuming that most of your comment is mostly not directed at me personally, since I very seldom moderate, and when I do I set newest first, threaded, -1. Next time I'll try flat. I'm not that big of a slashdot person.
;-)
And when I said "best solution of the bunch," I meant for this thread only. But since you probably can't read minds, you didn't know that
Anyway, I certainly agree that there are problems with moderation. Sometimes I see sarcastic but topical and cogent comments at -1, and I see too many 5's and 4's. Comments at 2 or 3 very seldom deserve further upward moderation. A 5 should be profound or hilarious, or whatever.
MM
--
First of all, your claim that RF can cause cancer is somewhat dubious. It is well known that ionizing radiation can cause cancer, but I don't think there is any solid epidemiological support for the assertion that RF causes cancer. Studies have been done, and some have concluded that their is a very slight risk, while others have concluded that the risk, if any, is smaller than the experimental uncertainty. Whenever something like this happens, it usually means that there is no significant risk. I mean, if you can barely measure it in a well designed study, then it isn't that important.
Anyway, there are already exposure guidelines for RF, and if the chip doesn't exceed these, then there is no need for any new studies.
I'm not defending the chip or any potential use of it, I'm just defending the FDA's decision.
MM
--
You are correct that the constitution is tweakable, but if you don't have the constituency to update the 2nd ammendment then you have to live with it. Sorry.
And while it is possible that the founding fathers were wrong about some things, I think it is extremely dangerous to start making end-runs around constitutional provisions just because a simple majority (or less) believes it is a good idea. In effect, this would mean that we don't have a real constitution, but just majority rule, and it might mean that some laws are enforced and some not.
Keep in mind that the constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land in the USA. EVERY peace officer takes an oath to uphold it, as do most or all public officials. If we don't want that to be the case, then we need to change the constitution officially by the mechanisms set forth in the constitution. If you lack the political support to change the constitution, then you need to question wether you have the right to do it at all.
MM
--
I would like to clarify/amplify the Japanese internment issue. US citizens, not Japanese citizens, were interned solely because they were of Japanese descent.
Personally, I don't have a problem with rounding up, or at least surveilling, foreign nationals residing in the US in time of war, provided that any rounded up are treated reasonably well. And provided that the war has been declared by the Congress.
But the internment of US citizens of Japanese descent during WWII was a travesty, and was not justifiable either morally or legally. And in retrospect, it appears to have been totally unecessary from a practical perspective, too. That is, I don't believe any evidence has ever emerged of spying or sabotage by any Japanese Americans during the war. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)
As far as criticizing the president goes, that is still perfectly legal.
--
MM
If it were a potato chip (food) then I could see why the FDA might need to approve it. But it is a microchip. I believe the FDA was correct to say that the implantable chip is outside its perview.
I mean, if you are against the chip for privacy reasons, then be against it for privacy reasons. Don't pervert the mission of the FDA to support your agenda for something that has nothing to do with food or drugs or public health.
MM
--
You need to turn up the sensitivity on your sarcasm detector...
I would have thought that this line would have clued you in:
Why doesn't Malda just make Slashdot a dry erase board on his front door?
MM
--
Please mod parent up. It really comes to the crux of the matter.
MM
--
Please mod this up to track root parent (currently 4) since it is the best solution of the bunch, IMHO.
MM
--
I have pacific bell ADSL. We pay about 50 bucks I believe (not sure because my wife pays that bill), and I almost always get over 100 kilobytes per second download speeds on long ftp downloads.
Contractually, I am not sure what our download speed is stipulated to be. We haven't had too many problems with pacbell here in Santa Cruz, CA, although we had endless problems in Monterey, and we eventually had to give up.
Their name servers seem to work OK now, and they seem to have finally sorted out their news servers (although they require a password login now), and they dumped all the news groups that have MP3s. I don't download MP3's, so I don't care. I only know about it because they sent out a mailing to all their subscribers. They may have dumped the warez groups, too, I'm not sure (I don't download warez, either...).
MM
--
Would the NRA accept contributions from Handgun Control?
Why not, as long as there were no strings attached.
Having said that, though, I think it would be a mistake for the geekpac to allow generous donors to directly appoint people, as described in the draft.
It could definitely lead to a form of sabotage, where increasingly wimpy people are appointed by those who don't agree with the aims of the organization. Then if the apointees are kicked out, who knows, the donor might sue or something.
Better to do it some other way.
MM
--
Richard Feynman related a similar story in one of his autobiographical books ( _Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman_ and _What do you Care what Other People Think_ ).
It was something like this. He said that whenever he or one of his physicist friends questioned a math student about any assertion, the math student always said "it's trivial." So they always teased the math students by saying that mathematicians could prove only trivial theorems. It was all good natured, though. Feynman was not anti-mathematician or anti mathematics.
MM
--
I don't think you have enough faith in them.
Keep in mind that they are appointed for life. They will decide based on what makes sense to them (legal arguments, personal philosophy, etc.).
They don't have to kiss up to anyone. That is the whole point of the supreme court.
He can probably counter-sue.
Your criticism of the Supreme Court is unfair. They take free speech very seriously. Flag burning, vulgarly disparaging the draft, etc., are all protected.
In this case, no judge has heard a single argument from the defendants, as far as I can tell. The problem here is that the defendants don't have the resources to mount a defense, so they are forced to settle. But they probably can counter-sue.
And as far as I know, the truth is always a sufficient defense against libel and slander.
MM
--
Hey, don't laugh.
If Arafat and Kissinger can get Nobel Peace prizes, then anyone can.
http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/
MM
--
I read in my study guide (from the arrl) for the general license that you can send data files over the amateur bands, even if they contain music. (provided that you are not comitting an otherwise illegal act) you just can't broadcast on phone.
It also said that in addition to the space shuttle, repeaters that pick up the space shuttle are exempt from the prohibition against broadcasting music, provided the music originates from the space shuttle broadcast. That is to say, the repeaters don't have to get off the air just because the space shuttle starts transmitting incidental background music.
MM
--
You are sort of mistaken.
Nowadays, there are three types of ham license available: technician, general, and extra. I don't currently have any amateur (ham) license, but I am studying for the general license.
The technician license doesn't require you to copy or send morse code. The other two require you to be able to copy Morse code at 5 words per minute. Theoretically you should be prepared to send at 5 WPM, too, but apparently they assume (reasonably) that if you can copy at 5 WPM, you can send at 5 WPM.
Check out the Amateur radio relay league's website for more details. (arrl.org)
MM
--
I tried to by a desktop-type system from Dell without an MS OS, and the salesman said that it was impossible. I found another much smaller company that was willing to do it and ordered my two computers from that company instead.
I think Dell might offer linux on some of their models, but not the ones they position as desktop boxes.
MM
--
How do you think we will ever develop that technology if we don't take steps now? When you don't study and play (in a scientific/engineering way) with technology, you won't see advances in that technology.
Besides, no one is talking about deep space exploration. We are only talking about going to the end of the solar-system or so.
Your point is valid, but I don't think anyone would do this at 400 MHz. You should use 2-5 GHz as a reference. This would shrink the antenna down quite a bit, but it would still be a pretty big antenna compared to an infra-red laser diode.
On the other hand, 1 degree is MUCH wider than a laser. Or at least much wider than any laser I am familiar with.
MM
--
You are off by a factor of 1000, unless by "ms" you mean "microsecond." In the electrical engineering community, at least in the U.S., "ms" is universally understood to represent milliseconds.
In general, I think propagation delays due to light-speed are not going to cause problems in any line of sight system (or other short-range). What will cause delays is complicated reframing schemes where entire packets or frames are cached before being re-transmitted. There is no reason to think that the repeaters for these laser systems would do any thing like that. They probably would just connect a decoder to another amplifier, and the delay would be measured in the 10's of nanoseconds, at most.
MM
--