Well, I watched this with some amusement - and asked why they didn't just calculate the length of the diagonal. The boss guy said that you couldn't do that - "It's impossible". I told him about Pythagoras' theorem. With the aid of a calculator (he didn't know what that funny 'square-root' key was for), I was able to show him how easy it is to calculate the length of the diagonal and do away with all the ugly 'jiggling'.
I hope this was a joke. Anyone who's ever watched This Old House would at least know that they could square off the corners of the rectangle by marking them against a 3-4-5 right triangle.
While I agree that driving well below the speed limit in the passing lane is indicative of poor driving skills, I do not understand why people get upset when somebody is passing another vehicle while driving at the speed limit.
If you are passing, then I've got no complaint. But you'd be surprised (or maybe not) how many people just park themselves in the left lane and putter along at the speed limit or less, and expect everyone to go around them on the right (or, more likely, are just completely oblivious to the presence of any other cars on the road). Rechts fahren, folks!
What a sterling example that Americans don't really hate the French specifically, they just can't stand criticism and opposition from anyone and instinctively will use put-downs against any such critics.
If the critic in question is unwilling to admit to and accept American influences, why should I give him the satisfaction vice versa? "Just can't stand criticism?" Why should anyone, American or otherwise, have to take that kind of crap?
Please keep your spelling, 'culture', and 'cuisine' to yourselves.
A Brit, making comments about cuisine? Holy Pot-Kettle-Black, Batman. That's rich. And as for culture? Besides The Office, what have you guys done for us lately (i.e. post-Shakespeare; well, OK, post-Python)? Page 3? The Spice Girls?
Tell that to WTC victims. You can't foresee everything.
Bad example. The notion of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center was indeed foreseen. In fact, surviving a hit (from a '70s era jetliner, unfortunately, not today's wide-bodies) was a design criterion for the towers.
Electricity->Hydrogen would most likely be used as a substitute for petrol in cars. Currently, batteries would take several hours to take a full charge, where I could just use hydrogen and have a full tank in under 10 minutes. Electricity->Hydrogen is going to be the fuel for the forseable future.
How much are you willing to pay for that hydrogen? 'Cause producing it, compressing it, storing it, transporting it, then pumping it into your car (where it will again need to be compressed) is wasteful and expensive. Hydrogen is not a viable solution IMO.
Using Chernobyl as an example is, frankly, insulting to Western nuclear power plant designers and operators. The reactor in the Chernobyl facility was designed with safety as a lower priority than in Western designs, and the operators of Chernobyl had bureaucratic bosses who were more concerned about covering their own asses than they were about saving lives, resulting in massive contamination, evacuations, and (in the long run) thousands of deaths. Meanwhile, the worst Western nuclear accident required no evacuation, exposed the public to minimal radiation, and according to a government report "the projected number of excess fatal cancers due to the accident... is approximately one."
Accidents happen, but they don't happen in a vacuum - they happen in a context of preparedness, quality control, safety practices, and robust design... or lack thereof - and this is what determines the consequences of those accidents.
Just use the energy from the nuclear power plants to perform electrolysis on water. You get 2 moles of hydrogen (H2) and 1 mole of oxygen (O2) for every mole of water (H2O).
Or you could just use the electricity as electricity, maybe?
1 - APO address. Its really a pain to get stuff shipped to me because half the idiots on the web selling things tend to think these are PO boxes or someone trying to get an international shipment for free. In fact, I saw a seller on eBay (in Ohio) that jacked APO shipping prices up $39.95 on top of his $25 fee - all that for a power supply. I'm sorry, but $25 is enough to cover your packaging and the 3 minutes it takes to fill out a customs form.
Huh? Isn't that all the more reason to order everything at once, and save yourself the hassle of having to go through the APO nonsense each time?
Your idea would require a LOT of wire running from the PS on the floor for the different voltages
Why? Notebook power supplies only provide one voltage to the notebook; regulation down to 12V/5V/3V/etc. is done in the notebook, not the PSU. Why couldn't it be the same for PCs?
That's exactly my point. If you are a socialist country you don't have to have high unemployment rate and if you have a high unemployment rate it deosn't necessarly mean you're a socialist country.
You missed my point. Central control of the money supply is one aspect of a managed economy; i.e. socialism. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the US is a socialist country, but there are aspects of its economy that are indeed socialistic in nature.
what was the unemployment rate in the 1920s and the early 1930s again? Was America at that time socialist?
Maybe not exactly socialist, but the prevailing economic viewpoint is that the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression, which otherwise would have been a recession from which the market, left to its own devices, would have recovered in due course.
Still, I would like to eat one just to add it to my list of animals whose flesh I have made part of myself. So far I have eaten cow, pig, chicken, duck, deer, reindeer, whale, kangaroo, pigeon, cornish hen, and ostrich. I need to eat more!
Assuming a 100 horsepower engine (not much for a BMW) in a 2000 kilogram car (a bit much). That would mean that at 15% more horsepower, the car could weigh upto 15% of 2000kg to perform equally well. That means the additional metal could weigh about 300kg, that's about 660 pound. Assuming more realistic number, it could weigh even more.
So, why did we need to assume 100 hp, or any number of hp for that matter? For the record, a new BMW 330i makes 255 hp, just about 190 kW and weighs about 1550 kg, for a weight/power ratio of 8.15:1. Let's suppose the steam engine adds 100 kg, bringing the weight to 1650 kg, and lives up to its promised 15% extra power or 28.5 kW, making a total of 218.5 kW. That gives a new weight/power ratio of 7.55:1, about a 7.5% improvement. Not bad, but how much does this whiz-bang technology cost? Is it worth it?
Because gasoline taxes disproportionately hurt the poor and middle class. You know, the people who need to drive to work each day? The people who often are driving an older, gas guzzling car because they can't aford a hybrid? Upping the gas tax punishes them as well as people who choose to own Hummers.
I don't know about you, but where I live (Long Island NY), people in the poorer classes tend to own small Japanese cars, like older Civics and Corollas and Sentras, not big old American-iron gas guzzlers. That is, if they own cars at all. As a group, they would probably be hurt less by a gas tax increase than any other socioeconomic segment.
Let's say you're a genius, some child prodigy who's super at calculus or something. Can you charm women and get laid? Can you get along with strangers and keep a stable job? Are you smart enough to stay out of trouble? Avoid fights, etc. Are you smart enough to choose good friends? Are you disciplined enough to manage our finances? Are you street smart enough to protect your wealth from crooks? Do you get regular exercise and stay in shape?
And how do we know that those traits aren't genetic as well? Certainly the ability to attract the opposite sex would be a trait ripe for natural selection, wouldn't it?
I keep hearing Americans whinge about the extortionate fuel prices and that they can't afford to fill up their cars, and yet fuel prices in the US are a _fraction_ of the price of fuel in Europe.
What does the price of fuel in Europe (most of which is tax) have to do with the amount of tax we choose to levy here? If you want Europe, you know where to find it. This is not Europe.
One problem with the current transportation taxes is that they're levied on gallons of gasoline. As more fuel efficent cars and hybrids take off, governments are losing their gas tax money. California is actually looking at having some sort of device put into cars that records how many miles you drive and then charges you for those miles every time you gas up... Since fuel efficient cars are "cheating" the government.
Why not just raise the tax rate to remain revenue-neutral? This has the added benefit of making the worst polluters pay an increasingly large share of the taxes.
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Well, I watched this with some amusement - and asked why they didn't just calculate the length of the diagonal. The boss guy said that you couldn't do that - "It's impossible". I told him about Pythagoras' theorem. With the aid of a calculator (he didn't know what that funny 'square-root' key was for), I was able to show him how easy it is to calculate the length of the diagonal and do away with all the ugly 'jiggling'.
I hope this was a joke. Anyone who's ever watched This Old House would at least know that they could square off the corners of the rectangle by marking them against a 3-4-5 right triangle.
While I agree that driving well below the speed limit in the passing lane is indicative of poor driving skills, I do not understand why people get upset when somebody is passing another vehicle while driving at the speed limit.
If you are passing, then I've got no complaint. But you'd be surprised (or maybe not) how many people just park themselves in the left lane and putter along at the speed limit or less, and expect everyone to go around them on the right (or, more likely, are just completely oblivious to the presence of any other cars on the road). Rechts fahren, folks!
What a sterling example that Americans don't really hate the French specifically, they just can't stand criticism and opposition from anyone and instinctively will use put-downs against any such critics.
If the critic in question is unwilling to admit to and accept American influences, why should I give him the satisfaction vice versa? "Just can't stand criticism?" Why should anyone, American or otherwise, have to take that kind of crap?
Please keep your spelling, 'culture', and 'cuisine' to yourselves.
A Brit, making comments about cuisine? Holy Pot-Kettle-Black, Batman. That's rich. And as for culture? Besides The Office, what have you guys done for us lately (i.e. post-Shakespeare; well, OK, post-Python)? Page 3? The Spice Girls?
Tell that to WTC victims. You can't foresee everything.
Bad example. The notion of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center was indeed foreseen. In fact, surviving a hit (from a '70s era jetliner, unfortunately, not today's wide-bodies) was a design criterion for the towers.
Electricity->Hydrogen would most likely be used as a substitute for petrol in cars. Currently, batteries would take several hours to take a full charge, where I could just use hydrogen and have a full tank in under 10 minutes. Electricity->Hydrogen is going to be the fuel for the forseable future.
How much are you willing to pay for that hydrogen? 'Cause producing it, compressing it, storing it, transporting it, then pumping it into your car (where it will again need to be compressed) is wasteful and expensive. Hydrogen is not a viable solution IMO.
Cheers, from Chernobyl fallout zone.
Using Chernobyl as an example is, frankly, insulting to Western nuclear power plant designers and operators. The reactor in the Chernobyl facility was designed with safety as a lower priority than in Western designs, and the operators of Chernobyl had bureaucratic bosses who were more concerned about covering their own asses than they were about saving lives, resulting in massive contamination, evacuations, and (in the long run) thousands of deaths. Meanwhile, the worst Western nuclear accident required no evacuation, exposed the public to minimal radiation, and according to a government report "the projected number of excess fatal cancers due to the accident ... is approximately one."
Accidents happen, but they don't happen in a vacuum - they happen in a context of preparedness, quality control, safety practices, and robust design... or lack thereof - and this is what determines the consequences of those accidents.
Just use the energy from the nuclear power plants to perform electrolysis on water. You get 2 moles of hydrogen (H2) and 1 mole of oxygen (O2) for every mole of water (H2O).
Or you could just use the electricity as electricity, maybe?
1 - APO address. Its really a pain to get stuff shipped to me because half the idiots on the web selling things tend to think these are PO boxes or someone trying to get an international shipment for free. In fact, I saw a seller on eBay (in Ohio) that jacked APO shipping prices up $39.95 on top of his $25 fee - all that for a power supply. I'm sorry, but $25 is enough to cover your packaging and the 3 minutes it takes to fill out a customs form.
Huh? Isn't that all the more reason to order everything at once, and save yourself the hassle of having to go through the APO nonsense each time?
Your idea would require a LOT of wire running from the PS on the floor for the different voltages
Why? Notebook power supplies only provide one voltage to the notebook; regulation down to 12V/5V/3V/etc. is done in the notebook, not the PSU. Why couldn't it be the same for PCs?
My most dangerous idea: Teach people to think for themselves.
Dangerous? That's humanity's only chance for survival!
That's exactly my point. If you are a socialist country you don't have to have high unemployment rate and if you have a high unemployment rate it deosn't necessarly mean you're a socialist country.
You missed my point. Central control of the money supply is one aspect of a managed economy; i.e. socialism. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the US is a socialist country, but there are aspects of its economy that are indeed socialistic in nature.
what was the unemployment rate in the 1920s and the early 1930s again? Was America at that time socialist?
Maybe not exactly socialist, but the prevailing economic viewpoint is that the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression, which otherwise would have been a recession from which the market, left to its own devices, would have recovered in due course.
Still, I would like to eat one just to add it to my list of animals whose flesh I have made part of myself. So far I have eaten cow, pig, chicken, duck, deer, reindeer, whale, kangaroo, pigeon, cornish hen, and ostrich. I need to eat more!
Doing your part to complete the Cycle of Poo?
Dude you mean the government spent $24 million on this project and all we needed to fix it was a screwdriver?
Well, the screwdriver cost $23 million...
Assuming a 100 horsepower engine (not much for a BMW) in a 2000 kilogram car (a bit much). That would mean that at 15% more horsepower, the car could weigh upto 15% of 2000kg to perform equally well. That means the additional metal could weigh about 300kg, that's about 660 pound. Assuming more realistic number, it could weigh even more.
So, why did we need to assume 100 hp, or any number of hp for that matter? For the record, a new BMW 330i makes 255 hp, just about 190 kW and weighs about 1550 kg, for a weight/power ratio of 8.15:1. Let's suppose the steam engine adds 100 kg, bringing the weight to 1650 kg, and lives up to its promised 15% extra power or 28.5 kW, making a total of 218.5 kW. That gives a new weight/power ratio of 7.55:1, about a 7.5% improvement. Not bad, but how much does this whiz-bang technology cost? Is it worth it?
But if these spider robots were nuclear powered, they'd have greater power.
Am I the only one envisioning something like this?
You Yanks have a fucking obsession with prison rape.
Yeah, you're right. Why should we take such a horrible thing so seriously? Just relax and try to enjoy it.
Feh. Graham Chapman would've eaten Johnny Depp for breakfast. Arrrr!
Santa doesn't live at the magnetic North Pole, silly.
[snicker] Heh heh, he still thinks Santa is real... [snort] [guffaw]
Because gasoline taxes disproportionately hurt the poor and middle class. You know, the people who need to drive to work each day? The people who often are driving an older, gas guzzling car because they can't aford a hybrid? Upping the gas tax punishes them as well as people who choose to own Hummers.
I don't know about you, but where I live (Long Island NY), people in the poorer classes tend to own small Japanese cars, like older Civics and Corollas and Sentras, not big old American-iron gas guzzlers. That is, if they own cars at all. As a group, they would probably be hurt less by a gas tax increase than any other socioeconomic segment.
Let's say you're a genius, some child prodigy who's super at calculus or something.
Can you charm women and get laid?
Can you get along with strangers and keep a stable job?
Are you smart enough to stay out of trouble? Avoid fights, etc.
Are you smart enough to choose good friends?
Are you disciplined enough to manage our finances?
Are you street smart enough to protect your wealth from crooks?
Do you get regular exercise and stay in shape?
And how do we know that those traits aren't genetic as well? Certainly the ability to attract the opposite sex would be a trait ripe for natural selection, wouldn't it?
I keep hearing Americans whinge about the extortionate fuel prices and that they can't afford to fill up their cars, and yet fuel prices in the US are a _fraction_ of the price of fuel in Europe.
What does the price of fuel in Europe (most of which is tax) have to do with the amount of tax we choose to levy here? If you want Europe, you know where to find it. This is not Europe.
Also GPS cannot work where it does not get a signal. So in some states this would simply be useless.
Huh? In which states would the satellite-based Global Positioning System not work?
One problem with the current transportation taxes is that they're levied on gallons of gasoline. As more fuel efficent cars and hybrids take off, governments are losing their gas tax money. California is actually looking at having some sort of device put into cars that records how many miles you drive and then charges you for those miles every time you gas up... Since fuel efficient cars are "cheating" the government.
Why not just raise the tax rate to remain revenue-neutral? This has the added benefit of making the worst polluters pay an increasingly large share of the taxes.