In fact helium, once lost to the atmosphere, is irrecoverable in any useful quantity. The only way we can get more is to filter it out of natural gas trapped underground. Helium could therefore be considered a petroleum byproduct.
a.) Irrecoverable at our current levels of needing to recover it/technical ability. Aluminum was very rare and expensive until *some technological advance* made mass production much less energy intensive. b.) I'm not entirely sold that helium released into the atmosphere 'just can't be recovered'. It's going to take better than the vague wikipedia article a couple repliers have linked (it mentions no specific examples, just the general 'fact' of escape. c.) worse case scenario: we use hydrogen or the US becomes the next Saudi Arabia. Worse things have come to pass.
The same arguments come up anytime any form of alternate *anything* is suggested. People come up with some idea as to how the alternate is 'fundamentally flawed', they find some references on wikipedia (or worse) to support their hypothesis, and slap it altogether with the kind of pseudo-scientific confidence only an internet connection can provide.
If a/. post was made about how some writing instrument worked exactly like a pen, but you could modify what you'd written, there would be 50 posts talking about the negatives of being able to change your mind before anyone mentioned "it's a freaking pencil!" They'd even have some psychological mumbo jumbo supporting their statements:)
unless we've been fusing helium or annihilating it with antihelium...all the helium thats ever existed on earth is still here (it doesnt even bond to things for the most part!)
yeah yeah its all in where it is located...that's nothing like the problems facing oil supplies. burn a gallon of gas and it no longer exists chemically and physically (barring slight of hand or processes that take millions of years)
The 100 Year Starship Study is an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible.
The article didn't make it sound that official, but if it wasn't referring to your link, it should have been.
What they're going to talk about next time they're together: http://www.100yss.org/agenda.html
You shouldn't have been rated down, but yeah I don't see this being a negative. With all the professional users of blackberry phones, their tablet's almost assured a user base.
I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows).
The software, called BlackBerry BBX, bridges RIM’s current BlackBerry operating system and its newer QNX platform, co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Lazaridis said today. That should remove developer “roadblocks” and make it easier for them to build applications for RIM. Lazaridis didn’t say when the new BBX program will be available
Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
Twice you used "sucked" and twice you didn't substantiate your claim.
Point not made.
It's all about what's the cheapest (at the time) form of energy. Unfortunately, that only means dollars and cents TODAY; it doesn't mean dollars and cents TODAY plus whatever today's use makes unavailable in the future. The artificially cheaper oil prices enjoyed in the US make alternate forms of transportation almost non-existent (in the US). Batteries, until very recently, have been much heavier and required payment up front. (Gas tanks are much cheaper than batteries.) In short, it isn't electrical cars that 'suck'; the ('unfair') competitive prices of gas power engines 'suck'.
Seems like it. Unless the reviewer has a book on information theory out there, I'm more inclined to believe the criticism (after all the awkwardly positive book reviews I've read on/.)
Or, if you're not an insurrerable dickhead control freak, stop giving a shit about what other people do with their time when it has no impact on you apart from your inability to prevent yourself from paying attention to it.
Yeah, and don't call people sheep...the simple label simply stops further thought on why people are the way they are.
Whether you like it or not, that's the truth. It's the world we live in, so better get used to it!
Or alternatively, if you're not an obedient sheep, speak up and try to change it.
Or, realize that although outgoing people want to be publicly acclaimed and recognized, not all people do. (Not all introverts want to be ignored, but certainly some do.)
Want to honor the memory of Dennis Ritchie? Open up "The C Programming Language" and work out one of it's programming problems. My complete guess is that would have made Ritchie proud.
1.) set up cameras in this year's halloween haunted house (assuming your school does that). Get some of the kids to splice recordings from Oct 31 into a montage of "funny memories".
2.) Make "observation boxes" for who ever can come up with a reason to use them. Figure 5-6 cameras a box, with decent lighting. It might be useful for some biology/chemistry experiments...or just an ant farm.
3.) Place cameras up outside near where the kids are picked up/dropped off. Basically, when ever a kid leaves the campus you've got it on camera (for safety, not so much for catching kids ditching class/smoking).
4.) If you're somewhere that gets a lot of snow, put up some streams of places on campus that kids frequent. Encourage them to view the cams from home before leaving so they know what the weather looks like. (Limited use, but it'll look nice on the school's web page.)
5.) Set 'em up on portable posts that can be placed on/near students desks. Once per year per class (randomly chosen), record every student taking a test and look for cheaters.
6.) Do the above, but for bullying. (Yeah, it's pretty "big brother"-ish, but if it's only once a year/month per class, it's not that big a deal.)
7.) Devise some kind of game that uses those cameras somehow. Maybe some functional version of chess?
Well, I doubt that I would be shocked by the usefulness of android apps. Like I said, I'm basing a lot of my opinion here on my time with the playbook. That may not be 'fair' but it's how it is. I just wonder if this tablet business isn't the PDA all over again. The apps on PDAs always left a lot to be desired (they had to). But that didn't help me find a reason to lug one around much.
Anyway, since it's somewhat "Linux", I expect there to be many more apps for android, and some of them are probably damn good. OSS has its benefits.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact helium, once lost to the atmosphere, is irrecoverable in any useful quantity. The only way we can get more is to filter it out of natural gas trapped underground. Helium could therefore be considered a petroleum byproduct.
a.) Irrecoverable at our current levels of needing to recover it/technical ability. Aluminum was very rare and expensive until *some technological advance* made mass production much less energy intensive.
b.) I'm not entirely sold that helium released into the atmosphere 'just can't be recovered'. It's going to take better than the vague wikipedia article a couple repliers have linked (it mentions no specific examples, just the general 'fact' of escape.
c.) worse case scenario: we use hydrogen or the US becomes the next Saudi Arabia. Worse things have come to pass.
The same arguments come up anytime any form of alternate *anything* is suggested. People come up with some idea as to how the alternate is 'fundamentally flawed', they find some references on wikipedia (or worse) to support their hypothesis, and slap it altogether with the kind of pseudo-scientific confidence only an internet connection can provide.
If a /. post was made about how some writing instrument worked exactly like a pen, but you could modify what you'd written, there would be 50 posts talking about the negatives of being able to change your mind before anyone mentioned "it's a freaking pencil!" They'd even have some psychological mumbo jumbo supporting their statements :)
(It's late, I'm ranty, gn /. )
there's a 30 ton model...should be enough for the truck replacement problem.
unless we've been fusing helium or annihilating it with antihelium...all the helium thats ever existed on earth is still here (it doesnt even bond to things for the most part!)
yeah yeah its all in where it is located...that's nothing like the problems facing oil supplies. burn a gallon of gas and it no longer exists chemically and physically (barring slight of hand or processes that take millions of years)
Yep, I agree. The worst part is that, I bet, barebones, they could put out a 10" $200 kobo if it used eink and didn't mess with all the other crud.
Yep, I just wonder if it really needs to cost $380 (or whatever the DMX runs) for a decently sized eink display.
As an owner of the 2nd-gen Kobo (WiFi+USB) [...] I don't need a bigger and heavier device to do the same thing.
It wont do the same thing, though, because it has an LCD not an eink screen!
it may all prove superfluous
You say that after reading a "far out there" prediction...so ironic!
From the "about" for the project:
The 100 Year Starship Study is an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible.
The article didn't make it sound that official, but if it wasn't referring to your link, it should have been.
What they're going to talk about next time they're together: http://www.100yss.org/agenda.html
You shouldn't have been rated down, but yeah I don't see this being a negative. With all the professional users of blackberry phones, their tablet's almost assured a user base.
I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows).
The software, called BlackBerry BBX, bridges RIM’s current BlackBerry operating system and its newer QNX platform, co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Lazaridis said today. That should remove developer “roadblocks” and make it easier for them to build applications for RIM. Lazaridis didn’t say when the new BBX program will be available
Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
When you put it that way it doesn't sound so ripe for abuse.
Twice you used "sucked" and twice you didn't substantiate your claim.
Point not made.
It's all about what's the cheapest (at the time) form of energy. Unfortunately, that only means dollars and cents TODAY; it doesn't mean dollars and cents TODAY plus whatever today's use makes unavailable in the future. The artificially cheaper oil prices enjoyed in the US make alternate forms of transportation almost non-existent (in the US). Batteries, until very recently, have been much heavier and required payment up front. (Gas tanks are much cheaper than batteries.) In short, it isn't electrical cars that 'suck'; the ('unfair') competitive prices of gas power engines 'suck'.
Seems like it. Unless the reviewer has a book on information theory out there, I'm more inclined to believe the criticism (after all the awkwardly positive book reviews I've read on /.)
crud ment to reply to next post...
Robert Plant did a similar thing. People have their flaws...
Or, if you're not an insurrerable dickhead control freak, stop giving a shit about what other people do with their time when it has no impact on you apart from your inability to prevent yourself from paying attention to it.
Yeah, and don't call people sheep...the simple label simply stops further thought on why people are the way they are.
Whether you like it or not, that's the truth. It's the world we live in, so better get used to it!
Or alternatively, if you're not an obedient sheep, speak up and try to change it.
Or, realize that although outgoing people want to be publicly acclaimed and recognized, not all people do. (Not all introverts want to be ignored, but certainly some do.)
Want to honor the memory of Dennis Ritchie? Open up "The C Programming Language" and work out one of it's programming problems. My complete guess is that would have made Ritchie proud.
The number of doomsayers will always be greater than zero, and sometimes you won't even have to go past first post.
For a "news for nerds" site, we sure seem to have a lot of technophobes.
Technophobes will be the doom of us all!!!!
1.) set up cameras in this year's halloween haunted house (assuming your school does that). Get some of the kids to splice recordings from Oct 31 into a montage of "funny memories".
2.) Make "observation boxes" for who ever can come up with a reason to use them. Figure 5-6 cameras a box, with decent lighting. It might be useful for some biology/chemistry experiments...or just an ant farm.
3.) Place cameras up outside near where the kids are picked up/dropped off. Basically, when ever a kid leaves the campus you've got it on camera (for safety, not so much for catching kids ditching class/smoking).
4.) If you're somewhere that gets a lot of snow, put up some streams of places on campus that kids frequent. Encourage them to view the cams from home before leaving so they know what the weather looks like. (Limited use, but it'll look nice on the school's web page.)
5.) Set 'em up on portable posts that can be placed on/near students desks. Once per year per class (randomly chosen), record every student taking a test and look for cheaters.
6.) Do the above, but for bullying. (Yeah, it's pretty "big brother"-ish, but if it's only once a year/month per class, it's not that big a deal.)
7.) Devise some kind of game that uses those cameras somehow. Maybe some functional version of chess?
Well, I doubt that I would be shocked by the usefulness of android apps. Like I said, I'm basing a lot of my opinion here on my time with the playbook. That may not be 'fair' but it's how it is. I just wonder if this tablet business isn't the PDA all over again. The apps on PDAs always left a lot to be desired (they had to). But that didn't help me find a reason to lug one around much.
Anyway, since it's somewhat "Linux", I expect there to be many more apps for android, and some of them are probably damn good. OSS has its benefits.
Wow, 'correcting' someone's eulogy to the point of belittlement...I think you should have kept it above the waist.
Poor display.
Just when I thought I couldn't get any lower as a bachelor...machines go and gain the ability to replicate - I can't even do that!
hi I'm an Obama core voter and i want to see nasa funded at 25% of the DOD budget
we'd be on pluto by now...and we'd probably have ray guns
but they don't use a lot of tax payer money...the war budget dwarfs nasa as does the friggin wallsteet bailouts!
No, no, what we need is a new voting system.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeblp8_steven-brams-on-approval-voting_people
Get rid of the single vote and get rid of the two dominating parties. Simple as that.