US Energy Consumption in 1998 was 94.27 Quadrillion BTU or 9.945x10^19 Joules
Since you have access to statistics: Hoe many BTUs of energy are delivered by the Sun each day? What fraction of that would need to be harnessed by various methods to meed demand?
Solar power isn't even an energy source at the moment.
Agreed. However, this is no prediction of the future.
Since modern argiculture is so dependent on oil and as many as 5 billion people are alive today only because of the extra food mechanized agriculture allows the future does not look all that rosey.
Well, since the USA is so good at making corn (another solar energy producer, effectively), why not see if enough can be made into biodesiel for all the diesel-powered tractors? There are options out there, it's just that the economy, politics, etc. are providing barriers to sufficiently investigating those options at the moment. Eventually, the markets will evolve to the point where the alternatives become not only cost effective but essential for progress. So, time will tell.
For remote construction tasks, a traditional pickup truck will have better mileage, more cargo space, and 1/3 the price tag.
It depends on the terrain. Hummers and pickup trucks have a different tradeoff regarding off-road capability vs. milage/price/cargo. Hummers can be used for non-miltary purposes, where the fact that it has 24" of ground clearance, water-crossing capabilities, etc., are valuable attributes.
First, the true cost of a large SUV is not transparent to the owner.
First, my choice of words should have been "invisible" rather than "transparent." (another reply pointed this out)
As far as sales and property tax are concerned, you should visit South Carolina. Sales tax is capped at $300 and property tax goes down as the vehicle ages, meaning that vehicles contribute less to the tax base merely as a factor of age.
Also, the fuel taxes only reflect a portion of the vechicle's consumption, due to subsidies by other taxes (income and sales tax).
While I agree SUVs as an example isn't as extreme as housing subsidies, for example, I still think that the tax structure is weighted towards the "middle class" of cars while giving some artificial advantages to the top and the bottom of the spectrum. This dishonesty in the tax distribution is my main gripe.
Okay, I agree that it should be "invisible" or "hidden".
Re:The main mistake of EJB.
on
Bitter EJB
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· Score: 1
I think very few that have deployed J2EE applications would characterize the environment as "fragile".
I've seen one J2EE implementation that doesn't fail gracefully, however, and doesn't provide useful feedback to the hopeful and rather under-qualified developers. The biggest fault I assign to these developers is using a commercial J2EE implementation complete with EJBs for a project that has only a few dozen tables and barely any data. They really could have gotten by with Perl scripts for this project, but the government top-down dogma used to sell the project was "web based" with "enterprise java". Yup, that's right, the technology to be used was specified in the requirements (basically the project failed with the first written page).
Re:Incidental success...
on
Bitter EJB
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· Score: 1
I've seen several EJB apps written, and worked on a few myself, and you can read all the damned API docs, follow Sun's examples, read your app server documentation, and so on, and still, you just shoot yourself in the foot.
I think EJB is one domain, whose programmers really would benefit from some kind of formal training on the architecture. This could be a few weeks at a reputable training class or a good apprenticeship program within companies. Enterprise apps aren't exactly something that can be picked up after two weeks of looking at tutorials.
Re:Good database design is still essential
on
Bitter EJB
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· Score: 2, Insightful
But you first have to learn the basics of good database design, for without that, you are hosed.
Agreed. It is also easy to argue that doing the database design first in a project rather than slapping it together as classes are created is the best approach. Normalization is important, too. I've seen a database where some tables had over fifty columns, where there were blatant opportunities to split the tables up into much more logical entities. But the developers didn't do it, and the software suffers terribly as a result.
These announcements are nothing more than vague future directions...
It worked for them in the early 1990s, and they're hoping that it'll work again. However, they're facing a much more saturated and cynical market than before, so I think their success will be limited by this.
Congress, with all its lip-service about ending our dependence on foreign oil, THIS YEAR, voted DOWN a bill requiring car companies to adhere to higher mileage standards.
The best thing Congress could do is end the subsidies of highways from non-intuitive sources. For example, all the money that goes towards highway infrastructure should come from weight+milage property taxes plus perhaps gasoline sales tax. This would automatically build in an incentives structure that favors smaller, lighter, and alternative fuel automobiles.
It doesn't even take placing mandates on the auto companies! Just create a realistic tax structure for these things, and the market will sort itself out accordingly. The real problems, today, is that each person isn't paying in accordance to their usage and impact on roads and the environment. In effect, each one of us is living a lie.
Yes, but the Sun ain't going away anytime soon. Using solar cells might not be the ideal solution, but there are other ways of harnessing the sun, even ones that we haven't imagined, yet.
Covering the Earth's surface with solar cells couldn't generate the energy needed to sustain our civilization.
There are lots of ways to tap into the Sun. Actually, oil is a way of tapping into past solar energy, but the ways to tap into current solar energy that I can think of are: solar panels for electricity/water heating, wind energy, thermal gradients in the oceans, dams on rivers, and that big tower thingy in Australia. None of these need to contribute to altering the reflectivity of the earth or the net energy balance of the earth. I'm pretty sure that asphalt has done much more to damage the earth's reflectivity than anything else.
Re:EJB is REALLY Bitter
on
Bitter EJB
·
· Score: 1
Contrast this with M$FT which provides a clear Roadmap and expands complexity slowly to grasp them easier.
LOL! Look at the last fifteen years of Microsoft API history and make this statement again!
Microsoft offers only the illusion of simplicity through their mind-altering marketing campaigns. Their reality is very much the opposite, where unchecked complexity and no real ways to troubleshoot problems are the main attributes of their software.
The reason this statement is incorrect, is because Microsoft broke the law in its quest for domination. They went outside the rules for civilized conduct in the free market. Extortion is illegal, for example, yet Microsoft does it effectively every day. This is one of the reasons why we see a growing backlash against Microsoft. Their legacy will be their nemisis; it's just a matter of time.
There is another thing we need to realize. The lack of counter-incentives when buying something like a Hummer is largely due to the perverse ass-backwards tax systems use to fund road construction and maintenance.
For example, if even one cent of highway funding comes from income taxes, sales taxes, or property-value-based taxes, then the true cost of the Hummer is transparent to its owners. This is sad, because beyond excessive fuel consuption the Hummer also does increased wear and tear to roadways. The fuel taxes only partially compensate for this, due to highways subsidies coming from other sources. In effect, the tax structure allows people to live a lie, because other people are subsidizing their habits. This is just another argument to repeal income taxes in favor of other purpose-specific taxes.
IIRC, people were able to construct cabins in remote areas somewhat prior to the advent of the helicopter and the Hummer.
This is true, because they used the materials from clearing the land directly in building the house (e.g., log cabins). However, if a person wanted a few amenities, such as a brick foundation or a well, the Hummer might be a practical solution. For this application, the consequences of the Hummer are nil, because it is using the machine in the niche for which it is intended, and everyone else would be driving efficient sedans and station wagons for their needs. While I view the Hummer as a tool, other people view it as a status symbol. The latter definition is more troubling.
Making plastic may be fairly difficult once the oil is gone.
I would estimate that there are ways to synthesize plastic from raw materials (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, etc.) using a engineeredp process, but that it would be much more expensive than we can currently do with oil from the ground. However, with unlimited solar energy, such a process would probably be practical.
The Sun is the natural destination for our energy needs. It is really a matter of time, really. Electrolysis of the oceans for hydrogen using solar energy would be perfect (I think...), because it is a merely adding to the perpeptual water cycle. The resulting salt can either be dumped back into the ocean or consumed in recipies.
Why do you need to get to that destination? Could you get there by walking, or taking a mountain bike?
What if you purchased rural property and wanted to build a cabin there, and there is no bridge crossing a creek along the way. Using a hummer and an appropriate trailer will be very useful in hauling building materials to the site and is cheaper than using helicopters or building a dirt road suitable for larger trucks.
I thought it was more of a difference between nova and super-nova, but I'm far from an expert. What I remember from those Time-Life-style astronomy books is that in five billion or so years, the Sun will get really big and more or less consume the inner planets and probably cause the outer planets to boil away. The end result--no earth--is the same, nova or no.
Capitalists have managed to convince you that they are Creating Profit when they pump oil (cut rainforests, build suburbs, etc) and sell it -- in fact, they are not. They are ROBBING the planet (which we must all share wisely) and telling you its "ok".
No, oil is an energy source. When it is no longer practical and/or desirable, you do understand that the Sun is always a very good Plan B?
There is no shortage of energy. There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova and evaporates the earth. Using oil is robbing the earth of nothing, and it is our inefficient and irresponsible use of that oil that is the biggest problem. Low emissions is simply an engineering problem (and one that doesn't need to be driven by legislation, either, as markets for energy-efficient engines become more common).
The best thing you can do is spread awareness of alternative types of engines/power sources/etc. and help create the demand for them and the resulting markets that drive the corporations. Consumer demand does wonders and is more efficient than the government even dreams about.
The earth has a mass of sextillions of tons. Oil reserves measure in billions upon billions of barrels. That oil was made over hundreds of millions of years and is essentially captured solar energy in a hydrocarbon form.
The fact that we don't use it efficiently is another matter entirely.
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US Energy Consumption in 1998 was 94.27 Quadrillion BTU or 9.945x10^19 Joules
Since you have access to statistics: Hoe many BTUs of energy are delivered by the Sun each day? What fraction of that would need to be harnessed by various methods to meed demand?
Solar power isn't even an energy source at the moment.
Agreed. However, this is no prediction of the future.
Since modern argiculture is so dependent on oil and as many as 5 billion people are alive today only because of the extra food mechanized agriculture allows the future does not look all that rosey.
Well, since the USA is so good at making corn (another solar energy producer, effectively), why not see if enough can be made into biodesiel for all the diesel-powered tractors? There are options out there, it's just that the economy, politics, etc. are providing barriers to sufficiently investigating those options at the moment. Eventually, the markets will evolve to the point where the alternatives become not only cost effective but essential for progress. So, time will tell.
For remote construction tasks, a traditional pickup truck will have better mileage, more cargo space, and 1/3 the price tag.
It depends on the terrain. Hummers and pickup trucks have a different tradeoff regarding off-road capability vs. milage/price/cargo. Hummers can be used for non-miltary purposes, where the fact that it has 24" of ground clearance, water-crossing capabilities, etc., are valuable attributes.
First, the true cost of a large SUV is not transparent to the owner.
First, my choice of words should have been "invisible" rather than "transparent." (another reply pointed this out)
As far as sales and property tax are concerned, you should visit South Carolina. Sales tax is capped at $300 and property tax goes down as the vehicle ages, meaning that vehicles contribute less to the tax base merely as a factor of age.
Also, the fuel taxes only reflect a portion of the vechicle's consumption, due to subsidies by other taxes (income and sales tax).
While I agree SUVs as an example isn't as extreme as housing subsidies, for example, I still think that the tax structure is weighted towards the "middle class" of cars while giving some artificial advantages to the top and the bottom of the spectrum. This dishonesty in the tax distribution is my main gripe.
Okay, I agree that it should be "invisible" or "hidden".
I think very few that have deployed J2EE applications would characterize the environment as "fragile".
I've seen one J2EE implementation that doesn't fail gracefully, however, and doesn't provide useful feedback to the hopeful and rather under-qualified developers. The biggest fault I assign to these developers is using a commercial J2EE implementation complete with EJBs for a project that has only a few dozen tables and barely any data. They really could have gotten by with Perl scripts for this project, but the government top-down dogma used to sell the project was "web based" with "enterprise java". Yup, that's right, the technology to be used was specified in the requirements (basically the project failed with the first written page).
I've seen several EJB apps written, and worked on a few myself, and you can read all the damned API docs, follow Sun's examples, read your app server documentation, and so on, and still, you just shoot yourself in the foot.
I think EJB is one domain, whose programmers really would benefit from some kind of formal training on the architecture. This could be a few weeks at a reputable training class or a good apprenticeship program within companies. Enterprise apps aren't exactly something that can be picked up after two weeks of looking at tutorials.
But you first have to learn the basics of good database design, for without that, you are hosed.
Agreed. It is also easy to argue that doing the database design first in a project rather than slapping it together as classes are created is the best approach. Normalization is important, too. I've seen a database where some tables had over fifty columns, where there were blatant opportunities to split the tables up into much more logical entities. But the developers didn't do it, and the software suffers terribly as a result.
how does that tie in to an application framework?
It's neurological. For example, twitching, screaming, and throwing monitors accross the room are all common effects of using Microsoft Windows.
These announcements are nothing more than vague future directions...
It worked for them in the early 1990s, and they're hoping that it'll work again. However, they're facing a much more saturated and cynical market than before, so I think their success will be limited by this.
Congress, with all its lip-service about ending our dependence on foreign oil, THIS YEAR, voted DOWN a bill requiring car companies to adhere to higher mileage standards.
The best thing Congress could do is end the subsidies of highways from non-intuitive sources. For example, all the money that goes towards highway infrastructure should come from weight+milage property taxes plus perhaps gasoline sales tax. This would automatically build in an incentives structure that favors smaller, lighter, and alternative fuel automobiles.
It doesn't even take placing mandates on the auto companies! Just create a realistic tax structure for these things, and the market will sort itself out accordingly. The real problems, today, is that each person isn't paying in accordance to their usage and impact on roads and the environment. In effect, each one of us is living a lie.
Solar Energy is grossly inefficient.
Yes, but the Sun ain't going away anytime soon. Using solar cells might not be the ideal solution, but there are other ways of harnessing the sun, even ones that we haven't imagined, yet.
Everything comes at a prices, monetary or otherwise.
I still like my ideology reactor idea. For example, putting PETA members into a room with laboratory scientists would certainly generate some sparks.
Covering the Earth's surface with solar cells couldn't generate the energy needed to sustain our civilization.
There are lots of ways to tap into the Sun. Actually, oil is a way of tapping into past solar energy, but the ways to tap into current solar energy that I can think of are: solar panels for electricity/water heating, wind energy, thermal gradients in the oceans, dams on rivers, and that big tower thingy in Australia. None of these need to contribute to altering the reflectivity of the earth or the net energy balance of the earth. I'm pretty sure that asphalt has done much more to damage the earth's reflectivity than anything else.
Contrast this with M$FT which provides a clear Roadmap and expands complexity slowly to grasp them easier.
LOL! Look at the last fifteen years of Microsoft API history and make this statement again!
Microsoft offers only the illusion of simplicity through their mind-altering marketing campaigns. Their reality is very much the opposite, where unchecked complexity and no real ways to troubleshoot problems are the main attributes of their software.
no it doesn't, just look at Microsoft.
The reason this statement is incorrect, is because Microsoft broke the law in its quest for domination. They went outside the rules for civilized conduct in the free market. Extortion is illegal, for example, yet Microsoft does it effectively every day. This is one of the reasons why we see a growing backlash against Microsoft. Their legacy will be their nemisis; it's just a matter of time.
There is another thing we need to realize. The lack of counter-incentives when buying something like a Hummer is largely due to the perverse ass-backwards tax systems use to fund road construction and maintenance.
For example, if even one cent of highway funding comes from income taxes, sales taxes, or property-value-based taxes, then the true cost of the Hummer is transparent to its owners. This is sad, because beyond excessive fuel consuption the Hummer also does increased wear and tear to roadways. The fuel taxes only partially compensate for this, due to highways subsidies coming from other sources. In effect, the tax structure allows people to live a lie, because other people are subsidizing their habits. This is just another argument to repeal income taxes in favor of other purpose-specific taxes.
IIRC, people were able to construct cabins in remote areas somewhat prior to the advent of the helicopter and the Hummer.
This is true, because they used the materials from clearing the land directly in building the house (e.g., log cabins). However, if a person wanted a few amenities, such as a brick foundation or a well, the Hummer might be a practical solution. For this application, the consequences of the Hummer are nil, because it is using the machine in the niche for which it is intended, and everyone else would be driving efficient sedans and station wagons for their needs. While I view the Hummer as a tool, other people view it as a status symbol. The latter definition is more troubling.
Making plastic may be fairly difficult once the oil is gone.
I would estimate that there are ways to synthesize plastic from raw materials (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, etc.) using a engineeredp process, but that it would be much more expensive than we can currently do with oil from the ground. However, with unlimited solar energy, such a process would probably be practical.
The Sun is the natural destination for our energy needs. It is really a matter of time, really. Electrolysis of the oceans for hydrogen using solar energy would be perfect (I think...), because it is a merely adding to the perpeptual water cycle. The resulting salt can either be dumped back into the ocean or consumed in recipies.
Why do you need to get to that destination? Could you get there by walking, or taking a mountain bike?
What if you purchased rural property and wanted to build a cabin there, and there is no bridge crossing a creek along the way. Using a hummer and an appropriate trailer will be very useful in hauling building materials to the site and is cheaper than using helicopters or building a dirt road suitable for larger trucks.
I thought it was more of a difference between nova and super-nova, but I'm far from an expert. What I remember from those Time-Life-style astronomy books is that in five billion or so years, the Sun will get really big and more or less consume the inner planets and probably cause the outer planets to boil away. The end result--no earth--is the same, nova or no.
I think it shows how inefficient mother nature is.
Exactly. The Sun put out 1000 fuckinbazilliwatts per second, only to fuel a planet that will be destroyed in 5 billion years, anyway. Kinda sad.
Yeah, but a Hummer is not the best ways to use that energy
What if there is no road leading to your destination? Don't blame the hummer, when it is penis-deficient suburbanites who are to blame.
Capitalists have managed to convince you that they are Creating Profit when they pump oil (cut rainforests, build suburbs, etc) and sell it -- in fact, they are not. They are ROBBING the planet (which we must all share wisely) and telling you its "ok".
No, oil is an energy source. When it is no longer practical and/or desirable, you do understand that the Sun is always a very good Plan B?
There is no shortage of energy. There will never by a shortage of energy until the Sun goes nova and evaporates the earth. Using oil is robbing the earth of nothing, and it is our inefficient and irresponsible use of that oil that is the biggest problem. Low emissions is simply an engineering problem (and one that doesn't need to be driven by legislation, either, as markets for energy-efficient engines become more common).
The best thing you can do is spread awareness of alternative types of engines/power sources/etc. and help create the demand for them and the resulting markets that drive the corporations. Consumer demand does wonders and is more efficient than the government even dreams about.
The earth has a mass of sextillions of tons. Oil reserves measure in billions upon billions of barrels. That oil was made over hundreds of millions of years and is essentially captured solar energy in a hydrocarbon form.
The fact that we don't use it efficiently is another matter entirely.