You don't know anything about performing a sub-dermal haematoma either. Would you get so mad when the doctor can do one in about 5 minutes after the patient is prepped, too?
As an aside, the burning of Bunker fuel is similar in that some of the energy from the fuel is used to convert the bunker fuel from a tar-like substance to a flowing liquid. How is this accomplished? Simply heating the bunker fuel a bit makes it flow much more readily, and the amount of energy produced by burning the fuel makes the heating process a trivial energy expense in comparison.
The law of conservation of energy only applies to a closed system. This isn't a closed system.
The plastic feedstock contains vast amounts of energy, where the point of the process is to change it from a solid to a liquid that can be used in vehicles. Since we've established that the feedstock contains a vast amount of energy, it's only reasonable that some of that energy can be burned to power the process of converting from a solid to a liquid.
You take one hydrocarbon that burns like the dickens and convert it into another hydrocarbon that burns like the dickens but happens to be liquid (and thus more convenient).
I don't really see any magic involved. You won't get all the energy back, for sure -- turning the oil into plastic and the plastic into fuel will result in far less net energy than just turning the oil into fuel products to begin with, but that's factored into the cost.
The way industry works is this: After a process is deemed to have potential, first you spend a small amount (5 million dollars is a drop in the bucket in the cashflow of a real company or process plant) on a proof-of-concept plant called a 'pilot plant'. If the pilot plant shows the process is both viable and economical, then you can convince investors to put a few hundred million dollars into a full-scale process plant.
This seems to be a new technology, it makes sense that it'd be a pilot plant right now.
Process plants don't just magically appear out of nowhere. It takes a lot of time and money to build one, as well as a lot of buy-in from a lot of parties. In the case of a new technology, moreso: You must build a pilot plant to prove the process is feasible and profitable, then you can spend the real money on a real plant, assuming the regulators let you. Your schedule won't magically disappear just becuase it'd be way more profitable for the plant to be operational right now. Ask the folks doing capital projects in Alberta. They wish they were done in time for $150/barrel oil.
So we've got a process plant here, obviously the technology works, and this company has begun making real money on it. The process is being made to make money. Questions?
Wood gas generators, called Gasogene or GazogÃne, were used to power motor vehicles in Europe during World War II fuel shortages. These are just gasification devices which can use pretty much any organic fuel. Gasification is a common process technique for power plants around the world.
the Fischerâ"Tropsch process was invented in WWII by chemists in fossil-fuel poor Germany, and can convert the synthesis gas from gasification devices into low-sulphur diesel fuel. Companies in the United States, South Africa, Malaysia, Germany and Finland all either have functioning process plants or companies planning on creating process plants.
It hasn't been suppressed or killed, it's in use today. Don't mistake "Gas and oil prices are too low to justify investing in this stuff" for "we don't want this technology to exist".
Most light fixtures are mounted above your head. Placing a heat source up there won't effectively contribute to home heating. Vents are mounted near the floor for a reason.
Considering that last time I installed ubuntu I neded up armpit deep in command line trying to get a simple wireless driver to work, my opinion is based on experience.
There's more drivers if you're willing to deal with voodoo. In Windows, the number of drivers is the same at all times and you don't need any voodoo hexes to get them installed. Just "double click the icon and your sound works now!"
Nothing. I used two examples of different tasks because there aren't any real parallels between Linux and Windows. Installing a driver in Windows is so easy it's ridiculous and Linux doesn't get malware.
Let's not head down that road, because there be dragons.
I chose two simple tasks: getting wireless working and fixing a basic worm. If you start getting into more complicated Linux tasks, it only gets worse.
It's voodoo on both counts. The commands you once used to fix a problem won't necessarily do anything a revision or two in, the files you once used don't necessarily even exist. In both cases you're dealing with poorly documented voodoo. The only real difference is that with Linux you've got to read the spell-book more often to do more basic things.
You can buy hardware for Windows that works with a fresh install too. That's a largely meaningless metric.
And it's really well and good to say "Oh, just get the hardware that's compatible", but when you're sitting there with a new netbook and you've got to futz around with a bunch of settings and download a bunch of drivers to get the wireless to work, that's just a pain in the ass.
Obviously you've never manually removed a worm. 80% of the time, you don't need any outside utilities; Just task manager to kill the process and msconfig to kill the startup.
Some are more interesting than that, but I've only seen one and frankly, I was rather impressed by it. It wasn't your run of the mill msn worm.
I spent years looking for a small laptop that would let me run basic applications. At the time (this was the early 2000s, as late as 2004ish), I wanted something I could do writing on the road with, because I was the lead editor of an online magazine. Between the options that were ridiculously expensive 15 year old DOS machines that had the form factor I wanted but only transferred files using ancient floppy disk technology, or the options that were incredibly hackish palm pilots with hundred dollar attachments that would only transfer files through some of the worst software known to man and only if I spent the money on the super keen word processor, the options were bad.
When I first read about the netbook, it was my Dad who had learned about it. Within a year, I owned one, and among my immediate family (father, mother, brothers, sisters), we had 5 in total. I don't actually like big laptops. I want something portable, and that means small and cheap. I don't want to start crying about losing my small yet powerful laptop that cost 6 months wages.
You're ridiculous. You know that? Completely ridiculous.
As soon as I finish figuring out how to get my wireless internet to work in ubuntu, I'm totally going to trash your post with the most erudite and articulate rebuttal ever!
Often I find that it's under Linux that you have to find the voodoo spell that'll fix your problem. Often you'll find three or four different solutions to the problem that apply to everything except you're a version too early or too late. Things are a LOT better than they were a couple years ago, but there's still a few things where the number of search terms you're narrowing down gets pretty intense. By contrast, once you learn how to fix something in Windows, it tends to be fairly consistent. Get hit with a worm in XP, for example, and the same fix that worked in NT and even to a degree in 9x will work. Get hit with a bad wlan connection in your flavour of linux, and you'd better hope someone has already solved the problem, because the way you solved it before doesn't work anymore.
I've never done it in my life. Maybe I'm unique. My netbook is great for everything except gaming. Of course, it'd better be, considering it's got more graphics grunt than I made it through college with, and nearly as much processing power.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't know anything about performing a sub-dermal haematoma either. Would you get so mad when the doctor can do one in about 5 minutes after the patient is prepped, too?
As an aside, the burning of Bunker fuel is similar in that some of the energy from the fuel is used to convert the bunker fuel from a tar-like substance to a flowing liquid. How is this accomplished? Simply heating the bunker fuel a bit makes it flow much more readily, and the amount of energy produced by burning the fuel makes the heating process a trivial energy expense in comparison.
The law of conservation of energy only applies to a closed system. This isn't a closed system.
The plastic feedstock contains vast amounts of energy, where the point of the process is to change it from a solid to a liquid that can be used in vehicles. Since we've established that the feedstock contains a vast amount of energy, it's only reasonable that some of that energy can be burned to power the process of converting from a solid to a liquid.
Why?
You take one hydrocarbon that burns like the dickens and convert it into another hydrocarbon that burns like the dickens but happens to be liquid (and thus more convenient).
I don't really see any magic involved. You won't get all the energy back, for sure -- turning the oil into plastic and the plastic into fuel will result in far less net energy than just turning the oil into fuel products to begin with, but that's factored into the cost.
The way industry works is this: After a process is deemed to have potential, first you spend a small amount (5 million dollars is a drop in the bucket in the cashflow of a real company or process plant) on a proof-of-concept plant called a 'pilot plant'. If the pilot plant shows the process is both viable and economical, then you can convince investors to put a few hundred million dollars into a full-scale process plant.
This seems to be a new technology, it makes sense that it'd be a pilot plant right now.
I'm sorry, are you an idiot?
Process plants don't just magically appear out of nowhere. It takes a lot of time and money to build one, as well as a lot of buy-in from a lot of parties. In the case of a new technology, moreso: You must build a pilot plant to prove the process is feasible and profitable, then you can spend the real money on a real plant, assuming the regulators let you. Your schedule won't magically disappear just becuase it'd be way more profitable for the plant to be operational right now. Ask the folks doing capital projects in Alberta. They wish they were done in time for $150/barrel oil.
So we've got a process plant here, obviously the technology works, and this company has begun making real money on it. The process is being made to make money. Questions?
You've failed basic research.
Wood gas generators, called Gasogene or GazogÃne, were used to power motor vehicles in Europe during World War II fuel shortages. These are just gasification devices which can use pretty much any organic fuel. Gasification is a common process technique for power plants around the world.
the Fischerâ"Tropsch process was invented in WWII by chemists in fossil-fuel poor Germany, and can convert the synthesis gas from gasification devices into low-sulphur diesel fuel. Companies in the United States, South Africa, Malaysia, Germany and Finland all either have functioning process plants or companies planning on creating process plants.
It hasn't been suppressed or killed, it's in use today. Don't mistake "Gas and oil prices are too low to justify investing in this stuff" for "we don't want this technology to exist".
That's nothing MY health bar has five bars AND VIBRATES!
Most light fixtures are mounted above your head. Placing a heat source up there won't effectively contribute to home heating. Vents are mounted near the floor for a reason.
Considering that last time I installed ubuntu I neded up armpit deep in command line trying to get a simple wireless driver to work, my opinion is based on experience.
There's more drivers if you're willing to deal with voodoo. In Windows, the number of drivers is the same at all times and you don't need any voodoo hexes to get them installed. Just "double click the icon and your sound works now!"
Nothing. I used two examples of different tasks because there aren't any real parallels between Linux and Windows. Installing a driver in Windows is so easy it's ridiculous and Linux doesn't get malware.
There's no equivalent in terms of installing drivers, because windows drivers are consistent and simple to install.
Let's not head down that road, because there be dragons.
I chose two simple tasks: getting wireless working and fixing a basic worm. If you start getting into more complicated Linux tasks, it only gets worse.
It's voodoo on both counts. The commands you once used to fix a problem won't necessarily do anything a revision or two in, the files you once used don't necessarily even exist. In both cases you're dealing with poorly documented voodoo. The only real difference is that with Linux you've got to read the spell-book more often to do more basic things.
You can buy hardware for Windows that works with a fresh install too. That's a largely meaningless metric.
And it's really well and good to say "Oh, just get the hardware that's compatible", but when you're sitting there with a new netbook and you've got to futz around with a bunch of settings and download a bunch of drivers to get the wireless to work, that's just a pain in the ass.
Obviously you've never manually removed a worm. 80% of the time, you don't need any outside utilities; Just task manager to kill the process and msconfig to kill the startup.
Some are more interesting than that, but I've only seen one and frankly, I was rather impressed by it. It wasn't your run of the mill msn worm.
Sounds like voodoo religion to me.
"Enter this into xterm. Why? Shut up, bitch."
As opposed to the windows version, "kill the process. Remove the startup. Genuflect."
Maybe you're just not using it right?
I have to agree completely there.
I spent years looking for a small laptop that would let me run basic applications. At the time (this was the early 2000s, as late as 2004ish), I wanted something I could do writing on the road with, because I was the lead editor of an online magazine. Between the options that were ridiculously expensive 15 year old DOS machines that had the form factor I wanted but only transferred files using ancient floppy disk technology, or the options that were incredibly hackish palm pilots with hundred dollar attachments that would only transfer files through some of the worst software known to man and only if I spent the money on the super keen word processor, the options were bad.
When I first read about the netbook, it was my Dad who had learned about it. Within a year, I owned one, and among my immediate family (father, mother, brothers, sisters), we had 5 in total. I don't actually like big laptops. I want something portable, and that means small and cheap. I don't want to start crying about losing my small yet powerful laptop that cost 6 months wages.
You're ridiculous. You know that? Completely ridiculous.
As soon as I finish figuring out how to get my wireless internet to work in ubuntu, I'm totally going to trash your post with the most erudite and articulate rebuttal ever!
That's not really true anymore. There's plenty of legacy hardware that isn't going to behave on Vista or Windows 7.
Now with XP I'd definitely agree with you, but with 7, it's a question of whether the vendor was nice enough to create vista/7 drivers.
I have to agree ironically.
Often I find that it's under Linux that you have to find the voodoo spell that'll fix your problem. Often you'll find three or four different solutions to the problem that apply to everything except you're a version too early or too late. Things are a LOT better than they were a couple years ago, but there's still a few things where the number of search terms you're narrowing down gets pretty intense. By contrast, once you learn how to fix something in Windows, it tends to be fairly consistent. Get hit with a worm in XP, for example, and the same fix that worked in NT and even to a degree in 9x will work. Get hit with a bad wlan connection in your flavour of linux, and you'd better hope someone has already solved the problem, because the way you solved it before doesn't work anymore.
That's not what your mom said.
What are you doing wrong?
Works fine on my netbook.
Do most people watch HD videos on their computer?
I've never done it in my life. Maybe I'm unique. My netbook is great for everything except gaming. Of course, it'd better be, considering it's got more graphics grunt than I made it through college with, and nearly as much processing power.