It depends upon what sort of fuel you're trying to produce. Methane can definitely be burned as a fuel, on your stove for example, but it's not a good aviation fuel. The idea here is to skip methane and go straight to ethane or propane which can be up-converted to even longer chain hydrocarbons via more heat and pressure, eventually yielding jet fuel. Artificial hydrocarbon fuels themselves are nothing new. The basic processes have been known since the early part of the 20th century, but because it's way cheaper to simply refine naturally occurring petroleum pumped out of the ground, nobody does synthetic hydrocarbons unless they have to. For example, Germany produced synthetic aviation gasoline from coal during WWII as supplies of oil were gradually cut off and South Africa produced diesel fuel from coal during the sanctions of the Apartheid era.
There's no doubt that manufacturing fuel on board is desirable from a logistics standpoint. The question is cost, not just monetary but energy. As you're no doubt aware, hydrocarbon fuels are incredibly energy dense which means that an equal amount (and probably more) energy most go into their creation from scratch using the most basic raw materials, H2, CO2 and CO. The question is how much space is available onboard for production scale versions of these reactors and how much steam and electric power will the reactor have to supply to make this work. I don't know, but I would guess lots. This fuel production sounds like an energy hungry process. How much power and steam can be spared from other onboard needs to power fuel production? Would this stress the reactors, possibly reducing service life or requiring more frequent nuclear refuels? There are trade-offs here, it's not a slam dunk.
I was under the impression that electrolysis isn't a fast process but the article does mention some kind of patented "electrolytic cation exchange module", perhaps combined with some kind of "bicarbonate" reactant? In any case, it seems clear that they've found a way to substantially speed up H2 and CO2 production from seawater. From there it's not much of a stretch to produce CO and then hydrocarbon fuels, jet fuels in this case, via the well understood Fischer-Tropsch process or similar.
You do realize that what they're producing here is artificial jet fuel, right? It's not "biofuel" because it isn't produced by bacteria or algae or other direct biological process. No, what they're talking about here is essentially the water gas shift reaction whereby dissolved CO2 in the seawater is combined with water vapor (aka steam) and carbon monoxide (produced via this "bicarbonate" reactant?) to yield carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen which more heat and pressure (steam) in the presence of an iron catalyst converts these products into short chain hydrocarbons (alkenes), probably ethanes (CH3) and propanes (CH4), and from there longer chain hydrocarbons with more heat and pressure until the desired blend is cooked up, jet fuels of CH9 to CH16. However, these processes don't really transition us away from fossil fuels or at least not into something besides a hydrocarbon fuel, whether produced artificially as in this case or refined from naturally occurring crude oil that we've pumped out of the ground.
It's unlikely that this would obviate completely the need for external supplies of fuel. At best it would probably only marginally decrease the depletion rate of on board stocks allowing for a somewhat longer cruise before a resupply is needed. There are probably other downsides to using this system too. For example, there are parts, maintenance and possibly extra wear and tear on the reactor which now not only has to propel the ship but also power an energy intensive conversion process from seawater to jet fuel. Indeed, the initiation energy for some of those chemical reactions is quite high which probably explains why somebody isn't already doing this on a large scale for profit here on land.
I wish I could find the Warren Buffet quote on this matter.
I doubt that you will find one because Warren's whole investment philosophy revolves around the concept of "durable competitive advantage" which is a fancy way of saying that some companies are superior to others and able to maintain that superiority over long periods of time. Buffet made his fortune by finding these companies, buying them at the right price and then holding them as long as they continued to have that competitive advantage. In some cases he has held positions for decades or even longer as profits mounted into the thousands of percent gain and counting. This also has the advantage of deferring capital gains taxes far into the future since no taxes are owed until the asset is actually sold. That's the basic theory anyway. Whether or not you believe that is up to you I suppose, but it's hard to argue with Buffet's lifetime results.
Except that you're basically forced to participate in the US because they've rigged the tax laws so that it's very difficult to have tax deferred retirement savings in any significant amount without playing their 401K games, fees and all. If the US Government really wanted to make things fair, they would allow up to the maximum 401K contribution to be split among any number of like tax deferred plans, either personal IRA or plan offered by your employer. However, that will never happen because Wall Street always lobbies hard against anything that might allow individual savers to escape or minimize their fees.
How does that hurt the individual investor buying or selling with limit orders? With limit orders you can get the price you want or the trade doesn't happen. If your offer is reasonable it's unlikely that your trade will be forever in limbo due to repeated auto-cancels.
pay attention to the spreads and use limit orders.
This. Exactly. The individual small investor has ZERO business putting in buy orders at market and selling stocks that way is only slightly less dumb. The stock market isn't rigged so that individual small investors have no winning strategies but plenty of investors, both big and small, punish themselves daily through stupid play. That's why I laugh every time I see some brokerage firm advertising their "online trading platform" to individual small investors working from home. It's like Casino marketing. They want you to think that with their tools or "system" you will be a "winner" at the trading game against the high frequency professionals. In fact, the only winning move for the individual small investor is to refuse play and limit orders allow you to do that simply and easily. They do require patience, but then again most winning strategies for individual small investors do.
Speaking of which... do you have a recommended method of getting the shot delivered, before the perpetrators are finished breaking through the door?
I have a 357 magnum revolver that could probably penetrate the door, but I don't shoot at things I cannot see. It's dangerous and silly to try and shoot intruders you cannot see through walls or doors. This isn't the movies after all.
Often it takes the uninvited guests a while to complete the forcible entry due to the metallic cladding around the door, the high-security strike plates; additional steel reinforcement of the door frame, additional physical bolts.
Plenty of time for me to take up a good defensive firing position and make ready to lay into them as soon as they enter. I have the advantage of knowing the layout of my own home and the best firing positions so it's very likely that I would be able to fire several rounds before the intruders even knew which direction the shots were coming from. They would likely be dead or incapacitated before they could return fire.
Not wanting to do damage to the door, and possibly speed up their attempt to attack, or engage them face to face -- for fear that the uninvited intruders are armed --- can you think of a resolution, or way of getting the lead shot delivered successfully?
The door and maybe the windows too have already been damaged or destroyed by the attackers. As I've said, I would take up a good firing position with cover and surprise them after they entered.
the time I called 911 on the land line, there were two men trying to break my door down, and being put on hold would not have improved my confidence.
Nothing says "get the F*** out of here" like the sound of a shell being chambered into a shotgun. It's universally understood and almost universally respected. If that fails to get the message across then the site and sound of a discharge from said shotgun is almost always enough. The first round in mine is always a blank, that way I can deliver a warning shot before laying down the lead. I can always call 911 after the invaders are dead. Forcible entry of uninvited guests, aka breaking down the door, is the textbook example of justified use deadly force in protection of hearth, family and home. I don't think that there's a jury anywhere in America that would begrudge a man that right when his home is being invaded with violence.
Genetically modified tobacco? They ought to require a warning label on all products made with this tobacco so that people know that using it is harmful to their health.
This is being blown way out of proportion here. Filing the infringement lawsuit and winning the injunction was the first step towards making a deal. With the injunction in hand Blackberry has demonstrated to Seacrest and his investors that this is serious, but they've also left open the way to a deal. This would probably take the form of royalty payments from Typo to Blackberry for each case sold, the amount to be negotiated after agreement in principle to pay royalties. The remaining Blackberry shareholders are hard core professional investors and financial types now, not technologists, so they will be eager to squeeze any money they can out of the patent portfolio even if that cannibalizes a few Blackberry sales down the road.
Re:We Choose Framentation Over Consolidation.
on
Toward Better Programming
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Because we no longer solve original problems.
There's nothing new under the sun. On the other hand, we still have to deliver finished work products to the ones paying the bills. I prefer to do this without tying myself into knots worrying about whether or not there's some brilliant framework or API out there that can magically solve all of my problems while ending hunger and bringing about world peace. You're no doubt familiar with KISS? I use it every day and you know what? It works.
Why do we have a Java version, multiple C++ versions, a.Net version, and Obective-C version.
Because the people who make the platforms don't care about interoperability or at least not very much. We live and work in the real world, not the world as we might like it to be. You accept this and move on or at least most of us who want to get shit done do.
but why can't we just add translate to all languages and implementations when we decide we need a translate() function. Why are the Java and.Net ones seperate, with different methods and signatures despite it being one concept.
In other words, why doesn't everyone just speak English? Languages, whether natural or constructed as with programming languages, are used by humans with different personal preferences, likes, dislikes and needs. We don't add translate to all languages because not everybody needs it, wants it or even cares about it.
It seems to bother you a great deal that other people "reinvent the wheel" instead of doing things the way that you think they ought to be doing them whereas I on other hand don't much care what other people do or what tools they use. As long as my clients are satisfied, I'm satisfied. If you want to spend your career being an architecture astronaut then by all means don't let me stop you, but I think you'll find that much of what we do in the world of paid software development is a matter of getting the job done and getting paid as quickly and expediently as possible so that we can move on to the next project. Duct tape and WD40 may not be glamorous tools, but they get the job done.
Why not just pick the tools that you like and not worry about what other people use? This focus on what tools somebody else ought to be using is a curious feature of the programming profession. Do you see two construction contractors arguing over whether the other guy ought to be using the belt sander or the sand blaster? No? Then why should we expend such extraordinary effort arguing over other people's choice of programming tools?
The primary benefit of unit tests is to prove that your system works tomorrow, even after Bob the Intern just mucked around in the code.
It's a possible benefit, but even that's not guaranteed. Bob might have introduced a new bug that slipped past your passing tests because your tests were too specific or there were gaps in your coverage. Writing good unit tests is often as hard or harder than writing the code that's being tested and yet it's a task that's often handed off to the most junior member of a programming team.
Source code control tools can be used by non programmers as well.
In theory yes, but in practice how many actually do? I've often thought that legislatures would benefit greatly from version control systems to track changes and prevent sneaky edits and riders from making their way into bills at the last minute. Of course the legislators are very often lawyers with 19th century modes of thinking, so getting them to use version control with any kind of proficiency or regularity would be something of a minor miracle.
This is a management fad that comes and goes every five or ten years or so, sort of like fashions. Ever since programming became essential to modern business, managers have been looking for ways, mostly without success, to take the craftsmanship and artistry out of programming. The truth, which is immediately obvious to anyone who has done this for a living, is that software is fantastically varied and complex and yet at the same time there is a subtle and zen like quality to the work which appeals only to a small subset of the general population. Despite the recent push for more computer science and programming education, I doubt that more than five percent of the general population is even capable of doing what we do. A good analogy would be the piano or other music lessons that many of us had as children and yet only a relatively small number of us play with any sort of proficiency and fewer still have reached the level of a professional musician. I believe that programming is similar to music in this and other ways, it's just not for everyone and that's alright.
I use source control even in my personal projects where I'm the only one working on them. The change tracking, branch and merge features alone are worth the price of admission. Becoming fluent with source control is an a-ha kind of experience and once you get it you will never want to be without it, especially when working with other programmers.
If you've used some of the good point solutions in each of those areas: integrated development, source control, bug tracking, automated testing, build, deployment and continuous integration then you have some idea of how rich and complex these tools can be and must be to provide a truly satisfying software development experience. I think that were all of these tools and features to be gathered together into a single integrated system you would have something approaching or even perhaps exceeding the complexity of a modern operating system.
As others have said, the First Sale Doctrine prevents copyright owners from controlling, as much as they might like to, the rental of physical copies of their copyrighted works. This area of copyright and trademark law has already been well explored in the courts, especially as it applies to rental of physical media. The copyright owners tried and failed to shut down the VCR and tape rental in the early 1980s, but that ship has long since sailed. So asking why copyright owners "allow" DVDs, but not comparable streaming practices, misses this key piece of the puzzle.
You're a moron if you think that selling stolen art is easy or especially lucrative. It's not. Most art theft is a crime of opportunity with very low fencing value compared to jewelry, gemstones, precious metals or wine. Indeed, art is usually stolen for personal reasons, not for resale. Rarely a piece(s) of art will be stolen by thieves hired to target specific works on behalf of clients who want them badly but are unable to buy them, either because they cannot afford them or they're just not for sale. However, even then the thieves are paid a pittance compared to the auction values of typical items. Thieves go where the money is and compared to other more lucrative forms of theft, art just isn't very attractive dollar for dollar. The real theft in art isn't in stealing originals anyway, but creating and passing off fakes to unsuspecting or unsophisticated buyers.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends upon what sort of fuel you're trying to produce. Methane can definitely be burned as a fuel, on your stove for example, but it's not a good aviation fuel. The idea here is to skip methane and go straight to ethane or propane which can be up-converted to even longer chain hydrocarbons via more heat and pressure, eventually yielding jet fuel. Artificial hydrocarbon fuels themselves are nothing new. The basic processes have been known since the early part of the 20th century, but because it's way cheaper to simply refine naturally occurring petroleum pumped out of the ground, nobody does synthetic hydrocarbons unless they have to. For example, Germany produced synthetic aviation gasoline from coal during WWII as supplies of oil were gradually cut off and South Africa produced diesel fuel from coal during the sanctions of the Apartheid era.
There's no doubt that manufacturing fuel on board is desirable from a logistics standpoint. The question is cost, not just monetary but energy. As you're no doubt aware, hydrocarbon fuels are incredibly energy dense which means that an equal amount (and probably more) energy most go into their creation from scratch using the most basic raw materials, H2, CO2 and CO. The question is how much space is available onboard for production scale versions of these reactors and how much steam and electric power will the reactor have to supply to make this work. I don't know, but I would guess lots. This fuel production sounds like an energy hungry process. How much power and steam can be spared from other onboard needs to power fuel production? Would this stress the reactors, possibly reducing service life or requiring more frequent nuclear refuels? There are trade-offs here, it's not a slam dunk.
Next step is to find a country where they have too little democracy but a lot of this "seawater" they mention.
California?
I was under the impression that electrolysis isn't a fast process but the article does mention some kind of patented "electrolytic cation exchange module", perhaps combined with some kind of "bicarbonate" reactant? In any case, it seems clear that they've found a way to substantially speed up H2 and CO2 production from seawater. From there it's not much of a stretch to produce CO and then hydrocarbon fuels, jet fuels in this case, via the well understood Fischer-Tropsch process or similar.
You do realize that what they're producing here is artificial jet fuel, right? It's not "biofuel" because it isn't produced by bacteria or algae or other direct biological process. No, what they're talking about here is essentially the water gas shift reaction whereby dissolved CO2 in the seawater is combined with water vapor (aka steam) and carbon monoxide (produced via this "bicarbonate" reactant?) to yield carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen which more heat and pressure (steam) in the presence of an iron catalyst converts these products into short chain hydrocarbons (alkenes), probably ethanes (CH3) and propanes (CH4), and from there longer chain hydrocarbons with more heat and pressure until the desired blend is cooked up, jet fuels of CH9 to CH16. However, these processes don't really transition us away from fossil fuels or at least not into something besides a hydrocarbon fuel, whether produced artificially as in this case or refined from naturally occurring crude oil that we've pumped out of the ground.
It's unlikely that this would obviate completely the need for external supplies of fuel. At best it would probably only marginally decrease the depletion rate of on board stocks allowing for a somewhat longer cruise before a resupply is needed. There are probably other downsides to using this system too. For example, there are parts, maintenance and possibly extra wear and tear on the reactor which now not only has to propel the ship but also power an energy intensive conversion process from seawater to jet fuel. Indeed, the initiation energy for some of those chemical reactions is quite high which probably explains why somebody isn't already doing this on a large scale for profit here on land.
The interest on bonds bought by the Fed is returned to the Treasury. So let the Fed buy T-bills, and fund the government at zero cost.
They have a name for that. I believe it's called hyperinflation and it's definitely not a good thing.
I wish I could find the Warren Buffet quote on this matter.
I doubt that you will find one because Warren's whole investment philosophy revolves around the concept of "durable competitive advantage" which is a fancy way of saying that some companies are superior to others and able to maintain that superiority over long periods of time. Buffet made his fortune by finding these companies, buying them at the right price and then holding them as long as they continued to have that competitive advantage. In some cases he has held positions for decades or even longer as profits mounted into the thousands of percent gain and counting. This also has the advantage of deferring capital gains taxes far into the future since no taxes are owed until the asset is actually sold. That's the basic theory anyway. Whether or not you believe that is up to you I suppose, but it's hard to argue with Buffet's lifetime results.
Except that you're basically forced to participate in the US because they've rigged the tax laws so that it's very difficult to have tax deferred retirement savings in any significant amount without playing their 401K games, fees and all. If the US Government really wanted to make things fair, they would allow up to the maximum 401K contribution to be split among any number of like tax deferred plans, either personal IRA or plan offered by your employer. However, that will never happen because Wall Street always lobbies hard against anything that might allow individual savers to escape or minimize their fees.
How does that hurt the individual investor buying or selling with limit orders? With limit orders you can get the price you want or the trade doesn't happen. If your offer is reasonable it's unlikely that your trade will be forever in limbo due to repeated auto-cancels.
pay attention to the spreads and use limit orders.
This. Exactly. The individual small investor has ZERO business putting in buy orders at market and selling stocks that way is only slightly less dumb. The stock market isn't rigged so that individual small investors have no winning strategies but plenty of investors, both big and small, punish themselves daily through stupid play. That's why I laugh every time I see some brokerage firm advertising their "online trading platform" to individual small investors working from home. It's like Casino marketing. They want you to think that with their tools or "system" you will be a "winner" at the trading game against the high frequency professionals. In fact, the only winning move for the individual small investor is to refuse play and limit orders allow you to do that simply and easily. They do require patience, but then again most winning strategies for individual small investors do.
Speaking of which... do you have a recommended method of getting the shot delivered, before the perpetrators are finished breaking through the door?
I have a 357 magnum revolver that could probably penetrate the door, but I don't shoot at things I cannot see. It's dangerous and silly to try and shoot intruders you cannot see through walls or doors. This isn't the movies after all.
Often it takes the uninvited guests a while to complete the forcible entry due to the metallic cladding around the door, the high-security strike plates; additional steel reinforcement of the door frame, additional physical bolts.
Plenty of time for me to take up a good defensive firing position and make ready to lay into them as soon as they enter. I have the advantage of knowing the layout of my own home and the best firing positions so it's very likely that I would be able to fire several rounds before the intruders even knew which direction the shots were coming from. They would likely be dead or incapacitated before they could return fire.
Not wanting to do damage to the door, and possibly speed up their attempt to attack, or engage them face to face -- for fear that the uninvited intruders are armed --- can you think of a resolution, or way of getting the lead shot delivered successfully?
The door and maybe the windows too have already been damaged or destroyed by the attackers. As I've said, I would take up a good firing position with cover and surprise them after they entered.
the time I called 911 on the land line, there were two men trying to break my door down, and being put on hold would not have improved my confidence.
Nothing says "get the F*** out of here" like the sound of a shell being chambered into a shotgun. It's universally understood and almost universally respected. If that fails to get the message across then the site and sound of a discharge from said shotgun is almost always enough. The first round in mine is always a blank, that way I can deliver a warning shot before laying down the lead. I can always call 911 after the invaders are dead. Forcible entry of uninvited guests, aka breaking down the door, is the textbook example of justified use deadly force in protection of hearth, family and home. I don't think that there's a jury anywhere in America that would begrudge a man that right when his home is being invaded with violence.
Genetically modified tobacco? They ought to require a warning label on all products made with this tobacco so that people know that using it is harmful to their health.
This is being blown way out of proportion here. Filing the infringement lawsuit and winning the injunction was the first step towards making a deal. With the injunction in hand Blackberry has demonstrated to Seacrest and his investors that this is serious, but they've also left open the way to a deal. This would probably take the form of royalty payments from Typo to Blackberry for each case sold, the amount to be negotiated after agreement in principle to pay royalties. The remaining Blackberry shareholders are hard core professional investors and financial types now, not technologists, so they will be eager to squeeze any money they can out of the patent portfolio even if that cannibalizes a few Blackberry sales down the road.
Because we no longer solve original problems.
There's nothing new under the sun. On the other hand, we still have to deliver finished work products to the ones paying the bills. I prefer to do this without tying myself into knots worrying about whether or not there's some brilliant framework or API out there that can magically solve all of my problems while ending hunger and bringing about world peace. You're no doubt familiar with KISS? I use it every day and you know what? It works.
Why do we have a Java version, multiple C++ versions, a .Net version, and Obective-C version.
Because the people who make the platforms don't care about interoperability or at least not very much. We live and work in the real world, not the world as we might like it to be. You accept this and move on or at least most of us who want to get shit done do.
but why can't we just add translate to all languages and implementations when we decide we need a translate() function. Why are the Java and .Net ones seperate, with different methods and signatures despite it being one concept.
In other words, why doesn't everyone just speak English? Languages, whether natural or constructed as with programming languages, are used by humans with different personal preferences, likes, dislikes and needs. We don't add translate to all languages because not everybody needs it, wants it or even cares about it.
It seems to bother you a great deal that other people "reinvent the wheel" instead of doing things the way that you think they ought to be doing them whereas I on other hand don't much care what other people do or what tools they use. As long as my clients are satisfied, I'm satisfied. If you want to spend your career being an architecture astronaut then by all means don't let me stop you, but I think you'll find that much of what we do in the world of paid software development is a matter of getting the job done and getting paid as quickly and expediently as possible so that we can move on to the next project. Duct tape and WD40 may not be glamorous tools, but they get the job done.
Subversion
Why not just pick the tools that you like and not worry about what other people use? This focus on what tools somebody else ought to be using is a curious feature of the programming profession. Do you see two construction contractors arguing over whether the other guy ought to be using the belt sander or the sand blaster? No? Then why should we expend such extraordinary effort arguing over other people's choice of programming tools?
The primary benefit of unit tests is to prove that your system works tomorrow, even after Bob the Intern just mucked around in the code.
It's a possible benefit, but even that's not guaranteed. Bob might have introduced a new bug that slipped past your passing tests because your tests were too specific or there were gaps in your coverage. Writing good unit tests is often as hard or harder than writing the code that's being tested and yet it's a task that's often handed off to the most junior member of a programming team.
Source code control tools can be used by non programmers as well.
In theory yes, but in practice how many actually do? I've often thought that legislatures would benefit greatly from version control systems to track changes and prevent sneaky edits and riders from making their way into bills at the last minute. Of course the legislators are very often lawyers with 19th century modes of thinking, so getting them to use version control with any kind of proficiency or regularity would be something of a minor miracle.
This is a management fad that comes and goes every five or ten years or so, sort of like fashions. Ever since programming became essential to modern business, managers have been looking for ways, mostly without success, to take the craftsmanship and artistry out of programming. The truth, which is immediately obvious to anyone who has done this for a living, is that software is fantastically varied and complex and yet at the same time there is a subtle and zen like quality to the work which appeals only to a small subset of the general population. Despite the recent push for more computer science and programming education, I doubt that more than five percent of the general population is even capable of doing what we do. A good analogy would be the piano or other music lessons that many of us had as children and yet only a relatively small number of us play with any sort of proficiency and fewer still have reached the level of a professional musician. I believe that programming is similar to music in this and other ways, it's just not for everyone and that's alright.
I use source control even in my personal projects where I'm the only one working on them. The change tracking, branch and merge features alone are worth the price of admission. Becoming fluent with source control is an a-ha kind of experience and once you get it you will never want to be without it, especially when working with other programmers.
If you've used some of the good point solutions in each of those areas: integrated development, source control, bug tracking, automated testing, build, deployment and continuous integration then you have some idea of how rich and complex these tools can be and must be to provide a truly satisfying software development experience. I think that were all of these tools and features to be gathered together into a single integrated system you would have something approaching or even perhaps exceeding the complexity of a modern operating system.
As others have said, the First Sale Doctrine prevents copyright owners from controlling, as much as they might like to, the rental of physical copies of their copyrighted works. This area of copyright and trademark law has already been well explored in the courts, especially as it applies to rental of physical media. The copyright owners tried and failed to shut down the VCR and tape rental in the early 1980s, but that ship has long since sailed. So asking why copyright owners "allow" DVDs, but not comparable streaming practices, misses this key piece of the puzzle.
You're a moron if you think that selling stolen art is easy or especially lucrative. It's not. Most art theft is a crime of opportunity with very low fencing value compared to jewelry, gemstones, precious metals or wine. Indeed, art is usually stolen for personal reasons, not for resale. Rarely a piece(s) of art will be stolen by thieves hired to target specific works on behalf of clients who want them badly but are unable to buy them, either because they cannot afford them or they're just not for sale. However, even then the thieves are paid a pittance compared to the auction values of typical items. Thieves go where the money is and compared to other more lucrative forms of theft, art just isn't very attractive dollar for dollar. The real theft in art isn't in stealing originals anyway, but creating and passing off fakes to unsuspecting or unsophisticated buyers.