It's worse than that. Did you know there's only 0.0000001% of men that carry human fetuses?
...[punching keys]...let's see, 6.95 billion, times point zero zero zero.....holy crap! Almost 700 pregnant men are pregnant right now!? Why haven't I seen this on Oprah??
Spring 2000, iirc. I'd been running a home NT4 mail / web server for about a year, and it was a royal pain in the ass. Half-life of about two weeks between bluescreens. Wednesday evenings dedicated to patches and defrags and reboots. Intermittent, unexplainable IIS freezes.
I was contemplating dropping a couple $K on new hardware, mostly out of desperation. At the same time, I'd played with Linux a few times, liked it, and it already had a well-established rep for stability. This was also the time the first commercial distros were coming into their own. I finally decided to take the plunge and bought (yes, actually paid for) a copy of SuSE, v.5 I think.
Steep learning curve; much swearing and regret; but when I finally put the beast online, it ran. For 14 months, and what finally killed it was a power failure too long for the UPS to handle.
In the nine years since (going from SuSE on a slot-A Athlon, to Mandrake/Mandriva on a dual Athlon XP, to nine Ubuntu VMs on a pair of triple-core Phenoms) I've had exactly two software-related crashes, one due to a misconfigured driver, the other from a runaway app that filled up/var. Uptime for this latest interation, which went online in Dec. is 100%.
And patch-the-server Wednesdays are a distant memory.
That's the experiment I hope they're trying right now: constructing a big, parabolic sheet to see if it will focus gravitational waves. A gravity telescope!
When times get leaner, or there are other priorities in life, having a secure job is a much better proposition.
Agreed...if you can find one. I don't think there's a single job left in USA that can be considered "secure" in the traditional 30-years-and-out sense. Civil service, maybe, and the price for security there is low pay and zero empowerment.
You're going to have a tough time telling me that Jumbo Jets are more efficient on a per person basis than trains and ships. Heck, I'd be surprised if they beat out Greyhound buses.
On a seat-mile basis, he's right. Modern jet engines are much more efficient than diesel engines, and far less polluting. I just tried and failed to find the link again, but a study I looked at in the course of a similar discussion showed that a typical modern airliner burns half the fuel per seat-mile as a typical bus, and emits less than a fourth the pollutants. Trains are more efficient if run at capacity, but a typical Amtrack passenger config is little more efficient than a bus. As for ships, forget it. The QE2 burns 107 gallons per mile. It would have to carry 24000 passengers to come close to the seat-mile efficiency of a passenger car.
All of which begs the question of why they're not dropping those efficient jet turbines into buses and locomotives and cruise ships, but that's another issue altogether.
I said demonstrate the process. You have a fission reactor running in your back yard? Cool. And renewable? That must involve the uranium trees growing next to your reactor. And assuming your backyard reactor isn't under the hood of a F150 pickup (which would also be cool), electric vehicles still have nowhere near the range of the dinosaur-fueled variety. It appears my bank account is safe. (Not that it isn't safe from a $25 billion check anyway.)
That said, you're right enough to make nukes definitely the way to go as a long-term stopgap. Modern reactor designs are way safer and cleaner than coal will ever be. If this Congress is at all serious about energy self-sufficiency, their first move should be to get rid of the ludicrous political barriers to nuke construction and waste handling, and pump a few $billion into development of practical superconducting power lines and electric-vehicle batteries. The latter would also be a good X-prize subject.
It's impossible to build a 'small-scale' fusion reactor which can break-even.
Says who?
Re:Nothing inconvenient about the results
on
An Inconvenient Truth
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Therefore governmental policies must be put in place to drive of the price of consumption..... To reduce consumption in societies that vote for thier leaders will require decisions to be made by those leaders that will be uniformly despised.
And those leaders will be removed from office at the peoples' first opportunity.
I'm continually amazed at the ubiquity of the notion that any problem can be solved by passing a law. Fuel shortages? No problem - just impose a 55 MPH national speed limit and there'll be plenty for everyone. (You'll recall how well that worked out.) Global warming? Just slap a 700% "carbon tax" on fuels and everyone will be driving Priuses (Priii?) and showering with solar-heated water before the decade is out. Enact a treaty, and the rest of the world will eagerly follow suit.
Reality check (1): Any elected officials putting such measures into law would be turned out of office at the next election - if not sooner - and their successors, well-knowing why they were elected, will immediately repeal those measures.
Reality check (2): China, IIRC, has under construction over 50 new coal-fired power plants. Although a Kyoto signatory, their CO2 emissions are projected to surpass USA's by 2010, with no end in sight. No law passed by USA or any other country can temper China's behavior if the Chinese decline to cooperate. And it appears they have no intention of doing so.
Reality check (3): Arbitrary restrictions on peoples' behavior do not work. See the 55MPH thing, the War On Fill-In-The-Blank, any 4th of July in a state that outlaws fireworks, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
The way to wean people off fossil fuel is to present them with a better and/or easier and/or cheaper alternative. The way to bring those about is with incentives, not with mandates or subsidies. Since 1980 the USA government has pumped something like $50 billion into energy R&D, with nothing significant to show for it. Suppose it were to establish an X prize to pay, oh, $25 billion to the first organization demonstrating an alternative energy process that (1) is renewable, (2) has less end-to-end environmental impact than coal or petroleum, (3) is at least as end-to-end efficient as coal or petroleum, (4) yields end-user cost and performance comparable to gasoline in a typical mid-size automobile, and (5) is practical on a commercial scale. Would you bet that we wouldn't be retooling the nation for such a process by, say, 2020?
Why isn't it possible, for example, to allow companies to make training contracts...
EDS used to, and may still, do just this. You signed an agreement to the effect that if you left the company voluntarily within N months after the training, you had to pay back the cost of that training.
I find it amazing (in a good way) that google is saying "hey if we have to pay, we can afford to, but it is the little upstart guy who won't be able to pay and that sucks"...
Consider, also, that Google may be positioning itself to work around the telcos if they pull a stunt like that. No fools, they.
We're talking PC hardware - what trade secrets would have value 20 years from now? That's like Ford keeping it's Model A engine specs secret so Chrysler doesn't use them to develop its 2007 Mustang killer.
Okay, let me clarify. About three years ago, a colleague of mine bought an eprom programmer for use in developing a security system we were designing. He made the mistake of buying from a small hobbyist co. to save a few $$. Several months later, he got The Letter from DirectTV, demanding that he fork over something like $4K to avoid being sued. He told them to piss up a rope, and litigation promptly followed. He wasn't even arguably pirating DTV - the man is an electronics engineer who was working on a well-documented project the burner is a different make/model than those used for programming battery cards and such involving the kind of roms for which the burner was purchased. None of this fazed the opposition, who kept making offers to drop the suit in exchange for $$$. It did eventually go to trial. It was a short trial, as DTV has absolutely no direct evidence that he'd modified a DTV receiver, for himself or anyone else. Their case was that he purchased a rom burner from a less-than-upstanding company, he was a DTV subscriber, therefore he must be pirating. That's it. Precisely analogous to your buying a Ford, then being jailed because someone else who bought a Ford at that same dealer robbed a bank, therefore you must have robbed the bank too. Utter rubbish of course, which was the jury's conclusion as well.
Now, under a sane legal system this should have had a happy ending. DTV should have been hit with serious damages and fines for pressing frivolous / malicious litigation. Or the suit should have been dismissed with fine-for-costs from the judge the moment it became clear that DTV had no real idea of whether he was actually pirating. Or DTV would never have brought suit in the first place for fear of the above. As it is, my colleague is out something over $8K for fighting an action that, by any rational standard, should never have been brought in the first place.
**AA are doing the same thing. They go to litigation on the "strength" of an activity log and an IP address. Period. An IP address is hardly legal identification - everyone reading this can list five or six ways to spoof or hijack one - but the unlucky owner, innocent or no, is hit with a demand for money, Or Else.
Granted, they catch a lot of downloaders this way. But they also catch a lot of innocent people . Their strategy is based on the fact that most of the people they're threatening have limited resources, and that most of them - including those who have done nothing wrong - will opt to pay the initial demand rather than engage a far more costly and traumatic lawsuit. The plaintiffs are fully aware that many of the people paying up are innocent, and they don't care. They're using the legal system as a strategic weapon, and collateral damage does them no real harm.
And imho one of the great tragedies and injustices of American life is that the legal system allows them to get away with this.
Indeed, I'm actually relatively unhappy with what's being proposed as, unfortunately, the primary reason it appears to have been developed has been to facilitate copyright infringement.
The other side of that argument is that people have a legitimate right to defend themselves from the legal extortion tactics employed by **AA and others in shotgunning barratry at anyone / everyone who might be pirating; i.e., the infamous "pay us $$$ or we'll sue you into bankruptcy" letter. The courts aren't protecting us from this bullying, so I have no problem with any tools that help us to protect ourselves. As you pointed out, Rodi doesn't appear to be as useful in this regard as the article suggests, but it's an interesting step in that direction.
...but not half as good as the story that episode is based upon. Granted, the FX needed to do Brown's story justice were probably way beyond the 196x state of the art.
I had this happen with an '89 Cavalier. When cruise control was on (but not necessarily engaged!), every once in awhile it would get bored or something and decide to floor the throttle. (I was told by a passenger that the acceleration was accompanied by a little dash light reading 'BANZAI!', but was never able to confirm this.) Although it readily disengaged on request, not good. After 3 or 4 shop visits, the dealer eventually replaced what I assume was one of the engine control ROMs. No further problems. Punch line: the old ROM was something like rev. 9.x, and the new one was around 22.x. My guess is that the Cavs with rev. 1.0 just exploded when you turned the key.
As I understand the new regs (based on AOPA's overview, also see my response to AC's post below), since Santa Barbara is controlled airspace, you would need specific instruction and a logbook endorsement from the instructor to fly out of there. You might find it hard to get in this specific instance, since SBA appears to be a busy place with airline traffic, and is near/in some very complex, congested airspace. Or not; a lot of the practical aspects of the new rules are still up in the air, so to speak. Wouldn't hurt to investigate.
As for flying over the city, I've heard that sport-pilot doesn't allow flights over "densely populated areas". I can't find anything from an official/knowledgable source to back that up. I think this and the 50nm restriction may apply to the experimental light-sport category, e.g. homebuilts that don't qualify in the other experimental or ultralight categories. But, as someone else here pointed out, those rules are rarely enforced for existing experimentals. If you're in a factory-built LS plane, they shouldn't apply.
At any rate, all this will probably be clarified by the time you're ready to begin training.
You'll be restricted to flying no further than 50 nautical miles from your base airport in a light sport aircraft, with only a sport pilot certificate.
Where did you get this information? The AOPA's overview says nothing about a 50nm restriction, and states that sport pilot requirements include 2 hrs. cross-country training + one solo c-c. Caveat: I haven't read the final CFR draft yet.
I think the new Sport Pilot certificate (nitpick: it's not a "license", it's a "certificate", there is a significant difference that laypersons just can't seem to ever grasp) will do a lot to help revitalize General Aviation.
Assuming the insurance co's will let that happen. Literally minutes after the FAA press release, my club started swapping e-mail about adding a light-sport aircraft (we have two Archers and a Warrior now) for the benefit of the more-than-a-few members under 100 hrs, or who will probably lose their medicals in the next few years due to age, etc. We can easily afford the aircraft, but it appears the (liability) insurance rate may actually be higher than for the Archers due to the age and/or inexperience of the people who would fly the LSA.
...Or not; it's a new rule, and from what I hear/read the insurance cos' haven't really figured out how to deal with it yet.
On the other hand, I religiously practice landings. Nowhere else in flying is there near the level of concentration or skill required.
[chuckle] I hope you weren't the guy trying to practice landings at Reigle last Thu. while I was trying to set down there. Got it on the third try. My short-field technique needs work.:)
Slashdot Mirror
...[punching keys]...let's see, 6.95 billion, times point zero zero zero.....holy crap! Almost 700 pregnant men are pregnant right now!? Why haven't I seen this on Oprah??
Spring 2000, iirc. I'd been running a home NT4 mail / web server for about a year, and it was a royal pain in the ass. Half-life of about two weeks between bluescreens. Wednesday evenings dedicated to patches and defrags and reboots. Intermittent, unexplainable IIS freezes.
I was contemplating dropping a couple $K on new hardware, mostly out of desperation. At the same time, I'd played with Linux a few times, liked it, and it already had a well-established rep for stability. This was also the time the first commercial distros were coming into their own. I finally decided to take the plunge and bought (yes, actually paid for) a copy of SuSE, v.5 I think.
Steep learning curve; much swearing and regret; but when I finally put the beast online, it ran. For 14 months, and what finally killed it was a power failure too long for the UPS to handle.
In the nine years since (going from SuSE on a slot-A Athlon, to Mandrake/Mandriva on a dual Athlon XP, to nine Ubuntu VMs on a pair of triple-core Phenoms) I've had exactly two software-related crashes, one due to a misconfigured driver, the other from a runaway app that filled up /var. Uptime for this latest interation, which went online in Dec. is 100%.
And patch-the-server Wednesdays are a distant memory.
That's the experiment I hope they're trying right now: constructing a big, parabolic sheet to see if it will focus gravitational waves. A gravity telescope!
.
DDB
On a seat-mile basis, he's right. Modern jet engines are much more efficient than diesel engines, and far less polluting. I just tried and failed to find the link again, but a study I looked at in the course of a similar discussion showed that a typical modern airliner burns half the fuel per seat-mile as a typical bus, and emits less than a fourth the pollutants. Trains are more efficient if run at capacity, but a typical Amtrack passenger config is little more efficient than a bus. As for ships, forget it. The QE2 burns 107 gallons per mile. It would have to carry 24000 passengers to come close to the seat-mile efficiency of a passenger car.
All of which begs the question of why they're not dropping those efficient jet turbines into buses and locomotives and cruise ships, but that's another issue altogether.
You're kidding, right? Taxation isn't coercion??? I'll remember that next April 15.
I said demonstrate the process. You have a fission reactor running in your back yard? Cool. And renewable? That must involve the uranium trees growing next to your reactor. And assuming your backyard reactor isn't under the hood of a F150 pickup (which would also be cool), electric vehicles still have nowhere near the range of the dinosaur-fueled variety. It appears my bank account is safe. (Not that it isn't safe from a $25 billion check anyway.)
That said, you're right enough to make nukes definitely the way to go as a long-term stopgap. Modern reactor designs are way safer and cleaner than coal will ever be. If this Congress is at all serious about energy self-sufficiency, their first move should be to get rid of the ludicrous political barriers to nuke construction and waste handling, and pump a few $billion into development of practical superconducting power lines and electric-vehicle batteries. The latter would also be a good X-prize subject.
Says who?
And those leaders will be removed from office at the peoples' first opportunity.
I'm continually amazed at the ubiquity of the notion that any problem can be solved by passing a law. Fuel shortages? No problem - just impose a 55 MPH national speed limit and there'll be plenty for everyone. (You'll recall how well that worked out.) Global warming? Just slap a 700% "carbon tax" on fuels and everyone will be driving Priuses (Priii?) and showering with solar-heated water before the decade is out. Enact a treaty, and the rest of the world will eagerly follow suit.
Reality check (1): Any elected officials putting such measures into law would be turned out of office at the next election - if not sooner - and their successors, well-knowing why they were elected, will immediately repeal those measures.
Reality check (2): China, IIRC, has under construction over 50 new coal-fired power plants. Although a Kyoto signatory, their CO2 emissions are projected to surpass USA's by 2010, with no end in sight. No law passed by USA or any other country can temper China's behavior if the Chinese decline to cooperate. And it appears they have no intention of doing so.
Reality check (3): Arbitrary restrictions on peoples' behavior do not work. See the 55MPH thing, the War On Fill-In-The-Blank, any 4th of July in a state that outlaws fireworks, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
The way to wean people off fossil fuel is to present them with a better and/or easier and/or cheaper alternative. The way to bring those about is with incentives, not with mandates or subsidies. Since 1980 the USA government has pumped something like $50 billion into energy R&D, with nothing significant to show for it. Suppose it were to establish an X prize to pay, oh, $25 billion to the first organization demonstrating an alternative energy process that (1) is renewable, (2) has less end-to-end environmental impact than coal or petroleum, (3) is at least as end-to-end efficient as coal or petroleum, (4) yields end-user cost and performance comparable to gasoline in a typical mid-size automobile, and (5) is practical on a commercial scale. Would you bet that we wouldn't be retooling the nation for such a process by, say, 2020?
DDB
DDB
DDB
DDB
Now, under a sane legal system this should have had a happy ending. DTV should have been hit with serious damages and fines for pressing frivolous / malicious litigation. Or the suit should have been dismissed with fine-for-costs from the judge the moment it became clear that DTV had no real idea of whether he was actually pirating. Or DTV would never have brought suit in the first place for fear of the above. As it is, my colleague is out something over $8K for fighting an action that, by any rational standard, should never have been brought in the first place.
**AA are doing the same thing. They go to litigation on the "strength" of an activity log and an IP address. Period. An IP address is hardly legal identification - everyone reading this can list five or six ways to spoof or hijack one - but the unlucky owner, innocent or no, is hit with a demand for money, Or Else.
Granted, they catch a lot of downloaders this way. But they also catch a lot of innocent people . Their strategy is based on the fact that most of the people they're threatening have limited resources, and that most of them - including those who have done nothing wrong - will opt to pay the initial demand rather than engage a far more costly and traumatic lawsuit. The plaintiffs are fully aware that many of the people paying up are innocent, and they don't care . They're using the legal system as a strategic weapon, and collateral damage does them no real harm.
And imho one of the great tragedies and injustices of American life is that the legal system allows them to get away with this.
DDB
DDB
Especially when they're saturating their info with "nano-this" and "nano-that" the way pre-bust startups did with ".com".
Okay, if the handkerchief's in the left pocket s/he's AC, and the right pocket for DC...or was it the other way around?...
[BZZZAP!]
Damn.
...but not half as good as the story that episode is based upon. Granted, the FX needed to do Brown's story justice were probably way beyond the 196x state of the art.
I had this happen with an '89 Cavalier. When cruise control was on (but not necessarily engaged!), every once in awhile it would get bored or something and decide to floor the throttle.
(I was told by a passenger that the acceleration was accompanied by a little dash light reading 'BANZAI!', but was never able to confirm this.)
Although it readily disengaged on request, not good. After 3 or 4 shop visits, the dealer eventually replaced what I assume was one of the engine control ROMs. No further problems.
Punch line: the old ROM was something like rev. 9.x, and the new one was around 22.x. My guess is that the Cavs with rev. 1.0 just exploded when you turned the key.
As for flying over the city, I've heard that sport-pilot doesn't allow flights over "densely populated areas". I can't find anything from an official/knowledgable source to back that up. I think this and the 50nm restriction may apply to the experimental light-sport category, e.g. homebuilts that don't qualify in the other experimental or ultralight categories. But, as someone else here pointed out, those rules are rarely enforced for existing experimentals. If you're in a factory-built LS plane, they shouldn't apply.
At any rate, all this will probably be clarified by the time you're ready to begin training.
Caveat: I haven't read the final CFR draft yet.
...Or not; it's a new rule, and from what I hear/read the insurance cos' haven't really figured out how to deal with it yet.