" How much petroleum goes into petroleum production?"
Good question. In the early days of oil production, it took one barrel of oil to get ~50. Oil was easy to pump (not very deep), and of high quality (pick and choose your oilfield). Nowadays, one barrel of oil gets you somewhere around 5, less in some fields. The big exceptions to this are a few, very large, oilfields in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the former Soviet states. Some might find some insight into recent US foreign policy here.
Return On Energy is being affected by several factors. Oil is now deeper and stickier, and takes lots of force to suck out of the ground. The gushers have gushed. It is also of lower quality, and more energy is required to refine it.
The ROE calculation for a particular oilfield is difficult to do. Oil producers are very secretive about some numbers, so the margin of error is significant. But what is clear is that the ROE is dropping, and will continue to drop. When it hits 1:1, oil becomes useless.
I think the most interesting thing about this, is that we won't know until after the fact. Suddenly the worker will not have enough paycheck to get gas to go to work in the factory that makes refinery bits, or some convulted economic chain like that. Another reason the calculation is so hard to do.
If we were having an oil deathpool, I would guess 15 years.
I think a lot of us are confused. I've been confused since soon after the 486DX. I simply go on a crash course when buying a new system, but then that info is useless 3 months later.
True, for most users. But I suspect that 'power' users could easily benefit. Anyone who hits Alt-Tab a lot (implying running several apps) and runs apps capable of using a significant number of cycles would appreciate the responsiveness.
This would really depend on what those tasks were. If it was important to you to keep crunching SETI@Home while playing games, yes, or any other long-running, processor intensive task.
Because people like you can drop cash on this stuff?
From the amount of research/impulse buying you seem to have done, it seems that these parts aren't really that 'expensive' to you. Others might have to be more selective and shop at a different price point, or would have been forced to return items if they discovered it needed more hardware. The industry counts on folks like you to cover early costs of bringing a product to market.
Thanks for doing your part! I'm gonna spend half the cash and get 80% of the performance in a few months.:-) I'll probably get bitten by some stupid hardware thing I didn't see coming, too. It does seem to be changing faster and faster.
Oh, Right. Just another humanist intervention in a long history of peacekeeping.
I'm not going to suggest that Saddam wasn't a very nasty person, but there are lots of nasty people out there. What tiny percentage of the US force in Iraq would stop the killing in the Sudan? Mass resettlement in the Congo? Why do these people not matter? The US is doing this for long term security, good or bad.
Well the WMD thing sure didn't play out, and Osama wasn't there, so how can it not be about oil?
The US has now solidified access to several very special oilfields. These oilfields are special because they are huge, and most importantly, they have the worlds lowest production costs. Lowest in dollar value, but also lowest in Return on Energy Invested, basically how much oil you have to burn to deliver a product. The owners of those fields will have a strong edge in an oil starved economy.
Peak Oil is a fact, even if there are good arguments about the timing and severity of the down slope. It's not about "running out of oil", it's about running out of enough oil, at a price that makes it usable. The US has just grabbed the biggest cushions available.
True enough. Then I'll add "politics" to the above list:-).
The latency issue comes into play in a low power environment because you have to drive enough computing power so the probe can make it's own decisions.
I understand it's not what you (and many others) want from it, but I think we make up a good chunk of hardcore Civ fans.
Maybe we can take an informal poll; If you're a Civ fan (defined as; was late for work/school at least once because you stayed up all night playing) , what do you want from it? Epic scale and depth or a finely tuned shorter game? Turn based? (that's important to me) Deeper tech trees?
What are you talking about? Gravity is extremely well understood, even if we don't have a quantum theory for it. Newton could have done the exact same calculation and come up with the same answer. Turbulence is a hairy problem, with limited understanding of many aspects, but we know some things about it. Like the fact that it doesn't enter orbital mechanics.
How can it be Hubris? A scientist does the calculations to lift an object out of a gravity well, sling it around a few planets, smack it into a tiny target at some ridiculous velocity, and then she's supposed to say "Anything could happen! We have no idea, really!" Assuming that a gazillion Joules of force won't suddenly turn 70 degrees isn't hubris, it's common sense.
Now, if this was an entangled 3-body orbital skimming the event horizon of a black hole at 99.9% of c, I might expect the unexpected. But it's not, it's billiard ball physics, and it'll play out as such.
Weight, bandwidth, power density, latency and distance all combine to make the beaming back of HDTV over huge distances a difficult problem. If you have a solution, please post it here.
Assuming that these stats actually mean something, and that they indicate a stronger growth of Linux in Canada as compared to the US, I wonder why that should be so? ( I think it's safe to assume I could pull up any number of numbers to "prove" what ever I want)
There's only a small difference in economic factors, education, and PHB behaviour. Maybe combined it's enough, and this data indicates a Linux 'tipping point'.
I agree. My version of Civ IV would look something like a cross between WorldWind and Civ II, with games that last for 6 months realtime. Games where geography/terrain really matters, weather patterns, etc. Dachanniens comment above about Firaxis not having to do testing is dead on, adn the best thing that could happen. To really deliver a perfectly balanced Civ game that plays for months takes a huge amount of playtime and tweaking, resources that no software company has.
Spore is looking very interesting right now. Procedural generation will hopefully generate the kind of epic scale I'm looking for.
Phobos is likely a captured asteroid, possibly from outside of the solar system. It is also outgassing something, probably water. Those facts make it quite interesting.
If Phobos is found to contain lots of water, considering its small size and low orbit, how difficult would it be to smash it into Mars? There's a project I could get behind....
I would consider myself an experienced FPS player, and never camp, but see it as a totally legit strategy, especially for new players. A well balanced game/map will make it difficult to run over, get the chosen weapon, and find a suitable spot without being fragged. People complain about campers because they haven't learnt to defend against them. If you learn to look behind you constantly, use the stereo sound to place footsteps, and regularly clean out camping spots, they give up.
Plenty of admins is the key, indeed. I've been playing a server that hands out level 1 status to anyone who asks, and escalates privileges over time if you're not an idiot. Problem solved.
For the Halo 2 model (where there is no 'server'), the game should just randomly give admin status to one player. If the player's a cheat, well that sucks, but more than likely he's not.
Slashdot Mirror
Give it up. His UID is one vote, his posting history is another. Some of us actually work at being geeks.
b) WTF are you doing living in a place you're so poorly adapted to?
Good question. In the early days of oil production, it took one barrel of oil to get ~50. Oil was easy to pump (not very deep), and of high quality (pick and choose your oilfield). Nowadays, one barrel of oil gets you somewhere around 5, less in some fields. The big exceptions to this are a few, very large, oilfields in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the former Soviet states. Some might find some insight into recent US foreign policy here.
Return On Energy is being affected by several factors. Oil is now deeper and stickier, and takes lots of force to suck out of the ground. The gushers have gushed. It is also of lower quality, and more energy is required to refine it.
The ROE calculation for a particular oilfield is difficult to do. Oil producers are very secretive about some numbers, so the margin of error is significant. But what is clear is that the ROE is dropping, and will continue to drop. When it hits 1:1, oil becomes useless.
I think the most interesting thing about this, is that we won't know until after the fact. Suddenly the worker will not have enough paycheck to get gas to go to work in the factory that makes refinery bits, or some convulted economic chain like that. Another reason the calculation is so hard to do.
If we were having an oil deathpool, I would guess 15 years.
You see, in a post 9/11 world, there are only 3 types of people.
I think a lot of us are confused. I've been confused since soon after the 486DX. I simply go on a crash course when buying a new system, but then that info is useless 3 months later.
True, for most users. But I suspect that 'power' users could easily benefit. Anyone who hits Alt-Tab a lot (implying running several apps) and runs apps capable of using a significant number of cycles would appreciate the responsiveness.
I think you would be much better of with a dual core setup than this for those kind of things.
From the amount of research/impulse buying you seem to have done, it seems that these parts aren't really that 'expensive' to you. Others might have to be more selective and shop at a different price point, or would have been forced to return items if they discovered it needed more hardware. The industry counts on folks like you to cover early costs of bringing a product to market.
Thanks for doing your part! I'm gonna spend half the cash and get 80% of the performance in a few months. :-) I'll probably get bitten by some stupid hardware thing I didn't see coming, too. It does seem to be changing faster and faster.
I'm not going to suggest that Saddam wasn't a very nasty person, but there are lots of nasty people out there. What tiny percentage of the US force in Iraq would stop the killing in the Sudan? Mass resettlement in the Congo? Why do these people not matter? The US is doing this for long term security, good or bad.
The US has now solidified access to several very special oilfields. These oilfields are special because they are huge, and most importantly, they have the worlds lowest production costs. Lowest in dollar value, but also lowest in Return on Energy Invested, basically how much oil you have to burn to deliver a product. The owners of those fields will have a strong edge in an oil starved economy.
Peak Oil is a fact, even if there are good arguments about the timing and severity of the down slope. It's not about "running out of oil", it's about running out of enough oil, at a price that makes it usable. The US has just grabbed the biggest cushions available.
The latency issue comes into play in a low power environment because you have to drive enough computing power so the probe can make it's own decisions.
Maybe we can take an informal poll; If you're a Civ fan (defined as; was late for work/school at least once because you stayed up all night playing) , what do you want from it? Epic scale and depth or a finely tuned shorter game? Turn based? (that's important to me) Deeper tech trees?
How can it be Hubris? A scientist does the calculations to lift an object out of a gravity well, sling it around a few planets, smack it into a tiny target at some ridiculous velocity, and then she's supposed to say "Anything could happen! We have no idea, really!" Assuming that a gazillion Joules of force won't suddenly turn 70 degrees isn't hubris, it's common sense.
Now, if this was an entangled 3-body orbital skimming the event horizon of a black hole at 99.9% of c, I might expect the unexpected. But it's not, it's billiard ball physics, and it'll play out as such.
Weight, bandwidth, power density, latency and distance all combine to make the beaming back of HDTV over huge distances a difficult problem. If you have a solution, please post it here.
There's only a small difference in economic factors, education, and PHB behaviour. Maybe combined it's enough, and this data indicates a Linux 'tipping point'.
Spore is looking very interesting right now. Procedural generation will hopefully generate the kind of epic scale I'm looking for.
Those are refineries.
Phobos is in a low and fast orbit, that is probably relatively easy for a spacecraft to enter.
People entering Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2 days after the explosion were in little danger.
If Phobos is found to contain lots of water, considering its small size and low orbit, how difficult would it be to smash it into Mars? There's a project I could get behind....
Quit trying. I have seen the enemy.
I would consider myself an experienced FPS player, and never camp, but see it as a totally legit strategy, especially for new players. A well balanced game/map will make it difficult to run over, get the chosen weapon, and find a suitable spot without being fragged. People complain about campers because they haven't learnt to defend against them. If you learn to look behind you constantly, use the stereo sound to place footsteps, and regularly clean out camping spots, they give up.
For the Halo 2 model (where there is no 'server'), the game should just randomly give admin status to one player. If the player's a cheat, well that sucks, but more than likely he's not.