Before burning, that carbon was sequestered in the form of wood, and would have stayed sequestered for quite a long time. After burning, the carbon was liberated in the form of CO2. Yes, over the long term, wood burning has zero CO2 emissions. But using hydro instead of wood actually has negative emissions, as the trees continue to sequester carbon.
You'd still be better off with a heat pump than with resistance heating. And if it gets really cold where you are, you can do so-called "geothermal" heating - which is really just a heat pump with the coils buried underground.
Many, many sites require Javascript to work AT ALL. You can argue that they should degrade gracefully so that they still work without JS, and you'd be right. But the fact is: they don't. So as a user, I'm now left with the choice of an almost completely broken (but secure) web, or a web that mostly works but can zap me with "evercookies". In practice, I end up using NoScript to block all 3rd party scripts, but I mostly allow scripts from the sites I visit frequently. Which means that, say, Slashdot could hit me with an evercookie as long as they hosted it on their own domain.
The clearly states in the body of the article that he doesn't recommend doing away with desktop firewalls, doesn't think it's a good idea, and certainly isn't going to do it himself. So what was the point of the article again? Clearly, to say something controversial in the headline in the hopes of drawing more eyeballs.
I propose that any time anyone suggests that a given temperature scale is more "natural" or "arbitrary" than another temperature scale, they automatically lose the argument. And get perma-banned from Slashdot. These "my temperature scale can beat up your temperature scale" arguments are beyond tiresome.
Input: you can get a bluetooth keyboard for iPad, which pretty much takes care of your input issue. But really, most people are using these things for web browsing, iOS game playing (which are optimized for touch screen interface), light e-mail, etc, etc... and don't really need anything but the soft keyboard.
On the couch: there are some iPad covers that double as stands. Not sure how well these work, but there's at least some effort going into the "how do I hold this thing?" problem.
Screen size: Folding/pull out screens are not anywhere near ready for prime time. You're right, this would really be a nice feature.
A lot of folks have expressed some doubt as to what they'd do with an iPad-like device, and yeah, I'm with you there. I already have an iPhone and a laptop, and while I can sort of see the attraction in something with a bigger screen than the phone but with the instant bootup and portability that the laptop lacks... ultimately, I can't see spending the money. But there are a few use cases where this kind of thing really shines: 1) on the train. If you commute to work, it would be a lot easier to check e-mail, read a book, listen to music, play a game, whatever, on one of these, than to get out and fire up the laptop. 2) e-reader++. If you are considering a Kindle, but want to be able to do more with it than just read books (and you don't read outside a lot), this would be a pretty useful device.
If you were serious about targeting country X's nuclear development reactors, you'd 1) make damn sure that your malware was easy to spread, but only in systems within country X, 2) make the malware highly unobtrusive and harmless to non-target systems. If you don't follow these rules, your operation will be publicized and hence compromised.
I think the idea that some western intelligence service designed and released this is, well, sort of dubious. And the article doesn't really do much to convince me otherwise - it's all complete speculation.
Because the US being all concerned about politics in Iran will bring about political change in Iran? Doesn't everyone get all antsy when the US takes interest in foreign politics? And isn't Iran among the least likely to take political cues from the US (or the rest of the MJ-living world, for that matter)?
Amen. I'm not really sure where people (against all evidence) get the idea that the US can cause political things to happen, anywhere in the world, through sheer force of will. As if the reason Iran's government is still in power is because we in the US haven't been paying enough attention. The fact of the matter is that who's ruling Iran has everything to do with things going on in Iran, and nothing whatsoever to do with what the US is watching on TV.
It's the same story you run into with a lot of Windows boxes - by the time you replace enough of the innards to get it up to snuff, you could have just bought a new one. If it runs Tiger just fine, and you don't mind sticking with stuff that will run on Tiger, the most I would consider doing is a RAM upgrade. But more and more Mac software refuses to run on PPC hardware (including the latest version of the operating system and most of iLife), so my own opinion is that the G4 upgrade is just a waste of money. Bottom line: this box might be a fun way to play around with a Mac, but you might do better by buying a cheap refurb'd Mac Mini of more recent vintage.Tiger is getting pretty long in the tooth (so to speak) these days.
There is already a very well developed technology for doing this based on sound.
Sure, there absolutely is... in water. Doing the same thing in magma: not so well developed. All the tech we have for doing sonar and underwater comms would melt at these temperatures, and it's not clear what substitute materials you could use that would survive. This would require a major amount of engineering research to figure out, and I doubt anyone could stomach the cost.
And even if you could figure that out, the sonic environment within the magma lake has got to be terrible - weird thermal gradients, high background noise, the multipath effects you mention... it's a very hard problem.
All in all I think this is a tremendously unlikely solution to the problem.
Venus sounds like a metal-ore refinery, and I'd love for someone to decide that it's worth a few (hundred) billion bucks to go get some of that Unobtanium (or whatever) and bring it back to Earth.
Yeah, it would be cool for someone to decide that. Trouble is, it's almost certainly not true. Someone did the math here on Slashdot once before (in the context of mining Mars) and came to the conclusion that even if there were bricks of solid platinum lying about on the surface of Mars, it wouldn't be economically feasible to recover them (given realistic estimates of the costs involved in going to get them and bring them back). Going to Venus would be even worse, both because of the extreme environmental conditions there and the fact that the metals are not, in all probability, lying about in the form of preprocessed bricks.
With SNUPI, Patel and his team found a way to distribute the wireless sensors in a more practical way. Whereas the traditional method uses 99 percent radio waves, the SNUPI method uses less than one percent
WTF? What the holy hell does that even mean? And other unanswered questions: what on earth is this useful for? What kind of sensors do they intend to attach to this, and what is intended to be done with the data gathered? And: "a node-sized" device? Ok, so how big is a node?
Hint for the International Business Times: for your next story, try assigning a reporter who has some kind of a fucking clue what's being talked about. And for Slashdot: try reading submitted articles before you push them to the front page, in order to avoid embarrassing yourself.
Which is why the huge plethora of choices available in DOS-(and later Windows-)based PCs resulted in the DOS/Windows PC offerings failing to succeed in the market
Where was this "huge plethora of choices"? Your choices included 1) an x86 box from company x, running the current flavor of Microsoft OS, 2) an x86 box from company y, running the current flavor of Microsoft OS... etc. The only real differences among all these "choices" were the label and the price tag.
That's not at all true in the cell phone world. Each manufacturer, and in some cases, each model of cell phone is a universe unto itself - it really is quite a bit harder to make a choice, as all these devices have different hardware and software capabilities.
... it's important to note that we've long had the capability to manufacture industrial diamonds - in fact, something like five times as many industrial diamonds are manufactured as are mined. So, yeah, not worthless, but only "precious" because their supply is so tightly controlled.
The core of a diamond star is way, way more than 1000% of current supply. It's more like a billion billion percent. Not even de Beers could maintain their cartel in the face of this much supply. So I don't think that's a realistic option.
But all this is premised on the idea that this star is actually made of gem-quality diamond, which it almost certainly isn't. It's highly likely to be contaminated with all sorts of heavier elements, won't have crystallized properly, etc. So pretty much no matter how you slice it, the GP is correct - there's no step 3 here.
... how you intend to "transmit" TV signals without using bandwidth. If you're going to broadcast TV at all, you're either sending signals over the air (and using some part of the RF spectrum) or you're sending them via cable. And sure, a lot of people do get their television via cable... but similarly, a lot of people can't afford or aren't within the service area for cable.
Are they harmless to other plants? Will they continue to be harmless when they mutate? Not to be Chicken Little here, but I hope they've thought this through.
There's a lot more to worry about here - viruses that produce electronic components? That grow in crops? What happens if these things get out and infect other plants? What happens when (not if) they mutate?
I hope this whole thing is thought all the way through before it goes to production. Although the chances are this is pretty much pie in the sky anyway.
Speaking as a physician, it's your responsibility to know exactly what you're doing.
Speaking as a safety engineer, you don't know what you're talking about. The object of the game isn't to identify who's to blame after a mishap - it's to prevent mishaps from happening. And the fact is that nurses, like other human beings, are going to make mistakes. Period. The job of the system designer is to anticipate the mistakes that humans are likely to make, and design to system to make those mistakes easier to avoid. This is not a problem that can or should be addressed by macho posturing and/or finger pointing after the fact.
Slashdot Mirror
Before burning, that carbon was sequestered in the form of wood, and would have stayed sequestered for quite a long time. After burning, the carbon was liberated in the form of CO2. Yes, over the long term, wood burning has zero CO2 emissions. But using hydro instead of wood actually has negative emissions, as the trees continue to sequester carbon.
You'd still be better off with a heat pump than with resistance heating. And if it gets really cold where you are, you can do so-called "geothermal" heating - which is really just a heat pump with the coils buried underground.
Many, many sites require Javascript to work AT ALL. You can argue that they should degrade gracefully so that they still work without JS, and you'd be right. But the fact is: they don't. So as a user, I'm now left with the choice of an almost completely broken (but secure) web, or a web that mostly works but can zap me with "evercookies". In practice, I end up using NoScript to block all 3rd party scripts, but I mostly allow scripts from the sites I visit frequently. Which means that, say, Slashdot could hit me with an evercookie as long as they hosted it on their own domain.
... he recognizes this problem in the article, and calls for different solutions for mobile machines.But still - kind of a dumb article.
The clearly states in the body of the article that he doesn't recommend doing away with desktop firewalls, doesn't think it's a good idea, and certainly isn't going to do it himself. So what was the point of the article again? Clearly, to say something controversial in the headline in the hopes of drawing more eyeballs.
I propose that any time anyone suggests that a given temperature scale is more "natural" or "arbitrary" than another temperature scale, they automatically lose the argument. And get perma-banned from Slashdot. These "my temperature scale can beat up your temperature scale" arguments are beyond tiresome.
Some of this is solved, some not:
A lot of folks have expressed some doubt as to what they'd do with an iPad-like device, and yeah, I'm with you there. I already have an iPhone and a laptop, and while I can sort of see the attraction in something with a bigger screen than the phone but with the instant bootup and portability that the laptop lacks... ultimately, I can't see spending the money. But there are a few use cases where this kind of thing really shines: 1) on the train. If you commute to work, it would be a lot easier to check e-mail, read a book, listen to music, play a game, whatever, on one of these, than to get out and fire up the laptop. 2) e-reader++. If you are considering a Kindle, but want to be able to do more with it than just read books (and you don't read outside a lot), this would be a pretty useful device.
If there was ever an instance where "if you have to explain the joke, it's not funny" applied, it's this article.
If you were serious about targeting country X's nuclear development reactors, you'd 1) make damn sure that your malware was easy to spread, but only in systems within country X, 2) make the malware highly unobtrusive and harmless to non-target systems. If you don't follow these rules, your operation will be publicized and hence compromised.
I think the idea that some western intelligence service designed and released this is, well, sort of dubious. And the article doesn't really do much to convince me otherwise - it's all complete speculation.
Amen. I'm not really sure where people (against all evidence) get the idea that the US can cause political things to happen, anywhere in the world, through sheer force of will. As if the reason Iran's government is still in power is because we in the US haven't been paying enough attention. The fact of the matter is that who's ruling Iran has everything to do with things going on in Iran, and nothing whatsoever to do with what the US is watching on TV.
... they don't freaking eat rats! So why the hell would you import them to deal with your rat problem?
It's the same story you run into with a lot of Windows boxes - by the time you replace enough of the innards to get it up to snuff, you could have just bought a new one. If it runs Tiger just fine, and you don't mind sticking with stuff that will run on Tiger, the most I would consider doing is a RAM upgrade. But more and more Mac software refuses to run on PPC hardware (including the latest version of the operating system and most of iLife), so my own opinion is that the G4 upgrade is just a waste of money. Bottom line: this box might be a fun way to play around with a Mac, but you might do better by buying a cheap refurb'd Mac Mini of more recent vintage.Tiger is getting pretty long in the tooth (so to speak) these days.
Sure, there absolutely is... in water. Doing the same thing in magma: not so well developed. All the tech we have for doing sonar and underwater comms would melt at these temperatures, and it's not clear what substitute materials you could use that would survive. This would require a major amount of engineering research to figure out, and I doubt anyone could stomach the cost.
And even if you could figure that out, the sonic environment within the magma lake has got to be terrible - weird thermal gradients, high background noise, the multipath effects you mention... it's a very hard problem.
All in all I think this is a tremendously unlikely solution to the problem.
Yeah, it would be cool for someone to decide that. Trouble is, it's almost certainly not true. Someone did the math here on Slashdot once before (in the context of mining Mars) and came to the conclusion that even if there were bricks of solid platinum lying about on the surface of Mars, it wouldn't be economically feasible to recover them (given realistic estimates of the costs involved in going to get them and bring them back). Going to Venus would be even worse, both because of the extreme environmental conditions there and the fact that the metals are not, in all probability, lying about in the form of preprocessed bricks.
and the "preventing your equipment from melting" problem, how do you solve the "transmitting signals through molten rock" problem?
The whole idea is almost mind-bogglingly dumb. Where did they get the idea that possums would eat rats? They mostly eat carrion and bugs.
Maybe for their next trick they can introduce a herd of cows... you know, to eat the possums.
Another bit of brilliance:
WTF? What the holy hell does that even mean? And other unanswered questions: what on earth is this useful for? What kind of sensors do they intend to attach to this, and what is intended to be done with the data gathered? And: "a node-sized" device? Ok, so how big is a node?
Hint for the International Business Times: for your next story, try assigning a reporter who has some kind of a fucking clue what's being talked about. And for Slashdot: try reading submitted articles before you push them to the front page, in order to avoid embarrassing yourself.
I know, must be new here.
Where was this "huge plethora of choices"? Your choices included 1) an x86 box from company x, running the current flavor of Microsoft OS, 2) an x86 box from company y, running the current flavor of Microsoft OS... etc. The only real differences among all these "choices" were the label and the price tag.
That's not at all true in the cell phone world. Each manufacturer, and in some cases, each model of cell phone is a universe unto itself - it really is quite a bit harder to make a choice, as all these devices have different hardware and software capabilities.
... it's important to note that we've long had the capability to manufacture industrial diamonds - in fact, something like five times as many industrial diamonds are manufactured as are mined. So, yeah, not worthless, but only "precious" because their supply is so tightly controlled.
The core of a diamond star is way, way more than 1000% of current supply. It's more like a billion billion percent. Not even de Beers could maintain their cartel in the face of this much supply. So I don't think that's a realistic option.
But all this is premised on the idea that this star is actually made of gem-quality diamond, which it almost certainly isn't. It's highly likely to be contaminated with all sorts of heavier elements, won't have crystallized properly, etc. So pretty much no matter how you slice it, the GP is correct - there's no step 3 here.
... how you intend to "transmit" TV signals without using bandwidth. If you're going to broadcast TV at all, you're either sending signals over the air (and using some part of the RF spectrum) or you're sending them via cable. And sure, a lot of people do get their television via cable... but similarly, a lot of people can't afford or aren't within the service area for cable.
Are they harmless to other plants? Will they continue to be harmless when they mutate? Not to be Chicken Little here, but I hope they've thought this through.
Up to $100k. If you have more cash than that, you can establish more than one account.
Banks fold all the time. Your money is still protected.
There's a lot more to worry about here - viruses that produce electronic components? That grow in crops? What happens if these things get out and infect other plants? What happens when (not if) they mutate?
I hope this whole thing is thought all the way through before it goes to production. Although the chances are this is pretty much pie in the sky anyway.
Speaking as a safety engineer, you don't know what you're talking about. The object of the game isn't to identify who's to blame after a mishap - it's to prevent mishaps from happening. And the fact is that nurses, like other human beings, are going to make mistakes. Period. The job of the system designer is to anticipate the mistakes that humans are likely to make, and design to system to make those mistakes easier to avoid. This is not a problem that can or should be addressed by macho posturing and/or finger pointing after the fact.