Nope... they are re-releasing Netscape the Service... haven't you seen the commercials where they pit it against NetZero?
They are re-rolling Netcape as an alternative dial up service, basically a barebones AOL without all the AOL-only content.. just straight internet access.
You seem perfectly capable of looking up your own reference materials.
Here's the clues you need:
biodiesel.org Though they are just a front for the SoyBean farmers association but plenty of resources for you to check out.
Central Intelligence Agency These guys have all sorts of info about agricultural output in USA and other nations.
Wired Magazine Do a search on biodiesel to verify the quotation.
Search Google News for Biodiesel Now click on the little News Alerts icon and subscribe to that search... you'll get all the news on biodiesel that's fit to publish as a current event and learn about how many organizations in US and around world are in fact mongin forward with serious biodiesel plans. Tell you what, there are a whole hell of a lot more actual implementations happening that for any other alternative fuel... happening now.
FYI reality is "socially constructed". Public opinion will wish oilseed crops into existence.. much like it wished electricity infrastructure into existence, wished a global communications system into existence... it's called Supply and Demand.. yeah I know it's just a theory and all but the basic idea is that when enough people want something to happen a Demand is created, which in turn prompts a Supply to come into existence through the efforts of entrepeneurs and business interests who seek to satisfy that Demand.
Technically it is already done. Refining apparatus that is reasonably efficient, and only needs economies of scale to become sufficiently efficient, is in use. New improvements are being researched and tested as we speak..
Energetically biodiesel contains as much or more available energy for combustion than petrol diesel. The plants used for oilseed require minimal energy input from people.. plant and grow.. that's why they love plants like soybeans even though they produce less oil than some alternatives like Castor plants which require more human intervention. On the other hand.. if the price is right the best plant for the job will be planted.
Ecologically...;-p so you'd prefer the alternative? Which one? You can't take energy out of a system without impacting it. Use solar power and you're cooling off the atmosphere and pulling solar radiation out of the ecology. Use hydro and you're pulling the energy out of the water cycle... screwing with weather patterns by creating new evaporation points, etc. Use tidal power and you mess with ocean currents and tidal changes that maintain coastal ecologies... Hydrogen power has to come from somewhere, it's just a storage medium.. not a source of power.. so think coal, nuclear, etc. Biodiesel looks to have the least impact... carbon is grown, carbon is burned, carbon returns to the ecosystem, carbon is resequesterd through absorption of CO2 by plants... the same plants that are grown for the next generation of fuel.
Socially it's a slam dunk. Reduced dependence on cartel producers. Environmentally benign compared to current fuels. Renewable resource that provides jobs. It can use the already available infrastructure with zero change and is usable in available vehicles with zero change. Take a look at the initiatives already happening across the nation and the positive reaction coming from every single one.. then look at what's happening in India, Maylasia, and on and on.
Depends on the timeline really. Biodiesel is just getting started in the US.. it's been growing in Europe for a decade now but is still languishing as 'alternative' energy instead of being focused upon as a primary source. In Brazil it has been developed for over 20 years and is a much more significant percentage of their annual fuel budget.
69 billion gallons.. 1 barrel == 42 gallons
so a billion barrels would be 42 billion gallons.
""Could we meet that demand instantly? No," said Higgins. She estimated that the 21 existing biodiesel production plants in the United States could produce up to 80 million gallons a year, and another 20 plants could quickly go online." - Wired Mag, National Biodiesel Board's Jenna Higgins
That's 80 million production increase possible each year, assuming the technology doesn't improve and that production capacity per plant never changes. I don't think it's far-fetched to think that the capacity could go to 10's of billions annual within 10 years if the incentive and demand were there.
Yes a lot of our vegetable oil production goes to edible products...
Where does the feedstock come from? Well, here in the US and from abroad... you can grow many oil producing crops anywhere... say Africa for instance, grow oil bearing plants that do well in semi-arid regions.. or China or Australia... there's plenty of un-used land that could grow the plants needed to supply the US and other nations with all they need.
Why does the US have to grow it all here? Grow some of it here and import the rest, take advantage of compartively cheap labor... provide new economic stimulus in areas that currently can't compete in the food plant markets do to regulatory issues and distribution requirements for quality preservation in storage, transportation, etc.
You would have a much more portable industry than the current petrochemical situation where only countries with the good fortune to have natural deposits can benefit from a global demand... any country can grow these plants both for domestic and for export purposes.
To sum up, when the demand for biofuels increases there will be no supply shortage of feedstock and no bottleneck of control over the resource.
Could go on but you should just go to biodiesel.org and set a google news alert for 'biodiesel' to see the activity that is going on US and everywhere else.
My bet isn't with you by the way... it's with public opinion. I'm betting against hydrogen fuel cells as the energy supply for portable engines as well as against hybrid-electrics except where those hybrid electrics are using biodiesel as the liquid fuel to power the generators that charge the battery... which IMHO is the best of all possibilities... very efficient diesel engine generators powering electric vehicles, perfect.
I stated in the title of the post that I was only referring to petrol replacement, not fossil fuel replacement.
We already grow all the biomass we need to replace fossil petrol.
Biodiesel isn't a good way to provide electricity... imagine running diesel generators non-stop to try and supply all the energy needs for even a small country.. impossible.
So I'm not even attempting to say that all fossil fuels will be replaced, just diesel and gasoline, still a substantial amount of fuel, especially when you consider all the diesel engines out there - lots of boats, trucks, construction machines, etc.
All those diesel engines are not going to be replaced by hydrogen fuel cell versions, hybrids or even straight electric engines... way too expensive a proposition in industries where profit margins are probably pretty tight as it is.
So moving on... there is soy bean oil, rape seed oil, mustard seed oil, cotton seed oil, corn oil just to mention a few sources.
Specifically, rape seed and cotton seed oils would make for perfect fuel oil sources. To be sure they make for pretty crappy food oils.. known to be toxic in unprocessed form and malnutritious even when edible.. they were originally only used as industrial chemicals until the early 90's when they began to infiltrate our food supply in the form of processed foods and now even in fast food chains to cook fries, etc.
They would be more valuable to the growers as a fuel oil... only the infrastructure needs to be put in place and demand created.
If you add it all up we already produce billions of barrels of viable oils and with a demand market farmers would have even more incentive to grow these cash crops. Especially since we wouldn't care what sort of tech was used to enhance production, ie: use genetics to increase oil yield...
Nope it will die... but first we'll synthesize the 'active ingredient' but this man-made version will only work at 5% effectiveness so as to provide 'treatment' but never a 'cure'. Oh yeah, it will get patented too. Then Science will claim to have invented it and that God doesn't exist because otherwise He would have saved the plant through a 'miracle' and all memory of a natural and highly potent medicine will cease to exist in the common conciousness and we'll be looking for the next great wonder to exploit for personal gain.
I like to pick a theme every three months, flowers, mythical creatures, LOTR characters, Comic books, States, etc.
Then I use a consistent character replacement system.
No I won't tell you what it is.. but it makes for a reasonably good method both for remembering them and for security.
I do record the theme on a paper calendar at home, I don't change every password I've ever created so I need a clue to jog my memory. It's just vague enough to be both confusing for someone not familiar with the method and precise enough to help me guestimate what I'd used within two tries. Imagine finding a Picasso Calendar with the word 'flowers' written on the second tuesday, the word 'Comicx' written on the first thursday, etc, etc. - it would take some Watson like insight to put the clues together.. and you're only halfway there.
Other ideas were song lyrics and book meta data... ie: book: page, paragraph, word... ala 4665Brightblade, where of course i would underline the word.. this way I could keep the books around for reference if needed, maybe with a bookmark at the right page.
Anyways, there are lots of good and practical methodologies for picking secure passwords... just be creative.
You do know that there has never been a commercially successful nulcear power plant... it's all subsidized. Maybe that's the reason why more haven't been built.
If industrial energy production were being produced by Green sources such as Wind/Water/Geo/Tidal then the CO2 output (which can easily be cut by using a Catalytic Converter - which while bad for diesel, works with biodiesel) from new less polluting turbo-diesel engines would be much less than current gas powered and diesel engines, including boats, trains, etc.
Until the current gas crunch, Diesel was easily 10 cents higher than Regular at the pumps in my area... now it is 5-10 cents cheaper than Regular. Of course a good diesel engine is usually about 1-2 thou more expensive so "your mileage may vary";-p
Wind, Hydro, Nuclear... great for electricity but does nothing about Gas and Oil.
Until electric cars become efficient enough to run all day on a single charge with half a day of stored energy still available, petrol is the energy source we need to replace.
I'm betting on Biodiesel. It's still more expensive to refine than crude oil but that gap is closing fast. With current subsidies you can actually buy biodiesel for cheaper than Gasoline...
Typically my responses float just above the 'common knowledge' curve of the topic. Rarely am I competitive or combative though on occasion someone's attitude will particularly irk me. Then I tend to play 'devil's advocate' just to provide another POV./. in particular has a majority population of like minded members who have already decided that some philosophies are invalid and evidence of ignorance without having taken the time to even investigate what those philosophies are all about, relying instead on their own insular opinion and commonly held beliefs.
As a broad minded individual with a wide array of interests in all areas of knowledge I enjoy bringing out counterpoints to these assumption based conclusions about non-/. approved beliefs.
I can't say I'm always concise or perfectly accurate but I do attempt to make compelling arguments when possible... also trying to address the post topic if not the submission topic.
I suggest that you hold judgement until the current politically charged atmosphere dissipates somewhat and more rational dicussions can begin again. Too many members here still have a chip on their shoulder over the past election and the issues related to it. Once they've let go of their burden then some intelligent conversation can occur. For the near future you can probably expect more gut/knee-jerk reactions... take them for what they are.
Nevermind, you've got your head so far up your own ass it's impossible to speak to you. Rant on flamer.
No, I don't respect people who choose to exercise their rights in the most inflammatory, repugnant manner possible. I could exercise my right to do lots of things in stupid disgraceful ways but really it would just be a cry for attention for myself, not for whatever cause I used as an excuse.
Temper tantrums are supposed to be left behind in childhood, adults communicate with each other in civilized discussions.
BTW... why would you cage in your own rally? I was suggesting that you have it at a Marriot or get a permit to hold it in Central Park or Times Square or if in D.C. find a good attractive location in the city somewhere. Tell the media about it and organize it with provisions for everyone involved, public bathrooms, catered food, decorations, traffic control, security... you know like you were throwing a big party.. with the theme being that you are protesting GW's election to the office of President of US.
You want to raise awareness and encourage support? You'll get a lot more people to tune in to your message when you have invited political, social, and other celebrity speakers to talk about your issue. Make it into a benefit while you're at it.
It's not as if you don't know the date of the event and are trying to put together a last minute thing... you've had plenty of time to prepare.
Maybe you just prefer to be seen as an angry mob though?
I didn't say stop expressing yourselves... I said stop whining and I have just as much right to say that as you do to whine. it was a suggestion, not an ultimatum.
The very fact that you and i are here having this so called conversation is evidence enough that your rights are being upheld. So stop saying they aren't... stop saying that the elected government is out to get you somehow.
I'm sorry your signs were stolen, did you report the vandalism of your property to the police? I'm sure there are similar cases on either side. Sounds like you were the victim of overly-passionate hooligans... not a national conspiracy.
You don't change anything by complaining. I've never once seen anything change because people complained about it. I've seen people get opportunities by being the 'squeaky wheel' but then they had to prove that they deserved the attention.
You change things by proving that there is a better alternative.
Kerry lost because he had no platform, no vision, nothing better to offer... he was nothing more than 'not Bush'. His campaign was a joke. For such a supposedly intelligent guy he didn't seem to get it. To get my vote you have to have a plan and that plan has to have the backing of people who know how to get things done. Where were his celebrity economic advisors, accounting experts, medical administration gurus, military strategists... there was absolutely no sign that Kerry had thought through any of the issues to the stage of implementation.. he was stuck on analysis the whole time.
It's not good enough to say there's a problem, you have to have a plan for a solution. He didn't have any. He had a few actors and musicians.. maybe they could have written a musical about something, "Team America" seemed to do pretty well.
You do know that most of the people being detained as you described are those who are involved in fund raising right? Groups who solicit money or trade in black market goods to raise capital for terror organizations. These are business men who though they may not be holding weapons are in fact supplying the means and cover-stories for those who do.
These are the 'officers' of the terror groups, while the ones blowing themselves up are the 'enlisted men'.
Still they are personally responsible in the same way that officers in a formal military would be held responsible.
I live in a city with hundreds of thousands of Persians (Iranian and Iraqi), Afghans, Pakistanis, etc. My younger brother went to school with the son of a cousin to Saddam... I'm not hearing anything about people being detained, except when involved in the above activities with plenty of evidence backing up the claims and we're talking about isolated events.
There just isn't any evidence that people are being detained unjustly or unreasonably.
It may be that the evidence for why they are being detained is not being published for your consumption however, leading you to believe that they were just "in the wrong place at the wrong time" or some other likely story.
I dissent with my wallet and my vote, not with fruitless attention whore tactics for people with nothing better to do. Instead of standing around with signs in hopes of catching some media coverage, why don't these protesters do something productive like lobbying someone with enough money to put an ad on TV or a full page spread in the NY Times.
Protesting is what people did before the age of affordable communication. In today's world you've got a huge selection of methods by which to tell people your opinions. What, do you think you're going to change GWs mind with your signs?
If you must gather together to pat each other on your backs and stroke each others egos while 'demonstrating' something that everyone is and has been aware of most likely for months and months (seriously we know how you feel already and yeah we know there are quite a few of you out there, it's kind of hard to miss)... then pick your own location to have a rally.
All you do when demonstrating at a government event is to cause security concerns to go up all around and increase the chance that someone with criminal intent will take advantage of your cover to do something heinous. Nobody hears your message any better than if you did it somewhere else.
Have a Parade, a Walk Against the War or some other activity with it's own timeline.
Actually I live in one of the most diverse areas in the US. Orange County. No not the one you see on TV... I live about ten miles from Santa Ana where every sign is in Spanish, about 15 miles from Westminster where every sign is in Vietnamese, every year more than a hundred thousand Persians come to the local park to celebrate the biggest persian New Years celebration outside of the middle east, every saturday tens of thousands of orthodox Jews walk to temple down the streets of my city, I have Russian friends, Korean friends, Chinese friends, Persian friends, Palestinian friends, Jewish friends - from Israel, Armenian, Syrian, African - from Africa... it goes on.
I live in Irvine, near UCI - I'm not a student though, just live here.
Why not start filing complaints about how you hate the way the Wonderful World of Disney portrays animals? Or how the relationships on 7th heaven portray an unrealistic vision of modern interpersonal relationships and are contributing to depression in local schoolchildren who can't possibly hope to live up to such standards?
Indecency is in the eye of the beholder apparently.. so see what you can do to get these IMHO indecent programs off the air or at least heavily fined.
It's subjective and totally subject to "Squeaky Wheel" syndrome.. be a squeaky wheel.
Why don't you stop using a language/culture/science/math invented by some damn ancient culture thousands of years ago? I mean this whole printed word thing really was just the dreams of madmen anyways.. we should totally stop believing in it.
Thousands of generations of humanity were all totally wrong when they decided that there was some sort of greater power than themselves - superstition of ignorance.. if only they had science to explain everything.. right?
But you've got it all figured out now so i should stop lecturing.. I mean thousands of generations compared to you.. tell me more about how your opinion is somehow better than those who came before you..
Don't be afraid of what you don't understand. It's really not that difficult.
Religion is community, it's the basis of modern society, it's the beginning of law and agreed upon social behavior. The Torah was a codified version of this. The Old Testament is the story of how this agreed upon societal arrangement came to be.. and The New Testament is how this societal arrangement can move forward and evolve over the millenia ahead without forgetting what has come before. - That's it. Alpha - Omega.
The other religions are the same. Bhuddism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam. They are the codification of common law, agreed upon standards of living so as to coexist peacefully and productively as a society.
Churches are entirely different however... they are power structures for monitoring, re-interpreting, enforcing those laws. Nobody asked for them.. they asserted themselves the same way any large enough social group draws such power structures to it. The competition to hold power is what gets everyone in trouble regardless of it's source. Atheists such as Saddam Hussein are just as likely to go off on crusades as religious men like George W.
Yes, religion is an invention.. the same as language, the alphabets of the world, mathematics, the scientific method, law, government... all gifts of God.
Ignore it at your own peril sir. It will be here long after you are dead and one more ignorant aetheist won't make a damn difference, not really. Religion is the biggest social group you can belong to. You cut yourself off and you lose access to resources way beyond any other group you can imagine.
I can go to any country in the world and go to a Church and instantly be among friends who will give me food, shelter, a job if I need it... a loan, a car, a plane ticket home. I don't need to speak the language.. just show my cross and they'll find an interpreter.
Where can you go when you've gotten yourself in a bind? Who will you ask for help? Really? Is there an Atheist community you can call upon day or night to give you aid..
Oh yeah and don't pigeonhole several Billion Christians into that little narrowminded box you've imagined for us.
The group of idiots complaining to the FTC are drunk on their own power... it has nothing to do with Religion.
+ never had my privacy invaded by government or non-government individuals or organizations.
+ never been unreasonably detained - the closest ever was march of 2002 flying back to CA from NC - I had to take my shoes off and they took my 2 inch suisse army knife from it's keychain sheathe.
+ never felt like the economy of the nation I live in was going to go belly up and leave my world in shattered ruins.
+ never felt that my rights have been diminshed even in the least possible way, in fact I have more ways to express myself, more ways to share my views and absolutely no hint of having my freedom of speech oppressed or my freedom to life, liberty and property... I have more of each now than 2000.
+ never felt disenfranchised regardless of political persuasion or ethnicity
I live in Southern California so maybe that means I'm outside the influence of the oppressive forces that seem to be weighing on all the whiners out there.. or maybe I'm just a good little consumer who never does anything to get between the cross-hairs of the oppressors.. sorry, but I don't see any of it.
What I do see is the process of law and government being put under incredible scrutiny every hour of every day by the public, the media, watchdog groups, foreign nations and Slashdot... how many counts of abuse of power over US citizens have I seen in the last four years? very few considering how the current US Administration is supposedly doing irreparable harm to the nation.
I have seen the usual set of criminal conspiracies that seem to happen every decade, Michael Milken anyone? Robber Barons? and hey here's Enron and Arthur Andersen...
What I do see is that the availability of information has made everyone freakin' paranoid. You're all suffering from news overload on a day-to-day basis and coming to conclusions based on incomplete initiatives, incomplete results, incomplete disclosure and incomplete comprehension.
Take a break. Give the duly elected officials and their staff a chance to finish something before you begin your tirade of how said legislation is going to destroy all life as we know it.
It just ain't gonna happen. Capitalism and enlightened self-interest won't allow it. Go ahead and participate by writing to your congressmen and senators, local reps and signing initiatives and for God's sake pay your taxes but don't overpay... it's your money no need to give the Gov an interest free loan.. so participate and feel grateful that you live in a country where you can without worrying that someone is going to bomb your polling place.
Fraud will happen... criminals will be caught. That's how a free society based on law works.
If you don't have any faith in the system then move somewhere else. Just stop whining you whiners! A freakin' whambulance is on the way.
Inkjet printing is directly related to digital originals... noone does an inkjet print from film.. AFAIK and why would they?
Digital originals can be stored, backed up and copied to unlimited numbers of archival repositories; backup floppies, backup zip, backup CD backup DVD. backup Hard Drive, backup Flash... and through the miracle of lossless duplication (whether the original is a lossless of the raw data or not).. you can keep a backup copy of the digital original for as long as you want to pay attention.
Now this being said. 30 years is plenty for a high-quality print for eyeball viewing, as long as there is an archived copy of the digital original available.
As new technology becomes available you can decide to re-print a new high-quality copy with even greater fidelity and lifespan.
30 years is a long time in terms of technology. Heck even after ten years you're going to want to print out a new copy on new papers with better inks and wider gamut ranges.
If you're selling these prints you should be including a right to reprint for personal use.. with a signed receipt for the original, etc. etc. and a copy of the digital original. Put a watermark in it to keep would be pirates from making unauthorized copies... each sold copy should have a unique watermark... in both the digital file and in the paper itself, similar to signing a print w/ a series number.
This way if you do find copies floating about you can follow the trail back to the buyer.
30 years is plenty, when the original is digital. 30 years is like 300 years when you're talking technology... plenty.
" Is it possible that the usefulness of TV has decreased with the internet so expansive these days?"
More likely it's that the internet has finally become more entertaining that television.
With broadband and faster cpus you can finally enjoy streaming content from a wider variety of sources than is available in the very small selection of channels that is TV.
If this is about encryption it has nothing to do with the laptop being stolen and everything to do with the data being stolen.
Forget about how easy it is to unplug/shutdown said laptop and leave.. obviously it's quite easy.
What this would do is to only allow decryption of the data stored on that laptop while within the vicinity of the approved location.
Anywhere else and the data is encrypted. sure you can wipe the drive, but that is what they want you to do anyways...
And yes people do store sensitive data on their laptops.. plenty of business men have very sensitive financial information stored on their laptop and typically they do encrypt it but this system would make that encryption just a little more secure by salting the method with the GPS data.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope... they are re-releasing Netscape the Service... haven't you seen the commercials where they pit it against NetZero?
They are re-rolling Netcape as an alternative dial up service, basically a barebones AOL without all the AOL-only content.. just straight internet access.
It's got nothing to do with a browser.
You seem perfectly capable of looking up your own reference materials.
;-p so you'd prefer the alternative? Which one? You can't take energy out of a system without impacting it. Use solar power and you're cooling off the atmosphere and pulling solar radiation out of the ecology. Use hydro and you're pulling the energy out of the water cycle... screwing with weather patterns by creating new evaporation points, etc. Use tidal power and you mess with ocean currents and tidal changes that maintain coastal ecologies... Hydrogen power has to come from somewhere, it's just a storage medium.. not a source of power.. so think coal, nuclear, etc. Biodiesel looks to have the least impact... carbon is grown, carbon is burned, carbon returns to the ecosystem, carbon is resequesterd through absorption of CO2 by plants... the same plants that are grown for the next generation of fuel.
Here's the clues you need:
biodiesel.org Though they are just a front for the SoyBean farmers association but plenty of resources for you to check out.
Central Intelligence Agency These guys have all sorts of info about agricultural output in USA and other nations.
Wired Magazine Do a search on biodiesel to verify the quotation.
Search Google News for Biodiesel Now click on the little News Alerts icon and subscribe to that search... you'll get all the news on biodiesel that's fit to publish as a current event and learn about how many organizations in US and around world are in fact mongin forward with serious biodiesel plans. Tell you what, there are a whole hell of a lot more actual implementations happening that for any other alternative fuel... happening now.
FYI reality is "socially constructed". Public opinion will wish oilseed crops into existence.. much like it wished electricity infrastructure into existence, wished a global communications system into existence... it's called Supply and Demand.. yeah I know it's just a theory and all but the basic idea is that when enough people want something to happen a Demand is created, which in turn prompts a Supply to come into existence through the efforts of entrepeneurs and business interests who seek to satisfy that Demand.
Technically it is already done. Refining apparatus that is reasonably efficient, and only needs economies of scale to become sufficiently efficient, is in use. New improvements are being researched and tested as we speak..
Energetically biodiesel contains as much or more available energy for combustion than petrol diesel. The plants used for oilseed require minimal energy input from people.. plant and grow.. that's why they love plants like soybeans even though they produce less oil than some alternatives like Castor plants which require more human intervention. On the other hand.. if the price is right the best plant for the job will be planted.
Ecologically...
Heres a great link for info about that from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Socially it's a slam dunk. Reduced dependence on cartel producers. Environmentally benign compared to current fuels. Renewable resource that provides jobs. It can use the already available infrastructure with zero change and is usable in available vehicles with zero change. Take a look at the initiatives already happening across the nation and the positive reaction coming from every single one.. then look at what's happening in India, Maylasia, and on and on.
Depends on the timeline really. Biodiesel is just getting started in the US.. it's been growing in Europe for a decade now but is still languishing as 'alternative' energy instead of being focused upon as a primary source. In Brazil it has been developed for over 20 years and is a much more significant percentage of their annual fuel budget.
69 billion gallons.. 1 barrel == 42 gallons
so a billion barrels would be 42 billion gallons.
""Could we meet that demand instantly? No," said Higgins. She estimated that the 21 existing biodiesel production plants in the United States could produce up to 80 million gallons a year, and another 20 plants could quickly go online." - Wired Mag, National Biodiesel Board's Jenna Higgins
That's 80 million production increase possible each year, assuming the technology doesn't improve and that production capacity per plant never changes. I don't think it's far-fetched to think that the capacity could go to 10's of billions annual within 10 years if the incentive and demand were there.
Yes a lot of our vegetable oil production goes to edible products...
Where does the feedstock come from? Well, here in the US and from abroad... you can grow many oil producing crops anywhere... say Africa for instance, grow oil bearing plants that do well in semi-arid regions.. or China or Australia... there's plenty of un-used land that could grow the plants needed to supply the US and other nations with all they need.
Why does the US have to grow it all here? Grow some of it here and import the rest, take advantage of compartively cheap labor... provide new economic stimulus in areas that currently can't compete in the food plant markets do to regulatory issues and distribution requirements for quality preservation in storage, transportation, etc.
You would have a much more portable industry than the current
petrochemical situation where only countries with the good fortune to have natural deposits can benefit from a global demand... any country can grow these plants both for domestic and for export purposes.
To sum up, when the demand for biofuels increases there will be no supply shortage of feedstock and no bottleneck of control over the resource.
Could go on but you should just go to biodiesel.org and set a google news alert for 'biodiesel' to see the activity that is going on US and everywhere else.
My bet isn't with you by the way... it's with public opinion. I'm betting against hydrogen fuel cells as the energy supply for portable engines as well as against hybrid-electrics except where those hybrid electrics are using biodiesel as the liquid fuel to power the generators that charge the battery... which IMHO is the best of all possibilities... very efficient diesel engine generators powering electric vehicles, perfect.
I stated in the title of the post that I was only referring to petrol replacement, not fossil fuel replacement.
We already grow all the biomass we need to replace fossil petrol.
Biodiesel isn't a good way to provide electricity... imagine running diesel generators non-stop to try and supply all the energy needs for even a small country.. impossible.
So I'm not even attempting to say that all fossil fuels will be replaced, just diesel and gasoline, still a substantial amount of fuel, especially when you consider all the diesel engines out there - lots of boats, trucks, construction machines, etc.
All those diesel engines are not going to be replaced by hydrogen fuel cell versions, hybrids or even straight electric engines... way too expensive a proposition in industries where profit margins are probably pretty tight as it is.
So moving on... there is soy bean oil, rape seed oil, mustard seed oil, cotton seed oil, corn oil just to mention a few sources.
Specifically, rape seed and cotton seed oils would make for perfect fuel oil sources. To be sure they make for pretty crappy food oils.. known to be toxic in unprocessed form and malnutritious even when edible.. they were originally only used as industrial chemicals until the early 90's when they began to infiltrate our food supply in the form of processed foods and now even in fast food chains to cook fries, etc.
They would be more valuable to the growers as a fuel oil... only the infrastructure needs to be put in place and demand created.
If you add it all up we already produce billions of barrels of viable oils and with a demand market farmers would have even more incentive to grow these cash crops. Especially since we wouldn't care what sort of tech was used to enhance production, ie: use genetics to increase oil yield...
Sorry, was wrong on that one.. must have been thinking CO cause apparently Cats acutally make more CO2 by combining 2CO + O2 => 2CO2
Guess we're all doomed then
"and no, it's not a hotel!"
Depends who you ask.. I mean the millions of spermatozoa thought it was just that... then their reservations were canceled.
Nope it will die... but first we'll synthesize the 'active ingredient' but this man-made version will only work at 5% effectiveness so as to provide 'treatment' but never a 'cure'. Oh yeah, it will get patented too. Then Science will claim to have invented it and that God doesn't exist because otherwise He would have saved the plant through a 'miracle' and all memory of a natural and highly potent medicine will cease to exist in the common conciousness and we'll be looking for the next great wonder to exploit for personal gain.
I like to pick a theme every three months, flowers, mythical creatures, LOTR characters, Comic books, States, etc.
Then I use a consistent character replacement system.
No I won't tell you what it is.. but it makes for a reasonably good method both for remembering them and for security.
I do record the theme on a paper calendar at home, I don't change every password I've ever created so I need a clue to jog my memory. It's just vague enough to be both confusing for someone not familiar with the method and precise enough to help me guestimate what I'd used within two tries. Imagine finding a Picasso Calendar with the word 'flowers' written on the second tuesday, the word 'Comicx' written on the first thursday, etc, etc. - it would take some Watson like insight to put the clues together.. and you're only halfway there.
Other ideas were song lyrics and book meta data... ie: book: page, paragraph, word... ala 4665Brightblade, where of course i would underline the word.. this way I could keep the books around for reference if needed, maybe with a bookmark at the right page.
Anyways, there are lots of good and practical methodologies for picking secure passwords... just be creative.
You do know that there has never been a commercially successful nulcear power plant... it's all subsidized. Maybe that's the reason why more haven't been built.
If industrial energy production were being produced by Green sources such as Wind/Water/Geo/Tidal then the CO2 output (which can easily be cut by using a Catalytic Converter - which while bad for diesel, works with biodiesel) from new less polluting turbo-diesel engines would be much less than current gas powered and diesel engines, including boats, trains, etc.
Until the current gas crunch, Diesel was easily 10 cents higher than Regular at the pumps in my area... now it is 5-10 cents cheaper than Regular. Of course a good diesel engine is usually about 1-2 thou more expensive so "your mileage may vary" ;-p
And they requested that all email accounts use 1234 as the password... ;-p
One person said "i don't really need email, you can skip me."
Amazing!
Wind, Hydro, Nuclear... great for electricity but does nothing about Gas and Oil.
Until electric cars become efficient enough to run all day on a single charge with half a day of stored energy still available, petrol is the energy source we need to replace.
I'm betting on Biodiesel. It's still more expensive to refine than crude oil but that gap is closing fast. With current subsidies you can actually buy biodiesel for cheaper than Gasoline...
Typically my responses float just above the 'common knowledge' curve of the topic. Rarely am I competitive or combative though on occasion someone's attitude will particularly irk me. Then I tend to play 'devil's advocate' just to provide another POV. /. in particular has a majority population of like minded members who have already decided that some philosophies are invalid and evidence of ignorance without having taken the time to even investigate what those philosophies are all about, relying instead on their own insular opinion and commonly held beliefs.
As a broad minded individual with a wide array of interests in all areas of knowledge I enjoy bringing out counterpoints to these assumption based conclusions about non-/. approved beliefs.
I can't say I'm always concise or perfectly accurate but I do attempt to make compelling arguments when possible... also trying to address the post topic if not the submission topic.
I suggest that you hold judgement until the current politically charged atmosphere dissipates somewhat and more rational dicussions can begin again. Too many members here still have a chip on their shoulder over the past election and the issues related to it. Once they've let go of their burden then some intelligent conversation can occur. For the near future you can probably expect more gut/knee-jerk reactions... take them for what they are.
Nevermind, you've got your head so far up your own ass it's impossible to speak to you. Rant on flamer.
No, I don't respect people who choose to exercise their rights in the most inflammatory, repugnant manner possible. I could exercise my right to do lots of things in stupid disgraceful ways but really it would just be a cry for attention for myself, not for whatever cause I used as an excuse.
Temper tantrums are supposed to be left behind in childhood, adults communicate with each other in civilized discussions.
BTW... why would you cage in your own rally? I was suggesting that you have it at a Marriot or get a permit to hold it in Central Park or Times Square or if in D.C. find a good attractive location in the city somewhere. Tell the media about it and organize it with provisions for everyone involved, public bathrooms, catered food, decorations, traffic control, security... you know like you were throwing a big party.. with the theme being that you are protesting GW's election to the office of President of US.
You want to raise awareness and encourage support? You'll get a lot more people to tune in to your message when you have invited political, social, and other celebrity speakers to talk about your issue. Make it into a benefit while you're at it.
It's not as if you don't know the date of the event and are trying to put together a last minute thing... you've had plenty of time to prepare.
Maybe you just prefer to be seen as an angry mob though?
Hello?
I didn't say stop expressing yourselves... I said stop whining and I have just as much right to say that as you do to whine. it was a suggestion, not an ultimatum.
The very fact that you and i are here having this so called conversation is evidence enough that your rights are being upheld. So stop saying they aren't... stop saying that the elected government is out to get you somehow.
I'm sorry your signs were stolen, did you report the vandalism of your property to the police? I'm sure there are similar cases on either side. Sounds like you were the victim of overly-passionate hooligans... not a national conspiracy.
You don't change anything by complaining. I've never once seen anything change because people complained about it. I've seen people get opportunities by being the 'squeaky wheel' but then they had to prove that they deserved the attention.
You change things by proving that there is a better alternative.
Kerry lost because he had no platform, no vision, nothing better to offer... he was nothing more than 'not Bush'. His campaign was a joke. For such a supposedly intelligent guy he didn't seem to get it. To get my vote you have to have a plan and that plan has to have the backing of people who know how to get things done. Where were his celebrity economic advisors, accounting experts, medical administration gurus, military strategists... there was absolutely no sign that Kerry had thought through any of the issues to the stage of implementation.. he was stuck on analysis the whole time.
It's not good enough to say there's a problem, you have to have a plan for a solution. He didn't have any. He had a few actors and musicians.. maybe they could have written a musical about something, "Team America" seemed to do pretty well.
You do know that most of the people being detained as you described are those who are involved in fund raising right? Groups who solicit money or trade in black market goods to raise capital for terror organizations. These are business men who though they may not be holding weapons are in fact supplying the means and cover-stories for those who do.
These are the 'officers' of the terror groups, while the ones blowing themselves up are the 'enlisted men'.
Still they are personally responsible in the same way that officers in a formal military would be held responsible.
I live in a city with hundreds of thousands of Persians (Iranian and Iraqi), Afghans, Pakistanis, etc. My younger brother went to school with the son of a cousin to Saddam... I'm not hearing anything about people being detained, except when involved in the above activities with plenty of evidence backing up the claims and we're talking about isolated events.
There just isn't any evidence that people are being detained unjustly or unreasonably.
It may be that the evidence for why they are being detained is not being published for your consumption however, leading you to believe that they were just "in the wrong place at the wrong time" or some other likely story.
I dissent with my wallet and my vote, not with fruitless attention whore tactics for people with nothing better to do. Instead of standing around with signs in hopes of catching some media coverage, why don't these protesters do something productive like lobbying someone with enough money to put an ad on TV or a full page spread in the NY Times.
Protesting is what people did before the age of affordable communication. In today's world you've got a huge selection of methods by which to tell people your opinions. What, do you think you're going to change GWs mind with your signs?
If you must gather together to pat each other on your backs and stroke each others egos while 'demonstrating' something that everyone is and has been aware of most likely for months and months (seriously we know how you feel already and yeah we know there are quite a few of you out there, it's kind of hard to miss)... then pick your own location to have a rally.
All you do when demonstrating at a government event is to cause security concerns to go up all around and increase the chance that someone with criminal intent will take advantage of your cover to do something heinous. Nobody hears your message any better than if you did it somewhere else.
Have a Parade, a Walk Against the War or some other activity with it's own timeline.
Actually I live in one of the most diverse areas in the US. Orange County. No not the one you see on TV... I live about ten miles from Santa Ana where every sign is in Spanish, about 15 miles from Westminster where every sign is in Vietnamese, every year more than a hundred thousand Persians come to the local park to celebrate the biggest persian New Years celebration outside of the middle east, every saturday tens of thousands of orthodox Jews walk to temple down the streets of my city, I have Russian friends, Korean friends, Chinese friends, Persian friends, Palestinian friends, Jewish friends - from Israel, Armenian, Syrian, African - from Africa... it goes on.
I live in Irvine, near UCI - I'm not a student though, just live here.
Why not start filing complaints about how you hate the way the Wonderful World of Disney portrays animals? Or how the relationships on 7th heaven portray an unrealistic vision of modern interpersonal relationships and are contributing to depression in local schoolchildren who can't possibly hope to live up to such standards?
Indecency is in the eye of the beholder apparently.. so see what you can do to get these IMHO indecent programs off the air or at least heavily fined.
It's subjective and totally subject to "Squeaky Wheel" syndrome.. be a squeaky wheel.
Why don't you stop using a language/culture/science/math invented by some damn ancient culture thousands of years ago? I mean this whole printed word thing really was just the dreams of madmen anyways.. we should totally stop believing in it.
Thousands of generations of humanity were all totally wrong when they decided that there was some sort of greater power than themselves - superstition of ignorance.. if only they had science to explain everything.. right?
But you've got it all figured out now so i should stop lecturing.. I mean thousands of generations compared to you.. tell me more about how your opinion is somehow better than those who came before you..
Don't be afraid of what you don't understand. It's really not that difficult.
Religion is community, it's the basis of modern society, it's the beginning of law and agreed upon social behavior. The Torah was a codified version of this. The Old Testament is the story of how this agreed upon societal arrangement came to be.. and The New Testament is how this societal arrangement can move forward and evolve over the millenia ahead without forgetting what has come before. - That's it. Alpha - Omega.
The other religions are the same. Bhuddism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam. They are the codification of common law, agreed upon standards of living so as to coexist peacefully and productively as a society.
Churches are entirely different however... they are power structures for monitoring, re-interpreting, enforcing those laws. Nobody asked for them.. they asserted themselves the same way any large enough social group draws such power structures to it. The competition to hold power is what gets everyone in trouble regardless of it's source. Atheists such as Saddam Hussein are just as likely to go off on crusades as religious men like George W.
Yes, religion is an invention.. the same as language, the alphabets of the world, mathematics, the scientific method, law, government... all gifts of God.
Ignore it at your own peril sir. It will be here long after you are dead and one more ignorant aetheist won't make a damn difference, not really. Religion is the biggest social group you can belong to. You cut yourself off and you lose access to resources way beyond any other group you can imagine.
I can go to any country in the world and go to a Church and instantly be among friends who will give me food, shelter, a job if I need it... a loan, a car, a plane ticket home. I don't need to speak the language.. just show my cross and they'll find an interpreter.
Where can you go when you've gotten yourself in a bind? Who will you ask for help? Really? Is there an Atheist community you can call upon day or night to give you aid..
Oh yeah and don't pigeonhole several Billion Christians into that little narrowminded box you've imagined for us.
The group of idiots complaining to the FTC are drunk on their own power... it has nothing to do with Religion.
anyone I know (yes I'm in the USA and a citizen):
+ never had my privacy invaded by government or non-government individuals or organizations.
+ never been unreasonably detained - the closest ever was march of 2002 flying back to CA from NC - I had to take my shoes off and they took my 2 inch suisse army knife from it's keychain sheathe.
+ never felt like the economy of the nation I live in was going to go belly up and leave my world in shattered ruins.
+ never felt that my rights have been diminshed even in the least possible way, in fact I have more ways to express myself, more ways to share my views and absolutely no hint of having my freedom of speech oppressed or my freedom to life, liberty and property... I have more of each now than 2000.
+ never felt disenfranchised regardless of political persuasion or ethnicity
I live in Southern California so maybe that means I'm outside the influence of the oppressive forces that seem to be weighing on all the whiners out there.. or maybe I'm just a good little consumer who never does anything to get between the cross-hairs of the oppressors.. sorry, but I don't see any of it.
What I do see is the process of law and government being put under incredible scrutiny every hour of every day by the public, the media, watchdog groups, foreign nations and Slashdot... how many counts of abuse of power over US citizens have I seen in the last four years? very few considering how the current US Administration is supposedly doing irreparable harm to the nation.
I have seen the usual set of criminal conspiracies that seem to happen every decade, Michael Milken anyone? Robber Barons? and hey here's Enron and Arthur Andersen...
What I do see is that the availability of information has made everyone freakin' paranoid. You're all suffering from news overload on a day-to-day basis and coming to conclusions based on incomplete initiatives, incomplete results, incomplete disclosure and incomplete comprehension.
Take a break. Give the duly elected officials and their staff a chance to finish something before you begin your tirade of how said legislation is going to destroy all life as we know it.
It just ain't gonna happen. Capitalism and enlightened self-interest won't allow it. Go ahead and participate by writing to your congressmen and senators, local reps and signing initiatives and for God's sake pay your taxes but don't overpay... it's your money no need to give the Gov an interest free loan.. so participate and feel grateful that you live in a country where you can without worrying that someone is going to bomb your polling place.
Fraud will happen... criminals will be caught. That's how a free society based on law works.
If you don't have any faith in the system then move somewhere else. Just stop whining you whiners! A freakin' whambulance is on the way.
Let me tell you why.
Inkjet printing is directly related to digital originals... noone does an inkjet print from film.. AFAIK and why would they?
Digital originals can be stored, backed up and copied to unlimited numbers of archival repositories; backup floppies, backup zip, backup CD backup DVD. backup Hard Drive, backup Flash... and through the miracle of lossless duplication (whether the original is a lossless of the raw data or not).. you can keep a backup copy of the digital original for as long as you want to pay attention.
Now this being said. 30 years is plenty for a high-quality print for eyeball viewing, as long as there is an archived copy of the digital original available.
As new technology becomes available you can decide to re-print a new high-quality copy with even greater fidelity and lifespan.
30 years is a long time in terms of technology. Heck even after ten years you're going to want to print out a new copy on new papers with better inks and wider gamut ranges.
If you're selling these prints you should be including a right to reprint for personal use.. with a signed receipt for the original, etc. etc. and a copy of the digital original. Put a watermark in it to keep would be pirates from making unauthorized copies... each sold copy should have a unique watermark... in both the digital file and in the paper itself, similar to signing a print w/ a series number.
This way if you do find copies floating about you can follow the trail back to the buyer.
30 years is plenty, when the original is digital. 30 years is like 300 years when you're talking technology... plenty.
" Is it possible that the usefulness of TV has decreased with the internet so expansive these days?"
More likely it's that the internet has finally become more entertaining that television.
With broadband and faster cpus you can finally enjoy streaming content from a wider variety of sources than is available in the very small selection of channels that is TV.
If this is about encryption it has nothing to do with the laptop being stolen and everything to do with the data being stolen.
Forget about how easy it is to unplug/shutdown said laptop and leave.. obviously it's quite easy.
What this would do is to only allow decryption of the data stored on that laptop while within the vicinity of the approved location.
Anywhere else and the data is encrypted. sure you can wipe the drive, but that is what they want you to do anyways...
And yes people do store sensitive data on their laptops.. plenty of business men have very sensitive financial information stored on their laptop and typically they do encrypt it but this system would make that encryption just a little more secure by salting the method with the GPS data.