I think it's funny that BrightSource's bird kill numbers are being trusted when they say 1,000 per year. This story says that "federal wildlife investigators" are estimating one "streamer" every two minutes on average. That would be 240 per day assuming 8 hours of operation. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates 28,000 per year. That's only about 76 per day.
The Exxon Valdez spill killed (from my quick search) an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 birds, about what this would kill in 10 years or so at mid-20k birds killed per year. So, build 10 of these plants (or larger with even more roasting capacity) and you have the equivalent (in bird deaths) of an Exxon Valdez oil spill each year. A wise sage once said "It's not easy being green."
If this were a coal or oil source quoting bird kills, would people be so willing to accept their numbers at face value? BrightSource is wanting to build a much larger plant right in a migratory corridor. They have a strong incentive to lie about the numbers.
Also, if you want to compare birds killed here to birds killed by "dirty" energy, scale this ONE complex's Kill per Megawatt up from its (planned) capacity of 392 MW to that of what you're comparing to. Assuming that the plant generates power 8 hours per day year round at 100%, you get about 3.2 GWh of electricity. A search found that for 2010 in the US coal power production was a bit larger than that at 1,994,000 GWh. So, multiply the bird kills by over 600,000 (1,994,000 / 3.2) and you can now compare the kills scaled for power generated. That would be scaling to over 600 million birds by BrightSource numbers and about 17 billion by the environmental group's numbers. The "federal wildlife investigator's" numbers would yield somewhere around 53 billion. I wonder how much coal could be saved by just burning 53 billion birds each year instead...
Don't forget to add in the tortoise habit that was damaged to build this too. I'm trying to think of the name of the thin, extremely fragile layer of crust on undisturbed desert ground that environmental groups want to shut down land so people won't walk on it. (It isn't Desert Varnish. That's what's on rocks.) It takes forever for it to recover. All gone on that six-and-a-quarter square mile site.
But on the bright side, ha ha, at least the owls are safe.
I have to correct you here. What Goggle actually sells is you and your information so that personalized ads can be targeted directly to you. That's why they scan your email and want you to disclose all of that nice, personal information in Google+.
It's the same with broadcast television. You aren't the customer buying the product (TV shows) with your watching the commercials the price. The advertiser is the customer buying the product and the product is you. The TV show is part of the Costs of Goods Sold.
You make an interesting complaint but you provide no argument or evidence that the government doesn't have a good reason to propose this rule... Note the word propose... Doesn't mean it will actually get implemented. Don't let facts get in the way of your libertarian fantasy, though.
That's backwards. The government needs a "good reason" to propose a rule, NOT a "good reason" not to.
Except Mt.Gox was never a bank, if anything its more comparable to a broker, and if there was a major theft leading to your broker going bankrupt there would be no FDIC insurance for you. Any cash you had in your account -- gone, and security not settled and in your name gone. Unless the property was recovered some how by authorities.
Incorrect. SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) insurance protects cash up to $250,000 and cash and securities up to $500,000 per account. Most brokerage firms carry additional insurance, usually called "excess SIPC coverage".
Mt. Gox was the tavern bookie that you left your winnings with, with no insurance or regulation at all.
Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.
I guess we could all switch to a press... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)
Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution
One man's downside is another's clear advantage.
I am totally uninterested in a single-cup solution as it is a huge negative to wait for the cup to brew when I can just pour another one from my pot-plus thermos. I get my good coffee for a far lower price per cup and it stays nice and warm all day long, or at least until it's drained around 3pm.
"So, you are telling me that if you see me with a weapon openly displayed in a holster, you feel the need to attack me?"
Yes.
Like you, carrying your gun with you, I would feel the need to get my defence in early. If I wait until AFTER you've shot me dead, it's too late.
What if I were waving a big knife around you? What if I were standing around your kids at school whilst doing so? What if I were to stand RIGHT IN YOUR FACE?
These are all provocative. Just like your flashing a gun at me.
Gun-phobe. To this person, seeing a firearm in a holster on someone's hip is perceived as the same thing as that person "waving a big knife" around kids at a school, NOT the same thing as seeing a big knife in a sheath on that person's hip. A firearm in a holster on a hip with no attempt to draw attention to it at all (much less in a threatening manner) is being "flashed" at him because it's there and he's afraid of it.
I applaud them for trying. I also applaud them louder for realizing it didn't work and ending it.
The problem in this stupid political landscape, You can't go back and say, It seemed like a good idea at the time, however I stopped it after we found out it didn't meet expectations. Which is really stupid, because it creates bad policies that just keep going on and on creating more harm, and making political leaders afraid to try something new.
Good luck reversing ANY government program, no matter how bad. Once a program is finally pushed through it doesn't matter how disastrous it turns out to be it's now some politically-connected group's (if they weren't politically connected it would never have been passed) God-Given Entitlement. Anyone trying to repeal it is trying to Beat Women and Starve Children.
Lately, I've found that Amazon usually meets or beats Newegg's pricing for most things I buy, with free 2 day shipping (for Prime members).
This was when I stopped using Newegg as well - the moment my wife signed us up for prime. We actually did it for the video and kindle, but once you experience free shipping like that it's pretty hard to accept anything else.
Add in that they allow me to pay using my Discover card rewards right at checkout and it's a dangerous combo.
Well played, Amazon.
I signed up for ShopRunner with an American Express card for free lifetime (supposedly) 2nd-day shipping. Newegg is one of the stores covered.
Right now at Amazon I'm using my Discover card (and not my Discover points) as Discover's Oct-Dec 5% bonus is on "any internet orders". (And I do have Prime there.)
There was never a surplus, the national debt has increased every month for 30 years. OK, a couple of months it didn't, probably including August and September of this year.
The 'surplus' is due to bogus accounting, where they treat the US bonds bought for the SS 'trust fund' as an asset, but don't count the spending of the $ as a liability.
That's the difference between the "Total Public Debt" and the "Total Debt". The latter includes the Intergovernmental Debt (such as the automatic "investment" of Social Security Trust Fund assets in non-marketable Treasury instruments, while the former only includes instruments sold publicly.
The much-ballyhooed "surplus" that Clinton had was in fact a small decline in the Total Public Debt while the Total Debt never declined (on an annual basis, at least) during his presidency.
Total Debt is what really matters. You're not getting ahead when your car, mortgage, and credit card debt have declined by $20,000 but your 401k loan has increased by $25,000. Your Total Debt has increased by $5,000. (Not a perfect analogy because of interest rate differentials, but the closest analogy I could come up with for a person where he "owes it to himself".)
While it's true that you could actually run a surplus and Social Security surpluses would still be "invested", increasing the Intergovernmental Debt, those funds would then retire Public Debt. This, along with debt retired by the actual surplus, would result in the Public Debt falling more rapidly than the Intergovernmental Debt increased and would lead to a declining Total Debt.
So, if the Total Debt didn't fall, there was no real surplus.
Northern hemisphere is on top, southern hemisphere is underneath, rain falls downwards. TBH it's a miracle that rain falls in the southern hemisphere at all. I think they use magnets.
We should launch rockets from Australia. All you have to do is let them go and they'll fall into orbit. It would save a lot of fuel.
but after Al Qaeda showed everyone how infiltration can really be done,
Except that isn't true.
Every one of the 9/11 terrorists fit a profile that should have sounded alarm bells at the border. Finding guys like that is easy if you are looking and it doesn't require reading every grandmothers email, or recording every phone call or feeling every crotch.
Russian operatives were far more successful, some escaping detection for multiple decades.
Oh, but it's not nice to profile. It'll hurt their feelings.
Treason is the act of sabotage, destruction, sedition, and suchlike. Refusing a search w/o a *proper* warrant is not treason. Secret court generated 'warrants' do not count as being proper by any stretch of common law.
This isn't a "crap excuse". It is NOT "treason", but it is a felony violation of a "secret" law for which you would probably be tried in a "secret" court or at least in a court with no observers and sealed records (national security, you know).
Who is to say what warrant is "proper"? Wouldn't that be a judge, probably one in the same "secret" court system that issued the warrant in the first place?
Good luck with all of that.
It may be a "crap law", but her's wasn't a "crap excuse".
As far as I'm concerned (ianal), the "I have a dream" speech was a historical, public, and defining of an important part of our society. It can't be copyrighted. Any lowlife trying to capitalize on that should be thrown in jail.
Martin Luther King Jr. himself file the copyright on the speech as an "unpublished work". Before being settled out of court, an appeals court overruled a lower court ruling that King had "published" the speech by speaking it and instead said that his verbal delivery was a "performance", allowing the copyright.
I knew the general concepts of the above and got the details from Wikipedia.
Why would you debate why ice floats with a philosopher? The reason is that it is less dense. There is no philosophical reason why it floats. There is also no reason to bring wood, duck or witches into the question.
How can ice float? Can you build a bridge out of it?
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's funny that BrightSource's bird kill numbers are being trusted when they say 1,000 per year. This story says that "federal wildlife investigators" are estimating one "streamer" every two minutes on average. That would be 240 per day assuming 8 hours of operation. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates 28,000 per year. That's only about 76 per day.
The Exxon Valdez spill killed (from my quick search) an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 birds, about what this would kill in 10 years or so at mid-20k birds killed per year. So, build 10 of these plants (or larger with even more roasting capacity) and you have the equivalent (in bird deaths) of an Exxon Valdez oil spill each year. A wise sage once said "It's not easy being green."
If this were a coal or oil source quoting bird kills, would people be so willing to accept their numbers at face value? BrightSource is wanting to build a much larger plant right in a migratory corridor. They have a strong incentive to lie about the numbers.
Also, if you want to compare birds killed here to birds killed by "dirty" energy, scale this ONE complex's Kill per Megawatt up from its (planned) capacity of 392 MW to that of what you're comparing to. Assuming that the plant generates power 8 hours per day year round at 100%, you get about 3.2 GWh of electricity. A search found that for 2010 in the US coal power production was a bit larger than that at 1,994,000 GWh. So, multiply the bird kills by over 600,000 (1,994,000 / 3.2) and you can now compare the kills scaled for power generated. That would be scaling to over 600 million birds by BrightSource numbers and about 17 billion by the environmental group's numbers. The "federal wildlife investigator's" numbers would yield somewhere around 53 billion. I wonder how much coal could be saved by just burning 53 billion birds each year instead...
Don't forget to add in the tortoise habit that was damaged to build this too. I'm trying to think of the name of the thin, extremely fragile layer of crust on undisturbed desert ground that environmental groups want to shut down land so people won't walk on it. (It isn't Desert Varnish. That's what's on rocks.) It takes forever for it to recover. All gone on that six-and-a-quarter square mile site.
But on the bright side, ha ha, at least the owls are safe.
But it's Green! It MUST be good!
I read another story that said that only minutes passed between "streamers".
I can't look at a picture of this plant without thinking "Helios One"...
I have to correct you here. What Goggle actually sells is you and your information so that personalized ads can be targeted directly to you. That's why they scan your email and want you to disclose all of that nice, personal information in Google+.
It's the same with broadcast television. You aren't the customer buying the product (TV shows) with your watching the commercials the price. The advertiser is the customer buying the product and the product is you. The TV show is part of the Costs of Goods Sold.
I used to play Asteroids. I wasn't very good at it.
Don't you mean, "loose you're shit"?
... compared to something more SATAnic, ...
It doesn't sound that evil to me...
You make an interesting complaint but you provide no argument or evidence that the government doesn't have a good reason to propose this rule... Note the word propose... Doesn't mean it will actually get implemented. Don't let facts get in the way of your libertarian fantasy, though.
That's backwards. The government needs a "good reason" to propose a rule, NOT a "good reason" not to.
And I totally agree with your signature calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment.
Except Mt.Gox was never a bank, if anything its more comparable to a broker, and if there was a major theft leading to your broker going bankrupt there would be no FDIC insurance for you. Any cash you had in your account -- gone, and security not settled and in your name gone. Unless the property was recovered some how by authorities.
Incorrect. SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) insurance protects cash up to $250,000 and cash and securities up to $500,000 per account. Most brokerage firms carry additional insurance, usually called "excess SIPC coverage".
Mt. Gox was the tavern bookie that you left your winnings with, with no insurance or regulation at all.
Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.
I guess we could all switch to a press ... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)
Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution
One man's downside is another's clear advantage.
I am totally uninterested in a single-cup solution as it is a huge negative to wait for the cup to brew when I can just pour another one from my pot-plus thermos. I get my good coffee for a far lower price per cup and it stays nice and warm all day long, or at least until it's drained around 3pm.
That's the first thing that popped into my head also. What was the name of that show?
"So, you are telling me that if you see me with a weapon openly displayed in a holster, you feel the need to attack me?"
Yes.
Like you, carrying your gun with you, I would feel the need to get my defence in early. If I wait until AFTER you've shot me dead, it's too late.
What if I were waving a big knife around you? What if I were standing around your kids at school whilst doing so? What if I were to stand RIGHT IN YOUR FACE?
These are all provocative. Just like your flashing a gun at me.
Gun-phobe. To this person, seeing a firearm in a holster on someone's hip is perceived as the same thing as that person "waving a big knife" around kids at a school, NOT the same thing as seeing a big knife in a sheath on that person's hip. A firearm in a holster on a hip with no attempt to draw attention to it at all (much less in a threatening manner) is being "flashed" at him because it's there and he's afraid of it.
I applaud them for trying. I also applaud them louder for realizing it didn't work and ending it.
The problem in this stupid political landscape, You can't go back and say, It seemed like a good idea at the time, however I stopped it after we found out it didn't meet expectations. Which is really stupid, because it creates bad policies that just keep going on and on creating more harm, and making political leaders afraid to try something new.
Good luck reversing ANY government program, no matter how bad. Once a program is finally pushed through it doesn't matter how disastrous it turns out to be it's now some politically-connected group's (if they weren't politically connected it would never have been passed) God-Given Entitlement. Anyone trying to repeal it is trying to Beat Women and Starve Children.
Solar power is expensive. Wind turbines kill birds.
I read a recent article that sodium boiler/reflector solar generators are literally burning the feathers off of migratory birds.
Windmills: The Politically Correct way to kill eagles.
or gain superpowers.
Nah. They'll become ghouls and attack the smooth-skins at Tenpenny Tower.
This was when I stopped using Newegg as well - the moment my wife signed us up for prime. We actually did it for the video and kindle, but once you experience free shipping like that it's pretty hard to accept anything else.
Add in that they allow me to pay using my Discover card rewards right at checkout and it's a dangerous combo.
Well played, Amazon.
I signed up for ShopRunner with an American Express card for free lifetime (supposedly) 2nd-day shipping. Newegg is one of the stores covered.
Right now at Amazon I'm using my Discover card (and not my Discover points) as Discover's Oct-Dec 5% bonus is on "any internet orders". (And I do have Prime there.)
There was never a surplus, the national debt has increased every month for 30 years. OK, a couple of months it didn't, probably including August and September of this year.
The 'surplus' is due to bogus accounting, where they treat the US bonds bought for the SS 'trust fund' as an asset, but don't count the spending of the $ as a liability.
That's the difference between the "Total Public Debt" and the "Total Debt". The latter includes the Intergovernmental Debt (such as the automatic "investment" of Social Security Trust Fund assets in non-marketable Treasury instruments, while the former only includes instruments sold publicly.
The much-ballyhooed "surplus" that Clinton had was in fact a small decline in the Total Public Debt while the Total Debt never declined (on an annual basis, at least) during his presidency.
Total Debt is what really matters. You're not getting ahead when your car, mortgage, and credit card debt have declined by $20,000 but your 401k loan has increased by $25,000. Your Total Debt has increased by $5,000. (Not a perfect analogy because of interest rate differentials, but the closest analogy I could come up with for a person where he "owes it to himself".)
While it's true that you could actually run a surplus and Social Security surpluses would still be "invested", increasing the Intergovernmental Debt, those funds would then retire Public Debt. This, along with debt retired by the actual surplus, would result in the Public Debt falling more rapidly than the Intergovernmental Debt increased and would lead to a declining Total Debt.
So, if the Total Debt didn't fall, there was no real surplus.
Northern hemisphere is on top, southern hemisphere is underneath, rain falls downwards. TBH it's a miracle that rain falls in the southern hemisphere at all. I think they use magnets.
We should launch rockets from Australia. All you have to do is let them go and they'll fall into orbit. It would save a lot of fuel.
but after Al Qaeda showed everyone how infiltration can really be done,
Except that isn't true.
Every one of the 9/11 terrorists fit a profile that should have sounded alarm bells at the border.
Finding guys like that is easy if you are looking and it doesn't require reading every grandmothers email, or recording
every phone call or feeling every crotch.
Russian operatives were far more successful, some escaping detection for multiple decades.
Oh, but it's not nice to profile. It'll hurt their feelings.
" I'm sure there are a few unionized programmers out there ... uh... somewhere... but I've personally never met one, ever."
Hello. o/
Boeing engineers have a union. I think that includes software engineers.
Does this mean we have to go through another 'Voyager has now left the solar system' again?
At least it's not on its way back in the middle of a giant energy cloud.
Either way it's a crap excuse.
Treason is the act of sabotage, destruction, sedition, and suchlike. Refusing a search w/o a *proper* warrant is not treason. Secret court generated 'warrants' do not count as being proper by any stretch of common law.
This isn't a "crap excuse". It is NOT "treason", but it is a felony violation of a "secret" law for which you would probably be tried in a "secret" court or at least in a court with no observers and sealed records (national security, you know).
Who is to say what warrant is "proper"? Wouldn't that be a judge, probably one in the same "secret" court system that issued the warrant in the first place?
Good luck with all of that.
It may be a "crap law", but her's wasn't a "crap excuse".
As far as I'm concerned (ianal), the "I have a dream" speech was a historical, public, and defining of an important part of our society. It can't be copyrighted. Any lowlife trying to capitalize on that should be thrown in jail.
Martin Luther King Jr. himself file the copyright on the speech as an "unpublished work". Before being settled out of court, an appeals court overruled a lower court ruling that King had "published" the speech by speaking it and instead said that his verbal delivery was a "performance", allowing the copyright.
I knew the general concepts of the above and got the details from Wikipedia.
Why would you debate why ice floats with a philosopher? The reason is that it is less dense. There is no philosophical reason why it floats. There is also no reason to bring wood, duck or witches into the question.
How can ice float? Can you build a bridge out of it?