I'd actually think the impact might be slightly negative.
After fermenting and processing you still have biomass left over, and that biomass contains carbon. Depending on you you dispose of it, that carbon may not make it back into the atmosphere. =Smidge=
Even though I may not agree with the material, it's the Humane Society that appears to be violating free speech here. Just because you find something objectionable does not mean you have the right to deny it to someone else.
As for Amazon hanging up on them, well, you have the right to voice an objection but that doesn't mean they have to listen. If Amazon was deleting comments or otherwise preventing people from making their opinions known, that might be a case for freedom of speech... but according to TFA this is not the case. Amazon is certainly within their right to ignore the complaints and risk damaging their public image.
Of course, the Human Society is claiming the material is illegal, and if that's true it adds a whole other aspect to the situation - but I don't know enough about whatever laws may apply so I can't comment on that.
In my experience, contractors are just about as computer illiterate as they come (as a company, not individuals - most of the time). It's rare that they do CAD work for anything, and things like shop drawings and as-builts that aren't hand drawn are usually done by a drafting company that specializes in such things.
I dunno. I work as an engineer and I'm thinking something like this could be really useful.
No matter how many times you go out to a job site to measure and verify things, something always comes up that requires you to go back. For this reason, we take a lot of pictures in hopes that the camera will catch something we might not be looking for at the time.
I can't begin to count how many times I've counted bricks in those pictures to estimate distances. If I had software that could look at the image and provide measurements with 99.5% accuracy, that would be extremely useful. At $99 it would probably pay for itself after three or four uses just on time saved going back out to the site. =Smidge=
I think (and I could be wrong) he was referring to the non-profit status and exemption from various accounting liability laws they have because of their "religious organization" status.
I don't see how metering factors into it. It's not the amount of data transferred that's the problem, it's the rate at which the data is transferred.
Don't sell me 2mbps upstream if you're just going to cut me off if I actually use it. Either guarantee that I'll have that speed any time all the time, or guarantee some slower rate that you can guarantee and lower my bill accordingly. =Smidge=
Stop overselling your infrastructure by such ridiculous margins.
Maybe if you could actually deliver what you charge for (or only charge for what you can deliver), people wouldn't get so easily pissed about "degraded" service. =Smidge=
'Subpoenaing journalist sources is not an acceptable means of discovery.'
This sounds like it has some pretty big implications on freedom of the press, making it easier for journalists to keep their sources confidential (important if you want to keep your sources!) =Smidge=
Cost recovery on Solar-Electric vary widely dependong on various (and obvious) conditions... 20 years is pretty good. Around where I live it's closer to 40 years!
Modern boiler-type fossil fuel power plants can reach efficiencies in the mid 40's (Using super- and ultra-critical designs. Combined-cycle turbine type plants can get into the upper 50% range. I don't think 50% for a charcoal fired power plant is completely out of the ballpark here, but it's pretty optomistic even if you use a turbine that burns powdered charcoal.
Concentrating solar power systems are defiantely a Good Thing(tm) though, but they have their own weaknesses. =Smidge=
The end product isn't ethanol, but it does exactly what you describe - break long hydrocarbon chains into smaller ones. TDP will likely be part of the "maser solution" to our energy needs. =Smidge=
I went over to the kitchen sink and washed my hands. My dishwasher didn't have any problems, and neither did my laundry machine. The toilets still flushed. I was still able to take a shower that night and have my morning coffee same as always. The heavy wetness on my lawn as I left the house was proof that my automatic sprinkler system was operating normally....but the news was saying there was a serious water shortage in my area. =Smidge=
(1) Suitable exercise device (treadmill, stationary bike, etc) (1) Automotive alternator (w/ voltage regulator if it's not internal) (1) Heavy-duty 12 Volt rechargeable battery (1) DC Inverter (400W or better) (1) Free weekend or two
Combine with any required hardware. Plug in TV/DVD player/Computer and work your ass off to keep that battery charged while watching your favorite movies. Battery provides temporary power for appliances while you get on and off the equipment. =Smidge=
Sorry, but how does that make it legal to destroy currency?
The OP was talking about paper money, hence I cited the relevant law regarding defacement of paper money. One can try to argue that a coin represents "other evidence of debt" but that's really not the issue I was addressing.
No, you can't deface it period. The physical currency is the property of the federal government, and any deliberate act that renders the bill or coin unusable is a federal crime.
United States Code Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure Part I - Crimes Chapter 17 - Coins and Currency
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
I work for a commercial engineering firm in New York, and we've had several jobs designing solar-electric systems for both private (domestic) and public (library/school) applications.
Solar energy is a very tough sell. For one job, the client actually decided to forget the whole thing just before getting contractor quotes because the return on investment was estimated at over 40 years - and that includes $50,000 in subsidies the local electric utility was offering.
As ideal and virtuous as solar power is, you get less than 10 watts per square foot around here thanks to latitude, weather and various inefficiencies. It just doesn't pay unless you're truly committed to the ideals of green energy. =Smidge=
I doubt the actual rounds used in a battlefeild scenario would be dumb-fire lumps of metal, for just that reason. They already have laser guided munitions that an aircraft (or unpiloted drone) can spot for, so adding GPS to get within a mile of the target then using laser guidance the rest of the way seems prefectly doable.
Actually, no we didn't. The errors in Eddington's measurements were so great, and the number of measurements so small, that the data didn't support the conclusion.
I said test, not prove, but your point is not lost.
If anyone wants to claim that it's "just" a theory, I invite them to test the hypothesis that a human being in a free fall from an altitude of 10 meters runs a 50% probability of being killed by the impact with the ground. 9.8m/sec^2 adds up to a lot of "just" in a very short time.
I would fully support such an experiemnt, especially if the people challanging the theory of gravity are the test subjects. We would have to do a lot of testing, though, to test the 50% claim - various ground conditions and body types, and landing styles (head or feet first?)... Perhaps we can duct-tape cardboard fins to them first to ensure consistent landing orientation? =Smidge=
The predition being right and the hypothesis being right are not excusive conditions. If prediction is right, then the hypothethis correctly predicted the outcome. If prediction is wrong, then the hypothethis did not correctly predict the outcome.
Without a prediction the hypothesis is useless. The whole point of creating hypothesis and theory is so we can make predictions.
Not only that, but the GGP explicitly said "Science (is) about making predictions" which completely nullifies your argument. What he said makes absolutely no sense regardless of how much you try to nitpick the grammar. =Smidge=
It's close, but there are a few major differences.
First and foremost, the supposed existence of global warming has a pretty big collection of evidence to support it, and is based on many well established and testable scientific principles. The supposed existence of God is based only on fear of the unknown, rhetoric drilled into one's head since childhood and a pile of moldy books from "simpler times" to put it nicely.
Second, believing in a possible God only to save your own ass from a possible punishment is, at least from what I've been told, completely contrary to the whole point of believing in God. In other words, if God does exist but you only believe in Him because of the wrong reasons, then you're still screwed.
Lastly, whether or not I believe in God for *any* reason bears no influence on you and vice versa. If I choose not to believe in God and turn out to be wrong, that doesn't effect you in the slightest. If I choose to ignore the possibility of global warming and turn out to be wrong, that effects everyone else on the planet.
To sum up, here are the choices:
1) Believe in a God that may or may not exist so you might not spend an afterlife that may or may not exist in a hell that may or may not exist, or
2) Don't believe in a God that may or may not exist so you might not spend an afterlife that may or may not exist in a hell that may or may not exist.
Compare to:
1) Heed the possible threat of global warming and possibly avoid a very very bad thing that may or may not happen
2) Do nothing and risk the long-term survivability of six billion people.
I don't think the stakes in these wagers are quite the same... =Smidge=
You did notice I put the word "proven" in quotes, right? You know, just like you did there, to indicate the word may require a different interpretation in the given context.
This seems too simplistic to me, it seems like this type of theory and the tests would still be open to a significant amount of error that could be revealed as new information became available.
This is true, but that is part of the scientific method: Revising, sometimes completely discarding theories because new information becomes available that it doesn't explain. This is far, far better than insisting what you believed for thousands of years is the absolute truth, and plugging your ears every time something inexplicable come up.
There is, in fact, a very simple way to see if the the earth is curved or not. At the same time on the same day of the year, measure the length of the shadow created by a staff held plumb to a pool of water at two different lattitudes. Because of the way gravity acts, the pool of water will be perfectly level and the plumb staff will always be perfectly vertical. Because the earth is curved, the angle the sunlight come down will be different and the shadows will be different lengths.
I believe that's not too far off from what they actually did when it was first tried... I forget who and when, but I seem to recall a story of stuffing little boys into wells to record what time the sun passed overhead or something... same principle.
Do not confuse "theory" with "truth" - nobody with any credibility will equate the two. =Smidge=
Science is not about making experiments, it's about making predictions.
I'm pretty sure that's what I said. See, right here: "You do not need to actively create an experiment to test a theory. All you need is to make a prediction of what will happen given a certain set of conditions. If the theory is valid, the prediction will be correct."
It doesn't matter if the prediction is right about past or future events. What matters is that if the hypothethis correctly predicted the outcome, it gains credence.
So... it doesn't matter if the predictions are correct, as long as the predictions are correct? =Smidge=
We didn't have the ability to gather up enough mass to see if gravity could bend light back in 1919 either, but we still managed to test Einstein's theory of general relativity.
You do not need to actively create an experiment to test a theory. All you need is to make a prediction of what will happen given a certain set of conditions. If the theory is valid, the prediction will be correct. In the case of global warming, the conditions are a marked change in atmospheric composition (mostly increased CO2) and the prediction is an overall increase in global temperatiure. Time will tell.
Regardless, I don't think global warming can be lab-tested and "proven" in a sense that you can prove most other theories. The real question here, though: Can we really afford to ignore the possability it may be right? =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
I'd actually think the impact might be slightly negative.
After fermenting and processing you still have biomass left over, and that biomass contains carbon. Depending on you you dispose of it, that carbon may not make it back into the atmosphere.
=Smidge=
I have to agree.
Even though I may not agree with the material, it's the Humane Society that appears to be violating free speech here. Just because you find something objectionable does not mean you have the right to deny it to someone else.
As for Amazon hanging up on them, well, you have the right to voice an objection but that doesn't mean they have to listen. If Amazon was deleting comments or otherwise preventing people from making their opinions known, that might be a case for freedom of speech... but according to TFA this is not the case. Amazon is certainly within their right to ignore the complaints and risk damaging their public image.
Of course, the Human Society is claiming the material is illegal, and if that's true it adds a whole other aspect to the situation - but I don't know enough about whatever laws may apply so I can't comment on that.
=Smidge=
In my experience, contractors are just about as computer illiterate as they come (as a company, not individuals - most of the time). It's rare that they do CAD work for anything, and things like shop drawings and as-builts that aren't hand drawn are usually done by a drafting company that specializes in such things.
=Smidge=
I dunno. I work as an engineer and I'm thinking something like this could be really useful.
No matter how many times you go out to a job site to measure and verify things, something always comes up that requires you to go back. For this reason, we take a lot of pictures in hopes that the camera will catch something we might not be looking for at the time.
I can't begin to count how many times I've counted bricks in those pictures to estimate distances. If I had software that could look at the image and provide measurements with 99.5% accuracy, that would be extremely useful. At $99 it would probably pay for itself after three or four uses just on time saved going back out to the site.
=Smidge=
I think (and I could be wrong) he was referring to the non-profit status and exemption from various accounting liability laws they have because of their "religious organization" status.
=Smidge=
I don't see how metering factors into it. It's not the amount of data transferred that's the problem, it's the rate at which the data is transferred.
Don't sell me 2mbps upstream if you're just going to cut me off if I actually use it. Either guarantee that I'll have that speed any time all the time, or guarantee some slower rate that you can guarantee and lower my bill accordingly.
=Smidge=
Stop overselling your infrastructure by such ridiculous margins.
Maybe if you could actually deliver what you charge for (or only charge for what you can deliver), people wouldn't get so easily pissed about "degraded" service.
=Smidge=
That's called priapism and I think you should definately care, since it's a serious medical contition requiring emergency treatment :)
=Smidge=
'Subpoenaing journalist sources is not an acceptable means of discovery.'
This sounds like it has some pretty big implications on freedom of the press, making it easier for journalists to keep their sources confidential (important if you want to keep your sources!)
=Smidge=
Cost recovery on Solar-Electric vary widely dependong on various (and obvious) conditions... 20 years is pretty good. Around where I live it's closer to 40 years!
Modern boiler-type fossil fuel power plants can reach efficiencies in the mid 40's (Using super- and ultra-critical designs. Combined-cycle turbine type plants can get into the upper 50% range. I don't think 50% for a charcoal fired power plant is completely out of the ballpark here, but it's pretty optomistic even if you use a turbine that burns powdered charcoal.
Concentrating solar power systems are defiantely a Good Thing(tm) though, but they have their own weaknesses.
=Smidge=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerizat ion
The end product isn't ethanol, but it does exactly what you describe - break long hydrocarbon chains into smaller ones. TDP will likely be part of the "maser solution" to our energy needs.
=Smidge=
I went over to the kitchen sink and washed my hands. My dishwasher didn't have any problems, and neither did my laundry machine. The toilets still flushed. I was still able to take a shower that night and have my morning coffee same as always. The heavy wetness on my lawn as I left the house was proof that my automatic sprinkler system was operating normally. ...but the news was saying there was a serious water shortage in my area.
=Smidge=
Start at home!
Ingredients:
(1) Suitable exercise device (treadmill, stationary bike, etc)
(1) Automotive alternator (w/ voltage regulator if it's not internal)
(1) Heavy-duty 12 Volt rechargeable battery
(1) DC Inverter (400W or better)
(1) Free weekend or two
Combine with any required hardware. Plug in TV/DVD player/Computer and work your ass off to keep that battery charged while watching your favorite movies. Battery provides temporary power for appliances while you get on and off the equipment.
=Smidge=
Sorry, but how does that make it legal to destroy currency?
The OP was talking about paper money, hence I cited the relevant law regarding defacement of paper money. One can try to argue that a coin represents "other evidence of debt" but that's really not the issue I was addressing.
Thanks for being redundant, though.
=Smidge=
United States Code
Title 18 - Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Part I - Crimes
Chapter 17 - Coins and Currency Source
What you describe is called forgery, which is also illegal and is punishable on a whole other level.
=Smidge=
I work for a commercial engineering firm in New York, and we've had several jobs designing solar-electric systems for both private (domestic) and public (library/school) applications.
Solar energy is a very tough sell. For one job, the client actually decided to forget the whole thing just before getting contractor quotes because the return on investment was estimated at over 40 years - and that includes $50,000 in subsidies the local electric utility was offering.
As ideal and virtuous as solar power is, you get less than 10 watts per square foot around here thanks to latitude, weather and various inefficiencies. It just doesn't pay unless you're truly committed to the ideals of green energy.
=Smidge=
I doubt the actual rounds used in a battlefeild scenario would be dumb-fire lumps of metal, for just that reason. They already have laser guided munitions that an aircraft (or unpiloted drone) can spot for, so adding GPS to get within a mile of the target then using laser guidance the rest of the way seems prefectly doable.
=Smidge=
I said test, not prove, but your point is not lost.
I would fully support such an experiemnt, especially if the people challanging the theory of gravity are the test subjects. We would have to do a lot of testing, though, to test the 50% claim - various ground conditions and body types, and landing styles (head or feet first?)... Perhaps we can duct-tape cardboard fins to them first to ensure consistent landing orientation?
=Smidge=
I'm awestruck at that level of twisted logic.
The predition being right and the hypothesis being right are not excusive conditions. If prediction is right, then the hypothethis correctly predicted the outcome. If prediction is wrong, then the hypothethis did not correctly predict the outcome.
Without a prediction the hypothesis is useless. The whole point of creating hypothesis and theory is so we can make predictions.
Not only that, but the GGP explicitly said "Science (is) about making predictions" which completely nullifies your argument. What he said makes absolutely no sense regardless of how much you try to nitpick the grammar.
=Smidge=
Anyone who considers goatse and tubgirl to be porn are already "injured" IMHO.
=Smidge=
It's close, but there are a few major differences.
First and foremost, the supposed existence of global warming has a pretty big collection of evidence to support it, and is based on many well established and testable scientific principles. The supposed existence of God is based only on fear of the unknown, rhetoric drilled into one's head since childhood and a pile of moldy books from "simpler times" to put it nicely.
Second, believing in a possible God only to save your own ass from a possible punishment is, at least from what I've been told, completely contrary to the whole point of believing in God. In other words, if God does exist but you only believe in Him because of the wrong reasons, then you're still screwed.
Lastly, whether or not I believe in God for *any* reason bears no influence on you and vice versa. If I choose not to believe in God and turn out to be wrong, that doesn't effect you in the slightest. If I choose to ignore the possibility of global warming and turn out to be wrong, that effects everyone else on the planet.
To sum up, here are the choices:
1) Believe in a God that may or may not exist so you might not spend an afterlife that may or may not exist in a hell that may or may not exist, or
2) Don't believe in a God that may or may not exist so you might not spend an afterlife that may or may not exist in a hell that may or may not exist.
Compare to:
1) Heed the possible threat of global warming and possibly avoid a very very bad thing that may or may not happen
2) Do nothing and risk the long-term survivability of six billion people.
I don't think the stakes in these wagers are quite the same...
=Smidge=
You did notice I put the word "proven" in quotes, right? You know, just like you did there, to indicate the word may require a different interpretation in the given context.
Coffee first, Mr. Smith, then post.
=Smidge=
This seems too simplistic to me, it seems like this type of theory and the tests would still be open to a significant amount of error that could be revealed as new information became available.
This is true, but that is part of the scientific method: Revising, sometimes completely discarding theories because new information becomes available that it doesn't explain. This is far, far better than insisting what you believed for thousands of years is the absolute truth, and plugging your ears every time something inexplicable come up.
There is, in fact, a very simple way to see if the the earth is curved or not. At the same time on the same day of the year, measure the length of the shadow created by a staff held plumb to a pool of water at two different lattitudes. Because of the way gravity acts, the pool of water will be perfectly level and the plumb staff will always be perfectly vertical. Because the earth is curved, the angle the sunlight come down will be different and the shadows will be different lengths.
I believe that's not too far off from what they actually did when it was first tried... I forget who and when, but I seem to recall a story of stuffing little boys into wells to record what time the sun passed overhead or something... same principle.
Do not confuse "theory" with "truth" - nobody with any credibility will equate the two.
=Smidge=
Science is not about making experiments, it's about making predictions.
I'm pretty sure that's what I said. See, right here: "You do not need to actively create an experiment to test a theory. All you need is to make a prediction of what will happen given a certain set of conditions. If the theory is valid, the prediction will be correct."
It doesn't matter if the prediction is right about past or future events. What matters is that if the hypothethis correctly predicted the outcome, it gains credence.
So... it doesn't matter if the predictions are correct, as long as the predictions are correct?
=Smidge=
We didn't have the ability to gather up enough mass to see if gravity could bend light back in 1919 either, but we still managed to test Einstein's theory of general relativity.
You do not need to actively create an experiment to test a theory. All you need is to make a prediction of what will happen given a certain set of conditions. If the theory is valid, the prediction will be correct. In the case of global warming, the conditions are a marked change in atmospheric composition (mostly increased CO2) and the prediction is an overall increase in global temperatiure. Time will tell.
Regardless, I don't think global warming can be lab-tested and "proven" in a sense that you can prove most other theories. The real question here, though: Can we really afford to ignore the possability it may be right?
=Smidge=