You forgot another reason why these older devices are worth serious consideration: Cost.
A Z80 is not only likely to be powerful enough for your project, it's also dirt cheap (About $5 each.) A Motorola 68K will cost under $15. Of course, there are modern variations with some extra features, so price for a specific sub-breed may vary.
I'm a fan of the 8051-decended microcontrollers, since they greatly reduce the number of support components (on-chip oscillator circuits). Flash based EEPROM units go for about $7 each or less, can be clocked at anything between 0Hz - 24MHz, and come with a plethera of features depending on model: integrated A/D & D/A converters, USB host interfaces and PWM generators being popular.
You definately do not need a $300, 150-million-transistor space heater for most embedded applications. =Smidge=
Maybe it's like... Jack Thompson is the guy you go to when you want to know what not to do, y'know? Like they'll take anything he proposes and do the exact opposite.
Right now, it only seems that these cases will show if the accused party actually infringes on the patent or not.
What we need, as part of patent reform, is the ability to call BS on a patent during these lawsuits, which puts the infringement claim on hold until the patent itself is reviewed and debated over. Start a seperate court case to review the patent, with both parties able to produce evidence and expert testimony about the technology in question. If the patent is ruled bogus, then it should be invalidated on the spot and the infringement suit dropped.
That would cull a lot of bogus patents and maybe discourage filing them in the first place. =Smidge=
Because the ladders are generally made of anodized aluminum, which gives it a hard, protective coating of aluminum oxide, and the generally cool temperature of the pool water helps to retard any chemical reaction that might happen.
Chlorine is highly corrosive. Ever wonder why everything in a pool system is made of or coated in plastic?
The chlorine attacks iron even in ally form, rotting stainless steel at an alarming rate. It will also react with copper (slowly, but the higher temeratures in the water block are going to help it along) to dissolve the copper into a Copper (II) Chloride solution. That corrodes the copper waterblock and puts the copper into his pool - not good. Aluminum will cause a reaction to make aluminum chloride, and reacting with the water to ultimately form aluminum oxide (which will fall out of solution and likely clog and small passages over time) and hydochloric acid.
You need a heat exchanger to keep the chlorine away from metals. That means a non-metallic heat exchanger or one that's been coated with a chlorine resistent material.
A better solution would be to get an aftermarket automotive radiator and an electric fan, and use clean water (distilled or at least low mineral) with a coolant solution specifically designed to prevent corrosion. =Smidge=
Are you serious? Many car brands are very happy if they sell 30k cars of all their models combined a year. The demand is there, far in excess of 10k a year, which should make an entire product line and associated facilites profitable.
I think you just contradicted yourself? If a company is happy to sell only 30k vehicles - which is less than 0.01% of the vehicles currently on the road - then that kind of suggests that there isn't a huge market for new cars.
And that still says nothing about demand for electric vehicles, which would have to compete in that same market... which they can't compete in price, range and performance anyway.
Here's a little factoid for ya: Most car owners don't live in cities. An electric car is great for urban use but the number of people who live in urban areas and own cars just for toodling around town is vanishingly small.
None of the currently made "economy" vehicles hold up well in prolonged use. All one has to do is to check out the massive decreases in resale value (most are in excess of 50%) on all of them which occurs in just 2-3 years time from purchase.
Odd, I know of three Hondas, two of which are still on the road (the other wrapped around a tree) that have over 200,000 miles on them. 1998 Civic and 2000 Odyssey. Dealer recommended service intervals are not to milk you dry...
All one has to do is to check out the massive decreases in resale value (most are in excess of 50%) on all of them which occurs in just 2-3 years time from purchase.
I suppose the term "certified preowned" doesn't mean anything to you. A 2-3 year old vehicle is usually at most 30% less than a new counterpart, depending on milage. Being certified means you get the warranty, so the company is also willing to back up the claim that the new car is as mechanically sound as a new vehicle.
Maybe you should stop buying (admittedly shitty) American cars? Not only is the quality better, but most Honda and Toyota vehicles would be made using more US labor and parts than Ford or GM vehicles anyway. =Smidge=
FYI: The absence of specific products does not equate to a lack of competition. It could be that the cost for manufacturing such things is simply not justifiable, the technology just isn't as mature as you want to believe, and/or you have grossly misjudged the potential market.
You are, of course, free to start "The Ignoramus Maximus Electric Auto Company" and produce these products yourself. Come up with a good sales pitch and find some venture capitalists, hire some good engineers and have a go. If the big bad oligopoly squishes you under its thumb I suppose you can always blog about it. Of course we all know such a brilliant business idea is guaranteed to be successful, what with such readily available technology and high demand...
Give me a break, none of the major, entrenched car makers compete on anything but marketing and manufacturing vehicles that are as cheap as possible to make and last as short a period of time as it is humanly possible while generating maximum after warranty parts demand.
Buy a Honda. If you bother to take care of the thing like you're supposed to it'll last longer than you will.
I would appreciate an explanation how, if I invest X units of energy into processing some material and get X+Y units of energy back, that is not a net energy gain? I have Y more units of energy than I started with. Remember that the ultimate energy source - sunlight - does not factor in anywhere because it's free.
Also, (industrial) hemp != marijuana. I suppose you could smoke hemp if you really wanted to, but you're more likely to get high smoking the leaves off your front lawn. It's arguable if switchgrass has better energy/acre yeilds for ethanol alone, but hemp has additional products (seed oil, fiber) that make it more attractive economically, especially when the US currently imports about $7 million worth of just hemp fiber every year. =Smidge=
I wans't aware that "commercial application" and "GPL licensed" were mutually exclusive. From the page you linked:
The Commercial License is an agreement with MySQL AB for organizations that do not want to release their application source code. Commercially licensed customers get a commercially supported product with assurances from MySQL. Commercially licensed users are also free from the requirement of making their own application open source.
When your application is not licensed under either the GPL-compatible Free Software License as defined by the Free Software Foundation or approved by OSI, and you intend to or you may distribute MySQL software, you must first obtain a commercial license to the MySQL product.
Emphasis mine. In other words, You don't have to pay the $200 if your project is itself compliant with the GPL or similar license scheme.
"Comply with the GPL or pay us $200 to legally use our code or libraries" is not the same as saying "You have to pay us $200 if you plan to sell software you made using our code or libraries." =Smidge=
I'll offer 30% for gasoline ICE and 45% for diesel ICE. Gasoline engiens can also run on natural gas, so let's say 30% for burning natural gas directly too.
What efficiencies can you offer for both reformation and actual use? =Smidge=
You seem to be missing the two fundamental points of a hydrogen economy.
1) A hydrogen economy is not bound to a specific liquid fuel. Ultimately, a hydrogen economy is an electric one. Not many are predicting "peak electricity" any time soon. 2) A hydrogen economy is very efficient. That is, to say, electric vehicles (which is what hydrogen-fuelled vehicles are) can easily recover energy, electric engines are very efficient, fuel cells are up to ~70% efficient, electrolysis of water is ~90% efficient, etc.
...and you seem to be missing the first two fundamental laws of thermodynamics.
1) Energy can not be created or destroyed, only transformed. Ultimately, the energy in the hydrogen economy has to come from somewhere. At least in the US, the electrical generation and distribution capacity is already stretched to the breaking point - so yes, we are sort of at "peak electricity" already. Moreover, the bulk of that electricity is generated by fossil fuels.
2) The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. This is a fancy way of saying no process can be 100% efficient unless that process is designed to maximize entropy. Using Hydrogen as an intermediate energy carrier is by definition a losing proposition. Any energy source you use to make the hydrogen can be better exploited by using it more directly.
Now some questions for you:
Present day methods for reforming natural gas require temperatures in excess of 2000 F. Are you really going to have that equipment in your house?
30% efficient gasoline ICE vs. 25% hydrogen engine? Um... duh? 30% > 25%. The gasoline ICE can be retrofitted to run on alcohol. How about a 45% efficient diesel engine and run it off a biodiesel/methanol blend?
How does storing hydrogen in wind turbine masts solve anything, especially when there are so few (very remote) places worth building wind turbines of a size big enough to offer worthwhile storage?
What constitutes "high density" hydrogen storage in the sense that you used the term?
Did you know that the vast majority of natural gas power plants use direct combustion turbines, and can not be converted to coal or oil? (Coal and oil both use boilers to drive steam turbines, hence it is possible to convert coal oil power plants)
Short of that, you still require massive infrastructure to support even the most simple of hydrogen economies. This adds practical and economic factors onto an already bleak prospect.
The hydrogen economy will become a reality as soon as someone invents an engine that run on snake oil. =Smidge=
It doesn't show a net energy gain, it just shows positive net energy after processing. Big difference.
So a positive net balance is not a gain? I'm guessing you don't do your own finances...:)
There is plenty of arable land in the US to satisfy energy needs. We are currently producing way too much food for starters, and with crop diversity and planning a lot of land that we currently consider unsuitable for growing food crops can be used for fuel crops. Hemp is a pretty good choice, which is easy to grow over a wide range of climates and produces both oil and fermentable biomass. Salt tolerant plants that can be irrigated with poor quality water, which would reduce the impact on fresh water reserves required for food crops.
Engineered, high-oil content saltwater algae is also a very promising route. So is thermal chemical conversion processes that can recycle biomass wastes into fuel and other valuable resources. The key is diversity. =Smidge=
The carbon you are releasing is carbon that has already been removed from the atmosphere. It's called 'Carbon-nuetral' for a reason.
Of course this is correct. I'm a huge supporter of biofuels as a renewable energy source (obviously) and I think carbon neutrality is a major selling point. However it's still wrong to say that Hydrogen is a carbon-free energy system when it's refined from a hydrocarbon source - especially a fossil fuel.
Reducing energy yield, yes. Reducing efficiency, no. Hydrogen/electric cars are significantly more efficient than gas ICE cars. So while you have less energy to use when you put the fuel in the vehicle, you use less energy to get the same output from the vehicle using hydrogen.
While burning hydrogen may be slightly more efficient, the energy density is significantly lower resulting in more fuel being burned for the same output. In the end, pound-for-pound, Hydrogen seems to offer no significant advantage.
When you consider the requirements to manufacture and store the Hydrogen, I challenge that the efficiency from energy source to point of use is actually very poor.
People love to shoot down alternative fuels because they aren't able to replace ALL of the vehicles on the road.
Hydrogen is not an alternative fuel. That's the problem. So far, whatever source of energy you're using to make the hydrogen - electricity, natural gas, etc. - can be better used directly instead of pissing away half of it using hydrogen as an intermediate.
I completely agree that there is no single solution, but I do not agree that pure Hydrogen as a primary link in the energy flow is ever going to work. Biofuels are a much safer bet, being renewable, carbon-neutral, 100% compatible with existing infrastructure and closer to the energy source. =Smidge=
The actual sorce of energy - sunlight - is "free" and the plants do the work of collecting it. Therefore efficiency at that step is not something you need to worry about. Converting that stored plant energy into usable energy is not free and deserves attention.
For example, I grow some crop that has collected a some amount of solar enrgy. It then takes me "X" joules of energy to convert that stored energy into usable fuel at some does yeild a net energy gain, but not by much (varies with plants used, of course).
Again, this only works because sunlight is "free" energy that comes in from outside the system. =Smidge=
Hydrogen can be produced from alcohols by cracking and water-gas shift reactions. Hydrogen is rarely produced by electrolysis because of its power demands. Hydrogen can be stored as a metal hydride at relatively low pressure then released at atmospheric pressure.
Alcohols also need to be made, although there is at least a slight energy gain in the process (stored solar energy in the plants you ferment). Converting a perfectly viable fuel like Alcohol into hydrogen is pointless: You lose energy in the conversion and you still release the carbon into the atmosphere.
You are correct in saying that hydrogen is rarely produced by electrolysis due to energy consumption. Do you know how it's really made? Reforming natural gas - a fossil fuel! Congratulations, you've managed to shift our dependence on fossil fuels from crude oil to natural gas (which is even more scarce) while reducing the overall energy yield from the raw fuel and still not reducing carbon emissions.
Metal hydride storage uses some pretty expensive, toxic and dangerous materials and still does not achieve the hydrogen storage density of more common and safer-to-handle fuels such as gasoline and diesel fuel.
I know what you meant, but you're still off by a generation.
It's too soon for the degrading of education throughout the 1980's to have full effect on anything, especially the scientific/academic community. Most of the researchers working on "new science" are 40+ years old, meaning they were educated in the 1960's and 1970's. Being older is generally a prerequisite for all the experience you need to do credible and meaningful research...
You have to wait another decade or two before the people who suffered a process that "started in the 80's" (your words) get into the limelight.
So no, we're not paying for it now. Not quite yet... =Smidge=
"Education today is a race between administrators striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof curriculums, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. This is mostly because far too many of the bigger and better idiots are becoming education administrators."
The problem with your analysis is that the people effected by the dumbing-down were/are too young to have been effected by the layoffs when they became popular.
The people who went to school in the 80's (myself included) have only been working at their career jobs for a few years by this point, assuming they have a college education. We won't feel the real effects of "No Child Left Behind" for at least another 20 years. In the meantime, the bulk of today's academic workforce was educated in the 1960's and 1970's.
Your inappropriate rant is off by a few decades. (But you'll probably blame public education, right?) =Smidge=
Joking aside, how easy would it be to make protective armor against this kind of attack? You can buy rolls of steel or aluminum window screening at any hardware store for under $50.
I like how you quote the LAST line of the article - the part that talks about solution discussions - completely out of context and then complain about sensationalist headlines.
The full, in-context quote is: "I'm confident that we can solve it," Jorgensen says of the radiation problem, "but it's going to make things a little more complicated and a little more expensive."
But would you be able to prove that the binary that is actually being used is the one made from the public source? You could even install the software yourself but that doesn't mean someone can't sneak in their own version and hide it.
That's what the parent was saying - can you guarantee that the public source code is actually used at the time the votes are tallied? Verifying binaries is not enough. =Smidge=
You are not doing any calculations, which I agree may indroduce errors. You are counting. Of course the systems are not perfect because humans are involved, but the machines themselves should be able to fucking COUNT. It's not like they're counting particularly fast, either... each individual machine handles maybe one vote every 2 or 3 minutes.
If I vote for person A, then person A's vote count should increase by 1. There is NO acceptable scenario where that would not work. There just isn't.
But I'm letting you drag me into a semantics argument. Shame on me... the point is you're trying to make light of a fuckup that at the very least needs to be investigated to find out why and how it happened, not whether or not errors should exist at all.
The error needs to be investigated. Do not just say "oh well nothing's perfect" and try to write it off. =Smidge=
If we can create systems that reliably keep track of billions of dollars every day without losing any or giving it to the wrong person, then it should be no more difficult to create a system that can track a hundred million votes without losing any or giving them to the wrong person. It is, in fact, a trivial task to do - the only hard part is doing so in a way that is difficult for someone to mess up without evidence of tampering (intentional or otherwise).
EVERY time a voting machine - any machine - screws up in a visible manner, it's cause for alarm. I bet you'd be a little more concerned if this was an ATM that just shorted you a $20 bill. =Smidge=
It is completely irrelevant if he would have won or not. The election results are wrong.
Therefore, there needs to be an invetigation even if there is no reason to suspect fraud.
Why is that so hard to understand? Do not try to downplay botch election results just because the outcome might've been the same if everytihng went smoothly. If the machines can't reliably count up 80 votes then you can't trust them to count up 100+ million. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot another reason why these older devices are worth serious consideration: Cost.
A Z80 is not only likely to be powerful enough for your project, it's also dirt cheap (About $5 each.) A Motorola 68K will cost under $15. Of course, there are modern variations with some extra features, so price for a specific sub-breed may vary.
I'm a fan of the 8051-decended microcontrollers, since they greatly reduce the number of support components (on-chip oscillator circuits). Flash based EEPROM units go for about $7 each or less, can be clocked at anything between 0Hz - 24MHz, and come with a plethera of features depending on model: integrated A/D & D/A converters, USB host interfaces and PWM generators being popular.
You definately do not need a $300, 150-million-transistor space heater for most embedded applications.
=Smidge=
Maybe it's like... Jack Thompson is the guy you go to when you want to know what not to do, y'know? Like they'll take anything he proposes and do the exact opposite.
(One can only hope...)
=Smidge=
Right now, it only seems that these cases will show if the accused party actually infringes on the patent or not.
What we need, as part of patent reform, is the ability to call BS on a patent during these lawsuits, which puts the infringement claim on hold until the patent itself is reviewed and debated over. Start a seperate court case to review the patent, with both parties able to produce evidence and expert testimony about the technology in question. If the patent is ruled bogus, then it should be invalidated on the spot and the infringement suit dropped.
That would cull a lot of bogus patents and maybe discourage filing them in the first place.
=Smidge=
Because the ladders are generally made of anodized aluminum, which gives it a hard, protective coating of aluminum oxide, and the generally cool temperature of the pool water helps to retard any chemical reaction that might happen.
=Smidge=
Chlorine is highly corrosive. Ever wonder why everything in a pool system is made of or coated in plastic?
The chlorine attacks iron even in ally form, rotting stainless steel at an alarming rate. It will also react with copper (slowly, but the higher temeratures in the water block are going to help it along) to dissolve the copper into a Copper (II) Chloride solution. That corrodes the copper waterblock and puts the copper into his pool - not good. Aluminum will cause a reaction to make aluminum chloride, and reacting with the water to ultimately form aluminum oxide (which will fall out of solution and likely clog and small passages over time) and hydochloric acid.
You need a heat exchanger to keep the chlorine away from metals. That means a non-metallic heat exchanger or one that's been coated with a chlorine resistent material.
A better solution would be to get an aftermarket automotive radiator and an electric fan, and use clean water (distilled or at least low mineral) with a coolant solution specifically designed to prevent corrosion.
=Smidge=
I think you just contradicted yourself? If a company is happy to sell only 30k vehicles - which is less than 0.01% of the vehicles currently on the road - then that kind of suggests that there isn't a huge market for new cars.
And that still says nothing about demand for electric vehicles, which would have to compete in that same market... which they can't compete in price, range and performance anyway.
Here's a little factoid for ya: Most car owners don't live in cities. An electric car is great for urban use but the number of people who live in urban areas and own cars just for toodling around town is vanishingly small.
Odd, I know of three Hondas, two of which are still on the road (the other wrapped around a tree) that have over 200,000 miles on them. 1998 Civic and 2000 Odyssey. Dealer recommended service intervals are not to milk you dry...
I suppose the term "certified preowned" doesn't mean anything to you. A 2-3 year old vehicle is usually at most 30% less than a new counterpart, depending on milage. Being certified means you get the warranty, so the company is also willing to back up the claim that the new car is as mechanically sound as a new vehicle.
Maybe you should stop buying (admittedly shitty) American cars? Not only is the quality better, but most Honda and Toyota vehicles would be made using more US labor and parts than Ford or GM vehicles anyway.
=Smidge=
You are, of course, free to start "The Ignoramus Maximus Electric Auto Company" and produce these products yourself. Come up with a good sales pitch and find some venture capitalists, hire some good engineers and have a go. If the big bad oligopoly squishes you under its thumb I suppose you can always blog about it. Of course we all know such a brilliant business idea is guaranteed to be successful, what with such readily available technology and high demand...
Buy a Honda. If you bother to take care of the thing like you're supposed to it'll last longer than you will.
=Smidge=
I would appreciate an explanation how, if I invest X units of energy into processing some material and get X+Y units of energy back, that is not a net energy gain? I have Y more units of energy than I started with. Remember that the ultimate energy source - sunlight - does not factor in anywhere because it's free.
Also, (industrial) hemp != marijuana. I suppose you could smoke hemp if you really wanted to, but you're more likely to get high smoking the leaves off your front lawn. It's arguable if switchgrass has better energy/acre yeilds for ethanol alone, but hemp has additional products (seed oil, fiber) that make it more attractive economically, especially when the US currently imports about $7 million worth of just hemp fiber every year.
=Smidge=
Emphasis mine. In other words, You don't have to pay the $200 if your project is itself compliant with the GPL or similar license scheme.
"Comply with the GPL or pay us $200 to legally use our code or libraries" is not the same as saying "You have to pay us $200 if you plan to sell software you made using our code or libraries."
=Smidge=
Care to put some numbers to that?
I'll offer 30% for gasoline ICE and 45% for diesel ICE. Gasoline engiens can also run on natural gas, so let's say 30% for burning natural gas directly too.
What efficiencies can you offer for both reformation and actual use?
=Smidge=
1) Energy can not be created or destroyed, only transformed. Ultimately, the energy in the hydrogen economy has to come from somewhere. At least in the US, the electrical generation and distribution capacity is already stretched to the breaking point - so yes, we are sort of at "peak electricity" already. Moreover, the bulk of that electricity is generated by fossil fuels.
2) The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. This is a fancy way of saying no process can be 100% efficient unless that process is designed to maximize entropy. Using Hydrogen as an intermediate energy carrier is by definition a losing proposition. Any energy source you use to make the hydrogen can be better exploited by using it more directly.
Now some questions for you:
Present day methods for reforming natural gas require temperatures in excess of 2000 F. Are you really going to have that equipment in your house?
30% efficient gasoline ICE vs. 25% hydrogen engine? Um... duh? 30% > 25%. The gasoline ICE can be retrofitted to run on alcohol. How about a 45% efficient diesel engine and run it off a biodiesel/methanol blend?
How does storing hydrogen in wind turbine masts solve anything, especially when there are so few (very remote) places worth building wind turbines of a size big enough to offer worthwhile storage?
What constitutes "high density" hydrogen storage in the sense that you used the term?
Did you know that the vast majority of natural gas power plants use direct combustion turbines, and can not be converted to coal or oil? (Coal and oil both use boilers to drive steam turbines, hence it is possible to convert coal oil power plants)
Short of that, you still require massive infrastructure to support even the most simple of hydrogen economies. This adds practical and economic factors onto an already bleak prospect.
The hydrogen economy will become a reality as soon as someone invents an engine that run on snake oil.
=Smidge=
It doesn't show a net energy gain, it just shows positive net energy after processing. Big difference.
:)
So a positive net balance is not a gain? I'm guessing you don't do your own finances...
There is plenty of arable land in the US to satisfy energy needs. We are currently producing way too much food for starters, and with crop diversity and planning a lot of land that we currently consider unsuitable for growing food crops can be used for fuel crops. Hemp is a pretty good choice, which is easy to grow over a wide range of climates and produces both oil and fermentable biomass. Salt tolerant plants that can be irrigated with poor quality water, which would reduce the impact on fresh water reserves required for food crops.
Engineered, high-oil content saltwater algae is also a very promising route. So is thermal chemical conversion processes that can recycle biomass wastes into fuel and other valuable resources. The key is diversity.
=Smidge=
The carbon you are releasing is carbon that has already been removed from the atmosphere. It's called 'Carbon-nuetral' for a reason.
Of course this is correct. I'm a huge supporter of biofuels as a renewable energy source (obviously) and I think carbon neutrality is a major selling point. However it's still wrong to say that Hydrogen is a carbon-free energy system when it's refined from a hydrocarbon source - especially a fossil fuel.
Reducing energy yield, yes. Reducing efficiency, no. Hydrogen/electric cars are significantly more efficient than gas ICE cars. So while you have less energy to use when you put the fuel in the vehicle, you use less energy to get the same output from the vehicle using hydrogen.
While burning hydrogen may be slightly more efficient, the energy density is significantly lower resulting in more fuel being burned for the same output. In the end, pound-for-pound, Hydrogen seems to offer no significant advantage.
When you consider the requirements to manufacture and store the Hydrogen, I challenge that the efficiency from energy source to point of use is actually very poor.
People love to shoot down alternative fuels because they aren't able to replace ALL of the vehicles on the road.
Hydrogen is not an alternative fuel. That's the problem. So far, whatever source of energy you're using to make the hydrogen - electricity, natural gas, etc. - can be better used directly instead of pissing away half of it using hydrogen as an intermediate.
I completely agree that there is no single solution, but I do not agree that pure Hydrogen as a primary link in the energy flow is ever going to work. Biofuels are a much safer bet, being renewable, carbon-neutral, 100% compatible with existing infrastructure and closer to the energy source.
=Smidge=
The actual sorce of energy - sunlight - is "free" and the plants do the work of collecting it. Therefore efficiency at that step is not something you need to worry about. Converting that stored plant energy into usable energy is not free and deserves attention.
For example, I grow some crop that has collected a some amount of solar enrgy. It then takes me "X" joules of energy to convert that stored energy into usable fuel at some does yeild a net energy gain, but not by much (varies with plants used, of course).
Again, this only works because sunlight is "free" energy that comes in from outside the system.
=Smidge=
Alcohols also need to be made, although there is at least a slight energy gain in the process (stored solar energy in the plants you ferment). Converting a perfectly viable fuel like Alcohol into hydrogen is pointless: You lose energy in the conversion and you still release the carbon into the atmosphere.
You are correct in saying that hydrogen is rarely produced by electrolysis due to energy consumption. Do you know how it's really made? Reforming natural gas - a fossil fuel! Congratulations, you've managed to shift our dependence on fossil fuels from crude oil to natural gas (which is even more scarce) while reducing the overall energy yield from the raw fuel and still not reducing carbon emissions.
Metal hydride storage uses some pretty expensive, toxic and dangerous materials and still does not achieve the hydrogen storage density of more common and safer-to-handle fuels such as gasoline and diesel fuel.
It's a trifecta of failure.
=Smidge=
I know what you meant, but you're still off by a generation.
It's too soon for the degrading of education throughout the 1980's to have full effect on anything, especially the scientific/academic community. Most of the researchers working on "new science" are 40+ years old, meaning they were educated in the 1960's and 1970's. Being older is generally a prerequisite for all the experience you need to do credible and meaningful research...
You have to wait another decade or two before the people who suffered a process that "started in the 80's" (your words) get into the limelight.
So no, we're not paying for it now. Not quite yet...
=Smidge=
A new take on an old joke:
"Education today is a race between administrators striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof curriculums, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. This is mostly because far too many of the bigger and better idiots are becoming education administrators."
=Smidge=
The problem with your analysis is that the people effected by the dumbing-down were/are too young to have been effected by the layoffs when they became popular.
The people who went to school in the 80's (myself included) have only been working at their career jobs for a few years by this point, assuming they have a college education. We won't feel the real effects of "No Child Left Behind" for at least another 20 years. In the meantime, the bulk of today's academic workforce was educated in the 1960's and 1970's.
Your inappropriate rant is off by a few decades. (But you'll probably blame public education, right?)
=Smidge=
Joking aside, how easy would it be to make protective armor against this kind of attack? You can buy rolls of steel or aluminum window screening at any hardware store for under $50.
=Smidge=
Sounds like a worthy sequel to "Desert Bus"
=Smidge=
I like how you quote the LAST line of the article - the part that talks about solution discussions - completely out of context and then complain about sensationalist headlines.
The full, in-context quote is: "I'm confident that we can solve it," Jorgensen says of the radiation problem, "but it's going to make things a little more complicated and a little more expensive."
=Smidge=
But would you be able to prove that the binary that is actually being used is the one made from the public source? You could even install the software yourself but that doesn't mean someone can't sneak in their own version and hide it.
That's what the parent was saying - can you guarantee that the public source code is actually used at the time the votes are tallied? Verifying binaries is not enough.
=Smidge=
Uh, no.
You're COUNTING. vote = vote + 1
You are not doing any calculations, which I agree may indroduce errors. You are counting. Of course the systems are not perfect because humans are involved, but the machines themselves should be able to fucking COUNT. It's not like they're counting particularly fast, either... each individual machine handles maybe one vote every 2 or 3 minutes.
If I vote for person A, then person A's vote count should increase by 1. There is NO acceptable scenario where that would not work. There just isn't.
But I'm letting you drag me into a semantics argument. Shame on me... the point is you're trying to make light of a fuckup that at the very least needs to be investigated to find out why and how it happened, not whether or not errors should exist at all.
The error needs to be investigated. Do not just say "oh well nothing's perfect" and try to write it off.
=Smidge=
Bullshit.
If we can create systems that reliably keep track of billions of dollars every day without losing any or giving it to the wrong person, then it should be no more difficult to create a system that can track a hundred million votes without losing any or giving them to the wrong person. It is, in fact, a trivial task to do - the only hard part is doing so in a way that is difficult for someone to mess up without evidence of tampering (intentional or otherwise).
EVERY time a voting machine - any machine - screws up in a visible manner, it's cause for alarm. I bet you'd be a little more concerned if this was an ATM that just shorted you a $20 bill.
=Smidge=
It is completely irrelevant if he would have won or not. The election results are wrong.
Therefore, there needs to be an invetigation even if there is no reason to suspect fraud.
Why is that so hard to understand? Do not try to downplay botch election results just because the outcome might've been the same if everytihng went smoothly. If the machines can't reliably count up 80 votes then you can't trust them to count up 100+ million.
=Smidge=