My guess is it was a box full of used pinball machine parts, and the "accident" was to cover up having stolen a few billion dollars and not have to explain why the new satellite didn't work.
It explains quite nicely how a small amount of lead can cause both serious problems and at the same time mass lead exposure did not destroy society.
Nothing of the sort.
A small dose is proportionally more harmful than a larger dose, not more harmful in an absolute sense. Basically what the study says is double the dose does not result in double the damage.
If you've been exposed to lead, exposing yourself to more lead will not improve your situation... so put down that paint smoothie. =Smidge=
Keep fuel taxes as a tax on non-renewable energy to help cover the hidden costs of health care, pollution remediation and military efforts related to its procurement and use.
Tax vehicles based on weight class and mileage, which is directly related to road wear. It would work out to (very roughly) 3 cents per mile at most to equal Federal (18 cents per gallon) and State (Pennsylvania at 58 cents per gallon) taxes. Set the bar for weight to 3500lbs for passenger vehicles and adjust the rate from there; Double the weight, double the rate.
Further break it down for commercial and non-commercial traffic, since commercial traffic obviously does much more damage to roads but would be a greater overall economic burden, so we can have private passenger vehicles subsidize them a bit just like it works now. =Smidge=
Yes, but it is not a text â" the linked-to PDF is a giant bitmap, which makes it unsearchable. Yet, you speak with the authority of someone, who has studied it in detail. Would you, kindly, refer me to the relevant paragraphs?..
Scroll to page 30 you lazy bum. God forbid you learn how to read!
So, you admit, that Hillary Clinton has received numerous and multi-million dollar "donations" to her "charity"
Nope, but it's irrelevant; she didn't win the election. "B-b-but Clinton" is only a very sad distraction at this point.
None of Trump's operations pretend to be charities
Technically correct, but if you're going to refer to the Clinton Foundation as a charity then Trump's foundation is also a charity, because they are the same kind of legal entity. =Smidge=
The actual indictment is linked in the Slashdot summary. They explain exactly what they believe happened and why it's illegal, including citing applicable statues.
Unless the donation is to a "charity", owned and run by a candidate, right?
You better be careful trying to play that card, considering Trump continues to operate his "charities" despite having been forbidden to operate in New York due to investigations.
Oh right, soon after Trump was elected he fired the Attorney General who was investigating him, so I guess that makes it okay since he's not under investigation anymore! =Smidge=
And if they coordinated with Trump, what does Trump get out of it?
There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money. =Smidge=
I suppose reading even the introductory paragraph of the indictment is too much for you? It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:
- Paying for political advertisements - Paying others to troll social media for you - Making campaign contributions
And this is all on top of general fraud and identity theft charges.
This is a proper and textbook example of a conspiracy, with a group of people in coordinated effort to conduct an illegal activity... not just some assholes "posting memes." =Smidge=
"Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities."
That goes beyond Facebook Memes, Mr. Anonymous Russian Coward.:) =Smidge=
The Constitution also says that Congress how the power to conscript the Militia to enforce laws, repel invasion and suppress insurrection. Upon doing so, the called-upon Militias are placed under direct command of the President.
So any notion that the militias are there to fight back against the government is right out the fucking window considering the government has explicit authority to use those same militias to fight against any such attempt. I can think of two historical examples where this has happened; The Whiskey Rebellion, and the Civil War.
And it's not about "free society" either. Among the enumerated powers that Congress has, it's also explicit that a federal army can't be funded for more than two years. The founding fathers were justifiably wary of a perpetual, professional army. Instead, the idea was clearly to use militias of armed citizens, trained and organized at the state level, to be the first line of defense against invaders and insurgents (aka threats to the free state). The militias would hopefully either be able to resolve the conflict, or buy enough time for Congress to fund and organize a proper army.
Just sayin' - if you're not willing to pick up your weapons and fight upon orders of the federal government, you are not part of a militia in the way the Constitution talks about them. You are at best a gun enthusiast, and at worst a potential domestic terrorist. =Smidge=
Did you even read that page or were you too tired after masturbating over the 8% number?
1) "In that sense, the electric heater is 100% efficient, since energy not directly turned into heat will be turned into heat soon." (Several other replies correctly point out that electric heaters are 100% efficient at converting electrical energy into heat.)
2) The 8% number is quoted in regards to a heat pump, which is not the same things as an electric heater. I suppose now I'll have to explain the difference to you?
3) The guy does completely the wrong calculation and comes up with a nonsensical value for "efficiency". It's so dumb it's offensive. Is this seriously the best you could manage as a rebuttal?
Let's label the thermal efficiency of a Carnot engine as "n." For an ideal Carnot cycle engine:
n = W/Q = 1 - (Tc/Th)
Where: n is the thermal efficiency W is the work performed by the engine (output) Q is the heat energy put into the system (input) Tc is the cold temperature that the waste heat is rejected to Th is the hot temperature that the heat is supplied from
That poster correctly calculates that a Carnot engine operating between Tc = 0 Celcius (273K) and Th = 25 Celcius (298 K) is about 8% efficient. We input some amount of energy Q, and get out 8% of that energy as useful work W.
But we are not converting heat to work. We are running it in reverse. In other words, our input is W and out output is Q.
So if we input 1 unit of energy in as work (W=1) and 1 - (Tc/Th) = 0.08, then we calculate:
W / Q = 0.08 W = Q * 0.08 W / 0.08 = Q
With W = 1, Q = 1 / 0.08 = 12.5
So we input 1 unit of energy and we get 12.5 units of energy out. From a "bang for your buck" perspective, we are getting 12.5 times as much heat energy out as electrical energy we put in, functionally an efficiency of 1250%!
Of course that is a disingenuous way to talk about it, since we know that the extra energy is coming from Tc and not from the cosmic aether... so instead we use a term called "Coefficient of Performance" (COP) which is effectively the same thing but more technically accurate. Decent heat pumps have a COP of 3.5 or so*, meaning for every 1 watt of electricity you put into them you get 3.5 watts of heat out of them. That is considerably more efficient than an electric heater, where you get 1 watt of heat energy out for every 1 watt of electricity you put into them. =Smidge=
* At specified operating conditions, of course. The colder it gets the less efficient heat pumps become. Most modern heat pumps are rated for -25C ambient.
If you're so hung up about the 100% efficiency claim for electric heaters, why are you not equally bent out of shape over the 97% efficiency claim for gas heaters that I made in that same post?
Both claims completely ignore and inefficiencies upstream of the appliance, and both are equally "wrong" in that respect as far as the point you're trying to make goes, but you only criticize one claim but not the other.
Straight electric resistance heating can be considered 100% efficient.
Yes, I did.
And I replied:
Power lines leak by design warming up the outdoors and irradiating the air, wasting 4.70363517 Ã-- 10E18 joules every year.
And the reason this is irrelevant is because you're blind to the context of my original statement. Deliberately so, it seems.
An electric resistance heater can be considered 100% efficient in that all of the energy it consumes is converted into heat, which is then put into the space being heated. This does not - and doesn't need to - include any of the energy costs of generating the energy or delivering it to the appliance. Do you understand?
A gas-fired heater is not 100% efficient, because of the energy it consumes (in the form of natural gas) only a portion is converted to heat that is delivered to the space. This does not - and doesn't need to - include any of the energy costs of extracting, processing or delivering the gas it to the appliance. Do you understand?
So all your talk about transmission losses in the electric grid, while factually accurate, is completely irrelevant to my original point. If you want to make it relevant, then you need to provide similar analysis for natural gas extraction and distribution. Only then can the two be fairly compared.
But it's you who is insisting on making a mountain out of this molehill, so the onus is on you to to that research. =Smidge=
The point is that gas pipelines are not supposed to leak while power lines leak by design warming up the outdoors and irradiating the air, wasting 4.70363517 Ã-- 10E18 joules every year.
Good things those pipes never leak, are perfectly frictionless, and run continuously from source to point of consumption! I'd hate to imagine how much energy might be lost if there were any kinds of losses in the natural gas distribution system.
On the other hand, saying that something is 100% efficient makes you look silly.
Being deliberately blind to context and refusing to compare things on equal grounds makes you look silly.
It's pretty clear that I'm comparing natural gas burning appliances to electrical appliances in terms of energy efficiency at the point of consumption. In neither case am I factoring in losses or inefficiencies obtaining the energy or delivering it to the appliance. It's only you, and people like you, who insist on including upstream inefficiencies for electric but never, ever for any other energy source.
This is actually somewhat important, because electricity can potentially be generated locally, even on site, which significantly reduces or even eliminates transmission losses. Rarely is that possible with other energies. =Smidge=
That natural gas also has to come from someplace. Typically someplace hundreds or thousands of miles away.
It's strange how everyone immediately points out generating and transmission losses for electricity but completely ignores the cost of extracting, processing and transporting fuels even before you burn them. =Smidge=
Yes, the atmospheric pressure is lower, but it's also much denser which offsets the lower pressure considerably. Wind power, while not as effective as they would be on Earth, is still a viable option on Mars. =Smidge=
I don't care about "size class". I care about the money I have to spend and getting through the snow.
This kind of self-contradictory comment tells me you don't actually care, and are willing to move any amount of goalposts to maintain your current opinion. Size is an important factor for meeting your snow-handling criteria.
I mentioned size class because it's relevant to your criteria. Obviously compact cars in general will be less capable in heavy snow than SUVs; but an electric vehicle will generally be more capable than a gasoline powered vehicle of the same size class. Apples to apples.
I paid about the same for my 4x4 Ford Explorer. Now, tell me which one is more likely to get stuck in the snow?
People still try with electric, and they'd fail too if the government wasn't propping them up.
Great concept; Let's remove all the subsidies, handouts and special considerations the petroleum industry gets and see what happens!
I don't think you considered your tired, bruised argument very well...
It took people over 100 years of trying and I still can't find an electric vehicle that won't get stuck in a little snow.
Maybe get your head out of your ass, then?:D They typical EV's extra weight often gives them an advantage in snow over gasoline vehicles of the same size class. =Smidge=
It's really not, though. I mean unless you want to start comparing apples to apples and also factor in the energy used to extract, process and deliver oil and natural gas?
No points for guessing which option, gas or electric, ends up looking worse. =Smidge=
Electric cars have been trying to compete with internal combustion for over a century.
They really haven't, though. At least the majority of the 20th Century saw little competition in that area; The existence of electric vehicles is not the same as competition.
By your metric, steam powered cars have also been "trying to compete" with internal combustion, because once upon a time steam powered cars were a thing.
It wasn't really until circa 2009 with the Nissan LEAF that all-electric highway vehicles became a viable mainstream option.
We didn't go to the moon on wind power and a trip to Mars won't be powered by wind either. The future will be very energy intensive, and wind is not going to be enough.
Oddly, the trip *itself* might not be wind powered but using wind power once you get to Mars is actually a viable option. There's no lack of wind on Mars, solar is much less effective, and even though the atmospheric pressure is lower the mostly CO2 atmosphere is a lot denser, so wind turbines are still a pretty good choice.
But maybe the trip itself can, in fact, be renewables-powered in a sense. We can manufacture hydrocarbon fuels using CO2 and input energy... which could come from things like wind power. And of course there's always hydrogen+oxygen fuel which is readily made from electricity. =Smidge=
Oil is used in heating via heating oil, but the alternative is natural gas which is far more efficient then electric heating.
The absolute best gas furnace will top out at around 97% thermal efficiency, giving you 97 BTU of heat for every 100 BTU of natural gas consumed.
Straight electric resistance heating can be considered 100% efficient.
Even a mediocre electric heat pump system today will get you a COP of 3.5, giving you 350 BTU of heat for every 100 BTU of electrical energy consumed. (100 BTU = 30 Watt-Hours)
Finally...what happens when the wind is not blowing? The electrical grid requires a base level going through it and when its a calm night, you have no solar or wind power going into the grid.
Even if you take this increasingly bad argument at face value; You burn natural gas to make the extra electricity. The overall efficiency is less, but you're burning gas far less often so the net is a significant reduction in gas usage.
Until diversity and storage render natural gas plants obsolete, anyway... and that's a "when" no "if" scenario. =Smidge=
I said "possibly" because it's not immediately clear to me (IANAL) if that means reverse engineering a file format so you can read it into your software, or so you can read AND write that format. If you can't write the format as well, it's not good enough to be a replacement.
They're not for review, they're for records and future work. It costs a shit-ton of money to have every consultant recreate the CAD files for every project, so it actually makes sense to ask for the CAD files so they can give them to the next project team.
They also ask for PDFs and hardcopies, typically. =Smidge=
Not using AutoDesk is basically impossible if you hope to work with anyone else in the fields of architecture and engineering. Some municipalities even explicitly require AutoCAD/Revit files as part of the deliverables.
But yes, I suppose "Not using AutoDesk" is just as much an option as "Not having a job." =Smidge=
Unfortunately this isn't necessarily an option without violating various laws.
Making your product compatible with a competitor's file format - a necessary step in "breaking into" a deeply entrenched market like AutoDesk - will likely result in lawsuits and possibly run afoul of DMCA laws. It's all for nothing anyway if your data is stored on a cloud server inaccessible by competing products.
It's not just about money either; it's also about giving up control over your data. What if there's a problem with the network? You're out of business until it's fixed... there's no option to mitigate the problem locally (e.g. Sneakernet). What if there's a security breech? You have no control over it, no way to detect or mitigate it. You are placing your business in the mercy of another and paying for the privilege. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is it was a box full of used pinball machine parts, and the "accident" was to cover up having stolen a few billion dollars and not have to explain why the new satellite didn't work.
Just as crazy, but not quite as dumb.
=Smidge=
It explains quite nicely how a small amount of lead can cause both serious problems and at the same time mass lead exposure did not destroy society.
Nothing of the sort.
A small dose is proportionally more harmful than a larger dose, not more harmful in an absolute sense. Basically what the study says is double the dose does not result in double the damage.
If you've been exposed to lead, exposing yourself to more lead will not improve your situation... so put down that paint smoothie.
=Smidge=
Keep fuel taxes as a tax on non-renewable energy to help cover the hidden costs of health care, pollution remediation and military efforts related to its procurement and use.
Tax vehicles based on weight class and mileage, which is directly related to road wear. It would work out to (very roughly) 3 cents per mile at most to equal Federal (18 cents per gallon) and State (Pennsylvania at 58 cents per gallon) taxes. Set the bar for weight to 3500lbs for passenger vehicles and adjust the rate from there; Double the weight, double the rate.
Further break it down for commercial and non-commercial traffic, since commercial traffic obviously does much more damage to roads but would be a greater overall economic burden, so we can have private passenger vehicles subsidize them a bit just like it works now.
=Smidge=
Yes, but it is not a text â" the linked-to PDF is a giant bitmap, which makes it unsearchable. Yet, you speak with the authority of someone, who has studied it in detail. Would you, kindly, refer me to the relevant paragraphs?..
Scroll to page 30 you lazy bum. God forbid you learn how to read!
So, you admit, that Hillary Clinton has received numerous and multi-million dollar "donations" to her "charity"
Nope, but it's irrelevant; she didn't win the election. "B-b-but Clinton" is only a very sad distraction at this point.
None of Trump's operations pretend to be charities
Technically correct, but if you're going to refer to the Clinton Foundation as a charity then Trump's foundation is also a charity, because they are the same kind of legal entity.
=Smidge=
Could you cite the actual statutes, please?
The actual indictment is linked in the Slashdot summary. They explain exactly what they believe happened and why it's illegal, including citing applicable statues.
Unless the donation is to a "charity", owned and run by a candidate, right?
You better be careful trying to play that card, considering Trump continues to operate his "charities" despite having been forbidden to operate in New York due to investigations.
Oh right, soon after Trump was elected he fired the Attorney General who was investigating him, so I guess that makes it okay since he's not under investigation anymore!
=Smidge=
And if they coordinated with Trump, what does Trump get out of it?
There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money.
=Smidge=
I suppose reading even the introductory paragraph of the indictment is too much for you? It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:
- Paying for political advertisements
- Paying others to troll social media for you
- Making campaign contributions
And this is all on top of general fraud and identity theft charges.
This is a proper and textbook example of a conspiracy, with a group of people in coordinated effort to conduct an illegal activity... not just some assholes "posting memes."
=Smidge=
"Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities."
That goes beyond Facebook Memes, Mr. Anonymous Russian Coward. :)
=Smidge=
The Constitution also says that Congress how the power to conscript the Militia to enforce laws, repel invasion and suppress insurrection. Upon doing so, the called-upon Militias are placed under direct command of the President.
So any notion that the militias are there to fight back against the government is right out the fucking window considering the government has explicit authority to use those same militias to fight against any such attempt. I can think of two historical examples where this has happened; The Whiskey Rebellion, and the Civil War.
And it's not about "free society" either. Among the enumerated powers that Congress has, it's also explicit that a federal army can't be funded for more than two years. The founding fathers were justifiably wary of a perpetual, professional army. Instead, the idea was clearly to use militias of armed citizens, trained and organized at the state level, to be the first line of defense against invaders and insurgents (aka threats to the free state). The militias would hopefully either be able to resolve the conflict, or buy enough time for Congress to fund and organize a proper army.
Just sayin' - if you're not willing to pick up your weapons and fight upon orders of the federal government, you are not part of a militia in the way the Constitution talks about them. You are at best a gun enthusiast, and at worst a potential domestic terrorist.
=Smidge=
Did you even read that page or were you too tired after masturbating over the 8% number?
1) "In that sense, the electric heater is 100% efficient, since energy not directly turned into heat will be turned into heat soon." (Several other replies correctly point out that electric heaters are 100% efficient at converting electrical energy into heat.)
2) The 8% number is quoted in regards to a heat pump, which is not the same things as an electric heater. I suppose now I'll have to explain the difference to you?
3) The guy does completely the wrong calculation and comes up with a nonsensical value for "efficiency". It's so dumb it's offensive. Is this seriously the best you could manage as a rebuttal?
Let's label the thermal efficiency of a Carnot engine as "n." For an ideal Carnot cycle engine:
n = W/Q = 1 - (Tc/Th)
Where:
n is the thermal efficiency
W is the work performed by the engine (output)
Q is the heat energy put into the system (input)
Tc is the cold temperature that the waste heat is rejected to
Th is the hot temperature that the heat is supplied from
That poster correctly calculates that a Carnot engine operating between Tc = 0 Celcius (273K) and Th = 25 Celcius (298 K) is about 8% efficient. We input some amount of energy Q, and get out 8% of that energy as useful work W.
But we are not converting heat to work. We are running it in reverse. In other words, our input is W and out output is Q.
So if we input 1 unit of energy in as work (W=1) and 1 - (Tc/Th) = 0.08, then we calculate:
W / Q = 0.08
W = Q * 0.08
W / 0.08 = Q
With W = 1, Q = 1 / 0.08 = 12.5
So we input 1 unit of energy and we get 12.5 units of energy out. From a "bang for your buck" perspective, we are getting 12.5 times as much heat energy out as electrical energy we put in, functionally an efficiency of 1250%!
Of course that is a disingenuous way to talk about it, since we know that the extra energy is coming from Tc and not from the cosmic aether... so instead we use a term called "Coefficient of Performance" (COP) which is effectively the same thing but more technically accurate. Decent heat pumps have a COP of 3.5 or so*, meaning for every 1 watt of electricity you put into them you get 3.5 watts of heat out of them. That is considerably more efficient than an electric heater, where you get 1 watt of heat energy out for every 1 watt of electricity you put into them.
=Smidge=
* At specified operating conditions, of course. The colder it gets the less efficient heat pumps become. Most modern heat pumps are rated for -25C ambient.
Let me ask you this, then;
If you're so hung up about the 100% efficiency claim for electric heaters, why are you not equally bent out of shape over the 97% efficiency claim for gas heaters that I made in that same post?
Both claims completely ignore and inefficiencies upstream of the appliance, and both are equally "wrong" in that respect as far as the point you're trying to make goes, but you only criticize one claim but not the other.
Why is that?
=Smidge=
You wrote:
Straight electric resistance heating can be considered 100% efficient.
Yes, I did.
And I replied:
Power lines leak by design warming up the outdoors and irradiating the air, wasting 4.70363517 Ã-- 10E18 joules every year.
And the reason this is irrelevant is because you're blind to the context of my original statement. Deliberately so, it seems.
An electric resistance heater can be considered 100% efficient in that all of the energy it consumes is converted into heat, which is then put into the space being heated. This does not - and doesn't need to - include any of the energy costs of generating the energy or delivering it to the appliance. Do you understand?
A gas-fired heater is not 100% efficient, because of the energy it consumes (in the form of natural gas) only a portion is converted to heat that is delivered to the space. This does not - and doesn't need to - include any of the energy costs of extracting, processing or delivering the gas it to the appliance. Do you understand?
So all your talk about transmission losses in the electric grid, while factually accurate, is completely irrelevant to my original point. If you want to make it relevant, then you need to provide similar analysis for natural gas extraction and distribution. Only then can the two be fairly compared.
But it's you who is insisting on making a mountain out of this molehill, so the onus is on you to to that research.
=Smidge=
Laugh all you want, but Dogecoin has been a consistent performer for years now.
=Smidge=
The point is that gas pipelines are not supposed to leak while power lines leak by design warming up the outdoors and irradiating the air, wasting 4.70363517 Ã-- 10E18 joules every year.
Good things those pipes never leak, are perfectly frictionless, and run continuously from source to point of consumption! I'd hate to imagine how much energy might be lost if there were any kinds of losses in the natural gas distribution system.
On the other hand, saying that something is 100% efficient makes you look silly.
Being deliberately blind to context and refusing to compare things on equal grounds makes you look silly.
It's pretty clear that I'm comparing natural gas burning appliances to electrical appliances in terms of energy efficiency at the point of consumption. In neither case am I factoring in losses or inefficiencies obtaining the energy or delivering it to the appliance. It's only you, and people like you, who insist on including upstream inefficiencies for electric but never, ever for any other energy source.
This is actually somewhat important, because electricity can potentially be generated locally, even on site, which significantly reduces or even eliminates transmission losses. Rarely is that possible with other energies.
=Smidge=
That natural gas also has to come from someplace. Typically someplace hundreds or thousands of miles away.
It's strange how everyone immediately points out generating and transmission losses for electricity but completely ignores the cost of extracting, processing and transporting fuels even before you burn them.
=Smidge=
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/a...
Yes, the atmospheric pressure is lower, but it's also much denser which offsets the lower pressure considerably. Wind power, while not as effective as they would be on Earth, is still a viable option on Mars.
=Smidge=
I don't care about "size class". I care about the money I have to spend and getting through the snow.
This kind of self-contradictory comment tells me you don't actually care, and are willing to move any amount of goalposts to maintain your current opinion. Size is an important factor for meeting your snow-handling criteria.
I mentioned size class because it's relevant to your criteria. Obviously compact cars in general will be less capable in heavy snow than SUVs; but an electric vehicle will generally be more capable than a gasoline powered vehicle of the same size class. Apples to apples.
I paid about the same for my 4x4 Ford Explorer. Now, tell me which one is more likely to get stuck in the snow?
Probably the Ford. On its roof.
=Smidge=
People still try with electric, and they'd fail too if the government wasn't propping them up.
Great concept; Let's remove all the subsidies, handouts and special considerations the petroleum industry gets and see what happens!
I don't think you considered your tired, bruised argument very well...
It took people over 100 years of trying and I still can't find an electric vehicle that won't get stuck in a little snow.
Maybe get your head out of your ass, then? :D They typical EV's extra weight often gives them an advantage in snow over gasoline vehicles of the same size class.
=Smidge=
Of course this is wrong
It's really not, though. I mean unless you want to start comparing apples to apples and also factor in the energy used to extract, process and deliver oil and natural gas?
No points for guessing which option, gas or electric, ends up looking worse.
=Smidge=
Electric cars have been trying to compete with internal combustion for over a century.
They really haven't, though. At least the majority of the 20th Century saw little competition in that area; The existence of electric vehicles is not the same as competition.
By your metric, steam powered cars have also been "trying to compete" with internal combustion, because once upon a time steam powered cars were a thing.
It wasn't really until circa 2009 with the Nissan LEAF that all-electric highway vehicles became a viable mainstream option.
We didn't go to the moon on wind power and a trip to Mars won't be powered by wind either. The future will be very energy intensive, and wind is not going to be enough.
Oddly, the trip *itself* might not be wind powered but using wind power once you get to Mars is actually a viable option. There's no lack of wind on Mars, solar is much less effective, and even though the atmospheric pressure is lower the mostly CO2 atmosphere is a lot denser, so wind turbines are still a pretty good choice.
But maybe the trip itself can, in fact, be renewables-powered in a sense. We can manufacture hydrocarbon fuels using CO2 and input energy... which could come from things like wind power. And of course there's always hydrogen+oxygen fuel which is readily made from electricity.
=Smidge=
Oil is used in heating via heating oil, but the alternative is natural gas which is far more efficient then electric heating.
The absolute best gas furnace will top out at around 97% thermal efficiency, giving you 97 BTU of heat for every 100 BTU of natural gas consumed.
Straight electric resistance heating can be considered 100% efficient.
Even a mediocre electric heat pump system today will get you a COP of 3.5, giving you 350 BTU of heat for every 100 BTU of electrical energy consumed. (100 BTU = 30 Watt-Hours)
Finally...what happens when the wind is not blowing? The electrical grid requires a base level going through it and when its a calm night, you have no solar or wind power going into the grid.
Even if you take this increasingly bad argument at face value; You burn natural gas to make the extra electricity. The overall efficiency is less, but you're burning gas far less often so the net is a significant reduction in gas usage.
Until diversity and storage render natural gas plants obsolete, anyway... and that's a "when" no "if" scenario.
=Smidge=
I said "possibly" because it's not immediately clear to me (IANAL) if that means reverse engineering a file format so you can read it into your software, or so you can read AND write that format. If you can't write the format as well, it's not good enough to be a replacement.
=Smidge=
They're not for review, they're for records and future work. It costs a shit-ton of money to have every consultant recreate the CAD files for every project, so it actually makes sense to ask for the CAD files so they can give them to the next project team.
They also ask for PDFs and hardcopies, typically.
=Smidge=
Don't use Adobe or Autodesk.
Not using AutoDesk is basically impossible if you hope to work with anyone else in the fields of architecture and engineering. Some municipalities even explicitly require AutoCAD/Revit files as part of the deliverables.
But yes, I suppose "Not using AutoDesk" is just as much an option as "Not having a job."
=Smidge=
Unfortunately this isn't necessarily an option without violating various laws.
Making your product compatible with a competitor's file format - a necessary step in "breaking into" a deeply entrenched market like AutoDesk - will likely result in lawsuits and possibly run afoul of DMCA laws. It's all for nothing anyway if your data is stored on a cloud server inaccessible by competing products.
It's not just about money either; it's also about giving up control over your data. What if there's a problem with the network? You're out of business until it's fixed... there's no option to mitigate the problem locally (e.g. Sneakernet). What if there's a security breech? You have no control over it, no way to detect or mitigate it. You are placing your business in the mercy of another and paying for the privilege.
=Smidge=