The length of the 2008 Honda Civic is about 25% longer than that of the 1979 model. The newer model is also both taller and wider than the older model. But you're probably right, I'm sure it was all the safety devices that really made it heavier.
In fairness, you should include all the facts. Namely that Tony Martin's shotgun certificate had been previously revoked for gun-related misbehavior. And he shot the robbers as they were fleeing out a window. It's a bit harder to claim self defense when you shoot someone in the back.
While the outcome does seem unjust, the case was not as lopsidedly unjust as this version of the story makes it appear.
This is a poor example because 1) it has nothing to do with biased scientists 2) the statement in question is deliberately mis-leading.
global temperatures have not risen since 1998
This statement was widely quoted to discredit climate change/global warming but it's really just a case of cherry-picked data. It was anomalously hot in 1998, and it's deliberately mis-leading to make generalized statements from anomalous data.
It is accurate to claim that global temperatures in every year 1999-2007 have been cooler than the temperatures of 1998*. However, stating that the temperatures "have not risen since 1998" implies that temperatures have been cooling since 1998, which is not true. Temperatures from 2000 through 2005 certainly rose every year.
Here's some pretty graphs to back up my statements.
* It depends on the data set (land, ocean, atmospheric, US only etc). For certain data sets, 2005-2006 was hotter than 1998, but on average 1998 wins.
I don't care which side of the argument you're on, I just hate it when someone deliberately mis-represents the data to support their side.
So you mean that making a patent deal with Microsoft doesn't really protect Novell from patent infringment suits?
Picture this. Red Hat and Novell are both sued. Both lose. Microsoft magnanimously steps forward and pays all the costs for Novell. Or Microsoft works out a licensing deal with IP Innovation LLC on behalf of Novell, and leaves Red Hat out to dry. Then Microsoft says, "see what happens if you don't sign our licensing deal?"
1st cd pressed ever: Herbert von Karajan conducting the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauß (one-off type production)
1st cd manufactured: ABBA - The Visitor
1st cd released in the USA: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
1st cd manufactured in the USA: Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
1st cd single: Dire Straits
I'm sick of seeing links related to Paztek's paper. It's junk.
Here's a link to the source that several other articles quote from: http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS41 6-Patzek-Web.pdf
I agree with his bashing of corn production in the US (government subsidies, etc).
But on the input side of his energy calculations, he includes:
* human energy (labor),
* energy for the humans to commute to the field,
* energy used to make hybrid seeds,
* solar energy that the field receives!
Let me reiterate that last one. He adds solar energy, the entire amount of energy in the form of sunlight that fell on the plot of land during the growing season, as an input. That means that photosynthesis is part of his efficiency calculation.
He completely discounts the energy that could be gained from the byproducts, and includes energy costs associated with transportation and disposal of the byproducts as if they were waste. Plus, many of the energy inputs he calculates are based on corn destined for human consumption -- many of these inputs would be left out of corn grown for ethanol.
He claims that more CO2 is produced by the ethanol cycle than would be produced by burning the equivalent amount of gasoline. BUT, he doesn't discount the CO2 consumed by the corn plants!
To be fair, maybe this analysis is complete and accurate. If so, I would like to see the same analysis performed on gasoline -- and please include all the solar energy that went into the biomass that eventually became petroleum, include the energy from heat and pressure from the earth, etc etc.
Then one could make a fair comparison.
And we do have good reasons to limit the supply of alcohol to minors
Really? The 'brain development' theory doesn't hold up very well. For one thing, the brain continues to develop even after 18 or 21 years of age. Another blow to the 'brain development' theory is that most other countries have a lower drinking ages than does the USA - without damaging the brains of their entire youth populations. (in fact, there isn't a single country with a higher drinking age than the USA).
Think back to prohibition - making alcohol illegal for all ages was NOT successful at preventing alcohol consumption. Nothing indicates that age-based prohibition is any more successful than all-out prohibition was.
If iPods were causing more deaths, then there should be a spike in the death rate after their introduction in 2001. graph
Instead, the graph is steadily declining. No spike at 1999 either when the Blackberry was introduced.
However, 72% of the 15,000 pedestrians that are injured by drivers of motor vehicles every year are hit while they are in a crosswalk. Obviously, since crosswalks are so prevalent in pedestrian injuries they should be banned from the entire city.
In the Home & Home Office, I got about the same prices that you did. It was $20 *more* for an E521N with no OS. BUT there were differences in the options for warranties and 'free' upgrades. I couldn't make the two systems exactly equal. (in several attempts, the 'free' upgrades changed each time)
In the Small Business section you can select identical configurations. In this case, Windows XP Home adds $30 to the system, or Windows XP Pro adds $129 to the overall system price.
If you measure it as ERoEI, it's generally acknowledged by everyone except die-hard solar power advocates that the ratio of Energy Returned over Energy Input for solar is less than 1, unless you use very very recent strained Silicon-based technology, which barely hit break-even earlier this year.
its easy to debunk this myth.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that it takes 100 units of energy to make a PV panel. Then according to this myth, the panel only ever produces, say, 90 units of energy. The manufacturer pays for the 100 units of energy + materials to make the PV, and then sells it to the consumer for a profit. The consumer who buys this product (at a price which already accounts for 100 units of energy) is able to save more money than was spent on the purchase with only 90 units of energy? This is clearly not possible.
Either, there is no monetary payback from PV panels, or the ER/EI is greater than 1. But both cannot be true simultaneously. And the data shows that ER/EI is, in fact, greater than 1.
Most PV panels are warrantied for 25 years. That is, they are gauranteed to produce >90% rated peak power for 25 years. Typical total lifespan is about 40 years (with output dropping to ~80% peak).
PV systems require virtually no maintenance. Think window washers. 100 service people? that's just silly. maybe 1 person full-time, more likely contracted as needed a couple times a year.
IAEE (i am an electrical engineer) when I did the calculations for my home in GA, I came up with 6-7 year break-even time frame. That was WITHOUT any subsidies, and included borrowing the initial capital and paying it off with interest.
The payback would never reach 30 years unless you just dump all of your excess energy. A system that allows you to sell energy back onto the grid during the day is the simplest (virtually no maintenance once installed). But if your local power company refuses to buy back the energy, you just install a system that includes battery storage. Instead of selling your excess energy, the excess is stored in batteries and used at night. Obviously the battery cost and maintenance add to the initial cost, and you lose some efficiency cycling the batteries, but it only adds 1-2 years to the break-even time.
current solar panels have 20-25 year warranties from the manufacturer, and frequently ~40 year life spans. so it is an investment that certainly pays off in the life span of your home.
Most likely it was accidentally introduced into the Mediterranean by the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. But the director at the time spent all his energy trying to convince the public that the Museum was not responsible for the release, instead of trying to stop the spread of the invasive species. So now its all over the Mediterranean, with no natural predators in the area.
When a few blooms of the plant showed up in California coastline, they took drastic measures to quickly eradicate it. They threw tarps over the affected area and injected chlorine under the tarps. Which killed everything, invasive or not. So far, they've successfully contained the outbreak in California.
A friend of mine bought her laptop from Best Buy and took it back for repairs. After weeks of getting the run-around, someone in the geek squad finally admitted the laptop had been compromised -- translation, somebody stole it. They acted as if it weren't their problem until she showed up with some cops. Then it quickly became, "yes ma'am, how much would you like refunded?" But I can't imagine shopping there again based on how they treated the situation prior to having a cop walk through the door.
I love the fact that if you 'forget' your club card, you can type in your phone number at the thouchpad. So far, every club store I've been to has accepted 123-456-7890 as a valid phone number for some account, and I get their "discounts".
Re:Someone tell the Google art department
on
Google News Leaves Beta
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I studied this form of power a few years ago. One big problem is that there are only a few locations that are well suited to this type of power. The tropics are good because the surface water is warmer, but the second requirement is cold water, typically the greater the depth the better. So you need a tropical climate with a steep dropoff in the ocean floor very near land.
By moving water against the normal gradient, you will warm up water that's supposed to be cold, and cool off water that's supposed to be warm. I could imagine plankton blooms and oxygen depletion, among other side effects.
Very true, but there are ways to mitigate this. Instead of taking the deep cold water and dumping it at the surface, the system can re-inject the water at the appropriate depth to match the 'normal' temperature at that depth. The trade-off for doing this is reduced efficiency, since now you have to pump the water up and back down again, but it greatly reduces the local environmental impact.
Passive solar collection (photovoltaic and otherwise)....
I'm a big fan of solar power, but "passive solar" refers to (for example) designing a home such that it requires less energy for lighting or heating. photovoltaics aren't passive solar.
A friend of mine got shot in the leg. It was a stray bullet from a gun fight that broke out down the street. They know exactly who shot the gun, and where he lives. The police said, "Well, he wasn't shooting at you, so you can't even get him for assault." They did absolutely nothing about the shooting.
After ~1.5 years, my friend has recently started walking without a cane. The guy who shot him still lives down the street.
yeah, priorities.
From what I remember of physics in highschool, the production and transport of electricity is much more efficient when it is done in high volume with high voltages. In a small grid, you'd lose the benefits of that efficiency.
You are partly right. High voltages are efficient for transporting electricity long distance. The transmission losses are very low over short distances, thus the small grid gains efficiency by only transporting power over short distances.
to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from
I'd like to see someone take the amount they owe, divide it among the different artists that they had on their computer, and then mail a check directly to each artist. Do it publicly and see if the record companies are still happy with the settlement.
Slashdot Mirror
The length of the 2008 Honda Civic is about 25% longer than that of the 1979 model. The newer model is also both taller and wider than the older model. But you're probably right, I'm sure it was all the safety devices that really made it heavier.
wikileaks - since it already was (sort of) shut down by government.
In fairness, you should include all the facts. Namely that Tony Martin's shotgun certificate had been previously revoked for gun-related misbehavior. And he shot the robbers as they were fleeing out a window. It's a bit harder to claim self defense when you shoot someone in the back.
While the outcome does seem unjust, the case was not as lopsidedly unjust as this version of the story makes it appear.
This statement was widely quoted to discredit climate change/global warming but it's really just a case of cherry-picked data. It was anomalously hot in 1998, and it's deliberately mis-leading to make generalized statements from anomalous data.
It is accurate to claim that global temperatures in every year 1999-2007 have been cooler than the temperatures of 1998*. However, stating that the temperatures "have not risen since 1998" implies that temperatures have been cooling since 1998, which is not true. Temperatures from 2000 through 2005 certainly rose every year.
Here's some pretty graphs to back up my statements.
* It depends on the data set (land, ocean, atmospheric, US only etc). For certain data sets, 2005-2006 was hotter than 1998, but on average 1998 wins.
I don't care which side of the argument you're on, I just hate it when someone deliberately mis-represents the data to support their side.
Picture this. Red Hat and Novell are both sued. Both lose. Microsoft magnanimously steps forward and pays all the costs for Novell. Or Microsoft works out a licensing deal with IP Innovation LLC on behalf of Novell, and leaves Red Hat out to dry. Then Microsoft says, "see what happens if you don't sign our licensing deal?"
lots of subtle distinction in claiming 'first'
1st cd pressed ever: Herbert von Karajan conducting the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauß (one-off type production)
1st cd manufactured: ABBA - The Visitor
1st cd released in the USA: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
1st cd manufactured in the USA: Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
1st cd single: Dire Straits
I'm sick of seeing links related to Paztek's paper. It's junk. Here's a link to the source that several other articles quote from: http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS41 6-Patzek-Web.pdf
I agree with his bashing of corn production in the US (government subsidies, etc).
But on the input side of his energy calculations, he includes:
* human energy (labor),
* energy for the humans to commute to the field,
* energy used to make hybrid seeds,
* solar energy that the field receives!
Let me reiterate that last one. He adds solar energy, the entire amount of energy in the form of sunlight that fell on the plot of land during the growing season, as an input. That means that photosynthesis is part of his efficiency calculation.
He completely discounts the energy that could be gained from the byproducts, and includes energy costs associated with transportation and disposal of the byproducts as if they were waste. Plus, many of the energy inputs he calculates are based on corn destined for human consumption -- many of these inputs would be left out of corn grown for ethanol.
He claims that more CO2 is produced by the ethanol cycle than would be produced by burning the equivalent amount of gasoline. BUT, he doesn't discount the CO2 consumed by the corn plants!
To be fair, maybe this analysis is complete and accurate. If so, I would like to see the same analysis performed on gasoline -- and please include all the solar energy that went into the biomass that eventually became petroleum, include the energy from heat and pressure from the earth, etc etc.
Then one could make a fair comparison.
And we do have good reasons to limit the supply of alcohol to minors
Really? The 'brain development' theory doesn't hold up very well. For one thing, the brain continues to develop even after 18 or 21 years of age. Another blow to the 'brain development' theory is that most other countries have a lower drinking ages than does the USA - without damaging the brains of their entire youth populations. (in fact, there isn't a single country with a higher drinking age than the USA).
Think back to prohibition - making alcohol illegal for all ages was NOT successful at preventing alcohol consumption. Nothing indicates that age-based prohibition is any more successful than all-out prohibition was.
If iPods were causing more deaths, then there should be a spike in the death rate after their introduction in 2001. graph
Instead, the graph is steadily declining. No spike at 1999 either when the Blackberry was introduced.
However, 72% of the 15,000 pedestrians that are injured by drivers of motor vehicles every year are hit while they are in a crosswalk. Obviously, since crosswalks are so prevalent in pedestrian injuries they should be banned from the entire city.
In the Home & Home Office, I got about the same prices that you did. It was $20 *more* for an E521N with no OS. BUT there were differences in the options for warranties and 'free' upgrades. I couldn't make the two systems exactly equal. (in several attempts, the 'free' upgrades changed each time)
In the Small Business section you can select identical configurations. In this case, Windows XP Home adds $30 to the system, or Windows XP Pro adds $129 to the overall system price.
its easy to debunk this myth.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that it takes 100 units of energy to make a PV panel. Then according to this myth, the panel only ever produces, say, 90 units of energy. The manufacturer pays for the 100 units of energy + materials to make the PV, and then sells it to the consumer for a profit. The consumer who buys this product (at a price which already accounts for 100 units of energy) is able to save more money than was spent on the purchase with only 90 units of energy? This is clearly not possible.
Either, there is no monetary payback from PV panels, or the ER/EI is greater than 1. But both cannot be true simultaneously. And the data shows that ER/EI is, in fact, greater than 1.
Estimated times for energy payback, from various sources:
(pdf) "1 to 5 years
various sources for estimates, all 1 to 5 years
"in the worst case, 4 years"
"usually under 5"
"range from 1 to 4 years"
Some of your estimates are just plain wrong.
;-)
175 Watt panel for $810/each
If I can buy that, I'm sure Google can get a cheaper price.
Most PV panels are warrantied for 25 years. That is, they are gauranteed to produce >90% rated peak power for 25 years. Typical total lifespan is about 40 years (with output dropping to ~80% peak).
PV systems require virtually no maintenance. Think window washers. 100 service people? that's just silly. maybe 1 person full-time, more likely contracted as needed a couple times a year.
at least do a little research on your numbers
IAEE (i am an electrical engineer) when I did the calculations for my home in GA, I came up with 6-7 year break-even time frame. That was WITHOUT any subsidies, and included borrowing the initial capital and paying it off with interest.
The payback would never reach 30 years unless you just dump all of your excess energy. A system that allows you to sell energy back onto the grid during the day is the simplest (virtually no maintenance once installed). But if your local power company refuses to buy back the energy, you just install a system that includes battery storage. Instead of selling your excess energy, the excess is stored in batteries and used at night. Obviously the battery cost and maintenance add to the initial cost, and you lose some efficiency cycling the batteries, but it only adds 1-2 years to the break-even time.
current solar panels have 20-25 year warranties from the manufacturer, and frequently ~40 year life spans. so it is an investment that certainly pays off in the life span of your home.
but this is Microsoft. don't you remember "plug-n-play"? which was quickly re-dubbed "plug-n-pray" by consumers.
It is an awful way to communicate statistics.
Which is precisely why its perfect for the pointy haired bosses.....
Here's one example of a water-based problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caulerpa_taxifolia
Most likely it was accidentally introduced into the Mediterranean by the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. But the director at the time spent all his energy trying to convince the public that the Museum was not responsible for the release, instead of trying to stop the spread of the invasive species. So now its all over the Mediterranean, with no natural predators in the area.
When a few blooms of the plant showed up in California coastline, they took drastic measures to quickly eradicate it. They threw tarps over the affected area and injected chlorine under the tarps. Which killed everything, invasive or not. So far, they've successfully contained the outbreak in California.
A friend of mine bought her laptop from Best Buy and took it back for repairs. After weeks of getting the run-around, someone in the geek squad finally admitted the laptop had been compromised -- translation, somebody stole it. They acted as if it weren't their problem until she showed up with some cops. Then it quickly became, "yes ma'am, how much would you like refunded?" But I can't imagine shopping there again based on how they treated the situation prior to having a cop walk through the door.
I love the fact that if you 'forget' your club card, you can type in your phone number at the thouchpad. So far, every club store I've been to has accepted 123-456-7890 as a valid phone number for some account, and I get their "discounts".
try hitting "refresh"
I studied this form of power a few years ago. One big problem is that there are only a few locations that are well suited to this type of power. The tropics are good because the surface water is warmer, but the second requirement is cold water, typically the greater the depth the better. So you need a tropical climate with a steep dropoff in the ocean floor very near land.
By moving water against the normal gradient, you will warm up water that's supposed to be cold, and cool off water that's supposed to be warm. I could imagine plankton blooms and oxygen depletion, among other side effects.
Very true, but there are ways to mitigate this. Instead of taking the deep cold water and dumping it at the surface, the system can re-inject the water at the appropriate depth to match the 'normal' temperature at that depth. The trade-off for doing this is reduced efficiency, since now you have to pump the water up and back down again, but it greatly reduces the local environmental impact.
Passive solar collection (photovoltaic and otherwise)....
I'm a big fan of solar power, but "passive solar" refers to (for example) designing a home such that it requires less energy for lighting or heating. photovoltaics aren't passive solar.
A friend of mine got shot in the leg. It was a stray bullet from a gun fight that broke out down the street. They know exactly who shot the gun, and where he lives. The police said, "Well, he wasn't shooting at you, so you can't even get him for assault." They did absolutely nothing about the shooting. After ~1.5 years, my friend has recently started walking without a cane. The guy who shot him still lives down the street. yeah, priorities.
But it's worth mentioning at this point that Sony didn't develop the software in question here - the XCP software was developed by First4Internet.
Smith & Wesson makes a gun.
You buy a gun and shoot someone. Who gets charged for murder?
From what I remember of physics in highschool, the production and transport of electricity is much more efficient when it is done in high volume with high voltages. In a small grid, you'd lose the benefits of that efficiency.
You are partly right. High voltages are efficient for transporting electricity long distance. The transmission losses are very low over short distances, thus the small grid gains efficiency by only transporting power over short distances.
to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from
I'd like to see someone take the amount they owe, divide it among the different artists that they had on their computer, and then mail a check directly to each artist. Do it publicly and see if the record companies are still happy with the settlement.