Why not link to some credible sources, Mr. Anonymous? Sure, everybody has a friend who was fucked over because the cops bent or broke some law, but unless you can come up with some hard, documented evidence, your assertions here are baseless.
"Baseless" and "not verifiable" are two very different things. His assertions are anecdotal and non-specific, and therefore not verifiable, but let's face it - an assertion that the police sometimes skirt the law to get arrests they would not otherwise get is probably not baseless.
Still, you've got to admit that this would be a huge psychological deterant. I mean, if I fired RPGs at a tank, and the RPGs (seemingly without cause) pre-detontated before they ever reached the tank, I'd be looking to get the hell out of there and warn all my friends!
It hasn't been much of a deterent. Have you seen pictures of vehicles in Iraq with a metal grid surrounding the vehicle? They look a lot like 360 degree cow-catchers. That is an RPG shield. The RPG hits the metal grid and pre-detonates a foot way from the vehicles' conventional armor. It is very effective but clearly hasn't caused much running away by the insurgents.
I've read a lot of srories on slashdot that have silly sloppy thinking behind the comments, but this one story wins the prize.
I've heard: Just bounce the beam off mirrors on satellites to shoot missles halfway around the world. The "halfway around the world" in the article meant you fly the PLANE halfway around the world to shoot the missles.
I've heard: The enemy can't mirror their missiles because the laser is powerful enough to blast through any mirror. Presumably the laser is aimed with mirrors, so how is that inconsistency possible (not to mention bouncing the beam off mirrored satellites).
I've heard: Adaptive optics allows the laser beam to be focused on missiles thousands of miles away. Adaptive optics are used in telescopes to focus incoherent light, a laser beam is already a highly focused coherent beam and adaptive optics would serve no purpose. Further, adaptive optics can be used to stabilize INCOMING images because the light has already passed through the atmosphere and random atmosphereic effects have already happened, and can therefore be corrected. Adaptive optics cannot be used to stabilize an OUTGOING beam on a target because the random atmospheric effects are in the future and are thereby unknown.
I've heard: All this was studied years ago and mirroring a missile makes no difference. Half right - it was studied decades ago and mirroring, spin rate, and even color of the missile made huge differences.
The list goes on.
Here are my thoughts about this story.
The amount of power needed to fire a pulse laser at a missle and destroy it is enormous. That makes these planes a one-shot deal. There is no way to get the power into the plane for more than one shot. Even a nuclear power plant would not be able to recharge the lasers in seconds. So the way for an enemy to neutralize this multi-billion dollar plane is to simply fire two or three missles.
If it is to be used as an anti-missile weapon the military is once again fighting the last war with this weapon. It might have been effective when one scud at a time was fired at Isreal in the first Gulf War. However, with this one-shot plane around the days of missiles being fired one at a time are probably over. If stationed over a major city it might be useful against a hijacked plane, but again it would be easily be defeated by the low-tech solution of hijacking two planes.
I believe that this story was fed to the press as classic military deception. The plane makes little sense as an anti-missle plane, but it is a perfect anti-satellite weapon. Think about it - no atmosphere to interfere with the beam, no simultaneous targets, days instead of seconds to recharge the laser for the next satellite. Calling it an anti-missile weapon probably allows the military to side step the decades-old ban on anti-satellite weapons.
why SHOULD an employer be expected to subsidize health care? I would prefer to see employers pay wages that allowed employees to make their own health care decisions
First, because that is the way the US healthcare system is set up. Companies provide health insurance for their workers here, while in other parts of the world companies provide taxes to governments that provide health insurance to the entire population. When a company like Wal-Mart doesn't provide health insurance for its employees and causes them to get public assistance for healthcare it is trying to have its cake and eat it too by paying neither for healthcare directly nor any additional taxes for government-sponsored healthcare.
if my employer would just give me as salary the money they pay for my health insurance I could go out and get a more appropriate level of coverage for my family.
No you couldn't. Companies get a hefty break on the price of coverage from insurance companies and have bargaining power you would lack as an individual. They also write it off as a business expense (which you can't) and so get even more bang for their buck. I recently went from a company-supplied insurance program where I and my company paid about $2000/year combined with a miniscule deductable to buying my own health insurance where I now pay $5,000/year with a $5,000 deductable and get about half the coverage.
Ridiculous to the informed, yes. Unfortunately, however, rather functional on the uninformed.
Unfortunately the trend has gotten worse in the past six years with the administration that "makes our own reality". Onerous and dreadful laws are usually given high sounding names for two reasons: 1. They make great sound bites on Fox News, and 2. for political reasons it makes it difficult for opponents to vote against them (they will hear they voted against clear skies, or education).
Recent examples:
USA Patriot Act - Who would vote against patriotism. It should have been called the Domestic Surveillance Act.
No Child Left Behind - who wants to leave children behind? Should have been called the Federal National Student Testing Act.
Clear Skies Initiative - who in the world would be against clear skies? Should have been called the New Source Review Cancellation Act, the EPA Nullification Act, or the Save My Business Buddies a Ton of Money Act.
I'd encourage everyone to actually read the article. Of course, if you think nothing should ever be secret and think this is part of another conservative/Republican plot, then you probably won't agree with any reasoning for keeping such critical meetings secret, and/or not having to wait 15 days to hold such meetings.
Stated another way: "Everything I have said is correct and if you have any other opinions they are clearly false and due to your biases, and you are aiding America's enemies by having an opinion different than mine." Let me guess, you're a Republican.
Neither are car manufacturers held responsible for the fact that their products are advertised in a fashion that may encourage irresponsible and unlawful behaviour in a certain segment of community.
Not true. Have you never seen the warnings: "Professional driver on closed course, do not try this yourself"? Those warning are there because the car manufacturers WOULD be held responsible if they advertised their cars being driven in an irresponsible manner. Neither do you see car advertisements for the "best drag-racer sold" for the same reason. It is the same with the tobacco companies' advertisements that were aimed at children. They got in a lot of trouble for those, paid huge fines, and WERE held responsible for their advertising.
McDonalds has for years advertised they have served "millions" and later "billions" of people. Interestingly, they never spent the time to figure out that some of those billions served were sometimes the same people going back for more
God, it was millions and then billions of burgers served to people, not billions of people served burgers. Sometimes I really have to wonder about people on slashdot.
A machine won't get spooked by gunfire a machine won't start making mating calls that alert the enemy to your position a machine won't take massive shits that a tracking dog could smell a machine doesn't die if it gets thirsty - you can go get more fuel and come back to it a week later or a month later.
Well, why animals are better than THIS robot is that it can't even negotiate itself over a 4 inch curb. RTFA!
A machine won't get spooked by gunfire a machine won't start making mating calls that alert the enemy to your position a machine won't take massive shits that a tracking dog could smell a machine doesn't die if it gets thirsty - you can go get more fuel and come back to it a week later or a month later.
Juat to be contarian...
a mule will go places a machine can''t (ex, mules used by allies in WWII jungle campaigns) machine tracks are suspicious, animal tracks aren't ten people in the distance with pack animals look like local traders, with robots they look like targets when things get bad you can't eat your robots animals can go for days without food, robots only for hours without fuel a machine will cost $500,000 if I know our gov't, a mule only a couple of hundred mules are already local and having one does not attract artillery
Do I call swapping pistons, drilling and tapping the block, and writing custom programming for a new engine CPU "heavy modification"? Well... yes, I do.
Replacing the plugs on my MBZ is a serious bitch, because they're down relatively low, behind the fuel injection manifold, and you can't get a socket on any of 'em. Well, maybe a couple, but you'd need a semi-deep socket, a deep one would be too long.
I don't see how this is in any way relevant to your belief that one can run a diesel engine on E95. It is clear to me that ADM took four engines that STARTED LIFE as diesels and converted the hell out of them to make them ethanol engines.
There is a really easy way to test your contention that diesel engines will run on E95. Fill your tank up with E95 next time. Be sure and let us know how far you get.
The ethanol engines were of the same DDC design as the diesel engine used for comparison. However, the engines were modified so they could run on E95: DDC changed the electronic control system, enlarged the holes in the fuel injectors, added a glow plug to assist ignition during cold starts, and increased the compression ratio (from 18:1 for diesel to 23:1 for E95).
Well, I think I do know what I am talking about. These FOUR prototype engines may have started life as diesel blocks, but they were then heavily modified to run on ethanol. Just because someone modified a grand total of four diesel engines to run on E95 does not mean that there are any other that will not self-destruct on it. If you put E95 in any diesel engine other than these four specially modified engines you won't get five miles, so the comment that E95 is available for diesel engines is absurd. If you put enough money into it you can get a pig to fly, but it still isn't a bird.
They ran for 325,000 miles? Big deal. Normal diesels typicaly run that kind of mileage and more before overhauls. My diesel truck has 165,000 and it is just getting broken in. If I put E95 in the tank it would be just plain broken.
Do you honestly think the government does a decent job at these tasks? They really excelled at defending us on 9/11.
They did a pretty good job in WWII.
The corrupt police regularly harass people on the streets who've done nothing wrong (just watch cops) and our court system is a real hoot.
Not the best situation true, but better than NO police. Think of the hassles you would get on the street then.
People wouldn't voluntarily give their hard earned cash to an organization that wastes 90% of it and sucks horribly at even the basic things it's supposed to provide
You exagerate. I don't believe a 90% waste rate. My local government does a pretty good job of collecting the garbage, suppying me with water and sewers, providing fire protection and police services, and maintaining the roads. I'd hate to think how much it would cost me to build my own interstate to my own airport.
I'm able to get Palm from a manufacturing plant that's loaded with nickel particles which I filter and burn straight...It takes 1 gallon of methanol to make 4-5 gallons of Biodiesel. According to your math, I can buy methanol for $1.00 to $1.25 a gallon. Please let me know where this source is.
First a disclaimer: my knowledge of making biodiesel is theoretical - I've never made a gallon, although I have considered it. Isn't it true that you can recover and re-use a lot of the process methanol? This reduces the cost of methanol per gallon of fuel by quite a bit.
Second, I am very concerned about your use of oil that has nickel in it. Nickel is a known human carcinogen that is now apparently pouring out of your tailpipe. Your supplier is violating some very serious environmental laws by selling it to you to use as fuel because it is a strictly regulated hazardous waste because of the nickel. And before you say it, yes they ARE supposed to check to see what you are using it for before they sell it to you. There are also strict record-keeping and reporting rules about the disposal of this oil which they are apparently violating as well. Beware - if they get caught you could be swept up with them.
Fuel taxes are (supposedly) for the roads and any road vehicle should be paying them.
Not the way the law is written. Fuel taxes are *sales* taxes, and since homemade biodiesel for personal use is not sold there are no taxes on it.
Sales tax is imposed on fuel sold for road-use (non-farm). Sales tax is not imposed on farm-use fuel. Sales tax is not imposed on fuel that is never sold (road or farm).
Those numbers are bullshit...the Diesel and Gas numbers are obvious BS too. No one would ever make gasoline or diesel if it took more fossil fuel to produce than it yielded. It just wouldn't be worth it.
You obviously haven't thought much about this. Here is a quote from the original "bullshit" article: "Petroleum diesel's life cycle yields only 0.83 units of fuel energy per unit of fossil energy consumed."
You used this information to reach the incorrect conclusion that no one would ever do that because there would be no profit, and therefore the numbers have to be wrong. You are confusing efficiency and profit. Even though it takes more energy to get that gallon of fuel in your car than the gallon produces, you PAY more for it than it cost the oil company to get it there. Oil field to refinery to gas station to car is a very inefficent fuel delivery system, but it is a VERY efficient profit-making system.
Before you go shouting "bullshit" next time you should think about the problem more thoroughly.
"And I hear there's an E95 for diesels, which has 5% gasoline in it."
Noooo, putting any gasoline through a diesel engine is a big no no! I think you are confusing E95 with B95, which is a blend of 95% bio-diesel and 5% petro-diesel. B95 has no gasoline or ethanol!
Most biodiesel bought at retail stations is B20 (20% biodiesel) although it is possible to find B100. Willie Nelson's new biodiesel fuel Willie Diesel (I kid you not) is B20.
The main advantage of using B20 is that it greatly reduce exhaust emissions over 100%petro-diesel. B100 adds the benefit of eliminating mid-eastern oil dependence. My diesel auto runs B100 and it is a great feeling to know that not one penny of my fuel cost goes to the Saudi royal family or Exxon. On the downside, B100 costs about $0.35 more per gallon than petro-diesel and provides slighty worse fuel mileage. To me the trade-off is well worth it.
For one thing, [google] can be used as a verb, which doesn't work for "go altavista it".
Altavista is just as "verbish" as Google - it just doesn't roll off the tongue as smoothly. Anyway, "AV it" could have been just as catchy a pop term as "Google it".
Except that [Altavista] at some point they sold out or went commercial and sacrificed the simple looks of the result pages for banner ads and payed results and whatnot, something that Google is very careful about. To this day, Google's result pages are very simple and clean, the ads are unobtrusive text ads, and there is no injection of payed results because the ads themselves are that and are clearly delimited.
I agree. I remember switching to Google from Altavista (and another engine of the day I now cannot even remember) simply BECAUSE of the lack of ads. Google's searches at the time were not much better nor much faster than the competition. The clean interface was like cool water compared to the flashing banner ads and other distracting drek of the day. What you may have forgotten is that Google actually considered going to banner ads at one point. They once posted a survey on the main page to ask users what they thought about the idea. I gather the response was very anti-banner.
I think Google's initial success was more a result of the simple, clean interface than technical superiority. Microsoft will NEVER forgo the ad revenue and do the same, so any minor technical superiority will be of limited draw to most people. Even if Microsoft has a somewhat better engine it won't be better for long, and defections from Google will be minimal and short-lived.
If the person actually worked for Diebold, I'd be more prone to say don't prosecute, but since he was working at a lawfirm, he broke attorney-client privilege, which is a very serious offense.
No, on two counts. Since he is not a lawyer he cannot break the attorney-client privilege. The ATTORNEYS at the law firm did that when they left privileged information where anyone could see it. Anyway, breaking attorney-client privilege isn't a crime - it's merely unethical and/or incompetent. He should be fired, yes, for breaking his confidentiality agreement with the law firm, but not prosecuted.
Another view is that the law firm was engaged in a conspiracy to commit a criminal act with Deibold since it knew of a crime in progress and 1)did not report it to authorities, and 2)particpated in the crime by nevertheless attempting to keep Deibold as a vendor to the state election board - thereby becoming an active participant in commission of an illegal act.
The idea in both situations is to design something that can survive the impact -- not avoid the impact, which is what you did, They came up with an innovative solution to the problem. You just avoided the problem altogether.
That's YOUR interpretation, and is the point of original post that just because everyone made an incorrect assumption (that it was an impact-absorbing experiment) does not mean that alternative solutions were not just as valid. The parachute designer didn't avoid the problem - he merely solved it in an unexpected way.
Besides, the parachute solution really didn't even violate your definition of the experiment. What difference does it make if he controlled the deceleration of the egg in the first meter of the drop rather than in the last few cm like everyone else?
Completely off-topic, just to satisfy my curiosity: what were some of the other entries in that egg contest? I've been looking at the rules, and about the only thing I can think of would be a parachute... what other ways are there to get an egg slowly from 15 feet up to the ground?
- drop it into your pocket and carry it down - drop it into a long sock tube that will slow its rate of descent to the ground - tie a string to it so when it is dropped it can be lowered to the gtound - build a tall device and put it under the drop point so the egg hits your device which lowers it gently to the ground - put an upward-blowing vacuumm cleaner hose under the drop point to support the egg in the air (gets around "no touch" rules) and then carry the vacuum cleaner down to the ground... and the list goes on.
A solid competitor, or at least the threat of one, might light the fire under ebay, and make *it* a better place.
I agree 100%, but I hope google lights a fire under Paypal more than Ebay. I get Paypal "policy updates" frequently and they almost always take away some protection for users or increase the protecton of Paypal's profits. I once had a vendor overcharge me $24 on Paypal and after six months of Paypal's investigation they finally agreed that it had been a mistake... and refunded me a whopping $0.01
I still use Paypal, but only because there are often no real alternatives to online paying. A lot of people would like to say bye-bye to Paypal and I think Google knows this. After google.ch, Google.com can no longer claim to be the "do no evil" company, but competition for Ebay and Paypal can only improve the situation for everyone.
"They recently started airing them in my country,...[they] leave me in a state of confusion as soon as the show resumes because by then I'll have forgotten some of the subtle stuff that happened because I was distracted by the commercials, and I'll need a couple of minutes to get back into the show."
Whatever country you're in, you clearly have a lot to learn. You don't actually think you're supposed to WATCH the things, do you?
Slashdot Mirror
Why not link to some credible sources, Mr. Anonymous? Sure, everybody has a friend who was fucked over because the cops bent or broke some law, but unless you can come up with some hard, documented evidence, your assertions here are baseless.
"Baseless" and "not verifiable" are two very different things. His assertions are anecdotal and non-specific, and therefore not verifiable, but let's face it - an assertion that the police sometimes skirt the law to get arrests they would not otherwise get is probably not baseless.
Still, you've got to admit that this would be a huge psychological deterant. I mean, if I fired RPGs at a tank, and the RPGs (seemingly without cause) pre-detontated before they ever reached the tank, I'd be looking to get the hell out of there and warn all my friends!
It hasn't been much of a deterent. Have you seen pictures of vehicles in Iraq with a metal grid surrounding the vehicle? They look a lot like 360 degree cow-catchers. That is an RPG shield. The RPG hits the metal grid and pre-detonates a foot way from the vehicles' conventional armor. It is very effective but clearly hasn't caused much running away by the insurgents.
I've read a lot of srories on slashdot that have silly sloppy thinking behind the comments, but this one story wins the prize.
I've heard: Just bounce the beam off mirrors on satellites to shoot missles halfway around the world.
The "halfway around the world" in the article meant you fly the PLANE halfway around the world to shoot the missles.
I've heard: The enemy can't mirror their missiles because the laser is powerful enough to blast through any mirror.
Presumably the laser is aimed with mirrors, so how is that inconsistency possible (not to mention bouncing the beam off mirrored satellites).
I've heard: Adaptive optics allows the laser beam to be focused on missiles thousands of miles away.
Adaptive optics are used in telescopes to focus incoherent light, a laser beam is already a highly focused coherent beam and adaptive optics would serve no purpose. Further, adaptive optics can be used to stabilize INCOMING images because the light has already passed through the atmosphere and random atmosphereic effects have already happened, and can therefore be corrected. Adaptive optics cannot be used to stabilize an OUTGOING beam on a target because the random atmospheric effects are in the future and are thereby unknown.
I've heard: All this was studied years ago and mirroring a missile makes no difference.
Half right - it was studied decades ago and mirroring, spin rate, and even color of the missile made huge differences.
The list goes on.
Here are my thoughts about this story.
The amount of power needed to fire a pulse laser at a missle and destroy it is enormous. That makes these planes a one-shot deal. There is no way to get the power into the plane for more than one shot. Even a nuclear power plant would not be able to recharge the lasers in seconds. So the way for an enemy to neutralize this multi-billion dollar plane is to simply fire two or three missles.
If it is to be used as an anti-missile weapon the military is once again fighting the last war with this weapon. It might have been effective when one scud at a time was fired at Isreal in the first Gulf War. However, with this one-shot plane around the days of missiles being fired one at a time are probably over. If stationed over a major city it might be useful against a hijacked plane, but again it would be easily be defeated by the low-tech solution of hijacking two planes.
I believe that this story was fed to the press as classic military deception. The plane makes little sense as an anti-missle plane, but it is a perfect anti-satellite weapon. Think about it - no atmosphere to interfere with the beam, no simultaneous targets, days instead of seconds to recharge the laser for the next satellite. Calling it an anti-missile weapon probably allows the military to side step the decades-old ban on anti-satellite weapons.
why SHOULD an employer be expected to subsidize health care? I would prefer to see employers pay wages that allowed employees to make their own health care decisions
First, because that is the way the US healthcare system is set up. Companies provide health insurance for their workers here, while in other parts of the world companies provide taxes to governments that provide health insurance to the entire population. When a company like Wal-Mart doesn't provide health insurance for its employees and causes them to get public assistance for healthcare it is trying to have its cake and eat it too by paying neither for healthcare directly nor any additional taxes for government-sponsored healthcare.
if my employer would just give me as salary the money they pay for my health insurance I could go out and get a more appropriate level of coverage for my family.
No you couldn't. Companies get a hefty break on the price of coverage from insurance companies and have bargaining power you would lack as an individual. They also write it off as a business expense (which you can't) and so get even more bang for their buck. I recently went from a company-supplied insurance program where I and my company paid about $2000/year combined with a miniscule deductable to buying my own health insurance where I now pay $5,000/year with a $5,000 deductable and get about half the coverage.
Did you try putting fish in your dam to eat the mosquitos?
It would probably be more effective to put fish in the lake.
Ridiculous to the informed, yes. Unfortunately, however, rather functional on the uninformed.
Unfortunately the trend has gotten worse in the past six years with the administration that "makes our own reality". Onerous and dreadful laws are usually given high sounding names for two reasons: 1. They make great sound bites on Fox News, and 2. for political reasons it makes it difficult for opponents to vote against them (they will hear they voted against clear skies, or education).
Recent examples:
USA Patriot Act - Who would vote against patriotism. It should have been called the Domestic Surveillance Act.
No Child Left Behind - who wants to leave children behind? Should have been called the Federal National Student Testing Act.
Clear Skies Initiative - who in the world would be against clear skies? Should have been called the New Source Review Cancellation Act, the EPA Nullification Act, or the Save My Business Buddies a Ton of Money Act.
I'd encourage everyone to actually read the article. Of course, if you think nothing should ever be secret and think this is part of another conservative/Republican plot, then you probably won't agree with any reasoning for keeping such critical meetings secret, and/or not having to wait 15 days to hold such meetings.
Stated another way: "Everything I have said is correct and if you have any other opinions they are clearly false and due to your biases, and you are aiding America's enemies by having an opinion different than mine." Let me guess, you're a Republican.
Neither are car manufacturers held responsible for the fact that their products are advertised in a fashion that may encourage irresponsible and unlawful behaviour in a certain segment of community.
Not true. Have you never seen the warnings: "Professional driver on closed course, do not try this yourself"? Those warning are there because the car manufacturers WOULD be held responsible if they advertised their cars being driven in an irresponsible manner. Neither do you see car advertisements for the "best drag-racer sold" for the same reason. It is the same with the tobacco companies' advertisements that were aimed at children. They got in a lot of trouble for those, paid huge fines, and WERE held responsible for their advertising.
Essentialy it's to stop them from being tried for non-registration in addition to possession of an illegal firearm.
No, its because the law violated the constitutional protection against self-incrimination.
McDonalds has for years advertised they have served "millions" and later "billions" of people. Interestingly, they never spent the time to figure out that some of those billions served were sometimes the same people going back for more
God, it was millions and then billions of burgers served to people, not billions of people served burgers. Sometimes I really have to wonder about people on slashdot.
A machine won't get spooked by gunfire
a machine won't start making mating calls that alert the enemy to your position
a machine won't take massive shits that a tracking dog could smell
a machine doesn't die if it gets thirsty - you can go get more fuel and come back to it a week later or a month later.
Well, why animals are better than THIS robot is that it can't even negotiate itself over a 4 inch curb. RTFA!
A machine won't get spooked by gunfire
a machine won't start making mating calls that alert the enemy to your position
a machine won't take massive shits that a tracking dog could smell
a machine doesn't die if it gets thirsty - you can go get more fuel and come back to it a week later or a month later.
Juat to be contarian...
a mule will go places a machine can''t (ex, mules used by allies in WWII jungle campaigns)
machine tracks are suspicious, animal tracks aren't
ten people in the distance with pack animals look like local traders, with robots they look like targets
when things get bad you can't eat your robots
animals can go for days without food, robots only for hours without fuel
a machine will cost $500,000 if I know our gov't, a mule only a couple of hundred
mules are already local and having one does not attract artillery
Heavily modified? You call that heavily modified?
Do I call swapping pistons, drilling and tapping the block, and writing custom programming for a new engine CPU "heavy modification"? Well... yes, I do.
Replacing the plugs on my MBZ is a serious bitch, because they're down relatively low, behind the fuel injection manifold, and you can't get a socket on any of 'em. Well, maybe a couple, but you'd need a semi-deep socket, a deep one would be too long.
I don't see how this is in any way relevant to your belief that one can run a diesel engine on E95. It is clear to me that ADM took four engines that STARTED LIFE as diesels and converted the hell out of them to make them ethanol engines.
There is a really easy way to test your contention that diesel engines will run on E95. Fill your tank up with E95 next time. Be sure and let us know how far you get.
The ethanol engines were of the same DDC design as the diesel engine used for comparison. However, the engines were modified so they could run on E95: DDC changed the electronic control system, enlarged the holes in the fuel injectors, added a glow plug to assist ignition during cold starts, and increased the compression ratio (from 18:1 for diesel to 23:1 for E95).
Well, I think I do know what I am talking about. These FOUR prototype engines may have started life as diesel blocks, but they were then heavily modified to run on ethanol. Just because someone modified a grand total of four diesel engines to run on E95 does not mean that there are any other that will not self-destruct on it. If you put E95 in any diesel engine other than these four specially modified engines you won't get five miles, so the comment that E95 is available for diesel engines is absurd. If you put enough money into it you can get a pig to fly, but it still isn't a bird.
They ran for 325,000 miles? Big deal. Normal diesels typicaly run that kind of mileage and more before overhauls. My diesel truck has 165,000 and it is just getting broken in. If I put E95 in the tank it would be just plain broken.
Do you honestly think the government does a decent job at these tasks? They really excelled at defending us on 9/11.
They did a pretty good job in WWII.
The corrupt police regularly harass people on the streets who've done nothing wrong (just watch cops) and our court system is a real hoot.
Not the best situation true, but better than NO police. Think of the hassles you would get on the street then.
People wouldn't voluntarily give their hard earned cash to an organization that wastes 90% of it and sucks horribly at even the basic things it's supposed to provide
You exagerate. I don't believe a 90% waste rate. My local government does a pretty good job of collecting the garbage, suppying me with water and sewers, providing fire protection and police services, and maintaining the roads. I'd hate to think how much it would cost me to build my own interstate to my own airport.
I'm able to get Palm from a manufacturing plant that's loaded with nickel particles which I filter and burn straight...It takes 1 gallon of methanol to make 4-5 gallons of Biodiesel. According to your math, I can buy methanol for $1.00 to $1.25 a gallon. Please let me know where this source is.
First a disclaimer: my knowledge of making biodiesel is theoretical - I've never made a gallon, although I have considered it. Isn't it true that you can recover and re-use a lot of the process methanol? This reduces the cost of methanol per gallon of fuel by quite a bit.
Second, I am very concerned about your use of oil that has nickel in it. Nickel is a known human carcinogen that is now apparently pouring out of your tailpipe. Your supplier is violating some very serious environmental laws by selling it to you to use as fuel because it is a strictly regulated hazardous waste because of the nickel. And before you say it, yes they ARE supposed to check to see what you are using it for before they sell it to you. There are also strict record-keeping and reporting rules about the disposal of this oil which they are apparently violating as well. Beware - if they get caught you could be swept up with them.
Fuel taxes are (supposedly) for the roads and any road vehicle should be paying them.
Not the way the law is written. Fuel taxes are *sales* taxes, and since homemade biodiesel for personal use is not sold there are no taxes on it.
Sales tax is imposed on fuel sold for road-use (non-farm). Sales tax is not imposed on farm-use fuel. Sales tax is not imposed on fuel that is never sold (road or farm).
Those numbers are bullshit...the Diesel and Gas numbers are obvious BS too. No one would ever make gasoline or diesel if it took more fossil fuel to produce than it yielded. It just wouldn't be worth it.
You obviously haven't thought much about this. Here is a quote from the original "bullshit" article: "Petroleum diesel's life cycle yields only 0.83 units of fuel energy per unit of fossil energy consumed."
You used this information to reach the incorrect conclusion that no one would ever do that because there would be no profit, and therefore the numbers have to be wrong. You are confusing efficiency and profit. Even though it takes more energy to get that gallon of fuel in your car than the gallon produces, you PAY more for it than it cost the oil company to get it there. Oil field to refinery to gas station to car is a very inefficent fuel delivery system, but it is a VERY efficient profit-making system.
Before you go shouting "bullshit" next time you should think about the problem more thoroughly.
"And I hear there's an E95 for diesels, which has 5% gasoline in it."
Noooo, putting any gasoline through a diesel engine is a big no no! I think you are confusing E95 with B95, which is a blend of 95% bio-diesel and 5% petro-diesel. B95 has no gasoline or ethanol!
Most biodiesel bought at retail stations is B20 (20% biodiesel) although it is possible to find B100. Willie Nelson's new biodiesel fuel Willie Diesel (I kid you not) is B20.
The main advantage of using B20 is that it greatly reduce exhaust emissions over 100%petro-diesel. B100 adds the benefit of eliminating mid-eastern oil dependence. My diesel auto runs B100 and it is a great feeling to know that not one penny of my fuel cost goes to the Saudi royal family or Exxon. On the downside, B100 costs about $0.35 more per gallon than petro-diesel and provides slighty worse fuel mileage. To me the trade-off is well worth it.
For one thing, [google] can be used as a verb, which doesn't work for "go altavista it".
Altavista is just as "verbish" as Google - it just doesn't roll off the tongue as smoothly. Anyway, "AV it" could have been just as catchy a pop term as "Google it".
Except that [Altavista] at some point they sold out or went commercial and sacrificed the simple looks of the result pages for banner ads and payed results and whatnot, something that Google is very careful about. To this day, Google's result pages are very simple and clean, the ads are unobtrusive text ads, and there is no injection of payed results because the ads themselves are that and are clearly delimited.
I agree. I remember switching to Google from Altavista (and another engine of the day I now cannot even remember) simply BECAUSE of the lack of ads. Google's searches at the time were not much better nor much faster than the competition. The clean interface was like cool water compared to the flashing banner ads and other distracting drek of the day. What you may have forgotten is that Google actually considered going to banner ads at one point. They once posted a survey on the main page to ask users what they thought about the idea. I gather the response was very anti-banner.
I think Google's initial success was more a result of the simple, clean interface than technical superiority. Microsoft will NEVER forgo the ad revenue and do the same, so any minor technical superiority will be of limited draw to most people. Even if Microsoft has a somewhat better engine it won't be better for long, and defections from Google will be minimal and short-lived.
If the person actually worked for Diebold, I'd be more prone to say don't prosecute, but since he was working at a lawfirm, he broke attorney-client privilege, which is a very serious offense.
No, on two counts. Since he is not a lawyer he cannot break the attorney-client privilege. The ATTORNEYS at the law firm did that when they left privileged information where anyone could see it. Anyway, breaking attorney-client privilege isn't a crime - it's merely unethical and/or incompetent. He should be fired, yes, for breaking his confidentiality agreement with the law firm, but not prosecuted.
Another view is that the law firm was engaged in a conspiracy to commit a criminal act with Deibold since it knew of a crime in progress and 1)did not report it to authorities, and 2)particpated in the crime by nevertheless attempting to keep Deibold as a vendor to the state election board - thereby becoming an active participant in commission of an illegal act.
The idea in both situations is to design something that can survive the impact -- not avoid the impact, which is what you did,
They came up with an innovative solution to the problem. You just avoided the problem altogether.
That's YOUR interpretation, and is the point of original post that just because everyone made an incorrect assumption (that it was an impact-absorbing experiment) does not mean that alternative solutions were not just as valid. The parachute designer didn't avoid the problem - he merely solved it in an unexpected way.
Besides, the parachute solution really didn't even violate your definition of the experiment. What difference does it make if he controlled the deceleration of the egg in the first meter of the drop rather than in the last few cm like everyone else?
Completely off-topic, just to satisfy my curiosity: what were some of the other entries in that egg contest? I've been looking at the rules, and about the only thing I can think of would be a parachute... what other ways are there to get an egg slowly from 15 feet up to the ground?
... and the list goes on.
- drop it into your pocket and carry it down
- drop it into a long sock tube that will slow its rate of descent to the ground
- tie a string to it so when it is dropped it can be lowered to the gtound
- build a tall device and put it under the drop point so the egg hits your device which lowers it gently to the ground
- put an upward-blowing vacuumm cleaner hose under the drop point to support the egg in the air (gets around "no touch" rules) and then carry the vacuum cleaner down to the ground
A solid competitor, or at least the threat of one, might light the fire under ebay, and make *it* a better place.
I agree 100%, but I hope google lights a fire under Paypal more than Ebay. I get Paypal "policy updates" frequently and they almost always take away some protection for users or increase the protecton of Paypal's profits. I once had a vendor overcharge me $24 on Paypal and after six months of Paypal's investigation they finally agreed that it had been a mistake... and refunded me a whopping $0.01
I still use Paypal, but only because there are often no real alternatives to online paying. A lot of people would like to say bye-bye to Paypal and I think Google knows this. After google.ch, Google.com can no longer claim to be the "do no evil" company, but competition for Ebay and Paypal can only improve the situation for everyone.
"They recently started airing them in my country, ...[they] leave me in a state of confusion as soon as the show resumes because by then I'll have forgotten some of the subtle stuff that happened because I was distracted by the commercials, and I'll need a couple of minutes to get back into the show."
Whatever country you're in, you clearly have a lot to learn. You don't actually think you're supposed to WATCH the things, do you?