When the first decent mass produced netbook -running ARM- hits the status of "blisterpack computer hanging near the checkout @ $99.95".. right next to the prepaid cellphones..I think the sales will be a lot better than "nothing other" and there will be browsers and media players and chat clients and wifi and so on, on it. Who knows, I could see a combo package, the netbook AND a cellphone in the same blisterpack.
And people will not care if it isn't microsoft, or x86, just like they don't care much today with cheaper phones. If it does some basic expected things, that's all it needs. They will sell millions of those machines. Browse, watch vids or listen to tunes, do some email, do some messaging...they'll sell. Nailing that C note is a huge marketing psychological advantage, first company there with something that doesn't suck and is "good enough" will get "*rich*. At 3-5 hundred bucks like they are today, nope, just little laptops with no DVD drive, they sell good enough, but... when netbooks crack $100...license to print money almost. More apps and developer interest will follow shortly.
That's we should hold a lot of these transnational corporations (including the defense industry) and various politicians to a strict standard. Remember Clinton and Loral? Forget BJs and lying to grand juries and on TV to the American public, that's chump change, that missile transfer tech was some serious treasonous action right there that just got ignored. And our supposed big "ally" in the middle east, the nation that we cannot criticize or be labled racist, guilty of "hate speech" or something, got caught trying to sell air to air tech they got from us to the same "manufacturer to the world". In their case it wasn't treason, just espionage and fraud. Again..nothing happens. The USS Liberty attack, covered up for years and lied about at the highest levels, an overt act of *war*...and nothing happens. The big lie about the tonkin gulf nam attacks...nothing happens to the perps. Some of that stuff isn't leaks, it is just either coverups of what should be leaked, or downright lies concocted and pushed for an agenda that wouldn't be "popular" without the lies.
And talk about high level corruption... I never did comment here about that skunk McNamara....rotting in hell is too good for him. The epitome of corporate blood profits hiding inside official policy. At least LBJ and Nixon are gone, too bad that war criminal Kissinger is still kicking. Why any civilized nation would let that blood drenched ghoul cross their borders is beyond me. That man is responsible for any number of massacres/wars/murders and other sorts of geopolitical rankness, and *he's still doing it*, still meddling, big politicians still listening to him.
Some leaks are good though, and necessary for maintenance of a free Republic. They are last ditch efforts by someone who is aware of "clear and present danger" when all else has failed to affect honesty and following the law in whatever bailiwick this person is working in, and usually the leakers are anything but traitors, they can be overwhelming patriots helping to expose the real bad guys and bad stuff. They can help expose government lies and corruption, when the official channels (all the way to *the very top*) are themselves completely corrupt, making any other effort doomed to failure.
Here's a prime example. This leak was a *really big deal* for my boomer generation and certainly did some good, long range/historically speaking.
Well, that's your opinion and you are welcome to it, I just am of a differing opinion. He bought the windchargers, bunches of them, big ones, so it was both. Water was a huge part of it, and the first part of it, that I will grant readily, but the plan itself evolved.
And I've driven across Texas a few times..I think they have more than enough land for *both* a lot of windchargers and solar thermal farms! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
And either way, if you are talking electricity, you'd *still* need the right of ways to build new transmission towers and powerlines, wind or solar thermal or any other method, so that's a complete wash and a non issue. The windchargers are built or being built, they got contracted for and paid, they are going to go in someplace, either the Texans will get the juice or someone else will. Wind in large enough numbers and over a decent enough area can provide base load enough power, it's used all over now and is still, for the last buncha years running, the fastest method of new plants going in outside of the chinese coal burning plants (they are doing one new one per week average, that's why I think leaving them out of environmental treaties is lame and disingenuous and why even though I am pretty green I did not support Kyoto and I do not support the dems/obama "cap and trade" swindle stealth tax. the atmosphere has no boundaries).
And theoretically speaking, wind verus solar thermal,if a few or even few dozen of your 1-2 megawatt windchargers go down in your large farm of hundreds or thousands across many states, or the wind is not blowing there right now, no biggee, it's just not that much of a huge loss all things considered, but your 300 megawatt solar thermal plant, if that goes down..some huge city is sitting sweating in the dark, maybe for a long time.
Something to be said for *more points of production*.
All the various methods have benefits and tradeoffs and are part of the big energy mix we have. I want to get away from the "all or most of your eggs in one basket" approach we have been using. I like the "all of the above" method instead.
I have nothing against solar thermal. I like all forms of alternative energy and unlike 99% of all the slashdotters here who comment on energy topics I own both a solar PV rig and a windcharger. I just liked his plan because it was a credible quadruple play, one better than a hat trick. Yep, he stood to make a lot of money..all big energy (and water) projects when they are successful (built and running) make a lot of money. Because the world has an insatiable demand for more and more power and more and more water, to more and more places.
Personally I am in favor of a lot more smaller individual projects and a big decentralization effort (and re purpose a lot of closed rust belt factories to do this and put a lot of blue collar guys back to work), but I also recognize the need for centralized power delivery to provide juice for the cities primarily. The rural areas and suburbs could be well served with mass adoption of solar PV in a large number of areas for example, then no new big "plants" or new towers would be needed at all. And a *ton* of family farms could be doing some base model A large windcharger, provide all their own power most of the time plus sell any surplus. When and if I see a smallish home owner styled solar thermal rig (beyond a water heater into electricity production as part of the package, or just ground loop geothermal), I'd endorse that as well. I've seen several one-off prototypes, but nothing else. Might exist but I haven't seen it.
I like big power projects, mediums and small, all of the above. And I *really* endorse the idea of a huge national water pipeline grid, to move water around from where it is in excess to where it is in deficit. A lot of pipelines and hundreds of new deep reservoirs. *Really*, as in a big huge national "we need this yesterday" infrastructure project. Linking up already existing pipelines could help, then y
I'll check it out (at the library), I love doomsday books for some reason. I can't recall now but maybe I read it like years ago. I'll see when I get to the library, read the first page then I'll remember if I read it or not.
Ya, it's a worry. I was reading about this DIY biology at home and got to thinking, this might be a cause for concern. I have mixed feelings about the whole gene swapping around business anyway, nutjobs doing it or not, seems to be some potential for some major "whoops!" action there, bad intentioned or good intentioned.. There's been some spectacular "whoopsies! We thought that radioactive asbestos based insecticide was safe! Our bad...." with every other advanced tech....that means it is going to happen eventually with biotech and recombination. Going to be more weaponized stuff, and then just unintended consequences with "accidents", both.
It makes me antsy. There are too many crazies out there that hate their own species so much (or all the "useless eater" populations that are "beneath" their exalted elite status) they might just think this is some sort of solution, and also what I mentioned previously about state or group attacks.
One possibility I have seen mentioned is "race specific" plagues. No idea if that is possible at this point, but suppose some megalomaniac "fearless prime king president general minister leader in chief" like kim ill dung decides to off all non asiatics as a good first step? Along those lines.
I am more concerned over biological attacks. There's a possibility now, what with the fast advances in this tech, that some group/state even a deranged individual could unleash something quite bad. And if they can construct such a virus or bacteria in advance, perhaps they could also construct any vaccine or treatment needed so they wouldn't worry about getting infected themselves. Or even worse, some nutjob who just hated everyone just might not care, a suicide attack.
An attack could pass as "natural" for maybe a long time, giving the attacker immunity from detection and a modicum of plausible deniability even if suspected. We can tell where a missile is launched from, and I am guessing but I would think normal telemetry that would be garnered would give an indication of what make/model missile, giving a clue as to origin, even with a suddeen underwater sea launch. But how to tell where a biological really came from if all of a sudden it just "appears" someplace and starts to spread, or who was responsible for any retaliation strikes, or even if it is a "natural mutation" or man made?
Anyone working with recombination techniques care to respond? Is this a possible scenario, or still mostly just scary science fiction?
...and I don't use it anymore either. It's just not needed. Grew up with it, all school papers and tests (and penmanship was part of the grade always) and snail mail letters in cursive, but since around the mid 90s or so, with having a decent enough machine with a printer, I can't recall actually writing anything long and involved in cursive, and before that going back to the 70s, most everything I wrote longer than a thankyou note was typed on a manual typewriter anyway. Not all, but most. I can still do it of course, and it remains legible..but I would agree, it's going the way of the dodo. It is faster for me than block writing though, by a considerable degree.
I can't really say if this is overall good or bad, it's a learned skill, but I can't see it as being terribly useful for much longer outside of treating it more like art than a day to day necessity. Electronic communications has been a huge game changer.
I think you can see something similar with languages and immigration. Folks from nation A move to B, they struggle to learn the new language, and even if they do, retain an obvious foreign accent forever. By the second generation, the new language is prominent, but the old language is still understood at home with the family. By the third generation it is mostly gone except for a few words and phrases. Significant change doesn't take very long.
Which part don't you understand? I'll clarify again.
He has water that is needed or will be needed, plus he invested in a large wind project for electricity, which is or will be needed as well. He doesn't own all the pieces for this project, but enough for a good start, and the plan itself makes several logical points. Right of ways are necessary to move these utility products, so of course the government would need to establish these routes, it's the basic way they are done in this nation with centralized delivery systems, which I termed the precedent. I then mentioned, just as a "for instance", that huge sums of money are being used to bailout some dubiously named banks, which I (and many other people) contend are more huge gambling casinos than anything else, and I said if these huge emergency sums were going to be spent anyway, I would much rather see these huge sums spent for national energy and water infrastructure projects, one example being the topic, the "Pickens' Plan", and also more scientific research and development, etc. What isn't clear?
Right of ways. That's the only way these sorts of things can be built. Long well established precedent there. *Of course* the government would need to get involved, and considering they thought casino gambling banking was worth a trillion bucks and still counting.....necessary infrastructure should be worth even more. In fact, if it was me, I'd take that casino bank money we taxpayers all have "invested" in and slap it around at a host of alternative energy and water projects instead.
Choices and priorities, hedged derivatives bets called "products" along with "legal" front running microsecond "trading" or necessary energy and water...man, that's a hard choice to make...not.
Our loot, and our children's and grandchildren's loot, is being spent anyway, by the dumptruck load, with apparently no way around that right now, so I would *much* rather see it going towards various projects like this (I'd take his idea even further, we need a national water "grid" pipeline system to move excess surplus water from some areas over to areas that need water and have chronic deficits), to help them get established, and to more science and medical R and D, etc. I see that as real investment into the future, not propping up the wall street gambling "industry" or such dinosaurs as GM, the king of slapping different sheet metal on the same everything else and calling that "innovation".
He spent buzillions out of pocket to buy the windchargers, some non trivial amount. Yes, the water delivery right of way issue is also involved, but he also has the water that needs delivering some day.
My guess is eventually they will relent when they really *need* the water in those metro regions, and it will just be more expensive then. His was a damn good idea, replace the natgas used for electricity plants with the wind power. The natgas then can be diverted and goes to fuel fleet vehicles, to keep the conversion costs down (all the same model, etc). The natgas is cheaper to run the vehicles on. Oil cash doesn't have to be exported out of the US so it saves on balance of payment issues. win/win/win/win overall.
Ya, he stood to make some serious dollars on the deal, but so effin what?? Where's the beef there, you work for free or don't expect a return on a lot of investment? Bigass huge projects that succeed *tend to make some bigass dollars*. That's just reality, no different from anything else like that in our world.
He's an old guy, been in the energy biz for a long time, and I saw his plan as something he really thought about, came up with a two birds with one stone deal that would work, FOUR birds really, and he wanted it for a legacy contribution as well. The latter is a guess but bet I am right on that one.
Any random young guy can be scary smart, but it takes an older guy who started out scary smart to see all the angles, because you only get that with a ton of real world experience.
He really does not "need" the money at his level and age. Like Gates going off developing medicine action for africa, something to do while you are already rich, and it is in his level of proven expertise.
As to the water, the southwest is in for real long term drought according to the bulk of the climate guessers, while at the same time demands keep going up. We WILL be building more water transfer pipelines, either now while it is cheaper, or later on when it is way more expensive. No "ifs" about it at all, it is GOING to happen because it needs to happen.
Running the new water pipelines from the same areas roughly where the new electricity (which we will also be needing shortly) will be coming from on the same right of way *made sense*. Doing it in two different right of ways at two different times when they start and stop at the same places roughly is way stupid and short sighted.
Way stupid, and way shortsighted. Those boneheads jumped the shark by not doing it all now while materials are cheaper and there's a glut of non working unemployed construction labor out there. They got handed an incredible deal and blew it!
I give the dude props, he has a logical and well thought out long view, not that lame "this quarter" view or "this election cycle" view that most businesses and politicians have and that we all suffer from constantly.
Yes, you can get prepaid here. Phones are $20 to $100, minutes are between $.08-15. Network protocol varies by carrier, there's a mix. Not all carriers serve all areas equally, so you have to chose by where you will be using it the most. SMS I don't use so haven't paid attention to the costs, I think from what I hear though they are mostly a ripoff price, like ten cents apiece or something nasty like that with prepaid.
They are getting close now to maximum size because of materials science limitations (cost/benefit), and also because of the transportation limits mentioned in the article. Much larger ones could be built directly adjacent to a seaport dock then barged to a direct sea or coastal installation point, but once you have to transport them on land, it gets iffy. Notice the shuttle has to be flown back piggyback when it has to land at edwards-there's simply no reasonable way to move the thing on land, just too big.
Now there's some HUGEMONGOUS mining equipment out there, but it doesn't travel on the roads, and even to transport the things (excavators, dump trucks, crawlers, etc) they have to be partially disassembled and then reassembled on site and they use rail transport as much as they can to get to the site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komatsu_D575 (we have two impressive big crawlers here on the farm, serious big oak pushing around brutes, smaller than this bad boy though, one is 114 tons and the other one I don't know, looks to be a scosh bigger)
and I always liked this one, I wanted one as soon as I heard about it when I was a kid;)
That's a new one on me. I do know old datsuns (I have one now) use hydraulic clutches though, and that reservoir uses brake fluid, but it isn't attached to the brake master cylinder at all, totally separate.
Browsers for mobile devices are the fastest growing segment of that "market" and Opera is doing quite well there. And a lot of people jump through hoops to replace whatever crappy browser came with their mobile device with opera mini now, just because it works. And that is one of the main points of the article as well about why they needed more servers..
Those were the things I was interested in, plus the original idea of a built in biodrive power supply, the crank. I have several different freeplay/bayless radios and they are spiffy. I sure would like one, and at 100 bucks, the original target price. . I'll hold out until it gets closer. Those new arm based netbooks will be coming out soon, but I doubt any of them will have that sunlight readable screen or a windup auxiliary power supply. I was thinking of cannibalizing one of the spring/windup radios and having a DC out put jack for the thing. They last (roughly, pretty close) 30 minutes on 60 cranks. Just for a hoot, and because the power goes out here all the time. Now I just use battery lamps and an inverter and a big marine battery, but I'd like the crank for a little emergency and fun laptop, and for outside use. The *screen* like you say though is the biggee, I've never seen any electronic screen IRL that was worth a hoot in bright sunshine. Supposedly the lady inventor who came up with the OLPC screen left and formed her own company, but then I never heard whatever became of any projects with this tech she might have had. I am not aware of any major laptop manufacturer using her screens. Wonder why not? I know those kindles, etc have a viewable in bright light screen, but don't know if any "real" laptops have them yet. They might, I just haven't heard of any.
I guess you missed that part where *members of his own party* voted overwhelmingly to oust him, THEY didn't approve of what he was doing. Also the judges said what he was trying to do was illegal, and etc.
The last thing any of those nations down there is yet another el jefe for life, they've had and still have in some situations enough of those sort of gents.
So nope, if these are the facts as reported so far, I don't think he needs any support, other than perhaps a good lawyer talking to him in his jail cell back home.
Other than that, I got no dog in this fight, I am a neoisolationist practically when it comes to these sort of things. It's up to those folks to sort their own problems out, and since they got rid of the last military dictatorship they have been pleased with having some more rational and fair government, and they purposefully put in those provisions for ONE term precisely to keep it that way, no if's, and's or but's about it. He was trying to change that, and the bulk of the government there agreed, saw that this was blatantly just wrong, so they nipped his little power grab gambit right in the bud.
I have found an article where a constitutional lawyer, who hails from Honduras, explains what happened and why it happened. My best guess analysis mirrors just about exactly what he is saying. There is fault on both sides, but their constitution clearly states not only is it illegal to try and change the one term limit, but it is a crime to even propose it! I didn't know that part.
His own political party, who control the legislature there, voted overwhelmingly for his ouster. Their attorney general ordered the referendum halted, but he was trying to go ahead with it anyway, just by calling it "an opinion poll", just some weasel words. By their law, he shouldn't have been deported (that's the only thing they did technically illegal), but immediately should have been jailed, but they decided it was better to break that one law to avoid mass bloodshed. They estimated if he was still in-country, there just would have been a big bloody mess, and they didn't want that, the rock and the hard place scenario, or what I called picking the lesser of two suckages.
They avoided more serious bloodshed the way they did it. If this is a true fact, and he had remained "in power", he would have beern still able to order around a lot of the military forces who were loyal to him, plus cause mass demonstrations, etc and be able to coordinate it better. Because there is no way he would have gone along with getting impeached.
Even on the surface it was a blatant power grab by him, the entire issue was designed to turn him into el presidente for life. The congress there and the judges ALREADY had told him this wasn't proper nor legal, but he was going aherad with this "vote" scam regardless. So what makes you think he would have gone along with an impeachment? They were under the gun of making a time critical decision, and didn't off the guy or anything, just got him out before the situation got worse. If they hadn't already warned him about it that would be different, but they did warn him before the fact.
Ya, two sucky choices, but I think they chose the lesser of two suckages there.
But all of this is based on "if" and we just don't know the veracity of this latest revelation, but we do know about the power grab he was attempting, sort of like chavez making himself the president (basically and practically)for life "legally".
Term limits are a dang spiffy idea when it comes to politicians, no matter how popular they are, and changing the rules, like he wanted to do with this plebiscite, at the last second, is a serious mistake and transparently was just an effort to accrue more power under some umbrella of it legally happening. The people there had a right wing dictatorship like forever, and a lot of them could plainly see a left wing version now happening, and they just went "no you don't!".
That's how I have read these ongoing events anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
When the first decent mass produced netbook -running ARM- hits the status of "blisterpack computer hanging near the checkout @ $99.95".. right next to the prepaid cellphones..I think the sales will be a lot better than "nothing other" and there will be browsers and media players and chat clients and wifi and so on, on it. Who knows, I could see a combo package, the netbook AND a cellphone in the same blisterpack.
And people will not care if it isn't microsoft, or x86, just like they don't care much today with cheaper phones. If it does some basic expected things, that's all it needs. They will sell millions of those machines. Browse, watch vids or listen to tunes, do some email, do some messaging...they'll sell. Nailing that C note is a huge marketing psychological advantage, first company there with something that doesn't suck and is "good enough" will get "*rich*. At 3-5 hundred bucks like they are today, nope, just little laptops with no DVD drive, they sell good enough, but... when netbooks crack $100...license to print money almost. More apps and developer interest will follow shortly.
I had missed that connection, good memory there!
MUAHAHAHAHAHA! hehehehehe good one, man!
That's we should hold a lot of these transnational corporations (including the defense industry) and various politicians to a strict standard. Remember Clinton and Loral? Forget BJs and lying to grand juries and on TV to the American public, that's chump change, that missile transfer tech was some serious treasonous action right there that just got ignored. And our supposed big "ally" in the middle east, the nation that we cannot criticize or be labled racist, guilty of "hate speech" or something, got caught trying to sell air to air tech they got from us to the same "manufacturer to the world". In their case it wasn't treason, just espionage and fraud. Again..nothing happens. The USS Liberty attack, covered up for years and lied about at the highest levels, an overt act of *war*. ..and nothing happens. The big lie about the tonkin gulf nam attacks...nothing happens to the perps. Some of that stuff isn't leaks, it is just either coverups of what should be leaked, or downright lies concocted and pushed for an agenda that wouldn't be "popular" without the lies.
And talk about high level corruption... I never did comment here about that skunk McNamara....rotting in hell is too good for him. The epitome of corporate blood profits hiding inside official policy. At least LBJ and Nixon are gone, too bad that war criminal Kissinger is still kicking. Why any civilized nation would let that blood drenched ghoul cross their borders is beyond me. That man is responsible for any number of massacres/wars/murders and other sorts of geopolitical rankness, and *he's still doing it*, still meddling, big politicians still listening to him.
Some leaks are good though, and necessary for maintenance of a free Republic. They are last ditch efforts by someone who is aware of "clear and present danger" when all else has failed to affect honesty and following the law in whatever bailiwick this person is working in, and usually the leakers are anything but traitors, they can be overwhelming patriots helping to expose the real bad guys and bad stuff. They can help expose government lies and corruption, when the official channels (all the way to *the very top*) are themselves completely corrupt, making any other effort doomed to failure.
Here's a prime example. This leak was a *really big deal* for my boomer generation and certainly did some good, long range/historically speaking.
Well, that's your opinion and you are welcome to it, I just am of a differing opinion. He bought the windchargers, bunches of them, big ones, so it was both. Water was a huge part of it, and the first part of it, that I will grant readily, but the plan itself evolved.
And I've driven across Texas a few times..I think they have more than enough land for *both* a lot of windchargers and solar thermal farms! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
And either way, if you are talking electricity, you'd *still* need the right of ways to build new transmission towers and powerlines, wind or solar thermal or any other method, so that's a complete wash and a non issue. The windchargers are built or being built, they got contracted for and paid, they are going to go in someplace, either the Texans will get the juice or someone else will. Wind in large enough numbers and over a decent enough area can provide base load enough power, it's used all over now and is still, for the last buncha years running, the fastest method of new plants going in outside of the chinese coal burning plants (they are doing one new one per week average, that's why I think leaving them out of environmental treaties is lame and disingenuous and why even though I am pretty green I did not support Kyoto and I do not support the dems/obama "cap and trade" swindle stealth tax. the atmosphere has no boundaries).
And theoretically speaking, wind verus solar thermal,if a few or even few dozen of your 1-2 megawatt windchargers go down in your large farm of hundreds or thousands across many states, or the wind is not blowing there right now, no biggee, it's just not that much of a huge loss all things considered, but your 300 megawatt solar thermal plant, if that goes down..some huge city is sitting sweating in the dark, maybe for a long time.
Something to be said for *more points of production*.
All the various methods have benefits and tradeoffs and are part of the big energy mix we have. I want to get away from the "all or most of your eggs in one basket" approach we have been using. I like the "all of the above" method instead.
I have nothing against solar thermal. I like all forms of alternative energy and unlike 99% of all the slashdotters here who comment on energy topics I own both a solar PV rig and a windcharger. I just liked his plan because it was a credible quadruple play, one better than a hat trick. Yep, he stood to make a lot of money..all big energy (and water) projects when they are successful (built and running) make a lot of money. Because the world has an insatiable demand for more and more power and more and more water, to more and more places.
Personally I am in favor of a lot more smaller individual projects and a big decentralization effort (and re purpose a lot of closed rust belt factories to do this and put a lot of blue collar guys back to work), but I also recognize the need for centralized power delivery to provide juice for the cities primarily. The rural areas and suburbs could be well served with mass adoption of solar PV in a large number of areas for example, then no new big "plants" or new towers would be needed at all. And a *ton* of family farms could be doing some base model A large windcharger, provide all their own power most of the time plus sell any surplus. When and if I see a smallish home owner styled solar thermal rig (beyond a water heater into electricity production as part of the package, or just ground loop geothermal), I'd endorse that as well. I've seen several one-off prototypes, but nothing else. Might exist but I haven't seen it.
I like big power projects, mediums and small, all of the above. And I *really* endorse the idea of a huge national water pipeline grid, to move water around from where it is in excess to where it is in deficit. A lot of pipelines and hundreds of new deep reservoirs. *Really*, as in a big huge national "we need this yesterday" infrastructure project. Linking up already existing pipelines could help, then y
I'll check it out (at the library), I love doomsday books for some reason. I can't recall now but maybe I read it like years ago. I'll see when I get to the library, read the first page then I'll remember if I read it or not.
Ya, it's a worry. I was reading about this DIY biology at home and got to thinking, this might be a cause for concern. I have mixed feelings about the whole gene swapping around business anyway, nutjobs doing it or not, seems to be some potential for some major "whoops!" action there, bad intentioned or good intentioned.. There's been some spectacular "whoopsies! We thought that radioactive asbestos based insecticide was safe! Our bad...." with every other advanced tech....that means it is going to happen eventually with biotech and recombination. Going to be more weaponized stuff, and then just unintended consequences with "accidents", both.
It makes me antsy. There are too many crazies out there that hate their own species so much (or all the "useless eater" populations that are "beneath" their exalted elite status) they might just think this is some sort of solution, and also what I mentioned previously about state or group attacks.
One possibility I have seen mentioned is "race specific" plagues. No idea if that is possible at this point, but suppose some megalomaniac "fearless prime king president general minister leader in chief" like kim ill dung decides to off all non asiatics as a good first step? Along those lines.
I am more concerned over biological attacks. There's a possibility now, what with the fast advances in this tech, that some group/state even a deranged individual could unleash something quite bad. And if they can construct such a virus or bacteria in advance, perhaps they could also construct any vaccine or treatment needed so they wouldn't worry about getting infected themselves. Or even worse, some nutjob who just hated everyone just might not care, a suicide attack.
An attack could pass as "natural" for maybe a long time, giving the attacker immunity from detection and a modicum of plausible deniability even if suspected. We can tell where a missile is launched from, and I am guessing but I would think normal telemetry that would be garnered would give an indication of what make/model missile, giving a clue as to origin, even with a suddeen underwater sea launch. But how to tell where a biological really came from if all of a sudden it just "appears" someplace and starts to spread, or who was responsible for any retaliation strikes, or even if it is a "natural mutation" or man made?
Anyone working with recombination techniques care to respond? Is this a possible scenario, or still mostly just scary science fiction?
Isn't the point moot anyway at this time? Hasn't his project been canceled for the most part? Are those the facts, or not?
...and I don't use it anymore either. It's just not needed. Grew up with it, all school papers and tests (and penmanship was part of the grade always) and snail mail letters in cursive, but since around the mid 90s or so, with having a decent enough machine with a printer, I can't recall actually writing anything long and involved in cursive, and before that going back to the 70s, most everything I wrote longer than a thankyou note was typed on a manual typewriter anyway. Not all, but most. I can still do it of course, and it remains legible..but I would agree, it's going the way of the dodo. It is faster for me than block writing though, by a considerable degree.
I can't really say if this is overall good or bad, it's a learned skill, but I can't see it as being terribly useful for much longer outside of treating it more like art than a day to day necessity. Electronic communications has been a huge game changer.
I think you can see something similar with languages and immigration. Folks from nation A move to B, they struggle to learn the new language, and even if they do, retain an obvious foreign accent forever. By the second generation, the new language is prominent, but the old language is still understood at home with the family. By the third generation it is mostly gone except for a few words and phrases. Significant change doesn't take very long.
I'll ignore the smarmy insult...
Which part don't you understand? I'll clarify again.
He has water that is needed or will be needed, plus he invested in a large wind project for electricity, which is or will be needed as well. He doesn't own all the pieces for this project, but enough for a good start, and the plan itself makes several logical points. Right of ways are necessary to move these utility products, so of course the government would need to establish these routes, it's the basic way they are done in this nation with centralized delivery systems, which I termed the precedent. I then mentioned, just as a "for instance", that huge sums of money are being used to bailout some dubiously named banks, which I (and many other people) contend are more huge gambling casinos than anything else, and I said if these huge emergency sums were going to be spent anyway, I would much rather see these huge sums spent for national energy and water infrastructure projects, one example being the topic, the "Pickens' Plan", and also more scientific research and development, etc. What isn't clear?
Right of ways. That's the only way these sorts of things can be built. Long well established precedent there. *Of course* the government would need to get involved, and considering they thought casino gambling banking was worth a trillion bucks and still counting.....necessary infrastructure should be worth even more. In fact, if it was me, I'd take that casino bank money we taxpayers all have "invested" in and slap it around at a host of alternative energy and water projects instead.
Choices and priorities, hedged derivatives bets called "products" along with "legal" front running microsecond "trading" or necessary energy and water...man, that's a hard choice to make...not.
Our loot, and our children's and grandchildren's loot, is being spent anyway, by the dumptruck load, with apparently no way around that right now, so I would *much* rather see it going towards various projects like this (I'd take his idea even further, we need a national water "grid" pipeline system to move excess surplus water from some areas over to areas that need water and have chronic deficits), to help them get established, and to more science and medical R and D, etc. I see that as real investment into the future, not propping up the wall street gambling "industry" or such dinosaurs as GM, the king of slapping different sheet metal on the same everything else and calling that "innovation".
He spent buzillions out of pocket to buy the windchargers, some non trivial amount. Yes, the water delivery right of way issue is also involved, but he also has the water that needs delivering some day.
My guess is eventually they will relent when they really *need* the water in those metro regions, and it will just be more expensive then. His was a damn good idea, replace the natgas used for electricity plants with the wind power. The natgas then can be diverted and goes to fuel fleet vehicles, to keep the conversion costs down (all the same model, etc). The natgas is cheaper to run the vehicles on. Oil cash doesn't have to be exported out of the US so it saves on balance of payment issues. win/win/win/win overall.
Ya, he stood to make some serious dollars on the deal, but so effin what?? Where's the beef there, you work for free or don't expect a return on a lot of investment? Bigass huge projects that succeed *tend to make some bigass dollars*. That's just reality, no different from anything else like that in our world.
He's an old guy, been in the energy biz for a long time, and I saw his plan as something he really thought about, came up with a two birds with one stone deal that would work, FOUR birds really, and he wanted it for a legacy contribution as well. The latter is a guess but bet I am right on that one.
Any random young guy can be scary smart, but it takes an older guy who started out scary smart to see all the angles, because you only get that with a ton of real world experience.
He really does not "need" the money at his level and age. Like Gates going off developing medicine action for africa, something to do while you are already rich, and it is in his level of proven expertise.
As to the water, the southwest is in for real long term drought according to the bulk of the climate guessers, while at the same time demands keep going up. We WILL be building more water transfer pipelines, either now while it is cheaper, or later on when it is way more expensive. No "ifs" about it at all, it is GOING to happen because it needs to happen.
Running the new water pipelines from the same areas roughly where the new electricity (which we will also be needing shortly) will be coming from on the same right of way *made sense*. Doing it in two different right of ways at two different times when they start and stop at the same places roughly is way stupid and short sighted.
Way stupid, and way shortsighted. Those boneheads jumped the shark by not doing it all now while materials are cheaper and there's a glut of non working unemployed construction labor out there. They got handed an incredible deal and blew it!
I give the dude props, he has a logical and well thought out long view, not that lame "this quarter" view or "this election cycle" view that most businesses and politicians have and that we all suffer from constantly.
Yes, you can get prepaid here. Phones are $20 to $100, minutes are between $.08-15. Network protocol varies by carrier, there's a mix. Not all carriers serve all areas equally, so you have to chose by where you will be using it the most. SMS I don't use so haven't paid attention to the costs, I think from what I hear though they are mostly a ripoff price, like ten cents apiece or something nasty like that with prepaid.
He said "the whole team would beat them up"
Much mo' satisfying ;)
If I hit the lottery big, I'm buying one of these guys...just because I want to do my whole garden in 1.5 seconds....
The larger the turbine and the higher it gets, the more efficient they are, both in construction and operating costs and in electricity delivered. see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design#Turbine_size
They are getting close now to maximum size because of materials science limitations (cost/benefit), and also because of the transportation limits mentioned in the article. Much larger ones could be built directly adjacent to a seaport dock then barged to a direct sea or coastal installation point, but once you have to transport them on land, it gets iffy. Notice the shuttle has to be flown back piggyback when it has to land at edwards-there's simply no reasonable way to move the thing on land, just too big.
Now there's some HUGEMONGOUS mining equipment out there, but it doesn't travel on the roads, and even to transport the things (excavators, dump trucks, crawlers, etc) they have to be partially disassembled and then reassembled on site and they use rail transport as much as they can to get to the site.
Just for fun if you like big land stuff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebherr_T_282B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar_797B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komatsu_D575 (we have two impressive big crawlers here on the farm, serious big oak pushing around brutes, smaller than this bad boy though, one is 114 tons and the other one I don't know, looks to be a scosh bigger)
and I always liked this one, I wanted one as soon as I heard about it when I was a kid ;)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Alaskan_land_train
What's neat about this stuff... real terraforming
I double dog dare anyone to now go and register apostroph.es
That's a new one on me. I do know old datsuns (I have one now) use hydraulic clutches though, and that reservoir uses brake fluid, but it isn't attached to the brake master cylinder at all, totally separate.
Browsers for mobile devices are the fastest growing segment of that "market" and Opera is doing quite well there. And a lot of people jump through hoops to replace whatever crappy browser came with their mobile device with opera mini now, just because it works. And that is one of the main points of the article as well about why they needed more servers..
Good link, thanks!
Those were the things I was interested in, plus the original idea of a built in biodrive power supply, the crank. I have several different freeplay/bayless radios and they are spiffy. I sure would like one, and at 100 bucks, the original target price. . I'll hold out until it gets closer. Those new arm based netbooks will be coming out soon, but I doubt any of them will have that sunlight readable screen or a windup auxiliary power supply. I was thinking of cannibalizing one of the spring/windup radios and having a DC out put jack for the thing. They last (roughly, pretty close) 30 minutes on 60 cranks. Just for a hoot, and because the power goes out here all the time. Now I just use battery lamps and an inverter and a big marine battery, but I'd like the crank for a little emergency and fun laptop, and for outside use. The *screen* like you say though is the biggee, I've never seen any electronic screen IRL that was worth a hoot in bright sunshine. Supposedly the lady inventor who came up with the OLPC screen left and formed her own company, but then I never heard whatever became of any projects with this tech she might have had. I am not aware of any major laptop manufacturer using her screens. Wonder why not? I know those kindles, etc have a viewable in bright light screen, but don't know if any "real" laptops have them yet. They might, I just haven't heard of any.
I guess you missed that part where *members of his own party* voted overwhelmingly to oust him, THEY didn't approve of what he was doing. Also the judges said what he was trying to do was illegal, and etc.
The last thing any of those nations down there is yet another el jefe for life, they've had and still have in some situations enough of those sort of gents.
So nope, if these are the facts as reported so far, I don't think he needs any support, other than perhaps a good lawyer talking to him in his jail cell back home.
Other than that, I got no dog in this fight, I am a neoisolationist practically when it comes to these sort of things. It's up to those folks to sort their own problems out, and since they got rid of the last military dictatorship they have been pleased with having some more rational and fair government, and they purposefully put in those provisions for ONE term precisely to keep it that way, no if's, and's or but's about it. He was trying to change that, and the bulk of the government there agreed, saw that this was blatantly just wrong, so they nipped his little power grab gambit right in the bud.
I have found an article where a constitutional lawyer, who hails from Honduras, explains what happened and why it happened. My best guess analysis mirrors just about exactly what he is saying. There is fault on both sides, but their constitution clearly states not only is it illegal to try and change the one term limit, but it is a crime to even propose it! I didn't know that part.
His own political party, who control the legislature there, voted overwhelmingly for his ouster. Their attorney general ordered the referendum halted, but he was trying to go ahead with it anyway, just by calling it "an opinion poll", just some weasel words. By their law, he shouldn't have been deported (that's the only thing they did technically illegal), but immediately should have been jailed, but they decided it was better to break that one law to avoid mass bloodshed. They estimated if he was still in-country, there just would have been a big bloody mess, and they didn't want that, the rock and the hard place scenario, or what I called picking the lesser of two suckages.
Here is the article Miguel Estrada: 'Honduran Ouster of Zelaya was Constitutional'
They avoided more serious bloodshed the way they did it. If this is a true fact, and he had remained "in power", he would have beern still able to order around a lot of the military forces who were loyal to him, plus cause mass demonstrations, etc and be able to coordinate it better. Because there is no way he would have gone along with getting impeached.
Even on the surface it was a blatant power grab by him, the entire issue was designed to turn him into el presidente for life. The congress there and the judges ALREADY had told him this wasn't proper nor legal, but he was going aherad with this "vote" scam regardless. So what makes you think he would have gone along with an impeachment? They were under the gun of making a time critical decision, and didn't off the guy or anything, just got him out before the situation got worse. If they hadn't already warned him about it that would be different, but they did warn him before the fact.
Ya, two sucky choices, but I think they chose the lesser of two suckages there.
But all of this is based on "if" and we just don't know the veracity of this latest revelation, but we do know about the power grab he was attempting, sort of like chavez making himself the president (basically and practically)for life "legally".
Term limits are a dang spiffy idea when it comes to politicians, no matter how popular they are, and changing the rules, like he wanted to do with this plebiscite, at the last second, is a serious mistake and transparently was just an effort to accrue more power under some umbrella of it legally happening. The people there had a right wing dictatorship like forever, and a lot of them could plainly see a left wing version now happening, and they just went "no you don't!".
That's how I have read these ongoing events anyway.