The built-in iSight I have has an attached LED that is on when the camera is on; it appears to be wired into the camera. I don't think they'd be able to turn it on without me noticing.
The firewire iSight has no indicator.
Flash 6-9 has had web cam and audio support for MAC and WINDOWS, a hack to flash to bypass the security warning (which if you recall was a problem back in 6, the feature was undocumented I believe.) So anybody with flash could potentially be listening or watching you. On new iSights, there is a light--- but for AUDIO there is NO indication on any computer.
To run a business in the usa, you file with the secretary of state of your state plus file for a federal employer ID. You do about as much for that as a Cert authorities(CA) has you do.
SSL certs are signed by the US government for all biz with an EID
SSL certs are signed (again) by the States the corp is in
SSL certs (again; optionally) are signed by a 3rd party that is payed to go further than the government to ensure you are legit
Governments make incorporation requirements on par with a typical cert authority. My state is at least as good as a CA.
Benefits:
Cert authorities(CA) can not extort money from us to avoid a little warning dialog
CAs will have to do more since the gov does the basics
Browsers can highlight government backed certs (little flag icons or green?)
Consumers know governments more than they do some CA
Government has reasonable information on the corp owners
Consumers know the corp has to file taxes on regular basis (can't be totally fake)
Consumers know what country or state the corp is involved with, allows them the freedom to support local business
Costs little in taxes, much of the stuff is there on their computers already, they can offer the whole thing for free as part of the incorporation process.
Digital certs are more secure than a paper document from the secretary of state
Makes it easy to find the corp as well as file complaints with the secretary of state which incorporates them
CAs are forced to improve their services, no need to regulate them
This is well within government bounds, which legally defines corporations, LLC, LLP (partnership,) regulates them, and taxes them. This would be a cheap additional business service that would ultimately protect citizens (which is a fundamental reason for government.)
Perhaps the government learns and uses digital certs on legal documents like birth certificates? (nah, that would be too smart...BTW, I could fake my birth certificate with a copy machine)
We need CHEAP transport into space for cargo. NOT people. Robots will be better than humans for nearly all space work. It will be a long time before this stuff is built and robots are good enough for much of the work TODAY.
By the time they get a moon base, robots will be doing far more than they are doing today. Spend the money on better things-- how about launching that grounded sat for helping with global warming? Or at least give it to japan or EU to launch it if bush won't launch it! We payed to have it built!
Actually, crime can be minimized so this not such a big deal. The USA is seriously messed up on multiple levels and as a result we have a stupid number of people in jail.
A big system failure is that we have too many people screwed by the system combined with too many people with money to burn, like on drugs-- which are a huge problem for the whole world. the usa's relative wealth and heavy drug use means high profit on all levels. Prohibition created large powerful mobs and greatly increased all types of crimes; this time, its larger and more powerful groups coming together and its less a state-level corruption issue and much more of a federal level one.
I don't want multiple-core chips as much as I'd like them to reduce the costs by shrinking the die size and lowering the defect rate. Instead they use their old pricing models and cram on as much as they can as long as it fits into the old cpu pricing model.
I'd like to see some different thinking that shakes things up; like having the cache become a part of main memory. For some uses a cpu with all its RAM built-in would be just fine. For others a slower external ram could be used in addition. For some a server-farm-in-a-box with dozens of cheap cpus with self-contained ram would be ideal.
I would like to see a progression in cache size, bandwidth, and autonomy. With all that extra space they could be putting in 1 to 1 caches that are massive. There is a hit on anything that can not be contained in the caches. Swap out to main memory, then swap to disk...
Related example ideas:
CPU with 1Gig of on chip RAM, memory controller, custom 'direct' linkup for a few other chips, such as a gpu. Autonomous switching client for a more network-like "bus". If I want more cpus, I can plug them in while the machine is running. Somewhat like a cluster in a box.
How about hardware accelerated STACKs? that would save a lot of power and provide a speed boost! Everything heavily uses stacks! Its not a new idea to have a stack based CPU, they are impressive and support for that use would be nice.
Or how about shrinking the space by avoiding multi-core waste? Cpus that just are smarter at managing work among sub-units? For example: I have multiple FPUs and 4 cpus, if 1 cpu needs more FPUs it can't schedule to get unused time from the other 3 cpus can it? In a sense, I'm talking about extending hyperthreading to the next level and actually adding enough hardware so was like multiple cpus.
Anybody doing anything with acceleration of neuron nets?
White collar criminals are probably the WORST and most of them probably never even end up in court.
Prison is a practical thing for what it good at-- namely, separating them from hurting us (society.) Prison is NOT for those who are not a physical threat.
Handling crime is not about punishment and revenge (hey Christians try reading that book of yours...)
Punishment doesn't work for many people because they do not think they will get caught or the punishment isn't a deterrent.
Some hacker kid shouldn't get a scholarship to criminal college (prison.) Either send them to therapy (while still young) or restrict their computer use. Big Brother is upon us anyhow, might as well use it to restrict people who can't constrain themselves.
I still don't see how a 100% guilty rapist can't get just "fixed" and leave it at that. The others should get a monitoring device as a parole which make it impossible to rape again without concrete evidence.
If X you will do f(X)
NOT If X then, go_to_jail()//do not pass go, do not collect
Homosapien produce far far more than 18% of the CO2-- we need have less of them!
Seriously, the ways mankind handles livestock is the big problem. The green way will reduce the number of livestock we can have, since we are already too far-- but there are more and more humans who want to eat meat.
I think its unfair comparison with transportation, the numbers do not include the whole end-to-end chain: build, maintain, fuel, disposal, roads, parts.
How about some human population control?
The solution is not to eat less meat, its to stop making more meat than is environmentally sound; if you want cheaper meat lower demand by cutting the population.
Burning wood, cows eating grass, among other things are basically a balanced cycle.
Using stockpiles of chemicals to make CO2 quickly (hint: the reaction gives off heat.)
They'd probably never turn into CO2 and it would take a long time.
It is similar to pumping the well dry before the rain has a chance to replenish it (oh, many places now limit wells because they can go dry.)
Seymour Papert is involved. If you read his two books on child learning you'll understand better why just a working computer is all that is required.
Education is not like business! Tiny minds only have a hammer and see only a world of nails.
My teachers didn't teach computers, they had you learn HOW TO LEARN for yourself. Actually, the 1st teacher (4th grade) only knew how to turn it on, get us a LOGO disk, and had read Papert's 1st book.
You don't need corp style training. good lesson plans and nothing else.
Tech Support? Ask the best kid in the village or school. Break it? tough luck, you had a chance you'd not have otherwise.
Theft: put thick plastic area on it for somebody to CARVE a name deep into the casing if they do not have a deep engraver tool. 1 color + its crime for adult use.
Internet? Are you kidding me? Internet does not matter, its optional. In many cases it is better they do not have internet. Forcing the kids to work together and share so they can use the things is far more important, helps if the teachers do this as well. They can still network with each other.
Software? Hopefully for their own good, they have little software. Unless you want to raise worthless users like here in the USA who think pop software training & for dummy books means they can use a computer (and act almost like its some sort of magic box.)
My high school to this day only teaches typing, they expect kids coming in to figure out the rest.
You can directly fund and make medicine progress without any military involvement. Its the MONEY that funds the science and engineering that invents the stuff, it is NOT the military. The military just defines the problems to be solved.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so I'd be willing to go for civil war, WW1 and WW2 pushing many things forward but NOT the others.
protection of foreign economic interests is valid?
No. Just because many people and their nations have done so since the dawn of civilization does not make it a valid move (bandwagon.)
The "protection" of economic interests fuel and even are the underlying causes for a great many wars and covert acts all over the world (gaining a lock on mutually exclusive resources.)
Allowing nations to perceive it as a VALID means to their ends will allow them to continue excusing it and perpetuating such actions in the world. (Before you say "welcome to the real world," think about the same reasoning on a smaller local scale in a "civilized" community vs an "uncivilized" community.)
Iraq is about Oil Dollars and finally Americans are figuring that out (well, just the oil part.) Its a complete failure because we are not getting the oil and we are losing oil dollars. We are keeping the large war machine employed; however, its at the gamble of destroying the economy.
Four large military bases in Iraq will probably not secure economic interests either (remember, the same people wrote the plan in the 90s-- the few experts I've met said they knew this underlying stuff was wrong decades ago. Wrong for long term empire and wrong ethically.)
Oil/Coal:
1) stored chemical energy
2) nature made (or "from god" if you hate nature)
Hydrogen (H):
1) stored chemical energy
2) MAN made using MAN's energy
Perhaps H may be a better energy storage medium in 10 years (like they've predicted for decades) but it DOES NOT CREATE energy!
- - - - - more depth - - - - -
Oil/Coal/Wind/Solar/Geothermal involve extraction of potential energy that is "free." Free in that we humans put nothing into it. Sure, we have to extract it but that is actually a different step in the whole process. OIL/COAL are like chemical batteries that are given to us for free. (sorry wind/solar/geothermal can't be stored.) To keep it simple I'll not go into organic or sub-atomic power sources.
vs
H is not found. H is MADE! There is no similar "free" energy. You have to put in power to extract that H atom and even at 100% you only then are getting what you put into it. Its impossible to pass 100%. At best you find less stable chemicals that require less work to make H from (not water.)
This HUGE difference that creates a LARGE LARGE disadvantage right from the start. To compete, a H economy has do more than just match, it has to significantly beat Oil/Coal down the whole production/usage chain and that problem makes the moon landing look like algebra. Obviously, since H is not a power source it can't compete and must rely on a real power source for its creation.
Now I'm all for better batteries (which the H) but most people are missing the point: WHERE DO WE GET THE ENERGY that we are storing as H?
Since we moved from the gold standard, we essentially moved to the oil standard which was represented by the US dollar. Its no surprise that conventional minds think we need to pick some oil-like standard medium on which to base global trade. (greenland then becomes unstable, Jeb Bush invades...) The idiots in power think we can't have a global economy that doesn't globally trade energy.
- - -
I'm involved in multiple real projects and many design projects. From a straw garage (for me) heated by a vacuum wood furnace to a prototype pulse burner (natural gas) for a warehouse to tire recycling. A stack of other great ideas I hope to help move forward into production.
We plan to post plans for DIY people online eventually at designcoop.org when somebody writes enough down on the computer. (We do have finished working inventions including a 70+mpg car 1 guy made from the 70s.)
YOU CAN NOT WAIT. The system discourages the best alternatives and the public waits for somebody else to do something. You have to educate yourself then pick up a hobby and do it yourself. Its surprising how easy many things are and how little real skill the corps actually have. (you can buy parts from china and slap them together too)
Its easy to attack a short comment by saying it doesn't cover everything.
Carbon costs for oil I did not include and they historically have not been included. The market doesn't still consider and will not until more laws are made to make the market include that cost. Getting those laws is next to impossible as you said, because we don't know the costs and they don't want to take the economic hit. (USA not in Kyoto shows just how bad it is.)
EVERY alternative is forced to compete with the current Oil economy which does not consider carbon. The end-to-end cost can be figured without knowing what the carbon cost is (put a C in the equation.)
The laws of physics are not going to be broken anytime soon. I've read of many "cheap" H creation ideas and they all involve costs not presented which in the end make it not much better. Economy of scale has nothing to do with physics. Energy conversion is what it all comes down to.
H is NOT the end-all solution to all our problems. Don't put your eggs into ONE oil-lobby promoted basket. Saying we must create a whole H economy 1st to begin to estimate is stupid. I could argue that we can't evaluate a compressed air until we have a whole compressed air economy. (fyi: compressed air is way beyond H in creation & storage losses) Or what about a N economy?
There are other kinds of fuel cells using different chemistry may work better. Even then fuel cells are not the best solution for all problems. (ideally you wouldn't need chemical refills, which is why big oil doesn't like batteries.)
Using H to heat my house will NEVER compete with more direct methods of passive/active solar heating and wood gasification (think about it. hint: why don't we heat our houses with electric heaters?)
There are many mission critical software solutions but if you run them on Windows ME it ruins it, it does not mean that problems can't be solved with software.
Our government is worse than Windows ME. simple things can still run, but most stuff is f**ked up.
We can still design and write software with the hope that a better system will emerge.
It takes more energy to find, drill for, pump, process, and ship oil, than you ever get out of it.
No it does not.
Oil is high density stored power you just have to extract, process and ship (for less than you put in, aka profit) and then burn. There are alternate means to make gas, but they cost more which is why oil wins.
Radiation has to be converted into a storage medium(H2O->H+O) often it is againconverted for porable storage (cell, or compressed) and finally, its consumed which is also a convertion.
Each conversion process has a loss. Sure, this may be the best H thing yet-- but it has to be a lot better and you still must have massive solar collection even at 0% conversion losses.
Consider minimizing conversions in the chain and picking the better processes.
Solar Radiation -> blood split to H (< fuel cell or compressed(90%?) -> complex piston engine (20%)
the REAL plans are to have you consume a fuel as opposed to use a battery. not as much money in making a battery better which is the weakest link of that chain.
150 million yen = $1,294,950 or 989,342 euros or 1,468,213 $Canadian or 1,663,818 $Australian
Standards for web disks and password management
on
GoogleOS Scenarios
·
· Score: 1
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. A web OS is old thinking in a new world.
Web based applications are independent of platform in a way java never was able to reach. The OS doesn't matter, the browser as long as it works properly also does not matter.
Decentralization is fundamental to the web.
A "web OS" would be nothing like an OS. Strong Standards allow many groups to interact, just as they do now with the browsers--- the next steps will be web services standardizing how they interact with each other. (too bad AJAX has the same restrictions frames do or that fad would have done more than just change the GUI)
gmail is nice, but i can't store documents made from other online services without a lot of work... (besides its not really a disk) Google has been making integration of 3rd party apps easier so they are leading the trend.
Switch from income taxes to energy consumption taxes. Instead of avoiding taxes and regulations, corps would put those efforts into cutting their energy consumption taxes (whether they cheat or bribe is another matter.)
Pollution taxes for garbage are also a good idea. (who doesn't hate blister packs?)
Property taxes based on size not resale value, with only breaks for growing food. (farmers could get paid--many use gov money already.) Not exactly related but many problems stem from property taxes being like RENT.
HIGH GAS TAXES. everybody will complains, because they do not really care about the children (who will have high gas prices.)
Cut down US military. single biggest polluter and energy waster on earth, even when at peace! (Never happen voluntarily.)
People who only hate taxes will only start caring when it costs them.
Real Problem: Profit vs Waste Which provides a better cost to benefit ratio?
Any organization well administered will run just fine. (paraphrasing Ben Franklin)
Specifics play a big part as does the culture as to how the well a system is run. (idiot with linux vs god with windoze)
Like making a complete decision tree for chess, you can't have rules solve everything but they are necessary for the game.
Healthcare has high administration costs and MANY if not MOST those rules the public wants (for their own well being, as protections for themselves against errors. This IS life or death.)
UK healthcare has a low cost and high benefit ratio. The USA does not.
Its not just that they have less administrative costs (just 1 vs 1000s of layered competing orgs) the UK has the other big expenses that they minimize. They can waste trillions before they tip their ratio to where the USA is.
Fans are often irrationally behind their preferred systems.
Slashdot Mirror
The built-in iSight I have has an attached LED that is on when the camera is on; it appears to be wired into the camera. I don't think they'd be able to turn it on without me noticing.
The firewire iSight has no indicator.
Flash 6-9 has had web cam and audio support for MAC and WINDOWS, a hack to flash to bypass the security warning (which if you recall was a problem back in 6, the feature was undocumented I believe.) So anybody with flash could potentially be listening or watching you. On new iSights, there is a light--- but for AUDIO there is NO indication on any computer.
- SSL certs are signed by the US government for all biz with an EID
- SSL certs are signed (again) by the States the corp is in
- SSL certs (again; optionally) are signed by a 3rd party that is payed to go further than the government to ensure you are legit
- Governments make incorporation requirements on par with a typical cert authority. My state is at least as good as a CA.
Benefits:- Cert authorities(CA) can not extort money from us to avoid a little warning dialog
- CAs will have to do more since the gov does the basics
- Browsers can highlight government backed certs (little flag icons or green?)
- Consumers know governments more than they do some CA
- Government has reasonable information on the corp owners
- Consumers know the corp has to file taxes on regular basis (can't be totally fake)
- Consumers know what country or state the corp is involved with, allows them the freedom to support local business
- Costs little in taxes, much of the stuff is there on their computers already, they can offer the whole thing for free as part of the incorporation process.
- Digital certs are more secure than a paper document from the secretary of state
- Makes it easy to find the corp as well as file complaints with the secretary of state which incorporates them
- CAs are forced to improve their services, no need to regulate them
This is well within government bounds, which legally defines corporations, LLC, LLP (partnership,) regulates them, and taxes them. This would be a cheap additional business service that would ultimately protect citizens (which is a fundamental reason for government.)Perhaps the government learns and uses digital certs on legal documents like birth certificates? (nah, that would be too smart...BTW, I could fake my birth certificate with a copy machine)
We need CHEAP transport into space for cargo. NOT people. Robots will be better than humans for nearly all space work. It will be a long time before this stuff is built and robots are good enough for much of the work TODAY.
By the time they get a moon base, robots will be doing far more than they are doing today. Spend the money on better things-- how about launching that grounded sat for helping with global warming? Or at least give it to japan or EU to launch it if bush won't launch it!
We payed to have it built!
Actually, crime can be minimized so this not such a big deal. The USA is seriously messed up on multiple levels and as a result we have a stupid number of people in jail.
A big system failure is that we have too many people screwed by the system combined with too many people with money to burn, like on drugs-- which are a huge problem for the whole world. the usa's relative wealth and heavy drug use means high profit on all levels. Prohibition created large powerful mobs and greatly increased all types of crimes; this time, its larger and more powerful groups coming together and its less a state-level corruption issue and much more of a federal level one.
I don't want multiple-core chips as much as I'd like them to reduce the costs by shrinking the die size and lowering the defect rate. Instead they use their old pricing models and cram on as much as they can as long as it fits into the old cpu pricing model.
I'd like to see some different thinking that shakes things up; like having the cache become a part of main memory. For some uses a cpu with all its RAM built-in would be just fine. For others a slower external ram could be used in addition. For some a server-farm-in-a-box with dozens of cheap cpus with self-contained ram would be ideal.
I would like to see a progression in cache size, bandwidth, and autonomy. With all that extra space they could be putting in 1 to 1 caches that are massive. There is a hit on anything that can not be contained in the caches. Swap out to main memory, then swap to disk...
Related example ideas:
CPU with 1Gig of on chip RAM, memory controller, custom 'direct' linkup for a few other chips, such as a gpu. Autonomous switching client for a more network-like "bus". If I want more cpus, I can plug them in while the machine is running. Somewhat like a cluster in a box.
How about hardware accelerated STACKs? that would save a lot of power and provide a speed boost! Everything heavily uses stacks! Its not a new idea to have a stack based CPU, they are impressive and support for that use would be nice.
Or how about shrinking the space by avoiding multi-core waste?
Cpus that just are smarter at managing work among sub-units? For example: I have multiple FPUs and 4 cpus, if 1 cpu needs more FPUs it can't schedule to get unused time from the other 3 cpus can it? In a sense, I'm talking about extending hyperthreading to the next level and actually adding enough hardware so was like multiple cpus.
Anybody doing anything with acceleration of neuron nets?
White collar criminals are probably the WORST and most of them probably never even end up in court.
//do not pass go, do not collect
Prison is a practical thing for what it good at-- namely, separating them from hurting us (society.) Prison is NOT for those who are not a physical threat.
Handling crime is not about punishment and revenge (hey Christians try reading that book of yours...)
Punishment doesn't work for many people because they do not think they will get caught or the punishment isn't a deterrent.
Some hacker kid shouldn't get a scholarship to criminal college (prison.) Either send them to therapy (while still young) or restrict their computer use. Big Brother is upon us anyhow, might as well use it to restrict people who can't constrain themselves.
I still don't see how a 100% guilty rapist can't get just "fixed" and leave it at that. The others should get a monitoring device as a parole which make it impossible to rape again without concrete evidence.
If X you will do f(X)
NOT If X then, go_to_jail()
Homosapien produce far far more than 18% of the CO2-- we need have less of them!
Seriously, the ways mankind handles livestock is the big problem. The green way will reduce the number of livestock we can have, since we are already too far-- but there are more and more humans who want to eat meat.
I think its unfair comparison with transportation, the numbers do not include the whole end-to-end chain: build, maintain, fuel, disposal, roads, parts.
How about some human population control?
The solution is not to eat less meat, its to stop making more meat than is environmentally sound; if you want cheaper meat lower demand by cutting the population.
Simple enough for you to understand?
I admit that cow farts sounds more FOX than the old volcano lie. (volcanoes don't put out much CO2.)
Burning wood, cows eating grass, among other things are basically a balanced cycle.
Using stockpiles of chemicals to make CO2 quickly (hint: the reaction gives off heat.) They'd probably never turn into CO2 and it would take a long time.
It is similar to pumping the well dry before the rain has a chance to replenish it (oh, many places now limit wells because they can go dry.)
How about burning cows and letting the wood fart?
Seymour Papert is involved. If you read his two books on child learning you'll understand better why just a working computer is all that is required.
Education is not like business!
Tiny minds only have a hammer and see only a world of nails.
My teachers didn't teach computers, they had you learn HOW TO LEARN for yourself. Actually, the 1st teacher (4th grade) only knew how to turn it on, get us a LOGO disk, and had read Papert's 1st book.
You don't need corp style training. good lesson plans and nothing else.
Tech Support? Ask the best kid in the village or school. Break it? tough luck, you had a chance you'd not have otherwise.
Theft: put thick plastic area on it for somebody to CARVE a name deep into the casing if they do not have a deep engraver tool. 1 color + its crime for adult use.
Internet? Are you kidding me? Internet does not matter, its optional. In many cases it is better they do not have internet. Forcing the kids to work together and share so they can use the things is far more important, helps if the teachers do this as well.
They can still network with each other.
Software? Hopefully for their own good, they have little software. Unless you want to raise worthless users like here in the USA who think pop software training & for dummy books means they can use a computer (and act almost like its some sort of magic box.)
My high school to this day only teaches typing, they expect kids coming in to figure out the rest.
You can directly fund and make medicine progress without any military involvement.
Its the MONEY that funds the science and engineering that invents the stuff, it is NOT the military. The military just defines the problems to be solved.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so I'd be willing to go for civil war, WW1 and WW2 pushing many things forward but NOT the others.
No. Just because many people and their nations have done so since the dawn of civilization does not make it a valid move (bandwagon.)
The "protection" of economic interests fuel and even are the underlying causes for a great many wars and covert acts all over the world (gaining a lock on mutually exclusive resources.)
Allowing nations to perceive it as a VALID means to their ends will allow them to continue excusing it and perpetuating such actions in the world. (Before you say "welcome to the real world," think about the same reasoning on a smaller local scale in a "civilized" community vs an "uncivilized" community.)
Iraq is about Oil Dollars and finally Americans are figuring that out (well, just the oil part.) Its a complete failure because we are not getting the oil and we are losing oil dollars. We are keeping the large war machine employed; however, its at the gamble of destroying the economy. Four large military bases in Iraq will probably not secure economic interests either (remember, the same people wrote the plan in the 90s-- the few experts I've met said they knew this underlying stuff was wrong decades ago. Wrong for long term empire and wrong ethically.)
Oil/Coal:
1) stored chemical energy
2) nature made (or "from god" if you hate nature)
Hydrogen (H):
1) stored chemical energy
2) MAN made using MAN's energy
Perhaps H may be a better energy storage medium in 10 years (like they've predicted for decades) but it DOES NOT CREATE energy!
- - - - - more depth - - - - -
Oil/Coal/Wind/Solar/Geothermal involve extraction of potential energy that is "free." Free in that we humans put nothing into it. Sure, we have to extract it but that is actually a different step in the whole process.
OIL/COAL are like chemical batteries that are given to us for free. (sorry wind/solar/geothermal can't be stored.) To keep it simple I'll not go into organic or sub-atomic power sources.
vs
H is not found. H is MADE! There is no similar "free" energy. You have to put in power to extract that H atom and even at 100% you only then are getting what you put into it. Its impossible to pass 100%. At best you find less stable chemicals that require less work to make H from (not water.)
This HUGE difference that creates a LARGE LARGE disadvantage right from the start. To compete, a H economy has do more than just match, it has to significantly beat Oil/Coal down the whole production/usage chain and that problem makes the moon landing look like algebra. Obviously, since H is not a power source it can't compete and must rely on a real power source for its creation.
Now I'm all for better batteries (which the H) but most people are missing the point:
WHERE DO WE GET THE ENERGY that we are storing as H?
Since we moved from the gold standard, we essentially moved to the oil standard which was represented by the US dollar. Its no surprise that conventional minds think we need to pick some oil-like standard medium on which to base global trade. (greenland then becomes unstable, Jeb Bush invades...)
The idiots in power think we can't have a global economy that doesn't globally trade energy.
- - -
I'm involved in multiple real projects and many design projects. From a straw garage (for me) heated by a vacuum wood furnace to a prototype pulse burner (natural gas) for a warehouse to tire recycling. A stack of other great ideas I hope to help move forward into production.
We plan to post plans for DIY people online eventually at designcoop.org when somebody writes enough down on the computer. (We do have finished working inventions including a 70+mpg car 1 guy made from the 70s.)
YOU CAN NOT WAIT. The system discourages the best alternatives and the public waits for somebody else to do something. You have to educate yourself then pick up a hobby and do it yourself. Its surprising how easy many things are and how little real skill the corps actually have. (you can buy parts from china and slap them together too)
Coming to a library near you!
Coming to a library near you!
Its easy to attack a short comment by saying it doesn't cover everything.
Carbon costs for oil I did not include and they historically have not been included. The market doesn't still consider and will not until more laws are made to make the market include that cost. Getting those laws is next to impossible as you said, because we don't know the costs and they don't want to take the economic hit. (USA not in Kyoto shows just how bad it is.)
EVERY alternative is forced to compete with the current Oil economy which does not consider carbon.
The end-to-end cost can be figured without knowing what the carbon cost is (put a C in the equation.)
The laws of physics are not going to be broken anytime soon. I've read of many "cheap" H creation ideas and they all involve costs not presented which in the end make it not much better. Economy of scale has nothing to do with physics. Energy conversion is what it all comes down to.
H is NOT the end-all solution to all our problems. Don't put your eggs into ONE oil-lobby promoted basket. Saying we must create a whole H economy 1st to begin to estimate is stupid. I could argue that we can't evaluate a compressed air until we have a whole compressed air economy. (fyi: compressed air is way beyond H in creation & storage losses) Or what about a N economy?
There are other kinds of fuel cells using different chemistry may work better. Even then fuel cells are not the best solution for all problems. (ideally you wouldn't need chemical refills, which is why big oil doesn't like batteries.)
Using H to heat my house will NEVER compete with more direct methods of passive/active solar heating and wood gasification (think about it. hint: why don't we heat our houses with electric heaters?)
Book smarts are the basis of modern society.
There are many mission critical software solutions but if you run them on Windows ME it ruins it, it does not mean that problems can't be solved with software.
Our government is worse than Windows ME. simple things can still run, but most stuff is f**ked up.
We can still design and write software with the hope that a better system will emerge.
No it does not.
Oil is high density stored power you just have to extract, process and ship (for less than you put in, aka profit) and then burn. There are alternate means to make gas, but they cost more which is why oil wins.
Radiation has to be converted into a storage medium(H2O->H+O) often it is again converted for porable storage (cell, or compressed) and finally, its consumed which is also a convertion.
Each conversion process has a loss. Sure, this may be the best H thing yet-- but it has to be a lot better and you still must have massive solar collection even at 0% conversion losses.
Consider minimizing conversions in the chain and picking the better processes.
Solar Radiation -> blood split to H (< fuel cell or compressed(90%?) -> complex piston engine (20%)
the REAL plans are to have you consume a fuel as opposed to use a battery. not as much money in making a battery better which is the weakest link of that chain.
Tax wasteful types of packaging. it would kill these vile things... until they can make a green version from poison ivy.
apple currency widget rates last updated on 11/24
150 million yen = $1,294,950
or 989,342 euros
or 1,468,213 $Canadian
or 1,663,818 $Australian
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
A web OS is old thinking in a new world.
Web based applications are independent of platform in a way java never was able to reach. The OS doesn't matter, the browser as long as it works properly also does not matter.
Decentralization is fundamental to the web.
A "web OS" would be nothing like an OS. Strong Standards allow many groups to interact, just as they do now with the browsers--- the next steps will be web services standardizing how they interact with each other. (too bad AJAX has the same restrictions frames do or that fad would have done more than just change the GUI)
gmail is nice, but i can't store documents made from other online services without a lot of work... (besides its not really a disk) Google has been making integration of 3rd party apps easier so they are leading the trend.
Switch from income taxes to energy consumption taxes. Instead of avoiding taxes and regulations, corps would put those efforts into cutting their energy consumption taxes (whether they cheat or bribe is another matter.)
Pollution taxes for garbage are also a good idea. (who doesn't hate blister packs?)
Property taxes based on size not resale value, with only breaks for growing food. (farmers could get paid--many use gov money already.) Not exactly related but many problems stem from property taxes being like RENT.
HIGH GAS TAXES. everybody will complains, because they do not really care about the children (who will have high gas prices.)
Cut down US military. single biggest polluter and energy waster on earth, even when at peace! (Never happen voluntarily.)
People who only hate taxes will only start caring when it costs them.
Anything involving more than 1(ONE) person IS POLITICAL!
There are too many wimps who can barely handle politics on a tiny scale and they only hurt the rest of us.
The event may follow their carriers but it does not end it, nor does it necessarily stop repeat behavior.
Those cops may lose their jobs (as they should) but will end up with nice jobs offered by employers who are racist or approve of excessive force...
I already know a guy who only sided with the cops because the student was not a white Christian.
Clarify: For-Profit vs non-profit waste
Real Problem: Profit vs Waste
Which provides a better cost to benefit ratio?
Any organization well administered will run just fine. (paraphrasing Ben Franklin)
Specifics play a big part as does the culture as to how the well a system is run.
(idiot with linux vs god with windoze)
Like making a complete decision tree for chess, you can't have rules solve everything but they are necessary for the game.
Healthcare has high administration costs and MANY if not MOST those rules the public wants (for their own well being, as protections for themselves against errors. This IS life or death.)
UK healthcare has a low cost and high benefit ratio. The USA does not.
Its not just that they have less administrative costs (just 1 vs 1000s of layered competing orgs) the UK has the other big expenses that they minimize. They can waste trillions before they tip their ratio to where the USA is.
Fans are often irrationally behind their preferred systems.