"If Dawkins didn't actually make arguments involving theology, I'd be relatively more fine with him turning up his nose at all things "delusional"."
Bullshit, Dawkins is not pretending to be a theologists but if he didin't address theology you would dissmiss him as "not serious". And if he is so bad at articulating his theologic arguments then enlighten us all by providing just one youtube link of a religious debate where you think he gets his arse handed to him. The fact is that Dawkins and Hitchens both attack the central teachings of Christianity but since every church has a slightly different take on it, people like you accuse them of dishonesty. What is dishonest is moving the goal posts, and that's exactly what religious people do when confronted with rational arguments. I've shown this to many Christians only to have them basically turn around and deny that Christianity says "Jesus died for our sins".
"I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess."
Common Christian misconception. Cosmologists do not claim " the universe created itself", they claim that 13.7 billion years ago it was all squeezed into a singularity and they have very strong evidence to back that claim. They will readily amit they haven't got a clue where the point particle came from, in fact they don't even know what the word "where" means in that context.
Agreed they haven't done as much physical harm as the companies you mention but since the psuedo-scientific ludites took over in the 80's they have helped promote the green movement like Stalin and Mao helped promote socialisim.
"if Greenpeace hadn't killed nuclear power plants in 70's"
I'm no friend of greenpeace but pre-Chernobal the movie China syndrome did more to kill nukes than GP, TMI, or anything else. For most of the seventies GP were fighting atmospheric testing (a GoodThingTM). Somewhere in the 80's the luddites staged a coup, by the mid 90's the original (scientificly minded) members had resigned, totally disgusted by the anti-science claptrap spewing forth from the organisation they had helped to created.
BTW: The China Syndrome is an excellent thriller, Jack Lemmon at his best. Pity so many viewed it as some kind of TMI documentry.
"From a sample of the top 1000, what did you expect ?"
Personally I would expect a universty to know how to take an unbiased sample but TFS states - "a random selection from the most active seeded files", ie: a random sample taken from a non-random subset of files.
If this represents the quality of statistical methods from Ballarat Uni, I think they should stick to handing out degrees in sheep castration.
Hmmm, can't find the source I skimmed yesterday, bit of googling for other sources seems to suggest the figure is closer to your $5M estimate, perhaps the source I used was counting some sort of subsidy, maybe I read it wrong, or maybe it was just bullshit, I'm not sure.
I think the reason they built the plant in TFA was to answer some of the other questions you're asking.;)
"So the base load idea, while not completely correct contains a kernel of truth."
Agreed, that's why I said "mostly" bullshit. Currently a 5MW windmill costs about 1.5 million euros and at that price they are competitive with coal, so the solar/salt thing would have to at least match that kind of price/performance. Wether it does or doesn't it's still a GoodThingTM to see people finnally getting serious about evaluating ideas that have been on the drawing board for decades.
"when it's produced in bursts, you will have to find a way to store it, which means a loss in efficiency."
Yes, however you're only looking at energy loss in one particular circumstance rather than looking at the overall efficientcy of the system in dollar terms.
Currently coal plants produce too much at night and not enough during the day. This means they waste fuel at nightly lows and have to be supplemented by "busrts" from gas turbines during daily peaks. Therefore (if it was possible**) there's much more value in producing energy that matches the peaks and troughs of consumption rather than trying to produce it at a constant rate capable of handling the peaks, especially if you have to pay for fuel.
The fact is that producing electricity at a constant rate capable of handling the peaks is not how electricity is generated on a commercial scale. All methods of generating electricity are intermittent. The idea that we currently have an efficient steady stream of "base load" power provided by constantly running coal plants is largely a myth created by the coal industry.
Coal plants are shut down for regular maintenance for ~45 days/year. Meaning one redundant coal plant needs to be built for (roughly) every seven coal plants in use. Plus to handle peaks you still need to build gas turbines that will sit idle for 20 or more hrs/day (or "inefficiently" pump water uphill). The advantage with wind, solar, etc, over fossil fuels is that; when it comes to handling the unavoidable peaks you can pump water uphill, (melt salt, whatever), during "bursts" and it will cost you some percentage of nothing in fuel costs.
Sure, windfarms also require maintenance but you can do it one windmill at a time, the whole farm very rarely needs to be shut down all at once.
** = Regardless of how you produce the electricity the most economically efficient answer to the inherent problems of peaks, troughs, bursts and breakdowns is a large well managed grid with built in generation/transmission redundancy and plenty of pump storage capacity.
A 5MW windmill can be up and running for about 1.5M euros, but a pilot plant such as the one in TFA does not have the same goals as a commercial plant.
The reason that killing a nobleman in battle was frowned on had nothing to do with their social standing, it was because they were worth a small fortune in ransom money.
"Again look at the Netherlands, and the fact that growing pot like that makes garbage."
Well of course, I've been to Amsterdam and summer lasts about a week. Here in Oz it's actually easier to grow "Amsterdam quality" pot outdoors, ( even as far south as Tasmania ).
A simple rule of thumb is that if you can grow quality tomatoes outdoors where you live then you can do the same with pot. How many Dutch people grow their own tomatoes outdoors?
Here in Oz you have to be licensed to grow tabacoo. The fines for growing tabacoo in your backyard are much worse than for growing pot. Last time I checked tabacoo was $10K fine per plant and pot was $500/plant.
A UN committe passing a resolution is nothing like the general asembly adopting a declaration where the member states actually sign said declaration.
From the UDHR:
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
"The practical issue here is that not everybody has the same idea about what constitutes a "human right"."
Go and read the document and then investigate which nations willingly signed up to it.
Humans are more important than lines on a map. Slavery has been all but eliminated from the planet via international treaties - Implying that a universal recognition and respect for basic human rights does not in itself lead to a "one world government". The UN declaration on human rights has already been signed by the vast majority of nations, it's up to the people of those nations to make sure their governments honour the contract.
"the windmills overproduce heavily at night, where the cost of energy can actually drop to NEGATIVE (yes, you get paid to buy power at certain times of the night on rare occasions in northern Europe). One of the ways to counter this, is actually by tailoring consumption. So if you have a smart house, and an electric car. NOW is the time your batteries will start charging."
This is what the coal industry are shitting their pants about and why they keep funding anti-science lobbyist to tell everyone who will listen that AGW doesn't exists and green energy is an overpriced white elephant.
The truth is the more windmills (and associated infrastructure) you install the cheaper the electricity becomes to produce. Ultra cheap energy does not sound like the death of the economy to me, it sounds like the death of the coal industry. And since the global wind energy industry has been consistently growing at 25%/pa for several years now it won't be a slow death in historical terms.
We get the Daily show here in Oz, last night's episode was hillarious. He started by showing a clip of Obama calling for "an end to US dependence on foriegn oil", followed by clips of every president all the way back to Nixon making the exact same call.
"If I were an intelligent spy hunter I'd encourage Al F*cknut to post all the information they wanted. And read. Its takes a real pack of idiots not to see the value in that."
Sure, but once you have their MO there is also enourmous value in disrupting/corrupting their communications channels.
"But no, as I stated previously, once passed into law, people worship the law because it's the law, and not the sentiment, meaning, purpose, nor effect. The fact that it is law trumps all."
Yes that's what's known as the "rule of law" and where the term "the law is an *ass" is derived from, alternatives to the rule of law are less palatable and include systems such as "rule of the mob", "rule of the monarch", "decree of the demigod" and "whim of the pycopathic despot".
The "spirit" of legislation is just as open to interpretation as the "letter. For an example look at the history of the very simple statement "all men are created equal".
Slashdot Mirror
"If Dawkins didn't actually make arguments involving theology, I'd be relatively more fine with him turning up his nose at all things "delusional"."
Bullshit, Dawkins is not pretending to be a theologists but if he didin't address theology you would dissmiss him as "not serious". And if he is so bad at articulating his theologic arguments then enlighten us all by providing just one youtube link of a religious debate where you think he gets his arse handed to him. The fact is that Dawkins and Hitchens both attack the central teachings of Christianity but since every church has a slightly different take on it, people like you accuse them of dishonesty. What is dishonest is moving the goal posts, and that's exactly what religious people do when confronted with rational arguments. I've shown this to many Christians only to have them basically turn around and deny that Christianity says "Jesus died for our sins".
"I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess."
Common Christian misconception. Cosmologists do not claim " the universe created itself", they claim that 13.7 billion years ago it was all squeezed into a singularity and they have very strong evidence to back that claim. They will readily amit they haven't got a clue where the point particle came from, in fact they don't even know what the word "where" means in that context.
Agreed they haven't done as much physical harm as the companies you mention but since the psuedo-scientific ludites took over in the 80's they have helped promote the green movement like Stalin and Mao helped promote socialisim.
"if Greenpeace hadn't killed nuclear power plants in 70's"
I'm no friend of greenpeace but pre-Chernobal the movie China syndrome did more to kill nukes than GP, TMI, or anything else. For most of the seventies GP were fighting atmospheric testing (a GoodThingTM). Somewhere in the 80's the luddites staged a coup, by the mid 90's the original (scientificly minded) members had resigned, totally disgusted by the anti-science claptrap spewing forth from the organisation they had helped to created.
BTW: The China Syndrome is an excellent thriller, Jack Lemmon at his best. Pity so many viewed it as some kind of TMI documentry.
"From a sample of the top 1000, what did you expect ?"
Personally I would expect a universty to know how to take an unbiased sample but TFS states - "a random selection from the most active seeded files", ie: a random sample taken from a non-random subset of files.
If this represents the quality of statistical methods from Ballarat Uni, I think they should stick to handing out degrees in sheep castration.
Hmmm, can't find the source I skimmed yesterday, bit of googling for other sources seems to suggest the figure is closer to your $5M estimate, perhaps the source I used was counting some sort of subsidy, maybe I read it wrong, or maybe it was just bullshit, I'm not sure.
;)
I think the reason they built the plant in TFA was to answer some of the other questions you're asking.
"So the base load idea, while not completely correct contains a kernel of truth."
Agreed, that's why I said "mostly" bullshit. Currently a 5MW windmill costs about 1.5 million euros and at that price they are competitive with coal, so the solar/salt thing would have to at least match that kind of price/performance. Wether it does or doesn't it's still a GoodThingTM to see people finnally getting serious about evaluating ideas that have been on the drawing board for decades.
"when it's produced in bursts, you will have to find a way to store it, which means a loss in efficiency."
Yes, however you're only looking at energy loss in one particular circumstance rather than looking at the overall efficientcy of the system in dollar terms.
Currently coal plants produce too much at night and not enough during the day. This means they waste fuel at nightly lows and have to be supplemented by "busrts" from gas turbines during daily peaks. Therefore (if it was possible**) there's much more value in producing energy that matches the peaks and troughs of consumption rather than trying to produce it at a constant rate capable of handling the peaks, especially if you have to pay for fuel.
The fact is that producing electricity at a constant rate capable of handling the peaks is not how electricity is generated on a commercial scale. All methods of generating electricity are intermittent. The idea that we currently have an efficient steady stream of "base load" power provided by constantly running coal plants is largely a myth created by the coal industry.
Coal plants are shut down for regular maintenance for ~45 days/year. Meaning one redundant coal plant needs to be built for (roughly) every seven coal plants in use. Plus to handle peaks you still need to build gas turbines that will sit idle for 20 or more hrs/day (or "inefficiently" pump water uphill). The advantage with wind, solar, etc, over fossil fuels is that; when it comes to handling the unavoidable peaks you can pump water uphill, (melt salt, whatever), during "bursts" and it will cost you some percentage of nothing in fuel costs.
Sure, windfarms also require maintenance but you can do it one windmill at a time, the whole farm very rarely needs to be shut down all at once.
** = Regardless of how you produce the electricity the most economically efficient answer to the inherent problems of peaks, troughs, bursts and breakdowns is a large well managed grid with built in generation/transmission redundancy and plenty of pump storage capacity.
A 5MW windmill can be up and running for about 1.5M euros, but a pilot plant such as the one in TFA does not have the same goals as a commercial plant.
N. Africa seems to be high on the list of places where the EU want to go with solar.
Reproduced below are the statistics printed on my pack of smokes...
Causes of death in Australia.
Tabacoo - 19,019
Alcohol - 2,831
Motor vehicle accidents - 1,731
Illegal drugs - 863
Murders - 203
The reason that killing a nobleman in battle was frowned on had nothing to do with their social standing, it was because they were worth a small fortune in ransom money.
"I would think rounding up all the drug dealers and taking all their money would raise the most money"
What planet have you been living on for the last 50yrs?
"Again look at the Netherlands, and the fact that growing pot like that makes garbage."
Well of course, I've been to Amsterdam and summer lasts about a week. Here in Oz it's actually easier to grow "Amsterdam quality" pot outdoors, ( even as far south as Tasmania ).
A simple rule of thumb is that if you can grow quality tomatoes outdoors where you live then you can do the same with pot. How many Dutch people grow their own tomatoes outdoors?
Here in Oz you have to be licensed to grow tabacoo. The fines for growing tabacoo in your backyard are much worse than for growing pot. Last time I checked tabacoo was $10K fine per plant and pot was $500/plant.
A UN committe passing a resolution is nothing like the general asembly adopting a declaration where the member states actually sign said declaration.
From the UDHR:
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
"The practical issue here is that not everybody has the same idea about what constitutes a "human right"."
Go and read the document and then investigate which nations willingly signed up to it.
Humans are more important than lines on a map. Slavery has been all but eliminated from the planet via international treaties - Implying that a universal recognition and respect for basic human rights does not in itself lead to a "one world government". The UN declaration on human rights has already been signed by the vast majority of nations, it's up to the people of those nations to make sure their governments honour the contract.
I looked but all I could find was a mash up that only shows the last few seconds of the rant.
There are laws on how to go about changing/creating laws. They generally aim for stability over wisdom since it's impossible to mandate wisdom.
"the windmills overproduce heavily at night, where the cost of energy can actually drop to NEGATIVE (yes, you get paid to buy power at certain times of the night on rare occasions in northern Europe). One of the ways to counter this, is actually by tailoring consumption. So if you have a smart house, and an electric car. NOW is the time your batteries will start charging."
This is what the coal industry are shitting their pants about and why they keep funding anti-science lobbyist to tell everyone who will listen that AGW doesn't exists and green energy is an overpriced white elephant.
The truth is the more windmills (and associated infrastructure) you install the cheaper the electricity becomes to produce. Ultra cheap energy does not sound like the death of the economy to me, it sounds like the death of the coal industry. And since the global wind energy industry has been consistently growing at 25%/pa for several years now it won't be a slow death in historical terms.
Speaking of achivement descriptions has anybody figured out what the slashdot achievment called "The Maker" means?
We get the Daily show here in Oz, last night's episode was hillarious. He started by showing a clip of Obama calling for "an end to US dependence on foriegn oil", followed by clips of every president all the way back to Nixon making the exact same call.
"If I were an intelligent spy hunter I'd encourage Al F*cknut to post all the information they wanted. And read. Its takes a real pack of idiots not to see the value in that."
Sure, but once you have their MO there is also enourmous value in disrupting/corrupting their communications channels.
"But no, as I stated previously, once passed into law, people worship the law because it's the law, and not the sentiment, meaning, purpose, nor effect. The fact that it is law trumps all."
Yes that's what's known as the "rule of law" and where the term "the law is an *ass" is derived from, alternatives to the rule of law are less palatable and include systems such as "rule of the mob", "rule of the monarch", "decree of the demigod" and "whim of the pycopathic despot".
*Ass - stubborn beast.
The "spirit" of legislation is just as open to interpretation as the "letter. For an example look at the history of the very simple statement "all men are created equal".