The oil sand that is mined at Syncrude is refined into "synthetic crude oil" that Syncrude produces at its Mildred Lake facility north of Ft. McMurray. The costs to produce this syncrude were in the $13-14/barrel when I was there in 2002. Compare this to the ~$35/barrel market costs for oil on the open market and the Canadians are making money hand-over-fist!
there's always the issue of how much sulfur is in this oil, which can affect the downstream price at the refinery.
The sulfur is removed at Mildred Lake, where they are compressing it into blocks and using it as a building material. It is too expensive to transport down to "civilization" so they are just stockpiling it.
The "synthetic crude" is pipelined down to Edmonton where it is further refined into gasoline, diesel, etc. These products are then distributed further, including by pipeline to the USA.
Oh come on now, do you really believe that the USA converting wholesale to the metric system would suddenly endear it to the rest of the world?!?
Frankly, it's really a supply-and-demand issue, AFAIC. Where I live (in the USA, but probably holds true for most of Europe and Japan too), most of the industrial infrastructure is mature (i.e.-no new factories, maintain what you've got) and the market demands components that will work with what is already in place, ergo Imperial units here in the USA.
Elsewhere (China!), new factories and infrastructure are going in and they have the luxury of specifying anything they want, so it makes sense to use SI systems.
As a engineer in the classic sense (i.e.-I can design more than software) I work in both systems most every day, and my education took great pains to include both systems as well. As long as you aren't an idiot and include the units in your calculations, it frankly doesn't matter because my CAD program, MATLAB, and even my HP48SX can all understand and convert units on the fly.
My HP 48SX (circa 1989) is still working strong but the display is starting to fail--it's losing vertical lines on one side. Is there any way to get spare parts or repairs for such a beast?
BTW, when I heard that HP was getting out of the calc biz I rushed out and bought a 48GX as a backup for the SX. Now I can keep one at work and the other at home, always handy. Hope to God that I don't have to ever replace them!
Apple has always been conservative with its claims for maximum installed RAM. They usually make claims based upon the largest commercially available modules at the time of release.
This may be the case with the G5 hardware, and as PC3200 DIMMs increase in capacity, the hardware will likely recognize them just fine.
HP seems to have a penchant for hidden testing functions. On any HP Deskjet printer, holding down the Power key and pushing the Paper Feed key n times will cause the printer to perform any of several self tests. Caution-you can burn up a lot of ink and/or paper doing this.
Also for any engineers out there, the HP48 series of calculators had a plethora of diagnostics available by pushing ON-C or ON-D simultaneously. But you already knew this!
Slashdot Mirror
iPods... oh wait...
- http://doom3.planet-multiplayer.de/download.php?v
i ew.49
consisted of 3Maybe Duke Nukem Forever might be ready by then...
The oil sand that is mined at Syncrude is refined into "synthetic crude oil" that Syncrude produces at its Mildred Lake facility north of Ft. McMurray. The costs to produce this syncrude were in the $13-14/barrel when I was there in 2002. Compare this to the ~$35/barrel market costs for oil on the open market and the Canadians are making money hand-over-fist!
there's always the issue of how much sulfur is in this oil, which can affect the downstream price at the refinery.
The sulfur is removed at Mildred Lake, where they are compressing it into blocks and using it as a building material. It is too expensive to transport down to "civilization" so they are just stockpiling it.
The "synthetic crude" is pipelined down to Edmonton where it is further refined into gasoline, diesel, etc. These products are then distributed further, including by pipeline to the USA.
Oh come on now, do you really believe that the USA converting wholesale to the metric system would suddenly endear it to the rest of the world?!?
Frankly, it's really a supply-and-demand issue, AFAIC. Where I live (in the USA, but probably holds true for most of Europe and Japan too), most of the industrial infrastructure is mature (i.e.-no new factories, maintain what you've got) and the market demands components that will work with what is already in place, ergo Imperial units here in the USA.
Elsewhere (China!), new factories and infrastructure are going in and they have the luxury of specifying anything they want, so it makes sense to use SI systems.
As a engineer in the classic sense (i.e.-I can design more than software) I work in both systems most every day, and my education took great pains to include both systems as well. As long as you aren't an idiot and include the units in your calculations, it frankly doesn't matter because my CAD program, MATLAB, and even my HP48SX can all understand and convert units on the fly.
My HP 48SX (circa 1989) is still working strong but the display is starting to fail--it's losing vertical lines on one side. Is there any way to get spare parts or repairs for such a beast?
BTW, when I heard that HP was getting out of the calc biz I rushed out and bought a 48GX as a backup for the SX. Now I can keep one at work and the other at home, always handy. Hope to God that I don't have to ever replace them!
So, YOU'RE the guy who bought into minidisc?!? Busted!!!
Apple has always been conservative with its claims for maximum installed RAM. They usually make claims based upon the largest commercially available modules at the time of release.
This may be the case with the G5 hardware, and as PC3200 DIMMs increase in capacity, the hardware will likely recognize them just fine.
BTW, just how large will PC3200's eventually
scale to?... in a nice curry sauce with some decent wine!
Yeah, these guys are thinking along the same lines ;)
too... Now they just need the chainsaw-equipped deluxe model
To test this, you just have to throw yourself at the floor... and miss!
- http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_d
o c/bpd07098.html
Also for any engineers out there, the HP48 series of calculators had a plethora of diagnostics available by pushing ON-C or ON-D simultaneously. But you already knew this!