I live near work and walk most of the time, but there are instances when it is handy to drive because I'm planning on carrying around more than what would be easy to carry.
There are cases where a commuter vehicle like this would make sense.
Not to be harsh, but you can get the same thing with heart problems. I mowed lawns in high school - one afternoon I mowed the lawn of a little old lady. That night, my dad came home and said that she had just died of a heart attack. She looked fine that afternoon, but that night she was dead.
Same goes for any kind of cancer - it can insidiously grow in you until there's nothing you can do about it but waste away and die.
Probably going to burn some karma with those comments, but it's a terrible disease that they're working on. I hope they find a cure and kick its ass - same for cancer - but it's just another way to die.
The Green party also has interesting stands on worker protections, consumer safety, and globalization. I'm not in full agreement with them on everything, but they're not a one-issue party. Arguably, the libertarians are a one-issue party, with their solution to every problem being "more free enterprise, less government."
Couldn't you say that the Green parties solutions are "more government, less free enterprise?"
They're not so much socially liberal as they are laissez faire as far as how the government should interact with the citizenry. I think that both the Democrats and Republicans would like social controls - just each in their own way. The "hands off" approach of the libertarians would appear socially liberal because it is their belief that the government shouldn't care about what goes on between citizens.
They also appear socially liberal because one of their main tenets (at least what you hear about) is to legalize pot. Placing that as their theme probably drives more like minded fiscal conservatives to the Republican party than any thing else.
A different set of idiots isn't necessarily better than the current set of idiots.
Re:The fundamental problem...
on
A Viable Biofuel?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There's no one good answer, but -
- Converting corn to ethanol leaves some feedstock that is used to feed livestock - the entire bushel of corn isn't converted into fuel, there is some leftover for other uses.
- Hybrid and GMO varieties of corn and soybeans are increasing yields every year.
- As noted earlier, algae can be converted into biodiesel - there are places where it would not make sense to grow crops, but it would make sense to set up algea growing stations (in the southwestern desert perhaps)
- Thermal depolymerization - make oil out of garbage. It's my understanding that you can take any organic waste and run it through this process to make oil. Right now, many communities have people separate out their paper and plastics for recycling - have a separate deal for table scraps too and send them right to one of these plants.
- Methane - capture methane from sanitary sewers, livestock feed lots, and landfills. Not sure what you'd need to do to make it usable, but there is a lot of that being produced and just plain vented into the atmosphere now.
- Right now, the US has something called the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) - where the government pays farmer to idle erodable land. Allow them to grow stuff like switchgrass (or hemp) - anything fast growing, harvestable with conventional mowing or baling equipment, and that will regrow without needing a replant (it'd be nice to get 2 or 3 crops per summer out of that).
Soybeans. Squeeze the oil out and you're left with tofu. I wouldn't eat it but I'm sure you could sell it to some city dwelling vegetarians:)
I don't know what the yields are, but they are already making biodiesel from soybeans. I'd suspect that there is more of this produced than recapturing left over cooking oil from mcdonalds.
Without risking my staning in slashdot and following the link, I'll say that Algae != cow crap. Both could be used through thermal depolymerization to yield oil, but they're not the same thing - unless the cow was fed algae, but then it would be "processed".
Does it do IE6 and ActiveX controls too? I've not had a chance to mess around with setting up Wine to run these kind of things, but if it can do it, it does sound interesting.
I agree with you there. When I get a bit of extra time, I'll be doing some experimenting about moving some of the applications that can be moved. But unless Wine can emulate the Internet Explorer part of Windows, I'm SOL on those three applications for the time being.
In addition, requests for cross-platform versions of existing apps have been made
If you're in a user group and have the ability to sneak in software change requests - always request this. These industry specific vendors are not that big, and they don't play to a big market. If it looks like the market would like a linux client, then maybe they'll start developing one.
I agree with you there - I'm just saying why I've not moved the machines in my care from Windows to linux. I've got three applications that prevent the move, and most of the stations that I administer are required to run at least one of the three.
I'm also kind of saying that one of the reasons that we don't see a wholesale move to linux on the desktop is that although your generic office applications are easy enough to go to, your more industry specific applications are not there yet.
This is where a large company like IBM or AT&T can lead the way - they write their own industry specific applications and can port them at their leisure. Smaller companies without a dedicate programming staff are forced to wait on their vendors proposing alternatives.
In my case, if a good workable alternative is available, and not more expensive than what I've got now, I'll use it.
Somewhere between steps 2 and 3, you need to address those applications that must be run under Windows. At work, I've got three of them that I can think of, and there are no linux based alternatives for them.
I think that this is the same in many industries - most of the basic stuff (web browsing and office stuff) you can easily move. When you get to your industry specific stuff that was written in.NET and uses Internet Explorer as an integral part of the application, then you run into a little trouble moving.
I do computer work after hours and I (mostly) treat it that way. I do give friends and family quite a bit more leeway, but I keep it business. I don't charge my folks or my inlaws for time (although if I charged my inlaws, I should be able to take a lot of mileage for tax purposes:)
If you do computer stuff, and are in an area where support is in short supply, I'd recommend doing some after hours stuff. You can earn a couple of bucks, and can write off some equipment and mileage that you'd do anyway.
For what it's worth, I learned that saying in a banking class...
Slashdot Mirror
No reason why you should. Just go ahead and cross whenever, I'm sure that the traffic won't mind.
No bus. Small town of 600 people and no transportation like that around. Like I said, there are uses for such a commuter vehicle.
There are cases where a commuter vehicle like this would make sense.
Same goes for any kind of cancer - it can insidiously grow in you until there's nothing you can do about it but waste away and die.
Probably going to burn some karma with those comments, but it's a terrible disease that they're working on. I hope they find a cure and kick its ass - same for cancer - but it's just another way to die.
Couldn't you say that the Green parties solutions are "more government, less free enterprise?"
They also appear socially liberal because one of their main tenets (at least what you hear about) is to legalize pot. Placing that as their theme probably drives more like minded fiscal conservatives to the Republican party than any thing else.
A different set of idiots isn't necessarily better than the current set of idiots.
- Converting corn to ethanol leaves some feedstock that is used to feed livestock - the entire bushel of corn isn't converted into fuel, there is some leftover for other uses.
- Hybrid and GMO varieties of corn and soybeans are increasing yields every year.
- As noted earlier, algae can be converted into biodiesel - there are places where it would not make sense to grow crops, but it would make sense to set up algea growing stations (in the southwestern desert perhaps)
- Thermal depolymerization - make oil out of garbage. It's my understanding that you can take any organic waste and run it through this process to make oil. Right now, many communities have people separate out their paper and plastics for recycling - have a separate deal for table scraps too and send them right to one of these plants.
- Methane - capture methane from sanitary sewers, livestock feed lots, and landfills. Not sure what you'd need to do to make it usable, but there is a lot of that being produced and just plain vented into the atmosphere now.
- Right now, the US has something called the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) - where the government pays farmer to idle erodable land. Allow them to grow stuff like switchgrass (or hemp) - anything fast growing, harvestable with conventional mowing or baling equipment, and that will regrow without needing a replant (it'd be nice to get 2 or 3 crops per summer out of that).
I don't know what the yields are, but they are already making biodiesel from soybeans. I'd suspect that there is more of this produced than recapturing left over cooking oil from mcdonalds.
Without risking my staning in slashdot and following the link, I'll say that Algae != cow crap. Both could be used through thermal depolymerization to yield oil, but they're not the same thing - unless the cow was fed algae, but then it would be "processed".
Does it do IE6 and ActiveX controls too? I've not had a chance to mess around with setting up Wine to run these kind of things, but if it can do it, it does sound interesting.
I agree with you there. When I get a bit of extra time, I'll be doing some experimenting about moving some of the applications that can be moved. But unless Wine can emulate the Internet Explorer part of Windows, I'm SOL on those three applications for the time being.
If you're in a user group and have the ability to sneak in software change requests - always request this. These industry specific vendors are not that big, and they don't play to a big market. If it looks like the market would like a linux client, then maybe they'll start developing one.
I'm also kind of saying that one of the reasons that we don't see a wholesale move to linux on the desktop is that although your generic office applications are easy enough to go to, your more industry specific applications are not there yet.
This is where a large company like IBM or AT&T can lead the way - they write their own industry specific applications and can port them at their leisure. Smaller companies without a dedicate programming staff are forced to wait on their vendors proposing alternatives.
In my case, if a good workable alternative is available, and not more expensive than what I've got now, I'll use it.
The Arta programs are not web based programs, but use Internet Explorer as part of their rendering engine (I think).
Alternative products work much the same way - there are no linux based equivalents of these packages.
ArtaDeposit - new deposit accounts
WebEquityManager - ag balance sheets
I think that this is the same in many industries - most of the basic stuff (web browsing and office stuff) you can easily move. When you get to your industry specific stuff that was written in .NET and uses Internet Explorer as an integral part of the application, then you run into a little trouble moving.
But a wise man would use charcoal in his grill.
Either way, it's probably better than GAIM.
If you do computer stuff, and are in an area where support is in short supply, I'd recommend doing some after hours stuff. You can earn a couple of bucks, and can write off some equipment and mileage that you'd do anyway.
For what it's worth, I learned that saying in a banking class...
Thanks. TykeClone != chemist.
I was talking about the methane hydrate. From what I've seen, there's a lot of that sitting off of our coasts.
Having said that, I'd not charge them the first time or two, but would warn them that I would start "next time I've got to clean up your machine".
I'd also furnish them with a "maintenance procedure" that told them, step by step, to run spybot, adaware and their antivirus programs weekly.
I worked on a machine last month with the "VX2" spyware on it. Ended up needing a plugin for Adaware to kill that damn thing.