Then I guess I am guilty of not seeing the transition... I knew it expanded. I did not notice that it went from books only to books and toys -- or more specifically I didn't recall that the toys were not there originally. Funny because I'm in there a couple times per year, usually with my children.
Amazon works out of a series of large, fairly automated warehouses. This allows them to keep their costs low. B&N, in comparison, has to maintain large storefronts on expensive retail real-estate, staffed by a crew of sales people, managers and maintenance staff. Based on my experience, B&N tends to maintain their stores at a level above that of their competition. B&N's real costs are considerably higher than Amazon's. That markup you speak of is, in part, a reflection of that.
I'm working on the mirror for a telescope now... I'm told by someone who I'm working with that, if you're at all mechanically inclined, you can start with one of the less expensive mounts and do some work to improve it.
I look at a lot of data. A lot of data. Here the article presents a graph showing both datasets having a step function in them, which conveniently caused the intersection to happen early. They provide no explanation for the cause of the step functions. When I see data like that, I want explanations or I'm not going to believe it...
Then you must know that solar plants are often stated to have a rating which is at peak output. And by peak I mean maximum you'll ever see on the ideal day in the ideal weather. For that matter, so is any other power plant -- the nameplate output is peak, not average.
I think if they're convinced there's a market, they'll do the research for $18million in gov't funds, plus their own money. They'll recoup the money later. It's not SOP; but, if they want to, they certainly could do it.
Agreed that Boeing is good a milking the tax dollar cow. But they do have another division that has the manufacturing expertise to build (air)craft in quantity on an assembly line in a lean cost effective manner. IF they want to, if there's a market, they could build a disposable shell with a couple of seats for $18 million, in quantity.
A boating analogy is probably appropriate here: Unless you have a rich benefactor who will pay for the design and development of a large luxury yacht, you have to develop your market first and start with something cheap and easy to build, like a canoe. Right now the government is not willing to play the role of the rich uncle. They want to buy canoes, simple flat bottom boats, and rafts that are adequate for a minor river crossing in good weather.
OK, so the analogy fails. Boeing could be it's own rich benefactor.... They're still a business. a business that is watching other small upstart rivals (SpaceX and Orbital) develop the market with some success. This is on top of an existing successful rival in the Russian Soyuz. Boeing has to respond to that.
It's a taxi, pure and simple. up to 7 people crammed in. Battery power, air, food and water for 24-48 hours. Not many options: Launch. Reach orbit and dock with station; OR, abort and return to ground.
That's all fine and good unless you live on the east coast. We can build out solar and wind power but the energy requirements, due to the population density, are going to require some other type of power plant; and, nuclear fits that bill well.
I live near something like a dozen nuclear reactors. And I live on the coast. Two happen to be commercial power reactors (Surry, Va). A bunch of them happen to be small reactors... in aircraft carriers and submarines (Norfolk Naval Base). Oh, and Newport News Shipbuilding, where they build, refuel and test nuclear powered ships, is like 4 to 5 miles up the road from where I'm sitting now. I'm fine with it.
lots of legacy VB code. Some jobs run as fast or faster on Pentium D compared to a Core 2. The code is single threaded and it does not take advantage of any of the CPU design improvements implemented since the Pentium II or the early Pentium III. Since the Pentium 4 and Pentium D ALU runs at 2x the processor core speed, for these tasks it does well.
Obviously, a single-threaded application will generally run better on the faster-clocked system, unless that system is being loaded down with a lot of other processes.
You've hit it exactly: there are tasks my personal machine (the one that I'm typing on now), a Pentium D (Netburst arch), runs faster than the workstation I use at work, a new dual socket, quad core xeon workstation. Why? Because there are shitloads of applications out there that are single threaded.
Now, where the 8 core workstation excels is when I'm surfing the web, editing legacy code in a virtual machine, and listening to music while crunching production data, running a SQL server and compiling code in the background. : )
So, perhaps it's 80% iron, 18% nickel, 1%oxygen, 0.25%platinum group metals, 0.05% rare earths, 0.7% "other". That meets your definition. Can you think of any use for the iron, nickel and oxygen in Earth orbit? Can you think of any use for the platinum groups and rare earths? Didn't think so. So, it's all MINE! Mwahahaha...
The area I live in could be used to define suburban sprawl. It would be very difficult to create an efficient steam distribution infrastructure to heat homes here. They also, conveniently, placed the nuclear electric plant out in farmland away from most of the population, which, would make it even harder to take advantage of the waste heat...
So the only way it would work here is, as I suggested, electrically powered heat pumps.
Fundamentally, I agree with you -- it can't happen unless there's subsidies and governments demand it. So, it's not going to happen. At least not until oil becomes more scarce, which based on steady improvements in technology might not happen for as long as a century from now.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? I've always used 4 space tabs.
Then I guess I am guilty of not seeing the transition... I knew it expanded. I did not notice that it went from books only to books and toys -- or more specifically I didn't recall that the toys were not there originally. Funny because I'm in there a couple times per year, usually with my children.
What you saw was always there, in the form of a kids "zone". They expanded it or you just noticed it for some reason.
Amazon works out of a series of large, fairly automated warehouses. This allows them to keep their costs low. B&N, in comparison, has to maintain large storefronts on expensive retail real-estate, staffed by a crew of sales people, managers and maintenance staff. Based on my experience, B&N tends to maintain their stores at a level above that of their competition. B&N's real costs are considerably higher than Amazon's. That markup you speak of is, in part, a reflection of that.
I'm working on the mirror for a telescope now... I'm told by someone who I'm working with that, if you're at all mechanically inclined, you can start with one of the less expensive mounts and do some work to improve it.
I look at a lot of data. A lot of data. Here the article presents a graph showing both datasets having a step function in them, which conveniently caused the intersection to happen early. They provide no explanation for the cause of the step functions. When I see data like that, I want explanations or I'm not going to believe it...
100W is not enough! The military demands its sharks have head mounted lasers of 25kW or better...
Then you must know that solar plants are often stated to have a rating which is at peak output. And by peak I mean maximum you'll ever see on the ideal day in the ideal weather. For that matter, so is any other power plant -- the nameplate output is peak, not average.
I think if they're convinced there's a market, they'll do the research for $18million in gov't funds, plus their own money. They'll recoup the money later. It's not SOP; but, if they want to, they certainly could do it.
Agreed that Boeing is good a milking the tax dollar cow. But they do have another division that has the manufacturing expertise to build (air)craft in quantity on an assembly line in a lean cost effective manner. IF they want to, if there's a market, they could build a disposable shell with a couple of seats for $18 million, in quantity.
A boating analogy is probably appropriate here: Unless you have a rich benefactor who will pay for the design and development of a large luxury yacht, you have to develop your market first and start with something cheap and easy to build, like a canoe. Right now the government is not willing to play the role of the rich uncle. They want to buy canoes, simple flat bottom boats, and rafts that are adequate for a minor river crossing in good weather.
OK, so the analogy fails. Boeing could be it's own rich benefactor.... They're still a business. a business that is watching other small upstart rivals (SpaceX and Orbital) develop the market with some success. This is on top of an existing successful rival in the Russian Soyuz. Boeing has to respond to that.
It's a taxi, pure and simple. up to 7 people crammed in. Battery power, air, food and water for 24-48 hours. Not many options: Launch. Reach orbit and dock with station; OR, abort and return to ground.
Excellent. Then we're in agreement!
100-200 MW running on highly enriched fuels.
That's all fine and good unless you live on the east coast. We can build out solar and wind power but the energy requirements, due to the population density, are going to require some other type of power plant; and, nuclear fits that bill well.
I live near something like a dozen nuclear reactors. And I live on the coast. Two happen to be commercial power reactors (Surry, Va). A bunch of them happen to be small reactors... in aircraft carriers and submarines (Norfolk Naval Base). Oh, and Newport News Shipbuilding, where they build, refuel and test nuclear powered ships, is like 4 to 5 miles up the road from where I'm sitting now. I'm fine with it.
lots of legacy VB code. Some jobs run as fast or faster on Pentium D compared to a Core 2. The code is single threaded and it does not take advantage of any of the CPU design improvements implemented since the Pentium II or the early Pentium III. Since the Pentium 4 and Pentium D ALU runs at 2x the processor core speed, for these tasks it does well.
Obviously, a single-threaded application will generally run better on the faster-clocked system, unless that system is being loaded down with a lot of other processes.
You've hit it exactly: there are tasks my personal machine (the one that I'm typing on now), a Pentium D (Netburst arch), runs faster than the workstation I use at work, a new dual socket, quad core xeon workstation. Why? Because there are shitloads of applications out there that are single threaded.
Now, where the 8 core workstation excels is when I'm surfing the web, editing legacy code in a virtual machine, and listening to music while crunching production data, running a SQL server and compiling code in the background. : )
METRIC! How about a proper unit of measure: 2200 Olds Vista Cruisers.
transparent glass domes don't do well when meteorites hit them. With no atmosphere there will be regularly occuring meteorites.
People forget that a lot of the sci-fi writers were scientists and engineers.
Kelvin? pshaw. Real Men use Rankine!
So, perhaps it's 80% iron, 18% nickel, 1%oxygen, 0.25%platinum group metals, 0.05% rare earths, 0.7% "other". That meets your definition. Can you think of any use for the iron, nickel and oxygen in Earth orbit? Can you think of any use for the platinum groups and rare earths? Didn't think so. So, it's all MINE! Mwahahaha...
Someone send these people a copy of The Matrix please. Include a nicely worded letter telling them to pay attention to the subplots....
The area I live in could be used to define suburban sprawl. It would be very difficult to create an efficient steam distribution infrastructure to heat homes here. They also, conveniently, placed the nuclear electric plant out in farmland away from most of the population, which, would make it even harder to take advantage of the waste heat...
So the only way it would work here is, as I suggested, electrically powered heat pumps.
Fundamentally, I agree with you -- it can't happen unless there's subsidies and governments demand it. So, it's not going to happen. At least not until oil becomes more scarce, which based on steady improvements in technology might not happen for as long as a century from now.