No it's illiterate dumbasses get in for free day. If you were capable of reading comprehension beyond that of the average eighth grader, you would notice a pattern: in EACH case of nationalism there are distinctive suboptimal patterns: The Russian paranoia, the European penchant for results that are too little too late, and the American habit of ideological zealotry resulting in endless fratricide.
Now, what exactly makes you think that I think Nationalism is some kind of a good idea, when I SPECIFICALLY note how in each case, nationalism results in suboptimal conditions?
Now, next time - think twice before you post, although in your case, once would be a dramatic improvement.
I doubt the EU would join the russian initiative as I am betting dollars for donuts the Russian.gov will insist on some kind of funky back door.
I also doubt that the EU will develop their own as the specification dev. will get atuck in some subcommittee for 5 years, and only result in recommendations for the main committee to consider the review for implementation pending EU ministry approval, which will come from the findings of some other subcommittee blah blah blah...
My guess is the Russians will make a national OS, and it will be wired directly into Putin's brain.
The EU will sit around and do nothing for a very long time, and then when TSHTF, they'll hire some Germans to work 24/7 for a month and it will be awesome, if austere.
The USA, will continue with its Free Market Religion, and will be passed by, because the rest of the world figured out it doesn't always work.
IIRC once you install it, and it tries to phone home, lil Snitch will say "iWorks is trying to phone home. Permit forever, Permit once, ban forever?" and so I would ban it forever, and that would defeat the pwning.
And, apparently, totally lacking in skills at grammar and spelling.
Actually I thought it was great. Read it with "A Russian Accent", like it's Boris Badanov speaking - "Muzt get Mooose end Sqvurel" and it all makes perfect sense!
""Thoss who try tu mek a leeving out of it, are quite heartless cynic pipple. But breeelliant, talented cynic pipple."
The company's Head of Mobile UK spoke to PC Pro about the launch, but his answers are almost as baffling as the service itself. Best quote: Q: "If I buy these songs on your service â" and they're locked to my phone â" what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time?" A: "Well, I think you know the answer to that."
Or, in other words:
Q: "If I buy these songs on your service â" and they're locked to my phone â" what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time?"
A: "Obviously, you're fucked. Yes, I think it's about as stupid as it gets, but I don't make the rules, I just work here."
What is so interesting about my online video viewing habits that the Ideological State Apparatus feels it is worthwhile to let them track it?
And if I delete cookies? Then what use is it?
we can (rightfully) whinge about the Republican Fascist Death Machine, but this is the kind of idiotic actions re: ISA's that the Democratic Party is stuck to as if with glue at its wrists and ankles.
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
Agreed. A wintertime Antarctic base with an average temperature of -63C except around their knees where it can get up to 15C, located in a warehouse that has a partial vacuum atmosphere and is flooded with UV and high levels of radiation.
People are not going to Mars. Not now, not ever.
The money would be better spent on lightweight low cost probes.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
bay Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
What you wrote is the common "recieved" notion. It is completely wrong.
However, oil's decline will most likely take a long time.
Wrong. It is at peak now, and it will decline as quickly as it amped up. Most of the oil was discovered after 1930. However, due to ERoEI issues of its extraction, while we will get the same amount out of the ground over time (as in a bell curve) the amount of energy it requires to pull it out of the ground will escalate geometrically. Eventually it will exceed the amount of energy one gets from using the oil, and the remaining oil will simply be left in the ground.
The second problem is the Export Land Model. In a nutshell it works like this. Oil production decreases, but brings in money. The society with the oil develops, and starts using more of its own oil. This causes it to export less oil. eventually you get to a cross over point and the exporting nation stops exporting and begins importing oil. Examples of this are common - the UK, Indonesia, the USA, etc.
So, now combine both of these: the biggest users of oil are all oil importers. Exporters are developing rapidly. Oil production is at peak and is in the process of declining, and what remains is much harder to get at and refine. Result: the net production and export of oil (oil after ERoEI calculations and domestic consumption) collapses quickly.
The only solution is to dramatically reduce oil demand. This can happen through an economic collapse (such as what we are seeing today) or through other means (changing social preferences away from industrial capitalist consumerism, for example. Or, a new plague.)
Still - demand destruction will not put more oil in the ground - it will simply slow the extraction of it. Once peaked, the production will always fall, year over year. The hard part will be keeping demand underneath the depletion curve.
In the mean time, coal will supply as much power as we need for about 50 to 100 years.
Not completely true. It will provide some relief for industrial production needs, but at enormous ecological cost. also, it is not as energy dense as oil, nor does it have the materials capabilities of oil. It can make electricity, but it is very suboptimal. Also, while the total coal amount may be high, its quality is already dropping off. Lower quality coal has lower energy content, and thus ERoEI calculations come into play.
Also, coal mining machines run on oil.
Technically coal can last another 50 - 100 years, but the amount of destruction such a move would engender would be horrific.
Nukes is easily build able in that time frame.
Not really. to keep up with the projected decrease in oil, you will need to see a nuke plant come on board once a week, every week for DECADES, starting tomorrow. Also, nukes require sophisticated computer controls, and these are deeply dependent on fossil fuels. Interestingly, so is wind power...
By the time that we run out of nukes sometimes in the 3000s
No, nukes won't exist much past the 21st century. The last will be thorium nukes. They will come online in the 2030s, but by then it will be far too late.
or at least managed to get more efficient/cheaper solar panels up and running.
I disagree. I think we're going to see the wholesale abandonment of the industrial project. This will accelerate as the die off intensifies.
The scale of the production doesn't matter either.
Sure, we get 3.8EJ from the sun - but you'd have to cover every square inch of the planet with collectors running at 100% efficiency. The second law of thermodynamics prevents 100% efficiency, and simple common sense prevents global coverage.
But you're correct in seeing the sun as THE energy source - as I noted above: it is our energy income, and you also noted that correctly.
Now we can deal with the direct issues of solar power itself, and this is a well researched area.
Solar power (PV, solar thermal, etc..) is 1/10 of 1% of our present energy usage. Solar power panels are energy intensive - each disk takes at minimum 17kWh to produce, and three times that much to manipulate, set, frame, and transport. Even with all that Solar PV has an ERoEI of 5:1 - which is not great, but certainly not shabby. This is determined by averaging the amount of energy it produces over its expected lifetime (about 25 years) and dividing by how much energy went into making it.
Solar PV is, overall, a pretty good deal.
Wind is an even better deal - if it is properly placed (say in North Dakota or the Great Lakes) you're looking at 15:1 ratios or better.
The problem is implementation and scaling back demand to match the available energy production from these systems.
IF solar/wind power doubles its abilities every 3 years (like it is now) you can do the math from 1/10 of 1% to 100%. We're looking at somewhere in the range of 30 years.
On the other end, oil production peaked in 2005 and is barely keeping flat. Nuclear power would help, but it takes 10 years for one of those to come online.
So, we're looking at a shortfall of time, of about 10 - 15 years. We pissed 1/2 of that away dealing with the moronic Bush administration. The question is, will the Obama administration approach this as the dire civilisation threatening catastrophe that it really is.
My crystal ball says no - he'll only get about 20% of what needs to be done, and we'll go into the 20teens in a very poor position for recovery, and will still be facing massive overshoot and die off.
Sigh....
Hey chief - You're REALLY not getting it...
I'll try again, using simpler language and metaphors. Not to be insulting (you're not being a dick, so I'm being nice too), but more as a method of clarification.
First off - disabuse yourself of any sense of dollar cost - how much it costs to "break even" is of nearly zero consequence. Remove that notion because economics has nothing to do with this - it's physics we're dealing with.
Now let's assume that our society uses (x) amount of energy, and that is in 100 units. And much of this energy is from oil, say, 80%, but for our illustration, let's assume it ALL comes from oil. Now with a 25:1 ratio, of the 100 units pulled out of the ground 4 of them were used to pull the stuff out and refine it into some useful form. This leaves 96 units of oil to keep the lights on, power the chainsaws, keep jets in the air, refine iron ore, keep the idiotic happy motoring culture on its vulcanised rubber wheels. OK? 96 units of POWER.
Now, ASSUMING the flow rate is kept at 100 units per year (some ummpteen jillion gallons in real world volume) but it gets harder and harder to pull out of the ground - causing the Energy Return on the Energy Invested to go down. Note: this has already happened - in the 1920s oil was at 100:1 or more. Now it is estimated to be at 25:1. Now, 25:1 is NOT shabby at all. Pretty damn good actually. So, let's say people finally spend that last dollar and buy a clue and figure out that oil "is really a bad idea for a fuel" because it's much more valuable as a material or some other reason - it doesn't matter. What matters is that society adopts a different fuel source. Now, let's pretend that this new fuel has the same energy density as oil.
However: the energy required to produce the stuff is 1:1. So, you are *using* 100% of your fuel to make 100 units of the fuel. This leaves NO FUEL for the rest of society to keep the lights on, because ALL of your fuel has gone into making itself over the period of one year, and at the end of the year, you have NOTHING to show for your efforts.
Now, if you have a 2:1 ratio, then HALF of the fuel your create has gone into producing all of your fuel needs. That leaves society with 50 units of energy to keep the lights on and fly the jets and propel SUVs along highways made of asphalt, which is... oil...
So, you see? Break even ISN'T ENOUGH. To maintain an industrial society you need massive energy "profits", i.e., massive energy return on investment. If you are at 1:1.1, where you get a profit of.1 units for every unit used, you end up with a society that is using 90% of its energy (90 units) to make 10 units of energy. THAT would be a disaster for industrial society, and it would quickly disappear.
It has nothing to do with price - it has everything to do with geology and flow rates and the laws of thermodynamics.
Technology is not energy. Technology allows you to use energy in a more or less efficient manner, but it does not create energy. And no matter how efficient it is, there is always ALWAYS loss involved (2nd law Thermodynamics). Oil is solar energy that was stored in micro-organisms hundreds of millions of years ago. Uranium and Thorium are similar inheritances - just not from the sun - it's from a previous star's supernova - some of the energy from that explosion created uranium, and from that we get nuclear fuels. So, they too are part of our "energy capital". The problem is, industrialism is very good using capital (energy) for short term gains (work), and in the process externalises waste (pollution and economic and social inefficiencies) and discounts the future (via environmental destruction of the planet and debt instruments enslaving future generations).
What society ALL society needs to do is live on our energy INCOME, which (almost entirely) comes from the sun. Wind is solar power, where the sun's heat disturbs the atmosphere, causing it to move. Even hydroelectric is solar, because the hydrological cycl
Example: Alcohol has about 80% of the energy that an equal volume of gasoline has. So, in order to do work at an expected rate it will take more gallons of alcohol than gas. Now, that is NOT an ERoEI (energy Return on energy invested) problem but it points at the kinds of issues you find with this.
The amount of work that oil can do at 25:1 far exceeds what other systems can do at lower ratios. with lower ratios, you end up spending more of your energy making the energy source, and less of it on work outside of the energy production loop.
If you have a 1:1, then all the energy society makes goes directly into making the energy society makes, and there is nothing left over to keep the lights on or power the cars, or watch TV or power sex toys or cook food or heat homes or whatever. In that case, you simply stop bothering making the fuel - it's not worth the investment.
So, if you have a 2:1 ratio, then it takes one barrel of oil (equivalent) to make 2 barrels of oil equivalent fuel. That leaves VERY LITTLE to run society. I would humbly submit (and there is some research on this - read Odum) that a 2:! ratio would spell the rapid end of industrial society, as the fuel would be so expensive and energy intensive that it would be reserved for mission critical applications: agriculture, medicine, clothing, shelter.
If I recall correctly, moving liquids in a pipe does not cost much energy.
but you have to understand, the energy ratio on biofuels is *tiny* compared to petroleum. For corn based alcohol, it's a negative/break even value (per Pimental). For sugar based alcohol, it's about 2.5:1. Right now, oil is 25:1 and in the 1920s, when much of our urban infrastructure was planned and built it was 100:1. Moving liquids in a pipe reduces its energy return, and with algae goo, it's already low.
In theory, there should be no reason why you can't produce somewhere dirt cheap, and then transport it over with pipelines. Alternatively, we can use electric trains to transport the stuff, and then generate the electricity with nuclear power.
Nuclear power is based on a finite resource.
As I said, these are stop gap measures. The solution is a VERY DIFFERENT kind of society, something more like 1809, not 2009.
And I posted to it then. It must have been a few years back. I did a calculation on how much energy one gets out of algae per acre, and to JUST FEED the traffic from EWR/JFK you would need to convert most of northern NJ into one giant goo pile. Not that Northern NJ isn't already one giant goo pile, but right now it's a giant goo pile full of houses and people and malls and highways and Dunkin Donut shops, all of it located on some of the nations most expensive real estate.
Due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested inherent to biofuels, you can't really make the stuff too far from its point of use, as the transport of the material would exceed its energy value. Jet aircraft are insanely inefficient and guzzle fuel at prodigious rates, and require fuel that has a high energy density. As a consequence I do not see biofuel for jets as anything but a stop gap measure.
I suggest you move to where you like to live, so you can plan out your future, because in a few short decades, you're not going anywhere cheaply or quickly.
You would think SOMEBODY there would have at least ONE macintosh, and give it a run through, and if it comes up with a showstopper like this they'd have fixed it before it went out the door.
This is a failure of either the QA team who simply didn't bother testing on a mac, or they did test it and reported the bug, but (as SO often in software dev) the mac is seen as a "fringe" platform and the time spent fixing / retesting it would blow the milestone and/or due date to GM the product, and the PHB's would all have a collective shit-fit.
In either case, QA would have to sign off on this, so the QA manager must be either one of the gutless worm types, or part of the same "The Mac Doesn't Matter" ideology as the rest of the PHBs.
What I was thinking is Apple could expand its market share easily by selling OS X without guarantee - a kind of "buy at your own peril". If you want OS X in a guaranteed to work system, then buy it from Apple.
This wold incentivise other system builders (such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, sony, Panasonic, etc. etc.) to build systems that are "OS X friendly", that perhaps even have it pre-installed, a la Psystar. All they would have to do is test the machines fairly thoroughly - there's practically no difference between Apple and non-Apple hardware anyway, so this would be a significant start up expense, but would become trivial over time, and a way for HP, Dell, et al to ride the "new crest" of computers, where you buy a computer and use the OS you want.
I could easily see in 5 years time buying a Panasonic toughbook that is able to boot in OS X, Windows version whatever, and Linux right out of the box. THAT would totally kick major butt. I would use OS X most of the time, (I work in education for "creative industries"), flip it into windows for Office bullshit, and then use OpenOffice et al in Linux when I am home.
I think that would work - it's all jut a matter of will and how long can apple continue to pull margin out of its hardware. Once that margin gets thin enough they will have to look for exterior sales to remain profitable.
Those weren't "holes" they're called "ink traps" and they are more like wedges cut at the peak of negative angles. Ink naturally blots a tiny bit, especially at smaller sizes, so using the ink traps didn't save ink, it merely allowed for sharp angles (such as found in M or W) to print correctly at small sizes.
An easier way to save ink AND paper is this:
use a sans serif font that has 1/2 the stroke weight and print multipage documents at a smaller size.
If the stroke thickness is normally, say, 150 units, make it something like 80. Use a large X height to add to readability. Then print at 10pt instead of 12.
Massive savings, and no need to resort to swiss cheese fonts which will look like crapola over 12 pt.
Word.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, what exactly makes you think that I think Nationalism is some kind of a good idea, when I SPECIFICALLY note how in each case, nationalism results in suboptimal conditions?
Now, next time - think twice before you post, although in your case, once would be a dramatic improvement.
Asshole.
RS
I also doubt that the EU will develop their own as the specification dev. will get atuck in some subcommittee for 5 years, and only result in recommendations for the main committee to consider the review for implementation pending EU ministry approval, which will come from the findings of some other subcommittee blah blah blah...
My guess is the Russians will make a national OS, and it will be wired directly into Putin's brain.
The EU will sit around and do nothing for a very long time, and then when TSHTF, they'll hire some Germans to work 24/7 for a month and it will be awesome, if austere.
The USA, will continue with its Free Market Religion, and will be passed by, because the rest of the world figured out it doesn't always work.
RS
Correct? Or am I dreaming?
RS
The anon coward is anon for good reason and is Informative.
Actually I thought it was great. Read it with "A Russian Accent", like it's Boris Badanov speaking - "Muzt get Mooose end Sqvurel" and it all makes perfect sense!
""Thoss who try tu mek a leeving out of it, are quite heartless cynic pipple. But breeelliant, talented cynic pipple."
See? :-)
RS
Or, in other words:
Q: "If I buy these songs on your service â" and they're locked to my phone â" what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time?"
A: "Obviously, you're fucked. Yes, I think it's about as stupid as it gets, but I don't make the rules, I just work here."
RS
What is so interesting about my online video viewing habits that the Ideological State Apparatus feels it is worthwhile to let them track it?
And if I delete cookies? Then what use is it?
we can (rightfully) whinge about the Republican Fascist Death Machine, but this is the kind of idiotic actions re: ISA's that the Democratic Party is stuck to as if with glue at its wrists and ankles.
RS
God ferbid you test anything. That might require work, and Oh Nose! GASP: you might have to blow a deadline!
And revolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
RS
People are not going to Mars. Not now, not ever.
The money would be better spent on lightweight low cost probes.
RS
rs
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
bay Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
However, oil's decline will most likely take a long time.
Wrong. It is at peak now, and it will decline as quickly as it amped up. Most of the oil was discovered after 1930. However, due to ERoEI issues of its extraction, while we will get the same amount out of the ground over time (as in a bell curve) the amount of energy it requires to pull it out of the ground will escalate geometrically. Eventually it will exceed the amount of energy one gets from using the oil, and the remaining oil will simply be left in the ground.
The second problem is the Export Land Model. In a nutshell it works like this. Oil production decreases, but brings in money. The society with the oil develops, and starts using more of its own oil. This causes it to export less oil. eventually you get to a cross over point and the exporting nation stops exporting and begins importing oil. Examples of this are common - the UK, Indonesia, the USA, etc.
So, now combine both of these: the biggest users of oil are all oil importers. Exporters are developing rapidly. Oil production is at peak and is in the process of declining, and what remains is much harder to get at and refine. Result: the net production and export of oil (oil after ERoEI calculations and domestic consumption) collapses quickly.
The only solution is to dramatically reduce oil demand. This can happen through an economic collapse (such as what we are seeing today) or through other means (changing social preferences away from industrial capitalist consumerism, for example. Or, a new plague.)
Still - demand destruction will not put more oil in the ground - it will simply slow the extraction of it. Once peaked, the production will always fall, year over year. The hard part will be keeping demand underneath the depletion curve.
In the mean time, coal will supply as much power as we need for about 50 to 100 years.
Not completely true. It will provide some relief for industrial production needs, but at enormous ecological cost. also, it is not as energy dense as oil, nor does it have the materials capabilities of oil. It can make electricity, but it is very suboptimal. Also, while the total coal amount may be high, its quality is already dropping off. Lower quality coal has lower energy content, and thus ERoEI calculations come into play.
Also, coal mining machines run on oil.
Technically coal can last another 50 - 100 years, but the amount of destruction such a move would engender would be horrific.
Nukes is easily build able in that time frame.
Not really. to keep up with the projected decrease in oil, you will need to see a nuke plant come on board once a week, every week for DECADES, starting tomorrow. Also, nukes require sophisticated computer controls, and these are deeply dependent on fossil fuels. Interestingly, so is wind power...
By the time that we run out of nukes sometimes in the 3000s
No, nukes won't exist much past the 21st century. The last will be thorium nukes. They will come online in the 2030s, but by then it will be far too late.
or at least managed to get more efficient/cheaper solar panels up and running.
I disagree. I think we're going to see the wholesale abandonment of the industrial project. This will accelerate as the die off intensifies.
3008 will look more like 1708 than 2008.
RS
The scale of the production doesn't matter either.
Sure, we get 3.8EJ from the sun - but you'd have to cover every square inch of the planet with collectors running at 100% efficiency. The second law of thermodynamics prevents 100% efficiency, and simple common sense prevents global coverage.
But you're correct in seeing the sun as THE energy source - as I noted above: it is our energy income, and you also noted that correctly.
Now we can deal with the direct issues of solar power itself, and this is a well researched area.
Solar power (PV, solar thermal, etc..) is 1/10 of 1% of our present energy usage. Solar power panels are energy intensive - each disk takes at minimum 17kWh to produce, and three times that much to manipulate, set, frame, and transport. Even with all that Solar PV has an ERoEI of 5:1 - which is not great, but certainly not shabby. This is determined by averaging the amount of energy it produces over its expected lifetime (about 25 years) and dividing by how much energy went into making it.
Solar PV is, overall, a pretty good deal.
Wind is an even better deal - if it is properly placed (say in North Dakota or the Great Lakes) you're looking at 15:1 ratios or better.
The problem is implementation and scaling back demand to match the available energy production from these systems.
IF solar/wind power doubles its abilities every 3 years (like it is now) you can do the math from 1/10 of 1% to 100%. We're looking at somewhere in the range of 30 years.
On the other end, oil production peaked in 2005 and is barely keeping flat. Nuclear power would help, but it takes 10 years for one of those to come online.
So, we're looking at a shortfall of time, of about 10 - 15 years. We pissed 1/2 of that away dealing with the moronic Bush administration. The question is, will the Obama administration approach this as the dire civilisation threatening catastrophe that it really is.
My crystal ball says no - he'll only get about 20% of what needs to be done, and we'll go into the 20teens in a very poor position for recovery, and will still be facing massive overshoot and die off.
RS
I'll try again, using simpler language and metaphors. Not to be insulting (you're not being a dick, so I'm being nice too), but more as a method of clarification.
First off - disabuse yourself of any sense of dollar cost - how much it costs to "break even" is of nearly zero consequence. Remove that notion because economics has nothing to do with this - it's physics we're dealing with.
Now let's assume that our society uses (x) amount of energy, and that is in 100 units. And much of this energy is from oil, say, 80%, but for our illustration, let's assume it ALL comes from oil. Now with a 25:1 ratio, of the 100 units pulled out of the ground 4 of them were used to pull the stuff out and refine it into some useful form. This leaves 96 units of oil to keep the lights on, power the chainsaws, keep jets in the air, refine iron ore, keep the idiotic happy motoring culture on its vulcanised rubber wheels. OK? 96 units of POWER.
Now, ASSUMING the flow rate is kept at 100 units per year (some ummpteen jillion gallons in real world volume) but it gets harder and harder to pull out of the ground - causing the Energy Return on the Energy Invested to go down. Note: this has already happened - in the 1920s oil was at 100:1 or more. Now it is estimated to be at 25:1. Now, 25:1 is NOT shabby at all. Pretty damn good actually. So, let's say people finally spend that last dollar and buy a clue and figure out that oil "is really a bad idea for a fuel" because it's much more valuable as a material or some other reason - it doesn't matter. What matters is that society adopts a different fuel source. Now, let's pretend that this new fuel has the same energy density as oil.
However: the energy required to produce the stuff is 1:1. So, you are *using* 100% of your fuel to make 100 units of the fuel. This leaves NO FUEL for the rest of society to keep the lights on, because ALL of your fuel has gone into making itself over the period of one year, and at the end of the year, you have NOTHING to show for your efforts.
Now, if you have a 2:1 ratio, then HALF of the fuel your create has gone into producing all of your fuel needs. That leaves society with 50 units of energy to keep the lights on and fly the jets and propel SUVs along highways made of asphalt, which is... oil...
So, you see? Break even ISN'T ENOUGH. To maintain an industrial society you need massive energy "profits", i.e., massive energy return on investment. If you are at 1:1.1, where you get a profit of .1 units for every unit used, you end up with a society that is using 90% of its energy (90 units) to make 10 units of energy. THAT would be a disaster for industrial society, and it would quickly disappear.
It has nothing to do with price - it has everything to do with geology and flow rates and the laws of thermodynamics.
Technology is not energy. Technology allows you to use energy in a more or less efficient manner, but it does not create energy. And no matter how efficient it is, there is always ALWAYS loss involved (2nd law Thermodynamics). Oil is solar energy that was stored in micro-organisms hundreds of millions of years ago. Uranium and Thorium are similar inheritances - just not from the sun - it's from a previous star's supernova - some of the energy from that explosion created uranium, and from that we get nuclear fuels. So, they too are part of our "energy capital". The problem is, industrialism is very good using capital (energy) for short term gains (work), and in the process externalises waste (pollution and economic and social inefficiencies) and discounts the future (via environmental destruction of the planet and debt instruments enslaving future generations).
What society ALL society needs to do is live on our energy INCOME, which (almost entirely) comes from the sun. Wind is solar power, where the sun's heat disturbs the atmosphere, causing it to move. Even hydroelectric is solar, because the hydrological cycl
Example: Alcohol has about 80% of the energy that an equal volume of gasoline has. So, in order to do work at an expected rate it will take more gallons of alcohol than gas. Now, that is NOT an ERoEI (energy Return on energy invested) problem but it points at the kinds of issues you find with this.
The amount of work that oil can do at 25:1 far exceeds what other systems can do at lower ratios. with lower ratios, you end up spending more of your energy making the energy source, and less of it on work outside of the energy production loop.
If you have a 1:1, then all the energy society makes goes directly into making the energy society makes, and there is nothing left over to keep the lights on or power the cars, or watch TV or power sex toys or cook food or heat homes or whatever. In that case, you simply stop bothering making the fuel - it's not worth the investment.
So, if you have a 2:1 ratio, then it takes one barrel of oil (equivalent) to make 2 barrels of oil equivalent fuel. That leaves VERY LITTLE to run society. I would humbly submit (and there is some research on this - read Odum) that a 2:! ratio would spell the rapid end of industrial society, as the fuel would be so expensive and energy intensive that it would be reserved for mission critical applications: agriculture, medicine, clothing, shelter.
RS
RS
but you have to understand, the energy ratio on biofuels is *tiny* compared to petroleum. For corn based alcohol, it's a negative/break even value (per Pimental). For sugar based alcohol, it's about 2.5:1. Right now, oil is 25:1 and in the 1920s, when much of our urban infrastructure was planned and built it was 100:1. Moving liquids in a pipe reduces its energy return, and with algae goo, it's already low.
In theory, there should be no reason why you can't produce somewhere dirt cheap, and then transport it over with pipelines. Alternatively, we can use electric trains to transport the stuff, and then generate the electricity with nuclear power.
Nuclear power is based on a finite resource.
As I said, these are stop gap measures. The solution is a VERY DIFFERENT kind of society, something more like 1809, not 2009.
Due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested inherent to biofuels, you can't really make the stuff too far from its point of use, as the transport of the material would exceed its energy value. Jet aircraft are insanely inefficient and guzzle fuel at prodigious rates, and require fuel that has a high energy density. As a consequence I do not see biofuel for jets as anything but a stop gap measure.
I suggest you move to where you like to live, so you can plan out your future, because in a few short decades, you're not going anywhere cheaply or quickly.
RS
This is a failure of either the QA team who simply didn't bother testing on a mac, or they did test it and reported the bug, but (as SO often in software dev) the mac is seen as a "fringe" platform and the time spent fixing / retesting it would blow the milestone and/or due date to GM the product, and the PHB's would all have a collective shit-fit.
In either case, QA would have to sign off on this, so the QA manager must be either one of the gutless worm types, or part of the same "The Mac Doesn't Matter" ideology as the rest of the PHBs.
Classic BULLSHIT, IMHO.
RS
What I was thinking is Apple could expand its market share easily by selling OS X without guarantee - a kind of "buy at your own peril". If you want OS X in a guaranteed to work system, then buy it from Apple.
This wold incentivise other system builders (such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, sony, Panasonic, etc. etc.) to build systems that are "OS X friendly", that perhaps even have it pre-installed, a la Psystar. All they would have to do is test the machines fairly thoroughly - there's practically no difference between Apple and non-Apple hardware anyway, so this would be a significant start up expense, but would become trivial over time, and a way for HP, Dell, et al to ride the "new crest" of computers, where you buy a computer and use the OS you want.
I could easily see in 5 years time buying a Panasonic toughbook that is able to boot in OS X, Windows version whatever, and Linux right out of the box. THAT would totally kick major butt. I would use OS X most of the time, (I work in education for "creative industries"), flip it into windows for Office bullshit, and then use OpenOffice et al in Linux when I am home.
I think that would work - it's all jut a matter of will and how long can apple continue to pull margin out of its hardware. Once that margin gets thin enough they will have to look for exterior sales to remain profitable.
RS
Ad one of those sound systems that rattles windows at 100 meters distance?
Those weren't "holes" they're called "ink traps" and they are more like wedges cut at the peak of negative angles. Ink naturally blots a tiny bit, especially at smaller sizes, so using the ink traps didn't save ink, it merely allowed for sharp angles (such as found in M or W) to print correctly at small sizes.
An easier way to save ink AND paper is this: use a sans serif font that has 1/2 the stroke weight and print multipage documents at a smaller size. If the stroke thickness is normally, say, 150 units, make it something like 80. Use a large X height to add to readability. Then print at 10pt instead of 12. Massive savings, and no need to resort to swiss cheese fonts which will look like crapola over 12 pt. Word.
Yeah - sure - until Amazon goes out of business or gets bought and then the new owner dumps the service and you're S.O.L.
RS