The isotope of Copper claimed to be created in this reaction is considered stable, so it isn't going to decay back to Nickle... without some additional energy being put into the system.
Since 1g of Copper is worth a fair bit more than 1g of Nickel, the side effect of this process is some genuine alchemy which can earn a tidy profit above and beyond the energy being generated. I presume that at some point the saturation of copper will require the device to be recycled, but current copper ore extracted out of the ground is less than 1% copper.
Until now, such alchemy has been considered unprofitable even if theoretically possible.
The real issue is if he is going to be successful at creating the energy in an endothermic reaction using this process.
This is a bit odd, but then again it is typical of crackpots.
Then again Philo T. Farnsworth did similar kinds of experiments with television and even FM radio, only to get his head handed to him by RCA and other major companies once he proved the value of his ideas. I certainly can see this guy turning out like Farnsworth in terms of spending decades in courts trying to defend patents only to get a belated acknowledgement to the discovery when the patent expires.
About the only thing Farnsworth got from Television in terms of financial rewards was a carton of cigarettes and $80, like that did much good for a Mormon from Idaho.
The patent (thank goodness) is going to expire within our lifetimes, so it may still be something that could benefit the world as a whole.
My own bet on fusion is still with the Polywell device, and there are a few other different approaches to fusion as well. Ever since the concept of nuclear fusion was first explored the potential of it to make our world a much better place has been a well known concept... the problem has always been on how to achieve that result.
Certainly the past several decades and billions of dollars spent on the Tokamak approach to fusion is to me simply wasted time, resources, and talent that should have been used exploring the dozens of other approaches which have come up over the years. If somebody was lucky enough to come up with something better than those following the true orthodoxy of the Tokamak, my hat is off to them even for trying.
BTW, if this guy can get this device to work as claimed, you don't need to worry about Congress appropriating any money to help him out. One figure (from Robert Bussard in regards to the economic potential of the Polywell) indicated that world-wide sales of a successful fusion device like this would likely gross about $10 trillion in 2005 dollars. I'd say that is plenty of money to do just about anything you would care, and the governments of the world would certainly get their more than fair share of that chunk of money. Existing coal (and even fission nuclear) power plants could largely be refitted with this technology.... certainly at the scale of this "E-cat" device if it proves successful.
Seriously, don't worry about subsidizing this technology. It will get out there and be adopted quickly if it proves to be legit. If the guy is a crackpot, he will go down in flames almost as fast.
This guy has offered "black boxes" to some people who claim (with some reason to believe so) independent verification of a "black box" experiment where they are measuring the inputs (some water and electricity) and measuring the outputs from the device (mainly steam) and calculating the energy differences. They haven't been able to "open the boxes", but otherwise the output of the device are being measured.
The reason for the "closed box" is due to proprietary secrets in the design, and essentially non-disclosure agreements on how everything is put together. Still, you have the box with the inputs and output from which you can do measurements.
What I don't know, and can't tell from the "experiments" I've seen, is if this "black box" simply is a hoax with some Li-ion batteries inside and a sophisticated Arduino controller to manipulate the results, or if this is the real deal. I certainly could create a hoax "black box" like this if it was merely tested for a few hours. The more convincing results are for longer-term test that lasts a few days, where I would be just as impressed with energy storage cells able to create such a hoax as I would be from the real deal.
I still put this more on the level of about 10% likely to be something real in terms of nuclear fusion and am extremely skeptical. I would have made that about 0.01% likely to be real, except that there does seem to be something happening here that may be a physical phenomena doing some chemical reactions rather than the claimed nuclear reactions that hasn't been explored yet. The fact is this guy doesn't seem to really have a solid scientific theory for why this machine works, other than it does.
It isn't like somebody throwing junk together hasn't come up with a practical device in spite of not understanding how it worked before. Sometimes that is how science is advanced.
B) It won't be common or cheap if we keep using it to make more copper. It will just exchange places with copper. How much energy is produced from 1 pound of nickel? Asteroids? Really? Sounds like that would make nickel more expensive than any other metal on Earth just to get out there and bring it back. Safely, would be a bonus.
I think you are overestimating the costs of spaceflight, particularly costs for delivering stuff that is already in space to the Earth. The current cost of spaceflight at about $10k/kg to LEO is linked mainly to engineering and development costs. The cost for the fuel is currently trivial in comparison.
The current model for spaceflight is like trying to go on a trans-Atlantic trip from NYC to London on a 747 with a smaller commuter plane stuffed in the cargo hold for the return trip, and both planes are abandoned upon landing never to be reused again. I promise that air freight costs would be prohibitive if that was how most people did inter-continental travel.
Nickle in particular is very common in many asteroids... much more so than "precious metals" like silver, gold, or platinum. Particularly for the amount of energy being produced in this process compared to how much of the material being used, resources from space would be particularly well suited as a potential source of materials.
Still, Nickle is a common enough metal here on the Earth that its use as an energy source isn't nearly so big of a deal. The current spot price for Nickle is around $10-$20 per pound. That implies there are many potential mining spots which simply aren't even being used to obtain this metal simply due to economics.
Most of the copyright legislation which has been passed in the past several decades in America has been for "conformance" to European copyright, most especially the "life+100" copyright terms as well as the removal of the copyright registration as a prerequisite for copyright protection. Those concepts originated in Europe and came to America... where the legal rationale for their use is to make consistent laws between countries.
BTW, I think that is a concept that makes almost no sense, and sort of throws away the idea of national sovereignty altogether... certainly something I don't agree with on any level.
I presume you read Slashdot more than occasionally, as it seems to me that American citizens bitch about groups like the WIPO and other "draconian copyright laws" as much as anybody. I certainly can say with total certainty that the U.S. Department of State does not even remotely represent the American people in international conferences on copyright. If that makes them assholes, the term fits. The main reason they get away with their actions is because copyright & patent issues are not even remotely a topic of consideration during elections.
Which will in turn inspire somebody to come alone and edit the article with their own objections. The problem comes when you try to ban a troll or start reverting their drivel, take out "original research", or have to deal with the other policies intended to maintain neutrality of the article. That you can be fined a fairly substantial amount of money for simply banning a troll is where this law goes over the top.
Concepts such as a "neutral point of view" are completely thrown out the window with this law, and it turns Wikipedia into a free for all sport like its critics keep claiming that it is. Yes, Wikipedia is a sort of semi-organized anarchy, but the editing culture does have some rhyme or reason from time to time.
The issue isn't the raw data in the Italian language. The problem is if the volunteer community which has been busy gathering content, organizing and maintaining those pages of which most of them are Italian citizens is going to be able to continue with this particular law in place.
Sure, you can grab the database and host the project in China or Christmas Island where they would tell an Italian court to go to hell. Display all of this lovely content to your heart's content. Good luck on updating or maintaining any of that content without volunteers willing to keep it fresh.
Which is precisely the problem when some judge sees the log history of such a bot and treats that action as contempt of court (or the local Italian equivalent) that could escalate into criminal proceeding. This whole thing makes a joke of the principles of Wikipedia to maintain article neutrality, so you have to provide every nut job and fanatic a platform to say whatever they want and however they want to say it.
Can you imagine if the article on Apollo 11 was changed to say that Stephen Cobert was the first person to land on the Moon, and that you were legally prohibited from changing that "fact"? This is the absurdity of this law.
Yes, the servers are located in America (Florida specifically), but the problem is that most of the volunteers and certainly the "top" volunteers on the Italian language edition of Wikipedia ("bureaucrats" and "administrators") all live in Italy and thus are subject to Italian law. Furthermore, the "Wikimedia Italia" chapter which is responsible for the fundraising that helps support the Italian language edition of Wikipedia is headquartered in Italy and also subject to Italian law.
While a protracted fight could happen over this content where civil disobedience could happen, Italian citizens in Italy could certainly be compelled by the legal system to comply with these requests or face real problems including going to prison for failing to comply with this law. That moves the problems from being merely a PITA into a deal breaker for those who are involved on this issue. Just look at what happened with Wikileaks where it was the American government fighting a website hosted in another country to give an idea of where this could go. Certainly the same international treaties being used to shut down Wikileaks can be used to shut down Wikipedia using the same philosophies and legal principles.
I agree with this proposition, that the language being edited is irrelevant. The issue here is how it impacts collaborative writing projects involving Italian citizens rather than simply a particular language edition of Wikipedia.
What is significant here is that the Italian language version of the the project generally already conforms to Italian law in part because the policies have been established by people who are familiar with that country's laws. The threat here is that the volunteers are suggesting a nuclear/scorched earth option that if they are not going to be legally permitted to edit or maintain Wikipedia, that they simply want to get rid of the whole project altogether. At least that is my gist of what the threat listed on the Italian language edition of Wikipedia is trying to say.
Even more significant, the volunteers at the Italian language edition of Wikipedia hosted a 24 hour "blackout" after considerable discussion that was supported by the greater Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees that essentially gave a blank check support to the Italian language volunteers as well as the "Wikimedia Italia" local chapter in their fight on this particular issue. While it may not be strictly necessary to shut down the project in America, the net effect is essentially the same if the volunteer community simply pulls the plug.
Since many people in Italy use Wikipedia as a resource in their native language, the volunteers want the Italian people to realize just how serious this issue is to them, and how a very valuable resource can simply disappear if this law is allowed to stand. In that sense, I think this "blackout" was a very good idea. The real "news for nerds" isn't the law... even if that is the trigger... but the fact that Wikipedia blanked itself out yesterday and this morning (depending on what time zone you live in) with the Italian language edition.
The fact that legally speaking it seems like we are moving into a world where the lowest common denominator seems to be prevailing in terms of how you conduct yourself with international projects on the internet, this is an issue even with other language editions of Wikipedia or for that matter even Slashdot.... assuming Italian citizens participate with posts here. In the case of Slashdot, they are going to be forced by the Italian law to respond to any potential slander or "misrepresentation of fact" by removing content in a fashion similar to the DMCA. Note that the DMCA only covers blatant copyright violations, where as this law covers much more (hence the slander or "misrepresentation" issues) where take-down notices can be filed for practically any reason at all and must be dealt with or you will be facing international legal injunctions that might be recognized by American courts due to "intellectual property" treaties.
There is some real teeth in the issue here, and one that sadly might start impacting other websites over time as well. Even worse, there seems to be a tendency for laws of this nature to spread to other countries, where there certainly are several Europhiles in the American government who love to adopt laws like this into American society once they have been established "over there". This is a canary in a coalmine, so to say, and the canary is dying. At stake here is the concept of free speech altogether, especially for such a seductive concept for the expansion of government authority over the printed word.
The "regenerative braking" in this case is using the electric motors to generate electricity in the braking process and to feed that energy back into the storage system. Technically, if you are driving down a steep hill using this brake system, it could add a substantial charge to the batteries. Somehow I doubt your 1/12 scale model car could do this kind of braking.
It isn't unique to Tesla, however, and many of the "high performance" electric vehicle manufacturers are doing this because it is "free energy" in those situations where it is useful. This is pretty much like trying to use an engine air brake for an internal combustion engine (or "downshifting" on a manual clutch), but in the case of an electric vehicle it can do something useful instead of just heating up the engine even with the fuel cut.
This vehicle is being designed for freeway driving..... which implies not just 0-60 in a quick start but sustained driving at 70+ mph for an extended period of time. Obviously freeway driving will suck juice out of the batteries faster than driving at a slower speed, but it isn't as bad as it seems.
I've heard of more than a few people who have driven from the SF Bay area to Lake Tahoe and back with a Tesla Roadster (presumably recharging overnight in Nevada). Figure that out for yourself what that implies in terms of performance and range. Neither the Roadster nor the "Model S" are golf carts in terms of performance.
As for cost.... look it up yourself, Google can be your friend.
Keep in mind the magic "carbon tax credits" and other ways that the market is being skewed. I know of more than a few automobile manufacturers who sell their vehicles at a slight loss and make up for it with sales of pollution tax credits to luxury auto companies. Still, your point is well taken so far as an arguably better vehicle costing less than an inferior vehicle which is "made in America". It isn't a surprise that foreign auto companies have been making inroads into the America auto market for decades precisely because of this kind of problem.
The mileage range is something determined by the U.S. Department of Transportation based upon "typical" driving conditions. Believe it or not, there are standards which apply in this situation which don't come strictly from some marketing executive.
Your concern is legitimate, but the automotive business in America is so heavily regulated that there isn't much wiggle room for claims like this... especially if you have a production certificate from the D.O.T. for serial production. There is a lot of vaporware in the realm of electric vehicles, but eventually you have to put something out there to actually be tested in the real world. Tesla has done that.
BTW, driving range also applies to internal combustion engine vehicles as well, although most automotive manufacturers usually don't make that a key selling point.
"What they've done"? Is putting an unmanned vehicle into orbit, with help from NASA, in 2010 such a big deal? Really?
Didn't NASA do that about fifty years ago?
I certainly would put SpaceX on par with the Chinese space program at the very least.... with admittedly a lack of actually sending an astronaut into space.
The "unmanned vehicle" was a test article for what will be a manned spacecraft.... which is a big deal. More significantly, SpaceX not only sent the thing up and into orbit, but they got it to return with a successful re-entry. How many other private companies can make that claim?
My point is that they have done stuff in space and thus have at least some credibility. You on the other hand....
To point out what should be glaringly obvious, the current launch location for the Falcon 9 is at pad 40 at Cap Canaveral... literally the pad right next to where the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle all launched from. The "where" this will launch is going to be at that spot unless they move it somewhere else like Texas or Kwajalein (where SpaceX also has an existing facility). SpaceX is also working up launches at Vandenberg, but you are correct that those won't likely be used for manned spaceflight, but instead primarily D.O.D. payloads and launches which need a polar orbit. The only commercial payloads I can think of off the top of my head would be communications satellites like the Iridium satellites, but you can add what details you want there.
I won't even respond to the rest of your post because it sounds like pure ignorance.
The Dragon capsule they sent up and recovered is built man-rated.
Not quite. SpaceX is still working on the launch escape mechanism and trying to get some of the other features going to ensure the safety of the crew.
Still, your sentiment is largely correct. I heard it said that had somebody been inside of the capsule with SCUBA gear and a bean bag placed on top of the cheese wheel, they would have come back to the Earth with a wild story and likely would have been alive to tell the tale about their trip.
BTW, in regards to the comment that somehow the Shuttle is better because you can fly it to its final destination with precision.... SpaceX nailed the landing of the Dragon to within a kilometer of the intended destination. I really don't know what the glider aspect offers for a reentry vehicle other than the fact you need a huge runway costing nearly a billion dollars just for landing (or a dry lake bed in the middle of nowhere).
Manned vehicles are coming, and even the Apollo program had several unmanned trips into space before Apollo 7 finally made the trip with a crew. If that is the yardstick for comparison, SpaceX is doing just fine.
Lucky for SpaceX, they have a guardian congressman in the form of Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who has been rather vocal about their interests. I'm not saying that LockMart or Boeing are kind here nor is SpaceX immune from political games, but the time to have shut down SpaceX was in the past. Shutting the company down now due to new regulations is going to get several members of congress having their telephones ringing off the hook, including having people like city mayors and county executives that members of congress simply can't ignore trying to rip their heads off.
It might be hard for a newer company like Masten or Armadillo Aerospace to get going, but SpaceX is doing pretty well right now. At this point, SpaceX pretty much has to put up or shut up. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Falcon 9 launch that is scheduled to happen some time before the end of this year... unless there is a major schedule slip.
There may be all sorts of electronics, sensors, materials, etc. that wer developed for the shuttle systems that SpaceX may have incorporated into the Falcon and Dragon rockets.
Not much at all. The Falcon rocket is most notable as being the first rocket to be using Ethernet protocols (TCP/IP) as a part of the main communications bus for internal signals within the rocket (I think it uses a fiber optic cable) and much more modern electronics. The original Shuttle guidance computer was basically a 16 bit computer not much more sophisticated than the 8088 CPU that IBM used for the original IBM PC. The controller on each separate Merlin engine is considerably more sophisticated where the R&D for their development comes more from the operations of the M1A1 tank than from anything NASA did (in terms of milspec electronics).
Mind you, this is just the electronics portion that I'm familiar with. Most of the rest of the computers used by the Space Shuttle were standard computers like a MacIntosh laptop or stuff that came from the major aircraft manufacturers that was later engineered for the Shuttle more as an afterthought. The Space Shuttle certainly was not on the bleeding edge of technology for electronics or even sensors.
Advances in materials? Again, it really didn't impact the Falcon or Dragon development. I'll admit that in the 1970's the tile designs were original and brought about new classes of ceramics that were used in many other projects. Still.... how many years ago was that?
The Space Shuttle Main Engine certainly is a jewel of technical achievement.... but it is designed to use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuels. The Merlin engine on the Falcon uses rocket-grade kerosene.... which has very different performance characteristics. Again, not much in terms of technical heritage and in fact the Merlin engine owes much more to the F1 engine built for the Saturn V.
Sorry, this argument simply doesn't hold water unless you can provide some much better examples than the ones I've laid out here. Most of the advances in materials and technology which was used in the Falcon and in the Dragon capsule came either from private industry or from military developments (where I suppose you can claim TCP/IP in an extreme fashion). Technology from NASA? Not much.
SpaceX might want to do a little less revealing of plans and a little more flying in space.
SpaceX has plenty of experience operating spacecraft in space and sending stuff up. The reason they can brag about what they are going to do next is because they can also brag about what they've done.
If you think you are going to get an army of supermodels, I dare you to produce even an autograph of one of those women first... preferably with a phone number that you've called to hear you get humiliated if you've even been able to get that far with your plans. I might give you the benefit of the doubt that you've been a private in some army.... perhaps. I guess that gives you some experience in running an army of any kind?
Errrr, the Shuttle proved that reusability *wasn't* fiscally viable.
The Shuttle proved that a government program focused on spreading work through as many congressional districts as possible intended to subsidize aeronautical and space engineering efforts jointly with military programs on a vehicle which just happened to also be about 10% reusable wasn't fiscally viable.
This doesn't suggest it was the reusability of the Shuttle that was the problem.... and in fact that might have actually saved a little bit of money along the way. There were so many other problems with the Shuttle program including shifting design requirements and putting all of the hopes and dreams of NASA into just one concept that resulted in the fiscal disaster known as the Space Shuttle.
Then again, I've argued that had the Saturn V production continued for the past 40 years, we could have accomplished everything that was done with the Shuttle program including launching and servicing the Hubble Telescope and even been able to send some astronauts back to the Moon a few times for the same cost or even quite a bit cheaper than it cost to run the Shuttle program alone. In the end, after you go over the costs, a Shuttle flight was roughly the same or even more than a Saturn V launch.
Then again, the design of the Saturn V was rather strongly focused on accomplishing one specific mission: getting people to the Moon and bringing them back alive. The Shuttle's mission: To do..... almost everything imaginable for NASA and the Department of Defense. THAT is why the Shuttle was messed up and not cost effective. There wasn't a real mission in mind when it was built other than to keep NASA contractors busy.
Slashdot Mirror
The isotope of Copper claimed to be created in this reaction is considered stable, so it isn't going to decay back to Nickle... without some additional energy being put into the system.
Since 1g of Copper is worth a fair bit more than 1g of Nickel, the side effect of this process is some genuine alchemy which can earn a tidy profit above and beyond the energy being generated. I presume that at some point the saturation of copper will require the device to be recycled, but current copper ore extracted out of the ground is less than 1% copper.
Until now, such alchemy has been considered unprofitable even if theoretically possible.
The real issue is if he is going to be successful at creating the energy in an endothermic reaction using this process.
This is a bit odd, but then again it is typical of crackpots.
Then again Philo T. Farnsworth did similar kinds of experiments with television and even FM radio, only to get his head handed to him by RCA and other major companies once he proved the value of his ideas. I certainly can see this guy turning out like Farnsworth in terms of spending decades in courts trying to defend patents only to get a belated acknowledgement to the discovery when the patent expires.
About the only thing Farnsworth got from Television in terms of financial rewards was a carton of cigarettes and $80, like that did much good for a Mormon from Idaho.
The patent (thank goodness) is going to expire within our lifetimes, so it may still be something that could benefit the world as a whole.
My own bet on fusion is still with the Polywell device, and there are a few other different approaches to fusion as well. Ever since the concept of nuclear fusion was first explored the potential of it to make our world a much better place has been a well known concept... the problem has always been on how to achieve that result.
Certainly the past several decades and billions of dollars spent on the Tokamak approach to fusion is to me simply wasted time, resources, and talent that should have been used exploring the dozens of other approaches which have come up over the years. If somebody was lucky enough to come up with something better than those following the true orthodoxy of the Tokamak, my hat is off to them even for trying.
BTW, if this guy can get this device to work as claimed, you don't need to worry about Congress appropriating any money to help him out. One figure (from Robert Bussard in regards to the economic potential of the Polywell) indicated that world-wide sales of a successful fusion device like this would likely gross about $10 trillion in 2005 dollars. I'd say that is plenty of money to do just about anything you would care, and the governments of the world would certainly get their more than fair share of that chunk of money. Existing coal (and even fission nuclear) power plants could largely be refitted with this technology.... certainly at the scale of this "E-cat" device if it proves successful.
Seriously, don't worry about subsidizing this technology. It will get out there and be adopted quickly if it proves to be legit. If the guy is a crackpot, he will go down in flames almost as fast.
This guy has offered "black boxes" to some people who claim (with some reason to believe so) independent verification of a "black box" experiment where they are measuring the inputs (some water and electricity) and measuring the outputs from the device (mainly steam) and calculating the energy differences. They haven't been able to "open the boxes", but otherwise the output of the device are being measured.
The reason for the "closed box" is due to proprietary secrets in the design, and essentially non-disclosure agreements on how everything is put together. Still, you have the box with the inputs and output from which you can do measurements.
What I don't know, and can't tell from the "experiments" I've seen, is if this "black box" simply is a hoax with some Li-ion batteries inside and a sophisticated Arduino controller to manipulate the results, or if this is the real deal. I certainly could create a hoax "black box" like this if it was merely tested for a few hours. The more convincing results are for longer-term test that lasts a few days, where I would be just as impressed with energy storage cells able to create such a hoax as I would be from the real deal.
I still put this more on the level of about 10% likely to be something real in terms of nuclear fusion and am extremely skeptical. I would have made that about 0.01% likely to be real, except that there does seem to be something happening here that may be a physical phenomena doing some chemical reactions rather than the claimed nuclear reactions that hasn't been explored yet. The fact is this guy doesn't seem to really have a solid scientific theory for why this machine works, other than it does.
It isn't like somebody throwing junk together hasn't come up with a practical device in spite of not understanding how it worked before. Sometimes that is how science is advanced.
B) It won't be common or cheap if we keep using it to make more copper. It will just exchange places with copper. How much energy is produced from 1 pound of nickel? Asteroids? Really? Sounds like that would make nickel more expensive than any other metal on Earth just to get out there and bring it back. Safely, would be a bonus.
I think you are overestimating the costs of spaceflight, particularly costs for delivering stuff that is already in space to the Earth. The current cost of spaceflight at about $10k/kg to LEO is linked mainly to engineering and development costs. The cost for the fuel is currently trivial in comparison.
The current model for spaceflight is like trying to go on a trans-Atlantic trip from NYC to London on a 747 with a smaller commuter plane stuffed in the cargo hold for the return trip, and both planes are abandoned upon landing never to be reused again. I promise that air freight costs would be prohibitive if that was how most people did inter-continental travel.
Nickle in particular is very common in many asteroids... much more so than "precious metals" like silver, gold, or platinum. Particularly for the amount of energy being produced in this process compared to how much of the material being used, resources from space would be particularly well suited as a potential source of materials.
Still, Nickle is a common enough metal here on the Earth that its use as an energy source isn't nearly so big of a deal. The current spot price for Nickle is around $10-$20 per pound. That implies there are many potential mining spots which simply aren't even being used to obtain this metal simply due to economics.
Most of the copyright legislation which has been passed in the past several decades in America has been for "conformance" to European copyright, most especially the "life+100" copyright terms as well as the removal of the copyright registration as a prerequisite for copyright protection. Those concepts originated in Europe and came to America... where the legal rationale for their use is to make consistent laws between countries.
BTW, I think that is a concept that makes almost no sense, and sort of throws away the idea of national sovereignty altogether... certainly something I don't agree with on any level.
I presume you read Slashdot more than occasionally, as it seems to me that American citizens bitch about groups like the WIPO and other "draconian copyright laws" as much as anybody. I certainly can say with total certainty that the U.S. Department of State does not even remotely represent the American people in international conferences on copyright. If that makes them assholes, the term fits. The main reason they get away with their actions is because copyright & patent issues are not even remotely a topic of consideration during elections.
Which will in turn inspire somebody to come alone and edit the article with their own objections. The problem comes when you try to ban a troll or start reverting their drivel, take out "original research", or have to deal with the other policies intended to maintain neutrality of the article. That you can be fined a fairly substantial amount of money for simply banning a troll is where this law goes over the top.
Concepts such as a "neutral point of view" are completely thrown out the window with this law, and it turns Wikipedia into a free for all sport like its critics keep claiming that it is. Yes, Wikipedia is a sort of semi-organized anarchy, but the editing culture does have some rhyme or reason from time to time.
The issue isn't the raw data in the Italian language. The problem is if the volunteer community which has been busy gathering content, organizing and maintaining those pages of which most of them are Italian citizens is going to be able to continue with this particular law in place.
Sure, you can grab the database and host the project in China or Christmas Island where they would tell an Italian court to go to hell. Display all of this lovely content to your heart's content. Good luck on updating or maintaining any of that content without volunteers willing to keep it fresh.
Would such a "feel good" bill make the "Nunaka Valley Little League junior girls softball team" a notable topic?
[ducks real quick from an attack by deletionists]
Which is precisely the problem when some judge sees the log history of such a bot and treats that action as contempt of court (or the local Italian equivalent) that could escalate into criminal proceeding. This whole thing makes a joke of the principles of Wikipedia to maintain article neutrality, so you have to provide every nut job and fanatic a platform to say whatever they want and however they want to say it.
Can you imagine if the article on Apollo 11 was changed to say that Stephen Cobert was the first person to land on the Moon, and that you were legally prohibited from changing that "fact"? This is the absurdity of this law.
Yes, the servers are located in America (Florida specifically), but the problem is that most of the volunteers and certainly the "top" volunteers on the Italian language edition of Wikipedia ("bureaucrats" and "administrators") all live in Italy and thus are subject to Italian law. Furthermore, the "Wikimedia Italia" chapter which is responsible for the fundraising that helps support the Italian language edition of Wikipedia is headquartered in Italy and also subject to Italian law.
While a protracted fight could happen over this content where civil disobedience could happen, Italian citizens in Italy could certainly be compelled by the legal system to comply with these requests or face real problems including going to prison for failing to comply with this law. That moves the problems from being merely a PITA into a deal breaker for those who are involved on this issue. Just look at what happened with Wikileaks where it was the American government fighting a website hosted in another country to give an idea of where this could go. Certainly the same international treaties being used to shut down Wikileaks can be used to shut down Wikipedia using the same philosophies and legal principles.
I agree with this proposition, that the language being edited is irrelevant. The issue here is how it impacts collaborative writing projects involving Italian citizens rather than simply a particular language edition of Wikipedia.
What is significant here is that the Italian language version of the the project generally already conforms to Italian law in part because the policies have been established by people who are familiar with that country's laws. The threat here is that the volunteers are suggesting a nuclear/scorched earth option that if they are not going to be legally permitted to edit or maintain Wikipedia, that they simply want to get rid of the whole project altogether. At least that is my gist of what the threat listed on the Italian language edition of Wikipedia is trying to say.
Even more significant, the volunteers at the Italian language edition of Wikipedia hosted a 24 hour "blackout" after considerable discussion that was supported by the greater Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees that essentially gave a blank check support to the Italian language volunteers as well as the "Wikimedia Italia" local chapter in their fight on this particular issue. While it may not be strictly necessary to shut down the project in America, the net effect is essentially the same if the volunteer community simply pulls the plug.
Since many people in Italy use Wikipedia as a resource in their native language, the volunteers want the Italian people to realize just how serious this issue is to them, and how a very valuable resource can simply disappear if this law is allowed to stand. In that sense, I think this "blackout" was a very good idea. The real "news for nerds" isn't the law... even if that is the trigger... but the fact that Wikipedia blanked itself out yesterday and this morning (depending on what time zone you live in) with the Italian language edition.
The fact that legally speaking it seems like we are moving into a world where the lowest common denominator seems to be prevailing in terms of how you conduct yourself with international projects on the internet, this is an issue even with other language editions of Wikipedia or for that matter even Slashdot.... assuming Italian citizens participate with posts here. In the case of Slashdot, they are going to be forced by the Italian law to respond to any potential slander or "misrepresentation of fact" by removing content in a fashion similar to the DMCA. Note that the DMCA only covers blatant copyright violations, where as this law covers much more (hence the slander or "misrepresentation" issues) where take-down notices can be filed for practically any reason at all and must be dealt with or you will be facing international legal injunctions that might be recognized by American courts due to "intellectual property" treaties.
There is some real teeth in the issue here, and one that sadly might start impacting other websites over time as well. Even worse, there seems to be a tendency for laws of this nature to spread to other countries, where there certainly are several Europhiles in the American government who love to adopt laws like this into American society once they have been established "over there". This is a canary in a coalmine, so to say, and the canary is dying. At stake here is the concept of free speech altogether, especially for such a seductive concept for the expansion of government authority over the printed word.
That sounds like something which ought to have a business method patent filed.
Then again, my opinion on business method patents is somewhere between Hell and a really awful place like spending an eternity on Io.
The "regenerative braking" in this case is using the electric motors to generate electricity in the braking process and to feed that energy back into the storage system. Technically, if you are driving down a steep hill using this brake system, it could add a substantial charge to the batteries. Somehow I doubt your 1/12 scale model car could do this kind of braking.
It isn't unique to Tesla, however, and many of the "high performance" electric vehicle manufacturers are doing this because it is "free energy" in those situations where it is useful. This is pretty much like trying to use an engine air brake for an internal combustion engine (or "downshifting" on a manual clutch), but in the case of an electric vehicle it can do something useful instead of just heating up the engine even with the fuel cut.
This vehicle is being designed for freeway driving..... which implies not just 0-60 in a quick start but sustained driving at 70+ mph for an extended period of time. Obviously freeway driving will suck juice out of the batteries faster than driving at a slower speed, but it isn't as bad as it seems.
I've heard of more than a few people who have driven from the SF Bay area to Lake Tahoe and back with a Tesla Roadster (presumably recharging overnight in Nevada). Figure that out for yourself what that implies in terms of performance and range. Neither the Roadster nor the "Model S" are golf carts in terms of performance.
As for cost.... look it up yourself, Google can be your friend.
Keep in mind the magic "carbon tax credits" and other ways that the market is being skewed. I know of more than a few automobile manufacturers who sell their vehicles at a slight loss and make up for it with sales of pollution tax credits to luxury auto companies. Still, your point is well taken so far as an arguably better vehicle costing less than an inferior vehicle which is "made in America". It isn't a surprise that foreign auto companies have been making inroads into the America auto market for decades precisely because of this kind of problem.
The mileage range is something determined by the U.S. Department of Transportation based upon "typical" driving conditions. Believe it or not, there are standards which apply in this situation which don't come strictly from some marketing executive.
Your concern is legitimate, but the automotive business in America is so heavily regulated that there isn't much wiggle room for claims like this... especially if you have a production certificate from the D.O.T. for serial production. There is a lot of vaporware in the realm of electric vehicles, but eventually you have to put something out there to actually be tested in the real world. Tesla has done that.
BTW, driving range also applies to internal combustion engine vehicles as well, although most automotive manufacturers usually don't make that a key selling point.
"What they've done"? Is putting an unmanned vehicle into orbit, with help from NASA, in 2010 such a big deal? Really?
Didn't NASA do that about fifty years ago?
I certainly would put SpaceX on par with the Chinese space program at the very least.... with admittedly a lack of actually sending an astronaut into space.
The "unmanned vehicle" was a test article for what will be a manned spacecraft.... which is a big deal. More significantly, SpaceX not only sent the thing up and into orbit, but they got it to return with a successful re-entry. How many other private companies can make that claim?
My point is that they have done stuff in space and thus have at least some credibility. You on the other hand....
To point out what should be glaringly obvious, the current launch location for the Falcon 9 is at pad 40 at Cap Canaveral... literally the pad right next to where the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle all launched from. The "where" this will launch is going to be at that spot unless they move it somewhere else like Texas or Kwajalein (where SpaceX also has an existing facility). SpaceX is also working up launches at Vandenberg, but you are correct that those won't likely be used for manned spaceflight, but instead primarily D.O.D. payloads and launches which need a polar orbit. The only commercial payloads I can think of off the top of my head would be communications satellites like the Iridium satellites, but you can add what details you want there.
I won't even respond to the rest of your post because it sounds like pure ignorance.
The Dragon capsule they sent up and recovered is built man-rated.
Not quite. SpaceX is still working on the launch escape mechanism and trying to get some of the other features going to ensure the safety of the crew.
Still, your sentiment is largely correct. I heard it said that had somebody been inside of the capsule with SCUBA gear and a bean bag placed on top of the cheese wheel, they would have come back to the Earth with a wild story and likely would have been alive to tell the tale about their trip.
BTW, in regards to the comment that somehow the Shuttle is better because you can fly it to its final destination with precision.... SpaceX nailed the landing of the Dragon to within a kilometer of the intended destination. I really don't know what the glider aspect offers for a reentry vehicle other than the fact you need a huge runway costing nearly a billion dollars just for landing (or a dry lake bed in the middle of nowhere).
Manned vehicles are coming, and even the Apollo program had several unmanned trips into space before Apollo 7 finally made the trip with a crew. If that is the yardstick for comparison, SpaceX is doing just fine.
don't forget the Millennium Falcon can fly too - I've seen it on the big screen !
Don't forget.... the Falcon rocket IS the Millennium Falcon. Just ask Elon Musk where he got the name for the rocket!
Lucky for SpaceX, they have a guardian congressman in the form of Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who has been rather vocal about their interests. I'm not saying that LockMart or Boeing are kind here nor is SpaceX immune from political games, but the time to have shut down SpaceX was in the past. Shutting the company down now due to new regulations is going to get several members of congress having their telephones ringing off the hook, including having people like city mayors and county executives that members of congress simply can't ignore trying to rip their heads off.
It might be hard for a newer company like Masten or Armadillo Aerospace to get going, but SpaceX is doing pretty well right now. At this point, SpaceX pretty much has to put up or shut up. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Falcon 9 launch that is scheduled to happen some time before the end of this year... unless there is a major schedule slip.
There may be all sorts of electronics, sensors, materials, etc. that wer developed for the shuttle systems that SpaceX may have incorporated into the Falcon and Dragon rockets.
Not much at all. The Falcon rocket is most notable as being the first rocket to be using Ethernet protocols (TCP/IP) as a part of the main communications bus for internal signals within the rocket (I think it uses a fiber optic cable) and much more modern electronics. The original Shuttle guidance computer was basically a 16 bit computer not much more sophisticated than the 8088 CPU that IBM used for the original IBM PC. The controller on each separate Merlin engine is considerably more sophisticated where the R&D for their development comes more from the operations of the M1A1 tank than from anything NASA did (in terms of milspec electronics).
Mind you, this is just the electronics portion that I'm familiar with. Most of the rest of the computers used by the Space Shuttle were standard computers like a MacIntosh laptop or stuff that came from the major aircraft manufacturers that was later engineered for the Shuttle more as an afterthought. The Space Shuttle certainly was not on the bleeding edge of technology for electronics or even sensors.
Advances in materials? Again, it really didn't impact the Falcon or Dragon development. I'll admit that in the 1970's the tile designs were original and brought about new classes of ceramics that were used in many other projects. Still.... how many years ago was that?
The Space Shuttle Main Engine certainly is a jewel of technical achievement.... but it is designed to use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuels. The Merlin engine on the Falcon uses rocket-grade kerosene.... which has very different performance characteristics. Again, not much in terms of technical heritage and in fact the Merlin engine owes much more to the F1 engine built for the Saturn V.
Sorry, this argument simply doesn't hold water unless you can provide some much better examples than the ones I've laid out here. Most of the advances in materials and technology which was used in the Falcon and in the Dragon capsule came either from private industry or from military developments (where I suppose you can claim TCP/IP in an extreme fashion). Technology from NASA? Not much.
SpaceX might want to do a little less revealing of plans and a little more flying in space.
SpaceX has plenty of experience operating spacecraft in space and sending stuff up. The reason they can brag about what they are going to do next is because they can also brag about what they've done.
If you think you are going to get an army of supermodels, I dare you to produce even an autograph of one of those women first... preferably with a phone number that you've called to hear you get humiliated if you've even been able to get that far with your plans. I might give you the benefit of the doubt that you've been a private in some army.... perhaps. I guess that gives you some experience in running an army of any kind?
Errrr, the Shuttle proved that reusability *wasn't* fiscally viable.
The Shuttle proved that a government program focused on spreading work through as many congressional districts as possible intended to subsidize aeronautical and space engineering efforts jointly with military programs on a vehicle which just happened to also be about 10% reusable wasn't fiscally viable.
This doesn't suggest it was the reusability of the Shuttle that was the problem.... and in fact that might have actually saved a little bit of money along the way. There were so many other problems with the Shuttle program including shifting design requirements and putting all of the hopes and dreams of NASA into just one concept that resulted in the fiscal disaster known as the Space Shuttle.
Then again, I've argued that had the Saturn V production continued for the past 40 years, we could have accomplished everything that was done with the Shuttle program including launching and servicing the Hubble Telescope and even been able to send some astronauts back to the Moon a few times for the same cost or even quite a bit cheaper than it cost to run the Shuttle program alone. In the end, after you go over the costs, a Shuttle flight was roughly the same or even more than a Saturn V launch.
Then again, the design of the Saturn V was rather strongly focused on accomplishing one specific mission: getting people to the Moon and bringing them back alive. The Shuttle's mission: To do..... almost everything imaginable for NASA and the Department of Defense. THAT is why the Shuttle was messed up and not cost effective. There wasn't a real mission in mind when it was built other than to keep NASA contractors busy.