(FYI: the point of this is not efficiency, but rather that an electric motor is quieter than a diesel engine so they can sneak up on enemies more easily.)
Gasoline combustion or any similar idea involving controlled explosions are highly unreliable and expensive to maintain.
And yet, somehow it manages to be cheaper and more practical than batteries despite all that. Hmmm...
Hint: batteries suck. They'd need to become orders of magnitude better in order to stop sucking. And that's not happening.
In fact, batteries suck so bad that people are trying to replace them with fuel cells, so that they can carry hydrogen to make electricity as they go. But those suck too, because there's no good way to store free hydrogen. So then people decide to try combining the hydrogen with carbon so that it can be stored more conveniently. But even then it still sucks, because the lighter hydrocarbon compounds they're trying (e.g. CH4) are still gases at normal temperatures, and therefore hard to store. So what's next? Trying heavier compounds, of course! But wait: then you've ended up with fucking gasoline again!
Conclusion: I predict that in the future, even after all power production comes from renewable resources such as solar, wind, etc., we're going to be using that electricity to synthesize gasoline (or a similar liquid hydrocarbon) from CO2 and H2O, and then burning the result in our internal-combustion cars in exactly the same way we're doing now.
One of the problems with unleaded fuels is that they produce higher compression than avgas.
Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that compression was caused by the reduction in volume within the cylinders between the bottom and top ends of the piston stroke, and had nothing to do with the particular gas that was being compressed. Am I wrong, or did you mean to say that unleaded gas detonates at lower compression ratios than leaded gas does?
If as the article states this is a drop in equivalent and has more positive environmental aspects wouldn't any marketing guru say charge the same or more?
This is exactly what my biodiesel provider does, because the guy in charge of it doesn't want ignorant people buying it without understanding what it is just because it's cheap. (And I suspect he doesn't mind the extra revenue, either.) It tends to be the same price as dino-diesel, plus or minus ten cents.
In a used diesel, the biodiesel will clean out the fuel system, so the fuel filter will get plugged.
...Maybe. My girlfriend and I started using B20 in her Beetle TDI shortly after we bought it 6 months ago, and I haven't replaced the fuel filter yet. Either the fuel system was already clean for some reason, or my butt dynamometer can't tell the difference.
Where are all of these nutrients and minerals going to come from to grow new plants?
Are these nutrients and minerals present in the hydrocarbon fuel that's the output? I should hope not; they'd kill the cars! Therefore, they must be separated out as waste. And what do you do with the waste (that, not coincidentally, contains the nutrients and minerals)? Duh, you dump it back on the fields for the new plants!
Under the federal rules, a plaintiff is absolutely entitled to dismiss its own case before the defendant has filed an answer. In this case, defendant had not filed an answer. Instead, she had filed a pre-answer motion to dismiss the complaint for legal insufficiency.
It seems to me that the RIAA is like an employee who's just been fired trying to say "you can't fire me, I quit!" in the interval between being told about it and being escorted off the premises. It's bullshit.
Secondly, how does it hurt the defendant for the case to go away? Answer, it doesn't.
But that's not the point, just as how the employee claiming to quit doesn't hurt the former employer. What it hurts is the next employer, because the employee is trying to weasel out of having the firing show up (and thereby count against him) on his resumé. It's unethical and should not be tolerated!
And that's stupid; it's equivalent to being handed a pink slip and whining "you can't fire me, I quit!" No, you were fired first. In the same way, this case should have been dismissed by the defendant first, with prejudice (or whatever the legal term is).
The RIAA has been choosing to sue only those who are making the tracks available (probably either because they think it's the cheapest way to get their message across, or because they haven't figured out a way to nail the downloaders without stirring up entrapment charges)
I'm not even a law student, but I don't think that's entrapment. Either the RIAA-affiliated entity that would be making the tracks available would be authorized to do so, or it wouldn't. In the first case, no infringement would have occurred because the downloader would have implicit permission to copy. In the second case, the RIAA-affiliated entity would be liable for copyright infringement itself, and I would hope a judge would take a dim view of a hypocritical action like that.
If the RIAA says "you can download any RIAA song" then no, it wouldn't be a violation of copyright because they have a license given by the RIAA that lets them do that.
And then, by exactly the same argument, they'd be again unable to prove copyright infringement because none occurred!
what's the big deal about popping your CD in the tray?
My laptop doesn't have an optical drive, you insensitive clod!
And no, I'm not joking: I install software by pulling the optical drive out of my girlfriend's desktop and hooking an IDE->USB converter to it, but there's no way in Hell I'm going to do that on a regular basis!
Controlling what's available from the "AppStore" is one thing, but where Apple crosses the line is that it forces the AppStore to be the only method by which users are allowed to load apps on the device. It's entirely unreasonable that I would be disallowed, from, for example, downloading an app from Sourceforge, compiling it myself, copying the.app bundle to the iPhone, and running it.
See, here's the thing: there's a huge fucking difference between having this service be available, and having it be mandatory. Having it available is good; I agree that it would be very convenient for small proprietary developers. Having it mandatory is bad, because it locks out Free Software and hobbyists.
If someone is going to pursue a task because the task is its own reward, and you entice them to pursue a different task that isn't its own reward by offering them money, that's bribery.
You do realize you're describing the vast majority of employment worldwide, right?
The fact that you don't perceive anything wrong with living in a world that normalizes the first example is a testament to how far we have collectively fallen. In my opinion.
How can we have "fallen" to that level when we never rose above it in the first place? The world has never worked any differently! Your opinion is utopian.
That's what he was trying to do! Obviously, he can't even do that, because he tried and failed and then ShieldW0lf bit his head off for complaining about it!
Re:Anything else out there?
on
The State of X.Org
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Being able to have two pointers might be pretty cool, but you'll not get much attention for that.
Really? You do know that "multiple pointers" is also known as "multitouch," right? Why can the Apple iPhone and Microsoft Surface get attention for it, while X.org can't?
If I can develop an application for the iPhone, I can be an independent developer without having to go through anyone but Apple.
And if you're a PC developer, then you can be independent without having to go through anyone full stop. It's a crying shame, and a testament to the egregious and undue influence the telecom industry has over our government, that the cell phone market isn't like that too. This kind of shit -- that is, requiring apps to have the "blessing" of the device manufacturer or service provider to work -- ought to be illegal!
Phoronix will pay to fix X
on
The State of X.Org
·
· Score: 4, Informative
From the article:
At Phoronix we are even willing to offer -- cash and/or computer hardware -- bounties for having X.Org release schedules met and bug lists being cleared out.
I think you've missed my point. Yes, these big SUVs are bad and the people who bought them new were stupid. However, they already exist, so now we've got two choices: continuing to drive them, or scrap them. But if we scrap them, then we've got to build more entirely new cars to compensate. What I'm trying to say is that, as bad as continuing to drive these SUVs is, wasting resources and junkyard space to replace them before they're worn out is even worse.
I'm not sure about availability in the US, but there are plenty of small, cheap, reliable cars around that get similar MPG: Yaris, Micra, Aygo etc.
Only one of those cars, the Yaris, is available here, and the only engine available for it (a 1.5L I4) is the one I'll bet you guys would consider the top-end model.
The problem with my car is that if I floor it will want to go at once to 6000rpm.
Start in second gear.
My car is a roadster, so it does behave a bit different than most gas cars.;-)
"Roadster" doesn't mean "fast" or "powerful," it just means "car with two seats and no top." In fact, an archetypal roadster, such as an MGB, would accelerate slower than my Hyundai Accent (an economy car). And even modern Miatas aren't that fast.
Maybe your car is fast and powerful, but merely describing it as a "roadster" doesn't allow us to assume that.
Re:hmmmm. as long as your are offering advice
on
The SUV Is Dethroned
·
· Score: 1
Our current one gets 20 MPG. Not great, but respectable.
Slashdot Mirror
Wanna bet? ; )
(FYI: the point of this is not efficiency, but rather that an electric motor is quieter than a diesel engine so they can sneak up on enemies more easily.)
And yet, somehow it manages to be cheaper and more practical than batteries despite all that. Hmmm...
Hint: batteries suck. They'd need to become orders of magnitude better in order to stop sucking. And that's not happening.
In fact, batteries suck so bad that people are trying to replace them with fuel cells, so that they can carry hydrogen to make electricity as they go. But those suck too, because there's no good way to store free hydrogen. So then people decide to try combining the hydrogen with carbon so that it can be stored more conveniently. But even then it still sucks, because the lighter hydrocarbon compounds they're trying (e.g. CH4) are still gases at normal temperatures, and therefore hard to store. So what's next? Trying heavier compounds, of course! But wait: then you've ended up with fucking gasoline again!
Conclusion: I predict that in the future, even after all power production comes from renewable resources such as solar, wind, etc., we're going to be using that electricity to synthesize gasoline (or a similar liquid hydrocarbon) from CO2 and H2O, and then burning the result in our internal-combustion cars in exactly the same way we're doing now.
Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that compression was caused by the reduction in volume within the cylinders between the bottom and top ends of the piston stroke, and had nothing to do with the particular gas that was being compressed. Am I wrong, or did you mean to say that unleaded gas detonates at lower compression ratios than leaded gas does?
This is exactly what my biodiesel provider does, because the guy in charge of it doesn't want ignorant people buying it without understanding what it is just because it's cheap. (And I suspect he doesn't mind the extra revenue, either.) It tends to be the same price as dino-diesel, plus or minus ten cents.
Actually, to make biodiesel from vegetable oil you need to react it with methoxide and then "washed" and/or decanted to remove glycerin (i.e., soap).
This process has nothing to do with fermentation, except that methoxide is made from methanol.
Oh yeah? What about sherpas, then? ; )
Are these nutrients and minerals present in the hydrocarbon fuel that's the output? I should hope not; they'd kill the cars! Therefore, they must be separated out as waste. And what do you do with the waste (that, not coincidentally, contains the nutrients and minerals)? Duh, you dump it back on the fields for the new plants!
It seems to me that the RIAA is like an employee who's just been fired trying to say "you can't fire me, I quit!" in the interval between being told about it and being escorted off the premises. It's bullshit.
But that's not the point, just as how the employee claiming to quit doesn't hurt the former employer. What it hurts is the next employer, because the employee is trying to weasel out of having the firing show up (and thereby count against him) on his resumé. It's unethical and should not be tolerated!
And that's stupid; it's equivalent to being handed a pink slip and whining "you can't fire me, I quit!" No, you were fired first. In the same way, this case should have been dismissed by the defendant first, with prejudice (or whatever the legal term is).
I'm not even a law student, but I don't think that's entrapment. Either the RIAA-affiliated entity that would be making the tracks available would be authorized to do so, or it wouldn't. In the first case, no infringement would have occurred because the downloader would have implicit permission to copy. In the second case, the RIAA-affiliated entity would be liable for copyright infringement itself, and I would hope a judge would take a dim view of a hypocritical action like that.
And then, by exactly the same argument, they'd be again unable to prove copyright infringement because none occurred!
My laptop doesn't have an optical drive, you insensitive clod!
And no, I'm not joking: I install software by pulling the optical drive out of my girlfriend's desktop and hooking an IDE->USB converter to it, but there's no way in Hell I'm going to do that on a regular basis!
Controlling what's available from the "AppStore" is one thing, but where Apple crosses the line is that it forces the AppStore to be the only method by which users are allowed to load apps on the device. It's entirely unreasonable that I would be disallowed, from, for example, downloading an app from Sourceforge, compiling it myself, copying the .app bundle to the iPhone, and running it.
See, here's the thing: there's a huge fucking difference between having this service be available, and having it be mandatory. Having it available is good; I agree that it would be very convenient for small proprietary developers. Having it mandatory is bad, because it locks out Free Software and hobbyists.
You do realize you're describing the vast majority of employment worldwide, right?
How can we have "fallen" to that level when we never rose above it in the first place? The world has never worked any differently! Your opinion is utopian.
That's what he was trying to do! Obviously, he can't even do that, because he tried and failed and then ShieldW0lf bit his head off for complaining about it!
Really? You do know that "multiple pointers" is also known as "multitouch," right? Why can the Apple iPhone and Microsoft Surface get attention for it, while X.org can't?
And if you're a PC developer, then you can be independent without having to go through anyone full stop. It's a crying shame, and a testament to the egregious and undue influence the telecom industry has over our government, that the cell phone market isn't like that too. This kind of shit -- that is, requiring apps to have the "blessing" of the device manufacturer or service provider to work -- ought to be illegal!
From the article:
I think you've missed my point. Yes, these big SUVs are bad and the people who bought them new were stupid. However, they already exist, so now we've got two choices: continuing to drive them, or scrap them. But if we scrap them, then we've got to build more entirely new cars to compensate. What I'm trying to say is that, as bad as continuing to drive these SUVs is, wasting resources and junkyard space to replace them before they're worn out is even worse.
Only one of those cars, the Yaris, is available here, and the only engine available for it (a 1.5L I4) is the one I'll bet you guys would consider the top-end model.
Start in second gear.
"Roadster" doesn't mean "fast" or "powerful," it just means "car with two seats and no top." In fact, an archetypal roadster, such as an MGB, would accelerate slower than my Hyundai Accent (an economy car). And even modern Miatas aren't that fast.
Maybe your car is fast and powerful, but merely describing it as a "roadster" doesn't allow us to assume that.
You misspelled "contemptible."
You seem to have SUVs confused with minivans. A Land Rover is an example of an SUV; a Toyota Previa is not.