What's wrong with these automakers? Haven't they figured out by now that hydrogen is a total waste of time and effort?
That is actually not true. There are definite advantages with Hydrogen fuel cells..
a) The amount of weight that the cars need to lug around comes down a lot with fuel cells.
b) Recharging EVs at home will become an issue over time especially in apartment complexes because the apartment complex will need to draw huge amounts of power from the grid to make this happen and these chargers will have to be installed in every parking bay etc.
c) Refueling can be done pretty quickly. With EVs, even with fast chargers, it will still take about an hour to get enough charge to go for 100 miles. In the case of hydrogen fuel cells, the refuel process can be completed in minutes.
d) Because it takes a long time to recharge EVs - even the most cutting-edge fast chargers from the new Porsche EV will take about 15 minutes to recharge, a recharge station can service only very few EVs simultaneously - both because of the very high power draw required per vehicle + also the time it takes to recharge each vehicle. That is not a problem with Hydrogen fuel. Refueling stations can service many more vehicles at the same time (similar to the current Petrol/Diesel stations).
f) Recent advances such as the one in the University of Glasgow allows for hydrogen to be produced 30 times faster and its storage in inorganic liquid fuels - thus solving the two big problems with Hydrogen fuel cells - cost-effective, industrial generation of hydrogen and its safe storage.
What you are proposing will actually make the situation worse. H1B visas are relatively hard to get compared to the B1 visa that Infosys was abusing.
A B1 visa is easier to obtain as it is intended for short visits for things like negotiating a business contract, a marketing/sales visit and so on. It does NOT allow for the person to receive a salary from the US entity or to engage in any production work such as software development.
However, since H1B is difficult to get and since many contracts can be executed without having developers in the US for 3 years (that is the case with H1B), many companies abuse the B1 visa.
Why don't you guys at least do something more than posting on a news website? Why don't you start by boycotting products from the top 5 companies involved in cooperating with the NSA - Google, Apple, Microsoft,...
Don't buy their products, or use their services.
Then start by boycotting the big banks and wall st firms like Goldman Sachs, BoA, JP Morgan etc.
If enough people do this instead of going after the new and shiny, it will empower the small players who will see the writing on the wall - and as for the treacherous big players - well, they may at least stop paying the kind of money they have been paying the politicians thus far.. and so the politicians may lose their interest just a tiny bit to protect these lobbies.
You are a completely different demographic from the people Gates Foundation tries to help. You can be sure that someone living in a shack in Africa isn't going to be looking up Malaria on the web when their child seems to be suffering from a high fever.
They should have had another option below $10,000/-. Something like a $5000 option which includes 3 phones + and invite to the unveiling meeting. I think the $10,000/- with a single phone option won't be attractive to a lot of people.
The biggest con ever pulled on human beings is that their vote once every few years is the great control that they wield over the government.
Your ONE vote among a few MILLION - even assuming that the politicians haven't already figured out a way of gaming even the voting process, you are still talking about just one vote.
And then once you have voted, you go back to your sorry, pathetic lives and the poltiicians have a wonderful time looting everyone dry all the way upto the next election. What happens to your contribution in keeping the government under check during the interim period - that is the period between the two elections?
Unless the populace is willing to do much more than merely vote during elections - unless the populace is willing to actually prevent the government from becoming corrupt, ruthless and inept by real action in the interim period between two successive elections, we will get nowhere.
No, there was no controversy because a lot of what Hitchens said is absolute hogwash. They interviewed a few people who worked in the hospice, did they? Well, damn! that is amazing - then it must be true, right?
How many of the poor have they interviewed to determine the truth? How many of those people ever stated that their situation was made worse by coming under Mother Teresa's care? Many of those who decry Mother Teresa have no idea about the type of suffering the poor undergo on a regular basis in India.
You know why there is no outrcy? Because to the poor, Mother Teresa is almost a god. They have benefited hugely by what Mother Teresa did for them - they saw her sacrifice and have seen her love.
But for someone like Hitchens who made it is life ambition to target anyone religious and especially religious leaders, Mother Teresa was a prime target. He couldn't allow a avowed Christian to be seen like a saint - that wouldn't sit well with his proclaimed position and the agenda which he pushed hard with every book, every TV show, every press conference.
None of you westerners who decry Mother Teresa know squat diddly about her work in India. None of you have a clue as to the type of suffering the poor undergo in India and the type of relief Mother Teresa brought into their lives. Hitchens and people like him who sit on a high horse and pronounce judgments on Mother Teresa have probably not done much to help the poor at all - yes, they may have given a few pounds to charity every once in a while but that is quite different from actually living with the poor and becoming one of them even as you serve them - this is precisely what Mother Teresa did.
I speak as someone who lives in india and who works among the poor.
As much as I fully agree with your comment that it is unfair to believe that if there is a terrorist attack it must certainly have been caused by muslims, I would also like you to consider the fact that in muslim-dominated countries, practitioners of other religions very often live under serious threat of violence - or to put it another way, under terror imposed upon them by the muslim majority - and no, you can't blame the US, UK or any other country for that. In these nations, muslims are targetting people of their own nationality - other citizens, and forcing them to live in fear.
In many of these nations even just changing your religion is seen as a capital offence. Examples: Pakistan, Maldives, Most countries in the ME, parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. Try taking in a Bible into Saudi Arabia. Forget that - try just *getting* into Mecca as a non-muslim.
So their (muslim) oft-quoted justification that the west is terrorising them and therefore they are just responding does not hold when the people they are attacking have nothing whatsoever to do with the west.
There is a lot of difference between most religions and Scientology.
1. No other religion copyrights the scriptures and actively discourages members from sharing the scriptures with others. CoS goes after websites or any other organisation who may publish things about Scientology especially the high level stuff. 2. The only church-sanctioned way of accessing the content of the "scriptures" is to pay for the different programmes. 3. No other reilgion actively infiltrates government with the explicit purpose of thwarting investigations. 4. Scientology and Islam are the two religions which go after any detractors using any and all sorts of tricks and violence. It is actually codified into their system of working. Read about "Fair Game". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_%28Scientology%29 5. There are multiple quotes by Ron Hubbard about how it makes sense to setup a religion to make money.
Newton was very much after glory and fame. Became an MP, attended the House of Lords, (but never delivered a speech ever), got himself appointed as the Controller of the Mint and excessively obsessed about priority and credit.
Where did you get that bit of information?
BTW logarithms were calculated by John Napier, not Newton.
This statement seems unnecessary and implies that Newton was found of taking credit for other people's work. Newton's accomplishments are huge - even his work in the Royal Mint.
Yes, Ramanujam was great, but why put down Newton's reputation to exalt Ramanujam?
The most interesting evidence are fossil bones of T.Rex prey that have partially-healed tooth marks that could only have been made by T.Rex.
How does one go about confirming that a specific mark on the vertebrae of an animal definitely came about because a T-Rex bit it? Couldn't it have been caused by a tree trunk falling on the animal or be caused by another animal other than a T-Rex? Even herbivorous animals fight with each other and can cause serious damage to each other.
Long time Slashdot user here. Congratulations Taco. Slashdot is still one of the best sites for tech news. You have managed to build an extraordinary community here where even the top nerds regularly post. I am sure you will do a wonderful job at WaPo. Best of luck.
I absolutely agree.. Full disclosure: I am an Indian.
The management of businesses in the US and the first world make it seem like the Asians are all hardworking geniuses and that is why all the work is being outsourced to Asia - but the truth is that the work is only being farmed out because the salaries in Asia are much lower than in the first world.
The truth be told, for the most part, the Asians aren't as skilled or as educated as their western counterparts. Not to say that Asians don't have degrees - there may in fact be more Asians with postgraduate degrees than the first world.. and not that Asians are stupid or lazy either.
It is just that the educational institutions in most Asian nations are there simply to hand out degrees not an education. In the west, a lot of students take up courses because they enjoy the subject - but most Asian students take up courses with a view of getting a high paying job - with very little interest in the subject. And this impacts the quality of their skill and also their overall understanding of the subject.
By the way, when I say Asians, I am also including Indians into this - we are also part of Asia.
At a higher price. They should see the Touchpad version 1 as the promotional for the second version of the Touchpad. There are so many people who have purchased Touchpads now that there is now a market for WebOS apps unlike earlier.. and also there are enough people who have used Touchpads to know that HP can make a very decent tablet.
I am not trying to be a jackass or be sarcastic. But let me ask you why you aren't considering starting a protest? I wouldn't advise violence of any kind though for the simple reason that the ultimate result of violence is more and more hatred.. and the cycle of violence will be hard to stop.
But there are so many homeless people in the US - and so many unemployed people; many of whom who lost their jobs because of the greed of the banks and the super rich. These people may be very willing to join in a protest - but they need someone to start it for them; and also handle all the planning and the logistics involved.
If you are a person who can handle this, why don't you consider starting the protest. I am serious.
If one were to sit down and write out a plan for a long, prolonged protest which is both popularly supported as well as sustainable - at least sustainable enough to bring about change, then what would that plan include:
1. It would include a set of points which the government / wall street must agree to. This must be clear and specific so that progress can be measured. These should be communicated very clearly to the government and to all volunteers who join the protest.
2. It would include setting up volunteers to:
a) Recruit more volunteers
b) Provide the logistics needed to handle the crowds
c) Manage the marketing c.1) To transfer the enthusiasm of the core group managing the protest so that the crowd can buy into the overall vision behind the protest. c.2) T-Shirts, banners and all sorts of media work
d) Manage the dissemination of news and public relationships
e) Handle the legal aspects such as permits, getting legal services to those who are arrested etc.
f) Manage the generation of funds
g) Manage the accounting of the funds so that there is no misappropriation etc.
I am sure there are many on Slashdot who may be willing to step in to help with this.
I am not American and neither do I reside in the US, but if I were there, I would definitely either start this protest or join in long term in the protest.
People travel out of the US for treatment not because US is lagging behind technologically, it is because the healthcare in the US is ridiculously expensive. A lot of people travel to places like Asia for treatment - and most Asians are known to be deeply religious - especially parts of South Asia where most people go for treatment - Thailand, India, Malaysia etc.
Face the facts - US is pretty advanced technologically including in medical science and for some types of treatment, US is absolutely the best. There are a LOT of people who travel to the US for treatment - even from Asia; but they are mostly the very wealthy because US is by far the most expensive place in the world for healthcare related services.
Slashdot Mirror
What's wrong with these automakers? Haven't they figured out by now that hydrogen is a total waste of time and effort?
That is actually not true. There are definite advantages with Hydrogen fuel cells..
a) The amount of weight that the cars need to lug around comes down a lot with fuel cells.
b) Recharging EVs at home will become an issue over time especially in apartment complexes because the apartment complex will need to draw huge amounts of power from the grid to make this happen and these chargers will have to be installed in every parking bay etc.
c) Refueling can be done pretty quickly. With EVs, even with fast chargers, it will still take about an hour to get enough charge to go for 100 miles. In the case of hydrogen fuel cells, the refuel process can be completed in minutes.
d) Because it takes a long time to recharge EVs - even the most cutting-edge fast chargers from the new Porsche EV will take about 15 minutes to recharge, a recharge station can service only very few EVs simultaneously - both because of the very high power draw required per vehicle + also the time it takes to recharge each vehicle. That is not a problem with Hydrogen fuel. Refueling stations can service many more vehicles at the same time (similar to the current Petrol/Diesel stations).
f) Recent advances such as the one in the University of Glasgow allows for hydrogen to be produced 30 times faster and its storage in inorganic liquid fuels - thus solving the two big problems with Hydrogen fuel cells - cost-effective, industrial generation of hydrogen and its safe storage.
This will NEVER replace a real transmission for anything but a model plastic model...
Never say never.
3D printed jet engine from Monash University, Australia:
http://www.dailytech.com/Austr...
What you are proposing will actually make the situation worse. H1B visas are relatively hard to get compared to the B1 visa that Infosys was abusing.
A B1 visa is easier to obtain as it is intended for short visits for things like negotiating a business contract, a marketing/sales visit and so on. It does NOT allow for the person to receive a salary from the US entity or to engage in any production work such as software development.
However, since H1B is difficult to get and since many contracts can be executed without having developers in the US for 3 years (that is the case with H1B), many companies abuse the B1 visa.
Why don't you guys at least do something more than posting on a news website? Why don't you start by boycotting products from the top 5 companies involved in cooperating with the NSA - Google, Apple, Microsoft, ...
Don't buy their products, or use their services.
Then start by boycotting the big banks and wall st firms like Goldman Sachs, BoA, JP Morgan etc.
If enough people do this instead of going after the new and shiny, it will empower the small players who will see the writing on the wall - and as for the treacherous big players - well, they may at least stop paying the kind of money they have been paying the politicians thus far.. and so the politicians may lose their interest just a tiny bit to protect these lobbies.
You are a completely different demographic from the people Gates Foundation tries to help. You can be sure that someone living in a shack in Africa isn't going to be looking up Malaria on the web when their child seems to be suffering from a high fever.
They should have had another option below $10,000/-. Something like a $5000 option which includes 3 phones + and invite to the unveiling meeting. I think the $10,000/- with a single phone option won't be attractive to a lot of people.
I feel sad for my many American friends, many of whom will be completely ashamed of what is happening and who feel helpless that they can't stop this.
The biggest con ever pulled on human beings is that their vote once every few years is the great control that they wield over the government.
Your ONE vote among a few MILLION - even assuming that the politicians haven't already figured out a way of gaming even the voting process, you are still talking about just one vote.
And then once you have voted, you go back to your sorry, pathetic lives and the poltiicians have a wonderful time looting everyone dry all the way upto the next election. What happens to your contribution in keeping the government under check during the interim period - that is the period between the two elections?
Unless the populace is willing to do much more than merely vote during elections - unless the populace is willing to actually prevent the government from becoming corrupt, ruthless and inept by real action in the interim period between two successive elections, we will get nowhere.
No, there was no controversy because a lot of what Hitchens said is absolute hogwash. They interviewed a few people who worked in the hospice, did they? Well, damn! that is amazing - then it must be true, right?
How many of the poor have they interviewed to determine the truth? How many of those people ever stated that their situation was made worse by coming under Mother Teresa's care? Many of those who decry Mother Teresa have no idea about the type of suffering the poor undergo on a regular basis in India.
You know why there is no outrcy? Because to the poor, Mother Teresa is almost a god. They have benefited hugely by what Mother Teresa did for them - they saw her sacrifice and have seen her love.
But for someone like Hitchens who made it is life ambition to target anyone religious and especially religious leaders, Mother Teresa was a prime target. He couldn't allow a avowed Christian to be seen like a saint - that wouldn't sit well with his proclaimed position and the agenda which he pushed hard with every book, every TV show, every press conference.
None of you westerners who decry Mother Teresa know squat diddly about her work in India. None of you have a clue as to the type of suffering the poor undergo in India and the type of relief Mother Teresa brought into their lives. Hitchens and people like him who sit on a high horse and pronounce judgments on Mother Teresa have probably not done much to help the poor at all - yes, they may have given a few pounds to charity every once in a while but that is quite different from actually living with the poor and becoming one of them even as you serve them - this is precisely what Mother Teresa did.
I speak as someone who lives in india and who works among the poor.
Please get this right.
Ater all, It has only been a few years since he has been famous /sarcasm.
As much as I fully agree with your comment that it is unfair to believe that if there is a terrorist attack it must certainly have been caused by muslims, I would also like you to consider the fact that in muslim-dominated countries, practitioners of other religions very often live under serious threat of violence - or to put it another way, under terror imposed upon them by the muslim majority - and no, you can't blame the US, UK or any other country for that. In these nations, muslims are targetting people of their own nationality - other citizens, and forcing them to live in fear.
In many of these nations even just changing your religion is seen as a capital offence. Examples: Pakistan, Maldives, Most countries in the ME, parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. Try taking in a Bible into Saudi Arabia. Forget that - try just *getting* into Mecca as a non-muslim.
So their (muslim) oft-quoted justification that the west is terrorising them and therefore they are just responding does not hold when the people they are attacking have nothing whatsoever to do with the west.
Wow! great stuff. Thanks a lot for all your work. You guys kick ass [insert picture of Marc-Andre Moreau kicking donkey here].
We have the @Asynchronous annotation in Java 6 that pretty much does the same thing.
http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/api/javax/ejb/Asynchronous.html
It is actually pretty nifty.
There is a lot of difference between most religions and Scientology.
1. No other religion copyrights the scriptures and actively discourages members from sharing the scriptures with others. CoS goes after websites or any other organisation who may publish things about Scientology especially the high level stuff.
2. The only church-sanctioned way of accessing the content of the "scriptures" is to pay for the different programmes.
3. No other reilgion actively infiltrates government with the explicit purpose of thwarting investigations.
4. Scientology and Islam are the two religions which go after any detractors using any and all sorts of tricks and violence. It is actually codified into their system of working. Read about "Fair Game". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_%28Scientology%29
5. There are multiple quotes by Ron Hubbard about how it makes sense to setup a religion to make money.
Newton was very much after glory and fame. Became an MP, attended the House of Lords, (but never delivered a speech ever), got himself appointed as the Controller of the Mint and excessively obsessed about priority and credit.
Where did you get that bit of information?
BTW logarithms were calculated by John Napier, not Newton.
This statement seems unnecessary and implies that Newton was found of taking credit for other people's work. Newton's accomplishments are huge - even his work in the Royal Mint.
Yes, Ramanujam was great, but why put down Newton's reputation to exalt Ramanujam?
The most interesting evidence are fossil bones of T.Rex prey that have partially-healed tooth marks that could only have been made by T.Rex.
How does one go about confirming that a specific mark on the vertebrae of an animal definitely came about because a T-Rex bit it? Couldn't it have been caused by a tree trunk falling on the animal or be caused by another animal other than a T-Rex? Even herbivorous animals fight with each other and can cause serious damage to each other.
Congratulations to the team! Learnt much by sticking around here. Great website which has spawned 1000s of clones but none have been quite as good.
Long time Slashdot user here. Congratulations Taco. Slashdot is still one of the best sites for tech news. You have managed to build an extraordinary community here where even the top nerds regularly post. I am sure you will do a wonderful job at WaPo. Best of luck.
- from a grateful user
Don't worry.. give it a week.. we will be back to talking about IMPORTANT things such as if iphone is better than Samsung Galaxy.
I absolutely agree.. Full disclosure: I am an Indian.
The management of businesses in the US and the first world make it seem like the Asians are all hardworking geniuses and that is why all the work is being outsourced to Asia - but the truth is that the work is only being farmed out because the salaries in Asia are much lower than in the first world.
The truth be told, for the most part, the Asians aren't as skilled or as educated as their western counterparts. Not to say that Asians don't have degrees - there may in fact be more Asians with postgraduate degrees than the first world.. and not that Asians are stupid or lazy either.
It is just that the educational institutions in most Asian nations are there simply to hand out degrees not an education. In the west, a lot of students take up courses because they enjoy the subject - but most Asian students take up courses with a view of getting a high paying job - with very little interest in the subject. And this impacts the quality of their skill and also their overall understanding of the subject.
By the way, when I say Asians, I am also including Indians into this - we are also part of Asia.
The Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) put out a notice in 2010 claiming that Huawei is involved in spying for the Chinese government.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-05-07/news/27580384_1_chinese-telecom-huawei-technologies-ren-zhengfei
At a higher price. They should see the Touchpad version 1 as the promotional for the second version of the Touchpad. There are so many people who have purchased Touchpads now that there is now a market for WebOS apps unlike earlier.. and also there are enough people who have used Touchpads to know that HP can make a very decent tablet.
I am not trying to be a jackass or be sarcastic. But let me ask you why you aren't considering starting a protest? I wouldn't advise violence of any kind though for the simple reason that the ultimate result of violence is more and more hatred.. and the cycle of violence will be hard to stop.
But there are so many homeless people in the US - and so many unemployed people; many of whom who lost their jobs because of the greed of the banks and the super rich. These people may be very willing to join in a protest - but they need someone to start it for them; and also handle all the planning and the logistics involved.
If you are a person who can handle this, why don't you consider starting the protest. I am serious.
If one were to sit down and write out a plan for a long, prolonged protest which is both popularly supported as well as sustainable - at least sustainable enough to bring about change, then what would that plan include:
1. It would include a set of points which the government / wall street must agree to. This must be clear and specific so that progress can be measured. These should be communicated very clearly to the government and to all volunteers who join the protest.
2. It would include setting up volunteers to:
a) Recruit more volunteers
b) Provide the logistics needed to handle the crowds
c) Manage the marketing
c.1) To transfer the enthusiasm of the core group managing the protest so that the crowd can buy into the overall vision behind the protest.
c.2) T-Shirts, banners and all sorts of media work
d) Manage the dissemination of news and public relationships
e) Handle the legal aspects such as permits, getting legal services to those who are arrested etc.
f) Manage the generation of funds
g) Manage the accounting of the funds so that there is no misappropriation etc.
I am sure there are many on Slashdot who may be willing to step in to help with this.
I am not American and neither do I reside in the US, but if I were there, I would definitely either start this protest or join in long term in the protest.
People travel out of the US for treatment not because US is lagging behind technologically, it is because the healthcare in the US is ridiculously expensive. A lot of people travel to places like Asia for treatment - and most Asians are known to be deeply religious - especially parts of South Asia where most people go for treatment - Thailand, India, Malaysia etc.
Face the facts - US is pretty advanced technologically including in medical science and for some types of treatment, US is absolutely the best. There are a LOT of people who travel to the US for treatment - even from Asia; but they are mostly the very wealthy because US is by far the most expensive place in the world for healthcare related services.