When I was working on that project about 16 years ago, one of the guys working there used to be involved in refining ultra pure silicon. At that time, at least according to him, it was a fairly secret process (or maybe at the time he was working on it). I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't much of a secret now. I am familiar with zone melting too. Interesting to know. Thanks.
It also has to do with environmental issues (the labour issue is very true as well). Smelting silicon is fairly dirty, releasing large volumes of CO2, carbon volatiles from the coal and charcoal, and often dusts (which they try to capture...). Other countries have cheaper labour, lower labour standards, and lower environmental standards. Yep... it's a level playing field.;-) We just need to lower our standards and we can compete.
but SiO2 is a BITCH to break apart (the usual reaction is with carbon in an almost 2000 deg C arc furnace)
You are partially right... I worked on a project where we were testing a new arc furnace design for smelting silicon (it was a DC furnace as opposed to AC). Wearing one of my hats on that project I wrote a computer model program of the mass and energy balances that took place in the furnace.
My application of the physical chemistry and calculus have passed the haven't used it/lost it point, but if I remember some of the basic things correctly... basically yes it is a real bitch to actually split the silicon (Si) from the oxygen (however, silanes are not involved). It takes a tremendous amount of energy to do so. One of the reasons silica (SiO2) is so abundant is that it is so stable. Being so stable means that it is hard, thermodynamically and every other way, to break it apart. So while Silicon (Si) in the form of Crystaline Silica (SiO2, e.g. quartz, silica sand) is VERY abundant, Si on its own is VERY VERY rare. SiO2 is so much more stable than Si.
Typically the furnace at its hottest point will be around 5000 degrees C (a carbon monoxide plasma forms there).
The silicon metal at the furnace spout where it is tapped/poured from, is typically around 1400 - 1500 degrees C
The reaction is SiO2 + 2C -> Si + 2CO
The intermediate product includes SiO (silicon monoxide which only exists in gas phase at greater than 1400 degrees C) and SiC (silicon carbide).
Most of the actual reaction steps forming the silicon (from silica) happen in gas phase at obviously very high temperature.
The actual smelting process (chemically) is similar to smelting iron: reducing the base metal (removing the oxygen) using carbon as the reducing agent at very high temperatures. (Silicon higher than for iron.)
There are no silanes involved as you describe in the initial smelting process from SiO2 to Si.
With respect to the parent post about silanes: they are possibly created/used later if the silicon needs to be refined to semi conductor grade, but I don't know. I was not involved in this aspect of silicon refining, which is highly proprietary, and which I believe is (or was) protected by laws relating to national security).
The greatest use of silicon is not in electronics. It is in the making of synthetic rubber. e.g. silicone
Technically silicon is a metalloid... at room temp: non-conductive, 1200 - 1400 C, conductive, for example.
When it cools, it forms a metallic silvery solid that is very brittle, similar to bituminous or anthracite (hard) coal... which makes sense as it is in the same family as carbon. If you hit it with a hammer it breaks or shatters.
The main raw materials in smelting silicon are typically quartz, coal, and charcoal (and sometimes other more porous carbonaceous materials to improve gas permeability in the reaction bed. The coal and charcoal is for carbon content, not heat. The quartz needs to be quite pure... e.g. no or very very little iron etc in it (brown stains on quartz are typically from iron... not from wayward hikers.
In most silicon furnaces the top of the furnace mix is exposed to atmosphere, and is so hot the carbon monoxide (CO) off gas burns to CO2, which is inert/non poisonous (CO is as flammable as methane, but it is so poisonous that it is not practically safe to do so). Granted the large volumes of inert CO2 created is bad, but better than highly poisonous CO.
An interesting point is if you spill enough molten silicon onto a piece of iron/steel so that the iron starts to melt, the resulting reaction forming Ferro Silicon is so hot that it keeps reacting until one of the reactants is used up (e.g. until no more silicon or iron), or it hits enough of a heat sink to cool to solidification. We had a spill once that took out about 10 yards of the rail tracks some of our equipment rolled on, as well as some other pieces of steel equipment. All of which we needed to re-install or re-build in a couple of hours. Quite exciting, and a huge pain in the ass.
Just another way to say, we're going to take your ideas or things you have spent a lot of money developing because we think we appreciate it more. Regardless of the fact that you spent the money to bring it to this point and should be able to make a return on your investment.
Grow up. You need to ask before you take, otherwise you are breaking the law. It doesn't matter if you think you are being creative. And no, **selling** t-shirts is not like making your own bumper stickers (and they didn't say anything about allowing you to *sell* bumper stickers either, just create them). **Selling** anything that comes from someone else's ideas, work, or investments, including bumper stickers is wrong unless the right is explicitly granted. The studio has to go after those who are doing it, otherwise a precedent will be set, and they will have to allow it in the future.
If they were sending cease and desist orders out to people who were making t-shirts and **giving them away for free** I would see the point of your complaining. However all we can see is that the studio is going after people who are trying to make a buck off of the studios investment.
If you are really that creative, come up with your own movie, finance or talk others into financing it, and then market the goods afterwards. Or allow others to take your ideas and make money off them if you are that generous. Just don't presume to be so generous with other people's money.
I take it you are not a programmer? Have you ever tried to parse a website for content? With HTML you are stuck with REGEX or some such hack, xml is simple, you run it through an xml parser and bam, you have a complete DOM tree.
I am curious why there seems to be need to parse web pages. The only thing I can think of is for advertising, or to lift their data to display on another side, or as email bots. Why the huge need to parse other peoples web pages? I am sure their must be some legitimate reason.
There is a line between blogging about the movie and showing trailers on your web site, and marketing licensable items (like shirts). The first two are viral advertising, the latter is, well, marketing something that someone else owns as your own products.
From the fucking article:
Members were encouraged to form regional groups to promote the film and perform activities that would help generate word of mouth, like creating bumper stickers and gift cards to accompany the DVD release.
I don't see any mention of marketing t-shirts as viral advertising.
Now while I generally think of movie executives as dick heads, but to be fare, they put up a lot of money to finance a movie that returned not so much. If they make a few million dollars on this, then good for them. They put up US$39 million dollars in production costs, around US$15 million in advertising costs, and about US$8.5 million in distribution costs. The film made US$38.3 million GROSS at the box office (meaning before the theaters take their cut). If the movie ran over production budget, or flopped, etc. You wouldn't give a rat's ass about the folks who would have lost their shirts. They paid for the right to market shirts.
Just because you REALLY REALLY like something, doesn't mean you can take if for your own and do whatever you want with it. This is also the reason we have patents (real patents, not business rules patents). If someone spends time and a lot of money to develop a new something, whether directly as an investment, or in their own time (so they can't earn money elsewhere), why do you think it should be OK for someone else to profit off of it. Or is it a matter of "if it's the little guy getting ripped, then defend the hell out of him, but if it is the big guy, or they have something you really really like, then fuck it, rob him"?
Man on the street to another guy: "Excuse me, but do you know what time it is?"
Second guy: "It's three P.M."
First guy: "Thank you... and I really really like your watch... I want to sell it to that guy over there."
Second guy: "What? Excuse me, it is my watch, I paid for it."
First guy (gathers a mob around him): "We don't care. We want it , and we're going to sell it."
I know this can easily be called a troll since there are going to be a lot of fanboys reading this thread, but really. And I happen to really really like Serenity (saw it twice in the threater), and watched and really really liked Firefly when it first came on TV... and was supremely disappointed when it was canceled. But I still think that showing trailers on your web site is one thing and selling someone else's idea as your own is another.
If America and China are in serious economic competition, why wouldn't China try to quietly sabotage a leading American company? Especially as they now own one of the largest PC building companies in the world now... and which is in direct competition with Apple. And also since they are on the verge of being an independent economic power (meaning they can market anywhere and not rely on North America being happy with what they do). We forget that they are still a totalitarian government. I know this may be over the top, but I still have suspicians about them, and wonder why we keep outsourcing so many critical (to national interests) operations there. The fact that they don't care to rein in North Korea as much as their other neighbors (like South Korea or Japan) or the U.S. would like is another indication that they have their own agendas.
Thanks. I always think about stand-by in the context of a laptop not a desktop, but the reqirement to have some power available for wake on lan etc. makes the point.
I wonder if, when large flash drives become common internal components to desktops or laptops, this type of issue might go away. The flash memory could hold the state of the user's last log in session. What is it other than that, that requires 'stand-by mode' to start the computer quicker?
And I am posting to slashdot from prison because of what my.sig here says.
Yep... sarcasm noted. But is it just the government you need to be afraid of for stating your mind. The Dixie Chicks, as one example, received numerous death threats, had contracts cancelled, had their records burned etc. for voicing their displeasure at Bush's decision to invade Iraq. And in the 'States where there are probably as many guns available to anyone who wants one as in a sub-Saharan African war zone, death threats are a serious thing to worry about. I know this is a 'knee-jerk' reaction but I had to say it.:-/
But *before* you go lambasting me, I do agree and envy the much freer speach that America enjoys. In Canada for example, many things said by the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. would land them in jail in Canada. While I think the Klan are composed of mostly inbred morons, and I loath/hate/despise everything about them... I totally back their right to say whatever they want. Censoring speach is a slippery slope to government or others trying to control how you think. This is as bad as any other violation to your person. If some moron is spouting stupidity (e.g. the Klan or other Nazi or Communist shill), a good education and exposure to a wider world of knowledge is the best defence against shite like that spreading. Thought control by its nature is the exact opposite to this and counter productive. So hats off to the free speech laws in the U.S.A. However I wish that people wouldn't have to resort to expressig their differences by threating (and sometimes carrying out) to kill someone over something they didn't like hearing.
OK... I'll give you that.:-) But what about the materials that have to hold that weight in place. The magnet would have a force of potentially many megatonnes applied to it, on and off, each time the launch vehicle passed over it as it moved around the circle. Wouldn't you think that the bonding agent or the structural material holding the magnets would be prone to failure with those kinds of repetitive stress? (Kind of like the Darwin award guy who would jump at his high rise office windows to show how strong the glass was... but then one time the fasteners holding the window into the building failed and both he and the window fell to their demise.)
Interesting note on the iron in blood... I was thinking that strong magnetic fields might have a health effect... but not something that direct. Would that also mean no human cargo if it meant having to get close to the magnetic field?
What I wonder about is whether a maglev would be able to support the weight of the payload. If the centrifugal force is 2000 Gs, then the equivalent weight of a 500 Kg satellite being launched would be 1000000 Kgs. I would think they would need awful big magnets to provide enough repulsion to prevent the load from hitting the structure supporting the magnets. And if the magnets were powerful enough, they would need the material holding them in place to be strong enough to not allow the magnets to be ripped or pulled out of place. Imagine if a payload with an apparent weight of 1 Megatonne came into contact with the cement supporting the magnetic track while moving at 8 Km per second. It might be like a small atomic bomb. Now what if they were trying to launch a section for the space station at say, 10,000 Kgs earth normal weight, but now it weighs 20 Megatonnes? I think structural engineering and building a magnetic system powerful enough to prevent things like this will be very hard to overcome. I know that the closer together the magnets get, the more powerful the repulsion, but I still would doubt if we had magnets that powerful. One touch at those speeds with that weight... Also, what would the effect be on a people or materials from magnetic fields powerful enough to overcome those forces?
I don't know why Flynn isn't more popular with the Slashdot crowd.
Hmmmmm... from the Amazon Editorial Review for Firestar: "By 1999, well-meaning but misguided liberals, environmentalists and feminists have brought the U.S. economy to a near standstill." and "Over the past three years, a number of talented, politically conservative SF writers have turned their hands to scenarios much like this..."
Given the very liberal attitudes/politics of most Slashdotters... any more questions? (And yes I know there are a lot of libertarians and conservatives as well, it just seems there is a predominant number of liberals.)
Only if your bouyancy is zero and there are no external forces acting on your system. Take blood cells in blood for example: put the blood in a centrafuge and spin it up to speed. The blood cells end up in the bottom of the test tube. That would be you in the launch ring. Except at many thousand Gs, you would look more like the blood cells in the bottom of the test tube than like you.
That in istself is a punishable offense that the judge can send someone to prison for. Ubstruction of justice. And they do send people to prison for it.
Slashdot Mirror
The Iraqis are doing pretty good without armor.
And when you put foo and bar together you get a picture that's 'fucked up beyond all recognition'.
When I was working on that project about 16 years ago, one of the guys working there used to be involved in refining ultra pure silicon. At that time, at least according to him, it was a fairly secret process (or maybe at the time he was working on it). I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't much of a secret now. I am familiar with zone melting too. Interesting to know. Thanks.
It also has to do with environmental issues (the labour issue is very true as well). Smelting silicon is fairly dirty, releasing large volumes of CO2, carbon volatiles from the coal and charcoal, and often dusts (which they try to capture...). Other countries have cheaper labour, lower labour standards, and lower environmental standards. Yep... it's a level playing field. ;-) We just need to lower our standards and we can compete.
You are partially right... I worked on a project where we were testing a new arc furnace design for smelting silicon (it was a DC furnace as opposed to AC). Wearing one of my hats on that project I wrote a computer model program of the mass and energy balances that took place in the furnace.
My application of the physical chemistry and calculus have passed the haven't used it/lost it point, but if I remember some of the basic things correctly... basically yes it is a real bitch to actually split the silicon (Si) from the oxygen (however, silanes are not involved). It takes a tremendous amount of energy to do so. One of the reasons silica (SiO2) is so abundant is that it is so stable. Being so stable means that it is hard, thermodynamically and every other way, to break it apart. So while Silicon (Si) in the form of Crystaline Silica (SiO2, e.g. quartz, silica sand) is VERY abundant, Si on its own is VERY VERY rare. SiO2 is so much more stable than Si.
My response to someone else is just as applicable here.
Just another way to say, we're going to take your ideas or things you have spent a lot of money developing because we think we appreciate it more. Regardless of the fact that you spent the money to bring it to this point and should be able to make a return on your investment.
Grow up. You need to ask before you take, otherwise you are breaking the law. It doesn't matter if you think you are being creative. And no, **selling** t-shirts is not like making your own bumper stickers (and they didn't say anything about allowing you to *sell* bumper stickers either, just create them). **Selling** anything that comes from someone else's ideas, work, or investments, including bumper stickers is wrong unless the right is explicitly granted. The studio has to go after those who are doing it, otherwise a precedent will be set, and they will have to allow it in the future.
If they were sending cease and desist orders out to people who were making t-shirts and **giving them away for free** I would see the point of your complaining. However all we can see is that the studio is going after people who are trying to make a buck off of the studios investment.
If you are really that creative, come up with your own movie, finance or talk others into financing it, and then market the goods afterwards. Or allow others to take your ideas and make money off them if you are that generous. Just don't presume to be so generous with other people's money.
Or are you talking about the need to write your own browser?
I am curious why there seems to be need to parse web pages. The only thing I can think of is for advertising, or to lift their data to display on another side, or as email bots. Why the huge need to parse other peoples web pages? I am sure their must be some legitimate reason.
There is a line between blogging about the movie and showing trailers on your web site, and marketing licensable items (like shirts). The first two are viral advertising, the latter is, well, marketing something that someone else owns as your own products.
From the fucking article:
I don't see any mention of marketing t-shirts as viral advertising.
Now while I generally think of movie executives as dick heads, but to be fare, they put up a lot of money to finance a movie that returned not so much. If they make a few million dollars on this, then good for them. They put up US$39 million dollars in production costs, around US$15 million in advertising costs, and about US$8.5 million in distribution costs. The film made US$38.3 million GROSS at the box office (meaning before the theaters take their cut). If the movie ran over production budget, or flopped, etc. You wouldn't give a rat's ass about the folks who would have lost their shirts. They paid for the right to market shirts.
Just because you REALLY REALLY like something, doesn't mean you can take if for your own and do whatever you want with it. This is also the reason we have patents (real patents, not business rules patents). If someone spends time and a lot of money to develop a new something, whether directly as an investment, or in their own time (so they can't earn money elsewhere), why do you think it should be OK for someone else to profit off of it. Or is it a matter of "if it's the little guy getting ripped, then defend the hell out of him, but if it is the big guy, or they have something you really really like, then fuck it, rob him"?
Man on the street to another guy: "Excuse me, but do you know what time it is?"
Second guy: "It's three P.M."
First guy: "Thank you... and I really really like your watch... I want to sell it to that guy over there."
Second guy: "What? Excuse me, it is my watch, I paid for it."
First guy (gathers a mob around him): "We don't care. We want it , and we're going to sell it."
I know this can easily be called a troll since there are going to be a lot of fanboys reading this thread, but really. And I happen to really really like Serenity (saw it twice in the threater), and watched and really really liked Firefly when it first came on TV... and was supremely disappointed when it was canceled. But I still think that showing trailers on your web site is one thing and selling someone else's idea as your own is another.
Nice troll anonymous coward.
If America and China are in serious economic competition, why wouldn't China try to quietly sabotage a leading American company? Especially as they now own one of the largest PC building companies in the world now... and which is in direct competition with Apple. And also since they are on the verge of being an independent economic power (meaning they can market anywhere and not rely on North America being happy with what they do). We forget that they are still a totalitarian government. I know this may be over the top, but I still have suspicians about them, and wonder why we keep outsourcing so many critical (to national interests) operations there. The fact that they don't care to rein in North Korea as much as their other neighbors (like South Korea or Japan) or the U.S. would like is another indication that they have their own agendas.
Or... you live in a place with cheap 1970's shag carpet and you generate electricity by dragging your socked feet all day.
Thanks. I always think about stand-by in the context of a laptop not a desktop, but the reqirement to have some power available for wake on lan etc. makes the point.
I wonder if, when large flash drives become common internal components to desktops or laptops, this type of issue might go away. The flash memory could hold the state of the user's last log in session. What is it other than that, that requires 'stand-by mode' to start the computer quicker?
Yep... sarcasm noted. But is it just the government you need to be afraid of for stating your mind. The Dixie Chicks, as one example, received numerous death threats, had contracts cancelled, had their records burned etc. for voicing their displeasure at Bush's decision to invade Iraq. And in the 'States where there are probably as many guns available to anyone who wants one as in a sub-Saharan African war zone, death threats are a serious thing to worry about. I know this is a 'knee-jerk' reaction but I had to say it. :-/
But *before* you go lambasting me, I do agree and envy the much freer speach that America enjoys. In Canada for example, many things said by the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. would land them in jail in Canada. While I think the Klan are composed of mostly inbred morons, and I loath/hate/despise everything about them... I totally back their right to say whatever they want. Censoring speach is a slippery slope to government or others trying to control how you think. This is as bad as any other violation to your person. If some moron is spouting stupidity (e.g. the Klan or other Nazi or Communist shill), a good education and exposure to a wider world of knowledge is the best defence against shite like that spreading. Thought control by its nature is the exact opposite to this and counter productive. So hats off to the free speech laws in the U.S.A. However I wish that people wouldn't have to resort to expressig their differences by threating (and sometimes carrying out) to kill someone over something they didn't like hearing.
If you like a challenge, and *maybe* a cheaper price, why not try to build your own?
OK... I'll give you that. :-) But what about the materials that have to hold that weight in place. The magnet would have a force of potentially many megatonnes applied to it, on and off, each time the launch vehicle passed over it as it moved around the circle. Wouldn't you think that the bonding agent or the structural material holding the magnets would be prone to failure with those kinds of repetitive stress? (Kind of like the Darwin award guy who would jump at his high rise office windows to show how strong the glass was... but then one time the fasteners holding the window into the building failed and both he and the window fell to their demise.)
Interesting note on the iron in blood... I was thinking that strong magnetic fields might have a health effect... but not something that direct. Would that also mean no human cargo if it meant having to get close to the magnetic field?
What I wonder about is whether a maglev would be able to support the weight of the payload. If the centrifugal force is 2000 Gs, then the equivalent weight of a 500 Kg satellite being launched would be 1000000 Kgs. I would think they would need awful big magnets to provide enough repulsion to prevent the load from hitting the structure supporting the magnets. And if the magnets were powerful enough, they would need the material holding them in place to be strong enough to not allow the magnets to be ripped or pulled out of place. Imagine if a payload with an apparent weight of 1 Megatonne came into contact with the cement supporting the magnetic track while moving at 8 Km per second. It might be like a small atomic bomb. Now what if they were trying to launch a section for the space station at say, 10,000 Kgs earth normal weight, but now it weighs 20 Megatonnes? I think structural engineering and building a magnetic system powerful enough to prevent things like this will be very hard to overcome. I know that the closer together the magnets get, the more powerful the repulsion, but I still would doubt if we had magnets that powerful. One touch at those speeds with that weight... Also, what would the effect be on a people or materials from magnetic fields powerful enough to overcome those forces?
Hmmmmm... from the Amazon Editorial Review for Firestar: "By 1999, well-meaning but misguided liberals, environmentalists and feminists have brought the U.S. economy to a near standstill." and "Over the past three years, a number of talented, politically conservative SF writers have turned their hands to scenarios much like this..."
Given the very liberal attitudes/politics of most Slashdotters... any more questions? (And yes I know there are a lot of libertarians and conservatives as well, it just seems there is a predominant number of liberals.)
Only if your bouyancy is zero and there are no external forces acting on your system. Take blood cells in blood for example: put the blood in a centrafuge and spin it up to speed. The blood cells end up in the bottom of the test tube. That would be you in the launch ring. Except at many thousand Gs, you would look more like the blood cells in the bottom of the test tube than like you.
... errr.... itself, and Obstruction of justice.... those were almost criminal level spelling mistakes.
That in istself is a punishable offense that the judge can send someone to prison for. Ubstruction of justice. And they do send people to prison for it.
The point is, if the police break the law by doing an illegal search, punish the police, not society.
Early morning... I'll have my coffee now and relax... grmmphhffff....