Mod -2 Uninformed Comment. The US Gov't does NOT own the Internet. And every attempt to regulate content in the USA has been struck down, except that DMCA crap the RIAA uses and I think that is coming. Free Speech has NEVER EVER been 100% free, for example you can't slander/libel someone, you can't yell FIRE in a crowd, etc. There are lots of folks fighting the overly broad restrictions, such as the EFF and the ACLU as well as others.
You could undercut the costs, but good luck selling it. If they won't pay the $250 for the data from the TIA which is a recognized and highly repected standards body, why would the pay $230 for it from a NOBODY? TIA has a "brand", you don't have anything to compare to that except maybe experience.
...practical commercial applications. How about instant photo's of disaster areas (like New Orleans), how about a sattelite comm? Kinda like the old Iridium idea. How about real time intelligence on your enemy? This idea is not new, I first read about it in one of Dale Brown's techno thriller books well over 10 years ago. He called them NIRTSats for Need It Right This Second. They could be launched off a fighter or B52, the were about the size of an air-to-air missile. When brings up the Pegasus sat-killer missile..but that's a different type of "payload".
There was a Shuttle experiment on this about 10? years ago, the put a small payload on the end of a tether cable about 3 miles long and it followed the orbit of the Shuttle. It generated a LOT of electrical current. There was some thought to using the current generated as a power source for ISS. However, the lower orbit moves faster and places tension on the cable, so the stresses have to be carefully considered other wise the cable will snap. This would probably be a good use of the carbon nanotube fibers woven into a cable with a conductive outer surface.
Pretty good for starting out as a History major! Looks like you are a solid tech/sys admin. But why in the world did you leave the UNIX world to work with just MS products? Having been a Solaris admin very early in my career (15 or so years ago), I would have been frustrated to no end with the way MS does things.
Yes, college degrees ARE accredited. The IEEE and ACM have an informal acreditation of CS and EE degree programs based on the classes and material taught matching well with the "Model Cirriculum".
see alsohttp://www.aisnet.org/Curriculum/#accreditatio n
ABET (formally know as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology): ABET is a federation of 31 professional engineering and technical societies. CSAB (formerly know as the Computer Sciences Accreditation Board) is the lead society within ABET for accreditation of programs in computer science, information systems, and software engineering, and is a cooperating society for accreditation of computer engineering and information technology. In this capacity, CSAB has responsibility for the development of accreditation criteria and for the selection and training program evaluators (PEV). Accreditation activities previously conducted by the Computer Science Accreditation Commission (CSAC) of CSAB are now conducted by the Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) of ABET.
CSAB is governed by its Board of Directors (see Appendix 1) whose members are appointed by the member societies. The current member societies of CSAB are the three largest technical, educational, and scientific societies in the computer and computer-related fields. The member societies are the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. -- Computer Society (IEEE-CS), and the Association for Information Systems (AIS.) The Program Evaluator and Program Criteria Committee (PEPC) is responsible for nominating program evaluators to ABET and for the development of accreditation criteria specific to the areas of computing for which CSAB has responsibility. (www.csab.org)
There are National Associations that acredit other programs such as Liberal Arts.
When you pass the tests you only know the MS way of setting up these systems. What if all of a sudden you had to work on UNIX, Linux or maybe Netware or heaven forbid a non-MS database or email server. You would be lost. That is why I won't ever hire someone with a bunch of MS certs unless they have other systems they have worked on. It pays to be versatile and know how to setup/maintain/design systems based on industry standards not just MS. You know a little, but you really don't know anything.
PMI certs are just as bad, I have worked with PMs who had the PMP and knew nothing, or only knew the PMI way to doing things and were not adaptable to the "company" way since by PMI definition it was wrong. As it stands now if you can get someone to sign that you 2000 hours of "management" experience in the last 4 years you can take the exam. The "practice exams" and "prep classes" are ways to suck money from you. PMP's also don't get you much in terms of $$$, last time I worked as a PM I got paid more than the PMP guys because I also had a great deal of technical knowledge so I could not be BS'd by the developers.
The beer and whiskey in Ration is BS. These items were only available at the PX or R&R locations. See
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-food/before-19 50.htm
It has a nice history of Military rations and in no rations kits is beer/whiskey mentioned.
Spare Fab Capacity
What do you want to bet the Fabs for the Flash are not running full out? Or that Samsung has some spare capacity at Fabs they can convert to make Flash. That way they can increase efficiency of the Fab, lower costs per item, supply Apple and thier own sister division.
That is why it is VERY IMPORTANT that the IBM-SCO settles the Linux is free and clear of any encumberance of UNIX Sys V AND the SCO v. Novell case establishes SCO does NOT own UNIX. SCO would love to sell Linux down the river to MS.
That makes no sense. The Chinese would WANT to be seen attracting foreign invesment and would tend to inflate the numbers if it is a "propaganda" website. It would make them look more "open market". Thus your argument is illogical. As is usual with you liberals, when it comes time to put up facts or shut up you start name calling and changing the subject (Iran/Contra). Just to give tit for tat you can stick it up your Monica or whatever other Clinton bimbo you like.
I noticed you never backed up YOUR claims against GWB nor denied mine against Bill Clinton. Tell ya what, name me one U.S. Multinational that owns lots of Chinese Production capacity? US Mutlinationals want TARRIFS on Chinese goods. Here are some FACTS from http://www.china.org.cn/english/25298.htm:
"Actual foreign direct investment(FDI) in China reached a new high at US$46.85 billion last year, as investors build up confidence in the market following its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to latest statistics released by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC)." Note that this is ALL Foreign Investment not "US Mutlinationals". 46.9B is a drop in the bucket, and it's only able to be invested in areas where the Chinese Government wants it to be, and often with rules and kickbacks to the Communists. Read the issue of Fortune magazine about 6 weeks ago that talks about Wal-Mart's investment in China and how the Government wants it but then they setup Government backed competition to undercut even Wal-Mart's prices. YOU are the leftwing nut, I may be conservative but I back things up with FACTS, not liberal Bullshit talking points.
What the hell are you smoking? You better have some FACTS to prove all these looney left-wing allegations about Bush-China. GWB has done more for the security of the USA than Bill Clinton ever did. We all know Bill Clinton was taking bribes in the form of illegal campaign contributions from the Chinese Government via it's agents disgised as "businessmen" with legitimate interests. Now you really are off the deep end about China and American colonies. The USA has never had very much to do with mainland China, we recognize Taiwan as "China". If you are basing all this on the lowering of trade barriers on textiles earlier this year that has allowed the market to be flooded with low cost Chinese goods, that IMO is NOT a bad thing. The USA can no longer compete in some areas with other nations, we have to recognize that and adapt. Erecting barriers only increases the cost to USA consumers, and really does nothing else. It's not capitalisms to protect inefficent suppliers. The laws of Economics tell use the resources used by these suppilers would return better economic value when applied elsewhere. Now quit smoking that crack and make some sane arguments, not wild conspiracy theories.
I hear you, when I lived in West Va they were pests. I recall a 1 deer a day (does preferred) hunting season one year. They also cause a lot of auto accidents. But of course we can't be out killing "Bambi" now can we ?;)
I won't disagree! But a LOT of people THINK they are. Most deer rifles in these parts (TX) are zeroed at 300 yards but most shots are not taken at that distance and if they are most are misses. I wonder how many hunters know the charts showing the drop of thier shot at each distance with a given bullet and powder weight. I'd be lucky to consistently hit a 6" bullseye at 100 yards unless I was shooting from a bench or maybe the prone position. I'm just not that solid standing.
You missed a VERY important concept, ablatives imply friction, friction gives off heat, warm them up with a laser and finish with a heat seeking missile:)
For air-to-air, the laser can be steered with radar onto the target.
You don't always have to kill the missilem if it is a IR seeker missile you are just as well off to "blind" it by overloaded the seeker head optics. If it is radar quided you want to overheat the electronics so the guidance signal is degraded.
The whole problem is keeping the laser on target long enough to damage something as well as getting it close enough. The laser energy disspates as the square of the distance in Air, in Space it doesn't.
The M60 has a rate of fire of 600 spm. The M60C and M60D are aircraft versions of the basic M60 machine gun. The M60 series is being replaced by the M240B 7.62mm medium machine gun.
The Mod 70 when used by the US Military (as a sniper rifle) is called the M40A1. The civilian version is.308 (same as 7.62)and many other calibers. I believe the Marines have since gone to the M40A3 as the sniper rifle which is the same caliber but a slighter heavier rifle. Little know fact is EACH rifle is built by hand and sighted in at 1000 yards. That's right at 1 km or.6 mile!
The old rifles are being torn down and discarded. I can think of a dozen deer hunters who would give thier right testicle for a rifle accurate at 1000 yards!
Pick that nit!!:) Geographically you are most likely right. However, I don't think the Japanese would be very comfortable showing off new technology to China and letting the Chinese military capture information. Plus Japan and China are not exactly best buddies.
$3.50 a gal sounds about like the major pain point for just about everyone. Right now at almost $3 it hurts pretty good!
"s gi-normous production plants are built." That ass-u-mmes the enviro-wackos let them build such plants. There have been ZERO gasoline refineries built in the USA in the last 25 years due to environmental issues.
My "2" key is a bit sticky and does not work. I didn't see the missing 2 until I posted it. It's bad form to reply to my own post, I know some smarty pants would correct it.
If you can PROVE Global Warning beyond a doubt just as the laws of physics are, then do so, otherwise shut up about it. When we have a planet that is 4 BILLION years old and we have a record of perhaps 1-5 Million years, that is NOT significant. Ice Core samples, volcanic rocks, etc give some readings but you only see data published to support GW, never does anyone tout results that disprove it since that would cut off thier research funds. It is a self-perpetuating lie. Here is a quote from the Global Hydrology and Climate Center, University of Alabama - Huntsville, USA who have been running experiments from 1978 to present refining thier techniques and publishing peer reviewed papers on the data and analysis.
"The new global trend from Dec 1978 to July 2005 is +0.123 C/decade, or +0.035 C/decade warmer than v5.1. This particular error is within the published margin of error for LT of +/- 0.05 C/decade (Christy et al. 2003)."
Also look at this chart:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/land_o_ C.all
You'll see that the raw data and you can see there is very little to indicate a warming. The data goes up and down, with overall a tiny positive trend but not significant.
In case you live in the UK here is something about warming there:
Tony Blair appears convinced by the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis but atmospheric CO2 levels do not fit changes in the CET [Central England Temperature] at all well. For example, from 1695 to 1733, the annual mean temperature rose from 7.25 C to 10.47 C at a time when there was negligible change in atmospheric CO2 - the running mean did not return to such readings until the 1990s. On the other hand, annual mean temperatures fell from 10.62 C in 1949 to 8.47 C by 1963, a period when atmospheric CO2 levels were measurably rising. Greenhouse does not appear to be exerting a strong influence on the CET.
CO is taken out of the air by plants, thus the term "greenhouse effect", and they produce O2 via photosynthesis. If the price of oil hits the numbers certain folks think it will then consumption will decline thus the CO levels should go DOWN (or alternative sources to the "CO problem" will arise). The global warming is so much BS, we don't have a long enough historical record to know if the supposed 1 degree Celsius rise this century is man-made of a cycle the planet goes thru. Frankly I worry more about water pollution problems than I do CO issues. We can live with more CO but without clean water we are all in trouble.
Shell has a HUGE operation extracting oil from oil-sands in Albterta, Canada. The scale allows it to be profitable at $40ish a barrel prices. However, the energy required to get the oil out of the sand, (which requires washing the sand with very hot water and a solvent, the filtering the oil, solvent and water apart) is break-even on energy at best right now. Oil from coal is a distinct option, South Africa did it for years and still does (look up Fischer-Tropsch process), and that is very economical. I just wonder how high prices have to go in order for someone to start in on these technologies. Bio-diesel is also another area, and I do think this one is set to take off, at least Wille Nelson thinks so:)
End in a few decades? Not likely. There is enough oil in Saudi, UAE, Iraq, etc to last more than 50 years at the current consumption rate. Add in the HUGE oil sands deposits in Canada and deep water finds in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil in the Artic Wildlife Refuge areas, African onshore and off is barely tapped, and the Russian oil fields can be worked over to produce more. I also suspect you'll see more drilling in China as I suspect that they have reserves but want to hoard those and buy the rest of the worlds oil. As far as "renewable" jet fuel, jet fuel and gasoline can be made from coal (serveral 100's of years left in the USA alone), or from BioMass, or from Natural Gas. Anything with a carbon and hydrogen can be cracked and reformed into other products. I suspect plastics can be recycled into something useful as well but that might take too much energy, recycling plastic into more plastic is probably most efficient.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod -2 Uninformed Comment. The US Gov't does NOT own the Internet. And every attempt to regulate content in the USA has been struck down, except that DMCA crap the RIAA uses and I think that is coming. Free Speech has NEVER EVER been 100% free, for example you can't slander/libel someone, you can't yell FIRE in a crowd, etc. There are lots of folks fighting the overly broad restrictions, such as the EFF and the ACLU as well as others.
You could undercut the costs, but good luck selling it. If they won't pay the $250 for the data from the TIA which is a recognized and highly repected standards body, why would the pay $230 for it from a NOBODY? TIA has a "brand", you don't have anything to compare to that except maybe experience.
...practical commercial applications. How about instant photo's of disaster areas (like New Orleans), how about a sattelite comm? Kinda like the old Iridium idea. How about real time intelligence on your enemy? This idea is not new, I first read about it in one of Dale Brown's techno thriller books well over 10 years ago. He called them NIRTSats for Need It Right This Second. They could be launched off a fighter or B52, the were about the size of an air-to-air missile. When brings up the Pegasus sat-killer missile..but that's a different type of "payload".
There was a Shuttle experiment on this about 10? years ago, the put a small payload on the end of a tether cable about 3 miles long and it followed the orbit of the Shuttle. It generated a LOT of electrical current. There was some thought to using the current generated as a power source for ISS. However, the lower orbit moves faster and places tension on the cable, so the stresses have to be carefully considered other wise the cable will snap. This would probably be a good use of the carbon nanotube fibers woven into a cable with a conductive outer surface.
Pretty good for starting out as a History major! Looks like you are a solid tech/sys admin. But why in the world did you leave the UNIX world to work with just MS products? Having been a Solaris admin very early in my career (15 or so years ago), I would have been frustrated to no end with the way MS does things.
Yes, college degrees ARE accredited. The IEEE and ACM have an informal acreditation of CS and EE degree programs based on the classes and material taught matching well with the "Model Cirriculum".
o n
see alsohttp://www.aisnet.org/Curriculum/#accreditati
ABET (formally know as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology): ABET is a federation of 31 professional engineering and technical societies. CSAB (formerly know as the Computer Sciences Accreditation Board) is the lead society within ABET for accreditation of programs in computer science, information systems, and software engineering, and is a cooperating society for accreditation of computer engineering and information technology. In this capacity, CSAB has responsibility for the development of accreditation criteria and for the selection and training program evaluators (PEV). Accreditation activities previously conducted by the Computer Science Accreditation Commission (CSAC) of CSAB are now conducted by the Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) of ABET.
CSAB is governed by its Board of Directors (see Appendix 1) whose members are appointed by the member societies. The current member societies of CSAB are the three largest technical, educational, and scientific societies in the computer and computer-related fields. The member societies are the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. -- Computer Society (IEEE-CS), and the Association for Information Systems (AIS.) The Program Evaluator and Program Criteria Committee (PEPC) is responsible for nominating program evaluators to ABET and for the development of accreditation criteria specific to the areas of computing for which CSAB has responsibility. (www.csab.org)
There are National Associations that acredit other programs such as Liberal Arts.
When you pass the tests you only know the MS way of setting up these systems. What if all of a sudden you had to work on UNIX, Linux or maybe Netware or heaven forbid a non-MS database or email server. You would be lost. That is why I won't ever hire someone with a bunch of MS certs unless they have other systems they have worked on. It pays to be versatile and know how to setup/maintain/design systems based on industry standards not just MS. You know a little, but you really don't know anything.
PMI certs are just as bad, I have worked with PMs who had the PMP and knew nothing, or only knew the PMI way to doing things and were not adaptable to the "company" way since by PMI definition it was wrong. As it stands now if you can get someone to sign that you 2000 hours of "management" experience in the last 4 years you can take the exam. The "practice exams" and "prep classes" are ways to suck money from you. PMP's also don't get you much in terms of $$$, last time I worked as a PM I got paid more than the PMP guys because I also had a great deal of technical knowledge so I could not be BS'd by the developers.
The beer and whiskey in Ration is BS. These items were only available at the PX or R&R locations. See http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-food/before-19 50.htm
It has a nice history of Military rations and in no rations kits is beer/whiskey mentioned.
No argument here you are dead on target. Bullseye!
Spare Fab Capacity What do you want to bet the Fabs for the Flash are not running full out? Or that Samsung has some spare capacity at Fabs they can convert to make Flash. That way they can increase efficiency of the Fab, lower costs per item, supply Apple and thier own sister division.
That is why it is VERY IMPORTANT that the IBM-SCO settles the Linux is free and clear of any encumberance of UNIX Sys V AND the SCO v. Novell case establishes SCO does NOT own UNIX. SCO would love to sell Linux down the river to MS.
That makes no sense. The Chinese would WANT to be seen attracting foreign invesment and would tend to inflate the numbers if it is a "propaganda" website. It would make them look more "open market". Thus your argument is illogical. As is usual with you liberals, when it comes time to put up facts or shut up you start name calling and changing the subject (Iran/Contra). Just to give tit for tat you can stick it up your Monica or whatever other Clinton bimbo you like.
I noticed you never backed up YOUR claims against GWB nor denied mine against Bill Clinton. Tell ya what, name me one U.S. Multinational that owns lots of Chinese Production capacity? US Mutlinationals want TARRIFS on Chinese goods. Here are some FACTS from http://www.china.org.cn/english/25298.htm: "Actual foreign direct investment(FDI) in China reached a new high at US$46.85 billion last year, as investors build up confidence in the market following its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to latest statistics released by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC)." Note that this is ALL Foreign Investment not "US Mutlinationals". 46.9B is a drop in the bucket, and it's only able to be invested in areas where the Chinese Government wants it to be, and often with rules and kickbacks to the Communists. Read the issue of Fortune magazine about 6 weeks ago that talks about Wal-Mart's investment in China and how the Government wants it but then they setup Government backed competition to undercut even Wal-Mart's prices. YOU are the leftwing nut, I may be conservative but I back things up with FACTS, not liberal Bullshit talking points.
What the hell are you smoking? You better have some FACTS to prove all these looney left-wing allegations about Bush-China. GWB has done more for the security of the USA than Bill Clinton ever did. We all know Bill Clinton was taking bribes in the form of illegal campaign contributions from the Chinese Government via it's agents disgised as "businessmen" with legitimate interests. Now you really are off the deep end about China and American colonies. The USA has never had very much to do with mainland China, we recognize Taiwan as "China". If you are basing all this on the lowering of trade barriers on textiles earlier this year that has allowed the market to be flooded with low cost Chinese goods, that IMO is NOT a bad thing. The USA can no longer compete in some areas with other nations, we have to recognize that and adapt. Erecting barriers only increases the cost to USA consumers, and really does nothing else. It's not capitalisms to protect inefficent suppliers. The laws of Economics tell use the resources used by these suppilers would return better economic value when applied elsewhere. Now quit smoking that crack and make some sane arguments, not wild conspiracy theories.
I hear you, when I lived in West Va they were pests. I recall a 1 deer a day (does preferred) hunting season one year. They also cause a lot of auto accidents. But of course we can't be out killing "Bambi" now can we ? ;)
I won't disagree! But a LOT of people THINK they are. Most deer rifles in these parts (TX) are zeroed at 300 yards but most shots are not taken at that distance and if they are most are misses. I wonder how many hunters know the charts showing the drop of thier shot at each distance with a given bullet and powder weight. I'd be lucky to consistently hit a 6" bullseye at 100 yards unless I was shooting from a bench or maybe the prone position. I'm just not that solid standing.
You missed a VERY important concept, ablatives imply friction, friction gives off heat, warm them up with a laser and finish with a heat seeking missile :)
For air-to-air, the laser can be steered with radar onto the target.
You don't always have to kill the missilem if it is a IR seeker missile you are just as well off to "blind" it by overloaded the seeker head optics. If it is radar quided you want to overheat the electronics so the guidance signal is degraded.
The whole problem is keeping the laser on target long enough to damage something as well as getting it close enough. The laser energy disspates as the square of the distance in Air, in Space it doesn't.
The M60 has a rate of fire of 600 spm. The M60C and M60D are aircraft versions of the basic M60 machine gun. The M60 series is being replaced by the M240B 7.62mm medium machine gun. The Mod 70 when used by the US Military (as a sniper rifle) is called the M40A1. The civilian version is .308 (same as 7.62)and many other calibers. I believe the Marines have since gone to the M40A3 as the sniper rifle which is the same caliber but a slighter heavier rifle. Little know fact is EACH rifle is built by hand and sighted in at 1000 yards. That's right at 1 km or .6 mile!
The old rifles are being torn down and discarded. I can think of a dozen deer hunters who would give thier right testicle for a rifle accurate at 1000 yards!
Pick that nit!! :) Geographically you are most likely right. However, I don't think the Japanese would be very comfortable showing off new technology to China and letting the Chinese military capture information. Plus Japan and China are not exactly best buddies.
$3.50 a gal sounds about like the major pain point for just about everyone. Right now at almost $3 it hurts pretty good! "s gi-normous production plants are built." That ass-u-mmes the enviro-wackos let them build such plants. There have been ZERO gasoline refineries built in the USA in the last 25 years due to environmental issues.
My "2" key is a bit sticky and does not work. I didn't see the missing 2 until I posted it. It's bad form to reply to my own post, I know some smarty pants would correct it. If you can PROVE Global Warning beyond a doubt just as the laws of physics are, then do so, otherwise shut up about it. When we have a planet that is 4 BILLION years old and we have a record of perhaps 1-5 Million years, that is NOT significant. Ice Core samples, volcanic rocks, etc give some readings but you only see data published to support GW, never does anyone tout results that disprove it since that would cut off thier research funds. It is a self-perpetuating lie. Here is a quote from the Global Hydrology and Climate Center, University of Alabama - Huntsville, USA who have been running experiments from 1978 to present refining thier techniques and publishing peer reviewed papers on the data and analysis. "The new global trend from Dec 1978 to July 2005 is +0.123 C/decade, or +0.035 C/decade warmer than v5.1. This particular error is within the published margin of error for LT of +/- 0.05 C/decade (Christy et al. 2003)." Also look at this chart: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/land_o_ C.all
You'll see that the raw data and you can see there is very little to indicate a warming. The data goes up and down, with overall a tiny positive trend but not significant.
In case you live in the UK here is something about warming there:
Tony Blair appears convinced by the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis but atmospheric CO2 levels do not fit changes in the CET [Central England Temperature] at all well. For example, from 1695 to 1733, the annual mean temperature rose from 7.25 C to 10.47 C at a time when there was negligible change in atmospheric CO2 - the running mean did not return to such readings until the 1990s. On the other hand, annual mean temperatures fell from 10.62 C in 1949 to 8.47 C by 1963, a period when atmospheric CO2 levels were measurably rising. Greenhouse does not appear to be exerting a strong influence on the CET.
CO is taken out of the air by plants, thus the term "greenhouse effect", and they produce O2 via photosynthesis. If the price of oil hits the numbers certain folks think it will then consumption will decline thus the CO levels should go DOWN (or alternative sources to the "CO problem" will arise). The global warming is so much BS, we don't have a long enough historical record to know if the supposed 1 degree Celsius rise this century is man-made of a cycle the planet goes thru. Frankly I worry more about water pollution problems than I do CO issues. We can live with more CO but without clean water we are all in trouble.
Shell has a HUGE operation extracting oil from oil-sands in Albterta, Canada. The scale allows it to be profitable at $40ish a barrel prices. However, the energy required to get the oil out of the sand, (which requires washing the sand with very hot water and a solvent, the filtering the oil, solvent and water apart) is break-even on energy at best right now. Oil from coal is a distinct option, South Africa did it for years and still does (look up Fischer-Tropsch process), and that is very economical. I just wonder how high prices have to go in order for someone to start in on these technologies. Bio-diesel is also another area, and I do think this one is set to take off, at least Wille Nelson thinks so :)
End in a few decades? Not likely. There is enough oil in Saudi, UAE, Iraq, etc to last more than 50 years at the current consumption rate. Add in the HUGE oil sands deposits in Canada and deep water finds in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil in the Artic Wildlife Refuge areas, African onshore and off is barely tapped, and the Russian oil fields can be worked over to produce more. I also suspect you'll see more drilling in China as I suspect that they have reserves but want to hoard those and buy the rest of the worlds oil. As far as "renewable" jet fuel, jet fuel and gasoline can be made from coal (serveral 100's of years left in the USA alone), or from BioMass, or from Natural Gas. Anything with a carbon and hydrogen can be cracked and reformed into other products. I suspect plastics can be recycled into something useful as well but that might take too much energy, recycling plastic into more plastic is probably most efficient.