Recycling glass, plastic, and paper also increases our CO2 emissions. That hasn't stopped various state and local governments from initiating mandatory programs to recycle this garbage. And don't give me some nonsense about landfill space, we can bury it almost anywhere and it won't make any difference.
As far as bio-fuels go, I thought it was pretty well understood that those in use today (either bio-diesel or ethanol) don't reduce CO2 emissions. Isn't that why there's an emphasis on finding ways to make ethanol from cellulosic material? In fact there was an article on slashdot a couple weeks ago about a company which had developed a technology that would make this possible http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/25/2313212. The article says that they'll have a pilot plant operating early next-year and if all goes well we could see commercial scale operations early next decade. I'm all for that.
You know you're a hopeless academic when you think a book can save your life in the face of a severe famine. No, my friend, a book can not tell you how to survive and live off the land. This is something you must learn in person.
The power of the arm is limited by the amount of power the motors in the arm can generate, which in turn is limited by the size of the battery in the arm. Since the power is limited, the amount of force that can be applied by the arm is also limited, as the arm will need to be able move at a reasonable speed. When you see a hydraulic arm performing tasks of immense strength, it is important to note the motor attached to it. In most cases an internal combustion engine would be too heavy to use in a bionic arm (and too noisy).
More importantly, the "core strength" of the person is unaffected by the arm, so the force applied in most tasks (tasks requiring the muscles in the back and legs) would be limited by the person's other muscles in the event that the arm were significantly stronger. Of course if the arm is not able to apply as much force as the rest of the body, the arm becomes the limiting factor.
Also, the connection of the arm to the person could be the limiting factor, depending on how it attached.
People are people. They sure as hell do get specail rights against wild animals. What, did you think we invented guns just for show? Tell you what, I'll agree to "be on my own" just as soon as they agree to let me bring a shotgun into the zoo. Until then, I expect the zoo to keep their animals properly secured. No matter how much I taunt the animal, it should not be able to escape it's enclosure.
I was listening to the news this morning, and a zoo official said "we realize that it will not be possible for us to prove that the tiger was properly contained". Well, no shit, if the tiger can escape, it is not properly contained. It scares me that the zoo officials are just now figuring this out, I knew that as soon as I heard the tiger had escaped and eaten someone.
I'm against voting in general (in the sense that people seem to think that an overly invasive and controlling government is okay as long the majority of us voted fot it). Parhaps the ACLU agrees with me and thinks that discrediting the physical mechanism of voting will cause people to re-think blindly accepting democatric rule in situations where no rule at all may be better.
They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?
That's stupid. Just because they haven't built it yet doesn't mean they would never build it. You should always start with the area with the highest return first.
Well, I have Time Warner cable internet, I live in Southern California, and I have no complaints. It's screaming fast and it's never lost service (that I've noticed). So you can count me as a satisfied broadband customer.
I want a jeep because it will let me drive around my job-sites without worrying about getting high-centered or damaging my vehicle. They also have a tail-gate, which is really useful sometimes. Perhaps you think a jeep is larger than it really is. They are really made for off-road use, unlike many SUVs.
I am going to get a safe jeep. It will be bright yellow, that way everyone will be able to see it. It will also be easy to find in the parking-lot. I'm a good driver too (I get the good-driver discount on my insurance).
You shouldn't be so judgmental. You don't know anything about me, or my driving habits, and you have no idea how I will use my car.
This sounds like it is the real deal. They'll have a pilot plant running next year. If things really fall into place, we'll see commercial plants by 2011 (a safer bet is 2015).
That means that I can buy the Jeep instead of the Rabbit, and I won't have to worry about fuel costs down the road. Now I just have to wait for the flex-fuel JEEP Wrangler to come out (the Cherokee and the Commander are flex-fuel, so it's only a matter of time, right?)
P.S. You should really RTFA on this one. When I read the headline, I thought "bacteria, that's how they do it now! They've been doing it that way for thousands of years!". No, this process uses gasification to convert cellulose into CO and H2 (as all cellulosic operations have done) and then uses bacteria to convert the CO and H2 into ethanol (conventional cellulosic processes use enzymes to do this; so do the bacteria, but this way the bacteria make the enzyme in the reactor).
This is a replacement for the 12" Aluminum powerbook that everyone loved so much. It's small, but it's not low-end. Since there was a market for the 12" powerbook, I think it's safe to say there will be a market for this.
I thought it was a really good movie. I like the clips from a "previous recording" cut throughout the movie that added character development and background.
It was clearly well-directed, and had a lot of good camera work from the standpoint of composition. I didn't get the impression that they were trying to pass this movie off as low-budget (and having seen it, I would be really surprised if it was low budget). The handy-cam point of view is used entirely for cinematic effect, and not as an attempt to hype the movie. Don't miss this movie just because you think they're trying to hype it. It's an exceptional movie.
The movie is filled with action and suspense, and is the best scary movie I've seen in a long time. It's also the best "giant monster attacks city" movie I've ever seen.
I sat at the front of a very large movie screen, and I did not get a headache. Neither did my identical twin brother (for what that's worth).
What was the great technological advancement that preceded the dark ages? Argiculture had been around for thousands of years, as had steel. I don't know that I'd say that an extended period of technological advancement preceded the dark ages. It's true that a lot of science and mathametics were developed before then, but it doesn't seem to have seen any lasting, unique, practical application. It is very possible the the same scientific advances were made before the times of the romans and the greeks and the egyptions, and that they simply did not lead to any lasting developments.
I really don't see any "key" technologies being developed until the steam engine (the practical seam engine) was built. In fact, I don't know if I'd say that any key technologies have been developed since the steam engine. After all, electricity is only usefull to transmit the power generated by steam engines. Maybe the internal combustion engine, or the jet engine, but those are similar in function to the steam engine. Maybe information technology is a key tech, but I don't know if it's effect has been as dramatic as some other things (steel, the wheel, agriculture, steam engines).
One thing's for sure, if we ever run out of fossil fuels, or stop burnging them, all the technological developments that have taken place in the last 200 years will disappear. Maybe someday we will be able to replace them with solar, but there isn't enough wind to replace them, nor is there enough uranium (unless maybe we use breeder reactors).
That is not a fair comparison. You could get more energy from corn if you processed it in a cellulosic refinery too. The problem is that there aren't any. . .
Any poly-sci major will tell you that the main purpose of elections is to grant the governing body "legitimacy". The idea is that if you say people voted for the government, people are more willing to accept governmental authority (if people didn't accept governmental authority, the government would not have any power). Since most people do not have a complete enough understanding of discrete mathematics to understand this problem, it will not grant the government any additional legitimacy and is therefore completely useless.
As a side note, I would like to take this opportunity to complain that people too frequently equate democracy with freedom. There is nothing about a democracy that means that it increases your level of freedom. People in this country could vote to take away all my money and forcibly sterilize me, and it would be no less of an infringement on my basic freedoms than if some psychopath broke into my house, stole everything I had and cut my balls off.
There was a tree near a fraternity at my college that always had a bunch of shoes in it. The rumor was that once someone had sex with a girl they'd steal her shoes and throw them up there. There were a lot of mens shoes in that tree, so I doubt the truth of that rumor as well.
Almost all of the engineers I know are republicans. I think you are confusing people who think they "have extensive positions consisting of multiple points" with people who actually have them. In reality you are just making the same old us vs. them argument. We liberals are really smart and enlightened, and those conservatives are all stupid apes who do whatever their religious leaders say. There are very many followers across the spectrum, and it is really naive for you to think that one political party has more mindless followers than the other. I feel sorry for you and whoever modded you insightful. Your kind of thinking is the reason there is so much hate and lack of understanding in the world.
Did you know that that system involves holding enemy combatants indefinitely until a they are released by the terms of a truce or surrender, or at the end of hostilities? Is that what you had in mind? Because we shouldn't be releasing them in that event. . .
That's not how it works. You can't just throw a whole bunch of money at a project and make it happen overnight. Developing new technology takes time, not just money. NASA currently employs almost all of the rocket scientists in the country, and spending more money isn't going to make more of them overnight. Moreover, you can't put too many engineers on one project before it becomes an unsuccessful bureaucratic nightmare (just look at MS office), and spreading work over many engineers won't necessarily reduce the total time of completion, just as adding 100 processors to your computer won't make it 100X faster.
No, rationing is when you say that you will distribute a finite amount to everyone, regardless of how much they can pay. In our system, if you can pay for it, you can have it. There is no rationing. I think you're confusing the existence of a shortage, and the resulting high prices with rationing. Obviously, when there isn't enough to go around, someone will do without. In the US, the people who can't afford it do without. But just rationing as they do in Canada will not eliminate the shortage. What I'm saying is that our problem will only be solved once we ensure there is an ample supply of health care available.
The effect you mention is brought on by the Canadian "single payer" system. In canada it is illegal for people outside the government run health care system to offer health services. This gives the government a monopoly. Since the government does not have to compete with private industry, shortages in available health care do not drive up the price of health care as they do in the US. The government simply uses waiting lines and, and defines procedures with a low cost to benefit ratio as "discretionary" in order to deal with a shortage. Shortages are also easily overcome because Canadians who feel their "discretionary" procedures are essential can come to the US and pay for them.
Of course, the main thing driving up the cost is a shortage of available health care services. Demand vastly outstrips supply, and people are simply not willing to do without, so they will pay almost anything to obtain health care. It's easy to understand why there is a shortage of available health care. Medical schools set admissions caps, and refuse qualified candidates who would otherwise have become doctors. Hospitals require that doctors carry out duties that otherwise could be carried out by nurses or administrative assistants. In the end, doctors end up working long hours, and burn out quickly.
Before we try to implement a socialized health care system, we should address the artificial barriers to entry which are restricting our supply of qualified health care professionals.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as bio-fuels go, I thought it was pretty well understood that those in use today (either bio-diesel or ethanol) don't reduce CO2 emissions. Isn't that why there's an emphasis on finding ways to make ethanol from cellulosic material? In fact there was an article on slashdot a couple weeks ago about a company which had developed a technology that would make this possible http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/25/2313212. The article says that they'll have a pilot plant operating early next-year and if all goes well we could see commercial scale operations early next decade. I'm all for that.
You know you're a hopeless academic when you think a book can save your life in the face of a severe famine. No, my friend, a book can not tell you how to survive and live off the land. This is something you must learn in person.
"I don't see any reason why not."
The power of the arm is limited by the amount of power the motors in the arm can generate, which in turn is limited by the size of the battery in the arm. Since the power is limited, the amount of force that can be applied by the arm is also limited, as the arm will need to be able move at a reasonable speed. When you see a hydraulic arm performing tasks of immense strength, it is important to note the motor attached to it. In most cases an internal combustion engine would be too heavy to use in a bionic arm (and too noisy).
More importantly, the "core strength" of the person is unaffected by the arm, so the force applied in most tasks (tasks requiring the muscles in the back and legs) would be limited by the person's other muscles in the event that the arm were significantly stronger. Of course if the arm is not able to apply as much force as the rest of the body, the arm becomes the limiting factor.
Also, the connection of the arm to the person could be the limiting factor, depending on how it attached.
Amen to that. I would mod you up if you weren't already +5.
People are people. They sure as hell do get specail rights against wild animals. What, did you think we invented guns just for show? Tell you what, I'll agree to "be on my own" just as soon as they agree to let me bring a shotgun into the zoo. Until then, I expect the zoo to keep their animals properly secured. No matter how much I taunt the animal, it should not be able to escape it's enclosure.
I was listening to the news this morning, and a zoo official said "we realize that it will not be possible for us to prove that the tiger was properly contained". Well, no shit, if the tiger can escape, it is not properly contained. It scares me that the zoo officials are just now figuring this out, I knew that as soon as I heard the tiger had escaped and eaten someone.
I'm against voting in general (in the sense that people seem to think that an overly invasive and controlling government is okay as long the majority of us voted fot it). Parhaps the ACLU agrees with me and thinks that discrediting the physical mechanism of voting will cause people to re-think blindly accepting democatric rule in situations where no rule at all may be better.
They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?
That's stupid. Just because they haven't built it yet doesn't mean they would never build it. You should always start with the area with the highest return first.
Well, I have Time Warner cable internet, I live in Southern California, and I have no complaints. It's screaming fast and it's never lost service (that I've noticed). So you can count me as a satisfied broadband customer.
I want a jeep because it will let me drive around my job-sites without worrying about getting high-centered or damaging my vehicle. They also have a tail-gate, which is really useful sometimes. Perhaps you think a jeep is larger than it really is. They are really made for off-road use, unlike many SUVs.
I am going to get a safe jeep. It will be bright yellow, that way everyone will be able to see it. It will also be easy to find in the parking-lot. I'm a good driver too (I get the good-driver discount on my insurance).
You shouldn't be so judgmental. You don't know anything about me, or my driving habits, and you have no idea how I will use my car.
This sounds like it is the real deal. They'll have a pilot plant running next year. If things really fall into place, we'll see commercial plants by 2011 (a safer bet is 2015).
That means that I can buy the Jeep instead of the Rabbit, and I won't have to worry about fuel costs down the road. Now I just have to wait for the flex-fuel JEEP Wrangler to come out (the Cherokee and the Commander are flex-fuel, so it's only a matter of time, right?)
P.S. You should really RTFA on this one. When I read the headline, I thought "bacteria, that's how they do it now! They've been doing it that way for thousands of years!". No, this process uses gasification to convert cellulose into CO and H2 (as all cellulosic operations have done) and then uses bacteria to convert the CO and H2 into ethanol (conventional cellulosic processes use enzymes to do this; so do the bacteria, but this way the bacteria make the enzyme in the reactor).
This is a replacement for the 12" Aluminum powerbook that everyone loved so much. It's small, but it's not low-end. Since there was a market for the 12" powerbook, I think it's safe to say there will be a market for this.
I thought it was a really good movie. I like the clips from a "previous recording" cut throughout the movie that added character development and background.
It was clearly well-directed, and had a lot of good camera work from the standpoint of composition. I didn't get the impression that they were trying to pass this movie off as low-budget (and having seen it, I would be really surprised if it was low budget). The handy-cam point of view is used entirely for cinematic effect, and not as an attempt to hype the movie. Don't miss this movie just because you think they're trying to hype it. It's an exceptional movie.
The movie is filled with action and suspense, and is the best scary movie I've seen in a long time. It's also the best "giant monster attacks city" movie I've ever seen.
I sat at the front of a very large movie screen, and I did not get a headache. Neither did my identical twin brother (for what that's worth).
What was the great technological advancement that preceded the dark ages? Argiculture had been around for thousands of years, as had steel. I don't know that I'd say that an extended period of technological advancement preceded the dark ages. It's true that a lot of science and mathametics were developed before then, but it doesn't seem to have seen any lasting, unique, practical application. It is very possible the the same scientific advances were made before the times of the romans and the greeks and the egyptions, and that they simply did not lead to any lasting developments.
I really don't see any "key" technologies being developed until the steam engine (the practical seam engine) was built. In fact, I don't know if I'd say that any key technologies have been developed since the steam engine. After all, electricity is only usefull to transmit the power generated by steam engines. Maybe the internal combustion engine, or the jet engine, but those are similar in function to the steam engine. Maybe information technology is a key tech, but I don't know if it's effect has been as dramatic as some other things (steel, the wheel, agriculture, steam engines).
One thing's for sure, if we ever run out of fossil fuels, or stop burnging them, all the technological developments that have taken place in the last 200 years will disappear. Maybe someday we will be able to replace them with solar, but there isn't enough wind to replace them, nor is there enough uranium (unless maybe we use breeder reactors).
That is not a fair comparison. You could get more energy from corn if you processed it in a cellulosic refinery too. The problem is that there aren't any. . .
Any poly-sci major will tell you that the main purpose of elections is to grant the governing body "legitimacy". The idea is that if you say people voted for the government, people are more willing to accept governmental authority (if people didn't accept governmental authority, the government would not have any power). Since most people do not have a complete enough understanding of discrete mathematics to understand this problem, it will not grant the government any additional legitimacy and is therefore completely useless.
As a side note, I would like to take this opportunity to complain that people too frequently equate democracy with freedom. There is nothing about a democracy that means that it increases your level of freedom. People in this country could vote to take away all my money and forcibly sterilize me, and it would be no less of an infringement on my basic freedoms than if some psychopath broke into my house, stole everything I had and cut my balls off.
The government enforces all property rights (not just IP). No government = no property rights.
Gangs are also the result of bored kids.
There was a tree near a fraternity at my college that always had a bunch of shoes in it. The rumor was that once someone had sex with a girl they'd steal her shoes and throw them up there. There were a lot of mens shoes in that tree, so I doubt the truth of that rumor as well.
Almost all of the engineers I know are republicans. I think you are confusing people who think they "have extensive positions consisting of multiple points" with people who actually have them. In reality you are just making the same old us vs. them argument. We liberals are really smart and enlightened, and those conservatives are all stupid apes who do whatever their religious leaders say. There are very many followers across the spectrum, and it is really naive for you to think that one political party has more mindless followers than the other. I feel sorry for you and whoever modded you insightful. Your kind of thinking is the reason there is so much hate and lack of understanding in the world.
You posted that comment on an internet news site. Just thought I'd point that out.
"learning how to reason, apply logic, and learn new things independently"
You don't learn to do that by sitting in a classroom.
Did you know that that system involves holding enemy combatants indefinitely until a they are released by the terms of a truce or surrender, or at the end of hostilities? Is that what you had in mind? Because we shouldn't be releasing them in that event. . .
That's not how it works. You can't just throw a whole bunch of money at a project and make it happen overnight. Developing new technology takes time, not just money. NASA currently employs almost all of the rocket scientists in the country, and spending more money isn't going to make more of them overnight. Moreover, you can't put too many engineers on one project before it becomes an unsuccessful bureaucratic nightmare (just look at MS office), and spreading work over many engineers won't necessarily reduce the total time of completion, just as adding 100 processors to your computer won't make it 100X faster.
No, rationing is when you say that you will distribute a finite amount to everyone, regardless of how much they can pay. In our system, if you can pay for it, you can have it. There is no rationing. I think you're confusing the existence of a shortage, and the resulting high prices with rationing. Obviously, when there isn't enough to go around, someone will do without. In the US, the people who can't afford it do without. But just rationing as they do in Canada will not eliminate the shortage. What I'm saying is that our problem will only be solved once we ensure there is an ample supply of health care available.
The effect you mention is brought on by the Canadian "single payer" system. In canada it is illegal for people outside the government run health care system to offer health services. This gives the government a monopoly. Since the government does not have to compete with private industry, shortages in available health care do not drive up the price of health care as they do in the US. The government simply uses waiting lines and, and defines procedures with a low cost to benefit ratio as "discretionary" in order to deal with a shortage. Shortages are also easily overcome because Canadians who feel their "discretionary" procedures are essential can come to the US and pay for them.
Of course, the main thing driving up the cost is a shortage of available health care services. Demand vastly outstrips supply, and people are simply not willing to do without, so they will pay almost anything to obtain health care. It's easy to understand why there is a shortage of available health care. Medical schools set admissions caps, and refuse qualified candidates who would otherwise have become doctors. Hospitals require that doctors carry out duties that otherwise could be carried out by nurses or administrative assistants. In the end, doctors end up working long hours, and burn out quickly.
Before we try to implement a socialized health care system, we should address the artificial barriers to entry which are restricting our supply of qualified health care professionals.