......So yes, there is some limit to what we can do as we are.......
Maybe that's why the Apostle Paul writes in the context of resurrection:
"Brothers and sisters, this is what I mean: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What decays cannot inherit what doesn't decay.?" 1Corinthians 15:50
He then makes the point that we cannot remain as we are, but need to be changed.
...Given sufficient time, all things possible are inevitable......
And how much time is "sufficient"? How would anyone calculate such a time? We know the Universe did have a beginning. Could life develop on a probabilistic basis in the estimated age of the Universe? We are obviously here, but that doesn't prove we got here by probabilistic processes. We COULD have been designed. In the end it boils down to what we want to BELIEVE about our origins.
.....The incomprehensibly massive scale of the universe dictates it to be extraordinarily probable.......
Seems that way until you tally up all the conditions needed to have a life supporting planet; especially one with an intelligent civilization.
Carbon is the only element we know of that can make the extremely complex molecular constructs we find in living things. A planet has to have a minimum set of specifications in order to have life capable of anything we could call "civilization".
One major requirement is that such a planet must have no other star closer than about 3.8 light years besides its own "sun". Another sun sized star closer than about that distance would disturb that planet's orbit and make the long term climate there inhospitable to life. Only about half of all the stars in the whole universe qualify on this star spacing specification alone.
The spacing of stars that could have planets supporting intelligent life is only one of a number of critical parameters that must be just right. If the separate probabilities of each parameter are multiplied together, the probability of another planet like Earth is vanishingly small.
If you add in all the parameters of physics that have to be within narrow limits, in order for life to come about at all, even here on Earth, the chances of life developing randomly are a mathematical zero.
.....The incomprehensibly massive scale of the universe dictates it to be true, statistically-speaking.......
It would seem that way at first glance. However, if you take into account all the requirements to support life, the likely hood becomes vanishingly small.
The only one minor problem is that nobody has seen any evidence for this fictional construct, nor of dark matter/energy nor black holes. These are structures all necessitated to try and make the newer data from modern space probes fit currently "accepted" theories.
Why doesn't it occur to more scientists to re-examine the assumptions current theories are built on? Current cosmology seems to be like a house of cards, a religion pretending to be science, built on some unproven and perhaps unprovable fundamental assumptions (beliefs). Any theory can only be as valid as the underlying assumptions made. Beautiful equations can all make perfect mathematical and logical sense, but have no relation to physical reality.
......Our galaxy *should* be littered by millions of civilizations........
Carbon is the only central element we know of that can make the extremely complex molecular constructs we find in living things. A "rock" like ours has to have a minimum set of specifications in order to have life capable of anything we could call "civilization".
1.0 One major requirement that this rock must have no other star closer than about 3.8 light years besides its "sun". Another sun sized star closer than about 3.8 light years would mess up that rock's orbit and make the long term climate there inhospitable to life. Only about half of all the stars in the whole universe qualify on this distance specification.
2.0 The gravity at the surface of the planet must be right. Too strong gravity causes the atmosphere to contain too much methane and ammonia, both very poisonous to life. It also makes it hard to move, especially flight. Too little gravity will produce a planet like Mars with little air and water.
3.0 The mass of that star has to be just right. Too large a star would causes its energy output vary more than living things could stand. The energy output of huge stars is not stable, long term. Any life would be exterminated by cooking or freezing before it could get very far along. A too tiny star would force that rock to be too close to its star to get enough heat for life. This would mess up the rotation time, tending to make a day and a year about the same length, such as the planet Mercury. Also there would be excessive tidal forces that would be hard on higher civilized life.
5.0 The rotation time of such a rock could not be too different from that of our earth. If that rock rotates more slowly, then everything would freeze solid every night and cook during the day. A faster spin would make for terrific storms in the atmosphere all the time, preventing the formation of higher civilized society. The rotational speed of Saturn and Jupiter are very high and the winds in its atmosphere are phenomenal. (hundreds of miles per hour)
6.0 Ratio of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere is critical. Too much oxygen would make life functions run too fast and allow any fires to burn whole continents over in devastating fire storms. Too little oxygen would not allow much meaningful activity, because life processes would proceed too slowly. Any other gases, if present in more than trace amounts could also prevent the development of life.
7.0 The crust (outer solid layer) of such a rock has to be the right thickness. If it were too thick, most of the oxygen in the atmosphere would be tied up in it, leaving too little free for living things. Too thin a crust would result in too many severe earthquakes and volcanoes would make it quite difficult to develop any advanced civilization. The crust of our own rock is thinner than the skin on an onion at the relative scale.
8.0 The chemical binding energies of carbon dictate the wavelengths of light needed by living things (photosynthesis in plants on our own rock) that convert the light from the star into a suitable form to knit hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and other elements together as building blocks and fuel for all life forms. The spectrum of that rock's star must therefore be pretty close to that of our sun. Blue or red giants or dwarfs need not apply for the job.
Conclusion: To get a suitable rock upon which a civilization can develop and flourish requires a number of fortuitous "coincidences". On a random basis, this makes the chance of another rock like ours very small. Maybe some enterprising/.er has the time to do a rough estimate what the probability is that only these factors be met. There surely are other factors not mentioned above.
.....wires and tubes left dragging everywhere.........
Keep in mind that these are short term experiments, not long term, installations. The more permanent parts of the accelerator itself are much more orderly, just as in a good data center.
.......Also we'd always seem to know when power outages were going to happen ahead of time........
That's because the computer building is fed from the same beam switchyard power substation. Often when the large power supplies that ran the big magnets needed maintenance or reconfiguring for new experiments, they had to kill the feed to that substation.
On hot summer days, the accelerator was often shut down, so the silicon valley air conditioners could still run. I believe the wind tunnels at NASA/Ames in Mt. View could suck up more peak power, but SLAC was definitely champion in the number of megawatt hours consumed because it ran many more hours.
I still remember the day TWO big semi-trucks came and we all watched them haul the IBM 90 mainframe to the recycling center. They then had 370s to take their place. Now, an iPhone has more computing capability.
......a cavity magnetron inside not a klystron......
Indeed correct, but each these klystrons has a large magnet associated with it. Also, there are only about 400 of them, not 4000 as in the article. SLAC never did much with protons, as was stated, but accelerates and collides anti-electrons, commonly called positrons with electrons. In the beginning, the electrons however were all directed against fixed targets.
The accelerator is perfectly STRAIGHT but not level. The injector end is about 50 feet higher than the target end. So, the Klystron Gallery does have a slope also.
I was there in the group at the ground breaking. Starting down on the Stanford University campus, I participated in the design and construction of power and control systems for magnets in the beam switch yard. We all had big celebration in 1967, upon getting an electron beam all the way through that 3/4 inch 2 mile long hole in that copper pipe. Sigh.... those were the days.....
....that climate modeling has gotten much more accurate over the past 30, let alone 113 years.......
True, the computers and the models have gotten more sophisticated. However the underlying assumptions are no better now than then, so the results won't be either. You know, garbage in -- garbage out. Another underlying assumption is that a warmer earth will melt all the ice and is therefore bad.
However, a warmer earth means warmer oceans, more evaporation, more precipitation, much of it as snow, which makes for a balancing cooling effect. Besides, the folks in colder places would certainly not object if things got a little warmer, little friendlier, climate wise. Also, plants grow better if there is more CO2 in the air. So, together with a warmer climate, combined with better growing plants means more food for all life forms, including people.
The past actual, real climate data we have, is well correlated with solar activity, but no way whatsoever related to human activity.
The reason theory is gray, is because the assumptions (beliefs) underlying many theories is gray, that is based on guesswork.
...... i always look on the box or check on the download site to make sure.......
Of course, but you are a/. reader and therefore by definition interested in computers and technology and much more knowledgeable than the Joe and Jane I wrote about. They don't care about what runs where, but only want to do certain things with their computer. There is NOTHING that a Linux computer will do, that Windows or Macs will not. Linux is more secure, but no more so than Macs. As I pointed out, there is plenty that Linux will not do, at least not without knowing about the innards thereof, that Windows and Macs have down cold.
Most people who drive cars know nothing about internal combustions motors. The do know to turn the key and that the car has to be filled up with increasingly expensive fuel from time to time. Computers with Linux today are like the cars in the 1920s. You don't need to crank them any more, like the earlier cars needed, but it was still necessary to know much more about their workings than today's cars require. When first learning to drive, it is easier to learn in a car with an automatic transmission. However, some who enjoy driving more than just a necessity to get from point A to B, will get a sporty car with 4 or more on the floor.
Windows and Mac computers require far less knowledge of the inner workings of a computer, than Linux does. The former are the vehicles Mom uses to take the kids to baseball practice. Linux is for Dad taking his sportster out for a pleasurable drive or tinkering with that hotrod in the garage. There are a lot more sedans on the roads than sports cars or hotrods.
...... Joe Sixpack really doesn't need much more software then is installed by default in Ubuntu.......
What happens if Joe buys a printer at Office Depot and then learns that he cannot use it, because its manufacturer doesn't support Linux? His neighbor has no such problem with his Windows computer.
His wife Jane, likes to shoot videos. She looks where to plug her camera into the computer and finds that she cannot. Her bridge partner has a Mac and edits all her movies, but Jane is stuck. Her husband is a heavy equipment operator and will not install the hardware nor software needed because has no clue what to do.
Joe's son Bob comes home from school, delighted with a game given to him by a friend who just got tired of it. Of course he can't get it to work on Joe's Ubuntu system.
It's scenarios like this that prevent Linux from gaining many users. It has nothing or little to do with the cost of the OS. Linux is still only for computer nerds or possibly those who know one that will get the Linux computer working as wanted.
.......This is something agreed upon by a very large majority of scientists across the globe........
The majority of scientists once agreed that the world is flat. Since when has the majority EVER come up with any scientific progress or civilization changing discoveries or inventions? Sheep, lemmings and politicians never come up with anything new or worthwhile. They never have and they never will. So far, it has always been the lone inventor or researcher that has come up with fundamental discoveries and technology, even though their funds might have come from big government or corporations.
Take a look at the relatively recent history of the majority, media spouted "science" of climate change. In the Feb. 24, 1895 issue of the NY times the headline was: "GEOLOGISTS THINK THAT THE WORLD MAY BE FROZEN UP AGAIN". The same paper on May 15, 1932 headlined: "EARTH IS STEADILY GROWING WARMER". Again on May 21, 1975, in the Times, "MAJOR COOLING IS WIDELY CONSIDERED INEVITABLE" and also on the cover of TIME magazine of Dec 3, 1973, "THE BIG FREEZE". Finally recently, again on the front of TIME, April 3, 2006, "SPECIAL REPORT ON GLOBAL WARMING".
What will the cover of the April 1st 2036 edition of Time magazine shout at its readers? Is climate change based on science, that is KNOWLEDGE, or is it based of assumptions (beliefs) and guesswork of loudmouth politicians and environuts shouting their opinions in the media?
Dams and turbines are more reliable, by far, than diesel engines. Huge transmission lines also don't fail often. When they do, they get fixed pretty fast. Reliability of power, besides cost, is another reason Google chose their site.
......something like 95% of the state lives west of Portland.......
Yes, and it's because of those city slickers up there, that we few down here in southern Oregon are being overrun with cougars. The ignorant city folks, most of whom have never seen a cougar, voted to make it illegal to hunt cougars with the aid of dogs.
It does rain a lot here also, though not quite as much as around Portland. At least they have not been able to get California style electricity deregulation passed here nor sales tax and self service gas stations.
....With 320 kV lines, you could transmit electricity.....
The problem is that there are not anywhere near enough lines to carry the amounts of power involved, even if there were minimal losses. Environmentalism and NIMBY prevent the construction of new lines. Many would rather have an 8 lane freeway, rather than a huge ugly power line across or near their property. Most folks don't make such a fuss over an optical cable under ground.
.....They locate in Oregon touting "clean" energy provided by hydroelectric power - never mind the salmon kills.......
I hope you are not one of the fools that advocates the removal of dams, just to save a few fish. The hydro dams on the Columbia do not emit carbon or other pollutants. The electricity that Google will be using is largely unused, because it is no longer used to make aluminum. Every watt not generated by dams will be produced by other, more eco-unfriendly means. In todays political climate, the large flood control and power producing dams would not be built.
There are not enough lines that could carry power from the hydro stations down to power hungry California or anywhere else. Environuts and NIMBY objections make it nearly impossible to build new cross country transmission lines.
Most computers power consumption doesn't vary dramatically, depending on processing loads. The daily load curve is likely much flatter for such a data center than the grid as a whole.
....to get 1 megawatt of power in downtown San Francisco it will take upwards of Three years for PG&E to deliver.....
It's a lot cheaper to ship bits than to ship the power to run a large server farm. Environmentalists and the NIMBY folks are also much less likely to complain about a little trench that is soon forgotten after the lines are buried. A 500KV power line raises a lot more opposition. The sites the old aluminum plants used to be already have the requisite power connections.
Well this stuff about "The Electric Universe" are not MY theories. We are however getting a lot of data from modern space probes can can be explained much better if the electric force as well as gravity are BOTH taken into account. If gravity is considered alone the data we get is much more puzzling.
All of the rocky bodies of the solar system observed so far, have craters of various sizes. We have several of them here on Earth, like the one in Arizona.
Currently accepted theory gives impacts of chunks of matter from space as their cause. If that were the ONLY cause, then why is is that no materials whatsoever, foreign to the area of the crater are found? It seems that all traces of the supposedly impacting object evaporated without a trace. That vaporization is in fact the conventional explanation of this absence.
We know that electricity, such as lightening can also make craters. Welding and discharge machining make use of this capability. If there are charge imbalances between celestial objects, these can be equalized between them upon close encounters by means of catastrophic discharge events. Outer space is not an insulator, but is filled with charged particles. Sometimes the sun sends large electrical currents our way that cause the northern lights and on occasion disrupt our communications and power systems.
Electric fields and forces are transient phenomena, while gravity is sure and steady. Gravity accounts for the steady state of orbits, but is far too weak to cause any significant sudden disruption of planets and stars. There is plenty of evidence that the solar system has been through a rather violent phase not as far back in time, as it is presently thought.
There are many myths about warring gods, as evidenced by terrifying phenomena, such as catastrophic celestial thunder bolts, in the heavens and on earth. It is not the myths themselves that interesting, but their consistency of their central elements, not matter what location on earth these myths first originated.
We humans instinctively fear sudden terrifying events over which have no control. We much prefer the steady, slow and predictable, dependable as gravity. Electricity in nature displays itself suddenly, unpredictably. We still use language constructs, such as: "A Thunderbolt out of the blue". As scientists, we have to be cognizant of the fact that nature isn't always kind, evolving slowly and steadily, over vast amounts of time, but also, does at times make profound, deep and lasting changes with devastating suddenness. I'm not saying current theories are all wrong, but they certainly are incomplete.
Slashdot Mirror
......intelligence seems inevitable.......
Except in Washington DC. We ask: "is there intelligent life on other planets?" Maybe on other planets there is.
......I guarantee human level.....
Silly statement; you can't even guarantee you'll wake up tomorrow morning.
......So yes, there is some limit to what we can do as we are.......
Maybe that's why the Apostle Paul writes in the context of resurrection:
"Brothers and sisters, this is what I mean: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What decays cannot inherit what doesn't decay.?" 1Corinthians 15:50
He then makes the point that we cannot remain as we are, but need to be changed.
...Given sufficient time, all things possible are inevitable......
And how much time is "sufficient"? How would anyone calculate such a time? We know the Universe did have a beginning. Could life develop on a probabilistic basis in the estimated age of the Universe? We are obviously here, but that doesn't prove we got here by probabilistic processes. We COULD have been designed. In the end it boils down to what we want to BELIEVE about our origins.
.....The incomprehensibly massive scale of the universe dictates it to be extraordinarily probable.......
Seems that way until you tally up all the conditions needed to have a life supporting planet; especially one with an intelligent civilization.
Carbon is the only element we know of that can make the extremely complex molecular constructs we find in living things. A planet has to have a minimum set of specifications in order to have life capable of anything we could call "civilization".
One major requirement is that such a planet must have no other star closer than about 3.8 light years besides its own "sun". Another sun sized star closer than about that distance would disturb that planet's orbit and make the long term climate there inhospitable to life. Only about half of all the stars in the whole universe qualify on this star spacing specification alone.
The spacing of stars that could have planets supporting intelligent life is only one of a number of critical parameters that must be just right. If the separate probabilities of each parameter are multiplied together, the probability of another planet like Earth is vanishingly small.
If you add in all the parameters of physics that have to be within narrow limits, in order for life to come about at all, even here on Earth, the chances of life developing randomly are a mathematical zero.
.....The incomprehensibly massive scale of the universe dictates it to be true, statistically-speaking.......
It would seem that way at first glance. However, if you take into account all the requirements to support life, the likely hood becomes vanishingly small.
.... Pluto is a planet......
Come on now, any kid can tell you that Pluto is dog, a movie star dog even.
.....The Oort cloud is proposed to extend......
The only one minor problem is that nobody has seen any evidence for this fictional construct, nor of dark matter/energy nor black holes. These are structures all necessitated to try and make the newer data from modern space probes fit currently "accepted" theories.
Why doesn't it occur to more scientists to re-examine the assumptions current theories are built on? Current cosmology seems to be like a house of cards, a religion pretending to be science, built on some unproven and perhaps unprovable fundamental assumptions (beliefs). Any theory can only be as valid as the underlying assumptions made. Beautiful equations can all make perfect mathematical and logical sense, but have no relation to physical reality.
......Our galaxy *should* be littered by millions of civilizations........
/.er has the time to do a rough estimate what the probability is that only these factors be met. There surely are other factors not mentioned above.
Carbon is the only central element we know of that can make the extremely complex molecular constructs we find in living things. A "rock" like ours has to have a minimum set of specifications in order to have life capable of anything we could call "civilization".
1.0 One major requirement that this rock must have no other star closer than about 3.8 light years besides its "sun". Another sun sized star closer than about 3.8 light years would mess up that rock's orbit and make the long term climate there inhospitable to life. Only about half of all the stars in the whole universe qualify on this distance specification.
2.0 The gravity at the surface of the planet must be right. Too strong gravity causes the atmosphere to contain too much methane and ammonia, both very poisonous to life. It also makes it hard to move, especially flight. Too little gravity will produce a planet like Mars with little air and water.
3.0 The mass of that star has to be just right. Too large a star would causes its energy output vary more than living things could stand. The energy output of huge stars is not stable, long term. Any life would be exterminated by cooking or freezing before it could get very far along. A too tiny star would force that rock to be too close to its star to get enough heat for life. This would mess up the rotation time, tending to make a day and a year about the same length, such as the planet Mercury. Also there would be excessive tidal forces that would be hard on higher civilized life.
5.0 The rotation time of such a rock could not be too different from that of our earth. If that rock rotates more slowly, then everything would freeze solid every night and cook during the day. A faster spin would make for terrific storms in the atmosphere all the time, preventing the formation of higher civilized society. The rotational speed of Saturn and Jupiter are very high and the winds in its atmosphere are phenomenal. (hundreds of miles per hour)
6.0 Ratio of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere is critical. Too much oxygen would make life functions run too fast and allow any fires to burn whole continents over in devastating fire storms. Too little oxygen would not allow much meaningful activity, because life processes would proceed too slowly. Any other gases, if present in more than trace amounts could also prevent the development of life.
7.0 The crust (outer solid layer) of such a rock has to be the right thickness. If it were too thick, most of the oxygen in the atmosphere would be tied up in it, leaving too little free for living things. Too thin a crust would result in too many severe earthquakes and volcanoes would make it quite difficult to develop any advanced civilization. The crust of our own rock is thinner than the skin on an onion at the relative scale.
8.0 The chemical binding energies of carbon dictate the wavelengths of light needed by living things (photosynthesis in plants on our own rock) that convert the light from the star into a suitable form to knit hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and other elements together as building blocks and fuel for all life forms. The spectrum of that rock's star must therefore be pretty close to that of our sun. Blue or red giants or dwarfs need not apply for the job.
Conclusion: To get a suitable rock upon which a civilization can develop and flourish requires a number of fortuitous "coincidences". On a random basis, this makes the chance of another rock like ours very small. Maybe some enterprising
.....because you have to look at the packaging to see if what you are buying is compatible with it........
And the trouble is that most packaging doesn't even mention Linux. That's why Linux is languishing.
.....wires and tubes left dragging everywhere.........
Keep in mind that these are short term experiments, not long term, installations. The more permanent parts of the accelerator itself are much more orderly, just as in a good data center.
.......Also we'd always seem to know when power outages were going to happen ahead of time........
That's because the computer building is fed from the same beam switchyard power substation. Often when the large power supplies that ran the big magnets needed maintenance or reconfiguring for new experiments, they had to kill the feed to that substation.
On hot summer days, the accelerator was often shut down, so the silicon valley air conditioners could still run. I believe the wind tunnels at NASA/Ames in Mt. View could suck up more peak power, but SLAC was definitely champion in the number of megawatt hours consumed because it ran many more hours.
I still remember the day TWO big semi-trucks came and we all watched them haul the IBM 90 mainframe to the recycling center. They then had 370s to take their place. Now, an iPhone has more computing capability.
......a cavity magnetron inside not a klystron......
Indeed correct, but each these klystrons has a large magnet associated with it. Also, there are only about 400 of them, not 4000 as in the article. SLAC never did much with protons, as was stated, but accelerates and collides anti-electrons, commonly called positrons with electrons. In the beginning, the electrons however were all directed against fixed targets.
The accelerator is perfectly STRAIGHT but not level. The injector end is about 50 feet higher than the target end. So, the Klystron Gallery does have a slope also.
I was there in the group at the ground breaking. Starting down on the Stanford University campus, I participated in the design and construction of power and control systems for magnets in the beam switch yard. We all had big celebration in 1967, upon getting an electron beam all the way through that 3/4 inch 2 mile long hole in that copper pipe. Sigh.... those were the days.....
....that climate modeling has gotten much more accurate over the past 30, let alone 113 years.......
True, the computers and the models have gotten more sophisticated. However the underlying assumptions are no better now than then, so the results won't be either. You know, garbage in -- garbage out. Another underlying assumption is that a warmer earth will melt all the ice and is therefore bad.
However, a warmer earth means warmer oceans, more evaporation, more precipitation, much of it as snow, which makes for a balancing cooling effect. Besides, the folks in colder places would certainly not object if things got a little warmer, little friendlier, climate wise. Also, plants grow better if there is more CO2 in the air. So, together with a warmer climate, combined with better growing plants means more food for all life forms, including people.
The past actual, real climate data we have, is well correlated with solar activity, but no way whatsoever related to human activity.
The reason theory is gray, is because the assumptions (beliefs) underlying many theories is gray, that is based on guesswork.
...... i always look on the box or check on the download site to make sure.......
/. reader and therefore by definition interested in computers and technology and much more knowledgeable than the Joe and Jane I wrote about. They don't care about what runs where, but only want to do certain things with their computer. There is NOTHING that a Linux computer will do, that Windows or Macs will not. Linux is more secure, but no more so than Macs. As I pointed out, there is plenty that Linux will not do, at least not without knowing about the innards thereof, that Windows and Macs have down cold.
Of course, but you are a
Most people who drive cars know nothing about internal combustions motors. The do know to turn the key and that the car has to be filled up with increasingly expensive fuel from time to time. Computers with Linux today are like the cars in the 1920s. You don't need to crank them any more, like the earlier cars needed, but it was still necessary to know much more about their workings than today's cars require. When first learning to drive, it is easier to learn in a car with an automatic transmission. However, some who enjoy driving more than just a necessity to get from point A to B, will get a sporty car with 4 or more on the floor.
Windows and Mac computers require far less knowledge of the inner workings of a computer, than Linux does. The former are the vehicles Mom uses to take the kids to baseball practice. Linux is for Dad taking his sportster out for a pleasurable drive or tinkering with that hotrod in the garage. There are a lot more sedans on the roads than sports cars or hotrods.
...... Joe Sixpack really doesn't need much more software then is installed by default in Ubuntu.......
What happens if Joe buys a printer at Office Depot and then learns that he cannot use it, because its manufacturer doesn't support Linux? His neighbor has no such problem with his Windows computer.
His wife Jane, likes to shoot videos. She looks where to plug her camera into the computer and finds that she cannot. Her bridge partner has a Mac and edits all her movies, but Jane is stuck. Her husband is a heavy equipment operator and will not install the hardware nor software needed because has no clue what to do.
Joe's son Bob comes home from school, delighted with a game given to him by a friend who just got tired of it. Of course he can't get it to work on Joe's Ubuntu system.
It's scenarios like this that prevent Linux from gaining many users. It has nothing or little to do with the cost of the OS. Linux is still only for computer nerds or possibly those who know one that will get the Linux computer working as wanted.
.......This is something agreed upon by a very large majority of scientists across the globe........
The majority of scientists once agreed that the world is flat. Since when has the majority EVER come up with any scientific progress or civilization changing discoveries or inventions? Sheep, lemmings and politicians never come up with anything new or worthwhile. They never have and they never will. So far, it has always been the lone inventor or researcher that has come up with fundamental discoveries and technology, even though their funds might have come from big government or corporations.
Take a look at the relatively recent history of the majority, media spouted "science" of climate change. In the Feb. 24, 1895 issue of the NY times the headline was: "GEOLOGISTS THINK THAT THE WORLD MAY BE FROZEN UP AGAIN". The same paper on May 15, 1932 headlined: "EARTH IS STEADILY GROWING WARMER". Again on May 21, 1975, in the Times, "MAJOR COOLING IS WIDELY CONSIDERED INEVITABLE" and also on the cover of TIME magazine of Dec 3, 1973, "THE BIG FREEZE". Finally recently, again on the front of TIME, April 3, 2006, "SPECIAL REPORT ON GLOBAL WARMING".
What will the cover of the April 1st 2036 edition of Time magazine shout at its readers? Is climate change based on science, that is KNOWLEDGE, or is it based of assumptions (beliefs) and guesswork of loudmouth politicians and environuts shouting their opinions in the media?
.......... in case of a long term outage.......
Dams and turbines are more reliable, by far, than diesel engines. Huge transmission lines also don't fail often. When they do, they get fixed pretty fast. Reliability of power, besides cost, is another reason Google chose their site.
......something like 95% of the state lives west of Portland.......
Yes, and it's because of those city slickers up there, that we few down here in southern Oregon are being overrun with cougars. The ignorant city folks, most of whom have never seen a cougar, voted to make it illegal to hunt cougars with the aid of dogs.
It does rain a lot here also, though not quite as much as around Portland. At least they have not been able to get California style electricity deregulation passed here nor sales tax and self service gas stations.
....the Bureau will build a dam ....
Could you please tell everyone here, when and where, lately, the bureau has built a large dam, on the scale of any of those on the Columbia?
....With 320 kV lines, you could transmit electricity.....
The problem is that there are not anywhere near enough lines to carry the amounts of power involved, even if there were minimal losses. Environmentalism and NIMBY prevent the construction of new lines. Many would rather have an 8 lane freeway, rather than a huge ugly power line across or near their property. Most folks don't make such a fuss over an optical cable under ground.
.....They locate in Oregon touting "clean" energy provided by hydroelectric power - never mind the salmon kills.......
I hope you are not one of the fools that advocates the removal of dams, just to save a few fish. The hydro dams on the Columbia do not emit carbon or other pollutants. The electricity that Google will be using is largely unused, because it is no longer used to make aluminum. Every watt not generated by dams will be produced by other, more eco-unfriendly means. In todays political climate, the large flood control and power producing dams would not be built.
There are not enough lines that could carry power from the hydro stations down to power hungry California or anywhere else. Environuts and NIMBY objections make it nearly impossible to build new cross country transmission lines.
.....Peak times are going to be in daylight......
Most computers power consumption doesn't vary dramatically, depending on processing loads. The daily load curve is likely much flatter for such a data center than the grid as a whole.
....to get 1 megawatt of power in downtown San Francisco it will take upwards of Three years for PG&E to deliver.....
It's a lot cheaper to ship bits than to ship the power to run a large server farm. Environmentalists and the NIMBY folks are also much less likely to complain about a little trench that is soon forgotten after the lines are buried. A 500KV power line raises a lot more opposition. The sites the old aluminum plants used to be already have the requisite power connections.
......if people are mocking your theories........
Well this stuff about "The Electric Universe" are not MY theories. We are however getting a lot of data from modern space probes can can be explained much better if the electric force as well as gravity are BOTH taken into account. If gravity is considered alone the data we get is much more puzzling.
All of the rocky bodies of the solar system observed so far, have craters of various sizes. We have several of them here on Earth, like the one in Arizona.
Currently accepted theory gives impacts of chunks of matter from space as their cause. If that were the ONLY cause, then why is is that no materials whatsoever, foreign to the area of the crater are found? It seems that all traces of the supposedly impacting object evaporated without a trace. That vaporization is in fact the conventional explanation of this absence.
We know that electricity, such as lightening can also make craters. Welding and discharge machining make use of this capability. If there are charge imbalances between celestial objects, these can be equalized between them upon close encounters by means of catastrophic discharge events. Outer space is not an insulator, but is filled with charged particles. Sometimes the sun sends large electrical currents our way that cause the northern lights and on occasion disrupt our communications and power systems.
Electric fields and forces are transient phenomena, while gravity is sure and steady. Gravity accounts for the steady state of orbits, but is far too weak to cause any significant sudden disruption of planets and stars. There is plenty of evidence that the solar system has been through a rather violent phase not as far back in time, as it is presently thought.
There are many myths about warring gods, as evidenced by terrifying phenomena, such as catastrophic celestial thunder bolts, in the heavens and on earth. It is not the myths themselves that interesting, but their consistency of their central elements, not matter what location on earth these myths first originated.
We humans instinctively fear sudden terrifying events over which have no control. We much prefer the steady, slow and predictable, dependable as gravity. Electricity in nature displays itself suddenly, unpredictably. We still use language constructs, such as: "A Thunderbolt out of the blue". As scientists, we have to be cognizant of the fact that nature isn't always kind, evolving slowly and steadily, over vast amounts of time, but also, does at times make profound, deep and lasting changes with devastating suddenness. I'm not saying current theories are all wrong, but they certainly are incomplete.