I've often wondered about this.
Soils contain more organic (carbon containing) material the farther north you go, because it rots faster in the heat. So if we could grow crops in the jungle, maybe obtain some fuel from them by pyrolasis, then sent the waste material north on effiecient rail transport, we could sequester a lot of carbon. Do it yourself peat-bog or muskeg. Or maybe the pyrolasis would reduce the material to such charcol, it could be sequestered in a warm climate.
Of course you'd have to compensate for mineral loss in the soils you were using to grow the plants on.
Where does limestone (calcium carbonate) fit into this?
Isn't limestone the remains of sea animals shells? Don't those creatures get the carbon from plant life? Could we increase this?
Maybe we can just eat processed krill and bury their shells...
I used to suspect at some levels there was a plot to be the "last country with petroleum" We have untapped petroleum reserves.. If we consumed everyone else's first, ours would eventually be very valuable.
Now I'm pretty well resigned to chalk it up to stupidity.
We manage a feral cat colony.. part of this was getting them all fixed. Most were done by the Feral Cat Coalition, these people know how to handle ferals... you anethetize them in their traps. A few we took to local vets.
So we finnaly trap our last kitty.. Big Black Cat. Take him to the corner vet in the trap.. we ask the kids there (the vet was gone so surgery was sched for the next day.) if they could deal with Ferals, they said "yeah, they talked with somebody" I suggested they just keep the trap overnight.
They go to transfer BBC into one of their holding kennels. Well, kitty had other plans. That cat was jumping from the floor, bouncing off the ceiling tiles of an 8 foot ceiling. Hid under a cabinet all nite long.
I went to TFA, now feel like a total asshole for giving this talking-head, professional troll and self promotor crankypants yet another click to notch into his bedpost.
My macbook battery crumped a couple days before Christmas. Pretty sure it was due to a known bug, but the machine was already 1.5yrs old... out of warranty. I called, they said I had to bring it in before they could tell me if they could replace it... Place was packed.
Finally, guy calls my name, takes a look at my machine and gets me a brand new battery. Made me happy.
My biggest bitch with Apple right now: why won't they help fix up openoffice and ship it with Macs? I use openoffice all the time on Linux, once in a while on windows... pretty good both places. On the mac, when I have to, I run oo thru X11.. it's slow, buggy, crashy.
Here on my wife's mom's brand new machine, we're trying Neooffice (native, not thru X11 oo version):
It locked up earlier.. and becuase the "force quit" didn't work (funny how force quit often doesn't work), she found the terminal (good woman) called me up. Okay, "type ps space aux space, that little vertical bar character space grep office" and then "kill -9...." But that's not such a user friendly deal. If my mother in law calls with this problem, it's gonna be a power cycle!!! Ouch!
If they're not going to ship Appleworks free anymore, they should at least help fix the one real alternative to Word. Why should we pay 1100 for a computer and then over 100 more for software to type a freaking letter or directions on how to use the computer??
I'd like the power of Maxima, a little easier to use and document...
Maxima has been hugely useful to me, for equation solving and calculus, but the interface is quite difficult for me. It can do everything I need, I just have trouble explaining to it what exactly I want. I don't speak Lisp, and don't intend to learn it. Even quit();ing is difficult.
So I've got "calc" for small stuff that I have to do all the time, and little bitty programmable calculator stuff, because defining functions is C-like, and there's a nice.calcrc startup def file. But if I have to solve systems of eq's or calculus, I go to Maxima. I love Maxima for what it can do, but it makes me want to put my head thru a wall.
That's huge. I hope this is true. I hope it's done fast. Available, truly open sourced drivers are going to be a big factor in any hardware purchase I make. I'm just one, but I think I'm one of many. Even if you're not "paranoid" (concerned) it's obsolecense protection.
Who was it that said, "If Apple didn't exist, Microsoft would have to invent them?"
I'm also really frustrated that the IEEE (to which I belong) wouldn't take a stand against a standard that blatantly references commercial products.
I don't think the desktop has stood still at all. 5 years ago, stuff was hard. Now it's easy. I'm sitting here on an Ubuntu machine, running on an 800MHz Via CPU.. built up for a low horsepower project 3 years ago.
Sitting on top of the box, turned off, is my Intel-Mac laptop.
I seem to like the stock Ubuntu/Gnome/Evolution setup better than than the Mac... maybe I'm weird. Of course I occasionally run X tunneled thru ssh to get to my machine at work, and X on this old beater via blows the doors off X on the new Mac. Also I can just apt-get install maxima.. and other weird stuff.
But really, I just installed this sw off the CD a few days ago, and I had to do nothing in terms of configuration. Not a thing. And got a very usable PC. Email, Web, Openoffice.
How about, how to run linux apps on Mac?
I happen to like Kmail a lot better than the default Mac mail. I got a Intel Mac laptop because I need to be able to dual boot Windows to
run certain DSP programming apps (codecomposer TMS320F28xx) but I need stuff like wireless working, and a reasonably secure platform, when I'm out at a client site. Figured I could have a more reliable dual boot laptop with a Mac than Windows+Linux. But I really miss Kmail. Hows that for weird??
I also hate, hate openoffice on Mac, running thru X11. I tried Neooffice a while ago but it was even more unstable. Openoffice works a lot better on Linux. Also, there's of good stuff easily availiable for Linux that's not so easy on Mac... Open source stuff seems to either be availiable as RPM or apt-get for Linux, or just compiles pretty easy from tarball.. but Mac is a PITA (for me) to compile this stuff for. Everything seems to be in the wrong place!
I like the Mac laptop quality, but I find the KDE desktop easier to use.. maybe familiarity. Maybe becuase I've generally got a bigger
monitor on my desktop (although I run dual display often with the lap.) Or maybe I'm just weird. I hate the Finder! I like Windows Explorer better than the Finder! I also hate that the menubar for active program lives on the top of the screen, even if I'm using a window in my other monitor!
If I had one wish for the Mac it'd be for Openoffice to work solid on it.
Is it a good idea to let non-avionics class equipment to be plugged in to 120VAC in a plane? Even if all possible overloads have been considered from the wiring standpoint, charging large lithium batteries with cheap-as-possible electronics might not be a good idea.
I've always found the wireless/cellphone thing a little funny. How many business types even know how to turn off the wireless on their laptops? Do all laptops default to silent listening until they hear an access point?
Heck, the wireless or cell phone is pretty well controlled by the FCC.. plug in a cheap generic mouse to USB, headphones to an internal class D amplifier, whatever. Don't think that EMI compliance testing is taken seriously enough by manufacturers to make much difference.
Dang.
The fonts licensing may be the most significant aspect of this.
If I want to share work on a.doc or have something look the same on a customer's machine as mine, I have to have the same fonts, don't I?
Getting fonts to look decent on Openoffice/Linux, and convert to PDF decently, and share with windows users decently is one of the last nagging little problems I've got. Using or installing improperly liscenced fonts just to get things working may be a vulnerability many individual users may have.
How do I:
1. start with distro X
2. legally install fonts to allow me to share work with MS users, without selling my soul to MS??
I started with Caldera, when they caved, I said "I'll not use Caldera anymore." I use SuSE.. when they caved, I said "I'll not use SuSE anymore" I didn't care much becuase my image of Novell was that of a bunch of clueless shmucks living off a reputation built in the 80's.
I have an LG fridge, I like it, I just bought an LG air conditioner and an LG flat panel.. they're a brand I trust. If I knew nothing of Linux, I'd see this and say "hmm... somebody I trust just threw their cards in with Microsoft."
This could be incredibly damaging to corporate adoption of Linux and FOSS.. which would mean losing driver support interest and support for kernel and tool developers.
The sad thing is that corporate types will see this as a CYA for themselves, and all start jumping on the bandwagon. There needs to be CORPORATE PAIN associated with slandering Linux. Some sort of slander suit is a great idea.. Knowing that signing with the devil, and publicly damaging FOSS has a good chance of making your legal dept. spend some hours dealing with IBM's legal would be a great start. Some upper level legal dweebs needs to lose their job because he signed a stupid deal with MSFT that cost his company money to defend. We need to go on the offensive.
I had an '83 Toyota Cressida with a real time gas mileage display. It was part of a "trip computer" which was supposed to compute range, arrival time, etc. Changing the clock every DST change was as nasty as programming a VCR.. But I did like the mpg display.
I'm driving a '02 Prius now.. interestingly, the mpg display/log is consistently 5-10% more optomistic than my calculated mileage from miles gone / fill-fill fuel consumption.
They're supposed to be for the kids in the back or the passenger only, but what about the guy in the other lane, looking thru the side window? If I'm enthralled by and addicted to Teevee, it's pretty compelling. The back of the car in front of me doesn't do a scene change an average of every 3 seconds.
Good thing there's usually only spongebob squarepants.. the day someone has X files or Firefly reruns on their teevee is going to be pretty dangerous for yours truly.
Slashdot Mirror
I've often wondered about this. Soils contain more organic (carbon containing) material the farther north you go, because it rots faster in the heat. So if we could grow crops in the jungle, maybe obtain some fuel from them by pyrolasis, then sent the waste material north on effiecient rail transport, we could sequester a lot of carbon. Do it yourself peat-bog or muskeg. Or maybe the pyrolasis would reduce the material to such charcol, it could be sequestered in a warm climate. Of course you'd have to compensate for mineral loss in the soils you were using to grow the plants on.
Where does limestone (calcium carbonate) fit into this? Isn't limestone the remains of sea animals shells? Don't those creatures get the carbon from plant life? Could we increase this? Maybe we can just eat processed krill and bury their shells...
I used to suspect at some levels there was a plot to be the "last country with petroleum" We have untapped petroleum reserves.. If we consumed everyone else's first, ours would eventually be very valuable. Now I'm pretty well resigned to chalk it up to stupidity.
This has been my experience too. Both as an investor, and as an employee!
Anybody else read this as SCO Perps appeal??
We manage a feral cat colony.. part of this was getting them all fixed. Most were done by the Feral Cat Coalition, these people know how to handle ferals... you anethetize them in their traps. A few we took to local vets.
So we finnaly trap our last kitty.. Big Black Cat. Take him to the corner vet in the trap.. we ask the kids there (the vet was gone so surgery was sched for the next day.) if they could deal with Ferals, they said "yeah, they talked with somebody" I suggested they just keep the trap overnight.
They go to transfer BBC into one of their holding kennels. Well, kitty had other plans. That cat was jumping from the floor, bouncing off the ceiling tiles of an 8 foot ceiling. Hid under a cabinet all nite long.
15 pound cat = 8 feet. 300 pound tiger = ???
Damn lameness filter. Please read in all caps.
What are you doing?
ARE you shop lifting??
you are SHOPLIFTING
shoplifter... shoplifter
exterminate!
exterminate!
ex - term - i - nate!
Agreed...
I went to TFA, now feel like a total asshole for giving this talking-head, professional troll and self promotor crankypants yet another click to notch into his bedpost.
Has this guy actually done anything, or just talked about what others do, and gloat over their train wreaks? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dvorak
Here's my vote for Slashdot not linking to Dvorak anymore.
My macbook battery crumped a couple days before Christmas. Pretty sure it was due to a known bug, but the machine was already 1.5yrs old ... out of warranty. I called, they said I had to bring it in before they could tell me if they could replace it... Place was packed.
Finally, guy calls my name, takes a look at my machine and gets me a brand new battery. Made me happy.
My biggest bitch with Apple right now: why won't they help fix up openoffice and ship it with Macs? I use openoffice all the time on Linux, once in a while on windows... pretty good both places. On the mac, when I have to, I run oo thru X11.. it's slow, buggy, crashy.
Here on my wife's mom's brand new machine, we're trying Neooffice (native, not thru X11 oo version):
PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
225 soffice.bi 1.8% 0:18.50 15 466 802 57M 15M 93M 983M
Almost a gigabyte of allocated memory???
It locked up earlier.. and becuase the "force quit" didn't work (funny how force quit often doesn't work), she found the terminal (good woman) called me up. Okay, "type ps space aux space, that little vertical bar character space grep office" and then "kill -9...." But that's not such a user friendly deal. If my mother in law calls with this problem, it's gonna be a power cycle!!! Ouch!
If they're not going to ship Appleworks free anymore, they should at least help fix the one real alternative to Word. Why should we pay 1100 for a computer and then over 100 more for software to type a freaking letter or directions on how to use the computer??
I'd like the power of Maxima, a little easier to use and document...
.calcrc startup def file. But if I have to solve systems of eq's or calculus, I go to Maxima. I love Maxima for what it can do, but it makes me want to put my head thru a wall.
Maxima has been hugely useful to me, for equation solving and calculus, but the interface is quite difficult for me. It can do everything I need, I just have trouble explaining to it what exactly I want. I don't speak Lisp, and don't intend to learn it. Even
quit();ing is difficult.
So I've got "calc" for small stuff that I have to do all the time, and little bitty programmable calculator stuff, because defining functions is C-like, and there's a nice
Hopefully this will be the best of all worlds..
President of U of O http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_B._Frohnmayer used to be the AG in this state.
I'm sure he talks to the current AG once in awhile.
RIAA needs to learn to stop going after law schools.
That's huge. I hope this is true. I hope it's done fast.
Available, truly open sourced drivers are going to be a big factor in any hardware purchase I make.
I'm just one, but I think I'm one of many. Even if you're not "paranoid" (concerned) it's obsolecense protection.
Maybe because the folks currently running these companies grew up watching crummy 1980-vintage cartoons about giant robots who talk like street thugs?
or openoffice's "export to pdf"
Quotes in headline should have been on 'scientists', not 'overwhelming.' trillion trillion...
Who was it that said, "If Apple didn't exist, Microsoft would have to invent them?" I'm also really frustrated that the IEEE (to which I belong) wouldn't take a stand against a standard that blatantly references commercial products.
I don't think the desktop has stood still at all. 5 years ago, stuff was hard. Now it's easy.
I'm sitting here on an Ubuntu machine, running on an 800MHz Via CPU.. built up for a low horsepower project 3 years ago.
Sitting on top of the box, turned off, is my Intel-Mac laptop.
I seem to like the stock Ubuntu/Gnome/Evolution setup better than than the Mac... maybe I'm weird. Of course I occasionally run X tunneled thru ssh to get to my machine at work, and X on this old beater via blows the doors off X on the new Mac. Also I can just apt-get install maxima.. and other weird stuff.
But really, I just installed this sw off the CD a few days ago, and I had to do nothing in terms of configuration. Not a thing. And got a very usable PC. Email, Web, Openoffice.
How about, how to run linux apps on Mac? I happen to like Kmail a lot better than the default Mac mail. I got a Intel Mac laptop because I need to be able to dual boot Windows to run certain DSP programming apps (codecomposer TMS320F28xx) but I need stuff like wireless working, and a reasonably secure platform, when I'm out at a client site. Figured I could have a more reliable dual boot laptop with a Mac than Windows+Linux. But I really miss Kmail. Hows that for weird?? I also hate, hate openoffice on Mac, running thru X11. I tried Neooffice a while ago but it was even more unstable. Openoffice works a lot better on Linux. Also, there's of good stuff easily availiable for Linux that's not so easy on Mac... Open source stuff seems to either be availiable as RPM or apt-get for Linux, or just compiles pretty easy from tarball.. but Mac is a PITA (for me) to compile this stuff for. Everything seems to be in the wrong place! I like the Mac laptop quality, but I find the KDE desktop easier to use.. maybe familiarity. Maybe becuase I've generally got a bigger monitor on my desktop (although I run dual display often with the lap.) Or maybe I'm just weird. I hate the Finder! I like Windows Explorer better than the Finder! I also hate that the menubar for active program lives on the top of the screen, even if I'm using a window in my other monitor! If I had one wish for the Mac it'd be for Openoffice to work solid on it.
Is it a good idea to let non-avionics class equipment to be plugged in to 120VAC in a plane? Even if all possible overloads have been considered from the wiring standpoint, charging large lithium batteries with cheap-as-possible electronics might not be a good idea.
I've always found the wireless/cellphone thing a little funny. How many business types even know how to turn off the wireless on their laptops? Do all laptops default to silent listening until they hear an access point?
Heck, the wireless or cell phone is pretty well controlled by the FCC.. plug in a cheap generic mouse to USB, headphones to an internal class D amplifier, whatever. Don't think that EMI compliance testing is taken seriously enough by manufacturers to make much difference.
Yeah... First picture I get is a guy with in a big coat with CD's falling out of his pocket and a full sized PC keyboard stuffed down a pant leg.
Dang. The fonts licensing may be the most significant aspect of this. If I want to share work on a .doc or have something look the same on a customer's machine as mine, I have to have the same fonts, don't I?
Getting fonts to look decent on Openoffice/Linux, and convert to PDF decently, and share with windows users decently is one of the last nagging little problems I've got. Using or installing improperly liscenced fonts just to get things working may be a vulnerability many individual users may have.
How do I:
1. start with distro X
2. legally install fonts to allow me to share work with MS users, without selling my soul to MS??
Exactly....
I started with Caldera, when they caved, I said "I'll not use Caldera anymore."
I use SuSE.. when they caved, I said "I'll not use SuSE anymore" I didn't care much becuase my image of Novell was that of a bunch of clueless shmucks living off a reputation built in the 80's.
I have an LG fridge, I like it, I just bought an LG air conditioner and an LG flat panel.. they're a brand I trust. If I knew nothing of Linux, I'd see this and say "hmm... somebody I trust just threw their cards in with Microsoft."
This could be incredibly damaging to corporate adoption of Linux and FOSS.. which would mean losing driver support interest and support for kernel and tool developers.
The sad thing is that corporate types will see this as a CYA for themselves, and all start jumping on the bandwagon. There needs to be CORPORATE PAIN associated with slandering Linux. Some sort of slander suit is a great idea.. Knowing that signing with the devil, and publicly damaging FOSS has a good chance of making your legal dept. spend some hours dealing with IBM's legal would be a great start. Some upper level legal dweebs needs to lose their job because he signed a stupid deal with MSFT that cost his company money to defend. We need to go on the offensive.
The Prius doesn't have a separate starter either. This means the 12V battery, and battery wiring can be tiny.. it's only to turn the computer on.
I had an '83 Toyota Cressida with a real time gas mileage display. It was part of a "trip computer" which was supposed to compute range, arrival time, etc. Changing the clock every DST change was as nasty as programming a VCR.. But I did like the mpg display. I'm driving a '02 Prius now.. interestingly, the mpg display/log is consistently 5-10% more optomistic than my calculated mileage from miles gone / fill-fill fuel consumption.
I've got to love the car teevees.
They're supposed to be for the kids in the back or the passenger only, but what about the guy in
the other lane, looking thru the side window? If I'm enthralled by and addicted to Teevee, it's pretty compelling. The back of the car in front of me doesn't do a scene change an average of every 3 seconds.
Good thing there's usually only spongebob squarepants.. the day someone has X files or Firefly reruns on their teevee is going to be pretty dangerous for yours truly.
Well, happy new years, anyways!