They can do whatever they want. If they aren't currently able to do it, they can create a law that will allow them to do so.
Look at China and Google a few years ago. China said, you must do this. Google said take a hike. China said get out of our country. If you want to do business in a country, you need to follow their rules, no matter how much you dislike them, or move your operations elsewhere. That said the end result of the above was Google doing exactly that. Now which would hurt more, MS not doing business with the US or the US not doing business with MS?
The again this has more far reaching than just MS, as all companies doing business with the US may be affected, so perhaps the US will back down.
That said this is ALREADY happening to entire countries, so I am not sure how a corporation is going to matter much. The US has already done this to the banking system, basically saying that all banks everywhere must comply and give all personal information over to the US in their search for tax evaders. It is supposed to only be used against US citizens, however in practice that will not be the case as many will be fishing trips for possible citizens. This is done. Countries were given the option of not doing business with the US banking system (how many do you think agreed to that?).
So I have a feeling that MS and Co. will bitch and moan for PR purposes, but in the end will capitulate.
Don't waste your time with a audio card, integrate a GD vacuum tube into your motherboard for the best integrated sound around! If you are an audio nut, nothing like going retro back to putting analog tubes into your digital computer! Time Travel to 2002 may be required however.
I never bought one, but I kind of wish I had just so I had one... maybe I can find a used one for cheap....:)
Meh. Crap like that happens all the time, Y2K or no. Migrating 400k records stuff is bound to come up, particularly with old data, likely legacy systems, and probably shoddy migrations the 3 previous times this occurred. What is more concerning is the lack of QC or validation that led to the issue. Meaning likely those doing the migration no nothing of the DB contents, or are understaffed and underfunded to the point that no one has time to do it properly.
I've seen 01/01/1900 time date mix ups which is likely a formatting issue combined with assigning NULL values. When you analyse the data (even 400,000) a boatload that say 01/01/1900 sort of stick out as a red flag. From the sounds of it, not only did they not understand the content, but perhaps not the structure and relationships either as how else are you going to mix up data like that? Some weird composite key using two digit birthdays? Yuck. Then again I have had to interpret some pretty ugly "designs" without a shred of any real documentation and it isn't easy. I'm sure they made sense at some time, but after the nth migration, and the nth attached application, and nth half completed enhancement, what you are left with can be pretty confusing.
I had the last year of intro programming using Pascal at University in 1995. Which was messed up, as they switched over to C. Soooo my second year, not only did I have to do the course material, but I had to figure out an entirely new language. Thanks for that. Though in retrospect, something to get used to in life really, I don't do much real coding at my job (other then SQL), but have dabbled with both Java, and Python more recently. That said I also took a courses on COBOL and Assembly which I haven't exactly used since either... Then again I can also safely say I have never used Calculus again either;), so it isn't like this sort of thing is limited to programming languages. I know it sounds terrible, but I have probably used more from my old VB days, doing.NET stuff and little scripts for VBA in access and excel (data processing/collection mostly) etc... Most of my recent stuff has been PL/SQL which is a bit of a different cup of tea.
Since Disney bought the rights Starwars and Lucas Arts, I would think it would be a much more attractive prospect. Who doesn't want to work on the next Starwars videogame!
Then again if you want to make the next X-Wing VS Tie Fighter, and all they have you do is Cantina Simulator, Degobah Swampville, or Princess Amidala Fashion Workshop for facebook... that might also be very depressing.
The guy obviously has no clue. Look at ANY large IT project in the US.
1) Unions not involved. It is all outsourced to consultants. 2) Consultants hire overseas employees, and overcharge services 3) Blame government, make off like bandits with all the loot.
My favorite recent example was the 600 Million wasted by NY city trying to automate payroll called CityTime. Please tell me how "Laws, paperwork, unions, paperwork, regulations and paperwork" caused that? The same "Laws" that sentenced three of the contractors to over 20 years prison? So much oversight and regulation that a 63$ million dollar contract was able to spend 700$ Million?
Soooo pretty much the EXACT opposite of what that guy is saying. Tighter control and responsible and answerable employees might make IT projects more feasible. However when you have no in house staff, because you outsource everything, well prepared to get hosed.
Makes me recall the project I did for AI class back in university. Built an Expert System using VB (v6 probably) and Access (ya ya I know), where I took a pub that was a favorite in the City, that had 30+ different beers on tap. I then classified each beer by a number of different metrics (dark, light, ale, etc...). The user would then answer a number of questions about what their drink preferences were, and at the end, the system would spit out beer recommendations.
Was a pretty small easy fun system to build! As I recall I got a pretty good mark. Probably helped a lot of the professors used to frequent the pub. Wonder if any of them had some fun with the system "testing" how accurate it was....
I think the real reason is popularity and ratings.
I think it is very easy to say that there are WAY more guys playing video games than girls. Of that ratio, I would also say it is very easy to assume that of that subset it is even further segregated by having WAY more guys interested in playing e-sports than girls also. Due to the simple inequity in numbers, girls and guys being equal at e-sports aside, very few girls will make it anywhere in e-sports. The same way as making a hockey team out of Canadians who have a population of say 1,000,000 who play the Hockey, VS say Italy who have maybe 1,000. If you make a sports league, how many Italians will make the big show? Answer: Zero.
Add to that, the ONLY people that actually watch or pay any money to e-sports, are people already in e-sports or gamers, who as already discussed are predominantly all male. Do you know what would be more popular than today's e-sports? Female e-sports, the cuter the better. Well they be as good as the guys? Hell no. Does it matter? Nope. They would probably have more viewership than the guys, simply due to the audience. Bare in mind these are all YOUNG guys also for the most part.
Anyway, call it right or wrong, but I would bet that is where it was coming from. Probably even more so if lead by a bunch of sexist Koreans. Heck I remember a thing in gamer news a few years ago about a girl gamer group that had everyone fixated for awhile... Anyway if you market is young males, combining girls and video games is not a bad way to make money and popularity.
I think it is a numbers game, and to include girls on any meaningful level you need to segregate, and while maybe not for completely altruistic reasons, not really in the sexist guys are better at video games than girls... Heck if you wanted to really spin it, I would say it might be a good way to draw more interest of girls to the sport, increasing population, allowing for fairer competition eventually among the sexes...
Pretty sure the differences between "fantasy" and "conspiring" are what ACTIONS you actually take to plot or do something.
Writing about how to make a bomb, or talking about it, could just be fantasy. Buying the components, constructing things, etc... point to a more real intent.
Likely it is a judgement call, but likely based on what evidence. Context is likely a big thing. Talking on a forum is one thing, then again directed cooperation, and planning might be something else.
In this case, the act of using a police DB to select victims was probably seen not only as an illegal act in itself, but also an ACTION towards perpetrating a conspiracy. Logically the police officer knew what he was doing was illegal, would put his job in jeopardy, is it likely that this was only done to satisfy a fantasy, or in preparation for committing a crime?
One Judge clearly thought that it was, the other has read more 1984, but should maybe read it again... As it was about people in authority abusing power for their own ends in the future... Either way it isn't really a clear case, and the guy did serve max sentence for the DB access crime...
That said I just finished watching Hannibal so this is probably all part of his master plan...
The first thing you should do is avoid eye contact, slowly back away, making calm reassuring noises. You should also keep your arms wide; it makes you look bigger and less like prey. Finally, you should lie on the ground, and play dead. They will quickly lose interest and move on. Do not run, as it will trigger their hunter/prey instincts.
If however they start to eat you, you should start to fight back vigorously.
Or if you are really worried about it, encrypt your phone and lock it...
It is all about the details and perspective really. It is usually really hard for people to understand what is going on behind the numbers as opposed to simply taking the values at face value. There is always the cause VS causality issue as well.
Didn't read the actual article (bc frankly I don't care that much), but I did read the abstract. My thoughts are this: So those deaths that were found to be attributable to alcohol, most of them are not "direct" but rather "attributed". So technically the alcohol didn't kill, the abrupt stopping of the car into a tree did (or the blunt trauma caused by said tree really). Not only that, but many of these "causes" are more like "contributed to" rather than attributed to. That is more like a percentage, not a whole. Not to mention how far down the cause train do you want to go... what caused the drinking, depression? What caused the depression, impotence? So on and etc... Now on all those things, car crash, liver problems, etc... that single death is counted exactly how many times? Then you take those extrapolated values and compare them to population data? Laughable. If however your went through your numbers and made decisions based on some threshold or determined tolerance, to count the one death to exactly one and only one issue, then removed those values from all other counts, and then compared it to population data, it would be somewhat meaningful. Otherwise all you are saying is booze is associated with a bunch of stuff that can kill you, which pretty much everyone knows already.
I recently had a similar issue doing analysis for a client. Where statistically values fell into more than one camp. If you add them all up, you are going to get a number much larger than your actual population. In that instance, I suggested evaluating each individual point by a set agreed upon criteria, which would put it into one particular bucket and not multiple buckets. In this manner you can produce meaningful statistics and can include in your analysis the cravat of exactly how you arrived at your values, which is verifiable, repeatable, and defensible. However doing that is a lot of work and computation, though I saw a lot of letters after the names of people doing that research, so perhaps I should assume they also looked at this.... somehow I doubt it however.
That is complete BS. Yes it is proven that it cases a range of health problems. However it has been proven by several studies now, that smokers not only do not cost more than others, but in fact cost less. The issue is that most of the most costly health care is end of life care, and the bottom line is that smokers generally die earlier in life, while not smokers keep going and the longer you live later in life the more problems you have and the more expensive they are.
The tax does two things. One it is a source of revenue for the government (a large one), and two, it does the same thing as trying to ban it for our safety by making it more expensive the idea is less people will smoke. Having their cake and eating it so to speak. Personally I find it a bit disingenuous to say "this is bad you shouldn't do it", then jack the prices increasing revenue under the auspices of "public health". It could also be argued that more smokers are less well off (wealthy), so this amounts to another tax on the poor.
Either way, the money generated, is in no way earmarked for "health care" and they can put it towards any silly project or program they like...
From what I understand of the process (which is little), the easiest most cost effective way to produce hydrogen gas is to extract it from coal. However now you are using coal. While it might not be as bad as burning it, it isn't exactly green either.
That said, if you are doing not to be green, but to reduce your dependence on oil, and say countries that produce oil (middle east and Russia), then it is a pretty effective way to do so. Rapping it in a gossamer green bow that might not be entirely truthful is just marketing. Other countries like Canada and the US also produce a lot of oil themselves, so many not as a big of hurry to jump on that bandwagon. Though at the same time, they both have huge stores of coal also...
So environmentally friendly? Maybe a bit, but not really. Greater independence from oil? Yes, if it becomes popular. So success really depends what your ultimate goal is really.
Unless it means something different in Germany than it does in North America, generally speaking a "Think Tank" is code for Political Lobby Group. If you think what comes out of the mouth of such a thing is unbiased, you are crazy.
Good for them for producing what is no doubt a lot of solar energy. I doubt whatever figures they list are meaningful in anyway.
However the point is that renewable energy, on its own is not enough. If on any given day, your power needs fluctuate between 40-50GW, you NEED 50GW of CONSISTENT power from somewhere. Its fantastic that solar can produce 20GW (which I doubt anyway), however if tomorrow it produces 4GW, you now have a deficit of 16GW. Which means blackouts, or total electrical grid collapse as it all cascades into one huge fail. You have to replace that 16GW from someplace... sure you can buy it from your neighbor (which is what Germany does), but realistically what does that do, put the coal and nukes just across your border where you get almost the amount of risk plus none of the control? Renewables are great if you have storage, however that more less takes the form of huge water reservoirs which A) you have a limited supply, B) have their own environmental impact, and C) horribly inefficient.
Barring some magic electrical storage technology, you need both base power, and/or power you can spin up very quickly. Nukes are good because they are always on, constant power. Coal, gas, oil, are also always on, and also you have the ability to shut down generation, or turn it on again as need arises relatively. If the sun isn't shining, solar isn't much help, and if the wind isn't blowing neither will that. Unless your country's name rhymes with Riceland geothermal is pointlessly small potential. Biomass is too small to ever be that useful. Hydro is the only one that is a bit different. Barring some sort of huge long drought, it is pretty great. The only problem with it, is that it is a finite resource. Only certain areas have potential, and once you exploit them all there is no more to be had. Also some countries have more/less area to which to exploit. Tidal power is interesting, but so far no one has really been able to harness it effectively. Only a handful of sites exist around the world, and they are largely experimental. Same goes for current and wave type generators.
Anyway most successful systems employ a mix of generation types, including renewables. Problem is once the ratio gets out of wack, you are going to run into trouble, The only other way to do it is to massively over produce, however that is wasteful, and inefficient, and thus likely very very expensive.
Another problem with the simply ejecting a body into space is that of collisions. It isn't something that has any kind of propellant. Explosively decompressing an airlock isn't going to give it all that much of a velocity. That icy 100kg body is going to be wiping around earth at 17,000km/h, and would do all kinds of damage to anything it comes in contact with. In addition, I would imagine that doing so might also require course corrections, equal and opposite reaction and all of that. For any kind of duration, likely you could just strap the body to the outside until you can bring it back to earth. Then again not sure how great that is for moral. Though to be honest, I would be bet there is likely parts of the space station that enclosed, but either open to vacuum or unheated, like for science experiments etc... which might be simpler to use as a makeshift morgue. Has there ever been any deaths in space? It is likely pretty rare, but I am sure there is a procedure for it, just like everything else.
I was thinking the same thing. Kind of funny. Though at the same time, makes a bit of sense. Probably one of the few places where they can afford to do projects like this. Good for them.
I live in Ontario and work in an associated field.
I do not know the actual specifics of this case, but it usually is NIMBY that causes the problems. Ontario has several large groups of "green" activists and pour money into lobbying and lawyers, when in reality they are mostly home/cottage owners associations fronting as environmental groups. Shutting down wind power due to OMG bird strikes, and the like when really they are just looking after what the value of their properties are worth in the area. A garbage processing plant? Yeah you can bet it got shut down by land owners protecting their self interest and investments.
We had a big gas plant scandal a few years ago where some were supposed to be built, NIMBY and the resulting political pressure had the government shut the project down, costing taxpayers like 2 billion dollars. These things have to go someplace. Isn't the ONE job of the state to look after the interests of the many at possibly the expense of the few? Looking after the few at the expense of the many seem a bit corrupt.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL.
They can do whatever they want. If they aren't currently able to do it, they can create a law that will allow them to do so.
Look at China and Google a few years ago. China said, you must do this. Google said take a hike. China said get out of our country. If you want to do business in a country, you need to follow their rules, no matter how much you dislike them, or move your operations elsewhere. That said the end result of the above was Google doing exactly that. Now which would hurt more, MS not doing business with the US or the US not doing business with MS?
The again this has more far reaching than just MS, as all companies doing business with the US may be affected, so perhaps the US will back down.
That said this is ALREADY happening to entire countries, so I am not sure how a corporation is going to matter much. The US has already done this to the banking system, basically saying that all banks everywhere must comply and give all personal information over to the US in their search for tax evaders. It is supposed to only be used against US citizens, however in practice that will not be the case as many will be fishing trips for possible citizens. This is done. Countries were given the option of not doing business with the US banking system (how many do you think agreed to that?).
So I have a feeling that MS and Co. will bitch and moan for PR purposes, but in the end will capitulate.
It does exist. It just costs about twice as much at 3000$+
And then really doesn't function very well as a laptop, as it is too big, and uses enough juice on gpu/cpu to give it less than great battery power.
I can't wait until Pluto is reclassified again, this time as a derelict alien spacecraft orbiting at the edge of our solar system.
It's turtles everywhere!
That extra mass everyone is talking about? Dark Turtles.
I for one would like to be the first of these space mercenaries!
Even now I am thinking up cool sounding names to call ourselves... :)
I'll see your dedicated audio card and raise you the AOpen AX4B 533 Tube!
http://www.maximumpc.com/artic...
Don't waste your time with a audio card, integrate a GD vacuum tube into your motherboard for the best integrated sound around! If you are an audio nut, nothing like going retro back to putting analog tubes into your digital computer! Time Travel to 2002 may be required however.
I never bought one, but I kind of wish I had just so I had one... maybe I can find a used one for cheap.... :)
Meh. Crap like that happens all the time, Y2K or no. Migrating 400k records stuff is bound to come up, particularly with old data, likely legacy systems, and probably shoddy migrations the 3 previous times this occurred. What is more concerning is the lack of QC or validation that led to the issue. Meaning likely those doing the migration no nothing of the DB contents, or are understaffed and underfunded to the point that no one has time to do it properly.
I've seen 01/01/1900 time date mix ups which is likely a formatting issue combined with assigning NULL values. When you analyse the data (even 400,000) a boatload that say 01/01/1900 sort of stick out as a red flag. From the sounds of it, not only did they not understand the content, but perhaps not the structure and relationships either as how else are you going to mix up data like that? Some weird composite key using two digit birthdays? Yuck. Then again I have had to interpret some pretty ugly "designs" without a shred of any real documentation and it isn't easy. I'm sure they made sense at some time, but after the nth migration, and the nth attached application, and nth half completed enhancement, what you are left with can be pretty confusing.
I had the last year of intro programming using Pascal at University in 1995. Which was messed up, as they switched over to C. Soooo my second year, not only did I have to do the course material, but I had to figure out an entirely new language. Thanks for that. Though in retrospect, something to get used to in life really, I don't do much real coding at my job (other then SQL), but have dabbled with both Java, and Python more recently. That said I also took a courses on COBOL and Assembly which I haven't exactly used since either... Then again I can also safely say I have never used Calculus again either ;), so it isn't like this sort of thing is limited to programming languages. I know it sounds terrible, but I have probably used more from my old VB days, doing .NET stuff and little scripts for VBA in access and excel (data processing/collection mostly) etc... Most of my recent stuff has been PL/SQL which is a bit of a different cup of tea.
Since Disney bought the rights Starwars and Lucas Arts, I would think it would be a much more attractive prospect. Who doesn't want to work on the next Starwars videogame!
Then again if you want to make the next X-Wing VS Tie Fighter, and all they have you do is Cantina Simulator, Degobah Swampville, or Princess Amidala Fashion Workshop for facebook... that might also be very depressing.
The guy obviously has no clue. Look at ANY large IT project in the US.
1) Unions not involved. It is all outsourced to consultants.
2) Consultants hire overseas employees, and overcharge services
3) Blame government, make off like bandits with all the loot.
My favorite recent example was the 600 Million wasted by NY city trying to automate payroll called CityTime.
Please tell me how "Laws, paperwork, unions, paperwork, regulations and paperwork" caused that?
The same "Laws" that sentenced three of the contractors to over 20 years prison?
So much oversight and regulation that a 63$ million dollar contract was able to spend 700$ Million?
Soooo pretty much the EXACT opposite of what that guy is saying. Tighter control and responsible and answerable employees might make IT projects more feasible. However when you have no in house staff, because you outsource everything, well prepared to get hosed.
Makes me recall the project I did for AI class back in university. Built an Expert System using VB (v6 probably) and Access (ya ya I know), where I took a pub that was a favorite in the City, that had 30+ different beers on tap. I then classified each beer by a number of different metrics (dark, light, ale, etc...). The user would then answer a number of questions about what their drink preferences were, and at the end, the system would spit out beer recommendations.
Was a pretty small easy fun system to build! As I recall I got a pretty good mark. Probably helped a lot of the professors used to frequent the pub. Wonder if any of them had some fun with the system "testing" how accurate it was....
I think the real reason is popularity and ratings.
I think it is very easy to say that there are WAY more guys playing video games than girls. Of that ratio, I would also say it is very easy to assume that of that subset it is even further segregated by having WAY more guys interested in playing e-sports than girls also. Due to the simple inequity in numbers, girls and guys being equal at e-sports aside, very few girls will make it anywhere in e-sports. The same way as making a hockey team out of Canadians who have a population of say 1,000,000 who play the Hockey, VS say Italy who have maybe 1,000. If you make a sports league, how many Italians will make the big show? Answer: Zero.
Add to that, the ONLY people that actually watch or pay any money to e-sports, are people already in e-sports or gamers, who as already discussed are predominantly all male. Do you know what would be more popular than today's e-sports? Female e-sports, the cuter the better. Well they be as good as the guys? Hell no. Does it matter? Nope. They would probably have more viewership than the guys, simply due to the audience. Bare in mind these are all YOUNG guys also for the most part.
Anyway, call it right or wrong, but I would bet that is where it was coming from. Probably even more so if lead by a bunch of sexist Koreans. Heck I remember a thing in gamer news a few years ago about a girl gamer group that had everyone fixated for awhile... Anyway if you market is young males, combining girls and video games is not a bad way to make money and popularity.
I think it is a numbers game, and to include girls on any meaningful level you need to segregate, and while maybe not for completely altruistic reasons, not really in the sexist guys are better at video games than girls... Heck if you wanted to really spin it, I would say it might be a good way to draw more interest of girls to the sport, increasing population, allowing for fairer competition eventually among the sexes...
Pretty sure the differences between "fantasy" and "conspiring" are what ACTIONS you actually take to plot or do something.
Writing about how to make a bomb, or talking about it, could just be fantasy. Buying the components, constructing things, etc... point to a more real intent.
Likely it is a judgement call, but likely based on what evidence. Context is likely a big thing. Talking on a forum is one thing, then again directed cooperation, and planning might be something else.
In this case, the act of using a police DB to select victims was probably seen not only as an illegal act in itself, but also an ACTION towards perpetrating a conspiracy. Logically the police officer knew what he was doing was illegal, would put his job in jeopardy, is it likely that this was only done to satisfy a fantasy, or in preparation for committing a crime?
One Judge clearly thought that it was, the other has read more 1984, but should maybe read it again... As it was about people in authority abusing power for their own ends in the future... Either way it isn't really a clear case, and the guy did serve max sentence for the DB access crime...
That said I just finished watching Hannibal so this is probably all part of his master plan...
The first thing you should do is avoid eye contact, slowly back away, making calm reassuring noises. You should also keep your arms wide; it makes you look bigger and less like prey. Finally, you should lie on the ground, and play dead. They will quickly lose interest and move on. Do not run, as it will trigger their hunter/prey instincts.
If however they start to eat you, you should start to fight back vigorously.
Or if you are really worried about it, encrypt your phone and lock it...
You obviously have never done any real excessive drinking. It's nature's contraceptive!
Unless you are a girl... then it is probably something like 100% give or take a few percentage points (easily attributed to error). :)
It is all about the details and perspective really. It is usually really hard for people to understand what is going on behind the numbers as opposed to simply taking the values at face value. There is always the cause VS causality issue as well.
Didn't read the actual article (bc frankly I don't care that much), but I did read the abstract. My thoughts are this: So those deaths that were found to be attributable to alcohol, most of them are not "direct" but rather "attributed". So technically the alcohol didn't kill, the abrupt stopping of the car into a tree did (or the blunt trauma caused by said tree really). Not only that, but many of these "causes" are more like "contributed to" rather than attributed to. That is more like a percentage, not a whole. Not to mention how far down the cause train do you want to go... what caused the drinking, depression? What caused the depression, impotence? So on and etc... Now on all those things, car crash, liver problems, etc... that single death is counted exactly how many times? Then you take those extrapolated values and compare them to population data? Laughable. If however your went through your numbers and made decisions based on some threshold or determined tolerance, to count the one death to exactly one and only one issue, then removed those values from all other counts, and then compared it to population data, it would be somewhat meaningful. Otherwise all you are saying is booze is associated with a bunch of stuff that can kill you, which pretty much everyone knows already.
I recently had a similar issue doing analysis for a client. Where statistically values fell into more than one camp. If you add them all up, you are going to get a number much larger than your actual population. In that instance, I suggested evaluating each individual point by a set agreed upon criteria, which would put it into one particular bucket and not multiple buckets. In this manner you can produce meaningful statistics and can include in your analysis the cravat of exactly how you arrived at your values, which is verifiable, repeatable, and defensible. However doing that is a lot of work and computation, though I saw a lot of letters after the names of people doing that research, so perhaps I should assume they also looked at this.... somehow I doubt it however.
You assume they even bother with propaganda or pretense anymore...
Citizen, you will be sent indefinitely to a work camp. Cease resisting and comply with the corporate security officer's request.
Neat, had to look that one up.
That is complete BS. Yes it is proven that it cases a range of health problems. However it has been proven by several studies now, that smokers not only do not cost more than others, but in fact cost less. The issue is that most of the most costly health care is end of life care, and the bottom line is that smokers generally die earlier in life, while not smokers keep going and the longer you live later in life the more problems you have and the more expensive they are.
The tax does two things. One it is a source of revenue for the government (a large one), and two, it does the same thing as trying to ban it for our safety by making it more expensive the idea is less people will smoke. Having their cake and eating it so to speak. Personally I find it a bit disingenuous to say "this is bad you shouldn't do it", then jack the prices increasing revenue under the auspices of "public health". It could also be argued that more smokers are less well off (wealthy), so this amounts to another tax on the poor.
Either way, the money generated, is in no way earmarked for "health care" and they can put it towards any silly project or program they like...
From what I understand of the process (which is little), the easiest most cost effective way to produce hydrogen gas is to extract it from coal. However now you are using coal. While it might not be as bad as burning it, it isn't exactly green either.
That said, if you are doing not to be green, but to reduce your dependence on oil, and say countries that produce oil (middle east and Russia), then it is a pretty effective way to do so. Rapping it in a gossamer green bow that might not be entirely truthful is just marketing. Other countries like Canada and the US also produce a lot of oil themselves, so many not as a big of hurry to jump on that bandwagon. Though at the same time, they both have huge stores of coal also...
So environmentally friendly? Maybe a bit, but not really. Greater independence from oil? Yes, if it becomes popular. So success really depends what your ultimate goal is really.
Unless it means something different in Germany than it does in North America, generally speaking a "Think Tank" is code for Political Lobby Group. If you think what comes out of the mouth of such a thing is unbiased, you are crazy.
Good for them for producing what is no doubt a lot of solar energy. I doubt whatever figures they list are meaningful in anyway.
However the point is that renewable energy, on its own is not enough. If on any given day, your power needs fluctuate between 40-50GW, you NEED 50GW of CONSISTENT power from somewhere. Its fantastic that solar can produce 20GW (which I doubt anyway), however if tomorrow it produces 4GW, you now have a deficit of 16GW. Which means blackouts, or total electrical grid collapse as it all cascades into one huge fail. You have to replace that 16GW from someplace... sure you can buy it from your neighbor (which is what Germany does), but realistically what does that do, put the coal and nukes just across your border where you get almost the amount of risk plus none of the control? Renewables are great if you have storage, however that more less takes the form of huge water reservoirs which A) you have a limited supply, B) have their own environmental impact, and C) horribly inefficient.
Barring some magic electrical storage technology, you need both base power, and/or power you can spin up very quickly. Nukes are good because they are always on, constant power. Coal, gas, oil, are also always on, and also you have the ability to shut down generation, or turn it on again as need arises relatively. If the sun isn't shining, solar isn't much help, and if the wind isn't blowing neither will that. Unless your country's name rhymes with Riceland geothermal is pointlessly small potential. Biomass is too small to ever be that useful. Hydro is the only one that is a bit different. Barring some sort of huge long drought, it is pretty great. The only problem with it, is that it is a finite resource. Only certain areas have potential, and once you exploit them all there is no more to be had. Also some countries have more/less area to which to exploit. Tidal power is interesting, but so far no one has really been able to harness it effectively. Only a handful of sites exist around the world, and they are largely experimental. Same goes for current and wave type generators.
Anyway most successful systems employ a mix of generation types, including renewables. Problem is once the ratio gets out of wack, you are going to run into trouble, The only other way to do it is to massively over produce, however that is wasteful, and inefficient, and thus likely very very expensive.
...is so fat, she has a Higgs Boson field that crushed the universe.
There seems to be a nerdy joke in there someplace...
Another problem with the simply ejecting a body into space is that of collisions. It isn't something that has any kind of propellant. Explosively decompressing an airlock isn't going to give it all that much of a velocity. That icy 100kg body is going to be wiping around earth at 17,000km/h, and would do all kinds of damage to anything it comes in contact with. In addition, I would imagine that doing so might also require course corrections, equal and opposite reaction and all of that. For any kind of duration, likely you could just strap the body to the outside until you can bring it back to earth. Then again not sure how great that is for moral. Though to be honest, I would be bet there is likely parts of the space station that enclosed, but either open to vacuum or unheated, like for science experiments etc... which might be simpler to use as a makeshift morgue. Has there ever been any deaths in space? It is likely pretty rare, but I am sure there is a procedure for it, just like everything else.
I was thinking the same thing. Kind of funny. Though at the same time, makes a bit of sense. Probably one of the few places where they can afford to do projects like this. Good for them.
I live in Ontario and work in an associated field.
I do not know the actual specifics of this case, but it usually is NIMBY that causes the problems. Ontario has several large groups of "green" activists and pour money into lobbying and lawyers, when in reality they are mostly home/cottage owners associations fronting as environmental groups. Shutting down wind power due to OMG bird strikes, and the like when really they are just looking after what the value of their properties are worth in the area. A garbage processing plant? Yeah you can bet it got shut down by land owners protecting their self interest and investments.
We had a big gas plant scandal a few years ago where some were supposed to be built, NIMBY and the resulting political pressure had the government shut the project down, costing taxpayers like 2 billion dollars. These things have to go someplace. Isn't the ONE job of the state to look after the interests of the many at possibly the expense of the few? Looking after the few at the expense of the many seem a bit corrupt.