The main problem with a pipeline for water is still the purification and cost. Oil csts ~$60/ 55 gallons right now. Water (in the US at elast) is about $4 dollars for that much. Also, with water you have to keep the pipes clean either through high pressure or chlorine in order to prevent bacteria/algae buildup (the stuff will make you sick) and you would still have some problems with rust that you don't get with oil. However, if you can get one to work, more power to you.
Now, as for the desert. De-desertification is a long process for one main reason. Sand. Sand contains large ammounts of salt and has to be completely removed in order to be able to grow anything. This is already happening in several places in Africa (I believe Egypt is one). It's hard and tedious, but it is occuring. Good soil is beneath the sand, but you still have to remove a lot of sand in order to get to the soil. I think it's a great idea, pushing back the desert, but it's going to take a while to push back a desert as large and old as the Sahara. The fact that people keep cutting down the forests over there for farmland doesn't help either.
Perhaps they should have gone with Top 20 best geek Authors?
Oh, and "Triplanetary" would be a better sugestion than Grey Lensman, being the first book in the series. Although I'm not sure how many people are fans of Space Opera.
Apparently that makes three of us that think Destination Moon should be on the list. Did they just not include any of the classics in this? The oldest movie they list is (i believe) 2001, from 1968.
In a couple classes in college, I would read a book in class. The other students wondered how I could do this and still get A's. The thing was, I only read in classes where I knew the material already. In classes where I didn't know the material and was learning something new, I left the book in the bag.
So I guess it depends. Some students are probably so conected they can't stand to be away from the internet and are checking IM/E-Mail/Text messaging/on their cellphone. Those are pobably the ones whos grades are lowered. Something tells me this is not most/.ers.
You don't need a new TV, your current one will work just fine. The only new thing you need is a reciever that will convert the Digital signal to Analog.
A couple of months ago it was decided that analog transmission would stop on jan 1st, 2006.
That would give analog viewers only about 4 months to look for an alternative.
I have a (possibly) worse reason that that decision was terrible. How many months do the TV stations have to convert to Digital? There is a lot of new equipment that has to be bought to transmit in digital, as opposed to analog. It also has to be planned for and ordered months ahead of time.
When is digital HDTV going to be standard world wide? This PAL versus NTSC crap has gone on long enough!
The interesting thing about EU HD vs US HD is this. In the US, Broadcast HD is going to be 720p or 1080i. In the EU, Broadcast HD looks to be 1080i. Same resolution, different frame rates. The US will have 30fps for 1080i, 60fps for 720p. The EU will have 25fps. At least with the same resolution, it is easier to convert between different frame rates.
They might not be representative (heck, most companies don't even own any land), but they are private enterprises. Also, they seem to have done a better job than the US Park Service has. Remember how they killed all the wolves in yellowstone because they thought the Elk were going to go extinct? Or how they suppressed wild fires for 50 years or so, causing worse fires to occur when they couldn't stop them?
Oh, and to add to the list, Trout Unlimited, possibly the Audubon Society, a number of logging companies seem to have done a pretty good job as well with the land they actually own.
I stationed in Germany at Ramstein AB. I wonder how this ban would affect us military members who purchase video games either online and shipped to our US mailing address or at our local BX/PX.
Just a guess, but I would say that you wouldn't be affected by German law. Similar to how when you step into an Embassy, you are considered to be on that nations land. (So if you step into the Russian Embassy, you are technically in Russia.) Easy way to check, does any German law apply on a US base in Germany? Or does US law apply there?
Clockwork. You could use a mechanical timer to control the fuse in a weapon using the gun method to fire a pellet of fissionable material into a suitable target, thus bringing together a critical mass. It's inefficient and requires quite a lot of the material to work, compared to modern weapons. Does it work? Ask anyone around Hiroshima on 6/8/45...
If you wanted to detonate at a certain altitude, use a barometer to hold an escapement back, which would release the firing mechanism at a predetermined altitude.
Both methods, the clockwork one especialy, would still be subject to problems if the metal started to warp and melt. Melt the clockwork and the clockwork is useless, same for the barometer. You'd either have an early detonation or no detonation at all.
I have no idea how much RF energy it takes to damage a missile. But, by the time it flies over Alaska, the missile would be a ballistic warhead that has to do nothing more than detonate at a predetermined altitude. I imagine it could be made pretty simple, and therefore hard to kill.
All modern warheads use precision timed, placed and shaped explosives to turn a subcritical amount of uranium/plutonium into a supercritical nuclear explosion. If any part is damaged sufficiently, you will (at worst) not have a nuclear explosion but a dirty bomb. If the electronic controls are damaged sufficiently, there would be no explosion at all. All modern warheads use electronically controled explosives.
There are two types of bombs where there would be no electronics in it. Even in this, there is the possibility of an RF weapon causing enough damage. The first is where, instead of using explosives to cause an explosion, the two pieces of nuclear material are jammed together upon impact with the ground. A sufficient ammount of RF would still be able to distort the material of the warhead enough so they do not jam together properly and go supercritical.
The second part, involves a critical ammount of Plutonium. Take 16kg of plutonium, put it together, and you get a nuclear explosion. During flight, the halves would have to be kept seperate. I'm not sure if there is a way that does not involve electronics that would move the pieces together that is not similar to the way above. Either way, if you warp/melt the material enough it won't explode.
Two final things. A lot (if not all) of ICBMs make course corrections mid flight. If the guidance electronics are messed up prior to the final corrections, it will fly off targe. Second, MIRVs would also be messed up in a similar way. I'm not sure there is a type of nuclear missle/warhead that would not be messed up by a sufficient ammount of RF.
Yes, there's a good idea. Disconnect the alternator. Let's see...chain of events....
1. Disconnect Alternator
2. Go Driving down the highway
3. Battery runs out of power
4. Spark plugs stop firing
5. Engine stops running
6. Power stearing and power brakes now fail
7. Sharp turn in the road and "Bye Bye"
Many cars being built today have a feature where the alternator automatically cuts out in order to save gas while the battery is sufficiently charged. When the battery drops below a certain point, it kicks back in. It doesn't save much, but is does improve fuel efficiency by at least 1mpg from what I remember. I am not talking about removing the alternator permanently.
But the HFI system uses electricity from an engine's alternator to power the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen as needed from small amounts of distilled water. R
Given that diesel engines are not 100% efficient, and even assuming that water->hydrogen is. How is it this produces a net gain in energy? The burning hydrogen should only produce as much energy as is used to seperate the oxygen and hydrogen. Disconecting the alternator (which many cars do right now to increase fuel efficiency) should save more gasoline than seperating the water to hydrogen/oxygen.
Part of me wants to boycott Sont forever, and part of me wants to thank them for being so stupid, inept and evil that they've probably permanently discredited DRM.
I was thinking the same thing. Now only time will tell if there will be a significant enough backlash to eliminate DRM systems like this. Unfortunately, I don't see this causing a significant enough backlash to eliminate DRM for good. What might do that is the DRM system that lets you play games/movies only on the first player that the disk is played in.
It is an immune OVERREACTION that floods the patiest with antibodies and kills them
The article you point to might be a bit too lay for me. Since it doesn't say exatly, is the response similar to when an immune system turns and starts attacking the body? Or is it just side effects from the response that causes death, such as a feaver that gets too high and starts causing damage due to the higher body heat.
I don't trust private enterprise to take care of national parks and poverty.
Oh I don't know, the Boy Scouts seem to be doing a pretty good job with the land they own. It may not be open to the public, but it is generally pretty well cared for.
You want to pay more for a hybrid that isn't as good solely based on a brand name?
I've come to associate honda with really good cars. The Toyatas I've had experience with have had major problems while the Hondas have run great until they conk out at 12+ years. It's may not be completely logical, but it is backed by direct practical experience with their cars rather than the spec sheets and what other people say. Mind you, although I may be in the group perfect for hybrids (I'll keep a car until it quite literaly has to be towed away) I wanted a Honda first, and second came the extras I wanted. I would have prefered a Hybrid, but the only one out by honda at the time I would have considered was the civic (not the insight, I don't like it for a few reasons, one of which being only 2 doors). A few problems I had with the civic were that it felt "too plasticy" when I was on the inside. Just a feeling, I can't really explain it beyond that, the shift had a wierd feeling to it with the button in the middle instead of the side, and finally the very pretty LEDs on the dash that I would have been staring at instead of the road.
The accord hybrid wasn't out yet and I hadn't heard about it or I would have at least considered it. Unfortunately it is 10k too much for me.
I started reading this one book by Kim Stanley Robinson, "The Martians". It starts off with the group of scientists in antartica and the main character making comments about how the environmentalist movement had had a schism years before. There were two groups complaining about power generation in antartica. One complaining that they were using nuclear power and one complaining that they were poluting the clean area with diesel generators. (The site used both, one primary, one backup, I think). At least some of the environmentalists are comming around to the idea of nuclear, including some very famous ones. Dam, I forget the name of the guy who got disowned by the group he founded for advocating nuclear.
Unfortunately, I was not looking for an EX luxury edition and I wanted something better than a Civic. The Accord LX (mid range) fit what I was looking for. If I am going to compare it to a hybrid, I am going to compare it to one that is at least as good.
One question, don't many places subsidise public transportation? As I understand it, in europe it is subsidised by both gasoline taxes and other tax dollars. Here in my area, the public transpotation faces about a $50 million shortfal even after all the subsidies. Pretty much, unless they get tax dollars, they would go broke. Now I personally think that if we are going to have a public transportation system, it should pay for itself.
As an example of how costly the local system is (I am in the DC area), I have a 20 mile trip to work. 10 miles to the train, additional 10 to work. It's cheaper for me to drive the 20 miles total than to take the train, this is even with the subsidies the trains recieve.
Trust me, a lot of us in the US would love to switch to Nuclear power plants over coal (about half of all US electricity is produced at coal power plants). Unfortunately there is a lot of anti-nuclear reaction to it due to the "3 Mile Island" and Chernobyl incidents.
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The main problem with a pipeline for water is still the purification and cost. Oil csts ~$60/ 55 gallons right now. Water (in the US at elast) is about $4 dollars for that much. Also, with water you have to keep the pipes clean either through high pressure or chlorine in order to prevent bacteria/algae buildup (the stuff will make you sick) and you would still have some problems with rust that you don't get with oil. However, if you can get one to work, more power to you.
Now, as for the desert. De-desertification is a long process for one main reason. Sand. Sand contains large ammounts of salt and has to be completely removed in order to be able to grow anything. This is already happening in several places in Africa (I believe Egypt is one). It's hard and tedious, but it is occuring. Good soil is beneath the sand, but you still have to remove a lot of sand in order to get to the soil. I think it's a great idea, pushing back the desert, but it's going to take a while to push back a desert as large and old as the Sahara. The fact that people keep cutting down the forests over there for farmland doesn't help either.
The Enviromentalists would kill it. After all, it would only help global warming. And think of the animals! They like night time!
Interestingly enough, I just finished reading all 4 Skylark books the other day. Yeah, it's fun reading Wild West style books.
Perhaps they should have gone with Top 20 best geek Authors?
Oh, and "Triplanetary" would be a better sugestion than Grey Lensman, being the first book in the series. Although I'm not sure how many people are fans of Space Opera.
Apparently that makes three of us that think Destination Moon should be on the list. Did they just not include any of the classics in this? The oldest movie they list is (i believe) 2001, from 1968.
In a couple classes in college, I would read a book in class. The other students wondered how I could do this and still get A's. The thing was, I only read in classes where I knew the material already. In classes where I didn't know the material and was learning something new, I left the book in the bag.
/.ers.
So I guess it depends. Some students are probably so conected they can't stand to be away from the internet and are checking IM/E-Mail/Text messaging/on their cellphone. Those are pobably the ones whos grades are lowered. Something tells me this is not most
You don't need a new TV, your current one will work just fine. The only new thing you need is a reciever that will convert the Digital signal to Analog.
A couple of months ago it was decided that analog transmission would stop on jan 1st, 2006. That would give analog viewers only about 4 months to look for an alternative.
I have a (possibly) worse reason that that decision was terrible. How many months do the TV stations have to convert to Digital? There is a lot of new equipment that has to be bought to transmit in digital, as opposed to analog. It also has to be planned for and ordered months ahead of time.
When is digital HDTV going to be standard world wide? This PAL versus NTSC crap has gone on long enough!
The interesting thing about EU HD vs US HD is this. In the US, Broadcast HD is going to be 720p or 1080i. In the EU, Broadcast HD looks to be 1080i. Same resolution, different frame rates. The US will have 30fps for 1080i, 60fps for 720p. The EU will have 25fps. At least with the same resolution, it is easier to convert between different frame rates.
They might not be representative (heck, most companies don't even own any land), but they are private enterprises. Also, they seem to have done a better job than the US Park Service has. Remember how they killed all the wolves in yellowstone because they thought the Elk were going to go extinct? Or how they suppressed wild fires for 50 years or so, causing worse fires to occur when they couldn't stop them?
Oh, and to add to the list, Trout Unlimited, possibly the Audubon Society, a number of logging companies seem to have done a pretty good job as well with the land they actually own.
I stationed in Germany at Ramstein AB. I wonder how this ban would affect us military members who purchase video games either online and shipped to our US mailing address or at our local BX/PX.
Just a guess, but I would say that you wouldn't be affected by German law. Similar to how when you step into an Embassy, you are considered to be on that nations land. (So if you step into the Russian Embassy, you are technically in Russia.) Easy way to check, does any German law apply on a US base in Germany? Or does US law apply there?
Clockwork. You could use a mechanical timer to control the fuse in a weapon using the gun method to fire a pellet of fissionable material into a suitable target, thus bringing together a critical mass. It's inefficient and requires quite a lot of the material to work, compared to modern weapons. Does it work? Ask anyone around Hiroshima on 6/8/45... If you wanted to detonate at a certain altitude, use a barometer to hold an escapement back, which would release the firing mechanism at a predetermined altitude.
Both methods, the clockwork one especialy, would still be subject to problems if the metal started to warp and melt. Melt the clockwork and the clockwork is useless, same for the barometer. You'd either have an early detonation or no detonation at all.
I have no idea how much RF energy it takes to damage a missile. But, by the time it flies over Alaska, the missile would be a ballistic warhead that has to do nothing more than detonate at a predetermined altitude. I imagine it could be made pretty simple, and therefore hard to kill.
All modern warheads use precision timed, placed and shaped explosives to turn a subcritical amount of uranium/plutonium into a supercritical nuclear explosion. If any part is damaged sufficiently, you will (at worst) not have a nuclear explosion but a dirty bomb. If the electronic controls are damaged sufficiently, there would be no explosion at all. All modern warheads use electronically controled explosives.
There are two types of bombs where there would be no electronics in it. Even in this, there is the possibility of an RF weapon causing enough damage. The first is where, instead of using explosives to cause an explosion, the two pieces of nuclear material are jammed together upon impact with the ground. A sufficient ammount of RF would still be able to distort the material of the warhead enough so they do not jam together properly and go supercritical.
The second part, involves a critical ammount of Plutonium. Take 16kg of plutonium, put it together, and you get a nuclear explosion. During flight, the halves would have to be kept seperate. I'm not sure if there is a way that does not involve electronics that would move the pieces together that is not similar to the way above. Either way, if you warp/melt the material enough it won't explode.
Two final things. A lot (if not all) of ICBMs make course corrections mid flight. If the guidance electronics are messed up prior to the final corrections, it will fly off targe. Second, MIRVs would also be messed up in a similar way. I'm not sure there is a type of nuclear missle/warhead that would not be messed up by a sufficient ammount of RF.
Yes, there's a good idea. Disconnect the alternator. Let's see...chain of events.... 1. Disconnect Alternator 2. Go Driving down the highway 3. Battery runs out of power 4. Spark plugs stop firing 5. Engine stops running 6. Power stearing and power brakes now fail 7. Sharp turn in the road and "Bye Bye"
Many cars being built today have a feature where the alternator automatically cuts out in order to save gas while the battery is sufficiently charged. When the battery drops below a certain point, it kicks back in. It doesn't save much, but is does improve fuel efficiency by at least 1mpg from what I remember. I am not talking about removing the alternator permanently.
But the HFI system uses electricity from an engine's alternator to power the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen as needed from small amounts of distilled water.
R Given that diesel engines are not 100% efficient, and even assuming that water->hydrogen is. How is it this produces a net gain in energy? The burning hydrogen should only produce as much energy as is used to seperate the oxygen and hydrogen. Disconecting the alternator (which many cars do right now to increase fuel efficiency) should save more gasoline than seperating the water to hydrogen/oxygen.
Part of me wants to boycott Sont forever, and part of me wants to thank them for being so stupid, inept and evil that they've probably permanently discredited DRM.
I was thinking the same thing. Now only time will tell if there will be a significant enough backlash to eliminate DRM systems like this. Unfortunately, I don't see this causing a significant enough backlash to eliminate DRM for good. What might do that is the DRM system that lets you play games/movies only on the first player that the disk is played in.
Imagine if google started running SETI@HOME, Protien Folding or Distributed.net on their spare CPU cycles.
It is an immune OVERREACTION that floods the patiest with antibodies and kills them
The article you point to might be a bit too lay for me. Since it doesn't say exatly, is the response similar to when an immune system turns and starts attacking the body? Or is it just side effects from the response that causes death, such as a feaver that gets too high and starts causing damage due to the higher body heat.
I don't trust private enterprise to take care of national parks and poverty.
Oh I don't know, the Boy Scouts seem to be doing a pretty good job with the land they own. It may not be open to the public, but it is generally pretty well cared for.
You want to pay more for a hybrid that isn't as good solely based on a brand name?
I've come to associate honda with really good cars. The Toyatas I've had experience with have had major problems while the Hondas have run great until they conk out at 12+ years. It's may not be completely logical, but it is backed by direct practical experience with their cars rather than the spec sheets and what other people say. Mind you, although I may be in the group perfect for hybrids (I'll keep a car until it quite literaly has to be towed away) I wanted a Honda first, and second came the extras I wanted. I would have prefered a Hybrid, but the only one out by honda at the time I would have considered was the civic (not the insight, I don't like it for a few reasons, one of which being only 2 doors). A few problems I had with the civic were that it felt "too plasticy" when I was on the inside. Just a feeling, I can't really explain it beyond that, the shift had a wierd feeling to it with the button in the middle instead of the side, and finally the very pretty LEDs on the dash that I would have been staring at instead of the road.
The accord hybrid wasn't out yet and I hadn't heard about it or I would have at least considered it. Unfortunately it is 10k too much for me.
I started reading this one book by Kim Stanley Robinson, "The Martians". It starts off with the group of scientists in antartica and the main character making comments about how the environmentalist movement had had a schism years before. There were two groups complaining about power generation in antartica. One complaining that they were using nuclear power and one complaining that they were poluting the clean area with diesel generators. (The site used both, one primary, one backup, I think). At least some of the environmentalists are comming around to the idea of nuclear, including some very famous ones. Dam, I forget the name of the guy who got disowned by the group he founded for advocating nuclear.
Unfortunately, I was not looking for an EX luxury edition and I wanted something better than a Civic. The Accord LX (mid range) fit what I was looking for. If I am going to compare it to a hybrid, I am going to compare it to one that is at least as good.
One question, don't many places subsidise public transportation? As I understand it, in europe it is subsidised by both gasoline taxes and other tax dollars. Here in my area, the public transpotation faces about a $50 million shortfal even after all the subsidies. Pretty much, unless they get tax dollars, they would go broke. Now I personally think that if we are going to have a public transportation system, it should pay for itself.
As an example of how costly the local system is (I am in the DC area), I have a 20 mile trip to work. 10 miles to the train, additional 10 to work. It's cheaper for me to drive the 20 miles total than to take the train, this is even with the subsidies the trains recieve.
Unfortunately, I prefer Honda over Toyota.
Trust me, a lot of us in the US would love to switch to Nuclear power plants over coal (about half of all US electricity is produced at coal power plants). Unfortunately there is a lot of anti-nuclear reaction to it due to the "3 Mile Island" and Chernobyl incidents.