> There is nothing wrong with covering arable land with wind turbines and solar cells - it is not like arable land is somehow a premium in Europe
Arable land is _absolutely_ at a premium in Europe. in China, and in many nations without the fertilizers and technology to engage in high density farming. Even there, arable land is being depleted of critical minerals, nitrogen fixated soil, and usable water supplies by local overfarming. Even in the USA, arable land is being increasingly expensive and difficult to protect as cropland.
Solar cells absorb solar energy by that could, otherwise, be absorbed by the crops under them for energy. Wind turbines would seem to be less awkward, but even there the cabling connecting them to the power grid makes it awkward if not destructive to _plow_ the soil nearby.
The deuterium and tritium for most fusion research and power plant proposals can only be effectively harvested from fission reactors, especially the tritium. It is theoretically possible to harvest deuterium and tritium with solar sails. But solar sails on that scale would be far more effective at harvesting solar energy directly. It could also allow far more efficient and reliable energy collection than covering arable land with wind turbines or solar cells.
There are other risks with AirBNB and similar services. Adam Conover did a fairly good "Adam Ruins Everything" presentation at http://www.thewrap.com/adam-ru...
Adam Conover has been doing fine, satirical work discrediting a lot of commonly held beliefs such as the effectiveness of private prisons the usefulness of summer vacation, hygiene, weddings, and many others. It's the sort of information Slashdot readers may have picked up in pieces, but presented in clear individual sketches that even children can understand.
I did not do this deliberately, but decades ago with People's Express airlines I flew the day before Christmas. I had the first flight oin the morrning, and volunteered to be bumped 3 times before the ticket agent insisted I get on the next plane. It did pay for my personal air travel for the next year.
It was understandable economically. Keeping that extra small percentage of seats full keeps money coming in to the airline's coffers for that month, and helps expand reports of their numbers of riders and overall income, even if it is not profitable.
> but have no effect on ecosystems other than to limit the spread of wildfires
This claim is not well founded, I'm afraid. Even the most casual look at Google shows thousands of well written articles on the difficulty, and many well researched scientific papers on obvious and subtle effects. Slower moving animals like snakes and turtles are devastated by roads, and can lose genetic diversity because they can't safely cross roads to cross breed with even nearby habitats. And animals that need to migrate due to winter or due to local food depletion often have profound difficulty finding safe and effective ways past piles of fenced in highway.
That's a very handwaving cover page. And yes, they are getting it wrong. "Deuterium can be distilled from all forms of water." Yes, it can, but it's energy consuming and quite expensive. The "breeding blanket" they refer to has never existed, has never been used, and _cannot_ possibly approach 100% effectiveness. It is theoretically using a "primed pump" of deuterium and tritum to recycle enough neutrons to replace the tritium. Unfortunately, even if the tritium in the lithium blanket was remotely efficient or safe to extract from the extremely toxic and dangerous lithium flouride typically used, not all of the neutrons emitted by the fusion reaction will be absorbed and generate renewed tritium.
I'm afraid that webpage is ignoring pretty basic physics.
> They do a much better job than you're willing to accept,
They obviously do not. The budget of the NSA spent on unconstitutional domestic surveillance should not have been funded. From what little fiscal evidence I can see, it's at least 30% of their budget.
Tritium produced in liquid lithium shielding is a destabilizing consequence of using it in shielding because it propagates an extremely volatile, difficult to contain radioactive material into the lithium. Recovery of tritium from it, even in theory, is for safety, not for refueling the reactor. It's nowhere near _enough_ tritium to replace the original tritium fuel, and it can't be recovered safely or efficiently enough to use it effectively to refuel the reactor.
There is _no_ current, vaguely working fusion technology that yields or breeds tritium. There's not enough energy in fusion related neutron radiation to even make deuterium effectively, much less tritium.
It also took 20% of the world's oil production offline for nearly a decade, which profits other oil companies, especially with the guaranteed market for military fuel. And there was a _hope_, ill-founded, that a wave of strong anti-Muslim-leadership politics would sweep the region.
>> The revolution led directly to famine, from destruction of the economy, and genocide during the Reign of Terror. So yes, I'd say that Marie Antoinette's political behavior was "not doing anything wrong".
> Whenever it's the rich and the bourgeois taking it up the ass, rather than the poor, the fainting couches are whipped out and hands get chapped from frantic
When it's someone like Marie Antoinette, who actually tried to stabilize the country, who are blamed for the atrocities and used as examples of the abuses and are executed for them, it's important to defend them. Blame her for her very _real_ sins, such as her long resistance to badly needed fiscal reforms, not for complete disregard of the poor and of the populace of France that was more founded in propaganda. The "let them eat cake" quote was apparently just such propaganda.
The Vendee, in a region mostly populated by the Catholics of France. The wholesale slaughter among them was one of the reasons the "Reign of Terror" was known as such. I do note that the genocide was not one-sided, the Verdee were themselves engaging in slaughter of civilians based on religious differences.
The only currently available large scale source of tritium for D-T fusion reactors is fission power plants, so there is a very large problem with using fusion energy to reduce the number of fission plants.
I'm afraid that this design, like nearly all modern fusion designs, relies on deuterium-tritium fusion. Both are awkward, expensive, and even dangerous to produce and refine. Tritium, in particular has a quite short half-life and is best refined from nuclear waste at fission plants. If you are already producing enough tritium to run fusion reactors, you already have more than enough fission plants to provide far more and far more reliable energy. There are numerous old papers laying out the difficulties, such as http://fire.pppl.gov/fesac_dp_.... Note that it's theoretically possible to generate more tritium than is currently generated by switcing to "breeder" fission reactors, but those have proven extremely dangerous to manage due to their use in creating plutonium, which is quite useful for nuclear weapon building. It's a very dangerous technology, and the generation of tritium on a commercial scale would be tied to creating _far_ more plutonium than is currently created.
The only currently feasible, safer, and scalable source of deuterium and tritium for fusion reactors is solar sails, capturing the more refinable percentage of such particles in solar wind. Since a solar sail is already capturing approximately 20 KW/square meter of sail from electromagnetic solar radiation, that is a vastly safer and easier to handle power source than collecting and shipping the isotopes of hydrogen to the necessary fusion reactor. Much like building a vast array of breeder reactors to generate tritium for fusion reactors, there is _no point_ to trying to run a fusion plant when the collection and refinement plant itself generates far more directly usable energy than can even theoretically be produced by D-T fusion.
I'll simplify by using the metaphor a colleague gave me recently. The refinement of deuterium and tritium for fusion power is like heating homes by burning the signs and posters put up to protest nuclear power plants. It can be done in theory, but it is not efficient and does not scale well.
Stopping a revolution is considered loyalty to an existing nation and the country of which she was Queen. The revolution led directly to famine, from destruction of the economy, and genocide during the Reign of Terror. So yes, I'd say that Marie Antoinette's political behavior was "not doing anything wrong".
It also apparently wasn't Marie Antoinette who said it. She was actually quite sensitive to the distress of the poor, and the beginning of the French Revolution libeled her frequently for being foreign, not for anything she actually did wrong.
She was a fascinating woman, I can quite understand why the French king felt attracted to her.
On review, the D-Bus in FreeBSD is not compatible with systemd. It looks like there have been some attempts to create "systembsd", but none of them successfully support the core logging or daemon management which were systemd's original reason for existence.
> The reality is that retirees don't want a 40-60 hour work week--they're fucking retired.
The reality, unfortunately, is that many retirees don't want to retire. They're offered early retirement, or forced into retirement, in order to save money on senior employee salaries, or to eliminate an employee who disagrees with new corporate policy. I've several peers of my age who've faced just this in both public and private organizations.
Slashdot Mirror
> There is nothing wrong with covering arable land with wind turbines and solar cells - it is not like arable land is somehow a premium in Europe
Arable land is _absolutely_ at a premium in Europe. in China, and in many nations without the fertilizers and technology to engage in high density farming. Even there, arable land is being depleted of critical minerals, nitrogen fixated soil, and usable water supplies by local overfarming. Even in the USA, arable land is being increasingly expensive and difficult to protect as cropland.
Solar cells absorb solar energy by that could, otherwise, be absorbed by the crops under them for energy. Wind turbines would seem to be less awkward, but even there the cabling connecting them to the power grid makes it awkward if not destructive to _plow_ the soil nearby.
The deuterium and tritium for most fusion research and power plant proposals can only be effectively harvested from fission reactors, especially the tritium. It is theoretically possible to harvest deuterium and tritium with solar sails. But solar sails on that scale would be far more effective at harvesting solar energy directly. It could also allow far more efficient and reliable energy collection than covering arable land with wind turbines or solar cells.
Thank you: I'd forgotten _completely_ about her being in that role.
There are other risks with AirBNB and similar services. Adam Conover did a fairly good "Adam Ruins Everything" presentation at http://www.thewrap.com/adam-ru...
Adam Conover has been doing fine, satirical work discrediting a lot of commonly held beliefs such as the effectiveness of private prisons the usefulness of summer vacation, hygiene, weddings, and many others. It's the sort of information Slashdot readers may have picked up in pieces, but presented in clear individual sketches that even children can understand.
I did not do this deliberately, but decades ago with People's Express airlines I flew the day before Christmas. I had the first flight oin the morrning, and volunteered to be bumped 3 times before the ticket agent insisted I get on the next plane. It did pay for my personal air travel for the next year.
It was understandable economically. Keeping that extra small percentage of seats full keeps money coming in to the airline's coffers for that month, and helps expand reports of their numbers of riders and overall income, even if it is not profitable.
> but have no effect on ecosystems other than to limit the spread of wildfires
This claim is not well founded, I'm afraid. Even the most casual look at Google shows thousands of well written articles on the difficulty, and many well researched scientific papers on obvious and subtle effects. Slower moving animals like snakes and turtles are devastated by roads, and can lose genetic diversity because they can't safely cross roads to cross breed with even nearby habitats. And animals that need to migrate due to winter or due to local food depletion often have profound difficulty finding safe and effective ways past piles of fenced in highway.
That's a very handwaving cover page. And yes, they are getting it wrong. "Deuterium can be distilled from all forms of water." Yes, it can, but it's energy consuming and quite expensive. The "breeding blanket" they refer to has never existed, has never been used, and _cannot_ possibly approach 100% effectiveness. It is theoretically using a "primed pump" of deuterium and tritum to recycle enough neutrons to replace the tritium. Unfortunately, even if the tritium in the lithium blanket was remotely efficient or safe to extract from the extremely toxic and dangerous lithium flouride typically used, not all of the neutrons emitted by the fusion reaction will be absorbed and generate renewed tritium.
I'm afraid that webpage is ignoring pretty basic physics.
> They do a much better job than you're willing to accept,
They obviously do not. The budget of the NSA spent on unconstitutional domestic surveillance should not have been funded. From what little fiscal evidence I can see, it's at least 30% of their budget.
Subcontractors lack leadership authority to change NSA policy.
I'm afraid that ended in the 1860's, when various states attempted to secede and were prevented by federal military.
Tritium produced in liquid lithium shielding is a destabilizing consequence of using it in shielding because it propagates an extremely volatile, difficult to contain radioactive material into the lithium. Recovery of tritium from it, even in theory, is for safety, not for refueling the reactor. It's nowhere near _enough_ tritium to replace the original tritium fuel, and it can't be recovered safely or efficiently enough to use it effectively to refuel the reactor.
There is _no_ current, vaguely working fusion technology that yields or breeds tritium. There's not enough energy in fusion related neutron radiation to even make deuterium effectively, much less tritium.
Thank you for the reference. My ballpark memory is from old solar power experiments yielding roughly 2 Watt/cm^2.
It also took 20% of the world's oil production offline for nearly a decade, which profits other oil companies, especially with the guaranteed market for military fuel. And there was a _hope_, ill-founded, that a wave of strong anti-Muslim-leadership politics would sweep the region.
>> The revolution led directly to famine, from destruction of the economy, and genocide during the Reign of Terror. So yes, I'd say that Marie Antoinette's political behavior was "not doing anything wrong".
> Whenever it's the rich and the bourgeois taking it up the ass, rather than the poor, the fainting couches are whipped out and hands get chapped from frantic
When it's someone like Marie Antoinette, who actually tried to stabilize the country, who are blamed for the atrocities and used as examples of the abuses and are executed for them, it's important to defend them. Blame her for her very _real_ sins, such as her long resistance to badly needed fiscal reforms, not for complete disregard of the poor and of the populace of France that was more founded in propaganda. The "let them eat cake" quote was apparently just such propaganda.
>> genocide during the Reign of Terror.
> Really? Against who?
The Vendee, in a region mostly populated by the Catholics of France. The wholesale slaughter among them was one of the reasons the "Reign of Terror" was known as such. I do note that the genocide was not one-sided, the Verdee were themselves engaging in slaughter of civilians based on religious differences.
> Fusion produces less waste than fission
The only currently available large scale source of tritium for D-T fusion reactors is fission power plants, so there is a very large problem with using fusion energy to reduce the number of fission plants.
I'm afraid that this design, like nearly all modern fusion designs, relies on deuterium-tritium fusion. Both are awkward, expensive, and even dangerous to produce and refine. Tritium, in particular has a quite short half-life and is best refined from nuclear waste at fission plants. If you are already producing enough tritium to run fusion reactors, you already have more than enough fission plants to provide far more and far more reliable energy. There are numerous old papers laying out the difficulties, such as http://fire.pppl.gov/fesac_dp_.... Note that it's theoretically possible to generate more tritium than is currently generated by switcing to "breeder" fission reactors, but those have proven extremely dangerous to manage due to their use in creating plutonium, which is quite useful for nuclear weapon building. It's a very dangerous technology, and the generation of tritium on a commercial scale would be tied to creating _far_ more plutonium than is currently created.
The only currently feasible, safer, and scalable source of deuterium and tritium for fusion reactors is solar sails, capturing the more refinable percentage of such particles in solar wind. Since a solar sail is already capturing approximately 20 KW/square meter of sail from electromagnetic solar radiation, that is a vastly safer and easier to handle power source than collecting and shipping the isotopes of hydrogen to the necessary fusion reactor. Much like building a vast array of breeder reactors to generate tritium for fusion reactors, there is _no point_ to trying to run a fusion plant when the collection and refinement plant itself generates far more directly usable energy than can even theoretically be produced by D-T fusion.
I'll simplify by using the metaphor a colleague gave me recently. The refinement of deuterium and tritium for fusion power is like heating homes by burning the signs and posters put up to protest nuclear power plants. It can be done in theory, but it is not efficient and does not scale well.
Stopping a revolution is considered loyalty to an existing nation and the country of which she was Queen. The revolution led directly to famine, from destruction of the economy, and genocide during the Reign of Terror. So yes, I'd say that Marie Antoinette's political behavior was "not doing anything wrong".
> Stop trying to grow for growth's sake.
If they do this, Lyft and local services will step into the niche they leave empty.
It also apparently wasn't Marie Antoinette who said it. She was actually quite sensitive to the distress of the poor, and the beginning of the French Revolution libeled her frequently for being foreign, not for anything she actually did wrong.
She was a fascinating woman, I can quite understand why the French king felt attracted to her.
> I don't think Uber ever meant its drivers to be full time employees.
Uber absolutely does not wish to take on the fiscal and legal responsibilities that full time employees cause for employers.
On review, the D-Bus in FreeBSD is not compatible with systemd. It looks like there have been some attempts to create "systembsd", but none of them successfully support the core logging or daemon management which were systemd's original reason for existence.
Thank you for the correction. I admit to not having personally used FreeBSD in quite a long time.
> The reality is that retirees don't want a 40-60 hour work week--they're fucking retired.
The reality, unfortunately, is that many retirees don't want to retire. They're offered early retirement, or forced into retirement, in order to save money on senior employee salaries, or to eliminate an employee who disagrees with new corporate policy. I've several peers of my age who've faced just this in both public and private organizations.