When designing energy conversion facilities, we should always predict the use for "junk" energy. I.e. if ICE exhaust is hot enaugh, it should be used to extract more power from it (power some sort of ECE, steam- or stirling-engine, to generate electricity or pre-compress the ICE air intake).
In this case, the air compressing facility should sell heat too, or power another ECE that would run the first-stage (lower pressure) compressor for better efficiency.
You know, the problem with all dictators worldwide is that they do whatever they can to make themselves essential to stability in their own countries.
The chaos that ensued after fall of Saddam was not a misfortune, it was designed by him, a sort of political "doomsday machine". Over the time he deliberately raised internal tensions in the country to make his removal expensive and regretful. One of the ways dictators do that is by favorising those oponents they believe will be less acceptable to West then they themselves are, while erradicating "nice" ones.
Perhaps a more careful approach was in order. Apparently, "who cared, anyway?"
There are... but we generally don't recognise them as such. We call them "eccentric" instead of "crazy", "charismatic" and/or "strong" instead of "dictators", etc. , until they refuse to give us what we want from them at "fair" price. Then it is time to put the coloured glasses on, pick a sticker, send reporters...
It seems my apologies to You are in order. I didn't intend to "pick on" anyone in person, Your post was first one that triggered my objection to widespread simplifications and propaganda in general, not related to the any particular living, dead, relativised or even completely rehabilitated and glorified in history, real or fictional "crazy dictator" from left or right (or "mad scientist" and/or "evil genius" subspecies, for that matter).
All of them (islamic war-tune musicians) say they will "wipe Isreal off the map" it is a PR stunt to get attention of other their co-religious brethen. Well, it is a shouda' wouda'if only they coulda' but they know the price very well so it is all barking, no biting. The dictatorships and theocracies rot in the times of good living, so Iran leaders may be feel an uneasy lack of tension and they are going around begging to be slapped in the face, to regain grasp over their own folks.
Israel has no place to go, and wiping is not going to be successful either way. Some of the islamic leaders dream about uniting and becoming a world superpower by sheer number but they forget one thing: Hitler may have lacked oil which they don't, but he had access to steel mass production and heavy industry, which they don't have and won't have if they confront the rest of the world. They are very short breathed.
North Korea is one man's "private mansion". With their proclaimed isolationist policy I don't see them expanding any way in near future. The question of "if provoked" is out of place. The bomb is there exactly for the purpose of preventing anyone from provoking them. Isolationism and "self-reliance" has the effect of hurting economy and especially weapons production. You cannot do it all yourself and on top of that wage the war aside. Actually, once that they have the nuke under their belt, they can lower their expenses for classical warfare and put more into general production (well... that could become a source of problem later).
Not You(capital Y - singular) personally, but you (in all small caps - plural) - the pro war(s) crowd.
It had been a general truism - "Saddam is mad dictator". We mocked him for years in comedies and cartoons. And now, (just a moment to open the "Babushka" doll and reveal...) ohhh, this guy Kim Jong Il is EVEN MORE wacko then Saddam! Look at his name! He's 'Ill' - there you go!
(Allegedly he was such for years, but he evaded our atention until now...)
ps - If you are a bad guy, you have to be a lunatic or else our hands are too tied! If you're not, never mind, none will ever notice.
But probably the biggest issue is that Kim Jong-il is a lunatic. Saddam Hussein was not a lunatic
Bullshit! You were talking differently before you've got that other guy. Whoever is next in line is "a lunatic".
Re:Sounds like a job for real-time computers
on
Rocket Men
·
· Score: 1
ncluding, of course, electronic active noise cancellation in the helmet to provide at least some reduction of the "deafening noise 3 feet three feet from his ear."
I am not sure if active noise cancellation systems bode well with aperiodic noise sources. There is time lag involved in DSP and sound will not stand and wait. It travels 3 feet through air in ~3ms, and through rocketbelt frame even faster. Perhaps a passive solution, like i.e. aerogel helmets as well as shields or bells around nozzles reflecting soundwaves out would do better (for sound as well as for the heat)?
"you can get it directly from the company that makes the software."
Unless they're out of business. Or have discontinued the product. Or most of the development team has quit.
The difference between opensource and proprietary software is that with proprietary software only one company is legally allowed to fix any bugs.
Not only that, FOSS has some other extra features that are deemed worthy of the inflated price. I.e. once you get a good grasp of the tools (or substitute, free tools) and the software itself, you will not need them anymore and you'll even have all legal rights to become their competition if you choose to (and if you are up to the challenge). FOSS therefore gives you more power, more security. But, if you are in a hurry, have a steep learning curve, don't need all this extra possibilities it gives you, then it is perhaps a wrong decision to go with this extra expense.
As you can see, there is more then one criterion. We are dealing with relative cost here, seeing wider picture then the cost of equipment itself. You can't seek the car keys "over here" (in streetlamp's circle of light) if they were lost "over there" (in dark). Keeping obsolete sats above is as costly as if they crashed and burned... in that case, they'd better be cheap even if it means they are short-lived, as designing them for long life is wasteful.
Now, as we said all that... why the little buggers need to get to orbit (costly!) at all? Just hurl them high enaugh, so that they fly over the area thru the thin air and recover them when they hit the next ocean surface, or don't... let 'em crash instead, just after they beam you everything they'we got.
How come none is deploying SAM's or AAM's for high altitude reconnasance - it's such a simple idea, even simpler and more robust then UAV?
In fact, publicizing this report that should be held classified matter looks more like PR for demanding more money for R&D of new generation of recon sats with new design philosophy:
Considering some present civil and amateur (well, academic) efforts for sending microsatelites to outer space, it is quite possible that soon there will be an amassment of small space equipment.
Now, trying to detect and "blind" a multitude of minute objects in orbit will prove hard and they can be launched in dozens or more with single space mission.
The other rant in TFA (one about "when you launch them, there is no way to upgrade them") simply calls for trading quality (endurance) for low price x large number. Strap a simple short term energy source on them, let them die out, fall and burn on reentry, regularily send batches of new, improved ones with larger revision numbers...
The other possibility is that it simply doesn't work, but Americans have detected the attempt and now are faking beeing seriously disabilitated in order to let Chinese burn some more cash on a dead end research or induce a false sense of security, to assure surprize when and if it will matter.
Your dry-chemical rocket misses... the point entirely.
Of course the war is the spoiler for energy savings, that was my very conclusion. Besides, controling oil (or steel, for that matter, but steel would be worthless if you didn't have oil) is controling (outcomes of, therefore the probability of outbreaks of) great wars. If there was no single resource to control, the wars would be (and were) even more frequent then today. And that my friends, is why "they" won't let us go "green": "Without a string, the world is mess".
Now, imagine some revolutionary invention that would surpass oil in efficiency and ease of use, say a "Mr. Fusion" portable micro-reactor. In an instant, all military gear is obsolete like cavalry and clear winner is the party which has vehicles and aircrafts that go on new energy source. If there happens to be that some new guys get it first... we'll have yet another painful "new order installation" or, if several countries jump on new bandwagon at same time, series of "championship" wars between arms racers (it happened in past with each tech "age" change). It is a regular nightmare. So, you see, oil companies have nothing to do with it, while OTOH governments and militaries have everything to do with it. It also explains some other "stupid" and "damaging" practices like importing scientists and skilled technicians from all over the world even though locals take severe hits in terms of unemployment and earnings' cuts and consequently country falls behind education-wise. China's human rights records are worrying, but not as much as their science and technology development. You need to constantly attract the best minds of the world (other option is... well, wasteful).
There is only one way out and unfortunately not a technical or technological one - the world must be pacified, tensions removed, there has to be a working global security system, as well as global political system deemed just by most if not all nations and members of the humanity (and all inteligent and capable species/entities/did_I_forgot_anyone_?), that would channel the interests into peaceful process of accomplishment. Then and only then will we be free to design and deploy proper, optimum solutions to our needs.
When something doesn't make sense to us, but obviously makes sense to someone who is above us, then we are missing something from our perspective of the things.
I think that in this case it is about the war. The petroleum == war in more then one sense. The wars are fought for it, but even more important, wars are fought ON it.
If you divorce oil from general consumption (individual transportation) and go for optimisations of efficiency, such as extensively using railroads, more efficient or alternative mobile and portable energy sources/reservoirs, then this comodity product starts becoming too expensive (because efficiency of scale) for i.e. military jets (and civil aircraft too!), which can't switch to electric engines, as far as it is known today, or for armoured vehicles, or small naval vessels.
That would hurt military cpapability of any modern army and it would hurt the most the army which is most mechanised and most far reaching.
This possibility certainly scares the living daylights from many of those decisionmakers in high positions. At present, oil is everyone's darling and none would dare to cut it out just to cripple that certain armed forces, because everyone needs it now. In a way, we have a global "balance of fear" that keeps war out of most oil-relying (most developed) countries. It is integrative force of global security system: Everyone plays nice, and we all get our gasoline...
If it squeezes the oil companies out, expect it to die.
Oil companies are not oil worshiping cults, they are businesses. Their business is energy for transportation. When switch happens, THEY'll be the ones pushing it.
They have abundant solar energy they can sell to all of us, but we need a microwave power relay satelite network to transfer energy on the global scale.
Comparing future anti-technology vigilantes to modern day "eco-terrorists," Internet education expert and poll respondent Ed Lyell pointed out that "Every age has a small percentage that cling to an overrated past of low-technology, low-energy, lifestyle."
*eyes roll over* Low-energy is state-of-the-art technology of any time, dumb**s!!
Respondent Thomas Narten, a member of IBM's Internet Engineering Task Force, believes that "by becoming valuable infrastructure, the Internet itself will become a target,"
Yea, I see... just like that idiots today who keep on vandalizing our roads, digging big, leafs-covered, car wheel sized holes in asphalt?... oh wait!
And what happens to all the carbon when its converted to hydrogen?
According to the paper they published, you get CO (carbon monoxide), which is yet another fuel and (hopefully, as it is toxic) probably subsequently oxidised into CO2. This oxidation will release some extra heat, as well. It would be nice if that heat is reused in process (which involves heating steam to 1000 degrees Celsius). Anyway, IMHO, it is too dangerous tech for placing it near to end users(' private parts), in laptops, etc.
This turning high energy fuel into low energy fuel is like turning silver into gold.
Finding some efficient process of turning low-energy abundant and/or renewable fuels, like Methane or Ethanol into i.e. Octane would be "it" - the thing we so desperatly need, some process which has a recipe which begins with: "First, catch CO2 from atmosphere using your favourite plants (or even better: your most annoying and stuborn weed) and sunlight, then..." and ends with "Fill your tank on your favourite ordinary car with thus obtained liquid fuel."
(Kind of like "...Profit!!" Slashclassic, I know....)
Hmm, no, your conclusion is wrong (OK, I know about reductio ad absurdum argument, point taken) but it *is* my mistake and you opened my eyes, thanks:) : The mistake was considering only the choice of latest/greatest versions of distros, while logical step for user of a mature windows on a mature hardware is to cross over to a mature version of a Linux distro, i.e. something that was great success in the time when Win98 was young. However, the whole point was the support and ability to use new applications so using old versions is not something that could be honestly recommended.
That's cool, and of course you can put old machines to multitude of good uses and what You described would no doubt swoop a DOS user for sure, but nevertheless it doesn't sound like it would live up to expectations of a Win98 user. As someone already wrote in these comments, Windows 98 appeared to most users almost as having the same functionality as some later versions of them and it did it with very modest hardware requirements. In a way it was a near perfection of single-user operating system - the climax and crown of DOS evolution.
Linux and Unix were not intended by design to fill that purpose from the very begining. It was only later that Linux and Windows became comparable, not "apples and oranges", when Windows encroached into server market while carrying Win 98 UI with it. Then, on the suitable hardware, with bloom of Linux GUIs, Linux and Windows could compete on the level field.
Now, the overall conclusion would be that in order to be Win98 replacement to the point, Linux would either have to be very much stripped and dumbed down, perhaps the whole philosophy would have to change for worse, or else, if not, most magnificent optimisation and scalability solutions and breakthroughs would take place, probably coming from embedded and handheld devices' world, in other words: from environments where memory is at a premium.
Many of the boxes that can happily run 98, can run neither Vista, nor XP and not even GUI on top of Linux (and these users will of course expect to have GUI). And before you flame me for this last opinion, think 486 @ 100Mhz w 16 MB of FP RAM. A perfectly usable win98 machine. Not even the smallest distros provide you for that (according to recomendations... however, once I have time, I'll try to get it to run with XFCE or some *box). In fact, even MMX on 233MHz with 256 MB of RAM is sluggish under Knoppix (KDE... great but demanding) compared to Win98. It is barely acceptable under XFCE on top of Slackware (Yay for XFCE! Yay for Slack!:D ) - it works, but you feel a little time lag when you move mouse.
On my workplace this here Duron machine was stalling under FC4 (KDE) before RAM was boosted from 256 to 512 MB, but back then when it was new, 128 was quite enaugh for win98. Windows apps under Wine were still slow on 256MB and I haven't even tried them with 512MB. A hunch: RAM is probably the major bottleneck. Probably, if you could rig a GB of RAM on an 486, Linux would fly on it (I wonder how this could be tested, though... perhaps a simulation?). Perhaps some adjustment of VM system, or object allocation in apps and libraries would solve it.
Many old machines now running win98 have Mobos with RAM upgrade capacity of 128MB (Pentiums) or 64MB (486s) limit. IMHO to win over ex-win98 users, a live CD distro with a slim desktop as default, intended for at least Pentium I class (hopefully for a 486s too, when accompanied with a boot floppy) computers is very needed at the moment!
Actually, to be honest, multitude of passages begining with: "Now, then..." (sometimes in a row) began to sound... awkward, like when you are listening to a student taking the oral exam but not beeing *quite* prepared for it. A little strain can be felt on the author, like he is a bit losing connection with his own source.
I can't say it is not by the same author, but... if you analyse not only the rhytm and atmosphere (which really are resemblant), You'll see that second passage has far less figures of style and is much more factographic, using given names instead of associations to (alegedly) famous charachters they stand for... why: "made lament, telling the valour of Turambar and the beauty of Niniel" when it would be more appropriate for an epic style to actually make lament and tell about the Valour of Turambar and the beauty of Niniel? The first passage makes you feel the comfort on behalf "he who wrought it" (and this wording implies he should be known)and tells us about the valor of the wielder, there is live connection of mutual understanding between the reader (listener), narrator and the charachters, other is mere news report (although in narrative style).
Epic literature has a goal. Its goal is to promote unity with elders who passed away long ago and to promote and reinforce the moral values which is shared thru generations. It cannot do without emotional involvement. First passage clearly has it, second one... quite less.
Devotion is not an wearable, inspectable item... none of us living mortals be the judge of someone else's.
Nevertheless, the tendency to reconcile the pandemonium of a fantasy world and dogma of real-world religion is visible, while at the same time the fine details, that would show the devotion supposed to be involved, are lacking. He was either horrified with parts of his audience beeing consumed into Middle Earth losing their faith, or he himself was struggling in an inner battle to preserve it and still be free to roam the landscapes of his imagination.
OTOH, the ecclecticism of Silmarilion spreads beyond monotheism-polytheism duality so it seems that he was driven by ambition (to bind them all... lol - Alas, J.R.R., You failed the test Galadriel passed... ) more then by fear from God. This led to a haste, which shows...
Karma be damned! Well, epos in prose is IMHO like instant soup. My enchantment with Tolkien drops abruptly now that you confirmed he did wrote Silmarilion.
As far as Chris Tolkien the situation is not so straightforward. He published at least one clearly and purely J.R.R. Tolkien Book - the Silmarilion. That was J.R.R. Tolkien all the way and if not for Chris Tolkien, it would have failed to see the light of day (it was published postmortem).
Clearly and purely J.R.R, Tolkien all the way? I don't bloody think so! There is no proof, of course, that Silmarilion was not written by J.R.R., but it is so devoid of J.R.R.'s recognizable style, livelyhood, poetry, and so... boring, and repeating, reiterating the stories, situations and even landscapes... overall like a squeezed and dried plagiary of LOTR, shifted backward in time, with added some gnosticism and some borrowed biblical plots (which is quite unlikely for a fantastic world based on gothic, nordic and celtic myths) that I strongly tend to believe it was someone else's (Christopher's?) scheme to whip a quick buck after old Bilbo... I mean J.R.R.... passed away. Unless, of course, old guy had burned out his creative genius in the end. Either way, for whichever cause, Silmarilion was a great disappointment for this reader!
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When designing energy conversion facilities, we should always predict the use for "junk" energy. I.e. if ICE exhaust is hot enaugh, it should be used to extract more power from it (power some sort of ECE, steam- or stirling-engine, to generate electricity or pre-compress the ICE air intake). In this case, the air compressing facility should sell heat too, or power another ECE that would run the first-stage (lower pressure) compressor for better efficiency.
You know, the problem with all dictators worldwide is that they do whatever they can to make themselves essential to stability in their own countries.
The chaos that ensued after fall of Saddam was not a misfortune, it was designed by him, a sort of political "doomsday machine". Over the time he deliberately raised internal tensions in the country to make his removal expensive and regretful. One of the ways dictators do that is by favorising those oponents they believe will be less acceptable to West then they themselves are, while erradicating "nice" ones.
Perhaps a more careful approach was in order. Apparently, "who cared, anyway?"
There are... but we generally don't recognise them as such. We call them "eccentric" instead of "crazy", "charismatic" and/or "strong" instead of "dictators", etc. , until they refuse to give us what we want from them at "fair" price. Then it is time to put the coloured glasses on, pick a sticker, send reporters...
It seems my apologies to You are in order. I didn't intend to "pick on" anyone in person, Your post was first one that triggered my objection to widespread simplifications and propaganda in general, not related to the any particular living, dead, relativised or even completely rehabilitated and glorified in history, real or fictional "crazy dictator" from left or right (or "mad scientist" and/or "evil genius" subspecies, for that matter).
All of them (islamic war-tune musicians) say they will "wipe Isreal off the map" it is a PR stunt to get attention of other their co-religious brethen. Well, it is a shouda' wouda'if only they coulda' but they know the price very well so it is all barking, no biting. The dictatorships and theocracies rot in the times of good living, so Iran leaders may be feel an uneasy lack of tension and they are going around begging to be slapped in the face, to regain grasp over their own folks. Israel has no place to go, and wiping is not going to be successful either way. Some of the islamic leaders dream about uniting and becoming a world superpower by sheer number but they forget one thing: Hitler may have lacked oil which they don't, but he had access to steel mass production and heavy industry, which they don't have and won't have if they confront the rest of the world. They are very short breathed. North Korea is one man's "private mansion". With their proclaimed isolationist policy I don't see them expanding any way in near future. The question of "if provoked" is out of place. The bomb is there exactly for the purpose of preventing anyone from provoking them. Isolationism and "self-reliance" has the effect of hurting economy and especially weapons production. You cannot do it all yourself and on top of that wage the war aside. Actually, once that they have the nuke under their belt, they can lower their expenses for classical warfare and put more into general production (well ... that could become a source of problem later).
Not You(capital Y - singular) personally, but you (in all small caps - plural) - the pro war(s) crowd.
It had been a general truism - "Saddam is mad dictator". We mocked him for years in comedies and cartoons. And now, (just a moment to open the "Babushka" doll and reveal...) ohhh, this guy Kim Jong Il is EVEN MORE wacko then Saddam! Look at his name! He's 'Ill' - there you go!
(Allegedly he was such for years, but he evaded our atention until now...)
ps - If you are a bad guy, you have to be a lunatic or else our hands are too tied! If you're not, never mind, none will ever notice.
Not only that, FOSS has some other extra features that are deemed worthy of the inflated price. I.e. once you get a good grasp of the tools (or substitute, free tools) and the software itself, you will not need them anymore and you'll even have all legal rights to become their competition if you choose to (and if you are up to the challenge). FOSS therefore gives you more power, more security. But, if you are in a hurry, have a steep learning curve, don't need all this extra possibilities it gives you, then it is perhaps a wrong decision to go with this extra expense.
As you can see, there is more then one criterion. We are dealing with relative cost here, seeing wider picture then the cost of equipment itself. You can't seek the car keys "over here" (in streetlamp's circle of light) if they were lost "over there" (in dark). Keeping obsolete sats above is as costly as if they crashed and burned... in that case, they'd better be cheap even if it means they are short-lived, as designing them for long life is wasteful.
Now, as we said all that... why the little buggers need to get to orbit (costly!) at all? Just hurl them high enaugh, so that they fly over the area thru the thin air and recover them when they hit the next ocean surface, or don't... let 'em crash instead, just after they beam you everything they'we got.
How come none is deploying SAM's or AAM's for high altitude reconnasance - it's such a simple idea, even simpler and more robust then UAV?
In fact, publicizing this report that should be held classified matter looks more like PR for demanding more money for R&D of new generation of recon sats with new design philosophy:
Considering some present civil and amateur (well, academic) efforts for sending microsatelites to outer space, it is quite possible that soon there will be an amassment of small space equipment.
Now, trying to detect and "blind" a multitude of minute objects in orbit will prove hard and they can be launched in dozens or more with single space mission.
The other rant in TFA (one about "when you launch them, there is no way to upgrade them") simply calls for trading quality (endurance) for low price x large number. Strap a simple short term energy source on them, let them die out, fall and burn on reentry, regularily send batches of new, improved ones with larger revision numbers...
The other possibility is that it simply doesn't work, but Americans have detected the attempt and now are faking beeing seriously disabilitated in order to let Chinese burn some more cash on a dead end research or induce a false sense of security, to assure surprize when and if it will matter.
Your dry-chemical rocket misses... the point entirely.
... well, wasteful).
Of course the war is the spoiler for energy savings, that was my very conclusion. Besides, controling oil (or steel, for that matter, but steel would be worthless if you didn't have oil) is controling (outcomes of, therefore the probability of outbreaks of) great wars. If there was no single resource to control, the wars would be (and were) even more frequent then today. And that my friends, is why "they" won't let us go "green": "Without a string, the world is mess".
Now, imagine some revolutionary invention that would surpass oil in efficiency and ease of use, say a "Mr. Fusion" portable micro-reactor. In an instant, all military gear is obsolete like cavalry and clear winner is the party which has vehicles and aircrafts that go on new energy source. If there happens to be that some new guys get it first... we'll have yet another painful "new order installation" or, if several countries jump on new bandwagon at same time, series of "championship" wars between arms racers (it happened in past with each tech "age" change). It is a regular nightmare. So, you see, oil companies have nothing to do with it, while OTOH governments and militaries have everything to do with it. It also explains some other "stupid" and "damaging" practices like importing scientists and skilled technicians from all over the world even though locals take severe hits in terms of unemployment and earnings' cuts and consequently country falls behind education-wise. China's human rights records are worrying, but not as much as their science and technology development. You need to constantly attract the best minds of the world (other option is
There is only one way out and unfortunately not a technical or technological one - the world must be pacified, tensions removed, there has to be a working global security system, as well as global political system deemed just by most if not all nations and members of the humanity (and all inteligent and capable species/entities/did_I_forgot_anyone_?), that would channel the interests into peaceful process of accomplishment. Then and only then will we be free to design and deploy proper, optimum solutions to our needs.
When something doesn't make sense to us, but obviously makes sense to someone who is above us, then we are missing something from our perspective of the things.
I think that in this case it is about the war. The petroleum == war in more then one sense. The wars are fought for it, but even more important, wars are fought ON it.
If you divorce oil from general consumption (individual transportation) and go for optimisations of efficiency, such as extensively using railroads, more efficient or alternative mobile and portable energy sources/reservoirs, then this comodity product starts becoming too expensive (because efficiency of scale) for i.e. military jets (and civil aircraft too!), which can't switch to electric engines, as far as it is known today, or for armoured vehicles, or small naval vessels.
That would hurt military cpapability of any modern army and it would hurt the most the army which is most mechanised and most far reaching.
This possibility certainly scares the living daylights from many of those decisionmakers in high positions. At present, oil is everyone's darling and none would dare to cut it out just to cripple that certain armed forces, because everyone needs it now. In a way, we have a global "balance of fear" that keeps war out of most oil-relying (most developed) countries. It is integrative force of global security system: Everyone plays nice, and we all get our gasoline...
They have abundant solar energy they can sell to all of us, but we need a microwave power relay satelite network to transfer energy on the global scale.
According to the paper they published, you get CO (carbon monoxide), which is yet another fuel and (hopefully, as it is toxic) probably subsequently oxidised into CO2. This oxidation will release some extra heat, as well. It would be nice if that heat is reused in process (which involves heating steam to 1000 degrees Celsius). Anyway, IMHO, it is too dangerous tech for placing it near to end users(' private parts), in laptops, etc.
This turning high energy fuel into low energy fuel is like turning silver into gold.
Finding some efficient process of turning low-energy abundant and/or renewable fuels, like Methane or Ethanol into i.e. Octane would be "it" - the thing we so desperatly need, some process which has a recipe which begins with: "First, catch CO2 from atmosphere using your favourite plants (or even better: your most annoying and stuborn weed) and sunlight, then..." and ends with "Fill your tank on your favourite ordinary car with thus obtained liquid fuel."
(Kind of like "...Profit!!" Slashclassic, I know....)
Hmm... probably a sigma delta ADC?
Hmm, no, your conclusion is wrong (OK, I know about reductio ad absurdum argument, point taken) but it *is* my mistake and you opened my eyes, thanks :) : The mistake was considering only the choice of latest/greatest versions of distros, while logical step for user of a mature windows on a mature hardware is to cross over to a mature version of a Linux distro, i.e. something that was great success in the time when Win98 was young. However, the whole point was the support and ability to use new applications so using old versions is not something that could be honestly recommended.
That's cool, and of course you can put old machines to multitude of good uses and what You described would no doubt swoop a DOS user for sure, but nevertheless it doesn't sound like it would live up to expectations of a Win98 user. As someone already wrote in these comments, Windows 98 appeared to most users almost as having the same functionality as some later versions of them and it did it with very modest hardware requirements. In a way it was a near perfection of single-user operating system - the climax and crown of DOS evolution.
Linux and Unix were not intended by design to fill that purpose from the very begining. It was only later that Linux and Windows became comparable, not "apples and oranges", when Windows encroached into server market while carrying Win 98 UI with it. Then, on the suitable hardware, with bloom of Linux GUIs, Linux and Windows could compete on the level field.
Now, the overall conclusion would be that in order to be Win98 replacement to the point, Linux would either have to be very much stripped and dumbed down, perhaps the whole philosophy would have to change for worse, or else, if not, most magnificent optimisation and scalability solutions and breakthroughs would take place, probably coming from embedded and handheld devices' world, in other words: from environments where memory is at a premium.
Many of the boxes that can happily run 98, can run neither Vista, nor XP and not even GUI on top of Linux (and these users will of course expect to have GUI). And before you flame me for this last opinion, think 486 @ 100Mhz w 16 MB of FP RAM. A perfectly usable win98 machine. Not even the smallest distros provide you for that (according to recomendations... however, once I have time, I'll try to get it to run with XFCE or some *box). In fact, even MMX on 233MHz with 256 MB of RAM is sluggish under Knoppix (KDE... great but demanding) compared to Win98. It is barely acceptable under XFCE on top of Slackware (Yay for XFCE! Yay for Slack! :D ) - it works, but you feel a little time lag when you move mouse.
On my workplace this here Duron machine was stalling under FC4 (KDE) before RAM was boosted from 256 to 512 MB, but back then when it was new, 128 was quite enaugh for win98. Windows apps under Wine were still slow on 256MB and I haven't even tried them with 512MB. A hunch: RAM is probably the major bottleneck. Probably, if you could rig a GB of RAM on an 486, Linux would fly on it (I wonder how this could be tested, though... perhaps a simulation?). Perhaps some adjustment of VM system, or object allocation in apps and libraries would solve it.
Many old machines now running win98 have Mobos with RAM upgrade capacity of 128MB (Pentiums) or 64MB (486s) limit.
IMHO to win over ex-win98 users, a live CD distro with a slim desktop as default, intended for at least Pentium I class (hopefully for a 486s too, when accompanied with a boot floppy) computers is very needed at the moment!
Actually, to be honest, multitude of passages begining with: "Now, then..." (sometimes in a row) began to sound ... awkward, like when you are listening to a student taking the oral exam but not beeing *quite* prepared for it. A little strain can be felt on the author, like he is a bit losing connection with his own source.
I can't say it is not by the same author, but... if you analyse not only the rhytm and atmosphere (which really are resemblant), You'll see that second passage has far less figures of style and is much more factographic, using given names instead of associations to (alegedly) famous charachters they stand for... why: "made lament, telling the valour of Turambar and the beauty of Niniel" when it would be more appropriate for an epic style to actually make lament and tell about the Valour of Turambar and the beauty of Niniel? The first passage makes you feel the comfort on behalf "he who wrought it" (and this wording implies he should be known)and tells us about the valor of the wielder, there is live connection of mutual understanding between the reader (listener), narrator and the charachters, other is mere news report (although in narrative style).
Epic literature has a goal. Its goal is to promote unity with elders who passed away long ago and to promote and reinforce the moral values which is shared thru generations. It cannot do without emotional involvement. First passage clearly has it, second one... quite less.
Devotion is not an wearable, inspectable item... none of us living mortals be the judge of someone else's.
Nevertheless, the tendency to reconcile the pandemonium of a fantasy world and dogma of real-world religion is visible, while at the same time the fine details, that would show the devotion supposed to be involved, are lacking. He was either horrified with parts of his audience beeing consumed into Middle Earth losing their faith, or he himself was struggling in an inner battle to preserve it and still be free to roam the landscapes of his imagination.
OTOH, the ecclecticism of Silmarilion spreads beyond monotheism-polytheism duality so it seems that he was driven by ambition (to bind them all... lol - Alas, J.R.R., You failed the test Galadriel passed... ) more then by fear from God. This led to a haste, which shows...
Karma be damned! Well, epos in prose is IMHO like instant soup. My enchantment with Tolkien drops abruptly now that you confirmed he did wrote Silmarilion.
Clearly and purely J.R.R, Tolkien all the way? I don't bloody think so!
There is no proof, of course, that Silmarilion was not written by J.R.R., but it is so devoid of J.R.R.'s recognizable style, livelyhood, poetry, and so