Pretty much what I think of whenever I hear on public radio "...what Andrew Carnegie described as real and permanent good."
There was a local politician in my area who is now spoken of favorably by almost everyone. In fact, during his reign as mayor, he seemed OK until there was an opportunity to grab land about to be acquired by the city from the railroad for his own business, something he likely could not have pulled off had he not been mayor or on the city council. When he died, the local newspaper included a summary of that unethical act in the story about his public life. People screamed bloody murder, that the paper would do such a thing. I still don't understand why people would object to an honest assessment. Especially when I bike the rail-trail that bends around the ugly rear of that business, too close to the smelly garbage. Should the papers have only said that John Gotti was a spiffy dresser when he died?
I don't think public radio and TV should allow anything more than identification of who sponsored things. No BS corporate or personal statements, no nothing but name and possibly location.
The doubles show up not just once, but on random days and times and in varying numbers for a few months. Many of us couldn't pull that off, but I suspect there are enough would-be volunteers out there to help him out. If it doesn't get him out safely, it sure entertains the rest of us. Start with the bowler hats from the Thomas Crown Affair remake.
But combine the two, a supersonic Zeppelin! That's pretty much what UFO seers claim to have often seen, something the size of a football field that goes Mach 5.
Once you're a grandparent, you'll always have routes like that available. And it will snow a lot more and the distance will increase. At least that's what the grandkids will hear.
All of which suggests that the continuous quest for the lightest bikes has an adverse effect on fitness. What's more, unless you already have a low BMI, it's always a lot cheaper (if more difficult, granted) to lose a pound from your body than from your bike. Unless you have a flat ride with few stops, a heavier bike will cause you to burn more calories. So for racing, fine, go for that stiff see-through carbon fiber frame with stressed-skin wheels, but on other days, ride the more comfortable (elastic) steel bike.
Just from the very short description of the Branson- and Gates-backed designs, they sound great. But who stands to profit from them should they be built? If GE or Westinghouse or some other corporate behemoth that already has political clout can't be sure they'll profit in big ways, politicians won't allow things to move in that direction. Instead we'll be stuck with some suboptimal "solution." You see what happened with HD Radio. Nobody was guaranteed to make out big besides the Ibiquity backers, so that's what we got, sorry as it is.
And that is exactly the point! CEOs taking 1,000 times more than low-level employees implies that their activities somehow create 1,000 times more profit (or income, or whatever measure you want) than the activities of the lowest-paid and 100 times more than upper-mid-level employees. Or to put it another way, it implies that one individual at, say, $20M/yr is worth more than 10 of the next-best available at $2M/yr. I don't believe it for a minute.
I think it was actually more because 1) he already planned to ask the Feds for a bailout and knew he'd be more likely to get it that way, and 2) if he succeeded, he'd get a huge "compensation package" in a year or two.
I now have a mental picture of smoking asphalt, not to mention scorched railfans standing on overpasses...
Interesting thought, though, now that RRs use several locos per train and some locos have more than one engine... turbines could be operated in their most efficient zones and with only the number necessary for the power needed at any one time running. I suspect NOx emissions would still be a problem, though, at least in more urban areas.
All good, except for all that additional unsprung mass at the wheels, which makes for some combination of poor handling and harsh ride. Put the motors AND the brakes on each wheel on the inside end of a U-jointed drive shaft. Jags and Alfas used to inboard the rear brakes, but changing the rotors was a major pain and some designs had heat buildup issues. But you can fix that.
What's desperately needed is a parallel or series hybrid or even just a Diesel minivan. For towing, though, FWD minivans aren't so good. Full size vans are better, but you're right that many people buy SUVs, for whatever irrational reasons (I have one, a Tahoe, for towing, and wish it was a full size van). So OK, you're not doing any sort of van. Here's what I suggest: make an SUV that's good for towing at least 5,000 lbs. Diesel-Electric can make a great tow vehicle. Make it 4WD, because if you have to have an SUV, it might as well have a little off-road capability (most have much less capability than their owners think). Since you already have a generator and presumably batteries onboard, give it 50A+ of 110/220 VAC output, which will make it far more useful than any other SUV on the planet. How many people can use their vehicles for power during a blackout? Make sure your Diesel engine is clean (meets or exceeds current EPA standards). Many of us who avoided Diesels in the past did so because of the carcinogenic exhaust. Make it as quiet as feasible. Many of us also hate clatter. I listened to a new EMD locomotive idling recently, and it was quieter than most of the Diesel pickups I've heard. And that was a 2-stroke. Make the fuel system capable of switching over to straight vegetable oil after warmup on diesel/biodiesel (maybe that's not compatible with a soot trap & catalyst emissions control).
If some on the team like electronic/software hacking, equip it with a flexible computer(s) with navigation, opportunistic WiFi, large onboard music and video storage, rear "backup camera", front video recorder, encrypted event recorder, SPOT satellite position updating (for when out of cell phone range), etc. Give it at least a small fridge. Launch a UAV with video feed from the roof so you can see how bad the wreck up ahead is. OK, now I'm just dreaming, but the sky is literally the limit, and that provides interesting tasks for team members who might not be so great with the heavy hardware.
In short, use the inherent strengths of Diesel Electric to make something that ordinary SUVs can't match. And let us know how it's going!
Speaking of "as long as I can remember"... I noticed the local McDs has advertised on their sign this week "Arctic Orange" milkshakes. I recall, possibly erroneously, that they introduced those as a special holiday offering back in the 70s and few ordered them so there were a lot of leftover ingredients (with indefinite shelf life). McDs around here had Arctic Orange available sporadically for years afterward. They were not advertised or even on the menu; one had to know to ask for them. Actually, that's not as long as I can remember... I do remember the Golden Arches, no inside seating, and "Over xxx Million Served."
I'd go even further. When first learning to program, I was thrown more than once by thinking that a keyword meant something like its English definition would suggest. I would have learned quicker had the keywords been randomly selected from Dr. Seuss books.
Why not pay all teachers a reasonable salary, so good ones wouldn't leave just to find a job with fair pay, and so there'd be better teachers available to replace the ineffective? Because this thing will play well, particularly in an election year, but won't cost much. $50M? Pffffft.
Just think how many jobs this will add in the future, all those former COBOL coders retrained to fix Y2K, er, I mean, other-than-English version bugs...
Is it April 1 already? Surely they wouldn't really name it Babylscript, knowing what happened to the Tower's progress after language-splintering, would they?
More evidence of the widely held but completely erroneous belief that outsourcing somehow reduces risk. The author obviously implicitly believes it, without need of evidence. What gets me is that there is so much evidence now of companies that outsourced, suffered the usual problems, then reversed it and fared much better, yet others remain clueless. Being clueless to start with may be forgiveable, but remaining so is not.
So if a plug on a toaster is replaced backwards and someone gets shocked, the plug-replacer gets sued. What if the seam of repaired clothing splits during a presentation, losing the account? Sued?
and inexpensive protection for sensitive expensive devices. A close-by lightning hit can toast most anything, so forget about it. If you want to install a motor-generator for the whole house, get a second mortgage and plan to pay for the extra energy it will waste. Lightning may damage the motor side but might not hurt anything connected to the generator.
Most of the damage my stuff has received during storms has been through low voltage connections (phone lines, network cabling, coax) caused by inductive spikes. Use protection on these connections and/or eliminate them (WiFi, TOSLink, etc).
Agreed. More than a few -> Costco (or other similar). My experience with printers over the years has been that dye transfer stays as-printed longer, but then it might just have been the specific printers I used. For inkjets, the ink itself is critically important (seems obvious, no?); the printer less so.
Some have demonstrated a device that can project a sound to the vicinity of someone's head that will hardly be heard elsewhere, I think the demo was up to 30 feet away, which is good for parking lots, and I bet that will be greatly improved upon. So the car remains silent except to those in the path or converging. Yes, this will take some visual sensors and processing. This IS Slashdot.
The best part is that the "noise" can be personalized. Think of the possibilities.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty much what I think of whenever I hear on public radio "...what Andrew Carnegie described as real and permanent good."
There was a local politician in my area who is now spoken of favorably by almost everyone. In fact, during his reign as mayor, he seemed OK until there was an opportunity to grab land about to be acquired by the city from the railroad for his own business, something he likely could not have pulled off had he not been mayor or on the city council. When he died, the local newspaper included a summary of that unethical act in the story about his public life. People screamed bloody murder, that the paper would do such a thing. I still don't understand why people would object to an honest assessment. Especially when I bike the rail-trail that bends around the ugly rear of that business, too close to the smelly garbage. Should the papers have only said that John Gotti was a spiffy dresser when he died?
I don't think public radio and TV should allow anything more than identification of who sponsored things. No BS corporate or personal statements, no nothing but name and possibly location.
The doubles show up not just once, but on random days and times and in varying numbers for a few months. Many of us couldn't pull that off, but I suspect there are enough would-be volunteers out there to help him out. If it doesn't get him out safely, it sure entertains the rest of us. Start with the bowler hats from the Thomas Crown Affair remake.
"...discipline"? Seriously?
I think your perception was altered by that naptime dream of the flight attendant.
I fail to understand how having meetings can do anything to improve productivity.
But combine the two, a supersonic Zeppelin! That's pretty much what UFO seers claim to have often seen, something the size of a football field that goes Mach 5.
Once you're a grandparent, you'll always have routes like that available. And it will snow a lot more and the distance will increase. At least that's what the grandkids will hear.
All of which suggests that the continuous quest for the lightest bikes has an adverse effect on fitness. What's more, unless you already have a low BMI, it's always a lot cheaper (if more difficult, granted) to lose a pound from your body than from your bike. Unless you have a flat ride with few stops, a heavier bike will cause you to burn more calories. So for racing, fine, go for that stiff see-through carbon fiber frame with stressed-skin wheels, but on other days, ride the more comfortable (elastic) steel bike.
Just from the very short description of the Branson- and Gates-backed designs, they sound great. But who stands to profit from them should they be built? If GE or Westinghouse or some other corporate behemoth that already has political clout can't be sure they'll profit in big ways, politicians won't allow things to move in that direction. Instead we'll be stuck with some suboptimal "solution." You see what happened with HD Radio. Nobody was guaranteed to make out big besides the Ibiquity backers, so that's what we got, sorry as it is.
And that is exactly the point! CEOs taking 1,000 times more than low-level employees implies that their activities somehow create 1,000 times more profit (or income, or whatever measure you want) than the activities of the lowest-paid and 100 times more than upper-mid-level employees. Or to put it another way, it implies that one individual at, say, $20M/yr is worth more than 10 of the next-best available at $2M/yr. I don't believe it for a minute.
"Flourished" is in the eyes of the beholder. My cynical eyes see otherwise.
I think it was actually more because 1) he already planned to ask the Feds for a bailout and knew he'd be more likely to get it that way, and 2) if he succeeded, he'd get a huge "compensation package" in a year or two.
I now have a mental picture of smoking asphalt, not to mention scorched railfans standing on overpasses... Interesting thought, though, now that RRs use several locos per train and some locos have more than one engine... turbines could be operated in their most efficient zones and with only the number necessary for the power needed at any one time running. I suspect NOx emissions would still be a problem, though, at least in more urban areas.
All good, except for all that additional unsprung mass at the wheels, which makes for some combination of poor handling and harsh ride. Put the motors AND the brakes on each wheel on the inside end of a U-jointed drive shaft. Jags and Alfas used to inboard the rear brakes, but changing the rotors was a major pain and some designs had heat buildup issues. But you can fix that.
Where do your dreams live that has such freight trains?
What's desperately needed is a parallel or series hybrid or even just a Diesel minivan. For towing, though, FWD minivans aren't so good. Full size vans are better, but you're right that many people buy SUVs, for whatever irrational reasons (I have one, a Tahoe, for towing, and wish it was a full size van). So OK, you're not doing any sort of van. Here's what I suggest: make an SUV that's good for towing at least 5,000 lbs. Diesel-Electric can make a great tow vehicle. Make it 4WD, because if you have to have an SUV, it might as well have a little off-road capability (most have much less capability than their owners think). Since you already have a generator and presumably batteries onboard, give it 50A+ of 110/220 VAC output, which will make it far more useful than any other SUV on the planet. How many people can use their vehicles for power during a blackout? Make sure your Diesel engine is clean (meets or exceeds current EPA standards). Many of us who avoided Diesels in the past did so because of the carcinogenic exhaust. Make it as quiet as feasible. Many of us also hate clatter. I listened to a new EMD locomotive idling recently, and it was quieter than most of the Diesel pickups I've heard. And that was a 2-stroke. Make the fuel system capable of switching over to straight vegetable oil after warmup on diesel/biodiesel (maybe that's not compatible with a soot trap & catalyst emissions control).
If some on the team like electronic/software hacking, equip it with a flexible computer(s) with navigation, opportunistic WiFi, large onboard music and video storage, rear "backup camera", front video recorder, encrypted event recorder, SPOT satellite position updating (for when out of cell phone range), etc. Give it at least a small fridge. Launch a UAV with video feed from the roof so you can see how bad the wreck up ahead is. OK, now I'm just dreaming, but the sky is literally the limit, and that provides interesting tasks for team members who might not be so great with the heavy hardware.
In short, use the inherent strengths of Diesel Electric to make something that ordinary SUVs can't match. And let us know how it's going!
Speaking of "as long as I can remember"... I noticed the local McDs has advertised on their sign this week "Arctic Orange" milkshakes. I recall, possibly erroneously, that they introduced those as a special holiday offering back in the 70s and few ordered them so there were a lot of leftover ingredients (with indefinite shelf life). McDs around here had Arctic Orange available sporadically for years afterward. They were not advertised or even on the menu; one had to know to ask for them. Actually, that's not as long as I can remember... I do remember the Golden Arches, no inside seating, and "Over xxx Million Served."
Is there more to the Arctic Orange story?
I'd go even further. When first learning to program, I was thrown more than once by thinking that a keyword meant something like its English definition would suggest. I would have learned quicker had the keywords been randomly selected from Dr. Seuss books.
Why not pay all teachers a reasonable salary, so good ones wouldn't leave just to find a job with fair pay, and so there'd be better teachers available to replace the ineffective? Because this thing will play well, particularly in an election year, but won't cost much. $50M? Pffffft.
Just think how many jobs this will add in the future, all those former COBOL coders retrained to fix Y2K, er, I mean, other-than-English version bugs...
Is it April 1 already? Surely they wouldn't really name it Babylscript, knowing what happened to the Tower's progress after language-splintering, would they?
More evidence of the widely held but completely erroneous belief that outsourcing somehow reduces risk. The author obviously implicitly believes it, without need of evidence. What gets me is that there is so much evidence now of companies that outsourced, suffered the usual problems, then reversed it and fared much better, yet others remain clueless. Being clueless to start with may be forgiveable, but remaining so is not.
So if a plug on a toaster is replaced backwards and someone gets shocked, the plug-replacer gets sued. What if the seam of repaired clothing splits during a presentation, losing the account? Sued?
and inexpensive protection for sensitive expensive devices. A close-by lightning hit can toast most anything, so forget about it. If you want to install a motor-generator for the whole house, get a second mortgage and plan to pay for the extra energy it will waste. Lightning may damage the motor side but might not hurt anything connected to the generator.
Most of the damage my stuff has received during storms has been through low voltage connections (phone lines, network cabling, coax) caused by inductive spikes. Use protection on these connections and/or eliminate them (WiFi, TOSLink, etc).
Agreed. More than a few -> Costco (or other similar). My experience with printers over the years has been that dye transfer stays as-printed longer, but then it might just have been the specific printers I used. For inkjets, the ink itself is critically important (seems obvious, no?); the printer less so.
Some have demonstrated a device that can project a sound to the vicinity of someone's head that will hardly be heard elsewhere, I think the demo was up to 30 feet away, which is good for parking lots, and I bet that will be greatly improved upon. So the car remains silent except to those in the path or converging. Yes, this will take some visual sensors and processing. This IS Slashdot.
The best part is that the "noise" can be personalized. Think of the possibilities.