I And no, nuclear power is not an option in the long run because there isn't enough nuclear fuel out there for more than 50 years or so.
Actually no. Here's the most relevant part of the wiki article. If wiki's not good enough for you I can post a better citation later but this particular article seams pretty well cited so it aught to be enough. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Resources_and_reserves
Anyway the long and short of it is that per 2006 consumption rates we have 100 years of "economical" Uranium reserves. I can see how you'd like to shorten that to 50 years by saying "we'll have to use more if we build more plants". True but "economical" only counts 5.5 million tons known to be in the ground in easy to use oxides. There's an estimated 35 million tons of ore out there not counted in that projection and the _4.6 BILLION tons of the shit in seawater. And it's also not counting fuel reprocessing (which vastly increases the efficiency of the system at the cost of having that's a step or two closer to being weapons grade). Also ignoring alternative fuel elements like thorium(proven to work and even used to generate power on a limited basis, but ignored in the 1950s because you couldn't make bombs from any of the daughter elements... ). By the way we have a shit ton of thorium too. I could go on but I think you get the point.
If you look at it rationally, and are willing to aim big with your public projects and scientific endeavors then it's possible to have the whole fucking planet living like we do. The resources of earth are limited but with better efficiency we can make the most of them until we can harness the resources of the solar system, which should give us a long as fucking time to get our shit together. Once we're out there we pretty much have enough shit to last us till the sun burns out ya, know?
In any event, we already make enough food to feed the planet and have the energy resources to bring the whole world up to at least a high second-world standard of living. The only reason the masses remain hungry and power, information and technology don't flow is because the political will is lacked in the fat wasteful west and the corrupt local governments don't want their populace to be better off. It's easier to control someone who lives is a hut with no electricity, is illiterate, has no tv, no radio, no internet. And we in the west let the dictators rule because they give us an important resource, or because they act as our proxies or because their countries and the people therein are just worthless and ignorable to us because they're poor, brown and don't have anything we need.
Then I'm confused, what do you propose? Green technologies depend on power far more than old ones. You can build a 1970s car just for the cost of computers in a Prius. Windmills kill birds. River dams kill fish. Geothermal is not available everywhere. Solar is an option only for well-lit areas (goodbye, Norway and Finland.) Fusion is 20 years away, as usual. Should we, perhaps, commit a collective suicide, or live like Amish do?
As for you, Have you been in a 70s car? Fat gas guzzling pieces of crap if American and tiny underpowered deathtrap if European or Japanese. I'd take the Prius over that any day of the week and there are much better techs in that vein coming too. Plug-in hybrids, pure electric vehicles, new storage technologies, ETC. We can get better performance out of electrics too if you hadn't noticed the Tesla.:)
As for the rest of your little list of lies, windmills killing birds is a myth, fish ladders and other similar technologies allow dams that, while not 100% safe for fish give a good enough survival rate for the fish to keep on going just fine (much more of a threat to fish populations is the overfishing, especially by our lovely friends the Japanese (though we gaijin do our fair share of it
I don't know what kind of weed you've been smoking, but maybe I should get some because mine generally doesn't cause me to see 'pretty colors'. Perchance were you thinking of lsd or some other hallucinogen?
But would they have still happened if the community hadn't wanted them to happen? Like most witch trials they rapidly became an excuse for the majority of the community to persecute those that they didn't like. If the majority of the witnesses said they'd seen nothing to indicate witchcraft, if the majority of town acted to protect the accused do you think things would have happened the way they did?
No, they may not have occurred under a democracy but they are a good example of mob justice and the flaws inherent in expecting a straight up democratic solution to protect the rights and interests of minorities.
If they're already paying for it then the citizens of the UK should be able to pirate as much as they want. The record companies shouldn't be able to double dip like this...
Man I fucking hate that phrase. There are plenty of nonreligious people in the military and plenty of people who don't turn to god just because they're in a life threatening situation. I know you were making a joke but every time that old chestnut gets dragged out it makes a mockery of those who are willing to put their life on the line for country and kin knowing that if they're right in their beliefs then death is nonexistence and if they're wrong then it's probably some sort of hell (most religions take a rather dim view of non-believers...). Seems a hell of a lot braver than someone who goes into combat expecting to go to heaven if they buy the farm...
That was one of the shittiest articles I've had the displeasure of reading in a while. Every sentence had about 8 adjectives in it and at least half of them were misspelled, misused or made up...
Why would you want an app that needs better hardware? You should be content with punchcards. Scratch that, you should be happy with an abacus, in my day we had to count out binary on our fingers (we only had two of 'em 'cause the rest fell off from frostbite while we were walking to school (uphill both ways) through 11 feet of snow in negative 50 degree weather) and we were happy to have that. My grandpappy didn't even know how to count 'cause no one had invented numbers yet! Now GET OFFA MY LAWN!
Yes, but no one is saying that it's a 100% proven fact.
Given the available data though, it would take a drooling idiot not to realize that it's the best explanation for the way life exists on this planet that we currently have.
And really, that's what science is all about, finding the best explanation we can for the data available. Just because evolution isn't 100% proven doesn't mean it's wrong, so unless you have a superior theory you'd like the bring out you need to shut the fuck up and stop splitting hairs.
And living naked, in a cave, with no fire while living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is the natural way too. You can go first and let me know how it works out...
Or you can leave the Trashheap State and the city behind and drive a few hours to Upstate or CNY:p. Not quite as good for stargazing as the dark heart of Africa or whatever, but there are still parts of the state you can see the stars from:).
Slashdot Mirror
I And no, nuclear power is not an option in the long run because there isn't enough nuclear fuel out there for more than 50 years or so.
Actually no. Here's the most relevant part of the wiki article. If wiki's not good enough for you I can post a better citation later but this particular article seams pretty well cited so it aught to be enough. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Resources_and_reserves
Anyway the long and short of it is that per 2006 consumption rates we have 100 years of "economical" Uranium reserves. I can see how you'd like to shorten that to 50 years by saying "we'll have to use more if we build more plants". True but "economical" only counts 5.5 million tons known to be in the ground in easy to use oxides. There's an estimated 35 million tons of ore out there not counted in that projection and the _4.6 BILLION tons of the shit in seawater. And it's also not counting fuel reprocessing (which vastly increases the efficiency of the system at the cost of having that's a step or two closer to being weapons grade). Also ignoring alternative fuel elements like thorium(proven to work and even used to generate power on a limited basis, but ignored in the 1950s because you couldn't make bombs from any of the daughter elements... ). By the way we have a shit ton of thorium too. I could go on but I think you get the point.
If you look at it rationally, and are willing to aim big with your public projects and scientific endeavors then it's possible to have the whole fucking planet living like we do. The resources of earth are limited but with better efficiency we can make the most of them until we can harness the resources of the solar system, which should give us a long as fucking time to get our shit together. Once we're out there we pretty much have enough shit to last us till the sun burns out ya, know?
In any event, we already make enough food to feed the planet and have the energy resources to bring the whole world up to at least a high second-world standard of living. The only reason the masses remain hungry and power, information and technology don't flow is because the political will is lacked in the fat wasteful west and the corrupt local governments don't want their populace to be better off. It's easier to control someone who lives is a hut with no electricity, is illiterate, has no tv, no radio, no internet. And we in the west let the dictators rule because they give us an important resource, or because they act as our proxies or because their countries and the people therein are just worthless and ignorable to us because they're poor, brown and don't have anything we need.
Then I'm confused, what do you propose? Green technologies depend on power far more than old ones. You can build a 1970s car just for the cost of computers in a Prius. Windmills kill birds. River dams kill fish. Geothermal is not available everywhere. Solar is an option only for well-lit areas (goodbye, Norway and Finland.) Fusion is 20 years away, as usual. Should we, perhaps, commit a collective suicide, or live like Amish do?
As for you, Have you been in a 70s car? Fat gas guzzling pieces of crap if American and tiny underpowered deathtrap if European or Japanese. I'd take the Prius over that any day of the week and there are much better techs in that vein coming too. Plug-in hybrids, pure electric vehicles, new storage technologies, ETC. We can get better performance out of electrics too if you hadn't noticed the Tesla. :)
As for the rest of your little list of lies, windmills killing birds is a myth, fish ladders and other similar technologies allow dams that, while not 100% safe for fish give a good enough survival rate for the fish to keep on going just fine (much more of a threat to fish populations is the overfishing, especially by our lovely friends the Japanese (though we gaijin do our fair share of it
Their chart was not very good. Here's their data in a more sensible layout... http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tOpeMuKeVXb_NwKGdLU3rRg&output=html
English cooking not agree? Though I'd hardly call it noble...
AND A COMPLETE LACK OF CAPITALIZATION AMUSES YOU, DOESN'T IT?
random text because slashdot doesn't like so many capitals... random text because slashdot doesn't like so many capitals...
The scary thing is that you could probably actually get away with that as long as you make sure to put "On a computer:" at the start...
I don't know what kind of weed you've been smoking, but maybe I should get some because mine generally doesn't cause me to see 'pretty colors'. Perchance were you thinking of lsd or some other hallucinogen?
Looks like the linked is /.ed...
But would they have still happened if the community hadn't wanted them to happen? Like most witch trials they rapidly became an excuse for the majority of the community to persecute those that they didn't like. If the majority of the witnesses said they'd seen nothing to indicate witchcraft, if the majority of town acted to protect the accused do you think things would have happened the way they did?
No, they may not have occurred under a democracy but they are a good example of mob justice and the flaws inherent in expecting a straight up democratic solution to protect the rights and interests of minorities.
If they're already paying for it then the citizens of the UK should be able to pirate as much as they want. The record companies shouldn't be able to double dip like this...
Posting to remove accidental moderation...
Man I fucking hate that phrase. There are plenty of nonreligious people in the military and plenty of people who don't turn to god just because they're in a life threatening situation. I know you were making a joke but every time that old chestnut gets dragged out it makes a mockery of those who are willing to put their life on the line for country and kin knowing that if they're right in their beliefs then death is nonexistence and if they're wrong then it's probably some sort of hell (most religions take a rather dim view of non-believers...). Seems a hell of a lot braver than someone who goes into combat expecting to go to heaven if they buy the farm...
That was one of the shittiest articles I've had the displeasure of reading in a while. Every sentence had about 8 adjectives in it and at least half of them were misspelled, misused or made up...
Why would you want an app that needs better hardware? You should be content with punchcards. Scratch that, you should be happy with an abacus, in my day we had to count out binary on our fingers (we only had two of 'em 'cause the rest fell off from frostbite while we were walking to school (uphill both ways) through 11 feet of snow in negative 50 degree weather) and we were happy to have that. My grandpappy didn't even know how to count 'cause no one had invented numbers yet! Now GET OFFA MY LAWN!
It's spelled flaccid.
To make the joke work better you should have spelled it Shirley...
Yes, but no one is saying that it's a 100% proven fact.
Given the available data though, it would take a drooling idiot not to realize that it's the best explanation for the way life exists on this planet that we currently have.
And really, that's what science is all about, finding the best explanation we can for the data available. Just because evolution isn't 100% proven doesn't mean it's wrong, so unless you have a superior theory you'd like the bring out you need to shut the fuck up and stop splitting hairs.
I've noticed that people who make hasty generalizations are generally douchebags ;).
Fah Q and the horse you rode in on?
And living naked, in a cave, with no fire while living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is the natural way too. You can go first and let me know how it works out...
That's more or less my normal bed time :D.
Or you can leave the Trashheap State and the city behind and drive a few hours to Upstate or CNY :p. Not quite as good for stargazing as the dark heart of Africa or whatever, but there are still parts of the state you can see the stars from :).
WOOSH goes the joke, right over the moderator's head...
Or stop being so picky about your music, broaden your tastes and learn to enjoy things that don't fit into your specific little boxes...
Which is why we need a -1: Wrong moderation so that inaccurate posts can be marked down without passing judgment on the intent of the poster.
PS: That's old, I'm a physics major now.