Time is of the essence in medical delivery. If flying it gets it there faster than driving it in traffic, then this is a big win for the patient -- and that's more important than the wages of the delivery driver!
I usually insist that drone delivery is a bad idea because there is no way of insuring the item is delivered to it's intended recipient. However, if you're delivering to an existing helipad on top of a hospital, it sounds pretty safe. (The other way to effectively "sign" for packages would be to require the phone the item was ordered with to be within bluetooth range of the delivery; with adequate encryption technology, that might work. The current "just leave it on the doorstep" delivery method seems insane to me.)
Doesn't the lowered cost business present another obstacle: anybody can quickly emulate your business model and go into competition with you? I wouldn't invest in Uber because not only is it run by jerks with a business model based on evading taxi licensing, but as soon as they prove themselves legal in any market, it is trivially easy for another startup to start invading that market. On the other hand, my Toyota dealer is now using Uber to replace shuttle drivers taking people from/to car service appointments.
I predicted a few years ago that the new business model would be privately owned. Publicly traded companies are driven only to maximize the next quarters profits, while privately held companies can make long-term plans, provided they have enough cash on hand to stay in business. Being highly motivated to keep the stock speculators happy makes for poor decision making.
The Republican majorities in the House and Senate just renewed the FISA laws back in December, spearheaded by an impassioned speech demanding the Justice Department be allowed to do whatever it felt necessary. And impassioned speech by... Devin Nunes. Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican!
One way of dealing with it costs nothing: switch everybody to a vegetarian diet, and eliminate the billions of methane-spouting animals raised for food, in addition to allowing a lot more land to be used for growing trees.
Donald Trump appears to be doing literally everything within his power to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There are apparently a lot of suicidal people on the earth.
Trees, plants, and algae only sequester carbon for a short period of time, until they decompose and the carbon is released back into the atmosphere... unless you bury them at the bottom of the ocean, which is basically where all that fossil fuel we're been burning comes from in the first place! I suspect oil is pretty much ancient marine algae, unlike the cliche about it being dinosaurs.
Large volcanic eruptions have much the same effect as a nuclear winter. Global warming increases the probably of a large volcanic eruption happening. That's my theory for how the Earth has managed to regulate it's temperature in the long term for billions of years. It's sort of Gaia-like self-regulation. Of course, climate regulation by catastrophic events may have side effects like mass extinction, but that has certainly already happened several times.
How long until we start equipping cargo ships with sales again? That would be significantly lower emissions! They would still need power for the electronics, but you could get most of that from solar. Also, a large double or triple hull catamaran design would be much more useful than the traditional deep keel sailing boat design.
Congratulations, you've just re-invented the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement). My only response: You first!
We're not entering the "Diamond Age", we are entering the graphene age; it's one of the most useful materials ever. Graphene is 100% carbon, and we are just beginning to learn how to use it at a time we have a YUGE surplus of carbon. The costs may be prohibitive now, but hopefully soon we will be making everything out of carbon, as soon as we can figure out how to lower the amount of energy input required. So the old adage about problems actually being opportunities MIGHT turn out to be true in this case. (Currently, graphene is made from methane, not C02. Methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.)
I can't understand why any airline uses Chicago as a hub, it has more weather problems than any other airport I know of. I don't understand why DFW would be a problem; given a choice, I would much rather make my connection in DFW than ORD. (DFW is a much better acronym than ORD too.)
...is there are so many to choose from. We had a standard connector for charging phones: microUSB. Apple and Samsung chose to go with a proprietary connector instead. The lighting cable is at least available from third parties; the Apple version cost $22 at BestBuy. The Samsung Galaxy S8 and presumably the S9 as well use a proprietary cable, only available from Samsung as far as I know. Apple sells a $99 Apple Pen; what monetary interest could they have in supporting a universal stylus?
It will be interesting to see which country becomes the first to mandate all electric cars and make internal combustion cars illegal. It certainly won't be Trump's America! I suspect in might be China that does it; they have an authoritarian government and serious pollution problems.
If the electricity is produced by solar, wind, or hydro, yes. If the electricity is produced by burning coal or natural gas, then gasoline can be cleaner. That seems like a no-brainer to most people, there are huge inefficiencies in the power distribution system.
35 years ago in college, I did a report explaining why we wouldn't be switching to electric cars in the near future: because gasoline has an order of magnitude greater energy density than batteries. 35 years later, that situation hasn't changed much. I am hopeful that eventually someone will produce a cheap, easily manufacturable battery with greater energy density than gasoline, but that day may still be decades away. If electric cars are such a great idea, why do we see so few electric airplanes?
"Intel, whose processors are the heart of about 90 percent of the world's computers..." So all those devices with ARM processors... aren't computers? I'm pretty sure Intel isn't even the most widely used CPU anymore. Everything except desktop PCs has an ARM based CPU now, including billions of embedded devices.
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Because black market organs and blood have a YUGE street value???
Time is of the essence in medical delivery. If flying it gets it there faster than driving it in traffic, then this is a big win for the patient -- and that's more important than the wages of the delivery driver!
I usually insist that drone delivery is a bad idea because there is no way of insuring the item is delivered to it's intended recipient. However, if you're delivering to an existing helipad on top of a hospital, it sounds pretty safe. (The other way to effectively "sign" for packages would be to require the phone the item was ordered with to be within bluetooth range of the delivery; with adequate encryption technology, that might work. The current "just leave it on the doorstep" delivery method seems insane to me.)
Doesn't the lowered cost business present another obstacle: anybody can quickly emulate your business model and go into competition with you? I wouldn't invest in Uber because not only is it run by jerks with a business model based on evading taxi licensing, but as soon as they prove themselves legal in any market, it is trivially easy for another startup to start invading that market. On the other hand, my Toyota dealer is now using Uber to replace shuttle drivers taking people from/to car service appointments.
I predicted a few years ago that the new business model would be privately owned. Publicly traded companies are driven only to maximize the next quarters profits, while privately held companies can make long-term plans, provided they have enough cash on hand to stay in business. Being highly motivated to keep the stock speculators happy makes for poor decision making.
You seem to be confusing FISA with FISTING... better double-check your Russian-English dictionary!
OMG... does delusional Donnie have a slashdot account too now? That guy obviously has WAY too much spare time on his hands!
The Republican majorities in the House and Senate just renewed the FISA laws back in December, spearheaded by an impassioned speech demanding the Justice Department be allowed to do whatever it felt necessary. And impassioned speech by... Devin Nunes. Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican!
One way of dealing with it costs nothing: switch everybody to a vegetarian diet, and eliminate the billions of methane-spouting animals raised for food, in addition to allowing a lot more land to be used for growing trees.
Donald Trump appears to be doing literally everything within his power to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There are apparently a lot of suicidal people on the earth.
Trees, plants, and algae only sequester carbon for a short period of time, until they decompose and the carbon is released back into the atmosphere... unless you bury them at the bottom of the ocean, which is basically where all that fossil fuel we're been burning comes from in the first place! I suspect oil is pretty much ancient marine algae, unlike the cliche about it being dinosaurs.
Large volcanic eruptions have much the same effect as a nuclear winter. Global warming increases the probably of a large volcanic eruption happening. That's my theory for how the Earth has managed to regulate it's temperature in the long term for billions of years. It's sort of Gaia-like self-regulation. Of course, climate regulation by catastrophic events may have side effects like mass extinction, but that has certainly already happened several times.
How long until we start equipping cargo ships with sales again? That would be significantly lower emissions! They would still need power for the electronics, but you could get most of that from solar. Also, a large double or triple hull catamaran design would be much more useful than the traditional deep keel sailing boat design.
Congratulations, you've just re-invented the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement). My only response: You first!
We're not entering the "Diamond Age", we are entering the graphene age; it's one of the most useful materials ever. Graphene is 100% carbon, and we are just beginning to learn how to use it at a time we have a YUGE surplus of carbon. The costs may be prohibitive now, but hopefully soon we will be making everything out of carbon, as soon as we can figure out how to lower the amount of energy input required. So the old adage about problems actually being opportunities MIGHT turn out to be true in this case. (Currently, graphene is made from methane, not C02. Methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.)
We use to call Alaska Airlines "Elastic Airlines" because their schedules were so flexible. That might be partially due to weather, though.
I can't understand why any airline uses Chicago as a hub, it has more weather problems than any other airport I know of. I don't understand why DFW would be a problem; given a choice, I would much rather make my connection in DFW than ORD. (DFW is a much better acronym than ORD too.)
...is there are so many to choose from. We had a standard connector for charging phones: microUSB. Apple and Samsung chose to go with a proprietary connector instead. The lighting cable is at least available from third parties; the Apple version cost $22 at BestBuy. The Samsung Galaxy S8 and presumably the S9 as well use a proprietary cable, only available from Samsung as far as I know. Apple sells a $99 Apple Pen; what monetary interest could they have in supporting a universal stylus?
It will be interesting to see which country becomes the first to mandate all electric cars and make internal combustion cars illegal. It certainly won't be Trump's America! I suspect in might be China that does it; they have an authoritarian government and serious pollution problems.
What's the amortized costs of your $30,000 solar system that Trump just greatly increased the cost of by adding a 30% tariff?
Wind power doesn't work very well in Texas, because the wind doesn't blow there -- it sucks!
If the electricity is produced by solar, wind, or hydro, yes. If the electricity is produced by burning coal or natural gas, then gasoline can be cleaner. That seems like a no-brainer to most people, there are huge inefficiencies in the power distribution system.
35 years ago in college, I did a report explaining why we wouldn't be switching to electric cars in the near future: because gasoline has an order of magnitude greater energy density than batteries. 35 years later, that situation hasn't changed much. I am hopeful that eventually someone will produce a cheap, easily manufacturable battery with greater energy density than gasoline, but that day may still be decades away. If electric cars are such a great idea, why do we see so few electric airplanes?
"Captain, I canna change the laws of thermodynamics!" In other words, I'll believe it when I see it.
"Intel, whose processors are the heart of about 90 percent of the world's computers..." So all those devices with ARM processors... aren't computers? I'm pretty sure Intel isn't even the most widely used CPU anymore. Everything except desktop PCs has an ARM based CPU now, including billions of embedded devices.