I find the 9/11 "truth" movement particularly annoying. They've let themselves get mired in so much hysterical bullshit that they've made a phenomenal smoke screen protecting Bush and Co from their (in my opinion criminally negligent) handling of the event. At the very least, after the first plane went down, the others should have been blown out the sky by fighter planes. There was plenty of time, and it's not like the didn't know which planes were hijacked, but instead Bush just twiddled his thumbs and let the WTC get hit again, directly causing the deaths of thousands of people. By making so many absurd claims they've made anybody saying anything about how 9/11 occurred look like a psychotic, which is disgusting.
I've done some research into it, and I figure you're probably better off buying one of the 12W foldable solar panels (or the rollable ones, but they're even more expensive, and give even worse W/area), and tying it down over your Panniers than to use some kind of generator system on a bike. On the upside, depending on the rest of system, next years ultra mobile parts based on Intel's Silverthorne ought to be pretty awesome for this kind of thing, and hopefully offer performance in the range of 500Mhz Pentium 3's.
I think it's worth noting that I said "do not sound the same" not "can not sound the same." Nobody has, yet, devoted the research and created a truly indistinguishable DSP simulation of Vacuum tube guitar amps. Which isn't to say that it can't be done, be I maintain that it has not. Such an amp would likely be very expensive, and its far cheaper to just continue to make and sell tube amplifiers.
Most of the replies have been trashing me for asserting that commonly available $200-$300 DSP guitar amps, don't sound the same as $800 to Many thousands of dollar tube amps; despite the difference in woods, cabinet construction, and speakers that (usually, I'm not claiming that there are no shysters selling snake oil) exist between the two classes of products. Even if the mythical perfect DSP simulation of a tube amp existed, the other differences would still cause differences in sound.
You are right about the placebo affect though, which tends to muddy the waters significantly, but I'd argue that there is also a "reverse placebo" effect going on as well, where people hear so much Bullshit about a class of products they refuse to listen to any reasonable discussion on the topic. There is so much mystical talk about vacuum tubes that when you start talking about how their (very real) different distortion characteristics impact the sound of an instrument, people dismiss you. This attitude is simply ignorant, just as much so as people recommending a generic whitebox PCs over an IBM z-Series mainframe, when the situation calls for the latter.
The only thing I can come up with is their resilience to voltage spikes, cosmic rays...
This is actually related to one of the major reasons: Power Handling. Vacuum tubes are still used for High Power transmitter amplifiers, much greater than 1kw.
Also: The "Virtual Tube" DSP amps do not sound the same, regardless of what a tone-deaf Electrical Engineer says. Musicians are "Audiophiles" in the derogatory sense you intend, although they usually audiophiles in the true sense of being lovers of sound and music. They may not know EE, but that doesn't mean they don't know anything. Skilled musicians DO know music, and there is a reason they prefer tube amps for Guitars, Bass, etc.
Or maybe they, unlike you, have a proper understanding of the risks involved. That the worst-case Doomsday scenario for this facility, is a repeat of the "disaster" that occurred in 1958 at the same facility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Research_Universal_Reactor A breakdown occurred, the facility got shut down for a few months while clean-up and repairs take place. Total fatalities: 0. Ultimate impact: Imperceptible, monitoring of staff involved over subsequent decades showed no sign of harm.
Like it or not, "Nuclear Stuff" just isn't that dangerous. Nuclear Bombs went off on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and people still LIVE at both sites, those bombs were primitive and dirty too (although not intentionally dirty, just a consequence of being the 2nd and 3rd nuclear warheads ever built). Despite all the detonations that were set off by the US military on, in, and over Bikini Atoll, the islands are even barren. Shit grows there. Trees, plants, and even animals. The Reef is actually a major SCUBA diving destination, for its rich ecosystem. If 1% of the fear associated with Nuclear Power were justified, that island would be as barren as Mars, but it's not, and it was subject to orders of magnitude worse events (repeated direct Thermonuclear fireballs) than Chernobyl.
This is the "correct" solution, by which I mean the one that insures both highest quality and compatibility.
On Macs (on which I use this solution) There are tools worth mentioning, because as mentioned iTunes doesn't support FLAC (BAD Apple!) Play http://sbooth.org/Play/ is an audio player with support for open formats, with full support for ReplayGain tags. Personally, I use Cog, because I like the interface better, but it doesn't support Replaygain (despite fairly constant cries to the developer for this feature). Max http://sbooth.org/Max/ is an audio format converter for OS X. It has every feature I need to be able to convert FLACs to MP3 (or whatever) and translates tags perfectly.
Unfortunately, No, the mean straight mp3s. Because mp3s are now like.doc files apparently. Even though there are alternatives that are superior, and yes, cheaper, people still want mp3s the way they want Microsoft Office.
But, in Japan, Why the Hell would you want a car anyway? Japan is a modern country with an extensive public transportation system. In reality, what's going on is that car owners are being made to pay the real costs of car ownership, and you're bitching about it.
As long as Mass Effect sells well, I suspect Bioware will be left more or less intact for a couple of years. I may be wrong, but usually its taken EA at least a couple of years to completely digest and destroy a newly acquired development house.
woops, sorry. Ignore the my immediately earlier post, it makes no sense and was regarding Solar panel efficiencies. Now I understand what you are saying, and you're right.
Gee thanks. That still gives a range (0,.3). Likely values are probably (0.05, 0.20). The closer they are to the upper part of the range, the better, but it would still be nice to know.
I disagree with this attitude. Consider this: in talking about Continental European Politics in the 1940's, does it make sense to call any of: Adolph Hitler, Bonito Mussolini, Fransisco Franco, or Phillipe Petain left wing? Are any of these leaders liberal? No, they're all fascists in the extreme.
What's really pathetic is that no-one in this thread can tell the difference between "liberal/Left-Wing" and "Democrat." Let me say this as loudly and clearly as I possibly can, "MOST DEMOCRATS ARE CONSERVATIVE. HILLARY CLINTON IS A RIGHT WINGER. TIPPER GORE WAS/IS CONSERVATIVE. BILL CLINTON WAS A CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT."
Now, yes, Hillary Clinton is left of Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan/George Bush (either/both), however, if you think that means she's a liberal, you're insane. She's a 100% Pro-Big Business Conservative. She is somewhat to the right of old style Moderates like Dwight D. Eisenhower.
That people can't tell the difference just goes to show how far to the right the Corporate media mono culture has pushed the political discourse in the United States of America. A very good guide-line to differentiate between the two is this: if someone wants to tell you how to live because it is supposedly "immoral" they're a conservative/Rightist. If someone wants to limit how Corporations can behave, they're a Progressive/Leftist. Someone that argues that the only rights are property rights? Conservative. Flat Tax? Conservative. Argues that people have an obligation to help their fellow man? Progressive.
Also, people very rarely hold uniformly Left or Right viewpoints.
How bad is it? The best Current Production Silicon Panels push around 30%, giving around 250-300Watts/m^2 (depending on latitude, season, and air quality, it can be even less). Of course, they're also relatively heavy, and quite expensive usually around $1000-$2000/m^2 (driven by low production capacities and very high demand). If these things can do at least 15-20% with flexible panels, They'd easily be able to get the prices I listed above just on the basis of being able to completely cover buildings and RVs (solar is big in the RV and marine industries) roofs with them.
For all the naysayers talking about how energy demand keeps skyrocketing, that's why we're fucked. There is no way in hell we can keep up with demand. It just isn't going to happen. We could have, but we would have had to start building new massive nuclear plants back in the early '90's with the first ones coming on-line TODAY. It ain't happening. We WILL (and have already seen) see brown and blackouts. The guys who've already invested $10,000+ making their houses mostly grid independent with solar roofs, wind generators, and huge Deep-cycle AGM Marine battery installations will be OK (probably, assuming no riots and a minimum of civil unrest) But unless you're a $50+Millionaire, you're probably at significant risk in the coming decades. There is no way to keep up with demand.
Water Shortages (like Atlanta is currently experiences) will probably only get much worse as well. This too could have been avoided, but we would have needed to have the first nuclear powered Reverse Osmosis Desalination plants to supply major metropolitan and agricultural areas at the most risk, coming on-line TODAY. If we started building tomorrow (not happening) it'd still be a good ten years before capacity got up enough to keep us in the clear.
Oh, and by the way, the recent "discovery" that reverse Osmosis water won't work for agriculture, because its mineral content is too low - Great find. Completely ignores that when you run the plants the two outputs are - Water, and a great big pile of SALT. If need be, you can just add measured quantities back in at the end.
I see a lot of this revisionism as pandering to the religious right, and conservatives in general.
I also maintain that the continued escalation of restrictions on youth behavior is THE major cause of youth violence today. Children and Teens in my Grandparent's time, and my parents time routinely engaged in (nonviolent, but dangerous) behavior and received mostly slaps on the wrist (sometimes literally!). Nowadays, similar behavior results in prolonged probation and additional punishments at best, and Jail Time (in adult facilities!) at worst. And people are astonished with teens today crack and start shooting up their schools! Not to mention record juvenile suicide rates and other (in my opinion clear) indications of severe societal issues.
Ga Zuh? "His best analysis was that we'd have to blow the atmosphere off by hitting the planet with asteroids. Not exactly as easy feat."
How exactly is that NOT easy? At least in any context where you're seriously discussing terraforming planets, striking the targets with planetoids is as easy as it gets. All you have to do is go out and identify likely sized asteroids (we're well on our way to doing that, with various catalogs of solar system objects), and then move them in to place using well placed nuclear detonations, a process only trivially (again, triviality being defined in terms of our discussion) more difficult than many maneuvers we use for solar system exploration today.
I'd also argue that straight up nuclear detonations on Venus would be another viable route. Correctly planned, you could jettison quite a bit of the atmosphere directly that way. The other big problem with Venus, the extremely slow rotation, can be resolved using similar strategies.
The Kolb Firestar, a medium weight ultralight, has a gross vehicle weight of 725lbs. http://www.ultralightnews.com/top20ssul/kolb_firestar.htm Even a grossly obese trainer ultralight (with two seats), fully loaded rarely exceeds 500Kg.
Depends on what the rock is made of. During research for project Orion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion), They found that you could coat a specially designed metal plate in graphite based lubricant and it would survive repeated nuclear blasts with occasional reapplication of the lubricant. Also noted in the linked article was that during the Castle Bravo Nuclear test graphite coated steel spheres were placed at a nuclear test site and recovered afterwards intact, so it is certainly possible.
However, I acknowledge that in general, you are correct. Random chunk of silicate rock: not going to survive a nuclear blast. However, objects certainly can. Further evidenced by the existence of meteorite fragments that survive to be found on Earth's surface.
I find such research absolutely fascinating. I find collective evidence of Corvids, Parrots (like Alex), and a few other species to be fairly strong indications that at least some of these animals are at least as intelligent as a Human Moron (by which I mean the archaic term for what is now "mild mental retardation" which corresponds to IQs between 50 and 60). I am fairly convinced that Alex was even more capable.
Exactly, how many human computer users do so completely through conditioned responses with no understanding of why their actions achieve the ends that they seek?
One thing: They need to be properly connected at the binding posts.
Trouble is, there really are differences in cable, and there's plenty of poor quality cable out there that'll turn green in a few months, but there's so much bullshit being peddled its hard to find just standard good quality cables. A frequent problem with video and A/V cable is that connectors are poorly soldered onto the internal wires, and the connections break over time (Monster Cables frequently have this problem).
This is what's frustrating as someone who really loves music. There are valid (from an Electrical Engineering perspective) differences between components (power handling capability of the transformers in receivers and amplifiers, speaker efficiency, flatness of speaker frequency response) but there's so much garbage and mysticism being touted, hardly anybody offers the really significant information.
This is actually a point of Republican strategy. They can prevent, or cripple, any new initiatives by Democrats (Like Universal Health Care, and they've been trying to gut Social Security since day 1) simply by ramping up deficit spending so the budget isn't there.
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I find the 9/11 "truth" movement particularly annoying. They've let themselves get mired in so much hysterical bullshit that they've made a phenomenal smoke screen protecting Bush and Co from their (in my opinion criminally negligent) handling of the event. At the very least, after the first plane went down, the others should have been blown out the sky by fighter planes. There was plenty of time, and it's not like the didn't know which planes were hijacked, but instead Bush just twiddled his thumbs and let the WTC get hit again, directly causing the deaths of thousands of people. By making so many absurd claims they've made anybody saying anything about how 9/11 occurred look like a psychotic, which is disgusting.
I've done some research into it, and I figure you're probably better off buying one of the 12W foldable solar panels (or the rollable ones, but they're even more expensive, and give even worse W/area), and tying it down over your Panniers than to use some kind of generator system on a bike. On the upside, depending on the rest of system, next years ultra mobile parts based on Intel's Silverthorne ought to be pretty awesome for this kind of thing, and hopefully offer performance in the range of 500Mhz Pentium 3's.
Most of the replies have been trashing me for asserting that commonly available $200-$300 DSP guitar amps, don't sound the same as $800 to Many thousands of dollar tube amps; despite the difference in woods, cabinet construction, and speakers that (usually, I'm not claiming that there are no shysters selling snake oil) exist between the two classes of products. Even if the mythical perfect DSP simulation of a tube amp existed, the other differences would still cause differences in sound.
You are right about the placebo affect though, which tends to muddy the waters significantly, but I'd argue that there is also a "reverse placebo" effect going on as well, where people hear so much Bullshit about a class of products they refuse to listen to any reasonable discussion on the topic. There is so much mystical talk about vacuum tubes that when you start talking about how their (very real) different distortion characteristics impact the sound of an instrument, people dismiss you. This attitude is simply ignorant, just as much so as people recommending a generic whitebox PCs over an IBM z-Series mainframe, when the situation calls for the latter.
This is actually related to one of the major reasons: Power Handling. Vacuum tubes are still used for High Power transmitter amplifiers, much greater than 1kw.
Also: The "Virtual Tube" DSP amps do not sound the same, regardless of what a tone-deaf Electrical Engineer says. Musicians are "Audiophiles" in the derogatory sense you intend, although they usually audiophiles in the true sense of being lovers of sound and music. They may not know EE, but that doesn't mean they don't know anything. Skilled musicians DO know music, and there is a reason they prefer tube amps for Guitars, Bass, etc.
should read "the islands are not even barren."
Like it or not, "Nuclear Stuff" just isn't that dangerous. Nuclear Bombs went off on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and people still LIVE at both sites, those bombs were primitive and dirty too (although not intentionally dirty, just a consequence of being the 2nd and 3rd nuclear warheads ever built). Despite all the detonations that were set off by the US military on, in, and over Bikini Atoll, the islands are even barren. Shit grows there. Trees, plants, and even animals. The Reef is actually a major SCUBA diving destination, for its rich ecosystem. If 1% of the fear associated with Nuclear Power were justified, that island would be as barren as Mars, but it's not, and it was subject to orders of magnitude worse events (repeated direct Thermonuclear fireballs) than Chernobyl.
This is the "correct" solution, by which I mean the one that insures both highest quality and compatibility.
On Macs (on which I use this solution) There are tools worth mentioning, because as mentioned iTunes doesn't support FLAC (BAD Apple!) Play http://sbooth.org/Play/ is an audio player with support for open formats, with full support for ReplayGain tags. Personally, I use Cog, because I like the interface better, but it doesn't support Replaygain (despite fairly constant cries to the developer for this feature). Max http://sbooth.org/Max/ is an audio format converter for OS X. It has every feature I need to be able to convert FLACs to MP3 (or whatever) and translates tags perfectly.
Unfortunately, No, the mean straight mp3s. Because mp3s are now like .doc files apparently. Even though there are alternatives that are superior, and yes, cheaper, people still want mp3s the way they want Microsoft Office.
But, in Japan, Why the Hell would you want a car anyway? Japan is a modern country with an extensive public transportation system. In reality, what's going on is that car owners are being made to pay the real costs of car ownership, and you're bitching about it.
As long as Mass Effect sells well, I suspect Bioware will be left more or less intact for a couple of years. I may be wrong, but usually its taken EA at least a couple of years to completely digest and destroy a newly acquired development house.
woops, sorry. Ignore the my immediately earlier post, it makes no sense and was regarding Solar panel efficiencies. Now I understand what you are saying, and you're right.
Gee thanks. That still gives a range (0, .3). Likely values are probably (0.05, 0.20). The closer they are to the upper part of the range, the better, but it would still be nice to know.
I disagree with this attitude. Consider this: in talking about Continental European Politics in the 1940's, does it make sense to call any of: Adolph Hitler, Bonito Mussolini, Fransisco Franco, or Phillipe Petain left wing? Are any of these leaders liberal? No, they're all fascists in the extreme.
Now, yes, Hillary Clinton is left of Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan/George Bush (either/both), however, if you think that means she's a liberal, you're insane. She's a 100% Pro-Big Business Conservative. She is somewhat to the right of old style Moderates like Dwight D. Eisenhower.
That people can't tell the difference just goes to show how far to the right the Corporate media mono culture has pushed the political discourse in the United States of America. A very good guide-line to differentiate between the two is this: if someone wants to tell you how to live because it is supposedly "immoral" they're a conservative/Rightist. If someone wants to limit how Corporations can behave, they're a Progressive/Leftist. Someone that argues that the only rights are property rights? Conservative. Flat Tax? Conservative. Argues that people have an obligation to help their fellow man? Progressive.
Also, people very rarely hold uniformly Left or Right viewpoints.
For all the naysayers talking about how energy demand keeps skyrocketing, that's why we're fucked. There is no way in hell we can keep up with demand. It just isn't going to happen. We could have, but we would have had to start building new massive nuclear plants back in the early '90's with the first ones coming on-line TODAY. It ain't happening. We WILL (and have already seen) see brown and blackouts. The guys who've already invested $10,000+ making their houses mostly grid independent with solar roofs, wind generators, and huge Deep-cycle AGM Marine battery installations will be OK (probably, assuming no riots and a minimum of civil unrest) But unless you're a $50+Millionaire, you're probably at significant risk in the coming decades. There is no way to keep up with demand.
Water Shortages (like Atlanta is currently experiences) will probably only get much worse as well. This too could have been avoided, but we would have needed to have the first nuclear powered Reverse Osmosis Desalination plants to supply major metropolitan and agricultural areas at the most risk, coming on-line TODAY. If we started building tomorrow (not happening) it'd still be a good ten years before capacity got up enough to keep us in the clear.
Oh, and by the way, the recent "discovery" that reverse Osmosis water won't work for agriculture, because its mineral content is too low - Great find. Completely ignores that when you run the plants the two outputs are - Water, and a great big pile of SALT. If need be, you can just add measured quantities back in at the end.
I also maintain that the continued escalation of restrictions on youth behavior is THE major cause of youth violence today. Children and Teens in my Grandparent's time, and my parents time routinely engaged in (nonviolent, but dangerous) behavior and received mostly slaps on the wrist (sometimes literally!). Nowadays, similar behavior results in prolonged probation and additional punishments at best, and Jail Time (in adult facilities!) at worst. And people are astonished with teens today crack and start shooting up their schools! Not to mention record juvenile suicide rates and other (in my opinion clear) indications of severe societal issues.
I think you meant "We'll all be walking and living in dark, unairconditioned caves before the portable hydrogen economy ever gets going"
How exactly is that NOT easy? At least in any context where you're seriously discussing terraforming planets, striking the targets with planetoids is as easy as it gets. All you have to do is go out and identify likely sized asteroids (we're well on our way to doing that, with various catalogs of solar system objects), and then move them in to place using well placed nuclear detonations, a process only trivially (again, triviality being defined in terms of our discussion) more difficult than many maneuvers we use for solar system exploration today.
I'd also argue that straight up nuclear detonations on Venus would be another viable route. Correctly planned, you could jettison quite a bit of the atmosphere directly that way. The other big problem with Venus, the extremely slow rotation, can be resolved using similar strategies.
The Kolb Firestar, a medium weight ultralight, has a gross vehicle weight of 725lbs. http://www.ultralightnews.com/top20ssul/kolb_firestar.htm Even a grossly obese trainer ultralight (with two seats), fully loaded rarely exceeds 500Kg.
However, I acknowledge that in general, you are correct. Random chunk of silicate rock: not going to survive a nuclear blast. However, objects certainly can. Further evidenced by the existence of meteorite fragments that survive to be found on Earth's surface.
I find such research absolutely fascinating. I find collective evidence of Corvids, Parrots (like Alex), and a few other species to be fairly strong indications that at least some of these animals are at least as intelligent as a Human Moron (by which I mean the archaic term for what is now "mild mental retardation" which corresponds to IQs between 50 and 60). I am fairly convinced that Alex was even more capable.
Exactly, how many human computer users do so completely through conditioned responses with no understanding of why their actions achieve the ends that they seek?
Trouble is, there really are differences in cable, and there's plenty of poor quality cable out there that'll turn green in a few months, but there's so much bullshit being peddled its hard to find just standard good quality cables. A frequent problem with video and A/V cable is that connectors are poorly soldered onto the internal wires, and the connections break over time (Monster Cables frequently have this problem).
This is what's frustrating as someone who really loves music. There are valid (from an Electrical Engineering perspective) differences between components (power handling capability of the transformers in receivers and amplifiers, speaker efficiency, flatness of speaker frequency response) but there's so much garbage and mysticism being touted, hardly anybody offers the really significant information.
Actually they're injuries from drunken brawls during the British version of Football.
This is actually a point of Republican strategy. They can prevent, or cripple, any new initiatives by Democrats (Like Universal Health Care, and they've been trying to gut Social Security since day 1) simply by ramping up deficit spending so the budget isn't there.