Don't get me wrong, it was nearly catastrophic. But it wasn't catastrophic.
There was a small amount of radioactivity released, and it blew out to sea.
The thing there was the most of in the accident was terror. Honestly, it's pretty typical. People just don't understand radioactivity, and it is invisible, so they go way off the handle when having to deal with it. Like people freaking out over irradiating food.
I wish TMI hadn't happened. Honestly if we designed a standardized reactor now with modern equipment and controls, we would no longer be running much risk of accidents. And if we used a pebble bed reactor, even less so. But TMI (caused by the disorganized designs of those reactors and a dumbo) pretty much scotched the building of new commercial reactors.
I guess you could put a camera under there to see the color.
Or you could just put a temperature sensor on there (with alarm) instead. It's cheaper.
BTW, intake manifolds should run pretty much at ambient. You want cool air into your engine, and a hot intake manifold would run counter to that. Additionally, intake manifolds are naturally cooled by the cool air coming in.
As far as I can tell, many of the Netscape people are over at Google now anyway. I happened to be there on the day Firefox 1.5 went gold and saw them whooping it up a bit.
I presume Google pays them (and lets them use their free cafeteria, etc.), but I dunno who they really work for (report to).
If you meant drilled oil, perhaps yes, it could peak in 2007. I don't think so, but it could be.
But there are projects to unlock the oil sands in Canada, they'll be online and working soon, and they'll certainly take up the slack for any drop in liquid crude pumping.
I'm not nearly as concerned about "peak oil" as I am about the precipitous rise in use. Yes, we're bad in the US, buying so many SUVs we don't get any better gas mileage than we did in the 70s. But the real issue is so many countries that are increasing their oil use many times for cars and power generation (article said Indonesia became an importer this year for example.
If the rate of oil use continues to rise rapidly, it doesn't matter how much we drill, we can drill it faster and faster, and we'll just bring the true date of peak oil sooner.
The 3rd world is going to increase their industrialization, so energy use will rise. We have to increase our energy efficiency to minimize the problems, and find alternate sources (including nuclear) also.
Except unlike P IV, AMD's chips were designed properly.
P IV was designed to run at 6GHz or something. And gate-delay wise, they could probably do it with minimal changes. Except then it produces too much heat due to transistor switching that it can't be cooled properly.
AMD's chips however, were designed to run at the speeds they are running at. To make them go 4.4GHz would require redesigning them. But yes, they would also be much faster at those speeds.
So, the argument could be made for AMD, but it's not as valid.
Now, despite all this, AMDs design is the better one, the chip can reach its potential. P IV cannot really.
I'm sure AMDs new DDR2 chips will be very fast, as their current DDR ones are also.
AMDs are definitely the price performance leader in single-core right now. In double core, Intel is faster per dollar in the low-end config. But despite this, my current machine is an AMD A64 X2 4200+. I love it, works great, real fast, not too much heat. My previous machine was a 3.0GHz/800FSB (Northwood) P4, and it was fast too (though significantly less so), and ran a heck of a lot less hot than my previous machine, an Athlon XP 1700+, despite being a lot faster.
It depends on the dictionary. There is a market for dictionaries that don't have those.
Most or perhaps all "Collegiate" dictionaries will have the definitions. They are often left out of dictionaries intended for primary and secondary schooling. One puts them in, M-W? I forget.
Honestly, who gives a shit? The definitions are useless. Who needs to use a dictionary to figure out those words and who would even use a dictionary to settle an argument about their meaning? I guess they're just in there for marketing purposes, so if people happen to look them up as a measure of completeness in the store, they'll buy the dictionary.
Mobile processor also outperforms desktop processor in most tests while using 2/3rds the power. Film at 11.
Also note that AMD doesn't have a separate laptop line (well, they do, but it's no different except in name) so this means Intel is also skunking AMDs mobile processors on performance/power ratio.
Again, this could change when AMD hits 65nm. And also as a mitigating factor, Intel hasn't released their own 65nm chip yet (this is a prerelease), so it's theoretically possible AMD could even beat Intel to the 65nm punch. I don't expect it though.
Give me a break. AMD is using 17 more Watts at idle, 36 Watts at full bore. And that's after power supply efficiency losses.
But, how much power are these chips using? The Intel is rated at something like 25W? Less?
That means the Intel is using perhaps 15W at idle and the AMD is using 32W?, or double? At full bore, perhaps the Intel is using 25 Watts, and the AMD 61 Watts. More than double.
And yet the Intel keeps up with and beats the AMD much of the time.
And you crow about these numbers?
Go ahead and rejigger the figures a bit. Maybe you can figure a way how AMD's chip is using "only" 50% more power.
Either way, AMD is getting skunked. For the moment at least. I'm sure they'll make 65nm soon.
I'm serious. Age doesn't matter, hearing quality doesn't matter.
TV remotes used to be ultrasonic, operating at 38KHz, 40KHz or 44KHz. No one could hear these. It's just not possible. If you can hear this thing, then it's only near-ultrasonic.
Not everyone who has a delusion needs to be broken of it.
When a person is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, the doctor doesn't say "there's no chance you'll live". They leave some hope. Would your crushing it help out?
Once that person comes to grips that they are going to die soon, if they feel they don't need to tell all their friends and relatives that this is the case, even though it might be obvious from their appearance, are these people better off if you straighten them out about it?
I had a teacher with cancer when I was in middle school. She was going to die. She kept teaching because she liked it. But she didn't tell us students. It just wouldn't have been appropriate.
If my neighbor tells his daughter she should work hard at soccer, perhaps she can turn pro some day, should I tell her that statistically it's impossible, that women soccer players don't really make a living anyway and that she's too short for it to boot? There's time for her to figure this out for herself later, and in the meantime, it might increase her enjoyment of her (possibly temporal) interest in soccer.
So, although you may never wish to delude yourself, I feel you go too far in assuming everyone else should live by your credo. And honestly, I think you definitely go much too far (and perhaps stroke your ego too much) by thinking it is you who should set everyone right and make their lives better.
As to your ridiculous comments equating believing in Santa Claus with female circumcision (which often also includes stitching the upper part of the vagina closed, BTW) or child rape is patently ridiculous. It has no actual value. Obviously there are times when rudeness is necessary and better than the alternative. The world isn't black and white, and your juxtaposition of two situations doesn't make them morally equivalent.
I close as I began. Perhaps the primary thing you should consider is what it means to think that everyone should live according to your rules. And that if they do so, they'll find their lives better (and apparently after some thought, more enlightened). What are you saying about yourself and your way of thinking and by extension everyone else's beliefs.
I do agree with your assessments of the value of non-OOO processors.
But there's one thing OOO does that these processors will never do. That is efficiently run code that was not properly scheduled.
Now, why would you generate code with the wrong scheduling? Well, you wouldn't do so on purpose. But in the field PCs frequently encounter it. This code is code that was scheduled for a different processor. As instruction latencies, CPU clocks and memory latencies change the optimal instruction order changes.
So on any system which has to run legacy code, OOO is necessary to have good performance.
And that means PCs are unlikely to go to non-OOO processors soon. No company wants to have to be afraid to release a new processor because it won't run existing versions of Windows (or Mac OS X) as well as older machines because it hasn't been recompiled with a new scheduling. Remember what happened to Pentium Pro? It didn't run legacy code well, and unfortunately the popular OS at the time (Windows 95) was all legacy code.
On the other hand, it makes total sense for a system like PS3 or Xbox 360 where there are a large number of examples of a system which are exactly the same, down to the RAM timings, and the code run on it was compiled specifically for it.
Addtionally, to mix in other arguments, I agree P IV could generate significant performance if it didn't run out of thermal headroom. You would need good caches and such but despite what the other poster says both Intel and AMD are affected similarly with memory latency and bandwidth issues. Perhaps AMD fares somewhat better. But not so much better that if the P4 were running at double its current clock rate that it wouldn't mop the floor with the AMD.
I do understand you don't believe in this stuff. That's totally fine.
But it's nice to respect the wishes of parents and how they would like to raise their kids. If they want to believe in Santa, it's respectful to play along. It's very rude not to.
I know some parents go overboard in telling other people not to tell their kids what to do (happened to me), but within reason, I try to accomodate them.
For the record, I don't see what Santa has to do with religion. Santa, Christmas trees and lights don't have much to do with the rebirth of Jesus. Christmas just really isn't much about religion in the US, any more than Halloween is. It's even less religious in Japan.
It's really more about being nice to each other. Something that seems pretty lost on you, at least from your statements here.
From my research, Xbox (the original) only has USB 1.1 and no PCI, thus making it suboptimal for video recording. And the 733MHz CPU can't even handle HDTV resolutions for MPEG4/DivX type movies. Its performance with H.264 (AVC) would be even more limited.
And the GP didn't suggest 360, he suggested 360 would create cast-offs of original Xboxes. 360 is pretty unavailable right now, but I don't agree it is on purpose, and I don't think it will last long.
You can't stream any video to the thing except if you use Windows Media Center Edition. That's BS. You can stream audio, but not video. And if you have, you still can only stream stuff that was approved to be streamed (from what I can tell).
I do like the 360, but there's zero chance I'll be using it to replace XBMC, they simply crippled it too much.
I'm very disappointed. I really do think MS kept the customer in mind a lot when designing the 360. But not letting me stream videos I have to it, only stuff I recorded on Windows Media Center or was approved to be streamed is a real slap in the face.
The most capable think you can put next to your TV, and yet it can't do much because of DRM/software limitations.
It can't even play Plays For Sure stuff as far as I can tell (the manual even says so!).
Xbox 360 doesn't have built-in wireless. It is optional, USB 2.0-based and not particularly cost-effective. Might be better to use a 3rd party interface.
Also, it has 10/100 wired ethernet support that you didn't mention.
I know of a quite reputable company that ships consumer products with far less burn-in than 140 hours.
Why would you burn in a device for 140 hours? How many problems do you think you find after the first 8 hours but before the 140 is up?
I guess I agree with the idea that it isn't proven in the field yet. But there's nothing you can do about that. You can't wait until it's proven in the field before shipping it, that's a catch-22.
Also, note that MS shipped a lot of debug/development units before the first customer ship. So there are a lot of people with more than a week on theirs. And that's if you don't count the Mt. Dew contest winners, who started getting them a week ago last Friday.
It's a custom power supply, it's not oversized. I do agree it might not be running 240W all the time, but if it can run 240W, you have to size the cables such that it can do so safely.
My computer's power supply doesn't have thick wires because the wires are shorter (power dissipated in the cable goes down with the resistance of the cable, which goes down with length). It also has multiple parallel conductors. The Xbox 360 PS has 6 conductors, and produces two rails (+12V, +5V). It probably has parallel conductors too, but that doesn't make the overall cable size smaller. Look at your PC power supply, see the total size of the wires exiting the PS? The bundle is about 1" in diameter, and again, it usually has a 12-16" wire, not a 24"+ one.
I don't know what kind of electrical engineer you are, but the voltage on the wire doesn't change the size of the conductor unless you are having a problem with total flux through your wire. I can tell you that your home wires aren't even close to having problems with that. The voltage also changes the insulation (breakdown voltage), but that's not technically the conductor.
I do agree that the wattage rating of the power supply is the total of all the rails. However, you must realize that all 12V is the BEST case for current. Any +5V output means even more current required to make the total wattage than my example at +12V.
Understand this, whether you use thick wires or more parallel conductors, extra current (not extra watts) means you need to increase the amount of wire you are buying. Extra length also means you need more wire, because you not only are making the cable longer, but you need to have more conductor cross section to keep the resistance down too.
So, in short, extra length costs more. Thus, I return to my assertion that MS wouldn't be paying for extra length for no reason, not when the speced the power supply themselves anyway.
I'm sorry to hear you designed a product I use. With your lousy grasp of total flux and current versus conductor size and saying that you would use average or typical current to size cables instead of maximum, I am genuinely concerned now. I hope you have EE backup for whatever you designed.
Like I said, I have relatives who are speculators.
Tankers cost too much to rent to park oil offshore. So oil is delivered on a fixed schedule after it is drilled. And in a short term of a few months, let alone days, oil is not being drilled any faster. Additionally note that gasoline is not shipped in ships. So, the supply of gas and oil is relatively fixed in the short term. So why do higher prices prevent shortages?
And as to shortages not happening in capitalist economies, I would disagree. They are less common, but no market is perfect enough to prevent shortages. Especially if it is open to manipulation. And I would suggest the oil markets are being manipulated. If not to produce actual shortages, then at least to reap extra profits. No, I'm generally not against profits, but when those profits mean someone has to go without basic things like heat, transportation or water, I think that the net effect on society of the profit-taking is negative, not positive.
I think you're not thinking far enough on the electricty. You say that you'd gladly build a plant if you could sell the power for $2 and make it for $1. I see that. But electricty cannot be stored, and plants cannot be turned up and down much, so that means there is a surplus of electricity at nearly all times. That means that electricity will sell for very near cost. Even perhaps below cost. The last guy did a cost-benefit analysis when he built a plant and he found that he could run his plant and sell the electricty often enough to make a profit. That doesn't mean you can. My argument is that due to the variable demands on electricity, it is cost effective to build a plant when there is 98% as much power as there needs to be for the hottest day of the year. It might be cost-effective when there is 99% as much as there needs to be. But it isn't cost-effective to enter the market with a new plant when there is 99.8% as much power as there needs to be. The next guy in would either take a bath, or have to sell below market (which I mentioned is near cost). So he doesn't enter the market, and you never get the level of service that the customer needs to keep from taking on costs like putting in their own generation.
As to your final argument, that wouldn't I rather be able to spend more for water when supplies get tight? I'm not talking about me here. I make more than 10X as much as the poorest person. I can of course afford to get water when he can't. But I do care about my fellow man. I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to get water.
Frankly, I think a better argument from you would be that regulating the cost of water to be artifically low means that places uses it that wouldn't. For example, large customers wouldn't use evaporative coolers if water cost more. And that would leave more water to drink. There might be some validity to that.
But all in all, I think that access to basic needs is a right not a privilege, and I think that the need for these will cause people to undertake expensive measures if they can't get them reliably. These measures are better taken at the source. So I don't support deregulating basic utilities and letting supply and demand determine what days of the year people can afford to heat their houses.
I am very familiar with consumer products, thanks. I am involved with a major consumer product that you might even own yourself!
The MS brick converts 120V AC to 12V DC (plus 5V). It's a 240+W PS. That means it is running 20A of 12V power. No one runs 20A farther than they need to, because you need very large gauge wire. Even with solid wire (like in your house) you need a large gauge wire. In your house, you would use 12 gauge or 10 gauge. MS had to use stranded wire, so the wire would be flexible. That means they need even larger gauge wire than otherwise.
Given all of this, you would normally make the wire very short, so you can use thinner wire and less of it. The only reason to spend extra to make the wire as long as it is so you can keep the power supply farther from the unit.
Have you seen the size of the connector? It gives you an idea of the currents involved. And the wire is quite thick.
I dunno about the brick being what turns off, since mine isn't having such problems. I do know that I talked personally to a person who was having the "two red lights" on the 360 main unit, which means the main unit overheated. This wouldn't happen if the brick shut off, there would be no lights on, obviously. And when it rebooted, it wouldn't know it had been shut off due to heat instead of being unplugged.
As to the main unit not being an issue, you think that the space my unit is in hitting 104F is "not the issue"? What happens in the summer when the ambient in my house goes to 100F (I don't have A/C)? The space containing the main unit will hit at least 120F. By my measures, that means the exhaust temp from the main unit will be over 140F. Not a problem?
The intake temps in my regular running conditions (when the unit doesn't shut off) hit 119F. And ambient was 68F. This obviously wouldn't happen if it weren't in a cabinet, the intake would be close to ambient.
So, I've investigated, and I cannot agree with your conclusions. In fact, I'm going to return to mine. If you put the PS brick directly behind the main unit, the unit will suck its own air, and it'll heat up the PS too! Relocate the PS so it isn't behind the main unit, but you don't need to suspend it from strings.
But now that I have it, and I like the games, I simply have to make the best of it. And don't think PS3 will be any different. The amount of gaming power these two consoles have means they will take a lot of power and inexorably turn it into heat. And no matter how effectively they move the heat outside their own box, if you put them in another box (a stereo cabinet), it will heat up the cabinet.
Their manual should explain in large print that you simply cannot put this device into an enclosed space unless it is very well ventilated. And that if you do, you should separate the power supply if at all possible, and definitely not put the power supply directly behind the device.
The first part of the info is in the manual, but it isn't made clear enough, IMHO.
Honestly, the 360 should monitor its own intake and output temperatures and if it senses it is taking in hot air that might be coming from the exhaust or power supply, it should give an indication on screen and a good explanation of what to do about it. Until they can get onto a smaller process, and thus generate less heat, this is really the best they can do, explain how to get around it.
Mine's never messed up, even though It reaches 104F ambient in there and the intake air reaches 119.1F under the condtions I've used it. So the system is pretty tolerant of heat (well, mine is), they just need to explain better how putting it in an enclosed space thwarts all the work they did.
After doing experiments on it every day since Tuesday (when I got it), I now have settled on what I am going to do. I'm going to put at least one 120mm fan in my stereo rack, blowing air in. I think this will do it, but if necessary, I'll have a setup with one blowing out too. Turning it on and off is a problem, since the 360 can be turned on and off from the remote (wireless!) I don't want to mess that up. So I ordered temperature-sensitive fan controller that can turn itself completely off under the right conditions. I'll put one of its temperature sensors by the output fan of the 360 and tell it to turn the 120mm fan on starting at 110F. Then it'll turn on and off with the 360 automatically.
A system like this could be very affordable and simple, if made specifically for 360, and made in quantity. I wonder if I should make one and try to sell it? I figure I could perhaps sell the whole thing with a fan and temperature probe for $50-$60, including my profit.
Wow, my system is really spiking right now. I guess PGR3 generates a lot more heat than Kameo. It was 112.1F and dropping when I switched from Kameo to PGR3, now it's 113.9F and rising, and that's with the fan on (but very constricted).
First of all, I want to mention I can run my Xbox 360 for a stonkin' forever without it crashing. I have taken a few steps though.
First of all, I separate the power supply from the 360. I have my 360 in a stereo cabinet, but I have the power supply behind the stereo cabinet on the floor. I did this because it was clear from the 24" power cable between the PS and 360 that MS intended this to be possible. Second of all, I cut some small holes in the back of my stereo cabinet for airflow. These are probably about 6 square inches total. Additionally, I don't close the cabinet completely, so I have some airflow out the front.
I also have been experimenting with fans just to see the effects. Here's a set of measurments I did with the front opening cracked a bit. This is the temperature in the stereo cabinet space (about 8 cubic feet) containg the 360.
Then I turned on the fan in the cabinet and the temp dropped to 98.8F. With the fan on, I could close the front door completely and the temp still only rose to about 100F.
Clearly this thing is a heat monster! If I measure the temp at the output fan it, it has risen over 115F.
But, I have checked the power supply in back cursorily, and it just doesn't get all that hot on its own. This makes sense, given that if the PS is about 80% efficient, then only 50W is being dissapated by the PS back there, and 200W is being dissapated by the 360 in front.
So, although I haven't had any problems, my recommendation would be first of all, get your 360 out of that confined space. It just generates too much heat for that. Second of all, even in a semi-confined space, get the power supply away from the 360, preferably get it into its own "cooling zone".
For sure, do not put the power supply directly behind the 360 in any kind of smallish space! The 360 draws air in at the back, at the lower of the two fans (on the right if it is laying down). If you put the PS right there, it will not only block the airflow, making the 360 take in its own exhaust, but it will also heat up the intake air even further.
My guess is people who are having this problem, and don't have the 360 in a small, sealed space are mostly just putting the PS in a bad place, and putting it on strings, is just a complicated form of relocating it so it isn't there heating up the 360 intake air.
Although Nintendo isn't even talking about the hardware specs, so we can't be sure.
But I didn't include the Revolution because Nintendo is saying the same thing they did with the Gamecube, that they don't need 3rd party developers. Revolution seems largely like a platform for Nintendo to sell you their older games again. Additionally, if Revolution is sufficiently underpowered compared to the other two, it may be that 3rd parties just plain cannot port their games to this platform, or else have to "dumb down" their game in such a way which might make the game uncompetitive with games that don't work on Revolution.
So, basically, N is downplaying new development so much on the Revolution that I simply left it out as a platform which would attract developers who were fed up with the other two. But probably I shouldn't have done so.
By the way, with all of this, I want to mention I'm a huge N fan. I have three GBAs, a DS and a Gamecube, plus all their other consoles back to the SNES. I just think that N is concentrating on 1st/2nd party development more than 3rd party development.
It mentions you need alcohols too to convert the oil. That doesn't come from algae. Additionally, it doesn't mention how much effort/money/space/equipment it would take this algae output to biodiesel. My understanding (this is 3rd hand) is that the investment to do this for all fuel uses would be substantial. It might still be worth it though, I dunno.
The government isn't going to lose revenue as people switch to biodiesel. Is biodiesel really cheaper to produce than diesel. I mean, if both were taxed the same, would biodiesel still be cheaper? It sure would lose a lot of its current apparent cost advantage.
Both Sony and MS realized they couldn't make a single true general-purpose CPU with the performance they wanted for a price they could afford to sell in their consoles.
Sony went to a CPU, GPU and 7 co-processors (Cell). MS went to a 3 CPUs with vector-assist and a GPU.
Both companies are going to need to spend a lot of time and money on developer tools to help their developers more easily take advantage of their oddball hardware, or else they will end up right where Saturn did.
I guess the good news for both companies is that there is no alternative (like PS1 was to Saturn) which is straightforward and thus more attractive.
PS2 requires programming a specialized CPU with localized memory (the Emotion Engine) and it seems to get by okay. So developers can adapty, given sufficient financial advange to doing so.
If I had known, I wouldn't have bothered responding.
Suffice to say that the long-term inflationary policies of the US government isn't what caused gas to reach an inflation-adjusted low and then an all-time high within 12 months of each other. I mean, if I said "gas is $3 now, and it was $1 in 1980, what's the deal?" it'd be one thing. But when gas prices triples in a year and inflation doesn't, you really need to look a little deeper than complaining about the money supply.
I have to say, I lived through the stagflationary days of the 70s, and I do fear their return. But I'm more worried about the real cost of commodities (fuel, water) than I am the money supply.
I have relatives who are speculators. They are screwing us. They drive up the price of gas because they hear about things (like weather) that mean it might go up later. Given that the consumption of gas is relatively inelastic (esp. in the medium term of a few months), how come we saw prices go through the roof and never any actual shortages? Did you (outside of Florida where the problem was transportation) ever have problems buying gas? No? then why did prices need to be so high? It didn't cause more gas to be refined (we're near capacity), gas wasn't brought out of some reserve, and it doesn't drive down consumption much.
Do I understand markets? Do I live in California? Yes to both. Perhaps you didn't pay attention to the news? Perhaps you heard of the tapes of Enron witholding electricity from California? Or offering to sell 10MW of electricity, knowing the lines could only take 1MW. Yeah, there are problems with the deregulation in California. But mostly the problem is that for commodity items, buying on the spot market isn't always the best idea. Stability of prices and consistent availability of electricity is more important to virtually all consumers (say, excepting aluminum smelting plants) than getting every last penny out. I mean, if I need electricity every day, and the electric company doesn't provide it, in favor of saving me 3% on my electric bills? I have to incur the cost of installing and maintaining an electric generator at my house. And all my neighbors too. That's going to cost me a lot more than $20 (3% of my electric bill) yearly.
Let me ask you this. If we have enough electricity already for the demands on 364 days of the year, who is going to build a new plant? If you do, you'll have to sell electricity below market to keep your plant running all the time, or else you'll only sell power 1 day a year.
Deregulation doesn't even make sense for commodities.
Finally, as to food. The problem in Ethiopia and Somalia wasn't any inefficiencies in government or any bureaucratic snafu. The problem was that the warlords were denying food to people they perceived as being their enemies, or at least worthless. So, we could send all the food we wanted, and it didn't get to them. This was the case when the US went into Somalia and the case when Bob Geldof got all torqued off and created Band/Live Aid in the 80s.
BTW, if you want a better example of a government causing a famine, by accident, instead of as an attempt to kill people, try the sugar harvests in Cuba in the 70s as Castro tried to show how superior Communism was. Things definitely got worse instead of better, even as he mobilized school children to work in the fields.
Anyway, using governments that are purposely trying to kill their citizens or inept central planning as an example of what could go wrong here with the water or food supply is ridiculous. Our government isn't quite that far out to get us yet.
Anyway, I hope you have fun with your fiat currency rants. I really wish Hong Kong were still on its own so you could go there and live in gold standard heaven.
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Cause that's about all there was.
Don't get me wrong, it was nearly catastrophic. But it wasn't catastrophic.
There was a small amount of radioactivity released, and it blew out to sea.
The thing there was the most of in the accident was terror. Honestly, it's pretty typical. People just don't understand radioactivity, and it is invisible, so they go way off the handle when having to deal with it. Like people freaking out over irradiating food.
I wish TMI hadn't happened. Honestly if we designed a standardized reactor now with modern equipment and controls, we would no longer be running much risk of accidents. And if we used a pebble bed reactor, even less so. But TMI (caused by the disorganized designs of those reactors and a dumbo) pretty much scotched the building of new commercial reactors.
Do you have your hood up a lot?
I guess you could put a camera under there to see the color.
Or you could just put a temperature sensor on there (with alarm) instead. It's cheaper.
BTW, intake manifolds should run pretty much at ambient. You want cool air into your engine, and a hot intake manifold would run counter to that. Additionally, intake manifolds are naturally cooled by the cool air coming in.
Exhaust manifolds get got.
As far as I can tell, many of the Netscape people are over at Google now anyway. I happened to be there on the day Firefox 1.5 went gold and saw them whooping it up a bit.
I presume Google pays them (and lets them use their free cafeteria, etc.), but I dunno who they really work for (report to).
If you meant drilled oil, perhaps yes, it could peak in 2007. I don't think so, but it could be.
But there are projects to unlock the oil sands in Canada, they'll be online and working soon, and they'll certainly take up the slack for any drop in liquid crude pumping.
I'm not nearly as concerned about "peak oil" as I am about the precipitous rise in use. Yes, we're bad in the US, buying so many SUVs we don't get any better gas mileage than we did in the 70s. But the real issue is so many countries that are increasing their oil use many times for cars and power generation (article said Indonesia became an importer this year for example.
If the rate of oil use continues to rise rapidly, it doesn't matter how much we drill, we can drill it faster and faster, and we'll just bring the true date of peak oil sooner.
The 3rd world is going to increase their industrialization, so energy use will rise. We have to increase our energy efficiency to minimize the problems, and find alternate sources (including nuclear) also.
Except unlike P IV, AMD's chips were designed properly.
P IV was designed to run at 6GHz or something. And gate-delay wise, they could probably do it with minimal changes. Except then it produces too much heat due to transistor switching that it can't be cooled properly.
AMD's chips however, were designed to run at the speeds they are running at. To make them go 4.4GHz would require redesigning them. But yes, they would also be much faster at those speeds.
So, the argument could be made for AMD, but it's not as valid.
Now, despite all this, AMDs design is the better one, the chip can reach its potential. P IV cannot really.
I'm sure AMDs new DDR2 chips will be very fast, as their current DDR ones are also.
AMDs are definitely the price performance leader in single-core right now. In double core, Intel is faster per dollar in the low-end config. But despite this, my current machine is an AMD A64 X2 4200+. I love it, works great, real fast, not too much heat. My previous machine was a 3.0GHz/800FSB (Northwood) P4, and it was fast too (though significantly less so), and ran a heck of a lot less hot than my previous machine, an Athlon XP 1700+, despite being a lot faster.
It depends on the dictionary. There is a market for dictionaries that don't have those.
Most or perhaps all "Collegiate" dictionaries will have the definitions. They are often left out of dictionaries intended for primary and secondary schooling. One puts them in, M-W? I forget.
Honestly, who gives a shit? The definitions are useless. Who needs to use a dictionary to figure out those words and who would even use a dictionary to settle an argument about their meaning? I guess they're just in there for marketing purposes, so if people happen to look them up as a measure of completeness in the store, they'll buy the dictionary.
Mobile processor also outperforms desktop processor in most tests while using 2/3rds the power. Film at 11.
Also note that AMD doesn't have a separate laptop line (well, they do, but it's no different except in name) so this means Intel is also skunking AMDs mobile processors on performance/power ratio.
Again, this could change when AMD hits 65nm. And also as a mitigating factor, Intel hasn't released their own 65nm chip yet (this is a prerelease), so it's theoretically possible AMD could even beat Intel to the 65nm punch. I don't expect it though.
Give me a break. AMD is using 17 more Watts at idle, 36 Watts at full bore. And that's after power supply efficiency losses.
But, how much power are these chips using? The Intel is rated at something like 25W? Less?
That means the Intel is using perhaps 15W at idle and the AMD is using 32W?, or double?
At full bore, perhaps the Intel is using 25 Watts, and the AMD 61 Watts. More than double.
And yet the Intel keeps up with and beats the AMD much of the time.
And you crow about these numbers?
Go ahead and rejigger the figures a bit. Maybe you can figure a way how AMD's chip is using "only" 50% more power.
Either way, AMD is getting skunked. For the moment at least. I'm sure they'll make 65nm soon.
If you can hear it, it's not ultrasonic.
I'm serious. Age doesn't matter, hearing quality doesn't matter.
TV remotes used to be ultrasonic, operating at 38KHz, 40KHz or 44KHz. No one could hear these. It's just not possible. If you can hear this thing, then it's only near-ultrasonic.
Additionally, note that ultrasonic bug repellers don't work. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/ultrarat.html Or you can check The Straight Dope.
Perhaps you could strive to understand that.
Not everyone who has a delusion needs to be broken of it.
When a person is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, the doctor doesn't say "there's no chance you'll live". They leave some hope. Would your crushing it help out?
Once that person comes to grips that they are going to die soon, if they feel they don't need to tell all their friends and relatives that this is the case, even though it might be obvious from their appearance, are these people better off if you straighten them out about it?
I had a teacher with cancer when I was in middle school. She was going to die. She kept teaching because she liked it. But she didn't tell us students. It just wouldn't have been appropriate.
If my neighbor tells his daughter she should work hard at soccer, perhaps she can turn pro some day, should I tell her that statistically it's impossible, that women soccer players don't really make a living anyway and that she's too short for it to boot? There's time for her to figure this out for herself later, and in the meantime, it might increase her enjoyment of her (possibly temporal) interest in soccer.
So, although you may never wish to delude yourself, I feel you go too far in assuming everyone else should live by your credo. And honestly, I think you definitely go much too far (and perhaps stroke your ego too much) by thinking it is you who should set everyone right and make their lives better.
As to your ridiculous comments equating believing in Santa Claus with female circumcision (which often also includes stitching the upper part of the vagina closed, BTW) or child rape is patently ridiculous. It has no actual value. Obviously there are times when rudeness is necessary and better than the alternative. The world isn't black and white, and your juxtaposition of two situations doesn't make them morally equivalent.
I close as I began. Perhaps the primary thing you should consider is what it means to think that everyone should live according to your rules. And that if they do so, they'll find their lives better (and apparently after some thought, more enlightened). What are you saying about yourself and your way of thinking and by extension everyone else's beliefs.
I do agree with your assessments of the value of non-OOO processors.
But there's one thing OOO does that these processors will never do. That is efficiently run code that was not properly scheduled.
Now, why would you generate code with the wrong scheduling? Well, you wouldn't do so on purpose. But in the field PCs frequently encounter it. This code is code that was scheduled for a different processor. As instruction latencies, CPU clocks and memory latencies change the optimal instruction order changes.
So on any system which has to run legacy code, OOO is necessary to have good performance.
And that means PCs are unlikely to go to non-OOO processors soon. No company wants to have to be afraid to release a new processor because it won't run existing versions of Windows (or Mac OS X) as well as older machines because it hasn't been recompiled with a new scheduling. Remember what happened to Pentium Pro? It didn't run legacy code well, and unfortunately the popular OS at the time (Windows 95) was all legacy code.
On the other hand, it makes total sense for a system like PS3 or Xbox 360 where there are a large number of examples of a system which are exactly the same, down to the RAM timings, and the code run on it was compiled specifically for it.
Addtionally, to mix in other arguments, I agree P IV could generate significant performance if it didn't run out of thermal headroom. You would need good caches and such but despite what the other poster says both Intel and AMD are affected similarly with memory latency and bandwidth issues. Perhaps AMD fares somewhat better. But not so much better that if the P4 were running at double its current clock rate that it wouldn't mop the floor with the AMD.
But you're an ass.
I do understand you don't believe in this stuff. That's totally fine.
But it's nice to respect the wishes of parents and how they would like to raise their kids. If they want to believe in Santa, it's respectful to play along. It's very rude not to.
I know some parents go overboard in telling other people not to tell their kids what to do (happened to me), but within reason, I try to accomodate them.
For the record, I don't see what Santa has to do with religion. Santa, Christmas trees and lights don't have much to do with the rebirth of Jesus. Christmas just really isn't much about religion in the US, any more than Halloween is. It's even less religious in Japan.
It's really more about being nice to each other. Something that seems pretty lost on you, at least from your statements here.
From my research, Xbox (the original) only has USB 1.1 and no PCI, thus making it suboptimal for video recording. And the 733MHz CPU can't even handle HDTV resolutions for MPEG4/DivX type movies. Its performance with H.264 (AVC) would be even more limited.
And the GP didn't suggest 360, he suggested 360 would create cast-offs of original Xboxes. 360 is pretty unavailable right now, but I don't agree it is on purpose, and I don't think it will last long.
You can't stream any video to the thing except if you use Windows Media Center Edition. That's BS. You can stream audio, but not video. And if you have, you still can only stream stuff that was approved to be streamed (from what I can tell).
I do like the 360, but there's zero chance I'll be using it to replace XBMC, they simply crippled it too much.
I'm very disappointed. I really do think MS kept the customer in mind a lot when designing the 360. But not letting me stream videos I have to it, only stuff I recorded on Windows Media Center or was approved to be streamed is a real slap in the face.
The most capable think you can put next to your TV, and yet it can't do much because of DRM/software limitations.
It can't even play Plays For Sure stuff as far as I can tell (the manual even says so!).
Xbox 360 doesn't have built-in wireless. It is optional, USB 2.0-based and not particularly cost-effective. Might be better to use a 3rd party interface.
Also, it has 10/100 wired ethernet support that you didn't mention.
The rest is right on.
It's been out 6 days, that's about 140 hours.
I know of a quite reputable company that ships consumer products with far less burn-in than 140 hours.
Why would you burn in a device for 140 hours? How many problems do you think you find after the first 8 hours but before the 140 is up?
I guess I agree with the idea that it isn't proven in the field yet. But there's nothing you can do about that. You can't wait until it's proven in the field before shipping it, that's a catch-22.
Also, note that MS shipped a lot of debug/development units before the first customer ship. So there are a lot of people with more than a week on theirs. And that's if you don't count the Mt. Dew contest winners, who started getting them a week ago last Friday.
It's a custom power supply, it's not oversized. I do agree it might not be running 240W all the time, but if it can run 240W, you have to size the cables such that it can do so safely.
My computer's power supply doesn't have thick wires because the wires are shorter (power dissipated in the cable goes down with the resistance of the cable, which goes down with length). It also has multiple parallel conductors. The Xbox 360 PS has 6 conductors, and produces two rails (+12V, +5V). It probably has parallel conductors too, but that doesn't make the overall cable size smaller. Look at your PC power supply, see the total size of the wires exiting the PS? The bundle is about 1" in diameter, and again, it usually has a 12-16" wire, not a 24"+ one.
I don't know what kind of electrical engineer you are, but the voltage on the wire doesn't change the size of the conductor unless you are having a problem with total flux through your wire. I can tell you that your home wires aren't even close to having problems with that. The voltage also changes the insulation (breakdown voltage), but that's not technically the conductor.
I do agree that the wattage rating of the power supply is the total of all the rails. However, you must realize that all 12V is the BEST case for current. Any +5V output means even more current required to make the total wattage than my example at +12V.
Understand this, whether you use thick wires or more parallel conductors, extra current (not extra watts) means you need to increase the amount of wire you are buying. Extra length also means you need more wire, because you not only are making the cable longer, but you need to have more conductor cross section to keep the resistance down too.
So, in short, extra length costs more. Thus, I return to my assertion that MS wouldn't be paying for extra length for no reason, not when the speced the power supply themselves anyway.
I'm sorry to hear you designed a product I use. With your lousy grasp of total flux and current versus conductor size and saying that you would use average or typical current to size cables instead of maximum, I am genuinely concerned now. I hope you have EE backup for whatever you designed.
Like I said, I have relatives who are speculators.
Tankers cost too much to rent to park oil offshore. So oil is delivered on a fixed schedule after it is drilled. And in a short term of a few months, let alone days, oil is not being drilled any faster. Additionally note that gasoline is not shipped in ships. So, the supply of gas and oil is relatively fixed in the short term. So why do higher prices prevent shortages?
And as to shortages not happening in capitalist economies, I would disagree. They are less common, but no market is perfect enough to prevent shortages. Especially if it is open to manipulation. And I would suggest the oil markets are being manipulated. If not to produce actual shortages, then at least to reap extra profits. No, I'm generally not against profits, but when those profits mean someone has to go without basic things like heat, transportation or water, I think that the net effect on society of the profit-taking is negative, not positive.
I think you're not thinking far enough on the electricty. You say that you'd gladly build a plant if you could sell the power for $2 and make it for $1. I see that. But electricty cannot be stored, and plants cannot be turned up and down much, so that means there is a surplus of electricity at nearly all times. That means that electricity will sell for very near cost. Even perhaps below cost. The last guy did a cost-benefit analysis when he built a plant and he found that he could run his plant and sell the electricty often enough to make a profit. That doesn't mean you can. My argument is that due to the variable demands on electricity, it is cost effective to build a plant when there is 98% as much power as there needs to be for the hottest day of the year. It might be cost-effective when there is 99% as much as there needs to be. But it isn't cost-effective to enter the market with a new plant when there is 99.8% as much power as there needs to be. The next guy in would either take a bath, or have to sell below market (which I mentioned is near cost). So he doesn't enter the market, and you never get the level of service that the customer needs to keep from taking on costs like putting in their own generation.
As to your final argument, that wouldn't I rather be able to spend more for water when supplies get tight? I'm not talking about me here. I make more than 10X as much as the poorest person. I can of course afford to get water when he can't. But I do care about my fellow man. I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to get water.
Frankly, I think a better argument from you would be that regulating the cost of water to be artifically low means that places uses it that wouldn't. For example, large customers wouldn't use evaporative coolers if water cost more. And that would leave more water to drink. There might be some validity to that.
But all in all, I think that access to basic needs is a right not a privilege, and I think that the need for these will cause people to undertake expensive measures if they can't get them reliably. These measures are better taken at the source. So I don't support deregulating basic utilities and letting supply and demand determine what days of the year people can afford to heat their houses.
I am very familiar with consumer products, thanks. I am involved with a major consumer product that you might even own yourself!
0 93938
The MS brick converts 120V AC to 12V DC (plus 5V). It's a 240+W PS. That means it is running 20A of 12V power. No one runs 20A farther than they need to, because you need very large gauge wire. Even with solid wire (like in your house) you need a large gauge wire. In your house, you would use 12 gauge or 10 gauge. MS had to use stranded wire, so the wire would be flexible. That means they need even larger gauge wire than otherwise.
Given all of this, you would normally make the wire very short, so you can use thinner wire and less of it. The only reason to spend extra to make the wire as long as it is so you can keep the power supply farther from the unit.
Have you seen the size of the connector? It gives you an idea of the currents involved. And the wire is quite thick.
I dunno about the brick being what turns off, since mine isn't having such problems. I do know that I talked personally to a person who was having the "two red lights" on the 360 main unit, which means the main unit overheated. This wouldn't happen if the brick shut off, there would be no lights on, obviously. And when it rebooted, it wouldn't know it had been shut off due to heat instead of being unplugged.
As to the main unit not being an issue, you think that the space my unit is in hitting 104F is "not the issue"? What happens in the summer when the ambient in my house goes to 100F (I don't have A/C)? The space containing the main unit will hit at least 120F. By my measures, that means the exhaust temp from the main unit will be over 140F. Not a problem?
The intake temps in my regular running conditions (when the unit doesn't shut off) hit 119F. And ambient was 68F. This obviously wouldn't happen if it weren't in a cabinet, the intake would be close to ambient.
So, I've investigated, and I cannot agree with your conclusions. In fact, I'm going to return to mine. If you put the PS brick directly behind the main unit, the unit will suck its own air, and it'll heat up the PS too! Relocate the PS so it isn't behind the main unit, but you don't need to suspend it from strings.
And to those who respond and say this heat stuff is way out of hand, I am way ahead of you. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169069&cid=14
But now that I have it, and I like the games, I simply have to make the best of it. And don't think PS3 will be any different. The amount of gaming power these two consoles have means they will take a lot of power and inexorably turn it into heat. And no matter how effectively they move the heat outside their own box, if you put them in another box (a stereo cabinet), it will heat up the cabinet.
Their manual should explain in large print that you simply cannot put this device into an enclosed space unless it is very well ventilated. And that if you do, you should separate the power supply if at all possible, and definitely not put the power supply directly behind the device.
The first part of the info is in the manual, but it isn't made clear enough, IMHO.
Honestly, the 360 should monitor its own intake and output temperatures and if it senses it is taking in hot air that might be coming from the exhaust or power supply, it should give an indication on screen and a good explanation of what to do about it. Until they can get onto a smaller process, and thus generate less heat, this is really the best they can do, explain how to get around it.
Mine's never messed up, even though It reaches 104F ambient in there and the intake air reaches 119.1F under the condtions I've used it. So the system is pretty tolerant of heat (well, mine is), they just need to explain better how putting it in an enclosed space thwarts all the work they did.
After doing experiments on it every day since Tuesday (when I got it), I now have settled on what I am going to do. I'm going to put at least one 120mm fan in my stereo rack, blowing air in. I think this will do it, but if necessary, I'll have a setup with one blowing out too. Turning it on and off is a problem, since the 360 can be turned on and off from the remote (wireless!) I don't want to mess that up. So I ordered temperature-sensitive fan controller that can turn itself completely off under the right conditions. I'll put one of its temperature sensors by the output fan of the 360 and tell it to turn the 120mm fan on starting at 110F. Then it'll turn on and off with the 360 automatically.
A system like this could be very affordable and simple, if made specifically for 360, and made in quantity. I wonder if I should make one and try to sell it? I figure I could perhaps sell the whole thing with a fan and temperature probe for $50-$60, including my profit.
Wow, my system is really spiking right now. I guess PGR3 generates a lot more heat than Kameo. It was 112.1F and dropping when I switched from Kameo to PGR3, now it's 113.9F and rising, and that's with the fan on (but very constricted).
First of all, I want to mention I can run my Xbox 360 for a stonkin' forever without it crashing. I have taken a few steps though.
First of all, I separate the power supply from the 360. I have my 360 in a stereo cabinet, but I have the power supply behind the stereo cabinet on the floor. I did this because it was clear from the 24" power cable between the PS and 360 that MS intended this to be possible. Second of all, I cut some small holes in the back of my stereo cabinet for airflow. These are probably about 6 square inches total. Additionally, I don't close the cabinet completely, so I have some airflow out the front.
I also have been experimenting with fans just to see the effects. Here's a set of measurments I did with the front opening cracked a bit. This is the temperature in the stereo cabinet space (about 8 cubic feet) containg the 360.
0:00 - 73.4F (ambient)
0:30 - 89.4F
0:50 - 94.8F
1:10 - 98.1F
1:30 - 100.2F
1:50 - 101.7F
2:10 - 102.7F
2:30 - 103.5F
Then I turned on the fan in the cabinet and the temp dropped to 98.8F. With the fan on, I could close the front door completely and the temp still only rose to about 100F.
Clearly this thing is a heat monster! If I measure the temp at the output fan it, it has risen over 115F.
But, I have checked the power supply in back cursorily, and it just doesn't get all that hot on its own. This makes sense, given that if the PS is about 80% efficient, then only 50W is being dissapated by the PS back there, and 200W is being dissapated by the 360 in front.
So, although I haven't had any problems, my recommendation would be first of all, get your 360 out of that confined space. It just generates too much heat for that. Second of all, even in a semi-confined space, get the power supply away from the 360, preferably get it into its own "cooling zone".
For sure, do not put the power supply directly behind the 360 in any kind of smallish space! The 360 draws air in at the back, at the lower of the two fans (on the right if it is laying down). If you put the PS right there, it will not only block the airflow, making the 360 take in its own exhaust, but it will also heat up the intake air even further.
My guess is people who are having this problem, and don't have the 360 in a small, sealed space are mostly just putting the PS in a bad place, and putting it on strings, is just a complicated form of relocating it so it isn't there heating up the 360 intake air.
Although Nintendo isn't even talking about the hardware specs, so we can't be sure.
But I didn't include the Revolution because Nintendo is saying the same thing they did with the Gamecube, that they don't need 3rd party developers. Revolution seems largely like a platform for Nintendo to sell you their older games again. Additionally, if Revolution is sufficiently underpowered compared to the other two, it may be that 3rd parties just plain cannot port their games to this platform, or else have to "dumb down" their game in such a way which might make the game uncompetitive with games that don't work on Revolution.
So, basically, N is downplaying new development so much on the Revolution that I simply left it out as a platform which would attract developers who were fed up with the other two. But probably I shouldn't have done so.
By the way, with all of this, I want to mention I'm a huge N fan. I have three GBAs, a DS and a Gamecube, plus all their other consoles back to the SNES. I just think that N is concentrating on 1st/2nd party development more than 3rd party development.
It mentions you need alcohols too to convert the oil. That doesn't come from algae. Additionally, it doesn't mention how much effort/money/space/equipment it would take this algae output to biodiesel. My understanding (this is 3rd hand) is that the investment to do this for all fuel uses would be substantial. It might still be worth it though, I dunno.
The government isn't going to lose revenue as people switch to biodiesel. Is biodiesel really cheaper to produce than diesel. I mean, if both were taxed the same, would biodiesel still be cheaper? It sure would lose a lot of its current apparent cost advantage.
Both Sony and MS realized they couldn't make a single true general-purpose CPU with the performance they wanted for a price they could afford to sell in their consoles.
Sony went to a CPU, GPU and 7 co-processors (Cell).
MS went to a 3 CPUs with vector-assist and a GPU.
Both companies are going to need to spend a lot of time and money on developer tools to help their developers more easily take advantage of their oddball hardware, or else they will end up right where Saturn did.
I guess the good news for both companies is that there is no alternative (like PS1 was to Saturn) which is straightforward and thus more attractive.
PS2 requires programming a specialized CPU with localized memory (the Emotion Engine) and it seems to get by okay. So developers can adapty, given sufficient financial advange to doing so.
If I had known, I wouldn't have bothered responding.
Suffice to say that the long-term inflationary policies of the US government isn't what caused gas to reach an inflation-adjusted low and then an all-time high within 12 months of each other. I mean, if I said "gas is $3 now, and it was $1 in 1980, what's the deal?" it'd be one thing. But when gas prices triples in a year and inflation doesn't, you really need to look a little deeper than complaining about the money supply.
I have to say, I lived through the stagflationary days of the 70s, and I do fear their return. But I'm more worried about the real cost of commodities (fuel, water) than I am the money supply.
I have relatives who are speculators. They are screwing us. They drive up the price of gas because they hear about things (like weather) that mean it might go up later. Given that the consumption of gas is relatively inelastic (esp. in the medium term of a few months), how come we saw prices go through the roof and never any actual shortages? Did you (outside of Florida where the problem was transportation) ever have problems buying gas? No? then why did prices need to be so high? It didn't cause more gas to be refined (we're near capacity), gas wasn't brought out of some reserve, and it doesn't drive down consumption much.
Do I understand markets? Do I live in California? Yes to both. Perhaps you didn't pay attention to the news? Perhaps you heard of the tapes of Enron witholding electricity from California? Or offering to sell 10MW of electricity, knowing the lines could only take 1MW. Yeah, there are problems with the deregulation in California. But mostly the problem is that for commodity items, buying on the spot market isn't always the best idea. Stability of prices and consistent availability of electricity is more important to virtually all consumers (say, excepting aluminum smelting plants) than getting every last penny out. I mean, if I need electricity every day, and the electric company doesn't provide it, in favor of saving me 3% on my electric bills? I have to incur the cost of installing and maintaining an electric generator at my house. And all my neighbors too. That's going to cost me a lot more than $20 (3% of my electric bill) yearly.
Let me ask you this. If we have enough electricity already for the demands on 364 days of the year, who is going to build a new plant? If you do, you'll have to sell electricity below market to keep your plant running all the time, or else you'll only sell power 1 day a year.
Deregulation doesn't even make sense for commodities.
Finally, as to food. The problem in Ethiopia and Somalia wasn't any inefficiencies in government or any bureaucratic snafu. The problem was that the warlords were denying food to people they perceived as being their enemies, or at least worthless. So, we could send all the food we wanted, and it didn't get to them. This was the case when the US went into Somalia and the case when Bob Geldof got all torqued off and created Band/Live Aid in the 80s.
BTW, if you want a better example of a government causing a famine, by accident, instead of as an attempt to kill people, try the sugar harvests in Cuba in the 70s as Castro tried to show how superior Communism was. Things definitely got worse instead of better, even as he mobilized school children to work in the fields.
Anyway, using governments that are purposely trying to kill their citizens or inept central planning as an example of what could go wrong here with the water or food supply is ridiculous. Our government isn't quite that far out to get us yet.
Anyway, I hope you have fun with your fiat currency rants. I really wish Hong Kong were still on its own so you could go there and live in gold standard heaven.