Generation diversity is essential if we're going to get out of the mess we're in right now, especially given that no one option can replace fossil fuels alone (not even fission). I heard once that there isn't enough fissionable uranium on the planet to support 30 terra watt energy demands.
Turning the clock back on demand is going to be impossible (unless we literally have our plug pulled). There's a correlation between quality of life and energy consumption per capita. Sure , we can and should strive to make more energy efficient devices but the energy usage genie is out of the bottle so to speak.
Reactor designs have progressed a long way from the 50's.
Pebble bed reactors are an inherently safe (being relative) design... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor
Couldn't we just make these into sealed units and run them until they stop being radioactive?
Damn Michael Moore beat me to the punch. That is the question though - while I'm pretty sure the US has enough "troops" to throw at the disaster area. There appears to be a real "shortage" (i.e. not enough available) of rotary-wing assets capable of getting into the disaster zone.
Just wondering (i.e. does anyone here know) if Guard deployments to Iraq consist of a greater proportion of equipment such as helicopters than for a non-deployed Guard unit?
Anyone?
Someone said it at last. [best computer since my old Amiga]. OK so I paraphased somewhat. This is how I feel about my Mac PowerBook. Best computer I had since my A1200. It just kinda has the same slick feel.
I wonder what impact this could have on world hunger?
Rearing cattle takes up considerably more space than growing crops in terms of the food:land ratio (anyone have any figures to back this up?). As the world population continues to grow and space becomes less plentiful, animal meat is likely to become more of a luxury item. We're already seeing cattle farming devastating the amazon, which is an essential part of the biosphere and a massive carbon sink to boot.
But what is perhaps most hopeful about this is the potential to "improve" the diet of millions of people. Now, if only we could remove the causes of hunger in the first place, like stupid dictators and idiotic tribal wars.
Is this a small step away from scarcity to abundance? I hope to think so.
Mmmm sounds appropriate for a story originating in sound-card hell (sorry).
Let us for a moment step back from the OS X vs Linux flamewar and listen to the what the guy actually has to say. He has switched from Linux to OS X because he is tired of messing around with manual configuration of devices for often dissapointing results.
That's it. The story in a nutshell. But what makes this important is this is a somewhat prominent figure in the open source world. He's one of us people!
To even bother to install Linux (whatever flavor) you have to be at least a driven pioneer of sorts otherwise Windows would do fine right? What this guy is saying is that he's tired of expending more effort to achieve the same or less results than he expects using another operating system.
In many ways Linux on X86 and Windows suffer the problem of the infinite permutations of hardware. At least the Windows guys have a chance because they can usually get vendors to play nicely. I admire the Linux device driver writes as heroes in the shadows of the Linux world but we are fighting to catch up and quite frankly the odds are stacked against us. The place where this hurts the most is Linux on the Laptop. Linux on the Desktop is actually about an order of magnitude better.
I swapped from Linux to Mac this month for exactly the same reasons. Admittedly I'm a Java programmer (yeah I do C++ and PHP before you language-facists warm up) so my choice of platform isn't as critical. Switching to OS X has been a total pleasure. Yes everything Just Works. Yes the GUI uses direct manipulation (Drag and Drop) better than anything else out. It's just inituitive and easy. Did I mention it was easy? Kinda takes me back to my Amiga days. Moving from a A1200 to a 486SX was a backwards step in overall system quality (OK except maybe performance). I feel like I'm finally back a place where stuff works as it should.
Anyone who points out that writing a stable, full-functional software stack for a minimal set of hardware options is much easier is obviously correct. This is the core difference - the cathedral and the bazaar. Remeber that? Some of us are realising that the Cathedral approach is building better systems. Contraversial? Yes. Totally accurate? No. But the difference is there to be experienced.
I will probably always keep a Linux development machine around. Maybe even using it as a dev server, running Postgresql, MySQL, Apache, JBoss, etc. Linux as a server is an excellent platform. My next desktop WILL be a Mac - whether it is running a PowerPC or an Intel chip is irrelevant.
I'll probably always have to keep a Windows machine lying around for similar reasons. I just may not ever connect it to the Internet.
But my new 12" PowerBook G4 does everything I need it to. My Dell running SuSE (from 8.0 to 9.2) didn't. Simple really.
Can the siutation be improved by the Linux community? Actually, I think not
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Expect to see more nasty little theocracies.
Better start eating more carrots.
Turning the clock back on demand is going to be impossible (unless we literally have our plug pulled). There's a correlation between quality of life and energy consumption per capita. Sure , we can and should strive to make more energy efficient devices but the energy usage genie is out of the bottle so to speak.
Reactor designs have progressed a long way from the 50's. Pebble bed reactors are an inherently safe (being relative) design... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor Couldn't we just make these into sealed units and run them until they stop being radioactive?
As in:
Damn Michael Moore beat me to the punch. That is the question though - while I'm pretty sure the US has enough "troops" to throw at the disaster area. There appears to be a real "shortage" (i.e. not enough available) of rotary-wing assets capable of getting into the disaster zone. Just wondering (i.e. does anyone here know) if Guard deployments to Iraq consist of a greater proportion of equipment such as helicopters than for a non-deployed Guard unit? Anyone?
Someone said it at last. [best computer since my old Amiga]. OK so I paraphased somewhat. This is how I feel about my Mac PowerBook. Best computer I had since my A1200. It just kinda has the same slick feel.
I wonder what impact this could have on world hunger? Rearing cattle takes up considerably more space than growing crops in terms of the food:land ratio (anyone have any figures to back this up?). As the world population continues to grow and space becomes less plentiful, animal meat is likely to become more of a luxury item. We're already seeing cattle farming devastating the amazon, which is an essential part of the biosphere and a massive carbon sink to boot. But what is perhaps most hopeful about this is the potential to "improve" the diet of millions of people. Now, if only we could remove the causes of hunger in the first place, like stupid dictators and idiotic tribal wars. Is this a small step away from scarcity to abundance? I hope to think so.
Mmmm sounds appropriate for a story originating in sound-card hell (sorry).
Let us for a moment step back from the OS X vs Linux flamewar and listen to the what the guy actually has to say. He has switched from Linux to OS X because he is tired of messing around with manual configuration of devices for often dissapointing results.
That's it. The story in a nutshell. But what makes this important is this is a somewhat prominent figure in the open source world. He's one of us people!
To even bother to install Linux (whatever flavor) you have to be at least a driven pioneer of sorts otherwise Windows would do fine right? What this guy is saying is that he's tired of expending more effort to achieve the same or less results than he expects using another operating system.
In many ways Linux on X86 and Windows suffer the problem of the infinite permutations of hardware. At least the Windows guys have a chance because they can usually get vendors to play nicely. I admire the Linux device driver writes as heroes in the shadows of the Linux world but we are fighting to catch up and quite frankly the odds are stacked against us. The place where this hurts the most is Linux on the Laptop. Linux on the Desktop is actually about an order of magnitude better.
I swapped from Linux to Mac this month for exactly the same reasons. Admittedly I'm a Java programmer (yeah I do C++ and PHP before you language-facists warm up) so my choice of platform isn't as critical. Switching to OS X has been a total pleasure. Yes everything Just Works. Yes the GUI uses direct manipulation (Drag and Drop) better than anything else out. It's just inituitive and easy. Did I mention it was easy? Kinda takes me back to my Amiga days. Moving from a A1200 to a 486SX was a backwards step in overall system quality (OK except maybe performance). I feel like I'm finally back a place where stuff works as it should.
Anyone who points out that writing a stable, full-functional software stack for a minimal set of hardware options is much easier is obviously correct. This is the core difference - the cathedral and the bazaar. Remeber that? Some of us are realising that the Cathedral approach is building better systems. Contraversial? Yes. Totally accurate? No. But the difference is there to be experienced.
I will probably always keep a Linux development machine around. Maybe even using it as a dev server, running Postgresql, MySQL, Apache, JBoss, etc. Linux as a server is an excellent platform. My next desktop WILL be a Mac - whether it is running a PowerPC or an Intel chip is irrelevant.
I'll probably always have to keep a Windows machine lying around for similar reasons. I just may not ever connect it to the Internet.
But my new 12" PowerBook G4 does everything I need it to. My Dell running SuSE (from 8.0 to 9.2) didn't. Simple really.
Can the siutation be improved by the Linux community? Actually, I think not
Discuss.