i agree totally. Upgrade the existing ones when the technology / economic point is reached; ie it's cost effective to deploy the new tech. Generate a liquid/gas fuel, and transport that where the same tech/economic point is reached.
The sahara is bad, because you need to get the water to it, but your point in general is still valid.
i hate to say it, but it appears to me that there is a cable leading to the bulbs. i'd point it out if i could.
as for the movie one, well movies are not evidence of science to me. after all, my favorites; Star Wars and Star Trek, have sound propagating through space!
BTW: it is called electrolysis and the verb is to electrolyse (I suppose spelling is different on both sides of Atlantic). no i think you're right and I'm wrong. I'm a decent electrical engineer, maybe even good, but I am a terrible speller!
yes and current networks have been built over a day, look right, occupy no space and need no transmission lines, right?
I didn't say we shouldn't add them, I said that environmentalists would argue that we shouldn't. After all, didn't I comment positively about the massive, expensive, infrastructure upgrade that Con Edison(NYC's power company) is in the process of installing. I'm all for infrastructure improvements.
There are projects that propose use of DC instead of AC and this could actually decrease power loss at transmission.
You are wrong there. The whole reason we went with AC is that the transmission losses are lower. Edison was for DC, but Westinghouse and his genus Tesla convinced the world, correctly, that AC is the better solution.
The actual power stations based on solar power can be built (for Europe) in Africa and transmission lines towards users in (also) northern Europe.
What about the Germany's massive government support for solar electric? There are tons of solar cells being installed all over the place there in Germany.
In northern Europe one can built (as it is currently being done) wind mills in coastal areas. This can offset part of the problem with lack of energy if clouds obscure the sun and/or the wind goes elsewhere.
Why not simply install large batteries? American Electric Power is doing that in places in Ohio. What about flywheels or ultra capacitors? EEstor says they'll have amazingly power dense ones available soon, and they convinced an American defense contractor to contract to buy them. Those technologies would make solar and wind much more viable for the local area; ie even northern Europe.
This all may be not nice for average tourist or local resident looking at the wind mill or solar panel so are however highways, train lines, power lines existing today as well as climate changing burning furnaces of any traditional power plant (yes human activity changes climate - for those that do not believe maybe they should buy two weather stations and start measuring temperatures in and outside town for a simple proof).
Um, climate is long term. What you describe is weather, more specifically, the heat island effect. While that is certainly true, it's not climate. I do agree with you that human activity is effecting the Earth in many significant ways.
Now all this may be unimportant - the time when currently used fuel for power plants will be gone and something will have to be done is approaching however - we can just as well start doing things now when it is not so troublesome.
Why such gloom and doom? There is tons of money to be made, and tons of investors and venture capitalists trying to get their hands on all that energy money. I work in the financial industry and see it every day. Have hope; greed will solve this one.
But of course traditional approach i.e. that of the guy who cut down the last tree on Easter Island and thus destroyed last chance for him and his fellows to build a rescue vessel in case thing
But there were plenty of people alive when Europeans found the place; long after the deforestation. Also, plenty of people live where there are no trees. I know I'm quibbling, but my point is that you are over-reacting. Energy is just another problem for people to solve, and we will do it. We are doing it.
get tough (and soon they did) is the only valid mode of operation? I dislike bureaucrats in Europe but they have one advantage over their American counterparts - at least sometimes they think in terms of community. ANother advantage of this technology is that we can do it without Americans,
I am an American, and it sounds like you dislike me because of that. Don't worry, I won't hold that against you.
Chinese or whoever still considering and or avoiding looking at the reality. Even if oil will not end (how could this be) we may a
all the more reason for someone here to give it a try. i love reading about Tesla, I am a EE, and who knows when I leave the city maybe i'll give it a shot! hopefully, another EE with more space than a studio apartment in Manhattan can give it a shot before I do.
he had a lab in Colorado? wow, i only knew about the one here in NYC.
as to tesla, I've read a book or two of his. Some of his ideas were bubkas, and tons were not. it's hard to say what the answer was on this one. i'd love to see an experiment on this to prove it, but without that, I'll just call it a very interesting read.
- Mike
I am only against a global system. I'm all for solar and that stuff. While I will quibble about some of the details you put in your comment, I agree completely with your intent
In other words, NYC is "solving" the "problem" of electricity wasted into heat (by resistance) by wasting a ton of electricity running a gigantic fucking A/C unit 24/7... which coincidentally, is just a heat pump.
Is it just me, or is this really silly to start with? You might think so until you consider some details I didn't mention. The amount of energy wasted on cooling the superconductor is significantly less than the amount of energy lost in transmitting the power. Proper insulation does help, along with the fact that we are talking about a few limited, but VERY LARGE underground wires. In a single wire in your house, not that much power is wasted say heating up the wire that say supplies your tv with power. Touch it, it's not warm. The problem is when you try to send enough power for say Manhattan Island where you have roughly 10 million people at work during the day. Then you are sending A LOT of current, and it's the current that heats the wire. That same copper in your tv power cord ain't that good when you put a lot of power in it, and your transmission losses get huge. By cooling a special metal turning it into a superconductor, you eliminate those losses. Thus by spending a bit more energy on cooling, you save a lot more overall by using the material without resistance.
Read up on power losses on high power transmission lines and superconductors; then you'll understand how they make sense in limited installations.
the thing that will kill your idea is power transmission. The US together with Canada has a huge well interconnected grid, and yet, it is really 2 grids separated by the Mississippi river with a few interconnects across it. It's then broken down into several smaller grids, like the one that supplies most of the Mid Atlantic states and parts of Ontario Canada. As you might remember, that sub-grid went down about 4 years ago even though the rest of the US/Canada grid was fine. That grid failed because we didn't have enough transmission lines to transmit all the power around the sub-grid when one large transmission line was knocked out due to an accident.
So what's my point, to do what you want would take A LOT more transmission lines. People don't want to build them, and environmentalists would be upset with all the land that would have to be given over to them.
The other problem is transmission loss. You lose power in a wire when you send electricity to it; it literally heats up the wire a bit. This is why you see those big transmission lines sag a lot in the summer, and a lot less the rest of the year. Sure, the summer heat does some to the wire, but most is the extra summer load. Superconductors would help, but we(humanity) can't make ones that work at room temperature; or even close to it. We're getting closer though, and are actually using them in limited places. NYC is currently installing them in parts of the city; along with the expensive cooling system to make the wires work. You also are starting to see them pop up within the sub-stations around the US. I think other countries are starting limited usage of them as well, but I can't recall any examples.
Most solar thermal plants use some medium that the sunlight heats up. That medium is pumped close to the bottom of a water tank to generate your steam. The thing is that the sun heats up the stuff a lot, and you can store that medium in a well insulated tank. You can then pump it from that storage tank to the boiler after the sun goes down. Even the early versions setup in California in the 70s did this, and that plant is still running today; albeit with some upgrades. Beyond that, as another commenter pointed out, using some electricity to electrolysize(sp?) water into hydrogen to be burned in an ICE or better yet used in a fuel cell would get you power after hours just fine.
I don't think that word means what they think it means." - Fesic (quoted sort'a sideways) Not to nitpick, but since this is/., it was Inigo. Fezzik was the character played by Andre the Giant.
] If you access it directly, it hides the answers and asks you to pay. But from google, you get to the answers directly because of some glitch.
Now this is funny. I honestly had no idea you had to pay for it with Experts-exchange. I google everything, from coding help to websites for my credit cards; to be sure I'm going to the site I want to go to instead of a phony.
That's a fair point, but I don't see how the fact that it's done that way in Europe, has any effect on how it's done in NYC. Here's proof for you: Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stop Area. Better yet, please come visit my city, and check out the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stop on the 6 line for yourself; then you'll see it turns around. With the dollar being so weak, the trip won't cost you much, and I'm sure you'll have fun here.
I guess my point is that the simple fact that they do it one way in one place, or most places, doesn't mean that all places are that way. After all, most of the world uses the metric system, but the US still does not.
By the way, like I said in my last post, my father walked those tracks for over 20 years maintaining the closed circuit telephone system that is there for emergency and maintenance workers. So, while I myself have not seen them, my father has walked through those turnarounds. Still it's pretty obvious to anyone who's visited here and walked into one of the end of line stations. For the record, the S or shuttle line that goes between Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station as most folks incorrectly say, and Time Square station does not turn around. The conductor does not need to leave the train to change direction though.
The good news is that you CAN'T crash into it. Although there are tracks that go to Grand Central, AMTrack does not currently use them; only the commuter railroad Metro-North; including the Connecticut line, does. AMTrack, including the Acela, only goes into Penn Station on the other side of town. More to the point, though, in the case of both stations, the trains go UNDER the station, and not into it. There are plenty of choke points to include the tunnels from Jersey to Manhattan that would be used to stop any high-speed train. Beyond that, the fact is that a whole new track would be needed to set this up. I honestly doubt they would use the beautiful old Grand Central Terminal, or rather ugly Pennsylvania station, because you'd have to modify the existing tracks quite a bit to support the Maglev tracks. The problem there that the tracks that support AmTrack, used in Penn and currently not used in GCT, are also used by the local commuter trains; the Long Island Rail Road goes into Penn, and soon(10+ years) thanks to a $20+ billion construction project, the LIRR will go to GCT. Those trains which bring many millions of people into and out of the city each day would have service limitations and interruptions. That's why I don't expect to see any MagLev trains going there any time soon. Of course, I sure would love to see it; especially if that meant that they would upgrade those commuter trains as well.
Also, there are tunnels that enable all the trains, subways too, to turn around underground. The two stations have branches off of the main transit tracks that do have ends, but the main tracks don't end. I guess, you could probably have your train jump the track if you took the turn fast enough.
Virgin is focusing on a specific limited mission that no one has done in a way as to open it for a large number of people. If Virgin can make money giving people these cannonball shots, then others, if not Virgin itself, will spend the money to research and develop a craft that can do orbital or even lunar missions. There doesn't need to be a linear progression from SS2 to an orbit capable craft. My analogy was fine because I don't think the Buick should be on the racetrack. They are vehicles designed for different tasks; tuned to their specific environments; just as orbital and sub-orbital missions are different. Again, all Virgin needs to do is to make money doing this. Then people will believe that a NGO can do this, and NGO orbital fights will come with a craft properly tuned and designed for that more difficult challenge. When that happens, you will see the new technology.
As to my understanding of rocket science, well, for starters, maybe you should learn manners before you return to the discussion. You're not going to convince people to agree with your opinion if you insult them first. You only come across as an idiot when you do it; regardless of how smart you may be. You also might try opening your mind to ideas that don't fit with your own narrow view of the world.
None of this is particularly correct (or incorrect)... It's not easy to simplify a couple of thousand years of history into one or two small postings.
hence why I was wondering why you were quibbling with me in the first place, when I was focusing on the cultural commonalities between the three countries.
So is your average bobble head doll manufacturer. And they're just as relevant to improving orbital spaceflight. If you want someone to cheer for, cheer for SpaceX, for Orbital Sciences, for SeaLaunch, for any of the private companies involved in *actual orbital spaceflight*.
The problem with your logic is that you are missing the effects of changing the norm. Sure, like another commenter said in response to your comment, a Buick is not amazing, but it's reliability is compared to a Formula 1. The Shuttle is a Formula 1, so is SeaLaunch and the others. They aren't trying to move people on the scale and with the safety of these guys, but think if all the cars in the world were just race cars. This will change things; particularly, to continue my analogy, when SpaceShipTwo is basically the Model T. With the funds they will get from selling these trips to the public, sexy advances can be made; ones that I think the other companies will have difficulty keeping up with.
I was hoping to get that kind of response about that. It was intentional, and, yes, I know the difference between England, and Brittan. I was stationed with a Scottish officer who was a liaison to my USAF unit, and I used to enjoy annoying him with such statements as well. That was just to see if anyone read this.
As for the Germans vs Normans, it was the Germans; Anglo-Saxons to be precise who took England after the Romans left, and then the Normans took power from them in 1066. How are the Germans in charge then? You might enjoy reading Ivanhoe, which I did recently for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed; written by a Scotsman.
Either way, my analysis is correct, our 3 countries have far more in common; if only from the regular and close contact, we've had for all of our collective histories. Besides, I read somewhere; Nature, Scientific American maybe, that genetically, neither the A/S nor the Normans have heavily imprinted their genes on the country. They said something to the effect of the fact that most of the people have most of their genes from the native population, and that neither invasion brought enough people to change the gene pool significantly.
Your comment about the Auld Alliance not withstanding, I'm still right. The reason is that you are talking politics, and I am talking culture. In politics, things are far more complex, and I would say that it's easier to find the differences between the 3 than the similarities.
Mmm; they helped you, you helped them.. Now the hatred makes perfect sense
Actually, I thinks it's the immense similarity in our two peoples that is the source of the problem. Both the French and US Americans have a bit of a chip on our shoulders about our place in the world both culturally and, let's say, militarily. We both would like hegemony over the whole world. To a real degree, albeit it seems to be fading at the moment, we have it. They did for a short time, but have always been second best. First they were second to the Brits, and then, after helping us separate from the Brits, we usurped the Brits for hegemony. The French never had their chance in the sun; except again for a short time when Napoleon was running things. In a sense, the general dislike of the British and the French for each other was transferred to the US and the French. Ironically, since the British are ruled by the Normans, and the Normans whom are Franconised(my word) Vikings, the British are very much culturally tied to the French. Again, due to our cultural origins in England, so is the US. That only progressed through time with the US-French relationship. After all, the French Revolution was inspired by the American revolution; something itself partially sparked by French Renaissance authors; and arguably triggered by the expensive French support given to our revolution while they still supported other parts of their ongoing war with England. Take America's most pure and idealistic symbol, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France. Then there is the often referred to, but rarely read, De Tocqueville's Democracy in America; considered the definitive work on our political environment. Again, written by a Frenchman.
Admittedly, my rant is mostly about French ties to the US, and not as much the other way, but I'm American, and don't know that much about how we've impacted their culture. Still, I will say the willfulness and obstenance that both ascribe to the other is both well deserved as a description and accurate. I consider the US to be the younger sibling to both England and France; as such we love to hate them, but come to there defense when needed; that is all 3 parties there, even if the Brits and the Yanks generally get along better.
It is a closed system. Just a lot more complex than you think. Most tsunami energy is refracted around islands but those that visibly hit beaches are reflected back. The wave is less coherent but is still there. The major cause of loss of energy in large open ocean waves is the friction of water and air molecules.
There's a difference in perspective here. Your perspective is looking at the wave on the macro ocean scale. The people you're arguing with, and the people building this energy plant, are looking at it on a smaller scale. The fact is that they are looking to take some of the energy that is removed from the system by the shoreline, and convert that to electricity. Considering how much energy is in the ocean, and how much is added from solar/tidal forces, I can't believe taking even gigawatts would have any effect on the macro scale at all. Besides, if global warming is going to add energy to the oceans, then this would be a way to take some out that we added, right?
I got one for my nephews the monday before thanksgiving. They did give out 300 that day; I got roughly number 270. I got in line 2 hours before opening. I figured it would be getting worse, but not 2 more hours in a week!
A friend of mine went in 2 months ago and got one with no wait on his lunch break, so yeah, I wish my sister told me the boys wanted one then!
In NYC, and I'll bet this is true in LA, there is a Nintendo World store. They sell 300 Wiis every day to the first 300 people in line. I got one for myself last year this way, and one for my nephews; they're old enough this year to ask for one. The catch, you have to get in line early; 2 hours and rising; even though the store opens at 9am.
This is the only way I know of. I hope this helps.
By the way, the Nintendo World store in Manhattan is in Rockefeller Center.
Slashdot Mirror
i agree totally. Upgrade the existing ones when the technology / economic point is reached; ie it's cost effective to deploy the new tech. Generate a liquid/gas fuel, and transport that where the same tech/economic point is reached.
The sahara is bad, because you need to get the water to it, but your point in general is still valid.
i hate to say it, but it appears to me that there is a cable leading to the bulbs. i'd point it out if i could.
as for the movie one, well movies are not evidence of science to me. after all, my favorites; Star Wars and Star Trek, have sound propagating through space!
yes and current networks have been built over a day, look right, occupy no space and need no transmission lines, right?
I didn't say we shouldn't add them, I said that environmentalists would argue that we shouldn't. After all, didn't I comment positively about the massive, expensive, infrastructure upgrade that Con Edison(NYC's power company) is in the process of installing. I'm all for infrastructure improvements.
There are projects that propose use of DC instead of AC and this could actually decrease power loss at transmission.
You are wrong there. The whole reason we went with AC is that the transmission losses are lower. Edison was for DC, but Westinghouse and his genus Tesla convinced the world, correctly, that AC is the better solution.
The actual power stations based on solar power can be built (for Europe) in Africa and transmission lines towards users in (also) northern Europe.
What about the Germany's massive government support for solar electric? There are tons of solar cells being installed all over the place there in Germany.
In northern Europe one can built (as it is currently being done) wind mills in coastal areas. This can offset part of the problem with lack of energy if clouds obscure the sun and/or the wind goes elsewhere.
Why not simply install large batteries? American Electric Power is doing that in places in Ohio. What about flywheels or ultra capacitors? EEstor says they'll have amazingly power dense ones available soon, and they convinced an American defense contractor to contract to buy them. Those technologies would make solar and wind much more viable for the local area; ie even northern Europe.
This all may be not nice for average tourist or local resident looking at the wind mill or solar panel so are however highways, train lines, power lines existing today as well as climate changing burning furnaces of any traditional power plant (yes human activity changes climate - for those that do not believe maybe they should buy two weather stations and start measuring temperatures in and outside town for a simple proof).
Um, climate is long term. What you describe is weather, more specifically, the heat island effect. While that is certainly true, it's not climate. I do agree with you that human activity is effecting the Earth in many significant ways.
Now all this may be unimportant - the time when currently used fuel for power plants will be gone and something will have to be done is approaching however - we can just as well start doing things now when it is not so troublesome.
Why such gloom and doom? There is tons of money to be made, and tons of investors and venture capitalists trying to get their hands on all that energy money. I work in the financial industry and see it every day. Have hope; greed will solve this one.
But of course traditional approach i.e. that of the guy who cut down the last tree on Easter Island and thus destroyed last chance for him and his fellows to build a rescue vessel in case thing
But there were plenty of people alive when Europeans found the place; long after the deforestation. Also, plenty of people live where there are no trees. I know I'm quibbling, but my point is that you are over-reacting. Energy is just another problem for people to solve, and we will do it. We are doing it.
get tough (and soon they did) is the only valid mode of operation? I dislike bureaucrats in Europe but they have one advantage over their American counterparts - at least sometimes they think in terms of community. ANother advantage of this technology is that we can do it without Americans,
I am an American, and it sounds like you dislike me because of that. Don't worry, I won't hold that against you.
Chinese or whoever still considering and or avoiding looking at the reality. Even if oil will not end (how could this be) we may a
all the more reason for someone here to give it a try. i love reading about Tesla, I am a EE, and who knows when I leave the city maybe i'll give it a shot! hopefully, another EE with more space than a studio apartment in Manhattan can give it a shot before I do.
he had a lab in Colorado? wow, i only knew about the one here in NYC.
as to tesla, I've read a book or two of his. Some of his ideas were bubkas, and tons were not. it's hard to say what the answer was on this one. i'd love to see an experiment on this to prove it, but without that, I'll just call it a very interesting read. - Mike
that's a interesting paper, but I'd like to see some experimental evidence before I'll say anything stronger than that. Good find though.
I am only against a global system. I'm all for solar and that stuff. While I will quibble about some of the details you put in your comment, I agree completely with your intent
that makes no sense. explain to me how i can put power into the ground and get it in a form i can use a mile away.
Read up on power losses on high power transmission lines and superconductors; then you'll understand how they make sense in limited installations.
the thing that will kill your idea is power transmission. The US together with Canada has a huge well interconnected grid, and yet, it is really 2 grids separated by the Mississippi river with a few interconnects across it. It's then broken down into several smaller grids, like the one that supplies most of the Mid Atlantic states and parts of Ontario Canada. As you might remember, that sub-grid went down about 4 years ago even though the rest of the US/Canada grid was fine. That grid failed because we didn't have enough transmission lines to transmit all the power around the sub-grid when one large transmission line was knocked out due to an accident.
So what's my point, to do what you want would take A LOT more transmission lines. People don't want to build them, and environmentalists would be upset with all the land that would have to be given over to them.
The other problem is transmission loss. You lose power in a wire when you send electricity to it; it literally heats up the wire a bit. This is why you see those big transmission lines sag a lot in the summer, and a lot less the rest of the year. Sure, the summer heat does some to the wire, but most is the extra summer load. Superconductors would help, but we(humanity) can't make ones that work at room temperature; or even close to it. We're getting closer though, and are actually using them in limited places. NYC is currently installing them in parts of the city; along with the expensive cooling system to make the wires work. You also are starting to see them pop up within the sub-stations around the US. I think other countries are starting limited usage of them as well, but I can't recall any examples.
Most solar thermal plants use some medium that the sunlight heats up. That medium is pumped close to the bottom of a water tank to generate your steam. The thing is that the sun heats up the stuff a lot, and you can store that medium in a well insulated tank. You can then pump it from that storage tank to the boiler after the sun goes down. Even the early versions setup in California in the 70s did this, and that plant is still running today; albeit with some upgrades. Beyond that, as another commenter pointed out, using some electricity to electrolysize(sp?) water into hydrogen to be burned in an ICE or better yet used in a fuel cell would get you power after hours just fine.
Not according to IMDB... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/ Mandy Patinkin ... Inigo Montoya
I love that movie too, by the way.
That's a fair point, but I don't see how the fact that it's done that way in Europe, has any effect on how it's done in NYC. Here's proof for you: Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stop Area. Better yet, please come visit my city, and check out the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall stop on the 6 line for yourself; then you'll see it turns around. With the dollar being so weak, the trip won't cost you much, and I'm sure you'll have fun here.
I guess my point is that the simple fact that they do it one way in one place, or most places, doesn't mean that all places are that way. After all, most of the world uses the metric system, but the US still does not.
By the way, like I said in my last post, my father walked those tracks for over 20 years maintaining the closed circuit telephone system that is there for emergency and maintenance workers. So, while I myself have not seen them, my father has walked through those turnarounds. Still it's pretty obvious to anyone who's visited here and walked into one of the end of line stations. For the record, the S or shuttle line that goes between Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station as most folks incorrectly say, and Time Square station does not turn around. The conductor does not need to leave the train to change direction though.
The good news is that you CAN'T crash into it. Although there are tracks that go to Grand Central, AMTrack does not currently use them; only the commuter railroad Metro-North; including the Connecticut line, does. AMTrack, including the Acela, only goes into Penn Station on the other side of town. More to the point, though, in the case of both stations, the trains go UNDER the station, and not into it. There are plenty of choke points to include the tunnels from Jersey to Manhattan that would be used to stop any high-speed train. Beyond that, the fact is that a whole new track would be needed to set this up. I honestly doubt they would use the beautiful old Grand Central Terminal, or rather ugly Pennsylvania station, because you'd have to modify the existing tracks quite a bit to support the Maglev tracks. The problem there that the tracks that support AmTrack, used in Penn and currently not used in GCT, are also used by the local commuter trains; the Long Island Rail Road goes into Penn, and soon(10+ years) thanks to a $20+ billion construction project, the LIRR will go to GCT. Those trains which bring many millions of people into and out of the city each day would have service limitations and interruptions. That's why I don't expect to see any MagLev trains going there any time soon. Of course, I sure would love to see it; especially if that meant that they would upgrade those commuter trains as well. Also, there are tunnels that enable all the trains, subways too, to turn around underground. The two stations have branches off of the main transit tracks that do have ends, but the main tracks don't end. I guess, you could probably have your train jump the track if you took the turn fast enough.
Virgin is focusing on a specific limited mission that no one has done in a way as to open it for a large number of people. If Virgin can make money giving people these cannonball shots, then others, if not Virgin itself, will spend the money to research and develop a craft that can do orbital or even lunar missions. There doesn't need to be a linear progression from SS2 to an orbit capable craft. My analogy was fine because I don't think the Buick should be on the racetrack. They are vehicles designed for different tasks; tuned to their specific environments; just as orbital and sub-orbital missions are different. Again, all Virgin needs to do is to make money doing this. Then people will believe that a NGO can do this, and NGO orbital fights will come with a craft properly tuned and designed for that more difficult challenge. When that happens, you will see the new technology.
As to my understanding of rocket science, well, for starters, maybe you should learn manners before you return to the discussion. You're not going to convince people to agree with your opinion if you insult them first. You only come across as an idiot when you do it; regardless of how smart you may be. You also might try opening your mind to ideas that don't fit with your own narrow view of the world.
I was hoping to get that kind of response about that. It was intentional, and, yes, I know the difference between England, and Brittan. I was stationed with a Scottish officer who was a liaison to my USAF unit, and I used to enjoy annoying him with such statements as well. That was just to see if anyone read this.
As for the Germans vs Normans, it was the Germans; Anglo-Saxons to be precise who took England after the Romans left, and then the Normans took power from them in 1066. How are the Germans in charge then? You might enjoy reading Ivanhoe, which I did recently for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed; written by a Scotsman.
Either way, my analysis is correct, our 3 countries have far more in common; if only from the regular and close contact, we've had for all of our collective histories. Besides, I read somewhere; Nature, Scientific American maybe, that genetically, neither the A/S nor the Normans have heavily imprinted their genes on the country. They said something to the effect of the fact that most of the people have most of their genes from the native population, and that neither invasion brought enough people to change the gene pool significantly.
Your comment about the Auld Alliance not withstanding, I'm still right. The reason is that you are talking politics, and I am talking culture. In politics, things are far more complex, and I would say that it's easier to find the differences between the 3 than the similarities.
Admittedly, my rant is mostly about French ties to the US, and not as much the other way, but I'm American, and don't know that much about how we've impacted their culture. Still, I will say the willfulness and obstenance that both ascribe to the other is both well deserved as a description and accurate. I consider the US to be the younger sibling to both England and France; as such we love to hate them, but come to there defense when needed; that is all 3 parties there, even if the Brits and the Yanks generally get along better.
I got one for my nephews the monday before thanksgiving. They did give out 300 that day; I got roughly number 270. I got in line 2 hours before opening. I figured it would be getting worse, but not 2 more hours in a week!
A friend of mine went in 2 months ago and got one with no wait on his lunch break, so yeah, I wish my sister told me the boys wanted one then!
In NYC, and I'll bet this is true in LA, there is a Nintendo World store. They sell 300 Wiis every day to the first 300 people in line. I got one for myself last year this way, and one for my nephews; they're old enough this year to ask for one. The catch, you have to get in line early; 2 hours and rising; even though the store opens at 9am.
This is the only way I know of. I hope this helps.
By the way, the Nintendo World store in Manhattan is in Rockefeller Center.