It has been a while since I read "The God Delusion", and in all honesty I stopped reading because I found it too preachy...
HOWEVER, I do recall him making it quite clear that he had no PROOF for the non-existence of God, only that he chooses to not believe based on evidence he has seen. In much the same way that there is no PROOF that evolution is correct, but lacking any more credible theory it makes sense to treat it as such.
I assume you are referring to the Volvo inboard engine.
I am not an expert on the subject, but I get the impression that the innovation here is using forward-facing props to propel a boat.
In fact, the article clearly states that the counter-rotating props are like those in certain prop-driven airplanes.
To me as a recreational boat user, this is actually quite interesting - 20 percent more efficiency translates to lower fuel costs, or getting to my destination quicker.
Were you involved in making "The Day After Tomorrow" by any chance? What they pass for science in that film makes about as much sense as what you write.
Without doing the math
That explains a lot. Now, I admit my numbers might be slightly, or even quite far off. Still, even if I'm off by several orders of magnitude, I believe I can put your mind at ease somewhat.
A quick search on Wikipedia provides some numbers for the asteroid impact believed to be responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs (link). Let us say it was approx. 10 km in diameter, and roughly spherical. Let us further assume it was composed of porous rock with a density of around 1500 kg/m^3. That
gives us an estimate of around 900,000,000,000,000kg for its mass, or around 9*10^11 metric tons.
Now, let us assume that for the past century, we had launched 1000 tons per day into orbit. In truth, we are many orders of magnitude below that. Assume it all remained in orbit, so did not fall back to Earth or go elsewhere in the solar system. That would mean there would now be around 3.7*10^7 metric tons in orbit, or less than 0.005% of the mass of the above asteroid.
Simply put, we do not have the ability to launch something that could cause that much damage into orbit. Not even close. A more likely scenario is that a few fragments of extremely light carbon ribbon would splash down into the ocean with about as much force as a falling leaf, with most of the ribbon burning up on re-entry into the atmosphere. Or, to put it another way:
it's perfectly safe. Nothing to worry about.
For more information, I would suggest reading the entry on that LiftPort has published in their FAQ. If that is too biased for you, there are plenty of other sources that come to the same conclusion.
and no this isn't a troll actually visualize part of a frickin space elevator falling into the ocean, or worse on a nearby town
There are a number of excellent sources that explain, in great detail, why breaking the cable at pretty much any point would not be a major issue, except for the obvious not being able to use it.
I am too lazy to look up the URLs, but basically, the cable would have very little mass, and a lot would burn or break up on re-entry into the atmosphere. Most proposals place it somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, anyway, so it would have even less impact.
Slashdot Mirror
If F12 isn't doing it for you, try right-clicking on a page and editing site preferences.
Or, you could try blocking content - if you cannot select the elements you want to block on the page itself, you can always edit the list manually.
It has been a while since I read "The God Delusion", and in all honesty I stopped reading because I found it too preachy...
HOWEVER, I do recall him making it quite clear that he had no PROOF for the non-existence of God, only that he chooses to not believe based on evidence he has seen. In much the same way that there is no PROOF that evolution is correct, but lacking any more credible theory it makes sense to treat it as such.
I AM German, you insensitive clod!
Did anyone else read this and think it would be awesome to have billboards displaying Stephen Hawking's works?
since we discovered round plastic circles
I read this and immediately tried to picture a square plastic circle...
Now, if only there was a simple, cheap way to get the message out to millions of email users.
Ideally, a way that would target primarily those users that are currently falling for spam advertising...
If I read your quoted statement correctly, it seems to me that it is only talking about energy consumption, not total oil used.
I do not have any figures myself, but it seems to me that both you and parent may be correct.
I assume you are referring to the Volvo inboard engine.
I am not an expert on the subject, but I get the impression that the innovation here is using forward-facing props to propel a boat.
In fact, the article clearly states that the counter-rotating props are like those in certain prop-driven airplanes.
To me as a recreational boat user, this is actually quite interesting - 20 percent more efficiency translates to lower fuel costs, or getting to my destination quicker.
FUCKTARD
This is insightful?
Without doing the math
That explains a lot. Now, I admit my numbers might be slightly, or even quite far off. Still, even if I'm off by several orders of magnitude, I believe I can put your mind at ease somewhat.
A quick search on Wikipedia provides some numbers for the asteroid impact believed to be responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs (link). Let us say it was approx. 10 km in diameter, and roughly spherical. Let us further assume it was composed of porous rock with a density of around 1500 kg/m^3. That gives us an estimate of around 900,000,000,000,000kg for its mass, or around 9*10^11 metric tons.
Now, let us assume that for the past century, we had launched 1000 tons per day into orbit. In truth, we are many orders of magnitude below that. Assume it all remained in orbit, so did not fall back to Earth or go elsewhere in the solar system. That would mean there would now be around 3.7*10^7 metric tons in orbit, or less than 0.005% of the mass of the above asteroid.
Simply put, we do not have the ability to launch something that could cause that much damage into orbit. Not even close. A more likely scenario is that a few fragments of extremely light carbon ribbon would splash down into the ocean with about as much force as a falling leaf, with most of the ribbon burning up on re-entry into the atmosphere. Or, to put it another way:
it's perfectly safe. Nothing to worry about.
For more information, I would suggest reading the entry on that LiftPort has published in their FAQ. If that is too biased for you, there are plenty of other sources that come to the same conclusion.
There are a number of excellent sources that explain, in great detail, why breaking the cable at pretty much any point would not be a major issue, except for the obvious not being able to use it.
I am too lazy to look up the URLs, but basically, the cable would have very little mass, and a lot would burn or break up on re-entry into the atmosphere. Most proposals place it somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, anyway, so it would have even less impact.
Most of these are hacks to emulate - poorly - features that Opera provides straight out of the box.
The only notable exception is AdBlock. That is the only feature in Firefox that makes me even consider using it, and that is an extension.
Of course, any number of ad-filtering proxies will do the same...