Clearly if you had INVESTIGATED the proposal, you would know that it does not involve lifting turbines. The kite is flown in a circular or figure-8 motion. On the ground, a generator extracts energy from the rotating tether. There are already test sites.
The power is generated on the ground. The kite simply moves cables in a circular or figure-8 pattern.
Why does everyone assume they have found the show stopping problem that the people who have been working on this for years have overlooked? These people aren't amateur inventors asking for start-up capital. This system is well researched and proven to work (although I'm not sure there are any test sites working at jet stream altitudes, yet). The problem with airplanes is trivial - no-fly zones aren't exactly a new invention.
I believe it is YOU, sir, who needs the remedial history course. This country was founded on many ideals, but "tax resistance" was not one of them. The Boston tea party was a protest against the colonies lack of representation in parliament. Ballmer, through his corporation's lobbying efforts, has more influence in congress than 10,000 middle-class citizens.
Furthermore, Andrew Carnegie was a ruthless business man, but he would never have even dreamed of having political opponents assassinated. He also happens to be one of the most important philanthropists in the history of the US. He believed it was immoral to horde wealth or to bequeath it to descendants. He believed it was the duty of the corporate leaders to use their wealth to improve the lives of US citizens in ways which they could not have if the money were dispersed among them.
The next time you think about making a comment on these forums, please take a moment to assess your knowledge of the topic. We could do with less falsities on slashdot.
Looking through the comments, I see a lot of apathetic people talking about how obvious it is that this would happen, but I see no one talking about how to improve the situation (other than hinting that making education free would solve all our problems). We are in this situation because everyone just assumes it is the only way. Why don't people start thinking about how to change it? Keep in mind, though, that practical solutions are needed. A revolution in education funding isn't going to happen overnight.
There are so many intelligent people reading slashdot. It's sad that this isn't used as a forum for developing solutions. Instead it seems to be an outlet for apathy and pessimism.
As far as I know, white LED's are still less efficient than florescent lighting. However, they are much more expensive. They may or may not have a longer lifetime cost (I haven't seen a good analysis), because the phosphors dies out eventually just as in florescent lights.
You are half right. The full story is that the details are not visible in the far-field. However, if you move into the near-field you can still resolve details smaller than the wavelength of light you are using. This is the principle behind technologies such as NSOM and near-field photolithography, among others.
From a classical viewpoint, there are evanescent fields generated by the details that fall of exponentially. The interesting thing about meta materials, is that you can amplify these fields so that they are much stronger than they started out. Then, on the other side of the material, they will decay down to their original amplitude. This doesn't break power conservation because evanescent waves do not carry power. None-the-less, you can then put a sensor at the point where the evanescent fields are the original amplitude, and resolve beyond the diffraction limit. Power is transmitted because the sensor reflects part of the evanescent waves, and two evanescent waves with a phase difference leads to the transmission of power. This is the concept of Pendry's Super Lens.
Cloaking operates on a different, but similar, principle. However, as I previously stated, cloaking is being researched more for application to radar than for visible light. True cloaking would eliminate the radar cross-section in any direction. However, for most radar it is enough to eliminate backscattering, which should be significantly easier.
That is because the people writing these articles have no idea what they are talking about. You can't make a mouse look like an elephant, unless you are dealing with waves much longer than an elephant, in which case that would be like making a baseball look like an elephant sized baseball, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the balls or mice or elephants. Only the size of the shadow would have relevance.
Metamaterials can only cloak objects smaller than the wavelength of light you are dealing with. Once you start getting to half wavelength objects the cloaking turns to crap, and only works for a very very thin bandwidth. That wouldn't be very helpful for visible cloaking, because we see a wide range of wavelengths.
What metamaterials MAY be useful is radar cloaking. There are also applications useful for scientific instruments such as NSOM (Near-field Scanning Optical Microscope), in which you can cloak the probe so that you do not interfere with the light you are trying to measure.
Metamaterials are very interesting, but not for the layman. Move along.
My guess is that you are talking to the wrong people. I'm a student who started using Office 2007 at work, and learned to love it. To be fair, I never used many of the advanced formatting features until I started using 2007, but I find everything much easier to find. Since the ribbons are grouped by function, you can usually just work with one ribbon for a while before needing to switch. So instead of having to click twice to get the functionality you are looking for you only have to click once.
When I have to go to campus to use Office 2003 I have a much more difficult time. Again, maybes it is just that I learned to use the more advanced features on 2007 and not on 2003, and thus prefer 2007. It's tough to say. As any psychologist can tell you, people are horrible at saying why they prefer something.
So forget about all those billions upon billions of people in the future that could have dramatically improved quality of life, we need to worry about the few thousand alive here and now? Do you think the same way about finances? Forget the bills I have to pay in 6 months, I'm buying this $100,000 television that will make ME happy NOW.
The value of $1 in basic research is infinitely returned in the future, as there will be exponential growth in the human population. That is assuming, of course, that we invest the time and resources to do the research such that our descendants can continue to grow and thrive. If we don't? We'll, then we will probably all be wiped out in a billion years.
Show me "many, many products in daily use today that we still have no idea how they work" and I will show you many, many engineers that, in order to design that product, consulted thousands of research papers that were funded directly as basic research, or relied on the understanding brought by basic research. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean there isn't someone out there who does.
Basic research is behind everything you enjoy in your modern life. Those accidents made during "very focused and practical development" would not have led to anything if basic research had not laid the foundation for understanding. Imagine trying to design transistors without knowing anything about atoms, electrons, and quantum mechanics. It would be impossible.
Just because you are too shortsighted to see the benefits of the LHC to future humanity doesn't mean they don't exist.
Back when there was this method called "investigative reporting", there would be crazy things going on all the time, and yet exposing them actually brought improvements.
Today, "investigative reporting" means blowing trivial and menial things completely out of proportion, asking non-experts their oppinions, and twisting experts words into doom and gloom. It's pathetic how hard these people work to do nothing.
X-ray photolithography has actually been extensively researched. However, an X-ray laser really doesn't help at all. In fact, photo-lithography uses an incoherent source, like a lightbulb, not a coherent source, like a laser.
The reason X-ray's are not used is mainly because the depth of field scales with the wavelength. If you make it too small, it becomes nearly impossible to expose an area as large as a CPU die without some parts going out of focus.
I might start carrying a O2 sensor around with me.. They should make watches with them integrated, and start beeping when it goes below say 10%.
It could be difficult to miniaturize that much though... The smallest ones are probably chemical sensors, which wouldn't be very good for something that lasts as long as a watch.
True, but it is the judges JOB to be unbiased. Dedicating himself to a lobby group is a huge conflict of interest. Either he has to disappoint the group, or he has to disappoint the people he is judging.
Slashdot Mirror
They are used in every high efficiency organic solar cell.
Then again, organic solar cells are still only in the lab, so you probably don't care.
Clearly if you had INVESTIGATED the proposal, you would know that it does not involve lifting turbines. The kite is flown in a circular or figure-8 motion. On the ground, a generator extracts energy from the rotating tether. There are already test sites.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_future_of_renewable_energy.html
The power is generated on the ground. The kite simply moves cables in a circular or figure-8 pattern.
Why does everyone assume they have found the show stopping problem that the people who have been working on this for years have overlooked? These people aren't amateur inventors asking for start-up capital. This system is well researched and proven to work (although I'm not sure there are any test sites working at jet stream altitudes, yet). The problem with airplanes is trivial - no-fly zones aren't exactly a new invention.
I believe it is YOU, sir, who needs the remedial history course. This country was founded on many ideals, but "tax resistance" was not one of them. The Boston tea party was a protest against the colonies lack of representation in parliament. Ballmer, through his corporation's lobbying efforts, has more influence in congress than 10,000 middle-class citizens.
Furthermore, Andrew Carnegie was a ruthless business man, but he would never have even dreamed of having political opponents assassinated. He also happens to be one of the most important philanthropists in the history of the US. He believed it was immoral to horde wealth or to bequeath it to descendants. He believed it was the duty of the corporate leaders to use their wealth to improve the lives of US citizens in ways which they could not have if the money were dispersed among them.
The next time you think about making a comment on these forums, please take a moment to assess your knowledge of the topic. We could do with less falsities on slashdot.
Looking through the comments, I see a lot of apathetic people talking about how obvious it is that this would happen, but I see no one talking about how to improve the situation (other than hinting that making education free would solve all our problems). We are in this situation because everyone just assumes it is the only way. Why don't people start thinking about how to change it? Keep in mind, though, that practical solutions are needed. A revolution in education funding isn't going to happen overnight.
There are so many intelligent people reading slashdot. It's sad that this isn't used as a forum for developing solutions. Instead it seems to be an outlet for apathy and pessimism.
As far as I know, white LED's are still less efficient than florescent lighting. However, they are much more expensive. They may or may not have a longer lifetime cost (I haven't seen a good analysis), because the phosphors dies out eventually just as in florescent lights.
Yes. However, until we try, we won't know if it is possible to counter-act wide-band radar, too.
Metamaterials are a relatively new field. There is still much to be understood.
You are half right. The full story is that the details are not visible in the far-field. However, if you move into the near-field you can still resolve details smaller than the wavelength of light you are using. This is the principle behind technologies such as NSOM and near-field photolithography, among others.
From a classical viewpoint, there are evanescent fields generated by the details that fall of exponentially. The interesting thing about meta materials, is that you can amplify these fields so that they are much stronger than they started out. Then, on the other side of the material, they will decay down to their original amplitude. This doesn't break power conservation because evanescent waves do not carry power. None-the-less, you can then put a sensor at the point where the evanescent fields are the original amplitude, and resolve beyond the diffraction limit. Power is transmitted because the sensor reflects part of the evanescent waves, and two evanescent waves with a phase difference leads to the transmission of power. This is the concept of Pendry's Super Lens.
Cloaking operates on a different, but similar, principle. However, as I previously stated, cloaking is being researched more for application to radar than for visible light. True cloaking would eliminate the radar cross-section in any direction. However, for most radar it is enough to eliminate backscattering, which should be significantly easier.
Okay, I'm rambling...
These "programs" seem a bit over generalized. I mean "High Productivity Computing Systems"? I think there are a few other groups working in that area.
It would take me a few minutes to think of something that doesn't fall under these 9 topics.
There was no world wide flood. A large portion of the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard did flood at one point in time, but that is far from world wide.
That is because the people writing these articles have no idea what they are talking about. You can't make a mouse look like an elephant, unless you are dealing with waves much longer than an elephant, in which case that would be like making a baseball look like an elephant sized baseball, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the balls or mice or elephants. Only the size of the shadow would have relevance.
Metamaterials can only cloak objects smaller than the wavelength of light you are dealing with. Once you start getting to half wavelength objects the cloaking turns to crap, and only works for a very very thin bandwidth. That wouldn't be very helpful for visible cloaking, because we see a wide range of wavelengths.
What metamaterials MAY be useful is radar cloaking. There are also applications useful for scientific instruments such as NSOM (Near-field Scanning Optical Microscope), in which you can cloak the probe so that you do not interfere with the light you are trying to measure.
Metamaterials are very interesting, but not for the layman. Move along.
My guess is that you are talking to the wrong people. I'm a student who started using Office 2007 at work, and learned to love it. To be fair, I never used many of the advanced formatting features until I started using 2007, but I find everything much easier to find. Since the ribbons are grouped by function, you can usually just work with one ribbon for a while before needing to switch. So instead of having to click twice to get the functionality you are looking for you only have to click once.
When I have to go to campus to use Office 2003 I have a much more difficult time. Again, maybes it is just that I learned to use the more advanced features on 2007 and not on 2003, and thus prefer 2007. It's tough to say. As any psychologist can tell you, people are horrible at saying why they prefer something.
So forget about all those billions upon billions of people in the future that could have dramatically improved quality of life, we need to worry about the few thousand alive here and now? Do you think the same way about finances? Forget the bills I have to pay in 6 months, I'm buying this $100,000 television that will make ME happy NOW.
The value of $1 in basic research is infinitely returned in the future, as there will be exponential growth in the human population. That is assuming, of course, that we invest the time and resources to do the research such that our descendants can continue to grow and thrive. If we don't? We'll, then we will probably all be wiped out in a billion years.
Show me "many, many products in daily use today that we still have no idea how they work" and I will show you many, many engineers that, in order to design that product, consulted thousands of research papers that were funded directly as basic research, or relied on the understanding brought by basic research. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean there isn't someone out there who does.
Basic research is behind everything you enjoy in your modern life. Those accidents made during "very focused and practical development" would not have led to anything if basic research had not laid the foundation for understanding. Imagine trying to design transistors without knowing anything about atoms, electrons, and quantum mechanics. It would be impossible.
Just because you are too shortsighted to see the benefits of the LHC to future humanity doesn't mean they don't exist.
Why the hell are they building nuclear power plants to drill for oil. Does this not make sense to anyone else?
Why the hell do you think sports stars get paid so much? I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with shmadvertising.
Back when there was this method called "investigative reporting", there would be crazy things going on all the time, and yet exposing them actually brought improvements.
Today, "investigative reporting" means blowing trivial and menial things completely out of proportion, asking non-experts their oppinions, and twisting experts words into doom and gloom. It's pathetic how hard these people work to do nothing.
Well, since it is a salt flat, I'm guessing the lithium is in salt form (LiF, LiCl).
X-ray photolithography has actually been extensively researched. However, an X-ray laser really doesn't help at all. In fact, photo-lithography uses an incoherent source, like a lightbulb, not a coherent source, like a laser.
The reason X-ray's are not used is mainly because the depth of field scales with the wavelength. If you make it too small, it becomes nearly impossible to expose an area as large as a CPU die without some parts going out of focus.
Civil disobedience isn't near as effective as political lobbying.
Maybe he was just trying to explain it to the layman.
I mean, lets be honest here. I didn't understand a word of your explanation. Given, I haven't had chemistry or biology in several years.
If that's true, then it's just sad.
I might start carrying a O2 sensor around with me.. They should make watches with them integrated, and start beeping when it goes below say 10%.
It could be difficult to miniaturize that much though... The smallest ones are probably chemical sensors, which wouldn't be very good for something that lasts as long as a watch.
Damn, we better go post another message on Opera's forums to correct this mistake!
Or you're just getting high from all that O2.
True, but it is the judges JOB to be unbiased. Dedicating himself to a lobby group is a huge conflict of interest. Either he has to disappoint the group, or he has to disappoint the people he is judging.