As you stated the article is virtually worthless. It even lists al gore as an esteemed expert on GW which is enough to make any hardcore AGW whacko who's not stoned out of their gourd to gag. If the author is that clueless, he might be even be confused as to whether those things are co2 emmitters or co2 absorbers.
It evidently works by a reversible chemical reaction - probably with a bit of heat to reverse. The appearance is that it's a giant tall chimney intended to harness 'wind' power or a combo of wind and solar to create flow and then tap off some minor bit for the reversal process. If it isn't that way, it seems likely they could require the energy (if not nuclear powered) that would release more co2 than collected.
By the looks of them,they could easily cost several millions of dollars appiece to implement. Were they to be built in the quantities that the article estimated needed to be produced, their costs might even exceed the current gnp of the world, making them quite costly to civilization.
That said, if (and maybe that should be a big giant IF) co2 is a problem that must be dealt with at some point in the future, then capturing and sequestering similar to this is the only effective way to go as attempting to allieviate it at the source in many cases could be far costlier - especially by those acieved by taxing and or restricting co2 usage.
If you noticed, the article talks about when co2 levels reach the supposed doubling point over preindustrial times. That may be the point where the whackos are wanting to impose draconian rules or possibly where the machine actually begins to become somewhat efficient. That might also be the point where the contribution of co2 to global temperatures may start to exceed the measurement error (not including any systematic error or bias).
There are probably many unintended consequences of these things being inplemented. If it sucks out all the co2, is it possible that there could become a vegetation dead zone around each tower or a seriously reduced growing zone , perhaps even a mile or half mile in diameter? Would this, in combination to the tower's presence, affect the albedo of the area - and x1,000,000 of them, possible tilt us towards more global warming or perhaps another iceage. What happens if some nutcake like algore gets into power and decides we're returning to preindustrial levels of co2 - implements the effort - and it turns out the vegetation cannot survive the reduced co2 levels in the level it exists now and undergoes a massive die off? And, what if it turns out the massive carbon cycle had just a bit extra lag and continues to suck out higher rates of carbon, again endangering the plants.
So far, man's attempts to influence his environment for the good have historically brought about far worse negative consequences. For sure, when the situation is not fully known and fully assessed, doing nothing is the best and safest course of action to take even though it requires the strongest fortitude and leadership which are not factors one hardly ever finds in the ruling class.
Well, I live out in the country where there is no broadband cable or dsl service.
For broadband, I pay about $50/mo for satellite and I had to pay about $200 for equip. and install. That's cheaper than having a dedicated phone line and a dial up account for 24k baud which is what I had last year - although I keep the dial up for rainy days and satellite outages (rare). And, I no longer have to relinquish the internet so the wife has access.
Granted, it's not as cheap as dsl and maybe not quite as good. However, anyone that needs or wants high speed can go this route without going broke. My neighbor still has dialup because the 5 minutes a day he's on the internet doesn't justify spending one dime more than necessary.
Considering the illiteracy rate during the last 30 years of public education disaster in this country - it's a wonder we're even 6th. The internet is not for people who are functionally illiterate and neither are computers. In math and science - we may be as low as 15 or 30th in education.
LOL I sorta doubt it's going to be surround sound or even hi-fi.
Then again, what does happen if someone inhales dead nanotech equipment?
Personally, I doubt there's much liklihood of any practical application of this sorta stuff. Assuming you can find any of it, how is there going to be a connection to hookup - and if it's wireless, how's one going to distinguish between this thousand units and that thousand units in the dust pan?
I expect there will be some nanotech success stories eventually, I just don't have much faith that these sorts of things will be among them. I guess it goes along with the notion that there are likely to be better and more cost effective alternatives to most problems.
grey goo requires self replication if I recall properly. This sounds like a variant to the notion of crime detection by releasing dust clouds of nantech camera/recorders - go in and vacuum up the crime scene to checkout who done what to whom. (bad english intentional - as in a who done it movie). Such notions bring about the concept of big brother - big time. Whether such things will become plausible remains to be seen. Off-hand, it sort of sounds like BS - the 'let's do it because it's possible' syndrome.
In the world of high end audio, there are many false assumptions, some never proven as such. However, one item I learned about which might actually be somewhat accurate is that while one may not be able to get very close to hearing 20khz, there are timing capabilities in people which require the ability to distinguish coincidences in time arrival of audio in the 10 to 20 microsecond realm, which becomes much more of a problem in digitized audio than in an analog time frame (nondigitized) like vinyl and that high end equipment handling bandwidths to 70 or 100k Hz provide superior quality than that which doesn't. Whatever the case, many claim that vinyl provides superior audio to that of the cd. Personally, I've always found the signal to noise of vinyl to be a distraction and dust pops to be very annoying and I seldom seriously listen to music. It's no wonder that vinyl has stayed around in the background, not even considering the nostalgia aspects.
As for digital vinyl, it wouldn't seem to be very suitable. A moving stylus is always limited in bandwidth by mass and by size and subject to great disruption by dust and vinyl is an electrostatic dust magnet. Lasers make for a better stylus and permit the grooves to be sealed from dust. I'm thinking the original laser disks offered high quality analog stereo along with a very good quality analog video stream back prior to the cd revolution.
The highest bandwidth record type device made was that aborted effort by (GE?) for the video disk which tried to compete with the vcr as a player back in the 1980s. It produced inferior video and audio at a price not really much better than the VCR at the time - which was dropping like a rock.
Nowadays, the dvd is the improved cd, both in sampling rates and total data storage. However, data compression, especially like that in the solidstate memory music devices provides inferior results to the cd - for the benefit of portability. The stuff works just fine for the vast majority - who doesn't seem to know the difference between music and noise anyway. We were probably fortunate that cd makers distinguished between data files and music files on the cd. Otherwise, we'd have a new pop music form with such titles as Window's Symphony XP Pro and Excel Serenade 2.0.
In short, vinyl digital would not be a good investment.
Granted it's been over 15 yrs since I last looked, but at that time they would only sell them to or through the law enforcement community. And, they should offer them to 'at risk' individuals for sure.
However, that still doesn't change the fact that this kook in VA was planning and preparing this event for weeks.
It's interesting just how much of a mental case this guy was is now becoming known. It now appears that some around him were worried he might have been a real psycho and reported it some time before this event. I've not yet heard if he was on ritalin but I think it's been mentioned he was on some sort of antidepressant - the sort of stuff most of these modern day killer kids were on.
Whatever the case, it's sounding like it's going to be a bad day for that university in civil court sometime in the not too distance future.
This was clearly a case of murder times 30+. The perp had multiple weapons (unnecessary to kill 1 person for revenge). He chained doors shut and was wearing a bulletproof vest - something not available to the general public at all. It was planned and it took time to make the plan. The perp may or may not have been a muslim extremist but he was a terrorist or at least out to break the recording on how many he could kill. Note in the news it stated it's the largest mass murder with a firearm - because it's nowhere close to the record for mass murder by other means. I believe that distinction belongs to some sleazoid in NY City who got ticked off in a barroom disturbance and was able to find a gasoline can and a match rather than a gun. Death toll there was something over 50, with probably 45-49 being collateral damage. That though was evidently more of a short term 'crime of passion' type of thing which didn't require days or even months of preparation. It was very similar in some ways to the Temple TX Luby's cafeteria massacre perpetrated by some pothead satan worshipper who wasn't stopped dead midway through his attack because one young lady left her weapon in her car since it was not legal to have concealed carry weapons in TX at that time. She lost both her parents and was almost killed too by that thug.
Just remember, machetes don't need to be reloaded to continue killing but they're far more suitable a weapon for a large strong male than for most others. It's also much cheaper to use in genocide if you've got the manpower.
Over 10 years ago there was a cover story in RF & Microwave News with a cruddy b&w picture of light plane on a runway on the cover. The story was using passive microwaves for imaging and most of the magic was in some silicon wafer antenna array or something of the like.
300ghz is not something to sneeze at and doing so with cmos is a breakthrough. Note that the typical phaselocked loop device tends to run at frequencies somewhat higher than the target - usually - but not in this case.
Being able to see hidden things like weapons and suicide bombs will start to help end the rain of suicide terrorists. Such views are also evidently possible in moderate IR spectrum as well - to a lesser extent. Neither are harmful like frequent x-ray scans could be - as in that schwartzeneger movie where arnie goes to mars (or at least has a virtual vacation).
Gee, you mean to say that we cannot be saved from the killer bees by dialing out on our cellphones?
It's a bummer that bees are dying off just when conditions are starting to get better for vegetation with all the increased co2, warmth and humidity planned for the global warming era. Maybe they'll start to thrive more if we are headed for a new ice age instead. Or, is it possible the worker bees are getting tired of socialism and are opting for potentially more rewarding entrepreneurial lifestyles?
Regarding the 1st amndmnt, while it states congress specifically in there, it's been determined to mean all gov. regulating entities at all levels. There's been a number of amendments to it since the original 10 that applied constitutional protections on levels of gov. Originally, only the congress could make law and pass regulations but it seems things got a bit complicated as society grew and gov. grew much faster, often by ignoring its own limiting rules. It's also interesting how while the first - which specified congress as the restriction, the second was an outright ban on infringement on the gov.
It's also quite frustrating to see people that never read the document work hard to pass laws that clearly violate its direct specific intent and showing full well they do not even understand the philosophy and reasoning behind it. All that while stretching meanings to absurd levels while extolling its virtue as a 'living document' because they treat it as dead and irrelevent.
The L party has always been a bit schizo. There are the true libertarians which are very close to most of consevatism in idiology. Then there is the anomoly - the pothead, legalize drug crowd who are virtually the polar opposites but have grabbed on to the L view on gov. meddling in private lives with their last few remaining functioning neurons but have little in common with much of the rest of the L idiology. As for Repub/Dem - they sort of represent whatever conservative/liberal idiology tends to dominiate their respective bases - at least when their elected arristocracy feels the need to gain primary votes or contributions.
As for GW, or AGW, the co2 boogeyman is starting to show up as the 'emperor with no clothes'. It seems that it's already pretty maxed in possible contributions at around 3 degrees. The basic physics indicates it's contribution is well over 90% of what it's capable of doing - in other words - it's already essentially saturated at normal levels. The claims that are being put forth in the formal IPCC appear to be based on the assumption it has an exponential effect - causing drastic changes with small increases when quite the opposite is true. It also seems those references on the subject all go back to something rather obscure and never even translated into english and according to some who have actually looked at it and translated, doesn't even make reference to what they claim. However, the basic physics doesn't support the notion. Adding more co2 doesn't significantly increase the amount of IR blockage because the blockage is in bands of wavelengths and it stops it rather quickly compared to the thickness of the atmosphere. To relate to a greenhouse, one can make a greenhouse from thin plastic film, thin lexan, thin glass or they can make rather expensive ones from thick glass or lexan, including multilayers. The greenhouse effect is achieved by any thickness of material and thicker materials are mostly for structural considerations and for plain insulation benefits since the outside is still subject to air and to conduction. That thickness doesn't really help in the greenhouse effect, even if for a greenhouse on earth, it might help keep things a bit warmer.
It's interesting to learn of the study on magnetic fields. I've heard the steady state (or long term component) has risen quite a few percent since it was first measured.
Sunspots have been measured daily since around the advent of the telescope several hundred years ago. I thought it was the 1750 -1800 era where no sunspots were observed at all. It was also a bit cooler during that era.
As for current conditions, we are in the dead middle of the dead calm so far as sunspots are concerned in this cycle (old ending, new beginning). It hit bottom around the end of 2006. While it is crudely a sinewave, the cycle was nearing the bottom on the way down back during the extremely active hurricane time of fall of 2005. There, it went out with a bang - emitting the third largest solar flare ever observed - something one expects from solar sunspot maximum.
It should be a serious warning to anyone that the IPCC is purely political with a political agenda and not a scientific one when one sees that they treat primary inputs as being virtually irrelevent and then assume that because co2 went up at the same time that temperatures went up, that co2 caused the temperatures to rise. It's curious they didn't blame methane as its effect is well over 50 times that of co2 (by weight or mass) over a 20 year period which is a substantial fraction of the life of co2 in the atmosphere - even though methane is shorter lived there. There is some evidence indicating that methane levels have increased by perhaps 150% over the last few hundred years as well. However, methane isn't produced by the consumption of energy or by technology which seems to be the target of the political agenda going on. Maybe this is why Al Gore refuses to modify his lifestyle to lead by example and rather than change, he buys carbon cred
It seems that there is a seriously flawed assumption involved in AGW that has started to surface. It is one that hasn't had play because politicians and talking heads and even intellegent commentators don't have the understanding to recognize it for themselves or recognize the importance. It's very likely that the flaw is also an article faith for many climatologists as they study weather patterns and ocean currents and don't study physics - otherwise they'd be physicists instead of climatologists and they wouldn't know diddly about weather patterns.
This flaw is the mechanism by which co2 blocks heat from passing in and out of earth. The current assumptions being made are that by making minute changes in co2 levels, there is a drastic change in temperature. The mechanism is co2 blocking bands of infrared light wavelengths so that energy coming in/going out in those bands doesn't radiate but is absorbed by the atmosphere. It's also a consideration in the wonderful world of infrared astronomy - best done from space since very little can be done on earth, pretty much only from the highest altitudes. The spectrums of absorbed energy for co2 and the other ghgs in the atmosphere are not unknowns but are well known to those doing infrared astronomy.
It seems the effects of co2 are mostly duplicated by the effects of h2o vapor. Note that when you take out the heat being radiated at the wavelengths of interest, it's no longer there to be taken out. Also note that it's a bit more complex than that because the heat being radiated is spread out over a very wide band of wavelengths and heat energy taken out does also heat up what absorbed it which then radiates at its temperature.
However, it seems the distance required for absorbing most all of the energy at the co2 absorption wavelengths for normal amounts of co2 in the air is something like 30 feet. Doubling co2 concentrations in the atmosphere might bring this down to something like 15 feet, but considering the atmosphere is miles thick, it's evident that pretty much all the energy that co2 is going to trap is going to be trapped within just a few feet, regardless of co2 concentrations being greater than what they are now.
As an example, if you've ever looked at greenhouses, you'll find some cheap ones that use plastic film, some that use 1/16" lexan and more expensive ones that use 1/8" or 1/4" glass. Perhaps the huge commercial ones might use rather expensive thick glass. Much of the decision to use thicker more expensive glass is associated with construction of the greenhouse and the expected lifespan of the building. For large buildings one has to have material that can survive the wind and support someone up there cleaning the glass and must last for a long time. The fact though is that while there may be some differences in just how well each works, they are do substantially the job of trapping the heat and going to a much thicker material doesn't trap tremendous amounts of heat more than the thinest. That's because the thinnest does most of the job of trapping the IR and thicker materials are mostly there for structural reasons not efficiency reasons. And, this thickness range is a variation of over a factor of 100 as well as varying in material for quality of IR blocking.
Another example of the nature of the concept would be adding sugar to iced tea. Once the first couple of scoops have been put in and stirred, the tea is as sweet as it gets. It's at 100% saturation and continuing to add sugar results in an increasing pile of undissolved granules in the bottom. The tea gets no sweeter.
Co2 is saturated in about 30 feet when it comes to blocking that IR which it blocks. The major portion (90% +)of IR that co2 will block became 'saturated' (or blocked) when there was enough concentration of co2 in the air so that the whole column of air to the top of the atmosphere contained about as much as that 30 feet contains now. Also, the estimates on ghg's current impact is around 30 deg C on earth's temperature with co2 a
Or maybe the half billion dollars spent to create a video phonograph during the middle of the vcr craze to make a similarly priced play only machine with inferior audio and video? It even made the case books in marketing class for mba students by 1990.
Unlike the totally defective concepts of socialism, the free market indicates that there are many rather than one market for any product. What counts in fuel savings is the most substantial few markets where most of the fuel goes. So far, fuel has not been the most expensive factor in owning the car - so it's overall expenses that matter to most people. The high performance crowd doesn't care about expense and so aren't interested - and are not the majority by far and they may only drive them during the weekends. The ultimate performace racing vehicles don't use gasoline anyway.
If fuel is expensive, that shifts the cost of owning and using a vehicle. The gas crunch of the 70s was artificial yet it almost killed detroit because they were evidently not in on the joke. Over night their muscle car sales plummeted to extinction.
The prius is another joke as not only is it not as efficient as some cars fuel wise - the maintenance cost is astronomical when those batteries die. Current cost for them in a few years is more than dropping a new diesel engine in my 3/4 ton pickup truck after 300,000 miles. Despite being big, 20mpg is better than many 1/2 ton pickups.
The problem with concept cars, and that is probably what that prize is going to go to, is that they are all concept and no practical application. That is the main selection criteria of the majority of people. If it can't do what they need for the majority of their use or if they can't afford to have and use it, then why bother.
A 100 mpg vehicle might not even could include a Segway due to air friction. It's not going to function transporting groceries for a family of 4 nor will it transport more than one.
Hummers might use 3-4 times the gasoline of a toyota or other rice-box but there's thousands of rice-boxes out there for every hummer, and more than just a few that are in such bad shape that they cause many times the pollution and may get lower mileage. A 1 mpg improvement in the rice-boxes would net far more savings in overall gas usage than the physically impossible task bring up the Hummer to be on par with the rice-box's current averages.
As or if the gas prices continue to rise, there'll be a natural shift towards more efficient vehicles and transportation. There will always be the porche and lamborgini and it won't matter what the gas prices are but those vehicles will never use much of the overall supply.
I wonder if an underpowered skate board would work well ag 10mph getting 100mpg or will it take underweight double amputees to get the weight down enough?
According to that fossilized former great socialist dem FDR - they were the 9 old men when he attempted to ram socialism down america's throat in the 30s, extending out the depression and turning it into the great depression.
As for the 5-4 decision, it's yet another example of this court creating judgements that are 'arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law'.
It would appear that the destructive ramifications to civilization of people believing that man causes global warming are going to be far in excess of the negative ramifications of any actual global warming that might be going on, regardless of man's involvement. And it will continue until the next ice age or mini ice age gets well underway - placing our survival as a civilization in jeopardy due to the lack of resources and ability to prepare to survive it.
It's not really the vanity of the wealthy you're referring to but rather the arrogance of the aristocracy who chose politics as being the only method of progressing in society suitable for their virtual total lack of ability and intellegence. Most 'rich' people worked hard and stuck to it - much harder than those around them and often taking chances or risks that most wouldn't.
Below are contents of email from a friend - who either originated it or didn't provide the source for it.
A tale of two houses
House 1
The four-bedroom home was planned so that "every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that's different from the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place." The resulting single-story house is a paragon of environmental planning.
The passive-solar house is built of honey-colored native limestone and positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the 4,000-square-foot residence. Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground.
These waters pass through a heat exchange system that keeps the home warm in winter and cool in summer. A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern.
The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the four-bedroom home, (which) uses indigenous grasses, shrubs, and flowers to complete the exterior treatment of the home. In addition to its minimal environmental impact, the look and layout of the house reflect one of the paramount priorities: relaxation.
A spacious 10-foot porch wraps completely around the residence and beckons the family outdoors. With few hallways to speak of, family and guests make their way from room to room either directly or by way of the porch. "The house doesn't hold you in. Where the porch ends, there is grass. There is no step-up at all."
This house consumes 25% of the energy of an average American home. (Source: Cowboys and Indians Magazine, Oct. 2002 and Chicago Tribune April 2001.)
House 2
This 20-room, 8-bathroom house consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy.
In 2006, this house devoured nearly 221,000 kWh, more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, the house burned through 22,619 kWh, guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year.
As a result of this energy consumption, the average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. Also, natural gas bills for this house and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. In total, this house had nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for 2006.
(Source: just about anywhere in the news last month online and on talk radio, but barely on TV.)
House 1... belongs to George and Laura Bush, in Crawford, Texas.
House 2... belongs to Al and Tipper Gore, in Nashville,Tennessee.
Well, as long as you can make it survivable for multiple airliner crashes it'd be a good thing. Apparently, the normal leakage of radioactivity at one is less than the atmospheric emissions of radioactivity naturally occurring in coal for a similar sized power production plant.
What's amazing about those articles presented is their alarmism and assumptions that biofuels will cause the jungles to be reclaimed for use in agriculture and that is the fault of biofuels. It sounds like the authors are being subsidized by the arabs protecting their oil industry to influence public opinion against biofuels to protect their turf or promote their world jihad against all infidels and any muslems who disagree with them.
Considering some biofuels are being produced (maybe even commercially) in new zealand using sewage or waste water reclaimation processes, it should be obvious - since this wasn't mentioned in any of the stories - that it was an attack on biofuels in general and not something created to inform readers about the nature of 'good' and 'bad' methods of creating biofuels.
There was even the notion presented that the jungle was a genuine carbon sink with some sort of long term capability of absorbing carbon. Like deserts, jungles encroach on areas that didn't used to be part of them. It is a continual effort to beat back the encroachment. The assumption that the jungle is a great carbon sink is malarky. The plants absorb and hold carbon as long as they survive. When they're dead, they decay rather quickly - releasing co2 in the process. When fires happen, they release co2 very quickly. There are estimates that around 2000 pounds of termites exist for every person on the planet - many residing in the jungle. These small creatures have significantly higher metobolic rate per pound than people do - and very few people have a carbon foot print that could equal 2000 pounds of termites - other than maybe algore.
Note too, these termites convert some carbon into methane rather than co2 - much more so than would normally be released by decaying trees and plants. While the supposed environmentalists claim methane isn't important because it does stay as long in the atmosphere - over 20 years the effect by weight (mass) is a factor of 63 times more in potentcy of methane over co2.
It seems like the wikipedia articles on this also mentioned that methane level was up 150% since the 1700s. This would be the equivalent effect of co2 going up 3000% or so. Guess they forgot to notice that in the UN report and study.
It would also be interesting to know what sort of influence the catastrophic alarmist industry has had on the radical islam types leading the jihad. Maybe they bought it hook line and sinker and are merely doing what the algore crowd is still afraid to mention about there being too many people around. If that enviro crowd had been right about anything 30 years ago - we'd be extinct now.
Ethanol from corn takes approximately as much fossil fuels to produce as is produced. It's irrelevent whether it's break even or not - it's a major waste - best described as Insustainable Subsidized Food Burning or the synonymous Government Subsidized Food Burning.
I thought that it was primarily due to Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) - the folks that used to advertise with the distorted map of the US east coast merging with the Soviet Union border line.
Farming is a form of solar energy use. Sunlight biologically captured and processed into energy forms suitable for food and transportation. It depends up lots of factors such as rain - or in some cases irrigation as well as chemical raw materials such as fertilizers. It's not as efficient as the best PVs however.
What's amazing about those articles presented is their alarmism and assumptions that biofuels will cause the jungles to be reclaimed for use in agriculture and that is the fault of biofuels. It sounds like the authors are being subsidized by the arabs protecting their oil industry to influence public opinion against biofuels to protect their turf. Considering some biofuels are being produced (maybe even commercially) in new zealand using sewage or waste water reclaimation processes, it should be obvious - since this wasn't mentioned in any of the stories - that it was an attack on biofuels in general and not something created to inform readers about the nature of 'good' and 'bad' methods of creating biofuels.
There was even the notion presented that the jungle was a genuine carbon sink with some sort of long term capability of absorbing carbon. Like deserts, jungles encroach on areas that didn't used to be part of them. It is a continual effort to beat back the encroachment. The assumption that the jungle is a great carbon sink is malarky. The plants absorb and hold carbon as long as they survive. When they're dead, they decay rather quickly - releasing co2 in the process. When fires happen, they release co2 very quickly. There are estimates that around 2000 pounds of termites exist for every person on the planet - many residing in the jungle. These small creatures have significantly higher metobolic rate per pound than people do - and very few people have a carbon foot print that could equal 2000 pounds of termites - other than maybe algore.
Note too, these termites convert some carbon into methane rather than co2 - much more so than would normally be released by decaying trees and plants. While the supposed environmentalists claim methane isn't important because it does stay as long in the atmosphere - over 20 years the effect by weight (mass) is a factor of 63 times more in potentcy of methane over co2.
I thought cheney was into halliburton - that engineering construction and oil service company that builds nuclear power plants and big civic projects like sewage treatment plants and provides large equipment transportation, geophysical prospecting and all that rot. Oh, and they invented and make those tough aluminum equipment cases like I have for my laptop. They're pretty much a can do organization that isn't staffed to the gills by a buncha college life retentive geeks or empty suits from eastern law schools and business schools.
You are referring to Julian dates, in some form or another as there's half a dozen varieties. These are astronomy related and are not part of the crud attempted at the beginnings of the metric system. And yes they are more condensed than typical date time indicators although I prefer my days to end at midnight, not at lunch time.
Nothing like a calculator getting screwed up while under time pressure. As pointed out, the change of degrees from 360 to 400 was not something that happened in a wide spread fashion. Having 360 degrees works out rather nicely considering there's essentially 360 days in a year (for round numbers). That makes it right at 1 degree per day shift in the sun's position. 360 is accurate enough even for typical business applications and estimates.
The ancients understood the seasons slowly shifted with the year. Rather than going with a 13 month calendar we moderns seem to be obsessed with earth's orbital period for use in calendars which leads to all sorts of kludges, leap years, leap seconds etc. and that will not prevent the shifting of the seasons on the long term anyway. Precession will eventually screw things up anyway.
Too bad you didn't find my comments amusing and informative and correct in the context they were presented. The date was provided in case anyone found the notion incredible and assumed it might intended be for apr 1.
What counts for systems of measurement is convenience in the frame of their usage and the duplication/verification of the standards. As for the meter, standard bearer for this system of units, it's off by about 0.003 inches or more, ostensibly being one ten thousandth of the distance thru the Paris Meridian (or prime meridian just west of there) from N. Pole to equator. Great effort was expended to get this number precisely, not that it really mattered since earth is not a perfect sphere and has bulges etc.
From practical standpoints, it really didn't matter if the meter were 39+ inches long or 36 inches long, some fraction of the earths circumference or some dead king's stride. The only benefit metric brought was to establish a decade scale to various things and provide some uniformity. However, for every winner there's a loser and cm and mm may be good for some measurements, but in splitting hairs, or wood planks, good ole binary fractions 1/2 to 1/4, 1/4 to 1/8 turns divisions of the number by two into multiplies of the denominator by 2.
cute april 1 gunk - but sorry the metric second was never instigated. Probably had to do with dividing the day up to 10 hours of daylight, 10 hours of night and a 10 day work week. Also, the metric angle stuff didn't make the cut either - converting those 90 degree right angles into 100 degree right angles just didn't win over much support for some reason. IMO, it was the 10 day week that gutted the whole time thing.
Note that the difference between an antenna radiating RF power and a transformer primary transferring power to a secondary is whether or not you've got any electric and magnetic fields that are perpendicular to each other to form the EM wave. Going to high frequencies means you get away from the need to close proximity and pig iron cores.
Just remember that the cnn article is a buncha hype being spewed by the CEO and that in reality, the technology probably has some real limitations. An example MIGHT be a cell-phone charge taking 10 hours instead of 1 hour.
It's possible that the company might take off and do very well. It may be more likely that it's a waste of investment money.
It's also very possible that the equipment causes all sorts of interference being that little bit about having crossed electric and magnetic fields may be hard to prevent. It definitely would be double plus ungood were any pacemaker wearers to keel over dead at the same time they were in proximaty to one of these gizmos - regardless of an actual physical effect being in play.
"I think this whole attitude goes back to the ancient stupidity which basically said that the king knows all."
'Goes Back' ???? It never left, with the exception of the founding concepts of the US and the erosion of those concepts started within a few years.
Big bro. knows what's good for you. It's the same thing, same size, same color as what's good for everyone else.
It appears that science, or some areas of science, were co-opted over the last few years into the political struggle. Just listen to Reverend algore as he preaches on global warming. That woman, who may be a bush appointee, a clinton appointee or even a civil servant non political appointee, evidently is trying to protect her family's property from what might be draconian tyranny and violation of property rights - just because some twitty bird might possibly fly through there sometime - perhaps just before it becomes lunch for a hawk.
It's the visibility issue that limits cheating. Cheating happens when it's not visible. That means a piece of paper and a number 2 pencil (or supplied #2 pencil) provide for the best option and provide for the recount. The voter can read what was marked to make sure it is marked. Machines that depend upon hidden mechanisms - either mechanical or electrical are subject to cheating.
Living in a state that is finally largely repub at the state and federal level, but still currently dem in most areas at the local level (to the point there are often not even repubs running for office), my familarity is with dem voter fraud. As in those heavily disputed dem counties in florida responsible for the recounts - curious how it was these dem controlled counties where dems were responsible for the voting apparatus that the national media managed to convince so many people across the country that the repubs cheated there.
Additionally, cheating includes people coming by for multiple votes, presenting identification for others - either real or ficticious. This is why dems tend to complain about video cameras around to catch people coming multiple times as well as oppose IDs. In Houston a few years back the cheating in one area was so bad (sheila jackson lee's area?) that the Dem primary votes for one candidate exceeded the total registered voter list in a hotly contested primary race. OOPS!
Historically, it's only close races where the cheating becomes evident. For paper ballots, the answer was for key political operatives/local elected officials to show up at the courthouse after everyone left, while the ballots were 'secured' there. Then work for a few hours to change enough to impact the election. The advent of the modern camcorder has put a serious crimp in that approach as it is easy for several people to record evidence of suspicious after hours activities and identify who they were.
The most audicious was probably back in the 40s with LBJ running for senator of TX in the infamous Duval county ballot box 13. Duval county was a fifedom of an LBJ crony and was not a place subject to free speech or equal protection under the law for many decades. According to death certificates, the preferred suicide method in that county was to shoot oneself in the back with a rifle - if you can figure out how to accomplish that. During the close recount of LBJ's senate election, Duval found a whole new ballot box full of votes for LBJ that was evidently 'missed' during the election count.
As for modern fraud, the only politico I know of that lost the election due to voter fraud was Dornin in CA. He lost by a small amount and documented a much larger amount of fraud in the congressional hearings. Nothing was done to rectify the situation after the case was proven nor was any support provided to promote remedying the situation or trying to make political hay out of it. This indicates that the repubs are not even willing to speak out against fraud against their own when it's proven. That's quite a difference from the dems who push it to the hilt blaming the repubs when their own fraud fails to overcome the gap and elect their candidate.
As for those dimpled chads - that's what you get when you stuff too many ballots in the machine at one time. Perhaps a few were done by alzheimer's patients brought in to vote by 'volunteers' whose fingers got in the way while being 'assisted'.
There's pros and cons to that. The purpose of the modern pubic education system is twofold. First, it's to dumb down the populace and second, to reward union thugs calling themselves teachers or educators. One real big hint about the whole concept is the notion that 'you get what you pay for', at least in the recipients case. Of course those paying for the free education in taxes for both citizens and for illegal aliens (which is a truly massive burden in some areas) are getting screwed royally with the overcharges and flat out waste inherent in this mess.
Gov. didn't invent schools and after it got involved, we entered an era of illiteracy and anti learning. Perhaps if those partaking of the system had an investment in it, they'd be more apt to actually make use of the opportunity also.
As for the net, it's no wonder that almost 1/3 don't care about it or don't want to be involved with it. However, it would seem that those illiterates who finally realized the situation concerning their education and state would likely not be among that 1/3.
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As you stated the article is virtually worthless. It even lists al gore as an esteemed expert on GW which is enough to make any hardcore AGW whacko who's not stoned out of their gourd to gag. If the author is that clueless, he might be even be confused as to whether those things are co2 emmitters or co2 absorbers.
It evidently works by a reversible chemical reaction - probably with a bit of heat to reverse. The appearance is that it's a giant tall chimney intended to harness 'wind' power or a combo of wind and solar to create flow and then tap off some minor bit for the reversal process. If it isn't that way, it seems likely they could require the energy (if not nuclear powered) that would release more co2 than collected.
By the looks of them,they could easily cost several millions of dollars appiece to implement. Were they to be built in the quantities that the article estimated needed to be produced, their costs might even exceed the current gnp of the world, making them quite costly to civilization.
That said, if (and maybe that should be a big giant IF) co2 is a problem that must be dealt with at some point in the future, then capturing and sequestering similar to this is the only effective way to go as attempting to allieviate it at the source in many cases could be far costlier - especially by those acieved by taxing and or restricting co2 usage.
If you noticed, the article talks about when co2 levels reach the supposed doubling point over preindustrial times. That may be the point where the whackos are wanting to impose draconian rules or possibly where the machine actually begins to become somewhat efficient. That might also be the point where the contribution of co2 to global temperatures may start to exceed the measurement error (not including any systematic error or bias).
There are probably many unintended consequences of these things being inplemented. If it sucks out all the co2, is it possible that there could become a vegetation dead zone around each tower or a seriously reduced growing zone , perhaps even a mile or half mile in diameter? Would this, in combination to the tower's presence, affect the albedo of the area - and x1,000,000 of them, possible tilt us towards more global warming or perhaps another iceage. What happens if some nutcake like algore gets into power and decides we're returning to preindustrial levels of co2 - implements the effort - and it turns out the vegetation cannot survive the reduced co2 levels in the level it exists now and undergoes a massive die off? And, what if it turns out the massive carbon cycle had just a bit extra lag and continues to suck out higher rates of carbon, again endangering the plants.
So far, man's attempts to influence his environment for the good have historically brought about far worse negative consequences. For sure, when the situation is not fully known and fully assessed, doing nothing is the best and safest course of action to take even though it requires the strongest fortitude and leadership which are not factors one hardly ever finds in the ruling class.
Well, I live out in the country where there is no broadband cable or dsl service.
For broadband, I pay about $50/mo for satellite and I had to pay about $200 for equip. and install. That's cheaper than having a dedicated phone line and a dial up account for 24k baud which is what I had last year - although I keep the dial up for rainy days and satellite outages (rare). And, I no longer have to relinquish the internet so the wife has access.
Granted, it's not as cheap as dsl and maybe not quite as good. However, anyone that needs or wants high speed can go this route without going broke. My neighbor still has dialup because the 5 minutes a day he's on the internet doesn't justify spending one dime more than necessary.
Considering the illiteracy rate during the last 30 years of public education disaster in this country - it's a wonder we're even 6th. The internet is not for people who are functionally illiterate and neither are computers. In math and science - we may be as low as 15 or 30th in education.
LOL I sorta doubt it's going to be surround sound or even hi-fi.
Then again, what does happen if someone inhales dead nanotech equipment?
Personally, I doubt there's much liklihood of any practical application of this sorta stuff. Assuming you can find any of it, how is there going to be a connection to hookup - and if it's wireless, how's one going to distinguish between this thousand units and that thousand units in the dust pan?
I expect there will be some nanotech success stories eventually, I just don't have much faith that these sorts of things will be among them. I guess it goes along with the notion that there are likely to be better and more cost effective alternatives to most problems.
grey goo requires self replication if I recall properly. This sounds like a variant to the notion of crime detection by releasing dust clouds of nantech camera/recorders - go in and vacuum up the crime scene to checkout who done what to whom. (bad english intentional - as in a who done it movie). Such notions bring about the concept of big brother - big time. Whether such things will become plausible remains to be seen. Off-hand, it sort of sounds like BS - the 'let's do it because it's possible' syndrome.
too bad magnetic fields don't deflect gamma and x-rays.
Also, guess i never noticed that the 'shields' in startrek were 'magnetic'.
Nothing protects like mass in the way.
In the world of high end audio, there are many false assumptions, some never proven as such. However, one item I learned about which might actually be somewhat accurate is that while one may not be able to get very close to hearing 20khz, there are timing capabilities in people which require the ability to distinguish coincidences in time arrival of audio in the 10 to 20 microsecond realm, which becomes much more of a problem in digitized audio than in an analog time frame (nondigitized) like vinyl and that high end equipment handling bandwidths to 70 or 100k Hz provide superior quality than that which doesn't. Whatever the case, many claim that vinyl provides superior audio to that of the cd. Personally, I've always found the signal to noise of vinyl to be a distraction and dust pops to be very annoying and I seldom seriously listen to music. It's no wonder that vinyl has stayed around in the background, not even considering the nostalgia aspects.
As for digital vinyl, it wouldn't seem to be very suitable. A moving stylus is always limited in bandwidth by mass and by size and subject to great disruption by dust and vinyl is an electrostatic dust magnet. Lasers make for a better stylus and permit the grooves to be sealed from dust. I'm thinking the original laser disks offered high quality analog stereo along with a very good quality analog video stream back prior to the cd revolution.
The highest bandwidth record type device made was that aborted effort by (GE?) for the video disk which tried to compete with the vcr as a player back in the 1980s. It produced inferior video and audio at a price not really much better than the VCR at the time - which was dropping like a rock.
Nowadays, the dvd is the improved cd, both in sampling rates and total data storage. However, data compression, especially like that in the solidstate memory music devices provides inferior results to the cd - for the benefit of portability. The stuff works just fine for the vast majority - who doesn't seem to know the difference between music and noise anyway. We were probably fortunate that cd makers distinguished between data files and music files on the cd. Otherwise, we'd have a new pop music form with such titles as Window's Symphony XP Pro and Excel Serenade 2.0.
In short, vinyl digital would not be a good investment.
Granted it's been over 15 yrs since I last looked, but at that time they would only sell them to or through the law enforcement community. And, they should offer them to 'at risk' individuals for sure.
However, that still doesn't change the fact that this kook in VA was planning and preparing this event for weeks.
It's interesting just how much of a mental case this guy was is now becoming known. It now appears that some around him were worried he might have been a real psycho and reported it some time before this event. I've not yet heard if he was on ritalin but I think it's been mentioned he was on some sort of antidepressant - the sort of stuff most of these modern day killer kids were on.
Whatever the case, it's sounding like it's going to be a bad day for that university in civil court sometime in the not too distance future.
This was clearly a case of murder times 30+. The perp had multiple weapons (unnecessary to kill 1 person for revenge). He chained doors shut and was wearing a bulletproof vest - something not available to the general public at all. It was planned and it took time to make the plan. The perp may or may not have been a muslim extremist but he was a terrorist or at least out to break the recording on how many he could kill. Note in the news it stated it's the largest mass murder with a firearm - because it's nowhere close to the record for mass murder by other means. I believe that distinction belongs to some sleazoid in NY City who got ticked off in a barroom disturbance and was able to find a gasoline can and a match rather than a gun. Death toll there was something over 50, with probably 45-49 being collateral damage. That though was evidently more of a short term 'crime of passion' type of thing which didn't require days or even months of preparation. It was very similar in some ways to the Temple TX Luby's cafeteria massacre perpetrated by some pothead satan worshipper who wasn't stopped dead midway through his attack because one young lady left her weapon in her car since it was not legal to have concealed carry weapons in TX at that time. She lost both her parents and was almost killed too by that thug.
Just remember, machetes don't need to be reloaded to continue killing but they're far more suitable a weapon for a large strong male than for most others. It's also much cheaper to use in genocide if you've got the manpower.
Another step?
Over 10 years ago there was a cover story in RF & Microwave News with a cruddy b&w picture of light plane on a runway on the cover. The story was using passive microwaves for imaging and most of the magic was in some silicon wafer antenna array or something of the like.
300ghz is not something to sneeze at and doing so with cmos is a breakthrough. Note that the typical phaselocked loop device tends to run at frequencies somewhat higher than the target - usually - but not in this case.
Being able to see hidden things like weapons and suicide bombs will start to help end the rain of suicide terrorists. Such views are also evidently possible in moderate IR spectrum as well - to a lesser extent. Neither are harmful like frequent x-ray scans could be - as in that schwartzeneger movie where arnie goes to mars (or at least has a virtual vacation).
Gee, you mean to say that we cannot be saved from the killer bees by dialing out on our cellphones?
It's a bummer that bees are dying off just when conditions are starting to get better for vegetation with all the increased co2, warmth and humidity planned for the global warming era. Maybe they'll start to thrive more if we are headed for a new ice age instead. Or, is it possible the worker bees are getting tired of socialism and are opting for potentially more rewarding entrepreneurial lifestyles?
Regarding the 1st amndmnt, while it states congress specifically in there, it's been determined to mean all gov. regulating entities at all levels. There's been a number of amendments to it since the original 10 that applied constitutional protections on levels of gov. Originally, only the congress could make law and pass regulations but it seems things got a bit complicated as society grew and gov. grew much faster, often by ignoring its own limiting rules. It's also interesting how while the first - which specified congress as the restriction, the second was an outright ban on infringement on the gov.
It's also quite frustrating to see people that never read the document work hard to pass laws that clearly violate its direct specific intent and showing full well they do not even understand the philosophy and reasoning behind it. All that while stretching meanings to absurd levels while extolling its virtue as a 'living document' because they treat it as dead and irrelevent.
The L party has always been a bit schizo. There are the true libertarians which are very close to most of consevatism in idiology. Then there is the anomoly - the pothead, legalize drug crowd who are virtually the polar opposites but have grabbed on to the L view on gov. meddling in private lives with their last few remaining functioning neurons but have little in common with much of the rest of the L idiology. As for Repub/Dem - they sort of represent whatever conservative/liberal idiology tends to dominiate their respective bases - at least when their elected arristocracy feels the need to gain primary votes or contributions.
As for GW, or AGW, the co2 boogeyman is starting to show up as the 'emperor with no clothes'. It seems that it's already pretty maxed in possible contributions at around 3 degrees. The basic physics indicates it's contribution is well over 90% of what it's capable of doing - in other words - it's already essentially saturated at normal levels. The claims that are being put forth in the formal IPCC appear to be based on the assumption it has an exponential effect - causing drastic changes with small increases when quite the opposite is true. It also seems those references on the subject all go back to something rather obscure and never even translated into english and according to some who have actually looked at it and translated, doesn't even make reference to what they claim. However, the basic physics doesn't support the notion. Adding more co2 doesn't significantly increase the amount of IR blockage because the blockage is in bands of wavelengths and it stops it rather quickly compared to the thickness of the atmosphere. To relate to a greenhouse, one can make a greenhouse from thin plastic film, thin lexan, thin glass or they can make rather expensive ones from thick glass or lexan, including multilayers. The greenhouse effect is achieved by any thickness of material and thicker materials are mostly for structural considerations and for plain insulation benefits since the outside is still subject to air and to conduction. That thickness doesn't really help in the greenhouse effect, even if for a greenhouse on earth, it might help keep things a bit warmer.
It's interesting to learn of the study on magnetic fields. I've heard the steady state (or long term component) has risen quite a few percent since it was first measured.
Sunspots have been measured daily since around the advent of the telescope several hundred years ago. I thought it was the 1750 -1800 era where no sunspots were observed at all. It was also a bit cooler during that era.
As for current conditions, we are in the dead middle of the dead calm so far as sunspots are concerned in this cycle (old ending, new beginning). It hit bottom around the end of 2006. While it is crudely a sinewave, the cycle was nearing the bottom on the way down back during the extremely active hurricane time of fall of 2005. There, it went out with a bang - emitting the third largest solar flare ever observed - something one expects from solar sunspot maximum.
It should be a serious warning to anyone that the IPCC is purely political with a political agenda and not a scientific one when one sees that they treat primary inputs as being virtually irrelevent and then assume that because co2 went up at the same time that temperatures went up, that co2 caused the temperatures to rise. It's curious they didn't blame methane as its effect is well over 50 times that of co2 (by weight or mass) over a 20 year period which is a substantial fraction of the life of co2 in the atmosphere - even though methane is shorter lived there. There is some evidence indicating that methane levels have increased by perhaps 150% over the last few hundred years as well. However, methane isn't produced by the consumption of energy or by technology which seems to be the target of the political agenda going on. Maybe this is why Al Gore refuses to modify his lifestyle to lead by example and rather than change, he buys carbon cred
It seems that there is a seriously flawed assumption involved in AGW that has started to surface. It is one that hasn't had play because politicians and talking heads and even intellegent commentators don't have the understanding to recognize it for themselves or recognize the importance. It's very likely that the flaw is also an article faith for many climatologists as they study weather patterns and ocean currents and don't study physics - otherwise they'd be physicists instead of climatologists and they wouldn't know diddly about weather patterns.
This flaw is the mechanism by which co2 blocks heat from passing in and out of earth. The current assumptions being made are that by making minute changes in co2 levels, there is a drastic change in temperature. The mechanism is co2 blocking bands of infrared light wavelengths so that energy coming in/going out in those bands doesn't radiate but is absorbed by the atmosphere. It's also a consideration in the wonderful world of infrared astronomy - best done from space since very little can be done on earth, pretty much only from the highest altitudes. The spectrums of absorbed energy for co2 and the other ghgs in the atmosphere are not unknowns but are well known to those doing infrared astronomy.
It seems the effects of co2 are mostly duplicated by the effects of h2o vapor. Note that when you take out the heat being radiated at the wavelengths of interest, it's no longer there to be taken out. Also note that it's a bit more complex than that because the heat being radiated is spread out over a very wide band of wavelengths and heat energy taken out does also heat up what absorbed it which then radiates at its temperature.
However, it seems the distance required for absorbing most all of the energy at the co2 absorption wavelengths for normal amounts of co2 in the air is something like 30 feet. Doubling co2 concentrations in the atmosphere might bring this down to something like 15 feet, but considering the atmosphere is miles thick, it's evident that pretty much all the energy that co2 is going to trap is going to be trapped within just a few feet, regardless of co2 concentrations being greater than what they are now.
As an example, if you've ever looked at greenhouses, you'll find some cheap ones that use plastic film, some that use 1/16" lexan and more expensive ones that use 1/8" or 1/4" glass. Perhaps the huge commercial ones might use rather expensive thick glass. Much of the decision to use thicker more expensive glass is associated with construction of the greenhouse and the expected lifespan of the building. For large buildings one has to have material that can survive the wind and support someone up there cleaning the glass and must last for a long time. The fact though is that while there may be some differences in just how well each works, they are do substantially the job of trapping the heat and going to a much thicker material doesn't trap tremendous amounts of heat more than the thinest. That's because the thinnest does most of the job of trapping the IR and thicker materials are mostly there for structural reasons not efficiency reasons. And, this thickness range is a variation of over a factor of 100 as well as varying in material for quality of IR blocking.
Another example of the nature of the concept would be adding sugar to iced tea. Once the first couple of scoops have been put in and stirred, the tea is as sweet as it gets. It's at 100% saturation and continuing to add sugar results in an increasing pile of undissolved granules in the bottom. The tea gets no sweeter.
Co2 is saturated in about 30 feet when it comes to blocking that IR which it blocks. The major portion (90% +)of IR that co2 will block became 'saturated' (or blocked) when there was enough concentration of co2 in the air so that the whole column of air to the top of the atmosphere contained about as much as that 30 feet contains now. Also, the estimates on ghg's current impact is around 30 deg C on earth's temperature with co2 a
Where's the real bombs like the segway?
Or maybe the half billion dollars spent to create a video phonograph during the middle of the vcr craze to make a similarly priced play only machine with inferior audio and video? It even made the case books in marketing class for mba students by 1990.
Unlike the totally defective concepts of socialism, the free market indicates that there are many rather than one market for any product. What counts in fuel savings is the most substantial few markets where most of the fuel goes. So far, fuel has not been the most expensive factor in owning the car - so it's overall expenses that matter to most people. The high performance crowd doesn't care about expense and so aren't interested - and are not the majority by far and they may only drive them during the weekends. The ultimate performace racing vehicles don't use gasoline anyway.
If fuel is expensive, that shifts the cost of owning and using a vehicle. The gas crunch of the 70s was artificial yet it almost killed detroit because they were evidently not in on the joke. Over night their muscle car sales plummeted to extinction.
The prius is another joke as not only is it not as efficient as some cars fuel wise - the maintenance cost is astronomical when those batteries die. Current cost for them in a few years is more than dropping a new diesel engine in my 3/4 ton pickup truck after 300,000 miles. Despite being big, 20mpg is better than many 1/2 ton pickups.
The problem with concept cars, and that is probably what that prize is going to go to, is that they are all concept and no practical application. That is the main selection criteria of the majority of people. If it can't do what they need for the majority of their use or if they can't afford to have and use it, then why bother.
A 100 mpg vehicle might not even could include a Segway due to air friction. It's not going to function transporting groceries for a family of 4 nor will it transport more than one.
Hummers might use 3-4 times the gasoline of a toyota or other rice-box but there's thousands of rice-boxes out there for every hummer, and more than just a few that are in such bad shape that they cause many times the pollution and may get lower mileage. A 1 mpg improvement in the rice-boxes would net far more savings in overall gas usage than the physically impossible task bring up the Hummer to be on par with the rice-box's current averages.
As or if the gas prices continue to rise, there'll be a natural shift towards more efficient vehicles and transportation. There will always be the porche and lamborgini and it won't matter what the gas prices are but those vehicles will never use much of the overall supply.
I wonder if an underpowered skate board would work well ag 10mph getting 100mpg or will it take underweight double amputees to get the weight down enough?
According to that fossilized former great socialist dem FDR - they were the 9 old men when he attempted to ram socialism down america's throat in the 30s, extending out the depression and turning it into the great depression.
As for the 5-4 decision, it's yet another example of this court creating judgements that are 'arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law'.
It would appear that the destructive ramifications to civilization of people believing that man causes global warming are going to be far in excess of the negative ramifications of any actual global warming that might be going on, regardless of man's involvement. And it will continue until the next ice age or mini ice age gets well underway - placing our survival as a civilization in jeopardy due to the lack of resources and ability to prepare to survive it.
It's not really the vanity of the wealthy you're referring to but rather the arrogance of the aristocracy who chose politics as being the only method of progressing in society suitable for their virtual total lack of ability and intellegence. Most 'rich' people worked hard and stuck to it - much harder than those around them and often taking chances or risks that most wouldn't.
Below are contents of email from a friend - who either originated it or didn't provide the source for it.
A tale of two houses
House 1
The four-bedroom home was planned so that "every room has a
relationship with something in the landscape that's different from
the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different
place." The resulting single-story house is a paragon of
environmental planning.
The passive-solar house is built of honey-colored native limestone
and positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior
walkways and walls of the 4,000-square-foot residence. Geothermal
heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in
the ground.
These waters pass through a heat exchange system that keeps
the home warm in winter and cool in summer. A 25,000-gallon
underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns;
wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into
underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern.
The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping
around the four-bedroom home, (which) uses indigenous grasses,
shrubs, and flowers to complete the exterior treatment of the home.
In addition to its minimal environmental impact, the look and layout
of the house reflect one of the paramount priorities: relaxation.
A spacious 10-foot porch wraps completely around the residence
and beckons the family outdoors. With few hallways to speak of,
family and guests make their way from room to room either directly
or by way of the porch. "The house doesn't hold you in. Where the
porch ends, there is grass. There is no step-up at all."
This house consumes 25% of the energy of an average American
home. (Source: Cowboys and Indians Magazine, Oct. 2002 and
Chicago Tribune April 2001.)
House 2
This 20-room, 8-bathroom house consumes more electricity every
month than the average American household uses in an entire year.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours
(kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy.
In 2006, this house devoured nearly 221,000 kWh, more than 20
times the national average. Last August alone, the house burned
through 22,619 kWh, guzzling more than twice the electricity in one
month than an average American family uses in an entire year.
As a result of this energy consumption, the average monthly electric
bill topped $1,359. Also, natural gas bills for this house and guest
house averaged $1,080 per month last year. In total, this house
had nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills
for 2006.
(Source: just about anywhere in the news last month online and
on talk radio, but barely on TV.)
House 1... belongs to George and Laura Bush, in Crawford, Texas.
House 2... belongs to Al and Tipper Gore, in Nashville,Tennessee.
Well, as long as you can make it survivable for multiple airliner crashes it'd be a good thing. Apparently, the normal leakage of radioactivity at one is less than the atmospheric emissions of radioactivity naturally occurring in coal for a similar sized power production plant.
What's amazing about those articles presented is their alarmism and assumptions that biofuels will cause the jungles to be reclaimed for use in agriculture and that is the fault of biofuels. It sounds like the authors are being subsidized by the arabs protecting their oil industry to influence public opinion against biofuels to protect their turf or promote their world jihad against all infidels and any muslems who disagree with them.
Considering some biofuels are being produced (maybe even commercially) in new zealand using sewage or waste water reclaimation processes, it should be obvious - since this wasn't mentioned in any of the stories - that it was an attack on biofuels in general and not something created to inform readers about the nature of 'good' and 'bad' methods of creating biofuels.
There was even the notion presented that the jungle was a genuine carbon sink with some sort of long term capability of absorbing carbon. Like deserts, jungles encroach on areas that didn't used to be part of them. It is a continual effort to beat back the encroachment. The assumption that the jungle is a great carbon sink is malarky. The plants absorb and hold carbon as long as they survive. When they're dead, they decay rather quickly - releasing co2 in the process. When fires happen, they release co2 very quickly. There are estimates that around 2000 pounds of termites exist for every person on the planet - many residing in the jungle. These small creatures have significantly higher metobolic rate per pound than people do - and very few people have a carbon foot print that could equal 2000 pounds of termites - other than maybe algore.
Note too, these termites convert some carbon into methane rather than co2 - much more so than would normally be released by decaying trees and plants. While the supposed environmentalists claim methane isn't important because it does stay as long in the atmosphere - over 20 years the effect by weight (mass) is a factor of 63 times more in potentcy of methane over co2.
It seems like the wikipedia articles on this also mentioned that methane level was up 150% since the 1700s. This would be the equivalent effect of co2 going up 3000% or so. Guess they forgot to notice that in the UN report and study.
It would also be interesting to know what sort of influence the catastrophic alarmist industry has had on the radical islam types leading the jihad. Maybe they bought it hook line and sinker and are merely doing what the algore crowd is still afraid to mention about there being too many people around. If that enviro crowd had been right about anything 30 years ago - we'd be extinct now.
Ethanol from corn takes approximately as much fossil fuels to produce as is produced. It's irrelevent whether it's break even or not - it's a major waste - best described as Insustainable Subsidized Food Burning or the synonymous Government Subsidized Food Burning.
I thought that it was primarily due to Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) - the folks that used to advertise with the distorted map of the US east coast merging with the Soviet Union border line.
Farming is a form of solar energy use. Sunlight biologically captured and processed into energy forms suitable for food and transportation. It depends up lots of factors such as rain - or in some cases irrigation as well as chemical raw materials such as fertilizers. It's not as efficient as the best PVs however.
What's amazing about those articles presented is their alarmism and assumptions that biofuels will cause the jungles to be reclaimed for use in agriculture and that is the fault of biofuels. It sounds like the authors are being subsidized by the arabs protecting their oil industry to influence public opinion against biofuels to protect their turf. Considering some biofuels are being produced (maybe even commercially) in new zealand using sewage or waste water reclaimation processes, it should be obvious - since this wasn't mentioned in any of the stories - that it was an attack on biofuels in general and not something created to inform readers about the nature of 'good' and 'bad' methods of creating biofuels.
There was even the notion presented that the jungle was a genuine carbon sink with some sort of long term capability of absorbing carbon. Like deserts, jungles encroach on areas that didn't used to be part of them. It is a continual effort to beat back the encroachment. The assumption that the jungle is a great carbon sink is malarky. The plants absorb and hold carbon as long as they survive. When they're dead, they decay rather quickly - releasing co2 in the process. When fires happen, they release co2 very quickly. There are estimates that around 2000 pounds of termites exist for every person on the planet - many residing in the jungle. These small creatures have significantly higher metobolic rate per pound than people do - and very few people have a carbon foot print that could equal 2000 pounds of termites - other than maybe algore.
Note too, these termites convert some carbon into methane rather than co2 - much more so than would normally be released by decaying trees and plants. While the supposed environmentalists claim methane isn't important because it does stay as long in the atmosphere - over 20 years the effect by weight (mass) is a factor of 63 times more in potentcy of methane over co2.
I thought cheney was into halliburton - that engineering construction and oil service company that builds nuclear power plants and big civic projects like sewage treatment plants and provides large equipment transportation, geophysical prospecting and all that rot. Oh, and they invented and make those tough aluminum equipment cases like I have for my laptop. They're pretty much a can do organization that isn't staffed to the gills by a buncha college life retentive geeks or empty suits from eastern law schools and business schools.
You are referring to Julian dates, in some form or another as there's half a dozen varieties. These are astronomy related and are not part of the crud attempted at the beginnings of the metric system. And yes they are more condensed than typical date time indicators although I prefer my days to end at midnight, not at lunch time.
Nothing like a calculator getting screwed up while under time pressure. As pointed out, the change of degrees from 360 to 400 was not something that happened in a wide spread fashion. Having 360 degrees works out rather nicely considering there's essentially 360 days in a year (for round numbers). That makes it right at 1 degree per day shift in the sun's position. 360 is accurate enough even for typical business applications and estimates.
The ancients understood the seasons slowly shifted with the year. Rather than going with a 13 month calendar we moderns seem to be obsessed with earth's orbital period for use in calendars which leads to all sorts of kludges, leap years, leap seconds etc. and that will not prevent the shifting of the seasons on the long term anyway. Precession will eventually screw things up anyway.
Too bad you didn't find my comments amusing and informative and correct in the context they were presented. The date was provided in case anyone found the notion incredible and assumed it might intended be for apr 1.
What counts for systems of measurement is convenience in the frame of their usage and the duplication/verification of the standards. As for the meter, standard bearer for this system of units, it's off by about 0.003 inches or more, ostensibly being one ten thousandth of the distance thru the Paris Meridian (or prime meridian just west of there) from N. Pole to equator. Great effort was expended to get this number precisely, not that it really mattered since earth is not a perfect sphere and has bulges etc.
From practical standpoints, it really didn't matter if the meter were 39+ inches long or 36 inches long, some fraction of the earths circumference or some dead king's stride. The only benefit metric brought was to establish a decade scale to various things and provide some uniformity. However, for every winner there's a loser and cm and mm may be good for some measurements, but in splitting hairs, or wood planks, good ole binary fractions 1/2 to 1/4, 1/4 to 1/8 turns divisions of the number by two into multiplies of the denominator by 2.
cute april 1 gunk - but sorry the metric second was never instigated. Probably had to do with dividing the day up to 10 hours of daylight, 10 hours of night and a 10 day work week. Also, the metric angle stuff didn't make the cut either - converting those 90 degree right angles into 100 degree right angles just didn't win over much support for some reason. IMO, it was the 10 day week that gutted the whole time thing.
This is written on apr 2.
Note that the difference between an antenna radiating RF power and a transformer primary transferring power to a secondary is whether or not you've got any electric and magnetic fields that are perpendicular to each other to form the EM wave. Going to high frequencies means you get away from the need to close proximity and pig iron cores.
Just remember that the cnn article is a buncha hype being spewed by the CEO and that in reality, the technology probably has some real limitations. An example MIGHT be a cell-phone charge taking 10 hours instead of 1 hour.
It's possible that the company might take off and do very well. It may be more likely that it's a waste of investment money.
It's also very possible that the equipment causes all sorts of interference being that little bit about having crossed electric and magnetic fields may be hard to prevent. It definitely would be double plus ungood were any pacemaker wearers to keel over dead at the same time they were in proximaty to one of these gizmos - regardless of an actual physical effect being in play.
"I think this whole attitude goes back to the ancient stupidity which basically said that the king knows all."
'Goes Back' ???? It never left, with the exception of the founding concepts of the US and the erosion of those concepts started within a few years.
Big bro. knows what's good for you. It's the same thing, same size, same color as what's good for everyone else.
It appears that science, or some areas of science, were co-opted over the last few years into the political struggle. Just listen to Reverend algore as he preaches on global warming. That woman, who may be a bush appointee, a clinton appointee or even a civil servant non political appointee, evidently is trying to protect her family's property from what might be draconian tyranny and violation of property rights - just because some twitty bird might possibly fly through there sometime - perhaps just before it becomes lunch for a hawk.
It's the visibility issue that limits cheating. Cheating happens when it's not visible. That means a piece of paper and a number 2 pencil (or supplied #2 pencil) provide for the best option and provide for the recount. The voter can read what was marked to make sure it is marked. Machines that depend upon hidden mechanisms - either mechanical or electrical are subject to cheating.
Living in a state that is finally largely repub at the state and federal level, but still currently dem in most areas at the local level (to the point there are often not even repubs running for office), my familarity is with dem voter fraud. As in those heavily disputed dem counties in florida responsible for the recounts - curious how it was these dem controlled counties where dems were responsible for the voting apparatus that the national media managed to convince so many people across the country that the repubs cheated there.
Additionally, cheating includes people coming by for multiple votes, presenting identification for others - either real or ficticious. This is why dems tend to complain about video cameras around to catch people coming multiple times as well as oppose IDs. In Houston a few years back the cheating in one area was so bad (sheila jackson lee's area?) that the Dem primary votes for one candidate exceeded the total registered voter list in a hotly contested primary race. OOPS!
Historically, it's only close races where the cheating becomes evident. For paper ballots, the answer was for key political operatives/local elected officials to show up at the courthouse after everyone left, while the ballots were 'secured' there. Then work for a few hours to change enough to impact the election. The advent of the modern camcorder has put a serious crimp in that approach as it is easy for several people to record evidence of suspicious after hours activities and identify who they were.
The most audicious was probably back in the 40s with LBJ running for senator of TX in the infamous Duval county ballot box 13. Duval county was a fifedom of an LBJ crony and was not a place subject to free speech or equal protection under the law for many decades. According to death certificates, the preferred suicide method in that county was to shoot oneself in the back with a rifle - if you can figure out how to accomplish that. During the close recount of LBJ's senate election, Duval found a whole new ballot box full of votes for
LBJ that was evidently 'missed' during the election count.
As for modern fraud, the only politico I know of that lost the election due to voter fraud was Dornin in CA. He lost by a small amount and documented a much larger amount of fraud in the congressional hearings. Nothing was done to rectify the situation after the case was proven nor was any support provided to promote remedying the situation or trying to make political hay out of it. This indicates that the repubs are not even willing to speak out against fraud against their own when it's proven. That's quite a difference from the dems who push it to the hilt blaming the repubs when their own fraud fails to overcome the gap and elect their candidate.
As for those dimpled chads - that's what you get when you stuff too many ballots in the machine at one time. Perhaps a few were done by alzheimer's patients brought in to vote by 'volunteers' whose fingers got in the way while being 'assisted'.
There's pros and cons to that. The purpose of the modern pubic education system is twofold. First, it's to dumb down the populace and second, to reward union thugs calling themselves teachers or educators. One real big hint about the whole concept is the notion that 'you get what you pay for', at least in the recipients case. Of course those paying for the free education in taxes for both citizens and for illegal aliens (which is a truly massive burden in some areas) are getting screwed royally with the overcharges and flat out waste inherent in this mess.
Gov. didn't invent schools and after it got involved, we entered an era of illiteracy and anti learning. Perhaps if those partaking of the system had an investment in it, they'd be more apt to actually make use of the opportunity also.
As for the net, it's no wonder that almost 1/3 don't care about it or don't want to be involved with it. However, it would seem that those illiterates who finally realized the situation concerning their education and state would likely not be among that 1/3.