That's the absolute worst part about this... it was all a big publicity stunt, sponsored by the provincial government. The cars were all supposed to roll into Toronto tomorrow for a photo-op with the Ontario Energy Minister, all timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the 2003 Blackout.
This is a tragic occurrence, and it prompts many serious questions. For example, the article says that the U of T team was in compliance with applicable Transport regulations. You then have to ask the question, are those regulations adequate to protect people that might be driving these experimental vehicles that are designed to be lightweight technology demonstrations rather than safe, reliable forms of transportation? The worst thing about this is that simply carrying the vehicle on a trailer instead of driving it in normal traffic would have saved this guy's life, at very little cost.
You mean there might have been survival benefit to this behaviour. I find it equally likely that the true survival benefit lies in the other direction, i.e. an ability to concentrate really well when under pressure. Besides, who's to say that a trait that aided survival umpteen-millions of years ago is still a benefit today?
Re:The future sucks, it always does
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This viewpoint is complete and utter bull. Yes, corporations have power. Yes, corporations sometimes exercise their power to excess. Does that mean they can do anything they want? NO!
Let's take my industry for example. Nuclear power was the "next big thing" back in the 70s. Then the Three Mile Island incident occurred, and the US nuclear industry nearly came to a screeching halt due to public and regulatory pressures.
Flash-forward to today, and what has happened? Nuclear has started to live up to it's early promises. Safety and efficiency are up, costs are down. For the first time in over 20 years, people in the US are starting to have a generally positive view of nuclear energy.
Corporations are now talking about the possibility of building a new generation of safer, more efficient plants. This was an absolute fantasy 10 years ago. Now, corporations want to build these plants, and the public may let them.
However, if there was a major accident at a nuclear plant in the near future, what do you think would happen to these plans for new plants? They wouldn't get built! Public pressure would turn the tide the other way, just as it has in many other instances.
Why do you think energy companies are building wind farms now, because they're efficient? HA! The only reason they're being built is because public pressure has placed them on the energy map because of tax incentives. Otherwise, wind power would be abandoned as inefficient, unreliable, unsightly, and resource intensive.
Public awareness of issues and representative forms of government ensure that corporate power can never get to the point envisioned by such dystopic fantasies. That's why representative government exists... they may not be perfect, and they can make mistakes, but they can also self-correct. Doom is not an inevitability.
Liberal, Conservative, whatever. They're all elected governments. Wikipedia's got the most balanced account of this I've ever seen, at Wikipedia:Avro Arrow, and it has this to say about the claim that cancellation of the Arrow killed the industry.
Many have also suggested that the aviation industry in Canada was destroyed with the cancellation of the Arrow. This claim is rather suspect, considering that Canada is the 3rd largest aircraft producer in the world (behind the US and France). It is true that design of fighter aircraft in Canada ended with the Arrow, but the same is true for most countries of similar means. The rapidly rising costs of fighter aircraft have driven almost everyone out of the business, there are only three companies in the Western world designing them today, when at the time there were dozens.
It'll never happen. Even though it's a private project, the Canadian government will find a way to cancel it the day before it's supposed to go (probably some stupid public safety thing, or maybe because the team isn't half-francophone). They'll confiscate and burn all the drawings and models and chop up the vehicle and sell it for scrap. They might use some of the parts to patch up the broke-ass Sea King helicopters until the replacements get here, assuming they don't cancel those too.
Some of us still remember that without France, there would not have been an entity known as the "United States of America." We'd still be a British colony, or worse, part of Canada! Haha, that's a twist, just kidding, eh? (Really, I married a Canadian and live in Toronto!)
I am more comfortable with a tree-oriented system as the default, but there are times I want a new window. Both metaphors are natural and easy to comprehend. They both have their uses. I find navigation to be much easier in a tree-structure, but drag-and-drop seems to work much better in a spatial structure. Why not make it easy for me to do both? Another thread here mentions old MacOS 9 behavior of allowing either way... why shouldn't we have something like that? If I single-click, keep me in the same window. If I double-click, open up a new window. Best of both worlds, easy to use, easy to understand.
Nope, we sure as hell mentioned that it was Canadian technology when it fritzed out on the ISS back in 2002. Seriously, though, give me a break... NASA and US news publications almost always refer to it as the "Canadarm". I think that makes a pretty damn clear connection to Canada.
I wish I had some Rearden Metal to test for neutron absorption. I've always had a sneaking suspicion that it would be awesome for nuclear plant construction.
Yes, I am. You seem to share the popular, commonly-held view that the only types of investor in the private sector are money-grubbing, profit-worshiping, short-sighted venture capitalists that shun all risk. As if capitalist was a bad word. As if big payoffs could be had for little to no risk. Bullshit. What kinds of risks were taken during the dot com boom? Do you think a public agency would ever take those kinds of risks? You seem to lump all types of private corporations together into one pile, regardless of age, experience, profitability, goals, product. Bullshit. Not all companies are the same. With a straight face, you're actually ignoring the financial risks taken by all kinds of corporations over the past 10 years? Oh, and before YOU mention the X-prize, and the risk-averse nature of venture capitalists, why don't you try thinking a little bit about how much those same venture capitalists are putting in RIGHT NOW with very little forseeable short-term gain? You can actually sit there with a straight face and claim that *government* takes more risks than the *private sector*?! Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
I would not want NASA to be in charge of commercializing space, not even so far as setting up the infrastructure. Public agencies, by their very design and mission, are too risk averse for that to work. Stakeholders (and there are a buttload of them) would demand absolute safety... not a low probability of adverse events, not managed risk, but absolute safety. And that just can't happen without absolutely enormous costs. Another factor is that innovation is most often driven by constraints, and the need to get around them. You would never see NASA doing some of the things that X-prize contestants are doing... they don't have to, they don't have any of the same constraints. Let NASA do what they're best at, science and exploration. Let private interests do what they're best at, generating inventive solutions and taking risks in the hopes of making big bucks down the road.
I generally agree with the "collective intelligence" aspect, but question the "greater than the sum of their parts" assertion. The old formula for collective intelligence is something like [floor(IQ)]/N, and that usually seems pretty accurate for Slashdot.:)
One would hope the next generation of reactors is more efficient, thermodynamically. A lot of the Gen IV effort is oriented towards supercritical water as the working fluid. Other options include liquid metal or high temperature gas.
A combined cycle gas turbine uses the waste heat from a Brayton gas-turbine cycle as the heat source for a Rankine steam cycle. In the "cascading closed-loop cycle" described in the article, a similar idea is used except that two Rankine cycles are involved -- they just use different working fluids. This should work, both in theory and in the real world, but I wonder about the cost and the additional complexity.
Another alternative that is proven, and makes good use of waste heat, is the combined heat and power cycle... for example, the waste heat can be used for district heating. Still another alternative that extracts more usable heat in the first place is the Kalina cycle, which uses a variable mixture working fluid.
Here's some basic info on heat engine cycles that may be useful for comparison purposes:
Neckties are an absolutely useless piece of frippery for men who wish they could dress with the elegance and style of a woman, but are afraid to wear pretty dresses in public. Well, I say to all you hidden cross-dressers out there, give up your ties and dress as you truly wish! Just remember to shave your legs.
I believe there is one major difference between Professor Lovelock and the leaders of so-called environmental groups -- he is an environmental scientist, while they are first, and foremost, activists. Scientists try to maintain objectivity. Ethical scientists are willing to change their minds at any time based on the facts. Activists, on the other hand, don't require facts or evidence. All they require is faith and belief that their vision of the world is right and proper, for them and for you. In this way, they are remarkably similar to right-wing, religious fundamentalists.
I don't care to delve too deeply into the similar psychologies of left-wing activists and right-wing fundamentalists. I've been exposed to too many examples of both in my life. Actually, I just wish that members of both groups would shut the hell up and get out of the way. Then the rest of us could get down to the really important work of making sure that our children inherit a world that's in better shape than the one we started out with.
There is enough uranium and thorium on earth to last us billions of years.
Speaking more in the short-term... we throw away over 90% of the energy in the uranium we use now. It's all sitting there in spent fuel storage pools, waiting for reprocessing. Lots of energy there. Plus, there's more thorium than uranium, and we haven't even begun to tap that resource. Well, actually India is planning to.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the absolute worst part about this... it was all a big publicity stunt, sponsored by the provincial government. The cars were all supposed to roll into Toronto tomorrow for a photo-op with the Ontario Energy Minister, all timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the 2003 Blackout.
This is a tragic occurrence, and it prompts many serious questions. For example, the article says that the U of T team was in compliance with applicable Transport regulations. You then have to ask the question, are those regulations adequate to protect people that might be driving these experimental vehicles that are designed to be lightweight technology demonstrations rather than safe, reliable forms of transportation? The worst thing about this is that simply carrying the vehicle on a trailer instead of driving it in normal traffic would have saved this guy's life, at very little cost.
You mean there might have been survival benefit to this behaviour. I find it equally likely that the true survival benefit lies in the other direction, i.e. an ability to concentrate really well when under pressure. Besides, who's to say that a trait that aided survival umpteen-millions of years ago is still a benefit today?
This viewpoint is complete and utter bull. Yes, corporations have power. Yes, corporations sometimes exercise their power to excess. Does that mean they can do anything they want? NO!
Let's take my industry for example. Nuclear power was the "next big thing" back in the 70s. Then the Three Mile Island incident occurred, and the US nuclear industry nearly came to a screeching halt due to public and regulatory pressures.
Flash-forward to today, and what has happened? Nuclear has started to live up to it's early promises. Safety and efficiency are up, costs are down. For the first time in over 20 years, people in the US are starting to have a generally positive view of nuclear energy.
Corporations are now talking about the possibility of building a new generation of safer, more efficient plants. This was an absolute fantasy 10 years ago. Now, corporations want to build these plants, and the public may let them.
However, if there was a major accident at a nuclear plant in the near future, what do you think would happen to these plans for new plants? They wouldn't get built! Public pressure would turn the tide the other way, just as it has in many other instances.
Why do you think energy companies are building wind farms now, because they're efficient? HA! The only reason they're being built is because public pressure has placed them on the energy map because of tax incentives. Otherwise, wind power would be abandoned as inefficient, unreliable, unsightly, and resource intensive.
Public awareness of issues and representative forms of government ensure that corporate power can never get to the point envisioned by such dystopic fantasies. That's why representative government exists... they may not be perfect, and they can make mistakes, but they can also self-correct. Doom is not an inevitability.
Liberal, Conservative, whatever. They're all elected governments. Wikipedia's got the most balanced account of this I've ever seen, at Wikipedia:Avro Arrow, and it has this to say about the claim that cancellation of the Arrow killed the industry.
It'll never happen. Even though it's a private project, the Canadian government will find a way to cancel it the day before it's supposed to go (probably some stupid public safety thing, or maybe because the team isn't half-francophone). They'll confiscate and burn all the drawings and models and chop up the vehicle and sell it for scrap. They might use some of the parts to patch up the broke-ass Sea King helicopters until the replacements get here, assuming they don't cancel those too.
Not really, but how fast can you type?
Some of us still remember that without France, there would not have been an entity known as the "United States of America." We'd still be a British colony, or worse, part of Canada! Haha, that's a twist, just kidding, eh? (Really, I married a Canadian and live in Toronto!)
Centrifugal Bumblepuppy
I am more comfortable with a tree-oriented system as the default, but there are times I want a new window. Both metaphors are natural and easy to comprehend. They both have their uses. I find navigation to be much easier in a tree-structure, but drag-and-drop seems to work much better in a spatial structure. Why not make it easy for me to do both? Another thread here mentions old MacOS 9 behavior of allowing either way... why shouldn't we have something like that? If I single-click, keep me in the same window. If I double-click, open up a new window. Best of both worlds, easy to use, easy to understand.
Nope, we sure as hell mentioned that it was Canadian technology when it fritzed out on the ISS back in 2002. Seriously, though, give me a break... NASA and US news publications almost always refer to it as the "Canadarm". I think that makes a pretty damn clear connection to Canada.
I wish I had some Rearden Metal to test for neutron absorption. I've always had a sneaking suspicion that it would be awesome for nuclear plant construction.
6) Profit!
Wow, that's the first time on Slashdot I've ever seen someone use the words "Fortran" and "happily" in the same sentence!
Yes, I am. You seem to share the popular, commonly-held view that the only types of investor in the private sector are money-grubbing, profit-worshiping, short-sighted venture capitalists that shun all risk. As if capitalist was a bad word. As if big payoffs could be had for little to no risk. Bullshit. What kinds of risks were taken during the dot com boom? Do you think a public agency would ever take those kinds of risks? You seem to lump all types of private corporations together into one pile, regardless of age, experience, profitability, goals, product. Bullshit. Not all companies are the same. With a straight face, you're actually ignoring the financial risks taken by all kinds of corporations over the past 10 years? Oh, and before YOU mention the X-prize, and the risk-averse nature of venture capitalists, why don't you try thinking a little bit about how much those same venture capitalists are putting in RIGHT NOW with very little forseeable short-term gain? You can actually sit there with a straight face and claim that *government* takes more risks than the *private sector*?! Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
I would not want NASA to be in charge of commercializing space, not even so far as setting up the infrastructure. Public agencies, by their very design and mission, are too risk averse for that to work. Stakeholders (and there are a buttload of them) would demand absolute safety... not a low probability of adverse events, not managed risk, but absolute safety. And that just can't happen without absolutely enormous costs. Another factor is that innovation is most often driven by constraints, and the need to get around them. You would never see NASA doing some of the things that X-prize contestants are doing... they don't have to, they don't have any of the same constraints. Let NASA do what they're best at, science and exploration. Let private interests do what they're best at, generating inventive solutions and taking risks in the hopes of making big bucks down the road.
What the hell are you using them for?!
I generally agree with the "collective intelligence" aspect, but question the "greater than the sum of their parts" assertion. The old formula for collective intelligence is something like [floor(IQ)]/N, and that usually seems pretty accurate for Slashdot. :)
Cute. I think it's the choice of music that makes it so utterly horrifying.
One would hope the next generation of reactors is more efficient, thermodynamically. A lot of the Gen IV effort is oriented towards supercritical water as the working fluid. Other options include liquid metal or high temperature gas.
A combined cycle gas turbine uses the waste heat from a Brayton gas-turbine cycle as the heat source for a Rankine steam cycle. In the "cascading closed-loop cycle" described in the article, a similar idea is used except that two Rankine cycles are involved -- they just use different working fluids. This should work, both in theory and in the real world, but I wonder about the cost and the additional complexity.
Another alternative that is proven, and makes good use of waste heat, is the combined heat and power cycle... for example, the waste heat can be used for district heating. Still another alternative that extracts more usable heat in the first place is the Kalina cycle, which uses a variable mixture working fluid.
Here's some basic info on heat engine cycles that may be useful for comparison purposes:
To whoever modded me down... chill out, don't take it so personally. There's no need to get so defensive.
Neckties are an absolutely useless piece of frippery for men who wish they could dress with the elegance and style of a woman, but are afraid to wear pretty dresses in public. Well, I say to all you hidden cross-dressers out there, give up your ties and dress as you truly wish! Just remember to shave your legs.
I believe there is one major difference between Professor Lovelock and the leaders of so-called environmental groups -- he is an environmental scientist, while they are first, and foremost, activists. Scientists try to maintain objectivity. Ethical scientists are willing to change their minds at any time based on the facts. Activists, on the other hand, don't require facts or evidence. All they require is faith and belief that their vision of the world is right and proper, for them and for you. In this way, they are remarkably similar to right-wing, religious fundamentalists.
I don't care to delve too deeply into the similar psychologies of left-wing activists and right-wing fundamentalists. I've been exposed to too many examples of both in my life. Actually, I just wish that members of both groups would shut the hell up and get out of the way. Then the rest of us could get down to the really important work of making sure that our children inherit a world that's in better shape than the one we started out with.
There is enough uranium and thorium on earth to last us billions of years.
Speaking more in the short-term... we throw away over 90% of the energy in the uranium we use now. It's all sitting there in spent fuel storage pools, waiting for reprocessing. Lots of energy there. Plus, there's more thorium than uranium, and we haven't even begun to tap that resource. Well, actually India is planning to.