I hear what you're saying, but I think you're missing the point. If sterling engines at all scales were ubiquitous, then we avoid the whole problem of having to have them cobbled up post-collapse by the local smithy, which will inevitably happen.
Unfortunately, the mindless properties of capitalism prevent this from happening because sterling engines won't turn a profit tomorrow, and tomorrow is as far as most business people see.
Quite frankly, a lot of open source looks like a way to get free labor from gullible college kids for corporations. If I can download a CRM system and use it with little modification, why pay to develop one? As far as I can tell, the biggest beneficiary of open source looks to be small to medium "for profit" businesses. If I was opening an office tomorrow, I would outfit any PCs I might need with Mint, OpenOffice and The Gimp for promotional art. For anything more specialized, I'd pay the slightly over minimum wage kid in the back to search for a free version.
I might pay for a lot of things, but software probably wouldn't be one of them.
I can't say I disagree with you. They buy the services of these smart people, and then don't let them be smart. It happens to Indian technical support too, as far as I can tell. A script isn't a substitute for a thinking person on the other end of the phone.
And when I've worked in ITish positions, nobody seemed to hate me. Of course, our current department is full of excellent, skilled and emotionally stable folks (the rest were fired or quit), and I've always gone out of my way to be helpful when asked a question. Maybe there are some clues here.
Just wait until you call the Philippines. Currently, Siemens corporation outsources their IT support to the Philippines. The quality of their IT support is amazing, but not in a good way.
But economics are applicable *now* eh? How many sterling engine manufacturers are there? Even in the third world, people still favor Lister engines and will as long as liquid hydrocarbons or cheap biodiesel are available.
And all this advancement is just *spiffy* if it scales, has an energy density similar to hydrocarbons and doesn't chew up the machines that run on it, AND we can implement it after hydrocarbons get expensive enough to break most of the world's manufacturing supply chains.
Solutions don't matter if people are too stupid and short-sighted to implement them.
Renewable energy sources may be cost competitive, but they will never scale fast enough to replace oil, gas and coal in our lifetime. We can't run a civilization of the type we have now on it (possibly a good thing). You can review the numbers here to find out what that would take (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil).
There's an irony here lost on most people concerned with renewable energy. The reason every river isn't dammed and every square foot of arable land hasn't been farmed for palm oil and sugar cane is because oil, natural gas and coal exist. If hydrocarbons weren't there, we'd have exploited every natural energy source to support an exploding human population and the ecology be damned. Hydrocarbons have, so far, saved what natural ecology is left, and will continue to do so since desequestering hydrocarbons will eventually cycle them back into the ecosphere. Short term effects of that desequestration will suck (acid rain, etc.). Long term, much better.
The Republican party has been hijacked by extremists. The Koch brothers, et. al. have been very successful in pushing big lies en masse to a voting constituency too stupid to understand the consequences of what they're being fed. This constituency elects "tea-party" candidates and vows to push out "RINOs".
Result? A de facto extremist takeover of the conservative republican wing of the party. Anyone who compromises is accused of heresy, and voted out. Compromise becomes as impossible for congress.
FYI, I'm an elitist. Since I'm not running for office, I don't have to pretend to be stupid. Nor do I pander to stupid people. So, take your best shot.
Bottom line: Every major media outlet is directly controlled by the people who own most of the wealth in America. Messages are strictly controlled. Real journalism has been banished to the blogosphere and that too, though still relatively free, is slowly being undermined.
Re:Sounds closer to humans than they claim
on
Of Mice and Cancer
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· Score: 1
1) Plants don't feel pain. How would you know? Pain is just information transmission to a set of cells that decodes the signal. It doesn't necessarily require nerves or a transmission speed akin to that of a mammal.
2) Assuming they DO feel pain, but not like mammals do, it's then OK to torture them?
Re:Yes, of course they're constraining what we lea
on
Of Mice and Cancer
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· Score: 1
Ick. No thank you! We like ours spicy, a little chewy and with a bit of fight left in them. After all, half the fun is chasing 'em down and catching them. Weren't you paying attention when we got Hollywood to make our "Predator" movies?
This is a war between rich parents who created the wealth, and the rich children who cannot sustain it LOL! Too true, but don't try to tell it to a gen-Y, Z, AA, etc. Apparently, the attitude is, "Give us our inheritance. It's your duty dammit! You stole from us!" since clearly, it was the sole purpose of the WWII and baby boom generations to make them all rich with wealth they had no part in inventing or creating. Yup, no entitlement attitude there.:D
The OWS movement in some form was inevitable. A movement to galvanize a response to economic inequality would have developed in some other way if OWS hadn't come along. Now they have a nice long winter to plan around kitchen tables across the USA.
Slashdot Mirror
... why aren't the guys who bundled crap mortgages into financial instruments in jail? Or any executives on Wall Street who lied to their clients?
I hear what you're saying, but I think you're missing the point. If sterling engines at all scales were ubiquitous, then we avoid the whole problem of having to have them cobbled up post-collapse by the local smithy, which will inevitably happen.
Unfortunately, the mindless properties of capitalism prevent this from happening because sterling engines won't turn a profit tomorrow, and tomorrow is as far as most business people see.
Quite frankly, a lot of open source looks like a way to get free labor from gullible college kids for corporations. If I can download a CRM system and use it with little modification, why pay to develop one? As far as I can tell, the biggest beneficiary of open source looks to be small to medium "for profit" businesses. If I was opening an office tomorrow, I would outfit any PCs I might need with Mint, OpenOffice and The Gimp for promotional art. For anything more specialized, I'd pay the slightly over minimum wage kid in the back to search for a free version.
I might pay for a lot of things, but software probably wouldn't be one of them.
It all sounds kind of fishy to me.
Oh, c'mon. Would you rather I said, "Really rad, man!"
Cheers!
I can't say I disagree with you. They buy the services of these smart people, and then don't let them be smart. It happens to Indian technical support too, as far as I can tell. A script isn't a substitute for a thinking person on the other end of the phone.
And when I've worked in ITish positions, nobody seemed to hate me. Of course, our current department is full of excellent, skilled and emotionally stable folks (the rest were fired or quit), and I've always gone out of my way to be helpful when asked a question. Maybe there are some clues here.
Just wait until you call the Philippines. Currently, Siemens corporation outsources their IT support to the Philippines. The quality of their IT support is amazing, but not in a good way.
But economics are applicable *now* eh? How many sterling engine manufacturers are there? Even in the third world, people still favor Lister engines and will as long as liquid hydrocarbons or cheap biodiesel are available.
And all this advancement is just *spiffy* if it scales, has an energy density similar to hydrocarbons and doesn't chew up the machines that run on it, AND we can implement it after hydrocarbons get expensive enough to break most of the world's manufacturing supply chains.
Solutions don't matter if people are too stupid and short-sighted to implement them.
I thought it was pink unicorns and fairies. There's about as much of chance of them being real as E-cat, after all. :)
These will be good for distributed local power, eventually. At the moment, they're not economically viable.
Renewable energy sources may be cost competitive, but they will never scale fast enough to replace oil, gas and coal in our lifetime. We can't run a civilization of the type we have now on it (possibly a good thing). You can review the numbers here to find out what that would take (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil).
There's an irony here lost on most people concerned with renewable energy. The reason every river isn't dammed and every square foot of arable land hasn't been farmed for palm oil and sugar cane is because oil, natural gas and coal exist. If hydrocarbons weren't there, we'd have exploited every natural energy source to support an exploding human population and the ecology be damned. Hydrocarbons have, so far, saved what natural ecology is left, and will continue to do so since desequestering hydrocarbons will eventually cycle them back into the ecosphere. Short term effects of that desequestration will suck (acid rain, etc.). Long term, much better.
I need a hand here. No, wait....
The Republican party has been hijacked by extremists. The Koch brothers, et. al. have been very successful in pushing big lies en masse to a voting constituency too stupid to understand the consequences of what they're being fed. This constituency elects "tea-party" candidates and vows to push out "RINOs".
Result? A de facto extremist takeover of the conservative republican wing of the party. Anyone who compromises is accused of heresy, and voted out. Compromise becomes as impossible for congress.
FYI, I'm an elitist. Since I'm not running for office, I don't have to pretend to be stupid. Nor do I pander to stupid people. So, take your best shot.
1) Who actually owns the media: (Hint: About 6 companies in the USA. Not too many more worldwide): http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership
2) Who sits on their board of both these media companies and other major corporations: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2870
Bottom line: Every major media outlet is directly controlled by the people who own most of the wealth in America. Messages are strictly controlled. Real journalism has been banished to the blogosphere and that too, though still relatively free, is slowly being undermined.
Maybe where you eat....
Whoa! Full of AIR! Seriously?
Those are two very interesting assumptions:
1) Plants don't feel pain. How would you know? Pain is just information transmission to a set of cells that decodes the signal. It doesn't necessarily require nerves or a transmission speed akin to that of a mammal.
2) Assuming they DO feel pain, but not like mammals do, it's then OK to torture them?
Can't be worse than chemo.
And they have a plan....
It *can't* be worse than chemo.
Ick. No thank you! We like ours spicy, a little chewy and with a bit of fight left in them. After all, half the fun is chasing 'em down and catching them. Weren't you paying attention when we got Hollywood to make our "Predator" movies?
I did! Who's with me? Down with the unoccupied 1%... or something.
This is a war between rich parents who created the wealth, and the rich children who cannot sustain it :D
LOL! Too true, but don't try to tell it to a gen-Y, Z, AA, etc. Apparently, the attitude is, "Give us our inheritance. It's your duty dammit! You stole from us!" since clearly, it was the sole purpose of the WWII and baby boom generations to make them all rich with wealth they had no part in inventing or creating. Yup, no entitlement attitude there.
The OWS movement in some form was inevitable. A movement to galvanize a response to economic inequality would have developed in some other way if OWS hadn't come along. Now they have a nice long winter to plan around kitchen tables across the USA.