This thing does not ADD any energy to the atmosphere. It EXTRACTS energy from it.

You can't make something out of nothing. As a number of people have already written. It converts solar radiation (i.e. Light) into thermal energy. In a place such as Arizona - most of that solar radiation is reflected back into the atmosphere due to the coloring of the soil. Normally, this solar energy would not be absorbed.

To test, simply paint 1 square meter of your backyard black, and one square meter of your backyard white. Measure the temperature at the middle of each square, during the day and at dusk. Black wins. The black patch has just succeeded in adding more thermal energy (as opposed to adding light) to the atmosphere which takes longer to dissipate due to the increased amount of "green house" gasses.

Enter the tower, a place where we are now on a very large scale maximizing the thermal conversion of solar radiation into thermal energy (as opposed to simply reflecting back into space as solar radiation). The tower would be a very large stack in the air that would basically pump hott(er) air out of the top of it. I have not done the math but I suspect that you will find that the exit temperature of the top of the tower and the ambient atmosphere will be warmer.

It is almost required for this to be the case too. For the air to flow upwards it must be warmer OR of a higher pressure than the air below it. The exit is a little more difficult to clearly define as there are air turbines in the tower that will extract some of the energy from the air stream. There will presumably be thermal transfer from the walls of the tower to the ambient atmosphere as well. However, to keep the flow moving the air must have some velocity at the exit of the tower. The only way this will happen is by the exit air mass having a higher pressure or higher temperature. It is likely to have both because you have taken an enclosed space, taken ground level air, and moved it up 2,400 ft.

So the net is that you dump thermal energy into the atmosphere at an altitude and in a manner that is not part of the natural climate cycle. And then what happens? If you drive a single car down the road it is not an issue. If you drive millions of them you have global climate change.

Build these towers everywhere - and you've now modified the climate further in a way that contributes to our existing problem. This is basically my issue with this particular idea.

Just what we need! More thermal energy in the atmosphere.

We should be trying to extract the thermal energy we already have - not creating more. Wind mills on mountains are a good start.

I was mistaken regarding the mission of INTERPOL. However, it is only because the INTERPOL constitution specifically prohibits "undertak(ing) any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character (...)" that this is a non-issue. The act does grant judicial immunity to people carrying out their "job" under this act.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1497072&cid=30649000

"Agent" was meant as "employee" not in the CIA sense as their constitution indicates that they do not have those sorts of people on staff...

Yes, you are right. I spoke out of turn. It's easy to read what someone else wrote. Here is a synopsis of what I found:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1497072&cid=30649000

Funny though, this comment is rated +5 insightful. But the other, correct post is not lol.

Fear not... I spoke out of turn but tried to correct the record...

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1497072&cid=30649000

This modification specifically allows INTERPOL the ability to enter into contracts, own and dispose property and has some ancillary language regarding taxes and immigration.

The real provision that is possibly dangerous is Section 7. (b) Representatives of foreign governments in or to international organizations and officers and employees of such organizations shall be immune from suit and legal process relating to acts performed by them in their official capacity ... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/International_Organizations_Immunities_Act#Title_I

If an agent of INTERPOL is "just doing his job" then he can do whatever he wants. Fortunately for us INTERPOL is very limited in what it can do.

INTERPOL's constitution is very clear as Article 3 states: It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character. http://www.interpol.int/public/icpo/legalmaterials/constitution/constitutiongenreg/constitution.asp

Thus, we are safe from the administration asking INTERPOL to conduct operations on US soil. If that charter were to change though... it would be a different story.

Also, Obama's actions have had no change on their status in this regard. They have always had this status.

This is really a change of a default assumption than freedom to do anything without penalty. If INTERPOL starts going crazy, it only takes a presidential signature to take this exception back.

No one is taking this exception back, it was granted in the first place.

The question might be why was this ever granted in the first place? Easy - the government wants to make it easier to hunt terrorists on U.S. soil or any other citizen not following the rules. This basically allows to the U.S. government to go and ask interpol to conduct unconstitutional activities on U.S. soil and report their findings. Clap, fail.

H.264 = MPEG-4 Part 10 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC)

If you mean MPEG-2, H.264 was designed as a replacement for this technology amongst others.

H.264 and VC-1 are currently the most efficient methods in terms of bandwidth to transmit video.

This was true of the preview release of 2.0. It was horrible. However, the final version of the UI is fairly decent.

Sadly, no. An actual working prototype is not needed to file for a patent. All you really need (I'm no patent lawyer) is a fairly detailed description of an idea. You also need to search for any ideas similar to yours. If applicable you may need to reference them as works.

I believe the only way this can be overturned is if there is evidence of prior art - (possibly) a working implementation of the idea before the patent was filed.

Also, it's not any particular implementation that they are going after, it is the general "method" of how plugins work within the browser that is the violation.

I blame the LHC...

The alcholic who was drunk driving and killed someone should get a reduced sentence?

For sure... and it's not a black hole. It's a very well designed waveguide that is able to channel microwaves to an absorbant material without re-radiating any of the incoming energy.

You're an AC but I'll respond...

Simply stated, corporations exist by permission of the Government through means of a Government granted charter.

This feature of corporations was ended by the ruling in 1819, I believe. I would bet that merchants and business men of the time wanted a more firm assurance of stability. That is, their charters for their businesses would not be revoked at a whim by an over zealous politician. The ruling ensured that this would never take place. The nefarious aspect of this ruling is promoting the corporation to a status of "individual" with essentially unlimited wealth and resources to protect itself from legal attack. It also cannot be "killed" in the classical sense due to the aformentioned changes in the law.

The debate around unfettered capitalism is at best a text book argument. The reality is that markets undergo some sort of regulation from their inception. unfettered capitalism is unstable thus requires regulation. Given the events of the last 9 months it appears we have learned some things - it will be interesting to see if the "recovery" is stable.

My mention of Obama is simply this - under Obama's proposed laws the top 5 percent of tax payers will exceed the the other 95% contributions to the system. Meaning that over 50% of the tax burden is borne by the top 5% of earners in the country. This is a new record and tends to disprove the notion that wealth concentrates wealth. Obama is taking that wealth and forcible redistributing it across the country instead of allowing the people with the wealth how to decide to spend it.

Unless you have testimony from all of QuoteMstr's family you mentioned about their past voting record, this entire section of your reply is meaningless.

It's not meaningless at all. The point is this - our government was and is constructed by the people who walk down the street, our family members, ancestors and friends. Every american citizen past and present has contributed in one way or another to our current state of affairs. In the unlikely event that the fellow has a long family history of activism I will certain make an exception. The more probable outcome is that his family has their fair share of uninterested or unaligned individuals. It is not fair to call other people (offensive) names simply due to their political beliefs when there is quit possibly someone in their family that shares a similar view.