Sounds delicious.

And, for the past few years we have had reverse immigration.

He is saying the TSA is useless. If I can inside the mechanics of the plane undetected, then why are we so concerned about whether someone is bringing a screwdriver into the cabin?

When was the last time you heard of an airplane hijack after people realized they could be crashed into buildings?

Before September 11, no one had crashed a commercial airplane into a building as a terrorist attack. But, airplanes had been hijacked. Civilians were told not to interfere with a hijacking. If your plane were hijacked, you could expect to be flown to Cuba, sit around for a week or so, and then end up back in the US. That dynamic changed on September 11. AS SOON AS people realized that terrorists were flying planes into buildings, they started fighting back. That is why that plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Because the terrorists had hijacked the plane, but the passengers found out (from cell phones) what was probably going to happen and tried to take the airplane back. There is almost NO chance of a commercial flight being hijacked by terrorists now. Even if we didn't humiliate people with the TSA. Because the other 100 people on the plane would sacrifice their lives to stop them. No one would believe the hijacker WASN'T going to crash the plane into a building, so there would be no point in anyone NOT being a hero (you know you are going to die if you don't fight back, so you might as well fight back and try to live).

I fly quite often (at least a couple times per month). I would be perfectly fine with increasing my chance of dying on a plane by 0.00001% if that meant getting rid of the TSA. I would also be fine with the increased risk to my family because I believe their freedom and happiness are more important than their security.

You sir, are a coward. And it is people like you who allowed the Hitlers and Stalins commit their atrocities.

Fair enough. And I understand that companies have to phase out old software at some point. But, microsoft seems to have a habit of releasing flashy new software that turns out to be worse than the old software. It really pisses me off when I am forced to upgrade to an inferior product. If there were any alternative to windows that I could use at work, I would do it in a heartbeat. But, the software that I have to use to do my job only works on Windows. And I end up cursing Windows at least once a day. It is possible that has made me more biased against microsoft than they deserve.

You miss my point. I am fine with companies screwing things up by being "innovative" if there are other options. But, windows is pretty much a monopoly, so when they force stupid "innovations" on me then I have a right to be pissed off. I still wish my computer were running Windows XP instead of Windows 7 because I have to restart my computer a couple of times per day to keep it from bogging down. I never had that problem with XP. But, when I bought this computer, XP was not offered as an option.

TFS says that the premium ticket holders would get a full refund and get to see the concert for free. I think that they should get refunded down to the regular ticket price but still get good seats. Allowing them to see it for free seems to make it more likely there will be attempts to manipulate the system.

Fine... Innovate. That is good. But how do we decide when an "innovation" is good or bad. If Microsoft would agree to support Windows 7 (older style) next to Windows 8 (the "innovation) and let the market decide which one won, then I would say you have a point. But, Microsoft is going to try to phase out Windows 7 (like they did to Windows XP) even if people prefer Windows 7 (and XP) over Windows 8. Innovation is good when you can choose whether to use that innovation and let it live or die on its merits. It sucks when it is forced on you (regardless of whether it is good or bad).

I am pretty sure that most of the world is not buying their oil. From what I understood it is mostly China (and maybe India) that are buying their oil, and that is at a severely discounted rate.

Probably not. When people get nervous about their financial systems, they want real money that they can put their hands on. Which makes sense because if the financial system collapses, you don't want to have to depend on middlemen that could collapse as well. So, it might actually do the opposite. When this passes (not saying how long that will take, but at some point something has got to give) then the people will remember being unable to get hard currency. So, it could be that they will be LESS inclined to use electronic payments than they are now.

That was actually my first thought as well. Also, from what I understand it is just a composting toilet which are not all that complicated or expensive. The only innovative thing seems to be the poo-conveyor. Maybe that is why it is so expensive... $35k for the super fuckin' reliable conveyor, $5k for the rest.

Troll? How am I trolling? Disagreeing with you is not "trolling". Do you think that hydrogen is an exploitable energy source? Because all of the proposals that I have heard are either generating it from water with electrolysis (and since the end result of burning hydrogen is water, you go complete circle) or creating it from fossil fuels. If you are creating it from fossil fuels you might as well store the fossil fuel and convert it just before putting it in a fuel cell, so there is no hydrogen economy. If you have heard of some way of actually using hydrogen as an energy source, then please let me know.

It is true that it is one of the most abundant substances in the universe. But most of it on earth has already burned (combined with oxygen - water). Once we start colonies in space, then we probably will build a hydrogen economy. But it is not practical on earth.

And, it is true that gaseous hydrogen is generally more safe than gasoline mainly because it dissipates too quickly (because it is too light) to explode, but my biggest concern is not it spontaneously combusting. I would not want to drive around my car with a canister of a noble gas (read non-combustible) under 10,000psi riding next to me in the car. Much less a combustible one.

Batteries are improving at a rapid rate. You can quick charge a battery in 15 minutes. That is about how long it takes to stop at a fast food restaurant and have a meal. And, everywhere has electricity. No matter where you go you will be able to recharge your car. The same cannot be said for hydrogen. LPG is a reasonable fuel that is cheap and burns pretty clean. But, you almost never see propane cars on the road because there is nowhere to fill them up. I just do not see hydrogen cars becoming common enough so that there are enough "hydrogen stations" to make hydrogen cars practical. Sure, in my electric car I might have to stop for the evening to charge up after my 400km. But, what do you do once your 400km are up? Knock on someones door and ask if you can borrow their garden hose (and an electrical outlet) to electrolyze some water?

So, no. I do not see any advantage to the "hydrogen economy". Ten years ago I was all for it. But then I started looking at the details and realized it was over-hyped and over-sold. I have been to L.A. I did not see the hydrogen economy (I wasn't looking for it, though - maybe I missed it). Can't afford to go to Bejing or Mexico City. So, unless you want to pay for me to fly there, then I will just have to hope that you can provide me with facts (any facts would be nice) that can convince me of the advantages of your "hydrogen economy".

I think that urine is bad for them as well. That is why this system has the fancy poo-conveyor. So that they can separate out the urine.

But, how much energy is required to get the gasoline in your car. Remember that gasoline has to be refined from oil, which is quite energy intensive. And, if the oil comes from tar sands then a lot of energy is required to extract it. Also you sometimes have to transport it across oceans, and once it is here it is transported through pipelines (which are pretty efficient), but to get to a gas station it is usually shipped on a truck. While with coal you basically dig it up and ship it out (usually on rail directly to the power plant, so there is no refining, and almost no transportation inefficiency. You have the added inefficiency of the grid, but Transportation and Distribution losses of the power grid are not really that big at around 6-8%.

I don't get why people have this huge obsession with hydrogen. Hydrogen is a battery, that is all. It is a way of storing energy to be used later. But, it is an inefficient battery. To get it into a compact form that is practical for storage requires very high pressures (~10,000psi), which require a lot of energy to create. And it has to be very pure to not degrade the fuel cell you are using to create electricity from and. And then you have to make sure that the containment vessel doesn't explode in an accident (or just if it gets old). And all the associated dangers of filling it up from a filling station with high pressure.

And in actuality big oil DOES want hydrogen to be the replacement for oil. With an electric car you can go home and plug it in (and plug it in at work if you can get a hook-up). You could drive 50 miles every day and never go to a "gas" station. But you aren't going to produce hydrogen at home. Once every week or two you are going to go to the "gas" station to fill up on hydrogen. And some company (most likely ones that already have the distribution network in place for other fuels - like oil) will provide the hydrogen to that "gas" station. And the government can tax and control it. And financial types can manipulate the price of it as they do with oil.

And as I said, hydrogen is just a battery. So you still need to use an energy source to create it. So, if it is made from coal (or made from electricity produced from coal), it is still not environmentally friendly. I can see fuel cells in our future being used to convert biofuels (or even fossil fuels to begin with) to electricity at with high efficiency (>60%). But I just cannot see any advantage to the "hydrogen economy", not even considering how much capital and resources will necessary to convert our current "fossil fuel economy" to a "hydrogen economy".