Comment Re:TNSTAAFL! (Score 1) 517
Unless your ship has a nuclear reactor on board
Fun fact: The US Navy operates 86 nuclear powered ships (mostly submarines). They seem pretty comfortable with it.
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Unless your ship has a nuclear reactor on board
Fun fact: The US Navy operates 86 nuclear powered ships (mostly submarines). They seem pretty comfortable with it.
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Sure. But you ask "Can you (practically) make LPG from bio sources?"
And the answer is "It depends." How desperate are you for LPG?
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Sure.
You can even make straight-up gasoline.
Whether or not it's worthwhile depends on how much energy you need to make the desired fuel, and if you can use that energy more effectively or not... that's the key difference between "possible" and "practical."
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Food production is not a valid argument, IMHO.
We already produce 2700 calories per person per day. That's plenty to feed everyone a healthy diet. The reason so many people don't have enough food has nothing to do with the amount of food available and everything to do with logistics, politics, and inequity: The food simply isn't getting to where it's needed. Growing even more food is not going to solve that problem.
Similarly, biofuel production need not make use of land that is suitable for growing common food crops. Even though I advocate biofuels, even I'm against using food crops to do so.
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An modern auto plant turns out a vehicle approximately once every minute.
A car might roll off the line every 60 seconds, but each individual car takes ~20 hours to make. And that only works because they are all the same with only superficial differences.
So in short, this is about using 3D printing to prototype something before going to full production. Haven't we been doing that since the 1970s?
No, because 3D printers weren't developed until the 80s.
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well, what is "reasonable"?? the flu generally wont kill you, as such IMO should not be mandated.
So is DEATH the only level of harm you can think of that should be avoided? Is that really the threshold below which you don't care anymore?
Going back to the food service employee analogy: It probably won't kill anyone if an employee doesn't wash their hands or use gloves...
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Not all vaccinations last your whole life.
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Any disease that they could reasonably be expected to come into contact with and communicate to others.
So yes, that includes flu shots. That also includes MMR, Diphtheria, shingles (if you're over 60), pertussis, and pneumo/meningococcal vaccines.
Again, it's not about risk to YOU, but risk to others. Taking steps to protect others is what "personal responsibility" is all about.
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Sorry, nobody has the right to endanger other people through irresponsibility.
You're free to do what you wish with your body, but if your job is interacting with thousands of people every day - especially children - then you should get vaccinated so you do not become a vector of disease. It doesn't matter one bit if YOU get sick or not. This isn't about you. It's about protecting the people you come into contact with.
It's basically the same level of common sense as employees washing hands and wearing gloves when handling food. It's not about keeping the employee's hands clean.
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Until you get hate mail
At which point you know about it, and can therefore be upset about it. Being aware of something is a necessary precondition to having any emotional response to it.
Otherwise it's called paranoia.
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It's very, very difficult to get upset over things you don't know about.
Doesn't stop some people from trying, though...
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Wait, if he's not up for re-election... could that mean he's genuinely interested in engaging younger audiences?
The implications boggle the mind!
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This is why I've been pushing to argue in favor of reducing fossil fuel use not from an environmental point of view, but from an economic one. People can bury their heads in the sand when it comes to science, but people always listen when money is involved.
Even though the US imports about a third of our petroleum, that's still equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars per year leaving our economy. If we transition to renewable energies, that money stays around a bit longer.
Renewable energies might have a larger up-front capital cost (but not by much, and it's getting better every day), but the long term costs are overwhelmingly favorable.
With the current crash in oil prices it should be clear that our economy is in the hands of foreign interests. We are hostages to international petroleum markets. Let's develop domestic sources to free ourselves from foreign influence. Remember: There's no reason why oil couldn't have been this cheap all along, and the price only went down right when we were posed to start reducing imports in favor of domestic natural gas production. We're being played!
(Oh, and if we happen to mitigate the environmental damage we're doing in the process and avoid global catastrophe, I guess that'll be a bonus...)
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Well, no. The Shuttle's SRBs were a lot more than just a tube full of explosives.
They had thrust vector control; hydraulic power units, gimbal nozzles, control hardware. Electrical subsystems. Self contained navigation hardware. Range safety hardware. And of course everything was triple or quadruple redundant for reliability.
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Except that the solid rocket boosters and fuel tanks were not reusable. Only the engines were re-used and that after expensive overhauls.
The Shuttle's SRBs were reusable, and they reused them (or at least parts of them) pretty much every launch.
The big orange liquid fuel tank was not reused, though.
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When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy