Spreadsheets are definitely valuable in analysis and design phases. That can sometimes be very complex work, especially before all the constraints and contingencies of the project are identified. But as a general rule, even simple spreadsheets have no place in production work.

A spreadsheet is a great way to test the usefulness of different ways of handling complex data. They are also relatively easy to modify as a project's specifications evolve. Which they always do.

However an important part of implementing a project-- moving it from design into production-- is building software that is more robust than spreadsheets can be for use in the daily grind. That will sometimes be a database, but even a sequence of Perl or Python scripts is more robust over time than any spreadsheet. You have no control over the skills and knowledge of some temp whose been hired to fill in for that admin assistant who is in hospital for an appendectomy. That temp needs to be working in a highly constrained environment where he cannot do any unintentional damage, and no spreadsheet can supply that kind of environment.

The easiest way is to make a temporary copy of the spreadsheet and use the "copy downward" capabilities to fill the formula columns in the tempsheet. Then compare the results to the original.

....Okay....

And how exactly is Unix relevant to a lifeform that is part of a Linux ecosystem? Unix has as much relevance to me today as the DOS I outgrew three decades ago. While I know that much of what I work with in Ubuntu and Linux in general is descended from Unix, I also know that much of the English I communicate with is descended from ancient Elizabethan dialects that only classical thespians use any more. And even they don't use the old words when ordering fries at the local MickeyDees when on break between rehearsals.

And I was sure they were talking about The Mathemagician's Rule of Three:

No, grasshopper, when bamboo fiber begins to fulfill all its potential uses, the amount of carbon sequestered away in all those automotive and construction pieces will be significant. Bamboo/epoxy can replace many of the uses of carbon fiber, fiberglass, and plastic. And do so with a smaller carbon footprint.

When a product made of bamboo fiber is worn out or otherwise removed from service, it does not need to go into a landfill. It can be chipped and the chips used as feedstock to produce fiberboard and other construction materials. The stuff is more easily repurposed than carbon fiber, fiberglass, and many plastics.

Would bamboo artifacts sequester away carbon for thousands of years? Probably not, probably only for hundreds of years, maybe only a few times as long as trees gone naturally to logs to rot on the forest floor sequester carbon. But the short term advantages are good, and the process not only removes CO2 from the ecosystem, it also reduces the amount of newly extracted fossilized carbon that is injected into the ecosystem.

Now it could be that hemp would be better at many uses than bamboo. Hemp would be a lot easier to process in many ways, and its longer fibers are probably more suitable to textiles and fabric applications than bamboo. But that discussion should be done in another thread (pun intended).

When you mix bamboo fibers with epoxy, you sequester the carbon that the bamboo extracted from atmospheric CO2.

And that is a far better thing to do than allowing the stuff to decompose.

About your third point:

True, but this is actually a benefit of using bamboo. The carbon in a bamboo discard has been removed from atmospheric CO2 when it was growing and is now sequestered. That is a good thing. When it is encased in epoxy that will not release the CO2 for centuries, that is a far better thing than being sequestered for only dozen decades or so, as is the case for untreated bamboo. A landfill built of discarded epoxy encased bamboo fabrications would not be bad thing.

Nicely done summary; succinct and to the point. Needs some expansion, though.

Growing bamboo: Removes CO2 from the atmosphere at a fast rate. With many techniques, there will be a net removal of CO2 for the complete manufacturing process.

Spinning fiberglass: Of itself, is carbon neutral. However the energy needed to melt the glass almost always comes from a CO2 producing industry (very little renewably sourced energy is used in making glass)

Making carbon fiber: The process itself produces a lot of CO2. The energy used in the processing comes almost entirely from fossil fuels.

Also note that the carbon in epoxied bamboo fiber materials is effectively sequestered for a few hundred years, even as it sits in landfills.

Bamboo manufacture is usually pretty green.

If you count older, simpler models, then yes: probably most climate models suggest more deserts. But if you ignore the models that were running on the limited computers of twenty years ago and look only at models that are still actually being used, then the story is very different.

However we already have seen that those models are too simplistic, this is no longer a matter of comparing one model to another. The reality is that the increase in both the number and severity of storms demonstrates that there is a lot more water in the atmosphere. It is the state changes of this water-- between vapor and droplets and ice-- that drives storms.

Now is there any way that author of parent post can convince me that he is not a shill for the oil interests or some other industry invested in maintaining the status quo? I'm willing to listen to that argument.

Do you really think all that water is going to stay in the oceans?

The rise in sea level has already increased the size of tide flats and salt marshes. Which are evaporation basins. Expect an increase in atmospheric water, some as vapor (which is a potent greenhouse gas) and some as cloud (increasing the Earth's albedo). How those opposing factors will play out is anyone's guess.

But this much is obvious: the increase in atmospheric water is going to increase PRECIPITATION! The worst flood damage from the loss of Antarctic ice is going to be inland, with destruction of cities and infrastructure from flooding rivers.

What about Fox, BBC, and all the other news shows?

So CNN is trying something new and risky by focusing all its assets on one story? Can you not just change the channel every now and then to get the other news of the day?

Let's see where this goes rather than bitching and moaning because CNN has broken free from the herd and is doing something the other news companies aren't doing. Maybe CNN is pioneering a new and better approach. Maybe they are just another pioneer that dies lost in the desert. Either way, everyone will learn something.

The missing plane story IS newsworthy.

I don't watch CNN so I have no idea how sensationalized their coverage has been. HOWEVER any time you have several nations devoting so much of their resources in a joint effort that was cobbled together as rapidly as their response has been, that IS a major story. CNN was definitely doing the right thing in getting on this, and in following it.

That said, so far they may have missed much of the significance of what was happening. When elements of the USA armed forces and the Chinese armed forces act jointly under the direction of Australia, yes, there are definitely stories there. It might be that CNN missed the boat on where the focus should be. Or it might be that they have been preparing documentary coverage behind the scenes, while using the day to day "infotainment" coverage to pay the enormous daily costs of developing the larger, more noteworthy, stories.

I expect that in the upcoming months we will see a documentary or two describing how a multinational search effort was thrown together on a moment's notice. I think there must have been some fancy dancing going on between Generals and Admirals of different nations, and CNN has-- probably deliberately-- positioned its news-gathering assets where they can document the events as they were happening.

The original quote:

I have no idea what was meant by that. My suspicion is that the professor provided enough context in his lecture that these nine words conveyed a distinct meaning, but we don't have that context here and I won't speculate on what the intended meaning might have been.

To generalize my earlier statement: there are some things about the way the Universe is put together that are impossible to understand, and that has to be accepted. We can deal with this by recognizing that physics (and all sciences) create simplified mental models of reality that we can then play with to our hearts' content. Some of our models are well enough constructed that some of our playmates-- the engineers-- can build marvelous things. But don't confuse our ability to build castles made of sand with an understanding of what sand is. The best we can do is replace one crude model with another that is maybe a little less crude, but is still just a model; just a bunch of thoughts in the head that have no direct relationship to whatever is Out There.

You handle these by stating the blatantly obvious, that these phenomena are currently outside the realms physics works with, and then you move on.

Hell, physics cannot even handle ancient problems that are cracks in the bedrock of all western science. What is the reason that Pi is irrational (and don't just site one of the many different definitions of Pi as the reason: that is simply crippling your critical thinking ability with a blind belief in one or another tautology).

We live in a universe that we not only do not understand, but which we are innately incapable of ever completely understanding. So sayeth the Copenhagen convention on which much of modern physics is constructed: the best we can do is make simplified models and play with them. So get over it, and praise the engineers for being too concrete in their modes of thinking to be deterred by these impossibilities. For without the ability to occasionally say "in this situation, 3 is a good enough approximation of Pi", nothing would ever get built.

I don't see why. Sure, any theory of everything would have to account for that, and also answer the question of whether sacred cows fart in a sacred manner.

But we can do perfectly fine with multiple branches of physics that stay away from that problem, where each branch deals with only some aspects of reality. So long as we are mindful of the limitations of each mindset, and respect the ambiguous nature of the borders where one kind of physics butts up against some other kind, we have more than enough to play with to satisfy any theoretician. Within one problem space, we've got Newtonian physics which works peachy-keen. In another problem space we've got quantum mechanics. For the most part we only have to switch between one and the other without having to try to fit them together.

That sometimes means having to learn to dance really fast between different realities when trying to work close to that ambiguous border between two different physics. But with some training, the human mind is capable of some really fast footwork. For the most part, we can razzle-dazzle the problems well enough for the engineers to work with the results, being as how engineers go about doing their thing in relatively crude ways. ("At this scale, Pi is approximately 3", "Whether the glass is half full or half empty is beside the point: what is important is that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.") And it is the engineering that we live with. That is what flushes the toilets and puts things in orbit. So long as the branches of physics we play with in our minds support the engineers who make modern life liveable, it is all good.