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Comment Re:Now I'm confused ... (Score 1) 380

natural gas is a serious greenhouse gas, if we start shipping it around and pumping it even more chances are more will leak into the atmosphere.

Also, it is explosive so that is a downside too. Of course we do actually use compressed natural gas for some vehicles (municipal busses for instance) so its not totally crazy, but maybe not the best thing to scale to everyone using it.

Comment Re:waste of time (Score 3, Insightful) 380

4. Find out "fresh" battery has gone through so many cycles it only has half its capacity left and find yourself stranded just short of the next "filling" station.

Look, all of these technologies have issues... maybe those batteries made from carbon that supposedly don't loose their capacity will end up being practical in a large scale, that would be great, but also, maybe this design will turn out to be a huge boon for the hydrogen car industry, basically solving one of the biggest problem in hydrogen fuel cells.... how to store enough hydrogen safely to have a reasonable rage.

Now I would be curious how the energy density of Ammonia, converted using this process, compares to that of gasoline which is currently pretty much top of the heap for portable energy density. It would also be nice to know how it compares to the current generation of batteries.

Everyone has their own particular chosen winner/looser but that is stupid. Innovation could come from anywhere and right now we need all the irons in the fire that we can get. We can't afford to put all of our sustainability money behind one thing that may or may not turn out to be the best choice in the long run.

Comment Re:Doesn't give warm fuzzies (Score 2) 162

The HIPPA rules are quite importnat, they do a lot to protect privacy in that data is not simply allowed to be shared without consent (unless you are incapacitated in which case a doctor in an emergency can get just about anything he wants. There are rules for tracking access to sensitive information along with auditing of the stated reason. Its pretty good stuff.

That said, it only requires people to provide a certain level of data security.... since, say OpenSSH is an industry standard used for protecting information, it is sufficient for HIPPA requirements. Obviously a company would need to upgrade their systems in the face of a heartbleed style attack but would only be liable if they dragged their feet on it and not liable for the data lost before the bug was public. Its maybe not as secure as people would like it to be in that respect. Still, better than what we had before.

Comment Re:Families come first (Score 2) 370

Maybe its money that motivates him or maybe he is sick of having less purchasing power than he did 5 years ago as everything has gotten more expensive and wages have remained flat. I have had that experience here, I will likely need to move on in order to get back onto the earning curve I was on before so that maybe, one day, I can retire.

That said, if my company did other things better I would be less likely to be looking for a job over money... so it really isn't just about the cash usually.

Comment Re:Speaking as a guy in his 40s... (Score 1) 370

I did that a few jobs back. I found a much better way to manage the SDK my company had developed and been using for about 2 decades. It relied on a feature that had been added to C++ since the work had been done. I talked to the head of dev about it and he was convinced it was impossible (he had tried you see). I brought up that it may not have been possible back when he did the work and he took it as a shot at his age.

Plot twist, he was 1 year older than me.... stuck in your ways is stuck in your ways no matter what the age.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 218

Certainly not a chore to put your feet down at a stop light.

I can see a use for this, although it would be a shame if it needed a motorcycle license. I can't see why it should. You don't push to turn, you dontt put your feet down, you don't back it up manually.... what about it requires any of the skills I learned in the rider ed course?

I mean I would never take one of these to bike week, but as a small commuter vehicle for city living it might not be a bad thing.... though maybe not around here. How well will it handle snow and ice?

Comment Re:loud = fast NOT (Score 1) 345

my harley is nearly 15 years old and it runs beautifully... The new engines (the ones that started with the 88ci one back in 1999) are really quite reliable and pleasant to work on when you need to. Tools are simple and plentiful. Honestly if you want to talk about bikes that are a bitch to work on its got to be 80s era Japanese bikes. I had a Yamaha Maxim that had an electrical diagram that would make your head spin and the engines are often so compact that they are incredibly hard to work on, especially on the side of the road.

luckily, while harley has improved its reliability, Japanese bikes have improved their maintainability and right now there are a ton of good bikes on the road, not to mention Victory and Indian and a lot of Euro brands that you didn't see in the states back then. Its a good time to be on 2 wheels.

Comment Re:Dangerous (Score 1) 345

They happen often enough on interstates, but worse are multi-lane state highways, they are usually more constricted and people treat the 2 lane ones pretty much like they are regular roads and change lanes with very little consideration.

I learned to ride in New Jersey, land of such roads... these days I barely notice when someone cuts me off or merges into my lane. I am numb to it.

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