No, HVDC is good enough. You don't need 99% efficiency at 10x the cost of 90% efficiency. It's just not worth it. Besides, I doubt the efficiency of superconductors with their associated refrigeration would be competitive with HVDC anyway, or why else is it that HVDC is the market leader for long haul transmission right now?
Simpler tech. wins. HVDC is simple, in the sense that the failure modes are rather localized and not terribly difficult to repair and/or design in some redundancy to mitigate so as to achieve very high reliability. All you need is some spare power electronic converter channels at both ends, and if you loose one you can switch to another in a few seconds, while the remaining channels handle the short term surge load.
Blow one seal on a superconducting line, and the whole thing is down for a long time before it's fixed and cooled back down, assuming that the loss of cooling didn't result in vaporizing a part of the line that you now have to go searching for and dig up.
A common misconception: "Scientific facts have been over turned time and time again."
No scientific facts have ever been overturned, because there are no scientific facts. You are only partially correct about theories.
There are scientific laws, theories, and hypotheses. Scientific laws, which were once theories, have been supported by so many years of consistent observational data that the confidence bounds on their correctness are so tight that it is essentially impossible that they will ever be falsified.
As such, NO scientific laws have ever been overturned. Rather, for ex. Newton's laws of motion, were REFINED by quantum mechanics and relativity so that the laws continue to work correctly at extremes of observability that weren't available to Newton. But over the domain in which Newton's laws were formulated, they are still valid to within any desired tolerance. So they are just as correct today as when Newton expressed them, and they have been that way since the beginning of time and will remain so until the universe is over. The same is true of Maxwell's equations, the gas laws, the laws of thermodynamics, and every other law that I can't recall.
Evolution is a theory, which means that it doesn't have the confidence levels of a law, but is supported by a huge wealth of consistent observations and basically no falsifying ones. That means that even if inconsistencies are observed, they will be subtle and change only our understanding of the mechanisms of evolution, but not the overall basic thesis. It is remotely possible that some evidence will be found that will completely overturn evolution, but it is so remote that you are more likely to die by getting struck by lightning twice on the day a cure for cancer is announced, and after you just won the lottery.
Also importantly, there are basically no competing theories to evolution that are supported by even a shred of *reproducible,* non-circularly speculative, evidence. No, the writings in some book are not evidence, because there is no basis to establish that your favorite novel which states "the contents of this novel are the truth" is any more truthful than any other supposedly self-proving novel written by anybody at all.
Global warming, or whatever it's called these days, and many of the pronouncements of the medical science establishment, such as that you should eat lots of carbs and low fat in order to reduce the likelyhood of getting heart disease, obesity, and diabetes, are hypotheses that are to be seriously questioned. In the latter case, it's looking like the evidence is already becoming clear that it is just plain wrong, and killing people to boot. But because of entrenched interests, there will be resistance to admitting fault and correcting the errors for as long as possible.
These should serve as stern warnings to those who proclaim that the "science is established" for their favorite, political and social identity-reinforcing scientifico-ideologies, that while the *scientific method* is indeed infallible, and is no doubt (along with mathematics) one of the crown jewels of human intellectual accomplishment, the implementation of that method by humans is in no way perfect. Even peer-reviewed research is highly fallible.
Even in the case where the science may indeed be right, such as with global warming which I think is most likely being accelerated by humans and which will probably have undesirable consequences (of highly uncertain magnitude) unless we do something different, it is important not to confuse the scientific realities with the practical realities.
Just because you may be technically correct, it is still possible that there is no way to fix it because of factors which are not amenable to technological control and optimization. For ex., anyone with a brain can predict that the most likely outcome of any of the existing proposed political solutions to global warming are likely to both not solve the problem, and make matters generally worse for the human condition due to furthering the evolution of the global technocratic totalitarian governance model. If the only way to get your way is a large scale war and the use of force at every level of society, is that really a better world to live in than one in which we just keep burning the carbon until the coastal cities are innundated? I'm personally more terrified of political disasters than slow motion natural ones, even if initiated by man.
Likewise with nuclear fission power, the problems are not technical. It is perfectly possible within the capabilities of the engineering disciplines to implement nuclear fission power with closed/breeding fuel cycles so as to power our civilization relatively safely for the next few eons.
But it isn't practically possible to solve the human problems that will make such an engineering goal impossible to realize. When you factor this into the analysis (along with a brief view at any chart showing the capital costs of solar PV vs. coal power generation vs. time), you will reach the conclusion that the costs of "simple" technology (which nuclear fission with a closed fuel cycle is about as far away from as you can get, even farther perhaps than D-T fusion) are preferrable because their practicality is so much greater.
There is a far better chance of being able to succeed, as a society, at sustainably powering ourselves for ex. by covering most of our rooftops and 2000-3000 square kilometers of south western USA with solar PV, distributing the power with HVDC, and storing 1/3 of it overnight in distributed batteries, flywheels, waterbeds, and other thingamabobs, than through a similarly large in scale, but incredibly more complex (due to the safety and security issues involved) implementation of full-scale closed-cycle nuclear fission to completely replace our fossil energy sources.
It's the fact that about half or more of the population is so scientifically illiterate that they actually believe stuff like this, that is leading me, at my age, to begin to just not care anymore. I'm just going to goof off for the few years I might have left on this world.
Look, if these f*cking self-powered generators are real, and are so f*cking simple to build that some guy can build one in his garage (which must be true, since there are literally 1000s of these videos out there) then why the f*ck aren't they making them and selling them? Or even disconnecting their own houses from the grid--without some hidden generator/fuel source going on behind the fraudulent scenes)?
WHAT is stopping these things from being sold at every hardware store and all over Amazon, with 5 star reviews saying "It powers my whole home, I cancelled my utility connection, and when there was a minor break down, the manufacturer sent the repair guy a few hours after I called and had me back up in no time! Love it! Would buy again."
Lemme guess, some "conspiracy" by "big oil" or some other claptrap, right?
The answer of course is that these self-powered generators are bullshit, and the people who believe they work idiots, and the people who believe they made one that works scarier still, with most of them knowing full well that it is bullshit, but they are just sociopathic criminals who hope to defraud others, knowing that most people are stupid enough to believe in these generators, along with other fairy tails, so perhaps there should even be a special exemption in the law that prevents charging them for defrauding people who seriously just plain deserve it.
WTF are you talking about, they work on completely different neurotransmitter systems and by different mechanisms (one an agonist, the other an antagonist). How can you even make meaningful comparisons of such apples and oranges?
The problem with cocaine is that it's short lived, and the brain's dopamine circuit activity undershoots when it wears off, leaving one with an awful depressing crash.
Cocaine is nothing but a novelty, though one that sheds valuable light on the workings of the brain.
Someone figured out that something structurally similar could have similar effects and synthesized methylphenidate (in an time when you could do it in your basement, administer it to your wife, and have it all be legal)! Just imagine how much scientific progress in drug and neuro-scientific discovery has been inhibited by the war on drugs.
MPH is much slower to take effect, and slower to wear off, and so has more of the good effects of a moderate dose of cocaine, with much less of the bad effects. Hence, it is a useful drug for ADHD, whereas cocaine could never be.
Isn't it funny how they accuse you of having a lack of motivation, but they don't understand that why they are motivated is because of computations performed by their neural circuitry, including the part that arises the thought "I'm doing this because I really want to succeed!"
Most people who don't have ADHD or who don't deeply understand the neurological research simply don't, will not, or cannot understand.
Hyperactive ADHD is at least directly observable as an abnormal condition. Inattentive ADHD, however, leads to children having their self esteem wrecked by ignorance adults telling them they "lack character" or some other treachery.
As a kid I was able to focus for 16 straight hours, daily, for weeks on end on building electronics projects. That was what my brain found rewarding, along with constant impulsive mischief. When I had to do my social studies homework, I simply could not make myself pay attention to it.
Nothing would have helped except possibly a proper diagnosis and treatment. But even then, the medications are far from perfect and not well tolerated by all, nor is the neurological understanding complete.
You could have tried beating me, sending me to military school, or endless hours of costly psychological therapy sessions. All would have been a failure (some were tried). The former may have been catastrophic, possibly rendering an ADHD kid suicidal, whereas the latter would simply have wasted a lot of money.
Because if your brain is configured to not be able to do what normal people do, which is to resolve themselves to do something they don't like but needs to be done, then you simply can't do it. No amount of effort can change this. Nor do I imply that this is a complete description of ADHD.
Having inattentive ADHD can be very painful. You can really honestly want to just do it. But as soon as you start, you find yourself either getting overcome with immobilizing dullness, or you simply can't help but to jump to some other "temporary" distraction like surfing the www, to get yourself perked up. Only to discover later that the whole day is shot and you've accomplished nothing.
In a society where the predominant world view is still that we have a "soul" (an independent actor that lives somewhere in the "spiritual" mind, that operates the body much as a construction worker operates a backhoe), there is little empathy for the condition of ADHD.
This is sad. People who can only reach the conclusion that "it doesn't exist" about an internal experience that someone else describes but which they do not themselves experience, are basically incapable of vicarious empathy.
Fortunately, we are at a time when neuroscience is finally entering the "steepening slope" phase of its learning curve about the brain, and ADHD is getting a solid science base behind it, despite the popular culture being horribly confused.
In which universe does (240*200)/(120*200) = 4 ???
Power only varies with the square of voltage for constant resistance, not with constant current.
For runs of 1 to a few dozen pieces of a board which would take me more than an hour to hand assemble, I just send my stuff to Advanced Assembly: http://www.aa-pcbassembly.com/
The hidden costs involved in assembling boards by hand are staggering, mostly in time. I've built an entire electronics lab, which is 3/4 storage. The buying, organizing, and storing of parts takes a big chunk of my time. If I were to set up a reflow oven, stock solder paste, etc., that would eat up more money and time. Consequently, I've become very skilled at building any type of SMD (except BGA) with just wire solder and an ordinary soldering iron. Then there is the hazardous waste management and chemical inventory overhead, and the entire day down the drain ordeals several times a year when I use the corporate application to do the waste tickets, which tells me I have to install a new Java version (different from the one in the corp. standard desktop--WTF?!?), which works after 4 hours of installing uninstalling and reinstalling, but then breaks all my other corp. apps (accounting) so I have to do the ordeal in reverse to reconcile my CC later.
Thus, even for smaller batches of fairly simple boards, I am going to be sending all my boards to places like Advanced Circuits. Even if it costs 50%-100% more than my time is worth, it's still worth it, because my co. will let me do it, and then I can use my time for stuff that actually matters for performance. I'm sick of building more than 1 of anything.
Ok, I'll spell it out for you:
Life of illegal pothead: Call up dealer, meet at parking lot, buy baggie. Go home and light up. Primary risk factor: contaminated pot, or bogus. Probability: very low. Bogus pot easily detected by experienced users. Consequence of smoking contaminated weed: hard to say. NOTE: The main risk of contamination comes from the US government spraying defoliants to kill marijuana fields in south and central America.
Life of legal pothead: Go to pot shop, buy baggie. Go home and light up. Primary risk factor: contaminated pot, or bogus. Probability: extremely low. Same potential consequences.
Life of illegal H addict:
Wake up in desperation. Try to score extremely expensive, hard to find substance in very dangerous neighborhood while beginning to suffer withdrawal syndrome. After scoring, enter filthy public restroom and draw water from toilet (yes, they actually do this sometimes, I've seen a video of it) into non-sterile needle and syringe. Inject drug without prepping injection site with alcohol.
Risk factors: Acquiring various life threatening infections such as HIV, Hepatitis, etc. due to use of non-sterile and/or shared needles, non-sterile water, and piercing unclean skin. Impurities in drug range from particulate matter which can clog capillaries, to toxic chemicals used to process the opium and not fully purified out, to cutting agents composed of whatever. Also, the concentration of the drug is completely unknown. Addict expects a certain strength. But if it turns out this batch is 66% pure instead of 33%, addict might die of overdose since ratio of therapeutic to fatal dose is only 2:1.
Most addicts can't hold a job and so resort to a life of crime not because it is impossible to function while high on H, but because it's illegal and stigmatized, so no one would employ an addict, and the lifestyle of constantly trying to score makes employability very difficult to maintain.
The illegal H addict is doomed to die of some miserable infectious disease, or overdose, if they don't get clean. Even if they do, a criminal record may prevent them from attaining full social acceptability. Since degree of social integration is a key predictor of tendency to become addicted to drugs, addict will always be at high risk of returning to drug use.
Life of legal H addict:
Wake up and get high using sterile needle obtained at pharmacy, and 100% pure heroin of pharmaceutical quality. No particulate matter, infectious microbes, no needle sharing, no chemical impurities, clean distilled water, use alcohol to clean skin to reduce infection risk to near zero.
Go to work at some job. The main limitation is that an H addict would be unable to operate heavy machinery or perform safety-critical roles. But an H addict on a maintenance dose (not completely zonked) of H can function about the same as someone who takes an anti-anxiety medication.
Purchase affordable heroin at pharmacy once a week for about $10/gram (100% pure), compared to $100/gram (10-90% concentration and highly impure) on the street. Low price and employability makes it unnecessary to steal to afford drug.
Risk factors: Not many. Driving would be a bad idea. But the drug and the injecting under sterile, controlled conditions will not cause a significant increase in risks of shortened life due to serious health consequences. This is not different than the situation of diabetes and other patients who need to routinely inject medicines. If the drug is legal, this will also motivate less use of injection. Addicts will choose to maintain on an oral dose, and only inject once in a while for a "rush."
NOTE: It may seem that 100% pure heroin would be more dangerous than weak, diluted street drug. This is false. The danger comes from variability of concentration, not the absolute concentration. If the concentration is known and fixed, the user can always draw the correct, safe dose.
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones
