Get better efficiency for your solar dollar. Use solar driven steam turbines. Or go with wind power. Sun heats air, air makes wind, wind turns windmill. Or go one better if you're a country like Indonesia: use wave power. Sun heats air, air makes wind, wind pushes wave, wave powers wave mill. That for the short term, perhaps. More bang for the same buck. Solar panels are very material- and energy-intensive for the total solar dollar, and the debris is not terribly useful and somewhat toxic.

I don't know that anyone thinks lead caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. I think it is attributed as 'one of many factors'. I think the more immediate cause of the downfall of the Roman Empire, was the invasion of the Huns, who conquered one germanic tribe, took their land, and promised them freedom if they would then conquer the next tribe over, for them. This triggered a cascade of refugees, of which the Vandals came to Northern Italy, starving. The Senate voted to tell them 'come halfway to Rome, stop, and we will give you humanitarian aid' [food]. They then gave the contract for the food to a senator who was expected to embezzle most of the money. He embezzled it all, and the Vandals went through the whole Roman empire looking for food, and picking up slaves who walked away from their jobs to join the Vandals. Thus, the Empire lost its labor force. After that, since it still was the crown jewel for despots, it got conquered continuously.

Kindof like Iraq, kindof like Poland, Kindof like Lithuania, kindof like what'll happen to Russia, kindof like what's happening to the US.

oh, and ---- almost forgot.

No, monuments weren't first introduced to later Rome with concrete. Nor were big buildings. Come to think of it, nor were concrete buildings. All of that long predated Rome.

Horrible article. Fine slashdot fare, if I ever saw it.

It would be better to say, "the fall of Rome was caused by the introduction of Slashdot. Polling shows that..."

Boy, this makes me feel so good about not working for NASA. People all the time used to say I ought to work there, and I didn't have a good reply. But I'd do better in industry, I think.

Umm, Nice troll.

I'm sure that a nobel - Physics prizewinner who invented quantum chromodynamics for quark analysis knows statistics.

In fact, as we saw with the Challenger, the failure of one booster was enough to destroy the vehicle. The boosters were not redundant, and nowhere close to identical, especially since in the rocket design of that era, the ablation rates at any point in the solid-fuel rocket booster tended to be faster where it had progressed more.

I remember working on an experiment where they wanted to test the aerodynamics within a scalloped shape interior, in 1987, that was related to that problem.

Not to overly criticrise your analogy, but I prefer nonfiction to fiction in my decision-making process.

This is a good analysis of NASA. It's a good oldie, but people should read it more often.

I would note that it was valid then, when it was written, it was valid when Columbia fell apart, and it is valid now.

And it is an EXCELLENT reason why Nasa shouldn't be messing with asteroid capture. Fortunately, it is more likely that our country will be glowing embers, than that NASA will see this accomplished. And I view that glowing embers bit as a negative, brought about by similar egos by similar wackos in OTHER government offices (including Putin's Russia).

But yes, I am very glad that other problems are likely to make this problem a moot point.

You know, Harrisonburg Va has been a boom town even through the umm-- not-quite-a-recession-but-worse-than a-depression.

Part of it is the mennonite agriculture. Part of it is being the farthest beltway bandit. But a major part of it is that the electricity is so cheap, and electricity is a majsor factor for businesses. The city sits at one of the power nodes, and the city electricity is provided by Harrisonburg Electric Co-op, which bids on the power as it comes off the main lines. It makes the electricity for HEC significantly cheaper, and they in turn pass the savings on to the consumer. You won't find that at DOM.com. Or Potomac Electric.

Anyhow, that was the point of the clearinghouse bit.

Maybe you're right, and my pat answer is a bit simplistic, too much so to work. However, the Grandparent's pat answer was deliberately moreso, and was trying to argue that 'when I want to go slave-raiding, just look the other way, okay?'

And my answer is a version of, 'no, I think we should cut [corporate] slave raiders into little pieces first.'

As a free market fan, I absolutely favor privatizing their state -supported industry. Let the entire network be split up into parallel systems, give every residental owner an equal number of credits towards buying the stock of any particular line, set up a transmission bidding clearinghouse, and let everyone with credits bid on the stock. Then, with the profits already pocketed by the electric companies, turn around and install MORE parallel networks wherever there isn't much of a choice, and let the public bid with cash on those. Then with those proceeds, rinse and repeat.

Or maybe you don't agree?

I understand that some think that free market means that we first use the government to nationalize competitors, create a monopoly, then privatize the nationalized institutions, and give them to the wealthiest bidders, which are the monopolies.

Is that your definition of free market? If so, I'll let you know that as a conservative I haven't voted Republican in twenty years.

You can't do that, unless you can figure out how to make and file TWO resumes. Different ones, I mean.

Man, these data scientists are all pipe dreams.

That's hy we developed the Rot13 OTP. It's easy to use, and since it's a one time pad,it's absolutely secure.

Very clearly, long before we used up the lithium, we would shift the infrastructure to provide the electricity live, thus vastly reducing the Lithium required. Or we would make the cars electric-with-fossil-generator.
Only in a statist country would we define that 'everyone has to do the same thing'. and even then, other statist countries would do other things.
And that also ignores wind as a recharge mechanism.

Au contraire. It is NOT generally agreed that the purpose of a company is to make money. A company is a joint (corporate) venture whose purpose is whatever the organizing articles say it is.

You know, you sound like the jerks who bought into IOMEGA back when the standard hard drives were 20meg and IOMG was working on a 100-meg floppy, and said "stop the R&D, give dividends", when the vast majority voted for R&D.

They then SUED the company for several years, eating up its budget in legal defense, until they stopped the R&D, crashing the stock price from 16 to 2 for a dozen years--there's your malarky about minority protections-- and didn't come out with the zip disk until ten years later.

Yes, there are minority protections. Cook was very clear and specific about what they were. Clearly the conservatives so named were COMMUNIST conservatives, trying to use overweaning government to eliminate others' freedom.

Oh, the irony.

For receipts, it takes a little while to identify, so only binary compares are appropriate. Therefore, I'd go thru py pairs, sort the pairs, and stack them together crosswise on the bottom of the pile. That's sort groupsize one. Then take two groups, sort the groups with top-receipt compares, and join the groups and stack on the bottom. You're done when the receipts are all aligned correctly.

Sorting coins, I designate clock positions for each coin type, grab the largest group and slide the group to the quadrant. On the return, I drag back any stragglers, either to the pile if mixed, or to the appropriate quadrant if not.

Sorting feelings, I stop all direct thought on the matter, get some physical labor, and just work for a while. Then asevarious thoughts arise,I try to deal with each as rationally as I can. Which isn't very.

I never said that I thought national fiat currencies last forever. Venezuela and Ukraine both have currencies that are self-destructing as we speak. Argentina too.

The national currencies last as long as the mutual defense does ... or in other words, as long as the "full faith and credit" does. I long ago lost any trust I had in the faith or credit of the rulers of my government. They're liars.

Yes, there was. That is the moment bubbles burst: when the greater fools run out.

At that point, the market peaks, the current fools have to cover, the debts are called in, and then the market crashes. Greatest fools lose out.

Except with TARP, in which the greatest fools in the real estate / banker swaps bubble were the rulers and their friends, at which point they sold out the weak of their country, defining them [us] to be the greater fool.

Which makes us the greater fools, but only by definition. A lot of us were fully aware, but powerless.

Come Lord Jesus.

And you forget about the ever-present dockworkers unions, that note what goes in each container, and where it is located... this might make things much easier for the mafias.

That said, the biggest offense is that our wealthy and powerful are continually trying to find ways to eliminate -- and put to death -- the very people who have supported them.

In other words, they are traitors.