Since I rarely post at slashdot any more, instead going to soylent where they're not run by corporate morons who are STUPID enough to add horizontal scrolls it seems I always have mod points.
I used a few in one of your journals, but it was one of the right wing trolls I moderated.
Slashdot has nearly run me completely off of this site.
I've read books accidentally, meaning to read a single chapter and winding up reading it in one setting, but I've never started writing one accidentally.
Until now.
Tired of editing Random Scribblings and Voyage to Earth and Other Stories (Formerly titled "Mars Bars"), I thought I'd look for another science fiction novel in the public domain a little less ancient than The Time Machine to add to my web site.
If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.
Yep, that's the only option. There's nothing between doing nothing and that option. It's all we have. And if anyone starts to talk about mitigation strategies, planning ahead of time or devoting a single cent of taxpayer money toward preparing for it, we are just all going to have a meltdown and throw a tantrum with teabags on our hats. Thank god we have these strawman arguments for what these ivory tower Oxford elitists are telling us to do: eliminate the human race to protect the human race. I cannot believe they would actually come to that conclusion but there it is, right in the article. Those environmentalists will have us starving in mud huts by the end of the month if we just sit by and let this academic report go unabated and without criticism!
*tortured sigh*
Yes, amazingly if you use numbers that are strongly in favor of gasoline vehicles, gasoline vehicles come out looking pretty good. Go figure.
To use harder real-world-average numbers, adjust the math for 29MPG, 3.5 miles/KWHr and $0.12/KWHr.
=Smidge=
first, diesel is maybe 10-15% more energy rich than gasoline.
Mea culpa - I got KWH confused with BTUs since I'm more used to using BTUs for diesel equivalents. Yes, it's about 15% more.
The actual amount of energy was however many billion gallons per year, the space requried was however many square kilometers. isn't that exactly was I said?
The closest you come is stating insolation as joules per square meter but at no point did you bring total energy required or total area required in your original post. It took you several hours before someone prompted you to actually go back and do that.
Basically you only managed to be relevant in hindsight after you got dogpiled.
=Smidge=
Well "Shared economy" implies sharing, not selling or bartering. I know that some people are perfectly happy to form community ties around electric vehicles and share - at no cost - each other's power outlets. It's not the least bit farfetched an idea.
=Smidge=
The point is, the article says that this bionic leave can be used to create fuel.
And that's exactly what it does.
What I'm arguing is that fuel requires so much energy that there's no way the bionic leaf capturing energy from the sun could produce enough fuel to meet our needs, using practical assumptions.
But at no point did you include how much energy we'd actually need, nor did you account for how much space in total we'd need to dedicate to harvesting in order to meet that demand. Only after including those factors could you argue that the bionic leaf could not meet our needs...
The honest truth is there is a ridiculous amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline.
About 36 KWHr. That's pretty tame; a gallon of diesel has about four times as much... Maybe you have a strange concept of "ridiculous" amounts of energy, though.
And while liquid hydrocarbons are fairly good in terms of specific energy, they are horribly inefficient compared to alternatives. I suppose it's good that you can easily carry that much energy around with you when you will inevitably piss 80% of it away as waste.
And I'm pretty sure "god's fuel" would be hydrogen, used in the form of nuclear fusion. That literally powers the universe and is the source of all complex matter that we know of.
=Smidge=
Well, the difference is that the cost-per mile electric driving is a fraction of the cost of gasoline.
A gallon of gasoline will get you ~40 miles in a good car. A gallon of gasoline is also ~36KWHr of energy. 36 KWHr of electric charge will get you over 108 miles in a mediocre electric vehicle.
A gallon of gasoline right now, in my area, is roughly $2.40. A kilowatt-hour of electricity, including all taxes and surcharges, is roughly $0.20. So fully charging an electric car will cost about $5 while fully refueling a normal car will cost about $25.
And as others pointed out; it needn't be for free. But at a maximum of $5 per visitor it needn't be cash either. Hell, bring a box of good cookies and I'll let you charge at my place for a few hours...
And if it's an emergency type situation, maybe a couple bucks to help someone get home isn't that bad a gesture in and of itself.
=Smidge=
so you're saying that even though the methods are roundabout, the conclusion is sound. I agree!
No, I'm saying your conclusion has nothing to do with your opening premise.
I already said there's nothing wrong with your math.... it's simply irrelevant to your opening premise and unrelated to the topic at hand.
You start by stating that the energy balance doesn't work. Nothing you said demonstrates that it doesn't work, and the assumptions you make (e.g. gasoline, efficiency) have nothing to do with the main article.
=Smidge=
But the approximation makes no sense since it has zero applicability to the topic at hand. It's like estimating the number of piano tuners in Chicago by starting with the number of cab drivers in New York and concluding that light rail public transit isn't viable in rural Iowa.
Just because the math works doesn't mean it's apropos of anything.
=Smidge=
It's not at all clear what you're trying to prove or argue....
The process produces isopropyl alcohol, not gasoline.
The published article abstract clearly states that the overall efficiency for the process is "up to" 3.2% efficient.
No claim was made as to the rate of production.
Basically, while your math is correct it's completely irrelevant and inapplicable here. Thanks for sharing, I guess?
=Smidge=
My workaround for the idiotic preview thing is simply to link a less retarded site. My workaround for the incredibly stupid and unprofessional sideways scroll is dropping slashdot, except for reading journals. "Classic" slashdot is now almost as moronic as Beta.
I think you're right, Dice is trying to kill slashdot.
I had to laugh when I ran across this article.
"Cortana's UI now expresses 18 different emotions. Siri remains detached and aloof."
Yes, Microsoft is apparently the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation with its " Genuine People Personalities". So when are they going to make that "Marvin" interface?
Just as I'm not going to go to the effort of working around Windows' bugs when Linux exists, I'm not taking the time and effort to work around slashdot's fuck ups when I can simply paste the text in soylent and just leave a link here.
I've thought about simply not posting items with smart quotes here at all. Dice needs to get its shit together. Every change they make makes the damned thing less usable. The last change they made seemed to do nothiing but force a horizontal scroll in my browser.
It's almost like they're trying to run users off the site. They're coming close with me.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion
