Well, the goal was a socialism-inspired production/distribution management system. Just like how DARPA had no clue what the internet could become, neither did Allende's people. But what they created clearly was headed down a direction that likewise could have led to not only the internet, but instant, true (non-representative) democracy. An awesome system.
Eh, pot smoking in Iceland doesn't seem any more common than anywhere else. But yeah, the sweater thing (lopapeysur) is pretty spot on -- you could have added "$80-200" to the list of descriptors as well
Well, there is an element of truth to it. When talking about Icelandic with people, I've frequently found myself making references such as, "... kind of like the Scottish word (blank)". Many of the settlers of Iceland came from viking settlements in Scotland and Ireland.
No, not just by rate of intake; there's a limit to how fast your body can convert it, regardless of how much you consume. Wikipedia has a nice referenced summary on it.
That said, even a low conversion efficiency of ALA to EPA and DHA doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad. One could argue that even a very DHA-rich fish, like atlantic salmon, is only about 3% DHA, while flax oil is ~55% ALA, and flax meal is around 2/3rds oil, so even a poor conversion rate still yields roughly similar amounts per unit mass of food consumed. But basically, there just aren't enough studies on whether ALA provides the same sort of benefits, and I hope that gets remedied soon.
This whole app sounds like a modern rip-off of Salvador Allende's star-trek-ish proto-internet, Cybersyn
... who wants you to declare independence and try to be seen as a Nordic country.
Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing...
From what I've read, it's not "as needed", but is rate-limited -- and that rate is different for individuals. And the studies I've seen on whether ALA input is useful in the same way as EPA and DHA -- studies which are limited in quantity -- have had mixed results.
BTW, do you grind your own flax seed? I strongly recommend it, since flax seed is more stable than flax meal, which is more stable in turn than flax oil (it's a shame that omega-3s are so fragile). All it takes is a coffee grinder.
It's been well established that trans fats are bad, but what I'm wondering about is the omega-3s. There's a lot of dispute over whether all omega-3s are healthy, or just EPA and DHA. That is, are ALA-rich foods like flax, hemp, nuts, etc providing a valuable nutrient, or just fat?
Contrary to many scare reports, lithium is not particularly rare or expensive -- under $10 a kilogram for lithium carbonate, which is used to make a dozen or two percent of the mass of batteries that sell for hundreds of dollars per kilogram. It's a couple percent of the cost. The main risk for lithium is temporary supply shortages, where demand outgrows production rates (it takes many years to get a new mine started). And of course, everyone wants to produce the cheapest stuff, but the cheapest stuff isn't always in the best of locations (producing from seawater -- a basically boundless supply -- costs ~$30 or so per kilogram of carbonate, versus a couple dollars per kilogram from a good lithium-rich playa.
It's not batteries that will be displaced by elevated lithium prices, but the other uses, which currently make up the vast majority of lithium consumption -- alloys, greases, glass, ceramics, etc.
The problem is, that the planting procedures for BT corn were supposed to prevent or at least reduce this. Proper BT corn management practice is to have a certain percentage (usually 20%) of your corn as non-BT (called "refuge"), to provide a haven for non-BT-resistant insects to thrive (in far greater numbers than any rare resistant bugs), thus dramatically diluting BT resistant genes and the evolutionary pressure to develop them.
Actually, I work for an Icelandic company/am prepping to move to Iceland/am learning Icelandic, and in Icelandic, it's "fjörður" in nominative, "fjörð" in accusative. Eth is normally transliterated as "d". My mind just instinctively tried to keep as much as possible like the Icelandic spelling. Icelandic, FYI, is closer to Old Norse than modern Norwegian, which is closer to Danish.
Iceland != Norway. Björk is Icelandic. Well, at least technically; she's pretty atypical even by Icelandic standards
Fjörd != Ocean
Fjörd == Connected to Ocean
Connected to Ocean != Deep ocean
Fjörd == Heatflow bottleneck
Return environmental_study.
The aluminum/gallium/hydrogen cycle is incredibly inefficient and expensive. But don't let that get in the way of the "neato" factor.
+1
"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll
