Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
At 12:16 PM 01/30/2003 -0600, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 08:05:46AM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: That's a pretty easy decision to make, eh? Ethanol is renewable, oil isn't. Ethanol doesn't pollute, oil does. Ethanol doesn't require troops in the Middle East, wars, and resultant terror attacks, oil does. Quite simple. Ethanol pollutes, any hydrocarbon is going to be mixed with N2 and make NOx, there's no getting around it with any kind of Otto engine. Yes, of course, there's always NOx (although that can largely be dealt with by cats), but the other stuff, sulfur and particulates, is gone, and there are no problems whatsoever from things like spills, which are quite catastrophic even in the short term. Biofuels are also greenhouse neutral. The big pollution issues with ethanol are in growing the corn, sugar, etc. that's used to brew the stuff, fermenting it, and distilling it. Even if it's grown organically (or at least without pesticides, which is easier to do with corn that doesn't have to look good for market), it's still a big issue with habitat destruction, and by the way, have you ever smelled a brewery? :-) Photovoltaics, on the other hand, have all the wonderful toxic chemical problems of the semiconductor industry. Solar thermal power sources are pretty well-behaved technology, though except for water heaters they aren't very common.
Re: Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits to invade your body!
On Sunday, February 2, 2003, at 10:19 AM, Tim May wrote: Last laugh: CNN is carrying (10:06 a.m. PST) an information slug at the bottom of a Wolf Blitzer interview: Columbia was traveling 18 times faster than the speed of light. Yes, speed of light. This same slug has since appeared several more times, suggesting only complete morons and scientific illiterates are manning the control rooms. --Tim May
Re: Who owns stuff that falls onto someone's property?
From: Steve Schear [EMAIL PROTECTED] Expect the first EBay auctions of debris from the Columbia to be a constitutional issue soon. (Actually, the censors at fascist EBay have probably already flagged any transactions which mention space shuttle and Columbia to be illegal thoughtcrime sales.) Yep, ebay has already removed such auctions, e.g., item #2156954390, `SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA PIECE OF WRECKAGE PART'. Perhaps this is an opportunity for competitive, even offshore, auction sites to take the fore. I don't think there are any difficult legal issues involved. If you drop your wallet on someone's property, it is still your wallet. If you crash your car onto somebody's front yard, it's still your car (for better or worse). If a plane crashes carrying U.S. mail, the Post Office gathers up whatever mail it can find and tries to deliver it. Would you have it any other way? Even if ownership was in question, does anybody really think it's a good idea to sell the pieces of evidence while the accident investigation is going on?
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 11:32:08AM +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, Bill Stewart wrote: The big pollution issues with ethanol are in growing the corn, sugar, etc. that's used to brew the stuff, fermenting it, and distilling it. There's no *real* pollution (toxic emissions, that is) from fermenting and distilling it. And yes, I've smelled brewerys, in fact done a fair amount of brewing and distilling myself. Major difference between the emissions of ethanol plants and petrorefineries. Ethanol from biomass is complete nonsense. For corn, certainly, only the current subsidies make it viable. But it works for Brazil using sugar cane, they run a major portion of their vehicles on it. So is biodiesel, given what fuel yield/m^2 is (can make sense for you personally if you have a lot of land, doesn't scale for the culture as a whole). 635 gal @ acre for a permaculture crop like oil palm works pretty well. It might not be the whole answer, but it's certainly part of the solution. But even here in the northern midwest US, I can grow enough canola on two acres to fuel my car, and I've got 40 acres to play with at present. Works for me. You can make synfuel from biomass, though, there have been a few new processes (catalyzed, low temp) and reactor designs lately. There's a lot of cellulose and lignin out there. Ethanol sucks, but synmethanol has interesting synergisms. It is currently made from synthesis gas (which is mostly made from reformed natural gas, but can also be made from fossil (oil, coal, shale) or biomass, with hydrogen input) on a very large scale. Fossil fuel lobby goes in bed with the synmethanol lobby. Methanol has about half the energy density of gas, but it can be burned in ICUs (producing a cleaner exhaust), processed in onboard reformers and direct methanol fuel cells. Current fuel cells use platinum catalysts, but it is not fundamental to the principle. Methanol easily reforms to hydrogen and carbon dioxide, so it's your foot in the door of hydrogen economy. I'd say it's the best storage form of hydrogen for small mobile applications (planes and ships and large trucks excluding). Yes, synfuels are definitely part of the solution. Even if it's grown organically (or at least without pesticides, which is easier to do with corn that doesn't have to look good for market), Once again -- corn is a pathetic feedstock for ethanol. it's still a big issue with habitat destruction, ??? The farms are already there, native flora long gone. In many cases, at least here in the midwest, much of this farmland is actually wetlands that have been drained. Crush the drain tiles, fill the ditches, plant cattails. The whole environment benefits and you have an excellent permaculture ethanol crop. And excellent livestock feed left over after the distillation. It's a real win-win. and by the way, have you ever smelled a brewery? :-) Yeah, Milwaukee is full of them. Doesn't smell nearly as bad as the paper mills. Pretty much the same as a bakery. And I don't have to worry about it being toxic. Ecoaudit of bioethanol is a desaster, period. Not if the feedstock is grown organically. And the idea that organic farmers can't produce as well as chemical/industrial agriculture is a total myth, disproven many times over. In fact, chemical farming only works with massive crop subsidies. Take away that corporate welfare (and the farmers here get absolutely obscene amounts of money from the gov't) and they are instantly bankrupt, while the organic farmers aren't. Biomass grown as a permaculture crop such as such as switchgrass works even better -- native prairies can be restored, for instance, on marginal or worn out farmland and makes a terrific feedstock. Cattails are another, in fact within 30 miles of me there are at least 10,000 acres of cattails the state would allow me to harvest, possibly even give me a grant to do it -- and that produces at 28 *dried* tons @ acre with a 35-40% starch content. That's a lot of ethanol going to waste. Right now they're spending money trying to burn it to get rid of it. There are many more examples -- a tremendous amount of feedstock gets landfilled. Sewage sludge can be gasified and synfuel made from the gas -- right now the cities *pay* farmers to spread it on their land, which, here in WI will very soon be illegal and the sludge landfilled. (snip) -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Flaming the Clueless
It's common for those accomplished in one field to believe that ability is confidently transferrable to another, in particular for social, political and religious matters -- and vice versa. Endeavors which require close, sustained concentration and logical methodologies seldom help with challenges which require noodling, free-form creativity, openness to disagreement, compromise. And vice versa. Disaster looms when a logical minded person gains political power and sets out to arrange a nation into a perfect society as if a machine for sharply controlled output. And vice versa when a muddled-headed dreamer sets out to design and manufacture physical structures. Yet again and again this happens: logical nuts get into positions of political power -- left, right and center, anarcho and theological -- and all to often millions suffer, and multi-thousands are murdered. Or an all-loving putz so narcotizes adherents to believe heaven on earth is at hand that mass suicide occurs, not least by letting a logical nut annihilate the willing victims. Cluelessness abounds, not only on cpunks but in all fields, almost as commonplace as clueless flaming. Flaming the clueless is perfect proof that flamers are no wiser than those they mimic. Never let an over-confident thinker run anything except bath water and never obey a beloved mush-brain calling for war. Yet here we are, flaming the clueless at hand as if whistling is courageous deep-thinking. Auto-didact, heal your ignorance, to be sure, a contradiction.
Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
At 02:21 PM 01/31/2003 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Thomas Shaddack wrote: I don't know how it works in the US, but railroads are both comfortable and pretty reliable in Europe. A bit too expensive, especially in Germany. I also like being able to work on the train -- given that here cities are only a few kilotons apart and ICEs are pretty speedy flying can take longer. Otherwise I agree, bahning beyond 5-6 h starts to become tedious. Short distances make trains much more attractive, and most of the big cities in Europe _are_ pretty close together. The train was a great way to get from Berlin to Hamburg; 2-3 hours, and flying distances like that is mostly hurry-up-and-wait. It's a nice way to be a tourist, as well - you can see scenery as you drive by, so taking the trains and ferry boats around Scandinavia was nice too (as adventurer or bum, depending on whether you saw me before or after I got to the hotel with a washing machine :-) But the train from Berlin down to Munchen took about 8 hours; that's about how long it takes me to get from San Francisco to New York by plane, which is slightly farther. Tim commented about railroad stations being in the ugly parts of town. That's driven by several things - decay of the inner cities, as cars and commuter trains have let businesses move out to suburbs, and also the difference between railroad stations that were built for passengers (New York's Grand Central, Washington's Union Station) and railroad stations that were built for freight, where passengers are an afterthought (much of the Midwest has train stations surrounded by warehouses and grain silos, not houses or shops). Here on the Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose, the train stations are mostly central to downtown or on the edge of downtown, in areas that are nice (though the train stations themselves are either minimal commuter stops or else pretty mostly-abandoned stations that were built because the government-subsidized train system thought they should.
RE: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
Bill Stewart Tim commented about railroad stations being in the ugly parts of town. That's driven by several things - decay of the inner cities, as cars and commuter trains have let businesses move out to suburbs, and also the difference between railroad stations that were built for passengers (New York's Grand Central, Washington's Union Station) In the UK at least railway stations tend to have been built in the ugly parts of towns for good reason -- simply because land is a lot cheaper in the low rent parts of town. Also railways stations and the associated cheap hotels with a large transient population tend to attract undesirables such as drug dealers, muggers and hookers and the sort of thing which pushs the value of your house down and nice middle class people don't want on their doorstep. The people in richer areas tend to have more political clout and more effectively oppose development of this sort. -- Steve
Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits to invade your body!
Journalists may as well be saying the above, saying that shuttle debris has evil spirits which can come out if the debris is touched. Part of the dumbing down of America, and of journalism. (I just heard one Fox News anchorbimbo referring to the Russian rocket launched today as bringing supplies to the space station.) The journalists are spouting the NASA line that shuttle debris may be hot and may have dangerous substances. Right. As if the heat and spinning and 12000 mph turbulence hasn't scrubbed every surface of its volatiles. What they want is for people not to collect the pieces and hang on to them on their fireplace mantles. Or to try to sell them at flea markets and EBay. But the only way they think they can frighten people off is to utter obvious gibberish about how the pieces are hot and may be toxic. DALLAS (AP) - From corrosive fuels to ammonia-like liquids, insulation and plastics, space shuttle Columbia carried a witch's brew of toxic and caustic materials designed to work in the hostile environment of space. Authorities warned the public to stay away from shuttle debris because it could be harmful. Perry said either liquid oxygen from the shuttle's fuel system or liquid nitrogen used to inflate the tires could be dangerous. Right. Those charred and warped pieces of metal are going to have liquid oxygen and/or liquid nitrogen on them...after the fall and after sitting on the ground (not to mentioned being so hot, other NASA droids and reporters report). (Needless to say, any look at the images of the designated officials picking up the bits of debris shows no HAZMAT suits, no welding gloves to deal with the hot debris. The pickup crews are just wearing ordinary coveralls and uniforms.) Last laugh: CNN is carrying (10:06 a.m. PST) an information slug at the bottom of a Wolf Blitzer interview: Columbia was traveling 18 times faster than the speed of light. Yes, speed of light. Speaking of journalists, why does Wolf Blitzer repeat this obvious lie about the metal bits and pieces being tainted by evil spirits? Because these so-called journalists are stooges for the state. A real journalist would just roll his eyes and say Look, folks, NASA wants these pieces to be aid in reconstructing the accident. There are no traces of liquid propellants and deadly chemicals on these pieces. And they certainly didn't stay hot for long. NASA is trying to get us to feed you jive so you'll be properly frightened and won't touch them.? --Tim May, Occupied America They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
Re: Encrypted hard drive enclosure for $139
At 06:14 PM 02/01/2003 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php?products_id=331 http://www.deltrontech.com/Enclosure/E3S/E3S.htm Interesting, but I'm confused about the Real-time 64-bit/ 40-bit DES (Data Encryption Standard) Encryption/ Decryption with throughput of 712Mbit/ sec Yeah. And the web page claims it's military-grade security. It's like, if you know enough to build such a thing, why don't you know enough to use real encryption? Somebody on Slashdot recommended this for Schneier's doghouse list. Now, 712 Mbit/sec is about 90 MByte/sec, which means if it were doing 3DES, it'd probably be about 30 MByte/sec, which is no longer fast enough to be entertaining.
Rocket Man
Rocket Man By Tom Rapp (from the Pearls Before Swine album The Use of Ashes, 1970) My father was a rocket man He often went to Jupiter or Mercury, to Venus or to Mars My mother and I would watch the sky And wonder if a falling star Was a ship becoming ashes with a rocket man inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained My father was a rocket man He loved the world beyond the world, the sky beyond the sky And on my mother's face, as lonely as the world in space I could read the silent cry That if my father fell into a star We must not look upon that star again My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained Tears are often jewel-like My mother's went unnoticed by my father, for his jewels were the stars And in my father's eyes I knew he had to find In the sanctity of distance something brighter than a star One day they told us the sun had flared and taken him inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained My father was a rocket man He often went to Jupiter or Mercury, to Venus or to Mars My mother and I would watch the sky And wonder if a falling star Was a ship becoming ashes with a rocket man inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained My father was a rocket man He loved the world beyond the world, the sky beyond the sky And on my mother's face, as lonely as the world in space I could read the silent cry That if my father fell into a star We must not look upon that star again My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained Tears are often jewel-like My mother's went unnoticed by my father, for his jewels were the stars And in my father's eyes I knew he had to find In the sanctity of distance something brighter than a star One day they told us the sun had flared and taken him inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard P. Feynman
Re: Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits to invade your body!
At 10:19 AM -0800 2/2/03, Tim May wrote: Last laugh: CNN is carrying (10:06 a.m. PST) an information slug at the bottom of a Wolf Blitzer interview: Columbia was traveling 18 times faster than the speed of light. Yes, speed of light. Please mister spaceman, won't you please take me along for a ride. - J. McGuinn - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the Ameican | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
Re: the news from bush's speech...H-power
On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, Bill Stewart wrote: The big pollution issues with ethanol are in growing the corn, sugar, etc. that's used to brew the stuff, fermenting it, and distilling it. Ethanol from biomass is complete nonsense. So is biodiesel, given what fuel yield/m^2 is (can make sense for you personally if you have a lot of land, doesn't scale for the culture as a whole). You can make synfuel from biomass, though, there have been a few new processes (catalyzed, low temp) and reactor designs lately. There's a lot of cellulose and lignin out there. Ethanol sucks, but synmethanol has interesting synergisms. It is currently made from synthesis gas (which is mostly made from reformed natural gas, but can also be made from fossil (oil, coal, shale) or biomass, with hydrogen input) on a very large scale. Fossil fuel lobby goes in bed with the synmethanol lobby. Methanol has about half the energy density of gas, but it can be burned in ICUs (producing a cleaner exhaust), processed in onboard reformers and direct methanol fuel cells. Current fuel cells use platinum catalysts, but it is not fundamental to the principle. Methanol easily reforms to hydrogen and carbon dioxide, so it's your foot in the door of hydrogen economy. I'd say it's the best storage form of hydrogen for small mobile applications (planes and ships and large trucks excluding). Even if it's grown organically (or at least without pesticides, which is easier to do with corn that doesn't have to look good for market), it's still a big issue with habitat destruction, and by the way, have you ever smelled a brewery? :-) Ecoaudit of bioethanol is a desaster, period. Photovoltaics, on the other hand, have all the wonderful toxic chemical problems of the semiconductor industry. Solar thermal power sources Photovoltaics doesn't have to be done with semiconductor photolitho. Thin-film cells are deposited via plasma discharge in gas phase. Very interesting work is being done with polymer solar cells. The yield is not important, the half life is not important, but how much energy output from unit surface for a given price integrated over lifetime you can get. If your solar cell comes in rolls a buck/m^2 and lasts a couple of years in the desert lots of interesting things become suddenly possible. are pretty well-behaved technology, though except for water heaters they aren't very common.
Re: Who owns stuff that falls onto someone's property?
On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 08:32:01AM -0500, Ken Hirsch wrote: I don't think there are any difficult legal issues involved. If you drop your wallet on someone's property, it is still your wallet. If you crash your car onto somebody's front yard, it's still your car (for better or worse). Well, that's not quite true -- if you park you car in someones yard, they can certainly impound it and charge you damn near anything they want to get it back. Cities do this all the time, so do private parking lot owners. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: punk and free markets
Declan: Yes perhaps. I try not to think too much (I don't trust 'thinking' unless its mathematics or a good experimental setup), but I'll ponder for a while, to the extent that I am able -TD From: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Tyler Durden [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: punk and free markets Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 00:48:40 -0500 On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 06:33:50PM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: name cypherpunks) has aspects of that character. But it always pisses me off when I see the local jocks or other thoughtpolice come on out and enforce whatever ideology it is desired we bow down to. Jocks enforcing ideology seems to me to be a concept coterminous with flaming the clueless. :) -Declan _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: punk and free markets
On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 06:33:50PM -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: name cypherpunks) has aspects of that character. But it always pisses me off when I see the local jocks or other thoughtpolice come on out and enforce whatever ideology it is desired we bow down to. Jocks enforcing ideology seems to me to be a concept coterminous with flaming the clueless. :) -Declan
Re: Flaming the Clueless
Jesus H(I assume the 'H' was instered to avert the condemnation of blasphemy)...quite a good post. Heard and duly noted. -TD From: John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Flaming the Clueless Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 09:32:47 -0800 (PST) It's common for those accomplished in one field to believe that ability is confidently transferrable to another, in particular for social, political and religious matters -- and vice versa. Endeavors which require close, sustained concentration and logical methodologies seldom help with challenges which require noodling, free-form creativity, openness to disagreement, compromise. And vice versa. Disaster looms when a logical minded person gains political power and sets out to arrange a nation into a perfect society as if a machine for sharply controlled output. And vice versa when a muddled-headed dreamer sets out to design and manufacture physical structures. Yet again and again this happens: logical nuts get into positions of political power -- left, right and center, anarcho and theological -- and all to often millions suffer, and multi-thousands are murdered. Or an all-loving putz so narcotizes adherents to believe heaven on earth is at hand that mass suicide occurs, not least by letting a logical nut annihilate the willing victims. Cluelessness abounds, not only on cpunks but in all fields, almost as commonplace as clueless flaming. Flaming the clueless is perfect proof that flamers are no wiser than those they mimic. Never let an over-confident thinker run anything except bath water and never obey a beloved mush-brain calling for war. Yet here we are, flaming the clueless at hand as if whistling is courageous deep-thinking. Auto-didact, heal your ignorance, to be sure, a contradiction. _ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits to invade your body!
Tim May wrote... Last laugh: CNN is carrying (10:06 a.m. PST) an information slug at the bottom of a Wolf Blitzer interview: Columbia was traveling 18 times faster than the speed of light. Yes, speed of light. Yo Choate! Want to take a crack at this? Please explain using your theories how the shuttle can be traveling 18 times faster than light! -TD Ain't I a stinker? BB From: Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits to invade your body! Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 10:19:27 -0800 Journalists may as well be saying the above, saying that shuttle debris has evil spirits which can come out if the debris is touched. Part of the dumbing down of America, and of journalism. (I just heard one Fox News anchorbimbo referring to the Russian rocket launched today as bringing supplies to the space station.) The journalists are spouting the NASA line that shuttle debris may be hot and may have dangerous substances. Right. As if the heat and spinning and 12000 mph turbulence hasn't scrubbed every surface of its volatiles. What they want is for people not to collect the pieces and hang on to them on their fireplace mantles. Or to try to sell them at flea markets and EBay. But the only way they think they can frighten people off is to utter obvious gibberish about how the pieces are hot and may be toxic. DALLAS (AP) - From corrosive fuels to ammonia-like liquids, insulation and plastics, space shuttle Columbia carried a witch's brew of toxic and caustic materials designed to work in the hostile environment of space. Authorities warned the public to stay away from shuttle debris because it could be harmful. Perry said either liquid oxygen from the shuttle's fuel system or liquid nitrogen used to inflate the tires could be dangerous. Right. Those charred and warped pieces of metal are going to have liquid oxygen and/or liquid nitrogen on them...after the fall and after sitting on the ground (not to mentioned being so hot, other NASA droids and reporters report). (Needless to say, any look at the images of the designated officials picking up the bits of debris shows no HAZMAT suits, no welding gloves to deal with the hot debris. The pickup crews are just wearing ordinary coveralls and uniforms.) Last laugh: CNN is carrying (10:06 a.m. PST) an information slug at the bottom of a Wolf Blitzer interview: Columbia was traveling 18 times faster than the speed of light. Yes, speed of light. Speaking of journalists, why does Wolf Blitzer repeat this obvious lie about the metal bits and pieces being tainted by evil spirits? Because these so-called journalists are stooges for the state. A real journalist would just roll his eyes and say Look, folks, NASA wants these pieces to be aid in reconstructing the accident. There are no traces of liquid propellants and deadly chemicals on these pieces. And they certainly didn't stay hot for long. NASA is trying to get us to feed you jive so you'll be properly frightened and won't touch them.? --Tim May, Occupied America They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759. _ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
