Jeffrey Sachs, Accenture, Columbia University
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2004/story07-22-04.html Earth Institute News Jobs Offshored for Cost Savings and Quality Seventy percent of companies that outsource report increases in quality of work, Columbia survey finds NEW YORK -- Forty-five companies known for sending work outside of their own employee base for completion, surveyed by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, show that 82 percent are currently outsourcing jobs, 79 percent to offshore businesses. The majority not only report finding competitive prices but better work skills than at home. Seventy percent of those who outsourced reported that the quality of outsourced business processes had increased between 5 to 25 percent. Companies, including offshore pioneers such as General Electric, Nortel Networks and Citibank, found that actual cost savings, which remain the primary reason for outsourcing, were achieved by 67 percent of the companies to the tune of 5 to 50 percent. This is an enormously important phenomenon that needs to be better understood, says Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute. Im very happy with my colleagues contributions. === http://www.ais.columbia.edu/ais/html/body_improvedstaffservices.html New and Improved Faculty Staff Services Starting in Fall 2004 A combined team from Human Resources, the Controllers Office, AIS, and Accenture Consulting is working on a multi-phased PeopleSoft project to implement new personnel, benefits, and payroll systems for Columbia. === http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/story/0,10801,93965,00.html Illinois moves to blacklist Accenture The state comptroller cites the firm's offshore status News Story by Dan Verton JUNE 21, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Bermuda-based IT services vendor Accenture Ltd. is taking heat from Illinois lawmakers who want to prevent the company from receiving taxpayer-funded contracts. At issue is the offshore location of Accenture's headquarters. At least four contracts awarded to Accenture have come under fire in the state, where legislators, local unions and the state's comptroller have attempted in recent weeks to block all payments to the company. State Comptroller Dan Hynes has asked the Illinois Procurement Policy Board for guidance on his desire to block all payments on four Accenture contracts totaling more than $2 million. The five-member board voted 3-2 on May 19 to send the issue to the board's legal adviser for review before making a recommendation. There is no word on when the board will make its decision. However, Alan Henry, a spokesman for Hynes, said the comptroller believes that he's in the right on the issue and that the policy board doesn't have the power to force him to make payments to Accenture.
Re: A distaff view of SupersizeMe
Devine, James wrote: though this review of the movie is right on target i liked reading about the cost structure of a Domino's Pizza, comparing it's $0.50 worth of ingredients (is that right???) to a $1.00 (US) worth of rice. can anyone recommend an article or book that looks at food services in depth in this way? les schaffer
Re: LNG security....FERCed (again)
Eugene Coyle wrote: Patriot Act Restricts Access to LNG Safety Studies March 19, 2004, California Energy Circuit i 'm not sure how they intend to restrict access ... its fairly well known in engineering circles that James Fay at MIT studied this back in 1970's. the papers are widely available -- and paint a quite scary scenario for places like Boston Harbor. a few googles on Fay LNG: http://www.greenfutures.org/projects/powerplant/Fay.html http://www.energy.ca.gov/lng/documents/CRS_RPT_LNG_INFRA_SECURITY.PDF a google on LNG fire brings almost identical results, meaning one would not even need to know who did the initial studies. the documents placed under restriction by FERC appear to be compliance documents, and one can only wonder at the regulation breaking by shipping companies that may be contained therein. Whatever they contain, practioners of violence would merely need shipping routes and times, a scheme for breaching double hulls, and use of existing documents on fireball diameters to plan best location for attack scenarios. Anyone covering these bases would probably be better prepared than 9/11 pilots. this use of the Patriot Act reminds me of the news story from the other day on resurgence of nuclear fallout studies with the view that diagnosis of radioactivity post-detonation could lead to bomb material identification and hence to (human) detonators of the bomb and hence to a country to retaliate against and hence by a commodius vicus of recirculation to a form of deterrence: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/national/19NUKE.html it's important to expose the Patriot Act for what it is not: it is not a blueprint for making anyone you or I know safe from physical attack. les schaffer
Re: LNG security....FERCed (again)
Eugene Coyle wrote: The general literature mentioned by Les Schaffer, while helpful, was countered by the well-funded proponents. if you have transcripts of their arguments, i would be interested in taking a look at how they countered. les schaffer
Re: Hydrogen is not a fuel!
Hydrogen is most definitely not a pure energy source for earth-bound inhabitants. and that is beacause most all of hydrogen is locked up with oxygen in water, for example. to be available as hydrogen, one needs to seperate the water molecule into components, and that takes -- drum roll -- ENERGY. In another scheme, hydrogen is created from mixing steam and methane. And steam comes from Hydrogen IS an energy source for inhabitants of stars, because they are lucky enough to have hydrogen in its elemental form, and also lucky enough to have it in a form dense and hot enough to support nuclear reactions. We earthlings are not so lucky. As described in Joan Ogden's Hydrogen: The Fuel of the Future? in the same issue (page 69), the centerpiece of the present US Department of Energy plan to improve vehicle technology apparently involves a fuel-cell-powered vehicle, the Freedom Car. That vehicle, which would use stored hydrogen as fuel, could ultimately reduce petroleum consumption, greenhouse gas generation, and air pollution. However, a practical, economical hydrogen source that does not generate carbon dioxide will be required to obtain those benefits. The development of such a hydrogen source is a major challenge, as are the needs for practical hydrogen distribution and storage and for fuel-cell technology. It is uncertain just when such a hydrogen-powered vehicle could have a significant effect on the total fuel consumption of the US vehicle fleet; at best, that time is several decades away. http://www.aip.org/web2/aiphome/pt/vol-55/iss-11/p12.html Similar basic issues surround the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, says Malcolm Weiss, a transportation specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Separating hydrogen from sources such as natural gas produces nearly as much greenhouse gas as petroleum fuels, he says, and hydrogen gas cannot be moved through conventional pipelines. That means that it may be necessary to produce hydrogen at the pump, perhaps through electrolysis of water. But the technologies to do this cheaply do not yet exist. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v422/n6928/full/422104a_fs.html cf. http://www.nature.com/nsu/030609/030609-14.html http://www.nature.com/nsu/000330/000330-3.html Future fuel cells may be able to convert about 80% of the Gibb's free energy released by combining hydrogen with oxygen to make water into electrical energy (at present, this factor is around 50%). Also included in this should be the losses in both electricity conversion and electric-motor efficiency, around 20%, to 'shaft energy' to move the car. Thus the overall efficiency is 64%, much better than can be obtained from gasoline or diesel engines. So, we would need to generate around 230,000 tonnes of hydrogen daily -- enough in liquid form to fill 2,200 space-shuttle booster rockets or, as a gas, to lift a total of 13,000 Hindenburg airships. Hopefully the thirst for this enormous quantity could be quenched by a factor of two or three by employing more efficient aerodynamic and drive-train designs in future hydrogen vehicles. But then folks would probably drive that much more. Hydrogen is not a 'primal' energy source. Unlike fossil fuels or uranium, more energy is used to extract hydrogen from its source than is recovered in its end use. For simplicity, and to bypass issues of carbon and carbon dioxide sequestration, let us assume that the hydrogen is obtained by 'splitting' water with electricity -- electrolysis. Although this isn't the cheapest industrial approach to 'make' hydrogen, it illustrates the enormous production scale involved -- about 400 gigawatts of continuously available electric power generation have to be added to the grid, nearly doubling the present US national average power capacity. The number of new power plants that would need to be built -- based on presently available technologies -- to meet this demand is roughly 800 natural-gas-fired combined-cycle units generating 500-megawatts, or 500 800-megawatt coal-fired units, 200 Hoover Dams (two gigawatts each), or 100 French-type nuclear clusters (four reactors, about one gigawatt each). http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v424/n6945/full/424129a_fs.html les schaffer
Anti-global warming flimflam
The Chronicle wrote: But at the hearing, Michael E. Mann, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, attacked the study in language unusually blunt for a scientist. I believe it is the mainstream view of just about every scientist in my field that I have talked to that there is little that is valid in that paper, he said. They got just about everything wrong. The rhetoric made for good political theater but did little to illuminate the key scientific issues in the debate. The Chronicle of Higher Education needs to do its homework. Michael Mann is considered the premier scientist working on proxy reconstruction of earth's climate. In fact, he just published a paper in the last month with evidence that we are in the warmest period in the last TWO centuries: http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml the paper itself is here: ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/mann/mannjones03.pdf So, far from being accusable of performaing political theatre, Mann is the one person who would have something to say about these Harvard researchers and their study. I've had several email conversations with Mann about climate reconstruction several years ago, he was prompt and forthcoming in his replies. Perhaps someone could let the Higher Education people at the Chronicle know how to use email. As to the objectivity of the Harvard researchers given their funding, a little more time should shake things loose. But given the current trend in Bush administration pampering with objective science, our initial guess of fraud is not so bad as a working hypothesis. les schaffer
Aug 18th WSJ on the blackout
Gene Coyle wrote: in which I reject the theory and go into the long list and history of distinguished economists, liberals and conservatives from Keynes to Telser who have intellectually destroyed the conceit that wholesale markets in electric power will foster competition. these arguments are specific to electric power or are more general? les schaffer
Re Harvey Wasserman: Blackout
on pen-l Yoshie forwarded Harvey Wasserman: The whole system demands a green deconstruction. Solar technologies are ready to make energy self-sufficiency a tangible reality. orders of magnitude estimates can be sobering. here is one which determines how much surface area of photovoltaic solar cells one would need to replace the generating capacity lost in last Thursday's blackout. I haven't attached material or dollar amounts for such a project, as that's a job better left to a progressive economist. power generation in blacked out area = 61.8 x 10^9 W [1] solar flux = 200 W / m^2 [2] electric generation from solar = 200 * .17 = 34 W/m^2 [3] solar collector area to replace existing plants = 61.8 x 10^9 / 34 = 1.82 x 10^9 m^2 blackout affected area = 9300 sq miles X (1 m/ 3.28 ft)^2 X (5280 ft / mile)^2 = 2.4 x 10^10 m^2[4] Therefore, solar generation [5] would require 704 sq miles of solar collector [26 miles on a side] to produce equivalent power (approx 7.6% of the affected area). To replace the 100 power plants, say, that's about 7 square miles of collector for each plant. sharper estimates left as an exercise to the reader. incidentally, NYC used 28,500 MW at the time of the blackout [6], almost half the power generated in these 100 plants! Am not sure i even believe this ratio. if its true, i think the actual use of power in the blacked out area must be HIGHER than the generating capacity of the downed plants. but to carry on in the spirit of this note, NYC would then require approx 4500 sq miles of solar collector to generate its electrical power. The area of NYC is 301 sq mi [7]. See [8] for a gross miscalculation (power usage in NYC orders of magnitude too low). les schaffer Notes: [1] In seconds, parallel lines were overloaded as well and shut themselves down, and then generating stations disconnected themselves. Ultimately, dozens of lines and about 100 power plants, with a staggering 61,800 megawatts of generation had shut down http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/nyregion/16BLAC.html?hp Officials of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) said generators producing about 61,000 megawatts of power were shut down, from New York City into the Midwest. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60604-2003Aug14.html [2] not at the equator, sun don't shine all day, etc. http://efi.uchicago.edu/nonimagingoptics..txt.html [3] solar-to-electric photovoltaic conversion efficiency: http://www.eere.energy.gov/pv/conveff.html of course, there are other possibilities like generating steam to spin turbines, but that would require focusing collectors [4] The massive blackout shut down more than 100 power plants, including 22 nuclear reactors, in the United States and Canada and knocked out power to 50 million people over a 9,300-square-mile area ranging from New England to Michigan (NYTimes) 9,300 square miles in the U.S. and Canada were without power http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/15/blackout.glance/index.html [5] message to pen-l Harvey Wasserman: Blackout by Yoshie Furuhashi 15 August 2003 21:39 UTC THE LATEST BOGUS FOSSIL-NUKE BLACKOUT: THIS GRID SHOULD NOT EXIST By Harvey Wasserman www.freepress.org [snip] The whole system demands a green deconstruction. Solar technologies are ready to make energy self-sufficiency a tangible reality. [snip ] http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pen-l/2003III/msg01196.html [6] In New York, demand at the time of the blackout was about 28,500 megawatts, comfortably below the record high of more than 31,000 megawatts. (NYTimes) but: A plant that can generate 400 megawatts -- New York City on a hot day can consume 11,000 megawatts http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/nyregion/16REST.html [7] http://www.ny.com/histfacts/statistics.html [8] http://www.asrc.cestm.albany.edu/perez/peak-ny/meeting-peak-loads-with-pv.pdf where the author thinks NYC uses 5 MW of power.
Innovation (was Of Coase)
and computing manufacturing processes. Instead of several processes to produce separate chips for communications, computing, and memory, Intel took the company's leading-edge flash process and incorporated digital and analog capabilities into a single process. Integrating these components on a single chip eliminates external busses and reduces power consumption. This can extend battery life substantially, while improving system reliability. The integration also saves board space -- thus enabling smaller cell phones, PDAs, and other wireless devices -- and increases performance. c.f. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21835.html does Bangldesh have an __innovation__ problem??? http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/1039 BTTB's innovation paralysis The reality however is quite different. The telecom sector is vibrant, driven by constant flow of innovations. It enjoys one of the fastest technology adoption rates on the planet. New products and services are introduced in this sector at a breathtaking pace making old technology obsolete within years. Significant investments in new technology and services need to be made constantly to keep pace with new developments in this industry to remain competitive. is china engaging in an innovation arms race??? http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_15/b3828010.htm does Xerox have an innovation problem??? http://www.xerox.com/innovation/2003_ieee.html Innovation which is forced on one by invisible social relations existing behind your back are a manifestation of unfreedom, not of freedom or human creativity. i think this argument has a lot of merit. a footnote: engineers, if they are not allowed to be innovative, would at least like to be creative and smart in their required work on existing products. but often the dictates from above crush even this minimal desire for personal fullfillment as time to market, reduction of engineering/development costs, etc. all drive lots of white-collar working people to the edge. les schaffer
Re: DU
Michael Pollak: And isn't the reason that DU munitions are so effective at penetrating armor (which is why the military is so loathe to give them up) because they ignite on contact -- thereby turning most of their mass into just this kind of dust? almost. typically, DU ammo is fired at such high velocities that upon impact with armor, both the projectile and the armor cladding become quite hot and almost fluid-like. the DU projectiles are believed to have a self-sharpening caharacteristic, in that as they bore through the pseudo-liquid armor, they shed (shear) material off themselves in just such a way as to maintain a sharp tip in front. this aids in further penetration. tests apprently showed a 10-20% improvement over tungsten ammo, which was the predecessor in the hardened ammo repertoire. by the time the DU projectile bores through the armor plating, a significant fraction (20 - 70%% or higher) of its mass can pop out the other side in the form of dust/vapor which is indeed highly combustible/exposive in air. the touted advantages of DU ammo by the military thus stem from three factors: the high mass density of DU (see physics links below) along with self-sharpening allows for higher penetration depths for a given firing speed. it has also been pointed out that these high density projectiles, due to their typical construction as long thin arrow shaped rods that gives them decreased air drag at a given firing speed, allow troops to fire from much farther away than with typical ammo. you can then understand the US mil's fondness for these weapons in terms of potential reduction in allied troop losses due to remaining large distance from the enemy. [ incidentally, uranium as projectile and uranium as nuclear material is not an accident. high density comes from such a high mass concentration in nuclear core. this also puts it near the nuclear stability limit, such that smacking it with an energetic neutron produces high energy fragments PLUS more neutrons, and hence chain reaction. ] some URL's i've collected: 1.) one stop shopping for anything you want to know about the radiological properties of uranium and relatives: http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/index.html http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/rup.html note in particular that depleted uranium actually increases in radioactivity over time, due to the complex web of nuclear reactions which can take place. 2.) a very interesting paper on DU: http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0301059 which argues that these are next-generation nuclear weapons. the author makes a case that the relative advantages of DU over tungsten clad ammo in terms of penetration capability are not significant enough to explain US mil's fondness for these weapons. i'll probably write a summary of this paper at some point. 3.) re/ Eublides post yesterday on grid parallel computers, there is a large effort to simulate these high-velocity impacts of DU ammo using parallel systems: http://www.hpcmo.hpc.mil/Htdocs/UGC/UGC02/paper/tom_kendall_paper.pdf http://www.sv.vt.edu/research/batra-stevens/pent.html http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-3753128097370/ one example of the unity of weapons simulation and computational systems development. there is some debate over the actual mechanisms for self-sharpening, hence the effort at using parallel computer systems. 4.) physics of DU penetration abilities (and dust generation): http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0305120 http://www.ead.anl.gov/pub/doc/Depleted-Uranium.pdf (page 2) http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/ammunition/apfsds.htm http://authors.elsevier.com/SampleCopy/700/S0734-743X(99)00032-9 http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/Vol4/no1/pdf/v4n1-p41-46_e.pdf 5.) other suspected uses of DU clad weapons: http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/pdfs/DU2102A3a.pdf http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/pdfs/DU2102A3b.pdf valuable in concert with reference in 2.) les schaffer
DU
Michael Perelman wrote: A piece of depleted uranium is not particularly radioactive because the particles it emits are relatively big and will mostly bounce off your skin. not quite, but almost. depleted uranium emits mainly alpha particles. having a large cross-section, they can not travel far __through__ the skin from outside to reach internal organs but instead are absorbed within a few microns. however, if you breathe in dust containing DU, the dust gets trapped in your lungs. Then these same alpha particles, because of their limited ability to travel __through__ living tissue, deposit their effects in the worst places locally, i.e. lungs and surrounding areas. http://www.cadu.org.uk/info/veterans/7_2.htm as has been pointed out in some published reports, there is a subtlety involved in comparing radiological effects of inhaled DU dust with normal background radiation. typically, what is compared is the whole body dose of background radiation with the calculated dose from a reasonable estimate of inhaled uranium dust. but it is preceisely because alpha particles deposit their energy locally that this is somewhat obscuring. what really should be compared is energy deposition from DU dust local to the affected areas in the lungs with effects of background radiation in the same localized area. i have seen no such estimate yet. les schaffer
Re: Complexity
Sabri wrote: That must be the Marsden effect. He has a tendency to put people to sleep. i've seen him give talks, and he's a fine, dynamic speaker. But this literary trend he is a part of is a dead end. I have one of his books with Hughes from 1976, A short course in fluid mechanics and it goes Lemma, Lemma, Theorem, Lemma, Theorem, Theorem, Theorem, so forth. it would be interesting to compare this, for example, to Arnold's work on fluid stability. The Soviets tend to be much more down to earth on this stuff. tho i will say the commutative diagrams look splendid in the Abraham/Marsden/Ratiu book. One wonders what kind of fluid mechanics is that. *!)#*!)@!!! I view him more of a painter than a mathematician. His papers and books always look very beautiful i love a nice looking piece of math, in fact i tend to get it only if i can see the artwork effort which went into creating it. but somehow a whole section of the topology/nonlinear-dynamics expository writing falls flat on this score. and it should be just the opposiite: a global, geometric way of viewing dynamics ought to feel right to the eyes almost effortlessly. Marsden's Elementary Classical Analysis is a fine book in the Proposition/Lemma/Proof category. but it doesnt pretend to be anything other than an undergrad math text in analysis. ultimately, it comes down to this, does the dry terse proposition/proof/lemma style of the manifolds/topology stuff add anything worthwhile to nonlinear dynamics work? for me, no. it adds instead to the hype aspect of the subject, because it adds interesting looking headlines without any insight attached. (and Marsden has QUITE A BIT of insight into dynamics). les
Re: Complexity
Barkley wrote: I think Ralph Abraham is a genius. i liked his cartoon books on dynamics very much. it was his text w/ Marsden and Ratiu that puts me to sleep. He also discovered chaotic hysteresis, although I am the one who coined that term. can you send me your paper on this offlist, it sounds interesting? the one on your wesbite has no figures. other bubbles which have subsided some: 1.) chaos theory was going to point the way to a solution to turbulence. hasn't happened yet. 2.) complex dynamics projected onto low dimensional subspaces: nice idea, havent seen any actual implementation in a problem which begs for reduction of dimension. 3.) fractional dimension fad: there was a time when everyone published a fractional dimension for their time series. what was that supposed to prove??? les schaffer
Re: Complexity
i agree chaos and complexity studies have a fad __component__. Sabri Oncu writes: : However, with what I know about chaos, and it is not much, mind : you, my subjective judgment is that chaos is a fad as : topology was once to mathematical analysis or game theory : was to economics. topology has interesting applications in quantum gravity. as a branch of analysis i think it has real beauty in terms of classifications of sets. on the other hand, there is a branch of workers in nonlinear dynamics who have gone topology-beserk: see Abraham and Marsden, for example. i just read an news article this morning that a researcher in Germany has devised a unique structural element using what he calls Topological interlocking of protective tiles.. : He once said this, in exaggeration, : maybe: all this chaos theory does is proving the non-existence : of the solutions of this or that nonlinear dynamical problem. your friend is missing something. it is true that rigorous chaos theory proves the non-existence of certain kinds of solutions to dynamical systems. that is, the non-existence of classical style solutions (and failure of convergence of orbit expansions in perturbation parameter) to differential equations. i.e., the clockwork solar system which exhibits strong (quasi-)periodic behavior. but look at what we got in return: 1.) super-convergent expansion techniques (a la Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser) on a set of finite measure in phase space, and which also show explictly where the failure to converge lies. breakup of invariant tori (KAM et al): geometric descriptions of how quasi-periodic behavior tends towards chaotic behavior and attendant sensitive dependence on initial condx. 2.) shadowing lemmas/theorems: reassurances and proofs that the classical approximate solutions shadow or tail the real solution in some sense, so that they have a limited but rigorous justification. 3.) advances in geometric thinking on dynamical systems; realization of Poincare's program. one i remember from the late 80's turnstile's (pieces of previously existing invariant tori) that act to mix up phase space and control diffusion across webs. 4.) perturbation techniques for analytically calculating onset of homoclinic tangles, developed by yet another Russian: Melnikov. 5.) topological (!) and algebraic techniques for classifying chaotic things like the Lorenz attractor. knot holders, horseshoes, baker's transformations, symbol sequences. 6.) last but not least: we got cautionary warnings on what to be careful about in our numerical integration schemes. the fad stuff is simply what people say to their newspapers and their funding agencies, and write about in more or less popular books (the Sov's a notable exception) to what degree 1-6 are important in econ i'll leave to Prof. Rosser. : What kind of mathematics is that? As mathematicians, aren't we : supposed to solve some problems? what does he think of Goedel's work??? to my mind his theorem highlights BOTH the strengths and weaknesses of axiomatic systems, as he utiliized ingenious techniques to derive said theroems. les schaffer p.s. google: KAM theorem finite measure Melnikov method | integral | function
the profit rate recession
Fred wrote: Rather, the rate of profit fluctuated up and then down in the 1980s, so that the rate of profit in 1992 (7.0%) was only slightly higher than it was in 1980 (6.2%). Similar fluctuations (with somewhat larger amplitudes) where can i find data for the ROP? is it possible to find the distribution of this value amongst different industries? thanks les schaffer
oil predictions
charles asked: How about taking a bunch of hydrogen and oxygen and combining it to make new water ? to which ian replied: That's where the Star Trek technology comes in. You'd need a quantum computer capable of synthesizing probability amplitudes from the Planck scale; it's not even decidable whether it's possible yet, let alone if it would ever be technically and economically feasible. and then charles brown followed up: CB: This undecidability IN PRINCIPLE stuff is weird. I mean does physics have to turn into the complete opposite of its exacting self , from hard to totally soft science ? Social science need no longer have an inferiority complex. What gives and les says: i wouldnt take ian seriously. making water from two gases (H and O) is not so hard in the laboratory, fuel cells do it: http://www.ectechnic.co.uk/BASICS.HTML no planck scale nonsense. the point though is the energy required to capture/seperate quantities of hydrogen and oxygen in such a way that power in (capture/seperate) - power out (fuel cell) is not prohibtive. so, realistically making more drinking water for the world, in quantity with no excess power drain and at cost? ask the econs, but i would guess its way way way cheaper to keep water clean (no pollutants in) and clean water (filter, seperate pollutants from water) than it is to make water from the air. (and obviously stealing from the air is not such a hot idea either.) les schaffer
Re: oil predictions
Charles said: The amount of water on earth remains constant , no ? http://www.sprl.umich.edu/GCL/Notes-1999-Winter/freshwater.html CB: Can't one just heat it and let it evaporate ? the problem is to heat ALL that water up from 60 degrees F, say, to some much higher temperature to make evaporation happen quick enough. thats potentially a LOT of BTU's ... depends on much water per time needs evaporative recycling. looks like another nice source on water: http://www.sciam.com/2001/0201issue/0201postel.html les schaffer
Environmental Physics 101
MindAphid said: from a physicist friend... .. Lawrence B. Crowell is this the same one as: http://www.altenergy.org/4/ine-99/crowell/crowell.html the same who wrote the thingy on quantum gravity and energy? les schaffer
[PEN-L:897] follow-up: UK customs laptop search
To follow-up on valis' reporting of a laptop search at UK airport: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_15/150465.stm which has a fuller reporting of the incident -- Les Schaffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___| --- Engineering RD --- Theoretical Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Center for Radiophysics Space Research | Westport, CT USA Cornell Univ. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:779] Re: adieu boddhi?
"" == Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Just a couple of words on Boddhi's proposed 'resignation'. I don't think he is disrupting the list, The bloke is clever, articulate, quite brave, and often funny. i dont know if the input of a lurker counts on this list, but i mostly agree with these 2 points of Rob here (not so much on the content of what Boddhi says) and yeah, the heat has ratcheted up a couple notches recently, but then the d(elete) button works wonders if i grow weary, and the responses to him, even though also heated, have good content to them. in any case, if you survey the overall trend of pen-l posts during this latest boddhi-war, you find enough variety that clearly the list behavior has not been entrained by the individual ratcheting up... anyway, and this is apropos of nothing, really, but to those that recoil at the smugness of bevans nickname: 'boddhisattva' DOES NOT MEAN 'enlightened one'. in the buddhist world-view a boddhisattva delays his/her (final) enlightenment and works in such a way that all other 'beings' are enlightened first. and don't ask me what THAT means.... les schaffer
[PEN-L:617] Re: NWO/Intellectual property
"Doug" == Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Doug Remember that software sales account for a tiny share of Doug GDP, so I'd be careful about making too many grand Doug conclusions from studying the industry. How bout if you take together software, computer hardware, micro-processor and micro-controller technology (smart devices), networking hardware including high-speed data links and such. does the slice get much bigger or is it still drops in buckets? -- Les Schaffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___| --- Engineering RD --- Theoretical Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Center for Radiophysics Space Research | Westport, CT USA Cornell Univ. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:497] Communications for a Sustainable Future
4 Aug 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: As it turns out, there were ZERO occurrences of the word "fuck" on PEN-L there is some strange and beautiful connection here between Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Magritte, algebra ( x = x + 1 ) and the border between sexuality and anger. "" == Martha Gimenez [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This is a correction to Proyect's empirical findings :) On Tue, PEN-L 108 82 i just did the search again, and found 58 matches in 44 files. If progressives cannot trust each other and communicate with respect despite ideological and/or procedural differences, our struggles for social change are doomed to failure. of these 58 matches, i can only find one example where the words "fuck you" occured, and interestingly enough, it was said __TO__ Lou Proyect. Other than that, the word is simply used in an impersonal way, in other words, not directed __AT__ another list member. so your equating "communicate with respect" and absence of profanity don't seem too clear. -- Les Schaffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___| --- Engineering RD --- Theoretical Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Center for Radiophysics Space Research | Westport, CT USA Cornell Univ. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Navy may be watching YOU
Some days ago there was a line on this list about which spook is listening to which radical. Check out this story from the BBC re/ the computers at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the US Navy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_88000/88362.stm Anyone in the UK with more details/info on this? -- Les Schaffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___| --- Engineering RD Theoretical Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Westport, CT USA Center for Radiophysics Space Research | http://www.designspring.com (soon) Cornell Univ. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pathfinder Boards - American Cultural Arrogance
Hey Fikret: Could you be convinced to send URL's but NOT whole web pages in your posts to pen-l? much appreciated if you dont. thanks -- Les Schaffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Center for Radiophysics and Space Research Cornell University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
