npts2020

This is why you hardly ever see mosquitos in a dry climate.

An automated system would significantly address the reasons for this, as low speed infrastructure in cities or suburbs would not require enclosure needed for high speed intercity and interstate travel, and could be done fairly inexpensively and quickly. The system could be made so that you could own your vehicle or use public ones. It can also be made so that the vehicles will get as close to a person's residence as a car could, either on a schedule or within a few minutes of being summoned by phone, internet, or some other means. I believe that most people don't use mass transit more because of the reasons stated in my last post, are there others that I am not addressing? The opportunity to get something like what I propose done is being handed to us on a golden platter, if only we can see it in time to take advantage. IMO Detroit is not going broke tomorrow nor are its problems going away any time soon, so there will a little time to come up with a good plan. Having said that, the window of opportunity will be definitely finite and the longer we wait, the more expensive and more difficult it will be to make happen.

Barry Commoner in the 1970's (I think in "The Closing Circle") predicted that global warming would increase size, strength, and possibly frequency of hurricanes and other destructive storms. The logic being, that as you put more energy into the atmosphere, the more activity you have. I am not sure what the current state of the science is, but it does make perfect sense to me.

Are you sure that isn't what really leaves your brain like porridge?

Waves automatically bring ratcheting to my mind. You could use the paddlewheel from a riverboat (or something similar) with a ratchet. Orient the paddlewheel in the direction of the waves and each wave will give you a push with the ratchet keeping you from losing energy on the return. Attach that to any kind of pump you want and with a large enough wheel you could pump pretty much all you are likely ever to need and at as high pressure required for anything other than the grandest scale projects.

There is something that kind of bothers me about the explanation of creativity on this thread and may all come down to definition of terms and semantics. To say that whatever is created has to be based on whatever the creator knows I believe to be a reasonable postulate, but then to say that whatever is created is not novel goes a bit far. Salvadore Dali certainly saw clocks and saw things melting, the novel, or creative, part comes in putting the two together because it is doubtful he ever saw a clock melting. Somewhere there has to be a new thought that has never been thought before (I wish I could state that better), this being how new discoveries are made. If my thinking is wrong somehow, why is it that humans ever progress from their former condition?

I think the new "New Deal" ought to be automating our transportation system and powering it with wind and solar energy. That would provide millions of jobs for a long time. If there was an economics forum it might be interesting to delve into the monetary implications of something like this.

Why aren't those modes used more? The reason is they are not convenient, busses and trains rarely go where I want to go when I want to do it. Furthermore if I am travelling with someone it is almost always cheaper to drive a car if I already own one. Finally, they are inefficient if not run at a fairly high percantage of capacity. There will always be those who will not give up their car for a new system, just as there are those who will not give up their horses and buggy for an automobile. Why sould the rest of us not have progress because of such individuals? An automated system, if properly constructed, would be faster, safer, greener, more efficient, more convenient, and cheaper than our current road/rail system.

In my grandfather's house (pre-civil war era) there was at least 5 different layers of insulation of various types including two layers of that kind. That house was at least 160years old when it was finally torn down.

Jackson33: It seems to me that the rules for the auto industry have been the same for every manufacturer, if not true I would like to see you show me how I am mistaken. If I am correct then it can't be because of government interference that the current companies are in trouble, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and many other manufacturers are not on Capitol Hill asking for money. Now we are faced with a Hobson's choice, especially for those of us who like free markets and freedom in general. Bailing them out should make every corporation in America feel it is their right to ask for government help if they get in trouble and there is no guarantee of success, anyway. Not bailing them out will destroy a large percentage of the manufacturing base we will need to change our unsustainable consumer economy back to a producing one. Nationalizing a couple of car companies and basically killing off the auto industry, as we know it, is not a perfect solution but IMO is the best one we have for the long term. At any rate, it would be a big mistake to have them still competing in the consumer auto market, if they can't be successful on their own. What iNow said about going into new areas is more what I would like to see. If we are ever going to build a national transit system to surpass current modes of land travel, now is the time. A recession is little more than idle hands looking for something to do and automating our road/rail system would employ literally millions, like the auto industry has in the past. Even people who do not believe in environmental degradation from human causes, can't ignore the facts that more than 40,000 people die on the roadways every year in America and that our primary energy source for those vehicles comes from tenuous sources, subject to wide variation in price and availability. That is like having ten 9/11's every year and paying those doing it to keep it up. Kind of reminds me of a quote about a man who would sell us the rope with which to hang him.......

I guess it mostly comes down to whether you want those making the decisions, doing so for the good of the country or to make money. Personally I prefer the former and totally disagree that a government-owned corporation can't compete with a private enterprise, when it comes to value for investment. It may take designing a totally new concept of corporate structure and responsibility but nearly any problem that can be thought of should be addressed in the articles of incorporation and legal mandate for said corporation. IMO some things are better if not left to "the market" because of their scale and importance to every citizen, transportation is one.

Nah. They were just spice addicts.

Well, if greed is defined simply as self-interest all of them are based on greed. Which system you prefer is completely about how you, personally define self-interest.

We will have to do it anyway. When those companies fail the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation will end up with a massive bill ultimately paid by taxpayers. Pangloss and Jackson33: With all of the complaining about how bad governments are at running companies, maybe you could give a few examples of successful governments running companies acquired into the ground (hopefully particularly utilities or transportation companies).

We could buy all of the former Big 3 for less than $34 billion and have them build our automated national personal transit system. This way we would at least get something for our money. What I want to know, is why aren't the financial institutions, who just recieved hundreds of billions of dollars, "loaning" detroit the money? ParanoiA: The market will never adequately address the transportation needs of this country on its own. Look where we are now, trying to run 20th century machines on roadways basically designed for pedestrians and draft animals. We have for decades needed to put those machines on their own grid, the interstate system in America, autobahn in Deutcshland, etc. are attempts to do this, of debateable effectiveness. In America over 40,000 people die on the roads every year because of this situation. If we enclosed the roadways and automated them, there is no reason the vehicles couldn't safely travel at 350 kph or more. The way the car manufacturers are trying to automate is the more difficult way of doing it i.e. each vehicle responsible for all of its own navigation and control rather than a central computer controlling all vehicles. The centralized control has only recently become feasible because of computer limitations. Now we have powerful enough processors to enable the kind of control required, the only thing not yet done is writing the algorithms required and testing and debugging them. The problem is that there is unlikely to ever be a private entity large enough to undertake such a project. We should buy the automakers, merge management, consolidate, and form them into a single government owned utility to build and operate the new system. At least that way we would have a chance at getting something for our money.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't realize this. For most folks in industrialized countries the worst danger they ever face is climbing into their automobile and going down the road.

Almost certainly in this case.

Try googling "telomerase inhibitor", what you are asking about will be in the first few entries if not at the top. Actually there is a lot of research being done on this right now.

Here is an article written about how to produce triple helix DNA. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=triple-helix-designing-a-new-molecule

Ahhh. Thanks for the further explanation. IMO if what you are saying is true at all, it is only true for certain (and probably few) elements. As mentioned many isotopes are radioactive, most of those enough to negate any positive effect they might have. eg. strontium-90, if present in large enough amounts, preferentially takes over for calcium in bone building and can cause leukemia and other bone and blood related disorders. The list of isotopes causing similarly deleterious effects is quite long.

That would never happen, would it?

Nope.

"I'll have to get to work on a laser ruler right away." said the curmudgeonly schoolmaster.

Well, one value of science is that we now know the world is not flat. I expect this to be a drive by trolling, but i will ask anyway, which theories from the 1900's were you referring to? I can think of quite a few that are just as valid now as they were then, besides the idea of the world not being flat.

The main problem I have in doing cost comparisons is that it is very difficult to get good numbers for longevity and repair schedule of the wind generators. Also, it often gets lost in the discussion of cost/kwh that there are unaccounted for costs in using fossil fuels, even if you assume unlimited supply. If I can find where I read it I will get the url from where someone was home building a 200w generator for under $200 but the point is that if one person can do it at home, how long until someone does it commercially? At that price it seems competitive with any source. One caveat....electric storage which will add cost. As we all know, wind is a variable and intermittent source. There are at least two ways of solving this problem, the most obvious being to store the electricity. Another, and imo better, option is to build the wind generators in a grid large enough that the wind is always blowing somewhere. I have read that an area roughly the size of the British Isles is approaching the minimum requirement for this, and that one the size of the EU or Canada or the U.S. would be more than large enough to accomplish it. Unfortunately, I cant build a grid that big by myself.