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Yerboogieman
Nobel Prize Winner
USA
577 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 27 2011 : 11:19:32 PM
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| Woo! Flying spaghetti monster! |
If you don't have the time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over? |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Mar 31 2011 : 09:51:28 AM
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| Noodly appendage. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 31 2011 : 6:51:37 PM
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There's a coffee shop at my Uni that has a picture of Richard Dawkins stuck to their coffee machine. There's also a poll on a toilet cubical door that asks whether you are an atheist or religious. Most were atheists.
FYI the Atheist Experience show has recently had an hour long chat with the "banana man".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyzF8SMQOxU&feature=feedu |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Apr 02 2011 : 10:35:20 AM
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At some point when I have an hour I'll have to watch it. I do quite enjoy ignorant people being shown the reality of a situation and then watching their reaction. Whether it be readjusting their opinion (almost never happens) or otherwise. Just the circle-talking and enormous misunderstanding of how science works shown by these people is also highly amusing and frightening at the same time.
I had to stop watching the mainstream news reports covering Fukishima Diachi plant just because of the disgusting (and I mean disgusting) amount of apocalypse fear mongering displayed. And it was a real shame because the very small and fairly easily managed problems at the nuclear plants completely overshadowed the real disaster caused by the earthquake and tsunami. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Apr 02 2011 : 11:39:12 AM
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Apparently the plant withstood the earthquake quite well, as it was designed to do. The problem was the plant wasn't designed to be tsunami proof - yet another thing to consider when designing a nuclear power station. No doubt solar power seems to be the best kind of energy source.
I was watching a TV show about green technology. I'm not a physicist but using solar electricity to split H2O molecules to extract Hydrogen which we then put back into a fuel cell to recombine with Oxygen and in so doing produces less electrical energy than the energy required to split H2O, just seems unnecessary and wasteful. Why not just put the effort into improving battery technology so that you can use those solar panels to directly charge batteries instead of performing electrolysis and all the other work after that needed to undo that action. I know that filling a car with Hydrogen may be quicker than charging a battery currently, but fix the batteries and then hydrogen powered cars are done for. I say keep it simple and not unnecessarily complicated. If batteries are not good enough for long distances at the moment then maybe effort should put into building battery swapping stations instead of a network of dangerous hydrogen fuel stations. That approach by far has to be the most efficient in every way. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Apr 03 2011 : 10:35:19 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by wasssup1990
Apparently the plant withstood the earthquake quite well, as it was designed to do. The problem was the plant wasn't designed to be tsunami proof - yet another thing to consider when designing a nuclear power station. No doubt solar power seems to be the best kind of energy source.
One really can't build a structure to be tsunami proof, because there will always be a bigger tsunami than expected. The plant was designed to withstand quite a large tsunami on the order of something they only expect to get once every 100 years (the largest ever recorded). But what arrived was even bigger. Overall, it is remarkable how well the reactors stood up to amounts of abuse well past their design limits. While there were issues, no significant release of radiation occurred, temperature was eventually brought down to safe levels, and there were only a few minor injuries. As it turns out, Fukishima Diachi was probably the safest place to be during both the earthquake and tsunami, when one considers the devastation, death and pollution present elsewhere in Japan. It really is a shame that the nuclear non-problem has taken the media and pushed the actual crisis to the background.
quote:
I was watching a TV show about green technology. I'm not a physicist but using solar electricity to split H2O molecules to extract Hydrogen which we then put back into a fuel cell to recombine with Oxygen and in so doing produces less electrical energy than the energy required to split H2O, just seems unnecessary and wasteful.
Exactly. That's just plain silly. Most of these TV shows about green stuff (was it "Big Ideas For A Small Planet?") are so far out of touch with reality that it can be called comical. Hydrogen doesn't have nearly the future that the media would make people think it does. Certainly, it has great and useful applications (how about a fuel cell UPS that charges by splitting water and storing the gasses in a tank...to increase runtime, just install a bigger bottle) but even the auto manufacturers that have been pushing H2 for the last 10 years have finally realized what a dead end it is.
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Why not just put the effort into improving battery technology so that you can use those solar panels to directly charge batteries instead of performing electrolysis and all the other work after that needed to undo that action. I know that filling a car with Hydrogen may be quicker than charging a battery currently, but fix the batteries and then hydrogen powered cars are done for. I say keep it simple and not unnecessarily complicated. If batteries are not good enough for long distances at the moment then maybe effort should put into building battery swapping stations instead of a network of dangerous hydrogen fuel stations. That approach by far has to be the most efficient in every way.
Battery technology is very damned impressive compared to what it is even 10 years ago. At the NAIAS this year, most EV manufacturers were quoting ranges in the 300 mile range. One can't complain about that. Drive 300 miles, take a 20 minute break for a fast charge, drive 300 more miles.
The future is nuclear though. I'm all for wind and solar, but let's face it, only fission can supply the power we need safely, cleanly and economically. Nuclear power truly is the safest, most powerful, cleanest and most economically viable method of generation we have. It is is a true shame that fear and ignorance have relegated it into being regulated to the most ridiculous degree and prevented things like re-use of "spent" fuel, thus decreasing the ability to run a reactor economically. Then toss in terrorist organizations like Greenpeace (who's founder even left about 15 years ago from disgust) who have an agenda to keep the public afraid. Think about what we could do with almost limitless energy afforded by nuclear power. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Apr 03 2011 : 11:20:19 AM
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Oh I hear people talking about building nuclear power stations in Australia on the radio all the time, and then this thing over in Japan only poured more fuel on the fire. We've got shitloads of Uranium over here but we don't use it for generating electricity, we just sell the stuff. I wouldn't give up the idea of solar power potentially leading the way though. Like batteries, PV cell technology is also being improved.
Whenever I think of how we currently produce huge amounts electrical energy it just makes me think of how primitive our methods are at achieving it. Forget about coal fired power stations, let's for a moment talk about something a little more advanced. We know that nuclear power stations work by heating up water like some fancy nuclear powered water heater and then it's blasted through a turbine to spin a generator. Compare that to how a PV cell works... it's a direct energy transformation into electrical energy which is what we actually use! Simple energy conversion, unlike all the work and comparably unnecessary energy conversions that is required to support and run a nuclear power station. Of course PV cells only produce when they are in sunlight, well that's what the batteries are for.
EDIT:
Imagine a skyscraper whoes windows are adjustably transparent PV panels. Think about how many problems that idea would solve. Since solar power doesn't need to be produced from any centralized location, its simple and portable energy converting features will solve very many problems.
Oh yeah, about EV cars. Some guy on the TV show I was watching tested how long his car batteries would last per charge travelling from Darwin to Adelaide, a distance of over 3000km. He averaged over 500km per charge. That's fucking good! |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
Edited by - wasssup1990 on Apr 03 2011 11:41:31 AM |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Apr 09 2011 : 10:52:43 AM
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Boiling water is actually the best way at the moment to convert heat into mechanical work. There are other technologies of course, but they are all limited in the amount of power they can produce. Boiling a fluid (whether it be oil, salt, water, etc.) and then driving a turbine or pump is the way to go. It would be nice if there was some efficient way to convert heat directly to electricity but that would be one BIG bimetallic strip. 
Now that Fukishima winds down and the only real issue is that there is a leak of radioactive water (containing many very short lived isotopes if iodine and only a minuscule amount of cesium) the media is still tossing around words like "Chernobyl", "meltdown" and "crisis". It is absolutely pathetic.
Scaremongering like this has held back humanity for achieving so much. In a way, we are back in the dark ages. Back then, there was little knowledge of science, held back by superstition and various churches. When the industrial age started, machines were simple and easily observable by anyone. For example, a crowd of people could be easily shown how a steam engine worked. So for the most part, people loved tech and embraced it. Now, technology and science has become so complicated, specific and advanced that the average person has little hope of understanding it. Which rolls back to fear, superstition and and misinformation. Throw the media in while they report on something they themselves have no hope of understanding and you have the coverage of Fukishima and indeed, the coverage of the entire nuclear industry.
There are far safer reactor designs. CANDU comes to mind which actually requires a mitigater to sustain a reaction. It is an inherently safe design. And Thorium Salt reactors are safer still which a far safer and more economically viable fuel source. Yet regulation and suspicion driven by fear holds it all back.
Solar itself is a great component of an energy strategy, as is wind (though average window power output is sadly very low). But those are only components. If we want to advance into a time where energy is limitless and cheap, our primary source must be nuclear with the appropriate spent fuel reprocesssing. PV and wind sites combined with nuclear creates a decentralized power grid. Throw in geothermal as well. And since the damns are already built, hydroelectric. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Apr 09 2011 : 11:26:26 AM
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| Yep! This was a good discussion Aaron. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
Edited by - wasssup1990 on Apr 09 2011 11:30:23 AM |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Apr 09 2011 : 12:20:25 PM
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quote:
Now that Fukishima winds down and the only real issue is that there is a leak of radioactive water (containing many very short lived isotopes if iodine and only a minuscule amount of cesium) the media is still tossing around words like "Chernobyl", "meltdown" and "crisis". It is absolutely pathetic.
Scaremongering like this has held back humanity for achieving so much. In a way, we are back in the dark ages. Back then, there was little knowledge of science, held back by superstition and various churches. When the industrial age started, machines were simple and easily observable by anyone. For example, a crowd of people could be easily shown how a steam engine worked. So for the most part, people loved tech and embraced it. Now, technology and science has become so complicated, specific and advanced that the average person has little hope of understanding it. Which rolls back to fear, superstition and and misinformation. Throw the media in while they report on something they themselves have no hope of understanding and you have the coverage of Fukishima and indeed, the coverage of the entire nuclear industry.
Yeah I don't watch the news much but it seems that our news reporters simply do their jobs by reporting on the situation, getting facts and opinions from the experts and leaving it at that. However I still hear the words "Chernobyl", "meltdown" and "crisis". The experts all say that Chernobyl cannot be compared to what is happening in Japan - they are two totally different situations.
quote:
When the industrial age started, machines were simple and easily observable by anyone. For example, a crowd of people could be easily shown how a steam engine worked. So for the most part, people loved tech and embraced it. Now, technology and science has become so complicated, specific and advanced that the average person has little hope of understanding it. Which rolls back to fear, superstition and and misinformation.
Oh how much I think about this. It is a very big problem. Education is the solution.
On the other hand... I just ran into a rather disturbing video of people in a third world gathering around a suspicious object left on a street. All logic went out the window and ignorance of what to do when you see a suspicious abandoned object left on a street set into these curious peoples minds. The footage was raw and unedited and I think you get the idea. Natural selection at work. These people sort themselves out... by blowing each other up. Idiots. I'm not picking on all people in third world countries, just the idiots - all over the world. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2011 : 06:09:19 AM
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I just found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk&feature=feedf
I thought you might like it.
Have you watched the banana man video yet that I posted? |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2011 : 10:37:17 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by wasssup1990
Yeah I don't watch the news much but it seems that our news reporters simply do their jobs by reporting on the situation, getting facts and opinions from the experts and leaving it at that. However I still hear the words "Chernobyl", "meltdown" and "crisis". The experts all say that Chernobyl cannot be compared to what is happening in Japan - they are two totally different situations.
What's interesting is that if you look up the names of many of these "experts" employed by the mainstream media, you'll find a lot of stuff leading back to anti-nuclear activists groups such as Greenpeace. Yet is this disclosed by the interviewer? There were days when reporters actually researched and tried to understand the stories they were presenting. Now we simply have ignorant "news commentators" that spend much of their time reading from Twitter.
quote:
On the other hand... I just ran into a rather disturbing video of people in a third world gathering around a suspicious object left on a street. All logic went out the window and ignorance of what to do when you see a suspicious abandoned object left on a street set into these curious peoples minds. The footage was raw and unedited and I think you get the idea. Natural selection at work. These people sort themselves out... by blowing each other up. Idiots. I'm not picking on all people in third world countries, just the idiots - all over the world.
The movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" comes to mind.
quote:
Originally posted by wasssup1990
I just found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk&feature=feedf
I thought you might like it.
Have you watched the banana man video yet that I posted?
I have not had time yet, but I will watch it for sure. It's on my long list of things to watch. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2011 : 12:53:31 PM
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I just watched about 15mins of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" on YT. Yeah, similar. Only this time a bottle didn't land on their heads... Two peoples heads looked like they had been blown off. Not to mention about a dozen other people probably getting loaded with shrapnel. Why oh why would you stand around something like that?????  Idiots. Some people were at least wise enough to stand behind a fence, like the person recording the video. Time to watch some Britney Spears to get my mind off it.  |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
Edited by - wasssup1990 on Apr 10 2011 12:57:22 PM |
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Phychopathic girl likes disaster in Japan
