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From: Tony Harding on 23 Apr 2010 05:53 On 04/11/10 11:25, Grumpy AuContraire wrote: > Bob Willard wrote: >> Grumpy AuContraire wrote: >>> dgk wrote: >>>> Right, but the question is how to best deliver people where they want >>>> to go with the least harmful impact on the environment. Is that a bad >>>> goal? >>> >>> Nope, not a bad goal at all but... Any big advance in technology will >>> come from innovation from the private sector, not guv'ment mandate. >>> It always has and always will. Guv'ment is nothing but a giant >>> interference entity. >> >> It is OK to be grumpy, Grumpy, but the above is a half-truth. While >> most of the big advances in technology do, as you say, come from the >> private sector, many of those biggies were the result, direct or >> indirect, of gov't funding. Networking and semiconductors and >> computers come to mind. And, since this is a car-focused NG, let >> me add that many of the advances under the hood are based on >> computers or semiconductors; technologies that were, in turn, >> greatly pushed by gov't funding. > > Really??? > > Seems to me that the transistor came out of Bell Labs. > > Seems to me that the IC came out of Texas Instruments. > > >> Now it is my turn to be grumpy, by opining that -- at least in >> the US -- the private non-pharma sector is so intently focused >> on short-term ROI, that it is incapable of adequately funding >> the long-term R&D needed to achieve those great leaps forward. >> And that is why gov't funding, to the private sector and to >> universities, can lead to real technological progress. > > Yes, I'll agree to this and in fact it is my point. Guv'ment has become > to great provider of corporate welfare and it is more important to > analyze why this became so. > > >> Admittedly, it is easy to find examples of gov't funding that >> is wasteful and weird. But, in the large-cap end of the >> private sector, spending that is wasteful and/or political is >> also pretty common. Gov't folks do not have exclusive rights >> to insanity or inanity. > > Well, if you look at California, there's a perfect example on guv'ment > running amuck. Exactly what do you mean here? Please don't say it has anything to do with the energy situation & Enron. (minor nit: it's "amok" not "amuck", no such work AFAIK)
From: Tony Harding on 23 Apr 2010 05:58 On 04/11/10 14:50, E. Meyer wrote: > On 4/11/10 10:25 AM, in article > jcOdnX2Be9FOdVzWnZ2dnUVZ_o2dnZ2d(a)giganews.com, "Grumpy AuContraire" > <GrumpyOne(a)GrumpyvilleNOT.com> wrote: > >> Bob Willard wrote: >>> Grumpy AuContraire wrote: >>>> dgk wrote: >>>>> Right, but the question is how to best deliver people where they want >>>>> to go with the least harmful impact on the environment. Is that a bad >>>>> goal? >>>> >>>> Nope, not a bad goal at all but... Any big advance in technology will >>>> come from innovation from the private sector, not guv'ment mandate. >>>> It always has and always will. Guv'ment is nothing but a giant >>>> interference entity. >>> >>> It is OK to be grumpy, Grumpy, but the above is a half-truth. While >>> most of the big advances in technology do, as you say, come from the >>> private sector, many of those biggies were the result, direct or >>> indirect, of gov't funding. Networking and semiconductors and >>> computers come to mind. And, since this is a car-focused NG, let >>> me add that many of the advances under the hood are based on >>> computers or semiconductors; technologies that were, in turn, >>> greatly pushed by gov't funding. >> >> Really??? >> >> Seems to me that the transistor came out of Bell Labs. > > To be totally correct about it, Bell labs invented the transistor, > Geophysical Systems Inc. bought the rights to manufacture it from Bell labs > and renamed the company from GSI to Texas Instruments. Now, whether or not > Bell labs did the research with Govt. investment is a whole other question. Let's assume not and chalk it up to the private sector. IIRC this was done circa 1948, we need to focus more recently, not to mention someone mentioned the pharma companies. >> Seems to me that the IC came out of Texas Instruments. > > True. Jack Kilby has a Nobel prize for it. Good for Jack! I'm certain there are many beside me here who can quote massive mismanagement and waste in the private sector as well. Gummint has no monopoly on this sort of thing.
From: Tony Harding on 23 Apr 2010 05:59 On 04/11/10 21:59, Grumpy AuContraire wrote: > E. Meyer wrote: >> On 4/11/10 10:25 AM, in article >> jcOdnX2Be9FOdVzWnZ2dnUVZ_o2dnZ2d(a)giganews.com, "Grumpy AuContraire" >> <GrumpyOne(a)GrumpyvilleNOT.com> wrote: >> >>> Bob Willard wrote: >>>> Grumpy AuContraire wrote: >>>>> dgk wrote: >>>>>> Right, but the question is how to best deliver people where they want >>>>>> to go with the least harmful impact on the environment. Is that a bad >>>>>> goal? >>>>> Nope, not a bad goal at all but... Any big advance in technology will >>>>> come from innovation from the private sector, not guv'ment mandate. >>>>> It always has and always will. Guv'ment is nothing but a giant >>>>> interference entity. >>>> It is OK to be grumpy, Grumpy, but the above is a half-truth. While >>>> most of the big advances in technology do, as you say, come from the >>>> private sector, many of those biggies were the result, direct or >>>> indirect, of gov't funding. Networking and semiconductors and >>>> computers come to mind. And, since this is a car-focused NG, let >>>> me add that many of the advances under the hood are based on >>>> computers or semiconductors; technologies that were, in turn, >>>> greatly pushed by gov't funding. >>> Really??? >>> >>> Seems to me that the transistor came out of Bell Labs. >> >> To be totally correct about it, Bell labs invented the transistor, >> Geophysical Systems Inc. bought the rights to manufacture it from Bell >> labs >> and renamed the company from GSI to Texas Instruments. Now, whether or >> not >> Bell labs did the research with Govt. investment is a whole other >> question. > > Good point. > > Back a zillion or so years ago, I did a couple of contracts for the > technical support (sub)contractor for the Safeguard R&D program on > Kwajalein. The project management was by Bell Labs and later I learned > that they were told that they had to do this because they were the only > entity that was capable of such a complex program. > > Imagine that... The guv'ment actually telling a business entity that > they had to take a contract! And, it was up to Bell Labs to succeed with > a minimum of interference which certainly is not the case today. > > The plus side is that since AT&T was in charge, benefits were good even > for us lowly subcontractors... Ah, yes, the bad old days.
From: Tony Harding on 23 Apr 2010 06:02 On 04/14/10 08:37, dgk wrote: > On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:52:10 -0500, russotto(a)grace.speakeasy.net > (Matthew Russotto) wrote: > >> In article<42hrr5dl5t240hm3gqtvohp5p3ri82djr4(a)4ax.com>, >> dgk<dgk(a)somewhere.com> wrote: >>> >>> Right, but the question is how to best deliver people where they want >>> to go with the least harmful impact on the environment. Is that a bad >>> goal? >> >> That's not a goal at all. Taken one way, it's an unsatisfiable set of >> constraints. Taken another way, it's an ambiguous one. >> >> If you want to both "BEST deliver people where they want to go", and >> "deliver people where they want to go with the least harmful impact on >> the environment", it's unsatisfiable. If you want to balance delivery >> with impact on the environment, it's ambiguous. >> >>> Hopefully electric cars are part of the solution, and the electricity >>> can be produced by a cleaner method than coal. >> >> Not likely. In the US, a state court just ruled that a nuke >> supplying 30% of the power to New York City has to shut down because >> its water output is too hot. Now, it's possible to produce >> electricity with a minimum of conventional pollutants, and it's even >> possible to produce it with a minimum of CO2 (with a nuke). But you >> can't produce electricity without heat. The standards are >> impossible. > > > So what's your option? Kill all the fish by boiling them in the case > of your NY reactor. Free food for the masses --- looks like win-win to me! :)
From: Glen Labah on 22 Apr 2010 03:34
In article <nOOdnRVhrKox6VPWnZ2dnUVZ_vmdnZ2d(a)speakeasy.net>, russotto(a)grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto) wrote: > In article <gl4317-C82827.21001319042010(a)feeder.eternal-september.org>, > Glen Labah <gl4317(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > >But the real best solution would be to dump the hot water into downtown > >New York City. There's dozens of buildings with heat plants there that > >boil water. A bit of extra heat from the outside world would do them > >some good. > > Trying to moving low-grade heat 40 miles probably isn't going to work. If it is enough heat to raise the temperature of the river several degrees, even after it mixes, then there is certainly enough thermal mass there to retain some of the the heat for such a short distance. -- Please note this e-mail address is a pit of spam due to e-mail address harvesters on Usenet. Response time to e-mail sent here is slow. |