npts2020

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.

What the yogi purportedly did was to slow his biological processes or suspended animation (similar to hibernation), some people can do this to an amazing degree. What cryonics does is completely stop all biological processes, or death (at least until a host of technical problems are overcome). ***Note cryonics is the freezing of a body, cryogenics is the study of any form of matter at low teperatures.

Mr Skeptic: What is your definition of a "heavier" isotope? I am not an expert at physics or chemistry but it seems to me that deuterium and carbon-13 are among the lightest isotopes out there.

Jackson33: So I take it that you feel that those being beaten and shot at by Pinkerton thugs a century ago or working under the conditions at a meat packing plant as described by Upton Sinclair in "The Jungle" were at fault for their own predicaments and the Peabody's, Carnegie's, and Harriman's of the day are blameless?

I think DoD would have something to say about it, they already don't like the detailed information that is available.

Some of the turbines pictured cost as little as $500, if one provided only 10% of my electricity, it would pay for itself in 4-5 years, so wind generation is quite competitive where I live. Furthermore I expect the prices to go down substantially as production gets ramped up, what other forms of electrical generation are likely to become cheaper?

I can't argue with your reasoning, Norman, I am just one of those old fuddy duddies that doesn't like apparent violations of not being able to create or destroy matter. It may turn out that such violations must exactly cancel each other out but if that can be proven false, it would require a major shift in our way of thinking..... well mine anyway.

Check out these commercially available home wind generators. http://www.treehugger.com/file/2008/11/five-home-wind-turbines-you-can-actually-buy.php