Posts by Hanni Ali 14 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Nov 2007
Excellent example of the sort of issue one simply wouldn't have to deal with in Space. I would also highlight that through the use of robotics or even teleoperated mining equipment in space a company could avoid the sort of labour issues (strikes) South African mining operations have experienced throughout 2012. Mining still provides opportunity for application of high tech solutions in what remains an often low tech 'shovelling dirt' approach.
The single overriding factor to consider (for use on earth - let's ignore space for now) is the cost of acquisition. On Earth we have experienced a high inflationary rate in the mining industry over the past 5 years, Gold at best is on the order of $550 an ounce. If the cost and stability of supply (very important given many mines are in unstable countries) for mining operations in space can hit that price point or at least hit market equivalence (some publicly traded companies currently have costs in excess of $1000) then there is an argument for investment.
I'd had a great time in west London with Virgin 10 meg service being fairly amazing by comparison to any I'd had before. Just moved to the east end and my new place is terrible, I see 50% packet loss so can't even use it to browse a standard website, let alone HD streaming! They say they won't be fixing it until the end of March and knew about it in November, why bother signing me up at all!
The economics and timeliness should also be compared to marine transportation for certain goods, which would potentially expand the available freight market for the airships. Faster than water based ships, potentially larger and more efficient than road freight and more direct than rail freight with lower infrastructure costs than all of these. Airships would probably be useful in lowering costs for quicker than shipping, but slower than flying freight.
Firstly I would argue that e-books are non-essential and the government shouldn't drop VAT on anything until the budget defecit is eliminated.
Secondly I would expect removal of VAT to be only briefly noticible, retailers would probably increase the prices back to the price point ebooks were at previously simply increasing their margins and not benefiting the consumer (or tax payer) at all.
to protect against the imminent attack, instead of spending a small fortune on hardened electronics, why not turn off the electronics while the attack is in progress. With these devices likely being fairly expensive, even the US isn't going to fire off more than a couple during an attack.
and wine allows me to play the only games I want to play, Civilization IV works great (Civ 3 was fine as well) and GTA SA/VC although I'm now waiting for them to bring out the latest addition for PC so I can get that.
I also find that CIV generally plays smother on WINE than it used to on windows.
It is also important to note that Wine Is Not and Emulator, the whole point is that the application is running natively on your hardware, not on an emulation or virtulisation layer. As already mentioned Virtual machines take time to boot etc. and the application is not running natively, although VM's are very useful and I do make use of them at times, their scope is totally different.
One of the most important aspects of reliable electricity is lighting, in the home for reading etc. but also for security, well lit streets reduce crime rates and make residents feel safer. It helps develop an economy although obviously the wind up is only suitable for home use, solar in combination with batteries/flywheel storage is ideal for street lighting.
Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
- Benjamin Franklin
This is one of the single most relevant quotes for the current age of anti terrorist paranoia. What is the point in trying to stop terrorists if in doing so we turn ourselves into a police controlled state. Eventually we will stop immigration because peoples desire to come to a "free country" (us in the UK) will no longer be a valid reason and they will stay in their own Islamic Law/Communist Police State/Corrupt Government/etc. country.
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