brettbh

Actually, it has little to do with the judges: Under federal law, the recording companies are entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement but the law allows the jury to raise that to as much as $150,000 per track if it finds the infringements were willful. The jury decided on $80,000 per song. While most people would probably agree that the RIAA is entitled to protect the interests of its artists, hitting (mainly) kids whith such extreme penalties seems exceptionally unfair and nonsensical.

ioSafe. Nice kit!

>>I think you are somehow overestimating the sheer size of land that will be required for renewable energy gathering.<< From this thread: To meet even a small proportion of current energy needs, you'd need to cover an absolutely enormous amount of space with wind turbines (to meet completely meet current US consumption, you'd need to cover the whole of Texas). To replace the energy produced by Canada's nuclear plants with hydroelectricity, you'd need to damn an area that was roughly the same size as the Province of Ontario. To put it simply, large scale renewable energy production would have a substantial impact of the environment.

Hmmm. I don't see anything remotely off topic in this thread. It's impossible to answer the question How green is nuclear power? without comparing it to other forms of energy production.

I wonder whether a hybrid vehicle - powered, at this time, by energy produced predominantly by burning coal - is actually any better for the environment than a gas powered vehicle? Are the people who currently drive hybrids helping the environment or harming it? From Wikipedia: According to cumulative data by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) the number of motor vehicles has also increased steadily since 1960, only stagnating once in 1997 and declining from 1990 to 1991. Otherwise the number of motor vehicles has been rising by an estimated 3.69 million each year since 1960 with the largest annual growth between 1998 and 1999 as well as between 2000 and 2001 when the number of motor vehicles in the United States increased by eight million. Since the study by the FHA the number of vehicles has increased by approximately eleven million, one of the largest recorded increases. We shouldn't be looking to transition to less-polluting hybrids, we should be looking to either reduce the number of vehicles on the road and/or develop zero emission vehicles.

You gotta be joking, surely?

>>When the time and money is limited we can't afford to waste it all on something as dangerous, expensive and stupid as nuclear energy.<< So, you'd prefer to see the environment decimated by the massive construction projects that would be needed in order for us to be able to meet even a fraction of our energy needs from renewable sources? As I said above: We are already seeing an extinction crisis (from Wikipedia: The 2008 Red List was released on 6 October, 2008, at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, and "has confirmed an extinction crisis, with almost one in four mammals at risk of disappearing forever." The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient). How much worse will that crisis become as we start erecting more solar panels, more wind turbines and diverting more waterways? And how much worse will it become as our cities and agricultural areas expand by 50% during the course of the next 5 decades? How long can our already depleted oceans supply fish for a population that is increasing by 1.5 million per week?

>>This is a fair point, I concede that energy use will decrease.<< While individual use may decrease, global consumption is likely to continue to increase - exactly as it has in every other year. The Population Problem. People really don't realize the magnitude of the problems that this planet is facing. From the post to which I linked: When you actually think about the effects of the population increase, the realities of the situation start to hit home. The population is growing at a rate of 1.5 million per week. To put that number in perspective, in order to house all those people in a single place you'd need to build a city the size of Phoenix each and every week, or a city the size of New York every 5 weeks. Before the end of next month, the world's population will have increased by more than the current population of Sweden. Before the end of the year, it will have increased by more than the current population of the UK. Before the end of 2013, it will have increased by more than the current population of the US. To think that we can meet the needs (electricity, transportation, food, clothing, etc.) of all these extra people while decreasing global energy consumption is crazy. It's simply not going to happen. And renewable energy is a recipe for disaster. Also from the post to which I linked: We are already seeing an extinction crisis (from Wikipedia: The 2008 Red List was released on 6 October, 2008, at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, and "has confirmed an extinction crisis, with almost one in four mammals at risk of disappearing forever." The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient). How much worse will that crisis become as we start erecting more solar panels, more wind turbines and diverting more waterways? And how much worse will it become as our cities and agricultural areas expand by 50% during the course of the next 5 decades? How long can our already depleted oceans supply fish for a population that is increasing by 1.5 million per week? Sorry, but covering country-sized tracts of delicate ecosystems with solar panels and wind turbines is not an environmentally-responsible course of action!

Duh! That's explained on the page to which I linked: A DS can only pull the darkness from a surface at which it's directly pointing and that is why the Earth has periods of daylight and periods of night! Next question?

For decades, global energy consumption has increased each year - despite of us being aware of the risks of climate change - and that's not likely to change any time soon. Yup, countries such as Sweden may be able to reduce consumption while increasing production of renewable energy - but that's not likely to happen in countries such as India and China. You may find this thread interesting.

DST.

No form of energy-production is green - solar panels, hydro plants, coal burining plants all have an impact on the environment. The real question is which method of producing electricity is able to meet our demands with least amount of environmental impact and, to my mind, that's nuclear. Here's a somewhat dated article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041401209.html

>>The scientists want to build a series of huge solar farms in the Saharan desert and connect them to the supergrid.<< That'll be pretty.

And what should those rules and regulations be?

The cost is actually a good thing as it should act as an obstacle to scammers. The downside is, as you pointed out, the confusion that it will cause - and that will actually help scammers!

ICANN are planning to increase the number of gTLDs from the current 16 to between 200 and 800. Basically, anybody with $185,000 in their pocket will be able to register their own gTLD. So, walmart.com could become shop.walmart and, if Simon has enough $s, enviro-space.com could become forum.enviro-space. It's an extraordinarily bad idea.

>>To the point of how much space it takes to generate sufficient power - there is no need to use any more space than the buildings we already have.<< No, not so. In some parts of the world it may be possible to generate enough energy to meet a cities energy needs by covering every available square inch of it with solar panels, but in other parts of the world it certainly isn't. And how much of an environmental impact would manufacturing/installing such an enormous number of solar panels have?

Vista will be supported until at least 2012. http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=11734

Hmmm. I'm not so sure. I like Vista, but it really wasn't much of an improvement on XP and 7 will not be much of an improvement on Vista. People should think carefully about whether an upgrade is really worthwhile.

Amnesty accuses Hamas gunmen of killings and torture.

Schedule and budget overruns are not unique to the nuclear industry - in fact, they seem to be the norm in the majority of state-sponsored projects!

See my previous post. Response? :-)

Agreed. But I'm not at all convinced that a $10 environmentally-friendly version of Club Penguin is the best way to them into eco-citizens!