It seems to me like just a new way to store energy. Nice, but not revolutionary.
So they can solve global warming and create an endless supply of booze at the same time.
Nobel prize, for sure.
Whether or not it's useful is a chemical engineering question: how well does it scale? how much energy is required per unit of CO2?
It is unfortunate that the name "Skyy Vodka" is already taken.
Whether or not it's useful is a chemical engineering question: how well does it scale? how much energy is required per unit of CO2?
"Herein we report a common element, nanostructured catalyst for the direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 to ethanol with high Faradaic efficiency (63 % at −1.2 V vs RHE) and high selectivity (84 %) that operates in water and at ambient temperature and pressure."
"Just" a new way to store energy? I thought energy storage was quite a big deal...
Ethanol's a bulky, volatile, flammable compound - if you're going for sequestration I'd want something a bit better as an end product. Ethene would be nice, then you could polymerise it.
I thought the idea was that you burn the ethanol as a fuel. Obviously, that puts the carbon back into the atmosphere, but to the extent it replaces fossil fuels, it slows the increase in CO2.
7: I read that, but I'm too ignorant to get from Faradaic efficiency to what that means in terms of energy expenditure.
Also of note:
The overpotential (which might be lowered with the proper electrolyte, and by separating the hydrogen production to another catalyst) probably precludes economic viability for this catalyst, but the high selectivity for a 12-electron reaction suggests that nanostructured surfaces with multiple reactive sites in close proximity can yield novel reaction mechanisms.
Why not do both? (Insert appropriate meme gif here.)
Ethanol's a bulky, volatile, flammable compound - if you're going for sequestration I'd want something a bit better as an end product.
I understand that ethanol converts easily into bad decisions.
I'd want something a bit better as an end product
If global warming could be fixed by a giant [pile of diamonds|aquarium filter|aftermarket hood for a Honda Civic], how big would it have to be?
Not yet a big deal unless they improve robustness and efficiency.
Currently useless. Using electricity from coal or gas fired power plants to make EtOH from CO2 is a tremendous waste of energy. You'd be pissing away over 80% of the energy contained in fossil fuels to make a slightly different fuel.
Where it may have a future is turning solar generated electricity into fuel, but it's still highly unlikely to be better than the 80 kajillion ways we know of turning CO2 into fuels. Plus, even at 400 ppm in the atmosphere, you'd have to work to concentrate the CO2 out of the atmosphere (this only works at 1 atm CO2). You'd only bother to do this if you were trying to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and you'd have to be doing this out of the goodness of your heart because the fuel you generate would not be worth the cost.
Pro tip: If something is published in ChemistrySelect it is probably not on the verge of transforming the global energy problem.
I think the title suggests he had doubts.
Of all the small fuels, ethanol is actually a pretty good one, except for its corrosiveness. It's liquid (so it's as compact as it gets), stable, flammable, and still retains a reasonably large energy density. The only thing as good is gasoline/kerosene.
Its large scale production is problematic because it's water soluble, so separating water from ethanol (so it can burn) is just as energy inefficient now as it was when we learned how to do it 2000 years ago.
So stompy.
Squish!
I actually posted without even checking the blog.
So I know this is kind of covered upthread, but talk to me like I'm stupid:
It's the near future, and the grid is 100% renewables (with any of the myriad storage methods working neatly at scale). New FF production is verboten. But batteries are no-go for airplanes, and maybe bad for trucks.
Why couldn't a (fully developed) version of this tech use clean electricity to fuel trucks & planes with zero net atmospheric carbon impact?
That is, forget about why it's a bad idea now; are there concrete reason it could never be significantly useful?
Some sort of closed-circuit carbon capture probably will be useful, not necessarily this particular technology. Carbon is useful for high-energy-density fuels and producing polymers and other organic compounds, and especially for the latter we'll probably never stop needing it in bulk.
I see two potential reasons why it wouldn't take off. First, we come up with some better energy storage mechanism that's cheaper and entirely avoids carbon. (But that'd still leave polymers.) Second is essentially political: this encourages combustion engines, slowing down our movement away from fossil fuels, and it doesn't actually reduce the carbon in the atmosphere.
Admittedly, I'm biased towards solutions like these--I think they're cool, and at some point we are going to have to deal with the carbon that's already there. But they're for the future, not now. Non-biological carbon capture mostly isn't feasible now (please correct me if I'm wrong), and has had nasty associations with large fossil fuel producers/consumers who tout it to greenwash their problems away.
21.2: When you say "new FF production," does that include the various methods (bio-diesel, various synthetic oils, and those gasoline-analogs they make by compressing biological materials until they turn into something oily) of creating new "fossil" fuel?
Fun fact: almost none of the CO2 we currently use industrially comes from the air. Recovering the 0.04% that's in the atmosphere is just too hard. We mostly get it from burning fossil fuels or from carbonate rocks.
If we did reach a 100% renewable world, and we did want to completely ban the use of all non-renewable fuels, but we had failed to make enough advances in battery technology so that fuels were still more useful than batteries, then some kind of recycling of CO2 back to useful fuels would be necessary. Essentially to do this you need 1) a source of hydrogen atoms and 2) some high energy electrons. In theory, the most efficient way to do this would be something like this report, where you just combine CO2, electrons from solar cells, and hydrogen from water to make ethanol. Alternatively, there are already known processes where you take CO2 to CO or formic acid, then use that to make H2, then use that to make gasoline. That's long and involved, but all the steps are already known. Which will end up being more efficient will depend on 100 complicated factors of efficiency and cost and selectivity and future scientific developments. None of them are currently economically useful, and I'm not sure any of them actually produce more energy than they consume yet.
Oh, and I forgot biodiesel, which has the huge advantage of actually working well with just 0.04% CO2, but is also more energy intensive than it sounds once you take into account the cost of fertilizer (currently made from fossil fuels) and harvesting.
but is also more energy intensive than it sounds once you take into account the cost of fertilizer (currently made from fossil fuels) and harvesting.
Also when you count cutting down jungles to replace them with palm plantations.
Did they end up doing the drug testing, or no?
Would you want to be the tech who had to draw blood from germaphobic whiner Donald Trump?
Sure. "Oops, missed. Oops, missed again. Oops! I'm so clumsy. Was that an artery?"
Is there a word for the rhetorical device that reflects and/or persuades irascible older men? E.g., "If we don't have a border, we don't have a country"? "If you want traffic to move faster, tell people to turn right on red"?
The nuclear start up? I guess I'm impressed that he's sort of heard of START.
I think he is still sniffing, but it looks like they managed to train him out of leaning into the mic.
He does seem more coherent than usual though.
Yes, the GDP growth rate of China and India is an appropriate comparator for the United States.
If we had a Cultural Revolution, imagine how good our GDP growth could be three decades later.
I'm super bored by all of their words but super enthralled by watching their faces while the other one talks. Donald is like a magical color changing ball of playdough.
Also the captioner (at least the one PBS is using) is making some weird mistakes that detract from the solemnity of the occasion.
Trump needs some new material. I've heard all his shit like dozens of times before.
Chicago is the boogeyman these days. Used to be San Francisco, but these days its Chicago.
Why not? This show is hilarious and its the season finale.
56: I AM RUBBER AND YOU'RE THE PUPPET
If you're behind, wait until you get to (sorry, spoilers) "I didn't even apologize to my wife."
"They turned around and bought a six foot painting of Donald. I mean, who does that?!"
"I, for one, am appalled..." is a great statement in any context.
63: "Time travel to award Donald Trump an Emmy" is going to be the new "time travel to get Hitler into art school."
It is really upsetting how much his eyes and mouth are exactly the same.
Does he think that he is landing devastating haymakers with this Twitter/Breitbart rubbish? Does he know that women can vote now?
Wow, talk down the moderate. Very temperament. Much sad.
69: Oof you weren't kidding. The Owe Left tolls for thee.
He needs to work on not looking like a turd when she's talking.
Oh fuck the moderator. What an ass.
Is someone fact checking Chris Wallace?
What the fuck was that "such a nasty woman" non sequitur to?
I think he just handed her a great line when he ended with, "We cannot take four more years of Barack Obama, and that's what you get if you vote for her." Isn't his popularity sky high right now?
I thought Clinton's final statement wasn't particularly responsive to Wallace's question and then Trump responded with a minute of non sequiturs.
Oh fuck the moderator. What an ass.
I only tuned in for the last 20 minutes, and that was my thought. Was he any better earlier.
Relive the excitement!
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/19/498293478/fact-check-trump-and-clinton-s-final-presidential-debate
75- HRC was digging at his tax evasion.
78- I thought he was doing OK for the first 10-15 minutes.
The post-debate talking head on CNN is talking about how Trump should have pressed harder on Bill Clinton being a sex abuser, too. Christ. Can he not accept that Hillary is the one who's running?
81: He was relatively mellowed out in the beginning. Sometime around 9:30 he started losing it.
Well, the human suit starts to get itchy after a while under the studio lights.
Clinton and Trump keep improving as debaters, and it doesn't really matter b /c everything else.
Don't think Trump's polish will help even a little because he what he's saying isn't popular or agreeable.
Think the moderator was OK apart from the last question.
Maybe the most important part of the debate was Clinton could be interpreted there'd be no no fly zone without negotions with the Russians. Let's hope so b / c it's a really scary idea.
HRC was digging at his tax evasion
Yes, and I was half-thinking she should have stopped and pointed out that *he* was the one who said it made him "smart" so what's his complaint about her bringing it up. But actually much stronger this way--it certainly got heard (probably #2 moment after the accepting the results crap) so that can be pointed out over the next few days and people will get the context.
What I want now is GOP war over the "accepting the results" stuff. Pence (who has been on 3 sides off this question) and Jeff Sessions (and Guiliani of course) seeming to be agreeing. A lot of other Repubs quickly distancing themselves.
Snap polls were 52-39 and 49-39. I suspect basically whoever you intend to vote for "won," so any Repub taking him on does so at their peril. Ryan went from +6 favorable among Rs to minus 20 (something like that) over a two week period).
What I want now is GOP war over the "accepting the results" stuff. Pence (who has been on 3 sides off this question) and Jeff Sessions (and Guiliani of course) seeming to be agreeing. A lot of other Repubs quickly distancing themselves.
The thing about rich people is that they have a lot to lose.
So the Republican base is totally down to go full-nihilist, but Republican elites are reluctant to follow.
86- Good points.
My favorite moment was when she was talking about her 30 years experience. I agree with John Rodgers who tweeted: "
Just catching up -- Jesus it's like watching a child. And she frikkin DRAGGED him on the 30 year career question.
"
He really is talking in a really childlike way.
I'm not sure Trump's full-throated praise of Putin counts as a great opening. Sure he wasn't beet red and shouty, but he was still basically admitting he supported anti-American espionage and foreign meddling in our democracy.
If you want to feel good about the debate this is a satisfying article: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/19/13340828/hillary-clinton-debate-trump-won
92- He appears to benefit from being able to clear an incredibly low bar, and all you can do is point out how low the bar is?
It really is an incredibly low bar, though, and based on initial media reports he doesn't seem to have cleared it.
90 No, you're talking in a childish way.
Trump really does seem to like seeing how much his followers are willing to debase themselves. Set a bar low, he'll go lower just to watch everyone else crawl behind.
86.2: After further review; not so sure the Rs are ready to war with each other on that yet. Even though Fox, and standard R talking heads (and big WSJ headline) are no ton board, Reince is still sticking with the "could be big fraud" line, and it seems most are keeping silent other than a few already off the bus. I was assuming from TV sample that more were jumping on that, but may have been wrong. But see what tomorrow brings when they (hopefully) get pressed on it by local media.
Your mom talked to me in a childish way last night.
This is the trash-talk thread, right?
Not if all you bring is weak shit like 99 it isn't.
The fact is that under eight years of the Obama administration the US economy has only grown by an average of 2% a year. That is well behind the growth rate of India and China, and also, of course, of your mom.
76: No, kidding. Pet/er Wall/ace (Chris's son) is also kind of a dick, but Mike Wallace always seemed so great.
That's not me saying it. That is seventeen intelligence agencies of the US government saying that hackers in the employment of the Kremlin have conducted a successful hostile penetration of Democratic Party computer servers, and, also, of your mom.
The Republican Party is now useful* idiots.
* for very strange values of 'useful'.
If Putin was to hack the voting machines in a swing state the smart thing to do would be to make it an obvious rigging in favor of Clinton. The country would be all but ungovernable. That's my nightmare scenario, right behind your mom.
30 years ago, while Clinton was protecting poor, pathetic, starving children in Arkansas, Trump was banging your mom.
Do you know where your mom was last night?
I'm gonna leave you in suspense, OK?
The way I suspended your mom.
Not as nasty as yours. IYKWIMAITYD.
Stolen from Twitter:
Chinese steel in the streets, nasty woman in the sheets.
Limousine in the streets, your mom in the sheets.
I think my favorite thing about the debate (and Trump's previous bullshit about rigged elections) is how he's turned the story into "what will Trump do after he loses?"
I have nothing to say about that kind of talk.
Could someone calmly explain why I should not be freaked out about the IBD/TIPP poll?
121: The margin of error is much greater than Trump's lead. This is why people average polls.
But according to my google search results multiple independent mostly conservative news sources that totally aren't copying the same language from a common source, it's America's Most Accurate* Poll!
*Some headlines say most precise, probably because they have access to a thesaurus but not a dictionary.
Based on current polling I'd like Clinton to win Texas and South Carolina but lose Iowa and Indiana, just to mess with internet liberals' perceptions about the South/red-state blue-state issues.
What about recent Indiana politics makes it perceived as liberal?
I dunno I set a low bar for my messing with internet liberals plan.
But like I think the perception is something like "Indiana is bad, but not South Carolina bad." So it would be fun to just fuck with the perception.
Even better would be Texas and South Carolina but not New Hampshire (extremely unlikely). Fuck New Hampshire.
Indiana and Iowa don't make liberals hiss with disgust the way Texas and South Carolina do. I'm soooo excited about Texas lately even though it will probably go for trump.
I definitely have an irrational anti-South Carolinian bias, and support reality disabusing me of it.
Based on current polling I'd like Clinton to win Texas and South Carolina but lose Iowa and Indiana, just to mess with internet liberals' perceptions about the South/red-state blue-state issues.
The second half of that is already expected to happen, with those states being predominantly old white people with limited education. As for the first half, she is already leading in North Carolina and Arizona, and winning those other states would be credited to having an incredible get-out-the-vote disparity.
So? That wouldn't make it less gratifying. The people would have to exist to be gotten to vote.
an incredible get-out-the-vote disparity.
I'm really hoping for this. It would be fabulous for down-ballot races.
I will fuck up your face like the wind fucked up the Old Man of the Mountains.
How's being shit Vermont working out for you?
Bah, Vermont. Vermont's upside down.
BTW, Vermont knows that shit you were talking about Bernie Sanders. You best be careful if you don't want an icicle in your back.
More like kitchen granite-counter-top state, bitch.
LEAVE US OUT OF IT, NEW HAMPSHIRE IS ONLY GOOD FOR BIG LIQUOR STORES AND SEPARATING US FROM MAINE
Whatever. I'll be over here enjoying my under-regulated fireworks. You know you can't resist a hop over the border to buy them.
TRUE HEROES OVER-REGULATE FIREWORKS FOR THEIR CITIZENS AND UNDER-REGULATE THEM FOR EVERYONE ELSE
I had a phone interview with a place in Vermont today. They didn't seem to hate me. It could happen.
It's 3pm. I'm here in the high school parking lot. I knew you wouldn't show, New Hampshire, like the bitch you are.
Fuck you. I was there. 3PM Eastern Daylight Time.
Nice dinger, Cubs. Way to humiliate the Dodgers.
So apparently Trump totally bombed at the Al Smith dinner. People actually booed him.
Did he say a vote for Al Smith is a vote for the Pope?
He said he was surprised Hillary actually showed up because she only pretends not to hate Catholics.
153 is not a joke or an exaggeration. That's literally what he said.
People on Twitter are pointing out the irony that around the time Al Smith ran for president Trump's dad got arrested for participating in an anti-Catholic Klan riot.
Has it been noted here that Mike Pence identifies as a born-again Catholic?
Since Trump spends all day reading Breitbart and Matt Drudge like any other white father-in-law, he is filled with rage at the story which the MSM IGNORES, about how in one of the Wikileaks emails some random person working for Hillary insulted the Catholic Church in the course of insulting Rupert Murdoch, and then some other random person agreed with the first random person. I was surprised to discover that this week's top right-wing headline is "Hillary hates Catholics", because, well, the MSM is in fact ignoring that "story", but over at Breitbart they think it's a winner.
As has been amply demonstrated throughout this campaign, Trump is really running for president of the Breitbart comments section rather than president of the United States. This may or may not be a shrewd attempt to monetize his popularity through a targeted media outlet as the ultimate end goal.
He just launched a Facebook Live streaming channel. Which either represents a shrewd first step toward a media empire or a hopelessly disorganised presidential campaign. Like the whole election!
America is so fucking weird these days. Sorry, rest of the world.
It's not like the rest of the world is behaving excessively normally. What the fuck is with the Philippines, for example?
True enough, but the Philippines is a regional power at best. If we start down the same route it will affect the entire world.
The only good thing about Brexit is that it keeps the Brits from being smug about our fuckeduppitude. Keir could probably still be smug, unless NZ politics have gone crazy in some way. The Canadians can of course be smug but we're close enough that they fear and internalize our crazy more viscerally.
I have, however, literally heard someone propose "Philippine" solutions for a recent spate of weird murders in my neighborhood. It's a scary time all around.
Aren't the weird murders themselves the Philippine solution?
167: Yes, but I'd like to think we have different solutions in America.
If the murders are only a neighborhood problem it could probably be fixed by One Man Who Is Not Afraid. That could be you.
Not me. I've never even shot a gun.
Crossbow? That bolt airgun thing from No Country for Old Men?
And they're not only a neighborhood problem, but they do seem to be weirdly clustered in my primarily white, middle-class neighborhood.
172: Nope and nope. I've shot BB guns, years ago. (I'm very much a fake Alaskan in this respect.)
NB: It's not just the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, Duterte is telling us to fuck off, he's aligning with China and Russia now, presumably giving up the South China Sea claims.
Turkey's fucked, France will have a Le Pen in power soon enough, the UK is a shitshow and Australia's running concentration camps. Canada remains unfucked.
174: Super soaker? That boxing glove on an extending arm thing that you order from ACME?
It's not just the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, Duterte is telling us to fuck off, he's aligning with China and Russia now, presumably giving up the South China Sea claims.
Presumably. We'll see.
Turkey's fucked, France will have a Le Pen in power soon enough, the UK is a shitshow and Australia's running concentration camps. Canada remains unfucked.
No argument there. A scary time all around.
176: Not sure about super soaker. They were certainly popular when I was a kid, but I don't remember ever shooting one myself. On the boxing glove thing, no.
But while we're here, FM, was it you who was interested in Polynesian origins a little while back? I forget. I have a book recommendation for whoever it was.
173: So you're saying you live in Trump's idea of Clinton's America?
Yeah, it was. I'm halfway through The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. It took some doing getting through the latter part of the linguistics, but I'm on to archeology.
Any one awake? I have a C.V. question.
I know it sounds odd but I'm a PI on a project here in partner with another institution. How do I list this on a CV? As a separate job or as part of my duties for my current job?
The only good thing about Brexit is that it keeps the Brits from being smug about our fuckeduppitude.
It also keeps us terrified that your vote is going to go as badly as ours. Brexit is just going to make us poorer; Trump would actually endanger our security.
182: I would say it's part of your duties for your current job. But I'm not an expert on style for academic CVs.
This job is actually for a commercial outfit selling the kind of historical materials I deal with. A bit of a different thing for me.
Also, I'm not sure exactly what you do, so I'm going to have to assume 184 involves grave robbing.
The denizens of the Mineshaft fall into two categories: those who have actually explicitly revealed what they do for a living (LizardBreath, heebie, Tigre etc) and those who haven't, and for whom I have therefore had to invent careers. The second group seem (from inside my head) to be having much more fun. Moby, for instance, is a consulting detective. teo is a professional elk-hunting guide. Barry is a player-character from Call of Cthulhu.
Sorry, Barry should of course be in the first category, but revealing that might be VSOOBC.
Because we're living in a simulation, Barry works for a weapon shop in a village right before the end boss.
I don't think I've been that closed about what I do for a living, but maybe I should start.
Relevant to 187 and 189, I have recently been reminded of the RPG that consumed way too much of my spare time while at school, and in particular of its robustly unromantic list of careers which your character could have. Dungeons and Dragons had "Warrior" and "Wizard" and "Bard" and "Rogue". This one had, among others, "Beggar", "Agitator", "Bawd", "Labourer", "Scribe", "Artisan's Apprentice", "Herdsman" and, IIRC, "Lackey".
Thomas Piketty presents "Dungeons and Dragons, 2.0".
Honestly, "Artisan's Apprentice" sounds like a much nicer life than "go into cave and die".
Not so far off. I've dug out the rulebook and (for the benefit of my neighbours) am writing a scenario, and I am finding quite a bit of Piketty creeping in. "Of course the villagers don't actually have any Gold Crowns for most of the year - they just keep ledgers of each other's debts and set them off against each other, so there's nothing for you to loot."
187 Close, I'm the curator for the historical cartography of non-Euclidean spaces.
187: ajay, I don't know what exactly you do now, but it's of questionable legality and gives you lots of opportunity to take advantage of the skills you learned in the SAS.
198 I think it's Moby who's in the SAS.
No, he uses it, which more or less makes him M. Or the queen. Whoever calls the shots over there.
dalriata's imaginary career for me, like my imaginary careers for everyone else, bears no resemblance to reality but is so much fun that continued belief in it should be encouraged.
But then I would say that, wouldn't I?
187. No, Barry is the consulting detective. He said on the other thread that he was moonlighting as a PI.
202: I also imagine that you wear an eyepatch, have a perpetual two day stubble, and always have at least three knives on you. (One more than the UK average.)
181: Sorry to disappear like that last night! The book I wanted to recommend is Patrick Kirch's On the Road of the Winds, which I'm most of the way through. It seems to be pretty much the standard introductory work on Pacific prehistory. Probably a lot of overlap with the one you're reading now, but more of an archaeological focus.
teo is a professional elk-hunting guide.
This is so hilariously wrong I don't even know where to start. Not that ajay wants me to burst his bubble, I'm sure.
Don't worry. I'm sure the Olympic committee knows you're serious about maintaining your amateur status.
Canada remains unfucked.
Well, the Walloons are currently screwing them out of a trade deal with the EU, but it's that that's not the Canadians' fault. Instead it should be credited to Belgium, probably the world leader in fuckedupness per unit of area.
208: It's particularly funny that he said it just a few comments after I had admitted to having never fired a gun.
207: Well, sure, 1) he meant moose (yay, confusing US/UK English differences), as elk/wapiti aren't found in Alaska, and 2) you do it for free. For the love of the hunt.
181/206: These sound interesting. Are they accessible to a non-specialist? I can probably make it through a historical linguistics text, and have read the heavier side of popular archeology.
Once you see a guy kill an elk with his bare hands, that's the only guide you'll ever want.
Moby, for instance, is a consulting detective.
I would read or watch the chronicles of Moby's consultations.
I mentioned that I have an urge to investigate a murder. I'm just waiting for a good one.
Ooh, thanks! Bookmarked.
I also assume that you have "TEO" and "FILO" knuckle tattoos.
I also assume that you have "TEO" and "FILO" knuckle tattoos.
As if I would reveal my secret identity so openly.
And you're welcome! Always glad when the random things I run across on the internet are of interest to other people.
Then you have it interlaced, the letters alternating between your hands, so that the complete word only becomes visible when you're strangling a moose.
...which might be the perfect murder. Our intrepid detective, assisted by a specialist in ancient non-Euclidean geometries and a grizzled British mercenary...but I should stop now, to not violate the sanctity of off-blog communications.
Have you ever seen a moose? They're huge. No way is anyone strangling one with their bare hands, least of all me.
That's why you need the non-Euclidean geometry.
Wait, I'm the specialist in non-Euclidean geometry? That seems... improbable.
That's why it'd be so perfect when you pull it off. Dammit, teo, this isn't how yes-ands work.
No, never been lucky enough to see one. I haven't spent significant time in their range. The only intuitive feel I have as to their size is due to warnings to avoid hitting them in a car--they're much more likely to be fatal, since you'll take out their legs, leaving the bulk of their mass to fall through the windshield. Realistically, I think most white-tailed deer could kick my ass*, so moose must be utterly awe inspiring.
* Not an unreasonable fear.I often end up uncomfortably close to them when going on walks in the parks/cemeteries around here.
Nah, Barry's the non-Euclidean specialist. I got it a bit off:
Close, I'm the curator for the historical cartography of non-Euclidean spaces.
I mean, unless you want to be. This can become a GURPS campaign.
No, never been lucky enough to see one. I haven't spent significant time in their range. The only intuitive feel I have as to their size is due to warnings to avoid hitting them in a car--they're much more likely to be fatal, since you'll take out their legs, leaving the bulk of their mass to fall through the windshield. Realistically, I think most white-tailed deer could kick my ass*, so moose must be utterly awe inspiring.
I saw three last weekend, which was admittedly more than I had seen in a long time. But they are all over the place around here. And yeah, hitting one will absolutely total your car, with a strong chance of causing serious injury as well.
Biggest animal I've seen here is a goddamn pigeon. My colleagues freaked out hilariously over an itsy-bitsy spider the other day.
Last week, I saw a groundhog majestically sunning itself on a tombstone. Oh, and a buck did chill out for a few hours in our neighbor's driveway, less than twenty feet from three different houses. It was fairly penned in, and if they had come home it might have panicked with unfortunate consequences.
227: Aren't there poisonous spiders there? I may be making an inappropriate assumption that anywhere tropical and vaguely in the same region of the globe as Australia is going to have venomous critters.
Probably yes, but we're talking seriously itsy and bitsy here.
206: Thanks a lot. I originally got on this kick to address a different question (who was sticking the dead in boxes halfway up cliffs) which research hasn't really helped with, but I've long since become interested in the Austronesians for their own sake. Do you have any thoughts on the relationship between Austronesian and Tai Kadai?
Do you have any thoughts on the relationship between Austronesian and Tai Kadai?
I'm skeptical, personally, but part of that is just the standard skepticism of mainstream linguistics toward proposals for long-distance relationships. I did download one of Sagart's papers making the case for a connection, but I haven't read it yet. I'll let you know if and when I do. Blevins's proposal of a close relationship between Austronesian and some of the languages of the Andamans seems to be a significant problem for Sagart's scheme if it stands up to scrutiny, but I haven't read that paper either.
Actually on further reflection I'm not sure how significant the Blevins proposal is for Sagart's, but I'm still skeptical.
But that's because Sagart is claiming Tai-Kadai is a subfamily of Austronesian rather than a coordinate branch, which seems crazy to me on first glance but then again I don't actually know anything about any of these languages personally.
Do you mean spatial or temporal distance? Because, as I understand it, in the time frame were talking about the physical distance was basically the strait of Taiwan. Even today you've got 50 million Zhuang speakers 500 miles away. Not that I've got a dog in this fight either way.
None of the Austronesian languages are tonal, and at least Thai, Lao, and Zhuang (the only Tai Kadai languages with which I have any familiarity) all are.
234: Genetic (some prefer the term "genealogical") distance. Although as noted in 233, Sagart at least is claiming not that there is a long-distance relationship between Austronesian and Tai-Kadai but that the latter is actually a sub-unit of the former, which is a much stronger claim that would require very strong evidence to support. And he may well have such evidence; I don't actually know anything about the details of these languages, again as noted in 233. This sort of dispute is why I think it would be very useful for historical/comparative linguistics to adopt some sort of quantitative way of evaluating genetic relations between languages, the way every other discipline that addresses comparable issues does. If I ever go back into linguistics, which is unlikely, this is what I would focus on.
235 is one of the reasons I'm skeptical about this proposal, but in fairness Chinese influence is a plausible explanation for the development of tonality in Tai-Kadai languages.
Anyway, we should acknowledge Mossy as our correspondent in the Austronesian Urheimat, even though it has changed quite a bit in the intervening millennia.
236: on the lack of quantitative comparison, do you see that as being more due to a conservative field or due to the fundamental difficulty of doing so? Defining what a quantum of change is, or having a way to predict expected rate of linguistic change in certain circumstances, seem really hard. And that's before you take into account language areas.
Definitely a conservative field rather than fundamental difficulty. Phonology has done a great job in defining fundamental units, so defining a quantum of change is not necessarily going to be very hard. (Historical linguistics still relies very heavily on phonological changes, though changes in other aspects of language are of course relevant too.) Predicting expected rates of change, on the other hand, is very difficult, but I think that's due in part to a reluctance to try. And areal features are definitely another complication that needs to be kept in mind throughout all of this.
Not many blocks from my residence is a concrete plaza which stands on the site of a Han village that was built on the site of a village of Austronesians who have long since vanished into the mountains. Or just intermarried with the Han, but no-one seems to mention that.
I guess I was thinking more like: if a phonemic feature starts appearing in one environment, how big of a change is that relative to that feature appearing in a different environment? Can you compare their size if one environment doesn't strictly contain the other? But maybe that's better to think of as a question of rate of change and not what a unit of change is.
This is a good goal, and I hope that we see it start to happen in earnest in our lifetimes.
I guess I was thinking more like: if a phonemic feature starts appearing in one environment, how big of a change is that relative to that feature appearing in a different environment? Can you compare their size if one environment doesn't strictly contain the other? But maybe that's better to think of as a question of rate of change and not what a unit of change is.
All good questions, and all sadly underconsidered in standard historical/comparative linguistics, which has largely been focused on just documenting which changes appear where without much attention to why. (Sociolinguistics has tried to fill this gap to some extent; I particularly like the approach of John Ohala, which tries to bring phonetics in as well.)
Well, the Walloons are currently screwing them out of a trade deal with the EU, but it's that that's not the Canadians' fault. Instead it should be credited to Belgium, probably the world leader in fuckedupness per unit of area.
Give those Belgians a medal! CETA is basically a test run for a do-over of TTIP, which we DO NOT WANT!
