Hope you have a great time and I'll steer clear of the noses out of joint bit :P
Break from CS was good (had gotten frustrating there for a bit) but it's nice to get the warm welcome - going to try to be a bit more forward and outgoing this time around.
Lovely to be back in Galway with the beautiful weather at the moment, Houthouse Flowers last night for the race festival were great. What's everyone up to for the bank holiday weeekend?
As much as you would like redemption, you've caused a lot of hurt (that you're aware of) and trying to find a way back just causes more hurt. It's time to leave it alone and you may be forgiven. It's not about her giving you a second chance though, you might chose to take some time for self-reflection. Dropping you a private mail.
Apparently CS keeps your profile even if you cancel so I'm back with my old name. I must be mad but here I am again - hopefully back in Galway for awhile after my extended travel to Beirut. Maybe the bright and cheerful weather of Galway will tempt the lassies out for coffees and lazy lunches?
Rejection hurts and can result in bitterness but when you've been mannerly I guess it's hard to take someone responding like that. Don't let it worry you anyway.
Could be worth trying some of the natural remedies and foods that are said to boost serotonin levels - could have a similar effect. Not sure, I've seen them mentioned on some of the holisitic medicine blogs I read now and again. St John's Wort comes to mind but a quick Google suggests it requires a prescription here in Ireland. Some people also swear by Melatonin (produced in the body anyway and usually available at health stores).
I saw a program on Channel 4 a good while back about people with various sleep problems and some of them were prescribed Prozac (or similar SSRI) in quite a low dosage even though they weren't diagnosed as depressed. The results were very, very positive from what I saw in the program
Mary Rose is a very cool person - I saw the conversation on Twitter where she was looking for a graphic designer to do the blog and was chatting to Gordon about the other bits. There are some very clever and helpful people in Ireland and efforts like this show the benefit of a connected society!
I'm wondering how you could efficiently drive such a system and still pump water out of the rayburns boiler. Not sure where an offshoot system containing the engine could go. Might just have to sleep on it for a bit (he says optimistically)
Are you looking to replace the boiler in the rayburn with the expansion cylinder part of the Stirling engine and capture the output that way rather than with the typical hot water-pump-cylinder configuration?
Uranium mining has a high environmental impact because it's mainly open-pit mining which means you have a lot of waste that you're digging up and need to get rid of - but which often has higher levels of radioactivity and radon than you want to be dispersing. You also have the issue of airborne dust from the mine. Finally tearing up a lot of land isn't exactly appealing to the eye. Another method; leaching involves toxic chemicals, typically various acids so you have the risk of groundwater contamination in this process. By contrast fusion might use hydrogen (or helium) which is abundant and produces non-radioactive 'waste' in the form of heavier elements (e.g. hydrogen as a fuel will produce helium as a by-product). There is some (neutron) radiation associated with fusion so the materials containing the reaction may become radioactive and eventually need to be disposed of but this is a much, much reduced issue compared to fission because you have many more options with the materials and so can minimise the effect.
I was thinking along the lines of it being treated as a national priority and pushing encouraging people into working in the area perhaps giving rise to an exportable commodity in terms of the energy itself or better yet the know-how.
The main attraction of fusion is that it doesn't have the same toxic waste that a fission reactor like Chernobyl (or any of the reactors in operation worldwide today) does. You also don't have the same mining that say uranium requires which adds the advantage that you're not damaging the Earth as much.
I saw a clip on CNET awhile back of people testing out devices in Galway Bay to generate power from waves 'twas very cool. As you say with all the wind in those parts we could harvest a lot of power. Ireland is well positioned to research lots of alternative energy sources but I don't think the backing in terms of funded research is there which is a shame because we seem to have lots of people interested in engineering who would be great candidates for getting involved.
ciotog Forum Posts (530)
Hallo Again
Hope you have a great time and I'll steer clear of the noses out of joint bit :PBreak from CS was good (had gotten frustrating there for a bit) but it's nice to get the warm welcome - going to try to be a bit more forward and outgoing this time around.