Topic: The last month is among us.. - page 2. (Read 12169 times)

Humans are perfectly capable of taking other views, for a example a more general view, like that of "earth". With such a perspective "waste" would certainly mean something different (the definition might be the same: maybe "something of no use to someone". So for a human, CO2 can be "waste", for the earth it certainly isn't. The "waste" of earth might be the radiation it is dissipating or the odd piece of man-made machinery that manages to leave its orbit.

Some (all?) plants also use oxygen if I'm not mistaken. For example underwater plants at night.

Sorry, I might got it the wrong way around, but the plants makes oxygen for their own sake, not for us.

I have no idea about what bacteria do in plants root, but I think nitrite is oxidized to nitrate. Or maybe nitrogen to nitrite.

Plants produces oxygen for the bacteria living on their roots which convert Nitrate from the soil to Nitrite, which the plant uses. The Oxygen we breathe is leaked from the soil and wasted from the plants perspective. If the plants where more effective we wouldn't be here. So no symbiosis here except that animal waste is beneficial to plants, but they can do fine without us or animals.Decomposing plant matter is fine for the bacteria to feed on.

Learning is cool 

+1

I love this discussion process.  I just went to do a little research to get my facts straight before criticising those who were saying plants metabolise CO₂ only to find my idea of metabolism was erroneous    I had been assuming the releasing of energy through the breakdown of sugars with Oxygen was metabolism whereas photosynthesis, being the creation of sugars from energy and CO₂ was not metabloism.  I discover instead both are metabolic processes, the former being catabolic (desctructive) metabolism and the latter anabolic (creative) metabolism.  Awesome

Many people assume plants only use CO₂ and through photosynthesis turn it into Oxygen whilst we animals respire turning Oxygen back into CO₂.  The point I wanted to make is that plants also respire, that they use the energy of the sun to provide them with the sugars and oxygen they need to respire.  The Oxygen released is that which is surplus to the plant's own requirements.

But reading the comments I'd intended to correct I find there was no such misconception evident there.  That 'plants metabolize CO₂' is, I now understand, correct   Thank you!

I'm sorry, but no, he is not even one iota correct, except by the most abstract approach to viewing the world. One does not just get to play semantic equivocation with definitions for no reason. This is why I asked snidely if he was a plant. As a plant, CarbonDioxide is your fuel, and Oxygen is your waste product. However, unless some things have changed, most plants do not get on the internet and make stupid little posts about coal power and post pretty and inane pictures. We are humans, and we view things from an anthrocentric perspective, and that is how we define things.

Waste has a few common definitions, depending on what is being referred to. Metabollic waste (what humans exhale), Carbon Dioxide. Then there are Waste Products, which are the unusable/unwanted materials produced as the result of a process, such as Carbon Dioxide release from burning of coal. Before anyone jumps in asks me to "prove it, I want facts not opinons", again I tell you to google it. These are not controversial statements, they are generally accepted parts of the English language. Deal with it.

Furthermore, because humans breathe out CO2, and Plants metabolize it, does not mean that everything is fine and dandy, and we can dump as much CO2 into the air as we want, becuase, hey plants love that stuff! There is a finite amount of CO2 that can be put to use by plants at any given time, just as if a million cows were dumped on every block, it's not great because we get to have steak every night.

I'm shocked that people let such juvenile arguments go by unchecked and as though they have some merit. Especially intelligent people like yourself molecular, who I've seen post helpful/useful/smart posts, should be a buffer against the nonsense. Not to put too much pressure on you of course :p

http://serason.com/projects/emccharts/countdown.php

back to the topic of the decade

Maybe the heat given off will be enough to keep some miners going through this winter. The amount saved in heating could help offset the cost of electricity. Whether or not ASIC is a myth, GPUs are coming to an end in the next 6 months.

Maybe "by-product" is the word you're looking for, rather than "waste" ?

At current difficulty and price, with $0.14 electricity I'm still profitable with both my GPU-exclusive rigs @ BTC25/block, though it's marginal. The 2x5970 1x5770 rig draws 630W for 1530MH/s, and my main desktop (which would be on 24/7 @ 90W idle anyway) draws 340W for 720MH/s. I'll probably still shut them off at the reward halving though, it's not worth the noise for $0.40 a day. I'd rather just buy BTC.

He's still correct in saying that calling it "waste" is incorrect. It's "waste" from the view of a fossil-fuel-burning power plant, for a plant, it's a "consumable" (there's probably a better word), it's part of a plants metabolism.

However by that definition: what is a "waste"?

Unless your veins run filled with chlorophyll, I'm not sure that I understand how you are advocating for more carbon dioxide. Humans need something to breathe in, in order to exhale.

fixed

yup, capitalist would be best as stateless

what kind of a definition is that, dude?

now, THAT is a good idea.

Let's make the capitalist country stateless while we're at it.

I don't think we really have a socialist country and a capitalist one.  We have one that cares about people and one that doesn't.  I haven't seen or heard anyone that is actually purposing socialism that is active in federal government (I know there are fringe groups in the US that do actually want socialism).  If people believe that we do, they may not be completely familiar with socialism.

Government programs that help people do not necessarily equate to socialism.  How those programs run would determine whether they are socialist or they are just designed to keep people from being completely down and out.  Programs to help people from being completely down and out actually benefit the capitalist notion because it enables a group of people that didn't have any money to be able to pump money back into the economy, to private businesses.

Now with that said, I do believe the US needs to reform many of their "entitlement programs" to ensure that people who are just to lazy to fill the 3 million empty jobs (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/companies-say-3-million-unfilled-positions-in-skill-crisis-jobs.html) won't just sit and home and collect money for nothing.

But yeah, labeling everything as socialism is easier than actually addressing the issue with reform that is needed while addressing the fact that in a capitalist country there is a legitimate need to help those who are down on their luck so that they can still help fuel the economy instead of doing things like resorting to crime, begging or worse suicide.