That's the electric cars sorted

[ARWadsworth]

But before you did that would you have practice run of the machine and transport yourself into Kylie Minongue's knicker drawer?

[Dave Liquorice]

I was going to say get a more effcient car, my 30mpg on diesel only costs 18p/mile for fuel. Then I checked how my spreadsheet works that out, 18p/mile over mean over 3.34 years. For most of the first year of that diesel was below 100p/l... I shall have to adjust my spread sheet to present a more realistic/current figure, thanks.

Still 27.4mpg urban (@145p/l) isn't very good.

[Dave Liquorice]

Summat wrong with your disco... 29.2 long term average for my DII TD5, it was up at 29.5 but it's not been very happy recently with blown injector seal, knackerd fuel pump, broken injector and a duff ECU. Best was 32.8mpg but that was when me Dad died and I did a couple of 600 mile round trips on motorway @ about 62mph for nearly all of those 1200 miles.

Over 500 miles on the current tankfull and it's only down to 3/4 that should be about 450 miles not 500.

[Man at B&Q]

What happens when the local kids discover the fun they can have with shorting turns?

Probably more fun than the old penny on the tram rail.

MBQ

[js.b1]

Oil

- =A3850 Billion oil off Falklands.

- Quite possibly a substantial amount of oil still (a long way) North West of Scotland.

- The problem with oil is deep drilling, the shallow stuff is getting rather crowded. Very likely to be a considerable amount of oil as you go much further North (Arctic).

Gas

- Potential for very large quantity of shale gas in UK (and plenty 2.2 quakes).

- Political high gas prices are popular because they make UK exploration more viable.

I believe Cameron recently announced making it easier to build gas power stations, that tends to suggest the results for shale fracking have been good and the quantities / recovery appear to make it viable. Either that or he is Blair-II in with Gazprom and their Russian Assistants in London.

It is not about energy, it is about taxation. That said the USA recovery will fail if oil price goes north of 150$.

[whisky-dave]

I thought everyone was transprted to or from the transporter room where they were stored in the transporter buffer and 'sorted' by the heisenberg compensator and then if needed redirected using site to site transport to places like the sick bay or bridge.

[John Williamson]

It depended on whether they needed to take the time occupied by the walk to explain the plot to the viewer. ;-)

[mick]

It's not the same as the "standard" micro USB on my USB HDD, the PICkit 2 programmer or my USB multi-card reader. Those all use a "thicker" plug than the Kindle. I like standards. :-P

My Samsung Android phone uses the same plug as the Kindle, but I'm not going to experiment with the chargers.

[grimly4]

One of the many logical inconsistencies in Star Trek and other series.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not at all. The transporter kit was very bulky and heavy and transporting TO the flight deck was considered too much an energy drain for little gain, and the chance of disrupting the warp drive too great .

Maybe :-)

[Andy Burns]

They sound like miniUSB, not microUSB

[ARWadsworth]

Or look at some of the actors breasts..

[dennis]

That's probably a mini USB, somewhat larger than the micro USB.

I use my samsung charger to do kindles so its fine. Its just 5V DC the same as any USB.

[dennis]

Have you ever tried to transmit ~10^^24 joules of energy through the ships bulkheads?

[Mathew Newton]

It sounds like you're getting your micros mixed up with your minis! ;-)

You should; it'll work.

Mathew

[grimly4]

The one thing most SF stories have in common is an apparently unlimited source of cheap energy - so cheap as to be almost (or in fact) free. That's a crucial stumbling block for us - until we reach that stage we're doomed to sink back into the ooze.

[Tim Watts]

Well, Star Trek has warp reactors - and everyone is motivated by bettering themselves so money is not required.

Guess they must have had a huge bonfire with all the hippies and managers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well theres a lot of free energy about a hell of a lot. Problem is getting ones jhands on ity.

Theoretically a kilogram of matter* would probably power the whole world for a year.

If we could turn it into energy.

One assumes these SF chappies have discovered such...

*very handwavey guess. E=mC^2 so those with nothing better to do can calculate how many peta watt hours there is an a kilogram of bullshit etc.

[Tim Streater]

One kilogram of bullshit = one harry.

[Alan Braggins]

We can. That's where the energy of fission comes from :-)

I know, a Star Trek anti-matter reactor turning mass _all_ into usable energy is different.)