Interesting Links for 29-10-2011

[andrewducker]

• Women and Catholics gain equal rights! (when it comes to inheriting the throne)
  (tags: royalty uk equality )
• Steam 2011 Halloween Sale - has Borderlands for a fiver!
  (tags: ComputerGames steam sale )
• Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression - funny and grim at the same time!
  (tags: depression funny webcomic )
• Highly efficient oxygen catalyst

Comments

[bart_calendar]

What's interesting in the new succession rules is that princes are now allowed to marry Catholics, however if their son or daughter is raised Catholic by their spouse then that son or daughter is immediately taken out of the line of succession.

[andrewducker]

Ooh - I haven't seen the rules themselves. Got a link?

[bart_calendar]

It's here. The reason that you get knocked out of line if you are raised Catholic is that if you become King or Queen you are automatically the head of the Church of England.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/28/world/europe/royal-succession-qa/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

[andrewducker]

Interesting, thanks!

[drdoug]

Without the time to look properly, that oxygen catalyst might be helpful but isn't going to be transformative of the energetics, and hence the economics. Catalysts lower the activation energy of a reaction, but not the energy difference between the starting and end products. So the best catalyst possible isn't going to make the water-splitting reaction anything but hard work in energy terms.

I had this argument with a physics student once back when I was a chemist. He thought if he could only fInd a way of splitting water easily, he'd have a great free source of energy, because you get a helluva a lot out when you burn hydrogen in oxygen. Not sure if I ever convinced him that splitting them apart again must take exactly te same amount of energy, at the absolute theoretical minimum if you had no inefficiency whatsoever.

Damn!

[lsanderson]

You mean my perpetual motion machine ain't gonna work?

[andrewducker]

I know that this is never going to be an energy production method - but one of the things we desperately lack is efficient large-scale energy storage. If wind turbines could store their energy locally with good efficiency and release it when necessary then they become much more effective and we need less base load generation.

[danieldwilliam]

Hear hear.

[bracknellexile]

The Steam sale also has Amnesia for £2.60 - highly recommended :)

[octopoid_horror]

Amnesia was TOO CREEPY for me, and the teeth grinding noise really, if you'll pardon the expression, set my teeth on edge. I guess being too creepy is a reccomendation?

[nancylebov]

Thanks for the pilot in the thunderstorm link. For no obvious reason, it made my morning.

I'm almost surprised that modern people aren't doing this for fun in specialized gear.

[andrewducker]

That's a damn good question. You'd think _someone_ would have done it.

[theweaselking]

Borderlands GOTY, with all the DLC, is only $2.50 more.

[octopoid_horror]

And for anyone tempted, the GOTY edition is definitely worth getting. The DLC gives something to do after the endgame/before a second playthrough and some of it is really good.