Slashdot Mirror

"Starting" an EV is actually bringing all the systems up, waking up the onboard computers, usually performing some self diagnostics (mostly of the lithium battery), re-engaging some systems (is several cars, reportedly in Teslas too, the lithium battery can be shut off for safety and isolation, the computer runs out of secondary lead battery) (The power inverter running the motor is similarly shut off in most cars), and unlock a few stuff (steering lock).
It's closer to what your laptop performs when brought out of suspend mode, than what an ICE does when starting.

i.e.: "Starting" is make the car ready to drive.

But unlike an ICE vehicle, the motor doesn't start to purr constantly. The electrical motor will only start turning if you press the accelerator pedal.

Though it's extremely fast on most cars (a couple of seconds of self-diagnostic), some manufacturers like Tesla might already do as you approach the car, so you can simply enter and hit the accelerator.

Also regarding the question about clutch, there's no physical clutch in an EV: the motor is connected to the differential with a fixed ratio.

On most cars, there's still a "gear selector"-like lever with Reverse/Neutral/Forward position similar to automatic cars.
But this actually isn't controlling any physical device, it's electronically defining the behavior of the vehicle.
(e.g.: which direction the motors spins when the accelerator pedal is pushed).

Also, because electic motors only use fixed gear ratio and go in reverse by spinning the motor the otherway around, it means that nothing will physically limit the speed of the car in *reverse* the motor could spin as fast forward as backward.
(Unlike an ICE, where the motor constantly spins in a single direction, and only has 1 single gear going in reverse. You can't shift to a "2nd gear reverse" to go any faster, unlike when going forward with 5 or 6 gears).

Fonts have ceased to be a bottle neck about a twenty years ago.

Mozilla needs more work on rendering performance. Rendering SVGs is slower than on Internet Explorer 11 in many cases, and in general about four times slower than on Chrome. In one extreme test case it is even about ten times slower than Chrome ( https://testdrive-archive.azur... ), but luckily that is not a typical example.

The problem with fixing this is that it is really hard work and this kind of work is not really valued. And that is where Open Source does not work too well. Why should people work their ass off if work is not really recognized? At Google engineers are at least paid well, so it's much easier to find people who are willing to do the hard work. Just look at the team size for Google's Slimming Paint project: https://www.chromium.org/blink...

Yeah, sorry, but variable fonts won't win you too many users I suspect.

Just run the following performance test on Firefox and Chrome. On my machine it runs ten times faster on Chrome. Hell, even Internet Explorer is almost ten times faster than Firefox on this test.

https://testdrive-archive.azur...

This may be a special case, but working with SVG I can tell you that filtering and masking is considerably slower in Firefox than in Chrome.Oh, and that so called "hardware acceleration" is often enough a decelleration. Setting the number of maximum processes from 4 to 1 sometimes helps improving performance, which again is a bit funny.

No matter how ofter people repeat that Firefox is as fast as Chrome, it's just not true, yet. Firefox has made great progress, but the Mozilla team still has quite a bit to do.

"DICE's Rendering Architect Johan Andersson has warned that some of his company's 2013 games using the Frostbite engine will need the extra bits as a matter of course. The developer points to memory as the main culprit, as going 64-bit guarantees full access to 4GB or more of RAM as well as better virtual addressing of VRAM" FROM http://hardcore-games.azureweb...

The LATTER point being quite interesting & 1 I wasn't aware of it until I posted it to others here earlier...

* There IS also the fact you don't have to marshall/summon the WoW emulation for 32-bit libs either (not as big as the VRAM part I noticed in the quote above though) so, that's less overheads in & of itself also...

APK

P.S.=> That page shows a few more, but that one stuck out as a fairly "BIG" benefit... apk

I found answers to it here also http://hardcore-games.azureweb... - to wit:

"DICE's Rendering Architect Johan Andersson has warned that some of his company's 2013 games using the Frostbite engine will need the extra bits as a matter of course. The developer points to memory as the main culprit, as going 64-bit guarantees full access to 4GB or more of RAM as well as better virtual addressing of VRAM"

* Oddly enough, from a DICE person (assuming it's the SAME 'dice' that owns /. now perhaps? Or is it some game company called "DICE" also?? I don't know, found THAT odd though!)

APK

P.S.=> There's more points there that make sense too, so enjoy the read... apk

THIS *may* have answered it for me though http://hardcore-games.azureweb... since SOME of those, I actually liked (Wolfenstein one for example).

(See subject, & again - thanks!)

APK

P.S.=> Been wondering it for a while now - & your points ARE ones I will "look out for" etc. if/when I get into some of those in that link & what you mention too (not into World of Warcraft here though)... apk

On a somewhat unrelated note, if you are one of those people doing Python or C++ (and especially Python and C++ together) for number crunching etc, or if you know some of these guys, can you please spare two minutes of your time on this survey?

...especially since you could build one of these instead. and actually fly it for real.

If you're not yet a pilot, then build the RV-12 light sport model and get your light sport pilot certificate in only 25 hours of flight training.

Wanna do something to help encourage (high school age) kids in the field of aviation technology? Start an Eagles Nest Project where a mentor organizes an RV-12 building project with a high school, and the kids involved actually get to build the plane from a kit, and get some free flight instruction too.

http://clickanddrag.azurewebsites.net/

Yeah, the GoogleMaps version really sucks for some reason. Try this one instead.

Note that is privately hosted, and since a Slashdotting is likely to turn his suspicions about hosting costs into reality you might want to consider a donation, or at least a like to help him with the Facebook "Like" for the image linked from the page.