Slashdot Mirror

Anyway, I believe you are still somewhat mistaken, but correct me if I'm way off base here. I just read over this to jog my memory a bit. ;) Lightning, if I'm not mistaken, does not require two seperate connections to complete a circuit; instead, a path of ionized air particals provides a path of low resistance for both the positive charge on the ground and the negative charge in the clouds; the electrons that have built up in the clouds (the potential difference stored there, just as in a capacitor) then flow over the path of least resistance to balance the charge differential. In a similar manner, an ionized path (or stream of conducive fibers) between the high-potential negatively-charged weapon and the positively-charged ground would cause the electrons to flow over that path of least resistence, similar to lightning striking the intended victim.

Sounds plausible, but am I way off?

I bet it wouldn't light up, either.

HowStuffWorks has got an interesting article on CART (not F1, but similar) cars at here. It mentions some of the sensing, telemetry, and computing technology used. There's even an explanation of the controls on that crazy steering wheel.

HowStuffWorks has got an interesting article on CART (not F1, but similar) cars at here. It mentions some of the sensing, telemetry, and computing technology used. There's even an explanation of the controls on that crazy steering wheel.

CDs are typically made from a polycarbonate material. These are recycle code 7, "Other". This presumes that the DVDs in question are made with the same substrate as a normal CD.

Recycle codes, if you're interested:
1 -> PETE (Polyethylene terephtalate)
2 -> HDPE (high density polyethylene)
3 -> PVC (polyvinyl chloride)
4 -> LDPE (low density polyethylene)
5 -> PP (polypropylene)
6 -> PS (polystyrene)
7 -> Other

the novel way of reloading on page 3 *g*
(for those that didn't notice, scroll to bottom of page)

Here is the next gen of US military Hardware

You don't use the fridge to cool the CPU.

You use the CPU to drive an ammonia cycle fridge - thus keeping the fridge cool.

You may want to try this minus the mirror.

The majority of current takes the path of least resistance. But, lightning is extremely powerful. It has an amazing amount of voltage so it can make very long jumps - you knew this already. It also has an equally amazing amount of current which lets it do interesting things like burn holes in stuff, and readily ionize air. Ionized air carries electricity more readily which is why your average lightning strike is made up of not just one big strike, but one big strike followed by multiple secondary strikes.

If you really don't want your state to have to build more power plants for a while, campain for LED traffic lights.

I concure with this possability, it may not have been boiling (as per reaching an approx. temp. of 100 degrees C (220 F) but may have appeared to be boiling due to the movement described above.

This is similar to how microwaves work. Also Ionization is not just used for nuclear fusion, quick question for you...

Q: If nothing sticks to teflon, how do they get teflon to stick to the pan?
A: They ionize the pan with a positive (+) charge, and ionize the teflon with a negitive (-) charge and it will stick like the opposing ends of two magnets

"Physics class is now over, please read pages 121-320 by next class"

Although I don't have a link or reference to the article (other than I believe I read it in Reader's Digest), there have been several cases of individuals struck by lightning indoors. One instance that stands out in my mind, was a story of a woman, in a basement who was struck by lightning while washing clothes, and reaching towards a glass block window, where her detergent was sitting.

"Can I get struck by lightning when I'm indoors?"

NWS Lightning Safety: Indoors

-Mikey P

MSNBC on Indies

How-stuff-works on Indies/Payola

The ClearChannel method is even sneakier...ClearChannel owns the concert venues and billboards too. If you want your album played, you'd better use their venues and ad media.

...currently phones work when there's a power outage because the current copper line network always has a mild voltage in it.

They work because the phone company has backup power - batteries and generators. See How Stuff Works.

However, you bring up an interesting point about fiber - unlike copper, you need to provide power for the devices on either end. From the article:

We anticipate that millions of people will use the phone in the same way...

This makes me think that the VOIP network may have copper wiring along the last mile, meaning it's very similar to how most phone companies are set up today. Nothing new to see here.

More on how the telephone network works (fascinating stuff) can be found here.

...currently phones work when there's a power outage because the current copper line network always has a mild voltage in it.

They work because the phone company has backup power - batteries and generators. See How Stuff Works.

However, you bring up an interesting point about fiber - unlike copper, you need to provide power for the devices on either end. From the article:

We anticipate that millions of people will use the phone in the same way...

This makes me think that the VOIP network may have copper wiring along the last mile, meaning it's very similar to how most phone companies are set up today. Nothing new to see here.

More on how the telephone network works (fascinating stuff) can be found here.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question287.htm

According to HSW, the laser changes the reflectivity of the dye layer, which I would think of as being different from changing the color.

Maybe we're both thinking the same thing, but just getting mixed up in the terms.

Hehe, the torque converter is actually quite complicated, once you leave the superficious explanations and delve into the wonderful world of hydrodynamics... :)

So, I would give as much credit to Föttinger (the torque converter guy) as to all the other great automotive inventors.

Howstuffworks article How Counterfeiting Works

I game on both the PC and on a PS2 and I can tell you that the PC is definitely far superior graphics wise right now. Consoles have some big limitations:

1) Consoles still tend to be limited by low-resolution TVs. XBox supports HDTV, but I haven't seen how good it is. Considering the cost of a decent HDTV system + speakers, you can definitely spend more on a high-end console setup than a high end PC setup.

2) Consoles always get a couple of generations behind in video cards. I regularly play Madden 2004 on my PC with a Radeon 9800. When I played in on a PS2 a couple of weekends ago it looked like crap in comparison.

3) Due to cost, consoles are limited in how much RAM is in them. A PS2 has only 32MB of RAM. An XBox has 64 MB This definitely limits things like the size of textures and the size of levels in a game.

That said, I love consoles for their ease of use, variety of games, and their quick play ability. Also, like popcorn movies, sometimes you just want to play something mindless and fun. Consoles are also alot better for groups of people.

Brian

I game on both the PC and on a PS2 and I can tell you that the PC is definitely far superior graphics wise right now. Consoles have some big limitations:

1) Consoles still tend to be limited by low-resolution TVs. XBox supports HDTV, but I haven't seen how good it is. Considering the cost of a decent HDTV system + speakers, you can definitely spend more on a high-end console setup than a high end PC setup.

2) Consoles always get a couple of generations behind in video cards. I regularly play Madden 2004 on my PC with a Radeon 9800. When I played in on a PS2 a couple of weekends ago it looked like crap in comparison.

3) Due to cost, consoles are limited in how much RAM is in them. A PS2 has only 32MB of RAM. An XBox has 64 MB This definitely limits things like the size of textures and the size of levels in a game.

That said, I love consoles for their ease of use, variety of games, and their quick play ability. Also, like popcorn movies, sometimes you just want to play something mindless and fun. Consoles are also alot better for groups of people.

Brian

We've already built several, they were called the Keyhole satellites.

It is likely that before they accomplish that, the commercial industry will catch up and have a 4-man orbital vehicle by the end of this decade.

That's great if so, I'm all for it. But I think you're underestimating the engineering difficulties involved.

SS1 is a great little craft and a tremendous technical achievement, but it is not even close to being an orbital vehicle. They are achieving a great part of the height necessary, but very little of the horizontal velocity. Orbital velocity is "[...] approximately 17,000 mph (27,359 kph) at an altitude of 150 miles (242 km)." What's more, the lower you are, the the faster you have to go.

The added power and heat dissipation involved are not exactly trivial problems. Space really is hard.

(On the bright side, it seems to me that people stopped laughing about the idea of a space elevator about two or three years ago. So maybe in 48 years, we'll be able to ride up the slow and easy way.)

This would heavily depend on how the network is wired. Ethernet LANs have problems under heavy load, so if sections of the network are becoming saturated, a broader pipe is necessary. This is because ethernet uses sensing and collisions rather than tokens which work exactly the opposite (bad under light load, good under heavy).

Strangely, though, this doesn't seem to be the case. The Netgear converter typically is connected to a switch, so collisions would be unlikely. Since each user is required to buy one, shared bandwidth isn't the problem. If this were up to me, I'd buy one switch per dorm and buy a much cheaper hub to split to machines and other devices. Unless students are running 3 or 4 (or more, depending on compression) HD-TV quality video streams, they're not going to come close to saturating the bandwidth.

Perhaps not in the same sense as IC engines, but they do have a maximum efficiency (usually in the low torque range). And hybrids do have transmissions, though the Prius has a very unique transmission.

Perhaps not in the same sense as IC engines, but they do have a maximum efficiency (usually in the low torque range). And hybrids do have transmissions, though the Prius has a very unique transmission.

But the interesting thing about Open Source is not it's freedom in the sense of money, but in the sense of freedom to use the application or code as you wish. This allows programmers to quickly create applications that suit their needs.

But the interesting thing about Open Source is not it's freedom in the sense of money, but in the sense of freedom to use the application or code as you wish. This allows programmers to quickly create applications that suit their needs.

But the interesting thing about Open Source is not it's freedom in the sense of money, but in the sense of freedom to use the application or code as you wish. This allows programmers to quickly create applications that suit their needs.

But the interesting thing about Open Source is not it's freedom in the sense of money, but in the sense of freedom to use the application or code as you wish. This allows programmers to quickly create applications that suit their needs.

Not quite. It depends on what type of night vision goggle it is but in general I would say they use image enhancing night vission goggles as these are probably the least expensive.

What would be fun, in a weird and cruel way, is to take a very very bright light source to the movie with you and see how many ushers you can blind.

BIG BIG sticking point - SALARIED Musicians. The only salaried musicians I've known perform in orchestras or teach professionally. Most band-type musicians I know are paid by the gig, including house bands (e.g. wage). Actually, I've never known a rock or hip-hop musician/singer/rapper that earns a salary.

I've said it before, but fees against artists from record companies require a huge volume of album sales to make the artist money. Every expense is skimmed off the top of artist salaries, including the $75000-100000 required to pay independent promoters to play an album on the airwaves.

There are a collection of articles on How Stuff Works that explains how performing artists get screwed.

Read about royalties.
The "Who Gets What" section has a great quote -
"If we're not songwriters, and not hugely successful commercially (as in platinum-plus), we [recording artists] don't make a dime off our recordings." - Janis Ian

Here's one on Recording contracts

Best of all Top 40 radio - especially see the section on Independent Promoters and Radio play. I sure wish I'd learned all that from How Stuff Works, rather than the school of hard knocks.

BIG BIG sticking point - SALARIED Musicians. The only salaried musicians I've known perform in orchestras or teach professionally. Most band-type musicians I know are paid by the gig, including house bands (e.g. wage). Actually, I've never known a rock or hip-hop musician/singer/rapper that earns a salary.

I've said it before, but fees against artists from record companies require a huge volume of album sales to make the artist money. Every expense is skimmed off the top of artist salaries, including the $75000-100000 required to pay independent promoters to play an album on the airwaves.

There are a collection of articles on How Stuff Works that explains how performing artists get screwed.

Read about royalties.
The "Who Gets What" section has a great quote -
"If we're not songwriters, and not hugely successful commercially (as in platinum-plus), we [recording artists] don't make a dime off our recordings." - Janis Ian

Here's one on Recording contracts

Best of all Top 40 radio - especially see the section on Independent Promoters and Radio play. I sure wish I'd learned all that from How Stuff Works, rather than the school of hard knocks.

BIG BIG sticking point - SALARIED Musicians. The only salaried musicians I've known perform in orchestras or teach professionally. Most band-type musicians I know are paid by the gig, including house bands (e.g. wage). Actually, I've never known a rock or hip-hop musician/singer/rapper that earns a salary.

I've said it before, but fees against artists from record companies require a huge volume of album sales to make the artist money. Every expense is skimmed off the top of artist salaries, including the $75000-100000 required to pay independent promoters to play an album on the airwaves.

There are a collection of articles on How Stuff Works that explains how performing artists get screwed.

Read about royalties.
The "Who Gets What" section has a great quote -
"If we're not songwriters, and not hugely successful commercially (as in platinum-plus), we [recording artists] don't make a dime off our recordings." - Janis Ian

Here's one on Recording contracts

Best of all Top 40 radio - especially see the section on Independent Promoters and Radio play. I sure wish I'd learned all that from How Stuff Works, rather than the school of hard knocks.

If you're 6 feet tall and we use the long dimension of the image (240k pixels), that's 7.62 microns per pixel. A typical cell is 10 microns, so we've got a pretty detailed picture of you.

But you're not buying it. You're paying for the right to have a copy of it to listen to - and not make copies of it.

Read here

and here

Don't get me wrong... I think some major reforms are needed in the music industry. I'd rather pay my money directly to the band if I have to pay for the music I listen to.

And for a more detailed look at how batteries work, check How Stuff Works

This is what happens when you ask for a concept car from an automotive engineer who has bever been out of Tokyo except on a bullet train.

This concept only has utility in a huge metropolitan area as a commuter car. In case you haven't noticed, much of the U.S. is not covered by city blocks.

I can't decide if the problem here is the Toyota P.R. department or the mass media. Every time a "cool" concept car is introduced as "The Future of Automobiles" we see that the "future" is only for a certain segment of the population (e.g., worker drones in large metro areas) or addresses a specific subset of transportation issues (e.g., efficiently transporting worker drones who deny their droneness by refusing to use mass transit).

If we really want to solve the majority of our transportation problems while still allowing for the flexibility to function in different transportation modes (commuting, long haul, recreation, etc.), then we need to get serious about removing the human from the loop. Imagine your commute or vacation driving if all vehicles were under computer control on the highways. (Wags/scoffers, insert your jokes/objections about the "Blue Highway of Death" here.) Think Hy-wire and packet routing. Now, that would be a real future of transportation.

This only works if your cell phone is not a CDMA phone (which works at a frequency range of 1850-1990 MHz).

Here's a cool page that talks a bit more about the subject.

There is actually another way scientists have found to use algae to produce hydrogen and oxygen.
Since the algae can survive as something as small as a single cell, it can thrive on simply sunlight and water algae def . When photosynthesis occurs the algae uses sunlight energy to break down the water into hydrogen and oxygen. The Hydrogen and Oxygen can then be captured and used to create fuel cells... When H and O are combined back together inside the fuel cell it creates water and a significant amount of energy how fuel cells work

i think this is a much better alternative than just burning up another resource.. why not just RE USE it.

... fast forward to 2006, that's where they phase out analog broadcasts and the evil plot finally unfolds!

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

An always relevant speech, especially considering that over half of US casualties have come from a weapon that was perfected in the same year that that famous speech was given. I wish the technologists all the best, but in 10 years a uniform will still do what it does now, provide an easily identifiable target.

Exactly what I though when I looked at this sight! The gif of the guy with a wrench coming out of his skull was the most informative element on the page. It depicts what the fate of the drivers of this death machine.

Site's slashdotted all to hell.

This text yanked from the printable version of the article (which I suggest /. editor's link to next time for sites that have loads of small pages). Printable version link: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/toyota-pm.htm/printa ble. This particular printable version is unique in that includes pictures, so it would still be slashdotted, but still, the point is sound. :)

---
How the Toyota PM Concept Car Works
by Kevin Bonsor

The Toyota Personal Mobility (PM) concept car

With the unveiling of the Personal Mobility (PM) concept car at the Toyota Motor Show in October 2003, Toyota's designers shared a new vision of personalized travel. Rather than simply rolling out a futuristic vehicle, Toyota unveiled a plan for changing how we travel in our individual vehicles.

Since the advent of the automobile, the car model someone chooses has reflected something about his or her personality. The average American driver spends one hour and 41 minutes in their cars each day, almost more than any other daily activity, according to research from the University of California at Berkeley. Toyota recognizes that fact and has designed the PM to create an entirely new vehicular modality in which people are not isolated by their vehicles, but rather are joined together in a mobile community.

In this article, we'll profile the PM's design, power, and unique features. We'll also take a peek at some other Toyota concept cars.

Room For One
The Toyota PM doesn't resemble the traditional definition of a car. It lacks side doors and accommodates just a single passenger. This single-passenger cockpit design more resembles a flightless helicopter on wheels than a car. Rather than stepping into a side door, passengers enter through a front hatch, which raises and lowers using hydraulic-lift bars. This front hatch also doubles as the vehicle's windshield.

This single-passenger cockpit design resembles a flightless helicopter.

The hydraulic door lifts and the vehicle's seat slides forward to ease the driver's entry or exit.

As the vehicle moves, the wheelbase lengthens to allow the cabin encapsulating the cockpit to recline. The driver shifts from an upright position to a tilted position.

When exiting or entering the vehicle, the hydraulic door lifts and the vehicle's seat slides forward to ease the driver's entry or exit. Once you're seated, or when the door shuts, the seat slides back into the body of the vehicle and is positioned for travel.

Other innovations in the PM design include hollow-center wheels and see-through shaftless construction. Each wheel is independent of the other three, which gives the vehicle unique steering ability.

PM Dimensions
Length: 5.74-8.69 feet (1.75-2.650 m), depending on position of cabin
Width: 4.81 feet (1.47 m)
Height: 3.99-6.09 feet (1.22-1.86 m)
Wheelbase: 3.61-6.56 feet (1.10-2.00 m), depending on position
Minimum turning radius: 3.94 feet (1.2 m), in entry/exit mode

In the next section, we'll look at the PM's handling ability.

Power and Handling
There is no hood on the PM that you can open to get a look at the engine. For one reason, there's no engine. A rear-mounted DC brushless electric motor powers the PM. Toyota hasn't disclosed details about the vehicle's top speed or battery life. The PM is keyless, and a push-button similar to that on a PC starts the motor.

The body arrangement of the PM is not static. The wheelbase can lengthen to allow the cabin to recline depending on the vehicle's mode of operation. The cabin is isolated from the wheels, allowing the PM to vary its posture according to speed or for easy entry/exit. There are three modes of operation, including:

Entry/Exit mode - At rest, the cabin is upright and its length is minimized. Because the wheels are independent of one another, the PM can

Well they have to generate revenue somehow - better they advertise by making it into a "how to", rather than blatently advertising for Toyota or whoever using pop-ups or another equally annoying ad method, right? I'd agree that the subject could be a little more general - then they could cash in on advertising dollars from every company that makes these types of things... And I have to say, advertising in this manner works sometimes too - I'm not one to buy crap I don't need based on an ad, but I REALLY want one of these after reading the "HowStuffWorks" specs on it...:)

Perhaps they didn't reference their own How Web Servers Work.

Slashdotted: when demand exceeds supply

In addition to seating only one person and having its hubless wheels driven by electric motors, it incorporates wireless networking so that drivers could surrender control to another human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives them to work. And it reclines!

And what else seats only one person, reclines, and is driven by someone else? Why, you guessed it... it's the new joint venture between Toyota and Apple... the iStroller.

Alessandro Volta concept hybrid (rumored to be the basis for the next Supra)? I'll take mine in red, thanks :)

Uh, yes.

From the link: "Each of these 3,000- to 4,000-pound solar-powered satellites circles the globe at about 12,000 miles (19,300 km), making two complete rotations every day. The orbits are arranged so that at any time, anywhere on Earth, there are at least four satellites "visible" in the sky."

it's like V-TECH

Like the phone manufacturer? Or did you mean VTEC (Variable valve Timing and lift Electronic Control)?