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FreeCAD, QCAD, ARESCommander... ...oh you mean professional tools with the features people need.

Aside from AutoCAD the CAD, CAM, CAE offerings are pretty thin for the Mac and really when you have great tools that work already who really gives a shit what operating system they're running on underneath.

You mean like Siemens NX:

https://www.tatatechnologies.c...

https://community.plm.automati...

Or VectorWorks (which beats the PANTS off of AutoCAD!) :

http://www.vectorworks.net/en/... ...and, as for PCB/Schematic Capture, now that EaglePCB is owned by AutoDesk, I guess it is "legit", too:

https://www.autodesk.com/produ... ...and although their website looks like a 8 year-old designed it, the venerable McCAD is still kicking around, and is actually QUITE nice. It's Autorouter, for example, is second-to-none:

http://www.mccad.com/ ..and there is also the Open Source XCircuit, which I know nothing about:

http://opencircuitdesign.com/x...

I wonder if Tesla has failed to use variation simulation tools?

There is no need for precision 10 times greater than other car companies. That is just wasteful! They need to find out WHERE the precision is needed, and HOW MUCH precision is needed. Blindly improving precision "10 times" is ridiculous.

I worked on variation simulation technology in the 1980s. This is the current version of the product I worked on:

https://www.plm.automation.sie...

Hopefully, Tesla is using this or something similar.

I originally ported this code from code written by a university professor at Wayne Statue University in Detroit, and then designed a domain-specific language and implemented a compiler for it, to make models easier to write. (Probably the most important thing I did, though, was to strong-arm my boss into hiring a mathematician to help clean up what was some pretty awful and buggy statistical and geometric-transform code...) The product has changed hands a couple of times since then, before landing at it's current home at Siemens.

The original company that developed this (where I worked) both created the product, and worked with the Detroit automakers on several breakthrough projects that address just where Tesla should be applying this.

For example, the 1984 Corvette C4 was the first car out of Detroit to use BOLT HOLES instead of slots in hood hinges. This was made practical with VSA analysis.

There was a big push for lowered emissions at the time - VSA allowed auto companies to model variability between engines, and predict what percentage would be rejected with a given design.

An important re-design of the FA-18 used VSA modeling extensively, and solved many manufacturing problems with the airframe.

I recall MANY door clearance and other similar fit-and-finish projects.

You could not build today's disk drives at a practical cost without VSA. Every drive manufacturer uses it.

Before VSA, it was largely guesswork. Once you get past a liner stack, it is nearly impossible to work-out by hand. There was some prior use, during WWII. One of the first - if not the first - uses of VSA was in WWII when the technique was developed at Willow Run Labs to solve manufacturability problems with planes being built for WWII. It was done crudely, with a room full of workers on manual calculators...

Professor Greg Gruska at Wayne State dusted off the mothballs in the early 1980s, and wrote some Fortran code to implement it on their mainframe (the code I had to port to IBM PC...) and taught a class in variation simulation analysis. I was the first technical employee at the company that commercialized it.

I believe there was some parallel work in Japan at the time, and there are a couple of competing products.

Did Tesla somehow miss this important analysis technique?

Siemens have built a pilot of the overhead catenary in Carson, California. They're building another just south of Frankfurt in Germany.

From the picture it looks like the overhead version will only work with trucks, but the rails embedded in tarmac version will work most vehicles.

You do realize that you're linking to someone's blog, not an established news source? And that the author literally cites scientists that "poisoning from scavenging carcasses tainted by lead ammunition is likely responsible for many of the [bird] deaths", before wondering why "nobody" is concerned about windmills.

Well, here's the reason: As has been established repeatedly, the number of birds killed by windmills (on the order of half a million a year in the entire US) is completely dwarfed by, say, the number of birds killed by windows (on the order of one billion ), not to mention cars and cats.

That's not to say that people are not concerned with birds killed by wind mills, too. (And bats, porpoises and other animals.) The problem is fortunately entirely manageable by choosing appropriate locations for wind farms and other precautions. In particular, the construction (like all big construction) is a much bigger environmental issue than the actual operation of the windmills. E.g. here's Siemens Wind Power describing a solution to minimize noise pollution for endangered porpoise populations and other marine life during construction of off-shore wind farms.

(Then there's that other growing threat to birds: Climate change. Which is why the Massachusetts Audubon Society supported the Cape Wind project.)

Yes, but ... I think 3D printing is likely to always be a half century behind current manufacturing technology. For example, when last I checked, 3D printing couldn't do more than the most basic semiconductor. Will they get better?

I am tempted to ask what cave you have been in :-)

See https://www.siemens.com/innova...

Siemens has achieved a breakthrough in the 3D printing of gas turbine blades. For the first time, a team of experts has full-load tested gas turbine blades that were entirely produced using additive manufacturing.

I am designing for the https://markforged.com/ now, using embedded graphite composites. For some applications, they are already better than traditional manufacturing, especially in the economics for scaling to production.

Line of sight distance depends on the height of both the object as well as the observer. 90 MW capacity / 15 turbines = they're using 4 MW capacity turbines. Those have a rotor diameter of 130 meters (about 430 feet). Add in, say, 10 meters for the base, and that gives a line of sight distance to the horizon of 42.2 km (about 26 miles). A person standing on the beach with eyes 5 ft off the ground has a line of sight distance of 2.7 miles. So the top of the rotors would be visible from the beach at 26 + 2.7 = 29 miles away.

If the person is looking out the second story window of their beach house 20 ft up, that adds 5.5 miles, for a rotor tip visibility range of 31 miles away. If you're standing on a 100 ft high bluff, that gives 12.2 mile LoS. You'd be able to see something 210 feet high at 30 miles away. Basically the top half of the turbine.

Oh, and if you had looked at the comment-thread to that Article, you would have seen that there ARE plans to support NX on Sierra.

But you CONVENIENTLY left that out.

So - a couple of schematic capture programs where you can't even find a job or listing wanting the ability to use it (compared to tens of thousands for Altium, OrCAD and PADS). And for CAD/CAM - NX is not supported on the latest version of OSX. Sorry!

The fact is that Apple systems are designed on Windows - because the tools simply do not exist to do otherwise. And that's from working inside Apple...

Oh, knock it off!

I didn't say that it was easy doing embedded design work on Macs; just that it was "getting easier".

And Sierra just came out. Siemens is slow. They're still talking about El Capitan. But I am positive they will get there soon.

Apple systems are designed on a mix of several platforms, and likely always will be. FFS, they even have iPads running custom software sprinkled throughout their in-house testing labs as machine controllers and stuff.

But you just keep on movin' those goalposts...

So - a couple of schematic capture programs where you can't even find a job or listing wanting the ability to use it (compared to tens of thousands for Altium, OrCAD and PADS). And for CAD/CAM - NX is not supported on the latest version of OSX. Sorry!

The fact is that Apple systems are designed on Windows - because the tools simply do not exist to do otherwise. And that's from working inside Apple...

Go to page 5:

http://www.energy.siemens.com/...

Not incorrect, you are simply not informed.

First of all: that turbines have no gearbox.

Secondly: they wind speed when they stop is high, indeed.

So, it is a GE wind turbine and GE is traditionally a bit thin on giving out specs.
So what we can intelligently guess is:
cut in wind speed: about 3 - 3.5 m/s
rated wind speed for 6MW power production: about 10 - 11 m/s
cut of wind speed: exceeding 25 m/s average over a span of more than 10 minutes
emergency cut off wind speed: 75 m/s

So: at wind speeds of 24 m/s (to lazy to calculate it precisely) the energy would 159MW. So my wild guess in my previous post was accidentally nearly perfectly right.

Anyway, your point is right, the generator won't yield so much power, so as safe bet again, we can assume that power is cut at about 4x rated power (by turning the blades to make them less effective), which would be 24MW.

It is well known that all big wind parks exceed their rated power production by more than a factor of 4 for extended periods of time.

Here: http://www.energy.siemens.com/...

Very similar turbine/generator, I copy the facts for you:
Grid Terminals (LV)
Nominal power 6000 kW
Voltage 690 V
Frequency 50 Hz

Operational data
Cut-in wind speed 3-5 m/s
Nominal power at 12-14 m/s
Cut-out wind speed 25 m/s
Maximum 3 s gust 70 m/s (IEC version)

So, now we could ofc google for a long term wind measurement at the site :D and could calculate the expected long CF for those turbines. I would really be surprised if it is significantly below 50% - 55% nameplate.

The wiki article on HVDC that I referenced above. They got it from a paper from Siemens AG, http://www.energy.siemens.com/...
To quote,

Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted as about 3.5% per 1,000 km, which are 30 – 40% less than with AC lines, at the same voltage levels.[22] This is because direct current transfers only active power and thus causes lower losses than alternating current, which transfers both active and reactive power.

There are vendors peddling wifi for industrial controls (including safety and emergency control). What could possibly go wrong?

Mangled my own text. Sorry.

Generally fast chargers will not be in constant use. Hence it is acceptable to build a battery pack in the charging station, which can charge at a more reasonable speed off the grid and be capable of delivering high current at a presumably much much less than 100% duty cycle.

This was done here: http://www.siemens.com/innovat...

(Apparantly slashdot chokes on the much much less than sign)

You can see where the tradeoff comes. When more aerodynamic mean more weight, fuel economy may not benefit. Carbon fiber can give you the desired shape with less weight. In terms of recycling, it is early days, but is seems to happening already. http://www.siemens.com/innovat... The BMW i3 has more range with less battery than the Leaf so they seem to be getting some advantage there.

There are many real world uses for radar beyond communications and military applications. There is a small but specialized industry of factory and process sensors using ultrasonics and radar to measure material levels in tanks and vessels with high pressures and temperatures.

Specific frequency bands and maximum power levels for radar are tightly regulated by the FCC and others so be design your oscillators carefully.

An non-DIY example using 78 GHz FMCW and lens antennas:

http://www.automation.siemens....

Yet they could not be plugged into the grid. That is something we are learning to do now.

Oh, don't be an ass....

Having worked in the offshore industry for more than a decade, I would say that this is certainly non-trivial (nothing is trivial, when considering projects of such scale), but not the most difficult question of constructing offshore wind farms by any stretch of the imagination.

Many of the issues you could easily raise regarding this are really the same as what exists for onshore wind... the biggest difference is transmission losses.

Your quip about "such as south of Iceland which are too remote for grid hookup" makes little sense (in the long-term), as they are in fact discussing the possible installation of a 1 GW capacity cable from Iceland-UK. Most renewable energy today in Iceland basically comes from other sources, though.

But feel free to tell us more about plugging cables into sockets. What's this black rope-like thing between my computer and the wall again?

I thought this was funded by orgs like DARPA. I recall the mission 6 scenario has been around for awhile, lots of new challenges to get the teams setup.

Some of the most advanced work in autonomous aerial robotics is not done by DARPA, or by massive corporations.

Uh, last I recall, the DoD funded/assisted MIT group can fly in a parking garage around columns. GRASP was DoD funded. Rome labs to SPARWAR depts are doing more sophisticated [classified] autonomous flying scenarios. Not to mention what Boeing, Northrop contractors are doing and the intelligence agencies. They just don't advertise with a amateur video on youtube: they don't need, nor likely want to....

On the corporate side there's aerovironment's room navigation tech, Asctec (which appears the tokyo guys are just using their Hummingbird quad), Siemens tech. and such companies doing more complex path navigation. And of course the excellent open source work by the DIYDrones folks. They just don't advertise with a amateur video on youtube: they don't need, nor likely want to....

It's great the universities are in research on these topics and using advanced tech (made by companies, aka Asctec), but I'm surprised it's not better (e.g. ETH flying area flight quality) considering what's being done outside universities.

That is a very simplistic overview of a large, high-voltage transformer. You realize that 765kV can start an arc across a little more than 25cm in air, right? And these transformers weigh in at many10's of tons, and are designed to handle MANY megawatts of power, perhaps up to 1000 MW (yes, that's a gigawatt). They may even have 1.21 JiggaWatt ones. :-)

That is not something that can be cobbled together in a small factory.

I work as a CAD/CAM Supervisor at a company that Designs and Manufactures mechanical components for reciprocating compressors. We use to use 2D CAD to design our products. We wanted to move to a 3D CAD/CAM. We tried SolidWorks, Alibre, Inventor, and Solid Edge. We found that Siemens Solid Edge was the Most Powerful Mid-Range design package. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb_Sj1jFwtw http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/velocity/solidedge/index.shtml Check it out Slashdoters!!!!!

Autodesk has never made the Macintosh one of their main platforms. Perhaps they are having some fun putting out little applets for iOS, but the CAD scene has never been strong on the Mac platform.

Historically Autocad was a DOS and then Windows platform. Real CAD historically was a UNIX workstation thing.

You need to look recently. Other than Inventor (which the still haven't ported for some unknown reason), AutoDesk has made a very STRONG commitment to OS X, and particularly with AutoCAD. And even Inventor (as well as others) are fully supported under Windows virtualization on the Mac.

And if you want a full Unix-Style OS X compatible World-Class CAD/CAM/CAE environment, look no farther than Siemens, who has ported their Unigraphics UG/NX PLM Suite to several platforms, including, as of 2009, to OS X. And I do believe that this package SMOKES that nasty AutoCAD, because even VectorWorks does that, quite handily. And VectorWorks has existed on Macs since at least 1989.

Autodesk has never made the Macintosh one of their main platforms. Perhaps they are having some fun putting out little applets for iOS, but the CAD scene has never been strong on the Mac platform.

Historically Autocad was a DOS and then Windows platform. Real CAD historically was a UNIX workstation thing.

You need to look recently. Other than Inventor (which the still haven't ported for some unknown reason), AutoDesk has made a very STRONG commitment to OS X, and particularly with AutoCAD. And even Inventor (as well as others) are fully supported under Windows virtualization on the Mac.

And if you want a full Unix-Style OS X compatible World-Class CAD/CAM/CAE environment, look no farther than Siemens, who has ported their Unigraphics UG/NX PLM Suite to several platforms, including, as of 2009, to OS X. And I do believe that this package SMOKES that nasty AutoCAD, because even VectorWorks does that, quite handily. And VectorWorks has existed on Macs since at least 1989.

Variation Simulation Analysis Software.

It's a technique for simulating variations in product assemblies. Usually mechanical, but could be of other natures, as well. You model the assembly and it's manufacturing variations, and then "build" some quantity of parts. One can determine how many assemblies will likely meet specifications, the major contributors to out-of-spec assemblies, etc. etc.

The technique was developed during WWII at Willow Run Labs, where it was implemented by the classic "banks of women operating calculators", and is one of the reasons we were able to crank-out all those airplanes that actually worked.

By the 70's it was implemented in an academic setting on mainframes.

A company I worked for obtained rights to VSAS and we ported it to the IBM PC. I did the initial port to Watcom Fortran (there's another one for you!), and then designed a domain-specific language (VSL) and implemented a compiler in C and interpreter in Fortran, so that mechanical engineers didn't have to write their models in Fortran any more. The Fortran models were bulky - with line after line of function calls with zillions of parameters, passing separate X,Y,Z values in the calls. I'd imagine the engineers wore-out the parenthesis keys on their keyboard pretty fast. VSL, on the other hand, had data types for points, lines, vectors, planes, etc. Using an interpreter didn't slow things down, because most of the time was spent in geometric library routines, which were in carefully-optimized Fortran.

I insisted on their hiring a mathematician, and between the two of us, we tweaked it to run faster on the PC than it did on the mainframe. (Engineering professors don't write code that is either fast or mathematically-correct, it turned out...)

And that's when it's use took off. The company founder started as a manufacturer's rep for some Finite Element Modelliing software, so had lots of contacts in the auto industry. (And the company was located near Detroit.) They both sold the software and did also did in-house projects for the auto companies until they ramped-up their own engineers. This allowed the auto makers, for example, to start treating windshields as structural elements (because the hole for the windshield could be manufacturered to precise tolerances), and allowed them to eliminate costly alignment operations, such as when fitting hoods.

It's used by every auto and aircraft manufacturer, every hard disk manufacturer, etc. etc. etc. Basically just about any complex mechanical product you touch was touched by VSAS during design.

I'd imagine you couldn't build an iPhone at an affordable cost or with the quality level of an iPhone without VSAS (or it's equivalent). You wouldn't be able to buy a terabyte hard drive for less than $100.

There's more info on it here:

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/tecnomatix/quality_mgmt/variation_analyst/

(The company was acquired by Siemens many years ago.)

Maybe not quite what this post was looking for, which I think was more consumer PC software. But it runs on a PC and has from the beginning of PCs, and has had a large but mostly-invisible influence on just about every tech product we use every day.

A 30-year run is nothing to sniff at, either.

Medical software runs a wide gamut, and pace makers are at the very bottom end of the scale. Check this out:

http://www.medical.siemens.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay~q_catalogId~e_-101~a_catTree~e_100001,1023065,1015817~a_langId~e_-101~a_productId~e_172960~a_storeId~e_10001.htm

This thing has:

• three operating systems: two running Solaris, one running Win 2000
• two different databases: Oracle on Solaris; not sure what it runs on Win 2000
• dozens of mechanical controllers, sensors, pumps and actuators
• etc

You can bet that on a product of this complexity, there will be updates.

There is no doubt that medical devices use all sort of operating systems and have all sorts of capabilities, but what they are talking about in the article is communications between patient devices like pacemakers, insulin pumps, etc. That is different than the equipment you show, or an MRI, CT scan, etc. Those, are true computer driven systems. The ones DHS are taking over are the kind that are embedded or worn on your body.

• three operating systems: two running Solaris, one running Win 2000
• two different databases: Oracle on Solaris; not sure what it runs on Win 2000
• dozens of mechanical controllers, sensors, pumps and actuators
• etc

You can bet that on a product of this complexity, there will be updates.

Looking at the Chinese text on the box, Siemens seems to make a hearing aid for the Chinese market, which several Chinese companies are happy to export.
http://www.dhgate.com/wholesale-dropshipping-bte-hearing-aid-siemens/p-ff8080812e7a6478012e7fcc29304544.html

Siemens site seems to indicate this is a bonafide hearing aid (see last page)
http://w1.hearing.siemens.com/_resources-re/files/04-products/25-lotus/pdf/Broch_Con_Lotus_consumer_en_2010.pdf

Someone mentioned automation. Interestingly, Siemens also has an automated (webpage based!) hearing test
http://w1.hearing.siemens.com/en/05-about-hearing/02-understanding-hearing-impairment/01-hearing-loss/01-hearing-test/hearing-test.jsp

Looking at the Chinese text on the box, Siemens seems to make a hearing aid for the Chinese market, which several Chinese companies are happy to export.
http://www.dhgate.com/wholesale-dropshipping-bte-hearing-aid-siemens/p-ff8080812e7a6478012e7fcc29304544.html

Siemens site seems to indicate this is a bonafide hearing aid (see last page)
http://w1.hearing.siemens.com/_resources-re/files/04-products/25-lotus/pdf/Broch_Con_Lotus_consumer_en_2010.pdf

Someone mentioned automation. Interestingly, Siemens also has an automated (webpage based!) hearing test
http://w1.hearing.siemens.com/en/05-about-hearing/02-understanding-hearing-impairment/01-hearing-loss/01-hearing-test/hearing-test.jsp

You can buy good lightning protection devices from Square D or Siemens. Here's a background paper from Siemens. and a product guide from Square D.. These go between the meter and the circuit breaker box. They're hulking big metal boxes with big inductors inside and a huge ground wire. You can get various peak current ratings, up to 480,000 amps. That's more power than lightning bolts have.

Similar protection devices are available for phone lines. These attach where the phone line enters the building and, of course, have a big ground wire.

This is a completely solved problem. Antenna towers, power lines, and telegraph lines have been taking direct lightning hits for over a century, and the protection devices are available. They're not even all that expensive. Just big.

So how much accounting, sales order processing, customer relations management, HR, payroll,stock control and other business related software is available on a Mac? Or Linux?

Glad you asked!

My personal favorite in the ERP world is xTuple (formerly Open Mfg). They even have a free QuickBooks-Like version. Speaking as an ERP software dev. myself, this package is strong enough that I have seriously considered becoming a VAR for it.

Then, there are the longstanding AccountEdge/MYOB, and AppGen/Custom Suite (AppGen Custom Suite is pretty cool, IMHO). I also see FlexWare Accounting, which has a Manufacturing add-on. Don't know much about FlexWare; but it looks pretty complete.

Then there are the interesting database/app-generation systems, such as Omnis (which had the whole idea of "web apps" NAILED more than a decade ago), and, last but certainly not least, 4D, also sporting a wonderful web-app solution. Both are big database-oriented Application-Creation packages that have marched along for years, never quite getting traction, but never quite falling over, either! In fact, 4D's web server was eventually spun-off into its own product (name escapes me, sorry!), and has the enviable reputation of not only being faster that snot, but also has never been hacked... Both Omnis and 4D embraced the concept of being able to "publish" applications directly on the web, such that the apps retained all, or nearly all, of the look-and-feel of the "desktop" versions. Quite cool, actually.

And the hidden advantage is that pretty much all, if not all, of the Mac business software is actually cross-platform; so you get platform-independence "for free". What's not to like about that?!?

As far as CAD/CAE tools go, there are several choices. My personal favorite is VectorWorks, which whips all-over AutoCAD (but maybe not so much on Inventor). I have a longstanding Mac consulting client, who has to live in a world of architects who use AutoCAD, and he has zero problems using VectorWorks with their files, import or export. The only "problem" is that VectorWorks actually supports many things that AutoCAD does not; so he has to be somewhat careful not to use features that AutoCAD (by all rights, should, but) does not support. In fact, when AutoCAD became available (again) for Macs, he wasn't the slightest bit interested in switching away from VectorWorks. And although not widely known in this country, the extremely high-end CAD/CAM/CAE system Siemens PLM NX/UG (Unigraphics) has been available on OS X since at least 2009, and is also available on Linux.

And let's not forget Qt. It's a royal pain to develop in; but you can certainly churn out some pretty complex cross-platform apps in the environment. Eagle PCB is a good example of how advanced a Qt-based app can get... As a (now former, I guess) embedded developer, I used to lament the lack of good (or really, ANY) development tools for Macs. But even that has been (slowly) changing. Microchip now supports both Macs and Linux with MPLab X (helped along considerably by the acquisition of Hi-Tech, and their cross-platform C Compilers). And BTW, Microchip even addresses the question of "Why not just

The ones that RTFM?

All of what you claim to require is available for dollars (or yen, as it was in Japan apparently - didn't know that).

You know which organisation would by far have the easiest time doing this ? Siemens itself. Anyone on this list, for example :

Siemen's management

If they think it their duty to be responsible, stuxnet may be part of that, no ? Then again, it's a corporation ... I don't know.

These ear-canal units are quite common in the UK and the better models such as this http://hearing.siemens.com/uk/04-products/28-imini/iMini.jsp can be programmed via a remote controller to adjust volume, tone and of course to switch them on and off. The in-ear-canal ones cost about GBP 1500-1600 here (around USD 2500). The behind-ear ones are usually much cheaper with a reasonably good one starting at about GBP 200 (USD 320) and more advanced ones with background noise suppression and automatic speech focussing from about GBP 400 (USD 640). In-ear but not deep ear canal models lie about half way between in price. Looking at some of the prices talked about in this thread the prices in the USA seem to be inflated.

Progress with programmable logic controllers has made them much more vulnerable. They used to be really dumb devices, often programmed by physically plugging in an EPROM. Their communications protocol tended to be some ancient multi-drop serial protocol like RS-485, or a vendor-specific proprietary network. The "host machine" tended to be some CPU on a card, connected to a dumb terminal or a control panel. This was dumb and static, but being totally isolated, secure from external intrusion.

Now, PLCs tend to be reprogrammable over their communications link. Some support Ethernet directly. The proprietary networks were all overpriced, and although Ethernet is overkill for most low-level controllers, the interface parts are cheaper, the cables are cheaper, the connectors are cheaper, and more interface devices are available. Also, 10baseT, which has differential signalling and error control, has better noise immunity than some of the lower-speed proprietary networks. I've used devices that have a built in web server just for configuration purposes. With no security.

Even if the low-level network is nonstandard, there's a tendency today to put in a gateway to an Ethernet. This allows connection to, inevitably, a PC running Windows, usually with some custom DLL from the controls vendor. (See page 9 of this Siemens brochure.) This often allows reprogramming the low level controllers from a PC. This is exactly the configuration that was used in the Iranian centrifuge facility.

Of course, once you have something that's IP over Ethernet with Windows machines on it, it tends to become accessible from the outside world. This is a recognized problem. Here's a Siemens paper on it. They talk about "firewalls" a lot, but don't go into much detail over what they really do. Note that they mention an engineering terminal use for system programming (a PC), physically outside the firewall, coming in through an encrypted VPN. That's a classic point of attack.

The trouble is that it's too convenient to have connections to external systems. The PLC system for lock control in a prison wouldn't seem to have to be connected to other systems. But there's going to be an inmate inventory system that tracks who is supposed to be in which cell. It's convenient if the interface to the locking system shows who is supposed to be where, and has important info like which prisoners are violent, which need extra medical attention, and such. Then you can have screens which show both door status and prisoner info.

But others need to talk to the prisoner inventory system. The system for food ordering needs info about how many inmates are in which parts of the prison and maybe their dietary needs. And the system for food ordering needs to talk to external suppliers to place orders. That means a link to outside the prison. This is the sort of thing which leads to a data path from non-critical to critical systems.

Progress with programmable logic controllers has made them much more vulnerable. They used to be really dumb devices, often programmed by physically plugging in an EPROM. Their communications protocol tended to be some ancient multi-drop serial protocol like RS-485, or a vendor-specific proprietary network. The "host machine" tended to be some CPU on a card, connected to a dumb terminal or a control panel. This was dumb and static, but being totally isolated, secure from external intrusion.

Now, PLCs tend to be reprogrammable over their communications link. Some support Ethernet directly. The proprietary networks were all overpriced, and although Ethernet is overkill for most low-level controllers, the interface parts are cheaper, the cables are cheaper, the connectors are cheaper, and more interface devices are available. Also, 10baseT, which has differential signalling and error control, has better noise immunity than some of the lower-speed proprietary networks. I've used devices that have a built in web server just for configuration purposes. With no security.

Even if the low-level network is nonstandard, there's a tendency today to put in a gateway to an Ethernet. This allows connection to, inevitably, a PC running Windows, usually with some custom DLL from the controls vendor. (See page 9 of this Siemens brochure.) This often allows reprogramming the low level controllers from a PC. This is exactly the configuration that was used in the Iranian centrifuge facility.

Of course, once you have something that's IP over Ethernet with Windows machines on it, it tends to become accessible from the outside world. This is a recognized problem. Here's a Siemens paper on it. They talk about "firewalls" a lot, but don't go into much detail over what they really do. Note that they mention an engineering terminal use for system programming (a PC), physically outside the firewall, coming in through an encrypted VPN. That's a classic point of attack.

The trouble is that it's too convenient to have connections to external systems. The PLC system for lock control in a prison wouldn't seem to have to be connected to other systems. But there's going to be an inmate inventory system that tracks who is supposed to be in which cell. It's convenient if the interface to the locking system shows who is supposed to be where, and has important info like which prisoners are violent, which need extra medical attention, and such. Then you can have screens which show both door status and prisoner info.

But others need to talk to the prisoner inventory system. The system for food ordering needs info about how many inmates are in which parts of the prison and maybe their dietary needs. And the system for food ordering needs to talk to external suppliers to place orders. That means a link to outside the prison. This is the sort of thing which leads to a data path from non-critical to critical systems.

"the SCADA system (the visualisation system which talks to the plant's PLCs) will typically run on Windows XP, usually without any service packs/patches, no antivirus, and often the Windows firewall disabled.

"Security" on a SCADA is typically implemented only by disabling mouse events on the client-side command button if the operator does not have appropriate access level"

"SIMATIC PC-based Controllers use a real-time-capable software controller based on Windows operating systems .. Software controller for Multi Panels Control, operation and monitoring on a well-proven and extremely rugged Windows CE platform in real-time"

"the SCADA system (the visualisation system which talks to the plant's PLCs) will typically run on Windows XP, usually without any service packs/patches, no antivirus, and often the Windows firewall disabled.

"Security" on a SCADA is typically implemented only by disabling mouse events on the client-side command button if the operator does not have appropriate access level"

"SIMATIC PC-based Controllers use a real-time-capable software controller based on Windows operating systems .. Software controller for Multi Panels Control, operation and monitoring on a well-proven and extremely rugged Windows CE platform in real-time"

Hi, I’m Dirk Gebert, system manager for security for Siemens Industrial Automation Systems. I’m on the team working on the topic mentioned in this article. We are posting updates on this website: http://www.siemens.com/industrialsecurity. Let me know if you have questions that are not answered there.

That looks more like a page from a manual rather than a screenshot, though. Wold have expected the screenshot to look more like this.

Germans Make Good Stuff.

Seriously, if you start getting into high level automation of PLC and other industrial systems, there are only a few key players in the game. Siemens is one of those companies. Sure enough, if you search for SINAMICS S120, the Siemens page is the first hit.

How often do you dump your error codes into 5-10 languages? If you go to Europe and use a piece of GE technology you'll probably get errors in English.

As the saying goes, you are entitled to your opinion, but not to your own facts. Concentrated solar thermal can drive steam turbines, molten salt storage can buffer the nighttime. Here's one tiny, insignificant manufacturer.

And a shitload of empty desert that can be used to harvest solar power.
But more importantly - Libya is right smack in the middle of the shortest route for transportation of electricity from North Africa to Europe.
Electricity should start flowing from North Africa to Europe by 2020. By 2050, North African and European renewable sources should provide 100% of EU and NA power needs.
Transported by HVDC transformers like the ones Siemens built for China along the link like the one Abengoa Group will build for Brazil.
Abengoa Group will also build the Solana Generating Station in Arizona - to the tune of 2 billion dollars.

In case you didn't know, they are a global company with US offices and are subject to US laws and restrictions. http://www.usa.siemens.com/

This was released in 1924:

http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

Seems like it could easily be that.

Earplug goes into her ear, the device goes into her pocket. so this can't be it.

Someone else linked to this Siemens article. Note the guy using one.

Someone else linked to this Siemens article. Note the guy using one.

For a while, the carbon amplifier patented by Siemens played a major role in hearing aid technology and significantly raised the volume of hearing aids.

Back then, all hearing aids that I'm aware of (I'm certainly no expert) were of a trumpet design; which were typically larger than your hand.

Looks like a trumpet to me.

Or it was one of these (credit to poster in TFA):
http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

http://hearing.siemens.com/ca/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

Nope, those things were much larger than what she had in her hand. They were more like small briefcases.

http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924