Domain: udel.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to udel.edu.
Comments · 282
-
Re:Force Feedback?
As you go into a left turn, your hand wants to keep going the direction it was going, which is actually right from your frame of reference. Meaning you have to pull left harder. It depends on what's more intuitive at the moment of building the system. I know that for example some robots at the University of Delaware have some controls for babies to drive them. When you push forward the cart breaks, when you pull towards you, the car accelerates. This compensates so when you are breaking, the momentum won't cause you to accelerate again.
-
Re:Not statistically significant
First, the example he gives where he looks at polls from ALL sources is an example of a plausible distribution of real results because, assuming the majority of pollsters are not cooking their data, the data should be dominated by randomness. He then looks at this particular pollster and finds a much greater disparity in trailing digit frequency. The question is, is it significant, or just chance?
Given the numbers, it's not particularly hard to figure out. You can calculate the likelihood of any particular result given a theoretical distribution using a G test of goodness of fit. Technically for numbers this small you could use an exact test but I don't know of a web version and I'm too lazy to write one up. But here's a description of, and an excel spreadsheet that performs, the G test of goodness of fit: http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/statgtestgof.html
Basically, you plug in the distribution you see and compare it with the one you expected. What you get is the probability of that distribution occurring by chance. So if we plug in the observed data for all the pollsters and assume equal likelihood for all trailing digits we get a p=0.006. Whoops, looks like our assumption isn't quite correct. As the blog author notes, the observed distribution is humped a little, favouring the middle numbers. He also gives a possible explanation. For giggles, the probability of the Strategic Vision results given equally probable trailing digits is absolutely microscopic: p=1.44x10^-17. Together those tell us that our assumption of equal digit distribution is probably not quite right, but the Strategic Vision data still looks mighty funny.
Okay, so assume instead that most pollsters aren't making up their numbers. Not that their numbers are necessarily accurate, but that they're at least not making them up off the top of their heads. So using the data from all pollsters as a template, how likely is the Strategic Vision distribution? That's a G test of independence: http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/statgtestind.html. We could use Fisher's exact test, but I can't find one that will do a 2x10 table.
Plugging in the data, we get G=43.068, d.f.=9, which gives p=2.09x10^-6. The blog author was actually a little careless when he said the chances of Strategic Vision's results are millions to one against. If you insist on the equal-probability theory then the odds are 70 quadrillion to one against Strategic Vision and 166 to one against the industry as a whole. Taking the more realistic approach that the industry average is a better representation of the actual probability, the odds against Strategic Vision's results are about half a million to one against. Not millions to one, but close enough.
-
Re:Not statistically significant
First, the example he gives where he looks at polls from ALL sources is an example of a plausible distribution of real results because, assuming the majority of pollsters are not cooking their data, the data should be dominated by randomness. He then looks at this particular pollster and finds a much greater disparity in trailing digit frequency. The question is, is it significant, or just chance?
Given the numbers, it's not particularly hard to figure out. You can calculate the likelihood of any particular result given a theoretical distribution using a G test of goodness of fit. Technically for numbers this small you could use an exact test but I don't know of a web version and I'm too lazy to write one up. But here's a description of, and an excel spreadsheet that performs, the G test of goodness of fit: http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/statgtestgof.html
Basically, you plug in the distribution you see and compare it with the one you expected. What you get is the probability of that distribution occurring by chance. So if we plug in the observed data for all the pollsters and assume equal likelihood for all trailing digits we get a p=0.006. Whoops, looks like our assumption isn't quite correct. As the blog author notes, the observed distribution is humped a little, favouring the middle numbers. He also gives a possible explanation. For giggles, the probability of the Strategic Vision results given equally probable trailing digits is absolutely microscopic: p=1.44x10^-17. Together those tell us that our assumption of equal digit distribution is probably not quite right, but the Strategic Vision data still looks mighty funny.
Okay, so assume instead that most pollsters aren't making up their numbers. Not that their numbers are necessarily accurate, but that they're at least not making them up off the top of their heads. So using the data from all pollsters as a template, how likely is the Strategic Vision distribution? That's a G test of independence: http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/statgtestind.html. We could use Fisher's exact test, but I can't find one that will do a 2x10 table.
Plugging in the data, we get G=43.068, d.f.=9, which gives p=2.09x10^-6. The blog author was actually a little careless when he said the chances of Strategic Vision's results are millions to one against. If you insist on the equal-probability theory then the odds are 70 quadrillion to one against Strategic Vision and 166 to one against the industry as a whole. Taking the more realistic approach that the industry average is a better representation of the actual probability, the odds against Strategic Vision's results are about half a million to one against. Not millions to one, but close enough.
-
Re:Turn in into advantage !
Looking at the Wikipedia article, both your examples involve vertebrates, which are definitely a bad idea (it also mentions the introduction of mongooses to Hawaii). Biological pest control using e.g. insects, or fungi targetting the undesirable species can work very effectively if research is put in to make sure that the native species won't be affected.
-
Re:De-spinning. Again.
I hope Riley does strip on "premium"
:-Dhttp://www.udel.edu/communication/COMM418/begleite/humor/nonsequitur.htm
-
Re:Greater than any previous *single junction* dev
It's true. The Fraunhofer Institute itself has produced more efficient cells. And all use multiple junctions.
Examples:
Fraunhofer - triple junction
NREL - triple junction
University of Delaware - bream splittingAll claim to be the record because there is no standardized way to measure power efficiency. However, the concept of quantum wells used in solar cells is a new concept.
-
Re:Easy
If you do decide to go with an Active Directory, I found that using Winbind was an extremely easy way to have my Samba server authenticate my users from the AD. It was up and running in no time and it's been rock solid ever since.
One thing to remember is to use Group Sharing when setting folder permissions on the *nix box. That was an easy one to overlook until users started asking why they couldn't open each others files! -
Odd Juxtaposition ...
I read this article a few hours ago from Drudge
... and while the article may be 100% accurate and irrefutable, there was another article that was also on there, also published today:Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age
I'm not sure if the left hand knows exactly what the right hand is doing
... but to me, it seems like two completely different scenarios.Obviously, the earth has cooled before
... and it's warmed up before. Nobody is disputing this fact.Certainly, in the past few decades, CO2 has risen. And, for the past 650,000 years, it has been fluctuating, but topped out around 360ppm. Though if you go back even further, you'll see that CO2 has been much higher (see pg 23) than recent times. One has to question what is the optimal level for the Earth? Is it now
... at 385ppm, or in pre-historic times at over 1000ppm?By using 7g of CO2 emissions per search, the article really gives such a vague scare of global warming. By my interpretation, we should shut down that evil CO2 emitter, at least thats what they are implying. Alternatively, just create a new tax obviously, this will reduce levels
... somehow.As far as a solution for the "global warming" problem
... I'll have to think about it while I turn up the heat in the house while I shovel snow outside.BTW, yes I do know that Weather != Climate
... but currently, it is just fsck'n cold. -
Re:Gee, thanks for the notice
It can.
-
Re:Gee, thanks for the notice
"Slew the time"? What system does that? According to the following page, the NTP server announces the leap second in advanced, and "well-behaved" kernels count the extra second like they are supposed to; i.e. there is no slewing:
http://www.cis.udel.edu/~mills/leap.html -
Video Game FPGA Projects
It seems the guys over at the University of Delaware's final project was to make a video game. One of the projects seems to be on display here: http://www.cvorg.ece.udel.edu/cpeg422f08/games.html
-
Re:Sea Boundaries
It's a little different than that. Delaware's deed claimed all lands within a 12-mile radius from the Courthouse at New Castle, hence the round northern border of the state. The extension of the border to the NJ coast only applies to the area within the 12-mile circle.
From Delaware's website: http://www.dgs.udel.edu/publications/infoseries/info6.aspx
NJ and DE both have interests in the Oil/Gas industry, in the form of tax revenue. Both are home to several refineries. Hence the need for competition.
-
Re:Important information missing?Quick stop by wikipedia puts it at 42.8%...wait...what?
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/jul/solar072307.html
I don't get it.
-
energy
there is only one short term solution. We need an Apollo type national commitment to building Nuke plants.
Nuclear isn't a short term solution, unless you call 5 years short term and can build one that quickly. However a 5 megawatt wind turbine can be erected in weeks. Erect 20 a month and in one year you'll add more than a gigawatt of power*. Apply an Apollo project to wind and you could produce more power quicker than you could with nuclear.
As Texas oil Billionaire T Boone Pickens has intimated in his plan for wind farms, the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind energy to supply almost if not all of the 48 contiguous states with electricity. If that's not enough all along the Pacific coast then through AZ and NM to Texas there's more. Then there's the Mid Atlantic states on up to Maine. For instance the wind potential between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras is estimated to be 330 Gigawatts.
Quite simply wind beats nuclear.
Falcon
*I use 1 gigawatt because in California 4 reactors, 2 each in 2 power plants, generate 4.324 Gigawatts. That's just over a Gigawatt per reactor. It's the same in Alabama, 5 reactors generate just over 5 Gigawatts.
-
Re:Leap seconds fix a diferent problem
If we dispense with leap seconds then this relationship will slowly change and noon will eventually be dark.
In 200 centuries (if we add 2 seconds per year, and this only happened once afaik).
:)
Or if we keep the same rate as now (20s in 30 years), somewhere around 650 centuries from now.
During a life time (less than 100 years) even if we add 2s per years, the time will only be 3 or 4 minutes "earlier".
Anyway i'm not saying UTC is bad. It's great. I don't think everyone here understood how it work. I'll try a short summary (i hope i won't say anything wrong here).
We have a "stable" time. We don't have something with a better precision. This time is given by atomic clocks (mainly caesium) all around the world. Then their time is compared against each other by the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids Mesures) to have more precision/security (clocks are not ticking at the same rate). Ok now we have a "stable" time. This is TAI. What's the use for UTC then ?
Well as you may know, earth doesn't rotate evenly (mainly because of moon, oceans etc.). It can speed up or slow down. If the absolute value of the difference between TAI and UT1 (solar day, related to earth rotation) is greater than 1/2s, then we are closer to the next second than the current one. So we need to remove (this never happened afaik) or add one second to UTC.
The wikipedia entry about leap second has a Nice graph showing how UTC differs from TAI. We can see that time can also "slow" down (especially between 2000 and 2004).
If you're interested in this, I think you should read the page about leap second by David L. Mills (Who added the RFC NTP entry, and created (x)ntpd). Actually you can read the whole documentation, you won't lose your time, trust me.
Now about people complaining about UTC. I don't get what's wrong with UTC ? TAI isn't an answer to UTC or an improvement, it's the foundation so we can build UTC on it.
We can't rely on UT1, we need a really precise time (for GPS, logs, army, research, money transactions, and so on).
We could use TAI of course. But by doing this, we won't help our grand grandchildren. If they wake up at 8:00 am, 5 hours after the day started, well, it will be weird. And they will have something to care about.
The leap second, we don't even feel it. Only atomic clocks do the leap second (afaik, i could be wrong though). ntp clients, only need to correct the drift (leap second can be considered as a instant drift) ie add fractions of seconds slowly so that the computer doesn't even notice (and that you don't have trouble say... In apache log for instance with a page viewed at one time and another page viewed one second earlier or kernel warnings or anything else). -
Re:Leap seconds fix a diferent problem
If we dispense with leap seconds then this relationship will slowly change and noon will eventually be dark.
In 200 centuries (if we add 2 seconds per year, and this only happened once afaik).
:)
Or if we keep the same rate as now (20s in 30 years), somewhere around 650 centuries from now.
During a life time (less than 100 years) even if we add 2s per years, the time will only be 3 or 4 minutes "earlier".
Anyway i'm not saying UTC is bad. It's great. I don't think everyone here understood how it work. I'll try a short summary (i hope i won't say anything wrong here).
We have a "stable" time. We don't have something with a better precision. This time is given by atomic clocks (mainly caesium) all around the world. Then their time is compared against each other by the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids Mesures) to have more precision/security (clocks are not ticking at the same rate). Ok now we have a "stable" time. This is TAI. What's the use for UTC then ?
Well as you may know, earth doesn't rotate evenly (mainly because of moon, oceans etc.). It can speed up or slow down. If the absolute value of the difference between TAI and UT1 (solar day, related to earth rotation) is greater than 1/2s, then we are closer to the next second than the current one. So we need to remove (this never happened afaik) or add one second to UTC.
The wikipedia entry about leap second has a Nice graph showing how UTC differs from TAI. We can see that time can also "slow" down (especially between 2000 and 2004).
If you're interested in this, I think you should read the page about leap second by David L. Mills (Who added the RFC NTP entry, and created (x)ntpd). Actually you can read the whole documentation, you won't lose your time, trust me.
Now about people complaining about UTC. I don't get what's wrong with UTC ? TAI isn't an answer to UTC or an improvement, it's the foundation so we can build UTC on it.
We can't rely on UT1, we need a really precise time (for GPS, logs, army, research, money transactions, and so on).
We could use TAI of course. But by doing this, we won't help our grand grandchildren. If they wake up at 8:00 am, 5 hours after the day started, well, it will be weird. And they will have something to care about.
The leap second, we don't even feel it. Only atomic clocks do the leap second (afaik, i could be wrong though). ntp clients, only need to correct the drift (leap second can be considered as a instant drift) ie add fractions of seconds slowly so that the computer doesn't even notice (and that you don't have trouble say... In apache log for instance with a page viewed at one time and another page viewed one second earlier or kernel warnings or anything else). -
Re:It has already been many years
It's even sadder than that.
Many people don't know this, but there was plenty of drilling historically on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Of 47 wells drilled in the area, only 5 found any hint of hydrocarbons, the amounts were non-commercial, and they were natural gas (off the coast of New Jersey). Typical commercial success rates in frontier areas are about 1 in 10 wells, so the results from that earlier exploration round aren't exactly impressive. There may be something out there but it is pretty clear the East Coast is unlikely to become another Gulf Coast. Also, the geology is such that finding oil isn't particularly likely. Natural gas is the more likely discovery, assuming any commercial discoveries are made at all.
Which means the politicians are arguing over something that isn't likely to pay off anyway. People can *hope* that surprises will turn up and that previous exploration companies weren't looking properly or didn't have the tools we do now, but anyone expecting this area to save the domestic petroleum production of the country hasn't looked carefully at what was already done and discovered there. Oil companies are gamblers, so I'm sure they'll look it over anyway. They'll probably be hoping for oil but expecting to find natural gas (which is still a way to make money if the finds are big enough to justify building a pipeline, but it doesn't do much to solve gasoline prices).
A fair amount of the geological background on the Atlantic side is available from Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior and plenty of other published sources [PDF]. A summary of potential undiscovered resources is in this report [PDF]. The Atlantic and Pacific areas are drops in the bucket compared to the Gulf Coast and Alaska offshore areas. This is not news.
The story is a little different in western Florida, where the odds of finding oil are much better, because it is basically an extension of the rest of the prolific Gulf Coast area. The southern part of California also has oil, but many of the areas are already explored and in production, and you'd have to convince the State of California to allow it. There's not much potential northwards, and what could be there is likely natural gas.
The petroleum companies are salivating at the prospect of new areas to explore, and possibly to make money. But "solve energy problems"? Not likely any time soon if ever.
-
Re:Theora still lacks good creation software
The script is here
-
Re:MEncoder can do all that
After some time spent googling and figuring out how to use Mencoder and Ffmpeg to do the rotation and theora transcoding, I wrote a Python script to do the heavy lifting. So that takes care of my problem, but that won't work for 99.9% of people who have this problem.
-
Nit-pick
Aspergers isn't a personality disorder.
It's a neurobiological disorder.
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html
We are all, of course, ultimately responsible for our actions.
... Except that some neuro-atypical people may not be. But I think the judge had the right idea here. -
Re:Still could be innocent
Okay, so "significant impairment in day to day function", in a spectrum disorder, to you means that a high-functioning Aspergers patient cannot communicate non-emotional ideas clearly?
The major issue with high-intelligence Aspergers tend to be not functioning well socially, usually because of an inability to relate to the emotions of others, isn't that right?
In fact, one of the things that differs between Aspergers and the traditional autism diagnosis is that people with Aspergers tend to suffer less from a low IQ but are markedly distant, unsocial or antisocial, suspicious of authority, and feel outcast from normal social groups, right?
Asperger's is characterized separately from other autistic spectrum disorders specifically by the distinction that there is no delay in verbal communication, language skills, or cognitive development, right?
People with Aspergers tend to fall normally along the curve of IQ, have excellent vocabularies, communicate non-social ideas very clearly, and suffer from lack of understanding of social conventions, body language, and the causes and signs of emotions in others. right?
-
Technical Details
Bluewater Wind agrees to build a 150 turbine, 450MW wind project 12-13 miles off of Rehoboth Beach. Delmarva Power agrees to buy up to 300MW at any one time. The cost to Delmarva ratepayers for energy and capacity will be 10.56 cents/kWh in 2007 dollars. Delmarva is also purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) associated with its energy purchases.
So evidently these are 150 x 3MW turbines. Generally turbines of this class have a blade space diameter of 100m.
It is interesting to note that while Delaware has no nuclear reactors, it is across the river from the Salem dual 1.1 MWe PWRs and the co-located Hope Creek 1.0 MWe BWR in New Jersey, for a total of 3.2 MWe of nuclear in the neighborhood.
-
Re:title of the next b-movie:
GLAA (GAY LAWYER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY LAWYERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY LAWYERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a LAWYER ?
Are you a GAY LAWYER ?
If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GLAA (GAY LAWYER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GLAA (GAY LAWYER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GLAA member.
GLAA (GAY LAWYER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY LAWYER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America. You, too, can be a part of GLAA if you join today!
Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!
First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY LAWYERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.
Second, you need to succeed in posting a GLAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website.
Third, you need to join the official GLAA irc channel #GLAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!
If you are having trouble locating #GLAA, the official GAY LAWYER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you have mod points and would like to support GLAA, please moderate this post up.
This post brought to you by a proud member of GLAA -
personal ad
Once upon a time, back at Alma Mater U, the campus newspaper ran an ad
"Red giant seeks white dwarf for binary relationship." and gave astronomy professor Harry Shipman's phone number.
Ever since then, ID has been required when placing personal ads. -
Re:I'm dead
No kidding.
Just look at Minamata (methyl mercury) and the tragic story of Karen Wetterhahn (dimethyl mercury). -
Re:Didn't nanotubes explode with flash photography
It seems you're correct correct- do you suppose they've gotten around this?
-
Re:Why such hate?
"Asperger Syndrome is a type of autism, and autism is a neurological disorder that affects the way a person interacts with others and his or her world. It's not a mental illness"1
"Despite Asperger's being listed in the APA's Diagnostic manual it is not a mental illness, it cannot be caused by trauma or neglect and it cannot be cured with therapy or a change in lifestyle or attitude." 2
You are confusing concepts disorder and illness. They are not synomyms. If you don't believe that, read this article about popular medical definitions of personality disorders. "They are distinguished from mental illness ---"
-
Re:Why such hate?
That's not what Wikipedia has to say about it. Or this page, or this one here, or even this one at Yale. But hey, what do they know anyways...
-
Re:How to set?
The easiest, and most common method, is to lock to GPS. GPS time, like TAI, is not adjusted for leap seconds like UTC. GPS time is 19 seconds behind TAI.
But note, NTP isn't based on TAI, but on UTC, so a leap second table is required to maintain accurate time. That's the simple explanation. NTP/UTC/leap seconds is more complex in reality. -
Re:Half way solution: GPS
NTPD isn't good enough for me -- bad weather on the Internet has caused my server to loose synchronization one too many times,
Your NTP setup is misconfigured if this is the case.
The NTP daemon has many algorithms built in to measure jitter (how "off" a clock is from what NTP thinks is the realtime) and factors in network delay as well. (Run ntpq -p to see a list of time servers that your NTP client is accessing and their associated jitter/delay/offset values.)
NTP's primary job is to poll various time servers, figure out which ones are good and use that data to set your clock. This so called "bad weather" you refer to should not be a problem for NTP if it is setup correctly.
As others have mentioned in this thread, you should set up one or two primary NTP servers that probe external servers (preferably from the pool.) and then have your interval servers probe those site-local time servers.
Thomas -
Re:Admins to blame?I'm sorry, sir, but are you really British? I ask because I'm not, but I usually have no trouble reading the Queen's English (as opposed to the American English I speak and write).
I understand the terms "bollocks" and "fuckwit" but what the terms "ime", "18plus", and "rorotact"?
Also, can you translate the unparsable phrase "I cant create and article about it" to either English or American? Even Ebonics would do, but your attempt at communication fails miserably. Sorry.
Perhaps many deleted Wikipedia articles and/or edits are removed because, like your post, they are completely and illegibly unreadable?
-mcgrew
PS: I just googled "rorotact" and was asked "Did you mean: Rotaract?" Clicking the first link brought me to Rotoract Club, where a very content-free page tells me to "Just U Do It" and the entire page reads onlyRotoract Club
Sorry, but I think you and your organization are a few bricks shy of a full load, as we sometimes say here in the colonies. Again, my apologies to you and your illiterate friends.
Group Purpose
Develop professional and leadership skills while recognizing the dignity and value of useful occupations as opportunities to serve needs and problems in the community
For more information or to contact this group please call [a telephone number] or e-mail.
Student Centers Home -
Re:Doubtful, but if it *is* true . . .
30-40%, eh? How does 42.8% sound?
-
Re:Seriously
Actually, the next version of Unicode lets you store the bits on the disk in any orientation. You have to have perpendicular-magnetic or holographic storage to implement it, though.
Future versions of unicode may account for the "time singularity" and allow orientation in four space dimensions. You don't have to worry about an implementation, though, since all physical read/write processes require a discrete length of time to complete, and most singularities are fresh out of discrete quantities.
If you like dividing by zero, though, you might be able to find a cute singularity hanging around in an
_
x (read: "x bar"). Also, if it's a black hole singularity, one of the nice things is that she hides her weight well, so you don't have to worry about the "I'm-married-now-so-I'll-let-myself-go" syndrome (; -
Re:So, how many watts per sq. meter ?It lists the efficiency. The watts per square meter will depend on the amount of sunlight in your location. 13% is mid-range, people have made up to 60%, but those are state-of-the-art and expensive.
Sorry, but 60% is not the world record. The world-record in efficiency is currently about 42.8%, held by the University of Delaware. Here's their press release.
However, the most efficient cells in production for commercial use are from Spectrolab, a Boeing subsidiary. They claim 40.7% as of December 2006 - which was the world's record until UD broke it 23 July 2007.
According to Spectrolab's web site, the cells they're producing for distribution include their Ultra Triple Junction cells, with a minimum efficiency of 28.3% and a typical terrestrial efficiency of 31% claimed.
In their FAQ, they claim that a concentration of 500 suns is typically optimal. On the earth, you then have to deal with the fact that 2/3 of the energy is not turned into electricity - which means a significant amount of heat to deal with. You would want to cool the cell with something, lest it burn up. Their FAQ mentions that using a 1 cm^2 cell, at 500 suns and 25C will produce about 17.5W - so you'd be "spending" at least 500 cm^2 of real estate to prodcue the 17.5W : 500 cm^2 for a Fresnel lens to focus it down to 1 cm^2 on the cell.
I think they'll sell to anyone as long as you're a U.S. citizen and agree to the export limitations. However, they have a minimum purchase of $5,000 - but you must spend more to get optimal pricing.
Well. My point is this: 60% is not what anyone's achieved. Most companies are just trying to get their $/Watt price as low as possible in order to get widespread acceptance - instead of attempting a new world-record.
I wish that someone had gotten to 60% - it's 2/3 of the way to the Carnot limit of 95% If you're referring to these guys and their "quantum dot cells", from their web site you'll see that it's still all theoretical.
BTW - you can buy a plastic Fresnel lens here, unless they've changed the web page. Be careful and wear a welding helmet (or equivalent) so that the intense concentration of sunlight on something won't be able to cause a light bright enough to burn your retina.
-
Re:I think this is just a software change!other operating systems should be able to adopt similar features quickly! Doubtful. This is more than a case of "just software"; it's a sophisticated collaboration of hardware plus software. Apple bought a company called Fingerworks, founded by Wayne Westerman and his Ph.D. advisor based on his doctoral research[1]. They sold mouse-pad sized touchpad devices with gesture recognition as well as zero-force keyboards with integrated mousing/gesturing. These multi-touch devices effectively do low-resolution EMF imaging of the hand near the surface. No "mis-touches", the keyboard didn't generate false hits from "resting" on the surface, etc.
Fingerworks vanished off the face of the internet a couple of years back. Apple quietly bought the company, its patents, and and the key researchers and engineers. Since then, they've been puting the Apple shine on their technology since then. Much to the likely delight of the "Fingerfans" the iPhone is the first product to ship with this technology since Fingerworks' was bought.
It *might* be possible to hack something together with a synaptics pad, but the hardware itself is likely deficient to do full-on multitouch. See section 1.3 of Westerman's thesis, linked below, esp. the pre-Fingerworks prototype hardware "producing a 50 frames per second (fps) stream of proximity images." I note that the Fingerworks devices connected via USB, but had on-device processing and firmware notably richer than what's in a simple touchpad. That alone may spell death to attempts at pure host-side multitouch with a "dumb" touchpad.
[1] PDF: Hand Tracking, Finger Identification, and Chordic Manipulation on a Multi-Touch Surface. -
Re:A little known fact.
For the Arctic negligible effect.
For Antarctic major. You may wish to read http://co2.cms.udel.edu/SeaLevel_DE.htm -
Re:Show me the cheap pannels!Subsidies for solar are relatively tiny. But I think they get a lot of spinoffs from other semiconductor research.
From some random policy paper:But such a prognosis neglects the empirical evidence for expecting continued declines in PV prices. For example, average selling prices of PV modules have decreased from $55/Wp (in 2001 dollars) in 1976 to approximately $3.50/Wp in 2001 (Harmon, 2000; Maycock, 2002). For our analysis, we set the breakeven price of PV modules at $1.50/Wp, which is within the range reported in the research literature on PV market penetration (e.g., Payne et al., 2001). PV modules can be expected to reach a real price of $1.50/Wp by 2012,
Note: Wp stands for "peak watt," the nominal unit of solar panel absorption (which translates to different amounts of power generated, depending on location and weather).
based on price trends to date.
The point is, between 1976 and 2001, the price of a given amount of solar capacity has undergone four halvings. Furthermore, it's supposed to more-than-halve again between 2001 and 2012. That's huge, steady progress, but given a half-life of six years, it's not surprising that it seems imperceptible to an eager shopper. -
Re:Well
Sorry. Try this link instead. Especially check out pages 4 and 5.
-
Re:Well
1) People who have 20 year old PV installations don't report that they need replacement. Instead, they seem to be chugging along at about 80% of their original efficiency. Where are you getting your numbers? Also, it should be possible to design the panels in such a way that they can be easily pulled apart and refurbished or recycled.
2) A solar plant set up in Canada will invariably be less productive per acre than a solar plant set up in the American southwest. Taking the figures of productivity per land area from this story is bound to mislead.
3) I'm not clear why you're bring up grid capacity. Just because we could theoretically supply all our energy needs with 10% of the energy that falls on a 40,000 square mile area doesn't mean that all the PVs need to be centrally located.
4) The cost of solar panels has been on a solid decline over the last quarter century (from $55/peak watt in 1976 to $3.50/peak watt in 2001 (adjusted dollars)) [source]. That's about four halvings of cost in 25 years. If we can keep this up, in twelve years, it should be down to about $0.43/peak watt. There is room for increased cost savings that simply don't exist in more traditional technologies like coal and nuclear. In short, solar is getting ready to kick ass and take names. -
Bend over, Roland
Here's an microscope http://www.dbi.udel.edu/bioimaging/afm.html. On behalf of everybody on slashdot, we're going to use atomic force. In deference to your occasional useful post, we're going to allow you a thin layer of water as a lubricant.
-
Re:Huh, global warming
A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the atmosphere will go into the oceans.
If the heat came from the atmosphere, wouldn't it be detected in surface temperatures? This story seems to indicated the reverse: A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the ocean will leak into the atmosphere.
Heat from hydrothermal vents and other underwater volcanic phenomena heats the ocean water. The Juan de Fuca Ridge is in the pacific ocean along the Washington coastline, so I think it likely that this process is what the scientists' sub has detected. -
Re:This is not good!
> some very odd - such as the tendancy to walk on tip-toe instead of with feet flat on the floor
I really appreciate you throwing that in there. I really do not have the slightest clue what Aspergers is, but after you mentioned this trait, my younger twenty three year old cousin immediately popped to mind, for he has done the same thing all his life. So, I went here just for more information. It really is amazing how many of those characteristics he possesses. Shoot, I actually envy him at times for his focused determination and brilliance. Whether all these subtle traits I noticed about him over the years is related to Aspergers or not, I don't know. Either way, your little tippy toe tidbit really gave me food for thought and insight. So thanks. -
Re:Please take care of Linus
Oh please, if Torvalds is autistic, then I'm a borderline pyschopath.
Indeed. RMS, on the other hand... I wouldn't be surprised if he's a classical Asperger's syndrome case.
-
Just a thought...
But could it be that he has Asperger's? http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.ht
m l It fits on many counts. -
Re:Some thoughts
Literacy rates peaked prior to the introduction of public education?
Maybe so, but are you implying that public schools are responsible for this? A lot of things have happened to America since then. Let's mention the elephant in the living room - the ethnic mix is vastly different since then, and since IQ varies by ethnicity, you need to control for this before even discussing the effects of public schools on literacy.
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2002 notamystery.pdf
BTW I am no fan of public schools either. -
You're talking about a SunRay
-
This is completely incorrect, I checked!
The Network Time Protocol hasn't sued anyone.
Ask Dave Mills, he's right down the road at the University of Delaware!
And there isn't any other NTP that matters. -
This is completely incorrect, I checked!
The Network Time Protocol hasn't sued anyone.
Ask Dave Mills, he's right down the road at the University of Delaware!
And there isn't any other NTP that matters. -
Re:Reverse correlation?
My sister-in-law is a special needs teacher, works with kids who are actually autistic. Autistic kids are markedly different than other kids; autism is a serious disability.
On the other hand, symptoms of autism range on a pretty wide scale. I have to wonder if the study meant to reference Asperger's Syndrome, which is kind of like "autism lite." ADD is to ADHD as Asperger's is to autism.
I can see unmoderated television watching by toddlers who are already autistic or have Asperger's as contributing to their discomfort and behavioral problems, which would probably be followed by a greater number of diagnoses, which someone might construe as "TV causes autism." Correlation is not causation. -
Re:Timothy has low IQ?
Sounds like they might have a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome.