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Auto Industry's Fastest Processor Is 128Mhz
afabbro writes "GM stated that the 2011 Buick Regal will have the auto industry's fastest processor: 128Mhz, and 3MB of flash. 'Three meg of flash memory and 128MHz clock speed doesn't sound like a lot in terms of computing power until you consider the environment these controllers have to live in. Our controllers are made to operate reliably up to 260 degrees (127C) and down to -40 degrees (-40C) for the life of the vehicle.'"
It's a special use, being more like a very powerful microcontroller, it only needs so much power, and it has to last. While the average life of a car is nearly 10 years, it's not so terribly uncommon to keep a car going for almost 20 years, in contrast very few 20 year old PCs are still in regular use, I think a lot of people would be very hard pressed to find a ten year old computer being used daily, and PCs don't have to worry much about environmental factors.
If the system is flex-fuel, it has to be able to take any range from 0% (occasional exemption from ethanol) to 85% ethanol. There is no control over what what the next tank will have, and you'll have some residual, making your ratio almost constantly varying.
I thought most of ethanol's benefits were pretty reasonably debunked, at least corn ethanol anyway.
-40F is equal to -40C
Your GPS unit is not an "automotive cpu"... It is a consumer product fitted into a car.
The automative processor is what controls your fuel injection, ABS and other such functions.
There is a world of difference between the two.
His 1952 MG also crumples up like a soda can in an accident, whereas your Corolla is stuffed to the gills with crumple zones, traction-control gizmos, and eight thousand-odd computer-controlled airbags. On the other hand, it also weighs twice as much as the MG and handles like it, so good luck avoiding an accident that he could.
On the bright side, you probably don't have to keep a fire extinguisher in your car to put out the daily wiring harness fires.
Yes, the reason people don't have old PCs is because they break down, not because newer and better technology comes out.
Other plants can be used to make ethanol, but it's not being done widely
Sure it is. Brazil has been producing efficient sugarcane-based ethanol for decades, and now accounts for almost 40% of the world's ethanol fuel production. Not that it matters much to the US, because of the quotas and massive tariffs to protect the crappy corn ethanol industry...
Summarising, a modern turbodiesel is inherently about 25% more efficient than an equally modern gasoline engine. With old and crude designs like, say, carb hemi V8s, the Diesel has more like a 2:1 advantage. The remaining 5% comes from the fuel.
Sheesh, kids today. Get off my lawn.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Other plants can be used to make ethanol, but it's not being done widely. When cellulosic ethanol is workable on a mass scale, then the value of ethanol production might change to something that's of a net benefit to society.
All agriculture not based on returning the shit to the fields is inherently harmful. It amounts basically to hydroponics in a dirt (not soil) medium. Feeding humans without maintaining the soil has already destroyed much of the planet's arable land to the point where there would be worldwide starvation without exports from the Americas or acres of land dedicated to greenhouses and hydroponics in the nations where the food is eaten. All of which, just like the so-called "Green Revolution" farming used by big agribusiness today, is based on oil; synthetic fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, all the plastic that it's all made of, and all the energy to run it around. Topsoil-based fuels will lead us directly to a future where only the rich can afford to eat real food, which will be produced on hillside farms in locations too remote to factory-farm.
Consequently, as you say, only cellulosic ethanol is of a benefit to society. The analyses of ethanol's net energy value don't even take damage to the soil into consideration.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
in contrast very few 20 year old PCs are still in regular use, I think a lot of people would be very hard pressed to find a ten year old computer being used daily
I've got a 15 year old PC that's not only used daily, it runs 24/7 to run a specific piece of software.
I've also got a 14 year old one that does some network functions, although it would be much easier to replace than the first one, if it came to it.
So, my anecdotal evidence trumps your statistics, because as everybody on /. knows, if you have a single contradictory outlier, it proves generally accepted trends are completely wrong.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I've seen all kinds of cars and tractors start in temperatures getting near or below -40 degrees. Some times that meant the transmission got busted.
As a teenager in northern Canada, I learned that you need to warm up the transmission as well as the engine in extreme cold. A friend of my dad's forgot this lesson and and had to replace his car's automatic transmission.
In extreme cold, you can protect your transmission by putting it in neutral for a few minutes. This gets the transmission oil moving (and warming) without engaging more delicate mechanical parts. Do not leave an automatic transmission in "Park".
BTW - While several minutes of idling in neutral during EXTREME cold conditions are required to warm the transmission, 90 seconds of idling is all your engine needs. Any extra idling time is for only for the driver's comfort (i.e. warms up the cars interior )
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994