It would require two magnets, some magnetic wire, a battery, two paper clips which are the 'brushes', some copper tape for the commutator, some sort wooden/metal rod to mount the rotor onto, and bigger piece of cylindrical wood for your commutator. This might blow your budget the first year, but i would see the only recurring expense be the copper tape, batteries and the magnetic wire.
Here is a website on how some of the assembly should look http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/wiki/index.php/Brushed_DC_Motor_Theory
Look about halfway down the page when describing the theory.
My only pointers would be to make a multi-turn coil of wire instead of a single single. Obviously you will need to add a rotor and commutator, so that is what the various wooden pieces are. Make the copper tape cover as much of the circumference of the commutator, as it will work better.
I found another, simpler DC motor, but it didn't look to exciting. You can search google to find other types of projects.
i = [0:.01:1]; %create a vector i which ranges from 0 to 1 in.01 steps
y = sin(pi*i/10); %plug the vector into the function and y will be a function of i.
Be careful though. y(0.1) would return an error, since array indexing is done by integers. To retrieve the value of sin(pi*0.1/10), you would need to know what the index value is of i when it is 0.1 (using mental math, it would be 11). so the value of y at i == 0.1 would be y(11).
I did my graduate studies in a university electromagnetics lab. Two of the professors main research area was FEA. By default, we still ended up learning some even if it wasn't our research area. Most the students were pro Matlab, where as the professors were pro Fortran. As a result, if you were doing FEA for your research, you were learning fortran. If you are doing small simulations, then go ahead and use Matlab, since it will be easier to code and debug. Once you start creating 3D meshes, the number of unknowns becomes huge. At that point a compiled language is a better choice. At least fortran has complex numbers native to the language, so its implementation is a bit more elegant than say C/C++.
I would think that any company that is or headed toward bankruptcy would scale back on some of its R&D. I understand you need some to stay competitive, but I would think that GM would use its time and money better by initially refocusing itself,its product line, cutting costs, etc. Once they have all that under control, then they could research newer technologies.
I think that GM would do themselves a favor by focusing on only two main goals. Improve reliability and make more efficient combustion engines. I know that I personally will not buy a GM because of my own experience with a GM product[1]. They have the right idea here with reducing fuel costs by having the battery lab, but that is not their expertise. Combustion engines are their expertise, so why go into a divergent field? It is too risky for a company that is already on the edge of going out of business. In particular, I mention these two topics since it seems that is the main reason people buy Hondas for example.
[1] The one year that I owned it (used with 44k miles when purchased) I had to take it to the shop 3 times to be fixed, each for different reasons (once an oxygen sensor, the next because of strange interlock between the gear shifter and pulling the key out of the ignition, and finally the transmission). This was only in 2004, btw.
I was quite terse in my previous post, since I was just looking at the costs to develop the hardware. There are other costs as well (as others have already pointed out in this post as well in your reply) that are associated in running the business. Someones gotta pay the utility bill for example, so of course you make for that in the mark up of the product that you are selling.
Is it a surprise to any one that the manufacturing costs are not as much as retail? The article mentions cost to build, ie materials alone, is $185.49. I did not see mention of SW development, so to think that the rest is profit is just silly.
That's just crazy talk! Why would the US want to do something as progressive as that?
Some kidding aside, I don't think the US is quite ready for that. I think there is just too much xenophobia here. We only have two bordering nations, one of which is known for giving us easily identifiable illegal aliens (i.e. Mexicans). I 'm not saying there aren't any Canadian illegal immigrants, they are just harder to point out in a crowd. I guess it is also easier to accept a Canadian as an illegal immigrant since they primarily speak english*.
At any rate, the point I am trying to make is that the US has only two neighboring countries when compared to Europe. We are essentially used to be left alone and not having to deal with too many neighbors. Our vitality has not been too dependent on other countries, until maybe recently if you consider how many goods we import (this could remedied if we actually produced anything here anymore). Throw in a bit of ignorance, fear, and paranoia, you get the current distrust of immigrants in the US. I would also think that to do something like this would be considered a socialist (another fear word) program and as soon as you say the 'S' word here, people automatically think of Lenin, Marx, Mao, etc... Again, this is just another play on ignorance, but oh well.
I saw the episode also. I think Jeff's answer was as good as he could give. He was upfront about the fact that it was up to the publishers about their chosen DRM policies. I would rather him have been upfront and honest about this than to deflect the answer. Honesty like this is refreshing. He was not trying to hide anything.
Additionally, from interviews that I see on the Daily Show, John Stewart can sometimes be a bit overbearing so being able to get some of the points you would like to as the interviewee may not happen. Additionally, it is after all a comedy show, so John will always take the chance to crack jokes. (Jokes he probably should have avoided, because Jeff's laugh was kind of scary). I think it would have been neat if he could have demoed the unit a bit more too, but all in all, I thought the interview was pretty good.
Oh please... Since when did some kids rights trump what the teacher will allow or not allow in their classroom?
This might sound like a "get off my lawn" sort of comment, which is amazing since I am in my early 30s, but we did not have cell phones when I was in middle/high school. The same with my older sister, and our parents, and their parents, etc, etc. and did the world end? Is the constant need for communication really that necessary? If there was ever a familial problem, guess what? Parents would call the school's office to get a hold of their kid. This would add a whopping 10 minutes max of relaying the message. (I am at least using the phone as an example, since it is at least on topic with the thread, even though you would seem of the opinion that any tech should be allowed, based on inference)
As a member of society, I have no problem with having education mandatory, if not for college prep, then at least put them in a trade school (a la the European model). It is in general bad for society to have plenty of uneducated masses, since they are also more of a burden on society through means such as welfare, food stamps, crime, etc.
Finally, what ever happened to showing other humans a bit of respect. I mean, I know that teens will rebel to some extent, but to say that this student should be able to continue to be a disturbance in class after the teacher had asked her to put her phone away, then I stand behind the teacher. It's the teacher classroom, follow the teachers rules, plain and simple.
I guess it depends on what you would consider a weapon. I would definitely see the benefit of having a satellite in space to detect ICBM launches from hostile countries. (I would guess these exist, but am not sure). Would this be a weapon? Also, if you already had these satellites, would it be a weapon if it tried to intercept and destroy these missiles before they reach their targets?
I would call this last thing a space weapon, but not in the sense that it would destroy ground based facilities. By having the satellite in space, you would detect the missile launch earlier (and arguably more accurately) than if you were using long range, airborne OTH radars that are at sub-orbit altitudes. And if you can detect the missile earlier, there is likely more you can do something about it, such as destroy the missile, or launch a counter attack against the infringing site/area/country.
The relationship of power varying at 1/r^2 is from Ponynting's theorem in electromagnetics. An electromagnetic wave has an electric field (E) and magnetic field (H [1]) component and are orthogonal to one another as well as to the direction of travel. E x H (x is the vector cross product) and will give the direction of travel and has unite Watts/meter^2, which is a power density. This is ignoring the theoretical aspects of near field and far field relationships (you will most certainly be in the near field at 5 meters at 60Hz).
Back to the OP's math, he did use the wrong ratio and you used the correct one. The power will decrease as you move further away because the power density will drop as 1/r^2.
[1] If you look at wikipedia's definition of Poynting's theorem, they show B instead of H. The relationship between B and H is simply B= mu*H in freespace.
I am not trying to troll here, but Horowitz and Hill does not sound like what he is looking for. This is circuit design light. It vaguely describes circuits, however I will admit there are a bunch of circuit ideas with cook book solutions (or circuit ideas, as the book puts it) but I found them never to be described enough to my liking. Even more of a pet peeve of mine about this book is that it gives drawings of 'bad' circuit ideas. In most cases it is obvious why one of these circuits won't work, but others are not as obvious. The thing is, it never explains why they are bad. If you are trying to learn analog circuitry, it is almost as important to know why something won't work as to why it will. I almost feel people suggest this book if they are not EE's but it makes you sound knowledgeable. (full disclaimer: I am an RF design EE )
I will agree with one poster who suggested Grey, Hurst, Meyer, and Lewis called "Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits" (and I own), with the disclaimer that it is geared for IC design. With that said, it does a good job of teaching analog circuits.
I will be the first to agree that our high schools need help, but when you start demeaning the US system because we didn't teach Fourier series in high school is just plain snobbery. And really, what is the point of teaching Fourier series in high school? Did it really solidify the underlying physics concepts to you? To me, focusing too much on the math would just detract from what they are really trying to teach, which are the concepts. Hell, physics wouldn't exist as a serious filed of study without calculus, but that doesn't mean that you can't teach physics if the student doesn't have an understanding of the calculus. My high school physics course did not introduce one derivative or integral explicitly. That doesn't mean that we couldn't the math, it just means that we were given the solutions to the integrals and derivatives already to plug and chug. Is it as elegant as knowing that d(t) = a*t^2/2 + vo*t + do comes from solving two integrals? No, but it does show me that I can solve for a distance at time t if I know the initial conditions.
There is fundamental difference the way US school systems are and other systems are. I think you will find that the emphasis for hard work is in college and easier in high school in the US, where as the university in other nations is the easier. (This is not my own experience; others have told me this). The fact that the math classes are teaching Fourier series, Taylor's theorems, etc in college is not surprising since to fully understand them would need some more experience as to why we would use them.
To follow up with someone else who responded to your post....
There is also the added fact that there usually hundreds of books on any one topic. How would you know which one to read? When someone is given so many choices, it is natural to ask someone else what they think of book X or Y and which one is better. I am sure you have done something similar as well on occasion. Considering the submitter is in grad school, he likely doesn't have time to read through multiple books on the same topic, just to find out one of the ones he read was garbage and that there are better books out there.
Not to get too side tracked, but it is also this phenomena that makes "word of mouth" such a powerful device. People will advocate anything for you if they like it enough.
You can't be serious! Have you read up on anything about what caused the financial crisis? How about the term mortgage backed securities? How about predatory lending and or loosening lending standards to people who normally wouldn't qualify? (this last point you could argue was because there was not government intervention) How about real estate agents pumping up the idea that your home value will alway go up?. I would like to know how you came to the your conclusion that it was "big" government that is causing our strife.
In this particular area, I think it was a lack of government oversight which let a market get too hot and too unregulated. I am not too fond of this huge bailout either. I would liken my thinking that "an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure". If we tried to reign this in before it got too large (through government intervention) then we wouldn't have a $700 billion dollar bailout funded by the taxpayers*.
* On a less serious note, this bailout will cost each of us 2000 McDonald's apple pies per person, according to some cable news channel. (I saw the actual clip on the Daily Show.)
I think you may have just proved his point. Chances are that if you are a computer programmer, you have a propensity for math and science. If you could see that you could make more money as a teacher, then you would likely become a teacher, but you would also have the desired math and science skills instead of English teachers pretending to be math teachers.
I would likely teach if I could get paid as well as I am working for private industry. For full disclosure: I am an electrical engineer with an MS.
I know that you are trying to say the pirated version is the superior product, but version 2 is not always free of spyware. It is just a different type than those sanctioned by EA. There have been times where I downloaded a piece of software off of bit torrent but the crack had spyware ready to install once you executed the file. These subtle details obviously do not make your argument so black and white.
Never underestimate the power of curiosity. In 2001 and 2002, British hacker Gary McKinnon gained access to Air Force, Army, Navy, NASA, Pentagon, and Department of Defense computers--97 in total--in a quest for evidence of flying saucers.
But this could be a problem if not done properly. Unless you use something like a buck boost converter to step from 12V to 5V or even 3.3V (all common small electronics voltages) you could end up with problems. Suppose the current to this device draws 500 mA and needs the 5V supply and uses a simple LDO regulator to step the voltage down. The power dissipated by the device would then be (12V-5V)*0.5A = 3.5W just in the voltage regulator in addition to the 5V*0.5A = 2.5W load of the device. This LDO is dissipating more power than the actual electronics you want powered!
Now using a buck-boost regulator (sometimes known as a DC-DC converter) has its own issues. These supplies have some sort of AC source (usually a PWM square wave) to charge reactive components as well as large inductors inductors to store the energy. Both of these have their own issues which are a problem. Square waves are 'noisy' and generate plenty of harmonics. Any consumer electronics device must pass FCC rules for radiated emissions. PWM waves don't help you here. Inductors are frowned on since the can be quite large. They may even have some sort of iron (or similar ferrous material) which will add to the weight so they can increase the inductance. These reasons right here is why most electronics have external regulators; they can do all the hard stuff outside the device they really want to build.
All of this is just a long winded answer to say that 12V may not be a one size fits all solution. Twelve volts will blow up most integrated circuits requiring the voltage to be stepped down in some fashion.
I can send a signal at 5 MHz or 10 MHz and have the same bandwidth of the channel. Assuming a perfect, noiseless, and dispersionless channel, which would you expect to finish transferring the data also assuming the size of data is the same? The correct answer of course would be the 10MHz.
Now, if you look up on wikipedia (there are two definitions), the "computing" version, they make a similar analogy to what you said, but also admit that it is suspect. However, they do at least mention the Shannon-Hartley theorem (aka Channel Capacity), where indeed, the output of a channel is directly proportional to the bandwidth (the analog bandwidth). However, channel capacity will not increase linearly since the noise (N) in that equation will increase due to the increased channel bandwidth.
full disclosure: I did not read the patent concerning this.
There are other means to be variable outputs from something other than just a simple pot. In fact, from one patent I saw (it have even been related to this case from an earlier Slashdot story) the use some sort of PWM (pulse width modulation) with an integrator to simulate an analog output. In this scenario, the larger the duty cycle of the pulse signal would result in a larger value after the integration.
The previous two poster are being a bit sarcastic, but I think that you do have a good point from my experience. When I was younger, I didn't have the patience for programming, mostly because I was a terrible typist. I guess you could look at it as struggling with two tasks simultaneously: my horrible typing and my lack of knowledge of programming. Since I have gotten older, I now know how to type proficiently, so now I can concentrate on the actual programming part.
If anything, teaching the kid to type will be a good skill. He will be able to use it in high school for writing his papers. And should he/she go onto college, they will be even better prepared.
Slashdot Mirror
fixed that for you....Thank you, thank you very much. I will be here all week. Don't forget to tip the waitstaff..
This would be pretty easy and cheap to do.
It would require two magnets, some magnetic wire, a battery, two paper clips which are the 'brushes', some copper tape for the commutator, some sort wooden/metal rod to mount the rotor onto, and bigger piece of cylindrical wood for your commutator. This might blow your budget the first year, but i would see the only recurring expense be the copper tape, batteries and the magnetic wire.
Here is a website on how some of the assembly should look
http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/wiki/index.php/Brushed_DC_Motor_Theory
Look about halfway down the page when describing the theory.
My only pointers would be to make a multi-turn coil of wire instead of a single single. Obviously you will need to add a rotor and commutator, so that is what the various wooden pieces are. Make the copper tape cover as much of the circumference of the commutator, as it will work better.
I found another, simpler DC motor, but it didn't look to exciting. You can search google to find other types of projects.
This isn't Jeapordy. You are giving it the answer. You need to ask it the ultimate question first...you know...to compare answers :)
you would do something like this
.01 steps
i = [0:.01:1]; %create a vector i which ranges from 0 to 1 in
y = sin(pi*i/10); %plug the vector into the function and y will be a function of i.
Be careful though. y(0.1) would return an error, since array indexing is done by integers. To retrieve the value of sin(pi*0.1/10), you would need to know what the index value is of i when it is 0.1 (using mental math, it would be 11). so the value of y at i == 0.1 would be y(11).
Hope this clears things up.
I did my graduate studies in a university electromagnetics lab. Two of the professors main research area was FEA. By default, we still ended up learning some even if it wasn't our research area. Most the students were pro Matlab, where as the professors were pro Fortran. As a result, if you were doing FEA for your research, you were learning fortran. If you are doing small simulations, then go ahead and use Matlab, since it will be easier to code and debug. Once you start creating 3D meshes, the number of unknowns becomes huge. At that point a compiled language is a better choice. At least fortran has complex numbers native to the language, so its implementation is a bit more elegant than say C/C++.
I would think that any company that is or headed toward bankruptcy would scale back on some of its R&D. I understand you need some to stay competitive, but I would think that GM would use its time and money better by initially refocusing itself,its product line, cutting costs, etc. Once they have all that under control, then they could research newer technologies.
I think that GM would do themselves a favor by focusing on only two main goals. Improve reliability and make more efficient combustion engines. I know that I personally will not buy a GM because of my own experience with a GM product[1]. They have the right idea here with reducing fuel costs by having the battery lab, but that is not their expertise. Combustion engines are their expertise, so why go into a divergent field? It is too risky for a company that is already on the edge of going out of business. In particular, I mention these two topics since it seems that is the main reason people buy Hondas for example.
[1] The one year that I owned it (used with 44k miles when purchased) I had to take it to the shop 3 times to be fixed, each for different reasons (once an oxygen sensor, the next because of strange interlock between the gear shifter and pulling the key out of the ignition, and finally the transmission). This was only in 2004, btw.
Good point.
I was quite terse in my previous post, since I was just looking at the costs to develop the hardware. There are other costs as well (as others have already pointed out in this post as well in your reply) that are associated in running the business. Someones gotta pay the utility bill for example, so of course you make for that in the mark up of the product that you are selling.
Is it a surprise to any one that the manufacturing costs are not as much as retail? The article mentions cost to build, ie materials alone, is $185.49. I did not see mention of SW development, so to think that the rest is profit is just silly.
That's just crazy talk! Why would the US want to do something as progressive as that?
Some kidding aside, I don't think the US is quite ready for that. I think there is just too much xenophobia here. We only have two bordering nations, one of which is known for giving us easily identifiable illegal aliens (i.e. Mexicans). I 'm not saying there aren't any Canadian illegal immigrants, they are just harder to point out in a crowd. I guess it is also easier to accept a Canadian as an illegal immigrant since they primarily speak english*.
At any rate, the point I am trying to make is that the US has only two neighboring countries when compared to Europe. We are essentially used to be left alone and not having to deal with too many neighbors. Our vitality has not been too dependent on other countries, until maybe recently if you consider how many goods we import (this could remedied if we actually produced anything here anymore). Throw in a bit of ignorance, fear, and paranoia, you get the current distrust of immigrants in the US. I would also think that to do something like this would be considered a socialist (another fear word) program and as soon as you say the 'S' word here, people automatically think of Lenin, Marx, Mao, etc... Again, this is just another play on ignorance, but oh well.
*Quebec, of course, would the primary exception.
I saw the episode also. I think Jeff's answer was as good as he could give. He was upfront about the fact that it was up to the publishers about their chosen DRM policies. I would rather him have been upfront and honest about this than to deflect the answer. Honesty like this is refreshing. He was not trying to hide anything.
Additionally, from interviews that I see on the Daily Show, John Stewart can sometimes be a bit overbearing so being able to get some of the points you would like to as the interviewee may not happen. Additionally, it is after all a comedy show, so John will always take the chance to crack jokes. (Jokes he probably should have avoided, because Jeff's laugh was kind of scary). I think it would have been neat if he could have demoed the unit a bit more too, but all in all, I thought the interview was pretty good.
Oh please... Since when did some kids rights trump what the teacher will allow or not allow in their classroom?
This might sound like a "get off my lawn" sort of comment, which is amazing since I am in my early 30s, but we did not have cell phones when I was in middle/high school. The same with my older sister, and our parents, and their parents, etc, etc. and did the world end? Is the constant need for communication really that necessary? If there was ever a familial problem, guess what? Parents would call the school's office to get a hold of their kid. This would add a whopping 10 minutes max of relaying the message. (I am at least using the phone as an example, since it is at least on topic with the thread, even though you would seem of the opinion that any tech should be allowed, based on inference)
As a member of society, I have no problem with having education mandatory, if not for college prep, then at least put them in a trade school (a la the European model). It is in general bad for society to have plenty of uneducated masses, since they are also more of a burden on society through means such as welfare, food stamps, crime, etc.
Finally, what ever happened to showing other humans a bit of respect. I mean, I know that teens will rebel to some extent, but to say that this student should be able to continue to be a disturbance in class after the teacher had asked her to put her phone away, then I stand behind the teacher. It's the teacher classroom, follow the teachers rules, plain and simple.
I guess it depends on what you would consider a weapon. I would definitely see the benefit of having a satellite in space to detect ICBM launches from hostile countries. (I would guess these exist, but am not sure). Would this be a weapon? Also, if you already had these satellites, would it be a weapon if it tried to intercept and destroy these missiles before they reach their targets?
I would call this last thing a space weapon, but not in the sense that it would destroy ground based facilities. By having the satellite in space, you would detect the missile launch earlier (and arguably more accurately) than if you were using long range, airborne OTH radars that are at sub-orbit altitudes. And if you can detect the missile earlier, there is likely more you can do something about it, such as destroy the missile, or launch a counter attack against the infringing site/area/country.
The relationship of power varying at 1/r^2 is from Ponynting's theorem in electromagnetics. An electromagnetic wave has an electric field (E) and magnetic field (H [1]) component and are orthogonal to one another as well as to the direction of travel. E x H (x is the vector cross product) and will give the direction of travel and has unite Watts/meter^2, which is a power density. This is ignoring the theoretical aspects of near field and far field relationships (you will most certainly be in the near field at 5 meters at 60Hz).
Back to the OP's math, he did use the wrong ratio and you used the correct one. The power will decrease as you move further away because the power density will drop as 1/r^2.
[1] If you look at wikipedia's definition of Poynting's theorem, they show B instead of H. The relationship between B and H is simply B= mu*H in freespace.
I am not trying to troll here, but Horowitz and Hill does not sound like what he is looking for. This is circuit design light. It vaguely describes circuits, however I will admit there are a bunch of circuit ideas with cook book solutions (or circuit ideas, as the book puts it) but I found them never to be described enough to my liking. Even more of a pet peeve of mine about this book is that it gives drawings of 'bad' circuit ideas. In most cases it is obvious why one of these circuits won't work, but others are not as obvious. The thing is, it never explains why they are bad. If you are trying to learn analog circuitry, it is almost as important to know why something won't work as to why it will. I almost feel people suggest this book if they are not EE's but it makes you sound knowledgeable. (full disclaimer: I am an RF design EE )
I will agree with one poster who suggested Grey, Hurst, Meyer, and Lewis called "Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits" (and I own), with the disclaimer that it is geared for IC design. With that said, it does a good job of teaching analog circuits.
Oh get off your high horse!
I will be the first to agree that our high schools need help, but when you start demeaning the US system because we didn't teach Fourier series in high school is just plain snobbery. And really, what is the point of teaching Fourier series in high school? Did it really solidify the underlying physics concepts to you? To me, focusing too much on the math would just detract from what they are really trying to teach, which are the concepts. Hell, physics wouldn't exist as a serious filed of study without calculus, but that doesn't mean that you can't teach physics if the student doesn't have an understanding of the calculus. My high school physics course did not introduce one derivative or integral explicitly. That doesn't mean that we couldn't the math, it just means that we were given the solutions to the integrals and derivatives already to plug and chug. Is it as elegant as knowing that d(t) = a*t^2/2 + vo*t + do comes from solving two integrals? No, but it does show me that I can solve for a distance at time t if I know the initial conditions.
There is fundamental difference the way US school systems are and other systems are. I think you will find that the emphasis for hard work is in college and easier in high school in the US, where as the university in other nations is the easier. (This is not my own experience; others have told me this). The fact that the math classes are teaching Fourier series, Taylor's theorems, etc in college is not surprising since to fully understand them would need some more experience as to why we would use them.
To follow up with someone else who responded to your post....
There is also the added fact that there usually hundreds of books on any one topic. How would you know which one to read? When someone is given so many choices, it is natural to ask someone else what they think of book X or Y and which one is better. I am sure you have done something similar as well on occasion. Considering the submitter is in grad school, he likely doesn't have time to read through multiple books on the same topic, just to find out one of the ones he read was garbage and that there are better books out there.
Not to get too side tracked, but it is also this phenomena that makes "word of mouth" such a powerful device. People will advocate anything for you if they like it enough.
You can't be serious! Have you read up on anything about what caused the financial crisis? How about the term mortgage backed securities? How about predatory lending and or loosening lending standards to people who normally wouldn't qualify? (this last point you could argue was because there was not government intervention) How about real estate agents pumping up the idea that your home value will alway go up?. I would like to know how you came to the your conclusion that it was "big" government that is causing our strife.
In this particular area, I think it was a lack of government oversight which let a market get too hot and too unregulated. I am not too fond of this huge bailout either. I would liken my thinking that "an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure". If we tried to reign this in before it got too large (through government intervention) then we wouldn't have a $700 billion dollar bailout funded by the taxpayers*.
* On a less serious note, this bailout will cost each of us 2000 McDonald's apple pies per person, according to some cable news channel. (I saw the actual clip on the Daily Show.)
I think you may have just proved his point. Chances are that if you are a computer programmer, you have a propensity for math and science. If you could see that you could make more money as a teacher, then you would likely become a teacher, but you would also have the desired math and science skills instead of English teachers pretending to be math teachers.
I would likely teach if I could get paid as well as I am working for private industry. For full disclosure: I am an electrical engineer with an MS.
I know that you are trying to say the pirated version is the superior product, but version 2 is not always free of spyware. It is just a different type than those sanctioned by EA. There have been times where I downloaded a piece of software off of bit torrent but the crack had spyware ready to install once you executed the file. These subtle details obviously do not make your argument so black and white.
Why do I find this so funny!
But this could be a problem if not done properly. Unless you use something like a buck boost converter to step from 12V to 5V or even 3.3V (all common small electronics voltages) you could end up with problems. Suppose the current to this device draws 500 mA and needs the 5V supply and uses a simple LDO regulator to step the voltage down. The power dissipated by the device would then be (12V-5V)*0.5A = 3.5W just in the voltage regulator in addition to the 5V*0.5A = 2.5W load of the device. This LDO is dissipating more power than the actual electronics you want powered!
Now using a buck-boost regulator (sometimes known as a DC-DC converter) has its own issues. These supplies have some sort of AC source (usually a PWM square wave) to charge reactive components as well as large inductors inductors to store the energy. Both of these have their own issues which are a problem. Square waves are 'noisy' and generate plenty of harmonics. Any consumer electronics device must pass FCC rules for radiated emissions. PWM waves don't help you here. Inductors are frowned on since the can be quite large. They may even have some sort of iron (or similar ferrous material) which will add to the weight so they can increase the inductance. These reasons right here is why most electronics have external regulators; they can do all the hard stuff outside the device they really want to build.
All of this is just a long winded answer to say that 12V may not be a one size fits all solution. Twelve volts will blow up most integrated circuits requiring the voltage to be stepped down in some fashion.
Why is this modded troll. If the parent is from Michigan, he is pretty much spot on!
Sorry, I couldn't resist, but bandwidth != speed.
I can send a signal at 5 MHz or 10 MHz and have the same bandwidth of the channel. Assuming a perfect, noiseless, and dispersionless channel, which would you expect to finish transferring the data also assuming the size of data is the same? The correct answer of course would be the 10MHz.
Now, if you look up on wikipedia (there are two definitions), the "computing" version, they make a similar analogy to what you said, but also admit that it is suspect. However, they do at least mention the Shannon-Hartley theorem (aka Channel Capacity), where indeed, the output of a channel is directly proportional to the bandwidth (the analog bandwidth). However, channel capacity will not increase linearly since the noise (N) in that equation will increase due to the increased channel bandwidth.
Some links
Bandwidth "Computing"
Bandwidth Signal Processing
Channel Capacity
full disclosure: I did not read the patent concerning this.
There are other means to be variable outputs from something other than just a simple pot. In fact, from one patent I saw (it have even been related to this case from an earlier Slashdot story) the use some sort of PWM (pulse width modulation) with an integrator to simulate an analog output. In this scenario, the larger the duty cycle of the pulse signal would result in a larger value after the integration.
The previous two poster are being a bit sarcastic, but I think that you do have a good point from my experience. When I was younger, I didn't have the patience for programming, mostly because I was a terrible typist. I guess you could look at it as struggling with two tasks simultaneously: my horrible typing and my lack of knowledge of programming. Since I have gotten older, I now know how to type proficiently, so now I can concentrate on the actual programming part.
If anything, teaching the kid to type will be a good skill. He will be able to use it in high school for writing his papers. And should he/she go onto college, they will be even better prepared.