I think the analogy you're trying to make is that if everyone makes their own mod they won't want to play everyone else's. There's a bit of a difference though. Sticking to the analogy: Firstly it would require all of the players to make their own balls, some are much less skilled at doing so than others, so those balls would never be finished. Then of the finished balls, some would be much more high quality than others and everyone who played with them would be able to rate them on overall quality and word would spread given this metric. Eventually the best few balls emerge to produce some of the fastest-paced and best games ever.
I would like to say you were correct about the alternator system. However there is still the additional electrical engine and when the MG1 goes bad (which it will at a comparable rate to any other generator or alternator) there will be a much higher cost associated with replacement.
I realize the Prius is a reliable vehicle but you missed the entire point of the post. Toyota has some of the most reliable vehicles on the market in general. I didn't say it isn't a good buy, but if you look at the curb weight, a lot of the efficiency comes from the reduced weight and even a few other factors. THAT is why I said they should build the exact non-hybrid counterpart to not only the Prius, but to most or all hybrids so we know this is the right direction. Additionally, there WILL be additional repair costs and also, the electric motor does not have a clutch as it does not need one, however the gas engine still does. you are correct that there is no serpentine belt, however if this fails it is a rather insubstantial repair.
Even though the Corolla is a slightly smaller car overall, it is not correct to judge the efficiency over as it was not built specifically for this purpose. Let's hypothesize Toyota did take my advice and built a non-hybrid Prius as that's what you were talking about. The curb weight would be about the same and it would need about a 100hp engine to be comparable to the engines of the Prius. (the added engine weight would actually be less than the electrical engine, the batteries and the beefed up alternator but I'll assume it would be about the same) Otherwise the materials used would be the same. What it comes down to is we have a Yaris built on a wider and slightly lighter frame. After the hit it took with the new mileage ratings it stands at about 35MPG versus the Prius at 48MPG. You would save around $245 for every 10k miles you traveled. I know it would cost more for the materials to build, but if the electrical half of the hybrid costs only $4000 (which is probably a lot less than the reality) it would already take over 160,000 miles to make up for the cost.
I still stand on the battery issue as I was not referring to the monetary cost in that case, but the environmental cost. There are still going to be by-products associated with the recycling process, and we are still reliant on hydrocarbons to operate a Prius (the reduction over a normal fuel efficient car is only about 33%) so there is an impact, just not a big one.
I do agree that a Prius is an ok buy right now. But the goal is to see if there really is a positive impact overall, and not just for the Prius, but for hybrids in general. This includes environmental and economical impact. The only true way to get the numbers is to compare apples to apples and produce a non-hybrid version for comparison. As for the cars that can be directly compared (Civic and Accord) we'll actually be able to see in a few years. as for right now they hit the break even points 6.5 and 14.5 years into their use (already not great) I'm waiting to hear when the typical battery fails as there is not yet enough information available on that.
To clarify my standpoint, I agree entirely with the movement to alternate fuels and would really love to see more people burn rubber, not gasoline I just think hybrids may not be any better than their gasoline counterparts.
Re:The scourge of broken web sites
on
How Image Spam Works
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Works for me. Must be your browser.
Here is TFA for all those who can't read it in its current form:
Image Spam: By the Numbers
By Scott Berinato
Image Spam--an e-mail solicitation that uses graphical images of text to avoid filters--is not new. Recently, though, it reached an unprecedented level of sophistication and took off. A year ago, fewer than five out of 100 e-mails were image spam, according to Doug Bowers of Symantec. Today, up to 40 percent are. Meanwhile, image spam is the reason spam traffic overall doubled in 2006, according to antispam company Borderware. It is expected to keep rising.
1. GIF Layering
Just as word splitting divides words into multiple images to elude spam filters (see number three), an image spam can be divided into multiple images. Like the transparent plastic overlays in Gray's Anatomy, pieces of a message are layered to create a complete, legible message. In this rudimentary example, the spam is divided into three pieces (cut in the middle of letters for added obfuscation). But one message could comprise as many as a dozen layered GIFs.
2. Optical Character
Recognition Duping Optical character recognition (OCR) is the closest to sight that computers get. OCR works by measuring the geometry in images, searching for shapes that match the shapes of letters, then translating a matched geometric shape into real text. To defeat OCR, spammers upset the geometry of letters enough--by altering colors, for example--so that OCR can't "see" a letter even as the human eye easily recognizes it. The effect is something like blurred characters in an eye test.
3. Word Splitting and Ransom Notes
If OCR catches up to the color tricks in image spam, a spammer's next defense is word splitting. By dividing the image and leaving space in between the pieces, any image the OCR engine is examining is only a piece of a letter with its own distinct geometry. Instead of word splitting, some spammers have employed a ransom note technique in which each letter in the spam message is its own image, and each letter image includes background noise and other baffling techniques. A program cobbles together randomized letter images to make words. The effect looks like a classic ransom note with a mishmash of letters cut out from magazines.
4. Geometric Variance
Many filters can intercept mass mailings based on their sameness. Images, though, can be altered easily without disturbing the message inside them. Thus one spam message will arrive as dozens of differently shaped images, and each time the colors of the text images will have changed, as will the randomly generated speckling and pixel and word salads. No two images are alike despite the fact that they carry similar messages. Shown are two radically different images containing the same stock tip. The technique is popular as a scheme to boost prices of low-value stocks. In March, the SEC suspended trading on 35 such stocks that were the subject of these image spam messages, including some whose prices rose.
5. Speckling/Pixel Salad
Confetti-like speckles don't affect the legibility of the necessary information but make every message unique to confuse a filter looking for patterns or high volumes of identical images.Similarly, a bar of randomly generated color pixels can contain the vast majority of the image data. To a filter it's full of patternless noise. We can see the words in the message while the image at the bottom doesn't bother us.
6. Hyperlink Elimination/Word Salad/Animated GIF
Filters have improved their ability to find and trace spammy URLs and then block the message based on the inclusion of a bad link. To get around this, spammers will ask recipients to type the URL into their browsers.Other methods include word salads, text passages, often taken from classic novels, to confuse Bayesian filters and weighted dictionaries that rely on complex mat
To defeat OCR, spammers upset the geometry of letters enough--by altering colors, for example--so that OCR can't "see" a letter even as the human eye easily recognizes it. The effect is something like blurred characters in an eye test.
If OCR catches up to the color tricks in image spam, a spammer's next defense is word splitting. By dividing the image and leaving space in between the pieces, any image the OCR engine is examining is only a piece of a letter with its own distinct geometry. Instead of word splitting, some spammers have employed a ransom note technique in which each letter in the spam message is its own image, and each letter image includes background noise and other baffling techniques.
I only partially agree. There are chemicals in the battery that cannot be recycled and thus there is an environmental impact. as far as R&D goes, I'd like to see companies burn rubber, not gasoline
Actually, no. I would LOVE to see a pure electric hit the road and would be one of the first to adopt one. I'm simply saying that with most hybrids, the efficiency gain is nothing to write home about and we are still reliant on fossil fuels. There are also some hazards that pure gas cars either don't have, or have less of.
I would really like to see Toyota build a car that is identical to a current hybrid and find the costs associated with the vehicle including:
1) The money saved in the design by not having the electrical engine, battery, extra alternator system
2) The added vehicle life (if any) by not having extra parts to fail.
3) A more realistic estimate of the gas money saved under the new, more realistic mileage ratings
4)The additional cost of disposing batteries from the hybrid upon the hybrids end
I feel that we still may have been too quick to jump on the bandwagon with hybrids. Air pollution is reduced overall, but the added cost of the electrical engine may not make up for the forgone cost of gas. Additionally, how good is it going to be to have a mound of spent batteries laying around in landfills?
Let's see some data before such a large move is made.
Indeed, I don't think a car with these modifications will get the same performance boost over a well-timed car which manufactures are trying their best to do already. From Wikipedia - internal combustion engine "Most internal combustion engines waste about 36% of the energy in gasoline as heat lost to the cooling system and another 38% through the exhaust. The rest, about 6%, is lost to friction." You aren't going to gain anything back from friction and very little from heat loss from this idea so that leaves the portion through the exhaust. Unfortunately to output a reasonable amount of power to the pistons, you must put more gasoline into the chambers than is needed to push the piston from the top of the stroke to the bottom and this MUST remain to ensure a full cycle. We may see an overall reduction in the amount of energy lost through the exhaust, but I fail to see how it will reach the numbers they predicted.
by yourself in the beginning. I have learned that people generally are not at all interested in an idea when it is just an idea, but when they see something start to come together it can pick up steam. Document like crazy first. Get your idea on paper and even code a lot of the base classes you need. Break down the work to be done into smaller projects. If you have a website for the project let people what functions or classes need to be written, if you don't have a website, get one! It will be invaluable to help describe the goal of the project, the desired result and what is currently needed. It will take a long while to get the ball rolling on any large-scale project and it will be very difficult to get enough interest. All you can do is start and hope others will follow.
The true reason DRM has failed is because of how limited our rights have become. Companies need to get a clue and instead of developing new "fluffy" terms to cover up shortcomings, they need to give the consumer what they actually want. Companies need to stop thinking about how to exploit consumers at every possible corner and go back to providing a valuable service for all.
You know, you're absolutely right as long as you ignore the ease of use, the reams of paper saved and the decrease in the amount of people needed to count, sort and hand out ballots.
What we have is a case of a good idea implemented very poorly. Honestly something as simple as connecting a drivers license number and name to each ballot would vastly increase accountability and how reviewable an election would be. It's a good idea in need of a huge makeover.
I actually kind of took the same viewpoint after reading TFA. Granted there may have been quite a bit of scientific research that went into it at some point. I just take issue when the article says things like
A team of researchers is proposing that.... or
that's what astronomers commonly believe. because we don't know about the research, the level of credibility or even the number of people "astronomers" encompasses (quotes like that sometimes mean two astronomers they talked to when writing the article.)
With that aside I do get the feel that TFA is more assumption than science. If anyone can link the actual research done I'd love to see it
Sometimes it's simply a matter of finding the right company for you. There are so many different companies offering so many different career experiences in general. Finding one that isn't right for you may make you think you want to do something completely different when in reality you may just need a better boss, more flexible hours or more (or less) human interaction time. I'd look around at what else is close by before you make a leap in (potentially) the wrong direction.
I do like the aspect of some apps being hosted online versus locally as it frees up a portion of your HDD, but before I commit fully to this idea I have to bring into question data security and bandwidth on this one. I know there is more bandwidth to come and that is simply a matter of time, but implementing an online desktop could potentially bring some big security issues into play.
Before I begin I would like to state for the record that I dislike the iPhone and the concept behind it simply because of the problems which persist with the iPods. With that out of the way...
The reason the iPhone is worth the bother of competing against is it will most likely do decently despite a lot of the doomsday warnings I tend to find on here. The iPod initially sold for about the same price ($500-$600) and was only an MP3 player. Over the past few years the iPod has played a VERY critical role in the success of Apple. the iPod itself is a very easy to use device with pretty colors and lots of fluffy add ons that the trendy crowd loves (even though I have seen countless iPods break (battery, motherboard, hard drive, etc.) After their introduction the price will come down and there is a market push to create devices with multiple uses into a single, small device.
Sun (I would like to note) is not directly competing in this market. Their response is only an operating system which phones may later utilize. The appeal to this new phone is the open source aspect (depending on how sun implements the final design) This type of phone I find intriguing and I feel that most techies will.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the analogy you're trying to make is that if everyone makes their own mod they won't want to play everyone else's. There's a bit of a difference though. Sticking to the analogy: Firstly it would require all of the players to make their own balls, some are much less skilled at doing so than others, so those balls would never be finished. Then of the finished balls, some would be much more high quality than others and everyone who played with them would be able to rate them on overall quality and word would spread given this metric. Eventually the best few balls emerge to produce some of the fastest-paced and best games ever.
I would like to say you were correct about the alternator system. However there is still the additional electrical engine and when the MG1 goes bad (which it will at a comparable rate to any other generator or alternator) there will be a much higher cost associated with replacement.
I realize the Prius is a reliable vehicle but you missed the entire point of the post. Toyota has some of the most reliable vehicles on the market in general. I didn't say it isn't a good buy, but if you look at the curb weight, a lot of the efficiency comes from the reduced weight and even a few other factors. THAT is why I said they should build the exact non-hybrid counterpart to not only the Prius, but to most or all hybrids so we know this is the right direction. Additionally, there WILL be additional repair costs and also, the electric motor does not have a clutch as it does not need one, however the gas engine still does. you are correct that there is no serpentine belt, however if this fails it is a rather insubstantial repair.
Even though the Corolla is a slightly smaller car overall, it is not correct to judge the efficiency over as it was not built specifically for this purpose. Let's hypothesize Toyota did take my advice and built a non-hybrid Prius as that's what you were talking about. The curb weight would be about the same and it would need about a 100hp engine to be comparable to the engines of the Prius. (the added engine weight would actually be less than the electrical engine, the batteries and the beefed up alternator but I'll assume it would be about the same) Otherwise the materials used would be the same. What it comes down to is we have a Yaris built on a wider and slightly lighter frame. After the hit it took with the new mileage ratings it stands at about 35MPG versus the Prius at 48MPG. You would save around $245 for every 10k miles you traveled. I know it would cost more for the materials to build, but if the electrical half of the hybrid costs only $4000 (which is probably a lot less than the reality) it would already take over 160,000 miles to make up for the cost.
I still stand on the battery issue as I was not referring to the monetary cost in that case, but the environmental cost. There are still going to be by-products associated with the recycling process, and we are still reliant on hydrocarbons to operate a Prius (the reduction over a normal fuel efficient car is only about 33%) so there is an impact, just not a big one.
I do agree that a Prius is an ok buy right now. But the goal is to see if there really is a positive impact overall, and not just for the Prius, but for hybrids in general. This includes environmental and economical impact. The only true way to get the numbers is to compare apples to apples and produce a non-hybrid version for comparison. As for the cars that can be directly compared (Civic and Accord) we'll actually be able to see in a few years. as for right now they hit the break even points 6.5 and 14.5 years into their use (already not great) I'm waiting to hear when the typical battery fails as there is not yet enough information available on that.
To clarify my standpoint, I agree entirely with the movement to alternate fuels and would really love to see more people burn rubber, not gasoline I just think hybrids may not be any better than their gasoline counterparts.
Works for me. Must be your browser.
Here is TFA for all those who can't read it in its current form:
Image Spam: By the Numbers
By Scott Berinato
Image Spam--an e-mail solicitation that uses graphical images of text to avoid filters--is not new. Recently, though, it reached an unprecedented level of sophistication and took off. A year ago, fewer than five out of 100 e-mails were image spam, according to Doug Bowers of Symantec. Today, up to 40 percent are. Meanwhile, image spam is the reason spam traffic overall doubled in 2006, according to antispam company Borderware. It is expected to keep rising.
1. GIF Layering
Just as word splitting divides words into multiple images to elude spam filters (see number three), an image spam can be divided into multiple images. Like the transparent plastic overlays in Gray's Anatomy, pieces of a message are layered to create a complete, legible message. In this rudimentary example, the spam is divided into three pieces (cut in the middle of letters for added obfuscation). But one message could comprise as many as a dozen layered GIFs.
2. Optical Character
Recognition Duping Optical character recognition (OCR) is the closest to sight that computers get. OCR works by measuring the geometry in images, searching for shapes that match the shapes of letters, then translating a matched geometric shape into real text. To defeat OCR, spammers upset the geometry of letters enough--by altering colors, for example--so that OCR can't "see" a letter even as the human eye easily recognizes it. The effect is something like blurred characters in an eye test.
3. Word Splitting and Ransom Notes
If OCR catches up to the color tricks in image spam, a spammer's next defense is word splitting. By dividing the image and leaving space in between the pieces, any image the OCR engine is examining is only a piece of a letter with its own distinct geometry. Instead of word splitting, some spammers have employed a ransom note technique in which each letter in the spam message is its own image, and each letter image includes background noise and other baffling techniques. A program cobbles together randomized letter images to make words. The effect looks like a classic ransom note with a mishmash of letters cut out from magazines.
4. Geometric Variance
Many filters can intercept mass mailings based on their sameness. Images, though, can be altered easily without disturbing the message inside them. Thus one spam message will arrive as dozens of differently shaped images, and each time the colors of the text images will have changed, as will the randomly generated speckling and pixel and word salads. No two images are alike despite the fact that they carry similar messages. Shown are two radically different images containing the same stock tip. The technique is popular as a scheme to boost prices of low-value stocks. In March, the SEC suspended trading on 35 such stocks that were the subject of these image spam messages, including some whose prices rose.
5. Speckling/Pixel Salad
Confetti-like speckles don't affect the legibility of the necessary information but make every message unique to confuse a filter looking for patterns or high volumes of identical images.Similarly, a bar of randomly generated color pixels can contain the vast majority of the image data. To a filter it's full of patternless noise. We can see the words in the message while the image at the bottom doesn't bother us.
6. Hyperlink Elimination/Word Salad/Animated GIF
Filters have improved their ability to find and trace spammy URLs and then block the message based on the inclusion of a bad link. To get around this, spammers will ask recipients to type the URL into their browsers.Other methods include word salads, text passages, often taken from classic novels, to confuse Bayesian filters and weighted dictionaries that rely on complex mat
To defeat OCR, spammers upset the geometry of letters enough--by altering colors, for example--so that OCR can't "see" a letter even as the human eye easily recognizes it. The effect is something like blurred characters in an eye test.
If OCR catches up to the color tricks in image spam, a spammer's next defense is word splitting. By dividing the image and leaving space in between the pieces, any image the OCR engine is examining is only a piece of a letter with its own distinct geometry. Instead of word splitting, some spammers have employed a ransom note technique in which each letter in the spam message is its own image, and each letter image includes background noise and other baffling techniques.
Unfortunately spammers are still a step ahead.
I only partially agree. There are chemicals in the battery that cannot be recycled and thus there is an environmental impact. as far as R&D goes, I'd like to see companies burn rubber, not gasoline
Actually, no. I would LOVE to see a pure electric hit the road and would be one of the first to adopt one. I'm simply saying that with most hybrids, the efficiency gain is nothing to write home about and we are still reliant on fossil fuels. There are also some hazards that pure gas cars either don't have, or have less of.
I would really like to see Toyota build a car that is identical to a current hybrid and find the costs associated with the vehicle including:
1) The money saved in the design by not having the electrical engine, battery, extra alternator system
2) The added vehicle life (if any) by not having extra parts to fail.
3) A more realistic estimate of the gas money saved under the new, more realistic mileage ratings
4)The additional cost of disposing batteries from the hybrid upon the hybrids end
I feel that we still may have been too quick to jump on the bandwagon with hybrids. Air pollution is reduced overall, but the added cost of the electrical engine may not make up for the forgone cost of gas. Additionally, how good is it going to be to have a mound of spent batteries laying around in landfills?
Let's see some data before such a large move is made.
It would be twice the size, but instead of an electrical input it would run off of 15 million Viagra!
But I feel like I'm reading out of a child's book. I'll continue to take the hit in reading speed to keep my sanity!
Indeed, I don't think a car with these modifications will get the same performance boost over a well-timed car which manufactures are trying their best to do already. From Wikipedia - internal combustion engine "Most internal combustion engines waste about 36% of the energy in gasoline as heat lost to the cooling system and another 38% through the exhaust. The rest, about 6%, is lost to friction." You aren't going to gain anything back from friction and very little from heat loss from this idea so that leaves the portion through the exhaust. Unfortunately to output a reasonable amount of power to the pistons, you must put more gasoline into the chambers than is needed to push the piston from the top of the stroke to the bottom and this MUST remain to ensure a full cycle. We may see an overall reduction in the amount of energy lost through the exhaust, but I fail to see how it will reach the numbers they predicted.
by yourself in the beginning. I have learned that people generally are not at all interested in an idea when it is just an idea, but when they see something start to come together it can pick up steam. Document like crazy first. Get your idea on paper and even code a lot of the base classes you need. Break down the work to be done into smaller projects. If you have a website for the project let people what functions or classes need to be written, if you don't have a website, get one! It will be invaluable to help describe the goal of the project, the desired result and what is currently needed. It will take a long while to get the ball rolling on any large-scale project and it will be very difficult to get enough interest. All you can do is start and hope others will follow.
The true reason DRM has failed is because of how limited our rights have become. Companies need to get a clue and instead of developing new "fluffy" terms to cover up shortcomings, they need to give the consumer what they actually want. Companies need to stop thinking about how to exploit consumers at every possible corner and go back to providing a valuable service for all.
You know, you're absolutely right as long as you ignore the ease of use, the reams of paper saved and the decrease in the amount of people needed to count, sort and hand out ballots.
What we have is a case of a good idea implemented very poorly. Honestly something as simple as connecting a drivers license number and name to each ballot would vastly increase accountability and how reviewable an election would be. It's a good idea in need of a huge makeover.
...But it's about time that electronic voting machines were beta-tested!
I actually kind of took the same viewpoint after reading TFA. Granted there may have been quite a bit of scientific research that went into it at some point. I just take issue when the article says things like
A team of researchers is proposing that.... or that's what astronomers commonly believe. because we don't know about the research, the level of credibility or even the number of people "astronomers" encompasses (quotes like that sometimes mean two astronomers they talked to when writing the article.)With that aside I do get the feel that TFA is more assumption than science. If anyone can link the actual research done I'd love to see it
But the ceiling is closing in on me!!!
Sometimes it's simply a matter of finding the right company for you. There are so many different companies offering so many different career experiences in general. Finding one that isn't right for you may make you think you want to do something completely different when in reality you may just need a better boss, more flexible hours or more (or less) human interaction time. I'd look around at what else is close by before you make a leap in (potentially) the wrong direction.
I do like the aspect of some apps being hosted online versus locally as it frees up a portion of your HDD, but before I commit fully to this idea I have to bring into question data security and bandwidth on this one. I know there is more bandwidth to come and that is simply a matter of time, but implementing an online desktop could potentially bring some big security issues into play.
Before I begin I would like to state for the record that I dislike the iPhone and the concept behind it simply because of the problems which persist with the iPods. With that out of the way...
The reason the iPhone is worth the bother of competing against is it will most likely do decently despite a lot of the doomsday warnings I tend to find on here. The iPod initially sold for about the same price ($500-$600) and was only an MP3 player. Over the past few years the iPod has played a VERY critical role in the success of Apple. the iPod itself is a very easy to use device with pretty colors and lots of fluffy add ons that the trendy crowd loves (even though I have seen countless iPods break (battery, motherboard, hard drive, etc.) After their introduction the price will come down and there is a market push to create devices with multiple uses into a single, small device.
Sun (I would like to note) is not directly competing in this market. Their response is only an operating system which phones may later utilize. The appeal to this new phone is the open source aspect (depending on how sun implements the final design) This type of phone I find intriguing and I feel that most techies will.
That means 16 cables should be 625 times as fast
and 128 cables... oh my god
Quick, get the bonding glue and a spool of coax!
It's download time!!!
It's just a little bit faster than reallyfast and a little bit slower than UBERfast
I just want to know what's with all the steel chambers.
Well thank god you reported that to us!
He still has yet to find a girlfriend!