Current NiMH - no, the materials do not burn. The future LiIon - I hope not... it was a defect anyway. But any battery - and any gas tank - must be protected, they contain a lot of energy and you don't want it to be released inappropriately.
No, they are NiMH batteries (LiIon planned for 2008 models). The batteries are kept between 20% and 80% SOC, so they are never fully discharged or fully charged - this increases their life enormously.
So long as the pollution's not in your back yard, it's okay?
The pollution is OK only where it can be contained and eventually cleaned; obviously noone's backyard qualifies, but an enclosed building in an industrial zone might qualify, if all the safety measures are in place.
We must accept that our industrial world can not exist without harmful materials - not with what we know at the moment. One day we may learn how to transmute elements in industrial setting and such, but until then chemistry is unavoidable. Unless one wants to give up on electronics and medicine and go live in jungles, of course - that's a personal choice that is always available.
Transportation of energy is far from being lossless. That's why aluminum plants are often built near the hydroelectric power plants - the energy is cheaper there. It makes plenty of sense to consume the energy near where it is produced, and it makes even more sense to consume it in a factory setting where the contaminants can be controlled and cleaned.
Nobody knows because no battery failed yet due to old age. The clock is going for 8 years now. The battery on the new Prius is under warranty for either 8 or 10 years IIRC.
The transmitter's power can be measured as power applied to the final stage, this is how ham equipment is metered - not by radiated power. Most professional equipment however, as you say is measured by the power it outputs into the dummy load (a large, precise attenuator.)
But in any case the efficiency of a relatively narrowband PA can be about 20-30% easily, if not more, so the numbers hardly change. The heat is where the other 70-80% go, so it is accounted for. There are no tubes in modern PAs, unless you talk TWT in DVB sats, but that's not the subject here. I worked with 10 kW AM/SSB HF solid state transmitters, and they work great and I don't know who would even buy a tube-based low/medium power PA any more, let alone who would make one. If you need 1 MW - then we can discuss things. Anyhow, the primary power is not a concern, not even in the slightest. Your tech in charge, snoozing near the control panel, costs you far more - not even counting the *content* that you broadcast.
It costs a lot of money to run 25,000 watts all day!!
Using residential rate of $0.075/kWh (which I seem to be paying these days) this amounts to whopping 45 dollars for a non-stop 24 hours broadcast. This expense is not even on the radar of a TV broadcaster; the coffee and water service costs more.
That's how it is already; if an employee needs some special application, or a special setup, or something else equally unusual, then the manager and the IT will accomodate (or deny the request if it is not justified.) And then the IT will support what IT installed. The employee is only required to use the tool and produce results that he was hired to produce.
"responsible for their own support" is what a manager would find unacceptable. There are many reasons why some people may need to deviate from company standard; however self-support is something scary, both because many people have to learn how to administer something, and because they might do it incorrectly.
Dell is not in software business, Apple is. Besides, Apple has its own problems that anyone in this business sees and understands perfectly. If I were to choose between owning Dell Inc. vs. owning Apple Inc. I would pick Dell because it has better future opportunities and less of legacy cruft.
Dell Linux would cost dell many millions to develop (or adopt), and many years. Demanding anything from a vendor is not productive, and you can't demand quality of those drivers either because Dell buys cheapest parts it can get away with. R&D is very expensive, and it makes plenty of sense to skip all that and just stick to Windows - at least Dell doesn't have to do any of that work, and is not responsible for the results.
Remote access to consumer's boxes through ssh would be usually problematic if the box does not boot or because the user changed all passwords or because he is behind a DSL NAT router or because of 1000 other reasons which can't be diagnosed. Many users don't even know what is their public IP address (such as the one of the router. Their internal one is 192.168.5.1 for example, much good it will do to you.)
Most of these ideas had been tried, and are still tried (that flip-top thing, or Oqo, or Negroponte's OLPC.) And they are still failing. Why? Because a notebook with 1 hr operation time is useless. Because a notebook without a DVD is useless. Because large flash is already available in Flash disks. Because multi-core not lowers power consumption but increases it. And so on...
If you research you will see that the market have seen everything from cell phones to 20" "notebooks", and every niche had been tried. The only thing that is pure fantasy is the supercap, only because there are no supercaps with capacity even close to a LiIon battery.
anyone deviating from the corporate standard is responsible for their own support
A manager hadn't been born yet who is stupid enough to permit this. If you hire a sales guy you expect him to send emails to customers, and not to fiddle with/etc/postfix/main.cf... possibly even bringing the company's mail system down.
Reinstall is not as bad as you paint it. If you reinstall then you get a guaranteed result in a predictable time, at minimum cost. If you try to fix it you may break it further; or if you retain a professional then you also lose some money, and still don't have the system in "as good as new" state.
There are environments where you don't want an employee copying a large database onto a Firewire (or USB) external drive. Normally such computers have all I/O ports, wired or wireless, physically removed, and the case sealed and locked, with intrusion detector (many m/boards support that, but few cases have the switches.)
If Dell gets somehow wiped out in a financial disaster, for example, those offices who went all-Dell will not be even inconvenienced. They will just be ordering new computers from someone else, like HP. And if that is not good either then there are many smaller vendors who, given Dell's demise, may be quite willing to fill the vacant shoes.
If Apple gets somehow wiped out in a financial disaster, for example, those offices who went all-Mac will be practically destroyed. They will not be able to get new computers, or new software; even the old software may be dropped by ISVs if Apple business is no longer interesting. The Mac houses will be forced to buy Wintel or Linux boxes, but their software will be so much incompatible they at some point will have to scrap the rest of Macs.
The difference here is that the PC hardware has multiple sources, with the final assembly being effectively infinitely scalable. If both Dell, HP and Acer and Lenovo go out of business then slashdotters would be making money hand over fist, assembling beige boxes as mad, and the business will continue as usual.
The PC software is effectively in escrow as well. If Microsoft just suddenly disappears in a cloud of sulfur (which might happen, I'd say:-) the Windows OS exists on millions of CDs and in hundreds of thousands of VLKs - which would become public domain, probably. Also, the Windows source is in escrow at hundreds of locations in several countries, at places who signed source code licenses. These guys won't show you the code now, but if MS is no longer with us then the source may also become public. That is not even mentioning Linux, source and binaries of which you can get for free. But I was talking only about Windows. I do not know if OSX sources are officially in escrow anywhere, but probably they are quite safe and compilable regardless of what happens to Apple. Demise of the custom Apple hardware is a far worse issue.
Considering all of that, a business is better off using commodity PCs, rather than single-source Apple hardware. And if so, that takes care of the Mac issue automatically, since OSX won't run on a Wintel box. One thing leads to another, and Apple's obsession with control hurts it everywhere.
Many places where I've worked kept PC hotspare parts and machines on hand to avoid even the service call, but that's not always financially feasible or part of SOP.
I have two spare PC boxes in front of me right now. When needed, it will take only minutes to move the old HDD into the new box (identical m/b) and the worker can continue. If his old HDD is dead then I have a spare one ready, he only needs to wait a couple of minutes while his new set of personal files is created from scratch.
However because the boss him/herself, spouse or kids may have a Mac or iPod they may ask the IT guys why Macs are NOT considered in the office. The IT folks better have a convincing answer.
"Yes, Boss, you can have Macs right away. However I would need a 50% salary raise for the second OS skills set. And you will pay for the rest of the stuff that comes with this, that I don't care about."
Slashdot Mirror
I bet Hummer does not have such a problem :-)
How do you know if this is an emergency or not? Do you expect the agents to brief you on the case, so that you can make your own decision?
Current NiMH - no, the materials do not burn. The future LiIon - I hope not... it was a defect anyway. But any battery - and any gas tank - must be protected, they contain a lot of energy and you don't want it to be released inappropriately.
No, they are NiMH batteries (LiIon planned for 2008 models). The batteries are kept between 20% and 80% SOC, so they are never fully discharged or fully charged - this increases their life enormously.
The pollution is OK only where it can be contained and eventually cleaned; obviously noone's backyard qualifies, but an enclosed building in an industrial zone might qualify, if all the safety measures are in place.
We must accept that our industrial world can not exist without harmful materials - not with what we know at the moment. One day we may learn how to transmute elements in industrial setting and such, but until then chemistry is unavoidable. Unless one wants to give up on electronics and medicine and go live in jungles, of course - that's a personal choice that is always available.
Transportation of energy is far from being lossless. That's why aluminum plants are often built near the hydroelectric power plants - the energy is cheaper there. It makes plenty of sense to consume the energy near where it is produced, and it makes even more sense to consume it in a factory setting where the contaminants can be controlled and cleaned.
Nobody knows because no battery failed yet due to old age. The clock is going for 8 years now. The battery on the new Prius is under warranty for either 8 or 10 years IIRC.
A fathom is a measure of length, check Wikipedia for details.
As opposed to sharing the highways with people who know they are immortal?
I do not realize that, and will not realize that until someone proves it and the proof survives the reviews.
But in any case the efficiency of a relatively narrowband PA can be about 20-30% easily, if not more, so the numbers hardly change. The heat is where the other 70-80% go, so it is accounted for. There are no tubes in modern PAs, unless you talk TWT in DVB sats, but that's not the subject here. I worked with 10 kW AM/SSB HF solid state transmitters, and they work great and I don't know who would even buy a tube-based low/medium power PA any more, let alone who would make one. If you need 1 MW - then we can discuss things. Anyhow, the primary power is not a concern, not even in the slightest. Your tech in charge, snoozing near the control panel, costs you far more - not even counting the *content* that you broadcast.
Using residential rate of $0.075/kWh (which I seem to be paying these days) this amounts to whopping 45 dollars for a non-stop 24 hours broadcast. This expense is not even on the radar of a TV broadcaster; the coffee and water service costs more.
That's how it is already; if an employee needs some special application, or a special setup, or something else equally unusual, then the manager and the IT will accomodate (or deny the request if it is not justified.) And then the IT will support what IT installed. The employee is only required to use the tool and produce results that he was hired to produce.
"responsible for their own support" is what a manager would find unacceptable. There are many reasons why some people may need to deviate from company standard; however self-support is something scary, both because many people have to learn how to administer something, and because they might do it incorrectly.
Dell is not in software business, Apple is. Besides, Apple has its own problems that anyone in this business sees and understands perfectly. If I were to choose between owning Dell Inc. vs. owning Apple Inc. I would pick Dell because it has better future opportunities and less of legacy cruft.
Remote access to consumer's boxes through ssh would be usually problematic if the box does not boot or because the user changed all passwords or because he is behind a DSL NAT router or because of 1000 other reasons which can't be diagnosed. Many users don't even know what is their public IP address (such as the one of the router. Their internal one is 192.168.5.1 for example, much good it will do to you.)
If you research you will see that the market have seen everything from cell phones to 20" "notebooks", and every niche had been tried. The only thing that is pure fantasy is the supercap, only because there are no supercaps with capacity even close to a LiIon battery.
A manager hadn't been born yet who is stupid enough to permit this. If you hire a sales guy you expect him to send emails to customers, and not to fiddle with /etc/postfix/main.cf ... possibly even bringing the company's mail system down.
Reinstall is not as bad as you paint it. If you reinstall then you get a guaranteed result in a predictable time, at minimum cost. If you try to fix it you may break it further; or if you retain a professional then you also lose some money, and still don't have the system in "as good as new" state.
There are environments where you don't want an employee copying a large database onto a Firewire (or USB) external drive. Normally such computers have all I/O ports, wired or wireless, physically removed, and the case sealed and locked, with intrusion detector (many m/boards support that, but few cases have the switches.)
If Apple gets somehow wiped out in a financial disaster, for example, those offices who went all-Mac will be practically destroyed. They will not be able to get new computers, or new software; even the old software may be dropped by ISVs if Apple business is no longer interesting. The Mac houses will be forced to buy Wintel or Linux boxes, but their software will be so much incompatible they at some point will have to scrap the rest of Macs.
The difference here is that the PC hardware has multiple sources, with the final assembly being effectively infinitely scalable. If both Dell, HP and Acer and Lenovo go out of business then slashdotters would be making money hand over fist, assembling beige boxes as mad, and the business will continue as usual.
The PC software is effectively in escrow as well. If Microsoft just suddenly disappears in a cloud of sulfur (which might happen, I'd say :-) the Windows OS exists on millions of CDs and in hundreds of thousands of VLKs - which would become public domain, probably. Also, the Windows source is in escrow at hundreds of locations in several countries, at places who signed source code licenses. These guys won't show you the code now, but if MS is no longer with us then the source may also become public. That is not even mentioning Linux, source and binaries of which you can get for free. But I was talking only about Windows. I do not know if OSX sources are officially in escrow anywhere, but probably they are quite safe and compilable regardless of what happens to Apple. Demise of the custom Apple hardware is a far worse issue.
Considering all of that, a business is better off using commodity PCs, rather than single-source Apple hardware. And if so, that takes care of the Mac issue automatically, since OSX won't run on a Wintel box. One thing leads to another, and Apple's obsession with control hurts it everywhere.
I have two spare PC boxes in front of me right now. When needed, it will take only minutes to move the old HDD into the new box (identical m/b) and the worker can continue. If his old HDD is dead then I have a spare one ready, he only needs to wait a couple of minutes while his new set of personal files is created from scratch.
I'd buy an octarine-colored Zune just to look at it :-)
"Yes, Boss, you can have Macs right away. However I would need a 50% salary raise for the second OS skills set. And you will pay for the rest of the stuff that comes with this, that I don't care about."
If they can routinely discover RSA secret keys then you probably don't need a quantum computer to verify that. An Intel 386 box would be enough.