We don't have one in our lab! My company makes functionalised materials (so solid state) but most of the synthesis and research we do is standard organic chem. GCMS, NMR and ICP do us just fine. We did test a reflectance IR instrument but never managed to get any useful data - in fairness that's probably partly due to lack of expertise.
Interesting that you mention IR not being suitable for reaction monitoring: Mettler's ReactIR has generated quite a bit of hype (well, perhaps 5-10 years ago) and is really quite a nice bit of kit. Easily good enough for reactions on the ten-minutes to hours timescale.
And I am surprised by the statement that vibrational spectroscopy doesn't give you enough information
OK, perhaps that was unfair: for certain tasks it can be useful, and can give information that other techniques can't like bond strengths (and angles/strain perhaps?), but only with nice, pure samples. For routine organic synthesis though all the information you need can be got much more simply and intuitively (albeit expensively!) with NMR. You can get half-decent desktop NMR now, about the size of a PC.
But even with a limited spectral resolution and sensitivity, it should be able to identify spectral signatures of typical herbicides and pesticides.
I would be amazed if it could. With a sufficiently large database to draw from, and clever processing, I can imagine being able to identify the bulk constituent, but anything else would be lost in the noise. It might be able to tell you if your apple is waxed or not, but not if it's got ppm levels of pesticides. TBH, I'll be pretty impressed if this could identify different plastics or other relatively pure materials. It is certainly a nice idea though.
There's a reason IR spectroscopy has fallen by the wayside in chemistry - it doesn't give you enough information, and just hasn't kept up with other techniques. It's used for specific tasks, such as monitoring a reaction, but it's not a go-to analysis technique any more.
So the cleaners can plug in their equipment. When the train is stationary, and doesn't have wild voltage fluctuations due to the circuitry not having regulators designed to cope with the variation in line voltage between when the train's accelerating and decelerating (i.e. pumping power back into the line).
THF itself isn't particularly risky,* I imagine it's the implications to the authorities that would be a concern. THF is an important solvent in making various amphetamine-type drugs - I'm not sure where, but I'd hazard a guess it's to do a Birch reduction on the imine
* Well, it does have a tendency to form explosive peroxides like most ether solvents, but it's not usually a problem unless you're distilling pure (no inhibitors) THF which has been left under air for a long time. Oh, and it's a suspected carcinogen, but not so bad healthwise as DCM, toluene, etc..
Amazed ADoM (adom.de) hasn't been mentioned yet. I've been playing it for about 15 years on and off (and actually won for the first time this year!). It lacks the stupid stuff you can only learn from spoilers that Nethack has, and it's got a more consistent universe - no stupid Sokoban, no flash cameras and credit cards...
Really? Those same engines are tested by firing frozen chickens into them while they are running.
Ah, that reminds me of one lunchtime debate with a colleague when this factoid came up:
Me:... yeah, I don't think they use live ones Him: Nah, they use frozen chickens Me: Defrosted though I'd think? Him: No - at that altitude, they *would* be frozen Me:......
I'm no doctor, but I think the cause of death is less likely to have been "[taking] part in an ice bucket challenge" than subsequently "leaping into [shallow] water from 25-metre high cliffs."
Ontopic, I think everyone who has ever used LN2 will have dipped their hand into it. You get a couple of seconds of feeling perfectly fine, then a very sudden searing cold burn. Where I work we were given felt gloves to use when dispensing it until I pointed out that if you actually get LN2 on them (rather than just handling cold metal) it will soak in and be right next to your skin. Now we just use standard marigolds.
The prototype TGV was powered by dinosaur juice - I believe they swapped to electric mainly because of an increase in oil prices. Maintenance was probably also an issue (the prototype was gas turbine-electric which has a terrible record in the rail industry).
But yeah, electrification is the only sensible option - you're fixed to the route of the track anyway (or if not you've got bigger worries than where your power's coming from) so why not stick some OHLE alongside.
This "train" (debatable if it's a train if it's only one vehicle) would only hold the record for the fastest conventional wheeled train in the US anyway.
There is also the not small problem of grade. Trains dislike hills, with a grade over 1% being excessive to them. Cars routinely handle ten times this.
Grades dictate routes. The only way around this is tunnels & bridges. Either way, cost per mile for a track is much higher than for a road. With costs born by one company, rather than all of us.
1% is too steep for a 10000 tonne freight train, it's nothing for an electrified passenger line. High speed lines commonly have gradients of 3 or 4%. For comparison, in the UK the maximum gradient guidance for a motorway is 3% (the steepest is 5.6%). Curvature is the main constraint with HSR requiring curve radii of ~3 miles compared to 0.5 miles for motorways.
Tunnelling is actually not a massive cost these days - to the point where nearly half of the planned HS2 line here in the UK will be tunnelled, not due to geology but to avoid land grab and spoiling the countryside (in some rich areas, obviously). Alternatively you can do as the Chinese and build elevated lines which both avoids geography to an extent and reduces the land grab - in China it was cheaper to build viaduct than on the ground for land purchase reasons alone.
In the French (and even more so German) models, the high speed network continues on normal track beyond the dedicated high speed routes, allowing service to places which wouldn't merit their own line. This is where such accidents occur - the train involved is incidental.
In Japan and Spain the HSR network is self-contained since the track gauge is different to the conventional network - If the US did ever decide to build a line I would expect it to be the same. Not because of the gauge, but to allow HSR to use existing technology which would not pass US rail safety requirements.
Last I checked, air expands when heated, so your lasers would need to point downwards. Secondly, air is pretty poor at absorbing EM radiation so you'd not be able to generate a "hot zone", you'd just heat up air in the line of your beam For a long way. Third, the amount of power you'd need would be astronomical (unless you trapped the hot air in a balloon for lift, which has been figured out for a while now).
Now that Ceefax is considered obsolete, those days are over. It sure makes it a lot harder for me to enjoy their broadcasts.
If you were still watching analogue TV then it certainly will be a lot harder to enjoy any broadcasts. Subtitles are available on digital using the red button - I'm pretty sure the BBC and possibly other broadcasters are obliged to provide subtitles.
'Maths' is the correct spelling in English; 'math' is correct in American. In any case, a mis-spelling is not an issue of grammar, it is one of spelling.
A point of grammar would be pointing out that the verb 'solve' does not take an indirect object ('me') but would require a preposition to indicate the action occuring, viz:
* "For example, I created one which solved me the maths homework."
"For example, I created one which solved for me the maths homework."
"For example, I created one which solved the maths homework for me."
Sounds like BS to me; conventional GCMS can resolve differences in molecular weight to a fraction of a proton's mass. And these techniques are used very heavily already, I think any mysterious "proton-scale differences" (sounds like quackery in itself) would have been noticed.
BTW whilst there aren't any isotopic diseases - unless you count cancers due to radioactive isotopes of otherwise fine elements - there is burgeoning interest in isotopic drugs, although it's questionable how much is genuine benefit and how much patent trickery.
No, I'm not. I have the right under common law to not disclose information which can then be used to incriminate me. That includes talking to police, period. I do not even have to give them my name.
Of course you're not physically compelled, by some supernatural force, to give them any information. Just as you're not physically compelled to pay your taxes, to drive at the speed limit or not to murder your mum.
I didn't deny the existence of anything. I said they are not getting the fucking encryption keys.
This would make sense if the sentence you would expect to receive for witholding the keys is less than the sentence you would expect for giving access to the data (or if handing the keys over would endanger compatriots for instance). Otherwise it's a way to go to to stick by your principles.
Of course it would make sense to use an encryption system which gives you plausible deniability in the first place, or hide incriminating data within a load of legal stuff which you might reasonably want encrypted (accounts or somesuch).
I expect, within a week, to find at least one person rambling that 'All the liberal ecocommies want us to go back to living in caves and mud huts.'
You've not read the comments on TFA then. Sensible move.
Republitarian at 2:41 PM March 19, 2012
Exactly how liberals would like us to live, shivering in caves, using no energy and no water, i.e., regressive.
I also enjoyed:
ericdb at 2:06 PM March 19, 2012
And to think their communist society began on the "promise" to take care of the poor, now they have one of the highest poverty levels in the world, not including the cave dwellers.
...which conveniently misses out (a) that people have been living in houses like these for centuries, and (b) that China is not communist in any meaningful (at least economic) sense, and it's much closer to an unregulated rampant free market economy. Which is why it has very, very poor people and very, very rich people.
Not only not an Amiga, but not remotely in the spirit of the original Amiga platform.
Sticking some off the shelf hardware together and running Linux on it is nothing special in the slightest. The Amiga was special because it was designed as a coherent whole - it had lots of co-processing going on (Fat Agnus, Denise et al), powerful graphics abilities and a multitasking, inherently GUI-based OS which was for the most part an absolute pleasure to use.
Also, although AmigaOS was loosely based on UNIX type systems in the way the filesystem worked, it feels much more transparent somehow - largely because the hardware was controlled by Commodore so that there was no need for the layer upon layer of abstraction of modern Linux (NB: I'm not a programmer so this may well be bollocks). Of course this also meant that upgrades could be a pain - notably graphics cards which were not supported by 95% of programs which did not run on the Workbench. FTR, I now use Linux which I enjoy but I do miss the simplicity of AmigaOS.
This was my first thought - what's the advantage of an aircraft rather than a ship (or buoy)? Two or three strategically placed should minimise the chances of weather putting the service offline.
Also - using Raspberry Pi? I'm not in IT, but I'm thinking that the server power and bandwidth required by TPB is in the order of "quite lots".
First, they say the network will be built in three years.
8 (diggers) * 0.1km / week * 52 weeks / year * 3 years = 41.6km 73 miles (117.5km)
But then, they said the project would complete 2018... so then it adds up... but still a little unclear.
The underground length is about 22 km, i.e. around 44 km of tunnel (one for each line). 3 years gives enough time for the tunnelling and ancillary work on the underground parts. Once that is done there's still building the stations (including connecting to the underground), laying the track etc, a lot of work on the existing suburban stations required, and aquiring the trains (something the Department for Transport are notorious for; the invitation to tender has only just been released and it's likely to be a touchy issue for the government) - hence the estimated 2018 date.
The biggest problem is that LED (CREE etc) based streetlights have not yet been ratified by the EU and so cannot be used on public highways in the UK. If they do become ratified then there will be huge power savings. In China, they have whole motorways lit up using this technology. Not only do they burn less power, but the lantern lifetime is much longer than the standard sodium units that have a warranty lifespan of 3 to 5 years.
Actually, the power saving for road lighting are negligible at best, or negative at worst. Low pressure sodium lamps currently in use produce up to 200 lm/W, compared to 100 lm/W for the better white LEDs around. There's not much that can compete with LPS for pure lighting efficiency, partly because the light emitted is near the maximum sensitivity of the human eye.
Of course, LPS lamps produce monochromatic light which means they're not so popular for lighting urban/pedestrian areas, as people feel safer in a more "natural" light where they can see colours. But for roads alone, there's no need to see colours.
Also, LPS is the least objectionable form of light pollution to astronomers, as being monochromatic it's easy to filter out (and there's not a lot of glowing sodium in space, so you're not blocking out anything of interest).
Slashdot Mirror
We don't have one in our lab! My company makes functionalised materials (so solid state) but most of the synthesis and research we do is standard organic chem. GCMS, NMR and ICP do us just fine. We did test a reflectance IR instrument but never managed to get any useful data - in fairness that's probably partly due to lack of expertise.
Interesting that you mention IR not being suitable for reaction monitoring: Mettler's ReactIR has generated quite a bit of hype (well, perhaps 5-10 years ago) and is really quite a nice bit of kit. Easily good enough for reactions on the ten-minutes to hours timescale.
And I am surprised by the statement that vibrational spectroscopy doesn't give you enough information
OK, perhaps that was unfair: for certain tasks it can be useful, and can give information that other techniques can't like bond strengths (and angles/strain perhaps?), but only with nice, pure samples. For routine organic synthesis though all the information you need can be got much more simply and intuitively (albeit expensively!) with NMR. You can get half-decent desktop NMR now, about the size of a PC.
But even with a limited spectral resolution and sensitivity, it should be able to identify spectral signatures of typical herbicides and pesticides.
I would be amazed if it could. With a sufficiently large database to draw from, and clever processing, I can imagine being able to identify the bulk constituent, but anything else would be lost in the noise. It might be able to tell you if your apple is waxed or not, but not if it's got ppm levels of pesticides. TBH, I'll be pretty impressed if this could identify different plastics or other relatively pure materials. It is certainly a nice idea though.
There's a reason IR spectroscopy has fallen by the wayside in chemistry - it doesn't give you enough information, and just hasn't kept up with other techniques. It's used for specific tasks, such as monitoring a reaction, but it's not a go-to analysis technique any more.
So the cleaners can plug in their equipment. When the train is stationary, and doesn't have wild voltage fluctuations due to the circuitry not having regulators designed to cope with the variation in line voltage between when the train's accelerating and decelerating (i.e. pumping power back into the line).
THF itself isn't particularly risky,* I imagine it's the implications to the authorities that would be a concern. THF is an important solvent in making various amphetamine-type drugs - I'm not sure where, but I'd hazard a guess it's to do a Birch reduction on the imine
* Well, it does have a tendency to form explosive peroxides like most ether solvents, but it's not usually a problem unless you're distilling pure (no inhibitors) THF which has been left under air for a long time. Oh, and it's a suspected carcinogen, but not so bad healthwise as DCM, toluene, etc..
Amazed ADoM (adom.de) hasn't been mentioned yet. I've been playing it for about 15 years on and off (and actually won for the first time this year!). It lacks the stupid stuff you can only learn from spoilers that Nethack has, and it's got a more consistent universe - no stupid Sokoban, no flash cameras and credit cards...
DCSS seems pretty nice too, not played much
Really? Those same engines are tested by firing frozen chickens into them while they are running.
Ah, that reminds me of one lunchtime debate with a colleague when this factoid came up:
Me: ... yeah, I don't think they use live ones ......
Him: Nah, they use frozen chickens
Me: Defrosted though I'd think?
Him: No - at that altitude, they *would* be frozen
Me:
Already happened: http://news.nationalpost.com/2...
I'm no doctor, but I think the cause of death is less likely to have been "[taking] part in an ice bucket challenge" than subsequently "leaping into [shallow] water from 25-metre high cliffs."
Ontopic, I think everyone who has ever used LN2 will have dipped their hand into it. You get a couple of seconds of feeling perfectly fine, then a very sudden searing cold burn. Where I work we were given felt gloves to use when dispensing it until I pointed out that if you actually get LN2 on them (rather than just handling cold metal) it will soak in and be right next to your skin. Now we just use standard marigolds.
The prototype TGV was powered by dinosaur juice - I believe they swapped to electric mainly because of an increase in oil prices. Maintenance was probably also an issue (the prototype was gas turbine-electric which has a terrible record in the rail industry).
But yeah, electrification is the only sensible option - you're fixed to the route of the track anyway (or if not you've got bigger worries than where your power's coming from) so why not stick some OHLE alongside.
This "train" (debatable if it's a train if it's only one vehicle) would only hold the record for the fastest conventional wheeled train in the US anyway.
The record for the fastest railed vehicle in the US - hey, even the world - is more than an order of magnitude faster. I'll pass on having a ride though.
There is also the not small problem of grade. Trains dislike hills, with a grade over 1% being excessive to them. Cars routinely handle ten times this. Grades dictate routes. The only way around this is tunnels & bridges. Either way, cost per mile for a track is much higher than for a road. With costs born by one company, rather than all of us.
1% is too steep for a 10000 tonne freight train, it's nothing for an electrified passenger line. High speed lines commonly have gradients of 3 or 4%. For comparison, in the UK the maximum gradient guidance for a motorway is 3% (the steepest is 5.6%). Curvature is the main constraint with HSR requiring curve radii of ~3 miles compared to 0.5 miles for motorways.
Tunnelling is actually not a massive cost these days - to the point where nearly half of the planned HS2 line here in the UK will be tunnelled, not due to geology but to avoid land grab and spoiling the countryside (in some rich areas, obviously). Alternatively you can do as the Chinese and build elevated lines which both avoids geography to an extent and reduces the land grab - in China it was cheaper to build viaduct than on the ground for land purchase reasons alone.
High speed rail != high speed train
In the French (and even more so German) models, the high speed network continues on normal track beyond the dedicated high speed routes, allowing service to places which wouldn't merit their own line. This is where such accidents occur - the train involved is incidental.
In Japan and Spain the HSR network is self-contained since the track gauge is different to the conventional network - If the US did ever decide to build a line I would expect it to be the same. Not because of the gauge, but to allow HSR to use existing technology which would not pass US rail safety requirements.
Last I checked, air expands when heated, so your lasers would need to point downwards. Secondly, air is pretty poor at absorbing EM radiation so you'd not be able to generate a "hot zone", you'd just heat up air in the line of your beam For a long way. Third, the amount of power you'd need would be astronomical (unless you trapped the hot air in a balloon for lift, which has been figured out for a while now).
Now that Ceefax is considered obsolete, those days are over. It sure makes it a lot harder for me to enjoy their broadcasts.
If you were still watching analogue TV then it certainly will be a lot harder to enjoy any broadcasts. Subtitles are available on digital using the red button - I'm pretty sure the BBC and possibly other broadcasters are obliged to provide subtitles.
'Maths' is the correct spelling in English; 'math' is correct in American. In any case, a mis-spelling is not an issue of grammar, it is one of spelling.
A point of grammar would be pointing out that the verb 'solve' does not take an indirect object ('me') but would require a preposition to indicate the action occuring, viz:
* "For example, I created one which solved me the maths homework."
"For example, I created one which solved for me the maths homework."
"For example, I created one which solved the maths homework for me."
An e-petition! Brilliant! Since their inception a few years ago they have revolutionised democracy!
Sounds like BS to me; conventional GCMS can resolve differences in molecular weight to a fraction of a proton's mass. And these techniques are used very heavily already, I think any mysterious "proton-scale differences" (sounds like quackery in itself) would have been noticed.
BTW whilst there aren't any isotopic diseases - unless you count cancers due to radioactive isotopes of otherwise fine elements - there is burgeoning interest in isotopic drugs, although it's questionable how much is genuine benefit and how much patent trickery.
No, I'm not. I have the right under common law to not disclose information which can then be used to incriminate me. That includes talking to police, period. I do not even have to give them my name.
Of course you're not physically compelled, by some supernatural force, to give them any information. Just as you're not physically compelled to pay your taxes, to drive at the speed limit or not to murder your mum.
I didn't deny the existence of anything. I said they are not getting the fucking encryption keys.
This would make sense if the sentence you would expect to receive for witholding the keys is less than the sentence you would expect for giving access to the data (or if handing the keys over would endanger compatriots for instance). Otherwise it's a way to go to to stick by your principles.
Of course it would make sense to use an encryption system which gives you plausible deniability in the first place, or hide incriminating data within a load of legal stuff which you might reasonably want encrypted (accounts or somesuch).
I expect, within a week, to find at least one person rambling that 'All the liberal ecocommies want us to go back to living in caves and mud huts.'
You've not read the comments on TFA then. Sensible move.
Republitarian at 2:41 PM March 19, 2012
Exactly how liberals would like us to live, shivering in caves, using no energy and no water, i.e., regressive.
I also enjoyed:
ericdb at 2:06 PM March 19, 2012
And to think their communist society began on the "promise" to take care of the poor, now they have one of the highest poverty levels in the world, not including the cave dwellers.
...which conveniently misses out (a) that people have been living in houses like these for centuries, and (b) that China is not communist in any meaningful (at least economic) sense, and it's much closer to an unregulated rampant free market economy. Which is why it has very, very poor people and very, very rich people.
(posting to remove accidental negative mod).
Not only not an Amiga, but not remotely in the spirit of the original Amiga platform.
Sticking some off the shelf hardware together and running Linux on it is nothing special in the slightest. The Amiga was special because it was designed as a coherent whole - it had lots of co-processing going on (Fat Agnus, Denise et al), powerful graphics abilities and a multitasking, inherently GUI-based OS which was for the most part an absolute pleasure to use.
Also, although AmigaOS was loosely based on UNIX type systems in the way the filesystem worked, it feels much more transparent somehow - largely because the hardware was controlled by Commodore so that there was no need for the layer upon layer of abstraction of modern Linux (NB: I'm not a programmer so this may well be bollocks). Of course this also meant that upgrades could be a pain - notably graphics cards which were not supported by 95% of programs which did not run on the Workbench. FTR, I now use Linux which I enjoy but I do miss the simplicity of AmigaOS.
This was my first thought - what's the advantage of an aircraft rather than a ship (or buoy)? Two or three strategically placed should minimise the chances of weather putting the service offline. Also - using Raspberry Pi? I'm not in IT, but I'm thinking that the server power and bandwidth required by TPB is in the order of "quite lots".
First, they say the network will be built in three years.
8 (diggers) * 0.1km / week * 52 weeks / year * 3 years = 41.6km 73 miles (117.5km)
But then, they said the project would complete 2018... so then it adds up... but still a little unclear.
The underground length is about 22 km, i.e. around 44 km of tunnel (one for each line). 3 years gives enough time for the tunnelling and ancillary work on the underground parts. Once that is done there's still building the stations (including connecting to the underground), laying the track etc, a lot of work on the existing suburban stations required, and aquiring the trains (something the Department for Transport are notorious for; the invitation to tender has only just been released and it's likely to be a touchy issue for the government) - hence the estimated 2018 date.
The biggest problem is that LED (CREE etc) based streetlights have not yet been ratified by the EU and so cannot be used on public highways in the UK. If they do become ratified then there will be huge power savings. In China, they have whole motorways lit up using this technology. Not only do they burn less power, but the lantern lifetime is much longer than the standard sodium units that have a warranty lifespan of 3 to 5 years.
Actually, the power saving for road lighting are negligible at best, or negative at worst. Low pressure sodium lamps currently in use produce up to 200 lm/W, compared to 100 lm/W for the better white LEDs around. There's not much that can compete with LPS for pure lighting efficiency, partly because the light emitted is near the maximum sensitivity of the human eye. Of course, LPS lamps produce monochromatic light which means they're not so popular for lighting urban/pedestrian areas, as people feel safer in a more "natural" light where they can see colours. But for roads alone, there's no need to see colours. Also, LPS is the least objectionable form of light pollution to astronomers, as being monochromatic it's easy to filter out (and there's not a lot of glowing sodium in space, so you're not blocking out anything of interest).
I think they've got the relationship wrong. The number of 'o's is inversely proportional to the IQ of the target audience.
There's something strangely attractive about this idea...