I have more acorns than any region on the planet at this time. They are bombing my cars, my house, and I have a cushy layer of them to walk on in my yard.
My yard has such a bumper crop, that earlier this fall, a owl took up in the yard to kill all the squirrels who dared venture into my bumper crop.
Call me looney or disillusioned, or even delusional, but I don't see what his phone has on my SLVR, except cost. Looking at picture of the thing, I can see why the Casio is cheap, too. It looks cheap.
I have a SLVR candybar format. I have bluetooth, has CDMA which actually works in the rural area where I telecommute from (unlike Cingular/ATT), can surf the net on the phone with a top tier portable browser (nweb), can surf through the bluetooth connection, can upload images and ringtones all day long for free over BT, can download my videos and pics taken from phone to computer via BT, can send/receive email or text or MMS anywhere in the states with a CDMA network.
The only thing my phone lacks? The dumb hinge his phone will bust in a few years.
Yeah, I paid for it (and not a small fee), but I am not locked into a contract.
Are things really as bad as he makes it out to be for most of the cellphone users out there in the states? I could only believe if you are showing up at your service provider's doorstep asking for a sheering.
I wonder what a unlocked CDMA phone would run for in Japan? Oh. That's right, they are "stuck on GSM".
Diesels can achive better than 1/3 thermal efficiency. How does 56 percent sound? Thats a ship diesel, burning crappy fuel oil. Locomotive diesels achieve >40% (check out google, there are many loco diesel studies).
Diesel locos use large diesels to turn generators, which feed AC inverters that drive AC induction traction motors. This allows the engine to turn at the most efficient RPM for a given load. The same could be done in a car, and probably give superior performance (traction technology is much easier with electric motors).
But alas, this will be ignored because the greenies are concerned about carbon atoms, not improving technology. As usual they are using high pitched very loud screaming to send us down a path which has not been well selected. One can only hope the West can hold out against itself till the free market solves the energy problem for us. Otherwise, transportation is going to be sent to the dark ages, before even trains, till after years of expense and experimentation finally gets whatever technology we get stuck with, back up to where we are now.
Not only that, but US coal reserves can be turned into synthetic fuel oil to last many generations, being burnt in clean & efficient diesels (yes, relatively clean diesels have existed since about the time electronic controls were introduced to turbocharged diesels), getting us off the M.E. black gold nipple. And the developments in electrical traction systems alone, would allow a easy removal of the diesel, and addition of fuel cells when that technology comes of age. Literally, a drop in upgrade (if we engineer the prime mover separate from the traction systems).
We can save 100000 lives by stopping of mining of materials and the production of materials used in the computer industry (read: diamond, silicon, lead, tin, tantalum, copper).
We could save at least 100 lives this week by just stopping the sweat shops who are producing your l33t w4r3z.
Your beautiful mind is now not so beautiful.
Now, lets save the 50000 people alone killed in the united state driving cars, by banning cars, delivery trucks.
We can do probably 100 more a year by cutting out train travel too, since many people die each year being hit by a train.
Oh, and stop breathing. The CO2 is increasing global warmth (actually, I don't believe in this religion, but from your comment and name, I'd guess you probably do), which is causing more rain, which is increasing plant population and standing water, which in turn is increasing mesquito population, and which in turn is killing lots of people per year of malaria, still a major disease in the modern world.
So where does it stop? You tell me. Are you implying what you _want_ is more important than what I _want_?
"The express purpose of guns, with the exception of hunting rifles, is to shoot people."
There are three incorrect assumptions here:
1) Historically, all guns were developed as a result of warfare. Most of the long range hunting rifles owe some of their development to military history. Guns were a followup development of previous projectile launching weapons used in war, when gun powder was made available. It probably wasn't too long after that some rich king or general decided that he could use it for the hunt too.
2) Guns are used often in sport --- handguns too! There are many people in countries where using a gun for self defense is banned. However, they still pay for their weapons and store them at a club, just so they can punch holes in paper targets. This is trully endless fun.
3) Handguns are often used in big game hunts as a back up weapon of choice, in case the hunter becomes the hunted. There are thousands of stories printed, and probably many more that are not, about people who had to use a 357 magnum or 44 Magnum to bring down a charging bear or boar, that they had intended to kill with a long gun, but somehow ended up on the receiving end of an attack.
Additionally, if guns could be made to magically not shoot people, I'd still love my guns. Too much fun on the range otherwise...
For self defense, I'd simply move to long bladed weapons (which are much more deadly in close combat). Oh wait, they are attempting to outlaw those in England too:)
I would agree that it is good that kids experiment, however, adults shouldn't stand by while children mislead themselves. Some adult should have taught them how to calculate COP and pump efficiency rather than letting a article make it to the national level which may end up embarrasing those children.
That's the danger of the current crop of teachers in many schools who don't really know the subject they are teaching.
Common rail electronic direct diesel fuel injection has been running 3000 or more PSI for several years now (I think since the first Dodge Diesel Cummins came out). All manufacturers with diesels in consumer line cars use the technology now, and I believe all Mac Truck designs use it as well.
Besides, I've never seen a blown brake line on the numerous US built cars I've seen. Not that it couldn't happen, but it would have to be a metallurgical/process failure, not a design failure.
Are you nuts? You need to take some heat pump theory, or just plain old thermodynamics.
Heat pumps are cheaper to run because they don't _create_ or _take_ any more energy than necessary to compress and move the fluid through the system. The temperature difference between the hot and cold side, combined with phase change properties in the fluid is what makes air conditioners so efficient.
You have to power the pump, but no more.
Compare a 20,000 BTU strip heater's power consumption with a 20,000 BTU heat pump.
Simply put, you need to check your facts before you post cheeky stupid comments.
Furthermore, the people who gave this award to these kids are most definitely graduates of the New Math way of thinking, ie., no point in obeying proven facts when we can make up what we want along the way to make older proven and better technology look bad by putting kids faces on it.
The educated know what New Math was really about --- but it has been corrupted into what we see here in this article, which is just plain stupidity and laziness about checking facts.
A Peltier Junction emits more heat than it moves, and fails the test for good technology at the scales where a compressor is not too much of a burden on the rest of a design. In addition, running a current drain system like a peltier junction off of 12Vs at the size required for a car (20,000 BTU or more), would require a alternator that would be so inefficient at out of rpm conditions, that twice the amount power wasted at the peltier, at least, would need to be wasted just to keep the stupid alternator rotating against the humongo bearings and cooling fan necessary to cool the damned thing.
Geez people, read the physic manuals before you make stupid assessments.
Last time I compared, this was pretty easy. The cursor keeps moving at all times in *BSD and it still moves rather badly in Linux, when either system is under heavy load.
Over ten years of development, during the age of GUIs, and Linux still can't get the mouse cursor to move smoothly during heavy system stress...
If a hw company invests tons of money into the controlling software (say, like a graphics card accelerator stack), it would be really dumb to release the hw specs because people would then clone the chip and leverage the originating company's software stack against them...
If the chip is simple, no big deal, but some of these "simple devices" have millions of gates nowadays, and tons of hours into optimizing the software that operates it at maximum efficiency. It would be sure stupidity to publish the hw specs so a runner up company could clone the chip.
That being said, I do believe that if a chip is dropped from a company's driver stack, the specs should be released. Of course, this is my personal opinion...
I beg to differ, both scientifically and in RL (tm).
Scientifically/mathematically, the gun expels a small amount of mass accelerated to a given velocity by the propellant in the cartridge. This generates a back push (the bullet leaving the barrel - not the exploding powder). Simple action/reaction -- because the bullet is moving freely down the barrel (what energy lost is heat in the rifling, which is dissipated off the barrel), the gun is not accelerated by the "explosion" - the bullet is accelerating, not the gun.
Proof that the burning powder does not push against the gun, is that the barrel does not flip up (torque the gun), until the moment the bullet has exited the barrel, otherwise no bullet would ever hit a target it was directly aimed at.
Furthermore to correct most people on the thread, the bullet is accelerating all the way down the barrel --- the powder is burning through the entire path of the bullet down the barrel (not exploding at the cartridge --- though the initial pressure surge of the burned powder that separates the bullet from the cart is extremely important), enhancing the bullet's performance down the barrel. This is also why magnums or other high powered bullets have a lot of muzzle flash, these cartridges are stuffed with excess powder to give the bullet an extreme kick in the pants all the way down the barrel. Usually this results in an excess heated gas wave carrying burning burning powder and exiting the barrel of the gun, with burning completed outside of the gun barrel (and to no effect on the bullet). The excess is not a big deal -- unless you are firing somewhere close to a combustible object or liquid/gas. It's better to have more powder (since its cheap), to guarantee the effectiveness of the accelerator (as long as the accelerator can hold up to the pressures involved), with the accelerator being the barrel....
There is little to no push on the gun from the gases exiting the barrel... until the burning powder exits the gun barrel, all of the energy being released by the burn should be transferred to the bullet (save for the heat loss and frictional losses to the barrel).
I think we'll see it quite soon --- imagine one database daemon using NUMA to map in a database image spread across many "simple" 64 bit servers.
Databases grow by leaps and bounds as we see fit to forfit more of our privacy to them, by dumping in more and more trivial amounts of data on a daily basis. Even if at some point we can address every single electron in orbit around every single atom that composes this planet, we'll outgrow it. Data storage will simply move off planet --- imagine data centers in orbit with databases that can detail entire star systems down to the last atom, with free sunlight to power them, and a dark backside to dissipate the heat.
The entire camera fiasco is sad really. A city near my own small town is using new database software to track small crimes. It turns out as they have redeployed the cops _they_already_have_ to sections where smaller crimes were occuring (theft, prostitution, small area dealers, etc.), they have greatly reduced the occurence of larger crimes, like murder.
http://www.wral.com/news/2741381/detail.html
It seems that deploying a few humans with guns and handcuffs to areas to keep high visibility, has a direct deterrent effect.
I would guess (of course, without any data to prove it) that a camera is non-deterrent because there is no person there to immediately respond to their actions. Fight & flight instinct is screaming "do it and run", whereas, with a real cop on the scene, their capability to run is greatly limited...
"If you want pure reproduction, then digital and solid state electronics is the way to go."
While the original poster does refer to warmth, that depends. All amplification systems distort, including solid state. Solid state distorts and dumps power into odd order harmonics, while tubes distort and dump power into even order harmonics. It just so happens that most humans on this planet prefer even order to odd order harmonics. So, no, you are incorrect, if you want flavorful distortion vs. ragged, edgey, makes my toes curl distortion, then use tubes in your power stages. If you want cheap (or expensive if we are talking ML33s), high power "yo, I can weld with this" power amplifiers for bragging rights and don't really care how the music sounds when played at demanding levels, buy solid state.
I agree with the digital sections, however, to get the signal to the amps. Mathematics rules in the digital domain, and purity is a function of resolution and sample rates.
One more point --- I also do not agree with building a tube amp that intentionally distorts more than the absolute minimum that can be achieved in a beefy design. Warmth for the sake of warmth, is not acceptable.
The gun industry is trying to get that point across as well. I honestly hope they succeed. Almost every device on the planet can be used in a nefarious manner, but it seems some opportunistic folks in the world think they should get paid by the device's creators when someone actually does something with the device that it was not intended to do.
I would disagree with you on your subject title though... not all YMCAs are plagued with moral improprieties.
So you believe the Russians would not have developed fusion tech without spurring from the u.s. and used it? Or that Germany would not have finished their weapon and used it?
Boy, I'd love to live your altered reality, unfortunately, I'm stuck out here in the real world.
The U.S. did use the only weapon in "anger" but the truth of the matter is, if USA hadn't, many more people on both sides would have died in grueling combat. I'm not reducing the impact of the A-Bomb, it doesn't need to be reduced to still be far below the theoretical death toll of a prolonged Pacific theater conflict in ground combat.
I can't call you peaceniks, because you don't grasp human nature. Man's nature is to counter punch until someone falls.
Teller realized this --- he had to move Oppenhiemer away from the state of the art to proceed with a fusion weapon, otherwise, there was the possibility that Russia would have developed and used it first.
It seems as though most posters here don't mind dying as long as they aren't called evil. But for me, life is more than dying peacefully like a sheep to the slaughter. If I can save my nation by developing the most horrible weapon the planet has ever witnessed to balance world power and prevent a horrible attack on friends and neighbors, I'd sign up in a minute, no second thoughts or regrets. Stop being pansies, give up this old stupid game of fatalism and contrived self innocence, and do something to save your neighbors -- or at least recognize those who did exactly that.
Teller knew that someone else would eventually build the weapon, and it may as well have been the United States of America. There was much less chance of the u.s. using it as aggressor than Russia using it as an aggressor. Even as many here people claim that he has a special place in hell reserved for his evil soul, I would argue that would not be the case. Had it not been for Teller, Russia would have pinned the United States under communist rule after debilitating fusion weapon attacks for which we would have had no equal answer too. Millions of Americans in that era could have died, and the United States, the last democratic superpower of that age, would have fell, throwing the entire world under communist rule. Teller saved them.
Furthermore, I have never understood why people cannot grasp the concept of mutually assured destruction, and the enforced (if cold) peace it brought to a unrestful world order after WW2. The SD Initiative (whether or not we have operating hardware) bankrupted the soviet empire. If funding had not been cut, the project would have succeeded, but letting it run for a few years was plenty good to allow the Soviet Empire to spend itself into democratic oblivion (which has benefited the u.s. for the most part).
So folks, get real. You start typing on your keyboards, and a vacuum of clues form. Please reverse the trend. Cluelessness about things this important is unacceptable. Your fatalism and contrived self innocence could very well plunge the world into the nuclear war you believe Teller created the possibility of, when all Teller did was balance the scales.
One last point --- I'm sure replies will roll in declaring "well, the U.S. built the bomb first". Well, if you could actually devote your attention from the simplicities of computer gaming to the real world for a moment, it was pretty clear that the Germans were getting close to cracking the science behind the abomb, and they may not have stopped at a mere abomb, and possibly would have moved on to the H-Bomb. They were developing the bomber capability to drop such a weapon on NY even as Allied troops marched into Berlin. The cat was already out the bag, just that the U.S. trained it to do tricks first.
I doubt the urban legend page. Equipment in heavily flammable areas must pass some very rigorous testing to be approved in those areas, as sparks can arise through the _failure_ of the equipment, which is the real danger. It doesn't matter that in normal operation, sparks aren't produced.
For example, in a mobile phone, there are typically plasma backlight sources used in the phone (or other types of discharge luminance). Also, TFT displays use flourescent tubes (very small ones). The voltages in these subsystems _in_your_phone_ can reach 120 to 260 volts. Add a little humidity to the equation, and you have very real leakage currents in the wiring to the displays in these phones. Leakage current to ground from a unplanned source denotes some ionization, mix in some gas fumes, and you have a recipe for disaster. Not to mention that some phones can use step up converters to drive piezo ringers, etc. Same voltage issues apply...
There are watches that if they weren't sealed, would not be safe to pump gas with, as they use step up circuitry to drive the piezo speaker and the display backlight (indiglo watches have a very obvious conversion circuit in them - a huge coil and driver transistor, considering the size of the rest of the components on the board).
Even worse in a mobile, is the source of microwaves (which one poster above actually discounted as being negligible). The microwave transmitter in phones produces energy known to twist the molecular structure of a water molecule (not resonant, water is resonant at around 22GHz, not the 2.4GHz most think). This heats the water in the air. Add in high antenna SWR, and there can be significant energy lost at the amplifier to transmitter connection point that could cause localized ionization of the humidity laden air within the phone.
Then there are the battery connections between the phone and the battery. I have not scene a phone yet that didn't flex. If you flex a circuit which is pulling a large amount of current, the inductive effects of a loaded circuit being opened, can cause arcing around the battery terminals, only minute arcing one would hope, but arcing none the less, and gasoline is highly reactive.
So I must say, you can _believe_ what you want, but cell phones are not designed to work in environments with combustible fumes, and you won't catch me talking and refueling.
"It is now common knowledge that if all countries in the world switched to nuclear power, we would run out of material to power them in just a few decades "
And I'd like some data to backup this piece of troll work.
I need:
1) estimates of what is in the ground that hasn't been mined. 2) how much material is now in circulation 3) how much "waste" material, such as U238, can be converted into fissionable plutonium for further energy production? 4) Please list as many nation estimates as possible, and give the sources of your data for each nation. 5) authenticate those sources.
Why should network services on a machine that is meant to be hotplugged, be sequenced perfectly? Most mac network components are mean to hang around and work right even with the net connection bouncing around, up and down, with different IP numbers everytime. My NFS server dameons on my 17" laptop work after a sleep/wake/ip change as they did before, and I don't have to kill them or restart them.... no thought involved at all, leaving my brain to more interesting stuff, like developing driver software...
Unix is afterall a multitasking OS, why not allow even the initialization process be super-multithreaded? Seems like you want to draw lines in the sand --- lines in the sand give the appearance of simplicity, but in the end, lines in the sand are "special cases" and have to be dealt with "differently" from the rest of the system. If anything a arbitrary ordering is simplicity incarnate. Make the software work in arbitrary order, and then the user can change something and not wreck the precarious balance of the rest of the system.
Given that, yes, I believe Linux is a start disaster. Dependencies can only be resolved between startup scripts by reading every friggin' one of them. This literature becomes boring at some point...
Slashdot Mirror
I have more acorns than any region on the planet at this time. They are bombing my cars, my house, and I have a cushy layer of them to walk on in my yard.
My yard has such a bumper crop, that earlier this fall, a owl took up in the yard to kill all the squirrels who dared venture into my bumper crop.
Go figure...
Call me looney or disillusioned, or even delusional, but I don't see what his phone has on my SLVR, except cost. Looking at picture of the thing, I can see why the Casio is cheap, too. It looks cheap.
I have a SLVR candybar format. I have bluetooth, has CDMA which actually works in the rural area where I telecommute from (unlike Cingular/ATT), can surf the net on the phone with a top tier portable browser (nweb), can surf through the bluetooth connection, can upload images and ringtones all day long for free over BT, can download my videos and pics taken from phone to computer via BT, can send/receive email or text or MMS anywhere in the states with a CDMA network.
The only thing my phone lacks? The dumb hinge his phone will bust in a few years.
Yeah, I paid for it (and not a small fee), but I am not locked into a contract.
Are things really as bad as he makes it out to be for most of the cellphone users out there in the states? I could only believe if you are showing up at your service provider's doorstep asking for a sheering.
I wonder what a unlocked CDMA phone would run for in Japan? Oh. That's right, they are "stuck on GSM".
Oops, generators->alternators. Generators went out when solid state rectification got cheap!
Diesels can achive better than 1/3 thermal efficiency. How does 56 percent sound? Thats a ship diesel, burning crappy fuel oil. Locomotive diesels achieve >40% (check out google, there are many loco diesel studies).
Diesel locos use large diesels to turn generators, which feed AC inverters that drive AC induction traction motors. This allows the engine to turn at the most efficient RPM for a given load. The same could be done in a car, and probably give superior performance (traction technology is much easier with electric motors).
But alas, this will be ignored because the greenies are concerned about carbon atoms, not improving technology. As usual they are using high pitched very loud screaming to send us down a path which has not been well selected. One can only hope the West can hold out against itself till the free market solves the energy problem for us. Otherwise, transportation is going to be sent to the dark ages, before even trains, till after years of expense and experimentation finally gets whatever technology we get stuck with, back up to where we are now.
Not only that, but US coal reserves can be turned into synthetic fuel oil to last many generations, being burnt in clean & efficient diesels (yes, relatively clean diesels have existed since about the time electronic controls were introduced to turbocharged diesels), getting us off the M.E. black gold nipple. And the developments in electrical traction systems alone, would allow a easy removal of the diesel, and addition of fuel cells when that technology comes of age. Literally, a drop in upgrade (if we engineer the prime mover separate from the traction systems).
I can't believe someone modded you up.
We can save 100000 lives by stopping of mining of materials and the production of materials used in the computer industry (read: diamond, silicon, lead, tin, tantalum, copper).
We could save at least 100 lives this week by just stopping the sweat shops who are producing your l33t w4r3z.
Your beautiful mind is now not so beautiful.
Now, lets save the 50000 people alone killed in the united state driving cars, by banning cars, delivery trucks.
We can do probably 100 more a year by cutting out train travel too, since many people die each year being hit by a train.
Oh, and stop breathing. The CO2 is increasing global warmth (actually, I don't believe in this religion, but from your comment and name, I'd guess you probably do), which is causing more rain, which is increasing plant population and standing water, which in turn is increasing mesquito population, and which in turn is killing lots of people per year of malaria, still a major disease in the modern world.
So where does it stop? You tell me. Are you implying what you _want_ is more important than what I _want_?
"The express purpose of guns, with the exception of hunting rifles, is to shoot people."
:)
There are three incorrect assumptions here:
1) Historically, all guns were developed as a result of warfare. Most of the long range hunting rifles owe some of their development to military history. Guns were a followup development of previous projectile launching weapons used in war, when gun powder was made available. It probably wasn't too long after that some rich king or general decided that he could use it for the hunt too.
2) Guns are used often in sport --- handguns too! There are many people in countries where using a gun for self defense is banned. However, they still pay for their weapons and store them at a club, just so they can punch holes in paper targets. This is trully endless fun.
3) Handguns are often used in big game hunts as a back up weapon of choice, in case the hunter becomes the hunted. There are thousands of stories printed, and probably many more that are not, about people who had to use a 357 magnum or 44 Magnum to bring down a charging bear or boar, that they had intended to kill with a long gun, but somehow ended up on the receiving end of an attack.
Additionally, if guns could be made to magically not shoot people, I'd still love my guns. Too much fun on the range otherwise...
For self defense, I'd simply move to long bladed weapons (which are much more deadly in close combat). Oh wait, they are attempting to outlaw those in England too
TurboD
I disagree with both analogies.
The new MacBook is more like a Shelby Cobra 427.
Apple took a mass-produced big-block powerplant and shoved it into a elegantly designed body with a great instrumentation system.
Meh, Honda, BMW, elegant cars? Whatever.
TurboD
I would agree that it is good that kids experiment, however, adults shouldn't stand by while children mislead themselves. Some adult should have taught them how to calculate COP and pump efficiency rather than letting a article make it to the national level which may end up embarrasing those children.
That's the danger of the current crop of teachers in many schools who don't really know the subject they are teaching.
How many thousand PSI are we talking?
Common rail electronic direct diesel fuel injection has been running 3000 or more PSI for several years now (I think since the first Dodge Diesel Cummins came out). All manufacturers with diesels in consumer line cars use the technology now, and I believe all Mac Truck designs use it as well.
Besides, I've never seen a blown brake line on the numerous US built cars I've seen. Not that it couldn't happen, but it would have to be a metallurgical/process failure, not a design failure.
TurboD
Are you nuts? You need to take some heat pump theory, or just plain old thermodynamics.
Heat pumps are cheaper to run because they don't _create_ or _take_ any more energy than necessary to compress and move the fluid through the system. The temperature difference between the hot and cold side, combined with phase change properties in the fluid is what makes air conditioners so efficient.
You have to power the pump, but no more.
Compare a 20,000 BTU strip heater's power consumption with a 20,000 BTU heat pump.
Simply put, you need to check your facts before you post cheeky stupid comments.
Furthermore, the people who gave this award to these kids are most definitely graduates of the New Math way of thinking, ie., no point in obeying proven facts when we can make up what we want along the way to make older proven and better technology look bad by putting kids faces on it.
The educated know what New Math was really about --- but it has been corrupted into what we see here in this article, which is just plain stupidity and laziness about checking facts.
A Peltier Junction emits more heat than it moves, and fails the test for good technology at the scales where a compressor is not too much of a burden on the rest of a design. In addition, running a current drain system like a peltier junction off of 12Vs at the size required for a car (20,000 BTU or more), would require a alternator that would be so inefficient at out of rpm conditions, that twice the amount power wasted at the peltier, at least, would need to be wasted just to keep the stupid alternator rotating against the humongo bearings and cooling fan necessary to cool the damned thing.
Geez people, read the physic manuals before you make stupid assessments.
TurboD
Last time I compared, this was pretty easy. The cursor keeps moving at all times in *BSD and it still moves rather badly in Linux, when either system is under heavy load.
Over ten years of development, during the age of GUIs, and Linux still can't get the mouse cursor to move smoothly during heavy system stress...
TurboD
If a hw company invests tons of money into the controlling software (say, like a graphics card accelerator stack), it would be really dumb to release the hw specs because people would then clone the chip and leverage the originating company's software stack against them...
If the chip is simple, no big deal, but some of these "simple devices" have millions of gates nowadays, and tons of hours into optimizing the software that operates it at maximum efficiency. It would be sure stupidity to publish the hw specs so a runner up company could clone the chip.
That being said, I do believe that if a chip is dropped from a company's driver stack, the specs should be released. Of course, this is my personal opinion...
TurboD
I beg to differ, both scientifically and in RL (tm).
Scientifically/mathematically, the gun expels a small amount of mass accelerated to a given velocity by the propellant in the cartridge. This generates a back push (the bullet leaving the barrel - not the exploding powder). Simple action/reaction -- because the bullet is moving freely down the barrel (what energy lost is heat in the rifling, which is dissipated off the barrel), the gun is not accelerated by the "explosion" - the bullet is accelerating, not the gun.
Proof that the burning powder does not push against the gun, is that the barrel does not flip up (torque the gun), until the moment the bullet has exited the barrel, otherwise no bullet would ever hit a target it was directly aimed at.
Furthermore to correct most people on the thread, the bullet is accelerating all the way down the barrel --- the powder is burning through the entire path of the bullet down the barrel (not exploding at the cartridge --- though the initial pressure surge of the burned powder that separates the bullet from the cart is extremely important), enhancing the bullet's performance down the barrel. This is also why magnums or other high powered bullets have a lot of muzzle flash, these cartridges are stuffed with excess powder to give the bullet an extreme kick in the pants all the way down the barrel. Usually this results in an excess heated gas wave carrying burning burning powder and exiting the barrel of the gun, with burning completed outside of the gun barrel (and to no effect on the bullet). The excess is not a big deal -- unless you are firing somewhere close to a combustible object or liquid/gas. It's better to have more powder (since its cheap), to guarantee the effectiveness of the accelerator (as long as the accelerator can hold up to the pressures involved), with the accelerator being the barrel....
There is little to no push on the gun from the gases exiting the barrel... until the burning powder exits the gun barrel, all of the energy being released by the burn should be transferred to the bullet (save for the heat loss and frictional losses to the barrel).
TurboD
I think we'll see it quite soon --- imagine one database daemon using NUMA to map in a database image spread across many "simple" 64 bit servers.
Databases grow by leaps and bounds as we see fit to forfit more of our privacy to them, by dumping in more and more trivial amounts of data on a daily basis. Even if at some point we can address every single electron in orbit around every single atom that composes this planet, we'll outgrow it. Data storage will simply move off planet --- imagine data centers in orbit with databases that can detail entire star systems down to the last atom, with free sunlight to power them, and a dark backside to dissipate the heat.
Think Different. Think Big.
TurboD
The entire camera fiasco is sad really. A city near my own small town is using new database software to track small crimes. It turns out as they have redeployed the cops _they_already_have_ to sections where smaller crimes were occuring (theft, prostitution, small area dealers, etc.), they have greatly reduced the occurence of larger crimes, like murder.
http://www.wral.com/news/2741381/detail.html
It seems that deploying a few humans with guns and handcuffs to areas to keep high visibility, has a direct deterrent effect.
I would guess (of course, without any data to prove it) that a camera is non-deterrent because there is no person there to immediately respond to their actions. Fight & flight instinct is screaming "do it and run", whereas, with a real cop on the scene, their capability to run is greatly limited...
TurboD
Blanket opinion forwarded as fact:
"If you want pure reproduction, then digital and solid state electronics is the way to go."
While the original poster does refer to warmth, that depends. All amplification systems distort, including solid state. Solid state distorts and dumps power into odd order harmonics, while tubes distort and dump power into even order harmonics. It just so happens that most humans on this planet prefer even order to odd order harmonics. So, no, you are incorrect, if you want flavorful distortion vs. ragged, edgey, makes my toes curl distortion, then use tubes in your power stages. If you want cheap (or expensive if we are talking ML33s), high power "yo, I can weld with this" power amplifiers for bragging rights and don't really care how the music sounds when played at demanding levels, buy solid state.
I agree with the digital sections, however, to get the signal to the amps. Mathematics rules in the digital domain, and purity is a function of resolution and sample rates.
One more point --- I also do not agree with building a tube amp that intentionally distorts more than the absolute minimum that can be achieved in a beefy design. Warmth for the sake of warmth, is not acceptable.
TurboD
Didn't your Momma tell you not to click on strange sigs?!
:P
Long ago I quit clicking on slashdot sig links. *Especially* when it has goat in the link text
TurboD
The gun industry is trying to get that point across as well. I honestly hope they succeed. Almost every device on the planet can be used in a nefarious manner, but it seems some opportunistic folks in the world think they should get paid by the device's creators when someone actually does something with the device that it was not intended to do.
I would disagree with you on your subject title though... not all YMCAs are plagued with moral improprieties.
TurboD
Your comments don't float anymore. Maybe the first time you posted them, yes. But that was last year or so, so now we know you are bluffing.
Your comments don't hold water, and you are trolling in an obvious manner.
Boooh.
TurboD
So you believe the Russians would not have developed fusion tech without spurring from the u.s. and used it? Or that Germany would not have finished their weapon and used it?
Boy, I'd love to live your altered reality, unfortunately, I'm stuck out here in the real world.
The U.S. did use the only weapon in "anger" but the truth of the matter is, if USA hadn't, many more people on both sides would have died in grueling combat. I'm not reducing the impact of the A-Bomb, it doesn't need to be reduced to still be far below the theoretical death toll of a prolonged Pacific theater conflict in ground combat.
TurboD
I can't call you peaceniks, because you don't grasp human nature. Man's nature is to counter punch until someone falls.
Teller realized this --- he had to move Oppenhiemer away from the state of the art to proceed with a fusion weapon, otherwise, there was the possibility that Russia would have developed and used it first.
It seems as though most posters here don't mind dying as long as they aren't called evil. But for me, life is more than dying peacefully like a sheep to the slaughter. If I can save my nation by developing the most horrible weapon the planet has ever witnessed to balance world power and prevent a horrible attack on friends and neighbors, I'd sign up in a minute, no second thoughts or regrets. Stop being pansies, give up this old stupid game of fatalism and contrived self innocence, and do something to save your neighbors -- or at least recognize those who did exactly that.
Teller knew that someone else would eventually build the weapon, and it may as well have been the United States of America. There was much less chance of the u.s. using it as aggressor than Russia using it as an aggressor. Even as many here people claim that he has a special place in hell reserved for his evil soul, I would argue that would not be the case. Had it not been for Teller, Russia would have pinned the United States under communist rule after debilitating fusion weapon attacks for which we would have had no equal answer too. Millions of Americans in that era could have died, and the United States, the last democratic superpower of that age, would have fell, throwing the entire world under communist rule. Teller saved them.
Furthermore, I have never understood why people cannot grasp the concept of mutually assured destruction, and the enforced (if cold) peace it brought to a unrestful world order after WW2. The SD Initiative (whether or not we have operating hardware) bankrupted the soviet empire. If funding had not been cut, the project would have succeeded, but letting it run for a few years was plenty good to allow the Soviet Empire to spend itself into democratic oblivion (which has benefited the u.s. for the most part).
So folks, get real. You start typing on your keyboards, and a vacuum of clues form. Please reverse the trend. Cluelessness about things this important is unacceptable. Your fatalism and contrived self innocence could very well plunge the world into the nuclear war you believe Teller created the possibility of, when all Teller did was balance the scales.
One last point --- I'm sure replies will roll in declaring "well, the U.S. built the bomb first". Well, if you could actually devote your attention from the simplicities of computer gaming to the real world for a moment, it was pretty clear that the Germans were getting close to cracking the science behind the abomb, and they may not have stopped at a mere abomb, and possibly would have moved on to the H-Bomb. They were developing the bomber capability to drop such a weapon on NY even as Allied troops marched into Berlin. The cat was already out the bag, just that the U.S. trained it to do tricks first.
TurboD
I doubt the urban legend page. Equipment in heavily flammable areas must pass some very rigorous testing to be approved in those areas, as sparks can arise through the _failure_ of the equipment, which is the real danger. It doesn't matter that in normal operation, sparks aren't produced.
For example, in a mobile phone, there are typically plasma backlight sources used in the phone (or other types of discharge luminance). Also, TFT displays use flourescent tubes (very small ones). The voltages in these subsystems _in_your_phone_ can reach 120 to 260 volts. Add a little humidity to the equation, and you have very real leakage currents in the wiring to the displays in these phones. Leakage current to ground from a unplanned source denotes some ionization, mix in some gas fumes, and you have a recipe for disaster. Not to mention that some phones can use step up converters to drive piezo ringers, etc. Same voltage issues apply...
There are watches that if they weren't sealed, would not be safe to pump gas with, as they use step up circuitry to drive the piezo speaker and the display backlight (indiglo watches have a very obvious conversion circuit in them - a huge coil and driver transistor, considering the size of the rest of the components on the board).
Even worse in a mobile, is the source of microwaves (which one poster above actually discounted as being negligible). The microwave transmitter in phones produces energy known to twist the molecular structure of a water molecule (not resonant, water is resonant at around 22GHz, not the 2.4GHz most think). This heats the water in the air. Add in high antenna SWR, and there can be significant energy lost at the amplifier to transmitter connection point that could cause localized ionization of the humidity laden air within the phone.
Then there are the battery connections between the phone and the battery. I have not scene a phone yet that didn't flex. If you flex a circuit which is pulling a large amount of current, the inductive effects of a loaded circuit being opened, can cause arcing around the battery terminals, only minute arcing one would hope, but arcing none the less, and gasoline is highly reactive.
So I must say, you can _believe_ what you want, but cell phones are not designed to work in environments with combustible fumes, and you won't catch me talking and refueling.
TurboD
Wow, what's your Greenpeace card number?
"It is now common knowledge that if all countries in the
world switched to nuclear power, we would run out of
material to power them in just a few decades "
And I'd like some data to backup this piece of troll work.
I need:
1) estimates of what is in the ground that hasn't been mined.
2) how much material is now in circulation
3) how much "waste" material, such as U238, can be converted into fissionable plutonium for further energy production?
4) Please list as many nation estimates as possible, and give the sources of your data for each nation.
5) authenticate those sources.
Pls Thx
TurboD
Why should network services on a machine that is meant to be hotplugged, be sequenced perfectly? Most mac network components are mean to hang around and work right even with the net connection bouncing around, up and down, with different IP numbers everytime. My NFS server dameons on my 17" laptop work after a sleep/wake/ip change as they did before, and I don't have to kill them or restart them.... no thought involved at all, leaving my brain to more interesting stuff, like developing driver software...
Unix is afterall a multitasking OS, why not allow even the initialization process be super-multithreaded? Seems like you want to draw lines in the sand --- lines in the sand give the appearance of simplicity, but in the end, lines in the sand are "special cases" and have to be dealt with "differently" from the rest of the system. If anything a arbitrary ordering is simplicity incarnate. Make the software work in arbitrary order, and then the user can change something and not wreck the precarious balance of the rest of the system.
Given that, yes, I believe Linux is a start disaster. Dependencies can only be resolved between startup scripts by reading every friggin' one of them. This literature becomes boring at some point...
TurboD
You couldn't get NFS working on OSX?
Now that is funny. And you got it working on the Linux box, right?
Roll up the astroturf and take it somewhere else, pengiun fan boy.
TurboD