Also, I write software for wastewater treatment plants. I can say with some confidence that it is a very energy efficient process. Low Flow toilets are a joke, after solids are processed the remaining water is re-introduced into the water table and more water flowing only equals a tiny bit more energy. Water used to wash diapers would have a very low level of solids to process and wouldn't even come close to the tons of disposable diapers that have to be processed in a landfill plant. Also, treated solids would not contaminate the groundwater like raw disposables.
The math has already been done. If you look at the energy required to charge a plug in car vs. the gasoline equal, it comes to pennies on the dollar. That means if you're burning baby seals for fuel it only takes a tiny fraction of that baby seal to equal the energy in a much larger quantity of gasoline. Also, take into account the benefits of generating much larger quantities of energy in a central place where efficiency is much higher and waste much, much lower on a pound-for-pound basis.
All this is pretty moot in my city, where the municipal power company garantees that 100% of my electricity comes from renewable means for an extra fee, which I am glad to pay.
All of this conspiracy theory and naysaying is total nonsense from a largely un-informed group of malcontents trying oh-so-hard to justify their unwillingness to stop contributing to the death of the planet. I need to cool off now, I'm going to hop in my hummer and blast the A/C.
Was watching this show on the History channel about this very issue, and they contended that there are no toxic substances or heavy metals in Lithium Ion batteries and they can be safely disposed of with very little hassle. Of course they do have a tendency to set your laptop aflame, apparently, so have fun riding on one 50x larger. On the subject of confused tree huggers and head-in-sand conservatives, why hasn't anybody stood up and called bullshit on the fact that you can't dispose of compact flourescent bulbs thanks to the mercury content?
I landed a job as a PLC programmer (for those who don't know - I basically write code for micro controllers used for industrial automation) without a degree, based almost entirely on sample code I'd written as a member of the OSS community. There are plenty of jobs in this corner of the field, both on the back and front-ends (SCADA software).
The hours can suck, and bugs in your code have the potential to cause hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company I work for does a lot of wastewater automation, which means some on-site work can come with a foul odor.
It's not google, but it is specialized enough so that a few years experience is usually rewarded with a large jump in pay, and companies like mine usually have good bennies and retirement plans and job security is the best I've seen in the IT world. I'd encourage any disgruntled code monkey to look into it!
I'm sure there is a LiveCD distro out there that comes with ClamAV. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you need to brush up on Linux before coming to Slashdot - we effing love Linux here, son!
The way Linux handles the RS232 comm port (serial) makes it super freakin' easy to send and recieve messages to another serial device. I was passing messages to and from hyperterm on my webserver box within minutes of finding a few examples in C. Oh yeah, most Linux distros can compile C into an executable real easy too.
You want to start from scratch have total control? Get yourself a PLC (programmable logic controller) with termination points for all of your physical IO, and that will also talk modbus ASCII. Write a program that will take a.txt file or SQL database or whatever your favorite poison and transfer to and from the PLC where your physical IO lives. You'll have to read a couple pages of modbus message structure and create a couple custom ASCII messages, but again it shouldn't be that hard.
Now all you have to do is write your high-level code to read/write to that database and you should have full access to all your sensors and the ability to write to (control) your servos and motors. The upside is that PLCs are generally tough as hell (NEMA4X) and you can run the Linux control AI programs on small industrial PCs (ICL makes a really cool one) that are also untra tough. Sea-faring tough.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, I write software for wastewater treatment plants. I can say with some confidence that it is a very energy efficient process. Low Flow toilets are a joke, after solids are processed the remaining water is re-introduced into the water table and more water flowing only equals a tiny bit more energy. Water used to wash diapers would have a very low level of solids to process and wouldn't even come close to the tons of disposable diapers that have to be processed in a landfill plant. Also, treated solids would not contaminate the groundwater like raw disposables.
The math has already been done. If you look at the energy required to charge a plug in car vs. the gasoline equal, it comes to pennies on the dollar. That means if you're burning baby seals for fuel it only takes a tiny fraction of that baby seal to equal the energy in a much larger quantity of gasoline. Also, take into account the benefits of generating much larger quantities of energy in a central place where efficiency is much higher and waste much, much lower on a pound-for-pound basis. All this is pretty moot in my city, where the municipal power company garantees that 100% of my electricity comes from renewable means for an extra fee, which I am glad to pay. All of this conspiracy theory and naysaying is total nonsense from a largely un-informed group of malcontents trying oh-so-hard to justify their unwillingness to stop contributing to the death of the planet. I need to cool off now, I'm going to hop in my hummer and blast the A/C.
LOL You sir, win. I salute you.
Was watching this show on the History channel about this very issue, and they contended that there are no toxic substances or heavy metals in Lithium Ion batteries and they can be safely disposed of with very little hassle. Of course they do have a tendency to set your laptop aflame, apparently, so have fun riding on one 50x larger. On the subject of confused tree huggers and head-in-sand conservatives, why hasn't anybody stood up and called bullshit on the fact that you can't dispose of compact flourescent bulbs thanks to the mercury content?
I landed a job as a PLC programmer (for those who don't know - I basically write code for micro controllers used for industrial automation) without a degree, based almost entirely on sample code I'd written as a member of the OSS community. There are plenty of jobs in this corner of the field, both on the back and front-ends (SCADA software). The hours can suck, and bugs in your code have the potential to cause hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company I work for does a lot of wastewater automation, which means some on-site work can come with a foul odor. It's not google, but it is specialized enough so that a few years experience is usually rewarded with a large jump in pay, and companies like mine usually have good bennies and retirement plans and job security is the best I've seen in the IT world. I'd encourage any disgruntled code monkey to look into it!
I'm sure there is a LiveCD distro out there that comes with ClamAV. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you need to brush up on Linux before coming to Slashdot - we effing love Linux here, son!
The way Linux handles the RS232 comm port (serial) makes it super freakin' easy to send and recieve messages to another serial device. I was passing messages to and from hyperterm on my webserver box within minutes of finding a few examples in C. Oh yeah, most Linux distros can compile C into an executable real easy too. You want to start from scratch have total control? Get yourself a PLC (programmable logic controller) with termination points for all of your physical IO, and that will also talk modbus ASCII. Write a program that will take a .txt file or SQL database or whatever your favorite poison and transfer to and from the PLC where your physical IO lives. You'll have to read a couple pages of modbus message structure and create a couple custom ASCII messages, but again it shouldn't be that hard.
Now all you have to do is write your high-level code to read/write to that database and you should have full access to all your sensors and the ability to write to (control) your servos and motors. The upside is that PLCs are generally tough as hell (NEMA4X) and you can run the Linux control AI programs on small industrial PCs (ICL makes a really cool one) that are also untra tough. Sea-faring tough.