Hm, at first I thought a 100W assumed load was kind of big, but let's have a look-see here:
My server is a PIII 600, 2 harddrives, video card, 2 NICs, and some other crap. According to my UPS, it, along with my cable modem and 8 port 10/100 hub, draw 32% of UPS capacity at idle, and when compiling a kernel... (wait for it while the test finishes...) 32% of UPS capacity again (yay for confusing and possibly unreliable tests.)
I have an APC Back-UPS ES 350, which has a 200W peak capacity, so 200W*32% = 64W. Let's say the cable modem and hub together draw 14W, which is not unreasonable, then the computer itself draws 50W.
Now, power is included in my utilities, but let's see how much this'd cost if it weren't. I live in Westwood, Los Angeles, CA and here LADWP wants.07288 dollars / KWh (http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp001710.jsp) for residential service (which is the most expensive.) The server's on 24/7 all year, so 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 64W *.07288 cents / KWh = $40/year.
Now, the server was free and so discounting all the time I spent installing and configuring Gentoo Linux on it, its cost is essentially $40/year until something breaks.
Let's say I wanted to get a simple Linksys router to do NAT and firewalling (whilst the server will also crunch numbers, serve pages, store photos and music, and so on...), and I pick the WRT54G which goes for around $60 on Froogle and ignore shipping costs. The spec sheet (ftp://ftp.linksys.com/datasheet/wrt54gv2_ds.pdf) says it draws 12W, but we know its going through a powerbrick and those can be pretty inefficient, so let's assume it really draws 15W +/- 5W at the plug. Now then, its total cost is $60 + $9/year +/- $3/year.
The Almighty Buck Wants to Know: when will the standalone unit be worth it? Well, the break-even point will come when their costs will be equal over time, so at 40 dollars / year * x years = 60 dollars + 9 dollars / year * x years, the standalone will start saving me money in about 2 years. It turns out that because of the high per year cost of the server, the relatively small variations in the cost of the standalone per year are pretty much irrelevant.
OK, this has been pretty exhausting, but let's consider some more possibilities: 1. If the Linksys was made in China, what were the environmental costs of manufacturing it? Of obtaining the plastics necessary to make it? Pretty much everything is cheaper in China, so what'd the cost of the unit be if it were made in the US or EU? 1b. If I couldn't get the unit made in China, would it still be worth it to buy it? I'd guess that it might take quite a few more years for it to be worth it. 2. What if the power brick dies in a year or two? Maybe the warranty's only a year and I'll have to get a whole new unit.
Now, this is all fine and dandy, so yeah, it looks like the Linksys'd be the way to go if all I wanted was NAT/firewall/routing, but here are two more points:
1. I have an older 486 that probably draws half as much as the PIII. It now takes 4 years for the investment to pay off, and that's a long time when you're 24 like I am. 2. I pay ~$500 / month in rent; these costs we're talking about minimizing are really pretty insignificant compared to the cost of living. Right about half my budget goes into rent.
OK, only you're ignoring the potential destructive capability of the weapon:
catapult: maybe 2, 3 people if they got their aim right (pretty difficult) crossbow: 1 person, short range cannon: several people, demolishes walls, not the greatest accuracy machine gun: modern machine guns put out >60 rounds/sec easily; pretty strong stuff nuclear weapons: in a package the size of a bunk-bed, 200,000 dead in Hiroshima (including after-effects); modern nuclear warheads are smaller and more powerful
now the kicker: what if someone set up a little nanofactory in one of the aquaducts that feeds a city like Los Angeles? put it sufficiently upstream and by the time the water got down into the city, the factory would've had enough time to duplicate into as many little machines as necessary. not terribly difficult.
the point is not just that this technology has the potential to kill many more people, but that it may be more difficult to control than current weaponry, and that, of course, it only takes one psycho.
1. "Does anyone know her number?" 2. #... 3. "We tried calling Saturday night, but she spent an hour and half talking on the phone in front of the door." 4. "It would be worth entering the contest just for this lady..." 5. "... but of course, I'll enter the next time."
YES! I HAVE FINALLY USED MY HUNGARIAN SKILLZ TO CONTRIBUTE TO SLASHDOT! (let me cherish this moment because I'm sure it'll never happen again)
UCLA has the same setup, sans Wi-Fi in the library. In the laptop pods they have row upon row of external battery chargers and even a semi-automated checkout system. Last year they had Dells but this year they moved to Compaq. At any rate, both manufacturers make the external charger.
Remember that Li-Ion prefers to be shallow discharged then immediately recharged.
As best as anyone knows, no apple ever fell on Newton's head while he was sitting under a tree pondering. It's just a cute story -- probably invented by Hallmark.
Interesting, though, that you said he changed history. Anyone remember the movie "The Last of the Mohicans"? In a scene, the French are bombarding a British fort, and you can see someone holding a plumb bob to calculate 45 with respect to the ground and the trajectory of a mortar. (45 is the ideal angle to launch a projectile at for maximum distance without taking into account any other forces.)
I totally dug the shimmering effect from the first sound bit.
That last bit with the amplified vibrating phone cracked me up, though. I kept getting visions of some kind of large animal..., possibly a rhinoceros. The connection to Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals" ("Carnival of the Cell Phones"?) is irresistable.
Anyway, I thought it was a pretty nifty idea. New art is nearly always interesting, if almost never lasting.
The last time I was in Europe that I saw pretty hard-core pr0n was in 1997, and then it was on French national (Canal+ maybe?) TV at around 10-11 at night.
Quality softcore is available starting at around the same time on German TV: RTL2, in particular, and ZDF tend to offer a good selection and variety. Don't expect anything too recent though..., we're talking about decent-to-not-so-decent dubs of something like "10" or "9 1/2 Weeks".
Hungarian TV (MTV1, MTV2, Duna TV, Zenit TV), for whatever reason, prefers to show cultural programming during this time. I'm talking about "folk culture" here, as in, shows about little cities in the middle of the country, their history, and so on.
At only $200 to the Frau, I hear you're getting off pretty well. Would suck if she started charging a yearly renewal fee though if you wanted to keep enjoying what you pay for.
Actually, Farnsworth never lived to see his case win. He died as a depressed alcoholic and something like 10 years later, during which time his wife carried the case on, he was vindicated.
MS, RIAA, MPAA, and the surviving Roswell Aliens sign a pact with the devil (who owns the soul of FhG) to force FhG to put a premium on the decoder. What does that do? It forces free mp3 decoders off the market, and let's not forget about the world's #1: WinAmp (created by NullSoft, owned by AOL, another enemy of MS). This accomplishes several things for the interested parties:
1. MS: "Phooey! Mp3 costs money, so we're gonna leave it out and pass the savings on to consumers, yay! Use WMA instead!"
2. RIAA and MPAA: "Mp3 is killing us! But WMA has DRM built-in, it is our savior! Viva WMA!"
It's actually kind of scary what level of mafia-type pull these organizations have. I'll bet you that FhG knows what's happening, but have somehow gotten strongarmed into compliance. Suppose that someone from the RIAA started thinking, "Hey, you know, we wouldn't have this whole Internet piracy issue if it weren't for mp3..., so why don't we just go after the people that invented it?" FhG is *not* a big institution..., I doubt they'd have the resources to wage a legal battle.// End Conspiracy Theory
At least you came clean. It's kind of scary to think about what kind of subversion may be possible on Slashdot with the right tactic from the wrong people. You're right, throw in some buzzwords, things people don't know much about, and you've got them ready to walk off the cliff after, or even in front of, you.
Brings to mind, "All sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Well, there's a bit more to it, and while I don't understand it entirely, I'll tell you what I know (perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten us further). When vacuum tubes distort, they introduce "even" harmonics into the output, whereas transistors introduce "odd" harmonics, and people simply prefer the former.
However, I can't tell you what "even" and "odd" harmonics mean, and I definitely couldn't tell you what the quantum mechanical processes going on are.
Slashdot Mirror
Hm, at first I thought a 100W assumed load was kind of big, but let's have a look-see here:
... (wait for it while the test finishes...) 32% of UPS capacity again (yay for confusing and possibly unreliable tests.)
.07288 dollars / KWh (http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp001710.jsp) for residential service (which is the most expensive.) The server's on 24/7 all year, so 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 64W * .07288 cents / KWh = $40/year.
My server is a PIII 600, 2 harddrives, video card, 2 NICs, and some other crap. According to my UPS, it, along with my cable modem and 8 port 10/100 hub, draw 32% of UPS capacity at idle, and when compiling a kernel
I have an APC Back-UPS ES 350, which has a 200W peak capacity, so 200W*32% = 64W. Let's say the cable modem and hub together draw 14W, which is not unreasonable, then the computer itself draws 50W.
Now, power is included in my utilities, but let's see how much this'd cost if it weren't. I live in Westwood, Los Angeles, CA and here LADWP wants
Now, the server was free and so discounting all the time I spent installing and configuring Gentoo Linux on it, its cost is essentially $40/year until something breaks.
Let's say I wanted to get a simple Linksys router to do NAT and firewalling (whilst the server will also crunch numbers, serve pages, store photos and music, and so on...), and I pick the WRT54G which goes for around $60 on Froogle and ignore shipping costs. The spec sheet (ftp://ftp.linksys.com/datasheet/wrt54gv2_ds.pdf) says it draws 12W, but we know its going through a powerbrick and those can be pretty inefficient, so let's assume it really draws 15W +/- 5W at the plug. Now then, its total cost is $60 + $9/year +/- $3/year.
The Almighty Buck Wants to Know: when will the standalone unit be worth it? Well, the break-even point will come when their costs will be equal over time, so at 40 dollars / year * x years = 60 dollars + 9 dollars / year * x years, the standalone will start saving me money in about 2 years. It turns out that because of the high per year cost of the server, the relatively small variations in the cost of the standalone per year are pretty much irrelevant.
OK, this has been pretty exhausting, but let's consider some more possibilities:
1. If the Linksys was made in China, what were the environmental costs of manufacturing it? Of obtaining the plastics necessary to make it? Pretty much everything is cheaper in China, so what'd the cost of the unit be if it were made in the US or EU?
1b. If I couldn't get the unit made in China, would it still be worth it to buy it? I'd guess that it might take quite a few more years for it to be worth it.
2. What if the power brick dies in a year or two? Maybe the warranty's only a year and I'll have to get a whole new unit.
Now, this is all fine and dandy, so yeah, it looks like the Linksys'd be the way to go if all I wanted was NAT/firewall/routing, but here are two more points:
1. I have an older 486 that probably draws half as much as the PIII. It now takes 4 years for the investment to pay off, and that's a long time when you're 24 like I am.
2. I pay ~$500 / month in rent; these costs we're talking about minimizing are really pretty insignificant compared to the cost of living. Right about half my budget goes into rent.
OK, only you're ignoring the potential destructive capability of the weapon:
catapult: maybe 2, 3 people if they got their aim right (pretty difficult)
crossbow: 1 person, short range
cannon: several people, demolishes walls, not the greatest accuracy
machine gun: modern machine guns put out >60 rounds/sec easily; pretty strong stuff
nuclear weapons: in a package the size of a bunk-bed, 200,000 dead in Hiroshima (including after-effects); modern nuclear warheads are smaller and more powerful
now the kicker: what if someone set up a little nanofactory in one of the aquaducts that feeds a city like Los Angeles? put it sufficiently upstream and by the time the water got down into the city, the factory would've had enough time to duplicate into as many little machines as necessary. not terribly difficult.
the point is not just that this technology has the potential to kill many more people, but that it may be more difficult to control than current weaponry, and that, of course, it only takes one psycho.
I like it a lot, actually. I never really had much to say about Slashdot's original near-grass-puke green.
OMG, I am so going back this summer. :)
Here are some of the comments translated:
1. "Does anyone know her number?"
2. #...
3. "We tried calling Saturday night, but she spent an hour and half talking on the phone in front of the door."
4. "It would be worth entering the contest just for this lady..."
5. "... but of course, I'll enter the next time."
YES! I HAVE FINALLY USED MY HUNGARIAN SKILLZ TO CONTRIBUTE TO SLASHDOT! (let me cherish this moment because I'm sure it'll never happen again)
"I've spent much of my professional life (which started when the logic used vacuum tubes for the DIODES in the logic)"
OK, Respect.
UCLA has the same setup, sans Wi-Fi in the library. In the laptop pods they have row upon row of external battery chargers and even a semi-automated checkout system. Last year they had Dells but this year they moved to Compaq. At any rate, both manufacturers make the external charger.
Remember that Li-Ion prefers to be shallow discharged then immediately recharged.
I'm so sorry I posted earlier before I could spend some mod points on this one. A truly hilarious gem.
As best as anyone knows, no apple ever fell on Newton's head while he was sitting under a tree pondering. It's just a cute story -- probably invented by Hallmark.
Interesting, though, that you said he changed history. Anyone remember the movie "The Last of the Mohicans"? In a scene, the French are bombarding a British fort, and you can see someone holding a plumb bob to calculate 45 with respect to the ground and the trajectory of a mortar. (45 is the ideal angle to launch a projectile at for maximum distance without taking into account any other forces.)
I totally dug the shimmering effect from the first sound bit.
That last bit with the amplified vibrating phone cracked me up, though. I kept getting visions of some kind of large animal..., possibly a rhinoceros. The connection to Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals" ("Carnival of the Cell Phones"?) is irresistable.
Anyway, I thought it was a pretty nifty idea. New art is nearly always interesting, if almost never lasting.
Sweet!
Huzzah! Viva Magyarorszag!
You know you've hit rock bottom when you've been reading /. for several hours, drunk out of your mind and looking for some meaning in your life.
Awww, that's really cute. ::pats your head::
Have fun with the mutton in NZ; It's really a beautiful country.
What kind of resistive losses do you incur with wire runs of that length?
This is a pretty nifty idea.
The last time I was in Europe that I saw pretty hard-core pr0n was in 1997, and then it was on French national (Canal+ maybe?) TV at around 10-11 at night.
Quality softcore is available starting at around the same time on German TV: RTL2, in particular, and ZDF tend to offer a good selection and variety. Don't expect anything too recent though..., we're talking about decent-to-not-so-decent dubs of something like "10" or "9 1/2 Weeks".
Hungarian TV (MTV1, MTV2, Duna TV, Zenit TV), for whatever reason, prefers to show cultural programming during this time. I'm talking about "folk culture" here, as in, shows about little cities in the middle of the country, their history, and so on.
Man, cool story, and what a great solution too.
Rad, thanks for the explanation.
Hah, superparamagnetism is nothing compared to the power of the AT field.
Oooo, nice tie-in.
At only $200 to the Frau, I hear you're getting off pretty well. Would suck if she started charging a yearly renewal fee though if you wanted to keep enjoying what you pay for.
("Frau" means "wife" in German)
Oh sweet, these guys are like 5 minutes from my house. I think I'm gonna go piss on their lawn.
Actually, Farnsworth never lived to see his case win. He died as a depressed alcoholic and something like 10 years later, during which time his wife carried the case on, he was vindicated.
Think about it: // Conspiracy Theory
// End Conspiracy Theory
MS, RIAA, MPAA, and the surviving Roswell Aliens sign a pact with the devil (who owns the soul of FhG) to force FhG to put a premium on the decoder. What does that do? It forces free mp3 decoders off the market, and let's not forget about the world's #1: WinAmp (created by NullSoft, owned by AOL, another enemy of MS). This accomplishes several things for the interested parties:
1. MS: "Phooey! Mp3 costs money, so we're gonna leave it out and pass the savings on to consumers, yay! Use WMA instead!"
2. RIAA and MPAA: "Mp3 is killing us! But WMA has DRM built-in, it is our savior! Viva WMA!"
3. Roswell Aliens: "clik-clik, clik-clik, Elvis..., click-cluck-cluck..., phone home..."
It's actually kind of scary what level of mafia-type pull these organizations have. I'll bet you that FhG knows what's happening, but have somehow gotten strongarmed into compliance. Suppose that someone from the RIAA started thinking, "Hey, you know, we wouldn't have this whole Internet piracy issue if it weren't for mp3..., so why don't we just go after the people that invented it?" FhG is *not* a big institution..., I doubt they'd have the resources to wage a legal battle.
At least you came clean. It's kind of scary to think about what kind of subversion may be possible on Slashdot with the right tactic from the wrong people. You're right, throw in some buzzwords, things people don't know much about, and you've got them ready to walk off the cliff after, or even in front of, you.
Brings to mind, "All sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Well, there's a bit more to it, and while I don't understand it entirely, I'll tell you what I know (perhaps someone more knowledgeable can enlighten us further). When vacuum tubes distort, they introduce "even" harmonics into the output, whereas transistors introduce "odd" harmonics, and people simply prefer the former.
However, I can't tell you what "even" and "odd" harmonics mean, and I definitely couldn't tell you what the quantum mechanical processes going on are.