Those are some very interesting points, thanks. I was actually thinking more along the lines of the Thinkpad car charger, which takes a 12V input that should be more in line with most solar panels. I'm also hoping it'll be more tolerant of voltage drops and overvoltage:)
That buck boost converter looks interesting though - I'll keep it in mind:)
Ah ok, I wouldn't like to carry that around either... I'm considering a fold-up 10W panel right now, which should weigh in at a similar weight, but I'm assuming I'll get 5W out of it at best... I suppose you use yours solely for charging a battery, which then powers the radios?
I'm hoping to somehow transform up to 19V and then charge my Thinkpads (which idle just under 5W) with the 10W panel... might actually be enough to charge on particularly bright days, and enough to maintain charge level on not so sunny days.
"Unfortunately, rack-mounted equipment is usually harder to grab, but that's probably your most expensive and critical stuff. And it'll be your critical path, so start unbolting it first. All of that will fit, put it in first, braced as well as you can."
If you use touring racks (on blue wheels) instead of immobile raacks, you can run a 19" server tower up a loading ramp to a U-Haul with 2 or 3 grown men, easy. Hell, compared to amps, rack servers and workstations are light as air, and you could run all power and connectivity per rack over a single multipin connector if you wanted. Need to put 60 systems in a U-Hal? Unsnap 10 connectors, load 10 racks, done.
"Related, my bug out bag doesn't contain a hand-crank radio or flashlight. It has a couple packs of AAs, which are much lighter than the food to replace the energy I'd expend cranking. They'll last me at least a few weeks. If civilization can't reestablish itself in that time, I'm probably fucked, regardless of electricity."
Have you considered a foldable/rollable solar panel? I've seen 10W (with bright sunlight) panels from $150, which is pretty awesome IMO:)
Not only that, but their "We could some day generate up to XX milliwats!" figure is 30! 30 mW is the dream number! I can generate more than that scooting my ass on the carpet, and the battery weight required to provide 2-30mW over a period of days is pretty much neglible (a 10 Wh lithium ion battery doesn't weigh a lot and will last 5000 hours (@2mW) or 333.33 hours (30mW). And as a reminder, most smartphone batteries are around 7Wh now and they're tiny and weigh practically nothing, so using that 30mA dream firgure, we could save maybe 30-40g of battery weight by strapping a power generating contraption to our knees... and that probably weighs more than the battery weight saved.
SSDs are faster at day-to-day tasks - opening applications, booting/resume-from-hibernate, web browsing (seriously - Chrome and FF disk caches are muuuuch faster when on SSD [or RAMDisk, in Firefox's case], especially after the browser's been running for a while)... not to mention the power savings, if you're on a laptop.
So you want to run the entire OS and all applications from RAM? Some minimalistic Linux distros actually do this already, and are extremely snappy because of it.
Running Windows 7 (or Ubuntu/Mint) and a full bank of programs, however, is going to require some serious RAM capacity - maybe a server with 128GB support. Oh, and you'll a way to restore the OS disk image to RAM before booting, and then making the RAM available as a RAMDisk before boot so that Windows can, well, boot. And reading/writing ~100GB to a hard drive takes a long time - so you'd be looking at boot and shutdown (or hibernate) times around 15 minutes (assuming a hard drive that can read/write that image at a constant 100MByte/sec)... in order to speed up boot, you'd need to look at getting an SSD - and then you're right back where you started:p
"You can keep your shitty caching schemes and your hybrid drives (which are just shitty caching schemes in a black box). SSDs all the way. If I need bigbadstorage, I buy multiple SSDs."
Or you can just get an SSD for your system+application drive and a hard drive for your storage needs (unless cost isn't a factor, in which case your multiple SSDs solution is becoming more and more feasible, what with 600GB 2.5" SATA SSDs being available). Even most ultraportable laptops offer an mSATA slot in addtion to the regular 2.5" SATA bay... and decent regular laptops allow you to replace the optical drive with an additional hard drive.
I actually prefer this new look - the transparency and rounded corners in Win7 were pretty for about 5 minutes... since then they've just been annoying.
No way I'm upgrading though, so I'll be looking for a third party skin for Win7...
Actually, that $150-$200 price for extended batteries is usually the manufacturer-recommended pricing. Retailers usually offer them for half that or less...
If you're willing to sacrifice all other features, sure, go ahead. I'll stick to swapping (full-size) SIM cards in my Galaxy Nexus when I cross borders, thanks.
In addition, the middle scroll button (at least on Thinkpads) is AWESOME. No searching for "scroll zones" or multi-finger gestures on a touchpad, and vertical as well as horizontal scrolling *at the same time* without having to move your fingers a single millimeter.
For people how never move their hands from "home" position (index fingers on F and J), the trackpoint is a godsend.
For everyone else, though... well, I can see why they'd prefer a touchpad - a trackpoint has a steeper learning curve and requires more getting used to.
If you're in an actual STORE, why are you typing on a laptop keyboard anyway? Shouldn't you be at a desk with at least a full-sized keyboard and some decent sized monitors plugged in?
Facebook IM is just the gateway drug... As soon as people realize that text messaging should essentially be free, they're just seconds away from installing another IM client on their phone. Most people won't, because they don't need to communicate with anyone outside their Facebook friend list... But the idea should be planted:-)
It's quite interesting here in Germany - they've definitely got my vote, mainly because they've more or less stated, "We don't know everything about every issue, and are unwilling to voice statements or views on these issues until we've had time to look at them."
Compared to other politicians and parties, who will just start blowing hot air in order to save face, that's very refreshing. They don't seem to be quite sure where they're going, but at least they have the balls to admit it. Basic direction is on their website though (just run it through Google Translate).
Oh, and they seem to be kicking out anyone who's ever had anything at all to do with the modern Nazi parties, which is always a good thing.
If these things were readily available, I'd agree with you... but since they're not, drilling a few holes and adding a power switch shouldn't be all too hard:p
Hmmm, why don't you just put it in a case and add a power switch? If you can get it set up, I'm sure you can buy a case for $5, drill a few holes and solder the connections to a power switch:)
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Those are some very interesting points, thanks. I was actually thinking more along the lines of the Thinkpad car charger, which takes a 12V input that should be more in line with most solar panels. I'm also hoping it'll be more tolerant of voltage drops and overvoltage :)
That buck boost converter looks interesting though - I'll keep it in mind :)
Ah ok, I wouldn't like to carry that around either... I'm considering a fold-up 10W panel right now, which should weigh in at a similar weight, but I'm assuming I'll get 5W out of it at best... I suppose you use yours solely for charging a battery, which then powers the radios?
I'm hoping to somehow transform up to 19V and then charge my Thinkpads (which idle just under 5W) with the 10W panel... might actually be enough to charge on particularly bright days, and enough to maintain charge level on not so sunny days.
How heavy is it exactly?
"Unfortunately, rack-mounted equipment is usually harder to grab, but that's probably your most expensive and critical stuff. And it'll be your critical path, so start unbolting it first. All of that will fit, put it in first, braced as well as you can."
If you use touring racks (on blue wheels) instead of immobile raacks, you can run a 19" server tower up a loading ramp to a U-Haul with 2 or 3 grown men, easy. Hell, compared to amps, rack servers and workstations are light as air, and you could run all power and connectivity per rack over a single multipin connector if you wanted. Need to put 60 systems in a U-Hal? Unsnap 10 connectors, load 10 racks, done.
"Related, my bug out bag doesn't contain a hand-crank radio or flashlight. It has a couple packs of AAs, which are much lighter than the food to replace the energy I'd expend cranking. They'll last me at least a few weeks. If civilization can't reestablish itself in that time, I'm probably fucked, regardless of electricity."
Have you considered a foldable/rollable solar panel? I've seen 10W (with bright sunlight) panels from $150, which is pretty awesome IMO :)
I want one for my Thinkpad :D
Not only that, but their "We could some day generate up to XX milliwats!" figure is 30! 30 mW is the dream number! I can generate more than that scooting my ass on the carpet, and the battery weight required to provide 2-30mW over a period of days is pretty much neglible (a 10 Wh lithium ion battery doesn't weigh a lot and will last 5000 hours (@2mW) or 333.33 hours (30mW). And as a reminder, most smartphone batteries are around 7Wh now and they're tiny and weigh practically nothing, so using that 30mA dream firgure, we could save maybe 30-40g of battery weight by strapping a power generating contraption to our knees... and that probably weighs more than the battery weight saved.
Of course. Most modern Android devices offer MHL (=> HDMI) out in 720p, and Bluetooth mouse and keyboard support.
SSDs are faster at day-to-day tasks - opening applications, booting/resume-from-hibernate, web browsing (seriously - Chrome and FF disk caches are muuuuch faster when on SSD [or RAMDisk, in Firefox's case], especially after the browser's been running for a while)... not to mention the power savings, if you're on a laptop.
On Macs, the answer is obvious: Fairies!
So you want to run the entire OS and all applications from RAM? Some minimalistic Linux distros actually do this already, and are extremely snappy because of it.
Running Windows 7 (or Ubuntu/Mint) and a full bank of programs, however, is going to require some serious RAM capacity - maybe a server with 128GB support. Oh, and you'll a way to restore the OS disk image to RAM before booting, and then making the RAM available as a RAMDisk before boot so that Windows can, well, boot. And reading/writing ~100GB to a hard drive takes a long time - so you'd be looking at boot and shutdown (or hibernate) times around 15 minutes (assuming a hard drive that can read/write that image at a constant 100MByte/sec)... in order to speed up boot, you'd need to look at getting an SSD - and then you're right back where you started :p
"You can keep your shitty caching schemes and your hybrid drives (which are just shitty caching schemes in a black box).
SSDs all the way. If I need bigbadstorage, I buy multiple SSDs."
Or you can just get an SSD for your system+application drive and a hard drive for your storage needs (unless cost isn't a factor, in which case your multiple SSDs solution is becoming more and more feasible, what with 600GB 2.5" SATA SSDs being available). Even most ultraportable laptops offer an mSATA slot in addtion to the regular 2.5" SATA bay... and decent regular laptops allow you to replace the optical drive with an additional hard drive.
Hybrid drives are completely superfluous.
I actually prefer this new look - the transparency and rounded corners in Win7 were pretty for about 5 minutes... since then they've just been annoying.
No way I'm upgrading though, so I'll be looking for a third party skin for Win7...
Actually, that $150-$200 price for extended batteries is usually the manufacturer-recommended pricing. Retailers usually offer them for half that or less...
Now if only it had a Trackpoint and was a ThinkPad :-D
In all seriousness though: If you don't need the tablet part, check out asus's ivy bridge zenbooks... Same resolution without all the uselessness :-P
Nice, I actually had to look up what you meant :D
Guess I mean "regular-sized" ;)
If you're willing to sacrifice all other features, sure, go ahead. I'll stick to swapping (full-size) SIM cards in my Galaxy Nexus when I cross borders, thanks.
Not to mention the 30% drop in battery life and no extended battery option to compensate.
So basically, it doesn't bother you that you're paying twice as much for streaming/downloads as you would for the season DVD?
In addition, the middle scroll button (at least on Thinkpads) is AWESOME. No searching for "scroll zones" or multi-finger gestures on a touchpad, and vertical as well as horizontal scrolling *at the same time* without having to move your fingers a single millimeter.
For people how never move their hands from "home" position (index fingers on F and J), the trackpoint is a godsend.
For everyone else, though... well, I can see why they'd prefer a touchpad - a trackpoint has a steeper learning curve and requires more getting used to.
If you're in an actual STORE, why are you typing on a laptop keyboard anyway? Shouldn't you be at a desk with at least a full-sized keyboard and some decent sized monitors plugged in?
Facebook IM is just the gateway drug... As soon as people realize that text messaging should essentially be free, they're just seconds away from installing another IM client on their phone. Most people won't, because they don't need to communicate with anyone outside their Facebook friend list... But the idea should be planted :-)
It's quite interesting here in Germany - they've definitely got my vote, mainly because they've more or less stated, "We don't know everything about every issue, and are unwilling to voice statements or views on these issues until we've had time to look at them."
Compared to other politicians and parties, who will just start blowing hot air in order to save face, that's very refreshing. They don't seem to be quite sure where they're going, but at least they have the balls to admit it. Basic direction is on their website though (just run it through Google Translate).
Oh, and they seem to be kicking out anyone who's ever had anything at all to do with the modern Nazi parties, which is always a good thing.
If these things were readily available, I'd agree with you... but since they're not, drilling a few holes and adding a power switch shouldn't be all too hard :p
Hmmm, why don't you just put it in a case and add a power switch? If you can get it set up, I'm sure you can buy a case for $5, drill a few holes and solder the connections to a power switch :)
Ah OK, that explains it - I have Aero turned off. Thanks for the heads up!