Actually, the whole attitude you hear parroted that "release numbers are irrelevant because they are just numbers" understands the reality that in many cases, actual development milestones have given way to PR.
Traditionally, you would use something like a three-number system. The first number indicates major architectural change. The second indicates major new features. The third indicates bug fixes. Perhaps you merge the feature and bug fix numbers. Perhaps you add a fourth number like the Linux kernel to indicate a complete rewrite.
Say Mozilla slaps a new top bar onto Firefox. The browser behaves largely the same, and internally it is little different, but when you initially open it, it looks completely different. Using development-based release numbers, that would be added into a feature release. Using PR-based release numbers, that would be worth a major release, along with a bunch of press to get people to "Try out the new Firefox." You get a bunch of users that grab it and start using it just because its "cutting edge" and they don't know any better.
Now the Linux kernel is in a bit of a different position. Traditionally, the release branch gets new drivers and bug fixes, while architectural changes are done in a developmental branch. At some point, they clean it up, and dump those architectural changes into a new release branch. For the 2.6 kernel, that developmental branch never existed, and the architectural changes were made in the release branch. There was never any significant change from version to version, but 2.6.39 looks nothing like the original 2.6.1, and under the old design strategy, would justifiably be a 2.8 kernel. The 'PR bit', and the part that confuses most Linux users, is that Linus is tired of 2.x, and wants to instead jump straight to 3.0.
Not only that, but while software does exist that can copy a Blu-Ray disk, in most cases ripping a blu-ray disk is beyond the average user.
Install AnyDVD HD. Insert Bluray disk. Open Explorer. Copy largest file you find on the disk to your hard drive. Ripping seems pretty trivial to me.
Oh! You actually meant transcoding for use on a device with limited playback capability. Well then there are also applications out there that spit out compliant content just a few clicks and several hours later, and plenty of step-by-step guides available on the internet for anyone who cares to go looking.
So no, opening the refrigerator does not make any significant impact in energy consumption.
I misspoke, all of the calculations above were based off the 14cu.ft. side of a standard 22cu.ft. refrigerator/freezer combo.
Well I wasn't so much trying to make a point that it was, only that the GP's rationale that somehow a STB could use more power than a refrigerator didn't hold water.
It's a function of duty cycle. Modern refrigerators do consume several hundred watts when running, but copious amounts of insulation means they rarely run. There are several full size models rated for a yearly consumption under 500kWh, and the article reports 415. In comparison, cable and satellite STBs never turn off. There is maybe 5W difference between full load and what they consider 'off'. The article reports a yearly total consumption of 171kWh and 446kWh for STBs and DVRs, respectively. That equates to 19.5W and 51W average, which is not at all unreasonable.
The point the article is trying to make is that there is absolutely no purpose for these devices to run all the time like this. For over a decade, laptops have consumed under a watt in standby, and reach full capability within seconds of being brought out of it. A timer could be added to bring the device out of standby automatically for scheduled updates. Their current design is simply one made out of complacency.
Why are startup times frustratingly long? It knows exactly what is in the device, and that is not going to change, so it's not like they have to poll anything. Any tuning data can be stored so it doesn't need to be recaptured on startup. You could configure it to start up once an hour to check for updates.
The average freezer is around 14 cubic feet, or just over a pound of air. Assuming its 100 degrees out, and you leave the door open long enough to flush all the cold air out, that's only 17kJ. The cycle used for refrigerators is known to achieve up to 60% that of the Carnot cycle, meaning it can operate at over 500% efficiency. In order to extract that much heat back out of the refrigerator, you need to consume roughly one watt-hour of electricity, or 0.01 cents worth. Assuming you open the refrigerator door this long 25 times a day, over the course of a year, you're talking about a dollar of electricity spent.
So no, opening the refrigerator does not make any significant impact in energy consumption.
If you have purchased a DVD or CD, and the disk has gotten scratched, lost, or is otherwise unreadable, well too bad. You should have backed it up or insured it. Hard drives are cheap. Optical drives are cheap. Software is available that can handle every AACS key and BD+ implementation yet released. If people cared to backup their content, it's not difficult to accomplish. While you may have a case for applications protected by potentially damaging DRM such as StarForce, there is no useful legitimate reason to illegally download multimedia that you own.
This wasn't a torrent application, but rather a torrent frontend. It would let you start and manage a remote torrent client from your phone. Its big draw was that it interfaced with your camera, and could process bar codes, allowing you to take a picture of a product on the shelf and automatically start a download. Such behavior could only be used to download illegal content. There is no legitimate reason for it.
Technically, there is nothing wrong with downloading copyrighted content. The closest you could come would be receipt of stolen goods, but that doesn't work since they're infringed, not stolen. The problem is from unlicensed distribution of said content, or uploading, and if you look at all the cases the RIAA and independent movie studios have opened, they're all against uploaders. The problem with torrents are that you have no choice but to be an uploader. The trackers enforce it. Even though you own the DVD, you do not have the rights to distribute that DVD.
Now be honest, do you actually think even 1% of their user base ever scanned their own purchased DVDs?
this is 2011, every one of these devices should be able to connect to the internet and synchronize time just like my PC does (should) so I can be on my merry little way.
There is no reason to connect to the internet, unless you want your devices to be accessible remotely. There are plenty of radio time signals that have been available worldwide for a century, or you tap into the LORAN network, or you could tap into the GPS network. Any one of these would be considerably cheaper and easier to implement than a wireless ethernet controller and NTP client.
The VC marketer's dreams of wealth were disrupted when people discovered this only had limited advantages and significant disadvantages against a traditional helicopter.
This is seriously unimpressive. Assuming this is a even a novel design, and not just an aero-adapted Voith Schneider propeller, they are missing a key design constraint of thrust-based aircraft. Thrust is produced through air volume and velocity. Traditional helicopter use very large rotors to produce high air volume. Ducted fans and other small propellers rely on air velocity, and energy needs are proportional to energy squared. As such, the power requirements for such propulsion systems go through the roof. The lifting capacities of the F-35 and CH-53 are roughly equivalent at around 35-40k lbs. The CH-53 has plenty of extra power with only 8k shp, while the F-35 struggles to take off at over 30k shp.
The article claims this could be a disruptive innovation in the aerospace industry comparable to the gas turbine engine. In reality, it really doesn't provide any functional advantage over pivot-able ducted fans. When scaled up to carry people, it's going to require a gas turbine to run it, or at least a very highly tuned reciprocating engine. Cargo and range is going to be limited. Downwash is going to prevent its use among population and ground clutter. This really doesn't change any of the limitations of previous craft.
Different atmospheric conditions will affect different frequency light in different ways. Certain frequencies might cause cause excessive dispersion or thermal blooming, while other frequencies will operate in a window of relatively little interference. While a traditional laser would perform just as well as an FEL were it in the proper window, the fact that the FEL is tunable means you can hit that window regardless of the conditions.
The basic idea behind the MIRV is that nuclear weapons got small and light, while rocketry works on economies of scale. Why destroy one city with a lethal radius of 20 miles, when you can use the same rocket to take out a dozen cities with a lethal radius of 5 miles?
Strategy trumps tactics, what are you talking about? They are two different concepts. Strategy applies over the entire theater of combat, multiple battles in multiple areas over multiple times. Tactics apply to a specific battle or skirmish.
Behind Enemy Lines actually got that right, sort of. They went with the flechette model, because a hundred projectiles being fired out a hundred individual tubes
like a shotgun, followed by the rest of the missile body following through the aircraft, looks cooler than just the front half exploding. Of course that's where reality ended. The entire rest of the missile behavior was flat wrong.
Incorrect. The marvel of the electron laser is that it does not require any gain medium, and thus it is not fixed to any specific frequency. Electrons are fed in from a particle beam, and run through an electromagnetic conduit called an undulator or 'wriggler', where the electrons bounce side to side. In this process, the electrons give off syncrotron radiation, the frequency of which is infinitely variable, based off the magnetic field strength in the undulator. Since the electron path is parallel to the emitted light, the photons remain in phase.
Slashdot Mirror
Masters of Orion?
Actually, the whole attitude you hear parroted that "release numbers are irrelevant because they are just numbers" understands the reality that in many cases, actual development milestones have given way to PR.
Traditionally, you would use something like a three-number system. The first number indicates major architectural change. The second indicates major new features. The third indicates bug fixes. Perhaps you merge the feature and bug fix numbers. Perhaps you add a fourth number like the Linux kernel to indicate a complete rewrite.
Say Mozilla slaps a new top bar onto Firefox. The browser behaves largely the same, and internally it is little different, but when you initially open it, it looks completely different. Using development-based release numbers, that would be added into a feature release. Using PR-based release numbers, that would be worth a major release, along with a bunch of press to get people to "Try out the new Firefox." You get a bunch of users that grab it and start using it just because its "cutting edge" and they don't know any better.
Now the Linux kernel is in a bit of a different position. Traditionally, the release branch gets new drivers and bug fixes, while architectural changes are done in a developmental branch. At some point, they clean it up, and dump those architectural changes into a new release branch. For the 2.6 kernel, that developmental branch never existed, and the architectural changes were made in the release branch. There was never any significant change from version to version, but 2.6.39 looks nothing like the original 2.6.1, and under the old design strategy, would justifiably be a 2.8 kernel. The 'PR bit', and the part that confuses most Linux users, is that Linus is tired of 2.x, and wants to instead jump straight to 3.0.
I was imagining a cat with a big wing over her hind legs.
Tons of people complain about X still being on version 11.
Not only that, but while software does exist that can copy a Blu-Ray disk, in most cases ripping a blu-ray disk is beyond the average user.
Install AnyDVD HD. Insert Bluray disk. Open Explorer. Copy largest file you find on the disk to your hard drive. Ripping seems pretty trivial to me.
Oh! You actually meant transcoding for use on a device with limited playback capability. Well then there are also applications out there that spit out compliant content just a few clicks and several hours later, and plenty of step-by-step guides available on the internet for anyone who cares to go looking.
So no, opening the refrigerator does not make any significant impact in energy consumption.
I misspoke, all of the calculations above were based off the 14cu.ft. side of a standard 22cu.ft. refrigerator/freezer combo.
Well I wasn't so much trying to make a point that it was, only that the GP's rationale that somehow a STB could use more power than a refrigerator didn't hold water.
It's a function of duty cycle. Modern refrigerators do consume several hundred watts when running, but copious amounts of insulation means they rarely run. There are several full size models rated for a yearly consumption under 500kWh, and the article reports 415. In comparison, cable and satellite STBs never turn off. There is maybe 5W difference between full load and what they consider 'off'. The article reports a yearly total consumption of 171kWh and 446kWh for STBs and DVRs, respectively. That equates to 19.5W and 51W average, which is not at all unreasonable.
The point the article is trying to make is that there is absolutely no purpose for these devices to run all the time like this. For over a decade, laptops have consumed under a watt in standby, and reach full capability within seconds of being brought out of it. A timer could be added to bring the device out of standby automatically for scheduled updates. Their current design is simply one made out of complacency.
Why are startup times frustratingly long? It knows exactly what is in the device, and that is not going to change, so it's not like they have to poll anything. Any tuning data can be stored so it doesn't need to be recaptured on startup. You could configure it to start up once an hour to check for updates.
The average freezer is around 14 cubic feet, or just over a pound of air. Assuming its 100 degrees out, and you leave the door open long enough to flush all the cold air out, that's only 17kJ. The cycle used for refrigerators is known to achieve up to 60% that of the Carnot cycle, meaning it can operate at over 500% efficiency. In order to extract that much heat back out of the refrigerator, you need to consume roughly one watt-hour of electricity, or 0.01 cents worth. Assuming you open the refrigerator door this long 25 times a day, over the course of a year, you're talking about a dollar of electricity spent.
So no, opening the refrigerator does not make any significant impact in energy consumption.
When you use bittorrent, you upload. There is no way that you can argue uploading copyrighted content is not illegal.
If you have purchased a DVD or CD, and the disk has gotten scratched, lost, or is otherwise unreadable, well too bad. You should have backed it up or insured it. Hard drives are cheap. Optical drives are cheap. Software is available that can handle every AACS key and BD+ implementation yet released. If people cared to backup their content, it's not difficult to accomplish. While you may have a case for applications protected by potentially damaging DRM such as StarForce, there is no useful legitimate reason to illegally download multimedia that you own.
This wasn't a torrent application, but rather a torrent frontend. It would let you start and manage a remote torrent client from your phone. Its big draw was that it interfaced with your camera, and could process bar codes, allowing you to take a picture of a product on the shelf and automatically start a download. Such behavior could only be used to download illegal content. There is no legitimate reason for it.
Technically, there is nothing wrong with downloading copyrighted content. The closest you could come would be receipt of stolen goods, but that doesn't work since they're infringed, not stolen. The problem is from unlicensed distribution of said content, or uploading, and if you look at all the cases the RIAA and independent movie studios have opened, they're all against uploaders. The problem with torrents are that you have no choice but to be an uploader. The trackers enforce it. Even though you own the DVD, you do not have the rights to distribute that DVD.
Now be honest, do you actually think even 1% of their user base ever scanned their own purchased DVDs?
Abrams tank
The M1 Abrams uses British developed Chobham armor. Just saying... :)
this is 2011, every one of these devices should be able to connect to the internet and synchronize time just like my PC does (should) so I can be on my merry little way.
There is no reason to connect to the internet, unless you want your devices to be accessible remotely. There are plenty of radio time signals that have been available worldwide for a century, or you tap into the LORAN network, or you could tap into the GPS network. Any one of these would be considerably cheaper and easier to implement than a wireless ethernet controller and NTP client.
Force feedback? Trackpoints offered no form of mechanical response.
The VC marketer's dreams of wealth were disrupted when people discovered this only had limited advantages and significant disadvantages against a traditional helicopter.
If you spin a helicopter rotor in reverse, it still produces lift in the same direction, just less efficiently.
This is seriously unimpressive. Assuming this is a even a novel design, and not just an aero-adapted Voith Schneider propeller, they are missing a key design constraint of thrust-based aircraft. Thrust is produced through air volume and velocity. Traditional helicopter use very large rotors to produce high air volume. Ducted fans and other small propellers rely on air velocity, and energy needs are proportional to energy squared. As such, the power requirements for such propulsion systems go through the roof. The lifting capacities of the F-35 and CH-53 are roughly equivalent at around 35-40k lbs. The CH-53 has plenty of extra power with only 8k shp, while the F-35 struggles to take off at over 30k shp.
The article claims this could be a disruptive innovation in the aerospace industry comparable to the gas turbine engine. In reality, it really doesn't provide any functional advantage over pivot-able ducted fans. When scaled up to carry people, it's going to require a gas turbine to run it, or at least a very highly tuned reciprocating engine. Cargo and range is going to be limited. Downwash is going to prevent its use among population and ground clutter. This really doesn't change any of the limitations of previous craft.
Different atmospheric conditions will affect different frequency light in different ways. Certain frequencies might cause cause excessive dispersion or thermal blooming, while other frequencies will operate in a window of relatively little interference. While a traditional laser would perform just as well as an FEL were it in the proper window, the fact that the FEL is tunable means you can hit that window regardless of the conditions.
We had some old nixie digital readouts lying in storage at my university, but I don't think anyone had used them in decades.
You accidentally hit MTV's broadcast satellite, and viewers everywhere rejoice.
The basic idea behind the MIRV is that nuclear weapons got small and light, while rocketry works on economies of scale. Why destroy one city with a lethal radius of 20 miles, when you can use the same rocket to take out a dozen cities with a lethal radius of 5 miles?
Strategy trumps tactics, what are you talking about? They are two different concepts. Strategy applies over the entire theater of combat, multiple battles in multiple areas over multiple times. Tactics apply to a specific battle or skirmish.
Behind Enemy Lines actually got that right, sort of. They went with the flechette model, because a hundred projectiles being fired out a hundred individual tubes like a shotgun, followed by the rest of the missile body following through the aircraft, looks cooler than just the front half exploding. Of course that's where reality ended. The entire rest of the missile behavior was flat wrong.
Incorrect. The marvel of the electron laser is that it does not require any gain medium, and thus it is not fixed to any specific frequency. Electrons are fed in from a particle beam, and run through an electromagnetic conduit called an undulator or 'wriggler', where the electrons bounce side to side. In this process, the electrons give off syncrotron radiation, the frequency of which is infinitely variable, based off the magnetic field strength in the undulator. Since the electron path is parallel to the emitted light, the photons remain in phase.