I don't really think the media pay much attention at all to most of these revelations, which is why people look at you quizzically when you mention things like COINTELPRO
The public at large doesn't tend to remember code-names in general.
Ask people if they think the FBI infiltrates and disrupts political organizations and the like, and I'm sure the majority of the public at large will nod accordingly...
There has been plenty of press about the FBI's more recent, post 9/11 undercover operations, trying to prompt political organizations to become violent.
My understanding is that battery energy density's theoretical maximum falls far short of any of our common liquid fuels,
In theory, if your car's engine was 100% effecient, that might be true. Since it's actually on the order of 25% effecient or less (while batteries are around 80% effecient) the situation is quite the opposite.
And in any discussion of chemical energy density, you have to talk about the powertrain as well... The engine, transmission, axel, drive shaft, alternator, radiator, et al., add significant weight to the vehicle (and are not needed at all with all-electric vehicles) eliminating even more of the energy density advantages of chemical fuels.
and making and recycling batteries is a highly toxic and energy intensive process.
Only a few specific types of batteries are toxic... Nickel Cadmium was never used in electric vehicles to my knowledge. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries (used in hybrids like the Prius) have been out-paced by the capacity of Li-Ion, as well as significantly reduced weight.
And even with all that... Batteries themselves will probably be replaced in the not-too-distant future. Everything from supercapactiors to flywheels hold the promise of giving better effeciency, faster charging, and significantly higher capacity than chemical battery technology.
It was ridiculous to get it home in the first place, it was ridiculous to lift it up a flight of stairs into our living room, and it was ridiculous to have to repeat that exercise two more times when we moved.
I can't believe people use this idiotic excuse.
What do you do when you buy a couch? How about a washing machine? How about a refridgerator?
A 32" CRT is a lightweight in comparison to any of those, and much easier to work with, thanks to a much more rigid structure, and built-in handles.
FWIW, I had no problems at all getting my CRT HDTV home, carrying it up the stairs, putting it up on the TV console, etc. That's ME, 1 person, with about 5 minutes of moderate effort. And with that, it has sat there happily chugging away for years.
The CRT screen image is not better than a great LCD or plasma,
Yes, it is. CRTs have faster response times, higher resolutions, much higher contrast, etc. Your wishful thinking can't change that simple fact.
The studios HATED it, because it meant their content was moving around the network digitally (in MPEG-2), which was the point.
It would absolutely suck if your highdef DVD player had to reencode your h.264 video to MPEG-2 in realtime. It would be both much more expensive, as well as negatively impacting video quality.
Ditto for using your HDTV as a computer monitor.
I do agree that there should be a standard for communicating commands from device to device.
which although never carried out, was a plan to stage terrorist attacks on US assets and blame it on Cuba as an excuse for war.
The plan was strongly focused on SIMULATED terrorist attacks, not real casualities. And when it was decided that it would be too difficult to fake deaths, the plan was, of course, thrown out.
Fortunately these damning revelations are largely ignored by the US media.
No, they aren't. They're taken in context by the mainstream media, and only blown out of proportion by individuals with an agenda, like yourself.
No, that computer isn't *remotely* power effecient.
The ridiculously high 130+watt idle numbers are probably due to the S2K Bus Disconnect bug/issue AMD had before the switch to 64bit CPUs. Running a program like VCool or FVcool would likely reduce that number by 20-60 watts.
The trend in CPUs (still the biggest single power drain in modern computers) is for MUCH more power-effecient models (especially when idle). A newer CPU and motherboard would be using significantly less power than that old Athlon, despite vastly outperforming the older chip.
[...] given that it survives quite happily on a rather anemic 300W power supply, in an era when many advice guides are pushing monster 450W+ units.
The recomendations are probably due to the ridiculous power consumption of Pentium 4 CPUs (which are thankfully behind us now) and $5 "500w" PSUs, which can't possibly deliver half the power advertised. Stay away from those two issues, and a 300W power supply is more than enough for modern systems.
Additionally, 80% effecient power supplies like Seasonic's units are becomming more common, and more widely available, helping to significantly reduce power consumption as well.
With all of this, many people are putting together new towers that use less power than their notebooks.
A comparable LCD screen would use about 45-50W (yes, I've validated those numbers, and a 19" LCD really does use that much power.
That's not a fair comparison. Those 19" CRTs probably have a "viewable" size of 17.9".
Besides that, a jump of approx 50% power savings is still huge, and better than you'd get trading-in your old refridgerator for a new one... And with other improvements on the horizon, I predict computer displays will continue to out-pace refrigerator effeciency gains for many years to come.
Furnace blower motors have been moving to DC, significantly reducing their electricity consumption as well.
I fail to see how a DC motor is inherently more effecient than an AC motor. For one thing, it comes into your house as AC to begin with.
the receiver/audio amplifier takes 51W, regardless of output
I sincerely doubt most people watch TV with a surround-sound amplifier on, 40 hours a week.
I don't see the majority of TV programming (things like news, game shows, soap operas, etc.) getting any more exciting when played over 6 speakers instead of the two built-in to the TV.
(like most families, it's often on even when unwatched, especially given some of the great digital music channels our cable provider streams out)
I don't know why anyone would leave their TV on to listen to digital music channels for hours a day, when it has already been established that the person in question is using a seperate amplifier for their TV viewing already...
But that didn't stop him from using this in his calculations, not to mention claiming that he's trying to save the earth...
that PVR is just as efficient at turning 42W into heat as your baseboard would be with the same power.
No, it isn't. As I've repeated on/. many times before:
"An electric heater will be a purely resistive load, giving you a nearly perfect power factor of 1.0, whereas your VCR probably has a cheap power supply with a power factor as low as 0.4. So the VCR is causing a lot more power loss [line losses], even though it's the same 5watts."
The measured difference between doing general desktop tasks on Vista Ultimate running with Aero Glass, and Windows 2003 running on the same hardware, was negligible.
No doubt this test was done on the same 32-bit AMD Athlon system (without S2K Bus Disconnect enabled) WHICH DOESN'T IDLE P
however it is generally less than 1 watt with no load...
I've tested dozens, and the smaller ones all use approx. 2 watts, while the larger ones use slightly more (3-4).
With perhaps a dozen wall-warts, plugged-in 24/7 in most households, that becomes a rather significant ammount of completely wasted electricity. Moreso in the summer when your AC is wasting even more power to remove that waste heat.
you are better off using the switch on your power strip than relying on the mac "off" mode,
Only if you don't mind replacing dead CMOS batteries all the time...
which isn't a whole lot better than sleep.
Your numbers seem suspicious. I've found my own PC in S3 standby to be using little more than it would when off. I'm surprised Apple would be so much worse.
i love these slashdot replies where smartass idiots reply with the dumbest stuff.
So much so that you decided to craft one, yourself?
Read a little about AACS the people who made the thing are not idiots.
I've read plenty about AACS, thanks. They're not idiots, but they aren't magic either.
They can't just revoke a key, and magically do away with this particular circumvention technique, as you so audaciously asserted (without any facts to support your claim, of course).
(Here's a hint: if you don't see ethanol at your pumps, the problem hasn't been solved here yet)
Ethanol is at EVERY pump already.
I don't believe there's any place in this country that doesn't have a few percent of their gasoline made-up of Ethanol.
unless you're seriously contending that biodiesels will be grown and filtered on oil derricks, pumped through the same pipelines or tanker ships, and refined in petroleum-distilling equipment (which will magically have more capacity) I think that you need to revise your statement a bit.
This is utter nonsense. Nobody would WANT biodiesel at the derricks. You introduce it after the oil has been refined to fuel. From there, it uses exactly the same infrastructure as regular petroleum fuels.
Being wrong can be forgiven. Being wrong and rude can't.
I'll take a rude genius over a polite idiot any day.
Because anything over about 10% ethanol poses a risk for natural or even neoprene (but not silicone) seals.
In California, 20% ethanol is fairly common already. It's explicitly stated on the pumps (on a small sticker) at the gas station I regularly fuel-up at. Hint: Cars in California aren't falling apart.
E95 still has 5% gasoline, and I want 0% fossil fuels. We need that oil for plastics.
I doubt you could find any refining process that will give you 0% waste. You'll end up with some gasoline as a waste product, if nothing else.
Besides, Ethanol is a short to medium-term fix, anyhow. Even in the medium term, we'll probably be switching to all-electric vehicles, and leaving liquid fuels entirely.
Circumventing protection measures is nearly always unlawful, and fair use does not change that.
It wasn't before the DMCA...
And the DMCA has a special clause for "interoperability" which means if there's ANY platform the DRM doesn't work on, you have a legal right to circumvent it. There's plenty of grey area, of course, but your statement that it's nearly always illegal is certainly wrong.
it's a matter of creating a supply chain and infrastructure to rival that of petroleum in terms of quantity, price, availability and reliability, and then of maintaining that long enough for our dumb-ass auto companies to produce decent vehicles which make use of the new fuel,
Done and Done.
Ethanol can INSTANTLY replace 30% of gasoline, and Biodiesel can INSTANTLY replace 20% of petroleum diesel.
Same infrastructure (dump it in the petroleum fuels, pipelines, trucks, pumps, etc.).
Exactly the same vehicles, since 30% ethanol to 70% gasoline has been required for new cars for over a decade now, and 20% biodiesel is practically the same as pure petroleum diesel.
Why you got modded up for your utter ignorance, I can't imagine.
Slashdot Mirror
The public at large doesn't tend to remember code-names in general.
Ask people if they think the FBI infiltrates and disrupts political organizations and the like, and I'm sure the majority of the public at large will nod accordingly...
There has been plenty of press about the FBI's more recent, post 9/11 undercover operations, trying to prompt political organizations to become violent.
In theory, if your car's engine was 100% effecient, that might be true. Since it's actually on the order of 25% effecient or less (while batteries are around 80% effecient) the situation is quite the opposite.
And in any discussion of chemical energy density, you have to talk about the powertrain as well... The engine, transmission, axel, drive shaft, alternator, radiator, et al., add significant weight to the vehicle (and are not needed at all with all-electric vehicles) eliminating even more of the energy density advantages of chemical fuels.
Only a few specific types of batteries are toxic... Nickel Cadmium was never used in electric vehicles to my knowledge. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries (used in hybrids like the Prius) have been out-paced by the capacity of Li-Ion, as well as significantly reduced weight.
And even with all that... Batteries themselves will probably be replaced in the not-too-distant future. Everything from supercapactiors to flywheels hold the promise of giving better effeciency, faster charging, and significantly higher capacity than chemical battery technology.
I can't believe people use this idiotic excuse.
What do you do when you buy a couch? How about a washing machine? How about a refridgerator?
A 32" CRT is a lightweight in comparison to any of those, and much easier to work with, thanks to a much more rigid structure, and built-in handles.
FWIW, I had no problems at all getting my CRT HDTV home, carrying it up the stairs, putting it up on the TV console, etc. That's ME, 1 person, with about 5 minutes of moderate effort. And with that, it has sat there happily chugging away for years.
Yes, it is. CRTs have faster response times, higher resolutions, much higher contrast, etc. Your wishful thinking can't change that simple fact.
It would absolutely suck if your highdef DVD player had to reencode your h.264 video to MPEG-2 in realtime. It would be both much more expensive, as well as negatively impacting video quality.
Ditto for using your HDTV as a computer monitor.
I do agree that there should be a standard for communicating commands from device to device.
The plan was strongly focused on SIMULATED terrorist attacks, not real casualities. And when it was decided that it would be too difficult to fake deaths, the plan was, of course, thrown out.
No, they aren't. They're taken in context by the mainstream media, and only blown out of proportion by individuals with an agenda, like yourself.
No, that computer isn't *remotely* power effecient.
The ridiculously high 130+watt idle numbers are probably due to the S2K Bus Disconnect bug/issue AMD had before the switch to 64bit CPUs. Running a program like VCool or FVcool would likely reduce that number by 20-60 watts.
The trend in CPUs (still the biggest single power drain in modern computers) is for MUCH more power-effecient models (especially when idle). A newer CPU and motherboard would be using significantly less power than that old Athlon, despite vastly outperforming the older chip.
The recomendations are probably due to the ridiculous power consumption of Pentium 4 CPUs (which are thankfully behind us now) and $5 "500w" PSUs, which can't possibly deliver half the power advertised. Stay away from those two issues, and a 300W power supply is more than enough for modern systems.
Additionally, 80% effecient power supplies like Seasonic's units are becomming more common, and more widely available, helping to significantly reduce power consumption as well.
With all of this, many people are putting together new towers that use less power than their notebooks.
That's not a fair comparison. Those 19" CRTs probably have a "viewable" size of 17.9".
Besides that, a jump of approx 50% power savings is still huge, and better than you'd get trading-in your old refridgerator for a new one... And with other improvements on the horizon, I predict computer displays will continue to out-pace refrigerator effeciency gains for many years to come.
I fail to see how a DC motor is inherently more effecient than an AC motor. For one thing, it comes into your house as AC to begin with.
I sincerely doubt most people watch TV with a surround-sound amplifier on, 40 hours a week.
I don't see the majority of TV programming (things like news, game shows, soap operas, etc.) getting any more exciting when played over 6 speakers instead of the two built-in to the TV.
I don't know why anyone would leave their TV on to listen to digital music channels for hours a day, when it has already been established that the person in question is using a seperate amplifier for their TV viewing already...
But that didn't stop him from using this in his calculations, not to mention claiming that he's trying to save the earth...
No, it isn't. As I've repeated on /. many times before:
"An electric heater will be a purely resistive load, giving you a nearly perfect power factor of 1.0, whereas your VCR probably has a cheap power supply with a power factor as low as 0.4. So the VCR is causing a lot more power loss [line losses], even though it's the same 5watts."
No doubt this test was done on the same 32-bit AMD Athlon system (without S2K Bus Disconnect enabled) WHICH DOESN'T IDLE P
Does it take 4+ years to climb Denali?
Are all climbers 50 years of age or older?
I bet it's also safer to play Russian Roulette than it is to be elected to the Supreme Court...
I've tested dozens, and the smaller ones all use approx. 2 watts, while the larger ones use slightly more (3-4).
With perhaps a dozen wall-warts, plugged-in 24/7 in most households, that becomes a rather significant ammount of completely wasted electricity. Moreso in the summer when your AC is wasting even more power to remove that waste heat.
The vast majority of houses don't use electric water heaters to begin with, let alone whole-house electric heating.
Natural gas, heating oil, etc., are more common.
Only if you don't mind replacing dead CMOS batteries all the time...
Your numbers seem suspicious. I've found my own PC in S3 standby to be using little more than it would when off. I'm surprised Apple would be so much worse.
So much so that you decided to craft one, yourself?
I've read plenty about AACS, thanks. They're not idiots, but they aren't magic either.
They can't just revoke a key, and magically do away with this particular circumvention technique, as you so audaciously asserted (without any facts to support your claim, of course).
Ethanol is at EVERY pump already.
I don't believe there's any place in this country that doesn't have a few percent of their gasoline made-up of Ethanol.
This is utter nonsense. Nobody would WANT biodiesel at the derricks. You introduce it after the oil has been refined to fuel. From there, it uses exactly the same infrastructure as regular petroleum fuels.
I'll take a rude genius over a polite idiot any day.
Yes, E30 would be 30% ethanol.
In California, 20% ethanol is fairly common already. It's explicitly stated on the pumps (on a small sticker) at the gas station I regularly fuel-up at. Hint: Cars in California aren't falling apart.
I doubt you could find any refining process that will give you 0% waste. You'll end up with some gasoline as a waste product, if nothing else.
Besides, Ethanol is a short to medium-term fix, anyhow. Even in the medium term, we'll probably be switching to all-electric vehicles, and leaving liquid fuels entirely.
It is distinctly relevant to the subject at hand...
There is no magic change in kind when you go from paying 0 cents to paying 1 cent.
I have no problem with the idea that the RIAA/MPAA are significantly over-charging. But THAT is the part which isn't relevant here.
It wasn't before the DMCA...
And the DMCA has a special clause for "interoperability" which means if there's ANY platform the DRM doesn't work on, you have a legal right to circumvent it. There's plenty of grey area, of course, but your statement that it's nearly always illegal is certainly wrong.
Who is to say that those who buy cheaper illegal copies of movies would actually pay full price to see them in the first place?
Lots of subsudies for oil and hydrogen. None for "algae biodiesel".
Done and Done.
Ethanol can INSTANTLY replace 30% of gasoline, and Biodiesel can INSTANTLY replace 20% of petroleum diesel.
Same infrastructure (dump it in the petroleum fuels, pipelines, trucks, pumps, etc.).
Exactly the same vehicles, since 30% ethanol to 70% gasoline has been required for new cars for over a decade now, and 20% biodiesel is practically the same as pure petroleum diesel.
Why you got modded up for your utter ignorance, I can't imagine.
Because their irony meter would explode?
Not at all. I wouldn't call significantly underestimating the weight a production problem...
Over-promising (features, timeline, etc.) is a classic sign of vaporware.
So was the Spruce Goose...
The guy wearing the tin-foil hat, down the street from me, has been working on his intergalactic space ship for longer than that...
The difference? Airbus is both a reputable company, and has been taking orders for quite a while...
So was DVD CSS...
Would you care to guess how well that worked?
That's because you picked the categories, based on things the Tivo has, rather than features the Tivo lacks.
Because you don't have to hack it to allow you to copy *your* videos off it, re-encode them, edit out commercials, record to DVD, etc.
A spare computer is a better option, IMHO, but this little thing has it's benefits as well.