Some providers will offer redundant links, even geographically separated redundant links (fibres enter the building though 2 separate ducts, head off in 2 different directions back to 2 different exchanges via 2 different routes... of course, no-one wants to pay for that so they very rarely actually do it.
If you buy "dark fibre" then you needn't care about a one provider's hardware/network being subject to a particular failure as you're only using a length of glass they happened to provide. Again though, is spendy.
I'm fairly sure gasoline engines manage 80% efficiency if you count heat output as useful.
Does the remaining 20% come out as noise? Light? Radiation?
I Wonder how much energy and exotic raw materials go into making this marvel of clean power?
I also wonder how efficient my gas-cooker is at converting gas into heat, as it doesn't seem to make any appreciable amount of anything else other than heat.
Have you *priced* Arduinos and their accessories? If you're comparing one against *any* cellphone from the Nokia 5110 upwards the processing power is lower, the IO is limited (no buttons, display, or wireless connectivity for starters) and you can fish the cellphones out of the trash or off eBay for almost nothing, probably with full-colour LCD, bluetooth, camera, maybe even GPS. The bigger problem is breaking into the phone & developing software on it.
In fact the Raspberry Pi is cheaper than a lot of Arduinos.
Having read the link, that does not really prove that dogs are useless, just that they can give false positives if the handlers lead them into it. But no-one gets prosecuted because the dog thinks they might have a bomb unless it turns out they really do have a bomb. False positives are not a big problem if the alternative is either much more thorough/time-consuming/intrusive investigation or random selection.
Exactly, go back and read the stuff about the nuclear tests, they had everything they could find lined up around every blast - from live animals strapped to the decks of target ships to food, drink, etc., plus of course all the scientists and soldiers stationed about the place to observe & report.
As someone above said, the cost of setting off the nuke is the big thing, so you may as well stack as much stuff around the place to gather data on.
Cameras can also *see* cars, fake plates or not. If the ANPR hadn't flagged it right off, there's a fair chance the CCTV guys would have spotted it - and they could just as easily then stick the fake reg into the computer.
There's also a difference between car theives who sneak off with your stuff and car theives who are willing to risk an assault / ABH/GBH charge and the associated police response / prison sentence.
But you're right, we should go back to the police having a truncheon and a whistle and maybe a horse...
I think it's funny that google, amazon, and your bank/credit card probably know waaaay more about you than the authorities do, yet things like this get shit on in the name of freedom. If I get mugged, or burgled, or whatever, I want it to be on as many cameras as possible. CCTV is a massively EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE way to catch criminals and make the Police and justice system's job easier and safer. With power comes responsibility, and we should be watching the watchers very closely, but not cutting off our noses to spite our face.
A friend of mine heard his car being driven off his driveway at night, called the police who typed his reg into the computer. Within a few minutes it had been ANPR'd leaving town, one camera later they knew fairly sure which way he was headed (motorway out of county), maybe half an hour later a police car rolls up behind him at a motorway services and cuffs both occupants, car returned to owner.
The issue is not the technology, the issue is how it's used and by whom. This is an excellent system for reducing vehicle crime - theft, unisured drivers, unsafe vehicles on the road, etc. that cost us all a shitload of money in taxes, insurance premiums, death. They can do this as much as they like, I'm cool with that, but I want to know that that's ALL they're doing with it, and that they're not selling my data etc. etc.
People need to stop getting all antsy about the technology and concentrate their attention / concerns / questions on HOW it's used.
Pretty much anything electronic generates some noise, as pretty much everything has some sort of oscillator in it, because these days everything has some sort of microprocessor in it. Even if your device is off, its battery might have its own processor ticking away. Any device which remembers the correct time through power-down must have *some* oscillator running ALL THE TIME. Your phone probably has 3-4 radios in it (1/2/3/4G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, FM). There's so much complexity hidden in modern stuff (not just obvious electronic devices like phones/laptops) that people forget it's even there. And sometimes made very poorly.
I realise there's a low quota of hardware nerds on here, but most electronics gets washed on the production line to remove flux and contaminants.
The biggie with *any* electronics is to not use anything that causes damage or corrosion, and to have the device powered off until it's absolutely dry (if using water) to prevent shorts or electrolytic corrosion.
The best thing is isopropyl alcohol, aside from being a bit of a hazard to some paint/stickers etc. it's about the top thing for cleaning electronics.
True most static engines are not designed with lightness in mind, I was kinda ignoring that aspect and focusing more on the state of tune of the engine. Whatever you chose, you may gain a fair bit by getting a custom profile of camshat made and looking at the other stuff you can do like inlet/exhaust port tuning. When you know you want the engine to only run at one speed, you can tune stuff for big gains without having to worry that it would be undriveable in a normal car.
Another point about static engines is they are designed with far longer running hours than most motorbike engines - chances are someone will have thrown it at a tree before it's done 50k whereas a genset may have to run for some hours a day, every day for decades.
There are crossovers - the International HS 2.8 4cyl turbodiesel is a re-jig of the Land Rover 300TDi engine, which was a re-jig of the 200TDi, all excellent engines and well proven, although not light (well, not by european standards... cough). Crops up in some Ford trucks around the world, as well as updated army Land Rovers, also available in "generator" spec - could be worth looking at what the differences are.
Seems a few people know just enough to tell you it won't work... but from a friend in the industry I've heard that this form (serial hybrid) is actually viewed as a pretty good idea.
A few points:
- Batteries are rubbish at storing energy compared to fossils, so replacing loadsa batteries with a fossil-powered generator is actually not a bad idea for giving range & quick "recharge" (refuel).
- The power needed to accelerate a vehicle is many times that needed to keep moving, if the battery can pick up the slack during these brief peaks then you can use a much smaller engine/generator than the original motor to run the thing.
- Making "flexible" engines is a compromise. Car engines have to work across a broad operating range, which is not so easy as making an engine that is good at one constant speed, hence why static/generator engines have a very different power curve (everything arrives at or around their operating point, say 1500rpm, and nothing much outside of that). The suggestion of using a 3cyl Lupo engine is good, but you may get even better economy from a dedicated generator lump.
Someone said that direct mechanical coupling (engine-gearbox-wheels) is much more efficient than engine->generator->elec.motor->wheels, however if you take the average yank SUV into account (big auto box & 4WD transfer case in the way) you may not be that far away. If you can go to wheel motors and cut out the propshafts & axle diffs then all the better.
That's about the extent of what I know on the subject, but don't let the naysayers in comments tell you it's dumb. Also check out SimonR's electric freelander (small SUV) on LR4x4.com as an example of a DIY electric car build.
Most environmentalists != scientists, it's about time journalists & politicians realised this before bending over to support whatever they dream up this week. How many times have Greenpeace bullied the world into things only to change their minds? Biofuel was the last one that springs to mind - "It's the future, we should all do it!" then just as the world starts to do it "It's destroying the rainforests, don't do it!"
Unfortunately they will just shrug and play their "get out of jail free" card that lying about stuff is justified by "drawing attention to the issue".
The sad thing is all this just gets in the way of people understanding/caring about/acting on the real issues which might actually benefit the planet.
Those insenstive Japanese bastards are too busy playing with their nuclear meltdown and fishing corpses out of the rubble to think about the impact this has on decent hard-working Americans. I mean, hundreds of tons of scrap steel will probably only just cover the cost of towing it away. You're welcome, world!
Um...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080219133226.htm
"ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2008) — Purdue University engineers have developed a new aluminum-rich alloy that produces hydrogen by splitting water and is economically competitive with conventional fuels for transportation and power generation.
"We now have an economically viable process for producing hydrogen on-demand for vehicles, electrical generating stations and other applications," said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.
The new alloy contains 95 percent aluminum and 5 percent of an alloy that is made of the metals gallium, indium and tin. Because the new alloy contains significantly less of the more expensive gallium than previous forms of the alloy, hydrogen can be produced less expensively, he said."
Slashdot Mirror
Some providers will offer redundant links, even geographically separated redundant links (fibres enter the building though 2 separate ducts, head off in 2 different directions back to 2 different exchanges via 2 different routes... of course, no-one wants to pay for that so they very rarely actually do it.
If you buy "dark fibre" then you needn't care about a one provider's hardware/network being subject to a particular failure as you're only using a length of glass they happened to provide. Again though, is spendy.
There simply aren't enough drugs around to re-create the Beatles "talent" these days.
I'm fairly sure gasoline engines manage 80% efficiency if you count heat output as useful.
Does the remaining 20% come out as noise? Light? Radiation?
I Wonder how much energy and exotic raw materials go into making this marvel of clean power?
I also wonder how efficient my gas-cooker is at converting gas into heat, as it doesn't seem to make any appreciable amount of anything else other than heat.
They're not sent encrypted or anything. Go read the GSM spec.
Have you *priced* Arduinos and their accessories? If you're comparing one against *any* cellphone from the Nokia 5110 upwards the processing power is lower, the IO is limited (no buttons, display, or wireless connectivity for starters) and you can fish the cellphones out of the trash or off eBay for almost nothing, probably with full-colour LCD, bluetooth, camera, maybe even GPS. The bigger problem is breaking into the phone & developing software on it.
In fact the Raspberry Pi is cheaper than a lot of Arduinos.
How about learning from history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_(radar_countermeasure)
Chess. The graphics aren't great but it's still just about the ultimate game of champions. Beaten only by Gravity Power on the Amiga.
And how many thousands of dollars worth of skilled security researchers' time?
That's a problem with the law, not the dog.
Having read the link, that does not really prove that dogs are useless, just that they can give false positives if the handlers lead them into it. But no-one gets prosecuted because the dog thinks they might have a bomb unless it turns out they really do have a bomb. False positives are not a big problem if the alternative is either much more thorough/time-consuming/intrusive investigation or random selection.
And to make sure the light beams don't get crossed over, you could use some of thee new-fangled glass-fibre cables... oh hang on...
All that junk is on eBay, Maplins have been selling half of it for years.
Exactly, go back and read the stuff about the nuclear tests, they had everything they could find lined up around every blast - from live animals strapped to the decks of target ships to food, drink, etc., plus of course all the scientists and soldiers stationed about the place to observe & report. As someone above said, the cost of setting off the nuke is the big thing, so you may as well stack as much stuff around the place to gather data on.
There's also a difference between car theives who sneak off with your stuff and car theives who are willing to risk an assault / ABH/GBH charge and the associated police response / prison sentence.
But you're right, we should go back to the police having a truncheon and a whistle and maybe a horse...
I think it's funny that google, amazon, and your bank/credit card probably know waaaay more about you than the authorities do, yet things like this get shit on in the name of freedom. If I get mugged, or burgled, or whatever, I want it to be on as many cameras as possible. CCTV is a massively EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE way to catch criminals and make the Police and justice system's job easier and safer. With power comes responsibility, and we should be watching the watchers very closely, but not cutting off our noses to spite our face.
The issue is not the technology, the issue is how it's used and by whom. This is an excellent system for reducing vehicle crime - theft, unisured drivers, unsafe vehicles on the road, etc. that cost us all a shitload of money in taxes, insurance premiums, death. They can do this as much as they like, I'm cool with that, but I want to know that that's ALL they're doing with it, and that they're not selling my data etc. etc.
People need to stop getting all antsy about the technology and concentrate their attention / concerns / questions on HOW it's used.
Is your bike... PAINTED?
Pretty much anything electronic generates some noise, as pretty much everything has some sort of oscillator in it, because these days everything has some sort of microprocessor in it. Even if your device is off, its battery might have its own processor ticking away. Any device which remembers the correct time through power-down must have *some* oscillator running ALL THE TIME. Your phone probably has 3-4 radios in it (1/2/3/4G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, FM). There's so much complexity hidden in modern stuff (not just obvious electronic devices like phones/laptops) that people forget it's even there. And sometimes made very poorly.
I realise there's a low quota of hardware nerds on here, but most electronics gets washed on the production line to remove flux and contaminants.
The biggie with *any* electronics is to not use anything that causes damage or corrosion, and to have the device powered off until it's absolutely dry (if using water) to prevent shorts or electrolytic corrosion.
The best thing is isopropyl alcohol, aside from being a bit of a hazard to some paint/stickers etc. it's about the top thing for cleaning electronics.
Are you sure it's not craploads of shit? Whatever it is, there's a fuckton of it.
I can recommend www.pun.net, partly because a friend of mine is lead dev.
Another point about static engines is they are designed with far longer running hours than most motorbike engines - chances are someone will have thrown it at a tree before it's done 50k whereas a genset may have to run for some hours a day, every day for decades.
There are crossovers - the International HS 2.8 4cyl turbodiesel is a re-jig of the Land Rover 300TDi engine, which was a re-jig of the 200TDi, all excellent engines and well proven, although not light (well, not by european standards... cough). Crops up in some Ford trucks around the world, as well as updated army Land Rovers, also available in "generator" spec - could be worth looking at what the differences are.
- Batteries are rubbish at storing energy compared to fossils, so replacing loadsa batteries with a fossil-powered generator is actually not a bad idea for giving range & quick "recharge" (refuel).
- The power needed to accelerate a vehicle is many times that needed to keep moving, if the battery can pick up the slack during these brief peaks then you can use a much smaller engine/generator than the original motor to run the thing.
- Making "flexible" engines is a compromise. Car engines have to work across a broad operating range, which is not so easy as making an engine that is good at one constant speed, hence why static/generator engines have a very different power curve (everything arrives at or around their operating point, say 1500rpm, and nothing much outside of that). The suggestion of using a 3cyl Lupo engine is good, but you may get even better economy from a dedicated generator lump.
Someone said that direct mechanical coupling (engine-gearbox-wheels) is much more efficient than engine->generator->elec.motor->wheels, however if you take the average yank SUV into account (big auto box & 4WD transfer case in the way) you may not be that far away. If you can go to wheel motors and cut out the propshafts & axle diffs then all the better.
That's about the extent of what I know on the subject, but don't let the naysayers in comments tell you it's dumb. Also check out SimonR's electric freelander (small SUV) on LR4x4.com as an example of a DIY electric car build.
Most environmentalists != scientists, it's about time journalists & politicians realised this before bending over to support whatever they dream up this week. How many times have Greenpeace bullied the world into things only to change their minds? Biofuel was the last one that springs to mind - "It's the future, we should all do it!" then just as the world starts to do it "It's destroying the rainforests, don't do it!" Unfortunately they will just shrug and play their "get out of jail free" card that lying about stuff is justified by "drawing attention to the issue". The sad thing is all this just gets in the way of people understanding/caring about/acting on the real issues which might actually benefit the planet.
Those insenstive Japanese bastards are too busy playing with their nuclear meltdown and fishing corpses out of the rubble to think about the impact this has on decent hard-working Americans. I mean, hundreds of tons of scrap steel will probably only just cover the cost of towing it away. You're welcome, world!
Um... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080219133226.htm "ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2008) — Purdue University engineers have developed a new aluminum-rich alloy that produces hydrogen by splitting water and is economically competitive with conventional fuels for transportation and power generation. "We now have an economically viable process for producing hydrogen on-demand for vehicles, electrical generating stations and other applications," said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process. The new alloy contains 95 percent aluminum and 5 percent of an alloy that is made of the metals gallium, indium and tin. Because the new alloy contains significantly less of the more expensive gallium than previous forms of the alloy, hydrogen can be produced less expensively, he said."