It's not the wires that's expensive, it's the ducts and poles and central stations (switches) and repeaters locations/buildings...
This is not just nitpick, since cable companies uses the same ducts and poles and switch locations etc... (the parlance is OSP : Outside Plant). But the Bells own the ducts and poles too, for the most part (though I think the cable companies have dug their own OSPs : someone correct me if I am wrong since IANAA).
And, that is where the Bells can squeeze you too : force you to pull out all your cables from the ducts they own.
Offtopic : Ever wondered how posts with "I will be modded down" always gets modded up? Moderators are so easily swayed. Now having said that, I will definitely be modded down...:)
In fact, they took Einstein pretty seriously even when he published his papers as a lowly patent clerk in 1905.
Anyway, you only remember the famous ones being laughed at. There are a lot of crazy people out there that tried to solve everything and ended up making a mockery of themselves, and were promptly forgotten.
There are two things to think about when you put something on top of a big honking rocket and blows it up into space. One is direct g, and the other is vibration.
Direct g is easy to handle : build everything big and make sure all the stresses are channeled onto the base of the s/c.
Vibration is hard. Each little item on your s/c is a spring. Spring respond to a little tug by bouncing about. Each spring has a favourite frequency, and if it is excited at that freq, it will go bonkers (aka resonates). When that happens, no good will happen to it.
Now, take apart your computer and look at the innards. See that capacitor? See that diode? Don't they look like a little spring with a mass attached on it? With a little imagination, you can imagine that they are ready to rock and roll everytime you shake it. Like when you put it on top of a rocket and blows it to space.
So what do you do? You figure out a way to stop the spring from going boing-boing-boing. And the way to do it is to put something soft on it that has a low resonance frequency, so when the your little spring and mass go boing-boing-boing, it transfers the vibration energy into the soft stuff instead. You can think of the soft stuff as a hierachy of every smaller spring and mass, all nicely attached to the big diode-capacitor-spring-mass-thingie. If you take mechanical engineering classes, your professors will insist on calling them "dampeners" and convince you that they are a good thing.
Jelly would be great. But Jelly mess up your PCB board. Besides, I like Jelly too much that I'll eat them instead.
every engineer has their own stories of how they SNAFU-ed. I have mine (one of the reasons why I wuss-ed out and now do theoretical physics instead:)).
Usually, the problem is:
(a) Pushing Envelope without prior analysis (Vasa) (b) Not exercising Due Diligence in design (Tacoma Narrows) (c) Failure of communication between departments (Mars Climate Orbiter : remember the units SNAFU?) (d) Insufficent redundancy design (Iroquis Fire) (e) Failure to recognize likely failure modes (Concorde, Titanic)
and others of course.
I've once fucked up an expensive spacecraft component because of (c). I worked on the mechanical design of the component housing, some electronics guy worked on the electronics detector sitting inside my housing. We have an innovative design whereby some of my mechanical supports were designed to keep some of his electronics ICs in place without the PCB board. The SNAFU : both of us thought the other is suppose to apply anti-vibration gell (layman's term here, we call it RTD...).
So the part was fab-ed, electronics put in, and the whole thing was sent to a vibration table for testing..
Result : a loose IC, clanking around the housing for 2 minutes at about 600Hz. The whole thing was toast.
But also talks about how difficult it is for a new theory to gain acceptance in the scientific community when it flies in the face of a long-established theory.
As it should of course. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so says good old Carl Sagan.
If you have a crazy theory, then the onus is on you to prove it "better" than those we already have lots of evidence (or at least had grown comfortable with) for.
Re:Charlatans Exist Because We Love Them
on
The Magic Box Hoax
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Great, now that we have somebody who calls himself a skeptic, but then went ahead and compartmentalized cynics and skeptics into nice little separate boxes.
I'd like to see some testable, repeatable proof that being cynical is an attitude guaranteed to close minds.
But, the Hindenburg is not carrying compressed hydrogen (else it would not have sufficient buoyancy). So it'll burn in a zip (except for the explosions that would have happened when the pressurised H2 in control tanks blow up).
A car, however, needs compressed hydrogen. Compressed hydrogen will burn fast too, but there is a lot of energy to be burnt. Assuming that a gasoline car and a hydrogen car carry the same amount of energy (let's ignore efficiency for the moment), then I don't see the different between a burning gasoline and burning hydrogen car.Essentially you have to burn the same amount of energy. Only in H2 cars, you have to burn them *faster.
In fact, I'll be happier standing next to a gasoline burning car, since pressurised liquid hydrogen at room temperature will evaporate like mad and mix with the air to form a nice, highly explosive, mixture. Imagine a leak in the hydrogen tank : you'll get a perfect nozzle (with the pressurise interior), and viola : a big bunsen burner (also known as a flame thrower). And I am not even talking about the huge super pressure vessel you have to carry around as gas tank. If it does not burn on a crash, you'll get a big, bad blowup.
Now, having said all that, I am not advocating against H2. I am saying is that it is probably as dangerous as gasoline,if not more (mostly due to the pressurised nature of H2 you have to carry around). In Malaysia, you can get Liquified Natural Gas cars, which has much higher hydrogen to carbon ratio and burns much much much more cleanly for a while in an gas producing state of ours (for you Malaysians : it's in Sarawak. I was with Shell as an intern. I know, they're evil.) I've not heard anything about big explosions of these experimental cars though.
...words like these will make poor old JRR turn in his grave.:)
He called his books "adult faery tales" and were written for adults. Of course people still call it a "children's classic" and have every right to do so.
But for me, a book where there was a bloody battle at the end where quite a few of the main characters died is not exactly Cinderalla'ish.
Earth's albedo is around 30% (ie 30% sunlight gets reflected). A lot of this is due to clouds and snow. PUtting up solar cells is not going to change the albedo by any appreciable amount.
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the US will beat up the terrorists and the countries that host them.
It's not the wires that's expensive, it's the ducts and poles and central stations (switches) and repeaters locations/buildings...
:)
This is not just nitpick, since cable companies uses the same ducts and poles and switch locations etc... (the parlance is OSP : Outside Plant). But the Bells own the ducts and poles too, for the most part (though I think the cable companies have dug their own OSPs : someone correct me if I am wrong since IANAA).
And, that is where the Bells can squeeze you too : force you to pull out all your cables from the ducts they own.
Offtopic : Ever wondered how posts with "I will be modded down" always gets modded up? Moderators are so easily swayed. Now having said that, I will definitely be modded down...
They didn't laughed at Einstein.
In fact, they took Einstein pretty seriously even when he published his papers as a lowly patent clerk in 1905.
Anyway, you only remember the famous ones being laughed at. There are a lot of crazy people out there that tried to solve everything and ended up making a mockery of themselves, and were promptly forgotten.
Funny how most physicists consider themselves experts on everything..
Now, now. You are not going to start generalizing and compartmentalizing are you?
Probably. Though if you think about it, the car you drive depends on that single bolt that holds your crank-case together....
Ok, this calls for a retaliatory strike.
There are two things to think about when you put something on top of a big honking rocket and blows it up into space. One is direct g, and the other is vibration.
Direct g is easy to handle : build everything big and make sure all the stresses are channeled onto the base of the s/c.
Vibration is hard. Each little item on your s/c is a spring. Spring respond to a little tug by bouncing about. Each spring has a favourite frequency, and if it is excited at that freq, it will go bonkers (aka resonates). When that happens, no good will happen to it.
Now, take apart your computer and look at the innards. See that capacitor? See that diode? Don't they look like a little spring with a mass attached on it? With a little imagination, you can imagine that they are ready to rock and roll everytime you shake it. Like when you put it on top of a rocket and blows it to space.
So what do you do? You figure out a way to stop the spring from going boing-boing-boing. And the way to do it is to put something soft on it that has a low resonance frequency, so when the your little spring and mass go boing-boing-boing, it transfers the vibration energy into the soft stuff instead. You can think of the soft stuff as a hierachy of every smaller spring and mass, all nicely attached to the big diode-capacitor-spring-mass-thingie. If you take mechanical engineering classes, your professors will insist on calling them "dampeners" and convince you that they are a good thing.
Jelly would be great. But Jelly mess up your PCB board. Besides, I like Jelly too much that I'll eat them instead.
Make it Simple and Stupid.
:P.
Everything'll be fine
that's right.
The mantra of a engineer : Test, Test, Test.
not to hold them together, but to absorb vibrational energy.
:P
it's a spacecraft dammnit!
every engineer has their own stories of how they SNAFU-ed. I have mine (one of the reasons why I wuss-ed out and now do theoretical physics instead :)).
:
Usually, the problem is
(a) Pushing Envelope without prior analysis (Vasa)
(b) Not exercising Due Diligence in design (Tacoma Narrows)
(c) Failure of communication between departments (Mars Climate Orbiter : remember the units SNAFU?)
(d) Insufficent redundancy design (Iroquis Fire)
(e) Failure to recognize likely failure modes (Concorde, Titanic)
and others of course.
I've once fucked up an expensive spacecraft component because of (c). I worked on the mechanical design of the component housing, some electronics guy worked on the electronics detector sitting inside my housing. We have an innovative design whereby some of my mechanical supports were designed to keep some of his electronics ICs in place without the PCB board. The SNAFU : both of us thought the other is suppose to apply anti-vibration gell (layman's term here, we call it RTD...).
So the part was fab-ed, electronics put in, and the whole thing was sent to a vibration table for testing..
Result : a loose IC, clanking around the housing for 2 minutes at about 600Hz. The whole thing was toast.
it seems like slanted towards computer stuff though.
so we can take advantage of the apathy of the general population and make a ton of money off them :).
...first post!
NOOOOOO!!!!!
But also talks about how difficult it is for a new theory to gain acceptance in the scientific community when it flies in the face of a long-established theory.
As it should of course. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so says good old Carl Sagan.
If you have a crazy theory, then the onus is on you to prove it "better" than those we already have lots of evidence (or at least had grown comfortable with) for.
LOL!
Great, now that we have somebody who calls himself a skeptic, but then went ahead and compartmentalized cynics and skeptics into nice little separate boxes.
I'd like to see some testable, repeatable proof that being cynical is an attitude guaranteed to close minds.
As you have claimed, of course.
Quake and Doom are the world's most popular games in their time. Their plotline is :
(a) Man shoots Lots of Badasses
(b) Rinse
(c) Repeat
the Republic, not just screw up the Economy?
But, the Hindenburg is not carrying compressed hydrogen (else it would not have sufficient buoyancy). So it'll burn in a zip (except for the explosions that would have happened when the pressurised H2 in control tanks blow up).
A car, however, needs compressed hydrogen. Compressed hydrogen will burn fast too, but there is a lot of energy to be burnt. Assuming that a gasoline car and a hydrogen car carry the same amount of energy (let's ignore efficiency for the moment), then I don't see the different between a burning gasoline and burning hydrogen car.Essentially you have to burn the same amount of energy. Only in H2 cars, you have to burn them *faster.
In fact, I'll be happier standing next to a gasoline burning car, since pressurised liquid hydrogen at room temperature will evaporate like mad and mix with the air to form a nice, highly explosive, mixture. Imagine a leak in the hydrogen tank : you'll get a perfect nozzle (with the pressurise interior), and viola : a big bunsen burner (also known as a flame thrower). And I am not even talking about the huge super pressure vessel you have to carry around as gas tank. If it does not burn on a crash, you'll get a big, bad blowup.
Now, having said all that, I am not advocating against H2. I am saying is that it is probably as dangerous as gasoline,if not more (mostly due to the pressurised nature of H2 you have to carry around). In Malaysia, you can get Liquified Natural Gas cars, which has much higher hydrogen to carbon ratio and burns much much much more cleanly for a while in an gas producing state of ours (for you Malaysians : it's in Sarawak. I was with Shell as an intern. I know, they're evil.) I've not heard anything about big explosions of these experimental cars though.
before publishing it.
To edit after publishing it is called "revision". And an honest person will put in a "changelog" to indicate the changes.
it is that I look forward to every Jon Katz article just to watch the (much more entertaining) Katz-bashing posts? :)
Let the feeding frenzy begin!
...words like these will make poor old JRR turn in his grave. :)
He called his books "adult faery tales" and were written for adults. Of course people still call it a "children's classic" and have every right to do so.
But for me, a book where there was a bloody battle at the end where quite a few of the main characters died is not exactly Cinderalla'ish.
Earth's albedo is around 30% (ie 30% sunlight gets reflected). A lot of this is due to clouds and snow. PUtting up solar cells is not going to change the albedo by any appreciable amount.
Excellent. Now we just have to wait for the H2 to become "easily tapped", and then burn the hell out of them.
And, of course, raising the global temperature by a few tens of degrees along the way.
(This is why Solar Energy, which preserves the Earth's temperature balance, is the way to go.)
Obviously you are not from Illinois....
SBC Ameritech is EVIL!