Then you should use Portable Firefox on a flash drive at school. Jack in the thumb drive. Run PortableFirefox. You get to bring your own bookmarks and cookies with you, and leave nothing like log files behind. And 32MB drives are available for about $10.00 (check the clearance bins at places like Micro Center or wherever.)
I want to know why Bill Gates thinks it can't be built in.
I'm not talking pure heuristic detection, because a perfect heuristic detector is theoretically impossible. But why can't Microsoft build in a scanner that downloads virus definitions?
Virtually all of the viruses of the last five years or so have been Microsoft viruses. (Boot sector viruses are soo last millenium, and everybody's BIOS already detects those.) Not "PC" viruses, not "MS-DOS" viruses, but specifically "Microsoft Windows" viruses. Since they seem to be at the forefront of providing the virus delivery systems, why do I have to pay someone else (like Symantec) to protect me from them? Why isn't patching these defects included in the purchase price of this obviously defective product?
"Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows?
Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service. There are third parties who are doing a good job. We're always taking a hard look, but we don't have any concrete plans."
So, apparently Ballmer isn't the only one there who Doesn't Get It.
The stability of the currency. Even in its current rough shape, the American economy is still more stable than Russia's, and the dollar is more likely to hold its value over time.
This used to be much more of an issue in Soviet Russia, where the rouble was not even accepted outside of the Soviet Union. My understanding is that U.S. currency was the preferred "hard" currency of the time; and even though it wasn't "legal" tender it was accepted in the black markets. I suppose today that the euro would probably be more amenable to the average Russian than a greenback, since it's pretty easy nowdays to pop over the border and spend it.
So, if they instead promise their intrepid "tubeonauts" a million euros, or even the equivalent in roubles, will that make it enough of an incentive to last the 500 days?
the knowledge that you are "safe" if anything goes wrong will grossly affect your behavior
Then tie a different incentive to the project.
"You will be given honor, $1 million American dollars, and your family will be able to live in this nice house, and they will be fed and cared for by the government till the end of their days -- if you last all 500 days in the capsule.
If you are kicked off or have to leave before the 500 days are up for any reason whatsoever (sickness, family crisis, national disaster), you will get no pay at all, you will be publicly shamed, your family will be evicted from the house, and you will be expected to pay the back rent."
If you should happen to die while in the capsule, your comrades may elect to eject your body out the airlock. If this happens, your family will receive the same benefits as if you had lasted all 500 days.
I have a good secure password that I use for my own stuff and rarely change it, it's long and not even close to a real word.
But how do you know that this password hasn't been compromised? What if you used it when you signed up for the InnocentHobbyAndNotEvilHackers.org newsletter? And is this password (or a close variant) the same as the password and email address you use at BigCorporateBank.com?
Passwords don't stand up and shout "I've been compromised!" when a bad guy learns them. Expiring passwords may lead to bad security on improperly secured websites, but static passwords used on just one compromised web site are just as bad.
"4> Rebuild infrastructure to keep Iraqis vested interest in peace"
Bush has been trying to do #4 since the "Mission Accomplished" banner was hung. As a matter of fact, that seems to have been his entire strategy: rebuild it so the population will welcome us as rescuers from the Evil Saddam. But I know people on the ground in Iraq (as I'm sure we all do) that have been involved in reconstruction projects. They repair or rebuild a generator plant, and it's attacked by insurgents. They repair pipelines, and other pumping stations are sabotaged. A year and a half of rebuilding, and Iraq is currently in exactly the same poor state of disrepair it was in after the fall of Saddam. The average citizen of Baghdad still has electricity maybe 4-8 hours a day. Water service is sporadic, and is only available by truck in many parts of the cities. There has literally been no improvement whatsoever in the lives of the Iraqi people.
What I'm saying is that all the reconstruction projects are just pissing away money as fast as they can spend it. There is no actual progress being made, and the insurgents are determined to keep the population miserable. Without a functioning free press (American provided news is seen as biased propaganda in much the same way we view Al Jazeera,) more information is interpreted and distributed by sympathetic local leaders, who find it easy to blame the American occupiers as the cause of the misery. The general population has pretty much had it with the Americans, even though they're vaguely aware the insurgents are causing the small bits of damage.
The solutions I've heard are all tough:
Walk away and let Iraqis duke it out amongst themselves. With all the weapons available in that country, hundreds of thousands will perish, and they'll end up with three constantly warring factions as the "most stable" result.
We could also keep doing what we're doing, which is accomplishing absolutely nothing except adding the deaths of more kids to this quagmire.
We could drop our "U.S.A. Only" signs, invite the U.N. to share in the pacification and see if the Iraqi insurgents respect the blue helmets any more than they respect the U.S. Army. That's assuming the U.N. doesn't tell us to go fornicate ourselves under the Pottery Barn rules: "you broke it, you pay for it." (They might not; being as corrupt as they are, I can imagine many of their member states wanting to get involved for a share of the spOILs of war.)
We can ship in two or three times as many troops as we already have, and see if we can violently but dramatically put down the insurgents (at an unknown cost of U.S. lives.)
Those are all pretty crappy solutions to a war we were lied into starting. And yes, what Bush says about Kerry is absolutely true: we (the U.S.) would have been far safer leaving Saddam in power. We would have lost 1000 fewer soldiers lives, and we would not have pissed away every last drop of goodwill that Americans have been building up internationally for the last 80 years. Saddam was no threat to us or anyone, as the UN sanctions had been working remarkably well. He would have fallen sooner or later, probably from within, leaving Iraq in a much more stable state than they are today.
At least traditional advertising is immediately obvious, and thus easily brain-filterable.
And thus just so much wasted money in the eyes of the advertiser.
Regardless of whether you approve or not, the astroturf-like campaigns do catch your attention. Now, most peoples reaction (OK, so most people I know) react quite negatively to campaigns like this. When you find out you've been tricked into going to some company's website (the "America needs dirt" campaign from last year) my first thought is "I will NEVER buy that crap product." And I usually follow through -- for example, I haven't bought that brand of soap since I fell for it. It's the same distaste I hold for all liars.
But, the consumers typically end up remembering the product (I did), which is what they're going for all along. The advertisers are counting on people thinking "ha ha, that was funny" because now those people have that product lodged in their minds. And to the typical marketing person, not being completely honest is not a failing. To people like you and I, however, the bitter aftertaste of the dishonesty lingers far longer than the chuckle at being fooled.
I'm with you -- a clever 30 or 60 second commercial that hooks you with a punchline at the end is funny, and leaves a positive impression. A clever one-month curiosity campaign leaves me bitter and disappointed.
I believe your father may have fallen for a high-pressure ruse.
I think the way it's worded works out to be if you simply play a radio or put out a TV for your customers, it's perfectly legal. However, you can't tape record the radio and play it back, or play any other pre-recorded music or videos, without paying compensation to the artists.
The ASCAP guy can claim whatever he likes to frighten you into buying his license. I think the law says (or perhaps the court found) that since the radio station paid the artists, the radio station's broadcast is covered even in a commercial setting such as a store. My guess is that the ASCAP guy bets these small shop owners don't know the law, and it's cheaper to pay the blackmailer than it is to hire an attorney to find out for sure.
I think what ASCAP needs is for people who've been wrongly suckered into needlessly buying their licenses to contact their state's attorney general. If enough people made a loud enough noise, not only could they put an end to these sleazy tactics, but they could possibly recoup their losses going way, way back. A big enough class-action lawsuit could theoretically bankrupt these vermin.
WARNING: I AM NOT A LAWYER. I DON'T KNOW THIS STUFF FOR SURE, IT'S JUST STUFF I'VE HEARD OVER THE YEARS. THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. Do not remove under penalty of law. Your mileage may vary. Void if altered or removed. Blah blah blah.
I know a guy who owned a tiny junk (oops, "antique") shop. 10 years ago someone walked in and asked him about the music playing on the boombox. The guy showed him the CD jewel case, and this other person says he's from ASCAP, and do you want to pay up now so nothing bad happens to you in a courtroom?
The guy switched the boombox to an FM station and told him to pound sand. As far as I know, he never played a CD in the store again after that.
I meant to say that some news sources are starting to recognize the patterns that Google evaluates in order to float their stories to the top of Google's news page.
I didn't mean to imply that Google was biased, I just meant to say that certain news organizations are discovering the joys of "googlebombing".
(And if you felt I was in any way "screaming", I apologize for that, too.)
You can keep thinking your conspiracy theories, but your own argument shows the problems a car maker would have trying to sell a system like this. When you buy one of your H2 cars, it will have to come with a home installation kit. It's a refrigerator sized box that lives in your garage. Now, you get to drive no more than 30 minutes in one direction, because there's no filling station at your destination. Don't get caught in traffic on the way home, either.
If you opt for the solar version, it comes with 90 square feet of panels. Current "cheapo" prices for solar panels are $3.69 per watt. A car uses something like 10kwh of energy per hour. To provide you with enough energy to drive constantly powered from the sunlight, they'll cost you about $36,900, plus installation. Want to drop that to your $5000 limit? It'll take over 7 hours of direct sunlight to generate enough hydrogen for that one hour of driving.
Ok, so maybe solar isn't the way to go for a home installer. Let's just plug it into the wall and buy cheap electricity for our converter. Do you want a hydrogen compressor running in your garage unattended, and a tank of compressed hydrogen on hand? Remember, hydrogen is very, very tiny and it leaks from machinery rapidly. So, now you have to install adequate vents in your garage to ensure you don't blow up the next time you start your car.
Sounding good or insurable yet? It gets worse.
This science project completely side-stepped another difficult problem that you raise: how do you engineer a completely safe compressed hydrogen gas fuel transfer system? How do you keep tramp air out of the connectors, and ensure there can be NO sparks? Today, most compressed gasses are handled by trained professionals. They understand the risks, they follow proper grounding procedures, they don't accidentally smoke while they transfer the gasses. Small consumer quantities of things like propane are readily dealt with, but even then does the service station let you fill your own propane tanks? Probably not -- in this state at least, only the station operators can refill tanks. And liquid pressurized gas is still easier and safer to deal with than a compressed explosive gas.
OK, so maybe we take a lesson from these kids and leave the hydrogen generator on board the car, and just plug the whole car into a wall outlet when we get to our destination. Infrastructure solved -- anybody can hang an outlet. Assuming the hydrogen splitter can be built small enough, a 15 amp circuit will still take six hours to deliver 10kwh, enough energy for one hour of driving. That's sounding much closer to practical, but it still retains a lot of the problems and risks associated with storing and handling raw compressed hydrogen (even in the closed system.) It's not a vehicle you would park indoors, for example. And the other problem most engineers have with compressed gas fuels is: how do you protect the occupants from it in a crash? The tanks have to be crashworthy in all manner of collisions, and not just have a 35 MPH front impact resistance warranty.
The auto makers reduced their efforts to use raw hydrogen as a direct-to-consumer fuel many years ago for all these reasons. They certainly could pick it up again at any time, but for now they're still focusing on direct liquid fuel-cells as a safer alternative. The infrastructure already exists to deliver liquid fuels, and the handling risks are much, much lower. Remember, the water is not the fuel in this truck, it's merely an extremely convenient storage mechanism. External fuel still is required to split it.
The AP reports that the US House of Representatives has unanimously passed a law
No, the AP correctly reported that the house passed a BILL. A BILL is not a LAW until it passes through the entire congress and the president signs it. (Remember the Schoolhouse Rock song, "I'm just a Bill"?)
Daimler-Chrysler and Ford together have spent over one billion dollars on researching the proton exchange membrane technology. That's billion, with a 'B'. How much do you want them to spend? How much more can they spend and continue to make progress? I know from personal experience that if one team is having difficulty solving a tough problem, having ten teams coordinate their efforts to solve the problem does not solve it ten times faster. And the problems they're trying to solve are not "did I make an off-by-one error in this for loop?" They're trying to test exotic new materials to see if they're capable of converting methanol into hydrogen. They've got programmers making computer models of the molecules involved, and are running simulation after simulation trying to figure this one out.
The car makers want this more than you do, and it's all about the money. Getting an alternative fuel vehicle to market is The Brass Ring. It's the Holy Grail of car makers, it's a license to print money, it means the ability to buy Microsoft outright for mere pocket change. With pump prices at $2.00 per gallon around here, a carmaker who could offer an alcohol or methanol fueled vehicle (think $0.50 per gallon) would simply not be able to produce enough cars to meet the demand. They could hire the entire state of Michigan to build them, they could sell them at double or triple their cost, and they still wouldn't be able to build them fast enough.
No, it's not the "first step", it's a science experiment. It proved that electricity generated by sunlight can crack water into hydrogen, and that the resultant hydrogen can power a modern vehicle for a few miles.
They proved that a solar panel already operating at the peak of current technology (converting about 34% of the sunlight energy into electrical energy) can produce enough energy to drive a vehicle maybe 5 miles. Converting all 100% of the available sunlight to electricity would give this vehicle a whopping 15 mile per day range. Just think -- I could drive to work on a Monday, and drive home on Tuesday.
Don't get me wrong, I think what these kids did was great and no doubt taught them tons about engineering, physics, and chemistry. These kids deserve credit and accolades for their accomplishment. But it ultimately was still just a classroom lesson, and was in no way a stepping stone to marketing solar-powered S-10s to the masses.
It really bothers me to find people believing that the car companies aren't already researching this already. For example, Daimler-Benz (now Daimler-Chrysler) has been working on a hydrogen powered fuel cell car for over 10 years. I'm going to focus my argument on fuel cells because I'm most familiar with that topic, but most of the argument remains true regardless of the technology that the alternative fuel drives.
Daimler's first fuel cell vehicle started as basically a large mobile laboratory in the back of a panel van (even larger than this school's truck.) They then installed one in a bus, and another in a minivan, and they now have one in a car the size of a Cooper Mini.
The problem isn't getting a vehicle like this on the road. The problem isn't even getting a fleet of them deployed to a single commercial customer (like a bus transit line.) The problems they're encountering now is scaling the entire transportation system so that Joe Sixpack can afford to buy one, drive it home, and fill it up every week.
The most efficient fuel for fuel cell (electric) cars is raw hydrogen. Compressed hydrogen would require an entire new infrastructure to deliver, and would be probably the most hazardous product ever sold to consumers. Liquid hydrogen would be even worse, because of the dangers inherent in delivering tanks of products at 3 degrees Kelvin. So, because of the fuel delivery problems one of the first compromises they had to make was to figure out how to fuel these vehicles with easily delivered, stable-at-room-temperature liquids, instead of compressed gasses. That took time and research. The next problem is that the catalyst required to crack the liquids into raw hydrogen is based on rare precious metals like platinum. Besides taking enough metal to make these engines prohibitively expensive, there simply isn't enough of it on earth to build the number of vehicles that a big car maker like Chevrolet builds every year. So, they've had to experiment with different ways to get the liquid fuels cracked into the base hydrogen.
The vehicle these kids built only cost $10,000, but much of the expense (solar panels) was donated. And it still won't scale, because the solar panels are already operating at something like 30% of their theoretical output. Making a vehicle go from 3 miles per day to 10 miles per day still isn't going to sell.
And despite the best conspiracy theorists determinations, it is far and away in the best interests of a car company to be the first to market selling a truly revolutionary fueled car. Think about what would happen to Ford's stock price if they announced a "sunlight and water powered car" were available. It would truly be a license to print money. The petroleum companies could offer no bribe in the world big enough to slow down a cash cow of that magnitude.
We had a case in Minneapolis where a police van "suddenly accelerated" and ran into a crowd watching a parade, killing two people.
The officer (and the police union) claimed that it was a runaway vehicle. Ford, the NTSB and the police all inspected the vehicle, and found no evidence whatsoever that the van was at fault. Instead, they found the driver was only partially seated with the door hanging open, and they concluded that since the driver was not in a proper driving position that he mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal. (Think of it as a lethal off-by-one error.)
I think true runaway vehicles really are rare, and most of them are either partially or completely the driver's inability to properly control the vehicles.
Let me get this straight: she names her male kid "Jaysen", and sixteen years later she starts worrying if he's going to grow up normal? And we're supposed to feel sympathy?
Here's a hint: if you're one of those idiots who insists on giving your kid a name with "unique" spelling, at least don't pick a "gaye" name.
Slashdot Mirror
Then you should use Portable Firefox on a flash drive at school. Jack in the thumb drive. Run PortableFirefox. You get to bring your own bookmarks and cookies with you, and leave nothing like log files behind. And 32MB drives are available for about $10.00 (check the clearance bins at places like Micro Center or wherever.)
I'm not talking pure heuristic detection, because a perfect heuristic detector is theoretically impossible. But why can't Microsoft build in a scanner that downloads virus definitions?
Virtually all of the viruses of the last five years or so have been Microsoft viruses. (Boot sector viruses are soo last millenium, and everybody's BIOS already detects those.) Not "PC" viruses, not "MS-DOS" viruses, but specifically "Microsoft Windows" viruses. Since they seem to be at the forefront of providing the virus delivery systems, why do I have to pay someone else (like Symantec) to protect me from them? Why isn't patching these defects included in the purchase price of this obviously defective product?
"Now that you're in America, if you need to get the police on the phone, just dial 911."
"That's nothing. In Soviet Russia, we don't even have to dial."
"Q: Might you add anti-virus/spyware protection in Windows?
Gates: It's not a thing you build in. You have to offer a service. There are third parties who are doing a good job. We're always taking a hard look, but we don't have any concrete plans."
So, apparently Ballmer isn't the only one there who Doesn't Get It.
This used to be much more of an issue in Soviet Russia, where the rouble was not even accepted outside of the Soviet Union. My understanding is that U.S. currency was the preferred "hard" currency of the time; and even though it wasn't "legal" tender it was accepted in the black markets. I suppose today that the euro would probably be more amenable to the average Russian than a greenback, since it's pretty easy nowdays to pop over the border and spend it.
So, if they instead promise their intrepid "tubeonauts" a million euros, or even the equivalent in roubles, will that make it enough of an incentive to last the 500 days?
Congressional Pork. Pure and simple. It looks like security, so lets give a fat contract to our buddies to spend like security.
Then tie a different incentive to the project.
"You will be given honor, $1 million American dollars, and your family will be able to live in this nice house, and they will be fed and cared for by the government till the end of their days -- if you last all 500 days in the capsule.
If you are kicked off or have to leave before the 500 days are up for any reason whatsoever (sickness, family crisis, national disaster), you will get no pay at all, you will be publicly shamed, your family will be evicted from the house, and you will be expected to pay the back rent."
If you should happen to die while in the capsule, your comrades may elect to eject your body out the airlock. If this happens, your family will receive the same benefits as if you had lasted all 500 days.
Carrots and sticks -- there's always incentive.
But how do you know that this password hasn't been compromised? What if you used it when you signed up for the InnocentHobbyAndNotEvilHackers.org newsletter? And is this password (or a close variant) the same as the password and email address you use at BigCorporateBank.com?
Passwords don't stand up and shout "I've been compromised!" when a bad guy learns them. Expiring passwords may lead to bad security on improperly secured websites, but static passwords used on just one compromised web site are just as bad.
I just love web-based password generators...
Bush has been trying to do #4 since the "Mission Accomplished" banner was hung. As a matter of fact, that seems to have been his entire strategy: rebuild it so the population will welcome us as rescuers from the Evil Saddam. But I know people on the ground in Iraq (as I'm sure we all do) that have been involved in reconstruction projects. They repair or rebuild a generator plant, and it's attacked by insurgents. They repair pipelines, and other pumping stations are sabotaged. A year and a half of rebuilding, and Iraq is currently in exactly the same poor state of disrepair it was in after the fall of Saddam. The average citizen of Baghdad still has electricity maybe 4-8 hours a day. Water service is sporadic, and is only available by truck in many parts of the cities. There has literally been no improvement whatsoever in the lives of the Iraqi people.
What I'm saying is that all the reconstruction projects are just pissing away money as fast as they can spend it. There is no actual progress being made, and the insurgents are determined to keep the population miserable. Without a functioning free press (American provided news is seen as biased propaganda in much the same way we view Al Jazeera,) more information is interpreted and distributed by sympathetic local leaders, who find it easy to blame the American occupiers as the cause of the misery. The general population has pretty much had it with the Americans, even though they're vaguely aware the insurgents are causing the small bits of damage.
The solutions I've heard are all tough:
- Walk away and let Iraqis duke it out amongst themselves. With all the weapons available in that country, hundreds of thousands will perish, and they'll end up with three constantly warring factions as the "most stable" result.
- We could also keep doing what we're doing, which is accomplishing absolutely nothing except adding the deaths of more kids to this quagmire.
- We could drop our "U.S.A. Only" signs, invite the U.N. to share in the pacification and see if the Iraqi insurgents respect the blue helmets any more than they respect the U.S. Army. That's assuming the U.N. doesn't tell us to go fornicate ourselves under the Pottery Barn rules: "you broke it, you pay for it." (They might not; being as corrupt as they are, I can imagine many of their member states wanting to get involved for a share of the spOILs of war.)
- We can ship in two or three times as many troops as we already have, and see if we can violently but dramatically put down the insurgents (at an unknown cost of U.S. lives.)
Those are all pretty crappy solutions to a war we were lied into starting. And yes, what Bush says about Kerry is absolutely true: we (the U.S.) would have been far safer leaving Saddam in power. We would have lost 1000 fewer soldiers lives, and we would not have pissed away every last drop of goodwill that Americans have been building up internationally for the last 80 years. Saddam was no threat to us or anyone, as the UN sanctions had been working remarkably well. He would have fallen sooner or later, probably from within, leaving Iraq in a much more stable state than they are today.And thus just so much wasted money in the eyes of the advertiser.
Regardless of whether you approve or not, the astroturf-like campaigns do catch your attention. Now, most peoples reaction (OK, so most people I know) react quite negatively to campaigns like this. When you find out you've been tricked into going to some company's website (the "America needs dirt" campaign from last year) my first thought is "I will NEVER buy that crap product." And I usually follow through -- for example, I haven't bought that brand of soap since I fell for it. It's the same distaste I hold for all liars.
But, the consumers typically end up remembering the product (I did), which is what they're going for all along. The advertisers are counting on people thinking "ha ha, that was funny" because now those people have that product lodged in their minds. And to the typical marketing person, not being completely honest is not a failing. To people like you and I, however, the bitter aftertaste of the dishonesty lingers far longer than the chuckle at being fooled.
I'm with you -- a clever 30 or 60 second commercial that hooks you with a punchline at the end is funny, and leaves a positive impression. A clever one-month curiosity campaign leaves me bitter and disappointed.
I think the way it's worded works out to be if you simply play a radio or put out a TV for your customers, it's perfectly legal. However, you can't tape record the radio and play it back, or play any other pre-recorded music or videos, without paying compensation to the artists.
The ASCAP guy can claim whatever he likes to frighten you into buying his license. I think the law says (or perhaps the court found) that since the radio station paid the artists, the radio station's broadcast is covered even in a commercial setting such as a store. My guess is that the ASCAP guy bets these small shop owners don't know the law, and it's cheaper to pay the blackmailer than it is to hire an attorney to find out for sure.
I think what ASCAP needs is for people who've been wrongly suckered into needlessly buying their licenses to contact their state's attorney general. If enough people made a loud enough noise, not only could they put an end to these sleazy tactics, but they could possibly recoup their losses going way, way back. A big enough class-action lawsuit could theoretically bankrupt these vermin.
WARNING: I AM NOT A LAWYER. I DON'T KNOW THIS STUFF FOR SURE, IT'S JUST STUFF I'VE HEARD OVER THE YEARS. THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. Do not remove under penalty of law. Your mileage may vary. Void if altered or removed. Blah blah blah.
The guy switched the boombox to an FM station and told him to pound sand. As far as I know, he never played a CD in the store again after that.
I meant to say that some news sources are starting to recognize the patterns that Google evaluates in order to float their stories to the top of Google's news page.
I didn't mean to imply that Google was biased, I just meant to say that certain news organizations are discovering the joys of "googlebombing".
(And if you felt I was in any way "screaming", I apologize for that, too.)
If you opt for the solar version, it comes with 90 square feet of panels. Current "cheapo" prices for solar panels are $3.69 per watt. A car uses something like 10kwh of energy per hour. To provide you with enough energy to drive constantly powered from the sunlight, they'll cost you about $36,900, plus installation. Want to drop that to your $5000 limit? It'll take over 7 hours of direct sunlight to generate enough hydrogen for that one hour of driving.
Ok, so maybe solar isn't the way to go for a home installer. Let's just plug it into the wall and buy cheap electricity for our converter. Do you want a hydrogen compressor running in your garage unattended, and a tank of compressed hydrogen on hand? Remember, hydrogen is very, very tiny and it leaks from machinery rapidly. So, now you have to install adequate vents in your garage to ensure you don't blow up the next time you start your car.
Sounding good or insurable yet? It gets worse.
This science project completely side-stepped another difficult problem that you raise: how do you engineer a completely safe compressed hydrogen gas fuel transfer system? How do you keep tramp air out of the connectors, and ensure there can be NO sparks? Today, most compressed gasses are handled by trained professionals. They understand the risks, they follow proper grounding procedures, they don't accidentally smoke while they transfer the gasses. Small consumer quantities of things like propane are readily dealt with, but even then does the service station let you fill your own propane tanks? Probably not -- in this state at least, only the station operators can refill tanks. And liquid pressurized gas is still easier and safer to deal with than a compressed explosive gas.
OK, so maybe we take a lesson from these kids and leave the hydrogen generator on board the car, and just plug the whole car into a wall outlet when we get to our destination. Infrastructure solved -- anybody can hang an outlet. Assuming the hydrogen splitter can be built small enough, a 15 amp circuit will still take six hours to deliver 10kwh, enough energy for one hour of driving. That's sounding much closer to practical, but it still retains a lot of the problems and risks associated with storing and handling raw compressed hydrogen (even in the closed system.) It's not a vehicle you would park indoors, for example. And the other problem most engineers have with compressed gas fuels is: how do you protect the occupants from it in a crash? The tanks have to be crashworthy in all manner of collisions, and not just have a 35 MPH front impact resistance warranty.
The auto makers reduced their efforts to use raw hydrogen as a direct-to-consumer fuel many years ago for all these reasons. They certainly could pick it up again at any time, but for now they're still focusing on direct liquid fuel-cells as a safer alternative. The infrastructure already exists to deliver liquid fuels, and the handling risks are much, much lower. Remember, the water is not the fuel in this truck, it's merely an extremely convenient storage mechanism. External fuel still is required to split it.
Me too!
But Google News is showing bias. And it's starting to become intentional.
Why? You read Slashdot, don't you?
No, the AP correctly reported that the house passed a BILL. A BILL is not a LAW until it passes through the entire congress and the president signs it. (Remember the Schoolhouse Rock song, "I'm just a Bill"?)
The car makers want this more than you do, and it's all about the money. Getting an alternative fuel vehicle to market is The Brass Ring. It's the Holy Grail of car makers, it's a license to print money, it means the ability to buy Microsoft outright for mere pocket change. With pump prices at $2.00 per gallon around here, a carmaker who could offer an alcohol or methanol fueled vehicle (think $0.50 per gallon) would simply not be able to produce enough cars to meet the demand. They could hire the entire state of Michigan to build them, they could sell them at double or triple their cost, and they still wouldn't be able to build them fast enough.
They proved that a solar panel already operating at the peak of current technology (converting about 34% of the sunlight energy into electrical energy) can produce enough energy to drive a vehicle maybe 5 miles. Converting all 100% of the available sunlight to electricity would give this vehicle a whopping 15 mile per day range. Just think -- I could drive to work on a Monday, and drive home on Tuesday.
Don't get me wrong, I think what these kids did was great and no doubt taught them tons about engineering, physics, and chemistry. These kids deserve credit and accolades for their accomplishment. But it ultimately was still just a classroom lesson, and was in no way a stepping stone to marketing solar-powered S-10s to the masses.
Daimler's first fuel cell vehicle started as basically a large mobile laboratory in the back of a panel van (even larger than this school's truck.) They then installed one in a bus, and another in a minivan, and they now have one in a car the size of a Cooper Mini.
The problem isn't getting a vehicle like this on the road. The problem isn't even getting a fleet of them deployed to a single commercial customer (like a bus transit line.) The problems they're encountering now is scaling the entire transportation system so that Joe Sixpack can afford to buy one, drive it home, and fill it up every week.
The most efficient fuel for fuel cell (electric) cars is raw hydrogen. Compressed hydrogen would require an entire new infrastructure to deliver, and would be probably the most hazardous product ever sold to consumers. Liquid hydrogen would be even worse, because of the dangers inherent in delivering tanks of products at 3 degrees Kelvin. So, because of the fuel delivery problems one of the first compromises they had to make was to figure out how to fuel these vehicles with easily delivered, stable-at-room-temperature liquids, instead of compressed gasses. That took time and research. The next problem is that the catalyst required to crack the liquids into raw hydrogen is based on rare precious metals like platinum. Besides taking enough metal to make these engines prohibitively expensive, there simply isn't enough of it on earth to build the number of vehicles that a big car maker like Chevrolet builds every year. So, they've had to experiment with different ways to get the liquid fuels cracked into the base hydrogen.
The vehicle these kids built only cost $10,000, but much of the expense (solar panels) was donated. And it still won't scale, because the solar panels are already operating at something like 30% of their theoretical output. Making a vehicle go from 3 miles per day to 10 miles per day still isn't going to sell.
And despite the best conspiracy theorists determinations, it is far and away in the best interests of a car company to be the first to market selling a truly revolutionary fueled car. Think about what would happen to Ford's stock price if they announced a "sunlight and water powered car" were available. It would truly be a license to print money. The petroleum companies could offer no bribe in the world big enough to slow down a cash cow of that magnitude.
The officer (and the police union) claimed that it was a runaway vehicle. Ford, the NTSB and the police all inspected the vehicle, and found no evidence whatsoever that the van was at fault. Instead, they found the driver was only partially seated with the door hanging open, and they concluded that since the driver was not in a proper driving position that he mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal. (Think of it as a lethal off-by-one error.)
I think true runaway vehicles really are rare, and most of them are either partially or completely the driver's inability to properly control the vehicles.
Yes.
Here's a hint: if you're one of those idiots who insists on giving your kid a name with "unique" spelling, at least don't pick a "gaye" name.