Likewise, I can't imagine anybody actually designing such an incredibly stupid clock. You've already got a rather accurate clock source to run the clock's micro (even if it's a ceramic resonator with a +/-0.5% accuracy, rather than a quartz crystal with accuracies in the ppm) or ASIC.
The grid's 60Hz frequency, when averaged out over a 24 hour period, is WAY more accurate than that of a ceramic resonator. And resonators are cheaper than crystals, and used to be more so, so manufacturers used the line frequency for timekeeping, rather than the microporocessor oscillator. This was not stupid, it was sensible and elegant engineering - it got the job done, and kept costs down.
More is not always better - if you have a free, accurate reference, why would you add cost to a product to duplicate that functionality?
There are, in fact, many such designs, your awareness or lack thereof notwithstanding
There are many reasons to not design a clock this way.
But one big reason, (cost), wins out. Ceramic resonators are cheaper than quartz crystals, and the price disparity was larger still a decade or two ago. But ceramic resonators aren't accurate or stable enough for timekeeping, whereas the line frequency has had a guaranteed accuracy of its average frequency for decades.
You need two frequency inputs (60 Hz and 32768 Hz
Who says the other frequency needs to be 32.768 kHz?
China will not be making clocks that it can't sell in Europe
European and North American markets, separately, are both well beyond being large enough to justify two different products, one for each market. But even that's not necessary - a simple jumper will suffice to change the appropriate divide ratios. You ARE aware of the existence of microprocessors, are you not?
Clock manufacturer can't guarantee the accuracy of their product
Clock manufacturers CAN guarantee the accuracy of their product - it just depends on what technology they use, which topologies they choose, and how much we, the customers, are willing to pay. However, this move by the FERC nullifies the accuracy specs of any clock which relies on line frequency for its timekeeping.
If it runs on batteries, even as a backup, it's gotta have a crystal in it, since the battery obviously doesn't give you 60 Hz.
A well-informed comment - the only thing I would change is the line above. The cheaper clocks, (and especially older cheap clocks), that use the line frequency for timekeeping, and have battery backups, often use a ceramic resonator in place of the crystal. The frequency stability is not in the same league as that of even a crappy crystal.
I have a battery-backed digital clock whose accuracy is so bad during a power failure that it might even be using an L-C oscillator...
If this messes up a digital clock, the clock was poorly engineered
No, the clock was designed responsibly. For well over half a century, utilities have guaranteed a VERY accurate average line frequency of 60Hz, so the designers of those 'poorly engineered' digital clocks did the sensible thing. They used a less expensive, (and therefore less frequency-stable), oscillator to run the processor, and used the line frequency for actual timekeeping.
It's not the engineer's fault when someone radically changes the operating conditions after the fact.
The kind of clocks that use the 60Hz powerline to keep time don't have a +1 hour button, they have an analog knob that moves the minute hand. They may have a second hand, but rarely have a way to adjust it since it's never accurate anyway.
Not true. Many digital clock oscillators use ceramic resonators instead of quartz crystals, because resonators are cheaper. Such clocks use the 60Hz line frequency for the actual timekeeping function, because the frequency stability of the resonators isn't, (or wasn't?) as good as that of the power grid.
It's not just "clocks". AC motors' speeds are controlled by the frequency of the current. This will make your furnace's fan run faster...
Or slower, for that matter. But we're talking about a very small variation in frequency, (on the order of 1Hz or so), which is well within the safe operating range of any motor designed to run on 60Hz power. And no, you won't notice the speed change in your wobbly ceiling fan, nor are 'cheap electric fans' at any additional risk of going 'blades up'.
I'm wondering how this will affect factories, whose motorized assembly lines' speeds are dependent on a stable frequency.
The line frequency isn't particularly stable anyway, and never has been. Utilities have only ever guaranteed that the AVERAGE frequency over a specified time would be exactly 60Hz, and they did that primarily so clocks would be accurate. Instantaneous frequency can vary by 1 or 2Hz, probably not more except under fault conditions.
I know that voltage fluctuations can have a big impact on the life of appliances.
True, but irrelevant to this discussion, as we're talking here about frequency, not voltage.
This is a matter of wealth transference, saving the power companies money at the expense of everyone else, including other businesses.
Did you RTFA? This will not only save the utilities money, it's also expected to result in greater reliability.
This move will cause inconveniences, so like you, I'm not sure that relaxing the power grid frequency specs is a good thing. But neither is the FERC, hence the experimental status of the project. In any case, it's nowhere near the alarmist 'the sky is falling' scenario you've painted.
$12 million divided among 4 carriers? I bet they're all laughing. That's just a (very small) cost of doing business for these guys. Fines of $100 milllion per carrier would get their attention - much less than that and it's hardly even newsworthy, much less an effective deterrent.
As an analog designer, I've come to appreciate Bob's many contributions over the years. He was a good writer and a terrific engineer, and he knew both theory and hands-on practice better than most of us. He could explain complex concepts in simple language, and it seemed he was a no-nonsense kind of guy yet had a good sense of humour. The electronics field, from hobbyists, to other engineers, to semiconductor companies, owes him a debt of gratitude. He will be missed.
The question should not be if he did it in his free time, off campus, but if it was related to the school.
Uh, no. Whether or not it was 'for school' is entirely irrelevant. If the work was handed in as an assignment, then a failing grade, and perhaps a discussion with the student about the work's contents, might have been appropriate. If the work contained anything libellous, then a civil suit might reasonably have been launched in response to its publication on YouTube. Beyond those two things, the school has NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER taking any action against the student for creating and/or posting the video in question. Quite simply, beyond the film's suitability as a school project, and aside from any potential libel issues, the school has meither moral nor legal authority here.
I develop hardware, so I often have a Printed Circuit Board editor open on one monitor, and its associated schematic editor on the other. With these two apps, plus a bunch of PDF's of component specs, and the web page of my favourite component distributor, all open and 'in play' at once, I feel restricted even with only two monitors. Having only one would be out of the question, unless that one monitor was much bigger than I can currently afford. Also, the second monitor seems like a more logical 'split' than an imaginary line in the middle of a single monitor.
I think most heavy computer users would benefit from a multi-monitor setup, even the accounting and management types who think of such things as superfluous. Multiple monitors are like cell phones used to be - they seem unnecessary until you've had one for a few weeks, then they're indispensable.
...would be laws that force sites such as Google and Facebook to have very short, plain-language TOS agreements prominently posted on their sites.
By 'force', I mean under penalty of a very heavy fine, such as $1M for the first offence, $10M for the second, etc. By 'prominently posted', I mean something that's impossible to miss and is visible on EVERY page on the site. And by 'short, plain-language TOS agreements', I mean something like the following:
"By using this site, you consent to us collecting ALL of the information we possbily can about you, your family, your friends, your job, and your life in general, both on our site and wherever you go on the Internet that we manage to follow you. You further consent to us storing this information for as long as we want, sharing it with whomever we want, (including but not limited to other web sites, advertisers, government agencies, the police, journalists, bloggers, and the walls of toilet stalls), and in general using it however we please. And you give up your right to take any legal action against us, either civil or criminal, for any way in which we may harm or compromise you in using said information".
There are a lot of people out there for whom such an approach is the only way they'll 'get it'. And these people aren't necessarily stupid or thoughtless. Many are simply uninformed, and perhaps a bit naive. And while it's true that you 'can't fix stupid', you CAN legislate against con artists, and I would argue that the companies under discussion here are con artists of the highest order.
If these things are such no-brainers, then why haven't they been developed previously? The 'obviousness' AFTER THE FACT of these solutions has no bearing on either the creativity, ingenuity, and skill that went into them, nor on their value.
Technology builds upon itself. Most of our technological advancements today come from people who "re-purpose existing technology". I design hardware for a living; I re-purpose existing electronic components in useful, and often novel, ways to create devices that meet a client's needs. A programmer 're-purposes' an existing language, and a set of existing libraries, to create a new and useful application. Mark Shuttleworth takes Linux and Gnome, and re-purposes them to make Ubuntu. (No 'Unity' comments please...). ALL of these, including "these students at prestigious universities who do nothing more than re-purpose existing technology" constitute acts of transformation, not of 'plagiarism'.
I don't like Sony, but I take each product on its merits and wouldn't cut off my nose to spite my face just because they did this or that in the past.
There's something to what you say, but OTOH there's such a thing as being a chump. This situation reminds me of the old 'wallet on a string' gag. Continuing to reach for the wallet is simply optimism, however PAYING the joker in the bushes to keep jerking (your) string probably makes you a sucker.
Hear hear! Whenever I'm stuck using an XP machine I always dig in and make it look and behave, (as much as possible), like Win2K.
As for Unity, I haven't tried it, and I can't be bothered. I used to like doing work TO my computer, but now I'd rather do work WITH my computer - that means that I no longer have the time and patience to do much messing about with either the CLI or a new set of graphical paradigms. Besides, Ubuntu lost me at Hardy - its repos were too far behind the times, so I switched to Debian.
Now if I could only find a fully-featured graphical file manager, instead of having to use an awkward combination of Nautilus and Dolphin just to get functionality and usability that are still inferior to Windows Explorer circa 1998...
I really wish devs would drop the flashy eye-candy and concentrate on perfecting the bread-and-butter functionality.
From TFA: "Under fire are control, competition, property. It's a vision that is... of a clear theological origin"
I guess it never occurred to Spadaro that putting control, competition, and property "under fire" might have had something to do with the origins of theology, rather than the other way around.
...who cover up the crimes of baby-raping priests in order to protect their own interests.
Not that I believe any of this God/Satan claptrap, but if you're gonna accuse others of Satanism, it's incumbent upon you to have a long, hard, honest look at yourself before doing so.
BTW, the Catholic church isn't primarily a religious institution, any more than the Mafia is primarily a waste disposal business. It's a huge financial and political entity - soul-saving and Satan-stomping are just tools to help maintain and consolidate the power base.
Slashdot Mirror
So glad to meet another well-informed voice of reason here. So many other commenters here have no clue what they're talking about...
Likewise, I can't imagine anybody actually designing such an incredibly stupid clock. You've already got a rather accurate clock source to run the clock's micro (even if it's a ceramic resonator with a +/-0.5% accuracy, rather than a quartz crystal with accuracies in the ppm) or ASIC.
The grid's 60Hz frequency, when averaged out over a 24 hour period, is WAY more accurate than that of a ceramic resonator. And resonators are cheaper than crystals, and used to be more so, so manufacturers used the line frequency for timekeeping, rather than the microporocessor oscillator. This was not stupid, it was sensible and elegant engineering - it got the job done, and kept costs down.
More is not always better - if you have a free, accurate reference, why would you add cost to a product to duplicate that functionality?
I'm not aware of even ONE such design.
There are, in fact, many such designs, your awareness or lack thereof notwithstanding
There are many reasons to not design a clock this way.
But one big reason, (cost), wins out. Ceramic resonators are cheaper than quartz crystals, and the price disparity was larger still a decade or two ago. But ceramic resonators aren't accurate or stable enough for timekeeping, whereas the line frequency has had a guaranteed accuracy of its average frequency for decades.
You need two frequency inputs (60 Hz and 32768 Hz
Who says the other frequency needs to be 32.768 kHz?
China will not be making clocks that it can't sell in Europe
European and North American markets, separately, are both well beyond being large enough to justify two different products, one for each market. But even that's not necessary - a simple jumper will suffice to change the appropriate divide ratios. You ARE aware of the existence of microprocessors, are you not?
Clock manufacturer can't guarantee the accuracy of their product
Clock manufacturers CAN guarantee the accuracy of their product - it just depends on what technology they use, which topologies they choose, and how much we, the customers, are willing to pay. However, this move by the FERC nullifies the accuracy specs of any clock which relies on line frequency for its timekeeping.
If it runs on batteries, even as a backup, it's gotta have a crystal in it, since the battery obviously doesn't give you 60 Hz.
A well-informed comment - the only thing I would change is the line above. The cheaper clocks, (and especially older cheap clocks), that use the line frequency for timekeeping, and have battery backups, often use a ceramic resonator in place of the crystal. The frequency stability is not in the same league as that of even a crappy crystal.
I have a battery-backed digital clock whose accuracy is so bad during a power failure that it might even be using an L-C oscillator...
If this messes up a digital clock, the clock was poorly engineered
No, the clock was designed responsibly. For well over half a century, utilities have guaranteed a VERY accurate average line frequency of 60Hz, so the designers of those 'poorly engineered' digital clocks did the sensible thing. They used a less expensive, (and therefore less frequency-stable), oscillator to run the processor, and used the line frequency for actual timekeeping.
It's not the engineer's fault when someone radically changes the operating conditions after the fact.
The kind of clocks that use the 60Hz powerline to keep time don't have a +1 hour button, they have an analog knob that moves the minute hand. They may have a second hand, but rarely have a way to adjust it since it's never accurate anyway.
Not true. Many digital clock oscillators use ceramic resonators instead of quartz crystals, because resonators are cheaper. Such clocks use the 60Hz line frequency for the actual timekeeping function, because the frequency stability of the resonators isn't, (or wasn't?) as good as that of the power grid.
It's not just "clocks". AC motors' speeds are controlled by the frequency of the current. This will make your furnace's fan run faster...
Or slower, for that matter. But we're talking about a very small variation in frequency, (on the order of 1Hz or so), which is well within the safe operating range of
any motor designed to run on 60Hz power. And no, you won't notice the speed change in your wobbly ceiling fan, nor are 'cheap electric fans' at any additional risk of going 'blades up'.
I'm wondering how this will affect factories, whose motorized assembly lines' speeds are dependent on a stable frequency.
The line frequency isn't particularly stable anyway, and never has been. Utilities have only ever guaranteed that the AVERAGE frequency over a specified time would be exactly 60Hz, and they did that primarily so clocks would be accurate. Instantaneous frequency can vary by 1 or 2Hz, probably not more except under fault conditions.
I know that voltage fluctuations can have a big impact on the life of appliances.
True, but irrelevant to this discussion, as we're talking here about frequency, not voltage.
This is a matter of wealth transference, saving the power companies money at the expense of everyone else, including other businesses.
Did you RTFA? This will not only save the utilities money, it's also expected to result in greater reliability.
This move will cause inconveniences, so like you, I'm not sure that relaxing the power grid frequency specs is a good thing. But neither is the FERC, hence the experimental status of the project. In any case, it's nowhere near the alarmist 'the sky is falling' scenario you've painted.
For those interested, here's a link to an EDN article, written by an engineer who worked with him:
http://www.edn.com/article/518568-Analog_engineering_legend_Bob_Pease_killed_in_car_crash.php
$12 million divided among 4 carriers? I bet they're all laughing. That's just a (very small) cost of doing business for these guys. Fines of $100 milllion per carrier would get their attention - much less than that and it's hardly even newsworthy, much less an effective deterrent.
As an analog designer, I've come to appreciate Bob's many contributions over the years. He was a good writer and a terrific engineer, and he knew both theory and hands-on practice better than most of us. He could explain complex concepts in simple language, and it seemed he was a no-nonsense kind of guy yet had a good sense of humour. The electronics field, from hobbyists, to other engineers, to semiconductor companies, owes him a debt of gratitude. He will be missed.
It may be time for a Groklaw comeback...
Very funny, and very witty! I wish I had some mod points for you...
The question should not be if he did it in his free time, off campus, but if it was related to the school.
Uh, no. Whether or not it was 'for school' is entirely irrelevant. If the work was handed in as an assignment, then a failing grade, and perhaps a discussion with the student about the work's contents, might have been appropriate. If the work contained anything libellous, then a civil suit might reasonably have been launched in response to its publication on YouTube. Beyond those two things, the school has NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER taking any action against the student for creating and/or posting the video in question. Quite simply, beyond the film's suitability as a school project, and aside from any potential libel issues, the school has meither moral nor legal authority here.
I develop hardware, so I often have a Printed Circuit Board editor open on one monitor, and its associated schematic editor on the other. With these two apps, plus a bunch of PDF's of component specs, and the web page of my favourite component distributor, all open and 'in play' at once, I feel restricted even with only two monitors. Having only one would be out of the question, unless that one monitor was much bigger than I can currently afford. Also, the second monitor seems like a more logical 'split' than an imaginary line in the middle of a single monitor.
I think most heavy computer users would benefit from a multi-monitor setup, even the accounting and management types who think of such things as superfluous. Multiple monitors are like cell phones used to be - they seem unnecessary until you've had one for a few weeks, then they're indispensable.
...would be laws that force sites such as Google and Facebook to have very short, plain-language TOS agreements prominently posted on their sites.
By 'force', I mean under penalty of a very heavy fine, such as $1M for the first offence, $10M for the second, etc. By 'prominently posted', I mean something that's impossible to miss and is visible on EVERY page on the site. And by 'short, plain-language TOS agreements', I mean something like the following:
"By using this site, you consent to us collecting ALL of the information we possbily can about you, your family, your friends, your job, and your life in general, both on our site and wherever you go on the Internet that we manage to follow you. You further consent to us storing this information for as long as we want, sharing it with whomever we want, (including but not limited to other web sites, advertisers, government agencies, the police, journalists, bloggers, and the walls of toilet stalls), and in general using it however we please. And you give up your right to take any legal action against us, either civil or criminal, for any way in which we may harm or compromise you in using said information".
There are a lot of people out there for whom such an approach is the only way they'll 'get it'. And these people aren't necessarily stupid or thoughtless. Many are simply uninformed, and perhaps a bit naive. And while it's true that you 'can't fix stupid', you CAN legislate against con artists, and I would argue that the companies under discussion here are con artists of the highest order.
If these things are such no-brainers, then why haven't they been developed previously? The 'obviousness' AFTER THE FACT of these solutions has no bearing on either the creativity, ingenuity, and skill that went into them, nor on their value.
Technology builds upon itself. Most of our technological advancements today come from people who "re-purpose existing technology". I design hardware for a living; I re-purpose existing electronic components in useful, and often novel, ways to create devices that meet a client's needs. A programmer 're-purposes' an existing language, and a set of existing libraries, to create a new and useful application. Mark Shuttleworth takes Linux and Gnome, and re-purposes them to make Ubuntu. (No 'Unity' comments please...). ALL of these, including "these students at prestigious universities who do nothing more than re-purpose existing technology" constitute acts of transformation, not of 'plagiarism'.
I don't like Sony, but I take each product on its merits and wouldn't cut off my nose to spite my face just because they did this or that in the past.
There's something to what you say, but OTOH there's such a thing as being a chump. This situation reminds me of the old 'wallet on a string' gag. Continuing to reach for the wallet is simply optimism, however PAYING the joker in the bushes to keep jerking (your) string probably makes you a sucker.
Hear hear! Whenever I'm stuck using an XP machine I always dig in and make it look and behave, (as much as possible), like Win2K.
As for Unity, I haven't tried it, and I can't be bothered. I used to like doing work TO my computer, but now I'd rather do work WITH my computer - that means that I no longer have the time and patience to do much messing about with either the CLI or a new set of graphical paradigms. Besides, Ubuntu lost me at Hardy - its repos were too far behind the times, so I switched to Debian.
Now if I could only find a fully-featured graphical file manager, instead of having to use an awkward combination of Nautilus and Dolphin just to get functionality and usability that are still inferior to Windows Explorer circa 1998...
I really wish devs would drop the flashy eye-candy and concentrate on perfecting the bread-and-butter functionality.
Does this mean that the faster I run my CPU, the longer it will last?
...an hour later, you're always hungry again!
I had Benzes from the late 80s and 90s with this throttle delay, where the engine seemed to take a second to respond.
Were those Benzes turbocharged? If so, then the problem may have been 'turbo lag'...
From TFA: "Under fire are control, competition, property. It's a vision that is ... of a clear theological origin"
I guess it never occurred to Spadaro that putting control, competition, and property "under fire" might have had something to do with the origins of theology, rather than the other way around.
...who cover up the crimes of baby-raping priests in order to protect their own interests.
Not that I believe any of this God/Satan claptrap, but if you're gonna accuse others of Satanism, it's incumbent upon you to have a long, hard, honest look at yourself before doing so.
BTW, the Catholic church isn't primarily a religious institution, any more than the Mafia is primarily a waste disposal business. It's a huge financial and political entity - soul-saving and Satan-stomping are just tools to help maintain and consolidate the power base.
It's great to see a company not bending over and greasing up when the federal Fascists come to call.
Go poking holes in it and making volcanoes all over the place! See if WE care!