If I want to be nostalgic _and_ have some maker-ish fun I'd go cobble together a basic data backup system using an audio cassette player and homebrew electronics to store code snippets or short text files. Now I gotta wonder if I still have those old Coleco ADAM tapes with Jr. Hi essays on them in a box somewhere in the garage... or maybe some from my old beloved Timex Sinclair 1000, probably holding BASIC files typed in from computer magazines.
I've not seen any group efforts to block superchargers but this week I did see a single incident. I pulled into a supercharger station in Sandy, OR and plugged in to get a top off. I was the only Tesla there using them at the time. At the end of the row, however, was a huge diesel van; one of those 'earthroamer' types that was jacked up on high suspension with big tires, parked sideways across three of the spots.
A few minutes later the driver got back to his vehicle. He saw me sitting in my model 3, flipped me off, got in his van and took off with a good bit of tire squealing. No other communication; just a flip of the bird and he was gone.
Then I see this/. story and have to wonder how often this kinda thing happens. It was mostly just puzzling.:)
Posted this on another thread, but it bears repeating here, my apologies:
I'm an afib/sinus-bradycardia patient and a beta tester for the AliveCor / Kardia apple-watch band product they sell. I had the condition most of my life but it wasn't properly diagnosed until I started playing with home EKG equipment and noticed the trends. I've been using the AliveCor watch band product (and the separate unit they sell) for a few years now. It has been an invaluable asset in my afib care, and the data from it (and the multiple events / cardioversions over the years) have provided good research data for helping treat these conditions. My health has directly improved from being able to detect episodes early and get them corrected before they get to the point they require electro-cardioversion.
I don't know if they bought/licensed AliveCor's tech or if they're going to simply market-crush them (hopefully the former), but I'm extremely grateful to see it being built into the watch itself. The external band-mounted unit and associated app burn through the battery life of the current Apple Watch, giving me about 3/4 of a day or less before it needs recharging; i bring one of the little pocket-chargers with me as a result. It also means I have to wear only the special AliveCor band that hosts the two-pin sensor, which not only limits my options but screws up my skin a bit (the sports-rubber type bands make my skin break out sometimes). I'm hoping the native sensor will mean longer battery life with the same or better levels of functionality. I'll find out soon enough.
My cardiologist loves the extra data; I can catch every event as it happens as well as monitor trends over time. It helps pick better treatment paths and develop better behavior patterns that will avoid triggering my afib as well as keep me on a better self-improvement path. Putting this on the wrists of huge numbers of people will only improve this kind of research -- and it'll also help early detection for those with the same genetic conditions I have, and get things treated before they become life threatening.
In addition, the fall sensor is a wonderful thing for those of us with elderly parents with health issues. My mother suffered a pretty severe stroke that she luckily survived with most of her faculties intact -- though she has notable short-term memory issues now. I got her the previous series Apple Watch with cellular because while she forgets her phone all the time, she _always_ remembers to put on her watch when she wakes up. It gives us a communications path to her when she gets confused or separated while out on daily tasks, and lets us find her (with the 'find my friends' app) if she wanders. As her mobility issues increase, she's also more prone to falling, so I'm definitely upgrading her to this new watch -- the fall sensor will be a great addition. If she goes down and we're not right there to see and help, it can alert us. That's a huge increase in peace of mind.
I hope that the competitors pick up on this and 2-pin EKG / fall sensors / other-health-monitors become more and more standard across the board.
I'm an afib/sinus-bradycardia patient and a beta tester for the AliveCor / Kardia apple-watch band product they sell. I had the condition most of my life but it wasn't properly diagnosed until I started playing with home EKG equipment and noticed the trends. I've been using the AliveCor watch band produc t (and the separate unit they sell) for a few years now. It has been an invaluable asset in my afib care, and the data from it (and the multiple events / cardioversions over the years) have provided good research data for helping treat these conditions. My health has directly improved from being able to detect episodes early and get them corrected before they get to the point they require electro-cardioversion.
I don't know if they bought/licensed AliveCor's tech or if they're going to simply market-crush them (hopefully the former), but I'm extremely grateful to see it being built into the watch itself. The external band-mounted unit and associated app burn through the battery life of the current Apple Watch, giving me about 3/4 of a day or less before it needs recharging; i bring one of the little pocket-chargers with me as a result. It also means I have to wear only the special AliveCor band that hosts the two-pin sensor, which not only limits my options but screws up my skin a bit (the sports-rubber type bands make my skin break out sometimes). I'm hoping the native sensor will mean longer battery life with the same or better levels of functionality. I'll find out soon enough.
My cardiologist loves the extra data; I can catch every event as it happens as well as monitor trends over time. It helps pick better treatment paths and develop better behavior patterns that will avoid triggering my afib as well as keep me on a better self-improvement path. Putting this on the wrists of huge numbers of people will only improve this kind of research -- and it'll also help early detection for those with the same genetic conditions I have, and get things treated before they become life threatening.
In addition, the fall sensor is a wonderful thing for those of us with elderly parents with health issues. My mother suffered a pretty severe stroke that she luckily survived with most of her faculties intact -- though she has notable short-term memory issues now. I got her the previous series Apple Watch with cellular because while she forgets her phone all the time, she _always_ remembers to put on her watch when she wakes up. It gives us a communications path to her when she gets confused or separated while out on daily tasks, and lets us find her (with the 'find my friends' app) if she wanders. As her mobility issues increase, she's also more prone to falling, so I'm definitely upgrading her to this new watch -- the fall sensor will be a great addition. If she goes down and we're not right there to see and help, it can alert us. That's a huge increase in peace of mind.
I hope that the competitors pick up on this and 2-pin EKG / fall sensors / other-health-monitors become more and more standard across the board.
Someone actually made a video about why this happens. Found it while looking around after another 'aaaaiugh video cut out!' moment with tonight's landing.
I've used the Kardia since they first were available and I'm an afib patient. It has indeed been able to detect pre-afib conditions and confirm early afib when it occurs, which has gotten me to go into the ER far earlier than I would have if I was instead guessing 'do I just feel funky or is my heart being weird again'. Which means that I got electrocardioverted sooner, and as such have a much lower risk for stroke and other complications. I am incredibly grateful to be able to have this bit of tech on my person to use whenever I see fit.
I bought the gen-1 version of Kardia's little sensor because I thought it was a nifty gadget. Get an affordable 2-lead ECG to play with? Neat!
When I got it I started taking readings, and your first few 'get a review by a real cardiologist' instances were free. I got mine back with something worrying: sinus bradycardia; an unnaturally slow heartbeat. They recommended I go see a real cardiologist, so I did. After a number of tests they were sure something was wrong, but weren't sure what. I was therefore lucky enough to be under a cardiologist's care when I had my first major afib attack shortly thereafter while upgrading a router at work. This got me better-informed care quicker.
After the attack I had to wear one of those 24-hour monitors for three weeks, and it was seriously limiting. It's like wearing a walkman you can never take off with wires hooked up to stickypads on your chest. After all the monitoring and other tests it turns out I had a "multiple heartbeat source" genetic defect shared with the males in my family line, and it's the most likely cause of what ended up killing my granddad, great granddad, and has my father on a pacemaker these days.
Not long after that first attack I had a surgery called an ablation ( https://www.mayoclinic.org/tes... ) to try and repair it. In the three years since I've had four more instances of afib attacks that required electro-cardioversion, each one lesser in strength than the one before. These days my electrocardiologist says I'm past the worst of it and life should be getting better and better, and shouldn't require a 2nd ablation. The worst part, though, was having a mild panic attack at every single flutter or uneasy feeling in the chest; I never knew if it was just gas or if it was the start of another attack that'd get me zapped/burned in a hospital along with a 24 hour stay and a few thousand dollars (even after insurance coverage) of medical bills.
Since then I've carried the Kardia tool in my pocket. It has helped me identify when each of those four additional attacks were going on, getting me to get it dealt with earlier, and thus have less risk of stroke or other complications (every hour you spend in afib your risk of stroke or other permanent damage keeps going up). The kardia unit can be a pain in the ass, though; you have to clip it to the back of your phone, sit _very_ still, and take a 60 second reading. Often times the flutter that would cause me to take a measurement would pass before I'd even get the unit set up and started.
With the release of Apple Watch 3 and their latest software the built-in heart monitoring has been able to ping me when it sees something 'out of normal' before I even feel it, which I then follow up with a Kardia measurement to make sure, and it has given me much better peace of mind. But it still doesn't do as much as the Kardia system would.
As of this week I've gotten one of the new Kardia Band monitors, since they were finally approved by the FDA after a stupidly long wait. I've only had it for a few days but it's already proven to be a much better tool than the keep-in-pocket/hold-to-back-of-phone version. Any time my heart skips a little or feels odd it takes mere seconds to get a sample recording and predictive analysis to prove if something is going on or not, which serves to calm me down much quicker. I can indeed catch the odd rhythms before they fade, recording them for the cardiologist to look at without having to wear one of those terribly limiting 24-hr monitor systems. It makes me feel more in control of my condition.
Currently the Kardia band software is a little blunt; it has to abuse the Apple Watch's 'exercise mode' to be at its most predictive and accurate. Hopefully this will change with time and Apple will open up some API changes to let tools like the Kardia band work more transparently. Even so, I find it a liberating piece of technology; it lets me get out with friends and live a more active life without being as in-fear of my condition as I would be otherwise.
One thing you're missing: For any of those cars to make those 0-30 times as posted they will be making rather aggressive "why yes, Mr. Cop, I'm flooring it!" acceleration sounds. One must be a little judicious in deciding when and where to do those jackrabbit starts. With an EV you can accelerate like that every single time and Officer Friendly won't even bat an eyebrow (unless you're on wet or poor-traction surface and squeak your tires a bit during takeoff).
It's nice being able to use all the torque every time and enjoy how it feels without anybody having that "wow, what a jerk" reaction or worrying about aggressive driving tickets.
Here's the problem: the actual cost of the electricity to charge any one car is very minimal. I don't think any employee would mind in the least having to pay the whole whopping $0.35-to-$1.50 it'd cost to charge their car. Hell, carve a 100% profit off of it for the company, it's still not bad.
The problem is the cost to install the chargers in the first place is relatively high. If they're just wrapped into the cost of construction of the building and/or parking lot, it's not terrible -- so it makes a lot of sense to go ahead and do it while creating new facilities. But retrofitting it into an existing parking lot requires trenching, new electricity distribution and a lot of disruption. Either way -- do you pass that on to your employees? If so, how do you do it equitably? Howabout the rest of your facilities built out --- should employees also pay for the electric wiring to their desk where they plug in their laptop (they could have charged at home! What, it doesn't last all day? buy a real laptop you millenial!)? Howabout the circuit for the microwave where they heat their lunch? (just buy lunch at the nearby McD's, you hippie! Trying to look all 'green' by actually packing a lunch and then being such a hipster as to want it 'hot'...)
Some companies do have chargers with accounting systems on them (such as Chargepoint) and can indeed charge employees for the power they use. At that point it becomes a matter of it being a perk or not -- can having chargers attract better talent from a wider pool of applicants? -- and how equitable that kind of benefit is. That's worth arguing.
Just FYI: The cost difference between a Level III charger ("30 minute charging time" like you state) and a Level II charger (1 to 8 hours, depending on on-board charger type, battery size and charge level) is anywhere from 10:1 to as high as 40:1, especially when you take into account the much higher costs of the high-amperage/high-voltage electric circuits required for Level III charging.
On top of this, only a subset of EVs can use Level III chargers -- and of those, the standards differ. There are three primary ones: CHAdeMO (leaf, soul, others), SAE Combo (supposedly 'the standard' but barely in use) and Tesla's proprietary one.
My company makes do at a 2.5:1 ratio (cars:chargers) of Level II chargers, which is annoying but workable. If we could add one or two CHAdeMO Level III chargers, the largest segment of our users (Leaf and Soul drivers) could easily quick-charge and clear the spot, which would take a lot of the load off. But wow, the cost to get those suckers installed...
I work at a tech company campus in Palo Alto. I was the company's first EV driver, and at our first startup-warehouse office (before we had the campus) I jury-rigged a charger using two 110v circuits and a combiner (with HR and Facilities' permission). It was a hit, and the 2nd and 3rd EV owners and I traded off as needed.
When we moved into the campus, at my urging, they finally installed a bank of 12 chargers. It took us three years, but now we have about a 2.5:1 EVs:chargers ratio. We recognized early on that this would be a high-demand, limited resource, so we started an internal email list for sharing chargers. It doesn't help that the rest of the campus is about 110% full on parking, so giving up an EV spot means possibly having to park off-campus and walk a good distance, making people not want to give up their chargers unless they truly have to.
Luckily all these issues came up and were talked about company-wide on those EV lists, and we've been able to come up with some decently polite practices; no charger rage so far, though it is still high competition. A hierarchy was established to help solve disputes: charging preference goes to small-battery EVs (Leafs, Fiats, etc) first, then large-battery EV's (teslas), then plug-in hybrids (volts, prii, etc). Within those categories those who have an actual charge need vs. those who just want to top off covers most of the rest. Since the chargers have access cards even though they're free, a user risks losing their access card if they're a jerk about it. It's been decently accountable so far.
My only real complaint is that facilities cheaped out and went with chargers with simple yes/no card controls. I really wish they'd used Chargepoint or something similar where we get visibility into who is using which station when, and we can charge for time, power or per-use access if we need to start limiting use. That would also permit public use (for an appropriate fee) on the weekends and evenings when the chargers are empty, though that's not a big thing. (Like most tech campuses, it's stupidly empty all weekend and not near anything the public would want or need to park at.)
The earlier poster who mentioned a 2:1 sweet spot has it right, and we're past that We're still all polite and finding ways to get around resource contention, but it's more effort than it should be. Facilities knows this and wants to expand, but our overall parking lot has usage issues and losing more spaces to dedicated EV isn't an option right now. That's a bigger problem in general than parking stations that I really hope they solve.
FWIW, 90% of our EVs are of the small-battery-only type (leaf, fiat, focus, soul, etc). Most of our employees commute from somewhere on the peninsula which means they don't have to charge; it's more of a convenience than a need. But there's at least a dozen who commute from the far-south bay area or across the bridges that only squeak by without a midday charge, so it removes charge-anxiety. And for at least three of us, we often have to drive between the two main campus sites and the two datacenters around the bay and having midday charging means we can use an affordable EV (I'm no exec, I can't afford a Tesla!) to great effect. At this point I only have to drive the gas-burner on weekends, which has been a huge cost savings. Plus the use of the carpool lane to get through the gridlock of the south bay freeways is a great benefit... though within the last year or so the carpool lanes are just as crowded as the regular ones, at least during prime time.
I've got a drone video (shot at BurningMan before the anti-drone restrictions) that has over 700,000 views. Being it's from BurningMan I did not monetize it. However, I did patch in music I liked and "acknowledged third party content" once YouTube's systems identified it. The copyright owner on the music caused ads to appear. I don't see a cent of it, and the 'monetize' checkbox is turned off on that video.
Still, I gotta wonder if now I'm going to get an FAA letter too, as they'll see a high-viewer-count "drone video" with ads on it.
Racing bikes / drop bars are for the spandex clad assassins who'd view any EV assist modes as 'cheating' and the batteries/motor as unnecessary weight. Normal humans who happen to ride bicycles (instead of 'bicyclists') are quite happy with sit-up-comfortably-and-be-able-to-see postures. This is why the Electra Townies and their ilk are so popular with the casual bike commuter set. The SRS BZNS bike commuter types who want the monkey-humping-a-football position aren't the target market here.
NorCali -- SF Bay Area (starting from about Monterey/Salinas as its southern border), Humbolt, Lassen, all the way up to the OR border. SoCali -- Coast south of Monterey all the way down to Mexico border, including all of the LA basin, San Diego and the Mojave area Joquain -- The central valley from Redding to Bakersfield, and the Sierra Nevadas along the NV state line
Tech biz/hippies/redwoods, hollywood/flakes/deserts, then agriculture/rednecks/mountains. Each one would have its own special economy to live on and is a much better social/attitude split.
The three year lease on my Nissan Leaf is over in a few months. I absolutely adore the car. It's been the best commuter vehicle I've had in all ways but one -- range. This is the biggest complaint of all those I've shown it to, as well. Many of the co-workers and friends who have ridden in my car over the years want one! Then they hear what the range is like and they lose interest.
My daily round trip (+lunch) comes in at just under 50 miles. With the highway speeds in my area (75 and up) and putting slightly better tires on it instead of the no-traction-in-rain stocks that I went through all too quickly, my real-world run-until-empty range is about 65 miles (When new with the super-eco tires and driving 65 on the freeway, I could get closer to 80-85 miles of range). This means that by the time I get home I can go back out to shop and return, and that's about it. I cannot use the Leaf for longer weekend runs, road trips, or even for the once every three weeks that I have to commute from San Jose to San Fran (about 120mi round trip). Therefore I have to have a second gas-powered car.
Being that I work in Silicon Valley, owning one gas car and leasing an electric car alongside is feasible. With how much I save on gas the lease is nearly 75% covered anyway. With my office soon installing chargers at work my range will extend considerably. But for most of my friends having more than one car is out of the question, budgetary-wise, and the limitations of a car that can only go about 65 miles before it has to charge for 5 hours (my usual L2 charge is 4h:40m or so, overnight) are just too restrictive. With L3 chargers being few and far between, and often having a cost associated with their use, they don't help much. So, no EV for them.
When my lease is up I'll probably try to get a Toyota RAV-4 EV. It supposedly has a real-world range of over 110mi - nearly double my Leaf. It's more affordable than the Tesla models, and more important to me, I can fit in it (I'm very tall-torso and short-legged; I simply can't get in the sports-car-low roof line of the Model S, and no Model X's exist that they will let a consumer sit in to see if they fit!). I'm bummed that Nissan hasn't found a way to 2x the range of the Leaf, or I'd gladly stick with that model. The Tesla-drivetrain RAV4 is still more expensive than I like, but it'll fit my EV driving needs far better.
When battery technology increases enough that 150+mi range EVs are Leaf-level affordable _then_ you will see sales take off in the urban areas. Any advancements in fast-rate (L3 or better) charging will help that too. Until then, for all of their benefits and wonderfulness to drive, they'll remain a niche for packed-urban-area dwellers who can afford to have a second, dedicated commute car.
In the linked video he's flying a QAV400 -- a small quadrotor that uses anything from 7" to 11" props, in a hand-held sized frame. While the propellers can still cause lacerations, they're far smaller and lighter than a full RC helicopter (especially the kind mentioned that killed him). Landing a few feet from your face is still not wise, though.
There's definitely a question of scale to be considered in all this debate. Someone screwing up and dropping a lightweight A.R.Drone atop someone's head is a world of difference from that idiot covering the bull run with the monster octo-rotor dangling 20k of video equipment. I fly some of the ultralight models that can barely hoist up a tiny GoPro camera. While the prop tips can still cause some road rash they're not going to be lopping anybody's head off. Yet I'm sure I'm going to get regulated against / yelled at / sued etc just for owning it, thanks to the flying-lawnmower "look at how much money and power I can put in the air" mega-aerial-video types.
The RC community needs to work on smaller, lighter and safer models for purposes of filming. The flying dSLR cranes and high-power-acro-but-it-can-film-too models need to stop being near people.
I've had the Hue system in my bedroom for the last six months. Were they worth the price? Probably not, considering the starter pack price. Even so, I like them and I'm glad I bought them. Buying overpriced gadgets is a bad habit of mine anyways, so they weren't out of my norm.
The three bulbs are set up with one in the master bath overhead, one in a torchiere base by the bedside table, and the third in another torchiere on the far side of the room. The bulk of the lights in the master bath are on a separate switch (and are all LED, just single color white on/off instead of 'smart' bulbs). So when you're in there doing your morning thing and need lots of white light, flick a lightswitch for the regular bulbs.
As normal lights the Hue work just fine. The only annoyance is if you enter the room and don't want to have your phone out to switch things, you have to turn the main lightswitch in the room off then on again. This brings up the main bulb on that switch in a normal, soft-white mode, just like turning on a regular lamp. To toggle to a color-scene you have to pull out your phone, which isn't too much of a problem since like most modern geeks mine is always with me or nearby (usually on the nightstand charging), but is still slightly annoying. When they release the standalone controller they show in TFA's slideshow that will be a huge improvement.
The color scenes are surprisingly handy. I only have a few basic ones: Bright warm light for doing work at the desk (biased so the room light is brighter than the bedside), soft warm white for reading in bed (biased so the bedside light is brighter than the room), a blue/red/orange soft color combo for when I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed (very relaxing), a "aaugh, the pain, I'm up dammit" super-white (they call it 'energize' mode in the app) which turns on automatically in time with my workday morning alarm, and the "gotta pee" mode where only the master bathroom light turns on to gentle, kind-to-the-night-vision red. The rest of the modes are all the usual "ooo lookit I can make the whole room/blue/" type of goofing off which almost never get used.
I thought the novelty would wear off after a while, and it did... for the 'goofing off' modes. But after refining into the work/read/go-to-bed/get-up/night-pee modes (which took a month or so) I really don't want to do without them. They're something I'm used to and actually miss when staying away from home. Having a room only be 'very bright' or 'no light' isn't enough of a choice any more. Yeah, I'm spoiled. But isn't that what this kind of gadget is for?
For those who are very particular about how warm/cool your normal light should be, Philips chose a good color engine for that; you'll be happy. The downside is that it can't do true green. Outside of goofing off, though, it's not often I'd need a solid green lit room.
If they'd come down notably in price I'd install them all over the house. All my house interior lighting is LED already, but it'd be nice to have similar 'color dimming' abilities throughout the abode instead of just in my room. But at $50 a bulb? Naaaah, one room is enough.
Wish list: The aforementioned controller (in various tabletop and wall-switch-mount formats). Higher maximum brightness. Slightly more green hue -- just a little. Lower cost.
My datacenter uses Arista gear for top-of-rack and core switching. It's a large cloud-style environment with each rack acting as its own "pod" with self-contained services, so any one pod can be moved to any zone of any of our datacenters with minimal fuss.
Small services like NTP, in-pod DNS, sFlow relay, monitoring, puppet (some of it anyways) and small unixy management tools we just run in the Aristas themselves. They're Fedora-core linux based switches that will run those things happily and do a great job feeding those services to their pods.
As far as NTP, the core pair on the main backbone gets their own GPS inputs, then all the top-of-racks sync to the core pair. Works out quite nicely.
Don't forget: on the Leaf, not only does it have the 12v battery, but it has a small solar cell (on the SV model) located on the rear spoiler. So if even the 12v 'control' battery was dead, just leave it in the sun for a bit. Then it'd have enough juice to control the main charger and activate it once plugged in.
Downside to the SPOT solution: It only allows for 41 character on-the-fly tweets (you can do longer if they're pre-defined but those are much less useful). It also goes through their custom gateway and slaps extra formatting and geo-tagging to your tweet that you may not want. So while functional it's of less value than a native 140-character tweet-via-shortcode like TFA talks about. Globalstar (and their SPOT division) need to step up and provide the same functionality, IMHO.
If you want to get technical, the "American" system is called NAVSTAR GPS, which stands for NAVigation Signal Timing And Ranging Global Positioning System.
You can also build your own if you want.:) This got slashdotted last year. It's pretty much the same as a JunXion box but in a DIY format. This was also in Vol.03 of MAKE: magazine.
I chose the 5220 for two reasons. (1) there's aa Verizon store down the street that had one in stock at the moment I chose to do this. Impulse buys rock.
(2) It's macintosh compatible. I wanted a card that, if this project failed, I could simply put in my mac and have work.:)
If I did it again I'd use the new V620 card. Better internal antenna, slightly better power management, and it's controllable in the same way as the 5220 (will work with 5220 drivers in both the stompbox and on the mac with only a little tweaking).
Thanks for all the comments and email so far; I'm glad folks seem to like the project.
While you're there, be sure to check out our other hardware hack from last year, stored on the same server: CLIVE. It's an Iridium Flare Tracker we built out of a Gameboy Advance and a DPSS laser.
I've moved all the images from both projects to the same high-bandwidth server so they shouldn't stall out any more. Being slashdotted is rather fun to watch.:)
Slashdot Mirror
If I want to be nostalgic _and_ have some maker-ish fun I'd go cobble together a basic data backup system using an audio cassette player and homebrew electronics to store code snippets or short text files. Now I gotta wonder if I still have those old Coleco ADAM tapes with Jr. Hi essays on them in a box somewhere in the garage... or maybe some from my old beloved Timex Sinclair 1000, probably holding BASIC files typed in from computer magazines.
I've not seen any group efforts to block superchargers but this week I did see a single incident. I pulled into a supercharger station in Sandy, OR and plugged in to get a top off. I was the only Tesla there using them at the time. At the end of the row, however, was a huge diesel van; one of those 'earthroamer' types that was jacked up on high suspension with big tires, parked sideways across three of the spots.
A few minutes later the driver got back to his vehicle. He saw me sitting in my model 3, flipped me off, got in his van and took off with a good bit of tire squealing. No other communication; just a flip of the bird and he was gone.
Then I see this /. story and have to wonder how often this kinda thing happens. It was mostly just puzzling. :)
Posted this on another thread, but it bears repeating here, my apologies:
I'm an afib/sinus-bradycardia patient and a beta tester for the AliveCor / Kardia apple-watch band product they sell. I had the condition most of my life but it wasn't properly diagnosed until I started playing with home EKG equipment and noticed the trends. I've been using the AliveCor watch band product (and the separate unit they sell) for a few years now. It has been an invaluable asset in my afib care, and the data from it (and the multiple events / cardioversions over the years) have provided good research data for helping treat these conditions. My health has directly improved from being able to detect episodes early and get them corrected before they get to the point they require electro-cardioversion.
I don't know if they bought/licensed AliveCor's tech or if they're going to simply market-crush them (hopefully the former), but I'm extremely grateful to see it being built into the watch itself. The external band-mounted unit and associated app burn through the battery life of the current Apple Watch, giving me about 3/4 of a day or less before it needs recharging; i bring one of the little pocket-chargers with me as a result. It also means I have to wear only the special AliveCor band that hosts the two-pin sensor, which not only limits my options but screws up my skin a bit (the sports-rubber type bands make my skin break out sometimes). I'm hoping the native sensor will mean longer battery life with the same or better levels of functionality. I'll find out soon enough.
My cardiologist loves the extra data; I can catch every event as it happens as well as monitor trends over time. It helps pick better treatment paths and develop better behavior patterns that will avoid triggering my afib as well as keep me on a better self-improvement path. Putting this on the wrists of huge numbers of people will only improve this kind of research -- and it'll also help early detection for those with the same genetic conditions I have, and get things treated before they become life threatening.
In addition, the fall sensor is a wonderful thing for those of us with elderly parents with health issues. My mother suffered a pretty severe stroke that she luckily survived with most of her faculties intact -- though she has notable short-term memory issues now. I got her the previous series Apple Watch with cellular because while she forgets her phone all the time, she _always_ remembers to put on her watch when she wakes up. It gives us a communications path to her when she gets confused or separated while out on daily tasks, and lets us find her (with the 'find my friends' app) if she wanders. As her mobility issues increase, she's also more prone to falling, so I'm definitely upgrading her to this new watch -- the fall sensor will be a great addition. If she goes down and we're not right there to see and help, it can alert us. That's a huge increase in peace of mind.
I hope that the competitors pick up on this and 2-pin EKG / fall sensors / other-health-monitors become more and more standard across the board.
I'm an afib/sinus-bradycardia patient and a beta tester for the AliveCor / Kardia apple-watch band product they sell. I had the condition most of my life but it wasn't properly diagnosed until I started playing with home EKG equipment and noticed the trends. I've been using the AliveCor watch band produc t (and the separate unit they sell) for a few years now. It has been an invaluable asset in my afib care, and the data from it (and the multiple events / cardioversions over the years) have provided good research data for helping treat these conditions. My health has directly improved from being able to detect episodes early and get them corrected before they get to the point they require electro-cardioversion.
I don't know if they bought/licensed AliveCor's tech or if they're going to simply market-crush them (hopefully the former), but I'm extremely grateful to see it being built into the watch itself. The external band-mounted unit and associated app burn through the battery life of the current Apple Watch, giving me about 3/4 of a day or less before it needs recharging; i bring one of the little pocket-chargers with me as a result. It also means I have to wear only the special AliveCor band that hosts the two-pin sensor, which not only limits my options but screws up my skin a bit (the sports-rubber type bands make my skin break out sometimes). I'm hoping the native sensor will mean longer battery life with the same or better levels of functionality. I'll find out soon enough.
My cardiologist loves the extra data; I can catch every event as it happens as well as monitor trends over time. It helps pick better treatment paths and develop better behavior patterns that will avoid triggering my afib as well as keep me on a better self-improvement path. Putting this on the wrists of huge numbers of people will only improve this kind of research -- and it'll also help early detection for those with the same genetic conditions I have, and get things treated before they become life threatening.
In addition, the fall sensor is a wonderful thing for those of us with elderly parents with health issues. My mother suffered a pretty severe stroke that she luckily survived with most of her faculties intact -- though she has notable short-term memory issues now. I got her the previous series Apple Watch with cellular because while she forgets her phone all the time, she _always_ remembers to put on her watch when she wakes up. It gives us a communications path to her when she gets confused or separated while out on daily tasks, and lets us find her (with the 'find my friends' app) if she wanders. As her mobility issues increase, she's also more prone to falling, so I'm definitely upgrading her to this new watch -- the fall sensor will be a great addition. If she goes down and we're not right there to see and help, it can alert us. That's a huge increase in peace of mind.
I hope that the competitors pick up on this and 2-pin EKG / fall sensors / other-health-monitors become more and more standard across the board.
Someone actually made a video about why this happens. Found it while looking around after another 'aaaaiugh video cut out!' moment with tonight's landing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've used the Kardia since they first were available and I'm an afib patient. It has indeed been able to detect pre-afib conditions and confirm early afib when it occurs, which has gotten me to go into the ER far earlier than I would have if I was instead guessing 'do I just feel funky or is my heart being weird again'. Which means that I got electrocardioverted sooner, and as such have a much lower risk for stroke and other complications. I am incredibly grateful to be able to have this bit of tech on my person to use whenever I see fit.
I bought the gen-1 version of Kardia's little sensor because I thought it was a nifty gadget. Get an affordable 2-lead ECG to play with? Neat!
When I got it I started taking readings, and your first few 'get a review by a real cardiologist' instances were free. I got mine back with something worrying: sinus bradycardia; an unnaturally slow heartbeat. They recommended I go see a real cardiologist, so I did. After a number of tests they were sure something was wrong, but weren't sure what. I was therefore lucky enough to be under a cardiologist's care when I had my first major afib attack shortly thereafter while upgrading a router at work. This got me better-informed care quicker.
After the attack I had to wear one of those 24-hour monitors for three weeks, and it was seriously limiting. It's like wearing a walkman you can never take off with wires hooked up to stickypads on your chest. After all the monitoring and other tests it turns out I had a "multiple heartbeat source" genetic defect shared with the males in my family line, and it's the most likely cause of what ended up killing my granddad, great granddad, and has my father on a pacemaker these days.
Not long after that first attack I had a surgery called an ablation ( https://www.mayoclinic.org/tes... ) to try and repair it. In the three years since I've had four more instances of afib attacks that required electro-cardioversion, each one lesser in strength than the one before. These days my electrocardiologist says I'm past the worst of it and life should be getting better and better, and shouldn't require a 2nd ablation. The worst part, though, was having a mild panic attack at every single flutter or uneasy feeling in the chest; I never knew if it was just gas or if it was the start of another attack that'd get me zapped/burned in a hospital along with a 24 hour stay and a few thousand dollars (even after insurance coverage) of medical bills.
Since then I've carried the Kardia tool in my pocket. It has helped me identify when each of those four additional attacks were going on, getting me to get it dealt with earlier, and thus have less risk of stroke or other complications (every hour you spend in afib your risk of stroke or other permanent damage keeps going up). The kardia unit can be a pain in the ass, though; you have to clip it to the back of your phone, sit _very_ still, and take a 60 second reading. Often times the flutter that would cause me to take a measurement would pass before I'd even get the unit set up and started.
With the release of Apple Watch 3 and their latest software the built-in heart monitoring has been able to ping me when it sees something 'out of normal' before I even feel it, which I then follow up with a Kardia measurement to make sure, and it has given me much better peace of mind. But it still doesn't do as much as the Kardia system would.
As of this week I've gotten one of the new Kardia Band monitors, since they were finally approved by the FDA after a stupidly long wait. I've only had it for a few days but it's already proven to be a much better tool than the keep-in-pocket/hold-to-back-of-phone version. Any time my heart skips a little or feels odd it takes mere seconds to get a sample recording and predictive analysis to prove if something is going on or not, which serves to calm me down much quicker. I can indeed catch the odd rhythms before they fade, recording them for the cardiologist to look at without having to wear one of those terribly limiting 24-hr monitor systems. It makes me feel more in control of my condition.
Currently the Kardia band software is a little blunt; it has to abuse the Apple Watch's 'exercise mode' to be at its most predictive and accurate. Hopefully this will change with time and Apple will open up some API changes to let tools like the Kardia band work more transparently. Even so, I find it a liberating piece of technology; it lets me get out with friends and live a more active life without being as in-fear of my condition as I would be otherwise.
One thing you're missing: For any of those cars to make those 0-30 times as posted they will be making rather aggressive "why yes, Mr. Cop, I'm flooring it!" acceleration sounds. One must be a little judicious in deciding when and where to do those jackrabbit starts. With an EV you can accelerate like that every single time and Officer Friendly won't even bat an eyebrow (unless you're on wet or poor-traction surface and squeak your tires a bit during takeoff).
It's nice being able to use all the torque every time and enjoy how it feels without anybody having that "wow, what a jerk" reaction or worrying about aggressive driving tickets.
Here's the problem: the actual cost of the electricity to charge any one car is very minimal. I don't think any employee would mind in the least having to pay the whole whopping $0.35-to-$1.50 it'd cost to charge their car. Hell, carve a 100% profit off of it for the company, it's still not bad.
The problem is the cost to install the chargers in the first place is relatively high. If they're just wrapped into the cost of construction of the building and/or parking lot, it's not terrible -- so it makes a lot of sense to go ahead and do it while creating new facilities. But retrofitting it into an existing parking lot requires trenching, new electricity distribution and a lot of disruption. Either way -- do you pass that on to your employees? If so, how do you do it equitably? Howabout the rest of your facilities built out --- should employees also pay for the electric wiring to their desk where they plug in their laptop (they could have charged at home! What, it doesn't last all day? buy a real laptop you millenial!)? Howabout the circuit for the microwave where they heat their lunch? (just buy lunch at the nearby McD's, you hippie! Trying to look all 'green' by actually packing a lunch and then being such a hipster as to want it 'hot'...)
Some companies do have chargers with accounting systems on them (such as Chargepoint) and can indeed charge employees for the power they use. At that point it becomes a matter of it being a perk or not -- can having chargers attract better talent from a wider pool of applicants? -- and how equitable that kind of benefit is. That's worth arguing.
Just FYI: The cost difference between a Level III charger ("30 minute charging time" like you state) and a Level II charger (1 to 8 hours, depending on on-board charger type, battery size and charge level) is anywhere from 10:1 to as high as 40:1, especially when you take into account the much higher costs of the high-amperage/high-voltage electric circuits required for Level III charging.
On top of this, only a subset of EVs can use Level III chargers -- and of those, the standards differ. There are three primary ones: CHAdeMO (leaf, soul, others), SAE Combo (supposedly 'the standard' but barely in use) and Tesla's proprietary one.
My company makes do at a 2.5:1 ratio (cars:chargers) of Level II chargers, which is annoying but workable. If we could add one or two CHAdeMO Level III chargers, the largest segment of our users (Leaf and Soul drivers) could easily quick-charge and clear the spot, which would take a lot of the load off. But wow, the cost to get those suckers installed...
I work at a tech company campus in Palo Alto. I was the company's first EV driver, and at our first startup-warehouse office (before we had the campus) I jury-rigged a charger using two 110v circuits and a combiner (with HR and Facilities' permission). It was a hit, and the 2nd and 3rd EV owners and I traded off as needed.
When we moved into the campus, at my urging, they finally installed a bank of 12 chargers. It took us three years, but now we have about a 2.5:1 EVs:chargers ratio. We recognized early on that this would be a high-demand, limited resource, so we started an internal email list for sharing chargers. It doesn't help that the rest of the campus is about 110% full on parking, so giving up an EV spot means possibly having to park off-campus and walk a good distance, making people not want to give up their chargers unless they truly have to.
Luckily all these issues came up and were talked about company-wide on those EV lists, and we've been able to come up with some decently polite practices; no charger rage so far, though it is still high competition. A hierarchy was established to help solve disputes: charging preference goes to small-battery EVs (Leafs, Fiats, etc) first, then large-battery EV's (teslas), then plug-in hybrids (volts, prii, etc). Within those categories those who have an actual charge need vs. those who just want to top off covers most of the rest. Since the chargers have access cards even though they're free, a user risks losing their access card if they're a jerk about it. It's been decently accountable so far.
My only real complaint is that facilities cheaped out and went with chargers with simple yes/no card controls. I really wish they'd used Chargepoint or something similar where we get visibility into who is using which station when, and we can charge for time, power or per-use access if we need to start limiting use. That would also permit public use (for an appropriate fee) on the weekends and evenings when the chargers are empty, though that's not a big thing. (Like most tech campuses, it's stupidly empty all weekend and not near anything the public would want or need to park at.)
The earlier poster who mentioned a 2:1 sweet spot has it right, and we're past that We're still all polite and finding ways to get around resource contention, but it's more effort than it should be. Facilities knows this and wants to expand, but our overall parking lot has usage issues and losing more spaces to dedicated EV isn't an option right now. That's a bigger problem in general than parking stations that I really hope they solve.
FWIW, 90% of our EVs are of the small-battery-only type (leaf, fiat, focus, soul, etc). Most of our employees commute from somewhere on the peninsula which means they don't have to charge; it's more of a convenience than a need. But there's at least a dozen who commute from the far-south bay area or across the bridges that only squeak by without a midday charge, so it removes charge-anxiety. And for at least three of us, we often have to drive between the two main campus sites and the two datacenters around the bay and having midday charging means we can use an affordable EV (I'm no exec, I can't afford a Tesla!) to great effect. At this point I only have to drive the gas-burner on weekends, which has been a huge cost savings. Plus the use of the carpool lane to get through the gridlock of the south bay freeways is a great benefit... though within the last year or so the carpool lanes are just as crowded as the regular ones, at least during prime time.
I've got a drone video (shot at BurningMan before the anti-drone restrictions) that has over 700,000 views. Being it's from BurningMan I did not monetize it. However, I did patch in music I liked and "acknowledged third party content" once YouTube's systems identified it. The copyright owner on the music caused ads to appear. I don't see a cent of it, and the 'monetize' checkbox is turned off on that video.
Still, I gotta wonder if now I'm going to get an FAA letter too, as they'll see a high-viewer-count "drone video" with ads on it.
(edit: the link to the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... )
Racing bikes / drop bars are for the spandex clad assassins who'd view any EV assist modes as 'cheating' and the batteries/motor as unnecessary weight. Normal humans who happen to ride bicycles (instead of 'bicyclists') are quite happy with sit-up-comfortably-and-be-able-to-see postures. This is why the Electra Townies and their ilk are so popular with the casual bike commuter set. The SRS BZNS bike commuter types who want the monkey-humping-a-football position aren't the target market here.
I still don't understand why Hasbro didn't leap on the opportunity to use AC's version of "Hungry Hungry Hippos" for use in commercials... :)
NorCali -- SF Bay Area (starting from about Monterey/Salinas as its southern border), Humbolt, Lassen, all the way up to the OR border.
SoCali -- Coast south of Monterey all the way down to Mexico border, including all of the LA basin, San Diego and the Mojave area
Joquain -- The central valley from Redding to Bakersfield, and the Sierra Nevadas along the NV state line
Tech biz/hippies/redwoods, hollywood/flakes/deserts, then agriculture/rednecks/mountains. Each one would have its own special economy to live on and is a much better social/attitude split.
The three year lease on my Nissan Leaf is over in a few months. I absolutely adore the car. It's been the best commuter vehicle I've had in all ways but one -- range. This is the biggest complaint of all those I've shown it to, as well. Many of the co-workers and friends who have ridden in my car over the years want one! Then they hear what the range is like and they lose interest.
My daily round trip (+lunch) comes in at just under 50 miles. With the highway speeds in my area (75 and up) and putting slightly better tires on it instead of the no-traction-in-rain stocks that I went through all too quickly, my real-world run-until-empty range is about 65 miles (When new with the super-eco tires and driving 65 on the freeway, I could get closer to 80-85 miles of range). This means that by the time I get home I can go back out to shop and return, and that's about it. I cannot use the Leaf for longer weekend runs, road trips, or even for the once every three weeks that I have to commute from San Jose to San Fran (about 120mi round trip). Therefore I have to have a second gas-powered car.
Being that I work in Silicon Valley, owning one gas car and leasing an electric car alongside is feasible. With how much I save on gas the lease is nearly 75% covered anyway. With my office soon installing chargers at work my range will extend considerably. But for most of my friends having more than one car is out of the question, budgetary-wise, and the limitations of a car that can only go about 65 miles before it has to charge for 5 hours (my usual L2 charge is 4h:40m or so, overnight) are just too restrictive. With L3 chargers being few and far between, and often having a cost associated with their use, they don't help much. So, no EV for them.
When my lease is up I'll probably try to get a Toyota RAV-4 EV. It supposedly has a real-world range of over 110mi - nearly double my Leaf. It's more affordable than the Tesla models, and more important to me, I can fit in it (I'm very tall-torso and short-legged; I simply can't get in the sports-car-low roof line of the Model S, and no Model X's exist that they will let a consumer sit in to see if they fit!). I'm bummed that Nissan hasn't found a way to 2x the range of the Leaf, or I'd gladly stick with that model. The Tesla-drivetrain RAV4 is still more expensive than I like, but it'll fit my EV driving needs far better.
When battery technology increases enough that 150+mi range EVs are Leaf-level affordable _then_ you will see sales take off in the urban areas. Any advancements in fast-rate (L3 or better) charging will help that too. Until then, for all of their benefits and wonderfulness to drive, they'll remain a niche for packed-urban-area dwellers who can afford to have a second, dedicated commute car.
In the linked video he's flying a QAV400 -- a small quadrotor that uses anything from 7" to 11" props, in a hand-held sized frame. While the propellers can still cause lacerations, they're far smaller and lighter than a full RC helicopter (especially the kind mentioned that killed him). Landing a few feet from your face is still not wise, though.
There's definitely a question of scale to be considered in all this debate. Someone screwing up and dropping a lightweight A.R.Drone atop someone's head is a world of difference from that idiot covering the bull run with the monster octo-rotor dangling 20k of video equipment. I fly some of the ultralight models that can barely hoist up a tiny GoPro camera. While the prop tips can still cause some road rash they're not going to be lopping anybody's head off. Yet I'm sure I'm going to get regulated against / yelled at / sued etc just for owning it, thanks to the flying-lawnmower "look at how much money and power I can put in the air" mega-aerial-video types.
The RC community needs to work on smaller, lighter and safer models for purposes of filming. The flying dSLR cranes and high-power-acro-but-it-can-film-too models need to stop being near people.
I've had the Hue system in my bedroom for the last six months. Were they worth the price? Probably not, considering the starter pack price. Even so, I like them and I'm glad I bought them. Buying overpriced gadgets is a bad habit of mine anyways, so they weren't out of my norm.
The three bulbs are set up with one in the master bath overhead, one in a torchiere base by the bedside table, and the third in another torchiere on the far side of the room. The bulk of the lights in the master bath are on a separate switch (and are all LED, just single color white on/off instead of 'smart' bulbs). So when you're in there doing your morning thing and need lots of white light, flick a lightswitch for the regular bulbs.
As normal lights the Hue work just fine. The only annoyance is if you enter the room and don't want to have your phone out to switch things, you have to turn the main lightswitch in the room off then on again. This brings up the main bulb on that switch in a normal, soft-white mode, just like turning on a regular lamp. To toggle to a color-scene you have to pull out your phone, which isn't too much of a problem since like most modern geeks mine is always with me or nearby (usually on the nightstand charging), but is still slightly annoying. When they release the standalone controller they show in TFA's slideshow that will be a huge improvement.
The color scenes are surprisingly handy. I only have a few basic ones: Bright warm light for doing work at the desk (biased so the room light is brighter than the bedside), soft warm white for reading in bed (biased so the bedside light is brighter than the room), a blue/red/orange soft color combo for when I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed (very relaxing), a "aaugh, the pain, I'm up dammit" super-white (they call it 'energize' mode in the app) which turns on automatically in time with my workday morning alarm, and the "gotta pee" mode where only the master bathroom light turns on to gentle, kind-to-the-night-vision red. The rest of the modes are all the usual "ooo lookit I can make the whole room /blue/" type of goofing off which almost never get used.
I thought the novelty would wear off after a while, and it did... for the 'goofing off' modes. But after refining into the work/read/go-to-bed/get-up/night-pee modes (which took a month or so) I really don't want to do without them. They're something I'm used to and actually miss when staying away from home. Having a room only be 'very bright' or 'no light' isn't enough of a choice any more. Yeah, I'm spoiled. But isn't that what this kind of gadget is for?
For those who are very particular about how warm/cool your normal light should be, Philips chose a good color engine for that; you'll be happy. The downside is that it can't do true green. Outside of goofing off, though, it's not often I'd need a solid green lit room.
If they'd come down notably in price I'd install them all over the house. All my house interior lighting is LED already, but it'd be nice to have similar 'color dimming' abilities throughout the abode instead of just in my room. But at $50 a bulb? Naaaah, one room is enough.
Wish list: The aforementioned controller (in various tabletop and wall-switch-mount formats). Higher maximum brightness. Slightly more green hue -- just a little. Lower cost.
My datacenter uses Arista gear for top-of-rack and core switching. It's a large cloud-style environment with each rack acting as its own "pod" with self-contained services, so any one pod can be moved to any zone of any of our datacenters with minimal fuss.
Small services like NTP, in-pod DNS, sFlow relay, monitoring, puppet (some of it anyways) and small unixy management tools we just run in the Aristas themselves. They're Fedora-core linux based switches that will run those things happily and do a great job feeding those services to their pods.
As far as NTP, the core pair on the main backbone gets their own GPS inputs, then all the top-of-racks sync to the core pair. Works out quite nicely.
Don't forget: on the Leaf, not only does it have the 12v battery, but it has a small solar cell (on the SV model) located on the rear spoiler. So if even the 12v 'control' battery was dead, just leave it in the sun for a bit. Then it'd have enough juice to control the main charger and activate it once plugged in.
Downside to the SPOT solution: It only allows for 41 character on-the-fly tweets (you can do longer if they're pre-defined but those are much less useful). It also goes through their custom gateway and slaps extra formatting and geo-tagging to your tweet that you may not want. So while functional it's of less value than a native 140-character tweet-via-shortcode like TFA talks about. Globalstar (and their SPOT division) need to step up and provide the same functionality, IMHO.
If you want to get technical, the "American" system is called NAVSTAR GPS, which stands for NAVigation Signal Timing And Ranging Global Positioning System.
You can also build your own if you want. :) This got slashdotted last year. It's pretty much the same as a JunXion box but in a DIY format. This was also in Vol.03 of MAKE: magazine.
:)
--the guy who built the stompbox
I chose the 5220 for two reasons. (1) there's aa Verizon store down the street that had one in stock at the moment I chose to do this. Impulse buys rock.
:)
(2) It's macintosh compatible. I wanted a card that, if this project failed, I could simply put in my mac and have work.
If I did it again I'd use the new V620 card. Better internal antenna, slightly better power management, and it's controllable in the same way as the 5220 (will work with 5220 drivers in both the stompbox and on the mac with only a little tweaking).
Thanks for all the comments and email so far; I'm glad folks seem to like the project.
:)
While you're there, be sure to check out our other hardware hack from last year, stored on the same server: CLIVE. It's an Iridium Flare Tracker we built out of a Gameboy Advance and a DPSS laser.
I've moved all the images from both projects to the same high-bandwidth server so they shouldn't stall out any more. Being slashdotted is rather fun to watch.