Around here cars first go to a salvage yard where the employees strip the high value parts. The vehicles are then cleaned of fluids and toxic stuff and welded up on stands (typically old steel rims) and placed in the yard where customers can pull their own parts. After a certain amount of time (varies depending on the car) the vehicles are pulled from the yard and recycled for scrap.
Very little is wasted, and lots of businesses put a lot of effort into making the process as cost efficent as possible.
My story is similar. Thats why semi-restored classics are nice. They can look pretty good, be cheap and easy to repair, and people kinda-sorta admire it when you pull up in it.
Who'd drive a 2000 mustang when you can have a '67?
I dunno, there is a relatively small number of geeks designing these things, and a small number of manufacturers making them, why would they want to make it easier? If its standard, they don't get to make money reinventing it for every device.
You don't have to buy batteries often. 486 laptops are often NiMH batteries. Just crack open the battery case, toss out/recycle the old cells and replace them with new AA NiMH cells from walmart (which are higher capacity and half the price of what Radio Shack sells). The new NiMH batteries are better than the old stuff, so you can actually get about half again the runtime using off-the-shelf AA batteries (or you can get the original 4/3A from various battery suppliers on the 'net and easily double the runtime)
If you use the same number of cells you can use the original charger which is usually in the battery case. If you want more time you can just add more cells. Store them in one of the other drive bays if you like. NiMH chargers are cheap, so you can build a custom high-capacity UPS into the laptop pretty cheap if you like.
Although it would be nice [if hardware were designed to last much longer], I don't think it's practical/cost-efficient.
True, and its also less profitable for the hardware industry. Its in their interest to balance the shortest upgrade cycle with the consumers irritation at having to frequently buy new hardware.
I'm pretty cheap, In the late '80s I started with an 8088/Z80 (Epson QX-16) which was old at the time, then to a 486DX2/66, P166, P3/450, Duron 1.2Ghz. I expect to upgrade again sometime after we hit 5Ghz.
That does make me wonder if anyone has done a 'I've got a 500lb CO2 cylinder to waste' cooling system, where you simply put a funnel over the processor, connect the gas to the funnel output, and turn on the gas. Escaping carbon dioxide gas freezes the processor (and generates dry ice snow as a bonus visual effect) and keeps the system at about dry ice temperature.
Cox blocks all outgong and incoming connections on the standard SMTP port.
As a 'power user', I was a bit annoyed when I noticed this. Then I reconsidered, I'd rather be forced to my ISPs SMTP relay (which really isn't a big deal for non-business accounts) than have spammers free to send email.
Re:$1/hour
on
Paid To Spam
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What makes you think I'd actually report valid data?
Never trust a client computer, particularly if you are a spammer paying that client.
I'd be willing to report about 500 hours of work per day to as many spammers as I can scam.
I've seen information that rods are somewhat slower than cones, so that fast moving things in dim lighting can appear behind their actual position (I suspect that our brains make up the difference so we can still catch thrown balls, ect).
You notice it when there is a small bright light source on a moving object in a dim area. For instance, one of those bouncy balls with flashing LEDs embedded in them. If the ball is rolling across the floor, sometimes the flashes will appear to slightly preceed the ball.
I don't know why Java is so slow, but I wonder if it has something to do with memory requirements/managment?
All the Java apps I use that are not trivial tend to eat at least 100Mb of ram, and sometimes several hundred. They also tend to stomp all over my poor CPU, which, at 500-1000Mhz, really ought to be fast enough for most things (seriously, I'm not trying to crunch SETI data or crack an RC5 key here).
I attribute most Java slowness to poor programming techniques. Its got to be, since Java programmers are always telling me how fast the code really is; it must just be that most Java coders are so crappy that they drag that blazing fast JVM to its knees.
Could you adjust the shape of the orbit (which I presume takes less energy than getting into a lower orbit) such that at the lowest altitude (and highest speed) you are passing through atmosphere and loosing velocity?
It seems like you could choose the altitude (and therefore atmospheric density) so that you'd always be keeping the heat load down to a level that didn't require exotic materials or ablative sheilding.
Each pass through the atmosphere would make the apogee a bit lower until you had discarded all that extra velocity and were continiously in the atmosphere.
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I don't know anything about orbital mechanics or reentry, so I'll ask anyway.
Why does all the orbital speed have to be discarded so quickly? Could an orbiter reduce its altitude more slowly to reduce the amount of heat generated?
Obviously it would take longer and require more fuel, but could it be done this way?
Maybe they can sell the three extra seats on the two flights to the highest bidder. I dunno what it costs to launch that thing, but I'll bet they could easily cover the costs with a few rich passengers.
If I were a millionare I'd sure drop a few hundred thousand to be on that flight.
I used to live on Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. There is a radar installation of some sort on the base near the intersection of Valley High road (which leads onto the base) and Loop 410. Any time I was near this installation in the car I would hear a little buzz on the radio every 10 to 15 seconds, even when the radio was off.
Once time I was nowhere near the place and I started hearing that buzz. I was confused until I realized that somehow the little buzz sound had been written to the cassette tape I was listening to. My best guess is that I was listening to the tape in my portable player (with record heads) while in line of site of the radar thing (my home was several miles away, but in a line of sight, so I could get the buzz on the radio there).
Maybe he would have kept his side of the deal if you'd kept yours
Damn straight. Thats one of the things I don't like about my country. It seems that political problems in the country result in international screwups like that one. It must be annoying as all hell to be a long-term leader of a country having to deal with the FNG's running the USA every 4 or 8 years.
All you need is a package with the various Discovery, History, TLC and sports channels for $20 a month
Why should I have to buy packages?
I want CSPAN, Fox News, SciFi, plus whatever channels are running Star Trek, B5, Andromeda, Outer Limits and the like.
As a matter of fact, I don't care about channels at all, just send me the specific shows I select, plus other shows that are strongly corrilated to them based on other viewers habits.
Cut all the commercials and I'll subscribe to the show itself for a monthly fee, particularly if I can log in to the web site, identify myself as a paying customer and tell them what sucked and what was good about each episode.
Slashdot Mirror
Around here cars first go to a salvage yard where the employees strip the high value parts. The vehicles are then cleaned of fluids and toxic stuff and welded up on stands (typically old steel rims) and placed in the yard where customers can pull their own parts. After a certain amount of time (varies depending on the car) the vehicles are pulled from the yard and recycled for scrap.
Very little is wasted, and lots of businesses put a lot of effort into making the process as cost efficent as possible.
Bah, I just run my $15 halogens on 20VDC. Sure, they explode occasionally, but it only takes 2 minutes to swap in a new one.
My story is similar. Thats why semi-restored classics are nice. They can look pretty good, be cheap and easy to repair, and people kinda-sorta admire it when you pull up in it.
Who'd drive a 2000 mustang when you can have a '67?
Do you *really* think, in 5 years, you could conserve $15,000 worth of fuel
Depends on the price you put on the environment I guess.
I dunno, there is a relatively small number of geeks designing these things, and a small number of manufacturers making them, why would they want to make it easier? If its standard, they don't get to make money reinventing it for every device.
You don't have to buy batteries often. 486 laptops are often NiMH batteries. Just crack open the battery case, toss out/recycle the old cells and replace them with new AA NiMH cells from walmart (which are higher capacity and half the price of what Radio Shack sells). The new NiMH batteries are better than the old stuff, so you can actually get about half again the runtime using off-the-shelf AA batteries (or you can get the original 4/3A from various battery suppliers on the 'net and easily double the runtime)
If you use the same number of cells you can use the original charger which is usually in the battery case. If you want more time you can just add more cells. Store them in one of the other drive bays if you like. NiMH chargers are cheap, so you can build a custom high-capacity UPS into the laptop pretty cheap if you like.
Although it would be nice [if hardware were designed to last much longer], I don't think it's practical/cost-efficient.
True, and its also less profitable for the hardware industry. Its in their interest to balance the shortest upgrade cycle with the consumers irritation at having to frequently buy new hardware.
I'm pretty cheap, In the late '80s I started with an 8088/Z80 (Epson QX-16) which was old at the time, then to a 486DX2/66, P166, P3/450, Duron 1.2Ghz. I expect to upgrade again sometime after we hit 5Ghz.
4. Someone doesn't know how to measure actual power correctly.
5. Someone is deliberatly measuring actual power incorrectly so he can sell crappy motors for more than they are worth.
That does make me wonder if anyone has done a 'I've got a 500lb CO2 cylinder to waste' cooling system, where you simply put a funnel over the processor, connect the gas to the funnel output, and turn on the gas. Escaping carbon dioxide gas freezes the processor (and generates dry ice snow as a bonus visual effect) and keeps the system at about dry ice temperature.
OK, how about CoLinux?
:)
Well, ok, no, I wouldn't run it on my primary work machine either, but its still cool
Cox blocks all outgong and incoming connections on the standard SMTP port.
As a 'power user', I was a bit annoyed when I noticed this. Then I reconsidered, I'd rather be forced to my ISPs SMTP relay (which really isn't a big deal for non-business accounts) than have spammers free to send email.
What makes you think I'd actually report valid data?
Never trust a client computer, particularly if you are a spammer paying that client.
I'd be willing to report about 500 hours of work per day to as many spammers as I can scam.
I've seen information that rods are somewhat slower than cones, so that fast moving things in dim lighting can appear behind their actual position (I suspect that our brains make up the difference so we can still catch thrown balls, ect).
You notice it when there is a small bright light source on a moving object in a dim area. For instance, one of those bouncy balls with flashing LEDs embedded in them. If the ball is rolling across the floor, sometimes the flashes will appear to slightly preceed the ball.
I don't know why Java is so slow, but I wonder if it has something to do with memory requirements/managment?
All the Java apps I use that are not trivial tend to eat at least 100Mb of ram, and sometimes several hundred. They also tend to stomp all over my poor CPU, which, at 500-1000Mhz, really ought to be fast enough for most things (seriously, I'm not trying to crunch SETI data or crack an RC5 key here).
I attribute most Java slowness to poor programming techniques. Its got to be, since Java programmers are always telling me how fast the code really is; it must just be that most Java coders are so crappy that they drag that blazing fast JVM to its knees.
The recently broadcast Tesla program (on PBS I think) played the elephant electrocution clip.
Actually he's currently frozen in some kind of clear goop in an Ancients installation. Until next season anyway.
One of the best places to look for anything is at or near the bottom of a well
Ha! Unless its helium you're looking for!
Oh, wait..Crap!
That sudden on-off blinking is exactly why my homemade geek clock fades the blue LEDs on and off, instead of blinking them like the ThinkGeek clock.
Could you adjust the shape of the orbit (which I presume takes less energy than getting into a lower orbit) such that at the lowest altitude (and highest speed) you are passing through atmosphere and loosing velocity?
It seems like you could choose the altitude (and therefore atmospheric density) so that you'd always be keeping the heat load down to a level that didn't require exotic materials or ablative sheilding.
Each pass through the atmosphere would make the apogee a bit lower until you had discarded all that extra velocity and were continiously in the atmosphere.
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I don't know anything about orbital mechanics or reentry, so I'll ask anyway.
Why does all the orbital speed have to be discarded so quickly? Could an orbiter reduce its altitude more slowly to reduce the amount of heat generated?
Obviously it would take longer and require more fuel, but could it be done this way?
Maybe they can sell the three extra seats on the two flights to the highest bidder. I dunno what it costs to launch that thing, but I'll bet they could easily cover the costs with a few rich passengers.
If I were a millionare I'd sure drop a few hundred thousand to be on that flight.
I used to live on Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. There is a radar installation of some sort on the base near the intersection of Valley High road (which leads onto the base) and Loop 410. Any time I was near this installation in the car I would hear a little buzz on the radio every 10 to 15 seconds, even when the radio was off.
Once time I was nowhere near the place and I started hearing that buzz. I was confused until I realized that somehow the little buzz sound had been written to the cassette tape I was listening to. My best guess is that I was listening to the tape in my portable player (with record heads) while in line of site of the radar thing (my home was several miles away, but in a line of sight, so I could get the buzz on the radio there).
Maybe he would have kept his side of the deal if you'd kept yours
Damn straight. Thats one of the things I don't like about my country. It seems that political problems in the country result in international screwups like that one. It must be annoying as all hell to be a long-term leader of a country having to deal with the FNG's running the USA every 4 or 8 years.
All you need is a package with the various Discovery, History, TLC and sports channels for $20 a month
Why should I have to buy packages?
I want CSPAN, Fox News, SciFi, plus whatever channels are running Star Trek, B5, Andromeda, Outer Limits and the like.
As a matter of fact, I don't care about channels at all, just send me the specific shows I select, plus other shows that are strongly corrilated to them based on other viewers habits.
Cut all the commercials and I'll subscribe to the show itself for a monthly fee, particularly if I can log in to the web site, identify myself as a paying customer and tell them what sucked and what was good about each episode.
All she wants is grandchildren, Timothy. When are you going to deliver on that?
Uh, dude? Maybe one of us needs to go back to biology, but I don't think Timothy's the one does the deliver.