And not one major car manufacturer had announced any plans to sell a pure electric until years after Tesla started selling their cars. As far as I can tell, Tesla singlehandedly created the (still small) market for pure electrics, and met their goal.
Give them some fucking credit.
-Taylor
You know, I've read all the stuff about Musk's financial trouble, Tesla being behind schedule, prices still out of range in the near future, but I had never really given thought to the fact that Tesla was the brand that put the "cool" back in electric cars. You're probably right that we wouldn't be seeing the Nissan Leaf, Coda, Focus EV, etc., today if it weren't for them.
That said, it's still going to be a while before they turn into a money machine. They have a lot of competition in a fledgling market where it is easy to make a mistake and fall behind. I do hope they become one of many successful EV makers.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has said he'd like to retire on mars. That's likely a little far-fetched, but he's more likely to make that happen than NASA. (well, technically his fortune is pretty small in comparison to some other people, but lets say Tesla does really well...)
-Taylor
Actually, Tesla is a money sink, and always will be. Its goal was never to cater to anything other than Musk's tiny/imaginary market for luxury electric cars with average performance (for electrics). SpaceX, on the other hand, is turning into a cash cow, tapping into the robust competitive market for small- and medium-sized commercial satellite launches. They already have contracts for 30+ launches with a dozen companies and governments (NASA is the biggest buyer of course), and so far their rockets have been extraordinarily successful. If anything finances Musk's Mars base, it will be SpaceX.
The one time this joke is actually more insightful than funny, it gets modded funny. Really, this goes both ways--if you are confused between reality and fiction then you need religion to tell you which is which. Only problem is religion sometimes gets it wrong, which is where it causes more confusion.
to see a conversation involving cars where no one says BREAKS when they mean BRAKES! BRAKES are what slow the car. BREAKS means it's time to get it fixed. And for the guy who used both in his post - I'm in awe...
to see a conversation involving gods where no one says DIETY when they mean DEITY! DEITY is what you pray to. DIETY means it's time to get off the cheeseburgers. And for the guy who made a spelling error in his grammar nazi post - I'm in awe...
They could just as well send it plunging to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. It actually takes more energy to send it on a safe Earth-bound trajectory, and a lot more to send it on a sun-bound trajectory, than it does to move to a graveyard orbit higher up. That way they can keep running the satellite until it's fuel tank is closer to empty.
Aren't the aircraft broadcasting their positions so other planes can avoid them? I don't think we want every single plane operating in stealth mode, just look how well that works with submarines. If there is "increased risk" of being targeted by missiles, then so be it, you're way more likely to run into another plane than get targeted by a missile. And if you're in enemy airspace you should already have that shit turned off.
Hey, that's a great idea! We Americans are the innovators again! We are sequestering carbon in the human population at even greater rates! Obesity will save the world!
Why are you getting so worked up over a bill that actually has a purpose (however dubious), has few negative consequences for the average citizen, and actually got passed? You should be more pissed about all the time they waste passing "we acknowledge the tenth anniversary of national book month" resolutions, doing personal campaign fundraising crap, and arguing over whose fault it is that they don't get anything done.
Have you heard mainstream radio commercials? There's a big difference between a 15-second slogan/inspirational piece played every hour, and a 30-second clip of dumb radio acting played every 5 minutes. That's why I listen to NPR--their "sponsor messages" aren't meant to convince you to buy anything, just to show that "company X is great because we support NPR." I find that a lot less offensive.
I can't imagine turbine->electric->battery->motors is an efficient drive train.
You may be surprised, but electric transmissions are significantly more efficient than mechanical transmissions. You have to account for the torque-speed-efficiency curve of the gas engine--even if your peak efficiency is 30%, you will be operating at less than that a significant amount of the time. In the gas-electric configuration, however, the gas engine can run at full revs and peak efficiency the whole time, no matter what speed or torque output is needed. Large electric generators and motors can have >80% efficiency under a variety of conditions, and don't have frictional losses in gearboxes and extra bearings, so you lose relatively little power in the electric transmission. Railroad locomotives have been doing this for nearly a hundred years, but only recently have electric motors and generators become small enough to fit in automobiles. With the battery added in, you can even save the excess power it generates, and turn the gas engine off at times to save fuel.
Well, I'd say Congress and presidents have *caused* it completely. The NASA administration have, at most, been the enablers, and as members of the executive branch that is their job. If Congress gave them a 10-year mandate and matching budget guarantee, the NASA we know could totally run with it and get something done (maybe after a few small management changes). But it is Congress that under-funds projects, causing them to under-perform and get canceled, and it is Congress that changes the mandate every fucking year to the latest and greatest political nonsense, causing last year's projects to get canceled, too. So please don't blame the organization for trying to follow the orders of their schizophrenic bosses.
Reminds me of Spaced Invaders...aliens landing on Halloween were not taken seriously by anyone, but luckily they weren't a threat anyways. Might not be true if someone launched a full-scale cyber attack at the same time as this exercise.
Congratulations, you are immune to malicious links sent to you in email. What about the other millions of links presented to you on web pages? Besides, it's not links that I use NoScript against. It's tracking scripts, pop-up ads, flash junk, and the occasional -- yes -- honest mistake while trying to find something new and interesting. There is an awful lot more to the Internet than just email, and it tends not to be as squeaky-clean as some people make it out to be.
Last winter I bought like 20 different bulbs, and found maybe four that were worth the money--the CREE ones really are the only "great" option out now, everything else is mediocre as you have found.
The tubes are great--they really do put out as much light as a 32-watt fluorescent, and I usually put them in pairs of cool/warm white which produced a better color than the fluorescents they replace. I put four in a ceiling fixture in my mom's project area and she never noticed anything had changed. I have a pair in a shop light over my desk, too, and the only difference is the light is a little more focused and doesn't spread around the room as much.
Note: the ones I use are "no-ballast" types--you have to rewire the fixture to provide 120V straight to the tube instead of through the ballast electronics. There are some models that use the high voltage from the ballast but they are less efficient. Also, ALWAYS TURN OFF THE POWER before changing a 120V tube--I made sparks once since the pins can easily short hot to the fixture casing during removal.
Yes! CFLs suck! Which is why we should all be transitioning to LED lighting. There are finally some high-quality solutions on the market, which despite their high pricetags will save 2-3x the purchase price in energy over their 10-year life. I now have five of the CREE LR6 recessed fixtures in my house and they are incredible--bright light, very nice color (with active color adjustment, no less), instant-on, and 10-20 year life. And they only use about 7 watts to match a 60-watt incandescent.
I also have eight LED replacement tubes from a random place in China. I know they seem kinda sketchy, but their tubes are the best quality I've found anywhere and they do actually ship pretty quickly.
CREE has a whitepaper detailing how LEDs are so much better than CFLs, both in quality and environmental impact. I hope they catch on and people stop equating energy-saving with crappy CFLs.
You know, it just occurred to me: Unions are able to organize across an entire industry, but how frequently do employers bargain collectively with the unions? If not, then the unions are MORE powerful than their employers, and we're left with an anti-employer power balance. Unions exploiting employers is almost as counterproductive as employers exploiting workers. Once they dealt with the unsafe working conditions and unreasonably low wages they kept on fighting and got unreasonably high pensions, etc. That's the problem most people have with unions, not their fundamental purpose. What say you?
A regular drive, a large styled one, or one of those micro card-size ones? Would make for interesting office conversation with it hanging round your neck, anyway. Dunno what you'd fill 16gigs with though.:P
Reception on AM broadcast frequencies is easy, but transmission is much more difficult. Efficient transmission on 520-1610 kHz (570 to 186 meter wavelengths) normally requires a very large antenna. Short of a very advanced technology, it would be totally impractical for a normal user to transmit back to the AM tower on those frequencies. Additionally, because it is so long range, there would be a lot of interference between other stations, even if they were miles apart. Finally, even if it were used for general data, using low-frequency radio waves severely limits your data rate. Amateur radio operators have experience with this type of communication, and have developed many data protocols for it, but they generally cannot transmit more than hundreds of bytes per second and require very large antenna setups and comparatively large output powers for any meaningful distance propagation (in the tens or hundreds of watts).
Slashdot Mirror
And not one major car manufacturer had announced any plans to sell a pure electric until years after Tesla started selling their cars. As far as I can tell, Tesla singlehandedly created the (still small) market for pure electrics, and met their goal.
Give them some fucking credit. -Taylor
You know, I've read all the stuff about Musk's financial trouble, Tesla being behind schedule, prices still out of range in the near future, but I had never really given thought to the fact that Tesla was the brand that put the "cool" back in electric cars. You're probably right that we wouldn't be seeing the Nissan Leaf, Coda, Focus EV, etc., today if it weren't for them.
That said, it's still going to be a while before they turn into a money machine. They have a lot of competition in a fledgling market where it is easy to make a mistake and fall behind. I do hope they become one of many successful EV makers.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has said he'd like to retire on mars. That's likely a little far-fetched, but he's more likely to make that happen than NASA. (well, technically his fortune is pretty small in comparison to some other people, but lets say Tesla does really well...) -Taylor
Actually, Tesla is a money sink, and always will be. Its goal was never to cater to anything other than Musk's tiny/imaginary market for luxury electric cars with average performance (for electrics). SpaceX, on the other hand, is turning into a cash cow, tapping into the robust competitive market for small- and medium-sized commercial satellite launches. They already have contracts for 30+ launches with a dozen companies and governments (NASA is the biggest buyer of course), and so far their rockets have been extraordinarily successful. If anything finances Musk's Mars base, it will be SpaceX.
The one time this joke is actually more insightful than funny, it gets modded funny. Really, this goes both ways--if you are confused between reality and fiction then you need religion to tell you which is which. Only problem is religion sometimes gets it wrong, which is where it causes more confusion.
Sure. It transmits power, doesn't it? "Transmission" doesn't mean variable-ratio power transfer box, just power transfer box.
to see a conversation involving cars where no one says BREAKS when they mean BRAKES! BRAKES are what slow the car. BREAKS means it's time to get it fixed. And for the guy who used both in his post - I'm in awe...
to see a conversation involving gods where no one says DIETY when they mean DEITY! DEITY is what you pray to. DIETY means it's time to get off the cheeseburgers. And for the guy who made a spelling error in his grammar nazi post - I'm in awe...
They could just as well send it plunging to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. It actually takes more energy to send it on a safe Earth-bound trajectory, and a lot more to send it on a sun-bound trajectory, than it does to move to a graveyard orbit higher up. That way they can keep running the satellite until it's fuel tank is closer to empty.
"We have too many people over by the bomb-making tent. Looks like we'll have to diffuse the situation."
Wait a second, that's a pun *and* a bomb joke. Don't you go being too clever on us, y'hear?
Aren't the aircraft broadcasting their positions so other planes can avoid them? I don't think we want every single plane operating in stealth mode, just look how well that works with submarines. If there is "increased risk" of being targeted by missiles, then so be it, you're way more likely to run into another plane than get targeted by a missile. And if you're in enemy airspace you should already have that shit turned off.
Hey, that's a great idea! We Americans are the innovators again! We are sequestering carbon in the human population at even greater rates! Obesity will save the world!
Why are you getting so worked up over a bill that actually has a purpose (however dubious), has few negative consequences for the average citizen, and actually got passed? You should be more pissed about all the time they waste passing "we acknowledge the tenth anniversary of national book month" resolutions, doing personal campaign fundraising crap, and arguing over whose fault it is that they don't get anything done.
Have you heard mainstream radio commercials? There's a big difference between a 15-second slogan/inspirational piece played every hour, and a 30-second clip of dumb radio acting played every 5 minutes. That's why I listen to NPR--their "sponsor messages" aren't meant to convince you to buy anything, just to show that "company X is great because we support NPR." I find that a lot less offensive.
I can't imagine turbine->electric->battery->motors is an efficient drive train.
You may be surprised, but electric transmissions are significantly more efficient than mechanical transmissions. You have to account for the torque-speed-efficiency curve of the gas engine--even if your peak efficiency is 30%, you will be operating at less than that a significant amount of the time. In the gas-electric configuration, however, the gas engine can run at full revs and peak efficiency the whole time, no matter what speed or torque output is needed. Large electric generators and motors can have >80% efficiency under a variety of conditions, and don't have frictional losses in gearboxes and extra bearings, so you lose relatively little power in the electric transmission. Railroad locomotives have been doing this for nearly a hundred years, but only recently have electric motors and generators become small enough to fit in automobiles. With the battery added in, you can even save the excess power it generates, and turn the gas engine off at times to save fuel.
Well, I'd say Congress and presidents have *caused* it completely. The NASA administration have, at most, been the enablers, and as members of the executive branch that is their job. If Congress gave them a 10-year mandate and matching budget guarantee, the NASA we know could totally run with it and get something done (maybe after a few small management changes). But it is Congress that under-funds projects, causing them to under-perform and get canceled, and it is Congress that changes the mandate every fucking year to the latest and greatest political nonsense, causing last year's projects to get canceled, too. So please don't blame the organization for trying to follow the orders of their schizophrenic bosses.
Reminds me of Spaced Invaders...aliens landing on Halloween were not taken seriously by anyone, but luckily they weren't a threat anyways. Might not be true if someone launched a full-scale cyber attack at the same time as this exercise.
Wasn't there a teeny horror flick made in the eighties about the dangers of this already.
I wonder what percentage of slashdot articles would this be an appropriate response for? 10%? 20%?
Congratulations, you are immune to malicious links sent to you in email. What about the other millions of links presented to you on web pages? Besides, it's not links that I use NoScript against. It's tracking scripts, pop-up ads, flash junk, and the occasional -- yes -- honest mistake while trying to find something new and interesting. There is an awful lot more to the Internet than just email, and it tends not to be as squeaky-clean as some people make it out to be.
NoScript FTW. Seriously.
ALWAYS TURN OFF THE POWER before changing a 120V tube--I made sparks once since the pins can easily short hot to the fixture casing during removal.
I meant always turn off the SWITCH. You don't need to turn off the circuit breaker every time, although you won't be changing these, well, ever.
Last winter I bought like 20 different bulbs, and found maybe four that were worth the money--the CREE ones really are the only "great" option out now, everything else is mediocre as you have found.
The tubes are great--they really do put out as much light as a 32-watt fluorescent, and I usually put them in pairs of cool/warm white which produced a better color than the fluorescents they replace. I put four in a ceiling fixture in my mom's project area and she never noticed anything had changed. I have a pair in a shop light over my desk, too, and the only difference is the light is a little more focused and doesn't spread around the room as much.
Note: the ones I use are "no-ballast" types--you have to rewire the fixture to provide 120V straight to the tube instead of through the ballast electronics. There are some models that use the high voltage from the ballast but they are less efficient. Also, ALWAYS TURN OFF THE POWER before changing a 120V tube--I made sparks once since the pins can easily short hot to the fixture casing during removal.
Yes! CFLs suck! Which is why we should all be transitioning to LED lighting. There are finally some high-quality solutions on the market, which despite their high pricetags will save 2-3x the purchase price in energy over their 10-year life. I now have five of the CREE LR6 recessed fixtures in my house and they are incredible--bright light, very nice color (with active color adjustment, no less), instant-on, and 10-20 year life. And they only use about 7 watts to match a 60-watt incandescent.
I also have eight LED replacement tubes from a random place in China. I know they seem kinda sketchy, but their tubes are the best quality I've found anywhere and they do actually ship pretty quickly.
CREE has a whitepaper detailing how LEDs are so much better than CFLs, both in quality and environmental impact. I hope they catch on and people stop equating energy-saving with crappy CFLs.
You know, it just occurred to me: Unions are able to organize across an entire industry, but how frequently do employers bargain collectively with the unions? If not, then the unions are MORE powerful than their employers, and we're left with an anti-employer power balance. Unions exploiting employers is almost as counterproductive as employers exploiting workers. Once they dealt with the unsafe working conditions and unreasonably low wages they kept on fighting and got unreasonably high pensions, etc. That's the problem most people have with unions, not their fundamental purpose. What say you?
A regular drive, a large styled one, or one of those micro card-size ones? Would make for interesting office conversation with it hanging round your neck, anyway. Dunno what you'd fill 16gigs with though. :P
I don't even need a post-it note.
Reception on AM broadcast frequencies is easy, but transmission is much more difficult. Efficient transmission on 520-1610 kHz (570 to 186 meter wavelengths) normally requires a very large antenna. Short of a very advanced technology, it would be totally impractical for a normal user to transmit back to the AM tower on those frequencies. Additionally, because it is so long range, there would be a lot of interference between other stations, even if they were miles apart. Finally, even if it were used for general data, using low-frequency radio waves severely limits your data rate. Amateur radio operators have experience with this type of communication, and have developed many data protocols for it, but they generally cannot transmit more than hundreds of bytes per second and require very large antenna setups and comparatively large output powers for any meaningful distance propagation (in the tens or hundreds of watts).
Make like a tree and gimme 3G!