True, but this is temporary growth - from the "green revolution" or whatever they call it, in regards to increased food production via mechanisation (oil) and chemical fertilizer. (oil)
Likewise improved medicine has helped on the disease front, but it costs a lot money. When food prices rise, even more people will be unable to afford it than currently, not to mention growing resistant strains of bacteria, the never ending evolution of virii... Hell, maybe we'll see wars for vaccines or antivirals in the future.
So unless we come up with a massive source of energy, there's going to be a brick wall sooner or later... and my guess is far before a hundred billion.
Yep. The first one that comes to mind is claritin.
From what I remember, claritin is a... prodrug? - it metabolises to something else in vivo. So when they patent expired, they started marketing the metabolite instead, which they got a new patent on.
I've heard of other cases where drugs, previously a mix of L and R isomers became generic, so they launched a new drug with just one of the isomers.
Kind of nauseating, really.
Loratadine was eventually approved by the FDA in 1993.[2] It accounted for 28% of Schering's total sales[citation needed]. The drug continued to be available only by prescription in the U.S. until it went off patent in 2002.[citation needed] It was then immediately approved for over-the-counter sales. Once it became an unpatented over-the-counter drug, the price dropped precipitously, and insurance companies no longer paid for it. In response, Schering launched an expensive advertising campaign to convince users to switch to desloratadine (descarboethoxyloratadine, trade name Clarinex), which is the active metabolite of loratadine. A 2003 study comparing the two drugs found that "There is no clinical advantage to switching a patient from loratadine to desloratadine.
Rodents provide delicious meals for most small carnivores, raptors, etc. They turn shitty vegetation into delicious meat.
Brown rats get a bad rap, but they're pretty interesting critters. They seem smarter than some breeds of dog, ime. Not to mention their huge contribution to medicine (although that is more mice than rats).
I presume sharks are like most predators, control population, cull the weak, etc.
1) You centralize your rectification. Instead of having hundreds of power supplies running at 80% efficiency, you can have a large rectifier system running at up to 96%.
However each workstation still has a PSU in it. instead of converting from 120V AC to 12/5/3.3V, it now converts from 48V to 12/5/3.3V. And still suffers losses - you have to add these to your figure.
Also, 48V needs heavier wire to pass the same amount of power. Copper is bloody expensive these days.
Linear regulators are horribly inefficient. If you're drawing more than a 100mA at that much drop, it will need a heatsink - otherwise it will overheat and go into thermal shutdown.
Switch mode is what you are looking for, though. Plenty efficient, however more complicated than a linear reg.
They are used on DC all the time, the input rectifier/doubler is dropped, but everything else is the same.
They often go by the name DC-DC converter, though. So really, a computer SMPS is a DC-DC SMPS, with a rectifier on the front to make the DC.
The closest thing to a SMPS that actually runs on AC is the thyristor fired rigs, can't recall how you call that topology now. Technology is very similar to that of a light dimmer, it fires on part of the wave and passes current for that portion of the wave... but then it's rectified anyway, for use in the device. (note, these are awful for power factor).
I really wish there was something in this price range that uses a SAM9 instead of 7, that would be great. ie:
ARM9 (So you can run Linux, or bare metal) Atmel (so datasheets are freely available), Philips would be alright too, I don't have much experience with other ARM manufacturers but I'm sure there are others that don't require NDAs and all that. (I think TI and freescale are decent about this too, probably others). I couldn't care less about arduino shield compatibility, but it's probably worthwhile to get noob critical mass, if you want that... it should help with the price point I suppose.
Actually I sort of lied. There is this board, but I haven't seen any reviews, and they don't have online ordering, it seems... Calling in with CC info is pretty archaic, but I might just bring myself to do it. Not exactly what I'm looking for, but the closest I've seen so far. Wish it had a bit more IO, though, and CPU/RAM more in line with the pi. Lack of ethernet is probably a deal breaker for a lot of applications I had in mind.:/
So - say 128MB RAM, 400MHz+ CPU ideally, IO capability on the order of an arduino mega or so, say 64 bits, some of which can be purposed as 2+ UARTs, 2ch SPI, and I2c, one or two ethernet ports. Open information (datasheet without NDA), and cheap. I'd use that bastard everywhere... I'm probably getting a little greedy, though. I'd think the $30 range is feasible with a large enough run... I basically want a wireless router with a little more RAM, more IO, and documentation, wifi optional - Of course that's a mass market item though, so prices won't be as low. You'd think chopping off wifi, the switch, the case, marketing and warranty should bring things closer in line.
I'm not aware of any protection on AVRs, other than clamp diodes maybe? Which is pretty standard, I presume this thing will have them too. Only difference is ARM is usually 3V3 IO, and has a bunch of options (ie whether open drain or not, selectable slew rates) that normal 8bit AVRs lack. I haven't managed to kill either, but I do have more experience with AVR, and it seems fairly robust...doesn't mean that this chip isn't, though.
MMIO is pretty easy, even from userland (via/dev/mem), if you want to flip more than one bit at once, and have some speed at it.
Although we can't really comment on what features the GPIO has or doesn't have without a datasheet, and don't hold your breath for that.
You mean rogers, bell, or telus. The others are virtual networks and are at the mercy of the carriers they ride on, not real competition.
If you want to use a GSM phone that doesn't support our 3G freqs, (or prior to a year? or so ago when the others added 3G GSM support), you have/had one choice. rogers. Pretty pathetic. Letting them buy fido was mindnumbingly stupid.
They should can the whole ownership laws and let some real competition come in, though.
Moreover, the fact that $70 is a "good deal" to you shows how ridiculous things are here. Not to mention paying to receive calls, or even fucking SMS, on some carriers/plans. Ludicrous.
Rogers shows the 32G 4S as $269 on a 3 year (vs. $749 outright). So they subsidize you to the tune of $13/mo, and rope you into a $70 contract... Who is really winning here?
Some of the things carriers get away with here is insane too. I used to have a contract with fido. By default, it showed no number when receiving calls. I asked for them to show the number. Sorry, that option isn't available, however, you can pay $7 for name display. Seven dollars? On a $25 plan? Oh, but for a measly $10, I can get that AND the voicemail I don't want (It's a better deal!!). fuck off, give me the feature that should be free, or 25 cents if you want a billion percent profit. They shouldn't be able to extort $7 for the feature of being able to call people back.
Harris and Siemens made them too, and several Japanese manufacturers. I don't remember the timeline though, I'm certain some of them didn't start production until the 8088 was no longer bleeding edge tech... I seem to think IBM had rights to make them as well, but don't recall if they ever did. I don't think so, though.
On a side note Intersil (a portion of Harris' semiconductor business, before) still makes 8088, 8086... (hell, they even make RCA 1802) to this day. Seems this is mostly aimed at military and aerospace though, things that move slowly.
Esso, here at least (guess that is exxon in the US). They used to give out plush tiger tails you could put around your gas cap... so there was a tiger tail hanging out of the car.
I remember seeing them on occasion not that long ago, but I'm getting bad with time references lately.
Why you would want a tiger tail coming out of your car is another story. I'd want a pretty good discount on gas for that.
Revolutions aren't without their bumps, but you may note that the people of France and Russia are no longer under the thumb of the king/tsar. Of course things could have been done better... but it's still superior.
I guess the US should have just sucked it up and pleaded with britain, instead of having their revolution, huh? Everyone should still be under kings?
I had a lot of hope for this, and was willing to accept a binary blob on the GPU, for the price. Don't think I'll need video anyway.
But having to load a binary blob on the GPU in order to load a (bootloader | kernel)? Yuck. I guess that's better than the driver though, in a way, as it shouldn't be kernel dependent, like a closed BIOS on a motherboard... So you don't have to worry about not being able to run the board with linux-5.8 as that is neither here nor there. (at least, this [booting] portion. You'll still have binary blob video driver hell).
Would the incumbents let iPhones roam on their networks or would they try to freeze-out the interloper?
I doubt the phones would even have been capable of roaming on other networks, had they been designed for this chunk of spectrum. Certainly it would be possible to support both, but at more cost, more size, and more power consumption.
This. I really wish they would split it up... one company is responsible for the last mile, and that's all they do. Just the physical medium. It can be municipally owned, whatever.
Then let whoever wants in hook up at the central office. That way we'd get some real competition, which just isn't happening here. Too much conflict of interest when the line owners are also the service providers.
I work in the industry and we've had similar problems, even from big name, american outfits. I put the blame on the distributors for that, though. Not sure if it is entirely well founded... as they often have stuff produced in plenty of places, might be difficult to track, with just lot sample testing. I can't see an excuse on military stuff though...
Wouldn't US gov contracts be big enough to cut distributors and go straight to the source? Whatever happened to military grade, every component tested in america, at least, if not made here? They sure fucking pay for the best...
Hell, for the money they spend they should be able to set up a DoD fab in texas and come out ahead.
This, I'm from western Canada and am seriously thinking about moving to Quebec. Better weather, cheaper real-estate, cuter girls, better food, nicer architecture.
Of course, I'd have to learn better language than my current cereal-box grade french.
Quite a few folks here have a fairly strong dislike for quebec... They have probably never been there, though, so it's hardly an informed decision.
Slashdot Mirror
True, but this is temporary growth - from the "green revolution" or whatever they call it, in regards to increased food production via mechanisation (oil) and chemical fertilizer. (oil)
Likewise improved medicine has helped on the disease front, but it costs a lot money. When food prices rise, even more people will be unable to afford it than currently, not to mention growing resistant strains of bacteria, the never ending evolution of virii... Hell, maybe we'll see wars for vaccines or antivirals in the future.
So unless we come up with a massive source of energy, there's going to be a brick wall sooner or later... and my guess is far before a hundred billion.
Sorry for self reply,
My recollection of chemistry is rather shit, so i bungled that. enantiomer. that's the word.
I'll let wiki tell about the isomer differentiated drugs, there are some specific examples there too.
"Enantiopure_drug"
Yep. The first one that comes to mind is claritin.
From what I remember, claritin is a... prodrug? - it metabolises to something else in vivo. So when they patent expired, they started marketing the metabolite instead, which they got a new patent on.
I've heard of other cases where drugs, previously a mix of L and R isomers became generic, so they launched a new drug with just one of the isomers.
Kind of nauseating, really.
Loratadine was eventually approved by the FDA in 1993.[2] It accounted for 28% of Schering's total sales[citation needed]. The drug continued to be available only by prescription in the U.S. until it went off patent in 2002.[citation needed] It was then immediately approved for over-the-counter sales. Once it became an unpatented over-the-counter drug, the price dropped precipitously, and insurance companies no longer paid for it. In response, Schering launched an expensive advertising campaign to convince users to switch to desloratadine (descarboethoxyloratadine, trade name Clarinex), which is the active metabolite of loratadine. A 2003 study comparing the two drugs found that "There is no clinical advantage to switching a patient from loratadine to desloratadine.
Rodents provide delicious meals for most small carnivores, raptors, etc. They turn shitty vegetation into delicious meat.
Brown rats get a bad rap, but they're pretty interesting critters. They seem smarter than some breeds of dog, ime. Not to mention their huge contribution to medicine (although that is more mice than rats).
I presume sharks are like most predators, control population, cull the weak, etc.
We'll never reach 100B. Famine and disease are pretty effective, and when they aren't, war definitely is.
And we all know how much humans love war, especially when there is already instability brought on by say... famine.
1) You centralize your rectification. Instead of having hundreds of power supplies running at 80% efficiency, you can have a large rectifier system running at up to 96%.
However each workstation still has a PSU in it. instead of converting from 120V AC to 12/5/3.3V, it now converts from 48V to 12/5/3.3V. And still suffers losses - you have to add these to your figure.
Also, 48V needs heavier wire to pass the same amount of power. Copper is bloody expensive these days.
Linear regulators are horribly inefficient. If you're drawing more than a 100mA at that much drop, it will need a heatsink - otherwise it will overheat and go into thermal shutdown.
Switch mode is what you are looking for, though. Plenty efficient, however more complicated than a linear reg.
They are used on DC all the time, the input rectifier/doubler is dropped, but everything else is the same.
They often go by the name DC-DC converter, though. So really, a computer SMPS is a DC-DC SMPS, with a rectifier on the front to make the DC.
The closest thing to a SMPS that actually runs on AC is the thyristor fired rigs, can't recall how you call that topology now. Technology is very similar to that of a light dimmer, it fires on part of the wave and passes current for that portion of the wave... but then it's rectified anyway, for use in the device. (note, these are awful for power factor).
On one hand you've got images of the stasi shredding everything at headquarters as fast as they can... On the other, they never got hacked.
I feel I should elaborate but I can't put it in words right now, so hopefully you get my drift.
GP is obviously referring to his excessively tight hipster jeans.
I really wish there was something in this price range that uses a SAM9 instead of 7, that would be great. ie:
ARM9 (So you can run Linux, or bare metal)
Atmel (so datasheets are freely available), Philips would be alright too, I don't have much experience with other ARM manufacturers but I'm sure there are others that don't require NDAs and all that. (I think TI and freescale are decent about this too, probably others).
I couldn't care less about arduino shield compatibility, but it's probably worthwhile to get noob critical mass, if you want that... it should help with the price point I suppose.
Actually I sort of lied. There is this board, but I haven't seen any reviews, and they don't have online ordering, it seems... Calling in with CC info is pretty archaic, but I might just bring myself to do it. :/
Not exactly what I'm looking for, but the closest I've seen so far. Wish it had a bit more IO, though, and CPU/RAM more in line with the pi. Lack of ethernet is probably a deal breaker for a lot of applications I had in mind.
So - say 128MB RAM, 400MHz+ CPU ideally, IO capability on the order of an arduino mega or so, say 64 bits, some of which can be purposed as 2+ UARTs, 2ch SPI, and I2c, one or two ethernet ports. Open information (datasheet without NDA), and cheap.
I'd use that bastard everywhere... I'm probably getting a little greedy, though. I'd think the $30 range is feasible with a large enough run... I basically want a wireless router with a little more RAM, more IO, and documentation, wifi optional - Of course that's a mass market item though, so prices won't be as low. You'd think chopping off wifi, the switch, the case, marketing and warranty should bring things closer in line.
I'm not aware of any protection on AVRs, other than clamp diodes maybe? Which is pretty standard, I presume this thing will have them too. Only difference is ARM is usually 3V3 IO, and has a bunch of options (ie whether open drain or not, selectable slew rates) that normal 8bit AVRs lack. I haven't managed to kill either, but I do have more experience with AVR, and it seems fairly robust...doesn't mean that this chip isn't, though.
MMIO is pretty easy, even from userland (via /dev/mem), if you want to flip more than one bit at once, and have some speed at it.
Although we can't really comment on what features the GPIO has or doesn't have without a datasheet, and don't hold your breath for that.
This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:
(1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and
(2) This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
I know. How about retraining them, if possible?
You mean like... re-education camps? Hmmm...
You mean rogers, bell, or telus. The others are virtual networks and are at the mercy of the carriers they ride on, not real competition.
If you want to use a GSM phone that doesn't support our 3G freqs, (or prior to a year? or so ago when the others added 3G GSM support), you have/had one choice. rogers. Pretty pathetic. Letting them buy fido was mindnumbingly stupid.
They should can the whole ownership laws and let some real competition come in, though.
Moreover, the fact that $70 is a "good deal" to you shows how ridiculous things are here. Not to mention paying to receive calls, or even fucking SMS, on some carriers/plans. Ludicrous.
Rogers shows the 32G 4S as $269 on a 3 year (vs. $749 outright). So they subsidize you to the tune of $13/mo, and rope you into a $70 contract... Who is really winning here?
Some of the things carriers get away with here is insane too. I used to have a contract with fido. By default, it showed no number when receiving calls. I asked for them to show the number. Sorry, that option isn't available, however, you can pay $7 for name display. Seven dollars? On a $25 plan? Oh, but for a measly $10, I can get that AND the voicemail I don't want (It's a better deal!!). fuck off, give me the feature that should be free, or 25 cents if you want a billion percent profit. They shouldn't be able to extort $7 for the feature of being able to call people back.
Harris and Siemens made them too, and several Japanese manufacturers. I don't remember the timeline though, I'm certain some of them didn't start production until the 8088 was no longer bleeding edge tech... I seem to think IBM had rights to make them as well, but don't recall if they ever did. I don't think so, though.
On a side note Intersil (a portion of Harris' semiconductor business, before) still makes 8088, 8086... (hell, they even make RCA 1802) to this day. Seems this is mostly aimed at military and aerospace though, things that move slowly.
Esso, here at least (guess that is exxon in the US). They used to give out plush tiger tails you could put around your gas cap... so there was a tiger tail hanging out of the car.
I remember seeing them on occasion not that long ago, but I'm getting bad with time references lately.
Why you would want a tiger tail coming out of your car is another story. I'd want a pretty good discount on gas for that.
Revolutions aren't without their bumps, but you may note that the people of France and Russia are no longer under the thumb of the king/tsar.
Of course things could have been done better... but it's still superior.
I guess the US should have just sucked it up and pleaded with britain, instead of having their revolution, huh? Everyone should still be under kings?
or am I misunderstanding your statement?
I had a lot of hope for this, and was willing to accept a binary blob on the GPU, for the price. Don't think I'll need video anyway.
But having to load a binary blob on the GPU in order to load a (bootloader | kernel)? Yuck.
I guess that's better than the driver though, in a way, as it shouldn't be kernel dependent, like a closed BIOS on a motherboard... So you don't have to worry about not being able to run the board with linux-5.8 as that is neither here nor there. (at least, this [booting] portion. You'll still have binary blob video driver hell).
It doesn't really matter what the chip costs alone, as you won't even get a fucking pin diagram out of broadcom without a large order and an NDA.
Would the incumbents let iPhones roam on their networks or would they try to freeze-out the interloper?
I doubt the phones would even have been capable of roaming on other networks, had they been designed for this chunk of spectrum. Certainly it would be possible to support both, but at more cost, more size, and more power consumption.
This. I really wish they would split it up... one company is responsible for the last mile, and that's all they do. Just the physical medium. It can be municipally owned, whatever.
Then let whoever wants in hook up at the central office. That way we'd get some real competition, which just isn't happening here. Too much conflict of interest when the line owners are also the service providers.
So you're the bastard that's been taking away my serial port. argh.
I work in the industry and we've had similar problems, even from big name, american outfits. I put the blame on the distributors for that, though. Not sure if it is entirely well founded... as they often have stuff produced in plenty of places, might be difficult to track, with just lot sample testing. I can't see an excuse on military stuff though...
Wouldn't US gov contracts be big enough to cut distributors and go straight to the source? Whatever happened to military grade, every component tested in america, at least, if not made here?
They sure fucking pay for the best...
Hell, for the money they spend they should be able to set up a DoD fab in texas and come out ahead.
This, I'm from western Canada and am seriously thinking about moving to Quebec. Better weather, cheaper real-estate, cuter girls, better food, nicer architecture.
Of course, I'd have to learn better language than my current cereal-box grade french.
Quite a few folks here have a fairly strong dislike for quebec... They have probably never been there, though, so it's hardly an informed decision.