They're not more efficient by using a sine vs. square wave, but by using an efficient motor. I screwed up the formatting of that post pretty bad, that may not have come out well.
Wow. Overloading a generator by 40% until the breaker trips, resetting, and repeating ad nauseum. With cheap Chinese crap. Sure, it worked for his test... but that's just begging for catastrophic results.
I especially like how he said it has "the ability to adapt to the load". In reality, the thing was "adapting" simply by being completely overloaded, it simply *could not* put out any more power no matter what. He must have no sense of smell, because I can't imagine that the smell of overheated motor windings would otherwise escape his mention...
That's nice in theory, but not in reality. Our power company just told us that since the state didn't grant them a huge rate hike, they were not going to do any after-hours repairs for outages.
Also, about ten years ago, they decided that it wasn't worth the investment to keep trees properly trimmed around their overhead lines. Starting a few years after that, massive outages started happening every time there was a good wind... I wonder which really costs them more, preventative maintenance, or lots over overtime emergency repairs?
Not blame the power company when the power goes out? Let's see, if your water supply stopped, should you not blame the water company?
You know, it's fun to make fun of the electric company. But the linemen are putting their lives on the line every time they go out, and they're usually getting treated badly by the company, too. Once you've seen one on top of a pole, slumped over in his sling, waiting for someone to take down his corpse, you'll see things a little differently.
Plus... they're usually a good bunch of guys. The next time you see them, go out and offer them a hot chocolate, or whatever else they want to drink. After all of the crap they take, it doesn't take much courtesy before they'll treat you well, too.
Sure, they advertise them, but it's a lie, or at least close to it... 700-800 pounds isn't really all that portable, even if it does have a set of wheels attached.:D
Also, doing what you mention is not safe, as you are not detaching the neutral by flipping off the breaker. If your generator is not grounded, then it can be driving the neutral away from ground potential, and not just in your house... and linesmen are putting their lives on the line anyway during outages anyway, you don't need to make it worse for them.
In fact, you'd wonder why she even needed to bother. Most animals have eyesight that is not as good as humans' in acuity, but much better at picking up motion and flicker.
In other words, while they couldn't read text at a distance (even if they could read), regular TV looks quite "flickery" to them. That's the reason why most dogs are not interested in watching television.
Also, the octopus eye is probably much like a dog's eye: In every structure of the canine eyeball, they have sacrificed detailed acuity in favor of light-gathering ability. The sensitivity to motion is what still lets them hunt their prey.
One of my friends went to hike Everest... he didn't make it very far up. Eating food from some of the natives made him very sick (projectiles from both ends), and he was drug off to a hospital. He didn't die, but it was a possibility in his condition.
THAT would suck... travel half-way around the world, to be taken down by tourist food.
The awesome thing about solar is that when installed on houses, it actually DECREASES the demand on the "grid", because power is generated locally and does not have to be transmitted. And... it does it when demand is highest!
There are two reasons why PV solar hasn't been bigger:
1. Your grandfather probably still uses grid energy during the night. Even if he sells excess back, he's still causing fossil fuels to be burned during the night. Net metering may make his bill zero, but he's still causing non-renewable energy sources to be used. And unfortunately, battery banks big enough to run a house all night are large and costly.
2. It's taken 35+ years for the cost-per-watt of solar to even approach parity with other sources. There are a few places right now where it's actually cheaper, but they're few and small. Where I am, it would take 35 years just to pay off the panels. Wind is far, far cheaper to harvest.
That's not to say that they're useless... I think they're great. And as efficiency slowly increases, and cost slowly decreases, they'll be more widely adapted.
Now, the real upside of solar: They're the only energy source that a city-dweller can really install and use to generate their own energy, as opposed to buying it from someone else. Not paying a utility is attractive, and If someone really wanted to live off-grid in the city, solar (along with conservation) would be the only option.
Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Same crap, different author.
I guess if you live in a country like lichtenstein and can't pipe in electricity from somewhere else, when the wind quit blowing, you'd be screwed.
But countries like the USA, Canada, India, China, Russia, France, Germany, and a lot of others are big enough that there is ALWAYS wind somewhere. You just have to be able to move the energy around. And hey, whadaya know... people have been saying that our distribution grid here in the US needs an overhaul anyway.
And I guess if you live in Northern Canada, or in Christchurch, your solar day isn't very long. But guess what... there are massive areas of the world that get longer periods of insolation, and it just so happens to coincide with the greatest electrical demand.
Wind and solar are currently very viable, and have proven themselves already. And there is still a lot of area for advance in wind. Sure, they're not a perfect solution, but they do work, and they work now.
The biggest problem with nuclear is that it only works for rich, stable countries with good security. You can't just walk into any country in the world, install a reactor, and imagine that everything will run fine for eternity. Just ask the Germans, who are financing the operation of a good number of Russian reactors. Why? Because after the collapse, Russia couldn't afford to keep safety up at the plants, and nearby countries had to cover the bill just to keep themselves safe.
Unless we're going to keep burning things for energy, there is no single energy solution that is going to cover everything. Everyone who thinks that their pet favorite is the ultimate solution needs to come to grips with the fact that we're going to need a balanced mix of solutions.
A surprising number of people that I know - and not just tech-savvy people - do video compression, either for converting camcorder movies into DVDs, creating slideshows, or using DVDshrink. And those are apps where more CPU is always good...
Just wait until HD camcorders are more prevalent, and you have people that want to convert their home movies into X.264 Bluray discs...
Anything past the P3 may not have been revolutionary, but it's steadily progressed quite nicely.
I have a dual 1.4GHz P3 system, and a 1.6GHz Core Duo. The Core Duo is *much* faster, and that chip is already outdated. Not to mention the fact that it's comparing the fastest P3s made to the lowest of the Core Duo lineup.
People also forget about things that can't be measured in nanometers or gigahertz, like the advances that have greatly lowered leakage current. Without them, something like 85% of the power used in the 32nM chips would be leakage, and liquid cooling would be an absolute necessity.
Also, these advances allow Intel to make modest chips VERY cheaply... like the Atom. I've got a micro-atx board with one on it, and considering that the entire board+cpu only cost $65, it is an AMAZING performer.
Intel has always enjoyed a much better manufacturing technology than AMD. But, Intel made some stupid architectural decisions with the P4 architecture.
Once Intel came out with the Core series, then the combination of a decent architecture and terrific fab capabilities really started eating away at AMD. This will only continue the rally.
The sad thing is that this will actually be a step back in pricing... it's getting back to where AMD simply cannot touch the higher-end Intel territory, and so Intel is back to enjoying terrific profit margins on those chips.
Something doesn't sound right to me... it sounds like you're suggesting that the heat is from simple resistive losses, not switching losses.
If you need to actually solder big heatsinks to a FET (as opposed to bolting on a reasonbly-sized unit), that makes me think we're talking about 100 watts or more of power dissipation... which at, say, 10 milliohms (because nobody ever gets that the datasheet lists), would be 100 amps of current. and let's face it, when you have to run 2-gauge conductors to your FETs, big heatsinks are no surprise.:D
That is, of course, unless you're talking about DPAK or D2PAKs, and soldering those little heatsinks onto the board, in which case the answer is easy... TO220, bolted to a reasonable heatsink. Or, what motherboard manufacturers do... use up to a dozen of them in parallel, and switch them at lower speeds.
Interestingly enough, I've always had STELLAR service from Dell. But... I've always bought through the "Small Business" side of things, not the "Individual" side.
Shoot, on the laptop that I have now, two LEDs stopped behaving properly a month after I bought it. Three days later, a gentleman showed up in my office and replaced the entire motherboard for me... just so I could turn two little LEDs off. (Yes, they're hardware-controlled, not software.)
And...I even get to talk to people who are native speakers of English when I call for tech support!
If you're not American... then maybe your opinion doesn't count much in a debate over whether an American company should give special support to an American soldier, who is serving America.
If I could remember that far back? You sure make a lot of assumptions. You'll look like less of an idiot if you learn not to do that.
Even back in the day before push-button phones, people talked too loudly. And talked in movie theaters and restaurants. And kicked the back of your seat. I do remember it.
And even now, I am only occasionally irritated at someone talking on a cell phone, but more often irritated at people who aren't. They talk loudly, they talk about things you don't need to hear, and they just generally have no concern for other people.
Stop blaming the device, and blame the general decline of manners in society. People used to take things like going out to a restaurant, movie, or event more seriously (Yes, I remember when that was the case). These days, you're lucky if people in the restaurant have their pants pulled up high enough to cover their cracks.
Cell phone use is an easy, obvious scapegoat... but it's not the root of the problem.
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They're not more efficient by using a sine vs. square wave, but by using an efficient motor. I screwed up the formatting of that post pretty bad, that may not have come out well.
Wow. Overloading a generator by 40% until the breaker trips, resetting, and repeating ad nauseum. With cheap Chinese crap. Sure, it worked for his test... but that's just begging for catastrophic results.
I especially like how he said it has "the ability to adapt to the load". In reality, the thing was "adapting" simply by being completely overloaded, it simply *could not* put out any more power no matter what. He must have no sense of smell, because I can't imagine that the smell of overheated motor windings would otherwise escape his mention...
That's nice in theory, but not in reality. Our power company just told us that since the state didn't grant them a huge rate hike, they were not going to do any after-hours repairs for outages.
Also, about ten years ago, they decided that it wasn't worth the investment to keep trees properly trimmed around their overhead lines. Starting a few years after that, massive outages started happening every time there was a good wind... I wonder which really costs them more, preventative maintenance, or lots over overtime emergency repairs?
Not blame the power company when the power goes out? Let's see, if your water supply stopped, should you not blame the water company?
He's not talking about a car inverter... he's talking about a generator which has an . Pure sine waves. the downside is that they don't come in terribly large sizes, but they are VERY efficient and reliable - and have excellent regulation. I use a 6500is a few times a year, and it rocks.
You know, it's fun to make fun of the electric company. But the linemen are putting their lives on the line every time they go out, and they're usually getting treated badly by the company, too. Once you've seen one on top of a pole, slumped over in his sling, waiting for someone to take down his corpse, you'll see things a little differently.
Plus... they're usually a good bunch of guys. The next time you see them, go out and offer them a hot chocolate, or whatever else they want to drink. After all of the crap they take, it doesn't take much courtesy before they'll treat you well, too.
They are also pretty efficient. They're expensive, but they're very good. I use a 6500is a few times each year, and it's simply terrific.
One caveat on the NG generators - many require a larger gas line than most homes have, so plan on having a larger line run from your meter.
There are no portable 15kW generators.
Sure, they advertise them, but it's a lie, or at least close to it... 700-800 pounds isn't really all that portable, even if it does have a set of wheels attached. :D
Also, doing what you mention is not safe, as you are not detaching the neutral by flipping off the breaker. If your generator is not grounded, then it can be driving the neutral away from ground potential, and not just in your house... and linesmen are putting their lives on the line anyway during outages anyway, you don't need to make it worse for them.
In fact, you'd wonder why she even needed to bother. Most animals have eyesight that is not as good as humans' in acuity, but much better at picking up motion and flicker.
In other words, while they couldn't read text at a distance (even if they could read), regular TV looks quite "flickery" to them. That's the reason why most dogs are not interested in watching television.
Also, the octopus eye is probably much like a dog's eye: In every structure of the canine eyeball, they have sacrificed detailed acuity in favor of light-gathering ability. The sensitivity to motion is what still lets them hunt their prey.
One of my friends went to hike Everest... he didn't make it very far up. Eating food from some of the natives made him very sick (projectiles from both ends), and he was drug off to a hospital. He didn't die, but it was a possibility in his condition.
THAT would suck... travel half-way around the world, to be taken down by tourist food.
The awesome thing about solar is that when installed on houses, it actually DECREASES the demand on the "grid", because power is generated locally and does not have to be transmitted. And... it does it when demand is highest!
There are two reasons why PV solar hasn't been bigger:
1. Your grandfather probably still uses grid energy during the night. Even if he sells excess back, he's still causing fossil fuels to be burned during the night. Net metering may make his bill zero, but he's still causing non-renewable energy sources to be used. And unfortunately, battery banks big enough to run a house all night are large and costly.
2. It's taken 35+ years for the cost-per-watt of solar to even approach parity with other sources. There are a few places right now where it's actually cheaper, but they're few and small. Where I am, it would take 35 years just to pay off the panels. Wind is far, far cheaper to harvest.
That's not to say that they're useless... I think they're great. And as efficiency slowly increases, and cost slowly decreases, they'll be more widely adapted.
Now, the real upside of solar: They're the only energy source that a city-dweller can really install and use to generate their own energy, as opposed to buying it from someone else. Not paying a utility is attractive, and If someone really wanted to live off-grid in the city, solar (along with conservation) would be the only option.
Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Same crap, different author.
I guess if you live in a country like lichtenstein and can't pipe in electricity from somewhere else, when the wind quit blowing, you'd be screwed.
But countries like the USA, Canada, India, China, Russia, France, Germany, and a lot of others are big enough that there is ALWAYS wind somewhere. You just have to be able to move the energy around. And hey, whadaya know... people have been saying that our distribution grid here in the US needs an overhaul anyway.
And I guess if you live in Northern Canada, or in Christchurch, your solar day isn't very long. But guess what... there are massive areas of the world that get longer periods of insolation, and it just so happens to coincide with the greatest electrical demand.
Wind and solar are currently very viable, and have proven themselves already. And there is still a lot of area for advance in wind. Sure, they're not a perfect solution, but they do work, and they work now.
The biggest problem with nuclear is that it only works for rich, stable countries with good security. You can't just walk into any country in the world, install a reactor, and imagine that everything will run fine for eternity. Just ask the Germans, who are financing the operation of a good number of Russian reactors. Why? Because after the collapse, Russia couldn't afford to keep safety up at the plants, and nearby countries had to cover the bill just to keep themselves safe.
Unless we're going to keep burning things for energy, there is no single energy solution that is going to cover everything. Everyone who thinks that their pet favorite is the ultimate solution needs to come to grips with the fact that we're going to need a balanced mix of solutions.
Figure out a way to do it, and you'll be a billionaire.
After all, a whole bunch of dudes here on Slashdot have been saying that nuclear was the answer!
Wake me up when software that normal folks has support for this.
A surprising number of people that I know - and not just tech-savvy people - do video compression, either for converting camcorder movies into DVDs, creating slideshows, or using DVDshrink. And those are apps where more CPU is always good...
Just wait until HD camcorders are more prevalent, and you have people that want to convert their home movies into X.264 Bluray discs...
Anything past the P3 may not have been revolutionary, but it's steadily progressed quite nicely.
I have a dual 1.4GHz P3 system, and a 1.6GHz Core Duo. The Core Duo is *much* faster, and that chip is already outdated. Not to mention the fact that it's comparing the fastest P3s made to the lowest of the Core Duo lineup.
People also forget about things that can't be measured in nanometers or gigahertz, like the advances that have greatly lowered leakage current. Without them, something like 85% of the power used in the 32nM chips would be leakage, and liquid cooling would be an absolute necessity.
Also, these advances allow Intel to make modest chips VERY cheaply... like the Atom. I've got a micro-atx board with one on it, and considering that the entire board+cpu only cost $65, it is an AMAZING performer.
Intel has always enjoyed a much better manufacturing technology than AMD. But, Intel made some stupid architectural decisions with the P4 architecture.
Once Intel came out with the Core series, then the combination of a decent architecture and terrific fab capabilities really started eating away at AMD. This will only continue the rally.
The sad thing is that this will actually be a step back in pricing... it's getting back to where AMD simply cannot touch the higher-end Intel territory, and so Intel is back to enjoying terrific profit margins on those chips.
... what, 750 kbps unless you're standing right next to a tower/
Something doesn't sound right to me... it sounds like you're suggesting that the heat is from simple resistive losses, not switching losses.
If you need to actually solder big heatsinks to a FET (as opposed to bolting on a reasonbly-sized unit), that makes me think we're talking about 100 watts or more of power dissipation... which at, say, 10 milliohms (because nobody ever gets that the datasheet lists), would be 100 amps of current. and let's face it, when you have to run 2-gauge conductors to your FETs, big heatsinks are no surprise. :D
That is, of course, unless you're talking about DPAK or D2PAKs, and soldering those little heatsinks onto the board, in which case the answer is easy... TO220, bolted to a reasonable heatsink. Or, what motherboard manufacturers do... use up to a dozen of them in parallel, and switch them at lower speeds.
You can make a superconductor by supercooling a conductor? Holy crap. What a breakthrough!
Interestingly enough, I've always had STELLAR service from Dell. But... I've always bought through the "Small Business" side of things, not the "Individual" side.
Shoot, on the laptop that I have now, two LEDs stopped behaving properly a month after I bought it. Three days later, a gentleman showed up in my office and replaced the entire motherboard for me... just so I could turn two little LEDs off. (Yes, they're hardware-controlled, not software.)
And...I even get to talk to people who are native speakers of English when I call for tech support!
If you're not American... then maybe your opinion doesn't count much in a debate over whether an American company should give special support to an American soldier, who is serving America.
Wow, I'll bet that will piss you off.
If I could remember that far back? You sure make a lot of assumptions. You'll look like less of an idiot if you learn not to do that.
Even back in the day before push-button phones, people talked too loudly. And talked in movie theaters and restaurants. And kicked the back of your seat. I do remember it.
And even now, I am only occasionally irritated at someone talking on a cell phone, but more often irritated at people who aren't. They talk loudly, they talk about things you don't need to hear, and they just generally have no concern for other people.
Stop blaming the device, and blame the general decline of manners in society. People used to take things like going out to a restaurant, movie, or event more seriously (Yes, I remember when that was the case). These days, you're lucky if people in the restaurant have their pants pulled up high enough to cover their cracks.
Cell phone use is an easy, obvious scapegoat... but it's not the root of the problem.