Okay, I have been working with Lithium Chemistries in batteries for 4 years now as a member of the UMR Solar Car Team (http://solar42.umr.edu).
First a few things about Lithium based batteries. When they say a cycle life of 300 or 500 cycles that means the 80% thresh hold. In other words at 300 or 500 cycles, the "lifetime" of the battery you will still see 80% capacity when all those cycles are through. That doesn't signify the end of the battery either, we have some LG Chemical Lithium Ions (176 Wh/kg) that are 4 years old and still doing well. The problem is that after 2 years the chemicals inside the battery start reacting and could theoretically internally short, causing a dead battery, fires, or the classic cell phone battery explosion, yes that can happen. For this reason we are going to be disposing of those batteries soon, they pose a chemical hazard, you should also do that after 2 years with your cell phone battery just incase.
In comparison to Nickels, Li batteries are much better 90-95% charge efficient (what you get out compared to what you put in). Nickels range from 60-75%. They are MUCH more energy dense (175 Wh/Kg - 500 Wh/Kg (theoretical limit I think)) while Nickels range in the 75 Wh/Kg range. And oh yeah Lithiums don't get hot, one crucial issue with Nickel based batteries is the end of charge temperature can hit 150+. Also cycle life is better Nickels can get about 200 cycles before they hit the 80% mark, and well that is only if you treat them very nicely. Lithiums are more forgiving with some missuse (just don't over volt them).
So all in all Lithium Chemistries are pretty much the best battery format out there now, and for a while too. Lithium is the most energy dense element after all. This is why everyone is switching over to them for just about any serious work. sure cycle life is low, nothing compared to a Lead Acid, but companies are working on that, hell 5 years ago a lithium cell that lasted 200 cycles was impressive now Kokam sells Lithiums with 500 cycles and still 80% life with a starting capacity of over 200 Wh/Kg, roughly 4 times as energy dense as a Lead Acid.
Have any of you ever used YDL at all?? I first used YDL in 2000, it was my first time touching Linux on a PPC and I felt it quite robust. Sure people wonder why you would used YDL on a Mac that has OS X on it. For the same reason that some people have Win 98 at the same time as XP.
Flexibility. Sure you may want to use OS X day to day. But sometimes you just need to be in a true X environment. Yes you could do that otherwise in OS X, but it tends to have a high overhead (2 window managers, one sitting on top of another), and OS X is a bit quirky when it comes to certain NIX things (case sensitivity, others).
The other issue is that YDL is a GREAT solution when you want to just do number crunching. No need to run the OS X GUI, just a rock solid number crunching OS. If I remember correctly the Navy is using a bunch of XServes (G4 era) with YDL on them for this reason.
Basically it boils down to whether you want to run the OS X window manager and OS X apps, or you want to run "real" LINUX with it's app suite and it's window manager.
Besides, if you X86 zealots can have 18 differant distros why can't PPC users have a few too.
Dude, Apple licensed the GUI from Xerox PARC. Steve Jobs was shown the GUI (with a few other things too) at PARC, convinced Apple to write a GUI, and then gave Xerox a ton of stock for it.
I think one of the reasons Apple's UI's have always been favored by their users is their simplicity, and at the same time their high level of sofistication.
Making a UI easy enough for a first time user to just turn the machine on and instantly have things act like they would like them to, or expect them to has always been a feature that Windows never accomplished. I remember sitting and using a Mac for the first time when I was 6 (in 1990) and I didn't need any help from our teacher to use it (no comp at home till later). It just worked and acted like I thought it should. My first Windows experiece was Win3.1 in '94 and that peice of junk just stank. My comp at home by that point was using Mac OS 7.1 and functioned amazingly while this Win3.1 thing was barely useable.
As I grew up and PC's did too eventually Windows came to being a fairly useful OS, while it still seems to fail miserably with it's UI, it has gotten some things right. Apple has responded with the greatest UI I have ever experienced on any platform, Windows, *nix, Mac. OS 10.3 is just amazing, it's slick, user friendly, colorful (but not cheezy), and best of all IT WORKS!
The thing that Apple has done with it's UI is amazing, it has changed with the landscape of the computing world, and always been the forefront of what every other UI seems to want to become. Sadly for the average user (aka Windose drones) they won't get to see an interface this user friendly ever. Apple just keeps pushing forward the computing experience for people, and I am glad people are starting to finally take notice
Has any one thought of the ethical issues that could arise from this. Directing ones dreams sounds neat and all, but what if the person that you direct in your dreams has told you not to, or they have some kind of restraining order on you.
Sure these are your dreams and controlling them I guess should be your option, but when do you cross the line? Do you need to get permission from people to use them in your dream if it's directed. I don't think they can do anything in a normal dream, but when things are pre meditated does that change things?
I would honestly think that if the average person got a hold of this they could use it for ill. I know that I don't want people dreaming about me without my permission.
One final thought, how would this work if a person has purposefully violent dreams. Has a dream about killing people for instance, would this be allowed into court, and if so would it count as premeditation.
As techs we may think it cool to make our dreams be what we want them to be, but we do have to worry about this at the ethical / legal level.
Oh and for the person wanting to know how much that is in dollars 138.486.
I have used every single Mac OS since system 7.1 in 1993 and I think that Torg does have several good points.
1. I have to agree that the open and save dialogs are a bit obstrusive, I remember being able to move around the open and save dialog to see what was going on behind it at times. Now when I get an ICQ add request I can't see the request because the dialog box is sticking in the way. Perhaps Apple needs to implent ment a "Rip" button that gives you the option of ripping the dialog box off the window on a case by case basis.
2. I disagree with the trash can issue. I like it in the Dock and find it pretty usefull there. Not to mention the fact that I just rather hit apple+delete to trash things anyway.
3. Ok, so the UI is differant, but honestly I think it is the best one that apple has designed since I have used the mac. They removed a lot of the issues that plagued it in it's infancy. I love the single window option and I have not had an issue with screen density at all. Quite frankly I think the new finder is the most functional they have had since 7.5 (yeah it's flame bait but II loved 7.5). It provides everything that you would want to access quickly right there for you with minimal problems. Yeah things may be bigger, but I like that.
Actually Fuel Cell racing is now finally reaching its infancy. Recently, the American Solar Challenge had its post race debriefing and it was decided that fuel cell technology should be looked into for future Solar Rayces. Talk at that time was that fuel cells would have an unfair advantage over Solar Vehicles, so it was considered that they be rayced along with the Solar Cars in the ASC, but as a separate class of raycer.
Contrary to popular belief the leaders in fuel cell technology are actually car companies (like Ford and Chevy). They realize the problems that are going to be facing not only us, but them in the future. That is another reason that several car companies support solar raycing.
Just my opinion.
Robert Becho
UMR Solar Car Team Secretary
GO 142! (our team number is 42, but it was taken already for the WSC)
It's really great to see that AMD is breaking into the 64 bit architecture finally. Quite a while after IBM and Apple have broken into the 128 bit architecture since they introduced the Power Mac G4 proccessor. PPC G4 fact sheet. Oh well, I guess it was about time somebody caught up with IBM's 2 year or so lead on proccessor development. Just a little note from the Non X86 world.
Actually I have seen a Digital Camera that does use SuperDisks as it's storage media. Not only does it acept Super disks, but also regular diskettes. In addition to this I heard that Sony was showing off a Mavica with an SD drive at Macworld San Fransisco not to long ago (6 months?) I can't remember the manufacturer of the Before mentioned SD Digital camera/camcorder, but I know it was being sold at Sears Department stores. So if you really are considering it go check it out there!
That was too cool man, that would make a great song if any body is intrested in starting a Band devoted to programming / web design stuff I would not only want it, but want to release it, we could be called "The Hard Coders" or "Slashdot This" something crazy. if any one is intrested in the digital band contact me at Becho62282@earthlink.net
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I have been working with Lithium Chemistries in batteries for 4 years now as a member of the UMR Solar Car Team (http://solar42.umr.edu).
First a few things about Lithium based batteries. When they say a cycle life of 300 or 500 cycles that means the 80% thresh hold. In other words at 300 or 500 cycles, the "lifetime" of the battery you will still see 80% capacity when all those cycles are through. That doesn't signify the end of the battery either, we have some LG Chemical Lithium Ions (176 Wh/kg) that are 4 years old and still doing well. The problem is that after 2 years the chemicals inside the battery start reacting and could theoretically internally short, causing a dead battery, fires, or the classic cell phone battery explosion, yes that can happen. For this reason we are going to be disposing of those batteries soon, they pose a chemical hazard, you should also do that after 2 years with your cell phone battery just incase.
In comparison to Nickels, Li batteries are much better 90-95% charge efficient (what you get out compared to what you put in). Nickels range from 60-75%. They are MUCH more energy dense (175 Wh/Kg - 500 Wh/Kg (theoretical limit I think)) while Nickels range in the 75 Wh/Kg range. And oh yeah Lithiums don't get hot, one crucial issue with Nickel based batteries is the end of charge temperature can hit 150+. Also cycle life is better Nickels can get about 200 cycles before they hit the 80% mark, and well that is only if you treat them very nicely. Lithiums are more forgiving with some missuse (just don't over volt them).
So all in all Lithium Chemistries are pretty much the best battery format out there now, and for a while too. Lithium is the most energy dense element after all. This is why everyone is switching over to them for just about any serious work. sure cycle life is low, nothing compared to a Lead Acid, but companies are working on that, hell 5 years ago a lithium cell that lasted 200 cycles was impressive now Kokam sells Lithiums with 500 cycles and still 80% life with a starting capacity of over 200 Wh/Kg, roughly 4 times as energy dense as a Lead Acid.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Have any of you ever used YDL at all?? I first used YDL in 2000, it was my first time touching Linux on a PPC and I felt it quite robust. Sure people wonder why you would used YDL on a Mac that has OS X on it. For the same reason that some people have Win 98 at the same time as XP.
Flexibility. Sure you may want to use OS X day to day. But sometimes you just need to be in a true X environment. Yes you could do that otherwise in OS X, but it tends to have a high overhead (2 window managers, one sitting on top of another), and OS X is a bit quirky when it comes to certain NIX things (case sensitivity, others).
The other issue is that YDL is a GREAT solution when you want to just do number crunching. No need to run the OS X GUI, just a rock solid number crunching OS. If I remember correctly the Navy is using a bunch of XServes (G4 era) with YDL on them for this reason.
Basically it boils down to whether you want to run the OS X window manager and OS X apps, or you want to run "real" LINUX with it's app suite and it's window manager.
Besides, if you X86 zealots can have 18 differant distros why can't PPC users have a few too.
Dude, Apple licensed the GUI from Xerox PARC. Steve Jobs was shown the GUI (with a few other things too) at PARC, convinced Apple to write a GUI, and then gave Xerox a ton of stock for it.
I think one of the reasons Apple's UI's have always been favored by their users is their simplicity, and at the same time their high level of sofistication.
Making a UI easy enough for a first time user to just turn the machine on and instantly have things act like they would like them to, or expect them to has always been a feature that Windows never accomplished. I remember sitting and using a Mac for the first time when I was 6 (in 1990) and I didn't need any help from our teacher to use it (no comp at home till later). It just worked and acted like I thought it should. My first Windows experiece was Win3.1 in '94 and that peice of junk just stank. My comp at home by that point was using Mac OS 7.1 and functioned amazingly while this Win3.1 thing was barely useable.
As I grew up and PC's did too eventually Windows came to being a fairly useful OS, while it still seems to fail miserably with it's UI, it has gotten some things right. Apple has responded with the greatest UI I have ever experienced on any platform, Windows, *nix, Mac. OS 10.3 is just amazing, it's slick, user friendly, colorful (but not cheezy), and best of all IT WORKS!
The thing that Apple has done with it's UI is amazing, it has changed with the landscape of the computing world, and always been the forefront of what every other UI seems to want to become. Sadly for the average user (aka Windose drones) they won't get to see an interface this user friendly ever. Apple just keeps pushing forward the computing experience for people, and I am glad people are starting to finally take notice
Has any one thought of the ethical issues that could arise from this. Directing ones dreams sounds neat and all, but what if the person that you direct in your dreams has told you not to, or they have some kind of restraining order on you.
Sure these are your dreams and controlling them I guess should be your option, but when do you cross the line? Do you need to get permission from people to use them in your dream if it's directed. I don't think they can do anything in a normal dream, but when things are pre meditated does that change things?
I would honestly think that if the average person got a hold of this they could use it for ill. I know that I don't want people dreaming about me without my permission.
One final thought, how would this work if a person has purposefully violent dreams. Has a dream about killing people for instance, would this be allowed into court, and if so would it count as premeditation.
As techs we may think it cool to make our dreams be what we want them to be, but we do have to worry about this at the ethical / legal level.
Oh and for the person wanting to know how much that is in dollars 138.486.
I have used every single Mac OS since system 7.1 in 1993 and I think that Torg does have several good points.
1. I have to agree that the open and save dialogs are a bit obstrusive, I remember being able to move around the open and save dialog to see what was going on behind it at times. Now when I get an ICQ add request I can't see the request because the dialog box is sticking in the way. Perhaps Apple needs to implent ment a "Rip" button that gives you the option of ripping the dialog box off the window on a case by case basis.
2. I disagree with the trash can issue. I like it in the Dock and find it pretty usefull there. Not to mention the fact that I just rather hit apple+delete to trash things anyway.
3. Ok, so the UI is differant, but honestly I think it is the best one that apple has designed since I have used the mac. They removed a lot of the issues that plagued it in it's infancy. I love the single window option and I have not had an issue with screen density at all. Quite frankly I think the new finder is the most functional they have had since 7.5 (yeah it's flame bait but II loved 7.5). It provides everything that you would want to access quickly right there for you with minimal problems. Yeah things may be bigger, but I like that.
Actually Fuel Cell racing is now finally reaching its infancy. Recently, the American Solar Challenge had its post race debriefing and it was decided that fuel cell technology should be looked into for future Solar Rayces. Talk at that time was that fuel cells would have an unfair advantage over Solar Vehicles, so it was considered that they be rayced along with the Solar Cars in the ASC, but as a separate class of raycer.
Contrary to popular belief the leaders in fuel cell technology are actually car companies (like Ford and Chevy). They realize the problems that are going to be facing not only us, but them in the future. That is another reason that several car companies support solar raycing.
Just my opinion.
Robert Becho
UMR Solar Car Team Secretary
GO 142! (our team number is 42, but it was taken already for the WSC)
It's really great to see that AMD is breaking into the 64 bit architecture finally. Quite a while after IBM and Apple have broken into the 128 bit architecture since they introduced the Power Mac G4 proccessor. PPC G4 fact sheet. Oh well, I guess it was about time somebody caught up with IBM's 2 year or so lead on proccessor development. Just a little note from the Non X86 world.
Actually I have seen a Digital Camera that does use SuperDisks as it's storage media. Not only does it acept Super disks, but also regular diskettes. In addition to this I heard that Sony was showing off a Mavica with an SD drive at Macworld San Fransisco not to long ago (6 months?) I can't remember the manufacturer of the Before mentioned SD Digital camera/camcorder, but I know it was being sold at Sears Department stores. So if you really are considering it go check it out there!
That was too cool man, that would make a great song if any body is intrested in starting a Band devoted to programming / web design stuff I would not only want it, but want to release it, we could be called "The Hard Coders" or "Slashdot This" something crazy. if any one is intrested in the digital band contact me at Becho62282@earthlink.net