It's the usual for tourist areas: You want to soak the tourists, who don't vote in your area, for as much tax money as you can. Thus the double-digit tax percentages on things that only tourists normally use, such as hotels.
Also restaurant taxes specifically aimed at sit-down places that 'tourists' normally visit more often, etc...
I'm not sure why you posted this, I didn't make any mention of size, weight, or efficiency. Still, to expand -
Grid storage is indeed not very concerned with size(volume, weight), but are interested in overall cost and efficiency. Everything I've read has LiIon being not just top of the line for energy density, but also comes out high for energy efficiency - this is where lead-acid tends to fall down. It's energy efficiency tends to be about equal to the Nickel chemistries - NiCad and NiMH.
I mentioned the price because LiIon has been becoming cheaper per joule per years, when the nickel in NiCad batteries has been increasing in price, driving up the cost of battery chemistries that use it. NiCad is still cheaper, but for how long? Musk is planning on chopping the cost of LiIon in half again with this factory.
The BESS ended up being $5 per watt-hour, but it's a complete UPS system. We don't know how much the batteries/chargers were specifically and how much was the facility and AC generation equipment.
Anybody interested in Grid-tie utility level battery energy storage systems should look at Fairbank's BESS, a 6.75 MWh battery system that's to cover any outages until alternate power can be spun up.
Of course, they're NiCad batteries right now, but given enough time, I can see LiIon being cheaper. Still, at $35M it's not cheap.
Splashproof? Ehh, I suppose, I just hope they'd actually stay clean enough over time. (Much too complex for this, but the broadcast racing cars cameras seem to have a rotating plastic shield that keeps junk from the actual lens -- I assume it's round and in back is some kind of soft physical cleaner so they never run out of "more" clean shield space.) I'll give you splashproof, but sometime run around in a very light rain with RainX on your windshield.
All I know is that there are a number of tricks, and the car industry will have to put it through their standard 'testing from hell' before they actually do it.
Given that there are cameras everywhere these days, "Good luck with that."
While they're busily fixing it, an old problem was matching a low-resolution image of a face to an actual individual with enough certainty that you can't find a half-dozen other individuals that also match without much problem.
It's tough even with witnesses and books of known criminal gangs.
Man, after reading all that all I can say is that I really hope that they come out with consumer level self-driving cars in a short period of time. We're getting close.
Part of the reson actually ties into drone operations - they've found that drone operators often don't perform their best because flying a drone is normally too easy - the 'pilot' doesn't have enough to do to keep his attention up, slowing any reactions. So they've been shutting off some of the automations.
Much past 'adaptive cruise control' I'm thinking that I might as well be in a fully automatic car so I can read a book or something after telling the car where I want to go.
... the problem with buying a small SSD is that you'll just want to upgrade anyway later.
I've experienced that myself. In addition I've found that the time I spent manually moving my steam games to the HD when I was done actively playing them(even mostly automated with a script) was taking enough time & effort that I ended up just installing them all to the HD by default, leaving the OS as the main SSD use. I really need to find some sort of smart caching system like the hybrid SSD/HD.
just has to have a guy slap them onto the sides of the car with three nuts each,
You mean robot, right?
Turns out the law on turn signals is somewhat complicated, but I'm not seeing anything that requires turn signal markers on the mirrors/side, simply that they have to be visible on the side. Wrapping the head/brake lights around so the turn is visible from the side should be sufficient to meet the law's requirements.
The cameras I'd probably mount just behind the wheel well. It'd be a snap-in component. Puddle light? Never had a vehicle that luxurious, but I thing you could do it with LED lighting from the door handle.
Can you provide a link about them putting radar units in the side mirrors? Never heard of that, thought they generally mounted it on the grill/bumper.
The display units would probably be integrated into the dashboard and assembled mostly by robots.
Keep in mind that any implimentation of this would involve several years work in test cars which involves thousands of miles of driving and complete environmental testing.
That's the RCA connection. Composite is the standard, RCA is the connector. Component is technically RCA as well, but I consider it a bit different because you need 3 of them.
You've deprived yourself of that cue, which is fine until something unexpected happens.
It's a que that I've never missed. As nabsltd mentioned, I simply remember where my mirrors are set. It's obvious enough if they end up moved that I simply reset them. I'm the only one that drives my truck, so they 'never' move anyways.
If I'm driving a different vehicle I adjust them the same way.
Besides, remember 'sitting in a natural driving position'? If I really need to I can see the side of my vehicle by shifting my head. By the same token I can see just a bit further the other way as well if I shift the other way than you(theoretically; individual vehicles have more variation) can.
In a tight economy, side cameras will only sell if they are a. manditory on all new models, or. b. not marked up at the same exorbitant rate as side mirrors.
c. Marketed to those not affected by the downturn, as there always are.
Agree... do not want. One more thing to go wrong, and then you're looking at an expensive repair rather than something you could take care of yourself, just to keep the car legal.
I'd probably have an easier time replacing a camera than may side mirrors.
Besides, I had the driver side mirror taken out by a deer, and it was over a hundred to replace! Now consider how many vehicles on the road today have those fancy turn signals on their side mirrors, that's gotta raise the price a bit.
Plus people are used to looking over there to see what's behind them, it could cause all kinds of distraction trying to switch the dashboard TV set between navigation mode and rear view mode. Keep focused on getting the weight of the battery pack down instead.
1. Reducing the drag would probably save more fuel than reducing battery weight(unless you REALLY reduce that weight). 2. The views replacing the side mirrors would probably be on dedicated panels that are active at all times while driving.
Ever had to scrape off a mirror from the accumulated snow / ice / fog? THAT'll be easy to do on the camera lens as well, I'm sure.
Put a tiny heating ring around it that's either sensor activated or comes on with your defroster. It's also relatively easy to make it extremely spashproof when it's that small.
For that matter I don't really put any work into cleaning my phone's camera and it still works fine. We're not creating works of art here.
I have my side mirrors turned so that while in a natural driving position I just barely can't see my own vehicle. This maximizes my rear view of the neighboring sides, making it really hard for a motorcycle or some such to hide in them. Pretty much impossible, really.
There's not enough visible area if I move them so I can see the sides of my vehicle to see 'past' a large vehicle behind me anyways, so I'd rather have the more useful side views.
Worst case I shift my vehicle within the lane a bit if I need to see around something.
You know, through my life I think I get roughly 3-5 new connector types for every one that finally dies?
I'm up to 5 USB connectors, but I don't have a parallel port in the house anymore. Still have as serial port. My computers still have the dedicated PS2 style mouse/keyboard ports, but at least I don't have the big one anymore. On the other hand on the video side I have VGA, HDMI, DVI, D-Port, S-Video, coax, RCA, component, etc... Maybe I'll get rid of the S-Video soon.
Nope, but that's the ops argument. I was simply saying that backing cameras will affect normal driving outside of parking lots.
Personally, I love the idea of a backing camera. Done right it'd replace the need for a rear-view mirror and do so from a better angle. The blind spot when I back up my truck is way too large.
I just happened to see some surveliance units in the store I was browsing in over lunch. $200 for 2 cameras wireless cameras and a wireless viewer with LiIon battery.
Eliminating one of the cameras, removing the wireless and recording capabilities, I can easly see ~$150 for the system in a car. Integrating it into the car we'll call a wash against the need for more advanced functions and additional housings.
Indeed, I hate it when they post numbers like this without specifying a duration - per year, per month, per decade, what? National budget numbers are notorious for this.
You're also going to likely get the backup sensor included so that's a total cost increase of $400-500 easily.
FTA: The government estimates that a rearview system will cost between $132 and $142 per vehicle. For vehicles that already have a dashboard display screen, upgrading it to comply with the rule will cost less, about $43 each.
When it's no longer an option, but a mandatory feature it becomes a lot cheaper per unit.
On most residential streets, such as mine, I back out onto it every day. If I'm paying too much attention to the backing camera I won't know if there's a car already on the street...
My argument is that they would have whatever the hell they want because the market is not only there, but strong. You can get AK-47s on the black market, man.
No shit. You treat that like some massive revelation when I started mentioning AK's from the second post. Hell, they can get AK-74's on the black market.
Just 'cause a method is less ideal doesn't mean it's going to be that much less ideal.
Agreed, which is why I don't posit it saving anywhere near every life, and just say 'some lives'. Like maybe 2-3. As you mention, there are alternate suppliers, but they're less reliable than dealers the ATF is encouraging to sell to them. They might not be able to obtain the numbers that the purchasers want, there's still the risk of interception/failed deal and a firefight, they might not be able to get the specific rifles they want, etc... On the whole they'd be more effort, and that means more expensive.
In real life, small changes don't lead to big changes; they lead to minor adjustments.
Small changes add up though. It's unlikely, but a lot of cartel people are on hair triggers so it doesn't necessarily take much to tip them into violence(or out of it). Still, there's a reason I said 'on the balance that's unlikely'. IE odds are low. I stuck that part in there mostly because we can't 100% accurately predict the fallout.
I know that 5Ghz doesn't penetrate walls as well as 2.4, but it still does and even 'bounces' better so it's a bit of a mix-up. Still, I know the penetration capability of 5Ghz from my home, so if it was at all common in my area*, I'd expect to see 5-6, even if at low signal strength.
As for more spectrum not being bad, I agree with you, which is why I tried to phrase it that extra channels at 2.4Ghz would be more useful than more at 5Ghz.
BTW, just did a quick check - only 20% of tablets sold at Newegg are capable of communicating with 5Ghz networks.
*I'm sure the Japanese are ahead of us, along with an number of other countries.
My thought on reading the above was more along the lines that we could really, really use more channels in the 2.4Ghz area. I've never seen an area saturated with 5Ghz signals, and it still takes fairly intensive shopping to find wireless devices and equipment that are capable of 5Ghz operation at all.
I mean, last time I helped somebody set up wireless in a dormatory it was last year and a cursory scan revealed 22 2.4Ghz wireless networks within range of my phone to ID them, and ONE 5Ghz. Of course, said coworker ended up on the least congested band I could find - (channel 9 if I remember right), because his router wasn't capable of 5Ghz. I also have to keep the 2.4Ghz channel on for my router because finding a tablet that's both affordable and capable of 5Ghz didn't work out when I bought it.
Honestly, a networking standard that goes a step beyond 802.11n like 802.11ac that actually mandates operation at 5Ghz was necessary to force companies to make the switch, though I imagine many/most companies will just stick to 2.4Ghz only 'N' as long as they can, much like it's still easy to end up with a 'G' only device even today.
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It's the usual for tourist areas: You want to soak the tourists, who don't vote in your area, for as much tax money as you can. Thus the double-digit tax percentages on things that only tourists normally use, such as hotels.
Also restaurant taxes specifically aimed at sit-down places that 'tourists' normally visit more often, etc...
I'm not sure why you posted this, I didn't make any mention of size, weight, or efficiency. Still, to expand -
Grid storage is indeed not very concerned with size(volume, weight), but are interested in overall cost and efficiency. Everything I've read has LiIon being not just top of the line for energy density, but also comes out high for energy efficiency - this is where lead-acid tends to fall down. It's energy efficiency tends to be about equal to the Nickel chemistries - NiCad and NiMH.
I mentioned the price because LiIon has been becoming cheaper per joule per years, when the nickel in NiCad batteries has been increasing in price, driving up the cost of battery chemistries that use it. NiCad is still cheaper, but for how long? Musk is planning on chopping the cost of LiIon in half again with this factory.
The BESS ended up being $5 per watt-hour, but it's a complete UPS system. We don't know how much the batteries/chargers were specifically and how much was the facility and AC generation equipment.
Anybody interested in Grid-tie utility level battery energy storage systems should look at Fairbank's BESS, a 6.75 MWh battery system that's to cover any outages until alternate power can be spun up.
Of course, they're NiCad batteries right now, but given enough time, I can see LiIon being cheaper. Still, at $35M it's not cheap.
Splashproof? Ehh, I suppose, I just hope they'd actually stay clean enough over time. (Much too complex for this, but the broadcast racing cars cameras seem to have a rotating plastic shield that keeps junk from the actual lens -- I assume it's round and in back is some kind of soft physical cleaner so they never run out of "more" clean shield space.) I'll give you splashproof, but sometime run around in a very light rain with RainX on your windshield.
All I know is that there are a number of tricks, and the car industry will have to put it through their standard 'testing from hell' before they actually do it.
A standard car wash should also clean it.
Given that there are cameras everywhere these days, "Good luck with that."
While they're busily fixing it, an old problem was matching a low-resolution image of a face to an actual individual with enough certainty that you can't find a half-dozen other individuals that also match without much problem.
It's tough even with witnesses and books of known criminal gangs.
Terrorism, theft of services, impersonation of a law enforcement officer, impersonation of a federal official, I figure they can find a few more.
Man, after reading all that all I can say is that I really hope that they come out with consumer level self-driving cars in a short period of time. We're getting close.
Part of the reson actually ties into drone operations - they've found that drone operators often don't perform their best because flying a drone is normally too easy - the 'pilot' doesn't have enough to do to keep his attention up, slowing any reactions. So they've been shutting off some of the automations.
Much past 'adaptive cruise control' I'm thinking that I might as well be in a fully automatic car so I can read a book or something after telling the car where I want to go.
... the problem with buying a small SSD is that you'll just want to upgrade anyway later.
I've experienced that myself. In addition I've found that the time I spent manually moving my steam games to the HD when I was done actively playing them(even mostly automated with a script) was taking enough time & effort that I ended up just installing them all to the HD by default, leaving the OS as the main SSD use. I really need to find some sort of smart caching system like the hybrid SSD/HD.
just has to have a guy slap them onto the sides of the car with three nuts each,
You mean robot, right?
Turns out the law on turn signals is somewhat complicated, but I'm not seeing anything that requires turn signal markers on the mirrors/side, simply that they have to be visible on the side. Wrapping the head/brake lights around so the turn is visible from the side should be sufficient to meet the law's requirements.
The cameras I'd probably mount just behind the wheel well. It'd be a snap-in component. Puddle light? Never had a vehicle that luxurious, but I thing you could do it with LED lighting from the door handle.
Can you provide a link about them putting radar units in the side mirrors? Never heard of that, thought they generally mounted it on the grill/bumper.
The display units would probably be integrated into the dashboard and assembled mostly by robots.
Keep in mind that any implimentation of this would involve several years work in test cars which involves thousands of miles of driving and complete environmental testing.
That's the RCA connection. Composite is the standard, RCA is the connector. Component is technically RCA as well, but I consider it a bit different because you need 3 of them.
or wear a winter coat while driving (which pushes you forward slightly)
I've found that my winter coats aren't thick enough to significantly impact mirror orientation, and I live in Alaska.
Really, you just need to know whether a vehicle is there or not.
You've deprived yourself of that cue, which is fine until something unexpected happens.
It's a que that I've never missed. As nabsltd mentioned, I simply remember where my mirrors are set. It's obvious enough if they end up moved that I simply reset them. I'm the only one that drives my truck, so they 'never' move anyways.
If I'm driving a different vehicle I adjust them the same way.
Besides, remember 'sitting in a natural driving position'? If I really need to I can see the side of my vehicle by shifting my head. By the same token I can see just a bit further the other way as well if I shift the other way than you(theoretically; individual vehicles have more variation) can.
In a tight economy, side cameras will only sell if they are a. manditory on all new models, or. b. not marked up at the same exorbitant rate as side mirrors.
c. Marketed to those not affected by the downturn, as there always are.
Agree ... do not want. One more thing to go wrong, and then you're looking at an expensive repair rather than something you could take care of yourself, just to keep the car legal.
I'd probably have an easier time replacing a camera than may side mirrors.
Besides, I had the driver side mirror taken out by a deer, and it was over a hundred to replace! Now consider how many vehicles on the road today have those fancy turn signals on their side mirrors, that's gotta raise the price a bit.
Plus people are used to looking over there to see what's behind them, it could cause all kinds of distraction trying to switch the dashboard TV set between navigation mode and rear view mode. Keep focused on getting the weight of the battery pack down instead.
1. Reducing the drag would probably save more fuel than reducing battery weight(unless you REALLY reduce that weight).
2. The views replacing the side mirrors would probably be on dedicated panels that are active at all times while driving.
Ever had to scrape off a mirror from the accumulated snow / ice / fog? THAT'll be easy to do on the camera lens as well, I'm sure.
Put a tiny heating ring around it that's either sensor activated or comes on with your defroster. It's also relatively easy to make it extremely spashproof when it's that small.
For that matter I don't really put any work into cleaning my phone's camera and it still works fine. We're not creating works of art here.
I have my side mirrors turned so that while in a natural driving position I just barely can't see my own vehicle. This maximizes my rear view of the neighboring sides, making it really hard for a motorcycle or some such to hide in them. Pretty much impossible, really.
There's not enough visible area if I move them so I can see the sides of my vehicle to see 'past' a large vehicle behind me anyways, so I'd rather have the more useful side views.
Worst case I shift my vehicle within the lane a bit if I need to see around something.
You know, through my life I think I get roughly 3-5 new connector types for every one that finally dies?
I'm up to 5 USB connectors, but I don't have a parallel port in the house anymore. Still have as serial port. My computers still have the dedicated PS2 style mouse/keyboard ports, but at least I don't have the big one anymore. On the other hand on the video side I have VGA, HDMI, DVI, D-Port, S-Video, coax, RCA, component, etc... Maybe I'll get rid of the S-Video soon.
Nope, but that's the ops argument. I was simply saying that backing cameras will affect normal driving outside of parking lots.
Personally, I love the idea of a backing camera. Done right it'd replace the need for a rear-view mirror and do so from a better angle. The blind spot when I back up my truck is way too large.
I just happened to see some surveliance units in the store I was browsing in over lunch. $200 for 2 cameras wireless cameras and a wireless viewer with LiIon battery.
Eliminating one of the cameras, removing the wireless and recording capabilities, I can easly see ~$150 for the system in a car. Integrating it into the car we'll call a wash against the need for more advanced functions and additional housings.
If you RTFA it's 200+ deaths a year
Indeed, I hate it when they post numbers like this without specifying a duration - per year, per month, per decade, what? National budget numbers are notorious for this.
You're also going to likely get the backup sensor included so that's a total cost increase of $400-500 easily.
FTA: The government estimates that a rearview system will cost between $132 and $142 per vehicle. For vehicles that already have a dashboard display screen, upgrading it to comply with the rule will cost less, about $43 each.
When it's no longer an option, but a mandatory feature it becomes a lot cheaper per unit.
On most residential streets, such as mine, I back out onto it every day. If I'm paying too much attention to the backing camera I won't know if there's a car already on the street...
My argument is that they would have whatever the hell they want because the market is not only there, but strong. You can get AK-47s on the black market, man.
No shit. You treat that like some massive revelation when I started mentioning AK's from the second post. Hell, they can get AK-74's on the black market.
Just 'cause a method is less ideal doesn't mean it's going to be that much less ideal.
Agreed, which is why I don't posit it saving anywhere near every life, and just say 'some lives'. Like maybe 2-3. As you mention, there are alternate suppliers, but they're less reliable than dealers the ATF is encouraging to sell to them. They might not be able to obtain the numbers that the purchasers want, there's still the risk of interception/failed deal and a firefight, they might not be able to get the specific rifles they want, etc... On the whole they'd be more effort, and that means more expensive.
In real life, small changes don't lead to big changes; they lead to minor adjustments.
Small changes add up though. It's unlikely, but a lot of cartel people are on hair triggers so it doesn't necessarily take much to tip them into violence(or out of it). Still, there's a reason I said 'on the balance that's unlikely'. IE odds are low. I stuck that part in there mostly because we can't 100% accurately predict the fallout.
I know that 5Ghz doesn't penetrate walls as well as 2.4, but it still does and even 'bounces' better so it's a bit of a mix-up. Still, I know the penetration capability of 5Ghz from my home, so if it was at all common in my area*, I'd expect to see 5-6, even if at low signal strength.
As for more spectrum not being bad, I agree with you, which is why I tried to phrase it that extra channels at 2.4Ghz would be more useful than more at 5Ghz.
BTW, just did a quick check - only 20% of tablets sold at Newegg are capable of communicating with 5Ghz networks.
*I'm sure the Japanese are ahead of us, along with an number of other countries.
My thought on reading the above was more along the lines that we could really, really use more channels in the 2.4Ghz area. I've never seen an area saturated with 5Ghz signals, and it still takes fairly intensive shopping to find wireless devices and equipment that are capable of 5Ghz operation at all.
I mean, last time I helped somebody set up wireless in a dormatory it was last year and a cursory scan revealed 22 2.4Ghz wireless networks within range of my phone to ID them, and ONE 5Ghz. Of course, said coworker ended up on the least congested band I could find - (channel 9 if I remember right), because his router wasn't capable of 5Ghz. I also have to keep the 2.4Ghz channel on for my router because finding a tablet that's both affordable and capable of 5Ghz didn't work out when I bought it.
Honestly, a networking standard that goes a step beyond 802.11n like 802.11ac that actually mandates operation at 5Ghz was necessary to force companies to make the switch, though I imagine many/most companies will just stick to 2.4Ghz only 'N' as long as they can, much like it's still easy to end up with a 'G' only device even today.