25k@$100k per gives you $2.5B in sales. Plus I just read an article about Tesla selling ZEV credits to the other manufacturers...
I can remember them licensing Honda for the batteries and Lotus for their Elise design both of which basically weren't good enough for their requirements.
The Elise frame was a deliberate design decision - it allowed them to release a car without having to design a body, allowing them to concentrate on the drive train, battery packs, etc... Also, I thought it was the opposite way round on the batteries?
Step 1: motor, battery pack, controller, interior (Roadster) Step 2: As step 1 but the frame too, spread of charging stations/support infrastructure (Model S) Step 3? Build a battery factory...
Sure. But. Calculations are still required for amp draw per circuit (which determines wire size and breaker ampacity), particularly when a specialty appliance has the unique demands of an electric car charger.
Not really any math above addition, and possibly even that if they're running a dedicated circuit for the specialty appliance like they're supposed to. The electrician memorizes some figures/looks at a chart. Heck, I've seen the figures printed on the boxes.
NEMA 5-15(standard outlet): 14 gauge minimum(copper), 15A* max, 12A design NEMA 5-20(has the notch): 12 gauge minumum, 20A max, 16A design NEMA 14-30(dryer, 240V): 10 gauge, 30A max, 24A design NEMA 14-50(range, 240V): 6 gauge, 50A max, 40A design.
The 'formula' for simple installs is easy: Look at the amperage of the product you're using. round UP to the next breaker size. Use specified wire gauge. Manufacturers tend to make this even easier because they tend to not produce appliances that are close enough in amp ratings that you'd need to skip the next largest breaker - IE they don't make appliances that use 'exactly' 30A, they'll produce a <24A model then if you need heavier duty a 32-40A one.
Though I'll note that space heaters and hair dryers today tend to assume that you have a 20A circuit, but there's reasons why the heaters are limited to 1500 watts and dryers to 1875(but they're only this powerful if you feed them 125V, nice advertising guys! In reality they'll be closer to 1.6kw in homes with proper voltage).
*Though to meet code it has to be manufactured to be capable of safe operation at 20A+
If it seems like hardware and software bugs show up faster, it is because the userbase that uses and report such bugs (easy to do now via social media) is much much much larger.
This. Let's say that Problem X is generally only going to be encountered by 1 out of 1k users per year. If you have a beta group of 1k users and have them test it for 1 year(incredibly large and long in today's environments) you may or may not have it pop up, I believe the odds are around 50-50 in this case of you getting at least 1 instance.
Now you release it to the public where it's sold to 100M users who proceed to use it for a decade. You're near certain to get a number of cases that rounds to 1M, which is a big problem...
Even Canadian diamonds have been traced as going back to pay African warlords.
If you trace it enough couldn't this be said for darn near ANY purchase, much like how we can detect cocaine on any given bill that's not fresh from the mint?
Burning oil is hardly plausible by statute. Even if the Wankel were "better", the CHxs would trash it.
Which is one of the reasons why I didn't say that it wasn't a problem, just that it's less of a 'problem' than a malfunctioning engine. Heck, the team isn't even to the point where they know that oil leakage is going to be a problem.
Of course, within my research I found that they're working on making a wankel engine that doesn't need the seals OR leak oil by both making it a contant RPM/load engine in hybrids as 'range extenders' where it's small size makes it beneficial and switching to laster ignition, given that the spark plug port was one of the leak points.
'Total War' is pretty much an invention of the industrial age. If you look at various ancient tribes, you'll find that their conflicts are wrapped in various traditions that if you strip the various trappings away amount to 'make sure your tribe survives, even if it means that you can't wipe out the other tribe'. Things like if you kill a single enemy you must immediately leave the battlefield and purify yourself, which helps ensure that your best warriors(who are often also your best hunters) are preserved to fight another day. The Medieval period had a fairly elaborate ransom system.
Even without ransom treating captured enemies relatively well helps encourage them to surrender faster, which helps preserve your own troops. When conducting war to gain resources, it's almost as important to avoid pyhrric 'victories' as it is to avoid defeats.
Please note that I'm not making moral judgments about justifications for war here
What part of "it could end up being an insurmountable problem(for now)" don't you understand? Plus - short article, I'd be careful of assuming that the team isn't looking at the problem as opposed to it simply not being mentioned in the 'edited by a third party' article.
Plus, well, we don't even know how much of an oil leakage problem we're looking at yet.
The USA has also declared that it is not bound by the International Criminal Court which investigates and tries criminal acts during wars.
Actually, the International Criminal Court generally only gets involved when the country itself doesn't enforce certain laws/ban certain behaviors. The USA 'generally' does, plus it takes a brave cop(who doesn't have any backup) to really do anything to the 800 pound jaywalking Gorilla.
Really, I tend to view international relations as having a lot more in common with ancient 'justice' systems - might makes right and all that. I'm not saying it's fair by any stretch, but people who think that Bush is going to be tried in an international court are dreaming.
There may be no justifiable wars right now, but there have been in the past. For that matter I think that Iraq and Afghanistan are more complicated than you potray them. If we truly did it just for the resources we would have simply made a deal with Saddam and treated Afghanistan much differently.
As for the Einstein quote - remember that he helped convince the USA to develop nuclear weapons with the fear that Germany would develop them first. So obviously either his beliefs changed or his views more nuanced than 'all war is wrong'.
How about we start putting our trillions into solving problems at home instead of attacking people elsewhere and let other nations govern themselves.
I mostly agree with you, just short of the part where if we ignore them too much they come over and bug us.
Your idea is neat but we still have a long way to go. Consider that most of those components you're sending up are generally made of numerous disparate layers, chock full of equipment, or failing that full of pipes and other tubing.
I've proposed having a 'solar smelter' before, but even then I mostly envisioned it being used to convert trash/waste into shielding and/or simple structural materials.
Astronaught time is too valuable to waste running cables and doing extensive assembly work. Though a 3D printer using sun assisted sintering with 2-4 robot arms to move the 'printer' and the work in progress would be neat as heck.
The thermoplastic used in most conventional 3D printers today can be recycled via melting and recasting them in a shape suitable for the printer - normally a filament of a set size. Otherwise, recycle as per standard plastic rules.
Me too, but we still need to see some references comparing the strengths/weaknesses between production methods. Though I'd substitute 'cast' for 'machined', or maybe machined/welded forged/cast parts because you can mix and match some of the methods.
It depends a bit on what you consider 'automation' - does a electric screwdriver count as automation? A belt sander? Something is moving without human power, after all. I'll settle for allowing power tools, but everything would have to be guided by a human. IE you can have a drill press with mechanical stops, but a human will actually have to work a wheel/lever to control drill height.
So to look at the examples, the GP was talking about an entire car, not just the engine, plus your engine is 'hand finished', not 'hand made'. My take on it is that most of the parts were still made in the automatic ways, only the final assembly/fitting was done by hand. Consider your exhaust pipe example - while I'm sure they bent the pipe by hand, I'm just as sure that the pipes were made using automated equipment, as was any fittings such as hose clamps, screws, and bolts. In addition for the car you'd also have to craft the wheels, frame, seats, dash, etc...
The reason hand made/custom parts can be cheaper than going to the dealer is that the part might be in a part of it's life cycle where even the part the dealer would get was hand made as well.
Heat resistance would allow the engine to run hotter, allowing more efficiency per the Carnot cycle. Difficulties include preventing your fuel from combusting early, how to lubricate at temperatures that will cause normal oils to smoke, etc...
There's some weirdness in that ceramics done right can be lighter than steel, and due to their hardness and not expanding/contracting as much tolerances can be tighter, perhaps even reducing the need for lubricants.
Lower fuel energy density doesn't matter that much between gasoline/ethanol, though. Energy density is still high enough that you simply put a 15 gallon tank where you currently put a 10 gallon tank.
I do agree that 'little modification' is a rather large understatement. While you can convert by 'simply' changing jets/remapping fuel mixture in the ECU, and a lot of seals are already compatible, I feel that in order to do alcohol *properly* you need to design the engine from the ground up to use it - alcohol has advantages as well as disadvantages, it's possible to make up some of the energy difference by creating a high compression engine that takes advantage of ethanol's high octane.
Give it another hundred or so years... We might find that horses end up more popular than gasoline filled vehicles again. Not saying that horses will regain their former dominance though.
ATF is actually about as much law enforcement as the FBI should be about 'National Security'. It's actually primarily a tax agency ala IRS. Speaking of which, even the IRS has officers with law enforcement powers.
Of course, it's my opinion we're spending too much on 'National Security' and not enough on 'Law Enforcement', at least on the federal level. There's an awful lot of interstate scamming/internet fraud that needs to be controlled.
When running an engine with cracked piston rings, lube oil will start to enter the combustion. This will produce toxic black and foul smelling exhaust and the engine "will be burning oil".
You mention an engine where a specific feature, specifically the piston rings, has failed, so it's no surprise that it's operation would be undesirable. I will counter with 2 stroke and wankel/rotary engines, which burn oil by design. Burning oil isn't as much of a problem if you design for it.
The Australians are working on a design where the piston rings won't be necessary. It could end up that they need a new lube system for the piston rod/crankshaft, or it could end up being an insurmountable problem(for now). I like that they're looking into it though. It reminds me about how HD platter arms are suspended by air flow from the rotating platters. High enough pressures might cause the air to act more like a liquid.
My central point was more that 1B people isn't actually that much if you consider the world population over 40 years, for an event that might be as short as a month.
I didn't even argue that it was a 14% boost, simply that 'around a 14%' boost would be sufficient to argue saving 1B 'from starvation'(assuming we didn't simply spend more effort growing things other ways). Also, there's a reason I put quotes around 'saving' as it'd only be 'saving' via a non-standard definition. That's why I also mentioned avoiding periods of starvation as a possiblity - we've evolved to better survive periods of starvation, it's quite possible to be 'starving' and survive it without significant long-term harm. Unpleasant, certainly, but possible. Then you can 'water it down' a touch more and be generous with the rounding - get a number from your calculations of somewhere 800M+ and round to 1B.
Personally I think that politics have more to do with starvation today than farming technology. For that matter we tend to reproduce to fit our food supply like most other animals.
You have to keep sense of scale in mind here. Consider that in the year 1000 there was an estimated 310M humans on the whole planet. The USA alone exceeds that today. It only hit 3B in the '60s, and is up to 7B today.
As such, in order to gain credit for 1B people, GMO only needs to be about a 14% productivity boost over all the other methods you mention in order to be able to be credited with 'saving' 1B from starvation. If you consider that starvation need not be fatal, the necessary boost to simply keep people from 'experiencing starvation'*, due to uneven productivity and such is much less.
*Say, a period of 30 days or more without sufficient nutrution = 'experiencing starvation'.
While I'm sure ShanghaiBill could have put a little more thought into the post(who couldn't?), it meets the standards of an internet forum.
What I think about is the fact that most people filling a Lipitor prescriptions are going to be doing so using their heath insurance, after being prescribed the drug by a doctor that's paid for by the insurance company(conflict of interest if you expect him to hide anything from the company paying him). If the company doesn't already know that he's taking lipitor and needs to buy that information from the pharmacy that means that the individual isn't using the insurance network, which would on average save him money, making it illogical unless there's a secondary reason such as hiding a pre-existing condition that was undeclared. Because if it WAS declared, he wouldn't have/want to hide it.
The life insurance company is a bigger concern; lipitor isn't that big of a deal and the insurance company has to balance people getting medical care for conditions that might result in them dying earlier against encouraging those who DON'T get the proper treatment in order to get a discount(and therefore dying even quicker).
That's because targeted ads are failures. You research and then buy a pair of shoes online and they spam you with shoe ads for the next month when you are no longer interested.
Even worse, Dell bombarded me with ads and 'coupons' for another laptop within a month of my buying one. The 'standard' user of a laptop replaces it roughly every 3 years. While there are certainly shoes that last longer, most of my purchases are for athletic types that last me roughly three months*.
*As running/exercise shoes. After that they're demoted to daily wear, then lawnmowing duty. Though lately they haven't been even getting that as I've taken to wearing my older/retired work boots. Safer.
Slashdot Mirror
Jemmy: A short steel crowbar
Steel will conduct electricity fine; that's how your voltage returns in most cars - they use the frame.
There have only been maybe 5000 of them made and the development is at what now over 5 years?
25k as of December, actually.
25k@$100k per gives you $2.5B in sales. Plus I just read an article about Tesla selling ZEV credits to the other manufacturers...
I can remember them licensing Honda for the batteries and Lotus for their Elise design both of which basically weren't good enough for their requirements.
The Elise frame was a deliberate design decision - it allowed them to release a car without having to design a body, allowing them to concentrate on the drive train, battery packs, etc... Also, I thought it was the opposite way round on the batteries?
Step 1: motor, battery pack, controller, interior (Roadster)
Step 2: As step 1 but the frame too, spread of charging stations/support infrastructure (Model S)
Step 3? Build a battery factory...
As I understand it they put some logic in to detect power 'stutters' that are likely to come from an overheating, failing connection.
Sure. But. Calculations are still required for amp draw per circuit (which determines wire size and breaker ampacity), particularly when a specialty appliance has the unique demands of an electric car charger.
Not really any math above addition, and possibly even that if they're running a dedicated circuit for the specialty appliance like they're supposed to. The electrician memorizes some figures/looks at a chart. Heck, I've seen the figures printed on the boxes.
NEMA 5-15(standard outlet): 14 gauge minimum(copper), 15A* max, 12A design
NEMA 5-20(has the notch): 12 gauge minumum, 20A max, 16A design
NEMA 14-30(dryer, 240V): 10 gauge, 30A max, 24A design
NEMA 14-50(range, 240V): 6 gauge, 50A max, 40A design.
The 'formula' for simple installs is easy: Look at the amperage of the product you're using. round UP to the next breaker size. Use specified wire gauge. Manufacturers tend to make this even easier because they tend to not produce appliances that are close enough in amp ratings that you'd need to skip the next largest breaker - IE they don't make appliances that use 'exactly' 30A, they'll produce a <24A model then if you need heavier duty a 32-40A one.
Though I'll note that space heaters and hair dryers today tend to assume that you have a 20A circuit, but there's reasons why the heaters are limited to 1500 watts and dryers to 1875(but they're only this powerful if you feed them 125V, nice advertising guys! In reality they'll be closer to 1.6kw in homes with proper voltage).
*Though to meet code it has to be manufactured to be capable of safe operation at 20A+
If it seems like hardware and software bugs show up faster, it is because the userbase that uses and report such bugs (easy to do now via social media) is much much much larger.
This. Let's say that Problem X is generally only going to be encountered by 1 out of 1k users per year. If you have a beta group of 1k users and have them test it for 1 year(incredibly large and long in today's environments) you may or may not have it pop up, I believe the odds are around 50-50 in this case of you getting at least 1 instance.
Now you release it to the public where it's sold to 100M users who proceed to use it for a decade. You're near certain to get a number of cases that rounds to 1M, which is a big problem...
Even Canadian diamonds have been traced as going back to pay African warlords.
If you trace it enough couldn't this be said for darn near ANY purchase, much like how we can detect cocaine on any given bill that's not fresh from the mint?
Burning oil is hardly plausible by statute. Even if the Wankel were "better", the CHxs would trash it.
Which is one of the reasons why I didn't say that it wasn't a problem, just that it's less of a 'problem' than a malfunctioning engine. Heck, the team isn't even to the point where they know that oil leakage is going to be a problem.
Of course, within my research I found that they're working on making a wankel engine that doesn't need the seals OR leak oil by both making it a contant RPM/load engine in hybrids as 'range extenders' where it's small size makes it beneficial and switching to laster ignition, given that the spark plug port was one of the leak points.
'Total War' is pretty much an invention of the industrial age. If you look at various ancient tribes, you'll find that their conflicts are wrapped in various traditions that if you strip the various trappings away amount to 'make sure your tribe survives, even if it means that you can't wipe out the other tribe'. Things like if you kill a single enemy you must immediately leave the battlefield and purify yourself, which helps ensure that your best warriors(who are often also your best hunters) are preserved to fight another day. The Medieval period had a fairly elaborate ransom system.
Even without ransom treating captured enemies relatively well helps encourage them to surrender faster, which helps preserve your own troops. When conducting war to gain resources, it's almost as important to avoid pyhrric 'victories' as it is to avoid defeats.
Please note that I'm not making moral judgments about justifications for war here
What part of "it could end up being an insurmountable problem(for now)" don't you understand? Plus - short article, I'd be careful of assuming that the team isn't looking at the problem as opposed to it simply not being mentioned in the 'edited by a third party' article.
Plus, well, we don't even know how much of an oil leakage problem we're looking at yet.
The USA has also declared that it is not bound by the International Criminal Court which investigates and tries criminal acts during wars.
Actually, the International Criminal Court generally only gets involved when the country itself doesn't enforce certain laws/ban certain behaviors. The USA 'generally' does, plus it takes a brave cop(who doesn't have any backup) to really do anything to the 800 pound jaywalking Gorilla.
Really, I tend to view international relations as having a lot more in common with ancient 'justice' systems - might makes right and all that. I'm not saying it's fair by any stretch, but people who think that Bush is going to be tried in an international court are dreaming.
Hitting somebody that wasn't the target?
There are no justifiable wars.
There may be no justifiable wars right now, but there have been in the past. For that matter I think that Iraq and Afghanistan are more complicated than you potray them. If we truly did it just for the resources we would have simply made a deal with Saddam and treated Afghanistan much differently.
As for the Einstein quote - remember that he helped convince the USA to develop nuclear weapons with the fear that Germany would develop them first. So obviously either his beliefs changed or his views more nuanced than 'all war is wrong'.
How about we start putting our trillions into solving problems at home instead of attacking people elsewhere and let other nations govern themselves.
I mostly agree with you, just short of the part where if we ignore them too much they come over and bug us.
Your idea is neat but we still have a long way to go. Consider that most of those components you're sending up are generally made of numerous disparate layers, chock full of equipment, or failing that full of pipes and other tubing.
I've proposed having a 'solar smelter' before, but even then I mostly envisioned it being used to convert trash/waste into shielding and/or simple structural materials.
Astronaught time is too valuable to waste running cables and doing extensive assembly work. Though a 3D printer using sun assisted sintering with 2-4 robot arms to move the 'printer' and the work in progress would be neat as heck.
The thermoplastic used in most conventional 3D printers today can be recycled via melting and recasting them in a shape suitable for the printer - normally a filament of a set size. Otherwise, recycle as per standard plastic rules.
Me too, but we still need to see some references comparing the strengths/weaknesses between production methods. Though I'd substitute 'cast' for 'machined', or maybe machined/welded forged/cast parts because you can mix and match some of the methods.
It depends a bit on what you consider 'automation' - does a electric screwdriver count as automation? A belt sander? Something is moving without human power, after all. I'll settle for allowing power tools, but everything would have to be guided by a human. IE you can have a drill press with mechanical stops, but a human will actually have to work a wheel/lever to control drill height.
So to look at the examples, the GP was talking about an entire car, not just the engine, plus your engine is 'hand finished', not 'hand made'. My take on it is that most of the parts were still made in the automatic ways, only the final assembly/fitting was done by hand. Consider your exhaust pipe example - while I'm sure they bent the pipe by hand, I'm just as sure that the pipes were made using automated equipment, as was any fittings such as hose clamps, screws, and bolts. In addition for the car you'd also have to craft the wheels, frame, seats, dash, etc...
The reason hand made/custom parts can be cheaper than going to the dealer is that the part might be in a part of it's life cycle where even the part the dealer would get was hand made as well.
What are the advantages of ceramic engines?
Heat resistance would allow the engine to run hotter, allowing more efficiency per the Carnot cycle. Difficulties include preventing your fuel from combusting early, how to lubricate at temperatures that will cause normal oils to smoke, etc...
There's some weirdness in that ceramics done right can be lighter than steel, and due to their hardness and not expanding/contracting as much tolerances can be tighter, perhaps even reducing the need for lubricants.
Lower fuel energy density doesn't matter that much between gasoline/ethanol, though. Energy density is still high enough that you simply put a 15 gallon tank where you currently put a 10 gallon tank.
I do agree that 'little modification' is a rather large understatement. While you can convert by 'simply' changing jets/remapping fuel mixture in the ECU, and a lot of seals are already compatible, I feel that in order to do alcohol *properly* you need to design the engine from the ground up to use it - alcohol has advantages as well as disadvantages, it's possible to make up some of the energy difference by creating a high compression engine that takes advantage of ethanol's high octane.
Give it another hundred or so years... We might find that horses end up more popular than gasoline filled vehicles again. Not saying that horses will regain their former dominance though.
ATF is actually about as much law enforcement as the FBI should be about 'National Security'. It's actually primarily a tax agency ala IRS. Speaking of which, even the IRS has officers with law enforcement powers.
Of course, it's my opinion we're spending too much on 'National Security' and not enough on 'Law Enforcement', at least on the federal level. There's an awful lot of interstate scamming/internet fraud that needs to be controlled.
When running an engine with cracked piston rings, lube oil will start to enter the combustion. This will produce toxic black and foul smelling exhaust and the engine "will be burning oil".
You mention an engine where a specific feature, specifically the piston rings, has failed, so it's no surprise that it's operation would be undesirable. I will counter with 2 stroke and wankel/rotary engines, which burn oil by design. Burning oil isn't as much of a problem if you design for it.
The Australians are working on a design where the piston rings won't be necessary. It could end up that they need a new lube system for the piston rod/crankshaft, or it could end up being an insurmountable problem(for now). I like that they're looking into it though. It reminds me about how HD platter arms are suspended by air flow from the rotating platters. High enough pressures might cause the air to act more like a liquid.
My central point was more that 1B people isn't actually that much if you consider the world population over 40 years, for an event that might be as short as a month.
I didn't even argue that it was a 14% boost, simply that 'around a 14%' boost would be sufficient to argue saving 1B 'from starvation'(assuming we didn't simply spend more effort growing things other ways). Also, there's a reason I put quotes around 'saving' as it'd only be 'saving' via a non-standard definition. That's why I also mentioned avoiding periods of starvation as a possiblity - we've evolved to better survive periods of starvation, it's quite possible to be 'starving' and survive it without significant long-term harm. Unpleasant, certainly, but possible. Then you can 'water it down' a touch more and be generous with the rounding - get a number from your calculations of somewhere 800M+ and round to 1B.
Personally I think that politics have more to do with starvation today than farming technology. For that matter we tend to reproduce to fit our food supply like most other animals.
You have to keep sense of scale in mind here. Consider that in the year 1000 there was an estimated 310M humans on the whole planet. The USA alone exceeds that today. It only hit 3B in the '60s, and is up to 7B today.
As such, in order to gain credit for 1B people, GMO only needs to be about a 14% productivity boost over all the other methods you mention in order to be able to be credited with 'saving' 1B from starvation. If you consider that starvation need not be fatal, the necessary boost to simply keep people from 'experiencing starvation'*, due to uneven productivity and such is much less.
*Say, a period of 30 days or more without sufficient nutrution = 'experiencing starvation'.
While I'm sure ShanghaiBill could have put a little more thought into the post(who couldn't?), it meets the standards of an internet forum.
What I think about is the fact that most people filling a Lipitor prescriptions are going to be doing so using their heath insurance, after being prescribed the drug by a doctor that's paid for by the insurance company(conflict of interest if you expect him to hide anything from the company paying him). If the company doesn't already know that he's taking lipitor and needs to buy that information from the pharmacy that means that the individual isn't using the insurance network, which would on average save him money, making it illogical unless there's a secondary reason such as hiding a pre-existing condition that was undeclared. Because if it WAS declared, he wouldn't have/want to hide it.
The life insurance company is a bigger concern; lipitor isn't that big of a deal and the insurance company has to balance people getting medical care for conditions that might result in them dying earlier against encouraging those who DON'T get the proper treatment in order to get a discount(and therefore dying even quicker).
That's because targeted ads are failures. You research and then buy a pair of shoes online and they spam you with shoe ads for the next month when you are no longer interested.
Even worse, Dell bombarded me with ads and 'coupons' for another laptop within a month of my buying one. The 'standard' user of a laptop replaces it roughly every 3 years. While there are certainly shoes that last longer, most of my purchases are for athletic types that last me roughly three months*.
*As running/exercise shoes. After that they're demoted to daily wear, then lawnmowing duty. Though lately they haven't been even getting that as I've taken to wearing my older/retired work boots. Safer.