I use rechargables in my mouse, it generally lasts 2-3 weeks before I have to swap.
I think the biggest problem isn't the amount of power the device draws, but more the self-discharge rate. A LiIon of the same bulk/weight would hold twice again as much power, but also wouldn't be losing 5-10% of it's charge per day.
It's the sort of application that's actually more suited towards alkalines. I had a set of those last for over two months when I was attending some training out of town.
If you can find some 'low self discharge' type NiMH cells, you might get a LOT more lifespan between charges.
USB uses a lot of CPU, while SATA uses none at all.
Do you happen to have a source on this? I mean, I remember shopping for full modems specifically because 'winmodems' sucked down CPU time for their operation, but near the end, it didn't matter.
I highly doubt that SATA really uses 'none at all', I'm sure there's some CPU utilization with SATA.
Less cables? maybe, eventually.... But by the time you get the latest all-in-one, you will have some new technology coming along that offers something extra that you will want... So you will end up with a mix of new tech cables and old tech cables anyway
Once you have a 'generic' interface like USB that's both fast enough and capable of providing power, what else do you need?
USB has 'replaced' PS2, serial, parallel, and game* ports. Heck, it can even replace sound ports with what's essentially an external sound card. Heck, it even replaced PCMCIA ports in some cases - USB memory keys instead of mini hard drives in a PCMCIA card.
The only real reason it hasn't replaced monitor cables is bandwidth - there's simply not enough.
Bluetooth, wireless networking, PoE, etc.. All can help eliminate cables. I think my biggest desire is to see data cables shipping MORE power. USB, PoE, demonstrate it can be done. I'm not going to worry too much that my TV needs it's own power plug, but it'd nice to be able to power a 3.5" based USB HD with just the USB cable. Heck, I like the idea I've seen where your monitor has a USB hub you can plug your keyboard/mouse/whatever into. I've even seen keyboards with a small port you can put the mouse into (just get a mouse with a short cable, but as I use bluetooth...).
AS for HDMI having ethernet instead of USB - well, HDMI has useful length of 15 meters without repeaters or anything, just using a good quality cable. USB has a fairly hard limit of 3 meters. Ethernet, at ~100 meters, will have no problems. Besides that, USB is still working on 'embedded host' protocols so you can do stuff like plug a keyboard into a phone to type on the phone.
*What you used to plug things like joysticks into.
Taxis have the advantage that they're generally standardized, and most large taxi companies already have their own service departments. So they have a garage to install the equipment.
For that matter they have the commerical incentive and miles driven in a year to justify the cost of the batteries; cost of capital doesn't add up as much when you're looking at replacing a battery within a year, not five-ten.
USB 2.0 'highspeed' - 480MBit (Tricky fact: USB 2.0 connection can still be 'lowspeed') USB 'superspeed' - 4.8 GBit.
Going by what the article says, I think that the e-sata specification should have included some power providing abilities. Preferably enough to run a 2.5" HD/SSD on it's own.
I mean USB specifications are actually changing to be able to provide even MORE power. Looking at the octopus nest behind my computer, I count elimination of cables as a GOOD thing. If I could have a Monitor with 1 cable(at the cost of an even beefier power supply in my computer), power my DSL modem via PoE, I'd be happy. I love my bluetooth mouse, but am too paranoid to go with a wireless keyboard until they come out with one with more serious encryption.
As demand rises, I foresee parking lots, whether at work, shopping centers, wherever, installing quick-charge stations.
I keep figuring restaurants will be popular spots - Many gas stations will be the least popular. Right now gas stations are seperate due to infrastructure/safety requirements for a buried tank. But most gas stations I see don't have the space to handle the same number of cars if you go from 5 minute fill ups to even 15-30 minute 'quick charges'.
I wonder if any of the auto manufacturers have electric car designs where the battery is quick-swappable?
There's quite a few problems with this - I'd add in condition of the swapped battery. But there's another problem - EV batteries are heavy enough that you need a crane/lift to move them. It also means that the battery needs substantial structural support, complicating quick-change support systems. Besides weight, they also have bulk, means that they're often stuck in somewhat wierd spots in the car maker's quest to maximize usable space to the operator/passangers.
Then you have to figure out how many quick-swap batteries the station will have to keep, how they're going to charge them, how much labor and machinery the quick-swap takes.
There's some probability that 'delay travel or hire a cab' might be the more routine solution.
They're basically a post with a socket on the top: Picture
Those look familiar... Of course, I like to say that where I work is already EV ready - well, as long as you can charge off of 110V. Of course, they were installed for block heaters, not EVs.
I've actually looked into getting an EV, partially because of this*, but wasn't able to make it make financial sense even assuming my 'fuel' would be free.
*Free fuel, I like techie toys, etc...
I don't especially like them -- I'd like to see less traffic congestion in the city.
Personal thoughts: You're never going to get rid of all the vehicles, what about the handicapped, those who have to carry too much to make a bike practical, those who may not be formally handicapped but can't handle a bicycle and can't afford the walking time, etc...
Given that, I'd rather have EVs in the city than gasoline burners.
Corrected figures: Population, Austria: 8,336,926 (2008) Percent of Vehicles compared to population: 55.8% Number of vehicles: 4.65M Population growth:.434% Pop in 2020: 8.7M, est Cars in 2020: 4.86M, est Estimated % electric cars, according to their estimate: 8.3%
Even reworked for Austria, that's not actually all that many electric cars.
I'm not a statistician, but as a check on numbers: Population, Australia: 21,431,800 (2009) Number of Vehicles registered: 15,674,436 Percent of Vehicles compared to population: 73% Population growth: 1.69% Pop in 2020: 25.3M, est Cars in 2020: 18.5M, est Estimated % electric cars, according to their estimate: 2.2%
I'll note that my quick growth check means that there will be something like 2.8 Million additional cars on the road in 2020, which means that only 14% of GROWTH would be in electric vehicles.
My Samsung "Sync" is thinner than the Motorola and yet it's constructed far better, fwiw - and reception was better than the moto as well.
Construction quality is different from ease of maintenance or size. Note that I specified larger size in the context of having more functionality - larger screen, longer antenna, bigger battery.
Now, as far as labor being expensive - it's still cheaper to repair a $1500-$2000 LCD television than to replace it.
It depends. It depends on what part's failed, how much labor it'll take to fix, the cost of the replacement components. A car is often economical to repair, but take a 5 year old car and pop the airbags and they'll total it. If the fix for that new $2k LCD TV is a replacement board, they'll do that. If the problem is the LCD panel, it's replace the whole TV.
Generally speaking, you don't fix much beyond a blown fuse for electronics that are under $400 new today.
Now as far as the cost of labor to manufacture; it is unfair to factor that in considering that slave labor (or what amounts to slave labor, or indentured servitude at best) in China and other far-east countries is something no one can compete with. We've sold our souls to get cheap big-screen televisions, cheap sneakers, etc. and honestly the bulk of it is built cheaply (alternate meaning of cheap) to match the price with little regard to making something maintainable/repairable. We've developed a disposable culture here and it's disgusting.
Please note that I didn't specify country or even region once in my post. I mentioned automation. A lot of cars are still made here in the USA, but most 'repair' jobs are part swaps. That's been the case for a while, but they used to have a lot more tools to repair engine components.
cheaply is an alternate meaning of cheap?;)
As for 'disposable culture', well, disposable isn't necessarily bad or a worse economic choice. Consider bottled milk. Milk used to come in glass containers, now it mostly comes in plastic. Even the cardboard containers have substantial amounts of plastic to provide the seal/waterproofing.
What it comes down to is that the natural gas it takes as feedstock to make a gallon jug is LESS than what it takes to properly heat enough water to steralize used glass containers. That's without getting into the energy cost of making a glass container. So it's truly the more economic and environmental choice to go with plastic over glass when it comes to milk. It may or may not be economical and environmental to recycle the plastic.
Back on manufacture - while labor is the most major expense of fixing something; it's one of the least for most manufactured items; we're looking at a 10% price difference between a product made in China with their prevailing wages and US wages. Most of the cost is tied up in the machinery and feedstock.
Puts too much strain on the tubes; you want some more positive control. the metal arms help keep the tube aligned and supported.
Though that would make for an interesting test - about a meter or two of cord, and a dude spinning it around his head. Lower RPM is compensated for by larger radius.
Looked at the prices of newly-developed medical equipment lately?
To get technical, this is lab equipment, not medical. You're spinning blood, not installing a shunt.
Looking at the various devices in question, you could probably convert the 4 tube centrifuge to a larger one simply by putting a different 'top' on the unit. Perhaps increase the size of the crank/shaft a bit. Heck, it might start slower, but with a uniform disc and good bearings, the larger unit wouldn't be significantly harder to turn either. Might even be easier, what with having lower air resistance at ~3k RPM. No real need to get fancy with magnetic bearings or clutches
They already have them, it's just that the 30+ tube centrifuges are all electric from my quick search - I'm sure China would be quite happy to produce a number of manual ones if somebody was willing to order a thousand or so.
The key to healthcare reform was to cap profits for suppliers to the healthcare industry. None of the dance around insurers was necessary, and none of it did anything to stop the real cost driver.
'Cap profits' is about the worst thing you can do, by my thinking. The problem isn't just excessive profits*, it's inefficiency. What they really need to do is encourage more competition. Remove, or at least streamline/lessen obstacles to entering the market. Capped profits merely means MORE companies leaving the field, reducing competetion, reducing incentive to economize. Besides, profits can be hidden, transfered, and tweaked by a good accountant team.
In the past, the software and applications changed such that you needed a new computer every three years ago or there was lots of stuff you couldn't do.
Well, Microsoft tried to keep that up with Vista, however CPUs weren't keeping up, thus it was substantially slower, people noticed, MS lost sales. Because, by and large, the 'new' features of the OS weren't worth the performance cost for the customers.
Consider, I went from a 3Ghz dual core to a 3.7Ghz quad, in 3 years. Near as I can tell, I should have around 2.5X the CPU available. I remember when it was more like 'double every year', and when you're looking at a 5 minute load time, cutting it down to 3-4 was really obvious. But it's a known fact that 'doubling' the performance of one component generally doesn't anywhere near double realworld performance. In the case of my upgrade - it's clearly an upgrade, but I'm still underwhelmed. Sort of like when I went car shopping and realized that the cars that are rated to get the same gas mileage as my old one are actually smaller with fewer features.
Other thoughts. Used to be that computers couldn't handle much in the way of realistic audio, much less HD Video, but now that's pretty much universal even on $300 machines. Game wise we're to the point that the scenes are too pretty to really be appreciated during action games like crysis. Heck, I remember wandering around Serious Sam between attacks appreciating some of the artwork. But that's between attacks. Games where you do have time to 'smell the roses' generally don't have the same level of action to render, making them easier.
Sure, we have further to go, but I think programmers in general are going to have to sit down and re-learn multithreading and optimization. Consider how Microsoft managed to make windows 7 perform better than not just Vista, but even XP in many situations.
If in another 3 years we're looking at 8 core processors at 4 Ghz as the 'top end', I expect to see much more in the way of code optimization. You can only multithread so much, after all.
When 'loading' a game already takes less than a second, making it take 20% less time isn't all that noticable.
As Bing said, my usage is my usage. I'm barely enough to be considered a 'gamer' today, no longer am I a power gamer. For that matter, many of the games I play don't fully utilize dual cores, much less quads. Dual core was a big boost more because of windows's ability to at least give the game it's own core. I'm becoming more a 'commodity' purchaser. I have a full size widescreen laptop now, but I'm seriously looking at the netbooks for my next purchase. I'll likely buy a 'power' netbook, but still a machine that's half the price of my old laptop. I generally take a look at the 'state of the art' and take a step or three back. Much cheaper that way.
As for SSD vs Hard Drive, my newest upgrade also included a 64GB SSD. For 'second line' games and my media files and such, I'm going to be installing a 2TB HD. Thus far the SSD is not 'incredibly' faster in most tasks(over the 1.5TB HD in my older computer), though during overclocking testing bluescreen core dumps completed incredibly fast. I have yet to test the hybernate function.
There are benefits, yes. But I'm left asking myself: "Was it worth the money?"
SSD is very playable, but HDD isn't really.
I disagree. Then again, I also tend to multitask - watch TV, fiddle with my phone, work on the other computer, etc...
Just because somebody takes a Freakonomics-style approach and calls themself a debunker doesn't mean they're the final authority on anything.
I do pay attention to the studies. What I was thinking about was things like NYC's glass recycling program - where it was revealed that better than 90% of the collected glass is put into the trash to be dumped because they can't find any buyers.
Meanwhile they have this huge deposit system to ensure people recycle, costing resources, special vehicles to pick up the glass, burning more fuel and releasing more CO2, etc...
Another involved paper recycling in areas where there's not paper mills handy - in which case the resources needed to ship the paper to the reprocessing plant/mill exceed that of using new growth that's generally at least close to the mills. Alternative include incinerating it to provide heat/power. Heck, today you can practically call throwing paper away 'carbon sequestriation'.;)
first two hurt china's economy, so they are not encouraged.
A bit more complicated than that. Part of 'reuse', to me, is 'repair/refurbish' - which you know as you mentioned service technicians. The problem you run into is that repair is often not economic anymore, and oddly enough it's because we've gotten so good at building stuff.
The assembly line, especially when you introduce robotics and other highly automated processes, makes building goods far cheaper than they would be with hand work. Despite this, we have yet to majorly automate repair and maintenance.
It used to be that repairing goods normally saved substantial amounts of labor, because they were hand assembled to begin with. Today? It can take more labor to replace the batteries in a remote than went into it's construction in the first place. And labor is our largest expense.
Second, well, in the case of many appliances we fall afoul of our own energy star rules - units that are sealed, not normally maintainable can be constructed today to last longer and operate more efficienty than a unit designed to be 'easy to maintain'. Our cars are the same way - sure, they're more complicated than ever to maintain or fix. On the other hand, they don't need maintenance anywhere near as often. 3k oil changes? We're at 5-10k now. You used to want to do a tune-up every 20k or so miles, now we're looking at 100k before the first 'major service' for many vehicles.
In the case of cell phones, well, the problem there is that to make them servicable you'd have to make the parts bigger, making for a bigger phone, that at least for the majority of the population is a turn off. Personally, I'd like my cell phone to be a bit bigger and quite a bit thicker - put the extra space into a bigger screen, longer antenna*, and a far larger battery.
looking up, considering frequency usage, I should see a fairly substantial gain in reception if there was enough space for a 3.5" antenna. Of course, there's lots of complexities and tricks you can do with radio reception today, but bigger is still generally better.
No matter all the R&D you do, there's nothing quite like actually putting a full-size version out there and using it in earnest. That provides real and useful data that you don't get when you're just experimenting, and feeds back into the next generation.
I'll note that I imagined my 'small turbine farm' to use the full size turbines, just fewer of them. Especially with a off shore farm, there's nothing really preventing you from substantially expanding it after getting a few years weathering experience.
Call it building a dozen turbines a year, then expanding to building a gross each year once you've gotten it to the point that building the gross is economical.
Huh, you're right. I missed that line in the article. That does change it's utility quite a bit, depending.
It takes twice as long as the 10k RPM battery model, but does 7 times as much. The metal manual centrifuges I found do 4 as well, but with a 3k RPM it's probably right in between for how long it takes.
Still, I imagine that a professionally produced version could be not that much more expensive and far more durable.
Maybe get a sightly faster spin while you're at it.
Personally, I think that the metal centrifuge will likely last decades while the spinner would be lucky to last 2 years. I'm not sure of the spinner's ability to stand up to sanitizing bleach solutions, and you can't autoclave it. Add in the ability to spin 4 tubes over 1, the centrifuge provides more capacity, longer life, higher spin speeds (950 vs 3k RPM), a proper handle, and easier sanitization over the improvised device.
It's a neat project for the students, not something that's going to revolutionalize the developing world.
The IT industry is used to be boutique pricing, but is rapidly dropping towards commodity.
Exactly.
I recently upgraded my 3 year old computer from a 2.6Ghz dual core to a 3.4Ghz quad core. Well, with overclocking 3.0Ghz vs 3.7Ghz.
Honestly enough, I upgraded more for compatibility with the newest videocards than for CPU reasons. Well, that and my 'server', IE the next older computer was an older single core unit with AGP graphics, to give you a clue on it's age.
I'm not that impressed. And that's a problem. If my $1k upgrade over a 3 year old $1k upgrade* doesn't impress me, then I'm not going to go boasting to my friends, and that's fewer computers/components sold.
Heck, for that matter I wasn't incredibly impressed by my last ~$1k upgrade - my video card not being compatible with Bioshock; at that point AGP was deprecated enough that it was cheaper and more performance gain to get a PCI-X video card and a new MB to support it. Then there was cost savings towards doing a memory upgrade at the same time(2Gig DDR2 to 4Gig DDR2), so different MB, might as well go Dual Core. Basically, I could 'upgrade' at half cost - so I took it as a sign to upgrade. To get back on subject - My new computer performed better; but if it wasn't for Bioshock I wouldn't have upgraded at that point. Though I won't go back to single core; that was the single greatest joy.
Computers at work have been 'commodized' for quite a few years - people don't clammor for upgrades like they used to, because the old computers handle the business applications just about as well as the new ones. Short term pain of upgrading exceeds the long term benefits.
There's nothing wrong with a "race" to be "first" if it yields demonstrable benefit.
Understood. Like I said; it becomes a problem when the 'goal' ceases to be, in this case, 'economical power' and becomes one of 'Being the first state to have an off-shore windfarm'.
I'm not even convinced that we've developed the technology enough that off-shore wind power is the most economical and environmentally safe method available.
At such a point you should be looking at small 'research and development' turbine farms, and they should be labled as such.
There's plenty of space in the ocean for turbines, but when you put them out there there's questions on how you build them to do things like resist saltwater, hurricanes and other storms, the occasional tsunami, keep boats from blundering into them, etc...
I'm not too worried about the fish - going by oil rig/sunken ship experience; they tend to like construction as it provides shelter/places to attach.
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Don't conventional, wired keyboards put out enough RF noise to be effectively sniffable anyway?
Yes, but the equipment required to do it is both far more expensive and shorter ranged than with wireless.
Bluetooth, for example, has been picked up from over a mile away.
I use rechargables in my mouse, it generally lasts 2-3 weeks before I have to swap.
I think the biggest problem isn't the amount of power the device draws, but more the self-discharge rate. A LiIon of the same bulk/weight would hold twice again as much power, but also wouldn't be losing 5-10% of it's charge per day.
It's the sort of application that's actually more suited towards alkalines. I had a set of those last for over two months when I was attending some training out of town.
If you can find some 'low self discharge' type NiMH cells, you might get a LOT more lifespan between charges.
USB uses a lot of CPU, while SATA uses none at all.
Do you happen to have a source on this? I mean, I remember shopping for full modems specifically because 'winmodems' sucked down CPU time for their operation, but near the end, it didn't matter.
I highly doubt that SATA really uses 'none at all', I'm sure there's some CPU utilization with SATA.
Less cables? maybe, eventually.... But by the time you get the latest all-in-one, you will have some new technology coming along that offers something extra that you will want... So you will end up with a mix of new tech cables and old tech cables anyway
Once you have a 'generic' interface like USB that's both fast enough and capable of providing power, what else do you need?
USB has 'replaced' PS2, serial, parallel, and game* ports. Heck, it can even replace sound ports with what's essentially an external sound card. Heck, it even replaced PCMCIA ports in some cases - USB memory keys instead of mini hard drives in a PCMCIA card.
The only real reason it hasn't replaced monitor cables is bandwidth - there's simply not enough.
Bluetooth, wireless networking, PoE, etc.. All can help eliminate cables. I think my biggest desire is to see data cables shipping MORE power. USB, PoE, demonstrate it can be done. I'm not going to worry too much that my TV needs it's own power plug, but it'd nice to be able to power a 3.5" based USB HD with just the USB cable. Heck, I like the idea I've seen where your monitor has a USB hub you can plug your keyboard/mouse/whatever into. I've even seen keyboards with a small port you can put the mouse into (just get a mouse with a short cable, but as I use bluetooth...).
AS for HDMI having ethernet instead of USB - well, HDMI has useful length of 15 meters without repeaters or anything, just using a good quality cable. USB has a fairly hard limit of 3 meters. Ethernet, at ~100 meters, will have no problems. Besides that, USB is still working on 'embedded host' protocols so you can do stuff like plug a keyboard into a phone to type on the phone.
*What you used to plug things like joysticks into.
Taxis have the advantage that they're generally standardized, and most large taxi companies already have their own service departments. So they have a garage to install the equipment.
For that matter they have the commerical incentive and miles driven in a year to justify the cost of the batteries; cost of capital doesn't add up as much when you're looking at replacing a battery within a year, not five-ten.
SATA 2.0 - 3 GBit
SATA 3.0 - 6 GBit
USB 2.0 'highspeed' - 480MBit (Tricky fact: USB 2.0 connection can still be 'lowspeed')
USB 'superspeed' - 4.8 GBit.
Going by what the article says, I think that the e-sata specification should have included some power providing abilities. Preferably enough to run a 2.5" HD/SSD on it's own.
I mean USB specifications are actually changing to be able to provide even MORE power. Looking at the octopus nest behind my computer, I count elimination of cables as a GOOD thing. If I could have a Monitor with 1 cable(at the cost of an even beefier power supply in my computer), power my DSL modem via PoE, I'd be happy. I love my bluetooth mouse, but am too paranoid to go with a wireless keyboard until they come out with one with more serious encryption.
As demand rises, I foresee parking lots, whether at work, shopping centers, wherever, installing quick-charge stations.
I keep figuring restaurants will be popular spots - Many gas stations will be the least popular. Right now gas stations are seperate due to infrastructure/safety requirements for a buried tank. But most gas stations I see don't have the space to handle the same number of cars if you go from 5 minute fill ups to even 15-30 minute 'quick charges'.
I wonder if any of the auto manufacturers have electric car designs where the battery is quick-swappable?
There's quite a few problems with this - I'd add in condition of the swapped battery. But there's another problem - EV batteries are heavy enough that you need a crane/lift to move them. It also means that the battery needs substantial structural support, complicating quick-change support systems. Besides weight, they also have bulk, means that they're often stuck in somewhat wierd spots in the car maker's quest to maximize usable space to the operator/passangers.
Then you have to figure out how many quick-swap batteries the station will have to keep, how they're going to charge them, how much labor and machinery the quick-swap takes.
There's some probability that 'delay travel or hire a cab' might be the more routine solution.
Lack of caffine plus looking for an opportunity to stick the numbers in.
But yeah, 3 significant digits for a guess on the number of a specific type of car 10 years in the future?
They're basically a post with a socket on the top: Picture
Those look familiar... Of course, I like to say that where I work is already EV ready - well, as long as you can charge off of 110V. Of course, they were installed for block heaters, not EVs.
I've actually looked into getting an EV, partially because of this*, but wasn't able to make it make financial sense even assuming my 'fuel' would be free.
*Free fuel, I like techie toys, etc...
I don't especially like them -- I'd like to see less traffic congestion in the city.
Personal thoughts: You're never going to get rid of all the vehicles, what about the handicapped, those who have to carry too much to make a bike practical, those who may not be formally handicapped but can't handle a bicycle and can't afford the walking time, etc...
Given that, I'd rather have EVs in the city than gasoline burners.
I'm an idiot. Austria != Australia.
Please excuse me, I need caffeine.
Corrected figures: .434%
Population, Austria: 8,336,926 (2008)
Percent of Vehicles compared to population: 55.8%
Number of vehicles: 4.65M
Population growth:
Pop in 2020: 8.7M, est
Cars in 2020: 4.86M, est
Estimated % electric cars, according to their estimate: 8.3%
Even reworked for Austria, that's not actually all that many electric cars.
I'm not a statistician, but as a check on numbers:
Population, Australia: 21,431,800 (2009)
Number of Vehicles registered: 15,674,436
Percent of Vehicles compared to population: 73%
Population growth: 1.69%
Pop in 2020: 25.3M, est
Cars in 2020: 18.5M, est
Estimated % electric cars, according to their estimate: 2.2%
I'll note that my quick growth check means that there will be something like 2.8 Million additional cars on the road in 2020, which means that only 14% of GROWTH would be in electric vehicles.
My Samsung "Sync" is thinner than the Motorola and yet it's constructed far better, fwiw - and reception was better than the moto as well.
Construction quality is different from ease of maintenance or size. Note that I specified larger size in the context of having more functionality - larger screen, longer antenna, bigger battery.
Now, as far as labor being expensive - it's still cheaper to repair a $1500-$2000 LCD television than to replace it.
It depends. It depends on what part's failed, how much labor it'll take to fix, the cost of the replacement components. A car is often economical to repair, but take a 5 year old car and pop the airbags and they'll total it. If the fix for that new $2k LCD TV is a replacement board, they'll do that. If the problem is the LCD panel, it's replace the whole TV.
Generally speaking, you don't fix much beyond a blown fuse for electronics that are under $400 new today.
Now as far as the cost of labor to manufacture; it is unfair to factor that in considering that slave labor (or what amounts to slave labor, or indentured servitude at best) in China and other far-east countries is something no one can compete with. We've sold our souls to get cheap big-screen televisions, cheap sneakers, etc. and honestly the bulk of it is built cheaply (alternate meaning of cheap) to match the price with little regard to making something maintainable/repairable. We've developed a disposable culture here and it's disgusting.
Please note that I didn't specify country or even region once in my post. I mentioned automation. A lot of cars are still made here in the USA, but most 'repair' jobs are part swaps. That's been the case for a while, but they used to have a lot more tools to repair engine components.
cheaply is an alternate meaning of cheap? ;)
As for 'disposable culture', well, disposable isn't necessarily bad or a worse economic choice. Consider bottled milk. Milk used to come in glass containers, now it mostly comes in plastic. Even the cardboard containers have substantial amounts of plastic to provide the seal/waterproofing.
What it comes down to is that the natural gas it takes as feedstock to make a gallon jug is LESS than what it takes to properly heat enough water to steralize used glass containers. That's without getting into the energy cost of making a glass container. So it's truly the more economic and environmental choice to go with plastic over glass when it comes to milk. It may or may not be economical and environmental to recycle the plastic.
Back on manufacture - while labor is the most major expense of fixing something; it's one of the least for most manufactured items; we're looking at a 10% price difference between a product made in China with their prevailing wages and US wages. Most of the cost is tied up in the machinery and feedstock.
Puts too much strain on the tubes; you want some more positive control. the metal arms help keep the tube aligned and supported.
Though that would make for an interesting test - about a meter or two of cord, and a dude spinning it around his head. Lower RPM is compensated for by larger radius.
Looked at the prices of newly-developed medical equipment lately?
To get technical, this is lab equipment, not medical. You're spinning blood, not installing a shunt.
Looking at the various devices in question, you could probably convert the 4 tube centrifuge to a larger one simply by putting a different 'top' on the unit. Perhaps increase the size of the crank/shaft a bit. Heck, it might start slower, but with a uniform disc and good bearings, the larger unit wouldn't be significantly harder to turn either. Might even be easier, what with having lower air resistance at ~3k RPM. No real need to get fancy with magnetic bearings or clutches
They already have them, it's just that the 30+ tube centrifuges are all electric from my quick search - I'm sure China would be quite happy to produce a number of manual ones if somebody was willing to order a thousand or so.
The key to healthcare reform was to cap profits for suppliers to the healthcare industry. None of the dance around insurers was necessary, and none of it did anything to stop the real cost driver.
'Cap profits' is about the worst thing you can do, by my thinking. The problem isn't just excessive profits*, it's inefficiency. What they really need to do is encourage more competition. Remove, or at least streamline/lessen obstacles to entering the market. Capped profits merely means MORE companies leaving the field, reducing competetion, reducing incentive to economize. Besides, profits can be hidden, transfered, and tweaked by a good accountant team.
*A healthy profit is a *GOOD* thing.
In the past, the software and applications changed such that you needed a new computer every three years ago or there was lots of stuff you couldn't do.
Well, Microsoft tried to keep that up with Vista, however CPUs weren't keeping up, thus it was substantially slower, people noticed, MS lost sales. Because, by and large, the 'new' features of the OS weren't worth the performance cost for the customers.
Consider, I went from a 3Ghz dual core to a 3.7Ghz quad, in 3 years. Near as I can tell, I should have around 2.5X the CPU available. I remember when it was more like 'double every year', and when you're looking at a 5 minute load time, cutting it down to 3-4 was really obvious. But it's a known fact that 'doubling' the performance of one component generally doesn't anywhere near double realworld performance. In the case of my upgrade - it's clearly an upgrade, but I'm still underwhelmed. Sort of like when I went car shopping and realized that the cars that are rated to get the same gas mileage as my old one are actually smaller with fewer features.
Other thoughts. Used to be that computers couldn't handle much in the way of realistic audio, much less HD Video, but now that's pretty much universal even on $300 machines. Game wise we're to the point that the scenes are too pretty to really be appreciated during action games like crysis. Heck, I remember wandering around Serious Sam between attacks appreciating some of the artwork. But that's between attacks. Games where you do have time to 'smell the roses' generally don't have the same level of action to render, making them easier.
Sure, we have further to go, but I think programmers in general are going to have to sit down and re-learn multithreading and optimization. Consider how Microsoft managed to make windows 7 perform better than not just Vista, but even XP in many situations.
If in another 3 years we're looking at 8 core processors at 4 Ghz as the 'top end', I expect to see much more in the way of code optimization. You can only multithread so much, after all.
When 'loading' a game already takes less than a second, making it take 20% less time isn't all that noticable.
Thanks for the correction on the slot.
As Bing said, my usage is my usage. I'm barely enough to be considered a 'gamer' today, no longer am I a power gamer. For that matter, many of the games I play don't fully utilize dual cores, much less quads. Dual core was a big boost more because of windows's ability to at least give the game it's own core. I'm becoming more a 'commodity' purchaser. I have a full size widescreen laptop now, but I'm seriously looking at the netbooks for my next purchase. I'll likely buy a 'power' netbook, but still a machine that's half the price of my old laptop. I generally take a look at the 'state of the art' and take a step or three back. Much cheaper that way.
As for SSD vs Hard Drive, my newest upgrade also included a 64GB SSD. For 'second line' games and my media files and such, I'm going to be installing a 2TB HD. Thus far the SSD is not 'incredibly' faster in most tasks(over the 1.5TB HD in my older computer), though during overclocking testing bluescreen core dumps completed incredibly fast. I have yet to test the hybernate function.
There are benefits, yes. But I'm left asking myself: "Was it worth the money?"
SSD is very playable, but HDD isn't really.
I disagree. Then again, I also tend to multitask - watch TV, fiddle with my phone, work on the other computer, etc...
Just because somebody takes a Freakonomics-style approach and calls themself a debunker doesn't mean they're the final authority on anything.
I do pay attention to the studies. What I was thinking about was things like NYC's glass recycling program - where it was revealed that better than 90% of the collected glass is put into the trash to be dumped because they can't find any buyers.
Meanwhile they have this huge deposit system to ensure people recycle, costing resources, special vehicles to pick up the glass, burning more fuel and releasing more CO2, etc...
Another involved paper recycling in areas where there's not paper mills handy - in which case the resources needed to ship the paper to the reprocessing plant/mill exceed that of using new growth that's generally at least close to the mills. Alternative include incinerating it to provide heat/power. Heck, today you can practically call throwing paper away 'carbon sequestriation'. ;)
first two hurt china's economy, so they are not encouraged.
A bit more complicated than that. Part of 'reuse', to me, is 'repair/refurbish' - which you know as you mentioned service technicians. The problem you run into is that repair is often not economic anymore, and oddly enough it's because we've gotten so good at building stuff.
The assembly line, especially when you introduce robotics and other highly automated processes, makes building goods far cheaper than they would be with hand work. Despite this, we have yet to majorly automate repair and maintenance.
It used to be that repairing goods normally saved substantial amounts of labor, because they were hand assembled to begin with. Today? It can take more labor to replace the batteries in a remote than went into it's construction in the first place. And labor is our largest expense.
Second, well, in the case of many appliances we fall afoul of our own energy star rules - units that are sealed, not normally maintainable can be constructed today to last longer and operate more efficienty than a unit designed to be 'easy to maintain'. Our cars are the same way - sure, they're more complicated than ever to maintain or fix. On the other hand, they don't need maintenance anywhere near as often. 3k oil changes? We're at 5-10k now. You used to want to do a tune-up every 20k or so miles, now we're looking at 100k before the first 'major service' for many vehicles.
In the case of cell phones, well, the problem there is that to make them servicable you'd have to make the parts bigger, making for a bigger phone, that at least for the majority of the population is a turn off. Personally, I'd like my cell phone to be a bit bigger and quite a bit thicker - put the extra space into a bigger screen, longer antenna*, and a far larger battery.
looking up, considering frequency usage, I should see a fairly substantial gain in reception if there was enough space for a 3.5" antenna. Of course, there's lots of complexities and tricks you can do with radio reception today, but bigger is still generally better.
Those aren't fuels though.
No matter all the R&D you do, there's nothing quite like actually putting a full-size version out there and using it in earnest. That provides real and useful data that you don't get when you're just experimenting, and feeds back into the next generation.
I'll note that I imagined my 'small turbine farm' to use the full size turbines, just fewer of them. Especially with a off shore farm, there's nothing really preventing you from substantially expanding it after getting a few years weathering experience.
Call it building a dozen turbines a year, then expanding to building a gross each year once you've gotten it to the point that building the gross is economical.
Huh, you're right. I missed that line in the article. That does change it's utility quite a bit, depending.
It takes twice as long as the 10k RPM battery model, but does 7 times as much. The metal manual centrifuges I found do 4 as well, but with a 3k RPM it's probably right in between for how long it takes.
Still, I imagine that a professionally produced version could be not that much more expensive and far more durable.
Maybe get a sightly faster spin while you're at it.
Given that we're talking about a lot of hot air; I wonder if we could go with a steam turbine setup. ;)
Manual Centrifuge, retail pricing: $73. Four tubes, clamps to a table.
Salad Spinner: $32
Combs, Glue, miscellaneous: $5
Labor: $20/hour
Call it $50.
Personally, I think that the metal centrifuge will likely last decades while the spinner would be lucky to last 2 years. I'm not sure of the spinner's ability to stand up to sanitizing bleach solutions, and you can't autoclave it. Add in the ability to spin 4 tubes over 1, the centrifuge provides more capacity, longer life, higher spin speeds (950 vs 3k RPM), a proper handle, and easier sanitization over the improvised device.
It's a neat project for the students, not something that's going to revolutionalize the developing world.
The IT industry is used to be boutique pricing, but is rapidly dropping towards commodity.
Exactly.
I recently upgraded my 3 year old computer from a 2.6Ghz dual core to a 3.4Ghz quad core. Well, with overclocking 3.0Ghz vs 3.7Ghz.
Honestly enough, I upgraded more for compatibility with the newest videocards than for CPU reasons. Well, that and my 'server', IE the next older computer was an older single core unit with AGP graphics, to give you a clue on it's age.
I'm not that impressed. And that's a problem. If my $1k upgrade over a 3 year old $1k upgrade* doesn't impress me, then I'm not going to go boasting to my friends, and that's fewer computers/components sold.
Heck, for that matter I wasn't incredibly impressed by my last ~$1k upgrade - my video card not being compatible with Bioshock; at that point AGP was deprecated enough that it was cheaper and more performance gain to get a PCI-X video card and a new MB to support it. Then there was cost savings towards doing a memory upgrade at the same time(2Gig DDR2 to 4Gig DDR2), so different MB, might as well go Dual Core. Basically, I could 'upgrade' at half cost - so I took it as a sign to upgrade. To get back on subject - My new computer performed better; but if it wasn't for Bioshock I wouldn't have upgraded at that point. Though I won't go back to single core; that was the single greatest joy.
Computers at work have been 'commodized' for quite a few years - people don't clammor for upgrades like they used to, because the old computers handle the business applications just about as well as the new ones. Short term pain of upgrading exceeds the long term benefits.
*New MB, CPU, and RAM
There's nothing wrong with a "race" to be "first" if it yields demonstrable benefit.
Understood. Like I said; it becomes a problem when the 'goal' ceases to be, in this case, 'economical power' and becomes one of 'Being the first state to have an off-shore windfarm'.
I'm not even convinced that we've developed the technology enough that off-shore wind power is the most economical and environmentally safe method available.
At such a point you should be looking at small 'research and development' turbine farms, and they should be labled as such.
There's plenty of space in the ocean for turbines, but when you put them out there there's questions on how you build them to do things like resist saltwater, hurricanes and other storms, the occasional tsunami, keep boats from blundering into them, etc...
I'm not too worried about the fish - going by oil rig/sunken ship experience; they tend to like construction as it provides shelter/places to attach.