Airfoil will stream content from an iOS device to a computer, and then to multiple target devices (many brands), including iOS 7+ devices running their satellite app. Has balancing and zones, etc.
My brother has it setup this way, using a mishmash of old iPods, Airport expresses, AirPlay compatible speakers and and Apple TV.
All laptop users are required to run on battery power throughout the day until 20% and then they plug in.
How is that green? As already pointed out, wear and tear will go up, consuming energy to manufacture and transport more batteries. Plus recharging the batteries will take *more* power to recharge them was discharged from them (due to efficiency lost in both the charging circuitry and the chemical processes involved. A quick google suggests at least a 10-15% hit). Plus, most machines' default power profiles reduce performance when running on battery, so I wouldn't be surprised if things take longer to accomplish. i.e. Less work out of people, for the same overhead costs and environmental power usage (heat, lights, etc). [side note to pedants: any power savings from cpu throttling/spindown could be gained independent of battery usage by managing power settings, so it could still be accomplished where actually desired]
Unless running on battery is able to shift the consumption from daytime to seriously off-peak (past 7pm?), it's probably consuming more power....especially if everyone runs low and plugs in at the same time, or plugs in just before heading home and adds to the residential peak typical at quitting time.
Sounds like another bright PHB idea, like reducing heating in winter will save the company money......until they start to wonder why everyone types slower in gloves and makes more typos...:P
Or he *returned/exchanged* a product purchased on his credit card to the store in the past and they asked him to fill out one of the return forms with name and address. Now BB has tied his address to his credit card, so he's now populated in the database with full name and address.
When he purchased the Blu-ray player, it used his credit card to lookup his record and put the purchase down on his record, even though he didn't supply his personal info at that time.
Then, when it comes time to mail out updates, they just lookup all transcations with the player, pull the purchaser info...bang.
NiMH batteries are generally pretty safe. They don't really require any onboard electronics, just a peak detecting charger if they're being fast-charged. If shorted, they may get *really* hot or ignite adjacent materials, but they're not as reactive as lithium based technology.
Li-Ion/Li-Poly cells are the dangerous ones. Basically they can reach a run-away condition very easily, and lithium is *very* reactive. They can ignite if punctured, charged too fast, over-charged, or if they drop below a certain voltage and are then charged at normal rates. They will also swell/burst if over-discharged or over-heated. Most Li-Poly/Li-Ion packs include a circuit with a thermal cutoff to prevent over-heating, a circuit to prevent shorting/excessive-discharge-rates, and a circuit that isolates the pack if it drops below a safe voltage (usually around 2.5-2.8 volts per cell).
I did purchase a pair of Li-poly batteries for a cell phone, which were no-name imports. They did not have any cutoff circuitry, and I suspect could have been nasty if they wandered out of spec (either through abuse or a defective phone). I used them with no problems though, but I think I'd reconsider, given what I know now about Lithium cells. That said, the circuitry required for Lithium cells is becoming cheaper everyday (the functionality is avaiable in a single chip), so I wouldn't be surprised if "decent" third-party units do have the desired safety functionality.
Heck, good theftware will hook into the web browser, and look for certain fields (e.g. login, username, password, pin, etc) in HTML forms, and just save that data.
This counteracts copy&paste, type-edit-type, etc.
If the OS can be modified (software attacks, physical attacks, boot disks, etc)...you cannot trust the system at all.
And of course, even if the OS isn't modified, hardware keyloggers and/or spy cameras could also be a risk.
I suspect multifactor authentication is going to quickly become more popular...
Not every RC pilot has a laptop/handheld, you insensitive clod!
Seriously, you'd be surprised how often you end up changing settings on aircraft. Heat, cold, changing payloads (cameras, gyros, battery packs), wind, etc all change the dynamics of flying aircraft, so it's not uncommon to adjust settings at the field at least once or twice (usually at the start of the session). And then some days you feel liking being daring, which requires certain settings, and other days you want to lie back and just cruise around.
Transmitters need an interface on them, and the current crop of small LCD screens and toggle buttons gets more confusing as more features are added. ("Now, was that -35% expo on channel 2 of aircraft 3? Or did I need to turn off the '1->2' mixing feature on aircraft 5 and set it to 'ACRO' mode?")
While others may argue over the religous aspects of OS choice, I have to say the concept of having a good programmable interface and display is sound, and I for one welcome our new programmable overlords.
Yeah...laptops can be nice for that...basically DIY blade servers;) Two things tho, some laptops don't disappate heat well when closed, and even older batteries can hold enough charge to act as a mini-UPS for brown-outs!
Perhaps take an older system, and underclock it. You'd consume less power on the CPU (although I'm sure it's a case of diminishing returns), and you could get away with fewer fans (side benefit of less noise).
Monitors draw lots of power...they even draw a decent amount in standby. Consider turning it off (or run headless).
An older Pentium/PentiumII probably doesn't draw anymore than 75-125 W, which isn't much more than leaving a few light bulbs on part of the time...
Assuming that you have some desire to bodge something together to save money, there's a couple of different routes.
1 or more PCs with multiple sound cards would be doable, but you might have issues like storing them (large lockable locations, with adequate cooling, noise issues, etc), noise on long headphone runs, lots of software & wires to rig, etc.
As you mentioned, multiple $20 CD players would be doable, but the mechanics inside might be iffy. More expensive players would probably be required. Lag caused by spin-up might be irritating. Players on constant repeat (need a restart button of course) might work, but might suffer mechanical failures quickly.
A good option would be to go digital. Find a memo-recorder, mp3 player, or digital answering machine that has appropriate button controls. Essentially you want a configuration where minimal buttons are needed, you'll probably have to try a few to figure out the specific details. Ideally, one button would start and restart playback (remember that people are going to leave halfway through a dialog, and the next person will want to restart. In a worst case, one button to start playback and one button (e.g. Previous Track on a MP3 player or Back on an answering machine) to restart the presentation.
-Make sure that the units don't have an auto power off feature (cause you'll be running them off power supplies anyway, right) -Either custom cut panels exposing only the required button(s), or pop open the units and solder connections to new buttons (buy big quality buttons that'll withstand pounding). -If the units have an LED/LCD that indicates activity, consider making that visible (cutout or extension for LEDs) to provide user feedback and minimize unessecary button mashing. -As others have mentioned, if using headphones, buy the most durable you can afford, and make sure to rig them with a stress relief. -Have spares. You *are* trading some amount of durability for cost....but remember that "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."
Try as many different units before settling on one. You may save yourself a lot of grief by finding an ideal unit. Try to avoid the absolute crap too, it may be worth getting units that are a step or too up the foodchain (especially since they'll be functioning above the normal consumer level).
They're "close enuf", so long as they're shorter and no thicker.
I replaced two CCFL tubes in laptop displays that had gone bad. (dim, pinkish hues).
The selection of tubes available wasn't perfect (the correct ones were out of stock), so one was about.5 in short, the other.75 in short....but they worked fine. Minor dark spot in the corner, but a free laptop is a free laptop. One is now a dandy in-car mp3 system with Wifi sync... (ok, technically I didn't need the LCD for that...but it helps)
Maybe a low-flow generator, with excess water (in low demand periods) directed at a ram pump to store water for high demand periods.
I supposed you could do the same thing by using just a generator and electric pump, but the ram pump might actually be more efficient, and is probably more reliable in the long run.
That would be high head, *low* flow. Given 100 units of flow, you may be able to pump 15 units into your reservoir. The aforementioned law of thermodynamics limits it to a trade off of flow versus head, with *no* increases in energy. At best, it's a transfer to a more desirable form (e.g. flow -> head) with energy lost to friction, efficiency.
Like I said, this would be an advantage if the only available generator required high flow. With the exception of *extremely* low head situations, a low flow generator using all 100 units would provide the most energy, avoiding the efficiency losses from the extra step of converting high flow to high head.
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/pumpglos/ram_pum p. htm http://www.i4at.org/lib2/hydrpump.htm
The energy from most of the water is used to pump 10-25% of the water up to a resevoir. Quite common for reliable (low part count) and powerless systems, such as moving water into a storage tank/resevoir for cattle or crop irrigation.
You need some amount of head for a ram pump, so I suspect it would be more efficient to use that head to drive a generator, than to use it to pump water up to a resevoir, and then drive a generator from that...unless your generator operates better on low-flow, high-head than it does on high-flow, low-head.
A TV which does not obscure the overscan area will show the flashing white square in the top left.
IIRC, it flashes slowly for a few seconds 30 s before break, starts flashing rapidly 5 or 10 before, and goes solid during the above mentioned transition to the still frame.
Course, I haven't seen it recently on modern TVs which cover the overscan area well...perhaps it's changed...
battle.net forces users of Blizzard's software to purchase the software to obtain a legitimate key # to play online. While it is possible to play games like Diablo II via a hacked/cracked copy, they cannot be played on b.net.
And the online games that are not played on b.net are (more) vulnerable to hacking (who wants to play with a whole bunch of Level 99 characters?). Hence the existance of battle.net strongly encourages gamers to actually purchase the game.
They may not actually make any money directly of b.net (yet...), but I'm sure that it's contributed to their sales...
Our group of developers (of which I am one) has nowhere near the universal experience to administrate their own machines. When I and another guy were hired by the company, we found the following problems in both production and development:
IIS & SQL server installed on all the workstations, but not being used.
No firewalls...at all
No patches to NT beyond SP6. (the production server was massive rootable)
Everyone was running as an administrator. And yes, their was essential documents on their machines, including their email
Full access shares. remember the lack of firewall?
external email server, and no email encryption, even for sensitive company documents
No Anti-virus software
No password on a TCP/IP printer...again, remember the lack of firewall?
And these guys aren't stupid, we're all university grads (if that says anything anymore)...they're just not NT administrators and have no concept of security.
They excel at development, not computer maintenance & security. One of the developers had a Win2K/IIS website at home, and proceeded to contract Nimda,Sadmind,CodeRed + 2 regular viruses, all at the same time.
We now have an NT domain (using Samba), developers have regular user accounts, firewalls, up to date security patches (at least one of use is now on the MS bulletin list...guess who:P), encrypted email, removed unneeded services, anti-virus software, security policies, network monitoring, and NIDS. To ensure that the developers can work effectively, they do have the administrator password for their machines, it does mean logging in and out occasionally, but it decreases the odds of stupid viruses, etc. (and I plan to install su from the reskit to smoothen that out a bit too).
I'm just pointing out that in some circumstances, some degree of SOE needs to be implemented.
Shades of gray I guess...some shops might want a tight SOE, others may find open development more effective. The field we're in (medical) doesn't give us any room to screw up or violate any confidentiality, so security is a must...even at the expense of slightly slower development.
Pity we're roped into MS shit tho, I'd sure as hell rather be developing & admin'ing a Unix box/network. Now that'd be fun.
Slashdot Mirror
Airfoil will stream content from an iOS device to a computer, and then to multiple target devices (many brands), including iOS 7+ devices running their satellite app. Has balancing and zones, etc.
My brother has it setup this way, using a mishmash of old iPods, Airport expresses, AirPlay compatible speakers and and Apple TV.
All laptop users are required to run on battery power throughout the day until 20% and then they plug in.
How is that green? As already pointed out, wear and tear will go up, consuming energy to manufacture and transport more batteries. Plus recharging the batteries will take *more* power to recharge them was discharged from them (due to efficiency lost in both the charging circuitry and the chemical processes involved. A quick google suggests at least a 10-15% hit).
Plus, most machines' default power profiles reduce performance when running on battery, so I wouldn't be surprised if things take longer to accomplish. i.e. Less work out of people, for the same overhead costs and environmental power usage (heat, lights, etc). [side note to pedants: any power savings from cpu throttling/spindown could be gained independent of battery usage by managing power settings, so it could still be accomplished where actually desired]
Unless running on battery is able to shift the consumption from daytime to seriously off-peak (past 7pm?), it's probably consuming more power....especially if everyone runs low and plugs in at the same time, or plugs in just before heading home and adds to the residential peak typical at quitting time.
Sounds like another bright PHB idea, like reducing heating in winter will save the company money......until they start to wonder why everyone types slower in gloves and makes more typos... :P
Or he *returned/exchanged* a product purchased on his credit card to the store in the past and they asked him to fill out one of the return forms with name and address. Now BB has tied his address to his credit card, so he's now populated in the database with full name and address.
When he purchased the Blu-ray player, it used his credit card to lookup his record and put the purchase down on his record, even though he didn't supply his personal info at that time.
Then, when it comes time to mail out updates, they just lookup all transcations with the player, pull the purchaser info...bang.
NiMH batteries are generally pretty safe. They don't really require any onboard electronics, just a peak detecting charger if they're being fast-charged. If shorted, they may get *really* hot or ignite adjacent materials, but they're not as reactive as lithium based technology.
Li-Ion/Li-Poly cells are the dangerous ones. Basically they can reach a run-away condition very easily, and lithium is *very* reactive. They can ignite if punctured, charged too fast, over-charged, or if they drop below a certain voltage and are then charged at normal rates. They will also swell/burst if over-discharged or over-heated. Most Li-Poly/Li-Ion packs include a circuit with a thermal cutoff to prevent over-heating, a circuit to prevent shorting/excessive-discharge-rates, and a circuit that isolates the pack if it drops below a safe voltage (usually around 2.5-2.8 volts per cell).
I did purchase a pair of Li-poly batteries for a cell phone, which were no-name imports. They did not have any cutoff circuitry, and I suspect could have been nasty if they wandered out of spec (either through abuse or a defective phone). I used them with no problems though, but I think I'd reconsider, given what I know now about Lithium cells.
That said, the circuitry required for Lithium cells is becoming cheaper everyday (the functionality is avaiable in a single chip), so I wouldn't be surprised if "decent" third-party units do have the desired safety functionality.
D.
Would that be Ether-Ape? oh....wait....
This counteracts copy&paste, type-edit-type, etc.
If the OS can be modified (software attacks, physical attacks, boot disks, etc)...you cannot trust the system at all.
And of course, even if the OS isn't modified, hardware keyloggers and/or spy cameras could also be a risk.
I suspect multifactor authentication is going to quickly become more popular...
IIRC, 4 MB cost about $200 in 1994, or about $50/MB. This is *ten* years earlier...
Not every RC pilot has a laptop/handheld, you insensitive clod!
Seriously, you'd be surprised how often you end up changing settings on aircraft. Heat, cold, changing payloads (cameras, gyros, battery packs), wind, etc all change the dynamics of flying aircraft, so it's not uncommon to adjust settings at the field at least once or twice (usually at the start of the session). And then some days you feel liking being daring, which requires certain settings, and other days you want to lie back and just cruise around.
Transmitters need an interface on them, and the current crop of small LCD screens and toggle buttons gets more confusing as more features are added. ("Now, was that -35% expo on channel 2 of aircraft 3? Or did I need to turn off the '1->2' mixing feature on aircraft 5 and set it to 'ACRO' mode?")
While others may argue over the religous aspects of OS choice, I have to say the concept of having a good programmable interface and display is sound, and I for one welcome our new programmable overlords.
D.
Yeah...laptops can be nice for that...basically DIY blade servers ;)
Two things tho, some laptops don't disappate heat well when closed, and even older batteries can hold enough charge to act as a mini-UPS for brown-outs!
D.
Perhaps take an older system, and underclock it. You'd consume less power on the CPU (although I'm sure it's a case of diminishing returns), and you could get away with fewer fans (side benefit of less noise).
Monitors draw lots of power...they even draw a decent amount in standby. Consider turning it off (or run headless).
An older Pentium/PentiumII probably doesn't draw anymore than 75-125 W, which isn't much more than leaving a few light bulbs on part of the time...
D.
Try:
http://slashdot.org/palm/
Assuming that you have some desire to bodge something together to save money, there's a couple of different routes.
1 or more PCs with multiple sound cards would be doable, but you might have issues like storing them (large lockable locations, with adequate cooling, noise issues, etc), noise on long headphone runs, lots of software & wires to rig, etc.
As you mentioned, multiple $20 CD players would be doable, but the mechanics inside might be iffy. More expensive players would probably be required. Lag caused by spin-up might be irritating. Players on constant repeat (need a restart button of course) might work, but might suffer mechanical failures quickly.
A good option would be to go digital. Find a memo-recorder, mp3 player, or digital answering machine that has appropriate button controls. Essentially you want a configuration where minimal buttons are needed, you'll probably have to try a few to figure out the specific details.
Ideally, one button would start and restart playback (remember that people are going to leave halfway through a dialog, and the next person will want to restart.
In a worst case, one button to start playback and one button (e.g. Previous Track on a MP3 player or Back on an answering machine) to restart the presentation.
-Make sure that the units don't have an auto power off feature (cause you'll be running them off power supplies anyway, right)
-Either custom cut panels exposing only the required button(s), or pop open the units and solder connections to new buttons (buy big quality buttons that'll withstand pounding).
-If the units have an LED/LCD that indicates activity, consider making that visible (cutout or extension for LEDs) to provide user feedback and minimize unessecary button mashing.
-As others have mentioned, if using headphones, buy the most durable you can afford, and make sure to rig them with a stress relief.
-Have spares. You *are* trading some amount of durability for cost....but remember that "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."
Try as many different units before settling on one. You may save yourself a lot of grief by finding an ideal unit. Try to avoid the absolute crap too, it may be worth getting units that are a step or too up the foodchain (especially since they'll be functioning above the normal consumer level).
Damn viruses...
They're "close enuf", so long as they're shorter and no thicker.
.5 in short, the other .75 in short....but they worked fine. Minor dark spot in the corner, but a free laptop is a free laptop. One is now a dandy in-car mp3 system with Wifi sync... (ok, technically I didn't need the LCD for that...but it helps)
I replaced two CCFL tubes in laptop displays that had gone bad. (dim, pinkish hues).
The selection of tubes available wasn't perfect (the correct ones were out of stock), so one was about
Mmmm, good point.
Maybe a low-flow generator, with excess water (in low demand periods) directed at a ram pump to store water for high demand periods.
I supposed you could do the same thing by using just a generator and electric pump, but the ram pump might actually be more efficient, and is probably more reliable in the long run.
That would be high head, *low* flow. Given 100 units of flow, you may be able to pump 15 units into your reservoir. The aforementioned law of thermodynamics limits it to a trade off of flow versus head, with *no* increases in energy. At best, it's a transfer to a more desirable form (e.g. flow -> head) with energy lost to friction, efficiency.
Like I said, this would be an advantage if the only available generator required high flow. With the exception of *extremely* low head situations, a low flow generator using all 100 units would provide the most energy, avoiding the efficiency losses from the extra step of converting high flow to high head.
Actually, ram pumps do obey thermodynamics.
m p. htm
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/pumpglos/ram_pu
http://www.i4at.org/lib2/hydrpump.htm
The energy from most of the water is used to pump 10-25% of the water up to a resevoir. Quite common for reliable (low part count) and powerless systems, such as moving water into a storage tank/resevoir for cattle or crop irrigation.
You need some amount of head for a ram pump, so I suspect it would be more efficient to use that head to drive a generator, than to use it to pump water up to a resevoir, and then drive a generator from that...unless your generator operates better on low-flow, high-head than it does on high-flow, low-head.
Thanks.
Tea all over the monitor...
D.
(New Brunswick)
Same in North America.
A TV which does not obscure the overscan area will show the flashing white square in the top left.
IIRC, it flashes slowly for a few seconds 30 s before break, starts flashing rapidly 5 or 10 before, and goes solid during the above mentioned transition to the still frame.
Course, I haven't seen it recently on modern TVs which cover the overscan area well...perhaps it's changed...
No Cradle on the cheaper model.
Sorta makes the $299 look a lot more attractive...
And the online games that are not played on b.net are (more) vulnerable to hacking (who wants to play with a whole bunch of Level 99 characters?). Hence the existance of battle.net strongly encourages gamers to actually purchase the game.
They may not actually make any money directly of b.net (yet...), but I'm sure that it's contributed to their sales...
Yes, as far as I know. If you only have the .PAK file from the demo tho, you'll only get the demo levels. Which is still a lot of fun...
Drop your PDA in the toilet, and you'll be wishing you had been reading the paper...
And these guys aren't stupid, we're all university grads (if that says anything anymore)...they're just not NT administrators and have no concept of security.
They excel at development, not computer maintenance & security.
One of the developers had a Win2K/IIS website at home, and proceeded to contract Nimda,Sadmind,CodeRed + 2 regular viruses, all at the same time.
We now have an NT domain (using Samba), developers have regular user accounts, firewalls, up to date security patches (at least one of use is now on the MS bulletin list...guess who :P), encrypted email, removed unneeded services, anti-virus software, security policies, network monitoring, and NIDS.
To ensure that the developers can work effectively, they do have the administrator password for their machines, it does mean logging in and out occasionally, but it decreases the odds of stupid viruses, etc. (and I plan to install su from the reskit to smoothen that out a bit too).
I'm just pointing out that in some circumstances, some degree of SOE needs to be implemented. Shades of gray I guess...some shops might want a tight SOE, others may find open development more effective. The field we're in (medical) doesn't give us any room to screw up or violate any confidentiality, so security is a must...even at the expense of slightly slower development.
Pity we're roped into MS shit tho, I'd sure as hell rather be developing & admin'ing a Unix box/network. Now that'd be fun.
SRAM is still volatile. It just has lower access times.