Even with my very limited knowledge of network stuff I can solve that, though that doesn't mean Comcast solved it.
If you have it and you want to use another wifi, first login with incorrect credentials. If that gains you access then you can't trust the network. Most people wont do that, so there will probably be no protection (assuming the normal ISP incompetence). Comcast should build a special login program for such things. It can solve the problem in 2 ways:
1. It could first try to contact the server and verify the connection. If it is a true Xfinity connection then it is reasonably safe. If it is not then the client should not connect to the system. This is probably a custom system based on not-yet build programs and thus a lot of work. 2. It could avoid the problem all together: don't set up a normal connection. Instead, set up a secure VPN connection. Encrypt the complete stream through the potentially unsafe hotspot. This would require Comcast servers providing those thousands of secure VPN connections.
3. Something else thought up by someone smarter than me. Probably they didn't do anything and if someone does sets up such a honeypot it may cost them a lot of money.
Yep, but truckers are not going to like that. And there are many truckers in the USA (or anywhere else for that matters). In the end politics will meddle with it, and protecting jobs is popular (despite environmental costs).
I misunderstood 5. However, it should be technically feasible to do this automated and with all carts at the same time, assuming magnets under the carts and motor coils between the tracks. Freight train can be modernized but isn't because nobody invests in them.
They are not experienced in building trucks. Most likely they are going to approach an experienced company and pay them to build these trucks. It seems they have a working prototype so they probably already did that.
700 kg of fuel equals about an hour of usage. However, if the ship is all electric one can assume a 3x as efficient powertrain, so 3 hours. If we combine the solar panels with a skysail which provides around 2000 kW continuously we would get an additional 48 MWh or 172,800 MJ (depending on shipping routes). This equals to approx 4000 kg/day without efficiency improvements or 5.7 hours. With a powertrain efficiency improvement of a factor 3 (doable when using electric power) this would equal to 17 hours of boating. With the 3 hours of solar boating we'd have 20 hours a day of clean shipping. Since required power is approximately related to speed squared, having a bit lower speed would offer a lot less fuel usage. Low speed is already a disadvantage, but with moder consumer wishes a "Sustainable inter continental shipping" logo splashed everywhere would probably increase sales for your customers. Maybe DHL could advertise long delivery time green shipping thing.
To get back on topic: Batteries. Large container ships are meant for long distances, so we can assume the ship will be on the ocean for months at a time. If I assume lithium sulfur batteries have a voltage of 3.5 V (from Li-Ion batteries) I assume 3.5 Wh/g or 12,600J. We need about 30,100,000,000J/day so that's 2,388,888 g or 2.4 metric tons. To go 3 months you'd need 223.2 metric tons of these new batteries. Container ships are big, in the order of 50.000 metric tons so it would be possible. However the price of these batteries isn't known yet and it may just be more expensive than a skysail and a deck of solar panels.
With this back of the envelope calculations I think now that the solution would be in the category of SkySail + solar panels + batteries. Cruise on SkySail + batteries and top the batteries off with the solar panels if you can. As for the corrosive environment: Glass doesn't corrode and the rest can be covered in plastic which doesn't corrode either. They should be fully sealed of course so there are no metal parts in contact with the corrosive air. I just think the maintenance crews aren't going to like it much. It would require a lot of retraining.
Note: I am an engineer. However I am not an experienced engineer in this field.
Nope, not at Wal-Mart's expense. Tailgating is fuel efficient for both trucks. Normally there is a pressure drop behind a truck that sort of sucks the truck backwards. That pressure drop after the first truck is partly compensated by the "bow wave" of the next truck. Thus the "sucking effect" is lessened. The only, but big, problem is safety and that can be partly mitigated by adaptive cruise control.
1)From the shipping dock onto a truck.
2)across town.
3)off the truck.
4)onto the train.
In a train oriented system this would be all 1 step for heavy cargo companies (postal service, postorder companies, supermarkets etc): From the dock onto the train.
5)wait for a train to be built.
good joke.
6)wait for train to run.
How long this is depends on the usage. Here in the Netherlands passenger trains run once an hour like clockwork. Scheduling trains like that is possible, for cargo as well as passengers. Simple hint: never wait for cargo. If the cargo isn't at the dock or in the cart in time it'll have to wait for the next train. If trains are the standard this may only be an hour. With modern control systems it may be possible to load the cargo onto a train cart, get the cart up to speed as the train passes and hook it on the end fully automated. This would mean the dock gets more expensive (linear motors in the tracks to get the carts (with magnets on the bottom) to speed) but this is only a small section and since the train doesn't even have to stop delays are minimized and power requirements are minimized.
7)off the train onto the trucks.
8)finally to the delivery dock.
If the destination is a company this could, in many cases be only a little bit because the shop or somesuch would be in the same area as the dock (or it may have a dock all for itself).
You recycle batteries. The elements are not wasted, usually they lost their specific shape or a not intended molecule is being formed once in a while, and that molecule does not release electric energy. All these things are reversible. In fact, never ever throw a battery in a landfill. Most are quite bad for the environment when not recycled properly.
A 3,5 m (12 feet) tube will already give you that pressure so you won't even need a real pump. Just hang the tube on a tree, attach a container to the top and fill that container up once in a while.
Nope. 1 bullet may kill you. 1 bacterium (or even a couple of thousands) will not. Most of us have an immune system against bacteria, those won't help much against bullets.
For important stuff the EMC demands are insane in cars. Usually parts are well protected from interference. Anything except a direct lightning strike isn't going to hurt it. If they switch to ethernet those demands are not going away. The infotainment systems may be susceptible, but the critical systems will not be. Besides that: why change everything to ethernet? Just install an ethernet system for non critical systems and keep the critical systems on CAN. They need to be as separate as possible anyway so why do they need to be the same type of network?
Not having to turn on the lights without electronics is easy. If the car is running the lights should be on anyway. Darkness has nothing to do with it, as even during the day a car with the lights on is far more easily seen.
I can't believe the insurance company can weasel their way out of paying if you are insured for it at the time of the unfortunate event. That's just wrong. Of course they can kick you out. That doesn't change the fact that the theft or whatever happened while you were insured and thus they have to pay.
'round here most of it doesn't end up in landfills but is recycled. Even in the USA this is no problem. Powering an incandescent bulb with good old coal puts more mercury in the atmosphere than an improperly discarded CFL puts in a landfill. Do you really believe it is better to put mercury in the atmosphere than it is to put it in the ground?
If a fair price is asked for the power then people can choose for the expensive incandescents. However, most will not because it's to expensive. On a global scale energy is very expensive. Especially when generated with CO2 emitting technologies like coal. If the end consumer would pay their part of the cost to get the damned CO2 back out of the atmosphere (or pay to prevent it from getting in there in the first place) people would think twice before using an incandescent. You are correct in your remark that this is an opinion and not fact. My opinion is based on the effects that CFL's had on the Dutch market. We do not pay the full cost of electricity either. We pay the cost of the resources and forget about the cleanup cost. Electricity is taxed but for another reason (MUST TAX EVERYTHING!!!11!). However, we pay a lot more for electricity than in the USA. Around here the CFLs were already much used before the European ban on high power incandescents. Not everyone used them, but in increasing percentage of people did. The result of the ban was only little resistance and a lot of "okay. I should have switched years ago". Then again, our power supply is good. Brownouts are unheard of. Blackouts are rare. We can sue the company if it delivers bad power, but we don't need to. The amount they are allowed to charge depends on how reliable it was the year before and that is verified by an independent organisation.
An old thermometer has approx 0.5 gram of mercury in it. A CFL usually has less than 0.00001 gram of mercury in it. Quite the difference. The mercury in a CFL is less dangerous than the glass around it. It just sounds more dangerous, just like the fact that people are afraid of sharks while the risk of dying from a coconut dropping on your head is far bigger.
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My employer just blocks all non-work related HTTPS trafic. Some supplier sites use HTTPS and they work, but most other sites don't.
Even with my very limited knowledge of network stuff I can solve that, though that doesn't mean Comcast solved it.
If you have it and you want to use another wifi, first login with incorrect credentials. If that gains you access then you can't trust the network.
Most people wont do that, so there will probably be no protection (assuming the normal ISP incompetence). Comcast should build a special login program for such things. It can solve the problem in 2 ways:
1. It could first try to contact the server and verify the connection. If it is a true Xfinity connection then it is reasonably safe. If it is not then the client should not connect to the system. This is probably a custom system based on not-yet build programs and thus a lot of work.
2. It could avoid the problem all together: don't set up a normal connection. Instead, set up a secure VPN connection. Encrypt the complete stream through the potentially unsafe hotspot. This would require Comcast servers providing those thousands of secure VPN connections.
3. Something else thought up by someone smarter than me.
Probably they didn't do anything and if someone does sets up such a honeypot it may cost them a lot of money.
Yep, but truckers are not going to like that. And there are many truckers in the USA (or anywhere else for that matters).
In the end politics will meddle with it, and protecting jobs is popular (despite environmental costs).
I misunderstood 5. However, it should be technically feasible to do this automated and with all carts at the same time, assuming magnets under the carts and motor coils between the tracks. Freight train can be modernized but isn't because nobody invests in them.
They are not experienced in building trucks. Most likely they are going to approach an experienced company and pay them to build these trucks. It seems they have a working prototype so they probably already did that.
700 kg of fuel equals about an hour of usage. However, if the ship is all electric one can assume a 3x as efficient powertrain, so 3 hours. If we combine the solar panels with a skysail which provides around 2000 kW continuously we would get an additional 48 MWh or 172,800 MJ (depending on shipping routes). This equals to approx 4000 kg/day without efficiency improvements or 5.7 hours. With a powertrain efficiency improvement of a factor 3 (doable when using electric power) this would equal to 17 hours of boating.
With the 3 hours of solar boating we'd have 20 hours a day of clean shipping. Since required power is approximately related to speed squared, having a bit lower speed would offer a lot less fuel usage. Low speed is already a disadvantage, but with moder consumer wishes a "Sustainable inter continental shipping" logo splashed everywhere would probably increase sales for your customers. Maybe DHL could advertise long delivery time green shipping thing.
To get back on topic: Batteries. Large container ships are meant for long distances, so we can assume the ship will be on the ocean for months at a time.
If I assume lithium sulfur batteries have a voltage of 3.5 V (from Li-Ion batteries) I assume 3.5 Wh/g or 12,600J. We need about 30,100,000,000J/day so that's 2,388,888 g or 2.4 metric tons. To go 3 months you'd need 223.2 metric tons of these new batteries.
Container ships are big, in the order of 50.000 metric tons so it would be possible. However the price of these batteries isn't known yet and it may just be more expensive than a skysail and a deck of solar panels.
With this back of the envelope calculations I think now that the solution would be in the category of SkySail + solar panels + batteries. Cruise on SkySail + batteries and top the batteries off with the solar panels if you can.
As for the corrosive environment: Glass doesn't corrode and the rest can be covered in plastic which doesn't corrode either. They should be fully sealed of course so there are no metal parts in contact with the corrosive air.
I just think the maintenance crews aren't going to like it much. It would require a lot of retraining.
Note: I am an engineer. However I am not an experienced engineer in this field.
Nope, not at Wal-Mart's expense. Tailgating is fuel efficient for both trucks. Normally there is a pressure drop behind a truck that sort of sucks the truck backwards. That pressure drop after the first truck is partly compensated by the "bow wave" of the next truck. Thus the "sucking effect" is lessened.
The only, but big, problem is safety and that can be partly mitigated by adaptive cruise control.
Politics being a popularity contest and protecting jobs being popular.
1)From the shipping dock onto a truck.
2)across town.
3)off the truck.
4)onto the train.
In a train oriented system this would be all 1 step for heavy cargo companies (postal service, postorder companies, supermarkets etc): From the dock onto the train.
5)wait for a train to be built.
good joke.
6)wait for train to run.
How long this is depends on the usage. Here in the Netherlands passenger trains run once an hour like clockwork. Scheduling trains like that is possible, for cargo as well as passengers. Simple hint: never wait for cargo. If the cargo isn't at the dock or in the cart in time it'll have to wait for the next train. If trains are the standard this may only be an hour.
With modern control systems it may be possible to load the cargo onto a train cart, get the cart up to speed as the train passes and hook it on the end fully automated. This would mean the dock gets more expensive (linear motors in the tracks to get the carts (with magnets on the bottom) to speed) but this is only a small section and since the train doesn't even have to stop delays are minimized and power requirements are minimized.
7)off the train onto the trucks.
8)finally to the delivery dock.
If the destination is a company this could, in many cases be only a little bit because the shop or somesuch would be in the same area as the dock (or it may have a dock all for itself).
You recycle batteries. The elements are not wasted, usually they lost their specific shape or a not intended molecule is being formed once in a while, and that molecule does not release electric energy. All these things are reversible.
In fact, never ever throw a battery in a landfill. Most are quite bad for the environment when not recycled properly.
How big a part of the power requirement of a ship could be covered by solar panels on the deck?
A 3,5 m (12 feet) tube will already give you that pressure so you won't even need a real pump. Just hang the tube on a tree, attach a container to the top and fill that container up once in a while.
Nope. 1 bullet may kill you. 1 bacterium (or even a couple of thousands) will not. Most of us have an immune system against bacteria, those won't help much against bullets.
For important stuff the EMC demands are insane in cars. Usually parts are well protected from interference. Anything except a direct lightning strike isn't going to hurt it.
If they switch to ethernet those demands are not going away. The infotainment systems may be susceptible, but the critical systems will not be.
Besides that: why change everything to ethernet? Just install an ethernet system for non critical systems and keep the critical systems on CAN. They need to be as separate as possible anyway so why do they need to be the same type of network?
Not having to turn on the lights without electronics is easy. If the car is running the lights should be on anyway. Darkness has nothing to do with it, as even during the day a car with the lights on is far more easily seen.
Next step is 2.1 MA over superconducting micro USB cables to fix that little issue.
I let the program import the sortable items in MS excel and sort them there.
Dunno, a folding velomobile may be possible (highly unlikely though).
Why is that required? Are red blood cells not cells?
I can't believe the insurance company can weasel their way out of paying if you are insured for it at the time of the unfortunate event. That's just wrong.
Of course they can kick you out. That doesn't change the fact that the theft or whatever happened while you were insured and thus they have to pay.
Most of the water has been a part of a dinosaur, according to Randall Munroe
'round here most of it doesn't end up in landfills but is recycled.
Even in the USA this is no problem. Powering an incandescent bulb with good old coal puts more mercury in the atmosphere than an improperly discarded CFL puts in a landfill. Do you really believe it is better to put mercury in the atmosphere than it is to put it in the ground?
If a fair price is asked for the power then people can choose for the expensive incandescents. However, most will not because it's to expensive.
On a global scale energy is very expensive. Especially when generated with CO2 emitting technologies like coal. If the end consumer would pay their part of the cost to get the damned CO2 back out of the atmosphere (or pay to prevent it from getting in there in the first place) people would think twice before using an incandescent.
You are correct in your remark that this is an opinion and not fact. My opinion is based on the effects that CFL's had on the Dutch market. We do not pay the full cost of electricity either. We pay the cost of the resources and forget about the cleanup cost. Electricity is taxed but for another reason (MUST TAX EVERYTHING!!!11!). However, we pay a lot more for electricity than in the USA. Around here the CFLs were already much used before the European ban on high power incandescents. Not everyone used them, but in increasing percentage of people did. The result of the ban was only little resistance and a lot of "okay. I should have switched years ago".
Then again, our power supply is good. Brownouts are unheard of. Blackouts are rare. We can sue the company if it delivers bad power, but we don't need to. The amount they are allowed to charge depends on how reliable it was the year before and that is verified by an independent organisation.
Well, he is the only one who can properly configure and maintain the xnofoob system. Who knows what happens when that goes down?
An old thermometer has approx 0.5 gram of mercury in it.
A CFL usually has less than 0.00001 gram of mercury in it.
Quite the difference.
The mercury in a CFL is less dangerous than the glass around it. It just sounds more dangerous, just like the fact that people are afraid of sharks while the risk of dying from a coconut dropping on your head is far bigger.