Here in Europe it will probably be illegal for the provider to fuss over it, delay with it or charge for it. It is already so for taking your number with you to a new provider.
Ah, the US. Land of the free (if you happen to be a company).
+GeorgFischer+ even advises ABS tubes in a lot of chemical applications. Basically: if it gets below freezing you want ABS because most other plastics have the tendency to break easily in cold. The glued tubes can withstand up to 16 bars. LEGO bricks are not designed to withstand pressure, so the maximum is probably lower. I'd advise a few tests with low volume containers first, to test the strength of the bricks. Then scale up slowly (steps of a factor 2 in volume), because you can't scale wall thickness up and the required wall thickness will become bigger on a larger container. The walls are compound walls so it may not be as much a problem as it seems, but 16 bar makes quite a bang.
it is subject to changes in the derived output caused from things like temperature changes or induced noise.
and
Analog is not imprecise.
does not compute. If the output is influenced by temperature and noise then it is imprecise. If a value should be 6.586789, but due to the temperature the output is 6.586913 then it has an error of 0.000124 .
The GGP probably tuned his radio to 100 MHz instead of 100 mHz. This leads me to a funny cable label. A cable was marked "20 MA". It was about half a mm^2 (approx 16 AWG) and the price made me quite sure it wasn't superconducting. Someone had decided to put EVERYTHING IN CAPS. Someone who needs a stern talking to.
Oblig. XKCD. It does have a major difference: this hack can be done without the victim noticing. The $5 wrench attack vector is a bit more conspicuous.
The fact that it works no better than a placebo is irrelevant. I take low level multivitamin tablets. They make me happier and more productive. They give me more energy. They may not do that directly, they may work due to the placebo effect. I don't care. It really doesn't matter. The levels are not so high that it is dangerous (the dangerous levels of vitamin A are 25x the advised levels for example) so "no cure no harm" counts. For a few cents a day I get more energy, more happiness and more productivity.
When you break a CFL once a year and don't clean up the mess at all you get about the same amount of mercury as in eating seafood once a week. Most bulbs contain less than 1 mg of mercury. I assume you eat 200 grams of seafood each week and you eat seafood with 0.1 ppm mercury (it varies a lot between different fishes and shellfish). This means you get 1 mg of mercury from that seafood. Directly in your belly instead of mostly in the trashcan. It doesn't matter that the mercury in fish is from natural sources. It is not bound in a safe form so it is as dangerous as the mercury in the bulb. The fact that people who eat a lot of fish have long lifespans is an indication that low levels of mercury are not dangerous.
Thank you for this information. I assumed from a white box model that CFLs were not suitable to handle power fluctuations unless protected from them and I assumed that cheap versions would not be protected. One of these assumptions must be wrong. I verified the assumptions with sketchy information: the complaints of Americans combined with my knowledge of the American power grid.
The mercury would not be a reason for me to throw it away. It's less than someone who eats fish once a week gets from their food. The glass in your food would be a reason to throw it away, but no different from the old incandescents. The longevity of CFL and LED depends on a few factors. Mainly the reliability of the voltage applied to them and the success the manufacturer had in making the bulb resistant to power surges/brown outs. Not all manufacturers put the same amount of effort in that. The fact that you have good results with cheap CFL bulbs means that you probably have a good power connection. Yaay for your electricity provider and the man who wired your house. However, not everyone is so lucky. My CFLs last for a long time too, but then again I live in the Netherlands where the power is next to perfect and the houses are wired with 2.5mm^2 (approx AWG 10) when they are after a 16A fuse. I believe the US has lighter standards in the building code but I can't find it. I have heard that brownouts are common in the USA. These are devastating to unprotected CFLs and LEDs. Voltage spikes from different sources are even worse.
To conclude: Mileage will vary on the use of CFLs. They are fickle or perfect depending on the quality of the power provided to them. In time the manufacturers will be able to prevent crappy power from damaging the CFLs and LEDs, but that aint gonna happen if everyone keeps buying the cheapest ones they can get (even if they only last a year).
I didn't say there wasn't one. I just said we have no reason to believe there is one. That is a cold, hard fact.
At this point it is like a god. No one can prove that he exists and no one can prove that he doesn't exist. We once logically assumed that the universe was created by a god. Any other cause was more complex with the information we had. Nowadays we know more. Much more. In the same way we should assume now that there is no subspace. That doesn't mean that we should hold to this assumption when experiments indicate that there is a subspace.
Q: How efficient is WiTricity technology?
A: The power transfer efficiency of a WiTricity solution depends on the relative sizes of the power source and capture devices, and on the distance between the devices. Maximum efficiency is achieved when the devices are relatively close to one another, and can exceed 95%.
What "relatively close to one another" means, how big the marketing sauce on that is and if it still works with other conducting items with 1 km radius remains to be seen. My own limited knowledge of this stuff tells me this could work. High frequency usually helps with transmission efficiency and resonant coils help a lot too.
The WiTricity site mentions near field transmission. I can't find the exact frequency, but I'll assume that it's the same as their phone charger frequency (which is in their white paper): 6.78 MHz. The wavelength in meters for that is 300,000,000/6,780,000,000= 44 meter. The near field is up to about a wavelength in distance, so the near field for this should be up to 44 meter. I have not enough experience to say much insightful about the efficiency drop off inside those 44m.
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Wow, it is still legal to block non-provider-branded phones on a network in the USA? Don't you have a free market?
Here in Europe it will probably be illegal for the provider to fuss over it, delay with it or charge for it. It is already so for taking your number with you to a new provider.
Ah, the US. Land of the free (if you happen to be a company).
Woa, so you know how to build a sensor that can pinpoint a location at a distance of 384,400 km more precise than +/- 23.25 mm? Color me impressed!
+GeorgFischer+ even advises ABS tubes in a lot of chemical applications. Basically: if it gets below freezing you want ABS because most other plastics have the tendency to break easily in cold. The glued tubes can withstand up to 16 bars.
LEGO bricks are not designed to withstand pressure, so the maximum is probably lower. I'd advise a few tests with low volume containers first, to test the strength of the bricks. Then scale up slowly (steps of a factor 2 in volume), because you can't scale wall thickness up and the required wall thickness will become bigger on a larger container. The walls are compound walls so it may not be as much a problem as it seems, but 16 bar makes quite a bang.
it is subject to changes in the derived output caused from things like temperature changes or induced noise.
and
Analog is not imprecise.
does not compute.
If the output is influenced by temperature and noise then it is imprecise.
If a value should be 6.586789, but due to the temperature the output is 6.586913 then it has an error of 0.000124 .
Oh my god! It's cyphers all the way down!
The GGP probably tuned his radio to 100 MHz instead of 100 mHz.
This leads me to a funny cable label. A cable was marked "20 MA". It was about half a mm^2 (approx 16 AWG) and the price made me quite sure it wasn't superconducting. Someone had decided to put EVERYTHING IN CAPS. Someone who needs a stern talking to.
Oblig. XKCD.
It does have a major difference: this hack can be done without the victim noticing. The $5 wrench attack vector is a bit more conspicuous.
The fact that it works no better than a placebo is irrelevant. I take low level multivitamin tablets. They make me happier and more productive. They give me more energy. They may not do that directly, they may work due to the placebo effect. I don't care. It really doesn't matter. The levels are not so high that it is dangerous (the dangerous levels of vitamin A are 25x the advised levels for example) so "no cure no harm" counts.
For a few cents a day I get more energy, more happiness and more productivity.
When you break a CFL once a year and don't clean up the mess at all you get about the same amount of mercury as in eating seafood once a week.
Most bulbs contain less than 1 mg of mercury.
I assume you eat 200 grams of seafood each week and you eat seafood with 0.1 ppm mercury (it varies a lot between different fishes and shellfish). This means you get 1 mg of mercury from that seafood. Directly in your belly instead of mostly in the trashcan.
It doesn't matter that the mercury in fish is from natural sources. It is not bound in a safe form so it is as dangerous as the mercury in the bulb. The fact that people who eat a lot of fish have long lifespans is an indication that low levels of mercury are not dangerous.
Thank you for this information. I assumed from a white box model that CFLs were not suitable to handle power fluctuations unless protected from them and I assumed that cheap versions would not be protected. One of these assumptions must be wrong.
I verified the assumptions with sketchy information: the complaints of Americans combined with my knowledge of the American power grid.
Why would you do CFLs away with the normal trash? Don't you have a special hazardous waste container for that?
Do you eat fish?
The mercury would not be a reason for me to throw it away. It's less than someone who eats fish once a week gets from their food.
The glass in your food would be a reason to throw it away, but no different from the old incandescents.
The longevity of CFL and LED depends on a few factors. Mainly the reliability of the voltage applied to them and the success the manufacturer had in making the bulb resistant to power surges/brown outs. Not all manufacturers put the same amount of effort in that.
The fact that you have good results with cheap CFL bulbs means that you probably have a good power connection. Yaay for your electricity provider and the man who wired your house.
However, not everyone is so lucky. My CFLs last for a long time too, but then again I live in the Netherlands where the power is next to perfect and the houses are wired with 2.5mm^2 (approx AWG 10) when they are after a 16A fuse. I believe the US has lighter standards in the building code but I can't find it.
I have heard that brownouts are common in the USA. These are devastating to unprotected CFLs and LEDs. Voltage spikes from different sources are even worse.
To conclude: Mileage will vary on the use of CFLs. They are fickle or perfect depending on the quality of the power provided to them. In time the manufacturers will be able to prevent crappy power from damaging the CFLs and LEDs, but that aint gonna happen if everyone keeps buying the cheapest ones they can get (even if they only last a year).
Make it in space. It's cooler and the vacuum would be easy.
And they still are not as old as the Niblonians.
Isn't radioactive decay a power source?
Sorry, I have other plans with the rest of my existence.
I didn't say there wasn't one. I just said we have no reason to believe there is one. That is a cold, hard fact.
At this point it is like a god. No one can prove that he exists and no one can prove that he doesn't exist. We once logically assumed that the universe was created by a god. Any other cause was more complex with the information we had. Nowadays we know more. Much more.
In the same way we should assume now that there is no subspace. That doesn't mean that we should hold to this assumption when experiments indicate that there is a subspace.
We're just mutant apes.
He didn't say it would impact it positively.
But I like my lightbulbs!
Assuming his beliefs are correct it ended very well for hem.
That's probably going to be the biggest assumption I am going to do today.
How do you rehabilitate someone who gets great pleasure in (effectively) torturing innocent people?
You offer them a job at the FBI.
That said, I doubt its only 10% loss...
According to the WiTricity FAQ the efficiency can be quite high:
Q: How efficient is WiTricity technology?
A: The power transfer efficiency of a WiTricity solution depends on the relative sizes of the power source and capture devices, and on the distance between the devices. Maximum efficiency is achieved when the devices are relatively close to one another, and can exceed 95%.
What "relatively close to one another" means, how big the marketing sauce on that is and if it still works with other conducting items with 1 km radius remains to be seen.
My own limited knowledge of this stuff tells me this could work. High frequency usually helps with transmission efficiency and resonant coils help a lot too.
The WiTricity site mentions near field transmission. I can't find the exact frequency, but I'll assume that it's the same as their phone charger frequency (which is in their white paper): 6.78 MHz. The wavelength in meters for that is 300,000,000/6,780,000,000= 44 meter. The near field is up to about a wavelength in distance, so the near field for this should be up to 44 meter. I have not enough experience to say much insightful about the efficiency drop off inside those 44m.