In the end, what the Vapochill gives you is peace of mind, the luxury of never again having to worry about an important aspect of your system, processor cooling. Upgrade the rest of your system to your heart's content, but two things will remain constant: The Vapochill as your processor cooler, and the temperature of that cooler at a nippy five degrees above zero.
Unfortunately, reliability is exactly what the Vapochill does not provide. When it comes to reliability, there is often no replacement for simplicity. I never worry about the 486 I've got in my firewall because it doesn't need a heatsink or fan. I can be fairly certain, however, that the fan on my workstation processor will seize up someday and the chip may self-destruct.
These guys can't be more wrong about the reliability. This thing may shut itself off if it overheats, but if reliability were the number one concern, I'd underclock a new chip so that even if the cooling system does fail, it's not a catastrophe.
There are a lot of alarmists in the area that like to point at things like this and jump up and down and make a whole lot of noise. Granted, there is likely some valid scientific proof to this warning (because they probably wouldn't have issued it if there weren't), but that's all that this is. It's just a reminder to the crews that are working in the area to be careful--they're still allowed down there to clean up if they like.
This is a pretty regular thing for the area. The press gets wind of some sort of memo and the whole thing gets blown out of proportion. Things that should really only be semi-major events (like the Wen-Ho Lee case, for example) get turned into media circuses.
I understand the need for caution and scrutiny but seriously, people, let's keep it appropriate.
This memo is just a warning. It may come from a big, bad, government entity with some secret sleazy conspiracy agenda out to poison our kids or drug the masses or keep the real truth from getting out, but it also comes from an organization staffed with many of my good friends--people that I trust to oversee this type of work and set off alarms if something really bad is going on.
I'd recommend traveling to D.C. if you want to read between the lines.
Because it shows the scum fuck for what he really is. A hate breeding mongrel.
It's who he is, you don't write about someone and neglect who they are. Do you write about hitler and not mention he hated jews?
No, you most certainly do write about someone and neglect some details, given the topic at hand. It's completely appropriate to neglect the fact that Hitler hated Jews when discussing his economic policies or military decisions in the same way that it's appropriate to neglect the fact that Fischer is an anti-Semite when discussing chess strategies or one of many other topics.
Now, this article is a historical summary and the anti-Semitism is rather pertinent. I probably would have been upset if the authors had left it out but only because that detail pertains to the topic at hand--not because I think Fischer is a "hate-breeding mongrel."
I can probably find a point of disagreement with anybody I know. Does that mean I have to mention that fact every time I write about them?
Disclaimer: I don't agree with Fischer's views on Jews, either. That doesn't mean that I get to slap "ANTI-SEMITE" across anything he's said/done and subsequently ignore it.
By my calculations, 800x600 16 bit color at 60Hz means you're sending 460,800,000 bits of information per second.
That's awfully close to fitting inside a 900MHz signal (axe it to 12bit color, perhaps?).
I'm ignoring overhead and whatnot, but you could fit this amount of data in a 2.4GHz signal without too much of a sweat, it seems. This doesn't mean that you'll be able to run your 1600x1200x32 screen, but whatever.
Hmmm - what about overclockers? Submerge your MB in liquid nitrogen to gain a couple o' hundred MHz? I've seen some pretty cool hacks on/. over the last couple of years.
Very true. They're the same in spirit, and the only difference is in implementation.
You usally (usually!) don't have to worry about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere if your overclocked MB bites the dust, and when it does, it doesn't always (always!) mean that it will make a $4000 engine turn itself into scrap.
The skill sets are different, too. With overclocking, you need good computer skills and some common-sense mechanical and electrical skills. Beyond that, all you need is the cash to buy it all. When deciphering a modern engine management system you need a good background in CS, some workable knowledge of EE, and enough mechanical skills to get the damned thing running.
Or, in the case of some (some!) of the vinyl-sticker-emblazoned, wake-the-neighborhood-up-at-3am types, all you need is a good instruction manual or a mechanic worth his price.
But I definitely agree with you. The spirit is the same.
This is really very common in the automotive tuning world already. Many companies have piggyback-style computers that intercept the signals entering and leaving the stock engine computer and modify them accordingly. Products like the A'PEXi S-AFC (among many many others) use relatively simple mathematical formulae (think...mx+b) or look-up tables to modify the signals that the engine computer sees from the sensors or the signals that the actuators see from the computer.
For the more advanced racer, there are entire standalong engine management systems that entirely the engine computer itself (think Haltech E6k and others).
The point here is that the signals used between sensors and microprocessors onboard a vehicle aren't difficult to decode. Most relate to measuring the resistance across a sensor or sending out a pulse to run a fuel injector at a given interval. Granted, the signals sent between the various computers are a bit more complex, but it's by no means impossible to decode. The only reason that 3rd-party aftermarket manufacturers are really the only people building these things is that there isn't a whole lot of return for the average home-mechanic. By the time Joe Six-Pack builds his engine management system, he's spent so much time that he could have enhanced the performance of his vehicle with all sorts of non-electronic devices that are cheaper and better understood in the automotive community.
Are there very cool things that can be done by the individual with a personally-designed engine (and transmission, and A/C, etc) management system? Sure! Loads of cool stuff!
Now how many people out there can spare the time, effort, and money to have a system that really only performs marginally better than anything that can be bought off the shelf? Not many people, that's for sure.
But luckily, that's what universities are for...which explains why I'm still in school.
So what exactly does this mean for the US space program? This country has never been the type to sit around on its laurels when someone else is venturing into new, uncharted territory.
Granted, it's not like China is going to be the first to land on the moon, but what if they get to the point where they're developing a moon colony or sending up as many reuseable spacecraft as we are? Is the US finally going to start shoveling money back into the space program?
First: Lexan discolors in sunlight. It's not exceptionally quick, but it will discolor after a year or two.
Second: Lexan scratches--easily. Granted, you can get the specially-coated stuff, but that's really expensive...which brings me to:
Third: Lexan is really really expensive. The bullet-proof stuff you speak of is between $85/sq.ft and $115/sq.ft. Figure 3x5' windshield--that's 15 sq.ft, or $1275 for just the raw, unformed, uncut, unpolished, and non-scratchproof Lexan. The government can afford that for their ~$30 million F-16...but I'm not paying it on my $13k Kia. Even at 1/4", you're looking at $200 for the raw materials, and you still need to replace it every two years.
Fourth: It's used already on race-cars. The DOT hasn't approved it for street use (although they've been known to make very bone-headed moves in the past.) It's used for a bunch of stuff. It's not being used on cars. Glass does a nice job (especially considering that it shatters into tiny bits to let your head poke through instead of making your head splatter all over the inside). I like glass.
Coupe? I can clearly see a rear door in the "pictures" section of the webpage (3rd row, 3rd pic over).
They could be using two cars...but even in that case, at least one of them is a sedan.
Re:The Next Step
on
Dashboard Linux
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Besides the obvious safety considerations (what happens if the monitor dies or if a nicely-sized rock manages to punch a hole straight through the camera lens?), there are many advantages to having nothing besides a piece of glass in your way.
First off, the windshield is big enough that if any significant portion of the glass gets damaged enough so that you can't see it, you generally can see enough to pull over to the side of the road. Glass is ungodly simple this way--if you critically damage part of it, the whole thing isn't going to fail.
Secondly, glass is relatively easy to fix and cheap to replace: A new windshield runs for around $200. Any camera/monitor combo would likely cost tens of times as much. What's more, even if you've got a chasm-of-doom running down the middle of your windshield, you can still drive (albeit not terribly legally). With a cam/monitor combo, a dead camera means a useless car.
Lastly, and most importantly, is the human factor. The human optical system is a very complex systems that's been honed for tens of thousands of years to process lots of bits of information at once. When I'm driving down the freeway at 75mph, maybe ten or twenty car-lengths behind someone, I can feel if I'm getting closer or farther away from them, despite there being a speed difference of only a couple of mph. Most peoples' eyes are also much sharper than most LCD screens (we won't discuss CRTs -- they're big, heavy, and a major safety hazard -- would you like a vacuum-filled glass tube in front of your head when you get in a wreck?) I've seen camera-and-LCD rear-view mirror replacements, and I haven't been impressed. Even at high resolutions, there's a lack of detail and intuitive connection to the image. It's the same feeling as looking through a periscope--your mind loses its connection to the object that you're looking at. You don't have any of those problems with glass.
The fact that it's designed to work out-of-the-box right from the start--no incompatibilities or driver problems
The amount of time it would take you to set up all your hardware and software to get this thing running
It is unreasonable if you're willing to spend the time to put something like this together--but that's how it goes for pretty much everything these days. If you do it yourself, then you're going to save cash.
The point is that not everybody has the tools (remember, Joe Average is the target audience and he's not going to know how to assemble said box or even come close to getting all the required software running--even with Ye Olde Simple MS Product) nor the time (Joe Average again--even if he had the tools to get this job done, I'd sure he'd rather spend it at his kids' T-ball game) to assemble this thing.
True--it doesn't make sense for your the "technical elite," but that's not who it's marketed to. This is a product just like a Dell computer or an internet appliance--it's got some cool technology bits but it's sold as a package so that Mr. and Mrs. Average don't have to get their hands dirty with the details. I'm sure there are a fair number of geeks that will be interested in this product based solely on its technical merits, but the intended audience is not someone who could do this on their own--that person has already done it, and for half the price.
Hard drives are also not a permanent medium, so until DVD burners become much cheaper the files on those drives are subject to crashes and loss.
Technically correct: Hard drives are not a permanent medium. But neither are DVDs, which, while they don't suffer from hard-drive style crashes, still get scratches and also deteriorate over time. I've read that most cheap CD-Rs begin to deteriorate noticably after ten years or so, and although DVD-R(AM?) media is likely to be of higher quality, it's still far from permanent.
Slashdot Mirror
Who stole slashdot.la?
We certainly haven't unless we can get him to stop showing up on Crossfire every other night.
This can't possibly be the same guy as the Bob Novak on Crossfire. Anybody have any evidence for or against this?
Didn't think so.
...on the horizon? I'll definitely need to invest in some binoculars.
I've got enough trouble seeing the opaque monitor on my desk.
Hmm. I thought the real Cadillac of autos was the ... err ... what's it called? Cadisomething.
Manually FTPing in reveals that there is a 10-user limit to the server.
What are the odds you or I will be one of them?
That's what I thought. I'll be back in a few days.
Unfortunately, reliability is exactly what the Vapochill does not provide. When it comes to reliability, there is often no replacement for simplicity. I never worry about the 486 I've got in my firewall because it doesn't need a heatsink or fan. I can be fairly certain, however, that the fan on my workstation processor will seize up someday and the chip may self-destruct.
These guys can't be more wrong about the reliability. This thing may shut itself off if it overheats, but if reliability were the number one concern, I'd underclock a new chip so that even if the cooling system does fail, it's not a catastrophe.
I've lived in Los Alamos for most of my life.
There are a lot of alarmists in the area that like to point at things like this and jump up and down and make a whole lot of noise. Granted, there is likely some valid scientific proof to this warning (because they probably wouldn't have issued it if there weren't), but that's all that this is. It's just a reminder to the crews that are working in the area to be careful--they're still allowed down there to clean up if they like.
This is a pretty regular thing for the area. The press gets wind of some sort of memo and the whole thing gets blown out of proportion. Things that should really only be semi-major events (like the Wen-Ho Lee case, for example) get turned into media circuses.
I understand the need for caution and scrutiny but seriously, people, let's keep it appropriate.
This memo is just a warning. It may come from a big, bad, government entity with some secret sleazy conspiracy agenda out to poison our kids or drug the masses or keep the real truth from getting out, but it also comes from an organization staffed with many of my good friends--people that I trust to oversee this type of work and set off alarms if something really bad is going on.
I'd recommend traveling to D.C. if you want to read between the lines.
This one is flat-out amazing. Some lady has managed to build scale models of all sorts of construction equipment--and functional, too!
Mind-blowing design work, that's for sure.
Because it shows the scum fuck for what he really is. A hate breeding mongrel.
It's who he is, you don't write about someone and neglect who they are. Do you write about hitler and not mention he hated jews?
No, you most certainly do write about someone and neglect some details, given the topic at hand. It's completely appropriate to neglect the fact that Hitler hated Jews when discussing his economic policies or military decisions in the same way that it's appropriate to neglect the fact that Fischer is an anti-Semite when discussing chess strategies or one of many other topics.
Now, this article is a historical summary and the anti-Semitism is rather pertinent. I probably would have been upset if the authors had left it out but only because that detail pertains to the topic at hand--not because I think Fischer is a "hate-breeding mongrel."
I can probably find a point of disagreement with anybody I know. Does that mean I have to mention that fact every time I write about them?
Disclaimer: I don't agree with Fischer's views on Jews, either. That doesn't mean that I get to slap "ANTI-SEMITE" across anything he's said/done and subsequently ignore it.
By my calculations, 800x600 16 bit color at 60Hz means you're sending 460,800,000 bits of information per second.
That's awfully close to fitting inside a 900MHz signal (axe it to 12bit color, perhaps?).
I'm ignoring overhead and whatnot, but you could fit this amount of data in a 2.4GHz signal without too much of a sweat, it seems. This doesn't mean that you'll be able to run your 1600x1200x32 screen, but whatever.
Of course, IANATE (telecommunications engineer).
Hmmm - what about overclockers? Submerge your MB in liquid nitrogen to gain a couple o' hundred MHz? I've seen some pretty cool hacks on /. over the last couple of years.
Very true. They're the same in spirit, and the only difference is in implementation.
You usally (usually!) don't have to worry about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere if your overclocked MB bites the dust, and when it does, it doesn't always (always!) mean that it will make a $4000 engine turn itself into scrap.
The skill sets are different, too. With overclocking, you need good computer skills and some common-sense mechanical and electrical skills. Beyond that, all you need is the cash to buy it all. When deciphering a modern engine management system you need a good background in CS, some workable knowledge of EE, and enough mechanical skills to get the damned thing running.
Or, in the case of some (some!) of the vinyl-sticker-emblazoned, wake-the-neighborhood-up-at-3am types, all you need is a good instruction manual or a mechanic worth his price.
But I definitely agree with you. The spirit is the same.
This is really very common in the automotive tuning world already. Many companies have piggyback-style computers that intercept the signals entering and leaving the stock engine computer and modify them accordingly. Products like the A'PEXi S-AFC (among many many others) use relatively simple mathematical formulae (think...mx+b) or look-up tables to modify the signals that the engine computer sees from the sensors or the signals that the actuators see from the computer.
For the more advanced racer, there are entire standalong engine management systems that entirely the engine computer itself (think Haltech E6k and others).
The point here is that the signals used between sensors and microprocessors onboard a vehicle aren't difficult to decode. Most relate to measuring the resistance across a sensor or sending out a pulse to run a fuel injector at a given interval. Granted, the signals sent between the various computers are a bit more complex, but it's by no means impossible to decode. The only reason that 3rd-party aftermarket manufacturers are really the only people building these things is that there isn't a whole lot of return for the average home-mechanic. By the time Joe Six-Pack builds his engine management system, he's spent so much time that he could have enhanced the performance of his vehicle with all sorts of non-electronic devices that are cheaper and better understood in the automotive community.
Are there very cool things that can be done by the individual with a personally-designed engine (and transmission, and A/C, etc) management system? Sure! Loads of cool stuff!
Now how many people out there can spare the time, effort, and money to have a system that really only performs marginally better than anything that can be bought off the shelf? Not many people, that's for sure.
But luckily, that's what universities are for...which explains why I'm still in school.
So what exactly does this mean for the US space program? This country has never been the type to sit around on its laurels when someone else is venturing into new, uncharted territory.
Granted, it's not like China is going to be the first to land on the moon, but what if they get to the point where they're developing a moon colony or sending up as many reuseable spacecraft as we are? Is the US finally going to start shoveling money back into the space program?
Are at it too.
Here you can see they've got it to boot at 3.674GHz. The page is in Finnish (I assume), but there's some English text at the bottom too.
And make julienned fries and walk my dog and find my car keys and defrost my freezer and shampoo my unmentionables.
Like the poster said, it's pretty vapor. I'll believe it when I see it. And probably buy one then, too.
Mega-ma-bytes
Giga-ma-bytes
Saxa-ma-phone
etc.
Normally I don't respond to ACs.
But I've been playing with Lexan recently.
First: Lexan discolors in sunlight. It's not exceptionally quick, but it will discolor after a year or two.
Second: Lexan scratches--easily. Granted, you can get the specially-coated stuff, but that's really expensive...which brings me to:
Third: Lexan is really really expensive. The bullet-proof stuff you speak of is between $85/sq.ft and $115/sq.ft. Figure 3x5' windshield--that's 15 sq.ft, or $1275 for just the raw, unformed, uncut, unpolished, and non-scratchproof Lexan. The government can afford that for their ~$30 million F-16...but I'm not paying it on my $13k Kia. Even at 1/4", you're looking at $200 for the raw materials, and you still need to replace it every two years.
Fourth: It's used already on race-cars. The DOT hasn't approved it for street use (although they've been known to make very bone-headed moves in the past.) It's used for a bunch of stuff. It's not being used on cars. Glass does a nice job (especially considering that it shatters into tiny bits to let your head poke through instead of making your head splatter all over the inside). I like glass.
Coupe? I can clearly see a rear door in the "pictures" section of the webpage (3rd row, 3rd pic over).
They could be using two cars...but even in that case, at least one of them is a sedan.
Besides the obvious safety considerations (what happens if the monitor dies or if a nicely-sized rock manages to punch a hole straight through the camera lens?), there are many advantages to having nothing besides a piece of glass in your way.
First off, the windshield is big enough that if any significant portion of the glass gets damaged enough so that you can't see it, you generally can see enough to pull over to the side of the road. Glass is ungodly simple this way--if you critically damage part of it, the whole thing isn't going to fail.
Secondly, glass is relatively easy to fix and cheap to replace: A new windshield runs for around $200. Any camera/monitor combo would likely cost tens of times as much. What's more, even if you've got a chasm-of-doom running down the middle of your windshield, you can still drive (albeit not terribly legally). With a cam/monitor combo, a dead camera means a useless car.
Lastly, and most importantly, is the human factor. The human optical system is a very complex systems that's been honed for tens of thousands of years to process lots of bits of information at once. When I'm driving down the freeway at 75mph, maybe ten or twenty car-lengths behind someone, I can feel if I'm getting closer or farther away from them, despite there being a speed difference of only a couple of mph. Most peoples' eyes are also much sharper than most LCD screens (we won't discuss CRTs -- they're big, heavy, and a major safety hazard -- would you like a vacuum-filled glass tube in front of your head when you get in a wreck?) I've seen camera-and-LCD rear-view mirror replacements, and I haven't been impressed. Even at high resolutions, there's a lack of detail and intuitive connection to the image. It's the same feeling as looking through a periscope--your mind loses its connection to the object that you're looking at. You don't have any of those problems with glass.
It is unreasonable if you're willing to spend the time to put something like this together--but that's how it goes for pretty much everything these days. If you do it yourself, then you're going to save cash.
The point is that not everybody has the tools (remember, Joe Average is the target audience and he's not going to know how to assemble said box or even come close to getting all the required software running--even with Ye Olde Simple MS Product) nor the time (Joe Average again--even if he had the tools to get this job done, I'd sure he'd rather spend it at his kids' T-ball game) to assemble this thing.
True--it doesn't make sense for your the "technical elite," but that's not who it's marketed to. This is a product just like a Dell computer or an internet appliance--it's got some cool technology bits but it's sold as a package so that Mr. and Mrs. Average don't have to get their hands dirty with the details. I'm sure there are a fair number of geeks that will be interested in this product based solely on its technical merits, but the intended audience is not someone who could do this on their own--that person has already done it, and for half the price.
Is enough bandwidth to survive a /.ing.
Yet another example of "we built this cool toy but have no idea about what to do with it."