Sure, it may be safer for you. But not for oncoming traffic. If you want more reflected light, you have to emit more light to begin with.The illumination pattern is exactly the same as modern incandescents; it is specified by technical regulations.
Auto-stabilization is new to me; a good and necessary move, but one that will drive up the already high price even more.
While they may last a lifetime, they cost a lot upfront (if optional, else it's hidden in the total package) and in case of damage. I have changed 3 halogen headlights in two cars with a total of 370000km on the odometers. Not too bad for a 10EUR lamp.
All in all I still feel it's a complicated and expensive technology, with a low benefit/cost ratio. The carmakers' goal may be to keep the price up. But if you like it, good for you. I hope our paths won't cross too often;-)
LOL. I really thought that it was actually an English word.
But no, French is not my first language. It's Dutch, and we call it an 'achteruitkijkspiegel': 'achteruit' = backwards 'kijk' = look 'spiegel' = mirror.
Like German, Dutch tends to concatenate words to make a new, very long one.
But I would appreciate it if you could introduce 'retrovisor' into common English. That would be cool indeed.
You are probably not very critical of lighting quality then:
1) As some posters already have pointed out the emission spectrum of a fluorescent is discontinuous. So is the reflection spectrum of most paints, laquers, anything that has color. The result is that your colors will turn out very dull. Think of the emission spectrum of a CF as a bitmask with lot of zeroes. The same goes for the reflection spectrum of things you want to light. AND the two bitmasks together, and the result will have a lot of zeroes. A standard lightbulb has a continuous spectrum. Its bitmap would contain all ones, so the AND produces the correct color.
2) Most CFs are rather large. This means you won't get highlights. Objects will look dull - the difference between a sunny and a cloudy day. Next time at a jewelry store look at how tiny lights are used to make everything sparkle. For indoor lighting you need to combine a diffuse background lighting with small size accent lights.
Now combine 1) and 2) and you'll see that by only using CFs everything will have dull colors, and no highlights. Very depressing. For your wellbeing, be careful.
PS: The stated light output equivalence between CFs and incandescents is only true if you light spectrally pure white objects with a continous spectrum. Because of the bad overlap of the spectra of lighter and lightee you typically will need much higher powered CFs than advertised. CF promotors don't tell you that.
At one time I did even think of writing the minister of transportation. These HIDs are indeed obnoxious as hell, and probably dangerous too:
- They are more focused than ordinary lights. As such, when a car that is equipped with them follows you on an uneven road, the lamps annoyingly blink and even change color in your retrovisor.
- They are not full spectrum. Certain objects will have absorbtion spectra that cause them to be much darker when illuminated by HIDs than by classic halogen lamps. I hate the off-white color too.
I don't buy into their ability to provide better illumination. If they're brighter, they are more blinding. It's that simple.
Are you telling me that the company you work(ed) for was partly responsible for ONE OF THE MOST ANNOYING THINGS I EVER SUFFERED FROM ?
Some years ago, I started being waked up haphazardly by the phone ringing. The day of the month was random, the day of the week was random, the time of the night was random between 2 and 5 AM but it sure freaked me, and my wife, out.
Calls to the telco had no effect. They tested (or at least pretended to) the line and said: "Oh no Sir, everything is fine!".
I ended up connecting a digital storage oscilloscope on the wires and leaving it running overnight, tweaking the thresholds until I was finally able to capture the overvoltage pulses that were causing my phones to ring.
Armed with the proof I managed to get through to a technically competent person in the telco with some authority (imagine the immenseness of that accomplishment !).
It ended up with the telco contacting the manufacturer of my (telco certified) phone switch to work out a correction, that manufacturer sending a technician turning up to solder a few resistors and a cap in place and charging me the equivalent of $100 for something I could easily have done myself.
"I call it the Commander Data kill switch, as the dog immediately goes slack and crumples to the ground when you push the switch. [an error occurred while processing this directive]"
Yes, I know the difference between the AAC cake and Apple's DRM topping. In theory there is a difference, but in practice there isn't because Apple is the only one who is actively promoting the format.
I'm mostly using 192kbps VBR encoded MP3s. That quality is fine by me; I don't hear nary a difference with the original, and even if I did I wouldn't care as I'm listening more to the MP3 files than to the originals, so they have become the de facto original...
Like it or not, MP3 is the standard for compressed audio. Tools and players abound. There are more than 10 times as much references on the web to MP3 as there are to AAC. With AAC you feel locked up in a single store. I prefer to roam, and I like the fact that no DRM topping for MP3 is in actual use so there is no risk I would ever be deceived by a file that turns out to be DRM'd.
BTW the same reasoning applies to WMA (Windows Media Audio). Even though WMA promises better quality for the same bitrate, or the same quality from a smaller bitrate, it loses out for the same reasons.
I did my first real programming in Fortran on punched cards. Nobody could punch 'CONTINUE' faster than I did at that time.
I still remember the sound of the card reader (fla-bap, flapflapflapflapflap......) and of the line printer. To recogize when my job was done, I inserted a few carefully spaced cards full of '*'s in front of the deck, producing a unique rhythmic sound pattern when printed.
While I adore trying to implement efficient solutions which bring value to mankind, I fear that this is just another politic scheme to divert untold loads of money into pork barrel projects with no net benefits.
EVEN Russia ? Well, if you will be collecting loads of money from selling emission rights to other, more developed countries who used to be your aversary, WHY WOULDN'T YOU ?
If only. My country seems - for some obscure reason - hell bent on buying emmision rights from Russia. They seem to think that increased regulation will open up new opportunities. The broken window fallacy at its best. More energy devoted to fallacious goals is not going to improve neither the economy nor the ecology.
WTF WHY WOULD YOU TAX YOUR OWN INDUSTRY AND GIVE THE PROCEEDS TO A COMPETITOR WHO HAS AIMED NUKULAR ROCKETS ON YOUR CITIES ? WHY, OH WHY ? This simpy makes no sense at all. The only reason I can see is that the politicians have found a way to skim a part of the proceeds for their own pet projects. Way to go.
I dislike Mr. Bush, his politics and his cronyism as strongly as you can imagine. Yet, in this case, the current administration HAS made the correct choice. Maybe these kind of common sense decisions is just what caused a majority to vote for the GOP.
Speakers are the weakest part, by far. The distortion imparted by even top of the line speakers simply dwarfs all the other factors in the audio chain, as long as these are of reasonable quality.
So playing compressed music through an iPod and speakers with quality A is going to sound better than an original CD through speakers with quality B, if A > B.
Of course, if you use a crappy amplifier, loose wires, badly compressed material etc. all bets are off.
I knew about this speculation years ago, well before DAT.
Of course the gulf stream is extremely important.
My opinion is that its existence is driven by latitudinal temperature differentials and coriolis forces, and its circulation pattern is determined by the geometry of the land mass and (under)water distribution on this planet, and that the effect of salt content is minimal (*). As none of the main factors can change over a short time, neither will the dynamics of the gulf stream.
Short of cataclysms (asteroid impact, major volcano activity) global effects on such a large scale just don't happen overnight.
(*) IANAFD, but I haven't seen a decent energy balance that compares the energy involved in mixing water with different salt content with the kinetic energy present in seawater due to thermal gradients and coriolis forces. My opinion is that the former is largely exceeded by the latter.
OMG, by cheer bad luck we just watched that stupid movie today. As incredible as it may seem to the casual reader, your post just perfectly summarizes the script.
I am a sane person and believe me, there is no need to ignore the simple fact of environmental problems getting worse over time, simply because there is no such simple fact.
While there are real environmental and energy problems, Kyoto isn't addressing them.
But if you think it is, and want to do your share of alleviating the problem you perceive, please stop breathing out.
My stupid country decided to be holier than the pope and traded emissions with Russia, at an economic cost that is not yet calculable.
On the other hand it also decided to stop nuclear power generation over the next decade.
The pressure to move out of this stinkin' pile of idiots is mounting every day. Any suggestions for a country with a balmy climate and people with common sense ?
Slashdot Mirror
Another poster here said 'florescent bulbs'.
Now that makes me think about tulips...
see here:8 83002
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130422&cid=10
Sure, it may be safer for you. But not for oncoming traffic. If you want more reflected light, you have to emit more light to begin with.The illumination pattern is exactly the same as modern incandescents; it is specified by technical regulations.
;-)
Auto-stabilization is new to me; a good and necessary move, but one that will drive up the already high price even more.
While they may last a lifetime, they cost a lot upfront (if optional, else it's hidden in the total package) and in case of damage. I have changed 3 halogen headlights in two cars with a total of 370000km on the odometers. Not too bad for a 10EUR lamp.
All in all I still feel it's a complicated and expensive technology, with a low benefit/cost ratio. The carmakers' goal may be to keep the price up. But if you like it, good for you. I hope our paths won't cross too often
LOL. I really thought that it was actually an English word.
But no, French is not my first language. It's Dutch, and we call it an 'achteruitkijkspiegel':
'achteruit' = backwards
'kijk' = look
'spiegel' = mirror.
Like German, Dutch tends to concatenate words to make a new, very long one.
But I would appreciate it if you could introduce 'retrovisor' into common English. That would be cool indeed.
You are probably not very critical of lighting quality then:
1) As some posters already have pointed out the emission spectrum of a fluorescent is discontinuous. So is the reflection spectrum of most paints, laquers, anything that has color. The result is that your colors will turn out very dull. Think of the emission spectrum of a CF as a bitmask with lot of zeroes. The same goes for the reflection spectrum of things you want to light. AND the two bitmasks together, and the result will have a lot of zeroes. A standard lightbulb has a continuous spectrum. Its bitmap would contain all ones, so the AND produces the correct color.
2) Most CFs are rather large. This means you won't get highlights. Objects will look dull - the difference between a sunny and a cloudy day. Next time at a jewelry store look at how tiny lights are used to make everything sparkle. For indoor lighting you need to combine a diffuse background lighting with small size accent lights.
Now combine 1) and 2) and you'll see that by only using CFs everything will have dull colors, and no highlights. Very depressing. For your wellbeing, be careful.
PS: The stated light output equivalence between CFs and incandescents is only true if you light spectrally pure white objects with a continous spectrum. Because of the bad overlap of the spectra of lighter and lightee you typically will need much higher powered CFs than advertised. CF promotors don't tell you that.
At one time I did even think of writing the minister of transportation. These HIDs are indeed obnoxious as hell, and probably dangerous too:
- They are more focused than ordinary lights. As such, when a car that is equipped with them follows you on an uneven road, the lamps annoyingly blink and even change color in your retrovisor.
- They are not full spectrum. Certain objects will have absorbtion spectra that cause them to be much darker when illuminated by HIDs than by classic halogen lamps. I hate the off-white color too.
I don't buy into their ability to provide better illumination. If they're brighter, they are more blinding. It's that simple.
Are you telling me that the company you work(ed) for was partly responsible for ONE OF THE MOST ANNOYING THINGS I EVER SUFFERED FROM ?
Some years ago, I started being waked up haphazardly by the phone ringing. The day of the month was random, the day of the week was random, the time of the night was random between 2 and 5 AM but it sure freaked me, and my wife, out.
Calls to the telco had no effect. They tested (or at least pretended to) the line and said: "Oh no Sir, everything is fine!".
I ended up connecting a digital storage oscilloscope on the wires and leaving it running overnight, tweaking the thresholds until I was finally able to capture the overvoltage pulses that were causing my phones to ring.
Armed with the proof I managed to get through to a technically competent person in the telco with some authority (imagine the immenseness of that accomplishment !).
It ended up with the telco contacting the manufacturer of my (telco certified) phone switch to work out a correction, that manufacturer sending a technician turning up to solder a few resistors and a cap in place and charging me the equivalent of $100 for something I could easily have done myself.
<shouting time="again&again">F*CK F*CK F*CK</shouting>
What's OC-128 ?
I do know of OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 and OC-192, but OC-128 is new to me.
"I call it the Commander Data kill switch, as the dog immediately goes slack and crumples to the ground when you push the switch. [an error occurred while processing this directive]"
How long before high-resolution eyeball-tracking cameras stealthily look down into a main city street making iris snapshots ?
Iris pictures are even easier to obtain than fingerprints; no material contact is necessary.
A late reply:
Yes, I know the difference between the AAC cake and Apple's DRM topping. In theory there is a difference, but in practice there isn't because Apple is the only one who is actively promoting the format.
I'm mostly using 192kbps VBR encoded MP3s. That quality is fine by me; I don't hear nary a difference with the original, and even if I did I wouldn't care as I'm listening more to the MP3 files than to the originals, so they have become the de facto original...
Like it or not, MP3 is the standard for compressed audio. Tools and players abound. There are more than 10 times as much references on the web to MP3 as there are to AAC. With AAC you feel locked up in a single store. I prefer to roam, and I like the fact that no DRM topping for MP3 is in actual use so there is no risk I would ever be deceived by a file that turns out to be DRM'd.
BTW the same reasoning applies to WMA (Windows Media Audio). Even though WMA promises better quality for the same bitrate, or the same quality from a smaller bitrate, it loses out for the same reasons.
And that's exactly why I'll never ever buy a single 'tune' from iTMS, even though I own an iPod for listening to my MP3 collection on the go.
/. posters be damned.
Again: not a single AAC is ever going to be stored on my iPod,
I did my first real programming in Fortran on punched cards. Nobody could punch 'CONTINUE' faster than I did at that time.
I still remember the sound of the card reader (fla-bap, flapflapflapflapflap......) and of the line printer. To recogize when my job was done, I inserted a few carefully spaced cards full of '*'s in front of the deck, producing a unique rhythmic sound pattern when printed.
In Dutch, a 'del' is an ordinary, cheap woman with loose morals.
Broken window fallacy.
While I adore trying to implement efficient solutions which bring value to mankind, I fear that this is just another politic scheme to divert untold loads of money into pork barrel projects with no net benefits.
EVEN Russia ? Well, if you will be collecting loads of money from selling emission rights to other, more developed countries who used to be your aversary, WHY WOULDN'T YOU ?
If only. My country seems - for some obscure reason - hell bent on buying emmision rights from Russia. They seem to think that increased regulation will open up new opportunities. The broken window fallacy at its best. More energy devoted to fallacious goals is not going to improve neither the economy nor the ecology.
WTF WHY WOULD YOU TAX YOUR OWN INDUSTRY AND GIVE THE PROCEEDS TO A COMPETITOR WHO HAS AIMED NUKULAR ROCKETS ON YOUR CITIES ? WHY, OH WHY ? This simpy makes no sense at all. The only reason I can see is that the politicians have found a way to skim a part of the proceeds for their own pet projects. Way to go.
I dislike Mr. Bush, his politics and his cronyism as strongly as you can imagine. Yet, in this case, the current administration HAS made the correct choice. Maybe these kind of common sense decisions is just what caused a majority to vote for the GOP.
Speakers are the weakest part, by far. The distortion imparted by even top of the line speakers simply dwarfs all the other factors in the audio chain, as long as these are of reasonable quality.
So playing compressed music through an iPod and speakers with quality A is going to sound better than an original CD through speakers with quality B, if A > B.
Of course, if you use a crappy amplifier, loose wires, badly compressed material etc. all bets are off.
I knew about this speculation years ago, well before DAT.
Of course the gulf stream is extremely important.
My opinion is that its existence is driven by latitudinal temperature differentials and coriolis forces, and its circulation pattern is determined by the geometry of the land mass and (under)water distribution on this planet, and that the effect of salt content is minimal (*). As none of the main factors can change over a short time, neither will the dynamics of the gulf stream.
Short of cataclysms (asteroid impact, major volcano activity) global effects on such a large scale just don't happen overnight.
(*) IANAFD, but I haven't seen a decent energy balance that compares the energy involved in mixing water with different salt content with the kinetic energy present in seawater due to thermal gradients and coriolis forces. My opinion is that the former is largely exceeded by the latter.
Yes, they were using some solid science in that flick indeed, for infinitely small values of 'some' and 'solid'.
OMG, by cheer bad luck we just watched that stupid movie today. As incredible as it may seem to the casual reader, your post just perfectly summarizes the script.
I am a sane person and believe me, there is no need to ignore the simple fact of environmental problems getting worse over time, simply because there is no such simple fact.
While there are real environmental and energy problems, Kyoto isn't addressing them.
But if you think it is, and want to do your share of alleviating the problem you perceive, please stop breathing out.
My stupid country decided to be holier than the pope and traded emissions with Russia, at an economic cost that is not yet calculable.
On the other hand it also decided to stop nuclear power generation over the next decade.
The pressure to move out of this stinkin' pile of idiots is mounting every day. Any suggestions for a country with a balmy climate and people with common sense ?
I nominate .me, for everything related to my narcissistic self.
for imposing the \ as a directory separator, the / as an option separator and CR LF as a line separator.