What worries me is that there are too many people out there who want to use Solar Cycle 24 to tie in with the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012.:-/ And there's good reason for this: the period right after the potential next peak of Solar Cycle 24--when we get the most solar flares and coronal mass ejections--could potentially be right around the December 21, 2012 time period.
Implied counterfactual #5: Sony blew it with Betamax, so they'll blow it again with Blu-Ray. Sure, it's possible. If Sony hasn't learned anything over the last thirty years, and if owning a movie studio and becoming a huge player in the "content" business haven't changed anything.
If you've seen Sony's history of trying to "set" a standard, they haven't been exactly successful worldwide. Only the Compact Disc (which was essentially a refinement of the original Philips proposal) became a worldwide standard; the other standards Sony tried to push--Beta-format videotape for home use, MiniDisc, and now Blu-Ray disc--have not been exactly booming successes over the long run. In fact, the original DVD standard was a based mostly on Toshiba's SuperDensity Disc proposal from 1993; HD-DVD is essentially an evolution of that standard.
We will find out what each camp will do at the Consumer Electronics Show in a few weeks....
I'm bordering on _FURIOUS_ that on some of them we have to sit through about 3 minutes of previews and "You wouldn't steal a car... video piracy is stealing" warnings.
Funny you mention this because on most HD-DVD discs they start with the movie immediately after the disc starts playing. Disney on their recent DVD releases put in a new feature called Fast Play that brings you to the movie at once by skipping all other menus, something I really appreciate.
I think what could change the entire equation is whether the main HD-DVD supporters (especially Toshiba and NEC) are willing to go for a generous licensing model to make it cheaper to manufacture players and discs, just like what JVC/Panasonic did with the VHS format in the late 1970's to middle 1980's. If they go this route, that could change everything almost overnight.
Disney's DVD retail business is quite profitable, and they sell a LOT of DVD's for the family market, especially given the large number of animated features Disney has done since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. While Disney is firmly in the Blu-Ray camp right now, I'm sure they are aware of the rapid drop in the price of HD-DVD players and they could easily jump into the HD-DVD market (my guess in around six months). Since most HD-DVD discs are encoded with the VC-1 or AVC (H.264) format, there is no real need to use the extra capacity of Blu-Ray discs, and with the new 51 GB triple-layer discs, HD-DVD has erased the Blu-Ray 50 GB storage capacity advantage.
Besides Disney, if Toshiba can lower the licensing fees for the HD-DVD format, that could interest companies now selling only Blu-Ray discs to support HD-DVD. After all, it was the generous licensing requirements for VHS that allowed VHS to overtake Sony's Beta format, and Toshiba could easily do the same against the Sony-supported Blu-Ray format. We will find out what happens at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2008 which side will take the initiative to expand its presence.
By the way, don't expect people to download high-definition movies on a large scale until broadband speeds become vastly faster than now; downloading a single movie that could be as large as 15 GB is a pretty daunting task even with Verizon's FIOS fiber-optic broadband system.
Thanks to the nanotechnology revolution, things that would have been far-fetched today in terms of energy production would be commonplace as early as 20 years from now.
Imagine by 2028 every stand-alone house or condominium complex having large-scale electric solar cell arrays on the roof, with excess energy storage using carbon-nanotube supercapacitor "battery packs." Because all the solar power generation is connected by distributed power generation, any excess of power generated during the daytime can be distributed to users who really need the power. That supercapacitor technology will also make it finally feasible for true electric cars that will have a range of around 400 km (248 miles), but with recharge times about the same as refilling a 20-gallon gas tank at a gas station!:-) With electric cars, we can eliminate the space-wasting engine compartment, so the electric car of 2028 could seat 4-5 passengers comfortably but will be physically smaller than today's automobiles.
Also, by 2028 instead of using petroleum to produce fuels and plastics, we will "grow" oil-laden algae on a HUGE scale to do the same thing. Because algae can be "grown" almost anywhere, this also alleviates the issue of having to make the choice between growing more plants for fuel or for foodstuffs.
madisound can supply you with the parts to build a $5000 set of speakers for a couple of hundred bucks, if you know how to wield a soldering iron and have a basic knowledge of electricity
Problem is, very few hi-fi consumers are willing to build their own speakers. A really good pair of speakers usually start at around US$300 to US$400 a pair new, unless you're willing to buy them used (make sure they're in good condition!). I have the Polk Audio RTA-11 and I like it for its excellent stereo seperation and nice, balanced sound.
Actually, once you reach 256 kbps variable data rate encoding in either AAC or MP3 format, the sound quality is actually pretty good, and to hear the difference between that and the original version would require hi-fi equipment that would cost way more than most people can afford. Because Apple has something like 78% of the market for portable music players, a lot of people go with the AAC format, which at 256 kbps data rate sounds much better than the MP3 format at the same data rate.
Most people who still need compression go with either the Apple Lossless or FLAC format, which reduces the size of the audio file compared to the original to about 38-43% of the original version. One problem though--only the higher end iPods support the Apple Lossless format, and FLAC is supported by a very small number of portable music players.
By the way, we have less of problem with severe compression with MP3 and AAC formats (which had to be done because players back then had relatively low amounts of on-player storage) nowadays. Most better players now offer at least 4 to 8 GB (sometimes 16 GB) of flash memory storage, which allows users to "rip" CD's at higher data rates for vastly better quality; for my 3G iPod nano, I use 192 kbps variable data rate AAC format, which has pretty good sound quality at a reasonable file size. Even commercial download sites now use higher data rates: Apple's iTunes Plus non-DRM format uses 256 kbps variable data rate AAC encoding, and Amazon's MP3 download service uses 256 kbps variable data rate MP3 encoding.
If you own a player with 30 GB or more or hard drive storage, you might want to go with 320 kbps data rate in either MP3 or AAC format (depending on what your player supports) or even go with a lossless format such as Apple Lossless or FLAC (if you're willing to sacrifice on-player hard disk storage space).
Actually, I think one thing we could see very soon is the use of variable pit depth mastering for optical discs. Combine with with the HD-DVD format and we could at minimum triple the storage capacity of HD-DVD from 15 GB to 45 GB for single-layer disc, which is far more than enough for a two-hour movie at 1080p 24-frame format encoded with VC-1 or AVC (H.264) formats and the Dolby Digital TrueHD format audio track.
I actually agree with your premise, because a small asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle will cause the scenario you described. I believe there are recorded stories about something moving in the sky from the northwest at a shallow angle, and when the asteroid overheated it detonated with the force of a multi-megaton nuclear bomb.
I know the turbodiesel engine is on European-market BMW X3's and X5's, but up until now the we didn't have the technology to clean up that engine to meet the 2009 USA diesel emission regulations. But with new emission controls now available, expect the X5 to get the engine first (the US-market X3 won't get the engine until it has its full model change about 18 months from now).
Seems like they've already found it with Viking landers in 1976 according to discussions here on/. or the claims in the link posted below.
There was only one problem: that science experiment didn't quite work. They actually did the same exact experiment on a soil sample in (I believe) Peru and found nothing. Fortunately, soil sampling experiments have gotten way better since then, and we should find out within the next ten years if microbial life still exists on Mars.
If I can get 31MPG in a car with heated, leather seats and tons of room for 6 people, and enough power to tow a boat, I'm pretty sure they can make a mid sized car with a V6, plenty of power and comfort, that can squeeze out an extra 4 miles per gallon. What they fear is that people won't want them.
Funny you should mention that because with BMW's excellent 3.0-liter I-6 turbodiesel engine rated at 228 bhp (but with a MASSIVE torque peak) finally coming to the USA fall 2008 on the BMW 330d sedan, it won't take much for BMW to put this same engine in either the X3 or X5 "crossover" SUV's. A BMW X5 with the 3.0-liter turbodiesel could potentially get around 30 mpg if you're not towing a trailer.
In fact, now that engine technology on both the fuel delivery side and exhaust emission control side has made it possible for diesel engines to be just as clean as gasoline-fuelled engines, expect a rapid growth of sales of turbodiesel-powered automobiles over the next five to eight years. And best of all, it won't be at the expense of performance--go drive the BMW 330d (which is finally coming to the USA fall 2008) and note that while you only lose a tiny fraction of performance compared to the now-discontinued BMW 330i, you get 25-44% better fuel economy with the 330d (this according to a Car and Driver magazine test done back in 2006).
Expect a lot of smaller cars to get turbodiesel engines soon; Honda's new i-DTEC engine meets the latest diesel exhaust emission rules, yet offers around 33% better fuel efficiency than the equivalent Honda K24 2.4-liter gasoline-fuelled engine rated at 170 bhp. We will see the i-DTEC engine starting fall 2008 on the Honda Accord sedan sold in the USA.
I still think Mars may still have microbial life--but you have to dig under the surface at least about 1,000 mm to find them. They're living off water trapped in the deeper Martian soil. We'll find out more when the Mars Science Laboratory rover arrives in 2010.
You are absolutely right. CompUSA could not compete against companies with massive buying power such as Best Buy and Circuit City, which at least knew about why selling HDTV's are a good thing (after all, with analog TV going away in February 2009, there's even more incentive to buy newer sets now).
Oh, yes you certainly can "hack" a paper ballot--remember the 2000 Florida voting fiasco?
I would go with mark-sense ballots filled out in permanent ink. Reasons are simple: 1) mark-sense ballots are easily readable in both machine and hand counts and 2) filling out in permanent ink means positive proof of the vote, which avoids the issue of pencil marks on a ballot being erased, which can cause problems with unreadable ballots and possible ballot fraud.
Much of California votes using mark sense ballots similar to filling out a Scantron sheet when you do your SAT or ACT college entrance exams. While that's a good idea, you do need to consider two things:
1) Make sure you fill out the ballot with a permanent-ink pen--pencil marks can be erased and cause no end of troubles in terms of ballot readability and the potential for ballot fraud.
2) Ballots could end up being tremendously huge in size--when I voted in the 2006 general elections in November 2006 the paper ballot size--even with having to fill out both sides of the ballot--was huge.
I think the biggest user of these new patches will be diabetics, who can soon slap on a patch loaded with a pre-measured amoung of insulin for maybe 20-25 minutes and get an extremely precise dose of that insulin.
In many ways, one reason why there was less interest in coal for powerplants was that much of the world's coal contains high amounts of sulfur, which when burned turns into sulfur dioxide, a very serious air pollutant gas. But with new technologies to process coal that removes the sulfur from the coal, that suddenly makes a lot of supposedly uneconomic coal mines useful again. New coal-processing technologies could make it useful for power generation and fuel production on a large scale until we complete the switch to large-scale wind power, lower-cost nanotech-based solar panels, and motor fuel production from oil-laden algae over the next 25-30 years.
Re:Since nobody's mentioning HOW they're gonna do
on
Google Goes Green
·
· Score: 1
I'm glad that Google is investing in solar panels built with nanotechnology because eventually, we can produce 20-30 kW solar panel installations that will cost US$3,000, not the US$30,000 that conventional silicon-based solar panels cost. At US$3,000, that makes it possible for every home in the neighborhood to have a solar panel.
If I remember correctly, rogue waves often happen when there is really bad weather in the ocean or when you have a really strong current near the shoreline. Given that the North American west coast is on the east end of the North Pacific Drift current splitting to the Alaska Current and California Current, that's why there are many reports of rogue waves up and down this coast from Mexico all the way up to the Aleutian Islands.
A particularly bad place for rogue waves is the so-called Bermuda Triangle, where the Antilles Current curves sharply into the start of the Gulf Stream current. Because of that, the weather inside the "Triangle" can suddenly become very bad quickly, and as a result you see a lot of airplanes and boats just "vanish" because of the sudden change in weather. This bad weather can often generate a lot of rogue waves, which may explain a number of lost ships in this area.
The most important thing that makes the iPod models so good is that by keeping the controls on the player relatively simple, it makes the player easy to understand by most users. That's why Apple commands 78% of the market for portable media players.
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What worries me is that there are too many people out there who want to use Solar Cycle 24 to tie in with the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012. :-/ And there's good reason for this: the period right after the potential next peak of Solar Cycle 24--when we get the most solar flares and coronal mass ejections--could potentially be right around the December 21, 2012 time period.
Implied counterfactual #5: Sony blew it with Betamax, so they'll blow it again with Blu-Ray. Sure, it's possible. If Sony hasn't learned anything over the last thirty years, and if owning a movie studio and becoming a huge player in the "content" business haven't changed anything.
If you've seen Sony's history of trying to "set" a standard, they haven't been exactly successful worldwide. Only the Compact Disc (which was essentially a refinement of the original Philips proposal) became a worldwide standard; the other standards Sony tried to push--Beta-format videotape for home use, MiniDisc, and now Blu-Ray disc--have not been exactly booming successes over the long run. In fact, the original DVD standard was a based mostly on Toshiba's SuperDensity Disc proposal from 1993; HD-DVD is essentially an evolution of that standard.
We will find out what each camp will do at the Consumer Electronics Show in a few weeks....
I'm bordering on _FURIOUS_ that on some of them we have to sit through about 3 minutes of previews and "You wouldn't steal a car... video piracy is stealing" warnings.
Funny you mention this because on most HD-DVD discs they start with the movie immediately after the disc starts playing. Disney on their recent DVD releases put in a new feature called Fast Play that brings you to the movie at once by skipping all other menus, something I really appreciate.
I think what could change the entire equation is whether the main HD-DVD supporters (especially Toshiba and NEC) are willing to go for a generous licensing model to make it cheaper to manufacture players and discs, just like what JVC/Panasonic did with the VHS format in the late 1970's to middle 1980's. If they go this route, that could change everything almost overnight.
Disney.
Disney's DVD retail business is quite profitable, and they sell a LOT of DVD's for the family market, especially given the large number of animated features Disney has done since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. While Disney is firmly in the Blu-Ray camp right now, I'm sure they are aware of the rapid drop in the price of HD-DVD players and they could easily jump into the HD-DVD market (my guess in around six months). Since most HD-DVD discs are encoded with the VC-1 or AVC (H.264) format, there is no real need to use the extra capacity of Blu-Ray discs, and with the new 51 GB triple-layer discs, HD-DVD has erased the Blu-Ray 50 GB storage capacity advantage.
Besides Disney, if Toshiba can lower the licensing fees for the HD-DVD format, that could interest companies now selling only Blu-Ray discs to support HD-DVD. After all, it was the generous licensing requirements for VHS that allowed VHS to overtake Sony's Beta format, and Toshiba could easily do the same against the Sony-supported Blu-Ray format. We will find out what happens at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2008 which side will take the initiative to expand its presence.
By the way, don't expect people to download high-definition movies on a large scale until broadband speeds become vastly faster than now; downloading a single movie that could be as large as 15 GB is a pretty daunting task even with Verizon's FIOS fiber-optic broadband system.
Thanks to the nanotechnology revolution, things that would have been far-fetched today in terms of energy production would be commonplace as early as 20 years from now.
:-) With electric cars, we can eliminate the space-wasting engine compartment, so the electric car of 2028 could seat 4-5 passengers comfortably but will be physically smaller than today's automobiles.
Imagine by 2028 every stand-alone house or condominium complex having large-scale electric solar cell arrays on the roof, with excess energy storage using carbon-nanotube supercapacitor "battery packs." Because all the solar power generation is connected by distributed power generation, any excess of power generated during the daytime can be distributed to users who really need the power. That supercapacitor technology will also make it finally feasible for true electric cars that will have a range of around 400 km (248 miles), but with recharge times about the same as refilling a 20-gallon gas tank at a gas station!
Also, by 2028 instead of using petroleum to produce fuels and plastics, we will "grow" oil-laden algae on a HUGE scale to do the same thing. Because algae can be "grown" almost anywhere, this also alleviates the issue of having to make the choice between growing more plants for fuel or for foodstuffs.
madisound can supply you with the parts to build a $5000 set of speakers for a couple of hundred bucks, if you know how to wield a soldering iron and have a basic knowledge of electricity
Problem is, very few hi-fi consumers are willing to build their own speakers. A really good pair of speakers usually start at around US$300 to US$400 a pair new, unless you're willing to buy them used (make sure they're in good condition!). I have the Polk Audio RTA-11 and I like it for its excellent stereo seperation and nice, balanced sound.
Actually, once you reach 256 kbps variable data rate encoding in either AAC or MP3 format, the sound quality is actually pretty good, and to hear the difference between that and the original version would require hi-fi equipment that would cost way more than most people can afford. Because Apple has something like 78% of the market for portable music players, a lot of people go with the AAC format, which at 256 kbps data rate sounds much better than the MP3 format at the same data rate.
Most people who still need compression go with either the Apple Lossless or FLAC format, which reduces the size of the audio file compared to the original to about 38-43% of the original version. One problem though--only the higher end iPods support the Apple Lossless format, and FLAC is supported by a very small number of portable music players.
By the way, we have less of problem with severe compression with MP3 and AAC formats (which had to be done because players back then had relatively low amounts of on-player storage) nowadays. Most better players now offer at least 4 to 8 GB (sometimes 16 GB) of flash memory storage, which allows users to "rip" CD's at higher data rates for vastly better quality; for my 3G iPod nano, I use 192 kbps variable data rate AAC format, which has pretty good sound quality at a reasonable file size. Even commercial download sites now use higher data rates: Apple's iTunes Plus non-DRM format uses 256 kbps variable data rate AAC encoding, and Amazon's MP3 download service uses 256 kbps variable data rate MP3 encoding.
If you own a player with 30 GB or more or hard drive storage, you might want to go with 320 kbps data rate in either MP3 or AAC format (depending on what your player supports) or even go with a lossless format such as Apple Lossless or FLAC (if you're willing to sacrifice on-player hard disk storage space).
That would be true in the past, but the latest CFL's have a more neutral, whitish light that is comfortable for book reading.
By the way, I like CFL's because they run a LOT cooler, which helps on hot summer days.
Actually, I think one thing we could see very soon is the use of variable pit depth mastering for optical discs. Combine with with the HD-DVD format and we could at minimum triple the storage capacity of HD-DVD from 15 GB to 45 GB for single-layer disc, which is far more than enough for a two-hour movie at 1080p 24-frame format encoded with VC-1 or AVC (H.264) formats and the Dolby Digital TrueHD format audio track.
I actually agree with your premise, because a small asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle will cause the scenario you described. I believe there are recorded stories about something moving in the sky from the northwest at a shallow angle, and when the asteroid overheated it detonated with the force of a multi-megaton nuclear bomb.
I know the turbodiesel engine is on European-market BMW X3's and X5's, but up until now the we didn't have the technology to clean up that engine to meet the 2009 USA diesel emission regulations. But with new emission controls now available, expect the X5 to get the engine first (the US-market X3 won't get the engine until it has its full model change about 18 months from now).
Seems like they've already found it with Viking landers in 1976 according to discussions here on /. or the claims in the link posted below.
There was only one problem: that science experiment didn't quite work. They actually did the same exact experiment on a soil sample in (I believe) Peru and found nothing. Fortunately, soil sampling experiments have gotten way better since then, and we should find out within the next ten years if microbial life still exists on Mars.
If I can get 31MPG in a car with heated, leather seats and tons of room for 6 people, and enough power to tow a boat, I'm pretty sure they can make a mid sized car with a V6, plenty of power and comfort, that can squeeze out an extra 4 miles per gallon. What they fear is that people won't want them.
Funny you should mention that because with BMW's excellent 3.0-liter I-6 turbodiesel engine rated at 228 bhp (but with a MASSIVE torque peak) finally coming to the USA fall 2008 on the BMW 330d sedan, it won't take much for BMW to put this same engine in either the X3 or X5 "crossover" SUV's. A BMW X5 with the 3.0-liter turbodiesel could potentially get around 30 mpg if you're not towing a trailer.
In fact, now that engine technology on both the fuel delivery side and exhaust emission control side has made it possible for diesel engines to be just as clean as gasoline-fuelled engines, expect a rapid growth of sales of turbodiesel-powered automobiles over the next five to eight years. And best of all, it won't be at the expense of performance--go drive the BMW 330d (which is finally coming to the USA fall 2008) and note that while you only lose a tiny fraction of performance compared to the now-discontinued BMW 330i, you get 25-44% better fuel economy with the 330d (this according to a Car and Driver magazine test done back in 2006).
Expect a lot of smaller cars to get turbodiesel engines soon; Honda's new i-DTEC engine meets the latest diesel exhaust emission rules, yet offers around 33% better fuel efficiency than the equivalent Honda K24 2.4-liter gasoline-fuelled engine rated at 170 bhp. We will see the i-DTEC engine starting fall 2008 on the Honda Accord sedan sold in the USA.
I still think Mars may still have microbial life--but you have to dig under the surface at least about 1,000 mm to find them. They're living off water trapped in the deeper Martian soil. We'll find out more when the Mars Science Laboratory rover arrives in 2010.
You are absolutely right. CompUSA could not compete against companies with massive buying power such as Best Buy and Circuit City, which at least knew about why selling HDTV's are a good thing (after all, with analog TV going away in February 2009, there's even more incentive to buy newer sets now).
Oh, yes you certainly can "hack" a paper ballot--remember the 2000 Florida voting fiasco?
I would go with mark-sense ballots filled out in permanent ink. Reasons are simple: 1) mark-sense ballots are easily readable in both machine and hand counts and 2) filling out in permanent ink means positive proof of the vote, which avoids the issue of pencil marks on a ballot being erased, which can cause problems with unreadable ballots and possible ballot fraud.
Much of California votes using mark sense ballots similar to filling out a Scantron sheet when you do your SAT or ACT college entrance exams. While that's a good idea, you do need to consider two things:
1) Make sure you fill out the ballot with a permanent-ink pen--pencil marks can be erased and cause no end of troubles in terms of ballot readability and the potential for ballot fraud.
2) Ballots could end up being tremendously huge in size--when I voted in the 2006 general elections in November 2006 the paper ballot size--even with having to fill out both sides of the ballot--was huge.
I think the biggest user of these new patches will be diabetics, who can soon slap on a patch loaded with a pre-measured amoung of insulin for maybe 20-25 minutes and get an extremely precise dose of that insulin.
In many ways, one reason why there was less interest in coal for powerplants was that much of the world's coal contains high amounts of sulfur, which when burned turns into sulfur dioxide, a very serious air pollutant gas. But with new technologies to process coal that removes the sulfur from the coal, that suddenly makes a lot of supposedly uneconomic coal mines useful again. New coal-processing technologies could make it useful for power generation and fuel production on a large scale until we complete the switch to large-scale wind power, lower-cost nanotech-based solar panels, and motor fuel production from oil-laden algae over the next 25-30 years.
I'm glad that Google is investing in solar panels built with nanotechnology because eventually, we can produce 20-30 kW solar panel installations that will cost US$3,000, not the US$30,000 that conventional silicon-based solar panels cost. At US$3,000, that makes it possible for every home in the neighborhood to have a solar panel.
If I remember correctly, rogue waves often happen when there is really bad weather in the ocean or when you have a really strong current near the shoreline. Given that the North American west coast is on the east end of the North Pacific Drift current splitting to the Alaska Current and California Current, that's why there are many reports of rogue waves up and down this coast from Mexico all the way up to the Aleutian Islands.
A particularly bad place for rogue waves is the so-called Bermuda Triangle, where the Antilles Current curves sharply into the start of the Gulf Stream current. Because of that, the weather inside the "Triangle" can suddenly become very bad quickly, and as a result you see a lot of airplanes and boats just "vanish" because of the sudden change in weather. This bad weather can often generate a lot of rogue waves, which may explain a number of lost ships in this area.
The most important thing that makes the iPod models so good is that by keeping the controls on the player relatively simple, it makes the player easy to understand by most users. That's why Apple commands 78% of the market for portable media players.