Vegetarians also tend to believe that humans have evolved to the point that we no longer need to subside on a diet consisting primarily of meat, much like we can resolve our arguments without hitting each other in the head with a club.
I don't do much dirt riding, so I cannot comment on the construction of dirt helmets.
Street helmets are not marked for any specific speed rating. Generally, a helmet is either stamped that it meets DOT specifications, or it's been certified by the SNELL Memorial Foundation. The SNELL foundation pushes the most stringent impact requirements, and are the generally target of criticisms that helmets are being engineered for unrealistic impacts.
For consumers, it's difficult to impossible to pick a helmet based on it's impact protection. Consumers are lead to believe that $900 helmets from Shoei and Arai* provide significantly better protection than an inexpensive $200 Scorpion brand helmet.
Keep in mind also that a helmet generally experiences it's harshest blows in street conditions. On the race track, there is a great deal of runoff; once the rider hits the ground, his head is subjected to rash and potentially rolling, but is not likely to hit a solid object. Street riders face a greater risk of hitting a tree, curb, or car head-first than a racer does.
Racing typically has a higher injury rate and a lower fatality rate than street riding.
* This should not be taken as a criticism of Shoei and Arai. I own a Shoei RF1000 helmet that retailed for $500. The price is justified by the comfort, build quality, and Shoei's excellent customer service. I did not buy the helmet expecting 150% better protection than an inexpensive helmet.
I remember reading a similar article about motorcycle helmets, which said that the incident of brain trauma was higher in helmeted riders versus helmetless. Same reason - the rigid helmet transmitted shockwave straight through the skull to the brain, where the facial structure absorbed a lot of the shock in unhelmeted riders.
I'm a motorcycle commuter, and I've never heard that statement except when used by people attempting to justify riding without a helmet. The same basic argument is used by opponents of seat-belt laws.
While there are rigid 'brain bucket' helmets on the market, I don't know of any that are DOT approved. As far as I know, every DOT / SNELL approved helmet built in the last 40 years is a hard shell over a thick foam lining, which is designed to prevent shock from being transmitted directly to the brain.
The big argument against modern helmets is that they are actually designed to provide protection against unrealistically strong blows. A firmer foam will protect against heavier blows, but won't compress as much when subjected to a lighter strike. The more the helmet compresses, the slower the head inside the helmet can decelerate, reducing the forces the brain is subjected to.
To be fair, the government outsources a lot of development work to private companies. There's no reason to believe that much of the software used to administer a public health care option wouldn't be privately built.
What impresses me about this accomplishment is that it must have been achieved among a small group of enthusiasts.
With the internal combustion engine, an amateur can draw on a huge pool of professional resources and documented knowledge to build up a high performance vehicle. In fact, very few people, if any are a master of every component on a modern race car - usually your race team will have access to suspension specialists, tire specialists, engine builders, aerodynamic and chassis design guys...
There really can't be that many experts on the automotive uses of steam engines, and a huge amount of new development must have gone into this car - that's something fantastic.
Materials have come a long way... But how much of of an advantage does that give you against the massive loss of experience we must have had over the last 100 years?
I'm a motorcycle racing enthusiast, and even at my amateur level it's amazing how much knowledge is only available through experienced teachers. There are literally more in-depth books about programing in ruby than books about motorcycle chassis engineering and physics.
It's not really the CEOs that are the problem, it's the investors. The profit to payout ratio of insurance providers is carefully tracked, and any increase in the payout ratio can quickly lead to a major loss in shareholder value. Based on that, the CEOs would rather stand in front of congress and state that they will continue rejecting valid claims than risk a major stock price dip.
Of course, executives are also shareholders, so it's in their own selfish interest to encourage claim denial.
Man, I canâ(TM)t - I shanâ(TM)t! - formulate an anthem where the words comprise mnemonics. Dreaded mnemonics for piâ¦
The numerals just bother me, always - even the dry anterior. Try to request something lower (zero) in numerary aptitude. Even I, pantaloon gallant, I cannot actualize the requested mnemonics. The leading fifty, I -
The number of letters in each word is the key to the digit of pi. It's not that difficult to count on the fingers while quietly singing the song.
Songs to Wear Pants To has a lot of really cool music. I threw this one in with a bunch of his other stuff and listened to it a few times on an MP3 player. So, I know the first 50 digits of Pi.
Keep in mind that peak performance is not the same as peak efficiency. As the engine speed increases, more energy is wasted as friction and drag. Ideal efficiency occurs when the engine is spinning just fast enough to keep the car moving forward.
I'm very interested in how diesel ends up working out in series hybrid engines. A series engine would be an ideal application for a small turbocharged 2 stroke diesel engine.
2 stroke diesel engines are interesting beasts -- they don't work well over a wide RPM range, but produce a lot more power than a 4 stroke engine for the same weight. A 2 stroke diesel does not use the crankcase as a pressure chamber, and does not require oil mixed into the fuel like a traditional gasoline 2 stroke.
A supercharger forces air into the cylinder, which is used to push exhaust out of the cylinder, and start the cycle. The piston moves up, compressing the raw air. At the peak of the piston travel, fuel is injected, which burns and pushes the piston downward. As the piston reaches the bottom of it's stroke, exhaust valves are opened, and the intake port is uncovered. Fresh air pushes out the exhaust, and the cycle repeats.
Note that in this design, very little exhaust remains in the cylinder. No fuel is pushed out the exhaust, and no oil is burned with the fuel.
This design will not work with a straight turbocharger, because positive pressure is required to start the engine.
Note that this is the engine design used in Diesel Electric locomotives.
When it comes to automotive performance, horsepower determines top speed and torque acceleration.
Not entirely true. An engine that produces a lot of torque will generally accelerate anywhere in the RPM range, where a high horsepower low-torque engine will seem lethargic and weak until you get it into it's power band.
For someone driving an automatic in city traffic, you are absolutely correct. Most automatics will cruise low in the revs to save fuel, and planting your foot on the pedal will result in a delay while the transmission downshifts to put the car in it's power band.
I track motorcycles, and generally run 600CC sport bikes that produce ~120HP at the crank, and a mere 55 foot pounds of torque at the absolute peak output (less than 30 foot pounds of torque below 5K RPM.) If I keep a motorcycle like that near peak torque output, it accelerates much better than my BMW 1130cc bike, which produces closer to 80HP/80Ftlb.
The key is the transmission. If one engine produces 80ftlbs at 5000RPM, and another produces 40FTlbs at 10000 RPM, both can be geared to deliver the same power output at the wheel at an ideal speed. However, because the first engine operates over a much smaller range of RPM, it's going to tend to produce power over a larger portion of it's operating range.
In my experience, most engines produce power over a range of 3K-6K RPM. The engine that produces peak torque at 5000RPM can produce power over most of it's operating range, where the engine that spins up to 15000RPM will be gasping for breath once it drops below 7K RPM.
The upshot is, that a V8 will be much more street able than an I4 which produces the same amount of horsepower, but less torque. Put the two together in a drag race, and the V8s low end grunt will prove to be an advantage.
Horsepower is about how much power the engine produces when you run it at it's ideal RPM. Torque is about how much power an engine produces in real world conditions.
In a race, I want a lot of horsepower. On the street, I want a lot of torque.
I grew up in a town called Boulder Creek. Our fire department was staffed entirely by volunteers, and I would trust them with my life.
I generally prefer that the people providing my health and emergency services do it because they are genuinely passionate about it. I believe passion produces better results than a sense of obligation.
If by "Doctor and patient" you're referring to the old joke where the patient walks up and says "my arm hurts when I do this" and the doctor responds: "Then don't do that."
I've met a lot of developers who really have no understanding of the operational impact of their design decisions. Some do a poor job of developing good test hooks and logging, others do a poor job of developing scalable software. Others ask for procedural workarounds for fundamental usability problems.
Let's assume that the author would use the most appropriate common numeric grouping to describe the number of felons identified, and further that the author would select the number with the greatest impact on the general populous.
I would argue that 'hundreds' would be the next obvious logical choice above 'dozens.' Let's be conservative, and assume that they wouldn't use the term 'hundreds' until they hit '300', as 3 is a good floor number for pluralization.
Let's also assume that at worst, dozens would imply more than 24 felons.
Using these assumptions, the best case scenario is 300 felons caught, for a 99.6% error rate, and the worst case scenario is a 99.97% error rate.
When I developed spam filtering solutions, a false positive rate like that would get me fired.
Here's a related question: How many felons would you set free to save an innocent man from false incarceration?
This isn't an example of domain hijacking, this is an example of an annoying browser feature.
Domain hijacking refers to a range of activities, some of which are illegal, and some of which are just annoying. In the traditional sense, domain hijacking usually involves exploitation of domain registrar update process or social engineering to steal a domain name, and direct traffic to another (possibly nefarious) website. In this case, someone has literally taken (stolen) another person's property and used it for their own purposes.
I've also seen the term legitimately used to describe NXDOOMAIN hijacking, where ISPs answer requests for 'nonexistant' domains, redirecting traffic for their own purposes. This causes a lot of headaches for IT, but is not illegal.
If "Contests" like this were actually trying to encourage rewarding students for the innovations (as opposed to simply exploiting them), why not give them a slice of the pie, say...5% of the profits generated?
While 'calc.exe' is a useful tool, I highly doubt it's generated much in the way of line item profit for Microsoft.
With Hollywood accounting, I suspect that $2,000 > 5% of the profits of a bundled utility.
For a student, having a line item on the resume is likely to be worth more than the royalties they would get for a novelty application. For instance, it would be very difficult to compete with Microsoft by developing an accessibility tool, but having credit and your name in the about page may lead to more job opportunities and higher wages coming out of school.
Not every student is willing to pursue patent applications or royalty negotiations, but pretty much any student out there can benefit from the exposure and experience.
This is a far cry from installing a sink or rewiring a house which has been done thousands of times before and for which the ways in which it can fail are well known and can be avoided.
Slashdot Mirror
Vegetarians also tend to believe that humans have evolved to the point that we no longer need to subside on a diet consisting primarily of meat, much like we can resolve our arguments without hitting each other in the head with a club.
Agreed, in general.
I've never seen a speed recommendation like that on any of my helmets, but I'll take a closer look the next time I'm at my local dealer.
Is it possible that the markings are related to the aerodynamics of the helmet? For instance, a lot of moto luggage advises you not to exceed 80MPH.
I don't do much dirt riding, so I cannot comment on the construction of dirt helmets.
Street helmets are not marked for any specific speed rating. Generally, a helmet is either stamped that it meets DOT specifications, or it's been certified by the SNELL Memorial Foundation. The SNELL foundation pushes the most stringent impact requirements, and are the generally target of criticisms that helmets are being engineered for unrealistic impacts.
For consumers, it's difficult to impossible to pick a helmet based on it's impact protection. Consumers are lead to believe that $900 helmets from Shoei and Arai* provide significantly better protection than an inexpensive $200 Scorpion brand helmet.
Keep in mind also that a helmet generally experiences it's harshest blows in street conditions. On the race track, there is a great deal of runoff; once the rider hits the ground, his head is subjected to rash and potentially rolling, but is not likely to hit a solid object. Street riders face a greater risk of hitting a tree, curb, or car head-first than a racer does.
Racing typically has a higher injury rate and a lower fatality rate than street riding.
* This should not be taken as a criticism of Shoei and Arai. I own a Shoei RF1000 helmet that retailed for $500. The price is justified by the comfort, build quality, and Shoei's excellent customer service. I did not buy the helmet expecting 150% better protection than an inexpensive helmet.
I'm a motorcycle commuter, and I've never heard that statement except when used by people attempting to justify riding without a helmet. The same basic argument is used by opponents of seat-belt laws.
While there are rigid 'brain bucket' helmets on the market, I don't know of any that are DOT approved. As far as I know, every DOT / SNELL approved helmet built in the last 40 years is a hard shell over a thick foam lining, which is designed to prevent shock from being transmitted directly to the brain.
The big argument against modern helmets is that they are actually designed to provide protection against unrealistically strong blows. A firmer foam will protect against heavier blows, but won't compress as much when subjected to a lighter strike. The more the helmet compresses, the slower the head inside the helmet can decelerate, reducing the forces the brain is subjected to.
To be fair, the government outsources a lot of development work to private companies. There's no reason to believe that much of the software used to administer a public health care option wouldn't be privately built.
What impresses me about this accomplishment is that it must have been achieved among a small group of enthusiasts.
With the internal combustion engine, an amateur can draw on a huge pool of professional resources and documented knowledge to build up a high performance vehicle. In fact, very few people, if any are a master of every component on a modern race car - usually your race team will have access to suspension specialists, tire specialists, engine builders, aerodynamic and chassis design guys...
There really can't be that many experts on the automotive uses of steam engines, and a huge amount of new development must have gone into this car - that's something fantastic.
Materials have come a long way... But how much of of an advantage does that give you against the massive loss of experience we must have had over the last 100 years?
I'm a motorcycle racing enthusiast, and even at my amateur level it's amazing how much knowledge is only available through experienced teachers. There are literally more in-depth books about programing in ruby than books about motorcycle chassis engineering and physics.
Touche, Sir!
My favorite way to ensure all data is lost on an hard disk is to store the only copy of my Master's thesis on that drive.
The real question is... Do you still remember all those digits?
It's not really the CEOs that are the problem, it's the investors. The profit to payout ratio of insurance providers is carefully tracked, and any increase in the payout ratio can quickly lead to a major loss in shareholder value. Based on that, the CEOs would rather stand in front of congress and state that they will continue rejecting valid claims than risk a major stock price dip.
Of course, executives are also shareholders, so it's in their own selfish interest to encourage claim denial.
Of course... If you count the improperly formatted characters from my previous post, Pi may have a few errors... :|
Seems like an appropriate place to mention it. A gentleman who does music based on listener requests has created a mnemonic for the first 50 digits of Pi.
Here are the lyrics:
The number of letters in each word is the key to the digit of pi. It's not that difficult to count on the fingers while quietly singing the song.
Songs to Wear Pants To has a lot of really cool music. I threw this one in with a bunch of his other stuff and listened to it a few times on an MP3 player. So, I know the first 50 digits of Pi.
Keep in mind that peak performance is not the same as peak efficiency. As the engine speed increases, more energy is wasted as friction and drag. Ideal efficiency occurs when the engine is spinning just fast enough to keep the car moving forward.
I'm very interested in how diesel ends up working out in series hybrid engines. A series engine would be an ideal application for a small turbocharged 2 stroke diesel engine.
2 stroke diesel engines are interesting beasts -- they don't work well over a wide RPM range, but produce a lot more power than a 4 stroke engine for the same weight. A 2 stroke diesel does not use the crankcase as a pressure chamber, and does not require oil mixed into the fuel like a traditional gasoline 2 stroke.
A supercharger forces air into the cylinder, which is used to push exhaust out of the cylinder, and start the cycle. The piston moves up, compressing the raw air. At the peak of the piston travel, fuel is injected, which burns and pushes the piston downward. As the piston reaches the bottom of it's stroke, exhaust valves are opened, and the intake port is uncovered. Fresh air pushes out the exhaust, and the cycle repeats.
Note that in this design, very little exhaust remains in the cylinder. No fuel is pushed out the exhaust, and no oil is burned with the fuel.
This design will not work with a straight turbocharger, because positive pressure is required to start the engine.
Note that this is the engine design used in Diesel Electric locomotives.
Not entirely true. An engine that produces a lot of torque will generally accelerate anywhere in the RPM range, where a high horsepower low-torque engine will seem lethargic and weak until you get it into it's power band.
For someone driving an automatic in city traffic, you are absolutely correct. Most automatics will cruise low in the revs to save fuel, and planting your foot on the pedal will result in a delay while the transmission downshifts to put the car in it's power band.
I track motorcycles, and generally run 600CC sport bikes that produce ~120HP at the crank, and a mere 55 foot pounds of torque at the absolute peak output (less than 30 foot pounds of torque below 5K RPM.) If I keep a motorcycle like that near peak torque output, it accelerates much better than my BMW 1130cc bike, which produces closer to 80HP/80Ftlb.
The key is the transmission. If one engine produces 80ftlbs at 5000RPM, and another produces 40FTlbs at 10000 RPM, both can be geared to deliver the same power output at the wheel at an ideal speed. However, because the first engine operates over a much smaller range of RPM, it's going to tend to produce power over a larger portion of it's operating range.
In my experience, most engines produce power over a range of 3K-6K RPM. The engine that produces peak torque at 5000RPM can produce power over most of it's operating range, where the engine that spins up to 15000RPM will be gasping for breath once it drops below 7K RPM.
The upshot is, that a V8 will be much more street able than an I4 which produces the same amount of horsepower, but less torque. Put the two together in a drag race, and the V8s low end grunt will prove to be an advantage.
Horsepower is about how much power the engine produces when you run it at it's ideal RPM. Torque is about how much power an engine produces in real world conditions.
In a race, I want a lot of horsepower. On the street, I want a lot of torque.
No kidding. I had a 6.2 liter V8 on an old 70s motor home that didn't make more than 160HP.
I grew up in a town called Boulder Creek. Our fire department was staffed entirely by volunteers, and I would trust them with my life.
I generally prefer that the people providing my health and emergency services do it because they are genuinely passionate about it. I believe passion produces better results than a sense of obligation.
If by "Doctor and patient" you're referring to the old joke where the patient walks up and says "my arm hurts when I do this" and the doctor responds: "Then don't do that."
I've met a lot of developers who really have no understanding of the operational impact of their design decisions. Some do a poor job of developing good test hooks and logging, others do a poor job of developing scalable software. Others ask for procedural workarounds for fundamental usability problems.
Let's assume that the author would use the most appropriate common numeric grouping to describe the number of felons identified, and further that the author would select the number with the greatest impact on the general populous.
I would argue that 'hundreds' would be the next obvious logical choice above 'dozens.' Let's be conservative, and assume that they wouldn't use the term 'hundreds' until they hit '300', as 3 is a good floor number for pluralization.
Let's also assume that at worst, dozens would imply more than 24 felons.
Using these assumptions, the best case scenario is 300 felons caught, for a 99.6% error rate, and the worst case scenario is a 99.97% error rate.
When I developed spam filtering solutions, a false positive rate like that would get me fired.
Here's a related question: How many felons would you set free to save an innocent man from false incarceration?
This isn't an example of domain hijacking, this is an example of an annoying browser feature.
Domain hijacking refers to a range of activities, some of which are illegal, and some of which are just annoying. In the traditional sense, domain hijacking usually involves exploitation of domain registrar update process or social engineering to steal a domain name, and direct traffic to another (possibly nefarious) website. In this case, someone has literally taken (stolen) another person's property and used it for their own purposes.
I've also seen the term legitimately used to describe NXDOOMAIN hijacking, where ISPs answer requests for 'nonexistant' domains, redirecting traffic for their own purposes. This causes a lot of headaches for IT, but is not illegal.
While 'calc.exe' is a useful tool, I highly doubt it's generated much in the way of line item profit for Microsoft.
With Hollywood accounting, I suspect that $2,000 > 5% of the profits of a bundled utility.
For a student, having a line item on the resume is likely to be worth more than the royalties they would get for a novelty application. For instance, it would be very difficult to compete with Microsoft by developing an accessibility tool, but having credit and your name in the about page may lead to more job opportunities and higher wages coming out of school.
Not every student is willing to pursue patent applications or royalty negotiations, but pretty much any student out there can benefit from the exposure and experience.
Plus, $2,000 will buy a lot of ramen.
Proof that god is a project manager. He wants us to develop instructions, but doesn't give us access to any engineering resources.
Understatement of the week. :)
I drive at 85 miles per hour. If someone behind me wants to do 90, I move over.