- phone is lumpy. Reduces quality of sleep. See "Princess and the Pea". - phone makes small amounts of annoying noise that prevents you from getting adequate rest when it is close by. - you are nervous about having to wake up on time for something, so you put your phone under your pillow. Because you are nervous, you have reduced quality of sleep and wake up with a headache, perhaps from grinding your teeth.
I'm an EE who grew up dreaming about spacecraft, and I'd love to move to NS if there was a good job waiting for me there. Wonderful place. Much nicer than Houston, for example.
A tie! This is a big frickin' deal, people! Remember "Linux will never work on the desktop"? And now quasi-mainstream press says it's just as good as Windows Vista?
This article is pretty bad, and the project deserves better. SAUVIM has demonstrated some cool manipulation in a test tank, but they don't mention it... As your reply suggests, stereo-vision guided hand-eye coordination is hard for any robot, let alone one that is moving around at the bottom of the ocean! The fact that they had a sensor failure during a demo in the harbor means nothing, really; it happens all the time.
I wouldn't call the hardware development easy; although SAUVIM is huge (and expensive) enough to make it easier! The primary challenges are packaging for the underwater environment, and total system reliability... high pressure, corrosive salt water, very limited sensing range, in some ways it's harder than building a spacecraft.
Software for autonomous intervention work is still a ways off. Right now the predominant approach is "supervisory" control, where the AUV is capable of task-level autonomy but is constantly checking with the support ship as to what it should do next.
"A number of leading biologists in the U.S. are also leading environmentalists. I've asked them how worried they are about genetically engineered organisms. Their answer is "Not much," because they know from their own work how robust wild ecologies are in defending against new genes, no matter how exotic."
vs.
"The second greatest cause of extinctions is coming from invasive species, where no solution is in sight. Kudzu takes over the American South, brown tree snakes take over Guam (up to 5,000 a square kilometer), zebra mussels and mitten crabs take over the U.S. waterways, fire ants and fiendishly collaborative Argentine ants take over the ground, and not a thing can be done."
So is introducing new species into the environment perfectly safe, or unstoppably dangerous? I'm not impressed.
Plus: I walk to work. It takes about 20 minutes. Energy: zero, plus I get part of my daily exercise.
Plus: I rarely drive. Public transportation is great here (Boston). When I do drive it's usually with friends on a weekend, so the per-person energy cost is lower.
Plus: As far as embodied energy, shopping etc. go, there's economies of scale: more people are fed, clothed, etc. with less energy spent per unit on transportation to the stores (yet somehow everything costs more in the city, I don't get it).
Minus: I live in an old, poorly insulated building with an overactive heating system that I can't turn down. Fortunately heat is included in my rent, otherwise I don't know how I'd keep the windows open in January to stay comfortable.
Minus: My apartment stove is electric (waste of energy), and I have to drive to the laundromat (waste of energy) and use an electric dryer (waste of energy) because there's nowhere to hang up all my clothes on a clothesline...
That makes an enormous amount of sense. I have noticed that my depressive episodes are usually triggered by the complexity of modern life, whereas, put me in a survival-ish situation and I couldn't be happier. I guess this is why I like winter camping in the mountains.
I have this tool, bought it from McMaster-Carr, item #5102A2. It has vice-grip style locking pliers - they're great to have available. Also a one-hand-openable knife blade, philips + flat screwdriver, file, saw, bottle opener. Nice solid stainless steel. It's big and heavy, though.
Good review! One question: what method does the author recommend for getting the motherboard PCB made?
I would imagine hand-drawn layouts and home etch kits would scare off some potential robot newbies, so I hope he makes some mention of the semi-pro hobbyist alternatives: software like gEDA and Eagle, and board houses like Advanced Circuits for cheap, small quantity fab runs.
No no no, it's a heat sink you see. That means it's like a sort of hole in space-time that you can pour heat into. Be careful, if you put a big enough heat sink on something, you can accidentally make it so cold it can give you frostbite!
More seriously, I recommend the book "Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks" by Tony Kordyban as a good intro to thermal issues with electronics - including a real explanation of heatsinks.
I recently evaluated hardware from one of your competitors. The only reason I chose not to purchase their mesh networking product was the lack of a Linux driver. They actually have one, but consider it proprietary and will only give customers the Windows driver.
Diesels produce much higher particulate emissions than regular gas engines. Yuck.
As far as I know, hybrid cars use Nickel Metal Hydride batteries which are pretty clean as batteries go. You're probably thinking of NiCads, which contain cadmium - toxic stuff, but not used so much these days because they require more care and feeding than NiMH batteries.
... hybrid cars are still interesting. For one, they do get good gas mileage - excellent, even - just not out-of-this-world, press-release-parity-achieving gas mileage.
They are also very low-emissions vehicles. The Prius, for example, is rated a SULEV/PZEV (Super Ultra Low / Partial Zero Emissions, who comes up with these stupid names?), far better on the pollution front than most of what's on the market. This is partially due to the hybrid drive system's ability to run the internal combustion engine at maximum efficiency more often - higher efficiency => more complete combustion => fewer nasty chemical emissions.
Slashdot Mirror
Several non-RF possibilities:
- phone is lumpy. Reduces quality of sleep. See "Princess and the Pea".
- phone makes small amounts of annoying noise that prevents you from getting adequate rest when it is close by.
- you are nervous about having to wake up on time for something, so you put your phone under your pillow. Because you are nervous, you have reduced quality of sleep and wake up with a headache, perhaps from grinding your teeth.
"Once again, it proves that rocket science is hard."
Gaaah! Rocket science is not hard, you can pretty much sum it up with Newton's Laws.
Rocket engineering is hard. But engineers get no respect.
I'm an EE who grew up dreaming about spacecraft, and I'd love to move to NS if there was a good job waiting for me there. Wonderful place. Much nicer than Houston, for example.
very cool. The resulting forms look a bit like coral.
A tie! This is a big frickin' deal, people! Remember "Linux will never work on the desktop"? And now quasi-mainstream press says it's just as good as Windows Vista?
The Ubuntu team should be very proud.
Then we might actually get vendor hardware support in Linux.
I am neither distinguished nor elderly, but ultimately aspire to both!
I agree with some of the other posters - the only way this is at all believable is if they're actually doing UWB and calling it ISM band.
Three orders of magnitude better than GSM or EVDO? There is no way this is true. What a load of bul^H^H^H marketing!
Where do you work? I'm an engineer at MIT Sea Grant, http://auvlab.mit.edu/
This article is pretty bad, and the project deserves better. SAUVIM has demonstrated some cool manipulation in a test tank, but they don't mention it... As your reply suggests, stereo-vision guided hand-eye coordination is hard for any robot, let alone one that is moving around at the bottom of the ocean! The fact that they had a sensor failure during a demo in the harbor means nothing, really; it happens all the time.
I wouldn't call the hardware development easy; although SAUVIM is huge (and expensive) enough to make it easier! The primary challenges are packaging for the underwater environment, and total system reliability... high pressure, corrosive salt water, very limited sensing range, in some ways it's harder than building a spacecraft.
Software for autonomous intervention work is still a ways off. Right now the predominant approach is "supervisory" control, where the AUV is capable of task-level autonomy but is constantly checking with the support ship as to what it should do next.
"A number of leading biologists in the U.S. are also leading environmentalists. I've asked them how worried they are about genetically engineered organisms. Their answer is "Not much," because they know from their own work how robust wild ecologies are in defending against new genes, no matter how exotic."
vs.
"The second greatest cause of extinctions is coming from invasive species, where no solution is in sight. Kudzu takes over the American South, brown tree snakes take over Guam (up to 5,000 a square kilometer), zebra mussels and mitten crabs take over the U.S. waterways, fire ants and fiendishly collaborative Argentine ants take over the ground, and not a thing can be done."
So is introducing new species into the environment perfectly safe, or unstoppably dangerous? I'm not impressed.
You've got the right idea there - rent (below your means, so you can save up some capital) and wait. And buy a used car, new cars aren't worth it.
Even though I'd rather live in the country.
Plus: I walk to work. It takes about 20 minutes. Energy: zero, plus I get part of my daily exercise.
Plus: I rarely drive. Public transportation is great here (Boston). When I do drive it's usually with friends on a weekend, so the per-person energy cost is lower.
Plus: As far as embodied energy, shopping etc. go, there's economies of scale: more people are fed, clothed, etc. with less energy spent per unit on transportation to the stores (yet somehow everything costs more in the city, I don't get it).
Minus: I live in an old, poorly insulated building with an overactive heating system that I can't turn down. Fortunately heat is included in my rent, otherwise I don't know how I'd keep the windows open in January to stay comfortable.
Minus: My apartment stove is electric (waste of energy), and I have to drive to the laundromat (waste of energy) and use an electric dryer (waste of energy) because there's nowhere to hang up all my clothes on a clothesline...
That makes an enormous amount of sense. I have noticed that my depressive episodes are usually triggered by the complexity of modern life, whereas, put me in a survival-ish situation and I couldn't be happier. I guess this is why I like winter camping in the mountains.
I have this tool, bought it from McMaster-Carr, item #5102A2. It has vice-grip style locking pliers - they're great to have available. Also a one-hand-openable knife blade, philips + flat screwdriver, file, saw, bottle opener. Nice solid stainless steel. It's big and heavy, though.
How about the Buffalo Terastation? Only $1k.
Good review! One question: what method does the author recommend for getting the motherboard PCB made? I would imagine hand-drawn layouts and home etch kits would scare off some potential robot newbies, so I hope he makes some mention of the semi-pro hobbyist alternatives: software like gEDA and Eagle, and board houses like Advanced Circuits for cheap, small quantity fab runs.
Sounds like a maintenance nightmare. What if it cracks? And putting on an addition would be pretty tough.
The "autonomous" idea is mega-cool, however.
No no no, it's a heat sink you see. That means it's like a sort of hole in space-time that you can pour heat into. Be careful, if you put a big enough heat sink on something, you can accidentally make it so cold it can give you frostbite!
More seriously, I recommend the book "Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks" by Tony Kordyban as a good intro to thermal issues with electronics - including a real explanation of heatsinks.
This site has some pretty good info on electric-assisted bicycles, though it gets into a bit of silly rhetoric: Electric Bikes Northwest
Check out the msp430 series from TI - fun to program, featureful, low power, and fully supported by free software in the form of 'MSPGCC'. Good stuff
I recently evaluated hardware from one of your competitors. The only reason I chose not to purchase their mesh networking product was the lack of a Linux driver. They actually have one, but consider it proprietary and will only give customers the Windows driver.
Maybe they could just strafe the minefield with machine guns from a helicopter.
There goes all that DARPA funding.
Diesels produce much higher particulate emissions than regular gas engines. Yuck.
As far as I know, hybrid cars use Nickel Metal Hydride batteries which are pretty clean as batteries go. You're probably thinking of NiCads, which contain cadmium - toxic stuff, but not used so much these days because they require more care and feeding than NiMH batteries.
... hybrid cars are still interesting. For one, they do get good gas mileage - excellent, even - just not out-of-this-world, press-release-parity-achieving gas mileage.
They are also very low-emissions vehicles. The Prius, for example, is rated a SULEV/PZEV (Super Ultra Low / Partial Zero Emissions, who comes up with these stupid names?), far better on the pollution front than most of what's on the market. This is partially due to the hybrid drive system's ability to run the internal combustion engine at maximum efficiency more often - higher efficiency => more complete combustion => fewer nasty chemical emissions.