The reason you would connect batteries in series is to increase voltage. Two AA batteries (1.5V each) in series gives a total voltage of 3V. Most residential light bulbs (in the US - not sure about UK) run on 120V; it would take a lot of AAs to get this, but the organic cells probably do better than 1.5V - my guess is 3-5V.
The article says that each cell could be produced for around 10 GBP (about $16), so I'm guessing not very much.
And why would I want my phone to take pictures in the first place?
What ever happened to having a simple tool for a simple job? Want pictures? Get a camera. Want voice communication on the go? Get a cell phone. Want network access? Ah, that's not a simple job - gotta get a laptop or palmtop for that one.
I'm sure all these 3G gadgets will be cool and all, but what are they good for? What pointful activities can you do with a 3G phone that you can't do with a regular cell phone and a palmtop? Do you need your stock quotes in color while you're riding the train?
I think that 3G's time won't come until PANs become the norm. I'd love to have my cellphone talk to my PDA for its phonebook, and for my PDA to use my cellphone's transmitter to access the web, and for both of them to use my pager-sized solid-state drive for storage. I'm just not sure I need to watch movies on a 1" screen.
How many of us have friends who are wearing their grandmother's ring as their wedding band? I know a few. And how many of us keep their ancestors in urns on a shelf in their house? I know a few. This company is just taking it to the next level.
If it weren't for the outrageous prices (which are bound to come down), and the fact that I'm only 23, I'd be interested myself. Look for this company to be big as the synthetic-diamond industry becomes mainstream.
I still think this is a give a fish/teach how to fish problem. Rather than giving students a bunch of tools, teach them how to acquire and make tools. Rather than giving them thoughts, teach them how to think.
I think you may be in the minority, in that you actually remembered that stuff you learned as an undergrad. Most people I know learn it for the test, and then forget it. True breadth and depth come only from retaining knowledge, and the best way to retain knowledge is to continually use it.
My college experience didn't really allow me to do this. I would take a course on C and a course in electrical fundamentals. The next year would be more toolbox classes. Then, in the next year, the profs expect us all to remember Kirchoff and K&R, when we hadn't used it in more than a year.
As a soon-to-be engineering graduate, I can see exactly how and why this is a good idea. The program I am finishing (not naming names) suffers from severe backwardness and foolish administration. The students are treated like manufactured goods, with the unfit being "weeded out" early by tough, nonsense courses, and the interesting work is saved until the very last year.
From my view, this new school is doing a lot of things right.
No paying-your-dues classes. Engineering is about solving problems, and most engineering work is done seat-of-the-pants, with the designer researching and learning as he/she goes. The traditional college would have you believe that two or three years of toolbox-building is required before one can solve any real problems. Any practicing engineer will tell you that this is total BS. Real Engineers(tm) just jump into a problem and think/work/caffienate until it's solved, emerging with experience, knowledge and confidence that they can then apply to the next problem. Modeling an educational institution around this iterative process should have been done a long time ago.
Whole-systems engineering. A program cannot be completely designed without taking into account the students' perspective. Most engineering curricula are designed by "captains of industry" and experienced administrative faculty, none of whom know or remember what it's like to be an engineering student. The result is that we (the students) suffer through overlapping or gap-filled coursework, uninteresting classes, and a distinct lack of communication between administration and the student body. More people claim to have survived engineering school than to have graduated from it.
Focus. A traditional engineering department has to compete with the Business school (with its battle-scarred, industry-culled accounting and law faculty) for funding, university resources, and attention. Unless the engineering school is the centerpiece of the university, it will be hard-pressed to get resources. In this case, the entire school offers only three degrees: ECE, ME, and general engineering. The student body will max out at around 650 people, with each class being only about 75 folks; small enough for every student to know every other student. This fosters networking - of a wireless sort - and as we all know, it's who you know.
No tuition. Not so much for the (somewhat fictional) socially-equal nature of a moneyless college, but for the underlying message that it's not about the money. I especially like the story about the cannon project: here's a budget, here's a goal, see what you can do. This monetary constraint makes the game that much more fun; the coolest cannon will be the one with the best ideas in it, not the one on which more money was spent. What's (hopefully) great about this: the coolest cannon will probably get the best grade, too.
Well-roundedness. My experience is that humanities courses are one step in a bureaucratic procedure on your way to a rubber-stamped degree. In order to truly produce well-rounded graduates, you can't just require that they sit through a few lectures on the Roman Empire. You have to make them interested, inquisitive, curious, and driven, so that they will find these things on their own. Knowledge does not make people well-rounded; wisdom and curiosity do. Our educational instutions today are sadly not in the free-thinker-producing business; they are in the business of producing graduates who will follow commands simply because they are given from somebody "above" them.
Personally, I've gained more useful knowledge from a 9-month programming job and two 6-month internships than I have from my 5 years at the university. College has become almost a rite of passage; if thou desirest entrance to the upper echelons of society, thou shalt work in the mines for a period no less than 4 years.
I thought I read a while back that the Earth was overdue (by 35k years or something like that) for a swap in the magnetic poles. Could this be simply part of the process for that to occur? I took college physics, but I was always hazy on the magnetic field stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
- The reason you would connect batteries in series is to increase voltage. Two AA batteries (1.5V each) in series gives a total voltage of 3V. Most residential light bulbs (in the US - not sure about UK) run on 120V; it would take a lot of AAs to get this, but the organic cells probably do better than 1.5V - my guess is 3-5V.
- The article says that each cell could be produced for around 10 GBP (about $16), so I'm guessing not very much.
-- HamsterWhat ever happened to having a simple tool for a simple job? Want pictures? Get a camera. Want voice communication on the go? Get a cell phone. Want network access? Ah, that's not a simple job - gotta get a laptop or palmtop for that one.
-- Hamster
I think that 3G's time won't come until PANs become the norm. I'd love to have my cellphone talk to my PDA for its phonebook, and for my PDA to use my cellphone's transmitter to access the web, and for both of them to use my pager-sized solid-state drive for storage. I'm just not sure I need to watch movies on a 1" screen.
-- Hamsterboy
How many of us have friends who are wearing their grandmother's ring as their wedding band? I know a few. And how many of us keep their ancestors in urns on a shelf in their house? I know a few. This company is just taking it to the next level.
If it weren't for the outrageous prices (which are bound to come down), and the fact that I'm only 23, I'd be interested myself. Look for this company to be big as the synthetic-diamond industry becomes mainstream.
-- Hamster
I think you may be in the minority, in that you actually remembered that stuff you learned as an undergrad. Most people I know learn it for the test, and then forget it. True breadth and depth come only from retaining knowledge, and the best way to retain knowledge is to continually use it.
My college experience didn't really allow me to do this. I would take a course on C and a course in electrical fundamentals. The next year would be more toolbox classes. Then, in the next year, the profs expect us all to remember Kirchoff and K&R, when we hadn't used it in more than a year.
-- Hamster
From my view, this new school is doing a lot of things right.
No paying-your-dues classes. Engineering is about solving problems, and most engineering work is done seat-of-the-pants, with the designer researching and learning as he/she goes. The traditional college would have you believe that two or three years of toolbox-building is required before one can solve any real problems. Any practicing engineer will tell you that this is total BS. Real Engineers(tm) just jump into a problem and think/work/caffienate until it's solved, emerging with experience, knowledge and confidence that they can then apply to the next problem. Modeling an educational institution around this iterative process should have been done a long time ago.
Whole-systems engineering. A program cannot be completely designed without taking into account the students' perspective. Most engineering curricula are designed by "captains of industry" and experienced administrative faculty, none of whom know or remember what it's like to be an engineering student. The result is that we (the students) suffer through overlapping or gap-filled coursework, uninteresting classes, and a distinct lack of communication between administration and the student body. More people claim to have survived engineering school than to have graduated from it.
Focus. A traditional engineering department has to compete with the Business school (with its battle-scarred, industry-culled accounting and law faculty) for funding, university resources, and attention. Unless the engineering school is the centerpiece of the university, it will be hard-pressed to get resources. In this case, the entire school offers only three degrees: ECE, ME, and general engineering. The student body will max out at around 650 people, with each class being only about 75 folks; small enough for every student to know every other student. This fosters networking - of a wireless sort - and as we all know, it's who you know.
No tuition. Not so much for the (somewhat fictional) socially-equal nature of a moneyless college, but for the underlying message that it's not about the money. I especially like the story about the cannon project: here's a budget, here's a goal, see what you can do. This monetary constraint makes the game that much more fun; the coolest cannon will be the one with the best ideas in it, not the one on which more money was spent. What's (hopefully) great about this: the coolest cannon will probably get the best grade, too.
Well-roundedness. My experience is that humanities courses are one step in a bureaucratic procedure on your way to a rubber-stamped degree. In order to truly produce well-rounded graduates, you can't just require that they sit through a few lectures on the Roman Empire. You have to make them interested, inquisitive, curious, and driven, so that they will find these things on their own. Knowledge does not make people well-rounded; wisdom and curiosity do. Our educational instutions today are sadly not in the free-thinker-producing business; they are in the business of producing graduates who will follow commands simply because they are given from somebody "above" them.
Personally, I've gained more useful knowledge from a 9-month programming job and two 6-month internships than I have from my 5 years at the university. College has become almost a rite of passage; if thou desirest entrance to the upper echelons of society, thou shalt work in the mines for a period no less than 4 years.
Must...stop...posting...
-- Hamster
I thought I read a while back that the Earth was overdue (by 35k years or something like that) for a swap in the magnetic poles. Could this be simply part of the process for that to occur? I took college physics, but I was always hazy on the magnetic field stuff.
-- Hamsterboy