Surplus electricity that cannot be consumed by nearby grid users can be used for an electrolysis process to produce hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be stored and distributed for fuel cells.
It's safer and simpler to pump water uphill into reservoirs to be extracted hydroelectrically later. That's what they do currently. earth-fill gravity dams are much cheaper and more reliable than massive electrolysis plants.
Are you one of those people who put a Sawsall on a 200 Foot 14 gauge extension cord and wonder why the motor fries? No, its not because the Sawsall is faulty.
Heh. The same kind of genius who calls an electrician to replace a "bad" 15amp circuit breaker that keeps tripping, then asks for a 20amp breaker (on his 14ga house wiring!) after you explain that he's just got more than 15A of stuff plugged in. "Hey! Let's put a penny bhind that blown fuse! that'll stop it from blowing!"
So in order to have "easier to regulate DC", you'd have us basically change everything in our current electrical system but the wire, and take an efficiency hit to boot.
Cripes, what have I been smoking? Scratch the last bit about efficiency. I apparently was thinking from an alternate universe!
DC can't be easily transmitted over long distances, that's why AC is used for the power grid instead of DC.
No, that's not right. The reason AC was more efficient was that you can't step up DC voltages with a transformer like you can AC. High-voltage, low-current is more efficient, but in the past if you generated DC at 120V, it stayed at 120V. Nowadays, with modern electronics, DC can be stepped up/down. When the voltage/current are equal, DC wins over AC.
It already happened. Old-fashioned light bulbs are still running 50 Hz AC. Those bulbs would run just as well on DC. Everything else is either converting to DC or switching much faster than 50 Hz.
You can't use a transformer with DC, so you're saying that we should be willing to toss out all those wall-wart AC adaptors that power EVERYTHING nowadays and replace those simple copper-wound transformers with complex, more expensive DC-DC conversion circuits? Forget it, man. Not bloody likely.
As someone who's grabbed a live wire I can tell you that AC current does NOT make it easier to let go of anything.
You're confusing the word "easy" with the word "easier". He didn't say AC was easy to let go of, only that DC is harder. Have you ever grabbed a 120V DC line to compare?
Besides, 120V is nothing. I get hit with it every 1-3 months as an electrician (dealing with crap-ass residential wiring it's inevitable). The key is to never be standing in such a position that a muscle spasm will leave you in contact with the conductor. The worst is lying on your back under a house-- that's why electricity seems to kill more plumbers than electricians. Anyway, you haven't felt real electricity till you've grabbed 277V at least. Funny thing is how you can "hear" the 60hz in your head when it happens. 120V sounds like a little birdy. 277V, on the other hand, sounds like a freakin' air-raid siren.
In summary, if anything, DC looks like it should lose _less_ power. I'm probably missing something, though, so if a power geek can elighten me, it would be appreciated.
AC power can be run through a simple electrical transformer (Faraday-1831) and stepped up to extraordinarily high voltages. DC cannot. If you want high voltage DC, it basically has to come out of the generator that way (there are ways to convert DC-DC, but none as simple as two copper coils on an iron block). Problem is, high voltages are dangerous to both the end user and the generator technicians. With AC, you can generate power at low, safe voltages (and high current) within the plant, then use transformers to step the voltage up by factors of 100 or 1000, reducing the current by similar factors. As the power loss rate is proportional to the square of the current, this can reduce the power loss by a factor of up to one million. Then, using another transformer opposite the first, you can bring the voltage back down (and the current back up) to the generator values (less the small losses).
It's much easier to regulate DC with power electronics. AC was needed back when the only way to change voltage was using a transformer. Now it is obsolete.
Even if we totally overlook the enormous inefficiency of DC compared to AC, there are other factors. For example: switching. DC has the annoying property of producing a continuous electrical arc across the air gap of two switch contacts as they move from the open to the closed position. This electrical arc can be very destructive. Current switches, particularly the ones like you find on the wall in your house, aren't adequate for switching 120VDC. The contacts will arc themselves to death in no time. So in order to have "easier to regulate DC", you'd have us basically change everything in our current electrical system but the wire, and take an efficiency hit to boot. No thanks.
The killer app here is the "large battery" that can take in excess power and give it back when we need it.
Actually, such a thing already exists. Currently (no pun intended) excess power is used to pump water uphill into reservoirs, then the same water is used to generate hydroelectric power when demand is high. No, it's not very efficient, but most methods of storing power are very inefficient or very volatile. A small lake behind a rock-fill gravity dam is quite a bit safer than a pressurized tank of hydrogen electrically cracked from water, for example....
So Bin Laden wasn't CIA trained, but trained by people who were CIA trained. BFD.
Minor distinction to you, maybe, but then again you "only know what I read in the papers, and on slashdot". Saying he was CIA trained makes the CIA seem more inept than they are. In reality they weren't stupid (training people who hate the US); their policy was just totally fucked up(abandoning a country after the soviet enemy left). They left an entire country essentially leaderless and next thing you know they get recruited by terrorists. Doh! Of course, if they'd helped put in a strong leadership in Afghanistan, they'd be spat upon for installing another "US puppet" government (cough)shah;marcos;noriega(cough). So I guess there was no way to win there, eh?
It is fairly well established that Bin Laden was operating during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
I never said he wasn't. He was chief financier of the organization founded by Abdullah Azzam in the early 80's to help the mujahedeen. He was helping the same people as the CIA, but that's a far cry from the claim that he was "trained by" the CIA. You misunderstand my comment regarding him taking charge of CIA-abandned muj after the soviets left. I didn't mean to imply that it happened immediately thereafter; my point was more along the lines of "the CIA abandons its tools when they're no longer useful, but there's always someone around to pick them up later". The oil sheik thing? You're right. My bad. Must've been thinking about the Muwafaq article I was just reading.
And as for the Al Zawahiri thing? I'm with on that, man. Bin Laden is just a handy figurehead.
Oh, like Osama Bin Laden, the CIA-trained Freedom Fighter?
OBL was not trained by the CIA. He's the son of a rich oil sheik who came in and took charge of a bunch of CIA trained mujahideen that the CIA abandoned when the Soviets caved in. If only the world were as simple as people like you believe...
If you _hate_ dealing with this stuff, why don't you quit?
Shaddup, weiner. That's the lamest question I've seen all day. You do understand the purpose of having a job, right? And you do understand that the job market for IT people ain't exactly booming, right? And you do understand that no matter where he goes he'll likely end up supporting another office full of windows boxes, right? So get a fucking clue.
It's actually not a random freq -- when you configure the SINGCGARs, you load the frequency plan (actually usually several frequency plans that you can switch between). Everyone on the same net is using the same frequency plan, which usually rotates regularly.
The freq plan is essentially a pre-determined seed value for a pseudorandom number generator. If you look at where the freq hops around, it looks pretty random. I think that's all he meant.
No smartcard reader uses any atmel prom. ISO 7816(-1) is the standard to talk to smart cards (and the geometry..ect). The device you are talking about is used to circumvent the ASIC in DTC encryption system.
These were called unloopers. A smartcard reader has many uses.
I never said the atmel was necessary to build a smartcard reader. All I said was that they ship them with the atmel blank and it doesn't become an actual glitcher/unlooper until the end user flashes it.
They are not going after legitimate smart cart vendors.
Regardless of the "intended" market for card readers/writers, there are non-illegal uses for them. Do you blame non-DTV-hackers for buying a $50 T911 instead of a $500 card reader development kit? (yes, there are cheaper "non-hacker" card readers now, but there weren't a year ago; I looked for one)
They only sent letters to people who bought the readers that had been modified to write to directv's cards by circumventing their security measures. The readers were explicitly advertised for this use only.
Incorrect. They sell smartcard readers with un-programmed microcontrollers. Until you "flash the atmel", it's just a blank microcontroller connected to a DB9 and a SC slot. None of the units they sell are shipped "modified to write to directv's cards". They are a blank slate. Until you flash the microcontroller they do EXACTLY NOTHING. You can argue "intent", and "everyone knows..." all you want, but try winning a court case by saying "most people buy these for defrauding DTV". The charge is easily beaten by saying "I don't. I use them for (whatever)". The problem is that it takes many expen$ive lawyer-hours to get to that point, and DTV knows it. They're swatting flies with a 4X8 sheet of plywood here, and it's despicable.
Sure, with a decent photo printer and an excellent image of the dollar bill in question, perfect image copies can be produced, but the missing link is the paper on which it is printed. That certain type of paper that American money is printed on is nearly impossible to duplicate from a material sense and is heavily guarded from creation to printing.
Crane's Crest Fluorescent Opaque White. It doesn't have the red and blue fibers, but the paper itself is nearly identical. I suggest printing resumes out on this paper.
In Hong Kong we use a smart card (stored value card) called the Octopus...Why hasn't anyone rolled this out in the US?
Because Hong Kong is a city and the US a a large nation. If you look at individual US cities, you'll find numerous similar systems (though most are mag-stripe).
I suspect it may also be because in the US there is already a large installed base of mag-stripe reader based systems. Inertia is hard to overcome.
Many users are basically expecting the computer to do all of the thinking for them when in reality all they can do is automate drudgery. Non-trivial tasks have skillsets and computers can't always paper that over.
Heh. It's like my great-uncle used to say: "It's a poor workman that blames his tools".
If it's an emergency and existing utilities are down, there won't be any BPL interference will there?
The idea is to contact someone outside the disaster area where the utilities are still working. If BPL is in operation at either end communication will be affected.
Slashdot Mirror
heh. I typed it in wearing rubber gloves.
It's safer and simpler to pump water uphill into reservoirs to be extracted hydroelectrically later. That's what they do currently. earth-fill gravity dams are much cheaper and more reliable than massive electrolysis plants.
Heh. The same kind of genius who calls an electrician to replace a "bad" 15amp circuit breaker that keeps tripping, then asks for a 20amp breaker (on his 14ga house wiring!) after you explain that he's just got more than 15A of stuff plugged in. "Hey! Let's put a penny bhind that blown fuse! that'll stop it from blowing!"
So in order to have "easier to regulate DC", you'd have us basically change everything in our current electrical system but the wire, and take an efficiency hit to boot.
Cripes, what have I been smoking? Scratch the last bit about efficiency. I apparently was thinking from an alternate universe!
"Despite the enormous inefficiency of AC compared to DC,
Sorry, I managed to say exactly the opposite of what I meant, and made it look like that's what I meant to say to boot! Shoulda' previewed, dammit.
No, that's not right. The reason AC was more efficient was that you can't step up DC voltages with a transformer like you can AC. High-voltage, low-current is more efficient, but in the past if you generated DC at 120V, it stayed at 120V. Nowadays, with modern electronics, DC can be stepped up/down. When the voltage/current are equal, DC wins over AC.
You can't use a transformer with DC, so you're saying that we should be willing to toss out all those wall-wart AC adaptors that power EVERYTHING nowadays and replace those simple copper-wound transformers with complex, more expensive DC-DC conversion circuits? Forget it, man. Not bloody likely.
You're confusing the word "easy" with the word "easier". He didn't say AC was easy to let go of, only that DC is harder. Have you ever grabbed a 120V DC line to compare?
Besides, 120V is nothing. I get hit with it every 1-3 months as an electrician (dealing with crap-ass residential wiring it's inevitable). The key is to never be standing in such a position that a muscle spasm will leave you in contact with the conductor. The worst is lying on your back under a house-- that's why electricity seems to kill more plumbers than electricians. Anyway, you haven't felt real electricity till you've grabbed 277V at least. Funny thing is how you can "hear" the 60hz in your head when it happens. 120V sounds like a little birdy. 277V, on the other hand, sounds like a freakin' air-raid siren.
AC power can be run through a simple electrical transformer (Faraday-1831) and stepped up to extraordinarily high voltages. DC cannot. If you want high voltage DC, it basically has to come out of the generator that way (there are ways to convert DC-DC, but none as simple as two copper coils on an iron block). Problem is, high voltages are dangerous to both the end user and the generator technicians. With AC, you can generate power at low, safe voltages (and high current) within the plant, then use transformers to step the voltage up by factors of 100 or 1000, reducing the current by similar factors. As the power loss rate is proportional to the square of the current, this can reduce the power loss by a factor of up to one million. Then, using another transformer opposite the first, you can bring the voltage back down (and the current back up) to the generator values (less the small losses).
Even if we totally overlook the enormous inefficiency of DC compared to AC, there are other factors. For example: switching. DC has the annoying property of producing a continuous electrical arc across the air gap of two switch contacts as they move from the open to the closed position. This electrical arc can be very destructive. Current switches, particularly the ones like you find on the wall in your house, aren't adequate for switching 120VDC. The contacts will arc themselves to death in no time. So in order to have "easier to regulate DC", you'd have us basically change everything in our current electrical system but the wire, and take an efficiency hit to boot. No thanks.
Actually, such a thing already exists. Currently (no pun intended) excess power is used to pump water uphill into reservoirs, then the same water is used to generate hydroelectric power when demand is high. No, it's not very efficient, but most methods of storing power are very inefficient or very volatile. A small lake behind a rock-fill gravity dam is quite a bit safer than a pressurized tank of hydrogen electrically cracked from water, for example....
Who would think to drag a floppy icon to the TRASHCAN in order to eject it? Every OS has its weird counter-intuitive parts.
Minor distinction to you, maybe, but then again you "only know what I read in the papers, and on slashdot". Saying he was CIA trained makes the CIA seem more inept than they are. In reality they weren't stupid (training people who hate the US); their policy was just totally fucked up(abandoning a country after the soviet enemy left). They left an entire country essentially leaderless and next thing you know they get recruited by terrorists. Doh! Of course, if they'd helped put in a strong leadership in Afghanistan, they'd be spat upon for installing another "US puppet" government (cough)shah;marcos;noriega(cough). So I guess there was no way to win there, eh?
I never said he wasn't. He was chief financier of the organization founded by Abdullah Azzam in the early 80's to help the mujahedeen. He was helping the same people as the CIA, but that's a far cry from the claim that he was "trained by" the CIA. You misunderstand my comment regarding him taking charge of CIA-abandned muj after the soviets left. I didn't mean to imply that it happened immediately thereafter; my point was more along the lines of "the CIA abandons its tools when they're no longer useful, but there's always someone around to pick them up later". The oil sheik thing? You're right. My bad. Must've been thinking about the Muwafaq article I was just reading.
And as for the Al Zawahiri thing? I'm with on that, man. Bin Laden is just a handy figurehead.
OBL was not trained by the CIA. He's the son of a rich oil sheik who came in and took charge of a bunch of CIA trained mujahideen that the CIA abandoned when the Soviets caved in. If only the world were as simple as people like you believe...
Shaddup, weiner. That's the lamest question I've seen all day. You do understand the purpose of having a job, right? And you do understand that the job market for IT people ain't exactly booming, right? And you do understand that no matter where he goes he'll likely end up supporting another office full of windows boxes, right? So get a fucking clue.
The freq plan is essentially a pre-determined seed value for a pseudorandom number generator. If you look at where the freq hops around, it looks pretty random. I think that's all he meant.
I never said the atmel was necessary to build a smartcard reader. All I said was that they ship them with the atmel blank and it doesn't become an actual glitcher/unlooper until the end user flashes it.
3. Japanese anime model 2 (Hentai model!):
Gonads? Dou you know what gonads are? Did you perhaps mean "external genitalia"?
Regardless of the "intended" market for card readers/writers, there are non-illegal uses for them. Do you blame non-DTV-hackers for buying a $50 T911 instead of a $500 card reader development kit? (yes, there are cheaper "non-hacker" card readers now, but there weren't a year ago; I looked for one)
They only sent letters to people who bought the readers that had been modified to write to directv's cards by circumventing their security measures. The readers were explicitly advertised for this use only.
Incorrect. They sell smartcard readers with un-programmed microcontrollers. Until you "flash the atmel", it's just a blank microcontroller connected to a DB9 and a SC slot. None of the units they sell are shipped "modified to write to directv's cards". They are a blank slate. Until you flash the microcontroller they do EXACTLY NOTHING. You can argue "intent", and "everyone knows..." all you want, but try winning a court case by saying "most people buy these for defrauding DTV". The charge is easily beaten by saying "I don't. I use them for (whatever)". The problem is that it takes many expen$ive lawyer-hours to get to that point, and DTV knows it. They're swatting flies with a 4X8 sheet of plywood here, and it's despicable.
Crane's Crest Fluorescent Opaque White. It doesn't have the red and blue fibers, but the paper itself is nearly identical. I suggest printing resumes out on this paper.
Because Hong Kong is a city and the US a a large nation. If you look at individual US cities, you'll find numerous similar systems (though most are mag-stripe).
I suspect it may also be because in the US there is already a large installed base of mag-stripe reader based systems. Inertia is hard to overcome.
Heh. It's like my great-uncle used to say: "It's a poor workman that blames his tools".
The idea is to contact someone outside the disaster area where the utilities are still working. If BPL is in operation at either end communication will be affected.
Because BPL has not progressed beyond the limited, trial stages of deployment. It's currently operating in just a few areas. RTFA.
The BPL interference is probably mostly a problem for HF operations in the immediate vicinity of them.
And if BPL is deployed to the extent power companies want, "immediate vicinity" will be equivalent to "anywhere near a populated area".