My biggest problem was finding a cheap, small and capable 12DC-DC power supply.
I know it's not exactly efficient, but you could have installed a DC->AC inverter, then plugged a regular AC->DC power supply into that. You'd get some loss in power, but your average draw (assuming you were using laptop parts) could easily be kept somewhere around 10-30 watts. Well within a range that your car's electrical system wouldn't notice.
Who said anything about violating Lawson's criteria? If the sonoluminescent fusion is actually occurring significantly above breakeven, then you've already exceeded Lawson and the critical ignition temperature somewhere!
I don't understand what you're getting at. You may be overcoming the Columb barrier inside your device, but that doesn't help create the shockwave used in an H-Bomb. The problem isn't just a matter of energy. It's a matter of gaining a compression shockwave powerful enough to compress the dueterium sphere of the bomb. The fission bomb was used for this because no one had yet figured out any other way of getting the compression necessary to make fusion work.
Now if you have an energy positive fusion method, you might be able to engineer a comletely different type of bomb. (i.e. Make the sonofusion itself the bomb.) I say "might", however, because a bomb needs the sudden and massive release of energy that's usually associated with super-criticality. Just having an energy positive device isn't enough. You need a runaway reaction that burns through the fuel within seconds. The fission bomb does that through sudden compression of the fissible materials. That produces a shockwave energetic enough to compress ALL of the dueterium the fusion.
Sun doesn't make consumer hardware. Apple does. Somewhere in there, there's a golden middle whereby Apple's hardware works well on the desktop and Sun's hardware works well on the server. There are a few exceptions (e.g. some power users need high-end 3D graphics unix-workstations far beyond what exists in the consumer market), but overall I could see it being a good fit. After all, when was the last time you saw Sun producing laptops? (No, Tadpoles don't count. That's not Sun.)
If this ever did achieve better than breakeven, it would make triggering a fusion bomb much easier.
No it wouldn't. The fission bomb is used to produce a high pressure shockwave sufficient to compress the dueterium. This won't produce a sufficient shockwave to act as a trigger.
Even if it doesn't reach breakeven, it still has weapons potential. This thing gives off neutrons.
Lots of things give off neutrons. They're useful for a controlled nuclear reaction like a power-plant, but not that useful when what you actually need is more pressure than the surface of Jupiter.
So the question is, Is This Experiment Reproducible? Amazingly the answer is "yes". Sonoluminescence has been an established fact in science since 1934, but has only gained attention again in 2002 when scientists began to investigate if Sonoluminescence might be... SonoFusion. The 2004 experiment by Taleyarkhan was reproducable enough that by 2005 most of the critics began to accept the idea that it might be fusion.
But are Fleischmann and Pons vindicated?
Taleyarkhan's experiments showed that sonofusion couldn't possibly be the cold fusion that excited the media so many years ago. Not only do you have to put more energy in than you get out, but the popping of each bubble produces a shockwave that heats the immediate area to thousands of degrees in temperature!
As it turns out, there's nothing cold about this fusion at all.
[Flip to video of lava flowing from volcano]
So for now, science will continue its search for this holy grail of "Cold" fusion. Perhaps one day, Fleischmann and Pons will be vindicated.
[fade to black]
(Don't you hate it when shows give you a cliffhanger like this; then after making you wait, spout some crap you already know?)
This isn't cold fusion, it's just a sneaky way of achieving hot fusion without huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets and such.
Bingo. And this is one of 50,000 articles that Slashdot has had on Sonofusion. The long and short of it is, there's lots of light and neutrons when some tiny bubbles pop. Some scientists think it's fusion. If it is fusion (as predicted), there's no current way to make it energy positive. However, it will make a nice desk ornament right next to your Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor. (Which is also table-top, BTW.)
I think that the shuttle's real strength was not so much its ability to launch satellites as its ability to service them. A strength that sadly now is being questioned for safety reasons (*cough* Hubble *cough*).
That's a strength that's rarely (if ever) used. The Space Shuttle can't reach a high enough orbit to service anything useful, so the Hubble was designed to be serviced by the Space Shuttle. Gave the Shuttle a use and all that.
NASA's original intent was to build an orbital tug that could move satellites into an orbit the Shuttle could reach. This would have allowed the Shuttle to act as a portable service station. Unfortunately, NASA learned the hard way that no one wants their old sats back. By the time a sat needs to be serviced it's usually due to be replaced with more modern technology anyway. Thus it's cheaper and easier to take the planned obsolescence instead of piddling around with the Space Shuttle.
I dunno. I look at it, and it looks like an average laptop rather than an Apple laptop. I'm starting to think it's the photo they have on the front page. It looks so... Dell-like. The other photos look better, though, so it may just be a case of bad first impressions.
I think the name is fine. Unfortunately, the product looks less like an Apple product and more like a laptop from a company that rhymes with "Hell".
In addition, it looks like they split the USB ports between the two sides of the laptop. That's just not cool. The power cord is a neat idea, though. I went through several of the older power adapters from my youngest son dumping my laptop off a desk. I tried to keep the door closed at all times, but he was a sneaky little bugger. Glad to see that Apple is addressing this issue in their newest lines.
Man, I wish I'd gotten in on those 50:1 odds against Intel machines, though. I'd be rolling in dough!
I was only off by the "what it was" part. (Which I realized shortly after posting.) The grandparent managed to spoil his own point by getting quite a few of the details out of whack. Oops.;-)
Wait, I've got a better idea, let's convince Tom's Hardware to try out kerosene or gasoline. Though I imagine the volatility of gasoline would be a problem (well that and flammability issues...)
Gasoline is neither volatile or flammable. This is important to remember when handling it. You may be treating that canister with kid gloves, but it's the fumes that you carelessly let evaporate out of the can that's going to singe your eyebrows off. Keep the lid on your computer, work in an open area with lots of ventilation, pay attention to basic safety precautions, and your gasoline powered computer should work great for many thousands of miles!
These five things will slowly reduce the quality of your oil, forcing pre-mature replacement, and adversly affecting the taste^W [operation] of the product^W [computer].
Salt is introduced into the oil when [you eat] the french fries are salted too close to the vat^W computer. This has immediately damaging affects on the oil. Always ensure that you salt the fries [you are going to eat] in the bin^W^W^W [on your desk] rather than over the vat^W [computer].
Water is naturally introduced into the oil from the air around us, and the moisture contained inside the french fries.^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W Try to shake off excess ice before cooking the fries.
Since air is all around us, there is not too much that can be done to stop this enemy of oil. However, keeping the lid on the vat^W [computer] when not in use has been shown to reduce oxygenation of the oil.
Carbon is introduced into the vat^W [computer] as the french fries are cooked. Use the handheld strainer to remove excess carbon from the vat^W [computer].
Heat is a constant threat to the oil. Since the french fries are often cooked at 400 degrees or higher^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W [Since the computer regularly operates at temperatures rivaling a nuclear power plant], it is important to constantly monitor the clarity and viscousness of the oil. Use of a portable strainer can remove destroyed oil, and allow you to rescue the oil that is still in good condition.
Follow these simple tips, and your french fries^W^W [computer] will remain tasty batch after batch!
I remember seeing the internet for the first time in 1994 and I'm pretty sure it had all the these problems back then too.
I don't know about anyone else, but I found a lot of those crappy webpages to be far more useful than many of the "pretty" ones done today. The old ones may have looked like they were pulled from a dumpster, but at least they carried real information. (Just remember to mute MIDI on your computer.) So many webpages today look pretty, but their content is nothing more than a lot of fluff. Welcome to the side effects of a commercialized Internet.:-(
Re:Old motor flashbacks
on
Scanjet Music
·
· Score: 1
The Winchester (remember those?) hard drives had a very musical quality to them.
The boot sequence on my old Laser Turbo XT would boot with (I swear) the opening tones of the "Night Court" theme song. It would play "whirrr-thunk", "whirrr-whirr-thunk-thunk-thunk". I was always disappointed that my drive didn't start into the rest of the song.
You can hear the Night Court theme song here. Just try to imagine those first bassy notes as a loud Winchester drive.
Here's an interesting story for you. Back in the days when live TV was more common, Timex was going to run a live advertisement that showcased the durability of their watches. They strapped the watch to a boat's propellor, spun it around a bit, then showed how it "takes a lick'n, and keeps on tick'n!"
Timex ran the test a dozen or so times before they were supposed to go live. That watch did fine in every test. Then the golden moment came, and they were on the air. The watch took a lick'n as it was supposed to...
...and it stopped ticking.
All those tests they had done, and the watch had finally failed for the real deal. So you can't always predict these things. Now it's always funniest when it happens to Microsoft, but if you give Murphy an inch, he'll make sure to make a fool of you every time.
Microsoft declined to comment in the EE Times report, which cited as evidence of Microsoft's success Hewlett-Packard's decision to back HD-DVD as well where it previously exclusively supported Blu-ray.
So yes. Besides, businesses hedge their bets all the time. If you put all your eggs in one basket based on a single long shot, then you're guaranteed to get burned. If you secretly put a few on the competition, you can do an about-face if your long-shot fails, and hopefully either break even or profit a bit.
I mean no offense, but I'd take that article with a very large grain of salt. On one hand it says that "PC makers must pay about $30 per drive in Blu-ray royalties." That's obviously referring to hardware. On the other hand it says, "Microsoft's forthcoming Vista version of Windows will include HD-DVD support for free," which is obviously referring to software. No mention of hardware costs. With such an apples to cucumbers comparison, I'd be looking carefully at the source of it. In this case, it comes straight from the mouth of the HP/Microsoft partnership who's trying desperately to discredit Blu-Ray any which way they can.
We'll see how it plays out in the end, but my guess is that the HD-DVD FUD will be its own downfall, regardless of whether the format is a good option or not. They're making it far too easy for the public to dismiss any good points they might have had. Just look at the Wikipedia articles on the two formats for a perfect example. The Blu-Ray article is carefully managed, and has been fleshed out extremely well. The HD-DVD article is nothing but FUD and Anti-FUD at the moment. Since the formats actually have a lot in common, I can only help but thing that the HD-DVD FUD campaign is what's driving all this nonsense.
Well, if you did edit that section, you were correct. Here's the part from the Blu-Ray FAQ (which wasn't as convenient when I made my last post):
Will Blu-ray be backwards compatible with DVD?
Yes, several leading consumer electronics companies (including Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and LG) have already demonstrated products that can read/write CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs using a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical head, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD collection becoming obsolete. Although it's up to each manufacturer to decide if they want to make their products backwards compatible with DVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) expects every Blu-ray Disc device to be backward compatible with CDs and DVDs.
If HD-DVD 'wins' the battle then current DVD isn't at all dead... HD-DVD is backwards compatible
Blu-Ray drives will most likely be backwards compatible as well. From the Wikipedia article:
While it is not compulsory for manufacturers, the Blu-ray Disc Association recommends that Blu-ray drives should be capable of reading DVDs, ensuring backward compatibility.
The whole "DVD" on the end of the name is just a ruse to get people to buy into the standard. There really isn't anything I can think of that makes HD-DVD superior to Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray, OTOH, has many positive features including the ability to wipe the disk without scratching it, and larger data capacities.
It is one piece of software that is designed to mimmick the behaviour of another piece of hardware or software in order to achieve the same functionality. That my boy, is an emulator.
Too bad that doesn't describe WINE. WINE is a run-time linker with a set of bundled libraries designed to be API compatible with the core Windows libraries. Absolutely NO emulation is happening.
Now there is a WINE for OS X project going on that uses QEmu (or was it bochs? I forget) to do actual emulation of the x86 instruction set, but that's a completely separate project from WINE. QED.
Slashdot Mirror
My biggest problem was finding a cheap, small and capable 12DC-DC power supply.
I know it's not exactly efficient, but you could have installed a DC->AC inverter, then plugged a regular AC->DC power supply into that. You'd get some loss in power, but your average draw (assuming you were using laptop parts) could easily be kept somewhere around 10-30 watts. Well within a range that your car's electrical system wouldn't notice.
Who said anything about violating Lawson's criteria? If the sonoluminescent fusion is actually occurring significantly above breakeven, then you've already exceeded Lawson and the critical ignition temperature somewhere!
I don't understand what you're getting at. You may be overcoming the Columb barrier inside your device, but that doesn't help create the shockwave used in an H-Bomb. The problem isn't just a matter of energy. It's a matter of gaining a compression shockwave powerful enough to compress the dueterium sphere of the bomb. The fission bomb was used for this because no one had yet figured out any other way of getting the compression necessary to make fusion work.
Now if you have an energy positive fusion method, you might be able to engineer a comletely different type of bomb. (i.e. Make the sonofusion itself the bomb.) I say "might", however, because a bomb needs the sudden and massive release of energy that's usually associated with super-criticality. Just having an energy positive device isn't enough. You need a runaway reaction that burns through the fuel within seconds. The fission bomb does that through sudden compression of the fissible materials. That produces a shockwave energetic enough to compress ALL of the dueterium the fusion.
That's okay. IBM gave EJBs to J2EE, so I'd say they're still pretty close.
Sun doesn't make consumer hardware. Apple does. Somewhere in there, there's a golden middle whereby Apple's hardware works well on the desktop and Sun's hardware works well on the server. There are a few exceptions (e.g. some power users need high-end 3D graphics unix-workstations far beyond what exists in the consumer market), but overall I could see it being a good fit. After all, when was the last time you saw Sun producing laptops? (No, Tadpoles don't count. That's not Sun.)
If this ever did achieve better than breakeven, it would make triggering a fusion bomb much easier.
No it wouldn't. The fission bomb is used to produce a high pressure shockwave sufficient to compress the dueterium. This won't produce a sufficient shockwave to act as a trigger.
Even if it doesn't reach breakeven, it still has weapons potential. This thing gives off neutrons.
Lots of things give off neutrons. They're useful for a controlled nuclear reaction like a power-plant, but not that useful when what you actually need is more pressure than the surface of Jupiter.
We now return from our commercial break.
[applause]
So the question is, Is This Experiment Reproducible? Amazingly the answer is "yes". Sonoluminescence has been an established fact in science since 1934, but has only gained attention again in 2002 when scientists began to investigate if Sonoluminescence might be... SonoFusion. The 2004 experiment by Taleyarkhan was reproducable enough that by 2005 most of the critics began to accept the idea that it might be fusion.
But are Fleischmann and Pons vindicated?
Taleyarkhan's experiments showed that sonofusion couldn't possibly be the cold fusion that excited the media so many years ago. Not only do you have to put more energy in than you get out, but the popping of each bubble produces a shockwave that heats the immediate area to thousands of degrees in temperature!
As it turns out, there's nothing cold about this fusion at all.
[Flip to video of lava flowing from volcano]
So for now, science will continue its search for this holy grail of "Cold" fusion. Perhaps one day, Fleischmann and Pons will be vindicated.
[fade to black]
(Don't you hate it when shows give you a cliffhanger like this; then after making you wait, spout some crap you already know?)
This isn't cold fusion, it's just a sneaky way of achieving hot fusion without huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets and such.
Bingo. And this is one of 50,000 articles that Slashdot has had on Sonofusion. The long and short of it is, there's lots of light and neutrons when some tiny bubbles pop. Some scientists think it's fusion. If it is fusion (as predicted), there's no current way to make it energy positive. However, it will make a nice desk ornament right next to your Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor. (Which is also table-top, BTW.)
I think that the shuttle's real strength was not so much its ability to launch satellites as its ability to service them. A strength that sadly now is being questioned for safety reasons (*cough* Hubble *cough*).
That's a strength that's rarely (if ever) used. The Space Shuttle can't reach a high enough orbit to service anything useful, so the Hubble was designed to be serviced by the Space Shuttle. Gave the Shuttle a use and all that.
NASA's original intent was to build an orbital tug that could move satellites into an orbit the Shuttle could reach. This would have allowed the Shuttle to act as a portable service station. Unfortunately, NASA learned the hard way that no one wants their old sats back. By the time a sat needs to be serviced it's usually due to be replaced with more modern technology anyway. Thus it's cheaper and easier to take the planned obsolescence instead of piddling around with the Space Shuttle.
The USB on my Mac is on the left side. I'm right handed. Do the math.
I dunno. I look at it, and it looks like an average laptop rather than an Apple laptop. I'm starting to think it's the photo they have on the front page. It looks so... Dell-like. The other photos look better, though, so it may just be a case of bad first impressions.
Hate the name, hate it hate it hate it. "MacBook Pro" sounds like a kiddy toy
:-P
You're right. They should have called it "BigMac".
I think the name is fine. Unfortunately, the product looks less like an Apple product and more like a laptop from a company that rhymes with "Hell".
In addition, it looks like they split the USB ports between the two sides of the laptop. That's just not cool. The power cord is a neat idea, though. I went through several of the older power adapters from my youngest son dumping my laptop off a desk. I tried to keep the door closed at all times, but he was a sneaky little bugger. Glad to see that Apple is addressing this issue in their newest lines.
Man, I wish I'd gotten in on those 50:1 odds against Intel machines, though. I'd be rolling in dough!
Gah, you beat me to it.
;-)
I was only off by the "what it was" part. (Which I realized shortly after posting.) The grandparent managed to spoil his own point by getting quite a few of the details out of whack. Oops.
This is the song that doesn't end...
Yes, it goes on and on my friend!
Some people started singing it
not knowing what they'd done,
and they'll continue singing it
forever just because...
This is the song that doesn't end...
(EVERYONE!)
Wait, I've got a better idea, let's convince Tom's Hardware to try out kerosene or gasoline. Though I imagine the volatility of gasoline would be a problem (well that and flammability issues...)
Gasoline is neither volatile or flammable. This is important to remember when handling it. You may be treating that canister with kid gloves, but it's the fumes that you carelessly let evaporate out of the can that's going to singe your eyebrows off. Keep the lid on your computer, work in an open area with lots of ventilation, pay attention to basic safety precautions, and your gasoline powered computer should work great for many thousands of miles!
Always remember the five enemies of oil: SWACH
Salt
Water
Air
Carbon
Heat
These five things will slowly reduce the quality of your oil, forcing pre-mature replacement, and adversly affecting the taste^W [operation] of the product^W [computer].
Salt is introduced into the oil when [you eat] the french fries are salted too close to the vat^W computer. This has immediately damaging affects on the oil. Always ensure that you salt the fries [you are going to eat] in the bin^W^W^W [on your desk] rather than over the vat^W [computer].
Water is naturally introduced into the oil from the air around us, and the moisture contained inside the french fries.^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W Try to shake off excess ice before cooking the fries.
Since air is all around us, there is not too much that can be done to stop this enemy of oil. However, keeping the lid on the vat^W [computer] when not in use has been shown to reduce oxygenation of the oil.
Carbon is introduced into the vat^W [computer] as the french fries are cooked. Use the handheld strainer to remove excess carbon from the vat^W [computer].
Heat is a constant threat to the oil. Since the french fries are often cooked at 400 degrees or higher^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W [Since the computer regularly operates at temperatures rivaling a nuclear power plant], it is important to constantly monitor the clarity and viscousness of the oil. Use of a portable strainer can remove destroyed oil, and allow you to rescue the oil that is still in good condition.
Follow these simple tips, and your french fries^W^W [computer] will remain tasty batch after batch!
* tongue planted firmly in cheek
I remember seeing the internet for the first time in 1994 and I'm pretty sure it had all the these problems back then too.
:-(
I don't know about anyone else, but I found a lot of those crappy webpages to be far more useful than many of the "pretty" ones done today. The old ones may have looked like they were pulled from a dumpster, but at least they carried real information. (Just remember to mute MIDI on your computer.) So many webpages today look pretty, but their content is nothing more than a lot of fluff. Welcome to the side effects of a commercialized Internet.
The Winchester (remember those?) hard drives had a very musical quality to them.
The boot sequence on my old Laser Turbo XT would boot with (I swear) the opening tones of the "Night Court" theme song. It would play "whirrr-thunk", "whirrr-whirr-thunk-thunk-thunk". I was always disappointed that my drive didn't start into the rest of the song.
You can hear the Night Court theme song here. Just try to imagine those first bassy notes as a loud Winchester drive.
Here's an interesting story for you. Back in the days when live TV was more common, Timex was going to run a live advertisement that showcased the durability of their watches. They strapped the watch to a boat's propellor, spun it around a bit, then showed how it "takes a lick'n, and keeps on tick'n!"
...and it stopped ticking.
Timex ran the test a dozen or so times before they were supposed to go live. That watch did fine in every test. Then the golden moment came, and they were on the air. The watch took a lick'n as it was supposed to...
All those tests they had done, and the watch had finally failed for the real deal. So you can't always predict these things. Now it's always funniest when it happens to Microsoft, but if you give Murphy an inch, he'll make sure to make a fool of you every time.
From the article:
Microsoft declined to comment in the EE Times report, which cited as evidence of Microsoft's success Hewlett-Packard's decision to back HD-DVD as well where it previously exclusively supported Blu-ray.
So yes. Besides, businesses hedge their bets all the time. If you put all your eggs in one basket based on a single long shot, then you're guaranteed to get burned. If you secretly put a few on the competition, you can do an about-face if your long-shot fails, and hopefully either break even or profit a bit.
I mean no offense, but I'd take that article with a very large grain of salt. On one hand it says that "PC makers must pay about $30 per drive in Blu-ray royalties." That's obviously referring to hardware. On the other hand it says, "Microsoft's forthcoming Vista version of Windows will include HD-DVD support for free," which is obviously referring to software. No mention of hardware costs. With such an apples to cucumbers comparison, I'd be looking carefully at the source of it. In this case, it comes straight from the mouth of the HP/Microsoft partnership who's trying desperately to discredit Blu-Ray any which way they can.
We'll see how it plays out in the end, but my guess is that the HD-DVD FUD will be its own downfall, regardless of whether the format is a good option or not. They're making it far too easy for the public to dismiss any good points they might have had. Just look at the Wikipedia articles on the two formats for a perfect example. The Blu-Ray article is carefully managed, and has been fleshed out extremely well. The HD-DVD article is nothing but FUD and Anti-FUD at the moment. Since the formats actually have a lot in common, I can only help but thing that the HD-DVD FUD campaign is what's driving all this nonsense.
Well, if you did edit that section, you were correct. Here's the part from the Blu-Ray FAQ (which wasn't as convenient when I made my last post):
Will Blu-ray be backwards compatible with DVD?
Yes, several leading consumer electronics companies (including Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and LG) have already demonstrated products that can read/write CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs using a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical head, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD collection becoming obsolete. Although it's up to each manufacturer to decide if they want to make their products backwards compatible with DVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) expects every Blu-ray Disc device to be backward compatible with CDs and DVDs.
If HD-DVD 'wins' the battle then current DVD isn't at all dead... HD-DVD is backwards compatible
Blu-Ray drives will most likely be backwards compatible as well. From the Wikipedia article:
While it is not compulsory for manufacturers, the Blu-ray Disc Association recommends that Blu-ray drives should be capable of reading DVDs, ensuring backward compatibility.
The whole "DVD" on the end of the name is just a ruse to get people to buy into the standard. There really isn't anything I can think of that makes HD-DVD superior to Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray, OTOH, has many positive features including the ability to wipe the disk without scratching it, and larger data capacities.
It is one piece of software that is designed to mimmick the behaviour of another piece of hardware or software in order to achieve the same functionality. That my boy, is an emulator.
Too bad that doesn't describe WINE. WINE is a run-time linker with a set of bundled libraries designed to be API compatible with the core Windows libraries. Absolutely NO emulation is happening.
Now there is a WINE for OS X project going on that uses QEmu (or was it bochs? I forget) to do actual emulation of the x86 instruction set, but that's a completely separate project from WINE. QED.
Keep the line at a brisk walk and you should be ok.
...
Is it just me, or did you just make a Heinlien reference?
Must be just me.