That's because a lot of manufacturers bundle together unrelated systems for upgrade packages. Want in-dash navigation? You have to get our Deluxe Travelling Upgrade for only $2499..
Last car I purchased had the GPS option that ran something like 5 grand by itself. At the time (as now) you could purchase a GPS unit for 1/20th of the price. The interesting part is that in this vehicle, the only thing 5 Grand actually got you was an add in GPS receiver and the software/data loaded on the computer. All the wiring, antenna, buttons, display, Voice Recondition system, you name it was already in place as part of the base package for the vehicle. There is NO WAY this wasn't more than 90% profit plus what ever you had to pay for map updates...
Needless to say, I didn't buy the option.... Or the undercoating, or the extended warranty.... New Car dealers are usually scam artist if you ask me, don't get me started on USED car salesmen...
Ummmm... Perhaps you are being sarcastic or Perhaps you have not purchased a car in the last decade?
The "controller" functions, fuel injection management, air bag deployment, anti-lock breaks and such are usually self contained boxes that have their firmware/software in solid state storage and not on some hard drive. These functions do not suffer from having to support a window's GUI interface and display drivers and are usually hosted on very low end processors built to work in pretty extreme temperature and vibration environments.
Where you find the need for mass storage is in the entertainment systems (storage of music, video etc) and GPS maps (although that's pretty limited in size these days). So, Yes, Hard Drives have found their way into some of the more high end (and somewhat lower end) entertainment systems used in cars, but I don't know of a single Fuel Injection/Engine Management computer that has one as there is simply no need for that much storage.
Parts of cars often aren't even interchangeable between different option packages from cars of the same model/year. And things are almost never shared across manufacturers.
Not exactly.. Many more car parts are interchangeable than you might imagine or readily see when you visit the local auto parts store. The parts guy just runs to the back and pulls your parts from his inventory. You don't know how many parts he really has.
Of course, body parts and interior plastic parts are usually not interchangeable (though some are) an amazing number of commonly used auto parts ARE very much reused and interchangeable. The more often the part is needed, the more likely it will be used on multiple vehicles. Filters, belts, tires, wheels, break parts, light bulbs, batteries, fuses, clamps, clips, fasteners and even engines (with accessories) and transmissions are commonly used for many model years on multiple vehicles and manufacturers. Many are simply so commonly used that we don't think of them as being important and many we just don't realize how common they are because the parts guy just hands you a box with break pads from the back. You don't have a clue how many different types of break pads he has in the back that don't fit your car, could be 10, could be 1,000...
Because technology is usually better understood after a few years of fielding experience and testing. We are not saying that an old drive would be more reliable, but that a newly designed drive, using old technology can be more reliable. Advancements in manufacturing technology can also lead to much better reliability and extended operating environment parameters when internally using old technology. Of course, these can lead to reductions in costs too.
So, using old technology can make a device more reliable..
And exactly how do you propose this would work with lasers?
Two effects of lasers could be useful, but I don't think either of them really helps in any useful way.
One, you could push an object with a laser. The effect is pretty small, but you could adjust an object's orbit by giving it a small push from time to time. I suppose you could eventually get it to re-enter if you can adjust the orbit enough over time. This would take a LONG time considering you would likely want the laser to be earth based so you could only push on the object at irregular intervals based on the object's orbit and the direction the laser can push it at any given time. I don't think that's going to be a usable situation.
The other effect is heating. Again, this effect is pretty useless. If you succeeded in turning an object into molten slag, all it's going to do is turn into a bunch of small round objects with the same mass as the original object (best case). Their orbit won't change and you have simply made the problem of gathering up the junk harder. I suppose you could hope to vaporize the thing, but that is going to take a LOT more energy.
Lasers just don't seem to be a viable option here.
In LEO, orbiting debris are a self limiting problem. They will eventually deorbit on their own. So I guess that's not an issue for you.
In Geosynchronous orbit, every object is going to be pretty much moving in exactly the same direction anyway so the relative velocity is really small. The risk of collision is pretty small and the debris created would be minimal at low collision energies.
Outside these two areas, collecting orbiting debris, which vary in size from a few tons down to a few grams is a daunting task at best. How do one would imagine this could be done is the stuff of science fiction at best. Any collection system would by definition need to collect varying sized objects passing though a huge (by human standards) volume. This means there will need to be some pretty large structures launched, flown in space, survive the impact of collecting the desired objects and dispose of the collected mass. All this will need to happen without adding to the problem....
I just don't see how we are going to do this.
Personally, mankind would be better off if we took a debris mitigation strategy that required all launched hardware be mindful of not creating debris in orbits that would not naturally reenter within 5 years or so. We do this kind of thing now, at least the responsible people throwing most of the stuff in to space do, no telling what DPRK does.
Other than that, we might want to start thinking about building "space tugs" that can capture the junk that's collecting in geosynchronous orbit, tug it to less popular locations and work on ways to recycle parts of it. It sure doesn't seem worth the effort to deorbit the stuff that is that high up.
I said that it would serve fairly well in some applications as compared to the WRT hardware that got dropped. The Pi sure has limitations, but it's a pretty cheap platform that comes at a similar price point to what you can get WRT hardware for.
My real interest would be in the *other* cards out there at similar price points to the Pi. I think the Pi has at least spurred on the development of similar cards which are more capable (memory, CPU etc) and hopefully will lower the prices of such cards.
Using the Pi as a router does have it's interesting advantages and the price point is pretty close in that application as the smaller cheaper Pi would serve well in that capacity. Shame to drop support for the smaller devices, but you can beat yourself to death trying to support too many platforms.
By the way, the Pi offerings are not the only options out there. I'm seeing a lot of similar cards popping up out there.
As long as he only accidentally shoots himself. That's fine. However, he can't gurantee that.
But it's irresponsible behavior like that that gives fuel to the anti-gun crowd.
I don't see it as dangerous enough to arm the Anti Gun crowd. Personally, I'd be willing to sacrifice the one extra round for that extra measure of safety and I just don't sit near him. If it went off the way he carries it, he's only going to hit his backside and the floor behind him (or somebodies foot in the worst case).:)
I know a guy who carries his fully loaded with a round chambered and doesn't use a holster. I would prefer he didn't chamber that final round or had it in a holster, but I don't see a problem if he wants to carry that way.
The chances of getting caught by a patent troll firm is pretty high because it is extremely easy to find you by IP address. Of course, it depends on where you live. Here in the US it's pretty risky, other countries may not have a legal system that is as easy to use by patent trolls.
Of course you *could* go out of your way to side step their ability to find you by IP address, but when you do, you just bypassed the benefit of using a torrent to get the material and would likely get it faster by just transferring it direct and bypassing all the risks of a Torrent.
So I don't engage in distribution of stuff that doesn't come with a license that allows me to make copies and distribute. First, it's too legally risky and more importantly I don't think it is morally and ethically right....
Que loud discussion about the moral and ethical nature of patent and copyright laws by the "everything should be free but keep sending my paycheck to me" crowd in three, two,......
Because the proper word is "WOULD" based on their past history. Amazon is ALL about selling you stuff and they will do anything they can think of to keep you buying stuff from them. I'm totally sure that amazon WOULD use a set top box to advertise their stuff, it's in their DNA.
If you don't get that I can tell you don't have a Kindle. You either get to see advertisements every time you pick up your kindle, or you paid extra for the thing. They are great devices, but it's all about selling you stuff though THEIR interface, THEIR app store and you cannot easily break free from that.
Does this seem like fishing expeditions by patent trolls?
No need to go fishing here.. Just find the torrent tracker and connect... Volia, you have a list of everybody who is distributing the material by IP address. It's all about tracing down the IP's and sending out the collection letters and cashing the checks from there, assuming you actually have the permission of the copyright holder to do so...
rsync? I'd use SCP myself, it's a whole lot more secure and the data goes encrypted. That way you won't accidentally share it with anybody while it's in transit.
I specifically do not torrent anything that has copyright issues but I do seed a number of Linux distributions and development tools which do not prevent distribution in their licenses. Downloading anything using torrent is effectively distribution of the material too, so you had better KNOW that the license allows you to make copies and give them away.
You folks that torrent movies and stuff that is not in the public domain are crazy in my book.
Bitcoins provide a degree of anonymity which is not possible with traditional methods of electronic banking
Really? I don't think they necessarily provide anonymity. All transactions are public record, which is pretty much how the BTC system works. You sign a transaction with your key to transfer money (bitcoin) to somebody else and that gets recorded in public records. These transactions are *anything* but private. If you know somebodies public key, you can go back and trace any transaction they have made by looking though publicly published data. All you need to do is start an archive of bitcoin transaction blocks and you can have a complete transaction history for every bitcoin ever traded. All you need to do is a little detective work and you could start tracing down who's who by data mining the transaction logs.
What bitcoins *do* provide, at least for now, is a way to transfer large sums outside of a government's tracking and reporting laws. A practice which is rapidly getting brought under the laws folks think they can avoid by using bitcoin. That is the push towards getting exchanges to start reporting their transactions just like they do other currency trades. I would expect BTC regulation to only increase if it truly is used for illegal purposes.
Waves have nothing to do with this. Only the temperature difference between the surface water and deeper water. The higher the difference, the better which is why this works the best in tropical regions.
They will "boil" the working fluid in heat exchangers near the surface, generate power with the vapor, then send the vapor down to deep cold water to get condensed. I suppose that they then pump the liquid back up to the surface to start over. Seems like it will work in theory, assuming the working fluid has the proper boiling point and high enough latent heat of vaporization so enough heat can be moved. I'm worried that in order to get the proper temperatures for the phase changes is going to require working pressures that are going to be difficult to maintain or it will require large quantities of some nasty chemicals.
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That's because a lot of manufacturers bundle together unrelated systems for upgrade packages. Want in-dash navigation? You have to get our Deluxe Travelling Upgrade for only $2499..
Last car I purchased had the GPS option that ran something like 5 grand by itself. At the time (as now) you could purchase a GPS unit for 1/20th of the price. The interesting part is that in this vehicle, the only thing 5 Grand actually got you was an add in GPS receiver and the software/data loaded on the computer. All the wiring, antenna, buttons, display, Voice Recondition system, you name it was already in place as part of the base package for the vehicle. There is NO WAY this wasn't more than 90% profit plus what ever you had to pay for map updates...
Needless to say, I didn't buy the option.... Or the undercoating, or the extended warranty.... New Car dealers are usually scam artist if you ask me, don't get me started on USED car salesmen...
Ummmm... Perhaps you are being sarcastic or Perhaps you have not purchased a car in the last decade?
The "controller" functions, fuel injection management, air bag deployment, anti-lock breaks and such are usually self contained boxes that have their firmware/software in solid state storage and not on some hard drive. These functions do not suffer from having to support a window's GUI interface and display drivers and are usually hosted on very low end processors built to work in pretty extreme temperature and vibration environments.
Where you find the need for mass storage is in the entertainment systems (storage of music, video etc) and GPS maps (although that's pretty limited in size these days). So, Yes, Hard Drives have found their way into some of the more high end (and somewhat lower end) entertainment systems used in cars, but I don't know of a single Fuel Injection/Engine Management computer that has one as there is simply no need for that much storage.
Parts of cars often aren't even interchangeable between different option packages from cars of the same model/year. And things are almost never shared across manufacturers.
Not exactly.. Many more car parts are interchangeable than you might imagine or readily see when you visit the local auto parts store. The parts guy just runs to the back and pulls your parts from his inventory. You don't know how many parts he really has.
Of course, body parts and interior plastic parts are usually not interchangeable (though some are) an amazing number of commonly used auto parts ARE very much reused and interchangeable. The more often the part is needed, the more likely it will be used on multiple vehicles. Filters, belts, tires, wheels, break parts, light bulbs, batteries, fuses, clamps, clips, fasteners and even engines (with accessories) and transmissions are commonly used for many model years on multiple vehicles and manufacturers. Many are simply so commonly used that we don't think of them as being important and many we just don't realize how common they are because the parts guy just hands you a box with break pads from the back. You don't have a clue how many different types of break pads he has in the back that don't fit your car, could be 10, could be 1,000...
What makes you think older tech is more reliable?
Because technology is usually better understood after a few years of fielding experience and testing. We are not saying that an old drive would be more reliable, but that a newly designed drive, using old technology can be more reliable. Advancements in manufacturing technology can also lead to much better reliability and extended operating environment parameters when internally using old technology. Of course, these can lead to reductions in costs too.
So, using old technology can make a device more reliable..
And exactly how do you propose this would work with lasers?
Two effects of lasers could be useful, but I don't think either of them really helps in any useful way.
One, you could push an object with a laser. The effect is pretty small, but you could adjust an object's orbit by giving it a small push from time to time. I suppose you could eventually get it to re-enter if you can adjust the orbit enough over time. This would take a LONG time considering you would likely want the laser to be earth based so you could only push on the object at irregular intervals based on the object's orbit and the direction the laser can push it at any given time. I don't think that's going to be a usable situation.
The other effect is heating. Again, this effect is pretty useless. If you succeeded in turning an object into molten slag, all it's going to do is turn into a bunch of small round objects with the same mass as the original object (best case). Their orbit won't change and you have simply made the problem of gathering up the junk harder. I suppose you could hope to vaporize the thing, but that is going to take a LOT more energy.
Lasers just don't seem to be a viable option here.
Oh man, where do you start with this?
In LEO, orbiting debris are a self limiting problem. They will eventually deorbit on their own. So I guess that's not an issue for you.
In Geosynchronous orbit, every object is going to be pretty much moving in exactly the same direction anyway so the relative velocity is really small. The risk of collision is pretty small and the debris created would be minimal at low collision energies.
Outside these two areas, collecting orbiting debris, which vary in size from a few tons down to a few grams is a daunting task at best. How do one would imagine this could be done is the stuff of science fiction at best. Any collection system would by definition need to collect varying sized objects passing though a huge (by human standards) volume. This means there will need to be some pretty large structures launched, flown in space, survive the impact of collecting the desired objects and dispose of the collected mass. All this will need to happen without adding to the problem....
I just don't see how we are going to do this.
Personally, mankind would be better off if we took a debris mitigation strategy that required all launched hardware be mindful of not creating debris in orbits that would not naturally reenter within 5 years or so. We do this kind of thing now, at least the responsible people throwing most of the stuff in to space do, no telling what DPRK does.
Other than that, we might want to start thinking about building "space tugs" that can capture the junk that's collecting in geosynchronous orbit, tug it to less popular locations and work on ways to recycle parts of it. It sure doesn't seem worth the effort to deorbit the stuff that is that high up.
I said that it would serve fairly well in some applications as compared to the WRT hardware that got dropped. The Pi sure has limitations, but it's a pretty cheap platform that comes at a similar price point to what you can get WRT hardware for.
My real interest would be in the *other* cards out there at similar price points to the Pi. I think the Pi has at least spurred on the development of similar cards which are more capable (memory, CPU etc) and hopefully will lower the prices of such cards.
Worked at CERN?
I never would have guessed that.
Using the Pi as a router does have it's interesting advantages and the price point is pretty close in that application as the smaller cheaper Pi would serve well in that capacity. Shame to drop support for the smaller devices, but you can beat yourself to death trying to support too many platforms.
By the way, the Pi offerings are not the only options out there. I'm seeing a lot of similar cards popping up out there.
N2 is not cold enough for this application...
I'll give you your point.
In my experience, even a picture of an unloaded gun is enough to inflame the standard "Anti Gun Crowd" so I get your point.
You do realize everytime rednecks leave their guns out and their kids shoot themselves it makes front page on cnn adding fuel to the fire right?
This... would effectively stop that piece of it, with an added bonus of knowing your own guns can't be used against you.
For most of the "Anti Gun Crowd" just a picture of an unloaded gun is enough to inflame.. So I will concede the point.
As long as he only accidentally shoots himself. That's fine. However, he can't gurantee that.
But it's irresponsible behavior like that that gives fuel to the anti-gun crowd.
I don't see it as dangerous enough to arm the Anti Gun crowd. Personally, I'd be willing to sacrifice the one extra round for that extra measure of safety and I just don't sit near him. If it went off the way he carries it, he's only going to hit his backside and the floor behind him (or somebodies foot in the worst case). :)
Not having a round chambered..
I know a guy who carries his fully loaded with a round chambered and doesn't use a holster. I would prefer he didn't chamber that final round or had it in a holster, but I don't see a problem if he wants to carry that way.
The chances of getting caught by a patent troll firm is pretty high because it is extremely easy to find you by IP address. Of course, it depends on where you live. Here in the US it's pretty risky, other countries may not have a legal system that is as easy to use by patent trolls.
Of course you *could* go out of your way to side step their ability to find you by IP address, but when you do, you just bypassed the benefit of using a torrent to get the material and would likely get it faster by just transferring it direct and bypassing all the risks of a Torrent.
So I don't engage in distribution of stuff that doesn't come with a license that allows me to make copies and distribute. First, it's too legally risky and more importantly I don't think it is morally and ethically right....
Que loud discussion about the moral and ethical nature of patent and copyright laws by the "everything should be free but keep sending my paycheck to me" crowd in three, two, ......
It all boils back down to using the right tool for the job.
The wise keep as many tools in their tool box as possible. You seem to be among the wise.
Netflix is turning record profits and actually just beat the street's estimates on their last quarters earnings. They are NOT hurting...
Of course I'm not commenting on the material they have on Netflix... That is kind of painful..
what's wrong with "could"?
Because the proper word is "WOULD" based on their past history. Amazon is ALL about selling you stuff and they will do anything they can think of to keep you buying stuff from them. I'm totally sure that amazon WOULD use a set top box to advertise their stuff, it's in their DNA.
If you don't get that I can tell you don't have a Kindle. You either get to see advertisements every time you pick up your kindle, or you paid extra for the thing. They are great devices, but it's all about selling you stuff though THEIR interface, THEIR app store and you cannot easily break free from that.
why not a kindle with a hdmi port?
Why not a packaged Raspberry PI running Android? Costs is under $100 if you buy in bulk... Oh wait....
Does this seem like fishing expeditions by patent trolls?
No need to go fishing here.. Just find the torrent tracker and connect... Volia, you have a list of everybody who is distributing the material by IP address. It's all about tracing down the IP's and sending out the collection letters and cashing the checks from there, assuming you actually have the permission of the copyright holder to do so...
rsync? I'd use SCP myself, it's a whole lot more secure and the data goes encrypted. That way you won't accidentally share it with anybody while it's in transit.
I specifically do not torrent anything that has copyright issues but I do seed a number of Linux distributions and development tools which do not prevent distribution in their licenses. Downloading anything using torrent is effectively distribution of the material too, so you had better KNOW that the license allows you to make copies and give them away.
You folks that torrent movies and stuff that is not in the public domain are crazy in my book.
Not being a currency or options trader... I don't know either. Wonder if anybody wants to start an exchange that sells options in bitcoin?
Remember, it's not the traders that make money, it's the brokers that make money.
Bitcoins provide a degree of anonymity which is not possible with traditional methods of electronic banking
Really? I don't think they necessarily provide anonymity. All transactions are public record, which is pretty much how the BTC system works. You sign a transaction with your key to transfer money (bitcoin) to somebody else and that gets recorded in public records. These transactions are *anything* but private. If you know somebodies public key, you can go back and trace any transaction they have made by looking though publicly published data. All you need to do is start an archive of bitcoin transaction blocks and you can have a complete transaction history for every bitcoin ever traded. All you need to do is a little detective work and you could start tracing down who's who by data mining the transaction logs.
What bitcoins *do* provide, at least for now, is a way to transfer large sums outside of a government's tracking and reporting laws. A practice which is rapidly getting brought under the laws folks think they can avoid by using bitcoin. That is the push towards getting exchanges to start reporting their transactions just like they do other currency trades. I would expect BTC regulation to only increase if it truly is used for illegal purposes.
Waves have nothing to do with this. Only the temperature difference between the surface water and deeper water. The higher the difference, the better which is why this works the best in tropical regions.
They will "boil" the working fluid in heat exchangers near the surface, generate power with the vapor, then send the vapor down to deep cold water to get condensed. I suppose that they then pump the liquid back up to the surface to start over. Seems like it will work in theory, assuming the working fluid has the proper boiling point and high enough latent heat of vaporization so enough heat can be moved. I'm worried that in order to get the proper temperatures for the phase changes is going to require working pressures that are going to be difficult to maintain or it will require large quantities of some nasty chemicals.