Even if you spend the money, you may find (as I did) that "dimmable" is true only in the weak sense for non-incandescent technology. I have spent about $1200 on LED fixtures in my basement, and a certain (smaller) on "dimmable" flourescents only to find that the LEDs and flourescents are only capable of dropping to maybe 1/2 of the full brightness.
To me, true dimmability requires reaching 1/50 or so of perceived brightness (roughly the change from a movie theater to a brightly lit office), which according to Steven's Law, needs a luminosity change of 1/12500. Apparently no matter what you spend (and again, I have tried the quality stuff) you just cannot get there with the new technologies.
While true, 20W running all day every day still comes to 1226 kWH per year, which is 2.75 times as much as the set-top box discussed in the article. Your Wifi link alone, at 8 watts, draws more power per year (490 kWH). Those numbers surprise me, and make think there must be a lot of lower-hanging fruit around the average household.
We are losing the engineering battle not for lack of engineers, but for lack of competitive manufacturing capabilities (and incentives to have a manufacturing industry) in American soil.
Why fetishize manufacturing? As with farming, manufacturing requires much less labor to generate the same output using modern technology. Even if more manufacturing were brought back onshore, it would be automated to the gills and generate relatively few jobs (though more of them in engineering, I will concede).
Our economy is now mostly a service economy, which is generally good for health and happiness. I am highly suspicious of government efforts to plan and guide the economy; there's a reason the US leads the world in the interesting and lucrative service industries such as entertainment, software development and internet services.
Obama spent his entire life in academia...and really doesn't have a clue what anybody actually needs.
As opposed to whom? Our presidents since Carter have included nobody with "real" work experience. We've had a famous actor, silver-spoon CEO types, a military guy, and career politicians (along with combinations of the above).
I agree with you that a lot of the nursing shortage is artificial in much the same way the engineer shortage is, but feel compelled to point out that doctor shortages exists too, both geographically (many rural areas) and by specialty (obstetricians and general practitioners).
That's an insightful question. You name precisely the tradeoff many others choose in my situation, typically accepting a long commute for one -- sometimes both -- parents in exchange for certainty and quality of schooling (as well as big lawns and so on). For context: my profession pretty much requires that I work in a big city.
I decided I didn't want the second car and the yard, and most importantly that having a short commute would give me 5-10 hours of extra time with my kids every week. Pricing that at about $25 per hour per kid comes to $20K to $40K per year in my case, which generally wiped out the economic arguments for the suburbs.
I urge everyone to read to the end which relates impoverished Vipil's successes, showing why good education for everyone is a great boon for society.
Though I like the outcomes of India's law, I think it is impinging on the freedom of the schools too much. Consider the borderline families, where the effective 25% price premium means the difference between sending their children to a good school or not. We barely afford to send our own kids to private school, and an extra charge of that size might well kick us out.
The real solution is to make the public schools so good that almost no one feels tempted to go private. Both India and America have problems getting there, but I think it's possible.
In the meantime, I'll spend the money to make sure my kids learn about evolution, partake in music, gym and recess, avoid bullies and silly zero-tolerance policies, and meet friends who think books are cool. And I'm giving up vacations, cars, and retirement savings to do that, so please don't confiscate my money specifically to improve general education. Good education is important enough that everyone should benefit and everyone should pay.
You define gaming as FPS in addition to everything that isn't a FPS, buy a PC.
Its that simple.
I disagree. I define gaming as rhythm games (Rock Band, Guitar Hero, dance games), driving games (GT), and some Mario. On a big plasma screen. And I am not unusual in this; those are all very popular categories for which a PC is more or less useless.
You also encounter the ham sandwich in some logic / philosophy classes, as follows.
Proposition A ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness
Proof - A ham sandwich is better than nothing. - Nothing is better than eternal happiness. - Therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness. QED.
You are far too dismissive of solanum, the quasi-audiophile.
He did not say whether or not he attends concerts, but quality classical music performances are far more expensive and harder to find than rock in all but the biggest cities. I get to see some of the best here in Chicago, but even I want to listen to recordings at high quality. (I also have a damn good shot at getting lucky, since I have an awesome wife.)
Now the term audiophile is loaded, but it is quite obvious that electrical circuits come in a wide variety of quality...you can verify it for yourself by purchasing a $10 MP3 player from newegg or its ilk and comparing its sound to almost any name-brand equipment. swordgeek (the GP) is effectively pointing out that a smart person can find excellent cost/quality tradeoffs without buying into the pseudoscience that is so very mockable.
You should save your derision for those who deserve it!
I dunno. I've heard some pretty terrible sound mixes at live venues. Nothing like using earplugs to bring horribly clipped audio down to a non-painful volume.
The floor traders couldn't be idiots, and actually had to be pretty fast and accurate with simple mental arithmetic, but calculus was pretty tough for most of them. And yes, physical jostling was part of the job. It's not a push like an NFL block...more like one notch below NBA jostling under the basket for rebounds (and less intense at that because they have to keep it up for 7 hours, while trying to trade). The idea is that when a favorable trade is called out, you want to be the guy in front whose hand signal is seen and calls are heard.
Also as you infer, in many cases the "paper" (or big industry players) would indeed call down to the floor to have the grunts pull off big trades. There were fights too, to the degree that a schedule of fines existed for specific acts of violence. I recall it wasn't super-detailed but definitely distinguished a single punch from a full (attempted) beatdown.
I was there in the mid-90s when this behavior was beginning to wind down, but still going on. We saw coke-sniffing in the bathrooms (I don't recall seeing the drug dealers anywhere). Our company favored wrestlers (if I recall correctly one fellow had an Olympic bronze in Greco-Roman), and nobody sought the cerebral types. I would say the drinking culture was still very heavy.
The whole thing has calmed down a lot since electronic trading took over almost everything -- no longer do you need to physically push the other fellow aside to get the trade. Nowadays even golf isn't really that common a pursuit. London was always more extreme and stayed wild a bit longer I hear.
Of course, some might argue that the world economy was better off when traders were dumb jocks rather than clever eggheads who know what a hard drive platter is.
The population is lazy, self-entitled, undereducated, science-illiterate, unversed in either informal or formal logic, and completely averse to quality standards, quality control, or doing quality work.
More or less like people everywhere.
The achievements are stunning to anyone that looks at what has been done in a few short years, and the expectations and determination are much higher.
It is one thing for an economy to manage a well-played game of "catch-up", as China has been doing so skillfully of late. South Korea and Japan showed how to perform that feat and similar things were said of them. It is quite another matter to continue doing well once on the cutting edge of global economy, and our examples of South Korea and Japan are notable for remaining behind the US in GDP per person (even at purchasing-power parity), decades after their amazing growth spurts. China has not been a particularly innovative society for about the last thousand years, and I expect it to follow their pattern on a per-capita basis.
Where do you like to get your sheet music? I've thought of trying this myself, but running everything through the scanner seems like overkill, and of course notating it on the iPad would be nice, if it's possible.
(Would have private messaged, but the slash in your handle chokes the Slashdot system)
One of my best friends is among the EPA engineers developing this technology. They've been working on it for years. He describes the difference between hydraulic accumulators and batteries with a water analogy like this: the batteries can hold a lot of water (energy), but you have to take it out with a straw. The accumulators hold less, but you get to extract it with a firehose. That's why the tech is so good for large, start-and-stop vehicles.
He also mentions that, when some fitting comes loose or a hose breaks, the invariable result is hydraulic fluid sprayed all over the floor or road.
Couldn't happen to a harder-working guy BTW, or a nicer one. I'll never forget him desperately writing the final draft of his wedding vows on the day of the ceremony.
Among the many reasons that unionizing is a terrible idea: I can think of no more effective way to accelerate the outsourcing trend than unionizing IT workers. Add in the deleterious effects on America's lauded startup culture and you have a disaster in the making.
Slashdot Mirror
Facebook gave Michael Lee Johnson a withering stare.
"You know what you did," she said.
"And if you don't know what you did, that's even worse. Pig."
You dated her, too?
Even if you spend the money, you may find (as I did) that "dimmable" is true only in the weak sense for non-incandescent technology. I have spent about $1200 on LED fixtures in my basement, and a certain (smaller) on "dimmable" flourescents only to find that the LEDs and flourescents are only capable of dropping to maybe 1/2 of the full brightness.
To me, true dimmability requires reaching 1/50 or so of perceived brightness (roughly the change from a movie theater to a brightly lit office), which according to Steven's Law, needs a luminosity change of 1/12500. Apparently no matter what you spend (and again, I have tried the quality stuff) you just cannot get there with the new technologies.
Whoops. Working with 365 days a year and multiplying by 7 days a week wasn't too smart. Damn that decaf.
While true, 20W running all day every day still comes to 1226 kWH per year, which is 2.75 times as much as the set-top box discussed in the article. Your Wifi link alone, at 8 watts, draws more power per year (490 kWH).
Those numbers surprise me, and make think there must be a lot of lower-hanging fruit around the average household.
We are losing the engineering battle not for lack of engineers, but for lack of competitive manufacturing capabilities (and incentives to have a manufacturing industry) in American soil.
Why fetishize manufacturing? As with farming, manufacturing requires much less labor to generate the same output using modern technology. Even if more manufacturing were brought back onshore, it would be automated to the gills and generate relatively few jobs (though more of them in engineering, I will concede).
Our economy is now mostly a service economy, which is generally good for health and happiness. I am highly suspicious of government efforts to plan and guide the economy; there's a reason the US leads the world in the interesting and lucrative service industries such as entertainment, software development and internet services.
Obama spent his entire life in academia...and really doesn't have a clue what anybody actually needs.
As opposed to whom? Our presidents since Carter have included nobody with "real" work experience. We've had a famous actor, silver-spoon CEO types, a military guy, and career politicians (along with combinations of the above).
I agree with you that a lot of the nursing shortage is artificial in much the same way the engineer shortage is, but feel compelled to point out that doctor shortages exists too, both geographically (many rural areas) and by specialty (obstetricians and general practitioners).
That's an insightful question. You name precisely the tradeoff many others choose in my situation, typically accepting a long commute for one -- sometimes both -- parents in exchange for certainty and quality of schooling (as well as big lawns and so on). For context: my profession pretty much requires that I work in a big city.
I decided I didn't want the second car and the yard, and most importantly that having a short commute would give me 5-10 hours of extra time with my kids every week. Pricing that at about $25 per hour per kid comes to $20K to $40K per year in my case, which generally wiped out the economic arguments for the suburbs.
I urge everyone to read to the end which relates impoverished Vipil's successes, showing why good education for everyone is a great boon for society.
Though I like the outcomes of India's law, I think it is impinging on the freedom of the schools too much. Consider the borderline families, where the effective 25% price premium means the difference between sending their children to a good school or not. We barely afford to send our own kids to private school, and an extra charge of that size might well kick us out.
The real solution is to make the public schools so good that almost no one feels tempted to go private. Both India and America have problems getting there, but I think it's possible.
In the meantime, I'll spend the money to make sure my kids learn about evolution, partake in music, gym and recess, avoid bullies and silly zero-tolerance policies, and meet friends who think books are cool. And I'm giving up vacations, cars, and retirement savings to do that, so please don't confiscate my money specifically to improve general education. Good education is important enough that everyone should benefit and everyone should pay.
You define gaming as FPS in addition to everything that isn't a FPS, buy a PC.
Its that simple.
I disagree. I define gaming as rhythm games (Rock Band, Guitar Hero, dance games), driving games (GT), and some Mario. On a big plasma screen. And I am not unusual in this; those are all very popular categories for which a PC is more or less useless.
While you are correct, the logic problem in the proof is not quite so recondite. Think set theory.
You also encounter the ham sandwich in some logic / philosophy classes, as follows.
Proposition
A ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness
Proof
- A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
- Nothing is better than eternal happiness.
- Therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness. QED.
You are far too dismissive of solanum, the quasi-audiophile.
He did not say whether or not he attends concerts, but quality classical music performances are far more expensive and harder to find than rock in all but the biggest cities. I get to see some of the best here in Chicago, but even I want to listen to recordings at high quality. (I also have a damn good shot at getting lucky, since I have an awesome wife.)
Now the term audiophile is loaded, but it is quite obvious that electrical circuits come in a wide variety of quality...you can verify it for yourself by purchasing a $10 MP3 player from newegg or its ilk and comparing its sound to almost any name-brand equipment. swordgeek (the GP) is effectively pointing out that a smart person can find excellent cost/quality tradeoffs without buying into the pseudoscience that is so very mockable.
You should save your derision for those who deserve it!
I dunno. I've heard some pretty terrible sound mixes at live venues. Nothing like using earplugs to bring horribly clipped audio down to a non-painful volume.
Amen. I'm looking at you, Double Door!
The loudness war is not universal. Those of us who listen to classical and jazz have not yet become civilian casualties of it.
She may have said "I can't tell the difference" on half the tracks, identified the compression on the other half, and made no Type 1 errors.
The floor traders couldn't be idiots, and actually had to be pretty fast and accurate with simple mental arithmetic, but calculus was pretty tough for most of them. And yes, physical jostling was part of the job. It's not a push like an NFL block...more like one notch below NBA jostling under the basket for rebounds (and less intense at that because they have to keep it up for 7 hours, while trying to trade). The idea is that when a favorable trade is called out, you want to be the guy in front whose hand signal is seen and calls are heard.
Also as you infer, in many cases the "paper" (or big industry players) would indeed call down to the floor to have the grunts pull off big trades. There were fights too, to the degree that a schedule of fines existed for specific acts of violence. I recall it wasn't super-detailed but definitely distinguished a single punch from a full (attempted) beatdown.
I was there in the mid-90s when this behavior was beginning to wind down, but still going on. We saw coke-sniffing in the bathrooms (I don't recall seeing the drug dealers anywhere). Our company favored wrestlers (if I recall correctly one fellow had an Olympic bronze in Greco-Roman), and nobody sought the cerebral types. I would say the drinking culture was still very heavy.
The whole thing has calmed down a lot since electronic trading took over almost everything -- no longer do you need to physically push the other fellow aside to get the trade. Nowadays even golf isn't really that common a pursuit. London was always more extreme and stayed wild a bit longer I hear.
Of course, some might argue that the world economy was better off when traders were dumb jocks rather than clever eggheads who know what a hard drive platter is.
The population is lazy, self-entitled, undereducated, science-illiterate, unversed in either informal or formal logic, and completely averse to quality standards, quality control, or doing quality work.
More or less like people everywhere.
The achievements are stunning to anyone that looks at what has been done in a few short years, and the expectations and determination are much higher.
It is one thing for an economy to manage a well-played game of "catch-up", as China has been doing so skillfully of late. South Korea and Japan showed how to perform that feat and similar things were said of them. It is quite another matter to continue doing well once on the cutting edge of global economy, and our examples of South Korea and Japan are notable for remaining behind the US in GDP per person (even at purchasing-power parity), decades after their amazing growth spurts. China has not been a particularly innovative society for about the last thousand years, and I expect it to follow their pattern on a per-capita basis.
Where do you like to get your sheet music? I've thought of trying this myself, but running everything through the scanner seems like overkill, and of course notating it on the iPad would be nice, if it's possible.
(Would have private messaged, but the slash in your handle chokes the Slashdot system)
One of my best friends is among the EPA engineers developing this technology. They've been working on it for years. He describes the difference between hydraulic accumulators and batteries with a water analogy like this: the batteries can hold a lot of water (energy), but you have to take it out with a straw. The accumulators hold less, but you get to extract it with a firehose. That's why the tech is so good for large, start-and-stop vehicles.
He also mentions that, when some fitting comes loose or a hose breaks, the invariable result is hydraulic fluid sprayed all over the floor or road.
Here is a link that explains the whole discovery process much better:
http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-theories-reveal-nature-of-numbers.html
Couldn't happen to a harder-working guy BTW, or a nicer one. I'll never forget him desperately writing the final draft of his wedding vows on the day of the ceremony.
Among the many reasons that unionizing is a terrible idea: I can think of no more effective way to accelerate the outsourcing trend than unionizing IT workers. Add in the deleterious effects on America's lauded startup culture and you have a disaster in the making.
It's pulled along the deck by some very powerful machinery.
For you cyberpunks out there, note that it is steam machinery.