Today I ate a carrot, which is estimated at over 1*10^9 cells, each cell has over 4*10^8 worth of DNA base pairs, at 2 bits each, that's over 100 quadrillion bytes. I suspect the average American eats more than one carrot a day...
LEDs are [more] efficient than CFLs. Typical CFL 60 Lumen/Watt. Good CFL 70 Lumen/Watt. Typical LED 90 Lumen/Watt. Good LED 140-150 Lumen/Watt.
Maybe in the lab, but for bulbs you can buy, they're both around 60 Lumen/Watt. Even when (if?) the 150 Lumen/Watt versions are commercially available, they still won't be that different in terms of heat produced. "Perfect" would be 683 lumens per watt, so you need to compare 613 (683-70) to 553 (683-150) - around 90% of the heat of a CFL.
One thing that bothers me a lot about LED bulbs is that it's not very easy to tell high efficiency from low efficiency.
"... which aims to use nanotechnology to extend the range of all-electric cars 200 miles beyond the 300-mile range..."
I thought the energy density of a battery was based on the volume of its reactants, not the shape of its cathodes. Ok, nanotech might solve the charging speed problem, the "it costs too much" problem, and even the "I can't charge a lithium air battery, period" problem, but I don't see how it can increase the energy density.
what is the capacity of the battery to achieve this range?
It depends on the car, but a good rule of thumb is 4 miles per kilowatt hour. 500 miles = 125 kilowatt hours.
what would the approximate cost to the user in electricity be?
11.5 cents per kilowatt hour is the US average, $14 - $15 for 125 kilowatt hours. That must be multiplied by charging (in)efficiency, but still under $20 - less than half what the gas would cost.
If we moved in great numbers to electric vehicles, could the national infrastructure satisfy demand?
If the cars are (mostly) charged overnight, then yes. We'd burn more coal/oil/nuclear/sunlight in the plants, but they'd just have to run longer - we don't need to build more of them, or upgrade the grid.
If people demand instant charging, then either we need a massive upgrade, or charging stations need massive batteries.
Especially when it's battery technology, which hasn't improved much in... how many decades?
3. Lithium batteries were developed in the 80s, though they've been improving steadily since then. They probably won't last though, due their annoying tendency to catch fire and explode.
For as long as I can remember, a new battery technology has been "in development" and will be available Real Soon Now. Most have been complete failures, but a few were just failures.
I doubt it, I mean there's really no comparison between our current health care system, and the government run health care in France, Germany, Canada, Briton, Australia, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, or Israel.
The injury is to the plaintiff, not Microsoft. MS is probably arguing that any harm to the plaintiff is not irreparable, and that later monetary damages will cure any harm.
So they're going to argue that they'll not only pay the 290 million, but also pay the later monetary damages, and therefore shouldn't have to actually put the 290 million they owe aside? Somehow, I doubt that will be their argument.
Even if this is unquestionably a patent violation, the Supreme Court has already held, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006), that an injunction prohibiting sale of the infringing product is not necessarily the appropriate remedy in all cases. Rather, the traditional four factors for issuing an injunction must be balanced: 1) that the injury is irreparable; 2) that there are inadequate alternate remedies to compensate for the injury; 3) that the balance of hardships favors the plaintiff; and 4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest. Microsoft has an least a plausible argument that they are not satisfied in this case, and that alternate remedies (perhaps money damages) would be better than an injunction against sale, even if indeed Word is infringing.
If Microsoft can't post a $290 million bond without suffering irreparable harm, then what chance to they have to pay even larger money damages for future infringement?
Or to put it another way, the effort to create the fuel is the effort removed from its pursuit of survival, and therefore is at a competitive disadvantage to other naturally occurring organisms.
Not when man is a significant predator. Any organism that doesn't make enough fuel would be selected against a lot more heavily.
2KW roof-mounted solar arrays? Pretty big roofs, or impossibly-efficient arrays...
Noon sunlight is about 1 kilowatt per square meter, (100 watts/square foot) At 10% efficiency, that means 20 square meters (200 square feet), hardly "pretty big".
Seems to me that the patent office screwed up, and granted a patent that they shouldn't have. Assuming they did, what punishment will the patent office receive for having acted incorrectly?
... using a process that doesn't require harvesting to collect the fuel.
Most of the reasonable plans I've read involve growing algae in ponds, sucking it up, and running it through a press (rather like an olive press) The expensive part of the operation isn't the press - it's the pond. As I recall, NREL recommended holes in the ground lined with plastic, and the pond was still the most expensive part.
$1.25 a gallon is about twice the spot price for methanol, and $1.25 isn't what they can do, it's what they hope they can do eventually.
Can the judge make a ruling like, "Ok, I'll order this information kept secret for now, but in the interest of expediency you have to turn the information over today, and I'll entertain arguments as to why I should or shouldn't allow it to stay that way after the defendant has had a chance to look over the information?"
I ask because it seems crazy to me that the judge can rule on how important the information is to their business without actually seeing it, or hearing what the other side has to say about it. (Wouldn't that be ex parte and as such frowned upon?)
He claims to have done an experiment, yet from what I can see, he's tried a grand total of ONE behaviour. Maybe all players treat everyone like they're an asshole, maybe it wasn't the killing itself, but the obnoxious bragging about it that got people riled. Maybe it was the color of his pants, or the time of year, or maybe he did something outside of the game itself to bring it on. And no statement from the developers of the game that what he was doing was how they "intended" the game to be played.
How can he possibly draw valid conclusions from this?
For those who are asking "what's 2^119 complexity mean?"
2^64 is about as hard a problem as we can reasonably solve these days. 2^80 is about as hard a problem as we can unreasonably solve. I.e. we can do it, but it would take the budget of a country for several years to do. A can of soda has about 2^83 molecules in it. 2^119 is still way beyond anything we can reasonably do, but isn't so hard that we can rule out any theoretical possibility of solving it. A house sized computer built of solid nano-compute units, each a few hundred molecules on a side, with a cycle time of about 10 petahertz could do it in less than a lifetime. Perhaps possible but I wouldn't worry about it. 2^256 is so hard that it may not even be theoretically possible to solve - or maybe you could if you're willing to destroy a few solar systems, and wait a few million years. While cracking 2^256 may not be theoretically impossible, it would be easier to look everywhere the information you want might be hidden - including inside the mind of your opponent - even if he's dead.
About the time of the KT extinction, mammals starting spreading and evolving into new niches. Around this same time, their genome expanded. Then, after they had spread into lots of niches, their genome switched from expanding to shrinking.
Living longer than it takes to raise your children to the point where they can raise their children would be pointless from an evolutionary standpoint.
Only true if you don't nurture your young's young. If the grandparents watch the kids sometimes, then it makes a lot of sense to have them stick around, from an evolutionary standpoint.
Electricity prices will almost certainly go up in the long term.
I disagree. In the past 20 years, measured in constant dollars, electricity prices have declined steadily. Over the past 40 years, they've varied more, but the overall trend is still down. Most long term projections are that the trend will continue to be down as we figure out new and better (cheaper) ways to make electricity. Electricity from oil will likely be more expensive, but we're not likely to make electricity from oil for precisely that reason.
The whole idea behind his essay is that he liked playing with numbers and shapes as if it's an art, but he doesn't seem to realize most people don't share this love for math, like pretty much 90% of any student population. This is me speaking as a just-graduated senior: the things he suggests is beyond the ability of most math students in high school.
I think you missed the point. His point IMO, is what we are teaching as "math" in school is totally useless and should be scrapped completely, because it's not even close to what math is. We don't need to teach math to 100% of the students, just as we don't insist that 100% of the students can paint landscapes, or bake brownies.
Many people have complained that textbooks online are not going to be cheaper, easier, or as friendly as printed books.
If I had a pdf of a text book that I could legally print out and give to my students, then I could print them myself, and still provide them with books for a fraction of what their current text book costs. And I could fix them - if say, someone spilled juice on pages 8-20, I could reprint just those pages, or when someone spots a typo, or just plain wrong information, then I could update just that part. Plus those students who can read an electronic version can have a copy for home and leave the printed version in class. And they could keep a copy for their entire life, if they ever wanted to refer back to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Today I ate a carrot, which is estimated at over 1*10^9 cells, each cell has over 4*10^8 worth of DNA base pairs, at 2 bits each, that's over 100 quadrillion bytes.
I suspect the average American eats more than one carrot a day...
Doh!
You are correct, I don't know what I was thinking (or rather, not thinking)
LEDs are [more] efficient than CFLs.
Typical CFL 60 Lumen/Watt. Good CFL 70 Lumen/Watt.
Typical LED 90 Lumen/Watt. Good LED 140-150 Lumen/Watt.
Maybe in the lab, but for bulbs you can buy, they're both around 60 Lumen/Watt.
Even when (if?) the 150 Lumen/Watt versions are commercially available, they still won't be that different in terms of heat produced.
"Perfect" would be 683 lumens per watt, so you need to compare 613 (683-70) to 553 (683-150) - around 90% of the heat of a CFL.
One thing that bothers me a lot about LED bulbs is that it's not very easy to tell high efficiency from low efficiency.
Why is this limited to P2P software?
"... which aims to use nanotechnology to extend the range of all-electric cars 200 miles beyond the 300-mile range..."
I thought the energy density of a battery was based on the volume of its reactants, not the shape of its cathodes.
Ok, nanotech might solve the charging speed problem, the "it costs too much" problem, and even the "I can't charge a lithium air battery, period" problem, but I don't see how it can increase the energy density.
what is the capacity of the battery to achieve this range?
It depends on the car, but a good rule of thumb is 4 miles per kilowatt hour.
500 miles = 125 kilowatt hours.
what would the approximate cost to the user in electricity be?
11.5 cents per kilowatt hour is the US average, $14 - $15 for 125 kilowatt hours.
That must be multiplied by charging (in)efficiency, but still under $20 - less than half what the gas would cost.
If we moved in great numbers to electric vehicles, could the national infrastructure satisfy demand?
If the cars are (mostly) charged overnight, then yes.
We'd burn more coal/oil/nuclear/sunlight in the plants, but they'd just have to run longer - we don't need to build more of them, or upgrade the grid.
If people demand instant charging, then either we need a massive upgrade, or charging stations need massive batteries.
Especially when it's battery technology, which hasn't improved much in... how many decades?
3. Lithium batteries were developed in the 80s, though they've been improving steadily since then.
They probably won't last though, due their annoying tendency to catch fire and explode.
For as long as I can remember, a new battery technology has been "in development" and will be available Real Soon Now.
Most have been complete failures, but a few were just failures.
So, they're half life?
I doubt it, I mean there's really no comparison between our current health care system, and the government run health care in France, Germany, Canada, Briton, Australia, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, or Israel.
The injury is to the plaintiff, not Microsoft. MS is probably arguing that any harm to the plaintiff is not irreparable, and that later monetary damages will cure any harm.
So they're going to argue that they'll not only pay the 290 million, but also pay the later monetary damages, and therefore shouldn't have to actually put the 290 million they owe aside?
Somehow, I doubt that will be their argument.
if this injunction stands and Microsoft then wins the case...
This isn't a preliminary injunction, they already lost the case.
Even if this is unquestionably a patent violation, the Supreme Court has already held, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006), that an injunction prohibiting sale of the infringing product is not necessarily the appropriate remedy in all cases. Rather, the traditional four factors for issuing an injunction must be balanced: 1) that the injury is irreparable; 2) that there are inadequate alternate remedies to compensate for the injury; 3) that the balance of hardships favors the plaintiff; and 4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest. Microsoft has an least a plausible argument that they are not satisfied in this case, and that alternate remedies (perhaps money damages) would be better than an injunction against sale, even if indeed Word is infringing.
If Microsoft can't post a $290 million bond without suffering irreparable harm, then what chance to they have to pay even larger money damages for future infringement?
Yes, but will it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI
Or to put it another way, the effort to create the fuel is the effort removed from its pursuit of survival, and therefore is at a competitive disadvantage to other naturally occurring organisms.
Not when man is a significant predator.
Any organism that doesn't make enough fuel would be selected against a lot more heavily.
2KW roof-mounted solar arrays? Pretty big roofs, or impossibly-efficient arrays...
Noon sunlight is about 1 kilowatt per square meter, (100 watts/square foot)
At 10% efficiency, that means 20 square meters (200 square feet), hardly "pretty big".
Seems to me that the patent office screwed up, and granted a patent that they shouldn't have.
Assuming they did, what punishment will the patent office receive for having acted incorrectly?
... using a process that doesn't require harvesting to collect the fuel.
Most of the reasonable plans I've read involve growing algae in ponds, sucking it up, and running it through a press (rather like an olive press)
The expensive part of the operation isn't the press - it's the pond.
As I recall, NREL recommended holes in the ground lined with plastic, and the pond was still the most expensive part.
$1.25 a gallon is about twice the spot price for methanol, and $1.25 isn't what they can do, it's what they hope they can do eventually.
Color me unimpressed.
Can the judge make a ruling like, "Ok, I'll order this information kept secret for now, but in the interest of expediency you have to turn the information over today, and I'll entertain arguments as to why I should or shouldn't allow it to stay that way after the defendant has had a chance to look over the information?"
I ask because it seems crazy to me that the judge can rule on how important the information is to their business without actually seeing it, or hearing what the other side has to say about it. (Wouldn't that be ex parte and as such frowned upon?)
He claims to have done an experiment, yet from what I can see, he's tried a grand total of ONE behaviour.
Maybe all players treat everyone like they're an asshole, maybe it wasn't the killing itself, but the obnoxious bragging about it that got people riled.
Maybe it was the color of his pants, or the time of year, or maybe he did something outside of the game itself to bring it on.
And no statement from the developers of the game that what he was doing was how they "intended" the game to be played.
How can he possibly draw valid conclusions from this?
For those who are asking "what's 2^119 complexity mean?"
2^64 is about as hard a problem as we can reasonably solve these days.
2^80 is about as hard a problem as we can unreasonably solve. I.e. we can do it, but it would take the budget of a country for several years to do.
A can of soda has about 2^83 molecules in it.
2^119 is still way beyond anything we can reasonably do, but isn't so hard that we can rule out any theoretical possibility of solving it.
A house sized computer built of solid nano-compute units, each a few hundred molecules on a side, with a cycle time of about 10 petahertz could do it in less than a lifetime.
Perhaps possible but I wouldn't worry about it.
2^256 is so hard that it may not even be theoretically possible to solve - or maybe you could if you're willing to destroy a few solar systems, and wait a few million years.
While cracking 2^256 may not be theoretically impossible, it would be easier to look everywhere the information you want might be hidden - including inside the mind of your opponent - even if he's dead.
About the time of the KT extinction, mammals starting spreading and evolving into new niches.
Around this same time, their genome expanded.
Then, after they had spread into lots of niches, their genome switched from expanding to shrinking.
And this is surprising?
Living longer than it takes to raise your children to the point where they can raise their children would be pointless from an evolutionary standpoint.
Only true if you don't nurture your young's young.
If the grandparents watch the kids sometimes, then it makes a lot of sense to have them stick around, from an evolutionary standpoint.
Electricity prices will almost certainly go up in the long term.
I disagree.
In the past 20 years, measured in constant dollars, electricity prices have declined steadily.
Over the past 40 years, they've varied more, but the overall trend is still down.
Most long term projections are that the trend will continue to be down as we figure out new and better (cheaper) ways to make electricity.
Electricity from oil will likely be more expensive, but we're not likely to make electricity from oil for precisely that reason.
The whole idea behind his essay is that he liked playing with numbers and shapes as if it's an art, but he doesn't seem to realize most people don't share this love for math, like pretty much 90% of any student population. This is me speaking as a just-graduated senior: the things he suggests is beyond the ability of most math students in high school.
I think you missed the point.
His point IMO, is what we are teaching as "math" in school is totally useless and should be scrapped completely, because it's not even close to what math is.
We don't need to teach math to 100% of the students, just as we don't insist that 100% of the students can paint landscapes, or bake brownies.
Many people have complained that textbooks online are not going to be cheaper, easier, or as friendly as printed books.
If I had a pdf of a text book that I could legally print out and give to my students, then I could print them myself, and still provide them with books for a fraction of what their current text book costs.
And I could fix them - if say, someone spilled juice on pages 8-20, I could reprint just those pages, or when someone spots a typo, or just plain wrong information, then I could update just that part.
Plus those students who can read an electronic version can have a copy for home and leave the printed version in class.
And they could keep a copy for their entire life, if they ever wanted to refer back to it.