ARGH! You had to mention windchill! One of the biggest misconceptions invented by so called tv meteorologists - aka: weather reporters, who being at least 50% reporter by definition must overhype any news to improve the ratings.
No matter how fast the wind may or may not be blowing on Pluto, the temperature will be the same!
The "Windchill" being reported in weather broadcasts is some quasi made up number that claims to represent how you'd feel outside. Out in the blowing wind. After a shower. Naked.
Since I have not read the article, I will spout my opinion as fact, and leave the rest to the jury:-)
I have nearly 10 years of relatively high mileage driving under my belt with a very clean driving record. Its not spotless which is my point. I feel there should be some credit or recognition for distance I have driven, and not just the number of years I have been driving. The person who rarely gets behind the wheel is more of a danger then one who has a lot of current experience.
The problem is there is no way to report the number of miles / kilometers I have driven in the past year. While I hate the idea of being spied upon, maybe this will lead to some form of usage based experience credits vs just time based.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but doesn't a more fuel effecient vehicle will run at a higher temperature?
Maybe I missed it, but does the added hydrogen keep the cylinder head temperature down as well as increasing the amount of fuel being burnt?
There were a number of crack pot devices available for cars that 'injected exotic materials into the intake manifold, dramatically improving fuel effeciency'. These turned out to be nothing more then putting a controlled leak in the intake, thereby leaning the mixture - which saved gas at the cost of increased running temperatures which led to shortened engine lifetime.
As an example of people desperate to conserve fuel - look at pilots of smaller aircraft that have a mixture control by the throttle. The conventional wisdom has always been to lean out the mixture to save fuel (especially as you gain altitude). However, there have been some concerns that pilots may be over leaning the mix and causing pre-mature engine failure. (A much bigger problem when you rely on the engine to avoid a collision with mother earth.)
These stunts remind me of a valuable lesson learned many years ago (before I had a job to afford real toys) when I was 'overclocking' a portable radio. I wanted it loud - too poor to buy a real amp, I noticed the main amp IC got real hot, and then the sound sucked. So I cooled it by putting a plastic bag filled with ice in it on the chip - that worked! Could crank the volume to about 85% without annoying distortion.
Next step - from school science class I recalled that adding salt lowered the temp of the ice. Refilled the bag with salt and crushed ice and reapplied. Now I could crank the volume up to full and not have fuzzy music.
The lesson came an hour or so later when the system went silent due to the water from condensation shorting the circuit.
Cooling to below the dew point is stupid. Build the most powerfull cooler possible that keeps the CPU above the dew point and that will be cool. Hack together some cute trick to just make things cold is expensive in the long run.
Over the past few years, I've pieced together bits of knowledge from Comp Sci AI classes, various child experts, my own experiences and now from watching my son who at the age of 6 has an IQ of over 140 and been described by his teacher's, etc. as difficult and by a psychologist as extremely creative.
How hard is it to make a computer understand human speach, hand writing, pictures, etc? - Very. Why?
Because a computer is extremly litteral. When I say 'Hello', it's one word. When my wife says 'Hello' - to a computer it's a completely different word. Until you teach a computer how to 'dumb down' and see the general pattern and not the specific pattern.
Kids are born with perfect pitch. However, their brains quickly loose that ability because it makes understanding language extremely difficult.
Our brains start out like computers - seeing, hearing, processing exact details. But quickly learn that those details are not important and start generalizing. This to me is brain damage. We creating paths in our brain that cause us to loose certain abilities in order to gain others.
I think this scientist is on to something that most researchers have probably known for years, but have never clued into. Maybe because they have not been literal enough. However, I think he's got things backwards. I think that by applying electrical impulses, getting hit on the head, etc. people's brains are actually being short circuited back to the way they were when they were born. Back to a clean slate as it were.
Now all we need to do is take his research to the next level and find out how to damage the brains (help them 'dumb down' the world as it were) of autistic, etc. people so they can get past the details and become more integrated into society.
We used to receive a fair number of calls. Everything from surveys, to charities, to businesses wanting to sell us free stuff (?!?).
I have yet to see any product offered in such a cheap way that was worth the effort in the long run, so I have been giving the same pat response to every generic caller who calls.
"I'm sorry. I do not respond to sales or surveys by phone. If you have my name and address you may mail me your information, otherwise this conversation is over. Thank you. - pause to allow them to say goodbye - Goodbye" and hangup.
BTW, I always say goodbye and hang up after a curtious pause. Regardless of what they respond with. Usually, they have no response. They have a response for every excuse in the book, except a flat refusal to do business over the phone.
It has taken a few months of persistance, but the call rate has dropped off significantly. Down to maybe one or two calls a month.
Experience has shown me that there must be some form of 'sucker-list' out there. Everyone I've talked to who's being hassled by telemarketers / telesurveyers has agreed to buy something or give something or listen to something in the recent past.
One other technique that can be effective for those companies that are extremely persistant is too flag the calls as harrassing. *57 in Manitoba issues a call trace of the last call. After a number of calls from the business have been logged with the local telco, file a police report. A resident in Edmonton managed to get a companies phones suspended for a month because they wouldn't take no for an answer.
Many years ago I saw someone (on tv?) who had made really tiny planes (3-10cm wings) out of some kind of clear plastic. He would then put a drop of glue on top and stick a common house fly to the glue. When the fly tried to get away, it ended up flying away with airplane - however the plane had static control surfaces so the demonstrator could force the plane to stay in a holding pattern and not get far. Any one else see this?
Ok, I read the article - the flywheels are in stationary (re)generating stations scattered throughout the grid - very cool concept. The excess current (introduced by cars dumping electricity produced by breaking into the grid)spins up the wheels, and the any increase in the load (as cars accelerate away from a stop) "borrows" from the wheels. Very nice.
The Wired article made me wonder about the probabilty of using a flywheel for a UPS? Any thoughts? Seems simple enough - get a heavy wheel on a decent bearing train and connect to a small motor that can eventually spin it up to high RPM and then use an electric clutch to keep it DISengaged from a generator. Add a really small UPS to cover the switch over time and viola! As soon as the power fails, the clutch engages the flywheel to generate power for 15+ minutes (enough time to perform a clean shut down). I like it....
It's obvious that if everyone cooperates, the group as a whole benefits. However, once you understand the behaviour required for the group to suceed, and if the group is large enough and the defectors small enough, then the defectors can easily win big.
Take driving for example. We have a major road running from the downtown to the outskirts of our city that is 4 lanes wide (most of the time). The curb lane allows for parking during the day but not during rush hour. So it should be open during rush hour, however, there is always a car stopping or parking or a city bus is lumbering along. The congestion that arises from large numbers of vehicles constantly trying to merge from 4 to 3 lanes would reak havoc on the overall system, therefore the most effecient strategy for the masses is to stick to just 3 lanes.
The speed limit is 60kph. During rush hour, the actual speed in the 3 lanes when volumes get heavy is more like 50kph. With the open lane (parking lane - or as I like to call it, the Express Lane), you can easily do 70 - 80kph (interesting side note: I've been driving this route for years without ever seeing anyone pulled over during the rush hour). However, if too many people 'defect', the average speed in the Express Lane drops to 30-40kph. Do you take the express lane?
Being a defector, most days I am able to get ahead of the masses - saving many minutes off my travel time. The risks? If too many join me, (or if I don't pay attention to slower/stopped traffic ahead of me) there is a dramatic reduction in the average speed. In other words, I can loose big time.
BTW, before I'm flamed as being a offensive / dangerous driver, allow me to explain my 3 priorities for getting home in order of descending importance:
Get home safely.
Do not do anything that causes other drivers to have to react defensively.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find the UI for modern cruise controls to be worse then that of the telephone. Set and Accelerate are the same button?? No status indicator to display if the cruise is on, paused, accelerating, etc...
I digress. Actually, what I would _really_ like to see is a type of tractor beam. The main problem with cruise controls is the subtle difference between yours and mine. I'm either gaining on you by 0.5kph or someone is gaining on me by 0.5 kph. I hate constantly adjusting the cruise.
A 'tractor beam cruise' would use some kind of range sensing beam to keep you a 'safe' distance (ie: the 2 - 3 second rule taught in driver's ed, could be adjustable for driving conditions) from the car in front. If the distance started to close fast an alarm would sound to encourage you to press the brakes if needed.
If a car jumps into the space between you and the car in front, the 'cruise' slows down for a second or two to re-establish the buffer zone.
This would keep cars safely spaced on the highways and reduce the amount of fiddling with the cruise controls while driving.
I heard this recently on CBC's As it happens (it's the story about Air North and their expanding service to the 'South').
In Canada we're dealing with the Air-Canada monopoly which is making things very risky for new airline startups. However, the Yukon government recently tabled a policy where they will explicitly avoid doing business with companies that engage in unfair practices (such as flooding the market with cheap seats for the purpose of driving a competitor out of business). A similar policy in American governments might help keep the little guys trying to get a leg up on MS.
Someone once said that great discoveries in science are not followed by an expression of 'Eureka, I found it!', but rather by an expression of 'Hey, that's not supposed to happen.... hmmmm... that is interesting though... I wonder what would happen if....'
At the risk of being redundant, I've often wondered, how far can science push the human body?
Look at auto racing. There's various classes of vehicles, with different rules. Typically you start with basic stock racing. Very limited mods allowed to the vehicle. The classes progress, until you reach the Super Modified class, where just about anything goes.
While there are some rules for safety, the cars don't look anything like your father's Oldsmobile.
Keep the Olympics pure, but hey, hype up the Strongest Man / Women / half breed contests. Open the doors and let these scientific wonders / freaks of nature do battle and lets see what the body is capable of handling!
There's many ethical issues, just make it a pay-per-view, don't try this at home - oh yeah, and run it on FOX...
Don't forget the railyards. I'm not sure if FedEx or UPS uses train cars to ship across the continent, but watching the cars get slammed together as they shuffle the cars to make new trains, and hearing stories from friends who worked in receiving yards that unloaded the cars, if you're going to ship anything by rail - pack it in a double steal container with lots of padding.
Ever since I first cracked open my ][e in the 80's, I thought about powering a computer off the 12V supply in a car. With the proliferation of laptops I thought for sure someone would make a simple adapter to connect the computer direct to the cigarette lighter. But no. That was not to be.
I realize that some form of adapter is required. Computers require +/- 5V, 3.3V, 12V, and possibly other voltages as well. And the power supply has to be clean - Windows has a hard enough time being stable without the hardware getting fried by sparkplug noise.
My problem, is why do I have to spend money on a invertor that creates heat (and hence wastes battery life), consumes space and whose only function is to convert low voltage into high voltage only to have another converter (the power supply) create more heat (read waste electricity) change it back? I would love to see a power supplies for laptops (at least) and even motherboards in general that run off a noisy 12V line. 120AC -> 12V DC convertors are everywhere and don't cost _nearly_ as much as 12V DC -> 120 VAC invertors.
I'm just asking that the world make sense! Is that too much?
At the risk of being redundant, does anyone else find it amusing that this great little PC complete with relatively new technology is fitted with a 5.25" drive?
I understand the need for proven technology in critical environments like the shuttle, but surely the improved storage capacity and reduced physical size of at least a 3.5" drive would be worth it. Given that 3.5" drives are virtually museum fodder, they should be almost ready for NASA's use.
This sounds like an unfortunate 'service' vs 'product' market migration. Why would I pay $xx / month for either disposable batteries or fuel for the cell when I can essentially charge the phone for free using an existing infrastructure? If it's to replace a forgotten charger, who's to say I wouldn't forget the fuel cell? If it's to power the phone where there is no infrastructure, I wonder where I would be for days with cell phone access, but no electricity?
Now the nagging chemistry question:
What happens to all the carbon atoms? I have read many hyped up press releases expounding the virtues of fuel cells: They only produce water, heat and electricity. That may be true if you have a pure hydrogen source, however, using a carbon based fuel like methane leaves me wondering - after I've stripped off the hydrogen to make the heat, water and electricity, what happens to the carbon atoms (and any hydrogen or oxygen atoms)? Surely these are being vented as carbon-dioxide, or worse being fused into some catalyst which will require proper disposal / cleanup.
If it's just to protect my machine from snooping employees or cleaning staff, then proper use of NTFS and a dilligent password is more then suffecient.
If it's supposed to protect a companies trade secrets kept on a travelling sales person's laptop, the maintenance would be a nightmare. How does a company recover the data if the employee is let go? A corporate spy would simply use the same technique.
If it's supposed to keep top secret documents related to national security safe from well funded agencies, I wonder (again), why wouldn't a secure file system and well managed password work?
In short, this seems like the wrong tool for the job. Finger prints should be used to verify the id of a person entering / leaving a secure area where there is a guard watching to ensure it is a live hand being used.
On the otherhand, there was a cool (if in concept only) technology demonstrated years ago that used a PC mounted camera and some trivial face recognition software to activate / deactivate a screen saver. This would be perfect in cubicle farms where you want to make a quick trip to get coffee / get rid of coffee. I remember to lock up my station at night when I go home, but not always for those spontaneous flights of fancy.
Back in shops class (well over 10 years ago, when I was just entering my teenage years and didn't care about school...) we played around with plastics that could be remolded if we screwed up. I'm sure plastics have improved.
I see a huge benefit here. Send a 3D printer and a bucket of resuable plastic to a remote location (South Pole, remote desert, under water research, even space). Metal tools are expensive, heavy and take up a lot of room to have every wrench size required. If the machine could make a spanner that had enough strenght to fix one or two things, then broke - who cares. Just reuse the plastic. Need a different tool? Just reuse the plastic.
Obviously, critical tools should always be on hand and made from appropriate material.
Also, equally obvious (or should be), standardizing on style of screw heads, socket sizes, etc. should make parts more interchangeable and keep the number of tools required to a minimum.
My ][e could boot to a command prompt in less then 1 second. A fast (by historical standards) HD meant a boot to a DOS was easily only a couple of seconds.
(This is probably going to be flagged as a troll or flamebait, but think about it. We have put up with crap for so long, that when we finally get sub-second boot times back it's a big deal. It's like hiding toys from your kids for 6 months and then bringing them out as winter sets in - they get all excited about stuff they used to have.)
I'll admit ignorance as to all the required checks, double checks and initialization that must go on to get a decent OS up and running, but I still can't help but think that inefficiently designed / written bloat-ware could be done much better to improve the boot times of modern machines. Why not lazy load the drivers, etc as required?
What are the rules in America for who can ask for your SS#?
As I understand it, in Canada, only parties that are going to be involved in your taxes (employers, banks, Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency, etc) are allowed to ask you for your Social Insurance Number.
There are a lot of other groups that ask for it, because it makes for a very convenient unique identifier, however, as a Canadian, I believe I am allowed to refuse without loss of service.
I never give out my SIN unless it's actually legally required.
We have a number of developers sharing a long desk facing a wall. Imagine them all sharing a large screen at once, each with their own 'window'. Want to show something to your colleague? Just 'drag-n-drop' the window beside your buddies for a quick little chat, then drag it back.
For a backdrop, have a large virtual fish tank bubbling away.
I'd almost pay to work in an environment like that...
Lately (in the past 6 months) I've notice an 'explosion' of ComFree houses being advertised via lawn signs. ComFree seems to offer a pretty slick service, including VR tours. The housing market in Winnipeg has taken off in the last year or so, and as a result the need for a high pressure real estate agent has dropped. It will be interesting to see how well ComFree does when the housing market cools off.
Actually, while this is a lame troll - it does raise an interesting point that is addressed on the website.
If the 'net is available via 2 way satellite why not mount a dish to the roof of the RV and surf while at the lake, etc?
The answer for now is - no. For all our conviences, we have to pay in terms of government control. A certified technician is required to come and permanently set up the transmitter, so the RV is out. However, if you have the extra cash, you could set up the cottage.
Question: How sticky are the Americans about this? Am I allowed to set up my own transmitter in the states - or does a certified technician have to do it?
Slashdot Mirror
ARGH! You had to mention windchill! One of the biggest misconceptions invented by so called tv meteorologists - aka: weather reporters, who being at least 50% reporter by definition must overhype any news to improve the ratings.
No matter how fast the wind may or may not be blowing on Pluto, the temperature will be the same!
The "Windchill" being reported in weather broadcasts is some quasi made up number that claims to represent how you'd feel outside. Out in the blowing wind. After a shower. Naked.
Sheesh.... more information is available here.
Sorry for the rant - I've either had too much coffee, or not enough - its too early in the morning to tell.
Since I have not read the article, I will spout my opinion as fact, and leave the rest to the jury :-)
I have nearly 10 years of relatively high mileage driving under my belt with a very clean driving record. Its not spotless which is my point. I feel there should be some credit or recognition for distance I have driven, and not just the number of years I have been driving. The person who rarely gets behind the wheel is more of a danger then one who has a lot of current experience.
The problem is there is no way to report the number of miles / kilometers I have driven in the past year. While I hate the idea of being spied upon, maybe this will lead to some form of usage based experience credits vs just time based.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but doesn't a more fuel effecient vehicle will run at a higher temperature?
Maybe I missed it, but does the added hydrogen keep the cylinder head temperature down as well as increasing the amount of fuel being burnt?
There were a number of crack pot devices available for cars that 'injected exotic materials into the intake manifold, dramatically improving fuel effeciency'. These turned out to be nothing more then putting a controlled leak in the intake, thereby leaning the mixture - which saved gas at the cost of increased running temperatures which led to shortened engine lifetime.
As an example of people desperate to conserve fuel - look at pilots of smaller aircraft that have a mixture control by the throttle. The conventional wisdom has always been to lean out the mixture to save fuel (especially as you gain altitude). However, there have been some concerns that pilots may be over leaning the mix and causing pre-mature engine failure. (A much bigger problem when you rely on the engine to avoid a collision with mother earth.)
These stunts remind me of a valuable lesson learned many years ago (before I had a job to afford real toys) when I was 'overclocking' a portable radio. I wanted it loud - too poor to buy a real amp, I noticed the main amp IC got real hot, and then the sound sucked. So I cooled it by putting a plastic bag filled with ice in it on the chip - that worked! Could crank the volume to about 85% without annoying distortion.
Next step - from school science class I recalled that adding salt lowered the temp of the ice. Refilled the bag with salt and crushed ice and reapplied. Now I could crank the volume up to full and not have fuzzy music.
The lesson came an hour or so later when the system went silent due to the water from condensation shorting the circuit.
Cooling to below the dew point is stupid. Build the most powerfull cooler possible that keeps the CPU above the dew point and that will be cool. Hack together some cute trick to just make things cold is expensive in the long run.
Enjoy!
From the last line of the compound's name:
e arebelongtous
araginylglycylprolylprolylprolylleucineallyourbas
I call foul! I think this one should have been kept under wraps for another few days...
Over the past few years, I've pieced together bits of knowledge from Comp Sci AI classes, various child experts, my own experiences and now from watching my son who at the age of 6 has an IQ of over 140 and been described by his teacher's, etc. as difficult and by a psychologist as extremely creative.
How hard is it to make a computer understand human speach, hand writing, pictures, etc? - Very. Why?
Because a computer is extremly litteral. When I say 'Hello', it's one word. When my wife says 'Hello' - to a computer it's a completely different word. Until you teach a computer how to 'dumb down' and see the general pattern and not the specific pattern.
Kids are born with perfect pitch. However, their brains quickly loose that ability because it makes understanding language extremely difficult.
Our brains start out like computers - seeing, hearing, processing exact details. But quickly learn that those details are not important and start generalizing. This to me is brain damage. We creating paths in our brain that cause us to loose certain abilities in order to gain others.
I think this scientist is on to something that most researchers have probably known for years, but have never clued into. Maybe because they have not been literal enough. However, I think he's got things backwards. I think that by applying electrical impulses, getting hit on the head, etc. people's brains are actually being short circuited back to the way they were when they were born. Back to a clean slate as it were.
Now all we need to do is take his research to the next level and find out how to damage the brains (help them 'dumb down' the world as it were) of autistic, etc. people so they can get past the details and become more integrated into society.
We used to receive a fair number of calls. Everything from surveys, to charities, to businesses wanting to sell us free stuff (?!?).
I have yet to see any product offered in such a cheap way that was worth the effort in the long run, so I have been giving the same pat response to every generic caller who calls.
"I'm sorry. I do not respond to sales or surveys by phone. If you have my name and address you may mail me your information, otherwise this conversation is over. Thank you. - pause to allow them to say goodbye - Goodbye" and hangup.
BTW, I always say goodbye and hang up after a curtious pause. Regardless of what they respond with. Usually, they have no response. They have a response for every excuse in the book, except a flat refusal to do business over the phone.
It has taken a few months of persistance, but the call rate has dropped off significantly. Down to maybe one or two calls a month.
Experience has shown me that there must be some form of 'sucker-list' out there. Everyone I've talked to who's being hassled by telemarketers / telesurveyers has agreed to buy something or give something or listen to something in the recent past.
One other technique that can be effective for those companies that are extremely persistant is too flag the calls as harrassing. *57 in Manitoba issues a call trace of the last call. After a number of calls from the business have been logged with the local telco, file a police report. A resident in Edmonton managed to get a companies phones suspended for a month because they wouldn't take no for an answer.
Many years ago I saw someone (on tv?) who had made really tiny planes (3-10cm wings) out of some kind of clear plastic. He would then put a drop of glue on top and stick a common house fly to the glue. When the fly tried to get away, it ended up flying away with airplane - however the plane had static control surfaces so the demonstrator could force the plane to stay in a holding pattern and not get far. Any one else see this?
The Wired article made me wonder about the probabilty of using a flywheel for a UPS? Any thoughts? Seems simple enough - get a heavy wheel on a decent bearing train and connect to a small motor that can eventually spin it up to high RPM and then use an electric clutch to keep it DISengaged from a generator. Add a really small UPS to cover the switch over time and viola! As soon as the power fails, the clutch engages the flywheel to generate power for 15+ minutes (enough time to perform a clean shut down). I like it....
Take driving for example. We have a major road running from the downtown to the outskirts of our city that is 4 lanes wide (most of the time). The curb lane allows for parking during the day but not during rush hour. So it should be open during rush hour, however, there is always a car stopping or parking or a city bus is lumbering along. The congestion that arises from large numbers of vehicles constantly trying to merge from 4 to 3 lanes would reak havoc on the overall system, therefore the most effecient strategy for the masses is to stick to just 3 lanes.
The speed limit is 60kph. During rush hour, the actual speed in the 3 lanes when volumes get heavy is more like 50kph. With the open lane (parking lane - or as I like to call it, the Express Lane), you can easily do 70 - 80kph (interesting side note: I've been driving this route for years without ever seeing anyone pulled over during the rush hour). However, if too many people 'defect', the average speed in the Express Lane drops to 30-40kph. Do you take the express lane?
Being a defector, most days I am able to get ahead of the masses - saving many minutes off my travel time. The risks? If too many join me, (or if I don't pay attention to slower/stopped traffic ahead of me) there is a dramatic reduction in the average speed. In other words, I can loose big time.
BTW, before I'm flamed as being a offensive / dangerous driver, allow me to explain my 3 priorities for getting home in order of descending importance:
- Get home safely.
- Do not do anything that causes other drivers to have to react defensively.
- Get home as fast as possible.
I'm aggressive, or defensive. I'm assertive.I digress. Actually, what I would _really_ like to see is a type of tractor beam. The main problem with cruise controls is the subtle difference between yours and mine. I'm either gaining on you by 0.5kph or someone is gaining on me by 0.5 kph. I hate constantly adjusting the cruise.
A 'tractor beam cruise' would use some kind of range sensing beam to keep you a 'safe' distance (ie: the 2 - 3 second rule taught in driver's ed, could be adjustable for driving conditions) from the car in front. If the distance started to close fast an alarm would sound to encourage you to press the brakes if needed.
If a car jumps into the space between you and the car in front, the 'cruise' slows down for a second or two to re-establish the buffer zone.
This would keep cars safely spaced on the highways and reduce the amount of fiddling with the cruise controls while driving.
I heard this recently on CBC's As it happens (it's the story about Air North and their expanding service to the 'South').
In Canada we're dealing with the Air-Canada monopoly which is making things very risky for new airline startups. However, the Yukon government recently tabled a policy where they will explicitly avoid doing business with companies that engage in unfair practices (such as flooding the market with cheap seats for the purpose of driving a competitor out of business). A similar policy in American governments might help keep the little guys trying to get a leg up on MS.
Someone once said that great discoveries in science are not followed by an expression of 'Eureka, I found it!', but rather by an expression of 'Hey, that's not supposed to happen.... hmmmm... that is interesting though... I wonder what would happen if....'
I love these types of discoveries.
At the risk of being redundant, I've often wondered, how far can science push the human body?
Look at auto racing. There's various classes of vehicles, with different rules. Typically you start with basic stock racing. Very limited mods allowed to the vehicle. The classes progress, until you reach the Super Modified class, where just about anything goes.
While there are some rules for safety, the cars don't look anything like your father's Oldsmobile.
Keep the Olympics pure, but hey, hype up the Strongest Man / Women / half breed contests. Open the doors and let these scientific wonders / freaks of nature do battle and lets see what the body is capable of handling!
There's many ethical issues, just make it a pay-per-view, don't try this at home - oh yeah, and run it on FOX...
Don't forget the railyards. I'm not sure if FedEx or UPS uses train cars to ship across the continent, but watching the cars get slammed together as they shuffle the cars to make new trains, and hearing stories from friends who worked in receiving yards that unloaded the cars, if you're going to ship anything by rail - pack it in a double steal container with lots of padding.
Ever since I first cracked open my ][e in the 80's, I thought about powering a computer off the 12V supply in a car. With the proliferation of laptops I thought for sure someone would make a simple adapter to connect the computer direct to the cigarette lighter. But no. That was not to be.
I realize that some form of adapter is required. Computers require +/- 5V, 3.3V, 12V, and possibly other voltages as well. And the power supply has to be clean - Windows has a hard enough time being stable without the hardware getting fried by sparkplug noise.
My problem, is why do I have to spend money on a invertor that creates heat (and hence wastes battery life), consumes space and whose only function is to convert low voltage into high voltage only to have another converter (the power supply) create more heat (read waste electricity) change it back? I would love to see a power supplies for laptops (at least) and even motherboards in general that run off a noisy 12V line. 120AC -> 12V DC convertors are everywhere and don't cost _nearly_ as much as 12V DC -> 120 VAC invertors.
I'm just asking that the world make sense! Is that too much?
At the risk of being redundant, does anyone else find it amusing that this great little PC complete with relatively new technology is fitted with a 5.25" drive?
I understand the need for proven technology in critical environments like the shuttle, but surely the improved storage capacity and reduced physical size of at least a 3.5" drive would be worth it. Given that 3.5" drives are virtually museum fodder, they should be almost ready for NASA's use.
This sounds like an unfortunate 'service' vs 'product' market migration. Why would I pay $xx / month for either disposable batteries or fuel for the cell when I can essentially charge the phone for free using an existing infrastructure? If it's to replace a forgotten charger, who's to say I wouldn't forget the fuel cell? If it's to power the phone where there is no infrastructure, I wonder where I would be for days with cell phone access, but no electricity?
Now the nagging chemistry question:
What happens to all the carbon atoms? I have read many hyped up press releases expounding the virtues of fuel cells: They only produce water, heat and electricity. That may be true if you have a pure hydrogen source, however, using a carbon based fuel like methane leaves me wondering - after I've stripped off the hydrogen to make the heat, water and electricity, what happens to the carbon atoms (and any hydrogen or oxygen atoms)? Surely these are being vented as carbon-dioxide, or worse being fused into some catalyst which will require proper disposal / cleanup.
What is the intended application?
If it's just to protect my machine from snooping employees or cleaning staff, then proper use of NTFS and a dilligent password is more then suffecient.
If it's supposed to protect a companies trade secrets kept on a travelling sales person's laptop, the maintenance would be a nightmare. How does a company recover the data if the employee is let go? A corporate spy would simply use the same technique.
If it's supposed to keep top secret documents related to national security safe from well funded agencies, I wonder (again), why wouldn't a secure file system and well managed password work?
In short, this seems like the wrong tool for the job. Finger prints should be used to verify the id of a person entering / leaving a secure area where there is a guard watching to ensure it is a live hand being used.
On the otherhand, there was a cool (if in concept only) technology demonstrated years ago that used a PC mounted camera and some trivial face recognition software to activate / deactivate a screen saver. This would be perfect in cubicle farms where you want to make a quick trip to get coffee / get rid of coffee. I remember to lock up my station at night when I go home, but not always for those spontaneous flights of fancy.
I see a huge benefit here. Send a 3D printer and a bucket of resuable plastic to a remote location (South Pole, remote desert, under water research, even space). Metal tools are expensive, heavy and take up a lot of room to have every wrench size required. If the machine could make a spanner that had enough strenght to fix one or two things, then broke - who cares. Just reuse the plastic. Need a different tool? Just reuse the plastic.
Obviously, critical tools should always be on hand and made from appropriate material.
Also, equally obvious (or should be), standardizing on style of screw heads, socket sizes, etc. should make parts more interchangeable and keep the number of tools required to a minimum.
(This is probably going to be flagged as a troll or flamebait, but think about it. We have put up with crap for so long, that when we finally get sub-second boot times back it's a big deal. It's like hiding toys from your kids for 6 months and then bringing them out as winter sets in - they get all excited about stuff they used to have.)
I'll admit ignorance as to all the required checks, double checks and initialization that must go on to get a decent OS up and running, but I still can't help but think that inefficiently designed / written bloat-ware could be done much better to improve the boot times of modern machines. Why not lazy load the drivers, etc as required?
As I understand it, in Canada, only parties that are going to be involved in your taxes (employers, banks, Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency, etc) are allowed to ask you for your Social Insurance Number.
There are a lot of other groups that ask for it, because it makes for a very convenient unique identifier, however, as a Canadian, I believe I am allowed to refuse without loss of service.
I never give out my SIN unless it's actually legally required.
For a backdrop, have a large virtual fish tank bubbling away.
I'd almost pay to work in an environment like that...
Lately (in the past 6 months) I've notice an 'explosion' of ComFree houses being advertised via lawn signs. ComFree seems to offer a pretty slick service, including VR tours. The housing market in Winnipeg has taken off in the last year or so, and as a result the need for a high pressure real estate agent has dropped. It will be interesting to see how well ComFree does when the housing market cools off.
If the 'net is available via 2 way satellite why not mount a dish to the roof of the RV and surf while at the lake, etc?
The answer for now is - no. For all our conviences, we have to pay in terms of government control. A certified technician is required to come and permanently set up the transmitter, so the RV is out. However, if you have the extra cash, you could set up the cottage.
Question: How sticky are the Americans about this? Am I allowed to set up my own transmitter in the states - or does a certified technician have to do it?