You should note that modern cars (most likely 1996 model year and newer, but possibly older) will change the air/fuel ratio depending on how far you engage the gas pedal. Below 75% pedal, they will keep it at 14.7:1 to keep the government from slapping them with huge fines for not passing emmissions testing. The government doesn't regulate anything above 75% pedal, which means that when you floor it (above 75%), the vehicle will switch into a saturation mode, and your vehicle will spit black clouds of smoke out its tail pipe (black smoke is indicitive of an overly rich air/fuel ratio). You will also smell rotten eggs. This is normal, caused by the catalyst in your catalytic converter. This is also why you will often smell rotten eggs when going up a steep hill, especially following another vehicle. If you don't smell rotten eggs, then you should have your cat checked out, because it will probably need to be replaced (not cheap, either)
So what gears do is put peaks in the fuel efficiency curve. Depending on how a car is geared, 55 mph can be very inefficient, because it could be at the worst spot below the power band
Yes, this is true. However, typically vehicle's are geared to be most efficient around 55mph. This view is supported by the EPA. The EPA states that for every mph over 55 that a typical vehicle travels, it will lose approximately 1% of maximum fuel economy. So if you're driving at 65mph, then you're losing 10% of your maximum fuel economy!
Also note that none of this applies to vehicles with Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVT). AFAIK, the only vehicles on the road today that have CVT's are hybrids, although I would expect this to change in the near future because of the benefits of the CVT.
The speed of light is _only_ 186,000 mi/sec when traveling through a vacuum. Light travels at slower speeds through all other mediums (i.e. earth's atmosphere, glass, a super-cooled diamond, etc)
Few people need to write programs and I don't know whether I'd want people who don't understand computers...
One of the many problems with natural language is that the same term can mean two different things to computers and people. For example, when speaking in English, a person might say, "I don't know whether I should go to the store or the gym." The key here is that the term "or" actually means "xor", but the typical person doen't know this. To the computer (and the person who wrote the interpreter), the term "or" means one, the other, or both as far as logic goes. So say that the interpreter is fixed to recognize this fact. What happens when a programmer sits down to use this interpreter, and thinks that or should mean logical or, not English or? Oh well, just one more bug to deal with, I guess...
I had an idea for an alarm clock that couldn't be ignored. First, in addition to the normal annoying buzzer, hook up an air horn to blast in unison with the buzzer. Secondly, rig the lights of your room to flash in unison with the deafening noise. Now try to ignore that!
I know this has been done before, but it's not something you see very often. The basic premise is: Pure water doesn't conduct electricity! So, use a modified fish tank (make sure it and your computer are squeaky clean), and fill it with distilled water. Then submerge your squeaky clean computer into the squeaky clean water contained in the squeaky clean fish tank. Blam! Instant kick-ass cooling. Convection currents alone will help to cool all hot parts, but you could easily add a water pump to create forced currents.
I usually start having dilusions of being able to save before doing something risky, and then reloading when I mess up or it doesn't work. Kind of disappointing to realize that there's no reloading in life.
This has already been invented. I invented it in 8th grade in 1999 for a project to make, get this, inventions. I came up with it as a joke idea because everybody makes jokes about "solar-powered flashlights". However, this flashlight actually had a purpose. I started out using dead batteries in it just as an easy way to complete the circuit, but soon realized that the flashlight actually charged the dead batteries during daylight hours, and therefore could be used during the night. Pure genious!
Scientific experiment?
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Where's the control group? Where's the diversity? For this to be a properly conducted experiment, there should be hundreds of people, not 18. There should be an even distribution of gender, ethnicity, age, etc.
There should be groups who are infected with HIV who get the treatment, groups who are infected with HIV who don't get the treatment, groups who are not infected with HIV who get the treatment, groups who are not infected with HIV who don't get the treatment, groups who are infected with HIV who think they get the treatment but actually don't (placebo), and groups who aren't infected with HIV who think they get the treatment but actually don't.
I'm sure I'm missing a few more groups, but the point remains that this is hardly conclusive, or even an acceptable test.
I wonder if anybody has thought of making an RFID chip that just throws out static interference, thus drowning out any useful information that a real RFID chip would give...
Obviously, the laws we have aren't good enough. That implies that we need new legislation passed. And you know what the quickest way to get new legislation passed is? Piss off the legislators! An idea that's probably a bit on the illegal side, but most likely will work--sign up your legislators for all the junk mail/spam/telemarketers you can. When the legislators start getting piles of mail at their doorstep, tons of spam, and nonstop telemarketing calls, I'm sure it'll piss them off enough to actually do something about it in a heartbeat.
I'm not sure what country you live in, but in the US it is legal to own tanks, missiles, and attack helicopters, so long as you have the permits to do so. I have a friend who has an AK-47, and bought a permit for it. It cost him $2000 for the permit. He said that you can buy a permit for any weapon (except nukes, duh!), the only limit being money. I'm sure a permit for a tank would be several million dollars, but if you can afford to buy a tank, why not a permit for the tank?
Just play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). I got hooked, and am a maniac/DDR addict. I had a teacher at school even notice a weight loss, and I was skinny to begin with (125 lbs., 5' 6"). My purpose isn't even to lose weight, if anything I want to gain weight because I'm a total lightweight as it is. But I have a lot of fun playing DDR with friends and showing off in front of crowds and such, although it hits the wallet pretty hard. Also, you _don't_ have to be a good dancer to play well. I absolutely suck on a dance floor, but I shine when it comes to the DDR pad. I've noticed that people that are actually really good dancers tend to suck at DDR even, and that those that are bad dancers are fairly good at DDR.
umm, no, x-mas didn't come from Chi-Rho, it came from the fact that that Christmas starts with a "criss" sound, which is the beginning of "criss-cross", and the best representation of a "criss-cross" in the English language is an x, as one can see from the fact that American railroad intersection markers state "Railroad X-ing"
As an employee of a rather large retail store, I know a little something about the competitiveness amongst the various different large retail stores. As an example, our store puts out ads weekly, Sunday morning. So does Safeway, but on Tuesday, I believe. We employees usually have access to these ads by Friday the previous week. If one of the ads gets out and somehow gets into the hands of a Safeway employee, and we have something on sale for say, $0.79/lbs., then you can bet that when Safeway puts out their add, they'll have that same something for a lower price, say $0.69/lbs. So if it's only a matter of just a couple days, then you can bet Safeway will run do way better business on that sale item than we do, and we will lose quite a bit of business. The day after Thanksgiving is the most competitive day of the year, and no retail store wants their sale prices posted before they intended them to, otherwise they will lose a lot of business because the other retail stores can then adjust their prices.
In all actuality, water is not an electrolyte. It's the minerals and elements in water which conducts electricity. This means that distilled water(condensation) does not conduct electricity, and therefore would not short out electrical equipment.
My father is a police officer in the Oregone State Police, and he doesn't seem to have many office relationships. He doesn't have BBQ's on the weekend, talk shop and/or gf's, with kids running amuck. He doesn't seem to go bowling, play poker, or interact with his colleagues outside of the office place at all. I think that these television shows only depict such happenings between people because it is what people consider "ideal", and that's the type of thing that people want to see.
Slashdot Mirror
the east wing of Disneyland, perhaps?
Umm, the T-Zero is already faster than the Porsche 911, Ferrari Enzo, and Lambourghini in the quarter mile. Check it out. http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home .htm
You should note that modern cars (most likely 1996 model year and newer, but possibly older) will change the air/fuel ratio depending on how far you engage the gas pedal. Below 75% pedal, they will keep it at 14.7:1 to keep the government from slapping them with huge fines for not passing emmissions testing. The government doesn't regulate anything above 75% pedal, which means that when you floor it (above 75%), the vehicle will switch into a saturation mode, and your vehicle will spit black clouds of smoke out its tail pipe (black smoke is indicitive of an overly rich air/fuel ratio). You will also smell rotten eggs. This is normal, caused by the catalyst in your catalytic converter. This is also why you will often smell rotten eggs when going up a steep hill, especially following another vehicle. If you don't smell rotten eggs, then you should have your cat checked out, because it will probably need to be replaced (not cheap, either)
So what gears do is put peaks in the fuel efficiency curve. Depending on how a car is geared, 55 mph can be very inefficient, because it could be at the worst spot below the power band
Yes, this is true. However, typically vehicle's are geared to be most efficient around 55mph. This view is supported by the EPA. The EPA states that for every mph over 55 that a typical vehicle travels, it will lose approximately 1% of maximum fuel economy. So if you're driving at 65mph, then you're losing 10% of your maximum fuel economy!
Also note that none of this applies to vehicles with Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVT). AFAIK, the only vehicles on the road today that have CVT's are hybrids, although I would expect this to change in the near future because of the benefits of the CVT.
In addition:
its: possesive (as in it owns something)
it's: contraction for "it is"
For a better illustration of the use of the apostrophe, visit Bob the angry flower's apostrophe rage page at http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
The speed of light is _only_ 186,000 mi/sec when traveling through a vacuum. Light travels at slower speeds through all other mediums (i.e. earth's atmosphere, glass, a super-cooled diamond, etc)
Few people need to write programs and I don't know whether I'd want people who don't understand computers...
One of the many problems with natural language is that the same term can mean two different things to computers and people. For example, when speaking in English, a person might say, "I don't know whether I should go to the store or the gym." The key here is that the term "or" actually means "xor", but the typical person doen't know this. To the computer (and the person who wrote the interpreter), the term "or" means one, the other, or both as far as logic goes. So say that the interpreter is fixed to recognize this fact. What happens when a programmer sits down to use this interpreter, and thinks that or should mean logical or, not English or? Oh well, just one more bug to deal with, I guess...
I had an idea for an alarm clock that couldn't be ignored. First, in addition to the normal annoying buzzer, hook up an air horn to blast in unison with the buzzer. Secondly, rig the lights of your room to flash in unison with the deafening noise. Now try to ignore that!
Could they have picked a gayer name?
No, they could not have. This name is happier than any other name.
I know this has been done before, but it's not something you see very often. The basic premise is: Pure water doesn't conduct electricity! So, use a modified fish tank (make sure it and your computer are squeaky clean), and fill it with distilled water. Then submerge your squeaky clean computer into the squeaky clean water contained in the squeaky clean fish tank. Blam! Instant kick-ass cooling. Convection currents alone will help to cool all hot parts, but you could easily add a water pump to create forced currents.
I usually start having dilusions of being able to save before doing something risky, and then reloading when I mess up or it doesn't work. Kind of disappointing to realize that there's no reloading in life.
This has already been invented. I invented it in 8th grade in 1999 for a project to make, get this, inventions. I came up with it as a joke idea because everybody makes jokes about "solar-powered flashlights". However, this flashlight actually had a purpose. I started out using dead batteries in it just as an easy way to complete the circuit, but soon realized that the flashlight actually charged the dead batteries during daylight hours, and therefore could be used during the night. Pure genious!
Where's the control group? Where's the diversity? For this to be a properly conducted experiment, there should be hundreds of people, not 18. There should be an even distribution of gender, ethnicity, age, etc.
There should be groups who are infected with HIV who get the treatment,
groups who are infected with HIV who don't get the treatment,
groups who are not infected with HIV who get the treatment,
groups who are not infected with HIV who don't get the treatment,
groups who are infected with HIV who think they get the treatment but actually don't (placebo),
and groups who aren't infected with HIV who think they get the treatment but actually don't.
I'm sure I'm missing a few more groups, but the point remains that this is hardly conclusive, or even an acceptable test.
I wonder if anybody has thought of making an RFID chip that just throws out static interference, thus drowning out any useful information that a real RFID chip would give...
C Programmer
C Programmer write code
C Program run
C Program crash
"Why would anyone want to leave Windows?", in response to a question as to why there was no way to exit Windows and return to DOS.
Obviously, the laws we have aren't good enough. That implies that we need new legislation passed. And you know what the quickest way to get new legislation passed is? Piss off the legislators! An idea that's probably a bit on the illegal side, but most likely will work--sign up your legislators for all the junk mail/spam/telemarketers you can. When the legislators start getting piles of mail at their doorstep, tons of spam, and nonstop telemarketing calls, I'm sure it'll piss them off enough to actually do something about it in a heartbeat.
I'm not sure what country you live in, but in the US it is legal to own tanks, missiles, and attack helicopters, so long as you have the permits to do so. I have a friend who has an AK-47, and bought a permit for it. It cost him $2000 for the permit. He said that you can buy a permit for any weapon (except nukes, duh!), the only limit being money. I'm sure a permit for a tank would be several million dollars, but if you can afford to buy a tank, why not a permit for the tank?
Just play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). I got hooked, and am a maniac/DDR addict. I had a teacher at school even notice a weight loss, and I was skinny to begin with (125 lbs., 5' 6"). My purpose isn't even to lose weight, if anything I want to gain weight because I'm a total lightweight as it is. But I have a lot of fun playing DDR with friends and showing off in front of crowds and such, although it hits the wallet pretty hard. Also, you _don't_ have to be a good dancer to play well. I absolutely suck on a dance floor, but I shine when it comes to the DDR pad. I've noticed that people that are actually really good dancers tend to suck at DDR even, and that those that are bad dancers are fairly good at DDR.
Logging on in the morning and giving first "Offtopic" mod down on FP
I wonder if this applies to the seven rules for spotting bogus science?
umm, no, x-mas didn't come from Chi-Rho, it came from the fact that that Christmas starts with a "criss" sound, which is the beginning of "criss-cross", and the best representation of a "criss-cross" in the English language is an x, as one can see from the fact that American railroad intersection markers state "Railroad X-ing"
As an employee of a rather large retail store, I know a little something about the competitiveness amongst the various different large retail stores. As an example, our store puts out ads weekly, Sunday morning. So does Safeway, but on Tuesday, I believe. We employees usually have access to these ads by Friday the previous week. If one of the ads gets out and somehow gets into the hands of a Safeway employee, and we have something on sale for say, $0.79/lbs., then you can bet that when Safeway puts out their add, they'll have that same something for a lower price, say $0.69/lbs. So if it's only a matter of just a couple days, then you can bet Safeway will run do way better business on that sale item than we do, and we will lose quite a bit of business. The day after Thanksgiving is the most competitive day of the year, and no retail store wants their sale prices posted before they intended them to, otherwise they will lose a lot of business because the other retail stores can then adjust their prices.
In all actuality, water is not an electrolyte. It's the minerals and elements in water which conducts electricity. This means that distilled water(condensation) does not conduct electricity, and therefore would not short out electrical equipment.
My father is a police officer in the Oregone State Police, and he doesn't seem to have many office relationships. He doesn't have BBQ's on the weekend, talk shop and/or gf's, with kids running amuck. He doesn't seem to go bowling, play poker, or interact with his colleagues outside of the office place at all. I think that these television shows only depict such happenings between people because it is what people consider "ideal", and that's the type of thing that people want to see.