There is no way any reasonably sized store can go up against the massive catalog and capacity of digikey, mouser, and friends. This pretty much cuts the retail demand for parts down to "common parts that I need now" which is a slim living indeed.
Yes, but I'd bet that there are similar types of interests these stores could cater to that would attract enough customers to keep them afloat. For example, home automation equipment, CB and ham radio equipment, do it yourself electronic kits, "Heathkit" type learning kits, etc.
I'm in Afghanistan now and am supposed to be taking doxycycline. Not only do the side effects include nausea, but I've heard it causes nightmares, too. Fuck that shit, I'll take my chances. Coincidentally my ass is getting ate up with mosquitoes at this very moment..hope I don't get malaria..:)
It's not like government computers and networks aren't already crippled and locked down enough as it is. We aren't even allowed to use thumb drives because it's a "security risk." So now when I need to look up a Cisco command or some other bit of information, or just check my damn web mail to grab an old email I need, I can't do that anymore either because you think it's a waste of public resources. Great!
You are mistaken. Have you ever seen a 1950s or early 1960s car? They are DEAD SIMPLE.
Take a 1965 Ford F100 vs a 2010 Ford F150, for instance. Every aspect of the late model truck is 100 times more complex and expensive than the old one. Look in the engine bays; in the 2010 the entire engine bay is filled with bullshit. There's a huge and complicated wiring harness, electronics everywhere, plastic pieces galore, emissions labels, pumps, control valves, circuitry, relays, fuel injectors, air meters, ABS module, tons of assorted tubing and plumbing. In stark comparison, the 65 engine bay is a vast, empty cavern with a cast iron lump in the center, a few stamped steel pieces, maybe ten wires in total, one or two small plastic moldings, and a few hoses and tubes. For engine accessories there is a water pump and a generator, with one V-belt running them, and that's all. No power steering, no power brakes, definitely no ABS, no A/C, no nothing except a frame rail, an engine block, and a steel body wrapped around it.
Same thing on the interior. The 2010 has power/heated seats, power windows, power door locks, a stereo system, electronic instrument cluster, anti theft alarm, a climate control system, map lights, and various wiring harnesses, relays, and electronic boxes to control it all. The '65 has a bench seat, a steering wheel, a few control knobs for the heater box, and that's about it.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the late model vehicle has 10 times, or even 20 times as many parts. Most of the parts have to be installed by hand into assemblies, which are then installed into the truck by hand later, or by robots which have to be designed to do the job at great expense. Every plastic piece needs a mold, and molds are expensive. Wiring harnesses are built largely by hand, and have you ever priced one? $3-4k usually. Then there's the electronic components. And all of this stuff has to be designed, engineered, manufactured, and tested.
What it boils down to is, if Ford could legally sell a '65 model F100 today, the MSRP would be about $9,999, and it'd feature big upgrades over the original design to boot. The problem of course is that emissions and safety regulations wouldn't allow it. This is why cars today are so fantastically complex; not because they have to be, but because of emissions and safety regulations. Fuel economy is not a concern with the old 240ci inline 6 motor, as they get 21-23 MPG if in good tune, even though the truck has the aerodynamics of a brick. The higher emissions is what would kill it for modern purposes. Same thing on the safety aspect; a single reservoir non-ABS four wheel drum brake system leaves much to be desired compared to modern brake systems, the lap belts are inadequate, the steering column isn't designed to collapse, and the body is not designed to crumple on impact. The newer sheet metal bodies aren't made thin as hell because steel is ridiculously expensive, but because there is a great need to reduce weight and expense due to all the required plastic and electronic bullshit. How much does a '65 truck weight, with all its thick sheet metal? About 500 lbs less than a 2010 model.
The more men act like johns, the more women will act like whores, and vice versa.
Your use of slurs indicates to me (and to everyone else as well) that you're likely some fat middle aged nerd or basement dwelling geek who's just pissed off and jealous because he's not getting in on the action.
Hah, corporate culture is so idiotic and inflexible. The problem with 99% of corporations in my opinion is that they cater to the lowest common denominator. I don't mean that in a rude or haughty way; let me explain.
There are lot of different kinds of people in the world. I guess there are some people (a lot of people) who work fairly well with the whole 9-5 every day routine type job. It probably suits most people not because they particular enjoy it, but because most people wouldn't have enough self control to actually do their jobs as well if you were to just, say, let them teleconference from home or something. (FWIW I think this perception is largely a myth, and that the solution to unproductive employees is to simply fire their asses.)
The problem with this approach is that it alienates people who could otherwise be strong assets to your company, like me. I'm the kid that fucked off all week long at school, didn't study, got yelled at for reading three chapters ahead in the book, then aced the test without even trying. You want to hire me? Give me a job solving problems. Pure technical problems (or whatever other technical work you hired me to do) with no politics, paperwork, hours long pointless meetings and teleconferences, forced teamwork, etc attached. Let me come in to work at any hour I want, leave any time I want, work from home if and when I want. Basically let do whatever the hell I want as long as I accomplish specific tasks within a specific time frame. If you want to contact me, don't call, send an email/IM and wait for a response unless it's an EMERGENCY requiring IMMEDIATE RESPONSE. Don't treat me like a kid, I'm my own man and don't need a nanny to help me along. And lastly, don't try to make me feel guilty or inferior because I'm different than you.
You know what, I don't pretend to be ideal for jobs that the "average" employee is good at. I recognize that I have strengths and limitations. What I want is to see employers be smart enough to recognize these strengths and limitations and put people in positions with responsibilities that best suit them. IMO the best employers are the ones who hire the best, give them a lot of freedom, and pay them well--like Google for instance. They make the job be more like an extension of your life rather than a typical "job." It's a place that you look forward to coming to every day instead of another boring 9-5 grind. That's smart. I wish other employers would learn a thing or two from them.
No false sense of security created by seeing https and a lock icon, due to not understanding the difference between encryption and authentication.
I don't have a false sense of security. What I have is a false sense of insecurity created by my stupid ass browser requiring me to click through 15 dialogs to confirm that yes, I really DO want to accept the risk of someone executing a MITM attack between me and www.joesforum.com, despite the risk being infinitesimal.
Except from a practical standpoint, in Nvidia's business, exposing every detail of the hardware interface and documenting all the guts of their chips affects their ability to compete in the market.
And Microsoft releasing every line of their source code under the GPL just to appease FSF religious fanatics wouldn't affect their ability to compete in the market? Really?
If I were teaching an introductory programming course, I'd start by getting them out of the GUI, away from the complexity and distraction of "modern" development environments and languages. I'd set them up in DOS with Turbo C or Turbo Pascal and have the write simple (progressively more complex) text games. This is how I started in programming when I was a kid, and looking back, it really is the best and easiest way to learn.
The infrastructure cost for humans in space is staggering.
Yes, and it's not getting any cheaper any time soon, now is it? The only way it's going to get cheaper is through us SPENDING THE MONEY to develop the technology and know-how, then put it into regular production and use. That's not going to happen if we just sit on our asses putting all our eggs into the robotics basket. It damn sure isn't going to happen if we leave it up to "the market" to figure it out. We have come a long way technologically since the 1960s; we have the technology now to put humans on Mars permanently, reaping large technological and research rewards in the process, if we could only get some people in Congress to have an ounce of vision and just spend the God damn money to make it happen.
No it is not. If it was, there would be simpler/better replacements for features that it has.
There is--it's called C#.
C++ is a horribly broken language that should have been relegated to the scrap heap long ago. Not really interested in reading any counter arguments you may care to make, as there is nothing you can possibly say that can convince me this language isn't a POS.
What kind of fantasy world do you live in? In the world I live in (the real world) a real, all original '69 Camaro SS is worth heaps more than a clone, and a limited special edition car, even if it's only a stupid badge and trim package (such as a '70 Mustang Mach1 "Twister") is worth something just because it's limited edition and not the same as one of the hundreds of thousands of "regular" cars produced that year.
Those guys aren't getting the full money for the car because they're incompetent. If you actually put every option on the car, and rebadged it, nobody would know, not even most dealers. Unless they know the option kit vin code they will probably never notice.
You have no idea what you're talking about. The VIN code states the engine configuration, and anyone who knows anything about the car they're buying (especially dealers) is damn sure going to notice the difference between a V6 and a V8, or a plain jane Firebird and a WS-6 Trans Am. What, you don't think people (especially dealers) look up VIN codes? And of course you are assuming that someone is actually going to go through all the trouble to swap EVERY unique piece onto their plain jane Firebird to make it look exactly like a factory built, completely unmolested WS-6, and that's rarely ever seen.
No matter what, neither car will be worth any real money, and both cars are slow.
I have a pretty much stock '02 SS and it will still kick most other stock cars asses any day of the week. Low 13s in the 1/4 with 106 mph trap is not considered slow by any means, even today. Sure it's slower than these 400-500+ HP supercars coming out, but it's pretty damn easy and cheap to get 500+ horsepower out of an LS1 motor too. The only reason you said his car was slow was to be a dick, plain and simple. Odds are, you're some insecure Evo driving douchebag. Do us all a favor and crawl back into your hole.
I've done it both ways. I've built some custom hot rods that would blow your mind, and they were all a lot of fun. But there's something to be said about having a STOCK (or stock with a few bolt ons) car that runs and drives exactly like the factory intended, that you never have to fuck with, just jump in, turn the key and go. Then if it breaks you can just go down to the parts store and get the right part in minutes, instead of having of look up parts for 15 different cars to get the right one.
The OS thinks that everything ACKed as sent to the storage unit is written,
What does it matter what the OS "thinks"? When power is lost, all of its "thoughts" disappear. When you power it back on it reloads its "thoughts" from the DISK, thus there can be no confusion.
Your understanding of detonation and pre-ignition are incorrect. First, pre-ignition and detonation are not the same thing, though one can cause the other. Pre-ignition is usually caused by excessive carbon buildup but can be caused by detonation if the detonation is bad enough. (At which point your engine is probably already ruined.) You say that both occur prior to TDC (on the compression stroke), but this in incorrect. Pre-ignition occurs prior to TDC, but detonation typically occurs well AFTER TDC, and AFTER the mixture has already been ignited by the spark plug and mostly burned. It occurs only when the fuel mixture has been exposed to enough heat and pressure for long enough, which is not true at any point in the combustion process (in a normally operating engine) until near the very end.
Think about combustion chamber designs. The first design in common use was the flathead. You could run very little compression in a flathead before it detonated. Maybe 7.5:1 max, if that. The hemi design came later, which was better from detonation standpoint, but still nowhere near modern standards. Then there's the wedge, which is pretty decent, then later the advanced closed chamber designs and pent-roofs we are using now where we are running damn near 12:1 ratios on pump gas in the latest engines. What's the difference between the designs? The ones least prone to detonate are the ones with the most swirl, fastest burning designs which mix up the fuel/air thoroughly, atomize it, and burn it quickly. The faster and more thoroughly you can burn the fuel, the less chance it has to detonate.
This is why this laser design could be revolutionary. Conventional spark plug designs ignite a small flame kernel which then propagates outward. The laser design will ignite a CYLINDER of fuel mixture which will then propagate outward and burn the mixture much more quickly. It will likely also ignite leaner mixtures better, as another poster noted. Not only can you increase the detonation ratio to compensate for your newfound high detonation threshold (and gain a lot of efficiency in the process), but now you have less time in which the burning fuel/air mixture is pushing AGAINST the upward piston movement and robbing you of power. Remember, the mixture is ignited well before TDC so that the PPP (peak pressure point) occurs right when the piston/rod is at its most efficient angle to do work on the crankshaft. Before the piston reaches TDC, the burning mixture is building pressure against it, opposing the crankshaft motion and robbing your engine of power. This is one of the many reasons why gasoline engines are so inefficient compared to diesels.
Nope, I guarantee I am not missing the point at all. First off, pre-ignition and detonation are NOT the same phenomenon. Pre-ignition is generally caused by detonation (or excessive carbon buildup, leading to "dieseling.") Detonation = pinging. This is exactly what the name implies--the fuel is undergoing DETONATION (combustion propagated via shock wave), rather than deflagration (combustion propagated via heat/energy conduction.) Detonation is started by excessive heat and pressure in the cylinder. It does not occur at the beginning of the combustion cycle, but rather towards the end of the power stroke. This is because the longer your fuel/air mixture is exposed to excessive heat and temperature, the bigger chance it has to detonate. Inefficient chamber designs like the classic wedge design--or worse, the old hemis--or worse yet, flatheads--are prone to detonation largely because of the large combustion chamber surface area, leading to longer burn times, and longer exposure of the fuel to detonation-inducing conditions. In a modern closed or pent-roof combustion chamber, if you can use a laser to ignite a large cross-section of the mixture simultaneously, the flame propagation will be greatly sped up and thus greatly reduce the chance for detonation to occur. You can then increase compression ratio to gain more power with no downside. You also gain power by the simple fact that there is a smaller window of time in which the burning mixture is pushing against the crankshaft (end of compression stroke) and working against the engine, thus improving overall efficiency considerably.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone mod this idiot flamebait
There is no way any reasonably sized store can go up against the massive catalog and capacity of digikey, mouser, and friends. This pretty much cuts the retail demand for parts down to "common parts that I need now" which is a slim living indeed.
Yes, but I'd bet that there are similar types of interests these stores could cater to that would attract enough customers to keep them afloat. For example, home automation equipment, CB and ham radio equipment, do it yourself electronic kits, "Heathkit" type learning kits, etc.
I'm in Afghanistan now and am supposed to be taking doxycycline. Not only do the side effects include nausea, but I've heard it causes nightmares, too. Fuck that shit, I'll take my chances. Coincidentally my ass is getting ate up with mosquitoes at this very moment..hope I don't get malaria.. :)
It's not like government computers and networks aren't already crippled and locked down enough as it is. We aren't even allowed to use thumb drives because it's a "security risk." So now when I need to look up a Cisco command or some other bit of information, or just check my damn web mail to grab an old email I need, I can't do that anymore either because you think it's a waste of public resources. Great!
You are mistaken. Have you ever seen a 1950s or early 1960s car? They are DEAD SIMPLE.
Take a 1965 Ford F100 vs a 2010 Ford F150, for instance. Every aspect of the late model truck is 100 times more complex and expensive than the old one. Look in the engine bays; in the 2010 the entire engine bay is filled with bullshit. There's a huge and complicated wiring harness, electronics everywhere, plastic pieces galore, emissions labels, pumps, control valves, circuitry, relays, fuel injectors, air meters, ABS module, tons of assorted tubing and plumbing. In stark comparison, the 65 engine bay is a vast, empty cavern with a cast iron lump in the center, a few stamped steel pieces, maybe ten wires in total, one or two small plastic moldings, and a few hoses and tubes. For engine accessories there is a water pump and a generator, with one V-belt running them, and that's all. No power steering, no power brakes, definitely no ABS, no A/C, no nothing except a frame rail, an engine block, and a steel body wrapped around it.
Same thing on the interior. The 2010 has power/heated seats, power windows, power door locks, a stereo system, electronic instrument cluster, anti theft alarm, a climate control system, map lights, and various wiring harnesses, relays, and electronic boxes to control it all. The '65 has a bench seat, a steering wheel, a few control knobs for the heater box, and that's about it.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the late model vehicle has 10 times, or even 20 times as many parts. Most of the parts have to be installed by hand into assemblies, which are then installed into the truck by hand later, or by robots which have to be designed to do the job at great expense. Every plastic piece needs a mold, and molds are expensive. Wiring harnesses are built largely by hand, and have you ever priced one? $3-4k usually. Then there's the electronic components. And all of this stuff has to be designed, engineered, manufactured, and tested.
What it boils down to is, if Ford could legally sell a '65 model F100 today, the MSRP would be about $9,999, and it'd feature big upgrades over the original design to boot. The problem of course is that emissions and safety regulations wouldn't allow it. This is why cars today are so fantastically complex; not because they have to be, but because of emissions and safety regulations. Fuel economy is not a concern with the old 240ci inline 6 motor, as they get 21-23 MPG if in good tune, even though the truck has the aerodynamics of a brick. The higher emissions is what would kill it for modern purposes. Same thing on the safety aspect; a single reservoir non-ABS four wheel drum brake system leaves much to be desired compared to modern brake systems, the lap belts are inadequate, the steering column isn't designed to collapse, and the body is not designed to crumple on impact. The newer sheet metal bodies aren't made thin as hell because steel is ridiculously expensive, but because there is a great need to reduce weight and expense due to all the required plastic and electronic bullshit. How much does a '65 truck weight, with all its thick sheet metal? About 500 lbs less than a 2010 model.
The more men act like johns, the more women will act like whores, and vice versa.
Your use of slurs indicates to me (and to everyone else as well) that you're likely some fat middle aged nerd or basement dwelling geek who's just pissed off and jealous because he's not getting in on the action.
Hah, corporate culture is so idiotic and inflexible. The problem with 99% of corporations in my opinion is that they cater to the lowest common denominator. I don't mean that in a rude or haughty way; let me explain.
There are lot of different kinds of people in the world. I guess there are some people (a lot of people) who work fairly well with the whole 9-5 every day routine type job. It probably suits most people not because they particular enjoy it, but because most people wouldn't have enough self control to actually do their jobs as well if you were to just, say, let them teleconference from home or something. (FWIW I think this perception is largely a myth, and that the solution to unproductive employees is to simply fire their asses.)
The problem with this approach is that it alienates people who could otherwise be strong assets to your company, like me. I'm the kid that fucked off all week long at school, didn't study, got yelled at for reading three chapters ahead in the book, then aced the test without even trying. You want to hire me? Give me a job solving problems. Pure technical problems (or whatever other technical work you hired me to do) with no politics, paperwork, hours long pointless meetings and teleconferences, forced teamwork, etc attached. Let me come in to work at any hour I want, leave any time I want, work from home if and when I want. Basically let do whatever the hell I want as long as I accomplish specific tasks within a specific time frame. If you want to contact me, don't call, send an email/IM and wait for a response unless it's an EMERGENCY requiring IMMEDIATE RESPONSE. Don't treat me like a kid, I'm my own man and don't need a nanny to help me along. And lastly, don't try to make me feel guilty or inferior because I'm different than you.
You know what, I don't pretend to be ideal for jobs that the "average" employee is good at. I recognize that I have strengths and limitations. What I want is to see employers be smart enough to recognize these strengths and limitations and put people in positions with responsibilities that best suit them. IMO the best employers are the ones who hire the best, give them a lot of freedom, and pay them well--like Google for instance. They make the job be more like an extension of your life rather than a typical "job." It's a place that you look forward to coming to every day instead of another boring 9-5 grind. That's smart. I wish other employers would learn a thing or two from them.
What do you think?
I think I would just use another browser.
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/s356.repro.jpg
Dude looks like a lady.
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/s536.repro.jpg
Pretty face, but OMG @ that neck
WTF? Why is this modded flamebait? I hope someone meta-mods this clueless mod to oblivion.
No false sense of security created by seeing https and a lock icon, due to not understanding the difference between encryption and authentication.
I don't have a false sense of security. What I have is a false sense of insecurity created by my stupid ass browser requiring me to click through 15 dialogs to confirm that yes, I really DO want to accept the risk of someone executing a MITM attack between me and www.joesforum.com, despite the risk being infinitesimal.
What do site security certificates have to do with security?
Except from a practical standpoint, in Nvidia's business, exposing every detail of the hardware interface and documenting all the guts of their chips affects their ability to compete in the market.
And Microsoft releasing every line of their source code under the GPL just to appease FSF religious fanatics wouldn't affect their ability to compete in the market? Really?
In other words, Linux was more pragmatic
If I were teaching an introductory programming course, I'd start by getting them out of the GUI, away from the complexity and distraction of "modern" development environments and languages. I'd set them up in DOS with Turbo C or Turbo Pascal and have the write simple (progressively more complex) text games. This is how I started in programming when I was a kid, and looking back, it really is the best and easiest way to learn.
The infrastructure cost for humans in space is staggering.
Yes, and it's not getting any cheaper any time soon, now is it? The only way it's going to get cheaper is through us SPENDING THE MONEY to develop the technology and know-how, then put it into regular production and use. That's not going to happen if we just sit on our asses putting all our eggs into the robotics basket. It damn sure isn't going to happen if we leave it up to "the market" to figure it out. We have come a long way technologically since the 1960s; we have the technology now to put humans on Mars permanently, reaping large technological and research rewards in the process, if we could only get some people in Congress to have an ounce of vision and just spend the God damn money to make it happen.
No it is not. If it was, there would be simpler/better replacements for features that it has.
There is--it's called C#.
C++ is a horribly broken language that should have been relegated to the scrap heap long ago. Not really interested in reading any counter arguments you may care to make, as there is nothing you can possibly say that can convince me this language isn't a POS.
What kind of fantasy world do you live in? In the world I live in (the real world) a real, all original '69 Camaro SS is worth heaps more than a clone, and a limited special edition car, even if it's only a stupid badge and trim package (such as a '70 Mustang Mach1 "Twister") is worth something just because it's limited edition and not the same as one of the hundreds of thousands of "regular" cars produced that year.
Those guys aren't getting the full money for the car because they're incompetent. If you actually put every option on the car, and rebadged it, nobody would know, not even most dealers. Unless they know the option kit vin code they will probably never notice.
You have no idea what you're talking about. The VIN code states the engine configuration, and anyone who knows anything about the car they're buying (especially dealers) is damn sure going to notice the difference between a V6 and a V8, or a plain jane Firebird and a WS-6 Trans Am. What, you don't think people (especially dealers) look up VIN codes? And of course you are assuming that someone is actually going to go through all the trouble to swap EVERY unique piece onto their plain jane Firebird to make it look exactly like a factory built, completely unmolested WS-6, and that's rarely ever seen.
No matter what, neither car will be worth any real money, and both cars are slow.
I have a pretty much stock '02 SS and it will still kick most other stock cars asses any day of the week. Low 13s in the 1/4 with 106 mph trap is not considered slow by any means, even today. Sure it's slower than these 400-500+ HP supercars coming out, but it's pretty damn easy and cheap to get 500+ horsepower out of an LS1 motor too. The only reason you said his car was slow was to be a dick, plain and simple. Odds are, you're some insecure Evo driving douchebag. Do us all a favor and crawl back into your hole.
I've done it both ways. I've built some custom hot rods that would blow your mind, and they were all a lot of fun. But there's something to be said about having a STOCK (or stock with a few bolt ons) car that runs and drives exactly like the factory intended, that you never have to fuck with, just jump in, turn the key and go. Then if it breaks you can just go down to the parts store and get the right part in minutes, instead of having of look up parts for 15 different cars to get the right one.
The OS thinks that everything ACKed as sent to the storage unit is written,
What does it matter what the OS "thinks"? When power is lost, all of its "thoughts" disappear. When you power it back on it reloads its "thoughts" from the DISK, thus there can be no confusion.
Sorry, I meant to say that you can increase the COMPRESSION ratio, not the detonation ratio. Guess I should have previewed first!
Your understanding of detonation and pre-ignition are incorrect. First, pre-ignition and detonation are not the same thing, though one can cause the other. Pre-ignition is usually caused by excessive carbon buildup but can be caused by detonation if the detonation is bad enough. (At which point your engine is probably already ruined.) You say that both occur prior to TDC (on the compression stroke), but this in incorrect. Pre-ignition occurs prior to TDC, but detonation typically occurs well AFTER TDC, and AFTER the mixture has already been ignited by the spark plug and mostly burned. It occurs only when the fuel mixture has been exposed to enough heat and pressure for long enough, which is not true at any point in the combustion process (in a normally operating engine) until near the very end.
Think about combustion chamber designs. The first design in common use was the flathead. You could run very little compression in a flathead before it detonated. Maybe 7.5:1 max, if that. The hemi design came later, which was better from detonation standpoint, but still nowhere near modern standards. Then there's the wedge, which is pretty decent, then later the advanced closed chamber designs and pent-roofs we are using now where we are running damn near 12:1 ratios on pump gas in the latest engines. What's the difference between the designs? The ones least prone to detonate are the ones with the most swirl, fastest burning designs which mix up the fuel/air thoroughly, atomize it, and burn it quickly. The faster and more thoroughly you can burn the fuel, the less chance it has to detonate.
This is why this laser design could be revolutionary. Conventional spark plug designs ignite a small flame kernel which then propagates outward. The laser design will ignite a CYLINDER of fuel mixture which will then propagate outward and burn the mixture much more quickly. It will likely also ignite leaner mixtures better, as another poster noted. Not only can you increase the detonation ratio to compensate for your newfound high detonation threshold (and gain a lot of efficiency in the process), but now you have less time in which the burning fuel/air mixture is pushing AGAINST the upward piston movement and robbing you of power. Remember, the mixture is ignited well before TDC so that the PPP (peak pressure point) occurs right when the piston/rod is at its most efficient angle to do work on the crankshaft. Before the piston reaches TDC, the burning mixture is building pressure against it, opposing the crankshaft motion and robbing your engine of power. This is one of the many reasons why gasoline engines are so inefficient compared to diesels.
Nope, I guarantee I am not missing the point at all. First off, pre-ignition and detonation are NOT the same phenomenon. Pre-ignition is generally caused by detonation (or excessive carbon buildup, leading to "dieseling.") Detonation = pinging. This is exactly what the name implies--the fuel is undergoing DETONATION (combustion propagated via shock wave), rather than deflagration (combustion propagated via heat/energy conduction.) Detonation is started by excessive heat and pressure in the cylinder. It does not occur at the beginning of the combustion cycle, but rather towards the end of the power stroke. This is because the longer your fuel/air mixture is exposed to excessive heat and temperature, the bigger chance it has to detonate. Inefficient chamber designs like the classic wedge design--or worse, the old hemis--or worse yet, flatheads--are prone to detonation largely because of the large combustion chamber surface area, leading to longer burn times, and longer exposure of the fuel to detonation-inducing conditions. In a modern closed or pent-roof combustion chamber, if you can use a laser to ignite a large cross-section of the mixture simultaneously, the flame propagation will be greatly sped up and thus greatly reduce the chance for detonation to occur. You can then increase compression ratio to gain more power with no downside. You also gain power by the simple fact that there is a smaller window of time in which the burning mixture is pushing against the crankshaft (end of compression stroke) and working against the engine, thus improving overall efficiency considerably.
Pre-ignition is typically only induced by detonation or excessive carbon buildup. It is NOT normally induced by compression ratio alone.
So YOU'RE the one responsible for all those spam emails!