...and what seemed like an exhausting list of others was covered in lengthy detail in Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind Of Science" (IIRC, in the section on perception and analysis - but referred to in myriad ways throughout the volume).
Now, I know I will either be flamed or derided for bringing up the mention of this text. I don't claim to be an expert on it (in fact, the scope and breadth of the reading convinced me that one time through is no where near enough - I will probably re-read it several more times in my life). I also know that his work both extrapolates and builds upon previous work - he mentions this repeatedly throughout the book.
If you are at all interested in this sort of thing (and let me tell you this, his book covers much more than just using compression algorithms to determine patterns created by biological processes), you owe it to yourself to read, in full, the book at least once.
Scanners are essentially a flatbed plotter with only one axis of travel - cheap USB scanners can be had for under $30.00, buy a couple to get a two axis system, third axis could be a simple solinoid config. There would still be a lot of work left to do to get it all to go together, but it could be done (whether you stuck with the USB stuff, or just kept the stepper motor and drivers, then added you own custom interface). Also, back in the early 1980's there was a BYTE magazine article on building your own plotter (not that difficult)...
My first suggestion would be Javascript - if the computer has a relatively recent browser, it will have the interpretor with it - editing takes nothing more than a text editor. Error checking and debugging will be a problem, but no more so than early BASICs, IMO - plus, they can learn HTML and a bit of web design.
My other suggestion is Blassic - a "classic" BASIC language, GPL'd and everything. There are a ton of examples, though some take a little muddling through in order to understand since the variables and such may be in spanish (understandable, considering the author). There is also little documentation - the author doesn't keep his list up-to-date - I ended up checking each keyword functionality and writing the contributed reference, but it will get out of date over time, though it should still be OK for the current version online. I have found most old style code works with it fine. Your only problem will be in finding that old code for the kids to type in (no more magazines of old, unfortunately) - check your local libraries, and EBay, and used book stores until you find something (for kids, there was a series of books in the 80's published by Scholastic called "Micro Adventures" - hard to find anymore - also look for David Ahl's "Basic Computer Games" series).
Basically, you will want the kids to type in code (whether they understand it or not) to get a finished "example" - and if it has bugs, they will need to look and see why, and figure out how it works and what is broken. So, you need examples of this, plus the keyword reference, and a book on learning BASIC...
I hate credit card companies - you are *one* day over the due date, and they hit you with a (large) "late payment fee" - every other business will typically have a "grace period" of 10-14 days, but not CC companies - no sir!
Crazy thing is, you wouldn't believe how most businesses are when it comes to credit extended to them by *other businesses* - many times they will run tabs for months on end, then sometimes in the end just default on the loan, and let their legal/accounting dept work something out - but they expect ordinary joes to be "perfect"...
I cannot tell you the number of times I have balanced my checkbook and came across double-entries on the bank statement, from the same place, nearly at the same time - like they ran the card through twice! If I was looking at this online, I may not see this discrepancy (unless I looked really close).
I currently use the Checkfree software for all of this, but they recently moved to Quicken, so if the damn Moneydance website ever comes up - I want to see how it compares - in the meantime, I will probably end up installing Quicken.
I have thought that maybe I should go back to doing all of this "by hand" - but I love to pay my bills via electronic means. Most solutions for Linux (like GNUcash), since they don't offer EBT transactions (yet), mean you have to do double entry (once for the online payment, like through the bank, and once in the money program). Double entry can and will trip you up, though - which can be a bad thing at the end of the month (nothing like finding out you have a negative balance because you double entered, or entered incorrectly, your paycheck amount).
I have been trying to come up with a different method to allow me to do online paying without double entry - I was thinking something like a backwards method, where you keep your receipts, then when you "balance", you go through the online statement and compare the receipts to the statement, those that match do one thing, those that don't (or seem like theres a double) do another - but this seems like a large kludge that probably would have problems as well.
All I want is a simple program that replicates the account activity page on my checkbook, allows bill paying from it, and has a few simple reports - nothing fancy. Checkfree's original software, while only allowing comms via a modem, was just that simple program - perfect for what I needed. Now it is going away (like I knew it would eventually). I can only hope the special version of Quicken they sent out is simple as well - I guess I will find out this weekend.
Oh, by the way - one other thing you find out when you balance your account are the number of transactions that *don't* get reported to your account. Many times, you might buy something, and due to one reason or another, the transaction never gets sent to your account - so, free stuff (or at least until they figure it out, which I have yet to encounter)! One of my friends got a free computer system this way (ok, that is on the extreme end - most of the time for me it has been small gas and food purchases)...
I thought about this as well - I already have Samba going good on my SuSE box, but I don't have CUPS installed yet (not that it is difficult to do - just one of those "back-burner" projects). I don't want to hook it up to my SuSE box, because each box is on opposite sides of the house, and my wife does the most printing (I hardly *ever* do any kind of printing, even at work). As far as the cost of a network buffer, I have one already that I bought surplus (though I am not sure if it works properly) - so if it turns out to be "bad", I will probably try the CUPS thing before anything else.
...but I finally got fed up not too long ago, and said "Enough!" - and found me a used laser printer.
I was using an Epson Photo Stylus 700 (or something like that), which could print amazing near-photo quality color prints on special paper. The black and white output was rather nice, too, on heavy paper (24# white, not the cheaper copier paper). But it was costing me a lot just to print - between the paper costs, and the ink (and because I hardly used it, it tended to dry out quickly) - it just wasn't worth it. As far as the photo printing was concerned - the number of times I truely used it: 0 (!!!). Not too long ago, it stopped printing - even when I put in a new cartridge. The last time it did this, I had to send it in for cleaning (thankfully it was still under warantee), and wait 3 weeks (actually, the time spent was pretty short, all considering). I made up my mind then I was going to get a nice laser printer, come hell or high water.
A little looking around, and I found that a used HP Laserjet 3 with a relatively low page count was going to cost me around $150.00 - if I was lucky I would get a toner cartridge, too. But I thought it would be worth it...
I ended up looking around town a bit, and happened upon a Laserjet 6p at a local used-computer store I frequent. I asked them how much - they said $100.00 (!!) - I hemmed and hawwed a little bit, and asked if they could power it up (I didn't want a lemon). They told me "No problem", pulled the toner cart out of their store printer (same model!), fired it up and did a self test - out came a beautiful black and white image! I asked about return/warantee - they said they would give me a week for in-store credit (in case the interface was FUBAR'ed). I couldn't pass it up, so I bought it, and took it home.
That week, I contacted a local printer cartrige/ribbon shop (any ribbon for any printer - literally!), and told them my situation: I didn't want to pay for a full cartridge, in case the printer didn't work (the cartrige was $70.00 for trade, $95.00 for new) - they accommodated me by letting me put down a deposit of $10.00 on a used returned cartridge, to try the printer out with. I took it home, popped it in, loaded paper, installed the drivers - and...Success!!! The printer worked beautifully - since it was for my wife, I stuck it on her machine (a 'doze box) - but eventually I am going to get a network printer buffer and hook it up to that, so I can print to it from my SuSE box.
I took the cartridge back, and even though I knew I could get refilled cartridges cheap online - I asked them about buying one of theirs - they told me that since they had a ton of returns for refills, and didn't need any more, that they would give me a trade in one for the $70.00 (so I essentially got a refilled/refurbed cart without needing the trade in) - I made sure to let them know that I could have gotten it cheaper online, but because they helped me out I decided to give them my business.
It has been a few months now, and the printer works great - I checked the page count on it, and it was around 25,000 page (damn near brand new as far as Laserjets go). It doesn't squeak or make other funky noises - it's only "problems" are one missing cover, and it needing a "special" right angle power cord. I also plan on dropping a few meg of buffer RAM into it (takes cheap 72 pin non-ecc SIMMs).
I figure I won't have to change the toner for a *very* long time, and I can now print on el-cheapo copier paper, instead of the heavier stuff (though I might keep using it - I like the heft and feel of it, and it really doesn't cost that much more per ream). I try to tell everyone I can that the best printer they can get is an older-model HP Laserjet, like most businesses use - it will be a great investment if they can find one with a low page count (the only other printer I like as much as the HP Laserjet are Genicom Line Printers running greenbar - fast, loud, and nearly maintenance free!)...
So, would you say that two people listening to one CD (say through a headphone splitter) are "breaking" the law? Do you consider this to be a "public" performance? Would a judge?
What constitutes a public performance? Is it the number of people listening to the same piece? Is it whether they are known to one another vs being strangers? I wonder if that is defined in the law someplace...?
How many people does it take? Would a large extended family (perhaps at a family reunion gathering) be breaking the law prohibiting public performance of a work if they play said work too loud? What if the family is the "immediate" family, which consists of two parents and 12 adopted children (such situations do exist) - is it a public performance if they listen to a CD on the stereo together? What if it is 14 co-workers? Now, 14 strangers on the street could be considered public performance - so what is the level of knowledge of each other that must exist for this not to occur? Blood relation only? Oops - that adopted family is out...
Now - why only the same track - why not any track, by numerous people (or any bit of song)? I tend to wonder, if argued effectively in front of a judge, whether you could convince the judge of the absurdity...
What burns me is that they apparently don't have enough time for all of this, yet the PTO quickly passes stuff through - maybe the two agencies should switch, huh?
Change CD to track - that way the users select tracks, rather than whole CDs - the tracks would be "checked out" from the library (in addition, the client software would have to be smart enough to reorder the list of playback songs as they are checked out, so that is person A is listening to a song person B has in their list, and the song comes up to play for B while A has it playing, the list continues on with the next free song, coming back to the previously checked out song after each play until it can be heard) - other than that, I like the idea (don't know the legalities of it - I am sure some slimeball RIAA lawyer could find something wrong with it)...
I understand that mounting multiple machines in this fashion would necessitate a different cooling solution, but I still cannot understand why liquid cooling would be the proper one? I would think a properly designed air-flow cabinet would be the cheapest and most easily maintainable solution.
I am thinking something like a front-to-back fan design to blow the hot air out of the 1U cases (and I know those cases are pretty tight and cramped, so intelligent routing of cables, or custom device interconnects would be in order too) to the rear of the rack, and into an integrated (with the rear door) duct that funnels the hot air (with a fan) into the ceiling (or outside). Perhaps a better solution would involve heat pipes leading away from the CPUs to the duct (less fans).
I guess what I am trying to get at is that an intelligent design on the part of the 1U cases and the rack could probably acheive great results with air-cooling alone, and be cheaper for the end-user of the machine (from both an initial cost standpoint, as well as maintenance) as well.
I am not saying that liquid cooling doesn't have it's place, but this doesn't seem it (of course, I could be completely wrong, as I have never worked with such a dense system before - I do know server rooms can heat up quick, even when they aren't filled - so a dense rack very well might be a big issue and need liquid cooling)...
I tend to shy away from 486s, unless it has a unique motherboard - then I just take the board if it looks OK (I store them in rubbermaid tubs at home). I will generally rescue the board if it is one of the AMD/586 systems, especially if it is on one of those original boards they came on (can't remember the manufacturer, but they were a great motherboard/cpu combo for the time)...
Actually, when I posted this article for consideration, the "war" was the last thing I was thinking of - it merely seemed like it could be a good weekend project to try to build, a fun experiment, that might increase gas mileage, thus decreasing the amount of money spent on gas. You are reading waaay to much into the question...
Re:Does anyone find it odd...
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
I am not agonizing over this, and the way things look the cameras look like they are mounted and pointing in one position, strangely enough at what appear to be "significant" targets, I suppose (religious centers and downtown). I still would have rather seen a shaky video camera type image with the cameraman panning and yelling "holy $$%&%!" while ducking. Personally, I hate this sham war, I don't think it is going to do us or our future any good, and will likely set us back in some ways (diplomacy, in the least). But if I have to see this damn report on every damn channel of my telly, give me something interesting to watch. Perhaps if we could see the actual live destruction and pain of war, we would be lest apt to wage it (yeah, I know, utopian vision there - one would think the pain and sufferring caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been enough - for fsck sake, people's skin literally *fell* off - people were *boiled* in rivers, trying to escape the heat - I have not been in a war, nor served in the military - but I don't need to do either of those things to see that war causes pain and suffering, regardless of the reasons for waging it)...
Re:Does anyone find it odd...
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
True, didn't think about that but you are correct - f'ing propaganda - politics and war SUCK.
Recently, my work threw out a nice Compaq Presario 1610 laptop (P150, 1.6gig, cd-rom, built in speakers), simply because the screen wouldn't come on. I pulled it apart, replaced the backlight with one from Fry's Electronics, and will soon be getting a 64 MB SODIMM from Kingston. I later plan on upgrading the hard drive to something more reasonable (probably a 4.3 gig drive), and dropping Debian or something on it.
A couple of years ago I grabbed a PowerTower 166 they didn't want anymore - one of these days I will put YDL on it and play.
My work throws out a lot of stuff, I try to rescue as much of it as I can, and give it to those who can use it. I have a bunch of motherboards that could make great firewall bases, or robotics dev platforms for the right motivated people...
Yeah - the Ranger (and used to be the Taurus as well) could use E-85 without mods. However, that engine isn't a fuel-injected engine - I have the 2.3L FI engine on my 4-banger Ranger (94), and I can't use E-85 (probably will melt the injectors or something). I researched it after finding out about the 3.0L engine. As far as burning hydrogen, I am not interested in replacing the fuel system, but rather augmenting it (by dumping the hydrogen into the air-intake manifold, most likely via a vacuum line tee off the PCV valve) - still, it may be that you require a lot of hydrogen to have any effect, and even then it may or may not work...
More than likely I'll say "that was interesting.", and pull all the crap off.
Pretty much what I was thinking - it is an interesting "weekend" experiment, that doesn't cost much in materials or time - if it seemed to work, great (and I would be doing what you suggest, to get a better idea of mpg) - if not, then I would pull it off, and call it a failed (but interesting) experiment (actually, I would probably play around with filling balloons and such using it, maybe experimenting with other hydrogen systems)...
Very true, and probably the smartest approach - however, I don't have such a lab available, nor the money to fund such an experiment. Maybe it already has been done (the last link seems to indicate something along these lines has been tested and found to be better), and I just have to find the results. What I was thinking of doing was building one, then testing mpg before and after (ie, add a switch to turn it off and on) - plus I would like to know how well it does emission-wise, so I would want to test that as well.
Yeah - I know. Thank you for posting this info, I was actually thinking about making a modified trimmer engine after reading about this stuff. Your post will probably help save me some trouble (as well as possibly keep me from killing myself from a backfire). Interesting that water injection is the thing here. I will definitely have to look into it deeper before starting such a project.
You are probably right about the amount needed for increasing the efficiency - still, it would be a fun thing to play with (one of those weekend time projects) - my only main concern is avoiding hydrogen gas leakage at the hose joints...
Well, I don't mind modding this into the engine - it isn't really that big of a mod, either - basically tee off the PCV valve and route the hydrogen down the vacuum line into the engine (the vacuum is created by the air intake manifold, and thus goes into the air intake). The tee would be easy to take off later if needed - besides that, I drive a 94 Ford Ranger 4-banger, 116K miles, long out of warantee...
However, this system isn't meant to replace the gasoline fuel, but to supplement it, to increase mileage and (maybe) horsepower (I am more interested in the former, actually). I know that you can't get the same amount of energy out that you put in, and that electrolysis isn't very efficient (especially in a homebrew system). Now, that isn't the only way to generate hydrogen, either - you can create a lot of hydrogen via a water/aluminium/lye reactor, keep feeding in those ingredients for more hydrogen, and control the input to the intake with a valve...
Yeah, I have heard of this system, too - I think the Platinum thing is bunk, but the rest does work - however, I don't know if it can work in a fuel injected engine or not (it was typically done with carbed engines, and the feed was into the carburetor). Possibly could, but you would have to probably modify the intake manifold after the fuel rail input - not an easy or cheap job...
I realize that gas in Europe and most elsewhere is *much* more expensive than US gas, and that we are nowhere near those prices yet. Still, with our economy the way it is, any way to increase the efficient use of the gas we do use would be a benefit for our pocketbooks...
Slashdot Mirror
Now, I know I will either be flamed or derided for bringing up the mention of this text. I don't claim to be an expert on it (in fact, the scope and breadth of the reading convinced me that one time through is no where near enough - I will probably re-read it several more times in my life). I also know that his work both extrapolates and builds upon previous work - he mentions this repeatedly throughout the book.
If you are at all interested in this sort of thing (and let me tell you this, his book covers much more than just using compression algorithms to determine patterns created by biological processes), you owe it to yourself to read, in full, the book at least once.
Scanners are essentially a flatbed plotter with only one axis of travel - cheap USB scanners can be had for under $30.00, buy a couple to get a two axis system, third axis could be a simple solinoid config. There would still be a lot of work left to do to get it all to go together, but it could be done (whether you stuck with the USB stuff, or just kept the stepper motor and drivers, then added you own custom interface). Also, back in the early 1980's there was a BYTE magazine article on building your own plotter (not that difficult)...
...as well as people discussing (maybe even arguing) over whether the number "1" is or is not a prime.
My other suggestion is Blassic - a "classic" BASIC language, GPL'd and everything. There are a ton of examples, though some take a little muddling through in order to understand since the variables and such may be in spanish (understandable, considering the author). There is also little documentation - the author doesn't keep his list up-to-date - I ended up checking each keyword functionality and writing the contributed reference, but it will get out of date over time, though it should still be OK for the current version online. I have found most old style code works with it fine. Your only problem will be in finding that old code for the kids to type in (no more magazines of old, unfortunately) - check your local libraries, and EBay, and used book stores until you find something (for kids, there was a series of books in the 80's published by Scholastic called "Micro Adventures" - hard to find anymore - also look for David Ahl's "Basic Computer Games" series).
Basically, you will want the kids to type in code (whether they understand it or not) to get a finished "example" - and if it has bugs, they will need to look and see why, and figure out how it works and what is broken. So, you need examples of this, plus the keyword reference, and a book on learning BASIC...
Crazy thing is, you wouldn't believe how most businesses are when it comes to credit extended to them by *other businesses* - many times they will run tabs for months on end, then sometimes in the end just default on the loan, and let their legal/accounting dept work something out - but they expect ordinary joes to be "perfect"...
BAH!
I cannot tell you the number of times I have balanced my checkbook and came across double-entries on the bank statement, from the same place, nearly at the same time - like they ran the card through twice! If I was looking at this online, I may not see this discrepancy (unless I looked really close).
I currently use the Checkfree software for all of this, but they recently moved to Quicken, so if the damn Moneydance website ever comes up - I want to see how it compares - in the meantime, I will probably end up installing Quicken.
I have thought that maybe I should go back to doing all of this "by hand" - but I love to pay my bills via electronic means. Most solutions for Linux (like GNUcash), since they don't offer EBT transactions (yet), mean you have to do double entry (once for the online payment, like through the bank, and once in the money program). Double entry can and will trip you up, though - which can be a bad thing at the end of the month (nothing like finding out you have a negative balance because you double entered, or entered incorrectly, your paycheck amount).
I have been trying to come up with a different method to allow me to do online paying without double entry - I was thinking something like a backwards method, where you keep your receipts, then when you "balance", you go through the online statement and compare the receipts to the statement, those that match do one thing, those that don't (or seem like theres a double) do another - but this seems like a large kludge that probably would have problems as well.
All I want is a simple program that replicates the account activity page on my checkbook, allows bill paying from it, and has a few simple reports - nothing fancy. Checkfree's original software, while only allowing comms via a modem, was just that simple program - perfect for what I needed. Now it is going away (like I knew it would eventually). I can only hope the special version of Quicken they sent out is simple as well - I guess I will find out this weekend.
Oh, by the way - one other thing you find out when you balance your account are the number of transactions that *don't* get reported to your account. Many times, you might buy something, and due to one reason or another, the transaction never gets sent to your account - so, free stuff (or at least until they figure it out, which I have yet to encounter)! One of my friends got a free computer system this way (ok, that is on the extreme end - most of the time for me it has been small gas and food purchases)...
I thought about this as well - I already have Samba going good on my SuSE box, but I don't have CUPS installed yet (not that it is difficult to do - just one of those "back-burner" projects). I don't want to hook it up to my SuSE box, because each box is on opposite sides of the house, and my wife does the most printing (I hardly *ever* do any kind of printing, even at work). As far as the cost of a network buffer, I have one already that I bought surplus (though I am not sure if it works properly) - so if it turns out to be "bad", I will probably try the CUPS thing before anything else.
I was using an Epson Photo Stylus 700 (or something like that), which could print amazing near-photo quality color prints on special paper. The black and white output was rather nice, too, on heavy paper (24# white, not the cheaper copier paper). But it was costing me a lot just to print - between the paper costs, and the ink (and because I hardly used it, it tended to dry out quickly) - it just wasn't worth it. As far as the photo printing was concerned - the number of times I truely used it: 0 (!!!). Not too long ago, it stopped printing - even when I put in a new cartridge. The last time it did this, I had to send it in for cleaning (thankfully it was still under warantee), and wait 3 weeks (actually, the time spent was pretty short, all considering). I made up my mind then I was going to get a nice laser printer, come hell or high water.
A little looking around, and I found that a used HP Laserjet 3 with a relatively low page count was going to cost me around $150.00 - if I was lucky I would get a toner cartridge, too. But I thought it would be worth it...
I ended up looking around town a bit, and happened upon a Laserjet 6p at a local used-computer store I frequent. I asked them how much - they said $100.00 (!!) - I hemmed and hawwed a little bit, and asked if they could power it up (I didn't want a lemon). They told me "No problem", pulled the toner cart out of their store printer (same model!), fired it up and did a self test - out came a beautiful black and white image! I asked about return/warantee - they said they would give me a week for in-store credit (in case the interface was FUBAR'ed). I couldn't pass it up, so I bought it, and took it home.
That week, I contacted a local printer cartrige/ribbon shop (any ribbon for any printer - literally!), and told them my situation: I didn't want to pay for a full cartridge, in case the printer didn't work (the cartrige was $70.00 for trade, $95.00 for new) - they accommodated me by letting me put down a deposit of $10.00 on a used returned cartridge, to try the printer out with. I took it home, popped it in, loaded paper, installed the drivers - and...Success!!! The printer worked beautifully - since it was for my wife, I stuck it on her machine (a 'doze box) - but eventually I am going to get a network printer buffer and hook it up to that, so I can print to it from my SuSE box.
I took the cartridge back, and even though I knew I could get refilled cartridges cheap online - I asked them about buying one of theirs - they told me that since they had a ton of returns for refills, and didn't need any more, that they would give me a trade in one for the $70.00 (so I essentially got a refilled/refurbed cart without needing the trade in) - I made sure to let them know that I could have gotten it cheaper online, but because they helped me out I decided to give them my business.
It has been a few months now, and the printer works great - I checked the page count on it, and it was around 25,000 page (damn near brand new as far as Laserjets go). It doesn't squeak or make other funky noises - it's only "problems" are one missing cover, and it needing a "special" right angle power cord. I also plan on dropping a few meg of buffer RAM into it (takes cheap 72 pin non-ecc SIMMs).
I figure I won't have to change the toner for a *very* long time, and I can now print on el-cheapo copier paper, instead of the heavier stuff (though I might keep using it - I like the heft and feel of it, and it really doesn't cost that much more per ream). I try to tell everyone I can that the best printer they can get is an older-model HP Laserjet, like most businesses use - it will be a great investment if they can find one with a low page count (the only other printer I like as much as the HP Laserjet are Genicom Line Printers running greenbar - fast, loud, and nearly maintenance free!)...
What constitutes a public performance? Is it the number of people listening to the same piece? Is it whether they are known to one another vs being strangers? I wonder if that is defined in the law someplace...?
How many people does it take? Would a large extended family (perhaps at a family reunion gathering) be breaking the law prohibiting public performance of a work if they play said work too loud? What if the family is the "immediate" family, which consists of two parents and 12 adopted children (such situations do exist) - is it a public performance if they listen to a CD on the stereo together? What if it is 14 co-workers? Now, 14 strangers on the street could be considered public performance - so what is the level of knowledge of each other that must exist for this not to occur? Blood relation only? Oops - that adopted family is out...
Now - why only the same track - why not any track, by numerous people (or any bit of song)? I tend to wonder, if argued effectively in front of a judge, whether you could convince the judge of the absurdity...
What burns me is that they apparently don't have enough time for all of this, yet the PTO quickly passes stuff through - maybe the two agencies should switch, huh?
Change CD to track - that way the users select tracks, rather than whole CDs - the tracks would be "checked out" from the library (in addition, the client software would have to be smart enough to reorder the list of playback songs as they are checked out, so that is person A is listening to a song person B has in their list, and the song comes up to play for B while A has it playing, the list continues on with the next free song, coming back to the previously checked out song after each play until it can be heard) - other than that, I like the idea (don't know the legalities of it - I am sure some slimeball RIAA lawyer could find something wrong with it)...
I am thinking something like a front-to-back fan design to blow the hot air out of the 1U cases (and I know those cases are pretty tight and cramped, so intelligent routing of cables, or custom device interconnects would be in order too) to the rear of the rack, and into an integrated (with the rear door) duct that funnels the hot air (with a fan) into the ceiling (or outside). Perhaps a better solution would involve heat pipes leading away from the CPUs to the duct (less fans).
I guess what I am trying to get at is that an intelligent design on the part of the 1U cases and the rack could probably acheive great results with air-cooling alone, and be cheaper for the end-user of the machine (from both an initial cost standpoint, as well as maintenance) as well.
I am not saying that liquid cooling doesn't have it's place, but this doesn't seem it (of course, I could be completely wrong, as I have never worked with such a dense system before - I do know server rooms can heat up quick, even when they aren't filled - so a dense rack very well might be a big issue and need liquid cooling)...
I tend to shy away from 486s, unless it has a unique motherboard - then I just take the board if it looks OK (I store them in rubbermaid tubs at home). I will generally rescue the board if it is one of the AMD/586 systems, especially if it is on one of those original boards they came on (can't remember the manufacturer, but they were a great motherboard/cpu combo for the time)...
Actually, when I posted this article for consideration, the "war" was the last thing I was thinking of - it merely seemed like it could be a good weekend project to try to build, a fun experiment, that might increase gas mileage, thus decreasing the amount of money spent on gas. You are reading waaay to much into the question...
I am not agonizing over this, and the way things look the cameras look like they are mounted and pointing in one position, strangely enough at what appear to be "significant" targets, I suppose (religious centers and downtown). I still would have rather seen a shaky video camera type image with the cameraman panning and yelling "holy $$%&%!" while ducking. Personally, I hate this sham war, I don't think it is going to do us or our future any good, and will likely set us back in some ways (diplomacy, in the least). But if I have to see this damn report on every damn channel of my telly, give me something interesting to watch. Perhaps if we could see the actual live destruction and pain of war, we would be lest apt to wage it (yeah, I know, utopian vision there - one would think the pain and sufferring caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been enough - for fsck sake, people's skin literally *fell* off - people were *boiled* in rivers, trying to escape the heat - I have not been in a war, nor served in the military - but I don't need to do either of those things to see that war causes pain and suffering, regardless of the reasons for waging it)...
True, didn't think about that but you are correct - f'ing propaganda - politics and war SUCK.
Recently, my work threw out a nice Compaq Presario 1610 laptop (P150, 1.6gig, cd-rom, built in speakers), simply because the screen wouldn't come on. I pulled it apart, replaced the backlight with one from Fry's Electronics, and will soon be getting a 64 MB SODIMM from Kingston. I later plan on upgrading the hard drive to something more reasonable (probably a 4.3 gig drive), and dropping Debian or something on it.
A couple of years ago I grabbed a PowerTower 166 they didn't want anymore - one of these days I will put YDL on it and play.
My work throws out a lot of stuff, I try to rescue as much of it as I can, and give it to those who can use it. I have a bunch of motherboards that could make great firewall bases, or robotics dev platforms for the right motivated people...
Yeah - the Ranger (and used to be the Taurus as well) could use E-85 without mods. However, that engine isn't a fuel-injected engine - I have the 2.3L FI engine on my 4-banger Ranger (94), and I can't use E-85 (probably will melt the injectors or something). I researched it after finding out about the 3.0L engine. As far as burning hydrogen, I am not interested in replacing the fuel system, but rather augmenting it (by dumping the hydrogen into the air-intake manifold, most likely via a vacuum line tee off the PCV valve) - still, it may be that you require a lot of hydrogen to have any effect, and even then it may or may not work...
Pretty much what I was thinking - it is an interesting "weekend" experiment, that doesn't cost much in materials or time - if it seemed to work, great (and I would be doing what you suggest, to get a better idea of mpg) - if not, then I would pull it off, and call it a failed (but interesting) experiment (actually, I would probably play around with filling balloons and such using it, maybe experimenting with other hydrogen systems)...
Very true, and probably the smartest approach - however, I don't have such a lab available, nor the money to fund such an experiment. Maybe it already has been done (the last link seems to indicate something along these lines has been tested and found to be better), and I just have to find the results. What I was thinking of doing was building one, then testing mpg before and after (ie, add a switch to turn it off and on) - plus I would like to know how well it does emission-wise, so I would want to test that as well.
You are probably right about the amount needed for increasing the efficiency - still, it would be a fun thing to play with (one of those weekend time projects) - my only main concern is avoiding hydrogen gas leakage at the hose joints...
Well, I don't mind modding this into the engine - it isn't really that big of a mod, either - basically tee off the PCV valve and route the hydrogen down the vacuum line into the engine (the vacuum is created by the air intake manifold, and thus goes into the air intake). The tee would be easy to take off later if needed - besides that, I drive a 94 Ford Ranger 4-banger, 116K miles, long out of warantee...
However, this system isn't meant to replace the gasoline fuel, but to supplement it, to increase mileage and (maybe) horsepower (I am more interested in the former, actually). I know that you can't get the same amount of energy out that you put in, and that electrolysis isn't very efficient (especially in a homebrew system). Now, that isn't the only way to generate hydrogen, either - you can create a lot of hydrogen via a water/aluminium/lye reactor, keep feeding in those ingredients for more hydrogen, and control the input to the intake with a valve...
Yeah, I have heard of this system, too - I think the Platinum thing is bunk, but the rest does work - however, I don't know if it can work in a fuel injected engine or not (it was typically done with carbed engines, and the feed was into the carburetor). Possibly could, but you would have to probably modify the intake manifold after the fuel rail input - not an easy or cheap job...
I realize that gas in Europe and most elsewhere is *much* more expensive than US gas, and that we are nowhere near those prices yet. Still, with our economy the way it is, any way to increase the efficient use of the gas we do use would be a benefit for our pocketbooks...