For users not advanced enough to be trusted to admin their own net-connected device, of course.
So, in general the answer is "yes".
Anyone who has had to support "normal" users has an anecdote about someone with a malware problem. Say what you will about having a single company that has to vet all apps for a particular type of device - but it does help make things easier for those of us who have to support these devices in our organizations.
Better yet put it in a super cheap $5.95 mp3 player and you could air drop 60 of them for every kindle you delivered. I think the audio book idea is a major win while the kindle idea is a epic fail.
Isn't learning to read more of a win than being able to listen to a story?
Plus, how long before those MP3 players are just wiped and repurposed to play the latest popular music?
Most likely - my Apple 30" screen is running at its native resolution of 2560x1600. 1600x1200 is one of the resolutions I can set the adapter to, so most likely 3200x1200 is 2x1600x1200.
How do you calculate Gbps for a monitor anyway? I multiplied 3200(Horiz. pixels/scan line)x1200(Lines)x60(Hz frame rate)x24(bits per pixel) and came up with 5.5Gbps. Around 5.9Gbps for my 30" display. Did I miss something? I assume there are sync pulses too, but not 2Gbps worth of them.
I have a 108 inch picture on the wall, provided by a DLP projector. Up until a few months ago, it was connected via component video. Any HDMI sources were converted to component before the receiver which we use to select sources, by HDFury IIs. There's a 50 foot component cable running to the projector; there is now a 50 foot HDMI cable doing the same job.
Before Christmas I got a new receiver which switches HDMI and converts any analog video inputs to HDMI (quite well, actually; video from my old Gamecube looks fantastic). Other than a couple of old game systems, the signal path from source to projector is all digital now.
It made only a very slight difference in the picture quality. This is at 1080P, over more than 50 feet of cable.
The secret? I bought good cables. Not Monster Cable, good, heavy-gauge cables.
My only problem with the switch to HDMI has been that the long cable to the projector is so heavy that the HDMI connectors won't physically hold the cable in place unless they're anchored in place with velcro straps around the cable. It's not a very good connector design from a physical standpoint.
It may be that many people have uses for computing devices that don't fit into the desktop or laptop or smartphone models. For example, the iPad can be used to review pictures taken on a digital camera, without the need for a heavy laptop. I've seen them used for task training in industrial plants, and as a handy portable process monitor in a similar plant. Something the size and weight of a clipboard is a lot easier to deal with than a laptop. A thin tablet is easy to handle - particularly if you're not sitting at a desk while you're working.
I don't like how some (iPads) are offered as Wifi only or for 100 more you get 3G. I was under the impression you need to sign up for a plan.
I want both WiFi and cell data for later short-term use like a vacation. Price the one model in the middle of the two and be done with it.
I'm not sure what you don't like about giving the customer the choice of not paying for a 3G radio if they don't want one. For example, a company can save a fair amount of money if they buy the Wifi-only model for use in an industrial plant.
The Wifi-only models don't have a 3G radio in them. The 3G radio costs something. Most likely not $100, but certainly not $0. At some point, there has to be a price difference.
The 3G model can be used without 3G service. You don't have to sign up for anything if you want to use a 3G iPad only over wifi.
It sounds like you're not the target market for this type of product, or you simply don't know much about them.
The root cause for this lack of choice (as in Canada) is lack of proportional representation.
In my opinion, it's more that American voters tend to choose whom to vote for based in large part on TV news coverage, and the movie studios own TV news. Issues on which movie studios are thought to disagree with the public almost never get news stories, nor do candidates whose platform would reduce movie studios' ability to earn profits and rents.
You should have read this portion of the AC's comment:
In the USA you have effectively two choices.
The Democrats, who side with "the creators, artists, etc." and are thus for a strong copyright protection framework
or
The Republicans, who side with the business and are thus for a strong copyright protection framework.
Which means that it doesn't matter if you choose whom to vote for based on TV news coverage, use a Ouija Board, or by reading chicken entrails.
There is no choice - both parties are for the same thing, as far as copyright laws go.
When is the last time the winner of a major election in the USA was someone not from the Democrat or Republican parties?
It doesn't matter what the news coverage is of any candidate, if they all support the same position.
They're not going to do a 7 inch version. Forget about it. I've got two 7" Android devices, and the screen is too small to be useful but the device is too large to stick in your pocket. Apple rarely reverses their design decisions. Look how long it took to get a mouse with a secondary click! (That was crazy, by the way)
They're not going to do a stylus. One of the guiding design principles is that good design eliminates or minimizes moving parts. A stylus is a moving part. Forget about it.
Oh, and yes, I'm disappointed about the screen resolution. The iPad's screen is great, but the latest iPhone screen is better and having a 10" screen at the iPhone's pixel density would truly have been fantastic.
but you would destroy a typical gasoline ICE if you accidentally gave it diesel.
No, you wouldn't.
If there were a fair amount of petrol/gasoline mixed with the diesel fuel, the engine would run poorly and would produce a lot of smoke, but it would not be destroyed. Catalytic converters and oxygen sensors could be destroyed if the engine is run that way for more than a few minutes. If the engine ran smoothly, there would be a higher propensity for combustion knock due to the diesel fuel lowering the octane value of the mixture, but mechanical damage is unlikely.
An engine designed for petrol/gasoline would not start on straight diesel. It doesn't atomize well enough at the low injection pressures seen in gasoline fuel injection systems.
How do I know? I know the manager of a fleet of vehicles and have heard about just about every combination of wrong-fuel-in-the-tank.
A diesel engine run on gasoline would destroy the injection pump and injectors, because those high-pressure parts are normally lubricated by the fuel and gasoline is a terrible lubricant.
Didn't you have any problems dealing with the melt water? I would think that the water would just re-freeze when it runs off the heated part.
Since we just had a major snowfall in the Chicago area, I'd just point out that I have piles of snow next to my driveway that are at their highest almost 6ft tall from clearing the driveway and sidewalks. It's not possible to clear the driveway of snow and ice completely, due it not being perfectly flat.
I cleared the driveway down to about 1/2 an inch of snow, and spread salt on it.
My driveway is now dry - not covered in either ice or salt water - there is a dry salt residue on it.
The water didn't run off, it evaporated, probably due to the very low humidity of the air.
Don't count on microwave ovens for too much longer.
I've just been doing as a hobby project a simple design of semiconductor only microwave.
It has major advantages - it can have a _much_ larger fraction of the cabinet as cooking volume - especially in small units.
It can be smoothly varied easily in power.
Of course, it has the disadvantage that instead of $20 for a 900W magnetron, the semiconductors to power it would at the moment cost around $1500 for the dozen or so devices needed. (in quantity)
I would expect to see the first solid state microwaves on the market perhaps in 2020 or so.
At which time, the days of the vacuum tube will be numbered.
Already in a moderate fraction of homes, the second to last valve has gone away. (the cathode ray tube)
Sounds interesting, but wouldn't it be less efficient than a magnetron?
The cavity magnetron doesn't suffer from the main disadvantages of vacuum tubes - there's no heater filament that can fail, and there's no fragile envelope like the glass envelope found on most familiar vacuum tubes. The magnetron self-oscillates, so the circuitry to drive it can be remarkably simple - in many cases just a transformer, a diode and a relay. Presumably a simple PWM controller can be used to modulate the cooking intensity. The magnetron is also very low cost to produce.
A solid state microwave oven will still have to have a motor to drive the turntable or other food-moving mechanism, and room for an interior light and possibly a cooling fan, and similar control electronics.
Given the very low cost of producing magnetrons, and the fact that a semiconductor alternative which would presumably need to have some kind of antenna or emitter which would consume space along with the semiconductors themselves, will there really be a business case for it? How small do you expect the microwave-emitting package to become given the power level required?
Many people resent paying to use a road that they have already paid for. People resent being lied too more.
For example, the expressways around Chicago are almost without exception "Tollways".
When the roads were initially opened, the public was told that the roads would only be toll roads until the construction had been paid for, and then after that the roads would be free to use.
It was a bald-face lie. Decades later, the tollways are still collecting money, and Tollway Commission fatcats are still being driven around in limos which don't have to pay tolls.
Further, what these idiots fail to realize is that all those cars idling at and then accelerating away from the tollbooths add up to a huge emissions source - something which California says they're always concerned about.
In the last decade they added "Open-road tolling" on the tollways around Chicago - the air quality was measurably improved in the areas near the toll-collection sites.
The bridges in the bay area are also major commuter routes - eliminating the requirement for every car to stop at a toll booth can only improve traffic flow.
For everyone who loves the toll collectors, I bet there are hundreds who hate them. I remember a story in one of the Chicago papers about all the bad things people would do to the toll collectors - like heating up coins using the car's cigarette lighter before giving them to the collector. The exhaust gasses those folks have to breathe all day can't be good for them either.
I use the same quick-disconnect fittings for compressed air. They leak like crazy when you move the hoses around. Using them for propane is just asking to die a horribly fiery death. Propane is heavier than air, so it will accumulate on the ground until it finds a source of ignition.
I have to wonder why he's using copper tubing to connect the tanks instead of propane hose. The proper materials are not hard to find, and the copper will fail after it gets bent a few times. Once again, fiery death when you least expect it.
If backup cameras become standard on all cars manufacturers will have to include it in the base price and continue selling the car at whatever the market will bear. Car manufacturers would no longer be able to charge an extra $400 to add that cheap camera. I think car manufacturers will be one group that lobbies against this legislation.
Have you paid no attention to what's happened to the prices of new cars over the last 20 years as things like passive restraints, tire pressure monitoring systems, OBD II (better emissions, nobody can argue against that, but also increased cost due to redundant sensors), stability control systems, and so on have been mandated?
Every time the automakers have to add some feature or functionality to meet the baseline legislated requirements for new cars, the prices of all cars go up - all manufacturers have to add the same safety/emissions/whatever features at the same time, so the price rises across the whole market.
The prices of new cars will probably not rise $400 when cameras are mandated, but you can bet there'll be about $50 of price increase on every car from a lowly base model Hyundai all the way up to the fanciest Rolls Royce cars.
That said, I added a backup camera to my big SUV last year. It cost $59, and it's great! I mounted the little screen on the upper console (the thing with the map lights on the roof), so it's just above the rear view mirror. The camera has such a wide angle lens that I can back into a parking space easily - not only can I see things behind me, I can see the lines painted on the ground and the cars next to me. If I'm backing up to a trailer and have the drawbar inserted, I can see the hitch ball and line it up perfectly with the trailer coupler.
I don't see the point of adding one to my regular car though.
It's not - high voltage is better for long distances than low voltage, but it doesn't matter if it's AC or DC.
AC is better because it can be run through a transformer and stepped up or down to different voltages for long distance or local distribution - it's the high voltage that's better for long distances because Power = Volts x Current, and wires carry voltage more easily than they carry current. The efficiency of the transmission line has nothing to do with wether the voltage is AC or DC, but everything to do with how high the voltage is.
High voltage DC could be used, but before the advent of inverter technology there was no easy way to step a DC voltage up or down, so power generating utilities almost universally use AC.
Using an ideal superconductor instead of normal metal wires would eliminate the resistive losses in the transmission line, but it sure sounds expensive.
DC is used at some points in the power grid, presumably at interconnect sites where power from two or more generating facilities has to be combined and the AC voltages are out of phase or not at the same frequency.
I honestly think the inclusion of superconductors is just to make the project more buzzworthy. There's no advantage to using high voltage DC especially when they're intending to run PV production plants off of it - A/C is much more useful in that case.
At least Saharan Africa is more stable than sub-Saharan Africa politically. Haven't been there since the late 1970s, but it was a fun vacation.
Rather than try to eliminate all threats, we should be encouraging people who fly to take measures to defend themselves! Rather than disarm everybody (the overwhelming majority of whom are decent, law-abiding citizens with no desire to hurt anybody) we should be encouraging people to carry small arms! I'd be ok with a few restrictions, such as passing a periodic background check and a firearms safety course - this is, in effect, hardening the system so that in the occasion of a filthy hijacker trying to take over the flight, he/she would be facing a fearful, determined audience of ARMED CITIZENS who wouldn't hesitate to take action to preserve their life and liberty.
...Yet nobody has offered any idea as to why this wouldn't work - this just gets downmodded without comment. As a matter of fact, there are many examples of countries and societies who find that civilization and an armed population in accordance with the rule of law go hand-in-hand.
As long as it didn't require me to do anything (I'm not blowing into a breathalyzer).
I've known any number of alcoholics, and they all kid themselves as to how much alcohol they can tolerate and as to how much they've actually had to drink.
One person I was staying with called me from his DUI lawyer's office and had me open the report that was mailed to him by the State Police and read the blood alcohol numbers to him. The slope in the numbers over time (they do more than one test if you're arrested) proved that he had been drinking just before he got into the car - it showed that he was still absorbing alcohol faster than he was metabolizing it. He had convinced himself that he just had a leftover buzz from the previous night's binge.
He still drives, even without a license. Normally, cars registered to DUI offenders get pulled over all the time, just so the cops can check on them. Turns out that it's trivial to register a business name, buy a car and have it titled to the "business". It stops the random traffic stops, and the guy gets away with driving until he breaks some traffic law or kills someone.
There are way more drunks on the road than anyone could ever guess.
But, I'm not blowing into a breathalyzer, and if it requires skin contact to measure BAC, that's not going to work either. In winter my gloves don't come off until I get to where I'm going.
But, I'm really suspicious of a lot of drivers on the road these days. If someone else's driving seems a little off, try to get them in front of you, rather than behind you. I've called in more than a few DUIs over the past few years.
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For users not advanced enough to be trusted to admin their own net-connected device, of course.
So, in general the answer is "yes".
Anyone who has had to support "normal" users has an anecdote about someone with a malware problem. Say what you will about having a single company that has to vet all apps for a particular type of device - but it does help make things easier for those of us who have to support these devices in our organizations.
Better yet put it in a super cheap $5.95 mp3 player and you could air drop 60 of them for every kindle you delivered. I think the audio book idea is a major win while the kindle idea is a epic fail.
Isn't learning to read more of a win than being able to listen to a story?
Plus, how long before those MP3 players are just wiped and repurposed to play the latest popular music?
3200x1200? is that dual-screens?
Most likely - my Apple 30" screen is running at its native resolution of 2560x1600. 1600x1200 is one of the resolutions I can set the adapter to, so most likely 3200x1200 is 2x1600x1200.
How do you calculate Gbps for a monitor anyway? I multiplied 3200(Horiz. pixels/scan line)x1200(Lines)x60(Hz frame rate)x24(bits per pixel) and came up with 5.5Gbps. Around 5.9Gbps for my 30" display. Did I miss something? I assume there are sync pulses too, but not 2Gbps worth of them.
Seriously.
I have a 108 inch picture on the wall, provided by a DLP projector. Up until a few months ago, it was connected via component video. Any HDMI sources were converted to component before the receiver which we use to select sources, by HDFury IIs. There's a 50 foot component cable running to the projector; there is now a 50 foot HDMI cable doing the same job.
Before Christmas I got a new receiver which switches HDMI and converts any analog video inputs to HDMI (quite well, actually; video from my old Gamecube looks fantastic). Other than a couple of old game systems, the signal path from source to projector is all digital now.
It made only a very slight difference in the picture quality. This is at 1080P, over more than 50 feet of cable.
The secret? I bought good cables. Not Monster Cable, good, heavy-gauge cables.
My only problem with the switch to HDMI has been that the long cable to the projector is so heavy that the HDMI connectors won't physically hold the cable in place unless they're anchored in place with velcro straps around the cable. It's not a very good connector design from a physical standpoint.
I say yes but the market may say otherwise.
It may be that many people have uses for computing devices that don't fit into the desktop or laptop or smartphone models. For example, the iPad can be used to review pictures taken on a digital camera, without the need for a heavy laptop. I've seen them used for task training in industrial plants, and as a handy portable process monitor in a similar plant. Something the size and weight of a clipboard is a lot easier to deal with than a laptop. A thin tablet is easy to handle - particularly if you're not sitting at a desk while you're working.
I don't like how some (iPads) are offered as Wifi only or for 100 more you get 3G. I was under the impression you need to sign up for a plan.
I want both WiFi and cell data for later short-term use like a vacation. Price the one model in the middle of the two and be done with it.
I'm not sure what you don't like about giving the customer the choice of not paying for a 3G radio if they don't want one. For example, a company can save a fair amount of money if they buy the Wifi-only model for use in an industrial plant.
The Wifi-only models don't have a 3G radio in them. The 3G radio costs something. Most likely not $100, but certainly not $0. At some point, there has to be a price difference.
The 3G model can be used without 3G service. You don't have to sign up for anything if you want to use a 3G iPad only over wifi.
It sounds like you're not the target market for this type of product, or you simply don't know much about them.
The root cause for this lack of choice (as in Canada) is lack of proportional representation.
In my opinion, it's more that American voters tend to choose whom to vote for based in large part on TV news coverage, and the movie studios own TV news. Issues on which movie studios are thought to disagree with the public almost never get news stories, nor do candidates whose platform would reduce movie studios' ability to earn profits and rents.
You should have read this portion of the AC's comment:
In the USA you have effectively two choices.
The Democrats, who side with "the creators, artists, etc." and are thus for a strong copyright protection framework
or
The Republicans, who side with the business and are thus for a strong copyright protection framework.
Which means that it doesn't matter if you choose whom to vote for based on TV news coverage, use a Ouija Board, or by reading chicken entrails.
There is no choice - both parties are for the same thing, as far as copyright laws go.
When is the last time the winner of a major election in the USA was someone not from the Democrat or Republican parties?
It doesn't matter what the news coverage is of any candidate, if they all support the same position.
IF you buy an unlocked or used (out of contract T-Mobile) smartphone, T-Mobile lets you put your sim card in it and use it with a voice-only plan.
I use a Nokia N95 and a jailbroken iPhone with my regular T-Mobile plan.
We're on a contract, but not a smartphone contract - if I bought a smartphone from T-Mobile, then they would require a data plan with it.
Oh, and yes, I'm disappointed about the screen resolution. The iPad's screen is great, but the latest iPhone screen is better and having a 10" screen at the iPhone's pixel density would truly have been fantastic.
Steve looks too fat in that picture.
I thought the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago?
That means they were already dead for a million years, 64 million years ago.
but you would destroy a typical gasoline ICE if you accidentally gave it diesel.
No, you wouldn't.
If there were a fair amount of petrol/gasoline mixed with the diesel fuel, the engine would run poorly and would produce a lot of smoke, but it would not be destroyed. Catalytic converters and oxygen sensors could be destroyed if the engine is run that way for more than a few minutes. If the engine ran smoothly, there would be a higher propensity for combustion knock due to the diesel fuel lowering the octane value of the mixture, but mechanical damage is unlikely.
An engine designed for petrol/gasoline would not start on straight diesel. It doesn't atomize well enough at the low injection pressures seen in gasoline fuel injection systems.
How do I know? I know the manager of a fleet of vehicles and have heard about just about every combination of wrong-fuel-in-the-tank.
A diesel engine run on gasoline would destroy the injection pump and injectors, because those high-pressure parts are normally lubricated by the fuel and gasoline is a terrible lubricant.
( did I mention the proper use of cow bells )
No, but I assume it involved needing more cow bell.
Didn't you have any problems dealing with the melt water? I would think that the water would just re-freeze when it runs off the heated part.
Since we just had a major snowfall in the Chicago area, I'd just point out that I have piles of snow next to my driveway that are at their highest almost 6ft tall from clearing the driveway and sidewalks. It's not possible to clear the driveway of snow and ice completely, due it not being perfectly flat.
I cleared the driveway down to about 1/2 an inch of snow, and spread salt on it.
My driveway is now dry - not covered in either ice or salt water - there is a dry salt residue on it.
The water didn't run off, it evaporated, probably due to the very low humidity of the air.
Don't count on microwave ovens for too much longer. I've just been doing as a hobby project a simple design of semiconductor only microwave. It has major advantages - it can have a _much_ larger fraction of the cabinet as cooking volume - especially in small units. It can be smoothly varied easily in power.
Of course, it has the disadvantage that instead of $20 for a 900W magnetron, the semiconductors to power it would at the moment cost around $1500 for the dozen or so devices needed. (in quantity)
I would expect to see the first solid state microwaves on the market perhaps in 2020 or so. At which time, the days of the vacuum tube will be numbered. Already in a moderate fraction of homes, the second to last valve has gone away. (the cathode ray tube)
Sounds interesting, but wouldn't it be less efficient than a magnetron?
The cavity magnetron doesn't suffer from the main disadvantages of vacuum tubes - there's no heater filament that can fail, and there's no fragile envelope like the glass envelope found on most familiar vacuum tubes. The magnetron self-oscillates, so the circuitry to drive it can be remarkably simple - in many cases just a transformer, a diode and a relay. Presumably a simple PWM controller can be used to modulate the cooking intensity. The magnetron is also very low cost to produce.
A solid state microwave oven will still have to have a motor to drive the turntable or other food-moving mechanism, and room for an interior light and possibly a cooling fan, and similar control electronics.
Given the very low cost of producing magnetrons, and the fact that a semiconductor alternative which would presumably need to have some kind of antenna or emitter which would consume space along with the semiconductors themselves, will there really be a business case for it? How small do you expect the microwave-emitting package to become given the power level required?
Many people resent paying to use a road that they have already paid for. People resent being lied too more.
For example, the expressways around Chicago are almost without exception "Tollways".
When the roads were initially opened, the public was told that the roads would only be toll roads until the construction had been paid for, and then after that the roads would be free to use.
It was a bald-face lie. Decades later, the tollways are still collecting money, and Tollway Commission fatcats are still being driven around in limos which don't have to pay tolls.
Who wouldn't hate that?
Further, what these idiots fail to realize is that all those cars idling at and then accelerating away from the tollbooths add up to a huge emissions source - something which California says they're always concerned about.
In the last decade they added "Open-road tolling" on the tollways around Chicago - the air quality was measurably improved in the areas near the toll-collection sites.
The bridges in the bay area are also major commuter routes - eliminating the requirement for every car to stop at a toll booth can only improve traffic flow.
For everyone who loves the toll collectors, I bet there are hundreds who hate them. I remember a story in one of the Chicago papers about all the bad things people would do to the toll collectors - like heating up coins using the car's cigarette lighter before giving them to the collector. The exhaust gasses those folks have to breathe all day can't be good for them either.
I know this'll probably get modded redundant, when it is actually informative, but I'm having the same problem.
I use the same quick-disconnect fittings for compressed air. They leak like crazy when you move the hoses around. Using them for propane is just asking to die a horribly fiery death. Propane is heavier than air, so it will accumulate on the ground until it finds a source of ignition.
I have to wonder why he's using copper tubing to connect the tanks instead of propane hose. The proper materials are not hard to find, and the copper will fail after it gets bent a few times. Once again, fiery death when you least expect it.
No issue here whatsoever. Was amazingly clear on 3g and over wife to other party on desktop.
That automatic spelling correction is just comedy gold sometimes, isn't it?
If backup cameras become standard on all cars manufacturers will have to include it in the base price and continue selling the car at whatever the market will bear. Car manufacturers would no longer be able to charge an extra $400 to add that cheap camera. I think car manufacturers will be one group that lobbies against this legislation.
Have you paid no attention to what's happened to the prices of new cars over the last 20 years as things like passive restraints, tire pressure monitoring systems, OBD II (better emissions, nobody can argue against that, but also increased cost due to redundant sensors), stability control systems, and so on have been mandated?
Every time the automakers have to add some feature or functionality to meet the baseline legislated requirements for new cars, the prices of all cars go up - all manufacturers have to add the same safety/emissions/whatever features at the same time, so the price rises across the whole market.
The prices of new cars will probably not rise $400 when cameras are mandated, but you can bet there'll be about $50 of price increase on every car from a lowly base model Hyundai all the way up to the fanciest Rolls Royce cars.
That said, I added a backup camera to my big SUV last year. It cost $59, and it's great! I mounted the little screen on the upper console (the thing with the map lights on the roof), so it's just above the rear view mirror. The camera has such a wide angle lens that I can back into a parking space easily - not only can I see things behind me, I can see the lines painted on the ground and the cars next to me. If I'm backing up to a trailer and have the drawbar inserted, I can see the hitch ball and line it up perfectly with the trailer coupler.
I don't see the point of adding one to my regular car though.
Why DC when AC is better for long distances?
It's not - high voltage is better for long distances than low voltage, but it doesn't matter if it's AC or DC.
AC is better because it can be run through a transformer and stepped up or down to different voltages for long distance or local distribution - it's the high voltage that's better for long distances because Power = Volts x Current, and wires carry voltage more easily than they carry current. The efficiency of the transmission line has nothing to do with wether the voltage is AC or DC, but everything to do with how high the voltage is.
High voltage DC could be used, but before the advent of inverter technology there was no easy way to step a DC voltage up or down, so power generating utilities almost universally use AC.
Using an ideal superconductor instead of normal metal wires would eliminate the resistive losses in the transmission line, but it sure sounds expensive.
DC is used at some points in the power grid, presumably at interconnect sites where power from two or more generating facilities has to be combined and the AC voltages are out of phase or not at the same frequency.
I honestly think the inclusion of superconductors is just to make the project more buzzworthy. There's no advantage to using high voltage DC especially when they're intending to run PV production plants off of it - A/C is much more useful in that case.
At least Saharan Africa is more stable than sub-Saharan Africa politically. Haven't been there since the late 1970s, but it was a fun vacation.
Rather than try to eliminate all threats, we should be encouraging people who fly to take measures to defend themselves! Rather than disarm everybody (the overwhelming majority of whom are decent, law-abiding citizens with no desire to hurt anybody) we should be encouraging people to carry small arms! I'd be ok with a few restrictions, such as passing a periodic background check and a firearms safety course - this is, in effect, hardening the system so that in the occasion of a filthy hijacker trying to take over the flight, he/she would be facing a fearful, determined audience of ARMED CITIZENS who wouldn't hesitate to take action to preserve their life and liberty.
...Yet nobody has offered any idea as to why this wouldn't work - this just gets downmodded without comment. As a matter of fact, there are many examples of countries and societies who find that civilization and an armed population in accordance with the rule of law go hand-in-hand.
You might enjoy this clip from All in the Family ...
Perhaps the writers didn't make Archie as stupid as they thought.
As long as it didn't require me to do anything (I'm not blowing into a breathalyzer).
I've known any number of alcoholics, and they all kid themselves as to how much alcohol they can tolerate and as to how much they've actually had to drink.
One person I was staying with called me from his DUI lawyer's office and had me open the report that was mailed to him by the State Police and read the blood alcohol numbers to him. The slope in the numbers over time (they do more than one test if you're arrested) proved that he had been drinking just before he got into the car - it showed that he was still absorbing alcohol faster than he was metabolizing it. He had convinced himself that he just had a leftover buzz from the previous night's binge.
He still drives, even without a license. Normally, cars registered to DUI offenders get pulled over all the time, just so the cops can check on them. Turns out that it's trivial to register a business name, buy a car and have it titled to the "business". It stops the random traffic stops, and the guy gets away with driving until he breaks some traffic law or kills someone.
There are way more drunks on the road than anyone could ever guess.
But, I'm not blowing into a breathalyzer, and if it requires skin contact to measure BAC, that's not going to work either. In winter my gloves don't come off until I get to where I'm going.
But, I'm really suspicious of a lot of drivers on the road these days. If someone else's driving seems a little off, try to get them in front of you, rather than behind you. I've called in more than a few DUIs over the past few years.
Why could he not shift to neutral and let the car slow down?
He was going downhill.
I take it you've never driven on a mountain.
Even the TSA has stated that the recent methods are likely to be uncomfortable for many, especially those who have been victimized by molestation.
How about you turn it around on them?
Genitals and breasts are vigorously groped instead of the older method of using the backs of the hands only.
You had me at "vigorously grouped". How about everyone who goes to the airport on national opt-out day take a Viagra beforehand?