You are missing something - while the algae do require sunlight to grow, this is not the only source of energy that feeds their growth. They also acquire energy from the hot exhaust stream that from the power plant. The waste heat is a very good source of energy that promotes cell growth in the algae, so the sunlight issue may not condemn the size-feasability of making lots of fuel.
This guy is trying to be creative and show us a unique way of cooling a computer. Obviously this type of water cooling is somewhat of a new idea, and has yet to be perfected. I mean, he even says that he tested it on a K6-2 computer (relatively low power dissipation).
Give the guy some credit here! Instead of saying why fans are better and that water (or any liquid) spells disaster, why not try and understand why this is better than the old system?
First - liquid cooled without a pump = no mechanical parts to fail. Those heat-pipe heatsinks that are becoming popular have liquid inside them, and you probably aren't worried about having them leak. It's possible that there might be a commercial product that does the same thing with gravitational convection of liquids.
Secondly - eliminating (or reducing) fans not only eliminates noise, it also improves reliability. How many of us have had fans get noisier over time and eventually die on us?
Anyway, I say more power to this guy. someday we might have the CPU mounted at the bottom of our case, and have a cool lava-lamp looking effect running up the side wall. Let's not be quick to fear new technologies - look at the possibilities first!
I remembered seeing this type of thing at Bush Gardens awhile back in some sort of technology demonstration. This isn't really a new idea.
Check out this article for an example from 1995. For those of you who don't get out much, that's like 8 years ago.
I still think the idea is great, and that anything that can potentially better motivate fat americans to get their lazy butts in motion is a positive thing. It's just up to the marketing department to really get these things distributed to the masses.
It's calld Dance Dance Revolution or DDR for short. Seems to be a growingly popular thing at college, as there are crazy people that form clubs and hold weekly meetings.
The monitors will let people see high-resolution 3D images or run 3D programs without using special glasses or additional software. For example, bodies and bullets appear to fly all over the place in a version of the popular game "Quake" that has been adjusted to work on Sharp's 3D monitors.
Okay, so using an adjusted version of Quake doesn't count as being additional software? No additional software required seems a bit misleading in this case. Will we need a special patch for each new program? If so, who will offer/code these patches? The game developers or the monitor manufacturers?
So if our troops want to live longer and think better, they need to stop sleeping right now. If the sounds of enemy gunfire on the battlefields doesn't keep them awake, I'm not too sure how effective these drugs will be, though...
Maybe they should read this little bit about how to stay awake at work and hope for the best.
Troubles of Middle Earth - bandwidth almost gone..
on
LOTR: The Two Towers
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Here's a copy of the game in case anyone is interested. It's about to be slashdotted:
Angband is a roguelike dungeon exploration game based on JRR Tolkien's works.
There are a lot of Angband variants because Angband's sources were cleaned up by a remarkable person, Ben Harrison, which meant that as more people could understand the code, more people made variants. ToME, my own variant, expands upon the Middle-Earth influence and is based on Zangband 2.2.0. ToME now follows the Tolkien world more closely than any other variant!
ToME was formely known was PernAngband, but it's name was changed because of copyright issues. Almost all Pern influences have been removed in the current CVS version.
The current version is T.o.M.E 2.1.0 aka "No Surrender, No Retreat".
"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne, In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie."
You hit the nail right on the head. Sure, the best way to learn and master Linux is by sitting down for a few hours every day and "playing" - the same was true when we all learned DOS or Windows 3.1.
But not everyone has that luxury! Many people are looking for a quicker method of learning. As a person who grew up on DOS and Windows, I have found the following thoughts come up in my head when spending some time learning Linux:
1. Argh! Why am I wasting my time with this! I can already do this on Microsoft and it would only take 10 seconds!
2. Argh!! I've been at it for 2 hours now and it still doesn't work! I'm going back to my old system...
These two frustrations are often what kills any motivation to learn - especially when the quick response you get from most Linux guru's is read the manual, or keep playing with it until you figure it out. Again - this is the best way to get a complete understanding, but someone who is looking to convert to another operating system must have strong reasons for making such large time investments. We all know that doing anything on Linux will probably be just as fast if not faster, but the hitch is that it's only faster if you know how to do it or can learn how to do it quickly! It's up to the Linux community to:
A. Prove beyond any doubt that their product is that much better that it's worth the user's time. and/or...
B. Make it so easy to learn and offer enough support to make the transition as quick and painless (or even entertaining) as possible.
The way to do that is with books that can compress all those pains that we've gone through and make the transition to Linux as fluid as possible. In about any operating system there are two ways of doing something: The GUI way, or the manual way. The big difference between Linux and Microsoft (IMHO) is that Microsoft makes the GUI way work easier and more reliably. Linux seems to be moving towards this extreme, but right now to get something configured properly without having to edit text files is much less likely on a Linux distro than with a Microsoft OS. Not to say that this is a bad thing, but this is the main reason that learning Linux can be so much more involved and why it takes more effort - you need to learn what the GUI does instead of taking it for granted.
For years scientits and crazy people have been trying to turn gold into metal. Now they've done the opposite, and what do they get? Really big temperatures hotter than the the hottest stars.
I guess all those alchemists who thought that adding fire to metal would make gold were right after all...
And for a complete waste of time, go play alchemy.
for best cooling, you want as small a case as possible, not as big as possible
Actually... I don't think we're looking at improving heat transfer via forced air, so a smaller case would not help. The mode of heat transport in this application is mainly free convection and not forced convection.
As we all know from Intro to Heat Transfer, the transition to turbulence occurs at a Rayleigh number of 10^9. This number is related to physical properties of air, and is proportional to (vertical length)^3. Turbulence from free convection will improve heat transfer immensly. The longer your vertical plate is (taller case), the larger your region of turbulent flow will be, which leads to improved heat transfer, and cooler components.
Here's a nice sized (15MB) report done by NASA. They talk about all sorts of problems that need to be worked out to make get this project off the ground
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_repor t/pdf/472Edwards.pdf
The world's funniest joke has just been discovered by a group of british scientists. The story is all over the web, here's the link to the CNN article.
While watching hot chicken soup spray out of a sick person's nose may be funny for everyone else, it probably isn't the best medicine for said sick person.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why
several of us died of tuberculosis. - Jack Handey
I agree with your idea - it would be very easy to measure the current on the lines and then determine the amount of power consumed by the drive (and ultimately rejected as waste heat). BUT - we need to remember that heat produced is not directly responsible for the failure of the drive. It is ultimately the temperature of the electronics (and its fluctuations) that are directly responsible for the drive's failure.
Thus, when surface temperature measurements done by probes prove unreliable, it might make sense to have an internally mounted temperature sensor to determine actual drive component temperature. In fact, it would be pretty simple for a manufacturer to implement a control circuit for drive RPM speed based on internal drive temperature (which can be probed fairly accurately).
Getting back to the main point - I do believe that surface temperatures can be better than "HORRIBLY unreliable". But for meaningful comparisons to be made, drives need to be tested in similar machines, and the ambient temperature must be noted for each instance. Remember - when it comes to heat transfer, the absolute temperature of an object will never determine heat transfer. It's all about the delta T.
Every time you hear about an eclipse, they tell you not to look directly at the sun. I know it can burn out your retina and make you blind, but so will staring at the sun on a day without the eclipse.
Does anyone know if looking at the sun during an eclipse is actually worse for your eyes than looking at the sun at any other time? I would guess that the intensity of the sunlight would have to be greater during an eclipse to cause more retinal damage in a shorter period of time. Anyone know why this is the case?
Is it just me, or is the industry generating too many different media formats in too short a time? I know from a profit standpoint, corporations stand to benefit from releasing newer technologies forcing customers to replace their old technology with newer. And this is to be expected - to a certain degree.
It seems, at least to me, that recently the rate at which new media standards are being produced is far higher than it was a few years ago. Not too far back, VHS reigned supreme, and it has been virtually the> standard format for decades. Now DVD technology is in the process of phasing out VHS, but it seems we are bombarded with new and improved formats (like this new extra 1-Gig capacity) that won't benefit the customers to a great extent.
It doesn't seem that these new EVD's are going to replace DVD's because it is not a substantial breakthrough in technology. Big deal.. an extra 30 min. of "behind the scenes" on your typical DVD movie. Is it worth introducting new media formats to simply avoid licencing fees?
Slashdot Mirror
You are missing something - while the algae do require sunlight to grow, this is not the only source of energy that feeds their growth. They also acquire energy from the hot exhaust stream that from the power plant. The waste heat is a very good source of energy that promotes cell growth in the algae, so the sunlight issue may not condemn the size-feasability of making lots of fuel.
This guy is trying to be creative and show us a unique way of cooling a computer. Obviously this type of water cooling is somewhat of a new idea, and has yet to be perfected. I mean, he even says that he tested it on a K6-2 computer (relatively low power dissipation).
Give the guy some credit here! Instead of saying why fans are better and that water (or any liquid) spells disaster, why not try and understand why this is better than the old system?
First - liquid cooled without a pump = no mechanical parts to fail. Those heat-pipe heatsinks that are becoming popular have liquid inside them, and you probably aren't worried about having them leak. It's possible that there might be a commercial product that does the same thing with gravitational convection of liquids.
Secondly - eliminating (or reducing) fans not only eliminates noise, it also improves reliability. How many of us have had fans get noisier over time and eventually die on us?
Anyway, I say more power to this guy. someday we might have the CPU mounted at the bottom of our case, and have a cool lava-lamp looking effect running up the side wall. Let's not be quick to fear new technologies - look at the possibilities first!
Check out this article for an example from 1995. For those of you who don't get out much, that's like 8 years ago.
I still think the idea is great, and that anything that can potentially better motivate fat americans to get their lazy butts in motion is a positive thing. It's just up to the marketing department to really get these things distributed to the masses.
-Bryan
Read more about it here.
-Bryan
Okay, so using an adjusted version of Quake doesn't count as being additional software? No additional software required seems a bit misleading in this case. Will we need a special patch for each new program? If so, who will offer/code these patches? The game developers or the monitor manufacturers?
don't leak trade secrets. Duh.
It looks like this might actually work according to these articles:
1. Sleep Less, Live Longer
2. Sleep Deprivation Increases Brain Activity
So if our troops want to live longer and think better, they need to stop sleeping right now. If the sounds of enemy gunfire on the battlefields doesn't keep them awake, I'm not too sure how effective these drugs will be, though...
Maybe they should read this little bit about how to stay awake at work and hope for the best.
Here's a copy of the game in case anyone is interested. It's about to be slashdotted:
.
Angband is a roguelike dungeon exploration game based on JRR Tolkien's works.
There are a lot of Angband variants because Angband's sources were cleaned up by a remarkable person, Ben Harrison, which meant that as more people could understand the code, more people made variants. ToME, my own variant, expands upon the Middle-Earth influence and is based on Zangband 2.2.0. ToME now follows the Tolkien world more closely than any other variant!
ToME was formely known was PernAngband, but it's name was changed because of copyright issues. Almost all Pern influences have been removed in the current CVS version.
The current version is T.o.M.E 2.1.0 aka "No Surrender, No Retreat"
"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie."
"The Lord of the Rings", J.R.R. Tolkien.
But not everyone has that luxury! Many people are looking for a quicker method of learning. As a person who grew up on DOS and Windows, I have found the following thoughts come up in my head when spending some time learning Linux:
1. Argh! Why am I wasting my time with this! I can already do this on Microsoft and it would only take 10 seconds!
2. Argh!! I've been at it for 2 hours now and it still doesn't work! I'm going back to my old system...
These two frustrations are often what kills any motivation to learn - especially when the quick response you get from most Linux guru's is read the manual, or keep playing with it until you figure it out. Again - this is the best way to get a complete understanding, but someone who is looking to convert to another operating system must have strong reasons for making such large time investments. We all know that doing anything on Linux will probably be just as fast if not faster, but the hitch is that it's only faster if you know how to do it or can learn how to do it quickly! It's up to the Linux community to:
A. Prove beyond any doubt that their product is that much better that it's worth the user's time. and/or...
B. Make it so easy to learn and offer enough support to make the transition as quick and painless (or even entertaining) as possible.
The way to do that is with books that can compress all those pains that we've gone through and make the transition to Linux as fluid as possible. In about any operating system there are two ways of doing something: The GUI way, or the manual way. The big difference between Linux and Microsoft (IMHO) is that Microsoft makes the GUI way work easier and more reliably. Linux seems to be moving towards this extreme, but right now to get something configured properly without having to edit text files is much less likely on a Linux distro than with a Microsoft OS. Not to say that this is a bad thing, but this is the main reason that learning Linux can be so much more involved and why it takes more effort - you need to learn what the GUI does instead of taking it for granted.
Anyway, that's my $0.04 (...inflation)
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/videocards/
My dog ate my sig.
I guess all those alchemists who thought that adding fire to metal would make gold were right after all...
And for a complete waste of time, go play alchemy.
It's a thermocouple if you use it to measure a temperature difference.
It's a Thermator if you use it to produce electrical power.
While not a major breakthrough, it's good to find more ways to use waste heat and up the efficiency of a system.
Actually... I don't think we're looking at improving heat transfer via forced air, so a smaller case would not help. The mode of heat transport in this application is mainly free convection and not forced convection.
As we all know from Intro to Heat Transfer, the transition to turbulence occurs at a Rayleigh number of 10^9. This number is related to physical properties of air, and is proportional to (vertical length)^3. Turbulence from free convection will improve heat transfer immensly. The longer your vertical plate is (taller case), the larger your region of turbulent flow will be, which leads to improved heat transfer, and cooler components.
I too, am a rocket scientist. :)
That could make for some pretty good copy protection at the movies! (along with blind viewers) But hey, all technology comes at a cost. right?
Wonder what it actually sounds like when they look up at the sky. Do they hear "BLUE...BLUE..BLUE...BLUE..."?
Better start saving up. And I'm guessing that price doesn't include shipping.
Unless he was playing Super Mario Bros. 1, and got stuck in minus world. (Yea, I bet nobody remembers that)
Here's a nice sized (15MB) report done by NASA. They talk about all sorts of problems that need to be worked out to make get this project off the ground http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_repor t/pdf/472Edwards.pdf
Here's the Google Cache, for when it dies
The world's funniest joke has just been discovered by a group of british scientists. The story is all over the web, here's the link to the CNN article.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis. - Jack Handey
I agree with your idea - it would be very easy to measure the current on the lines and then determine the amount of power consumed by the drive (and ultimately rejected as waste heat). BUT - we need to remember that heat produced is not directly responsible for the failure of the drive. It is ultimately the temperature of the electronics (and its fluctuations) that are directly responsible for the drive's failure.
Thus, when surface temperature measurements done by probes prove unreliable, it might make sense to have an internally mounted temperature sensor to determine actual drive component temperature. In fact, it would be pretty simple for a manufacturer to implement a control circuit for drive RPM speed based on internal drive temperature (which can be probed fairly accurately).
Getting back to the main point - I do believe that surface temperatures can be better than "HORRIBLY unreliable". But for meaningful comparisons to be made, drives need to be tested in similar machines, and the ambient temperature must be noted for each instance. Remember - when it comes to heat transfer, the absolute temperature of an object will never determine heat transfer. It's all about the delta T.
Every time you hear about an eclipse, they tell you not to look directly at the sun. I know it can burn out your retina and make you blind, but so will staring at the sun on a day without the eclipse.
Does anyone know if looking at the sun during an eclipse is actually worse for your eyes than looking at the sun at any other time? I would guess that the intensity of the sunlight would have to be greater during an eclipse to cause more retinal damage in a shorter period of time. Anyone know why this is the case?
On the subject of stupid patents, you might want to check outthis one. Some guy patented a "Method of swinging on a swing." Crazy stuff!
Is it just me, or is the industry generating too many different media formats in too short a time? I know from a profit standpoint, corporations stand to benefit from releasing newer technologies forcing customers to replace their old technology with newer. And this is to be expected - to a certain degree. It seems, at least to me, that recently the rate at which new media standards are being produced is far higher than it was a few years ago. Not too far back, VHS reigned supreme, and it has been virtually the> standard format for decades. Now DVD technology is in the process of phasing out VHS, but it seems we are bombarded with new and improved formats (like this new extra 1-Gig capacity) that won't benefit the customers to a great extent. It doesn't seem that these new EVD's are going to replace DVD's because it is not a substantial breakthrough in technology. Big deal.. an extra 30 min. of "behind the scenes" on your typical DVD movie. Is it worth introducting new media formats to simply avoid licencing fees?