The actual quote is "640K of memory should be enough for anybody." (which is why I didn't tout it as a direct quote)
If you google on "Bill Gates, 640K", you'll get tons of hits, including one where he denies having said it.
And no, I'm not necessarily going to research my sources when my only intention was to make a funny. I definitely would check my sources if I was going to make a snarky comment about someone else's comment, though.
- Tacky might be an odd bird, but he's a good bird to have around.
Tom Swift invented something like this a long time ago. I believe it was called the jetcopter or something like that. At speed, lift was provided by wings. But, instead of leaving the rotors stupidly windmilling above the jet (which was supersonic, BTW), they were folded up and put away.
The Moller Aircar (www.moller.com) has the same capabilities as the Carter Copter (except for the minor detail that it has been vaporware for the past thirty years or so). It gets vertical lift from ducted fans. Ducted fans require more energy, but you don't need to hover for very long under normal circumstances.
Part of the problem is that the people who promote electric cars are the kind of people who couldn't market any kind of car at all. Their products tend to look like glorified electric wheelchairs, and about as usefull.
Part of the problem (with solar cars) is that there simply isn't enough sunlight hitting a car to power it -- even if you manage to handwave solar cells that are 100% efficient.
As for marketing -- well, GM gave its EV-1 a good shot. As it turns out, the leases aren't being renewed, and you can't buy the off-lease vehicles. Experiment done.
The real problem is that it's impossible to make an all-electric car with a decent range and performance profile. When fuel cells are cheaper, we'll have a shot at it.
The real challenge with electric cars is the power supply.
We already have electric motors that will give an electric car the performance of any production car you like. The problem is that those motors require lots of electric power -- 746 watts per horsepower, if the motor is 100% efficient (a good motor is in the high 90s)
So, if you have a 98% efficient 100 HP motor at each wheel, you'll need a battery that can supply a little over 300 kilowatts (somewhat less than a third of a megawatt).
I won't diss the motor -- it's a great device. The article is long on hyperbole and short of fact, however. This motor is not the solution. It'll help by making the design somewhat less complicated, but we won't have practical electric cars until we have a practical power supply.
Short term, hybrids are the answer. Fuel cells are the next step (whether they are fueled by hydrogen or hydrocarbons). After that, who can tell? Mister Fusion, anyone?
It works like magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in reverse. Another way to think of it is as a rail gun with a liquid projectile.
A magnetic field is applied to a tube full of liquid, and electrodes are used to cause current to flow perpendicular to that. The result is a net force perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the electric current.
The actual sea engine uses alternating current, but the principle is similar.
Liquid metal cooling is used in reactors because of the *extreme temperatures*, not just because it's more efficient. The metal (usually Sodium, but sometimes lead) is maintained in a molten state as it passes through the reactor and on back to the heat exchanger. Are they *really* saying that a CPU is going to pump enough heat to maintain a molten state inside the cooling device?
It all depends on the metal you choose. Mercury would work very well at keeping the CPU well chilled.
Every multicellular plant or animal starts from a single cell. Those cells are programmed via their genetic code to assemble themselves into a specific pattern. Research has shown that this is done by means of chemical messages.
What they have done, in this case, is to insert their own instructions. The patterns are primitive, but it's a start. The next step will be to get the cells to differentiate -- that is, to take on different functions (nerve cells, muscle cells, etc.)
Before the first digital computer was made, the logic gate was invented. Think of this as a first step toward creating our own multicellular organisms, or modifying existing ones.
Taking insulin every day would be annoying, but I would choose it over immunosupressant drugs any day. My grandmother lived into her 70s while taking insulin every day.
Since diabetes runs in my family, this is more than just random musings.
So I don't know what the spectrum for any of the varities of white LEDs looks like, but it is very possible, even likely, that they are different than an incandescant bulb.
LEDs emit monochromatic light -- a very narrow 'spike' in the spectrum. 'Natural' lights (indandescents, fire, the sun) emit a broad spectrum of light. Think of an LED as sending out a single tone, while a regular lamp creates more of a rushing or hissing noise.
To get white light, red, green, and blue, or red and yellow are mixed. This looks right to our eyes, but often looks different once it's reflected off of something.
White LEDs are really blue LEDs with a phosphur on them. I have heard that they use a yellow phosphur, but they might also use a mixture that creates a more broad-spectrum light output.
I guess we are going to start having "illumiphiles" who will try to tell us that the incandescent lightbulbs of yesteryear are somehow "warmer" and that humans can tell the difference between LEDs and vacuum tubes.
Incandescent light bulbs create light much the same way as the sun. Something that is hot emits electromagnetic radiation is a specific pattern -- a smooth blend of all wavelengths with more energy at the lower wavelengths. LEDs emit monochromatic light. While red/green/blue (and red/yellow) monochromatic light looks white to us, it will illuminate things differently. This is more noticable to some than others.
LEDs are practical right now for many applications. A few years ago, I bought some Dorsey solid state flash lights. I found one outside one morning. It was turned on, and still working (though dimly). Even though a white LED is inherently less efficient than a separate red, green, and blue Leeds, and even though the use of a dropping resistor makes the system less efficient and more sensitive to drops in battery voltage, the lamp greatly outperforms its incandescent counterpart. That is largely because a small incandescent is a whole lot less efficient than a large one.
Also, since the source itself is small and uniform, the spot of light uniform. Shining an LED flashlight on the wall yields a nice, round spot, rather than a hollow circle or half-moon shaped spot.
We recently bought some more modern LED flashlights that use a single AAA battery. Instead of using a dropping resistor to regulate the current, they use something very similar to the switching power supply circuits that are used in computers. We haven't managed to run one out of power yet.
Another area where Leeds are very practical is any application where you want a single color of light -- automotive tail lights, traffic lights, Christmas lights, and the like.
An incandescent emits all colors, so if you want a single color, you end up using a filter to throw away most of the (inefficiently generated) light.
You might notice that the very money-conscious trucking industry has gone to LED tail lights. They put up the money now, and end up having to pay less mechanics to replace burned-out tail lights, not to mention the occasional citation, and the necessity for keeping them inspected. Switching to LED tail lights doesn't increase the mileage of the vehicle significantly, but the reduced maintenance alone is enough to pay for them.
When compact fluorescent lights went for ten to twenty bucks each, it's very understandable that few want to invest the big bucks to change all their house lighting over for the promised benefits. They're used to paying their electric bill, and the thought of lowering it might not be as immediate as the thought of shelling out one hundred or more bucks for a bunch of light bulbs.
Last summer, we found six-packs of compact fluorescent bulbs for about ten bucks at Home Depot. We started buying a pack or two every time we went from $120.00+ to less than $80.00 per month in electric bills. The bulbs paid for themselves in less than a month.
Practical tip: If you're buying a few bulbs at a time, put the first ones in the fixtures that are on all the time, and the places where kids turn them on but forget to turn them off.
When I brought up compact fluorescent lamps on another forum, the major complaint about them was the imperceptible (120 Hz*) flicker that causes some people headaches, and the ghastly color.
This prompted me to do some testing. I swung a string with a weight on the end under an older fluorescent and noted the dark bars that come from the flicker. The modern electronically ballasted lamps have no flicker.
As for the color -- well, some are a kind of ghastly bluish, and others a of a much warmer color. Look at the label and make your choice.
I predict that some of the first household LED lamps will have some kind of a gimmick to make it more desirable. You're not spending $$$ to do what you are already doing. You are buying a fancy "mood light" dimmer system that lets you set your color and brightness where you want it.
You may not be able to see a single one-picosecond pulse in the time domain, but...
Or, you can bounce the signal off of something and measure the distance between the standing waves. A 600 GHz signal has a wavelength of about half a millimeter.
I should also point out that if the maximum frequency the device will handle is 600 GHz, the signal is going to be a sine wave because any higher frequency components will be filtered out. (unless the main limiting factor is the slew rate.)
I finally got fed up with it and complained to the FCC. They sent me some nice brochures on how to shield my home entertainment equipment from RF interferance.
First of all, did you talk to him about it? Just like anyone else, a ham can be a jerk. Most are decent sorts, though.
The fact that you can hear the signal on your computer signals proves that your speakers are picking up a signal -- nothing else. OK, so it also proves that the signal is strong.
I can set my perfectly legal (and not very powerful) ham radio next to your speakers, and you will hear my signal. Most likely, it will sound garbled because I use Single Sideband (SSB). On the other hand, you may be able to clearly pick up the output of my two meter rig -- also perfectly legal.
Your neighbor, if he is a ham, can legally transmit something like two kilowatts of power on most ham bands that are covered by his particular license. If your equipment picks up RF signals to which it is not tuned, your equipment is at fault. The FCC will have about as much interest in your complaint as they would have if you complain that your TV picks up channel 3 when you are tuned to channel 2.
Based on the fact that most hams don't use high power on VHF, and hardly anyone uses AM on HF, I suspect that your neighbor is a CB operator. It's an unfortunate fact that illegal CB operators often give us hams a bad name.
Make a closet behind the area where you will have the entertainment center. If possible, have the back of the TV and the Stereo protrude into the closet (by using an entertainment center with the back removed). That way, all the wiring will be easily accessible from within the closet. Have all the ethernet and power cables run to the closet. That way, you have one central place for your servers, printers, virtual reality transducers, sub-vocal mind-reading control hubs, and don't forget the old primitive hologram generator.
unless it's wet -- then wireless reception will be on the bottom of your list of worries.
straw is a non-conductor, so it is transparent to electromagnetic radiation (except light, of course). Also, any straw we have ever seen or bought was baled with baling twine.
I have seen straw bale houses. If constructed right, they work very well. Just don't let the straw get wet.
So many people hate other HUMANS who are different.. Imagine the hell that a real life "furry" would go through?
It might just have the opposite effect. With someone like Florence Ambrose (an anthropomorphic wolf) running around, the difference between standard humans might suddenly become less important. Without the prejudices that have been passed down for generations, the furries may have it easier than some races have it now. After all, there would be a good number of people who make it a point to welcome the diversity -- and it'll be easy for them to do so because they won't have to fight prejudices that were taught to them from early childhood.
Maybe now Tacky the Penguin can come out of hiding.
First of all, many people maintain that they never used Monsanto seeds. Their plants were very likely cross polinated by Monsanto crops growing nearby. And yet Monsanto is sueing them. Insane.
Monsanto has patented the gene splice. They are protected by patent law, not just a contractual agreemenr.
Slashdot Mirror
The actual quote is "640K of memory should be enough for anybody." (which is why I didn't tout it as a direct quote)
If you google on "Bill Gates, 640K", you'll get tons of hits, including one where he denies having said it.
And no, I'm not necessarily going to research my sources when my only intention was to make a funny. I definitely would check my sources if I was going to make a snarky comment about someone else's comment, though.
- Tacky might be an odd bird, but he's a good bird to have around.
Why would anyone need more than 640K?
Tom Swift invented something like this a long time ago. I believe it was called the jetcopter or something like that. At speed, lift was provided by wings. But, instead of leaving the rotors stupidly windmilling above the jet (which was supersonic, BTW), they were folded up and put away.
The Moller Aircar (www.moller.com) has the same capabilities as the Carter Copter (except for the minor detail that it has been vaporware for the past thirty years or so). It gets vertical lift from ducted fans. Ducted fans require more energy, but you don't need to hover for very long under normal circumstances.
they could eventually have up to 32 cores
And it'll still take two minutes to boot Windows!
We have a bunch of self-replicating rabbits.
Part of the problem is that the people who promote electric cars are the kind of people who couldn't market any kind of car at all. Their products tend to look like glorified electric wheelchairs, and about as usefull.
Part of the problem (with solar cars) is that there simply isn't enough sunlight hitting a car to power it -- even if you manage to handwave solar cells that are 100% efficient.
As for marketing -- well, GM gave its EV-1 a good shot. As it turns out, the leases aren't being renewed, and you can't buy the off-lease vehicles. Experiment done.
The real problem is that it's impossible to make an all-electric car with a decent range and performance profile. When fuel cells are cheaper, we'll have a shot at it.
The real challenge with electric cars is the power supply.
We already have electric motors that will give an electric car the performance of any production car you like. The problem is that those motors require lots of electric power -- 746 watts per horsepower, if the motor is 100% efficient (a good motor is in the high 90s)
So, if you have a 98% efficient 100 HP motor at each wheel, you'll need a battery that can supply a little over 300 kilowatts (somewhat less than a third of a megawatt).
I won't diss the motor -- it's a great device. The article is long on hyperbole and short of fact, however. This motor is not the solution. It'll help by making the design somewhat less complicated, but we won't have practical electric cars until we have a practical power supply.
Short term, hybrids are the answer. Fuel cells are the next step (whether they are fueled by hydrogen or hydrocarbons). After that, who can tell? Mister Fusion, anyone?
... how the pump actually works (it's magnets! doesn't count) ...
It's probably a sea engine:
http://www.rexresearch.com/emships/empship.htm
It works like magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in reverse. Another way to think of it is as a rail gun with a liquid projectile.
A magnetic field is applied to a tube full of liquid, and electrodes are used to cause current to flow perpendicular to that. The result is a net force perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the electric current.
The actual sea engine uses alternating current, but the principle is similar.
Liquid metal cooling is used in reactors because of the *extreme temperatures*, not just because it's more efficient. The metal (usually Sodium, but sometimes lead) is maintained in a molten state as it passes through the reactor and on back to the heat exchanger. Are they *really* saying that a CPU is going to pump enough heat to maintain a molten state inside the cooling device?
It all depends on the metal you choose. Mercury would work very well at keeping the CPU well chilled.
Every multicellular plant or animal starts from a single cell. Those cells are programmed via their genetic code to assemble themselves into a specific pattern. Research has shown that this is done by means of chemical messages.
What they have done, in this case, is to insert their own instructions. The patterns are primitive, but it's a start. The next step will be to get the cells to differentiate -- that is, to take on different functions (nerve cells, muscle cells, etc.)
Before the first digital computer was made, the logic gate was invented. Think of this as a first step toward creating our own multicellular organisms, or modifying existing ones.
Taking insulin every day would be annoying, but I would choose it over immunosupressant drugs any day. My grandmother lived into her 70s while taking insulin every day.
Since diabetes runs in my family, this is more than just random musings.
What's the worse the could do to me? ;)
Put you in a cell with Bubba?
Or, even worse, Michael Jackson.
So I don't know what the spectrum for any of the varities of white LEDs looks like, but it is very possible, even likely, that they are different than an incandescant bulb.
LEDs emit monochromatic light -- a very narrow 'spike' in the spectrum. 'Natural' lights (indandescents, fire, the sun) emit a broad spectrum of light. Think of an LED as sending out a single tone, while a regular lamp creates more of a rushing or hissing noise.
To get white light, red, green, and blue, or red and yellow are mixed. This looks right to our eyes, but often looks different once it's reflected off of something.
White LEDs are really blue LEDs with a phosphur on them. I have heard that they use a yellow phosphur, but they might also use a mixture that creates a more broad-spectrum light output.
I guess we are going to start having "illumiphiles" who will try to tell us that the incandescent lightbulbs of yesteryear are somehow "warmer" and that humans can tell the difference between LEDs and vacuum tubes.
Incandescent light bulbs create light much the same way as the sun. Something that is hot emits electromagnetic radiation is a specific pattern -- a smooth blend of all wavelengths with more energy at the lower wavelengths. LEDs emit monochromatic light. While red/green/blue (and red/yellow) monochromatic light looks white to us, it will illuminate things differently. This is more noticable to some than others.
LEDs are practical right now for many applications. A few years ago, I bought some Dorsey solid state flash lights. I found one outside one morning. It was turned on, and still working (though dimly). Even though a white LED is inherently less efficient than a separate red, green, and blue Leeds, and even though the use of a dropping resistor makes the system less efficient and more sensitive to drops in battery voltage, the lamp greatly outperforms its incandescent counterpart. That is largely because a small incandescent is a whole lot less efficient than a large one.
Also, since the source itself is small and uniform, the spot of light uniform. Shining an LED flashlight on the wall yields a nice, round spot, rather than a hollow circle or half-moon shaped spot.
We recently bought some more modern LED flashlights that use a single AAA battery. Instead of using a dropping resistor to regulate the current, they use something very similar to the switching power supply circuits that are used in computers. We haven't managed to run one out of power yet.
Another area where Leeds are very practical is any application where you want a single color of light -- automotive tail lights, traffic lights, Christmas lights, and the like.
An incandescent emits all colors, so if you want a single color, you end up using a filter to throw away most of the (inefficiently generated) light.
You might notice that the very money-conscious trucking industry has gone to LED tail lights. They put up the money now, and end up having to pay less mechanics to replace burned-out tail lights, not to mention the occasional citation, and the necessity for keeping them inspected. Switching to LED tail lights doesn't increase the mileage of the vehicle significantly, but the reduced maintenance alone is enough to pay for them.
When compact fluorescent lights went for ten to twenty bucks each, it's very understandable that few want to invest the big bucks to change all their house lighting over for the promised benefits. They're used to paying their electric bill, and the thought of lowering it might not be as immediate as the thought of shelling out one hundred or more bucks for a bunch of light bulbs.
Last summer, we found six-packs of compact fluorescent bulbs for about ten bucks at Home Depot. We started buying a pack or two every time we went from $120.00+ to less than $80.00 per month in electric bills. The bulbs paid for themselves in less than a month.
Practical tip: If you're buying a few bulbs at a time, put the first ones in the fixtures that are on all the time, and the places where kids turn them on but forget to turn them off.
When I brought up compact fluorescent lamps on another forum, the major complaint about them was the imperceptible (120 Hz*) flicker that causes some people headaches, and the ghastly color.
This prompted me to do some testing. I swung a string with a weight on the end under an older fluorescent and noted the dark bars that come from the flicker. The modern electronically ballasted lamps have no flicker.
As for the color -- well, some are a kind of ghastly bluish, and others a of a much warmer color. Look at the label and make your choice.
I predict that some of the first household LED lamps will have some kind of a gimmick to make it more desirable. You're not spending $$$ to do what you are already doing. You are buying a fancy "mood light" dimmer system that lets you set your color and brightness where you want it.
You may not be able to see a single one-picosecond pulse in the time domain, but...
Or, you can bounce the signal off of something and measure the distance between the standing waves. A 600 GHz signal has a wavelength of about half a millimeter.
I should also point out that if the maximum frequency the device will handle is 600 GHz, the signal is going to be a sine wave because any higher frequency components will be filtered out. (unless the main limiting factor is the slew rate.)
Send lots of exchange students to Cal Tech, MIT, and other fine American universities.
I finally got fed up with it and complained to the FCC. They sent me some nice brochures on how to shield my home entertainment equipment from RF interferance.
First of all, did you talk to him about it? Just like anyone else, a ham can be a jerk. Most are decent sorts, though.
The fact that you can hear the signal on your computer signals proves that your speakers are picking up a signal -- nothing else. OK, so it also proves that the signal is strong.
I can set my perfectly legal (and not very powerful) ham radio next to your speakers, and you will hear my signal. Most likely, it will sound garbled because I use Single Sideband (SSB). On the other hand, you may be able to clearly pick up the output of my two meter rig -- also perfectly legal.
Your neighbor, if he is a ham, can legally transmit something like two kilowatts of power on most ham bands that are covered by his particular license. If your equipment picks up RF signals to which it is not tuned, your equipment is at fault. The FCC will have about as much interest in your complaint as they would have if you complain that your TV picks up channel 3 when you are tuned to channel 2.
Based on the fact that most hams don't use high power on VHF, and hardly anyone uses AM on HF, I suspect that your neighbor is a CB operator. It's an unfortunate fact that illegal CB operators often give us hams a bad name.
-de KA8UUU
I must go give my cell phone a blow.
I'm surprised nobody has suggested this yet.
Make a closet behind the area where you will have the entertainment center. If possible, have the back of the TV and the Stereo protrude into the closet (by using an entertainment center with the back removed). That way, all the wiring will be easily accessible from within the closet. Have all the ethernet and power cables run to the closet. That way, you have one central place for your servers, printers, virtual reality transducers, sub-vocal mind-reading control hubs, and don't forget the old primitive hologram generator.
Oh yah, and the breaker box, too.
unless it's wet -- then wireless reception will be on the bottom of your list of worries.
straw is a non-conductor, so it is transparent to electromagnetic radiation (except light, of course). Also, any straw we have ever seen or bought was baled with baling twine.
I have seen straw bale houses. If constructed right, they work very well. Just don't let the straw get wet.
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
Hey, if the reality that they give you sucks, why not create your own?
So many people hate other HUMANS who are different.. Imagine the hell that a real life "furry" would go through?
It might just have the opposite effect. With someone like Florence Ambrose (an anthropomorphic wolf) running around, the difference between standard humans might suddenly become less important. Without the prejudices that have been passed down for generations, the furries may have it easier than some races have it now. After all, there would be a good number of people who make it a point to welcome the diversity -- and it'll be easy for them to do so because they won't have to fight prejudices that were taught to them from early childhood.
Maybe now Tacky the Penguin can come out of hiding.
First of all, many people maintain that they never used Monsanto seeds. Their plants were very likely cross polinated by Monsanto crops growing nearby. And yet Monsanto is sueing them. Insane.
Monsanto has patented the gene splice. They are protected by patent law, not just a contractual agreemenr.