Correct, but that's fairly rare (the only use I know of is the Lancia Delta S4, a group B rally car) because of its complexity and cost. Another variation, the turbocompound engine, uses turbochargers plus a second turbine that has an output to the crankshaft. This increases efficiency, so it's a little more popular (Scania and Volvo use it in truck engines, some of the last generation of large aircraft piston engines used it as well).
Coiled cables are common for full-size headphones, IDK why they aren't used on earbuds (maybe because a coiled cable is bulkier than a traight cable). Elastic cable doesn't exist because conducting materials aren't very elastic.
ISTR superchargers are generally less efficient because they don't harness the waste energy going out the exhaust. The advantage of a supercharger lies in the fact that it doesn't lag. A supercharger may also be cheaper bacause it runs at much lower speeds.
"It looks like you're trying to remove something. Do you want to... [_] delete your document [_] delete all items in My Documents [_] wipe out your user account [x] delete your entire hard disk?"
... until Linux does dumb itself down for those who fear the command line,
Making Linux easier to use is NOT about 'dumbing it down' (losing features in an attempt to appear less intimidating). If anything, the opposite should be true: the OS should become more intelligent, taking care of the tedious stuff so the user can concentrate on doing his job.
OS X is a good example of how this can be done: you can install some (most?) applications by dragging an icon to the Applications folder. You can still do it the hard/manual way as well, but that's now an option.
Wood is a lot easy to sustain than plastic. You can plant new trees...
But the question is, is that actually done? For tropical hardwoods, all too often this isn't the case (the land is used for farming instead, and quickly erodes to the point where it's useless). The Forest Stewardship Council tries to do something about this, e.g. by certifying wood that's produced in a sustainable way.
Right, as if CPU cycles are the limiting factor in designing new aircraft. Dassault may not have built a prototype, but they did have rooms full of aeronautical engineers who actually know what to do with all that computational power.
Dassault isn't alone in skipping the prototype, by the way; this is pretty much par for the course for commercial aircraft. When there are no significant new developments (hardware, aerodynamics [1]) to test, the only use for a prototype would be to validate the manufacturing process, which can be done in computers instead.
For military aircraft (where the technology changes much more between generations), prototypes and even experimental aircraft (X-planes, EAP) aren't uncommon.
1: yes, new aircraft do use new technology, but in commercial aircraft it's all incremental so the effect is predictable enough that you don't need a prototype.
The problem might be that the Alcock & Brown flight is much less well-known than Lindbergh's later solo flight. A pity; Alcock & Brown deserve more recognition.
The replica itself is fairly interesting as well: they experimented with several engine sets before settling on the Orendas. It originally used two Chevrolet V-8s, it has also flown with BMW V-12s (M73), both car engines originally.
This isn't the first flight the replica has made: it's already completed the first two legs of the "Vimy Triple Crown", i.e. the 15,000 mile route from England to Australia in 1994, and the 9,000 mile journey from London to Cape Town in 1999.
AFAI can see, the choice is between cutting into their programming, or cutting into the 'extras'. I'd rather have another season of Dr Who than keep the Cult website...
I suspect the Quadra design was a cost-cutting (hah!) measure. Apple has always been dithering between easily-accessible (see the current iMac) and hard to get into (@#$ Torx screws on the old AIO designs, all the way up to the break-it-open Mac mini).
The cloning idea may have been good for customers, but Apple was losing money left and right because of it: the 'clone' makers used Apple motherboards and sold them in slightly less-expensive machines, leaving Apple to pick up the tab for R&D. Had the contract between Apple and the clone makers been different, who knows where we'd be today?
A superior architecture is no good if the CPU supplier can't/won't sink enough money into designing/producing new versions to keep up with the competition.
It's also still the machine with the best UI around. You're right, some things never change.
(re: the mouse troll, more-button mice have been supported on the Mac for ages. You don't piss and moan about the standard crappy mouse&keyboard that come with your PC either.)
No way to answer those questions, of course. But if you look at the Apple Lisa, you'll see what Apple was capable of when it wasn't limiting itself to designing a low-cost machine.
You do realize that Japan still is involved, do you? It's an international project, they just chose to build the reactor in France rather than Japan (which makes sense, considering the population density of Japan vs France).
Steam was/is not significantly cleaner than internal combustion. You still need to burn fuel, and for automotive applications that still means gasoline or something similar. CO2 emissions will be identical, other emissions my be lower because the process is more controllable than internal combustion. Efficiency-wise, the steam engine doesn't do so well. Due to the larger area you're heating, you'll have more thermal losses. According to Wikipedia, an automotive steam engine can be about 25% energy efficient. Current diesels reach about 50%, IIRC. You're right that more money sunk into development might have changed the situation, though.
Steam cars attractive? Oh, come on. The startup time (half an hour for the 'fast-starting' vehicles) and the huge amount of water a steam engine used were enough to scuttle steam, even when the early gasoline engines they competed with were rubbish.
Slashdot Mirror
JK Rowling has denied that
Correct, but that's fairly rare (the only use I know of is the Lancia Delta S4, a group B rally car) because of its complexity and cost.
Another variation, the turbocompound engine, uses turbochargers plus a second turbine that has an output to the crankshaft. This increases efficiency, so it's a little more popular (Scania and Volvo use it in truck engines, some of the last generation of large aircraft piston engines used it as well).
Coiled cables are common for full-size headphones, IDK why they aren't used on earbuds (maybe because a coiled cable is bulkier than a traight cable).
Elastic cable doesn't exist because conducting materials aren't very elastic.
ISTR superchargers are generally less efficient because they don't harness the waste energy going out the exhaust. The advantage of a supercharger lies in the fact that it doesn't lag. A supercharger may also be cheaper bacause it runs at much lower speeds.
The blurb suggests that TLC decides which cars can be used as a taxi. Why on earth would a government commission have anything to say about that?
"It looks like you're trying to remove something. Do you want to...
[_] delete your document
[_] delete all items in My Documents
[_] wipe out your user account
[x] delete your entire hard disk?"
Most leaves would rot away long before being compressed.
... until Linux does dumb itself down for those who fear the command line,
Making Linux easier to use is NOT about 'dumbing it down' (losing features in an attempt to appear less intimidating). If anything, the opposite should be true: the OS should become more intelligent, taking care of the tedious stuff so the user can concentrate on doing his job.
OS X is a good example of how this can be done: you can install some (most?) applications by dragging an icon to the Applications folder. You can still do it the hard/manual way as well, but that's now an option.
Wood is a lot easy to sustain than plastic. You can plant new trees ...
But the question is, is that actually done? For tropical hardwoods, all too often this isn't the case (the land is used for farming instead, and quickly erodes to the point where it's useless).
The Forest Stewardship Council tries to do something about this, e.g. by certifying wood that's produced in a sustainable way.
Right, as if CPU cycles are the limiting factor in designing new aircraft. Dassault may not have built a prototype, but they did have rooms full of aeronautical engineers who actually know what to do with all that computational power.
Dassault isn't alone in skipping the prototype, by the way; this is pretty much par for the course for commercial aircraft. When there are no significant new developments (hardware, aerodynamics [1]) to test, the only use for a prototype would be to validate the manufacturing process, which can be done in computers instead.
For military aircraft (where the technology changes much more between generations), prototypes and even experimental aircraft (X-planes, EAP) aren't uncommon.
1: yes, new aircraft do use new technology, but in commercial aircraft it's all incremental so the effect is predictable enough that you don't need a prototype.
The problem might be that the Alcock & Brown flight is much less well-known than Lindbergh's later solo flight. A pity; Alcock & Brown deserve more recognition.
The replica itself is fairly interesting as well: they experimented with several engine sets before settling on the Orendas. It originally used two Chevrolet V-8s, it has also flown with BMW V-12s (M73), both car engines originally.
This replica is not the first, by the way.
home page of the project
This isn't the first flight the replica has made: it's already completed the first two legs of the "Vimy Triple Crown", i.e. the 15,000 mile route from England to Australia in 1994, and the 9,000 mile journey from London to Cape Town in 1999.
That's what 3D printers are for.
Just think of it as a rapidly-decaying orbit...
AFAI can see, the choice is between cutting into their programming, or cutting into the 'extras'. I'd rather have another season of Dr Who than keep the Cult website...
RTFA. They're NOT dumping their archives, just part of the content of the Cult website.
They're not closing it "due to lack of interest", they're cutting costs.
Actually, Apple introduced time travel with the Macintosh. What else do you think the line "and you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984" meant? ;-)
I suspect the Quadra design was a cost-cutting (hah!) measure. Apple has always been dithering between easily-accessible (see the current iMac) and hard to get into (@#$ Torx screws on the old AIO designs, all the way up to the break-it-open Mac mini).
The cloning idea may have been good for customers, but Apple was losing money left and right because of it: the 'clone' makers used Apple motherboards and sold them in slightly less-expensive machines, leaving Apple to pick up the tab for R&D. Had the contract between Apple and the clone makers been different, who knows where we'd be today?
A superior architecture is no good if the CPU supplier can't/won't sink enough money into designing/producing new versions to keep up with the competition.
It's also still the machine with the best UI around. You're right, some things never change.
(re: the mouse troll, more-button mice have been supported on the Mac for ages. You don't piss and moan about the standard crappy mouse&keyboard that come with your PC either.)
No way to answer those questions, of course. But if you look at the Apple Lisa, you'll see what Apple was capable of when it wasn't limiting itself to designing a low-cost machine.
Slow news day it may be, but the introduction of the Mac *was* a historic event. The Byte article is a nice reminder of that.
You do realize that Japan still is involved, do you? It's an international project, they just chose to build the reactor in France rather than Japan (which makes sense, considering the population density of Japan vs France).
Steam was/is not significantly cleaner than internal combustion. You still need to burn fuel, and for automotive applications that still means gasoline or something similar. CO2 emissions will be identical, other emissions my be lower because the process is more controllable than internal combustion.
Efficiency-wise, the steam engine doesn't do so well. Due to the larger area you're heating, you'll have more thermal losses. According to Wikipedia, an automotive steam engine can be about 25% energy efficient. Current diesels reach about 50%, IIRC.
You're right that more money sunk into development might have changed the situation, though.
Steam cars attractive? Oh, come on. The startup time (half an hour for the 'fast-starting' vehicles) and the huge amount of water a steam engine used were enough to scuttle steam, even when the early gasoline engines they competed with were rubbish.
Insightful?
Those 4000 ICBMs are quite enough to make Earth uninhabitable several times over. You really don't need more.