I am very tired of idiots who post about being worried about water near electricity, rust, you name it. I think it shows how basic science education is being neglected. So I would like to make a few points. Pure water is a poor conductor of electricity. That's why ordinary condensation caused by the lowering temperature of humid air rarely causes problems with electrical equipment. The conductivity of good quality DI or distilled water is actually not high enough to affect most digital systems. It wouldn't be good if it got into rotating components, but in the low-resistance 5-12VDC environment, a little damp is not a problem. Furthermore, in the absence of dissolved air, water does not promote rust. Generations of science teachers have shown kids that iron nails in distilled water stay bright while those in aerated tap water rapidly rust. The biggest problem I am aware of with water cooled electronics - and I have been involved on and off with liquid handling since 1980 - is inappropriate choice of materials. The common polyamide (nylon) pipe is water absorbent, as are some other widely used polymers. Cast metals are also often prone to porosity, pinholes and slag inclusions, which can be major sources of leaks. Pressure testing is a good idea. Another problem with water cooling for electronics is inappropriate design of connections, resulting in too much mechanical load either on the connection itself, sealing faces of pumps, or the attachment of the cooling plate to the substrate. Unlike automotive cooling, vibration is not usually a major problem. This isn't a howto essay, but here are a few pointers.
DO NOT EVER use automotive components. They are designed for robustness and can handle high levels of sludge, and in any case are designed for use with glycol mixtures.
DO NOT create high pressures. The object should be to have wide flow paths working at low pressure differentials with minimum turbulence. I'm amazed when I read descriptions of heat removers describing them has having internal passages designed to promote turbulence - because turbulence is bad. You want, ideally, laminar flow across the hotspot so that it is in contact with a constantly changing flow of cold water. Platinum cured silicone tubing is very good. It contains no cure residues that could make the water acid and it is very flexible. It needs to be carefully routed to prevent kinking but it puts low stresss on joints. Flow back to header tanks should avoid bubbling to prevent aeration, and header tanks should be covered except for a minute hole (filtered) for pressure compensation. If you can keep spores and bugs out of the water, you will not grow algae. Ideally all metal parts should be the same metal or at least metals of similar electrochemical potential. Use lab grade DI water. Use compression joints rather than just relying on the elasticity of the pipe.
NEC has said they are working on a system designed to eliminate leaks - their curious reference to "resin" being, I suspect, a reference to epoxy or nylon components that are prone to leak slowly. The automotive industry has done it: liquid cooled auto engines now require hardly any maintenance of the cooling system. I'm sure that once the serious manufacturers get on the case and the amateurs start to fade into the background, liquid cooling for personal computers should come on rapidly, for all the same reason as automotives (more power in smaller space, more accurate temperature control, able to reach less accessible places, smaller block mass needed for heat exchangers). The technologies are all there, the need is obvious.
Yes, there was an element of irony, hence the "Obligatory rain on parade" line. I could actually give you an equally long rant, but as I agree with you, no point.
1.3million ($2million) grant? For something like this? Scotland to be the leader in this area of nanotechnology?
Someone has been on too much whisky. That much money wouldn't keep a serious nanotechnology project in whores and cocaine for the marketing department.
I guess it's the lack of operating system support on the DSPs themselves. Plus their instructions sets and I/O don't lend themselves well to general purpose computing. The cost of developing a node consisting of a DSP plus a general purpose processor, plus the efficient I/O to the DSP, might be too high for the relatively restricted usage on supercomputers.
That said, my Palm Tungsten is a combo of a GP processor and a DSP, as I believe are several Sony variants. Perhaps as I/O on handhelds improves (?) the time will come when a university produces a Beowulf cluster of handhelds and the world's smallest supercomputer per gigaflop (more like ly teraflop by then).
In case this is more than just my usual totally uninformed wild speculation, could I register claim to the idea. In order to obtain a (free) license, just name the first model Grendel's Bane. And promise not to make any SCO jokes.
When is the REAL heise going to send SCO a cease-and-desist letter telling them to stop using their name as the supposed name of a "lawyer" representing SCO?
Would they be operating entirely by press release? There's a nasty possible point here. SCO wants a jury trial. They are sending out press releases like crazy, loads of exposure on the net. When (if) this case comes to trial, it will be hard to find anyone who knows anything at all about IT/IP who will not be liable to be removed from the jury. A jury consisting entirely of Mormon farmers might just be exactly what SCO wants. (This is not an anti-Mormon remark, I have Mormon relatives).
What ever happened to the idea that once a case was under way it was sub judice, and if either party discussed it outside the courtroom it was highly prejudicial to their interests?
Not only am I reminded of the Wrong Pair of Trousers, I am reminded of the episode of "The Goodies" (caution: UK-specific humor reference) set in the future, in which people travel using powered feet. Nihil sub sole novum.
Plus an advanced tab that lets you customise things that need customising, instead of things that don't, and then save the settings to the server and replicate them across the entire fleet.
The BSA went after him because he was well known and too small to fight back. They wanted publicity. I wonder how much of the illegal software was actually being used?
If is true that if you have to pay the legal expenses of the BSA while they prosecute you, then it is time for a flood of feeble "In Soviet America" jokes. Perhaps someone who is a lawyer could explain the situation?
I suppose it's ironic* that the moons of Mars were named fear and terror (phobos and deimos) when in fact it's these distant rocks that should be worrying us. Realising just how many things are now known that periodically cross the Earth's orbit makes me wonder if the past ten thousand years or so of developing civilisation is just a period of unusual stability between ice ages and destructive impacts. Even a relatively small impact with a "soft" comet like body could presumably put enough crap into the atmosphere to create a very long winter. It's a pity that arms development seems more obsessed with fighting the "savage wars of peace" that merely threaten short term stability, and less with designing a delivery system and weapon to take out, or at least deflect, threatening asteroids that could make all the local wars irrelevant in a few seconds.
Oh dear. No, it isn't. It's a better RADIATOR. And you know how hot the case would need to be before radiation was significant compared to convection? Tube temperatures rather than transistor temperatures.
I know that, dummkopf. I actually read the article, ohne Babelfisch. I know where Zalman comes from. The author of the article was wetting himself over the case. Hence my remarks. I didn't say "Why do Germans design..."
Reminds me of the high power PSUs we were building back in the early-80s for I-can't-tell-you-about-that applications. That was for 60V 50A DC-audio amplifiers. Why do Germans still go for all-black, finned military chic?
Even so, the limited convection of this thing is still wasted capacity. It would be better, and almost as quiet, to have a chimney round the back with the fins pointing inward, and a slow air stream from a large fan being sent up it. It could easily be as quiet as a hard drive.
Well, glycol is more prone to cause leaks (taken a long time to get the leaks out of auto systems), and anyway like alcohol is hygroscopic and tends to pick up water from the air. As for sodium, did you check the melting point?
And don't talk to me about fluorinert. Been there, done that, seen $3000 worth evaporate.
Is the $5 million of federal funding. Given who pays to elect the government, I suspect that federal funding currently goes into any alternative energy project that has a low chance of success, is small scale, cannot deliver reliable continuous power but, above all, doesn't threaten the oil industry.
A related question: the article refers to wasted coconut shells. What does a coconut shell do to get wasted? After the robot Kama Sutra, coconut shell cocaine orgies?
Boasting of being a Mensa member on Slashdot is probably a bit like boasting of once having had sex at a hookers' convention. My IQ on the scale used by Mensa is only in the mid 170s, and I often feel like the dumb member of the class when I read some threads. (ACs and trolls excepted, of course.)
But I think it bears repetition. This is a de facto monopoly based, not on open standards, but on one manufacturer's products. The education system is being sold to a high bidder, and on a false premise (i.e that the job of schools is to teach children how to use a product, not teach them how to learn and to apply knowledge.)
Imagine if every driving school in the US was to use nothing but Ford. Or every geometry class required kids to buy one particular make of compass, ruler and protractor. Or if every school was required to use exactly the same model and make of chair and table from one manufacturer only, even though independent studies had shown that these chairs and tables had a shorter life span and needed more frequent repairs than the alternatives. There might be problems.
The logical thing, as with other public procurement, would be to have an agreed open standard for school procurement, and allow suppliers to tender freely to meet that requirement. School IT administrators would be trained on the administration and maintenance of the base standard, and any supplier proposing any proprietary modifications would have to declare them and explain the on-costs for support staff training and additional maintenance.
The answer to the parents who complain that children are not being trained to use home PCs is, it is no more our job to teach kids how to use your PC than your dishwasher, your TV or your lawnmower.
Of course it won't happen. But it is the genuinely free market approach (i.e the customer decides the rules and the market delivers). What we have at the moment is literally fascism, i.e. a society in which the State works with and favors particular sections of industry, and in which officials corruptly work in both fields despite the conflict of interest. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a free, democratic, idealistic 1940s US to ride to the rescue any more.
A weapon so small that a suicide bomber can use it to wipe out significant parts of city centres. So "we" have to have more and better of them first in case someone else develops them. How much security is going to be needed to make sure none of these interesting munitions escape into the wild? How much civil liberty will we have to give up so we can enjoy increased protection? I'm beginning to think what the world really needs is a development program for a weapon that destroys military installations and leaves people standing.
It is true that the results of the tests are open to scrutiny. However, as I am sure you realise, in many cases it is extremely difficult if not impossible to weight the levels of benefit versus harm across the entire population. It is probably better for a marginally effective drug to be approved than to be rejected because, once it moves beyond clinical trials into general use, it may prove to be particularly effective in certain cases or in combination. The outcome can be that insurance companies and, in the countries that have them, government health agencies, can be very unsure of the need actually to prescribe certain drugs given the cost/effectiveness benefits. There seems to be something of a vicious circle: drugs are expensive, there is resistance to their use, more has to be spent on marketing to get them sold, so they get more expensive. The drug companies have to function in a very difficult environment, because most drugs are not as effective as penicillin or AZT.
The reason I know anything about this at all is that the guy who taught me statistics was a specialist in the area of clinical trials. He was also brilliant, and I guess you have to be to be able to navigate your way around such a difficult area.
Of course you are right, and I made a total mess of explaining the thermohaline circulation. In fact the entire post is garbage, and I need a brain transplant.
Slashdot definitely needs a way for original posters to indicate that their posts are bullshit and return the karma to the pool.
Drugs companies actually spend far more on marketing than they do on R&D, which includes approvals. How much of that marketing is really necessary - unless, of course, the drugs aren't really as effective as they claim? This thing needs approval because in confined spaces it could to terrible damage to other people as well as the occupant. Stair climbing and standing up is all very well, but suppose it fell over with someone else under it? The approval costs must be a tiny fraction of the potential liability if it was shown an insufficiently tested thing like this was released on the market.
But then, many people with only minor disability - reduced leg movement for instance - could well get away with a Segway. Perhaps they will go on to develop a whole range of these devices for different levels of disability, using the work done on approving "everything" to make subsequent approval much easier for the less functional versions.
Slashdot Mirror
I am very tired of idiots who post about being worried about water near electricity, rust, you name it. I think it shows how basic science education is being neglected. So I would like to make a few points.
Pure water is a poor conductor of electricity. That's why ordinary condensation caused by the lowering temperature of humid air rarely causes problems with electrical equipment. The conductivity of good quality DI or distilled water is actually not high enough to affect most digital systems. It wouldn't be good if it got into rotating components, but in the low-resistance 5-12VDC environment, a little damp is not a problem.
Furthermore, in the absence of dissolved air, water does not promote rust. Generations of science teachers have shown kids that iron nails in distilled water stay bright while those in aerated tap water rapidly rust.
The biggest problem I am aware of with water cooled electronics - and I have been involved on and off with liquid handling since 1980 - is inappropriate choice of materials. The common polyamide (nylon) pipe is water absorbent, as are some other widely used polymers. Cast metals are also often prone to porosity, pinholes and slag inclusions, which can be major sources of leaks. Pressure testing is a good idea.
Another problem with water cooling for electronics is inappropriate design of connections, resulting in too much mechanical load either on the connection itself, sealing faces of pumps, or the attachment of the cooling plate to the substrate.
Unlike automotive cooling, vibration is not usually a major problem.
This isn't a howto essay, but here are a few pointers.
DO NOT EVER use automotive components. They are designed for robustness and can handle high levels of sludge, and in any case are designed for use with glycol mixtures.
DO NOT create high pressures. The object should be to have wide flow paths working at low pressure differentials with minimum turbulence. I'm amazed when I read descriptions of heat removers describing them has having internal passages designed to promote turbulence - because turbulence is bad. You want, ideally, laminar flow across the hotspot so that it is in contact with a constantly changing flow of cold water.
Platinum cured silicone tubing is very good. It contains no cure residues that could make the water acid and it is very flexible. It needs to be carefully routed to prevent kinking but it puts low stresss on joints.
Flow back to header tanks should avoid bubbling to prevent aeration, and header tanks should be covered except for a minute hole (filtered) for pressure compensation. If you can keep spores and bugs out of the water, you will not grow algae.
Ideally all metal parts should be the same metal or at least metals of similar electrochemical potential.
Use lab grade DI water.
Use compression joints rather than just relying on the elasticity of the pipe.
NEC has said they are working on a system designed to eliminate leaks - their curious reference to "resin" being, I suspect, a reference to epoxy or nylon components that are prone to leak slowly. The automotive industry has done it: liquid cooled auto engines now require hardly any maintenance of the cooling system. I'm sure that once the serious manufacturers get on the case and the amateurs start to fade into the background, liquid cooling for personal computers should come on rapidly, for all the same reason as automotives (more power in smaller space, more accurate temperature control, able to reach less accessible places, smaller block mass needed for heat exchangers). The technologies are all there, the need is obvious.
Yes, there was an element of irony, hence the "Obligatory rain on parade" line. I could actually give you an equally long rant, but as I agree with you, no point.
Someone has been on too much whisky. That much money wouldn't keep a serious nanotechnology project in whores and cocaine for the marketing department.
Remember, those who know no history are doomed to repeat it. You, my friend, are therefore doomed to reinvent Cobol.
That said, my Palm Tungsten is a combo of a GP processor and a DSP, as I believe are several Sony variants. Perhaps as I/O on handhelds improves (?) the time will come when a university produces a Beowulf cluster of handhelds and the world's smallest supercomputer per gigaflop (more like ly teraflop by then).
In case this is more than just my usual totally uninformed wild speculation, could I register claim to the idea. In order to obtain a (free) license, just name the first model Grendel's Bane. And promise not to make any SCO jokes.
When is the REAL heise going to send SCO a cease-and-desist letter telling them to stop using their name as the supposed name of a "lawyer" representing SCO?
What ever happened to the idea that once a case was under way it was sub judice, and if either party discussed it outside the courtroom it was highly prejudicial to their interests?
Not only am I reminded of the Wrong Pair of Trousers, I am reminded of the episode of "The Goodies" (caution: UK-specific humor reference) set in the future, in which people travel using powered feet. Nihil sub sole novum.
- Fischer-Price
- Lego
- First year art college
- Intern
- Drone
- Staff
- I have work to do
- Past deadline
- (There is no CowboyNeal option)
Plus an advanced tab that lets you customise things that need customising, instead of things that don't, and then save the settings to the server and replicate them across the entire fleet.Yes, three flavors of Unix and W2000. What is your point exactly?
If is true that if you have to pay the legal expenses of the BSA while they prosecute you, then it is time for a flood of feeble "In Soviet America" jokes. Perhaps someone who is a lawyer could explain the situation?
*All right, just irrational. Or something.
Oh dear. No, it isn't. It's a better RADIATOR. And you know how hot the case would need to be before radiation was significant compared to convection? Tube temperatures rather than transistor temperatures.
Reminds me of the high power PSUs we were building back in the early-80s for I-can't-tell-you-about-that applications. That was for 60V 50A DC-audio amplifiers. Why do Germans still go for all-black, finned military chic?
Even so, the limited convection of this thing is still wasted capacity. It would be better, and almost as quiet, to have a chimney round the back with the fins pointing inward, and a slow air stream from a large fan being sent up it. It could easily be as quiet as a hard drive.
The author needs to get out more. A lot more. In fact, he shouldn't be allowed indoors until he's had a cold shower.
And don't talk to me about fluorinert. Been there, done that, seen $3000 worth evaporate.
A related question: the article refers to wasted coconut shells. What does a coconut shell do to get wasted? After the robot Kama Sutra, coconut shell cocaine orgies?
Boasting of being a Mensa member on Slashdot is probably a bit like boasting of once having had sex at a hookers' convention. My IQ on the scale used by Mensa is only in the mid 170s, and I often feel like the dumb member of the class when I read some threads. (ACs and trolls excepted, of course.)
Imagine if every driving school in the US was to use nothing but Ford. Or every geometry class required kids to buy one particular make of compass, ruler and protractor. Or if every school was required to use exactly the same model and make of chair and table from one manufacturer only, even though independent studies had shown that these chairs and tables had a shorter life span and needed more frequent repairs than the alternatives. There might be problems.
The logical thing, as with other public procurement, would be to have an agreed open standard for school procurement, and allow suppliers to tender freely to meet that requirement. School IT administrators would be trained on the administration and maintenance of the base standard, and any supplier proposing any proprietary modifications would have to declare them and explain the on-costs for support staff training and additional maintenance.
The answer to the parents who complain that children are not being trained to use home PCs is, it is no more our job to teach kids how to use your PC than your dishwasher, your TV or your lawnmower.
Of course it won't happen. But it is the genuinely free market approach (i.e the customer decides the rules and the market delivers). What we have at the moment is literally fascism, i.e. a society in which the State works with and favors particular sections of industry, and in which officials corruptly work in both fields despite the conflict of interest. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a free, democratic, idealistic 1940s US to ride to the rescue any more.
A weapon so small that a suicide bomber can use it to wipe out significant parts of city centres. So "we" have to have more and better of them first in case someone else develops them. How much security is going to be needed to make sure none of these interesting munitions escape into the wild? How much civil liberty will we have to give up so we can enjoy increased protection? I'm beginning to think what the world really needs is a development program for a weapon that destroys military installations and leaves people standing.
The reason I know anything about this at all is that the guy who taught me statistics was a specialist in the area of clinical trials. He was also brilliant, and I guess you have to be to be able to navigate your way around such a difficult area.
Slashdot definitely needs a way for original posters to indicate that their posts are bullshit and return the karma to the pool.
Of course you are right, and I need a new brain.
This thing needs approval because in confined spaces it could to terrible damage to other people as well as the occupant. Stair climbing and standing up is all very well, but suppose it fell over with someone else under it? The approval costs must be a tiny fraction of the potential liability if it was shown an insufficiently tested thing like this was released on the market.
But then, many people with only minor disability - reduced leg movement for instance - could well get away with a Segway. Perhaps they will go on to develop a whole range of these devices for different levels of disability, using the work done on approving "everything" to make subsequent approval much easier for the less functional versions.