- The government put the cables in a long time ago, sometimes during periods where certain products were scarce (usually because of war) and thus sub-par elements were used (aluminum or steel)
Aluminum isn't sub-par for electrical distribution, it's standard. The special aluminum alloy that's used is durable yet lightweight. And it sure ain't cheap (just go look at feeder wire prices)!
Increases in demand, decreases in classic resistive demands
Except for tankless water heaters, per-user electric demand has actually gone down in recent decades. Energy star appliances, EER improvements in A/C, compact fluorescent and LED lighting... the only thing that's increased is the number of electric users.
- Most of the heaviest things (motors, airco) in homes still run on 110V even though 220V has been available in most homes
Er, no. Only window air conditioners are 120V -- whole-house A/C is 240V, as are electric dryers and electric ranges/stoves/ovens. Not many motors in a residence except for low-wattage fans that 240V would be overkill for anyway.
but most homes haven't been wired correctly for 220V
What? Strict residential wiring codes have been in place for decades, what specifically is incorrect about them?
a pump circulated water that dripped through the shavings while a 10 horsepower motor sucked air through the shavings and into the house
10 HP = 7.5 kilowatts, which is about double what a whole-house air conditioner would use. Google suggests swamp coolers are usually equipped with up to 1 HP motors.
Amen. Actually, I consider lamps in general to be like buggy whips -- no house built after Rural Electrification (say, 1939ish) should ever require a lamp. Building a house that needs lamps to light it makes about as much sense as building a house with no plumbing, because buckets work just as well.
(I also feel obliged to mention that, for myself personally, meeting someone with a US accent in the flesh is often a surreal experience. It feels a bit like some kind of a line---probably a glass screen of some kind---has been crossed.
I'm an American, and I get the same feeling when I meet someone with an Australian accent. I haven't met an Irish person yet but I bet it'd be the same thing.
I gotta tell you, I love listening to Irish accents on TV. It's elegant, almost musical. American English seems crass in comparison.
I'll second Zelazny's Amber series as well as Brust's Dragaera (Jhereg) series. Brust also wrote some "historical fiction" in the same Dragaera world -- just skip the first book and start with 500 Years After and continue with the three Viscount books.
George RR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice is also masterful. But, you may want to wait until he finishes the series. He's a slow writer (but riveting).
You're right that $1 and $2, very possibly even $5 and $10, should be coins only
That's a terrible idea. Coins are heavy and bulky. I can keep several one dollar bills in a back pocket and never know they're there until I need them (for feeding vending machines).
Keeping 5 big heavy coins in a pocket is a (literal) pain in the butt.
From what I can tell from the Wikipedia article, Beidou is an active system where the "client" sends data to the satellites in orbit. It makes perfect sense for the Chinese though, because now they can track where their users are -- something not possible with the passive US system since the receivers only receive and can't transmit any data back. In short, Big Brother Beidou always knows where you are.
Seems like an active system has a huge disadvantage, though. You can DOS the satellites by pointing an antenna at each satellite and jamming their uplink frequencies, knocking out the whole system for everyone, everywhere. In the US system, you can only jam local terrestrial reception and anybody over the next hill won't be affected.
They also had special twin balls that were chained together and fired out a single barrel, that would be aimed at sail masts. If the shot was on and luck was good, a ball would go past both sides of the mast, and the chain would slice right through the mast
I'm dubious. Mythbusters should test that myth... oh wait.
Sounds like poor software design to me. TCP/IP didn't suddenly break when 802.11b came out; things continued to "just work" because of the nice OSI layer system.
Properly designed and implemented, it shouldn't matter one lick to the other layers (like the rendering engine, or the theme engine) where you move the tabs to.
That's exactly what VDPAU is and does: send the raw encoded 20mbps (that's bits/s) MPEG stream to the card and let the card display it. The entire process is done in the GPU hardware.
This does mean that the VDPAU hardware (or at least firmware) must support your codec, so only a handful of standard formats is supported.
Also there is this TED video where a guy tries to build a toaster from raw materials...
I don't think people appreciate the "tech tree" (to use Starcraft parlance) you have to walk down to get to the simplest of modern household items. The toaster is a good example, but now imagine starting from zero -- you can't even start with iron ore, because you don't have any tools to mine it with! So start with banging rocks to get something sharp you can use to cut down a tree, so you can make a handle to make a stone axe. Hopefully this is enough to get some iron ore, but now you also need to make something to smelt your ore in, such as a bloomery. And for that, you need charcoal. And for that...
Basically, the TED guy making his toaster cheated by used modern tools to get his raw materials. And even with cheating, his toaster never toasted any bread.
The tech tree for a dollar store pocket calculator is staggering, let alone a Space Shuttle. I don't think many people are conscious of this when they toss that toaster in the garbage and spend $10 on a new one.
the chamber size allowed them to fire both American and Soviet ammo.
What caliber of American ammo can be safely fired in a 7.62x39 AK? Seriously, I've never heard of such a thing.
Now, NATO 9x19 Para ammo can be fired in a Soviet 9x18 Makarov pistol (though this is definitely unsafe). But the Russians didn't design this as a feature -- rather, they designed their 9x18 ammo so that it couldn't fire in a NATO pistol to avoid having their own ammunition being used against them should any of it fall into enemy hands.
The "proliferation" concerns for any country that already has nuclear weapons is bunk. So what if we make a bit of plutonium reprocessing fuel? We already have enough to destroy the world many times over, and you're worried about us getting a few pounds more? Der...
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Aluminum isn't sub-par for electrical distribution, it's standard. The special aluminum alloy that's used is durable yet lightweight. And it sure ain't cheap (just go look at feeder wire prices)!
Except for tankless water heaters, per-user electric demand has actually gone down in recent decades. Energy star appliances, EER improvements in A/C, compact fluorescent and LED lighting... the only thing that's increased is the number of electric users.
Er, no. Only window air conditioners are 120V -- whole-house A/C is 240V, as are electric dryers and electric ranges/stoves/ovens. Not many motors in a residence except for low-wattage fans that 240V would be overkill for anyway.
What? Strict residential wiring codes have been in place for decades, what specifically is incorrect about them?
10 HP = 7.5 kilowatts, which is about double what a whole-house air conditioner would use. Google suggests swamp coolers are usually equipped with up to 1 HP motors.
Agreed, The Inner Light is one of my favorites as well.
I also nominate Darmok and the "There are four lights" episodes.
Followed by the one where Han Solo watches a witch doctor pull the beating heart out of a kid's chest.
Amen. Actually, I consider lamps in general to be like buggy whips -- no house built after Rural Electrification (say, 1939ish) should ever require a lamp. Building a house that needs lamps to light it makes about as much sense as building a house with no plumbing, because buckets work just as well.
I'm an American, and I get the same feeling when I meet someone with an Australian accent. I haven't met an Irish person yet but I bet it'd be the same thing.
I gotta tell you, I love listening to Irish accents on TV. It's elegant, almost musical. American English seems crass in comparison.
Meh, I didn't find TPG as interesting as 500 and the Viscount.
I'll second Zelazny's Amber series as well as Brust's Dragaera (Jhereg) series. Brust also wrote some "historical fiction" in the same Dragaera world -- just skip the first book and start with 500 Years After and continue with the three Viscount books.
George RR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice is also masterful. But, you may want to wait until he finishes the series. He's a slow writer (but riveting).
And how, pray tell, do I get the APKs? 99.9% of apps are only available in Market, and I see no way to download the APK from Market -- just "Install".
That's a terrible idea. Coins are heavy and bulky. I can keep several one dollar bills in a back pocket and never know they're there until I need them (for feeding vending machines).
Keeping 5 big heavy coins in a pocket is a (literal) pain in the butt.
I don't think my fear of the TSA or the government it serves is misplaced. I'd say it's pretty well-founded.
From what I can tell from the Wikipedia article, Beidou is an active system where the "client" sends data to the satellites in orbit. It makes perfect sense for the Chinese though, because now they can track where their users are -- something not possible with the passive US system since the receivers only receive and can't transmit any data back. In short, Big Brother Beidou always knows where you are.
Seems like an active system has a huge disadvantage, though. You can DOS the satellites by pointing an antenna at each satellite and jamming their uplink frequencies, knocking out the whole system for everyone, everywhere. In the US system, you can only jam local terrestrial reception and anybody over the next hill won't be affected.
I'm dubious. Mythbusters should test that myth... oh wait.
Hence, the current popularity of gold and silver.
And guns.
Sounds like poor software design to me. TCP/IP didn't suddenly break when 802.11b came out; things continued to "just work" because of the nice OSI layer system.
Properly designed and implemented, it shouldn't matter one lick to the other layers (like the rendering engine, or the theme engine) where you move the tabs to.
CPU is normal-clocked (1.somethingGHz), and the GPU is actually underclocked by about 100MHz to keep it cooler -- my case isn't ventilated very well.
I can turn on ATSC closed captioning without trouble, yes. Just another surface (OpenGL I believe) for the card to render, as you said.
Incidentally, VDPAU also does some very nice deinterlacing.
That's exactly what VDPAU is and does: send the raw encoded 20mbps (that's bits/s) MPEG stream to the card and let the card display it. The entire process is done in the GPU hardware.
This does mean that the VDPAU hardware (or at least firmware) must support your codec, so only a handful of standard formats is supported.
Yep, this is exactly what my MythTV HTPC does, only using an older PCI card.
Case in point, my aforementioned HTPC is a Celeron (yes, a humble Celery) and plays all ATSC content (720p, 1080i) just fine.
VDPAU rocks. PCI does the job.
Nothing to be ashamed of. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
Kind of like the plot to Idiocracy.
I don't think people appreciate the "tech tree" (to use Starcraft parlance) you have to walk down to get to the simplest of modern household items. The toaster is a good example, but now imagine starting from zero -- you can't even start with iron ore, because you don't have any tools to mine it with! So start with banging rocks to get something sharp you can use to cut down a tree, so you can make a handle to make a stone axe. Hopefully this is enough to get some iron ore, but now you also need to make something to smelt your ore in, such as a bloomery. And for that, you need charcoal. And for that...
Basically, the TED guy making his toaster cheated by used modern tools to get his raw materials. And even with cheating, his toaster never toasted any bread.
The tech tree for a dollar store pocket calculator is staggering, let alone a Space Shuttle. I don't think many people are conscious of this when they toss that toaster in the garbage and spend $10 on a new one.
Those look like POTS phones, I don't see how that system can interface with a cell phone?
Please post a link where I can buy this $60 device.
What caliber of American ammo can be safely fired in a 7.62x39 AK? Seriously, I've never heard of such a thing.
Now, NATO 9x19 Para ammo can be fired in a Soviet 9x18 Makarov pistol (though this is definitely unsafe). But the Russians didn't design this as a feature -- rather, they designed their 9x18 ammo so that it couldn't fire in a NATO pistol to avoid having their own ammunition being used against them should any of it fall into enemy hands.
Wrong. There are plenty of fuel reprocessing methods and breeder reactor designs that make spent fuel a non-issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
The "proliferation" concerns for any country that already has nuclear weapons is bunk. So what if we make a bit of plutonium reprocessing fuel? We already have enough to destroy the world many times over, and you're worried about us getting a few pounds more? Der...