It works fine for tractors, but you need one hell of a starter motor to crank to ignition from cold. That plus the size/weight of the battery to run the thing mean that it's not as feasible for cars.
It may not be suitable for conventional cars, but what if you made a diesel hybrid car? They would have the large battery and if it were constructed like the Honda Insight, you could have a 20hp electric motor/generator as the starter.
And some don't even use grid heaters or glow plugs. My father had a Ford 4000 tractor that didn't have them. It would even start right up when there was snow on the ground. I was suprised at the time, as up until then, I thought all diesels had glow plugs. The Kubota sure did, and it didn't like to start if you didn't use them (you could start it without them, but it took a while and was hard on the starter). The Ford would crank right up. My car sure won't start without them, unless it is still warm.
Can restrict blogs to those on a friends list. Can the cops get access to those easily? Or do they need a subpeona or warrant? Does Myspace let cops browse everyone's blogs?
That would be nice to see: Wal-Mart executives going to their suppliers, asking what they can do to carry their product. Maybe the suppliers will have no chairs, or bed of nail chairs for the Wal-Mart guys to sit in. "Make yourself comfortable, have a seat..."
I agree, but you left out the other 6 who remained in orbit around the moon while the others went to the surface. And I'm leaving out Apollo 8,10,13 all of which ventured outside of the Earth's magnetic field.
Thanks, you beat me to the "submit" button. I had the same links.
The kids did a fine job, but they didn't do anything "revolutionary". A big auto company did the R&D on the engine (courtesy VW/Audi)and the frame and body are from a kit car. A wonderful hack job (and I mean hack in the most complementary way).
I assume the nice acceleration specs are from the light weight (I presume, I don't believe it has safety features like airbags, and probably no A/C) and the fact that it also has a 200hp electric motor in the front.
No specs on the battery for the motor. It appears that the car is also driven directly from the engine in the rear. Are the batteries charged by the engine? No data from the article on that.
Again, not to dis the kids, they did a fine job. The person who wrote the CBS summary sucked. Big Auto could produce this car. VW already comes close with the TDI powered cars (Jetta, Golf, Passat). They don't accelerate as quickly, but they do run on biodiesel and get very good mileage.
Funny story. Years ago, I paid for the "short time trial membership" (I don't remember, 2 days? 3 days?, whatever it was) that cost like $3 for the Perfect 10 website. This would only allow you to access a certain portion of the website. But who ever did the website allowed directory views such that if you knew what you were doing, you could access all the photos on the website (and by "knew what you were doing" I mean a really trivial use of backspace in the URL line, definately could not be considered "hacking"). So I went through and got all the images at the time, all for the cost of a "trial" membership (and much less that the cost of a single printed copy of Perfect 10). So either Perfect 10 wasn't very web savvy at the time, or the guys who did run the website knew what they were doing and didn't care. I'm suprised Perfect 10 is still around. I've purchased exactly 1 copy of the magazine. While the women are pretty enough, the rest of the magazine wasn't very interesting. Boring. At least it wasn't full of crappy adverts for phone sex lines. Here is an interesting tidbit on Perfect 10 and lawsuits: http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001748.html
Playboy, at least, could be considered an interesting magazine in itself even without the nude pictures (though not nearly as popular). Then again, I haven't read Playboy in years.
You should differentiate between a rotary engine and a Wankel. WWI aircraft did use rotary radial arranged engines, in which the entire engine rotated about a stationary crankshaft. This helped to cool the engine. The engine rotated along with the prop. They did have conventional pistons and cylinders and were by no means a Wankel. The term radial engine is typically used to describe and engine that the crankshaft is rotating with the engine being held stationary. Here is a reference to WWI aircraft engines: http://www.wwiaviation.com/engines/Engines.shtml The term rotary engine was in use before the Wankel was invented. Therefore it is proper terminology, if confusing.
Maybe it's time to fasttrack the Shuttle-C concept. And get the CEV on order. You're right, NASA has done a good job of painting themselves into a corner. Shuttle-C looks to me like a quick and expedient compromise.
They used to call it "United States Department of War" or war department. I believe that name is much more accurate. In 1949 they changed it. Personally, I'd like to see it called the Department of Offense or DoO for short.
You obviously have your own wants, but it seems to me that a 16:9 ratio wastes lens material. I would prefer a square format, for one reason would be to eliminate the need to tilt a camera for "portrait" vs. "landscape". Most lenses I've seen are round. This is a production issue (from manufacture to ensuring that the optical centers of the lens elements all align). Ideally, to take advantage of the entire circular image produced, you would want a circular sensor. For film, this is a waste of film, because roll film is suited towards a rectangular or square format. From an electronic sensor(wafer manufactured) standpoint, you would want square or rectangular sensors (for dicing). I think that a square format would be best for all, because it takes better advantage of the circular image. One could then crop it in whatever way that meets your needs. The viewfinder (electronic or otherwise) could have markings for the different common ratios.
Or I could envision a sensor in a cross type pattern (though I'm not sure from a manufacturability standpoint). This way you could have a square central sensor flanked by some rectangular sensors on the sides and top to fill out the circumscribed circle that the lens produces. I don't know if it is feasible to join sensors seamlessly. Has this been done? Can one make a larger CCD by mounting the silicon imaging device (or whatever substrate they use) seamlessly? Do CCDs connect electronically from the edges or from the backside?
I know very little about CCDs or other sensors and how they operate, so maybe I'm ill informed on these issues. It is just my observation that every lens assembly I've seen (i.e. every camera lens is made up of multiple lens elements) is round, and as such produces a circular image (though they are often cropped by lens hoods).
I don't know if you can say that NASA management was non-technical. They weren't experts on the solid rocket boosters, but typical NASA management is staffed by engineers who have worked their way up. They were technical people at one time. There are only so many ways for engineers at NASA to move up the payscale. You typically move up into management positions and manage other engineers. I'm not excusing their bad decisions, and maybe I'm misconstruing your statement. I'm just saying that a lot of managers at NASA have a technical background. This doesn't make them experts on certain details of programs, but it might have contributed in their own way to the poor decisions. A manager with a non-technical background might have been more inclined to listen to lower echelons, and formed a decision based on expert opinion. It is possible to construe this as upper management, with their own engineering (read: technical) background, disregarded the experts for precisely that reason. They may have felt that because the knew the issues, that their judgement was sound. Bad call, yes. They should have listened to the Thoikol engineers, yes. Damn shame all around.
Agreed. Is VoIP eating your lunch? Maybe you need to start throwing in all those features you (the telco) used to charge for. Caller-ID? free. Call Forwarding? free. Statewide area calling? free. It is called competition for a reason. Learn the game telcos. Unfortunately, it seems the game they are learning is to lobby congress for regulation that suits them.
This is one reason why NASA recordings (at least during the Apollo missions) had a beep in them periodically. This is what I've been told. Of course, the beeps may also have other uses, as a measure of time, but I believe it was so that everyone on the comms knew that they were being recorded.
Agreed. My other point I was trying to make is this. Hitler didn't "try to exterminate an entire race" by himself. He was a man, he wasn't alone, he had support. People make Hitler out as though he was ten feet tall, could bend steel with his bare hands, and was evil. Nazi Germany was a human failure. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not defending Hitler. He was a bad man. But he still shared something with you and me, in that he was human. Nazi Germany was bad, bad, bad. Evil things were done. But to reduce it down to Hitler having a plan to take over the world, and exterminate an entire race is simplistic. McCarthy also had followers. He had power. I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing, but I hope we can agree that he abused his power. You are right, we can't extrapolate McCarthy to the same extent, but I'm saying that they were both very bad men. Equally bad, no, but they are both scum in my opinion. They both did dishonorable things to advance their on careers. Hitler just had a more destructive career.
So you think Hitler started out big? No, he worked his way up. McCarthy did some damn nasty shit in his witchhunt. I don't think Hitler started with "I'm going to conquer the world". He had supporters, it got worked up big and good, and then he was a dictator. McCarthy got drunk on power. If he would have been more successful, who is to say that he wouldn't have done the same(as Hitler). Power corrupts. McCarthy was scum, as much as Hitler, but less successful, by a few orders of magnitude.
Agreed. If a kid could find it using a search engine, what is stopping the DoJ from getting a page or intern or some of their lawyers to do some searches with google (or any other search engine). Most (all?) search engines crawl the "public" internet anyway correct? It it illegal for the DoJ to do their own crawls? It is public space right (the internet that google indexes)? Could the DoJ get a quasi neutral party to do the crawling (universities, law schools, etc.)? Someone who knows something about search engines (I don't expect employees of DoJ to be well aquainted with the field of search engines). It seems to be that this is a vacuuming up of info, but I don't know what google's logs look like. It might be benign, but it could easily be abused, depending on what they find. I am disturbed by all this, but I'm not suprised. Has the NSA already done crawls? The CIA? Homeland Security? Would it be illegal for them to do this already? Some people already accuse google of being too cozy with the intellegence community (google watch, for example).
But does caller-id cost anymore for the phone company than if you don't get it? Read my journal about BellSouth (BS) and VoIP. BS is subcontracting VoIP to Packet8 at a higher rate. BS offers a lot of extra features in the POTS plan that shouldn't cost BS much more(aside from the storage costs of voicemail). It is all done thru software. BS used to charge extra for touch-tone for crying out loud. I know this, I had to switch the phone I was using from pulse to TT just to use my bank's features. It is my understanding that the phone network is now digital (packet switched) everywhere but the last mile to your house anyway. I call bullshit. I really just want a long distance plan that is flat rate, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. BellSouth has grown fat and happy screwing the customer for at least a decade.
The VoIP companies do have to run a phone bank somewhere (probably like a modem bank) to provide the IP to PSTN connection.
Except Astrisk is free. There is nothing to stop the bells from offering VoIP, other than inertia. They like to charge extra for caller-id, forwarding , voicemail etc. BellSouth does offer it (VoIP), but it costs more than anyone else.
I just noticed today that my VoIP isn't working as well as it was. I have DSL through BellSouth, and Voicepulse is my VoIP provider. I'm gonna have to fire up Ping Plotter and investigate.
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It works fine for tractors, but you need one hell of a starter motor to crank to ignition from cold. That plus the size/weight of the battery to run the thing mean that it's not as feasible for cars.
It may not be suitable for conventional cars, but what if you made a diesel hybrid car? They would have the large battery and if it were constructed like the Honda Insight, you could have a 20hp electric motor/generator as the starter.
And some don't even use grid heaters or glow plugs. My father had a Ford 4000 tractor that didn't have them. It would even start right up when there was snow on the ground. I was suprised at the time, as up until then, I thought all diesels had glow plugs. The Kubota sure did, and it didn't like to start if you didn't use them (you could start it without them, but it took a while and was hard on the starter). The Ford would crank right up. My car sure won't start without them, unless it is still warm.
I'm sensing dangerous levels of smug.
Can restrict blogs to those on a friends list. Can the cops get access to those easily? Or do they need a subpeona or warrant? Does Myspace let cops browse everyone's blogs?
You just have to go pro. Easily said, I'm still working on the implementation.
That would be nice to see: Wal-Mart executives going to their suppliers, asking what they can do to carry their product. Maybe the suppliers will have no chairs, or bed of nail chairs for the Wal-Mart guys to sit in. "Make yourself comfortable, have a seat..."
I agree, but you left out the other 6 who remained in orbit around the moon while the others went to the surface. And I'm leaving out Apollo 8,10,13 all of which ventured outside of the Earth's magnetic field.
Yeah, he should have said: "I can picture the defense getting an 80 foot tall stack of paper and being told that it was all messages recieved"
Try to run that through Gmail's spam filter.
Thanks, you beat me to the "submit" button. I had the same links.
The kids did a fine job, but they didn't do anything "revolutionary". A big auto company did the R&D on the engine (courtesy VW/Audi)and the frame and body are from a kit car. A wonderful hack job (and I mean hack in the most complementary way).
I assume the nice acceleration specs are from the light weight (I presume, I don't believe it has safety features like airbags, and probably no A/C) and the fact that it also has a 200hp electric motor in the front.
No specs on the battery for the motor. It appears that the car is also driven directly from the engine in the rear. Are the batteries charged by the engine? No data from the article on that.
Again, not to dis the kids, they did a fine job. The person who wrote the CBS summary sucked. Big Auto could produce this car. VW already comes close with the TDI powered cars (Jetta, Golf, Passat). They don't accelerate as quickly, but they do run on biodiesel and get very good mileage.
Funny story. Years ago, I paid for the "short time trial membership" (I don't remember, 2 days? 3 days?, whatever it was) that cost like $3 for the Perfect 10 website. This would only allow you to access a certain portion of the website. But who ever did the website allowed directory views such that if you knew what you were doing, you could access all the photos on the website (and by "knew what you were doing" I mean a really trivial use of backspace in the URL line, definately could not be considered "hacking"). So I went through and got all the images at the time, all for the cost of a "trial" membership (and much less that the cost of a single printed copy of Perfect 10). So either Perfect 10 wasn't very web savvy at the time, or the guys who did run the website knew what they were doing and didn't care. I'm suprised Perfect 10 is still around. I've purchased exactly 1 copy of the magazine. While the women are pretty enough, the rest of the magazine wasn't very interesting. Boring. At least it wasn't full of crappy adverts for phone sex lines. Here is an interesting tidbit on Perfect 10 and lawsuits: http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001748.html
Playboy, at least, could be considered an interesting magazine in itself even without the nude pictures (though not nearly as popular). Then again, I haven't read Playboy in years.
You should differentiate between a rotary engine and a Wankel. WWI aircraft did use rotary radial arranged engines, in which the entire engine rotated about a stationary crankshaft. This helped to cool the engine. The engine rotated along with the prop. They did have conventional pistons and cylinders and were by no means a Wankel. The term radial engine is typically used to describe and engine that the crankshaft is rotating with the engine being held stationary. Here is a reference to WWI aircraft engines: http://www.wwiaviation.com/engines/Engines.shtml The term rotary engine was in use before the Wankel was invented. Therefore it is proper terminology, if confusing.
Maybe it's time to fasttrack the Shuttle-C concept. And get the CEV on order. You're right, NASA has done a good job of painting themselves into a corner. Shuttle-C looks to me like a quick and expedient compromise.
They used to call it "United States Department of War" or war department. I believe that name is much more accurate. In 1949 they changed it. Personally, I'd like to see it called the Department of Offense or DoO for short.
You obviously have your own wants, but it seems to me that a 16:9 ratio wastes lens material. I would prefer a square format, for one reason would be to eliminate the need to tilt a camera for "portrait" vs. "landscape". Most lenses I've seen are round. This is a production issue (from manufacture to ensuring that the optical centers of the lens elements all align). Ideally, to take advantage of the entire circular image produced, you would want a circular sensor. For film, this is a waste of film, because roll film is suited towards a rectangular or square format. From an electronic sensor(wafer manufactured) standpoint, you would want square or rectangular sensors (for dicing). I think that a square format would be best for all, because it takes better advantage of the circular image. One could then crop it in whatever way that meets your needs. The viewfinder (electronic or otherwise) could have markings for the different common ratios.
Or I could envision a sensor in a cross type pattern (though I'm not sure from a manufacturability standpoint). This way you could have a square central sensor flanked by some rectangular sensors on the sides and top to fill out the circumscribed circle that the lens produces. I don't know if it is feasible to join sensors seamlessly. Has this been done? Can one make a larger CCD by mounting the silicon imaging device (or whatever substrate they use) seamlessly? Do CCDs connect electronically from the edges or from the backside?
I know very little about CCDs or other sensors and how they operate, so maybe I'm ill informed on these issues. It is just my observation that every lens assembly I've seen (i.e. every camera lens is made up of multiple lens elements) is round, and as such produces a circular image (though they are often cropped by lens hoods).
I don't know if you can say that NASA management was non-technical. They weren't experts on the solid rocket boosters, but typical NASA management is staffed by engineers who have worked their way up. They were technical people at one time. There are only so many ways for engineers at NASA to move up the payscale. You typically move up into management positions and manage other engineers. I'm not excusing their bad decisions, and maybe I'm misconstruing your statement. I'm just saying that a lot of managers at NASA have a technical background. This doesn't make them experts on certain details of programs, but it might have contributed in their own way to the poor decisions. A manager with a non-technical background might have been more inclined to listen to lower echelons, and formed a decision based on expert opinion. It is possible to construe this as upper management, with their own engineering (read: technical) background, disregarded the experts for precisely that reason. They may have felt that because the knew the issues, that their judgement was sound. Bad call, yes. They should have listened to the Thoikol engineers, yes. Damn shame all around.
Agreed. Is VoIP eating your lunch? Maybe you need to start throwing in all those features you (the telco) used to charge for. Caller-ID? free. Call Forwarding? free. Statewide area calling? free. It is called competition for a reason. Learn the game telcos. Unfortunately, it seems the game they are learning is to lobby congress for regulation that suits them.
This is one reason why NASA recordings (at least during the Apollo missions) had a beep in them periodically. This is what I've been told. Of course, the beeps may also have other uses, as a measure of time, but I believe it was so that everyone on the comms knew that they were being recorded.
Agreed. My other point I was trying to make is this. Hitler didn't "try to exterminate an entire race" by himself. He was a man, he wasn't alone, he had support. People make Hitler out as though he was ten feet tall, could bend steel with his bare hands, and was evil. Nazi Germany was a human failure. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not defending Hitler. He was a bad man. But he still shared something with you and me, in that he was human. Nazi Germany was bad, bad, bad. Evil things were done. But to reduce it down to Hitler having a plan to take over the world, and exterminate an entire race is simplistic. McCarthy also had followers. He had power. I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing, but I hope we can agree that he abused his power. You are right, we can't extrapolate McCarthy to the same extent, but I'm saying that they were both very bad men. Equally bad, no, but they are both scum in my opinion. They both did dishonorable things to advance their on careers. Hitler just had a more destructive career.
I'm sorry, I thought Hitler was a baby at one time. You know, an infant. He might have been cute even. Power corrupts.
So you think Hitler started out big? No, he worked his way up. McCarthy did some damn nasty shit in his witchhunt. I don't think Hitler started with "I'm going to conquer the world". He had supporters, it got worked up big and good, and then he was a dictator. McCarthy got drunk on power. If he would have been more successful, who is to say that he wouldn't have done the same(as Hitler). Power corrupts. McCarthy was scum, as much as Hitler, but less successful, by a few orders of magnitude.
No, multi-disc is no way to go. I want to be able to sit on my couch for no less than 30 hours without moving an inch.
Somebody please mod this +funny, i'm dying here.
...and we're here to help. Thanks Doc, I've been wondering where you are. How come your starting score is -1? Does somebody not like you?
Agreed. If a kid could find it using a search engine, what is stopping the DoJ from getting a page or intern or some of their lawyers to do some searches with google (or any other search engine). Most (all?) search engines crawl the "public" internet anyway correct? It it illegal for the DoJ to do their own crawls? It is public space right (the internet that google indexes)? Could the DoJ get a quasi neutral party to do the crawling (universities, law schools, etc.)? Someone who knows something about search engines (I don't expect employees of DoJ to be well aquainted with the field of search engines). It seems to be that this is a vacuuming up of info, but I don't know what google's logs look like. It might be benign, but it could easily be abused, depending on what they find. I am disturbed by all this, but I'm not suprised. Has the NSA already done crawls? The CIA? Homeland Security? Would it be illegal for them to do this already? Some people already accuse google of being too cozy with the intellegence community (google watch, for example).
But does caller-id cost anymore for the phone company than if you don't get it? Read my journal about BellSouth (BS) and VoIP. BS is subcontracting VoIP to Packet8 at a higher rate. BS offers a lot of extra features in the POTS plan that shouldn't cost BS much more(aside from the storage costs of voicemail). It is all done thru software. BS used to charge extra for touch-tone for crying out loud. I know this, I had to switch the phone I was using from pulse to TT just to use my bank's features. It is my understanding that the phone network is now digital (packet switched) everywhere but the last mile to your house anyway. I call bullshit. I really just want a long distance plan that is flat rate, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. BellSouth has grown fat and happy screwing the customer for at least a decade.
The VoIP companies do have to run a phone bank somewhere (probably like a modem bank) to provide the IP to PSTN connection.
Except Astrisk is free. There is nothing to stop the bells from offering VoIP, other than inertia. They like to charge extra for caller-id, forwarding , voicemail etc. BellSouth does offer it (VoIP), but it costs more than anyone else.
I just noticed today that my VoIP isn't working as well as it was. I have DSL through BellSouth, and Voicepulse is my VoIP provider. I'm gonna have to fire up Ping Plotter and investigate.