It is very easy to improve mpg by 10% or more by driving carefully.
Chances are that since your buddy added the water gizzmo be's also being much more careful about the way he drives and that is improving his mpg.
To get any credibility, one of these experiments needs to be done with instrumentation or blind tests (monitor mpg of people who don't know that their car has been altered).
Firewire might pay for itself in high speed applications where time == money, but it is sever overkill (and too high cost) for many lower speed applications such as mouse, keyboard etc. USB is king of the low speed domain because of low cost: a USB-cappable microcontroller only costs a couple of bucks and a sub dollar micro can do a low speed bit-banged implementation of USB. Adding USB to peripherals is almost free.
I recently bought an electronic kit from USA with some parts made in China, some in USA and some unbranded (likely Asian). All the Asian made stuff was in spec, but the plastic casing ("Proudly Made In USA") was poorly molded with various defects. The actual circuit was designed by someone in Eastern Europe.
How the mighty has fallen. Reduced to making bits of plastic; and that not very well!
Processors such as the Microchip PIC10F are down to the nanoWatts level. That is more than fine for many/most purposes. These things cost well less than a buck each and include various peripherals. They can operate in a wide range of voltages and temperatures.
These 30pW sleep mode CPUs will allow things to go to the next level of minaturisation, but will need reduced cost and will need to prove that they are reliable.
There is a huge issue with power consumption vs stability. Basically, each bit in a CPU holds a certain charge. When you flip the bit and discharge/charge the bit then you're dumping energy which is what results in much of a CPU's power consumption. Storing smaller charge per bit reduces power consumption. But reducing the charge also reduces stability and makes those bits more prone to EMF, leakage etc. Before I'd trust these gizzmos I'd want to see how well they operate at temperature extremes, near microwave ovens, cell phones etc.
Making them work in a lab is one thing, in the real world is quite another.
Contrary to what the summary implies, lead (327C)has a far higher melting point than tin(231C).
Any whiskering is far more likely to be a result of board contaminants than just the tin migrating. Modern solders are less forgiving of bad handling practices.Poor flux choice and board cleaning practices are normally to blame for many faults. Changes in board cleaning practices to eliminate various chemicals means that the industry has had to learn how to do things again.
So, while modern practices might be less forgiving, any faults are really just a result of poor processes.
If you read Ballard's autobiography (you know, the guy that found the titanic), you will read of his clashed with others on the tectonic plate theories. Ballard was doing his PhD in the late 60s and his PhD adviser and many other oceanographic geologists would not accept continental drift etc.
If the top people in the field don't accept this stuff, then what chance a school teacher?
With the www it is getting harder and harder to tell the difference between valid researchers and fruit-cakes. With click ad revenue, and an endless supply of conspiracy theorists, making some sort of fad-science site is potentially very lucrative.
videos while you're teaching us "science". Researching skills have really dropped off in recent years. The www spreads disinformation as well as it spreads information and it is very hard to tell the difference. "A team of scientists" might just be a few afternoon pranksters or a someone setting up a site to harvest a whole lot of clicks. Certainly these days rational thought is boring and discounted.
Truth is what you want it to be.
Adding a certain % of water might work if it helps improve internal combustion efficiency. Current internal combustion engines waste approx 80% of the energy and some of that might be recovered.
Some use a small amount of water plus a shitload of electricity to do electrolysis. They're as dumb as the "I get 200mpg with my hybrid" claims where electricity is the primary power source.
And the rest??? Well until you see independent evidence they're probably all hoaxes.
A major limiting factor for any RealWorld racing etc is self preservation. In other words, the risk analysis to determine how fast you are prepared to drive without killing yourself.
In the 50s, rock music was radical - compared to society - but society was pretty rigid back then. You called your teacher/cop/authority figure "Sir" otherwise your father gave you a thrashing.
Now rap music is radical - compared to society - but society has lost those controls that it had. Extreme now != extreme then.
In the 50s very, very few kids would have taken "Kill the fucking cop" songs to heart.
The internet is a great way to share information and ideas. The flip-side is that it is also a vehicle for disinformation and trial by popular opinion. The opinions of alarmist popularist bloggers are more influential than the review by proper scientists.
To get any serious scientific review there has to be a place for this to happen - off the internet highway.
Perhaps what we have is good enough: true scientific journals for the scientists; Nature and Scientific American etc for the informed amateur; bloggoshere for the great unwashed.
The business computers should not be connected to the control network. What a crap design. It's as bad as me updating my laptop and having to ask Google to reboot their servers.
It's a set of different res photos that are all aligned in a special mock up for a canned demo. It isn't actual zooming per se since the postage stamp printing resolution would destroy the detail.
Setting up a single canned demo is pretty easy to do - relative to applying this "technology" in a wider automated scale.
Sure it is cool to watch, but so is any special effect.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a process to be followed so that you don't just get anarchy.
The F in FCC stands for fsck!
You can get the source for gcc 1.x if you want too.
OSS: You run the software you want to run, according to your business interests.
Want to run Linux 2.0 (not that you'd want to)? Sure no probs.
To remind people that mistakes have consequences and to think through what they are doing.
Oh well, only a few months left
Chances are that since your buddy added the water gizzmo be's also being much more careful about the way he drives and that is improving his mpg.
To get any credibility, one of these experiments needs to be done with instrumentation or blind tests (monitor mpg of people who don't know that their car has been altered).
Firewire might pay for itself in high speed applications where time == money, but it is sever overkill (and too high cost) for many lower speed applications such as mouse, keyboard etc. USB is king of the low speed domain because of low cost: a USB-cappable microcontroller only costs a couple of bucks and a sub dollar micro can do a low speed bit-banged implementation of USB. Adding USB to peripherals is almost free.
The definition of each instruction is very well defined by the CPU's instruction set.
How the mighty has fallen. Reduced to making bits of plastic; and that not very well!
These 30pW sleep mode CPUs will allow things to go to the next level of minaturisation, but will need reduced cost and will need to prove that they are reliable.
There is a huge issue with power consumption vs stability. Basically, each bit in a CPU holds a certain charge. When you flip the bit and discharge/charge the bit then you're dumping energy which is what results in much of a CPU's power consumption. Storing smaller charge per bit reduces power consumption. But reducing the charge also reduces stability and makes those bits more prone to EMF, leakage etc. Before I'd trust these gizzmos I'd want to see how well they operate at temperature extremes, near microwave ovens, cell phones etc.
Making them work in a lab is one thing, in the real world is quite another.
Any whiskering is far more likely to be a result of board contaminants than just the tin migrating. Modern solders are less forgiving of bad handling practices.Poor flux choice and board cleaning practices are normally to blame for many faults. Changes in board cleaning practices to eliminate various chemicals means that the industry has had to learn how to do things again.
So, while modern practices might be less forgiving, any faults are really just a result of poor processes.
If the top people in the field don't accept this stuff, then what chance a school teacher?
With the www it is getting harder and harder to tell the difference between valid researchers and fruit-cakes. With click ad revenue, and an endless supply of conspiracy theorists, making some sort of fad-science site is potentially very lucrative.
Truth is what you want it to be.
Adding a certain % of water might work if it helps improve internal combustion efficiency. Current internal combustion engines waste approx 80% of the energy and some of that might be recovered.
Some use a small amount of water plus a shitload of electricity to do electrolysis. They're as dumb as the "I get 200mpg with my hybrid" claims where electricity is the primary power source.
And the rest??? Well until you see independent evidence they're probably all hoaxes.
You could build a climbing suit for climbing steel, build a generator,....
The virtual world racers have no such risks.
It took them decades with little urgency. War time and harsh economic climates can speed this up significantly.
Thanks for clearing that up. I thought it was distortion in my CRT monitor.
Ticks the "probably ain't gay" box.
The whole purpose is for the TSA to make the traveller feel that they are being kept safe. Real safety has nothing to do with it.
Now rap music is radical - compared to society - but society has lost those controls that it had. Extreme now != extreme then.
In the 50s very, very few kids would have taken "Kill the fucking cop" songs to heart.
Making special cyber law reenforces the notion that the internet is different and has different rules.
To get any serious scientific review there has to be a place for this to happen - off the internet highway.
Perhaps what we have is good enough: true scientific journals for the scientists; Nature and Scientific American etc for the informed amateur; bloggoshere for the great unwashed.
The business computers should not be connected to the control network. What a crap design. It's as bad as me updating my laptop and having to ask Google to reboot their servers.
Setting up a single canned demo is pretty easy to do - relative to applying this "technology" in a wider automated scale.
Sure it is cool to watch, but so is any special effect.