To further the response from the other commenter who already replied, there's a fundamental limit to the realtime resolution of the GPS system as it stands, especially in very narrow and twisty streets with no view of the sky in any direction except vertical.
Add to that the cycle time on the satellites themselves (30 second windows - a function of the way the signals are set up), and even when the GPS unit can do additional "quick location fix" routines (where it can make a good initial guess about the current overhead geometry of the network based on prior good data and its onboard clock rather than having to make a cold fix with no idea where it is on the earth to begin with) it if frequently too slow to be able to accurately keep pace with your directions in real time.
GPS navigation is a fabulous tool, and there have been some excellent refinements to it, along with enhancements like using cell towers as additional data points to help narrow the fix speed and accuracy, but in some situations it is the wrong tool for the job.
I'm well aware of how GPS works, just that it doesn't work very well in London due to the close-together buildings, odd angles of reflection and very dense, non-patterned road network.
I have done it many times - the GPS gets lost more often than you do just looking up a route in a map since it gets confused by the weak and reflecting signals, then it tells you to turn around and go the other way (sometimes on a road with no ability to turn), only to suddenly recalculate and tell you to go somewhere else, and all manner of other things. You can take the correct road that it tells you, but it thinks you've just gone up the other, wrong fork of a road that runs almost parallel, then spends frantic minutes recalculating routes based on roads you are not driving on. Of course, by the time it figures out where you *actually* are, you've missed your original turning.
Seriously, it's something of an achilles heel for satellite navigation.
It's like trying to navigate the Pacific Ocean when the most accurate details you can give to the computer are "I can see water" and "I'm in a boat".
Even if the GPS has a decent fix, so many of the streets are at random angles, with really narrow winding side streets that it easily gets confused. There's no substitute for a driver who knows the layout.
Who said I wan an unapologetic fanboi, or is all that's required for that definition to apply is to not be spouting vehement Apple hate at every opportunity?
I personally think Apple is being an idiot over several of the lawsuits it is involved in. In other areas I agree with them.
I own Apple products, but have plenty of criticisms of them, as well as plenty of praise. I don't own an Android-based device, but I have used several and have both praise and criticism for them.
The sad fact that has befallen slashdot in recent years is that everything has to be boiled down to a Bushism - "you're either with us, or you're with the terr-ists". Not everything is black and white.
It is possible to be both a fan of Apple and to criticise them too, and just because I occasionally post constructive criticism about Android does not make me some sort of "unapologetic fanboi" or "paid astroturfer" or "paid shill", which seem to be the "you disagree with me, so you must be part of some Machiavellian scheme to destroy Android!" retorts of choice of late.
It gets tiresome.
Even if I were "unapologetically" a fan of Apple I'm no better off - if I even hint that I am happy with my purchases, or that I am getting value for the money spent on an iMac or an iPhone or whatever then you're simply accused of "deluding yourself and trying desperately to justify your purchase". You can't really win.
Funnily enough, I never get definitively told that I'm "trying to justify my purchase" when talking about money I've spent on hardware that runs Linux. Funny thing that, confirmation bias.
"I spent x on this Linux box for y1 reason" - "oh good choice" "I spent z on this Apple machine for y2 reason" - "you foolish Appletard! you sheeple are all the same, trying to justify the price you paid!"
Whoa, that was offtopic. As far as "competing in the courtroom" goes, it's not like Apple are hurting for sales. I think their reasoning behind the Samsung lawsuit is that they were ripped off. Whether Samsung actually *did* is secondary. I don't think Apple's motivation is "prevent competition" as much as it is "defending its designs". They're in no danger of Samsung (or anyone else) denting their sales - on the iPad front the "other" category an anorexic's attempt to cut a filling piece of pie, and even in the smartphone arena, where Android (all handsets combined) holds equal or better overall marketshare to the iPhone, Apple are still growing their marketshare and are still selling devices as fast as they can make them. I don't think they should have pursued injunctions against Samsung, but I can certainly see why they started a lawsuit in the first place.
Given the way slashdot trolls characterise the lawsuit, you think if they wanted to prevent competition via lawsuit they would simply have sued everyone who made a "black rectangle with round corners" and clearly they haven't done that.
Oh yes, the current line of VW diesels are the same, tuned for a more sporty response, it feels like you get kicked in the back when you put your foot down and the turbo comes in.
If "app availability" was all he could come up with then he wasn't thinking hard enough, although ultimately the choice between iOS and Android is largely one of personal preference assuming you get a decent Android phone, although Apple closed the gap a little on the cheap Android handsets by keeping the 3GS around and discounting it.
I personally prefer the iOS app market, but it suits my needs just fine. YMMV.
One platform is no better than the other - I think iOS is slightly more polished, but it's mainly down to the vertical integration.
They traded it for stock in Apple, that Xerox were foolish enough to sell on before it became really valuable - like I said, they didn't see Apple or the GUI going anywhere, it was more a curiosity to them.
If they'd kept hold of the shares they "kindly" received in exchange for their tech they'd have to worry about buying one of those really big safes that can hold a billion in $100's.
Apple paid for the use of Parc's innovations. They later had "seller's remorse" when they decided they should have asked Apple for more than what they got, but in classic style they didn't see the value in what they had, but felt entitled to try and change the terms of the deal afterwards.
There was no "ripping off" of Parc technology - it was all shared in exchange for money/shares/compensation.
Diesel is more expensive in the UK too, but it's still much better in terms of cost per mile than petrol. It's why more than 50% of regular cars on the roads are DERV burners.
Helps that the road tax is cheaper for diesels due to lower CO2 emission too.
Well, the touch driver chip in the HP unit is $11, the display is $60 and the touch input device itself is about $50 - it all adds up. There's $60 you don;t need to spend while building a netbook.
My engine meets US diesel regulations, if you prefer an alternate source of locomotion (bear in mind I pay $8 per US gallon for fuel, so I'm all for it), then please talk to your congressman about greener options.
So, your master plan is to make up the profit in volume of sales?
So, the volume price is $99, the manufacturing cost *per TouchPad* is $318 (http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/HP-TouchPad-Carries-$318-Bill-of-Materials.aspx).
So, HP "make" -$219 per TouchPad. I can see why they need volume sales to make up the profit...;)
I'm not sure where the myth that these sorts of devices cost buttons to make and are just sold at crazy high "all gravy" margins? Oh wait, it's what they think Apple are doing with the iPad. Even the really good Android competitors to the iPad are only $100 or so less - so still in the $400 range.
Selling them at $99 does not make for a sound business plan unless you plan to make up the money by some other channel (like having your games console as a loss leader, for example). A $219 loss per tablet is a pretty steep loss leader though, by anyone's measure.
You can put out fires with diesel - it doesn't like to burn at atmospheric pressure.
I drive a turbo diesel minivan that gets 53 mpg (44.1 US mpg) and find it very nice to drive - the performance stigma that has been attached to diesel has been mostly eradicated with modern engine designs and clever turbo and engine management computers. You get similar performance to petrol engines but much better mpg and you can tow yourself along in traffic by just lifting the clutch. The extra torque is lovely.
Do you mean "in all possible scenarios", or do you just mean in your own, limited opinion?
They are excellent for short range commuting from a home base, especially a commute with traffic, they are terrible for hauling your boat across 6 states.
Just because you personally can't see them as useful does not make them hopelessly inadequate.
I'm differentiating between "can't melt because we made the design safe" and "can't melt because the laws of physics prevent it" - it's best to be specific when it comes to nuclear power since if you mention "safe designs" people still jump on you with "nothing is perfect! accidents still happen! too unsafe!" arguments, so I was addressing designs where melting is physically impossible even if humans were to vanish off the face of the earth and the reactor was left unattended for hundreds of years.
No, ideas that have already been working and proven, but have just been shelved. Breeder reactor technology, for example, that can run on the minimally reprocessed "waste" from other types of PWR are well understood - we just don't build them any more because they're also very good for producing weapons capable Pu.
It's not like we're treading new ground here.
It's akin to petrol and diesel, and not using diesel engines because terrorists use diesels, so let's not make any. Then throwing out the oil fraction used to make it (or burying it in the ground).
Meltdown is one of the failure modes of a reactor. They're not necessarily a "bad thing" (in the sense that 'meltdown' doesn't automatically mean 'explosion and release of radiation everywhere') if they work as designed in the event of a major failure - the later Fukushima ones had a concrete bowl designed to collect the fully molten core should it ever melt, so that the material would be contained in a known location and spread into a sub-critical geometry. It's obviously not ideal (you have to clean it up) but it's one of several methods for protecting against things like accidents that affect things external to the plant.
You can avoid it, by making a passively cooled reactor that simply cannot melt (due to the laws of physics, not due to some magic "can't fail" engineering, but these designs are problematic themselves due to other factors.
I'm aware that the article is about some relatively new technology. My point to the OP above was that we don;t really need new ideas - we just need to start using the ideas we already have that have just been shelved for non-scientific reasons.
No one who actually knows anything about the construction of large industrial plants will ever say "failsafe" to mean "impossible that an accident will occur", just that the odds would be vanishingly small with newer designs where things like passive cooling after total power loss and more advanced containment and core layouts are featured.
Even ignoring those, and anything to do with Thorium reactors, we still have the technology to reuse spent fuel. We don't need to invent anything new, just refine well-understood designs and processes.
Of course Thorium reactors would also be good - the stuff is cheap and abundant.
Who said anything about new technology? We have the technology we need right now to reprocess and use spent fuel from PWRs in breeders and other types of reactors, but it's politically sensitive to build reactors that can be purposed to make Pu for weapons if desired. No need for any new pie in the sky technology.
It's not that it's not that efficient, it's that it really doesn't need to be. The energy from fission is mostly captured (although you are dumping a lot of heat), but crucially it leaves high energy products behind in the fuel. It's what makes the spent fuel so hazardous to deal with, which is why it's crazy to suggest burying it in the ground!
Why bury something that has so much juicy energy still in it that we can extract with current technology? The answer is political, of course.
The other factor to consider is the sheer magnitude of the energy we're talking about here. E = mc^2 is not just a handy soundbite.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, those "huge" sums of money to fund the entire LHC project. $10 billion eh?
Let's put it another way - would you prefer to have the whole LHC project in its entirety, or 2 weeks of the Iraq War?
Have the troops come home a couple of weeks sooner than planned and you get the LHC for free!
To further the response from the other commenter who already replied, there's a fundamental limit to the realtime resolution of the GPS system as it stands, especially in very narrow and twisty streets with no view of the sky in any direction except vertical.
Add to that the cycle time on the satellites themselves (30 second windows - a function of the way the signals are set up), and even when the GPS unit can do additional "quick location fix" routines (where it can make a good initial guess about the current overhead geometry of the network based on prior good data and its onboard clock rather than having to make a cold fix with no idea where it is on the earth to begin with) it if frequently too slow to be able to accurately keep pace with your directions in real time.
GPS navigation is a fabulous tool, and there have been some excellent refinements to it, along with enhancements like using cell towers as additional data points to help narrow the fix speed and accuracy, but in some situations it is the wrong tool for the job.
I'm sorry to say this but.... whooooooooooooosh.
I'm well aware of how GPS works, just that it doesn't work very well in London due to the close-together buildings, odd angles of reflection and very dense, non-patterned road network.
I have done it many times - the GPS gets lost more often than you do just looking up a route in a map since it gets confused by the weak and reflecting signals, then it tells you to turn around and go the other way (sometimes on a road with no ability to turn), only to suddenly recalculate and tell you to go somewhere else, and all manner of other things. You can take the correct road that it tells you, but it thinks you've just gone up the other, wrong fork of a road that runs almost parallel, then spends frantic minutes recalculating routes based on roads you are not driving on. Of course, by the time it figures out where you *actually* are, you've missed your original turning.
Seriously, it's something of an achilles heel for satellite navigation.
Have you ever tried to use a GPS in London?
It's like trying to navigate the Pacific Ocean when the most accurate details you can give to the computer are "I can see water" and "I'm in a boat".
Even if the GPS has a decent fix, so many of the streets are at random angles, with really narrow winding side streets that it easily gets confused. There's no substitute for a driver who knows the layout.
Who said I wan an unapologetic fanboi, or is all that's required for that definition to apply is to not be spouting vehement Apple hate at every opportunity?
I personally think Apple is being an idiot over several of the lawsuits it is involved in. In other areas I agree with them.
I own Apple products, but have plenty of criticisms of them, as well as plenty of praise. I don't own an Android-based device, but I have used several and have both praise and criticism for them.
The sad fact that has befallen slashdot in recent years is that everything has to be boiled down to a Bushism - "you're either with us, or you're with the terr-ists". Not everything is black and white.
It is possible to be both a fan of Apple and to criticise them too, and just because I occasionally post constructive criticism about Android does not make me some sort of "unapologetic fanboi" or "paid astroturfer" or "paid shill", which seem to be the "you disagree with me, so you must be part of some Machiavellian scheme to destroy Android!" retorts of choice of late.
It gets tiresome.
Even if I were "unapologetically" a fan of Apple I'm no better off - if I even hint that I am happy with my purchases, or that I am getting value for the money spent on an iMac or an iPhone or whatever then you're simply accused of "deluding yourself and trying desperately to justify your purchase". You can't really win.
Funnily enough, I never get definitively told that I'm "trying to justify my purchase" when talking about money I've spent on hardware that runs Linux. Funny thing that, confirmation bias.
"I spent x on this Linux box for y1 reason" - "oh good choice"
"I spent z on this Apple machine for y2 reason" - "you foolish Appletard! you sheeple are all the same, trying to justify the price you paid!"
Whoa, that was offtopic. As far as "competing in the courtroom" goes, it's not like Apple are hurting for sales. I think their reasoning behind the Samsung lawsuit is that they were ripped off. Whether Samsung actually *did* is secondary. I don't think Apple's motivation is "prevent competition" as much as it is "defending its designs". They're in no danger of Samsung (or anyone else) denting their sales - on the iPad front the "other" category an anorexic's attempt to cut a filling piece of pie, and even in the smartphone arena, where Android (all handsets combined) holds equal or better overall marketshare to the iPhone, Apple are still growing their marketshare and are still selling devices as fast as they can make them. I don't think they should have pursued injunctions against Samsung, but I can certainly see why they started a lawsuit in the first place.
Given the way slashdot trolls characterise the lawsuit, you think if they wanted to prevent competition via lawsuit they would simply have sued everyone who made a "black rectangle with round corners" and clearly they haven't done that.
Oh yes, the current line of VW diesels are the same, tuned for a more sporty response, it feels like you get kicked in the back when you put your foot down and the turbo comes in.
If "app availability" was all he could come up with then he wasn't thinking hard enough, although ultimately the choice between iOS and Android is largely one of personal preference assuming you get a decent Android phone, although Apple closed the gap a little on the cheap Android handsets by keeping the 3GS around and discounting it.
I personally prefer the iOS app market, but it suits my needs just fine. YMMV.
One platform is no better than the other - I think iOS is slightly more polished, but it's mainly down to the vertical integration.
They traded it for stock in Apple, that Xerox were foolish enough to sell on before it became really valuable - like I said, they didn't see Apple or the GUI going anywhere, it was more a curiosity to them.
If they'd kept hold of the shares they "kindly" received in exchange for their tech they'd have to worry about buying one of those really big safes that can hold a billion in $100's.
Nice rewrite of history.
Apple paid for the use of Parc's innovations. They later had "seller's remorse" when they decided they should have asked Apple for more than what they got, but in classic style they didn't see the value in what they had, but felt entitled to try and change the terms of the deal afterwards.
There was no "ripping off" of Parc technology - it was all shared in exchange for money/shares/compensation.
It would still be a drop in the bucket compared to iPad sales, and Apple would put it down to a cost of doing business.
If Samsung had lost then they'd just have to use some that unspent R&D budget to pay the fines, and deduct the lost sales in Australia from it.
Due to the lack of any sense of humour in slashdot moderators, the previous sentence was A JOKE.
Diesel is more expensive in the UK too, but it's still much better in terms of cost per mile than petrol. It's why more than 50% of regular cars on the roads are DERV burners.
Helps that the road tax is cheaper for diesels due to lower CO2 emission too.
Well, the touch driver chip in the HP unit is $11, the display is $60 and the touch input device itself is about $50 - it all adds up. There's $60 you don;t need to spend while building a netbook.
My engine meets US diesel regulations, if you prefer an alternate source of locomotion (bear in mind I pay $8 per US gallon for fuel, so I'm all for it), then please talk to your congressman about greener options.
So, your master plan is to make up the profit in volume of sales?
So, the volume price is $99, the manufacturing cost *per TouchPad* is $318 (http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/HP-TouchPad-Carries-$318-Bill-of-Materials.aspx).
So, HP "make" -$219 per TouchPad. I can see why they need volume sales to make up the profit... ;)
I'm not sure where the myth that these sorts of devices cost buttons to make and are just sold at crazy high "all gravy" margins? Oh wait, it's what they think Apple are doing with the iPad. Even the really good Android competitors to the iPad are only $100 or so less - so still in the $400 range.
Selling them at $99 does not make for a sound business plan unless you plan to make up the money by some other channel (like having your games console as a loss leader, for example). A $219 loss per tablet is a pretty steep loss leader though, by anyone's measure.
You can put out fires with diesel - it doesn't like to burn at atmospheric pressure.
I drive a turbo diesel minivan that gets 53 mpg (44.1 US mpg) and find it very nice to drive - the performance stigma that has been attached to diesel has been mostly eradicated with modern engine designs and clever turbo and engine management computers. You get similar performance to petrol engines but much better mpg and you can tow yourself along in traffic by just lifting the clutch. The extra torque is lovely.
European diesel vehicles can't pass US environmental standards.
False. The current diesels on sale in European models *do* pass the US environmental standards.
How are they "hopelessly inadequate"?
Do you mean "in all possible scenarios", or do you just mean in your own, limited opinion?
They are excellent for short range commuting from a home base, especially a commute with traffic, they are terrible for hauling your boat across 6 states.
Just because you personally can't see them as useful does not make them hopelessly inadequate.
No, just a newspaper making up a story. It's the Daily Mail - that's all that needs to be said.
The Red Cross has nothing to do with this - it's a made up story by the Daly Fail.
Seriously, as soon as you see "dailymail.co.uk" just assume that the story is false. You'll be right at least 75% of the time.
It's a right wing propaganda machine that exists solely to froth up the middle classes.
I'm differentiating between "can't melt because we made the design safe" and "can't melt because the laws of physics prevent it" - it's best to be specific when it comes to nuclear power since if you mention "safe designs" people still jump on you with "nothing is perfect! accidents still happen! too unsafe!" arguments, so I was addressing designs where melting is physically impossible even if humans were to vanish off the face of the earth and the reactor was left unattended for hundreds of years.
No, ideas that have already been working and proven, but have just been shelved. Breeder reactor technology, for example, that can run on the minimally reprocessed "waste" from other types of PWR are well understood - we just don't build them any more because they're also very good for producing weapons capable Pu.
It's not like we're treading new ground here.
It's akin to petrol and diesel, and not using diesel engines because terrorists use diesels, so let's not make any. Then throwing out the oil fraction used to make it (or burying it in the ground).
Meltdown is one of the failure modes of a reactor. They're not necessarily a "bad thing" (in the sense that 'meltdown' doesn't automatically mean 'explosion and release of radiation everywhere') if they work as designed in the event of a major failure - the later Fukushima ones had a concrete bowl designed to collect the fully molten core should it ever melt, so that the material would be contained in a known location and spread into a sub-critical geometry. It's obviously not ideal (you have to clean it up) but it's one of several methods for protecting against things like accidents that affect things external to the plant.
You can avoid it, by making a passively cooled reactor that simply cannot melt (due to the laws of physics, not due to some magic "can't fail" engineering, but these designs are problematic themselves due to other factors.
I'm aware that the article is about some relatively new technology. My point to the OP above was that we don;t really need new ideas - we just need to start using the ideas we already have that have just been shelved for non-scientific reasons.
No one who actually knows anything about the construction of large industrial plants will ever say "failsafe" to mean "impossible that an accident will occur", just that the odds would be vanishingly small with newer designs where things like passive cooling after total power loss and more advanced containment and core layouts are featured.
Even ignoring those, and anything to do with Thorium reactors, we still have the technology to reuse spent fuel. We don't need to invent anything new, just refine well-understood designs and processes.
Of course Thorium reactors would also be good - the stuff is cheap and abundant.
Who said anything about new technology? We have the technology we need right now to reprocess and use spent fuel from PWRs in breeders and other types of reactors, but it's politically sensitive to build reactors that can be purposed to make Pu for weapons if desired. No need for any new pie in the sky technology.
It's not that it's not that efficient, it's that it really doesn't need to be. The energy from fission is mostly captured (although you are dumping a lot of heat), but crucially it leaves high energy products behind in the fuel. It's what makes the spent fuel so hazardous to deal with, which is why it's crazy to suggest burying it in the ground!
Why bury something that has so much juicy energy still in it that we can extract with current technology? The answer is political, of course.
The other factor to consider is the sheer magnitude of the energy we're talking about here. E = mc^2 is not just a handy soundbite.