What is your definition of "working parts?" I spent ~$800 on my machine and it is perfectly capable of producing functional items from gadgets and tools to toys to parts for other things. Just because a lot of people make trinkets with it does not mean that's all the machine is capable of.
I will say, however, that getting high quality pieces requires skill and patience to tweak the machine *just right.*
If the extruder type machines aren't your bag, there are open source sintering machine designs out there, complete with open source powder and binder formulas. =Smidge=
For starters, kicking out "strawman" as a rebuttal when it clearly is nothing of the sort just makes you look like a dunce. "Globally" does not need to apply to the entire planet... but even if you drop the world "globally" my point still stands: If there is only one key in the whole {world | country | department} to unlock your handcuffs, you are in trouble if they go missing.
If you have a master key, then your entire point is moot because someone could just copy the master key. You're right back at square one except now it's all more expensive to implement because you have to manage and track unique as well as master keys.
The problem is not with the keys themselves, it's with the necessity of balancing ease of use and safety with adequate security. More secure makes them less safe, more safe makes them less secure. Keys are simply a poor solution to the problem, but that's not the key's fault. =Smidge=
The chance that you live in a state with container deposits is roughly 1 in 3. Regardless, the amount of aluminum in a typical soda can is so small (and so contaminated with paint and plastic liner) that it's just not worth using them for your own melting operation.
And you should feel bad for citing a Seinfeld episode as an argument. =Smidge=
You're better off turning in the aluminum cans for the deposit and buying fresh aluminum with the money. There is FAR LESS than 5 cents of aluminum in a soda can.
Except a photo-quality 2D printer is now something not uncommonly seen in someone's home. Rarer than a normal 2D printer but most people would not be surprised to see one and you can buy them off a shelf. I agree that the tech has a long way to go before it reaches that level of disposable consumer ware, but I'm not going to write off the possibility it will happen.
There are three categories of people as I see it;
The first are the hardcore tinkerers would have no problem buying a kit and spending the time and money on what is essentially a hobby in and of itself.
The second are the people who just want the finished product. The best fit for them is the online print-to-order services. They don't care to get involved with the creation process and probably don't care all that much about the design process either, relying on other people to design the items.
The third group are the people who will want to focus on the design with immediate results, and not concern themselves with the printer itself. These are your artist or crafting types, or professional setting where they want rapid prototyping but nobody has the time to waste tinkering. Now for the pros they might be able to justify $20K+ for a machine that "just works," but for others the choice is between spending a lot of time tinkering or a lot of time waiting for mail-ordered parts.
I think there's room for a middle option. =Smidge=
That's an interesting concept, but remember that some parts can take hours to finish. I can also envision a 3D model of some copyrighted thing causing problems with people coming in with their own models to print.
What I can more readily see is some types of items not needing to be stocked anymore, or stocked in very small quantities. Things like flower pots and little plastic mounting brackets and spacers and stuff. Stock the plastic instead and print more as needed. If the customer is willing to order ahead of time, then you can spend the time to print-to-order. Kind of like with paint... they don't stock every possible color - they mix to order. =Smidge=
If you want a true out-of-the-box solution for 3D printing you can have it - at a premium price. ZCorp immediately jumps to mind but they are by no means the only source. A Reprap device will cost you a tenth or less of the commercial-ready machines, but the tradeoff is you will need to put in the time to assemble it and tinker to get top performance.
Sorry to take so long replying - I didn't want to leave this unaddressed.
First, I'm more than happy to eat crow on the premium gouging thing. Though the bill does not define a "rating area" very well it appears to be a geographical parameter.
But I don't see much in the way of waiting periods before coverage starts. Aflac has up to six months waiting period for some coverage, for example. =Smidge=
I don't suppose you'd care to provide citations for these claims? Section and paragraph numbers, please. Shouldn't be too hard if you've read it yourself.
Just because they can't deny offering you a policy based on a pre-existing condition doesn't mean they can't adjust their premiums and include wait times before paying out based on those conditions.
What's that? You just got diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer? Sorry to hear that. Sure, we're legally obligated to offer a policy... premiums are $10,000 a month and anything that happens within the first six months of policy signing is not covered. =Smidge=
The government is offering health insurance that I can buy? Since when?
There's Medicare, which I pay into despite not being eligible for and won't be for another 30+ years. There's the VA system, but I have to serve in the military to be eligible for that. I make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid. My tax money goes to pay for both of those, too.
So I'm being forced to pay for three services I can't even use. I would LOVE for there to be a government option, then I could actually get the services my taxes pay for.
(This is not a complaint about paying taxes, BTW - I'm happy that the relatively low amounts I pay help veterans, impoverished people and the elderly.) =Smidge=
Additionally, the latest study released by Universitas 21, a global network of research universities, concluded that the United States ranks No. 1 in the world in higher education
Yeah, let's have a closer look at that study... in the summary:
Overall, the top five countries, nominally providing the 'best' higher education were found to be the United States, Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark. However, broken down into the smaller sections, it was interesting to see that the US, traditionally seen as a country with one of the strongest education systems, did not always hit the top spot.
Huh. I wonder if that warrants a closer look at the actual data? Nah, fuck it. USA! USA! USA!
Spoiler: The US only comes out on top because our universities churn out more science publications. This alone is no indication of quality or relevance (there is some reason to think that it's not that great), nor of general quality of academic performance. In all other metrics the US is #3, #4 or #36... out of 50.
And what about big scary China? Adult science literacy there is a paltry 3% compared with the U.S. at 28%. In short, our overall science performance isn't too shabby for a country that has supposedly neglected science education for years.
3% of 1,340,000,000 is 40,200,000. 28% of 312,000,000 is 87,360,000.
So despite having nearly ten times the per-capita literacy rate, we're just barely above twice the total population. China is also catching up plenty fast. Maybe we should do something about it before we're behind?
So, why do Americans believe that science education is in a downward spiral when the empirical evidence shows the opposite?
Maybe it's the active effort by the religious-right to specifically exclude actual science from science education, or the systemic denial of scientific truths such as global climate change and biological evolution, or the cynical politicizing of science in general.
Yes, that's right. Test scores have increased since NCLB passed in 2002.
This alone does not tell us what's really going on. How hard were the tests? What is the scope of the curriculum? If I was a math teacher I could make every test a single question: "1 + 1 = __ (a) 2 (b) 2 (c) 2 (d) All of the Above " and then claim all my students got perfect scores. Test performance means nothing without accounting for the quality of the test.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Well what if it's not broken per se, but merely not adequate anymore? Or heaven forbid, maybe we could continue to seek to improve our education system despite how good you think it already is! =Smidge=
It sounds like you're planning to build a LAN in your condo, rather than have each tenant obtain and be responsible for their own service. This will all have additional overhead since, if you have a building wide network, you will need an administrator to keep it under control and working properly. You will also be responsible for the incredibly stupid shit your tenants do on your network (viruses, copyright infringement, etc.)
The simplest method, from the property owner's perspective, is to let the occupants handle it all themselves. Not sure what your circumstances are (new construction? renovation of an existing building?) but set aside a medium sized room for utilities - usually in or near the same room that the electrical service comes in - that ISP companies can install their equipment. From that room, run maybe 3" conduits to a closet on each floor, and then 1.5" conduits from that closet to each unit. make sure the installing contractor leaves nylon cords in each conduit and they are all clearly labeled. In this way, when a tenant wants internet service X, the installing tech can run a cable of the appropriate type from his company's box to the space with absolutely minimal disturbance.
Each unit gets their own service. They can do pretty much whatever they want however they want it. They pay the bill directly for whatever level of service they want. You are not providing anything that requires maintenance or anything that exposes you to liability. Empty conduit is cheap, too, and future-proof in that you can pull anything you want through it - even if you decide to become your own mini-ISP in the future you can still go that route. =Smidge=
Well, how about experiments conducted in a low-gravity environment?
Cheaper and easier to do it in low earth orbit and simulate however much "gravity" you need using a centrifuge. There are even some systems you can use on earth to effectively negate gravity which might be compatible with some experiments.
How about telescopes and other such sensors that are capable of things we'd never be able to do on the Earth?
Cheaper and easier to build a telescope that orbits the earth.
How about because fuck it, it's there, which is one of the most important driving factors in humanity?
I actually can't think of any human enterprise of any appreciable scale (the kind requiring national or international level cooperation) that was motivated entirely on the sake of doing. For example:
Why did we climb Everest? Because it's the tallest mountain. Why does man try to skydive from ever-increased heights? Because we've never skydived from that high before. Why does the Heart Attack Grill make a Quadruple Bypass burger? Because honestly, a good cheeseburger has more calories in it than a month of your salary.
None of these things are particularly meaningful or require vast amounts of resources/cooperation. Climbing Everest may require motivation and physical fitness on the part of the climber, but the act itself is trivial. Ditto with skydiving. (People eat the Q.B.B. because they're fucking morons, BTW...)
On the other hand, everything humans have done that actually required cooperation and investment of collected resources had financial, environmental and/or political motivation. If it wasn't for roaming herds and dwindling local resources I doubt humans would have even left Africa some 40,000 years ago. =Smidge=
Really? "Death penalty for child porn" is a very common reaction when someone is busted for it.
Few people actually, seriously advocate taking it that far (see also: 'Internet Tough Guy'). There aren't riots in the streets about it. There aren't any serious attempts to codify the death penalty into law over it.
And the reaction certainly isn't due to reverence of child porn.
I don't know of anyone that holds child pornography in such reverence that they will threaten with death anyone who depicts it. False equivalency is false.
What was the point of comparing the cost of batteries with the output of gasoline engines? Not only does increased horsepower not translate to increased fuel economy, even if it did you're still comparing apples and rocks. Not that it matters much - your larger argument is a non-starter. Gasoline has so much against it that it will become economically/environmentally/politically untenable much faster than engines will improve to compensate. The technology is already up against the wall of what physics will allow.
There's no difference between an electron flowing into the battery from the charging cable, or into one battery from another battery. (Remember that for every electron you put in, another one comes out the other side.)
The battery has no way of knowing where the electrons come from or where they go to - each cell in a series string sees the same current and the same voltage drop across itself (assuming all cells are healthy anyway).
What it sounds like you actually want to do is physically separate the cells so the heat from one doesn't heat up its neighbors. =Smidge=
That actually wouldn't help, because a Wh is a Wh any way you slice it. By taking the cells out of series configuration you only lower the effective voltage - meaning you'll need more current for the same power. That's exactly opposite from what you want, since charging current is the limiting factor (via connector and wire sizes mostly).
Though it does have the benefit of easier cell balancing I guess. =Smidge=
The video showed the guy dumping a bunch of water into the connector immediately before plugging in. With his bare hands. Again, there is no power in the cable until the connection is made and the car activates it. If you unplug it while charging, the first thing that breaks is the pilot signal from car to EVSE. Once that pilot signal is lost, the EVSE shuts off the power to the cord - and that happens before the connector is fully unseated. That's about as safe as anything is going to get.
So to answer your question directly: What happens when you connect/disconnect while in heavy rain and high winds? You get wet. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
What is your definition of "working parts?" I spent ~$800 on my machine and it is perfectly capable of producing functional items from gadgets and tools to toys to parts for other things. Just because a lot of people make trinkets with it does not mean that's all the machine is capable of.
I will say, however, that getting high quality pieces requires skill and patience to tweak the machine *just right.*
If the extruder type machines aren't your bag, there are open source sintering machine designs out there, complete with open source powder and binder formulas.
=Smidge=
Translation: "I can't counter any of your points so I'm going to nerdrage instead."
Good for you.
=Smidge=
For starters, kicking out "strawman" as a rebuttal when it clearly is nothing of the sort just makes you look like a dunce. "Globally" does not need to apply to the entire planet... but even if you drop the world "globally" my point still stands: If there is only one key in the whole {world | country | department} to unlock your handcuffs, you are in trouble if they go missing.
If you have a master key, then your entire point is moot because someone could just copy the master key. You're right back at square one except now it's all more expensive to implement because you have to manage and track unique as well as master keys.
The problem is not with the keys themselves, it's with the necessity of balancing ease of use and safety with adequate security. More secure makes them less safe, more safe makes them less secure. Keys are simply a poor solution to the problem, but that's not the key's fault.
=Smidge=
Hopefully nobody ever loses that globally unique key to your handcuffs...
Or they could just use zip ties, which cost less, weigh less, go on easier and don't need keys at all.
=Smidge=
The chance that you live in a state with container deposits is roughly 1 in 3. Regardless, the amount of aluminum in a typical soda can is so small (and so contaminated with paint and plastic liner) that it's just not worth using them for your own melting operation.
And you should feel bad for citing a Seinfeld episode as an argument.
=Smidge=
You're better off turning in the aluminum cans for the deposit and buying fresh aluminum with the money. There is FAR LESS than 5 cents of aluminum in a soda can.
=Smidge=
Except a photo-quality 2D printer is now something not uncommonly seen in someone's home. Rarer than a normal 2D printer but most people would not be surprised to see one and you can buy them off a shelf. I agree that the tech has a long way to go before it reaches that level of disposable consumer ware, but I'm not going to write off the possibility it will happen.
There are three categories of people as I see it;
The first are the hardcore tinkerers would have no problem buying a kit and spending the time and money on what is essentially a hobby in and of itself.
The second are the people who just want the finished product. The best fit for them is the online print-to-order services. They don't care to get involved with the creation process and probably don't care all that much about the design process either, relying on other people to design the items.
The third group are the people who will want to focus on the design with immediate results, and not concern themselves with the printer itself. These are your artist or crafting types, or professional setting where they want rapid prototyping but nobody has the time to waste tinkering. Now for the pros they might be able to justify $20K+ for a machine that "just works," but for others the choice is between spending a lot of time tinkering or a lot of time waiting for mail-ordered parts.
I think there's room for a middle option.
=Smidge=
That's an interesting concept, but remember that some parts can take hours to finish. I can also envision a 3D model of some copyrighted thing causing problems with people coming in with their own models to print.
What I can more readily see is some types of items not needing to be stocked anymore, or stocked in very small quantities. Things like flower pots and little plastic mounting brackets and spacers and stuff. Stock the plastic instead and print more as needed. If the customer is willing to order ahead of time, then you can spend the time to print-to-order. Kind of like with paint... they don't stock every possible color - they mix to order.
=Smidge=
If you want a true out-of-the-box solution for 3D printing you can have it - at a premium price. ZCorp immediately jumps to mind but they are by no means the only source. A Reprap device will cost you a tenth or less of the commercial-ready machines, but the tradeoff is you will need to put in the time to assemble it and tinker to get top performance.
=Smidge=
Sorry to take so long replying - I didn't want to leave this unaddressed.
First, I'm more than happy to eat crow on the premium gouging thing. Though the bill does not define a "rating area" very well it appears to be a geographical parameter.
But I don't see much in the way of waiting periods before coverage starts. Aflac has up to six months waiting period for some coverage, for example.
=Smidge=
I don't suppose you'd care to provide citations for these claims? Section and paragraph numbers, please. Shouldn't be too hard if you've read it yourself.
=Smidge=
Just because they can't deny offering you a policy based on a pre-existing condition doesn't mean they can't adjust their premiums and include wait times before paying out based on those conditions.
What's that? You just got diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer? Sorry to hear that. Sure, we're legally obligated to offer a policy... premiums are $10,000 a month and anything that happens within the first six months of policy signing is not covered.
=Smidge=
The government is offering health insurance that I can buy? Since when?
There's Medicare, which I pay into despite not being eligible for and won't be for another 30+ years. There's the VA system, but I have to serve in the military to be eligible for that. I make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid. My tax money goes to pay for both of those, too.
So I'm being forced to pay for three services I can't even use. I would LOVE for there to be a government option, then I could actually get the services my taxes pay for.
(This is not a complaint about paying taxes, BTW - I'm happy that the relatively low amounts I pay help veterans, impoverished people and the elderly.)
=Smidge=
33% of the time, it works every time!
=Smidge=
You make a great case for banning marriage. No marriage, no ex-wives!
=Smidge=
Additionally, the latest study released by Universitas 21, a global network of research universities, concluded that the United States ranks No. 1 in the world in higher education
Yeah, let's have a closer look at that study... in the summary:
Overall, the top five countries, nominally providing the 'best' higher education were found to be the United States, Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark. However, broken down into the smaller sections, it was interesting to see that the US, traditionally seen as a country with one of the strongest education systems, did not always hit the top spot.
Huh. I wonder if that warrants a closer look at the actual data? Nah, fuck it. USA! USA! USA!
Spoiler: The US only comes out on top because our universities churn out more science publications. This alone is no indication of quality or relevance (there is some reason to think that it's not that great), nor of general quality of academic performance. In all other metrics the US is #3, #4 or #36... out of 50.
And what about big scary China? Adult science literacy there is a paltry 3% compared with the U.S. at 28%. In short, our overall science performance isn't too shabby for a country that has supposedly neglected science education for years.
3% of 1,340,000,000 is 40,200,000.
28% of 312,000,000 is 87,360,000.
So despite having nearly ten times the per-capita literacy rate, we're just barely above twice the total population. China is also catching up plenty fast. Maybe we should do something about it before we're behind?
So, why do Americans believe that science education is in a downward spiral when the empirical evidence shows the opposite?
Maybe it's the active effort by the religious-right to specifically exclude actual science from science education, or the systemic denial of scientific truths such as global climate change and biological evolution, or the cynical politicizing of science in general.
Yes, that's right. Test scores have increased since NCLB passed in 2002.
This alone does not tell us what's really going on. How hard were the tests? What is the scope of the curriculum? If I was a math teacher I could make every test a single question: "1 + 1 = __ (a) 2 (b) 2 (c) 2 (d) All of the Above " and then claim all my students got perfect scores. Test performance means nothing without accounting for the quality of the test.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Well what if it's not broken per se, but merely not adequate anymore? Or heaven forbid, maybe we could continue to seek to improve our education system despite how good you think it already is!
=Smidge=
It sounds like you're planning to build a LAN in your condo, rather than have each tenant obtain and be responsible for their own service. This will all have additional overhead since, if you have a building wide network, you will need an administrator to keep it under control and working properly. You will also be responsible for the incredibly stupid shit your tenants do on your network (viruses, copyright infringement, etc.)
The simplest method, from the property owner's perspective, is to let the occupants handle it all themselves. Not sure what your circumstances are (new construction? renovation of an existing building?) but set aside a medium sized room for utilities - usually in or near the same room that the electrical service comes in - that ISP companies can install their equipment. From that room, run maybe 3" conduits to a closet on each floor, and then 1.5" conduits from that closet to each unit. make sure the installing contractor leaves nylon cords in each conduit and they are all clearly labeled. In this way, when a tenant wants internet service X, the installing tech can run a cable of the appropriate type from his company's box to the space with absolutely minimal disturbance.
Each unit gets their own service. They can do pretty much whatever they want however they want it. They pay the bill directly for whatever level of service they want. You are not providing anything that requires maintenance or anything that exposes you to liability. Empty conduit is cheap, too, and future-proof in that you can pull anything you want through it - even if you decide to become your own mini-ISP in the future you can still go that route.
=Smidge=
Well, how about experiments conducted in a low-gravity environment?
Cheaper and easier to do it in low earth orbit and simulate however much "gravity" you need using a centrifuge. There are even some systems you can use on earth to effectively negate gravity which might be compatible with some experiments.
How about telescopes and other such sensors that are capable of things we'd never be able to do on the Earth?
Cheaper and easier to build a telescope that orbits the earth.
How about because fuck it, it's there, which is one of the most important driving factors in humanity?
I actually can't think of any human enterprise of any appreciable scale (the kind requiring national or international level cooperation) that was motivated entirely on the sake of doing. For example:
Why did we climb Everest? Because it's the tallest mountain. Why does man try to skydive from ever-increased heights? Because we've never skydived from that high before. Why does the Heart Attack Grill make a Quadruple Bypass burger? Because honestly, a good cheeseburger has more calories in it than a month of your salary.
None of these things are particularly meaningful or require vast amounts of resources/cooperation. Climbing Everest may require motivation and physical fitness on the part of the climber, but the act itself is trivial. Ditto with skydiving. (People eat the Q.B.B. because they're fucking morons, BTW...)
On the other hand, everything humans have done that actually required cooperation and investment of collected resources had financial, environmental and/or political motivation. If it wasn't for roaming herds and dwindling local resources I doubt humans would have even left Africa some 40,000 years ago.
=Smidge=
Really? "Death penalty for child porn" is a very common reaction when someone is busted for it.
Few people actually, seriously advocate taking it that far (see also: 'Internet Tough Guy'). There aren't riots in the streets about it. There aren't any serious attempts to codify the death penalty into law over it.
And the reaction certainly isn't due to reverence of child porn.
False equivalency is still false.
=Smidge=
I don't know of anyone that holds child pornography in such reverence that they will threaten with death anyone who depicts it. False equivalency is false.
=Smidge=
What was the point of comparing the cost of batteries with the output of gasoline engines? Not only does increased horsepower not translate to increased fuel economy, even if it did you're still comparing apples and rocks. Not that it matters much - your larger argument is a non-starter. Gasoline has so much against it that it will become economically/environmentally/politically untenable much faster than engines will improve to compensate. The technology is already up against the wall of what physics will allow.
Also, since you like Mustangs: Here's a video of an electric car kicking a Mustang's ass in a drag race. :D
=Smidge=
There's no difference between an electron flowing into the battery from the charging cable, or into one battery from another battery. (Remember that for every electron you put in, another one comes out the other side.)
The battery has no way of knowing where the electrons come from or where they go to - each cell in a series string sees the same current and the same voltage drop across itself (assuming all cells are healthy anyway).
What it sounds like you actually want to do is physically separate the cells so the heat from one doesn't heat up its neighbors.
=Smidge=
Maybe something worth noting is that electric forklifts also have, often automated, battery swap systems.
=Smidge=
That actually wouldn't help, because a Wh is a Wh any way you slice it. By taking the cells out of series configuration you only lower the effective voltage - meaning you'll need more current for the same power. That's exactly opposite from what you want, since charging current is the limiting factor (via connector and wire sizes mostly).
Though it does have the benefit of easier cell balancing I guess.
=Smidge=
The video showed the guy dumping a bunch of water into the connector immediately before plugging in. With his bare hands. Again, there is no power in the cable until the connection is made and the car activates it. If you unplug it while charging, the first thing that breaks is the pilot signal from car to EVSE. Once that pilot signal is lost, the EVSE shuts off the power to the cord - and that happens before the connector is fully unseated. That's about as safe as anything is going to get.
So to answer your question directly: What happens when you connect/disconnect while in heavy rain and high winds? You get wet.
=Smidge=