The chart he linked to is in CENTS per kWh, not dollars. He's off by a factor of 100. ($18.51)
He also screwed up the math, though. I can't think of anyone who uses a desktop computer for their job and works 52 weeks a year (50 is "Standard" IIRC). Also it may be safe to assume that if they leave it on that should include weekends.
So it's 128 hours per week away from the desk, 11.39 kWh per week and $0.62 per week at the lowest Commercial rate (5.47 cents per kWh)
Assuming 50 week years (actually turning it off for vacations) that's $31.16 per year. Leaving it on during vacations (336 hours of idle time) is an additional $1.58 cents, or $32.74 per year.
You've probably wasted more of the boss' money reading this comment:) =Smidge=
They never explain that, AFAIK (definitely not in the movie but I'm pretty sure they glossed over it in the Manga as well). It's a common thread through the story setting, though, and not something cooked up just for that one arc and then forgotten.
Are we to believe that every time you sneeze your soul temporarily leaves your body, and saying "Bless You" is supposed to keep a demon from sneaking in and taking over your body? Depending on who you talk to, that's one claim...
First you have to clearly define what a "soul" is in tangible terms, then provide some rational argument that it actually exists. Then and only then can we have a meaningful discussion on whether or not an unconscious person has a soul. =Smidge=
The movies have no continuity with the series, but they do have continuity with each other. SaC is a completely different "universe" from the movies.
== SPOILER ALERT ==
Innocence follows one of the story arcs from the Manga, where a shady company is using little girls and "cloning" their consciousness ("ghosts") into high-end sex dolls for the super rich to play with. Of course the clones are still aware of their situation and start freaking out and killing their perv owners before destroying themselves as well. Meanwhile, each copy made causes irreparable and cumulative damage to the original human girl, who eventually dies.
The movie is all about Batou and Togusa trying to unravel the mystery behind the psycho dolls (not knowing they had human ghosts in them at first).
Major Motoko Kusanagi is technically present throughout the film, but has since "transcended" into the global network as some form of digital demigod as a result of the first movie's ending. Naturally she no longer exists as a physical entity but there are some clues of her influence throughout. She's been conducting her own investigations and shows up near the end, temporarily "possessing" one of the dolls to help Batuo. =Smidge=
What does "reflect" mean here? One way we commonly us it: "If I can reflect on myself, I am conscious." Certainly that can't be what he means since it would be circular - being able to reflect simply is being conscious, so does not explain consciousness.
reflect: v. (no object); to think, ponder, or meditate
As Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am."
In other words, at least one requirement for consciousness is the ability to ponder one's own existence.
Kurzweil then goes on to assert (FTA): "It's not going to be a clear distinction of where humans or biological intelligence stops and machine intelligence starts... [So] we will attribute consciousness to entities even if they have no biology, even if they're fully machine entities: they will seem human, they will seem consciousness, we will attribute souls to them but that's not a scientific statement."
At no point does Kurzweil even attempt to explain what consciousness is, other than the very objective conclusion that it is an emergent property of sufficiently complex computational systems. You are free to disagree with that conclusion, of course, but put the straw man away. =Smidge=
GitS in general addresses this concept. The Tachikoma approach it from one direction (Machine -> Consciousness), awhile the complete replacement of the human body and mind with machinery and "ghost hacking" concepts approach it from the other (Consciousness -> Machine).
And with the exception of the two movies, it really doesn't get too preachy about it either. One of the reasons I really love the franchise.:) =Smidge=
This looks exactly like an Enthalpy Wheel, which transfers some of the moisture as well as heat between the exhaust and intake streams.
I am actually quite shocked these things have NOT been used for data center ventilation before. The bigger the ventilation job, the more these things make sense.
Only thing I can think of, though, is that data centers probably don't have high ventilation requirements... machines don't need a constant supply of fresh air for breathing, so a lot of it can be cooled and recycled.
But if all they're doing is transferring heat (and not humidity as well) then there are better options available. =Smidge=
How about the requisite Slashdot car analogy instead?
A car manufacturer states that they predict some quantity of their cars will be stolen due to design flaws (locks and latches, windows, security systems etc).
Then they proudly announce that their theft predictions are right a little less than half of the time. "Hey everyone! Not as many of our cars were stolen as we thought would be! Isn't that great news?"
Does this really inspire confidence in the manufacturer for you? =Smidge=
That's great, guys, but don't you think being proud that you were right about your code being exploited is... backwards? That's like being proud you correctly predicted you would get stabbed while walking through a ghetto wearing gang colors.
Then again, this is Microsoft. They probably throw an office party every time something compiles without errors. =Smidge=
When you shut down, it actually reboots normally. Once the system comes back up, it automatically and instantly goes into S3 standby mode (suspend to RAM). As someone else said, you're basically making startup faster at the expense of making shutdown longer... but who cares when you just hit the button to shut down and walk away?
Since you did a proper reboot first, all your data was (presumably) saved to disk. Since it sleeps immediately after a fresh startup, there was never a chance for you to open up applications and have unsaved data in RAM. =Smidge=
When version 8 came out I refused to update, having already read some complaints about it. When the current version stopped updating, I just uninstalled it. AVG was what I recommended to everyone who asked back when it was version 6... how far they've fallen.
Point of discussion: What are some decent alternatives that Slashdotters have employed? I've moved on to Avast! but I'm sure there's more out there. Bonus if it's freeware. =Smidge=
The law of diminishing returns is a well-accepted economic principle. I agree with that.
You applied The law of diminishing returns to incomes: "Each increment of time and effort, and other resources, devoted to earning that extra income costs you more than the last." I call bullshit, at least when it comes to personal time and effort. There is definitely a tipping point at which diminishing returns crumbles.
You then go to reinforce your original point by saying there is nothing wrong with the law of diminishing returns... which I agree with, except as it applies to personal income brackets "in the general case." (ie: for nearly everyone)
Then you completely contradict that by saying you "never said that ratio of cost to pay was constant across different individuals."
I guess that means it doesn't work for the general case then, does it?
Perhaps you can take us through the daily activities of the average 100+k gross income individual for us?
As to why haven't *I* moved to a higher paying job? Still building the requisites. It has little or nothing to do with my ability or willingness to spend more time or effort in what I do - some things you can't rush (like, say, licensing requiring X years experience) and that's all there is to it. What's your excuse? =Smidge=
Just because the work is different does not automatically mean the work is harder, more hazardous, or more time-consuming than a job that pays far less. While your "law of diminishing returns" may apply to some scenarios, I think you would have great difficulty proving it for the general case.
By your argument, anyone earning a living wage would be awash in leisure time while the executives earning 7 digits a year would be toiling 24/7 with only federal holidays off. The exact opposite seems to be the case. =Smidge=
So you honestly believe that the only reason so many people voted fro him was race? How sad.
It may also surprise you that, in retrospect, experience is not correlated to being a good president, and in fact some of the the most inexperienced presidents have been some of the most successful.
Compare it to the alternative McCain, who's political convictions apparently run so shallow that nearly all of them did a complete 180 in the four years since his last attempt at the oval office. His campaign was run by anyone but him and the choosing of Palin should shake even the most stalwart GOP supporter's confidence in that man's executive capabilities.
I'll take "confident and inspirational" over "schizophrenic and incompetent" any day, even if "experience" is lacking. =Smidge=
As the AC mentioned, Argon is the propellant and not the fuel.
accelerating fuel forward so you can spit it back later.
I have no idea what that even means, or is even supposed to mean. I quote it only to highlight that the source of your skepticism seems based entirely on a gross misunderstanding of the technology involved.
All rockets work by ejecting mass at high velocities. Take Argon, strip the electrons from it (ionize) and then accelerate it through a electric field potential. The advantage here is you can (potentially) get much higher velocities - and therefore more momentum - using this method than using a chemical fuel. That more "umph" per kilogram of propellant (in traditional rockets, the fuel is the propellant as well).
The other advantage is maximum top speed. If your hydrazine rocket can expel mass at, say, 1000 mph (making numbers up here) then the top speed of your rocket is 1000mph for reasons I hope are obvious. But ion engines can potentially eject mass at much higher speeds.
The energy for both the ionization and field generation are what required the power source. Which could, for example, come from solar power. As long as the extra power/mass ratio of the whole system is better than traditional fuel systems, you're coming out a winner. =Smidge=
It's curious how you seem to do a total 180 on your reasoning but still come up with the same conclusion by introducing new arguments.
First, you will never get away with dousing your PC in water. Even ultra-pure, deionized water will eventually damage something, and it would be a trick to keep it ultra-pure. A properly selected oil does not have that problem.
Yes, the total heat you can remove from the computer with passive cooling is limited by surface area - nobody's arguing that. Consider this, though: Nobody said the thermal path from chip to case had to be passive as well. For example: you can actively cool the oil itself to very low temps with no risk to the electronics. Compare to cold air/chilled water which runs risks of condensation.
In other words, you're right if everything is left to it's own devices... but nobody said you couldn't throw put a block of ice on top of the sealed, oil-filled case. (That's allegorical, BTW. Though that makes for a great mental image.) =Smidge=
Problem 1: Silicone oils jump readily to mind as a non-flammable replacement for PCBs. If PCBs were still used in anything past the 1980's it's because industry didn't want to, not because alternatives don't exist.
Problem 2: Specific heat of oil is still better than air. Also, full submersion has the benefit of keeping the components clean, cooling *everything*, and not necessarily needing any pumping at all (Properly designed, the natural convection plus high thermal conductivity are enough to keep things within operating temps.)
Problem 3: Properly designed, it can. See above. People have dumped their PCs into fish tanks of mineral oil and it works fine without any fans or pumps, easily transferring the heat to the surface of the tank and out through natural convection.
Problem 4: Probably tenths of watts. What's the problem, exactly, besides being a pain if you want to have the room dark? =Smidge=
There should be zero "drag" in the clutch on a manual transmission when idle. If you're stopped at a light and there is drag in the clutch, you'll probably notice a not-so-nice burning smell followed soon after by an even-less-nice repair bill.
If you're coasting in neutral with a manual transmission, the engine also idles at ~750. At least for my car it does.
With an automatic, though, it's a different story. An automatic transmission is never fully disengaged, so there will always be drag on the engine. As you described, in neutral you decouple the wheels from the engine allowing the torque converter to spin up - effectively eliminating the "drag." The engine's idle setting remains, though, and so the engine RPM increases under the reduced load. =Smidge=
The intake manifold vacuum is entirely dependent on the engine RPM and nothing else - it doesn't matter if the engine is being spun by the power stroke in the other cylinders or if it's being spun by the drive train. From the point of view of the cylinder on the intake stroke, all it knows is it's being pulled down by the crankshaft.
If your engine is always-on turbocharged though, like a race car might be, then the decreased exhaust pressure might cause a drop in intake manifold pressure in turn. I'm kinda doubting it though. =Smidge=
While I certainly don't disagree with you on principles, this caught my eye:
Subtracting school & sleep, that leaves 5 hours a day for other things (not even counting things like homework, meals, etc).
24 hours in a day - 9 (sleep) - 5 "left over" = 10. Your kids spend 10+ hours a day at school? Hardcore. For me, Elementary/Middle school lasted from 8AM to 2PM (plus or minus) which is only 6 hours. =Smidge=
Even if interfacing with a manufacturer's computer was simple (doubtful), and even if said computer did everything I wanted (highly unlikely, then again I never actually said what I'd be doing so how would you know?) I think I'd still come out ahead financially by rolling my own. Considering the car ('64 Rambler) was recently restored and insured as a classic it's not something I'd be driving enough to worry about gas prices.
Slashdot Mirror
The chart he linked to is in CENTS per kWh, not dollars. He's off by a factor of 100. ($18.51)
He also screwed up the math, though. I can't think of anyone who uses a desktop computer for their job and works 52 weeks a year (50 is "Standard" IIRC). Also it may be safe to assume that if they leave it on that should include weekends.
So it's 128 hours per week away from the desk, 11.39 kWh per week and $0.62 per week at the lowest Commercial rate (5.47 cents per kWh)
Assuming 50 week years (actually turning it off for vacations) that's $31.16 per year. Leaving it on during vacations (336 hours of idle time) is an additional $1.58 cents, or $32.74 per year.
You've probably wasted more of the boss' money reading this comment :)
=Smidge=
They never explain that, AFAIK (definitely not in the movie but I'm pretty sure they glossed over it in the Manga as well). It's a common thread through the story setting, though, and not something cooked up just for that one arc and then forgotten.
=Smidge=
Are we to believe that every time you sneeze your soul temporarily leaves your body, and saying "Bless You" is supposed to keep a demon from sneaking in and taking over your body? Depending on who you talk to, that's one claim...
First you have to clearly define what a "soul" is in tangible terms, then provide some rational argument that it actually exists. Then and only then can we have a meaningful discussion on whether or not an unconscious person has a soul.
=Smidge=
The movies have no continuity with the series, but they do have continuity with each other. SaC is a completely different "universe" from the movies.
== SPOILER ALERT ==
Innocence follows one of the story arcs from the Manga, where a shady company is using little girls and "cloning" their consciousness ("ghosts") into high-end sex dolls for the super rich to play with. Of course the clones are still aware of their situation and start freaking out and killing their perv owners before destroying themselves as well. Meanwhile, each copy made causes irreparable and cumulative damage to the original human girl, who eventually dies.
The movie is all about Batou and Togusa trying to unravel the mystery behind the psycho dolls (not knowing they had human ghosts in them at first).
Major Motoko Kusanagi is technically present throughout the film, but has since "transcended" into the global network as some form of digital demigod as a result of the first movie's ending. Naturally she no longer exists as a physical entity but there are some clues of her influence throughout. She's been conducting her own investigations and shows up near the end, temporarily "possessing" one of the dolls to help Batuo.
=Smidge=
reflect: v. (no object); to think, ponder, or meditate
As Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am."
In other words, at least one requirement for consciousness is the ability to ponder one's own existence.
Kurzweil then goes on to assert (FTA): "It's not going to be a clear distinction of where humans or biological intelligence stops and machine intelligence starts... [So] we will attribute consciousness to entities even if they have no biology, even if they're fully machine entities: they will seem human, they will seem consciousness, we will attribute souls to them but that's not a scientific statement."
At no point does Kurzweil even attempt to explain what consciousness is, other than the very objective conclusion that it is an emergent property of sufficiently complex computational systems. You are free to disagree with that conclusion, of course, but put the straw man away.
=Smidge=
GitS in general addresses this concept. The Tachikoma approach it from one direction (Machine -> Consciousness), awhile the complete replacement of the human body and mind with machinery and "ghost hacking" concepts approach it from the other (Consciousness -> Machine).
And with the exception of the two movies, it really doesn't get too preachy about it either. One of the reasons I really love the franchise. :)
=Smidge=
This looks exactly like an Enthalpy Wheel, which transfers some of the moisture as well as heat between the exhaust and intake streams.
I am actually quite shocked these things have NOT been used for data center ventilation before. The bigger the ventilation job, the more these things make sense.
Only thing I can think of, though, is that data centers probably don't have high ventilation requirements... machines don't need a constant supply of fresh air for breathing, so a lot of it can be cooled and recycled.
But if all they're doing is transferring heat (and not humidity as well) then there are better options available.
=Smidge=
How about the requisite Slashdot car analogy instead?
A car manufacturer states that they predict some quantity of their cars will be stolen due to design flaws (locks and latches, windows, security systems etc).
Then they proudly announce that their theft predictions are right a little less than half of the time. "Hey everyone! Not as many of our cars were stolen as we thought would be! Isn't that great news?"
Does this really inspire confidence in the manufacturer for you?
=Smidge=
That's great, guys, but don't you think being proud that you were right about your code being exploited is... backwards? That's like being proud you correctly predicted you would get stabbed while walking through a ghetto wearing gang colors.
Then again, this is Microsoft. They probably throw an office party every time something compiles without errors.
=Smidge=
Because there is none of your data in RAM.
When you shut down, it actually reboots normally. Once the system comes back up, it automatically and instantly goes into S3 standby mode (suspend to RAM). As someone else said, you're basically making startup faster at the expense of making shutdown longer... but who cares when you just hit the button to shut down and walk away?
Since you did a proper reboot first, all your data was (presumably) saved to disk. Since it sleeps immediately after a fresh startup, there was never a chance for you to open up applications and have unsaved data in RAM.
=Smidge=
When version 8 came out I refused to update, having already read some complaints about it. When the current version stopped updating, I just uninstalled it. AVG was what I recommended to everyone who asked back when it was version 6... how far they've fallen.
Point of discussion: What are some decent alternatives that Slashdotters have employed? I've moved on to Avast! but I'm sure there's more out there. Bonus if it's freeware.
=Smidge=
A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
(And if you don't know who, turn in your Slashdot account by tomorrow morning.)
=Smidge=
So let me get this straight.
The law of diminishing returns is a well-accepted economic principle. I agree with that.
You applied The law of diminishing returns to incomes: "Each increment of time and effort, and other resources, devoted to earning that extra income costs you more than the last." I call bullshit, at least when it comes to personal time and effort. There is definitely a tipping point at which diminishing returns crumbles.
You then go to reinforce your original point by saying there is nothing wrong with the law of diminishing returns... which I agree with, except as it applies to personal income brackets "in the general case." (ie: for nearly everyone)
Then you completely contradict that by saying you "never said that ratio of cost to pay was constant across different individuals."
I guess that means it doesn't work for the general case then, does it?
Perhaps you can take us through the daily activities of the average 100+k gross income individual for us?
As to why haven't *I* moved to a higher paying job? Still building the requisites. It has little or nothing to do with my ability or willingness to spend more time or effort in what I do - some things you can't rush (like, say, licensing requiring X years experience) and that's all there is to it. What's your excuse?
=Smidge=
Just because the work is different does not automatically mean the work is harder, more hazardous, or more time-consuming than a job that pays far less. While your "law of diminishing returns" may apply to some scenarios, I think you would have great difficulty proving it for the general case.
By your argument, anyone earning a living wage would be awash in leisure time while the executives earning 7 digits a year would be toiling 24/7 with only federal holidays off. The exact opposite seems to be the case.
=Smidge=
I would LOVE to be earning 100K a year and paying 50% in taxes. That's still more than I currently earn BEFORE taxes.
I never understood how people can honestly present the argument that taxing the rich would make people not want to be rich.
=Smidge=
So you honestly believe that the only reason so many people voted fro him was race? How sad.
It may also surprise you that, in retrospect, experience is not correlated to being a good president, and in fact some of the the most inexperienced presidents have been some of the most successful.
Compare it to the alternative McCain, who's political convictions apparently run so shallow that nearly all of them did a complete 180 in the four years since his last attempt at the oval office. His campaign was run by anyone but him and the choosing of Palin should shake even the most stalwart GOP supporter's confidence in that man's executive capabilities.
I'll take "confident and inspirational" over "schizophrenic and incompetent" any day, even if "experience" is lacking.
=Smidge=
As the AC mentioned, Argon is the propellant and not the fuel.
I have no idea what that even means, or is even supposed to mean. I quote it only to highlight that the source of your skepticism seems based entirely on a gross misunderstanding of the technology involved.
All rockets work by ejecting mass at high velocities. Take Argon, strip the electrons from it (ionize) and then accelerate it through a electric field potential. The advantage here is you can (potentially) get much higher velocities - and therefore more momentum - using this method than using a chemical fuel. That more "umph" per kilogram of propellant (in traditional rockets, the fuel is the propellant as well).
The other advantage is maximum top speed. If your hydrazine rocket can expel mass at, say, 1000 mph (making numbers up here) then the top speed of your rocket is 1000mph for reasons I hope are obvious. But ion engines can potentially eject mass at much higher speeds.
The energy for both the ionization and field generation are what required the power source. Which could, for example, come from solar power. As long as the extra power/mass ratio of the whole system is better than traditional fuel systems, you're coming out a winner.
=Smidge=
Only if someone is giving you a vacuum cleaner, apparently...
=Smidge=
It's curious how you seem to do a total 180 on your reasoning but still come up with the same conclusion by introducing new arguments.
First, you will never get away with dousing your PC in water. Even ultra-pure, deionized water will eventually damage something, and it would be a trick to keep it ultra-pure. A properly selected oil does not have that problem.
Yes, the total heat you can remove from the computer with passive cooling is limited by surface area - nobody's arguing that. Consider this, though: Nobody said the thermal path from chip to case had to be passive as well. For example: you can actively cool the oil itself to very low temps with no risk to the electronics. Compare to cold air/chilled water which runs risks of condensation.
In other words, you're right if everything is left to it's own devices... but nobody said you couldn't throw put a block of ice on top of the sealed, oil-filled case. (That's allegorical, BTW. Though that makes for a great mental image.)
=Smidge=
Problem 1: Silicone oils jump readily to mind as a non-flammable replacement for PCBs. If PCBs were still used in anything past the 1980's it's because industry didn't want to, not because alternatives don't exist.
Problem 2: Specific heat of oil is still better than air. Also, full submersion has the benefit of keeping the components clean, cooling *everything*, and not necessarily needing any pumping at all (Properly designed, the natural convection plus high thermal conductivity are enough to keep things within operating temps.)
Problem 3: Properly designed, it can. See above. People have dumped their PCs into fish tanks of mineral oil and it works fine without any fans or pumps, easily transferring the heat to the surface of the tank and out through natural convection.
Problem 4: Probably tenths of watts. What's the problem, exactly, besides being a pain if you want to have the room dark?
=Smidge=
There should be zero "drag" in the clutch on a manual transmission when idle. If you're stopped at a light and there is drag in the clutch, you'll probably notice a not-so-nice burning smell followed soon after by an even-less-nice repair bill.
If you're coasting in neutral with a manual transmission, the engine also idles at ~750. At least for my car it does.
With an automatic, though, it's a different story. An automatic transmission is never fully disengaged, so there will always be drag on the engine. As you described, in neutral you decouple the wheels from the engine allowing the torque converter to spin up - effectively eliminating the "drag." The engine's idle setting remains, though, and so the engine RPM increases under the reduced load.
=Smidge=
Nonsense.
The intake manifold vacuum is entirely dependent on the engine RPM and nothing else - it doesn't matter if the engine is being spun by the power stroke in the other cylinders or if it's being spun by the drive train. From the point of view of the cylinder on the intake stroke, all it knows is it's being pulled down by the crankshaft.
If your engine is always-on turbocharged though, like a race car might be, then the decreased exhaust pressure might cause a drop in intake manifold pressure in turn. I'm kinda doubting it though.
=Smidge=
Please explain the difference, other than the amount of fuel you put into the engine, between engine braking and normal operation.
=Smidge=
(Hint: There aren't any.)
While I certainly don't disagree with you on principles, this caught my eye:
Subtracting school & sleep, that leaves 5 hours a day for other things (not even counting things like homework, meals, etc).
24 hours in a day - 9 (sleep) - 5 "left over" = 10. Your kids spend 10+ hours a day at school? Hardcore. For me, Elementary/Middle school lasted from 8AM to 2PM (plus or minus) which is only 6 hours.
=Smidge=
You ------------------>
The Point
Even if interfacing with a manufacturer's computer was simple (doubtful), and even if said computer did everything I wanted (highly unlikely, then again I never actually said what I'd be doing so how would you know?) I think I'd still come out ahead financially by rolling my own. Considering the car ('64 Rambler) was recently restored and insured as a classic it's not something I'd be driving enough to worry about gas prices.
Thanks for playing, though.
=Smidge=