You're citing an experiment performed in the 1950's.
They can make machines that are MUCH more sensitive now, and if you're only interested in detecting presence and not actual study, they don't need to be that fancy. =Smidge=
Furthermore, the difference between 2^30 and 10^9 is too small to make a realistic difference to potential users. 7.3% is not what I'd call a small difference. The difference is only small if you have small capacity to begin with, but once you're up in the "GB" range the difference really starts to show. "1GB" is really only 930MB, and 70MB is still a decent amount of data.
On a 50GB iPod the difference is big enough to hold about six full albums worth of music or a full length movie. =Smidge=
If your prints are valuable why are you printing them on paper that will erase itself in a day's time?
I'm seriously skeptical of this invention's utility. Besides not lasting more than 24 hours, what happens when people do normal "paper things" to the sheets; Highlight, annotate, fold, staple etc? Plus I've recycled paper as scrap (print on other side) and the paper tends to curl rather dramatically after a few passes through. Unless the special printer that's required has a straight path I can't see a single sheet lasting 100 uses. =Smidge=
Well the whole point of the test would be to prove there IS better battery life and faster seek times - objectively.
If objective tests show no real advantage, then any subjective improvement in value is basically self-delusion... probably in an attempt to justify the extra cost to yourself.
If the test DO show an improvement, then I agree it is more up to the customer to determine if the extra cost is worth the extra performance. =Smidge=
Local landfill offers free mulch and wood chips made from all the collected leaves/tree branches etc. No limit if you bring your own container (eg open-top trailer).
I'd consider $10,000 an investment if it could do that. Not only would I run my car with the fuel but I'd heat my home, make hot domestic water and find a way to cook with it too. =Smidge=
In that case, you completely fail to understand the underlying process described in the article.
Nobody, at any point, claimed that the energy was, or even could be, converted with 100% efficiency.
What they did claim was a 50% efficiency on chemically converting the source biomass into a hydrocarbon fuel. In other words, right now they can convert half the biomass to fuel, and the other half ends up as vapor and/or soot (both undesirable outcomes, eg waste).
That conversion efficiency is a physical process and not limited to thermodynamic efficiency.
From a strictly energy point of view, there are no clues on the efficiency. However (and I'm sure this with make your head explode...) the efficiency is hopefully greater than 100%.
Explanation: If you don't count the latent energy in the biomass (which is, from the standpoint of the conversion process, "free") then adding a small amount of energy should result in an end product that has more energy in it than what we put in. =Smidge=
Riiiight. So I guess they measure light sources with temperature ratings for completely arbitrary, non-scientific reasons? Electromagnetic energy does not magically become different with wavelength. It's a continuous spectrum, after all. If anything is arbitrary it's the classifications that we use (eg "thermal" IR, Visible Light, etc) which are based entirely on human subjectivity.
I'm not entirely sure what type of processing plant you supposedly worked in, or what the necessary qualifications were, but more and more I suspect it involved a mop and bucket.
Here's an experiment you can try for under $50: Get decent laser pointer with a known wavelength output (which will certainly be in the "visible" range...) and a little toy called a Radiometer. Point the laser pointer on the black side of the veins and wait a few moments.
If what you said was true = "heat and light operate at different wavelengths" - then the radiometer will not react at all. It would be impossible for the monochromatic light to heat up the device since light and heat are not the same thing, right? The photon momentum alone is nowhere near enough to overcome the static friction and inertia of the device. You can go ahead and work out the math to figure out how much that is depending on the laser's wattage and wavelength.
However, if heat and light are really two forms of the same thing, eventually the radiometer will begin to move.
Isn't science great?
For added value, you can shine the laser on the white side of the veins to drastically reduce the absorption, and thus rely almost entirely on the photon momentum. Good luck with that. =Smidge=
care to explain how that works since thermodynamic's is all about energy loss moving physical parts around? *BZZZT* WRONG! Thermodynamics is all about the transport of energy, specifically heat energy (hence that "thermal" part there). It has nothing to do with physical processes. Even more specifically, the second law of thermodynamics ("you can't break even") applies only to cases where a conversion in energy is performed. To be as pedantic as you are about it, the second law says you can't convert heat into work with 100% efficiency.
The fact that things like friction, cohesion and viscosity exist has absolutely nothing to do with thermodynamics. Nothing.
How about a practical example?
I have a bottle of water here. Using a number of processes, I can remove the water from the bottle: Drink it, pour it out, jab a hole in the bottom, pump it out, heat it until it all evaporates, etc. Are you saying that it's impossible to remove ALL the water, since no "process" can be 100% efficient?
Another example, more relevant to this article: I have a graphite pencil here as well. Are you saying that no matter what I do, it's impossible to convert all of the carbon in this pencil to carbon dioxide? =Smidge=
Hey guess what! Light is directly equivalent to heat! I guess you slept through the whole "radiative heat transfer" portion of Physics 101.
And it's not like you can build an electric heater that doesn't get so hot it visibly glows...
You said something profoundly stupid and now you're embarrassed and have to defend it. It's okay, happens to everyone. Just eat your crow and move on... it's good for you anyway. =Smidge=
Gotta be careful with how they're defining "efficiency" here.
They are not talking about thermal efficiency, they are talking about conversion efficiency: how much of the input gets converted to final product. The thermodynamic limits on efficiency do not apply here, so 100% is technically doable.
To be honest, I think it was their blind loyalty to the "vision of purpose" that's done more damage to the project than anything else.
By not offering the product to the general public, they not only screwed themselves at the start trying to meet minimum production numbers, but also a source of income (non-profit doesn't mean they can't make money at all...) - they G1G1 program should have been a long-term strategy starting at day one.
It's quite a noble cause but that cause does not benefit at all from restricting the sales.
I just wonder how much sooner this problem would have been identified if there were more units in the hands of private individuals who WILL beat the crap out of them. =Smidge=
How many people have a CHOICE to own something other than a gasoline vehicle? Excluding a handful of DIY there are no options.
Incidentally, I know quite a few people who own multiple vehicles. Specifically, a small car for "around the town" type of driving and daily use, and another vehicle for more serious work/recreation (typically something with towing capability and cargo storage, like a minivan or pickup). My anecdote cancels your anecdote, I guess.
35 miles/day is the current national average. That's what it is. That's three days worth of commuting on a single charge using yesterday's battery technology (plain lead-acid). If you're willing to pay for it you can get some nice (patent encumbered) automotive grade NiMH batteries that would nearly double that.
Also, don't forget the fact that an electric car stopped in traffic uses ZERO energy. Unlike a gasoline car which typically keeps the motor running even when not moving, an electric car can sit in traffic practically forever. Even if you add things like A/C and radio, those run off a separate accessory battery and not directly the main motor bank.
Now, is an electric car for everyone? Of course not. But I still think you are selling them way short, since there were literally thousands of people on the waiting list to lease an EV1 for $500/mo despite very limited regional availability. =Smidge=
That's called a hybrid. Specifically, a series hybrid (Engine->Generator->Motor, opposed to parallel hybrid where the engine can power the wheels directly)
You don't want to just toss a generator into your trunk because they are much less efficient than a purpose built car engine and typically have no pollution controls installed. =Smidge=
Because that was nanoparticles (~40 atoms each), not a solid material. Even if the electrical resistance within the particle was perfect, the resistance from one particle to the next could not be guaranteed.
Last month some team in Germany discovered a "room temperature" superconductor. That's still not terribly useful, though, unless you can build a wire that is safely under almost 4000 atmospheres of pressure required to turn the Silane gas into a solid. =Smidge=
I recall something in the news about a HTS cable being installed in Albany, NY in... 2006? IIRC it wasn't especially impressive - a single cable that shunted power between substations several blocks away.
I'm not aware of any others and would also love to hear about them. =Smidge=
I suppose it all depends on what your definition of "feasible" is. How far do you drive in a single day? Depending on who you talk to, the average American commutes to and from work for an average distance of about 35 miles. An electric car with a 100 mile range between charges is far from infeasible. In fact, it was done but the project was scrapped under somewhat suspicious circumstances.
Something that gets you to and from the store and wherever you work is my definition of practical, and that level of performance is clearly attainable for what some studies suggest are the average usage conditions in this country. So what's the problem here? =Smidge=
I applaud the attempt at a car analogy, but the hurdles to a practical electric car extend way beyond technology and even economics - it's almost all politics.
The TV series takes place in a different universe from the movies, and had a lot more going for it IMHO. The slightly more episodic storytelling gives a new life to it. (Plus everything was well-lit so you could actually see what was going on.)
What I'm trying to say is the story is only dead-ended if they try to stick with the movie setting. They could do something new with the characters without killing the whole thing. =Smidge=
1) Not a hell of a lot. This is solar thermal, not solar photovoltaic, so there are basically no nasty chemical processes. Some vapor deposition for making mirrors but that's about it.
2) No doubt it would change the local environment, but considering it's currently desert the change would probably improve conditions for local wildlife. Add shade, decrease ground temperatures, maybe even help retain moisture in the soil.
3) High voltage DC transmission can send electricity thousands of miles while maintaining acceptable losses. About 5% per 1000 miles. You can't do it with AC because such long cables have huge capacitance that makes reversing the voltage 60 times per second rather difficult. Also, there's less issues with synching the AC waveform with whoever it's connected to - local inverters do that.
Why not simply build a nuclear powerplant closer to the consumers? 1) NIMBY - everybody wants it but yet nobody wants it.
2) Waste is still an issue, since the USA is scared shitless to reprocess nuclear waste (it's actually illegal in this country thanks to anti-proliferation legislation).
The pilgrims have nothing to do with it. Don't be a douchebag.
By the time the Constitution was drafted, there were already colonies with independent economies and even separate currencies. Trade between colonies was without a doubt a very common thing. Just because it didn't take place over thousands of miles doesn't make it any different, and just because it took days instead of minutes doesn't make it any different.
For the record, online sales are probably STILL going to be cheaper from many retailers if only because the bigger operations are effected less by operational overhead, just like most big chain stores are cheaper than small mom-n-pop businesses. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
You're citing an experiment performed in the 1950's.
They can make machines that are MUCH more sensitive now, and if you're only interested in detecting presence and not actual study, they don't need to be that fancy.
=Smidge=
On a 50GB iPod the difference is big enough to hold about six full albums worth of music or a full length movie.
=Smidge=
I thought the standard was "Libraries of Congress" for data measurement!
=Smidge=
If your prints are valuable why are you printing them on paper that will erase itself in a day's time?
I'm seriously skeptical of this invention's utility. Besides not lasting more than 24 hours, what happens when people do normal "paper things" to the sheets; Highlight, annotate, fold, staple etc? Plus I've recycled paper as scrap (print on other side) and the paper tends to curl rather dramatically after a few passes through. Unless the special printer that's required has a straight path I can't see a single sheet lasting 100 uses.
=Smidge=
Well the whole point of the test would be to prove there IS better battery life and faster seek times - objectively.
If objective tests show no real advantage, then any subjective improvement in value is basically self-delusion... probably in an attempt to justify the extra cost to yourself.
If the test DO show an improvement, then I agree it is more up to the customer to determine if the extra cost is worth the extra performance.
=Smidge=
Local landfill offers free mulch and wood chips made from all the collected leaves/tree branches etc. No limit if you bring your own container (eg open-top trailer).
I'd consider $10,000 an investment if it could do that. Not only would I run my car with the fuel but I'd heat my home, make hot domestic water and find a way to cook with it too.
=Smidge=
What about companies that pay for ads distributed by spam botnets? If you can't attack the spammers directly, attack their source of revenue.
=Smidge=
Definitely the human's problem, although presumably if a human is smart enough to make it then a human is smart enough to figure it out...
To be optimistic, I actually like to think of it the other way around:
CAPTCHAs are providing a valuable evolutionary pressure on machine vision/artificial intelligence development!
=Smidge=
In that case, you completely fail to understand the underlying process described in the article.
Nobody, at any point, claimed that the energy was, or even could be, converted with 100% efficiency.
What they did claim was a 50% efficiency on chemically converting the source biomass into a hydrocarbon fuel. In other words, right now they can convert half the biomass to fuel, and the other half ends up as vapor and/or soot (both undesirable outcomes, eg waste).
That conversion efficiency is a physical process and not limited to thermodynamic efficiency.
From a strictly energy point of view, there are no clues on the efficiency. However (and I'm sure this with make your head explode...) the efficiency is hopefully greater than 100%.
Explanation: If you don't count the latent energy in the biomass (which is, from the standpoint of the conversion process, "free") then adding a small amount of energy should result in an end product that has more energy in it than what we put in.
=Smidge=
Riiiight. So I guess they measure light sources with temperature ratings for completely arbitrary, non-scientific reasons? Electromagnetic energy does not magically become different with wavelength. It's a continuous spectrum, after all. If anything is arbitrary it's the classifications that we use (eg "thermal" IR, Visible Light, etc) which are based entirely on human subjectivity.
I'm not entirely sure what type of processing plant you supposedly worked in, or what the necessary qualifications were, but more and more I suspect it involved a mop and bucket.
Here's an experiment you can try for under $50: Get decent laser pointer with a known wavelength output (which will certainly be in the "visible" range...) and a little toy called a Radiometer. Point the laser pointer on the black side of the veins and wait a few moments.
If what you said was true = "heat and light operate at different wavelengths" - then the radiometer will not react at all. It would be impossible for the monochromatic light to heat up the device since light and heat are not the same thing, right? The photon momentum alone is nowhere near enough to overcome the static friction and inertia of the device. You can go ahead and work out the math to figure out how much that is depending on the laser's wattage and wavelength.
However, if heat and light are really two forms of the same thing, eventually the radiometer will begin to move.
Isn't science great?
For added value, you can shine the laser on the white side of the veins to drastically reduce the absorption, and thus rely almost entirely on the photon momentum. Good luck with that.
=Smidge=
The fact that things like friction, cohesion and viscosity exist has absolutely nothing to do with thermodynamics. Nothing.
How about a practical example?
I have a bottle of water here. Using a number of processes, I can remove the water from the bottle: Drink it, pour it out, jab a hole in the bottom, pump it out, heat it until it all evaporates, etc. Are you saying that it's impossible to remove ALL the water, since no "process" can be 100% efficient?
Another example, more relevant to this article: I have a graphite pencil here as well. Are you saying that no matter what I do, it's impossible to convert all of the carbon in this pencil to carbon dioxide?
=Smidge=
Hey guess what! Light is directly equivalent to heat! I guess you slept through the whole "radiative heat transfer" portion of Physics 101.
And it's not like you can build an electric heater that doesn't get so hot it visibly glows...
You said something profoundly stupid and now you're embarrassed and have to defend it. It's okay, happens to everyone. Just eat your crow and move on... it's good for you anyway.
=Smidge=
Poor grammar, little understanding of the subject, being unjustifiably pedantic AND a Godwin! You're on a roll today!
As others have pointed out, including myself, limits to thermodynamic efficiencies do not apply to physical processes. They just don't.
=Smidge=
Gotta be careful with how they're defining "efficiency" here.
They are not talking about thermal efficiency, they are talking about conversion efficiency: how much of the input gets converted to final product. The thermodynamic limits on efficiency do not apply here, so 100% is technically doable.
=Smidge=
To be honest, I think it was their blind loyalty to the "vision of purpose" that's done more damage to the project than anything else.
By not offering the product to the general public, they not only screwed themselves at the start trying to meet minimum production numbers, but also a source of income (non-profit doesn't mean they can't make money at all...) - they G1G1 program should have been a long-term strategy starting at day one.
It's quite a noble cause but that cause does not benefit at all from restricting the sales.
I just wonder how much sooner this problem would have been identified if there were more units in the hands of private individuals who WILL beat the crap out of them.
=Smidge=
How many people have a CHOICE to own something other than a gasoline vehicle? Excluding a handful of DIY there are no options.
Incidentally, I know quite a few people who own multiple vehicles. Specifically, a small car for "around the town" type of driving and daily use, and another vehicle for more serious work/recreation (typically something with towing capability and cargo storage, like a minivan or pickup). My anecdote cancels your anecdote, I guess.
35 miles/day is the current national average. That's what it is. That's three days worth of commuting on a single charge using yesterday's battery technology (plain lead-acid). If you're willing to pay for it you can get some nice (patent encumbered) automotive grade NiMH batteries that would nearly double that.
Also, don't forget the fact that an electric car stopped in traffic uses ZERO energy. Unlike a gasoline car which typically keeps the motor running even when not moving, an electric car can sit in traffic practically forever. Even if you add things like A/C and radio, those run off a separate accessory battery and not directly the main motor bank.
Now, is an electric car for everyone? Of course not. But I still think you are selling them way short, since there were literally thousands of people on the waiting list to lease an EV1 for $500/mo despite very limited regional availability.
=Smidge=
That's certainly a valid point, but I think you are not in the majority with that preference.
And that still doesn't make an all-electric car infeasible.
=Smidge=
That's called a hybrid. Specifically, a series hybrid (Engine->Generator->Motor, opposed to parallel hybrid where the engine can power the wheels directly)
You don't want to just toss a generator into your trunk because they are much less efficient than a purpose built car engine and typically have no pollution controls installed.
=Smidge=
Because that was nanoparticles (~40 atoms each), not a solid material. Even if the electrical resistance within the particle was perfect, the resistance from one particle to the next could not be guaranteed.
Last month some team in Germany discovered a "room temperature" superconductor. That's still not terribly useful, though, unless you can build a wire that is safely under almost 4000 atmospheres of pressure required to turn the Silane gas into a solid.
=Smidge=
I recall something in the news about a HTS cable being installed in Albany, NY in... 2006? IIRC it wasn't especially impressive - a single cable that shunted power between substations several blocks away.
I'm not aware of any others and would also love to hear about them.
=Smidge=
I suppose it all depends on what your definition of "feasible" is. How far do you drive in a single day? Depending on who you talk to, the average American commutes to and from work for an average distance of about 35 miles. An electric car with a 100 mile range between charges is far from infeasible. In fact, it was done but the project was scrapped under somewhat suspicious circumstances.
Something that gets you to and from the store and wherever you work is my definition of practical, and that level of performance is clearly attainable for what some studies suggest are the average usage conditions in this country. So what's the problem here?
=Smidge=
I applaud the attempt at a car analogy, but the hurdles to a practical electric car extend way beyond technology and even economics - it's almost all politics.
=Smidge=
The TV series takes place in a different universe from the movies, and had a lot more going for it IMHO. The slightly more episodic storytelling gives a new life to it. (Plus everything was well-lit so you could actually see what was going on.)
What I'm trying to say is the story is only dead-ended if they try to stick with the movie setting. They could do something new with the characters without killing the whole thing.
=Smidge=
2) No doubt it would change the local environment, but considering it's currently desert the change would probably improve conditions for local wildlife. Add shade, decrease ground temperatures, maybe even help retain moisture in the soil.
3) High voltage DC transmission can send electricity thousands of miles while maintaining acceptable losses. About 5% per 1000 miles. You can't do it with AC because such long cables have huge capacitance that makes reversing the voltage 60 times per second rather difficult. Also, there's less issues with synching the AC waveform with whoever it's connected to - local inverters do that. Why not simply build a nuclear powerplant closer to the consumers? 1) NIMBY - everybody wants it but yet nobody wants it.
2) Waste is still an issue, since the USA is scared shitless to reprocess nuclear waste (it's actually illegal in this country thanks to anti-proliferation legislation).
=Smidge=
The pilgrims have nothing to do with it. Don't be a douchebag.
By the time the Constitution was drafted, there were already colonies with independent economies and even separate currencies. Trade between colonies was without a doubt a very common thing. Just because it didn't take place over thousands of miles doesn't make it any different, and just because it took days instead of minutes doesn't make it any different.
For the record, online sales are probably STILL going to be cheaper from many retailers if only because the bigger operations are effected less by operational overhead, just like most big chain stores are cheaper than small mom-n-pop businesses.
=Smidge=