Having a take-home receipt that can be used to verify how a vote was cast is just asking for trouble.
"Hey, buddy, bring me a receipt that says you voted for 'John B. Asshat' and I'll give you $100 cash. Sound good?"
Any and all paper records need to be kept confidential, which is slightly easier (but definitely not foolproof) if the government maintains those records. =Smidge=
We're 24th (down from 19th if I remember last year's number correctly, it's been a while) by percentage, which matters more.
Why does it matter at all? Also, what criteria does this study/survey use to determine "broadband"? That makes a pretty big difference.
I don't have access to the actual report (seems you need to pay for that) but I have a little theory about what dominates the "market penetration" as they call it: Density.
United States: 80 people per square mile. South Korea: 1,274 people per square mile.
(National averages)
Let's compare apples to apples. S. Korea is 16 times more dense than the USA, which makes it a HELL of a lot easier to wire everybody up. Anyone care to guess what the broadband market penetration is for regions of the USA that have a population density of 16 times the national average or greater? I'm willing to bet it's not 24th anymore.
A better metric would be % of households that have ability to get broadband compared to those that do. Or at least do something to adjust for population densities so urban areas don't skew the numbers so much.
Just FYI, China is currently 14.35% (From the article). Population density of 367 people / sq. mi.
=Smidge= (All data calculated from CIA World Factbook, July 2007)
Was there illegal copyright infringement? No one will know until after the necessary fact finding for discovery.
That's the problem. If I read the filing correctly, the RIAA hasn't even accused him of violating copyright yet. Opportunity to break the law, by itself, is not enough to do anything.
You obviously own, or at least have access to, a computer. Computers are used for all sorts fo criminal activities. I will now subpoena your ISP, place of employment, school, etc. for evidence of wrongdoing.
But there is a difference between, say, wiretapping under supervision of a court because you had enough of a case to warrant it... and just shooting in the dark hoping to catch something. You know, legal vs. illegal wiretapping.
Not to say the government has always been straight as an arrow about it, but Bush & Co. have by far been the most brazen about their exploits. C'mon guys, at least try to act like you're not violating the laws with total abandon. =Smidge=
I must apologize, I had modded to +1 Interesting but after reading the PDF itself I think I'll reply to your comment instead.
What he is arguing is, at least as I see it: "Just because I left it in a public place does not mean anyone actually copied it. You have not claimed anyone but your agent has copied it, you have not claimed that I invited anyone to copy it, you have not claimed that I was aware anyone has copied it, nor that I as even aware they they could be copied." (Emphasis mine, the original word was "alleged")
...but they filed for a subpoena anyway. In short, it seems the RIAA hasn't even accused anyone of wrongdoing before asking for their personal information. All they saw was "Hey, this kid has music files that I can download" and went at him. THAT is the basis upon which the subpoena is being challanged.
A possibly poor analogy: I leave a CD on a table in a public place (a public park, say), for whatever reason. An RIAA agent comes by, sees the CD, and noticed he can pick it up. They then subpoena the town/city for all records of who was in the park that day, sitting at that particular table, because someone was "distributing" music illegally.
The kicker is, he cites supporting law verbage and other court cases where this situation was determined to not be copyright infringement.
I hate this soft culture we are brining up who don't learn about our travesties done to us and against us. What's next? 50 years from now we learn about how America brutally attacked the germans in World War 2 and Pearl harbor never happened? Operation: Desert Storm was about Americans getting oil, and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait never happened?
I think you have that backwards. History is, after all, written by the "winners."
From the summary: "No walls or other details can be seen inside the hole, and so any possible walls might be perfectly vertical and extremely dark or -- more likely -- overhanging."
If you look at the image more carefully, you can clearly see shades and highlights that suggest the terrain slopes into the hole all around. That pretty much excludes equipment faults. One possible theory is that the cavern is conical in shape, getting wider as it goes down, which would certainly explain why it's so dark.
Also remember this picture is taken from a satellite. I'm sure they'll be taking more as soon as they get an opportunity. =Smidge=
Of the world's maybe. Of the US's maybe. Of Canada, Japan, New Zealand, France, and Iceland not likely.
Wow, cherry-pick much? How long did you Google to find countries that have the lowest possible fossil fuel consumption? Except for Japan, anyway. Percentage wise, Japan's use of fossil fuels (~65%) is almost as bad as the US (~71%).
Just for shits & giggles, let's include China - a rapidly industrializing country whose electrical conspution is and will continue to expand rapidly - with ~82% of their power coming from "conventional thermal" generation. Or the UK with ~74%. Or Australia (~92%), Netherlands (~90%), Greece (~89%), India (~83%), Mexico (~83%), Denmark (~82%), or Italy (~82%). (source)
Hey look, I can be highly selective with my data too!
Here's an idea - maybe, just maybe, it is understood that the phrase "half as carbon intensive as grid power" only applies if the power comes from fossil fuel sources. Call me a radical thinker, but sometimes it's easier to consider the subtext than to throw yourself into a fit of self-righteous rage. =Smidge=
"Project Hydra" is named after the mythical Greek monster that grew back multiple heads when one was severed.
After reading that, I immediately assumed you were talking about the resulting network of bureaucratic asshats who would stall the project and drain the funds like so many vampires... just like the WTC rebuild project.
Then I read the rest of your post and found it much more informative than that. Kudos!
(I still expect a bureaucratic boondoggle, though...) =Smidge=
Your context was hard disks, my context was from by dkf's post (19176909) about financial audit trails. Sorry for the mixup there.
I would determine "Good enough" to be the point where the time and effort required to pull it off is unreasonable compared to other methods to acheive the same (or similar) result.
Although I still think you're underestimating the practical implications. Yes, in theory it is "easy" to alter data in a way that is hard to detect but still hashes the same as unaltered data - but in practice... To find two data sets with the same hash and yet are similar enough to be interchanged without rousing suspicion? I still say it's impossible.
Considering SHA-1 is 160 bit, then there should be 2^160 unique outputs each with at least one unique input. The input range is 0 to 2^64-1 bits, or 2^(2^64-1) unique sets (Check that math?). In that range, find two sets that produce the same output (which has been proven possible) *and* are at least, say, 80% identical. That sounds like a reasonable fudge factor to me before one could become suspicious that the data was tampered with.
I'm no mathematician or cryptologist, so you may actually find one (or many!) - but then consider the odds that the matching sets represent both the original data AND the desired altered data. The likelyhood of finding it would probably increase with set size, but by the time we're dealing with sets that are billions of terabytes large we'd probably have moved on to something else. =Smidge=
So I will give you a database dump and an SHA1 digest for it. Produce a set of data that has the same SHA1 hash value while preserving the database structure and without introducing any "noise" that would readily suggest corruption of some kind.
Good luck.
We are not talking about fouling up somebody's torrent by passing out junk data blocks. We're talking about purpose-made backups of specific data types. If I make a backup of my credit history then I would expect, if I ever needed t restore from said backup, that it would contain credit history data. Things like unallocated disk blocks and EXE files don't even begin to factor into it. If I have even the slightest concern that the data may have been tampered with, I can simply look for any discrepencies that I know shouldn't be there or for any data that is either not read into the database (junk at the end) or inconsistencies that suggest data was removed.
It's far from the trivial task you make it sound like. =Smidge=
(Point: a hash is a strong indication, but not a lock...)
Granted. However, what ar the odds that the dataset you produce will make sense in the given context?
For example, if you had 600GB of financial data "protected" by an SHA1 hash. You find another data set that had the same hash. Do you think you would be able to pass off your data set for the original? How likely is it that te program used to read the original will accept your data without complaint and not have obvious discrepencies from reality? Like, say, you tried to cover up a billion dollar funds transfer, but to make the hash work out someone else had to accumulate a debt equal to three times the global economy's annual production...
If you only want to corrupt or destroy the data, that's one thing. If you want to tamper with the data in a way that's not obvious (eg only change a small set of values), any success will likely be the result of pure luck. In that sense, a hash is a fairly decent way to tamper-proof data. =Smidge=
Software are no more physical than the thoughts in your head. It is was, the ways it could be expressed would be severely limited. He already have laws that protect ideas - copyrights. Do you mean to suggest that ideas are physical things? After all, you either think of it or you don't...
How the item is made makes no difference, so I fail to see how being able to "print" a copy of a physical item has any effect on patents. It is the design of the item that you patent, not the physical object.
I also said nothing about software being "obvious" - simply that, not being a physically unique thing, it shouldn't be patentable. Software is already covered by copyright laws.
Also, I'd be curious as to your definition of "obvious" is. AC and DC generators are obvious? Today they might be, but what about the time they were patented? You know, BEFORE the basic theory on which they operate was taught in elementary school... =Smidge=
Discrete machine elements are the means to execute an instruction, not the instruction itself.
The gear or linkage is the element that enables execution of the instructions and should be patentable. The speed, position or displacement of the gear is the instruction and should not be patentable. To get a different output for the same input, you must alter the elements to the extent that it can no longer be considered the same device. Unique devices can qualify for a patent.
The transistor is the element that enables execution of instructions and should be patentable. The state of charge on a transistor is the instruction and should not be patentable. To get a different output for the same input, you need only change the state of charge on the transistors* - but the physical state of the machine is identical.
The important distinction is the seperation of the physical device and it's purpose from the conditions it operates under. Two devices that serve the same purpose but are physically unique should be patentable. Two devices that are physically identical but used for different purposes should be patentable.** Altering the operating conditions of the same device to get a different result is obvious and should not be patentable.
=Smidge=
* - Does not count things like a new circuit design, which would produce a unique device and thus be patentable.
** - Providing that new use is not particularly "obvious."
I don't recall saying 14.7 MPG was good... but it's definitely an improvement over 11.3 MPG. I'll take what I can get. This is also "city miles" if that makes a difference.
To say the vehicle is in po0r repair would be something of an understatement. A little over 220,000 miles, V6 engine with all-wheel-drive. Antilock brake system is shot. power steering is iffy. The bearing on one of the serpentine belt pulleys is nearly dead. Front suspension is shot (I fully expect the wheel to fall off one day). There's some very sporadic but severe oil leak (it'll be fine for two weeks then magically be a quart low one morning). I guess you could say it's more of a death trap...
Basically if anything happens that costs more than $30 and a few hours to fix by myself, I'll declare it totaled and scrap it. Meh. =Smidge=
This is a rather important point many people don't understand. Driving the speed limit and driving defensively save gas.
Some anecdotal evidence of mine... I drive a '93 Dodge van with over 220K miles on it. It has an onboard computer that tells me both instantaneous and average MPG, so I decided to experiment.
Driving "normally" I got 11.3 MPG average over two weeks. Then I started using cruise control, whenever possible, set at the speed limit. Coasting whenever possible (I'm never in a hurry to get up to a red light anyway), not accelerating as hard and trying to avoid accelerating up hills. My next two-week average was 14.7 MPG.
Since my average commute is a little over 5 miles, I'm nearly 2 gallons of gas per week less than before... or about $7/week at current prices. That's worth it IMHO. =Smidge=
Ultimately, it's performance that makes a successful product, not gigahertz or nanometers.
Sure, the 45nm process has great potential for better performance and higher efficiency, just like faster clock speeds had great potential - until AMD made a better architecture and achieved better performance at a lower clock speed than Intel's offerings at the time.
Let's wait and see how it really performs before passing judgement. =Smidge=
By that logic, every time I decline to purchase an RIAA backed artist and instead buy from an Indie band, I'm stealing from the afore mentioned RIAA artist.
Ah, I see you finally understand the new American business model!
Thermostats are, of course, an essential part of the system as well. Without them you can't tell what temperature the space is supposed to be or what the temperature actually is. However, most spaces are not used all the time, and energy can be saved by relaxing teh ehating/cooling/ventilation requirements when they are not in use.
For example, NYS code specifies minimal outside air ventilatiion rates, based on either CFM per person or CFM per square foot, depending on the type of space. Outside air usually needs to be conditioned, which requires energy. If there is nobody in the room, I can tell the system to close the outside air damper and recirculate 100% inside air, thus adding only enough heat or cooling to maintain the space temperature with, say, 10 degrees of set point (lower fan speeds, coil bypass dampers or control valves partially or fully closed, etc).
Once the room is sensed as "occupied" I open my outside air dampers (typically 30% minimum), crank up the heat or cooling and bring the space to within a degree or two of set temperature.
At night or on weekends, when the space is pretty much guaranteed to not be occupied, I can relax the settings even more and put the system into a "sleep" state of sorts (Hydronic system pumps work intermittently or not at all, boilers throttle back or shut off). Since some people work nights and weekends, the occupancy sensors also act as an override which keeps the system "awake" when it normally wouldn't be.
Thermostats alone are not capable of this kind of control, at least not without constant human intervention. =Smidge=
I've been specifying "occupancy sensors" in commercial HVAC systems for years. Not only do they control the lights (so they turn off when someone leaves the room without hitting the switch) but they tie into the building management system/central HVAC control to handle things like ventilation cycles and temperature setbacks. Combine with a time clock like you describe and you get a great way to improve building efficiency. (No crappy website or phone call to deal with, though!)
The key difference in the article is, instead of just saying "Space is occupied" or going by time, it actually tracks individual persons and can tell how many people might be in a room or, more impressively, where a person might be going so it can plan ahead. =Smidge=
I wanted to make this point as well. Your average "silver" tooth filling contains over 100 milligrams of mercury - five times that of your average CFL bulb.
As each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, at the Maine "safety" standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to "safely" contain all the mercury in a single CFL.
This sentence is misleading in so many ways, it should be the subject of an article on JunkScience (which is published by the same asshat who wrote the article, oh Irony!).
5mg Hg per bulb is a voluntary industry cap, not the actual content. The article failed to mention the brand of bulb, but the vast majority of CFLs contain notably less than that. Philips produces a line of bulbs containing less than 2 mg Hg, for example, with 2.4-3 Hg being a more reasonable industry-wide benchmark and 4 mg Hg being a high mark.
The Maine "safety" standard is based on the natural occurrence of mercury rather than safe exposure levels. The purpose is to detect pollution above what could be potentially natural occurrences, not to ascertain immediate public health concerns. This is why the concentrations apply to soils instead of air. Maine also has some of the highest levels of mercury pollution in North America so they're (justifiably) edgy about the subject to begin with.
The MSDS for Mercury (PDF, page 6) lists poisoning concentrations start at eight hours of exposure at 44 mg Hg per cubic meter (or 0.15 mg over 46 days with notably fewer symptoms), which means you would have to be huffing the broken bulbs to really be in danger. Assuming this woman hasn't been breaking bulbs in her house every day for the past thirty years there is also no risk of chronic poisoning. In short: Open a window, you ain't gonna die. =Smidge=
The word is "combine" not "include" - Oracle offers a variety of Database "flavors" (editions) as well as services and utility suites. If you "combine" these offerings, Oracle comes in second.
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Having a take-home receipt that can be used to verify how a vote was cast is just asking for trouble.
"Hey, buddy, bring me a receipt that says you voted for 'John B. Asshat' and I'll give you $100 cash. Sound good?"
Any and all paper records need to be kept confidential, which is slightly easier (but definitely not foolproof) if the government maintains those records.
=Smidge=
Why does it matter at all? Also, what criteria does this study/survey use to determine "broadband"? That makes a pretty big difference.
I don't have access to the actual report (seems you need to pay for that) but I have a little theory about what dominates the "market penetration" as they call it: Density.
United States: 80 people per square mile.
South Korea: 1,274 people per square mile.
(National averages)
Let's compare apples to apples. S. Korea is 16 times more dense than the USA, which makes it a HELL of a lot easier to wire everybody up. Anyone care to guess what the broadband market penetration is for regions of the USA that have a population density of 16 times the national average or greater? I'm willing to bet it's not 24th anymore.
A better metric would be % of households that have ability to get broadband compared to those that do. Or at least do something to adjust for population densities so urban areas don't skew the numbers so much.
Just FYI, China is currently 14.35% (From the article). Population density of 367 people / sq. mi.
=Smidge=
(All data calculated from CIA World Factbook, July 2007)
That's the problem. If I read the filing correctly, the RIAA hasn't even accused him of violating copyright yet. Opportunity to break the law, by itself, is not enough to do anything.
You obviously own, or at least have access to, a computer. Computers are used for all sorts fo criminal activities. I will now subpoena your ISP, place of employment, school, etc. for evidence of wrongdoing.
=Smidge=
But there is a difference between, say, wiretapping under supervision of a court because you had enough of a case to warrant it... and just shooting in the dark hoping to catch something. You know, legal vs. illegal wiretapping.
Not to say the government has always been straight as an arrow about it, but Bush & Co. have by far been the most brazen about their exploits. C'mon guys, at least try to act like you're not violating the laws with total abandon.
=Smidge=
I must apologize, I had modded to +1 Interesting but after reading the PDF itself I think I'll reply to your comment instead.
...but they filed for a subpoena anyway. In short, it seems the RIAA hasn't even accused anyone of wrongdoing before asking for their personal information. All they saw was "Hey, this kid has music files that I can download" and went at him. THAT is the basis upon which the subpoena is being challanged.
What he is arguing is, at least as I see it: "Just because I left it in a public place does not mean anyone actually copied it. You have not claimed anyone but your agent has copied it, you have not claimed that I invited anyone to copy it, you have not claimed that I was aware anyone has copied it, nor that I as even aware they they could be copied." (Emphasis mine, the original word was "alleged")
A possibly poor analogy: I leave a CD on a table in a public place (a public park, say), for whatever reason. An RIAA agent comes by, sees the CD, and noticed he can pick it up. They then subpoena the town/city for all records of who was in the park that day, sitting at that particular table, because someone was "distributing" music illegally.
The kicker is, he cites supporting law verbage and other court cases where this situation was determined to not be copyright infringement.
IANAL though. Grain of salt for ya...
=Smidge=
Just so you know, that first paragraph was a botched blockquote from the parent... :/
Otherwise I agree.
=Smidge=
I hate this soft culture we are brining up who don't learn about our travesties done to us and against us. What's next? 50 years from now we learn about how America brutally attacked the germans in World War 2 and Pearl harbor never happened? Operation: Desert Storm was about Americans getting oil, and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait never happened?
I think you have that backwards. History is, after all, written by the "winners."
=Smidge=
From the summary: "No walls or other details can be seen inside the hole, and so any possible walls might be perfectly vertical and extremely dark or -- more likely -- overhanging."
If you look at the image more carefully, you can clearly see shades and highlights that suggest the terrain slopes into the hole all around. That pretty much excludes equipment faults. One possible theory is that the cavern is conical in shape, getting wider as it goes down, which would certainly explain why it's so dark.
Also remember this picture is taken from a satellite. I'm sure they'll be taking more as soon as they get an opportunity.
=Smidge=
Of the world's maybe. Of the US's maybe. Of Canada, Japan, New Zealand, France, and Iceland not likely.
Wow, cherry-pick much? How long did you Google to find countries that have the lowest possible fossil fuel consumption? Except for Japan, anyway. Percentage wise, Japan's use of fossil fuels (~65%) is almost as bad as the US (~71%).
Just for shits & giggles, let's include China - a rapidly industrializing country whose electrical conspution is and will continue to expand rapidly - with ~82% of their power coming from "conventional thermal" generation. Or the UK with ~74%. Or Australia (~92%), Netherlands (~90%), Greece (~89%), India (~83%), Mexico (~83%), Denmark (~82%), or Italy (~82%). (source)
Hey look, I can be highly selective with my data too!
Here's an idea - maybe, just maybe, it is understood that the phrase "half as carbon intensive as grid power" only applies if the power comes from fossil fuel sources. Call me a radical thinker, but sometimes it's easier to consider the subtext than to throw yourself into a fit of self-righteous rage.
=Smidge=
After reading that, I immediately assumed you were talking about the resulting network of bureaucratic asshats who would stall the project and drain the funds like so many vampires... just like the WTC rebuild project.
Then I read the rest of your post and found it much more informative than that. Kudos!
(I still expect a bureaucratic boondoggle, though...)
=Smidge=
Cute :)
Your context was hard disks, my context was from by dkf's post (19176909) about financial audit trails. Sorry for the mixup there.
I would determine "Good enough" to be the point where the time and effort required to pull it off is unreasonable compared to other methods to acheive the same (or similar) result.
Although I still think you're underestimating the practical implications. Yes, in theory it is "easy" to alter data in a way that is hard to detect but still hashes the same as unaltered data - but in practice... To find two data sets with the same hash and yet are similar enough to be interchanged without rousing suspicion? I still say it's impossible.
Considering SHA-1 is 160 bit, then there should be 2^160 unique outputs each with at least one unique input. The input range is 0 to 2^64-1 bits, or 2^(2^64-1) unique sets (Check that math?). In that range, find two sets that produce the same output (which has been proven possible) *and* are at least, say, 80% identical. That sounds like a reasonable fudge factor to me before one could become suspicious that the data was tampered with.
I'm no mathematician or cryptologist, so you may actually find one (or many!) - but then consider the odds that the matching sets represent both the original data AND the desired altered data. The likelyhood of finding it would probably increase with set size, but by the time we're dealing with sets that are billions of terabytes large we'd probably have moved on to something else.
=Smidge=
So I will give you a database dump and an SHA1 digest for it. Produce a set of data that has the same SHA1 hash value while preserving the database structure and without introducing any "noise" that would readily suggest corruption of some kind.
Good luck.
We are not talking about fouling up somebody's torrent by passing out junk data blocks. We're talking about purpose-made backups of specific data types. If I make a backup of my credit history then I would expect, if I ever needed t restore from said backup, that it would contain credit history data. Things like unallocated disk blocks and EXE files don't even begin to factor into it. If I have even the slightest concern that the data may have been tampered with, I can simply look for any discrepencies that I know shouldn't be there or for any data that is either not read into the database (junk at the end) or inconsistencies that suggest data was removed.
It's far from the trivial task you make it sound like.
=Smidge=
(Point: a hash is a strong indication, but not a lock...)
Granted. However, what ar the odds that the dataset you produce will make sense in the given context?
For example, if you had 600GB of financial data "protected" by an SHA1 hash. You find another data set that had the same hash. Do you think you would be able to pass off your data set for the original? How likely is it that te program used to read the original will accept your data without complaint and not have obvious discrepencies from reality? Like, say, you tried to cover up a billion dollar funds transfer, but to make the hash work out someone else had to accumulate a debt equal to three times the global economy's annual production...
If you only want to corrupt or destroy the data, that's one thing. If you want to tamper with the data in a way that's not obvious (eg only change a small set of values), any success will likely be the result of pure luck. In that sense, a hash is a fairly decent way to tamper-proof data.
=Smidge=
Software are no more physical than the thoughts in your head. It is was, the ways it could be expressed would be severely limited. He already have laws that protect ideas - copyrights. Do you mean to suggest that ideas are physical things? After all, you either think of it or you don't...
=Smidge=
How the item is made makes no difference, so I fail to see how being able to "print" a copy of a physical item has any effect on patents. It is the design of the item that you patent, not the physical object.
I also said nothing about software being "obvious" - simply that, not being a physically unique thing, it shouldn't be patentable. Software is already covered by copyright laws.
Also, I'd be curious as to your definition of "obvious" is. AC and DC generators are obvious? Today they might be, but what about the time they were patented? You know, BEFORE the basic theory on which they operate was taught in elementary school...
=Smidge=
That argument doesn't quite hold up.
Discrete machine elements are the means to execute an instruction, not the instruction itself.
The gear or linkage is the element that enables execution of the instructions and should be patentable. The speed, position or displacement of the gear is the instruction and should not be patentable. To get a different output for the same input, you must alter the elements to the extent that it can no longer be considered the same device. Unique devices can qualify for a patent.
The transistor is the element that enables execution of instructions and should be patentable. The state of charge on a transistor is the instruction and should not be patentable. To get a different output for the same input, you need only change the state of charge on the transistors* - but the physical state of the machine is identical.
The important distinction is the seperation of the physical device and it's purpose from the conditions it operates under. Two devices that serve the same purpose but are physically unique should be patentable. Two devices that are physically identical but used for different purposes should be patentable.** Altering the operating conditions of the same device to get a different result is obvious and should not be patentable.
=Smidge=
* - Does not count things like a new circuit design, which would produce a unique device and thus be patentable.
** - Providing that new use is not particularly "obvious."
I don't recall saying 14.7 MPG was good... but it's definitely an improvement over 11.3 MPG. I'll take what I can get. This is also "city miles" if that makes a difference.
To say the vehicle is in po0r repair would be something of an understatement. A little over 220,000 miles, V6 engine with all-wheel-drive. Antilock brake system is shot. power steering is iffy. The bearing on one of the serpentine belt pulleys is nearly dead. Front suspension is shot (I fully expect the wheel to fall off one day). There's some very sporadic but severe oil leak (it'll be fine for two weeks then magically be a quart low one morning). I guess you could say it's more of a death trap...
Basically if anything happens that costs more than $30 and a few hours to fix by myself, I'll declare it totaled and scrap it. Meh.
=Smidge=
You're right, driving conservatively can not, in any way shape or form, improve fuel economy. If it does it's clearly a fluke of the vehicle.
My apologies.
=Smidge=
This is a rather important point many people don't understand. Driving the speed limit and driving defensively save gas.
Some anecdotal evidence of mine... I drive a '93 Dodge van with over 220K miles on it. It has an onboard computer that tells me both instantaneous and average MPG, so I decided to experiment.
Driving "normally" I got 11.3 MPG average over two weeks. Then I started using cruise control, whenever possible, set at the speed limit. Coasting whenever possible (I'm never in a hurry to get up to a red light anyway), not accelerating as hard and trying to avoid accelerating up hills. My next two-week average was 14.7 MPG.
Since my average commute is a little over 5 miles, I'm nearly 2 gallons of gas per week less than before... or about $7/week at current prices. That's worth it IMHO.
=Smidge=
Ultimately, it's performance that makes a successful product, not gigahertz or nanometers.
Sure, the 45nm process has great potential for better performance and higher efficiency, just like faster clock speeds had great potential - until AMD made a better architecture and achieved better performance at a lower clock speed than Intel's offerings at the time.
Let's wait and see how it really performs before passing judgement.
=Smidge=
Ah, I see you finally understand the new American business model!
=Smidge=
Thermostats are, of course, an essential part of the system as well. Without them you can't tell what temperature the space is supposed to be or what the temperature actually is. However, most spaces are not used all the time, and energy can be saved by relaxing teh ehating/cooling/ventilation requirements when they are not in use.
For example, NYS code specifies minimal outside air ventilatiion rates, based on either CFM per person or CFM per square foot, depending on the type of space. Outside air usually needs to be conditioned, which requires energy. If there is nobody in the room, I can tell the system to close the outside air damper and recirculate 100% inside air, thus adding only enough heat or cooling to maintain the space temperature with, say, 10 degrees of set point (lower fan speeds, coil bypass dampers or control valves partially or fully closed, etc).
Once the room is sensed as "occupied" I open my outside air dampers (typically 30% minimum), crank up the heat or cooling and bring the space to within a degree or two of set temperature.
At night or on weekends, when the space is pretty much guaranteed to not be occupied, I can relax the settings even more and put the system into a "sleep" state of sorts (Hydronic system pumps work intermittently or not at all, boilers throttle back or shut off). Since some people work nights and weekends, the occupancy sensors also act as an override which keeps the system "awake" when it normally wouldn't be.
Thermostats alone are not capable of this kind of control, at least not without constant human intervention.
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I've been specifying "occupancy sensors" in commercial HVAC systems for years. Not only do they control the lights (so they turn off when someone leaves the room without hitting the switch) but they tie into the building management system/central HVAC control to handle things like ventilation cycles and temperature setbacks. Combine with a time clock like you describe and you get a great way to improve building efficiency. (No crappy website or phone call to deal with, though!)
The key difference in the article is, instead of just saying "Space is occupied" or going by time, it actually tracks individual persons and can tell how many people might be in a room or, more impressively, where a person might be going so it can plan ahead.
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This sentence is misleading in so many ways, it should be the subject of an article on JunkScience (which is published by the same asshat who wrote the article, oh Irony!).
5mg Hg per bulb is a voluntary industry cap, not the actual content. The article failed to mention the brand of bulb, but the vast majority of CFLs contain notably less than that. Philips produces a line of bulbs containing less than 2 mg Hg, for example, with 2.4-3 Hg being a more reasonable industry-wide benchmark and 4 mg Hg being a high mark.
The Maine "safety" standard is based on the natural occurrence of mercury rather than safe exposure levels. The purpose is to detect pollution above what could be potentially natural occurrences, not to ascertain immediate public health concerns. This is why the concentrations apply to soils instead of air. Maine also has some of the highest levels of mercury pollution in North America so they're (justifiably) edgy about the subject to begin with.
The MSDS for Mercury (PDF, page 6) lists poisoning concentrations start at eight hours of exposure at 44 mg Hg per cubic meter (or 0.15 mg over 46 days with notably fewer symptoms), which means you would have to be huffing the broken bulbs to really be in danger. Assuming this woman hasn't been breaking bulbs in her house every day for the past thirty years there is also no risk of chronic poisoning. In short: Open a window, you ain't gonna die.
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The word is "combine" not "include" - Oracle offers a variety of Database "flavors" (editions) as well as services and utility suites. If you "combine" these offerings, Oracle comes in second.
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