I'm thinking the can opener was not terribly far behind a practical canning process. Arguably they are the same technology.
Similarly, the iPhone is the culmination of a lot of other technologies - it would have been a lot less compelling without a pervasive data network and a compact, powerful battery. An iPhone all by itself is a rather sad technology, indeed.
I'm going to vote for the compass. It's useful even without a giant supporting infrastructure, though it admittedly aided shipping the most.
The thing about "warmer" sound from tubes... it's actually not completely unreasonable. People don't listen to perfectly-reproduced signals, they like to mess with the frequency response. People mess with tone control all the time, and even the crappiest car radios have bass and treble control. Tubes mess with the signal in all sorts of complex ways, especially toward the top when a transistor would start clipping. It is reasonable that some people would find this distortion to be pleasant. It also seems like a non-trivial problem to recreate this distortion digitally, though recording it and playing it back should be fairly straightforward. I wonder if there's a market for pre-warmed music?:)
Nor is there a big gap between a typical laptop chip and the higher-end "mobile" stuff. Or rather, the gap is quickly diminishing. As for desktops, I'm not sure there is much of a low-end market anymore and the high-end can probably use Xeons or their derivatives just fine.
Gamers might have some issues with this, as their needs are not so much reliability but raw performance.
That's a good point. Not so much cost (those MOSFETs are $0.06 cost to me!) but the space. Now, in my case the 14500 protected cell and unprotected cell are the same capacity because the positive terminal is shorter to conserve overall length. But 18650 protected cells are physically longer because they don't necessarily have a positive "nipple" to shorten. Of course, if this small difference were common, you would just expect device makers to allow for the slop - cells are already held in with very forgiving springs. I think if you do some searching, though, you'll see that the protected cells are starting to get more and common. People are willing to give up some capacity or cost for safety and convenience.
But the main problem for me is that most of my devices expect approximately 1.1-1.7V, not the 3.0-4.2V delivered by the various lithium cells out there. Probably most of them could be modified with a cheap buck converter as long as they aren't putting out analog audio or something - and as I mentioned before there is one company which builds a buck converter into the battery... but that's kind of asinine.
This has improved quite a bit recently. I still write all my stuff to run on both 2.7 or 3.x, but more and more I'm able to use 3 exclusively. Yeah, there are a few try: blocks and imports at the top of all my files, but it's not so burdensome. It's not like they are forked - 2.7 can be made to behave very similarly to 3.x. Just run your tests in both versions.
Well, that and people with IOS seem more willing to spend money for apps. Which makes sense, since except for the few "flagship" Android phones, most are very inexpensive.
(I'm cheap, so I generally have an Android. I can't justify $600-700 for something that is, for me, a toy that has a sketchy phone built-in.)
I was using the layman's "battery=cell". I actually have AA-sized cells with a built-in protection circuitry that I bought from Aliexpress for less than a dollar each. They call the type a 14500. Even if the extra circuit were too expensive, the charger could be made smart and they could put a cheap resistor or something in some part of the housing of the battery that the charger could contact to determine the type of battery.
I only bought them because a component tester that I bought requires one. But I bought the 4 pack because they are handy - they fit in a standard AA battery holder and because they have built-in low voltage protection I don't need to worry about running them down - they simply cut out.
Aren't these problems mitigated by putting the protection circuitry on the battery? This is increasingly common in my experience. But when you are all done, you still have too much voltage:) I actually have AA-sized LiPo cells (with the built-in protection). They are a strange beast that I have to keep out of the way so that my kids don't stick them in something...
Last time I was in Home Depot for switches I bought the "preferred" contractor 10-pack for $10. The regular ones were $6 for 10. That's actually cheaper than even a brand-name incandescent. Unless you really meant witches, which are out of my price range.
Why don't we see Li-Ion rechargable batteries from Enloop, Energizer, or (ugh) Ray-o-Vac, etc. but only Chinese vendors?
I thought it was because the voltages were wrong? Energizer/Duracell sells disposable lithium. I don't think liability can be a serious problem, since literally every person I know keeps a lithium battery in their pocket or purse now - and they are allowed on airplanes.
Kentli sells Lithium rechargeables at 1.5v by including a built-in buck converter. Neat trick, but it seems awkward.
I agree that this is likely to be the case - but that kind of slow ramp up (along with the tendency they have to introduce the fully-loaded models first) has very large implications for people who put down a deposit just to be first on their block. Remember that at some point they need to drop the cost AND ramp up production. I'm not too concerned about the first few, high-cost, low-volume Model 3s - but there won't be very many of those.
I know it is Slashdot, and RTFA is too much to ask - but how about the summary? This is not about drinking water.
But even if it were, the distribution system would need to be completely changed to separate drinking water from other uses. It'd probably be more practical to filter it at the home than to run a second set of pipes everywhere and update all household and commercial plumbing.
Now imagine that you have purchased many accessories for you 2006 F-150, and that the total cost of these accessories far exceeds the cost of the original vehicle. Some of these accessories are of the type which will never wear out. Now the F-150 breaks. You can spend a small fraction of your total investment to buy the old 2006 model, or you can start all over again with the shiny 2016 model.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably not an issue if your lee is the Gulf of Oman or the Persian Gulf (I don't honestly know what the prevailing wind is in UAE).
Yeah, well if they are going to put the stupid makerbot on there, then the laser printer is fair game :)
Yeah, but... well, your Wikipedia link makes my point for me, linking to Matt Ridley's acticle.
I don't mean to get all semantic, but a printing press is not exactly a "gadget"...
I'm thinking the can opener was not terribly far behind a practical canning process. Arguably they are the same technology.
Similarly, the iPhone is the culmination of a lot of other technologies - it would have been a lot less compelling without a pervasive data network and a compact, powerful battery. An iPhone all by itself is a rather sad technology, indeed.
I'm going to vote for the compass. It's useful even without a giant supporting infrastructure, though it admittedly aided shipping the most.
The thing about "warmer" sound from tubes... it's actually not completely unreasonable. People don't listen to perfectly-reproduced signals, they like to mess with the frequency response. People mess with tone control all the time, and even the crappiest car radios have bass and treble control. Tubes mess with the signal in all sorts of complex ways, especially toward the top when a transistor would start clipping. It is reasonable that some people would find this distortion to be pleasant. It also seems like a non-trivial problem to recreate this distortion digitally, though recording it and playing it back should be fairly straightforward. I wonder if there's a market for pre-warmed music? :)
As a smooth person, I'm triggered by the word "chunky".
Nor is there a big gap between a typical laptop chip and the higher-end "mobile" stuff. Or rather, the gap is quickly diminishing. As for desktops, I'm not sure there is much of a low-end market anymore and the high-end can probably use Xeons or their derivatives just fine.
Gamers might have some issues with this, as their needs are not so much reliability but raw performance.
That's a good point. Not so much cost (those MOSFETs are $0.06 cost to me!) but the space. Now, in my case the 14500 protected cell and unprotected cell are the same capacity because the positive terminal is shorter to conserve overall length. But 18650 protected cells are physically longer because they don't necessarily have a positive "nipple" to shorten. Of course, if this small difference were common, you would just expect device makers to allow for the slop - cells are already held in with very forgiving springs. I think if you do some searching, though, you'll see that the protected cells are starting to get more and common. People are willing to give up some capacity or cost for safety and convenience.
But the main problem for me is that most of my devices expect approximately 1.1-1.7V, not the 3.0-4.2V delivered by the various lithium cells out there. Probably most of them could be modified with a cheap buck converter as long as they aren't putting out analog audio or something - and as I mentioned before there is one company which builds a buck converter into the battery... but that's kind of asinine.
This has improved quite a bit recently. I still write all my stuff to run on both 2.7 or 3.x, but more and more I'm able to use 3 exclusively. Yeah, there are a few try: blocks and imports at the top of all my files, but it's not so burdensome. It's not like they are forked - 2.7 can be made to behave very similarly to 3.x. Just run your tests in both versions.
Why would he need an emulator when his Chromebook has an x86 processor?
Well, that and people with IOS seem more willing to spend money for apps. Which makes sense, since except for the few "flagship" Android phones, most are very inexpensive.
(I'm cheap, so I generally have an Android. I can't justify $600-700 for something that is, for me, a toy that has a sketchy phone built-in.)
Nice datasheet kung-fu. And it's not even in Chinese!
So it turns out that I basically have one of these stuck on the negative side of the battery:
battery protection circuit
It's a pair of MOSFETs, along with some reverse-polarity protection.
Hmmm, now you make me want to take one apart. They were under a buck, after all. If I don't burn the house down, I'll report back.
I was using the layman's "battery=cell". I actually have AA-sized cells with a built-in protection circuitry that I bought from Aliexpress for less than a dollar each. They call the type a 14500. Even if the extra circuit were too expensive, the charger could be made smart and they could put a cheap resistor or something in some part of the housing of the battery that the charger could contact to determine the type of battery.
I only bought them because a component tester that I bought requires one. But I bought the 4 pack because they are handy - they fit in a standard AA battery holder and because they have built-in low voltage protection I don't need to worry about running them down - they simply cut out.
Aren't these problems mitigated by putting the protection circuitry on the battery? This is increasingly common in my experience. But when you are all done, you still have too much voltage :) I actually have AA-sized LiPo cells (with the built-in protection). They are a strange beast that I have to keep out of the way so that my kids don't stick them in something...
Last time I was in Home Depot for switches I bought the "preferred" contractor 10-pack for $10. The regular ones were $6 for 10. That's actually cheaper than even a brand-name incandescent. Unless you really meant witches, which are out of my price range.
Why don't we see Li-Ion rechargable batteries from Enloop, Energizer, or (ugh) Ray-o-Vac, etc. but only Chinese vendors?
I thought it was because the voltages were wrong? Energizer/Duracell sells disposable lithium. I don't think liability can be a serious problem, since literally every person I know keeps a lithium battery in their pocket or purse now - and they are allowed on airplanes.
Kentli sells Lithium rechargeables at 1.5v by including a built-in buck converter. Neat trick, but it seems awkward.
Thankfully the switches are now cheaper than the bulbs :)
I agree that this is likely to be the case - but that kind of slow ramp up (along with the tendency they have to introduce the fully-loaded models first) has very large implications for people who put down a deposit just to be first on their block. Remember that at some point they need to drop the cost AND ramp up production. I'm not too concerned about the first few, high-cost, low-volume Model 3s - but there won't be very many of those.
I know it is Slashdot, and RTFA is too much to ask - but how about the summary? This is not about drinking water.
But even if it were, the distribution system would need to be completely changed to separate drinking water from other uses. It'd probably be more practical to filter it at the home than to run a second set of pipes everywhere and update all household and commercial plumbing.
Ben Franklin is on the $100, and he was never President.
Car analogy... naturally.
Now imagine that you have purchased many accessories for you 2006 F-150, and that the total cost of these accessories far exceeds the cost of the original vehicle. Some of these accessories are of the type which will never wear out. Now the F-150 breaks. You can spend a small fraction of your total investment to buy the old 2006 model, or you can start all over again with the shiny 2016 model.
Oh, no! Not... the middle class! What a fat-cat.