"This applies to both jobseekers and employed workers. If I'm a prospective client touring your offices and I see you dress super casually, then I will assume you will be super casual about my business as well.
Until I've hired you or your company and tried you out myself, I won't know how good you really are. There's lots of other workers / companies with reputations and resumes as good as yours. Again, if you dont take your dress seriously then I've no reason to think you better than the applicant who does."
You have no reason to assume they are less capable, and you have no reason to think they are not better than the other option given equal reputation/credentials. Therefore you make an arbitrary decision according to your biases. So long as you admit and understand that is how you are making your decision that is fine. But don't attribute success in your picks to arbitrary factors.
And don't point to the fact that success is more likely from making a decision that way. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. If every time you make a choice this way is based on appearances then only those with better appearances have the chance of success. Only with equal distribution of opportunity with a disproportionate success rate going to those that have a better apperance would give even the begining of a solid basis for picking people based on appearance rather than substance. Even then most people would shy away from caliming they are better BECAUSE they dress nice. In fact everyone says like you do that you choose them because you hope it is indicative of how they approach their work.
I grew up playing sports with kids from the full spectrum of economic stature. That experience has taught me that apperance has jack shit to do with the quality of work, talent, skill, and even manners that someone has. Their were slackers, jackasses, talented, and hard working individuals from all walks, all shades, and all manner of dress.
Lack of info is not and will NEVER be a basis for making an informed choice. And I find it funny that you think you can't read enough of a book to decide by something other than the cover, and largely paid for reviews, before buying one. Most decent stores these days have comfy chairs to sit in to do just that. Fiction stories don't really need much justification. But technical books are another matter entirely. If you really do buy that way, you are the person marketing departmetns have wet dreams about.
And those shortcuts are the same that dick over the dude with the rockin 'hawk.
I would say that when faced with a lack of real information to judge someone on you simply don't pass judgement. Frankly, if it is not worth finding out what you need to know about them to be comfortable then it can't be that important to begin with so you might as well throw darts or decorate your office (good looks). If it is indeed that important, then why in gods name would you make an important decision without making the effort to get the right information you need to make the decision?
In the end if you have to make a decision with imperfect information don't make the decision beacuse of what they look like. Make it knowing you don't know. That you are taking a leap of faith. Yes your decision at that point will be seriously influenced by subconcious favortisim for things like apprearance but at least recognise that it is arbitrary instead of justifying it because it is all you had to work with. Picking a winner that way isn't skill. It is Luck.
Eh no real arguments there. Couldn't agree more about the pseudo individuality crap. Just creates a reverse dress code in most cases. Goths are probably far more critical and judgemental of others dress, including their own, than any group of marketing metrosexuals.
I don't disagree that your appearance has an effect on other people. I fully understand that people in general react consistently to mode of dress (which is prooven and studied). To ignore this in a highly visible job where you are constantly in contact for the first time making impressions would essentially be business suicide unless you are one of the few that is so good they transcend such things.
But that dosn't necesarrily make it right or logical. Like I said in my orginal post, the truly maddening thing here is that if everyone decided not to judge people on appearance then this would no longer be an issue. Additionally, to add insult to injury, by adhereing to this nonsense we make it more difficult to judge people on their substance. This is because of practical necessity we don our social camaflauge to insure that those superficial initial judgements are made in our favor, whehter they should be or not. In your words we do it to gain their trust which is all fine and good. The problem with it is that in the end the system favors those who are best at presenting what their clients want to see/hear, not those that are best at delivering what the clients need.
That is most certainly the way it IS. My gripe/whine/rant is wehther ot not that is the way it SHOULD be. If no one ever questions it then it will never change. If no one ever acts against it then it will never change. Social convention, like living languages are things that are in motion. They appear static to casual observance but it dosn't take much study of history to understand that over time what is accepted and what is not changes. Hell just travel to a few different countries and you get slapped in the face with the reality that the way your culture thinks isn't the end all and be all. But for change to happen there have to be those who bring it about.
Its almost a sterotype that through history the most intelligent of humans have often flat rejected things like style of clothing as being anything worthy of their attention. Perhaps in a sense this has created a convention of its own among those that wish to be viewed as intelligent. But if it only replaces the current ideas of acceptable work dress for another instead of simply declaring it moot then it is the exact same thing I am ranting about. It dosn't matter what the code is or even that there is one. What matters is that at present we make poor, unrelated, unjustified judgements about people based on superficial appearances.
Actually no, I wouldn't mind someone showing up to my wedding in shorts and a tanktop and thats actually a relavent issue for me seeing as I will be having one soon. I don't really notice what people are wearing. For example It took me a long time to understand that there are people who really do notice and judge peoples shoes and yet I couldn't tell you what someone had on their feet 999 out of 1000 times. Its irrelevant data. Tone of address, Intelligence in conversation, actions over time etc are all way way WAYYY above clothing on my list of things to judge someone by. Judging based on clothing is lazy and a bad habit of people (as in the human race) who are prone to make things up when they suffer a lack of input.
You can judge someones appearance, style etc. But its relevance from there is easily demonstrated to be almost negligible especially in an environment where people don't challenge the convention of conformity. Its just that when people do challenge it then we have more variation with which to jump to conclusions on. And we do.
I don't know how many times I have heard the argument... well there is no way you have time to get to know everyone and make judgements based on the 'right' criteria so its ok to judge them based on irrelevant superficial criteria because 'convention' says they are good indicators.
There is no argument against convention if convention is the justification. Convention says dress this way so you have to. Why ? Because the convention is... Circular reasoning. My gripe/whine/rant is that while almost everyone gripes about this particular convention, no one challenges it. If convention were king the south would still be segregated. And frankly if we can change a convention as hard as that one then we can change the concept of having to dress to impress.
Human beings are social creatures, and yet they strive at all times to be individual. It is an odd parradox. Conformity of dress is a means of supressing individuality. Of making a human group more mechanical, more interchangeable. And its a farce. There is always something somewhere that someone will do to find a way to be an individual. I can think of a better issues than jeans and a T-shirt or slacks and a polo over which to contend that individuality is a negative impact to what they are involved in. Cleanliness, not being on time. etc... leap to the fore in this particular example. Cleanliness is an example of a good convention. It is founded in sanitation and the limiting of disease. Mode Dress/Style is an example of a bad convention with its roots in vanity and class caste systems. As such I place it in the same family of superficial judgements that we class racisim/sexisim under. Less serious than judging someone by the color of their skin to be sure, but deffinatly in the same family of judgements.
And where does attitude about clothing have a damn thing to do about attitude about work? When did we decide judging a book by its cover was the right way to pick? In what irrefutable experient with repeatable results has it been prooven that those who wear "Stylish" clothes vrs "unstylish" to work have better attitudes?
What does it say about someones attitude if they are willing to buy something they don't like, that costs more than what they do and then wear it the majority of the time because its what people expect? Everyone else is doing it why don't you? Cause I am not a fucking sheeple god damn it. That isn't an attitude problem, its called free will.
Why in the world do we seek and praise conformity ? And I don't care if it was in the form of REQUIRING eveyrone to wear jeans and a T-shirt... its a silly thing to persue in something as irrelevant as manner of dress. Dress codes are about power. The ability to decree what is and is not acceptable and its a large load of very smelly bull shit.
What is wrong with a jeans and a T-shirt vrs not jeans and a polo shirt? What precisely is the difference there? Is Denim some horrid material not fit for public? Is the lack of a collar, two buttons and an overall thinner cotton weave a dire issue of productivity? To even have this argument is stupid. To consider it of any importance an admission of valuing shallow appearance over the substance of what the person does and how they behave. That is an improper way to judge someone and no amount of justification will change that at its heart judgement of appearence alone is shallow and idiotic. If someone has a bad attitude don't ascociate it with what they wear.
I see a jackass in a suit and they are still a jackass. I see a king in rags and they are still a king. We all bitch about judging based on sterotypes and appearances rather than on the substance of a person. And then turn around and teach our kids you have to dress a particular way for anyone to take you seriously. Does anyone else see the utter damnfool hypocrisy in that? The truly heartbreaking thing about it all is if we just quit doing it we would no longer have to put up with it. Easier said than done obviously but damn its still annoying.
Diesel's most certainly can suffer from pre-ignition. The difference here is that it is the direct injection timming which can cause it.
And again it isn't about increasing the fuel efficiency. Diesel and gas engines are both extremely efficient in combusting the fuels and releasing the energy they contain. What they are not so good at is converting that energy to mechanical force. Faster combustion makes for cleaner combustion and more energy imparted to pushing the cylinder
You are not getting any net energy gain out of burning the hydrogen. You are using the hydrogen as an accelerant to make the combustion of the diesel more efficient at generating mechanical power. Right now an engine burns 95% or better of the fuel injected into the combustion chamber... however they then only convert about 35% of that into mechanical energy at best. That leaves a lot of room for improovement.
It has been known for some time that increasing compression increases that efficiency. But it also causes a problem... at some point the higher levels of compression will cause enough heat to initiate combustion. If this happens before the piston reaches top dead center it is known as pre-ignition and it is very bad for the engine. However by injecting an accelerant that will speed the combustion process once it occurs you can increase the pressure simply because the reaction happens faster in the same size combustion chamber. NOS injection is an example of a real world application already commonly used. Methanol is used in race cars specifically because it allows for higher mechanical compression rates without suffering from pre-ignition.
So the point of the hydrogen is not to serve as a net boost in and of itself, it is used here as an accelerant which enables the combustion in the chamber to happen quicker. This means higher compression rates due to faster expansion of the gasses, not by squishing the fuel air mixture more with the piston. This avoids pre-ignition and means more energy transffered to the piston with less energy wasted as heat in exhaust gasses and radiated off the engine.
So you take a small hit initially to generate the hydrogen but burning it with the diesel fumes allows the conversion of energy to be more dfficient. Ie that 25-35% efficiency at creating mechanical energy from the explosion up to 65-70% efficiency with a corresponding drop in energy wasted as heat which in turn means lower operating and exhaust temps. So there is no net gain here. Just an increase in conversion efficiency.
You could use this as a mobile terminal with access to a server for the heavy lifting via wi-fi and various extension devices via bluetooth and usb for varied input. For example, a bluetooth/usb upc scanner or RFID wand for inventory management.
Also in jobs with numerous procedures it would be nice if you could have a device like this for accessing them where the updates could be managed remotely and pushed out. For example NASA flight controlers have roughly 3 feet or more of procedures to refference (if printed out). Keeping updated hard copies is a PITA and utilizing them on already scarce display space very awkward. Having a dedicated device that could be used more like a traditional hard copy but which could always be accessing the latest version could be a very helpfull widget.
SCRUM is a very large stinking steaming pile of bovine excrement. This is not to say that people using it can't accomplish good things. But I find it ridiculouse to atribute success or failure of projects to management buzz word models. Any successfull code project of any scale from the learning student project to a major microsoft effort has some things in common. Clearly defined and understood goals, focus on attaining them, and sufficient time to accomplish them. SCRUM will not get you these things. It is just a wrapped up ready made management model full of buzz words that proports it will deliver these things if you just follow these X number of easy steps... and buy the book in which they are lined out for you of course. At its heart it is an attempt to reign in management idiots by providing a buffer to their ignorance of how good software actually gets developed. So there is this honest effort at creating a way to tell management to take a flying leap once development starts in a way they won't get offended and hopefully still feel involved. The problem is that if management wants to interfere then adopting some set of buzz words and trying to redefine meeting scope so they can't interfere isn't going to work.
If management cannot work in harmony with the development team (and vice versa) then it dosn't matter what alphabet soup methodology you subscribe to. Aint nuthing gonna get done good, right or fast. If they can work in harmony then it dosn't matter what you call your methodology. SCRUM and all other pre-packaged management processes are attempts to "bottle" success and sell it to suckers. Somebody created a focused team, fended off idiotic managment and then gave their meetings cute names and invented some cutsie stories with veiled insults and started marketing their solution to others. Then they started laughing all the way to the bank when people bought their 'book' trying to capture their success.
You can certainly learn from others success but these buzz word deals are like clothing that comes in one size fits all... which we all know damn good and well means one size fits none. In an already functioning successfull development team scrum and its ilk are a solution in search of a problem. For non-succesfull teams they have issues that will be issues with or without scrum. The success of a scrum team does not come from calling your daily meeting a scrum and having tightly scoped development cycles called sprints. It comes from having a team which has meaningfull communication when needed and clearly defined goals that don't change unecesarrily. You can have these things with or without scrum terminology, and you can fail to have them with or without scrum terminology. In short the success or failure of a development team has fuck all to do with SCRUM implementation. The only differnce is in whether or not you spent 19.95 for the book that gave you the terminology to use. Frankly if you are in this business and you have to buy a Scrum book to understand that adding features mid development is a problem, that meetings should be focused and that you have to be adaptive to issues as they arise... well I doubt buying a book is going to help to much.
Actually a better example would be the issue of whether or not the sun or the earth was the center of the solar system. The Greeks rightly decided that if the earth revolved around the sun and the stars where objects in a 3d space that you could observe parralax. However the distances to stars are so vast that parralax is undetectable by the unaided eye thus it was understood that the earth was the center of the solar system.
Because of this the ptolemaic system of explaining the motions of the heavens was created. Like QM it was an ugly observations based theory that was constantly adapted to explain observation that had not previously been accounted for. The Ptolomaic system still works to this day using as its basis an earth centered solar system for predicting astronomical events like movement of the planets, phases of the moon, eclipses, etc...
It was not till fairly recently that parralax was at long last actually observed with very powerfull telescopes. The position of earth in relation to the sun was eventually prooved by observation of the other planets rather than by parralax.
I actually have been keeping an eye on Mills since about 2000 myself. While there are large elements of his work that are hard to swallow there remain a few very interesting facts. One, the guy does have support and he has maintained it since the early 90's. His staff is pretty impressive in terms of their credentials, he has a number of ivy leaugers with the appropriate degrees whos asses are grass if they bought into a hoax for their lively hood. He has gotten attention from NASA and the people involved did not walk away from it thinking it was a hoax. He has peer reviewed work and a number of people who report success in repeating his results. He is not trying to claim an over unity device any more than those in search of fusion are.. IE put in X amount of energy and get back X + Y amount of energy. It is just that the fuel is water.
Before people poo poo that idea they need to remember that we both know, and accept that there is a great deal of energy bound up in all matter. E=MC^2 after all so its not a question of whether the energy is there. The question is if he has found a new way to tap into it.
If you ask me the issue of Mill's quantam theory is secondary to his device. Understanding it is important. But frankly, whether we understand it or not, if his device works and his materials created as a by product are real then they stand to have as large an impact on our world as the invention of the steam engine and later development of the internal combustion engine.
All in all I think the time of truth is soon to come for Mills and his theory. I for one hope the guy is on the up and up and is right. If any of you are thinking striaght you will cross your fingers and hope the same even as your well honed bull shit detectors are going off and the cynicisim is setting in.
And you are completely missing the point as well. Yes rude is rude. However I think we have the right to choose to not be bothered in our homes. Poll or No Poll. And by the time you have offered us a chance to decline you have already disturbed us. If you think that is a Catch 22 (ie the poll has to be done somehow) it is not. There are other avenues for polling. Even if you create an effective do not call flag that allows you to only contact those willing to accept random calls then you have created a poisoned polling well because those that remain no longer represent a true cross section and no matter how random your selection of those that remain you will most likely get biased results. The fact you could contact 99% of the population via phone is what gives phone polling its power. Once you cut into that your margian of error goes up significantly and with large percentages of people choosing to be unreachable by that means it rapidly becomes useless information in any context other than that which is relevent to those that choose to remain on the list.
I also wrote suggesting much the same. I imagine by the time this is done he will know all about the slashdot effect:-) Or at least his staff will.
On the down side I got am automated response that said current franking rules don't allow personal responses to non-district people. Might put a serious cramp on a comments section if he can't legally respond at all except to those voiced from people living in his district. I would have to say that is a rather poorly thought out rule considering his position as he now has responsibilities with a nation wide scope... the same applies to reps with certain committee responsibilities that engender decision making responsibilities that impact far more than just a rep's constituency.
Yep thats what I was saying.. and I agree to implement such an option the mechanics of dealing with a trailer would deffinatly need to be made more friendly. But I can see more ways to make it easier to deal with than roof solutions and there is the inevitable issue of raising the CG you already mentioned when going that route.
Hmmmm can admit mistakes, points out important considerations, supports death for yuppies and a Satchel Paige quote... welcome to ye olde friends list.
Eh I am talking tow behind storage, not tow behind fuel. Most trunks go unused on a daily basis and are generally underutilized. Not all... but most. So I am saying that you would utilize a larger percentage of current design trunk space to accomodate larger fuel tank sizes. Then to offset the loss of usuable storage space one possible option would be to design an easy to use towed storage system. The Fuel tank could also start extending up the center line of the car as well utilizing former drive line space in rwd designs and bring back the drive shaft 'hump' of yor.
Yes there can be a danger in transitions... but hell there will be new dangers in using a compressed gas as opposed to a room temp liquid as a fuel. Both in vehicle operation and in fuel delivery infrastructure. Change happens and its not like the road has been an unchanging monolith, design changes are constant in the automotive world and by and large they have been for the better and led to greater safety and not less.
And I can't resist... the safety of LA freeways I would atribute to low speeds during rush times which are roughly right before sunrise till well after sunset to listen to my cousin. Seriously though I know drivers in congested areas tend to be more aware through necessity as I have experienced both... from the joys of UK driving to Rural Alabama and everything in between. City drivers are both the best AND most annoying in the world...and the bigger, more congested the city, the more true that seems to be.
However... I wholeheartedly agree with offing the damn yuppies. I can't stand idiots that do stupid things just to be one car length closer to their destination.
I too feel destinations are highly unlikely to wander off... ahhh if only more felt the same.
I still think you are stuck considering in terms of trailers now. Most times trailers are afterthoughts and are weighted far above the gross vehicle weight. They are rarely used and when they are in general they are for a single long haul trip.
Thus people have little familiarity with them and with cars in particular the overall design does not take into account the reality of pulling a trailer behind it. Visibility is often severly hampered and brakes are not up to the task.
If little 5th wheel... and I mean something on the order of what motorcycles use that is attached for additional space that is attached when needed (ie not for a daily commute). The size has to be such that it is easily handled by one person. Your thinking of idiots with Uhauls and I am thinking of a detached trunk with wheels on the side and that the car overall with the trailer would not be much longer than current designs without one. I am talking about making a detacheable trunk... not something on the order of even the smallest Uhaul. If you want an idea then go look at the pull behind generator of the T-zero. I would think something on that order except with design considerations that made something like backing easier.
As for tailgating... just because everyone does it dosn't make it right. Yes I understand there is some limitation due to congestion. But that is a severe hazard that leads to many deaths each year. If drivers fail to leave enough room to react then pileups happen, means bigger wrecks and worse traffic jams as a result. Overall we would be better off if people would maintain a safe distance. And LA is far from the only place where idiots think 5 feet at 70mph is 'safe'.
Eh I grant trailers now are difficult little buggers. I imagine if they got used on that level then there would be a better way to implement them. For example you could just make it a rigid atachment (as opposed to a jointed one) with caster type wheels (or otherwise articulated), in that case they just have to allow for extra length. You could also make hood mounted cargo compartments more common etc... there are many many many options in design that could be made to accomodate larger relative tank sizes while still providing for trunk space. These are design decisions we just don't have to make now because the fuel tank takes up such a small portion of the vehicle in terms of relative space needed.
Are all of you bobble heads agreeing its a good thing to get back to c and 'Feel like a real programer again' really saying you want dejure coding to be re-inventing the wheel everytime you start an app? That for the umpteenth time you will re-create X set refferences and little functions etc.... ?
No, people who do that (code in lower level languages) build their own "RAD" system with their own code snippets as they build their tool box over time. And in that system EVERYONE has a different hammer, different screw driver and diferent voltage meter and none of the damn things work alike.
All this guy said in so many words was that he dosn't like the way M$ did it.
I do agree that VS's habit of saying hands off this code is beyond fucking annoying and borders on down right criminal. That being said I have found no examples of a bar across my path when I want to do something down dirty and hands on. The system is just not set up to do it so it is even more cumbersome than it would be otherwise to get at the gutz. The IDE is what has problems with messing with the designer code... if you don't use the designer and edit your code elsewhere and link it yourself (something he admits elsewhere is possible) then this is no longer a problem. He praises using his own choice of editors in one situation and then in a backhand way is annoyed that the VS environment dosn't provide what he wants. Fine, use something else if you have a problem with it.
The reality is that modern systems and modern graphical environments have a shitload of dumb overhead programming to be done to handle the stupid ass forms. No matter how you simplify the refferencing system someone is going to complain that if you don't do it all yourself you don't udnerstand what is going on. If you want to redefine forms more power to you. But the power of computing is that once YOU do it that means eveyrone else can easily benifit from it and they do not have to repeat your work. All VS does is leverage all the work done through the years on windows forms in an easy to access and implement manner. It is a GOOD thing that you can punch out a program in a week now that would have taken months if you had to manually handle all the form operations. Remember... all code generated by someone else is like other drivers on the road... if they are going faster they are idiots and if they are slower they are numb nutz. Just think of the generated code as another memeber of the coding team and get over it. You just can't do it all yourself. If it is truly atrocious enough to change then make the effort, else shut up and get on with it.
There is and always will be a time to go back to the drawing board. At others you reap the benifits of what has come before and enjoy the fact that what once was hard and the domain of the few is now easy and achievable by all. VS is fantastic at bringing application development to the masses. It accomplishes its goal. If that goal isn't what you want then damnit don't use it or figure out a way to adapt it to your purposes. But for crying out loud would eveyone stop bitchign that the thing is not all things to all people.
Well when I say 100 mile range I mean 120-150 or so. Ie allowing for some margin of safety. And that is utilizing current designs in terms of relative size of the tanks and relatively low pressures. If you go to higher pressure or perhaps even liquid storage then range increases almost to current ranges with existing engines... energy density and storage density of hydrogen is lower than gas so the range for the same amount of liquid decreases accordingly... but a 400 mile range would turn into something like 320 or something like that. While that sounds good you then also have to deal with all the added crap that comes with handling a cryogenic liquid... not good. On the other hand If you start going with new designs with larger tanks to offset the lower energy density of the fuel then you just sacrifice trunk space for needed extra range and little 5th wheel trailers for long trips get a great deal more popular and probably come standard with alot of models.
Though I have to say... with the commute problem that bad there.... why do businesses not form farther out to pick up the slack ? Would seem all of the reasons for people to live farther and farther out would also drive the businesses out that way as well (real estate prices etc...).
The real catch to your problem seems to be the single volume issue.
Would be fairly easy to network a bunch of boxes that added up to the requisite storage amount... but accessed as a single drive with redundancy would be an issue. As mentioned the number of disks invovled pretty much means you can't go into it without be worried about redundancy unless you can deal with data loss pretty much from day one.
If you have to do it on your own my guess is you are going to have to take the largest easily available solution and then do your own work to scale it up by gluing those together. And there are any number of ways to do that... I'd suggest tackling it with the tools you are most comfortable with... or if your not up for that level of development it is time to tell those who must be obeyed that they can't get there from here if they want a non proffesional HUGE single volume storgae solution.
Just in futzing with it for a bit I have some major beefs here. Yeah I know its just beta and that some if not all of this stuff is in flux but this is what I noticed.
1) They still have the problem of cuting and pasting GUI environment info to the cmd shell window.
2) They are still limited to crappy display levels for the cmd shell window
3) If your building a verbose object oriented language you need a better refferencing system. Insane long wordy names are in theroy good and makes learning easier. But for repetative stuff it gets old typing them. Sure you can denote aliases... but why not always denote one by default? Just establish a best practices for creating a unique shorthand of the longer name.... and build it into the script to check with help to make sure its not walking on anything else. I garountee anyone that uses this thing for any length of time is going to create a shorthand for it... if there is one by default it will make it easier for people to talk it without first establishing what they all call their aliases for which function.
4) More works but is not listed under help. It has a flaw in that when you advance a single line it continually types the instructions just under the new line without deleting the old line... ie if you advance by line you then have alternating document info and instruction lines rather than the document txt incremeting above the instruction line ie...
(q)for quite (cr) for next line (space) for next page Line of text from the file (q)for quite (cr) for next line (space) for next page Line of text from the file (q)for quite (cr) for next line (space) for next page Line of text from the file
Extremely annoying.
Some other thoughts.
Why are they trying to limit themselves to creaky old txt displaying methodologies ? Yes a command line consists of text information primarily but the reason it evolved in such a constricted interface was that there was no other option at first. Just because it is a command line does not mean it could not also be a gui. Give it the power of both. For instance lets say I open my computer. I get the standard drive icons etc and at the bottom I get a prompt. If I double click C or type cd c:\ at the prompt the same results happen on screen. Lets say I drag a file down to the command line.. now a token appears there for dealing with that file. I have a graphical rpresentation as well as text information and I can interact both with a mouse and with cmd line input.
Additionally they spent a crap load of time developing a pretty slick interface in the Studio.NET IDE... why not adapt that for a cmd line interface ? ie pull down lists of functions with a properties windows and the ability to explore the help information and view examples ? All in a tabbed interface. Sweetness.
The marriage of the command line and the GUI is the next generation. It does not have to be EITHER OR. Both have strengths and both have weaknesses. Instead of being stuck with one or the other create a system that allows you freedom to use both sets of strengths to offset the others weaknesses.
The problem with bikes is weather and B.O.. The problem with public transportation is weather and cost of the last mile to a low density population.
People don't like being wet or cold and no other solution matches mobile shelter from door to door as well as the private automobile. Until that changes or the US becomes as densely populated as Europe the culture centered around the automobile here is not going to change. If Oil runs out another way will be found.
Back to the topic at hand.... what energy is being used to split the water in the first place? IE I sit in the car and turn it on... where does the initial energy to start the car reside and how long does it take ? Does it have a resevoir of hydrogen to jumpstart the process ? Do I have to have enough battery power to heat up the initial process? Also you have to continue providing heat to this process at a faster rate than you use it or you have an over unity system.
Water is turned to steam by heat, steam then reacts with the mg or al then leaving some excess steam that was not broken down and hydrogen that was liberated... oxygen is caught in the resulting al or mg oxide. That took X amount of energy. To continue that reaction you must continue to supply X. You then burn the hydrogen in a combustion process to both provide heat to continue the reaction and provide motive force ?
I am assuming if this is not crack pot science that the reaction of the al or mg to steam is exothermic (ie it Burns) which allows the reaction to continue and that the combustion of the hydrogen and use of steam is then largely irrelavent to the process of breaking down the water. Otherwise this is a bunch of hooey. In otherwords you light the coil on fire and supply it with water in the form of steam then to control the flow of fuel you regulate just how fast its burning.
Considering the issues here.. why not instead use this concept to solve the issue of shipping hydrogen to gas stations? Create this kind of system for providing on demand hydrogen at gas stations where the weight of the coil is no matter.
A lot of people talk of the problem of short range of gas hydrogen powered vehicles... but I really don't see the problem. At easy to store pressures it is possible to make vehicles that travel more than 100 miles. That covers pretty much any daily usage short of long trips. If you can refuel in short order then 100 miles with some padding just has to cover the distance to the next station and that is more than enough for the current spacing of gas stations. Yes its annoying. But really if you have a vehicle that can travel 2-3 hours (120-180 miles at 60mph) then your going to solve most families needs for point to point without a stop travel. If you juggle weights and fuel efficiency issues and get a vehicle with 200 mile range with reserves you solve the problem completely as that is the range of many vehicles today. Then this kind of system can create on demand hydrogen at fuel stations that can be added to existing infrastructure relatively easily... say a generating plant and the needed pump equipment. There would be less storage danger because in its inert state it would only hold a coil and water... there would probably be some kind of small scale buffer storage of hydrogen but it wouldn't be the primary means.
And if you have visions of the hindenburg when considering hydrogen stored in your car please go read up on what happend there. Probably the most dangerous thing about a hydrogen tank rupture in a car wreck would be the loss of compression of the gas.
Finaly if they are talking of a combustion cycle here it is most certainly not emmission free. burning hydrogen and oxygen with atmospheric air will create nitrous oxide due to the nitrogen in the air and the high heat of the combustion. The only way to avoid that would be to only admit oxygen to the combustion cycle at which point yes... the only emmission would be water vapor.
Probably not surprising they evolved the most effective frequency.....
This seems a sticky issue all around. You have reports of animals in areas of high sonar usage not making any attempt to leave the area and some evidence which seems to point to animals reacting negatively. I wonder if perhaps it is tied to a specific set of circumstances... like a particular formation of thermals, or perhaps concentration due to ocean floor formations. Like the difference between a gun fired in open air and in an enclosed space.
Any particular reason they can't go out of the audible range? I know you still have to dump x amount of energy into the water.. but if it is by and large out of the frequency range that sound organs are sensitive to then I would thing the issue of damage would be reduced.
Yes. But the success or lack of for third parties is not a function of the two primary parties ability to dictate elections. It is in the American public's, willingness to be satisfied with them. The difference between the USSR and the USA is that if the people decided to vote a completely different set of people into office they could and presumably there would be a bloodless change in power.
Agree or disagree with the correctness of the fact that the american populace is so uninvolved right now that the selection of the president is left to a highly polorized 30% of the registered voting population staked to either the democratic or republican parties is actually a positive sign. It means the situation is such that most people simply don't care. Not because they don't think they have a voice. But because the situation is not such that it prods them into action. And trust me if things were half as bad as many like to make it out to be with the current administration... or as others tried to make it out under the previous administration then the people would awaken and you would see an almost universal turnout... and the result would be ugly.
Calling the USSR democratic is playing into a technical argument. Did they have elections? Yes. Were they free elections where even the select few who were citizens had the freedom to vote as they wanted to? Questionable at best. The democratic elements of the USSR were in general about as 'real' as Potemkin Villages. There was one party which generally meant one choice. The true power ecehelons were self selected by existing members that were not subject to election. Even in the case of elections the people running were selected by those in power in the party to begin with... the real election was those in power deciding who would be allowed to stand for election. The 'Democracy' of the USSR was a sham and essentially irrelevant in terms of who was in power.
But true enough democracy is not equal to freedom. But a true democracy is very unlikely to be controlling in nature. And by true I mean a true one to one voting of all citizens on all issues. Not something we do in America. The only democratic element of our government is in the election of our officials. The rest of our government is a republic governed by elected representatives. Occasionally you see a democratic decision made by refferendum... but not often.
Our system certainly isn't perfect. But by and large the track record of nations with strong democratic foundations has been pretty good in the freedom department.
Slashdot Mirror
"This applies to both jobseekers and employed workers. If I'm a prospective client touring your offices and I see you dress super casually, then I will assume you will be super casual about my business as well.
Until I've hired you or your company and tried you out myself, I won't know how good you really are. There's lots of other workers / companies with reputations and resumes as good as yours. Again, if you dont take your dress seriously then I've no reason to think you better than the applicant who does."
You have no reason to assume they are less capable, and you have no reason to think they are not better than the other option given equal reputation/credentials. Therefore you make an arbitrary decision according to your biases. So long as you admit and understand that is how you are making your decision that is fine. But don't attribute success in your picks to arbitrary factors.
And don't point to the fact that success is more likely from making a decision that way. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. If every time you make a choice this way is based on appearances then only those with better appearances have the chance of success. Only with equal distribution of opportunity with a disproportionate success rate going to those that have a better apperance would give even the begining of a solid basis for picking people based on appearance rather than substance. Even then most people would shy away from caliming they are better BECAUSE they dress nice. In fact everyone says like you do that you choose them because you hope it is indicative of how they approach their work.
I grew up playing sports with kids from the full spectrum of economic stature. That experience has taught me that apperance has jack shit to do with the quality of work, talent, skill, and even manners that someone has. Their were slackers, jackasses, talented, and hard working individuals from all walks, all shades, and all manner of dress.
Lack of info is not and will NEVER be a basis for making an informed choice. And I find it funny that you think you can't read enough of a book to decide by something other than the cover, and largely paid for reviews, before buying one. Most decent stores these days have comfy chairs to sit in to do just that. Fiction stories don't really need much justification. But technical books are another matter entirely. If you really do buy that way, you are the person marketing departmetns have wet dreams about.
And those shortcuts are the same that dick over the dude with the rockin 'hawk.
I would say that when faced with a lack of real information to judge someone on you simply don't pass judgement. Frankly, if it is not worth finding out what you need to know about them to be comfortable then it can't be that important to begin with so you might as well throw darts or decorate your office (good looks). If it is indeed that important, then why in gods name would you make an important decision without making the effort to get the right information you need to make the decision?
In the end if you have to make a decision with imperfect information don't make the decision beacuse of what they look like. Make it knowing you don't know. That you are taking a leap of faith. Yes your decision at that point will be seriously influenced by subconcious favortisim for things like apprearance but at least recognise that it is arbitrary instead of justifying it because it is all you had to work with. Picking a winner that way isn't skill. It is Luck.
Eh no real arguments there. Couldn't agree more about the pseudo individuality crap. Just creates a reverse dress code in most cases. Goths are probably far more critical and judgemental of others dress, including their own, than any group of marketing metrosexuals.
I don't disagree that your appearance has an effect on other people. I fully understand that people in general react consistently to mode of dress (which is prooven and studied). To ignore this in a highly visible job where you are constantly in contact for the first time making impressions would essentially be business suicide unless you are one of the few that is so good they transcend such things.
But that dosn't necesarrily make it right or logical. Like I said in my orginal post, the truly maddening thing here is that if everyone decided not to judge people on appearance then this would no longer be an issue. Additionally, to add insult to injury, by adhereing to this nonsense we make it more difficult to judge people on their substance. This is because of practical necessity we don our social camaflauge to insure that those superficial initial judgements are made in our favor, whehter they should be or not. In your words we do it to gain their trust which is all fine and good. The problem with it is that in the end the system favors those who are best at presenting what their clients want to see/hear, not those that are best at delivering what the clients need.
That is most certainly the way it IS. My gripe/whine/rant is wehther ot not that is the way it SHOULD be. If no one ever questions it then it will never change. If no one ever acts against it then it will never change. Social convention, like living languages are things that are in motion. They appear static to casual observance but it dosn't take much study of history to understand that over time what is accepted and what is not changes. Hell just travel to a few different countries and you get slapped in the face with the reality that the way your culture thinks isn't the end all and be all. But for change to happen there have to be those who bring it about.
Its almost a sterotype that through history the most intelligent of humans have often flat rejected things like style of clothing as being anything worthy of their attention. Perhaps in a sense this has created a convention of its own among those that wish to be viewed as intelligent. But if it only replaces the current ideas of acceptable work dress for another instead of simply declaring it moot then it is the exact same thing I am ranting about. It dosn't matter what the code is or even that there is one. What matters is that at present we make poor, unrelated, unjustified judgements about people based on superficial appearances.
Actually no, I wouldn't mind someone showing up to my wedding in shorts and a tanktop and thats actually a relavent issue for me seeing as I will be having one soon. I don't really notice what people are wearing. For example It took me a long time to understand that there are people who really do notice and judge peoples shoes and yet I couldn't tell you what someone had on their feet 999 out of 1000 times. Its irrelevant data. Tone of address, Intelligence in conversation, actions over time etc are all way way WAYYY above clothing on my list of things to judge someone by. Judging based on clothing is lazy and a bad habit of people (as in the human race) who are prone to make things up when they suffer a lack of input.
You can judge someones appearance, style etc. But its relevance from there is easily demonstrated to be almost negligible especially in an environment where people don't challenge the convention of conformity. Its just that when people do challenge it then we have more variation with which to jump to conclusions on. And we do.
I don't know how many times I have heard the argument... well there is no way you have time to get to know everyone and make judgements based on the 'right' criteria so its ok to judge them based on irrelevant superficial criteria because 'convention' says they are good indicators.
There is no argument against convention if convention is the justification. Convention says dress this way so you have to. Why ? Because the convention is... Circular reasoning. My gripe/whine/rant is that while almost everyone gripes about this particular convention, no one challenges it. If convention were king the south would still be segregated. And frankly if we can change a convention as hard as that one then we can change the concept of having to dress to impress.
Human beings are social creatures, and yet they strive at all times to be individual. It is an odd parradox. Conformity of dress is a means of supressing individuality. Of making a human group more mechanical, more interchangeable. And its a farce. There is always something somewhere that someone will do to find a way to be an individual. I can think of a better issues than jeans and a T-shirt or slacks and a polo over which to contend that individuality is a negative impact to what they are involved in. Cleanliness, not being on time. etc... leap to the fore in this particular example. Cleanliness is an example of a good convention. It is founded in sanitation and the limiting of disease. Mode Dress/Style is an example of a bad convention with its roots in vanity and class caste systems. As such I place it in the same family of superficial judgements that we class racisim/sexisim under. Less serious than judging someone by the color of their skin to be sure, but deffinatly in the same family of judgements.
/*RANT
And where does attitude about clothing have a damn thing to do about attitude about work? When did we decide judging a book by its cover was the right way to pick? In what irrefutable experient with repeatable results has it been prooven that those who wear "Stylish" clothes vrs "unstylish" to work have better attitudes?
What does it say about someones attitude if they are willing to buy something they don't like, that costs more than what they do and then wear it the majority of the time because its what people expect? Everyone else is doing it why don't you? Cause I am not a fucking sheeple god damn it. That isn't an attitude problem, its called free will.
Why in the world do we seek and praise conformity ? And I don't care if it was in the form of REQUIRING eveyrone to wear jeans and a T-shirt... its a silly thing to persue in something as irrelevant as manner of dress. Dress codes are about power. The ability to decree what is and is not acceptable and its a large load of very smelly bull shit.
What is wrong with a jeans and a T-shirt vrs not jeans and a polo shirt? What precisely is the difference there? Is Denim some horrid material not fit for public? Is the lack of a collar, two buttons and an overall thinner cotton weave a dire issue of productivity? To even have this argument is stupid. To consider it of any importance an admission of valuing shallow appearance over the substance of what the person does and how they behave. That is an improper way to judge someone and no amount of justification will change that at its heart judgement of appearence alone is shallow and idiotic. If someone has a bad attitude don't ascociate it with what they wear.
I see a jackass in a suit and they are still a jackass. I see a king in rags and they are still a king. We all bitch about judging based on sterotypes and appearances rather than on the substance of a person. And then turn around and teach our kids you have to dress a particular way for anyone to take you seriously. Does anyone else see the utter damnfool hypocrisy in that? The truly heartbreaking thing about it all is if we just quit doing it we would no longer have to put up with it. Easier said than done obviously but damn its still annoying.
RANT*/
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/diesel1.htm
Diesel's most certainly can suffer from pre-ignition. The difference here is that it is the direct injection timming which can cause it.
And again it isn't about increasing the fuel efficiency. Diesel and gas engines are both extremely efficient in combusting the fuels and releasing the energy they contain. What they are not so good at is converting that energy to mechanical force. Faster combustion makes for cleaner combustion and more energy imparted to pushing the cylinder
You are not getting any net energy gain out of burning the hydrogen. You are using the hydrogen as an accelerant to make the combustion of the diesel more efficient at generating mechanical power. Right now an engine burns 95% or better of the fuel injected into the combustion chamber... however they then only convert about 35% of that into mechanical energy at best. That leaves a lot of room for improovement.
It has been known for some time that increasing compression increases that efficiency. But it also causes a problem... at some point the higher levels of compression will cause enough heat to initiate combustion. If this happens before the piston reaches top dead center it is known as pre-ignition and it is very bad for the engine. However by injecting an accelerant that will speed the combustion process once it occurs you can increase the pressure simply because the reaction happens faster in the same size combustion chamber. NOS injection is an example of a real world application already commonly used. Methanol is used in race cars specifically because it allows for higher mechanical compression rates without suffering from pre-ignition.
So the point of the hydrogen is not to serve as a net boost in and of itself, it is used here as an accelerant which enables the combustion in the chamber to happen quicker. This means higher compression rates due to faster expansion of the gasses, not by squishing the fuel air mixture more with the piston. This avoids pre-ignition and means more energy transffered to the piston with less energy wasted as heat in exhaust gasses and radiated off the engine.
So you take a small hit initially to generate the hydrogen but burning it with the diesel fumes allows the conversion of energy to be more dfficient. Ie that 25-35% efficiency at creating mechanical energy from the explosion up to 65-70% efficiency with a corresponding drop in energy wasted as heat which in turn means lower operating and exhaust temps. So there is no net gain here. Just an increase in conversion efficiency.
You could use this as a mobile terminal with access to a server for the heavy lifting via wi-fi and various extension devices via bluetooth and usb for varied input. For example, a bluetooth/usb upc scanner or RFID wand for inventory management.
Also in jobs with numerous procedures it would be nice if you could have a device like this for accessing them where the updates could be managed remotely and pushed out. For example NASA flight controlers have roughly 3 feet or more of procedures to refference (if printed out). Keeping updated hard copies is a PITA and utilizing them on already scarce display space very awkward. Having a dedicated device that could be used more like a traditional hard copy but which could always be accessing the latest version could be a very helpfull widget.
SCRUM is a very large stinking steaming pile of bovine excrement. This is not to say that people using it can't accomplish good things. But I find it ridiculouse to atribute success or failure of projects to management buzz word models. Any successfull code project of any scale from the learning student project to a major microsoft effort has some things in common. Clearly defined and understood goals, focus on attaining them, and sufficient time to accomplish them. SCRUM will not get you these things. It is just a wrapped up ready made management model full of buzz words that proports it will deliver these things if you just follow these X number of easy steps... and buy the book in which they are lined out for you of course. At its heart it is an attempt to reign in management idiots by providing a buffer to their ignorance of how good software actually gets developed. So there is this honest effort at creating a way to tell management to take a flying leap once development starts in a way they won't get offended and hopefully still feel involved. The problem is that if management wants to interfere then adopting some set of buzz words and trying to redefine meeting scope so they can't interfere isn't going to work.
If management cannot work in harmony with the development team (and vice versa) then it dosn't matter what alphabet soup methodology you subscribe to. Aint nuthing gonna get done good, right or fast. If they can work in harmony then it dosn't matter what you call your methodology. SCRUM and all other pre-packaged management processes are attempts to "bottle" success and sell it to suckers. Somebody created a focused team, fended off idiotic managment and then gave their meetings cute names and invented some cutsie stories with veiled insults and started marketing their solution to others. Then they started laughing all the way to the bank when people bought their 'book' trying to capture their success.
You can certainly learn from others success but these buzz word deals are like clothing that comes in one size fits all... which we all know damn good and well means one size fits none. In an already functioning successfull development team scrum and its ilk are a solution in search of a problem. For non-succesfull teams they have issues that will be issues with or without scrum. The success of a scrum team does not come from calling your daily meeting a scrum and having tightly scoped development cycles called sprints. It comes from having a team which has meaningfull communication when needed and clearly defined goals that don't change unecesarrily. You can have these things with or without scrum terminology, and you can fail to have them with or without scrum terminology. In short the success or failure of a development team has fuck all to do with SCRUM implementation. The only differnce is in whether or not you spent 19.95 for the book that gave you the terminology to use. Frankly if you are in this business and you have to buy a Scrum book to understand that adding features mid development is a problem, that meetings should be focused and that you have to be adaptive to issues as they arise... well I doubt buying a book is going to help to much.
Actually a better example would be the issue of whether or not the sun or the earth was the center of the solar system. The Greeks rightly decided that if the earth revolved around the sun and the stars where objects in a 3d space that you could observe parralax. However the distances to stars are so vast that parralax is undetectable by the unaided eye thus it was understood that the earth was the center of the solar system.
Because of this the ptolemaic system of explaining the motions of the heavens was created. Like QM it was an ugly observations based theory that was constantly adapted to explain observation that had not previously been accounted for. The Ptolomaic system still works to this day using as its basis an earth centered solar system for predicting astronomical events like movement of the planets, phases of the moon, eclipses, etc...
It was not till fairly recently that parralax was at long last actually observed with very powerfull telescopes. The position of earth in relation to the sun was eventually prooved by observation of the other planets rather than by parralax.
I actually have been keeping an eye on Mills since about 2000 myself. While there are large elements of his work that are hard to swallow there remain a few very interesting facts. One, the guy does have support and he has maintained it since the early 90's. His staff is pretty impressive in terms of their credentials, he has a number of ivy leaugers with the appropriate degrees whos asses are grass if they bought into a hoax for their lively hood. He has gotten attention from NASA and the people involved did not walk away from it thinking it was a hoax. He has peer reviewed work and a number of people who report success in repeating his results. He is not trying to claim an over unity device any more than those in search of fusion are.. IE put in X amount of energy and get back X + Y amount of energy. It is just that the fuel is water.
Before people poo poo that idea they need to remember that we both know, and accept that there is a great deal of energy bound up in all matter. E=MC^2 after all so its not a question of whether the energy is there. The question is if he has found a new way to tap into it.
If you ask me the issue of Mill's quantam theory is secondary to his device. Understanding it is important. But frankly, whether we understand it or not, if his device works and his materials created as a by product are real then they stand to have as large an impact on our world as the invention of the steam engine and later development of the internal combustion engine.
All in all I think the time of truth is soon to come for Mills and his theory. I for one hope the guy is on the up and up and is right. If any of you are thinking striaght you will cross your fingers and hope the same even as your well honed bull shit detectors are going off and the cynicisim is setting in.
And you are completely missing the point as well. Yes rude is rude. However I think we have the right to choose to not be bothered in our homes. Poll or No Poll. And by the time you have offered us a chance to decline you have already disturbed us. If you think that is a Catch 22 (ie the poll has to be done somehow) it is not. There are other avenues for polling. Even if you create an effective do not call flag that allows you to only contact those willing to accept random calls then you have created a poisoned polling well because those that remain no longer represent a true cross section and no matter how random your selection of those that remain you will most likely get biased results. The fact you could contact 99% of the population via phone is what gives phone polling its power. Once you cut into that your margian of error goes up significantly and with large percentages of people choosing to be unreachable by that means it rapidly becomes useless information in any context other than that which is relevent to those that choose to remain on the list.
I also wrote suggesting much the same. I imagine by the time this is done he will know all about the slashdot effect :-) Or at least his staff will.
On the down side I got am automated response that said current franking rules don't allow personal responses to non-district people. Might put a serious cramp on a comments section if he can't legally respond at all except to those voiced from people living in his district. I would have to say that is a rather poorly thought out rule considering his position as he now has responsibilities with a nation wide scope... the same applies to reps with certain committee responsibilities that engender decision making responsibilities that impact far more than just a rep's constituency.
Yep thats what I was saying.. and I agree to implement such an option the mechanics of dealing with a trailer would deffinatly need to be made more friendly. But I can see more ways to make it easier to deal with than roof solutions and there is the inevitable issue of raising the CG you already mentioned when going that route.
Hmmmm can admit mistakes, points out important considerations, supports death for yuppies and a Satchel Paige quote... welcome to ye olde friends list.
Eh I am talking tow behind storage, not tow behind fuel. Most trunks go unused on a daily basis and are generally underutilized. Not all... but most. So I am saying that you would utilize a larger percentage of current design trunk space to accomodate larger fuel tank sizes. Then to offset the loss of usuable storage space one possible option would be to design an easy to use towed storage system. The Fuel tank could also start extending up the center line of the car as well utilizing former drive line space in rwd designs and bring back the drive shaft 'hump' of yor.
Yes there can be a danger in transitions... but hell there will be new dangers in using a compressed gas as opposed to a room temp liquid as a fuel. Both in vehicle operation and in fuel delivery infrastructure. Change happens and its not like the road has been an unchanging monolith, design changes are constant in the automotive world and by and large they have been for the better and led to greater safety and not less.
And I can't resist... the safety of LA freeways I would atribute to low speeds during rush times which are roughly right before sunrise till well after sunset to listen to my cousin. Seriously though I know drivers in congested areas tend to be more aware through necessity as I have experienced both... from the joys of UK driving to Rural Alabama and everything in between. City drivers are both the best AND most annoying in the world...and the bigger, more congested the city, the more true that seems to be.
However... I wholeheartedly agree with offing the damn yuppies. I can't stand idiots that do stupid things just to be one car length closer to their destination.
I too feel destinations are highly unlikely to wander off... ahhh if only more felt the same.
I still think you are stuck considering in terms of trailers now. Most times trailers are afterthoughts and are weighted far above the gross vehicle weight. They are rarely used and when they are in general they are for a single long haul trip.
Thus people have little familiarity with them and with cars in particular the overall design does not take into account the reality of pulling a trailer behind it. Visibility is often severly hampered and brakes are not up to the task.
If little 5th wheel... and I mean something on the order of what motorcycles use that is attached for additional space that is attached when needed (ie not for a daily commute). The size has to be such that it is easily handled by one person. Your thinking of idiots with Uhauls and I am thinking of a detached trunk with wheels on the side and that the car overall with the trailer would not be much longer than current designs without one. I am talking about making a detacheable trunk... not something on the order of even the smallest Uhaul. If you want an idea then go look at the pull behind generator of the T-zero. I would think something on that order except with design considerations that made something like backing easier.
As for tailgating... just because everyone does it dosn't make it right. Yes I understand there is some limitation due to congestion. But that is a severe hazard that leads to many deaths each year. If drivers fail to leave enough room to react then pileups happen, means bigger wrecks and worse traffic jams as a result. Overall we would be better off if people would maintain a safe distance. And LA is far from the only place where idiots think 5 feet at 70mph is 'safe'.
Eh I grant trailers now are difficult little buggers. I imagine if they got used on that level then there would be a better way to implement them. For example you could just make it a rigid atachment (as opposed to a jointed one) with caster type wheels (or otherwise articulated), in that case they just have to allow for extra length. You could also make hood mounted cargo compartments more common etc... there are many many many options in design that could be made to accomodate larger relative tank sizes while still providing for trunk space. These are design decisions we just don't have to make now because the fuel tank takes up such a small portion of the vehicle in terms of relative space needed.
Are all of you bobble heads agreeing its a good thing to get back to c and 'Feel like a real programer again' really saying you want dejure coding to be re-inventing the wheel everytime you start an app? That for the umpteenth time you will re-create X set refferences and little functions etc.... ?
No, people who do that (code in lower level languages) build their own "RAD" system with their own code snippets as they build their tool box over time. And in that system EVERYONE has a different hammer, different screw driver and diferent voltage meter and none of the damn things work alike.
All this guy said in so many words was that he dosn't like the way M$ did it.
I do agree that VS's habit of saying hands off this code is beyond fucking annoying and borders on down right criminal. That being said I have found no examples of a bar across my path when I want to do something down dirty and hands on. The system is just not set up to do it so it is even more cumbersome than it would be otherwise to get at the gutz. The IDE is what has problems with messing with the designer code... if you don't use the designer and edit your code elsewhere and link it yourself (something he admits elsewhere is possible) then this is no longer a problem. He praises using his own choice of editors in one situation and then in a backhand way is annoyed that the VS environment dosn't provide what he wants. Fine, use something else if you have a problem with it.
The reality is that modern systems and modern graphical environments have a shitload of dumb overhead programming to be done to handle the stupid ass forms. No matter how you simplify the refferencing system someone is going to complain that if you don't do it all yourself you don't udnerstand what is going on. If you want to redefine forms more power to you. But the power of computing is that once YOU do it that means eveyrone else can easily benifit from it and they do not have to repeat your work. All VS does is leverage all the work done through the years on windows forms in an easy to access and implement manner. It is a GOOD thing that you can punch out a program in a week now that would have taken months if you had to manually handle all the form operations. Remember... all code generated by someone else is like other drivers on the road... if they are going faster they are idiots and if they are slower they are numb nutz. Just think of the generated code as another memeber of the coding team and get over it. You just can't do it all yourself. If it is truly atrocious enough to change then make the effort, else shut up and get on with it.
There is and always will be a time to go back to the drawing board. At others you reap the benifits of what has come before and enjoy the fact that what once was hard and the domain of the few is now easy and achievable by all. VS is fantastic at bringing application development to the masses. It accomplishes its goal. If that goal isn't what you want then damnit don't use it or figure out a way to adapt it to your purposes. But for crying out loud would eveyone stop bitchign that the thing is not all things to all people.
Well when I say 100 mile range I mean 120-150 or so. Ie allowing for some margin of safety. And that is utilizing current designs in terms of relative size of the tanks and relatively low pressures. If you go to higher pressure or perhaps even liquid storage then range increases almost to current ranges with existing engines... energy density and storage density of hydrogen is lower than gas so the range for the same amount of liquid decreases accordingly... but a 400 mile range would turn into something like 320 or something like that. While that sounds good you then also have to deal with all the added crap that comes with handling a cryogenic liquid... not good. On the other hand If you start going with new designs with larger tanks to offset the lower energy density of the fuel then you just sacrifice trunk space for needed extra range and little 5th wheel trailers for long trips get a great deal more popular and probably come standard with alot of models.
Though I have to say... with the commute problem that bad there.... why do businesses not form farther out to pick up the slack ? Would seem all of the reasons for people to live farther and farther out would also drive the businesses out that way as well (real estate prices etc...).
The real catch to your problem seems to be the single volume issue.
Would be fairly easy to network a bunch of boxes that added up to the requisite storage amount... but accessed as a single drive with redundancy would be an issue. As mentioned the number of disks invovled pretty much means you can't go into it without be worried about redundancy unless you can deal with data loss pretty much from day one.
If you have to do it on your own my guess is you are going to have to take the largest easily available solution and then do your own work to scale it up by gluing those together. And there are any number of ways to do that... I'd suggest tackling it with the tools you are most comfortable with... or if your not up for that level of development it is time to tell those who must be obeyed that they can't get there from here if they want a non proffesional HUGE single volume storgae solution.
Just in futzing with it for a bit I have some major beefs here. Yeah I know its just beta and that some if not all of this stuff is in flux but this is what I noticed.
.NET IDE... why not adapt that for a cmd line interface ? ie pull down lists of functions with a properties windows and the ability to explore the help information and view examples ? All in a tabbed interface. Sweetness.
1) They still have the problem of cuting and pasting GUI environment info to the cmd shell window.
2) They are still limited to crappy display levels for the cmd shell window
3) If your building a verbose object oriented language you need a better refferencing system. Insane long wordy names are in theroy good and makes learning easier. But for repetative stuff it gets old typing them. Sure you can denote aliases... but why not always denote one by default? Just establish a best practices for creating a unique shorthand of the longer name.... and build it into the script to check with help to make sure its not walking on anything else. I garountee anyone that uses this thing for any length of time is going to create a shorthand for it... if there is one by default it will make it easier for people to talk it without first establishing what they all call their aliases for which function.
4) More works but is not listed under help. It has a flaw in that when you advance a single line it continually types the instructions just under the new line without deleting the old line... ie if you advance by line you then have alternating document info and instruction lines rather than the document txt incremeting above the instruction line ie...
(q)for quite (cr) for next line (space) for next page
Line of text from the file
(q)for quite (cr) for next line (space) for next page
Line of text from the file
(q)for quite (cr) for next line (space) for next page
Line of text from the file
Extremely annoying.
Some other thoughts.
Why are they trying to limit themselves to creaky old txt displaying methodologies ? Yes a command line consists of text information primarily but the reason it evolved in such a constricted interface was that there was no other option at first. Just because it is a command line does not mean it could not also be a gui. Give it the power of both. For instance lets say I open my computer. I get the standard drive icons etc and at the bottom I get a prompt. If I double click C or type cd c:\ at the prompt the same results happen on screen. Lets say I drag a file down to the command line.. now a token appears there for dealing with that file. I have a graphical rpresentation as well as text information and I can interact both with a mouse and with cmd line input.
Additionally they spent a crap load of time developing a pretty slick interface in the Studio
The marriage of the command line and the GUI is the next generation. It does not have to be EITHER OR. Both have strengths and both have weaknesses. Instead of being stuck with one or the other create a system that allows you freedom to use both sets of strengths to offset the others weaknesses.
The problem with bikes is weather and B.O.. The problem with public transportation is weather and cost of the last mile to a low density population.
People don't like being wet or cold and no other solution matches mobile shelter from door to door as well as the private automobile. Until that changes or the US becomes as densely populated as Europe the culture centered around the automobile here is not going to change. If Oil runs out another way will be found.
Back to the topic at hand.... what energy is being used to split the water in the first place? IE I sit in the car and turn it on... where does the initial energy to start the car reside and how long does it take ? Does it have a resevoir of hydrogen to jumpstart the process ? Do I have to have enough battery power to heat up the initial process? Also you have to continue providing heat to this process at a faster rate than you use it or you have an over unity system.
Water is turned to steam by heat, steam then reacts with the mg or al then leaving some excess steam that was not broken down and hydrogen that was liberated... oxygen is caught in the resulting al or mg oxide. That took X amount of energy. To continue that reaction you must continue to supply X. You then burn the hydrogen in a combustion process to both provide heat to continue the reaction and provide motive force ?
I am assuming if this is not crack pot science that the reaction of the al or mg to steam is exothermic (ie it Burns) which allows the reaction to continue and that the combustion of the hydrogen and use of steam is then largely irrelavent to the process of breaking down the water. Otherwise this is a bunch of hooey. In otherwords you light the coil on fire and supply it with water in the form of steam then to control the flow of fuel you regulate just how fast its burning.
Considering the issues here.. why not instead use this concept to solve the issue of shipping hydrogen to gas stations? Create this kind of system for providing on demand hydrogen at gas stations where the weight of the coil is no matter.
A lot of people talk of the problem of short range of gas hydrogen powered vehicles... but I really don't see the problem. At easy to store pressures it is possible to make vehicles that travel more than 100 miles. That covers pretty much any daily usage short of long trips. If you can refuel in short order then 100 miles with some padding just has to cover the distance to the next station and that is more than enough for the current spacing of gas stations. Yes its annoying. But really if you have a vehicle that can travel 2-3 hours (120-180 miles at 60mph) then your going to solve most families needs for point to point without a stop travel. If you juggle weights and fuel efficiency issues and get a vehicle with 200 mile range with reserves you solve the problem completely as that is the range of many vehicles today. Then this kind of system can create on demand hydrogen at fuel stations that can be added to existing infrastructure relatively easily... say a generating plant and the needed pump equipment. There would be less storage danger because in its inert state it would only hold a coil and water... there would probably be some kind of small scale buffer storage of hydrogen but it wouldn't be the primary means.
And if you have visions of the hindenburg when considering hydrogen stored in your car please go read up on what happend there. Probably the most dangerous thing about a hydrogen tank rupture in a car wreck would be the loss of compression of the gas.
Finaly if they are talking of a combustion cycle here it is most certainly not emmission free. burning hydrogen and oxygen with atmospheric air will create nitrous oxide due to the nitrogen in the air and the high heat of the combustion. The only way to avoid that would be to only admit oxygen to the combustion cycle at which point yes... the only emmission would be water vapor.
Probably not surprising they evolved the most effective frequency.....
This seems a sticky issue all around. You have reports of animals in areas of high sonar usage not making any attempt to leave the area and some evidence which seems to point to animals reacting negatively. I wonder if perhaps it is tied to a specific set of circumstances... like a particular formation of thermals, or perhaps concentration due to ocean floor formations. Like the difference between a gun fired in open air and in an enclosed space.
Any particular reason they can't go out of the audible range? I know you still have to dump x amount of energy into the water.. but if it is by and large out of the frequency range that sound organs are sensitive to then I would thing the issue of damage would be reduced.
Yes. But the success or lack of for third parties is not a function of the two primary parties ability to dictate elections. It is in the American public's, willingness to be satisfied with them. The difference between the USSR and the USA is that if the people decided to vote a completely different set of people into office they could and presumably there would be a bloodless change in power.
Agree or disagree with the correctness of the fact that the american populace is so uninvolved right now that the selection of the president is left to a highly polorized 30% of the registered voting population staked to either the democratic or republican parties is actually a positive sign. It means the situation is such that most people simply don't care. Not because they don't think they have a voice. But because the situation is not such that it prods them into action. And trust me if things were half as bad as many like to make it out to be with the current administration... or as others tried to make it out under the previous administration then the people would awaken and you would see an almost universal turnout... and the result would be ugly.
Calling the USSR democratic is playing into a technical argument. Did they have elections? Yes. Were they free elections where even the select few who were citizens had the freedom to vote as they wanted to? Questionable at best. The democratic elements of the USSR were in general about as 'real' as Potemkin Villages. There was one party which generally meant one choice. The true power ecehelons were self selected by existing members that were not subject to election. Even in the case of elections the people running were selected by those in power in the party to begin with... the real election was those in power deciding who would be allowed to stand for election. The 'Democracy' of the USSR was a sham and essentially irrelevant in terms of who was in power.
But true enough democracy is not equal to freedom. But a true democracy is very unlikely to be controlling in nature. And by true I mean a true one to one voting of all citizens on all issues. Not something we do in America. The only democratic element of our government is in the election of our officials. The rest of our government is a republic governed by elected representatives. Occasionally you see a democratic decision made by refferendum... but not often.
Our system certainly isn't perfect. But by and large the track record of nations with strong democratic foundations has been pretty good in the freedom department.