I just ran the Firefox 3 installer, then loaded the Slashdot front page for its test-drive. This article was in the #1 slot. How did mozilla.org arrange for that to happen?
How should I store it so that it's still readable 10 to 20 years from now? Hardware and software will change in 20 years. Do you still use 5-1/4" floppy disks, and does your computer have a drive to read them? 20 years makes a huge difference! Ten years ago, I would have suggested quality photo film and prints--but that has lost market share, and once-popular photo products have been discontinued. If you want "permanent", buy granite and good chisels. Otherwise, resign yourself to migrating to new formats every couple of years.
The ability to coerce someone to disclose their vote (then reward or punish them for it) is a significant concern that's as old as elections themselves. That's why voters usually are not permitted to remove any paper ballot from the polling place. If you make a mistake, the election judge puts the spoiled ballot in a special locked spoiled-ballot box and gives you another. When you're satisfied with your vote, you must place it in the locked ballot box before leaving the poll. When the polls close, the ballot count can be audited: the number of ballots cast, plus the number of spoiled ballots in the disposal box, plus the number of ballots left over must equal the number of ballots issued to that precinct. That's a check against both ballot box stuffing and selective removal of "unfriendly" voters' ballots.
Coercion via cell phone cameras is a new twist on traditional strong-arm tactics. It's another good reason to ban phones from polling places (the first being the general rudeness of having a ringing phone and carrying on conversations in a crowded public place). As the parent suggests, if you're forced to do this, take a picture of what they want to see then spoil that ballot. Exchange it for a new one, and vote according to your conscience. Your "handler" sees you voting as ordered, but the ballot box gets the vote you wanted!
The ease of coercion is why I don't trust mail-in elections, or e-mail elections. There is no such thing as a secret ballot when the boss, pastor, union leader, precinct captain, spouse, parents, etc. can influence somebody to reveal their vote. While not a perfect solution, voting in a supervised polling place is the best deterrent we have against voter coercion.
The deal-killer for space-based power generation via Hertzian cables is the difficulty of putting it in geosynchronous orbit. Consider how long and how many flights it's taken to assemble the ISS. That's for low earth orbit, where the space shuttle and Souyuz can reach it. Getting a series of power generation satellites to the Clarke belt would make that task look simple.
If you're interested in performance, forget the over-hyped speaker wires. Buy heavy gauge zip cord at the local big-box store. Use the money you save to buy better speakers. From an engineering aspect, it makes no sense to spend large amounts of money for a minor improvement of something which has trivial impact on system performance (speaker wires). It makes good sense to spend more to improve the weakest link in the system (speakers, the last remaining electro-mechanical analog component under your control). Randi and Bob Pease have also weighed in on "high end" audio cables.
Poor economy from emissions controls is an artifact of what had to be done in the 1970's, before electronic engine controls, oxygen sensors, and three-way catalytic converters. The only way to reduce nitrous oxides in those engines was to retard the spark timing and stay away from a stoichiometric mixture, both means to reduce the peak combustion temperature (and power, and efficiency). To reduce carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons, the mixture had to be on the lean side of stoichiometric (excess oxygen), or on the rich side combined with an air-injection pump to burn off the residual fuel and CO in the exhaust manifold (where it does absolutely no good). It was quite a tight-rope act to meet emissions limits at all, so performance and economy were compromised. When the carburetor adjustment drifted even a little off the factory settings, things got even worse. Tune-ups were frequent, seasonal necessities.
Jump ahead to the mid 1980's. The three-way catalyst controls both CO and NOx best when the mixture is close to stoichiometric, and the oxygen sensor tells the computer whether the mixture is lean, rich, or just right, and the computer controls the fuel injectors to make it just right. Now low emissions coincide with good engine performance, and the feedback system makes sure it stays good as the seasons change and the parts age.
Large companies frequently use patent pools and cross-licensing agreements working this way. "We agree to let you use our patents, and you agree to let us use yours". Compensation for a patent license doesn't have to involve money alone, or even at all. If money is all you're willing to offer for a patent license, your contract will naturally have a higher dollar cost than one that includes cross licensing. Cross licensing makes sense when your motivation is primarily defensive (avoid the expense of defending against patent lawsuits) rather than offensive (the patent troll business model). The patent troll angle may be enough motivation to bring some major players into an open-source patent pool.
There's an old saying in the industry that still holds true: "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM." They provide the customer service businesses trust, and that's what closes the deal in large-scale business systems (and brings in a large, ongoing revenue stream). Look at their name: International Business Machines. Their reputation came from getting the job done year after year, from protecting the money spent on applications, development, and client data from instant obsolescence.
Companies remember that IBM mainframes give them years of faithful service, with on-site support a phone call away. Compare that to your PC experience!
That only works if there's no company policy against having the refrigerator. At a former place of employment, they were verboten for a good reason: the cube farm power network wasn't designed to run kitchen appliances. A refrigerator starting up could trip the circuit breaker and wipe out several workstations worth of work-in-progress.
The environment inside a refrigerator isn't good for electronics. Condensation is not your disk drive's friend. Keeping things cool is fine, but getting them damp is asking for trouble.
Besides that, the same jerk who's been stealing your soda and lunch will find your USB drive, laptop, etc. while grocery shop-lifting.
The F-4 Phantom went into production in 1960, ended in 1981, but the "Wild Weasel" variant was used even in the Gulf War. That's over 35 years, the longest of US jet aircraft. The B-52 will reach 53 years of operational service this June. This type has flown since the avionics used vacuum tubes. It is expected to remain in service until 2040!
"I neither will aspire to nor will I accept -- I repeat -- I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief."
Castro's phrasing is an echo of LBJ's retirement announcement:
"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
The leakage current comes from various stray and deliberate capacitances between the power adapter's AC input and output. The 50-60Hz AC line voltage makes a small current pass through the capacitance to the output side, where it connects to various "touchable" parts: connectors, chassis, etc. This is permitted by the various safety standards, IF the current is low enough to be considered safe (500uA for most appliances with two-wire power cords), and IF the insulation in the capacitors and other parts meets the standards for "double insulation" or "reinforced insulation". It's possible to meet those standards and still have a noticeable tingle when you touch the device. The tingle is annoying, but it isn't proof of a product defect (nor does it prove a lack of such defects). That's where UL, CSA, BSI, and the other safety agencies get involved.
I suspect the standby losses will be more than the 500-750mW allowed by efficiency standards. These standards were set to challenge the manufacturers of conventional wire-connected power supplies. To meet them, the engineers must reduce losses wherever possible. Copper conductors can deliver power to the load device with efficiency better than 95% (less than 0.25V drop for a 5V adapter, etc.). Wireless couplers would be hard pressed to come anywhere close to that. It seems like a step backwards in the battle against wasted electrical power.
The networked systems are there to reduce the amount of wiring to manageable levels. Having separate signal conductors for every function also adds unnecessary weight, and extra weight means extra fuel consumption and reduced payload. Fuel consumption is very important to the airlines when deciding which planes to order. Both the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A380 were designed to considerably reduce fuel consumption per passenger-mile. Higher operating costs means sales lost to the competition.
A peculiar effect of having two dominant parties is that both will tend to move to the center until that their positions are not significantly different. The candidate who more accurately claims the median position has an advantage over an opponent who is miscalculates the centrist shift. This is called Hotelling's law in the fields of macroeconomics and game theory. So if you're wondering why the Democans say so many things that sound like the Republicrats, why both parties are slaves to the latest opinion polls, dust off your old Econ textbook.
Hart Inter-Civic prefers to criticize the test. Apparently 99% accuracy should be good enough. Would they accept the same from their accountants and bankers?
I know that was intended to be humorous, but lead-acid batteries have been restricted for a long time. A lead-acid battery that hasn't been qualified and marked as "non-spillable" doesn't fly. This regulation is just catching up with the times. It's not a consipracy, and it isn't even a US governemnt creation. This is merely a national regulation implementing the International Civial Aviation Organization agreements [pdf] covering air transport of dangerous items.
If the analog cell services are going off-line in Februrary, it's high time to dismantle the 800MHz band "cell-phone block" for scanning receivers. That was enacted only to create a minimal level of privacy for analog cell phone conversations. When all cell phones are using digital spread spectrum transmissions they all will benefit from spread spectrum's inherent encryption. Security is exactly what Hedy Lamarr had in mind when inventing spread spectrum.
The 800MHz block will soon be a useless relic, and should be repealed. US buyers should not be limited to buying crippled US-spec versions of receivers that are available in other countries.
Here's the regulations (469K pdf) governing the recertification. Neither the recertification nor the requirements is a surprise. This notice is nine months old and resulted from a Denver District Court order issued September 22, 2006 (Conroy v. Dennis, No. 06CV6072, Denver Dist. Ct.). With so much advance warning, no supplier has an excuse for failing certification. The fall-back position? According to the Coloradoan, "...[Larimer County Clerk Scott] Doyle said legislators might mandate a statewide mail-in election next year if problems with electronic voting machines cannot be fixed soon."
You hit it on the head! The article says the Scion XB conversion has 50,000 mile projected battery life and 120-150 mile range. In round numbers, 400 full cycles. So: each full 35kWH battery cycle incurs the average cost of replacing about a dozen of the 5,088 Li-Ion cells in the battery pack; every 3kWH sent back to the grid averages one cell's replacement cost. AC Propulsion doesn't say what the battery replacement cost will be, but given the $55,000 price tag for EV conversion it's likely to be more than the utility will pay for Vehicle to Grid power storage.
If battery storage was an economically viable means for levelling electric power demands the utilities would buy their own batteries, cutting out the customer-as-middleman. If there's no business case with their massive wholesale buying power, it certainly makes no sense for customers who pay retail prices for replacement EV battery packs.
The Johnson Space Center in Houston is a control center rather than a launch site, so it's not directly comparable to what's being described in the article. There are US launch sites at Vandenberg AFB and Point Mugu NAS, but these are suitable only for launches to high inclination (polar) orbits. There's too much population density to lauch eastward from there, and a westward lauch incurs about 2500 km/hr velocity penalty because of the earth's rotation. I expect Russia to continue using Baikonur for heavy lift launches to the ISS and other low-inclination orbits. It takes less fuel to reach these orbit from latitudes closer to the equator than ones farther north or south. This is especially so for geosynchronous orbits, because a more delta-v is needed to change a high inclination path to zero inclination. On the other hand a near-polar launch site works well for polar orbits--provided your crew and equipment can handle the cold climate that comes with those locations.
Re:Openness is Fundamental to Mathematics
on
Open Source Math
·
· Score: 1
If software is used in a formal mathmetical proof, then the software itself must be subjected to rigorous mathematical proof. Every step must be justified based on accepted postulates and previously proven theorems, or else the work isn't rigorous and doesn't qualify as mathemetically "proven". As I repeatedly tell my daughter about her alegbra, you must show your work: it isn't just coming up with the "right answer", it's about how you know it's the right answer. Opaque software isn't mathematic proof, it's saying "Trust me!". That line doesn't relieve the doubt, it only confirms suspicion that the proof is incomplete.
A big reason for the HVDC transmission lines is that over long distances, AC lines act like (drum roll, please...) transmission lines! At 60Hz 1/4 wavelength is 1250km. The Pacific DC Interie running 1362 km from the Columbia River to Sylmar (northern Los Angeles) would have considerable standing wave problems if it were carrying AC, with excessive voltage (insulator stress) and current (thermal stress) occurring in some of the spans. This circuit was built as a DC line because an AC line would be impractical over this distance between major loads. You can see this line off to the west of US395 when driving from LA to Mammoth. It's impressive. Hydro Quebec has some long DC lines, too. One runs to New York. DC power hasn't retired, it's just moved on to a more demanding job!
Slashdot Mirror
I just ran the Firefox 3 installer, then loaded the Slashdot front page for its test-drive. This article was in the #1 slot. How did mozilla.org arrange for that to happen?
How should I store it so that it's still readable 10 to 20 years from now? Hardware and software will change in 20 years. Do you still use 5-1/4" floppy disks, and does your computer have a drive to read them? 20 years makes a huge difference! Ten years ago, I would have suggested quality photo film and prints--but that has lost market share, and once-popular photo products have been discontinued. If you want "permanent", buy granite and good chisels. Otherwise, resign yourself to migrating to new formats every couple of years.
The ability to coerce someone to disclose their vote (then reward or punish them for it) is a significant concern that's as old as elections themselves. That's why voters usually are not permitted to remove any paper ballot from the polling place. If you make a mistake, the election judge puts the spoiled ballot in a special locked spoiled-ballot box and gives you another. When you're satisfied with your vote, you must place it in the locked ballot box before leaving the poll. When the polls close, the ballot count can be audited: the number of ballots cast, plus the number of spoiled ballots in the disposal box, plus the number of ballots left over must equal the number of ballots issued to that precinct. That's a check against both ballot box stuffing and selective removal of "unfriendly" voters' ballots.
Coercion via cell phone cameras is a new twist on traditional strong-arm tactics. It's another good reason to ban phones from polling places (the first being the general rudeness of having a ringing phone and carrying on conversations in a crowded public place). As the parent suggests, if you're forced to do this, take a picture of what they want to see then spoil that ballot. Exchange it for a new one, and vote according to your conscience. Your "handler" sees you voting as ordered, but the ballot box gets the vote you wanted!
The ease of coercion is why I don't trust mail-in elections, or e-mail elections. There is no such thing as a secret ballot when the boss, pastor, union leader, precinct captain, spouse, parents, etc. can influence somebody to reveal their vote. While not a perfect solution, voting in a supervised polling place is the best deterrent we have against voter coercion.
The deal-killer for space-based power generation via Hertzian cables is the difficulty of putting it in geosynchronous orbit. Consider how long and how many flights it's taken to assemble the ISS. That's for low earth orbit, where the space shuttle and Souyuz can reach it. Getting a series of power generation satellites to the Clarke belt would make that task look simple.
If you're interested in performance, forget the over-hyped speaker wires. Buy heavy gauge zip cord at the local big-box store. Use the money you save to buy better speakers. From an engineering aspect, it makes no sense to spend large amounts of money for a minor improvement of something which has trivial impact on system performance (speaker wires). It makes good sense to spend more to improve the weakest link in the system (speakers, the last remaining electro-mechanical analog component under your control). Randi and Bob Pease have also weighed in on "high end" audio cables.
Poor economy from emissions controls is an artifact of what had to be done in the 1970's, before electronic engine controls, oxygen sensors, and three-way catalytic converters. The only way to reduce nitrous oxides in those engines was to retard the spark timing and stay away from a stoichiometric mixture, both means to reduce the peak combustion temperature (and power, and efficiency). To reduce carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons, the mixture had to be on the lean side of stoichiometric (excess oxygen), or on the rich side combined with an air-injection pump to burn off the residual fuel and CO in the exhaust manifold (where it does absolutely no good). It was quite a tight-rope act to meet emissions limits at all, so performance and economy were compromised. When the carburetor adjustment drifted even a little off the factory settings, things got even worse. Tune-ups were frequent, seasonal necessities.
Jump ahead to the mid 1980's. The three-way catalyst controls both CO and NOx best when the mixture is close to stoichiometric, and the oxygen sensor tells the computer whether the mixture is lean, rich, or just right, and the computer controls the fuel injectors to make it just right. Now low emissions coincide with good engine performance, and the feedback system makes sure it stays good as the seasons change and the parts age.
Large companies frequently use patent pools and cross-licensing agreements working this way. "We agree to let you use our patents, and you agree to let us use yours". Compensation for a patent license doesn't have to involve money alone, or even at all. If money is all you're willing to offer for a patent license, your contract will naturally have a higher dollar cost than one that includes cross licensing. Cross licensing makes sense when your motivation is primarily defensive (avoid the expense of defending against patent lawsuits) rather than offensive (the patent troll business model). The patent troll angle may be enough motivation to bring some major players into an open-source patent pool.
There's an old saying in the industry that still holds true: "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM." They provide the customer service businesses trust, and that's what closes the deal in large-scale business systems (and brings in a large, ongoing revenue stream). Look at their name: International Business Machines. Their reputation came from getting the job done year after year, from protecting the money spent on applications, development, and client data from instant obsolescence.
Companies remember that IBM mainframes give them years of faithful service, with on-site support a phone call away. Compare that to your PC experience!
That only works if there's no company policy against having the refrigerator. At a former place of employment, they were verboten for a good reason: the cube farm power network wasn't designed to run kitchen appliances. A refrigerator starting up could trip the circuit breaker and wipe out several workstations worth of work-in-progress.
The environment inside a refrigerator isn't good for electronics. Condensation is not your disk drive's friend. Keeping things cool is fine, but getting them damp is asking for trouble.
Besides that, the same jerk who's been stealing your soda and lunch will find your USB drive, laptop, etc. while grocery shop-lifting.
The F-4 Phantom went into production in 1960, ended in 1981, but the "Wild Weasel" variant was used even in the Gulf War. That's over 35 years, the longest of US jet aircraft.
The B-52 will reach 53 years of operational service this June. This type has flown since the avionics used vacuum tubes. It is expected to remain in service until 2040!
"I neither will aspire to nor will I accept -- I repeat -- I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief."
Castro's phrasing is an echo of LBJ's retirement announcement:
"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
The leakage current comes from various stray and deliberate capacitances between the power adapter's AC input and output. The 50-60Hz AC line voltage makes a small current pass through the capacitance to the output side, where it connects to various "touchable" parts: connectors, chassis, etc. This is permitted by the various safety standards, IF the current is low enough to be considered safe (500uA for most appliances with two-wire power cords), and IF the insulation in the capacitors and other parts meets the standards for "double insulation" or "reinforced insulation". It's possible to meet those standards and still have a noticeable tingle when you touch the device. The tingle is annoying, but it isn't proof of a product defect (nor does it prove a lack of such defects). That's where UL, CSA, BSI, and the other safety agencies get involved.
I suspect the standby losses will be more than the 500-750mW allowed by efficiency standards. These standards were set to challenge the manufacturers of conventional wire-connected power supplies. To meet them, the engineers must reduce losses wherever possible. Copper conductors can deliver power to the load device with efficiency better than 95% (less than 0.25V drop for a 5V adapter, etc.). Wireless couplers would be hard pressed to come anywhere close to that. It seems like a step backwards in the battle against wasted electrical power.
The networked systems are there to reduce the amount of wiring to manageable levels. Having separate signal conductors for every function also adds unnecessary weight, and extra weight means extra fuel consumption and reduced payload. Fuel consumption is very important to the airlines when deciding which planes to order. Both the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A380 were designed to considerably reduce fuel consumption per passenger-mile. Higher operating costs means sales lost to the competition.
A peculiar effect of having two dominant parties is that both will tend to move to the center until that their positions are not significantly different. The candidate who more accurately claims the median position has an advantage over an opponent who is miscalculates the centrist shift. This is called Hotelling's law in the fields of macroeconomics and game theory. So if you're wondering why the Democans say so many things that sound like the Republicrats, why both parties are slaves to the latest opinion polls, dust off your old Econ textbook.
Hart Inter-Civic prefers to criticize the test. Apparently 99% accuracy should be good enough. Would they accept the same from their accountants and bankers?
"Because they are already licensed by their industry-specific agencies, [...] engineers are exempt from state PI requirements, Abrams explains."
And there's the key. Anyone who is producing legal evidence on technical matters should have a license. A PE license, not a PI license!
Let's not forget about wireless toll payments. Pay your turnpike tolls wirelessly, avoid waiting in line.
I know that was intended to be humorous, but lead-acid batteries have been restricted for a long time. A lead-acid battery that hasn't been qualified and marked as "non-spillable" doesn't fly. This regulation is just catching up with the times. It's not a consipracy, and it isn't even a US governemnt creation. This is merely a national regulation implementing the International Civial Aviation Organization agreements [pdf] covering air transport of dangerous items.
If the analog cell services are going off-line in Februrary, it's high time to dismantle the 800MHz band "cell-phone block" for scanning receivers. That was enacted only to create a minimal level of privacy for analog cell phone conversations. When all cell phones are using digital spread spectrum transmissions they all will benefit from spread spectrum's inherent encryption. Security is exactly what Hedy Lamarr had in mind when inventing spread spectrum.
The 800MHz block will soon be a useless relic, and should be repealed. US buyers should not be limited to buying crippled US-spec versions of receivers that are available in other countries.
Here's the regulations (469K pdf) governing the recertification. Neither the recertification nor the requirements is a surprise. This notice is nine months old and resulted from a Denver District Court order issued September 22, 2006 (Conroy v. Dennis, No. 06CV6072, Denver Dist. Ct.). With so much advance warning, no supplier has an excuse for failing certification. The fall-back position? According to the Coloradoan, "...[Larimer County Clerk Scott] Doyle said legislators might mandate a statewide mail-in election next year if problems with electronic voting machines cannot be fixed soon."
You hit it on the head! The article says the Scion XB conversion has 50,000 mile projected battery life and 120-150 mile range. In round numbers, 400 full cycles. So: each full 35kWH battery cycle incurs the average cost of replacing about a dozen of the 5,088 Li-Ion cells in the battery pack; every 3kWH sent back to the grid averages one cell's replacement cost. AC Propulsion doesn't say what the battery replacement cost will be, but given the $55,000 price tag for EV conversion it's likely to be more than the utility will pay for Vehicle to Grid power storage.
If battery storage was an economically viable means for levelling electric power demands the utilities would buy their own batteries, cutting out the customer-as-middleman. If there's no business case with their massive wholesale buying power, it certainly makes no sense for customers who pay retail prices for replacement EV battery packs.
The Johnson Space Center in Houston is a control center rather than a launch site, so it's not directly comparable to what's being described in the article. There are US launch sites at Vandenberg AFB and Point Mugu NAS, but these are suitable only for launches to high inclination (polar) orbits. There's too much population density to lauch eastward from there, and a westward lauch incurs about 2500 km/hr velocity penalty because of the earth's rotation. I expect Russia to continue using Baikonur for heavy lift launches to the ISS and other low-inclination orbits. It takes less fuel to reach these orbit from latitudes closer to the equator than ones farther north or south. This is especially so for geosynchronous orbits, because a more delta-v is needed to change a high inclination path to zero inclination. On the other hand a near-polar launch site works well for polar orbits--provided your crew and equipment can handle the cold climate that comes with those locations.
If software is used in a formal mathmetical proof, then the software itself must be subjected to rigorous mathematical proof. Every step must be justified based on accepted postulates and previously proven theorems, or else the work isn't rigorous and doesn't qualify as mathemetically "proven". As I repeatedly tell my daughter about her alegbra, you must show your work: it isn't just coming up with the "right answer", it's about how you know it's the right answer. Opaque software isn't mathematic proof, it's saying "Trust me!". That line doesn't relieve the doubt, it only confirms suspicion that the proof is incomplete.
A big reason for the HVDC transmission lines is that over long distances, AC lines act like (drum roll, please...) transmission lines! At 60Hz 1/4 wavelength is 1250km. The Pacific DC Interie running 1362 km from the Columbia River to Sylmar (northern Los Angeles) would have considerable standing wave problems if it were carrying AC, with excessive voltage (insulator stress) and current (thermal stress) occurring in some of the spans. This circuit was built as a DC line because an AC line would be impractical over this distance between major loads. You can see this line off to the west of US395 when driving from LA to Mammoth. It's impressive. Hydro Quebec has some long DC lines, too. One runs to New York. DC power hasn't retired, it's just moved on to a more demanding job!