Living in SE Wisconsin in a major metropolitan area, AT&T is not reliable at all for data, whether it is 3G or HSDPA. I would say that it is very poor.
If I want good, reliable data transfer, I have to go to a major shopping mall where, regardless of the connection being 3G or HSDPA, I get full signal strength. I live about four miles away from there and if I want to do any kind of use of the AT&T Notwork, I have to see if the 3G or HSDPA signal is stronger and offer my prayers to the propagation gods that the signal holds. I am lucky if the connection hold for five minutes before it chokes and that is on a golden day. Even at the office where I work, we had to put in a local repeater to get to the tower that is about a mile away so the coverage was reliable.
A couple of my offspring's friends have Verizon and I have done a side-by-side comparison, polling the same website, at the same time, and I found that the Verizon phone always had the complete page way before my phone did. Plus, the Verizon phone showed more signal (don't rag me on the bars issue - I prefer to measure signal strength in dBm using an IFR).
I hope that Verizon wins this one because in the eyes of this observer, they would win with me for what I have seen in a real live, unstaged comparison.
I have unlimited mobile data via AT&T Mobility (mobile, yes - reliable, no). My cellphone is 3G and HSDPA capable. From home, I use their wireless service for fun and as a backup. Both 3G and HSDPA are unreliable where I live in Milwaukee. One may be available and the other isn't so I am constantly having to switch between the two to whichever protocol I am able to receive at the moment. So at home, I turn off the cell wireless and connect up through my 802.11G wireless router and out that way.
At the salt mines, we had to have a building repeater installed to get to the nearest cellsite. Even with the repeater, the quality of the data service is no better than at home, even with all of the famous "bars" that AT&T advertises for their signal quality.
Honestly, don't waste your money on going with a data plan on a cellphone. Stick with wireline. I expect bandwidth caps to be put on all connections soon, regardless of carrier, to milk the golden goose under the auspices of "network management" but in reality it comes under the auspices of "money management" - managing to get more money out of our pockets.
Five out of the seven were on wet roads. Two were on dry. All were at evening rush hour. It almost was eight a couple of months ago except the big Mercedes thought better of hopping a square curb and trashing his alignment than visiting the rear bumper. He ended up even with the rear seat on the right grass strip. I wonder how much the front end alignment cost him...
The crunches occurred about 2-3 seconds after the vehicle had come to a rest. Plus, I leave about 15 feet between myself and the car in front just in case someone tries to go through me when I am stopped at the light. It amounts to inattentive driving and following too close for conditions.
Another problem is that this areas drivers run red lights as a routine. There is one protected 2-lane left turn that I regularly count 6-10 cars running AFTER it turns red. The cops just ignore this place - probably because writing all the tickets would give them cramps but the city would clean up on fines. Plus the yellow is not quick either for that turn.
I just chalk it up to Darwin removing the ones that should be culled from the driving pool.
I have a scorecard made of reflective red tape keeping score on how many time I have been rear-ended at yellow lights. The count is seven with two of the cars being totaled in eight years.
The only damage that I have to the Jeep is a bent rear bumper. Viva la old Detroit Iron. BTW, the scorecard has a second benefit, since it is on a bent part of the bumper and reflective, a driver following me sees it, gets a clue, and backs off.
The Jetta TDI uses a NOx storage system and its particulates are way, way down. My guess here is that since a European consortium came up with the techniques used in the TDI, which is an offshoot fo the BlueTec program, there are patents in the way.
The Ford car may have a diesel but I'll betcha that it can't meet the restrictive diesel emissions ratings here in the US. Personally, I would love to see all diesels have to be just as clean as the Jetta TDI engine is and that includes all soot belching commercial truck diesels.
And, my next car is going to be a Jetta TDI Sportwagen with the DSG transmission. Going up a 6% grade with three full-sized adults, a 20 MPH headwind, and at 65 MPH and getting 40 MPG sold me. Plus, I believe that the engine is certified to run on ASTM certified Biodiesel. Fahrvernugen!
A bit of seriousness here. One bar, four bars, five bars - this is no real info at all. At least in the Amateur Radio world, there is objective testing as to what S-9 on the meter means (50 uV @ 50 ohms).
There is no such testing done on cellphones. I have never seen it done. If there was objective testing done, I wonder really how bad the results would be.
I was out on a bike ride and right under a AT&T tower resting and I was getting only two bars. Go figure.
Personally, signal strength displays are orchestrated frauds foisted on the public by the cellphone manufacturer and carrier working in collusion and marketed as being truth when in reality they bear nothing of the sort.
The idea of this huge windfarm running down the center of the US is laudable. Have it over a wide area and cover the variability of wind speeds and locations. But now come the obstacles.
The NIMBY's. Windfarms are an eyesore. They make noise, despite what manufacturers say. Figure out the shadow footprint from the blades. The windfarm would be right in Tornado Alley (I'm happier than a tornado in a windfarm"). Who is going to pay for the towers that are trashed by a twister? No wind = no power = no money for the energy company (never happen - we will pay regardless).
His eggs in one basket approach will not be a endall but a part in a bigger plan. We have to get off of oil - period. So that leaves us with wind, solar, nuclear, biomass,energy conversion technologies (solar running hydrogen separation).
Until we decide to suck it up and put the US into OA (Oil Anonymous), we will be voluntary slaves to oil.
Power distribution is not simplistic at all. It is a huge balancing act between supply, demand, and current/voltage phasing.
In a net loss condition, the inverter system should drop off line. This prevents the isolated island syndrome and I doubt that most home equipment generators can supply enough energy to run more than one/two homes before overloading.
Power quality is paramount to all and affects all. The standards exist to ensure that. This means that the generation equipment has to be able to adjust its output voltage so that there is a net flow out into the grid and at the present power factor presented on the line. Ideally, the power factor should be 1.0 (current/voltage in phase) but that is rarely the case. So, the equiment has to be able to adjust its generation to match the line conditions. That is not an easy thing to accomplish and I can probably say with a good amount of certainty that hobbyist equipment out there can't perform the necessary task of offsetting the voltage/current phasing properly and adequately. Therefore, the power companies are within their right to prevent an inferior power generating source from being hooked up to the power lines. Personally, I don't think that there is ENOUGH regulation in place to limit the garbage impressed back onto the power lines from attached equipment.
The cost of the equipment is high because of the complexity of its task, both in generation of smooth, clean waveforms and to be able to protect itself at the same time. Let's take, for example, a large wind turbine, say 2 megawatts. The power that is going out to the power line is sine wave power from a rotating alternator. It is the control equipments responsibility to ensure proper operation. A home operation will probably use a PWM converter and huge filter that will provide a clean sine wave. You still have the same control issues that the wind turbine has with the home unit and its associated costs. But here, economy of scale really plays in here.
From having to track down noise sources on power lines because of the interference they create to other sources has really created an appreciation for clean power usage and generation. The cost point of ensuring a PWM power generation system on a small scale provides clean sine wave is just too prohibitive for the average hobbyist.
Then there is the payback on investment. Wind and solar generation are not on all the time. That is a given that you can't avoid. So the ROI gets stretched out.
This can be done, but at what cost to ensure good, clean usable power that meets the necessary power standards?
We at LBE are proud to introduce our new pricing policies. They are as follows:
6 Mbit/sec down - 512 kbit up -> $15/mo.
1.5 Mbit/sec down - 128 kbit up - no RST -> $45/mo.
Remember, LBE (Lousy Broadband Experience) are here to satisfy all of your emergent broadband needs.
Thank you for using our services.
I have my cellphone set up as a wi-fi router. If my data rate is too high over the phone, the connection gets chopped. If I run a low data speed, all is fine. So, it seems to be the same.
Let's see...bulb operates at temperatures up to 6000K. 6000 deg K = 10,340 deg F. I sincerely doubt the unit would last long at that high of a temperature. I can see the light being given off has the spectrum distribution of a "blackbody radiator" at 6000 deg K. The phrase should be reworded to read "...bulb operates at color temperatures up to 6000K..." Yawn.
It does not matter which side of the aisle the blame is placed, it could be down the middle for all I care. The Fed's gave the telco's a no-strings check and the telco's had a feast - all are to blame here.
When I was in college taking a business law course, we spent a day or two on contract law involving performance penalty clauses. These little gems go a long way and act as an insurance policy. Problem is that when both signatories of the contract are fiscally and operationally bankrupt, only the public suffer going into the contract and suffers when the contract is not fulfilled. The politicians get reelected and the big companies get their bucks for free.
-- Aetherburner
Electile Dysfunction: What you suffer when there are no electable candidates put forth by any party out there.
I have to agree with the above poster. Intel is raking in $$$$$$ on their products and a little benevolence toward the groups that the OLPC is aimed for won't kill their bottom line one bit. Huzzah to Mr. Negroponte for sticking to his philosophy and not rolling over in the name of $$$. There are many for-profit companies that can use this as a valuable lesson in philanthropy. One problem is that there are so few people out there like Mr. Negroponte in the business world. One thing that my mum keeps telling me is that $DEITY keeps track of things like this. Long Live OLPC and benevolence.
-- Aetherburner
"In the company of wind, dust achieves great heights. In the company of rain, it's mud."
I switched to CFL's totally inside the house. This made a big difference in my electric bill...it went down significantly. I have been using them for about four years now and they are worth it. I have 800 equivalent watts of lighting in my workshop for 240 watts of electricity.
Now for the ugly parts. CFL's don't play too well when it is cold. They take a long time to come up. 20 seconds for a 150 watter to come up to usable brightness in 15 degree weather. I use them on my garage door opener. So I don't get usable light until I get to the garage from the street if I open the door in the street as I am pulling in. Of course, there is the mercury issue. This is the same as the media undercoverage of the mercury in regular T8/T40 fluorescent tubes.
The CFL's pull pulse current and have a far worse capacitive power factor than an incandescent bulb whose PF = 1. I measured the PF of my CFL's here in the workshop and the PF was equal to.6. Power companies want to see a PF of 1 and that is the most efficient. I have a feeling that there are going to be issues when these really become prevalent and the power companies are going to have to do major PF correction in neighborhoods. Bad power factors just increase the need for power generation capabilities because bad PF's just waste power and provide no returns.
Even though the bulbs may meet FCC standards, the power supplies are going to increase the RFI noise levels in general. I personally believe that the FCC RFI emission standards are too loose and sloppy. We should adopt the EU standards which are workable and provide better protections.
Despite their issues, I will use them. Now to replace high wattage with HID's or some similar technology.
The legislation that is about to pass in Wisconsin, and probably any other state, was bought by direct solicitation of the elected representatives by AT&T and via a sponsored, directed TV ad campaign referencing a website called "TVForUs.com". The parent of this website tracks back to AT&T. The specs in the bill are what AT&T was hoping for. Hopefully, Governor Doyle will do a line-item veto and bring back the Customer Protection items that were so skillfully deleted.
The info is out there, just look. By the way, "praying for exclusivity" in a market is the corporate dream of the Southern Boys Club, as it would be for any company. Don't need anything to back that up - history is a good teacher.
like the BS that is being passed by the Wisconsin legislature to make all contracts at the state level with pathetically watered down consumers bill-of-rights? I will bet you that AT&T was praying for exclusivity after buying the legislation in Ohio, even though T/W is now second fiddle and no better.
I have DirecTV. Will not use U-Verse or Time/Wasted. I have had zero transport problems with DirecTV since I have been with them. The only issue that I have had was when a new HD box shot craps. It was replaced in no time at all after getting by the script kiddie in Customer Service and to someone with a brain that I could talk to levelheaded. Real simple, box overheated and would shut down. Supervisor said after I was done explaining the situation - "What is your address so I can send you a replacement?"
There are options to AT&T and T/W. There always have been.
Good ol' 225 cu.in. (3.6 liters), three on the floor, 1/3 engine compartment, 1/3 passenger compartment (you could fit 6 footers in the front AND back comfortably), 1/3 trunk. That charm got me 27/30 MPG on the flat land and 32 on a real good day at freeway speeds. Emissions consisted of a PCV valve.
I remember rather fuzzily from my college chemistry class that there are ideal points to burn things the most efficiently. I believe gasoline is somewhere around 14.7:1. air to fuel. Air is mostly nitrogen, some oxygen, some carbon dioxide, and a few other gases. Gasoline is made of carbon, hydrogen, and maybe a few other elements. This is a delicate balancing act to get to work right. Yes, engines are getting better at it and are probably as good as they are going to get in that department in terms of emissions, if the engines are well maintained - but that is another story altogether.
Fuel economy ratings are not real. They are published panaceas that are meant to placate the uneducated masses and keep the current administration in office by appearing to be do-gooders. But it does not solve the problem.
After I picked up my daughter from where she works, we went home. For the trip home, which is NOT flat but up and down, I spent more time stopped at traffic lights that actually moving. Well, there goes my fuel efficiency.
I can continue on with this but it is not really worth it. I will buy the vehicle that works for me. I travel on the flat lands, in the mountains, and at posted speed limits. I am 6 feet tall and I don't like my head putting a dent in the headliner with the seat all the way back because I am in a sardine can. I also appreciate a car that can accelerate going up hill from a start in the mountains, not having to bribe the two squirrels under the hood to put out to get moving. I also appreciate a strong, well built vehicle that is not designed to accordion-fold when hit by a feather at 10 MPH by someone who is too busy talking on a cellphone. Yes, my back bumper has totaled several cars because I can stop and the drivers that are following are either tailgating, not paying attention, or both.
The subject of energy efficiency is a classic study in trade-offs and compromises. It is the government and the media that are willing ignore that fact to guide the great uneducated masses to the Philosopher's Stone that you can have fantastic gas mileage with no detractions - like perpetual motion.
When I last visited a Fry's, it was in Fountain Valley, CA. One parking lot entrance - always constant in/out traffic. You would go in and it's "Where do I START??" They had anything you possibly would want for a weekend hackingfest. I could get raw IC's, resistors, caps, honest aluminum heat sinks, asides from the obligatory wide layout of almost every motherboard made out there - plus SCSI adapter cards!. Don't try and get there on Black Friday. Even though the store was on a side street, people would park on main road and hike in. I really miss that store and I would be pleasantly shocked to hear if it has not changed.
CompUSA was CompFUSA. No stock. Prices were higher than the street for most items. The staff and their training was nil. As I look back, I have hardly bought any good hardware lately, except for a couple of DVD drives for the kids systems and a power supply for one that decided to go poof. My personal webserver is on a Celeron, my BigBox is an Athlon64 and my laptop is a T42. My next purchase will be probably be a hard drive for BigBox, just based on age. I don't see why I have to keep desperately upgrading my hardware just because something new comes out. I am seeing BestBuy cutting back on their computer stock here. They took out about 20% of their computer supply floor area to put in a fou-fou Apple kiosk that shows about 5 models.
I would expect that in the next few years, most stores like BestBuy and CircuitCity will be ditching their computer parts and that will be relegated to Fry's, NewEgg, and a couple of online retailers as they concentrate on TV's when the analog channels shut down here in the US and everyone scrambles for new boobtoobs.
As everyone else is saying - When will Fry's be moving to my area - Milwaukee/Chicago.
-- Aetherburner
"In the company of wind, dust achieves great heights. In the company of rain, it's mud."
I have an HTC Hermes cellphone running WM6 (upgrading was a BIG mistake from WM5). My friend is the single-button salute with it. I have to reset it on a daily basis because of it not wanting to charge, not seeing the uSD memory card most of the time unless I delete the METADATA file and reset. Hopefully, some one will be come out with a Linux distro for the phone. I love the hardware but the crippleware that came with it is the showkiller.
Commentator on business - her actions at HP speak quite loudly on her business acumen. And Fox News expects me to listen to her for her learned observations and commentary? I have a mute button and I plan on exercising it.
Yet, the visual biases that are present start right in before one speaks. In my chosen field of work, I run into far more men than women. It really starts when the person opens their mouth and says that they have been in the field for greater than ten years and have experience but when the discussion continues on, their responses show that they are really clueless. Personally, I have run into some women in the field that are really, really sharp. Bad part about it is that they are very few and far between and that is too bad. I believe that when you have a design team with a balance of the sexes on it, and they all have their brains screwed on right, the results are far better than the results from a unisex team (my personal experience).
Slashdot Mirror
doing his best to stir the pot and not let the food stick.
Sometimes a little revolution is a good thing.
Living in SE Wisconsin in a major metropolitan area, AT&T is not reliable at all for data, whether it is 3G or HSDPA. I would say that it is very poor.
If I want good, reliable data transfer, I have to go to a major shopping mall where, regardless of the connection being 3G or HSDPA, I get full signal strength. I live about four miles away from there and if I want to do any kind of use of the AT&T Notwork, I have to see if the 3G or HSDPA signal is stronger and offer my prayers to the propagation gods that the signal holds. I am lucky if the connection hold for five minutes before it chokes and that is on a golden day. Even at the office where I work, we had to put in a local repeater to get to the tower that is about a mile away so the coverage was reliable.
A couple of my offspring's friends have Verizon and I have done a side-by-side comparison, polling the same website, at the same time, and I found that the Verizon phone always had the complete page way before my phone did. Plus, the Verizon phone showed more signal (don't rag me on the bars issue - I prefer to measure signal strength in dBm using an IFR).
I hope that Verizon wins this one because in the eyes of this observer, they would win with me for what I have seen in a real live, unstaged comparison.
I have unlimited mobile data via AT&T Mobility (mobile, yes - reliable, no). My cellphone is 3G and HSDPA capable. From home, I use their wireless service for fun and as a backup. Both 3G and HSDPA are unreliable where I live in Milwaukee. One may be available and the other isn't so I am constantly having to switch between the two to whichever protocol I am able to receive at the moment. So at home, I turn off the cell wireless and connect up through my 802.11G wireless router and out that way.
At the salt mines, we had to have a building repeater installed to get to the nearest cellsite. Even with the repeater, the quality of the data service is no better than at home, even with all of the famous "bars" that AT&T advertises for their signal quality.
Honestly, don't waste your money on going with a data plan on a cellphone. Stick with wireline. I expect bandwidth caps to be put on all connections soon, regardless of carrier, to milk the golden goose under the auspices of "network management" but in reality it comes under the auspices of "money management" - managing to get more money out of our pockets.
on an Electra Glide with dual tail pipes doin' 105 in the broad daylight. (with respects to Trace Adkins)
Five out of the seven were on wet roads. Two were on dry. All were at evening rush hour. It almost was eight a couple of months ago except the big Mercedes thought better of hopping a square curb and trashing his alignment than visiting the rear bumper. He ended up even with the rear seat on the right grass strip. I wonder how much the front end alignment cost him...
The crunches occurred about 2-3 seconds after the vehicle had come to a rest. Plus, I leave about 15 feet between myself and the car in front just in case someone tries to go through me when I am stopped at the light. It amounts to inattentive driving and following too close for conditions.
Another problem is that this areas drivers run red lights as a routine. There is one protected 2-lane left turn that I regularly count 6-10 cars running AFTER it turns red. The cops just ignore this place - probably because writing all the tickets would give them cramps but the city would clean up on fines. Plus the yellow is not quick either for that turn.
I just chalk it up to Darwin removing the ones that should be culled from the driving pool.
I have a scorecard made of reflective red tape keeping score on how many time I have been rear-ended at yellow lights. The count is seven with two of the cars being totaled in eight years.
The only damage that I have to the Jeep is a bent rear bumper. Viva la old Detroit Iron. BTW, the scorecard has a second benefit, since it is on a bent part of the bumper and reflective, a driver following me sees it, gets a clue, and backs off.
Everything is lewd.
With apologies to Tom Lehrer.
The Jetta TDI uses a NOx storage system and its particulates are way, way down. My guess here is that since a European consortium came up with the techniques used in the TDI, which is an offshoot fo the BlueTec program, there are patents in the way.
The Ford car may have a diesel but I'll betcha that it can't meet the restrictive diesel emissions ratings here in the US. Personally, I would love to see all diesels have to be just as clean as the Jetta TDI engine is and that includes all soot belching commercial truck diesels.
And, my next car is going to be a Jetta TDI Sportwagen with the DSG transmission. Going up a 6% grade with three full-sized adults, a 20 MPH headwind, and at 65 MPH and getting 40 MPG sold me. Plus, I believe that the engine is certified to run on ASTM certified Biodiesel. Fahrvernugen!
A bit of seriousness here. One bar, four bars, five bars - this is no real info at all. At least in the Amateur Radio world, there is objective testing as to what S-9 on the meter means (50 uV @ 50 ohms).
There is no such testing done on cellphones. I have never seen it done. If there was objective testing done, I wonder really how bad the results would be.
I was out on a bike ride and right under a AT&T tower resting and I was getting only two bars. Go figure.
Personally, signal strength displays are orchestrated frauds foisted on the public by the cellphone manufacturer and carrier working in collusion and marketed as being truth when in reality they bear nothing of the sort.
The idea of this huge windfarm running down the center of the US is laudable. Have it over a wide area and cover the variability of wind speeds and locations. But now come the obstacles.
The NIMBY's. Windfarms are an eyesore. They make noise, despite what manufacturers say. Figure out the shadow footprint from the blades. The windfarm would be right in Tornado Alley (I'm happier than a tornado in a windfarm"). Who is going to pay for the towers that are trashed by a twister? No wind = no power = no money for the energy company (never happen - we will pay regardless).
His eggs in one basket approach will not be a endall but a part in a bigger plan. We have to get off of oil - period. So that leaves us with wind, solar, nuclear, biomass,energy conversion technologies (solar running hydrogen separation).
Until we decide to suck it up and put the US into OA (Oil Anonymous), we will be voluntary slaves to oil.
Power distribution is not simplistic at all. It is a huge balancing act between supply, demand, and current/voltage phasing.
In a net loss condition, the inverter system should drop off line. This prevents the isolated island syndrome and I doubt that most home equipment generators can supply enough energy to run more than one/two homes before overloading.
Power quality is paramount to all and affects all. The standards exist to ensure that. This means that the generation equipment has to be able to adjust its output voltage so that there is a net flow out into the grid and at the present power factor presented on the line. Ideally, the power factor should be 1.0 (current/voltage in phase) but that is rarely the case. So, the equiment has to be able to adjust its generation to match the line conditions. That is not an easy thing to accomplish and I can probably say with a good amount of certainty that hobbyist equipment out there can't perform the necessary task of offsetting the voltage/current phasing properly and adequately. Therefore, the power companies are within their right to prevent an inferior power generating source from being hooked up to the power lines. Personally, I don't think that there is ENOUGH regulation in place to limit the garbage impressed back onto the power lines from attached equipment.
The cost of the equipment is high because of the complexity of its task, both in generation of smooth, clean waveforms and to be able to protect itself at the same time. Let's take, for example, a large wind turbine, say 2 megawatts. The power that is going out to the power line is sine wave power from a rotating alternator. It is the control equipments responsibility to ensure proper operation. A home operation will probably use a PWM converter and huge filter that will provide a clean sine wave. You still have the same control issues that the wind turbine has with the home unit and its associated costs. But here, economy of scale really plays in here.
From having to track down noise sources on power lines because of the interference they create to other sources has really created an appreciation for clean power usage and generation. The cost point of ensuring a PWM power generation system on a small scale provides clean sine wave is just too prohibitive for the average hobbyist.
Then there is the payback on investment. Wind and solar generation are not on all the time. That is a given that you can't avoid. So the ROI gets stretched out.
This can be done, but at what cost to ensure good, clean usable power that meets the necessary power standards?
We at LBE are proud to introduce our new pricing policies. They are as follows: 6 Mbit/sec down - 512 kbit up -> $15/mo. 1.5 Mbit/sec down - 128 kbit up - no RST -> $45/mo. Remember, LBE (Lousy Broadband Experience) are here to satisfy all of your emergent broadband needs. Thank you for using our services.
I have my cellphone set up as a wi-fi router. If my data rate is too high over the phone, the connection gets chopped. If I run a low data speed, all is fine. So, it seems to be the same.
Let's see...bulb operates at temperatures up to 6000K. 6000 deg K = 10,340 deg F. I sincerely doubt the unit would last long at that high of a temperature. I can see the light being given off has the spectrum distribution of a "blackbody radiator" at 6000 deg K. The phrase should be reworded to read "...bulb operates at color temperatures up to 6000K..." Yawn.
It does not matter which side of the aisle the blame is placed, it could be down the middle for all I care. The Fed's gave the telco's a no-strings check and the telco's had a feast - all are to blame here.
When I was in college taking a business law course, we spent a day or two on contract law involving performance penalty clauses. These little gems go a long way and act as an insurance policy. Problem is that when both signatories of the contract are fiscally and operationally bankrupt, only the public suffer going into the contract and suffers when the contract is not fulfilled. The politicians get reelected and the big companies get their bucks for free.
-- Aetherburner
Electile Dysfunction: What you suffer when there are no electable candidates put forth by any party out there.
I have to agree with the above poster. Intel is raking in $$$$$$ on their products and a little benevolence toward the groups that the OLPC is aimed for won't kill their bottom line one bit. Huzzah to Mr. Negroponte for sticking to his philosophy and not rolling over in the name of $$$. There are many for-profit companies that can use this as a valuable lesson in philanthropy. One problem is that there are so few people out there like Mr. Negroponte in the business world. One thing that my mum keeps telling me is that $DEITY keeps track of things like this. Long Live OLPC and benevolence.
-- Aetherburner
"In the company of wind, dust achieves great heights. In the company of rain, it's mud."
I switched to CFL's totally inside the house. This made a big difference in my electric bill...it went down significantly. I have been using them for about four years now and they are worth it. I have 800 equivalent watts of lighting in my workshop for 240 watts of electricity.
.6. Power companies want to see a PF of 1 and that is the most efficient. I have a feeling that there are going to be issues when these really become prevalent and the power companies are going to have to do major PF correction in neighborhoods. Bad power factors just increase the need for power generation capabilities because bad PF's just waste power and provide no returns.
Now for the ugly parts. CFL's don't play too well when it is cold. They take a long time to come up. 20 seconds for a 150 watter to come up to usable brightness in 15 degree weather. I use them on my garage door opener. So I don't get usable light until I get to the garage from the street if I open the door in the street as I am pulling in. Of course, there is the mercury issue. This is the same as the media undercoverage of the mercury in regular T8/T40 fluorescent tubes.
The CFL's pull pulse current and have a far worse capacitive power factor than an incandescent bulb whose PF = 1. I measured the PF of my CFL's here in the workshop and the PF was equal to
Even though the bulbs may meet FCC standards, the power supplies are going to increase the RFI noise levels in general. I personally believe that the FCC RFI emission standards are too loose and sloppy. We should adopt the EU standards which are workable and provide better protections.
Despite their issues, I will use them. Now to replace high wattage with HID's or some similar technology.
-- Aetherburner
Here are the results of the signing http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=699450
The legislation that is about to pass in Wisconsin, and probably any other state, was bought by direct solicitation of the elected representatives by AT&T and via a sponsored, directed TV ad campaign referencing a website called "TVForUs.com". The parent of this website tracks back to AT&T. The specs in the bill are what AT&T was hoping for. Hopefully, Governor Doyle will do a line-item veto and bring back the Customer Protection items that were so skillfully deleted.
The info is out there, just look. By the way, "praying for exclusivity" in a market is the corporate dream of the Southern Boys Club, as it would be for any company. Don't need anything to back that up - history is a good teacher.
like the BS that is being passed by the Wisconsin legislature to make all contracts at the state level with pathetically watered down consumers bill-of-rights? I will bet you that AT&T was praying for exclusivity after buying the legislation in Ohio, even though T/W is now second fiddle and no better.
I have DirecTV. Will not use U-Verse or Time/Wasted. I have had zero transport problems with DirecTV since I have been with them. The only issue that I have had was when a new HD box shot craps. It was replaced in no time at all after getting by the script kiddie in Customer Service and to someone with a brain that I could talk to levelheaded. Real simple, box overheated and would shut down. Supervisor said after I was done explaining the situation - "What is your address so I can send you a replacement?"
There are options to AT&T and T/W. There always have been.
Good ol' 225 cu.in. (3.6 liters), three on the floor, 1/3 engine compartment, 1/3 passenger compartment (you could fit 6 footers in the front AND back comfortably), 1/3 trunk. That charm got me 27/30 MPG on the flat land and 32 on a real good day at freeway speeds. Emissions consisted of a PCV valve.
I remember rather fuzzily from my college chemistry class that there are ideal points to burn things the most efficiently. I believe gasoline is somewhere around 14.7:1. air to fuel. Air is mostly nitrogen, some oxygen, some carbon dioxide, and a few other gases. Gasoline is made of carbon, hydrogen, and maybe a few other elements. This is a delicate balancing act to get to work right. Yes, engines are getting better at it and are probably as good as they are going to get in that department in terms of emissions, if the engines are well maintained - but that is another story altogether.
Fuel economy ratings are not real. They are published panaceas that are meant to placate the uneducated masses and keep the current administration in office by appearing to be do-gooders. But it does not solve the problem.
After I picked up my daughter from where she works, we went home. For the trip home, which is NOT flat but up and down, I spent more time stopped at traffic lights that actually moving. Well, there goes my fuel efficiency.
I can continue on with this but it is not really worth it. I will buy the vehicle that works for me. I travel on the flat lands, in the mountains, and at posted speed limits. I am 6 feet tall and I don't like my head putting a dent in the headliner with the seat all the way back because I am in a sardine can. I also appreciate a car that can accelerate going up hill from a start in the mountains, not having to bribe the two squirrels under the hood to put out to get moving. I also appreciate a strong, well built vehicle that is not designed to accordion-fold when hit by a feather at 10 MPH by someone who is too busy talking on a cellphone. Yes, my back bumper has totaled several cars because I can stop and the drivers that are following are either tailgating, not paying attention, or both.
The subject of energy efficiency is a classic study in trade-offs and compromises. It is the government and the media that are willing ignore that fact to guide the great uneducated masses to the Philosopher's Stone that you can have fantastic gas mileage with no detractions - like perpetual motion.
When I last visited a Fry's, it was in Fountain Valley, CA. One parking lot entrance - always constant in/out traffic. You would go in and it's "Where do I START??" They had anything you possibly would want for a weekend hackingfest. I could get raw IC's, resistors, caps, honest aluminum heat sinks, asides from the obligatory wide layout of almost every motherboard made out there - plus SCSI adapter cards!. Don't try and get there on Black Friday. Even though the store was on a side street, people would park on main road and hike in. I really miss that store and I would be pleasantly shocked to hear if it has not changed.
CompUSA was CompFUSA. No stock. Prices were higher than the street for most items. The staff and their training was nil. As I look back, I have hardly bought any good hardware lately, except for a couple of DVD drives for the kids systems and a power supply for one that decided to go poof. My personal webserver is on a Celeron, my BigBox is an Athlon64 and my laptop is a T42. My next purchase will be probably be a hard drive for BigBox, just based on age. I don't see why I have to keep desperately upgrading my hardware just because something new comes out. I am seeing BestBuy cutting back on their computer stock here. They took out about 20% of their computer supply floor area to put in a fou-fou Apple kiosk that shows about 5 models.
I would expect that in the next few years, most stores like BestBuy and CircuitCity will be ditching their computer parts and that will be relegated to Fry's, NewEgg, and a couple of online retailers as they concentrate on TV's when the analog channels shut down here in the US and everyone scrambles for new boobtoobs.
As everyone else is saying - When will Fry's be moving to my area - Milwaukee/Chicago.
-- Aetherburner
"In the company of wind, dust achieves great heights. In the company of rain, it's mud."
I have an HTC Hermes cellphone running WM6 (upgrading was a BIG mistake from WM5). My friend is the single-button salute with it. I have to reset it on a daily basis because of it not wanting to charge, not seeing the uSD memory card most of the time unless I delete the METADATA file and reset. Hopefully, some one will be come out with a Linux distro for the phone. I love the hardware but the crippleware that came with it is the showkiller.
Commentator on business - her actions at HP speak quite loudly on her business acumen. And Fox News expects me to listen to her for her learned observations and commentary? I have a mute button and I plan on exercising it.
Yet, the visual biases that are present start right in before one speaks. In my chosen field of work, I run into far more men than women. It really starts when the person opens their mouth and says that they have been in the field for greater than ten years and have experience but when the discussion continues on, their responses show that they are really clueless. Personally, I have run into some women in the field that are really, really sharp. Bad part about it is that they are very few and far between and that is too bad. I believe that when you have a design team with a balance of the sexes on it, and they all have their brains screwed on right, the results are far better than the results from a unisex team (my personal experience).