I'm somewhat surprised they go to the trouble to resurrect and upgrade Amigas to do this work. There are plenty of recent ColdFire dev boards that could be used, if they can get someone to donate the board. Coworker tells me the default install for some of those boards is dicey and could stand to benefit from some attention.
I'll bite. In kelvin, if we add 50% to the mean surface temperature of 287K, that would be.... 430K Which is damn hot. 315 degF for those of us in the U.S. who don't speak metric.
They're designing to supplement the grid, not replace it. You're 10kW generator can't handle the peak loads on your house. When someone talks about x kW (it depends on region) powering n homes, they're talking about average demand.
As an engineer, I thought I would point out there are two ways we deal with patents:
Method 1: Once you have an idea, do a thorough patent search and verify your idea does not appear to violate any patents. If it does, re-design the widget so it avoids the patent.
Method 2: Ignorance is bliss. Design and build it.
I can tell you, if you use method 1 you will need an enormous staff and risk never getting anything done. Despite it all, you still won't be safe because someone will come along with patent claims anyway, even though you did a most thorough due diligence search. I'm not saying you ignore patents, that would be unethical. Company I work for has a record of the patents related to our products that we have been made aware of. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to go looking for trouble.
Patents won't stop you from building a couple of devices in your garage; but, they'll be as useful as bricks. You have to get the radios FCC certified and then run the gauntlet of certification hoops to convince the cell provider to allow you to connect your garage built device to their network. There are radio modules available that would speed up the process -- basically pre-certified modules that handle the entire cell phone function. You might be able to do it using these... But they're huge, relatively speaking. You won't be building a sexy device like a Galaxy S, iPhone, or Droid with them.
We've done it on equipment we're designing for deployment; but, I have the advantage of being able to call Verizon and say, "I'm Confused, an electrical and software engineer with Big-Company. I am using a cell radio module from A_well_known_manufacturer. I need to activate it on our account for testing..." And, by the way, we won't do that until we're pretty damn sure the thing will work right.
And if you look at AMD's strategy, they seem to be suggesting people look at recompiling to run the floating point intensive code on GPUs. The GPUs are better suited to handle the computations than a FPU in a general purpose CPU core or module.
I'm confused by the naptha reference as well. It's one of the primary components for gasoline... So perhaps it's being used as a fancy word substitution.
Uh, no. First, you'll not affect the upwelling of heat from the lower mantle. Second, you might increase the viscosity in the localized region around the well, which might have the opposite effect by forcing any upwelling magma to seek other directions for expansion, should there be pressure to expand. Third, if the water does ever reach the magma, it will enhance the probability of an eruption.
I'm sorry... This is a bunch of FUD. These plants have all seen impact of large storms before. Other nuclear plants along the Atlantic coast have been impacted by larger storms than Sandy. Despite this, the U.S. Mid Atlantic coast is not a radioactive wasteland.
Well, in a simple minded way I can see an obvious answer. If, by pushing a little innovation, they can reduce the cost from $2k to $300, that's a 6x reduction in cost. When multiplied by, oh, the entire U.S. military population, that becomes a substantial dollar amount.
Until we went to the Moon via Apollo and found the subtle differences in composition of the rocks, when compared to Earth, the leading theory was that it formed simultaneously with Earth as a kind of dual planet.
Nuking the Moon won't get anyone's attention, it'll just create more mess.
The 3rd rock around this star draws attention because it has copious liquid water, free oxygen in its atmosphere, and has both artificially produced light and sub-atomic particles emitting from it's surface. That should be more than enough to get someone's attention, if they happen to fly by.
There have been a number of planets found orbiting binary star systems. Kepler has identified a planet around a star in a binary pair, orbited much further out by another binary pair.
We collected shiny things before writing was invented... But there just weren't enough people picking up shiny rocks to have a significant impact on the available quantities. You are correct though: used to be you could walk up to a stream bed and find "precious" metals and stones just sitting there.
What do you do when the rotation has to be shut down? Picture, things have gone to shit. Station is in danger. They had to shut down the rotation to effect repairs on the structure. And you have a triage ward full of victims... You'll need a zero-gee backup plan, even if that's not your primary and preferred methodology.
I'm somewhat surprised they go to the trouble to resurrect and upgrade Amigas to do this work. There are plenty of recent ColdFire dev boards that could be used, if they can get someone to donate the board. Coworker tells me the default install for some of those boards is dicey and could stand to benefit from some attention.
naw, it just brought out the few sniveling whiners.
I'll bite. In kelvin, if we add 50% to the mean surface temperature of 287K, that would be.... 430K Which is damn hot. 315 degF for those of us in the U.S. who don't speak metric.
They're designing to supplement the grid, not replace it. You're 10kW generator can't handle the peak loads on your house. When someone talks about x kW (it depends on region) powering n homes, they're talking about average demand.
I thought New New York was on New Earth?
As an engineer, I thought I would point out there are two ways we deal with patents:
Method 1: Once you have an idea, do a thorough patent search and verify your idea does not appear to violate any patents. If it does, re-design the widget so it avoids the patent.
Method 2: Ignorance is bliss. Design and build it.
I can tell you, if you use method 1 you will need an enormous staff and risk never getting anything done. Despite it all, you still won't be safe because someone will come along with patent claims anyway, even though you did a most thorough due diligence search. I'm not saying you ignore patents, that would be unethical. Company I work for has a record of the patents related to our products that we have been made aware of. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to go looking for trouble.
Patents won't stop you from building a couple of devices in your garage; but, they'll be as useful as bricks. You have to get the radios FCC certified and then run the gauntlet of certification hoops to convince the cell provider to allow you to connect your garage built device to their network. There are radio modules available that would speed up the process -- basically pre-certified modules that handle the entire cell phone function. You might be able to do it using these... But they're huge, relatively speaking. You won't be building a sexy device like a Galaxy S, iPhone, or Droid with them.
We've done it on equipment we're designing for deployment; but, I have the advantage of being able to call Verizon and say, "I'm Confused, an electrical and software engineer with Big-Company. I am using a cell radio module from A_well_known_manufacturer. I need to activate it on our account for testing..." And, by the way, we won't do that until we're pretty damn sure the thing will work right.
And if you look at AMD's strategy, they seem to be suggesting people look at recompiling to run the floating point intensive code on GPUs. The GPUs are better suited to handle the computations than a FPU in a general purpose CPU core or module.
Isn't a geothermal plant, by definition, a nuclear power plant? (Earth's core is heated by nuclear decay)
I'm confused by the naptha reference as well. It's one of the primary components for gasoline... So perhaps it's being used as a fancy word substitution.
it will make it less likely to erupt
Uh, no. First, you'll not affect the upwelling of heat from the lower mantle. Second, you might increase the viscosity in the localized region around the well, which might have the opposite effect by forcing any upwelling magma to seek other directions for expansion, should there be pressure to expand. Third, if the water does ever reach the magma, it will enhance the probability of an eruption.
I'm sorry... This is a bunch of FUD. These plants have all seen impact of large storms before. Other nuclear plants along the Atlantic coast have been impacted by larger storms than Sandy. Despite this, the U.S. Mid Atlantic coast is not a radioactive wasteland.
DDR3 is the current standard...
OK, you can have the next couple of storms. We'll send them your way.
Well, in a simple minded way I can see an obvious answer. If, by pushing a little innovation, they can reduce the cost from $2k to $300, that's a 6x reduction in cost. When multiplied by, oh, the entire U.S. military population, that becomes a substantial dollar amount.
For receiving only, a long-wire antenna should work fine.
Until we went to the Moon via Apollo and found the subtle differences in composition of the rocks, when compared to Earth, the leading theory was that it formed simultaneously with Earth as a kind of dual planet.
Nuking the Moon won't get anyone's attention, it'll just create more mess.
The 3rd rock around this star draws attention because it has copious liquid water, free oxygen in its atmosphere, and has both artificially produced light and sub-atomic particles emitting from it's surface. That should be more than enough to get someone's attention, if they happen to fly by.
Well, there might be a thin atmosphere composed of stuff boiling off the star facing side.
If it's that close, it's likely tidally locked, or at least have a very slow rotation as does Mercury; so, the "dark side" should stay icy.
There have been a number of planets found orbiting binary star systems. Kepler has identified a planet around a star in a binary pair, orbited much further out by another binary pair.
We collected shiny things before writing was invented... But there just weren't enough people picking up shiny rocks to have a significant impact on the available quantities. You are correct though: used to be you could walk up to a stream bed and find "precious" metals and stones just sitting there.
Will turn out to be a chunk of platinum group metals. So begins the push to mine Mars.
What do you do when the rotation has to be shut down? Picture, things have gone to shit. Station is in danger. They had to shut down the rotation to effect repairs on the structure. And you have a triage ward full of victims... You'll need a zero-gee backup plan, even if that's not your primary and preferred methodology.
If the civilization has achieved 100% energy efficiency, there would be no radiated heat, as that is simply wasteful.
Fundamental laws of physics apply, even if you're a technologically advanced civilization.