Yeah, you can replace them... But I had about 15 bad caps on mine. Cost of parts + labor (and my times worth too much). It was not worth it. A cheap motherboard from a local shop and It was back up and running.
If I don't drink it, I get all shaky and have a headache. I drink the coffee and feel better! Empirical evidence that coffee must be good for you.
I remember mumbling something, just this morning, like "you'll get my coffee cup when you pry it out of my cold dead hands." Never mind, just the ramblings of a coffee addict.
(Just for kicks and giggles) ^2... A DC-DC converter actually chops the incoming voltage into pulsed DC as the parent is implying. Depending on your point of reference, you could call it AC... It either feeds into a charge pump or a regulator circuit that results in the desired voltage, then passes through some filtering to smooth it out.
You are correct sir. That is why we supply +15V inside our instrument chassis and let the individual modules meet their voltage needs with internal sub-regulators (DC-DC converter blocks, usually).
that's what gives a lot of customer support people a bad image to begin with. It's still the classic, "Well, if I can't fix it, just reload the OS." answer.
They've been on again / off again with the linux offerings. I purchased a couple of workstations in 1997 with Windows installed (only option), formatted the drives and installed RH 5.0. A few months later they started offering the machines with RH linux pre-installed. A year or so after that they stopped offering it... and so on, and so forth. Fickle.
As an aside, I believe they're offering the systems with FreeDOS because some people do want to install linux, but don't want RedHat (I run Suse now). This way, they can offer a choice while letting the customer be responsible for the install and support. FreeDOS is included because it allowing you to run the DELL supplied hardware diagnostics.
PPS, they don't offer it on consumer grade machines because they don't want the support headaches.
It's going to piss off a lot of early adopters, people who have been trying to prepare for the switch to digital TV and HDTV, which has been mandated by Congress. I'd bet that this issue eventually gets dealt with via more legislation. I don't think that's the best solution; but, once individual members of Congress and their constituents start getting screwed over, they're likely to act. Unfortunately it may be too late by then...
You're not working in the dark... Other schools require their students to buy PC's (desktop or laptop, for principles sake it doesn't matter) and have worked out all the details with respect to providing software, sourcing hardware, locking down their network, setting up factory repair facilities students have ready access to, etc. Contact one of the larger institutions who have been doing this for a while and see if they'll sit down with you and go over some of the details to help get you started. I can suggest two (in Virginia) that I'm personally familiar with -- Virginia Tech and University of Virginia.
By the way, if you go the laptop route, I'm going to humbly make a few suggestions:
Insist all the student buy accidental damage coverage and theft insurance.
If it's in your budget, provide a server for the students to back up their important work on -- it could also make for a good (read as "secure") \share location.
That's part of the penalty incurred for changing majors... Welcome to the real world.
When I was in college, engineers used PC's (yes, actual PC's) and CS types used Mac's running A/UX. If you changed majors, going from CS to engineering or vice versa, you had to buy another computer. Sometimes you could get lucky and a.) sell your old one and/or b.)buy a used computer from someone else.
People are bricking their machines because they're poking around in the EFI configuration, blind, with no knowledge of what they're doing, while trying to get it to recognize a Windows boot partition. As it turns out, Apple didn't include FAT or NTFS support in it's EFI interface. Go figure.
As soon as someone figures out how to re-flash the boot roms, it will be easy to fix.
The hardest part of lowering the tether from space will be getting it (safely) through the thicker portion of the lower atmosphere. Seems like a good idea to me: send up a balloon supported platform to capture the end of the tether at, say, between 10 and 20 miles up, then lower the tether the rest of the way, guided by the tether attaching the balloon(s) to the ground.
They're powering the climber with on-board batteries, I believe.
Does the ability to power it with a laser exists? Sure. We can build tuneable 10kW lasers now (think FEL). Attach some optics to focus. Put collectors on the bottom of the lifter. Tune the laser to match the frequency the collector is most efficient at. Go...
The last round of NASA funded research was talking about taking 3-4 days to reach orbit. It really doesn't matter, as long as it gets there eventually.
Not really. Since it was complete, with enclosure, it was probably a "pre-production prototype". That means it was essentially a finished product with only a few final bugs to be worked out in testing before everyone signs off on it's release. A true "prototype" probably looked like a hacked PowerMac with wires and boards hanging out of it... A prototype might have even built it out of a generic "bare bones" laptop. Maybe naked (no housing).
*drools* Mmmmmm computer porn.
Any production line that regularly mass produces laptops could be quickly geared up to make MacBooks. Some different parts; but, same basic assembly process. With modern distribution practices a new product can go from "Start building them" to arrival at distributor(s) within a week or two, at least in small quantities...
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, world population is growing at around 6.3 Million people per month. All you'd need to do is push 2.5 people / second through the Stargate to balance this. Alternately, you could launch ships hourly carrying 8,750 people.
Not necessarily. You could build a small desktop cyclotron fairly easily using readily available components and, in doing so, create little if any danger to anyone, except for the high voltage(s) present.
As the system gets larger and larger, your safety systems requirements change. You begin producing higher voltages and have to be more careful of things like coronal discharges. You begin to have significant energy stored in the magnetic fields in your steering magnets (you can't just flip a switch and turn them off). Your shielding requirements change as you begin to get to higher energies where you're no longer making x-rays and begin making gamma. At that point you may start to see neutrons kicked out of the target and beam-line walls... If he's planning to make radioactive isotopes in any quantity, he's at those energy levels.
Then there's the resulting radioactive materials to deal with. In minute quantities, it's no big deal -- as in trivial. However, he's acquiring a research grade machine that can probably produce sizeable (yet still relatively small) quantities of isotopes. If handled properly they too are not a real problem. The key is the handling and disposal. Can he prove he is capable of PROPERLY handling and shielding the materials and can he provide for their PROPER DISPOSAL at the end of their useful life.
I'll admit all of this is fairly trivial. I suspect that if he was putting it into a hospital or university setting, or into an industrial setting people might not object as strongly. The fact that he wants to put it in his home, begs to question whether he's serious about the shielding, safe handling of radioactive materials, and other safety issues.
Rural areas may not have access to natural gas; but, they do have propane. The same burners work with propane if you adjust the burner's air intake or change the gas orifice size.
Microwave heaters are less efficient than a simple resistance coil. The immersed resistance coil will transfer nearly 100% of the energy to the water. A microwave tube and other circuitry will disipate some energy as heat, which will be lost. The microwave in my kitchen uses 1.6kW input power to make 1.1kW of microwave energy, that's only 69% efficiency.
Besides, electric point of use hot water heaters have been available for decades.
This is an accurate description of what happens, except:
1.) They also blow fuses to reduce the cache to either 64kB or 128kB
2.) It's just as likely you'll get a batch where 50% were crap and only passed at the 1.7GHz speed or only had 128kB of working cache.
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Yeah, you can replace them... But I had about 15 bad caps on mine. Cost of parts + labor (and my times worth too much). It was not worth it. A cheap motherboard from a local shop and It was back up and running.
I remember mumbling something, just this morning, like "you'll get my coffee cup when you pry it out of my cold dead hands." Never mind, just the ramblings of a coffee addict.
The other metals might be nuclear decay products from the palladium, after it absorbs neutrons or gamma from the fusion process.
(Just for kicks and giggles) ^2... A DC-DC converter actually chops the incoming voltage into pulsed DC as the parent is implying. Depending on your point of reference, you could call it AC... It either feeds into a charge pump or a regulator circuit that results in the desired voltage, then passes through some filtering to smooth it out.
You are correct sir. That is why we supply +15V inside our instrument chassis and let the individual modules meet their voltage needs with internal sub-regulators (DC-DC converter blocks, usually).
that's what gives a lot of customer support people a bad image to begin with. It's still the classic, "Well, if I can't fix it, just reload the OS." answer.
the average consumer does.
As an aside, I believe they're offering the systems with FreeDOS because some people do want to install linux, but don't want RedHat (I run Suse now). This way, they can offer a choice while letting the customer be responsible for the install and support. FreeDOS is included because it allowing you to run the DELL supplied hardware diagnostics.
PPS, they don't offer it on consumer grade machines because they don't want the support headaches.
It's going to piss off a lot of early adopters, people who have been trying to prepare for the switch to digital TV and HDTV, which has been mandated by Congress. I'd bet that this issue eventually gets dealt with via more legislation. I don't think that's the best solution; but, once individual members of Congress and their constituents start getting screwed over, they're likely to act. Unfortunately it may be too late by then...
By the way, if you go the laptop route, I'm going to humbly make a few suggestions:
Insist all the student buy accidental damage coverage and theft insurance.
If it's in your budget, provide a server for the students to back up their important work on -- it could also make for a good (read as "secure") \share location .
When I was in college, engineers used PC's (yes, actual PC's) and CS types used Mac's running A/UX. If you changed majors, going from CS to engineering or vice versa, you had to buy another computer. Sometimes you could get lucky and a.) sell your old one and/or b.)buy a used computer from someone else.
I'm sure he won't mind having cameras installed in his home.
As soon as someone figures out how to re-flash the boot roms, it will be easy to fix.
1. download it
2. double-click and decompress it.
3. double-click and execute it.
The hardest part of lowering the tether from space will be getting it (safely) through the thicker portion of the lower atmosphere. Seems like a good idea to me: send up a balloon supported platform to capture the end of the tether at, say, between 10 and 20 miles up, then lower the tether the rest of the way, guided by the tether attaching the balloon(s) to the ground.
Does the ability to power it with a laser exists? Sure. We can build tuneable 10kW lasers now (think FEL). Attach some optics to focus. Put collectors on the bottom of the lifter. Tune the laser to match the frequency the collector is most efficient at. Go...
The last round of NASA funded research was talking about taking 3-4 days to reach orbit. It really doesn't matter, as long as it gets there eventually.
*drools* Mmmmmm computer porn.
Any production line that regularly mass produces laptops could be quickly geared up to make MacBooks. Some different parts; but, same basic assembly process. With modern distribution practices a new product can go from "Start building them" to arrival at distributor(s) within a week or two, at least in small quantities...
you're thinking of the TI Sinclair. I remember add on modules for it that stacked. But that was not as elegant (asthetically pleasing) as this one.
2. Ask for stuff. Say you're going to do a review.
3. Profit!
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, world population is growing at around 6.3 Million people per month. All you'd need to do is push 2.5 people / second through the Stargate to balance this. Alternately, you could launch ships hourly carrying 8,750 people.
Santa doesn't live at the magnetic North Pole, silly.
As the system gets larger and larger, your safety systems requirements change. You begin producing higher voltages and have to be more careful of things like coronal discharges. You begin to have significant energy stored in the magnetic fields in your steering magnets (you can't just flip a switch and turn them off). Your shielding requirements change as you begin to get to higher energies where you're no longer making x-rays and begin making gamma. At that point you may start to see neutrons kicked out of the target and beam-line walls... If he's planning to make radioactive isotopes in any quantity, he's at those energy levels.
Then there's the resulting radioactive materials to deal with. In minute quantities, it's no big deal -- as in trivial. However, he's acquiring a research grade machine that can probably produce sizeable (yet still relatively small) quantities of isotopes. If handled properly they too are not a real problem. The key is the handling and disposal. Can he prove he is capable of PROPERLY handling and shielding the materials and can he provide for their PROPER DISPOSAL at the end of their useful life.
I'll admit all of this is fairly trivial. I suspect that if he was putting it into a hospital or university setting, or into an industrial setting people might not object as strongly. The fact that he wants to put it in his home, begs to question whether he's serious about the shielding, safe handling of radioactive materials, and other safety issues.
Rural areas may not have access to natural gas; but, they do have propane. The same burners work with propane if you adjust the burner's air intake or change the gas orifice size.
Microwave heaters are less efficient than a simple resistance coil. The immersed resistance coil will transfer nearly 100% of the energy to the water. A microwave tube and other circuitry will disipate some energy as heat, which will be lost. The microwave in my kitchen uses 1.6kW input power to make 1.1kW of microwave energy, that's only 69% efficiency.
Besides, electric point of use hot water heaters have been available for decades.
This is an accurate description of what happens, except:
1.) They also blow fuses to reduce the cache to either 64kB or 128kB
2.) It's just as likely you'll get a batch where 50% were crap and only passed at the 1.7GHz speed or only had 128kB of working cache.