Hrm, the summary is different than the article; the article stated that "two of the six computers are running" which means 4 are down, not 2. Whichever is correct, any time more than one computer goes down, you have to look for common-cause failures.
Also, according to the article the US computers don't control attitude thrusters and that particular life support system, so the state of the US computers doesn't matter.
(Note for the anonymous poster above, but I didn't want to post twice: "common cause" means "the same situation makes multiple things break in the same way," not "that cause happens often".)
Hopefully they're starting with their DFMEA documentation... "guessing" at the problem and having "theories" is probably not a good way to go. Also, it's apparently a common-mode failure, which you shouldn't have in a safety-critical system; generally this is avoided by having different computer hardware and/or completely different code to do the same tasks.
Quite unfortunate that it seems like systems engineering is lacking in more and more disciplines recently, although I suppose it makes good systems engineers more valuable.
My list for this would be something like: "Computer doesn't boot." Possible reasons: "No Power", "Insufficient power", "Corrupt memory", "Broken circuits", etc. Then you go down that tree further and find the root cause. The most disturbing thing is that they had such a major common-mode failure...whatever happened to the "no single points of failure" mantra?
There's also the new (pending?) revisions from SCOTUS on the "obviousness" clause that changes the meaning (I hope) to "if the new 'invention' is simply a combination of existing components that does what you would expect by combining those components, it doesn't count as a patentable invention."
One-click shouldn't be a patent, because it simply chains together existing components in a way that results in the simple sums of functionality. There is nothing "new" there.
A patent on a chip that simply sums together signal detection with wake-up logic to save batteries should also not be patentable, because both of those technologies have been around for a long time.
It's only when the sum of components does not simply result in an obvious function that a patent should be granted. My test would be something like: strip the patent application of the description of what it does and the submitter and give it to a group of engineers in that field. If that small group can't determine what the invention is supposed to do within, say, 8 hours (or some other 'reasonable' time frame), then it can get a patent. Otherwise, no patent.
The problem is that people are now using combinations of preexisting ideas as patents when they shouldn't be allowed. I wouldn't even grant a patent on the optical mouse, because it's an "obvious" combination of an optical motion sensor and a computer pointing device. Now, I might patent something related to how the optical motion sensor works, but only so long as it's not simply a combination of existing components.
Umm... I directly stated that carbon credits were really just a form of fiat currency. That's not what will prevent carbon credits from working.
The problem is this: if I have carbon "allowances" or not, I can still create emissions. There has to be some mechanism other than the credits to meter emissions - basically it has to involve some form of law enforcement. That's where this will fail, because the enforcement won't be adequate. (Yes, I'm pessimistic on that front.)
Eh, the problem with things like carbon credits is they are not "real" commodities; they are just...well, they are just made up. It's not like there's a giant pile of CO2, and once that pile is gone there is no more. There is actually no way to enforce something like carbon credits, unless countries are willing to destroy factories etc. that are producing emissions beyond their credits. That isn't going to happen.
Economics of scarce goods only works if the goods are really scarce. "Producing emissions" is by no means a scarce good.
What carbon credits are is really another odd form of fiat currency - it's not based on anything physical (except in name) and wholly depends on the willingness of the involved parties to follow the rules.
Sure, it looks good on paper, but I don't know of any reasonable economic arguments that say that something like carbon credits will actually work.
I've always wanted to try using the thermal dissipation of the processor to power its own cooling system. That is, create a pressurized case, and have an intake compressor that brings in cool air, which is heated by the processor(s), which is then sent out through a power-tapping device (turbine or piston) to power the compressor and keep things going.
Basically a Brayton-cycle cooling system. You could actually move a lot of air with 300W power dissipation! (way more than you can with a little 15 W cooling fan).
(Too bad the drawbacks are that it requires some pretty slick machinery and a pressure chamber:p )
Rather than just getting mad about extra taxes, my question is: for what will the revenue be used?
Will it offset other taxes? Will it improve infrastructure?
My guess is it will simply be used to continue or expand already-broken social programs. Note that I don't necessarily advocate the elimination of social programs, but I don't think, for instance, the way to "fix" health-care costs is to subsidize them. (I think the true fix has to do with limiting liability and removing barriers to entry, incidentally.)
That's my problem - currently there is nothing that the government doesn't have enough money to do for which I want to pay more. That is, the government already provides the services I want at the price I'm currently paying. I don't want to pay more for services I don't want or need.
That's the fundamental problem with increasing taxes in the end: if people are not asking for additional services, then there should be no need for additional taxes. The problem is that some people do want more services, but the assumption is that everyone wants them. This is incorrect, as such things are usually typically very localized. I think the governments - federal and state - need to start paying more attention to geographical differences and stop trying to pass legislation that applies desires of people in one geographic or demographic region to all other geographic or demographic regions....
What's really goofy is TFA says that "lack of helium is what makes it slow" where it really seems like "slow wind isn't enough to pull any helium with it" - I think they have their causal relationship backwards.
The best evidence I've seen that there is a God is that people think there is, and there are many books that say there is.
Now, it is true that some things people believe are false, but generally those things, which have lasted for quite a long time, were always partially true. For instance, the world isn't flat like people believed, but it is true that reference frames give the illusion of a 'flat earth.' Basically, the way I see it, is that even an incorrect interpretation of observation still requires that something was observed; it is by definition impossible to observe something that does not exist.
So, is the God that people envision an accurate representation of whatever it is that they have observed? Probably not, but that doesn't change the fact that there is likely something that was observed.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
Please, please tell me this is sarcastic!
(For those of you who don't know why I'm suspicious here, I have a couple example questions: Is intolerance of genocide tolerable? How about intolerance of deception?)
After reading, this patent doesn't seem to be an "invention" at all, but rather a research paper which shows which alloys work best.
While I personally don't think you should be able to patent a discovery, I don't know how the current legal system of any country handles these.
Note that there's a subtle and probably subjective difference between trial-and-error for finding an alloy, and specifically tailoring an alloy for some purpose, and I've a bad feeling that's what applies here.
Interesting mileage there - I've found that a lot does depend on how a particular vehicle is geared. I wish the EPA rules stated: "Have a sticker with the instantaneous fuel economy versus speed with no wind on a level grade (at constant speed), for each gear, in top gear at GVWR" and "Have a sticker with instantaneous fuel economy versus speed on a flat road with no wind and at GVWR while accelerating at various throttle levels (25%, 50%, 75%,100%) for each gear"
This way, people could see the effects and make an informed decision (it's about impossible to get this information for general vehicles, but the OEMs have it already).
That said, my vehicle gets about 37mpg at 65, about 35 mpg at 70, and about 32 at 75.
I wish my car was geared a bit steeper though, as I know I could hit 40mpg at 65 if I was spinning about 500 revs lower.
Take the ignorant folks on the highway who don't realize the impact of speed on driving: In my area, 25 mile commutes are very common. Most of the vehicles around here probably get, on average, about 25 mpg highway at speed (that number just to make math easier). Most people are driving 5mph+ over the limit - which means they're going 75 instead of 70 (we have high limits here). Let's say that only drops them 1 mpg, down to 24. Well, if everyone dropped their speed 5mph, and had a commute of 25 miles, every 25 cars would save two gallons of gasoline a day. There's probably half a million commuters in this metro area, so be conservative and say this would only apply to a quarter of them. That would reduce consumption of gasoline in this city by a quarter million gallons of gasoline per day.
All for the inconvenience of 85 seconds which is all 75 vs 70 mph gives you over 25 miles, this city could save around 6000 bbl/gasoline per day. That's not a small number.
The thing is, the general public just isn't aware of things like this, nor would they likely care even if they were.
It just makes me cringe when my car gets 36 mpg (yeah, I know there are better), and a row of 10 pickups and SUVs goes passing by me - probably at 15mpg or less. Which even if they just slowed down a little, to my speed, they'd probably get 17mpg....
Also, don't forget the unintended side effects we'd have if these giant heat engines weren't around to transport all that surface thermal energy to the upper atmosphere where it radiates into space. The heat transfer from these storms is enormous, and I doubt that we'd want to see what the global warming models look like if we don't have hurricanes. Incidentally, I wonder if those models actually include hurricanes as a dissipation mechanism... Hurricanes are fairly large atmospheric features, but I'm betting they are still too small to show up on the scale of the models.
You know what though? The technology "licensed" from Toyota, isn't what most people think of when they hear that term. It's also actually a cross-license agreement because both of them potentially infringe on each other. Ford's system (which was actually adapted mostly from Volvo) was developed independently from Toyota, but they share enough of the same fundamental physics - which Toyota got a patent on before Ford - that Ford had to use licensing or get litigated out of the market. I can't blame Toyota though - I don't understand why Ford or GM or anyone else for that matter didn't work earlier to develop the technology and get a patent.
The Ford design does not use any engineering or manufacturing from the Toyota designs; it falls more under the "this is basic physics / engineering that we patented first (because it actually was novel, go figure)" which is not the same as Ford saying "Hey Toyota, here's some money now give us a copy of your designs so we can build one." That's because the Toyota patent is, like most of us don't like, on an idea, not an implementation. The main patent in question is one that basically says "if you use this type of gear set to do the power split, it falls in this patent." I will, at least, give Toyota credit in that they specify a certain gear set rather than a patent like "we patent the idea of a device that can split power between three sources*".
Doesn't matter if people are charging their cars off-peak or not; adding that much power makes it no longer "off-peak" and the system wasn't (as far as I know) designed to run at that high of a load that much. Given my example of needing 60 kW-hr/day, for instance, I'd be using far more power "off peak" than I do "on peak". I think people forget just how much energy it takes to push a vehicle around.
As far as power usage - I don't know myself, and it bothers me actually. I have a notion to blame it either on a really inefficient fan in the gas furnace (in the winter months which just ended here) or my roommate - because when I was off on business last year in a company-sponsored apartment, I used a whopping 3-4 kW-hrs/day.
So... what happens to the utility power grid when the grid consumption dramatically increases because everyone is charging their cars?
I know I'm not the 'average' consumer, but my apartment (2 people) currently uses about 12.5 kW-hr electricity a day. My roommate and I also both use approximately 2 gallons of gasoline a day (yay for 30-mile one-way commutes in the Detroit area) - the equivalent of about *65* kW-hr. That would increase our electrical demand by a factor of more than 5.
Even if this is not a typical situation, it's going to put the already straining power grid completely out of service to try and power all these vehicles "from the plug". As hard as it is to get people to replace existing power plants, what impact is there going to be to supply probably 3 to 5 times the current grid demand?
The obvious conclusion is that if the low density business is making money off of providing value... then it's better than the absence of the business.
I'm not so sure; that sounds like a 'greedy algorithm'. Sometimes a higher profit can be achieved in the future if a lower profit is accepted now; the problem is there is rarely (if ever) a mechanism to predict when that would be the case. It's important to note the distinction between a statement "it's better for Joe if Joe is making a good profit now" and a statement "society as a whole is better because Joe is making a good profit now."
I'd say a business making money off providing value is better only if wealth increases for all parties involved, not if it simply shifts wealth from one place to another. (I do realize that shifting of wealth around can result in more wealth overall, but that is because of activities which utilize the wealth, not just because the wealth was transferred.)
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Hrm, the summary is different than the article; the article stated that "two of the six computers are running" which means 4 are down, not 2. Whichever is correct, any time more than one computer goes down, you have to look for common-cause failures.
Also, according to the article the US computers don't control attitude thrusters and that particular life support system, so the state of the US computers doesn't matter.
(Note for the anonymous poster above, but I didn't want to post twice: "common cause" means "the same situation makes multiple things break in the same way," not "that cause happens often".)
Hopefully they're starting with their DFMEA documentation... "guessing" at the problem and having "theories" is probably not a good way to go. Also, it's apparently a common-mode failure, which you shouldn't have in a safety-critical system; generally this is avoided by having different computer hardware and/or completely different code to do the same tasks.
Quite unfortunate that it seems like systems engineering is lacking in more and more disciplines recently, although I suppose it makes good systems engineers more valuable.
My list for this would be something like: "Computer doesn't boot." Possible reasons: "No Power", "Insufficient power", "Corrupt memory", "Broken circuits", etc. Then you go down that tree further and find the root cause. The most disturbing thing is that they had such a major common-mode failure...whatever happened to the "no single points of failure" mantra?
* sigh *
I think that's a false assumption that some people start wars with the intent to win.
So, who's better about genetic selection? The actual environment, or some person (or worse yet, committee?)
There's also the new (pending?) revisions from SCOTUS on the "obviousness" clause that changes the meaning (I hope) to "if the new 'invention' is simply a combination of existing components that does what you would expect by combining those components, it doesn't count as a patentable invention."
One-click shouldn't be a patent, because it simply chains together existing components in a way that results in the simple sums of functionality. There is nothing "new" there.
A patent on a chip that simply sums together signal detection with wake-up logic to save batteries should also not be patentable, because both of those technologies have been around for a long time.
It's only when the sum of components does not simply result in an obvious function that a patent should be granted. My test would be something like: strip the patent application of the description of what it does and the submitter and give it to a group of engineers in that field. If that small group can't determine what the invention is supposed to do within, say, 8 hours (or some other 'reasonable' time frame), then it can get a patent. Otherwise, no patent.
The problem is that people are now using combinations of preexisting ideas as patents when they shouldn't be allowed. I wouldn't even grant a patent on the optical mouse, because it's an "obvious" combination of an optical motion sensor and a computer pointing device. Now, I might patent something related to how the optical motion sensor works, but only so long as it's not simply a combination of existing components.
Curiously enough....
( Sorry, I couldn't resist :-} )
That's what I would think... unless they're talking about office apps to run on their own closed networks.
Running general purpose software on special-purpose machines (e.g., battleships, weapons, etc.) seems like a bad solution to me.
But, then again, I have been accused of being idealistic.
Umm... I directly stated that carbon credits were really just a form of fiat currency. That's not what will prevent carbon credits from working.
The problem is this: if I have carbon "allowances" or not, I can still create emissions. There has to be some mechanism other than the credits to meter emissions - basically it has to involve some form of law enforcement. That's where this will fail, because the enforcement won't be adequate. (Yes, I'm pessimistic on that front.)
Eh, the problem with things like carbon credits is they are not "real" commodities; they are just...well, they are just made up. It's not like there's a giant pile of CO2, and once that pile is gone there is no more. There is actually no way to enforce something like carbon credits, unless countries are willing to destroy factories etc. that are producing emissions beyond their credits. That isn't going to happen.
Economics of scarce goods only works if the goods are really scarce. "Producing emissions" is by no means a scarce good.
What carbon credits are is really another odd form of fiat currency - it's not based on anything physical (except in name) and wholly depends on the willingness of the involved parties to follow the rules.
Sure, it looks good on paper, but I don't know of any reasonable economic arguments that say that something like carbon credits will actually work.
I've always wanted to try using the thermal dissipation of the processor to power its own cooling system. That is, create a pressurized case, and have an intake compressor that brings in cool air, which is heated by the processor(s), which is then sent out through a power-tapping device (turbine or piston) to power the compressor and keep things going.
Basically a Brayton-cycle cooling system. You could actually move a lot of air with 300W power dissipation! (way more than you can with a little 15 W cooling fan).
(Too bad the drawbacks are that it requires some pretty slick machinery and a pressure chamber :p )
I think it's the same as all true forms of message validation: delivery in person.
* grin *
Rather than just getting mad about extra taxes, my question is: for what will the revenue be used?
Will it offset other taxes? Will it improve infrastructure?
My guess is it will simply be used to continue or expand already-broken social programs. Note that I don't necessarily advocate the elimination of social programs, but I don't think, for instance, the way to "fix" health-care costs is to subsidize them. (I think the true fix has to do with limiting liability and removing barriers to entry, incidentally.)
That's my problem - currently there is nothing that the government doesn't have enough money to do for which I want to pay more. That is, the government already provides the services I want at the price I'm currently paying. I don't want to pay more for services I don't want or need.
That's the fundamental problem with increasing taxes in the end: if people are not asking for additional services, then there should be no need for additional taxes. The problem is that some people do want more services, but the assumption is that everyone wants them. This is incorrect, as such things are usually typically very localized. I think the governments - federal and state - need to start paying more attention to geographical differences and stop trying to pass legislation that applies desires of people in one geographic or demographic region to all other geographic or demographic regions....
260 km/s isn't very slow in my book.
What's really goofy is TFA says that "lack of helium is what makes it slow" where it really seems like "slow wind isn't enough to pull any helium with it" - I think they have their causal relationship backwards.
The best evidence I've seen that there is a God is that people think there is, and there are many books that say there is.
Now, it is true that some things people believe are false, but generally those things, which have lasted for quite a long time, were always partially true. For instance, the world isn't flat like people believed, but it is true that reference frames give the illusion of a 'flat earth.' Basically, the way I see it, is that even an incorrect interpretation of observation still requires that something was observed; it is by definition impossible to observe something that does not exist.
So, is the God that people envision an accurate representation of whatever it is that they have observed? Probably not, but that doesn't change the fact that there is likely something that was observed.
Please, please tell me this is sarcastic!
(For those of you who don't know why I'm suspicious here, I have a couple example questions: Is intolerance of genocide tolerable? How about intolerance of deception?)
After reading, this patent doesn't seem to be an "invention" at all, but rather a research paper which shows which alloys work best.
While I personally don't think you should be able to patent a discovery, I don't know how the current legal system of any country handles these.
Note that there's a subtle and probably subjective difference between trial-and-error for finding an alloy, and specifically tailoring an alloy for some purpose, and I've a bad feeling that's what applies here.
Interesting mileage there - I've found that a lot does depend on how a particular vehicle is geared. I wish the EPA rules stated: "Have a sticker with the instantaneous fuel economy versus speed with no wind on a level grade (at constant speed), for each gear, in top gear at GVWR" and "Have a sticker with instantaneous fuel economy versus speed on a flat road with no wind and at GVWR while accelerating at various throttle levels (25%, 50%, 75%,100%) for each gear"
This way, people could see the effects and make an informed decision (it's about impossible to get this information for general vehicles, but the OEMs have it already).
That said, my vehicle gets about 37mpg at 65, about 35 mpg at 70, and about 32 at 75.
I wish my car was geared a bit steeper though, as I know I could hit 40mpg at 65 if I was spinning about 500 revs lower.
Sure it is:
Take the ignorant folks on the highway who don't realize the impact of speed on driving: In my area, 25 mile commutes are very common. Most of the vehicles around here probably get, on average, about 25 mpg highway at speed (that number just to make math easier). Most people are driving 5mph+ over the limit - which means they're going 75 instead of 70 (we have high limits here). Let's say that only drops them 1 mpg, down to 24. Well, if everyone dropped their speed 5mph, and had a commute of 25 miles, every 25 cars would save two gallons of gasoline a day. There's probably half a million commuters in this metro area, so be conservative and say this would only apply to a quarter of them. That would reduce consumption of gasoline in this city by a quarter million gallons of gasoline per day.
All for the inconvenience of 85 seconds which is all 75 vs 70 mph gives you over 25 miles, this city could save around 6000 bbl/gasoline per day. That's not a small number.
The thing is, the general public just isn't aware of things like this, nor would they likely care even if they were.
It just makes me cringe when my car gets 36 mpg (yeah, I know there are better), and a row of 10 pickups and SUVs goes passing by me - probably at 15mpg or less. Which even if they just slowed down a little, to my speed, they'd probably get 17mpg....
* sigh *
Also, don't forget the unintended side effects we'd have if these giant heat engines weren't around to transport all that surface thermal energy to the upper atmosphere where it radiates into space. The heat transfer from these storms is enormous, and I doubt that we'd want to see what the global warming models look like if we don't have hurricanes. Incidentally, I wonder if those models actually include hurricanes as a dissipation mechanism... Hurricanes are fairly large atmospheric features, but I'm betting they are still too small to show up on the scale of the models.
You know what though? The technology "licensed" from Toyota, isn't what most people think of when they hear that term. It's also actually a cross-license agreement because both of them potentially infringe on each other. Ford's system (which was actually adapted mostly from Volvo) was developed independently from Toyota, but they share enough of the same fundamental physics - which Toyota got a patent on before Ford - that Ford had to use licensing or get litigated out of the market. I can't blame Toyota though - I don't understand why Ford or GM or anyone else for that matter didn't work earlier to develop the technology and get a patent.
The Ford design does not use any engineering or manufacturing from the Toyota designs; it falls more under the "this is basic physics / engineering that we patented first (because it actually was novel, go figure)" which is not the same as Ford saying "Hey Toyota, here's some money now give us a copy of your designs so we can build one." That's because the Toyota patent is, like most of us don't like, on an idea, not an implementation. The main patent in question is one that basically says "if you use this type of gear set to do the power split, it falls in this patent." I will, at least, give Toyota credit in that they specify a certain gear set rather than a patent like "we patent the idea of a device that can split power between three sources*".
*IC engine, motor/generator, and road
Doesn't matter if people are charging their cars off-peak or not; adding that much power makes it no longer "off-peak" and the system wasn't (as far as I know) designed to run at that high of a load that much. Given my example of needing 60 kW-hr/day, for instance, I'd be using far more power "off peak" than I do "on peak". I think people forget just how much energy it takes to push a vehicle around.
As far as power usage - I don't know myself, and it bothers me actually. I have a notion to blame it either on a really inefficient fan in the gas furnace (in the winter months which just ended here) or my roommate - because when I was off on business last year in a company-sponsored apartment, I used a whopping 3-4 kW-hrs/day.
So... what happens to the utility power grid when the grid consumption dramatically increases because everyone is charging their cars?
I know I'm not the 'average' consumer, but my apartment (2 people) currently uses about 12.5 kW-hr electricity a day. My roommate and I also both use approximately 2 gallons of gasoline a day (yay for 30-mile one-way commutes in the Detroit area) - the equivalent of about *65* kW-hr. That would increase our electrical demand by a factor of more than 5.
Even if this is not a typical situation, it's going to put the already straining power grid completely out of service to try and power all these vehicles "from the plug". As hard as it is to get people to replace existing power plants, what impact is there going to be to supply probably 3 to 5 times the current grid demand?
I'd argue that the most important activity of the 21st century is the same as every other century: agriculture.
Where are these cars traveling at near- or super-sonic speeds that are generating shock waves again?
There is a substantial difference between a wake and a shock.
I'm not so sure; that sounds like a 'greedy algorithm'. Sometimes a higher profit can be achieved in the future if a lower profit is accepted now; the problem is there is rarely (if ever) a mechanism to predict when that would be the case. It's important to note the distinction between a statement "it's better for Joe if Joe is making a good profit now" and a statement "society as a whole is better because Joe is making a good profit now."
I'd say a business making money off providing value is better only if wealth increases for all parties involved, not if it simply shifts wealth from one place to another. (I do realize that shifting of wealth around can result in more wealth overall, but that is because of activities which utilize the wealth, not just because the wealth was transferred.)