You're exactly right. But the common man doesn't understand 'efficiency gains' as something significant. Perceptually, people don't get how much energy is lost to waste heat.
I mean, hell. If this works well, it could be used as a component in hybrid vehicles; they only have 25% efficiency on the gasoline engine, and if they're parallel types, the heat generated by the gasoline engine could be used to keep the electrical engine in juice.
It might even be possible to recapture a bit of energy off the moderate heat generated in the electrical motor.
Of course, there will be the thermodynamical morons in here, trying to say that this little device is next in the step towards the latest self-powering promise, drawing energy from the zero point or whatever other perpetual motion bollocks is being flouted these days.
Here's a hint guys: you can't win and you can't break even. You can only take your income (solar energy) and savings (batteries, fuels, and nuclear fuels) and spend it (burning fuel or running electrical equipment). If you can boost your output per unit input, great stuff - but please don't assume it means you've hit a lotto (perpetual motion) that doesn't exist.
I dunno. I think it's fine for him to act all badass once in a while; it gets people's attention.
As for the Gnome issue... I rather agree with him that it's underfeatured. Honestly, XFCE is about as robust for grandma needs, at a much lower HD/RAM footprint.
P2P isn't a good model, but I can think of one: Data, as it is created, is stored in the users' shared folder. As other users go to access it, a copy is made from the cloud (as long as filename/size/hashes match) and that copy is used so long as the creator's copy hasn't been modified. When writes are done, they're done locally, and a patch is sent to the original copy. If the creator can't be contacted, or his copy doesn't exist, the last-writer becomes 'creator'. The file's creator is identified by his DC user name.
Backing up is simple. For every creation/update that is made, a patch is queued or sent to a backup server. The server ONLY queues the originals and patches, so that past-versions are accessible. As space becomes unavailable (say, below 10%), the backup server alerts the IT guys that it needs to offload some stuff, and condenses changes of the oldest files in the local copy. When a delete is made, that is considered a write and handled accordingly.
In the event of a reinstall (ie: the local copy of the files are deleted, but the world hasn't been notified), the user, upon connection would query the backup server to see where his stuff has gone, and get it back.
One could create this system to act like an SMB share, with access levels and program-independent drive/directory mapping, but with one added benefit: user-creation and auto-mapping. The DC would automatically tell the system which peer-shares are available to him upon login. The user can then filter out what he needs as he uses it, but can index-search it all (a query is sent to the backup server, which, like a good little machine, has been indexing as backups are made).
Lastly, for reverse compatibility, the backup server could provide SMB access to its copies, ensuring that non-updated systems can still access their stuff.
I don't know about most organizations, but I work at Penn, and a system like this could work admirably.
Ah, you're mistaking how a thermocouple works. There's two directions: 1) pass electricity through, get one side much warmer than the other is cooled 2) warm one side, cool the other, and current is created. The cool side is warmed, the warm side is cooled, and the difference in heat transfer is (ideally) converted to electricity. The higher the efficiency, the lower the heat transfer. But you're right; they're ridiculously inefficient. The spaceman would get cooked as if he's matte-black and near-unprotected.
Per protein. But even at 100% efficiency, about a billion of 'em would only produce one watt, burning 0.86 calories per hour. And that's depending on how many are at a movement stress point.
There are 7.5 hexillion (x 10^21) of these proteins in a gram of pure prestins(1 g / 80 amu = 7.5x10^21). If the entire gram is working at 100% efficiency, they are capable of producing 7.5x10^12 watts... huh?? 7 trillion watts? No, sorry. The math simply doesn't work out. I'd guess these things work more at the picowatt scale indiviually.
"I thought that the protein-suit traps the energy that already has been created by movement and would otherwise leak into space, so no noticable additional strain. Or am I missing something crucial here?"
Yes.
There's no friction in space, and so there's no energy dissipated in the normal fashion. Friction in the joints of the suit is usually minimized. Kinetic energy from muscles, in the event of a suit in vacuum, goes entirely towards acceleration and deceleration of limbs, and overcoming what friction there is in the suit's joints. The friction-overcoming is lost as enthalpy, as it doesn't create a large enough temperature gradient to be efficiently collected by any definition of the term.
They'd do better just to coat the entire non-jointed area of the suit with solar; at least then the energy's 'free', rather than something to tire out the spaceman. Even the sun's heat could be captured from the solar using thermocouples (though not anything like efficiently; an engineer would have to decide if the extra weight is worth the energy output in whatever case - I suspect it's not in all cases).
Of course, I don't understand what it is about passing age forty that makes so many people apathetic towards new technology and ideas - they're the ones who are largely in control of the direction of the world, and they almost always need to know about the new stuff to do their jobs.
In reply to your sig: I'm not criticizing, but who's in favor of chopping down the Amazon to make biofuels? You can't make biodiesel from wood, to my recollection, and corn makes much better feedstock for TCP. In fact, if there's a good way to make cellulose into a fuel, bamboo would be a much cheaper way to go; just plant stands of it in place of all the condemned housing in the inner cities.
They do lose out on traffic from people searching for specific topics, though. I do believe that would be a good-sized chunk.
God DAMN it, what do I gotta do to get rid of the one minute 'Slow Down Cowboy' limit here? It's just annoying, especially when I've got something topical to say.
Installing on non-apple hardware is rather specifically unsupported. Actually, I think THAT's why the protection is there; make it too hard for morons that can't figure out what they're doing gets no support.
Though, it's technically permitted if you obtain an Apple Developer license. After 10.4.6, I think they stopped caring; the JaS crack, for example is the same bit-wrangling for 10.4.8 as it is for 10.4.6.
And they'll do it again, in a slightly different way. Point is, at some point either the decryption key or the decrypted media MUST at some point be in memory on a software player.
If they really wanted to lock it down, they'd have tried to pull off the 'hardware only' approach. And, of course, lost millions on the entire industry of HD content.
"And piracy? Why don't they go after the lawyers and politicians who are making money hand over fist?"
Professional courtesy, of course; who do you think it is at the RIAA making noises about this? It may be a muckety muck saying the words, but you can bet it's a lawyer moving the guy's mouth.
And, of course, the separation between 'lawyer' and 'politician' these days is... slim? Is that a good word for the thickness of a gnat's wing?
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That's if, and only if, the efficiency gain is 100% over nominal. They don't say it is.
Well, there's no mention of current per unit (each, mol, dozen, etc) of each organic oreo, so the voltages are essentially meaningless.
*blinks*
You have to be joking right? A joke that seemed funny at the time? Please tell me this isn't even a vaguely serious idea.
You're exactly right. But the common man doesn't understand 'efficiency gains' as something significant. Perceptually, people don't get how much energy is lost to waste heat.
I mean, hell. If this works well, it could be used as a component in hybrid vehicles; they only have 25% efficiency on the gasoline engine, and if they're parallel types, the heat generated by the gasoline engine could be used to keep the electrical engine in juice.
It might even be possible to recapture a bit of energy off the moderate heat generated in the electrical motor.
Of course, there will be the thermodynamical morons in here, trying to say that this little device is next in the step towards the latest self-powering promise, drawing energy from the zero point or whatever other perpetual motion bollocks is being flouted these days.
Here's a hint guys: you can't win and you can't break even. You can only take your income (solar energy) and savings (batteries, fuels, and nuclear fuels) and spend it (burning fuel or running electrical equipment). If you can boost your output per unit input, great stuff - but please don't assume it means you've hit a lotto (perpetual motion) that doesn't exist.
I dunno. I think it's fine for him to act all badass once in a while; it gets people's attention.
As for the Gnome issue... I rather agree with him that it's underfeatured. Honestly, XFCE is about as robust for grandma needs, at a much lower HD/RAM footprint.
The system would be designed for it.
P2P isn't a good model, but I can think of one:
Data, as it is created, is stored in the users' shared folder. As other users go to access it, a copy is made from the cloud (as long as filename/size/hashes match) and that copy is used so long as the creator's copy hasn't been modified. When writes are done, they're done locally, and a patch is sent to the original copy. If the creator can't be contacted, or his copy doesn't exist, the last-writer becomes 'creator'. The file's creator is identified by his DC user name.
Backing up is simple. For every creation/update that is made, a patch is queued or sent to a backup server. The server ONLY queues the originals and patches, so that past-versions are accessible. As space becomes unavailable (say, below 10%), the backup server alerts the IT guys that it needs to offload some stuff, and condenses changes of the oldest files in the local copy. When a delete is made, that is considered a write and handled accordingly.
In the event of a reinstall (ie: the local copy of the files are deleted, but the world hasn't been notified), the user, upon connection would query the backup server to see where his stuff has gone, and get it back.
One could create this system to act like an SMB share, with access levels and program-independent drive/directory mapping, but with one added benefit: user-creation and auto-mapping. The DC would automatically tell the system which peer-shares are available to him upon login. The user can then filter out what he needs as he uses it, but can index-search it all (a query is sent to the backup server, which, like a good little machine, has been indexing as backups are made).
Lastly, for reverse compatibility, the backup server could provide SMB access to its copies, ensuring that non-updated systems can still access their stuff.
I don't know about most organizations, but I work at Penn, and a system like this could work admirably.
I, ah, though quinine cured malaria...?
Ah, you're mistaking how a thermocouple works. There's two directions:
1) pass electricity through, get one side much warmer than the other is cooled
2) warm one side, cool the other, and current is created. The cool side is warmed, the warm side is cooled, and the difference in heat transfer is (ideally) converted to electricity. The higher the efficiency, the lower the heat transfer. But you're right; they're ridiculously inefficient. The spaceman would get cooked as if he's matte-black and near-unprotected.
"They would generate nanowatts."
Per protein. But even at 100% efficiency, about a billion of 'em would only produce one watt, burning 0.86 calories per hour. And that's depending on how many are at a movement stress point.
There are 7.5 hexillion (x 10^21) of these proteins in a gram of pure prestins(1 g / 80 amu = 7.5x10^21). If the entire gram is working at 100% efficiency, they are capable of producing 7.5x10^12 watts... huh?? 7 trillion watts? No, sorry. The math simply doesn't work out. I'd guess these things work more at the picowatt scale indiviually.
"I thought that the protein-suit traps the energy that already has been created by movement and would otherwise leak into space, so no noticable additional strain. Or am I missing something crucial here?"
Yes.
There's no friction in space, and so there's no energy dissipated in the normal fashion. Friction in the joints of the suit is usually minimized. Kinetic energy from muscles, in the event of a suit in vacuum, goes entirely towards acceleration and deceleration of limbs, and overcoming what friction there is in the suit's joints. The friction-overcoming is lost as enthalpy, as it doesn't create a large enough temperature gradient to be efficiently collected by any definition of the term.
They'd do better just to coat the entire non-jointed area of the suit with solar; at least then the energy's 'free', rather than something to tire out the spaceman. Even the sun's heat could be captured from the solar using thermocouples (though not anything like efficiently; an engineer would have to decide if the extra weight is worth the energy output in whatever case - I suspect it's not in all cases).
Nice insight there. Wish I had mod points.
Of course, I don't understand what it is about passing age forty that makes so many people apathetic towards new technology and ideas - they're the ones who are largely in control of the direction of the world, and they almost always need to know about the new stuff to do their jobs.
It's just damned retarded.
So, hold on. You're saying it's bad to be anti-social, but good to be anti-socialist? I'm so confused!
How would you go about nuking a non-existent country?
In reply to your sig: I'm not criticizing, but who's in favor of chopping down the Amazon to make biofuels? You can't make biodiesel from wood, to my recollection, and corn makes much better feedstock for TCP. In fact, if there's a good way to make cellulose into a fuel, bamboo would be a much cheaper way to go; just plant stands of it in place of all the condemned housing in the inner cities.
They do lose out on traffic from people searching for specific topics, though. I do believe that would be a good-sized chunk.
God DAMN it, what do I gotta do to get rid of the one minute 'Slow Down Cowboy' limit here? It's just annoying, especially when I've got something topical to say.
That would be very good.
"No cache, no search."
You'd see how quickly people clam up about being cached.
Meanwhile, it's like they've never used a robots.txt or something.
I dunno. I store the contents of the New York Times, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal daily. But then, I'm a serious data hoarder.
Um.
Installing on non-apple hardware is rather specifically unsupported. Actually, I think THAT's why the protection is there; make it too hard for morons that can't figure out what they're doing gets no support.
Though, it's technically permitted if you obtain an Apple Developer license. After 10.4.6, I think they stopped caring; the JaS crack, for example is the same bit-wrangling for 10.4.8 as it is for 10.4.6.
Fortunately, Steve Jobs is looked at, by creative types, as some sort of Tech God. IE: if he says DRM is bad, they'll be likely to believe him.
Which, of course, is the problem. We have people to do enforcement; trying to make a chip do a man's job is, well, stupid.
I for one vote compression-resistant steganography. Technology that aides in enforcement, rather than attempts to do it itself.
Actually, I believe that was a joke in the vein of hyperbole.
Speaking of implants, though, I've been working on this chip that gets implanted directly into the brain to improve Slashdot users' sense of humor.
Fuck that. Nothing but my fists and 'IDDQD'!
And they'll do it again, in a slightly different way. Point is, at some point either the decryption key or the decrypted media MUST at some point be in memory on a software player.
If they really wanted to lock it down, they'd have tried to pull off the 'hardware only' approach. And, of course, lost millions on the entire industry of HD content.
"And piracy? Why don't they go after the lawyers and politicians who are making money hand over fist?"
... slim? Is that a good word for the thickness of a gnat's wing?
Professional courtesy, of course; who do you think it is at the RIAA making noises about this? It may be a muckety muck saying the words, but you can bet it's a lawyer moving the guy's mouth.
And, of course, the separation between 'lawyer' and 'politician' these days is