I disagree, but then again I'm not a parent or psychologist.
I think that children are growing up too fast these days. Between the media, computers entertainment and fashion we have: 12 year olds dressing like sluts, children desensitised to murder and violence, obesity, inactivity, attention defecit.... the list goes on. I'd rather see kids be kids for alot longer, I'm pretty sure it worked fine for the generations before us.
Personally if/when I have a child I'll be sheilding them from alot of this until I can see they are mature and responsible enough to deal with it properly. That would probably be well under 18, but that's not the point. It's good that there is a means for responsible parents who are taking an interest in their chlilds online activities to maintain some control.
1) Standalone laptop 2) Laptop in dock with 2nd monitor 3) Projector hookup with the laptop display as a clone.
I'm pretty tech savy yet I swear 1 in 4 times the projector/clone display wont work:
- The clone mode wont engage at all.
- The clone mode engages automatically, but the scaling/stretching is off
- The settings to change the clone mode is poorly labeled and unintuative hidden, and it takes me 5 minutes to find it and hit the right button.
Did you think that maybe they might put the neon antenna inside an opaque container? Also, the "stealthy" part refers to it's ability to hide from antenna detectors, not physical inspection.
You miss the point. The limitation is not the available source power - it's how much current (and thus heat) each cell can handle based on it's design.
Breaking a cell down into smaller chunks decreases the electrode surface area, reducing the current handling capability. Even though this might get partially offset by the increased cooling surface area, I'd think there would be litle nett benefit.
There is no reason why you'd need to loose nutrients. The ethanol production process could easily return processing waste (i.e. the trace elements and nitrogen compunds) back to the farmland for use as fertiliser.
Because many of the CPU math results depend on other results in the chain. Spreading those dependant operands across multiple CPU's may not be efficient.
Agreed. Whilst batteries are getting better, the pure horsepower available from a small internal combustion engine (eg methanol) is mind blowing.
My cheap electric planes produce under 100W (10 amp @ 9.6V), signifcantly more expensive versions could do 300W on lithium batteries and brushless motors. Either way, run time is 5 minutes at full power and charging is 10 - 15 mins with an expensive fast charger.
A similar (small) size/weight gas motor could produce 2 - 3 times as much power as the expensive electric option, run for 10 mins, and refuel in 1 minute.
And then you're going to need the electrical capacity to charge them. Here in Australia, we're doing pretty well with a max of 240V, 15A outlets, but more commonly 240V 10A. That's 2.4KW tops, as per the parent post. The US mains voltage would reduce that significantly.
I dont think many people will be interested in installing 415V 60A 3-phase outlets to charge their car....
Why differentiate? Improving the CPU / Thermal Spreader efficiency means nothing if the Spreader/Heatsink interface is still crap.
Even better, remove the heat spreader and have the CPU directly interface with the Heatsink like in the good old PIII days. Yes, I realise they stopped this due to fragile CPU's getting chipped, but there could be better ways.
There's plenty of glues around that are stronger than the materials they're adhering to.
I've seen several science shows talking regular automotive manufaturers that are interested in glue rather than welding. It can be *very* strong, whilst still allowing for a small amout of flex and energy absorbtion.
To power a car you're going to need energy in some sort, so batteries are no exception. Chemical batteries with high energy densities are just as dangerous as compressed air - as many laptops have discovered!
Whilst I like the idea of electric cars much better, one real issue is recharging them. It's very difficult to build re-usable electical connectors that can handle the power levels required for fast charging (eg within a few minutes) - we're easily talking thousands of amps. The alternative is swapping whole battery banks - not exactly convenient.
By comparison, rapid filling of air tanks has been happening for a while now - go to your local dive store and see how quickly they can charge a 250Bar SCUBA tank.
I think time should be measured in UTC everywhere, even on earth. People will get used to having lunch at 04:00UTC.
On Mars, they can either stick to a 24 hour cycle, or choose to update their local "noon" each day - ie the Martian newspaper can print "Noon today is 19:23UTC".
The benefit to this is that everyone can co-ordinate easily. The galactic teleconference at 13:30UTC will be easy to plan, unfortunately those Martian bastards are slow to respond and always bringing up old material.
The power supply for my laptop, a transformer with DC rectifier, does not in fact match consumption with load. Neither do the millions of others like it.
You seem to have no idea about the fundamentals of electricity. Electricity is supplied from the mains at some higher voltage, say 120 or 240V, and through passive transformers or active power electronics is converted down to a lower voltage, say 18V or so.
When the power supply is disconnected from the load, there is obviously no current flowing through the output wires. When a small load (high resistance) is applied, there is a small amount of current according to Ohms law (V=I*R). Finally, as you may guess, when a large load (small resistance) is applied, a proportionalty larger current flows through the output wires. Most importantly, apart from a small amounts of internal overheads, the current drawn from the mains is directly proportional to the load current, related by the winding ratio or DC-DC step down ratio.
Now, since Power = Voltage * Current, we can see that even though the Voltage has stayed roughly constant, the Current has changed with load, thus the Power has too.
Magic!!!
Pretty much all power supplies have this feature built in instrinsically. Transformers with diodes/capacitors wont allow current to pass when their output voltage becomes high and this the diode is no longer forwards biased. High frequency switch mode power supplies generally operate on a similar inductive principle.
I agree with everything you've said, but my point still stands. The hard thing about software is the mentality and discipline of the programmers/project teams, which other industries have been able to master.
Nails arent tough, they're usually mild steel. The very fact that they can bend with out breaking indicates that it's quite ductile.
By adding extra alloying agents (usually more carbon), you get a stifer material, but it will fracture instead of bending.
Re:Good programming is a boundaries problem
on
Why Software is Hard
·
· Score: 1
Unlike most engineering projects that are completed and done, most programming is a living growing process that is constantly changed modified and improved.
I'd argue that "living" code is only because of the lack of discipline, design and QA in the first place. That's not an individual programmers fault - there are larger issues with the software community fostering the right attitudes for a quality outcome.
I'd argue that most software projects are far from "engineering".
Here we are, using a construction kit (modern OO language) that is 100% predictable and designable, yet beta software and patch cycle after patch cycle are the norm. You couldn't do that when you build a sky scraper - they get it right the first time. It's the level of design, prototyping, QA and intrinsic belt-and-braces attention to detail that is missing in most software projects.
That said, I don't think many software projects would be given enough money to achieve this anyway, because the consequences usually aren't important enough (no-one's life is on the line).
Slashdot Mirror
I've used that trick many times, it's deviously insulting. ;)
I'm in Australia and we use the term "Earth" interchangably with "Ground", with a preference for "Earth".
On a similar note, alot of people are questioning the use of "Mains". In Australa it referes to the main utility supply - eg the 240V wall socket.
I disagree, but then again I'm not a parent or psychologist.
I think that children are growing up too fast these days. Between the media, computers entertainment and fashion we have: 12 year olds dressing like sluts, children desensitised to murder and violence, obesity, inactivity, attention defecit.... the list goes on. I'd rather see kids be kids for alot longer, I'm pretty sure it worked fine for the generations before us.
Personally if/when I have a child I'll be sheilding them from alot of this until I can see they are mature and responsible enough to deal with it properly. That would probably be well under 18, but that's not the point. It's good that there is a means for responsible parents who are taking an interest in their chlilds online activities to maintain some control.
I'm constantly switching from three modes:
1) Standalone laptop
2) Laptop in dock with 2nd monitor
3) Projector hookup with the laptop display as a clone.
I'm pretty tech savy yet I swear 1 in 4 times the projector/clone display wont work:
- The clone mode wont engage at all.
- The clone mode engages automatically, but the scaling/stretching is off
- The settings to change the clone mode is poorly labeled and unintuative hidden, and it takes me 5 minutes to find it and hit the right button.
Did you think that maybe they might put the neon antenna inside an opaque container? Also, the "stealthy" part refers to it's ability to hide from antenna detectors, not physical inspection.
You miss the point. The limitation is not the available source power - it's how much current (and thus heat) each cell can handle based on it's design.
Breaking a cell down into smaller chunks decreases the electrode surface area, reducing the current handling capability. Even though this might get partially offset by the increased cooling surface area, I'd think there would be litle nett benefit.
Secondly, this nutty plan will actually advance global warming as well
No worse than Nuclear or Fossil Fuels, which both release locked up energy. My rough calulations show:
10 Megawatts / Total mass of atmosphere (5.148x10^18 kg) / Specific Heat of Air (1012 J/kg/K) = 1.92x10^-15 degrees per second.
Or in other words, in an ideal case with no other inputs or outputs, it would 16.5 Million years to raise Earth's atmospheric temperature by 1 degree.
I dont see the big deal with giving office workers a bit of exercise - sitting idle at a desk all day isnt exactly healthy.
As far as food goes, perhaps we'll just burn more of the food we already consume instead of pooping it out or turning it into body fat.
There is no reason why you'd need to loose nutrients. The ethanol production process could easily return processing waste (i.e. the trace elements and nitrogen compunds) back to the farmland for use as fertiliser.
why not interleave
Because many of the CPU math results depend on other results in the chain. Spreading those dependant operands across multiple CPU's may not be efficient.
Your maths are wrong too. There is no watts/m^2 daily. There is Wh / day.
Solar insolation is typically 1000 - 1200W/m^2
Agreed. Whilst batteries are getting better, the pure horsepower available from a small internal combustion engine (eg methanol) is mind blowing.
My cheap electric planes produce under 100W (10 amp @ 9.6V), signifcantly more expensive versions could do 300W on lithium batteries and brushless motors. Either way, run time is 5 minutes at full power and charging is 10 - 15 mins with an expensive fast charger.
A similar (small) size/weight gas motor could produce 2 - 3 times as much power as the expensive electric option, run for 10 mins, and refuel in 1 minute.
And then you're going to need the electrical capacity to charge them. Here in Australia, we're doing pretty well with a max of 240V, 15A outlets, but more commonly 240V 10A. That's 2.4KW tops, as per the parent post. The US mains voltage would reduce that significantly.
I dont think many people will be interested in installing 415V 60A 3-phase outlets to charge their car....
Yeah, my standard V6 Commodore Ute gets around 12l/100km in the city, but a much improved 8 or 9 l/100km on the open road.
Either way, it's not that different to the "average American vehicle", and a V6 commodore/Falcon is pretty common here.
I agree 100%. A small blob in the middle of the chip should exclude the air as it spreads out.
Why differentiate? Improving the CPU / Thermal Spreader efficiency means nothing if the Spreader/Heatsink interface is still crap.
Even better, remove the heat spreader and have the CPU directly interface with the Heatsink like in the good old PIII days. Yes, I realise they stopped this due to fragile CPU's getting chipped, but there could be better ways.
There's plenty of glues around that are stronger than the materials they're adhering to.
I've seen several science shows talking regular automotive manufaturers that are interested in glue rather than welding. It can be *very* strong, whilst still allowing for a small amout of flex and energy absorbtion.
To power a car you're going to need energy in some sort, so batteries are no exception. Chemical batteries with high energy densities are just as dangerous as compressed air - as many laptops have discovered!
Whilst I like the idea of electric cars much better, one real issue is recharging them. It's very difficult to build re-usable electical connectors that can handle the power levels required for fast charging (eg within a few minutes) - we're easily talking thousands of amps. The alternative is swapping whole battery banks - not exactly convenient.
By comparison, rapid filling of air tanks has been happening for a while now - go to your local dive store and see how quickly they can charge a 250Bar SCUBA tank.
Hehe, that's comedy gold!
I think time should be measured in UTC everywhere, even on earth. People will get used to having lunch at 04:00UTC.
On Mars, they can either stick to a 24 hour cycle, or choose to update their local "noon" each day - ie the Martian newspaper can print "Noon today is 19:23UTC".
The benefit to this is that everyone can co-ordinate easily. The galactic teleconference at 13:30UTC will be easy to plan, unfortunately those Martian bastards are slow to respond and always bringing up old material.
The power supply for my laptop, a transformer with DC rectifier, does not in fact match consumption with load. Neither do the millions of others like it.
You seem to have no idea about the fundamentals of electricity. Electricity is supplied from the mains at some higher voltage, say 120 or 240V, and through passive transformers or active power electronics is converted down to a lower voltage, say 18V or so.
When the power supply is disconnected from the load, there is obviously no current flowing through the output wires. When a small load (high resistance) is applied, there is a small amount of current according to Ohms law (V=I*R). Finally, as you may guess, when a large load (small resistance) is applied, a proportionalty larger current flows through the output wires. Most importantly, apart from a small amounts of internal overheads, the current drawn from the mains is directly proportional to the load current, related by the winding ratio or DC-DC step down ratio.
Now, since Power = Voltage * Current, we can see that even though the Voltage has stayed roughly constant, the Current has changed with load, thus the Power has too.
Magic!!!
Pretty much all power supplies have this feature built in instrinsically. Transformers with diodes/capacitors wont allow current to pass when their output voltage becomes high and this the diode is no longer forwards biased. High frequency switch mode power supplies generally operate on a similar inductive principle.
I agree with everything you've said, but my point still stands. The hard thing about software is the mentality and discipline of the programmers/project teams, which other industries have been able to master.
Nails arent tough, they're usually mild steel. The very fact that they can bend with out breaking indicates that it's quite ductile.
By adding extra alloying agents (usually more carbon), you get a stifer material, but it will fracture instead of bending.
Unlike most engineering projects that are completed and done, most programming is a living growing process that is constantly changed modified and improved.
I'd argue that "living" code is only because of the lack of discipline, design and QA in the first place. That's not an individual programmers fault - there are larger issues with the software community fostering the right attitudes for a quality outcome.
Software engineering is NOT manufacturing
I'd argue that most software projects are far from "engineering".
Here we are, using a construction kit (modern OO language) that is 100% predictable and designable, yet beta software and patch cycle after patch cycle are the norm. You couldn't do that when you build a sky scraper - they get it right the first time. It's the level of design, prototyping, QA and intrinsic belt-and-braces attention to detail that is missing in most software projects.
That said, I don't think many software projects would be given enough money to achieve this anyway, because the consequences usually aren't important enough (no-one's life is on the line).