No, I just suspect that their system is more snake oil or will fail to deliver on promises as it's more susceptible to the main current barriers to microorganism-based biofuels.
They claim they're not using algae, which is interesting as bacteria that perform photosynthesis are pretty rare (and IANAB but I thought that in general, if a single-celled organism is capable of photosynthesis that it was considered algae.)
As best as I can tell, their process is likely using genetically engineered algae that perform better than the best existing "natural" algae for biofuels production. There aren't really any other candidates for genetically engineered organisms for this particular goal.
The problem is that to be so efficient at biofuels production, such algae are at a severe competitive disadvantage to other less suitable species. Based on what I've seen so far, one of the biggest problems with algae biofuels production has been contamination of bioreactors with species that grow more easily but are not suitable for biodiesel production. If someone engineers algae to be even better at biofuels production, it'll likely make the contamination problem even harder to solve.
Some of the RFID units operate at extremely low frequencies - down in the kilohertz range. The lowest I've seen is in the 130-140 kHz range though.
These units usually use a LARGE coil as an antenna. There's a good chance the coil changes shape slightly with the duty cycle of the signal (lower than the carrier frequency) - this probably results in some audible energy coming from the security system coils. It may be such a low volume or at a frequency just outside of the normal human hearing range so that it can be "felt but not consciously heard". (This is a similar phenomenon to the well-known "GSM bleeps" - You can't hear 900 MHz or 1900 MHz RF, but you CAN hear when something in the environment rectifies it and low pass filters the signal envelope, because the GSM TDMA frame repeats at around 440 Hz.)
Similarly, CRT TVs often have horizontal refresh rates in the 15-16 kHz range, right in the upper end of the human hearing range. If the transformers in these TVs malfunctions slightly, they'll vibrate at this frequency. Really cheap/defective/failing monitors and TVs will make enough noise at hsync to be heard. I remember we used to have a monitor we had to junk because you couldn't use it for more than 20 minutes without developing a headache - it started squealing softly at hsync frequency.
There are serious transportation issues with piping potable water from places where it is plentiful to places where it is needed. That's WHY we have a potable water crisis in some areas (especially the American Southwest) while we have no problem whatsoever in others (like the Northeast or the mouth of the Missisippi). In those places there's already huge amounts of water flowing into the ocean. This technology would allow that water that is already being mixed with ocean water to generate electricity in the process.
Also there are situations where water is not potable due to issues other than salinity, and for the purposes of this process might be considered "fresh" compared to saline water.
An interesting thing would be if this could be used to provide for cheap solar power - Some of the largest "solar power" we use today are salt concentration ponds - they don't provide electrical power BUT they do provide the function of separating salt from water in large solar ponds. It would be horrendously inefficient per unit of surface area, but the cost is so low that large surface areas could be achieved.
Processed sugar (cane sugar, typically almost entirely sucrose) is fundamentally less healthy than fruit sugar (fructose) because it is absorbed in the bloodstream far more quickly than fructose.
It is entirely possible to avoid sucrose in one's diet - don't eat candy, or eat candy that has been sweetened with artificial sweeteners (worst case, sugar alcohols have very slow absorption rates).
Now if they're using unsweetened chocolate they still need to deal with the fact that the fat content of chocolate is still very high - sugar free chocolate is still pretty unhealthy in anything but tiny quantities due to the fat content.
You can't avoid fats and sugars, but you can most definately avoid foods that have lots of fats and sugars but few other redeeming qualities. Unless the chocolate in question has had the potentially beneficial substances super-concentrated, the fat content of the chocolate will offset the benefits of anything else in there.
I'm a Type I diabetic who can exercise FAR more precise control over their bloodsugar than a most Type IIs can (some are unable to manage their condition with oral meds alone so have to take insulin injections anyway, but this is rare) and I would never volunteer for this study.
And how much chocolate are they feeding these people? Just a few grams a day or ???
Regardless of whether the dark chocolate may have beneficial compounds, the other components (lots of fat and sugar) are in general rather unhealthy, and EXTREMELY so for a type 2 diabetic.
Is the control group going to be fed a combination of fats/sugar? The control group will have to volunteer to engage in a fundamentally unhealthy and risky practice for a year.
Or are they going to be attempting to create some sort of "chocolate extract" with the chemicals being studied present but no sugar added and the fatty components removed? It'll taste awful but at least won't have significant negative health effects.
Re:But they're a bargain if you buy them in bulk
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
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· Score: 1
That's part of why the B-2 was so expensive - there was a HUGE amount of NRE, and spread out over the relatively low number of aircraft, it wound up pretty brutal cost-wise.
As the another commenter said, a coal plant releases a few tons/year of uranium into the air.
Uranium has an incredibly long half-life and tends to remain in the body due to its chemical properties.
Xenon-135 (which is what the majority of TMI's release consisted of) has a half-life of 9.2 hours and is chemically unreactive, so doesn't tend to concentrate itself anywhere.
Given a choice between living 5 miles from a coal plant or 5 miles from a nuclear plant (US-design, NOT an RBMK...), I'll take the nuclear plant any day.
Chernobyl was not just old: 1) It was built with a dual purpose: Power generation AND weapons materials production - this led to design safety compromises 2) It DID have a lot of safety precautions, but the operators disabled them to run an experiment. Based on your car analogy, this would involve ripping out the ABS controller, removing the shock absorbers, removing the swaybar, slashing the brake lines, then going for a ride.
1) Mostly true. They can have a steam explosion, which is basically the first thing that happened at Chernobyl. That said, they can't result in a nuclear explosion.
2) Exactly. To be specific, the Chernobyl (RBMK-1000) reactor design used a graphite moderator in order to make it more suitable for production of weapons materials. Graphite moderators are bad for a variety of reasons, both in regards to reactor stability, and the fact that it's extremely flammable (which is where most of the atmospheric contamination from Chernobyl came from - burning graphite.) No US civilian power reactor serves such a dual purpose.
3-5) Don't really need to say more
Additonally: A typical coal plant releases more radioactive material into the air in a day due to traces of uranium in the coal than TMI released in its lifetime
Also, in addition to the fundamental deficiencies of the the RBMK-1000 design, they were running an experiment with the reactor that could only be described as "fucking dangerous". Well not only, "fucking stupid" works too. By the time the incident occurred, the reactor operators had overridden most of the reactor's safety features - the reactor SHOULD have SCRAMed long before the incident occurred but the operators kept it going to run an experiment because they feared retribution from their superiors. (The experiment failed the first time, and rather than continue shutdown they tried to restart the reactor to try again.)
The biggest problem currently is waste. Sadly, there are reactor designs that are both far more efficient in fuel use (hence produce far less waste per kWh) AND also produce far shorter-lived waste (plus can use traditional LWR waste as fuel), but were killed because politicians translated "breeder" into "proliferation risk" even though traditional LWRs were more of a proliferation risk than the IFR was. Also, a past president (Carter?) banned all nuclear fuels reprocessing in the U.S. with an executive order. Back then, reprocessing = PUREX and banning PUREX was understandable (it WAS a major proliferation risk), but now there are many other reprocessing technologies that are not proliferation risks but are still banned under the wording of the executive order.
I'm fairly certain that when he said "less need to actually install Linux on servers" meant "install Linux as the sole or host OS on servers, pushing Windows out of the server market"
At least in the current state of things, running Linux as a guest with Windows as the host is just... Nuts.
That's what this release supports. As far as I can tell, it does NOTHING for a Windows guest with a Linux host OS, which is going to be the preferred solution for most people (including myself - I have never virtualized Linux within Windows and never intend to, but I routinely virtualize WinXP on my Gentoo laptop.)
An FPGA load is something very different from software... Exactly what an FPGA bitstream should be defined as is still the subject of much controversy and debate due to being in such a grey area.
As I see it, software is machine-executable code that runs on a processor.
An FPGA is a whole different animal - FPGA code doesn't execute, it effectively defines the internal wiring of the FPGA. It is most definately not, in my opinion, "software".
It isn't exactly hardware as it is reconfigurable and defined by some memory contents, but in general, it's very difficult to create an FPGA bitstream without a good fundamental understanding of digital logic design, which is a hardware field, not a software one. An FPGA designer must be aware of many design constraints on the bitstream such as gate propagation delays and timing. Thus, an FPGA article most definately is deserving of a "hardhack" tag.
"First off, I just want to say that the paranoia issue is moot. Google provides the same sort of assurances that any other outsourced IT organization provides. It's a matter of seeing successful businesses doing this for years that will convince everyone that Google isn't just that ad company they're so familiar with."
So what? I have yet to work at a company that outsourced their mail system offsite. The people managing the servers might have been outsourced, but the servers themselves were property of the company and resided at a physical location belonging to said company.
(That said, I have yet to figure out how Blackberry got an "in" with companies to allow mail to be mirrored offsite, my guess is that BB's servers hold the mail in encrypted format to which BB doesn't even have the key. In addition, with the Blackberry setup, the primary mail system still resides within the company.)
The problem with this is the same as the stretch of the Garden State Parkway that says "speed monitored by aircraft" - if you see aircraft in the sky, slow down.
Otherwise, the road earns the nickname I've given it - Garden State Speedway.
I agree, I have TTN7 running on my AT&T Tilt (it is possible to do it legally but VERY difficult...), but I'm very tempted to purchase a standalone unit. The standalone units provide far more features and functionality.
Even if the software were on par features-wise, the onboard GPS receiver in most cell phones is crud. The Qualcomm GPSOne solution (and most similar ones) are on par with my old Garmin eMap in terms of sensitivity, accuracy, and lock times. They don't even come close to even aging chipsets like the SiRF Star III, let alone new ones like the MTK v2 chipset.
The navigation services offered by providers give you the map data and the routing algorithms to do more with that GPS than feed you a string of numbers.
Use of the GPS receiver in AT&T devices is 100% free unless you want to use Telenav, which provides map data, POI searches, and routing functionality. If you don't like the idea of paying for service, you can pay Garmin for standalone software that does the same thing. (Or, if you live outside the US, TomTom - TomTom Navigator is no longer sold to US customers starting with Navigator 7.)
I don't know about the Symbian version, but the Windows Mobile version usually lags a generation behind the standalone devices, and you can't even buy it legally in the United States.
Also, the standalone devices will always have their place, with two primary reasons (these assume phones that have sufficient onboard storage for map data w/o the cell phone connection): 1) For visibility while in use, a 4.3" widescreen display is very nice for a nav device. A phone that large would never sell. 2) The GPS receiver in most phones capable of performing mapping functions (Qualcomm GPSOne) is SHIT. It's about on par with my old Garmin eMap (6+ years old) in terms of sensitivity and lock times. The far more modern GPS chipsets included in standalone devices (SiRF III, MTK v1 and v2) absolutely destroy the GPSOne solution in terms of sensitivity, accuracy, and lock times.
Compared to that behemoth, even a 22" widescreen LCD will be saving you desk space. Take it from someone who is using a 24" widescreen Gateway on the same desk he used to use a 17" Trinitron on - I have far more desk space than I used to.
Also, Dell's site currently lists 13 monitors in the 17-19" range that do 1440x900.
This should solve a long-standing bug regarding proxies and DNS.
For whatever reason, if you are using a proxy server (It may only pertain to specific proxy configurations, I'm not sure, I do know that the proxy setup where I work triggers this bug), the whole browser will freeze while a DNS lookup executes. NOT good if you accidentally typo a domain.
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Problem with closed reactors is that it gets hard to get the surface area you need for lots of production economically.
No, I just suspect that their system is more snake oil or will fail to deliver on promises as it's more susceptible to the main current barriers to microorganism-based biofuels.
They claim they're not using algae, which is interesting as bacteria that perform photosynthesis are pretty rare (and IANAB but I thought that in general, if a single-celled organism is capable of photosynthesis that it was considered algae.)
As best as I can tell, their process is likely using genetically engineered algae that perform better than the best existing "natural" algae for biofuels production. There aren't really any other candidates for genetically engineered organisms for this particular goal.
The problem is that to be so efficient at biofuels production, such algae are at a severe competitive disadvantage to other less suitable species. Based on what I've seen so far, one of the biggest problems with algae biofuels production has been contamination of bioreactors with species that grow more easily but are not suitable for biodiesel production. If someone engineers algae to be even better at biofuels production, it'll likely make the contamination problem even harder to solve.
Yeah, this DJ carries a wi-fi detector with him at all times.
Bet he doesn't get sick until AFTER it goes off or he sees someone using a laptop.
Some of the RFID units operate at extremely low frequencies - down in the kilohertz range. The lowest I've seen is in the 130-140 kHz range though.
These units usually use a LARGE coil as an antenna. There's a good chance the coil changes shape slightly with the duty cycle of the signal (lower than the carrier frequency) - this probably results in some audible energy coming from the security system coils. It may be such a low volume or at a frequency just outside of the normal human hearing range so that it can be "felt but not consciously heard". (This is a similar phenomenon to the well-known "GSM bleeps" - You can't hear 900 MHz or 1900 MHz RF, but you CAN hear when something in the environment rectifies it and low pass filters the signal envelope, because the GSM TDMA frame repeats at around 440 Hz.)
Similarly, CRT TVs often have horizontal refresh rates in the 15-16 kHz range, right in the upper end of the human hearing range. If the transformers in these TVs malfunctions slightly, they'll vibrate at this frequency. Really cheap/defective/failing monitors and TVs will make enough noise at hsync to be heard. I remember we used to have a monitor we had to junk because you couldn't use it for more than 20 minutes without developing a headache - it started squealing softly at hsync frequency.
There are serious transportation issues with piping potable water from places where it is plentiful to places where it is needed. That's WHY we have a potable water crisis in some areas (especially the American Southwest) while we have no problem whatsoever in others (like the Northeast or the mouth of the Missisippi). In those places there's already huge amounts of water flowing into the ocean. This technology would allow that water that is already being mixed with ocean water to generate electricity in the process.
Also there are situations where water is not potable due to issues other than salinity, and for the purposes of this process might be considered "fresh" compared to saline water.
An interesting thing would be if this could be used to provide for cheap solar power - Some of the largest "solar power" we use today are salt concentration ponds - they don't provide electrical power BUT they do provide the function of separating salt from water in large solar ponds. It would be horrendously inefficient per unit of surface area, but the cost is so low that large surface areas could be achieved.
Processed sugar (cane sugar, typically almost entirely sucrose) is fundamentally less healthy than fruit sugar (fructose) because it is absorbed in the bloodstream far more quickly than fructose.
It is entirely possible to avoid sucrose in one's diet - don't eat candy, or eat candy that has been sweetened with artificial sweeteners (worst case, sugar alcohols have very slow absorption rates).
Now if they're using unsweetened chocolate they still need to deal with the fact that the fat content of chocolate is still very high - sugar free chocolate is still pretty unhealthy in anything but tiny quantities due to the fat content.
You can't avoid fats and sugars, but you can most definately avoid foods that have lots of fats and sugars but few other redeeming qualities. Unless the chocolate in question has had the potentially beneficial substances super-concentrated, the fat content of the chocolate will offset the benefits of anything else in there.
I'm a Type I diabetic who can exercise FAR more precise control over their bloodsugar than a most Type IIs can (some are unable to manage their condition with oral meds alone so have to take insulin injections anyway, but this is rare) and I would never volunteer for this study.
And how much chocolate are they feeding these people? Just a few grams a day or ???
Regardless of whether the dark chocolate may have beneficial compounds, the other components (lots of fat and sugar) are in general rather unhealthy, and EXTREMELY so for a type 2 diabetic.
Is the control group going to be fed a combination of fats/sugar? The control group will have to volunteer to engage in a fundamentally unhealthy and risky practice for a year.
Or are they going to be attempting to create some sort of "chocolate extract" with the chemicals being studied present but no sugar added and the fatty components removed? It'll taste awful but at least won't have significant negative health effects.
That's part of why the B-2 was so expensive - there was a HUGE amount of NRE, and spread out over the relatively low number of aircraft, it wound up pretty brutal cost-wise.
As the another commenter said, a coal plant releases a few tons/year of uranium into the air.
Uranium has an incredibly long half-life and tends to remain in the body due to its chemical properties.
Xenon-135 (which is what the majority of TMI's release consisted of) has a half-life of 9.2 hours and is chemically unreactive, so doesn't tend to concentrate itself anywhere.
Given a choice between living 5 miles from a coal plant or 5 miles from a nuclear plant (US-design, NOT an RBMK...), I'll take the nuclear plant any day.
Chernobyl was not just old:
1) It was built with a dual purpose: Power generation AND weapons materials production - this led to design safety compromises
2) It DID have a lot of safety precautions, but the operators disabled them to run an experiment. Based on your car analogy, this would involve ripping out the ABS controller, removing the shock absorbers, removing the swaybar, slashing the brake lines, then going for a ride.
1) Mostly true. They can have a steam explosion, which is basically the first thing that happened at Chernobyl. That said, they can't result in a nuclear explosion.
2) Exactly. To be specific, the Chernobyl (RBMK-1000) reactor design used a graphite moderator in order to make it more suitable for production of weapons materials. Graphite moderators are bad for a variety of reasons, both in regards to reactor stability, and the fact that it's extremely flammable (which is where most of the atmospheric contamination from Chernobyl came from - burning graphite.) No US civilian power reactor serves such a dual purpose.
3-5) Don't really need to say more
Additonally:
A typical coal plant releases more radioactive material into the air in a day due to traces of uranium in the coal than TMI released in its lifetime
Also, in addition to the fundamental deficiencies of the the RBMK-1000 design, they were running an experiment with the reactor that could only be described as "fucking dangerous". Well not only, "fucking stupid" works too. By the time the incident occurred, the reactor operators had overridden most of the reactor's safety features - the reactor SHOULD have SCRAMed long before the incident occurred but the operators kept it going to run an experiment because they feared retribution from their superiors. (The experiment failed the first time, and rather than continue shutdown they tried to restart the reactor to try again.)
The biggest problem currently is waste. Sadly, there are reactor designs that are both far more efficient in fuel use (hence produce far less waste per kWh) AND also produce far shorter-lived waste (plus can use traditional LWR waste as fuel), but were killed because politicians translated "breeder" into "proliferation risk" even though traditional LWRs were more of a proliferation risk than the IFR was. Also, a past president (Carter?) banned all nuclear fuels reprocessing in the U.S. with an executive order. Back then, reprocessing = PUREX and banning PUREX was understandable (it WAS a major proliferation risk), but now there are many other reprocessing technologies that are not proliferation risks but are still banned under the wording of the executive order.
I think you misinterpreted what he said.
I'm fairly certain that when he said "less need to actually install Linux on servers" meant "install Linux as the sole or host OS on servers, pushing Windows out of the server market"
That's my primary observation here...
At least in the current state of things, running Linux as a guest with Windows as the host is just... Nuts.
That's what this release supports. As far as I can tell, it does NOTHING for a Windows guest with a Linux host OS, which is going to be the preferred solution for most people (including myself - I have never virtualized Linux within Windows and never intend to, but I routinely virtualize WinXP on my Gentoo laptop.)
Thanks for the info!
The lack of Linux support for the Nexys2 was the main thing keeping me from buying one... I think I'm going to order one in the next week. :)
An FPGA load is something very different from software... Exactly what an FPGA bitstream should be defined as is still the subject of much controversy and debate due to being in such a grey area.
As I see it, software is machine-executable code that runs on a processor.
An FPGA is a whole different animal - FPGA code doesn't execute, it effectively defines the internal wiring of the FPGA. It is most definately not, in my opinion, "software".
It isn't exactly hardware as it is reconfigurable and defined by some memory contents, but in general, it's very difficult to create an FPGA bitstream without a good fundamental understanding of digital logic design, which is a hardware field, not a software one. An FPGA designer must be aware of many design constraints on the bitstream such as gate propagation delays and timing. Thus, an FPGA article most definately is deserving of a "hardhack" tag.
"First off, I just want to say that the paranoia issue is moot. Google provides the same sort of assurances that any other outsourced IT organization provides. It's a matter of seeing successful businesses doing this for years that will convince everyone that Google isn't just that ad company they're so familiar with."
So what? I have yet to work at a company that outsourced their mail system offsite. The people managing the servers might have been outsourced, but the servers themselves were property of the company and resided at a physical location belonging to said company.
(That said, I have yet to figure out how Blackberry got an "in" with companies to allow mail to be mirrored offsite, my guess is that BB's servers hold the mail in encrypted format to which BB doesn't even have the key. In addition, with the Blackberry setup, the primary mail system still resides within the company.)
Attraction isn't just physical... "turned on" = attracted
The problem with this is the same as the stretch of the Garden State Parkway that says "speed monitored by aircraft" - if you see aircraft in the sky, slow down.
Otherwise, the road earns the nickname I've given it - Garden State Speedway.
I now have two G5s, one older (singlebutton) and one newer (doublebutton).
I love the G5 - I gave up on "notebook" mice and now have a G5 in my laptop bag.
I agree, I have TTN7 running on my AT&T Tilt (it is possible to do it legally but VERY difficult...), but I'm very tempted to purchase a standalone unit. The standalone units provide far more features and functionality.
Even if the software were on par features-wise, the onboard GPS receiver in most cell phones is crud. The Qualcomm GPSOne solution (and most similar ones) are on par with my old Garmin eMap in terms of sensitivity, accuracy, and lock times. They don't even come close to even aging chipsets like the SiRF Star III, let alone new ones like the MTK v2 chipset.
GPS only provides your position, not map data.
The navigation services offered by providers give you the map data and the routing algorithms to do more with that GPS than feed you a string of numbers.
Use of the GPS receiver in AT&T devices is 100% free unless you want to use Telenav, which provides map data, POI searches, and routing functionality. If you don't like the idea of paying for service, you can pay Garmin for standalone software that does the same thing. (Or, if you live outside the US, TomTom - TomTom Navigator is no longer sold to US customers starting with Navigator 7.)
I don't know about the Symbian version, but the Windows Mobile version usually lags a generation behind the standalone devices, and you can't even buy it legally in the United States.
Also, the standalone devices will always have their place, with two primary reasons (these assume phones that have sufficient onboard storage for map data w/o the cell phone connection):
1) For visibility while in use, a 4.3" widescreen display is very nice for a nav device. A phone that large would never sell.
2) The GPS receiver in most phones capable of performing mapping functions (Qualcomm GPSOne) is SHIT. It's about on par with my old Garmin eMap (6+ years old) in terms of sensitivity and lock times. The far more modern GPS chipsets included in standalone devices (SiRF III, MTK v1 and v2) absolutely destroy the GPSOne solution in terms of sensitivity, accuracy, and lock times.
You're using a 17" Trinitron!
Compared to that behemoth, even a 22" widescreen LCD will be saving you desk space. Take it from someone who is using a 24" widescreen Gateway on the same desk he used to use a 17" Trinitron on - I have far more desk space than I used to.
Also, Dell's site currently lists 13 monitors in the 17-19" range that do 1440x900.
This should solve a long-standing bug regarding proxies and DNS.
For whatever reason, if you are using a proxy server (It may only pertain to specific proxy configurations, I'm not sure, I do know that the proxy setup where I work triggers this bug), the whole browser will freeze while a DNS lookup executes. NOT good if you accidentally typo a domain.