You're glossing over an abundance of detail on UL/CSA listing.
I work for a company that manufactures industrial particulate moisture sensors. Due to the location these are commonly installed in, we have been required to jump through a number of hoops (HazLoc classifications, etc) without first being told what hoops we'd have to be jumping through. (Perhaps this is easier at a larger company where there are personnel dedicated to reading the tomes of standards - literally 1000's of pages which cost $$$$). After two go-arounds with UL at ~$10,000 each and no communication other than "Your device does not meet applicable standards" we've shelved the process.
If you've got the inside track for maneuvering, I'd love to hear about it.
An interesting thought. I didn't read your comment as having any particular spin, but total energy into the drivetrain is only part of the equation:
I'll gladly accept your figure for energy in a gallon of gasoline (I've seen it quoted as high as 36kWh/Gal).
From that 34kWh of energy in 1 gallon of gasoline you may be able to travel as much as 50 miles in a high efficiency vehicle (more typically 20-25 miles for the average family sedan).
For electrical vehicles that same 34kWh will take you more than 87 miles (assuming 0.39kWh/mi which seems to be a high side estimate for most vehicles, including generation losses. Add in another 6.5% for transmission/distribution losses and you're still at ~82 miles for the same amount of energy. Wiki has a good paragraph on this)
I'd say the bottom line is: conversion of that energy to movement is ~15-20% for gasoline and ~60-80% for electric vehicles. For me in a Taurus (23MPG, $3.20/Gal) my cost to drive is ~$0.139 per mile. In the Chevy Volt (0.36kWh/mi on electricity, $0.133/kWh cost of electricity), my cost to drive is $0.048 per mile. This seems to be enough of a difference that the market should be sorting itself out quicker than it is.
Your comment, while having some merit, is full of troll happy stink bait.
Growing up on a production ag farm and wanting to eventually end up back in the business I can make some reasonably informed reply to your generalizations.
You say:
Most I have talked to lately insist its impossible to produce food without chemicals, which just isn't true.
Whether the studies you fail to cite are true or not, the fact remains that our culture is very demanding and often without awareness of the consequences. For agriculture to meet the needs of populations they need to either be close to the population so the food doesn't spoil, rely on expensive methods of transport to keep food fresh and/or have the raw food processed into something that will keep. For the people whose business it is to meet the needs of people who want food that lasts and is cheap and still tastes good, one solution is the above mentioned HFCS. I'm not arguing for or against - it's simply filling the need.
As far as precision ag equipment - my experience has been that it is new enough (20+ years now - but yes, still 'new') that farmers are still understanding how to best put the tech to work. Granted, some of the challenge has been engineers who don't understand the industry well enough to make units that work appropriately for the conditions and tasks that precision ag requires.
In the business I know best (my 2900 acre family farm), precision ag has been used first to map what production levels and soil nutrient levels are (look up grid soil sampling) and then to evaluate at what rate to apply fertilizer (mostly pig manure which has been sent to a lab to determine NPK). The ultimate goal is farming the land to it's potential. In this business (as some other commenters have mentioned), profits are often slim so not wasting fertilizer on ground where it could be washed away or putting more than is needed on the soil is not only wasteful but also potentially lethal to the business.
None of that needed. I examined a unit and it was simple - attach via the included mini-USB connector. It even worked on my Macintosh.
The included Li-Ion battery recharges via USB and the four videos can be overwritten with files provided they are encoded correctly for the device. (Don't ask me - I can't remember)
The one useful comment I can make is that if anyone is trying to hack one of these Americhip devices, it required a password. I believe it was simply activated using 3 of the 4 included buttons - hitting them sequentially 1, 2, 3.
1-2-3-4-5? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard of in my life! That's the kinda thing an idiot would have on his luggage!
Oh - and as far as cost/benefit. Pesticide advertising is a unique market in that the ads are usually aired on local television stations to reach the largely rural target audience. Think about running an ad in the Minneapolis/St.Paul television market - now think about the cost of sending out a number of magazine ads with your same message - only in much more detail and only to your target audience.
After dissecting the device, I could see it costing 20-$40... for the number of copies that's a chunk of change, but it still may have been well worth it ($340k-$680k).
I mean, since when did a pesticide producer get good press on slashdot?
As someone else had suggested, it is a greeting card type device with a plastic pull tab between pages. You really had to open the page wide to get it to go, and there was probably a 2-3 second intro with minimal sound.
JGG
I'm working as an EE (among other responsibilities) and the old workhorse we use here is an Agilent 54641A (MegaZoom) 350MHz - it does reasonably well for mixed signal design (I think the cost was originally around $3-5k).
However, more recently I purchased a 'throw away' unit that we could carry out into the field for harmonic noise measurements (Hantek DSO1060 - linking from the place I bought it because the sales engineer was helpful: http://www.web-tronics.com/60haheoswidm.html). The scope is listed as a 60MHz piece of equipment and has performed well and worked well despite the conditions I've thrown at it (would you carry scope out in rain, condensing steam and chunks of partially ground corn?). The other useful feature is that it has the ability to connect to a Windows based computer for remote control as well as direct measurements from the device itself.
I don't know why this couldn't work. Really. Can someone who's had even basic economics explain this to me?
I come from an Agricultural background, so for those unfamiliar - a contract for corn can only trade up or down so much ($0.60 per bushel per day), with that limit expanding on sequential days where that limit has been reached.
(see "Daily Price Limit" here: Chicago Board of Trade)
Despite all the gloom and doom over the environmental ramifications, as an engineer, I'm very interested in the solutions that are being put forward as well as the arm-chair failure analysis that is being done. One forum that has had many people from Oil and Gas backgrounds comment on what may have happened, as well as many links to good resources has been at GCaptain
Enjoy (if you've got the patience to read through 22 pages of comments!)
A couple of highlights - First radio interview from someone on the rig:
http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article...422&spid=32364
For those really interested in this sort of issue, read the document accessible via the following link. There was a near miss when BP was drilling the Thunder Horse well, and this paper documents how it was handled. We're not talking about a bunch of amateurs here, on the BP side or the Transocean side. That's why this incident needs to be understood - it caught a bunch of very good people by surprise:
NOAA Report
I'm still running an old G3 PowerBook - so I can run Mathcad v6 in Classic mode - I was a physics major and once learned, that software had to be the quickest and easiest bar none. Mathcad has not released a Mac version since about 1998, so perhaps VMWare or another emulator to use a more current version under Windows?
That said, I've generally found the paper/pencil option much better. I did try the Mathcad route for awhile, but in most math/physics/science classes, there's just too much jumping around. E.g. Oh - and this connects back to that... etc. It's just really hard to circle something and draw an arrow back to a previous note on the page with software.
It seems to be at the heart of all things political and I can't tell if this is a culture war or a simply a genuine academic disagreement over economic theory:
Is there any definitive answer to whether trickle down economic theory works?
Does flat or regressive taxation make sense to encourage economic growth? Just like many other issues I tend to think the answer lies in the grey areas that our polarized political system seems to ignore.
I see this primarily as a balance between social welfare (not the government program) and economic growth. There's plenty of discussion around this comment but is there any real sense by the crowd here whether these two elements (society's welfare and economic growth/sustainability) are at odds with each other or if this is just more political rhetoric?
Something else to consider beyond Ad-Block and No-Script is a good local proxy.
Privoxy's default installation does a nice job of removing ads and other images, but is highly configurable (also read- IMHO not terribly easy to configure). I found that this was more useful in cutting bandwidth use at home on my 56k dial-up connection than many internet speed boosters/compression agents.
JGG
The Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 (INA) was enacted to help stop foreign transfers to Iran of weapons of mass destruction, missile technology, and advanced conventional weapons technology, particularly from Russia. Section 6 of the INA banned U.S. payments to Russia in connection with the International Space Station (ISS) unless the U.S. President determined that Russia was taking steps to prevent such proliferation. When the President in 2004 announced that the Space Shuttle would be retired in 2010, the Russian Soyuz became the only vehicle available after that date to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. In 2005 Congress amended INA to exempt Soyuz flights to the ISS from the Section 6 ban through 2011.
I was confused by this too. This is not spontaneous learning, but rather, the researchers organizing input based on where the neural cluster is creating electrical impulses? Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Whalley's colleagues Dimitris Xydas and Julia Downes started by connecting a culture to an ultrasound sensor in a wheeled robot. They then record the spikes of voltage produced at points within the culture when signals from the sensor are sent to it. When they find an area that fires consistently when the sensor input reaches it, those signals can be picked up by an electrode and used to, say, make the robot avoid an obstruction. For example, if the ultrasound sensor indicates "wall dead ahead" with a 1 volt signal, and a certain knot of neurons in the culture always generates a 100-microvolt action potential when that happens, the latter signal can be used to make the robot steer right or left to avoid the wall.
I'm an idiot - I should read the whole lawyer speak document before posting - turns out that:
A plausible showing
that YouTube and Google's denials are false, and that the search function can and has been used to discriminate in favor of infringing content, should be required before disclosure of so valuable and vulnerable an asset is compelled.... Therefore, the cross-motion for a protective order is granted and the motion to compel production of the search code is denied.
I'll be very surprised if Google complies with this given the following:
Plaintiffs move jointly pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 to compel YouTube and Google to produce certain electronically stored information and documents, including a critical trade secret: the computer source code which controls both the YouTube.com search function and Google's internet search tool "Google.com".
It seems that Gen. Lord has a lot of understanding in this field, but perhaps this could be a preliminary to a panel interview of Lord and others. Something that would be able to address some of the areas that were skimmed over just due to the structure of military IT security.
the KKK was also a Christian organisation. and they didn't stop their bullying and murder because we showed respect for their beliefs
An important distinction is to note the difference between a faith/religion and organizations formed by those claiming to be faithful followers.
Quite a few years ago a grade-school teacher told me that even though 1) snoobs have bloongs and 2) bloongs are green does not in fact mean that all snoobs are green.
$5.15 for 8Gb NAND (though I wonder what the space requirements would be for a 10 NAND package iPod might be). Also note that even though this is current market price, predictions are for these parts to get much cheaper yet and Apple could potentially be setting up contracts with that in mind (i.e. contracting now in volumes at say 67% market)... so rather than $200-300 it'll be more likely that an 80GB iPod would require $30-50 of NAND flash memory.
The big issue here in my opinion is not whether allofmp3.com has the legal right to sell music without paying royalties back to the artists, but rather the eroding fair-use laws in this country.
People forget that, while laws are not made to be broken, a law is not unchangable. If the people of this nation feel so strongly that record middlemen do not serve a particularly valuable function anymore, let them lobby their legislators. Unfortunately, many of us vote twice with our wallet for every time we vote with our words.
My first reaction was to email all the TV news outlets in my area with a link to the Washington Post article and a summary of what's been going on, asking them to educate the public as to what is going on. I'd encourage other slashdotters to do likewise.
If people don't see that 1) not doing anything about a virus on their computer and 2) the internet operating more slowly are connected, we'll never get rid of spam/spam-bots.
Slashdot Mirror
You're glossing over an abundance of detail on UL/CSA listing.
I work for a company that manufactures industrial particulate moisture sensors. Due to the location these are commonly installed in, we have been required to jump through a number of hoops (HazLoc classifications, etc) without first being told what hoops we'd have to be jumping through. (Perhaps this is easier at a larger company where there are personnel dedicated to reading the tomes of standards - literally 1000's of pages which cost $$$$). After two go-arounds with UL at ~$10,000 each and no communication other than "Your device does not meet applicable standards" we've shelved the process.
If you've got the inside track for maneuvering, I'd love to hear about it.
An interesting thought. I didn't read your comment as having any particular spin, but total energy into the drivetrain is only part of the equation:
I'll gladly accept your figure for energy in a gallon of gasoline (I've seen it quoted as high as 36kWh/Gal).
From that 34kWh of energy in 1 gallon of gasoline you may be able to travel as much as 50 miles in a high efficiency vehicle (more typically 20-25 miles for the average family sedan).
For electrical vehicles that same 34kWh will take you more than 87 miles (assuming 0.39kWh/mi which seems to be a high side estimate for most vehicles, including generation losses. Add in another 6.5% for transmission/distribution losses and you're still at ~82 miles for the same amount of energy. Wiki has a good paragraph on this)
I'd say the bottom line is: conversion of that energy to movement is ~15-20% for gasoline and ~60-80% for electric vehicles. For me in a Taurus (23MPG, $3.20/Gal) my cost to drive is ~$0.139 per mile. In the Chevy Volt (0.36kWh/mi on electricity, $0.133/kWh cost of electricity), my cost to drive is $0.048 per mile. This seems to be enough of a difference that the market should be sorting itself out quicker than it is.
JGG
Your opinion - see my comment in response: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1765200&cid=33374792
Growing up on a production ag farm and wanting to eventually end up back in the business I can make some reasonably informed reply to your generalizations.
You say:
Whether the studies you fail to cite are true or not, the fact remains that our culture is very demanding and often without awareness of the consequences. For agriculture to meet the needs of populations they need to either be close to the population so the food doesn't spoil, rely on expensive methods of transport to keep food fresh and/or have the raw food processed into something that will keep. For the people whose business it is to meet the needs of people who want food that lasts and is cheap and still tastes good, one solution is the above mentioned HFCS. I'm not arguing for or against - it's simply filling the need.
As far as precision ag equipment - my experience has been that it is new enough (20+ years now - but yes, still 'new') that farmers are still understanding how to best put the tech to work. Granted, some of the challenge has been engineers who don't understand the industry well enough to make units that work appropriately for the conditions and tasks that precision ag requires.
In the business I know best (my 2900 acre family farm), precision ag has been used first to map what production levels and soil nutrient levels are (look up grid soil sampling) and then to evaluate at what rate to apply fertilizer (mostly pig manure which has been sent to a lab to determine NPK). The ultimate goal is farming the land to it's potential. In this business (as some other commenters have mentioned), profits are often slim so not wasting fertilizer on ground where it could be washed away or putting more than is needed on the soil is not only wasteful but also potentially lethal to the business.
JGG
See my earlier comment for a couple details: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1765200&cid=33374306 JGG
The included Li-Ion battery recharges via USB and the four videos can be overwritten with files provided they are encoded correctly for the device. (Don't ask me - I can't remember)
The one useful comment I can make is that if anyone is trying to hack one of these Americhip devices, it required a password. I believe it was simply activated using 3 of the 4 included buttons - hitting them sequentially 1, 2, 3.
Spaceballs
JGG
Oh - and as far as cost/benefit. Pesticide advertising is a unique market in that the ads are usually aired on local television stations to reach the largely rural target audience. Think about running an ad in the Minneapolis/St.Paul television market - now think about the cost of sending out a number of magazine ads with your same message - only in much more detail and only to your target audience.
After dissecting the device, I could see it costing 20-$40... for the number of copies that's a chunk of change, but it still may have been well worth it ($340k-$680k).
I mean, since when did a pesticide producer get good press on slashdot?
JGG
As someone else had suggested, it is a greeting card type device with a plastic pull tab between pages. You really had to open the page wide to get it to go, and there was probably a 2-3 second intro with minimal sound. JGG
I'm working as an EE (among other responsibilities) and the old workhorse we use here is an Agilent 54641A (MegaZoom) 350MHz - it does reasonably well for mixed signal design (I think the cost was originally around $3-5k).
However, more recently I purchased a 'throw away' unit that we could carry out into the field for harmonic noise measurements (Hantek DSO1060 - linking from the place I bought it because the sales engineer was helpful: http://www.web-tronics.com/60haheoswidm.html). The scope is listed as a 60MHz piece of equipment and has performed well and worked well despite the conditions I've thrown at it (would you carry scope out in rain, condensing steam and chunks of partially ground corn?). The other useful feature is that it has the ability to connect to a Windows based computer for remote control as well as direct measurements from the device itself.
JGG
I don't know why this couldn't work. Really. Can someone who's had even basic economics explain this to me?
I come from an Agricultural background, so for those unfamiliar - a contract for corn can only trade up or down so much ($0.60 per bushel per day), with that limit expanding on sequential days where that limit has been reached. (see "Daily Price Limit" here: Chicago Board of Trade)
JGG
Enjoy (if you've got the patience to read through 22 pages of comments!)
A couple of highlights -
First radio interview from someone on the rig:
http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article...422&spid=32364
Second - OSHA's website has some of the best diagrams:
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/oilandgas/well_completion/well_completion.html
Third - the specs from this platform/ship:
http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.html?LayoutID=17 -- check out "Thrusters: 8 x Kamewa rated 7375 hp each, fixed propeller, full 360 deg azimuth"
JGG
That said, I've generally found the paper/pencil option much better. I did try the Mathcad route for awhile, but in most math/physics/science classes, there's just too much jumping around. E.g. Oh - and this connects back to that... etc. It's just really hard to circle something and draw an arrow back to a previous note on the page with software.
JDB
This used to be the case (for Verizon) in Minnesota, but as of 4 or 5 years ago, they closed the loophole.
It seems to be at the heart of all things political and I can't tell if this is a culture war or a simply a genuine academic disagreement over economic theory:
Is there any definitive answer to whether trickle down economic theory works?
Does flat or regressive taxation make sense to encourage economic growth? Just like many other issues I tend to think the answer lies in the grey areas that our polarized political system seems to ignore.
I see this primarily as a balance between social welfare (not the government program) and economic growth. There's plenty of discussion around this comment but is there any real sense by the crowd here whether these two elements (society's welfare and economic growth/sustainability) are at odds with each other or if this is just more political rhetoric?
JGG
Something else to consider beyond Ad-Block and No-Script is a good local proxy.
Privoxy's default installation does a nice job of removing ads and other images, but is highly configurable (also read- IMHO not terribly easy to configure). I found that this was more useful in cutting bandwidth use at home on my 56k dial-up connection than many internet speed boosters/compression agents. JGG
http://opencrs.com/document/RL34477
Or is Google going completely open-source? JGG
I'll second that!
It seems that Gen. Lord has a lot of understanding in this field, but perhaps this could be a preliminary to a panel interview of Lord and others. Something that would be able to address some of the areas that were skimmed over just due to the structure of military IT security.
An important distinction is to note the difference between a faith/religion and organizations formed by those claiming to be faithful followers.
Quite a few years ago a grade-school teacher told me that even though 1) snoobs have bloongs and 2) bloongs are green does not in fact mean that all snoobs are green.
JGG
Darn- someone beat me to it... Such a double take at that tag. JGG
See http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID =197002923
$5.15 for 8Gb NAND (though I wonder what the space requirements would be for a 10 NAND package iPod might be). Also note that even though this is current market price, predictions are for these parts to get much cheaper yet and Apple could potentially be setting up contracts with that in mind (i.e. contracting now in volumes at say 67% market)... so rather than $200-300 it'll be more likely that an 80GB iPod would require $30-50 of NAND flash memory.
The big issue here in my opinion is not whether allofmp3.com has the legal right to sell music without paying royalties back to the artists, but rather the eroding fair-use laws in this country.
People forget that, while laws are not made to be broken, a law is not unchangable. If the people of this nation feel so strongly that record middlemen do not serve a particularly valuable function anymore, let them lobby their legislators. Unfortunately, many of us vote twice with our wallet for every time we vote with our words.
JGG
My first reaction was to email all the TV news outlets in my area with a link to the Washington Post article and a summary of what's been going on, asking them to educate the public as to what is going on. I'd encourage other slashdotters to do likewise.
If people don't see that 1) not doing anything about a virus on their computer and 2) the internet operating more slowly are connected, we'll never get rid of spam/spam-bots.
JGG