Dear Confused in Cleveland,
It is within your rights to defend your property with the force of arms. If they refuse to leave, you may find it necessary to use gun control to enforce your wishes.
Gun Control - With your loaded weapon (safety off), aim at the intended target, and while slowly exhaling, squeeze the trigger.
For discussion, lets just assume that everyone agreed that 5 Volts, +/- 10% was good enough, and made it a standard, in the same manor as 110-125 VAC/60 Hz, and 220-240 VAC/50 Hz is for most of the world. It would then be feasable, with low cost, to do this.
However, things still get murky, even in a 5V standard world. You run into issues
Over current protection of the source
Transient protection both ways
Accidental polarity inversion
Ground loops
Noise
Devices supplying power inapropriately
The easy (cheap) way around this is to specify a standard charger that is specifically NOT interconnectable to anything else, thus resulting in the plethora of incompatible devices that frustrate you.
My choices for a standard
5 Volts, TTL standard power with a new connector
13.8 Volt lighter plug, perhaps a mini version
Standard plug/polarity/voltage sizes for barrel connectors.
A new 5 volt, 3 phase 10Khz standard power connector
3 Phase power is cool, too bad it doesn't make it into more homes.
These days, I'm mostly doing systems management, software, etc... but when a repair issue arises, for most jobs, my leatherman tool suffices. When the hardware needs repair beyond board swapping, then I haul my toolbox out, which serves quite well for you average electronics repair. It's biased more towards analog electronics, but it includes:
Regular and Philips screwdrivers, etc.
Dikes, Needle Nose, and Bent Needle Nose pliers
A big pair linemans pliers/w cutter
A big pair of slip joint pliers
An old (but effective) stripper/bolt cutter/crimper
Assorted files, including diamond
Micrometer and Caliper set (mostly for show)
Metal ruler, both English and Metric
Wrench set, combination, Craftsman, english sizes
Plastic "twiddle stick" for tuning coils
Craftsman 42 Watt soldering iron, with copper coated iron tips, solder wick, and real lead/tin Kester solder
Water, and stand for soldering iron
Flux (for non-copper work), Silver Solder, and Solder-Wick
F-Connector wrench (great for tightening the cables behind a VCR, etc)
Power cord with leads on other end (ever need to put 110 somewhere as a test?
Mechanical pencil & Paper
Electrical tape
Super glue
Safety goggles
And this tool kit does NOT include:
Duct tape - Either its fixed right, or I'm not touching it
Anti-static equipment - Lets face it, if it's that delicate, it needs a board swap to be reliable
Logic Probe - Alas, that would be a good thing to add
Heatsink compound - I ran out a few years ago, haven't needed any lately
All of this is housed in an old NCR Cash register repair suitcase a friend gave me. The mere sight of a 42 Watt non-temperature controlled iron is enough to convince most people I'm crazy, but it's darn good for doing SMC repairs, gets everything up to temperature in no time, saving the parts.
The simple answer is to avoid monocultures. They are very bad in agriculture, and society, and networks. Many vendors competing with a variety of implementations of a standard are a better way to achieve long term stability.
The internet is too much a brittle tree, instead of the mesh it was intended to be. If I have internet from two vendors, and you have internet from a different vendor, why shouldn't we be able run a wire, and add redundancy to the internet?
Ok, so the hardware costs are less than 5%, if you use IDE, but then the performance is a dog (or so they would have you believe). If you could put the modules together, 12,500 * 4Gb modules would round out to about $20,000,000. If you're conservative in your designs, and use 100 * 4Gb modules per storage node, each node should be able to dish out at least 400 Mbyte/sec. Paralleling only 10 of these is 4Gbyte/sec. You'd still need 3.47 HOURS to read all of it sequentially.
So, would IDE really be that bad? Wouldn't it be better to put together a Beowolf cluster of smaller databases, each tasked with a portion of a search? Intelligent distributed processing is a much faster way to do a query of a database. If you have some large (but not unmanagable) number of notes, lets say 50 (one per terabyte), with backup nodes extending it to 64, any few failures would be correctable at full load.
I know that I don't have the skillset to put together the 50 Terabyte database right now, but I really believe that I could do it in less than 1 year, with half the budget, assuming free telecom to backup sites.
A plasma is a gas of ions which have been stripped of electrons, and are thus conductive. ALL plasmas conduct.
You can't change the laws of physics.
--Mike--
It's all about the Joules
on
Electric Armor
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The real trick is to have a large amount of energy stored in a capacitor, which gets delivered to disrupt the blast before the hull of the take is damaged. The energy stored would be measured in Joules (aka watt-seconds). I guestimate it would take approximately 10^6 watt seconds to do the job.
If you take Maxwell Products BCAP0010A03 as a sample of what can be done. It's a 2600 FARAD, 2.5 volt capacitor. You could array this in a 55 parallel by 5 series bank of 275 caps, yielding a capacitance of 28,600 farads at 12.5 volts (14 volts peak), the maximum current (within commercial ratings) would be 33,000 amps, which would deliver 412,500 watts. Optimizing the capacitors for discharge rate should be fairly simple for someone with a military budget. But even this simple calculation shows a way to store 2x10^6 watt seconds in less than 144kg using known technology. This is the equivalent power to running a conventional microwave oven for over an hour!
In other articles on this subject, it was disclosed that the internal electrode carries the charge, the outside one is grounded, so there's no danger.
The advantage of this system is weight, and the fact that it can cycle fairly rapidly to repel multiple attacks. The disadvatage is that it requires a lot of power to charge. In theory, once charged, the caps shouldn't require more energy.
It's not perfect, but to stop a single random weapon, it's a very good idea.
The default mode of an LCD is transmissive, so the power off mode will be to allow the data to be read... use a sharpie to prevent the photoreceptor from seeing the laser, and all should be done. It won't see the light, and won't wake up the smart chip.
If the sharpie ink isn't opaque enough, a piece of black electrical tape should do nicely.
"Intellectual Property" is a propaganda term that groups things in an unnatural and unfair manner to the advantage of a few at the expense of the many.
Copyright is granted to the author of a work for the express purpose of enhancing the creation of work destined for the public domain.
Patents are a temporary monopoly issued to inventors for the express purpose of enhancing the creation of technology destined for the public domain.
If the use of the term "property" implies permanent ownership, it is a LIE, and should be treated as such. There is NO SUCH THING AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.
A packer treats knowledge as a large collection of disparate facts. These are the people who go spastic if you don't give them step by step instructions. The don't understand systems that require interaction, and get greatly frustrated when you present them with an algorithm, as opposed to the list of steps the require to be able to do a task.
A mapper is someone who has a large number of disparate facts floating around, in the background, waiting for them to fall into place on the map they make of the universe. To them a fact is of very limited value until it has been connected with others, and placed into the map. Mappers are very good at sensing when something doesn't fit, and have a keen sense of "the ring of truth" that resonates when a new fact makes many others suddenly converge into focus.
Packers treat all facts with equal value, or that of the source. They are into such things as credentials, and structured authority.
Mappers know all too well that authority is made to be abused, that systems need a swift kick to get them back on track, and that rules always drift away from the situations for which they were created. Thus mappers have issues with authority. It also makes them great programmers.
I believe that mappers keep a "grain of salt" value linked to everything they know, and are willing to change that value as facts present themselves and change the picture. For example, I believe in ESP, as a vague sort of premonition that may someday be explained by physics. While I don't know how it works, there is sufficient evidence, in my experience, to concede that it probably (not definitely) exists.
Thus, for me, I 80% believe in it. Which doesn't fit the boolean 100% required of a packer.
The ordinance prohibits a dish, but they wouldn't notice a properly disguised Fresnel Zone Plate antenna. The only visible component would be the feedhorn.
You should be able to design a flat antenna from solid foam insulation with foil on both sides by removing the foil at the right places. There are design programs to do the math. Aiming is going to be tricky, but should be no more difficult than any other installation.
"It is only a matter of time before major chunks of what the open source community relies on turns out to be patented and owned by non-too-friendly people."
Real Americans have an answer for that, involving Tar and Feathers.
LEDs are clearly PhotoElectric. They do generate measureable (but only slightly useful) amounts of current in response to incident light.
They are also spectrum sensitive, picking up only equal or higher energy photos. This can be verified with a microAmp meter, and a set of various high-brightness LEDs. You'll observe that a red LED will pick up red or shorter wavelengths, green only detects green and shorter wavelengths, etc.
(Red has the longest wavelength (and smallest energy per photon) of visible light, violet is the shortest wavelength, and highest energy photon.) The high energy of blue is why it's been so hard to make a blue LED for years.
Put them face to face, run the source LED at its rated current, and expect a few microAmps out of the other LED..
LEDs are also photoelectric. I built a sensor with two of them, one as a photodiode. I did this 8 years ago, for fun while visiting my friend in Florida.
If you have Windows 2000 Server, and you are its administrator, you can use the remote services in administrator only mode, and not worry about setting up a license server for it. Of course, only administrators get to play, but that's likely to be the case, isn't it?
I've now amassed a collection of over 50k+ photos by myself since 1997. I have a system that works well for me, your milage may vary. (I'm a Windows user, so your software picks may vary)
I keep them with the name the camera gave them, unaltered, in year\yyyymmdd folders. The camera will wrap at 10k pictures, but I haven't taken that many in a single day, yet.
I used to try to give them good names, but it falls apart rapidly, and there are better tools available, such as ThumbsPlus from Cerious Software. It uses an Access97/ODBC compatible database, allows for the tagging of multiple keywords per photo. The slideshow mode is VERY handy.
For editing the photos, use Paint Shop Pro from JASC, it's good, cheap, and has a good thumbnail system as well.
I made two sets of geographically dispersed backups to guard against system failure, with CDs as low as $0.23 each (a sale at Target), it seems silly not to.
All of this works very well for me, as before your milage may vary.
Things get really interesting when the parser is set up to preserve context so that it can be run backwards, spitting out source from the symbol tables and code segment tokens. You need to preserve whitespace and declaration order, but it's definitely feasible for a language that doesn't use tons of Macros (sorry C/C++ programmers) like Pascal, Basic, etc.
It's readily apparent to me that Jar Jar Binks == Darth Sidious. The evil is very cunning, playing everyone else for a fool with his apparently simpleton ways.
Text is nice for simple, low volume applications with one infrequent user. When you move into multiuser, transaction oriented, high volume systems, an versioning database is the way to fly.
I've never had an email client crash, I get tons of email, spam, and the occasional trojan/worm/hoax, but no crashes of email programs since 1982 or so...
Slashdot Mirror
It is within your rights to defend your property with the force of arms. If they refuse to leave, you may find it necessary to use gun control to enforce your wishes.
Gun Control - With your loaded weapon (safety off), aim at the intended target, and while slowly exhaling, squeeze the trigger.
--Mike--
However, things still get murky, even in a 5V standard world. You run into issues
- Over current protection of the source
- Transient protection both ways
- Accidental polarity inversion
- Ground loops
- Noise
- Devices supplying power inapropriately
The easy (cheap) way around this is to specify a standard charger that is specifically NOT interconnectable to anything else, thus resulting in the plethora of incompatible devices that frustrate you.My choices for a standard
- 5 Volts, TTL standard power with a new connector
- 13.8 Volt lighter plug, perhaps a mini version
- Standard plug/polarity/voltage sizes for barrel connectors.
- A new 5 volt, 3 phase 10Khz standard power connector
3 Phase power is cool, too bad it doesn't make it into more homes.--Mike--
Assembler
- Regular and Philips screwdrivers, etc.
- Dikes, Needle Nose, and Bent Needle Nose pliers
- A big pair linemans pliers
/w cutter
- A big pair of slip joint pliers
- An old (but effective) stripper/bolt cutter/crimper
- Assorted files, including diamond
- Micrometer and Caliper set (mostly for show)
- Metal ruler, both English and Metric
- Wrench set, combination, Craftsman, english sizes
- Plastic "twiddle stick" for tuning coils
- Craftsman 42 Watt soldering iron, with copper coated iron tips, solder wick, and real lead/tin Kester solder
- Water, and stand for soldering iron
- Flux (for non-copper work), Silver Solder, and Solder-Wick
- Spring loaded solder sucker
- Multimeter with probes
- Jumper cables
- Bits of phone wire (very handy)
- Automatic centerpunch
- Various parts and screws
- Fiberglass scraping tool (for cleaning contact points)
- Xacto knives
- Hobby metal saw
- Pin vise with bits down to #40
- Razor blades and scraper
- F-Connector wrench (great for tightening the cables behind a VCR, etc)
- Power cord with leads on other end (ever need to put 110 somewhere as a test?
- Mechanical pencil & Paper
- Electrical tape
- Super glue
- Safety goggles
And this tool kit does NOT include:All of this is housed in an old NCR Cash register repair suitcase a friend gave me. The mere sight of a 42 Watt non-temperature controlled iron is enough to convince most people I'm crazy, but it's darn good for doing SMC repairs, gets everything up to temperature in no time, saving the parts.
--Mike--
I've posted some photos from time to time, and have gotten very useful feedback.
--Mike--
The internet is too much a brittle tree, instead of the mesh it was intended to be. If I have internet from two vendors, and you have internet from a different vendor, why shouldn't we be able run a wire, and add redundancy to the internet?
--Mike--
So, would IDE really be that bad? Wouldn't it be better to put together a Beowolf cluster of smaller databases, each tasked with a portion of a search? Intelligent distributed processing is a much faster way to do a query of a database. If you have some large (but not unmanagable) number of notes, lets say 50 (one per terabyte), with backup nodes extending it to 64, any few failures would be correctable at full load.
I know that I don't have the skillset to put together the 50 Terabyte database right now, but I really believe that I could do it in less than 1 year, with half the budget, assuming free telecom to backup sites.
--Mike--
You can't change the laws of physics.
--Mike--
If you take Maxwell Products BCAP0010A03 as a sample of what can be done. It's a 2600 FARAD, 2.5 volt capacitor. You could array this in a 55 parallel by 5 series bank of 275 caps, yielding a capacitance of 28,600 farads at 12.5 volts (14 volts peak), the maximum current (within commercial ratings) would be 33,000 amps, which would deliver 412,500 watts. Optimizing the capacitors for discharge rate should be fairly simple for someone with a military budget. But even this simple calculation shows a way to store 2x10^6 watt seconds in less than 144kg using known technology. This is the equivalent power to running a conventional microwave oven for over an hour!
--Mike--
The advantage of this system is weight, and the fact that it can cycle fairly rapidly to repel multiple attacks. The disadvatage is that it requires a lot of power to charge. In theory, once charged, the caps shouldn't require more energy.
It's not perfect, but to stop a single random weapon, it's a very good idea.
--Mike--
The default mode of an LCD is transmissive, so the power off mode will be to allow the data to be read... use a sharpie to prevent the photoreceptor from seeing the laser, and all should be done. It won't see the light, and won't wake up the smart chip.
If the sharpie ink isn't opaque enough, a piece of black electrical tape should do nicely.
--Mike--
--Mike--
Copyright is granted to the author of a work for the express purpose of enhancing the creation of work destined for the public domain.
Patents are a temporary monopoly issued to inventors for the express purpose of enhancing the creation of technology destined for the public domain.
If the use of the term "property" implies permanent ownership, it is a LIE, and should be treated as such. There is NO SUCH THING AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.
--Mike--
A packer treats knowledge as a large collection of disparate facts. These are the people who go spastic if you don't give them step by step instructions. The don't understand systems that require interaction, and get greatly frustrated when you present them with an algorithm, as opposed to the list of steps the require to be able to do a task.
A mapper is someone who has a large number of disparate facts floating around, in the background, waiting for them to fall into place on the map they make of the universe. To them a fact is of very limited value until it has been connected with others, and placed into the map. Mappers are very good at sensing when something doesn't fit, and have a keen sense of "the ring of truth" that resonates when a new fact makes many others suddenly converge into focus.
Packers treat all facts with equal value, or that of the source. They are into such things as credentials, and structured authority.
Mappers know all too well that authority is made to be abused, that systems need a swift kick to get them back on track, and that rules always drift away from the situations for which they were created. Thus mappers have issues with authority. It also makes them great programmers.
I believe that mappers keep a "grain of salt" value linked to everything they know, and are willing to change that value as facts present themselves and change the picture. For example, I believe in ESP, as a vague sort of premonition that may someday be explained by physics. While I don't know how it works, there is sufficient evidence, in my experience, to concede that it probably (not definitely) exists.
Thus, for me, I 80% believe in it. Which doesn't fit the boolean 100% required of a packer.
--Mike--
It's a bleeding edge technology, that you could build at home. Here are some examples and references:
JPL - NASA progress report on a fresnel zone lens.
Zone Plate (reflecting) Fresnel Antennas for Amateur SETI -- Part 1
You'll have to dig, but also use Google to find it.
You should be able to design a flat antenna from solid foam insulation with foil on both sides by removing the foil at the right places. There are design programs to do the math. Aiming is going to be tricky, but should be no more difficult than any other installation.
Good luck.
--Mike--
Wait until you can't watch your DVDs or Tapes because you haven't paid the rent on them yet.
--Mike--
Oppose Digital Restriction Management (DRM)
If its honest to goodness Word processing, I'll use Microsoft Word 97. (No, I'll NEVER upgrade)
If it's a program, that's why Delphi 5.0 exists.
If I need really tricky manipulation, I'll write a program to do it.
--Mike--
Real Americans have an answer for that, involving Tar and Feathers.
--Mike--
They are also spectrum sensitive, picking up only equal or higher energy photos. This can be verified with a microAmp meter, and a set of various high-brightness LEDs. You'll observe that a red LED will pick up red or shorter wavelengths, green only detects green and shorter wavelengths, etc.
(Red has the longest wavelength (and smallest energy per photon) of visible light, violet is the shortest wavelength, and highest energy photon.) The high energy of blue is why it's been so hard to make a blue LED for years.
Put them face to face, run the source LED at its rated current, and expect a few microAmps out of the other LED..
--Mike--
--Mike--
--Mike--
I keep them with the name the camera gave them, unaltered, in year\yyyymmdd folders. The camera will wrap at 10k pictures, but I haven't taken that many in a single day, yet.
I used to try to give them good names, but it falls apart rapidly, and there are better tools available, such as ThumbsPlus from Cerious Software. It uses an Access97/ODBC compatible database, allows for the tagging of multiple keywords per photo. The slideshow mode is VERY handy.
For editing the photos, use Paint Shop Pro from JASC, it's good, cheap, and has a good thumbnail system as well.
I made two sets of geographically dispersed backups to guard against system failure, with CDs as low as $0.23 each (a sale at Target), it seems silly not to.
All of this works very well for me, as before your milage may vary.
--Mike--
--Mike--
--Mike--
Text is nice for simple, low volume applications with one infrequent user. When you move into multiuser, transaction oriented, high volume systems, an versioning database is the way to fly.
I've never had an email client crash, I get tons of email, spam, and the occasional trojan/worm/hoax, but no crashes of email programs since 1982 or so...
--Mike--