The other advantage they have is that they are largely wavelength independant. Unlike solar panels which absorb only a specific amount of energy per photon related to the work function (the rest is wasted, 100% of lower energy photons are wasted as well), heat engines convert the entire spectrum (minus specific bands due to absorption properties). The only real limiting factors in efficiency are scale and temperature: the hotter you can go the more efficient they can be.
I guess I should've been more specific but thanks for pointing out all of the various systems that need computers. What I really wanted to know was why does a tank need a single multipurpose computer with an OS rather than many, dedicated, single-purpose controllers?
People should start putting time-limits in their code.. like, this code becomes public domain on such-and-such a date or in addition to the rights granted by the GPL, on {date} the rights of {other less restrictive license} are also granted.
This is necessary because the period of copyright keeps increasing and more than 90 years is far too long to wait to change a license in the world of software.
If you didn't write the compiler yourself in machine code, how can you be sure? In fact, you should probably design and fab the chip yourself too for ultimate security.
The analogy I was responding to was a theme park. The competition doesn't occur within the theme park it occurs between theme parks. Overpriced crappy food is part of the experience. (or not, depending on the park. Cedar Point has a Jonny Rockets in the park in addiion to their regular vendors for instance)
Even in places where there is competition, the prices can get outrageous due to captive audience: you can get just about any food you want at a metropolitan airport concourse, but you'll pay through the nose for the privilage.
Anyway my point was that the free-market forces are aready there, you can freely choose to use a different university/themepark where they do allow outside food/books etc. Of course you'll say, but harvard is so much better than podunk tech. To which I would respond, that is one of the factors in your decision. Education is not quite a commodity in the sense that price is all that matters.
Now the only question that remains is, "shouldn't the state universities maintiain libraries of all the books necessary for their courses?" to which the answer is, "Depends on whether you trust the administrators to make good decisions or just buy vast quantities of new books every year at the public's expense"
I heard the story that gray had a workable design but no prototype and actually filed first, bell came in hours later without a working design, but was allowed to look at gray's application, and as a result was able to fix his design and demonstrate it before gray was able to finish building his prototype to demonstrate for the patent examiner.
I don't know how true that is, but if it's false, I blame Paul Harvey.
Let's just say I'm at a fancy restaurant. I've had a cocktail and like the environment, but I don't want to pay outrageous prices for the food. Even if it is as good as they say, I don't want to pay $50 a person for this exquisite entrees. (ok not uber fancy, but still fancy) Instead, I'd like to have chinese delivered to my table. Of course, If i get sick you know who i'm going to blame.
hmm it's been the opposite experience for me. If a professor his own book, they were generally MUCH cheaper (factor 5 or 6) in the bookstore and the prof was willing to provide copies to some students as well. After all, technically we were helping him to proof the text. As an added bonus to the professor, no surprises. They know the text back to front because they wrote it. In some ways this made the teaching more efficient. I always looked forward to classes in which the prof wrote his own text. I tried to stay away from the "popular" texts if I could as they generally had quite a few "textbook viruses"
a live cd would be easier for just a few runs, you don't have to install anything on the windows drive and figure out where it all is, mess with paths and whatnot: it's all set up on the cd. but the inconvenience of rebooting would limit its usefulness.
Everyone is a centrist. It's just the everyone's definition of left or right is left or right of other peoples. Even the extremists think they're in the center (or at least where the center ought to be)
Panasonic toughbook. I saw them drive a small car over it on one of those tech shows discovery used to have before they went all, "Let's watch a buncha rednecks with attitude make the same* unrideable bike every week" Then they opened it up and used it. actually I forget if it was closed or open when they drove over it. Also, waterproof.
*with slightly different paint and "custom" frames that look surprisingly similar from week to week...
But the best thing to get your middle-schooler is probably shin guards, or a baseball glove, or hockey skates,or a bike, or running shoes or hiking boots or skis or any one of a number of things that doesn't involve sequestering him/herself indoors getting fat.**
**which is what I'm doing right now come to think of it.
"Type Acceptance" In order to get type acceptance (basically a license for the radio) It must meet specific FCC regulations, one of which is that it must not be capable of transmitting out of band or at unallowed power levels.
Amateurs are licensed operators and so equipment designed for their use need not be type-accepted: the operator is expected to obey FCC regs rather than the device.
I don't think the company would be liable if someone modified their equipment to transmit out of band or at higher power or whatever, but if it turned out to be very easy to remove the blocks, their devices' license would probably be revoked and at the very least, much greater scrutiny would be applied to products from that company in the future.
I also don't know what the penalty is for selling equipment that bascically can't be legally used, but I imagine consumer groups would have a field day with that.
My problem with that was that they KNEW they were infiltrated. If they can figure out they've been infiltrated, couldn't they just remove the offending software?
Since the orbiter was to approach on the south->north leg of the orbit rather than the north->south leg, It was to pass over south america and cuba on its way to kennedy. You would've needed a very powerful telescope (with magical horizon adjuster) to see any part of the landing from texas.
what's wrong with single-use? Not worrying about fatigue life is certainly nice.. and what makes you think the shuttle is reuseable? consider that the extertanal tank must be replaced every time, hundreds of tiles must be replaced, miles of wires must be inspected, etc. I don't take my car apart, install fresh tires and brakes, replace all the fluids, install a new gas tank, repaint, and inspect the entire electrical system every time I go to buy groceries.
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The other advantage they have is that they are largely wavelength independant. Unlike solar panels which absorb only a specific amount of energy per photon related to the work function (the rest is wasted, 100% of lower energy photons are wasted as well), heat engines convert the entire spectrum (minus specific bands due to absorption properties). The only real limiting factors in efficiency are scale and temperature: the hotter you can go the more efficient they can be.
While we're dispelling keynsian myths, let's also get rid of the one that government spending is good for the economy..
I guess I should've been more specific but thanks for pointing out all of the various systems that need computers. What I really wanted to know was why does a tank need a single multipurpose computer with an OS rather than many, dedicated, single-purpose controllers?
Why does a tank need an OS?
People should start putting time-limits in their code.. like, this code becomes public domain on such-and-such a date or in addition to the rights granted by the GPL, on {date} the rights of {other less restrictive license} are also granted.
This is necessary because the period of copyright keeps increasing and more than 90 years is far too long to wait to change a license in the world of software.
If you didn't write the compiler yourself in machine code, how can you be sure? In fact, you should probably design and fab the chip yourself too for ultimate security.
The analogy I was responding to was a theme park. The competition doesn't occur within the theme park it occurs between theme parks. Overpriced crappy food is part of the experience. (or not, depending on the park. Cedar Point has a Jonny Rockets in the park in addiion to their regular vendors for instance)
Even in places where there is competition, the prices can get outrageous due to captive audience: you can get just about any food you want at a metropolitan airport concourse, but you'll pay through the nose for the privilage.
Anyway my point was that the free-market forces are aready there, you can freely choose to use a different university/themepark where they do allow outside food/books etc. Of course you'll say, but harvard is so much better than podunk tech. To which I would respond, that is one of the factors in your decision. Education is not quite a commodity in the sense that price is all that matters.
Now the only question that remains is, "shouldn't the state universities maintiain libraries of all the books necessary for their courses?" to which the answer is, "Depends on whether you trust the administrators to make good decisions or just buy vast quantities of new books every year at the public's expense"
Take that straw-man version of you.
I heard the story that gray had a workable design but no prototype and actually filed first, bell came in hours later without a working design, but was allowed to look at gray's application, and as a result was able to fix his design and demonstrate it before gray was able to finish building his prototype to demonstrate for the patent examiner.
I don't know how true that is, but if it's false, I blame Paul Harvey.
Let's just say I'm at a fancy restaurant. I've had a cocktail and like the environment, but I don't want to pay outrageous prices for the food. Even if it is as good as they say, I don't want to pay $50 a person for this exquisite entrees. (ok not uber fancy, but still fancy) Instead, I'd like to have chinese delivered to my table. Of course, If i get sick you know who i'm going to blame.
hmm it's been the opposite experience for me. If a professor his own book, they were generally MUCH cheaper (factor 5 or 6) in the bookstore and the prof was willing to provide copies to some students as well. After all, technically we were helping him to proof the text. As an added bonus to the professor, no surprises. They know the text back to front because they wrote it. In some ways this made the teaching more efficient. I always looked forward to classes in which the prof wrote his own text. I tried to stay away from the "popular" texts if I could as they generally had quite a few "textbook viruses"
My car has a registration tag, and I carry a driver's license when I drive. What is this license plate of which you speak?
One would think you'd be able to figure it out by doing a signal sweep with a frequency generator and looking for spikes on an O-silly-scope.
a live cd would be easier for just a few runs, you don't have to install anything on the windows drive and figure out where it all is, mess with paths and whatnot: it's all set up on the cd. but the inconvenience of rebooting would limit its usefulness.
Most caluculators have MORE features than an abacus. and none of them as far as I am aware use an actual abacus as the central processor.
Care to comment on this, spammer?
Everyone is a centrist. It's just the everyone's definition of left or right is left or right of other peoples. Even the extremists think they're in the center (or at least where the center ought to be)
Panasonic toughbook. I saw them drive a small car over it on one of those tech shows discovery used to have before they went all, "Let's watch a buncha rednecks with attitude make the same* unrideable bike every week" Then they opened it up and used it. actually I forget if it was closed or open when they drove over it. Also, waterproof.
*with slightly different paint and "custom" frames that look surprisingly similar from week to week...
But the best thing to get your middle-schooler is probably shin guards, or a baseball glove, or hockey skates,or a bike, or running shoes or hiking boots or skis or any one of a number of things that doesn't involve sequestering him/herself indoors getting fat.**
**which is what I'm doing right now come to think of it.
"Type Acceptance" In order to get type acceptance (basically a license for the radio) It must meet specific FCC regulations, one of which is that it must not be capable of transmitting out of band or at unallowed power levels.
Amateurs are licensed operators and so equipment designed for their use need not be type-accepted: the operator is expected to obey FCC regs rather than the device.
I don't think the company would be liable if someone modified their equipment to transmit out of band or at higher power or whatever, but if it turned out to be very easy to remove the blocks, their devices' license would probably be revoked and at the very least, much greater scrutiny would be applied to products from that company in the future.
I also don't know what the penalty is for selling equipment that bascically can't be legally used, but I imagine consumer groups would have a field day with that.
My problem with that was that they KNEW they were infiltrated. If they can figure out they've been infiltrated, couldn't they just remove the offending software?
They have a bin full of "camera parts" in a dusty corner in the back to satiate the legacy customers?
seven colonists "for good"? There will be some fights breaking out pretty quick. How would you like to be "perminant third wheel"
Since the orbiter was to approach on the south->north leg of the orbit rather than the north->south leg, It was to pass over south america and cuba on its way to kennedy. You would've needed a very powerful telescope (with magical horizon adjuster) to see any part of the landing from texas.
or "campaign finance reform" of any of the years in which it occured. What're you, against reform?
sure they do. shoot the guy with the fire.
what's wrong with single-use? Not worrying about fatigue life is certainly nice.. and what makes you think the shuttle is reuseable? consider that the extertanal tank must be replaced every time, hundreds of tiles must be replaced, miles of wires must be inspected, etc. I don't take my car apart, install fresh tires and brakes, replace all the fluids, install a new gas tank, repaint, and inspect the entire electrical system every time I go to buy groceries.