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User: amorsen

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  1. Re:Not an engineer'car guy, but... on Toyota Describes Combustion Engine That Generates Electricity Directly · · Score: 1

    Diesel electric locomotives are horribly inefficient and heavy.

  2. Maybe they should be working on thermocouple technology (or something else) and generate electricity from the cooling system and charge batteries or power wheels. Now that would increase efficiency greatly.

    No. It would not increase efficiency greatly. The meagre temperature differences available as waste from a car engine will not provide much output from a heat engine.

  3. Re:Bluestacks? on AMD Beema and Mullins Low Power 2014 APUs Tested, Faster Than Bay Trail · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In other words, it has a separate processor running proprietary firmware with full access to system memory. What could possibly go wrong?

  4. Re:If Fuckupshima had not been designed by idiots. on MIT Designs Tsunami Proof Floating Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    Coal kills at least thousands, most probably hundreds of thousands, every year. If we had a Deepwater Horizon, an Exxon Valdez, a Chernobyl, and a Fukushima every year, the harm from all other types of power generation would still not be as great as the harm that coal does.

  5. Re:Step 2. on MIT Designs Tsunami Proof Floating Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    Make them finance the decommissioning at build time.

    Already in place. Alas, costs are much higher than expected. I have not heard of a reactor that is approaching decommissioning and has sufficient funds put away for it. I would love to hear about a counterexample.

    Will the future

  6. Re:wonder bout... on MIT Designs Tsunami Proof Floating Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    Even better, situate it just a bit deeper and allow that pressure differential to assist in moving fresh coolant into the reactor.

    What are you going to get to assist in moving the no-longer-fresh coolant back out of the reactor?

  7. Re:Test and launch are the same, it is GREAT! on SpaceX Launches Load to ISS, Successfully Tests Falcon 9 Over Water · · Score: 1

    If Mars was as hospitable as the Americas, we would have settlers there already. If Mars was as hospitable as Antarctica, we would probably have a permanent manned science station there already.

  8. Re:Old proverb on Snowden Queries Putin On Live TV Regarding Russian Internet Surveillance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This. Everyone sane in Europe knows that we can count on the US in cases like this. Yet we stand there doing absolutely nothing. Just like Yugoslavia.

    This is not a US matter. It is a European problem, and Europe needs to wake up.

  9. Re:Useful Idiot on Snowden Queries Putin On Live TV Regarding Russian Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    Fox and the BBC are in no way comparable. While BBC has lost some of its teeth lately, it is still far from harmless to the government.

    Also, compare how the main Russian media speak about Putin with how Fox News speaks about Obama. For a third example, note that Rush Limbaugh does not, AFAIK, live in perpetual fear that thugs will beat him to a pulp and leave him dying in a ditch somewhere. Yet that is what tends to happen when journalists don't do as they are told in Russia.

  10. Re:Useful Idiot on Snowden Queries Putin On Live TV Regarding Russian Internet Surveillance · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you would rather that he should have stayed to be broken like Manning?

  11. Re:Useful Idiot on Snowden Queries Putin On Live TV Regarding Russian Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    It was fairly obvious that Russia was far from the top of the list of places Snowden wanted to flee to. When the US is able to arrange for even presidential planes to be forced down, it is difficult to escape.

    This will no doubt not be the last uncomfortable thing that he will have to do. Let us just hope that it stays at "uncomfortable".

  12. External touchscreen on How Apple's CarPlay Could Shore Up the Car Stereo Industry · · Score: 1

    All I want from a car unit is a touchscreen + audio. Alas, while most phones can handle external displays, external touchscreens are generally unsupported.

    A car has to last at least a decade. Trying to build in intelligence is futile, and adding 3G/4G is not much better. In a decade, CPU's and software and data transfer standards will hopefully have advanced greatly.

  13. Re:If you make this a proof of God... on Mathematical Proof That the Cosmos Could Have Formed Spontaneously From Nothing · · Score: 1

    The 20th century was the first in which the opportunity to rape and plunder with impunity throughout the occupied territory was not used as an incentive to sign up for the military.

    That statement is too strong. There were certainly cases and countries where the opportunity to rape and plunder with impunity were used as an incentive to sign up for the military, and lots of rape and plunder was done.

  14. Re:If you make this a proof of God... on Mathematical Proof That the Cosmos Could Have Formed Spontaneously From Nothing · · Score: 1

    Is the Programmer aware that his simulated beings are sentient? Games simulate suffering beings all the time, but that is fine because computer programs are not sentient.

  15. Re:Wrong paradigm here on Ask Slashdot: User-Friendly Firewall For a Brand-New Linux User? · · Score: 1

    This is changing though. If you run a distribution with SELinux enabled, many applications and daemons are likely to be blocked from making outbound connections. Changing the rules is somewhat difficult though; distributions generally assume that the user does not have a clue when asked whether frobnitzd should be allowed to connect to Slashdot, so there is no GUI for asking the user.

    AppArmor can do it too, and the configuration is perhaps a bit easier. I have no idea how much Ubuntu restricts by default.

  16. Re:Green wave on Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light · · Score: 1

    Bikes must not go through roundabouts. They are the Achilles heel of roundabouts. They need their own lane entirely separated from the traffic in the roundabout, with their own separate crossings where they have to yield to cars. Even that solution is bad for bikes, because that means they have to yield a lot, and if there are a lot of bikes they end up in a traffic jam.

    In England bikes rarely get squashed in roundabouts because there are so few of them and they generally go quite fast and seize the lane like motorcycles in roundabouts. That solution does not scale, in places like Denmark where bikes are plentiful and often go quite slow that would jam the roundabouts.

  17. Re:Shoot it to the sun? on What Fire and Leakage At WIPP Means For Nuclear Waste Disposal · · Score: 1

    I think it is amply clear to anyone who happens upon this thread who should do the apologizing and who is missing the point. I do not think that I can add more clarity to the matter.

  18. Re:energy from BRAKING - best for stop-and-go on Prototype Volvo Flywheel Tech Uses Car's Wasted Brake Energy · · Score: 1

    Please register on spritmonitor.de. Your numbers will be very welcome there.

    The Lupo has been out of production for a decade and only manages 3.5l/100km in practice.

    Yes, if you go at a steady 50km/h any decent car can do 3l/100km or better. That is not a realistic test.

  19. Re:Shoot it to the sun? on What Fire and Leakage At WIPP Means For Nuclear Waste Disposal · · Score: 1

    "Redirecting without using fuel" is known as "gravity assist". I mention gravity assist in every single post.

  20. Re:energy from BRAKING - best for stop-and-go on Prototype Volvo Flywheel Tech Uses Car's Wasted Brake Energy · · Score: 1

    5l is doable in a petrol hybrid, and you can get quite close with certain non-hybrid petrol econoboxes.

  21. Re:energy from BRAKING - best for stop-and-go on Prototype Volvo Flywheel Tech Uses Car's Wasted Brake Energy · · Score: 1

    I know spritmonitor.de very well. They are one of very few sources of real fuel consumption data. Not silly test data that no one can achieve in practice.

    Feel free to provide examples of in-production econoboxes with a 3l/100km fuel consumption under real-life driving conditions.

  22. Re:I'd prefer air power on Prototype Volvo Flywheel Tech Uses Car's Wasted Brake Energy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Compressing gas has a fairly lousy energy return. The air heats up when being compressed, and that heat is wasted unless you insulate the tank.

  23. Re:energy from BRAKING - best for stop-and-go on Prototype Volvo Flywheel Tech Uses Car's Wasted Brake Energy · · Score: 0

    3l/100km is a myth. See The most fuel efficient vehicles.

    The only ones that come close are 2 tiny diesel cars. Both have been out of production for almost a decade.

  24. Re:energy from BRAKING - best for stop-and-go on Prototype Volvo Flywheel Tech Uses Car's Wasted Brake Energy · · Score: 1

    Accelerating at a modest rate is not particularly an advantage in a petrol car. Petrol cars are only decently efficient under full load, so you want to accelerate quite swiftly, using as high a gear as possible. If you are driving an automatic, it will spoil that idea by "helpfully" shifting down when it detects that you are pushing the accelerator, so that only works in a manual.

  25. Re:Shoot it to the sun? on What Fire and Leakage At WIPP Means For Nuclear Waste Disposal · · Score: 1

    Because are wrong. I am not talking about landing on the Sun. You need to get rid of the "horizontal" delta-V of the Earth. "Vertical" delta-V is a non-issue; the Sun's gravity can provide plenty of that, but that only helps you once you get rid of your horizontal delta-V. Otherwise you keep missing.

    And yes you only need to get rid of enough horizontal delta-V to strike the outer parts of the Sun. The difference is negligible.