I have had success with Checkit Utilities from Smith Micro. Note that I just use it when I have problems with my own machines so I cannot claim to be a power user and so cannot speak for how complete the testing suite is. They will boot from a floppy, which is essential for doing hardware diagnostics - you cannot do that from inside Windows.
Just as important is that the catalyst gets poisoned at present after only 30 hours of operation.
That obviously isn't pratical. However its encouraging - previous efforts seem to have only run for a couple of hours. Perhaps purging the carbom from the system is easy(like switch from ethyl alcohol to air for a while)
Its also not clear if the 60% efficiency includes the heat input during the catalytic process. I assume this is pretty severely endothermic.
The article also mentions that the system produces CO2 but if you could use this system to power the growing infrastructure (and it looks like the energy equation would permit this, depending on the question above) then you don't have a net generation of green-house gasses.
Or had he just invented the Fourier series a millenium and a half too soon?
More seriously, I would be interested to know if the theory of epicycles was computationally useful - did it allow the ancients to predict planetary positions for considerable periods in advance. Did they do this? If so, the theory can hardly be said to be "wrong" anymore than Newtons Laws of Motion can be said to be wrong.
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I have had success with Checkit Utilities from Smith Micro. Note that I just use it when I have problems with my own machines so I cannot claim to be a power user and so cannot speak for how complete the testing suite is. They will boot from a floppy, which is essential for doing hardware diagnostics - you cannot do that from inside Windows.
Just as important is that the catalyst gets poisoned at present after only 30 hours of operation. That obviously isn't pratical. However its encouraging - previous efforts seem to have only run for a couple of hours. Perhaps purging the carbom from the system is easy(like switch from ethyl alcohol to air for a while) Its also not clear if the 60% efficiency includes the heat input during the catalytic process. I assume this is pretty severely endothermic. The article also mentions that the system produces CO2 but if you could use this system to power the growing infrastructure (and it looks like the energy equation would permit this, depending on the question above) then you don't have a net generation of green-house gasses.
Or had he just invented the Fourier series a millenium and a half too soon? More seriously, I would be interested to know if the theory of epicycles was computationally useful - did it allow the ancients to predict planetary positions for considerable periods in advance. Did they do this? If so, the theory can hardly be said to be "wrong" anymore than Newtons Laws of Motion can be said to be wrong.