HERE is definitely better than Google Maps and Apple Maps. They at least update their map more than once a year, if you're outside the US.
Dunno about that. DJI recently changed from Google maps to HERE for controlling their little drones. It has not gone over well with the community in the forums. Might be DJI's fault - they manage to screw up most firmware updates but it doesn't give warm fuzzies.
The computers that powered Apollo (a real spacecraft) had significantly less power, memory and I/O than your (non smart) watch. IIRC, NASA was running around at one time looking for 80386 chips to run the Shuttle computers.
OK, so just WHERE has nuclear actually worked long term? Ignore Chernobyl and Fukushima for a bit - even with various and disparate types of governments and payment options, civilian nuclear has gone exactly nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, but hardly to the point where it was 'too cheap to meter'. IIRC, that was precisely the terminology that nuclear power adherents were spouting.
Fission has failed as a significant civilian power source. It is too complex, too dangerous and Capex costs are too high to be viable. Too big to fail doesn't work in power plant world. Which is an interesting thought when everyone's dreams move on to fusion. Unless a Mr. Fusion type device gets developed, the 'classical' fusion plants are going to be enormously expensive and have multi decade lead times. Exactly the kind of thing that is killing fission. Nobody, not even governments, can afford to put that much down for that much time without an return. Especially when much cheaper technologies exist.
Might was well move on to fantasizing about warp drives.
EVERYTHING has to get replaced sooner or later. In a solar installations, panels are a significant part of the cost, but hardly the only one. Do you think that coal boilers run forever? That nuc plants never need maintenance?
Engineering has long figured out how to plan on replacing large, expensive things and still (oftentimes) making money.
You are implying that the U.S. government already exerts more high-level command-and-control policy of its domain of influence than does the Chinese government over its own domain. Obviously, that is absurd.
No it's not absurd. The US is largely a country ruled by law. Yes, there are unfortunately many examples of kleptocratic and frankly criminal behaviors among large companies but it does not rise to anywhere near the level you see in China. Beijing can make lots of rules, but the military owned companies and local governments often ignore them with little risk to themselves. Every once in a while somebody gets shot in the back of the head or tossed in jail but given the enormous size and scope of the Chinese economy, this is just a rounding error.
What is the 'real' cost? This is especially hard if you try to include external costs (air, water and other resources on a sustainable level). You can easily argue that nobody prices things at a cost that would reflect good stewardship of society and the planet on a multi decade scale. China is just being a bit more aggressive than other countries.
Although the US never got quite this bad, there were many environmental disasters in this country prior to the creation of the EPA (by Nixon). Things are quite a bit better now and lo and behold, the rich people are still making lots of money.
Remember that all you Rabid Randians and Triumphant Trumpers.
You think this is anything but perfectly planned? Insurance companies prevaricate better than anyone short of a Federal politician. 'Losing' a claim costs virtually nothing. Mishandling a claim costs very little. Another form letter asking for more / the same information, ditto.
Computerizing the whole shebang gives yet another layer of potential delay ('the computer is slow today' is a perennial favorite).
That said, in what strange world is insurance adjudication considered 'white collar'? In the US at least, it is apparently done with people who, at best, have a GED. Hell, a 1982 Morrow Micro Decision could outclass most insurance adjusters.
All things being equal, thinner isn't better (on electronics, lets make sure we're all on the same page here). As nospam points out, the new iPads are so frigging thin and slippery that they are hard to hold. They look nice just siting there but they're a PITA to use. Maybe they really are like people. Although it's nice to think of them naked, the real world goes a lot more smoothly if they are covered with something.
Amusing at several levels but I agree with you. It seems that my life is filled with updates of too many various devices. Phone, computer, router, printer, printer, boat electronics, half the crap at work, my little drones, the camera gear.
Nowadays, if it has a battery it has a USB port (of some various flavor, that's another rant) that is there for charging (fine, just pick ONE goddamned connector please) and upgrading. Lately, I've just been leaving things alone. If it sort of works, then it doesn't get changed. I don't care if the Russians invade my camera.
My truck has been a last bastion of un upgradedness. Just fill it with lots of gas, occasionally change the oil and every couple of months send it to the garage to replace some broken bit. It's never been 'upgraded' since it rolled off the floor in 1990. Still gets me where I want to go, even if I have to do it myself.
Interlibrary loan does that sort of thing. If you are looking for an old / obscure book, then more than likely you know what the title is and can search for it. Or the librarian can. Then you can get if from the NY Public Library or some other larger facility. If you are just wandering the shelves looking for some ancient book on Dragons or Runes, the local library is probably not the place for you.
What are they going to do now that Obama is out? My neighbors, who are fiercely Wing Nut Republicans and who own the local gun shop have admitted that Obama has been the best thing for them in decades. All it takes is even a hint that someone is going to restrict gun purchases and the rest of my neighbors have to run out and get another gun.
Of course, the most popular bumper sticker around here is "Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill".
This is actually a pretty interesting concept for Arctic / Antarctic construction. They apparently have at least a small ice-printer. The theory and engineering behind additive manufacturing is pretty well understood - there are commercial units printing concrete. You could easily imagine, for example, a wind powered device that heats the snow / ice, cleans it up and sends it to the printer (or does the same without heating, whatever). Print up your North Slope construction domes or Antarctic research stations. Get the tech stabilized down here. ?? profit.
p>Until we can colonize Antarctica without relying on supply planes, we really are far from being able to colonize Mars.
This. Get your ass to the Antarctic. To be fair, it's probably doable but not the priority of the current stations. McMurdo is still using diesels.... If Mars One had any brains whatsoever, they would be building habitats there that were more or less self contained and working to close the loop. Even Kim Stanley Robinson figured that one out.
You can make a pretty quiet kerosene based turbine - just depends on how much effort you want to take shielding it. Of course this is a problem on an aircraft. The bigger problem is the prop noise. As you increase the speed of the prop, you get higher noise production. If you decrease the rate of the prop, it has to get bigger. All complex engineering tradeoffs.
We really have the flight controls down now. We have the structural engineering and even the motors (sort of). I think we're basically a high energy storage technology away from flying cars. Higher than kerosene. Higher than any near term imaginable battery.
Lets not go totally hyperbolic here. Overloading a meter is going to cause the.20 wacko Chinese capacitor to fizz out, turning the stupid thing off. It is very unlikely to burn the house down. There will be SOME security that will likely be effective at minimizing major damage from the meters. You can't start WWIII with this method.
Or, you could just upgrade the transmission infrastructure like you need to anyway. That way when it's sunny in Las Vegas and cloudy in Seattle you can move those electrons around.
It's also likely that storage technologies will improve enough to where nuclear really isn't needed. It's a useful technology and if we had handled it correctly, would probably account for baseload for a number of generations. But we screwed it up (we being pretty much the entire human race) and it is anything but clear that it will be viable in the next 20-40 years.
The Westinghouse AP-1000. A 'new', safe(r) plant that was supposed to be the savior of the nuclear power industry. Unfortunately, it's still to complicated and expensive for anybody to put together on any sort of economical basis. Toshiba holds a majority stake in Westinghouse.
They aren't terribly fragile, there is a fair amount of redundancy in modern ones. But junk filled dirigibles floating over major cities? What kind of dystopic future is that? Of course, since you have the thing up there, you would just have to put advertising on it. And communications gear. If you think that the FBI wandering over Baltimore with a Cessna and a high res camera is a problem, wait until you see these things....
And since I'm annoyed and over tired, why the hell is this idiot general concept patented? TFA isn't talking about specific implementations just vague low grade science fiction drivel. Now, instead of being on the Internet, it's using a drone.
Go back to shooting people into orbit like the rest of the crazy billionaires, Jeffrey.
While you are spot on about the actual work involved to fix a modern device, I'm curious as to your assertion that some fraction of the world thinks that modern electronics are easily repairable. As far as I can tell, it's just the fine folks at iFixit that think modern electronics should be repairable.
The rest of us just toss the things in the recycler.
Really, I have a rework station but rarely use it to fix a commercial device and even more rarely are successful. Mostly use it to fix my own copious errors. You can't even figure out what most of the chips on a board do without hours of study and referencing work.
Slashdot Mirror
HERE is definitely better than Google Maps and Apple Maps. They at least update their map more than once a year, if you're outside the US.
Dunno about that. DJI recently changed from Google maps to HERE for controlling their little drones. It has not gone over well with the community in the forums. Might be DJI's fault - they manage to screw up most firmware updates but it doesn't give warm fuzzies.
... as the work on summaries has been terrible.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The computers that powered Apollo (a real spacecraft) had significantly less power, memory and I/O than your (non smart) watch. IIRC, NASA was running around at one time looking for 80386 chips to run the Shuttle computers.
You've not set an exactly high bar here.
OK, so just WHERE has nuclear actually worked long term? Ignore Chernobyl and Fukushima for a bit - even with various and disparate types of governments and payment options, civilian nuclear has gone exactly nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, but hardly to the point where it was 'too cheap to meter'. IIRC, that was precisely the terminology that nuclear power adherents were spouting.
Fission has failed as a significant civilian power source. It is too complex, too dangerous and Capex costs are too high to be viable. Too big to fail doesn't work in power plant world. Which is an interesting thought when everyone's dreams move on to fusion. Unless a Mr. Fusion type device gets developed, the 'classical' fusion plants are going to be enormously expensive and have multi decade lead times. Exactly the kind of thing that is killing fission. Nobody, not even governments, can afford to put that much down for that much time without an return. Especially when much cheaper technologies exist.
Might was well move on to fantasizing about warp drives.
EVERYTHING has to get replaced sooner or later. In a solar installations, panels are a significant part of the cost, but hardly the only one. Do you think that coal boilers run forever? That nuc plants never need maintenance?
Engineering has long figured out how to plan on replacing large, expensive things and still (oftentimes) making money.
You are implying that the U.S. government already exerts more high-level command-and-control policy of its domain of influence than does the Chinese government over its own domain. Obviously, that is absurd.
No it's not absurd. The US is largely a country ruled by law. Yes, there are unfortunately many examples of kleptocratic and frankly criminal behaviors among large companies but it does not rise to anywhere near the level you see in China. Beijing can make lots of rules, but the military owned companies and local governments often ignore them with little risk to themselves. Every once in a while somebody gets shot in the back of the head or tossed in jail but given the enormous size and scope of the Chinese economy, this is just a rounding error.
What is the 'real' cost? This is especially hard if you try to include external costs (air, water and other resources on a sustainable level). You can easily argue that nobody prices things at a cost that would reflect good stewardship of society and the planet on a multi decade scale. China is just being a bit more aggressive than other countries.
Although the US never got quite this bad, there were many environmental disasters in this country prior to the creation of the EPA (by Nixon). Things are quite a bit better now and lo and behold, the rich people are still making lots of money.
Remember that all you Rabid Randians and Triumphant Trumpers.
The sarcasm store is always open.
You think this is anything but perfectly planned? Insurance companies prevaricate better than anyone short of a Federal politician. 'Losing' a claim costs virtually nothing. Mishandling a claim costs very little. Another form letter asking for more / the same information, ditto.
Computerizing the whole shebang gives yet another layer of potential delay ('the computer is slow today' is a perennial favorite).
That said, in what strange world is insurance adjudication considered 'white collar'? In the US at least, it is apparently done with people who, at best, have a GED. Hell, a 1982 Morrow Micro Decision could outclass most insurance adjusters.
They must dress nicely in Japan....
All things being equal, thinner isn't better (on electronics, lets make sure we're all on the same page here). As nospam points out, the new iPads are so frigging thin and slippery that they are hard to hold. They look nice just siting there but they're a PITA to use. Maybe they really are like people. Although it's nice to think of them naked, the real world goes a lot more smoothly if they are covered with something.
Somebody really has issues and it ain't us.
Amusing at several levels but I agree with you. It seems that my life is filled with updates of too many various devices. Phone, computer, router, printer, printer, boat electronics, half the crap at work, my little drones, the camera gear.
Nowadays, if it has a battery it has a USB port (of some various flavor, that's another rant) that is there for charging (fine, just pick ONE goddamned connector please) and upgrading. Lately, I've just been leaving things alone. If it sort of works, then it doesn't get changed. I don't care if the Russians invade my camera.
My truck has been a last bastion of un upgradedness. Just fill it with lots of gas, occasionally change the oil and every couple of months send it to the garage to replace some broken bit. It's never been 'upgraded' since it rolled off the floor in 1990. Still gets me where I want to go, even if I have to do it myself.
Turn it off! Turn it all off!
Thanks, I feel better.
Interlibrary loan does that sort of thing. If you are looking for an old / obscure book, then more than likely you know what the title is and can search for it. Or the librarian can. Then you can get if from the NY Public Library or some other larger facility. If you are just wandering the shelves looking for some ancient book on Dragons or Runes, the local library is probably not the place for you.
You need to go to Hogwarts.
What are they going to do now that Obama is out? My neighbors, who are fiercely Wing Nut Republicans and who own the local gun shop have admitted that Obama has been the best thing for them in decades. All it takes is even a hint that someone is going to restrict gun purchases and the rest of my neighbors have to run out and get another gun.
Of course, the most popular bumper sticker around here is "Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill".
Alaska can be so much fun sometimes.
That that Jesus.
Jeez....
This is actually a pretty interesting concept for Arctic / Antarctic construction. They apparently have at least a small ice-printer. The theory and engineering behind additive manufacturing is pretty well understood - there are commercial units printing concrete. You could easily imagine, for example, a wind powered device that heats the snow / ice, cleans it up and sends it to the printer (or does the same without heating, whatever). Print up your North Slope construction domes or Antarctic research stations. Get the tech stabilized down here. ?? profit.
p>Until we can colonize Antarctica without relying on supply planes, we really are far from being able to colonize Mars.
This. Get your ass to the Antarctic. To be fair, it's probably doable but not the priority of the current stations. McMurdo is still using diesels .... If Mars One had any brains whatsoever, they would be building habitats there that were more or less self contained and working to close the loop. Even Kim Stanley Robinson figured that one out.
You can make a pretty quiet kerosene based turbine - just depends on how much effort you want to take shielding it. Of course this is a problem on an aircraft. The bigger problem is the prop noise. As you increase the speed of the prop, you get higher noise production. If you decrease the rate of the prop, it has to get bigger. All complex engineering tradeoffs.
We really have the flight controls down now. We have the structural engineering and even the motors (sort of). I think we're basically a high energy storage technology away from flying cars. Higher than kerosene. Higher than any near term imaginable battery.
Mr. Fusion.
Lets not go totally hyperbolic here. Overloading a meter is going to cause the .20 wacko Chinese capacitor to fizz out, turning the stupid thing off. It is very unlikely to burn the house down. There will be SOME security that will likely be effective at minimizing major damage from the meters. You can't start WWIII with this method.
Yucch.
Caffeine. Coffee is the only way to start your day. Everything else is just . ... well, wrong.
Or, you could just upgrade the transmission infrastructure like you need to anyway. That way when it's sunny in Las Vegas and cloudy in Seattle you can move those electrons around.
It's also likely that storage technologies will improve enough to where nuclear really isn't needed. It's a useful technology and if we had handled it correctly, would probably account for baseload for a number of generations. But we screwed it up (we being pretty much the entire human race) and it is anything but clear that it will be viable in the next 20-40 years.
The Westinghouse AP-1000. A 'new', safe(r) plant that was supposed to be the savior of the nuclear power industry. Unfortunately, it's still to complicated and expensive for anybody to put together on any sort of economical basis. Toshiba holds a majority stake in Westinghouse.
They aren't terribly fragile, there is a fair amount of redundancy in modern ones. But junk filled dirigibles floating over major cities? What kind of dystopic future is that? Of course, since you have the thing up there, you would just have to put advertising on it. And communications gear. If you think that the FBI wandering over Baltimore with a Cessna and a high res camera is a problem, wait until you see these things....
And since I'm annoyed and over tired, why the hell is this idiot general concept patented? TFA isn't talking about specific implementations just vague low grade science fiction drivel. Now, instead of being on the Internet, it's using a drone.
Go back to shooting people into orbit like the rest of the crazy billionaires, Jeffrey.
Given many of the comments these days, I am not convinced that many people (or bots, can't really tell) even endeavor to read The Fine Headline.
Maybe we should limit everything to 140 characters. Works for the Prez...
Our Country was attacked. We cannot let that attack go without consequences.
We have met the enemy and he is us......
While you are spot on about the actual work involved to fix a modern device, I'm curious as to your assertion that some fraction of the world thinks that modern electronics are easily repairable. As far as I can tell, it's just the fine folks at iFixit that think modern electronics should be repairable.
The rest of us just toss the things in the recycler.
Really, I have a rework station but rarely use it to fix a commercial device and even more rarely are successful. Mostly use it to fix my own copious errors. You can't even figure out what most of the chips on a board do without hours of study and referencing work.