Cell towers try to hand off your phone from one tower to another as the signal strengths seen by the towers change - say you're driving down the street, your cell probably won't be connected to the same tower for the whole duration of your call. This is great - you don't get cut off in mid-sentence, and you always have a pretty good voice channel. There's a lot of network activity for every handoff, but it's necessary to make the 'cells' as transparent as possible.
Since the cell radius is about 45km in most of North America (and there are three towers per cell, dividing the cell like a pie cut into three), when you're driving in a car, you can be handed off every few minutes from tower to tower.
If you're in a plane, moving several hundred kilometers an hour, and high enough up that the signal strength is weak to begin with, you get handed off a LOT more than if you were in a car or on foot. The extra network overhead can be a big problem on a busy cell, degrading the quality of service for all the other cell customers.
Actually, that's not waste heat at all. The reaction inside the fuel cell isn't combustion - it's an electrochemical process...
The reaction 'chamber' has to be heated up for the electrodes to start catalyzing the 'fuel'. There's a lot of research being done so that the reaction can occur at room temperature, but right now it's a limitation of the electrodes, not the reaction.
I'm a recent graduate of the U of Alberta's Engineering program... The Electrical Engineering building was mostly built with money from corporate 'sponsorships'. The classrooms and labs are for the most part named after companies that donated cash for the building.
So we have the 'Suncor Lecture Theatre' and the 'Colt Engineering Design Lab'. It's really sad.
I'm waiting for these companies to start directing research and development at universities soon.
I have some definite concerns about large corporations getting so monetarily involved in the activities of what used to be a government-funded institution.
My $0.02
This is a simple FPGA stuck onto the processor, which is fine. You can make as much logic as you have room for on the FPGA.
The problem comes in with speed comparisons. The FPGA is NEVER going to be as fast as the logic designed onto the CPU, and it will be larger/more power hungry than the dedicated logic. It'll be more useful for DSP and matrix operations *if* you have enough room on the FPGA and enough cooling to make it worthwhile.
Might also be nice to know what the sound card was... I haven't met a sound card other than the NForce brand that didn't Just Work(tm) under any Linux.
What was the model? Who is the manufacturer? Or is he just going to whine about it? He gave us the names of the distros, why not the name of the hardware he chose?
"VMWare pricing is a little steep. It is a fantastic product."
I have to agree with you there. But it's a complete bugger to install properly. I've tried several times to get anything to install on it properly, and no dice.
Using the 30-day evaluation of VMWare gives you just enough time to get frustrated with it.
From the looks of it, the magnets are just magnetic bearings... This reduces friction (and heat) but won't really make the motor that much more efiicient.
It will, however, make it weigh more and be far more expensive. These are precisely the reasons that no one else was doing this before.
Yeah. At least with the newer Linux distros the hardware is all set up and ready to go... And you don't really need to go hunting for all the software you need to make the system useable.
It amazes me when I have to set up a Windows box for someone just how much stuff you have set up after Windows is finally going... (Acrobat Reader, a word processor, games, the list goes on and on)
Then someone installs a chunk of pirated software and the whole thing is chalk full of virusey goodness and you *get* to fix it again.
Yeah... 'cause proprietary software got it all right the first time.:)
I know a lot of people who can't/won't even try to install drivers for their Windoze boxes at home because it's still seems pretty damn complicated to them.
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Good post, but one other point...
Cell towers try to hand off your phone from one tower to another as the signal strengths seen by the towers change - say you're driving down the street, your cell probably won't be connected to the same tower for the whole duration of your call. This is great - you don't get cut off in mid-sentence, and you always have a pretty good voice channel. There's a lot of network activity for every handoff, but it's necessary to make the 'cells' as transparent as possible.
Since the cell radius is about 45km in most of North America (and there are three towers per cell, dividing the cell like a pie cut into three), when you're driving in a car, you can be handed off every few minutes from tower to tower.
If you're in a plane, moving several hundred kilometers an hour, and high enough up that the signal strength is weak to begin with, you get handed off a LOT more than if you were in a car or on foot. The extra network overhead can be a big problem on a busy cell, degrading the quality of service for all the other cell customers.
So there's another reason. Enjoy.
Actually, that's not waste heat at all. The reaction inside the fuel cell isn't combustion - it's an electrochemical process... The reaction 'chamber' has to be heated up for the electrodes to start catalyzing the 'fuel'. There's a lot of research being done so that the reaction can occur at room temperature, but right now it's a limitation of the electrodes, not the reaction.
That and the fact that most fuel cells tend to operate at 500 to 700 degrees farenheit. That's a toasty laptop.
I'm a recent graduate of the U of Alberta's Engineering program... The Electrical Engineering building was mostly built with money from corporate 'sponsorships'. The classrooms and labs are for the most part named after companies that donated cash for the building. So we have the 'Suncor Lecture Theatre' and the 'Colt Engineering Design Lab'. It's really sad. I'm waiting for these companies to start directing research and development at universities soon. I have some definite concerns about large corporations getting so monetarily involved in the activities of what used to be a government-funded institution. My $0.02
Yeah. I have a similar problem. I'm 4'2" and just can't find swim trunks that I can cram my 18" penis into. Say...
This is a simple FPGA stuck onto the processor, which is fine. You can make as much logic as you have room for on the FPGA.
The problem comes in with speed comparisons. The FPGA is NEVER going to be as fast as the logic designed onto the CPU, and it will be larger/more power hungry than the dedicated logic. It'll be more useful for DSP and matrix operations *if* you have enough room on the FPGA and enough cooling to make it worthwhile.
Otherwise, forget it.
Might also be nice to know what the sound card was... I haven't met a sound card other than the NForce brand that didn't Just Work(tm) under any Linux.
What was the model? Who is the manufacturer? Or is he just going to whine about it? He gave us the names of the distros, why not the name of the hardware he chose?
"VMWare pricing is a little steep. It is a fantastic product."
I have to agree with you there. But it's a complete bugger to install properly. I've tried several times to get anything to install on it properly, and no dice.
Using the 30-day evaluation of VMWare gives you just enough time to get frustrated with it.
"tux inserted, lovingly, into his anus"
:)
AIEEEE!!! Somebody help me poke out my mind's eye!
From the looks of it, the magnets are just magnetic bearings... This reduces friction (and heat) but won't really make the motor that much more efiicient.
It will, however, make it weigh more and be far more expensive. These are precisely the reasons that no one else was doing this before.
New motor design, my ass...
Yeah. At least with the newer Linux distros the hardware is all set up and ready to go... And you don't really need to go hunting for all the software you need to make the system useable.
It amazes me when I have to set up a Windows box for someone just how much stuff you have set up after Windows is finally going... (Acrobat Reader, a word processor, games, the list goes on and on)
Then someone installs a chunk of pirated software and the whole thing is chalk full of virusey goodness and you *get* to fix it again.
Yeah... 'cause proprietary software got it all right the first time. :)
I know a lot of people who can't/won't even try to install drivers for their Windoze boxes at home because it's still seems pretty damn complicated to them.
"OpenBSD developers was not very happy with the Intel decision..." Both of them? :)
A space launch from my hometown. Whoda thunkit? I guess they figure they won't actually damage anything if it goes wrong. :)