Because that's not how you run all your industrial electrical systems . . . Why not turn off the grocery store freezer for 20 minutes during the peak electrical demand period of the day? It won't hurt the products and over the course of a month it might save signicant money . . . or why not let the ambient temperature in the building go up about 3-5 degrees F during peak electrical demand hours . . . it won't cause any real problems and it might save some money.
Or even better, run the freezer and air conditioner at full blast before peak hours and "store" the energy as a cooler than normal building or freezer. Then you can shut them off during peak hours and not worry that the temperature will become too hot.
If you have a real time system that is updated with pricing, it can use more energy during non peak times and/or use less during peak times . . . This has the advantage not just of saving the consumer money but of also helping to balance the load on the power grid.
I actually surprised that more of this hasn't happened already. Large consumers such as manufacturing sites and steel mills often have contracts with power companies that include clauses for load shedding (eg. during the months of May-August, the power company may require running at reduced up to 20% reduced load (from contractual maximums) for no more than X hours is any rolling 3 week period). For this concession, the company in question is given a price on power consumed year round.
This voluntary load shedding based on a price that moves sounds like an even more efficient marketplace . . . price goes up with demand (given a limited supply), those who are unwilling to pay the new price or in economist speak, those whose opportunity cost is less than the new price reduce consumption. It sounds like a great scheme . . . only those who are willing to pay more (or whose opportunity cost is high) consume more during peak hours. It has the potential of balancing load, creating a more efficient market, and reducing the overall cost of electricity to society.
(disclaimer . . . I fully recognize that a perfectly efficient market would be socially and morally impractical . . . one should not jerk the rates for electricity in Houston TX on a hot day for people that depend on air conditioning . . . especially not for someone like an unhealthy fixed income pensioner . . . But for those that would see a rate credit or savings to their bottom line . . . it sounds like a win win situation to me.
The best DCS's (control systems for large plants) are not distributed with source code and they're not custom made. They are made by Honeywell, Foxboro, Yokogawa, and ABB to name a few. They run your biggest and best refineries, ethylene plants, polymer plants, etc.
I can't speak for nuclear in particular but in chemical plants and refineries, the mission critical failsafes are usually controlled with the DCS for slower things (tank overflow, high temperature, etc.) and PLC's (programmable logic controllers) for fast and sudden things (explosive hazards, compressor surges, etc). PLC's are often config'ed using using ladder logic (a fancy way of representing machine language code for control schemes) . . . PLC's are like industrial strength microcontrollers with appropriate industrial I/O . . . simple, fast and reliable.
For the record, I've seen lots of windows based client systems for DCS's, but only a few servers using windows. Most are redundant and run on something reliable, like Unix or VMS.
T-Rex breath turned out so accurate and so revolting, the curators instead opted for a milder swamp smell to evoke the creature's natural habitat.
Revolting is beleivable, but accurate? Do we really know enough about T-Rex's to say that the synthetic breath that was created was accurate? What bacteria lived in the mouth? Did the saliva have antibodies to protect open wounds around the mouth from bacteria and infection? What was the pH of the saliva? These all affect breath . . .
There are lots of unknowns that make me think that the journalist's use of the word accurate is more than a little presumptuous. . .
The executive branch of the US government has teams of lawyers to interpret what was meant by congress and the constitution and other binding legal documents. The executive branch "executes" the law, they've been in the business of trying to figure out what power and juristiction they are legally granted for a long time.
For example, right or wrong, Bush's lawyers and the defense dept.'s lawyers (Defense dept. is part of the executive branch) have attempted to identify what they can do to prisoners (I use this term inclusively of official POW's, non-combatants, illegal combatants, etc. all in detention in Iraq, Afganistan and Guantanamo)without being guilty of torture. I'm not trying to bring up a sore spot here, or start a new debate, but the process of interpreting the juristiction and powers of the executive branch by executive branch lawyers is not new.
But as you may have already guessed (based on the previous example and current news and the upcoming supreme court cases), the executive branch's interpretation is not binding. It is open to challenge in court and only the judicial branch has final authority on the interpretation of the law.
So the FCC can say what it thinks is it's legal jurisdiction and this will stand as long as there is not a challenge in court and the courts do not interpret the meaning or intent of the law differently.
But the FCC just like nearly even commision of the executive administration has a legal staff that attempts to interpret what the law gives them juristiction to enforce. It is not surprising that the FCC would attempt to identify what is and is not their juristiction.
Now if someone beleives that the FCC is wrong, they can take the FCC to court and the court system will evaluate and reinterpret the law in a legally binding manner and provide (sometimes) necessary clarification.
Uh, that's like having a landlord telling you that you can't use your cellphone, baby monitor, garage door opener, and wireless headphones in the apartment because he owns it . . . he doesn't have the right to tell tenants what parts of the spectrum that they can and can't use . . .
Otherwise
I suppose he'd even be able to say that your PC emits spurious radio emissions and your not allowed to use it in the apt. that your renting from him . . . even though the FCC says that the computer is adequately shielded and what little emissions come from your PC are irrelevant.
It surprises me that out of touch execs would think that Napster still has marketing cache, street cred, or other intangible brand value that would cause investors to back it . . .
Orginally napster depended on the size of its marketshare to succeed . . . like the telephone, the more phones hooked up to the network, the more valuable the network became (the potential to call more and different people and businesses), at its peak, napster was by far the biggest network of its kind (even the only network of its kind) . . . like microsoft on the desktop with a lot of the evil removed (or focused at the RIAA depending on how one looks at it)
Napster no longer has its network . . . it had been defunct for a long time, it has been trying to reinvent itself on exactly the business model that it was working against . . . but most importantly, its no longer the big kid on the block. Its not the biggest, its not the most popular, and in the selling of songs online, it certainly does not have the brand recognition of being a leader (currently that goes to Apple and the ipod.). Napster is now a follower, not a leader and the brand tarnished . . . napster is the sellout, they are the ones that lost the lawsuit . . . They were even bought by one of the major labels. Their rebellious market credibility was gone a long time ago.
Why is BestBuy partnering with them? Perhaps to compete with WalMart. Successful or not, BestBuy cannot afford to let WalMart get a beachhead in the higher end consumer electronics market through online music sales . . . Basically, BestBuy is doing this because they have to in order to protect their marketshare from the big kid on the block with the virtually infinite spending account.
Where does this leave Napster . . . somewhere between the pet rock, beanie babies, and mood rings, after the fad was here and gone.
Most fuel cells require a pump that can mix the methanol and water, and a fan to help cool the pump.
I read several of the articles linked here, but I don't understand why the original article implies that this fuel cell is special because it doesn't a pump to mix methanol and water . . . this implies that water is needed by most fuel cells . . . which brings me to the crux of my question . . why is water needed in the first place? According to other posters, this fuel cell uses 99.5% pure methanol . . . which would imply no (or very little need for water). I assume that the methanol is oxidized in the presence of catalyst to form water and carbon dioxide, but is water needed for this process? Maybe to disassociate the -OH from the CH3+?
When you think of Toshiba, you might think of notebooks, but fuel cells? Never.
When I think of Toshiba, I think of plastics, bulk chemicals, PLC's, motors, instrumentation, batteries, X-ray machines, and I'm not sure that they still do this, but they used to even be into heavy machinery . . . as well as computers, semiconductors and consumer electronics. Are fuel cells really a stretch?
Does the author of the topic really think that/. readers are that naive?
Named after Mr. Vespuci . . . Amerigo Vespuci . . . the guy that "discovered" the continent . . . 1 out of 50 . . . that's bad . . . I'm surprised the statistic is that bad; I do remember learning this fact in school (public school mind you).
Care to share which countries have the term "America" in the name? To the best of my knowledge, there is only one . . . when refering to countries, 'American' refers to the United States of America. If I were comparing continents, I would see your point . . . but I was comparing to British and the term 'Britain' or 'British' typically refers to the UK.
English grammar dictates parallel structure, if one compares, contrasts, or lists a country it is inferred that one is comparing, contrasting or listing that country to or with another country or countries (when the terms can be interpreted as a country or a continent).
Thus 'American' in the context that I used it refers to the citizens of the United States of America.
Uh, I would guess that the Brits (the originators of the ENGLISH language) would probably say that it was the Americans that turned everyday foodstuffs and tobacco products into euphemisms for potty-mouthed behavior and objects.
The British would probably just say things outright (ever heard a Brit curse? . . . put a sailor to shame (just say no to that Victorian age prim-and-proper stereotype)) . . .
What about BBC America (available on some digital cable services in the US)? . . . It does have commercial advertising (It doesn't get license fees in America . . . unless the cable services pay them something)
Is BBC America a separate entity from the BBC per your post?
You complain about British stereotypes . . . what about us Americans? Perhaps the single most diverse country in the world (in terms of immigration and ancestory) and we get categorized and stereotyped as overweight, MTV watching, gun toting, Big Mac eaters.
Not to be confused with "bangers & balls" . . . sausages with meatballs . . .
(Yes it really exists . . . As an American visiting Britain I picked up a can of these and brought it to the states . . . for posterity)
The Nikon 5XXX series and now the 8XXX series (I think that they are discontinuing the 5XXX in favor of the 8's). I have a coolpix 5000 and I use it with by SB-28 . . . It looks kinda silly (the flash is almost bigger than the camera), but it works. But the SB-28 isn't fully dedicated . . . the latest flash from Nikon (the one replacing the SB-28 should be 100% dedicated to the 8000 series camera.) . . . The also have some smaller digital speedlights available that don't look quite so silly on a little digi-cam.
Middle of the 3rd page:
"Nikon's D70 has a clever function that emulates the use of a fill flash when processing the image, without actually using a fill flash. The virtual fill flash adjusts the exposure level of darker parts of the image in order to show more detail that would otherwise be lost in shadow. Although the same effect could be produced through post-shooting manipulation, it's nice to see the effect immediately after capturing the frame."
I also have a D70 . . . this guy is full of bunk.
There's no feature in the camera to do this . . . And there's no feature in the software to do this either . . . Perhaps he's talking about general editing features in Nikon Capture 4, but the D70 only comes with a 30 day trial of this software, and the software is camera independent . . . but its not a specific feature . . . I did a search of the Nikon Capture pdf manual for "fill flash" and came up with nothing. I actually have no idea what the author is talking about . . .
It's quite apparent in the article that the author has little idea what he's talking about and has never handled or used many of the cameras that he mentions. The article looks like a mish-mash of stuff that he found on other websites and cobbled together into a useless chimera of an article that pretends to be informative.
I would be curious to see what photography credentials "Joe" (the author gives his name as "Joe") actually has. Whatever they are, they certainly don't include using a Nikon D70.
* a good optical lens (come on, an f of 2.8 is not that great, unless you live in a really sunny country) with a solid optical zoom (who CARES about digital zoom?).
There's a lot more to a lens than the F-stop . . . 2.8 is pretty darn good in a lot of the pro-lense market for SLR's. Getting larger aperatures than this often causes significant distortion in the lens . . . hence the super-expensive cost of the really fast lens, or in the case of a lot of consumer level digital cameras, crummy optics that result in a loss of sharpness . . . this is going the way of the megapixel wars . . . uninformed consumers think that larger aperature and bigger zoom = better camera . . . typically the truth is larger aperature and bigger zoom = crappier overall sharpness and more lens distortion . . . which amounts to crappy looking pictures.
Personally, I'll take my Nikon Coolpix 5000 with its slower lens (3.3) over just about any faster lens consumer digital camera any day . . . I know that the optics aren't perfect, I bought it 4 years ago, but even by today's standards, the optics are a lot better than most consumer digi-cams I've seen. And I'll take my Digital SLR over that . . . any day.
The article glazes over everything and provides less information then a product pamplet . . . unless you don't know anything about digital cameras, haven't seen a digital camera, have never touched a digital camera, never read about a digital camera, and you've been living under a rock, I wouldn't bother reading this article.
In all seriousness, the really odd bit about this article is that the author doesn't seem to know his audience . . . he writes about the most basic of features at a very high level for the novice (like metering, b&w, & sepia features), but then spends an inordinate amount of time describing camera raw files . . . which would be more appropriate for the more advanced user. Then he goes on do describe digital SLR features which are pro and pro-sumer level cameras. But when the author writes about advanced features, he writes about them in a very condscending way . . . like he is coddling a newbie.
I would guess that the author wrote the article with the entire audience in mind (from beginner to pro), but because of this, the author has created a mediocre article that is not very useful for anyone. It's like building the perfect automobile for everyone, without regard to the needs of specific end consumers . . . you wind up with a single product that is not very good for anyone.
Beginners would do better to read tutorials on Cnet etc. and advanced users would find more benefit at sites like luminous landscape
The author claims that he will write reviews next . . . Based on the quality of this article, I would read these with caution. I'd suggest the reviews at DPReview instead.
I would agree that eventually native SATA drives will be cheaper . . . but I don't agree with the reason.
A 1.8Ghz Duron ($44) at pricewatch.com contains more complicated electronics than . . . say a . . . basic stamp 2 microcontroller ($49). Why is the more complicated elctronic device more expensive? Economies of scale, market size, and competition, all weigh in on the pricing system . . . And all this can be boiled down to supply and demand.
Simplicity of electronics is one factor, but not a single determining factor in price.
Or his analogy recognizes the complexity of a star . . . and that a fusion reactor only mimics a single (or arguable a few) aspect(s) of a highly complex system.
Tapped through other methods? What other methods are you referring to? "Boiling water" as you refer to steam (presumably somewhat superheated) is a standard in the industry for heat and energy transfer. It's one of the most common methods for turning large stationary turbines, compressors, etc. . . because of it's energy conversion efficiency compared with other large scale methods (High heat of vaporization results is significant energy transfer per mass of water).
Slashdot Mirror
Or even better, run the freezer and air conditioner at full blast before peak hours and "store" the energy as a cooler than normal building or freezer. Then you can shut them off during peak hours and not worry that the temperature will become too hot.
If you have a real time system that is updated with pricing, it can use more energy during non peak times and/or use less during peak times . . . This has the advantage not just of saving the consumer money but of also helping to balance the load on the power grid.
This voluntary load shedding based on a price that moves sounds like an even more efficient marketplace . . . price goes up with demand (given a limited supply), those who are unwilling to pay the new price or in economist speak, those whose opportunity cost is less than the new price reduce consumption. It sounds like a great scheme . . . only those who are willing to pay more (or whose opportunity cost is high) consume more during peak hours. It has the potential of balancing load, creating a more efficient market, and reducing the overall cost of electricity to society.
(disclaimer . . . I fully recognize that a perfectly efficient market would be socially and morally impractical . . . one should not jerk the rates for electricity in Houston TX on a hot day for people that depend on air conditioning . . . especially not for someone like an unhealthy fixed income pensioner . . . But for those that would see a rate credit or savings to their bottom line . . . it sounds like a win win situation to me.
I can't speak for nuclear in particular but in chemical plants and refineries, the mission critical failsafes are usually controlled with the DCS for slower things (tank overflow, high temperature, etc.) and PLC's (programmable logic controllers) for fast and sudden things (explosive hazards, compressor surges, etc). PLC's are often config'ed using using ladder logic (a fancy way of representing machine language code for control schemes) . . . PLC's are like industrial strength microcontrollers with appropriate industrial I/O . . . simple, fast and reliable.
For the record, I've seen lots of windows based client systems for DCS's, but only a few servers using windows. Most are redundant and run on something reliable, like Unix or VMS.
T-Rex breath turned out so accurate and so revolting, the curators instead opted for a milder swamp smell to evoke the creature's natural habitat.
Revolting is beleivable, but accurate? Do we really know enough about T-Rex's to say that the synthetic breath that was created was accurate? What bacteria lived in the mouth? Did the saliva have antibodies to protect open wounds around the mouth from bacteria and infection? What was the pH of the saliva? These all affect breath . . .
There are lots of unknowns that make me think that the journalist's use of the word accurate is more than a little presumptuous. . .
For example, right or wrong, Bush's lawyers and the defense dept.'s lawyers (Defense dept. is part of the executive branch) have attempted to identify what they can do to prisoners (I use this term inclusively of official POW's, non-combatants, illegal combatants, etc. all in detention in Iraq, Afganistan and Guantanamo)without being guilty of torture. I'm not trying to bring up a sore spot here, or start a new debate, but the process of interpreting the juristiction and powers of the executive branch by executive branch lawyers is not new.
But as you may have already guessed (based on the previous example and current news and the upcoming supreme court cases), the executive branch's interpretation is not binding. It is open to challenge in court and only the judicial branch has final authority on the interpretation of the law.
So the FCC can say what it thinks is it's legal jurisdiction and this will stand as long as there is not a challenge in court and the courts do not interpret the meaning or intent of the law differently.
Now if someone beleives that the FCC is wrong, they can take the FCC to court and the court system will evaluate and reinterpret the law in a legally binding manner and provide (sometimes) necessary clarification.
Otherwise I suppose he'd even be able to say that your PC emits spurious radio emissions and your not allowed to use it in the apt. that your renting from him . . . even though the FCC says that the computer is adequately shielded and what little emissions come from your PC are irrelevant.
What does associated mean? Wholly owned subsidiary? Joint venture? These would typically qualify as "same company" to some degree or another.
And, if they are not the same company why do they share the "same website"?
Orginally napster depended on the size of its marketshare to succeed . . . like the telephone, the more phones hooked up to the network, the more valuable the network became (the potential to call more and different people and businesses), at its peak, napster was by far the biggest network of its kind (even the only network of its kind) . . . like microsoft on the desktop with a lot of the evil removed (or focused at the RIAA depending on how one looks at it)
Napster no longer has its network . . . it had been defunct for a long time, it has been trying to reinvent itself on exactly the business model that it was working against . . . but most importantly, its no longer the big kid on the block. Its not the biggest, its not the most popular, and in the selling of songs online, it certainly does not have the brand recognition of being a leader (currently that goes to Apple and the ipod.). Napster is now a follower, not a leader and the brand tarnished . . . napster is the sellout, they are the ones that lost the lawsuit . . . They were even bought by one of the major labels. Their rebellious market credibility was gone a long time ago.
Why is BestBuy partnering with them? Perhaps to compete with WalMart. Successful or not, BestBuy cannot afford to let WalMart get a beachhead in the higher end consumer electronics market through online music sales . . . Basically, BestBuy is doing this because they have to in order to protect their marketshare from the big kid on the block with the virtually infinite spending account.
Where does this leave Napster . . . somewhere between the pet rock, beanie babies, and mood rings, after the fad was here and gone.
Most fuel cells require a pump that can mix the methanol and water, and a fan to help cool the pump.
I read several of the articles linked here, but I don't understand why the original article implies that this fuel cell is special because it doesn't a pump to mix methanol and water . . . this implies that water is needed by most fuel cells . . . which brings me to the crux of my question . . why is water needed in the first place? According to other posters, this fuel cell uses 99.5% pure methanol . . . which would imply no (or very little need for water). I assume that the methanol is oxidized in the presence of catalyst to form water and carbon dioxide, but is water needed for this process? Maybe to disassociate the -OH from the CH3+?
When I think of Toshiba, I think of plastics, bulk chemicals, PLC's, motors, instrumentation, batteries, X-ray machines, and I'm not sure that they still do this, but they used to even be into heavy machinery . . . as well as computers, semiconductors and consumer electronics. Are fuel cells really a stretch?
Does the author of the topic really think that /. readers are that naive?
Named after Mr. Vespuci . . . Amerigo Vespuci . . . the guy that "discovered" the continent . . . 1 out of 50 . . . that's bad . . . I'm surprised the statistic is that bad; I do remember learning this fact in school (public school mind you).
I guess that never happened?
English grammar dictates parallel structure, if one compares, contrasts, or lists a country it is inferred that one is comparing, contrasting or listing that country to or with another country or countries (when the terms can be interpreted as a country or a continent).
Thus 'American' in the context that I used it refers to the citizens of the United States of America.
Don't believe me, check the dictionary
The British would probably just say things outright (ever heard a Brit curse? . . . put a sailor to shame (just say no to that Victorian age prim-and-proper stereotype)) . . .
Is BBC America a separate entity from the BBC per your post?
You complain about British stereotypes . . . what about us Americans? Perhaps the single most diverse country in the world (in terms of immigration and ancestory) and we get categorized and stereotyped as overweight, MTV watching, gun toting, Big Mac eaters.
Not to be confused with "bangers & balls" . . . sausages with meatballs . . . (Yes it really exists . . . As an American visiting Britain I picked up a can of these and brought it to the states . . . for posterity)
The Nikon 5XXX series and now the 8XXX series (I think that they are discontinuing the 5XXX in favor of the 8's). I have a coolpix 5000 and I use it with by SB-28 . . . It looks kinda silly (the flash is almost bigger than the camera), but it works. But the SB-28 isn't fully dedicated . . . the latest flash from Nikon (the one replacing the SB-28 should be 100% dedicated to the 8000 series camera.) . . . The also have some smaller digital speedlights available that don't look quite so silly on a little digi-cam.
There's no feature in the camera to do this . . . And there's no feature in the software to do this either . . . Perhaps he's talking about general editing features in Nikon Capture 4, but the D70 only comes with a 30 day trial of this software, and the software is camera independent . . . but its not a specific feature . . . I did a search of the Nikon Capture pdf manual for "fill flash" and came up with nothing. I actually have no idea what the author is talking about . . .
It's quite apparent in the article that the author has little idea what he's talking about and has never handled or used many of the cameras that he mentions. The article looks like a mish-mash of stuff that he found on other websites and cobbled together into a useless chimera of an article that pretends to be informative.
I would be curious to see what photography credentials "Joe" (the author gives his name as "Joe") actually has. Whatever they are, they certainly don't include using a Nikon D70.
There's a lot more to a lens than the F-stop . . . 2.8 is pretty darn good in a lot of the pro-lense market for SLR's. Getting larger aperatures than this often causes significant distortion in the lens . . . hence the super-expensive cost of the really fast lens, or in the case of a lot of consumer level digital cameras, crummy optics that result in a loss of sharpness . . . this is going the way of the megapixel wars . . . uninformed consumers think that larger aperature and bigger zoom = better camera . . . typically the truth is larger aperature and bigger zoom = crappier overall sharpness and more lens distortion . . . which amounts to crappy looking pictures.
Personally, I'll take my Nikon Coolpix 5000 with its slower lens (3.3) over just about any faster lens consumer digital camera any day . . . I know that the optics aren't perfect, I bought it 4 years ago, but even by today's standards, the optics are a lot better than most consumer digi-cams I've seen. And I'll take my Digital SLR over that . . . any day.
In all seriousness, the really odd bit about this article is that the author doesn't seem to know his audience . . . he writes about the most basic of features at a very high level for the novice (like metering, b&w, & sepia features), but then spends an inordinate amount of time describing camera raw files . . . which would be more appropriate for the more advanced user. Then he goes on do describe digital SLR features which are pro and pro-sumer level cameras. But when the author writes about advanced features, he writes about them in a very condscending way . . . like he is coddling a newbie.
I would guess that the author wrote the article with the entire audience in mind (from beginner to pro), but because of this, the author has created a mediocre article that is not very useful for anyone. It's like building the perfect automobile for everyone, without regard to the needs of specific end consumers . . . you wind up with a single product that is not very good for anyone.
Beginners would do better to read tutorials on Cnet etc. and advanced users would find more benefit at sites like luminous landscape
The author claims that he will write reviews next . . . Based on the quality of this article, I would read these with caution. I'd suggest the reviews at DPReview instead.
A 1.8Ghz Duron ($44) at pricewatch.com contains more complicated electronics than . . . say a . . . basic stamp 2 microcontroller ($49). Why is the more complicated elctronic device more expensive? Economies of scale, market size, and competition, all weigh in on the pricing system . . . And all this can be boiled down to supply and demand.
Simplicity of electronics is one factor, but not a single determining factor in price.
Or his analogy recognizes the complexity of a star . . . and that a fusion reactor only mimics a single (or arguable a few) aspect(s) of a highly complex system.