Many people have proposed swapping batteries out in an electric car to eliminate the wait involved in charging the car. I'm afraid I don't have any hard numbers, but aren't the battery stacks for these cars extremely large? If you are imagining swapping a ~20lb 1'x.6"x.4" battery from a gasoline car it makes sense, but the full stack from an electric car will weigh much more. For instance there is the 88kg for the stack used to run buses serviced by the electric fuel transportation corp. Details at: http://www.electric-fuel.com/evtech/EF-tech-brochu re.pdf They actually use the swap-out method, but it is an automated (heavy robotics, hydraulics?) system, and even then it takes 10 minutes. Admittedly this might be more manageable on a commuter car scale, but I think people are severely underestimating the difficulties invilved with a "swap out" plan.
Personally I think plugging your car in at each destination isn't a big deal. On the other hand I would like to see a breakdown on how much that would increase one's power bill per month as compared to how much you pay for gas. I'm guessing this does not come up because the electricity would end up costing more, otherwise we'd be seeing hard numbers from the electric car fanatics.
You say many people are in the area of financial reasearch Mandelbrot is advocating, but are they in academic research, or in commercial research where their discoveries are not shared, as Mandelbrot suggests?
from article:
There is a problem that is specific to financial markets. In most fields of research, when someone makes an important finding, they publish it. In the case of prices, they set up a firm and sell advice about their discovery. If they can make money from it, they will. So the research into market dynamics is a closed field.
What he is saying is that there is a need for more *open* research into fundamental market dynamics.
This isn't nearly as revolutionary as the poster made it seem; also 32-bit processors won't "steal" applications from 8-bit. It's more like applications and features that have been on the back burner due to hardware cost might see some light now. Frankly, I'm much more excited about the nuclear battery article a week or so ago, I think power is much more of a bottleneck in embedded systems than processor cost anyway.
The primary reason I tend to enjoy anime more than I enjoy hollywood produced movies is the lack of pandering present in much of anime (much, not all, there are many anime that do pander, but I digress). The reason this is so was touched on briefly in the article. Many artists have total or near-total control of their story from the time they first think of it untill it is released, that just doesn't happen too often in hollywood (and when it does, I tend to like those movies) Many anime producers are allowed to do their work unhampered by focus groups or executives telling them what can and cannot be in their work.
Another reason I like anime is that much of it is not watered down as most hollywood fare is, when someone dies it isn't some quick event that is glossed over; it's messy, it's gory, and it looks painful. I think one of the most unhealthy concepts I have ever seen in mass media is the "looney tunes" treatment of violence. Portraying violence as harmless and fun is much more disturbing to me than seeing more realistic violence with reprecussions attached. I could go on and on, but it would likely fall on deaf ears anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Many people have proposed swapping batteries out in an electric car to eliminate the wait involved in charging the car. I'm afraid I don't have any hard numbers, but aren't the battery stacks for these cars extremely large? If you are imagining swapping a ~20lb 1'x.6"x.4" battery from a gasoline car it makes sense, but the full stack from an electric car will weigh much more. For instance there is the 88kg for the stack used to run buses serviced by the electric fuel transportation corp. Details at: http://www.electric-fuel.com/evtech/EF-tech-brochu re.pdf
They actually use the swap-out method, but it is an automated (heavy robotics, hydraulics?) system, and even then it takes 10 minutes. Admittedly this might be more manageable on a commuter car scale, but I think people are severely underestimating the difficulties invilved with a "swap out" plan.
Personally I think plugging your car in at each destination isn't a big deal. On the other hand I would like to see a breakdown on how much that would increase one's power bill per month as compared to how much you pay for gas. I'm guessing this does not come up because the electricity would end up costing more, otherwise we'd be seeing hard numbers from the electric car fanatics.
You say many people are in the area of financial reasearch Mandelbrot is advocating, but are they in academic research, or in commercial research where their discoveries are not shared, as Mandelbrot suggests? from article: There is a problem that is specific to financial markets. In most fields of research, when someone makes an important finding, they publish it. In the case of prices, they set up a firm and sell advice about their discovery. If they can make money from it, they will. So the research into market dynamics is a closed field. What he is saying is that there is a need for more *open* research into fundamental market dynamics.
This isn't nearly as revolutionary as the poster made it seem; also 32-bit processors won't "steal" applications from 8-bit. It's more like applications and features that have been on the back burner due to hardware cost might see some light now.
Frankly, I'm much more excited about the nuclear battery article a week or so ago, I think power is much more of a bottleneck in embedded systems than processor cost anyway.
The primary reason I tend to enjoy anime more than I enjoy hollywood produced movies is the lack of pandering present in much of anime (much, not all, there are many anime that do pander, but I digress). The reason this is so was touched on briefly in the article. Many artists have total or near-total control of their story from the time they first think of it untill it is released, that just doesn't happen too often in hollywood (and when it does, I tend to like those movies) Many anime producers are allowed to do their work unhampered by focus groups or executives telling them what can and cannot be in their work.
Another reason I like anime is that much of it is not watered down as most hollywood fare is, when someone dies it isn't some quick event that is glossed over; it's messy, it's gory, and it looks painful. I think one of the most unhealthy concepts I have ever seen in mass media is the "looney tunes" treatment of violence. Portraying violence as harmless and fun is much more disturbing to me than seeing more realistic violence with reprecussions attached. I could go on and on, but it would likely fall on deaf ears anyway.