Actually, the electronic damping on the C6 Corvette does not depend on liquid
metal in the shocks as you assert. What the shocks actually contain is oil in
which are suspended tiny ball bearings (for lack of a better word). These ball
bearings are coated with a special substance that not only allows them to float
in the oil, but also distributes them uniformly throughout the oil. These ball
bearings are then acted on by electromagnets to vary the viscosity of the oil.
To quote Car and Driver:
The dampers are filled not with standard oil but with magnetorheological
(MR) fluid. This is a synthetic oil with millions of tiny iron balls
suspended in it. These iron balls have a proprietary coating to make them
less abrasive and help them float evenly within the shock fluid.
More important, they react to a magnetic field generated by an
electric coil on the shock piston, thereby changing the fluid's viscosity.
Imagine changing your shock fluid from 5W to 100W by simply varying the
current in the coil.
I agree with jacksonj04's assement that OSS needs missionaries. I have switched over about half the people at my church to Firefox. (I am my church's computer guru.) How you might ask? I give them three simple reasons to switch:
1) Security:
jacksonj04, say what you want but people do care about security. They may not be security fanatics, but they do care. I switched my uncle to Firefox soley on the basis of Firefox being more secure than Internet Explorer. To him, tabbed browsing was icing on the cake.
Now my uncle is fairly literate in computers; he isn't a guru, but gets around pretty well; so he probably isn't a good example of computer illiterates caring about security. But for whom I did a spyware removal understood the concept of increased security perfectly. How did I convince her? Well, she brought in her PC because it was running slow and getting a bunch of pop-ups. I installed Ad-Aware and it found about 1,000 instances of spyware. I ran Ad-ware several times, went through the registry manually, and still was not able to remove everything. I did a system restore, reinstalled her software, installed Firefox and Ad-Aware, told her to update Ad-Aware as she would her virus scan, and sent her on her way. When I told her that using Firefox would reduce her chances of getting spyware; this lady, whose computer knowledges stops at being able to open Word and browse the internet, grasped the concept that better security is good.
In order to get people to care about security, and ultimately switch to Firefox (or OSS), is to put how the better security will benifit them. They don't care that Firefox doesn't have ActiveX or whatever, all they care is how this will benefit them.
2) Pop-up Blocker:
Yes, Internet Explorer 6 SP2 has a pop-up blocker. Yes, it works. But the one in Firefox works better. I actually switched to Firefox from IE 6 SP2 (I waited for version 1.0); and let me tell you, the pop-up blocker in Firefox is better. It gives me more control and does a better job than the one in IE.
Now again, illiterates won't care that the pop-up blocker in Firefox is better or gives the user more control. So why mention it? Tell the user that Firefox has this feature. If they are comimg from the IE 6 SP2 world, they will demand a pop-up blocker. This is more of a reassurance that Firefox is infact a modern broswer with features to match. Informing the user that Firefox had the feature first and infact forced Microsoft to include one with IE will be icing on the cake.
3) User-friendly:
In this category are all the other features of FIrefox that in my eyes are icing on the cake. Features such as tabbed browsing, themes, extensions, download manager, etc. These features won't make someone drop IE and switch to Firefox, but are kind of cool. When I install Firefox for someone I usually show these features last because most users can live without them.
What these features contribute is a certain cool factor to Firefox. When people are told that Firefox is more secure, etc, etc; the right brain says, "Switch!" But the left brain stall has veto power. Which is why it is important to show all the different ways you can customize Firefox with themes, extensions, live bookmarks, search engines, and so forth.
People don't care if Firefox is free (so is Internet Explorer) or that it is Open Source (Open Sores? - people who read http://www.userfriendly.org/ will get the joke). All they care is how will this benefit them. And as the missionaries of OSS, we must show them.
When I was growing up, my parents kept a tight reign on how
much TV we watched. How tight? Well we averaged about 5-10 hours a month. (Contrast that with kids who watched that
much in one afternoon.) The TV was reserved for watching the news (even then it
was Dad who watched, not us); home videos; various family films; and occasionally
video games.
Strange as this may
appear, I am actually grateful to my parents for basically banning TV. Why?
Because instead of wasting hours in front of the TV; I was stimulating my mind.
For instance, when we lived in an apartment complex in north Seattle, the neighborhood kids would all get
together to play various versions of tag and hide'n'seek.
We would stag contests of strength and achievement, and many other games. This playtime
helped me develop social skills and kept me in decent shape. I whole-heartedly
agree with the sentiment that most of the anti-social behavior and obesity of
today's kids stems from hours of watching TV.
What else did I do
with all of my free time? I read. I read mysteries, adventure, science fiction,
historical fiction; you name the genera, I read it. I read anything I could get
my hands on. In the long months of summer, when a trip to the library seemed
like a trip through the Sahara; I read old
encyclopedias that we had lying around. For his first year in high school, my
brother was home schooled. So that summer, when I ran out of other material, I read
his text books. I read his science, history, and literature books. Let me tell
you, there is nothing more satisfying than acing a science placement test on
your first day of ninth grade science. Reading really broadened my horizons;
for example in the sixth grade, for no reason other than that I was curious, I read
a college level book on the twenty or so major religions of the world. I followed
that up by reading every available book on the myths of various cultures.
Now I am not trying
to brag, I am trying to make the point that had I been allowed to watch TV, I would
not have been able to do all that I did. Now I am not saying that there weren't
times when I wasted hours in front of a TV watching the sludge that is pushed
as entertainment or playing video games; but those times were few and far
between.
The point is; in
the absence of TV, kids will turn to other pursuits. They may not become Einsteins or philosophers, but they will do something with
their lives. Some will turn to sports, to invention, to repair, or as in my
case to academics. I am grateful to my parents for restricting my TV use; and a
serous note to the parents out there, provide your kids with some sort of
stimulation. Do not allow them to waste all of their time in front of the TV.
When I was growing up, my parents kept a tight reign on how much TV we watched. How tight? Well we averaged about 5-10 hours a month. (Contrast that with kids who watched that much in one afternoon.)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the electronic damping on the C6 Corvette does not depend on liquid metal in the shocks as you assert. What the shocks actually contain is oil in which are suspended tiny ball bearings (for lack of a better word). These ball bearings are coated with a special substance that not only allows them to float in the oil, but also distributes them uniformly throughout the oil. These ball bearings are then acted on by electromagnets to vary the viscosity of the oil. To quote Car and Driver:
1) Security:
Now my uncle is fairly literate in computers; he isn't a guru, but gets around pretty well; so he probably isn't a good example of computer illiterates caring about security. But for whom I did a spyware removal understood the concept of increased security perfectly. How did I convince her? Well, she brought in her PC because it was running slow and getting a bunch of pop-ups. I installed Ad-Aware and it found about 1,000 instances of spyware. I ran Ad-ware several times, went through the registry manually, and still was not able to remove everything. I did a system restore, reinstalled her software, installed Firefox and Ad-Aware, told her to update Ad-Aware as she would her virus scan, and sent her on her way. When I told her that using Firefox would reduce her chances of getting spyware; this lady, whose computer knowledges stops at being able to open Word and browse the internet, grasped the concept that better security is good. In order to get people to care about security, and ultimately switch to Firefox (or OSS), is to put how the better security will benifit them. They don't care that Firefox doesn't have ActiveX or whatever, all they care is how this will benefit them.
2) Pop-up Blocker:
Yes, Internet Explorer 6 SP2 has a pop-up blocker. Yes, it works. But the one in Firefox works better. I actually switched to Firefox from IE 6 SP2 (I waited for version 1.0); and let me tell you, the pop-up blocker in Firefox is better. It gives me more control and does a better job than the one in IE.
Now again, illiterates won't care that the pop-up blocker in Firefox is better or gives the user more control. So why mention it? Tell the user that Firefox has this feature. If they are comimg from the IE 6 SP2 world, they will demand a pop-up blocker. This is more of a reassurance that Firefox is infact a modern broswer with features to match. Informing the user that Firefox had the feature first and infact forced Microsoft to include one with IE will be icing on the cake.
3) User-friendly:
In this category are all the other features of FIrefox that in my eyes are icing on the cake. Features such as tabbed browsing, themes, extensions, download manager, etc. These features won't make someone drop IE and switch to Firefox, but are kind of cool. When I install Firefox for someone I usually show these features last because most users can live without them.
What these features contribute is a certain cool factor to Firefox. When people are told that Firefox is more secure, etc, etc; the right brain says, "Switch!" But the left brain stall has veto power. Which is why it is important to show all the different ways you can customize Firefox with themes, extensions, live bookmarks, search engines, and so forth.
People don't care if Firefox is free (so is Internet Explorer) or that it is Open Source (Open Sores? - people who read http://www.userfriendly.org/ will get the joke). All they care is how will this benefit them. And as the missionaries of OSS, we must show them.
When I was growing up, my parents kept a tight reign on how much TV we watched. How tight? Well we averaged about 5-10 hours a month. (Contrast that with kids who watched that much in one afternoon.) The TV was reserved for watching the news (even then it was Dad who watched, not us); home videos; various family films; and occasionally video games.
Strange as this may appear, I am actually grateful to my parents for basically banning TV. Why? Because instead of wasting hours in front of the TV; I was stimulating my mind. For instance, when we lived in an apartment complex in north Seattle, the neighborhood kids would all get together to play various versions of tag and hide'n'seek. We would stag contests of strength and achievement, and many other games. This playtime helped me develop social skills and kept me in decent shape. I whole-heartedly agree with the sentiment that most of the anti-social behavior and obesity of today's kids stems from hours of watching TV.
What else did I do with all of my free time? I read. I read mysteries, adventure, science fiction, historical fiction; you name the genera, I read it. I read anything I could get my hands on. In the long months of summer, when a trip to the library seemed like a trip through the Sahara; I read old encyclopedias that we had lying around. For his first year in high school, my brother was home schooled. So that summer, when I ran out of other material, I read his text books. I read his science, history, and literature books. Let me tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than acing a science placement test on your first day of ninth grade science. Reading really broadened my horizons; for example in the sixth grade, for no reason other than that I was curious, I read a college level book on the twenty or so major religions of the world. I followed that up by reading every available book on the myths of various cultures.
Now I am not trying to brag, I am trying to make the point that had I been allowed to watch TV, I would not have been able to do all that I did. Now I am not saying that there weren't times when I wasted hours in front of a TV watching the sludge that is pushed as entertainment or playing video games; but those times were few and far between.
The point is; in the absence of TV, kids will turn to other pursuits. They may not become Einsteins or philosophers, but they will do something with their lives. Some will turn to sports, to invention, to repair, or as in my case to academics. I am grateful to my parents for restricting my TV use; and a serous note to the parents out there, provide your kids with some sort of stimulation. Do not allow them to waste all of their time in front of the TV.
When I was growing up, my parents kept a tight reign on how much TV we watched. How tight? Well we averaged about 5-10 hours a month. (Contrast that with kids who watched that much in one afternoon.)