Sorry to hear of your problem but congratulations on the convincing diagnosis using equipment you built yourself. Perhaps you could try some of the non-CPAP machine apnea reduction methods like the dental appliance (I don't think an inexpensive off-the-shelf model could do much damage short term) and, using the same diagnosis equipment, see if you wake up less frequently.
35 million cattle are eaten per year. 9 billion chickens are eaten per year. I'd say chickens win the dominant domestic animal contest and they're tasty as well.
I'm sure there are serious cases of sleep apnea but it seems to be over-diagnosed lately. Mild cases used to be called snoring but now doctors and the highly profitable sleep clinics (some owned by doctors, others by hospitals) seem to be identifying snoring as moderate apnea and are recommending CPAP masks for it. Perhaps it would be better to try other apnea reduction methods first. I've read that back sleepers should try side sleeping for better nighttime breathing. And there are also pillows that lift the nape of the neck to keep the airway open at night. I'm wary of the dental appliances that do a similar thing since they might cause dental alignment problems when used long term. I suppose the insurance companies will sort it out eventually. It's amusing to watch the doctors vs. insurance companies battles unless you're someone who is affected. Regarding apnea, does anyone know where to get data on the percentage of people visiting sleep clinics who are diagnosed with it?
Note that there is a chart presented in the video accompanying the article that says people with moderate to severe apnea are as likely or more likely to die than those who smoke 20+ cigarettes a day but the units on the x-axis aren't labeled. 5 what? 10 what? Am I misreading something?
I live in NJ. Aside from that problem, I have a friend who was recently auto ticketed for running a red light. When he received the ticket in the mail he was notified of a website where he could see a video of the traffic violation. We looked at the video and it was clear that he went through the red light. That seems like a fairer way to issue automatic tickets. If it's clear in the video that you didn't do what you're accused of then it would be worth fighting the ticket. Of course, videos can be faked but perhaps someone can think of a way to make sure that doesn't happen. In my friends case, I doubt that the video was faked.
It seems to me that the popularity of music may have something to do with the the need to replace thinking during times of low sensory stimulation. I'm not a great thinker but I'd rather try than to have a constant stream of tunes running through my head. "Do-di-do-di-do-di-dooty-do". It's almost painful.
Here's a 100 mega samples per sec digital scope that can be built for $92.70. It's based on a floating point gate array. http://www.fpga4fun.com/Hands-...
It goes far beyond caller ID. They know your GPS location and they know your phone.
I think cell phones are required to allow 911 calls even if the associated account doesn't have any call time left. At least a Tracfone that I had worked that way. I wonder how may millions of old discarded cell phones are around that might be used to make 911 calls tied to previous owners. That's not anonymous but it sure does point to the wrong owner.
I'm happiest when I can think clearly. I'm also a cigarette smoker. I've noticed that I tend to reach for cigarettes when I'm reading or thinking about something complicated. Is there a connection? Is this true for anyone else? Does anyone with a pharmacological background know if nicotine is nootropic?
I love hardware. Built a 6800 machine on solderless breadboards quite a few years back. Kind of a dumb thing to do durability wise, but it was quick and easy. That brings me to my point. Many new devices these days are only available as surface mount devices. Have you ever tried to solder one of those bad boys into a circuit? The Arduino and its ilk are great but shields and stuff are basically pre-built and component level design is becoming a lost art. Well, I suppose you could say that the advent of ICs turned discrete transistor design into a dying art to an extent. Of course, things that can be done today are magical compared to 20 years ago. Ch-ch-ch-changes.
Does anyone know of an inexpensive and easy way to work with surface mount devices? Prototyping SMT boards are available from Schmartboard and others but they sure aren't inexpensive.
An ISP signs up customers assuming that they will not all be using their full bandwidth at the same time. So they sign up, say, 9 times more customers than they have actual bandwidth to support. Have they created bandwidth out of nowhere? If so, it doesn't seem to hurt the customers in most cases and even helps them by making their bills lower than they would have been otherwise.
Isn't this something like fractional reserve banking? Isn't the debt you're talking about something like the bandwidth from nowhere above? Maybe I'm wrong. I'm trying to get a better understanding of how banking works.
Fractional reserve banking isn't the only way to set up a banking system. For instance, there could be a 100% reserve banking system where a bank could only loan money equal to assets it holds like savings accounts and certificates of deposit. I'm not sure if that would be better.
But it is solar powered. The sun shines on plants. The human eats plants (or, more indirectly, animals) to generate heat to power the flashlight. Of course, there are a lot of losses along the way so there isn't much energy left to power the LED.
Congrats to her for coming up with an interesting, if impractical, science project. There's a link in the article to a video of her describing her project and it shows that she considered how much power is available from a Seebeck/Peltier device, how much is needed to power an LED, and what voltage is needed to overcome the forward LED drop.
As an emergency power source, it might be better to mount the one surface of a Peltier device on a metal bar and heat the other end of the bar in the flame of a gas stove or a barbeque grill which would still work during a power outage. An enhanced temperature difference across the Peltier device could be achieved with a heat sink on the surface opposite the one touching the hot metal bar. Power from the device could be used to charge a battery for the flashlight. Or, instead of a flashlight, an LED on a stick might serve as an electronic candle for use during an extended power outage or for camping. The battery of the electronic candle could be charged using a stove, grill, or campfire during the daytime and then provide some light at night.
The project was likely a good learning experience for her. In the comments below the video, someone mentions that both her parents are engineers. I don't know if that's true but, if so, who can claim that we don't all stand on the shoulders of giants? She just happened to be closer to some shoulders than many of us.
I always liked the old Turbo Pascal type interface with a menu along the top that you navigated left to right along with the arrow keys. When you got to the menu item you wanted, the down arrow key opened the menu for that item. That type of interface was popular just before Win 3.0 was released. It seemed to me that Windows interface of the time was about the same except you used the mouse instead of the arrow keys. The mouse seemed slower to me mainly because of the time needed to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse. I suppose that kind of interface still exists in the CMOS settings screen and, to this day, I prefer it to the mouse.
Why spend $3000 when a similar program that uses any webcam is available at the link below for free? http://eyemouse.org/ It's been around for a while. I remember trying it about 5 years ago. It might be useful in some areas.
So what's wrong with buttons that look like they would be easy to push? It probably has an easy-open battery cover in the back too. And it's so bad ass ugly that I'd be proud to carry it around with me.
Until about 10 years ago I remember hearing all broadcasts of Armstrong's quote with a definite crackling "a" before the word "man". Then the crackling "a" disappeared. It seems to me someone decided the audio sounded better without the crackling sound, edited it out, and threw away the original. Thus history was changed. It's disturbing.
Maybe. I haven't tried it myself. But if you read the comments below the article you'll see that people who have nothing to sell say pulse delulfators have worked for them on batteries that won't hold a charge. People on other sites say the same thing. The stuff about matching the natural frequency of the battery sure sounds like BS but maybe the need for high frequency has something to do with the size of the sulphate crystals. Or maybe just charging at high voltage over and over at the 555 timer rate breaks up the sulphate deposits. I agree that there's a lot of BS around and it annoys me too but this seems to be in a gray area.
Streetlight, you're correct in pointing out that battery failure can occur by lead shedding causing a short or open circuit. But that's only one failure mode. Sulfation occurs when a lead acid battery is discharged too deeply. That can occur by self discharge when a battery is left to stand for a long time (10 months or so) without recharging. Here's some info: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/sulfation_and_how_to_prevent_it The comments at the bottom of the link are interesting and include some real world results. Seems there is a bit of snake oil salesmanship in the battery additive/reconditioner industry but the pulse desulfators have been around for a while and do seem to work.
The FA talks about Li-ion batteries but I've read about people buying dead car batteries real cheap and bringing them back to life by desulfating them with a simple circuit based on a 555 timer. The idea is to pulse the battery at its resonant frequency of about 4 MHz with high voltage pulses to break up the lead sulfate crystals that often cause a battery to fail. Car batteries might be a cheaper alternative to Li-ion batteries for a home system. Here's a link to the circuit: http://www.reuk.co.uk/Battery-Desulfation.htm
You need to pump a lot of water to store the equivalent energy of a 50 Amp hr car battery. In fact, you'd need to pump all the water from a typical size swimming pool up 8 feet. And for a 10 KWhr system you'd need at least 16 batteries or 16 swimming pools. That suggests a new unit of energy - the swimming pool = at a height of 8 feet, the energy storage capacity of one car battery. Here are my calculations:
A typical car battery is rated at 50 Amp hr. To get energy, multiply by battery voltage of 12.5 V. Max energy stored in battery = 50 Amp hr * 12.5 V = 625 Watt hr. Battery could supply 625 Watts for one hour or 62.5 Watts for 10 hours.
2,250,000 Joules * 0.7376 ft lb / Joule = 1,659,600 ft lb
1,659,600 ft lb * 1 ton / 2000 lb = 830 ft tons Must lift 1 ton 830 feet or 10 tons 83 feet to store the same energy as a car battery.
1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 lb. 24,000 gal of water weighs 100 tons. An average swimming pool holds 20,000 gal of water or about 100 tons of water. Must pump all the water in a swimming pool up 8 ft to store the same energy as a car battery.
Buy a roll of #22 solid insulated wire. When you need to wrap cables together, cut off a piece and use it as a twist tie. The wire is more durable than the ties that come with bread bags, garbages bags, etc.
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Sorry to hear of your problem but congratulations on the convincing diagnosis using equipment you built yourself. Perhaps you could try some of the non-CPAP machine apnea reduction methods like the dental appliance (I don't think an inexpensive off-the-shelf model could do much damage short term) and, using the same diagnosis equipment, see if you wake up less frequently.
Those numbers are for the US.
35 million cattle are eaten per year. 9 billion chickens are eaten per year. I'd say chickens win the dominant domestic animal contest and they're tasty as well.
I'm sure there are serious cases of sleep apnea but it seems to be over-diagnosed lately. Mild cases used to be called snoring but now doctors and the highly profitable sleep clinics (some owned by doctors, others by hospitals) seem to be identifying snoring as moderate apnea and are recommending CPAP masks for it. Perhaps it would be better to try other apnea reduction methods first. I've read that back sleepers should try side sleeping for better nighttime breathing. And there are also pillows that lift the nape of the neck to keep the airway open at night. I'm wary of the dental appliances that do a similar thing since they might cause dental alignment problems when used long term. I suppose the insurance companies will sort it out eventually. It's amusing to watch the doctors vs. insurance companies battles unless you're someone who is affected. Regarding apnea, does anyone know where to get data on the percentage of people visiting sleep clinics who are diagnosed with it?
Note that there is a chart presented in the video accompanying the article that says people with moderate to severe apnea are as likely or more likely to die than those who smoke 20+ cigarettes a day but the units on the x-axis aren't labeled. 5 what? 10 what? Am I misreading something?
I live in NJ. Aside from that problem, I have a friend who was recently auto ticketed for running a red light. When he received the ticket in the mail he was notified of a website where he could see a video of the traffic violation. We looked at the video and it was clear that he went through the red light. That seems like a fairer way to issue automatic tickets. If it's clear in the video that you didn't do what you're accused of then it would be worth fighting the ticket. Of course, videos can be faked but perhaps someone can think of a way to make sure that doesn't happen. In my friends case, I doubt that the video was faked.
It seems to me that the popularity of music may have something to do with the the need to replace thinking during times of low sensory stimulation. I'm not a great thinker but I'd rather try than to have a constant stream of tunes running through my head. "Do-di-do-di-do-di-dooty-do". It's almost painful.
Oops ... meant to say field programmable gate array.
Here's a 100 mega samples per sec digital scope that can be built for $92.70. It's based on a floating point gate array.
http://www.fpga4fun.com/Hands-...
The parts for it can be purchased here.
http://www.knjn.com/
It goes far beyond caller ID. They know your GPS location and they know your phone.
I think cell phones are required to allow 911 calls even if the associated account doesn't have any call time left. At least a Tracfone that I had worked that way. I wonder how may millions of old discarded cell phones are around that might be used to make 911 calls tied to previous owners. That's not anonymous but it sure does point to the wrong owner.
I'm happiest when I can think clearly. I'm also a cigarette smoker. I've noticed that I tend to reach for cigarettes when I'm reading or thinking about something complicated. Is there a connection? Is this true for anyone else? Does anyone with a pharmacological background know if nicotine is nootropic?
I love hardware. Built a 6800 machine on solderless breadboards quite a few years back. Kind of a dumb thing to do durability wise, but it was quick and easy. That brings me to my point. Many new devices these days are only available as surface mount devices. Have you ever tried to solder one of those bad boys into a circuit? The Arduino and its ilk are great but shields and stuff are basically pre-built and component level design is becoming a lost art. Well, I suppose you could say that the advent of ICs turned discrete transistor design into a dying art to an extent. Of course, things that can be done today are magical compared to 20 years ago. Ch-ch-ch-changes.
Does anyone know of an inexpensive and easy way to work with surface mount devices? Prototyping SMT boards are available from Schmartboard and others but they sure aren't inexpensive.
What if you look at it like this:
An ISP signs up customers assuming that they will not all be using their full bandwidth at the same time. So they sign up, say, 9 times more customers than they have actual bandwidth to support. Have they created bandwidth out of nowhere? If so, it doesn't seem to hurt the customers in most cases and even helps them by making their bills lower than they would have been otherwise.
Isn't this something like fractional reserve banking? Isn't the debt you're talking about something like the bandwidth from nowhere above? Maybe I'm wrong. I'm trying to get a better understanding of how banking works.
Fractional reserve banking isn't the only way to set up a banking system. For instance, there could be a 100% reserve banking system where a bank could only loan money equal to assets it holds like savings accounts and certificates of deposit. I'm not sure if that would be better.
How about writing the information in pencil on high quality paper? I understand that the second page of the Nicolay copy of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address that was written in pencil in 1863 (reference: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9503/gettysburg.html) is very readable to this day (image: http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/gettysburgaddress/exhibitionitems/ExhibitObjects/NicolayCopy.aspx).
But it is solar powered. The sun shines on plants. The human eats plants (or, more indirectly, animals) to generate heat to power the flashlight. Of course, there are a lot of losses along the way so there isn't much energy left to power the LED.
Congrats to her for coming up with an interesting, if impractical, science project. There's a link in the article to a video of her describing her project and it shows that she considered how much power is available from a Seebeck/Peltier device, how much is needed to power an LED, and what voltage is needed to overcome the forward LED drop.
As an emergency power source, it might be better to mount the one surface of a Peltier device on a metal bar and heat the other end of the bar in the flame of a gas stove or a barbeque grill which would still work during a power outage. An enhanced temperature difference across the Peltier device could be achieved with a heat sink on the surface opposite the one touching the hot metal bar. Power from the device could be used to charge a battery for the flashlight. Or, instead of a flashlight, an LED on a stick might serve as an electronic candle for use during an extended power outage or for camping. The battery of the electronic candle could be charged using a stove, grill, or campfire during the daytime and then provide some light at night.
The project was likely a good learning experience for her. In the comments below the video, someone mentions that both her parents are engineers. I don't know if that's true but, if so, who can claim that we don't all stand on the shoulders of giants? She just happened to be closer to some shoulders than many of us.
I always liked the old Turbo Pascal type interface with a menu along the top that you navigated left to right along with the arrow keys. When you got to the menu item you wanted, the down arrow key opened the menu for that item. That type of interface was popular just before Win 3.0 was released. It seemed to me that Windows interface of the time was about the same except you used the mouse instead of the arrow keys. The mouse seemed slower to me mainly because of the time needed to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse. I suppose that kind of interface still exists in the CMOS settings screen and, to this day, I prefer it to the mouse.
You could try this:
http://boondeeworkshop.com/cellphone/index.html
Not exactly portable. It might make sense if you use your phone mostly in your car.
Why spend $3000 when a similar program that uses any webcam is available at the link below for free?
http://eyemouse.org/
It's been around for a while. I remember trying it about 5 years ago. It might be useful in some areas.
There are some really good examples of using an Arduino to interface to sensors and actuators in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Things-Talk-Practical-Connecting/dp/B008SLH2DQ
So what's wrong with buttons that look like they would be easy to push? It probably has an easy-open battery cover in the back too. And it's so bad ass ugly that I'd be proud to carry it around with me.
Until about 10 years ago I remember hearing all broadcasts of Armstrong's quote with a definite crackling "a" before the word "man". Then the crackling "a" disappeared. It seems to me someone decided the audio sounded better without the crackling sound, edited it out, and threw away the original. Thus history was changed. It's disturbing.
Maybe. I haven't tried it myself. But if you read the comments below the article you'll see that people who have nothing to sell say pulse delulfators have worked for them on batteries that won't hold a charge. People on other sites say the same thing. The stuff about matching the natural frequency of the battery sure sounds like BS but maybe the need for high frequency has something to do with the size of the sulphate crystals. Or maybe just charging at high voltage over and over at the 555 timer rate breaks up the sulphate deposits. I agree that there's a lot of BS around and it annoys me too but this seems to be in a gray area.
Streetlight, you're correct in pointing out that battery failure can occur by lead shedding causing a short or open circuit. But that's only one failure mode. Sulfation occurs when a lead acid battery is discharged too deeply. That can occur by self discharge when a battery is left to stand for a long time (10 months or so) without recharging. Here's some info:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/sulfation_and_how_to_prevent_it
The comments at the bottom of the link are interesting and include some real world results. Seems there is a bit of snake oil salesmanship in the battery additive/reconditioner industry but the pulse desulfators have been around for a while and do seem to work.
The FA talks about Li-ion batteries but I've read about people buying dead car batteries real cheap and bringing them back to life by desulfating them with a simple circuit based on a 555 timer. The idea is to pulse the battery at its resonant frequency of about 4 MHz with high voltage pulses to break up the lead sulfate crystals that often cause a battery to fail. Car batteries might be a cheaper alternative to Li-ion batteries for a home system. Here's a link to the circuit:
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Battery-Desulfation.htm
You need to pump a lot of water to store the equivalent energy of a 50 Amp hr car battery. In fact, you'd need to pump all the water from a typical size swimming pool up 8 feet. And for a 10 KWhr system you'd need at least 16 batteries or 16 swimming pools. That suggests a new unit of energy - the swimming pool = at a height of 8 feet, the energy storage capacity of one car battery. Here are my calculations:
A typical car battery is rated at 50 Amp hr.
To get energy, multiply by battery voltage of 12.5 V.
Max energy stored in battery = 50 Amp hr * 12.5 V = 625 Watt hr.
Battery could supply 625 Watts for one hour or 62.5 Watts for 10 hours.
1 Watt hr = 3600 Joules
1 Joule = 0.7376 ft lb
625 Watt hr * 3600 Joules / Watt hr = 2,250,000 Joules
2,250,000 Joules * 0.7376 ft lb / Joule = 1,659,600 ft lb
1,659,600 ft lb * 1 ton / 2000 lb = 830 ft tons
Must lift 1 ton 830 feet or 10 tons 83 feet to store the same energy as a car battery.
1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 lb.
24,000 gal of water weighs 100 tons.
An average swimming pool holds 20,000 gal of water or about 100 tons of water.
Must pump all the water in a swimming pool up 8 ft to store the same energy as a car battery.
Buy a roll of #22 solid insulated wire. When you need to wrap cables together, cut off a piece and use it as a twist tie. The wire is more durable than the ties that come with bread bags, garbages bags, etc.