This is very interesting point, and aftermarket parts are of great interest to any classic (or just old) enthusiast.
Two problems with aftermarket - size of the market and quality.
Size of the market is easy to explain, with ZERO interface standardization for any automotive part you have to consider how many potential customers are out there for an aftermarket part. Old civic tinted headlights? Tons to chose from. ECU for mid-90s luxury car - not so much.
Quality is also huge issue. Everything manufactured in China and is very, very cheaply made. Often times replacement parts fail quicker than used parts. Currently anyone doing work "for myself" uses used parts with some R&R.
Noticeable exception to above is when a specific part has a very high rate of failure for all cars on the road, and such failure does not kill the car outright. At this point someone in the US will setup small-scale manufacturing out of their own garage and make a living selling parts to fellow enthusiasts.
Both. I have a degree that allows me to understand wiring diagrams and repair electronics. I still would rather do frame restorations.
Why? Because when you are dealing with old electronics you frequently have to deal with difficult to diagnose intermittent problems. You are dealing with aging sensors, degraded wiring, lose connections, out-of-spec electronics and there isn't memory dump or line-by-line debug to help you figure out what went wrong. With some of the harder problems you have to manufacture tools or methods to simulate test conditions.
Even 2013-model brand spanking-new car, using dealer's bells-and-whistles diagnostic system will not tell you faults outside of individual modules or sensors. Why? Because standard is remove and replace. Plus it won't tell you why this or that module or sensor is failing. Did wiring harness rot? Do you have lose connector somewhere? Is diagnostic system itself is failing? If problem doesn't happen that often during warranty period, then solving/detecting this problem isn't part of design.
No, $1200 is about right. Your typical indie bill for minor-to-moderate fix would be $2000 and anything more involved (what could possibly go wrong with a V12, right?) is all but guaranteed write-off.
If you don't wrench, you can't keep it on the road.
I also have done both, and I will tell you that yes, restoring electronics is much harder. Most electrical problems are intermittent to start with, so diagnostic is absolute nightmare. Then you have electronics vs. wiring issue. Then you have to locate wiring diagrams, 90's cars you can still read them, anything newer and diagrams get too complex to trace/understand.
For 90s-era cars current default mode of operation is that you replace with used or stock liquidation new part. You do not generally rebuild, because how labor-intensive such process would be. In 10 years parts will dry off and cars will be force off road.
Maybe this will help you understand. Do you remember your first computer? Well, imagine you _STILL_ want to use it today, only it was sitting OUTSIDE in the COLD, HUMID, or HOT weather.
This is what electronics-everything in your car mean for its longevity. 20 years if garaged is doable, anything more and you are running in weird issues like capacitors going bad in all kinds of imaginative way, spikes forming shorts on solder connections, and resistor degradation.
Writing checks to the dealer is a lost cause. I recently had a cracked rear windshield. $800. Ouch, and I was lucky they could special order one. I wish I could manufacture my own glass...
Mid 90s and newer with few rare exceptions will be lost cause. Already some pristine mid-90s cars are having difficulties with dried/leaked out capacitors and ECUs going south. These are primitive systems compared to your typical car of today.
The only classic cars on the road in 2030 will be the ones that are classic and are on the road today.
>>> Making biodiesel on a small volume basis isn't hard.
News to me. You can retrofit diesel engine to run on vegetable oils, but we are talking entire farm's worth of output of vegetable oil to just power one tractor.
Basics of biodiesel is that it is net energy loss. You can obfuscate this part by tapping into energy grid and using regular oil products elsewhere, but in post-apocalyptic world you'd have to double your shoveling to just run that tractor to mechanize single-shoveling workload. Most people would reasonably go with regular amount of shoveling and forget the tractor.
The only exception I am aware is distilling high-proof alcohol from bio waste, but it takes specialized engine design to work well.
As a classic car enthusiast, the only interface you need is your wrench set.
With this said, modern cars are designed to be off-limits for DIYers. This specific issue is about preventing locking down cars to the level that even independent mechanics can't touch them. So question should read "Do you believe that all cars, 2012 and newer should be only maintained at the dealer shops, or should independent shops have a way to do more than just change oil?"
Yes, but in post-apocalyptic world they are more likely will be leading reaver raiding party, so AK-47 is all tools you would need for post-apocalyptic patent defense.
Probably nothing, unless you can also address its power source. Article mentions "power cube" based on internal combustion, but does not mention if it runs on gasoline or alcohol and what process is used for distillation and so on...
If you are serious about building post-apocalyptic tractor you probably want it to be carburated, ultra-low compression, 2 cylinder 5ish HP air cooled engine. Still, I am not an engine designer, but it is very clear that nether is individual from the featured article.
Unless you also develop a way to make this tractor's fuel source renewable - nobody, because it will be unpowered hunk of rusting metal and decaying plastic in a very short order.
If you are going with worst-case scenario, then you need to go back to animals as your baseline technology. Otherwise, some sort of specialization will be available. If you think you can find your post-apocalyptic niche in tractor building (with all existing tractors are still likely available for use from now deceased/displaced owners) and compete in this niche, well more power to you.
Absolutely, there are plenty of people who can benefit "from a robust, easy to build, easy to repair, fully documented bulldozer". These are not the same people who are potential survivors of post-apocalyptic Earth... or do you think Patent Trolls are THAT powerful and can survive THAT well to litigate few rugged survivors for violating this or that patent on rounded corners?
In order for survivors of a disaster to start rebuilding civilization there has to be survivors that are able to continue surviving. Buying food at WallMart is #1 indicator that you got whole survival thing WRONG.
Civilization starts with an ability to feed and shelter its members. Not with tractors, open source and agile development techniques.
If you are serious at building civilization survival kit, obsess less with open source (in the event of apocalypse there won't be anyone enforcing patents), but with a designing robust, reliable and highly redundant system to meet basic needs.
Not quite. There is no reason why propeller or jet could not be powered by an electric motor. The reason it isn't currently done is that jet fuel has much higher energy density (and as a result significantly less fuel weight required for a trip) than any battery technology. One of the reasons jet fuel is clear winner in weight/energy ratio is that major component of the chemical reaction is plentiful in the atmosphere and you don't need to carry a supply of it.
Assuming 100% conversion efficiency, zero solar panel weight and an access to ideal tropical daylight during the flight you'd have to have a collector size of a couple football fields to power typical airliner.
Why? It is simply not practical application of technology, you hair-brained hippie.
If we are a simulation, then we need to a) find a way to rewrite laws of our local environment in order to optimize ourselves b) escape simulation in order to exist as a AI entity(s) in the higher-order world.
If we succeed at a) and b) we can test higher-order world and see if itself is a simulation. Once we reach non-simulated world we will have to turn as much of it into computronium as possible so we can exist in simulation of our own creation. Only then we will master universe.
So for this object to remain dust free after falling of Curiosity, it must be internal component (we might have a problem with Curiosity), have some different properties than Curiosity material or dropped from the orbit (and in this case would leave a crate).
Any plausible explanation makes this very interesting find.
Good thing the Cold War is over, because about right now we would be considering nuking Soviets before they got to alien tech. Now we can actually cooperate and fly SpaceX to take a closer look. Probably within 2 years of R&D with unlimited budget.
>>> the publishers will simply stop licensing EEE books under cheap terms.
They could also translate books to local language and stop whole resale this way. The only reason this became an issue is because they released exact copy of the book that is significantly overpriced in US. Well, not some book, but textbooks where markup is ridiculously high due to collusion and kickback schemes between book publishers and US academia.
Downside of restrictive ruling is that other goods, for example cars, could be stopped. Gray market cars is a big thorn in auto manufacturer's side. This will be applied to stop this.
Electronics is another example. Thankfully regional locking schemes are all soundly defeated, but expect resurgence of these if ruling stands.
Question is - why do we want to potentially eff-up export/import economy to protect textbook publisher's profits?
Actually, chances are that not only civilizations started and finished at different times, but also that
Assuming current predictors of life-supporting planets are at least within ballpark, each space-faring civilization existed, prospered and dyed off before running into any other civilization.
What more reasonable assumption is that WE are product of such advanced civilization, that is some form of life-seeding DNA-based life that originated on some planet elsewhere produced advanced civilization and they realized that due to scale of our universe they will never get to explore most of it and just seeded universe with life.
"If a civilization wants to hide" is on itself a very interesting question.
Assuming that superluminal is ether impossible or impractical due to high energy costs, why would a civilization want to hide?
Well, hiding could be byproduct of efficiency, after all, radiating energy into space in any way is not a good way to reach high efficiency.
They can also be concerned about hostile action from other civilizations, but then they need to have some evidence that other civilizations exist. This in turn tells me that not every civilization would hide, and this in turn would falsify this argument in light of "can we find someone".
Slashdot Mirror
Get back to me when you need to reset a fault in a state that won't pass your emissions until you do so.
This is very interesting point, and aftermarket parts are of great interest to any classic (or just old) enthusiast.
Two problems with aftermarket - size of the market and quality.
Size of the market is easy to explain, with ZERO interface standardization for any automotive part you have to consider how many potential customers are out there for an aftermarket part. Old civic tinted headlights? Tons to chose from. ECU for mid-90s luxury car - not so much.
Quality is also huge issue. Everything manufactured in China and is very, very cheaply made. Often times replacement parts fail quicker than used parts. Currently anyone doing work "for myself" uses used parts with some R&R.
Noticeable exception to above is when a specific part has a very high rate of failure for all cars on the road, and such failure does not kill the car outright. At this point someone in the US will setup small-scale manufacturing out of their own garage and make a living selling parts to fellow enthusiasts.
Not 2002, but 1987-1992 for sure and 1992-1995 probably doable for $1200.
Both. I have a degree that allows me to understand wiring diagrams and repair electronics. I still would rather do frame restorations.
Why? Because when you are dealing with old electronics you frequently have to deal with difficult to diagnose intermittent problems. You are dealing with aging sensors, degraded wiring, lose connections, out-of-spec electronics and there isn't memory dump or line-by-line debug to help you figure out what went wrong. With some of the harder problems you have to manufacture tools or methods to simulate test conditions.
Even 2013-model brand spanking-new car, using dealer's bells-and-whistles diagnostic system will not tell you faults outside of individual modules or sensors. Why? Because standard is remove and replace. Plus it won't tell you why this or that module or sensor is failing. Did wiring harness rot? Do you have lose connector somewhere? Is diagnostic system itself is failing? If problem doesn't happen that often during warranty period, then solving/detecting this problem isn't part of design.
No, $1200 is about right. Your typical indie bill for minor-to-moderate fix would be $2000 and anything more involved (what could possibly go wrong with a V12, right?) is all but guaranteed write-off.
If you don't wrench, you can't keep it on the road.
I also have done both, and I will tell you that yes, restoring electronics is much harder. Most electrical problems are intermittent to start with, so diagnostic is absolute nightmare. Then you have electronics vs. wiring issue. Then you have to locate wiring diagrams, 90's cars you can still read them, anything newer and diagrams get too complex to trace/understand.
For 90s-era cars current default mode of operation is that you replace with used or stock liquidation new part. You do not generally rebuild, because how labor-intensive such process would be. In 10 years parts will dry off and cars will be force off road.
Maybe this will help you understand. Do you remember your first computer? Well, imagine you _STILL_ want to use it today, only it was sitting OUTSIDE in the COLD, HUMID, or HOT weather.
This is what electronics-everything in your car mean for its longevity. 20 years if garaged is doable, anything more and you are running in weird issues like capacitors going bad in all kinds of imaginative way, spikes forming shorts on solder connections, and resistor degradation.
It is not IF, it is question of WHEN.
Writing checks to the dealer is a lost cause. I recently had a cracked rear windshield. $800. Ouch, and I was lucky they could special order one. I wish I could manufacture my own glass...
Mid 90s and newer with few rare exceptions will be lost cause. Already some pristine mid-90s cars are having difficulties with dried/leaked out capacitors and ECUs going south. These are primitive systems compared to your typical car of today.
The only classic cars on the road in 2030 will be the ones that are classic and are on the road today.
>>> Making biodiesel on a small volume basis isn't hard.
News to me. You can retrofit diesel engine to run on vegetable oils, but we are talking entire farm's worth of output of vegetable oil to just power one tractor.
Basics of biodiesel is that it is net energy loss. You can obfuscate this part by tapping into energy grid and using regular oil products elsewhere, but in post-apocalyptic world you'd have to double your shoveling to just run that tractor to mechanize single-shoveling workload. Most people would reasonably go with regular amount of shoveling and forget the tractor.
The only exception I am aware is distilling high-proof alcohol from bio waste, but it takes specialized engine design to work well.
As a classic car enthusiast, the only interface you need is your wrench set.
With this said, modern cars are designed to be off-limits for DIYers. This specific issue is about preventing locking down cars to the level that even independent mechanics can't touch them. So question should read "Do you believe that all cars, 2012 and newer should be only maintained at the dealer shops, or should independent shops have a way to do more than just change oil?"
Yes, but in post-apocalyptic world they are more likely will be leading reaver raiding party, so AK-47 is all tools you would need for post-apocalyptic patent defense.
Probably nothing, unless you can also address its power source. Article mentions "power cube" based on internal combustion, but does not mention if it runs on gasoline or alcohol and what process is used for distillation and so on...
If you are serious about building post-apocalyptic tractor you probably want it to be carburated, ultra-low compression, 2 cylinder 5ish HP air cooled engine. Still, I am not an engine designer, but it is very clear that nether is individual from the featured article.
Unless you also develop a way to make this tractor's fuel source renewable - nobody, because it will be unpowered hunk of rusting metal and decaying plastic in a very short order.
If you are going with worst-case scenario, then you need to go back to animals as your baseline technology. Otherwise, some sort of specialization will be available. If you think you can find your post-apocalyptic niche in tractor building (with all existing tractors are still likely available for use from now deceased/displaced owners) and compete in this niche, well more power to you.
Absolutely, there are plenty of people who can benefit "from a robust, easy to build, easy to repair, fully documented bulldozer". These are not the same people who are potential survivors of post-apocalyptic Earth... or do you think Patent Trolls are THAT powerful and can survive THAT well to litigate few rugged survivors for violating this or that patent on rounded corners?
In order for survivors of a disaster to start rebuilding civilization there has to be survivors that are able to continue surviving. Buying food at WallMart is #1 indicator that you got whole survival thing WRONG.
Civilization starts with an ability to feed and shelter its members. Not with tractors, open source and agile development techniques.
If you are serious at building civilization survival kit, obsess less with open source (in the event of apocalypse there won't be anyone enforcing patents), but with a designing robust, reliable and highly redundant system to meet basic needs.
Not quite. There is no reason why propeller or jet could not be powered by an electric motor. The reason it isn't currently done is that jet fuel has much higher energy density (and as a result significantly less fuel weight required for a trip) than any battery technology. One of the reasons jet fuel is clear winner in weight/energy ratio is that major component of the chemical reaction is plentiful in the atmosphere and you don't need to carry a supply of it.
Assuming 100% conversion efficiency, zero solar panel weight and an access to ideal tropical daylight during the flight you'd have to have a collector size of a couple football fields to power typical airliner.
Why? It is simply not practical application of technology, you hair-brained hippie.
If we are a simulation, then we need to a) find a way to rewrite laws of our local environment in order to optimize ourselves b) escape simulation in order to exist as a AI entity(s) in the higher-order world. If we succeed at a) and b) we can test higher-order world and see if itself is a simulation. Once we reach non-simulated world we will have to turn as much of it into computronium as possible so we can exist in simulation of our own creation. Only then we will master universe.
So for this object to remain dust free after falling of Curiosity, it must be internal component (we might have a problem with Curiosity), have some different properties than Curiosity material or dropped from the orbit (and in this case would leave a crate).
Any plausible explanation makes this very interesting find.
Good thing the Cold War is over, because about right now we would be considering nuking Soviets before they got to alien tech. Now we can actually cooperate and fly SpaceX to take a closer look. Probably within 2 years of R&D with unlimited budget.
>>> the publishers will simply stop licensing EEE books under cheap terms.
They could also translate books to local language and stop whole resale this way. The only reason this became an issue is because they released exact copy of the book that is significantly overpriced in US. Well, not some book, but textbooks where markup is ridiculously high due to collusion and kickback schemes between book publishers and US academia.
Downside of restrictive ruling is that other goods, for example cars, could be stopped. Gray market cars is a big thorn in auto manufacturer's side. This will be applied to stop this.
Electronics is another example. Thankfully regional locking schemes are all soundly defeated, but expect resurgence of these if ruling stands.
Question is - why do we want to potentially eff-up export/import economy to protect textbook publisher's profits?
Actually, chances are that not only civilizations started and finished at different times, but also that
Assuming current predictors of life-supporting planets are at least within ballpark, each space-faring civilization existed, prospered and dyed off before running into any other civilization.
What more reasonable assumption is that WE are product of such advanced civilization, that is some form of life-seeding DNA-based life that originated on some planet elsewhere produced advanced civilization and they realized that due to scale of our universe they will never get to explore most of it and just seeded universe with life.
"If a civilization wants to hide" is on itself a very interesting question.
Assuming that superluminal is ether impossible or impractical due to high energy costs, why would a civilization want to hide?
Well, hiding could be byproduct of efficiency, after all, radiating energy into space in any way is not a good way to reach high efficiency.
They can also be concerned about hostile action from other civilizations, but then they need to have some evidence that other civilizations exist. This in turn tells me that not every civilization would hide, and this in turn would falsify this argument in light of "can we find someone".