But in Europe, all cars have to have (by law) brakes that have enough stopping power to overcome the engine. The result is that hitting the brakes will slow you down despite full throttle. This will eventually lead to a stall of the engine and a complete stop. You will damage your car, but at the point you're using this lives are at stake. Does this not apply in the US?
Then again, I've only ever really driven manuals, where in such a situation (not that it ever happened to me) I can just lift the clutch and coast to the side. Can you not shift an automatic transmission from "D" to "N" when accelerating? I've never tried tbh, but I can't think of why that wouldn't work...
Also, what is wrong with turning off the engine? Turn the key so the ignition is off, and then turn it part way. This is usually enough to stop the steering lock engaging, while still not starting the engine again.
I've never heard of this being a problem in Europe, honestly. We have automatics here too, but I've yet to hear of any runaway cars. Is this a US specific problem? If so what would cause it to be so? (or have I just missed out on these events in Europe)
Are you sure about that? My car is 30+ years old, and while the insurance is really cheap on it as it qualifies as a classic car, I still need to pay road tax on it AFAIK.
Or do I have to fill in a particular form in order to register my car as "classic" for road tax purposes?
No, they learnt from the old DMA Hacks on Firewire. Now Intel CPU's have an IOMMU to prevent those DMA attacks from succeeding. Whether a way to break that will be found in future remains to be seen.
If they do find a way to break it, then we are back to where we were before. Physical access always wins with hacking. DMA Attacks can be done via Firewire, thunderbolt, PCI, PCI express, PCMCIA, ExpressCard, etc... Basically anything that is connected to the bus. Yet we will still use it due to its performance/efficiency advantages, and the world will not end.
I was using it as an example of "unknown" that some people go nuts about. The worst I got from wifi was headaches when near a transmitter (back when they first came out, it became an excellent way of telling if there was a wifi network nearby I could use without having to take out and boot up my laptop), or a very long migrane after I stuck my head in-between a very powerful point to point microwave link (it was not supposed to be running at the time).
I think the "OMG wifi is giving me cancer crowd" are in major panic mode. The reality is we don't know the side effect of slowly heating our heads with microwave radiation will do. Wifi is at such low levels I don't think it really affects us adversely in any way. At high levels microwave radiation is dangerous, stick your head in a microwave and turn it on. You'll be lucky to be alive or not a vegetable by the end of it (although you'll most likely go permanently blind in either case).
Cancer on the other hand? Don't think wifi can cause it that way, but as long as there is doubt, people will panic about it. If you want a better explanation of what I meant, see my post in response to Firethorn above.
I think you missed my point, not that there wasn't more danger back then. Just that back then we didn't know how dangerous everything was. People back then probably thought they were really safe and advanced, compared to a few generations before them (nerds with a well rounded understanding of technology excepted).
As for asbestos, I was referring to its use for fire protection in houses/buildings, which was going on before the war AFAIK, at least in Europe.
Take lead piping as another example, I think that was used in some countries until the 50's, when the affects of lead on the brain were found out. Up until then people didn't know about the damage to their health, but the benefit from improved piping and water delivery was enough to offset the risk of the unknown. Once we found out how bad it was, we replaced it with copper (unless you're in a government building, some of them around my area still have lead piping, they just stuck signs about saying "Lead piping, do not drink water"). We didn't however wait around to see if it was bad for us. We built and used it, and improved upon it as we discovered more about the world around us and how it affects us.
And I was not proposing you "only" use old technology. Just to avoid using new technology where we don't know the effects of it on us. We know X rays are bad, so we will seek to reduce that as much as possible, so we would still use digital CCDs rather than film.
On the other hand (to use another common example). Do mobile phones cause cancer? Quite frankly they have not been around long enough for us to be sure, so if you want to be sure, don't use a mobile phone (use "old technology" corded phones). The rest of us (myself included) decided the benefits provided by this new technology outweigh the potential risks, so are happy to take the risk for the benefits it brings.
If 60 years from now we're all dying from brain/ear tumors on one side of the head, then future scientists can research further and try to deduce what may be causing it, and we might find out that sticking a 5W microwave transmitter next to our heads for most of our lives was a bad idea.
At the moment though, the evidence isn't there, we can't think of a way it would cause us damage, and the benefits are so great, that most of us just went f*ck it, and use it anyway (admittedly some out of ignorance, which is why when they are suitably enlightened, they go nuts about it causing all sorts of ailments - an informed fool is a dangerous weapon).
Yes and no, the US had the benefit of a clean slate. Once the local indigenous population problem was "solved", they had pretty much a blank slate. The settlers had no historic claim to any land.
Contrast to Europe, where in certain areas there are land claims stretching back millenia, as well as grudges based on past events and wars/atrocities, where feuds exist almost at state level. How on earth is that supposed to be united as one, if the centuries have not blunted the problem?
The best that has been done is the freezing of these conflicts, only for them to be thawed out from time to time due to larger geopolitical shifts. The freezing of these conflicts requires constant pumping of resources (both monetary and manpower) in keeping the status quo, which is turning out to be rather difficult to maintain in the long run.
Also, from what I understand the US has the policy of assimilation, you come to the US and become a citizen, you leave all your old feuds, nationality, etc... at the door. Bringing your culture is ok (and the bits people like will get merged into the melting pot) but fundamentally you become an American, and are tolerant of everyone else who has decided to become American, and are expected to put America first. Europe does not have this.
So far Europe has been united in Economic prosperity. People are surprisingly willing to suspend all sorts of national sillyness in order to chase the almighty Euro, but that only works as long as there is growth and Euros to spread around. Once the money well starts running dry people who are getting squeezed start pointing fingers.
Not that I think there will be a massive war between European nations, I don't think there is the stomach for it, we've done it twice, and that seems to have satiated us enough for now:)
I suspect that as the world becomes smaller the concept of the nation state will decrease in importance, being replaced by a more fluid and cross-border mash of people, as communication gets so ubiquitous that it would be easy to raise like minded people across nations in order to fulfill a goal. I guess we'll see with time.
Yeah, but when you lose sooo many records, nobody can use them as authoritative identity anymore, and as such they become rather useless for ID Fraud. Ironically the UK loses so many records that the records themselves are probably of very little use to ID thieves on their own. Everybody knows not to trust them due to all the leaks:)
IMO That's because it takes a few decades for the "new adopters" of a technology to get old enough to provide enough data for how damaging these things are to us. We've already studied and solved things that harm us in the short term, but things like whether something causes a higher incidence of cancer requires you to
a) Get cancer
b) Lots of other people from your generation to get cancer (both those who used the technology heavily or none/a little)
Then you can look at cancer types, where they start, how aggressive they are, etc... and compare between the groups, from where a link can be hypothesized.
Basically we're being guinea pigs, just like the older generations were guinea pigs for asbestos use, and all sorts of other things that we know now are bad (hell, there was a time when people thought being exposed to radiation was a good thing, people would deliberately go out and get irradiated for good health).
The only way to avoid this is to basically only use old technology. The stuff tested out by the previous generation we got an idea about already (but more research is needed), so best go back a few generations.
Most people on this planet however, do not want to go back to a life 100 years ago, so in exchange for all the fancy new tech and goodies (like Wifi for example), we expose ourselves to the unknown, including potentially health damaging stuff.
Just mentioning my personal experiences that is all, from many road trips across the European continent and from talking to many many locals.
The opinions of the original poster is not uncommon, I have come across many EUphiles who seem hell bent on forming a EU superstate, and in doing so are papering over the cracks and just brushing past history under the carpet in the attempt to form a concept of a "European nationality".
The same people describe those that disagree with them as non-European, which is silly. So they were born in Europe, their country is in Europe, but they are not "European" because they are not pro-EU? Come on! Talk about rubbish...
Most people in Europe are actually quite normal, and are not particularly pro EU. Many don't like it, but do admit to the benefits it brings. Personally, I like the free travel, free movement and easy ability to work in other EU countries without much hassle, but I don't see why that needs the whole political/bureaucratic machine on top of it, most of which is grossly wasteful of money, or the Euro which never made much sense from the Monetary/Economic perspective.
Or the whole "European" identity stuff for that matter, what is wrong with your national identity? Rather than forge a new super-identity to encompass the whole of Europe, just spend all those resources on teaching tolerance of others. Both helps keep peace in Europe, and has the advantage that it extends to the rest of the world as well.
It is only a select minority that is pushing for all the other stuff, and they are particularly vocal (and well funded). The masses don't really seem to care one way or another, as long as the economy is good, their quality of life is getting better and they can take care of their concerns.
You make a distinction between "forgetting" and "ignoring", which I'd argue is superfluous. How else to you "forget" history if not by ignoring it? Hitler will not be forgotten because of all the memorials, remembrance days and active effort put into not ignoring it. From days to mark when it started, to days marking certain events, to days marking the end of it all.
And you're exhibiting the same problem... "The anti-european hysteria is from the right wing and the scared," pretty much proves my point. That sentence does not really allow for any intelligent discourse on the future of Europe and the EU, it is also a common mantra trotted out (in variations, but the same concept) whenever someone dares question the wisdom of what is being done in Europe, despite the fact it affects the entire continent.
This. One thing that amazes me is how quickly certain "Europeans" forget their own history, and their own dirty dealings. There is a reason for the saying "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it".
Even more so how they like to label those who are not pro-EU as "anti-european" or "un-european", even if they live in Europe (the continent), which pretty much shuts down any intelligent discourse on the path and future of Europe (the "My way or the highway" approach). Their blind faith in the whole thing is scary. Even those of us who don't like the EU are still European you know;)
I believe slashdot.org was around back when this was pretty much a bunch of nerds in their basement. I.E before the corporate acquisition:)
And to be slightly on topic, I still have a windows 2k disk set, I have both pro and advanced server, windows 98, and windows 95 (including 95b) as well as XP and a Vista beta disk. I don't know why I still keep them (nostalgia??) and I have them installed in VM's, which I've not turned on for years, but I guess it is good to keep them there just in case I need them in future.
Aaaaah, I see, that makes more sense, thanks for the explanation!:-)
And yeah I am very impressed with Paparazzi, I am actually surprised it doesn't get as much mention as other (arduino-based) drone systems. I was looking at developing a simple loitering drone with cameras, at the request of some companies and individuals who are interested in securing their compounds a bit better (getting a "birds-eye" view), and Paparazzi seems to be a good match for it. Now I just have to get off my arse and develop the hardware/flying machine, which is the hard part tbh.
Turns out getting a drone flying is easy, getting it to take stable pictures on the other hand, is a hell of a lot harder:-) I guess in this case the bigger the drone the less it will be affected by wind changes and turbulence
Congratulations! Google offered me a job as well, but I turned it down for the time being, as I enjoy my current job and co-workers (plus it would have entailed a pay cut), but nice!
I still wonder if I've made the right choice, what is it like working for Google? So far?
Well, I guess I've found out which of the other 2 you decided upon:D (I worked out you make lots of money, as flying aircraft and accruing speeding tickets are sports for the well off:P ). Considering starting to fly myself, but am not sure when I will get round to that.
Flightgear has been used for ages for testing drone software.For example, the Paparazzi drone project has interfaces for flightgear to allow you to simulate a drone flying.
I used just such a setup for testing out the software and seeing how it works before I actually get round to building a drone. I know some people use it for development as well, so unless I'm missing something, this isn't really new?
Yeah, but to continue your analogy, if we develop said robot so well, and to a point where it becomes so cheap to have one, people would push towards investing in getting the other side (fusion engine) working in the knowledge that its the missing link.
In fact knowing the potential of the robot if you could only get the engine working could well motivate more people into investigating solutions, be it for profit, changing the world, fame, or whatever other reason people have.
Yeah, but gasoline is one of the highest methods of storing energy we have (as in, both from a scientific and economical perspective). To have something that is similar to gasoline in energy density, can use existing infrastructure (which has had what, 100 odd years of investment and process refining?), fast transfer of said energy, and is compatible with all existing gasoline engines, I think it quite outstanding.
There may be better methods of energy storage, but a pragmatic balance needs to be found, I believe Butanol has potential.
And yet, despite it being of no surprise to anyone of normal education level, it has proved to be very hard to do it in a cost effective way, specifically in a way that does not need light/growing on land (like other algae-based methods of butanol production).
The idea that you could for example, bury the entire butanol production facility underground, and pipe CO2/electricity to it and get fuel, and leave the land above for conventional farming/life/etc... would be quite a cool feature.
Butanol is an excellent replacement for petrol, because it can be used in cars with minimal/no modification to the engine (unlike running on ethanol) making it more akin to the petrol equivalent of biodiesel.
It is also one of the highest density methods of storing energy, and can make use of existing infrastructure (which also doesn't need modification to store, like with ethanol)
However I clicked a few links down and could not find the paper itself, anyone got a link? The ability to generate butanol without sunlight (and by removing CO2 from the atmosphere) sounds too good to be true quite frankly, as this could potentially solve a lot of problems (without needing to take up huge amounts of land, compete with food production, etc...).
TFA mentions using solar panels, but the thing is that it uses electricity, you could just as easily generate it from Nuclear, Hydro or any other power source. The potential in future of people being able to generate their own fuel if they so desire could really be a game changer IMO.
Marco, thanks for the info! I am still waiting for my Pi, but will see what I do with it when I get it. Still, nice design!
Also, I'd recommend you get an account in future when you post, because AC accounts are always at low level (and therefore invisible to most people). We're not that bad here:) If I had mod points I'd mod you up, but I'm out at the moment.
I don't remember when they added support but it must be about a year by now. I pretty much only use magnet links with rtorrent. I don't know exactly which version it is (it came with Debian) but I can find out if you like?
You mean like Stirling engines? They convert heat into mechanical energy, no? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine
The cool thing about this is that it works at low gradients and is solid state, but having heat engines is not exactly something new. Or have I totally missed what you were on about?...
Like say, asteroid sized hunks of buckyballs. That would be pretty cool, as currently we have to manually produce all of them ourselves. From what I've heard they have some pretty useful properties that we've only just started to make use of...
Basically, in Europe all the lemons got bought out by the good makers, or made agreements with them. As a result said lemons use the same chassis, parts, etc... as the good cars, which has stopped them being lemons, and increased reliability overall (hence the stats).
It is one thing to share some parts to reduce costs (especially as from what I know of the US, you only really have two auto makers, with many brands), and quite another when everything is identical under the hood. Just some panels and the badge being different.
I don't know how it is like in the US, but in Europe almost all the car manufacturers have consolidated. Cars are a commodity now. The cars from many different brands (e.g. VW, Audi, Skoda) all have the same chassis and parts. They all have the same body shape (more or less). Usually the only difference is in the body panels, the interior trim and the badge at the front.
As such you can pretty much buy any of the above cars, and you'll find that they all have similar reliability. For many people cars are just a method of getting from A-B, so overall the above is good news for them. They can pick based on things like warranty, extras included, financing options, etc.... while the cars are more or less the same.
For example, once upon a time in the west, Skoda's were considered lemons, now they are basically rebadged VW's with reliability to match. Now they are known as VW reliable cars, without the price tag and some extras that the VW's may have.
Not my thing personally, I prefer my cars unique, so I buy old cars built before the consolidation, but for the majority of people, it is a benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
But in Europe, all cars have to have (by law) brakes that have enough stopping power to overcome the engine. The result is that hitting the brakes will slow you down despite full throttle. This will eventually lead to a stall of the engine and a complete stop. You will damage your car, but at the point you're using this lives are at stake. Does this not apply in the US?
Then again, I've only ever really driven manuals, where in such a situation (not that it ever happened to me) I can just lift the clutch and coast to the side. Can you not shift an automatic transmission from "D" to "N" when accelerating? I've never tried tbh, but I can't think of why that wouldn't work...
Also, what is wrong with turning off the engine? Turn the key so the ignition is off, and then turn it part way. This is usually enough to stop the steering lock engaging, while still not starting the engine again.
I've never heard of this being a problem in Europe, honestly. We have automatics here too, but I've yet to hear of any runaway cars. Is this a US specific problem? If so what would cause it to be so? (or have I just missed out on these events in Europe)
Also, the BBC provide a nice article on what to do if you are in a runaway car: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8498257.stm
Are you sure about that? My car is 30+ years old, and while the insurance is really cheap on it as it qualifies as a classic car, I still need to pay road tax on it AFAIK.
Or do I have to fill in a particular form in order to register my car as "classic" for road tax purposes?
No, they learnt from the old DMA Hacks on Firewire. Now Intel CPU's have an IOMMU to prevent those DMA attacks from succeeding. Whether a way to break that will be found in future remains to be seen.
If they do find a way to break it, then we are back to where we were before. Physical access always wins with hacking. DMA Attacks can be done via Firewire, thunderbolt, PCI, PCI express, PCMCIA, ExpressCard, etc... Basically anything that is connected to the bus. Yet we will still use it due to its performance/efficiency advantages, and the world will not end.
I was using it as an example of "unknown" that some people go nuts about. The worst I got from wifi was headaches when near a transmitter (back when they first came out, it became an excellent way of telling if there was a wifi network nearby I could use without having to take out and boot up my laptop), or a very long migrane after I stuck my head in-between a very powerful point to point microwave link (it was not supposed to be running at the time).
I think the "OMG wifi is giving me cancer crowd" are in major panic mode. The reality is we don't know the side effect of slowly heating our heads with microwave radiation will do. Wifi is at such low levels I don't think it really affects us adversely in any way. At high levels microwave radiation is dangerous, stick your head in a microwave and turn it on. You'll be lucky to be alive or not a vegetable by the end of it (although you'll most likely go permanently blind in either case).
Cancer on the other hand? Don't think wifi can cause it that way, but as long as there is doubt, people will panic about it. If you want a better explanation of what I meant, see my post in response to Firethorn above.
I think you missed my point, not that there wasn't more danger back then. Just that back then we didn't know how dangerous everything was. People back then probably thought they were really safe and advanced, compared to a few generations before them (nerds with a well rounded understanding of technology excepted).
As for asbestos, I was referring to its use for fire protection in houses/buildings, which was going on before the war AFAIK, at least in Europe.
Take lead piping as another example, I think that was used in some countries until the 50's, when the affects of lead on the brain were found out. Up until then people didn't know about the damage to their health, but the benefit from improved piping and water delivery was enough to offset the risk of the unknown. Once we found out how bad it was, we replaced it with copper (unless you're in a government building, some of them around my area still have lead piping, they just stuck signs about saying "Lead piping, do not drink water"). We didn't however wait around to see if it was bad for us. We built and used it, and improved upon it as we discovered more about the world around us and how it affects us.
And I was not proposing you "only" use old technology. Just to avoid using new technology where we don't know the effects of it on us. We know X rays are bad, so we will seek to reduce that as much as possible, so we would still use digital CCDs rather than film.
On the other hand (to use another common example). Do mobile phones cause cancer? Quite frankly they have not been around long enough for us to be sure, so if you want to be sure, don't use a mobile phone (use "old technology" corded phones). The rest of us (myself included) decided the benefits provided by this new technology outweigh the potential risks, so are happy to take the risk for the benefits it brings.
If 60 years from now we're all dying from brain/ear tumors on one side of the head, then future scientists can research further and try to deduce what may be causing it, and we might find out that sticking a 5W microwave transmitter next to our heads for most of our lives was a bad idea.
At the moment though, the evidence isn't there, we can't think of a way it would cause us damage, and the benefits are so great, that most of us just went f*ck it, and use it anyway (admittedly some out of ignorance, which is why when they are suitably enlightened, they go nuts about it causing all sorts of ailments - an informed fool is a dangerous weapon).
Yes and no, the US had the benefit of a clean slate. Once the local indigenous population problem was "solved", they had pretty much a blank slate. The settlers had no historic claim to any land.
Contrast to Europe, where in certain areas there are land claims stretching back millenia, as well as grudges based on past events and wars/atrocities, where feuds exist almost at state level. How on earth is that supposed to be united as one, if the centuries have not blunted the problem?
The best that has been done is the freezing of these conflicts, only for them to be thawed out from time to time due to larger geopolitical shifts. The freezing of these conflicts requires constant pumping of resources (both monetary and manpower) in keeping the status quo, which is turning out to be rather difficult to maintain in the long run.
Also, from what I understand the US has the policy of assimilation, you come to the US and become a citizen, you leave all your old feuds, nationality, etc... at the door. Bringing your culture is ok (and the bits people like will get merged into the melting pot) but fundamentally you become an American, and are tolerant of everyone else who has decided to become American, and are expected to put America first. Europe does not have this.
So far Europe has been united in Economic prosperity. People are surprisingly willing to suspend all sorts of national sillyness in order to chase the almighty Euro, but that only works as long as there is growth and Euros to spread around. Once the money well starts running dry people who are getting squeezed start pointing fingers.
Not that I think there will be a massive war between European nations, I don't think there is the stomach for it, we've done it twice, and that seems to have satiated us enough for now :)
I suspect that as the world becomes smaller the concept of the nation state will decrease in importance, being replaced by a more fluid and cross-border mash of people, as communication gets so ubiquitous that it would be easy to raise like minded people across nations in order to fulfill a goal. I guess we'll see with time.
Yeah, but when you lose sooo many records, nobody can use them as authoritative identity anymore, and as such they become rather useless for ID Fraud. Ironically the UK loses so many records that the records themselves are probably of very little use to ID thieves on their own. Everybody knows not to trust them due to all the leaks :)
IMO That's because it takes a few decades for the "new adopters" of a technology to get old enough to provide enough data for how damaging these things are to us. We've already studied and solved things that harm us in the short term, but things like whether something causes a higher incidence of cancer requires you to
a) Get cancer
b) Lots of other people from your generation to get cancer (both those who used the technology heavily or none/a little)
Then you can look at cancer types, where they start, how aggressive they are, etc... and compare between the groups, from where a link can be hypothesized.
Basically we're being guinea pigs, just like the older generations were guinea pigs for asbestos use, and all sorts of other things that we know now are bad (hell, there was a time when people thought being exposed to radiation was a good thing, people would deliberately go out and get irradiated for good health).
The only way to avoid this is to basically only use old technology. The stuff tested out by the previous generation we got an idea about already (but more research is needed), so best go back a few generations.
Most people on this planet however, do not want to go back to a life 100 years ago, so in exchange for all the fancy new tech and goodies (like Wifi for example), we expose ourselves to the unknown, including potentially health damaging stuff.
Just mentioning my personal experiences that is all, from many road trips across the European continent and from talking to many many locals.
The opinions of the original poster is not uncommon, I have come across many EUphiles who seem hell bent on forming a EU superstate, and in doing so are papering over the cracks and just brushing past history under the carpet in the attempt to form a concept of a "European nationality".
The same people describe those that disagree with them as non-European, which is silly. So they were born in Europe, their country is in Europe, but they are not "European" because they are not pro-EU? Come on! Talk about rubbish...
Most people in Europe are actually quite normal, and are not particularly pro EU. Many don't like it, but do admit to the benefits it brings. Personally, I like the free travel, free movement and easy ability to work in other EU countries without much hassle, but I don't see why that needs the whole political/bureaucratic machine on top of it, most of which is grossly wasteful of money, or the Euro which never made much sense from the Monetary/Economic perspective.
Or the whole "European" identity stuff for that matter, what is wrong with your national identity? Rather than forge a new super-identity to encompass the whole of Europe, just spend all those resources on teaching tolerance of others. Both helps keep peace in Europe, and has the advantage that it extends to the rest of the world as well.
It is only a select minority that is pushing for all the other stuff, and they are particularly vocal (and well funded). The masses don't really seem to care one way or another, as long as the economy is good, their quality of life is getting better and they can take care of their concerns.
You make a distinction between "forgetting" and "ignoring", which I'd argue is superfluous. How else to you "forget" history if not by ignoring it? Hitler will not be forgotten because of all the memorials, remembrance days and active effort put into not ignoring it. From days to mark when it started, to days marking certain events, to days marking the end of it all.
And you're exhibiting the same problem... "The anti-european hysteria is from the right wing and the scared," pretty much proves my point. That sentence does not really allow for any intelligent discourse on the future of Europe and the EU, it is also a common mantra trotted out (in variations, but the same concept) whenever someone dares question the wisdom of what is being done in Europe, despite the fact it affects the entire continent.
The mark she slept with? And in what form was the payment she received for services? :o)
This. One thing that amazes me is how quickly certain "Europeans" forget their own history, and their own dirty dealings. There is a reason for the saying "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it".
Even more so how they like to label those who are not pro-EU as "anti-european" or "un-european", even if they live in Europe (the continent), which pretty much shuts down any intelligent discourse on the path and future of Europe (the "My way or the highway" approach). Their blind faith in the whole thing is scary. Even those of us who don't like the EU are still European you know ;)
I believe slashdot.org was around back when this was pretty much a bunch of nerds in their basement. I.E before the corporate acquisition :)
And to be slightly on topic, I still have a windows 2k disk set, I have both pro and advanced server, windows 98, and windows 95 (including 95b) as well as XP and a Vista beta disk. I don't know why I still keep them (nostalgia??) and I have them installed in VM's, which I've not turned on for years, but I guess it is good to keep them there just in case I need them in future.
Aaaaah, I see, that makes more sense, thanks for the explanation! :-)
And yeah I am very impressed with Paparazzi, I am actually surprised it doesn't get as much mention as other (arduino-based) drone systems. I was looking at developing a simple loitering drone with cameras, at the request of some companies and individuals who are interested in securing their compounds a bit better (getting a "birds-eye" view), and Paparazzi seems to be a good match for it. Now I just have to get off my arse and develop the hardware/flying machine, which is the hard part tbh.
Turns out getting a drone flying is easy, getting it to take stable pictures on the other hand, is a hell of a lot harder :-) I guess in this case the bigger the drone the less it will be affected by wind changes and turbulence
Congratulations! Google offered me a job as well, but I turned it down for the time being, as I enjoy my current job and co-workers (plus it would have entailed a pay cut), but nice!
I still wonder if I've made the right choice, what is it like working for Google? So far?
Well, I guess I've found out which of the other 2 you decided upon :D (I worked out you make lots of money, as flying aircraft and accruing speeding tickets are sports for the well off :P ). Considering starting to fly myself, but am not sure when I will get round to that.
Flightgear has been used for ages for testing drone software .For example, the Paparazzi drone project has interfaces for flightgear to allow you to simulate a drone flying.
I used just such a setup for testing out the software and seeing how it works before I actually get round to building a drone. I know some people use it for development as well, so unless I'm missing something, this isn't really new?
Out of Curiosity, do you enjoy your job? :P
Congratulations on the project as well! Pretty cool! :)
Yeah, but to continue your analogy, if we develop said robot so well, and to a point where it becomes so cheap to have one, people would push towards investing in getting the other side (fusion engine) working in the knowledge that its the missing link.
In fact knowing the potential of the robot if you could only get the engine working could well motivate more people into investigating solutions, be it for profit, changing the world, fame, or whatever other reason people have.
Yeah, but gasoline is one of the highest methods of storing energy we have (as in, both from a scientific and economical perspective). To have something that is similar to gasoline in energy density, can use existing infrastructure (which has had what, 100 odd years of investment and process refining?), fast transfer of said energy, and is compatible with all existing gasoline engines, I think it quite outstanding.
There may be better methods of energy storage, but a pragmatic balance needs to be found, I believe Butanol has potential.
And yet, despite it being of no surprise to anyone of normal education level, it has proved to be very hard to do it in a cost effective way, specifically in a way that does not need light/growing on land (like other algae-based methods of butanol production).
The idea that you could for example, bury the entire butanol production facility underground, and pipe CO2/electricity to it and get fuel, and leave the land above for conventional farming/life/etc... would be quite a cool feature.
Butanol is an excellent replacement for petrol, because it can be used in cars with minimal/no modification to the engine (unlike running on ethanol) making it more akin to the petrol equivalent of biodiesel.
It is also one of the highest density methods of storing energy, and can make use of existing infrastructure (which also doesn't need modification to store, like with ethanol)
However I clicked a few links down and could not find the paper itself, anyone got a link? The ability to generate butanol without sunlight (and by removing CO2 from the atmosphere) sounds too good to be true quite frankly, as this could potentially solve a lot of problems (without needing to take up huge amounts of land, compete with food production, etc...).
TFA mentions using solar panels, but the thing is that it uses electricity, you could just as easily generate it from Nuclear, Hydro or any other power source. The potential in future of people being able to generate their own fuel if they so desire could really be a game changer IMO.
Marco, thanks for the info! I am still waiting for my Pi, but will see what I do with it when I get it. Still, nice design!
Also, I'd recommend you get an account in future when you post, because AC accounts are always at low level (and therefore invisible to most people). We're not that bad here :) If I had mod points I'd mod you up, but I'm out at the moment.
Thanks for your work as well :)
Works perfectly! I'm happy to say :)
I don't remember when they added support but it must be about a year by now. I pretty much only use magnet links with rtorrent. I don't know exactly which version it is (it came with Debian) but I can find out if you like?
You mean like Stirling engines? They convert heat into mechanical energy, no? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine The cool thing about this is that it works at low gradients and is solid state, but having heat engines is not exactly something new. Or have I totally missed what you were on about? ...
Like say, asteroid sized hunks of buckyballs. That would be pretty cool, as currently we have to manually produce all of them ourselves. From what I've heard they have some pretty useful properties that we've only just started to make use of...
Basically, in Europe all the lemons got bought out by the good makers, or made agreements with them. As a result said lemons use the same chassis, parts, etc... as the good cars, which has stopped them being lemons, and increased reliability overall (hence the stats).
It is one thing to share some parts to reduce costs (especially as from what I know of the US, you only really have two auto makers, with many brands), and quite another when everything is identical under the hood. Just some panels and the badge being different.
.. at least underneath.
I don't know how it is like in the US, but in Europe almost all the car manufacturers have consolidated. Cars are a commodity now. The cars from many different brands (e.g. VW, Audi, Skoda) all have the same chassis and parts. They all have the same body shape (more or less). Usually the only difference is in the body panels, the interior trim and the badge at the front.
As such you can pretty much buy any of the above cars, and you'll find that they all have similar reliability. For many people cars are just a method of getting from A-B, so overall the above is good news for them. They can pick based on things like warranty, extras included, financing options, etc.... while the cars are more or less the same.
For example, once upon a time in the west, Skoda's were considered lemons, now they are basically rebadged VW's with reliability to match. Now they are known as VW reliable cars, without the price tag and some extras that the VW's may have.
Not my thing personally, I prefer my cars unique, so I buy old cars built before the consolidation, but for the majority of people, it is a benefit.