Certainly makes the case for people being able to generate their own power with a choice of utilities as a back up.
It makes the case, but that is hardly an overwhelming counter-argument. Huge numbers of electricity customers, possibly even a majority, cannot avail themselves to this. For instance: renters cannot typically put solar panels on the roof of their landlord's structure; the electrical demand for a large building is much larger than the available renewables can provide. The capital costs of self-generation - such as diesel generators or natural gas fuel cells - is quite high, and most folks simply are not cut out to manage that kind of machinery.
It's an option for some - and an increasing number of folks are availing themselves to it. This ought to be a concern for utilities generally, and for anyone who utilizes the grid (and pays for it) in any fashion.
You, like Ted Cruz, seem to be laboring under the assumption that because it is a satellite, all rockety-spacey expensive and such, it must be better than measurements on the ground.
Satellite measurements have some advantages, such as being able to use one instrument to survey the entire Earth. On the other hand, these aren't direct measurements of temperature at ground level, in the stratosphere, or deep in the ocean; they're indirect measurements based on radiation, and have relatively large error bars compared to direct measurements. Satellite observations should not be relied upon in isolation to uphold or refute a hypothesis. We have data from multiple independent sources - they should all be utilized.
A computer model that predicts the existence of a ninth planet (of substantial mass, ejected into a distant orbit, early in the solar system) does not, by the usual scientific method, constitute evidence. Evidence of its existence would be certain observables that others could also observe and verify: perturbations in the orbits of other planets, detection in a telescope, etc.
This is a prediction by a hypothesis - nothing more. I could create a model that predicts the existence of dragons that fart nerve gas - that does not count as "evidence of an impending apocalypse," although that would surely generate many clicks.
Wings on a spacecraft are superfluous. They look cool only because of human conceits about what a spacecraft ought to look like. Damn you, Buck Rogers!
Wings on a hypersonic re-entry vehicle? Oh yeah, that's cool.
Most of the cold "heat capacity" in the fridge comes from the chilled contents, not the air inside it. Generally, it is most efficient to have the fridge filled with lots of stuff that has a large heat capacity - replacing air volume with, say, bottles of water. Doing so will make the fridge less susceptible to, say, having the cold air replaced with warmer air. It will also reduce short-cycling of the compressor, which will extend the life of the fridge and improve its efficiency.
Generally, rockets begin a roll maneuver that starts them heading downrange very soon after clearing the tower. For instance, the Saturn V would perform its roll maneuver about 20-30 seconds after liftoff.
A huge fraction (90% ?) of the energy an object must gain in order to reach orbit is tangential velocity. By comparison the gain in potential energy from gaining altitude is relatively small.
Many corporations have policies that ban employees from looking at patents. If you look at the patent, you can later be found liable for intentional infringement. It is better to just ignore existing patents, and document your research, so you can latter show it was independently developed
Which is unfortunate, since the theory behind patents is that they should be read by others, and used as a springboard for further innovation and development. The reality is far from this ideal, alas. Most patents make for difficult reading, even if you are in the field. and, as you point out, you expose yourself to an infringement liability if you outwardly try to develop something new beyond someone else's patent.
My read on it is they mean the vendor has zero knowledge of how to break the encryption to gain access to a user's data
Oh, the vendor has plenty of knowledge on how to break the encryption - they developed it, after all - it's just that the knowledge of how the encryption works doesn't lead to any feasible way to break it in any reasonable timeframe. The knowledge the vendor has about breaking the encryption is "brute force is your only recourse, and we hope you can wait a loooong time."
Having no personal experience in choosing textbooks (just buying many of the assigned texts in college - not much choice there), my view on the process is heavily influenced by Richard Feynmann's recounting the time he served on the California Curriculum Commission in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann. For those who haven't read it before, here's his chapter on Judging Books by Their Covers.
Meh, if the pack has a certain nameplate capacity (kWh of storage, kW of output power), then it should not matter much if packs are new or old. The physical size will be different, since you'll need more aged batteries to match the capacity of new batteries. I'd be more interested in seeing the terms of the warranty.
In other words, the most complicated way yet devised of sending an electrical signal about 10cm.
Perhaps, although this method has some advantages to it:
it does not require invasive retrofitting of the existing wheelchair joystick. As shown in the video, attaching the gimbal requires able-hands only about 10 seconds. I would guess that an attendant would still be able to use that joystick to drive the chair, even with the gimbal attached (although usually for such patients, a second, more easily accessible attendant joystick is part of the controls)
The communications between the joystick (usually called the user control panel, or UCP) and the motor drives on the chair are often CANbus-based, but not always, and the protocol varies by manufacturer. The details of the communications are generally not public, meaning that they'd need to be reverse-engineered for each make and model of chair - which is a tremendous hurdle to development and widespread adoption. The eyedrivomatic avoids these electrical differences. there may still be some manufacturer-specific changes for properly mounting the gimbal on different chairs, but most folks are generally more adept at mechanical hacking than electrical and software.
As one who works on embedded electronics all the time, I can't tell you how gratifying it is to see the workings of the software realized out in meatspace. That is, when the eyedrivomatic is working, you can see it working. Silent and hidden electronic signals provide little indication that they are working, or in what way they are not working.
Considering that the developer is not an engineer by training, and has done most of this on his own, I applaud what he has been able to pull off.
One important difference between stationary and in-motion inductive charging is that, well, the car is in motion. This means that every metal component in the vehicle will be passing through a magnetic field (unless they figure how to switch the field on and off only when the receiver is directly over the emitter, and doesn't have much flux leakage). A changing magnetic field in metal creates eddy currents that oppose the change in the field (Lenz's law), which is usually a repulsive effect. This is the basis of an AC induction motor (no permanent magnets involved - just induction). It can also be used as a non-contact braking mechanism (it is used to bleed speed from roller coasters, for instance). Should be great for vehicles!
1) Cassini crashes into Enceladus. Because it has no atmosphere to speak of and a solid surface, the spacecraft will impact on the ice and make a real mess. Fragments of the spacecraft may survive, more or less in the condition that they left Earth (although much older), including the plutonium RTGs. Eventually, these may work their way through the ice and into the subsurface ocean, contaminating a fairly interesting environment (the ocean-ice interface and the ocean-crust interface).
2) Cassini crashes into Titan. Because there is a significant atmosphere, Cassini will burn up to some extent, but some of it, surely, will survive re-entry, distributed over a large area, and thump into the surface. Due to the thick atmosphere and low gravity, the terminal velocity is quite modest (slower than Earth's), so any bits of Cassini that survive re-entry will have a pretty soft landing. This, too, is contamination of a fairly interesting environment (the surface-atmosphere interface, or in the hydrocarbon lakes).
3) Cassini is intentionally de-orbited into Saturn. Saturn is basically all atmosphere and has no surface to speak of: it'll burn up pretty much all the way down, eventually floating in the deepest parts of the planet that are especially dense enough so that even metals are buoyant. These deep reaches are also really hot, which will at least kill anything still alive or viable on the spacecraft, and probably just melt everything in some extreme chemistry. Compared to permanently scattering the spacecraft across a moon, the amount of time Cassini passes through the various layers of Saturn before reaching its hot death is quite brief. Finally, Saturn is the 2nd most massive planet in the solar system, 10^3 -to- 10^6 times the size of its moons, so any contamination from Cassini will be much more diluted.
So, considering that getting Cassini out of the Saturn system is not possible, tossing it into Saturn itself seems the best option.
Because there is no 2nd amendment right to have clear sinuses. Oh, and, Charlton Heston never stood in front of a crowd, held aloft a mortar and pistil, and told the government they can pry it from his cold, dead, and shaking hands.
My favorite is the "vault" they constructed for the electronics on the Juno mission to Jupiter. Because that mission regularly dips into the radiation belts around the planet, even the best rad-hardened processor would not survive. Over the mission lifetime, it'll have to survive the equivalent of 100 million dental x-rays. NASA's solution: 200 kg of titanium. (Lead would have been too soft to survive launch. Other materials, such as tungsten, are relatively difficult to work with. Titanium is a well-understood.)
Because The U.S. and Iran just entered into an anti-nuclear agreement, and this detector technology will be important for verifying Iran's compliance. Specifically, verifying that they are not developing a plutonium fuel cycle.
Sure, it can (and probably should) be used elsewhere, but the contemporaneous motivation is Iran. The article makes this clear but, this being slashdot, I guess no one bothered to read it.
Also these, from Adafruit. Depending on the size, they only cost about $1 apiece. That's expensive for production but, if your time is worth anything to you, is well worth it for prototyping.
A laser interferometer in interplanetary space could have an enormous path length quite easily, and would not sense all the vibrations on Earth. It could also be in 3-dimensions, consisting of a satellite hub and 3 corner-cube mirrors at long distances from the hub
Mostly correct. One of the main hurdles, however, is controlling the positions of the spacecraft relative to each other to extremely tight tolerances. In deep space this isn't too difficult. In Earth or Lunar orbit, it's quite difficult. An Earth-Sun lagrange point can work, except that those, too, require some station keeping.
Slashdot Mirror
It makes the case, but that is hardly an overwhelming counter-argument. Huge numbers of electricity customers, possibly even a majority, cannot avail themselves to this. For instance: renters cannot typically put solar panels on the roof of their landlord's structure; the electrical demand for a large building is much larger than the available renewables can provide. The capital costs of self-generation - such as diesel generators or natural gas fuel cells - is quite high, and most folks simply are not cut out to manage that kind of machinery.
It's an option for some - and an increasing number of folks are availing themselves to it. This ought to be a concern for utilities generally, and for anyone who utilizes the grid (and pays for it) in any fashion.
You, like Ted Cruz, seem to be laboring under the assumption that because it is a satellite, all rockety-spacey expensive and such, it must be better than measurements on the ground.
Satellite measurements have some advantages, such as being able to use one instrument to survey the entire Earth. On the other hand, these aren't direct measurements of temperature at ground level, in the stratosphere, or deep in the ocean; they're indirect measurements based on radiation, and have relatively large error bars compared to direct measurements. Satellite observations should not be relied upon in isolation to uphold or refute a hypothesis. We have data from multiple independent sources - they should all be utilized.
A computer model that predicts the existence of a ninth planet (of substantial mass, ejected into a distant orbit, early in the solar system) does not, by the usual scientific method, constitute evidence. Evidence of its existence would be certain observables that others could also observe and verify: perturbations in the orbits of other planets, detection in a telescope, etc.
This is a prediction by a hypothesis - nothing more. I could create a model that predicts the existence of dragons that fart nerve gas - that does not count as "evidence of an impending apocalypse," although that would surely generate many clicks.
Wings on a spacecraft are superfluous. They look cool only because of human conceits about what a spacecraft ought to look like. Damn you, Buck Rogers!
Wings on a hypersonic re-entry vehicle? Oh yeah, that's cool.
Gosh. On /. I would have figured that some people would have chimed in that he played Nikola Tesla in the film "The Prestige." Bonus: his lab assistant was played by Andy Serkis, in one of his few live-action roles.
Most of the cold "heat capacity" in the fridge comes from the chilled contents, not the air inside it. Generally, it is most efficient to have the fridge filled with lots of stuff that has a large heat capacity - replacing air volume with, say, bottles of water. Doing so will make the fridge less susceptible to, say, having the cold air replaced with warmer air. It will also reduce short-cycling of the compressor, which will extend the life of the fridge and improve its efficiency.
Will the enforcement/compliance be something along the lines of "pics or it didn't happen"?
Generally, rockets begin a roll maneuver that starts them heading downrange very soon after clearing the tower. For instance, the Saturn V would perform its roll maneuver about 20-30 seconds after liftoff.
A huge fraction (90% ?) of the energy an object must gain in order to reach orbit is tangential velocity. By comparison the gain in potential energy from gaining altitude is relatively small.
Which is unfortunate, since the theory behind patents is that they should be read by others, and used as a springboard for further innovation and development. The reality is far from this ideal, alas. Most patents make for difficult reading, even if you are in the field. and, as you point out, you expose yourself to an infringement liability if you outwardly try to develop something new beyond someone else's patent.
Oh, the vendor has plenty of knowledge on how to break the encryption - they developed it, after all - it's just that the knowledge of how the encryption works doesn't lead to any feasible way to break it in any reasonable timeframe. The knowledge the vendor has about breaking the encryption is "brute force is your only recourse, and we hope you can wait a loooong time."
Having no personal experience in choosing textbooks (just buying many of the assigned texts in college - not much choice there), my view on the process is heavily influenced by Richard Feynmann's recounting the time he served on the California Curriculum Commission in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmann. For those who haven't read it before, here's his chapter on Judging Books by Their Covers.
Meh, if the pack has a certain nameplate capacity (kWh of storage, kW of output power), then it should not matter much if packs are new or old. The physical size will be different, since you'll need more aged batteries to match the capacity of new batteries. I'd be more interested in seeing the terms of the warranty.
Perhaps, although this method has some advantages to it:
Considering that the developer is not an engineer by training, and has done most of this on his own, I applaud what he has been able to pull off.
Looks more like a spaghetti squash to me.
One important difference between stationary and in-motion inductive charging is that, well, the car is in motion. This means that every metal component in the vehicle will be passing through a magnetic field (unless they figure how to switch the field on and off only when the receiver is directly over the emitter, and doesn't have much flux leakage). A changing magnetic field in metal creates eddy currents that oppose the change in the field (Lenz's law), which is usually a repulsive effect. This is the basis of an AC induction motor (no permanent magnets involved - just induction). It can also be used as a non-contact braking mechanism (it is used to bleed speed from roller coasters, for instance). Should be great for vehicles!
Consider the end scenarios:
1) Cassini crashes into Enceladus. Because it has no atmosphere to speak of and a solid surface, the spacecraft will impact on the ice and make a real mess. Fragments of the spacecraft may survive, more or less in the condition that they left Earth (although much older), including the plutonium RTGs. Eventually, these may work their way through the ice and into the subsurface ocean, contaminating a fairly interesting environment (the ocean-ice interface and the ocean-crust interface).
2) Cassini crashes into Titan. Because there is a significant atmosphere, Cassini will burn up to some extent, but some of it, surely, will survive re-entry, distributed over a large area, and thump into the surface. Due to the thick atmosphere and low gravity, the terminal velocity is quite modest (slower than Earth's), so any bits of Cassini that survive re-entry will have a pretty soft landing. This, too, is contamination of a fairly interesting environment (the surface-atmosphere interface, or in the hydrocarbon lakes).
3) Cassini is intentionally de-orbited into Saturn. Saturn is basically all atmosphere and has no surface to speak of: it'll burn up pretty much all the way down, eventually floating in the deepest parts of the planet that are especially dense enough so that even metals are buoyant. These deep reaches are also really hot, which will at least kill anything still alive or viable on the spacecraft, and probably just melt everything in some extreme chemistry. Compared to permanently scattering the spacecraft across a moon, the amount of time Cassini passes through the various layers of Saturn before reaching its hot death is quite brief. Finally, Saturn is the 2nd most massive planet in the solar system, 10^3 -to- 10^6 times the size of its moons, so any contamination from Cassini will be much more diluted.
So, considering that getting Cassini out of the Saturn system is not possible, tossing it into Saturn itself seems the best option.
Because there is no 2nd amendment right to have clear sinuses. Oh, and, Charlton Heston never stood in front of a crowd, held aloft a mortar and pistil, and told the government they can pry it from his cold, dead, and shaking hands.
Marty: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a (drifting autopilot test bed) ... out of a DeLorean?"
Doc: "Yes, the way I see it, if you're gonna build a (drifting autopilot test bed) into a car, why not do it with some style?"
How well is a habitat intended to be made of translucent ice going to do once it is inevitably covered with dust?
My favorite is the "vault" they constructed for the electronics on the Juno mission to Jupiter. Because that mission regularly dips into the radiation belts around the planet, even the best rad-hardened processor would not survive. Over the mission lifetime, it'll have to survive the equivalent of 100 million dental x-rays. NASA's solution: 200 kg of titanium. (Lead would have been too soft to survive launch. Other materials, such as tungsten, are relatively difficult to work with. Titanium is a well-understood.)
More details here.
Because The U.S. and Iran just entered into an anti-nuclear agreement, and this detector technology will be important for verifying Iran's compliance. Specifically, verifying that they are not developing a plutonium fuel cycle.
Sure, it can (and probably should) be used elsewhere, but the contemporaneous motivation is Iran. The article makes this clear but, this being slashdot, I guess no one bothered to read it.
IEEE Spectrum also had an article on this topic last month: link
Bah! A true hacker would have done it using a chorded keyboard!
Also these, from Adafruit. Depending on the size, they only cost about $1 apiece. That's expensive for production but, if your time is worth anything to you, is well worth it for prototyping.
Mostly correct. One of the main hurdles, however, is controlling the positions of the spacecraft relative to each other to extremely tight tolerances. In deep space this isn't too difficult. In Earth or Lunar orbit, it's quite difficult. An Earth-Sun lagrange point can work, except that those, too, require some station keeping.
It's not impossible; merely hard.