Preface: I was a grad student at the Thayer School of Engineering, where Petrenko does this research. During a power electronics class, we learned about the workings of some of this technology, and some classmates of mine designed some of the HF electronics that are behind this.
Electrically heated windshields, propellers, etc... have been around for 70+ years. Yes, but those devices have heating elements that conduct heat into the bulk ice. You don't want to spend all the energy needed to melt all of the ice, or even a sizeable portion of it, but rather melt just the ice that's adhered to the windshield or airfoil. This technology does that. It creates HF eddy currents in the ice at the ice-windshield interface, liquifying that thin layer almost instantly. The liquification happens quickly enough that very little heat is conducted away into the bulk, which means that you aren't wasting or losing much energy. What's more, the heat is applied directly to the ice - no heater elements needed. Instead of pumping XX watts of power into heater elements and waiting for enough ice to melt to easily be removed, you pump (let's say) 10 times the power for 1/1000 the time into just the ice that matters, then let gravity, airflow, and wiper blades take care of the rest. It is a far more efficient way to remove ice.
Jet planes spend 95% of their flying time way above or below the icing levels. Unfortunately, the place where icing is most likely is also the place where it is most dangerous: during takeoff and landing. Just because it is not a continuous threat during the flight doesn't mean that it isn't still extremely dangerous.
Jet turbines have a virtually free and unlimited amount of hot air availbale for deicing. The hot gasses need to be hot if they are to produce thrust. Were the gasses diverted through some complicated heat exchanger to melt ice from the airfoils of aircraft, the exit gasses wouldn't produce nearly as much thrust. Once again, this technology works only on the ice that is adhered to the surface, and so works very efficiently. Using hot gasses, like heater elements, inevitably has most of its heat conducted into the bulk, where it does little good.
It's not affordable to load down a plane with 100's of pounds of extra generators, batteries, and/or capacitors that are only needed in very rare and usally avoidable circumstances. This is not additional equipment for an airplane, it is meant to replace the de-icing equipment that some already have. Consider the cost of applying thousands of gallons of chemical de-icing to aircraft wings on the ground, or the electrical equipment needed to generate the huge amount of electrical power that goes into heating elements. If anything, this technology would have less equipment associated with it than other methods, because it uses far less energy. The amount of energy that it takes to use this equipment, even over the entire leading edge of an aircraft's wing, it relatively small compared to the power needed to run everything else, or the tremendous power output of the engines. It makes use of high-frequency power electronics, which are much more compact and efficient than traditional power electronics. True, it isn't need all the time, but there is tons (literally, tons) of equipment in an airplane that is only used occassionally. They all serve a specific purpose. I will admit that it will be expensive technology at the beginning, especially for retrofits, but most new technology is. Airbags were initially only seen in high-end luxury cars, but eventually trickled down to lower models.
The planes that would need this the most, little prop planes that can't climb above icing, are also the ones that can least afford the weight penalty of this deicing system. Adding even 150 pounds to a small plane can make it a non-viable flying machine. Once again, this is not additional equipment, it is meant to replace existing de-icing equipment on a plane.
This device works on a different principle than your rear defroster. In your car, you have actual heating elements that have electricity passed through them, which in turn give up their heat to the ice. The problem is, however, that the applied heat quickly conducts away from the ice-windshield interface and into the bulk. Heating the bulk ice does no good at all. We all know how high the heat capacity of ice and water is - it takes a ridiculous amount of heat energy to melt ice into water. In addition, a rear defroster's heat is applied only along the heating elements, and it takes a long while to melt the ice inbetween the elements.
What this device does is induce HF currents directly in the ice-windshield interface - no heating element needed. It heats up the entire interface area almost instantaneously to liquid, fast enough that very little of the heat has a chance to conduct away into the bulk. The result is the near-instantaneous formation of a water layer between the bulk ice and the windshield, allowing the ice to slide ride off.
The device takes a relatively high amount of power to work. But, because it works so quickly, and in a pulsed fashion, it consumes very little energy - only as much as it takes to melt the ice-windshield interface, rather than wasting energy heating the bulk ice. Hence, it is considerably more efficient, not to mention a lot faster.
The link that the summary included about leaving a lot to be desired dates back to October 2003. Many of the issues have since been taken care of in the 2-1/2 years of software revisions and updates. The first few issues that the article states are really hardware problems related to the Titanium powerbook, which is even older.
The second link the submitter uses (desired) links to a long rant about how the iTunes Music Store gyps artists out of their due and is a poor choice for end users because you pay too much for lossily-compressed music.
And yet, the submission is about Rockbox, which is a replacement for the firmware inside of an iPod (and some other music players). The open-source firmware allows you to change the look and feel of the user interface and supports some other music codecs. This allows the iPod, its users, and independent artists to be freed from the tyranny of iTunes and iTMS [some sarcasm added].
The relevant link to Tim Lord's article at Newsforge is missing from the summary entirely, although its existence is alluded to.
Do I dare to use the term non sequitur here? Changing the firmware on your iPod will only change how you interact with music you already have now. It won't change how iTMS or iTunes work. I would argue that it doesn't do much to help out independent artists, either. If you want to support artists directly, you aren't going to be buying label-backed music from iTMS anyway. How many independent artists release their materials solely using Ogg Vorbis? I'll note that, until this past year, iTMS didn't even break even.
Don't get me wrong - Rockbox is really cool. I think having a customizable interface for the iPod is a neat thing to tinker with. I would agree that the iPod should support more formats than it currently does. But trying to introduce people to Rockbox by using old links and feeding on barely-related resentment for the iTMS model, while forgetting the relevant link at NewsForge, is a strange way to go about it.
The pixel size is a measure of the apparent diameter of the object in space. A sphere way the heck out there appears as a zero-dimensional dot to us. With some magnification, planets will appear as small discs. An astronomer will usually measure the size of that disc as an arclength, how many degrees, minutes, or seconds the disc spans across the whole the night sky. If the astronomer also knows the distance to the object, they can figure the diameter of the object in terms of distance (miles, kilometers, etc.).
The CCD camera that Hubble used for these images has a certain physical size (length, width), a corresponding pixel size (for an example: 1024 pixels across by 1024 pixels tall, a 1 megapixel image), and due to the mirrors and lenses on the telescope, can see a certain area of the sky. That field of view is measured as arclengths, say, 15 degrees wide by 15 degrees tall (again, just an example). So, from simple division, one can correspond a given arclength across the sky to a number of pixels. An arclength of 15 degrees corresponds to a pixel size of 1024 pixels. An object that measures half a degree across (like the disc of the moon) would create an image 0.5/15*1024 = 34.133 pixels wide.
Note that we have just produced an image with fractional pixels. This is no error. Pixels have some physical size, like all electronics. They are not discrete points. Depending on the specific CCD chip, the pixels' physical size could be on the order of 10^-5 or 10^-6 m. Small to you and me, perhaps, but actually quite large in the world of electronics. Imagine a CCD sensor as a sheet of graph paper - each square (not vertex) represents a single pixel. Now draw and fill in a circle on it whose diameter is 34.133 pixels wide. You'll end up with a lot of pixels that are completely filled, but all the ones on the edge are partially filled. These are the "fractional pixels." When the CCD spits out numerical data about the image, those partially filled pixels will be represented in shades of grey.
Personally, I think that we need to have both increased gasoline taxes (an extra $0.05/year for the next 20 years, which would be designated for alternative fuels and energy incentives) and higher mileage standards (how about a 5% increase per year for the next 20 years?). There are host of other measures that need to be taken as well. We need to attack all sides of this problem in a serious (but gradual) way.
Do you realize the vast number of regulations and mandates the government places on automobile design and sales right now? What about all of the safety regulations that have been put in place? Many people, especially the automobile manufacturers and retailers, bitched and moaned about the requirement of a seat belt. I think that few people would argue against them today. Today, automobile safety is one of the the biggest selling points for cars - higher safety sells. In a similar way, I predict that, while people today bitch and moan about the immorality of "government interference" caused by raising mileage standards, eventually gas mileage will become a major selling point for the majority of consumers.
What about the ban of lead in gasoline? Leaded gasoline allows significantly higher octanes and reduces the potential for engine knock, yet public health and safety eventually demanded cessation.
When people talk about increasing gas mileage, they are referring to the CAFE standards, and not really to the mileage of individual cars. There is no movement in government to ban any automobile that gets less than X m.p.g. The CAFE standards are average gas mileages across an entire company's product line. So, you can still sell you H2s, but you're going to be forced to offset their considerable enviromental impact by selling more efficient vehicles elsewhere in your fleet. I think that, if anything, experience has shown us that fuel economy is not mutually exclusive with designing a comfortable, safe, sporty automobile. It is just a matter of having some motivation - even a requirement - to expect better design.
The government already has mandates for minimum fuel economy, and has for decades. I think that few people would claim that the cars of today have somehow been crippled by CAFE standards - many would say that today's cars are superior in performance to those of even a decade ago.
I believe that there in an impending energy crisis in the world. When it hits, it is going to result in serious hardship for everybody. If we continue to burn through oil like there's no tomorrow, imagine the crisis that will occur when tomorrow actually arrives? Isn't mitigating such a catastrophe at least as important as the health and safety concerns that resulted to the ban of lead in gasoline or the installation of seat belts and airbags? How is requiring an increase in gas mileage and a gas tax any different?
In summary - the government already has a great amount of control over the design of automobiles and, by extension, the kinds of cars you can buy and sell. These controls, such as seat belts, were motivated and are tolerated because they promote the general welfare. Increasing the gas tax, as you advocate, is just one piece of a much larger plan that needs to be implemented. These and other moves are just as necessary for the future general welfare as seat belts. The market can provide solutions, but only if there is demand. The only way to create demand before we are neck deep in crisis is for the government to create one through legislation.
There's some joke reference to Spaceballs to be made here. How can there be a video of Spaceballs - we're still in the middle of making it? Alas, my brain isn't working fast enough this morning.
This article must have been written by either a humanities major or an MBA - there is no substance behind it. Instead, the author makes the point by saying that the new volume-limiting patch for the iPod is a great example of Apple's superior customer service. Somehow, according to the article, "it's not necessarily the iPod that makes Apple successful, but rather its customer service."
I call bullshit. Of course the iPod is what people love about apple these days. iPods make up about as much of Apple's revenue as its computer sales. The other driving force is the fact that an Apple computer running OS X and Apple applications is a rock solid system, with tremendous capabilities right out of the box, and a great user experience. Do not confuse user experience with customer experience - they are not the same thing. I myself love apple, own a powerbook and an ipod, will continue to buy from them, and think their customer service is indeed top notch. However, I wouldn't in a million years claim that it is the customer service that drew me to them. People do not care a lot about customer service when they are spending money, otherwise no U.S. cable service or cellular phone provider would still be in business.
The author may have hit nearer the mark by saying "Apple is investing resources to enhance its relationship with its customers." I interpreted that as brand promotion, integrated services like.Mac, the Apple Store, cultivating the iPod's hip image (made by Apple), and so on. These kinds of things do increase Apple's stature in the consumer electronics world, but are not, Not, NOT the same as good customer service.
For comparison purposes, the Cell processor in the PS3 has something like 100 million transistors, comes from a 90 nm process, and has a die size of about 1 cm square. The Cell has a modestly-sized cache, which means that its transistors are mostly given over to functional blocks. This is in contrast to something like a P4 Extreme edition, which has a higher transistor density because more than half its die is cache memory.
TFA does not mention anything about this new processor's die size. But, if we scale up the Cell processor's transistor density, the Vega processor, with 812 million transistors, would result in a die size of about 800 mm^2, which is more than one square inch. In the processor industry, that kind of die size is just plain ridiculous. I wonder what the yields are?
Narrator: Several years ago, in the basement lab of apple computer, engineers are working on a revolutionary new product. They call it... the iPod:
Engineer 1: Ok, the prototype is almost finished, but we have a problem.
Engineer 2: What's that?
Engineer 1: Well, we can't prove that every continuous function (one with a connected graph) is equal to the sum of its Fourier series except perhaps at some negligible points.
Engineer 2:...
Engineer 1: Come one, man! Focus! If we can't figure this one out, the iPod will never see the light of day.
Engineer 2: But, we already know that the audio codecs work. Isn't the proof kinda unnecessary?
Engineer 1: What? Well...maybe. But just because it works for everyone else doesn't mean we need to take it on faith - you've got to Think Different.
Engineer 2: What about that work I heard about, from some Swedish guy, Lennart Carleson? Didn't he settle this question a bunch'a years ago? [rustles through pile of papers on desk]. Yeah, here it is! We're in the clear!
Engineer 1: Thank you Lennart Carleson!
Narrator: And so, with the proof in hand, the engineers toiled on to meet their deadline. Alas, even through the iPod did indeed see the light of day and became a huge success, the engineeers were lucky to ever see daylight again.
At the speed of my connection (at home, not at work, and (alas) no longer at college), it'll be faster for me to wait for them to mail me the disc. On the other hand, at the price point they're offering, I may as well just buy the disc online and splurge on the second-day shipping.
Your feeble marketing skills are no match for the power of the Postal Service! You will pay the price for your lack of vision!
I'm serious about that lack of vision thing. I give them kudos for at least trying, but trying in a way that is bound to fail isn't innovation - it is just plain stupid.
The result should be a finer level of detail throughout the visible spectrum, enhancing details in shadows and making highlights come to life.
Unless I'm the Predator and have some special monitor that no one else has, this comment about the "visible spectrum" is ridiculous. Of course it's going to improve fidelity throughout the visible spectrum, do you think they'd just focus on the color green, or try to improve that all-so-important infrared fidelity?
Based on a cutting-edge 90nm process technology
90 nm is not the cutting-edge, it is the industry standard for most performance processors. Even that statement is weak, since the newest Intel offerings are based on 65 nm processes.
combined with full 128-bit precision
As opposed to partial 128-bit processing?
Was this article merely quoted verbatim from ATI's press release? It is filled with so much superfluous hype that getting to the substance of it is hardly worth the effort. Stop after the first two paragraphs and save us three minutes of time.
The article states that the extended mission would go down like this: the Stardust mothership is in a solar orbit. In 2007 it could fire its thrusters to head back towards earth by early 2009. A gravity assist from earth could fling it out to comet Tempel 1 for a 2011 rendezvous.
It'd be awesome if they can pull it off, and pretty cheap as such missions go (since the craft is already built and in space). However, I have to wonder, will the spacecraft still be in working order come 2011? I don't think it was designed to have much of a mission life once it had sent away the sample return. Anyone know?
Something like this - where a large company that delivers consumer goods to a wide audience, then buys a company that makes high-end items in that same market - has been a hallmark of the automobile industry for years. Most of the high-end auto companies are actually owned by more typically-branded companies. For instance, Ferrari is controlled by Fiat, Jaguar and Aston-Martin are owned by Ford, Saabs and Hummers are actually from GM. The purpose of these companies is, in some small fractional part, to pad their bottom line: the premium automobiles yield higher profits per unit, even if those profits are small compared to the rest of the company. Another reason is to have a high-end research and development space to try out new features and technologies that can only be supported in a premium market, but might eventually trickle down into consumer vehicles for added value (like GPS navigation and airbags).
If they are asking the question about the iPod's dominance, they are probably looking in the wrong place by dissecting it. Sure, the iPod's appealing form factor and capabilities are determined by its components, but I think everyone here would agree that it takes far more than that to make a winning product. Just think of all the other awesome products out there, with great form factor and a nice feature list, that failed utterly.
For a laugh related to that subject, check out the Ill Will Press (flash-based cartoons featuring neurotic and foul-mouthed squirrels - it might make sense when you see it). Look for the one entitled "So I Said to My Doctor."
The article makes mention of "Successful open voting systems that are cheaper, easier to manage, and more transparent than proprietary systems can be found in Australia, Canada, Estonia, and other places."
I'll slightly correct what some of the posters have said about the power connector LED. It is green when the battery is NOT charging, amber when it is. This is different from saying that the LED is green when the battery is actually charged. The reason for the delay, as several posters have noted, is that it takes the power management circuits in the computer and battery to initiate charging. This is typical for nearly all Li-Ion batteries: there is a bit of time before charging current is applied, where the charger is checking or testing the battery.
Did you also notice the part that the Dell uses a P4 HT chip, which burns about 70 Watts of power. The new MacBook Pro consumes between 25 and 40W, depending on load. The G4 would typically run at about 30 W. The Dell's battery is quite a bit larger as a result, resulting in a much clunkier machine.
This is not, as a misinterpretation of the summary might suggest, the fastest supercomputer on the planet, just the fastest one in Japan. That title of world's fastest is still held by the BlueGene at Lawrence Livermore, which boasts something like 350 teraflops peak. Interestingly enough, this new machine in Japan is a smaller BlueGene computer: same architecture, fewer racks.
Yes- very similar process to if you got a free AOL cd at the grocery store.
AWESOME! Now I need never worry about running out of coasters, mini-frisbees, or fun playthings for my microwave. I'll just run out and join the Republican party!
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Preface: I was a grad student at the Thayer School of Engineering, where Petrenko does this research. During a power electronics class, we learned about the workings of some of this technology, and some classmates of mine designed some of the HF electronics that are behind this.
Electrically heated windshields, propellers, etc... have been around for 70+ years. Yes, but those devices have heating elements that conduct heat into the bulk ice. You don't want to spend all the energy needed to melt all of the ice, or even a sizeable portion of it, but rather melt just the ice that's adhered to the windshield or airfoil. This technology does that. It creates HF eddy currents in the ice at the ice-windshield interface, liquifying that thin layer almost instantly. The liquification happens quickly enough that very little heat is conducted away into the bulk, which means that you aren't wasting or losing much energy. What's more, the heat is applied directly to the ice - no heater elements needed. Instead of pumping XX watts of power into heater elements and waiting for enough ice to melt to easily be removed, you pump (let's say) 10 times the power for 1/1000 the time into just the ice that matters, then let gravity, airflow, and wiper blades take care of the rest. It is a far more efficient way to remove ice.
Jet planes spend 95% of their flying time way above or below the icing levels. Unfortunately, the place where icing is most likely is also the place where it is most dangerous: during takeoff and landing. Just because it is not a continuous threat during the flight doesn't mean that it isn't still extremely dangerous.
Jet turbines have a virtually free and unlimited amount of hot air availbale for deicing. The hot gasses need to be hot if they are to produce thrust. Were the gasses diverted through some complicated heat exchanger to melt ice from the airfoils of aircraft, the exit gasses wouldn't produce nearly as much thrust. Once again, this technology works only on the ice that is adhered to the surface, and so works very efficiently. Using hot gasses, like heater elements, inevitably has most of its heat conducted into the bulk, where it does little good.
It's not affordable to load down a plane with 100's of pounds of extra generators, batteries, and/or capacitors that are only needed in very rare and usally avoidable circumstances. This is not additional equipment for an airplane, it is meant to replace the de-icing equipment that some already have. Consider the cost of applying thousands of gallons of chemical de-icing to aircraft wings on the ground, or the electrical equipment needed to generate the huge amount of electrical power that goes into heating elements. If anything, this technology would have less equipment associated with it than other methods, because it uses far less energy. The amount of energy that it takes to use this equipment, even over the entire leading edge of an aircraft's wing, it relatively small compared to the power needed to run everything else, or the tremendous power output of the engines. It makes use of high-frequency power electronics, which are much more compact and efficient than traditional power electronics. True, it isn't need all the time, but there is tons (literally, tons) of equipment in an airplane that is only used occassionally. They all serve a specific purpose. I will admit that it will be expensive technology at the beginning, especially for retrofits, but most new technology is. Airbags were initially only seen in high-end luxury cars, but eventually trickled down to lower models.
The planes that would need this the most, little prop planes that can't climb above icing, are also the ones that can least afford the weight penalty of this deicing system. Adding even 150 pounds to a small plane can make it a non-viable flying machine. Once again, this is not additional equipment, it is meant to replace existing de-icing equipment on a plane.
This device works on a different principle than your rear defroster. In your car, you have actual heating elements that have electricity passed through them, which in turn give up their heat to the ice. The problem is, however, that the applied heat quickly conducts away from the ice-windshield interface and into the bulk. Heating the bulk ice does no good at all. We all know how high the heat capacity of ice and water is - it takes a ridiculous amount of heat energy to melt ice into water. In addition, a rear defroster's heat is applied only along the heating elements, and it takes a long while to melt the ice inbetween the elements.
What this device does is induce HF currents directly in the ice-windshield interface - no heating element needed. It heats up the entire interface area almost instantaneously to liquid, fast enough that very little of the heat has a chance to conduct away into the bulk. The result is the near-instantaneous formation of a water layer between the bulk ice and the windshield, allowing the ice to slide ride off.
The device takes a relatively high amount of power to work. But, because it works so quickly, and in a pulsed fashion, it consumes very little energy - only as much as it takes to melt the ice-windshield interface, rather than wasting energy heating the bulk ice. Hence, it is considerably more efficient, not to mention a lot faster.
The link that the summary included about leaving a lot to be desired dates back to October 2003. Many of the issues have since been taken care of in the 2-1/2 years of software revisions and updates. The first few issues that the article states are really hardware problems related to the Titanium powerbook, which is even older.
The second link the submitter uses (desired) links to a long rant about how the iTunes Music Store gyps artists out of their due and is a poor choice for end users because you pay too much for lossily-compressed music.
And yet, the submission is about Rockbox, which is a replacement for the firmware inside of an iPod (and some other music players). The open-source firmware allows you to change the look and feel of the user interface and supports some other music codecs. This allows the iPod, its users, and independent artists to be freed from the tyranny of iTunes and iTMS [some sarcasm added].
The relevant link to Tim Lord's article at Newsforge is missing from the summary entirely, although its existence is alluded to.
Do I dare to use the term non sequitur here? Changing the firmware on your iPod will only change how you interact with music you already have now. It won't change how iTMS or iTunes work. I would argue that it doesn't do much to help out independent artists, either. If you want to support artists directly, you aren't going to be buying label-backed music from iTMS anyway. How many independent artists release their materials solely using Ogg Vorbis? I'll note that, until this past year, iTMS didn't even break even.
Don't get me wrong - Rockbox is really cool. I think having a customizable interface for the iPod is a neat thing to tinker with. I would agree that the iPod should support more formats than it currently does. But trying to introduce people to Rockbox by using old links and feeding on barely-related resentment for the iTMS model, while forgetting the relevant link at NewsForge, is a strange way to go about it.
The pixel size is a measure of the apparent diameter of the object in space. A sphere way the heck out there appears as a zero-dimensional dot to us. With some magnification, planets will appear as small discs. An astronomer will usually measure the size of that disc as an arclength, how many degrees, minutes, or seconds the disc spans across the whole the night sky. If the astronomer also knows the distance to the object, they can figure the diameter of the object in terms of distance (miles, kilometers, etc.).
The CCD camera that Hubble used for these images has a certain physical size (length, width), a corresponding pixel size (for an example: 1024 pixels across by 1024 pixels tall, a 1 megapixel image), and due to the mirrors and lenses on the telescope, can see a certain area of the sky. That field of view is measured as arclengths, say, 15 degrees wide by 15 degrees tall (again, just an example). So, from simple division, one can correspond a given arclength across the sky to a number of pixels. An arclength of 15 degrees corresponds to a pixel size of 1024 pixels. An object that measures half a degree across (like the disc of the moon) would create an image 0.5/15*1024 = 34.133 pixels wide.
Note that we have just produced an image with fractional pixels. This is no error. Pixels have some physical size, like all electronics. They are not discrete points. Depending on the specific CCD chip, the pixels' physical size could be on the order of 10^-5 or 10^-6 m. Small to you and me, perhaps, but actually quite large in the world of electronics. Imagine a CCD sensor as a sheet of graph paper - each square (not vertex) represents a single pixel. Now draw and fill in a circle on it whose diameter is 34.133 pixels wide. You'll end up with a lot of pixels that are completely filled, but all the ones on the edge are partially filled. These are the "fractional pixels." When the CCD spits out numerical data about the image, those partially filled pixels will be represented in shades of grey.
There is more information at the project website.
Personally, I think that we need to have both increased gasoline taxes (an extra $0.05/year for the next 20 years, which would be designated for alternative fuels and energy incentives) and higher mileage standards (how about a 5% increase per year for the next 20 years?). There are host of other measures that need to be taken as well. We need to attack all sides of this problem in a serious (but gradual) way.
Do you realize the vast number of regulations and mandates the government places on automobile design and sales right now? What about all of the safety regulations that have been put in place? Many people, especially the automobile manufacturers and retailers, bitched and moaned about the requirement of a seat belt. I think that few people would argue against them today. Today, automobile safety is one of the the biggest selling points for cars - higher safety sells. In a similar way, I predict that, while people today bitch and moan about the immorality of "government interference" caused by raising mileage standards, eventually gas mileage will become a major selling point for the majority of consumers.
What about the ban of lead in gasoline? Leaded gasoline allows significantly higher octanes and reduces the potential for engine knock, yet public health and safety eventually demanded cessation.
When people talk about increasing gas mileage, they are referring to the CAFE standards, and not really to the mileage of individual cars. There is no movement in government to ban any automobile that gets less than X m.p.g. The CAFE standards are average gas mileages across an entire company's product line. So, you can still sell you H2s, but you're going to be forced to offset their considerable enviromental impact by selling more efficient vehicles elsewhere in your fleet. I think that, if anything, experience has shown us that fuel economy is not mutually exclusive with designing a comfortable, safe, sporty automobile. It is just a matter of having some motivation - even a requirement - to expect better design.
The government already has mandates for minimum fuel economy, and has for decades. I think that few people would claim that the cars of today have somehow been crippled by CAFE standards - many would say that today's cars are superior in performance to those of even a decade ago.
I believe that there in an impending energy crisis in the world. When it hits, it is going to result in serious hardship for everybody. If we continue to burn through oil like there's no tomorrow, imagine the crisis that will occur when tomorrow actually arrives? Isn't mitigating such a catastrophe at least as important as the health and safety concerns that resulted to the ban of lead in gasoline or the installation of seat belts and airbags? How is requiring an increase in gas mileage and a gas tax any different?
In summary - the government already has a great amount of control over the design of automobiles and, by extension, the kinds of cars you can buy and sell. These controls, such as seat belts, were motivated and are tolerated because they promote the general welfare. Increasing the gas tax, as you advocate, is just one piece of a much larger plan that needs to be implemented. These and other moves are just as necessary for the future general welfare as seat belts. The market can provide solutions, but only if there is demand. The only way to create demand before we are neck deep in crisis is for the government to create one through legislation.
There's some joke reference to Spaceballs to be made here. How can there be a video of Spaceballs - we're still in the middle of making it? Alas, my brain isn't working fast enough this morning.
This article must have been written by either a humanities major or an MBA - there is no substance behind it. Instead, the author makes the point by saying that the new volume-limiting patch for the iPod is a great example of Apple's superior customer service. Somehow, according to the article, "it's not necessarily the iPod that makes Apple successful, but rather its customer service."
.Mac, the Apple Store, cultivating the iPod's hip image (made by Apple), and so on. These kinds of things do increase Apple's stature in the consumer electronics world, but are not, Not, NOT the same as good customer service.
I call bullshit. Of course the iPod is what people love about apple these days. iPods make up about as much of Apple's revenue as its computer sales. The other driving force is the fact that an Apple computer running OS X and Apple applications is a rock solid system, with tremendous capabilities right out of the box, and a great user experience. Do not confuse user experience with customer experience - they are not the same thing. I myself love apple, own a powerbook and an ipod, will continue to buy from them, and think their customer service is indeed top notch. However, I wouldn't in a million years claim that it is the customer service that drew me to them. People do not care a lot about customer service when they are spending money, otherwise no U.S. cable service or cellular phone provider would still be in business.
The author may have hit nearer the mark by saying "Apple is investing resources to enhance its relationship with its customers." I interpreted that as brand promotion, integrated services like
For comparison purposes, the Cell processor in the PS3 has something like 100 million transistors, comes from a 90 nm process, and has a die size of about 1 cm square. The Cell has a modestly-sized cache, which means that its transistors are mostly given over to functional blocks. This is in contrast to something like a P4 Extreme edition, which has a higher transistor density because more than half its die is cache memory.
TFA does not mention anything about this new processor's die size. But, if we scale up the Cell processor's transistor density, the Vega processor, with 812 million transistors, would result in a die size of about 800 mm^2, which is more than one square inch. In the processor industry, that kind of die size is just plain ridiculous. I wonder what the yields are?
Narrator: Several years ago, in the basement lab of apple computer, engineers are working on a revolutionary new product. They call it ... the iPod:
...
Engineer 1: Ok, the prototype is almost finished, but we have a problem.
Engineer 2: What's that?
Engineer 1: Well, we can't prove that every continuous function (one with a connected graph) is equal to the sum of its Fourier series except perhaps at some negligible points.
Engineer 2:
Engineer 1: Come one, man! Focus! If we can't figure this one out, the iPod will never see the light of day.
Engineer 2: But, we already know that the audio codecs work. Isn't the proof kinda unnecessary?
Engineer 1: What? Well...maybe. But just because it works for everyone else doesn't mean we need to take it on faith - you've got to Think Different.
Engineer 2: What about that work I heard about, from some Swedish guy, Lennart Carleson? Didn't he settle this question a bunch'a years ago? [rustles through pile of papers on desk]. Yeah, here it is! We're in the clear!
Engineer 1: Thank you Lennart Carleson!
Narrator: And so, with the proof in hand, the engineers toiled on to meet their deadline. Alas, even through the iPod did indeed see the light of day and became a huge success, the engineeers were lucky to ever see daylight again.
The ergonomics - they do nothing! Many of those mice make my fingers cringe preemptively.
At the speed of my connection (at home, not at work, and (alas) no longer at college), it'll be faster for me to wait for them to mail me the disc. On the other hand, at the price point they're offering, I may as well just buy the disc online and splurge on the second-day shipping.
Your feeble marketing skills are no match for the power of the Postal Service! You will pay the price for your lack of vision!
I'm serious about that lack of vision thing. I give them kudos for at least trying, but trying in a way that is bound to fail isn't innovation - it is just plain stupid.
FTFA:
The result should be a finer level of detail throughout the visible spectrum, enhancing details in shadows and making highlights come to life.
Unless I'm the Predator and have some special monitor that no one else has, this comment about the "visible spectrum" is ridiculous. Of course it's going to improve fidelity throughout the visible spectrum, do you think they'd just focus on the color green, or try to improve that all-so-important infrared fidelity?
Based on a cutting-edge 90nm process technology
90 nm is not the cutting-edge, it is the industry standard for most performance processors. Even that statement is weak, since the newest Intel offerings are based on 65 nm processes.
combined with full 128-bit precision
As opposed to partial 128-bit processing?
Was this article merely quoted verbatim from ATI's press release? It is filled with so much superfluous hype that getting to the substance of it is hardly worth the effort. Stop after the first two paragraphs and save us three minutes of time.
The article states that the extended mission would go down like this: the Stardust mothership is in a solar orbit. In 2007 it could fire its thrusters to head back towards earth by early 2009. A gravity assist from earth could fling it out to comet Tempel 1 for a 2011 rendezvous.
It'd be awesome if they can pull it off, and pretty cheap as such missions go (since the craft is already built and in space). However, I have to wonder, will the spacecraft still be in working order come 2011? I don't think it was designed to have much of a mission life once it had sent away the sample return. Anyone know?
Something like this - where a large company that delivers consumer goods to a wide audience, then buys a company that makes high-end items in that same market - has been a hallmark of the automobile industry for years. Most of the high-end auto companies are actually owned by more typically-branded companies. For instance, Ferrari is controlled by Fiat, Jaguar and Aston-Martin are owned by Ford, Saabs and Hummers are actually from GM. The purpose of these companies is, in some small fractional part, to pad their bottom line: the premium automobiles yield higher profits per unit, even if those profits are small compared to the rest of the company. Another reason is to have a high-end research and development space to try out new features and technologies that can only be supported in a premium market, but might eventually trickle down into consumer vehicles for added value (like GPS navigation and airbags).
If they are asking the question about the iPod's dominance, they are probably looking in the wrong place by dissecting it. Sure, the iPod's appealing form factor and capabilities are determined by its components, but I think everyone here would agree that it takes far more than that to make a winning product. Just think of all the other awesome products out there, with great form factor and a nice feature list, that failed utterly.
For a laugh related to that subject, check out the Ill Will Press (flash-based cartoons featuring neurotic and foul-mouthed squirrels - it might make sense when you see it). Look for the one entitled "So I Said to My Doctor."
The article makes mention of "Successful open voting systems that are cheaper, easier to manage, and more transparent than proprietary systems can be found in Australia, Canada, Estonia, and other places."
Could anyone elaborate on the Canadian system?
Is will it have a new version of Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi?
Or, as my friends in college liked to call it: Jedi Bitch-slap
I'll slightly correct what some of the posters have said about the power connector LED. It is green when the battery is NOT charging, amber when it is. This is different from saying that the LED is green when the battery is actually charged. The reason for the delay, as several posters have noted, is that it takes the power management circuits in the computer and battery to initiate charging. This is typical for nearly all Li-Ion batteries: there is a bit of time before charging current is applied, where the charger is checking or testing the battery.
Did you also notice the part that the Dell uses a P4 HT chip, which burns about 70 Watts of power. The new MacBook Pro consumes between 25 and 40W, depending on load. The G4 would typically run at about 30 W. The Dell's battery is quite a bit larger as a result, resulting in a much clunkier machine.
This is not, as a misinterpretation of the summary might suggest, the fastest supercomputer on the planet, just the fastest one in Japan. That title of world's fastest is still held by the BlueGene at Lawrence Livermore, which boasts something like 350 teraflops peak. Interestingly enough, this new machine in Japan is a smaller BlueGene computer: same architecture, fewer racks.
And a response:
Yes- very similar process to if you got a free AOL cd at the grocery store.
AWESOME! Now I need never worry about running out of coasters, mini-frisbees, or fun playthings for my microwave. I'll just run out and join the Republican party!
Egad! Look at the clunkiness of that thing - more akin to a foosball table or pinball machine than a coffee table.
Who wants a coffee table they need to plug in? Or one that has an unsightly desktop computer box sitting under it? Or the cords?