But I'd contend that the costs of R&D is for improvements to future machines, and by granting those spin-offs for free to existing customers, they build customer satisfaction with their brand and their product, and as a consequence, build customer loyalty.
The problem with that equation is that the hardware lasts five years, rather than the 2-4 in the PC world. A satisfied customer is important, but the cash flow of upgrading every fifth year doesn't work!
Actually, I see it as more of an opportunity... to release a song-at-a-time, and keep interest up for their "brand." It actually ends up helping the big names more, becuase (I would think) studio access time for them to produce a single song is cheaper.
"Album as a work" is a lost concept, since the days of random-access media. Just another case of catching up with the times.
As for the fact that a fan might only pay $4 instead of $18 for the music they are interested in on a particular CD... The record companies relied on an impulse spending threshold for too long... the price for a CD is now above the impulse level, and is now something that people think about. $1/track puts them back in that impulse range (arguably, a better place-- micro-payments, were people don't really see the money they spend adding up to an impulse purchase!).
It is hard for the musicians and the marketing people to change, but... that also makes it a good opportunity to leverage brand recognition for more overall sales.
As has been alluded to by others, these little UPS systems are generally not on-line systems, meaning that the inverter is not normally supplying power to the load. When you operate the inverter for longer than 15 minutes, you will likely over-heat it.
One thing people fail to mention, though, is the expected life of the batteries. Usually, you will only see these batteries last 5 years if you never use them. If you deep-cycle them, don't expect more than 10-20 uses! Short (...unless it catches fire.
If they run 500 drives for 2,000 hours and observe only one failure, that is a MTBF of 500,000 hours.
Unfortunately, that equation doesn't take into account the fact that some equipment degrades over time; if a product is very reliable for 1,000 hours, and less reliable after that, just double the sample size (maybe triple for statistics), and see what you get.
Real reliability calculations are much more difficult than just what users think MTBF means...
If this restriction exists, it is about Nuke Simulations. I thought that was dropped around 1998.
Re:Saw this one coming when..
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, Ohm's law is V=IR.
A human has a given R-- add internal resistance of battery and wiring, and a given I will cause electrocution. Solve for V.
If you short a human across a battery, you will quickly electrocute them. Higher voltage batteries could possibly have higher internal impedance, but it isn't going to make it safer.
Still, a 42V shock isn't nearly as bad as one at 480V... you might still be able to pull away.
What higher voltage will really do is make the wiring smaller, and give them more options for higher-power equipment within the car. It's a compromise on safety.
We're desparate to hire people (architectural engineering) for Richmond, VA... just two hours south. San Francisco has more vacant office space... something like 30%. DC has the benefit of government contracts, which tend to be stable at worst, and growing now with the homeland security crap.
Clinton wasn't the only one saying that the economy was in trouble. I seem to remember Greenspan talking about "irrational exuberance" beginning in 98.
As for your conspiracy theories about the Hillary... why do you think she would be worse for democracy than GWB?! She would definately be better for civil liberties...
From my experience, I would agree that younger people learn something completely new faster than older people. (I'm 31.) The interesting caveat is that to older people, very little is completely different.
Mastery and discipline are different than "learning" something in this sense. While there is always a place for new blood, bringing in people that can hit the ground running (and do their work in 40 hours a week) is more productive. The new blood only serves to create a management position above them in the short-term.
You know, I've always been disgusted that modern business people are incapable of conceptualizing thought without resorting to power point slides
The problem is that people understand data in different ways. If you have to go on record as making a decision about something you truly don't understand, what do you do? You make the presenter break down the information to simplify it for you.
As much as they are over-used, it's a hell of a lot easier than making someone read a 40-page paper or teaching them to read a schematic diagram.
I agree, especially if you look at it as a brick. If you were talking about something that monitored the health of post-tension members in a large building or bridge, that might be interesting. If you just think of it as a proof-of-concept, then it is kind of cool.
The idea that there might be valuable correlation of data between temperature and accelleration is harder to believe. I think someone needed to take a better look at what kind of data could be usefully combined into a single device.
Looks like I was wrong; 50-80% is a common threshold, and higher efficiencies (of electrolysis) are possible.
However, the efficiency of an ideal fuel cell is 83%, and typical values are closer to 35-50%. Combining the electrolysis and fuel cell, you have an efficiency of 17-40%. Better than the Carnot Cycle FWiW.
But H2 is much lighter than O2, so it will rise higher in the atmosphere, and not be able to bond with anything. Same problem with He... most of it is just scattered in the upper atmosphere...
H2 needs about 4% concentration to be explosive, but if there is no O2 around, nothing will ignite it.
I don't know what the efficiency of traditional batteries are, but electrolysis of water to produce H2 has an efficiency of 10%.
If you have a wind turbine, and it cannot convert its power directly to electricity, it takes 10x longer to pay for itself when it procuces H2. Currently, I understand the payback periods are on the order of 15 years for an "average" site and about 8 years for an "ideal" site. Over the life of the equipment, you would be putting in 60% of the (net) energy that it will produce to just making the turbine.
Likewise for fuel cells-- currently, you need to be able to use the heat for them to be efficient.
Sadly, I think the only real option is going nuke.
Water is incompressible; the only potential impact on neutral bouyancy is if the shell of the robot can deform, thereby reducing its total displacement. (Foam or ping-pong balls would have this problem, if used for neutral bouyancy.)
It's odd how the phone companies seem to ignore business users' needs. My monthly phone bill for my work phone has to be at least $200... and I only use it more every month.
The most important feature for me is battery life. A nice perk would be useful data connections for my laptop. Even if it just lets me access my webmail account on the road, I'm willing to push for a new phone, and spending more money.
Since they can't accommodate these needs, I will shift much of my phone use over to a Blackberry or Good device, at a loss of revenue for the phone company, and possibly even a net monthly savings.
Wal-Mart's real opportunity is to let people return it to the store so they can get films sooner. Then you have brought people to your store, and you have more opportunities to sell them some crap.
In Israel (at least, some places in Tel Aviv) you can walk up to a vending machine on the street and rent DVD *porn*. ...aah, the joys of conscript army. Porn Vending Machines.
All that having been said, I would prefer the elimination of income tax and capital gains tax in favor of a federal sales tax (even if said tax were 30%)...
The whole problem with tax code is that there are special considerations to help stimulate the economy.
If you tax sales rather than income, that has an unfair effect on people scraping to get by, while assisting people that save their money, not contributing back to the economy.
Flat income taxes are the only way to go. In Hong Kong, you pay (IIRC) 15% flat tax on income. It really sucks your first year (when you effectively have to pay tax for two years with one check), but it's a great system. People are still afriad of Inland Revenue to some extent, but the tax dollars aren't wasted on a huge auditing system. Filling out your paperwork takes a couple minutes, then a half-hour in line if you need to file in person.
No, it isn't overbooking. Two different people were issued boarding passes with the same name printed on them... _ Adams, and for the same seat. Ms. Adams, and a very much un-related Mr. Adams. Ms. Adams had to leave the plane and check in again.
When airlines overbook, you don't get a seat assignment initially. This is effectively two different people checking in on the same ticket.
When I had to write by hand, I was very concise. I hated writing. If I could find a three word answer to a question, I would use it. I made every word count.
Now, I type almost all communication. I find that because of the ease and speed, I don't censor my thoughts... I just put down what I am thinking.
Multiply this effect by everyone you work with, and see what happens. Remember the idea of a "Paperless Office?" I now have to deal with easily 10x paper from before e-mail really became popular.
What do you want language to be... concise or verbose... a "brain dump," or carefully worded dialogue?
You have to realize, though, that the MPAA makes back their money in the opening weekend! When they go to DVD, it is pure profit. Personally, I think this is great-- I enjoy seeing a movie in the theater, and am willing to fork over $20 for two tickets and maybe some popcorn.
Unfortunately, the recording industry does not have that same initial cash flow to cover the costs of development. Each live performance has the same costs as the last, so live performances only help exposure. Radio play costs as much as it pays. Their only means to recover money is through sales of CDs.
They screwed up. They didn't realize that marginalizing 10% of their profits by allowing per-track downloads 5 years ago could have actually softened the problem that they face today: people have found an alternative to thier lock on the distribution channels with P2P and MP3s.
Such is life. No turning baqck the clock, and I can't imagine what they could do to add value back to their offerings.
Oddly, I noticed it the other day on a "terms of use" disclaimer for United. It went something like "you aren't allowed to play with our systems to get a better fare."
The two tricks are "hidden cities" and "double-booking." For a hidden city, you book a flight through where you really want to go, get off the plane, but have a remaining segment. Since you had to make a stop, that ticket is cheaper.
The airlines really have a flawed pricing scheme. Maybe it made sense 15 years ago, but they really need to re-consider based on...say what their cost is?
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But I'd contend that the costs of R&D is for improvements to future machines, and by granting those spin-offs for free to existing customers, they build customer satisfaction with their brand and their product, and as a consequence, build customer loyalty.
The problem with that equation is that the hardware lasts five years, rather than the 2-4 in the PC world. A satisfied customer is important, but the cash flow of upgrading every fifth year doesn't work!
Actually, I see it as more of an opportunity... to release a song-at-a-time, and keep interest up for their "brand." It actually ends up helping the big names more, becuase (I would think) studio access time for them to produce a single song is cheaper.
"Album as a work" is a lost concept, since the days of random-access media. Just another case of catching up with the times.
As for the fact that a fan might only pay $4 instead of $18 for the music they are interested in on a particular CD... The record companies relied on an impulse spending threshold for too long... the price for a CD is now above the impulse level, and is now something that people think about. $1/track puts them back in that impulse range (arguably, a better place-- micro-payments, were people don't really see the money they spend adding up to an impulse purchase!).
It is hard for the musicians and the marketing people to change, but... that also makes it a good opportunity to leverage brand recognition for more overall sales.
As has been alluded to by others, these little UPS systems are generally not on-line systems, meaning that the inverter is not normally supplying power to the load. When you operate the inverter for longer than 15 minutes, you will likely over-heat it.
One thing people fail to mention, though, is the expected life of the batteries. Usually, you will only see these batteries last 5 years if you never use them. If you deep-cycle them, don't expect more than 10-20 uses! Short (...unless it catches fire.
If they run 500 drives for 2,000 hours and observe only one failure, that is a MTBF of 500,000 hours.
Unfortunately, that equation doesn't take into account the fact that some equipment degrades over time; if a product is very reliable for 1,000 hours, and less reliable after that, just double the sample size (maybe triple for statistics), and see what you get.
Real reliability calculations are much more difficult than just what users think MTBF means...
If this restriction exists, it is about Nuke Simulations. I thought that was dropped around 1998.
Actually, Ohm's law is V=IR.
A human has a given R-- add internal resistance of battery and wiring, and a given I will cause electrocution. Solve for V.
If you short a human across a battery, you will quickly electrocute them. Higher voltage batteries could possibly have higher internal impedance, but it isn't going to make it safer.
Still, a 42V shock isn't nearly as bad as one at 480V... you might still be able to pull away.
What higher voltage will really do is make the wiring smaller, and give them more options for higher-power equipment within the car. It's a compromise on safety.
We're desparate to hire people (architectural engineering) for Richmond, VA... just two hours south. San Francisco has more vacant office space... something like 30%. DC has the benefit of government contracts, which tend to be stable at worst, and growing now with the homeland security crap.
The hell you say?!
Clinton wasn't the only one saying that the economy was in trouble. I seem to remember Greenspan talking about "irrational exuberance" beginning in 98.
As for your conspiracy theories about the Hillary... why do you think she would be worse for democracy than GWB?! She would definately be better for civil liberties...
From my experience, I would agree that younger people learn something completely new faster than older people. (I'm 31.) The interesting caveat is that to older people, very little is completely different.
Mastery and discipline are different than "learning" something in this sense. While there is always a place for new blood, bringing in people that can hit the ground running (and do their work in 40 hours a week) is more productive. The new blood only serves to create a management position above them in the short-term.
You know, I've always been disgusted that modern business people are incapable of conceptualizing thought without resorting to power point slides
The problem is that people understand data in different ways. If you have to go on record as making a decision about something you truly don't understand, what do you do? You make the presenter break down the information to simplify it for you.
As much as they are over-used, it's a hell of a lot easier than making someone read a 40-page paper or teaching them to read a schematic diagram.
Actually not as much as I would have expected... $1.2M on the 9th, and $350k on the 11th. How long does it take for transactions to be posted?
In short, useless waste of money
I agree, especially if you look at it as a brick. If you were talking about something that monitored the health of post-tension members in a large building or bridge, that might be interesting. If you just think of it as a proof-of-concept, then it is kind of cool.
The idea that there might be valuable correlation of data between temperature and accelleration is harder to believe. I think someone needed to take a better look at what kind of data could be usefully combined into a single device.
Looks like I was wrong; 50-80% is a common threshold, and higher efficiencies (of electrolysis) are possible.
However, the efficiency of an ideal fuel cell is 83%, and typical values are closer to 35-50%. Combining the electrolysis and fuel cell, you have an efficiency of 17-40%. Better than the Carnot Cycle FWiW.
But H2 is much lighter than O2, so it will rise higher in the atmosphere, and not be able to bond with anything. Same problem with He... most of it is just scattered in the upper atmosphere...
H2 needs about 4% concentration to be explosive, but if there is no O2 around, nothing will ignite it.
I don't know what the efficiency of traditional batteries are, but electrolysis of water to produce H2 has an efficiency of 10%.
If you have a wind turbine, and it cannot convert its power directly to electricity, it takes 10x longer to pay for itself when it procuces H2. Currently, I understand the payback periods are on the order of 15 years for an "average" site and about 8 years for an "ideal" site. Over the life of the equipment, you would be putting in 60% of the (net) energy that it will produce to just making the turbine.
Likewise for fuel cells-- currently, you need to be able to use the heat for them to be efficient.
Sadly, I think the only real option is going nuke.
Water is incompressible; the only potential impact on neutral bouyancy is if the shell of the robot can deform, thereby reducing its total displacement. (Foam or ping-pong balls would have this problem, if used for neutral bouyancy.)
It's odd how the phone companies seem to ignore business users' needs. My monthly phone bill for my work phone has to be at least $200... and I only use it more every month.
The most important feature for me is battery life. A nice perk would be useful data connections for my laptop. Even if it just lets me access my webmail account on the road, I'm willing to push for a new phone, and spending more money.
Since they can't accommodate these needs, I will shift much of my phone use over to a Blackberry or Good device, at a loss of revenue for the phone company, and possibly even a net monthly savings.
Wal-Mart's real opportunity is to let people return it to the store so they can get films sooner. Then you have brought people to your store, and you have more opportunities to sell them some crap.
In Israel (at least, some places in Tel Aviv) you can walk up to a vending machine on the street and rent DVD *porn*.
...aah, the joys of conscript army. Porn Vending Machines.
...they are trying to scare their users! Only from that angle can they exert any pressure on IBM.
All that having been said, I would prefer the elimination of income tax and capital gains tax in favor of a federal sales tax (even if said tax were 30%)...
The whole problem with tax code is that there are special considerations to help stimulate the economy.
If you tax sales rather than income, that has an unfair effect on people scraping to get by, while assisting people that save their money, not contributing back to the economy.
Flat income taxes are the only way to go. In Hong Kong, you pay (IIRC) 15% flat tax on income. It really sucks your first year (when you effectively have to pay tax for two years with one check), but it's a great system. People are still afriad of Inland Revenue to some extent, but the tax dollars aren't wasted on a huge auditing system. Filling out your paperwork takes a couple minutes, then a half-hour in line if you need to file in person.
No, it isn't overbooking. Two different people were issued boarding passes with the same name printed on them... _ Adams, and for the same seat. Ms. Adams, and a very much un-related Mr. Adams. Ms. Adams had to leave the plane and check in again.
When airlines overbook, you don't get a seat assignment initially. This is effectively two different people checking in on the same ticket.
When I had to write by hand, I was very concise. I hated writing. If I could find a three word answer to a question, I would use it. I made every word count.
Now, I type almost all communication. I find that because of the ease and speed, I don't censor my thoughts... I just put down what I am thinking.
Multiply this effect by everyone you work with, and see what happens. Remember the idea of a "Paperless Office?" I now have to deal with easily 10x paper from before e-mail really became popular.
What do you want language to be... concise or verbose... a "brain dump," or carefully worded dialogue?
You have to realize, though, that the MPAA makes back their money in the opening weekend! When they go to DVD, it is pure profit. Personally, I think this is great-- I enjoy seeing a movie in the theater, and am willing to fork over $20 for two tickets and maybe some popcorn.
Unfortunately, the recording industry does not have that same initial cash flow to cover the costs of development. Each live performance has the same costs as the last, so live performances only help exposure. Radio play costs as much as it pays. Their only means to recover money is through sales of CDs.
They screwed up. They didn't realize that marginalizing 10% of their profits by allowing per-track downloads 5 years ago could have actually softened the problem that they face today: people have found an alternative to thier lock on the distribution channels with P2P and MP3s.
Such is life. No turning baqck the clock, and I can't imagine what they could do to add value back to their offerings.
Oddly, I noticed it the other day on a "terms of use" disclaimer for United. It went something like "you aren't allowed to play with our systems to get a better fare."
...say what their cost is?
The two tricks are "hidden cities" and "double-booking." For a hidden city, you book a flight through where you really want to go, get off the plane, but have a remaining segment. Since you had to make a stop, that ticket is cheaper.
The airlines really have a flawed pricing scheme. Maybe it made sense 15 years ago, but they really need to re-consider based on