You're looking at two different efficiencies, there. The "~40%" is for a heat engine, or what happens when you use fuel. There are articles on wikipedia if you want. Search for "carnot", "diesel cycle" and "otto cycle" for a start. Maybe "heat engine" would be a good idea, too.
The "100%" quoted in the article is the efficiency with which the submitter hopes they can one day convert plant matter to gasoline. Note that the researcher didn't suggest that they could get to 100%, only that they'd try to get the number above 50%.
Sterling Ball claims otherwise. The problem is that they weren't removing UNUSED software from engineers' machines that were transferred to clerical staff. They were apparently paying for what they were using.
From the American Heritage dictionary:
bus (bs) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. buses or busses
1. A long motor vehicle for carrying passengers, usually along a fixed route.
2. Informal A large or ungainly automobile.
3. A four-wheeled cart for carrying dishes in a restaurant.
. . .
Note that there is more than one form for the plural.
Thank you. I read ALL of this thread excepting the entirety of the offensive grand (et c.) parent post. (It was just too much even for me.) I was equally offended by the questionable post and at the idea that Ms. Public should not have objected to the content of said post: The whole notion that "free speech" necessarily extends into the private sphere (Slashdot, for example, or my home for another) is ridiculous.
If some wanker expresses such ideas on my property, I'm free to (and will) toss him on his arse out the front door. Equally, if I have only a suspicion that he said such a thing, I'm still free to toss him out just because I think that he's ugly.
Ms. Public MAY have done something that some judge reprehensible, but she did nothing wrong by asking editors to toss (delete) this particular AC (or her comment) out on her arse.
If the teachers provide poor service there is currently no incentive to do otherwise, other than firing the teacher. Obviously we need some sort of performance-reward system to replace the one we took out when we removed it from the free market.
Which is provided by replacing it with a free market. As the public schools exist, it's generally quite difficult to fire a teacher for poor performance. I read an entertaining book by John Stossel a few weeks ago in which he showed the lengthy process necessary to fire a teacher engaged in criminal behavior. I'm of the firm opinion that this system is broken and can't be repaired.
No system as large as the public schools can simply be scrapped, though. Perhaps the best would be the vouchers that have been much ballyhooed of late. Allow, as you say, both systems to exist while a free market provides some correction to current educational practice.
. . . that was using GPL stuff left and right without complying to the terms and redistributing.
This first fragment implies that they should have redistributed the modified source code because they modified it.
. ..that was using [and distributing] GPL stuff left and right without complying to the terms [by] redistributing [the source code].
The second fragment says what you seemed to mean.
sure. 500 GB is more space than I have on my home fileserver.
Speaking of that file server, I had no end of trouble with the durn thing when I was first setting it up; I lost six (seagate) drives in a four drive RAID array. Well, I finally hit myself on the head with a clue stick, changed the SATA card, and it's been running perfectly since. I don't claim that this will cure your ails, but it might be something to think about.
I used to use gentoo for everything; it's sweet inasmuch as you can do anything with the time. The problem with Gentoo is that it has a HUGE up-front time investment to learn. I'm too old and have too many kids now to keep making that investment. There are good alternatives here and here if you want something easier to use with good management tools. If you want a little bit more, look at smeserver. I seem to recall that there are one or two more like smeserver, but I'm too lazy to look.
Circle have one huge disadvantage compared to traffic lights: if one cross street is backed up, the circle backs up and then prevents the other cross street from moving.
One of the benefits of roundabouts is that entry into the roundabout is limited by the vehicles already in the roundabout, so that the intersection isn't as choked by a high volume roadway; a roundabout tends to be more "egalitarian" in terms of access. The major trouble, though, is that the high volume 'way can be more severely limited by a roundabout than by a conventional intersection controlled by modern ITS, such as ATCS or ATSAC.
Please note that I said roundabout, not "traffic circle." A modern roundabout is a subtly different beast than a traffic circle of old.
If you're interested in roundabouts, a good reference is here .
p.s. I'm not a highway geek, I'm a traffic engineer.
Well, in my hometown of 30,000 any new intersections use a system called ATSAC.
. . . which involves "arbitration at each junction" whether or not "traffic flow rises above a certain level."
I have done some professional design work, both with pencil and with AutoCAD. If it's any help, I'll freely admit that I found AutoCAD to be painfully inadequate in designing a hybrid power cart. (This was a neat little doo-dad used to prevent pipeline corrosion. In most instances power was supplied through a windmill or small solar array, but a small generator backed up both so that the batteries didn't drain too much in the cold.) I've designed a couple of other small assemblies, but nothing much to brag about. Perhaps I should also mention that I'm a mechanical engineer by education and by temperament.
I had trouble finding work a few years ago, so took a job drafting for a small traffic/transportation engineering company. For what we do, AutoCAD is a very good tool. I've tried using qCAD in the stead of AutoCAD, but after a month, I found that I'd reached an inadequate plateau in productivity.
For the gear assembly (a hobby) I started a week ago, gCAD3D turns out to be quite a good tool. AutoCAD, in my opinion, sucks for this sort of work, a sentiment with which I think you agree.
As you might have already figured, my experience is with process piping design (refineries, chemical plants, cryogenics, etc.) so we may be doing the apples vs. oranges thing when it comes to experience with CAD and engineering design.
I think you're right, apples and oranges definitely come to mind; I definitely have no experience with piping. We might well be at the point of agreeing to disagree.
You do write quite well but you sell yourself short by saying things like, "I'm concerned that I'm still not expressing myself adequately" and "Sometimes I just don't get my point across".
Yeah, I know that was a cheap shot but you fired first.
Thanks! I try to take pride in expressing myself well. And it wasn't a cheap shot. My wife reminds me at least once a month that "selling myself short" is why I'm still in a job I'm not particularly fond of and rather overqualified for.
Another note or two, and I'll be quiet and listen. I couldn't agree more that municipalities, businesses and individuals should have full ownership of all of the data they create; that I might not be able to read my data or jump through hoops to get it because I choose to change applications (or OS) is abominable.
Thanks for a civilized discussion.
I'm sorry. Sometimes I just don't get my point across.
BRL-CAD is 3-D, open source, solids-based, doesn't cost an arm-and-a-leg and uses an open data file format. Most CAD data is all x-y-z, is quite sophisticated and smells good to boot.
BRL-CAD doesn't do Drafting well, while AutoCAD doesn't do Design well. They are two different tools for two different purposes.
I've not done design work in about five years, but did use Solidworks and have tried several packages in the meanwhile and I am familiar with the difference between design and drafting.
As a last point, AutoCAD's two major selling points are power and useability. Autocad is extremely flexible; it has literally thousands of tools built-in and can be (almost) infinitely expanded through the use of VBA, LISP and VisualLisp. AutoCAD has tens of thousands of active users, who can teach many, many more users, thereby perpetuating itself.
I have looked for and would welcome a suitable replacement for AutoCAD, but I'm afraid that in the US market, there just isn't anything as compelling. There are alternatives, mind, but they take a much larger investment for most companies (and governments) than just staying with the establishment.
Please, please show that I'm wrong. I would love to walk to work tomorrow with some optimism that I'll be able to replace my hundreds of library files with something Open. (I just don't see BRL-CAD doing that any time in the next few years.)
In reviewing this, I'm concerned that I'm still not expressing myself adequately. I can make several drafts of a conceptual street layout in just an hour or maybe a few minutes. I cannot quickly draw a helicopter rotor with AutoCAD, though, because it's first a 2-D tool with the 3-D tools "grafted" on.
With BRL-CAD or SolidWorks, I can modify that helicopter rotor fairly qickly, but the conceptual street layout might well be completely out of reach simply because it's not intended for 2-dimensional drafting.
I'm not saying that AutoCAD is a GOOD tool, I'm simply saying that for what it does it's better than BRL-CAD and more importantly, in the industries where it's already used, there is (almost) infitely more experience with AutoCAD.
(Having been trained on the board, surely you can appreciate the difference between an architectual floor layout, or a conceptual street layout and an isometric drawing of a mechanism. The drafter drawing layouts uses different techniques than he does drawing the isometrics, doesn't he?)
huh? Municipalities and BRL-CAD? I don't think that I've ever seen the two held in any relation.
Isn't BRL-CAD largely a CSG modeling tool? I know without doubt that AutoCAD (which many municipalities use for good reason) is developed as a drafting tool and can be used, with difficulty, as a graphics tool.
Perhaps you know more than I, but what I know about the tools would suggest that BRL-CAD and AutoCAD are miles apart. Hells Bells, I would have trouble comparing BRL-CAD with Inventor.
Would you mind explaining why you suggest that BRL-CAD might be even a beginning tool for a city, county, borough or state?
As a side note, please realize that I use, enjoy and contribute to Free Software. I also use and enjoy AutoCAD and simply don't see BRL-CAD coming within a light-year of replacing the former in the areas of my use.
I'm 35 years old and finished a degree in mechanical engineering 6 years ago. While I was in school and for a time before, I was a mechanic for an armored car company. For a short time, I worked designing a portable hybrid energy.
I currently work for a civil engineering firm (specializing in issues related to transportation) supervising CAD (et. al.) technicians. I have approval to and am working for and eagerly anticipating working for this same firm not as a supervisor, but as a traffic engineer, specializing in models and simulation. (While I was working on that ME degree, I wrote several fluid-flow models for classes. Traffic an fluids bear surprising similarities in how they are modelled.)
As a side note, I regularly recruit and have hired people ten years my senior and watched as they were promoted out of my area.
Don't worry so much. There may be somebody living just down the street from you, twenty years your senior, contemplating a similar move who stands similar odds of success.
Today, thirty is still quite young. Stop dithering though, and get started.
p.s. Did you know that you don't necessarily need a C.S. degree to get started? I've written software in C, VBA scripts, visual LISP and was fiddling with BASH scripting earlier this evening. I don't claim to be nearly as good as some of my friends, but I know just enough to notice that I find it useful, sometimes fun and challenging, and that I won't be programming as a primary career. Pick up Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language and give it a whirl; you might actually learn whether you're romanticizing your hobby or if you're barking up the wrong tree.
hi. I'm a mechanical engineer (who loves to tinker) and has used watercooling. I'm going to suggest a few steps to help you see that your system is successful. (I'm not going to use any numbers or calculation, because I'm very lazy: 1) I did the work once for my own systems and found that the work was overkill, 2) water can carry more heat than you realize 3) I'm lazy.
1. Relax, be lazy and have a beer. You're dealing with (I think) a server in your home that is probably going to remain lightly loaded. Even if you expect heavy loading, you still need to relax.
2. Please know that the major reason to use water is that water has a MUCH higher heat capacity than does air. Another good reason is that water conducts heat better than does air.
3. What you've already done is probably good enough. I use one water pump and four manifolds to feed three systems. (The water pump has a simple backup, although this is manual for now. I've not taken the time I need to learn how to design my vision of a good backup for it.) I don't overclock, but I'm lazy and don't want to deal with the hassle.
4. You're talking about pulling from the system a maximum of probably 150 watts, assuming that your mATX system has a VERY high load on it. Unless you live in the midst of the mojave, you won't have any trouble pulling sufficient heat from the system. Remember that your car's cooling system can remove MUCH more heat. (A note to the pedantists: SHUT UP. I know that there are differences and I'm inimately familiar with the differences, but the analogy is good. Based on the scant information the poster has given, he's already well-covered.)
5. TEST IT. Stop worrying, turn it on and see what you get. If you don't (as I don't) want to bother with lmsensors, (or the BSD equivalent), turn it on, load it for a few hours, reboot it and see what the BIOS tells you the temperatures are. If everything looks good, then you're golden. This is not a good design/testing methodology, but you're not designing a nuclear reactor which needs perfect redundancy and endless, constant tests to ensure that everything is operating perfectly. Keep an occasional eye on your water pump (there are several different types of flow meters available) and a very lax eye on temperatures; doing both of these will keep you sufficiently covered. (By the way, your sytem will still probably circulate a very small amount of water even if the pump fails. This depends on a temperature and gradient difference, though.)
p.s. I'm assuming that you're not overclocking your system, nor operating in extreme environments.
p.p.s. There are sizable holes in my advice. If you're looking for specific numbers, I'll charge you reasonable fees for reasonable consultation. Feel free to contact me if you want to pay my inflated rates.
p.p.p.s. Have you noticed yet that I like bullets of one kind or another?...And that I'm lazy?
my last little bit: my point 5 is probably the best of what I've said. Turn it on and see what you get. Edison didn't have any results until he provided current. If you turn the thing on and it doesn't work out well, you can turn it back off in a few minutes and probably still be just fine. Remember, though, that most BIOSs can be configured to shut down the system if the temperatures get too high, providing enough fail-safe to determine that everything works.
pdf warning After I saw your post, I remembered an announcement some months ago that seagate was looking to move encryption to the hard drive. Not quite what you said you were looking for, but not too far away, either.
. . . then i looked at the 800 price tag.. hmm for $200 more you get a nice ibook, or . . .
I had precisely the same thought. An ibook boots quickly, runs from battery almost as long as this does and is much more capable than this. Good call, I think.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you press the button? It doesn't actually make an offer to sell. What you end up with is a chance to get more information.
I just wonder if anybody will be knocking on my door tomorrow because I tried "the button."
If this estimate is anywhere near true and your diesel rig gets about 30 mpg and the good Mr. Ballmer is a hefty 225 pounds, then about 180 miles.
You're looking at two different efficiencies, there. The "~40%" is for a heat engine, or what happens when you use fuel. There are articles on wikipedia if you want. Search for "carnot", "diesel cycle" and "otto cycle" for a start. Maybe "heat engine" would be a good idea, too.
The "100%" quoted in the article is the efficiency with which the submitter hopes they can one day convert plant matter to gasoline. Note that the researcher didn't suggest that they could get to 100%, only that they'd try to get the number above 50%.
Sterling Ball claims otherwise. The problem is that they weren't removing UNUSED software from engineers' machines that were transferred to clerical staff. They were apparently paying for what they were using.
http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
From the American Heritage dictionary: bus (bs) Pronunciation Key n. pl. buses or busses 1. A long motor vehicle for carrying passengers, usually along a fixed route. 2. Informal A large or ungainly automobile. 3. A four-wheeled cart for carrying dishes in a restaurant. . . . Note that there is more than one form for the plural.
Thank you. I read ALL of this thread excepting the entirety of the offensive grand (et c.) parent post. (It was just too much even for me.) I was equally offended by the questionable post and at the idea that Ms. Public should not have objected to the content of said post: The whole notion that "free speech" necessarily extends into the private sphere (Slashdot, for example, or my home for another) is ridiculous.
If some wanker expresses such ideas on my property, I'm free to (and will) toss him on his arse out the front door. Equally, if I have only a suspicion that he said such a thing, I'm still free to toss him out just because I think that he's ugly.
Ms. Public MAY have done something that some judge reprehensible, but she did nothing wrong by asking editors to toss (delete) this particular AC (or her comment) out on her arse.
Which is provided by replacing it with a free market. As the public schools exist, it's generally quite difficult to fire a teacher for poor performance. I read an entertaining book by John Stossel a few weeks ago in which he showed the lengthy process necessary to fire a teacher engaged in criminal behavior. I'm of the firm opinion that this system is broken and can't be repaired.
No system as large as the public schools can simply be scrapped, though. Perhaps the best would be the vouchers that have been much ballyhooed of late. Allow, as you say, both systems to exist while a free market provides some correction to current educational practice.
sure. 500 GB is more space than I have on my home fileserver.
Speaking of that file server, I had no end of trouble with the durn thing when I was first setting it up; I lost six (seagate) drives in a four drive RAID array. Well, I finally hit myself on the head with a clue stick, changed the SATA card, and it's been running perfectly since. I don't claim that this will cure your ails, but it might be something to think about.
Is it possible you're confusing Matrox with Maxtor?
The asteroid belt isn't really all that crowded.
I found a scientific american article that has some interesting bits.
I used to use gentoo for everything; it's sweet inasmuch as you can do anything with the time. The problem with Gentoo is that it has a HUGE up-front time investment to learn. I'm too old and have too many kids now to keep making that investment. There are good alternatives here and here if you want something easier to use with good management tools. If you want a little bit more, look at smeserver. I seem to recall that there are one or two more like smeserver, but I'm too lazy to look.
Good luck.
Relax, you worry too much . . . Nobody was hurt, and there was only one evacuation. (There are one or two acids with a rather strong, harmless odor.)
Even a codger like me had only one experiment with mercury in two years of high school chemistry.
Demonstrations with other metals can be fun, too, though. Aluminum is especially useful. (Man, does it burn when you convince it; iron, too.)
Seriously, though, relax. Some of the best innovations are made by young people with too much time on their hands.
Idle hands are the devils workshop!
Please note that I said roundabout, not "traffic circle." A modern roundabout is a subtly different beast than a traffic circle of old.
If you're interested in roundabouts, a good reference is here .
p.s. I'm not a highway geek, I'm a traffic engineer.
Well, in my hometown of 30,000 any new intersections use a system called ATSAC. . . . which involves "arbitration at each junction" whether or not "traffic flow rises above a certain level."
I had trouble finding work a few years ago, so took a job drafting for a small traffic/transportation engineering company. For what we do, AutoCAD is a very good tool. I've tried using qCAD in the stead of AutoCAD, but after a month, I found that I'd reached an inadequate plateau in productivity.
For the gear assembly (a hobby) I started a week ago, gCAD3D turns out to be quite a good tool. AutoCAD, in my opinion, sucks for this sort of work, a sentiment with which I think you agree.
I think you're right, apples and oranges definitely come to mind; I definitely have no experience with piping. We might well be at the point of agreeing to disagree. Thanks! I try to take pride in expressing myself well. And it wasn't a cheap shot. My wife reminds me at least once a month that "selling myself short" is why I'm still in a job I'm not particularly fond of and rather overqualified for.
Another note or two, and I'll be quiet and listen. I couldn't agree more that municipalities, businesses and individuals should have full ownership of all of the data they create; that I might not be able to read my data or jump through hoops to get it because I choose to change applications (or OS) is abominable.
Thanks for a civilized discussion.
I'm sorry. Sometimes I just don't get my point across.
BRL-CAD is 3-D, open source, solids-based, doesn't cost an arm-and-a-leg and uses an open data file format. Most CAD data is all x-y-z, is quite sophisticated and smells good to boot.
BRL-CAD doesn't do Drafting well, while AutoCAD doesn't do Design well. They are two different tools for two different purposes.
I've not done design work in about five years, but did use Solidworks and have tried several packages in the meanwhile and I am familiar with the difference between design and drafting.
As a last point, AutoCAD's two major selling points are power and useability. Autocad is extremely flexible; it has literally thousands of tools built-in and can be (almost) infinitely expanded through the use of VBA, LISP and VisualLisp. AutoCAD has tens of thousands of active users, who can teach many, many more users, thereby perpetuating itself.
I have looked for and would welcome a suitable replacement for AutoCAD, but I'm afraid that in the US market, there just isn't anything as compelling. There are alternatives, mind, but they take a much larger investment for most companies (and governments) than just staying with the establishment.
Please, please show that I'm wrong. I would love to walk to work tomorrow with some optimism that I'll be able to replace my hundreds of library files with something Open. (I just don't see BRL-CAD doing that any time in the next few years.)
In reviewing this, I'm concerned that I'm still not expressing myself adequately. I can make several drafts of a conceptual street layout in just an hour or maybe a few minutes. I cannot quickly draw a helicopter rotor with AutoCAD, though, because it's first a 2-D tool with the 3-D tools "grafted" on.
With BRL-CAD or SolidWorks, I can modify that helicopter rotor fairly qickly, but the conceptual street layout might well be completely out of reach simply because it's not intended for 2-dimensional drafting.
I'm not saying that AutoCAD is a GOOD tool, I'm simply saying that for what it does it's better than BRL-CAD and more importantly, in the industries where it's already used, there is (almost) infitely more experience with AutoCAD.
(Having been trained on the board, surely you can appreciate the difference between an architectual floor layout, or a conceptual street layout and an isometric drawing of a mechanism. The drafter drawing layouts uses different techniques than he does drawing the isometrics, doesn't he?)
Thanks! I'll drink to that, too.
huh? Municipalities and BRL-CAD? I don't think that I've ever seen the two held in any relation.
Isn't BRL-CAD largely a CSG modeling tool? I know without doubt that AutoCAD (which many municipalities use for good reason) is developed as a drafting tool and can be used, with difficulty, as a graphics tool.
Perhaps you know more than I, but what I know about the tools would suggest that BRL-CAD and AutoCAD are miles apart. Hells Bells, I would have trouble comparing BRL-CAD with Inventor.
Would you mind explaining why you suggest that BRL-CAD might be even a beginning tool for a city, county, borough or state?
As a side note, please realize that I use, enjoy and contribute to Free Software. I also use and enjoy AutoCAD and simply don't see BRL-CAD coming within a light-year of replacing the former in the areas of my use.
I'm 35 years old and finished a degree in mechanical engineering 6 years ago. While I was in school and for a time before, I was a mechanic for an armored car company. For a short time, I worked designing a portable hybrid energy.
I currently work for a civil engineering firm (specializing in issues related to transportation) supervising CAD (et. al.) technicians. I have approval to and am working for and eagerly anticipating working for this same firm not as a supervisor, but as a traffic engineer, specializing in models and simulation. (While I was working on that ME degree, I wrote several fluid-flow models for classes. Traffic an fluids bear surprising similarities in how they are modelled.)
As a side note, I regularly recruit and have hired people ten years my senior and watched as they were promoted out of my area.
Don't worry so much. There may be somebody living just down the street from you, twenty years your senior, contemplating a similar move who stands similar odds of success.
Today, thirty is still quite young. Stop dithering though, and get started.
p.s. Did you know that you don't necessarily need a C.S. degree to get started? I've written software in C, VBA scripts, visual LISP and was fiddling with BASH scripting earlier this evening. I don't claim to be nearly as good as some of my friends, but I know just enough to notice that I find it useful, sometimes fun and challenging, and that I won't be programming as a primary career. Pick up Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language and give it a whirl; you might actually learn whether you're romanticizing your hobby or if you're barking up the wrong tree.
hi. I'm a mechanical engineer (who loves to tinker) and has used watercooling. I'm going to suggest a few steps to help you see that your system is successful. (I'm not going to use any numbers or calculation, because I'm very lazy: 1) I did the work once for my own systems and found that the work was overkill, 2) water can carry more heat than you realize 3) I'm lazy.
...And that I'm lazy?
1. Relax, be lazy and have a beer. You're dealing with (I think) a server in your home that is probably going to remain lightly loaded. Even if you expect heavy loading, you still need to relax.
2. Please know that the major reason to use water is that water has a MUCH higher heat capacity than does air. Another good reason is that water conducts heat better than does air.
3. What you've already done is probably good enough. I use one water pump and four manifolds to feed three systems. (The water pump has a simple backup, although this is manual for now. I've not taken the time I need to learn how to design my vision of a good backup for it.) I don't overclock, but I'm lazy and don't want to deal with the hassle.
4. You're talking about pulling from the system a maximum of probably 150 watts, assuming that your mATX system has a VERY high load on it. Unless you live in the midst of the mojave, you won't have any trouble pulling sufficient heat from the system. Remember that your car's cooling system can remove MUCH more heat. (A note to the pedantists: SHUT UP. I know that there are differences and I'm inimately familiar with the differences, but the analogy is good. Based on the scant information the poster has given, he's already well-covered.)
5. TEST IT. Stop worrying, turn it on and see what you get. If you don't (as I don't) want to bother with lmsensors, (or the BSD equivalent), turn it on, load it for a few hours, reboot it and see what the BIOS tells you the temperatures are. If everything looks good, then you're golden. This is not a good design/testing methodology, but you're not designing a nuclear reactor which needs perfect redundancy and endless, constant tests to ensure that everything is operating perfectly. Keep an occasional eye on your water pump (there are several different types of flow meters available) and a very lax eye on temperatures; doing both of these will keep you sufficiently covered. (By the way, your sytem will still probably circulate a very small amount of water even if the pump fails. This depends on a temperature and gradient difference, though.)
p.s. I'm assuming that you're not overclocking your system, nor operating in extreme environments.
p.p.s. There are sizable holes in my advice. If you're looking for specific numbers, I'll charge you reasonable fees for reasonable consultation. Feel free to contact me if you want to pay my inflated rates.
p.p.p.s. Have you noticed yet that I like bullets of one kind or another?
my last little bit: my point 5 is probably the best of what I've said. Turn it on and see what you get. Edison didn't have any results until he provided current. If you turn the thing on and it doesn't work out well, you can turn it back off in a few minutes and probably still be just fine. Remember, though, that most BIOSs can be configured to shut down the system if the temperatures get too high, providing enough fail-safe to determine that everything works.
You only mention windows and Linux. Truecrypt supports those two operating systems. Future support for OSX is planned.
pdf warning After I saw your post, I remembered an announcement some months ago that seagate was looking to move encryption to the hard drive. Not quite what you said you were looking for, but not too far away, either.
lots of good advice here. (I just discovered the BOFH and can't quite seem to quit spending company time on the, er, bastard.