I am all for renewable energy, but I disagree with the idea of economic incentives. There have been a large number of potential renewable energy sources, and many people seem to have one that is their favorate. None of these (except hydroelectricity) have become major sources of power, due to various obstacles that still must be overcome. I think that once these ideas are economically feasable (*if* they are feasable) they will get investment and be implemented.
Incentives and subsidies rush products that are not yet ready into the market because they are made artificially cheaper. The problem is, instead of using whatever technology can profitably produce energy, we end up using whatever technology is the favorate of the most people, or the pet project of a particular legislator or lobbying industry (corn ethanol, I'm looking at you).
I'm concerned about what happens when they combine information about who has healthy kidneys with streetview. And put google ads offering discounts on bathtubs and ice.
It depends what you consider significant. According to Carnot's theorem, the efficiency of a heat engine is increases with the difference between the hot reservoir and the cold reservoir. So the difference between one's body temperature and ambient temperature isn't much, therefore efficiency is low, but power can still be produced.
Still, it's better than living in Iran and Afghanistan.
I'm really tired of hearing this argument. I'm an american, I love my country but I see things wrong with it and I know it could be improved. Yes, it's better here than it is in Iran. You know what? That's not good enough. I'd like to think that our country is being held to a higher standard than "better than Iran and Afghanistan."
Interesting idea, but I think they'd still be playing whack-a-mole, because they would need to infiltrate every single torrent they want to shut down. There are a lot of torrents and a lot of torrent sites, and they'd never be able to keep up.
Never heard of carnot efficiency before, have you?
Any energy recovered from this small temperature differential would be miniscule compared to the initial cost of putting a stirling engine in a computer. It costs energy to run the peltier plate as a heat pump, if you want low power it'd be less difficult and cheaper to just build a bigger heat sink.
What he's talking about is called skin effect. For alternating current, the highest current density is in the "skin" of the conductor, and it drops off exponentially as you approach the center. For 60Hz, the depth is 8.5mm (at this depth the current density is 1/e or 36.8% of the current density at the skin. So you can't get away with thin copper plating at these frequencies, but power lines are frequently hollow or filled with something like steel, which is a lot cheaper.
As long as we're being pedantic... It is scientific convention to round 4 or less down, 6 or more up, and 5 to the closest even number. Ie,.385 rounds to.38 (so does.375) and.345 rounds to.34 (as does.335).
When your electrical system crashes, the alternator dies, which means the vaccuum pump won't be working, which means you'll lose hydralic pressure.
no, no, NO, no. If you kill a car engine (thus stopping the alternator), the battery should still be functioning. In any case, electric vaccum pumps are only needed on diesels. Gasoline engines generate a vaccum when the throttle plate is closed and the engine is running (either under it's own power or because you are rolling in gear), which sucks air into the cylinders and creates a vaccum behind the throttle plate. Brake pedals have a vaccum assist that helps, but is by no means neccesary. I once backed my van out of my driveway and down a hill after somehow failing to start the engine, and I managed to stop it before I hit the parked car ~15 feet behind me. The brake pedal was quite a bit stiffer, but it still worked.
Now hydraulic pressure has nothing to do with the electrical system. The pressure comes from pressing on the brake pedal which moves a piston and displaces hydraulic fluid. In addition to the (somewhat limited) brake capacity, engine braking can also scrub off speed.
as for power steering, the faster you go, the less difficult it is to steer. My dad's old van had no power steering, turning the wheels at low speed (say, parking) was a BITCH, turning when the car was motionless was pretty much impossible, but at city speeds it was pretty managable, and at highway speeds I couldn't even notice the lack of power steering.
regarding AC on hybrids: The prius cannot run the AC compressor without running the internal combustion engine. In city driving this can HALF the fuel economy (~35mpg instead of ~70). This does not have to be the case for hybrids though. In a normal car, the compressor is driven by a belt connected to the crankshaft, which depends on the engine running. The other option is to have an electrical motor drive a compressor (it works for your refridgerator and home AC...) which would be completely independent of the drivetrain. It would require enough battery capacity to power the electric motor while the compressor is off, but most hybrids have/plenty/ of battery power.
Re:CPU efficiency vs. heat rejection
on
Undervolting a Laptop
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It's pretty much all lost to heat. The "work" done by the electricity it to provide a signal where high voltage indicates 1 and no voltage (ground) indicates zero. Every time a transistor switches either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0, current travels through it, using power which is released as heat. The higher the clock speed the more transistions, thus the more power consumption. Lower voltage reduces power consumption (power = volts x current(amps)), but as the "high" voltages becomes lower, the transistors much be more precise (it's easyer to tell the difference between 0V and 5V than it is to tell the difference between 0V and 2V). This is why overclockers usually increase the voltage, since at higher than spec frequencies there is more signal degradation which could (and does) make the system less stable.
I'm not too keen on the "they can't control their actions at all -- it's not their fault" explanation, but I'll humor you. What do you propose to solve the problem of assholes taking what is not theirs?
Re:Slow people cause Frustration if they don't yei
on
The Future of the Car
·
· Score: 1
Kids, play nice.
If you're going slow, stay in the right lane, if you're going fast, know how to pass on the left(reverse these instructions as locale dictates). If I'm in the left lane doing 70-75mph in a 70, and someone comes up on me a lot faster than that (say, 90mph), I get out of the way. Doesn't matter if he should be going that fast or not, doing anything else will just make it more dangerous for everyone.
If it the energy required to extract a barrel of oil from these soruces is greater than the amount of energy *in* a barrel of oil it doens't do us a whole lot of good, now does it?
The idea is not to say "increment register A", because yes, everyone who has any buisiness reading the code knows what register A is. The idea would be "increment number of bytes in the buffer", because it is not obvious *what* the number in register A means.
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I am all for renewable energy, but I disagree with the idea of economic incentives. There have been a large number of potential renewable energy sources, and many people seem to have one that is their favorate. None of these (except hydroelectricity) have become major sources of power, due to various obstacles that still must be overcome. I think that once these ideas are economically feasable (*if* they are feasable) they will get investment and be implemented.
Incentives and subsidies rush products that are not yet ready into the market because they are made artificially cheaper. The problem is, instead of using whatever technology can profitably produce energy, we end up using whatever technology is the favorate of the most people, or the pet project of a particular legislator or lobbying industry (corn ethanol, I'm looking at you).
I'm concerned about what happens when they combine information about who has healthy kidneys with streetview. And put google ads offering discounts on bathtubs and ice.
It depends what you consider significant. According to Carnot's theorem, the efficiency of a heat engine is increases with the difference between the hot reservoir and the cold reservoir. So the difference between one's body temperature and ambient temperature isn't much, therefore efficiency is low, but power can still be produced.
I'm really tired of hearing this argument. I'm an american, I love my country but I see things wrong with it and I know it could be improved.
Yes, it's better here than it is in Iran. You know what? That's not good enough. I'd like to think that our country is being held to a higher standard than "better than Iran and Afghanistan."
Interesting idea, but I think they'd still be playing whack-a-mole, because they would need to infiltrate every single torrent they want to shut down.
There are a lot of torrents and a lot of torrent sites, and they'd never be able to keep up.
Never heard of carnot efficiency before, have you?
Any energy recovered from this small temperature differential would be miniscule compared to the initial cost of putting a stirling engine in a computer. It costs energy to run the peltier plate as a heat pump, if you want low power it'd be less difficult and cheaper to just build a bigger heat sink.
No, in that situation they would just lower the speed limits until they make the amount of revenue they want.
What he's talking about is called skin effect. For alternating current, the highest current density is in the "skin" of the conductor, and it drops off exponentially as you approach the center. For 60Hz, the depth is 8.5mm (at this depth the current density is 1/e or 36.8% of the current density at the skin. So you can't get away with thin copper plating at these frequencies, but power lines are frequently hollow or filled with something like steel, which is a lot cheaper.
The MPAA and RIAA are not the only groups lobbying for laws that are in their own self-interest. Eisenhower had something to say about this...
Almost all software (especially proprietary) requires you to click through a EULA that threatens to assult you with lawyers if you don't play nice.
As long as we're being pedantic... It is scientific convention to round 4 or less down, 6 or more up, and 5 to the closest even number. Ie, .385 rounds to .38 (so does .375) and .345 rounds to .34 (as does .335).
You, sir, need a motorcycle.
but..but, what will we put cheap liqour in?
Bullshit. Everything tastes good with barbecue sauce.
Lynx won't stop you either, but it will make it very hard to do :)
no, no, NO, no. If you kill a car engine (thus stopping the alternator), the battery should still be functioning. In any case, electric vaccum pumps are only needed on diesels. Gasoline engines generate a vaccum when the throttle plate is closed and the engine is running (either under it's own power or because you are rolling in gear), which sucks air into the cylinders and creates a vaccum behind the throttle plate. Brake pedals have a vaccum assist that helps, but is by no means neccesary. I once backed my van out of my driveway and down a hill after somehow failing to start the engine, and I managed to stop it before I hit the parked car ~15 feet behind me. The brake pedal was quite a bit stiffer, but it still worked.
Now hydraulic pressure has nothing to do with the electrical system. The pressure comes from pressing on the brake pedal which moves a piston and displaces hydraulic fluid. In addition to the (somewhat limited) brake capacity, engine braking can also scrub off speed.
as for power steering, the faster you go, the less difficult it is to steer. My dad's old van had no power steering, turning the wheels at low speed (say, parking) was a BITCH, turning when the car was motionless was pretty much impossible, but at city speeds it was pretty managable, and at highway speeds I couldn't even notice the lack of power steering.
regarding AC on hybrids: The prius cannot run the AC compressor without running the internal combustion engine. In city driving this can HALF the fuel economy (~35mpg instead of ~70). This does not have to be the case for hybrids though. In a normal car, the compressor is driven by a belt connected to the crankshaft, which depends on the engine running. The other option is to have an electrical motor drive a compressor (it works for your refridgerator and home AC...) which would be completely independent of the drivetrain. It would require enough battery capacity to power the electric motor while the compressor is off, but most hybrids have /plenty/ of battery power.
It's pretty much all lost to heat. The "work" done by the electricity it to provide a signal where high voltage indicates 1 and no voltage (ground) indicates zero. Every time a transistor switches either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0, current travels through it, using power which is released as heat. The higher the clock speed the more transistions, thus the more power consumption. Lower voltage reduces power consumption (power = volts x current(amps)), but as the "high" voltages becomes lower, the transistors much be more precise (it's easyer to tell the difference between 0V and 5V than it is to tell the difference between 0V and 2V). This is why overclockers usually increase the voltage, since at higher than spec frequencies there is more signal degradation which could (and does) make the system less stable.
Is there a dishonest way to throw a chair?
offtopic re your sig, but other deadly words for an engineer are "oops", "that's interesting" and, "do you have a bigger hammer?".
I'm not too keen on the "they can't control their actions at all -- it's not their fault" explanation, but I'll humor you. What do you propose to solve the problem of assholes taking what is not theirs?
Kids, play nice.
If you're going slow, stay in the right lane, if you're going fast, know how to pass on the left(reverse these instructions as locale dictates). If I'm in the left lane doing 70-75mph in a 70, and someone comes up on me a lot faster than that (say, 90mph), I get out of the way. Doesn't matter if he should be going that fast or not, doing anything else will just make it more dangerous for everyone.
No, no I didn't.
If it the energy required to extract a barrel of oil from these soruces is greater than the amount of energy *in* a barrel of oil it doens't do us a whole lot of good, now does it?
The idea is not to say "increment register A", because yes, everyone who has any buisiness reading the code knows what register A is. The idea would be "increment number of bytes in the buffer", because it is not obvious *what* the number in register A means.