Posts by Eddy Ito

In real terms

They have to sell the equivalent of roughly 500 iPads every day just to pay the man.

Re: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

"If governments of every size did not routinely make decisions about things of which they are nearly wholly ignorant, they would end up doing nothing at all."

Sadly that is true and worse yet, most of us would be far better off if they did nothing at all. Far too much stupidity is performed under the "we have to do something!" rally cry.

Re: Reg Readers these days...

"Haha! And to prove my point, who do you think downvoted me there? Actual LOL!"

LOL, ok I'll feed ya. I'm surprised you've only got one down vote so far considering the trollishness of the comment. I guess this second post was because you weren't getting enough to eat. Pity you're not like my Nokia E66 as it only needs to be fed once every ten days or so.

Re: Real?

"The RPD is belt fed from the left."

Oh yeah, nice catch. I'm still sticking to it being a PKM and the image reversed given the RPD ejects shells downward and not to the right.

Re: White v Hispanic and Black

"Perhaps you need to get out and learn the difference between ethnicity and language?"

Sorry Danny did you want me to break it out by how it's spoken even though I didn't say learn to speak a different language? Oh, do you actually believe that newspapers in Hong Kong come in Mandarin and Cantonese editions? LOL.

@h4rm0ny

What's that? You could customize how many rows there were and what was on them? Actually you can do that with the Ribbon too.

Actually that isn't true. I could reduce the number of rows to zero and have all the toolbar icons in columns on the sides of the screen. Mostly the only real complaint about the ribbon is that it's fixed across the top. I will say that Autodesk has done a superb job of implementing a ribbon as you can undock it from the top and drag it to be docked vertically along either edge or let it float which I find very handy when I have a second monitor. I would actually be very content if I could leave the ribbon open vertically along the edge and get back some vertical real estate.

Perhaps I should write MS a letter requesting the option of a vertical ribbon. Yes, and I think I'll format it to print out in landscape.

Re: Quick calculations

"Yes, but we're not talking about material phases, are we?"

Actually, I thought you were when you stated;

"123MJ in every Kg of hydrogen *gas*."

I merely pointed out that it wouldn't matter if it was a solid brick of hydrogen, it would still have roughly the same amount of energy available for the same chemical reaction.

"How do you propose to release energy from hydrogen ions? You can't burn them, you know."

Uh, once you get the hydrogen out with the electrolytic cell it will burn just fine, that's the point. Ions have little to do with it and perhaps this and this will help clear things up. I think you're confused between what the kids are doing and another process as the only heat and pressure that these kids need is in the combustion chamber of the tiny engine they have.

Also, I didn't say it was efficient and I agree on that point. In fact I was probably being a bit generous saying the generator efficiency was 20% as it is probably less considering the engine likely isn't optimized for running on hydrogen who knows how good the electrical side is or its condition. I will say the amount of energy used to break those bonds is about 123 MJ per kilogram which, not so coincidentally, is exactly what comes out. The fact that inefficiency exists in the system means it isn't perpetual motion or "free energy" and is why it will take putting more energy than that into the electrolytic cell to get the hydrogen and only 20% or less will come out of the generator. Let's be honest they probably aren't using rare and expensive metals in their electrolytic cell so in total the process efficiency might be as high as 10% on a good day. Overall that's pretty poor since from the numbers I put above it's right on par with a 63 amp hour 12 volt car battery. In the long run, AC@18:35 has it right, it's an experiment, an interesting way of learning for these kids and if it's all there is then it's certainly better than nothing.

@JaitcH

My wife replaced our toaster oven because one element burned out and it wouldn't cook evenly. Being my skinflint self, I rescued it from the trash and slapped on a cheap universal grill rotisserie kit and a perforated can that fit inside to make my own small roaster. Don't be afraid to experiment an air popper isn't that different from a heat gun or hair dryer after all.

@Lars

"about having the money to prevent innovation rocking the boat"

Well said. While it might annoy Samsung to have its products held up Samsung certainly has the money to defend itself. It's the small upstart who is struggling month to month that gets stepped on by things like this who has to shutter their business and take second jobs to pay for defending themselves against this kind of nonsense litigation. Even if the upstart succeeds in the trial it will be for naught as the business is probably no longer viable and will likely have to face an endless number of appeals.

Re: Folk still using IM clients?

@The FunkeyGibbon

I understand the next steps for Lync is integrating parts of Skype. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't merge nearly completely with only a minor feature set change to differentiate between enterprise and consumer products.

Re: "Whoops, swing and a miss."

Nothing pedantic about it, just saying it like it is. You're the one who made the call on the carpet and was being pedantic. You can try blaming it on a lack of specificity regarding federal elections but in the fifty states there are roughly 468 (technically it's 468 1/3) federal officials elected every two years and it gets bumped all the way up to 470 every four years. Also, you can guarantee an election every two years in every State but there might not be one every year inasmuch as each State, county, parish, city, district, town, village or unincorporated location gets to set their own internal election schedules. Sure, you can technically guarantee an election every four years as well given it's a multiple of two but then that doesn't make it any more correct than saying there is an election every 20 years.

Let's not forget if those rednecks probably have the last bigfoot mounted in the corner of the family room. Well, rumor has it the mounting takes place on Tuesday and Thursday when Mrs. Redneck is at the Tupperware party but that's another story.

Re: Argh!

Nice reuters link, AC. It sheds a bit more light on the subject.

"in a court filing last week, Apple argued that it would not consider itself bound by Crabb's rate if it exceeded $1 per Apple phone."

So partly the Judge was also saying, What's that Apple? No, you got that wrong, it's fuck you!'

Re: The figure is surprising

I don't know why it's surprising. I've been seeing reports of a surge in folks ditching their old iPad in anticipation of the new models. What I want to know is that given Apple started its "recycling" program, how many old iPads do they get back and what does it cost in total? Of course I assume they do something smart like resell them, donate them to schools for a tax write off or some such.

Re: And

@Alan Brown

Agreed, it likely is the alcohol content even though the pumps are labeled "up to 10%" on both coasts. My feeling is that the limited refining capacity of California and its relative isolation which typically raises the petrol prices also leads to California fuel to being right at the 10% maximum where it is likely closer to the mandated minimum of 5% in Boston.

The problem of running a gas turbine in a vehicle is the operating speeds they generally run would require a substantial gear reduction and they don't typically spool up quickly as would be required when pulling on to the freeway and was a common problem with Chrysler's efforts in the 60s. Modern approaches might be viable with new transmission technology or set up as a series hybrid with a small turbine running at constant speed and max efficiency with a battery and electric motor to handle the needs of acceleration.

@AC 21:30

I assume when wiki refers to "steel" engines they really mean cast iron as steel would be more expensive to manufacture and offer no real benefits.