It's bad enough many sharks are eating machines. Now humans have upgraded them, mounting lasers on their dorsal fins.
What's next, photon torpedo launchers?
What's next, photon torpedo launchers?
Recently in Technology Category
We've all been reading about the so-called "Smart Grid", a system that allows utilities to have better information about and control over their systems. Smart grids are supposed to be more efficient and cost effective because the utilities will be able to tailor system operations to demand on a minute by minute basis. The biggest problem with implementing the communications needed in order to make smart grids possible.
Frankly, I always thought the utilities would use encrypted low power radio links (telemetry only), fiber optic networks, or even power line communications to link the control and telemetry systems back to the operations centers. I also thought they would use closed systems, meaning there would be no direct connection to public data networks (the Internet), keeping them separate for security purposes.
I was wrong.
It appears a number of utilities are looking to use the public cellular networks to provide communications for their smart grid systems.
This is an idea that leaves them open to being compromised by hackers. And while some may claim that encryption will help keep the systems secure, there is no such thing as a "secure" system if there is a publicly accessible portion to the network. Almost any encryption system can be cracked given enough time and effort, either through brute force decryption, the exploitation of overlooked system vulnerabilities, or through critical information obtained from someone inside the utility.
This is a bad idea, one that can lead to compromised electrical, water, and gas utility systems being brought down through cyber attacks by groups unfriendly to the US.
Frankly, I always thought the utilities would use encrypted low power radio links (telemetry only), fiber optic networks, or even power line communications to link the control and telemetry systems back to the operations centers. I also thought they would use closed systems, meaning there would be no direct connection to public data networks (the Internet), keeping them separate for security purposes.
I was wrong.
It appears a number of utilities are looking to use the public cellular networks to provide communications for their smart grid systems.
This is an idea that leaves them open to being compromised by hackers. And while some may claim that encryption will help keep the systems secure, there is no such thing as a "secure" system if there is a publicly accessible portion to the network. Almost any encryption system can be cracked given enough time and effort, either through brute force decryption, the exploitation of overlooked system vulnerabilities, or through critical information obtained from someone inside the utility.
This is a bad idea, one that can lead to compromised electrical, water, and gas utility systems being brought down through cyber attacks by groups unfriendly to the US.
As I and other bloggers have noted, a number of subscribers to HBO can canceled their subscriptions due to HBO's blatant political pandering and support of misogynistic 'comedians'. Some have commented that they now use Netflix, Hulu, or a number of other online video providers rather than HBO.
For some time now I've been using Hulu to watch episodes of some of my favorite TV shows that I've missed for one reason or another and have considered signing up for Hulu Plus which gives access to movies, TV shows, and more. The WP Parents have been using Netflix with their Sony Media Player and have found it both convenient and cost effective. (It helps that our local cable MSO has reasonable download speeds which makes the use of these services attractive.)
I have a feeling I'll be using the online video services more often as cable/satellite TV becomes more expensive and less convenient (even with a DVR).
Now that the manufacture of 100W incandescent light bulbs has been banned in the US, with 75W, 60W, and 40W bulbs to follow, we must look at the history of the allegedly "better for the environment" replacements, primarily compact fluorescent lights (CFL) and LED lighting.
The scorecard for CFLs isn't all that great, with far too many of them failing to live up to the hype, specifically in regards to their service life. Claims of 10,000 hours have been made, but too many of them have shown to have far less than that, sometimes no better than the incandescent bulbs they're supposed to replace. That wouldn't be so bad if they didn't cost many times that of an equivalent the old fashioned Edison bulbs. Disposal is also an issue because the contain mercury, meaning you aren't supposed to throw dead CFLs into the trash. They have to be disposed of as hazardous waste. (Our town has an annual hazardous waste disposal day. Town residents can bring all kinds of waste that can't be thrown into the trash, like cleaning chemicals, unused pesticides, and of course fluorescent lights which include the older tube-style lamps and CFLs.
CFLs do use less electricity for the amount of light they produce as compared to incandescents, but the less than stellar service life for some CFLs doesn't justify the cost. (The extra money you pay for them is never returned in regards to the lower cost to run them.) Another issue with CFLs is that they don't reach full brightness for a minute or two after they are turned on. That's not exactly convenient.
LED lights are still in their infancy, but are getting better all the time. Claimed service life is 50,000 hours, but there have been too many of them that fail well before their time, in some cases only hours after being installed.
It isn't the LEDs in the lights that fail. In most cases the LEDs that make up the lights work just fine when the correct current is applied to them even after the lamp stops working. Instead, much like CFLs, the problem is in the power supply circuits that take the house current and convert it to a voltage and current that are required for the LEDs to operate properly. In some cases the power supplies were poorly designed and built (usually the case with cheap Chinese made LED bulbs). The most common failure mode for these supplies is poor solder joints on the components in the supply. As the article linked above explains, failed LED bulbs start working again after the bad solder joints are resoldered. It's a workmanship issue. Not all LED manufacturers have this problem. Probably one of the better made LED bulbs out there now is manufactured by Philips. They have minimized the number of solder joints and where wire would normally attach to the supply to connect the house AC or the LEDs, Philips uses connectors which greatly reduces this problem.
A second power supply issue is the use of components that aren't rated for the conditions they'll under which they'll be operating. So after operating for some period of time, they fail which turns your expensive LED lamp into nothing more than an ornament. (A more detailed and technical explanation about this topic an be found here.)
Another downside to LED lamps - their price. They cost a lot, with a (good) 60 watt equivalent priced at about $25. It would take a long time to recoup the cost of the bulbs from the savings achieved by reduced electricity usage.
And another downside to LEDs to consider is that as LEDs age with usage, the amount of light they produce decreases. For most people this won't be an issue. But for others it may cause problems.
Am I advocating the continued use of incandescent light bulbs and abandoning the use of other lighting technologies? No. But I am saying is that we should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of lighting before deciding whether or not to make the switch.
The scorecard for CFLs isn't all that great, with far too many of them failing to live up to the hype, specifically in regards to their service life. Claims of 10,000 hours have been made, but too many of them have shown to have far less than that, sometimes no better than the incandescent bulbs they're supposed to replace. That wouldn't be so bad if they didn't cost many times that of an equivalent the old fashioned Edison bulbs. Disposal is also an issue because the contain mercury, meaning you aren't supposed to throw dead CFLs into the trash. They have to be disposed of as hazardous waste. (Our town has an annual hazardous waste disposal day. Town residents can bring all kinds of waste that can't be thrown into the trash, like cleaning chemicals, unused pesticides, and of course fluorescent lights which include the older tube-style lamps and CFLs.
CFLs do use less electricity for the amount of light they produce as compared to incandescents, but the less than stellar service life for some CFLs doesn't justify the cost. (The extra money you pay for them is never returned in regards to the lower cost to run them.) Another issue with CFLs is that they don't reach full brightness for a minute or two after they are turned on. That's not exactly convenient.
LED lights are still in their infancy, but are getting better all the time. Claimed service life is 50,000 hours, but there have been too many of them that fail well before their time, in some cases only hours after being installed.
It isn't the LEDs in the lights that fail. In most cases the LEDs that make up the lights work just fine when the correct current is applied to them even after the lamp stops working. Instead, much like CFLs, the problem is in the power supply circuits that take the house current and convert it to a voltage and current that are required for the LEDs to operate properly. In some cases the power supplies were poorly designed and built (usually the case with cheap Chinese made LED bulbs). The most common failure mode for these supplies is poor solder joints on the components in the supply. As the article linked above explains, failed LED bulbs start working again after the bad solder joints are resoldered. It's a workmanship issue. Not all LED manufacturers have this problem. Probably one of the better made LED bulbs out there now is manufactured by Philips. They have minimized the number of solder joints and where wire would normally attach to the supply to connect the house AC or the LEDs, Philips uses connectors which greatly reduces this problem.
A second power supply issue is the use of components that aren't rated for the conditions they'll under which they'll be operating. So after operating for some period of time, they fail which turns your expensive LED lamp into nothing more than an ornament. (A more detailed and technical explanation about this topic an be found here.)
Another downside to LED lamps - their price. They cost a lot, with a (good) 60 watt equivalent priced at about $25. It would take a long time to recoup the cost of the bulbs from the savings achieved by reduced electricity usage.
And another downside to LEDs to consider is that as LEDs age with usage, the amount of light they produce decreases. For most people this won't be an issue. But for others it may cause problems.
Am I advocating the continued use of incandescent light bulbs and abandoning the use of other lighting technologies? No. But I am saying is that we should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of lighting before deciding whether or not to make the switch.
As you dozen or so regular readers know, the LCD monitor on the new Official Weekend Pundit Main Computer went on the blink 14 days ago. According to the fine folks at HP, I was supposed to receive the replacement monitor by yesterday. (I even have the e-mails with the expected delivery date stating the December 28.) Last night around 8PM I received an e-mail from HP stating my monitor was shipping today. That means it won't get here until January 5th at the earliest.
Almost three weeks to ship a replacement monitor under warranty? I can order a new one from them and get it here in less a week by ground! HP has to do more work on its customer service, particularly in regards to warranties on new equipment.
Verizon has shed itself of many of its less profitable operations, specifically landlines, with sales to HawaiiTel, FairPoint, and Frontier. It appears Verizon did not let the money they received for those assets sit idle. The billions they got for the sale of of their more rural landline systems were put to good use, expanding their wireless and FiOS offerings.
With Verizon's recent purchase of additional wireless spectrum (to the tune of $3.6 billion) from a number of cable companies, they expect to be able to provide 4G LTE services to just about everyone in the US. The cable companies owned the wireless spectrum but hadn't done much with it. How better to provide such services than selling off the unused spectrum and then partnering with the buyer to bundle cable services (video, Internet, digital phone) with wireless services (phone, Internet, and video). The cable companies get to offer wireless services without having to put a dime into wireless infrastructure and Verizon gets to offer cable services, again without having to spend a dime on cable infrastructure. It's a win-win situation for cable and wireless.
But maybe not so much for some Verizon landline customers, particularly those also subscribing to DSL.
DSL has become the red-headed stepchild of Verizon, with little investment being put into it. Verizon DSL subscriptions have been declining as competitors like cable and fiber have been able to offer data speed many times that of DSL. DSL technology has been running out of steam, just about reaching its speed limit due to the limited bandwidth of the installed copper phone lines.
That doesn't mean the DSL is dead as a number of other telephone companies, mostly small independents and rural telcos will offer it for some time as it's "the only game in town." The WP In-Laws have FairPoint DSL, something that became available in their small rural town about a year and a half ago. Before that they were using Verizon Wireless Broadband. For them DSL provides a consistently better and faster connection. Cell site congestion would often slow the Verizon Wireless Broadband connection to speed barely better than the dial up connection they'd used before that. But who knows who long that will be true once Verizon starts offering 4G LTE services? At that point DSL might be seen as a less desirable service and customers will start dropping it in favor of the wireless service.
It will be interesting to see where all of this will take us and how long it will take before the remaining landline operations start feeling squeezed even more than they have been.
With Verizon's recent purchase of additional wireless spectrum (to the tune of $3.6 billion) from a number of cable companies, they expect to be able to provide 4G LTE services to just about everyone in the US. The cable companies owned the wireless spectrum but hadn't done much with it. How better to provide such services than selling off the unused spectrum and then partnering with the buyer to bundle cable services (video, Internet, digital phone) with wireless services (phone, Internet, and video). The cable companies get to offer wireless services without having to put a dime into wireless infrastructure and Verizon gets to offer cable services, again without having to spend a dime on cable infrastructure. It's a win-win situation for cable and wireless.
But maybe not so much for some Verizon landline customers, particularly those also subscribing to DSL.
DSL has become the red-headed stepchild of Verizon, with little investment being put into it. Verizon DSL subscriptions have been declining as competitors like cable and fiber have been able to offer data speed many times that of DSL. DSL technology has been running out of steam, just about reaching its speed limit due to the limited bandwidth of the installed copper phone lines.
That doesn't mean the DSL is dead as a number of other telephone companies, mostly small independents and rural telcos will offer it for some time as it's "the only game in town." The WP In-Laws have FairPoint DSL, something that became available in their small rural town about a year and a half ago. Before that they were using Verizon Wireless Broadband. For them DSL provides a consistently better and faster connection. Cell site congestion would often slow the Verizon Wireless Broadband connection to speed barely better than the dial up connection they'd used before that. But who knows who long that will be true once Verizon starts offering 4G LTE services? At that point DSL might be seen as a less desirable service and customers will start dropping it in favor of the wireless service.
It will be interesting to see where all of this will take us and how long it will take before the remaining landline operations start feeling squeezed even more than they have been.
I had a little bit of a malfunction with the Official Weekend Pundit Main Computer yesterday (I lost connection to the network), but I think I've got it all squared away.
Speaking of getting things squared away, it appears Bogie's problem with the iHeartRadio app for her Android phone that was misbehaving after being upgraded has been resolved, or at least partially resolved as a newer version has been released that allows it to work again.
As Bogie writes:
Was it the coders who wrote the app software who are to blame for the problem, or was it someone in a marketing position who pushed to 'get it out the door' even though it really wasn't ready?
Based upon my years of experience in engineering, I would have to guess it was the latter.
Speaking of getting things squared away, it appears Bogie's problem with the iHeartRadio app for her Android phone that was misbehaving after being upgraded has been resolved, or at least partially resolved as a newer version has been released that allows it to work again.
As Bogie writes:
Haven't used it but a couple of minutes (am listening to it now), so can't say it works as well as the old version did, but it is a huge leap forward over the version I couldn't get to load at all!That's what happens when the software folks don't or can't test the new versions thoroughly. It's obvious they missed something that brought the app to a screeching halt. Whether it was conflict with another application or background routine is irrelevant. The fact that they didn't catch it means someone wasn't doing their job and the app was released before it was ready.
Was it the coders who wrote the app software who are to blame for the problem, or was it someone in a marketing position who pushed to 'get it out the door' even though it really wasn't ready?
Based upon my years of experience in engineering, I would have to guess it was the latter.
As time passes we get closer and closer to what has been called The Singularity. I call it getting closer to Star Trek.
The latest step towards that vision is something called biophotonic instrumentation . Now that we've named it, it's time to learn what it does.
At the moment when it's necessary to monitor a patient's heart rate, blood pressure, or blood glucose level a nurse or technician is required to attach a heart monitor, a blood pressure cuff, or to draw blood for testing. It's time consuming and requires a number of different pieces of equipment. But what if it were possible to monitor all of those parameters at the same time using nothing more than a laser beam and a camera?
Now it is.
There could also be certain security applications for this technology, such as monitoring passengers in an airport. A raised heart rate and blood pressure could trigger closer monitoring of some passengers as it's likely both parameters would be elevated in someone "up to no good." Of course it might also mean a passenger is a nervous flier. But it would be another covert tool for use by airport security personnel in screening passengers before boarding a flight.
The latest step towards that vision is something called biophotonic instrumentation . Now that we've named it, it's time to learn what it does.
At the moment when it's necessary to monitor a patient's heart rate, blood pressure, or blood glucose level a nurse or technician is required to attach a heart monitor, a blood pressure cuff, or to draw blood for testing. It's time consuming and requires a number of different pieces of equipment. But what if it were possible to monitor all of those parameters at the same time using nothing more than a laser beam and a camera?
Now it is.
When human skin is illuminated by a laser beam, the movement of blood under the skin manifests itself as vibrations at the skin's surface. These vibrations create a secondary optical speckle pattern that correlates to the blood flux, which depends on blood viscosity (related to glucose concentration), blood pulse pressure, and heart rate.The system could be located above the patient's bed or off to one side in one corner of a room, yet allow unobtrusive monitoring of the three medical parameters. That means less need to tether a patient to the monitoring equipment, greater comfort for the patient, and less effort for medical personnel.
A few-milliwatt infrared (IR) laser at 1550 nm is used to illuminate the wrist of a patient at an oblique angle (see figure). The vertical-reflection speckle pattern is collected by an optical system that consists of a fast camera to record the reflected intensity pattern.
--snip--
Although the distance between the light source and the subject's skin was approximately 50 cm in the measurement setup, the researchers say they can also extract these biological parameters when the laser-skin distance is several-hundred meters. In addition, the parameters could be obtained not only from wrist-skin reflections, but also from chest and neck reflections.
There could also be certain security applications for this technology, such as monitoring passengers in an airport. A raised heart rate and blood pressure could trigger closer monitoring of some passengers as it's likely both parameters would be elevated in someone "up to no good." Of course it might also mean a passenger is a nervous flier. But it would be another covert tool for use by airport security personnel in screening passengers before boarding a flight.
It seems the work to commercialize the use of silicon in lithium-ion batteries is proceeding apace.
The folks a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been working on a process to easily use silicon nanowires to greatly increase the capacity of Li-Ion batteries. LBNL has been testing batteries made with the silicon anodes for over a year now and found the new cells maintain their capacity after "many hundreds of charge-discharge cycles." The cells have approximately eight times the capacity of existing Li-Ion cells.
If this process holds up and is cost effective to implement, electric cars will become more of a reality as battery packs capable of giving cars extended driving range (400+ miles) will become available. It also means the physical size of battery packs used in hybrid electric cars, laptop computers, and a whole host of other devices using these batteries will shrink even as the capacity increases. Imagine a laptop, tablet, or smart phone that will give you a full 24 hours of use before its battery needs to be recharged.
The folks a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been working on a process to easily use silicon nanowires to greatly increase the capacity of Li-Ion batteries. LBNL has been testing batteries made with the silicon anodes for over a year now and found the new cells maintain their capacity after "many hundreds of charge-discharge cycles." The cells have approximately eight times the capacity of existing Li-Ion cells.
If this process holds up and is cost effective to implement, electric cars will become more of a reality as battery packs capable of giving cars extended driving range (400+ miles) will become available. It also means the physical size of battery packs used in hybrid electric cars, laptop computers, and a whole host of other devices using these batteries will shrink even as the capacity increases. Imagine a laptop, tablet, or smart phone that will give you a full 24 hours of use before its battery needs to be recharged.
It's been no secret that I have recently purchased a new computer to replace the old Official Weekend Pundit Main Computer, a 6-year old machine with an Athlon 64 CPU, 1GB of RAM, an ATI video card, and two 100GB hard drives. The old machine runs Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It also makes use of interesting and useful programs like Firefox and Thunderbird (both from Mozilla), Open Office, Lview (image editing) and Snaggit (image capture and editing), and a host of other utilities and fun stuff.
While the machine was never perfect, it did its job and did it pretty well.
The new machine has a multi-core 64-bit AMD CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 1.5TB hard drive, and an ATI video card. It runs Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) and I have plans to add Ubuntu Linux this weekend. I doubt anyone can argue against the fact that in so many ways it is better than the old machine.
It has been an interesting but carefully paced adventure, using Windows 7. So far there's little I find I dislike about it, and those things I have found less than optimal (in my opinion) are minor annoyances. It boots quickly, it runs quickly, as do all of the programs I have run so far. Some of that I have to attribute to the hardware, and some to the software. But I do have a major complaint, and not about the hardware or the operating system.
It's that damnable Microsoft Office 2010. To put it into simple terms, it SUCKS. (Yes, I know I've written about this before, but after struggling with Office 2010 at work, and now at home, I can't say enough bad things about it.)
First, I want to remind you that I am a techno-geek. I live, eat, and breathe electronics and optics. I have a pretty good handle on programming (usually used to test something we've designed to make sure it works the way it's supposed to), but I'm no code wizard. I use computers at work and home every day. I understand user interfaces to the nth degree because the equipment my employer builds and sells lives or dies by the ease of use of the equipment I help design. If the user interface stinks it doesn't matter how good the piece of equipment it goes with performs. (I've seen and used too many of our competitors' equipment that have been well designed and perform well, but are difficult to use because the user interface requires the owner to open the user manual to figure out how to turn the darned thing on.) A poor user interface will cause more dissatisfaction with a product than buggy software or barely adequate hardware.
All of that being said, the user interface on Office 2010, and its predecessor Office 2007, is awful.
I don't care what the folks at Redmond, Washington say, the new interface has failed. It is not intuitive. It requires seasoned users to spend lots of time trying to figure out where Microsoft moved the features they've been using for years (this is a major indication the user interface design has failed).
Functions that used to take one or two clicks now take up to seven. It doesn't matter if the interface is customizable if it takes the user a long time to figure out how to do so. And like earlier versions of Office, it tries to do things for you even when you don't want it to. But with 2010 it's even more annoying, if that's possible. Undoing something it has 'fixed' for you is more difficult (the old Control Z or the Undo button doesn't always undo it whatever it is it did for you).
I get the impression that the folks at Microsoft spent a lot of time and money asking users what they liked and disliked about Office some time after Office 2003 was released. The problem is that I think they asked the wrong people. It seems to me the changes they made were more at the behest of power users, those few folks who will use the 90% of the Office features no one else does, assuming they even know they exist.
Another fail: the 'ribbons' that have replaced the long-used toolbars take up a lot more space on screen. I mean a lot more. I now have less usable working space on my screen than under Office 2003. This is supposed to help productivity?
I've been playing with the crippled version of Office 2010 that came installed on my new machine and it has merely confirmed what I've seen at work. I hate to say it, but whoever thought a redesign of the Office interface was a good idea should be FIRED. Whoever actually designed the new interface should be FIRED. Whoever it was that tried to sell this godawful UI to the public as "the greatest thing since sliced bread" should be FIRED.
I know if I had created a user interface for a piece of our equipment as awful and defective as the one on Microsoft Office 2010, I would have been FIRED, and I wouldn't have blamed the company for doing so. I would have fired me, too.
So until Microsoft fixes the piss poor user interface on Office, I'll stay with Open Office at home (and even if they do I'll still stay with Open Office). Unfortunately I won't have a choice at work.
While the machine was never perfect, it did its job and did it pretty well.
The new machine has a multi-core 64-bit AMD CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 1.5TB hard drive, and an ATI video card. It runs Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) and I have plans to add Ubuntu Linux this weekend. I doubt anyone can argue against the fact that in so many ways it is better than the old machine.
It has been an interesting but carefully paced adventure, using Windows 7. So far there's little I find I dislike about it, and those things I have found less than optimal (in my opinion) are minor annoyances. It boots quickly, it runs quickly, as do all of the programs I have run so far. Some of that I have to attribute to the hardware, and some to the software. But I do have a major complaint, and not about the hardware or the operating system.
It's that damnable Microsoft Office 2010. To put it into simple terms, it SUCKS. (Yes, I know I've written about this before, but after struggling with Office 2010 at work, and now at home, I can't say enough bad things about it.)
First, I want to remind you that I am a techno-geek. I live, eat, and breathe electronics and optics. I have a pretty good handle on programming (usually used to test something we've designed to make sure it works the way it's supposed to), but I'm no code wizard. I use computers at work and home every day. I understand user interfaces to the nth degree because the equipment my employer builds and sells lives or dies by the ease of use of the equipment I help design. If the user interface stinks it doesn't matter how good the piece of equipment it goes with performs. (I've seen and used too many of our competitors' equipment that have been well designed and perform well, but are difficult to use because the user interface requires the owner to open the user manual to figure out how to turn the darned thing on.) A poor user interface will cause more dissatisfaction with a product than buggy software or barely adequate hardware.
All of that being said, the user interface on Office 2010, and its predecessor Office 2007, is awful.
I don't care what the folks at Redmond, Washington say, the new interface has failed. It is not intuitive. It requires seasoned users to spend lots of time trying to figure out where Microsoft moved the features they've been using for years (this is a major indication the user interface design has failed).
Functions that used to take one or two clicks now take up to seven. It doesn't matter if the interface is customizable if it takes the user a long time to figure out how to do so. And like earlier versions of Office, it tries to do things for you even when you don't want it to. But with 2010 it's even more annoying, if that's possible. Undoing something it has 'fixed' for you is more difficult (the old Control Z or the Undo button doesn't always undo it whatever it is it did for you).
I get the impression that the folks at Microsoft spent a lot of time and money asking users what they liked and disliked about Office some time after Office 2003 was released. The problem is that I think they asked the wrong people. It seems to me the changes they made were more at the behest of power users, those few folks who will use the 90% of the Office features no one else does, assuming they even know they exist.
Another fail: the 'ribbons' that have replaced the long-used toolbars take up a lot more space on screen. I mean a lot more. I now have less usable working space on my screen than under Office 2003. This is supposed to help productivity?
I've been playing with the crippled version of Office 2010 that came installed on my new machine and it has merely confirmed what I've seen at work. I hate to say it, but whoever thought a redesign of the Office interface was a good idea should be FIRED. Whoever actually designed the new interface should be FIRED. Whoever it was that tried to sell this godawful UI to the public as "the greatest thing since sliced bread" should be FIRED.
I know if I had created a user interface for a piece of our equipment as awful and defective as the one on Microsoft Office 2010, I would have been FIRED, and I wouldn't have blamed the company for doing so. I would have fired me, too.
So until Microsoft fixes the piss poor user interface on Office, I'll stay with Open Office at home (and even if they do I'll still stay with Open Office). Unfortunately I won't have a choice at work.
It's another Tech Tuesday!
As the price of copper has been rising, researchers have been looking for a replacement that is less expensive but would have the conductivity of the copper it would replace.
For some applications, the use of fiber optics has replaced the copper wiring and coaxial cabling used by telephone and cable companies. Both use optical fiber rather than copper for new builds due to its higher bandwidth and lower cost.
But for things like carrying electricity something else is needed. Enter carbon nanotubes.
Researchers from Rice University have managed to produce a cable using carbon nanotubes for carrying electricity.
But carbon nanotubes can carry the required power and do it with less weight. The raw material used to create the nanotubes is limitless, as carbon is one of the most abundant elements on earth, not far behind hydrogen. Depending upon the structure of the nanotube cable, they could carry more current for a given size. This means smaller gauge wiring to carry the same amount of power.
Is there anything carbon can't do?
As the price of copper has been rising, researchers have been looking for a replacement that is less expensive but would have the conductivity of the copper it would replace.
For some applications, the use of fiber optics has replaced the copper wiring and coaxial cabling used by telephone and cable companies. Both use optical fiber rather than copper for new builds due to its higher bandwidth and lower cost.
But for things like carrying electricity something else is needed. Enter carbon nanotubes.
Researchers from Rice University have managed to produce a cable using carbon nanotubes for carrying electricity.
Enrique Barrera, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Rice, said that highly conductive nanotube-based cables could be just as efficient as traditional metals at one-sixth of the weight. He added that such cables may initially find use in applications where weight is a critical consideration, such as in airplanes and automobiles. In the future, he said, it could replace traditional wiring in homes.The mention of doping the carbon nanotubes with iodine reminded me of an article I read years ago about conducting polymers, specifically polyacetylene. When doped with iodine the polymer's conductivity increased dramatically. Such a polymer would have all kinds of uses, particularly where weight was a factor (like in aircraft, as mentioned above). If I recall correctly from the article Plastics That Conduct Electricity (Scientific American, February 1988, no link available), the polymer would be used for carrying control and other signals throughout the aircraft, but not power as its conductivity wasn't quite good enough for that purpose. But nothing came of it, at least in the aircraft industry, as optical fiber has supplanted it due to its light weight and virtually unlimited bandwidth.
The university's release continued, "The cables developed in the study are spun from pristine nanotubes and can be tied together without losing their conductivity. To increase conductivity of the cables, the team doped them with iodine and the cables remained stable. The conductivity-to-weight ratio beats metals, including copper and silver, and is second only to the metal with the highest specific conductivity, sodium."
But carbon nanotubes can carry the required power and do it with less weight. The raw material used to create the nanotubes is limitless, as carbon is one of the most abundant elements on earth, not far behind hydrogen. Depending upon the structure of the nanotube cable, they could carry more current for a given size. This means smaller gauge wiring to carry the same amount of power.
Is there anything carbon can't do?
The first half of the new Weekend Pundit Official Main Computer arrived earlier in the week, that being the new LCD monitor. I wasted no time removing the old 19" CRT and replacing it with the new monitor. It was far better than I had thought it would be, with even illumination and crisp, clear images.
Poor Minnie misses the old monitor as she is used to jumping up on top of it and keeping warm from the heat generated by it. Imagine her surprise when she tried to jump up on the new monitor and there was nothing but thin air behind the screen!
A check just a few minutes ago on the FedEx tracking website shows the second half of the new Weekend Pundit Official Main Computer has made its way all the way from El Paso, Texas to Willington, Connecticut in four days and is presently on it's way to a FedEx facility closer to The Manse. With the holiday intruding upon normal business hours, it looks like FedEx's estimated delivery date will be correct, which means it should arrive here shortly after Labor Day.
Woo hoo!!
Feeling the need to take a break from the ongoing debt ceiling drama, perhaps a little good news for a change?
One thing I've found to be true over the seven different decades I've trodden this earth is that it's the complicated things that tend to have the easiest answers. That's particularly true of the sciences, where some of the most sophisticated inventions use the simplest of materials and configurations. That's certainly true of this neat means of storing electrical energy, using nothing more than graphite and water.
But even if Dr. Li and his team perfect their technology, there's another problem that will need to be solved: How to get all the electrical energy needed for a rapid recharge to the charging station? That's a lot of power to dump in a very short time.
One thing I've found to be true over the seven different decades I've trodden this earth is that it's the complicated things that tend to have the easiest answers. That's particularly true of the sciences, where some of the most sophisticated inventions use the simplest of materials and configurations. That's certainly true of this neat means of storing electrical energy, using nothing more than graphite and water.
A combination of two ordinary materials - graphite and water - could produce energy storage systems that perform on par with lithium ion batteries, but recharge in a matter of seconds and have an almost indefinite lifespan.The ability to rapidly charge a battery system is key to being able to make electric vehicles a more viable alternative to liquid fuel burning vehicles. If a vehicle's batteries can be charged in the same amount of time it takes to fill a fuel tank, then EV's can become more attractive to the motoring public.
Dr Dan Li, of the Monash University Department of Materials Engineering, and his research team have been working with a material called graphene, which could form the basis of the next generation of ultrafast energy storage systems.
"Once we can properly manipulate this material, your iPhone, for example, could charge in a few seconds, or possibly faster." said Dr Li.
But even if Dr. Li and his team perfect their technology, there's another problem that will need to be solved: How to get all the electrical energy needed for a rapid recharge to the charging station? That's a lot of power to dump in a very short time.
As if we need even more proof that the technology we first saw in the original Star Trek series is now becoming reality, there this: a hand-held medical scanner.
Can anyone say "medical tricorder"? Sure you can.
Can anyone say "medical tricorder"? Sure you can.
It looks like a cross between a flip-top phone and the medical scanner used by Dr McCoy in the TV series Star Trek.It's getting closer all the time.
The Vscan is not science fiction but a hand-held ultrasound machine with a scanning wand attached, which has been approved for use in Europe and North America.
I know I've written about these before, but the post was lost when my original blog site disappeared.
What am I talking about? Laser spark plugs.
Quite of bit of progress has been made since I last covered it about 4 years ago or so, with the size of the laser units now being slightly larger than traditional spark plugs. One of the advantages of laser plugs versus traditional spark plugs? More efficient combustion.
While I don't expect to see sets of these new laser plugs in the local auto parts store any time soon, it does show us research and development of systems that will increase the efficiency of internal combustion engines continues.
What am I talking about? Laser spark plugs.
Quite of bit of progress has been made since I last covered it about 4 years ago or so, with the size of the laser units now being slightly larger than traditional spark plugs. One of the advantages of laser plugs versus traditional spark plugs? More efficient combustion.
Engines make NOx as a byproduct of combustion. If engines ran leaner - burnt more air and less fuel - they would produce significantly smaller NOx emissions.Another plus of laser ignition is that there can be more than a single ignition point within the cylinder, which in turn gives better control over combustion.
Spark plugs can ignite leaner fuel mixtures, but only by increasing spark energy. Unfortunately, these high voltages erode spark-plug electrodes so fast, the solution is not economical. By contrast, lasers, which ignite the air-fuel mixture with concentrated optical energy, have no electrodes and are not affected.
These lasers also improve efficiency, according to their creators. Conventional spark plugs sit on top of the cylinder and only ignite the air-fuel mixture close to them. The relatively cold metal of nearby electrodes and cylinder walls absorbs heat from the explosion, quenching the flame front just as it starts to expand.
Lasers, Taira explains, can focus their beams directly into the center of the mixture. Without quenching, the flame front expands more symmetrically and up to three times faster than those produced by spark plugs.
While I don't expect to see sets of these new laser plugs in the local auto parts store any time soon, it does show us research and development of systems that will increase the efficiency of internal combustion engines continues.
Last month I mentioned doing battle with a pernicious bit of computer malware that wanted money in order to make it go away, conning the unwary computer owner by offering to clean the list of viruses its 'free' scan showed were infecting the computer. I called it an extortion virus because its creators wanted money in order to make it go away.
Now I hear about yet another extortion virus out there doing something very similar, but this time the malware mimics a progressive hard drive failure and offers to 'fix' it...for a fee.
Gee, isn't owning a computer fun?
Now I hear about yet another extortion virus out there doing something very similar, but this time the malware mimics a progressive hard drive failure and offers to 'fix' it...for a fee.
Gee, isn't owning a computer fun?
On the energy front, it appears fusion is back in the news.
The claim that fusion power was "only 20 years away" has been made for the past 50 years or so. While science is closer to achieving the goal, it's the means of getting there that has been intriguing. Much of the effort (and the money) has been spent on one of two possible technologies for achieving break-even fusion: high temperature/high pressure magnetic confinement and laser ignition.
The first uses a tokamak reactor, basically a torus surrounded by electromagnets used to generate a magnetic field to contain a high-temperature plasma. The second uses 'pellets' containing tritium or deuterium that are dropped sequentially into the focus point of a large number of laser beams (the National Ignition Facility uses 192 very high power laser beams). The beams are supposed to collapse the pellets to create a high temperatures and pressures in their core which should force the tritium and deuterium to fuse.
The problems with both of these technologies is the expense (billions, so far) and the complexity of the systems. Even if they were able to achieve above break-even yields, meaning they were generating more energy than they were using, commercialization of the technology could take a decade or more and cost additional billions.
But as MSNBC has been reporting, the more promising fusion technologies are those on the fringes. One in particular, called polywell fusion, something I've covered before, is showing great promise.
Should polywell fusion turn out to be something that actually works it will turn the energy industry on its ear, creating a source of cheap and clean power that doesn't have the downsides of present day uranium cycle fission power plants.
Another thing to mention - should polywell succeed, the cost of building fusion power plants will be in the double-digit millions, not billions.
The claim that fusion power was "only 20 years away" has been made for the past 50 years or so. While science is closer to achieving the goal, it's the means of getting there that has been intriguing. Much of the effort (and the money) has been spent on one of two possible technologies for achieving break-even fusion: high temperature/high pressure magnetic confinement and laser ignition.
The first uses a tokamak reactor, basically a torus surrounded by electromagnets used to generate a magnetic field to contain a high-temperature plasma. The second uses 'pellets' containing tritium or deuterium that are dropped sequentially into the focus point of a large number of laser beams (the National Ignition Facility uses 192 very high power laser beams). The beams are supposed to collapse the pellets to create a high temperatures and pressures in their core which should force the tritium and deuterium to fuse.
The problems with both of these technologies is the expense (billions, so far) and the complexity of the systems. Even if they were able to achieve above break-even yields, meaning they were generating more energy than they were using, commercialization of the technology could take a decade or more and cost additional billions.
But as MSNBC has been reporting, the more promising fusion technologies are those on the fringes. One in particular, called polywell fusion, something I've covered before, is showing great promise.
EMC2 Fusion doesn't have tens of millions of venture capital to play with -- but it does have a $7.9 million Navy contract to test a plasma technology known as inertial electrostatic confinement fusion, also known as Polywell fusion. The idea is to accelerate positively charged ions in an electrical cage to such an extent that they occasionally spark a fusion reaction, releasing energy and neutrons. The concept was pioneered by the late physicist Robert Bussard, and carried forward by the EMC2 Fusion team in Santa Fe, N.M.So far every generation of the Bussard-designed WB ("whiffle ball") reactors has performed just as Bussard's calculations have said they would. Each generation of WB reactors has been larger than its predecessor and each generation's results have scaled likewise.
Should polywell fusion turn out to be something that actually works it will turn the energy industry on its ear, creating a source of cheap and clean power that doesn't have the downsides of present day uranium cycle fission power plants.
Another thing to mention - should polywell succeed, the cost of building fusion power plants will be in the double-digit millions, not billions.
Our cable company has done something kind of cool, something I noticed almost immediately.
They've cranked up the download speeds for their Internet service!
Download speeds for the level of service we pay for here at The Manse are now 10Mbps, up from 6Mbps. The upper residential service tier provides 18Mbps (requires a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem).
I ran a number of tests over the past few days and the slowest download speed I measured was 8.6Mbps which occurred during a nominally heavy usage time of the day. Average speeds somewhere north of 9.6Mbps.
Unfortunately the upload speed hasn't changed at all, with 500Kbps being the norm, but it isn't often that we're uploading big files from The Manse.
I will admit to some suspicion about the reasons for the bump up in speed. Might it have something to do with upcoming franchise contract renewal negotiations for a number of towns within the cable company's service area? Maybe that's just me being paranoid...or not.
They've cranked up the download speeds for their Internet service!
Download speeds for the level of service we pay for here at The Manse are now 10Mbps, up from 6Mbps. The upper residential service tier provides 18Mbps (requires a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem).
I ran a number of tests over the past few days and the slowest download speed I measured was 8.6Mbps which occurred during a nominally heavy usage time of the day. Average speeds somewhere north of 9.6Mbps.
Unfortunately the upload speed hasn't changed at all, with 500Kbps being the norm, but it isn't often that we're uploading big files from The Manse.
I will admit to some suspicion about the reasons for the bump up in speed. Might it have something to do with upcoming franchise contract renewal negotiations for a number of towns within the cable company's service area? Maybe that's just me being paranoid...or not.
The long overdue upswing in the 11-year sunspot cycle has started, though many believe the solar maximum this cycle (Cycle 24) will be half that of Cycle 23.
Some of the AGW faithful are claiming this upswing disproves the link between sunspots and climate cycles, but if the lengthy solar minimum (when sunspots are at their minimum number) had the effect many solar astronomers and atmospheric physicists believe it did, then the future solar maximum (when sunspots are at their maximum number) should have less affect on Earth's climate (and that of Mars, the Jovian moons, and so on) than the previous solar maximum.
But I have a different reason than many others out there to be glad the number of sunspots on the sun's surface are increasing, that being radio propagation.
When the sun is quiet, as happens at the bottom of the aforementioned 11-year sunspot cycle, shortwave radio propagation on a number of radio bands won't be nearly as good as it is at the top of a cycle. Being an amateur radio operator since the 1970's, I have always looked forward to the peak of the sunspot cycles knowing the lower frequency amateur radio bands would experience good long range propagation, meaning more of the bands could be used to communicate across the globe.
Who cares if it affects the global climate? I want to see the 12 and 10-meter amateur radio bands open up so I can work some of those rare overseas stations reachable only during the peaks of the sunspot cycles.
Bring it on!
Some of the AGW faithful are claiming this upswing disproves the link between sunspots and climate cycles, but if the lengthy solar minimum (when sunspots are at their minimum number) had the effect many solar astronomers and atmospheric physicists believe it did, then the future solar maximum (when sunspots are at their maximum number) should have less affect on Earth's climate (and that of Mars, the Jovian moons, and so on) than the previous solar maximum.
But I have a different reason than many others out there to be glad the number of sunspots on the sun's surface are increasing, that being radio propagation.
When the sun is quiet, as happens at the bottom of the aforementioned 11-year sunspot cycle, shortwave radio propagation on a number of radio bands won't be nearly as good as it is at the top of a cycle. Being an amateur radio operator since the 1970's, I have always looked forward to the peak of the sunspot cycles knowing the lower frequency amateur radio bands would experience good long range propagation, meaning more of the bands could be used to communicate across the globe.
Who cares if it affects the global climate? I want to see the 12 and 10-meter amateur radio bands open up so I can work some of those rare overseas stations reachable only during the peaks of the sunspot cycles.
Bring it on!
Many of us are worried about manufacturing here in the US, seeing many of the mass production jobs leaving and moving overseas to lower cost countries. But what if manufacturing itself were to be transformed from goods being made in a factory employing hundreds or thousands to goods being manufactured in your home?
Rapid prototyping systems in use today maybe a harbinger of the future of manufacturing. Today rapid prototyping systems can make solid three-dimensional models of CAD drawings residing in a computer. While the various technologies for RPS differ from each other, they all have one thing in common: they can create almost any part that can be designed on a computer. In some cases they can make parts no machine shop could hope to make due to the interior structures impossible to machine.
In effect, future RPS technologies could be "factories in a box", making most of the things we need on the spot. Larger products would still require a more traditional factory-like facility, but even they would use RPS technologies to make their products.
While the materials used in rapid prototyping systems today (primarily plastics) aren't tough enough to take the punishment many of the things we use are subjected to every day, that could change as RPS technology evolves.
Who knows, the day of the Star Trek replicator might not be all that far off.
Rapid prototyping systems in use today maybe a harbinger of the future of manufacturing. Today rapid prototyping systems can make solid three-dimensional models of CAD drawings residing in a computer. While the various technologies for RPS differ from each other, they all have one thing in common: they can create almost any part that can be designed on a computer. In some cases they can make parts no machine shop could hope to make due to the interior structures impossible to machine.
In effect, future RPS technologies could be "factories in a box", making most of the things we need on the spot. Larger products would still require a more traditional factory-like facility, but even they would use RPS technologies to make their products.
While the materials used in rapid prototyping systems today (primarily plastics) aren't tough enough to take the punishment many of the things we use are subjected to every day, that could change as RPS technology evolves.
Who knows, the day of the Star Trek replicator might not be all that far off.
About Comments