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Comment Re:COBOL: Why the hate? (Score 1) 270

I've done both.

VB6 was well-organized and coherent (but not entirely object-oriented).

But .NET, when it came around, was an attempt to do 2 things at the same time: [1] create a common underpinning (bytecode runtime) for all their IDE languages, and [2] insert object-orientation at the same time.

.NET was a mess. I liked VB6, as incomplete as it was, but .NET felt like a random conglomeration of just "stuff" thrown together to make it web-compatible. And I really hated that even when you created a pre-defined web object in .NET, you still had to manually define actions that should have been defaults for any such object. It is just plain weird.

In my personal opinion, having used both: VB6 was a great product for its time. .NET was made to be a successor to it, but never quite made the grade.

Comment Re:The UK Cobol Climate Is Very Different (Score 1) 270

Yes and no. The whole work from home thing is becoming less common. Agile development is doing a good job killing it.

Utter nonsense. It was Agile Development that STARTED my work-at-home. Where did you get the idea that they are incompatible? In fact, it is Agile that made the whole thing possible.

Comment Re:Lifetime at 16nm? (Score 1) 66

I meant to add:

When a hard drive fails, it is almost always the electronics or the bearings. The interface boards can be replaced, leaving the data on the drive intact. When bearings sieze, it is usually possible to free them up long enough to recover the data. As I mentioned before: I know because I've done it.

The only truly permanent, unrecoverable error on a hard drive is a catastrophic head crash, and those are extremely rare. But they do happen. I opened one up once to try to recover a guy's data and the surface of one platter was literally grooved by one head, which prevented the whole head assembly from moving properly. But because it tried, it was actually a series of concentric grooves.

It was completely toast. But as I say: this is extremely rare. In almost all cases it is possible to recover the vast majority of information from a hard disk that has failed.

Comment Re:Lifetime at 16nm? (Score 1) 66

Anandtech disagrees. Techreport. So, in fact, do huge numbers of user reports which suggest that SSDs really do last a long time.

This is not "disagreement". I didn't claim they don't last a long time. What I stated was that the claims of average lifetime have tended to be exaggerated. They can still last a long time.

I have seen this happen, but its not due to endurance of the flash cells but on the quality of the firmware / controller.

Absolute nonsense, and the manufacturers themselves will tell you. The issue *IS* endurance of the flash cells, and the tremendous improvement in firmware is a direct result of this limitation. The manufacturers have expended enormous effort to produce management schemes that mitigate the short lives of the cells, which in fact shortened even more from SLC to MLC.

what does it look like for an SSD or HDD or CPU or RAM to fail "not totally"? You get most of your bits back? All tech generally tends to fail catastrophically.

As someone who has been in the industry for decades, I can tell you this is COMPLETE bullshit. When a hard drive fails, it is almost always possible to recover most of the data. And almost all of that, for that matter. I have done it myself, more than once. Recovered everything on the drive but one or a few files.

But when an SSD really goes, it goes. Even sophisticated forensics are usually incapable of retrieving anything.

Comment Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer (Score 1) 176

We've been over this before. I've already proved you wrong, mathematically, logically, and thermodynamically.

The fact that your "global warming" religion will not let you accept the reality of the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is not my problem. But you have sure as hell tried hard to make it everyone else's problem.

Ironically, Jane's still insisting that no radiation at all is absorbed by the warmer body.

No NET radiative energy. I did not claim "none at all", and I have repeatedly pointed this out to you. Just no NET transfer from cooler to warmer. This is a fundamental requirement of thermodynamics. It amazes me that you continue to deny this, no matter how you try to couch it in different terms.

You're either incompetent or a liar. As I said before: I don't know for sure which, but I strongly suspect the latter.

It's a done deal. You have been proved wrong. You have been owned. Your ranting means nothing.

I only replied on the off-chance that you really were ignorant and could be educated. But it seems that you are determined to promote your ignorance (or more likely: ignorant act and propaganda) to everyone else. So be it.

No more replies. You haven't earned any; you don't deserve any.

Comment Re:What a question? (Score 1) 126

state-blessed corporation with heavy state support.

Yep. Socialist.

And yes, as sad as it may be, the same is true, to a lesser extent, of some US corporations these days.

The "Communist" party isn't Communist. It's just bad Socialism, just like every other regime in history that called itself Communist.

Just calling yourself that doesn't make it so.

Comment Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer (Score 1) 176

If Ta = Tb, no electrical heating power is required. But radiant power output of (a) doesn't change. So radiant power output can't be equal to electrical heating power. Using conservation of energy, can you write down an equation which yields the required electrical heating power given Ta and Tb?

If Ta=Tb, you're doing a different experiment. I've already stated that at that point, it requires no electrical heating power. But it's a straw-man for at least 2 reasons:

[1] it still requires the same amount of power, but once Ta=Tb, it can draw that power from the environment. Before that it can't, because Ta^4 - Tb^4 is a positive number so no net radiant energy is absorbed by (a) from (b). That means all the way up to the exact point thermal equilibrium is achieved, all radiant power is a result of electrical power, therefore the power input and power output are constant. It is not a "gradual" process.

And [2] because in Spencer's experiment, Ta=Tb doesn't happen.

Comment Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer (Score 1) 176

No. Once again, in this experiment [archive.today] there is a "... constant flow of energy into the plate from the electric heater... flowing in at a constant rate... the electric heater pumps in energy at a constant rate. ..."

I have said nothing that contradicts this. Not only do I freely admit this, my calculations relied on that fact. I kept the power (and hence energy over time) input into the plate from the electric heater completely constant. Which we may freely do, since it was a stipulation of Spencer's experiment.

Jane's even stumbled across this point:

No, I didn't "stumble" over that point, YOU are stumbling over it. Everything changes at thermal equilibrium. The "heated" body is no longer warmer than its surroundings and can begin taking on energy from its surroundings. And it is not a "gradual" change: the Stefan-Boltmann law says a warmer body DOES NOT absorb net radiant energy from its surroundings. That only begins to happen at thermal equilibrium. BUT thermal equilibrium does not apply to this experiment, anywhere, at any time. This is just another straw-man argument. Which you are very good at, by the way. Not good enough to sucker me in, though.

Of course! That's why the variable Jane's holding constant isn't the electrical power supplied to the separate heat source. If Jane can realize that there's no need for a separate heat source if its environment were maintained at 150 degrees, why can't Jane see that his equation for required electrical power doesn't reflect this obvious fact?

Of course I realize that, and have all along. The error lies in your implication that this is a gradual change.

It isn't a gradual change. It's a result of Ta^4 - Tb^4 = 0. A transition from non-zero to 0.

That's the only reason. The transition between non-zero and zero is a profound change which affects everything, and there is nothing gradual about it. But it doesn't apply in this context. The surfaces are never at thermal equilibrium. And your assertion is only "obvious" if you're not a heat transfer engineer or a physicist, you pretender. Heat transfer is not a science of the obvious. Intuition (and, as pointed out before, "thermodynamic thinking") can easily lead you astray. The sign of the result is everything here.

If body (a) is warmer than body (b), Ta^4 - Tb^4 > 0, and net heat transfer is ONLY from (a) to (b).

If body (b) is brought up to the same temperature as (a), Ta^4 - Tb^4 = 0, and no net heat transfer takes place. Although radiant power output of (a) at that temperature doesn't change, as a corollary of that same law.

If body (a) is at a lower temperature than body (b), Ta^4 - Tb^4 < 0, which means there is net transfer of heat from (b) to (a).

The third condition is the ONLY one in which there is any input to (a) from its surroundings. But that condition never occurs in Spencer's experiment because the heat source is always hotter than its surroundings.

Knock off the BS. Time to admit you were wrong. I repeat: anything else is a violation of the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law.

Comment Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer (Score 1) 176

Instead of holding electrical heating power constant, Jane held the source's radiative power output constant. That held source temperature constant and forced electrical heating power to change.

No, that is not correct. You made assumptions that are, to be blunt, bullshit nonsense.

Since the emissivity for every object in our system is the same, power output is proportional to the T^4. Period. End of story.

Draw your boundary around the heat source. Power in = power out (your own principle). Therefore the power in is 41886.54 Watts, which is the power initially being radiated out.

SPENCER stipulated that this power is held constant. It wasn't my idea. It's a condition of the experiment.

By the Stefan-Boltzmann law, since the power in remains constant, then UNLESS power is taken up from some other source, the temperature will remain constant. This follows directly from the S-B radiation law, which you seem to be disputing.

Another requirement of the S-B law, and also of thermodynamics: since EVERY other object in the system is at a lower temperature than the heat source, NET heat transfer is in ONLY one direction: from hotter to colder.

Therefore, no energy is flowing "backward" to boost the output of the heat source.

Yet another fact that follows directly from the S-B law, is that nearby cooler bodies have zero effect on the output of the heat source. They don't "suck" power from it, nor (see above) do they "lend" power to it.

The only logical conclusion -- the only physically possible conclusion, unless you dispute the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law, is that the heat source does not change temperature. Power out = power in, and is constant. Everything else is cooler, so it remains a constant. There is no further energy or power flowing "backward" the heat source.

The Stefan-Boltzmann law clearly shows that no NET radiation from cooler objects is absorbed; it is either transmitted, reflected, or scattered. Since these are diffuse gray bodies, they do not transmit. That leaves reflection and scattering. For our purposes, the net effect is that it is all reflected.

You are imagining some kind of power input to the heat source that doesn't exist. Further, if the heat source became even hotter, as you assert, it would require even MORE power, because as you say, power in = power out. That was YOUR assertion. Draw your boundary around the heat source itself. There is no net radiation absorbed from outside, and the supplied power remains constant.

It this whole "proof" of yours, I have shown where you have contradicted yourself at least 3 different ways.

Jane might wonder why he can't derive a single equation which works for all these cases.

I don't know where you get this idea, because I did. I used the S-B equation to find my solution. I used the textbook equations for heat transfer. Yes, I ignored area because the areas were so similar. But it was still a reasonably accurate approximation. I checked my work, and it wasn't off by more than a fraction of a percent.

But Jane can't even admit there's a difference between holding electrical heating power constant and holding the source's radiative power output constant.

Because there isn't any. Your own "boundary" principle says so. This isn't a matter of differential equations at this point. Do you think we're all idiots? Power in = power out. Your Newmann and Dirichlet boundary conditions are just more straw men. We don't need them to find the answer to this. Plain old algebra works just fine, because everything is at steady-state. So knock off the bullshit, because I see right through it, and so will the others I show this to.

Again, warming the chamber walls is like partially closing the drain on a bathtub where water is flowing in at a constant rate

Which is not only false (the S-B relation again, which says it only relies on its radiant temperature, not the temperature of cooler bodies nearby), but another straw man, because the chamber walls aren't warmed. They are held at a constant 255.37K.

Hopefully these are just more badly-worded sentences because they all require absorptivity = 0.

No, they don't. Gray body radiant power vs. temperature is expressed by S-B equation, and we already know that gray body absorptivity = emissivity. I was using the proper equation, and you were using it too (if improperly). Are you trying to tell me that the equation YOU have been using is invalid?

Yet again, you have contradicted yourself. You're a great bullshitter but I've caught you out and you've already been proved wrong. All this trying to twist out from under the obvious any way you can only confirms that you were bullshitting all along. Be a man and admit the truth, because people ARE going to see this. Why do you want to look more foolish than you do already?

But for gray bodies it's just an approximation because it ignores reflections. After obviously failing to explain that we need to account for reflections, I decided to agree to disagree. For two gray bodies interacting with small view factors (e.g. Earth's tiny view factor of the Sun) reflections can be safely neglected. But the chamber wall completely encloses the source, so its view factor is 1. That's why MIT's equation is more accurate here: it accounts for reflections.

Complete bullshit again. We were assuming diffuse gray bodies. Further:

But the chamber wall completely encloses the source, so its view factor is 1.

No. If the surfaces are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 as I did in my solution, F12 = F34 = 1. In the other direction (as you already know, and so do I) it is R1/R2, where R1 is the smaller diameter. F21 = F43 = 0.9989.

But in this context it is already "dirt simple", as I pointed out before. These are diffuse gray bodies. (1 - emissivity) is assumed to be the "reflection", which in this context also includes scattering but no transmission. This is already accounted for in the equations, such as the heat transfer equation you borrowed from Wikipedia.

If you like, you can use the preferred method (according to Wikipedia) for calculating the respective radiant output of the surfaces: the Radiosity Method. That method explicitly accounts for reflection (1 - emissivity). And I already know that it confirms my solution. So go ahead. I simply didn't show it in my brief write-up because I intended it to be a brief write-up. I do intend to show it in the fuller version.

Since Jane's proposed equation is missing the "(s)*T4^4" term, it doesn't reduce to this simpler Eq. 1J.2 for blackbodies where (e) = 1. So it's wrong.

More nonsense. The S-B relation says that the radiative power out of a body is P = (epsilon)*(sigma)*T^4. It is not wrong. It is a simple equation that is well-known to physicists. You claim to be a physicist, so why don't you know it?

The equation you are trying to use there is a partial equation for heat transfer, not radiant power output. They're not the same things. The proper equation for power out given radiant temperature is right there in the above paragraph. It can be found in any heat transfer textbook and many physics books.

Didn't you notice that MIT's equation is essentially the SAME equation as Wikipedia's heat transfer equation, except for areas? I sure did. Why didn't you notice that?

I repeat: I checked my solution using Wikipedia's equation, including the areas AND the view factors AND the reflections. It checked out just fine, thank you very much. Why don't you try it yourself and see?

But after using Jane's equation in pointless attempts to illustrate more fundamental problems in Jane's analysis, I wanted to stress once again that MIT's equation is more appropriate for enclosing chamber walls because it accounts for reflections.

It doesn't matter. It still checks out. Although I'd say that Wikipedia's equation is more correct because it includes area and view factor, which MIT's equation does not.

Other than your mention of the equations in the latter part of your comment, it is easy to show that EVERYTHING ELSE is just plain nonsense. You are trying to dispute the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law and its corollaries. Excuse me, but that didn't work in the beginning, and it still isn't working. You've added nothing worthwhile to the conversation since.

You've been owned, man. BE enough of a man to admit it. Because everybody's going to know it anyway.

Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 126

There's a huge problem with Android device encryption.

Unlike Apple's usual forms of encryption, once an Android device is encrypted, it is not reversible. There is no way to UN-encrypt it, except to back up all your programs, flash your original unencrypted OS back to the phone, then restore the programs. And that requires unlocking and rooting the phone.

There are LOTS of problems caused by that.

Comment Re:Oregon... (Score 2) 198

What they should do is use the ocean version of "pumped storage": build a giant vertical cylinder in the ocean, and when you have surplus electricity you pump water OUT of the chamber. Then when usage peaks and you need more electricity, you let water run back in and turn turbines to generate it.

It's probably a hell of a lot cheaper than batteries. Pumped storage has been an up-and-coming technology for 20 years now. I worked on one project in which they hollowed out an entire stone mountain, creating huge chambers to store water for a pumped-storage system.

Comment Re:When doing anything involving the ocean (Score 4, Interesting) 198

When I was a child, we had a nice wood boat. A ChrisCraft. The finish was getting pretty weather-worn so my father took it to a guy who refinished boats to get it done. He specified brass screws, just like the original. The refinisher said, "Everybody uses stainless steel these days. They're just as good." My father reluctantly let him use the stainless steel screws.

The boat was moored by strong chains to a dock in the ocean. (You had to leave lots of play in the chains so the boat could ride up and down with the tide.) A few weeks later, by family got a call from the SeaBees. They had found the boat, dangling underwater by the chains holding it to the dock pilings.

The seawater had eaten the stainless steel screws right up. It only took a few weeks.

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