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Comment Re:Rotavirus -- you have a point (Score 1) 278

Most drugs are quite large molecules and not UV resistant. If it becomes a problem then we, in the Netherlands, will start installing UV installations after our sewage treatment plants. For now it is only done in large hospitals because there the medicine concentration is significantly higher. There are monitoring systems in place to test for drugs in the cleaned water after the sewage water treatment but the need to clean them out of there is just not all that big.

Comment Re:I don't see why people are so childish on it (Score 1) 278

Now, prove that its safe.

If continuous sampling proves it confirms to both these standards it is safe.
Seriously. Any decent muncipal water supply in the Netherlands continously monitors not only for baterial cultures but also PH and various chemical concentrations. If a test fails there is a major problem. I haven't had any trouble with our water (all toilet to tap) in my 30 years. The problems I heard of were things like broken pipes where mud got into the water. That'll give you bacteria.

Comment Re:satellites (Score 1) 403

Memory effect is exactly what happens if you recharge those old NiMH batteries before they were empty.
Modern phones have Li chemistry batteries. They behave quite different: discharge them till empty and they die. Your usual behavior should be to charge them before they are half empty if you want them to last. Emptying them to 5% (when the phone tells you the battery is empty and will shut down) can be done once in a while, sure, but for battery life it should not be the default way of working.
Treat a NiMH the way you should treat a Li-ion and it dies soon. Treat a Li-ion the way you should treat a NiMH and it dies soon.

Comment Re:Impressive... (Score 1) 150

Logitech is a decent company. You don't get that level of support everywhere.
And Windows installer going TU is going to be difficult to fix in any case. It doesn't happen often and reinstalling Windows seems like a good solution to fix a part of the Windows OS. Since it doesn't happen often I can't imagine there being a decent business case for making a separate windows installer installer beyond re-installing the OS. There will always be edge cases.
Now for why Windows STILL does not make separate data and OS partitions by default is beyond me. On occasion you need to re-install the OS. It's not what you want but it happens. Thus the default should be that re-installing the OS does not clean out the family pictures. Even though these should be on multiple backups.

Comment Re:So alternating strips and 2 voltages (Score 1) 75

It doesn't need to stay in place. In fact in TFA the tech is used in a racetrack for model cars. The rectifiers are there so the polarity of the input of each dot can switch without the output changing. If you make the alternating strips pad big enough it will be able to handle a lot of shifting around during driving. If you place it into a tray so the phone bumps into the edge of the tray before loosing contact with the pad then you've got the major problems solved unless you drive so aggressively everything has to be bolted in place anyway or you have an accident.
The tech is simple, yes, but I see that as an advantage.

Comment Re:charge what? (Score 1) 75

The major losses are not in the DC-AC conversion nor in the AC-DC conversion. Both are usually done with high efficiency. The losses are in bridging the 1 mm air gap between the transmitting coil and the receiving coil and the presence of any other conducting material nearby. You see when the Qi charger (or whatever tech) transmits it's power over that gap some of it leaks out through the side. That leaking field starts to induce current in whatever conducting material it encounters. Those are your losses and they scale up with something like the third or fourth power of the distance between the emitting and the receiving coils.

By the way, the recieving end of OpenDots treats the power as AC, as it feeds it through a similar rectifier, in order to correct for polarity changes. These losses are not removed.
The are not a simple percentile loss however. On high power installations (like car charger) this rectifier would not be a simple Shotkey diode rectifier. It would be a sensing circuit with mosfets to switch the connections. Those are more expensive and have make no sense in low power applications but for the charging of a car using a mosfet rectifier makes sense.
You see, even Shotkey diodes have a 0.2V voltage drop over them. With a 40A charging current this means 8 W is continuously turned into heat by the diodes. The mosfet rectifier needs some power to work but that is in the order of 0.1 W, depending on the number of contact points.

Comment Re:wirefree not quite the same as wireless (Score 1) 75

The main bullshit is in the reason they listed that, not in the tech. This is not a wireless charging solution, it "merely" has a few of the advantages of wireless charging and does not have some of the disadvantages like efficiency and triggering the EM radiation allergy tinfoil hatters.

It merely eliminates the need for precise orientation when plugging in. Therefore it should be relatively easy to use it to charge a car automatically, with a charging pad under the car (with automatically retracting protection cover) and a self-raising charging pad on or in the floor of your parking spot. Park your car and walk away. The charging pads connect and the car will be charged. If the GPS in the car detects that the car should be in a charging spot while it does not detect a charger send an SMS to the owner so they can plug in the cable and/or fix the reason it doesn't work.

Comment Re:one thing to note (Score 1) 94

Usually parts break off from concrete when there was a small crack to begin, then either one of the next cases happens:
1. water enters the hole-> freezes (expands) -> crack gets bigger -> more water enters -> freezes-> crack gets bigger -> etc -> part breaks off.
2. Dirt and water enters the crack -> plant grows in crack -> roots crack the concrete further -> part breaks off.

This self healing concrete prevents both scenarios as it heals the initial small crack, preventing water and dirt from entering. It stops the crack in it's early stages.

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