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Comment Re:Can I give it back during the summer? (Score 1) 148

Use butane instead of water, which boils at a temperature that is compatible with CPUs. The pressures involved are quite reasonable too eg (30psi).

The butane vapor then flows though a turbine to create power, through a heater exchanger to chill back down and recondense, and then is pumped back to the CPU.

If you have steam your system qwould have

Comment Re:Scientists obsessed with exotic explainations (Score 3, Interesting) 137

Plenty of scientists have tried to use simpler explanations but there is evidence that rules them out. The best example is the bullet cluster - two galaxies collided and the various components of the cluster - stars, gas and dark matter - all behaved differntly during the collision. The gravitational lensing effects cannot be explained by theories that dont include dark matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Comment Re:A simple link to the code? (Score 5, Informative) 72

The issue doesnt seem to be the code.

People are claiming that the hardware is just a re-flashed existing micro router, eg here - http://www.aliexpress.com/item...

Anonabox claim they custom designed the hardware, other are claiming it doesnt seem so, mostly it seems like it a moot point if it's cheap and offers the functionality specified.

Comment Re: No mention on capacity though (Score 1) 395

The Tesla battery pack is made up of small individual cells. Multiple cells in parallel provide higher current and total amp-hours, and long strings of these parallel cells are used to achieve the high voltages used to drive the motors

Now, whilst the main battery discharge terminals may treat the battery as a single unit, smaller monitoring and charging cables can actually be connected to individual clusters of cells. A sensible way of doing this is to connect to across each parallel set of cells. The differntial voltage across each parallel set can then be monitored, and during charging you can use an isolated DC-DC converter to put more power into some sets than others to keep their voltages balanced.

Remote control hobby batteries are often wired this way, for example a 4S1P (4 series 1 parallel) pack will have two main battery terminals, and 5 balancing terminals. A car battery may have the same concept but be configured as 100S10P.

Comment Re:He tried patenting it... (Score 1) 986

Pretty sure lots of poeple are claiming he is violating the laws of physics.

There are very large electrostatic forces that prevent nuclei getting close enough to obtain fusion. To date the only way we've been able to overcome those forces is by using very high velocity (i.e temperature) to smash the atoms together. The proposed "low energy" fusion claims to overcome these electrostatic forces but gives no explanation as to how.

Comment Re:Wrong type of machine for Dremel (Score 3, Informative) 105

We are no-where near the point where fused filament 3D Printing is a plug and play operation. In the last 12 months I've had to spend a lot of time and effort to get reasonable prints, and have had to regularly consider things like:

Printer idiosyncracies (which a professional printer should avoid):
- Wear & tear on pulleys and bushings changing belt performance
- Correct hot end temperatures, scorching and smoking of filament leading to clogged nozzles
- Bed flatness
- Enclosure temperature control, adhesion to the bed and control of warping

Then, even if your printer is working well there are a huge number of factors to consider when drawing and slicing your shape:
- Orientation of the shape with respect to grain in the filament to give good styrength
- Orientation of the shape to avoid bridges and overhangs
- Inside fill percentage and fill style to optimise between strength and potential warping.
- Adjustment for tolerance and oozing around and intermeshing parts

That's not a complete list, but it's what I'm down to now on a regular basis now that I've tweaked all of the other settings and am getting some consistency.

Comment Re:Way for *any hacker* to brick your phone (Score 2) 299

I want a kill switch, in fact I have one on my phone right now in the form of an IMEI blocking scheme by my telco. If someone nicks my new phone it will be worthless within a day.

So far the schemes seem to be working fine and has been adopted across most of Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. It's not actively enforced in many parts of asia and as such has become a hotspot for stolen phone sales.

Comment Re:IMEI Blocking in Australia (Score 2) 299

Lots of countries do this already. The US is one of the few that doesnt, and seem to be getting their panties in a knot trying to figure it out. I dont know if it's a "not invented here" issue or just a deep seated mistrust of their government.

The fact is:
- IMEI blocking has generally been working fine. There are supposedly methods to reflash the IMEI on *some* phones but it's quite difficult.
- We are not seeing reports of governments abusing the feature.

Comment Re:So let me get this Straight. (Score 2) 219

It's easier to aim a laser tag with a small switch - and correct it if you've got it wrong - than to aim and fire using the trigger perfectly the first time.

It's all about repercussions and sensitivity - the target probably wont get alerted by the tagging beam, and you can correct it as many times as you like whilst maintaining stealth. Once you have it right, the first real bullet will hit it's mark and the show is over.

Comment Re:Synthetic Grass (Score 1) 99

I've never understood why synthetic turf owners down throw a splash of water over their yards in summer - the evaporating water will keep the heat down.

Yes, it does waste a little water, but far less than regular lawn and you can do it just on the days you want a cooling effect.

Comment Re:Why do CS grads become lowly programmers? (Score 1) 637

Like it or not, a significant portion - maybe even a majority - of multi-million dollar software projects fail dismally.

Maybe the problem is the (lack of) software engineering. Maybe it's the project management. Most likely it's really poor requirements gathering from clueless users who fill the scope full of edge cases. Either way, the industry has a shockingly poor reputation.

Until the software industry can get their shit together, I'm hesitant to use the word "engineering" anywhere near it.

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