Comment Canning (Score 1) 87
Canning likes this.
Comment Re:Related Conficker Incident ... (Score 1) 508
No way.
Rick Astley would never give you up or let you down.
Comment Re:If you want to screw yourself, go ahead (Score 1) 605
In Canada we use paragraphs.
Submission + - Passwords in small companies
daeg writes: As any person in a small company can tell you, we have too many passwords and too many people know them because the defined job roles are very lax. The programmers know our shipping password because they've had to ship things before and the administrative assistants know our printer passwords, for instance. Are there any easy ways to manage these types of passwords securely? If an employee leaves, we have to change all of the passwords (particularly for the places that do not allow multiple delegate user accounts) and simultaneously tell everyone the new password, which is tedious and error prone, at best. What are some methods that have worked in your small companies?
Submission + - MYT Combustion Engine - 150 mpg !!! (greencarcongress.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A California inventor is developing a new compact and highly efficient engine — the Massive Yet Tiny (MYT) engine — that promises high power output with a very high power to weight ratio (20:1). The inventor, Raphial Morgado, recently won first prize in the 2005 Emhart-NASA Tech Briefs Design Contest for his work on the engine.
The engine moves pistons on different rotors relative to each other to form combustion chambers of variable volume in a toroidal cylinder. The pistons move in stepwise fashion, with the pistons on one rotor travelling a predetermined distance while the pistons on the other rotor remain substantially stationary.
Fuel is drawn into a chamber as one of the pistons defining the chamber moves away from the other, and then compressed as the second piston moves toward the first.
Myt2
The cycles of the MYT engine. Click to enlarge.
Combustion of the fuel drives the first piston away from the second, and the spent gases are then expelled from the chamber by the second piston moving again toward the first. An output shaft is connected to the rotors in such manner that the shaft rotates continuously while the rotors and pistons move in their stepwise fashion.
The engine fires 16 times on one revolution of the crankshaft, 32 times on two. By comparison, a standard V8 fires four times per crankshaft revolution — one-quarter the number of the MYT. Angel Labs, the company developing the engine, calculates the equivalent displacement of the MYT as 848 cubic inches (13.9 liters), with a 3-inch bore and a 3.75-inch stroke. The company further calculates that the 14" x 14", 150-pound prototype could produce power in excess of 3,000 hp.
[The 3,000 hp rating] is conservatively estimated from 850 CID. A conventional engine can produce 4 hp per CID (when turbo charged). Four times 850 [the equivalent displacement] is more than 3,000. Our data of air motoring (800 lb.ft. of torque from 150 psi of compressed air) extrapolates to more than 4,000 lb.ft. of torque when fuel is ignited, exceeding our conservative estimate.
— Jin K. Kim, Managing Member, Angel Labs
The design is also modular. Additional MYT units can be connected by removing the rear cover of the engine and connecting another ME chamber assembly. With a dual-assembly configuration, the engine becomes a "64-cylinder" engine with 1,695 cubic inches displacement (27.8 liters), raising the power-to-weight ratio up to a projected 40:1.
The engine uses only about 20% of the number of parts normally found in a reciprocating internal combustion engine, and only 12 of the MYT parts are moving parts, reducing friction and parasitic losses.
Unlike a reciprocating combustion engine, the MYT engine permits a piston dwell at the equivalent of Top Dead Center (TDC) — the starting point for combustion. The current prototype is set for a piston dwell of approximately 12 degrees of the crankshaft rotation. By adding in that delay under combustion before permitting the power stroke, the MYT burns a greater percentage of the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber, resulting in a more complete combustion.
All we know is that 12-degrees dwell at the TDC, which no other engine can do, will burn all the fuels completely. Therefore, we expect very clean emissions.
— Jin K. Kim
Other features of the engine include:
*
The ability to support a compression ratio as high as 70:1.
*
No valves. The MYT uses open ports with no restriction. Airflow action is one way.
*
The entire engine acts as a heat sink and a radiator. It is both air and oil cooled.
*
There is no thrust loading on piston skirts.
*
Pistons do not touch the cylinder walls, only the rings do.
*
Pistons travel only the same direction. No reciprocation, only stop and go.
*
There are no cylinder heads, no cam shaft, no valves (the ME is equivalent to the bottom end of a reciprocating engine).
*
Intake compression and power stroke and exhaust stroke events are happening all at the same time, so there are no load strokes.
The MYT engine is not the first implementation of rotating pistons in a toroidal cylinder — the 1968 Tschudi engine is very similar in concept. (A newer derivative is by Hoose, 2005.) The key to the MYT engine is its timing mechanism.
The stop and go actions can be generated in many different ways, but you can not have active locking mechanism, because it will break under repeated stress. It took Raphial, who usually can invent in a couple of hours per invention, more than two years to come up with this invention (he threw away about 10 different ways of implementation.)
— Jin Kim, in the Angel Labs forum
Angel Labs is targeting a number of application: autombiles and trucks, pumps and compressors, aviation (helicopter, fixed wing and UAV), and military. Their goal is to license the technology non-exclusively to everyone. According to Jin Kim, Angel Labs is currently in discussions with Lockheed Margin, Boeing, Ford and several smaller potential licensees.
(A hat-tip to Bob C!)
The engine moves pistons on different rotors relative to each other to form combustion chambers of variable volume in a toroidal cylinder. The pistons move in stepwise fashion, with the pistons on one rotor travelling a predetermined distance while the pistons on the other rotor remain substantially stationary.
Fuel is drawn into a chamber as one of the pistons defining the chamber moves away from the other, and then compressed as the second piston moves toward the first.
Myt2
The cycles of the MYT engine. Click to enlarge.
Combustion of the fuel drives the first piston away from the second, and the spent gases are then expelled from the chamber by the second piston moving again toward the first. An output shaft is connected to the rotors in such manner that the shaft rotates continuously while the rotors and pistons move in their stepwise fashion.
The engine fires 16 times on one revolution of the crankshaft, 32 times on two. By comparison, a standard V8 fires four times per crankshaft revolution — one-quarter the number of the MYT. Angel Labs, the company developing the engine, calculates the equivalent displacement of the MYT as 848 cubic inches (13.9 liters), with a 3-inch bore and a 3.75-inch stroke. The company further calculates that the 14" x 14", 150-pound prototype could produce power in excess of 3,000 hp.
[The 3,000 hp rating] is conservatively estimated from 850 CID. A conventional engine can produce 4 hp per CID (when turbo charged). Four times 850 [the equivalent displacement] is more than 3,000. Our data of air motoring (800 lb.ft. of torque from 150 psi of compressed air) extrapolates to more than 4,000 lb.ft. of torque when fuel is ignited, exceeding our conservative estimate.
— Jin K. Kim, Managing Member, Angel Labs
The design is also modular. Additional MYT units can be connected by removing the rear cover of the engine and connecting another ME chamber assembly. With a dual-assembly configuration, the engine becomes a "64-cylinder" engine with 1,695 cubic inches displacement (27.8 liters), raising the power-to-weight ratio up to a projected 40:1.
The engine uses only about 20% of the number of parts normally found in a reciprocating internal combustion engine, and only 12 of the MYT parts are moving parts, reducing friction and parasitic losses.
Unlike a reciprocating combustion engine, the MYT engine permits a piston dwell at the equivalent of Top Dead Center (TDC) — the starting point for combustion. The current prototype is set for a piston dwell of approximately 12 degrees of the crankshaft rotation. By adding in that delay under combustion before permitting the power stroke, the MYT burns a greater percentage of the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber, resulting in a more complete combustion.
All we know is that 12-degrees dwell at the TDC, which no other engine can do, will burn all the fuels completely. Therefore, we expect very clean emissions.
— Jin K. Kim
Other features of the engine include:
*
The ability to support a compression ratio as high as 70:1.
*
No valves. The MYT uses open ports with no restriction. Airflow action is one way.
*
The entire engine acts as a heat sink and a radiator. It is both air and oil cooled.
*
There is no thrust loading on piston skirts.
*
Pistons do not touch the cylinder walls, only the rings do.
*
Pistons travel only the same direction. No reciprocation, only stop and go.
*
There are no cylinder heads, no cam shaft, no valves (the ME is equivalent to the bottom end of a reciprocating engine).
*
Intake compression and power stroke and exhaust stroke events are happening all at the same time, so there are no load strokes.
The MYT engine is not the first implementation of rotating pistons in a toroidal cylinder — the 1968 Tschudi engine is very similar in concept. (A newer derivative is by Hoose, 2005.) The key to the MYT engine is its timing mechanism.
The stop and go actions can be generated in many different ways, but you can not have active locking mechanism, because it will break under repeated stress. It took Raphial, who usually can invent in a couple of hours per invention, more than two years to come up with this invention (he threw away about 10 different ways of implementation.)
— Jin Kim, in the Angel Labs forum
Angel Labs is targeting a number of application: autombiles and trucks, pumps and compressors, aviation (helicopter, fixed wing and UAV), and military. Their goal is to license the technology non-exclusively to everyone. According to Jin Kim, Angel Labs is currently in discussions with Lockheed Margin, Boeing, Ford and several smaller potential licensees.
(A hat-tip to Bob C!)
Fresh Security Breaches At Los Alamos 127
WrongSizeGlass writes "MSNBC is carrying Newsweek reporting on two new security breaches at Los Alamos. Both of these latest incidents were 'human error' on the part of employees. In one, an e-mail containing classified material was sent over the open Internet rather than through the secure defense network. In the other incident, an employee took his lab laptop on vacation to Ireland, where it was stolen out of his hotel room. The machine reportedly contained government documents of a sensitive nature."
Feed news.com: MySQL innovating toward an IPO (BusinessWeek) (com.com)
Blog: MySQL is relentlessly pushing its way toward an IPO, as BusinessWeek reports, which makes the entire open source ecosystem that much more valuable.
Feed The Register: Bush on cyber war: 'a subject I can learn a lot about' (theregister.com)
Real gov network strike might be scarier than botnet DDoS
When the presidents of the USA and Estonia met on Monday, cyber warfare was still very much on the Estonian agenda.
Feed The Register: IBM turbo charges world's fastest supercomputer (theregister.com)
Blue Gene has long division licked. Next: killer sudoku
IBM has unleashed a new iteration of its chess-playing powerhouse Blue Gene, which it also reckons is useful in academic and commercial fields like drug discovery and mineral exploration.
Feed The Register: HP coughs up surprise update to desktop PC range (theregister.com)
Submission + - Apple iPhone to be dialling for Trojans?
Gary writes: "Many people have said that the lack of attacks upon Apple's operating systems and devices can be attributed to a lower market share than Microsoft Windows-based PCs. Trojans, worms, and viruses for mobile phones are nothing new, infact we have come across several instances of outbreaks affecting Symbian Smartphones as well as a few running on Windows Mobile Platform. The two platforms will converge when the iPhone is released in the US on June 29th. The release will potentially make writing malicious code for both an Apple product and a mobile device irresistible to some attackers. The Safari browser and HTML email capabilities of the device could present an ideal attack vector."
Submission + - Wubi: new Ubuntu secret weapon?
An anonymous reader writes: There is a new Ubuntu installer out there that might bring about a small revolution in the Linux world. Think about an installer that allows you to install and uninstall Linux as any other application. An installer that does not require you to burn an ISO, that does not change your partitions, that does not change your bootloader, and still gives you a normal dual-boot setup, with full hardware access. Impossible? Enter Wubi. Wubi sits between a demo and a full installation, bringing you the best of both words. It works like a real installation but it is easy and safe to install and remove like a demo. Wubi was born as an independent (GPL) project, but it will become an official Ubuntu installer in Gutsy. Caveat: it is still in beta.
Feed news.com: At Yahoo, being paranoid comes with the job (com.com)
All employees are encouraged to be at least a little paranoid. Meet the man who was the first to put it in a job title.
Photos: A peek at Yahoo 'Paranoids'
Photos: A peek at Yahoo 'Paranoids'
Submission + - Google threatens to end Gmail service in Germany
An anonymous reader writes: According to the English edition of the "Der Spiegel" weekly, Google has threatened that it would rather shut down its Gmail service in Germany than comply with a controversial German surveillance law that would require telecommunications companies to store logs of their users's phone and internet activities for six months, including Internet details, phone call information, and text messages. While Germany's parliament has not held a vote over the proposed law yet or set a date for the vote, Google's Global Privacy councel Peter Fleischer calls the proposal a "heavy blow against the private sphere." The article continues to quote him as follows:
"Many users around the globe make use of this anonymity to defend themselves from spam, or government repression of free speech,"
[...]
""If the Web community won't trust us with handling their data with great care, we'll go down in no time." As an emergency measure, he said — rather than change the product — "we would shut off Google Mail in Germany."
