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Comment Tesla coils produce AC. (Score 0) 88

Small Tesla coils are typically run in pulsed mod, with duty cycles on the order of 0.1%. If you wish to run them continuously you need a 100Kw supply for even a small 5-10 foot coil, water cooled electronics, primary coil, and you will need induction heater grade capacitors. How do you plan on getting useful data from high frequency AC, and for that matter, high frequency AC which by nature is a decaying pulse stream on the order of .1-1% duty cycle?
Transportation

Submission + - Road Train Completes First Trials in Sweden

Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that technology that links vehicles into "road trains" that can travel as a semi-autonomous convoy has undergone its first real world tests with trials held on Volvo's test track in Sweden slaving a single car to a truck to test the platooning system and researchers believe platoons of cars could be traveling on Europe's roads within a decade cutting fuel use, boosting safety and may even reducing congestion. SARTRE researchers say that around 80% of accidents on the road are due to human error so using professional lead drivers to take the strain on long journeys could, they say, see road accidents fall. They also predict fuel efficiency could improve by as much as 20% if "vehicle platooning" takes off, with obvious benefits for the environment. A video of the trial shows the test car traveling behind a truck and then handing over control to that leading vehicle with commands to steer, speed up and slow down all coming from the driver of the lead vehicle while the driver of the test car is seen taking his hands off the wheel, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee as the journey proceeds. "An automated system is likely to make it safer as it takes away driver error but it would have to be 100% reliable," says John Franklin "This kind of system would also require a complete change in motoring culture for drivers to hand over control,.""

Comment fuzzygerbil (Score 1) 1

It saves energy if you do it right. Taking an off the shelf PFC corrected server power supply and giving it 140-280 volts dc rather than 120/240 volts ac may raise the efficiency 1-2%, better yet, remove the diode bridge for another 1.1 or .6% improvement. Additionally, removing the PFC input stage reduces the cost of said supply by 15-30%, and feeding it 300-350 Vdc directly will increase the efficiency 4-8% Converting your utility provided 480/277VAC line into 270Vdc outside the building with just passive cooling saves a lot of heat, if by a lot of heat you mean 5-10% Downsides? 200-400 Vdc outlets are expensive. You have to figure out what is the optimal voltage to feed your servers. You may find that a 270 volt supply with the combined surge suppression of 100,000 servers costs more than 10% of your energy bill per year.

Comment Re:Apply this to Facebook and Myspace (Score 1) 296

No No No This would be a separate database, furthermore, the information is useless to marketing, because the market is saturated, more intelligent marketing is what is desired. And, No, the closest thing to this is "friend wheel", also on facebook. I'm envisioning a "friend wheel" that encompasses everyone on Myspace, facebook, Bebo, and the 30 others, all of which allow you to see an individual's friends.

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