| UserName | Title | Description | Post Date |
| Bill_J62 | How much more generation and distribution capacity would be needed in the US if drivers start switching to electric vehicles? | If just 20% of gasoline powered autos were switched to electric that would represent a lot of horsepower. I wonder how that would effect the power grid. I doubt there’s that much spare capacity now and I wonder how the utility industry plans to scale up. |
Friday, July 30, 2010
1:55 PM
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| P_Stephens | Ignoring engineers’ warnings almost always turns out to be a bad idea. | It seems like every time a major technological problem or disaster occurs you find out that there were engineers warning earlier about a potential problem. With the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs was supposedly warned about the antenna vulnerability but disregarded the warning because he wanted the sleek design of the external metallic strip. With the BP oil disaster, engineers warned of troublesome pressures and urged caution and a more robust well construction. They were supposedly overridden by managers who wanted to minimize costs. There are countless more examples. |
Monday, July 19, 2010
11:10 AM
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| JohnK | Parallels between Apple’s iPhone 4 flaw and Intel’s Pentium flaw | It seems like Apple is repeating the same PR mistakes that Intel made with its Pentium floating point flaw in 1994. Steve Jobs should know better. Those who forget the lessons of the past… |
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
1:57 PM
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| BlueCorona | Wireless transmission of electrical power is both incredibly fascinating and impractical | The fact that we still use Nikola Tesla’s alternating current and induction motor designs, with little modification, proves his forward-looking genius. Even geniuses can have intellectual blind spots, however, and I think his plan for the wireless transmission of electrical power was one of them. It would be insanely inefficient, because you’d be sending out power in all directions, and the electromagnetic exposure to surrounding humans and animal life would be immense. |
Thursday, July 01, 2010
2:33 PM
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| P_Stephens | I thought the “nuclear bomb” solution to the Gulf oil leak was crazy until I heard it explained | I was listening to a radio talk show and a guy called in and said they should use a nuclear bomb to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I thought he was crazy and so did the host. A couple weeks ago I was at a wedding reception and mentioned it to the guy I was sitting next to. He knew about the idea and told me that they would drill down alongside the well casing and insert the device underground in that hole. The idea was to melt the surrounding rock with a low-yield, slow-burn device, which would then seal the leak as the rock solidified. Maybe it’s still a crazy idea but it also makes a little sense for a desperate situation. |
Friday, June 11, 2010
12:32 PM
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| GreenMachine | The oil leak in the Gulf shows a serious need for better deepwater robotics. | It’s really frustrating to watch the slow and delicate robots struggle to maneuver and perform their work. One of the things I’d like to see come out of this would be more powerful and agile robots that could be more effective in difficult situations. The US government should require all the oil companies to contribute into a general fund that would develop, build, and maintain these robots. Then they would be available when needed. |
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
12:25 PM
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| Jack1218 | Vacuum tube filament voltage regulation in an amplifier circuit | I’ve been considering some vacuum tube circuit designs and I wonder how important the regulation of the filament voltage supply is. Some designs use pretty basic regulation and you’d think that variation in the filament voltage could have a negative effect on the overall sound quality. I’d like to hear other opinions or experiences with this. |
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
9:06 PM
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| Rayman0723 | Cell phone health study | Cell phone use has grown tremendously in the last 2 decades. A big majority of the world’s population is using them now. I would think that if there were a definite link with cancer or other illness that it would become clear by now. You’d be seeing a sharp increase from past decades. That doesn’t seem to be the case. |
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
1:12 PM
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| KMW64 | Effect on clocks and instruments from aging quartz crystal oscillators | I heard that as a quartz crystal ages it slows down slightly. I have a watch and clock that are both over ten years old and use quartz crystals. The watch is getting slower and the clock is getting faster. I wonder how measuring instruments that use quartz crystal oscillators as a reference are affected. Do you think they use higher quality crystals that are more stable over time? |
Thursday, April 29, 2010
9:18 PM
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| P_Stephens | Lightning storm season is here! :-( | I used to love lightning storms when I was a kid. They were always exciting! That pretty much ended when I started owning expensive electronic equipment. I learned the hard way that there’s no bulletproof method of protection. Good grounds and protective equipment only works when the strike is some distance away and the energy is dissipated. I’d love to hear if anyone’s come up with a good solution. |
Thursday, March 25, 2010
1:00 PM
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| JohnK | Would nuclear fusion power plants make some large wind farms obsolete? | To begin with, I am in favor of harnessing wind energy and developing larger, more efficient wind turbines. When I was driving through California I saw some very expansive wind farms and a lot of the turbines were not operating. I know they require regular maintenance and I was wondering if there will be the money and resources to keep up. If large nuclear fusion plants become feasible in the next few decades could it make maintenance of large wind farms impractical? I can imagine a scenario 50 years from now in which these areas will be restored to their natural appearance. |
Friday, February 12, 2010
2:13 PM
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| Rayman0723 | Age-old question of electromagnetic radiation revisited with Man’s lawsuit against his neighbor | Cellular-news: “A Santa Fe man is being sued by a neighbour who is alleging that the neighbour's mobile phone and wi-fi router are making him ill.” Where would you draw the line with something like this? Sue phone companies, municipalities with free Wi-Fi, electric utilities, radio stations, TV stations, the Sun, pulsars…. (article @ http://www.cellular-news.com/story/41395.php ) |
Saturday, January 16, 2010
2:34 PM
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| Aurora | Feasibility of replacing 12 volt UPS battery with a commodity priced car battery | It’s time for me to replace the 12 volt battery in my computer system’s UPS unit. The replacement battery is pricey and relatively small. I was thinking of replacing it with an ordinary car battery. The cost would be about the same but the AH capacity would be many times more and give me much longer backup time. I just need to extend the leads outside the unit’s enclosure. My only concern is if I will overload the charging circuit. Anyone ever try this? |
Thursday, January 14, 2010
8:35 PM
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| JRoberts | Baghdad Battery: Was it a real battery or not? | I was watching a show on the History Channel the other day and they had a segment about the Baghdad Battery. Several people that they interviewed seemed sure that it was a true battery used for electric illumination or some other purpose. One or two skeptics thought that it might have just been some sort of metal plating device that just happened to resemble a battery. I was wondering what some other opinions might be on this. |
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
9:52 AM
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| Rayman0723 | Large Hadron Collider startup Friday 11/20 | From the UK Guardian: "Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern, the nuclear research organisation near Geneva, aim to have beams of subatomic particles whizzing around the machine on Friday evening, and will begin smashing them together soon after."
I haven’t seen much other news on the event. I wonder if they’re trying to keep expectations low this time around. |
Thursday, November 19, 2009
1:50 PM
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| SiliconFreak82 | CarnEvil on game consoles | CarnEvil was a great concept for a video game. Lots of fun! Wikipedia says that it was Midway’s most popular first person shooter. I don’t understand why it wasn’t released for consumer game consoles. I know the MIPS R5000 was a powerful processor but I think they could have faithfully reproduced it on the PS2 or Xbox. They certainly can now on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Anybody know if it’s available? |
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
8:12 AM
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| AdminPaulh | Welcome! | Welcome to our new discussion forum for anything on the topics of electricity, electronics, physics, and technology in general. The current functionality is basic but we will be expanding its features and integration with our web sites in the coming months. Please feel free to set up a simple login account and use this as a resource for your interests. Thanks for visiting! Paul H |
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
7:21 PM
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