11 July 2012
03 March 2011
27 December 2009
11 December 2009
17 July 2009
Things to do...
Need to stop procrastinating and to create a VM image of my ol' trusty OS/2 machine, especially as it appears that the venerable Tyan Tomcat PentiumMMX motherboard has finally stopped working. Maybe I could try swapping the CPUs or something or there is the Intel OR840 PentiumIII motherboard floating around... The only real problem is that the old case is a AT Medium Tower and the OR840 is an ATX motherboard, so there is the issue of PSU incompatibility too.
31 May 2009
An idea to increase power/efficiency of a Natural Gas (CH4) Internal Combustion Engine (ICE).
While I was driving to In-N-Out, earlier today, an idea struck me as to how to improve the performance of a Natural Gas powered Internal Combustion Engine...
Essentially, the waste gases of a natural gas engine is water vapor and carbon dioxide with trace amounts of other pollutants.
A major waste product of the engine is heat, especially excess heat in the exhaust gasses. What do I define as excess heat in the exhaust? Quite simply it is heat above the point required to keep the water content of the exhaust in its vapor phase. At standard atmospheric pressure, it would be 100ºC. With an engine with a 12:1 compression ratio, this temperature would be at least 182ºC, plus a bit more for the motive power of the engine - so lets say around 200ºC.
The exhaust gases could be condensed to form mildly acidic but otherwise pure water. This water could be warmed by the engine's cooling system up to equal the temperature of the engine block, which would be a little under 100ºC. At the point of the engine cycle just after the intake valves close at roughly the point where compression begins, a small amount of this warmed water could be injected as a fine aerosol spray. The subsequent combustion of the natural gas could provide enough energy to also change the injected water into its vapor phase, increasing the post-combustion pressure within the engine, providing more motive power.
The key thing to do would be to monitor the temperature of the exhaust from the engine to ensure that there is excess heat within the system to vaporise the injected water so that the water is not injected at a time when there is insufficient energy to support it as it would likely result in reduced engine performance.
How well would this perform? Well, to be honest, I have not run any detailed numbers but I don't think it would be too far fetched to imagine this improving power by as much as 10%, maybe even significantly more. Increased performance would mean less time spent accelerating and perhaps less fuel to maintain steady velocity which both would mean significant gains in fuel efficiency.
What other uses for the condensed water can I think of? Perhaps some form of evaporative cooling system for the intake air? Another idea to entertain.
If only I had the time to play...
Essentially, the waste gases of a natural gas engine is water vapor and carbon dioxide with trace amounts of other pollutants.
A major waste product of the engine is heat, especially excess heat in the exhaust gasses. What do I define as excess heat in the exhaust? Quite simply it is heat above the point required to keep the water content of the exhaust in its vapor phase. At standard atmospheric pressure, it would be 100ºC. With an engine with a 12:1 compression ratio, this temperature would be at least 182ºC, plus a bit more for the motive power of the engine - so lets say around 200ºC.
The exhaust gases could be condensed to form mildly acidic but otherwise pure water. This water could be warmed by the engine's cooling system up to equal the temperature of the engine block, which would be a little under 100ºC. At the point of the engine cycle just after the intake valves close at roughly the point where compression begins, a small amount of this warmed water could be injected as a fine aerosol spray. The subsequent combustion of the natural gas could provide enough energy to also change the injected water into its vapor phase, increasing the post-combustion pressure within the engine, providing more motive power.
The key thing to do would be to monitor the temperature of the exhaust from the engine to ensure that there is excess heat within the system to vaporise the injected water so that the water is not injected at a time when there is insufficient energy to support it as it would likely result in reduced engine performance.
How well would this perform? Well, to be honest, I have not run any detailed numbers but I don't think it would be too far fetched to imagine this improving power by as much as 10%, maybe even significantly more. Increased performance would mean less time spent accelerating and perhaps less fuel to maintain steady velocity which both would mean significant gains in fuel efficiency.
What other uses for the condensed water can I think of? Perhaps some form of evaporative cooling system for the intake air? Another idea to entertain.
If only I had the time to play...
22 May 2009
21 May 2009
08 May 2009
Verizon has awful customer service!
As anyone who has had to call Verizon can probably attest to ...
VERIZON CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS.
And for a phone company, the call quality of their customer service sucks -- as they transfer you from one call centre to another, the voice quality gets progressively worse and worse.
Perhaps the poor line call quality is intentional - so that after an hour and being bounced from one call centre to another, you're forced to disconnect and try again because everything becomes unintelligible.
Even though you enter in your "BTN" number, you get sent to a call centre on the other side of the country just to be sent back...
I am so tempted to just cancel.
VERIZON CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS.
And for a phone company, the call quality of their customer service sucks -- as they transfer you from one call centre to another, the voice quality gets progressively worse and worse.
Perhaps the poor line call quality is intentional - so that after an hour and being bounced from one call centre to another, you're forced to disconnect and try again because everything becomes unintelligible.
Even though you enter in your "BTN" number, you get sent to a call centre on the other side of the country just to be sent back...
I am so tempted to just cancel.
22 January 2009
W the hell is "Cyberinfrastructure"
(aka I expected better from the IEEE Computer Society Magazine)
We live in a strange era of "tubes", "Engrish" and "Yet Another Invented Word Misusing Word Stems".
What is the subject of my wrath? Quite simple really.... The use of the prefix "cyber-" to mean "The Inter-Network".
Cyber-this... Cyber-that... What a load of rubbish. It is diluting the real meaning of Cybernetics, which is the science of feedback and control engineering.
And this rubbish word "Cyberinfrastructure", as seen at the top of page 40 of the January 2009 edition of the IEEE Computer Society magazine "Computer", is a case of a few people wanting to sound "smarter" by abusing a word used in science and engineering.
To me, they have just made themselves sound less educated.
Instead of the abomnation "cyberinfrastructure", why not use "network infrastructure" or "data grid".
Bah!
You may choose to blame my rant on the fact that I have a degree in Cybernetics.
What is the subject of my wrath? Quite simple really.... The use of the prefix "cyber-" to mean "The Inter-Network".
Cyber-this... Cyber-that... What a load of rubbish. It is diluting the real meaning of Cybernetics, which is the science of feedback and control engineering.
And this rubbish word "Cyberinfrastructure", as seen at the top of page 40 of the January 2009 edition of the IEEE Computer Society magazine "Computer", is a case of a few people wanting to sound "smarter" by abusing a word used in science and engineering.
To me, they have just made themselves sound less educated.
Instead of the abomnation "cyberinfrastructure", why not use "network infrastructure" or "data grid".
Bah!
You may choose to blame my rant on the fact that I have a degree in Cybernetics.
15 January 2009
Random thought
With how often I use the CDROM drive in a laptop, I wouldn't mind if they went away completely. I think my next personal laptop will not have such low-density storage built in but only as an external device. That freed space could be used for other stuff such as more battery or even to reduce the overall bulk of the machine.
Makes something like the MacBook Air a tempting choice for the future: 2010 is the year when I will replace my personal laptop.
(Katie would disagree: She uses her laptop as a personal DVD player)
Makes something like the MacBook Air a tempting choice for the future: 2010 is the year when I will replace my personal laptop.
(Katie would disagree: She uses her laptop as a personal DVD player)
23 December 2008
Actually, it very good and tasty dogfood!
In response to the Slashdot article: As Christmas Bonus, Google Hands Out "Dogfood"... A small number of people have expressed displeasure at only getting a G1 smartphone as a bonus.
Personally, I am very happy to receive the dev G1 phone... It wasn't something I would have purchased for myself (tough economic times ahead yadda yadda yadda) nor was it something that I would have asked anyone else to get for me. It gives me the opportunity to play with it and maybe develop a few stupid little applications, just for fun: It will be a much appreciated toy for Christmas.
Will it replace my old phone? Don't know yet. It is a lot bulkier than my Samsung Trace. For now, I'm giving it a test-drive.
In any case, this is the most valuable Christmas bonus that I have received in recent years - so I kinda feel that anyone complaining about it are kinda being ungrateful. I am used to getting perhaps a company-branded backpack, shot glass, towel or USB pen drive as a Christmas bonus from my previous employer so this phone gift is positively extravagant by comparison. Even considering that I occasionally worked long hours and was key in developing a few features which formed the foundation of my then-CEO's promise, I appreciated the small token gifts and I still enjoy using them today.
I never expected, nor did I ever receive, a large bonus from my previous employer.
I never expected any bonus from Google this year, especially considering the current economy.
Just my 2c opinion..
Personally, I am very happy to receive the dev G1 phone... It wasn't something I would have purchased for myself (tough economic times ahead yadda yadda yadda) nor was it something that I would have asked anyone else to get for me. It gives me the opportunity to play with it and maybe develop a few stupid little applications, just for fun: It will be a much appreciated toy for Christmas.
Will it replace my old phone? Don't know yet. It is a lot bulkier than my Samsung Trace. For now, I'm giving it a test-drive.
In any case, this is the most valuable Christmas bonus that I have received in recent years - so I kinda feel that anyone complaining about it are kinda being ungrateful. I am used to getting perhaps a company-branded backpack, shot glass, towel or USB pen drive as a Christmas bonus from my previous employer so this phone gift is positively extravagant by comparison. Even considering that I occasionally worked long hours and was key in developing a few features which formed the foundation of my then-CEO's promise, I appreciated the small token gifts and I still enjoy using them today.
I never expected, nor did I ever receive, a large bonus from my previous employer.
I never expected any bonus from Google this year, especially considering the current economy.
Just my 2c opinion..
07 October 2008
Bumper sticker
While driving to work, listening to "Capital G", I was thinking that the following car bumper sticker would be just perfect:
07 September 2008
Nine Inch Nails
The concert was great. The 10 second review: The Oakland event at the Oracle Arena had better sound quality, I think the concrete metal and plastic of the Forum in Inglewood echoed a bit and dulled the sound. However, we had better seats at the forum and the set was slightly better I think...
25 August 2008
The cost of Natural Gas
It is quite amusing sometimes to look at official statistics: 4 times more natural gas is lost in storage and in the natural gas pipe network than is used for transportation.
This means that they (Sempra etc) could in theory sell natural gas for use in transportation for free and write it off as 20% increase in network storage losses.
However, the cost of fuel to owners of natural gas vehicles in California is up to 3 times higher than the cost of fuel to vehicle owners in Utah. Given that the wholesale price of natural gas is prroximately $9.03 per 1000 cu.ft. and the retail price to CNG vehicle owners in California is around $2.89 / gge (1 gge = 127.77 cu.ft.), then the natural gas companies have a profit margin of approximately 150%. If California is really serious about reducing pollution, natural gas vehicles needs to be encouraged since natural gas is the source fuel used by all hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, whether the natural gas is cracked in a converter at home, within the vehicle itself (natural gas fuel cell) or done industrially at the filling station. Price gouging by the natural gas suppliers needs to stop - CNG vehicle owners should not have to have a home filling station fitted just to avoid the inflated prices at the filling stations.
20 August 2008
There can be a whole new service industry,
Here is an interesting business idea which maybe someone can run with and exploit:
For a nominal fee, perhaps $5-$10 per week, a company can provide a junk call phone screening service. Here is the details:
Now, wouldn't it be funny when a Telemarketer from India is received by an operator in India, and you never need be bothered by a phone call in the middle of the night?
For a nominal fee, perhaps $5-$10 per week, a company can provide a junk call phone screening service. Here is the details:
- A FXO/FXS device is plugged into your PC which is wired to the internet.
- The phone line from customer's phone service plugs into the PC.
- All the home phones are connected to the PC.
- Outgoing calls are unhindered... The service may optionally route the call through cheapest path.
- VOIP-based phone services, such as Vonage, can skip some of the above.
- An incoming call which matches customer-supplied list of phone numbers causes home phones to ring.
- All other incoming calls are immediately picked up by the computer.
- If it sounds like a FAX, receive it and store on hard drive.
- Otherwise, call is routed to phone-screening operator, perhaps in India or wherever is cheap.
- If caller can identify themselves, matching supplied list (such as credit card account number), the call may be forwarded to the customer's home phones or a pre-recorded message can be played back at the caller.
- Forwarding services can be provided for extra $$ subscription... No need to miss an important call. Forward to a VOIP target, or a cellphone perhaps...
- All received non-personal calls can be recorded. The operator will notify the caller immediately after answering the call.
- The audio file will be stored (long term) on the customer's PC.
- Short-term audio retrieval would be available online from the service's web site.
- All received calls, (CID details, date, time, duration) are logged/archived on customer's PC.
- Recent calls list may be viewed online.
Now, wouldn't it be funny when a Telemarketer from India is received by an operator in India, and you never need be bothered by a phone call in the middle of the night?
03 July 2008
Call came through.
Well... I predicted that it would happen back in 2006... I said that Microsoft will change to a subscription model within the next two years and here is the announcement!
Cannot say that I am surprised.
Cannot say that I am surprised.
16 June 2008
Speculations
Some people have asked me of what I think lies ahead... so instead of having to remember what I have told who... here are my wild speculations.
My opinions and speculations:
- We will see $5/gallon during 3Q08.
- Federal Reserve base interest rates will rise by 0.5% before end of FY08
- Residential property prices will bottom out during 4Q08.
02 April 2008
MSOOXML has been made an ISO Standard,
Of course, the challenge is to now produce a OOXML document which conforms to the now ratified standard which is capable of thoroughly crashing implementors of OOXML readers, including MS Office, and to create such a document which to fix the problem would require breaking away from the published specification and rendering documents in an incompatible manner.
Given the penchant for largely undocumented binary globs in the file, I should imagine that this should be possible - because by the nature of being undocumented, they are not part of the standard so a document which has an 'invalid' binary glob would still be conforming to the OOXML standard.
Anyways, it is not a disaster - I am sure that there must be plenty of ISO standards which are defunct or rarely used because they are irrelevant or unimplementable. OOXML is likely to become another one. Where people fail to specify exactly which ISO document standard, that is their own problem. Supporters of ODF should continue doing what they were doing - refining their specification and making it good and stop wasting time trying to berate their competitor.
Besides, now you have an easy way to tell PHBs about what each of the two standards are about:
Given the penchant for largely undocumented binary globs in the file, I should imagine that this should be possible - because by the nature of being undocumented, they are not part of the standard so a document which has an 'invalid' binary glob would still be conforming to the OOXML standard.
Anyways, it is not a disaster - I am sure that there must be plenty of ISO standards which are defunct or rarely used because they are irrelevant or unimplementable. OOXML is likely to become another one. Where people fail to specify exactly which ISO document standard, that is their own problem. Supporters of ODF should continue doing what they were doing - refining their specification and making it good and stop wasting time trying to berate their competitor.
Besides, now you have an easy way to tell PHBs about what each of the two standards are about:
- When archiving legacy documents, use ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML.
- For all new documents, use ISO/IEC 26300 Information technology - Open Document Format.
22 March 2008
I now have Time!
Well, it is done.
I am now officially a jobless lazy bum. On the plus side - I now have time!
Time to think about relaxing properly. Time to read one of those dozens of books I never seemed to have time for.
There are a few things I need to do - but there is no work stress or pressure. This weekend will be the first in years where I have no deadlines to think about. Okay - I did have a couple of deadlines but they don't matter anymore.
Important things have happened - Iain M Banks has published a new Culture novel: Matter. I plan to read it this coming week... but not too fast - I shall wait until I have a nice open slot for that activity so I can enjoy his work fully.
I am now officially a jobless lazy bum. On the plus side - I now have time!
Time to think about relaxing properly. Time to read one of those dozens of books I never seemed to have time for.
There are a few things I need to do - but there is no work stress or pressure. This weekend will be the first in years where I have no deadlines to think about. Okay - I did have a couple of deadlines but they don't matter anymore.
Important things have happened - Iain M Banks has published a new Culture novel: Matter. I plan to read it this coming week... but not too fast - I shall wait until I have a nice open slot for that activity so I can enjoy his work fully.
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