Michael Ho 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (703) comment rss

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Measuring Really Small Stuff

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2011 @ 07:01pm

    Re: Mathematicians, Physicists and Engineers Disagree

    And the high school gym teacher says the answer is: "After school, around 4pm, under the bleachers..."

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Making Lightweight Cars

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2011 @ 10:00am

    Re: 15%?

    Several estimates put it at around 15%, including the US gov:

    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml

    That site explains it in most detail:

    In gasoline-powered vehicles, over 62% of the fuel's energy is lost in the internal combustion engine (ICE). ICE engines are very inefficient at converting the fuel's chemical energy to mechanical energy, losing energy to engine friction, pumping air into and out of the engine, and wasted heat.

    Advanced engine technologies such as variable valve timing and lift, turbocharging, direct fuel injection, and cylinder deactivation can be used to reduce these losses.

    In addition, diesels are about 30-35% more efficient than gasoline engines, and new advances in diesel technologies and fuels are making these vehicles more attractive.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Bio-inspired Robots

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2011 @ 07:31pm

    Re: Watch Out For Genetic Algorithms

    That reminds me.... I vaguely remember there was an experiment where some FPGAs were set to "evolve" to produce a square wave generator... and the chips "cheated" to accomplish the goal by copying and modifying an ambient 60Hz signal from unshielded electronics in the lab...

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Better Living Through Phase Change Materials

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2011 @ 11:20pm

    Re: Coffee At 140? Celsius ...

    YIKES. Meant to say Fahrenheit... :P

    Obviously, coffee's gaseous phase change happens well before 140 C..

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Better Living Through Phase Change Materials

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2011 @ 11:19pm

    Re: Typo

    Oops. fixed.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Put Your Thinking Caps On…

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2011 @ 11:18pm

    Re: Something seems odd

    well, that genius boy's work still needs to be published and reviewed... so until the kid's work is actually out there for everyone to evaluate, there's not really much judgment to be made about it.

    And given the popularity of "string theory" and other wacky stuff in physics, if this kid is smart, he'll propose a theory that can't really be verified for hundreds of years because we don't have a supercollider big enough..... :P

  • On the post: DailyDirt: You Have Won Second Prize In A Beauty Contest! Collect $10.

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2011 @ 06:09pm

    Re:

    I sorta wonder if the joke will be on PETA... when someone submits an entry for their fake chicken contest... and tricks them into eating real meat.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Playing With Technological Fire…

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2011 @ 08:06pm

    Re:

    The Precautionary Principle takes things to a risk-averse extreme... there's always a balance to be found, but getting that balance right can be tricky.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Wearing Technology On Your Sleeve (Or In Your Brain)

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2011 @ 08:14pm

    Re:

    nice robot bird thingy...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Stuff That Literally Changes The Way We Think

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2011 @ 08:04pm

    Re:

    Yup. We'll all be wearing TMS-hats someday... :P

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Robots Mimicking Humans…

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2011 @ 06:29pm

    Re:

    Heh... maybe that robot is not as creepy as I thought.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: To Serve Mankind

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2011 @ 05:57pm

    Re: Achy diodes

    I'm pretty sure we won't have to worry about granting personhood to AI for quite some time.... and if we do, the AI probably won't care and will leave our planet for a better environment. :P

  • On the post: DailyDirt: We Built This City On [Insert Concept Here]

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2011 @ 10:37am

    Re:

    Someday, the potholes won't have to be fixed by pouring asphalt... cars will just know how to avoid them with active suspension:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSi6J-QK1lw

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Drill, Baby, Drill!

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2011 @ 11:03am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Hi okwhen,

    I didn't realize I had an obligation to be unbiased about my opinion of nuclear power... :P

    I think we agree that the energy companies are notoriously bad about meeting AND exceeding the necessary safety precautions for their facilities. I'm not at all against requiring nuclear facilities to implement fail safe procedures that would prevent catastrophic events.... But your previous statements seemed to suggest that there might not be any possible way to prevent nuclear power disasters, and on that, I disagree. Already, the events in Japan demonstrate that safety precautions can prevent a Chernobyl-sized disaster. There's a good deal more that can be done, but we shouldn't kill nuclear power because one company cuts corners on safety.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: If Only We Had A 'Mr. Fusion' Generator Handy…

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2011 @ 10:52am

    Re: why not use a distributed model?

    Chris,

    You're not the first person to think that smaller, distributed reactors would be a better plan, but I've seen some practical reasons why it doesn't happen:

    1) The regulatory process for obtaining a license to operate a nuclear reactor is fairly long and costly -- imagine doing it for each small reactor and dealing with different local politics to do so... It's not like the license would be that much easier to obtain just because you say, "But this is a *small* reactor!"

    2) Current facilities store waste on site. At a smaller facility, this might not be possible -- so then you have to actually deal with the problem of waste storage (which would be a good thing in the long run, but isn't happening any time soon).

    3) There are presumably efficiencies of scale with larger reactors. The cost to build a small reactor might be coming down soon, though. There are mini-reactors that can be mass produced. But operating and maintaining and permitting costs aren't significantly cheaper....

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Greener Cars

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 08:13pm

    Re: But where does the compressed air come from?

    There are already a few compressed-air-powered cars:

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

    And I think the Amish are also quite fond of using compressed air appliances in lieu of the electrically-powered ones most people use....

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Drill, Baby, Drill!

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 07:26pm

    Re:

    Hi okwhen,

    I think we both can agree that radioactive materials can have extremely long half-lives and are extremely bad for biological organisms like ourselves. But these facts alone don't seem to me to be sufficient to eliminate nuclear power from our options of energy technologies.

    The offsetting fact is that highly radioactive materials can also be contained (albeit indefinitely). Chernobyl's temporary sarcophagus is expected to be replaced with another, more permanent structure... and I'm optimistic that containment is a viable solution (though the new sarcophagus may also someday need to be replaced). There's an argument to be made that perhaps the costs of vigilant monitoring should be (and are not currently) incorporated into the plans of any nuclear power facility. But that's a different discussion....

    If wind or solar energy seemed more competitive and scalable, then I'd be inclined to agree that nuclear power shouldn't be used. But for the current available technologies, I think nuclear has to be included in the energy mix (as it already is) and its share of energy generation increased. We just need to learn from past mistakes. There will never again be a Chernobyl-like design. And the "Generation II" reactors should be phased out as "Generation III & IV" reactors are introduced (or retrofitted with even more safety features). Perhaps these older reactor designs should be decommissioned faster, but then replacing them with newer facilities in a timely fashion doesn't seem very likely.

    The current disaster in Japan will not be as bad as Chernobyl by many accounts -- which is proof that engineering designs are improving! So the evidence actually points in a good direction.... If more advanced reactor designs actually performed worse than older designs, then I'd have less (or a complete lack of..) confidence in nuclear engineering's ability to create safer nuclear power plants.

    Hopefully, this is an intelligent response.. :D

    mike

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Some Nice Graphs….

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2011 @ 06:54pm

    Re:

    The precautions to leave Japan are temporary, presumably...

    And nuclear bombs are presumably worse than (or comparable to?) nuclear power plant meltdowns... are Hiroshima and Nagasaki unusable now?

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Drill, Baby, Drill!

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2011 @ 09:02pm

    Re:

    To be more fair, it's not like the Gulf is completely dead and covered in oil. However, it would probably be a bit more genuine to show "before and after" pictures of the same beaches, so that people could actually see if anything had changed.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Nuclear Power Plants 101

    Michael Ho ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2011 @ 11:14am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Worst Case

    Chris,

    Excellent point... People just have an innate fear of radioactive materials. If the Three Gorges dam in China broke due to a 9.0 earthquake, I'm sure the resulting disaster would be way worse -- but that people wouldn't say: "we shouldn't build dams anymore"....

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