danpat

19 ms·

121.
by danpat 12y ago
The key word is "supposed". If glass tiles were a good choice for road surfaces, I'd expect we'd have seen them in use by now. If it's just economics that have stopped glass tile use in roadways, I'm still du
122.
by danpat 12y ago
Their snow-clearing literature says that they'll pump energy into the grid when possible, and suck it out for snow melting. Clearly a net-loss for snowmelt operations. All the other obvious problems aside, it might be an interesting
123.
by danpat 12y ago
The creators were answering questions on Reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1042mm/solar_roadways_... The summary seems to be "we've got this awesome idea, and lots of money, no
124.
by danpat 12y ago
The OpenStreetMap vector data for Calgary is about 6.2MB-20MB, depending on the format.
125.
by danpat 12y ago
It's mostly a question of storage. Here's a great tool for getting a feel: http://tools.geofabrik.de/calc/#type=geofabrik_standard&bbox... Z=18 is rarely used, so for Z<=17 you're looking at rough
126.
by danpat 12y ago
Reminds me of the classic: http://thedailywtf.com/Comments/The_Best-est_Version_Control...
127.
by danpat 12y ago
I'd look seriously at the TRAFx counters I referred to in my other comment. They'll do exactly what you want, they're used to count backcountry skiers by quite a few organizations, they work great in winter down to at least
128.
by danpat 12y ago
Nice project, and will probably work great for short-term studies, but you'll want to improve the battery life and work hard on weatherproofing if it's to be used in the field for anything other than temporary projects. I used to
129.
by danpat 12y ago
Put yourself in their shoes though. The people at the top don't really understand security, other than the vague "only the right people should have access to stuff" requirement. I think the problem is that the people in char
130.
by danpat 12y ago
I assume that someone has done an analysis of how the sensors will interact when there are many self-driving cars on the road? Because many of the primary sensors are active (radar, lidar), will they work when they're surrounded by 50
131.
by danpat 12y ago
I don't understand why the detractors don't understand this. Many people (including some commenters here) seem to think that the technology is useless unless it can handle all possible situations. Auto-drive on long highway secti
132.
by danpat 12y ago
Good point, that totally kills the economics of this project.
133.
by danpat 12y ago
Perhaps I should've said "wristwatch formfactor", you're right, battery performance would not approach cheap digital watch, not by a long shot. But at at 120mW, you'd be able to get a few hours out of it with a CR2
134.
by danpat 12y ago
Datasheet here: http://www.chronos.co.uk/files/pdfs/sym/sa.45s.pdf 120mW, 3.3V? Totally doable as a wristwatch.
135.
by danpat 12y ago
I would highly recommend watching that Moments of Wonder mini documentary, it will go some way towards answering your question.
136.
by danpat 12y ago
That's easy: customers! Everything else is secondary really.
137.
by danpat 13y ago
The demand is artificially inflated by the ready availability of loan money. Many loans cannot legally be denied. This removes what otherwise would be a barrier to frivolous spending.
138.
by danpat 13y ago
The devices are pretty easy to install, 3 wires (power, ignition, ground). Because this is heavy equipment, there's usually a mechanic somewhere nearby that can handle at least that. I also make a version of the tracker that I pack in
139.
by danpat 13y ago
Use Proj.4: http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/wiki/man_proj or, just take a raster image (PNG) and warp it: http://www.gdal.org/gdalwarp.html
140.
by danpat 13y ago
The income from this website isn't strongly correlated to it's global web ranking. Ski areas pay me to generate trail reports, and either link to the "default" report I publish for each area, or they publish the reports
141.
by danpat 13y ago
The site is focussed mainly on the consumer, the skiers, for whom the service is free (they just look at the maps). The "customers" are ski area managers, they pay me to publish their maps and generate their trail reports. The sig
142.
by danpat 13y ago
The MVSTA did contact me back in November, but I guess they decided against it for the time being. Feel free to lobby them :-) A couple of areas are funding their subscription by getting a local ski shop to pay for the service. There&#x27
143.
by danpat 13y ago
I don't charge the public. Ski areas pay me a yearly fee to publish their reports. I handle all the data processing, generating maps, keeping servers up and running, mobile device provisioning, equipment testing, warranty, tech suppo
144.
by danpat 13y ago
I created: http://skitrails.info/ I'm an avid cross-country skier, and traditionally daily trail reports are done by hand by the maintenance staff after they're out all night working on the trails. I had the brigh
145.
by danpat 13y ago
Export restrictions have been in place for a very long time. Another relatively well-known distributor that got bitten is McMaster-Carr, a mechanical parts supplier (with a very nice web design - http://mcmaster.com/ ). Afte
146.
by danpat 13y ago
> Programming is a wild card - you can play it to improve any hand you have. This is the truth. Every success I've had has been where I've applied my computing skills to an environment where no-one with those skills had yet ap
147.
by danpat 13y ago
Reminds me of this: http://thedailywtf.com/Comments/The_Best-est_Version_Control...
148.
by danpat 13y ago
Craigslist?
149.
by danpat 13y ago
Here's one: http://www.royaltek.com/index.php/rgm-3600 There are dozens of variants, some with USB, some with RS232, some with bluetooth. "Mouse" is common nomenclature for this kind of device, I don&#x
150.
by danpat 13y ago
Modern, fancy nuclear devices, perhaps. But I suspect that the machining to make something that goes boom is probably well within the means of a traditional machine shop.

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