World’s First Perpetual Motion Machine?

Since at least the 12th century, man has sought to create a perpetual motion machine; a device that would continue working indefinitely without any external source of energy.

A large scientific contingent thinks such a device would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and is thus impossible.

Could it be that as a race, we don’t fully understand the laws of physics and such a device may indeed be possible? What would the ramifications be if we could actually build a perpetually moving device?


Norwegian artist and mathematician Reidar Finsrud is an outside the box thinker that has devised a machine that he believes achieves true perpetual motion. Take a look at the video below and see what you think.




The dream is that if we’re able to produce perpetual motion machines, that we’d have tapped into the holy grail of sustainability: an infinite energy source.

A device that requires no input to run that could be affixed to a generator would harvest free energy to power whatever we so pleased. This is obviously a dangerous and controversial idea due to the amount of money being made by energy companies around the world.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Finsrud has created true perpetual motion?

Graphic Display Resolutions – What Do The Numbers, SD - HD Ready - Full HD, 720p versus 1080p - 1080i Mean?

Graphic Display resolutions can be a rather cryptic business, with multiple standards used to describe the same display resolution in 10 different ways. All of those technical terms tend to change based on the display’s purpose (television versus computer monitor) and even your region (the meaning of HD Ready).

Previously, we talked about 7 Important Things To Know When Buying an LCD Monitor, the difference between full HD and HD Ready and even how Apple’s retina display works. Today, we’ll help you make sense of the different terms people tend to throw around when describing display resolutions. When buying a computer monitor or a TV screen, it can be incredibly useful to know what those numbers mean. Not just to differentiate between two displays, but also to determine what kind of display you should be looking for.

Width x Height

The easiest convention is the one that’s used to describe the maximum resolution of computer monitors. A lot of laptop displays have a maximum resolution of 1280×800, and the resolution of larger computer screens often go into the neighborhood of 1680×1050.

These numbers describe the width and height of the display in pixels – the building blocks of your display. Some displays have different pixel densities (most famously, Apple’s retina displays), meaning the physical size of two displays with the same maximum graphic display resolution is not necessarily uniform. But the actual resolution (that is, the amount of available building blocks to construct a picture) is unambiguous.


SD, HD Ready Or Full HD

The difference between SD and anything with ‘HD’ in its name is simple. SD – or Standard Definition – is usually used to indicate television displays that are not 720p or 1080p High Definition screens, or 480p Enhanced Definition screens. More generally, the term SD display is used to indicate 576i displays in the PAL and SECAM regions, or 480i displays in the NTSC region.

Full HD is used to describe 1080p displays. The difference between HD Ready and Full HD is more ambiguous, and depends on the region. For more information, read Matt’s article on The Difference Between HD Ready and Full HD.

If some of the words used above made little sense, don’t worry. We’ll explain the meaning of 720p and 1080p in a bit, as well as the difference between 1080p and 1080i (progressive versus interlaced) displays.


720p versus 1080p or 1080i

Modern televisions are often described using terms like 720p and 1080p, or 1080i. The number at the front of the term indicates the lines of vertical resolution. Thus, 720p and 1080p have 720 and 1080 lines respectively of vertical resolution. Both 1080p and 1080i screens have 1080 lines of vertical resolution (we’ll explain the difference between these two below).

To compare the resolution of these displays to the width x height notation of computer displays, we can glean the lines of horizontal resolution from the aspect ratio. For example, a 1080p display with a conventional 16:9 aspect ratio has 1920 lines of horizontal resolution, meaning a 16:9 1080p screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.


1080p versus 1080i, or Progressive versus Interlaced

The difference between 1080p and 1080i, or rather the difference between progressive and interlaced displays comes down to how the image is displayed.

Progressive displays use frames. One frame is one completely rendered image. If you press pause while watching a video, you’re looking at a single frame. If a progressive display is said to have 25 frames per second, that means it renders 25 distinct images every second.

Interlaced displays works very differently. Instead of refreshing the entire picture, it refreshes half the lines in the picture. It’s meaningless to talk about frames per second, because an interlaced display never displays a ‘complete frame’. Instead, we express the refresh rate in fields per second, in which one field contains half the lines of the display.

In an ideal, theoretical world, progressive would always be better than interlaced. However, there are a few problems with that thought. Progressive displays don’t have the same refresh rate as do interlaced displays. Although interlaced displays only render half the lines on the displays with each refresh, it refreshes twice as often as the equivalent progressive display, and each of these fields is part of a distinct snapshot. On top of that comes the fact that television broadcasting uses interlaced video.

All this makes interlaced pictures more fluid in motion than the equivalent deinterlaced pictures. On the other hand, progressive pictures are more easily scaled, paused and edited – which makes the image more adaptable with less loss of quality.

What other specs do you look at when shopping for displays? Let us know.

IBM Certification Exam 000-001 the First Step in Applying Maximo Enterprise Asset Management Solutions


The IBM 000-001 certification exam is the first step testing your knowledge of the fundamentals of Applying Maximo Enterprise Asset Management Solutions V2 in a client's environment. The exam tells IBM how well you will be able to identify opportunities and to influence key personnel.

The test, which is associated with the IBM Certified Solution Advisor certification, lasts 60 minutes and has around 43 questions. A passing score is 65. There are six sections on the IBM 000-001 exam. Thorough preparation is essential; you should find a quality, online testing prep service like TestsLive.com that offers practice exam procedures.

Here are the six sections and a brief summary of what they each entail.

Section 1: Current Architecture and Environment: In this section, you will be asked to fully comprehend a customer's technical environment by analyzing his architecture, including networking hardware, software and security.

Section 2: Business Drivers: You must have a thorough grasp of the theories of Enterprise Asset Management to pass this section.

Section 3: Functional Requirements: You will be asked to identify key areas of the customer's business methods that relate to Enterprise Asset Management.

Section 4: Reporting Requirements: This sections tests your knowledge of EAM reporting options.

Section 5: Integration and Interfacing Requirements: Migration and Integration strategies are tested, specifically how to move the client to the proposed IBM EAM solution.

Section 6 Customization: Your knowledge of tailoring tools will be tested here, as well as your ability to explain it to the client.

How to Use Your Router to Limit People's Internet Usage

Configuring your router to set limitations on how connected devices are allowed to access the Internet is a useful security precaution for your network. Restrictions include only allowing specific devices to access the router's network or setting time-and-day limitations on when the Internet is accessible to connected devices. These restrictions can be particularly useful for businesses and public Wi-Fi operators that limit access to network connections to normal business hours and prohibit unauthorized devices from using your bandwidth.

Step 1

Launch a Web browser on your computer and type the router's IP address into the address bar. Consult the router's instruction manual for details on its default IP address. Typically this address is "192.168.1.1."

Step 2

Enter the administrator username and password to access the router's control panel.
Related Reading: How to Monitor Internet Data Usage

Step 3

Click the "Access Restrictions" link in the router's control panel menu.

Step 4

Check the "Enable" box to activate access restrictions settings.

Step 5

Enter the Media Access Controller address of each computer or device that is authorized to access the router's network. Consult the "Attached Devices" section in the router's control panel to find the MAC address of computers and devices that have previously connected to the router.

Step 6

Click the "Apply" button to save the restriction settings. Depending on your make and model of router, the device may reboot before reloading the control panel.

Step 7

Click the "Schedule" button in the control panel menu and check the boxes next to the days you want restrictions to be active. Enter restriction start and end times for each day if you wish.

Step 8

Click the "Apply" button again to save the restriction schedule settings.


Tip
Block a specific device completely by setting its schedule to restrict access all day, every day. Add a description for each device in the "Access Settings" alongside its MAC address to help identify it in the future. Check the "Every Day" box if you want to schedule restrictions for every day, rather than checking the box next to each individual day.

Warning
Always click the "Apply" button to save your settings before leaving a page in the router's control panel. If you do not click the button, your changes will not be saved.