]]> http://www.davidmichaelcunningham.com/article/quick-survey/feed/ 0 http://www.davidmichaelcunningham.com/article/new-electric-vehicle-technology-with-big-promises/ http://www.davidmichaelcunningham.com/article/new-electric-vehicle-technology-with-big-promises/#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:49:43 +0000 David Michael Cunningham http://www.davidmichaelcunningham.com/?p=1100 It’s no secret that I am a big fan of electric-powered vehicles. I have spent several years developing an electric-powered, 3 wheeled, tilting motorcycle. Two of the greatest challenges deal with power input and power output. The challenge with power input mainly deals with the ability to have access to power when needed. The challenge with power output is that current battery technology is great at holding decent amounts of energy, but they are very slow to recharge. It seems that two new breakthroughs may be able to resolve some of these challenges. The University of Illinois is developing batteries that could be charged up in a matter of minutes, while MIT unveils thin, durable solar cells able to be printed on paper.

While batteries hold a decent amount of power, it takes them a long time to recharge. This is a hurdle for electric vehicles, as critics claim that the limited range of electric vehicles would not be a big deal if they could be powered up within a matter of minutes – much like we currently fuel our internal combustion engine vehicles. Paul Braun, professor of material science and engineering at the University of Illinois, says that the developing battery technology at UI is able to both “store a reasonably large amount of energy,” and has charging characteristics of capacitors. This technology would allow people to find a place to charge up along their route, quickly charge their vehicle, and continue on with their trip – even a long distance trip, which many electric vehicles are not able to do currently.

Of course, the ability to find a charging station can be an issue. In the future when electric vehicles become commonplace, charging stations may be very easy to find. In the mean time, however, finding a place to charge your electric vehicle can be a great challenge. People have thought about placing solar panels on their vehicles to help “top them off” while they park. Besides the long charging times of current battery technology, placing solar panels on a vehicle can be difficult due to the amount that would be required to charge a vehicle and their physical characteristics – a large majority of them are inflexible, flat panels.

MIT may have a solution to putting solar cells on vehicles. MIT has made great progress in their creation of solar cell-coated paper. What looks to be a sheet of paper with small, colored rectangles, and has the ability to be folded and unfolded, is able to produce electricity when wires are hooked to it. Besides its flexible nature, a great aspect of this technology is that is inexpensive. When laminated, the MIT solar cell-coated paper is able to easily be used outdoors without concern for rain or wind. This technology would allow people to integrate solar cells into the body of an electric vehicle, which would turn the whole vehicle into a power generation station.

Even if one were to use MIT’s solar cell-coated paper technology on an electric vehicle, the power produced may not be enough to charge up the vehicle to 100% capacity. When combined with the UI new quick charging battery technology, however, the solar cells may be able to provide enough of a charge when sitting idle in parking lots and driveways to recharge a decent amount of energy. Together, these technologies could help to make electric vehicles a viable part of our near future.

Here’s the skinny on the issue: I am running a PBX using PBX In a Flash. I have a PAP2T connected to the network so we can use normal phones to answer and make phone calls. I recently purchased a VTech CS6219 Expandable Cordless Phone System and a Vtech CS6209 extension handset. The problem was that when I called into the system, the cordless phones would not ring on incoming calls, but they would light up and display the caller ID when the call came in. You could also answer the call. So, for all intents and purposes, everything worked except that they would not ring on incoming calls.

I plugged in a normal corded phone into the PAP2T and that phone rang on the incoming call. So there was an issue that needed to be resolved with the PAP2T to make the cordless phone ring on incoming calls. After about an hour a half of searching online, I found a suggestion for cordless phones and the PAP2T on the Voxilla forums:

Make sure you have these settings correct for the cordless phone to ring.

Under Ring and Call Waiting Tone Spec
Ring Waveform: Trapezoidal
Ring Voltage: 90
Ring Frequency: 20

Also have a look at this thread:
http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic6488-0.html

I set my system up as recommended. And yes, the cordless phones did start to ring, but the ring was “choppy,” or “broken up.” But it worked. So being one that seems to have no care if things blow up, I started to toy around with the Ring Frequency setting. I started to put lower numbers in than the 20 that was recommended (the reason for this is that the original setting was 25, and the suggestion was lower, so I thought that lower yet may work). That didn’t seem to work. So I put the number back up to the original setting of 25 and the ring got better. I bumped the number up to 30 and the phones rang fine.

So for my setup with the VTech cordless phones and the PAP2T, the settings that I had to use to go from the cordless phone not ringing on incoming calls on the PAP2T to having them ring are:

Under the Regional link (in the advanced settings) in the Ring and Call Waiting Tone Spec area

Ring Waveform: Trapezoidal
Ring Voltage: 90
Ring Frequency: 30


I hope that this may be of help to others that have a similar setup with a cordless phone that does not ring on incoming calls using the PAP2T.

I once found a little excerpt from Balzac. He speaks about a young writer who stole some of his prose. The thing that almost made me weep, he said, “I was so happy when this young person took from me.” Because that’s what we want. We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice.

And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you. And Balzac said that in his book: It makes me so happy because it makes me immortal because I know that 200 years from now there will be people doing things that somehow I am part of. So the answer to your question is: Don’t worry about whether it’s appropriate to borrow or to take or do something like someone you admire because that’s only the first step and you have to take the first step.

I have a similar view on finding your own style.

When I was learning how to play bass guitar, great musicians have always suggested that I find great bass players and model the way that they played. It was suggested to find bass players that played different styles of music to model from. The reasoning behind this is that at first I would copy the way that they played, and since they were from different styles of music I would eventually develop my own style – based on those players that I admired – by taking they way that they played and crafting it into the type of music that I played. After a while I would no longer model those great players as I would have embodied their techniques and skills and made them a part of my style. While I would utilize their techniques and such, my expression would be my own. Those players will live on thought me as I play bass.

I approach martial arts the same way.

When my instructors teach me, I do my best to learn exactly how they are teaching me and how they execute a technique. When it comes to the way I perform I take what I have learned from all of my instructors, the different styles I’ve experienced, and my personal experiences and I create something that is very uniquely my own style – or the way that I express my martial arts experience.

It can be challenging when you are coming up in the ranks to want to venture out on your own and blend what you have already learned, but to do so can cause issues. An obvious issue is that when you are being evaluated for quality of technique in a certain martial art system/style, you may do things differently, which would suggest that you have not understood what you will be tested on. Therefore, you may be harming your progression. A not so obvious issue is that you may actually miss what is being taught, and therefore not fully understand the technique – or reason for the technique – and never really absorb it.

While it’s important to expose yourself to new things, it’s important for you to truly learn from the masters and then go out and find your own style. That way, not only will you have found your own style, but the masters will live forever.

Two of my favorite quotes that I have in my office are:

“Follow not in the footsteps of the masters; Seek that which the masters sought.” ~ Matsuo Bashō

“The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” ~ David Michael Cunningham

What are your thoughts? Is it important to veer away from the masters to develop one’s own style? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below. I’m looking forward to hear from you.

<0>kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception

I’m not sure as to why, so I tried a reboot and I was given the same message during the boot. I didn’t catch where in the book the kernel got panicky. So I hopped on Google and tried a few searches. I didn’t come up with anything concrete, however, I did find a post on a forum about someone having a somewhat similar issue with a kernel panic during the boot process. Another poster suggested that his issue may be hardware related.

For whatever reason that clicked for me. I remembered that the other day I had removed an USB mouse that I had plugged into the computer. The mouse was plugged in during the installation, but it was just a piece of hardware that was already attached to the computer – it didn’t serve a needed function for the PBX. Yesterday I removed the mouse without thinking much about it.

Something must of happened last night with the PBX for it to get all panicky because it didn’t have the mouse plugged into it. (There was a slight snow storm last night and power could have been lost – causing a reboot – but there were no signs of a power loss). So for whatever it’s worth, the PBX is back up and running with a mouse that it doesn’t need.

Now I’m in search of the way to remove the mouse without the PBX getting all upset at me.

Having designer checks, which often cost $4 to $5 more than normal plain checks, is like paying a $5 vanity tax on something that really doesn’t make an impression on most people who receive them. Most institutions that receive your checks are so McDonaldized that most often it’s a machine that handles your check – and the machine can’t tell your fancy sailboat on your check from your neighbor’s check that has cute little kittens. The only thing that businesses care about is the amount of money that is on the check.

Save yourself a couple of extra bucks and go for plain checks. Of course, I don’t know too many people who even use checks any more these days, and that’s a whole other subject.