Silly questions you've always wanted to ask, but never have!

[robert@fm]

Originally Posted by vans

Why is phonetic not spelled with an f (fonetic)?

Related questions include "Why is 'dyslexic' so difficult to spell?" and "Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?".

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by robert@fm

... "Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?".

That's because if there were several of them they would form a cartel ...

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by robert@fm

"Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?"

Because the British commission with that name was renamed 10 years ago. And the German commission with that English name still exists.

Originally Posted by hadaso

That's because if there were several of them they would form a cartel ...

So there was such a cartel of Monopolies Commissions in the 1990's.

Bill

[hadaso]

Why does the BIOS say:

Keyboard error or no keyboard present

Press F1 to continue, DEL to enter SETUP

?

(And where do you place a question mark after a code snippet?)

(Zhak preceded me in quoting this kind of silly question)

[vans]

Do you remember the old Dell helpdesk "any" key question?

A long time ago Dell (I think it was Dell) did a press release of some of the questions that their helpdesk answered from users. One question was "where is the any key, I have looked but I can't find an any key". As in "press any key to continue".

It made me laugh, but I wonder if it is true?

[CyberDyne]

Why can't we have wireless power cords?!

[JRobert]

Originally Posted by vans

"where is the any key, I have looked but I can't find an any key". As in "press any key to continue".

The answer to this a question is: "any key" is another name for the "enter key". Do try to keep a straight face...

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by CyberDyne

Why can't we have wireless power cords?!

We can have wireless power cords!

[CyberDyne]

Originally Posted by hadaso

We can have wireless power cords!

Great, I'd like to order one for my TV, my Laptop, my Lawn Mower and my Car Battery Charger (?!)

Thank you.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by hadaso

We can have wireless power cords!

There may be significant problems with the widespread deployment of such systems for powering major appliances which most of these articles ignore. These can probably be ignored for low power short distance systems (charging your cell phone overnight by placing it on an inductive pad). But for transferring tens to hundreds of watts around large rooms in your house these problems are probably insurmountable.

• There are safety issues with the field strengths needed for significant power transmission. Already some people (not me) are worried about the fields from AC power mains in houses, neighborhood distribution lines, and high voltage major transmission lines. Inductive power transmission at more than milliwatt levels would create fields in houses which are several orders of magnitude greater than the usually benign fields from appliances, power distribution in the house, and nearby distribution and transmission lines. These resonant power systems would create fields much higher than what is found in front of a large CRT (old color television or computer monitor). And many were scared of these fields.
• There are EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) issues with such signals.
  • At low frequencies (in the audio range), these fields would get into various personal electronic devices which are already affected when they are placed close to CRT's, electric motors, and 50/60 Hz power transformers:
    • Hearing aids: Do you or a friend have a hearing aid? Have you heard them complain about trying to use these near a digital cellular phone (especially GSM)? The phone creates a pulsed magnetic field which produces a very loud noise in the hearing aid.
    • Consumer audio devices: These devices (MP3 players, stereo receivers, televisions, telephones) are not designed to operate in high magnetic field environments. They may fail to operate properly and the user may hear loud audio tones which are very bothersome.
  • At higher frequencies (above the audio range), the existing safety limits allow much lower field intensities than at audio. I'm an Amateur Radio operator, and we must take these issues into account to provide safety for ourselves and the public near our antennas. Field intensities of a few milliwatts per square cm are typical power exposure limits, and these power delivery systems would probably be active at all times of the day.
  • In additon to these problems, there are stringent radiated power limitations at RF frequencies due to interference with licensed services. This will probably limit power systems to ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) frequency assignments.

Trying to get watts of power delivered at low frequencies might cause the audio interference issues, while at higher frequencies absorption by the human body (and consumer electronic devices) and radio interference (EMI) limits the power to even lower levels. I know one thing -- hospitals should be very hesitant to allow such systems in their facilities, since there are already a lot of interference issues and many patient monitoring systems are sensitive to these low to medium frequencies.

Sorry to get so technical and detailed, but the popular press (and even many universities and large computer companies) get overly excited about exposure to microwatts or milliwatts per square cm from power line fields, but they popularize such wireless power transmission systems (which are much more dangerous in general) because people are excited when they hear about Tesla and other high power distribution ideas. A friend of mine once operated a long (40 meter halfwave length) 3.7 MHz Amateur Radio antenna alongside the overhead telephone line entering his house. When he transmitted at high power (probably 500 watts or so), the old bell telephone would ring! If you operated a microwave oven with the door open (unlikely due to the required safety interlocks), you could probably burn yourself (cook meat) a few meters away. But I don't want to run this risk when charging my mobile phone!

How about just putting a large arc lamp in the room and using solar cells to power the device? You might get cataracts or a sunburn (and skin cancer), but you could power devices very easily without interfering with your electronic devices.

Bill