From time to time the heated discussions on this newsgroup about those
mysterious chemical boxes under the settee that keep the lights on
arises.

Well, over on alt.binaries.e-book.technical someone has posted:
Electric Vehicle Battery Systems - S. Dhameja (Newnes, 2001) WW.pdf
which my robot dutifully downloaded this morning with its big load of
books/manuals/etc., I'll probably never have time to read.

This one caught my eye so I opened it (Adobe Acrobat Reader for the pdf
file). Aimed at the electric vehicle market, it discusses a wide variety
of lead-acid, Ni-Cd, Ni-MH and more exotic new battery technologies up to
its 2001 publishing date.

It's a fantastic read for those interested in why we can't recharge the
house batteries in 30 seconds with a 5000A alternator, or why the
batteries wear out. It goes into great detail, without going into page-
after-page of advanced mathmatics, on how the beasts operate, what their
inherent limitations and drawbacks are and how to maximize their utility.

For those not all uptight about downloading copyrighted materials from
Usenet (where everything is illegal to download, not just pictures of
naked little girls), it's worth the effort to retrieve it.
alt.binaries.e-book.technical is a VAST, continuing library of books on
all kinds of topics. You wood polishers will be impressed at the array
of woodworking books and magazines that constantly appear. A couple of
naval museums are posting a vast array of seamanship, knot tying, and
other nautical books over 100 years old someone took the time to scan
into pdf or chm (Micro$oft has a free reader) formats.

Books in RAR file sets, like the new Janes Fighting Ships posted a couple
days ago, require WinRAR to decode and assemble the resulting set of rar
files. This is a proprietary, and very popular, file splitting and
compression program from www.rarlabs.com and well worth the pittance
price if you intend to download a lot.

To download and decode binaries like these, I recommend freeware Xnews
from:
http://xnews.newsguy.com/
Xnews, once you spend a little time reading and learning the
documentation also on the website, will assemble all the message parts
into a single line on the file list, in order....tell you which parts
have missing pieces...que up (the Q column means Que) what you want and
download them in the order you marked them...decoding whatever usenet
binary encoding the posted used, automatically, storing the results where
you tell it to on your hard drive. Once you've que'd the list, started
the download...you simply walk away until it's finished. Once you're
addicted, as I am, you'll never "finish" one newsgroup before starting
another...(c;

Those without good binary completion news servers, I recommend
Usenetserver.com, a very professional system in Atlanta used by customers
across the planet. It's $15/month or 3 months for $39...a real bargain.
Completion is 98-99%, easily recoverable when you learn how to use the
PAR (parity correction) files on large groups, and retain the files for
over a month in massive disk drive arrays in Atlanta.
www.usenetserver.com for details.

Many ISPs, such as Comcast Cable, try to keep customers from actually
USING the bandwidth promised by limiting their downloading, in Comcast's
case, to 2GB/month, a pittance only good for text newsgroups. They block
port 119, the NNTP port Usenet servers listen on, so UNS allows you to
bypass that nonsense by having many different ports available to get
around it. Comcast comes with 2GB/month of Giganews, a different
company. They want to SELL you more...(sigh).

Well, great battery book. It's only 1.2MB or so of PDF file. Those on
text only news server...go buy a better system, cheapskates!



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

Maybe once you've read it you could post the concise edition


"Larry" wrote

This one caught my eye so I opened it (Adobe Acrobat Reader for the pdf
file). Aimed at the electric vehicle market, it discusses a wide variety
of lead-acid, Ni-Cd, Ni-MH and more exotic new battery technologies up to
its 2001 publishing date.

It's a fantastic read for those interested in why we can't recharge the
house batteries in 30 seconds with a 5000A alternator, or why the
batteries wear out.

Well, great battery book. It's only 1.2MB or so of PDF file. Those on
text only news server...go buy a better system, cheapskates!

Larry wrote:
From time to time the heated discussions on this newsgroup about those
mysterious chemical boxes under the settee that keep the lights on
arises.

Well, over on alt.binaries.e-book.technical someone has posted:
Electric Vehicle Battery Systems - S. Dhameja (Newnes, 2001) WW.pdf
which my robot dutifully downloaded this morning with its big load of
books/manuals/etc., I'll probably never have time to read.


OK, I spent a couple hours monkeying around with various
freeware, downloads, configuring, blah blah blah... not my
idea of fun but I know you geeks love that kind of
diversion. I eventually downloaded 'Electric Vehicle Battery
Systems' and about a hundred other books (left it running
all night) that looked interesting.

Thanks. This may turn out to be a useful reference. I would
recommend this only for serious geeks though.

DSK

DSK wrote in news:z2uGg.32000$Nx4.13950
@bignews8.bellsouth.net:

Thanks. This may turn out to be a useful reference. I would
recommend this only for serious geeks though.



You're welcome. Now that you know how, don't expect to just walk away.
Once trapped in the "Binary Downloading Addiction", it's very hard to NOT
download "just a little more because I'd really like to (read/hear/see)
that."

Don't fight it. Hard drives and DVD burners are just so cheap....(c;

I see you're on DSL on Bell$not. You're well on your way to bending that
bandwidth....(c; Welcome to the 21st Century! It's a helluva ride!



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

Larry wrote:
You're welcome. Now that you know how, don't expect to just walk away.
Once trapped in the "Binary Downloading Addiction", it's very hard to NOT
download "just a little more because I'd really like to (read/hear/see)
that."


Yeah well, I seem to be able to resist the "more is better"
philosophy. Most people... very especialy most Americans
(steeped a culture of excess)... will quickly overload on
anything free.

In this particular case, the usenet binary groups a great
reference resource *if* you have the tools to sort through
2,000 posts a day (don't these people have a life?!?).
X-news seems better than any of the dinosaur-ware I am
familiar with, but I just plain don't want to spend the time.


Don't fight it. Hard drives and DVD burners are just so cheap....(c;

I don't like farting around with the computer that much, not
my idea of fun. There's a REAL world out there! It can be
scary but it's a helluva ride!

Thanks again
Doug King

DSK wrote:
Larry wrote:

You're welcome. Now that you know how, don't expect to just walk
away. Once trapped in the "Binary Downloading Addiction", it's very
hard to NOT download "just a little more because I'd really like to
(read/hear/see) that."


Yeah well, I seem to be able to resist the "more is better" philosophy.
Most people... very especialy most Americans (steeped a culture of
excess)... will quickly overload on anything free.

In this particular case, the usenet binary groups a great reference
resource *if* you have the tools to sort through 2,000 posts a day
(don't these people have a life?!?). X-news seems better than any of the
dinosaur-ware I am familiar with, but I just plain don't want to spend
the time.


Don't fight it. Hard drives and DVD burners are just so cheap....(c;


I don't like farting around with the computer that much, not my idea of
fun. There's a REAL world out there! It can be scary but it's a helluva
ride!

The main value of "the real world" is human beings, not their arms or
their hair or even their faces, it's their ideas. The amazing thing
about computers and the internet is that computers actually concentrate
and organize human ideas in such a way as to make them phenomenally more
available and accessible than they've ever been. This is a good thing.

Stephen

Stephen Trapani wrote in news:iHKGg.24$Zt7.10
@newsfe04.lga:

The amazing thing
about computers and the internet is that computers actually concentrate
and organize human ideas in such a way as to make them phenomenally more
available and accessible than they've ever been. This is a good thing.


The Illuminati disagree. It makes humans far less "controllable", this
internet....

--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

DSK wrote in news:4aDGg.695$T8.50
@bignews3.bellsouth.net:

I don't like farting around with the computer that much, not
my idea of fun. There's a REAL world out there! It can be
scary but it's a helluva ride!

Thanks again
Doug King




Over on alt.binaries.ebook.technical, today, there is a series of books
whos subject begins with OSPREY-Elite sailors will find fascinating. For
the last couple of hours, I've had my monster widescreen monitor in
portrait mode vertically so Acrobat makes the big 21" screen a full page of
the documents.

"Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605" and "Queen Victoria's Commanders" are most
fascinating. WW1 and WW2 are also very well covered, mostly from a British
perspective.



--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.

Stephen Trapani wrote:
The main value of "the real world" is human beings

To some extent, yeah. But the seas & rivers & forests &
mountains & animals & sky are pretty cool too.

.... not their arms or
their hair or even their faces, it's their ideas.

"Trouble not the scholar in his dusty attic, for to you the
great empires of this age are mighty but to him they are to
be overturned with the flick of a finger." - quote from a
Renaissance philosopher whose name I can't recall....

... The amazing thing
about computers and the internet is that computers actually concentrate
and organize human ideas in such a way as to make them phenomenally more
available and accessible than they've ever been. This is a good thing.


I agree totally... shucks, that's why I'm here! OTOH a trend
that must be fought tooth and nail is the tendency to sit
around and Think Big Thinks, make yak-yak, and fiddle with
the computer as if it is important in itself.

My company has hired six engineers in the past decade, and
every last one of them thinks "work" consists of sitting on
their butt in front of a computer. Only one or two have a
vague idea of how to get on their feet and get things doen
in the real world... otoh I shouldn't complain about this
since it is my greatest job security.

To be a bit more on-topic, a lesson to be drawn from many in
this newsgroup is that buying a boat, fixing up a boat,
talking about boats & sailing & cruising, are all fine
things... but they're not the same as GOING CRUISING!!






Larry wrote:
Over on alt.binaries.ebook.technical, today, there is a series of books
whos subject begins with OSPREY-Elite sailors will find fascinating.....

"Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605" and "Queen Victoria's Commanders" are most
fascinating. WW1 and WW2 are also very well covered, mostly from a British
perspective.

Oh yes, I noticed those, but I'm still busy downloading 150
engineering texts. In fact really useful stuff on composite
structures keeps showing up faster than I can download it.

As yet another example of what I'm trying to point out
above, if I had found out about this last year I'd still be
studying how to build my dinghy instead of 90% done building
it... which reminds me, I gotta get off my butt and go to work!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King