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IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery

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Re: IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery

#81
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'coming out of our ears' is a colloquialism meaning roughly 'more than we know what to do with'.

It was a joke... visualize tubes coming out of someone's ears. Just because it's a colloquialism doesn't mean you should ignore the imagery it conjures.

On the internet, nobody can hear you :)

I would think carbon nanotubes coming out of my ears would look more like extremely fine hair. Probably good for keeping bugs out, but it'd creep my wife out too.

Re: IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery

#83
post #76
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a help-desk part of IBM. We use IE6. :(

Sorry to take a tangent here: Curious what you'd say about someone who is moving to NYC and thinking about what kind of work to find. Formerly worked for one of the big SV tech companies in a project management role. Would love to work for a smaller company now but there aren't as many tech startups in NYC so perhpas IBM is the best bet. How do you like working there all in all? I understand hierarchy and bureaucracy…

There is a horrible amount of waste because of the many levels of management. The higher ups often push software changes on us because of some agenda (it was developed in-house) when the software is very inferior and will hurt our productivity greatly.

IBM tries very hard to encourage us to participate and let our voices be heard, but in my experience anything that takes time, effort or money is ignored, making the whole thing a silly puppet show.

I'm leaving the job soon because of things like this. I absolutely hate it when people say "such overhead is inevitable within such a big organization" because it's become an excuse for EVERYTHING. You wouldn't believe the sort of things we spend weeks on doing that should take minutes. We are talking manually renaming files and proccessing log files, because the "budget for such changes is already used up" or some other bullshit.

There is no ridiculous mind-numbingly slow process that isn't justified by the fact that the organizational aspect is in the way. I think it's become a warm blanket that managers can wrap around themselves to avoid taking responsibility.

Re: IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery

#84
post #45
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a theoretical problem, but there are very sophisticated mechanisms in place to prevent this from actually happening in practice with current li-ion batteries. There was a big scare about it with Tesla vehicles a while back that turned out to mostly be one blogger spreading unsubstantiated claims. It's true that if you keep driving an electric car until the car stops running, and then leave it for weeks or m…

And if you drive any recent diesel engine until you run out of gas, you will cause damage.

Isn't the pump considerably cheaper than li-ion batteries? I think Tesla was quoting $40k.

Re: IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery

#85
post #83
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to take a tangent here: Curious what you'd say about someone who is moving to NYC and thinking about what kind of work to find. Formerly worked for one of the big SV tech companies in a project management role. Would love to work for a smaller company now but there aren't as many tech startups in NYC so perhpas IBM is the best bet. How do you like working there all in all? I understand hierarchy and bureaucracy…

There is a horrible amount of waste because of the many levels of management. The higher ups often push software changes on us because of some agenda (it was developed in-house) when the software is very inferior and will hurt our productivity greatly. IBM tries very hard to encourage us to participate and let our voices be heard, but in my experience anything that takes time, effort or money is ignored, making the w…

Sorry to hear, sounds like some of the major negatives I experienced in Silicon Valley. Nevertheless all companies have their healthy and unhealthy divisions and practices. Presumably someone is doing something right to pay for everyone else. We'll see if they continue to stay in the game. Thanks for the info!

I guess the NYC job market's a tough one especially for tech.

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