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Slashback: Iridium, Synthesis, Drives
In this household, we obey the laws of physics! Tuesday before last, we mentioned that two scientists had announced what they claim is the first accurate measure of the speed of gravity.
Now, Emperor_Alikar writes "In an article on Space.com, many physicists have criticized the current work on the speed of gravity, calling it 'nonsense' and 'simply incorrect.' Many of them still doubt the claims made by Fomalont and Kopeikin even before the results were even announced. Many of the physicists still hold on to the idea that gravity works instantaneously no matter what the distance, an idea that originated by Newton, but that was argued against by Einstein."
Back from the back from the back from the dead. Checkers writes "Spacedaily.com posted the following two stories about Iridium today. The first story is about the DoD committing the first of three renewal options that will use Iridium through 2005. The second story related story is about an agreement inked between Iridium and Harris Corp. that allows Iridium the right to use Harris' OS/COMET satellite command and control system for the life of the Iridium satellite network."
E.T. was also into this scene. In re: matt simpson writes "Another fantastic Speak & Spell modder is Dave Wright of the band "not breathing". You can check his work out, among other modifications to toys, at www.carrionsound.com Dave has made speak & spell/math/read for Nine Inch Nails, Meat Beat Manifesto, and many other bands. Figured you might be interested in other neat synth hackers :)"
Further evidence, never a good time to buy. SpinnerBait writes "It's seems like Serial ATA Controllers have been on the market forever but where have all the Serial ATA Hard Drives been? The wait seems to finally be over, as HotHardware shows with this review and showcase on a pair of new Seagate Barracuda V Serial ATA drives. This article covers benchmarks with the product in single drive configurations, as well as RAID 0. In addition, they show performance on two different SATA controllers, from Promise and Silicon Image. And oh, those nice thin neat little SATA cables! Gotta love 'em."
We've had a few articles about Serial ATA; I hope it lives up to its reputation.
Just to add to the confusion ... probejockey writes "A current article in the Globe and Mail claims SCO will start collecting licensing fees from some Linux users, not all Linux vendors as previously reported here."
Birds of a feather, separate rooms. Finally, Declan McCullagh sent in a few interesting links yesterday regarding the RIAA and its announced opposition to mandated DRM technologies:
"First, here are the photos from today's press conference.
Second, the supposed news of today's announcement was that the RIAA would no longer pursue mandatory-DRM technologies like the Hollings bill. But it was the MPAA that was behind Hollings from the beginning (September 2001). And when Hollings finally introduced his bill in March 2002, it was the MPAA that endorsed it, while the RIAA pointedly did not."
Thanks to Declan for the links.
Wasn't smart enough to get in, either ... Finally, thanks to the several readers who alerted me by email and in comments that the school variously rendered Cal Tech, CalTech and other things even worse is in fact properly spelled "Caltech."
Check your user preferences, messages. Readers decide how much the bonus is worth. Set it to 1 instead of the default, 0, and you'll see the old behavior.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
GPS is a passive system. It can't be overloaded.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
I am not sure if you completely understand how the GPS system works. I am not sure if I do either for that matter but the GPS system is in very little danger of being "overloaded". It is the actual GPS device that does the triangulation calculations. All the sats do is keep track of their relative position to their peers and broadcast a unique signal. Doesn't matter if 1 device or 1 million devices are earthside it is just a broadcast.
It is not enough to succeed, others must fail. - Gore Vidal
GPS can never be overloaded like that. The SVs are broadcast only, they don't give a rat's arse how many things are using them.
And, GPS would never be the sole means of guidance for all weapons, by virtue of the fact that it only really works well against targets at known positions. Only laser and TV guidance work well against moving targets.
No, no, no! The contraversy over the results of the gravity measurement surrounds the MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE, not the conclusion. You would have to look *really*, *really* hard to find a working physicist who thought that the influence of gravity was instantaneous. You'd have an easier time finding a "Pacifists for Bombing Iraq" organization to join.
The problem with jamming GPS is that, to do that, you need to transmit a signal.
When you transmit a signal, you make yourself vulverable to things that can sense that signal; e.g., missiles that home in on radio transmissions.
So yes, you could jam a wave of GPS-guided weapons. But if the wave of attacks includes a handful of gravity bombs or other weapons that seek those frequencies, you couldn't do it twice...
Still, a smart jamming strategy might help protect a hardened target.
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Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Out of every benchmark I've seen of the new Seagate Barracuda V S-ATA drives, _none_ of them benchmark against it's parallel ATA brother, but instead benchmark it against either an older generation drive, or a drive of another manufacturer completely.
Look, if you want to know how SATA performs, benching one of these 'cuda V drives against a western digital p-ata drive isn't going to tell you anything. Those drives from Seagate aren't all that fast compared to drives from Maxtor or WD (or IBM/Fujitsu).
Expecting SATA to speed anything up is pretty ridiculous - the drive mechanism is what determines performance in current hard drives - we're nowhere near ATA drives that can match even ATA100 speeds (even burst rates are only reaching ATA66 speeds, if that!).
SATA won't increase your speed, PERIOD. New generation drives with higher data density, etc., are what speed up drives. The interface doesn't matter in speed.
FYI.
Flame on, but read the article.
... A source said SCO libraries that accompany the SVR4 and OSR5 versions of Unix may be used with UnixWare and OpenServer, respectively, but using them in conjunction with Linux is prohibited by the software's licence.
Sources said SCO plans to charge for use of two software "libraries,"
"There's a little bit of ignorance on the part of some customers," a source familiar with the plan said. But at the same time, the source added, "there are customers using the libraries that know they're not supposed to be using them."
Using the libraries allows programs designed for SCO Unix to be run, unmodified, on Linux machines in conjunction with a package called Linux-ABI. That's a key step for companies moving servers from SCO Unix to Linux with minimum disruption.
For those who don't know, "Linux-ABI" used to be called IBCS -- "Intel Binary Compatibility Standard" -- and you can guess from the name that it was an (old) attempt to standardize the ABI between different x86 Unixes. A long time ago, Linux users needed this to run commercial software like Oracle or WordPerfect.
It sounds like either Linux-ABI steps on SCO patents, or certain customers are shipping SCO libraries to run on top of Linux-ABI (which is outright copyright violation). In either case, this only affects about 0.001% of Linux users.
In short, all 2000 posts eariler were probably a massive over reaction.
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