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Microwires Can Replace The DVD-ROM
neutron_p writes "A former Soviet Union military development finds its use in modern technology and still remains fascinating." The development comes in the form of a flexible microwire, 10 micrometers thick and 10cm long, with a metal body and a glass coating, which the linked article says "can store 10 Gigabytes of information. It is possible thanks to their magnetic properties. Anyway, it's not that easy. Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information."
Star Trek geek in me coming out... :)
3 or 5 times thinner than a human hair, these fine threads were invented in the old Soviet Union for military purposes... Data wig? What?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information
Is the long anticipated write-only memory here at last? Huzzah!
Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information.
Excellent! Now my Perl scripts will truly become Write Once Read Never!!
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
[tinfoilhat]I am sticking to my 5.25" floppy, it's the only reliable way to backup data.[/tinfoilhat]
Microwires Can Replace The DVD-ROM...Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information.
i can write lots of data but then it's lost??
where do i sign up for this great *new* technology??
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
so, startrek brought us atom teleportation, so can we thank hogan's heros for this one...?
and those of us in Info security were worried about 1G thumb drives ...
Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information.
How the hell can they tell it's there if they can't even read it?
I'm already going batty trying to not lose these fucking tiny cartriges for the Nintendo DS. Now I'm going to have to keep track of a 10cm molecular-width wire and find myself losing them like pencils as they fall out of my pocket.
I have seen the future and it is inconvenient
thinks that CDs use magnetism to report on new tech?
"The microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs."
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Backup is easy! The restore is the tricky part.
omg, you'll be able to hide several terabytes in your hair !?
Remerber johnny mnemonic ? No wait, sardaukars with their shigawires in dune ?
It seems obvious that magnetic mediums are going to eventually become a thing of the past, especially for removable media. Optical and solid-state memory like Flash are the way it's going to be.
:)
Personally, I think three-dimensional optical media will be the next huge leap in removeable data storage, though these tiny metal wires do remind me of those little rings the Seleeches wore in Battlefield Earth
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
From the article:
The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
Don't they mean a "bit"? How can you store a whole byte with just two magnetic orientations?
The microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs. Right. Magnetic CDs, AKA floppy discs.
Measure A/B, convert the resulting fraction into a hexadecimal string, and there's your data.
Only problem is that your microscope has to be really good.
-T
And if you thought getting glass fiber in your skin itched...
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
Assuming they didn't mean "bits" when they said "bytes", that only sounds like 10 megabytes to me... Not gigabytes. If they meant bits instead of bytes, which seems likely given the description, that's only 1.25 megabytes in 10 cm...
"The microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs. "
CDs store information magnetically? Wha?
How reliable can the rest of the article be?
"He'd already RATHER be bowhunting!" -Max Filmont
"The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other."
To me, that reads 10 megs, not 10 gigs. Where am I going wrong? Is my brain really just not working today?
How the hell can they tell it's there if they can't even read it?
If 10GB of MP3s are written on a wire, and there is no reader to play it. Does it make a sound?
You can't take the sky from me...
In soviet russia, thousands predicted your statement.
Let's see, from the article...
given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs
and
In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
Yep. They definitely must be on to something here.
Is it me or does:
"The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other. "
not sound like a 10 million bits? "One orientation or the other"...sounds like a bit to me.
AFAIK 10M 1G...again, I must be dumb. Yup.
From TFA: The microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs.
Looks to me like a fundamental difference in uses: these wires would be great in pendrives or MP3 players, where flash memory is currently used. No need to use them in place of DVDs or CDs though: we've already got ~50GB optical storage on the way and nobody will be happy if they change the size/shape of the media.
I just save everything to /dev/null and I never have a problem with storage space.
There's already a name for this. It's called tape.
(Tape storage started with metal-wire recorders, but esentially they're the same idea, only it's harder to strangle someone with magtape.)
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Ahh, the perspectives for a knitted vest with all my data. Only catch is that I'm not sure that I would want to store all my pr0n on something my mother made!
"The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other."
10mil divisions - each holds a byte.
How does that make 10Gb in 10cm?
-- kortex "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts"
"In former Soviet Russia" joke by now. What gives - are you people sleeping or something ?!?
This is a fairly famous bug. It has been resolved in trunk and 1.01, IIRC. In the meantime, the workaround is , , which enlarges the font, then shrinks the font, and will cause the page to render correctly.
In Soviet Russia media read you!
Read that as "Micro*waves* can replace the DVD-ROM" -- my bad. I'm able to confirm that this is not true because I've put CDs and DVDs in my microwave and they certainly don't replace them.
More or less, the microwaves displaces the information on them. Definitely the ultimate in "write once, run never" technology.
This technology dates back a ways to an 1878 invention, and devices such as the Webster wire recorder of the 1940s and these models from WWII.
Its amazing how often new tech is really old tech.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs.
... And "10 million" is not a Giga ... So we are talking about 1.25 MegaBytes in 10 cm long. Hmmm ....
Since when information is stored magnetically on CDs ????
10 Gigabytes in 10 cm long
(...)
The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
Seems more like a bit on each cell, not bytes
What the hell is this article ???
the divisions are carried out internally by means of a process of anisotrophy.
Anisotrophy? What kind of "trophy" is that? However, there is something known as anisotropy.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Hyuk!! I got me a storage dee-vice that exists on every Unix system in the world and it's got In-Fi-Night capacity!!! It's called /dev/nul and that sucker seems to have more storage in it than the ocean has water! Of course, like these microwires, I need to figure out how to recover the data from it too.
[No Offense meant to southerners unless you voted for Bush]
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Yay! Another medium of data storage. Floppies, hard discs, cd's, dvd's, holographs, and now wire? I guess on the upside it would be a really secure means of storage seeing as though nobody (not even you) can access it. Think of it as a digital time-capsule. You can write all your pictures and movies on it, and even if you tried, you wouldn't be able to access it for at least another 50 years, so voila! No dirt, no mess!
A physics news site that describes CD-ROM's as magnetic storage, is talking about super-duper microwires...
Yea. Right. So, who should I make out the VC cheque to?
They say they are able to store 10GB of data, but can't read it.
How is this any different from deleting, except you are limited to 10GB at a time?
Live forever, or die trying.
The entire article should be two paragraphs long at most. This is just another example of a scientist trying to sound smart by making a very simple concept sound complex.
From reading the description it would seem 10cm could hold 10 Giga BITS or about 1.25 Gigabytes at best.
This is still impressive, expescially if some media could be created that used several wires or packaged one very long wire, perhaps in a spiral, like a CD.
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
Clearly you are doing something improper. Firefox and the Slashcode CMS are open source, therefore are immune to software bugs. Slashdotters say so, so it must be true. If you happen to find a bug in the rendering of Slashcode, please send a patch to Slashcode.com where it will be promptly ignored in place of their clearly superior coding efforts.
Does sound a lot like you're correct, and the author's off by a factor of 1000, or 8000 (or maybe just 100 or 800 if it's 10 million cells per centimeter.) I suspect from the description "magnetized in one orientation or the other" that it's probably one bit per cell.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Don't accidently drop it and try to catch it! It'll cut off your fingers! (as seen in sci-fi shows... the molecular blade)
the microwires become diminutive substitutes for the CD-ROM, given that information can be stored magnetically on them, as with CDs.
Since when did CD's start storing data magnetically? I thought it was optically? Where can I buy these new-fangled magnetic CD's?!
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
It is possible thanks to their magnetic properties. Anyway, it's not that easy. Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information.
L. Ron Hubbard?
What, do they also use renegades?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
This is beginning to sound a lot like..... *tape*
Dear god help us!
May the Maths Be with you!
it's not that easy. Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information.
How about putting 10,000 of those sticked together and set up in a RAID-like manner? Wouldn't that 1) make it easier to read information 2) make it friggin fast to read information and 3) make it ultra-safe thanks to a crazy amount of redundancy?
I'm not too sure if this is possible, but I'm curious...
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
By broadcasting it out into space. The greatest difficulty comes when trying to read it.
My real hair is even better than these thick metal hairs. I can store unfathomable amounts of quantum data, even though I am unable to read or write to it. I will hear no arguments that the ability to store all this quantum static on my head is any less useful.
In Soviet Russia, your hard drive backs up YOU.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I would think the greatest difficulty, if you plan to use them to replace DVD's will be mass production. I doubt you can just stamp these out by the millions quickly and cheaply.
I like the thought however that you can increase storage linearly just by increasing the length.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
just only 10cm? enlarge your storage now!
I was really confused when I saw something about Microwaves and DVD-ROMs...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
With a DVD, you won't lose it in your couch cushion.
Brilliant! Those Russians - What will they think of next? A worldwide network of computers utilizing a universal language to communicate? Brilliant!
Write:Read == Once:Never Got-it?
From the article: The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
When they say "byte" here, they seem to mean "bit". (for the script kiddies, there are 8 bits to the byte) Also, they're referring to "10 million divisions" not "10 billion divisions".
So it wouldn't be 10 gigabytes, it would be more like 1.2 megabytes, or roughly 122k/cm. To store 10 gigabytes, it would have to be over 838m long, or over 2750 feet.
Frankly, I'm not horribly impressed.
Not to mention, this is just in theory. It hasn't actually been done yet.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
"Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information."
Finally, we have the ultra-high density write-only memory we've all been waiting for. Goodbye DVD-WOM, hello microwire.
I prefer to store all my information by sending it into a black hole. As with the microwires, reading it tends to be a bit difficult.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Excuse me, but one think I like about my CD-ROMs is that they not magnetic, and I don't have to worry about storing they away from magnetic fields.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Ah, speculation is so fun!
Man, you add "could" infront of anything, and well, anything is possible!
This just in: Slashdot could be taken over by Microsoft, as early as tomorrow!
Anti-Heisenberg Drivers (Memory Compression)
The development team at Hamilton have recently developed a set of drivers which counteract the strange effect named after the German physicist who first wrestled with the problem. The Heisenberg principle was once a major restriction which prevented people from calculating both the position and velocity of electrons. Now that this obstruction is out of the way, you too can use the individual electrons circling the silicon on your RAM. Current estimates show four 30-pin SIMMS or two 72-pin SIMMS may hold up to 1.5 * 10^23 bytes. ((6.022 * 10^23) * 2) / 8 Avagadro's # * 2 cubic centimeters / bits per byte This technology is currently only a special-case equation for silicon atoms, but has the potential of offering 14x the current memory if enhanced to a per electron, as opposed to a per atom, basis. Research is also currently underway to develop equations to control atoms found in common magnetic media, such a hard drives and floppies, but one researcher interviewed said:
So, keep your eyes open for it! It sounds like they are working hard, and may be close to a breakthrough. Are there any side effects? The only side effect which we know of are small eddies in the space-time continuum. Speculation leads us to believe this is reason all data is redundantly stored 14 times. One user claimed his version of Hamilton 95 spontaneously upgraded to Hamilton 2043, but that is still unconfirmed. Sub-bit Compression Sub-bit compression is a mis-nomer. Recent posts have implied that use of Hamilton 95 will allow you to compress data to less than one bit. While not entirely true, the use of the anti-heisenberg drivers allows most programs to fit in less than what used to be one byte. Therefore, it is improper to use this as a feature, in itself, even though it is technically true. Note that this is _only_ while the program is in RAM. Another person posted that, upon installation, all memory was overwritten with the hexadecimal value FF. This is totally normal since Hamilton 95 doesn't use standard bits, but only the silicon atoms themselves. Don't be alarmed, as you can easily see that the data on the hard drive is still in 'normal' form.Back to Write-Only Memory...
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
I'll cancel my appointment with the Hair Club for Men till this is perfected. Just think how much data my flowing locks will store.
since you're going to eventually have to pay for everything out of pocket
As opposed to having the government give you everything you'd ever need without having to work a day in your life (free health care, food stamps, clothing vouchers, free housing, who needs a job?)
your a commie. no pun intended with the russian thing.
Now I will be able to have my I-wig music player from Apple. I-wig Crewcut - 1Tb of storage $149 I-wig Dreadlock - 5 Tb of Storage $199 I-Wig Mullet - 10Tb $249 I-Wig Geek (featuring pony tail)15Tb $299
Imagine, instead of storing data on concentric spirals that can be accessed at a pretty fast rate, we'll be able to have these drives of candy-floss like glassine material whipping around and drawing blood every time a volume needs to be numounted and changed.
Yeah. That clear forward thinking.
I can just imagine their using write-only RAM with black hole diodes for the controller.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
[tinfoilhat]I am sticking to my 5.25" floppy, it's the only reliable way to backup data.[/tinfoilhat]
Fool. Using this untested, so called 'floppy disk' will only lead to data loss. The only tested, and reliable storage meidum is the punch card. Don't trust these new fangled gadgets until they have been proven to be more than some mad scientist's pipe dream.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Number which cannot be expressed as a mean of a division of two integer. For example PI, Square Root 2, Exp (1) etc... Those numbe do exists. but they do Not belong to the rational ensemble.
For kicker : |N Which read , natural integer ensemble N is included in positive and negative integer ensemble Z , which is included in rational ensemble Q, which is included in real ensemble R which is included into complex ensemble C at which point a therom (completness theorem?) says there is no ensemble in which C is included and is "greater".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
10GB in 10cm means each bit is going to be stored in only 10 nm of length. With a 5-20 micron diameter of glass, it's going to be impossible to read one magnetic bit at a time. I'd say the bits would have to be on the order of the diameter of the coating. That means we're look it more like 5000 bits in that length of wire.
I saved all my data on amicrowire. Now if only i could find the damn thing
That you have a 10 cm wire that works like a floppy disk, and has the same capacity, except you can't read from it. You compare the magnetic switch technique to CDs, which are optical, and state that this will replace the DVD, even though the highly inaccurate 10 gig capacity is only marginally better than Dual layer DVDs, and we have HD-DVD and Bluray coming out shortly (i.e. before they figure out how to read the data), which will smoke DVDs anyway. WHY IS THIS POSTED ON SLASHDOT!?
Wow... so... you'd pretty much rear-end my car with the Dubya sticker on the back then, huh?
This innovation should have been covered in Wired .
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I'm sticking with my tried and true /dev/nul for all of my write-once-read-never needs...
You know, I do have to remind you of one minor-detail. Bush won the election; both popular and electorial. Which means there are a lot more people out there who voted for Bush than who didn't. So, you hate a lot of people.
Wow... so... you'd pretty much rear-end my car with the Dubya sticker on the back then, huh?
:)
I bet that he wouldn't -- because you have a giant SUV while he has a Smartcar. SUV wins
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
thinks a byte can be stored in one bit.
The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other.
More like 10 Megabits in a 10cm wire, not 10 Gigabytes.
I don't know whether to believe this or not. It seems too reminiscent of an old Outer Limits episode called "Demon with a Glass Hand," in which the entire human race has been converted to electrical impulses and stored on a small piece of wire.
Also the article seems to confuse bits and bytes, and says "researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million divisions or cells" -- the wire is carrying out divisions? Either this is poorly written or a poorly conceived hoax.
Wait...wait...here it comes... Yes! You ARE an idiot!
"Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information."
How about just sending light into a black hole? You can cram a lot of data into those things!
Fairly secure aswell - I'd like to see someone get close enough to read it.
I, for one, have been waiting for the Write-Once, Read Never drives.
Let's face it: half the stuff on your drive you're never going to use again anyway. Might as well save it on a data hair so it will not be there when you don't need it.
And these things will be easy to design to follow moore's law. Every 18 months, just put a new label on the package.
that's annoying... posting something like that and not explaining it. There's nothing on wikipedia about impossible numbers, and a quick google search comes up with nothing relevant.
Anyway, why should some numbers exist and others not? I posit that no numbers exist. They are purely an abstraction of the real world.
-------
Incite and flee.
Insert Obligatory remark about storage capacity of DNA here....
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
A return to magnetic media? What next...vacuum tubes?
Following on the heels of the breakthrough of microwires, researchers have announced success in storing data on individual particles. This zero dimensional technology involves selectively magnetizing microscoping grains. So far, researchers admit that there are some difficulties in reading back information. Said a spokesman for the group, "We considered affixing them to a sheet or disc of some kind, but then we would lose all of the benefits of non-dimensionality." When asked what those benefits were the interview was forcibly ended after said spokesman began throwing bar magnets at the press.
... and this is dream world too.
I would buy karma from ebay but I'm not sure I can trust the seller.
Finding women is easy! Talking to them is the tricky part.
but at least he wasn't going to restructure the US into a country where those of us who make meager earnings are going to suffer. Bush is making this a country where you ned to have at least a six figure salary to just get by since you're going to eventually have to pay for everything out of pocket.
Those who make "meager earnings" already suffer. They can't blame that on any politician. They will suffer under any regime run by anyone in any country. Bush does not set your salery or mine, our employers do.
Have to pay everything out of pocket? What do you mean? Food, rent, utilities, taxes? You already have to pay those out of pocket (assuming you're not leeching off the government and having the support your entire life). How can you blame something like having to pay your own bills and earn your own living on Bush? People have been doing that for thousands of years, but now it's suddenly Bush's fault that you have to work?
It's time to stop blaming everything on Bush. These things have NOTHING to do with him. Why don't you post with a valid arguement next time?
Well, close. I have a big gas-guzzling Toyota Camry. $30 to fill the tank! But, I guarantee, I won't notice when I run over his Smartcar in my Toyota either :-)
Normally I don't answer to my own post, but this is not Goedel completness theorem. I just can't seem to remmember thwat is the proof of completness of C. Oh well...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
DVD-WOM
ha!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I'm doing the same thing for your disloyal side, so we're even.
My memory lasts forever. Hope yours does too.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Imagine, couldn't we have a few hundred nanites all reading the thread and communicating via RFID back to the master queen nanite?
1) Get a box with some metal contacts on the outside
2) Claim it can store a gajillion gigabytes of data. Don't mention that it cannot be read again.
3) Profit!!!
That would be spot on. But then again if you consider 51% to be a victory, then I suppose you didn't mind making it through school with D minuses either? ;P
Actually, I really don't hate anyone. I believe in complete fairness and equality for everyone. But until people get on board with that ideal, there's going to be a lot of dissonance on my part. I don't like this "every man for himself in the name of the almighty dollar" tack that the U.S. has recklessly embarked on. It's disgusting.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
This reminds me of this Hackles Strip:
"I wrote a super, new compression algorithm -- I call it pigzip! Look how much space I'm saving by pigzipping all our application data!"
"I can't believe it! This pigzip took 3 gigabytes of data, and compressed it down to only... 3 bytes... wait... I'm guessing there's no decompression algorithm yet?"
"Its harder than it looks."
Kind of a misleading title, dont you think?
Or to give it its acronym, the long-awaited "Write Many, Read Never" drive is here..
You know, kinda like those 5 cent DVD-Rs you get down the market..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
This form of memory isn't much different from this 40+ year old tech, is it?
I don't really trust microwaves... they COULD hurt ya know?
http://onticfusion.sytes.net/
My memory lasts forever too. There is a person who wronged me in grade school (1978 to be exact) with a figurative target on his head if I ever see him again and can do something to make his day miserable. ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Now you can have cool metallic hair AND keep all 47 episodes of the Monkees close at hand. Meet a cool-looking chick? Tell her your hair holds more information than the local library.
Hey -- that's not a bald spot! I just ran a virus check.
Replace "pocket" with "taxes" and you have a perfect description of your plan.
Reverting from magnetic to optical, and now back to magnetic? Wouldn't that be too simple to screw up the microwire by realigning the magnetic features incorrectly?
I guess if they can improve it, it'd be all right.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Proving once again that the phrase "mature liberal" is an oxymoron.
Magnetized CDs? Yeah, I remember those!
They were black and floppy, and came in their own cases. They were better than modern CDs because you didn't have to take them out of their case before you put them in the computer.
If anything, storage wire technology might replace current tape technology as smaller and maybe more durable (or maybe not). But this definitely doesn't pose a threat to CDs as a fast and convenient storage media.
Elections aren't based on gradients -- they win, or they don't. 51% does the trick :-)
I totally agree about the screw-your-neighbor aspect of America. I don't see how Bush caused that, though.
Since only a minority of the population voted, the percentage who approved of Bush is closer to 20.9%. The adjusted Kerry vote was 19.9% Either way, it is ridiculous to assume the majority of Americans are pro-Bush. A safer assumption would be that most just don't care, because they rightly do not see much of a change in their daily lives, no matter who is in office. Apathy is only marginally better than being pro-Bush, in my book.
Actually, that would only be true if 100% of the people voted. It was a record turnout, but it wasn't really close to 100%.
Just like a spool of tape, it can be put on a spool of string, and run through a writer/reader just like the audio casette tapes. I can imagine the reader must be really sensitive, but if a hard-drive's head can be engineered into an audio casette recorder, it should be possible.
Now we can look forward to the next iPod getting jammed with spools of hair.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
As all civilized people know, everything great is invented in russia. This amazing invention provides more proof of that, and adds to other great inventions of russian scientists like super compression algorithm which can compress any amount if data to zero size. They are still working on decompression, though.
Well, if it can be write-only, i already have a petabyte storage device on my PC. I call it "Cam's Superfast and Most Excellent Petabyte Write-Only Storage Device", but most of you just call it
Demonstrant's Open Source Tools
I know there have been a ton of posts saying how the wire only holds 10 million bits and that's only 10 megs, but if you go back and rtfa again they have updated it, it now reads:
"The researchers calculate that a 10 cm long microwire can carry out 10 million [editor's note: Elhuyar Fundazioa made a mistake here, should be billion] divisions or cells and in each one of these a byte can be stored. In order to store the byte, each one of these cells is magnetised in one orientation or the other."
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
It's back to the future, is it?
What?
100% of the people who voted count toward the score (ooh, somebody is going to FLAME that, I just know it). 100% of the citizens did not vote, but since they didn't vote, their vote doesn't count in the total. It's like saying 4 out of 5 dentists who chew gun prefer Trident. The numbers don't include the non-gummin' dentists! :-)
Quoth the sig: I like my coffee like I like my women. Ground up and kept in the freezer.
All the ha-ha factor aside, you're violating multiple laws of good coffee production there:
Now, try to treat your beans better than that.
So, as someone have mentioned, we already have /dev/null - the greatest write-only data storage device... /dev/null...
But imagine... We'll be reading about Russian scientists discovering the way to recover data from
Pfft! Only 10 gigabytes? I can write an infinite amount of info to /dev/null and not read it...
Maybe CDs are magnetic in Soviet Russia.
Yea, the stuff of great spy stories.... ;-)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
I have this problem with my brain. I read tens, maybe hundreds of words a day. I take video recordings with my eyes and audio with these things on the side of my head. I forget what they are called. I have been recording and storing this information since the early 1970's so I'm prior art.
The problem is, my retrieval - it's not so good. Sometimes I have simple read errors such as forgetting the name of my girlfriend. As if that isn't bad enough, sometimes I cannot retrieve an entire section of audio and video, or I get them misaligned. The most drastic case I seem to be able to read right now is when I recalled this cutie pie from college telling me to talk dirty to her. But in reality, that was my step-grandmother.
If I can get the bugs worked out, I'm sure my life would be much easier.
So. What were we talking about again?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Excellent. I've always wanted to garotte someone with the full text of Gone With The Wind. My dream finally comes true!
The difficulty is reading it.
"Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information"
I get it! This is the Soviet equivalent to a zip drive?!?!?
Excellent response. If you wern't AC, I'd mod it up.
those of us who make meager earnings are going to suffer
Why not try to improve yourself and earn more money, rather than blaming how much you make on the fucking government?
Bush is making this a country where you ned to have at least a six figure salary to just get by
Bullshit.
you're going to eventually have to pay for everything out of pocket
You mean rather than the government stealing the money from someone else who earned it, and giving it to you in the form of services which you should pay for yourself?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
This technology predates back to when they used wires for recording messages and other sessions, now that we've got a better method of storing things magnetically, it only makes sense we'd turn back to older technology, and significantly improve upon it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If reading the data out accurately isn't an issue, here's a simple way to store ANY amount of data on a single wire less than 1 cm long!!!
0. Start out with a wire > 1cm long.
1. Take the data and encode it into a sequence of decimal digits. If you don't know how to do this you shouldn't be reading slashdot. This sequence is concatenated into one huge number N.
2. Cut the wire to a length of EXACTLY 1/N cm long.
3. Now you can read the length of the wire, invert it, and decode your sequence of digits.
The wire now contains however much information you wanted to store. Whether you can retrieve that info depends on the accuracy of your reading (and writing) equipment. In the meantime while 1cm is too small for effective equipment to be used, make it an appropriate fraction of 1m. Or 1km. Whatever.
"Bush does not set your salery or mine, our employers do."
He does many things which directly affect the salaries of millions of people. For one, not raising the minimum wage keeps many people below the poverty line. The percentage of poor people in this country is higher than it has ever been since the great depression. Taxation directly reduces a person's salary, but his tax breaks greatly favor the top few percent. His plan for Social Security will take retirement money away from people who were depending on it, who were promised it. The idea of pushing SS money to Wall Street where future Enrons and Worldcoms can steal it is outrageous.
"These things have NOTHING to do with him."
WAKE UP. We were running a surplus and paying off our national debt until Bush came into office and gave rich people a big tax break and started a bogus war.
He's making people sick with his overhaul of the clean air act while making it harder for them to get medical help. He'll make it nearly impossible for those injured by big business to hold them accountable.
He has made a mockery of our justice system with the Unpatriot Act. He let MS off the hook for major transgressions against free trade.
"valid arguement"
You can't even spell "argument", but that's no surprise since you are too naive to see how Bush's actions have directly and negatively affected the lives of millions of Americans.
Bush is not a public servant, he's a power broker as is the rest of his family and his administration.
His Shigawire in the Dune series was something similar.
Is this really all that different (except in size) from good ol' fashioned wire recording?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
... assuming you believe in the results of Diebold voting machines running on VB that have no paper audit trail.
Ha! "stealing the money from someone else who earned it"...
"Earning" requires "work", something the filthy rich know nothing about. All they understand is manipulating the system to further enrich themselves (at the expense of people who do actually work).
that just means you can't store an infinite amount of data... if you round the fraction down, you're just truncating the data set... what you're left with may be incomplete, but it is valid
-------
Incite and flee.
It is the responsibility of the leader of the country to lead by example. Telling the democrats that he embraces bi-partisanship and welcomes their participation provided they do things his way, what with his 51% "mandate," is not setting an example for cooperation and friendliness. It's xenophobia, and right now the Republican party and GWB are working very hard to solidify their powerbase with it. Expect the next fifty years to be a direct reflection of the policies being put into place now and the leadership demonstrated by Bush.
Bush didn't cause the bitter socio-political divides in America, but he drives the wedge deeper every day. This is a man who casually disregarded the single largest world-wide demonstration ever, saying it didn't influence him a single bit. That's a man with blinders: everything should be considered by someone who leads. Unfortunately, Bush has the bad habit of "sticking to his guns" and not letting himself be swayed once he makes a decision. Even when it is the wrong decision or when that decision has been based on patently false information (e.g., wmd).
Leading by example means you admit your mistakes and listen to the people you lead, not 51% of them.
That's one of the issues I have with representatives in congress. They come to congress with an agenda, and that agenda is not to do the will of the people. I think more representatives, rather than toeing the party line, ought to ask their constituents what they think on issues and vote appropriately, not what do the people that voted for them and not the other guy or gal think. But hey, that's a pipedream. At least I don't try to force that agenda on people who don't agree with it.
My Linux box already has a storage feature large enough you can use to write every byte of data on the planet into... if you never intend to read it back out.
It's called "/dev/null"
This is a hoax, or at least it contains several fatal mistakes. Just do the math:
1E-1 m / 8E+10 bit = about 1E-12 m / bit
Taken into account that the spacing between atoms in solid iron is 2.9E-10 m, this is blatantly impossible.
Moreover, if I remember correctly, the theoretical lower limit to the size of a ferromagnetic domain is about 100 atoms. On the basis of this, I estimate that it is not possible to write more than 8MB on a very thin wire 10cm in length. This is not very impressive to me, but at least it comes close to the '10 million divisions or cells' mentioned in the article.
Under ideal cicrcumstances, it might be possibly crank 10GB onto a 10cm wire 10m in diameter if one treats it as a cylinder and writes different bits around its circumference. However, this would require truely revolutionary technology, and render the data very vulnerable to torsion forces. Moreover, the article suggests that it is not the case: '"bamboo"-type structure of domains'.
Furthermore, it is full of fancy-sounding word combinations I can't make sense of, and contains other shameful mistakes, like the "magnetical CD", and the bits/bytes confusion. Taken together, it drives my bogometer into the red...
10m in diameter should read 20 um (that's micrometer) in diameter. I made a typo in the number, and the 'micron' sign was eaten on submission. I know I should have used that preview button...
So what I basicaly got out of the article is that they will re use the old idea of magnetic core memory at a much smaller scale..
right?
Less look fast, more go fast.
I dont even use my DVD-ROM anymore, I just connected my Microwave up to my TV and PC and play all my movies through that now. It doubles as a burner too ;)
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Oh, if reading information is not important, then I have developed a much superior technology. Simply take an affortable 10 GB hard drive, and reformat it everytime you fill it up.
In this case, the entire human race was stored on a copper wire, which is a lot of DVDs.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
> Microwires Can Replace The DVD-ROM [...]
> Anyway, it's not that easy. Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information.
If reading the information was impossible, this could be a great alternative to the DVD-WOM
That's "bio-neural gel packs", actually. Do I get modded down for being too Trekkie (especially considering that's ST:VOY)?
If I had mod points, you'd get slapped with a "-1: Reminding us of the dread of the inevitable episode where the ship would catch a cold".
Fortunatly they did it not too far in the series and we could groan through it, and then move on. But you reminded us! You BASTARD!
You can't take the sky from me...
I've found the ultimate storage device even better than this, /dev/null it just never seems to fill up I must of backed millions of movi^H^H^H^Hwork documents up into it. Just wish I could find out how to extract it back. /dev/null so that when I do find a way I'll make squillions!
Oh yes and I'm filing a patent on backing thhings to
What could be better than a jet powered motorcycle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8l6GTHLSWE
"Earning" requires "work", something the filthy rich know nothing about.
First of all, "earning" does not require physical work. All it requires is obtaining the money legally and ethically. If I invest money and earn interest on it, I am not working for the profit, but I am earning it. If rich people did not invest money, poor people would not:
- Be able to get a loan (where do you think the money comes from?)
- Be able to get a job (who do you think creates the companies and the jobs in America?)
- Be able to purchase inexpensive goods (who do you think creates the companies that make the things you purchase?)
All they understand is manipulating the system to further enrich themselves (at the expense of people who do actually work).
The same could be said about those that manipulate our social services like welfare to further enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers.
It is truly sad that you feel earning money, making money, obtaining money is "manipulating the system." Perhaps this reveals something about you?
Are their evil poor people? Evil rich people? Yes and yes. Why do you equate being rich with being evil? For every "evil" rich person you can name, I can name 10 "good" rich people.
You have allowed the left to brainwash you into thinking in terms of class warfare. Perhaps you'd be better off if you spent your time thinking about ways to improve yourself and earn more money.
By the way, since you seem to be ignorant on the matter, capitalism is not a zero sum game. A rich person earning money does not take away from the amount of money a poor person can earn. There is not a limited supply of wealth, as some would make you believe.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
This article is full of crap. An angstrom is 10^-10 metres, and corresponds to the diameter of a hydrogen atom. In order to linearly store 10 gigabits (let's assume that the author intended to use "bits" rather than "bytes") in a distance of 0.1 metres, each bit would have to be 10^-11 metres long, which corresponds to a length of 0.1 angstroms. If the author mistook "giga" for "mega", and intended that the wire could store 10 megabits, then that would mean that each magnetic cell would be 10^-8 metres long - 100 angstroms or 10 nanometres. Storing a magnetic bit in such a short distance would be an impressive feat.
Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information
/dev/null.
Bah. I have this infinite capacity storage on my computer. I think it's called
"not raising the minimum wage keeps many people below the poverty line"
..... Congress. Let's blame him anyways.
He doesn't even have the authority to change the minimum wage, that is set by
"His plan for Social Security will take retirement money away from people who were depending on it"
His plan does not decrease current social security, but rather supplemnents it on a VOLUNTARY BASIS. But, how will we ever achieve a true communist state if we allow people to choose for themselves?
"gave rich people a big tax break"
Rich people are people just like you and me. Why should they pay such a disproportionate amount of the tax revenue? They have more, and owe it to the rest of us, right?
"He'll make it nearly impossible for those injured by big business to hold them accountable."
You mean like the people who were shot by a killer trained by Wal-Mart (through the sale of a video game)?
"He has made a mockery of our justice system with the Unpatriot Act."
Once again, passed by the congress, would've been signed by Gore anyways.
"Bush is not a public servant, he's a power broker as is the rest of his family and his administration."
This is true of ANY politician (even your beloved Stalin), stop acting like it's exclusive to Bush and therefore makes him somehow worse than the others.
No, it's not like saying that, because in the gum chewing dentist sentence, the verbiage 'who chew gum' is in there. So that would be more like saying 'More people who voted, voted for Bush than Kerry.' That would be a true sentence, but to say 'More people voted for Bush than didn't' isn't true because that sentence doesn't limit it only to people who voted. Or even Americans for that matter, but I was actually making THAT assumption.
Hooh! The editor is gonna have Elhuyar Fundazioa's ass for messing up the article with his horrific million/billion blunder. Oh , I would have been so misinformed if the clever Mr. Editor didn't point out that mistake! It's good that he mentioned Elhuyar Fundazioa by name as well. That makes me hate him and his family for that unforgetable blunder.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
minimum wage ..... Congress. Let's blame him anyways."
-------------
"He doesn't even have the authority to change the minimum wage, that is set by
He's the top dog Republican. The house and the senate are controlled by Republicans.
social security
---------------
"His plan does not decrease current social security, but rather supplemnents it on a VOLUNTARY BASIS. But, how will we ever achieve a true communist state if we allow people to choose for themselves?"
You seem to have no understanding of why we have a social security system. Volunteerism and communism have nothing to do with it.
tax cuts
---------
"Rich people are people just like you and me. Why should they pay such a disproportionate amount of the tax revenue? They have more, and owe it to the rest of us, right?"
They do not pay a disproportionate amount of taxes. You're probably confusing "rich" with "middle class". Suggesting that the rich support everyone else is incredibly arrogant.
tort reform
-----------
You mean like the people who were shot by a killer trained by Wal-Mart (through the sale of a video game)?"
No, I mean the people whose neighborhoods are being rained upon with sulphuric ash by dirty coal plants which are polluting more than ever due to rules changes by Bush.
patriot act
-----------
"Once again, passed by the congress, would've been signed by Gore anyways."
In case you didn't know, Gore is trying to get the Patriot Act repealed. Bush is pushing to renew it.
bush sucks
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"This is true of ANY politician (even your beloved Stalin),"
Stop calling me a communist. Who do you think you are, Joe McCarthy?
"stop acting like it's exclusive to Bush and therefore makes him somehow worse than the others."
Take a good hard look at the man. Read about the business and politics of the Bush family. Study the VP and members of the cabinet. Consider the mistakes, the lies, the secrets. Yes, he is much worse than most others.
"He's the top dog Republican. The house and the senate are controlled by Republicans." That doesn't change the fact that he can only sign what they put on his desk. I do understand how Social Security was MEANT to work. Furthermore, I DO believe it should be abolished. Older people have been finding ways to support themselves for thousands of years. If they want to save money, they should save it. If they don't, they should not be forced to (social security). By forcing people to save money in a government account, the governement is telling us that we don't know what is good for ourselves, and I (being amoung the minority of intelligent people) resent that. "They do not pay a disproportionate amount of taxes." It's called a progressive tax system. Not only do they pay more taxes in terms of $$, they also pay a higher percentage [both per capita]. Would you say the services they receive [per capita] is higher than that of a $20,000 income family who pays no [income] taxes due to deductions?? "Suggesting that the rich support everyone else is incredibly arrogant." Maybe you should look up the word arrogant*, because that statement implies that I am rich. The fact is, I am a poor college student, my father's income is BELOW THE POVERTY LINE for our household size, and you have the gall to say that my opinions are biased by my situation? I did not say that the rich support everyone, or that I support anyone. What I said is that they pay disproportionate income taxes, which is true. My father would be one of the one's benifitting by the money put in by rich people, if he chose to go on disability. But he refuses because he believes in earning one's living no matter how hard it is. So, I should support the rich paying higher taxes, afterall it would make my life easier? Maybe that would be true, if I didn't have moral values that teach me otherwise. "Reason is man's only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. The proper standard of ethics is: man's survival qua man--i.e., that which is required by man's nature for his survival as a rational being (not his momentary physical survival as a mindless brute). Rationality is man's basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose, self-esteem. Man--every man--is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life." I'll let you guess who that's from. * "Arrogant - Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance" from American Heritage
"He's the top dog Republican. The house and the senate are controlled by Republicans."
That doesn't change the fact that he can only sign what they put on his desk.
I do understand how Social Security was MEANT to work. Furthermore, I DO believe it should be abolished.
Older people have been finding ways to support themselves for thousands of years. If they want to save money, they should save it. If they don't, they should not be forced to (social security). By forcing people to save money in a government account, the governement is telling us that we don't know what is good for ourselves, and I (being amoung the minority of intelligent people) resent that.
"They do not pay a disproportionate amount of taxes."
It's called a progressive tax system. Not only do they pay more taxes in terms of $$, they also pay a higher percentage [both per capita]. Would you say the services they receive [per capita] is higher than that of a $20,000 income family who pays no [income] taxes due to deductions??
"Suggesting that the rich support everyone else is incredibly arrogant."
Maybe you should look up the word arrogant*, because that statement implies that I am rich. The fact is, I am a poor college student, my father's income is BELOW THE POVERTY LINE for our household size, and you have the gall to say that my opinions are biased by my situation?
I did not say that the rich support everyone, or that I support anyone. What I said is that they pay disproportionate income taxes, which is true.
My father would be one of the one's benefitting by the money put in by rich people, if he chose to go on disability. But he refuses because he believes in earning one's living no matter how hard it is.
So, I should support the rich paying higher taxes, afterall it would make my life easier? Maybe I would support it, if I didn't have moral values to teach me otherwise.
"Reason is man's only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. The proper standard of ethics is: man's survival qua man--i.e., that which is required by man's nature for his survival as a rational being (not his momentary physical survival as a mindless brute). Rationality is man's basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose, self-esteem. Man--every man--is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life."
I'll let you guess who that's from.
* "Arrogant - Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance" from American Heritage
10 Gigabytes in 10 cm long
I see a new generation of spam coming:
Increase your hard drive by 3 inches!
main(char O){O++&&(((O-291)*O+27788)*O-868020?1:putchar(O++
showed many ways for the wire to be hidden and smuggled in. For this application, being hard to read is actually a GOOD property. Only those who knows the right wire and have the right hardware can access the data.
Monofilament, here I come!
Oh, wait. 20 m? Drat.
http://www.basqueresearch.com/berria_irakurri.asp? Gelaxka=1_1&Berri_Kod=672&hizk=I
Istrongly supsect that while the microwire might *carry* 10 million divisions, it can not in fact *carry them out*. Microwire FPU, anyone?
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
Thats nothing... really Wirerecorders were around much before then.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Well, there are nits to pick on this I suppose, but I think it is reasonably implied that I mean people who actually voted. :-) How can a vote be counted if the person didn't vote? English isn't that precise, by nature.
If more people didn't agree with his agenda than didn't, they wouldn't have elected him president. That's the reason we have elections: the will of the people was represented. It is impossible to lead and make everyone happy. He is just making most people happy, which is at the very heart of our democracy. You are doing exactly what you should, though: try to convince people to vote differently next time. The system works!
Algebraic complete. Yeah That is it. Thanks. +5 Informative ;). I remmember doing quaternion long ago in math sup. I am still thinking math is fun to do :).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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