Sorry - it one particular area is KDE superior to Windows XP?
KDE gives me far more control over how my windows behave that Windows does. I often fix specific windows to be always on top or locked in a particular position and size and can't do that under Windows.
Even Berkely DB, which I also hate, would not be so bad if you could "mount -t berkdb -rw./database.db/mnt/database".
Hmm, fun. I can't see a generic solution being really possible, but you could certainly do it relatively easily for a database format fixed at compile time. I don't like Berkeley DB either and wrote a simple tool for converting it to CSV which works in that way.
In what way are time zones ridiculous? We could have one time zone for the whole world but I can't help thinking that would be more confusing.
DST? Well it certainly makes sense where I live which is in the Midlands of England, but I'm quite willing to accept that it makes less sense elsewhere.
As for going metric, start with something positive - moving to a more useful paper format (see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html ). It's immediately useful to everyone in the US and once "Letter" is no longer the default paper size on printers/software the rest of the world will rejoice as well. As far as everything else goes, keep it. I'm quite happy knowing my height and weight in feet and stones respectively and much prefer miles to kilometres.
Okay, fine, I'll concede to you that QE which takes fill factor into account is normally referred to as effective QE. It's a way to compare different sensors without having to use two different numbers, and works because fill factor and QE can directly be multiplied together to get the behaviour of a sensor.
Yeah, go on then. It's obviously useful being able to compare sensors...
I think the 30% QE that you've quoted for CMOS processes does take into account fill factor.
A colleague of mine focussed a laser so all of the light power was entirely within a single CMOS photodiode and came up with values around the 30% mark, depending on wavelength and the type of diode of course. The fill factor has no affect there to be certain. That doesn't mean that other sensors have an effective QE of 30% of course. I could be misremembering his results as well.
Shame nobody else will read these comments:)
With a huge pixel that is mostly photodiode, there's no reason why the effective QE couldn't be better than a CCD sensor, which uses photogates.
Except that CMOS probably uses more process layers, leading to more boundaries for the light to pass through and so less light at the diode.
Bah! You spoiled my explanation by explaining it properly:)
The number (30%) is referred to as the quantum efficiency. CCD sensors have higher QE than CMOS because they have a larger percentage of the pixel that is light sensitive (higher fill factor).
I'm not sure I agree with you here. My understanding is that QE is the chance that a photon hitting the light sensitive area will generate an electron-hole pair. The fill factor is nothing to do with it, but still important of course. As it is, 30% is widely used as "the" QE for a standard CMOS process - it wouldn't be possible to quote that without also specifying the fill factor if it depended on fill factor. A better reasoning - the unit for QE is A/W - no mention of area there. It's also true that there are camera optimised CMOS processes that offer improved QE - for instance the AMS C35B4 OPTO process which is a drop in replacement for their C35B4C3 process - change from "small" QE to "not quite as small QE" without modifying the design. Alas, I have no data on the opto process but I think that it offered a QE of 40%. CCDs work on the same principle - they are for cameras so the process is optimised to give higher QE.
longer wavelengths will generate electron-hole pairs too deep in the silicon to be captured.
The corollary of Moore's law is perhaps that the feature size will halve every however often it was that he said - so it does have some effect. What some people don't know is that as the x and y feature sizes shrink, so does the z - although not necessarily as rapidly. As you say the z dimension affects the wavelength sensitivity, so by shrinking it we'll be reducing the ability to detect longer wavelengths. I'm sure that this is one reason why processes like the 0.35um one I mention above is still in wide use in camera research whilst most people here would scoff at the very idea that anybody was using such an "archaic" technology. Going from that 0.35um process to the UMC 0.18um process and the depth of the N-well junction just about halves. Price and ooh, some headroom in analogue design are other reasons for using such a process of course.
Yes . . . and no. Each photon that hits a pixel will create one electron (gross simplification).
Some clarification - in a standard CMOS process you'd be getting about 0.3 electrons per photon, in an optimised CMOS process you might get 0.4 electrons per photon or maybe 0.5 electrons if you're lucky.
I would like to get the 64 bit version of Windows Vista for the expanded memory capability, and the signed drivers.
You're planning to need more than 3GB of resident memory in a single process on your new computer?
I don't know about him, but I find the idea of being able to use more than 2GB per process very exciting. It's occasionally a limiting factor at work, although that can usually be worked around. I bet lots of povray users are excited as well - I just did a render that peaked at using 6GB of ram.
Cheers,
Roger
The so-called idle process just shows how much of your processor time isn't in use. Creating a core for it would be akin to creating a core to sit there and do nothing as you say. It wouldn't run the idle process; it would just do nothing. In reality of course, it would get utilised for other jobs.
I think that autorun and "auto do a particular action" are different things and can be disabled individually. I may be wrong though. Can't help you more than that I'm afraid...
Configuring the kernel isn't that bad once you get used to it. It is pretty daunting at first and I still never look forward to trawling through all of the device driver options.
As for looking at your current kernel config, you have potentially two options. First off, your kernel may provide access to its config via/proc/config.gz If it does, you could cd to your kernel source and run "gzcat/proc/config.gz >.config". You could then run "make menuconfig" as normal and change any options you wanted.
Likewise, some distros copy the kernel config to/boot. On a SuSe machine I have access to, there is a config at/boot/config-2.6.13-15.8-default. Again, you could copy that to/usr/src/linux/.config and you'd be sorted.
> check your auth.log for attacks (I get one every couple of days)
In a home environment I'd recommend moving your ssh server to a non-standard port. I did this a while back and have since had zero attempted ssh attacks. You can use the ~/.ssh/config file to remove the need to add the extra "-p 12345" option each time as well.
Distance from Impact: 161.00 km = 99.98 miles Projectile Diameter: 2000.00 m = 6560.00 ft = 1.24 miles Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3 Impact Velocity: 17.00 km/s = 10.56 miles/s Impact Angle: 45 degrees Target Density: 2750 kg/m3 Target Type: Crystalline Rock
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 4.84 x 1021 Joules = 1.16 x 106 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 5.1 x 106years
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
Crater Dimensions:
Transient Crater Diameter: 24.4 km = 15.1 miles Transient Crater Depth: 8.63 km = 5.36 miles
Final Crater Diameter: 37.2 km = 23.1 miles Final Crater Depth: 0.879 km = 0.546 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater. The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 30.4 km3 = 7.3 miles3 Roughly half the melt remains in the crater , where its average thickness is 65.1 meters = 213 feet
Thermal Radiation:
Time for maximum radiation: 1.99 seconds after impact Visible fireball radius: 31.8 km = 19.7 miles The fireball appears 44.9 times larger than the sun Thermal Exposure: 8.22 x 107 Joules/m2 Duration of Irradiation: 439 seconds Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 187
Effects of Thermal Radiation:
Clothing ignites Much of the body suffers third degree burns Newspaper ignites Plywood flames Deciduous trees ignite Grass ignites
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 32.2 seconds. Richter Scale Magnitude: 8.7 Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 161 km: VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken. VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures. Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls. Heavy furniture overturned.
Ejecta:
The ejecta will arrive approximately 184 seconds after the impact. Average Ejecta Thickness: 75.8 cm = 29.8 inches Mean Fragment Diameter: 6.91 cm = 2.72 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 488 seconds. Peak Overpressure: 278000 Pa = 2.78 bars = 39.5 psi Max wind velocity: 357 m/s = 798 mph Sound Intensity: 109 dB (May cause ear pain)
Damage Description:
Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse. Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse. Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse. Highway truss bridges will collapse. Glass windows will shatter. Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.
Slashdot Mirror
... with none of the previous candidates being allowed to stand again.
(I'm from Britain, not the US)
Cheers,
Roger
Damn right.
Well in general yes, but how do you fix window positions/sizes using XFCE or Gnome?
KDE gives me far more control over how my windows behave that Windows does. I often fix specific windows to be always on top or locked in a particular position and size and can't do that under Windows.
Cheers,
Roger
Shouldn't you be working? :)
Hmm, fun. I can't see a generic solution being really possible, but you could certainly do it relatively easily for a database format fixed at compile time. I don't like Berkeley DB either and wrote a simple tool for converting it to CSV which works in that way.
FUSE is actually great fun to play around with.
In what way are time zones ridiculous? We could have one time zone for the whole world but I can't help thinking that would be more confusing.
DST? Well it certainly makes sense where I live which is in the Midlands of England, but I'm quite willing to accept that it makes less sense elsewhere.
As for going metric, start with something positive - moving to a more useful paper format (see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html ). It's immediately useful to everyone in the US and once "Letter" is no longer the default paper size on printers/software the rest of the world will rejoice as well. As far as everything else goes, keep it. I'm quite happy knowing my height and weight in feet and stones respectively and much prefer miles to kilometres.
Yeah... I'm as much of a fan as the Amiga as the next man, but this is just embarassing. Even worse they go on to say this:
Are they serious?
Cheers,
Roger
Yeah, go on then. It's obviously useful being able to compare sensors...
A colleague of mine focussed a laser so all of the light power was entirely within a single CMOS photodiode and came up with values around the 30% mark, depending on wavelength and the type of diode of course. The fill factor has no affect there to be certain. That doesn't mean that other sensors have an effective QE of 30% of course. I could be misremembering his results as well.
Shame nobody else will read these comments :)
Except that CMOS probably uses more process layers, leading to more boundaries for the light to pass through and so less light at the diode.
Bah! You spoiled my explanation by explaining it properly :)
I'm not sure I agree with you here. My understanding is that QE is the chance that a photon hitting the light sensitive area will generate an electron-hole pair. The fill factor is nothing to do with it, but still important of course. As it is, 30% is widely used as "the" QE for a standard CMOS process - it wouldn't be possible to quote that without also specifying the fill factor if it depended on fill factor. A better reasoning - the unit for QE is A/W - no mention of area there. It's also true that there are camera optimised CMOS processes that offer improved QE - for instance the AMS C35B4 OPTO process which is a drop in replacement for their C35B4C3 process - change from "small" QE to "not quite as small QE" without modifying the design. Alas, I have no data on the opto process but I think that it offered a QE of 40%. CCDs work on the same principle - they are for cameras so the process is optimised to give higher QE.
The corollary of Moore's law is perhaps that the feature size will halve every however often it was that he said - so it does have some effect. What some people don't know is that as the x and y feature sizes shrink, so does the z - although not necessarily as rapidly. As you say the z dimension affects the wavelength sensitivity, so by shrinking it we'll be reducing the ability to detect longer wavelengths. I'm sure that this is one reason why processes like the 0.35um one I mention above is still in wide use in camera research whilst most people here would scoff at the very idea that anybody was using such an "archaic" technology. Going from that 0.35um process to the UMC 0.18um process and the depth of the N-well junction just about halves. Price and ooh, some headroom in analogue design are other reasons for using such a process of course.
Roger
Some clarification - in a standard CMOS process you'd be getting about 0.3 electrons per photon, in an optimised CMOS process you might get 0.4 electrons per photon or maybe 0.5 electrons if you're lucky.
Cheers,
Roger
Urgh, that's a pretty vile name.
The so-called idle process just shows how much of your processor time isn't in use. Creating a core for it would be akin to creating a core to sit there and do nothing as you say. It wouldn't run the idle process; it would just do nothing. In reality of course, it would get utilised for other jobs.
Pff, use mplayer -vo aa and then lipread :P
They already exist. My Dad has an (unopened!) Rubik's Revenge (4x4x4) from way back when.
5x5x5 cubes also exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor's_Cube
Cheers,
Roger
I think that autorun and "auto do a particular action" are different things and can be disabled individually. I may be wrong though. Can't help you more than that I'm afraid...
Configuring the kernel isn't that bad once you get used to it. It is pretty daunting at first and I still never look forward to trawling through all of the device driver options.
/proc/config.gz If it does, you could cd to your kernel source and run "gzcat /proc/config.gz > .config". You could then run "make menuconfig" as normal and change any options you wanted.
/boot. On a SuSe machine I have access to, there is a config at /boot/config-2.6.13-15.8-default. Again, you could copy that to /usr/src/linux/.config and you'd be sorted.
As for looking at your current kernel config, you have potentially two options. First off, your kernel may provide access to its config via
Likewise, some distros copy the kernel config to
Hope that helps,
Roger
Huzzah! Alliteration is fun.
> check your auth.log for attacks (I get one every couple of days)
In a home environment I'd recommend moving your ssh server to a non-standard port. I did this a while back and have since had zero attempted ssh attacks. You can use the ~/.ssh/config file to remove the need to add the extra "-p 12345" option each time as well.
Cheers,
Roger
It should be possible with vnc2swf. I've never used it mind so can't really comment.
Cheers,
Roger
It's old news. I've known about it since before september 2005 and it's not as though I keep up to date with these things.
From: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 161.00 km = 99.98 miles
Projectile Diameter: 2000.00 m = 6560.00 ft = 1.24 miles
Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 17.00 km/s = 10.56 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 4.84 x 1021 Joules = 1.16 x 106 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 5.1 x 106years
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass. The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
Crater Dimensions:
Transient Crater Diameter: 24.4 km = 15.1 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 8.63 km = 5.36 miles
Final Crater Diameter: 37.2 km = 23.1 miles
Final Crater Depth: 0.879 km = 0.546 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 30.4 km3 = 7.3 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater , where its average thickness is 65.1 meters = 213 feet
Thermal Radiation:
Time for maximum radiation: 1.99 seconds after impact
Visible fireball radius: 31.8 km = 19.7 miles
The fireball appears 44.9 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 8.22 x 107 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 439 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 187
Effects of Thermal Radiation:
Clothing ignites
Much of the body suffers third degree burns
Newspaper ignites
Plywood flames
Deciduous trees ignite
Grass ignites
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 32.2 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 8.7
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 161 km:
VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken.
VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures. Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls. Heavy furniture overturned.
Ejecta:
The ejecta will arrive approximately 184 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness: 75.8 cm = 29.8 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter: 6.91 cm = 2.72 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 488 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 278000 Pa = 2.78 bars = 39.5 psi
Max wind velocity: 357 m/s = 798 mph
Sound Intensity: 109 dB (May cause ear pain)
Damage Description:
Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse.
Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse.
Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse.
Highway truss bridges will collapse.
Glass windows will shatter.
Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.
Some have been started... Impositor for instance. I don't know of any complete ones.