For the extreme example of the 90 degree bank, when the car is always tilted sideways in the complete loop, gravity will pull it down and the side railing of the track will hold it in place. If there was no gravity, the railing isn't strictly necessary. This situation describes the infinite gravity well of a black hole in the deformed rubber sheet analogy. In this case, yes, the curve will keep the objects from escaping orbit. If, however, the slope of the rubber sheet isn't vertical then no orbit is formed simply by the distortion of the shape. It can bend the path of light but cannot describe an orbit of a satellite or simply the falling of an object towards another object when the object initially starts with no momentum.
For the extreme example of the full loop you describe where the car is upside down at the top of the loop, the car needs to be going fast enough to counteract gravity at the top of the loop. The formula that describes this minimum speed is V^2 / R = g (V is minimum velocity at the top of the loop, R is radius of the loop, g is the gravitational acceleration that must be overcome). Notice that when the car is vertical gravity is pulling the car backwards, which causes it to slow down. It will speed up again by the same amount (if you ignore friction) at the other side of the loop as it's vertical facing downwards. This situation is completely different to the deformed rubber sheet analogy, I'm not even sure why you brought it up.
No it doesn't. The reason the bank exerts a sideways force on the car is because gravity pushes downwards, there's an equal and opposite resistive force from the road (Newton's Third Law), and since the road is not perpendicular to the gravitational force this has a vertical and horizontal component. Without gravity, there would be no horizontal component of the resistive force.
My understanding is that Storage Spaces is (as he says) MS's version of ZFS - does it not have the same data-checking features/ performance hit that 'regular' ZFS does?
No, it does not have the same data-checking features. Yes, it has a performance hit. Worst of both worlds. I've used it, and junked it as it was literally an order of magnitude slower than RAID5 via mdadm on Linux and didn't actually add any resiliency over RAID5 or flexibility as to grow an existing pool, you need to add multiple similarly sized drives since it doesn't rebalance. This is despite their marketing claims that you can add mismatched drives in an ad hoc fashion and have it "just work".
The only way to get Microsofts unproven resiliency benefits is to use ReFS in conjunction with mirroring (not parity) on the expensive server editions. Windows 8/8.1 does not support ReFS.
I just tried GT4 on it the other day and it's fairly buggy. Letters from menu items missing unless I manually enable some emulation clipping hacks, the ghost cars don't work at all, and the audio engine has popping noises fairly regularly. It's playable, but not even close to flawless.
Hardware wise, I've had way more issues with NVIDIA. Software/driver wise, they've both had their fair share of issues. Don't go near AMD Enduro systems...
Ask customers of the Zune, music covered by PlaysForSure, the Kin and various other products that I'm sure Microsoft thoroughly supported after abandoning them.
Yes, Melbourne is bigger, but that doesn't excuse the budget blowout (budgeted at $450M, ended up costing over $1.5B) and it is still being rolled out despite being originally scheduled for March 2007. It is also extremely unreliable and there's no way for tourists to get temporary tickets. It would have been cheaper for the government to just scrap ticketing altogether and provide free public transport. Or just leave things as they were with the older ticketing system and send a rover to Mars.
Amen. I'm in the same boat although on Microsoft platforms. The number of times I've filed a ticket only to have it closed as "won't fix", even for newer versions of Windows or Visual Studio... I cry myself to sleep at night
ARM is capable of performing at or near Jaguar levels.
That's something you are going to have to back up.
Comparison here. Okay, so the gap is a bit bigger than I remembered, but it's still in a similar ballpark. Unfortunately I couldn't find a more exhaustive comparison between them right now.
There's plenty of games out there already for iOS/Android so the architecture isn't a roadblock.
Plenty of games out there for 68K too. That does not mean it is as capable is x86. I do not care what games you play on your phone. They are not the same class as big PC games like Half Life. It is a simple fact that x86 has more raw power than ARM. There is no technical reason ARM could not be improved to a point that it is as powerful as x86 but it is not there now.
Architecture is a roadblock when one architecture provides serious performance gains.
NVIDIA doesn't have the option to make an x86 chip because they don't have a licence. ARM is capable of performing at or near Jaguar levels. Tegra 5 with Kepler graphics isn't exactly a secret.
Remember how well Cell worked out for IBM and Sony?
The Cell is not a general purpose chip. ARM is. There's plenty of games out there already for iOS/Android so the architecture isn't a roadblock.
There's nothing stopping NVIDIA creating a SteamBox using a Tegra with a massive GPU.
There's two things. First, no ARM core would keep up with it. Second, the IP for their massive GPUs is laden with agreeements with assholes like Microsoft.
I disagree. If 8 Bobcat derived cores can handle the PS4/XBox One, then a collection of high end ARM cores can handle a decent GPU (doesn't need to be Titan level). Also, NVIDIA already have their Kepler cores freed up for licensing so that won't be a roadblock for integrating with ARM.
There's nothing stopping NVIDIA creating a SteamBox using a Tegra with a massive GPU. The architecture doesn't make much difference when you need to recompile anyway (unless there's hand-tuned assembly, but that's not insurmountable). Why would NVIDIA do this? Because they're not in any of the big consoles, they don't have an x86 license, but they do have an ARM license. They've even shown a tendency to go this way with NVIDIA SHIELD.
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For the extreme example of the 90 degree bank, when the car is always tilted sideways in the complete loop, gravity will pull it down and the side railing of the track will hold it in place. If there was no gravity, the railing isn't strictly necessary. This situation describes the infinite gravity well of a black hole in the deformed rubber sheet analogy. In this case, yes, the curve will keep the objects from escaping orbit. If, however, the slope of the rubber sheet isn't vertical then no orbit is formed simply by the distortion of the shape. It can bend the path of light but cannot describe an orbit of a satellite or simply the falling of an object towards another object when the object initially starts with no momentum.
For the extreme example of the full loop you describe where the car is upside down at the top of the loop, the car needs to be going fast enough to counteract gravity at the top of the loop. The formula that describes this minimum speed is V^2 / R = g (V is minimum velocity at the top of the loop, R is radius of the loop, g is the gravitational acceleration that must be overcome). Notice that when the car is vertical gravity is pulling the car backwards, which causes it to slow down. It will speed up again by the same amount (if you ignore friction) at the other side of the loop as it's vertical facing downwards. This situation is completely different to the deformed rubber sheet analogy, I'm not even sure why you brought it up.
No it doesn't. The reason the bank exerts a sideways force on the car is because gravity pushes downwards, there's an equal and opposite resistive force from the road (Newton's Third Law), and since the road is not perpendicular to the gravitational force this has a vertical and horizontal component. Without gravity, there would be no horizontal component of the resistive force.
So what if the sheet is curved? Banking on a race track corner works due to gravity, not because of the shape of the curve.
No, it'd explode or melt the cables as the current draw would be too high.
Test your backups after you make them
Obviously.
it's a cheap and easy 99% solution
It's not a solution. It's a bare minimum requirement that doesn't solve for bitrot.
Honestly, I'd build two of these devices, one for local backups and I'd put one at a buddies house and do remote backups from your local device.
Oh what I'd do for usable upload bandwidth and reasonable data caps...
My understanding is that Storage Spaces is (as he says) MS's version of ZFS - does it not have the same data-checking features/ performance hit that 'regular' ZFS does?
No, it does not have the same data-checking features. Yes, it has a performance hit. Worst of both worlds. I've used it, and junked it as it was literally an order of magnitude slower than RAID5 via mdadm on Linux and didn't actually add any resiliency over RAID5 or flexibility as to grow an existing pool, you need to add multiple similarly sized drives since it doesn't rebalance. This is despite their marketing claims that you can add mismatched drives in an ad hoc fashion and have it "just work".
The only way to get Microsofts unproven resiliency benefits is to use ReFS in conjunction with mirroring (not parity) on the expensive server editions. Windows 8/8.1 does not support ReFS.
Don't PC games have DRM to prevent piracy? It's not bulletproof.
They are essentially just locked down PCs. They're tuned for memory bandwidth, but the fundamental architecture is largely the same.
I was under the impression Wine only did DX9c and that DX10+ was a work in progress.
I just tried GT4 on it the other day and it's fairly buggy. Letters from menu items missing unless I manually enable some emulation clipping hacks, the ghost cars don't work at all, and the audio engine has popping noises fairly regularly. It's playable, but not even close to flawless.
Hardware wise, I've had way more issues with NVIDIA. Software/driver wise, they've both had their fair share of issues. Don't go near AMD Enduro systems...
Alternatively put the disposable income in a savings account or some kind of investment scheme and statistically come out better off.
Ask customers of the Zune, music covered by PlaysForSure, the Kin and various other products that I'm sure Microsoft thoroughly supported after abandoning them.
An x86 mobile phone already is a thing.
They also take 24 hours or more to credit accounts with electronic funds paid in
A luxury. Myki typically takes 48 hours when topped up online.
Yes, Melbourne is bigger, but that doesn't excuse the budget blowout (budgeted at $450M, ended up costing over $1.5B) and it is still being rolled out despite being originally scheduled for March 2007. It is also extremely unreliable and there's no way for tourists to get temporary tickets. It would have been cheaper for the government to just scrap ticketing altogether and provide free public transport. Or just leave things as they were with the older ticketing system and send a rover to Mars.
Still cheaper than Myki
Amen. I'm in the same boat although on Microsoft platforms. The number of times I've filed a ticket only to have it closed as "won't fix", even for newer versions of Windows or Visual Studio... I cry myself to sleep at night
The room stays put while the signal "moves".
They have any passwords he would use on a regular basis - including any for keepass or similar password wallets.
If they had all the passwords, they wouldn't need to wait for him to log in to the notebook.
ARM is capable of performing at or near Jaguar levels.
That's something you are going to have to back up.
Comparison here. Okay, so the gap is a bit bigger than I remembered, but it's still in a similar ballpark. Unfortunately I couldn't find a more exhaustive comparison between them right now.
There's plenty of games out there already for iOS/Android so the architecture isn't a roadblock.
Plenty of games out there for 68K too. That does not mean it is as capable is x86. I do not care what games you play on your phone. They are not the same class as big PC games like Half Life. It is a simple fact that x86 has more raw power than ARM. There is no technical reason ARM could not be improved to a point that it is as powerful as x86 but it is not there now.
Architecture is a roadblock when one architecture provides serious performance gains.
Is Battlefield 3 on Tegra 5 capable enough for you?
Remember how well Cell worked out for IBM and Sony?
The Cell is not a general purpose chip. ARM is. There's plenty of games out there already for iOS/Android so the architecture isn't a roadblock.
There's nothing stopping NVIDIA creating a SteamBox using a Tegra with a massive GPU.
There's two things. First, no ARM core would keep up with it. Second, the IP for their massive GPUs is laden with agreeements with assholes like Microsoft.
I disagree. If 8 Bobcat derived cores can handle the PS4/XBox One, then a collection of high end ARM cores can handle a decent GPU (doesn't need to be Titan level). Also, NVIDIA already have their Kepler cores freed up for licensing so that won't be a roadblock for integrating with ARM.
There's nothing stopping NVIDIA creating a SteamBox using a Tegra with a massive GPU. The architecture doesn't make much difference when you need to recompile anyway (unless there's hand-tuned assembly, but that's not insurmountable). Why would NVIDIA do this? Because they're not in any of the big consoles, they don't have an x86 license, but they do have an ARM license. They've even shown a tendency to go this way with NVIDIA SHIELD.