Users would require special laser equipment that performs a function called dense wave division multiplexing.
This seems to be a case of using existing data lines, with higher priced gadgets at the end to send more data over one pipe. If that's true, then there are theoretical limits to be reached, but we're nowhere *near* the bandwidth capability of fiber, right?
What I'm getting at, is that the fiber optics that have been, and are being laid down right now will probably serve us for decades to come. The real innovation will be to create transmitters and receivers that can push and pull more data through those cables.
Therefore, since fewer new developments are likely to come in the physical fiber technology, but lots are expected in the tx/rx side of things, is it possible to figure out which companies are more strongly poised to profit from this phenomenon? Any ideas?
I would like to point out one small problem with this scenario... There were individuals who posted to the Hellmouth stories and emailed Jon Katz who were not regular Slashdot readers (the cretons:)
But seriously, by saying you have to email Hemos to have the comment removed, you are saying that they have to take the initiative to remove the comment. Unfortunately, since some people might never hear about this serial, some people won't get the option to have their comments removed, which is not right.
I think the proper way to do it is only use the quotes that you have email confirmation from, or you have talked to on the phone. You just can't assume that 'no comment' means 'yes'.
But I am looking forward very much to reading your serial, and stuffing it in the face of a few parental figures around here...:)
Be very careful when talking about virtual memory, because there are a couple details you have to be aware of. Virtual memory is actually the ability for a process to have its own address space. Older versions of QNX, and this new version DO support virtual memory. What you are talking about is swapping memory to disk. Most of us are used to Windoze thrashing away swapping pages to disk while we wait, and traditionally QNX doesn't support this because it's a RealTime OS, and you can't guarantee latency if you might have to swap a page in or out.
That having been said, I think this new version of QNX might be able to do page swapping, but don't quote me on that. I've been using QNX4 for a while now, and I've never run out of memory yet, and I have 64 megs.
As a PC maker, if I build a 'PC'with a celeron 300A and overclock it to 450, and sell you a '450 Mhz intel based system', what have you to complain about?
The distinction is subtle. If *I* bought a computer, cracked it open and found the chip had been overclocked, I would be upset, since I would have bought the computer with the assumption that the chip inside was *rated* to perform at the specified speed.
Perhaps a normal comsumer wouldn't care, but I sure would.
Actually, the problems that AMD and Intel have with overclockers are:
a) They don't like it when they get chips returned to the factory *melted*, with some 16 yr old novice claiming that they never oc'd it - it just burnt up all of a sudden.:)
b) They are really bothered by small PC makers selling computers as 600 MHz, that are really 500MHz overclocked to 600. AMD and Intel have a hard time proving that the PC maker did anything wrong because the chip is actually running at 600 MHz. So, when the companies talk about 'fighting overclockers', this is generally what they mean.
Intel has even said that they don't mind people overclocking their chips, so long as they realize that the warranty is void if it burns up.
As a hardware buff, I really like the sound of an Open Source hardware/software combo! This is a great project, and a good example of what can be accomplished, if you put your mind to subverting the norm. Great work!
That would be so cool! I imagine they would hook up these microchips to some kind of 'bluetooth'-like wireless network... and that means we could tap in, right? - perhaps add a few pounds to one guy, and give your cute date a little caffeine... oh man, this could be fun!
The two most popular of the series were the original (because there was nothing to compare it to) and the Next Generation. Why was TNG good? It had nothing to do with the premise, except that the show's premise left it open to *any* plotline for a show. You tuned in not knowing what the story was going to be about.
You see, with Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, each episode follows the previous. I don't want to get hooked on another Trek soap opera - I want a series!
Oh, and it would be nice if the core Trek audience - you know, us geeks - could actually admire the captain in the show. Bring back the swashbuckling captain! To h*ll with the prime directive! Punch it to Warp 9, not Warp 6! Diplomacy is when you shoot first, and throw the survivors in the brig! Come on! Bring back the spirit of Roddenberry! - end_rant
Writing a virus might be free speech, but unleashing that virus (which can cause damage) is still an act of vandalism. I imagine it's the same as the difference between free speech vs. libellous (sp?) comments.
How different is USB and Firewire in design from SCSI?
Good question. Basically, USB is a lot more versatile than SCSI, though there would be some debate over this, I'm sure.
With USB, there is no hardware configuration to be done - you can plug the devices into each other in any order, into the computer or a hub, and you can chain hubs. It's very simple for a user to connect things with USB. SCSI, on the other hand, requires you to set a device ID for each device (usually 0 to 7, I think) and each device in the chain has a priority associated with it, and that is fixed.
The real power of USB is how nice it is from a software driver point of view. If the host OS supports USB (and this would be the difficult part) then writing a device driver is easy. You get a clean software interface, and your driver isn't even loaded until the USB host driver has determined that your device has actually been connected and is receiving power. It's true plug and play (and hot pluggable). The host can even do power management, so even though you might not be able to run your printer and scanner at the same time, the host can power down the one that isn't in use, and allocate that power to the other device, all without you having to worry about it.
Needless to say, the easier it is for the end user, the more difficult it is for us...:)
Also, if you really want to see an amazing technology, check out BlueTooth! Wires of any kind might soon be a thing of the past.
Everyone wants to blame someone, but everyone is missing the point - it's Slashdot's fault! If Slashdot hadn't started all of this, no one would be upset!
Let's face it, the labels have had a monopoly on distribution long enough. The artists don't get much money from those CDs, and many artists aren't in it for the money, but rather the enjoyment of their art.
Now that the record labels don't have their monopoly on distribution, they had better start to compete. The ball is in their court now - they have to figure out what the distribution scheme that 'works' really is.
You are all missing the point of real AI. Neural Nets are the future of artificial intelligence, and they are far more advanced than anyone realizes. Have a look at these stock market forecasters.
Verifying compliance will also require that scientists and engineers adopt a strong code of ethical conduct, resembling the Hippocratic oath, and that they have the courage to whistleblow as necessary, even at high personal cost.
In some countries, not so backward as the USA (i.e. Canada) the Engineering profession is self regulated, and sets high standards of moral conduct within the profession. We all wear an iron ring to remind us of our obligation to our society, and to public safety. This is only possible because Engineering is a regulated profession in Canada... only someone who has passed an ethics exam and is accredited with the necessary knowledge can call themselves a professional engineer.
As usual, the rest of the world would do well to look to Canada as an example.
This is going to sound crazy, but it was background cosmic radiation that it was talking about. It would pretty much go through any shielding except thick lead. It was also talking about densities of memory (i.e. DRAM) since radiation *could* actually slightly charge, or cause to discharge the capacitor holding the bit value. It's a one in _whatever_ chance, but since Moore's Law seems to be holding, we keep getting closer and closer to that _whatever_ value.
Actually, the article I read was talking about susceptibility to background radiation. If information density is low, then radiation doesn't pose much of a threat, but as the physical size of 'one bit' gets smaller, it becomes easier for stray radiation to do enough damage to erase that single bit of data. I assume, however, that this could be fixed with adequate shielding.
I seem to remember reading an article in a magazine saying that data error rates depend more upon physical disk size than anything else, and that as information density increases, the mean time between errors decreases drastically. Thus, bigger hard drives = more hard drive crashes.
Does anyone else have information on this, or remember where the article was?
I think it's time that "Gnutella v2.0: the Phoenix" is reborn from the ashes. The download didn't have the source (or did it) so someone who's interested in starting an open source project... here's your chance! Let's do it right this time.
Boys are wilder and more aggressive. So when there is computer time available, they will push the girls off. If teachers and parents don't do something about that, the girls won't fight back.
I must complain about the above quote. The whole article is written by someone very very good at 'newspeak' - always evading questions and giving answers with absolutely no real content.
The above comment, however, obviously shows a dislike for the very *nature* of being male. The author is saying we should stop boys from being agressive, instead of saying that a medium amount of agression, properly harnessed, is a good thing that we should be encouraging in girls. It's the difference between positive and negative reinforcement... are the boys doing anything wrong by trying to monopolize the computer? No. That's what boys do. Should we be protecting girls from boys (especially from the computer geeks?)? Probably not.
To accept the above quote would be to degrade the women who are 'wilder and more agressive', and I'm not willing to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
This seems to be a case of using existing data lines, with higher priced gadgets at the end to send more data over one pipe. If that's true, then there are theoretical limits to be reached, but we're nowhere *near* the bandwidth capability of fiber, right?
What I'm getting at, is that the fiber optics that have been, and are being laid down right now will probably serve us for decades to come. The real innovation will be to create transmitters and receivers that can push and pull more data through those cables.
Therefore, since fewer new developments are likely to come in the physical fiber technology, but lots are expected in the tx/rx side of things, is it possible to figure out which companies are more strongly poised to profit from this phenomenon? Any ideas?
I would like to point out one small problem with this scenario... There were individuals who posted to the Hellmouth stories and emailed Jon Katz who were not regular Slashdot readers (the cretons :)
But seriously, by saying you have to email Hemos to have the comment removed, you are saying that they have to take the initiative to remove the comment. Unfortunately, since some people might never hear about this serial, some people won't get the option to have their comments removed, which is not right.
I think the proper way to do it is only use the quotes that you have email confirmation from, or you have talked to on the phone. You just can't assume that 'no comment' means 'yes'.
But I am looking forward very much to reading your serial, and stuffing it in the face of a few parental figures around here... :)
Be very careful when talking about virtual memory, because there are a couple details you have to be aware of. Virtual memory is actually the ability for a process to have its own address space. Older versions of QNX, and this new version DO support virtual memory. What you are talking about is swapping memory to disk. Most of us are used to Windoze thrashing away swapping pages to disk while we wait, and traditionally QNX doesn't support this because it's a RealTime OS, and you can't guarantee latency if you might have to swap a page in or out.
That having been said, I think this new version of QNX might be able to do page swapping, but don't quote me on that. I've been using QNX4 for a while now, and I've never run out of memory yet, and I have 64 megs.
The distinction is subtle. If *I* bought a computer, cracked it open and found the chip had been overclocked, I would be upset, since I would have bought the computer with the assumption that the chip inside was *rated* to perform at the specified speed.
Perhaps a normal comsumer wouldn't care, but I sure would.
Actually, the problems that AMD and Intel have with overclockers are:
a) They don't like it when they get chips returned to the factory *melted*, with some 16 yr old novice claiming that they never oc'd it - it just burnt up all of a sudden. :)
b) They are really bothered by small PC makers selling computers as 600 MHz, that are really 500MHz overclocked to 600. AMD and Intel have a hard time proving that the PC maker did anything wrong because the chip is actually running at 600 MHz. So, when the companies talk about 'fighting overclockers', this is generally what they mean.
Intel has even said that they don't mind people overclocking their chips, so long as they realize that the warranty is void if it burns up.
It isn't good practice to quote your mother without giving her proper credit. I hear she takes VISA now...
As a hardware buff, I really like the sound of an Open Source hardware/software combo! This is a great project, and a good example of what can be accomplished, if you put your mind to subverting the norm. Great work!
That would be so cool! I imagine they would hook up these microchips to some kind of 'bluetooth'-like wireless network... and that means we could tap in, right? - perhaps add a few pounds to one guy, and give your cute date a little caffeine... oh man, this could be fun!
Why do Chinese proverbs have to translate to broken English?
There, I fixed it... only now it doesn't fit on one line. Doh!
I assume it's in broken English so that it pisses off all the Chinese people out there. ;)
The two most popular of the series were the original (because there was nothing to compare it to) and the Next Generation. Why was TNG good? It had nothing to do with the premise, except that the show's premise left it open to *any* plotline for a show. You tuned in not knowing what the story was going to be about.
You see, with Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, each episode follows the previous. I don't want to get hooked on another Trek soap opera - I want a series!
Oh, and it would be nice if the core Trek audience - you know, us geeks - could actually admire the captain in the show. Bring back the swashbuckling captain! To h*ll with the prime directive! Punch it to Warp 9, not Warp 6! Diplomacy is when you shoot first, and throw the survivors in the brig! Come on! Bring back the spirit of Roddenberry! - end_rant
Writing a virus might be free speech, but unleashing that virus (which can cause damage) is still an act of vandalism. I imagine it's the same as the difference between free speech vs. libellous (sp?) comments.
Quake III Arena, baby! It's all about framerate! -- and perhaps ping times...
Good question. Basically, USB is a lot more versatile than SCSI, though there would be some debate over this, I'm sure.
With USB, there is no hardware configuration to be done - you can plug the devices into each other in any order, into the computer or a hub, and you can chain hubs. It's very simple for a user to connect things with USB. SCSI, on the other hand, requires you to set a device ID for each device (usually 0 to 7, I think) and each device in the chain has a priority associated with it, and that is fixed.
The real power of USB is how nice it is from a software driver point of view. If the host OS supports USB (and this would be the difficult part) then writing a device driver is easy. You get a clean software interface, and your driver isn't even loaded until the USB host driver has determined that your device has actually been connected and is receiving power. It's true plug and play (and hot pluggable). The host can even do power management, so even though you might not be able to run your printer and scanner at the same time, the host can power down the one that isn't in use, and allocate that power to the other device, all without you having to worry about it.
Needless to say, the easier it is for the end user, the more difficult it is for us... :)
Also, if you really want to see an amazing technology, check out BlueTooth! Wires of any kind might soon be a thing of the past.
This is great... can we get it donated to the 'save Iridium' site?
Everyone wants to blame someone, but everyone is missing the point - it's Slashdot's fault! If Slashdot hadn't started all of this, no one would be upset!
Just kiddin'.... {ducks his head}
Let's face it, the labels have had a monopoly on distribution long enough. The artists don't get much money from those CDs, and many artists aren't in it for the money, but rather the enjoyment of their art.
Now that the record labels don't have their monopoly on distribution, they had better start to compete. The ball is in their court now - they have to figure out what the distribution scheme that 'works' really is.
You are all missing the point of real AI. Neural Nets are the future of artificial intelligence, and they are far more advanced than anyone realizes. Have a look at these stock market forecasters.
Verifying compliance will also require that scientists and engineers adopt a strong code of ethical conduct, resembling the Hippocratic oath, and that they have the courage to whistleblow as necessary, even at high personal cost.
In some countries, not so backward as the USA (i.e. Canada) the Engineering profession is self regulated, and sets high standards of moral conduct within the profession. We all wear an iron ring to remind us of our obligation to our society, and to public safety. This is only possible because Engineering is a regulated profession in Canada... only someone who has passed an ethics exam and is accredited with the necessary knowledge can call themselves a professional engineer.
As usual, the rest of the world would do well to look to Canada as an example.
This is going to sound crazy, but it was background cosmic radiation that it was talking about. It would pretty much go through any shielding except thick lead. It was also talking about densities of memory (i.e. DRAM) since radiation *could* actually slightly charge, or cause to discharge the capacitor holding the bit value. It's a one in _whatever_ chance, but since Moore's Law seems to be holding, we keep getting closer and closer to that _whatever_ value.
Actually, the article I read was talking about susceptibility to background radiation. If information density is low, then radiation doesn't pose much of a threat, but as the physical size of 'one bit' gets smaller, it becomes easier for stray radiation to do enough damage to erase that single bit of data. I assume, however, that this could be fixed with adequate shielding.
I seem to remember reading an article in a magazine saying that data error rates depend more upon physical disk size than anything else, and that as information density increases, the mean time between errors decreases drastically. Thus, bigger hard drives = more hard drive crashes.
Does anyone else have information on this, or remember where the article was?
Red Hat really is turning into Microsoft... "We are delaying Linux Expo 2000 'till 2001." I assume it won't be called Linux Expo 2000 anymore...
I think it's time that "Gnutella v2.0: the Phoenix" is reborn from the ashes. The download didn't have the source (or did it) so someone who's interested in starting an open source project... here's your chance! Let's do it right this time.
I must complain about the above quote. The whole article is written by someone very very good at 'newspeak' - always evading questions and giving answers with absolutely no real content.
The above comment, however, obviously shows a dislike for the very *nature* of being male. The author is saying we should stop boys from being agressive, instead of saying that a medium amount of agression, properly harnessed, is a good thing that we should be encouraging in girls. It's the difference between positive and negative reinforcement... are the boys doing anything wrong by trying to monopolize the computer? No. That's what boys do. Should we be protecting girls from boys (especially from the computer geeks?)? Probably not.
To accept the above quote would be to degrade the women who are 'wilder and more agressive', and I'm not willing to do that.
Ha ha ha! This is the funniest thing I've read in ages!!!
Bravo! :-) Give it to 'dem 'Mericans!