The long process of building nukes doesnt rely on Relativistic equations alone. At the least, simulating the molecules and sub-atomic particles, and other statistical equations lend themselves to the equations by Schroedinger, Heisenburg and the long line that follows.
Maybe I'm naiive, but I remember introductory text on Quantum Mechanics, both by John Gribbin and Feynman tells you NOT to try imagine the going ons in for instance, the double-slit experiment. Working with the math alone is the key to Quantum Mechanics, or at least NOT letting your 3d imagination butt-in and spoil the calculations. Perhaps thats what you mean by 'develop an intuition'.
Exactly what I meant by 'flexible' brain. Instead of sitting in a quite place and trying to imagine a flashlight firing photons while travelling at c, we come up with Hilbert Space equations, power up the pirated Mathematica and just work with the numbers. Only AFTER we get a working mathematical description, do we try to decipher the meaning of the thing and see if theres a new science there. The fact that we have'nt pinned down Quantum Mechanics in our heads means we're onto something big, thats already been proven in the last 100 years, but we STILL dont get Quantum Physics, and more surprises are coming.
Through the wave of all the 2002-1900=100 jokes here, I would like to salute Mankinds greatest discovery, Qauntum Physics. This shows teh flexibility of the human brain, able to work with 4 dimensions (Relativity) to now (26 dimensions), and even something as strange as Quantum Mechanics, that defies our imagination and relies purely on reasoning, yet so powerful, it gave us the best of the last century's inventions, including the device you're staring at.
Quantum Mechanics is more than the kind of Physics that allows engineers to make locomotives. Its even more than what allowed us to land on the moon. As a warmer, we get nukes and the mighty computer. This physics promises us glimpses of the time the Universe was born, the quantum computer, time travel, teleportation, and many other things we have'nt imagined yet.
Physics has always been the foundation of knowledge, and it was replaced 100 years ago (+- 2 years). I think we're in for much bigger surprises this century.
Ironically downtimes create IT appreciation
on
The New IT Crisis
·
· Score: 1
The small office where I work (30 hosts), had a series of problems a while ago, mainly due to bad quality cabling, and a tree of hubs were replaced by a large switch. We had netbios storms, and the constant netbios elections made browsing almost impossible(some worms from win2k systems also blasted their stuff in broadcast). For about a week, we had daily problems, till all browsing was replaced by static lmhosts in each system, static IPs and better cables.
After the ordeal, the management asked me which ystems were the bottleneck, and all pentium1 hosts were replaced by DELL P3s, plus money was spent on other improvements like a dedicated Linux server for printing/files and a host of other things.
The bottom line is network problems DO contribut to the appreciation of tech workers, although causing deliberate troubles is VERY unethical. This is ironic and unfortunate. Theres no standard on how to measure the productivity and efficiency of IT workers, mainly due to the young age of this field of work.
Well, before 30 years, they made it clear that they could land on the moon. Several missions there fed the public's appetite till popular culture of mankind extended its jurisdiction to include the moon in our civilizations. That was worth spending billions of dollars, now they just dont need to do anything else there, at least nothing on the scale that would pin the whole planet to their boob tubes.
Theyre thinking of mining there or finding water. Or even better. I'm sure most of the slashdot crowd would accept paying slightly higher taxes to make that happen, but the tired factory worker or the bankrupt wall-st investor couldnt care less about the composition of rocks on moon.
Perhaps sending people to Mars will bring the same kind of thrill, but still would'nt be the first big break from gravity, going to the first heavenly body we were'nt born on.
If people paid taxes for big science, the ISS would'nt be having financial troubles. They need entertainment!
The wintel world (win9x) needs something that can get Gator and friends out the door. Ive had Gator, Netdotdomains, and a hoard of other spyware install itself, take the free system resources from 95% to 65%, and not get out. Anitivirus software just cannot detect it.
Can make it in SDL where a 3d world is synched between all computers, only the cameras in the 3d world depend on where the actual screen is physically located. Measure the coordinates of the monitors, and use the coordinates as arguments to the screen saver.
How about a racetrack of rc cars racing from screen to screen. Maybe with sound too.
by removing security from Windows2000? As in guest login with no passwd or no passwds at all for any user??
Setup a web page interface to a database that maps peoples names, zip codes, mothers maiden names, creditcard nos and passwords. Better yet add a phone interface, this will be cheaper and better than a full-fledged helpdesk.
At the least you could put up a webpage that allows users to reset their passwords to their credit card numbers or SS no. Simple effective and stable web/phone interfaces will do a better job than helpdesk staff.
All this is assuming you have LDAP or other central authentication service. If you do not, hire me:) or just about anyone else on slashdot.
I'm setting up a value web-hosting system in the next 6 months using Fractional T1.. and one of the plans is to run all submitted HTML code through the validator script, and add a warning message at the bottom of the page if it has errors. This will be mentioned in the SLA.
Just doing my part to put the standards back into the web.
I've done some reading on these and Ive come up with:
(1) Threads are in the same process, so you would see just 1 in ps ax. (2) Threads are new. Not many apps use it and older linuxen dont either. (3) Everything is shared btw threads. (4) Threads are a part of POSIX standard
I know nothing else. I couldnt find the why and how of it, and what condition will warrant the use of threads but not processes. Can someone give a clear and convincing reason to use threads over processes??(despite the overhead of learning it, and some incompatibilities across ports)
I could be rich if they take it back. Do they take back older Windows 3.1 95 and MSDOS??
Hey I could just goto my clients, for $5 have them sign something that declares they sell their OS to me, give em CDRs of windows, take the originals and give em to M$. I could be the next Bill Gates;). Hope M$ agents do not read slashdot.
Just checked out interix.com, its a new name for their older UNIX Migration tools. Sure its a UNIX environment but not a UNIX-base system. It has to run on top of Win2k inheriting all the instability and such. It is fully designed to part companies and their UNIXen, not provide a robust server environment. Although this piece of software and their programmers and engineers can be used to build a MS Linux, but they already have all those people running hotmail and their development servers using UN*X.
I searched alot for xenix over 10 years ago, before I caught sight of linux, and still looking for it for the sake of experience and addition to my collection. I would also love to use my antique XT computer. ELKS and minix have not impressed me, plus theyre not "UNIX". Do you have a xenix copy lying around? Anyone selling it?
Ive tried looking for IDE drives focusing on stability.. mayb single-platter, 5400 or lower speed, low power, low density drives which can be guaranteed for about 5 years. Companies have reduced their warranties from 3 to 1 year, I'm sure a niche market will take drives with 5 yr warranties even with higher perMB costs, lower speeds etc. I remember seeing a thin maxtor 10GB drive inthe store the other day, single platter and not too fast, and this was manufactured last year (me thinks). Its relative simplicity should make it more stable, a mirror RAID of these will be perfect for servers. It would be nice to see a company step forward, offer maybe larger 5.25" single platter 4-40GB low-power drives that focus on stability and provide wannaties of at least 5 years. I never felt comfortable with the new ATA133 700mA 7200 drives which along with a geforce3 card and athlon processor needs a 400W power supply and extra fans. Think of running this in Pakistan where the temp touches 50C in summer.
For a longer term solution, gold-plated CDRs should work for a long time. Anyone has ideas for mediums that will work after being stored for 200 years at STP? Should be made of plastic, maybe gold plated, but I dont know what glue can be used to bind them together. Wouldnt the gold peel of after the effects of several seasons and humidity levels? Can it possibly oxidise in contact with plastic? Should we add glass? Or maybe cover the entire thing in glass making for a heavy robust CD??
Has to be some company out there that sells medium to write messages on for your great^5 grandchildren.
Paper too (acid free or not) can turn brown and is susceptible to bugs eating through it. The best way to store data is punch cards made of plastic. Maybe this can be shrunk to use needles to pinch holes into the plastic, but plastic should be thick enough to withstand time, weather, bugs etc. Of course it shouldnt be bio or chemodegradable.
Perhaps CDs made of gold film (or platinum) will work. The plastic of ordiniary CDs is good enough, but the metallic layer isnt. Certainly shouldnt be silver- or aluminium based. I'm sure it doesnt take much gold to plate a side of a CD and shouldnt need too powerful a laser to burn it.
Then again I'm assuming the laser will burn the plastic thats in contact with the gold, not oxidise the gold itself since that wouldnt work, else we can try building cdRW with more powerufl lasers. By all means the CD should be readable in normal drives since the company that makes these new CDs and CDRWs could be gone by the time someone needs the data.
If you have problems with the oltr driver why don't you stop whining about it Read the title of my post. I'm 'hoping' it gets the driver support on Linux's scale. This is'nt whining.
I shopped around and specifically bought an Olicom 3140 which I saw in LINT to use TR in linux. So yes, I know oltr exists and in alpha stage. This setup worked for over a year under heavy loads, but I still cannot take a crash a month on a production server. I'm not blaming FreeBSD, I'm blaming the flaky driver.
Yes I subimtted bug reports. Apparently not many people are working on it so there.
Run linux happily? I installed FreeBSD in the first place because I was happy with it and most of its functionality and stability over Linux and Solaris.
I know BSDers (I've always considered myself one too) have gotten very itchy over remarks over its shortcomings. Theres nothing really to flame about especially over expressing hope over its future developments. Read the comments posted again till you realize theres no reason to attack me. I gave full due credit to FreeBSD and Linux where they deserved.
I was predicting this some time ago.. Microsoft getting a UNIX clone, maybe BeOS and merging it with windows, maybe buying out lindows and codeweavers,transgaming along the way. I thought this will happen closer to 2010, after losing billions.
They will do wonders for Linux but they'll make sure some proprietary software cannot be cloned from their OS. Their quality obviously doesnt compare to others in the market, they'll use their x86/win32 software compatibility platform to the max of their interests, to find a way and remonopolize the market. Their programmers are learning their lessons but not the chiefs (Gates still has the same hairdo).
Desktop aside, they've definitely already lost the server market and fast losing the embedded. The vast majority of x86/win95 users will stick to windows98se for a while, till M$ gets linux incorporated or till wine is mature enough to defeat M$ in a bloody coup.
Okay Okay apologies.. Jesus. Look at all these BSDers attacking me. I was wrong about the filesystem, but it would still be nice to have a journal on it. I HAVE lost files in FreeBSD due to buggy oltr driver crashing the kernel.
Secondly my main point was lack of TR support. Is anyone here going to contest me about this?
Thirdly I mentioned "Linux trailblazer with featues" which is something FreeBSDers cant deny. At the cost of some stability they HAVE something that runs on Ericsson phones and IBM pServers, and is fast pushing to become a Desktop OS. I tired FreeBSD for the sake of simplicity and stability, and in these arenas I remain satisfied. Only my requirements changed and I need both TokenRing and ArcNet support. My com90xx card which is running in Linux wasnt detected in FreeBSD, TR was a disaster since the driver is so alpha. This is why I was "hoping" for more drivers and framebuffers, DRI, soundcards, HPOJ laserjet printer etc. So instead of flamebaiting FreeBSD elitists, I'll just sit tight in a corner, wait till FreeBSD gains these features and then reinstall it.
Please enter tech-topics, else topics related to techies like caffine molecules, dating HOWTOs and pushing Linux in Govts. Please do not post news fit for CNN but not here.
I'm aiming for RHCE so I have to use RedHat, and this is the only way to get a decent filesystem. Considering the news of ext3 unstability, still more reason to walk the path of XFS
Hmm.. And I thought programming for Plan9 and playing aalib Quake on a remote terminal qualifies me as an Ubergeek. Seems like I'm learning something new everyday. Now I'll have to start making beer and drink it too.
Checkout the percentage of people using IRC. Remember 94-96? When IRC was the coolest reason to get online? Why did people stop using IRC since then? Security, and being blocked from channels you never offended/visited.
Effnet is packed due to the fast growing size of the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
The long process of building nukes doesnt rely on Relativistic equations alone. At the least, simulating the molecules and sub-atomic particles, and other statistical equations lend themselves to the equations by Schroedinger, Heisenburg and the long line that follows.
Maybe I'm naiive, but I remember introductory text on Quantum Mechanics, both by John Gribbin and Feynman tells you NOT to try imagine the going ons in for instance, the double-slit experiment. Working with the math alone is the key to Quantum Mechanics, or at least NOT letting your 3d imagination butt-in and spoil the calculations. Perhaps thats what you mean by 'develop an intuition'.
Exactly what I meant by 'flexible' brain. Instead of sitting in a quite place and trying to imagine a flashlight firing photons while travelling at c, we come up with Hilbert Space equations, power up the pirated Mathematica and just work with the numbers. Only AFTER we get a working mathematical description, do we try to decipher the meaning of the thing and see if theres a new science there. The fact that we have'nt pinned down Quantum Mechanics in our heads means we're onto something big, thats already been proven in the last 100 years, but we STILL dont get Quantum Physics, and more surprises are coming.
I never let it get into Future tech 1.. just swithc science to 0% and tax to 100% and start building battleships in all cities, or else the spaceship.
Through the wave of all the 2002-1900=100 jokes here, I would like to salute Mankinds greatest discovery, Qauntum Physics. This shows teh flexibility of the human brain, able to work with 4 dimensions (Relativity) to now (26 dimensions), and even something as strange as Quantum Mechanics, that defies our imagination and relies purely on reasoning, yet so powerful, it gave us the best of the last century's inventions, including the device you're staring at.
Quantum Mechanics is more than the kind of Physics that allows engineers to make locomotives. Its even more than what allowed us to land on the moon. As a warmer, we get nukes and the mighty computer. This physics promises us glimpses of the time the Universe was born, the quantum computer, time travel, teleportation, and many other things we have'nt imagined yet.
Physics has always been the foundation of knowledge, and it was replaced 100 years ago (+- 2 years). I think we're in for much bigger surprises this century.
The small office where I work (30 hosts), had a series of problems a while ago, mainly due to bad quality cabling, and a tree of hubs were replaced by a large switch. We had netbios storms, and the constant netbios elections made browsing almost impossible(some worms from win2k systems also blasted their stuff in broadcast). For about a week, we had daily problems, till all browsing was replaced by static lmhosts in each system, static IPs and better cables.
After the ordeal, the management asked me which ystems were the bottleneck, and all pentium1 hosts were replaced by DELL P3s, plus money was spent on other improvements like a dedicated Linux server for printing/files and a host of other things.
The bottom line is network problems DO contribut to the appreciation of tech workers, although causing deliberate troubles is VERY unethical. This is ironic and unfortunate. Theres no standard on how to measure the productivity and efficiency of IT workers, mainly due to the young age of this field of work.
Well, before 30 years, they made it clear that they could land on the moon. Several missions there fed the public's appetite till popular culture of mankind extended its jurisdiction to include the moon in our civilizations. That was worth spending billions of dollars, now they just dont need to do anything else there, at least nothing on the scale that would pin the whole planet to their boob tubes.
Theyre thinking of mining there or finding water. Or even better. I'm sure most of the slashdot crowd would accept paying slightly higher taxes to make that happen, but the tired factory worker or the bankrupt wall-st investor couldnt care less about the composition of rocks on moon.
Perhaps sending people to Mars will bring the same kind of thrill, but still would'nt be the first big break from gravity, going to the first heavenly body we were'nt born on.
If people paid taxes for big science, the ISS would'nt be having financial troubles. They need entertainment!
The wintel world (win9x) needs something that can get Gator and friends out the door. Ive had Gator, Netdotdomains, and a hoard of other spyware install itself, take the free system resources from 95% to 65%, and not get out. Anitivirus software just cannot detect it.
Make one yourself.
Can make it in SDL where a 3d world is synched between all computers, only the cameras in the 3d world depend on where the actual screen is physically located. Measure the coordinates of the monitors, and use the coordinates as arguments to the screen saver.
How about a racetrack of rc cars racing from screen to screen. Maybe with sound too.
by removing security from Windows2000? As in guest login with no passwd or no passwds at all for any user??
:) or just about anyone else on slashdot.
Setup a web page interface to a database that maps peoples names, zip codes, mothers maiden names, creditcard nos and passwords. Better yet add a phone interface, this will be cheaper and better than a full-fledged helpdesk.
At the least you could put up a webpage that allows users to reset their passwords to their credit card numbers or SS no. Simple effective and stable web/phone interfaces will do a better job than helpdesk staff.
All this is assuming you have LDAP or other central authentication service. If you do not, hire me
Do not patronize my business.
I'm setting up a value web-hosting system in the next 6 months using Fractional T1.. and one of the plans is to run all submitted HTML code through the validator script, and add a warning message at the bottom of the page if it has errors. This will be mentioned in the SLA.
Just doing my part to put the standards back into the web.
I've done some reading on these and Ive come up with:
(1) Threads are in the same process, so you would see just 1 in ps ax.
(2) Threads are new. Not many apps use it and older linuxen dont either.
(3) Everything is shared btw threads.
(4) Threads are a part of POSIX standard
I know nothing else. I couldnt find the why and how of it, and what condition will warrant the use of threads but not processes. Can someone give a clear and convincing reason to use threads over processes??(despite the overhead of learning it, and some incompatibilities across ports)
I could be rich if they take it back. Do they take back older Windows 3.1 95 and MSDOS??
Hey I could just goto my clients, for $5 have them sign something that declares they sell their OS to me, give em CDRs of windows, take the originals and give em to M$. I could be the next Bill Gates
Just checked out interix.com, its a new name for their older UNIX Migration tools. Sure its a UNIX environment but not a UNIX-base system. It has to run on top of Win2k inheriting all the instability and such. It is fully designed to part companies and their UNIXen, not provide a robust server environment. Although this piece of software and their programmers and engineers can be used to build a MS Linux, but they already have all those people running hotmail and their development servers using UN*X.
I searched alot for xenix over 10 years ago, before I caught sight of linux, and still looking for it for the sake of experience and addition to my collection. I would also love to use my antique XT computer. ELKS and minix have not impressed me, plus theyre not "UNIX". Do you have a xenix copy lying around? Anyone selling it?
Ive tried looking for IDE drives focusing on stability.. mayb single-platter, 5400 or lower speed, low power, low density drives which can be guaranteed for about 5 years. Companies have reduced their warranties from 3 to 1 year, I'm sure a niche market will take drives with 5 yr warranties even with higher perMB costs, lower speeds etc. I remember seeing a thin maxtor 10GB drive inthe store the other day, single platter and not too fast, and this was manufactured last year (me thinks). Its relative simplicity should make it more stable, a mirror RAID of these will be perfect for servers. It would be nice to see a company step forward, offer maybe larger 5.25" single platter 4-40GB low-power drives that focus on stability and provide wannaties of at least 5 years. I never felt comfortable with the new ATA133 700mA 7200 drives which along with a geforce3 card and athlon processor needs a 400W power supply and extra fans. Think of running this in Pakistan where the temp touches 50C in summer.
For a longer term solution, gold-plated CDRs should work for a long time. Anyone has ideas for mediums that will work after being stored for 200 years at STP? Should be made of plastic, maybe gold plated, but I dont know what glue can be used to bind them together. Wouldnt the gold peel of after the effects of several seasons and humidity levels? Can it possibly oxidise in contact with plastic? Should we add glass? Or maybe cover the entire thing in glass making for a heavy robust CD??
Has to be some company out there that sells medium to write messages on for your great^5 grandchildren.
Paper too (acid free or not) can turn brown and is susceptible to bugs eating through it. The best way to store data is punch cards made of plastic. Maybe this can be shrunk to use needles to pinch holes into the plastic, but plastic should be thick enough to withstand time, weather, bugs etc. Of course it shouldnt be bio or chemodegradable.
Perhaps CDs made of gold film (or platinum) will work. The plastic of ordiniary CDs is good enough, but the metallic layer isnt. Certainly shouldnt be silver- or aluminium based. I'm sure it doesnt take much gold to plate a side of a CD and shouldnt need too powerful a laser to burn it.
Then again I'm assuming the laser will burn the plastic thats in contact with the gold, not oxidise the gold itself since that wouldnt work, else we can try building cdRW with more powerufl lasers. By all means the CD should be readable in normal drives since the company that makes these new CDs and CDRWs could be gone by the time someone needs the data.
I'm thinking centuries not 10 years of retention.
If you have problems with the oltr driver why don't you stop whining about it
Read the title of my post. I'm 'hoping' it gets the driver support on Linux's scale. This is'nt whining.
I shopped around and specifically bought an Olicom 3140 which I saw in LINT to use TR in linux. So yes, I know oltr exists and in alpha stage. This setup worked for over a year under heavy loads, but I still cannot take a crash a month on a production server. I'm not blaming FreeBSD, I'm blaming the flaky driver.
Yes I subimtted bug reports. Apparently not many people are working on it so there.
Run linux happily? I installed FreeBSD in the first place because I was happy with it and most of its functionality and stability over Linux and Solaris.
I know BSDers (I've always considered myself one too) have gotten very itchy over remarks over its shortcomings. Theres nothing really to flame about especially over expressing hope over its future developments. Read the comments posted again till you realize theres no reason to attack me. I gave full due credit to FreeBSD and Linux where they deserved.
Okay.
I was predicting this some time ago.. Microsoft getting a UNIX clone, maybe BeOS and merging it with windows, maybe buying out lindows and codeweavers,transgaming along the way. I thought this will happen closer to 2010, after losing billions.
They will do wonders for Linux but they'll make sure some proprietary software cannot be cloned from their OS. Their quality obviously doesnt compare to others in the market, they'll use their x86/win32 software compatibility platform to the max of their interests, to find a way and remonopolize the market. Their programmers are learning their lessons but not the chiefs (Gates still has the same hairdo).
Desktop aside, they've definitely already lost the server market and fast losing the embedded. The vast majority of x86/win95 users will stick to windows98se for a while, till M$ gets linux incorporated or till wine is mature enough to defeat M$ in a bloody coup.
Okay Okay apologies.. Jesus.
Look at all these BSDers attacking me. I was wrong about the filesystem, but it would still be nice to have a journal on it. I HAVE lost files in FreeBSD due to buggy oltr driver crashing the kernel.
Secondly my main point was lack of TR support. Is anyone here going to contest me about this?
Thirdly I mentioned "Linux trailblazer with featues" which is something FreeBSDers cant deny. At the cost of some stability they HAVE something that runs on Ericsson phones and IBM pServers, and is fast pushing to become a Desktop OS. I tired FreeBSD for the sake of simplicity and stability, and in these arenas I remain satisfied. Only my requirements changed and I need both TokenRing and ArcNet support. My com90xx card which is running in Linux wasnt detected in FreeBSD, TR was a disaster since the driver is so alpha. This is why I was "hoping" for more drivers and framebuffers, DRI, soundcards, HPOJ laserjet printer etc. So instead of flamebaiting FreeBSD elitists, I'll just sit tight in a corner, wait till FreeBSD gains these features and then reinstall it.
Please enter tech-topics, else topics related to techies like caffine molecules, dating HOWTOs and pushing Linux in Govts. Please do not post news fit for CNN but not here.
Yes you have to.
I'm aiming for RHCE so I have to use RedHat, and this is the only way to get a decent filesystem. Considering the news of ext3 unstability, still more reason to walk the path of XFS
Hmm.. And I thought programming for Plan9 and playing aalib Quake on a remote terminal qualifies me as an Ubergeek. Seems like I'm learning something new everyday. Now I'll have to start making beer and drink it too.
Darn peer pressure.
Checkout the percentage of people using IRC. Remember 94-96? When IRC was the coolest reason to get online? Why did people stop using IRC since then? Security, and being blocked from channels you never offended/visited.
Effnet is packed due to the fast growing size of the Internet.