It's not quite that simple though. It's more tied to memory speed. The processors are improving at a faster rate than the memory is- and this clock tick is more related to memory speed.
The reason is that across a scheduling tick the processors cache gets flushed and reloaded. This means that you end up doing a burst of memory reads, and that will dominate if the clock tick is too short.
Yeah, well he's only human. Let's face it, the job he had, he could have screwed up a trillion different ways- and he mostly succeeded at this one- the monopoly charges still stick, and there's still big issues for Microsoft from this.
Bearing in mind the administration change in the whitehouse, that's probably the best he could have expected.
Just filling the water bottle 1/3 with water and pumping it up with a hand pump can give over 100 ft, fairly easily- the record is 1000 ft for a two stage water rocket. Why make life more complicated?
"Solar energy is global. The people in Japan have the same amount of sunlight as the people in America. It's a very equalizing source of energy. Your neighbor has as much as you. You don't have more than your neighbor, unless [they] have more trees."
They've clearly never been to Scotland then. If it's raining 'all' the time you genuinely do have less sunlight;-)
Neat. Saw a talk by your group at Space Access 2002. Love the pongsat concept, it's very clever, and it's on just the right side of that insane/genius divide;-)
By the time a rocket gets anywhere near a city it's already burnt most or all its fuel- you don't take off near a city in the first place; and rockets burn most of their fuel very early on.
Also the amount of fuel onboard a rocket is typically about the same as a 767 in fact, and aeroplanes can carry most of it right into the heart of New York, as you will have seen, but rockets can't do that.
There's also a spaceport in Oklahoma, and the state gives tax breaks for people who move their rocketry stuff there. Launch licenses are also somewhat easier to obtain. I happen to know John Carmack was considering doing some of his stuff there.
The person of one nation should be subject ONLY to that nations laws. If he does nothing illegal by that nation's laws, he should not be arrested in another nation he visited simply because he did something in his homeland which violated that nations laws.
You can't be serious! In Japan the age of consent is 14, in Moslem countries it's even lower! In the UK the legal drinking age is 18. There's not exactly such a thing as copyright in China, so is it OK for chinese to come across and start manufacturing CDs? During WWII would it have been ok for the germans to go into America and carry on 'purifying'?
You're crazy! If anything they should have to follow both sets of laws.
The situation of a person of nationality X in country Y breaking those laws is rather different to a person of nationality X in country X breaking laws of country Y. Nearly every country demands foreigners to follow all their laws whilst in their country; but there are rare exceptions for pragmatic reasons.
There's already standardisation efforts underway to double the length of the time variables, so I don't think there's any huge issue. We should be finished within 30 years I would think.
That's not the point! Re:Not 'Dubious' at all.
on
Ig Nobels Awarded
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I think you've missed the point a bit.
The point of the ignoble awards is to be FUN!
A mixture of laughing at the genuine hoaxes as well as marvelling at the crazy scientific experiments people manage to get funding for is going to be a much better laugh than what you are proposing.
Personally I like the award for making frogs levitate, dunking chocolate biscuits and for the use of imaginary numbers in accountancy by Enron;-)
By using a strong secure encrypted link, you are moving the points of attack to areas under your control. It also much reduces opportunist attacks as the attacker will have to take some physical risk (for example, as you mention after, bugging a keyboard) as opposed to passively sitting in a public place and plucking bits out of the air.
The system as described seems vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack right now; so that's not completely true; however adding passwords and so forth in there allows the advantages you mention. It looks to me though that the right thing to do is layer an ordinary crypto system on top of a quantum one and rely on the quantum system to prevent interception and use the conventional crypto to give authentication and so forth.
When transmitting a message you can include a key for the next session, so you don't have to use the signature key more than once.
Usually you would want to authenticate the user, not the cryptographic equipment in case it gets stolen, or otherwise accessed by the black hats; and that requires a password and/or a biometric or something.
There's still the problem of authentication however. How do you know that the person you are communicating with perfectly isn't one of the bad guys? For authentication you require passwords, or some other form of identification.
The easiest way to crack encyption is to avoid cracking the encryption and attack the installation or the people using the encryption.
Basically, if you can bug the users keystrokes when they type in their password for the crypto system, then that system is toast- similarly if they have a physical token- if you steal that token.
Or you bribe/blackmail the guy; or you use "lead pipe" cryptanalysis- you hit the guy over the head until he tells you his password.
This system looks good; but don't assume that its going to be 100% secure. In the real world it can't be, unless there's no people in the loop, not even designing the system.
Re:the failure of Science
on
Mule Gives Birth
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· Score: 3, Funny
It strikes me as no small coincidence that where we see Science fail is in the prediction of when and under what conditions the Creation of Life takes place.
Well, the conditions of where life is created is scientifically known as 'bonking' or 'squelching' or 'doing the dirty' and it is fully expected that a similar route was followed here, although research involving staring at pictures of mixtures of animals is no doubt ongoing, but is having problems obtaining funding.
I think there's no compression or encryption, but you can layer that on top if you want, but if I've understood it correctly the mesh nodes can dhcp normal wireless nodes to hang off them. I'm not sure that compression or encryption is particularly important anyway- in most cases the main reason that other people are connecting to your network would be to access the internet and you can protect that with VPN software if necessary.
And btw, there are moving parts on rockets: the thrust control/vectoring nozzle being the most important...
Sure, some rockets have moving parts, thrust vectoring is one example, turbopumps are very complicated; but not all rockets have these; you can always make anything more complicated.
Counterexample- Carmack's rocket has no moving parts apart from the valves. He uses 4 jets on the underside to control the attitude- he DOESN'T use thrust vectoring.
Re:You sure? I'm not convinced.
on
One Small Step
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· Score: 2
Of course it will happen. It's just a question of how often. Hundreds of aircraft fly polar routes every day, and have done for decades. An event occuring in a system that is only launched a few times a week at most is much less likely to actually occur.
Besides, if you are doing a fly-by-wire system, as most rockets are, you'd want duplication of control computers anyway, to handle other failures. Radiation is the least of your problems; we're not talking about a high probability of failure due to radiation up to 100km. Radiation hardened equipment is not required, for example, they don't use radiation hardened equipment on the ISS.
- this stuff is honestly hard enough to do without some shadowy supression program.
There's a saying in the aerospace industry:
"Rocket science isn't rocket science."
It's actualy fairly easy to build rockets- a rocket is about the simplest machine you can make, apart from a few valves it has zero moving parts.
The only rocket science bit here is working out a way for it to pay for itself. Carmack thinks he can get fare-paying passengers to foot the bill.
The really nice thing about this is that he can gradually build up to it. Unlike the Space Shuttle which was a cross your fingers and pray, he can gradually go a bit higher and faster each time until he reaches 100km; he can "extend the envelope " as they term it.
As to shadowy suppression; one thing that Carmack is doing is publicising everything he does. This makes it hard for them to shut him down. Everything he writes comes under free speech. He might get gagged if he tries to patent something, but America isn't supposed to be some totalitarian state, so other than that he should be ok.
Do you have a link for that? I've never heard that mentioned anywhere as a particular problem, and I've seen several references to the Space Shuttle not using any specially shielded electronic equipment.
However, cosmic rays are definitely a long term issue- I believe they can cause cancer over 10-15 years unless you have meter of shielding, but as a short term cause of electronics failing?
There is (probably) a 30 year rule though. Things really do seem to take 30 years. That is probably because the people who get control/power/money want to maintain the status quo. They take that long to get old and retire. They need to be out the way for progress to be made, in many cases.
Good! Re:It just makes me nervous...
on
One Small Step
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· Score: 2
Not sure if that was sarcasm, doe-eyed naivete or what, but it sure made me hella-nervous while I was waiting for the/.ed video feed to load.
Then perhaps you understood it! They took a whole bunch of precautions, but some failures are going to be potentially life threatening. If the computer were to crash- not necessarily because of a software bug, hardware failure for example, then the vehicle can turn upside with the rocket running at full blast (that's what the frame is for and the crash helmet). Or the throttle could stick and send it up 30 feet, and then fall back down (I think they had a parachute) - each of these failure have occured with Carmack's earlier unmanned vehicles by the way...;-(
It looked incredibly easy; but this was not a lot easier than the actual landing bit of landing on the moon- and that was done under 1/6 earth gravity.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason is that across a scheduling tick the processors cache gets flushed and reloaded. This means that you end up doing a burst of memory reads, and that will dominate if the clock tick is too short.
I always have to give them more rohypnol to get them to pass out; or talk to them with my scintillating personality- that works too. Either's good. ;-)
Bearing in mind the administration change in the whitehouse, that's probably the best he could have expected.
Just filling the water bottle 1/3 with water and pumping it up with a hand pump can give over 100 ft, fairly easily- the record is 1000 ft for a two stage water rocket. Why make life more complicated?
All you do is ignite an explosive bolt within a few meters of the camera- and presto! No more worries about surveillance! ;-)
They've clearly never been to Scotland then. If it's raining 'all' the time you genuinely do have less sunlight ;-)
Cool!
Also the amount of fuel onboard a rocket is typically about the same as a 767 in fact, and aeroplanes can carry most of it right into the heart of New York, as you will have seen, but rockets can't do that.
There's also a spaceport in Oklahoma, and the state gives tax breaks for people who move their rocketry stuff there. Launch licenses are also somewhat easier to obtain. I happen to know John Carmack was considering doing some of his stuff there.
You can't be serious! In Japan the age of consent is 14, in Moslem countries it's even lower! In the UK the legal drinking age is 18. There's not exactly such a thing as copyright in China, so is it OK for chinese to come across and start manufacturing CDs? During WWII would it have been ok for the germans to go into America and carry on 'purifying'?
You're crazy! If anything they should have to follow both sets of laws.
The situation of a person of nationality X in country Y breaking those laws is rather different to a person of nationality X in country X breaking laws of country Y. Nearly every country demands foreigners to follow all their laws whilst in their country; but there are rare exceptions for pragmatic reasons.
There's already standardisation efforts underway to double the length of the time variables, so I don't think there's any huge issue. We should be finished within 30 years I would think.
The point of the ignoble awards is to be FUN!
A mixture of laughing at the genuine hoaxes as well as marvelling at the crazy scientific experiments people manage to get funding for is going to be a much better laugh than what you are proposing.
Personally I like the award for making frogs levitate, dunking chocolate biscuits and for the use of imaginary numbers in accountancy by Enron ;-)
The system as described seems vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack right now; so that's not completely true; however adding passwords and so forth in there allows the advantages you mention. It looks to me though that the right thing to do is layer an ordinary crypto system on top of a quantum one and rely on the quantum system to prevent interception and use the conventional crypto to give authentication and so forth.
Usually you would want to authenticate the user, not the cryptographic equipment in case it gets stolen, or otherwise accessed by the black hats; and that requires a password and/or a biometric or something.
I bow to your greater experience and expertise in the matter ;-)
There's still the problem of authentication however. How do you know that the person you are communicating with perfectly isn't one of the bad guys? For authentication you require passwords, or some other form of identification.
Basically, if you can bug the users keystrokes when they type in their password for the crypto system, then that system is toast- similarly if they have a physical token- if you steal that token.
Or you bribe/blackmail the guy; or you use "lead pipe" cryptanalysis- you hit the guy over the head until he tells you his password.
This system looks good; but don't assume that its going to be 100% secure. In the real world it can't be, unless there's no people in the loop, not even designing the system.
Well, the conditions of where life is created is scientifically known as 'bonking' or 'squelching' or 'doing the dirty' and it is fully expected that a similar route was followed here, although research involving staring at pictures of mixtures of animals is no doubt ongoing, but is having problems obtaining funding.
I think there's no compression or encryption, but you can layer that on top if you want, but if I've understood it correctly the mesh nodes can dhcp normal wireless nodes to hang off them. I'm not sure that compression or encryption is particularly important anyway- in most cases the main reason that other people are connecting to your network would be to access the internet and you can protect that with VPN software if necessary.
Sure, some rockets have moving parts, thrust vectoring is one example, turbopumps are very complicated; but not all rockets have these; you can always make anything more complicated.
Counterexample- Carmack's rocket has no moving parts apart from the valves. He uses 4 jets on the underside to control the attitude- he DOESN'T use thrust vectoring.
Besides, if you are doing a fly-by-wire system, as most rockets are, you'd want duplication of control computers anyway, to handle other failures. Radiation is the least of your problems; we're not talking about a high probability of failure due to radiation up to 100km. Radiation hardened equipment is not required, for example, they don't use radiation hardened equipment on the ISS.
There's a saying in the aerospace industry:
"Rocket science isn't rocket science."
It's actualy fairly easy to build rockets- a rocket is about the simplest machine you can make, apart from a few valves it has zero moving parts.
The only rocket science bit here is working out a way for it to pay for itself. Carmack thinks he can get fare-paying passengers to foot the bill.
The really nice thing about this is that he can gradually build up to it. Unlike the Space Shuttle which was a cross your fingers and pray, he can gradually go a bit higher and faster each time until he reaches 100km; he can "extend the envelope " as they term it.
As to shadowy suppression; one thing that Carmack is doing is publicising everything he does. This makes it hard for them to shut him down. Everything he writes comes under free speech. He might get gagged if he tries to patent something, but America isn't supposed to be some totalitarian state, so other than that he should be ok.
However, cosmic rays are definitely a long term issue- I believe they can cause cancer over 10-15 years unless you have meter of shielding, but as a short term cause of electronics failing?
There is (probably) a 30 year rule though. Things really do seem to take 30 years. That is probably because the people who get control/power/money want to maintain the status quo. They take that long to get old and retire. They need to be out the way for progress to be made, in many cases.
Then perhaps you understood it! They took a whole bunch of precautions, but some failures are going to be potentially life threatening. If the computer were to crash- not necessarily because of a software bug, hardware failure for example, then the vehicle can turn upside with the rocket running at full blast (that's what the frame is for and the crash helmet). Or the throttle could stick and send it up 30 feet, and then fall back down (I think they had a parachute) - each of these failure have occured with Carmack's earlier unmanned vehicles by the way... ;-(
It looked incredibly easy; but this was not a lot easier than the actual landing bit of landing on the moon- and that was done under 1/6 earth gravity.