Just like Newton's laws used to be the law for some time. And before that, Earth used to be the centre of the universe, and we knew that for fact. So obviously, relativity must hold true forever and ever.
I did my physics degree about 10 years ago, and the concept of rest mass was already deprecated then. A particle has only one mass, the one formerly called rest mass.
The notion of mass increasing with velocity makes sense as a kind of Newtonian analogy. You could use Newtonian mechanics in limited ways to explain the mechanics of a particle, if you replaced the mass with a relativistically varying mass. One problem is that the conversion factor varies according to the direction, and you get confusing terms like transverse mass and longitudinal mass. But the simple fact is that Newtonian mechanics no longer applies at relativistic velocities.
Depends. Do you want Apple to sell stuff that's technically cool and utterly unhip?
Why would you have to choose between the two? For example, my Powerbook has a clean _industrial_ design and it's technically impressive for its time. The stickers and stripes you see on a Windows laptop have nothing to do with technical coolness. To me, a design looks good when all the extraneous bits are left out -- this applies to the internals as well (the PB is running Linux with a minimal window manager).
Another aspect of good design, IMHO, is honesty. A computer looks good when it's allowed to look like a computer. I recall reading that the beige box was invented to make computers look a little more humane, but to me they are just plain ugly. Fortunately, the honestly technical black and metallic designs have returned. Some people take this idea of technical looks even further in the form of steampunk, for example.
Also, in the same Gnome Office family you have Gnumeric, which fulfills most of my spreadsheeting needs. Neither of them has all of the features of the bigger cousins, for example the formatting in Word files is usually wrong. But for getting the message from a file someone sent you, they are faster than waiting for the other Offices to open.
(Frankly, I think the entire WYSIWYG Office metaphor is broken. Especially when most of the text is never actually printed, so why should it look like paper. Having open source implementations of the same idea does not make the idea any better.)
In my understanding, the point is that the number of possible keys is much higher than the number of different encryption schemes. If your crypto is valid, and someone breaks in with a stolen key, you only need to change the key. But if the crypto itself is broken, you have a much bigger problem; it is likely that the same crypto is used in many other places, because there aren't that many to choose from.
An openly specified system is more likely to be proven secure. This applies to the system at large, including client machines. Thus there are many places where obscurity is bad, even though the key should be as obscure as possible.
Have you missed the point of Bitcoin? It's a distributed payment system, not a free money generator. I'm not investing in it in the sense of getting free money. I want to help create a world with more freedom and individual responsibility, for example by getting rid of Paypal. Since I have already recouped my costs, I have no risk in continuing at this point. Besides, my biggest reward comes from all the development experience related to Bitcoin, and I keep getting donations for my FPGA code.
Right now, it's far cheaper to buy bitcoins with cash than to pay the power cost to mine them.
I have done my math. Electricity is fairly cheap in Finland, and currently I'm barely making a profit. There is also this idea of long-term investment/involvement, and not everything needs be profitable right now.
If you think bitcoins will be the currency of the future, go spend a few hundred dollars on them.
I already have plenty of BTC saved, after selling some of them to recover my costs (including hardware).
The point of mining is not to make money, but to verify transactions. People who believe in the system should participate in maintaining it. No point in saving some BTC if nobody is running it.
It depends on what you do. Bitcoin mining with a Radeon HD5870 is not noticeably slower when it is on a PCI slot adapter, compared to PCIe x16. Many people use PCIe x1 slots for mining, to make use of all available slots, and for easier use of extension cables.
Flash is a closed "standard", and the binary is only available for a couple of platforms. For example, there is no version for Linux on PPC. There are limited, old versions for some ARM Linux platforms, so it doesn't in fact look identical there. When it comes to updating these, you are at Adobe's mercy, or you can just compile the latest Firefox because it is Free software.
ADSL (as far as I know) has no need for speeds over 100 Mbit, so it is unlikely you will find a router with those features as it doesn't make sense.
OK, I'll try to put this in even simpler terms, because obviously my question is too complicated.
ADSL has no need for a switch. Back in the day, there were simple ADSL modems with only one Ethernet port. There were also modems in PCI card format. Because the job of a modem is modulation and demodulation, nothing to do with a LAN. If you have multiple computers, you needed to buy a separate switch, that is a completely separate problem.
Why did somebody ever make a modem with an integrated switch? Because it's convenient. A lot of people were using a modem together with a switch.
The consumerist culture I was referring to is not simply about throwing things away, but more generally about waste. Having to buy a modem with a half-assed integrated switch + a decent switch, is a waste compared to a modem with a decent integrated switch. I wouldn't be using the half-assed switch, but it would just sit there wasting energy, having wasted energy and materials during production.
Perhaps the root of this problem is that everything is cheap and half-assed. Modems would probably come with 10-Mbit hubs if they were still available, but even the crappiest option with multiple ports is now a 100-Mbit switch.
There is no reason for any DSL router to handle more than 100Mbps
Why not? Am I the only one who is using a DSL modem/router for the traffic between my machines? For example, I have a Buffalo NAS box, a file server aimed at consumers.
One facet of my original question is that I hate the throwaway consumerist culture. I feel that it is a terrible waste of resources to make people buy separate boxes (each with its inefficient power brick) when it would be trivial to provide a slightly better integrated version.
If having a tiny, cheap five or eight port gigabit switch attached to your adsl modem is an issue.. you either have bigger problems or you really don't value having gigabit speed.
Frankly, I'm cheap and I don't absolutely need gigabit speed. I just don't get what's so special/difficult about building a modem with a gigabit switch. I have found a couple of models that are needlessly expensive, given that there is nothing special about the technology.
I wonder how we even got to 100 Mbit on modems, because 10 Mbps should be enough for everyone, and you can just fill your room with separate 100 Mbps widgets if you really need them.
I know you don't want an extra box, but a separate gigabit switch is probably your best alternative.
Yes, this is the obvious answer that has naturally crossed my mind. The silly thing is that a basic ADSL modem/router + a gigabit switch is cheaper than a single gigabit modem (if you don't consider energy consumption). Somewhat obvious from the economies of scale, but still technically perverse. I guess one reason is separate markets -- ADSL modems for home users, and gigabit for enterprises and enthusiasts.
However, even the 100 Mbit LAN has been fast enough for me in practice, so the upgrade to some special model is not worth the premium. It's just weird that gigabit has been around for a long time, but it is still not the expected standard when you buy a random Ethernet device.
This is an issue which is more likely to effect Slashdotters than the average daily user. Many ISPs are offering 100MBps+ (in civilized countries) knowing there are factors involved such as the fact that the consumers will either never use the allocated bandwidth and there will be even less who can find suitable hardware to handle the connection.
My ISP uplink is only 1 Mbps, but I would still like to have gigabit gear. There is this thing called LAN, involving things like network drives, which you may have heard of if you are a Slashdotter. All the computers in my LAN have gigabit ports, currently running at only 100 Mbps.
My problem is finding a decent ADSL modem with gigabit ports. There seem to be very few of these, probably because the stupid assumption that you only use it for Internet access. I don't want extra boxes taking up space (shelf and wall sockets). It shouldn't be too challenging a technical problem to make one.
That's what I'm wondering too. It is a heterogeneous mixture where the magnets are solid particles, and a surfactant is needed to keep these particles from clogging together. I've dabbled in making some in a chemistry lab, and it was rather tricky getting the result right. There are the issues of both chemical and mechanical stability. Maintaining a constant flow should help with the clogging problem, but even then, there may be spots of low velocity and high pressure where particles start to concentrate.
What I want to know is, can I get an optical Thunderbolt cable from Monster with gold connectors? I had to throw away all my optical audio cables because those shitty plastic connectors just didn't have a warm enough sound.
Actually, I think I have an SPDIF adapter with a gold plated end. It's for connecting a Toslink cable to one of those 3.5 mm audio sockets that also include an optical link. It's not completely gold plated though, which probably explains the lack of roundness in zeros, and the missing edge in ones.
I need optical so that we could send video without any conversions. I'm sure we already have strong enough lenses to scale the picture down to the fiber diameter.
Slashdot Mirror
Just like Newton's laws used to be the law for some time. And before that, Earth used to be the centre of the universe, and we knew that for fact. So obviously, relativity must hold true forever and ever.
It's explained by Rudolf the Redshift Reindeer.
REST mass... </pedantic>
I did my physics degree about 10 years ago, and the concept of rest mass was already deprecated then. A particle has only one mass, the one formerly called rest mass.
The notion of mass increasing with velocity makes sense as a kind of Newtonian analogy. You could use Newtonian mechanics in limited ways to explain the mechanics of a particle, if you replaced the mass with a relativistically varying mass. One problem is that the conversion factor varies according to the direction, and you get confusing terms like transverse mass and longitudinal mass. But the simple fact is that Newtonian mechanics no longer applies at relativistic velocities.
Depends. Do you want Apple to sell stuff that's technically cool and utterly unhip?
Why would you have to choose between the two? For example, my Powerbook has a clean _industrial_ design and it's technically impressive for its time. The stickers and stripes you see on a Windows laptop have nothing to do with technical coolness. To me, a design looks good when all the extraneous bits are left out -- this applies to the internals as well (the PB is running Linux with a minimal window manager).
Another aspect of good design, IMHO, is honesty. A computer looks good when it's allowed to look like a computer. I recall reading that the beige box was invented to make computers look a little more humane, but to me they are just plain ugly. Fortunately, the honestly technical black and metallic designs have returned. Some people take this idea of technical looks even further in the form of steampunk, for example.
That would be AbiWord.
Also, in the same Gnome Office family you have Gnumeric, which fulfills most of my spreadsheeting needs. Neither of them has all of the features of the bigger cousins, for example the formatting in Word files is usually wrong. But for getting the message from a file someone sent you, they are faster than waiting for the other Offices to open.
(Frankly, I think the entire WYSIWYG Office metaphor is broken. Especially when most of the text is never actually printed, so why should it look like paper. Having open source implementations of the same idea does not make the idea any better.)
In my understanding, the point is that the number of possible keys is much higher than the number of different encryption schemes. If your crypto is valid, and someone breaks in with a stolen key, you only need to change the key. But if the crypto itself is broken, you have a much bigger problem; it is likely that the same crypto is used in many other places, because there aren't that many to choose from.
An openly specified system is more likely to be proven secure. This applies to the system at large, including client machines. Thus there are many places where obscurity is bad, even though the key should be as obscure as possible.
And Stephen Elop? Linux?! HUH?!
Apparently, Linux is only good for the dumbphones, while the smart ones run Windows. Makes sense from a general Microsoftie point of view.
So it's Windows for "smart"phones and Linux for the "dumb". Nice Redmond marketing there.
4 1s, an grammer nutsie get's it's rite!
Have you missed the point of Bitcoin? It's a distributed payment system, not a free money generator. I'm not investing in it in the sense of getting free money. I want to help create a world with more freedom and individual responsibility, for example by getting rid of Paypal. Since I have already recouped my costs, I have no risk in continuing at this point. Besides, my biggest reward comes from all the development experience related to Bitcoin, and I keep getting donations for my FPGA code.
Right now, it's far cheaper to buy bitcoins with cash than to pay the power cost to mine them.
I have done my math. Electricity is fairly cheap in Finland, and currently I'm barely making a profit. There is also this idea of long-term investment/involvement, and not everything needs be profitable right now.
If you think bitcoins will be the currency of the future, go spend a few hundred dollars on them.
I already have plenty of BTC saved, after selling some of them to recover my costs (including hardware).
The point of mining is not to make money, but to verify transactions. People who believe in the system should participate in maintaining it. No point in saving some BTC if nobody is running it.
It depends on what you do. Bitcoin mining with a Radeon HD5870 is not noticeably slower when it is on a PCI slot adapter, compared to PCIe x16. Many people use PCIe x1 slots for mining, to make use of all available slots, and for easier use of extension cables.
You're unbelievable.
Did the neutrino have to pay for the drink, or did he get it free of charge?
similar, in principal, to the technology found in some headmasters
Fixed that for you.
Flash is a closed "standard", and the binary is only available for a couple of platforms. For example, there is no version for Linux on PPC. There are limited, old versions for some ARM Linux platforms, so it doesn't in fact look identical there. When it comes to updating these, you are at Adobe's mercy, or you can just compile the latest Firefox because it is Free software.
Ever heard of the broken window fallacy?
ADSL (as far as I know) has no need for speeds over 100 Mbit, so it is unlikely you will find a router with those features as it doesn't make sense.
OK, I'll try to put this in even simpler terms, because obviously my question is too complicated.
ADSL has no need for a switch. Back in the day, there were simple ADSL modems with only one Ethernet port. There were also modems in PCI card format. Because the job of a modem is modulation and demodulation, nothing to do with a LAN. If you have multiple computers, you needed to buy a separate switch, that is a completely separate problem.
Why did somebody ever make a modem with an integrated switch? Because it's convenient. A lot of people were using a modem together with a switch.
The consumerist culture I was referring to is not simply about throwing things away, but more generally about waste. Having to buy a modem with a half-assed integrated switch + a decent switch, is a waste compared to a modem with a decent integrated switch. I wouldn't be using the half-assed switch, but it would just sit there wasting energy, having wasted energy and materials during production.
Perhaps the root of this problem is that everything is cheap and half-assed. Modems would probably come with 10-Mbit hubs if they were still available, but even the crappiest option with multiple ports is now a 100-Mbit switch.
There is no reason for any DSL router to handle more than 100Mbps
Why not? Am I the only one who is using a DSL modem/router for the traffic between my machines? For example, I have a Buffalo NAS box, a file server aimed at consumers.
One facet of my original question is that I hate the throwaway consumerist culture. I feel that it is a terrible waste of resources to make people buy separate boxes (each with its inefficient power brick) when it would be trivial to provide a slightly better integrated version.
If having a tiny, cheap five or eight port gigabit switch attached to your adsl modem is an issue.. you either have bigger problems or you really don't value having gigabit speed.
Frankly, I'm cheap and I don't absolutely need gigabit speed. I just don't get what's so special/difficult about building a modem with a gigabit switch. I have found a couple of models that are needlessly expensive, given that there is nothing special about the technology.
I wonder how we even got to 100 Mbit on modems, because 10 Mbps should be enough for everyone, and you can just fill your room with separate 100 Mbps widgets if you really need them.
I know you don't want an extra box, but a separate gigabit switch is probably your best alternative.
Yes, this is the obvious answer that has naturally crossed my mind. The silly thing is that a basic ADSL modem/router + a gigabit switch is cheaper than a single gigabit modem (if you don't consider energy consumption). Somewhat obvious from the economies of scale, but still technically perverse. I guess one reason is separate markets -- ADSL modems for home users, and gigabit for enterprises and enthusiasts.
However, even the 100 Mbit LAN has been fast enough for me in practice, so the upgrade to some special model is not worth the premium. It's just weird that gigabit has been around for a long time, but it is still not the expected standard when you buy a random Ethernet device.
This is an issue which is more likely to effect Slashdotters than the average daily user. Many ISPs are offering 100MBps+ (in civilized countries) knowing there are factors involved such as the fact that the consumers will either never use the allocated bandwidth and there will be even less who can find suitable hardware to handle the connection.
My ISP uplink is only 1 Mbps, but I would still like to have gigabit gear. There is this thing called LAN, involving things like network drives, which you may have heard of if you are a Slashdotter. All the computers in my LAN have gigabit ports, currently running at only 100 Mbps.
My problem is finding a decent ADSL modem with gigabit ports. There seem to be very few of these, probably because the stupid assumption that you only use it for Internet access. I don't want extra boxes taking up space (shelf and wall sockets). It shouldn't be too challenging a technical problem to make one.
So if the ferrofluid is stable
That's what I'm wondering too. It is a heterogeneous mixture where the magnets are solid particles, and a surfactant is needed to keep these particles from clogging together. I've dabbled in making some in a chemistry lab, and it was rather tricky getting the result right. There are the issues of both chemical and mechanical stability. Maintaining a constant flow should help with the clogging problem, but even then, there may be spots of low velocity and high pressure where particles start to concentrate.
What I want to know is, can I get an optical Thunderbolt cable from Monster with gold connectors? I had to throw away all my optical audio cables because those shitty plastic connectors just didn't have a warm enough sound.
Actually, I think I have an SPDIF adapter with a gold plated end. It's for connecting a Toslink cable to one of those 3.5 mm audio sockets that also include an optical link. It's not completely gold plated though, which probably explains the lack of roundness in zeros, and the missing edge in ones.
I need optical so that we could send video without any conversions. I'm sure we already have strong enough lenses to scale the picture down to the fiber diameter.