I've been using SlamD64 for about 2 years now, since I got my AMD Turion X2 laptop; I've been using Slackware since the mid-90's. I use Slackware on my older non-64 bit machines and SlamD64 on newer stuff. Other than dealing with non-64 bit software, there's very little difference, and I've always considered SlamD64 to be the de facto Slackware 64--and Fred has said as much (that he tries to follow Pat's releases as much as possible while changing what needs to be changed for the 64 bit environment).
OTOH, while Fred has been mentioned in the changelog for his contributions (as mentioned above), if Pat shafted Fred for not maintaining this 64 bit Slackware--even though it is non-official--I for one will be very pissed about it. Fred has gone far and beyond the call of duty, being in college and maintaining this, mostly on his own.
You know, I was wondering when someone would finally ask this! I figured, being full of geeks (or maybe not so much anymore?), the first things on peoples' minds wouldn't be about SDI and other weapons, but about when we'll see this applied to keeping Moore's Law alive by allowing die shrink even further. But the AC above kinda blew that away, I suppose.
The reason is obvious if you've been reading/. for any length of time: the RIAA and MPAA do all sorts of illegal and unethical things to get at the people it doesn't like, from employing people like MediaSentry who break the law to spy on people, to practically owning Congress here in the USA. They've been charging exorbitant amounts of money for their stuff and fight tooth and nail against new technologies, as well as independent producers.
The same goes for software. I'm not going to compare you to M$ or Apple, but everyone knows what they do. As an open-source fan and user (just like most of/., BTW), I have to ask why haven't you gone that route for your stuff?
Am I the only one who suspects that this isn't about unpaid fees or MPAA/RIAA mafiaa business, but rather about good old-fashioned tradecraft--i.e., state secrets. Remember, it's the CIA's game to spy, but the FBI's game to catch enemy spies and their drops and information. If this was the case and they didn't know where to look, they would just make up a bullshit story and seize everything, perhaps with a FISA warrant (which also explains why no one has actually seen it!).
> Kind of makes you wonder what happens once we design a computer fast enough to accurately simulate physics exactly as in our universe.
What makes you think you aren't living in one right now a la "The Matrix", "The 13th Floor", etc. For that matter, what's to say that, if this world is a simulation, that the "real" world "above" doesn't make this world look like "Tron" or the digital world of any cyberpunk novel? Just because those worlds are cooler than ours doesn't mean that our reality isn't the opposite (that is, simpler and more boring).
1. Spinning up and down hard drives: as discussed in plenty of places, including here on/. I believe, you can dramatically reduce the life of drives when you cycle them due to mechanical wear-and-tear. Laptop drives are designed for a lot more cycles because they're intended for this, but if you do it constantly even they'll die sooner or later. Server and desktop drives, OTOH, will die MUCH sooner. Is it really worth some extra power in a server farm in exchange for dying drives and their associated cost, including the increased possibility of data loss?
2. LCD Backlighting: Same as above--cycling power on any kind of discharge lamp dramatically reduces its life. And while LED backlighting is VERY efficient, AFAIK there are still major issues with color rendering--if there weren't, we'd be replacing regular lighting with them left and right. There's also the cost problem, particularly with the looming major shortage of gallium and indium. I think the only reason people don't talk about it more on laptops is because they're considered to have such a limited life expectancy since they're not expandable; now that desktop monitors are becoming more ubiquitous, I think we'll be seeing more talk about it.
3. SSDs: Their disadvantages have been talked to death here and elsewhere.
I have to agree with the above comment: this seems like a Three Card Monty or shell game to me as it makes the fab-less part more profitable but consigns the fab itself to possible bankruptcy. Then again, maybe they know that and this way they can, say, sell the fab to a dedicated fab company while telling Wall Street, "Hey, look how profitable we are!" thanks to the insurgence of cash from the sale.
I'm from Nevada and a former slot mechanic, and I can tell you this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak: most of the methods used to cheat on electronic slots can probably be used against these voting machines as well. The above is all assuming an intact machine with no extra holes: considering how easy it is to hide a Dremel tool or other cordless drill, it shouldn't be hard to make a small hole and send a shock inside. This is why modern slots also have the mobo itself housed in its own cage.
Personally, though, my problem with the whole electoral process is: who watches the watchers? Assuming you can keep the voting machines from being tampered with, what's to keep someone from messing with the count at HQ where everything's tallied up? It's not like it hasn't happened before...
While the rest of you go on about what these ships cargo may or may not do, did any one of you think about the technology that could keep these ships up in the air all the time with a cargo as heavy as water could also be used as a platform for communications that usually sit on towers and satellites? If so, this could be HUGE and solve the problem of coverage between sats, with their RTT and needing to track them outside of geo orbit, and towers and mountains, with their limited coverage! WLL or high-speed Internet over rural areas, as well as re-establishing communications in an urban area during an emergency, would be a piece of cake with something like this. Or how about, outside of the major cities, you could have your broadcaster sitting up there and no longer need a translator for most areas.
One other thing both of you are missing is the elevation above the horizon and how that affects path loss. Remember that microwave frequencies are heavily absorbed by water and, at Ku-band, by oxygen. So not only are you further away as you move away from the equator, but you're also having to pass through more atmosphere as well, and since northern Canada tends to be rather wet, it's not hard to understand why this happens.
The standard answer is a bigger dish and a tougher mount to make sure it doesn't move because of the reduced beamwidth. But as you get REALLY far (above the Circles) you start seeing diminishing returns. I know this because I read an article a couple of months back, referenced here in/. , about an Antarctic research camp and how, despite a huge 10+ meter dish (I don't remember exactly how big but it reminds me of an old 10 meter dish that was once a cable headend and was used for a while by a PBS station I worked at in the early 90's), connectivity was very intermittent so they have to use Iridium much of the time (who's polar orbit works best at the poles, but has a very low available bandwidth).
If you can suffer high prices and lack of bandwidth, you may want to seriously consider Iridium: each channel is only 2400 bps, but my understanding is that it's fairly easy to bond them. The trouble is that the price is per minute, not per kilobyte.
If you need more than this, you'll have to wait until 2010-2012 when both Iridium and Globalstar will be launching new technology to replace their constellations. I have no idea if this will increase speeds. And while Globalstar is cheaper, it won't work well above the Circles and won't work at all above 70 degrees (the orbit inclinations are very different, more like GPS's). Just remember not to use Globalstar now since the birds don't work (discussed in/. and elsewhere extensively).
Actually that's not quite true: while most of AT&T's markets are 800/850, there are a few, such as here in Phoenix, that are 1900 only--Alltel has the A side and Verizon the B side. There are also a small number of markets where T-Mobile aka the old orange Cingular network, operates on 850 only: I believe the largest is in the Great Lakes area.
What I'd like to know is that, with the proliferation of quad band radios, why they didn't use one of those instead?
I bought a $600 Acer Aspire 5520-5912 from Wal-Mart for $600 back just after Christmas. It came with 2GB of RAM, an AMD Turion X2 1.9 GHz processor, and Nvidia integrated graphics.
The thing ran ok, but was definitely not even close to fast. Also, the power adapter (for the wall) seems too small and gets insanely hot when gaming (believe it or not, more below); in fact, I replaced it once already because it was making lots of noise and I was afraid it was going to fail and either catch fire and/or send a full 120V charge through to the laptop itself. Oh, and yes, the keyboard is definitely shoddy.
So after all this time, the last couple of weeks I finally decided to bite the bullet and install Linux on it. It's not that I'm new to Linux, I run it on all my machines, but being a new laptop and after some research, it made me a little hesitant, especially with the wireless it has on board (Atheros AR5007EG).
Cut to tonight: I have SlamD64 (64 bit Slackware with 32 bit compatibility) running perfectly on it. The Atheros radio is fully supported under the latest MadWiFi snapshot, though I previously downloaded the HAL direct from Sam Leffler's personal website when its existence became public. All the important stuff work with only minor bells and whistles either known not to work (network LED) or untested but should work (card reader and webcam). I'm running the latest stable kernel (2.6.25.4) and NVidia's latest stable driver on X.
But here's the kicker: under 64 bit Linux this laptop SCREAMS! "Night and Day" doesn't remotely describe the difference between the old 32 bit Vista it came with then versus now. I mentioned gaming above: Urban Terror 4.1 with a 64 bit build runs far faster here than on Vista. Before, I had to cut everything down to get a decent frame rate; now I can get 50-60 fps with good settings, even at the LCD panel's native resolution (1280X800)! The kernel compiles in 5-10 minutes (haven't actually timed it, more like go to the bathroom and come back to see it done).
I'm not sure I buy that Acer has suddenly changed its mind, though. The ACER-WMI project specifically states that everything they've done has been by reverse engineering and neither Acer nor Wistron has ever tried to help them--and this project is needed to get the extra buttons and LEDs working.
I bought this because I needed a full-blown laptop and this was the cheapest thing I could find, even with the M$ Tax. Maybe if they really are changing their tune they'd be willing to refund that tax. But considering that ACER-WMI hasn't had any help and I just saw another article saying that Acer won't sell Linux laptops in the UK, I think this is just a publicity stunt and won't be holding my breath.
Now that I'm able to save some money, if I buy another laptop, I'll be able to spend more (!) for no M$ Tax (just wrong) and hopefully a product of higher quality than Acer/Wistron.
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I've been using SlamD64 for about 2 years now, since I got my AMD Turion X2 laptop; I've been using Slackware since the mid-90's. I use Slackware on my older non-64 bit machines and SlamD64 on newer stuff. Other than dealing with non-64 bit software, there's very little difference, and I've always considered SlamD64 to be the de facto Slackware 64--and Fred has said as much (that he tries to follow Pat's releases as much as possible while changing what needs to be changed for the 64 bit environment).
OTOH, while Fred has been mentioned in the changelog for his contributions (as mentioned above), if Pat shafted Fred for not maintaining this 64 bit Slackware--even though it is non-official--I for one will be very pissed about it. Fred has gone far and beyond the call of duty, being in college and maintaining this, mostly on his own.
Mike
You know, I was wondering when someone would finally ask this! I figured, being full of geeks (or maybe not so much anymore?), the first things on peoples' minds wouldn't be about SDI and other weapons, but about when we'll see this applied to keeping Moore's Law alive by allowing die shrink even further. But the AC above kinda blew that away, I suppose.
...but isn't the news mundane enough and catered to the lowest common denominator as it is? I mean, even after taking in account the bias?
Mike
The reason is obvious if you've been reading /. for any length of time: the RIAA and MPAA do all sorts of illegal and unethical things to get at the people it doesn't like, from employing people like MediaSentry who break the law to spy on people, to practically owning Congress here in the USA. They've been charging exorbitant amounts of money for their stuff and fight tooth and nail against new technologies, as well as independent producers.
The same goes for software. I'm not going to compare you to M$ or Apple, but everyone knows what they do. As an open-source fan and user (just like most of /., BTW), I have to ask why haven't you gone that route for your stuff?
Mike
Am I the only one who suspects that this isn't about unpaid fees or MPAA/RIAA mafiaa business, but rather about good old-fashioned tradecraft--i.e., state secrets. Remember, it's the CIA's game to spy, but the FBI's game to catch enemy spies and their drops and information. If this was the case and they didn't know where to look, they would just make up a bullshit story and seize everything, perhaps with a FISA warrant (which also explains why no one has actually seen it!).
> Kind of makes you wonder what happens once we design a computer fast enough to accurately simulate physics exactly as in our universe.
What makes you think you aren't living in one right now a la "The Matrix", "The 13th Floor", etc. For that matter, what's to say that, if this world is a simulation, that the "real" world "above" doesn't make this world look like "Tron" or the digital world of any cyberpunk novel? Just because those worlds are cooler than ours doesn't mean that our reality isn't the opposite (that is, simpler and more boring).
Mike
1. Spinning up and down hard drives: as discussed in plenty of places, including here on /. I believe, you can dramatically reduce the life of drives when you cycle them due to mechanical wear-and-tear. Laptop drives are designed for a lot more cycles because they're intended for this, but if you do it constantly even they'll die sooner or later. Server and desktop drives, OTOH, will die MUCH sooner. Is it really worth some extra power in a server farm in exchange for dying drives and their associated cost, including the increased possibility of data loss?
2. LCD Backlighting: Same as above--cycling power on any kind of discharge lamp dramatically reduces its life. And while LED backlighting is VERY efficient, AFAIK there are still major issues with color rendering--if there weren't, we'd be replacing regular lighting with them left and right. There's also the cost problem, particularly with the looming major shortage of gallium and indium. I think the only reason people don't talk about it more on laptops is because they're considered to have such a limited life expectancy since they're not expandable; now that desktop monitors are becoming more ubiquitous, I think we'll be seeing more talk about it.
3. SSDs: Their disadvantages have been talked to death here and elsewhere.
Mike
I have to agree with the above comment: this seems like a Three Card Monty or shell game to me as it makes the fab-less part more profitable but consigns the fab itself to possible bankruptcy. Then again, maybe they know that and this way they can, say, sell the fab to a dedicated fab company while telling Wall Street, "Hey, look how profitable we are!" thanks to the insurgence of cash from the sale.
Mike
This is hilarious: show me a single country that would be "disinterested" in our elections?
Mike
I'm from Nevada and a former slot mechanic, and I can tell you this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak: most of the methods used to cheat on electronic slots can probably be used against these voting machines as well. The above is all assuming an intact machine with no extra holes: considering how easy it is to hide a Dremel tool or other cordless drill, it shouldn't be hard to make a small hole and send a shock inside. This is why modern slots also have the mobo itself housed in its own cage.
Personally, though, my problem with the whole electoral process is: who watches the watchers? Assuming you can keep the voting machines from being tampered with, what's to keep someone from messing with the count at HQ where everything's tallied up? It's not like it hasn't happened before...
While the rest of you go on about what these ships cargo may or may not do, did any one of you think about the technology that could keep these ships up in the air all the time with a cargo as heavy as water could also be used as a platform for communications that usually sit on towers and satellites?
If so, this could be HUGE and solve the problem of coverage between sats, with their RTT and needing to track them outside of geo orbit, and towers and mountains, with their limited coverage! WLL or high-speed Internet over rural areas, as well as re-establishing communications in an urban area during an emergency, would be a piece of cake with something like this. Or how about, outside of the major cities, you could have your broadcaster sitting up there and no longer need a translator for most areas.
Mike
One other thing both of you are missing is the elevation above the horizon and how that affects path loss. Remember that microwave frequencies are heavily absorbed by water and, at Ku-band, by oxygen. So not only are you further away as you move away from the equator, but you're also having to pass through more atmosphere as well, and since northern Canada tends to be rather wet, it's not hard to understand why this happens.
The standard answer is a bigger dish and a tougher mount to make sure it doesn't move because of the reduced beamwidth. But as you get REALLY far (above the Circles) you start seeing diminishing returns. I know this because I read an article a couple of months back, referenced here in /. , about an Antarctic research camp and how, despite a huge 10+ meter dish (I don't remember exactly how big but it reminds me of an old 10 meter dish that was once a cable headend and was used for a while by a PBS station I worked at in the early 90's), connectivity was very intermittent so they have to use Iridium much of the time (who's polar orbit works best at the poles, but has a very low available bandwidth).
If you can suffer high prices and lack of bandwidth, you may want to seriously consider Iridium: each channel is only 2400 bps, but my understanding is that it's fairly easy to bond them. The trouble is that the price is per minute, not per kilobyte.
If you need more than this, you'll have to wait until 2010-2012 when both Iridium and Globalstar will be launching new technology to replace their constellations. I have no idea if this will increase speeds. And while Globalstar is cheaper, it won't work well above the Circles and won't work at all above 70 degrees (the orbit inclinations are very different, more like GPS's). Just remember not to use Globalstar now since the birds don't work (discussed in /. and elsewhere extensively).
I hope this helps at least somewhat.
Mike
Actually that's not quite true: while most of AT&T's markets are 800/850, there are a few, such as here in Phoenix, that are 1900 only--Alltel has the
A side and Verizon the B side. There are also a small number of markets where T-Mobile aka the old orange Cingular network, operates on 850 only: I
believe the largest is in the Great Lakes area.
What I'd like to know is that, with the proliferation of quad band radios, why they didn't use one of those instead?
Mike
I bought a $600 Acer Aspire 5520-5912 from Wal-Mart for $600 back just after Christmas. It came with 2GB of RAM, an AMD Turion X2 1.9 GHz processor,
and Nvidia integrated graphics.
The thing ran ok, but was definitely not even close to fast. Also, the power adapter (for the wall) seems too small and gets insanely hot when
gaming (believe it or not, more below); in fact, I replaced it once already because it was making lots of noise and I was afraid it was going to fail
and either catch fire and/or send a full 120V charge through to the laptop itself. Oh, and yes, the keyboard is definitely shoddy.
So after all this time, the last couple of weeks I finally decided to bite the bullet and install Linux on it. It's not that I'm new to Linux, I
run it on all my machines, but being a new laptop and after some research, it made me a little hesitant, especially with the wireless it has on board
(Atheros AR5007EG).
Cut to tonight: I have SlamD64 (64 bit Slackware with 32 bit compatibility) running perfectly on it. The Atheros radio is fully supported under the
latest MadWiFi snapshot, though I previously downloaded the HAL direct from Sam Leffler's personal website when its existence became public. All the
important stuff work with only minor bells and whistles either known not to work (network LED) or untested but should work (card reader and webcam).
I'm running the latest stable kernel (2.6.25.4) and NVidia's latest stable driver on X.
But here's the kicker: under 64 bit Linux this laptop SCREAMS! "Night and Day" doesn't remotely describe the difference between the old 32 bit Vista
it came with then versus now. I mentioned gaming above: Urban Terror 4.1 with a 64 bit build runs far faster here than on Vista. Before, I had to
cut everything down to get a decent frame rate; now I can get 50-60 fps with good settings, even at the LCD panel's native resolution (1280X800)!
The kernel compiles in 5-10 minutes (haven't actually timed it, more like go to the bathroom and come back to see it done).
I'm not sure I buy that Acer has suddenly changed its mind, though. The ACER-WMI project specifically states that everything they've done has been
by reverse engineering and neither Acer nor Wistron has ever tried to help them--and this project is needed to get the extra buttons and LEDs working.
I bought this because I needed a full-blown laptop and this was the cheapest thing I could find, even with the M$ Tax. Maybe if they really are
changing their tune they'd be willing to refund that tax. But considering that ACER-WMI hasn't had any help and I just saw another article saying
that Acer won't sell Linux laptops in the UK, I think this is just a publicity stunt and won't be holding my breath.
Now that I'm able to save some money, if I buy another laptop, I'll be able to spend more (!) for no M$ Tax (just wrong) and hopefully a product of
higher quality than Acer/Wistron.
Mike