While a few of the points they are making about the IA-64 architecture are valid, there is a significant amount of fluff and propaganda in this piece. There are many mentions of 'insignificant performance gain' or 'does not justify the cost' which from my research seem unwarranted.
The thing to remember is that Intel is not stupid. They think they can make this work, and they are one of the few companies with enough resources to make it work. I wouldn't bet outright on intel, but I do think they know what they are doing and wont end up with a useless product.
600 mph is roughly 270 meters per second. At 3g acceleration, you have 30 meters per second. Subtract 10 because you are fighting gravity, and you end up with 270/20 = 14 seconds to hit 600 mph.
Actually, I think your estimate is a little low. I've been fiddling with some of these questions for a while now, and even have a sort of simulator that generates star systems. It looks (as near as I can tell) that about one in 10 star systems has a planet with liquid water, reasonable gravity, and appropriate temperature range.
Also, current thinking is that the odds of life happening on such a planet is fairly high... on the order of 10 to 50% (from various abiogenesis experiments). Of course we only have one real data point, but the evidence seems to point to the idea that life isnt that hard to make.
The probability of intelligence is significantly lower, but once they have intelligence the probability of rf technology is effectively 1, so that term vanishes as well. I don't think intelligence is that rare, and that after 5 billion years of evolution, I would put this factor around.5. You are free to use your own value of course, but given that semi-intelligent creatures abound on this rock, I don't think intelligent creatures who can use tools are that far off.
Probability of emission frequency if fairly low as well, however not quite as low as you would think: There are certain bands that are the best for transmitting in. Most of the spectrum is filled with broadband noise, and there are a few marker frequencies that would be the most efficient/effective to transmit on. Instead of 1e-6, I'd be a bit more conservative and put it at 1e-4.
Of course there is one more term you forgot to mention: the length of time an alien race might transmit such a signal. This is pretty much anyone's guess, but id place it at no more than 500 years - which is a really short period of time. This factor should be divided by the average age of the stars we will be looking at, which would be about 5 billion years. This factor alone works out to 1e-7.
So the net result is.1(star with planet)*.1(planet with life)*.5(tool/rf using life)*1e-4(proper frequency band)*1e-7(prob we will catch them transmitting)
This works out to about 5e-14 per star, which is still pretty low, but not 1e-24. Also, we can get rid of the 1e-4 factor by improving our detection technology. Additionally, the 1e-7 number may be significantly larger if electromagnetics end up being the only way to communicate across large distances. I wouldn't expect much EM radiation from the planet though, as eventually everything would go to cable/fiber optics instead of radiated waves.
So while the odds are still highly against us, they arent quite as bad as you depict and we can increase them over time.
All of this stuff regarding net censorship has me fairly annoyed as well - but I think I see at least one solution. It would require a large amount of work and participation from many people, but it could be done...
The way I figure it, we _have_ the network infrastructure in place already. People can get information from one place to another without difficulty. So why not make our own virtual community that has no restrictions on it? A bit of a precedent has already been set with so called 'private clubs' which bypass local laws by being a private instead of public place. How about private networks?
The idea is that if the regular network traffic is monitored, construct a private network on it with encryption, and send the data through it anyway. Hell, you don't even need to have internic - set up your own DNS and do it correctly this time. Have it be community regulated, or whatever turns out to be most workable.
At the most extreme end, the virtual community could even go so far as to declare independence from any other nation.
I dunno, just some random ramblings... but it cant be done without strong encryption. As a side note, why don't all network packages ship with encryption facilities in them by default? Why doesnt my telnet connect to my telnetd with RC-5 straight out of the box?
I cannot agree with this. One of the best ways to free or change a nation is through trade and the free flow of information. Linux is an excellent way to do this, as it can truly get into the hands of the people where it is needed most. The more common linux becomes in countries like this, the more communication there will be. Communication is good - it tempers those who would be fanatical out of ignorance.
And yes, from what I understand Iran is undergoing some social changes. Trade involving communications equipment and software for the public can only help. I hope this isn't a government contract:P
Anyway, for the actual question: Have them agree on some standard distribution to install your packages on top of. I wouldn't risk shipping Linux itself, the USA import/export people aren't that bright and would try to thwack you out of stupidity.
The point was that complete and utter destruction of that area of the world is the only way the fighting will be resolved - unless you have a few hundred years to wait.
Some people seem to think peace talks will work. Some people seem to think bombing will work.
Nothing will work save time or removal of that piece of land from the surface of the earth.
Understand yet? It's a difficult concept for most people to wrap thier brains around. You can't think reason will work when dealing with fanatics.
I suspect you misunderstand. I do not hate these people, any more than I hate my computer or I hate the moon. I was simply trying to point out the reality that attitudes are slow to change, and that in situations like this where the attitudes have been ingrained for thousands of years there are only two solutions: lots of time, or complete annihilation of those with the attitudes.
I should probably have labelled my post 'A modest proposal'. However, my point still stands. No matter how nice you are to people, how polite, understanding, reasonable - the stupid ones still will not change.
Never underestimate fanatics. It's when you do that you end up with holocausts.
While I agree that the nato attacks haven't and probably won't have the desired effects, I must point out that when you get down to it there's only two real solutions to this problem. Neither of them are even remotely possible. Let me explain:
The first solution is to wait about 500 years for all the religious bullshit to wear down, and to give technology the time it needs to wear down the locational borders. By that time, the human race might even be halfway civilized, or we'll be under police state control so strict it won't matter anyway.
The second solution is the most realistic. Take israel, northern ireland, yugoslavia, etc... and turn them all into glass deserts. Screw small bombs, use the nukes. The 500 megaton ones.
Give advance warning, enough time for those who want to get out to get out. Anyone idiotic enough to remain dies, along with any possible use the land might have had. These stupid people have been fighting over those worthless tracts for a thousand years - if they can't come to a reasonable conclusion, turn it to dust so noone gets it.
As a wise man once said, 'against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.' That's what we are up against here - pure stupidity from both sides. From Yugoslavia, the stupidity of the fanatics who feel they have a god given right to the land. From Nato, for thinking anything short of complete annihilation would do the job.
Fiber does have a specific bandwidth limit - if we assume that blue (4000 Angstrom) light is the highest frequency the fiber can carry with acceptable loss, the total bandwidth of the fiber works out to about 7.5e14 Hz. In practice, this will limit the data rate to somewhere on the order of 2e14 bits per second, which while a lot is only about a hundred times the rate posted in the story.
Further advances in optical fiber technology may push the data rate up to 1e15 bits per second, and on-the-fly compression will help get even more out of them.
Slashdot Mirror
While a few of the points they are making about the IA-64 architecture are valid, there is a significant amount of fluff and propaganda in this piece. There are many mentions of 'insignificant performance gain' or 'does not justify the cost' which from my research seem unwarranted.
The thing to remember is that Intel is not stupid. They think they can make this work, and they are one of the few companies with enough resources to make it work. I wouldn't bet outright on intel, but I do think they know what they are doing and wont end up with a useless product.
-dennis towne
This guy has been rehashed many times on usenet. His claims are bogus, and he is a well known fraudster.
You need only search for his name and his company on deja news.
-dennis towne
I think your numbers are seriously busted dude.
600 mph is roughly 270 meters per second. At 3g acceleration, you have 30 meters per second. Subtract 10 because you are fighting gravity, and you end up with 270/20 = 14 seconds to hit 600 mph.
-dentin
Actually, I think your estimate is a little low. I've been fiddling with some of these questions for a while now, and even have a sort of simulator that generates star systems. It looks (as near as I can tell) that about one in 10 star systems has a planet with liquid water, reasonable gravity, and appropriate temperature range.
.5. You are free to use your own value of course, but given that semi-intelligent creatures abound on this rock, I don't think intelligent creatures who can use tools are that far off.
.1(star with planet)*.1(planet with life)*.5(tool/rf using life)*1e-4(proper frequency band)*1e-7(prob we will catch them transmitting)
Also, current thinking is that the odds of life happening on such a planet is fairly high... on the order of 10 to 50% (from various abiogenesis experiments). Of course we only have one real data point, but the evidence seems to point to the idea that life isnt that hard to make.
The probability of intelligence is significantly lower, but once they have intelligence the probability of rf technology is effectively 1, so that term vanishes as well. I don't think intelligence is that rare, and that after 5 billion years of evolution, I would put this factor around
Probability of emission frequency if fairly low as well, however not quite as low as you would think: There are certain bands that are the best for transmitting in. Most of the spectrum is filled with broadband noise, and there are a few marker frequencies that would be the most efficient/effective to transmit on. Instead of 1e-6, I'd be a bit more conservative and put it at 1e-4.
Of course there is one more term you forgot to mention: the length of time an alien race might transmit such a signal. This is pretty much anyone's guess, but id place it at no more than 500 years - which is a really short period of time. This factor should be divided by the average age of the stars we will be looking at, which would be about 5 billion years. This factor alone works out to 1e-7.
So the net result is
This works out to about 5e-14 per star, which is still pretty low, but not 1e-24. Also, we can get rid of the 1e-4 factor by improving our detection technology. Additionally, the 1e-7 number may be significantly larger if electromagnetics end up being the only way to communicate across large distances. I wouldn't expect much EM radiation from the planet though, as eventually everything would go to cable/fiber optics instead of radiated waves.
So while the odds are still highly against us, they arent quite as bad as you depict and we can increase them over time.
-dentin
All of this stuff regarding net censorship has me fairly annoyed as well - but I think I see at least one solution. It would require a large amount of work and participation from many people, but it could be done...
The way I figure it, we _have_ the network infrastructure in place already. People can get information from one place to another without difficulty. So why not make our own virtual community that has no restrictions on it? A bit of a precedent has already been set with so called 'private clubs' which bypass local laws by being a private instead of public place. How about private networks?
The idea is that if the regular network traffic is monitored, construct a private network on it with encryption, and send the data through it anyway. Hell, you don't even need to have internic - set up your own DNS and do it correctly this time. Have it be community regulated, or whatever turns out to be most workable.
At the most extreme end, the virtual community could even go so far as to declare independence from any other nation.
I dunno, just some random ramblings... but it cant be done without strong encryption. As a side note, why don't all network packages ship with encryption facilities in them by default? Why doesnt my telnet connect to my telnetd with RC-5 straight out of the box?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I cannot agree with this. One of the best ways to free or change a nation is through trade and the free flow of information. Linux is an excellent way to do this, as it can truly get into the hands of the people where it is needed most. The more common linux becomes in countries like this, the more communication there will be. Communication is good - it tempers those who would be fanatical out of ignorance.
:P
And yes, from what I understand Iran is undergoing some social changes. Trade involving communications equipment and software for the public can only help. I hope this isn't a government contract
Anyway, for the actual question: Have them agree on some standard distribution to install your packages on top of. I wouldn't risk shipping Linux itself, the USA import/export people aren't that bright and would try to thwack you out of stupidity.
The point was not that we should nuke them.
The point was that complete and utter destruction of that area of the world is the only way the fighting will be resolved - unless you have a few hundred years to wait.
Some people seem to think peace talks will work.
Some people seem to think bombing will work.
Nothing will work save time or removal of that piece of land from the surface of the earth.
Understand yet? It's a difficult concept for most people to wrap thier brains around. You can't think reason will work when dealing with fanatics.
-dentin
I suspect you misunderstand. I do not hate these people, any more than I hate my computer or I hate the moon. I was simply trying to point out the reality that attitudes are slow to change, and that in situations like this where the attitudes have been ingrained for thousands of years there are only two solutions: lots of time, or complete annihilation of those with the attitudes.
I should probably have labelled my post 'A modest proposal'. However, my point still stands. No matter how nice you are to people, how polite, understanding, reasonable - the stupid ones still will not change.
Never underestimate fanatics. It's when you do that you end up with holocausts.
-dentin
While I agree that the nato attacks haven't and probably won't have the desired effects, I must point out that when you get down to it there's only two real solutions to this problem. Neither of them are even remotely possible. Let me explain:
The first solution is to wait about 500 years for all the religious bullshit to wear down, and to give technology the time it needs to wear down the locational borders. By that time, the human race might even be halfway civilized, or we'll be under police state control so strict it won't matter anyway.
The second solution is the most realistic. Take israel, northern ireland, yugoslavia, etc... and turn them all into glass deserts. Screw small bombs, use the nukes. The 500 megaton ones.
Give advance warning, enough time for those who want to get out to get out. Anyone idiotic enough to remain dies, along with any possible use the land might have had. These stupid people have been fighting over those worthless tracts for a thousand years - if they can't come to a reasonable conclusion, turn it to dust so noone gets it.
As a wise man once said, 'against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.' That's what we are up against here - pure stupidity from both sides. From Yugoslavia, the stupidity of the fanatics who feel they have a god given right to the land. From Nato, for thinking anything short of complete annihilation would do the job.
-dentin
Fiber does have a specific bandwidth limit - if we assume that blue (4000 Angstrom) light is the highest frequency the fiber can carry with acceptable loss, the total bandwidth of the fiber works out to about 7.5e14 Hz. In practice, this will limit the data rate to somewhere on the order of 2e14 bits per second, which while a lot is only about a hundred times the rate posted in the story.
Further advances in optical fiber technology may push the data rate up to 1e15 bits per second, and on-the-fly compression will help get even more out of them.
-dentin