Those pesky fat zero's are what's clogging up the communications, compared to those sleek 1's that just fit down the wires so easily.
Actually, this statement has some truth to it. Particularly T1's (DS1 Hi-Caps) use the 1s to time repeaters. 12.5% 1s density is required, which is why B8ZS (bipolar 8-zero substitution) is needed. In short, B8ZS substitutes every 4 bits for 5, eliminating any series of eight 0s.
In fact, T1 test equipment has the test patterns all 1s and all 0s. Guess which transmits faster...
The article itself appears to have expired, although the Google cache is still available. Quite an underrated article I'd say, too bad SingaporeCNET turned into CNETAsia. Appaloosa and Thoroughbred are core names:
In turn, the Palomino will be superceded by the 0.13-micron Thoroughbred in 1H02. This process makes the components of the CPU smaller, and hence, CPUs can go faster without overheating.
After the Thoroughbred, our dear "uncle" Barton makes an entrance in 2H02. Barton also uses the 0.13-micron process, but it will incorporate the Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology, a manufacturing technology that makes chips faster and cooler. As for Morgan and Appaloosa, they are the low-end versions of the Palomino and the Thoroughbred, respectively (Duron 4, anyone?), and are technically inferior chiefly because they have less level 2 cache.
Level 2 cache is more significant than more people realize. It's also insanely expensive compared to system RAM because cache RAM is often static, rather than dynamic, requiring more circuitry (actually, an entire flip-flop) than dynamic RAM requires (which is a single transistor and capacitor). Interesting naming convention nonetheless.
SOI refers to placing a thin layer of silicon on top of an insulator, such as silicon oxide or glass. The transistors (switches that are used in microprocessors) are then built on top of this thin layer of SOI. The basic idea is that
the SOI layer reduces the capacitance of the switch, so it operates faster.
IBM has built and tested SOI-based chips that have 20-35 percent (frequency) performance gain or 2-3X lower power at the same frequency as bulk CMOS technology. This is equivalent to about two years of progress in bulk CMOS technology.
The ultimate goal is to use SOI as the substrate for mainstream CMOS technology used in the manufacturing of microprocessor chips that power computers and other emerging electronic devices.
Earthweb has a detailed explaination of SOI by Robert Richmond. Apparently, SOI was invented by IBM.
Geek.com has a short but informative page on AMD's future Thoroughbred processor. Interestingly, AMD will produce both mobile and desktop versions of the processor. Some specifics:
Speed: 2.0GHz? Bus Speed: 133*2=266 L1 Cache: 128K L2 Cache: 256K Microns:.13=130nm Form Factor: Socket A
The GNOME mail archives have a post which shows what RMS is pissed about. There's even a Hall of Shame which lists some non-free packages, most GNOME-based.
The PIN is four decimal digits = 10,000 combinations ~= somewhere between 13 and 14 bits of security.
For those interested, you can find how many bits a key with x values is using logarithms:
bits = log(x) / log(2), or
bits = d / log(2)
Where d is the number of decimal digits the key is. Therefore, a 4-digit PIN has 4/log(2) or precisely 13.287712379549449391481277717958 bits of cryptographic strength. Not much compared even to weak encryption such as 64-bit DES, or the 56-bit des-ii cracked by d.net.
A fresh batch of newly declassified CIA documents, however, provides a more nuanced picture of the CIA's directorate of science and technology. The documents - requested under the Freedom of Information Act by Jeffrey Richelson, a senior fellow at the national security archive in Washington - chart the development of the extraordinary US spy satellites as well as the U-2 and A-12 spy planes. But they also record some of the gaffes and wrong turns along the way, which reveal the CIA's boffins to be as accident-prone as any government institution.
For anyone interested, there is a good article by Research Libraries Group entitled Preserving Digital Information. My favorite excerpt:
Digital technology, however, poses new threats and problems as well as new opportunities. Its functionality comes with complexity. Anyone with a compass (or a clear night to view the position of the stars in relation to true north) could theoretically set up or repair a sundial. A digital watch is more useful and accurate for telling time than a sundial, but few people can repair it or even understand how it works. Reading and understanding information in digital form requires equipment and software, which is changing constantly and may not be available within a decade of its introduction. Who today has a punched card reader, a Dectape drive, or a working copy of FORTRAN II? Even newer technology such as 9-track tape is rapidly becoming obsolete. We cannot save the machines if there are no spare parts available, and we cannot save the software if no one is left who knows how to use it.
With the storage evolving so rapidly, one must ask the question whether you'll be able to your present hard disk decades in the future. My personal recommendation is the obvious: to make physical, hard copies of all important data. Although Kodak claims their CDR media lasts 100 years or more, I still wouldn't hesitate to make physical copies, readable by humans rather than computers.
The 5.4GHz band is currently being primarly used for a few military installations. According to the article:
The frequency is also far less cluttered with only some military systems currently operating in it. And the 5.4GHz space has more available bandwidth; 300MHz as opposed to the 80MHz band centred on 2.4GHz.
In my opinion the real problem with 802.11a, now that bandwidth and interference is no longer an issue, is range. But perhaps this could be solved by using a microwave amplifier. The shorter wavelength of 5.4 GHz means that transmissions in this band have more trouble traveling through walls, floors, furniture and other obstructions, according to Cisco's Ron Seide.
The new 802.11a uses the 5.4GHz spectrum, thus avoiding any problems of interference. Presently, 5.4GHz is (sparingly) used by governmental instutions, but the band itself is license-excempt.
Then there is the 802.11a standard. It is also licence-exempt but operates at 5.4GHz.
A framework for self-improving systems
on
Self-Improving Systems
·
· Score: 4, Informative
For instance, the THEO system (Mitchell et al. 1989) uses a single knowledge base and a single set of axioms.
I'd suggest anyone seriously interested in self-improving systems check out Mitchell, T. M., J. Allen, P. Chalasani, J. Cheng, O. Etzioni, M. Ringuette, and J. C. Schlimmer's 1989 book, Theo: A Framework for Self-Improving Systems: National Science Foundation, published by DEC.
DVDs are replacing CDs for other OSs also
on
Debian On DVD
·
· Score: 1
How to write tiny applications
on
Tiny Apps
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Presently most Unix applications are written in C for portability reasons. In reality, C programs have to modified when ported from one Unix to another, unless something like GNU autoconf is used. Assembly has the advantage over C of being extremely fast and tiny.
A well-written tutorial about writing BSD assembly application is FreeBSD Assembly Language Programming. There is also a Linux Assembly Programming Resource Site. I suggest if you hate bloated software to contribute to solving the problem by writing small utilities in assembly. Of course, C remains the choice for large projects, but assembly has it's place.
Tiny operating systems
on
Tiny Apps
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The folks who develop FreeBSD released PicoBSD, which according to their homepage can be used as follows:
diskless workstation
portable dial-up access solution
custom demo-disk
embedded controller (flash or EEPROM)
firewall
communication server
replacement for commercial router
diskless home-automation system
PicoBSD's applications are really small. Fitting a whole OS onto a single floppy diskette is quite beneficial, and often means that the expensive hard disk can be eliminated. There are also several other small Unix clones, including Minix and Alfalinux (Slackware on 2 floppies). BBIAgent Router is simply amazing: it's a single-floppy Linux-based router and firewall.
Small Unix utilities written in assembly
on
Tiny Apps
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Andrew Main wrote several standard utilities in assembly and packaged them as smallutils. The description says this:
Description: A few very small standard utilities. Assembler versions
of some of them are included for i386/Linux (both a.out
and ELF), Sparc/Solaris2 and Sparc/SunOS4. Portable C
versions of all the utilities are are also included.
You need these utilities, and there is no excuse for
not having the hyper-efficient (and small!) binaries
that result from use of assembler.
Interesting concept. Linux's standard utilities are unnecessarily bloated, replacing them with smallutils allows a respectable distribution to fit on a 1.44MB floppy. According to the documentation, these utilities are included:
Why are you bringing broken parts in your plane carry-on? Check it or mail it and there wouldn't be any problem.
Good question. Mainly, I do this because my time is limited and I have to unsolder components whenever I can. I'd love to use a 110V bulk unsolder gun, but in truth my 9V one works fine. Just ask one of my employees.
For those interested in the new features of Mandrake 8.1, be sure to check out this information. The newest killer features include, according to their website:
Draknet (network configuration tool), test and enjoy this thoroughly reworked version.
Support for the Euro
Mime Type managing reworked
Renewed URPMI (package installer) and Software Manager
The reworked Mandrake Control Center will provide a convenient embedded root console as well as new tools such as Logdrake, a graphical frontend to the system log files, or Drakinst, which allows easy setup of an auto-install disk.
Renewed HardDrake (disk partitioner)
Fresh version of PrinterDrake to get all the power of your printer.
Although Beta 1 obviously has less features than the final release, it's a good read.
I admit I'm a bit confused as to what they mean by "support for the Euro" - isn't is supported given Unicode support, character U+20AC? If anyone is curious, I recommend Microsoft's FAQ on the Euro.
I deal with broken PCBs and computer systems on a daily basis. Surplus, used, or thrown away, I have it, sell it, and salvage it. These airport's new security regulations require all electronic devices to be proved functional, as I understand it.
This is of course a huge problem for the business of salvaging broken or obsolete customer electronics. Prove functionality? My junk hasn't been functional in 20 years! Hopefully the guards will understand my situation.
Ferrofluid links
on
Magnetic Fluids
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Ferrofluids are indeed cool but DansData is not the only place which has information on them. They can be used to create nanostructures and defy gravity for environmental engineering. In case you're wondering what exactly ferrofluids are, here's a good excerpt from the previous link:
Ferrofluids are colloidal suspensions of nanoscale magnetic particles in a carrier fluid; the particles form magnetic domains separated by coats of dispersant only a molecule thick. These magnetic fluids have been used in many ways--to form airtight seals around rapidly moving parts, to move drugs in the bloodstream and rocket propellants in spacecraft, even to cool and dampen powerful audio speakers. Now steerable ferrofluids may give rise to new tools for subsurface environmental engineering and laboratory safety.
At Berkeley, they use magnetic fluids to control movement of underground fluids without any contact. Interesting stuff. For an introduction to ferrofluids, see University of Wisconsin's excellent article.
802.11b transmits at 2.4 GHz, the same spectrum as microwave ovens. The cards use less power than a mobile phone.
Cisco warns that their PCMCIA card should be more than 2 inches from your body, and the access point's antenna should be at least 6 inches away from anyone. I hold my laptop on my lap. (That is where the name came from, after all.) If I get cancer on top of my right thigh, I know who to blame.
Work-around for failure to startup from a FireWire drive Dik Gregory found that, after updating to Mac OS X 10.1, his external FireWire hard drive with Mac OS 9.1.1 installed, appeared in the Startup Disk System Preference. In Mac OS X 10.0.x, it did not. "However, selecting it had no effect. My system still booted from the OS X 10.1 system on my Cube's internal drive. To actually boot from the FireWire drive, I needed to first boot from 9.2.1 on my internal drive and then select the FireWire drive from the Startup Disk control panel."
There are some other problems with 10.1 but for the most part I'd say the upgrade is well worth it.
CNET also has a review of OS 10.1. There's some contraversy surrounding The "Free" OS X 10.1 Update that costs you $20. TechTV (formerlly ZDTV) also has a review of Mac OS X 10.1. I'd recommend anyone interested in Mac OS X 10.1 read all these reviews to get full coverage, and unbiased opinions.
Now that Elias Levy has moved on it may be interesting to read an interview done by UnderLinux. Aleph1 explains his philosophy behind security - recommended reading for anyone interested. Levy is wise enough not to take sides on whether GNU/Linux or OpenBSD are secure. Here's a good quote:
UnderLinux: One time surfing on the web I see this phrase : "Wanna defeat hackers..think like a hacker.. work like a security expert". What you think about this ? Aleph1 : A cliche, but a valid one. When creating defensive security technologies you must test them by attempting to defeat them before others do. Therefore you do not only require a defensive mindset but also an offensive one. Not only that but you must be better and more through than the ones you are defensing from. As a defender you must find and fix all possible avenues of attack. As an attacker you must only find and exploit one.
This guy is brilliant. Hopefully the new moderators will be able to live up to Elis Levy's wisdom.
Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think that a few cases of anthrax are going to kill snail mail. First of all, junk mail is a big business - it essentially keeps snail mail alive. Companies pay millions of dollars to send out bulk mail. E-mail just doesn't have the same respect as snail mail.
I suspect this will not only increase e-mail usage but especially telephone conversations. Just compare it to what happened after the September 11th attack - the nation-wide telecom network was nearly saturated. If an outbreak does occur, phone communication will most likely be the way loved ones communicate with the victims.
Is it more likely that we missed something due to not doing enough analysis on the data, or due to not processing the right frequencies.
Nonsense. SETI performs a Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) on the raw data, which separates out the frequencies into pure sine waves. Fourier's theorem is that any and all waveforms can be represented as a sum of sine waves. We don't need to do "process the right frequencies" - FFT processes all the frequencies.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact, T1 test equipment has the test patterns all 1s and all 0s. Guess which transmits faster...
Level 2 cache is more significant than more people realize. It's also insanely expensive compared to system RAM because cache RAM is often static, rather than dynamic, requiring more circuitry (actually, an entire flip-flop) than dynamic RAM requires (which is a single transistor and capacitor). Interesting naming convention nonetheless.
I expected at least a reboot, but Asus LiveUpdate flashed our BIOS in Windows without a hitch. Now they just need a Linux flash utility..
The GNOME mail archives have a post which shows what RMS is pissed about. There's even a Hall of Shame which lists some non-free packages, most GNOME-based.
For those interested, you can find how many bits a key with x values is using logarithms:
Where d is the number of decimal digits the key is. Therefore, a 4-digit PIN has 4/log(2) or precisely 13.287712379549449391481277717958 bits of cryptographic strength. Not much compared even to weak encryption such as 64-bit DES, or the 56-bit des-ii cracked by d.net.
The "Acoustic Kitty" is one of the CIA's many failures. You can download the declassified documents at George Washington University. Most relevent is Document 27: Views on Trained Cat Use. Interesting read straight from the horse's mouth.
With the storage evolving so rapidly, one must ask the question whether you'll be able to your present hard disk decades in the future. My personal recommendation is the obvious: to make physical, hard copies of all important data. Although Kodak claims their CDR media lasts 100 years or more, I still wouldn't hesitate to make physical copies, readable by humans rather than computers.
In my opinion the real problem with 802.11a, now that bandwidth and interference is no longer an issue, is range. But perhaps this could be solved by using a microwave amplifier. The shorter wavelength of 5.4 GHz means that transmissions in this band have more trouble traveling through walls, floors, furniture and other obstructions, according to Cisco's Ron Seide.
On June 29th, FreeBSD Services Ltd. announced release of a bootable DVD containing FreeBSD. You can buy the 9GB DVD at http://www.freebsd-services.com/. There has also been some discussion of selling a FreeBSD DVD at FreeBSD Mall. A Japan retailer is offering NetBSD on DVD. When will OpenBSD follow? I expect there will be difficulties, as Theo copyrighted the CD layout - that's why you won't find it on Linuxiso.org. That's too bad, as an OpenBSD DVD would be quite convenient.
A well-written tutorial about writing BSD assembly application is FreeBSD Assembly Language Programming. There is also a Linux Assembly Programming Resource Site. I suggest if you hate bloated software to contribute to solving the problem by writing small utilities in assembly. Of course, C remains the choice for large projects, but assembly has it's place.
PicoBSD's applications are really small. Fitting a whole OS onto a single floppy diskette is quite beneficial, and often means that the expensive hard disk can be eliminated. There are also several other small Unix clones, including Minix and Alfalinux (Slackware on 2 floppies). BBIAgent Router is simply amazing: it's a single-floppy Linux-based router and firewall.
Interesting concept. Linux's standard utilities are unnecessarily bloated, replacing them with smallutils allows a respectable distribution to fit on a 1.44MB floppy. According to the documentation, these utilities are included:
Good question. Mainly, I do this because my time is limited and I have to unsolder components whenever I can. I'd love to use a 110V bulk unsolder gun, but in truth my 9V one works fine. Just ask one of my employees.
Although Beta 1 obviously has less features than the final release, it's a good read.
I admit I'm a bit confused as to what they mean by "support for the Euro" - isn't is supported given Unicode support, character U+20AC? If anyone is curious, I recommend Microsoft's FAQ on the Euro.
This is of course a huge problem for the business of salvaging broken or obsolete customer electronics. Prove functionality? My junk hasn't been functional in 20 years! Hopefully the guards will understand my situation.
At Berkeley, they use magnetic fluids to control movement of underground fluids without any contact. Interesting stuff. For an introduction to ferrofluids, see University of Wisconsin's excellent article.
There are some other problems with 10.1 but for the most part I'd say the upgrade is well worth it.
CNET also has a review of OS 10.1. There's some contraversy surrounding The "Free" OS X 10.1 Update that costs you $20. TechTV (formerlly ZDTV) also has a review of Mac OS X 10.1. I'd recommend anyone interested in Mac OS X 10.1 read all these reviews to get full coverage, and unbiased opinions.
This guy is brilliant. Hopefully the new moderators will be able to live up to Elis Levy's wisdom.
Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think that a few cases of anthrax are going to kill snail mail. First of all, junk mail is a big business - it essentially keeps snail mail alive. Companies pay millions of dollars to send out bulk mail. E-mail just doesn't have the same respect as snail mail.
I suspect this will not only increase e-mail usage but especially telephone conversations. Just compare it to what happened after the September 11th attack - the nation-wide telecom network was nearly saturated. If an outbreak does occur, phone communication will most likely be the way loved ones communicate with the victims.
Just my two cents.
Nonsense. SETI performs a Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) on the raw data, which separates out the frequencies into pure sine waves. Fourier's theorem is that any and all waveforms can be represented as a sum of sine waves. We don't need to do "process the right frequencies" - FFT processes all the frequencies.