Another key difference as I understand it is that Firewire is a generic peer-to-peer bus, while USB is based on a host/peripheral concept. In other words, with Firewire you could plug your digital camera directly into your digital VCR, while with USB you would have to plug both of these into your (Intel Inside) PC.
USB really pisses me off. The concept of having low-speed desktop peripherals all connected to a common serial interface is a good one; it was called Apple Desktop Bus. USB seems to be overly complicated and buggy for this sort of stuff, while at the same time it's underpowered for audio/video applications.
The USB/Firewire fight seems very similar to the IDE/SCSI fight, and I fear that once again the crappy technology is going to win, simply as a consequence of the enormous marketing power that some companies have. (BTW, I have a hard time believing that SCSI is inherently any more expensive than the kludged mess of primary/secondary IDE controllers and parallel-port adapters that we've ended up with once people realized that computers might need more than 2 storage devices).
I've never been a big fan of Apple, but I also hate x86 hardware with a passion. My next computer will probably be a PowerPC in some form, but I expect this G4 is out of my budget at present (and Apple's online store appears to be slashdotted at the moment). Still, it's a nice-looking machine.
I don't know exactly how much more fuel, but you have to consider that the object is in solar orbit along with the earth, and you have to cancel that angular momentum to get it to drop into the sun. You could probably save some fuel by taking a gravitational boost from venus, but it's still a lot.
I wonder if it would be possible to put junk at one of the L4/L5 points of the earth-sun system - it's a lot closer than the sun, and it would let us get the stuff back if we ever decide we need it again.
Even if the space program can't get you to another planet, it can teach you how to live in a "closed" system where you have no choice but to recycle and to respect your environment. IMHO not a bad lesson to learn.
"Instant ON" usually means that the device was never really off, just in a suspended state. My Palm IIIx takes about 6 seconds to reboot after a reset. As for an OS cartridge, you can get a flash memory card with an IDE interface, and put your root file system on it. However, you will still have to wait for the kernel to autoprobe various bits of hardware, so you won't get an instant on. The real solution for desktop computers is (1) get the OS stable and modular enough that you rarely need to reboot, and (2) reduce the power drawn by a suspended PC to a point where you won't notice that it's on (i.e. no fans, and hard disks all spun down).
One method that's been proposed is a prize for accomplishing some goal (like being the first to return 1kg of martian soil). This provides motivation, but doesn't give the subcontractors any incentive to add $1000 toilet seats to their designs.
Remember that in the solar system, you are orbitting the sun. To move "into the wind", you tilt your sail so that it reduces your angular momentum, then the sun's gravity will pull you in. Similarly, to move "out" in the system, you tilt your sail so that it increases your angular momentum. To "stop at an arbitrary point" (like a planet), you just match orbits with your target.
"In the seventh month of 1999 The Great King of horror comes from the sky, To resuscitate the great king Angolmua And before and after Mars will be to rule happily"
>According to the laws of physics, there should be an equal amount of anti-matter as there is matter.
Are you sure about this? The last I heard, it was possible that there were some slight asymmetries in the laws of physics which could favour one type of matter over the other. IIRC, it was only a 1-part-per-billion type of effect that would be necessary to make our entire universe be "regular" matter.
As the article said, _if_ this experiment finds anti-helium, it could overturn some of these theories which predict only one variety of matter.
>Also, speaking in theory, shouldn't there be neutral matter?
"Anti"-matter does not just mean electric charge; it is really "-1" of a particle. By this reasoning, a "neutral electron" would be a region of space which contained no electrons or antielectrons. Not a very useful concept. Some scientists have speculated about "exotic" matter with a negative mass, and some theories for wormholes require this sort of matter, but it's never been observed.
No large (star-sized) black holes emit detectable amounts of "stuff". However, in the process of falling in, dust and gas outside the hole can be heated up so much that it (the dust and gas) glows brightly, even in the X-ray spectrum. Evaporation through Hawking radiation takes place *very* slowly, and will only be significant long after all the stars have burned out.
Kip Thorne has written about this - if you have a spinning black hole, you can build a large superconducting ring around it and extract the spin energy electromagnetically (something like 29% of the hole's mass, if it's spinning at the theoretical maximum rate).
Another way to make a power plant might be to find or make a small black hole, such that it was radiating macroscopic amounts of Hawking radiation, then feed it matter (old computer cases, AOL disks, etc.) at exactly the rate that it is emitting energy (thus keeping its temperature constant, and preventing it from exploding).
Of course, there's always the old standby method of running a long chain around a generator shaft then dropping it into the black hole - your generator will keep turning until you run out of chain.
Re:Alkaline batties *are* rechargable... but "they
on
Iron Ferrite Batteries
·
· Score: 1
To first order, you're correct. Some months before Rayovac's product came out, there was a device being sold on TV to recharge regular batteries.
However, I think that there is some subtle tuning of cell chemistry and sealing in the rechargeable alkalines. I have used my Rayovac charger to charge regular alkalines, but I have also had some of them leak inside the charger. I don't mind paying a bit more for the proper batteries, if it saves me from having to scrape KOH out of my equipment.
They're claiming ~100 cycles now; it was around 20 when they first came out. I think that even at the "end" of their cycle life, they have similar performance to a standard NiCd.
There is no "one size fits all" rechargeable battery. If your application always runs the batteries to zero, NiMH is probably the best choice. For standby items like flashlights, or low-drain devices like remote controls or palm pilots, RA's are ideal since you can just throw the batteries into the charger every few weeks to keep them topped up.
Rayovac has sold rechargeable alkaline batteries for several (5?) years now. I don't know how much better these "Super-Iron" batteries will be, but they are certainly not the only alternative to single-use alkalines.
There is a searchable MSDS archive at http://siri.uvm.edu/msds/, where you can browse the relative toxicity of various compounds. (BTW, the sequence is Iron, Cobalt, Nickel).
Re:Everything computer is a Microsoft spinoff
on
SCO does Linux
·
· Score: 1
Commodore had "personal computers" for a long time too, but since their marketing skill was on par with Microsoft's programming skill, they never managed to penetrate the business market. Still, I grew up with Vic20 -> C128 -> A500 -> A4000, and only bought a "PC" after finding a non-MS operating system for it (slackware linux).
Microsoft's only innovations were in the areas of marketing and licensing. The world didn't need them.
I don't know how smooth a hard drive platter has to be, but some polymers can be smooth enough to work as eyeglass lenses, so that might be close enough.
Yes, the article is talking about making the actual platters out of plastic rather than aluminum. They will coat the plastic platters with a magnetic coating, just like they do now with the (non-magnetic) aluminum ones.
A good point - E-mail started off bumbling around various networks and UUCP hops, and was never intended to be a real-time format. I suppose E*Trade could always conduct their business on irc...
In terms of infrastructure, there are services like frame relay or ISDN (or even regular dial-up modems) that can deliver a guaranteed-bandwidth connection between two endpoints. Hopefully there will be some convergence of these technologies with the Internet, to the point where we will be able to place data "phone calls", using TCP carried over some non-IP layer. There is already a need for something like this, for videoconferencing etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Another key difference as I understand it is that Firewire is a generic peer-to-peer bus, while USB is based on a host/peripheral concept. In other words, with Firewire you could plug your digital camera directly into your digital VCR, while with USB you would have to plug both of these into your (Intel Inside) PC.
USB really pisses me off. The concept of having low-speed desktop peripherals all connected to a common serial interface is a good one; it was called Apple Desktop Bus. USB seems to be overly complicated and buggy for this sort of stuff, while at the same time it's underpowered for audio/video applications.
The USB/Firewire fight seems very similar to the IDE/SCSI fight, and I fear that once again the crappy technology is going to win, simply as a consequence of the enormous marketing power that some companies have. (BTW, I have a hard time believing that SCSI is inherently any more expensive than the kludged mess of primary/secondary IDE controllers and parallel-port adapters that we've ended up with once people realized that computers might need more than 2 storage devices).
I've never been a big fan of Apple, but I also hate x86 hardware with a passion. My next computer will probably be a PowerPC in some form, but I expect this G4 is out of my budget at present (and Apple's online store appears to be slashdotted at the moment). Still, it's a nice-looking machine.
>Complete with different inclinations (due to lanuch sites)
The Zarya module (core of the ISS) was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the same site that supports Mir.
I don't know exactly how much more fuel, but you have to consider that the object is in solar orbit along with the earth, and you have to cancel that angular momentum to get it to drop into the sun. You could probably save some fuel by taking a gravitational boost from venus, but it's still a lot.
I wonder if it would be possible to put junk at one of the L4/L5 points of the earth-sun system - it's a lot closer than the sun, and it would let us get the stuff back if we ever decide we need it again.
Even if the space program can't get you to another planet, it can teach you how to live in a "closed" system where you have no choice but to recycle and to respect your environment. IMHO not a bad lesson to learn.
All they have to do is open the door.
"Instant ON" usually means that the device was never really off, just in a suspended state. My Palm IIIx takes about 6 seconds to reboot after a reset. As for an OS cartridge, you can get a flash memory card with an IDE interface, and put your root file system on it. However, you will still have to wait for the kernel to autoprobe various bits of hardware, so you won't get an instant on. The real solution for desktop computers is (1) get the OS stable and modular enough that you rarely need to reboot, and (2) reduce the power drawn by a suspended PC to a point where you won't notice that it's on (i.e. no fans, and hard disks all spun down).
Win95, also known as "Winever..."
One method that's been proposed is a prize for accomplishing some goal (like being the first to return 1kg of martian soil). This provides motivation, but doesn't give the subcontractors any incentive to add $1000 toilet seats to their designs.
Remember that in the solar system, you are orbitting the sun. To move "into the wind", you tilt your sail so that it reduces your angular momentum, then the sun's gravity will pull you in. Similarly, to move "out" in the system, you tilt your sail so that it increases your angular momentum. To "stop at an arbitrary point" (like a planet), you just match orbits with your target.
>Why not use RTG's?
Because RTGs attract loons.
You mean something like this?
"In the seventh month of 1999
The Great King of horror comes from the sky,
To resuscitate the great king Angolmua
And before and after Mars will be to rule happily"
Nostradamus goofs again... NEXT!
>According to the laws of physics, there should be an equal amount of anti-matter as there is matter.
Are you sure about this? The last I heard, it was possible that there were some slight asymmetries in the laws of physics which could favour one type of matter over the other. IIRC, it was only a 1-part-per-billion type of effect that would be necessary to make our entire universe be "regular" matter.
As the article said, _if_ this experiment finds anti-helium, it could overturn some of these theories which predict only one variety of matter.
>Also, speaking in theory, shouldn't there be neutral matter?
"Anti"-matter does not just mean electric charge; it is really "-1" of a particle. By this reasoning, a "neutral electron" would be a region of space which contained no electrons or antielectrons. Not a very useful concept. Some scientists have speculated about "exotic" matter with a negative mass, and some theories for wormholes require this sort of matter, but it's never been observed.
Don't loose your temper - its only spelling. :-)
No large (star-sized) black holes emit detectable amounts of "stuff". However, in the process of falling in, dust and gas outside the hole can be heated up so much that it (the dust and gas) glows brightly, even in the X-ray spectrum. Evaporation through Hawking radiation takes place *very* slowly, and will only be significant long after all the stars have burned out.
> Since the hole emits the same gravitational attraction in all directions, it should stay in the middle, right?
Nope, straight through the floor.
Kip Thorne has written about this - if you have a spinning black hole, you can build a large superconducting ring around it and extract the spin energy electromagnetically (something like 29% of the hole's mass, if it's spinning at the theoretical maximum rate).
Another way to make a power plant might be to find or make a small black hole, such that it was radiating macroscopic amounts of Hawking radiation, then feed it matter (old computer cases, AOL disks, etc.) at exactly the rate that it is emitting energy (thus keeping its temperature constant, and preventing it from exploding).
Of course, there's always the old standby method of running a long chain around a generator shaft then dropping it into the black hole - your generator will keep turning until you run out of chain.
To first order, you're correct. Some months before Rayovac's product came out, there was a device being sold on TV to recharge regular batteries.
However, I think that there is some subtle tuning of cell chemistry and sealing in the rechargeable alkalines. I have used my Rayovac charger to charge regular alkalines, but I have also had some of them leak inside the charger. I don't mind paying a bit more for the proper batteries, if it saves me from having to scrape KOH out of my equipment.
They're claiming ~100 cycles now; it was around 20 when they first came out. I think that even at the "end" of their cycle life, they have similar performance to a standard NiCd.
There is no "one size fits all" rechargeable battery. If your application always runs the batteries to zero, NiMH is probably the best choice. For standby items like flashlights, or low-drain devices like remote controls or palm pilots, RA's are ideal since you can just throw the batteries into the charger every few weeks to keep them topped up.
Rayovac has sold rechargeable alkaline batteries for several (5?) years now. I don't know how much better these "Super-Iron" batteries will be, but they are certainly not the only alternative to single-use alkalines.
There is a searchable MSDS archive at http://siri.uvm.edu/msds/, where you can browse the relative toxicity of various compounds. (BTW, the sequence is Iron, Cobalt, Nickel).
Commodore had "personal computers" for a long time too, but since their marketing skill was on par with Microsoft's programming skill, they never managed to penetrate the business market. Still, I grew up with Vic20 -> C128 -> A500 -> A4000, and only bought a "PC" after finding a non-MS operating system for it (slackware linux).
Microsoft's only innovations were in the areas of marketing and licensing. The world didn't need them.
I don't know how smooth a hard drive platter has to be, but some polymers can be smooth enough to work as eyeglass lenses, so that might be close enough.
Yes, the article is talking about making the actual platters out of plastic rather than aluminum. They will coat the plastic platters with a magnetic coating, just like they do now with the (non-magnetic) aluminum ones.
A good point - E-mail started off bumbling around various networks and UUCP hops, and was never intended to be a real-time format. I suppose E*Trade could always conduct their business on irc...
In terms of infrastructure, there are services like frame relay or ISDN (or even regular dial-up modems) that can deliver a guaranteed-bandwidth connection between two endpoints. Hopefully there will be some convergence of these technologies with the Internet, to the point where we will be able to place data "phone calls", using TCP carried over some non-IP layer. There is already a need for something like this, for videoconferencing etc.