Surely considering the priceless data on these tapes, I'm sure they could hire engineers to rebuild the original tape readers, perhap with modern heads to account for magnetic fading.
They have the technology. They can rebuild him!^H^H^H it!
All they need is $1,000,000... I mean... $250,000!
There's only one way to directly lose heat in a vaccuum: Infrared
The object has to get hot enough to convert some of the heat into photons. You can see heat dissapation in the visible spectrum with *really* hot objects. e.g. Lava glows, as does metal being fire tempered.
The truth is that vaccuum is the perfect insulator because there's nothing to transfer the molecular motion to. (i.e. Heat is just the molecules bouncing very quickly.) Thankfully, humans have an inborn solution to this problem. Our skin secrets various fluids which are inteded to absorb some of the heat and carry it away. While you can't directly transfer heat outside of the spacesuit, you can lose sweats and oils. And *that* is how you keep cool.:-)
Do away with a full suit and go with a tank top and shorts suit complete with space flip flops?
They can't quite do that, but they can get pretty darn close. The Space Activity Suit (aka: skinsuit) was a project to produce a spacesuit that was exposed to hard vacuum. The idea was that the human body is actually pretty good at maintaining its shape, so all you need is a bit of tight spandex to apply a pressure to the wearer, and a helmet to provide eye protection and a breathing apparatus. The suit itself would have pores in it, allowing the astronaut to actually *feel* what he's working on.
Sadly, the idea wasn't pursued despite encouraging results.:-(
I was pretty happy with parts I got at a computer small computer shop in California. All the components were of high quality, and I could reach over the desk and strangle someone if it didn't work. Unfortunately, such shops don't seem to exist here in Chicago. There's big places like MicroCenter, but I don't really trust them. I received suggestions for NewEgg.com, but they didn't carry the parts I wanted. In the end, I ended up getting parts from MWave.com. They had everything I needed, good prices, and the service was fast. I can't speak to complaints (since I didn't have any), but they may be worth checking out.:-)
Back in the 50's and 60's, most computer companies were OSS.
Actually, that persisted throughout the history of mainframes. The primary reason was that the code had to be linked directly against the database. (Abstraction was not a feature anyone wanted to pay for.) I was still using a mainframe that derived from third party source code in the late 1990's.:-)
However, these companies weren't really OSS as OSS is defined by the OSI. The OSI defines Open Source as both having the code and being able to fork/redistribute it. Most of the programs sold with source had explicit contracts that defined no rights for redistribution or forking (save for internal use). For an example of this, just look at the USL vs. BSD case for an example of this tight software control. Some contracts even had NDAs attached!
Let's not forget that the Government was doing OSS before OSS existed. The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) was funded by DARPA during the creation of the Internet. Due to the rules behind government funding, the BSD Operating System (it was originally just some tools) was released free to the public.
It makes sense if you think about it. Public funds are going into making the software. So who should own the design? The public, of course! Entities like NASA have the same requirements, save for when NASA pays third parties to do the development (in which case the developer owns the rights).
[Government agencies] cannot bank or invest funds.
Yes, I know. It was a joke. But if NASA were able to do so, it might have prevented many of the problems that happened during development. Congress wanted to "stretch-out" the shuttle development funds across several years to ease the fiscal burnden. The problem is that you can't build half a shuttle, nor can you really do anything about the human resources that are eating up a large amount of the budget. As a result, these measures caused the shuttle to cost *more* while delivering far less.
Re:Scrapped? if 1.1 is now 1.5 then ...
on
Firefox 1.1 Scrapped
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Ever get that feeling that we're going in circles?
The shuttle's TPS (Thermal Protection System) involves two different types of tiles, reinforced carbon-carbon leading edges, and insulating blankets.
Just to add to Rei's point here, I believe that the Space Shuttle was supposed to use 100% Reinforced Carbon-Carbon protection in the original design. This would have eliminated the "delicate" Silca tiles which have to be custom manufactured if damaged. Without these tiles, the Shuttle turnaround time would be an order of magnatude faster and cheaper.
(Note that the space shuttle tiles are only replaced if they are damaged. They are not ablative, but they are prone to water damage. Scotchgard was later applied as a water protection measure.)
Unfortunately, Carbon-Carbon is quite expensive and was cut back in the design to save costs. In fact, the entire Space Shuttle could have been a single vehicle design, but cost cutting and cost extending measures resulted in the vehicle we see today.
Maybe NASA should just take the government's money, stick in in the bank for the first three years of "development", then actually begin development in earnest after they have the finances in hand.;-)
Re:Scrapped? if 1.1 is now 1.5 then ...
on
Firefox 1.1 Scrapped
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Actually, Stirling cryocoolers do cost more to mass produce than regular A/C units. The tight tolerances and high grade materials required drive up the cost. Cryogenic applications require oil-free compressors and expanders because the oil would work its way to the cold head and freeze, destroying the cooler. Oil-free compressors don't have the reliability for an automotive application.
Interesting. I was under the impression that modern materials and boring techniques were beginning to catch up with this issue? i.e. We can now produce a bore that requires no libricant to operate. Granted, the price is probably quite a bit higher, but there's still the matter of economic scaling that can drive the price down.
Would a car AC necessarily need to be oil free? In most cryo applications, you're trying to get the temperature down to liquid nitrogen cooling levels. But in an airconditioner, you just want cool to icy air. That would place the air temperature at somewhere around 20-32F. Assume that the inside of the "cold piston" would have to operate in the range of about -10F to 0F, then couldn't we develop a synthetic lubricant to cover this range? I know that quite a few lubricants exist for arctic work that cover a much colder to hotter range.
The automotive industry calculates cost to the penny, and if there was some technology that was cheaper, improved mileage, or help cut emmisions (by not working the engine as hard), they would probably use it.
Fair enough. Unfortunately, it's a chicken and egg problem. Unless we have the engines in mass production, they're going to be more expensive. And they're not going to be in mass production until someone starts using them. Hmm... sounds like a good place for Venture Capital to jump in.;-)
Do you know the difference between an electric motor and a generator? The answer (which you probably already know) is that a generator creates electricity from mechanical motion, while a motor makes mechanical motion out of electricity. Beyond that, the two are the exact same device.
It's the same way with Stirling engines. You can apply heat to create mechanical motion, or you can apply mechanical motion to remove heat. The list of issues you're linking to are for using Stirling engines as powerplants, not for HVAC purposes. In the HVAC community, Striling engines are beginning to catch on for large-building AC. In the cryo community, Stirling engines are the definitive method for cryo-cooling.:-)
I was in an IRC interview with the MythBusters after that episode. They said that they are definitely considering revisiting the idea based on all the feedback they've gotten, and that it seems clear that they can only consider their current results to be preliminary.
Part of the problem they ran into with the episode was that it took so darn long to perform the experiments, that they really didn't have time (for that episode) to do a more in-depth test.:-)
Errr... no. There are no cryo liquids in these coolers. They're used to make cryo liquids, although in much bigger form than you'd use in a car. A Stirling Engine is a reasonably simple device. You have two pistons, a regenerator, a hot surface, and a cold surface. Heat the hot surface, and you get energy as the heat is pumped to the cold side. Apply energy to drive the engine, and the cold side will pump all its heat to the hot side, making it that much colder. Damn efficient devices, they are.
I briefly discussed this topic recently when we were talking about keeping computers cool. The heat problem is becoming so critical that Intel is actually designing a Pulse Tube cooler for their microprocessors!
I *still* think that Cryocoolers are the way to go. You can't tell me that a Stirling or Pulse Tube cryocooler would cost that much more to mass produce than a regular AC unit. Not to mention that the engine load would drop to an unnoticable amount in comparison to today's AC units. Even the EPA's own documents mention Stirling coolers as an acceptable solution!:-)
I have no idea if this help or not, but NVidia has a technology called ActiveArmor that may be of interest. In a nutshell, it's a Gigabit hardware firewall solution that is built into many inexpesive boards. Supposedly it can be used in both incoming and outgoing directions, allowing you to know immediately if a penetrator attempts to access improper network resources. Here's the schpiel:
ActiveArmor Firewall supports stateless and stateful inspection, Web-based management, pre-defined security profiles, port block filtering, remote administration, and provides an easy-to-use set-up wizard. In addition, ActiveArmor Firewall has anti-hacking features such as anti-IP-spoofing, anti-sniffing, anti-ARP-cache-poisoning, and anti-DHCP server-important security controls for corporate network environments. In a corporate setting, an end-point firewall (such as a desktop firewall) with anti-hacking capabilities can reduce the internally originated security breaches, and can inhibit desktops from generating unauthorized traffic. The result is improved overall security, with reduced requirements from the IT staff.
Again, I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it's at least a very interesting product.
There are just SO many things wrong with this, I don't know where to start.
For one thing you could recompile the application only rewriting the parts that are OS specific
You and what C compiler? An OS that takes advantage of more modern technology to eliminate security holes would by definition have to eliminate direct memory access. C can't function without direct memory access, and thus would have to be emulated. (As I pointed out in the original post.)
Secondly, you have heard of emulators
Why yes. Yes I have. I've heard so much about them, in fact, that I mentioned them in my original post. (Seeing a pattern here?)
for example WINE emulates the Windows OS environment so that you can run Windows application binaries without modification.
Given that, I don't think your argument holds much water.
It's very tempting to completely throw a skewer through such obvious flamebait. But I'm going to err on the cautious side and give you the benefit of the doubt. So I will say simply this: You need to do a bit more research before you attempt to jump into conversations at levels you don't understand. I realize that you're probably a rising star developer or sysadmin, but you need to be aware that there is a LOT more to learn. Go out and learn about hardware design. Write an OS or two. Do some CompSci-ish stuff and have fun. It will open your eyes to a completely different world of computing.
Mac OS X has one foot in the past (FreeBSD) and one foot in the future (Mach). Between the two of them, OS X is a bit more futuristic than its competitors. However, a machine that died before its time was the Symbolics LISP machines. I've never had the opportunity to use one, but my understanding of these machines is that they never needed any of the "modern" processor or software concepts we use today, because the underlying software system (LISP) was incapable of creating the types of memory corruption we try to prevent even today. And if a program blew up, you could actually modify its memory image on the fly and continue its execution.
On top of everything, the hardware architecture was much faster than contemporary computers due to its LISP oriented design. Apparently, a good portion of the LISP language was able to execute directly in the hardware!
At least, that's how I understood it. Sadly, it didn't get much attention outside of academia.:-/
Windows is sort of a GUI version of the Mac's operating system, and Linux is of course Unix, which stems from 1968. These are both old clunkers. So the question is, Where are the new operating systems likely to come from?
I hate to break it to Mr. Metcalfe, but most entities lack the resources to do a ground up rewrite of a fully featured Operating System. Simply writing a functional OS isn't the hard part. It's just a platform upon which software will be built. There were hundreds of OSes written between 1960 and 1990. During the '90s, however, computing platforms began to stabalize. Software was written that had a greater than 5 year life span, Operating System began to stabalize on a few "standards" (namely Unix/Vax/CPM derivitives), and massive amounts of time and money were invested into developing these platforms. Now we're standing on the 10,000 ft high towers we call Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X(NextSTEP) and we're looking at how difficult it is to replicate the decades of work that has gone into these systems.
Building a more powerful and "correct" system would mean throwing away software such as OpenOffice, Mozilla, Quickbooks, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc. Software that took decades to build! Thus any future solution based on cutting edge CompSci Technology must either bite the bullet and rewrite these complex apps (good luck) or build in a translation layer that allows them to continue working. Neither choice is very appealing.
The "third road" that is currently being explored is the road of running Virtual Machines on top of today's existing infrastructure. Java,.NET, and Mono are examples of the market attempting to find a way to combine modern technology with the tech of yesterday. Unfortunately, the results are less than stellar. For example, instead of aligning Virtual Memory along object bounds (a natural fit that could be done without hardware support), these systems must contend with the existing 4K VM implementations. Instead of running the protected code in a flat heap (which CAN'T break the memory model!) these systems must contend with the memory indirection that operating systems throw their way. The results of this poor matchup between machine and software is a performance penalty, both real and perceived.
The Virtual Memory swaps more than it should. Object files are not shared. Memory usage is 20% greater than a native program. So on and so forth.
A lot of research has gone into mitigating these issues (with Sun producing some very impressive results!), but it doesn't change the fact that the machine and software are mismatched. That mismatch discourages companies from writing new applications in these managed environments, where they would be free from the bonds of traditional OS designs.
My gut says that a rather major shift in how we use our computer will have to happen before we can truely replace the systems we have today.
I'd like to point out that two major pieces of infrastructure were left out of the Internet when it was being built--largely because it was built by graduate students (and people like graduate students). They left out security and economics. So we have the spam problem (which can be traced directly to the lack of concern for security), and we have IP rules that are in flux because the Internet doesn't have the right tools for monetizing various activities. So we're busily trying to put security and economics into the Internet.
In all honesty, the Internet never would have been as successful as it was if it wasn't for the freedom it provided. Many other networks offered these features, but they were eventually usurped by the Internet.
Hindsight is 20/20. Had the BSD/ARPANET folks attempted to address these issues back when it was created (which would have been ludicrous given its Military intent), their solutions would have likely been wrong. Keep It Simple Stupid. It may not be the best solution, but it's the most effective solution.
You do realize that you're agreeing with me? As I said, if you're actually sick go to a doctor. They will probably take a sledgehammer to the problem, but that sledgehammer may save your life.
If you're just trying to maintain your general well-being, doctors are usually not the ones to turn to. They simply don't know enough about the human body to be trying to fine tune it.
Dude, you should really get your blood pressure checked. I think you're about to blow up from working yourself up over these mountains you're making out of mole hills.
Slashdot Mirror
Oooo... good point. I was thinking "Million Dollar Man". Forgot about the Six in front. Damn. :-/
Surely considering the priceless data on these tapes, I'm sure they could hire engineers to rebuild the original tape readers, perhap with modern heads to account for magnetic fading.
;-))
They have the technology. They can rebuild him!^H^H^H it!
All they need is $1,000,000... I mean... $250,000!
(Do I get bonus points for geeky references?
There's only one way to directly lose heat in a vaccuum: Infrared
:-)
The object has to get hot enough to convert some of the heat into photons. You can see heat dissapation in the visible spectrum with *really* hot objects. e.g. Lava glows, as does metal being fire tempered.
The truth is that vaccuum is the perfect insulator because there's nothing to transfer the molecular motion to. (i.e. Heat is just the molecules bouncing very quickly.) Thankfully, humans have an inborn solution to this problem. Our skin secrets various fluids which are inteded to absorb some of the heat and carry it away. While you can't directly transfer heat outside of the spacesuit, you can lose sweats and oils. And *that* is how you keep cool.
Do away with a full suit and go with a tank top and shorts suit complete with space flip flops?
:-(
They can't quite do that, but they can get pretty darn close. The Space Activity Suit (aka: skinsuit) was a project to produce a spacesuit that was exposed to hard vacuum. The idea was that the human body is actually pretty good at maintaining its shape, so all you need is a bit of tight spandex to apply a pressure to the wearer, and a helmet to provide eye protection and a breathing apparatus. The suit itself would have pores in it, allowing the astronaut to actually *feel* what he's working on.
Sadly, the idea wasn't pursued despite encouraging results.
Support your local computer shop!
:-)
I was pretty happy with parts I got at a computer small computer shop in California. All the components were of high quality, and I could reach over the desk and strangle someone if it didn't work. Unfortunately, such shops don't seem to exist here in Chicago. There's big places like MicroCenter, but I don't really trust them. I received suggestions for NewEgg.com, but they didn't carry the parts I wanted. In the end, I ended up getting parts from MWave.com. They had everything I needed, good prices, and the service was fast. I can't speak to complaints (since I didn't have any), but they may be worth checking out.
Back in the 50's and 60's, most computer companies were OSS.
:-)
Actually, that persisted throughout the history of mainframes. The primary reason was that the code had to be linked directly against the database. (Abstraction was not a feature anyone wanted to pay for.) I was still using a mainframe that derived from third party source code in the late 1990's.
However, these companies weren't really OSS as OSS is defined by the OSI. The OSI defines Open Source as both having the code and being able to fork/redistribute it. Most of the programs sold with source had explicit contracts that defined no rights for redistribution or forking (save for internal use). For an example of this, just look at the USL vs. BSD case for an example of this tight software control. Some contracts even had NDAs attached!
U.S. Government Crafted OSS
Let's not forget that the Government was doing OSS before OSS existed. The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) was funded by DARPA during the creation of the Internet. Due to the rules behind government funding, the BSD Operating System (it was originally just some tools) was released free to the public.
It makes sense if you think about it. Public funds are going into making the software. So who should own the design? The public, of course! Entities like NASA have the same requirements, save for when NASA pays third parties to do the development (in which case the developer owns the rights).
[Government agencies] cannot bank or invest funds.
Yes, I know. It was a joke. But if NASA were able to do so, it might have prevented many of the problems that happened during development. Congress wanted to "stretch-out" the shuttle development funds across several years to ease the fiscal burnden. The problem is that you can't build half a shuttle, nor can you really do anything about the human resources that are eating up a large amount of the budget. As a result, these measures caused the shuttle to cost *more* while delivering far less.
Ever get that feeling that we're going in circles?
Good point. I forgot about the Java 5 thing. Probably because I ignore all the J2SE/J5SE crapola and just look at the damn version number. ;-)
The shuttle's TPS (Thermal Protection System) involves two different types of tiles, reinforced carbon-carbon leading edges, and insulating blankets.
;-)
Just to add to Rei's point here, I believe that the Space Shuttle was supposed to use 100% Reinforced Carbon-Carbon protection in the original design. This would have eliminated the "delicate" Silca tiles which have to be custom manufactured if damaged. Without these tiles, the Shuttle turnaround time would be an order of magnatude faster and cheaper.
(Note that the space shuttle tiles are only replaced if they are damaged. They are not ablative, but they are prone to water damage. Scotchgard was later applied as a water protection measure.)
Unfortunately, Carbon-Carbon is quite expensive and was cut back in the design to save costs. In fact, the entire Space Shuttle could have been a single vehicle design, but cost cutting and cost extending measures resulted in the vehicle we see today.
Maybe NASA should just take the government's money, stick in in the bank for the first three years of "development", then actually begin development in earnest after they have the finances in hand.
No, Firefox 1.5 will be Firefox 5.
;-)
A Solaris user, I see.
Actually, Stirling cryocoolers do cost more to mass produce than regular A/C units. The tight tolerances and high grade materials required drive up the cost. Cryogenic applications require oil-free compressors and expanders because the oil would work its way to the cold head and freeze, destroying the cooler. Oil-free compressors don't have the reliability for an automotive application.
;-)
Interesting. I was under the impression that modern materials and boring techniques were beginning to catch up with this issue? i.e. We can now produce a bore that requires no libricant to operate. Granted, the price is probably quite a bit higher, but there's still the matter of economic scaling that can drive the price down.
Would a car AC necessarily need to be oil free? In most cryo applications, you're trying to get the temperature down to liquid nitrogen cooling levels. But in an airconditioner, you just want cool to icy air. That would place the air temperature at somewhere around 20-32F. Assume that the inside of the "cold piston" would have to operate in the range of about -10F to 0F, then couldn't we develop a synthetic lubricant to cover this range? I know that quite a few lubricants exist for arctic work that cover a much colder to hotter range.
The automotive industry calculates cost to the penny, and if there was some technology that was cheaper, improved mileage, or help cut emmisions (by not working the engine as hard), they would probably use it.
Fair enough. Unfortunately, it's a chicken and egg problem. Unless we have the engines in mass production, they're going to be more expensive. And they're not going to be in mass production until someone starts using them. Hmm... sounds like a good place for Venture Capital to jump in.
Do you know the difference between an electric motor and a generator? The answer (which you probably already know) is that a generator creates electricity from mechanical motion, while a motor makes mechanical motion out of electricity. Beyond that, the two are the exact same device.
:-)
It's the same way with Stirling engines. You can apply heat to create mechanical motion, or you can apply mechanical motion to remove heat. The list of issues you're linking to are for using Stirling engines as powerplants, not for HVAC purposes. In the HVAC community, Striling engines are beginning to catch on for large-building AC. In the cryo community, Stirling engines are the definitive method for cryo-cooling.
I was in an IRC interview with the MythBusters after that episode. They said that they are definitely considering revisiting the idea based on all the feedback they've gotten, and that it seems clear that they can only consider their current results to be preliminary.
:-)
Part of the problem they ran into with the episode was that it took so darn long to perform the experiments, that they really didn't have time (for that episode) to do a more in-depth test.
Sorry, couldn't tell if you were just kidding or being sarcastic. :-)
Errr... no. There are no cryo liquids in these coolers. They're used to make cryo liquids, although in much bigger form than you'd use in a car. A Stirling Engine is a reasonably simple device. You have two pistons, a regenerator, a hot surface, and a cold surface. Heat the hot surface, and you get energy as the heat is pumped to the cold side. Apply energy to drive the engine, and the cold side will pump all its heat to the hot side, making it that much colder. Damn efficient devices, they are.
I briefly discussed this topic recently when we were talking about keeping computers cool. The heat problem is becoming so critical that Intel is actually designing a Pulse Tube cooler for their microprocessors!
I *still* think that Cryocoolers are the way to go. You can't tell me that a Stirling or Pulse Tube cryocooler would cost that much more to mass produce than a regular AC unit. Not to mention that the engine load would drop to an unnoticable amount in comparison to today's AC units. Even the EPA's own documents mention Stirling coolers as an acceptable solution! :-)
I have no idea if this help or not, but NVidia has a technology called ActiveArmor that may be of interest. In a nutshell, it's a Gigabit hardware firewall solution that is built into many inexpesive boards. Supposedly it can be used in both incoming and outgoing directions, allowing you to know immediately if a penetrator attempts to access improper network resources. Here's the schpiel:
ActiveArmor Firewall supports stateless and stateful inspection, Web-based management, pre-defined security profiles, port block filtering, remote administration, and provides an easy-to-use set-up wizard. In addition, ActiveArmor Firewall has anti-hacking features such as anti-IP-spoofing, anti-sniffing, anti-ARP-cache-poisoning, and anti-DHCP server-important security controls for corporate network environments. In a corporate setting, an end-point firewall (such as a desktop firewall) with anti-hacking capabilities can reduce the internally originated security breaches, and can inhibit desktops from generating unauthorized traffic. The result is improved overall security, with reduced requirements from the IT staff.
Again, I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it's at least a very interesting product.
There are just SO many things wrong with this, I don't know where to start.
:-)
For one thing you could recompile the application only rewriting the parts that are OS specific
You and what C compiler? An OS that takes advantage of more modern technology to eliminate security holes would by definition have to eliminate direct memory access. C can't function without direct memory access, and thus would have to be emulated. (As I pointed out in the original post.)
Secondly, you have heard of emulators
Why yes. Yes I have. I've heard so much about them, in fact, that I mentioned them in my original post. (Seeing a pattern here?)
for example WINE emulates the Windows OS environment so that you can run Windows application binaries without modification.
WINE Is Not an Emulator. WINE is a runtime linker. Period, end of story.
Given that, I don't think your argument holds much water.
It's very tempting to completely throw a skewer through such obvious flamebait. But I'm going to err on the cautious side and give you the benefit of the doubt. So I will say simply this: You need to do a bit more research before you attempt to jump into conversations at levels you don't understand. I realize that you're probably a rising star developer or sysadmin, but you need to be aware that there is a LOT more to learn. Go out and learn about hardware design. Write an OS or two. Do some CompSci-ish stuff and have fun. It will open your eyes to a completely different world of computing.
With that, I bid you adieu.
Mac OS X has one foot in the past (FreeBSD) and one foot in the future (Mach). Between the two of them, OS X is a bit more futuristic than its competitors. However, a machine that died before its time was the Symbolics LISP machines. I've never had the opportunity to use one, but my understanding of these machines is that they never needed any of the "modern" processor or software concepts we use today, because the underlying software system (LISP) was incapable of creating the types of memory corruption we try to prevent even today. And if a program blew up, you could actually modify its memory image on the fly and continue its execution.
:-/
On top of everything, the hardware architecture was much faster than contemporary computers due to its LISP oriented design. Apparently, a good portion of the LISP language was able to execute directly in the hardware!
At least, that's how I understood it. Sadly, it didn't get much attention outside of academia.
Windows is sort of a GUI version of the Mac's operating system, and Linux is of course Unix, which stems from 1968. These are both old clunkers. So the question is, Where are the new operating systems likely to come from?
.NET, and Mono are examples of the market attempting to find a way to combine modern technology with the tech of yesterday. Unfortunately, the results are less than stellar. For example, instead of aligning Virtual Memory along object bounds (a natural fit that could be done without hardware support), these systems must contend with the existing 4K VM implementations. Instead of running the protected code in a flat heap (which CAN'T break the memory model!) these systems must contend with the memory indirection that operating systems throw their way. The results of this poor matchup between machine and software is a performance penalty, both real and perceived.
I hate to break it to Mr. Metcalfe, but most entities lack the resources to do a ground up rewrite of a fully featured Operating System. Simply writing a functional OS isn't the hard part. It's just a platform upon which software will be built. There were hundreds of OSes written between 1960 and 1990. During the '90s, however, computing platforms began to stabalize. Software was written that had a greater than 5 year life span, Operating System began to stabalize on a few "standards" (namely Unix/Vax/CPM derivitives), and massive amounts of time and money were invested into developing these platforms. Now we're standing on the 10,000 ft high towers we call Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X(NextSTEP) and we're looking at how difficult it is to replicate the decades of work that has gone into these systems.
Building a more powerful and "correct" system would mean throwing away software such as OpenOffice, Mozilla, Quickbooks, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc. Software that took decades to build! Thus any future solution based on cutting edge CompSci Technology must either bite the bullet and rewrite these complex apps (good luck) or build in a translation layer that allows them to continue working. Neither choice is very appealing.
The "third road" that is currently being explored is the road of running Virtual Machines on top of today's existing infrastructure. Java,
The Virtual Memory swaps more than it should. Object files are not shared. Memory usage is 20% greater than a native program. So on and so forth.
A lot of research has gone into mitigating these issues (with Sun producing some very impressive results!), but it doesn't change the fact that the machine and software are mismatched. That mismatch discourages companies from writing new applications in these managed environments, where they would be free from the bonds of traditional OS designs.
My gut says that a rather major shift in how we use our computer will have to happen before we can truely replace the systems we have today.
I'd like to point out that two major pieces of infrastructure were left out of the Internet when it was being built--largely because it was built by graduate students (and people like graduate students). They left out security and economics. So we have the spam problem (which can be traced directly to the lack of concern for security), and we have IP rules that are in flux because the Internet doesn't have the right tools for monetizing various activities. So we're busily trying to put security and economics into the Internet.
In all honesty, the Internet never would have been as successful as it was if it wasn't for the freedom it provided. Many other networks offered these features, but they were eventually usurped by the Internet.
Hindsight is 20/20. Had the BSD/ARPANET folks attempted to address these issues back when it was created (which would have been ludicrous given its Military intent), their solutions would have likely been wrong. Keep It Simple Stupid. It may not be the best solution, but it's the most effective solution.
P.S. In case of Slashdotting, break glass
You do realize that you're agreeing with me? As I said, if you're actually sick go to a doctor. They will probably take a sledgehammer to the problem, but that sledgehammer may save your life.
If you're just trying to maintain your general well-being, doctors are usually not the ones to turn to. They simply don't know enough about the human body to be trying to fine tune it.
Dude, you should really get your blood pressure checked. I think you're about to blow up from working yourself up over these mountains you're making out of mole hills.