And what happens when your internet goes down due to a natural or man-made disaster?
While the Internet is a valuable tool, it is far from indispensible. When necessary, networking can be provided by direct broadcast satellite (e.g., DirecTV) with better data rates and reliability.
A Santa Cruz ham helped me contact my family after the 1989 Bay Area earthquake when phones were still down and would be down for another 14 hours.
And in those cases, ham radios are fine. But, with the Internet, there is little need for ham radio use during non-emergencies. If you want to talk to someone on the other side of the world, the Internet is likely to be a better choice. Ever heard of a ham radio café in China?
Yeah, and when the internet is down due to some sort of terrorist attack, who do you think is going to be able to set up data networking for the emergency relief groups?
You seem to forget that 20 years ago there was no public Internet. In emergency, relief groups don't need data networking. They need volunteers, blood donors, food, medical supplies, clean water, etc.
If networking is needed in an emergency, it can be done much more effectively through direct broadcast satellites.
it is the United States Government saying "It is the TV's fault".
So what is a person supposed to do? Go back to school, get an EE degree, and redesign their television? If you know that TVs, in general, are sensitive to RF interference from your gear, then why are you broadcasting? Why should your "hobby" involve annoying many people around you?
People assume that because you have a couple of Yagi's and a dipole in your backyard, that's why their VCR isn't working right.
I'll tell you a little story. Years ago, I was awoken by a distorted voice coming out of the speakers on my stereo. The stereo was off at the time. I was using high-end speakers connected with 10 gauge cables to one of the better Sony receivers (built a lot better than what one finds now). My father, at the other end of the house had interference so bad that he could not listen to his stereo. This went on for a period of about two weeks, during which time I frantically tried to find out who was responsible. Guess who it was: A ham radio operator about a block away. He was using a high-gain antenna rotated towards our house through which he was pumping a kilowatt. And he was talking to someone who was a local phone call away. When I approached him about it, he became belligerent, blaming my stereo and my fathers'. It was only when I pointed out the FCC rule about only using enough power to establish and maintain communications that he backed off and knocked the power down to 50 watts or less.
So please don't paint all ham radio operators as saints who live to serve man in emergencies. This guy was just a putz who sat in his basement using a kilowatt linear amp to compensate for having a small penis. He would use his gear to talk to anyone who would answer him -- with no concern for the interference it caused.
With ham radio equipment and the 802.11b, ham operators will be able to move files, audio, video, and messages all over the world!
Oh, wait... The rest of us can already do that with the Internet. And we don't require big investments in ham radio gear and unsightly antennas. Oh, and there's also the fact that there are far more people with Internet connectivity than ham radio gear. And some guy with a cable modem is not polluting the radio spectrum with unnecessary traffic that can interfere with everything from SETI programs to the neighbor's TV picture. (No, I don't care about whether you think it's the TV's fault. The average consumer can't redesign their television just because you decided to beam a kilowatt signal towards their house.)
Yeah, I know, flamebait. Troll. And I'll get to hear a dozen or more outlandish justifications for this (like stories of mountain climbers with ham radio gear and handhelds). I just get annoyed with the way that some ham radio operators think that a crippled, slow alternative to the Internet via RF will be really cool.
Apparently, the US public education system is merely designed to instill a yearning for low quality cars, fast food and WWE into it's students - spelling, grammar, mathematics and any kind of art or culture seems to be off the menu.
Apparently, the school system you attended should have spent a little less time teaching effete snobbery and a bit more on English. Corrections:
"US" should be "U.S."
"is merely designed to" should be "is designed merely to"
"it's students" should be "its students"
"seems" should be "seem"
Before criticizing someone else's English, you should at least know that "it's" is a contraction for "it is" and subject/verb agreement.
I noticed that he mounted the antenna using what appears to be conventional Tie Wraps (AKA Ty Wraps). This is a very bad idea as the UV in sunlight will quickly break down the plastic Tie Wraps, turning them extremely brittle and the antenna will come crashing down to the roof.
I sent him e-mail to warn him about this but wanted to warn other Slashdot readers. If you must use Tie Wraps outdoors, use UV-resistant Tie Wraps which are usually, but not always, black. But even then, I would not recommend them in a structural role. It's fine to use them to keep wires neatly bundled and routed, but don't use them in "mission-critical" applications where a Tie-Wrap failure would leave something non-functional.
I suggest you find the recent slashdot story about (under ask slashdot) about the death of newer Fujitsu drives across Europe and North America. And what about IBM's GXP drives? They're being sued over the 75 GB version due to excessive failures.
Don't tell me about drives with known defects. Show me numbers for typical drives. As I said in another post, it's like citing Firestone Wilderness AT tires (as used on Ford Explorers) as proof that today's tires are less reliable than those of the 60's. How can you cite failures of Cirrus Logic chips (due to a change in resin chemistry) as proof that hard drives are less reliable? Come on! Fujitsu designed a perfectly good drive and Cirrus Logic shipped them a batch of chips that were defective. That kind of thing happens in every industry and has been happening in the hard drive industry for over 20 years.
And about "worst models ever." It is impossible for a modern drive to appear in that list because it is still in use. Only after it has been obsoleted would you be able to tell if it was one of the worst ever.
Untrue. They list Samsung drives of any type or vintage on that list. They also explain:
Many very old drives were not included in this list, as these are mostly out of use now, but you will find several that are mostly out of use.
So they made an effort to not include very old drives that are "mostly out of use", yet the list is still largely populated with older drives, often from defunct manufacturers.
I've got a DirecTV dish on my chimney. I can't recall losing the picture more than a handful of times -- and I've had the dish for five years. Those times were when there were rains of biblical proportions, not just your typical rain. Typical rain storms and cloud cover (no matter how dense) does not affect it.
Given the losses that you described, I'd have to say that something was wrong. I know that such problems are not uncommon when the dish is marginally aimed. You mentioned that you used a 6x6 pine post sunk 4 feet into concrete, but how high above the concrete did it sit? Could the pine have warped outdoors in the weather, misaligning the dish?
If there was not a dish problem, then there was an electronics problem. What you describe is simply not typical of DirecTV.
Sorry for being blunt, but I don't think you really understand statistics.
I used to work in a data center doing sys admin work and we had about 30 IMB hard drives ranging from 30-60 GBs.{snip} but in the end about 75% failed.
(I assume that you mean IBM.) So you had 30 drives from one manufacturer with a high failure rate and you feel that this is evidence that hard drives throughout the industry are less reliable than they used to be? Both IBM and Fujitsu have produced drive lines with defective components that have caused high failure rates. It's a product defect, not an industry trend. That's like citing Firestone tires on Ford Explorers as proof that tires are less reliable than they were back in the sixties.
Under their "Worst Models Ever" I found a list of drives, almost all of which are old and long out of production. So, while drive failures still plague us, it doesn not appear to me that today's drives are less failure-prone than older drives.
Bad move. You just picked on somebody who's hard drive crashed three days ago....
Last time I heard numbers, Slashdot got over 250,000 unique visitors per day. I'm not surprised that one of them had a hard drive crash recently. Sorry for your loss, but that's not statistically significant data.
Lets just say Fujitsu [theregister.co.uk] hard [theregister.co.uk] drives [theregister.co.uk] are [theregister.co.uk] not [theregister.co.uk] reliable [theregister.co.uk]
Yes, Fujitsu had a manufacturing problem based on chips that they purchased from Cirrus Logic. But there have been defects in many product lines, including drives, for as long as I can remember. I want to see an overall trend. Do drives have a shorter MTBF now than they did, say, ten years ago?
As an aside; if HDDs are truly more reliable; why are most major manufacturer warranties now only 1 year?
Because they found that customers preferred a lower initial price to a longer warranty. I've said this before: I'll be happy to sell you Maxtor drives and warrant them for five years if you'll pay me 50% more than Maxtor charges. Does that change the quality of the drives? Does it change the reliability? Of course not. Warranty costs are affected not only by drive reliability, but also by transportation costs, personnel costs (to service the drives), telephone support costs, building rental costs, etc.
if FWD sucks so horribly, why do you insist on driving one?
I never said FWD 'sucks horribly'. I said that the FWD cars had limited handling potential. Why do I drive one? Because it's a commuter car, not a race car. A FWD car is perfectly adequate when driven at eight-tenths and results in a car with more interior room, lower cost, and better inclement weather performance.
AWD and even RWD are perfectly functional in the snow and a lot better in the dry.
My Plymouth Laser was an AWD turbo model. The handling was quite good on dry pavement and phenomenal on snow.
don't dare to call me a bad writer.
So you feel that you can call me an "asshole" but that I should not call you a bad writer? Sorry, but your writing sample did not impress me. I could go through and point out errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.) in it and even critique it, but I have no interest in getting into a pissing contest with you. Getting A's in high school and college writing is a lot easier than getting articles published by major magazines. Write me again when you've done the latter.
so if less turbulent mixing in the combustion chamber produces a more even flame front that moves faster, why does it tend to increase detonation around the periphery of the cylinder? a really turbulent, inhomogenous vapor flow in the chamber does make for a rougher overall burn, but i know it tends to reduce detonation, at least significantly away from the flame front; detonation on the front isn't nearly so bad since those kernels are rapidly surrounded by the burn proper. i have yet to figure this out; maybe you can help with your infinite wisdom.
Your assertion that less turbulence causes faster flame front propagation is incorrect -- an may be the cause of your confusion. Greater turbulence causes faster flame front propagation. The quench area (the flat area at the periphery of the combustion chamber), forces the F/A mixture towards the centrally mounted spark plug, causing turbulence as the piston approaches TDC. Turbulence assists in flame propagation by creating "wrinkles" in the flame front, increasing its area. A less turbulent mixture has a slower flame front propagation, causing a pressure wave that can increase pressure in the cylinder periphery to the point of detonation prior to the mixture in that part of the head being reached by the flame front. Hope that helped.
at least 'asshole' is just a single 'i'm not too fond of your fucking attitude' snap
I prefer an insult to calling someone a vulgar name. But to each his own.
I just used the most commonly hot-rodded car for the examples. I didn't say it was your car. What the fuck was I supposed to use for examples when you didn't identify what you drove?
(since you do seem to be one of those who has something against any car w/o an American badge).
Yeah. That's why I drive a VW Golf. That's why I've owned cars by Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Volvo, and Renault. You really are perceptive.
heh, you seem to have totally missed one point of the article, namely that with all these sophisticated electronics, it's entirely possible to run the engine aspro, with no boost and appropriate fuel maps and valve timing, getting all the benefits of high mileage and reliability, and then switch on-the-fly to a 35lb boost, race-mapped, high-lift high-duration monster.
No, I didn't miss any point of the article. And I've forgotten more about building performance engines than you are ever likely to know.
forgive me for thinking you'd catch the sarcasm.
I'll forgive you for being a poor writer, instead.
you turn it into daddy sex?
You're the one that started with the name calling by referring to me as "asshole" because I dared to disagree with you.
sounds like somebody still has some issues (or maybe you just miss daddy's 'pacifier' at night?)...
I wasn't implying that hard drive reliability is nonexistant these days, but it would seem likely that with such a massive price drop (I paid well over $300 for a considerably smaller hard drive a few years back) there's probably something going on to make the drives cheaper.
8kbytes of RAM used to cost hundreds of dollars. Is modern RAM that much less reliable? Prices on everything related to computers has nose-dived. Floppy drives used to cost over $200 each. Now you can pick them up for under $10 -- and in much higher capacity. Just look at a magazine from the mid-80s.
I believe that hard drives have become far more reliable. Sure, there have been some bad runs of drives from IBM and Fujitsu. That's always happened. Drives can now handle much greater g-forces both operating and non-operating. The number of head and platters has dropped while capacity has gone up. In the days of MFM and RLL hard drives, we used to have to refresh the sectors on hard drives so that they would not develop bad sectors. That simply does not happen any more.
So show me some statistics to support your contention that today's drives are less reliable. No, I don't want to know some third-hand story about your wife's friend's brother who said his hard drive failed. I want real, statistically significant numbers.
thanks for assuming i'm a ricerboy with a honda, asshole.
I didn't say that you had a Honda, did I? And don't call me "asshole." I'm not the one that made you scream "daddy, please don't, it hurts" during sex, so don't take it out on me.
there's several examples of the 2.4L KA24DE fitted with blowers and good intercoolers pushing 450-500hp; add a small NOS squirt (or a suicially high boost) and you're at 550 easily
The message to which you initially replied was entitled "883hp normally aspirated 427." Which part of "normally aspirated" did you not understand? Who cares if you can build a peaky motor with a lifespan that can be measured with the trip meter?
japanese car != ricer
You're the one who referred to your car as a "ricer", not me. Don't give me shit because I took you at your word.
Front wheel drive cars do have a tendency to understeer when accelerating out of a corner. It's only a tendency though, you can adjust the handling characteristics by playing with the front/rear brake balance, the front/rear spring rates and damper settings, using a stabilizer bar in the rear, etc.
You can do things to improve the handling, but you cannot correct for the basic problem of having the same tires trying to both propel the car and steer it.
There are some exceptions to this,some Japanese cars, e.g. Honda Integra (Accura?) type-R was FF (Front engined, front-wheel drive) but was very forgiving and responsive.
It's all relative. While that is an example of a car the makes the best of a bad situation, it certainly does not compare in handling with a Ferrari, Porsche, or a modern Corvette.
Rear wheel drive cars can have very bad handling too. They do have a tendency to oversteer. Try driving a Lotus Elise and put your foot down in mid-corner. Your tail will slide out, especially in the wet.
No drivetrain layout will overcome physics -- or poor engineering. You can spin a Lotus Elise, a Ferrari, or an Indy car with improper input to the controls, but that is not an indictment of the drivetrain.
The one thing that a front-wheel drive car will ALWAYS lose out to a rear-wheel drive car is in acceleration,
Given equally skilled engineering (and design goals), the rear wheel drive car will have superior cornering. When a car is at the limits of adhesion of its driven wheels, even a slight throttle input will cause the driven tires to lose grip. On a car that is cornering, the front tires are doing more work than the rear tires and asking them to transmit power to the ground, too, will result in degraded cornering.
From a newcartestdrive.com review of the Acura TL-S:
When driven very hard, like on a race track, the front-wheel-drive TL Type-S does not offer the level of handling found in rear-wheel-drive sports sedans, such as the BMW 3 Series and the new Infiniti G35. Under hard acceleration, the TL's front tires aren't planted as firmly on the pavement.
From a Wards Auto World Oct. 1, 1999 editorial entitled "Falling Out of Love with Front-Wheel Drive":
"Overall handling is more capable with a rear-drive car," adds Lincoln's Mr. Evans. "Consumers want to be more in touch with their vehicle. More and more people are moving into luxury segments - consumer expectations are to purchase a vehicle that provides a complete driving experience. It's precision steering and good vehicle dynamics," that today's more affluent and discriminating buyers gravitate to, he suggests.
This is like arguing about whether flathead engines or overhead valve engines have a power advantage. It's an engineering question that was answered years ago. Same with front wheel drive. Front wheel drive is fine as a grocery getter or commuter car, but it has inherent limitations that prevent it from reaching the performance potential of rear wheel drive.
that immense boat you've wrapped yout 883hp in probably weighs around 4000 lbs, while my little ricer is more like 2500lbs.
Shelby Cobras ran Ford 427 side-oilers and they weighed under 2,400 lbs.
2500lbs. Means i only need 550hp to have the same power-to-weight ratio, and therefore the same acceleration,
And how are you going to get 550hp out of your "normally-aspirated" engine, Ricer X? If you want to see what big-blocks can do with blowers, nitrous, etc., just watch any drag race. Have you ever seen a car turn the 1/4 mile in 5 seconds at over 300mph using a hot-rodded Honda Civic engine? Didn't think so.
Now let's talk drivetrain. Have you ever tried to get 550hp to hook-up with front wheel drive? Your only hope of beating the aforementioned 427 is if you race on snow.
and i still probably handle better.
Than a Shelby Cobra? Are you on drugs?
Front wheel drive cars with high horsepower handle horribly. That's why you don't see Indy, Formula 1, or other race cars with front wheel drive. Ever wonder why Ferraris, Corvettes, Vipers, and even Honda S2000s all have rear wheel drive? When you use front wheel drive, you are prone to all kinds of handling problems when you try to apply power while in a corner.
Starting with a Honda Civic in order to make a performance car is like starting with a 68K-based Mac to make a high-performance computer.
After being unemployed for 18 months and finally taking an underemploying job at a fozen food manufacturer, I can assure you that you're not right.
Sorry to hear that compassion is still escaping you. Try thinking about those trying to raise a family. Maybe that will help.
Seriously, all you got to do is pass the bar exam. No school is really necessary.
A damned hard test to pass without schooling. Even with schooling...
What's wrong with that?
It doesn't work. Employers look for people that have the education credentials. If you major in English, you'll find damned few firms willing to hire you as an Engineer, accountant, etc.
Besides, the discussion was about illegal immigrants.
Actually, it was not. The discussion was about legal H1-B visa tech workers from foreign countries and of U.S. firms outsourcing software development to workers in other countries.
You have my sympathy. One of my coworkers in Virginia was told that he had a choice: unemployment or work in Arizona. He's been in Arizona for months while his wife and kids try to maintain the family home and their lives. Moving is really not an option for his family for various reasons -- including the fact that the job in Arizona is just temporary.
So? An American is out of work. Happens every day.
Given your callous attitude, I hope that it's you next. Mabye you will be one of the unlucky bastards that gets his resumé in for each job a day or two after they've filled it. Perhaps you will be one of the unemployed that misses hearing about jobs where you would have been the ideal candidate. Maybe after a year or two of unemployment (or underemployment at Walmart or McDonalds) you would develop a little compassion.
Perhaps he or she should find another line of work or get better at what he or she is doing.
It doesn't matter how good you are at your job if someone else will perform acceptably for half of what you make. Are you actually proposing that people in the computer industry sell their homes, cars, and personal posessions so that they can go back to school to learn a new profession? Where will their families live? Will there be dorm rooms housing a husband, wife, two kids, a dog, and a cat? You can't simply wake up one day and decide to be a lawyer without a law degree or a doctor without medical school. If that was the case, everyone could just major in English and then pick a career after graduating.
Besides, wouldn't paying this person half of an American's wage because he or she isn't an American already be illegal due to discrimination laws?
From a practical standpoint, no. The company made an offer and the applicant accepted it. The offer letters don't start out "we are happy to extend you an offer at a pay rate that is 48.2% of what we would pay an American." In the professional world, salaries vary widely, even within a company, and most companies have policies prohibiting employees from revealing their pay rate to their coworkers. Companies can always claim that the salary was lower because of "communications skills", "relevent experience", or any other number of intangible items.
You sound scared shitless at the possibility of that to which you reply.
Of thousands of people in my industry losing their jobs and suffering financial hardships? Hell yes, that scares me.
Perhaps you should've thought about that before you got into the inherently shaky IT industry.
Just how "shaky" was the computer industry when I got into it back in the 1980? Yeah, that's right. I've been in the industry since before you were born. Don't assume that everyone on Slashdot got into the computer industry during the dot-com boom.
Slashdot Mirror
And what happens when your internet goes down due to a natural or man-made disaster?
While the Internet is a valuable tool, it is far from indispensible. When necessary, networking can be provided by direct broadcast satellite (e.g., DirecTV) with better data rates and reliability.
A Santa Cruz ham helped me contact my family after the 1989 Bay Area earthquake when phones were still down and would be down for another 14 hours.
And in those cases, ham radios are fine. But, with the Internet, there is little need for ham radio use during non-emergencies. If you want to talk to someone on the other side of the world, the Internet is likely to be a better choice. Ever heard of a ham radio café in China?
Yeah, and when the internet is down due to some sort of terrorist attack, who do you think is going to be able to set up data networking for the emergency relief groups?
You seem to forget that 20 years ago there was no public Internet. In emergency, relief groups don't need data networking. They need volunteers, blood donors, food, medical supplies, clean water, etc.
If networking is needed in an emergency, it can be done much more effectively through direct broadcast satellites.
it is the United States Government saying "It is the TV's fault".
So what is a person supposed to do? Go back to school, get an EE degree, and redesign their television? If you know that TVs, in general, are sensitive to RF interference from your gear, then why are you broadcasting? Why should your "hobby" involve annoying many people around you?
People assume that because you have a couple of Yagi's and a dipole in your backyard, that's why their VCR isn't working right.
I'll tell you a little story. Years ago, I was awoken by a distorted voice coming out of the speakers on my stereo. The stereo was off at the time. I was using high-end speakers connected with 10 gauge cables to one of the better Sony receivers (built a lot better than what one finds now). My father, at the other end of the house had interference so bad that he could not listen to his stereo. This went on for a period of about two weeks, during which time I frantically tried to find out who was responsible. Guess who it was: A ham radio operator about a block away. He was using a high-gain antenna rotated towards our house through which he was pumping a kilowatt. And he was talking to someone who was a local phone call away. When I approached him about it, he became belligerent, blaming my stereo and my fathers'. It was only when I pointed out the FCC rule about only using enough power to establish and maintain communications that he backed off and knocked the power down to 50 watts or less.
So please don't paint all ham radio operators as saints who live to serve man in emergencies. This guy was just a putz who sat in his basement using a kilowatt linear amp to compensate for having a small penis. He would use his gear to talk to anyone who would answer him -- with no concern for the interference it caused.
With ham radio equipment and the 802.11b, ham operators will be able to move files, audio, video, and messages all over the world!
Oh, wait... The rest of us can already do that with the Internet. And we don't require big investments in ham radio gear and unsightly antennas. Oh, and there's also the fact that there are far more people with Internet connectivity than ham radio gear. And some guy with a cable modem is not polluting the radio spectrum with unnecessary traffic that can interfere with everything from SETI programs to the neighbor's TV picture. (No, I don't care about whether you think it's the TV's fault. The average consumer can't redesign their television just because you decided to beam a kilowatt signal towards their house.)
Yeah, I know, flamebait. Troll. And I'll get to hear a dozen or more outlandish justifications for this (like stories of mountain climbers with ham radio gear and handhelds). I just get annoyed with the way that some ham radio operators think that a crippled, slow alternative to the Internet via RF will be really cool.
Apparently, the school system you attended should have spent a little less time teaching effete snobbery and a bit more on English. Corrections:
Before criticizing someone else's English, you should at least know that "it's" is a contraction for "it is" and subject/verb agreement.
I noticed that he mounted the antenna using what appears to be conventional Tie Wraps (AKA Ty Wraps). This is a very bad idea as the UV in sunlight will quickly break down the plastic Tie Wraps, turning them extremely brittle and the antenna will come crashing down to the roof.
I sent him e-mail to warn him about this but wanted to warn other Slashdot readers. If you must use Tie Wraps outdoors, use UV-resistant Tie Wraps which are usually, but not always, black. But even then, I would not recommend them in a structural role. It's fine to use them to keep wires neatly bundled and routed, but don't use them in "mission-critical" applications where a Tie-Wrap failure would leave something non-functional.
Don't tell me about drives with known defects. Show me numbers for typical drives. As I said in another post, it's like citing Firestone Wilderness AT tires (as used on Ford Explorers) as proof that today's tires are less reliable than those of the 60's. How can you cite failures of Cirrus Logic chips (due to a change in resin chemistry) as proof that hard drives are less reliable? Come on! Fujitsu designed a perfectly good drive and Cirrus Logic shipped them a batch of chips that were defective. That kind of thing happens in every industry and has been happening in the hard drive industry for over 20 years.
And about "worst models ever." It is impossible for a modern drive to appear in that list because it is still in use. Only after it has been obsoleted would you be able to tell if it was one of the worst ever.
Untrue. They list Samsung drives of any type or vintage on that list. They also explain:
So they made an effort to not include very old drives that are "mostly out of use", yet the list is still largely populated with older drives, often from defunct manufacturers.
tv that stays on when it rains?
I've got a DirecTV dish on my chimney. I can't recall losing the picture more than a handful of times -- and I've had the dish for five years. Those times were when there were rains of biblical proportions, not just your typical rain. Typical rain storms and cloud cover (no matter how dense) does not affect it.
Given the losses that you described, I'd have to say that something was wrong. I know that such problems are not uncommon when the dish is marginally aimed. You mentioned that you used a 6x6 pine post sunk 4 feet into concrete, but how high above the concrete did it sit? Could the pine have warped outdoors in the weather, misaligning the dish?
If there was not a dish problem, then there was an electronics problem. What you describe is simply not typical of DirecTV.
I am the statistic.
Sorry for being blunt, but I don't think you really understand statistics.
I used to work in a data center doing sys admin work and we had about 30 IMB hard drives ranging from 30-60 GBs.{snip} but in the end about 75% failed.
(I assume that you mean IBM.) So you had 30 drives from one manufacturer with a high failure rate and you feel that this is evidence that hard drives throughout the industry are less reliable than they used to be? Both IBM and Fujitsu have produced drive lines with defective components that have caused high failure rates. It's a product defect, not an industry trend. That's like citing Firestone tires on Ford Explorers as proof that tires are less reliable than they were back in the sixties.
Under their "Worst Models Ever" I found a list of drives, almost all of which are old and long out of production. So, while drive failures still plague us, it doesn not appear to me that today's drives are less failure-prone than older drives.
Bad move. You just picked on somebody who's hard drive crashed three days ago....
Last time I heard numbers, Slashdot got over 250,000 unique visitors per day. I'm not surprised that one of them had a hard drive crash recently. Sorry for your loss, but that's not statistically significant data.
Lets just say Fujitsu [theregister.co.uk] hard [theregister.co.uk] drives [theregister.co.uk] are [theregister.co.uk] not [theregister.co.uk] reliable [theregister.co.uk]
Yes, Fujitsu had a manufacturing problem based on chips that they purchased from Cirrus Logic. But there have been defects in many product lines, including drives, for as long as I can remember. I want to see an overall trend. Do drives have a shorter MTBF now than they did, say, ten years ago?
As an aside; if HDDs are truly more reliable; why are most major manufacturer warranties now only 1 year?
Because they found that customers preferred a lower initial price to a longer warranty. I've said this before: I'll be happy to sell you Maxtor drives and warrant them for five years if you'll pay me 50% more than Maxtor charges. Does that change the quality of the drives? Does it change the reliability? Of course not. Warranty costs are affected not only by drive reliability, but also by transportation costs, personnel costs (to service the drives), telephone support costs, building rental costs, etc.
if FWD sucks so horribly, why do you insist on driving one?
I never said FWD 'sucks horribly'. I said that the FWD cars had limited handling potential. Why do I drive one? Because it's a commuter car, not a race car. A FWD car is perfectly adequate when driven at eight-tenths and results in a car with more interior room, lower cost, and better inclement weather performance.
AWD and even RWD are perfectly functional in the snow and a lot better in the dry.
My Plymouth Laser was an AWD turbo model. The handling was quite good on dry pavement and phenomenal on snow.
don't dare to call me a bad writer.
So you feel that you can call me an "asshole" but that I should not call you a bad writer? Sorry, but your writing sample did not impress me. I could go through and point out errors (spelling, punctuation, etc.) in it and even critique it, but I have no interest in getting into a pissing contest with you. Getting A's in high school and college writing is a lot easier than getting articles published by major magazines. Write me again when you've done the latter.
so if less turbulent mixing in the combustion chamber produces a more even flame front that moves faster, why does it tend to increase detonation around the periphery of the cylinder? a really turbulent, inhomogenous vapor flow in the chamber does make for a rougher overall burn, but i know it tends to reduce detonation, at least significantly away from the flame front; detonation on the front isn't nearly so bad since those kernels are rapidly surrounded by the burn proper. i have yet to figure this out; maybe you can help with your infinite wisdom.
Your assertion that less turbulence causes faster flame front propagation is incorrect -- an may be the cause of your confusion. Greater turbulence causes faster flame front propagation. The quench area (the flat area at the periphery of the combustion chamber), forces the F/A mixture towards the centrally mounted spark plug, causing turbulence as the piston approaches TDC. Turbulence assists in flame propagation by creating "wrinkles" in the flame front, increasing its area. A less turbulent mixture has a slower flame front propagation, causing a pressure wave that can increase pressure in the cylinder periphery to the point of detonation prior to the mixture in that part of the head being reached by the flame front. Hope that helped.
at least 'asshole' is just a single 'i'm not too fond of your fucking attitude' snap
I prefer an insult to calling someone a vulgar name. But to each his own.
hell, sure seems implied.
I just used the most commonly hot-rodded car for the examples. I didn't say it was your car. What the fuck was I supposed to use for examples when you didn't identify what you drove?
(since you do seem to be one of those who has something against any car w/o an American badge).
Yeah. That's why I drive a VW Golf. That's why I've owned cars by Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Volvo, and Renault. You really are perceptive.
heh, you seem to have totally missed one point of the article, namely that with all these sophisticated electronics, it's entirely possible to run the engine aspro, with no boost and appropriate fuel maps and valve timing, getting all the benefits of high mileage and reliability, and then switch on-the-fly to a 35lb boost, race-mapped, high-lift high-duration monster.
No, I didn't miss any point of the article. And I've forgotten more about building performance engines than you are ever likely to know.
forgive me for thinking you'd catch the sarcasm.
I'll forgive you for being a poor writer, instead.
you turn it into daddy sex?
You're the one that started with the name calling by referring to me as "asshole" because I dared to disagree with you.
sounds like somebody still has some issues (or maybe you just miss daddy's 'pacifier' at night?)...
Is that what he made you call it?
you could have at least kept it car related.
Like "asshole" was car-related. Go away.
I wasn't implying that hard drive reliability is nonexistant these days, but it would seem likely that with such a massive price drop (I paid well over $300 for a considerably smaller hard drive a few years back) there's probably something going on to make the drives cheaper.
8kbytes of RAM used to cost hundreds of dollars. Is modern RAM that much less reliable? Prices on everything related to computers has nose-dived. Floppy drives used to cost over $200 each. Now you can pick them up for under $10 -- and in much higher capacity. Just look at a magazine from the mid-80s.
I believe that hard drives have become far more reliable. Sure, there have been some bad runs of drives from IBM and Fujitsu. That's always happened. Drives can now handle much greater g-forces both operating and non-operating. The number of head and platters has dropped while capacity has gone up. In the days of MFM and RLL hard drives, we used to have to refresh the sectors on hard drives so that they would not develop bad sectors. That simply does not happen any more.
So show me some statistics to support your contention that today's drives are less reliable. No, I don't want to know some third-hand story about your wife's friend's brother who said his hard drive failed. I want real, statistically significant numbers.
thanks for assuming i'm a ricerboy with a honda, asshole.
I didn't say that you had a Honda, did I? And don't call me "asshole." I'm not the one that made you scream "daddy, please don't, it hurts" during sex, so don't take it out on me.
there's several examples of the 2.4L KA24DE fitted with blowers and good intercoolers pushing 450-500hp; add a small NOS squirt (or a suicially high boost) and you're at 550 easily
The message to which you initially replied was entitled "883hp normally aspirated 427." Which part of "normally aspirated" did you not understand? Who cares if you can build a peaky motor with a lifespan that can be measured with the trip meter?
japanese car != ricer
You're the one who referred to your car as a "ricer", not me. Don't give me shit because I took you at your word.
Front wheel drive cars do have a tendency to understeer when accelerating out of a corner. It's only a tendency though, you can adjust the handling characteristics by playing with the front/rear brake balance, the front/rear spring rates and damper settings, using a stabilizer bar in the rear, etc.
,some Japanese cars, e.g. Honda Integra (Accura?) type-R was FF (Front engined, front-wheel drive) but was very forgiving and responsive.
You can do things to improve the handling, but you cannot correct for the basic problem of having the same tires trying to both propel the car and steer it.
There are some exceptions to this
It's all relative. While that is an example of a car the makes the best of a bad situation, it certainly does not compare in handling with a Ferrari, Porsche, or a modern Corvette.
Rear wheel drive cars can have very bad handling too. They do have a tendency to oversteer. Try driving a Lotus Elise and put your foot down in mid-corner. Your tail will slide out, especially in the wet.
No drivetrain layout will overcome physics -- or poor engineering. You can spin a Lotus Elise, a Ferrari, or an Indy car with improper input to the controls, but that is not an indictment of the drivetrain.
The one thing that a front-wheel drive car will ALWAYS lose out to a rear-wheel drive car is in acceleration,
Given equally skilled engineering (and design goals), the rear wheel drive car will have superior cornering. When a car is at the limits of adhesion of its driven wheels, even a slight throttle input will cause the driven tires to lose grip. On a car that is cornering, the front tires are doing more work than the rear tires and asking them to transmit power to the ground, too, will result in degraded cornering.
From a newcartestdrive.com review of the Acura TL-S:
When driven very hard, like on a race track, the front-wheel-drive TL Type-S does not offer the level of handling found in rear-wheel-drive sports sedans, such as the BMW 3 Series and the new Infiniti G35. Under hard acceleration, the TL's front tires aren't planted as firmly on the pavement.
From a Wards Auto World Oct. 1, 1999 editorial entitled "Falling Out of Love with Front-Wheel Drive":
"Overall handling is more capable with a rear-drive car," adds Lincoln's Mr. Evans. "Consumers want to be more in touch with their vehicle. More and more people are moving into luxury segments - consumer expectations are to purchase a vehicle that provides a complete driving experience. It's precision steering and good vehicle dynamics," that today's more affluent and discriminating buyers gravitate to, he suggests.
This is like arguing about whether flathead engines or overhead valve engines have a power advantage. It's an engineering question that was answered years ago. Same with front wheel drive. Front wheel drive is fine as a grocery getter or commuter car, but it has inherent limitations that prevent it from reaching the performance potential of rear wheel drive.
that immense boat you've wrapped yout 883hp in probably weighs around 4000 lbs, while my little ricer is more like 2500lbs.
Shelby Cobras ran Ford 427 side-oilers and they weighed under 2,400 lbs.
2500lbs. Means i only need 550hp to have the same power-to-weight ratio, and therefore the same acceleration,
And how are you going to get 550hp out of your "normally-aspirated" engine, Ricer X? If you want to see what big-blocks can do with blowers, nitrous, etc., just watch any drag race. Have you ever seen a car turn the 1/4 mile in 5 seconds at over 300mph using a hot-rodded Honda Civic engine? Didn't think so.
Now let's talk drivetrain. Have you ever tried to get 550hp to hook-up with front wheel drive? Your only hope of beating the aforementioned 427 is if you race on snow.
and i still probably handle better.
Than a Shelby Cobra? Are you on drugs?
Front wheel drive cars with high horsepower handle horribly. That's why you don't see Indy, Formula 1, or other race cars with front wheel drive. Ever wonder why Ferraris, Corvettes, Vipers, and even Honda S2000s all have rear wheel drive? When you use front wheel drive, you are prone to all kinds of handling problems when you try to apply power while in a corner.
Starting with a Honda Civic in order to make a performance car is like starting with a 68K-based Mac to make a high-performance computer.
Thank you so much for saying that. You're on my Slashdot friends list now, too.
I do have a wife and newborn daughter. It's not compassion that I'm lacking here, it's obviously another fault of mine.
I wish you and your family the best then. I hope that you are successful in your chosen field and can give them a good life.
No, the focus of the US government should be to protect the civil rights of US citizens.
That is certainly one thing that should be protected by the government.
When government is applied to social "problems", the solution benefits only some at the expense of all others.
Right. If they did what I suggested, it would benefit U.S. workers at the expense of non-U.S. workers. That's fine by me.
In this scenario, you can expect waste, inefficiency, corruption, and oppression -- just like we have today in the US.
So, if we have that already, without protecting American jobs, how would it be worse to have it with protection for American jobs?
After being unemployed for 18 months and finally taking an underemploying job at a fozen food manufacturer, I can assure you that you're not right.
Sorry to hear that compassion is still escaping you. Try thinking about those trying to raise a family. Maybe that will help.
Seriously, all you got to do is pass the bar exam. No school is really necessary.
A damned hard test to pass without schooling. Even with schooling...
What's wrong with that?
It doesn't work. Employers look for people that have the education credentials. If you major in English, you'll find damned few firms willing to hire you as an Engineer, accountant, etc.
Besides, the discussion was about illegal immigrants.
Actually, it was not. The discussion was about legal H1-B visa tech workers from foreign countries and of U.S. firms outsourcing software development to workers in other countries.
You have my sympathy. One of my coworkers in Virginia was told that he had a choice: unemployment or work in Arizona. He's been in Arizona for months while his wife and kids try to maintain the family home and their lives. Moving is really not an option for his family for various reasons -- including the fact that the job in Arizona is just temporary.
So? An American is out of work. Happens every day.
Given your callous attitude, I hope that it's you next. Mabye you will be one of the unlucky bastards that gets his resumé in for each job a day or two after they've filled it. Perhaps you will be one of the unemployed that misses hearing about jobs where you would have been the ideal candidate. Maybe after a year or two of unemployment (or underemployment at Walmart or McDonalds) you would develop a little compassion.
Perhaps he or she should find another line of work or get better at what he or she is doing.
It doesn't matter how good you are at your job if someone else will perform acceptably for half of what you make. Are you actually proposing that people in the computer industry sell their homes, cars, and personal posessions so that they can go back to school to learn a new profession? Where will their families live? Will there be dorm rooms housing a husband, wife, two kids, a dog, and a cat? You can't simply wake up one day and decide to be a lawyer without a law degree or a doctor without medical school. If that was the case, everyone could just major in English and then pick a career after graduating.
Besides, wouldn't paying this person half of an American's wage because he or she isn't an American already be illegal due to discrimination laws?
From a practical standpoint, no. The company made an offer and the applicant accepted it. The offer letters don't start out "we are happy to extend you an offer at a pay rate that is 48.2% of what we would pay an American." In the professional world, salaries vary widely, even within a company, and most companies have policies prohibiting employees from revealing their pay rate to their coworkers. Companies can always claim that the salary was lower because of "communications skills", "relevent experience", or any other number of intangible items.
You sound scared shitless at the possibility of that to which you reply.
Of thousands of people in my industry losing their jobs and suffering financial hardships? Hell yes, that scares me.
Perhaps you should've thought about that before you got into the inherently shaky IT industry.
Just how "shaky" was the computer industry when I got into it back in the 1980? Yeah, that's right. I've been in the industry since before you were born. Don't assume that everyone on Slashdot got into the computer industry during the dot-com boom.