5 minutes out of every 25 must be spent charging. Ok that means you end up wasting 12 minutes out of every hour. I'd say this is much less than I end up wasting on other things like solitaire, minesweeper. PLUS, you get exercise out of it! Sign me up!
Ok, a Beowulf cluster is multiple COMPUTERS (or at least partial computers) that are linked together to do distributed computing. A RAID Array is multiple HARD DRIVES linked together to emulate one large hard drive with redundancy. There's a big difference.
No kiddin, its a joke. Cripes. No one said "A Beowulf cluster is computers, not people" when people used the standard joke in Taco's proposal.
Ok, I'm going to try to keep this short even though I could talk about RAM for days on end.
There are quite a few inaccuracies in Tom's article here. From calling Rambus serial to some of his crazy statements about DDR not handling impedance balancing as well as Rambus, I'd call him insane.
However, its a statement like 800 Mb/s/pin is better than 333 Mb/s/pin that really gets me fired up. Yeah, those are the speeds, but he's losing so much of the big picture that its scary. The more important thing to account for is the geometry of the RAM configuration which includes things like the number of data pins in parallel. For instance, a DDR bus has 64 while Rambus uses 16. Lets see here, multiplying 64*333 and 16*800 (pins*(Mb/s/pin)=Mb/s total) shows that DDR333 is now twice the performance of Rambus. Yikes.
And then there's his comments about CAS latency. Tom says that CAS 2 will be the factor that makes DDR333 outperform Rambus because CAS 2.5 is too slow. Lets just sketch out what CAS means: it is the time between when a read command is issued to the RAM and when the first piece of data comes out, measured in clock cycles. So basically, he's saying that.5 cycles per random access (to DDR) will make the difference. It won't. First, we're talking.5 cycles out of ~10 (for a purely random access), or a 5% increase. Second, bursting from the RAM almost entirely disguises this so that CAS makes up less than 1% by the time its all said and done. This happens because burst accesses (which are almost all that takes place in a PC, due to the cache structure) pipeline and end up hiding the CAS time over a long period.
Gads, I've been doing too much work with RAM lately.
Blocking Kazza/Morpheus and co is tough since it'll switch and seek out other ports
No it doesn't! Just block destination port 1214 and they can log in and search, but can't download squat because everyone else's Morpheus copy is listening on 1214. I did it to my bandwidth-hog roommate and we're lag-free all the time now.
Oh come on! What does Office have to do with security on a Unix box? For once, you'd think that could be left out of the summary. Office is really good at just about everything it does (except backwards-compatibility) while Windows leaves a bit to be desired. So I'd say yeah, Unix does need Office.
ESPN? Oh come on, we all know that ESPN2 is where all the cool stuff like the X-games is!
What I'm really waiting for is one of those Discovery Channel specials (complete with British narrator) about the tactics employed where they dissect every little movement like the battles of WWII.
Why lasers? It doesn't quite have the panache of using a rocket to shoot down other things. Plus lasers move at the speed of light, so its not even half as challenging to hit a moving piece of balistics as it would be with another projectile!
Becuase that doesn't tell if you clicked and didn't like the page. Just because one person clicks on a junk page doesn't mean that page should be higher rated for the next person.
Try reading just about everything by Arthur C Clarke. A lot of it has not come true (yet), but almost all of it is in the works by NASA, the US government, and other governments worldwide.
Shouldn't battery life of a cell phone be a concern here? Even the best ones have lives of only a few days in non-talk mode. By the time this story hit, it had already been 5 days, so the chances of success seem somewhat low. This is still a good idea, regardless.
I'm a student at the University of Delaware of both of the engineers that are responsible for this technology. The editorial comments on the main page give a rather negative view of the FingerBoard, and I think they're a bit hasty to judge something just from pictures. I've used the FingerBoard and seen numerous demonstrations and I honestly believe that it will be the next thing we take for granted.
Calling it a touchpad is something of a misnomer since the word brings with it many of the negative connotations that are associated with touchpads. To clarify: this is truly the world's first "touch"-pad. The touchpads that are currently on laptops are more of "presspads" since you need to apply some finite amount of force to them. The FingerBoard's propaganda is correct when it calls it a "zero-force" technology. You don't have to apply any force to get the board to sense your motive; mere contact is all that is required. Now don't go thinking that the board is touchy because there is a TON of signal processing that has been placed there in order to keep things from getting muddled.
Typing on these things is a breeze and feels a whole lot like real typing. You'll also notice that you can type very close to your full speed. One of the cool things is that the entire surface is is sensitive to the touch and the keys can be mapped anywhere in the area - so whether you're a fan of natural layouts, standard layouts, Dvorak, or anything else then you're in business.
All of that aside, what really sets the FingerBoard apart from the rest is the gesture technology. By just placing fingers in certain patters or moving them in certain ways, you can emulate numerous functions. For instance, two fingers at once are used to mouse around. Tapping two fingers is a left click, four fingers moved up or down is used for scrolling, etc. It really all feels quite natural. When you use all of it, it really feels like you're starting to interact with the computer as opposed to using it.
Ok, I know my whole post sounds like propaganda, but I'll affirm that I have nothing to do with its production - I've only used the thing.
PS - I know at least one of the Professors that works on the FingerBoard reads Slashdot daily.
This is so true! Marvin would just plug himself into HAL and share his views on the universe. HAL would commit suicide just like that police space ship.
You make a decent point in this post, that you can't judge a book just by its cover. However, your "medium, not a message" thing is a bit off-base. Read "Mythologies" by Roland Barthes. The whole point of this book (and other books on media) is that the media IS the message. They are one in the same and are inseperable. Be careful how lightly you use that conclusion.
Yeah! I was so happy to see that stupid bird (I got to UD), but then it said Duke.:( There went my school's 2 seconds of fame. Sounds about typical though
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5 minutes out of every 25 must be spent charging. Ok that means you end up wasting 12 minutes out of every hour. I'd say this is much less than I end up wasting on other things like solitaire, minesweeper. PLUS, you get exercise out of it! Sign me up!
A Beowulf cluster of ... Ahh nevermind.
Seriously though, we could be talkin 6.1 surround here with enough of these babies!
Ok, I'm going to try to keep this short even though I could talk about RAM for days on end.
.5 cycles per random access (to DDR) will make the difference. It won't. First, we're talking .5 cycles out of ~10 (for a purely random access), or a 5% increase. Second, bursting from the RAM almost entirely disguises this so that CAS makes up less than 1% by the time its all said and done. This happens because burst accesses (which are almost all that takes place in a PC, due to the cache structure) pipeline and end up hiding the CAS time over a long period.
There are quite a few inaccuracies in Tom's article here. From calling Rambus serial to some of his crazy statements about DDR not handling impedance balancing as well as Rambus, I'd call him insane.
However, its a statement like 800 Mb/s/pin is better than 333 Mb/s/pin that really gets me fired up. Yeah, those are the speeds, but he's losing so much of the big picture that its scary. The more important thing to account for is the geometry of the RAM configuration which includes things like the number of data pins in parallel. For instance, a DDR bus has 64 while Rambus uses 16. Lets see here, multiplying 64*333 and 16*800 (pins*(Mb/s/pin)=Mb/s total) shows that DDR333 is now twice the performance of Rambus. Yikes.
And then there's his comments about CAS latency. Tom says that CAS 2 will be the factor that makes DDR333 outperform Rambus because CAS 2.5 is too slow. Lets just sketch out what CAS means: it is the time between when a read command is issued to the RAM and when the first piece of data comes out, measured in clock cycles. So basically, he's saying that
Gads, I've been doing too much work with RAM lately.
So, 30000 comments via email. I wonder if 29000 of them were from hotmail addresses. And if so, I'll be we know where THEY came from, eh?
They probably DO have a +25 magic staff of bandwidth if they went to all the trouble of downloading the ISO. :)
Blocking Kazza/Morpheus and co is tough since it'll switch and seek out other ports
No it doesn't! Just block destination port 1214 and they can log in and search, but can't download squat because everyone else's Morpheus copy is listening on 1214. I did it to my bandwidth-hog roommate and we're lag-free all the time now.
Oh come on! What does Office have to do with security on a Unix box? For once, you'd think that could be left out of the summary. Office is really good at just about everything it does (except backwards-compatibility) while Windows leaves a bit to be desired. So I'd say yeah, Unix does need Office.
ESPN? Oh come on, we all know that ESPN2 is where all the cool stuff like the X-games is!
What I'm really waiting for is one of those Discovery Channel specials (complete with British narrator) about the tactics employed where they dissect every little movement like the battles of WWII.
Why lasers? It doesn't quite have the panache of using a rocket to shoot down other things. Plus lasers move at the speed of light, so its not even half as challenging to hit a moving piece of balistics as it would be with another projectile!
Becuase that doesn't tell if you clicked and didn't like the page. Just because one person clicks on a junk page doesn't mean that page should be higher rated for the next person.
Try reading just about everything by Arthur C Clarke. A lot of it has not come true (yet), but almost all of it is in the works by NASA, the US government, and other governments worldwide.
Anyone else reminded of The Jetson's and Elroy's bed?
Next thing you know, they'll be coming out with walking, talking robots (oh jeeze, Honda just did)!!
Shouldn't battery life of a cell phone be a concern here? Even the best ones have lives of only a few days in non-talk mode. By the time this story hit, it had already been 5 days, so the chances of success seem somewhat low. This is still a good idea, regardless.
It's actually not an issue. Dunno how it works, but it hasn't ever glitched on me.
I'm a student at the University of Delaware of both of the engineers that are responsible for this technology. The editorial comments on the main page give a rather negative view of the FingerBoard, and I think they're a bit hasty to judge something just from pictures. I've used the FingerBoard and seen numerous demonstrations and I honestly believe that it will be the next thing we take for granted.
Calling it a touchpad is something of a misnomer since the word brings with it many of the negative connotations that are associated with touchpads. To clarify: this is truly the world's first "touch"-pad. The touchpads that are currently on laptops are more of "presspads" since you need to apply some finite amount of force to them. The FingerBoard's propaganda is correct when it calls it a "zero-force" technology. You don't have to apply any force to get the board to sense your motive; mere contact is all that is required. Now don't go thinking that the board is touchy because there is a TON of signal processing that has been placed there in order to keep things from getting muddled.
Typing on these things is a breeze and feels a whole lot like real typing. You'll also notice that you can type very close to your full speed. One of the cool things is that the entire surface is is sensitive to the touch and the keys can be mapped anywhere in the area - so whether you're a fan of natural layouts, standard layouts, Dvorak, or anything else then you're in business.
All of that aside, what really sets the FingerBoard apart from the rest is the gesture technology. By just placing fingers in certain patters or moving them in certain ways, you can emulate numerous functions. For instance, two fingers at once are used to mouse around. Tapping two fingers is a left click, four fingers moved up or down is used for scrolling, etc. It really all feels quite natural. When you use all of it, it really feels like you're starting to interact with the computer as opposed to using it.
Ok, I know my whole post sounds like propaganda, but I'll affirm that I have nothing to do with its production - I've only used the thing.
PS - I know at least one of the Professors that works on the FingerBoard reads Slashdot daily.
This is so true! Marvin would just plug himself into HAL and share his views on the universe. HAL would commit suicide just like that police space ship.
You make a decent point in this post, that you can't judge a book just by its cover. However, your "medium, not a message" thing is a bit off-base. Read "Mythologies" by Roland Barthes. The whole point of this book (and other books on media) is that the media IS the message. They are one in the same and are inseperable. Be careful how lightly you use that conclusion.
Yeah! I was so happy to see that stupid bird (I got to UD), but then it said Duke. :( There went my school's 2 seconds of fame. Sounds about typical though
Anyone ever heard of a potimeter? We should inform him that its a potentiometer.