A Nanometer is 10 to the -9th power of a meter**. An atom is approximately 10 to the -11th power of a meter***. Therefore this technology, when fully functional would theoretically allow two orders of magnitude greater number of transistors per area of measurement. So if a Pentium IV has approximately 42million transistors**** it could (in theory) contain 42,000,000 to the 2nd power more transistors.
A nm is 1e-9, while an atom is nominally 1e-11 (different atoms have different sized nuclei and numbers of shells). This is a linear (1-D) measurement, so you can fit 100 atoms into a nm if you are going in a line, and 100*100=10,000 if you are talking about 1 nm^2. Also, remember that this resulting number is quite approximate and arbitrary, since it doesn't take atomic structure (how the atoms are arranged), among other issues, into account.
So, I think the number you are looking for is not NumberOfTransistors^2, but rather NumberOfTransistors*(100*100).
One of the problems with standard solar cells is that you have to disconnect them from the battery when the light levels drop, or they will discharge the battery
Not too hard to avoid, simply connect it to a diode, so that the electrons only flow one way. You should probably use a schottky diode which has an extremely low voltage drop (more info) since you probably won't be producing too high of a voltage to start with if it's a single solar cell.
Well that settles it then! Everyone vote for Kerry!
I mean, really - I have no idea who to vote for until someone tells me. I'm just scared that someone will come along and endorse Bush, and then I'll have no idea what to do...
The tubes were stated as COULD be used for nuclear weapons. They could also be large drinking straws or sewer pipes. I, for one, would rather NOT take that chance. Better to be too cautious than not cautious enough.
I have evidence that you *could* be a terrorist!
Please do not deny that you are, in fact, alive, and as such you could at some point in the future commit henious acts of terrorism!
I wish they would spend just 10% of the time and money that spend on making a better war machine into making sure that they don't have to use it.
This is just my perception, but it seems we spend hundreds of billions for solving a problem that could have been avoided with a few billion dollars and a little diplomacy.
For example, with the Iraqi mess going on right now, it seems that we could just have let the Iraqis overthrow Saddam when they tried dozens of times. A lot of times, all it would have required was for the CIA to just not tip him off. Even when he officially became bad (after Kuwait), there were several opportunities to remove the embargo and help the Iraqis to revolt, but we vetoed every time the UN suggested it. I don't want to go too far into this, because then it would be off-topic...
This was the main reason that I switched to gmail--it just loads faster.
I noticed this too - it flies compared to Hotmail or Yahoo, but I'm a little worried that the honeymoon will end when it moves from beta and allows millions of more users.
Then again, if anyone can pull it off, it's Google.
The only comment I would make on the Gmail account is that it's hard to list the size of emails and attachments. You have to read the email to see the size of the attachment and there is no size info in the list view. OK, so it's a GB, but it doesn't mean that you won't want to find email to delete after a year or so, especially with large attachments like spreadsheets or pdf's. Right now, I label all the large emails I receive with a 'big' tag so that I can easily find them later.
What are some of your thoughts regarding 'moderating' (think/.) a news agency when it admits that more than just an honest mistake has been committed in its reporting?
The fact that a station actually admits that they made a mistake is to its credit.
I'm sure that there are news stations that misreport without ever clearing up any mistakes they may have made.
Anyway, firstly, if you wanted to censure news stations for obvious bias, there would probably not be any US-based channels on the air. I personally prefer news from Reuters and the BBC, but I'm sure someone will believe them to be pinko-commie-sympathizing liberals (or neo-Nazi facists, depending on your view of the news being reported).
Secondly, I think that allowing people to moderate news will result in continuous 24 hour coverage of sports and models, since that's probably what most people would like to see instead of depressing world news and politics.
Perhaps you can rename it from JADE to J-A-D-E or J-ADE. It'll still be pronounced the same and look almost the same, but it's not the same name (IANAL, blah blah). But I do believe that a different spelling wouldn't be trademarked just because it sounds the same.
That is, if you want to change the name.
I've never thought of this before, but could some opensource advocacy group trademark a part of a name such as "GNU" or "OS" and anyone that wanted to be protected from trademark infringement could use that as part of their name, i.e. JADE OS. The owner of the trademark could let anyone using a particular set of licenses piggy-back on their trademark. This would be in-line with the Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul books, or the for-Dummies books.
I don't really know if that would work. It seems really stupid to let people trandemark parts of a name; if that was possible, I would just trademark the letters E and S and make a killing!
Why can't all the PC architecture vendors just get along and use OpenFirmware like most other sane architectures ?
There is absolutely no market pressure whatsoever to do so.
As long as there is either influence or money to be made on BIOS, and no pressure to move to an open standard, then none of big players will move in that direction.
I realize that what I just said was obvious, but no one has said it yet (at the time of this writing).
Actually, what I was getting at is that the binary is part of my system (for example, an mp3 player).
Then, when the competition wants to get access to my mp3 code (which started out as GPL), then I tell them that I would be happy to give them access to it for $9999999999999999999999999.99
Effectively, I've closed open-source allowing me to make improvements that don't get back into the community.
I've had to struggle with this also, but after all is said and done, I'm moving our whole embedded platform to linux.
This has had a few repercussion; namely, we're also doing away with the whole Windows client side of the application and replacing it with a web-app. It turns out that when you have a highly evolved embedded web server, scripting language, and database, an active client becomes unnecessary and can be replaced with a web browser.
By the way, just in case anyone else is doing this, in the embedded space I've found that LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) can be successfully replaced with LBSL (Linux-BOA-SQLite-LUA).
BOA is a little web server (less than 70KB). It uses the GPL license.
SQLite is a very efficient SQL database (about 200KB if you replace math library functions with an inline function). It is public domain.
LUA is a tiny (about 100-200KB, depending on modules compiled in) scripting language with a very elegant design. The math module can be rewritten to not use the math library. It uses the MIT license.
Each of these pieces of software has a different licenses, with SQLite and LUA basically allowing you to do what you please. BOA improvements must be opened up, however you can add functionality through CGI-like modules, and that will not need to be opened.
It would be nice if we could switch away from totally unverified financial transactions like the current credit card systems, and start using something that at least requires a PIN. That way, instead of having to trust every single company with which I do business, I only have to trust my bank.
You do realize that to do business on line, you would still have to give them your pin, right?
It would be up to them if they wanted to store that info or not, but at some point, you will have to enter your pin into a web page.
If Valve is worth their salt, they'll have to move to limit the information sent to players, giving them only what they should be able to observe and nothing more. Sending only the character positions you can directly observe would be one method, which would destroy wallhacks, but leaves aimbots unscathed. I think the only good way to counter aimbots longterm is to offload rendering to a server, but that's borderline insane. Both of these suggestions mean an increase in lag, but that's what we get for using a system where failures to transmit mean waiting for random milliseconds.
Actually, there has been some work done in encrypted or zero-knowledge computation*.
This way, you can actually perform calculations on a packet of data without decrypting it, which is a pretty neat concept.
There have been several examples of allowing encrypted database lookup, but this is different. In an encrypted lookup, you hash the query first (for example, you want to search for a patent on 'salmon descalers'), and search through the hashes of the field in the db. If there is no record match, then the server never knows what you were searching for. However no real computation is performed. Encrypted computation allows you to solve any problem that can be represented as a BSS (Blum-Shub-Smale) automata (broad enough that many real problems can be represented using it).
[If you are an evil virus writer, please skip the next paragraph]
Also, there was another technique suggested a while ago that allowed event-driven decryption. This way, a virus for example could carry an encrypted payload and occassionally attempt to read a url for the key, or use the hash of the IP address and date as a key, or a stock price, etc. If it decrypts correctly and the checksums match, execute the payload.
Actually, the architecture I would recommend (and the one I use) for really small footprints is the ETRAX 100MCM from Axis.
The new version (it's not on the web yet, but they are shipping in limited quantities) includes on chip: 4 Mbyte Flash, 16 Mbyte SDRAM, an Ethernet transceiver, Reset circuitry, and dozens of passives (resistors and capacitors), and all the usual: 4 Serial UARTS, a parallel port, SPI bus, etc.
So if you wanted to build a credit-card sized Linux machine with Ethernet, BOA webserver, SSH, FTP, vi, sqlite, LUA scripting language, etc., you could (and you would still have at least 1.5 MB left over).
This is what I use for my embedded designs, and it's astonishingly easy using the cross-compiling toolchain (basically, just gcc and a change in the makefile for target) that they provide. They also have a mailing list for questions if you don't want to call.
Oh, and their architecture is now supported in the main fork of the 2.6 kernel.
> but would the usb port be able to supply enough juice
MRAM stands for magnetic RAM, so it takes no energy whatsoever to keep it's state. It only needs energy to read and write, and even if this is happening at an astoundingly high 5% duty-cycle, it's still only a fraction of the energy required to run other forms of RAM.
MRAM is very good for things like cell phones and handhelds.
NAND Flash is what's making this possible. It's denser and faster than NOR Flash.
If you haven't heard of MRAM, that's definitely another technology to be on the lookout for. According to IBM and Infineon Technologies, it's supposed to start shipping this year.
Basically, it has the density of DRAM, 15ns access time, and doesn't loses it's state even when powered down.
Google turns up some articles: here, here, and here.
Slashdot Mirror
A nm is 1e-9, while an atom is nominally 1e-11 (different atoms have different sized nuclei and numbers of shells). This is a linear (1-D) measurement, so you can fit 100 atoms into a nm if you are going in a line, and 100*100=10,000 if you are talking about 1 nm^2. Also, remember that this resulting number is quite approximate and arbitrary, since it doesn't take atomic structure (how the atoms are arranged), among other issues, into account.
So, I think the number you are looking for is not NumberOfTransistors^2, but rather NumberOfTransistors*(100*100).
It is the object of the game to find one's way back to the Homing Page using as few clicks as possible.
I can do it with one click; I just use the little button with the left arrow on it.
One of the problems with standard solar cells is that you have to disconnect them from the battery when the light levels drop, or they will discharge the battery
Not too hard to avoid, simply connect it to a diode, so that the electrons only flow one way. You should probably use a schottky diode which has an extremely low voltage drop (more info) since you probably won't be producing too high of a voltage to start with if it's a single solar cell.
Well that settles it then! Everyone vote for Kerry!
I mean, really - I have no idea who to vote for until someone tells me. I'm just scared that someone will come along and endorse Bush, and then I'll have no idea what to do...
The tubes were stated as COULD be used for nuclear weapons. They could also be large drinking straws or sewer pipes. I, for one, would rather NOT take that chance. Better to be too cautious than not cautious enough.
I have evidence that you *could* be a terrorist!
Please do not deny that you are, in fact, alive, and as such you could at some point in the future commit henious acts of terrorism!
I wish they would spend just 10% of the time and money that spend on making a better war machine into making sure that they don't have to use it.
This is just my perception, but it seems we spend hundreds of billions for solving a problem that could have been avoided with a few billion dollars and a little diplomacy.
For example, with the Iraqi mess going on right now, it seems that we could just have let the Iraqis overthrow Saddam when they tried dozens of times. A lot of times, all it would have required was for the CIA to just not tip him off. Even when he officially became bad (after Kuwait), there were several opportunities to remove the embargo and help the Iraqis to revolt, but we vetoed every time the UN suggested it. I don't want to go too far into this, because then it would be off-topic...
That may well have been obvious to you, but the average Joe would never really believe it unless someone in authority gives it credibility.
For some reason, people are loathe to think that politicians actually specialize in politics.
This was the main reason that I switched to gmail--it just loads faster.
I noticed this too - it flies compared to Hotmail or Yahoo, but I'm a little worried that the honeymoon will end when it moves from beta and allows millions of more users.
Then again, if anyone can pull it off, it's Google.
The only comment I would make on the Gmail account is that it's hard to list the size of emails and attachments. You have to read the email to see the size of the attachment and there is no size info in the list view. OK, so it's a GB, but it doesn't mean that you won't want to find email to delete after a year or so, especially with large attachments like spreadsheets or pdf's. Right now, I label all the large emails I receive with a 'big' tag so that I can easily find them later.
What are some of your thoughts regarding 'moderating' (think /.) a news agency when it admits that more than just an honest mistake has been committed in its reporting?
The fact that a station actually admits that they made a mistake is to its credit.
I'm sure that there are news stations that misreport without ever clearing up any mistakes they may have made.
Anyway, firstly, if you wanted to censure news stations for obvious bias, there would probably not be any US-based channels on the air. I personally prefer news from Reuters and the BBC, but I'm sure someone will believe them to be pinko-commie-sympathizing liberals (or neo-Nazi facists, depending on your view of the news being reported).
Secondly, I think that allowing people to moderate news will result in continuous 24 hour coverage of sports and models, since that's probably what most people would like to see instead of depressing world news and politics.
Perhaps you can rename it from JADE to J-A-D-E or J-ADE. It'll still be pronounced the same and look almost the same, but it's not the same name (IANAL, blah blah). But I do believe that a different spelling wouldn't be trademarked just because it sounds the same.
That is, if you want to change the name.
I've never thought of this before, but could some opensource advocacy group trademark a part of a name such as "GNU" or "OS" and anyone that wanted to be protected from trademark infringement could use that as part of their name, i.e. JADE OS. The owner of the trademark could let anyone using a particular set of licenses piggy-back on their trademark. This would be in-line with the Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul books, or the for-Dummies books.
I don't really know if that would work. It seems really stupid to let people trandemark parts of a name; if that was possible, I would just trademark the letters E and S and make a killing!
Why can't all the PC architecture vendors just get along and use OpenFirmware like most other sane architectures ?
There is absolutely no market pressure whatsoever to do so.
As long as there is either influence or money to be made on BIOS, and no pressure to move to an open standard, then none of big players will move in that direction.
I realize that what I just said was obvious, but no one has said it yet (at the time of this writing).
Whether it's legal or not, the management must be fools not to consider what this does to morale!
I guess it's harder to quantify human resources, enthusiasm, and loyalty than missed hours...
Actually, what I was getting at is that the binary is part of my system (for example, an mp3 player).
Then, when the competition wants to get access to my mp3 code (which started out as GPL), then I tell them that I would be happy to give them access to it for $9999999999999999999999999.99
Effectively, I've closed open-source allowing me to make improvements that don't get back into the community.
I can take free GPL code, make a change and then resell it for $500,000?
Isn't this just another way of keeping the source closed?
Geeks are 100% dedicated to a relationship and will go that extra mile.
Oh, and also: Phear the g33k!
I've had to struggle with this also, but after all is said and done, I'm moving our whole embedded platform to linux.
This has had a few repercussion; namely, we're also doing away with the whole Windows client side of the application and replacing it with a web-app. It turns out that when you have a highly evolved embedded web server, scripting language, and database, an active client becomes unnecessary and can be replaced with a web browser.
By the way, just in case anyone else is doing this, in the embedded space I've found that LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) can be successfully replaced with LBSL (Linux-BOA-SQLite-LUA).
BOA is a little web server (less than 70KB). It uses the GPL license.
SQLite is a very efficient SQL database (about 200KB if you replace math library functions with an inline function). It is public domain.
LUA is a tiny (about 100-200KB, depending on modules compiled in) scripting language with a very elegant design. The math module can be rewritten to not use the math library. It uses the MIT license.
Each of these pieces of software has a different licenses, with SQLite and LUA basically allowing you to do what you please. BOA improvements must be opened up, however you can add functionality through CGI-like modules, and that will not need to be opened.
It would be nice if we could switch away from totally unverified financial transactions like the current credit card systems, and start using something that at least requires a PIN. That way, instead of having to trust every single company with which I do business, I only have to trust my bank.
You do realize that to do business on line, you would still have to give them your pin, right?
It would be up to them if they wanted to store that info or not, but at some point, you will have to enter your pin into a web page.
If Valve is worth their salt, they'll have to move to limit the information sent to players, giving them only what they should be able to observe and nothing more. Sending only the character positions you can directly observe would be one method, which would destroy wallhacks, but leaves aimbots unscathed. I think the only good way to counter aimbots longterm is to offload rendering to a server, but that's borderline insane. Both of these suggestions mean an increase in lag, but that's what we get for using a system where failures to transmit mean waiting for random milliseconds.
Actually, there has been some work done in encrypted or zero-knowledge computation*.
This way, you can actually perform calculations on a packet of data without decrypting it, which is a pretty neat concept.
There have been several examples of allowing encrypted database lookup, but this is different. In an encrypted lookup, you hash the query first (for example, you want to search for a patent on 'salmon descalers'), and search through the hashes of the field in the db. If there is no record match, then the server never knows what you were searching for. However no real computation is performed. Encrypted computation allows you to solve any problem that can be represented as a BSS (Blum-Shub-Smale) automata (broad enough that many real problems can be represented using it).
[If you are an evil virus writer, please skip the next paragraph]
Also, there was another technique suggested a while ago that allowed event-driven decryption. This way, a virus for example could carry an encrypted payload and occassionally attempt to read a url for the key, or use the hash of the IP address and date as a key, or a stock price, etc. If it decrypts correctly and the checksums match, execute the payload.
*: 962KB PDF covering a possible way to do this
Best quote I read on emacs:
"emacs is an increadible operating system! Now if they would just write a good text editor for it..."
(Not a flame, really!)
Yep, fashel=loser. Oddly enough, it has the same connotations and nuances in Arabic as it does in English.
:)
There is no exact word for Jerk (as far as I know) in Arabic, nor Nerd, Geek, or Dork...
R.S. IAAA (I am an Arab)
Actually, the architecture I would recommend (and the one I use) for really small footprints is the ETRAX 100MCM from Axis.
The new version (it's not on the web yet, but they are shipping in limited quantities) includes on chip: 4 Mbyte Flash, 16 Mbyte SDRAM, an Ethernet transceiver, Reset circuitry, and dozens of passives (resistors and capacitors), and all the usual: 4 Serial UARTS, a parallel port, SPI bus, etc.
So if you wanted to build a credit-card sized Linux machine with Ethernet, BOA webserver, SSH, FTP, vi, sqlite, LUA scripting language, etc., you could (and you would still have at least 1.5 MB left over).
This is what I use for my embedded designs, and it's astonishingly easy using the cross-compiling toolchain (basically, just gcc and a change in the makefile for target) that they provide. They also have a mailing list for questions if you don't want to call.
Oh, and their architecture is now supported in the main fork of the 2.6 kernel.
I don't know if anyone else noticed, but they apparantly started on April Fools Day:
"We started officially on Apr. 1, 1995, the day the check came in the mail, an auspicious date."
I don't know why, but I found that amusing...
I think that the links provided could be more relavant.
> but would the usb port be able to supply enough juice
MRAM stands for magnetic RAM, so it takes no energy whatsoever to keep it's state. It only needs energy to read and write, and even if this is happening at an astoundingly high 5% duty-cycle, it's still only a fraction of the energy required to run other forms of RAM.
MRAM is very good for things like cell phones and handhelds.
NAND Flash is what's making this possible. It's denser and faster than NOR Flash.
If you haven't heard of MRAM, that's definitely another technology to be on the lookout for. According to IBM and Infineon Technologies, it's supposed to start shipping this year.
Basically, it has the density of DRAM, 15ns access time, and doesn't loses it's state even when powered down.
Google turns up some articles: here, here, and here.