Not even been tempted. I joined Netflix a long time ago. At that time, I was going to cancel due to the expense (I'm poor), and they told me about the secret, two-movies at a time 13$/month plan. I jumped on it. A few months ago they sent me a very nice email that they had to increase prices by a dollar, but they will grandfather me into the plan and not kick me off. I get UNLIMITED movies for 14/month.
So, I'm all for Netflix. I don't see how the others compete.
If Netflix starts sending porn, they better also start cleaning and inspecting the DVD's. Only problem I've had are DVD's that are beat up and fail... almost all the way through the movie.
The quality of those films, the conduction mechanism, etc, etc, are totally unknown. I've read all the papers out on the whole boron/deuterium issue, and believe me, you should not believe press reports asserting that this will work well enough to be useful. A lot of people don't believe it, it's controversial, etc. We have p-n junctions too! So what, they are still not of high quality. The deuterium treated films may be forming defects that act n-type for some reason- and these same defects may really be killing the electrical quality of the films.
It's a VERY COMPLICATED issue. Press releases are not science. Press releases masquarading as papers are also not science.
And no, it's not los alamos. I'm not rich and I drive a crappy car;)
CVD Diamond- I do this.
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Interesting article, but it's missing some of the point. There are two issues here: fabricating substitute "gem" diamonds for jewelry, or fabricating diamond for the semiconductor industry..., or diamond coatings for wear resistance, biocompatible implants, etc. These are an entirely different beast.
CVD diamond, even in with the best of reactors, is limited by growth rates. Working with thin films is, at the moment, the only way to go. You can also only get single crystal diamond by growing on a previously obtained single crystal diamond- as they mention in the article. This is seriously limiting, and they don't mention the growth rates in the article. 5$ a carat is such a BS guess it's not even funny.
CVD diamond grown primarly on Si wafers, and on some specially coated Si wafers, is the way diamond (which is polycrystalline, with different grain sizes giving very different diamond properties) is going to be used in the near to far future. Our group just got a RD 100 award (not that I give that much creedence to those, but it's recognition) for coating 4" wafers with diamond, and we're going up to 8" next year.
The biggest problem is with the electronic properties of the diamond. Sure, it's a great thermal conductor. But... ahem.. it also needs to be a great electical conductor- and have decent mobilities- to be used in actual electronic devices. You can dope diamond with boron to make it p-type, but the conductivity isn't all that high, and the mobility even less, in polycrystalline diamond due to defects and grain boundaries, etc. We've made n-type nanocrystalline diamond with nitrogen, which shouldn't work, but does, and we're still trying to figure out the conduction mechanism.
Thin film diamond is really going to shine for a few particular uses- MEMS (it has extremely low friction/stiction/wear), bio-devices, chemically resistant devices, etc. In all of these cases, even conductive MEMS driven by diamond electronics, borderline and not great electronic properties are fine. (Think Si TFT's for your comptuer display- it's not single crystal Si, obviously, but still has a great potental for other uses.)
There is no way to dope single crystal n-type. People are trying very hard to do this. Some people think they have gotten phosphorous to work slightly, but the growth is very difficult, and the work hard to reproduce. (our doping probably occurs in the grain boundaries, and we think we have actual grain boundary conduction vs. traditional doping processes.) That is a far bigger barrier than just growing BIG DIAMONDS. This article is just some PR spin press release that doesn't really say anything. (As I get more jaded, I see that that is all they really ever are). Just because you can't make Intel processors out of diamond doesn't mean you can't utilize diamond for a large number of exciting applications.
Remember: bigger is not better. Although I personally do like the idea of freaking out DeBeers.
Hey all-
I've also started to try and bike to work, which 9 miles each way through the dangerous and unforgiving SW Chicago suburbs, is not fun. I've only done it a few times. I'm lucky enough to have showers at work, so once you get over the weird feeling of "I'm showering at WORK!" it's okay.
The main problem I've had is that I don't like to carry my laptop in my bike bags. (I have a rack on the back and the "grocery bag" style bike bags, which I love). I can't bike with a backpack.
Anyone found a source for a good sort of light, but durable, laptop strongbox that would attach to the rack the same way? Good enough to protect it in the event of a (eep) fall?
I'd bike every damn day if I had a nice trail and no computer. Some roads here have no shoulders and no sidewalks, it's unbelievable. *@*&#~! urban planners. And, for the record, I"m huge- I think biking is much better for heavy people than jogging, until they get slimmer. I"ve done lots of aerobics and the elliptical runner.. and am bored to death. At least biking to work is an exciting challenge that involves the RISK OF DEATH. That keeps your attention. -j
I think I can clarify some of these things. I'm the person that grows the diamond films for the research in question. Bob Hamers is the head of that group- I'm here at Argonne in the nanostructured thin films group. I'm also on the paper- if anyone really wants a copy I can send them a reprint.
We grow diamond with microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition. Basically: take can, pump out air in can, put in argon and a tad of methane, make a plasma with a microwave source (one could also use other types of sources to ignite the plasma), make C2 radicals, heat your substrate, and you have a very fine-grained diamond film. This is rather different than how other people do it- they use methane and hydrogen and grow larger grained films. They are still interesting and useful, but are rough, and can't be doped n-type the way way we can.
I should emphasize that it's cheap since we don't use single crystal diamond substrates.. unlike some other diamond film technologies.
What gets exciting is that this type of film is not only dirt cheap to make, but it has all sorts of exciting tribological properties (low friction, stiction, roughness- due to the very small grain size) which makes it perfect for MEMS- so you have a MEMS/biosensor. I'm specifically working on doping it- so we dope it with nitrogen (which doesn't work in other types of diamond films) and we get highly conducting n-type diamond films. So now you have electronics/MEMS/biosensors all on the same chip and made at the same time. It's rather nice. We're working on low temperature growth (coating artifical retinas- there's a bit of press out there on that) etc. This stuff is called UNCD- ultra nanocrystalline diamond- and it was in slashot a couple of years back.
I'd be happy to answer any more questions. I just love seeing anything I'm working on in/. . -Jenny
The cd's were glued inside only to keep mp3's from leaking before the release date. They are NOT going to be sold that way for the actual album! Sillies!
There is a Tori article where she mentions her husband was at home, gluing them together. He did it himself! I don't think this is an actual record label Policy. And they did it because she didn't want certain aspects of the album to be released before she was ready- which I can understand- but a simply worded request to her fans to wait and now dowload it would be more effective. Obviously, it got out anyway. And the more you do to KEEP it from going out, the more determined people are going to be to put it out.
This is more a question of the artist not wanting their material out until a certain date, rather than mp3 "piracy", since obviously everyone is going to put it out on mp3 once they buy the album. They are NOT copy-protecting these cd's, which is therefore, just fine! The artist (and, well, record company) is allowed to decide when their work is shown, and Tori did not want her album coming out so close to Sept 11th. And that's her right.
Just as a note: people had to RETURN the players when they were done, so if someone did splice into the headphones, they'd know who did it. I personally think that her actual crew leaks this stuff- they're net enabled, and I really don't know who else would do it if they are keeping such a tight rein on it. Of course, the single is a different matter- radio stations everywhere have it, and it's around. But the entire album has not been widely disseminated, so that is more interesting.
Anyway, as a Tori fan, I wanted to put that out there.
In case it hasn't been mentioned.. the new Rio Volt MP3-cd player HAS AN FM TUNER. Gods be praised. I LOVE mine. No skips, very long battery life.. as long as you don't play *audio* cd's. But with MP3 it is fine, I take it to the gym with me every day. And it runs on an included external ac adaptor, which also charges the (included) rechargables when they are in the player. Very very nice. -j
I just got online to a tech after only a couple of minutes! Direct number; 1-866-706-8818
I have a blinking cable light, no DNS when I do an ipconfig/all.
Got the phone message today that service was back up. (not mine! They should have included the tech phone number. Thanks to a/.'er for giving it to me.)
Suggestions from the tech (I'm on my work 'puter now):
1) do a release all/renew all
2) go to the network identification. REPLACE the old id (probably something like CHG83KI) with your *last name* (!!)
3) replace the workgroups with: attbi
4) release/renew again
5) hope that works
So that's the info I have now, will try it tonight, will swear a lot if it doesn't work.
Tech was pleasant and as helpful as could be- have to give credit where credit is due. Of course, every other aspect of this has totally sucked. Especially the bill that I mailed today.. I can't WAIT to call billing and complain when they don't credit me for enough days... -Jenny
If you're in Chicago proper, and aren't going to move for a year or two, there are some very good DSL companies around that I"ve been looking at- got some of the ideas from/., actually. Go to www.dslreports.com. The only reason I'm not DSL is that I'm moving in less than a year, and would have to pay $$$$ to get out of the contract. Earthlink, while not the highest rated, has quite a good deal going right now- one year contract, no fees for setup or equipment (!!) 49/month. Better than cable. If I could, I'd go DSL. -Jenny
p.s. I have the food network on my ATT cable. That doesn't make that much sense with you..?
ATT just posted their schedule for switching over people who are not switched yet. (e.g., your cable light is out- like for those of us in illinois).
Here it is, not bad for the Illinois ones:
Please review the following AT&T Broadband Internet migration schedule to find out when your high-speed cable Internet service will be available on the AT&T network.
Customers in San Francisco and Illinois are scheduled to move this Monday and Tuesday
Customers in Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah are scheduled for Wednesday
Customers in Hartford, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Sacramento, California and the Majority of the Rocky Mountain region are scheduled to move on Thursday
Customers in Michigan will be moved on Friday
You will be contacted by AT&T Broadband with further instructions when the transition of your high-speed cable Internet service is complete.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this interruption may cause and thank you for your patience as we work to provide you with the best high-speed cable Internet service possible.
I'm in westmont, just north of Argonne. Yeah, my cable light has been out since midnight before last- big help all this DNS stuff is when you don't even have a connection! I'm now at work.. downloading AOL 6.0... so I can install it at home to use my backup ID on my dad's account. Where's an AOL coaster when you need one! Oh, I hate when things happen that make me default to AOL.
I don't use my @home mail, so I didn't get any of the notices about what to do. If you find out, could you post them here or pop me an email at jennifer_gerbi@yahoo.com? Yes: we are screwed.
Slashdot Mirror
Not even been tempted. I joined Netflix a long time ago. At that time, I was going to cancel due to the expense (I'm poor), and they told me about the secret, two-movies at a time 13$/month plan. I jumped on it. A few months ago they sent me a very nice email that they had to increase prices by a dollar, but they will grandfather me into the plan and not kick me off. I get UNLIMITED movies for 14/month.
So, I'm all for Netflix. I don't see how the others compete.
If Netflix starts sending porn, they better also start cleaning and inspecting the DVD's. Only problem I've had are DVD's that are beat up and fail... almost all the way through the movie.
Of course, the way you truly know this is suspect, is that in reference to this work are the words "irrefutable", "plethora", and anything "nano"
I'm a scientist, working with some thing considered nano, and even I'm getting tired of the phrase.
Turning the power off, even if you type about it in ALL CAPS, is not enough.
A big detail is that you must discharge any capacitors. THEY will kill you, even with the power off, and sometimes, they are not easy to find.
Don't do this, sheesh, it doesn't sound like a job worth dying from, now, does it.
The quality of those films, the conduction mechanism, etc, etc, are totally unknown. I've read all the papers out on the whole boron/deuterium issue, and believe me, you should not believe press reports asserting that this will work well enough to be useful. A lot of people don't believe it, it's controversial, etc. We have p-n junctions too! So what, they are still not of high quality. The deuterium treated films may be forming defects that act n-type for some reason- and these same defects may really be killing the electrical quality of the films.
;)
It's a VERY COMPLICATED issue. Press releases are not science. Press releases masquarading as papers are also not science.
And no, it's not los alamos. I'm not rich and I drive a crappy car
Interesting article, but it's missing some of the point. There are two issues here: fabricating substitute "gem" diamonds for jewelry, or fabricating diamond for the semiconductor industry..., or diamond coatings for wear resistance, biocompatible implants, etc. These are an entirely different beast.
CVD diamond, even in with the best of reactors, is limited by growth rates. Working with thin films is, at the moment, the only way to go. You can also only get single crystal diamond by growing on a previously obtained single crystal diamond- as they mention in the article. This is seriously limiting, and they don't mention the growth rates in the article. 5$ a carat is such a BS guess it's not even funny.
CVD diamond grown primarly on Si wafers, and on some specially coated Si wafers, is the way diamond (which is polycrystalline, with different grain sizes giving very different diamond properties) is going to be used in the near to far future. Our group just got a RD 100 award (not that I give that much creedence to those, but it's recognition) for coating 4" wafers with diamond, and we're going up to 8" next year.
The biggest problem is with the electronic properties of the diamond. Sure, it's a great thermal conductor. But... ahem.. it also needs to be a great electical conductor- and have decent mobilities- to be used in actual electronic devices. You can dope diamond with boron to make it p-type, but the conductivity isn't all that high, and the mobility even less, in polycrystalline diamond due to defects and grain boundaries, etc. We've made n-type nanocrystalline diamond with nitrogen, which shouldn't work, but does, and we're still trying to figure out the conduction mechanism.
Thin film diamond is really going to shine for a few particular uses- MEMS (it has extremely low friction/stiction/wear), bio-devices, chemically resistant devices, etc. In all of these cases, even conductive MEMS driven by diamond electronics, borderline and not great electronic properties are fine. (Think Si TFT's for your comptuer display- it's not single crystal Si, obviously, but still has a great potental for other uses.)
There is no way to dope single crystal n-type. People are trying very hard to do this. Some people think they have gotten phosphorous to work slightly, but the growth is very difficult, and the work hard to reproduce. (our doping probably occurs in the grain boundaries, and we think we have actual grain boundary conduction vs. traditional doping processes.) That is a far bigger barrier than just growing BIG DIAMONDS. This article is just some PR spin press release that doesn't really say anything. (As I get more jaded, I see that that is all they really ever are). Just because you can't make Intel processors out of diamond doesn't mean you can't utilize diamond for a large number of exciting applications.
Remember: bigger is not better. Although I personally do like the idea of freaking out DeBeers.
Pull me a diamond boule, and I"ll be impressed.
-j, postdoc at your favorite national lab.
Hey all-
I've also started to try and bike to work, which 9 miles each way through the dangerous and unforgiving SW Chicago suburbs, is not fun. I've only done it a few times. I'm lucky enough to have showers at work, so once you get over the weird feeling of "I'm showering at WORK!" it's okay.
The main problem I've had is that I don't like to carry my laptop in my bike bags. (I have a rack on the back and the "grocery bag" style bike bags, which I love). I can't bike with a backpack.
Anyone found a source for a good sort of light, but durable, laptop strongbox that would attach to the rack the same way? Good enough to protect it in the event of a (eep) fall?
I'd bike every damn day if I had a nice trail and no computer. Some roads here have no shoulders and no sidewalks, it's unbelievable. *@*&#~! urban planners. And, for the record, I"m huge- I think biking is much better for heavy people than jogging, until they get slimmer. I"ve done lots of aerobics and the elliptical runner.. and am bored to death. At least biking to work is an exciting challenge that involves the RISK OF DEATH. That keeps your attention. -j
Hi.
/. . -Jenny
I think I can clarify some of these things. I'm the person that grows the diamond films for the research in question. Bob Hamers is the head of that group- I'm here at Argonne in the nanostructured thin films group. I'm also on the paper- if anyone really wants a copy I can send them a reprint.
We grow diamond with microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition. Basically: take can, pump out air in can, put in argon and a tad of methane, make a plasma with a microwave source (one could also use other types of sources to ignite the plasma), make C2 radicals, heat your substrate, and you have a very fine-grained diamond film. This is rather different than how other people do it- they use methane and hydrogen and grow larger grained films. They are still interesting and useful, but are rough, and can't be doped n-type the way way we can.
I should emphasize that it's cheap since we don't use single crystal diamond substrates.. unlike some other diamond film technologies.
What gets exciting is that this type of film is not only dirt cheap to make, but it has all sorts of exciting tribological properties (low friction, stiction, roughness- due to the very small grain size) which makes it perfect for MEMS- so you have a MEMS/biosensor. I'm specifically working on doping it- so we dope it with nitrogen (which doesn't work in other types of diamond films) and we get highly conducting n-type diamond films. So now you have electronics/MEMS/biosensors all on the same chip and made at the same time. It's rather nice. We're working on low temperature growth (coating artifical retinas- there's a bit of press out there on that) etc. This stuff is called UNCD- ultra nanocrystalline diamond- and it was in slashot a couple of years back.
I'd be happy to answer any more questions. I just love seeing anything I'm working on in
True: Luckily, which whatever version is on the engineering accounts at UIUC, you get the message I wrote above. At 2am, it's even -funnier-.
I like this far more than is acceptable:
>cat food
>cat: cannot open food
Okay.
The cd's were glued inside only to keep mp3's from leaking before the release date. They are NOT going to be sold that way for the actual album! Sillies!
There is a Tori article where she mentions her husband was at home, gluing them together. He did it himself! I don't think this is an actual record label Policy. And they did it because she didn't want certain aspects of the album to be released before she was ready- which I can understand- but a simply worded request to her fans to wait and now dowload it would be more effective. Obviously, it got out anyway. And the more you do to KEEP it from going out, the more determined people are going to be to put it out.
This is more a question of the artist not wanting their material out until a certain date, rather than mp3 "piracy", since obviously everyone is going to put it out on mp3 once they buy the album. They are NOT copy-protecting these cd's, which is therefore, just fine! The artist (and, well, record company) is allowed to decide when their work is shown, and Tori did not want her album coming out so close to Sept 11th. And that's her right.
Just as a note: people had to RETURN the players when they were done, so if someone did splice into the headphones, they'd know who did it. I personally think that her actual crew leaks this stuff- they're net enabled, and I really don't know who else would do it if they are keeping such a tight rein on it. Of course, the single is a different matter- radio stations everywhere have it, and it's around. But the entire album has not been widely disseminated, so that is more interesting.
Anyway, as a Tori fan, I wanted to put that out there.
In case it hasn't been mentioned.. the new Rio Volt MP3-cd player HAS AN FM TUNER. Gods be praised. I LOVE mine. No skips, very long battery life.. as long as you don't play *audio* cd's. But with MP3 it is fine, I take it to the gym with me every day. And it runs on an included external ac adaptor, which also charges the (included) rechargables when they are in the player. Very very nice. -j
I'm in Westmont- western Chicago suburb.
I just got online to a tech after only a couple of minutes! Direct number; 1-866-706-8818
I have a blinking cable light, no DNS when I do an ipconfig/all.
Got the phone message today that service was back up. (not mine! They should have included the tech phone number. Thanks to a
Suggestions from the tech (I'm on my work 'puter now):
1) do a release all/renew all
2) go to the network identification. REPLACE the old id (probably something like CHG83KI) with your *last name* (!!)
3) replace the workgroups with: attbi
4) release/renew again
5) hope that works
So that's the info I have now, will try it tonight, will swear a lot if it doesn't work.
Tech was pleasant and as helpful as could be- have to give credit where credit is due. Of course, every other aspect of this has totally sucked. Especially the bill that I mailed today.. I can't WAIT to call billing and complain when they don't credit me for enough days... -Jenny
If you're in Chicago proper, and aren't going to move for a year or two, there are some very good DSL companies around that I"ve been looking at- got some of the ideas from
p.s. I have the food network on my ATT cable. That doesn't make that much sense with you..?
(yall might want to mod this up.)
ATT just posted their schedule for switching over people who are not switched yet. (e.g., your cable light is out- like for those of us in illinois).
Here it is, not bad for the Illinois ones:
Please review the following AT&T Broadband Internet migration schedule to find out when your high-speed cable Internet service will be available on the AT&T network.
Customers in San Francisco and Illinois are scheduled to move this Monday and Tuesday
Customers in Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah are scheduled for Wednesday
Customers in Hartford, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Sacramento, California and the Majority of the Rocky Mountain region are scheduled to move on Thursday
Customers in Michigan will be moved on Friday
You will be contacted by AT&T Broadband with further instructions when the transition of your high-speed cable Internet service is complete.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this interruption may cause and thank you for your patience as we work to provide you with the best high-speed cable Internet service possible.
Hi!
I'm in westmont, just north of Argonne. Yeah, my cable light has been out since midnight before last- big help all this DNS stuff is when you don't even have a connection! I'm now at work.. downloading AOL 6.0... so I can install it at home to use my backup ID on my dad's account. Where's an AOL coaster when you need one! Oh, I hate when things happen that make me default to AOL.
I don't use my @home mail, so I didn't get any of the notices about what to do. If you find out, could you post them here or pop me an email at jennifer_gerbi@yahoo.com? Yes: we are screwed.
-Jenny