As for 'Group think', run the numbers yourself. Calculate the amount of potential energy stored in the system when the weight is at the top, then figure out the number of watts that will produce if the potential energy is released over the time span of 4 hours.
any time I run any type of bandwidth testing for clients with Comcast accounts, the results have been amazingly fast
If you want to test sustained speed, then test sustained speed. When you benchmark a HD, do you only test reading small files (which will fit in the HD's cache ram) and then get surprised when the sustained speed is significantly lower? Use the right benchmarking tool, mmkay?
it appears that Comcast is delivering this bandwidth only for a few seconds after any new request and it is immediately throttled down.
And in many situations, especially with consumer links, that's a good thing. Joe User's usage is often bursty (loading a web-page, fetching an email, etc) so designing the network to give good initial burst speed makes perfect sense since it makes interactive usage a lot more responsive.
Is there any valid reason why Comcast would front-load transfers in this way
Better performance for interactive / short-burst content. Which is exactly what many users want.
or is it merely an effort to prevent end-users from being able to assess their bandwidth accurately?
Is it the ISPs fault that you use the wrong tool to benchmark the connection? If you want to know sustained rate, don't use small transfers. One has exactly the same issue with benchmarking HDs or flash-memory, burst and sustained are not the same.
If you can show that Comcast has engineered their network to give priority to traffic from popular network speed test sites, then you'd have a legitimate issue. But from your description it sounds like this is just interactive burst, which is perfectly legitimate and in most situations a good thing.
You are entirely correct that the article doesn't provide a fine link, but the address for the website can most certainly be found in aforementioned article.
"This could be impossible, but the CEO of antigravityresearch.com already [..]" "The first record-setting launch is documented at antigravityresearch.com, where Schellenberg [..]"
Thus my (admittedly rather crudely made) point that googling should have been unnecessary if said fine article had been read by participants of this august forum.
Anyway, the site does indeed have some very cool products.
look for them to have docking stations with full sized keyboards and monitors
Nokia N95 has composite TV-out so connect it to a TV. Add a bluetooth keyboard.
Anyhoo, I doubt phone and notebook will merge. Mostly because putting the computing core (i.e cpu and ram) inside something the size of a phone and having it be energy efficient enough to run comfortably off a phone battery cost you a lot in terms of performance. A real notebook will always be a lot more powerful than a phone+dock. In addition there is the issue of OS and UI, phones are still not powerful enough to comfortably run a desktop OS and a mouse/keyboard/monitor UI is very different from a phone UI.
That's not to say that you can't use a phone plus some accessories like keyboard/monitor as kinda sorta a notebook replacement. You can sort of do that today with devices like N82/95/96 or top of the line WinMobiles. But the tradeoffs in UI and performance means that phone and notebook won't merge in the same way that phone/pda, phone/snapshot camera, phone/media player and (soon) phone/gps has.
In addition, it turns out, that there is a lot of fiber-to-the-home already in the ground. That means that many ISPs are pretty much ready to roll it out widely across several European nations.
Very true. Many of the old euro telcos have been deploying fiber to the home "under the radar", every time they have to replace a copper cable or install new phone wires to homes they include an unconnected fiber. I think the main reason for keeping this on the qt at the moment is that they want to wait until they have good coverage before they flip the switch, if they lit up the existing fiber now there would be huge public pressure to get it installed asap in the areas not yet covered. They want to do the deployment at a normal rate and avoid the expensive rush of getting fiber in the ground everywhere asap.
There's also the competition angle. Until DOCSIS3 becomes the norm over catv, *dsl is fast enough to compete with the cable cos.
Re:What's a NOK? Are they paying in bananas?
on
Nokia Buys Trolltech
·
· Score: 3, Funny
And how do we know this single chip thing is superscalar ooo etc? Previous x86 SOCs have been rather weak in that area. You are absolutely right in that performance/watt is very important. And that's an area where "native" embedded procs like ARM have eaten x86's lunch.
This SOC might be a breakthrough for x86 embedded, hard to tell since there's virtually no information on the specs. But based on previous history, pretty much the only reason for choosing x86 for embedded has been compatibility with existing x86 software.
Hmm, a quick google shows that this thing is running a Via Eden and using the Via VX800 chipset.
True, using "industry standard" codecs like h.264 or jpeg doesn't insure that there will be no submarine patents. Jpeg/Forgent is a case in point.
But as far as I can see, there are some mitigating factors there. First of all, since most of these codecs are widely used a patent troll is likely to run into an industry-wide coalition that will share the expense of dragging the thing to court to try to invalidate the patent. Second, if the patent is indeed valid (and don't get me started on the current insanity of patents, patent reform is sorely needed but until that happens one has to deal with the current state of things) it is more likely that the patent holder will go to mpeg-la and ask for the patent to be added to the pool so they get a share of the license instead of going all lawsuit on the users of the codec. Third, or perhaps more a corollary to point 2, getting in the patent pool will ensure a steady income for a patent holder (and is less risky than going the lawsuit route and risk having the patent invalidated) so any company that has patents that might be related to the codec is likely to search hard to try to find patents that can be submitted to the pool.
So. Holders of patents that might be related to mpeg/iso/itu/etc have a self-interest in searching through their portfolio and submit their patents to the licensing pool = likely that most or all patents related to the standard will be discovered. And even if submarine patents show up later, the holder has the option of submitting it to the pool instead of going lawsuit. Which translates to h.264 being "less risk" compared to ogg theora from the viewpoint of hardware mfgs like Nokia.
I'd like to see RF-licensed or patent-free codecs like vorbis and theora become part of web standards, but with the current state of patent law that's not what businesses like Nokia and Apple will do due to the (real, or perceived) risks involved.
It would be more correct to say that the creators of the Theora/Vorbis codecs and the Ogg container format hold no patents on it (or in the case of Theora, RF-licensing of On2's patents). It does not however mean that noone else holds a patent. And the way that patents work (i.e, unlike trademarks which must be actively used/protected lest the (TM) holder lose it) a patent holder might choose to keep quiet until the format/codec becomes popular. Remember gif/Unisys? Or the more recent jpeg/Forgent?
In that sense, h.264/aac (which has been through a process where the participants developing the standard are obligated to disclose all covered patents) or older codecs (where any potential patents are expired, or soon to be expired) holds less business risk for device manufacturers like Nokia. Being torpedoed by a submarine patent is expensive, so going the mpeg/iso/iec/itu path and paying a license fee to mpeg-la is seen as safer.
Power consumption is pretty certain to have been one of the reasons, I was just pointing out to stewbacca that Jobs making a big deal about it doesn't mean that it categorically was the only reason. Jobs is a great salesman, so it is only to be expected that he will promote the positive sides of technical choices Apple makes in their products. And Jobs does have a point. If I turn on everything on my N95 it will suck the battery empty in no time flat.
As for 3G, yeah the current crop draws more power than 2G. And as always the mfgs are pushing for cheaper, less power drain and smaller (more integration in a single-chip/few-chip design). The mfgs would obviously be delighted if they scored a design win with Apple for iPhone2, but one also has to remember that the iPhone currently is a niche product; a design win with SE, LG, Moto, Nokia or Samsung would pop as many if not more champagne bottles in their boardroom.
Oh man, don't they teach source criticism any more?
The public explanation from Jobs is "better battery life". Now, that might be true, and that might be the only reason they went EDGE only. But it might also be salesman spin ("we know our valued customers want good battery life, so we limited the iPhone to EDGE for your benefit"), and the reasons for EDGE only might be completely unrelated to what Jobs is saying publicly. The point is - unless you are His Steveness using a pseudonym you can't categorically state that battery life is the one and only reason for his choice.
One reason can be the limited roll-out of UMTS/HSDPA in the US.
An other could be cost, they wanted a higher margin.
A third that they might want to go least-common-denominator (GSM/EDGE) so that the rev1 iPhone would work, and hence possible to sell, in pretty much all markets; that is, they wouldn't have to do a rev2 before they entered the eu/asia market. If rev1 was intended for US only, it might have been better to go CDMA. Especially considering that a CDMA phone is easier to lock to a carrier. But that would require Apple to do a rev2 before they could enter the other markets.
A fourth that it would be unwise to include everything in rev1, since they need to put something better in rev2 so that you have a reason to buy the next one.
Slashdot Mirror
Lumens has nothing to do with time.
As for 'Group think', run the numbers yourself. Calculate the amount of potential energy stored in the system when the weight is at the top, then figure out the number of watts that will produce if the potential energy is released over the time span of 4 hours.
0.0228W, if 100% efficiency.
Sure, if you want the lamp to run for 4 minutes instead of 4 hours.
Watt is newton per second, not newton per minute. You forgot a divide by 60.
Why not flip the thing on its head? Like an enlightened hourglass.
any time I run any type of bandwidth testing for clients with Comcast accounts, the results have been amazingly fast
If you want to test sustained speed, then test sustained speed. When you benchmark a HD, do you only test reading small files (which will fit in the HD's cache ram) and then get surprised when the sustained speed is significantly lower? Use the right benchmarking tool, mmkay?
it appears that Comcast is delivering this bandwidth only for a few seconds after any new request and it is immediately throttled down.
And in many situations, especially with consumer links, that's a good thing. Joe User's usage is often bursty (loading a web-page, fetching an email, etc) so designing the network to give good initial burst speed makes perfect sense since it makes interactive usage a lot more responsive.
Is there any valid reason why Comcast would front-load transfers in this way
Better performance for interactive / short-burst content. Which is exactly what many users want.
or is it merely an effort to prevent end-users from being able to assess their bandwidth accurately?
Is it the ISPs fault that you use the wrong tool to benchmark the connection? If you want to know sustained rate, don't use small transfers. One has exactly the same issue with benchmarking HDs or flash-memory, burst and sustained are not the same.
If you can show that Comcast has engineered their network to give priority to traffic from popular network speed test sites, then you'd have a legitimate issue. But from your description it sounds like this is just interactive burst, which is perfectly legitimate and in most situations a good thing.
You are entirely correct that the article doesn't provide a fine link, but the address for the website can most certainly be found in aforementioned article.
"This could be impossible, but the CEO of antigravityresearch.com already [..]"
"The first record-setting launch is documented at antigravityresearch.com, where Schellenberg [..]"
Thus my (admittedly rather crudely made) point that googling should have been unnecessary if said fine article had been read by participants of this august forum.
Anyway, the site does indeed have some very cool products.
People are so opposed to actually RTFA that they will waste time Googling instead.
*shakes head*
Dinosaur.
look for them to have docking stations with full sized keyboards and monitors
Nokia N95 has composite TV-out so connect it to a TV. Add a bluetooth keyboard.
Anyhoo, I doubt phone and notebook will merge. Mostly because putting the computing core (i.e cpu and ram) inside something the size of a phone and having it be energy efficient enough to run comfortably off a phone battery cost you a lot in terms of performance. A real notebook will always be a lot more powerful than a phone+dock. In addition there is the issue of OS and UI, phones are still not powerful enough to comfortably run a desktop OS and a mouse/keyboard/monitor UI is very different from a phone UI.
That's not to say that you can't use a phone plus some accessories like keyboard/monitor as kinda sorta a notebook replacement. You can sort of do that today with devices like N82/95/96 or top of the line WinMobiles. But the tradeoffs in UI and performance means that phone and notebook won't merge in the same way that phone/pda, phone/snapshot camera, phone/media player and (soon) phone/gps has.
In addition, it turns out, that there is a lot of fiber-to-the-home already in the ground. That means that many ISPs are pretty much ready to roll it out widely across several European nations.
Very true. Many of the old euro telcos have been deploying fiber to the home "under the radar", every time they have to replace a copper cable or install new phone wires to homes they include an unconnected fiber. I think the main reason for keeping this on the qt at the moment is that they want to wait until they have good coverage before they flip the switch, if they lit up the existing fiber now there would be huge public pressure to get it installed asap in the areas not yet covered. They want to do the deployment at a normal rate and avoid the expensive rush of getting fiber in the ground everywhere asap.
There's also the competition angle. Until DOCSIS3 becomes the norm over catv, *dsl is fast enough to compete with the cable cos.
NOK is Norwegian Kroner. Currently, 1 USD is approx 5.5 NOK.
NOK also happens to be Nokia's stock ticker on Nasdaq, I'm sure someone can make a joke about that.
Dude, posting that without a spoiler warning is so evil.
O <- you
If you read the article, it should be obvious that Wu is talking of lex ferenda and not lex lata.
- The ISP's forum software now supports sub-threads.
- New backronym for DoS - Deluge of Seawater
- Need to buy more pumps to handle the downstream.
- Is the hosting provider for the new MMORPG - Seaworld.
- New trend in outsourcing - offshoring.
wouldn't this leave them far more open to forms of terrorism?
No more Fox News for you.
Seriously, this "omg the terrsts!" hysteria is making people forget about the real threats - like Bubba Backhoe.
CERT-advisory on limpet mines.
New April 1st RFC - floating point transfers over sub-nets.
The network is obviously pier to pier-based, you need good piering agreements.
Connection reset by pier.
The data center is down due to wetware failure.
Special offer - free salt for all your crypto needs.
Careful with that firewall, closed ports are bad.
"Digital Pirates" just acquired a new meaning.
The Dreaded Backhoe will be replaced by people phishing on the pier and people dropping <A>s
Sneakernet replaced by flippernet.
Overclockers rejoice, think of the extreme water-cooling possibilities.
Forget the Boston Tea Party. The Boston LAN Party will be way cooler.
And how do we know this single chip thing is superscalar ooo etc? Previous x86 SOCs have been rather weak in that area. You are absolutely right in that performance/watt is very important. And that's an area where "native" embedded procs like ARM have eaten x86's lunch.
This SOC might be a breakthrough for x86 embedded, hard to tell since there's virtually no information on the specs. But based on previous history, pretty much the only reason for choosing x86 for embedded has been compatibility with existing x86 software.
Hmm, a quick google shows that this thing is running a Via Eden and using the Via VX800 chipset.
Do not install any new software of any kind a week or two before a paper is due
ITYM "Don't install an addictive game before a paper is due."
That article is about par for the course for roughlydrafted. To keep your sanity, add the following to your userContent.css:
A[HREF*="roughlydrafted.com"]:after { content: " [IDIOT WARNING]"!important ; color: red }
True, using "industry standard" codecs like h.264 or jpeg doesn't insure that there will be no submarine patents. Jpeg/Forgent is a case in point.
But as far as I can see, there are some mitigating factors there. First of all, since most of these codecs are widely used a patent troll is likely to run into an industry-wide coalition that will share the expense of dragging the thing to court to try to invalidate the patent. Second, if the patent is indeed valid (and don't get me started on the current insanity of patents, patent reform is sorely needed but until that happens one has to deal with the current state of things) it is more likely that the patent holder will go to mpeg-la and ask for the patent to be added to the pool so they get a share of the license instead of going all lawsuit on the users of the codec. Third, or perhaps more a corollary to point 2, getting in the patent pool will ensure a steady income for a patent holder (and is less risky than going the lawsuit route and risk having the patent invalidated) so any company that has patents that might be related to the codec is likely to search hard to try to find patents that can be submitted to the pool.
So. Holders of patents that might be related to mpeg/iso/itu/etc have a self-interest in searching through their portfolio and submit their patents to the licensing pool = likely that most or all patents related to the standard will be discovered. And even if submarine patents show up later, the holder has the option of submitting it to the pool instead of going lawsuit. Which translates to h.264 being "less risk" compared to ogg theora from the viewpoint of hardware mfgs like Nokia.
I'd like to see RF-licensed or patent-free codecs like vorbis and theora become part of web standards, but with the current state of patent law that's not what businesses like Nokia and Apple will do due to the (real, or perceived) risks involved.
Yes Ogg is completely patent-free
And how do you know that to be true?
It would be more correct to say that the creators of the Theora/Vorbis codecs and the Ogg container format hold no patents on it (or in the case of Theora, RF-licensing of On2's patents). It does not however mean that noone else holds a patent. And the way that patents work (i.e, unlike trademarks which must be actively used/protected lest the (TM) holder lose it) a patent holder might choose to keep quiet until the format/codec becomes popular. Remember gif/Unisys? Or the more recent jpeg/Forgent?
In that sense, h.264/aac (which has been through a process where the participants developing the standard are obligated to disclose all covered patents) or older codecs (where any potential patents are expired, or soon to be expired) holds less business risk for device manufacturers like Nokia. Being torpedoed by a submarine patent is expensive, so going the mpeg/iso/iec/itu path and paying a license fee to mpeg-la is seen as safer.
I suppose one would have to use genuine emulation.
steralyzine
According to Google, you have just created a new word.
Power consumption is pretty certain to have been one of the reasons, I was just pointing out to stewbacca that Jobs making a big deal about it doesn't mean that it categorically was the only reason. Jobs is a great salesman, so it is only to be expected that he will promote the positive sides of technical choices Apple makes in their products. And Jobs does have a point. If I turn on everything on my N95 it will suck the battery empty in no time flat.
As for 3G, yeah the current crop draws more power than 2G. And as always the mfgs are pushing for cheaper, less power drain and smaller (more integration in a single-chip/few-chip design). The mfgs would obviously be delighted if they scored a design win with Apple for iPhone2, but one also has to remember that the iPhone currently is a niche product; a design win with SE, LG, Moto, Nokia or Samsung would pop as many if not more champagne bottles in their boardroom.
Oh man, don't they teach source criticism any more?
The public explanation from Jobs is "better battery life". Now, that might be true, and that might be the only reason they went EDGE only. But it might also be salesman spin ("we know our valued customers want good battery life, so we limited the iPhone to EDGE for your benefit"), and the reasons for EDGE only might be completely unrelated to what Jobs is saying publicly. The point is - unless you are His Steveness using a pseudonym you can't categorically state that battery life is the one and only reason for his choice.
One reason can be the limited roll-out of UMTS/HSDPA in the US.
An other could be cost, they wanted a higher margin.
A third that they might want to go least-common-denominator (GSM/EDGE) so that the rev1 iPhone would work, and hence possible to sell, in pretty much all markets; that is, they wouldn't have to do a rev2 before they entered the eu/asia market. If rev1 was intended for US only, it might have been better to go CDMA. Especially considering that a CDMA phone is easier to lock to a carrier. But that would require Apple to do a rev2 before they could enter the other markets.
A fourth that it would be unwise to include everything in rev1, since they need to put something better in rev2 so that you have a reason to buy the next one.