Since they are focusing on cheap manufacturing instead of light conversion efficiency, these things may not produce much output per unit of area.
So it may be one of those scenarios where you would have to cover your entire roof, as well as those of your two nearest neighbors, to generate enough power for a single house. In other words, they may be intending this for use in solar farms out in rural areas, where real-estate is not a concern.
The brain consumes somewhere around 20 watts, and the estimated processing power of the human brain is somewhere between 10 and 100000 teraflops, with a storage capacity somewhere in the terabyte range. Now, we enjoy that processing power while completely at rest, without having to exert ourselves at all. Granted, our architecture isn't suited for some of the tasks a supercomputer is put to, on the other hand there are many incredibly rudimentary thinking tasks that the computer cannot perform no matter how powerful it is.
> find wii review Unable to find any reviews authored by "wii".
> find review about wii No reviews found concerning the common noun "wii".
> find review about Wii Here is the most recent review about the proper noun "Wii": [url to a page full of keywords related to Wii]
> find review about Wii order by relevence "relevence" is not an English word. Did you mean "relevance"?
> find review about Wii order by relevance Here is the most relevant review about Wii: [url to a 2 year old pre-review of the Wii before it was launched]
> find review about Wii order by relevance then date Here is the most recent and most relevant review about Wii: [url to a fanboy site]
> find all reviews about Wii order by relevance then date Working...
> abort Abort what?
> abort search I am currently performing 1,231,415 searches. Which search do you want me to abort?
> abort last search You do not have permission to abort others' searches.
> abort my last search Last search aborted.
> find several reviews about Wii order by relevance then date "Several" is not a quantifiable adjective. Do you mean "seven"?
> find seven reviews about Wii order by relevance then date Here are your results. For better search results please capitalize the first word of sentences, and end sentences with proper punctuation.
This article, and the ensuing discussion about whether or not massively parallel computing is even necessary for general-purpose computing, reminded me of a short Sci-Fi story. I don't remember the name, and I couldn't find it by googling. The story is about serial beings that, because they "think" serially, can transmit themselves across the universe easily. They visit earth, and find the massively parallel structure of animal brains to be very wasteful. However they find promise in our computing devices (of course the story was written before the new multi-core craze).
"processors with more than eight cores, possible as soon as 2010 -- will transform the world of personal computing"
Exactly what areas of "personal computing" are requiring this horsepower? The only two that come to mind are games and encoding video. The video encoding part is already covered - that scales nicely to multiple threads, and even free encoders will use the extra cores to their full potential. That leaves gaming, which is basically proprietary. The game engine must be designed so that AI, physics, and other CPU-bound algorithms can be executed in parallel. This has already been addressed.
So this begs the question, exactly how will average consumer benefit from an OS and software that can make optimum use of multiple cores, when the performance issues users complain about are not even CPU-bound in the first place?
The original text should have read ProfitableForMicrosoft, because that's the only meaning I can infer from the original PlaysForSure program.
The closest thing that comes to defining the spirit of the phrase "PlaysForSure" is the MP3 format, because it will play on the highest percentage of hardware in existence.
The article makes reference to amperage, but without voltage that value is basically meaningless. Now if they were talking wattage then we would know exactly how much power these batteries produce (and consume during charging).
Sure it will. I was just reading Google News, and saw this story as the top Sci/Tech headline, and thought "Hey, I forgot about ask.com. Maybe I'll run a few searches through them and see how it goes."
So whether or not the new privacy policy attracts people directly, the publicity will bring them hits for sure. Maybe even a few converts.
Cell phones are very convenient, but what gives me peace of mind is knowing my quad-band (70cm, 1.25m, 2m, 6m), wide-receive, submersible Yaesu VX-7R hand-held transceiver is close at hand. If James Kim would have had even a basic Amateur hand-held transceiver with him things would have probably turned out much different.
Misquoted by the Slashdot story as usual. FTA: Over 99 percent spam blocking means fewer than one mistake in every 100 messages processed. That's 10 to 100 times fewer mistakes than any other available systems.
I own a number of domains, and receive all email to each domain in a catch-all account. I receive a great deal of emails to totally fictitious email accounts at my domains. Those recipients receive 0% legitimate emails, so anything sending to those accounts is 100% certainly a spammer. Basically what Abaca is doing is working with all the shades of gray in between. Also, this is a system that can only be employed at the server level. It's not like you could add this technology to your stand alone email client.
Far too much energy was released thermally for this to have caused physical trauma (kinetic). If it was an explosion, the phone would have stress type damage - it would be cracked and broken into pieces. The amount of melting indicates a relatively slow release of energy, melting the plastic and burning the clothes.
Think of a firecracker. If it explodes, there won't be heat damage to nearby objects. However if you take the powder out and light it, it will burn for a long enough period of time to cause thermal damage. Same thing here - the majority of the energy was thermal and not kinetic.
Anyone else notice the related stories on the news site? Nov. 6, 2003: Voyager Spacecraft Approaches Solar System's Final Frontier Dec. 19, 2000: Most Distant Spacecraft May Reach Shock Zone Soon May 25, 2005: Voyager Spacecraft Enters Solar System's Final Frontier
Besides the speculation, will we even know when the boundary is crossed? Do they expect data to indicate a transition, or do we even know if the instruments can detect such a thing?
The part I don't understand is how Google plans on tracking how consumers utilize this electricity, so they can in turn display targeted advertising through AdSense and Gmail. Surely I'm missing something.
But the read times are faster...as a home user, WHERE is this going to benefit me? Will I notice a diffence in 'vim file' or playing/streaming music?
If you are one of those home users whose computer only accesses a single file at a time on the perfectly defragmented HDD, then no, you probably wouldn't see much difference.
There's an interesting phenomenon that most people don't consider. Since the moon rotates about its axis at the same period as its orbit, the earth always appears at the same place in the sky when viewed from a given location on the surface of the moon (unless of course you were on the "dark" side of the moon).
That would be incredibly useful for navigation!
The article seemed to misstate this fact: Since the moon's rotation matches the Earth's rotation of the sun, the Earth will always appear to be in the same spot if seen by an astronaut standing on the moon.
Doesn't that infer the moon's rotation is 365.25 days?
Metallic antennas are excited by EM radiation (radio waves) of a proper wavelength. In turn, the antenna will re-radiate (transmit) a tiny bit of that energy, although very weakly, which can be detected. This is totally passive, which is how it is possible to build a passive repeater by simply running a wire between two directional antennas. It is also the general principal of how RFID tags work.
The stealth of this antenna is that it is non-metallic and will not react to EMF when switched off. It has nothing to do with how big the antenna is, or what color it is, or whether or not it emits light, which are all things people have been speculating about.
Worse than credit cards are the "Food Club" discount cards. Around here we have lots of Food Lion grocery stores (they're practically in every town), and they use "MVP" cards. Customers only get sale prices if they have an MVP card. The cards are free, but you have to fill out some demographic information on the application.
Those things allow tracking of every single item a customer purchases, regardless of how they pay. Most customers are completely oblivious to the privacy ramifications.
Slashdot Mirror
Crap. There goes the entertainment value of my scanner that can receive 800-900 MHz.
Dan East
Since they are focusing on cheap manufacturing instead of light conversion efficiency, these things may not produce much output per unit of area.
So it may be one of those scenarios where you would have to cover your entire roof, as well as those of your two nearest neighbors, to generate enough power for a single house. In other words, they may be intending this for use in solar farms out in rural areas, where real-estate is not a concern.
Dan East
The brain consumes somewhere around 20 watts, and the estimated processing power of the human brain is somewhere between 10 and 100000 teraflops, with a storage capacity somewhere in the terabyte range. Now, we enjoy that processing power while completely at rest, without having to exert ourselves at all. Granted, our architecture isn't suited for some of the tasks a supercomputer is put to, on the other hand there are many incredibly rudimentary thinking tasks that the computer cannot perform no matter how powerful it is.
Dan East
This gives new meaning to the cliché "there's a sucker born every minute".
Dan East
Not that anyone cares one way or another, but my post was meant to be a joke.
Dan East
> wii
Your query does not include a verb.
> find wii
Whose "wii" do you want me to find?
> find wii review
Unable to find any reviews authored by "wii".
> find review about wii
No reviews found concerning the common noun "wii".
> find review about Wii
Here is the most recent review about the proper noun "Wii": [url to a page full of keywords related to Wii]
> find review about Wii order by relevence
"relevence" is not an English word. Did you mean "relevance"?
> find review about Wii order by relevance
Here is the most relevant review about Wii: [url to a 2 year old pre-review of the Wii before it was launched]
> find review about Wii order by relevance then date
Here is the most recent and most relevant review about Wii: [url to a fanboy site]
> find all reviews about Wii order by relevance then date
Working...
> abort
Abort what?
> abort search
I am currently performing 1,231,415 searches. Which search do you want me to abort?
> abort last search
You do not have permission to abort others' searches.
> abort my last search
Last search aborted.
> find several reviews about Wii order by relevance then date
"Several" is not a quantifiable adjective. Do you mean "seven"?
> find seven reviews about Wii order by relevance then date
Here are your results. For better search results please capitalize the first word of sentences, and end sentences with proper punctuation.
Dan East
This article, and the ensuing discussion about whether or not massively parallel computing is even necessary for general-purpose computing, reminded me of a short Sci-Fi story. I don't remember the name, and I couldn't find it by googling. The story is about serial beings that, because they "think" serially, can transmit themselves across the universe easily. They visit earth, and find the massively parallel structure of animal brains to be very wasteful. However they find promise in our computing devices (of course the story was written before the new multi-core craze).
Anyone know the name of this story?
Dan East
"processors with more than eight cores, possible as soon as 2010 -- will transform the world of personal computing"
Exactly what areas of "personal computing" are requiring this horsepower? The only two that come to mind are games and encoding video. The video encoding part is already covered - that scales nicely to multiple threads, and even free encoders will use the extra cores to their full potential. That leaves gaming, which is basically proprietary. The game engine must be designed so that AI, physics, and other CPU-bound algorithms can be executed in parallel. This has already been addressed.
So this begs the question, exactly how will average consumer benefit from an OS and software that can make optimum use of multiple cores, when the performance issues users complain about are not even CPU-bound in the first place?
Dan East
The original text should have read ProfitableForMicrosoft, because that's the only meaning I can infer from the original PlaysForSure program.
The closest thing that comes to defining the spirit of the phrase "PlaysForSure" is the MP3 format, because it will play on the highest percentage of hardware in existence.
Dan East
The article makes reference to amperage, but without voltage that value is basically meaningless. Now if they were talking wattage then we would know exactly how much power these batteries produce (and consume during charging).
Dan East
Sure it will. I was just reading Google News, and saw this story as the top Sci/Tech headline, and thought "Hey, I forgot about ask.com. Maybe I'll run a few searches through them and see how it goes."
So whether or not the new privacy policy attracts people directly, the publicity will bring them hits for sure. Maybe even a few converts.
Dan East
Cell phones are very convenient, but what gives me peace of mind is knowing my quad-band (70cm, 1.25m, 2m, 6m), wide-receive, submersible Yaesu VX-7R hand-held transceiver is close at hand. If James Kim would have had even a basic Amateur hand-held transceiver with him things would have probably turned out much different.
Dan East
Misquoted by the Slashdot story as usual. FTA:
Over 99 percent spam blocking means fewer than one mistake in every 100 messages processed. That's 10 to 100 times fewer mistakes than any other available systems.
Dan East
I own a number of domains, and receive all email to each domain in a catch-all account. I receive a great deal of emails to totally fictitious email accounts at my domains. Those recipients receive 0% legitimate emails, so anything sending to those accounts is 100% certainly a spammer. Basically what Abaca is doing is working with all the shades of gray in between. Also, this is a system that can only be employed at the server level. It's not like you could add this technology to your stand alone email client.
Dan East
I'm going to wait for the full genome scan.
I know the real reason. You're just dying to include a checksum of your DNA in your sig.
Dan East
Excerpt from checklist for when I get my time machine working:
.COM domain names consisting of 2 and 3 letters.
#10: Visit 1985 and buy up all 18,252
Dan East
Far too much energy was released thermally for this to have caused physical trauma (kinetic). If it was an explosion, the phone would have stress type damage - it would be cracked and broken into pieces. The amount of melting indicates a relatively slow release of energy, melting the plastic and burning the clothes.
Think of a firecracker. If it explodes, there won't be heat damage to nearby objects. However if you take the powder out and light it, it will burn for a long enough period of time to cause thermal damage. Same thing here - the majority of the energy was thermal and not kinetic.
Dan East
Anyone else notice the related stories on the news site?
Nov. 6, 2003: Voyager Spacecraft Approaches Solar System's Final Frontier
Dec. 19, 2000: Most Distant Spacecraft May Reach Shock Zone Soon
May 25, 2005: Voyager Spacecraft Enters Solar System's Final Frontier
Besides the speculation, will we even know when the boundary is crossed? Do they expect data to indicate a transition, or do we even know if the instruments can detect such a thing?
Dan East
The part I don't understand is how Google plans on tracking how consumers utilize this electricity, so they can in turn display targeted advertising through AdSense and Gmail. Surely I'm missing something.
Dan East
There may have been a translation error, leading the Nigerians to believe OLPC was an acronym for One Litigation Per Child.
Dan East
it doesn't work like todays calculators but like the old adding machines:
Millions of people still use calculators that behave exactly like that. All financial calculators work like that, and for good reason.
Dan East
But the read times are faster...as a home user, WHERE is this going to benefit me? Will I notice a diffence in 'vim file' or playing/streaming music?
If you are one of those home users whose computer only accesses a single file at a time on the perfectly defragmented HDD, then no, you probably wouldn't see much difference.
Dan East
There's an interesting phenomenon that most people don't consider. Since the moon rotates about its axis at the same period as its orbit, the earth always appears at the same place in the sky when viewed from a given location on the surface of the moon (unless of course you were on the "dark" side of the moon).
That would be incredibly useful for navigation!
The article seemed to misstate this fact:
Since the moon's rotation matches the Earth's rotation of the sun, the Earth will always appear to be in the same spot if seen by an astronaut standing on the moon.
Doesn't that infer the moon's rotation is 365.25 days?
Dan East
Metallic antennas are excited by EM radiation (radio waves) of a proper wavelength. In turn, the antenna will re-radiate (transmit) a tiny bit of that energy, although very weakly, which can be detected. This is totally passive, which is how it is possible to build a passive repeater by simply running a wire between two directional antennas. It is also the general principal of how RFID tags work.
The stealth of this antenna is that it is non-metallic and will not react to EMF when switched off. It has nothing to do with how big the antenna is, or what color it is, or whether or not it emits light, which are all things people have been speculating about.
Dan East
Worse than credit cards are the "Food Club" discount cards. Around here we have lots of Food Lion grocery stores (they're practically in every town), and they use "MVP" cards. Customers only get sale prices if they have an MVP card. The cards are free, but you have to fill out some demographic information on the application.
Those things allow tracking of every single item a customer purchases, regardless of how they pay. Most customers are completely oblivious to the privacy ramifications.
Dan East