Ethernet wiring already takes phones into consideration. Standard procedure is to use pins 1,2,3, and 6 of the RJ-45 connector. This was, if a phone (RJ-11) is plugged in, it will make contact with only the usused pins 4 and 5 or hte RJ-45 connector.
There are some Ethernet arrangements that utilize all eight wires, but these are fairly uncommon.
Oh... and one more think I can't understand about UK power. They let you guys have a whole bunch of houses on a single transformer. ACH! Dangerous to your and/or your equipment depending on how stupid your neighbours are...
Since when does every house in the US have its own transformer? Taking a look up at the poles on any given street indicates that there is not one transformer for every house, but one for every several houses.
In theory, the testing process should mirror actual usage: one TCP connection if your application works that way, or otherwise as appropriate. The theoretical bandwidth of the connection doesn't matter if you can't attain that with your particular usage pattern.
This raises another question for me: CD servers. I have a 7-disc changer connected to my fileserver for CDs I use frequently and I'm sure that this scheme won't be able to function correctly when it's accessing a network share rather than a local drive.
No, high voltage is much better for distributing power. Changing voltages used to be much harder with DC. It may still be for really high currents and voltages, I dunno.
Entirely correct. With the advent of high-power semiconductors, it is becoming possible to efficiently step down DC voltages for power transmission (Tech Review article, full text is unfortunately "premium content"). With DC transmission, considerable savings can be achieved because fewer conductors are needed - one DC line can be stepped down into a full array of AC voltages and phases for customer use.
Edison was still wrong, though - DC was entirely impractical in his time
This is definitely true. I've got LJ III units here at home that are 10+ years old but still work fine. It's amazing how heavily built they are (55lbs), but I suppose you get what you pay for sometimes - IIRC, it retailed for ~$2000 when it was sold from 1990-1992.
If the FBI can hunt down CEO's & CFO's for stock fraud, why can't we get them (and their lawyers) on the hot seat for conspiracy against the consumer at large?
Because stock fraud (and the like) kill stock prices. Stockholders care about stock prices, not the consumer.
Sailboats large enough to live on are not likely to have a two-stroke engine (outboard), but rather 4+ cylinder inboard. Properly mounted, these do not cause noticeable vibration throughout the boat; certainly not enough to affect the drives. Furthermore, someone living aboard their sailboat is probably going to be sailing most of the time and using the engine only occasionally, i.e. to dock.
As far as vibration is concerned, I'd be more worried about the tossing experienced when crossing waves and powerboat wakes: a several-ton boat coming down a a large wake or wave can come down with quite a crash. This might be enough to affect modern hard drives (while active, that is - powered-off drives can withstand several Gs).
This is often done for the cooling systems on marine engines: closed loop of fresh water running through the engine itself, sea water circulated just through the heat exchanger. This keeps salt water out of the engine and helps prevent the engine from corroding inside. In theory there's no reason the same technique couldn't be used to cool a computer, but it might be overkill or too expensive in practice.
While compress itself may be first-come, first-serve, the bit I quoted suggests (I haven't gotten a copy of the referenced article) that the original LZ algorithm does, in fact, consider frequency. Since the LZ article was published in 1984, there is a possibility that it is prior art.
I'm not a patent lawyer, but this sounds not entirely unlike the Lempel-Ziv compression algorithm, from 1984.
From the 'compress' manpage:
"Compress uses the modified Lempel-Ziv algorithm popularized in "A Technique for High Performance Data Compression", Terry A. Welch, IEEE Computer, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8-19. Common substrings in the file are first replaced by 9-bit codes 257 and up. When code 512 is reached, the algorithm switches to 10-bit codes and continues to use more bits until the limit specified by the -b flag is reached (default 16). Bits must be between 9 and 16. The default can be changed in the source to allow compress to be run on a smaller machine."
While the patent claims:
"1. A method for processing digital signals, where the digital signals have first values, second values and other values, to reduce the amount of data utilized to represent the digital signals and to form statistically coded signals such that the more frequently occurring values of digital signals are represented by shorter code lengths and the less frequently occurring values of digital signals are represented by longer code lengths, comprising, "
Slashdot Mirror
It's not possible to easily transform DC (increase or decrease voltage).
Do you know what this is?. Of course, lowering DC voltage is more practical than raising it (though recent semiconductor advances are changing this).
Use the Google, Luke. It's been done.
That is easy. I belive he wants a voter registration database for the districts themselves...
How do you extrapolate that from the original request:
"Even something as simple as a list of Congressional Districts and all zip codes underneath them would suffice."
Ethernet wiring already takes phones into consideration. Standard procedure is to use pins 1,2,3, and 6 of the RJ-45 connector. This was, if a phone (RJ-11) is plugged in, it will make contact with only the usused pins 4 and 5 or hte RJ-45 connector.
There are some Ethernet arrangements that utilize all eight wires, but these are fairly uncommon.
Oh... and one more think I can't understand about UK power. They let you guys have a whole bunch of houses on a single transformer. ACH! Dangerous to your and/or your equipment depending on how stupid your neighbours are...
Since when does every house in the US have its own transformer? Taking a look up at the poles on any given street indicates that there is not one transformer for every house, but one for every several houses.
"Reverse polarity"? How so?
In theory, the testing process should mirror actual usage: one TCP connection if your application works that way, or otherwise as appropriate. The theoretical bandwidth of the connection doesn't matter if you can't attain that with your particular usage pattern.
If this is isn't illegal expect the appropriate lobbying groups to be given revised orders.
Most likely this is illegal now. DeCSS didn't involve modifying programs, but it still fell under the copy-protection circumvention bit of the DMCA.
This raises another question for me: CD servers. I have a 7-disc changer connected to my fileserver for CDs I use frequently and I'm sure that this scheme won't be able to function correctly when it's accessing a network share rather than a local drive.
By the same token, why do you have a defective CD-ROM drive that can't handle unusual data patterns?
A good protocol (I'm not passing judgement on NetBEUI here) can be implemented well or implemented poorly.
Are you trying to use "solid state" as a synonym for "non volatile"?
Not always the case. For example, New Hampshire residents who commute to jobs in Massachusetts must pay Masachusetts income tax.
No, high voltage is much better for distributing power. Changing voltages used to be much harder with DC. It may still be for really high currents and voltages, I dunno.
Entirely correct. With the advent of high-power semiconductors, it is becoming possible to efficiently step down DC voltages for power transmission (Tech Review article, full text is unfortunately "premium content"). With DC transmission, considerable savings can be achieved because fewer conductors are needed - one DC line can be stepped down into a full array of AC voltages and phases for customer use.
Edison was still wrong, though - DC was entirely impractical in his time
This is definitely true. I've got LJ III units here at home that are 10+ years old but still work fine. It's amazing how heavily built they are (55lbs), but I suppose you get what you pay for sometimes - IIRC, it retailed for ~$2000 when it was sold from 1990-1992.
If the FBI can hunt down CEO's & CFO's for stock fraud, why can't we get them (and their lawyers) on the hot seat for conspiracy against the consumer at large?
Because stock fraud (and the like) kill stock prices. Stockholders care about stock prices, not the consumer.
Brick Computers
I haven't used them myself, but I know several people who swear by their laptops for use on sailboats.
There is a wide range between "static preventing" humid and "water condensing all over everything" humid.
Sailboats large enough to live on are not likely to have a two-stroke engine (outboard), but rather 4+ cylinder inboard. Properly mounted, these do not cause noticeable vibration throughout the boat; certainly not enough to affect the drives. Furthermore, someone living aboard their sailboat is probably going to be sailing most of the time and using the engine only occasionally, i.e. to dock.
As far as vibration is concerned, I'd be more worried about the tossing experienced when crossing waves and powerboat wakes: a several-ton boat coming down a a large wake or wave can come down with quite a crash. This might be enough to affect modern hard drives (while active, that is - powered-off drives can withstand several Gs).
Two words: Heat exchanger
This is often done for the cooling systems on marine engines: closed loop of fresh water running through the engine itself, sea water circulated just through the heat exchanger. This keeps salt water out of the engine and helps prevent the engine from corroding inside. In theory there's no reason the same technique couldn't be used to cool a computer, but it might be overkill or too expensive in practice.
Register Article
While compress itself may be first-come, first-serve, the bit I quoted suggests (I haven't gotten a copy of the referenced article) that the original LZ algorithm does, in fact, consider frequency. Since the LZ article was published in 1984, there is a possibility that it is prior art.
I'm not a patent lawyer, but this sounds not entirely unlike the Lempel-Ziv compression algorithm, from 1984.
From the 'compress' manpage:
"Compress uses the modified Lempel-Ziv algorithm popularized in "A Technique for High Performance Data Compression", Terry A. Welch, IEEE Computer, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8-19. Common substrings in the file are first replaced by 9-bit codes 257 and up. When code 512 is reached, the algorithm switches to 10-bit codes and continues to use more bits until the limit specified by the -b flag is reached (default 16). Bits must be between 9 and 16. The default can be changed in the source to allow compress to be run on a smaller machine."
While the patent claims:
"1. A method for processing digital signals, where the digital signals have first values, second values and other values, to reduce the amount of data utilized to represent the digital signals and to form statistically coded signals such that the more frequently occurring values of digital signals are represented by shorter code lengths and the less frequently occurring values of digital signals are represented by longer code lengths, comprising, "
I saw a laptop with a 16" screen in Best Buy about two months ago..
(we don't use the groupware functions anyway)
I don't suppose the above is relevant to your remark in any way, is it?