It's also been said that high quality DVD and CD ROMs last a lot longer than the cheap ones, so my current strategy is a single hard disk paired with DVD roms, but I'm getting ready to switch to a NAS with a mirrored array.
For example: I used to work in a business that felt it was reasonable to store information for a 100 years or more; just because medical research was done in the 19th century doesn't mean the results might not be useful today. But modern research generates far too much data to simply print it out on acid free paper. Technology for their needs simply doesn't exist today.
More personally: I've already had CD-Rs fail after just a few years, showing me that my digital photos are at at least as much risk as my old film negatives, if not more. I want to make sure my great grandkids can look at these shots, but hard disk interfaces and tape drives all become obsolete in just a few years.
I'm honestly more interested in someone coming up with cheap, long term archival storage. Hard disks have gone so far past our ability to archive information it's beyond comprehension.
did you? Natural uranium is not very radioactive. Which is why we have to "enrich" it to make bombs and fuel! Depleted uranium is about as radioactive as the air in your basement.
From the same article you linked to:
The problem arises not from the radioactive characteristics of the depleted metal but its chemical properties. When DU-tipped armament explodes the uranium can be rendered as very fine dust, easily ingested or breathed in, especially by children playing in burned-out wrecks. Uranium is chemically toxic, but not in low concentrations.
The toxicity from DU dust is because it's a heavy metal, like lead, and can cause neurological problems, like lead. You don't need to spew scary anti-science nonsense to prove that DU dust is an environmental hazard.
So, it's not clear to me most snails live long enough to get cancer.
Actually, thinking about it, snails are invertebrates so they may not face the same risk mammals do at all. See, what makes plutonium so toxic isn't the radiation, exactly, it's that plutonium is a radioactive heavy metal. The human body tends to try to "trap" heavy metals in the bones instead of excreting it, which means those nanograms get to spend years irradiating your bone marrow.
Snails don't have bones, and probably have a different metabolic path for handling heavy metals, so the may not absorb it at all. Alternately, I suppose the heavy metals could end up in their shells - I really don't know.
I consider it more interesting that these snails would survive contact with plutonium - Not specifically because of its radioactivity, but because it counts as SOOOOOO toxic - IIRC, inhaling just a few nanograms of Pu dust guarantees death from cancer within a few years; a few micrograms just outright kills you directly.
Imagine a computer lab full of identically configured Macs. User walks up to one, plugs in his thumb drive. Mac recognizes the account data stored on that drive and user can now log in, using his user id and password.
It basically sounds something like what you can do with Windows Active Directory, or NIS (for *NIX environments) but without requiring a central database of user ids, since the user's information is stored on the thumb drive instead of a network server.
To be honest, while it's kind of cool technically I don't see much use for it in the real world; computers are cheap enough that people don't share them in a way that this is useful.
In UNIX, user accounts are managed through either flat files or a shared database. Neither of which involves moving user accounts around via external storage devices.
Which operating systems allow user accounts to be stored on portable devices?
Not applications. Not data. The account - including all security information and preferences.
In *NIX operating systems, account data is stored in a single repository, usually files in/etc. In Windows, account data is stored in the registry. In OS X, it is currently stored in a database.
No current operating system can handle the permissions/security structure needed to have user login data on an external portable device.
For example: If the user's encrypted password is stored on the external device, what permission/rights does that user get to files on the internal hard drive? What rights are granted to the host computer for accessing the data on the external device?
The human eye *can't* perceive 70 frames per second. It can only detect 20 or so FPS, which is why movies use a frame rate of 24 fps. The flicker that people used to complain about was because of interlace not frame rates.
The drive for high frame rates is driven by people who need the latest and greatest, not by any real biological demand.
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Another way to waste power by pouring it into the air.
Another reason to leave all our electronics on, all the time.
Another reason why it's too inconvenient to do anything about gross over consumption and it's effect on our environment.
It's also been said that high quality DVD and CD ROMs last a lot longer than the cheap ones, so my current strategy is a single hard disk paired with DVD roms, but I'm getting ready to switch to a NAS with a mirrored array.
We could call it... Altivec or even something shorter, like MMX or SSE!
why the incident in question occurred in 1994, on a Data General AViiON, that wasn't running Linux and was using csh as the default shell.
You seem awfully sure of yourself for someone who doesn't even realize there are other shells besides bash.
who wanted to delete some of the preference files in his home directory, so he typed
.*
rm -rf
It never occurred to him (or me) that ".." matched that pattern. He worked his way right up the directory tree and back down again...
And what happens when the luser is you?
No one can call themselves a "real" sysadmin until they've accidentally reformatted the root partition.
For example: I used to work in a business that felt it was reasonable to store information for a 100 years or more; just because medical research was done in the 19th century doesn't mean the results might not be useful today. But modern research generates far too much data to simply print it out on acid free paper. Technology for their needs simply doesn't exist today.
More personally: I've already had CD-Rs fail after just a few years, showing me that my digital photos are at at least as much risk as my old film negatives, if not more. I want to make sure my great grandkids can look at these shots, but hard disk interfaces and tape drives all become obsolete in just a few years.
Will we back all this data up?
I'm honestly more interested in someone coming up with cheap, long term archival storage. Hard disks have gone so far past our ability to archive information it's beyond comprehension.
And I even knew that. (That rats got tumors).
Good point.
did you? Natural uranium is not very radioactive. Which is why we have to "enrich" it to make bombs and fuel! Depleted uranium is about as radioactive as the air in your basement.
From the same article you linked to:
The problem arises not from the radioactive characteristics of the depleted metal but its chemical properties. When DU-tipped armament explodes the uranium can be rendered as very fine dust, easily ingested or breathed in, especially by children playing in burned-out wrecks. Uranium is chemically toxic, but not in low concentrations.
The toxicity from DU dust is because it's a heavy metal, like lead, and can cause neurological problems, like lead. You don't need to spew scary anti-science nonsense to prove that DU dust is an environmental hazard.
Or, rather, it depends on the species:
The lifespan of snails varies from species to species. In the wild, Achatinidae snails live around 5 to 7 years and Helix snails live about 2 to 3 years. Aquatic Apple Snails live only a year or so. Most deaths are due to predators or parasites. On occasions, snails have lived beyond this lifespan, up to 30 years or more.
So, it's not clear to me most snails live long enough to get cancer.
Actually, thinking about it, snails are invertebrates so they may not face the same risk mammals do at all. See, what makes plutonium so toxic isn't the radiation, exactly, it's that plutonium is a radioactive heavy metal. The human body tends to try to "trap" heavy metals in the bones instead of excreting it, which means those nanograms get to spend years irradiating your bone marrow.
Snails don't have bones, and probably have a different metabolic path for handling heavy metals, so the may not absorb it at all. Alternately, I suppose the heavy metals could end up in their shells - I really don't know.
I consider it more interesting that these snails would survive contact with plutonium - Not specifically because of its radioactivity, but because it counts as SOOOOOO toxic - IIRC, inhaling just a few nanograms of Pu dust guarantees death from cancer within a few years; a few micrograms just outright kills you directly.
What's the lifespan of a snail?
"depleted" don't you understand?
The way I read the patent:
Imagine a computer lab full of identically configured Macs. User walks up to one, plugs in his thumb drive. Mac recognizes the account data stored on that drive and user can now log in, using his user id and password.
It basically sounds something like what you can do with Windows Active Directory, or NIS (for *NIX environments) but without requiring a central database of user ids, since the user's information is stored on the thumb drive instead of a network server.
To be honest, while it's kind of cool technically I don't see much use for it in the real world; computers are cheap enough that people don't share them in a way that this is useful.
migrates your records in /etc/passwd and /etc/groups?
I can see using this mainly in high school computer labs. In most other environments, people don't share computers anymore.
You haven't discovered video editing yet?
And, like all patents, they do serve a purpose; by providing an incentive to improve the state-of-the-art.
For example, would Bell have developed the telephone if he hadn't believed he'd be able to profit from it?
In UNIX, user accounts are managed through either flat files or a shared database. Neither of which involves moving user accounts around via external storage devices.
Which operating systems allow user accounts to be stored on portable devices?
/etc. In Windows, account data is stored in the registry. In OS X, it is currently stored in a database.
Not applications. Not data. The account - including all security information and preferences.
In *NIX operating systems, account data is stored in a single repository, usually files in
No current operating system can handle the permissions/security structure needed to have user login data on an external portable device.
For example: If the user's encrypted password is stored on the external device, what permission/rights does that user get to files on the internal hard drive? What rights are granted to the host computer for accessing the data on the external device?
that we're buying $400 video cards because programmers can't do motion blur properly?
Sorry, but I understand the biology of the eye quite well, thanks. I don't need to be educated by children.
The human eye *can't* perceive 70 frames per second. It can only detect 20 or so FPS, which is why movies use a frame rate of 24 fps. The flicker that people used to complain about was because of interlace not frame rates.
The drive for high frame rates is driven by people who need the latest and greatest, not by any real biological demand.
because if your grasp of most laws is on the order of your grasp of "treason" then your arrests were bogus.
I haven't voted for a Republicrat in the past 4 elections.