At the end of the project the administration cut out the tiny piece of the budget for video camera system. Opps.
My college (NCSU) uses cameras in some places, but optical alarm wire in all labs. It's just a fiber optic cable run through a lock bolted on to every computer, and it signals an alarm if any part of the cable is broken. Quite effective at preventing anyone from taking a whole system (although the problem of swapping out CPUs is still there...), and the cost is linear (per lab); it can protect 10 systems or 500 systems (cost of 20' cable vs. 300' cable is relatively small).
Of course I'm guessing at the price, I didn't pay for it. But it seems it would be cheap.:)
it was originally from the VW 411 and 412 (hence, the name)
Yes. But it was designed by/with Porsche, so it really is a Porsche engine, regardless of who used it first. Yes, it is parts-wise completely different, when I said it was 'just larger' I meant the basic design is the same - 4 cylinder horizonally-opposed engine. I don't dispute that most parts are very different, just that the design is very similar.
officially for the 1973 models
Mmm, pretty sure 72 was the first year for them. At least one person agrees that the "pancake" engine started in 72. I didn't bother looking elsewhere because I know I'm correct.:)
T1 means....etc
No, Type 1, Type 2, etc. mean bug, bus, etc as you say, I don't dispute that. However the BODY STYLE for the bus is T1 (early splitties), T2 (no split window, sliding side door), T3 (Vanagon), etc. See here, and here, and here, etc.
The fan is NOT bolted to the crankshaft at ALL.
Umm, on the pankcake engine it is. Either that, or someone is giving me drugs every time I removed and reinstalled it!:P I don't have much hands-on experience with the bug engine but I seem to remember it's part of the doghouse shrouding as you say.
if your VW engine is "well over 300F", you'd better get away from it right now!
You should install a cylinder head temp sensor some time...you are most likely thinking about OIL temperature, which indeed shouldn't be over 250, in fact that's a bit high.
Your theory on heatsinks is ridiculous
My "therory"? I didn't realize I had a "theory" on heatsinks...not sure where you got that idea from.
Increased surface area certainly does decrease temperature.
Yes it does. That doesn't mean bolting a 100+ lb case onto a CPU (and how you get good surface mating, I'm not even going to think about) is a good idea by any means. Anyway, the majority of cooling on a VW engine is done by the cylinder heat fins, and I just can't see how you're going to bolt a cylinder onto a CPU (no flat surfaces) - if you somehow did, it probably would work pretty well...
Old computers have no fans on chips - just heatsinks.
Uh, DUH? I have a 200MHz system at home with heatsink-only CPU cooling.
Any questions?
I have no questions, but you should really know what you're talking about before trying to flame someone; you are not really that informed.
actually, if i recall correctly, there were two models of the VW busses, the air cooled, and the water/air cooled.
VW buses used the air-cooled VW bug engine (exact same engine) up until 1972 (or 74...i forget), when they changed to the new 'Porsche' engine (used in Porsche 914s) which was larger (really not much more difference). Still air-cooled. In 1979 the 'T3' bus (commonly called Vanagon) was introduced, but not fitted with a water-cooled engine until late 1982.
Most 'hardcode' Bus fanatics only consider the T2 (or less common T1, known as the 'split window' sytle bus, due to the split front windshield) body style bus to be the 'real' bus; T2s were from 1967 to 1979. T1s (the 'real' bus) were 1950-1967. The T3s are not considered 'real' VW busses usually.
attach whatever you want to the engine block and let it passively cool it.
The engine won't do anything more that act as a giant heatsink, basically, and unless the engine is actually running, you won't get cooling from the fan - it's bolted onto the front of the crackshaft. (And if it's running, you HAVE to have the engine shrouding in place or the air cooling won't work; plus operating temp is well over 300F).
Overall I don't think using an engine (from any car, really) as a cooling device is really going to work.:)
So trivial, in fact, that making one using a simple circuit diagram and a trip to Radio Shack would be a nice weekend project.
Either your weekends are much longer than mine, or you are not familiar with how USB works.
Doing this would not be difficult, but it would be more than a weekend with Radio Shack parts. To do it, your device would have to actually parse the data from the USB Host Controller, and pass-thru everything except the request for the device descriptor. When the device descriptor is requested, it would have to get the real device descriptor (from the real device) and replace ONLY the vendor ID and product ID fields.
If you can do that with only resistors and NAND ICs, I bow to your ability.;)
In any case, I don't think such a device would be allowing any access to copyrighted material, so the DMCA wouldn't apply. It would be different from a Dreamcast serial cable in the sense that some people (e.g. Customs, Sega) claim the cable is used to pirate games. There is no possible way a ID-altering device could ever be used to pirate anything...well, no way that I can think of...
Yes and they will be illegal to produce in the US (DMCA violation)
I certainly don't like the DMCA at all, but changing the Vendor/product ID has nothing to do with allowing access to copyrighted material, so I don't think the DMCA would apply.
If Japan wants to sell controlers, they'll make them with the appropriate "US" USB settings.
USB vendor/product ID has nothing at all to do with "US" USB settings, in fact the only country-specific part of the USB spec is the String (descriptors) which have a lang id.
If the X-Box is discriminating based on USB IDs, it is locking out certain Vendors or certain Vendor's products. Most likely they are locking out certain vendors, as the product ID is really up to the Vendor; the Vendor ID is assigned by the USB-IF.
Nope. Cause some l33t h4x0r will have own3d her already.
Micro$oft Press Release #10520
We are happy to announce the immediate availablity of our new distributed computing service! For a low fee, you can harness the power of EVERY computer installed with Windoze XP in the world! Yes, that's right, all their base are belong to us, and you can buy CPU time on 'em!
What's scary is that (except for renting out time) the above is TRUE. M$ does 0wn all Windoze XP systems. And people PAY them for it!!! Inconceivable!
I did the same thing, started as an EE. Then about halfway through I realized I wanted to work with computers, but it was too late to switch majors (without adding over a year).
So, I just graduated as an EE and got a CSC job! You barely learn anything in college anyway, the majority of education happens when you start working. For me, at least. And, I self-educate myself quite a bit too. Classes really cater to those who can't teach themselves, at least in my experience...
I've always wanted to read icculus! This is great.
(For those who don't know, Icculus is from Phish's "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday", Trey's senior project. Icculus wrote the Helping Phriendly Book. When you read Icculus, it's...read-icculus...rid-iculous...get it? ridiculous? Geez, do I gotta spell out everything?)
Really, since this is one-way (broadcast only) radio, how long do they think it'll take someone to reverse engineer a XM receiver and build a knock-off receiver? I'm sure they'll try to take them to court or just have 'em shut down, but is this XM stuff really the same as cable, where you legally can't receive the signal without paying for it? And, is the consumer (who illegally listens) or the box producer (who makes no-subscription boxes) breaking the law?
I guess from a DMCA point of view, it's the box manufacturer. After all, no-subscription boxes would be 'cirucmventing' the access control to copyrighted material - the broadcasts...
I caught that too. You're totally right, a person can't say "...I deleted [Windows] voluntarily..." and then later say "I am removing Windows from my computer!". It also seems that nobody replying to you caught it, or even grasps the fact that you are in fact correct. I personally can't see how they can still not understand the stark logic of this, but I guess some people miss things...?
I also thought it was suprising that the author didn't catch it himself, since it definately detracts from his story's credibility. Oh well.
Minidiscs are the defacto standard medium for amateur bootleggers
Only ametuers...audiophiles will never use 'em since they employ lossy compression. Also, the amount of music you can get on them (compared to DAT) is small. DAT's still definately in force - you can get 3 hours onto a DAT tape (that's DDS-1! If the DAT players started started recognizing DDS-2, it could go up to 6 hrs...and DDS-3 or 4 would be just crazy...). The break in the music when you change minidiscs sucks.
have good quality
That's debatable...For casual use, yes, but for creating a master recording or trading music, definately not...check out the FAQ on etree.org.
Massive storage units. If you could put these CDs in "rolls"
Why not just use DVD-Audio when it comes out?
As far as massive storage, I'd rather have a single 4-layer (double sided) DVD-RW with over 18GB of storage, than a roll of 36 of those things...
I do agree that they're nice for a tiny portable player, but you can already get tiny MP3 players...at the moment, this doesn't seem to have any advantages (besides storage capacity) over other MP3 players. And the current MP3 player's (solid state) storage is (IMHO) better, and will probably catch up to 500MB soon enough...
"...can hold...five complete pre-recorded albums of CD-quality music..." (emphasis mine)
That is just wrong...if this disc is 250MB per side, 500MB total, then it's smaller than a actual CD. It might hold 5 albums of MP3s, but a CD will hold more!
And also:
"Recording and data transfer 10 times faster than a CD."
I seriously doubt it. CDs are recordable now at 12x and higher, and readable at over 50x; I think they mean theirs is recordable at 10x, not 120x. I'd be real suprised if it was readable at 500x (I think 500x is about 10MB/sec?). But since they're already talking about compressed data/music, maybe they include the compression into their data transfer rate? Whatever.
Uhm, Sting was with the Police. Mark Knopfler was the lead for Dire Straights.
Sting was with the Police, but he really did sing the intro 'I want my MTV'. In Mark's own words:
"...So I started actually writing the song in the show window. The Police were on MTV all the time doing a thing, they were all saying I want my MTV. MTV was running an advertising campaign for itself and they'd get musicians on saying 'I want my MTV.'
One of the songs that was big at the time, I believe, was 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', and so I took that and put it to those four notes. Sting was on holiday in Montserrat when we were recording the song, so I thought it would be a good idea if he came up and sang it. It was, I guess, very fortunate that he was there. He was just there having a good time when we were working."
That's assuming encryption is a static field, i.e. there will be no more (significant) development done in the field. I think that's most likely not the case.
Actually, credit card transaction charges are (AFAIK) paid by the vendor, not by you. You might argue that the vendor then increases his prices to cover that credit card fee; but you're still paying the increased price whether you pay with credit card or cash. It's like saying you don't drive on roads because you don't want to have to pay taxes to build roads; you don't have a choice in the matter, you pay regardless of your actions.
I'll admit I'm not extremely knowledgable about government regulation of encryption. But it seemed to me that previous US Governement crypto was basically focusing on controlling the exportation of 'strong' (large key?) encryption, not on the internal (by US citizens) use of encryption.
My question is, will export regulations help at all? By 'help', I mean 'accomplish what the US Government wants to happen', which I assume would be reducing the strength of encryption available outside the US. The only way I can see export regulations helping is if the large majority of R&D into encryption is done inside the US. Do you know how much work is done inside and/or outside the US in the field of encryption, and would cutting off US encryption research from the outside world (assuming that is possible via regulation) have a major impact on encryption available out of the US, or an impact on the field of encryption itself?
I don't think many (any?) major economic powers even _pretend_ to back their currency with anything real anymore, let alone gold.
I believe that is incorrect; the United States issues Federal Reserve Notes (bills, and I believe coins also) which are backed mostly by gold or gold certificates. The US government Treasury holds quite a bit of gold.
The US Treasury Dept has a FAQ that explains this. See "What are Federal Reserve notes and how are they different from United States notes?", which specifically states:
Congress has specified that a Federal Reserve Bank must hold collateral equal in value to the Federal Reserve notes that the Bank receives. This collateral is chiefly gold certificates and United States securities. This provides backing for the note issue.
What I think would be interesting, is a Linux worm that used a security hole to get into a box, then closed the security hole, then propagate to other boxes, and finally uninstall itself. Maybe also leave a message or email on the box stating that it's fixed the box's security hole...;-)
Unfortunately, doing constructive work (i.e., fixing the security hole) is always more difficult than doing destructive work (e.g., rm -rf/). But worm/virus writers seem to have plenty of time on their hands...
Uh, no. Take a look here and you'll see that the Attorney General is the head of the DOJ. The President appoints the AG, but the AG does not report directly to the President.
You are crediting the President with much more power than he actually has. Despite whatever shortcomings our Government has, you have to give credit to the our nation's founders who split power between the 3 branches of government. The President does not have the power that many people think he does.
Now, I'm not saying here that Bush had nothing to do with the DOJ's annoucement! Maybe he did have a key role in it - but he just doesn't have the power to order it done. Ashcroft is the one who can do that, not Bush. If Bush did order anything, it would only be a personal order (an unofficial order from Bush to Ashcroft), not an official order from the President to the DOJ.
In any case, this is all really off-topic; the point is that based on all the news reports (linked to from/. at least) there is absolutely no indication that Bush "ordered" the DOJ to do anything. And rightly so...
Since Bush is (nominally) the head of the Bush administration, it's proper to presume that Bush gave the order.
Hardly. Bush and his 'administration' have say into what the DOJ does, but Bush can't just "order" the DOJ to stop trying to break up M$. It's far from 'proper' to assume that's the case.
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My college (NCSU) uses cameras in some places, but optical alarm wire in all labs. It's just a fiber optic cable run through a lock bolted on to every computer, and it signals an alarm if any part of the cable is broken. Quite effective at preventing anyone from taking a whole system (although the problem of swapping out CPUs is still there...), and the cost is linear (per lab); it can protect 10 systems or 500 systems (cost of 20' cable vs. 300' cable is relatively small).
Of course I'm guessing at the price, I didn't pay for it. But it seems it would be cheap. :)
Yes. But it was designed by/with Porsche, so it really is a Porsche engine, regardless of who used it first. Yes, it is parts-wise completely different, when I said it was 'just larger' I meant the basic design is the same - 4 cylinder horizonally-opposed engine. I don't dispute that most parts are very different, just that the design is very similar.
officially for the 1973 models
Mmm, pretty sure 72 was the first year for them. At least one person agrees that the "pancake" engine started in 72. I didn't bother looking elsewhere because I know I'm correct. :)
T1 means....etc
No, Type 1, Type 2, etc. mean bug, bus, etc as you say, I don't dispute that. However the BODY STYLE for the bus is T1 (early splitties), T2 (no split window, sliding side door), T3 (Vanagon), etc. See here, and here, and here, etc.
The fan is NOT bolted to the crankshaft at ALL.
Umm, on the pankcake engine it is. Either that, or someone is giving me drugs every time I removed and reinstalled it! :P I don't have much hands-on experience with the bug engine but I seem to remember it's part of the doghouse shrouding as you say.
if your VW engine is "well over 300F", you'd better get away from it right now!
You should install a cylinder head temp sensor some time...you are most likely thinking about OIL temperature, which indeed shouldn't be over 250, in fact that's a bit high.
Your theory on heatsinks is ridiculous
My "therory"? I didn't realize I had a "theory" on heatsinks...not sure where you got that idea from.
Increased surface area certainly does decrease temperature.
Yes it does. That doesn't mean bolting a 100+ lb case onto a CPU (and how you get good surface mating, I'm not even going to think about) is a good idea by any means. Anyway, the majority of cooling on a VW engine is done by the cylinder heat fins, and I just can't see how you're going to bolt a cylinder onto a CPU (no flat surfaces) - if you somehow did, it probably would work pretty well...
Old computers have no fans on chips - just heatsinks.
Uh, DUH? I have a 200MHz system at home with heatsink-only CPU cooling.
Any questions?
I have no questions, but you should really know what you're talking about before trying to flame someone; you are not really that informed.
VW buses used the air-cooled VW bug engine (exact same engine) up until 1972 (or 74...i forget), when they changed to the new 'Porsche' engine (used in Porsche 914s) which was larger (really not much more difference). Still air-cooled. In 1979 the 'T3' bus (commonly called Vanagon) was introduced, but not fitted with a water-cooled engine until late 1982.
Most 'hardcode' Bus fanatics only consider the T2 (or less common T1, known as the 'split window' sytle bus, due to the split front windshield) body style bus to be the 'real' bus; T2s were from 1967 to 1979. T1s (the 'real' bus) were 1950-1967. The T3s are not considered 'real' VW busses usually.
attach whatever you want to the engine block and let it passively cool it.
The engine won't do anything more that act as a giant heatsink, basically, and unless the engine is actually running, you won't get cooling from the fan - it's bolted onto the front of the crackshaft. (And if it's running, you HAVE to have the engine shrouding in place or the air cooling won't work; plus operating temp is well over 300F).
Overall I don't think using an engine (from any car, really) as a cooling device is really going to work. :)
Either your weekends are much longer than mine, or you are not familiar with how USB works.
Doing this would not be difficult, but it would be more than a weekend with Radio Shack parts. To do it, your device would have to actually parse the data from the USB Host Controller, and pass-thru everything except the request for the device descriptor. When the device descriptor is requested, it would have to get the real device descriptor (from the real device) and replace ONLY the vendor ID and product ID fields.
If you can do that with only resistors and NAND ICs, I bow to your ability. ;)
In any case, I don't think such a device would be allowing any access to copyrighted material, so the DMCA wouldn't apply. It would be different from a Dreamcast serial cable in the sense that some people (e.g. Customs, Sega) claim the cable is used to pirate games. There is no possible way a ID-altering device could ever be used to pirate anything...well, no way that I can think of...
I certainly don't like the DMCA at all, but changing the Vendor/product ID has nothing to do with allowing access to copyrighted material, so I don't think the DMCA would apply.
USB vendor/product ID has nothing at all to do with "US" USB settings, in fact the only country-specific part of the USB spec is the String (descriptors) which have a lang id.
If the X-Box is discriminating based on USB IDs, it is locking out certain Vendors or certain Vendor's products. Most likely they are locking out certain vendors, as the product ID is really up to the Vendor; the Vendor ID is assigned by the USB-IF.
Micro$oft Press Release #10520
We are happy to announce the immediate availablity of our new distributed computing service! For a low fee, you can harness the power of EVERY computer installed with Windoze XP in the world! Yes, that's right, all their base are belong to us, and you can buy CPU time on 'em!
What's scary is that (except for renting out time) the above is TRUE. M$ does 0wn all Windoze XP systems. And people PAY them for it!!! Inconceivable!
commonly called a "lighter"
especially on machines that still have dot matrix printers attached, it would probably be much easier to just use the Halt and Catch Fire instruction!
So, I just graduated as an EE and got a CSC job! You barely learn anything in college anyway, the majority of education happens when you start working. For me, at least. And, I self-educate myself quite a bit too. Classes really cater to those who can't teach themselves, at least in my experience...
(For those who don't know, Icculus is from Phish's "The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday", Trey's senior project. Icculus wrote the Helping Phriendly Book. When you read Icculus, it's...read-icculus...rid-iculous...get it? ridiculous? Geez, do I gotta spell out everything?)
I guess from a DMCA point of view, it's the box manufacturer. After all, no-subscription boxes would be 'cirucmventing' the access control to copyrighted material - the broadcasts...
Part of the appeal of college radio stations is that they play local bands that you haven't heard of.
I also thought it was suprising that the author didn't catch it himself, since it definately detracts from his story's credibility. Oh well.
Holy crap, if their little discs can do 73MB/sec, you could transfer the entire disc in under 8 seconds! ;-)
Only ametuers...audiophiles will never use 'em since they employ lossy compression. Also, the amount of music you can get on them (compared to DAT) is small. DAT's still definately in force - you can get 3 hours onto a DAT tape (that's DDS-1! If the DAT players started started recognizing DDS-2, it could go up to 6 hrs...and DDS-3 or 4 would be just crazy...). The break in the music when you change minidiscs sucks.
have good quality
That's debatable...For casual use, yes, but for creating a master recording or trading music, definately not...check out the FAQ on etree.org.
Why not just use DVD-Audio when it comes out?
As far as massive storage, I'd rather have a single 4-layer (double sided) DVD-RW with over 18GB of storage, than a roll of 36 of those things...
I do agree that they're nice for a tiny portable player, but you can already get tiny MP3 players...at the moment, this doesn't seem to have any advantages (besides storage capacity) over other MP3 players. And the current MP3 player's (solid state) storage is (IMHO) better, and will probably catch up to 500MB soon enough...
"...can hold...five complete pre-recorded albums of CD-quality music..."
(emphasis mine)
That is just wrong...if this disc is 250MB per side, 500MB total, then it's smaller than a actual CD. It might hold 5 albums of MP3s, but a CD will hold more!
And also:
"Recording and data transfer 10 times faster than a CD."
I seriously doubt it. CDs are recordable now at 12x and higher, and readable at over 50x; I think they mean theirs is recordable at 10x, not 120x. I'd be real suprised if it was readable at 500x (I think 500x is about 10MB/sec?). But since they're already talking about compressed data/music, maybe they include the compression into their data transfer rate? Whatever.
Sting was with the Police, but he really did sing the intro 'I want my MTV'. In Mark's own words:
And it's Dire Straits, not Dire Straights.
That's assuming encryption is a static field, i.e. there will be no more (significant) development done in the field. I think that's most likely not the case.
Actually, credit card transaction charges are (AFAIK) paid by the vendor, not by you. You might argue that the vendor then increases his prices to cover that credit card fee; but you're still paying the increased price whether you pay with credit card or cash. It's like saying you don't drive on roads because you don't want to have to pay taxes to build roads; you don't have a choice in the matter, you pay regardless of your actions.
My question is, will export regulations help at all? By 'help', I mean 'accomplish what the US Government wants to happen', which I assume would be reducing the strength of encryption available outside the US. The only way I can see export regulations helping is if the large majority of R&D into encryption is done inside the US. Do you know how much work is done inside and/or outside the US in the field of encryption, and would cutting off US encryption research from the outside world (assuming that is possible via regulation) have a major impact on encryption available out of the US, or an impact on the field of encryption itself?
I believe that is incorrect; the United States issues Federal Reserve Notes (bills, and I believe coins also) which are backed mostly by gold or gold certificates. The US government Treasury holds quite a bit of gold.
The US Treasury Dept has a FAQ that explains this. See "What are Federal Reserve notes and how are they different from United States notes?", which specifically states:
Unfortunately, doing constructive work (i.e., fixing the security hole) is always more difficult than doing destructive work (e.g., rm -rf /). But worm/virus writers seem to have plenty of time on their hands...
Uh, no. Take a look here and you'll see that the Attorney General is the head of the DOJ. The President appoints the AG, but the AG does not report directly to the President.
You are crediting the President with much more power than he actually has. Despite whatever shortcomings our Government has, you have to give credit to the our nation's founders who split power between the 3 branches of government. The President does not have the power that many people think he does.
Now, I'm not saying here that Bush had nothing to do with the DOJ's annoucement! Maybe he did have a key role in it - but he just doesn't have the power to order it done. Ashcroft is the one who can do that, not Bush. If Bush did order anything, it would only be a personal order (an unofficial order from Bush to Ashcroft), not an official order from the President to the DOJ.
In any case, this is all really off-topic; the point is that based on all the news reports (linked to from /. at least) there is absolutely no indication that Bush "ordered" the DOJ to do anything. And rightly so...
Hardly. Bush and his 'administration' have say into what the DOJ does, but Bush can't just "order" the DOJ to stop trying to break up M$. It's far from 'proper' to assume that's the case.