Check out the May 08, 2009 ComputerWorld article "Analysis: SSD performance -- is a slowdown inevitable?" written by Lucas Mearian.*
Intel's speed is not permanent.
The recent revelation that Intel Corp.'s consumer-class solid-state disk (SSD) drives suffer from fragmentation that can cause a significant performance degradation raises the question: Do all SSDs slow down with use over time?
The answer is yes - and every drive manufacturer knows it.
This is a very interesting article if you are considering SSDs versus HDs for your next computer.
*I copied this from a print-out. No I don't have a link. I am at work and I don't have the time to provide it.
1. Why as an investor would I pay a 30% premium to purchase physical gold?
Because in this instance you are buying small lots of gold. If you were to buy gold in larger quantities then you could pay the spot price.
2. Assuming I would I then have to worry about keeping the gold physically secure once I take possession of it.
When was the last time your house was broken into? Would you tell ANYONE that you kept gold in your house? If not, you probably have little to worry about.
Also, you probably have one or more guns in your home loaded and ready. As the old sign says: Forget about the dog. Beware of owner!
3. I run into issues when trying to sell the gold after I've taken possession because how can anyone be sure that I haven't tampered with the gold? How do they know that 1oz is still 1oz? What if I drilled and filled it?
You are assuming I have made that assumption. Just read what I have written elsewhere in this thread. I recognize that not everyone who uses IVF is genetically deficient. But if they are I would stop them, if I could. But I can't, so I won't.
I'm not worried about the guy who went to Vietnam or Iraq and got his dick shot off. Yeah, IVF is his only option and I'm glad it exists. Hell, I am a Vietnam era* veteran. That guy could have been me.
What concerns me are people who are genetically deficient who "want what other people have." If it would just effect them, I would not care. The problem comes in when their genetically deficient children weaken the gene-pool.
*I never went to Vietnam. I was stationed at 8th & I, and from there went to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That's why I wrote Vietnam era. I was available to be sent to Vietnam, but I was stationed elsewhere.
I know all too many couples who have left off breeding until the female is in her 40s and therefore less likely to bring a sprog to term
Or worse having a child that suffers from trisomy-21.
We need science in the classrooms so bad it hurts. So many people don't understand that girls are born with all the ovum they will ever make. During their lives those ovum are bombarded by radiation and just plain get old. Boys are different. We just make what we need, over and over and over and over. And then we just spray the stuff all over the place.:)
I don't care if the tech is 100 years old. Nor do I care how much money they make.
Look at it this way, I have spent many years raising my son. I don't want him falling in love with some deficient girl, marrying her, then discovering they can't have children. That takes my son out of the gene-pool unless he cheats on the girl and produces a child elsewhere. I don't know about how you would feel about that, but I don't want any grandchild of mine raised by a single mother. I was in the house for him. He needs to be in the house for his children.
I argue with my wife about this all the time. She thinks I'm some kind if eugenics moster. I argue otherwise. I am not trying to shape humanity. I am trying to prevent shaping.
Those are spermatazoa. Technically they are not human. They only have 26 chromosomes.
The post above yours is 100% correct. Once a human sperm penetrates a human ova and they combine DNA they become a gamete. That is a human being.
Some may argue that it is not human because it does not look human. I argue appearance is no indicator. Look at photos of yourself as a baby, at three years old, eight years old, twenty years old, fifty years old, eighty years old, and so on. Appearance changes throughout your life cycle and cannot be used to define humanity.
I'm not so sure about DNA either. After all, if I use DNA as a measure of humanity I must question if someone with trisomy 21 is human. After all, such a person does not have 26 pairs of chromosomes, and by such a definition would not be human. There are also super-males and super-females to take into consideration. If we use chromosomal count as the indicator of humanity, would it be OK to kill someone who does not have the proper chromosomal count?
Your post reminds me of a discussion in my genetics class. We were discussing deer populations and the class had all assumed that only the biggest and strongest would pass on their genes. We were then told to not discount the sneaky little bastard who knocked up one of the does while the two big guys were fighting.:)
If you need IVF, then you are deficient and should NOT reproduce!
When such people artificially reproduce they are creating children who are likely to be as deficient as the parents when it comes to reproduction. That would not be a problem by itself. The problem ensues when these deficient children then have a relationship with a normal person - if they have problems, they go the IVF route to solve the problem.
Did you see what just happened? If continued long enough, humanity might find itself in the position of requiring IVF to reproduce.
I know the above seems harsh, but it is a risk that I have been watching with some consternation since the first "test-tube" baby was born in the 1970s. Since then there seems to be an explosion of people, who otherwise could not conceive, pushing out quadruplets, quintuplets, and more, all the while depleting the gene-pool.
I am not predicting the end of the human population. I am concerned.
If you cannot have a baby by normal sexual relations, you should not have children!
Has it occurred to you that the link may have been hijacked? In other words, it may have originally linked to something Asus wanted you to see. Then some guy named Kent came along and spoofed the shit out of it so it now points to his goof site.
I suppose the thing with most computer users these days is that since they don't feel like they're in control of anything they don't mind giving that away.
JEZUSFUCKINKRIST! This is the whole point of personal computers! The whole "computer revolution" thing of the 1970s, starting with the Altair, was to give people control over the data governing their lives.
I look around thirty years later and find DMCA, corporations with databanks stuffed with peoples' personal data, and people who think the internet is the only reason to own a computer. WTF?
Re:Interesting misspelling
on
Space Vulture
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Back in the 1970s there was a comic book fanzine that I just LOVED! It was called "The Heroine Addict".
Re:just like star trek.,..
on
Space Vulture
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
You're probably only twenty years old and don't remember a time when there were only three networks and television went off after midnight. I grew up in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area and was lucky to have an independant station, KTVU channel 2, and a public broadcast station, KQED channel 9. Most communities were not so blessed.
Star Trek was on the air about the same time as That Girl*, Petticoat Junction, Mr. Terrific, and a host of other shows that you have probably never heard of. Good television was RARE!
Star Trek was spectacular! Yes, for every "City On The Edge Of Forever" there was a salt critter episode. For every "Amok Time" there was the Al Capone episode. For every "Space Seed" there were Chinese people on another planet who were over 1,000 years old in a show set 300 years in the future.
Star Trek is that rare gem, like 2001: A Space Odyssey that is enjoyable 30 years after production. Say what you like about the space hippies episode, but understand that when you try to call Star Trek as a whole a "turd" you display your Anonymous Cowardice and ignorance.
* I actually enjoyed That Girl and would probably watch reruns if I knew when they played.
ie, are Asians and Europeans just as capable of certain African peoples of sprinting or long distance running?
sigh...
You do know that it was not too long ago that it was hypothesized that Afrikans* had "fast twitch" muscles that enabled great speed, but reduced long distance running, AND that Europeans had "slow twitch" muscles that were poorly adapted for speed, but excelled at long distance running. This was all prior to the 1990s when all those Afrikan runners started winning marathons.
Long story short, people are people. We all work with what we have. I have seen many examples of people with huge potential go to waste, and many examples of people who just refuse to lay down and die despite tremendous obstacles.
* I spell Afrika with a "k" because Afrikans spell it with a "k".
...will make the person who came up with the solution filthy rich!
This question is asking the fundamental cryptography question of resolving identity. Whomever comes up with a solution for this problem will have an opportunity to become filthy rich as banks, military organizations, and other entities strive to verify that the data Bob receives is from Alice and not that cunt Susan who is up to no-good.
This is very similar to the question last week asking us to solve the business model case for a publisher. No one knows how to post material to the internet and make a profit. The person who solves that will have every publisher lining up at his door throwing wads of money inside.
I appreciate the idea of getting the masses of Slashdot to seek a solution, but to tell you the truth, if I had a solution I would not reveal it here.
Capitalism implies risk. In fact, when Ronald Reagan was running for President back in 1980 I remember him saying capitalism did not guarantee anyone the right to succeed, it guaranteed them the right to fail. I never forgot that.
Now, I don't have a problem with the production company making money. That's a good thing.
I have a problem when they step on my rights to make that money. We can argue all day over what my legitimate rights are and get nowhere. I just think you should pop over to The New York Time's web-site before too long. On Monday they had a really cool article on how production companies are requiring artists to produce two CDs worth of material for every CD they market. It usually takes twelve songs to make a CD. The production companies are now requiring artists to produce as many as twelve additional songs so that Target can have two exclusive songs to match the two exclusive songs on the Best Buy version, and so on.
Wait a minute! Who's getting screwed here? I'm starting to lose track.
It does not matter if you and I don't agree that copyright laws are "completely unjust". What matters is that enough other people feel this way that they will violate the law.
As I stated above, I have no use for marijuana. I don't care one way or the other if marijuana is legalized. All I care is that people are not allowed to drive or operate machinery under the influence of it. After that I don't care.
Our problem is that so many other people care enough that they will smoke the stuff without your permission, or my permission, or the State's permission, or the Federal Government's permission. Regardless of how you and I feel about it, THEY feel it is unjust, and by sheer force of numbers (that is what counts in a Republic, right?) THEY are correct! The law is unjust.
Same applies to illegal downloads. You and I may not like them. It doesn't matter. Enough other people have a different opinion, and by sheer force of numbers they are correct!
Sure you break copyright law when you download. The problem is people break laws all the time when laws don't work.
I don't smoke marijuana; however, I know plenty of people who do. This situation has existed since before I was born. People, and politicians (they don't count as people), have discussed making marijuana legal. It may never happen in my lifetime. That does not stop people from recognizing bad law.
Copyright is there to protect the artist. I see little artistic protection in copyright law. I see corporate protection. I don't think I am the only one who sees this, hence all the downloads.
People will NOT obey an unjust law. When corporations declare that they sold you a license instead of a product and start turning off access to what the customer paid for...well, you reap what you sow. There are not enough lawyers out there to sue everyone who downloads. Ask the RIAA if you don't believe me.
Besides, downloaded stuff just works better. I hate to tell all those coke-sniffing, mistress pampering executives at all those corporations that their business model sucks donkey-dick, but I have to. Downloads don't pester people with advertisements. They start up immediately. They play the entire content. You can change direction when you want. You can shift the content to other media. Shit! What's not to like? Except that we do cheat the artist. That cannot be denied. We must find a way to support the arts, and dump the middle-man. That middle-man is getting in the way of culture.
I understand and sympathize. I too am a parent. My son in now an adult but I went through your predicament back in the 1980s and 1990s. I do not have a problem with nudity or sex. I hated the constant exposure to gratuitous violence. It was everywhere!
My solution was to discuss these things with him. I even went so far as to ask him why he thought the Empire was bad in Star Wars and not the Rebellion. Turns out he could not give me a good answer. His answer was something along the lines of "they kill people". When I told him Obi-Wan killed people as demonstrated in the Cantina scene, and that the stormtroopers were police keeping order, he mumbled a few words in defense of his position.
Long story short, I finally got him to start questioning what he was seeing so I did not always have to be present. Transfering values is every parents job. And to add to that difficulty you have to do this within the environment you live in. Sorry, that's the way it is. That's the way it has always been, from ancient Babylon, through KMET, through the Roman Empire, throughout human history. You don't get to choose the environment; you just get to choose the method.
You trying to define literature is like the U. S. Supreme Court trying to define porn. It just does not work.
Is The Left Hand of Darkness literature or simple sci-fi? Is Beyond Good and Evil* art or just a game for infantile minds?
Typically for prose we assume every work has plot, theme, and characterization. Plot is easy to define: it is the actions that take place in the work. For a video game it is very easy to see the plot. Characterization may not be well developed in video games but it does exist. Theme is a little more difficult. Harlan Ellison once described theme as the reason a story is written. Avoiding the brain-dead George Lucas reason, "to make money", we are left with something that is a bit more difficult to pin down. Do video games have themes? I would argue yes, but it would be an argument.
This leaves me to reason that if (and I admit it's a big if) I can find theme in video games, then they are art and completely equivalent to "literature". This means video games can be taken seriously, though we all know that has not happened yet. Perhaps if we allowed them the same freedom to tackle contemporary issues video games would also enjoy the benefit of being taken seriously.
Art has no limits in terms of media. whether it depicts giant dicks being crammed into asses, beautiful young women posing before a still camera, or the horror/glory of war, art is the expression of a human mind.
*If you don't think theme exists in video games I strongly urge you to find a copy of Beyond Good and Evil an underappreciated game that went well beyond the gratuitious violence and cheesecake of its contemporaries. It's a damn shame, but you can find a copy for as little as U. S. $5.00.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a very interesting article if you are considering SSDs versus HDs for your next computer.
*I copied this from a print-out. No I don't have a link. I am at work and I don't have the time to provide it.
Because in this instance you are buying small lots of gold. If you were to buy gold in larger quantities then you could pay the spot price.
When was the last time your house was broken into? Would you tell ANYONE that you kept gold in your house? If not, you probably have little to worry about.
Also, you probably have one or more guns in your home loaded and ready. As the old sign says: Forget about the dog. Beware of owner!
EUREKA!
No, I don't know the name. I almost never look at names, just sigs.
Make no mistake, though. I am against it.
What concerns me are people who are genetically deficient who "want what other people have." If it would just effect them, I would not care. The problem comes in when their genetically deficient children weaken the gene-pool.
*I never went to Vietnam. I was stationed at 8th & I, and from there went to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That's why I wrote Vietnam era. I was available to be sent to Vietnam, but I was stationed elsewhere.
Or worse having a child that suffers from trisomy-21.
We need science in the classrooms so bad it hurts. So many people don't understand that girls are born with all the ovum they will ever make. During their lives those ovum are bombarded by radiation and just plain get old. Boys are different. We just make what we need, over and over and over and over. And then we just spray the stuff all over the place. :)
Seig, Heil! :)
Look at it this way, I have spent many years raising my son. I don't want him falling in love with some deficient girl, marrying her, then discovering they can't have children. That takes my son out of the gene-pool unless he cheats on the girl and produces a child elsewhere. I don't know about how you would feel about that, but I don't want any grandchild of mine raised by a single mother. I was in the house for him. He needs to be in the house for his children.
This is not rocket science.
I argue with my wife about this all the time. She thinks I'm some kind if eugenics moster. I argue otherwise. I am not trying to shape humanity. I am trying to prevent shaping.
The post above yours is 100% correct. Once a human sperm penetrates a human ova and they combine DNA they become a gamete. That is a human being.
Some may argue that it is not human because it does not look human. I argue appearance is no indicator. Look at photos of yourself as a baby, at three years old, eight years old, twenty years old, fifty years old, eighty years old, and so on. Appearance changes throughout your life cycle and cannot be used to define humanity.
I'm not so sure about DNA either. After all, if I use DNA as a measure of humanity I must question if someone with trisomy 21 is human. After all, such a person does not have 26 pairs of chromosomes, and by such a definition would not be human. There are also super-males and super-females to take into consideration. If we use chromosomal count as the indicator of humanity, would it be OK to kill someone who does not have the proper chromosomal count?
Your post reminds me of a discussion in my genetics class. We were discussing deer populations and the class had all assumed that only the biggest and strongest would pass on their genes. We were then told to not discount the sneaky little bastard who knocked up one of the does while the two big guys were fighting. :)
When such people artificially reproduce they are creating children who are likely to be as deficient as the parents when it comes to reproduction. That would not be a problem by itself. The problem ensues when these deficient children then have a relationship with a normal person - if they have problems, they go the IVF route to solve the problem.
Did you see what just happened? If continued long enough, humanity might find itself in the position of requiring IVF to reproduce.
I know the above seems harsh, but it is a risk that I have been watching with some consternation since the first "test-tube" baby was born in the 1970s. Since then there seems to be an explosion of people, who otherwise could not conceive, pushing out quadruplets, quintuplets, and more, all the while depleting the gene-pool.
I am not predicting the end of the human population. I am concerned.
If you cannot have a baby by normal sexual relations, you should not have children!
Comics are not books; they are pamphlets. :)
Has it occurred to you that the link may have been hijacked? In other words, it may have originally linked to something Asus wanted you to see. Then some guy named Kent came along and spoofed the shit out of it so it now points to his goof site.
JEZUSFUCKINKRIST! This is the whole point of personal computers! The whole "computer revolution" thing of the 1970s, starting with the Altair, was to give people control over the data governing their lives.
I look around thirty years later and find DMCA, corporations with databanks stuffed with peoples' personal data, and people who think the internet is the only reason to own a computer. WTF?
Back in the 1970s there was a comic book fanzine that I just LOVED! It was called "The Heroine Addict".
Star Trek was on the air about the same time as That Girl*, Petticoat Junction, Mr. Terrific, and a host of other shows that you have probably never heard of. Good television was RARE!
Star Trek was spectacular! Yes, for every "City On The Edge Of Forever" there was a salt critter episode. For every "Amok Time" there was the Al Capone episode. For every "Space Seed" there were Chinese people on another planet who were over 1,000 years old in a show set 300 years in the future.
Star Trek is that rare gem, like 2001: A Space Odyssey that is enjoyable 30 years after production. Say what you like about the space hippies episode, but understand that when you try to call Star Trek as a whole a "turd" you display your Anonymous Cowardice and ignorance.
* I actually enjoyed That Girl and would probably watch reruns if I knew when they played.
sigh...
You do know that it was not too long ago that it was hypothesized that Afrikans* had "fast twitch" muscles that enabled great speed, but reduced long distance running, AND that Europeans had "slow twitch" muscles that were poorly adapted for speed, but excelled at long distance running. This was all prior to the 1990s when all those Afrikan runners started winning marathons.
Long story short, people are people. We all work with what we have. I have seen many examples of people with huge potential go to waste, and many examples of people who just refuse to lay down and die despite tremendous obstacles.
* I spell Afrika with a "k" because Afrikans spell it with a "k".
This question is asking the fundamental cryptography question of resolving identity. Whomever comes up with a solution for this problem will have an opportunity to become filthy rich as banks, military organizations, and other entities strive to verify that the data Bob receives is from Alice and not that cunt Susan who is up to no-good. This is very similar to the question last week asking us to solve the business model case for a publisher. No one knows how to post material to the internet and make a profit. The person who solves that will have every publisher lining up at his door throwing wads of money inside.
I appreciate the idea of getting the masses of Slashdot to seek a solution, but to tell you the truth, if I had a solution I would not reveal it here.
Now, I don't have a problem with the production company making money. That's a good thing.
I have a problem when they step on my rights to make that money. We can argue all day over what my legitimate rights are and get nowhere. I just think you should pop over to The New York Time's web-site before too long. On Monday they had a really cool article on how production companies are requiring artists to produce two CDs worth of material for every CD they market. It usually takes twelve songs to make a CD. The production companies are now requiring artists to produce as many as twelve additional songs so that Target can have two exclusive songs to match the two exclusive songs on the Best Buy version, and so on.
Wait a minute! Who's getting screwed here? I'm starting to lose track.
As I stated above, I have no use for marijuana. I don't care one way or the other if marijuana is legalized. All I care is that people are not allowed to drive or operate machinery under the influence of it. After that I don't care.
Our problem is that so many other people care enough that they will smoke the stuff without your permission, or my permission, or the State's permission, or the Federal Government's permission. Regardless of how you and I feel about it, THEY feel it is unjust, and by sheer force of numbers (that is what counts in a Republic, right?) THEY are correct! The law is unjust.
Same applies to illegal downloads. You and I may not like them. It doesn't matter. Enough other people have a different opinion, and by sheer force of numbers they are correct!
I don't smoke marijuana; however, I know plenty of people who do. This situation has existed since before I was born. People, and politicians (they don't count as people), have discussed making marijuana legal. It may never happen in my lifetime. That does not stop people from recognizing bad law.
Copyright is there to protect the artist. I see little artistic protection in copyright law. I see corporate protection. I don't think I am the only one who sees this, hence all the downloads.
People will NOT obey an unjust law. When corporations declare that they sold you a license instead of a product and start turning off access to what the customer paid for...well, you reap what you sow. There are not enough lawyers out there to sue everyone who downloads. Ask the RIAA if you don't believe me.
Besides, downloaded stuff just works better. I hate to tell all those coke-sniffing, mistress pampering executives at all those corporations that their business model sucks donkey-dick, but I have to. Downloads don't pester people with advertisements. They start up immediately. They play the entire content. You can change direction when you want. You can shift the content to other media. Shit! What's not to like? Except that we do cheat the artist. That cannot be denied. We must find a way to support the arts, and dump the middle-man. That middle-man is getting in the way of culture.
My solution was to discuss these things with him. I even went so far as to ask him why he thought the Empire was bad in Star Wars and not the Rebellion. Turns out he could not give me a good answer. His answer was something along the lines of "they kill people". When I told him Obi-Wan killed people as demonstrated in the Cantina scene, and that the stormtroopers were police keeping order, he mumbled a few words in defense of his position.
Long story short, I finally got him to start questioning what he was seeing so I did not always have to be present. Transfering values is every parents job. And to add to that difficulty you have to do this within the environment you live in. Sorry, that's the way it is. That's the way it has always been, from ancient Babylon, through KMET, through the Roman Empire, throughout human history. You don't get to choose the environment; you just get to choose the method.
GAWD, what a masochist!
Is The Left Hand of Darkness literature or simple sci-fi? Is Beyond Good and Evil* art or just a game for infantile minds?
Typically for prose we assume every work has plot, theme, and characterization. Plot is easy to define: it is the actions that take place in the work. For a video game it is very easy to see the plot. Characterization may not be well developed in video games but it does exist. Theme is a little more difficult. Harlan Ellison once described theme as the reason a story is written. Avoiding the brain-dead George Lucas reason, "to make money", we are left with something that is a bit more difficult to pin down. Do video games have themes? I would argue yes, but it would be an argument.
This leaves me to reason that if (and I admit it's a big if) I can find theme in video games, then they are art and completely equivalent to "literature". This means video games can be taken seriously, though we all know that has not happened yet. Perhaps if we allowed them the same freedom to tackle contemporary issues video games would also enjoy the benefit of being taken seriously.
Art has no limits in terms of media. whether it depicts giant dicks being crammed into asses, beautiful young women posing before a still camera, or the horror/glory of war, art is the expression of a human mind.
*If you don't think theme exists in video games I strongly urge you to find a copy of Beyond Good and Evil an underappreciated game that went well beyond the gratuitious violence and cheesecake of its contemporaries. It's a damn shame, but you can find a copy for as little as U. S. $5.00.