Actually, CD-RW (or DVD+RW) are better for longevity than just plain CD-R
CD-Rs use a dye to record information. CD-RW use the phase-change method.
The dye is hit by a laser and will darken it's color because of the light/heat. The darker dye will not let a laser beam pass and the laser will not reflect at that spot, making it a zero bit (or one). It's like human skin under the sun.
If you leave a CD-R in the sun or if other light hits it, what will happen to the dye? It will darken ofcourse, even the bits that are supposed to stay clear and let the laser reflect back. Light will eventually make your CD-R unreadable, moisture and temperature will also shorten the life span of a CD-R but I don't know if they affect the dye.
RW discs are written in a different way, first a laser has to heat up the bit that's about to be written, then another laserbeam (or magnet?) changes the optical "phase" of the material so it will give a bit a 0 or 1.
because the material needs a special preparation laser hit to be able to change, it is harder for outside influences to change the bits on the CD-RW. (UV)Light and probably humidity and temperature affect -RWs less than they do -R.
MO-disks are used for archival because they use phase-change.
-RW is definitely more durable than -R
The "disadvantage" is that -RW discs by nature can be overwritten, but we were talking about longevity, not the sabotage-proneness of your data. The other disadvantage is that they're more expensive.
Flash memory wears out after a short while, about 1000 writes if I remember correctly. Good Flash modules have spare flash memory cells with control circuitry that replaces the fizzled out flash cells on the main part of the memory of your USB stick/Compact Flash/etc. Stretches the time to failure.
MRAM is just as durable as DRAM and is just as fast. It is the future.
You are right about the eInk or similar technology instead of OLED. OLED pixels wear out way too soon to be usable in your desktop screen at the moment, especially the blue color if I remember correctly.
Better to use the new display tech that Philips invented, little drops of colored oil (CMYK as in printing) that move out of view or get flattened over the whole area of the pixel under the influence of electric current.
Doesn't wear out like OLED, pixels update fast enough for fast games like first person shooters (~60 Hz or faster), which LED screens are not, doesn't change color or brightness when you look at the screen from an angle (the problem with LED). Don't know about the maximum resolution with the Philips video-like ink tech. LED screens can have excellent resolutions/DPI.
Fanless power supplies are available with huge heatsinks. Make sure they don't go over 50 Deg.C.
Fanless processors can be achieved with low power designs as you described or special PC cases which replace a complete side panel with a giant heatsink. Processor, HD, and graphics are drained of heat via heatpipes that are connected to the side-heatsink.
Heatpipes can wear out after a couple of years but they are still more reliable than fans and make less/no noise. There are PC cases using this principle from a couple of manufacturers including a star-destroyer lookalike from Zalman which is almost a solid block of Aluminium:)
The only moving part which I don't see disappear (if you don't count the fluid in the heatpipes) is the HD. If you want more reliability you can go for RAID 1 but this is twice as expensive as a normal setup. If you want more speed you can use RAID 0 (same price as normal HD space). For both speed and reliability you should use RAID 1+0, only twice as expensive but you need at least 4 drives which are roughly the same size and speed. Don't use RAID 5, use RAID 1+0 instead.
If you want increased reliability of your CPU on hot days, buy a Pentium 4 with the heatpipe/giant heatsink setup. The Pentium 4 will throttle down to lower MHz if it detects itself overheating. If it's a hot day, your home server will slow down but the CPU will not die or shut down, in the evening it will speed up to normal speeds automatically. Only problem with Pentium 4 is the RAM limit of 2 GB.
The Athlon 64 and 64FX don't have this feature yet, they just shut down when they detect themselves overheating, rumours have it that the next versions of the 64 processors (CPU core codename Athens) will have the same throttle feature as the P4.
MRAM would be great wouldn't it? No more booting to use your computer, instantly on if you want it to be, the OS needs to be as stable as FreeBSD for that though.
I just need to save a bit more to build my fanless PC.
I think UDF is just the filesystem for optical media. Sort of like the FAT 32 or NTFS for DVDs.
"DirectCD from Adaptec/Roxio (shudder), InCD from Ahead Software, etc.. (no good support on linux)"
Mount Rainier is a standard for sending commands to a CD/DVD. Which means that no matter what burner you have, it will behave the same way as any other burner who received the same Mount Rainier command from your operating system. Because of MR, you don't have to use seperate programs for writing to CD/DVD (like the ones you mentioned above). Those programs are called packet writing programs and sometimes it's not possible to read the content back from the disc without that program. It's much better to have drives accessed by the operating system using MR. That way you won't have problems with not being able to read discs in Linux that you burned using a Windows packet writer.
Also, MR has extra space reserved on the disc for errors in writing. Without that extra space, it's possible to fuck up a good DVD with a packet writing session that you add to it later. This is another weakness with software only packet writing.
At the end of october the new DVD+RW drives will get a feature called Mount Rainier. Drives which are fully M.R. compliant will get a brand sticker from Philips called "easy write" or something like that.
It's a technical story but it comes down to, that you can use Mount Rainier rewritable (DVD+MRW) disks as 4.3 Gigabyte harddisks. In other words, you don't need a special burning program to put stuff on the +MRWs, you just drag and drop it to your drive icon. Copying, deleting, everything behaves like with a floppy disk.
DVD+MRW has extra disk storage reserved for error correction so it is safe to use a DVD like a HD. However, that is also the reason why you can only burn 4.3 GB on it instead of 4.7
The DVD- standard cannot be made compatible with Mount Rainier.
Also, eventually DVD-RW will become more expensive because a disc has to be made unwritable by machine at a certain small area of the disc, you can see the lines with the naked eye. This has to be done with an extra step in the manufacture of the discs and so will increase the price. The movie industy wanted that extra feature to prevent 1:1 copies of movie DVDs.
Using a seperate program to be able to use storage is a bit strange if you think about it.
Opteron (i.e. AMD64, FX) has a built-in thermal solution. It's a little late in the game, but a welcome addition.
Thanks for the info, I was thinking about the P4 because the heat protection is implemented as throttling, not shutdown but actually I'm prefer the Athlon 64 camp because, as someone else said, Intel seems arrogant.
Now that the Athlon 64/FX seem to have throttling overheat protection I'm going to buy those from now on.
The reason I'm into it is because I'd like my (future) fanless home server to survive a heatwave and throttle back up again in the evening.
And not fanless as in "just take off the heatsink and fan" but using a case with heatpipes to the giant heatsink that makes up the side of the case or the "natural cooling system" case.
I have this video of a test Tom's Hardware Guide did.
They ran Quake 3 on several CPU's and then removed the heatsink and fan while it was running.
The 32 bit AMD Athlon burned to a smoking piece of junk, also destroying the motherboard
The Pentium 4 with overheating protection kept running Quake 3 until it slowed to 1 FPS. After the heatsink and fan were put back on, QUAKE RAN AS IF NOTHING HAD HAPPENED!
Now that's a good feature to have on a PC, especially a server on a hot day or when your fan finally seizes up.
I've read somewhere that the new 64 bit Athlons have some kind of overheating protection too, sounded like the clockspeed will be throttled automatically, can anybody verify this because I was about to buy a Pentium 4 over an Athlon 64 because of this feature.
I was interested in this subject as you have been and these are the methods that I know about.
* Radial Keratotomy NEVERY DO THIS. It's a small disaster. they use diamond cutters to carve into your eye so it bulges out and changes the shape of your cornea. At first this works, but because the different scars heal in unpredictable ways, it completely messes up the shape of your eyes after a longer period. You can never wear contacts again and glasses won't help because you vision is distorted, not near- or farsighted.
* Laser surgery/LASIK This seems to work well, but some people have had problems with it. The main problem I've read about (on Slashdot) is that the laser has an disc-like area it treats, and an area it doesn't treat and there is a sharp border between the two. It vaporises away the treated area leaving a ridge at the start of the untreated area. The ridge will stay with some people and act like a lense, giving them haloes around light sources at night (and during the day, but you can't see them then). One other note for Laser surgery. They need to vaporise the cornea and for that, they need to remove the "skin" of the eye first. They used to just scratch it away with a spoon-like thing and give you eye-drops till it healed, but nowadays a newer technique is said to give better result. They cut 3 sides of a square shape and fold away a flap of your "eye skin", do the surgery, then fold the flap back like it was. Ask about the newer technique.
* "Plastic" rings Don't know the name of the procedure, but it involves changing the shape of the cornea to correct your vision by inserting pieces of "plastic" in the upper tissue layer of the eye. The insertions are shaped like a wheel cut in half. This bulges the parts of your cornea at the edges, thereby making the outer lens of your eye a flatter shape. Thus curing your near-sightedness. The inserts are very thin and therefore only need tiny cuts to be inserted. They can be removed or replaced if needed. Seems to be a limit to the amount of near-sightedness they can correct.
*Insertion of internal lens Don't know the name of this procedure either but it has it's history in the treatment of patients who's internal lens had been clouded by cataracts or other diseases. The diseased internal lens would be removed in these patients and replaced by an articicial lens held in place by two rounded "arms" attached to the lens acting like springs that radiate outward and hold the lens in place. The arms look like a bit like the bottom 3/4 of the letter J. The technique to cure near-sightedness is to do the same procedure, but to leave the original internal lense where it is. The artificial lens will sit between the cornea and the internal lens (I think there's a natural "canyon" where the arms will press into that is between those 2). The cut needs to be big enough for a folded lens to fit into but it is made at the edge of the iris so it should not be visible. Don't know if you can wear contact lenses over the scar but the implant can be removed or replaced if needed.
I myself am planning to have the last procedure perfomed when I have the money because it seems to me to give more control over the correction than the "half wheel inserts" approach. I still have to ask if they can rotate the artificial lense in such a way to cure my other sight deviation (cylinder/astimagtism?) but if not, then that's no big problem at all.
I also wonder if it's possible or wise to have the artificial internal lense block UV rays. This would prevent damage and cataracts to my eyes by sunlight and I would never become snowblind:P Are there chemically stable transparent UV blockers?
"Update: the scrolling lag is caused by the MouseWare. Until a newer version of MouseWare comes out, you can temporarily use the mouse without the MouseWare or with Microsoft IntelliPoint, which works perfectly with the MX700; the only drawback is that you will not be able to use the app switch button. "
Don't count on it. This scrollwheel bug has been in mousewhare forever, I've even sent them a detailed bug report, all I got was a standard letter back telling me to "use the newest MouseWare software version". They are never going to fix this bug. I guess they are using a weird floating point algorithm to keep track of the scrollwheel, this ofcourse leads to rounding errors and this makes the scrollwheel not respond with some clicks, and skip 2 clicks at once with the next.
Which is very irritating if you use your scrollwheel during games. Want to switch to another weapon? Scroll, nothing, scroll, switches 2 weapon spots at the same time, die, D'oh.
The best way to fix the Logitech Scrollwheel bug is to install the MouseWare software, configure it the way you want, then stop the MouseWare process running in the background.
(Ctrl + Alt + Del then stop the EM_EXEC process).
With every reboot and reconfiguration of your mouse, EM_EXEC will be running again. To stop EM_EXEC at every reboot, delete the automatic startup entry in Windows Registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\...\...\...\Run\
Done, have fun playing, laugh at the idiots of Logitech's software departement.
It's not because of the economy
on
Itanium Problems
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"The way to make money during the boom is to have built good products during the preceeding bust, and have them ready to sell once there is a market for them."
But is Itanium a good product? That was the question of this article. Even during a good economy there will not be a big market for Itanium because Intel just went into the wrong direction with it's design (bloatware). At least I believe so. And Intel agrees with predicions of a 10% market share of the server market.
Even in a good economy, people will just buy from competitors as Google is going to do (and Google has good economics already). With other X86 compatible processors or platform independent programming, it's a buyer's market and Itanium just doesn't seem to be the best buy.
I can applaud the decision to make a break from the old X86 architecture, but why did they design it as structurally complex bloatware? First they head into the direction of more simplicity (switch to RISC core inside the CISC Pentiums) and then they double back into the complexity trap with Itanium.
Humans are just much better at improving simple things than they are at improving complex things. Why didn't they just go multi-core or something? I guess it's their CISC cultural heritage.
And if I may go slightly offtopic for a bit. I think there's something unelegant about those extremely power hungry chips. Something just doesn't feel right about the fact that your solid-state chip's continued existance is dependant on the oil on the ballbearings of a spinning bit of plastic, and that it's just a matter of time before your PC/server breaks.
A PC should be as solid-state as possible, just make sure electricity keeps going in and it runs. I think server farm cowboys/girls agree with me. They have better things to do than replace fans all day.
For this reason I like the Transmeta Crusoe, Via C3 and IBM G3.
However, even though it's power hungry, I do like the Intel Pentium 4's ability to survive the removal of it's heatsink, and continue running Q3 like nothing's happened when you put the heatsink back on. Could you underclock and undervolt a P4 3GHz to 1.5GHz and run it using a giant heatsink without a fan? I bet you can! At least it would survive.
On the other hand, when things are going your way, when every shot is a hit, and when you tell what an opponent is going to do before he even knows himself.
That is pure relaxation. Getting lost in the moment, getting into the flow is bliss and puts a spring in your step after you finish playing.
By the way, when you're on the defending team, camping is ok, however, if you're on the team that's supposed to attack, you cannot camp.
It's not your metabolism that's influenced (although that does play a small role). It's the amount of hunger that is determined by your genes and that influences your build.
So, in order to be thinner than you naturally are, you will have to go against your nature somewhat. Trick your body or change your shape by willpower.
Going against your nature is difficult (men of god can't keep their hands to themselves) but some people can do it.
So the people at opposite sides of the fence: - I am fat because of my genes. and - No, you are fat because you just eat too much.
are both righ.
I do think it's worth a try for fat people to become slimmer. Thinner people do get treated better.
So, good luck. Or better yet "Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try." -- Yoda
Yes, but you still have to use special software to use packet writing instead of your normal Operating System interface for handling files. Did you have to pay for it somehow? Yes you did.
I guess you're one of those people that put up with this unnatural situation.
By the way, DVD-RAM was designed especially for use with PCs, that's why you're able to do good packet writing (as good as Mount Rainier?) but it's not going to be the optical drive standard for PCs. My whole point was about DVD-RW vs. DVD+RW.
Of those two standards, people should choose DVD+RW because it can do what your DVD-RAM drive can do without any special burning software, which is a hack, oh sorry, a kludge.
DVD+RW drives can be used like harddrives/floppy disks. DVD-RW drives will never be able to do that.
DVD+RW drives can position their read/write heads accurately. DVD-RW cannot accurately position their drive heads. This means that individual sectors of the DVD+RW can be written to, erased and replaced by new information in a way similar to a harddisk.
And this means that you can use your DVDs like a HD, THINK ABOUT IT! Why the fnck do computer users have to put up with special CD burning software? It's a major hassle.
It's because CDs were designed to be INCOMPATIBLE with PCs by the music industry!!! Special CD burning software was invented to circumvent that limitation of CDs but the process is still inherently a hack, a hack that gives countless people lots of grief every day.
For example, You have to be absolutely sure what you want to store before you make the big plunge of burning the CD. Made a mistake? throw away your CD (or erase the whole CD) and start over.
If you want to leave your CD open for multisession writing, to add a small file later, you risk losing all your original files if the new session fucks up.
Not to mention that you have to use special software to use a PC storage device!
If we had to put up with HDs acting like CDs no one would use PCs anymore, but CDs have some advantages that outweigh their annoying-as-hell disadvantages.
We are at a crossroads in PC use. Do we choose for the old-fashioned DVD-RW "official" standard or do we choose for the user friendly DVD+RW standard.
Will we have to use stupid DVD burning software just to store files on a medium? Or will we use DVD+RW and just drag and drop, erase and move our files as if we were using a harddrive or MO-drive?
This is one instance where I hope that Apple will not bring about a new PC standard and that Microsoft will win in promoting DVD+RW. DVD+RW drives using the Mount Rainier standard are the future of DVD drives.
For your own convenience and as a matter of principle, make CD+RW the standard.
My my, a strategist giving you free strategic advice hehe. How interesting life online can be no?
Ah yes, the age old question. Do I take revenge or not?
As the strategist has pointed out, warning the third party is not a legitimate reason. The questions that remain are:
1. Do I want to take revenge? Am I that kind of person? How would I look back at my life having done that?
2. Can I take revenge while not being found out? Or, take revenge without any possibility of retaliation by them?
My personal strategy when being wronged is the Pavlov method. As things get worse I increase the Pavlov dosage. If I cannot influence my adversary that way I usually walk away and wait for an opportunity to get back. If the chance never arises then that's too bad but I won't lose much sleep over it. In any case I will make a mental note of not trusting that person again, no matter what, avoiding contact gives me piece of mind, a chance for revenge is a nice perk.
But more often, it never comes to that. I can, almost always, recognise an egoist/egotist as soon as I lay eyes on them, I can even recognise them over the internet. With that knowledge I can head off any attacks that come my way and because I make friends easily, I usually have more political power than my adversary. I also make sure not to be dependant on my adversary, or at least, make it worth his wile to not cross me (usually, egotists are bad at reading other people's minds while they are predictable).
My suggestion. If you decide to take revenge, do it anonimously. Gloating over your downed opponent is a risk that outweighs it's benefits (your feeling of satisfaction). Learn your lesson and don't trust those people again (most altruistic people keep making the same mistake of trusting egotists). And finally, learn to recognise egotists before they try to benefit through you (they will always try if they see their chance) prevention!
This goes for all you good-natured geeks as well! Never trust an egotist! More power to the altruists:D
* XUL is an easy way to make a GUI for your program.
* It's cross platform so your GUI will work on other platforms as well, without (much) modification.
* It's designed from the start in a language and format that's supposed to be sent over the internet (use your PC visually from anywhere).
* It's also language independent! You don't need to program in a specific programming language to make your GUI. Ok ok, you need to learn how to write an HTML-like language, but almost any programmer can do that. You're NOT tied to using a specific C++ or Java library to make your GUI. Swing is a cross platform GUI but you need to program Swing in Java.
The big implication seems to be that all programs, written in all languages will be able to standardize their GUIs by using XUL. And I've read that it's easier than all other methods (Gnome, KDE,...?).
In 100 years, people all over the world will probably be using 1 Open Source Graphical Interface (with different underlying Operating Systems). Mozilla's XUL is a first step in that direction.
Some extra functionality is needed, but should be added slowly and sensibly. Using SVG like MacOS X uses Display PDF would be nice. But in the meantime XUL seems to provide enough functionality for most programs. In the end, XUL should take over the GUIs not just for individual programs, but also for the whole OS.
The article stated that XUL doesn't have floating windows withing XUL and that's why it won't take over as OS desktop yet. How about making a floating window just another XUL window inside the main window? And what about this screenshot? ByzantineOS
Doesn't that show multiple XUL windows at the same time?
The problem with methanol fuel cells as opposed to Hydrogen fuel cells, as I understand it, is that methanol fuel cells get clogged by carbon deposits. I don't know if this is fixable, I believe some models of fuel cells try to burn off the carbon with high temperatures.
Hydrogen fuel cells don't get fouled by carbon but the fuel is harder to handle than the methanol liquid.
I think methanol cartridges are the way to go in the short term but they probably don't have the long life span you think of, only hydrogen fuel cells have that.
Episodes made by various studios
on
Animatrix Trailer
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· Score: 3, Redundant
From the art style, I could recognise:
* Studio that made: Ghost in the Shell, the movie (not sure about this one)
* Studio that made: Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (new version of VHD)
* Square studio that made: Final Fantasy, the movie.
* The American studio that made: Aeon Flux, Sci-Fi animation for BBC's Liquid TV and MTV. (not sure about this one either).
I've used both gestures and pie menus, and pie menus are better.
I installed the pie menus into Mozilla, tried it, then switched them off again because they interfered with my gestures and I like gestures because they were better then drop down menus.
However, after reading some more slashdot comments, it occured to me that pie menus can REPLACE gestures in mozilla completely, with some added benefits.
Pie menus have a built-in manual, gestures have the manual somewhere off-screen. This makes the use of pie menus the same as training in pie menus. The same "manual problem" exists with command line interfaces V.S. Graphical User Interfaces. I have not used all the gestures mozilla had to offer because it was a hassle to bring up the gesture manual every time, try to memorize the gesture, then go back and use that gesture. (forget, repeat and rinse).
Also, I fell into the same trap the drop-down menu users fell into. I was using a system for a while (gestures) and didn't want to change, even though the new system (pie menus) was better. I see a lot of slashdotters complain about IE/windows users doing this.
Please overcome your fear of the new and use pie menus in Mozilla, dead easy to install too. And like the author of the pie menus says: "don't give up after the first 20 seconds".
If you want to have the pie menus show their icon decription texts sooner than normal (descriptions pop up if you hold your mouse in one spot for a second) then check out the "easy to fix!" post above.
Please make your life easier by using pie menus. You can surf with much less hassle than using context menus, making your surfing almost as lazy as watching TV.
I installed the pie menus into Mozilla, tried it, then switched them off again because they interfered with my gestures and I like gestures because they were better then drop down menus.
However, after reading some more slashdot comments, it occured to me that pie menus can REPLACE gestures in mozilla completely, with some added benefits.
Pie menus have a built-in manual, gestures have the manual somewhere off-screen. This makes the use of pie menus the same as training in pie menus. The same "manual problem" exists with command line interfaces V.S. Graphical User Interfaces. I have not used all the gestures mozilla had to offer because it was a hassle to bring up the gesture manual every time, try to memorize the gesture, then go back and use that gesture. (forget, repeat and rinse).
Also, I fell into the same trap the drop-down menu users fell into. I was using a system for a while (gestures) and didn't want to change, even though the new system (pie menus) was better. I see a lot of slashdotters complain about IE/windows users doing this.
Please overcome your fear of the new and use pie menus in Mozilla, dead easy to install too. And like the author of the pie menus says: "don't give up after the first 20 seconds".
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the correction.
Actually, CD-RW (or DVD+RW) are better for longevity than just plain CD-R
CD-Rs use a dye to record information. CD-RW use the phase-change method.
The dye is hit by a laser and will darken it's color because of the light/heat. The darker dye will not let a laser beam pass and the laser will not reflect at that spot, making it a zero bit (or one). It's like human skin under the sun.
If you leave a CD-R in the sun or if other light hits it, what will happen to the dye? It will darken ofcourse, even the bits that are supposed to stay clear and let the laser reflect back. Light will eventually make your CD-R unreadable, moisture and temperature will also shorten the life span of a CD-R but I don't know if they affect the dye.
RW discs are written in a different way, first a laser has to heat up the bit that's about to be written, then another laserbeam (or magnet?) changes the optical "phase" of the material so it will give a bit a 0 or 1.
because the material needs a special preparation laser hit to be able to change, it is harder for outside influences to change the bits on the CD-RW. (UV)Light and probably humidity and temperature affect -RWs less than they do -R.
MO-disks are used for archival because they use phase-change.
-RW is definitely more durable than -R
The "disadvantage" is that -RW discs by nature can be overwritten, but we were talking about longevity, not the sabotage-proneness of your data. The other disadvantage is that they're more expensive.
Flash memory wears out after a short while, about 1000 writes if I remember correctly. Good Flash modules have spare flash memory cells with control circuitry that replaces the fizzled out flash cells on the main part of the memory of your USB stick/Compact Flash/etc. Stretches the time to failure.
:)
MRAM is just as durable as DRAM and is just as fast. It is the future.
You are right about the eInk or similar technology instead of OLED. OLED pixels wear out way too soon to be usable in your desktop screen at the moment, especially the blue color if I remember correctly.
Better to use the new display tech that Philips invented, little drops of colored oil (CMYK as in printing) that move out of view or get flattened over the whole area of the pixel under the influence of electric current.
Doesn't wear out like OLED, pixels update fast enough for fast games like first person shooters (~60 Hz or faster), which LED screens are not, doesn't change color or brightness when you look at the screen from an angle (the problem with LED). Don't know about the maximum resolution with the Philips video-like ink tech. LED screens can have excellent resolutions/DPI.
Fanless power supplies are available with huge heatsinks. Make sure they don't go over 50 Deg.C.
Fanless processors can be achieved with low power designs as you described or special PC cases which replace a complete side panel with a giant heatsink. Processor, HD, and graphics are drained of heat via heatpipes that are connected to the side-heatsink.
Heatpipes can wear out after a couple of years but they are still more reliable than fans and make less/no noise. There are PC cases using this principle from a couple of manufacturers including a star-destroyer lookalike from Zalman which is almost a solid block of Aluminium
The only moving part which I don't see disappear (if you don't count the fluid in the heatpipes) is the HD. If you want more reliability you can go for RAID 1 but this is twice as expensive as a normal setup. If you want more speed you can use RAID 0 (same price as normal HD space). For both speed and reliability you should use RAID 1+0, only twice as expensive but you need at least 4 drives which are roughly the same size and speed. Don't use RAID 5, use RAID 1+0 instead.
If you want increased reliability of your CPU on hot days, buy a Pentium 4 with the heatpipe/giant heatsink setup. The Pentium 4 will throttle down to lower MHz if it detects itself overheating. If it's a hot day, your home server will slow down but the CPU will not die or shut down, in the evening it will speed up to normal speeds automatically. Only problem with Pentium 4 is the RAM limit of 2 GB.
The Athlon 64 and 64FX don't have this feature yet, they just shut down when they detect themselves overheating, rumours have it that the next versions of the 64 processors (CPU core codename Athens) will have the same throttle feature as the P4.
MRAM would be great wouldn't it? No more booting to use your computer, instantly on if you want it to be, the OS needs to be as stable as FreeBSD for that though.
I just need to save a bit more to build my fanless PC.
I think UDF is just the filesystem for optical media. Sort of like the FAT 32 or NTFS for DVDs.
"DirectCD from Adaptec/Roxio (shudder), InCD from Ahead Software, etc.. (no good support on linux)"
Mount Rainier is a standard for sending commands to a CD/DVD. Which means that no matter what burner you have, it will behave the same way as any other burner who received the same Mount Rainier command from your operating system. Because of MR, you don't have to use seperate programs for writing to CD/DVD (like the ones you mentioned above). Those programs are called packet writing programs and sometimes it's not possible to read the content back from the disc without that program. It's much better to have drives accessed by the operating system using MR. That way you won't have problems with not being able to read discs in Linux that you burned using a Windows packet writer.
Also, MR has extra space reserved on the disc for errors in writing. Without that extra space, it's possible to fuck up a good DVD with a packet writing session that you add to it later. This is another weakness with software only packet writing.
I read they're calling it "Mount Fuji" at the moment.
At the end of october the new DVD+RW drives will get a feature called Mount Rainier. Drives which are fully M.R. compliant will get a brand sticker from Philips called "easy write" or something like that.
It's a technical story but it comes down to, that you can use Mount Rainier rewritable (DVD+MRW) disks as 4.3 Gigabyte harddisks. In other words, you don't need a special burning program to put stuff on the +MRWs, you just drag and drop it to your drive icon.
Copying, deleting, everything behaves like with a floppy disk.
DVD+MRW has extra disk storage reserved for error correction so it is safe to use a DVD like a HD. However, that is also the reason why you can only burn 4.3 GB on it instead of 4.7
The DVD- standard cannot be made compatible with Mount Rainier.
Also, eventually DVD-RW will become more expensive because a disc has to be made unwritable by machine at a certain small area of the disc, you can see the lines with the naked eye. This has to be done with an extra step in the manufacture of the discs and so will increase the price. The movie industy wanted that extra feature to prevent 1:1 copies of movie DVDs.
Using a seperate program to be able to use storage is a bit strange if you think about it.
Hope I made up your mind for you.
Opteron (i.e. AMD64, FX) has a built-in thermal solution. It's a little late in the game, but a welcome addition.
Thanks for the info, I was thinking about the P4 because the heat protection is implemented as throttling, not shutdown but actually I'm prefer the Athlon 64 camp because, as someone else said, Intel seems arrogant.
Now that the Athlon 64/FX seem to have throttling overheat protection I'm going to buy those from now on.
The reason I'm into it is because I'd like my (future) fanless home server to survive a heatwave and throttle back up again in the evening.
And not fanless as in "just take off the heatsink and fan" but using a case with heatpipes to the giant heatsink that makes up the side of the case or the
"natural cooling system" case.
I have this video of a test Tom's Hardware Guide did.
They ran Quake 3 on several CPU's and then removed the heatsink and fan while it was running.
The 32 bit AMD Athlon burned to a smoking piece of junk, also destroying the motherboard
The Pentium 4 with overheating protection kept running Quake 3 until it slowed to 1 FPS. After the heatsink and fan were put back on, QUAKE RAN AS IF NOTHING HAD HAPPENED!
Now that's a good feature to have on a PC, especially a server on a hot day or when your fan finally seizes up.
I've read somewhere that the new 64 bit Athlons have some kind of overheating protection too, sounded like the clockspeed will be throttled automatically, can anybody verify this because I was about to buy a Pentium 4 over an Athlon 64 because of this feature.
The picture on the homepage is blurry.
Is that done by marketing to sell it to healthy people?
I was interested in this subject as you have been and these are the methods that I know about.
:P
* Radial Keratotomy
NEVERY DO THIS. It's a small disaster. they use diamond cutters to carve into your eye so it bulges out and changes the shape of your cornea.
At first this works, but because the different scars heal in unpredictable ways, it completely messes up the shape of your eyes after a longer period. You can never wear contacts again and glasses won't help because you vision is distorted, not near- or farsighted.
* Laser surgery/LASIK
This seems to work well, but some people have had problems with it.
The main problem I've read about (on Slashdot) is that the laser has an disc-like area it treats, and an area it doesn't treat and there is a sharp border between the two.
It vaporises away the treated area leaving a ridge at the start of the untreated area.
The ridge will stay with some people and act like a lense, giving them haloes around light sources at night (and during the day, but you can't see them then).
One other note for Laser surgery. They need to vaporise the cornea and for that, they need to remove the "skin" of the eye first. They used to just scratch it away with a spoon-like thing and give you eye-drops till it healed, but nowadays a newer technique is said to give better result. They cut 3 sides of a square shape and fold away a flap of your "eye skin", do the surgery, then fold the flap back like it was. Ask about the newer technique.
* "Plastic" rings
Don't know the name of the procedure, but it involves changing the shape of the cornea to correct your vision by inserting pieces of "plastic" in the upper tissue layer of the eye. The insertions are shaped like a wheel cut in half.
This bulges the parts of your cornea at the edges, thereby making the outer lens of your eye a flatter shape. Thus curing your near-sightedness.
The inserts are very thin and therefore only need tiny cuts to be inserted. They can be removed or replaced if needed. Seems to be a limit to the amount of near-sightedness they can correct.
*Insertion of internal lens
Don't know the name of this procedure either but it has it's history in the treatment of patients who's internal lens had been clouded by cataracts or other diseases. The diseased internal lens would be removed in these patients and replaced by an articicial lens held in place by two rounded "arms" attached to the lens acting like springs that radiate outward and hold the lens in place. The arms look like a bit like the bottom 3/4 of the letter J.
The technique to cure near-sightedness is to do the same procedure, but to leave the original internal lense where it is. The artificial lens will sit between the cornea and the internal lens (I think there's a natural "canyon" where the arms will press into that is between those 2).
The cut needs to be big enough for a folded lens to fit into but it is made at the edge of the iris so it should not be visible. Don't know if you can wear contact lenses over the scar but the implant can be removed or replaced if needed.
I myself am planning to have the last procedure perfomed when I have the money because it seems to me to give more control over the correction than the "half wheel inserts" approach. I still have to ask if they can rotate the artificial lense in such a way to cure my other sight deviation (cylinder/astimagtism?) but if not, then that's no big problem at all.
I also wonder if it's possible or wise to have the artificial internal lense block UV rays. This would prevent damage and cataracts to my eyes by sunlight and I would never become snowblind
Are there chemically stable transparent UV blockers?
"Update: the scrolling lag is caused by the MouseWare. Until a newer version of MouseWare comes out, you can temporarily use the mouse without the MouseWare or with Microsoft IntelliPoint, which works perfectly with the MX700; the only drawback is that you will not be able to use the app switch button. "
Don't count on it. This scrollwheel bug has been in mousewhare forever, I've even sent them a detailed bug report, all I got was a standard letter back telling me to "use the newest MouseWare software version". They are never going to fix this bug.
I guess they are using a weird floating point algorithm to keep track of the scrollwheel, this ofcourse leads to rounding errors and this makes the scrollwheel not respond with some clicks, and skip 2 clicks at once with the next.
Which is very irritating if you use your scrollwheel during games. Want to switch to another weapon? Scroll, nothing, scroll, switches 2 weapon spots at the same time, die, D'oh.
The best way to fix the Logitech Scrollwheel bug is to install the MouseWare software, configure it the way you want, then stop the MouseWare process running in the background.
(Ctrl + Alt + Del then stop the EM_EXEC process).
With every reboot and reconfiguration of your mouse, EM_EXEC will be running again. To stop EM_EXEC at every reboot, delete the automatic startup entry in Windows Registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\...\...\...\Run\
Done, have fun playing, laugh at the idiots of Logitech's software departement.
"The way to make money during the boom is to have built good products during the preceeding bust, and have them ready to sell once there is a market for them."
But is Itanium a good product? That was the question of this article. Even during a good economy there will not be a big market for Itanium because Intel just went into the wrong direction with it's design (bloatware). At least I believe so. And Intel agrees with predicions of a 10% market share of the server market.
Even in a good economy, people will just buy from competitors as Google is going to do (and Google has good economics already). With other X86 compatible processors or platform independent programming, it's a buyer's market and Itanium just doesn't seem to be the best buy.
I can applaud the decision to make a break from the old X86 architecture, but why did they design it as structurally complex bloatware?
First they head into the direction of more simplicity (switch to RISC core inside the CISC Pentiums) and then they double back into the complexity trap with Itanium.
Humans are just much better at improving simple things than they are at improving complex things. Why didn't they just go multi-core or something? I guess it's their CISC cultural heritage.
And if I may go slightly offtopic for a bit. I think there's something unelegant about those extremely power hungry chips. Something just doesn't feel right about the fact that your solid-state chip's continued existance is dependant on the oil on the ballbearings of a spinning bit of plastic, and that it's just a matter of time before your PC/server breaks.
A PC should be as solid-state as possible, just make sure electricity keeps going in and it runs. I think server farm cowboys/girls agree with me. They have better things to do than replace fans all day.
For this reason I like the Transmeta Crusoe, Via C3 and IBM G3.
However, even though it's power hungry, I do like the Intel Pentium 4's ability to survive the removal of it's heatsink, and continue running Q3 like nothing's happened when you put the heatsink back on. Could you underclock and undervolt a P4 3GHz to 1.5GHz and run it using a giant heatsink without a fan? I bet you can! At least it would survive.
On the other hand, when things are going your way, when every shot is a hit, and when you tell what an opponent is going to do before he even knows himself.
That is pure relaxation. Getting lost in the moment, getting into the flow is bliss and puts a spring in your step after you finish playing.
By the way, when you're on the defending team, camping is ok, however, if you're on the team that's supposed to attack, you cannot camp.
So the people who run that free Operating System are actually running GNU running on a Linux base.
So when's GNU running on a GNU kernel coming out?
Yes, I also understand the reason for that Japanese law. However, such a huge accomplishment should have been better rewarded by the company.
$160 is just brutal.
"We don't care how much you helped us, HEEL DOG!"
"Ok, now bounce when we smack you down, BOUNCE I SAID!" "Ok, we'll practice until you get it right".
Your weight is determined by your genes.
Identical twins are always equally fat/thin.
It's not your metabolism that's influenced (although that does play a small role). It's the amount of hunger that is determined by your genes and that influences your build.
So, in order to be thinner than you naturally are, you will have to go against your nature somewhat. Trick your body or change your shape by willpower.
Going against your nature is difficult (men of god can't keep their hands to themselves) but some people can do it.
So the people at opposite sides of the fence:
- I am fat because of my genes.
and
- No, you are fat because you just eat too much.
are both righ.
I do think it's worth a try for fat people to become slimmer. Thinner people do get treated better.
So, good luck. Or better yet "Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try." -- Yoda
Yes, but you still have to use special software to use packet writing instead of your normal Operating System interface for handling files. Did you have to pay for it somehow? Yes you did.
I guess you're one of those people that put up with this unnatural situation.
By the way, DVD-RAM was designed especially for use with PCs, that's why you're able to do good packet writing (as good as Mount Rainier?) but it's not going to be the optical drive standard for PCs. My whole point was about DVD-RW vs. DVD+RW.
Of those two standards, people should choose DVD+RW because it can do what your DVD-RAM drive can do without any special burning software, which is a hack, oh sorry, a kludge.
DVD+RW drives can be used like harddrives/floppy disks. DVD-RW drives will never be able to do that.
DVD+RW drives can position their read/write heads accurately. DVD-RW cannot accurately position their drive heads. This means that individual sectors of the DVD+RW can be written to, erased and replaced by new information in a way similar to a harddisk.
And this means that you can use your DVDs like a HD, THINK ABOUT IT! Why the fnck do computer users have to put up with special CD burning software? It's a major hassle.
It's because CDs were designed to be INCOMPATIBLE with PCs by the music industry!!! Special CD burning software was invented to circumvent that limitation of CDs but the process is still inherently a hack, a hack that gives countless people lots of grief every day.
For example, You have to be absolutely sure what you want to store before you make the big plunge of burning the CD. Made a mistake? throw away your CD (or erase the whole CD) and start over.
If you want to leave your CD open for multisession writing, to add a small file later, you risk losing all your original files if the new session fucks up.
Not to mention that you have to use special software to use a PC storage device!
If we had to put up with HDs acting like CDs no one would use PCs anymore, but CDs have some advantages that outweigh their annoying-as-hell disadvantages.
We are at a crossroads in PC use. Do we choose for the old-fashioned DVD-RW "official" standard or do we choose for the user friendly DVD+RW standard.
Will we have to use stupid DVD burning software just to store files on a medium? Or will we use DVD+RW and just drag and drop, erase and move our files as if we were using a harddrive or MO-drive?
This is one instance where I hope that Apple will not bring about a new PC standard and that Microsoft will win in promoting DVD+RW. DVD+RW drives using the Mount Rainier standard are the future of DVD drives.
For your own convenience and as a matter of principle, make CD+RW the standard.
My my, a strategist giving you free strategic advice hehe. How interesting life online can be no?
:D
Ah yes, the age old question. Do I take revenge or not?
As the strategist has pointed out, warning the third party is not a legitimate reason. The questions that remain are:
1. Do I want to take revenge? Am I that kind of person? How would I look back at my life having done that?
2. Can I take revenge while not being found out? Or, take revenge without any possibility of retaliation by them?
My personal strategy when being wronged is the Pavlov method. As things get worse I increase the Pavlov dosage. If I cannot influence my adversary that way I usually walk away and wait for an opportunity to get back. If the chance never arises then that's too bad but I won't lose much sleep over it. In any case I will make a mental note of not trusting that person again, no matter what, avoiding contact gives me piece of mind, a chance for revenge is a nice perk.
But more often, it never comes to that. I can, almost always, recognise an egoist/egotist as soon as I lay eyes on them, I can even recognise them over the internet. With that knowledge I can head off any attacks that come my way and because I make friends easily, I usually have more political power than my adversary. I also make sure not to be dependant on my adversary, or at least, make it worth his wile to not cross me (usually, egotists are bad at reading other people's minds while they are predictable).
My suggestion. If you decide to take revenge, do it anonimously. Gloating over your downed opponent is a risk that outweighs it's benefits (your feeling of satisfaction). Learn your lesson and don't trust those people again (most altruistic people keep making the same mistake of trusting egotists). And finally, learn to recognise egotists before they try to benefit through you (they will always try if they see their chance) prevention!
This goes for all you good-natured geeks as well! Never trust an egotist! More power to the altruists
* XUL is an easy way to make a GUI for your program.
...?).
* It's cross platform so your GUI will work on other platforms as well, without (much) modification.
* It's designed from the start in a language and format that's supposed to be sent over the internet (use your PC visually from anywhere).
* It's also language independent! You don't need to program in a specific programming language to make your GUI. Ok ok, you need to learn how to write an HTML-like language, but almost any programmer can do that. You're NOT tied to using a specific C++ or Java library to make your GUI. Swing is a cross platform GUI but you need to program Swing in Java.
The big implication seems to be that all programs, written in all languages will be able to standardize their GUIs by using XUL. And I've read that it's easier than all other methods (Gnome, KDE,
In 100 years, people all over the world will probably be using 1 Open Source Graphical Interface (with different underlying Operating Systems). Mozilla's XUL is a first step in that direction.
Some extra functionality is needed, but should be added slowly and sensibly. Using SVG like MacOS X uses Display PDF would be nice. But in the meantime XUL seems to provide enough functionality for most programs. In the end, XUL should take over the GUIs not just for individual programs, but also for the whole OS.
The article stated that XUL doesn't have floating windows withing XUL and that's why it won't take over as OS desktop yet. How about making a floating window just another XUL window inside the main window?
And what about this screenshot?
ByzantineOS
Doesn't that show multiple XUL windows at the same time?
You could also say that she wasn't naked.
:)
I'm unsure if the missing genitals in the movie were censorship or that she simply doesn't need genitals.
In the (uncensored) comic she had sex in cyberspace, on a sailboat, in a tropical setting, with 2 other women
The problem with methanol fuel cells as opposed to Hydrogen fuel cells, as I understand it, is that methanol fuel cells get clogged by carbon deposits.
I don't know if this is fixable, I believe some models of fuel cells try to burn off the carbon with high temperatures.
Hydrogen fuel cells don't get fouled by carbon but the fuel is harder to handle than the methanol liquid.
I think methanol cartridges are the way to go in the short term but they probably don't have the long life span you think of, only hydrogen fuel cells have that.
From the art style, I could recognise:
* Studio that made: Ghost in the Shell, the movie (not sure about this one)
* Studio that made: Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (new version of VHD)
* Square studio that made: Final Fantasy, the movie.
* The American studio that made: Aeon Flux, Sci-Fi animation for BBC's Liquid TV and MTV. (not sure about this one either).
Anyone else have any additions or corrections?
I've used both gestures and pie menus, and pie menus are better.
I installed the pie menus into Mozilla, tried it, then switched them off again because they interfered with my gestures and I like gestures because they were better then drop down menus.
However, after reading some more slashdot comments, it occured to me that pie menus can REPLACE gestures in mozilla completely, with some added benefits.
Pie menus have a built-in manual, gestures have the manual somewhere off-screen. This makes the use of pie menus the same as training in pie menus. The same "manual problem" exists with command line interfaces V.S. Graphical User Interfaces. I have not used all the gestures mozilla had to offer because it was a hassle to bring up the gesture manual every time, try to memorize the gesture, then go back and use that gesture. (forget, repeat and rinse).
Also, I fell into the same trap the drop-down menu users fell into. I was using a system for a while (gestures) and didn't want to change, even though the new system (pie menus) was better. I see a lot of slashdotters complain about IE/windows users doing this.
Please overcome your fear of the new and use pie menus in Mozilla, dead easy to install too. And like the author of the pie menus says: "don't give up after the first 20 seconds".
If you want to have the pie menus show their icon decription texts sooner than normal (descriptions pop up if you hold your mouse in one spot for a second) then check out the "easy to fix!" post above.
Please make your life easier by using pie menus. You can surf with much less hassle than using context menus, making your surfing almost as lazy as watching TV.
I installed the pie menus into Mozilla, tried it, then switched them off again because they interfered with my gestures and I like gestures because they were better then drop down menus.
However, after reading some more slashdot comments, it occured to me that pie menus can REPLACE gestures in mozilla completely, with some added benefits.
Pie menus have a built-in manual, gestures have the manual somewhere off-screen. This makes the use of pie menus the same as training in pie menus. The same "manual problem" exists with command line interfaces V.S. Graphical User Interfaces. I have not used all the gestures mozilla had to offer because it was a hassle to bring up the gesture manual every time, try to memorize the gesture, then go back and use that gesture. (forget, repeat and rinse).
Also, I fell into the same trap the drop-down menu users fell into. I was using a system for a while (gestures) and didn't want to change, even though the new system (pie menus) was better. I see a lot of slashdotters complain about IE/windows users doing this.
Please overcome your fear of the new and use pie menus in Mozilla, dead easy to install too. And like the author of the pie menus says: "don't give up after the first 20 seconds".