In simplistic terms this works because photons of certain wavelengths are excluded from the space between the plates. This doesn't happen on the outer faces of the plates, and the difference in the vacuum energy inside versus outside leads to an "attracting" force.
This stuff turns out to work in many complex applications with many variables. For instance, it is also used in metallurgy to find super-alloys: See G.H. Johannesson et.al., Physical Review Letters, 24 June 2002
One thing you have to understand about scientists is that if they are any good, then they generally won't care about "newer and better" if what they do now works OK. The goal is science, not cool new software. The time spent migrating code from c to c++ is better spent working on the real problem.
There is no way he is going to move into faculty position from being a sysadmin somewhere. You need a PhD + post-grad experience for this (modulo how crappy the school is).
He could be a department sysadmin, though, and in this case, most of the politics will be irrelevant to his work.
You are right about single drive throughputs, they are way below the interface throughput. In fact, very few ATA drives can actually hit 40 MBps, and those only on the outer tracks.
However, you want your interface to have several times the throughput of a single drive. This is because you can have more than one drive operation ocurring at a time. In other words, you want to be able to pull 30 MBps from one drive while pushing 30 MBps to another drive, while scanning a third drive, etc.
This really helps when you are doing something like RAID0.
At the bottom of the story, a key factoid:
"Timeline: > 20 years"
Holographic memory at 1 TB/cc will give this technique a run for its money on density and will probably be ready first.
My favorite is the one where there is some product information printed out, as if from internal company report or something Then, there are some lines underlined or circled and a note written in the margin somewhere which says something like: "Jim, this is the one I told you about!"
I guess you are supposed to grab this off the incoming queue and think, "AHa! I've intercepted a confidential memo! Now I, too, will reap the benefits of this secret deal!"
These balloons carry multi-million dollar payloads of scientific instruments. Loosing one in the water would be a huge deal, and would be avoided at all costs. There are generally not that many flights per year, so you are completely off base.
As for them coming down on your house, that isn't an issue for these ULDB flights which will go around the polar regions. But for shorter flights, which go out of the southwest (and Canada), it is a real concern during cutdown. Generally it comes down to a fight between NASA voting for safety and the scientists who built the instruments voting to risk it for more data.
Another tidbit: there was a malfunction with a payload called ISOMAX last year. Generally, the payload is cut away from the balloon and it has a parachute to bring it down. The parachute is cut away once the payload is on the ground to prevent it from being dragged, etc... Unfortunately, there was a vessel failure and loss of GPS tracking, and the parachute was cut while the payload was still X thousand feet in the air and the whole thing went splat out in Manitoba. In NASA's book this qualified as a the same level incident as the shuttle explosion. With the splat went many tens of man-years of work and several million dollars.
Slashdot Mirror
He had part of the answer in there: "drop technologies like software patents"
Physics Today and MIT Technology Review are not leading science journals. I may be drunbk, but I am still right... err correct.
I think foo@bar.org might get even more.
Boeing:1
Carmack:0
I am the Pusher Robot: I use radio waves to shove around the blind people.
Hahaha! I am a ghost in their system with my virtually invisible Plastic Pontiac...
"...passing vehicles could be identified by their magnetic signatures."
How long before Glock starts making cars?
Yeah, and look what happened to them!
In simplistic terms this works because photons of certain wavelengths are excluded from the space between the plates. This doesn't happen on the outer faces of the plates, and the difference in the vacuum energy inside versus outside leads to an "attracting" force.
It only works on uncharged plates.
This stuff turns out to work in many complex applications with many variables. For instance, it is also used in metallurgy to find super-alloys: See G.H. Johannesson et.al., Physical Review Letters, 24 June 2002
What the hell is a gibabyte??!?!?!? :)
(Man, you asked for that one!)
How hard would a little editorial oversight be?
You must have enormous sunglasses to cover that new eye!
the same people whose $160,000,000 space probes split in two when their rockets fire.
And what should we call this combination? Perhaps "The Big Sleazy"?
One thing you have to understand about scientists is that if they are any good, then they generally won't care about "newer and better" if what they do now works OK. The goal is science, not cool new software. The time spent migrating code from c to c++ is better spent working on the real problem.
There is no way he is going to move into faculty position from being a sysadmin somewhere. You need a PhD + post-grad experience for this (modulo how crappy the school is).
He could be a department sysadmin, though, and in this case, most of the politics will be irrelevant to his work.
You are right about single drive throughputs, they are way below the interface throughput. In fact, very few ATA drives can actually hit 40 MBps, and those only on the outer tracks.
However, you want your interface to have several times the throughput of a single drive. This is because you can have more than one drive operation ocurring at a time. In other words, you want to be able to pull 30 MBps from one drive while pushing 30 MBps to another drive, while scanning a third drive, etc.
This really helps when you are doing something like RAID0.
Look here, and at the links within:
http://www.hills2.u-net.com/tesla.htm
At the bottom of the story, a key factoid: "Timeline: > 20 years" Holographic memory at 1 TB/cc will give this technique a run for its money on density and will probably be ready first.
My favorite is the one where there is some product information printed out, as if from internal company report or something Then, there are some lines underlined or circled and a note written in the margin somewhere which says something like: "Jim, this is the one I told you about!"
I guess you are supposed to grab this off the incoming queue and think, "AHa! I've intercepted a confidential memo! Now I, too, will reap the benefits of this secret deal!"
I'd say mathematics is a class unto itself. If anything, it has more to do with philosophy (think analytical philosophy) than science.
"Computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes."
And it doesn't have anything to do with science either. Funny, huh?
This is another joke, guys. Ala the DALnet story.
News releases don't come out on Sundays, you know.
These balloons carry multi-million dollar payloads of scientific instruments. Loosing one in the water would be a huge deal, and would be avoided at all costs. There are generally not that many flights per year, so you are completely off base.
As for them coming down on your house, that isn't an issue for these ULDB flights which will go around the polar regions. But for shorter flights, which go out of the southwest (and Canada), it is a real concern during cutdown. Generally it comes down to a fight between NASA voting for safety and the scientists who built the instruments voting to risk it for more data.
Another tidbit: there was a malfunction with a payload called ISOMAX last year. Generally, the payload is cut away from the balloon and it has a parachute to bring it down. The parachute is cut away once the payload is on the ground to prevent it from being dragged, etc... Unfortunately, there was a vessel failure and loss of GPS tracking, and the parachute was cut while the payload was still X thousand feet in the air and the whole thing went splat out in Manitoba. In NASA's book this qualified as a the same level incident as the shuttle explosion. With the splat went many tens of man-years of work and several million dollars.