Either your post is stinging satire, or you just swallowed a marketing campaign.
Since I like to assume the best, I'll say it's the former and congratulate you on a job well done.
For a lot of things, Wikipedia really ain't bad, and I think professors recognize, as we do, where it's good and where it isn't. I've used Wikipedia as a reference in some of my mathier engineering courses -- citing it in papers, even -- to good effect. You don't need to worry so much about 'objectivity' when your subject is the quaternions.;-)
>Or maybe this is one reason no such standard exists.
Nah. Magnetic connectors are cool, but nine out of ten (incompatible) chargers are just plain old plugs -- and I doubt anybody ever bought or decided not to buy any laptop (including a Macbook) just because of the charger.
This is actually something I need to deal with coming up. I'm working on a project at university building a hybrid-electric racecar, and I'm going to be using a single-board computer for closed-loop control on some systems, and for data acquisition.
Have you [or anyone else reading] compiled in and used the RTAI extensions? I need to do control at a reliably constant sample rate without any latency. Have an eperience with real-time Linux?
Here's an upper bound as a check on your numbers (not restricting ourselves to a small dictionary of shapes). I'll give away the punchline: My numbers agree with yours, but 256 GB is not possible using printers and paper.
Assumptions: I use your printer linear resolution of 1200 dpi, and assume that adjacent pixels can be resolved at this resolution. I also assume that 256 different colors can be distinguished, as you do, and that the paper we are using has an area of 96.6763 inches^2, also as you do.
Calculation: With a linear resolution of 1200 dpi, one can fit 1440000 dots per square inch (Check!), and so 139213872 dots on a sheet of A4. With 256 colors we can store a number as large as (number_of_colors)^(number_of_dots). So:
256^139213872 = 2^N (where N is the equivalent number of bits)
(2^8)^(139213872) = 2^N (recognizing that 256 = 2^8)
2^(8*139213872) = 2^N
N = 8*139213872 (bits)
(and if we just divide by 8 again to get bytes...)
=> 139213872 bytes
= 139 MB
Discussion: This theoretical upper bound is three orders of magnitude smaller than what is being claimed by the article: It is not possible to store 256 GB on a sheet of A4. My result does however agree with your result in that the inequality (my_result)>(your_result) holds, as it should. Ad it's really not too shabby: Accounting for 8-to-14 conversion for some error correction, we can store slightly under 80 MB in this way.
Different assumptions: If I instead use your 2000 dpi laser printer figure, then I can fit 4000000 dots per square inch, and so 386705200 dots on a sheet of A4 and so almost 386 MB. (Including error correction, one might store 220 MB.) Pretty impressive!
The Absurd: Right now, many modern semiconductor fabs have working 90 nm photolithographic processes. That means that the smallest feature size is 3.54330709×10^(-6) in, and the linear resolution is about 282222 dpi. If all we print is the first metal layer, then a dot can either be "with metal" or "without metal" -- that is, one bit. And on a silicon wafer with an area the same as that of a sheet of A4 paper, we can then fit 7700207603555 dots, or 962 GB. Hard drives are about halfway there!
Re:All fun and games til they mocked MY religion..
on
An Inconvenient Truth
·
· Score: 1
>I know what the show is supposed to be, but how dare they mock my personal moral panic?
Eh. I've never been a particular fan of South Park. In the beginning, it was just little kids cursing -- shock value but not much more; I didn't watch it. Years later, some friends showed me some newer episodes which I thought were better, but I'm not in the habit of watching it.
I don't dispute South Park's right to say what it wants. I'm just exercising my right to be annoyed by it!
I was really pretty pissed off by that episode, actually. It's obviously satire mocking global warming -- but it's just crude name-calling. I know that's what South Park is supposed to be, but I have a problem when it starts distributing the mental tools for people to stick their fingers in their ears and say "na na na!" about something that matters.
It's not about the games. It's more important than that: The Cell points in the direction in which we can expect all computing to move. The Cell has a lot of hype which should be taken with your-daily-recommended-value-of-sodium-chloride, but I think it's true that it represents a legitimate effort by a company to put R&D into a new architecture designed around multiple cores. That matters.
Up front: A gaming machine might be the wrong application for the Cell. A lot of the buzz surrounding the Cell actually has to do with using the processors for scientific computation: The supercomputing market. I'm sure IBM et al didn't design the Cell with that in mind, since it's only a 32-bit chip (and serious scientific computation tends to require more precision than that), but I've heard rumors of a new 64-bit Cell (if IBM didn't scrap that project when they gutted their PowerPC/microprocessor teams of late).
But the Cell represents an important direction in processor design because, frankly, it looks like we can't make the chips much faster: We're already switching logic at microwave frequencies! It used to be that we could keep making transistors smaller and smaller and they'd get faster and faster -- but now, scaling is bottoming out: oxide thicknesses are 4 atoms! Since we can't push the transistors much more (I'm not counting on finFETs to save the day), we need to start paying attention to the architecture. I'm glad that someone is doing something a little innovative.
And you know: Maybe it's ok for games too. It was always my fantasy to do realtime raytracing. How about radiosity or photon mapping at interactive framerates? Those algorithms parallelize pretty well!;-)
>If you know a better way to keep the trains clean, we'd all love to hear it. But until then, you might want to think about whether you're (you in the general sense, not parent) the cause of these policies in the first place. I'm sorry if your INALIENABLE RIGHT to leave your gum on someone's seat is being violated.
You've definitely got a point, and it's hard not to look at properly-functioning countries like Singapore and think, "What's so special about 'rights?'" Naturally, the gut reaction to steep fines for littering is, "Is that really proportional?" but there's a good argument that can be made that, if your laws achieve the social results intended, then they're good laws.
>Isn't Singapore a parliamentary republic? They are not a straight-up democracy (no country is, I guess) but they do chose their leaders by popular votes, don't they?
Yes -- but then, even Cuba holds "elections."
Foreign political analysts and several opposition parties including the Workers' Party of Singapore, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA)have argued that Singapore is a de facto one-party state. Many consider the form of government in Singapore to be closer to authoritarianism such as illiberal democracy or procedural democracy rather than true democracy. Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 140th out of 167 countries in its 2005 Worldwide Press Freedom Index. It has also been alleged that the PAP employs censorship, gerrymandering by the Elections Department and the filing of civil suits against the opposition for libel or slander to impede their success. Several former and present members of the opposition, including Francis Seow, J.B. Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan perceive the Singaporean courts as favourable towards the government and the PAP due to a lack of separation of powers.
>Before everyone flies off the handle here, remember that this is happening in Singapore, who has much more draconian law enforcement than the US or Europe.
Examples:
Corporal punishment: Beating with a bamboo cane, causes permanent scarring.
Homosexuality punishible by death.
Capital punishment also for marijuana use.
Huge fines for eating or drinking in many public places (e.g., subways)
State-controlled media: no freedom of the press.
However, law-abiding Singaporeans, though trouubled by the principle of such punishments, seem pretty darn happy with their prosperous and sqeaky-clean city-state. It is every autocrat's dream. I think that the case of Singapore demonstrates that democracy isn't a prerequisite for a effective government. A also think it's interesting that the West counts Singapore as one of the "good guys" despite its antithetical form of government: It belies that, when American presidents speak of "spreading democracy," they really mean "opening up markets" -- and if your market is open, they don't so much care about democracy itself. (In the case of Singapore, that is nevertheless a good thing, because Singapore's government works.)
I do hope that in time Singapore becomes more liberal on its own. Because many Singaporeans, though reasonably satisfied, do feel the same way, I expect that will happen. Modern, enlightened countries can't keep laws on the books for killing people just because they are gay [or for killing anyone, for that matter (you listening, U.S.?)].
In the U.S., there is such a thing as 'Professional Engineer' certification. If you have it, you can put the initials "P.E." after your name. Without P.E. certification, you cannot advertise independent engineering services, and you cannot sign legal documents (e.g., structural plans). P.E. certification is also required for many municipal and government contracts. However, it is legal for you to do engineering work in a larger company without certification.
To get certified, generally you take the "Fundamentals of Engineering" exam your senior year as an undergraduate at university. If you pass, you are then on the P.E. track, but you are not yet certified: You must work another four(?) years in industry as an engineer, after which you must take the "Principles and Practice of Engineering" exam. If you also pass the second exam, you are a Professional Engineer.
I'd say it's a good idea to get certified. If you're looking for more information, check out the NCEES website.
Slashdot Mirror
>software that needs to be rewritten every time a new type of car is added
You call it poor design; they call it... job security?
Either your post is stinging satire, or you just swallowed a marketing campaign. Since I like to assume the best, I'll say it's the former and congratulate you on a job well done.
For a lot of things, Wikipedia really ain't bad, and I think professors recognize, as we do, where it's good and where it isn't. I've used Wikipedia as a reference in some of my mathier engineering courses -- citing it in papers, even -- to good effect. You don't need to worry so much about 'objectivity' when your subject is the quaternions. ;-)
You put the 'bugger' in de....
>Or maybe this is one reason no such standard exists.
Nah. Magnetic connectors are cool, but nine out of ten (incompatible) chargers are just plain old plugs -- and I doubt anybody ever bought or decided not to buy any laptop (including a Macbook) just because of the charger.
>I may use it, but respect it? Nah...
What's her name?
This is actually something I need to deal with coming up. I'm working on a project at university building a hybrid-electric racecar, and I'm going to be using a single-board computer for closed-loop control on some systems, and for data acquisition.
Have you [or anyone else reading] compiled in and used the RTAI extensions? I need to do control at a reliably constant sample rate without any latency. Have an eperience with real-time Linux?
Man, that's cool.
Now if there were something like that which had wifi and built-in GPS, it would be the most awesome swiss-army-knife of all time.
Granted, this is almost entirely off-topic. But it is damn cool. Thanks for bringing it up!
>You had me at "quantum vortex cores."
Is that what she said later about your pickup line?
Sir, where did you meet her? How do I get there? And does she have a sister?
I was going to go see that movie, until I learned that it wasn't all shot in the first-person. I was disappointed.
Here's an upper bound as a check on your numbers (not restricting ourselves to a small dictionary of shapes). I'll give away the punchline: My numbers agree with yours, but 256 GB is not possible using printers and paper.
Assumptions: I use your printer linear resolution of 1200 dpi, and assume that adjacent pixels can be resolved at this resolution. I also assume that 256 different colors can be distinguished, as you do, and that the paper we are using has an area of 96.6763 inches^2, also as you do.
Calculation: With a linear resolution of 1200 dpi, one can fit 1440000 dots per square inch (Check!), and so 139213872 dots on a sheet of A4. With 256 colors we can store a number as large as (number_of_colors)^(number_of_dots). So:
256^139213872 = 2^N (where N is the equivalent number of bits)
(2^8)^(139213872) = 2^N (recognizing that 256 = 2^8)
2^(8*139213872) = 2^N
N = 8*139213872 (bits)
(and if we just divide by 8 again to get bytes...) => 139213872 bytes = 139 MB
Discussion: This theoretical upper bound is three orders of magnitude smaller than what is being claimed by the article: It is not possible to store 256 GB on a sheet of A4. My result does however agree with your result in that the inequality (my_result)>(your_result) holds, as it should. Ad it's really not too shabby: Accounting for 8-to-14 conversion for some error correction, we can store slightly under 80 MB in this way.
Different assumptions: If I instead use your 2000 dpi laser printer figure, then I can fit 4000000 dots per square inch, and so 386705200 dots on a sheet of A4 and so almost 386 MB. (Including error correction, one might store 220 MB.) Pretty impressive!
The Absurd: Right now, many modern semiconductor fabs have working 90 nm photolithographic processes. That means that the smallest feature size is 3.54330709×10^(-6) in, and the linear resolution is about 282222 dpi. If all we print is the first metal layer, then a dot can either be "with metal" or "without metal" -- that is, one bit. And on a silicon wafer with an area the same as that of a sheet of A4 paper, we can then fit 7700207603555 dots, or 962 GB. Hard drives are about halfway there!
>I know what the show is supposed to be, but how dare they mock my personal moral panic?
Eh. I've never been a particular fan of South Park. In the beginning, it was just little kids cursing -- shock value but not much more; I didn't watch it. Years later, some friends showed me some newer episodes which I thought were better, but I'm not in the habit of watching it.
I don't dispute South Park's right to say what it wants. I'm just exercising my right to be annoyed by it!
Please see this.
I was really pretty pissed off by that episode, actually. It's obviously satire mocking global warming -- but it's just crude name-calling. I know that's what South Park is supposed to be, but I have a problem when it starts distributing the mental tools for people to stick their fingers in their ears and say "na na na!" about something that matters.
>they'd be better off without the awful acting and poor dialogue
>hours of fun, pure sex, no plot
Friday night at University! (for econ. majors)
>Why do people like the cell processor?
It's not about the games. It's more important than that: The Cell points in the direction in which we can expect all computing to move. The Cell has a lot of hype which should be taken with your-daily-recommended-value-of-sodium-chloride, but I think it's true that it represents a legitimate effort by a company to put R&D into a new architecture designed around multiple cores. That matters.
Up front: A gaming machine might be the wrong application for the Cell. A lot of the buzz surrounding the Cell actually has to do with using the processors for scientific computation: The supercomputing market. I'm sure IBM et al didn't design the Cell with that in mind, since it's only a 32-bit chip (and serious scientific computation tends to require more precision than that), but I've heard rumors of a new 64-bit Cell (if IBM didn't scrap that project when they gutted their PowerPC/microprocessor teams of late).
But the Cell represents an important direction in processor design because, frankly, it looks like we can't make the chips much faster: We're already switching logic at microwave frequencies! It used to be that we could keep making transistors smaller and smaller and they'd get faster and faster -- but now, scaling is bottoming out: oxide thicknesses are 4 atoms! Since we can't push the transistors much more (I'm not counting on finFETs to save the day), we need to start paying attention to the architecture. I'm glad that someone is doing something a little innovative.
And you know: Maybe it's ok for games too. It was always my fantasy to do realtime raytracing. How about radiosity or photon mapping at interactive framerates? Those algorithms parallelize pretty well! ;-)
>Just as efficient
Efficiency is a ratio. I'm guessing you're not putting "total number of people killed" in the denominator?
I thought IBM did nVidia's GPUs?
Nice. Nice.
Thanks for the correction.
>If you know a better way to keep the trains clean, we'd all love to hear it. But until then, you might want to think about whether you're (you in the general sense, not parent) the cause of these policies in the first place. I'm sorry if your INALIENABLE RIGHT to leave your gum on someone's seat is being violated.
You've definitely got a point, and it's hard not to look at properly-functioning countries like Singapore and think, "What's so special about 'rights?'" Naturally, the gut reaction to steep fines for littering is, "Is that really proportional?" but there's a good argument that can be made that, if your laws achieve the social results intended, then they're good laws.
>Isn't Singapore a parliamentary republic? They are not a straight-up democracy (no country is, I guess) but they do chose their leaders by popular votes, don't they?
Yes -- but then, even Cuba holds "elections."
from WikipediaMy fear is that the U.S. is heading in the same direction: Democracy in form, but not for any practical purpose, and not in spirit.
>Before everyone flies off the handle here, remember that this is happening in Singapore, who has much more draconian law enforcement than the US or Europe.
Examples:
However, law-abiding Singaporeans, though trouubled by the principle of such punishments, seem pretty darn happy with their prosperous and sqeaky-clean city-state. It is every autocrat's dream. I think that the case of Singapore demonstrates that democracy isn't a prerequisite for a effective government. A also think it's interesting that the West counts Singapore as one of the "good guys" despite its antithetical form of government: It belies that, when American presidents speak of "spreading democracy," they really mean "opening up markets" -- and if your market is open, they don't so much care about democracy itself. (In the case of Singapore, that is nevertheless a good thing, because Singapore's government works.)
I do hope that in time Singapore becomes more liberal on its own. Because many Singaporeans, though reasonably satisfied, do feel the same way, I expect that will happen. Modern, enlightened countries can't keep laws on the books for killing people just because they are gay [or for killing anyone, for that matter (you listening, U.S.?)].
In the U.S., there is such a thing as 'Professional Engineer' certification. If you have it, you can put the initials "P.E." after your name. Without P.E. certification, you cannot advertise independent engineering services, and you cannot sign legal documents (e.g., structural plans). P.E. certification is also required for many municipal and government contracts. However, it is legal for you to do engineering work in a larger company without certification.
To get certified, generally you take the "Fundamentals of Engineering" exam your senior year as an undergraduate at university. If you pass, you are then on the P.E. track, but you are not yet certified: You must work another four(?) years in industry as an engineer, after which you must take the "Principles and Practice of Engineering" exam. If you also pass the second exam, you are a Professional Engineer.
I'd say it's a good idea to get certified. If you're looking for more information, check out the NCEES website.
>If your boss was edsger dijkstra, I'd sue.
Lawsuits? Better watch out: Those are Considered Harmful.