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User: elrond1999

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  1. Re:Neat and not vaporware at all. Explanation: on AMD's Piledriver To Hit 4GHz+ With Resonant Clock Mesh · · Score: 1

    You are missing one point of the clock mesh. The mesh is only the middle part of the clock tree. This part serves to spread the clock globally on a single metal mesh with zero skew. Then the lower part of the clock tree is built normally and can be gated. This means that you can certainly turn off the clock of quiescent sections of the chip. You will still have to oscillate the mesh, but the registers and detailed distribution can be turned off.

    Also you can probably run this mesh off the resonant frequency, but at a power disadvantage. Or you could dynamically vary the L if that was possible.

  2. Pictures! on 3D Printers To Build Houses · · Score: 1

    Why is it that interesting stories like this never carry pictures!

    Here are some at least:
    http://www.contourcrafting.org/

  3. Re:Windows on How Many Windows? · · Score: 1

    Well, where I live we use electricity to warm our house. So I find those 500W my computer can burn a great source of heating in the winter. So My BOINC is only running when its cold outside to heat my office :)

  4. Re:Does size matter? on For AMD Success Means Problems · · Score: 1

    Although moving to 65nm probably would do AMD a lot of good, there is no point in going there if AMD hasnt worked out all the flaws in their 65nm process. 65nm is probably means more cost per wafer, longer design time and worse yield.

  5. Re:Heaven? on Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor · · Score: 1

    I agree that ATI and nVidia should open up their spec, at least enough for someone to implement an independent driver. However can you fathom what a momumental amount of work that would give ATI? Not only do you have to release a somewhat complete and updated spec, it has to be free from any NDA / patentable information. So you can't just release whatever you have inhouse, you have to produce a separate document. These ducuments must also be updated with new chips, new revisions etc..

    So given the man years you have to invest in this, what would they gain from it? Respect from the Linux gaming comunity? What does that mean in $ and ?

  6. Re:direct download links on Windows Vista Beta 2 Available for Download · · Score: 1
  7. Re:There's a point to be made on Pact Not to Use Image Constraint Token Until 2010? · · Score: 1
    Yep that would work! However if you bother to actually read the webpage you will see that:

    If you have authorized five computers, a button labeled "Deauthorize All" will appear in your Account Information screen. This button will deauthorize all computers associated with your account. You can then reauthorize up to 5 computers. Note: You can only use this feature once a year.


    So your repeat cycle is limited to once per year. So unless you are really patient I dont think its a viable option :D
  8. /random 100 on The .EU Landrush Fiasco · · Score: 1

    /random 100

    Problem solved!

  9. BitTorrent on Amazon's New Storage Service · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Built to be flexible so that protocol or functional layers can easily be added. Default download protocol is HTTP. A BitTorrent (TM) protocol interface is provided to lower costs for high-scale distribution. Additional interfaces will be added in the future.


    Amazon supports BitTorrent for the storage. Does that mean they run the tracker? Interesting way to save on transfer fees that :)
  10. Here: on Crab Nebula by Hubble · · Score: 3, Informative
  11. Re:I have to totally disagree with this article. on Doom Forecasted for World of Warcraft · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Look, if you find the quests boring, cant stand to Party with anyone else and dont engage in Guild / Raid, then yes I can you get bored rather quick. Wow shouldn't be about racing to lvl 60 in a long solo grind. If you don't enjoy the journey to the higher levels then you won't stay very long.

    About the Qs being repetitive, yes on the surface they are. However if you actually bother to read them and not just skim to the objectives/rewards, you will get some entertaining stories. I think Blizzard made the Qs like this so that they are easy to understand, if they were more diverse the chat channels would flood with questions and thottbot would crash..

  12. See the demos here. on Duke Nukem Forever Physics Impress · · Score: 5, Informative
  13. Re:Harmony Remote -- Highly recommended on Recommended Programmable Remote Controls? · · Score: 1

    Definately, the harmony is an Exelent remote. Forget Macros, States is the way to go :)

    When I turn on my tv, it turns on the tv and surround, selects the correct inputs (if they are not already in the correct possition) and select the correct Aspect mode. Thats a lot of keypressing saved.

    Also the customer support is the best I've ever seen . They actually send you a mail and ask to help you if they detect that you are having trouble setting up the remote...

  14. How about offering a game download? on Videogame Piracy - Is a Stricter Approach Necessary? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What annoys me is that its often easier to get a download a pirated game than buying it in a shop.

    Pirate game:
    1. Game was released today!
    2. Download for an hour
    3. Play :)

    Instant gratification.

    Legit game:
    1. Find online shop with game.
    2. Wait for shop to have it in stock.
    3. Agonize that other people are playing this cool game while ytou wait.
    4. Wait for the package
    5. Open package, rip CD, toss rest of crappy cardboard away.
    6. Play!

    Now what if the developer had a Steam like download avaliable? Preferably before the game was in the store? Then it would be as easyer to download a legit game than downloading a pirate game...

  15. Re:Svalbard on Reading Slashdot From Strange Locations · · Score: 1

    Well of course they do. Svalbard is the best connected part of Norway. Actually every house has a free multi megabit VDSL connection. This is then connected through a very long subsea cable to mainland Norway.. Now why would they do that for 1500 ppl? Well they have a very large Satelite download station that requires it and the residents are just tagging along for free :) More info here: Norway to wire North Pole

  16. Re:europe on Where's Your 'D-Spot?' · · Score: 3, Informative

    BS, Norway does NOT have a higher population density than the US, and Norway is NOT flat :) It was not very cheap for the two carriers here to provide near 100% coverage in populated areas. Calls are certainly not dropped in any of the big cities, not even indoors.. But then this may be caused by strong regulation that has untill recently forbidden any carriers from starting unless they could cover a very large percentage of the population..

  17. Yes they did.. on Rendering Processors: AR350 vs AMD vs P4? · · Score: 5, Informative
    "The AR350 uses a 0.22-micron line size and is delivered in an SFBGA package" 0.22 is pretty decent. And its a programmable processor, so its more like an ASIP than an ASIC.
    The Ray Tracing Graphics Processor The AR350 is the company's second-generation ray tracing processor. The AR350 features a memory manager to access local DRAM, an on-chip data cache to reduce the bandwidth required of the host bus and two 3D rendering cores. Each rendering core performs both the geometry and the shading operations of the ray tracing algorithm. The geometry co-processor of each core is capable of performing a ray / triangle intersection calculation every processor cycle. The shading co-processor is completely end-user programmable through the RenderMan Shading Language. A simple interface between AR350s produces a scaleable architecture with good processor linearity. The AR350 uses a 0.22-micron line size and is delivered in an SFBGA package for integration into the heart of ART VPS rendering devices. The AR350 delivers four times the rendering speed of the AR250. The first ray tracing chip - the AR250 - represented a new class of graphics processor - the photorealistic rendering chip. Unlike other graphics chips that use simple 'painter' algorithms to generate images, ART's processors use the physically-based ray tracing algorithm to generate images of stunning quality. The AR250 was the first processor to use ART's dedicated ray tracing architecture, giving unrivaled rendering performance.
  18. Re:Optics on Moore's Law Limits Pushed Back Again · · Score: 2

    Wavelength IS important, but still they manage to make features that are smaller than the wavelength they are using :) They use inferomerty to etch tiny channels with large hammers..

    Eg if you want to etch a cross:
    |
    --|--
    |

    You make a litography mask somewhat like this:
    |||
    ==.==
    |||

    But the price of a mask set with this tech is very high :)

  19. Freenet Rulez! on Freenet Project More Stable, In Need · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've not installed Freenet in a year, but it seems from the mailinglist that the activity is increasing.

  20. Information on the MER hardware. on Mars Rover Spirit Back Online · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ive been unable to find any hard information on the design of the MER memory systems. If anyone can point me to a technical brief id be very happy.

    From what ive pieced together the MER system is something like this:

    One RAD6000 powerpc cpu.
    Connected via probably compact pci to 128 mb of ecc sdram.
    256 mb of flash. No info on what make of flash, but likely Intel since they are the biggest. There was some info from the press conference that there are actually two flash chips and that the flight software is redundantly stored on each. So does this mean that there is actually 128mb of redundant flash? Also it was said that they had problems even with the redundancy, could they possibly have overwritten something? We all know that even a redundant raid does not stop filesystem corruption.

    No information on how the flash is connected, parallell / serial? How the redundancy works?

    Btw, I guess flash is rather radiation hard since they require 10 - 20V to erase / write.

  21. Posting via IPv6 on The State of IPv6 · · Score: 1

    I've got my own little ipv6 /64 subnet running here :)

    Not much to do with it but if I really want to I can post to Slashdot.org via www.sixxs.org.

    Slashdot via ipv6

  22. Re:What happened to Beagle? on Mars Rover Rolls And Turns · · Score: 1

    Ok, I'll eat some humble pie. But did the Beagle people actually have an opportunity to adjust the parachute? If I remember they deployed it from Mars Express long before it landed. Did they have contact with Beagle after it was deployed?

    With the MER they were in direct contact with the lander as it was entering the atmosphere and almost all the time thruout the landing. With Beagle I don't think they did..

  23. Re:Question.. on Mars Rover Rolls And Turns · · Score: 1

    Yepp.. Those dark patches has been confirmed by nasa as places where the airbags have rolled. They are reconstructing exactly how the over came to rest after descent and will be releasing an animation next week. (At least thats what they promised yesterday)

    BTW the rover bounced 28 times before coming to rest. That must have looked pretty stupid from a martian point of view. Suddenly someone just drops a huge bouncing ball on your planet..

  24. Re:What happened to Beagle? on Mars Rover Rolls And Turns · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, thats flat out wrong. The atmosphere was not much thinner that expected. There was however weather when they landed. The end of the recent dust storm seems to have caused an updraft as they landed, this caused the computers to deploy the chute lower than expected, but well within parameters. There was nothing wrong with the atmosphere models that Nasa used, and the weather was expected. In fact if you have watched the Nasa press conferences you would have seen that the temperature models of the atmosphere was exactly as predicted.

    Spirit did however use rockets to slow the descent horizontaly and verticaly just before the rover was released from the chutes. (See the Spirit animation for a cool view of that) If they hadn't used the rockets the airbag might have popped and Spirit would certainly have bounced and rolled much farther. I don't know if Beagle used any retrorockets, and if they didn't Beagle might have skipped and bounced into a crater.

  25. Re:Important Question on Inner Workings of High-Gain Mars Rover Antennas? · · Score: 1

    I don't think they need encryption for the transmissions to the rover. First you need the right frequency, then you have to know exactly where (and when) to aim the signal, then figure out the exact command codes and finaly get your hands on a couple of BIG dishes with megawatt transmission powers like the Deep Space Network.