There was work done by Hamurgen and Fitch at DEC where they experimented with using heat pipe technology to cool chips way back in 1992.
They needed a liquid with a high heat of vaporization, and a boiling point in the 30-50C range. They tried mixtures of water and alcohol, but settled on just water, pumped down to 1/3 ATM.
They went looking through the "steam tables" and found that nobody had ever looked at the sub-atmospheric range of pressures, and had to derive all of the thermodynamic properties themselves.
It was pretty quiet, but made a funny little 'tick' noise right when it started boiling.
More details at http://www.research.compaq.com/wrl/techreports/abs tracts/92.1.html
and http://www.research.compaq.com/wrl/techreports/abs tracts/90.9.html
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world.
And if you upstairs neighbors happen to be the subject of one of those rumors, too bad. You'll just be another drug^H^H^H^H... er I mean terrorist related related death.
What about guidance systems? The thrust will come out at the top of the rocket. An early American pioneer Robert Goddard did the same thing with his early test rockets. The rocket should "hang down" from the thrust like a pendulum. Since he is going straight up in the middle of a large desert there is no need for precise guidance.
Although Goddard's initial experiments had the propulsion nozzle in front, he quickly came to the conclusion that the nozzle placement has nothing to do with stability. This led him to develop gyroscopic control systems and to experiment with using deflector vanes in the exhaust to stabilize the flight through active feedback.
As any model rocket enthusiast can tell you, if you are going to make do with a passive control system, the important factor is to keep the center of pressure (CP) behind the center of gravity(CG). Objects in flight tend to rotate around the CG. The CP is roughly the sum of the aerodynamic forces. Adding fins to the tail of a rocket or airplane moves the CP aft, increasing the stability.
If you keep the CP behind the CG, a small perturbation in flight angle will tend to get cancelled out. This is the effect that makes a dart fly straight.
If the CP is in front of the CG, perturbations tend to increase and the system becomes unstable. If you try to throw a playing card without spinning it, it will flip end over end, for that particular reason: once it has turned slightly to the side, the aerodynamic forces will tend to increase the angle of attack.
On his web page there appears to be a small capsule with the engines that is set up so it is "towing" a fuel tank. I have no idea where the CG is going to end up, but I expect the CP to be pretty close to the front.
Judging by his assertion that nozzle location will make it stable, I hope that someone with a clue reviews his design for him before he spends too much money on his Kevorkian device
If he does try to fly it, I want to be far far away. -Jeff Bell
It isn't quicken, but its close enough for most of us.
Gnucash simply doesn't have all the features users are looking for
Neither does Quicken.
There were lots of things for which I still have to use a spreadsheet; Quicken doesn't do them for me. For instance, keeping track of accrued interest on loans where I'm payed ahead. I'd also like it to enter a scheduled transaction with an amount equal to the balance on my creditcard account as of the 20th of that month, but transactions can only haved fixed values in Quicken.
One reason that I'm thinking of changing to GnuCash is so that I can possibly add the features that I would like to have.
I'm surprized that none of the viruses have tried this yet, but what would happen if the virus first popped up a dialog box with a lot of legalese at the beginning, but a dozen screenfulls down includes as terms:
...
19. I understand that this software may send copies of itself to everyone in my address book.
20. The authors of this software shall not be held responsible for any data that may be lost.
Certainly a very large portion of the population would click on the [ACCEPT] button as a matter of reflex. It wouldn't even make it out of the brain stem.
Would the author of this virus be subject to prosecution?
Would they be safer in states that have passed UCITA?
This has to be the most misleading slashdot story yet.
The web page in question tells you how to bend some copper and attach it to your SDRAM so that yes, it looks a little bit like an RDRAM if you squint a bit and the light is not so good.
Forget the RDRAM.vs. SDRAM debates. This is a non-story. It just doesn't deliver, even if you did want to do the conversion.
Is there anyway to down-moderate the base article off the front page?
I must change my estimate to 10000 nodes (subtracting some just for basic
infrastructure)...
My god, with that kind of power you could crack/render/spindle/mutilate anything in seconds.
For weather prediction you need far more than basic infrastructure. It's a problem that requires LOTS of communication, and your basic ethernet style connectivity just isn't going to cut it. I would be interested to find out what portion of the cost is attributed to communication, but I wouldn't be surprized if it were most of the money.
In contrast, cracking requires very little communication.
Slashdot Mirror
There was work done by Hamurgen and Fitch at DEC where they experimented with using heat pipe technology to cool chips way back in 1992.
s tracts/92.1.html
s tracts/90.9.html
They needed a liquid with a high heat of vaporization, and a boiling point in the 30-50C range. They tried mixtures of water and alcohol, but settled on just water, pumped down to 1/3 ATM.
They went looking through the "steam tables" and found that nobody had ever looked at the sub-atmospheric range of pressures, and had to derive all of the thermodynamic properties themselves.
It was pretty quiet, but made a funny little 'tick' noise right when it started boiling.
More details at http://www.research.compaq.com/wrl/techreports/ab
and http://www.research.compaq.com/wrl/techreports/ab
-Jeff Bell
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world.
And if you upstairs neighbors happen to be the subject of one of those rumors, too bad. You'll just be another drug^H^H^H^H... er I mean terrorist related related death.
On his web page he writes:
What about guidance systems? The thrust will come out at the top of the rocket. An early American pioneer Robert Goddard did the same thing with his early test rockets. The rocket should "hang down" from the thrust like a pendulum. Since he is going straight up in the middle of a large desert there is no need for precise guidance.
Although Goddard's initial experiments had the propulsion nozzle in front, he quickly came to the conclusion that the nozzle placement has nothing to do with stability. This led him to develop gyroscopic control systems and to experiment with using deflector vanes in the exhaust to stabilize the flight through active feedback.
As any model rocket enthusiast can tell you, if you are going to make do with a passive control system, the important factor is to keep the center of pressure (CP) behind the center of gravity(CG). Objects in flight tend to rotate around the CG. The CP is roughly the sum of the aerodynamic forces. Adding fins to the tail of a rocket or airplane moves the CP aft, increasing the stability.
If you keep the CP behind the CG, a small perturbation in flight angle will tend to get cancelled out. This is the effect that makes a dart fly straight.
If the CP is in front of the CG, perturbations tend to increase and the system becomes unstable. If you try to throw a playing card without spinning it, it will flip end over end, for that particular reason: once it has turned slightly to the side, the aerodynamic forces will tend to increase the angle of attack.
On his web page there appears to be a small capsule with the engines that is set up so it is "towing" a fuel tank. I have no idea where the CG is going to end up, but I expect the CP to be pretty close to the front.
Judging by his assertion that nozzle location will make it stable, I hope that someone with a clue reviews his design for him before he spends too much money on his Kevorkian device
If he does try to fly it, I want to be far far away. -Jeff Bell
Wouldn't dereferencing a pointer count too?
Gnucash simply doesn't have all the features users are looking for
Neither does Quicken.
There were lots of things for which I still have to use a spreadsheet; Quicken doesn't do them for me. For instance, keeping track of accrued interest on loans where I'm payed ahead. I'd also like it to enter a scheduled transaction with an amount equal to the balance on my creditcard account as of the 20th of that month, but transactions can only haved fixed values in Quicken.
One reason that I'm thinking of changing to GnuCash is so that I can possibly add the features that I would like to have.
-Jeff Bell
19. I understand that this software may send copies of itself to everyone in my address book.
20. The authors of this software shall not be held responsible for any data that may be lost.
Certainly a very large portion of the population would click on the [ACCEPT] button as a matter of reflex. It wouldn't even make it out of the brain stem.
Would the author of this virus be subject to prosecution?
Would they be safer in states that have passed UCITA?
-Jeff Bell
The web page in question tells you how to bend some copper and attach it to your SDRAM so that yes, it looks a little bit like an RDRAM if you squint a bit and the light is not so good.
Forget the RDRAM .vs. SDRAM debates. This is a non-story. It just doesn't deliver, even if you did want to do the conversion.
Is there anyway to down-moderate the base article off the front page?
For weather prediction you need far more than basic infrastructure. It's a problem that requires LOTS of communication, and your basic ethernet style connectivity just isn't going to cut it. I would be interested to find out what portion of the cost is attributed to communication, but I wouldn't be surprized if it were most of the money.
In contrast, cracking requires very little communication.