"Sigh. Why don't they teach assembly anymore. It should be a pre-req to learning higher level languages."
They (ie my uni) do teach assembly any more but why not really start with the fundamentals? Only with a solid grounding in semiconductor physics will they fully understand the implications of: print "hello world"
but seriously
I'll agree with you that it's useful to know assembly but it was confusing, particularly for those who were reasonably new to programming.
We were introduced to assembler just before we got to pointers and I think that timing makes more sense than starting from scratch with assembly.
Assembler requires alot of hardware knowledge that isn't necessary for any higher level language and i think that when you start out programming you have enough on your plate without having to worry about memory and registers and interupts.
What's wrong with starting with the nice easy stuff? It's like in maths where they start with counting rather than, say, integration. Just because the first programmers started out with cogs and wheels (or slaves and a drum or whatever they did start with) doesn't mean it's the best way for everyone else to learn.
Games consoles were illegal? Are you sure? When I was there they were selling SNESs in normal highstreet shops. (This was when the SNES was new). I remember this clearly because I was surprised that it was twice the price as it is for a SNES in UK even though they were so much closer to Japan.
You're forgetting that north and south korea aren't on the friendliest of terms. And that S Korea is no longer a 3rd world country. The savings, if any, probably won't be as big as you imagine.
Locality is subjective. To you they may be local by comparison to the US but to them they're still 2 separate countries. Would you consider Canada or Mexico to be local?
the other guy was talking about radiation so i didn't consider that you were talking about other effects.
i'll admit you have a point about the possibility of our star being eaten if quasarifying the galaxy increases it's mass and the velocities of the stars aren't adjusted.
if i remember correctly we are reasonably far away from the middle so unless the increase in mass is major then we may well still be safe. This is purely conjecture as it is beyond the scope of my evolution expertise.
"gamma radiation is vital to evolution..." where did you get that idea? yes gamma radiation causes genetic mutation and yes genetic mutation can create new genes that are advantageous and spreads through the species.
is mutation the only mechanism for evolution? no. without mutation there is still variety from the different ways that parental dna forms offspring(different sperm. different egg). is gamma radiation the only cause of mutation? no. what about bacteria absorbing useful genes from others? no radiation needed. what about errors in copying the dna? what about alpha and beta radiation? xrays? oxidants? carcenogens? monoliths? lightning?
mbrother (739193): "We'd likely be fine with a weak quasar in the Milky Way..."
scapermoya (769847): "even after 10 billion years?"
me: "especially after 10 billion years. ever heard of evolution?"
your comment suggested that you thought that 10 billion years of exposure to the weak quasar would be more hazardous than the immediate threat. I would suggest the opposite is true because of evolution.
after 10 billion years with a weak quasar we would evolve resistance if resistance were needed. the presence of this hypothetical quasar is most dangerous when it first arrives and we're not used to the radiation.
so in this context i think you'll find you need brushing up. my logic is flawless, which is exactly why my army of NS5s will march out and effect a curfue.
Actually windoze media player can do it for you. burn it to a cd and suddenly there's no DRM (on the cd copy)! This works for music bought online. I don't know if wma has an option to disable burning to cd which would be the fatal flaw... but my point is that it is also as 'easy as putting the CD in the drive and pressing the "copy [to] CD" button'...
"When the matter returns to it's original state..."
Why do you think that? You don't turn the antimatter back into matter to extract the energy. You combine it with matter and the two annihilate each other.
Read the "Antimatter as fuel" at this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter. If you're too lazy, I quote "In antimatter-matter collisions, the entire rest mass of the particles is converted to energy."
The process is:
1. convert matter to antimatter (matter + energy in. antimatter + matter with kinetic energy out)
2. store antimatter (kinetic energy wasted)
3. combine antimatter with more matter. the two annihilate each other releasing energy (antimatter + matter in. energy out)
Points to note:
I don't know how the quantities in step 1 balance out. so maybe at this point some energy is converted into matter or antimatter, but certainly not all of it.
You should see that you add matter at 2 stages but end up with only energy.
If the wasted kinetic energy is less than the energy from the antimatter explosion then you do end up with more than you started with.
"The goal is not to turn matter into energy, but to create a very compact and verstile energy store."
I must say that I do agree with that. Unfortunately (for your argument), the goal and what happens don't exactly match.
In summary, somebody who knows stuff would have to say who's right, but your arguement is flawed.
It has a largest variety (although not complete) of alternative input devices to help people with RSI and disabilities. In addition it has guides about RSI, workplace environment etc to help you avoid getting RSI. Nice fancy flash animations and everything.
i personally use a twiddler http://www.handykey.com/site/features.html combined mouse and keybord and find no trouble switching between it and the qwerty keybourd layout. Twiddler makes no claims about it's affects on RSI but one of the testimonials state that his RSI has been cured by switching hands
look at the link. It uses a layout as similar to querty as possible given the key possitioning and they have comissioned studies into RSI and their keyboard. A bit pricy though.
The only trouble i can see is if you touch-type properly (I look at the keys for qwerty but touchtype the twiddler), but I think as long as you remain practiced at both you will fond no trouble switching.
well yes you don't get more mass-energy than you started with.
I don't agree that mass and energy are equivalent. Perhaps theoretically they are since we can change between the two, but in practice we have plenty of matter but our energy is considerably scarcer. In addition, energy is considerably more expensive.
When we supply energy to a particle to convert it to antimatter, we are not storing the energy in the particle. The energy is used to accelerate the particle and slam it into something like xenon or tungsten or whatever. The colision magically does the conversion (i don't know how) and we end up with our antimatter particle which still has loads of kinetic energy. To store it we then have to slow it down. This slowing down is where the energy is wasted. If we could extract that energy or do the conversion at lower speeds the efficiency would be vastly improved.
assuming we did electron to positron conversion as proposed in the article, the slowed down positron has no more energy than when it started as an electron.
i agree that converting matter to antimatter is not the same as converting matter into energy, but what you have missed is that once you have the antimatter, you can combine it with matter to convert the whole lot into energy.
The whole process of converting matter into antimatter then using it to anihilate more matter is a process of converting matter into energy.
Furthermore, you do get out more energy than you put in. the energy you put in is wasted when the positron is slowed down and the usable energy you get out comes entirely from the matter you used.
I agree that CURRENTLY antimatter is effectively an energy storage method, but with a more efficient conversion method we could end up with antimatter-matter being used as an energy source... At least until matter becomes a scarce resource.
Sorry, but what do you mean by "any worthwhile amount" ? do you mean distance from earth? or quantity of people? if you mean the first, i'll agree with that, but if you mean the second i'd say there are a variety of alternatives such as a space elevator, or even the lowly airship, which is currently the cheapest way to reach space.
I heard once that putting a proton and electron together gives this same effect of anhilation and release of energy, is this true? Why can't this be done instead then?
Instead of what? That is the way you do "extract" the energy. The energy is in the form of gamma rays and neutrinos.
you would probably HAVE to make SUVs bigger to fit all the antimatter containment stuff in.
Also, since the energy is released as gamma rays i guess there is a physical limit as to how small the engine could be before it's dangerous to the driver...
Well yes because we don't take energy and make antimatter. We take matter, supply energy and get antimatter. We then mix that antimatter with more matter to release energy so it is entirely reasonable to expect more energy that you put in. The energy we supply is to convert matter to antimatter. Not to create it from scratch.
You need one of those solex thingies they had in the man with the golden gun which can achieve 95% efficiency, power a huge island complex and fit inside a cigarette packet.
The Field-programmable Port Extender (FPX) project.
The Field-programmable Port Extender (FPX) is an open platform that augments a network with reprogrammable hardware. It enables new data-processing hardware to be rapidly developed, prototyped, and deployed over the Internet. A diagram of the FPX combined with the Washington University Gigabit Switch (WUGS) is shown above. This enhanced system enables research, development, and implementation of new hardware-based networking applications, intelligent packet processing, custom data processing, and real-time systems.
for those who don't know what FPGAs are:
very basically, it's a chip with many logic elements (mostly look-up tables). You can configure the contents of the look-up tables and how they connect to each other and other specialist circuits on the chip. The result is that you can configure pretty much any digital ciruit you can design. Obviously the complexity is limited by the chip in use.
The one I linked above has up to 99000 logic elements: capable of simulating millions of gates.
The important thing is that while it's programmable, it's still hardware. It all runs in parallel as if you built the circuit. It's not firmware. It's definately not software.
Finally, once programmed, the memory need not be connected to anything so it can't be hacked without physically opening the box.
Anyway. Back to my main point: What you want can be done with existing tech but I couldn't find any for sale. This isn't to say they don't exist, it's just that they don't tend to advertise how they work. FPGAs are very popular to networking and DSP so I'm sure an FPGA-based firewall is commercially available.
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They (ie my uni) do teach assembly any more but why not really start with the fundamentals? Only with a solid grounding in semiconductor physics will they fully understand the implications of:
print "hello world"
but seriously
I'll agree with you that it's useful to know assembly but it was confusing, particularly for those who were reasonably new to programming.
We were introduced to assembler just before we got to pointers and I think that timing makes more sense than starting from scratch with assembly.
Assembler requires alot of hardware knowledge that isn't necessary for any higher level language and i think that when you start out programming you have enough on your plate without having to worry about memory and registers and interupts.
What's wrong with starting with the nice easy stuff? It's like in maths where they start with counting rather than, say, integration. Just because the first programmers started out with cogs and wheels (or slaves and a drum or whatever they did start with) doesn't mean it's the best way for everyone else to learn.
Games consoles were illegal? Are you sure? When I was there they were selling SNESs in normal highstreet shops. (This was when the SNES was new). I remember this clearly because I was surprised that it was twice the price as it is for a SNES in UK even though they were so much closer to Japan.
Locality is subjective. To you they may be local by comparison to the US but to them they're still 2 separate countries. Would you consider Canada or Mexico to be local?
for the chair/input devices
http://www.datahand.com/products/datachair.htm
the other guy was talking about radiation so i didn't consider that you were talking about other effects.
i'll admit you have a point about the possibility of our star being eaten if quasarifying the galaxy increases it's mass and the velocities of the stars aren't adjusted.
if i remember correctly we are reasonably far away from the middle so unless the increase in mass is major then we may well still be safe. This is purely conjecture as it is beyond the scope of my evolution expertise.
"gamma radiation is vital to evolution..."
where did you get that idea?
yes gamma radiation causes genetic mutation and yes genetic mutation can create new genes that are advantageous and spreads through the species.
is mutation the only mechanism for evolution? no. without mutation there is still variety from the different ways that parental dna forms offspring(different sperm. different egg).
is gamma radiation the only cause of mutation? no.
what about bacteria absorbing useful genes from others? no radiation needed. what about errors in copying the dna? what about alpha and beta radiation? xrays? oxidants? carcenogens? monoliths? lightning?
mbrother (739193): "We'd likely be fine with a weak quasar in the Milky Way..."
scapermoya (769847): "even after 10 billion years?"
me: "especially after 10 billion years. ever heard of evolution?"
your comment suggested that you thought that 10 billion years of exposure to the weak quasar would be more hazardous than the immediate threat. I would suggest the opposite is true because of evolution.
after 10 billion years with a weak quasar we would evolve resistance if resistance were needed. the presence of this hypothetical quasar is most dangerous when it first arrives and we're not used to the radiation.
so in this context i think you'll find you need brushing up. my logic is flawless, which is exactly why my army of NS5s will march out and effect a curfue.
especially after 10 billion years. ever heard of evolution?
well i found it funny and wasn't there...
did you write "eats, shoots and leaves"?
Actually windoze media player can do it for you. burn it to a cd and suddenly there's no DRM (on the cd copy)! This works for music bought online. I don't know if wma has an option to disable burning to cd which would be the fatal flaw... but my point is that it is also as 'easy as putting the CD in the drive and pressing the "copy [to] CD" button'...
Why do you think that? You don't turn the antimatter back into matter to extract the energy. You combine it with matter and the two annihilate each other.
Read the "Antimatter as fuel" at this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter. If you're too lazy, I quote "In antimatter-matter collisions, the entire rest mass of the particles is converted to energy."
The process is:
1. convert matter to antimatter (matter + energy in. antimatter + matter with kinetic energy out)
2. store antimatter (kinetic energy wasted)
3. combine antimatter with more matter. the two annihilate each other releasing energy (antimatter + matter in. energy out)
Points to note:
I don't know how the quantities in step 1 balance out. so maybe at this point some energy is converted into matter or antimatter, but certainly not all of it. You should see that you add matter at 2 stages but end up with only energy.
If the wasted kinetic energy is less than the energy from the antimatter explosion then you do end up with more than you started with.
"The goal is not to turn matter into energy, but to create a very compact and verstile energy store."
I must say that I do agree with that. Unfortunately (for your argument), the goal and what happens don't exactly match.
In summary, somebody who knows stuff would have to say who's right, but your arguement is flawed.
alternative keyboards http://www.keytools-ergonomics.co.uk/keyboards/de
RSI advice http://www.keytools-ergonomics.co.uk/advice/defau
It has a largest variety (although not complete) of alternative input devices to help people with RSI and disabilities. In addition it has guides about RSI, workplace environment etc to help you avoid getting RSI. Nice fancy flash animations and everything.
i personally use a twiddler http://www.handykey.com/site/features.html combined mouse and keybord and find no trouble switching between it and the qwerty keybourd layout. Twiddler makes no claims about it's affects on RSI but one of the testimonials state that his RSI has been cured by switching hands
http://www.datahand.com/products/personal.htm
look at the link. It uses a layout as similar to querty as possible given the key possitioning and they have comissioned studies into RSI and their keyboard. A bit pricy though.
The only trouble i can see is if you touch-type properly (I look at the keys for qwerty but touchtype the twiddler), but I think as long as you remain practiced at both you will fond no trouble switching.
Apologies for my waffling.
I don't agree that mass and energy are equivalent. Perhaps theoretically they are since we can change between the two, but in practice we have plenty of matter but our energy is considerably scarcer. In addition, energy is considerably more expensive.
When we supply energy to a particle to convert it to antimatter, we are not storing the energy in the particle. The energy is used to accelerate the particle and slam it into something like xenon or tungsten or whatever. The colision magically does the conversion (i don't know how) and we end up with our antimatter particle which still has loads of kinetic energy. To store it we then have to slow it down. This slowing down is where the energy is wasted. If we could extract that energy or do the conversion at lower speeds the efficiency would be vastly improved.
assuming we did electron to positron conversion as proposed in the article, the slowed down positron has no more energy than when it started as an electron.
i agree that converting matter to antimatter is not the same as converting matter into energy, but what you have missed is that once you have the antimatter, you can combine it with matter to convert the whole lot into energy.
The whole process of converting matter into antimatter then using it to anihilate more matter is a process of converting matter into energy.
Furthermore, you do get out more energy than you put in. the energy you put in is wasted when the positron is slowed down and the usable energy you get out comes entirely from the matter you used.
I agree that CURRENTLY antimatter is effectively an energy storage method, but with a more efficient conversion method we could end up with antimatter-matter being used as an energy source... At least until matter becomes a scarce resource.
Sorry, but what do you mean by "any worthwhile amount" ? do you mean distance from earth? or quantity of people? if you mean the first, i'll agree with that, but if you mean the second i'd say there are a variety of alternatives such as a space elevator, or even the lowly airship, which is currently the cheapest way to reach space.
you would probably HAVE to make SUVs bigger to fit all the antimatter containment stuff in. Also, since the energy is released as gamma rays i guess there is a physical limit as to how small the engine could be before it's dangerous to the driver...
Well yes because we don't take energy and make antimatter. We take matter, supply energy and get antimatter. We then mix that antimatter with more matter to release energy so it is entirely reasonable to expect more energy that you put in. The energy we supply is to convert matter to antimatter. Not to create it from scratch.
You need one of those solex thingies they had in the man with the golden gun which can achieve 95% efficiency, power a huge island complex and fit inside a cigarette packet.
Well I live in a cave where dvds are analogue... so i guess they'd be avds instead...
probably have buoyancy issues
why shouldn't china have fusion power if they want it?
glad you appreciate it.
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
or if you're rich
http://www.vmware.com/
The Field-programmable Port Extender (FPX) project.
http://www.arl.wustl.edu/projects/fpx/Xilinx Virtex 2 pro FPGA with gigE support. http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_prodcat_landingpage .jsp?title=Virtex-II+Pro+FPGAs
for those who don't know what FPGAs are: very basically, it's a chip with many logic elements (mostly look-up tables). You can configure the contents of the look-up tables and how they connect to each other and other specialist circuits on the chip. The result is that you can configure pretty much any digital ciruit you can design. Obviously the complexity is limited by the chip in use.
The one I linked above has up to 99000 logic elements: capable of simulating millions of gates.
The important thing is that while it's programmable, it's still hardware. It all runs in parallel as if you built the circuit. It's not firmware. It's definately not software.
Finally, once programmed, the memory need not be connected to anything so it can't be hacked without physically opening the box.
Anyway. Back to my main point: What you want can be done with existing tech but I couldn't find any for sale. This isn't to say they don't exist, it's just that they don't tend to advertise how they work. FPGAs are very popular to networking and DSP so I'm sure an FPGA-based firewall is commercially available.
Sorry for babbling.
i normally don't notice the spaces, which is always annoying.