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2007-05-03 Science & Technology

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Posted by Zenster 2007-05-03 02:11|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Speaking of "Now in production" > FREEREPUBLIC - TENET [60 Minutes interview ]: CIA-INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY BELIEVED SADDAM WOULD HAVE HAD NUCLEAR WEAPON BY 2007-2009.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-05-03 03:26|| 2007-05-03 03:26|| Front Page Top

#2 the plastic's glass reinforcing fibers were emitting alpha particles

Ohmygosh! Zenster! Is that, like, the radioactive alpha particle? You mean all my chips are all, like, radioactive?

Aieeeeeeee!!! [runs screaming down the hall and out of the building]

Posted by Bobby 2007-05-03 07:11|| 2007-05-03 07:11|| Front Page Top

#3 My first Jump Drive was 8 Mb. My friends were amazed. Actually they asked me why I carried it around.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2007-05-03 07:18|| 2007-05-03 07:18|| Front Page Top

#4 Zen,

Last I was paying attenting, Intel and others are deep into X-ray litho and beyond now (still research land)?

The multi-cores of today are effort to maintain Moore's law while the next litho tech leap is made.

However, there is the limit to litho, so what is coming down the line, setting aside the multi-cores?

Posted by bombay">bombay 2007-05-03 09:47|| 2007-05-03 09:47|| Front Page Top

#5 Once again, entertainment is pushing the tech market. Let's hear it for gamers and geeks!

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-05-03 10:27|| 2007-05-03 10:27|| Front Page Top

#6 Damn right Darth. I once heard that p0rn0graphers drove the video tape market and drug dealers drove the cell phone market.

Posted by Spot">Spot 2007-05-03 11:02|| 2007-05-03 11:02|| Front Page Top

#7 What's the max read/write to a block before failure count?

For read replacement of hard drives these chips make sense BUT for write (esp window's stupid registry and hives - now if you had a big block of cmos and windows was smart enough to use it for the registry and hives and only wrote it to flash once in awhile) it can be an application killer.

Posted by 3dc 2007-05-03 11:12|| 2007-05-03 11:12|| Front Page Top

#8 I remember replacing a 10 megabyte drive on a Prime computer. The drive was about one foot by two feet. The service tech asked if anyone wanted it because he really didn't want to hump it out to the car. No takers.

And that was advanced technology.

I once was regaled by one of the first DEC service engineers: A giant two megabyte drive's spindle failed, and it started jumping around, walked sideways, and blocked the computer room door. Then it caught fire. Things got exciting!

Posted by KBK 2007-05-03 11:21|| 2007-05-03 11:21|| Front Page Top

#9 The old IBM drives (I forget the number but late 60s early 70s) had oil based servos. You needed pans under them to collect the leaks...

Posted by 3dc 2007-05-03 12:00|| 2007-05-03 12:00|| Front Page Top

#10 Ah, geek memories...

The first computer I used in a serious way was a microVAX with 300M of disk space. I once went to a computer users' group meeting where we determined that the combined storage space of the campus VAX cluster was THREE HONKIN' GIG! Woo hoo!

Soon they'll be giving that much away in cereal boxes.

Posted by Angie Schultz 2007-05-03 12:23|| 2007-05-03 12:23|| Front Page Top

#11 Oh... and does this mean I can get a 200GB stick of RAM soon?

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-05-03 12:51|| 2007-05-03 12:51|| Front Page Top

#12 This is way past me; I am still the 'can I get a four barrel carb for my Ford? era'
/small child voice: 'what's a carb, Grampa?'

Posted by USN. Ret. 2007-05-03 14:46|| 2007-05-03 14:46|| Front Page Top

#13 Go back to the original article.
16Gb = 16 gigabit = 2 gigabyte

Posted by Enver Phuns6977 2007-05-03 16:24|| 2007-05-03 16:24|| Front Page Top

#14 Go back to the original article.

Sure thing. Now, did you even bother to read the article's first sentence?

16 Gbyte NAND flash memory.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-05-03 16:47|| 2007-05-03 16:47|| Front Page Top

#15 #14: "did you even bother to read the article's first sentence?"

Geez, Zen - aren't you asking a lot of EP?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2007-05-03 17:25|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2007-05-03 17:25|| Front Page Top

#16 Here's a good question: what do you think will be the "next wave" in computer technology?

Right now, I see the biggest lag as being in software. Unlike the new and better hardware, which to a great extent is being designed by computer, software is still being done by teams of people.

This means that it seems to be stuck in development, only incrementally changing in a rather linear manner, instead of by leaps and bounds with multi-dimensional jumps in performance.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-05-03 18:05|| 2007-05-03 18:05|| Front Page Top

#17 "multi-dimensional jumps in performance."

Can it make my word documents go back in time?

Posted by Mark E. 2007-05-03 18:43|| 2007-05-03 18:43|| Front Page Top

#18 Mark E: Programming today is either linear or parallel, a limitation of digital processing. To start with, we are reaching a point with hardware that can actually process analog data.

An analogy of this would be listening to someone play the trumpet as serial processing. Being able to distinguish between eight trumpeters playing at the same time would be parallel processing.

But multi-dimensional processing would be like listening to an orchestra--not only hearing different instruments individually, but operating in concert. Vastly more information is conveyed, but it is organized as a whole.

But programming for this, keeping the analogy, would be the difference between writing an instrument solo and writing a symphony.

Having a shortage of Beethovens in the programming community, would probably mean that we need a program that writes such software.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-05-03 19:36|| 2007-05-03 19:36|| Front Page Top

#19 Mark E "Can it make my word documents go back in time?"

I could have used one of those

Posted by Dan Rather 2007-05-03 20:59|| 2007-05-03 20:59|| Front Page Top

#20 Having a shortage of Beethovens in the programming community, would probably mean that we need a program that writes such software.

Very interesting and apt analogies, 'moose. The biggest problem with having "a program that writes such software", is encapsulated in the old addage, "GIGO" (Garbage In - Garbage Out". Namely, the scribe program is only as good as its originators. Much of what you, very wisely, dance around is related to AI (artificial intelligence) or "machine intelligence". Little short of an AI engine would be required for "listening to an orchestra--not only hearing different instruments individually, but operating in concert".

Perhaps if a conventional engine were given a replete vocabulary and sensing profile of orchestral music characteristics (i.e., adagio, allegro, concerto, sonata, fugue, canon, etc.), it might be able to provide discriminative information, but certainly not the emotional content that symphonic pieces convey. Consider for a moment Beethoven's 6^th "Pastoral" Symphony. Not even the most advanced modern computer could divine or identify the allegro "storm" passage as such, while a human ear can readily discern its tempestuous overtones.

As for advanced "multi-dimensional" processing, I would look towards optical computing. There have already been demonstrated optical processors that can compare two different time frames of the same scene and almost instantly (i.e., at light speed), differentiate even very slight variations between the two. Such capability would prove invaluable in FoF (Friend or Foe) combat indentification, real-time motion detection and so forth.

Extremely nuanced input discrimination still awaits much more refined voice interpretation software and pattern recognition macros. Consider how the human mind is estimated at possessing approximately one terabyte of storage capacity. We now have disk drive arrays with that sort of memory space. Now, consider how the human eye operates. Long before a signal reaches the brain's optical cortex, it has already been subjected to numerous conformality tests. The retina itself has built in networks that test for perpendicularity, roundness, squareness, planarity and numerous other geometric qualities.

Now imagine the immense difficulty in recreating olfactory, aural and tactile inputs for these advanced computing systems. Until so many of these other quasi-human traits are reliably incorporated, or software simulated, in these computing systems, it will be difficult to obtain the "jumps in performance" being sought.

Bulk information processing, especially as it stands, will never surpass human ability at synthesizing disparate sensory inputs.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-05-03 22:11|| 2007-05-03 22:11|| Front Page Top

23:58 RD
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