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Hardware

Sandia's Floating, Dust-Free, Spinning Heatsink 307

Posted by samzenpus from the cooler-cool dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Sandia Research Laboratory believes it has come up with a much more efficient solution than heatsink-fan cooling a CPU that simply combines the heatsink and fan components into a single unit. What you effectively get is a spinning heatsink. The new design is called the Sandia Cooler. It spins at just 2,000 RPM and sits a thousandth of an inch above the processor. Sandia claim this setup is extremely efficient at drawing heat away from the chip, in the order of 30x more efficient than your typical heatsink-fan setup. The Sandia Cooler works by using a hydrodynamic air bearing. What that means is when it spins up the cooler actually becomes self supporting and floats above the chip (hence the thousandth of an inch clearance). Cool air is drawn down the center of the cooler and then ejected at the edges of the fins taking the heat with it. And as the whole unit spins, you aren't going to get dust build up (ever)."

Comment How to get higher quality content. (Score 1) 183

by stevenh2 (#40032855) Attached to: GMU Prof Teaches How To Falsify Wikipedia — and Get Caught
Some people find it harder to edit Wikipedia. The syntax is plainly confusing. There are many people out there who can help improve content, making it easier could convince them to do it. It's probably being worked on, a WYSIWYG editor complete with templates, citations, etc. would help There could e an advanced mode for those familiar with the syntax.

Submission + - Bioethanol caused 2011 famines (necsi.edu)

Submitted by
tp1024
tp1024 writes: "The New England Complex Systems Institute published a quantitative, predictive model of food prices based on the conversion of grains to ethanol, that can tear apart the effect of speculation (dominant in the 2008 food crisis) and lack of supply. Turning food into fuel reduces supply. While it has long been argued that it was a neglible effect or that speculators are to blame, the evidence has now shifted."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot - The legality of licensing extorsion? 1

Submitted by firegate
firegate writes: We've come to rely on a piece of specialty software that costs $7000 per license, with a 10-year expiration on each license. The software checks licensing at startup against an online activation server, and each copy has a $750 annual maintenance agreement to cover updates and support. With support generally unable to solve issues and no product updates in ages, we chose to let the maintenance agreement lapse. A couple of months later, one copy of the software displayed a licensing conflict at startup. The software vendor refused to correct the issue, which was on their end with the licensing server, until we agreed to pay out the annual maintenance fee — despite the fact that we are only one year into the 10-year license window. Are their actions legal, and is there any recourse in situations where software vendors hold licenses hostage in this manner?

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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

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