Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Not about ATA, about enterprise data storage (Score 2) 192

by MSTCrow5429 (#41265979) Attached to: The Lies Disks and Their Drivers Tell
Windows 7's Device Manager, there is a Policies tab, allowing you to "Enable write caching on the device" and additionally to "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device." The former warns "a power outage or equipment failure might result in data loss or corruption." The latter states "do no select this check box unless the device has a separate power supply that allows the device to flush its buffer in case of power failure." In Windows 7, by default, write-caching is on, and write-cache buffer flush is off. It does note that not all drives allow you to change these settings, possibly indicating that the article's author recommends any modern drive that allows one to manually choose reliability over performance. The major issue with both is that data may reside in primary memory and has not been written to the drive, there's a power failure, and your data disappears.

Comment Not about ATA, about enterprise data storage (Score 4, Informative) 192

by MSTCrow5429 (#41265759) Attached to: The Lies Disks and Their Drivers Tell
1) This article isn't about ATA, ignore it.

2) The article's point on NCQ is that many consumer drives do not implement it correctly, and disable the write cache on the disk and issue cache-flush requests to increase performance, but leading to possible file-system failures if there is a power outage.

I think this article is saying that for the enterprise, buy enterprise drives, not consumer drives. Most consumers use laptops now, so power failure doesn't fit in, and consumers prefer speed over reliability, which is why I've always been stuck using laptops lacking ECC RAM.
Apple

Steve Jobs Reincarnated As a Warrior-Philosopher, Thai Group Says 223

Posted by timothy from the in-death-as-in-life dept.
Velcroman1 writes "When Apple founder Steve Jobs died after a long fight with cancer last year, software engineer Tony Tseung sent an email to a Buddhist group in Thailand to find out what happened to his old boss now that he's no longer of this world. This month, Tseung received his answer. Jobs has been reincarnated as a celestial warrior-philosopher, the Dhammakaya group said in a special television broadcast, and he's living in a mystical glass palace hovering above his old office at Apple's Cupertino, Calif. headquarters."
Medicine

Promising New Drug May Cure Malaria 190

Posted by Soulskill from the take-that-mosquitoes dept.
Diggester writes "Researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa have developed a pill that can wipe out malaria with a single dose. It's a development that could save millions of lives in Africa alone, not to mention the rest of the world. But there's a teensy weensy little hurdle that must first be overcome: human testing. According to National Geographic, 'Clinical tests are scheduled for the end of 2013. If this tablet is approved in coming years, this achievement will surely usher in a new age for science in Africa. It will save millions upon millions of lives on the continent, helping avoid at least 24 percent of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.'"
The Almighty Buck

US Particle Colliders In Need of Funding 133

Posted by samzenpus from the keeping-the-lights-on dept.
DevotedSkeptic writes "When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland seized the world record for the highest-energy collisions in 2010, it also sealed the fate of the leading US particle collider. The Tevatron, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, was closed the following year to save money. Now, physicists at another US physics facility, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, are trying to avoid a similar end. On 13 August, researchers at the ALICE heavy-ion experiment at the LHC at CERN, Europe's particle-physics lab near Geneva, announced that they had created the hottest-ever man-made plasma of quarks and gluons. This eclipsed the record temperature achieved at RHIC two years earlier by 38%, and raised uncomfortable questions about RHIC's future. Tribble still hopes to avoid having to close any of the three facilities. In 2005, he notes, a similar crisis was averted after an advisory committee laid out the dire consequences of flat funding for the future of US nuclear science. In the end, Congress came through with the budgetary increases required. 'What we want to do here is to spell out what will be lost under different budgets,' he says. His committee is planning to hold a final meeting in November, in time to influence the budget requests from US funding agencies for the next fiscal year."
Google

Would You Pay an Internet Broadband Tax? 601

Posted by samzenpus from the show-me-the-money dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Internet Tax Freedom Act? The whole point was to prevent the government from ever taxing the Internet. But that's the proposal from the FCC — and backed by companies like Google, AT&T and Sprint. Would you pay a buck or two extra for fast access — or vote for someone who thinks you should? 'If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice,' said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax."
Earth

A Modest Proposal For Sequestration of CO2 In the Antarctic 243

Posted by timothy from the no-salt-domes-in-sight dept.
First time accepted submitter Alienwise writes "Judith Curry reports a scientific concept of an atmospheric CO2 sequestration plant. It would be based in the Antartic to profit from the cold weather, which would facilitate the creation of CO2 snow — which would then be buried. The plant could be powered by windmills." The lead author has agreed to let Curry link to a copy of the final manuscript, if you'd like to read more.
Politics

A Call For Science Policy Debate Among Presidential Candidates 375

Posted by Soulskill from the because-it-would-be-hilarious dept.
Marissa Fessenden writes about a campaign to get Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to address important scientific issues in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election. ScienceDebate.org and Scientific American have posed a set of questions to the candidates, as well as congressional leaders, and they're rallying support for those questions to be answered before the election. The responses will be published and graded for citizens to see. The questions include topics such as biosecurity, climate change, the safety of food and water supplies, vaccination, and environmentally sustainable energy. This comes at a time when the basic scientific literacy of elected officials is under heavy scrutiny.
Businesses

Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History 398

Posted by samzenpus from the show-me-the-money dept.
derekmead writes "Apple, as of this morning, is valued at $621 billion, thanks to a stock price that spiked at $663.10 per share (and that has risen this afternoon). That finally beats Microsoft, who previously held the record for most valuable company in 1999 at $619 billion. Incredibly, Apple has almost doubled its valuation in the last year, when it topped Exxon-Mobil for most valuable American company with a valuation of $346 billion. It's not the cleanest comparison, but to give you an idea of how much $621 billion actually is, only 23 countries had a GDP higher than that in 2011. So, basically, Apple alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."
The Internet

Where the Candidates Stand On Net Neutrality 420

Posted by samzenpus from the choosing-sides dept.
nmpost writes "Net neutrality is one of the biggest issues with regard to the internet today. At the heart of the issues is how much control ISPs will be allowed to have over their networks. Each candidate has come out with a strong position on the matter, and whoever wins will have a drastic effect on the future of the internet. Barack Obama has been a proponent of net neutrality. Under his watch, the FCC has implemented net neutrality rules. These restrictions did not apply to wireless networks, though; a gaping loophole that will be problematic in the future, as mobile internet is exploding in popularity. Until it is addressed, Obama can only be given a barely passing grade with regard to net neutrality. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has come down on the other side of the issue. The former Massachusetts governor strongly opposes net neutrality. According to Politico, Romney believes net neutrality will restrict ISPs, and that they alone should govern their networks. The governor has stated that he wants as little regulation of the internet as possible."
Businesses

How Will Amazon, Barnes & Noble Survive the iPad Mini? 354

Posted by timothy from the add-rear-facing-cameras-dammit dept.
redletterdave writes "For about a year, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were almost completely alone in the 7-inch tablet market. It was nice while it lasted. The past few months have seen Google and Microsoft unveil their 7-inch tablet offerings — the Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface, respectively — and it looks like Apple is about ready to get into the mini tablet game, too. If Apple releases its first 'iPad Mini' next month, what can Amazon and Barnes & Noble do to keep the Cupertino colossus at bay, as well as the other new competitors in the 7-inch tablet game?"
The Almighty Buck

This Is What Wall Street's Terrifying Robot Invasion Looks Like 443

Posted by Soulskill from the skynet-begins-in-our-stock-markets dept.
pigrabbitbear writes "Given the the endless mind-whirling acronyms, derivatives and structures of the financial markets, we're rarely served with a visualization that so elegantly illustrates the arrival of Wall Street's latest innovation. This is what High Frequency Trading — the official monicker of Wall Street's robot army — looks like, when specially programmed computers make massive bets at lightning speed. Created by Nanex, the GIF charts the rise of HFT trading volumes across all U.S. stock exchanges between 2007 and 2012. The initial murmur, the brewing storm, the final detonation: Not just unsettling, it's terrifying."
Math

Mathematician Predicts Wave of Violence In 2020 397

Posted by Soulskill from the hope-spacex-rocket-rides-are-cheap-by-then dept.
ananyo writes "In a feature that recalls Asimov's Foundation series and 'psychohistory', Nature profiles mathematician Peter Turchin, who says he can see meaningful cycles in history. Worryingly, Turchin predicts a wave of violence in the United States in 2020. Quoting from the piece: 'To Peter Turchin, who studies population dynamics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, the appearance of three peaks of political instability at roughly 50-year intervals is not a coincidence. For the past 15 years, Turchin has been taking the mathematical techniques that once allowed him to track predator-prey cycles in forest ecosystems, and applying them to human history. He has analyzed historical records on economic activity, demographic trends and outbursts of violence in the United States, and has come to the conclusion that a new wave of internal strife is already on its way. The peak should occur in about 2020, he says, and will probably be at least as high as the one in around 1970. 'I hope it won't be as bad as 1870,' he adds." We recently discussed similar research into predicting violence in the short term.

Slashdot Top Deals

If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn

Close