Friday, March 18, 2011
Phase change memory goes nano
It seems that there have been some new developments in miniaturising phase change memory devices. This is a good step towards cheap, robust, mass-produced, non-volatile memory. I imagine that there are further optimisations that could be done in an end-user application of the technology. For example, at the moment they are producing the electric field for each individual bit when setting the material's state to crystalline. This could probably be parallelised by having an area of 256-bits heated to release the crystallised elements back to the amorphous state and then all the bits out of those 256 that need to be set to one would be heated while an overall electric field is applied. This way a whole chunk of bits could be programmed all in one go. Alternatively, the erase could be done as described and then with the electric field applied each of the bits could be programmed serially while the field is on using a 16 x 16 grid address, saving on the number of address lines that would have go through the device.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
National Ignition Facility milestone
Nice to see this for a bit of good news at the moment. It's been a while coming but it looks like steady progress is being made towards a solid proof of concept for fusion-based power generation.
A Most Peculiar Adventure
I stumbled across this some time ago while browsing the Freeware database at freeware.org. It's a RogueLike done for the 7-day challenge but using a rotational direction mechanism on a hexagonal board plus some other twists. It has some great sound which really adds to the atmosphere and I just found myself drawn into it.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Yes, the country was going to hell but we kept quiet - For the good of the country!?
I love how the cockroaches start coming out into the light again to tell us how clever and stoic they were, but never a thought for how much they could have done for us if they'd had the guys to say it when it needed to be said. I have a certain sympathy for Brian Lenihan in that he wasn't up to the job and had to carry a gobshite into the bargain, but to claim that his silence was for the good of the country only compounds the rubbish that Cowen was spouting to the end (who, if he had only expended a fraction of the energy and conviction he showed when trying to defend his incompetence into the running of the country, would have done something towards ameliorating the mess we're in at the moment).
Brian Cox - Showbiz 'scientist'
Apparently Brian Cox, the celebrity scientist who presents the BBC's Wonders of the Universe (which I still haven't got around to watching) doesn't think that TV programmes blasting music at the viewer is an issue.
I guess if he had problem distinguishing information from background noise he might have some consideration for those of us who despise having overly loud music forced on us to the detriment of intelligibility. It's the sort of thing that programmes like Brass Eye and This Morning With Richard Not Judy used to satirise to good effect.
I guess if he had problem distinguishing information from background noise he might have some consideration for those of us who despise having overly loud music forced on us to the detriment of intelligibility. It's the sort of thing that programmes like Brass Eye and This Morning With Richard Not Judy used to satirise to good effect.
Will we default? I don't think we have the gumption.
David McWilliams posts yet another interesting take on the current shenanigans affecting our economy at the moment.
I personally feel that if concessions aren't made by those who helped blow the bubble then we should default. Sarkozy and Merkel are desperately trying to look as if they have some kind of authority when it simply isn't the case. Merkel of all people should be have more than a passing awareness of the dangers of inflicting punitive sanctions on a country for mistakes it made.
I would love our government to put a referendum to us later in the year with a few choices:
1. Do what we're told by Europe. Sell off all our assets and end back up as serfs.
2. Offer Europe a take-it-or-leave-it best-effort deal
3. Screw the loan, pull out of the euro, start printing our own currency again and take back control of our economy.
It's especially galling that the very people offering us the loan are offering it to us on the basis of paying them back the money they pumped into the bubble in the first place, making a tidy margin on the interest earned (in effect, doubling their interest on the original loan?)
The other European countries' banks (primarily German and French I think) need to learn that their actions have consequences too and they can't push all the pain onto Paddy last just because they screwed up too.
HOWEVER, I don't think we as a country have the balls or the cop-on to make a stand like that. If we had, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place. You only have to look at the mentality of the people who tried to get 'free' money out of the ATMs when they went haywire in December last year. You can see that the mindset of hoping to get something for nothing with no regard for the consequences still persists and I don't think the lesson will ever be learnt.
You only have to think about why warnings like this still have to be made in 2011 to see what kind of state we're in. No wonder Europe thinks it can ride roughshod over us - It probably can! We could make a start by ending crap like "Arthur's day".
I personally feel that if concessions aren't made by those who helped blow the bubble then we should default. Sarkozy and Merkel are desperately trying to look as if they have some kind of authority when it simply isn't the case. Merkel of all people should be have more than a passing awareness of the dangers of inflicting punitive sanctions on a country for mistakes it made.
I would love our government to put a referendum to us later in the year with a few choices:
1. Do what we're told by Europe. Sell off all our assets and end back up as serfs.
2. Offer Europe a take-it-or-leave-it best-effort deal
3. Screw the loan, pull out of the euro, start printing our own currency again and take back control of our economy.
It's especially galling that the very people offering us the loan are offering it to us on the basis of paying them back the money they pumped into the bubble in the first place, making a tidy margin on the interest earned (in effect, doubling their interest on the original loan?)
The other European countries' banks (primarily German and French I think) need to learn that their actions have consequences too and they can't push all the pain onto Paddy last just because they screwed up too.
HOWEVER, I don't think we as a country have the balls or the cop-on to make a stand like that. If we had, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place. You only have to look at the mentality of the people who tried to get 'free' money out of the ATMs when they went haywire in December last year. You can see that the mindset of hoping to get something for nothing with no regard for the consequences still persists and I don't think the lesson will ever be learnt.
You only have to think about why warnings like this still have to be made in 2011 to see what kind of state we're in. No wonder Europe thinks it can ride roughshod over us - It probably can! We could make a start by ending crap like "Arthur's day".
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