One bourbon, one scotch, and one mav

See here (simpler), here (more complete) Edit: Even better link

The really short version: Back in the 70s, a really smart guy theorized that there were four basic electronic components: resistors, capacitors, inductors, and another thingy called a memristor, a device that stores the previous value put into it. The math proved that this gadget should exist, but nobody knew how to make one.

Until the early 90s, when some other really smart dudes at HP figured it out.

Today their article was published in the latest issue of Nature, describing the memristors they were able to construct. They’re made of titanium oxide, and they’re 15 nanometers wide. (Hint: That’s really small.)

The simplest of all possibilities for these things is that they could make a solid-state, long term storage device that stores data when it’s powered down (like a hard drive) but has very fast access (like RAM.) Think about that for a second. Try and visualize the concepts behind creating a program with one single data store. No limitations on what you can store in memory. No worrying about updating what’s being written to disk. No memory requirement printed on the side of the box.

This is very likely the revolution of our time. No joke. If they can make these things work in mass production it will cause a dramatic change in the way operating systems work. Computing will never be the same ever again. It could be sanely argued that it will be the most fundamental change to computing since the invention of the transistor.

If any of the two or three or so of you who actually read this have access to a college library, see if you can get the article in question from Nature. I would really, really love to read it. The name of the article is “Electronics: The fourth element,” by James M. Tour & Tao He, Nature, vol. 453, num. 7191.

My windshield fucking cracked today when I went to the car wash. Dammit.

My insurance company should cover it, since I’ve got ridiculous coverage. But still. Dammit.

Also Server 2008 licensing s-u-c-k-s sucks. It’d be easier to implement an open-source or single-payer OS if only so you don’t have to retain fucking legal staff to decipher the archaic and arcane licensing schema Microsoft has cooked up for this one.

It’s been a while since I updated but today’s events were so outrageous as to require in-depth description beyond what my twitter feed could possibly describe.

Today was the big day that Ryan and I, being the first two to hurriedly jump on the bandwagon, got to go to the Microsoft Heroes Happen Here (or {here}) server 2008 launch event. These events are usually a bunch of silly BS followed up with a minimal amount of free shit. It’s a good excuse to get our employer to pay us for a day of work when instead all we really did was go somewhere and listen to somebody talk up the training material for Server 2008.

(Admittedly, this guy was way funnier than the training material, but we’ll get to that.)

Ryan was feeling pretty shitty (he had his wisdom teeth out last Friday, and that’s a real bitch) so I drove. We took the STi equipped with my new Internet tires (not nearly as noisy, or as bumpy, but it’s the STi, so it’s not like a comfort ride) to Boise. We got to the Boise Centre without event. We went into the building, Ryan went to the reg desk and I went to the can. When I finally got to the reg desk, Ryan said something about us being in the right place because my name was all over. I curiously mumbled “Huh?” and then realized my name was literally all over - on every computer and a few other places, signs that said “The winner of today’s sweepstakes is [mav!]”

Short version: I won an Xbox 360 Elite and some other shit. I don’t know what the games are because when I walked up to the desk & filled out the form I didn’t even know games were on the table. They said it’d be mailed to me but didn’t bother to tell me how long that would take. Hard to complain, really. I don’t know whether I’m gonna keep it or sell it. Anybody interested? Let me know.

We also got a neato Microsoft lunchbox containing snacks - really damn good ones. Contents of mine: one bottle fruit juice, grape; one bottle water; one Hershey bar with almonds; one granola bar; one muffin, cream cheese; one apple; one orange. It was really neato. They also gave us a software package containing a bunch of development shit I couldn’t care less about, a trial version of Server 2008, and a full fuckin’ version of Vista Ultimate. No kidding.

Plus we got to see Hyper-V and watch our presentation guy make some really, really obvious mistakes.

All in all, I’d say it was a damned good day.

Hm.

I don’t think I really give a shit. So fuck it.