Category Archives: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

This useful piece of information from Ed Bott about a laptop holder that looks like it does what I wish a laptop holder would do, would have been even more useful about two weeks ago. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, as I was given the totally indulgent gift of one of these!

Following the near-debacle of the previous post (see the comments), Ed Bott makes the following very kind offer:

I promise to chat with Professor Froomkin before I write about complex legal issues here. In exchange, I offer my technical expertise on Windows and Windows security advisories to my favorite law professor the next time he thinks about writing another Windows-related post.

Alas, he didn't send along his email address. But I'm never one to pass up the chance of free advice from a real expert. So, Ed, here's a question that's bugging me:

My home computer runs Win XP, with RAID 1 provided via the ASUS motherboard [for the non-techies, RAID 1 is when your hard disk is mirrored by another identical hard disk]. The machine came from the suppliers with XP on one huge partition, and I'd like to repartition my hard drive(s) into several smaller partitions — not necessarily all for Windows — without losing any data.

I had thought to use partition magic to do the job, but apparently Partition Magic 8.x doesn't' support RAID 1 .

Can it be done? How about if I

1. Turn off RAID mirroring.
2. Use Partition Magic or something else like it.
3. Start RAID mirroring from scratch (will it catch all the partitions? will it faithfully copy all the changes to each one?).

I did a Google search, and all I know now is that I'm not the only one who wants the answer to this one…

Eric Muller's laptop is acting up in a novel way:

Twice today my laptop has said to me, a propos of nothing, “What would you like me to say? You may type anything.”

I haven't the faintest idea why this is happening.

If the voice coming from my computer were John Ashcroft's, it might make some sense, but in fact the voice is that of a British woman.

Virus? Prank? Emergent, lonely AI? Demonic Possession? Surely if it were a mere virus, Google would have something on this by now….

Their website is slashdotted, but Wired's article Inventor Rejoices as TVs Go Dark, is enough to make me want a TV-B-Gone. (spotted via Boing-Boing, natch)

It fits on your keychain, “looks like an automobile remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popular brands first.”

Some people will say it's antisocial, but so is the problem it solves. Wonder how much it costs?

From Slashdot:

Nasa has released a comprehensive world viewing tool that allows you to zoom from planetary resolution down to where you can pick out individual streets. Really cool, but it needs a good internet connection and a decent graphics card. There's all sorts of interesting features, such as the ability to tilt your view for a flight-sim like experience and a data display feature that shows current natural disasters, political boundaries, weather patterns, and landmarks on the Earth's surface, all while providing a dynamic satellite's eye view of the planet.”

Of course it's already Slashdotted.¹

¹ A site is slashdotted when its server dies under the weight of the flash crowd suddenly and unexpectedly directed there due to a link on slashdot.

Even if the slashdot headline was slightly misleading, an optical disc made 51% of paper is still pretty impressive:

TOPPAN PRINTING CO., LTD (TSE: 7911) and Sony Corporation (TSE: 6758) today announce the successful development of a 25GB paper disc based on Blu-ray Disc technology. Details will be announced at the Optical Data Storage 2004 conference to be held from April 18th to April 21st at Monterey, California.

Using the disc-structure of Blu-ray Disc technology, the new paper disc has a total weight that is 51% paper.