Radschool Association Magazine - Vol 31Page 10

Privacy Policy  |  Editorial Policy  |  Join the Association  |  List of Members  |  Contact us  |  Index  |  Links  |  Print this page

Chilean Earthquake.

The recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake, which occurred off the coast of Chile on the 27^th February 27, 2010, caused considerable damage to buildings and infrastructure. It killed in excess of 400 people and displaced more than a million. You can read some very good info on the quake HERE.

It also caused a lot of expensive damage to some vital aircraft bits…….

And Rod Faux says, The all important question is;

“Who has the keys???”

Earth is the insane asylum for the entire universe.

Peter Holmes from Tassie sent us this, he reckons it has to be the best video of 2009 – he doesn’t know how it possibly could have been shot but he believes the cameraman is from France. 

Have a look HERE

Transistors.

Once upon a time, really not all that long ago, people used vacuum tubes in place of integrated circuits. Vacuum tubes came in many forms and were used as diodes, amplifiers, and/or switches.

A diode allows electricity to flow in one direction but not the other. Solid state diodes (crystal diodes) were made in the late 1800's, even before vacuum tubes were popular. When I was a young bloke, I made a crystal set with some old radio parts and a diode that I bought. It didn't even need a battery, and it worked.

Triodes and other multi –ode vacuum tubes are not as simple as diodes. They work, more or less, like a relay or an amplifier. They take a small input and produce a large output. More specifically, a small change in the input voltage will make a large change in the output voltage. This makes them useful for switching, for use in computers and electric controllers, and in amplifiers, and in radio transmitters and stereos. As long as you have enough of them you can do lots of things.

In 1947, some people at Bell Labs in the US made a transistor. This was pretty impressive, because it had never been done before. It did the job of a vacuum tube, but it was smaller, took a lot less electricity to operate, and would eventually be a lot less expensive to make. Everyone was happy because finally they could make a desk-sized computer: Since then, transistors have been made smaller and faster, packed together into integrated circuits, to the point that my new lap top computer has a CPU which has 731 million transistors in a single chip. It has 1136 wires coming from the chip to the rest of the computer.

Last year, a group of researchers from Korea, U.S., and Germany built the world’s first functional molecular transistor - a transistor made of a single molecule – see HERE. This new molecular transistor was actually built, "wired," and tested. Back in 2004, Dr Werner Hofer, from the University of Liverpool’s Surface Science department proved that a single molecule could power electric circuits (see HERE), but now it’s been done.

That’s pretty impressive stuff and although molecular computers are still some distance in the future, they do look possible, and might even be practical.

Microsoft’s Genuine Advantage.

Microsoft Genuine Advantage programs are Microsoft’s way of determining whether or not the copy of the software you are using is genuine and not a pirated copy.

When you purchase Microsoft software, you have 30 days in which you must validate the program and you do this by entering the 25 character product key that comes with the software into the activation form and then sending this via the internet off to Microsoft. What you probably don’t realise is you also send off the individual computer ID code associated with your computer as well. All this info goes into Microsoft’s data base where they can match that piece of software, through the product key, (which is really a serial number) with your computer’s ID so when you try and install that software on your mate’s computer Mr Gates knows it’s already on your computer so he won’t allow you to give it to your mate. This stops piracy.

All very well, BUT!!!!

Every time you log onto the internet, Mr Gates now knows that his Windows software, with a product key like SDE3W WR34R C2DR3 2G3SA 3PSWA is on your computer which has a code like 102.32.123.1. Bill says he needs this info so he can stop you using the software if it's pirated and also to update your software when and if needed. But, if Bill, for some reason, took a severe disliking to you, he could just shut down your computer by limiting the functionality of your version of Windows.

We wonder what will happen when Chinese or Korean or Russian hackers (or anyone) figure out how to shut down computers running the Windows operating system using the Genuine Advantage "feature" of Windows. It seems like it should be fairly easy to write a trojan to do this. All they would have to do is figure out how to redirect Windows Genuine Advantage traffic, that you send to Microsoft to activate your software, to their own servers. They could then shut down every Windows XP/Vista/7 system in the entire universe.

Scarey isn’t it?? …..

Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

Back     Go to page:  1  2 3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20     Forward