Ch-ch-ch-changes

[unixronin]

• Ars Technica reports on an impending change from 512-byte to 4096-byte sectors in hard disks.  The article discusses problems for Windows XP users, but I suspect the side-effects will go a lot further than that.

• Meanwhile, CNN discusses parallels between the banking situations in Iceland and the US.  The Icelanders declined to bail out their bankers.  We haven't been permitted that option.  Regulatory changes have been proposed to prevent another occurrence, but whether they'll go far enough, actually work, or have any teeth in their final form is debatable — and in any case, past experience suggests that if Wall Street finds the new regulations inconvenient, Wall Street will invent ways to circumvent them, and Congress, as it has done a hundred or a thousand times before, will smile, wink, and look the other way.

• And to finish up with a positive note, MIT is working on a new nanotube-based battery technology that could yield completely non-toxic batteries with a tenfold increase in energy density and zero charge leakage.

Comments

[ratseal.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the ability of a banker to pay himself. Ever.