atomic_fungus (atomic_fungus) wrote,
atomic_fungus
atomic_fungus

#4832: Memristor?

They don't say what the new technology is other than calling it "XPoint", but it's nonvolatile memory which is much faster and much more durable than flash RAM.

I'm wondering if it's a memristor device.

A 128 Gbit device is some 16 GB on a single chip, which isn't any great shakes these days; memristor memory ought to be capable of hard disk densities, which are a hell of a lot higher than that. But "capable" doesn't mean the first one on the market will hit that mark.

However they accomplish the trick of making nonvolatile memory that's almost as fast as DRAM, as Pixy notes, it's going to mean quite a few changes in how computers are built and programmed.

* * *

The EM drive violates the laws of physics as we understand them.

A sealed conical chamber into which one pumps microwaves--nothing exits the chamber--should not produce a net force. Somehow, though, it does. Figuring out why is either going to change our understanding of a lot of things, or else it's going to turn out to be something prosaic which follows the laws of physics as we understand them right now.

Talking about going to the Moon in four hours is a bit optimistic--about like Orville and Wilbur talking about making supersonic trans-Atlantic flights after their first glider flight--but if this thing pans out it is going to be the first step towards opening up the solar system.

* * *

It has just been beastly hot the past few days. I stepped out onto the porch last night before bed--this was perhaps 11:30--and it was muggy as all get-out, and it was like that Monday night as well. The forecast keeps saying "today is forecast to be much cooler than yesterday" but somehow it never seems to turn out that way.

Of course I've noticed that the Fungal Vale station is reporting temperatures higher than the surrounding area; some years ago it was consistently 5-10 degrees higher when the sun was shining on it--which means about 9, 10 AM the temperature would suddenly rise by that factor--and because the cooler/warmer message is generated by the website server it's naturally going to say "today will be cooler!" because the reported statistic is artificially higher than the actual temperature. What bothers me about all this is that the numbers for the prior day's temperature frequently seem to be triple digit (yesterday's temp is reported as 103!) even though periodic checks of the temperature graph don't support that; at no time yesterday did I see a temperature that high reported.

All I know is, it's f-ing hot outside.
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