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We're all aware of the ideas of peak oil: and some will know of peak copper, peak fertiliser and there's even some who proclaim peak water. I tend to rather rubbish those ideas on economic grounds. However, there's another type of peak possible: when the demand for a manufactured product starts to fall away. And it's entirely possible that we're just about there with "Peak PC".
Have a look at these numbers from Gartner:
As you can see global PC shipments have fallen with respect to the same quarter last year. And we can't blame recession for this: things are better in the global economy this year than last.
PC shipments are still heading the wrong way down the gadget freeway, according to Gartner, who thinks that we're now consuming media mostly on tablets and just flitting over to the PC for grunt work. The survey outfit theorized that a single shared computer can often suffice for a family, with individuals getting their own tablet instead of a laptop or desktop for personal stuff — especially with compelling, inexpensive new entries like the Nexus 7.
We used to think that as the world developed then everyone would end up getting their own PC. That idea now seems to be waning as people are indeed all getting their own phones but a smartphone allows us to do much of what we would have done on a PC. Sure, not the typing out a long document but we can share a PC when we need to do that. It's no longer a personal must have possession at a certain income or technological level.
"Tablets have dramatically changed the device landscape for PCs, not so much by 'cannibalizing' PC sales, but by causing PC users to shift consumption to tablets rather than replacing older PCs," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
"Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC."
I've said often enough that I can imagine smartphones being advanced enough ("real soon now", of course) to satisfy my computing needs in a year or two. In fact, in computer hardware terms they already are and I certainly don't think I'm alone in that. I can imagine the PC returning to what it once was, something that only power users required. The "personal computer" becoming something akin to a phone with a docking station.
Take my own computing use: email and browsing, of course. Phones and or tablets already can handle that. Above that I do a little light word processing and some spreadsheets. And that really is about it. As and when there's an Open Office for Android (just to take an example) I could well imagine my never using a PC again, let alone buying one. And as I say, I really don't think I'm alone in this sort of usage.
It's even possible to offer up a design in a way. Take something in the Galaxy Note size and format. Add a hardware keyboard like a Sony Experia. VGA and USB (maybe Bluetooth) outlets so that an external monitor and full size keyboard can be added. And if there's that Open Office (or LibreOffice, just something with that functionality) for Android, or whatever operating system that "phone" is running, then I would be catered to.
And the thing is, I can see those devices being offered soon enough. So it's is possible that this fall in PC shipments isn't just a blip, we really might be at peak PC.


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national cherry blossom festival: washington, dc
Where: Washington, DC
When: now!
A rite of Spring is the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. This year however it celebrates its Centennial—the 100th anniversary of the gift of the cherry trees from Japan—so record breaking attendance is expected, especially with the early arrival of warm weather.
In conjunction with the festival, many other cultural activities are planned—check the events calendar but don't miss the Blossom Kite Festival on March 31st or the 100 years of Kimono exhibit at the Mandarin Oriental.
There's also the 5x5 project, a curated city-wide contemporary public art exhibit featuring 25 temporary art installations which will be on display throughout the celebration—a few for up to four months.
Thanks to jake, store manager georgetown, dc for this submission.

subset: commoncrawl


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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he never tried making a deal with an Austin district attorney about vetoed state funding that's now the focus of a grand jury investigation.
Perry said Tuesday he would let the case "play out its course" as a grand jury in Austin considers whether the possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate abused his power last summer.
It was the first time Perry has said anything public about the investigation since a grand jury was seated last month. He said he would let the record stand before disappearing into an elevator at the Capitol.
Perry vetoed $7.5 million for public corruption prosecutors after Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg refused to resign following a drunken driving arrest.
The grand jury is next scheduled to meet Friday.
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Now Playing
Connect with Us
KRWG.ORG-The Region's Home Page
2:08 pm
Sat September 5, 2009
Music Delayed By Contract Talks
By KRWG News
New Mexico – The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra has delayed the start of the season because management and union musicians have yet to reach a new contract.
NMSO president and CEO Eric Meyer said Friday it was a difficult decision to delay the season but the orchestra would not be able to pay musicians under the provisions of the expired contract because of the orchestra's financial situation.
Meyer says tight credit and investment losses have strained the budget.
NMSO had anticipated a deficit of at least $500,000 for the past fiscal year. Meyer says that has ballooned to over $900,000 due to the recession's impact on fundraising.
The contract covers compensation, benefits and work rules. The musicians and management began bargaining discussions for a new agreement in July.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.


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I've never really liked the idea of
REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE=SHARED, probably just because I haven't seen much use for it. As a result, I've never paid any attention to it. If you don't recall the difference between
EXCLUSIVE and
SHARED settings for 9i, here is the quote from the documentation:
More than one database can use a password file. However, the only user recognized by the password file is SYS.
The password file can be used by only one database and the password file can contain names other than SYS.
As I said, I could never imagine the use case for a shared password file. If you have better ideas of a situation that is a good fit for shared password file, please share.
Today, I was going through a migration strategy with a client, and we were reviewing
init.ora parameters. I noticed that they used
SHARED settings for their password file and was curious why. Apparently, there was no clear explanation for
SHARED setting and it was used more or less as exclusive — one file per instance. Alex Fatkulin seemed to be curious too and did the RTFM part for me (good boy!) and, surprise! the
EXCLUSIVE setting is not used in 10g anymore.
It turned out that Oracle merged the
SHARED and
EXCLUSIVE password file features — now we can used shared password file and store passwords for users other than SYS.
REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE=SHARED is used for that.
EXCLUSIVE still works for backwards compatibility but now it behaves just like
Here is the new reference from the docs:
Oracle ignores any password file. Therefore, privileged users must be authenticated by the operating system.
One or more databases can use the password file. The password file can contain SYS as well as non-SYS users.
The value EXCLUSIVE is supported for backward compatibility. It now has the same behavior as the value SHARED.
There are quite a few non-obvious behavior changes that are not well known but are in fact documented, so thorough RTFM-ing seems to be a good idea with every new release. For our part, we will try to post some of them here so stay tuned!
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11 Responses to "REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE=EXCLUSIVE in Oracle 10g"
Is this new in 10gR2? My exam prep guide (written before R2) does discuss (and quiz) the distinction between SHARED and EXCLUSIVE?
As I know,
1. If REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE is not determined, it is set by default to EXCLUSIVE. How Oracle keep that for only backward compatibility while its default value is EXCLUSIVE.
2. If REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE is set to shared, SYS password can not be changed. (One useful point of using this value).
3. When using SHARED value for this parameter, SYSDBA or SYSOPER can not be granted to any user. This somehow prevents mistaken granting SYSDBA or SYSOPER to some users.
4. User which administrating multiple databases on the same box, need to know only one password if this value is set to SHARED
1. If this parameter is not determined, EXCLUSIVE is set by default. (Doubt to keep it for only backward compatibility).
2. Shared is practical in environment when you do not want to allow anyone to grant SYSDBA or SYSOPER to anybody else. Also for DBA which admin multiple DBs, having shred password file help them to remember only one password for sysdba privileges.
Thanks Alex,
1.Referring to Oracle 10gR2 admin . (Setting REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE section)
2. I definitely see benefits on using shared for this parameter which prevents further granting SYSDBA to any user in stable environment
Kind of a late update to this.
I came across this entry while searching for some info on oracle password files.
Both the 10g and 11g documentation are incorrect.
10g: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14237/initparams179.htm#CHDICDHE
11g: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28320/initparams198.htm#REFRN10184
If remote_login_passwordfile=shared, no users can be added to the password file.
Attempting to do so will raise an ORA-1999: "Password file cannot be updated in SHARED mode"
Is it possible to share a passwd file between 2 databases that have differents DBID ? and how ? any constraints ? (should shared the same home?)
How does oracle know which passwd file it should use ?
Is it designed to automatically look for a standard filename (smth like $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/passDBID) filename or any other standard name ?
In this case i suppose these DB should share the same home or the DBID2 should have its passDBID2 being a link that point to the passDBID1 file …
Then we want make maintenance/modif of the passwd file possible, we should care about user ID and chown/chmod are correctly set up for the shared orapasswd file.
Maybe the SHARED option is mainly designed for distributed or cluster DB.
Maybe having the REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE storing the absolute filename would be better than just EXCLUSIVE/NONE/SHARED values ?
Thanks for your time reading.
if u create a new passwordfile (even in default location),database does not recognize it.
How can we user one password file to multiple databases? can anybody help me to know this by giving steps?
Leave a Reply


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Tips for Success
• Hold regular meetings to help residents get to know each
other and to collectively decide upon program strategies and
• Consider linking with an existing organization, such as a
citizens' association, community development office,
tenants' association, housing authority.
• Canvas door-to-door to recruit members.
• Involve everyone --young and old, single and married,
renter and homeowner.
• Gain support from the police department. This is critical
to a Watch group's credibility. The agency are the major
sources of information on local crime patterns, home
security, other crime prevention education and crime
• Get the information out quickly. Share all kinds of news
-- discredit rumors.
• Gather the facts about crime in your neighborhood. Check
police reports, do victimization surveys, and learn
residents' perceptions about crime. Often residents'
opinions are not supported by facts, and accurate
information can reduce fear of crime.
• Physical conditions like abandoned cars or overgrown
vacant lots contribute to crime. Sponsor cleanups, encourage
residents to beautify the area, and ask them to turn on
outdoor lights at night.
• It's essential to celebrate the success of the effort and
recognize volunteers' contributions through such events as
awards, annual dinners, and parties. To help meet community
needs, Neighborhood Watches can sponsor meetings that
address broader issues such as drug abuse, gangs,
self-protection tactics, isolation of the elderly, crime in
the schools and rape prevention.
• Don't forget events like National Night Out or a potluck
dinner that gives neighbors a chance to get together. Such
items as pins, t-shirts, hats, or coffee mugs with the
group's name also enhance identity and pride.
Strategic Plan
We are pleased to present our first multi-year Strategic Plan. This
document will guide our efforts as we strive to ensure the safety of
our community and enhance the leadership and management of the
• Strategic Plan
Do you feel like you have what it takes to become a member of the
Winter Haven Police Department?
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text:
Welcome to Groove 101, the bass method specially created for bassists who want to improve their groove, vocabulary and inner clock. This book is the result of more than 30 years of experience as a professional bassist and more than 25 years of teaching at university and college levels. This method will give you many tools that will help you to become a better bassist and a better musician. Elements such as vocabulary, technique, precision, discipline, reading, tone, interpretation and phrasing will build your ability to groove more efficiently. This book offers you a method that will enable you to work on all these aspects at the same time. To be efficient, a bassist must be precise in his playing and must feel the rhythm properly so he can give an accurate interpretation. The rhythmic aspect and its understanding, as well as the improvement of the regularity of the inner clock, are the basis of this method and the result of my work as a professional bassist and teacher.
Current Reviews: 0
This product was added to our catalog on 02/15/2011.


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Volume 15, Issue 1
|Fall 2008
|Hiding Behind Nationality: The Temporary Presence Exception and Patent Infringement Avoidance
|J. Jonas Anderson
|Making Much Ado About Theory: The Chinese Trademark Law
|Leah Chan Grinvald
|When Mobile Phones Are RFID-Equipped—Finding E.U.-U.S. Solutions to Protect Consumer Privacy and Facilitate Mobile Commerce
|Nancy J. King
|The Claim Construction Effect
|Lee Petherbridge
|Royalty Rate-Setting for Webcasters: A Royal(ty) Mess
|Amy Duvall
|Improving Post-Approval Risk Surveillance for Drugs: Active Post-Market Risk Identification
|Matthew Gordon
|Can We Dicker Online or Is Traditional Contract Formation Really Dying? Rethinking Traditional Contract Formation for the World Wide Web
|Tatiana Melnik


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Heavy metal fishing
New technology at ORNL may secure nuclear energy for hundreds of years
Scientists envision anchoring hundreds of long HiCap fibers in the sea for 30 to 60 days . Then a wireless signal would cause them to float to the sur face where trapped uranium could be recovered and the fibers reused. Illustration: Andy Sproles
For decades, researchers have searched for a way to extract the oceans' estimated 4 to 5 billion tons of uranium. The element rolls in the waves, crashes on the beaches and tickles the toes of beachgoers everywhere, but it could never be captured cheaply enough or in sufficient quantities for energy or defense applications.
With the help of surface-area-enhancing techniques developed and patented by Florida-based Hills Inc., Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are creeping closer to unlocking the limitless energy stores buried in the waves.
The Department of Energy is interested in ensuring the United States continues to have uranium for nuclear power and national security. With nuclear power providing more than 20 percent of the nation's energy supply, running out of uranium is simply not an option.
"Scientists have forecast that eventually there will be a tremendous shortage in nuclear fuel if we continue to mine it only on land," said Sheng Dai, technical lead on the ORNL project.
Mining uranium on land involves either physically removing or chemically dissolving the element from a limited number of ore sources. Removing uranium from seawater is safer and recovers the same elemental form of uranium found on land.
"If we could recover uranium from seawater, we could provide enough nuclear energy to supply the whole world for hundreds of years," Dai said.
The goal of extracting uranium from the oceans began with research and development projects in the 1960s, with Japan conducting the majority of the work. DOE became a major player in this research area in 2010, when Hills and ORNL began tinkering with the surface areas of plastic fibers. The adsorbent fiber the team developed was designed to recognize and selectively trap dissolved uranium.
Hills, an innovator in the field of fiber technologies, helped ORNL researchers increase the surface area of the adsorbents by incorporating complex ridges and folding patterns into the plastic material. These modifications and other processing improvements resulted in HiCap Adsorbents, a 2012 R&D 100 Award winner and patent-pending technology. HiCap harvests uranium seven times faster than its competitors—and reduces the initial $1,230 cost of removing one kilogram of uranium from seawater by up to 50 percent.
ORNL's new technology is made from polyethylene fibers—the same material used to make grocery bags and milk cartons. Researchers can melt, spin and braid these plastic fibers. Afterward, they can zap it with an electron beam to open grafting sites and chemically add metal-catchers called amidoxime groups. These modifications turn this everyday plastic into "a fancy heavy-metal fisherman," said Yatsandra Oyola, a member of ORNL's research team.
Despite recent progress, researchers acknowledge additional work is needed to make the technology commercially viable. Fishing for uranium is still five times more expensive than mining it on land, but as land reserves are depleted and uranium prices rise, the technology will become more attractive. The notable cost reduction provided by HiCap suggests that, with additional tweaks, the product could be the key to ensuring nuclear energy security for generations. The ability to extract uranium from seawater, no matter the expense, will allow the government to make decisions about the future of nuclear power with the confidence that the material will be available in the long term.
"The government often funds projects that are developing technologies like HiCap that won't be commercialized immediately," said Erich Schneider, a project collaborator from the University of Texas at Austin. "They are trying to develop it to the point that, if in the future we run out of uranium on land, a company can take the adsorbents off the shelf and quickly commercialize them."
Laboratory tests have shown that collecting uranium is as easy as submerging the product in water for minutes or several days, said Chris Janke, one of HiCap's inventors and a member of ORNL's research team. Scientists envision dropping many metal chains tied to hundreds of 60-meter-long adsorbent fibers into the sea—packing the seabed with row upon row of HiCap Adsorbent fibers and creating something resembling an underwater cornfield. The HiCap field could extend for thousands of square miles along the sea floor, covering an area comparable to two Rhode Islands.
Uranium would be harvested after 30 to 60 days. Ships would float over the submerged fibers and wirelessly detach them from the chains by sending a signal from a handheld device, allowing the fibers to float to the surface. At that point the fibers and any trapped uranium could easily be scooped up and shipped back to labs. Chemists could then extract the uranium from the fibers and regenerate the adsorbents so the fibers could be reused.
Researchers from seven universities and a variety of national laboratories are collaborating with ORNL's team to improve the uranium extraction process. They are focusing their efforts on using carbon-based materials instead of polyethylene fibers, alternative chemical coatings to amidoxime and less harsh chemical treatments for stripping metals. Other researchers are determining HiCap's potential environmental impacts and performing economic analyses.
"We are just scratching the surface on what this product is capable of," Janke said. "The product design will have to be a compromise among binding capacity, durability, amount of chemical groups and price."
In the meantime the adsorbents originally created to catch uranium from seawater can take center stage in environmental cleanup efforts and the recovery of precious metals.
Because HiCap's adsorbents are selective for heavy metals other than just uranium, the technology can be used to extract toxic or valuable dissolved metals from a variety of water sources worldwide. Nets fashioned from HiCap adsorbents and placed throughout contaminated streams could selectively remove other heavy metals, improving water quality and rehabilitating aquatic ecosystems.
"It's a very competitive product for certain types of environmental remediation and metal recovery applications because it's not that expensive to make," Janke said. Researchers believe the heavy metal waste collected can be recycled, potentially allowing HiCap adsorbents to start paying for themselves.
No matter the need, HiCap—or an improved version of the technology—can change the game for a wide variety of applications.
"We have a material that we know can work," Janke said. "Now we just need to figure out the best places to use it and make sure that it's deployed effectively." Jennifer Brouner


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Fri, 12 August 2011
Five episodes in, we discuss Torchwood: Miracle Day so far (no spoilers, though). What about the pics of Hathaway as Catwoman from the film The Dark Knight Rises? How do we feel about advanced hype? All of this and how to deal with crushes are discussed by Jill Pantozzi (@TheNerdyBird) and Alan Kistler (@SizzlerKistler)!
Direct download: CSG_10_-_Torchwood_Anne_Hathaway_Hype_Crushes.m4a
Category:general -- posted at: 6:27 AM


text:
By Donna MilesAmerican Forces Press Service
ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 29, 2004 It's critical that Afghanistan stick to its September timetable for national elections despite security concerns, President Hamid Karzai told reporters here today at the NATO Istanbul Summit.
Karzai, who praised NATO's June 28 agreement to send more troops to Afghanistan, said it's unwise to delay the elections because of terrorist incidents he acknowledged aren't likely to stop any time soon.
"Terrorism will continue to be active in Afghanistan and around Afghanistan and internationally for some time," he said. "Fighting this terrorism is going to be a long-term fight."
Karzai condemned the terrorists' tactics, attacking "soft targets" including civilians, reconstruction workers and those involved in the voter registration process. These tactics, he said, show their weakness and the fact that they are "hiding and on the run."
"They are not really capable of posing a threat to the political process," he said.
The Afghan president said he's confident NATO's decision to boost troop strength in Afghanistan from 6,500 to 10,000, particularly in the north and western parts of the country, will help create the stability needed for the elections. He was expected to ask NATO heads of state during an address later today to consider increasing this number even higher.
These added forces will augment coalition forces in other parts of the country as well as the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, concentrated in the capital city of Kabul.
Karzai said the Afghan people are overwhelmingly supportive of this international presence in their country. "From the first day of the interim government two and a half years ago to today, the Afghan people keep coming to us and asking for international security forces in their parts of the country because they see that force as a stabilizing element that protects them," he said.
"Terrorism will go on and we will keep fighting it," Karzai said. But with increased security on its way to Afghanistan, he said it's time to press forward with plans for national elections.
"Having promised the Afghan people elections in the month of September and having had this remarkable success with the registration of voters, we must go and we should go for elections in September," Karzai said. "The Afghan people are expecting elections in September, and we are targeting that month for elections."
Related Articles:NATO Expected to Widen Role in Afghanistan