Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with bit

Bit watt-hours?

mr.dan — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:46:11 -0800

In terms of energy usage, how much would you estimate that it costs for a bit to travel over the internet? Obviously you are going to have to make some pretty liberal assumptions such as distance, nodes traveled, equipment used. Please do not submit a response saying that it is impossible. Make your best guess using as little or as much data as possible!

I have always wondered how spam impacts energy usage. I also suspect that the cost may be fairly fixed (ie it doesn't matter how many bits sent, if the equipment is on, it's on), but I don't know enough about internet infrastructure to make a good guess.

Extra RAM destroys my PSU!

edbyford — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:31:32 -0800

I installed new RAM, and blew my power supply. Now, after installing a better power supply, the same symptoms which led to the broken power supply are happening again. What is going on? I recently ordered a pair of these to upgrade my computer from 2GB RAM to 6GB, after installing Windows 7 64-bit. This is what Crucial told me is compatible with my Intel DG965RY motherboard.

After turning the computer back on, I noticed that Windows hung on startup. I shut it down and ran Memtest86+, but that ran very slowly (although didn't show any errors).

I then restarted, and after a couple of beeps from the mobo, the computer wouldn't turn on. SO I ordered a new, more powerful PSU.
For comparison, the model I had originally was this one. It is 430W and has a max current on 22A across the +3.3V rail (I think this is important if you want to add more RAM, right?)

The one I have now is this one. This is 600W and has 35A across the +3.3V rail.

Just to be safe, I sent the RAM back and bought exactly the same type again. I installed it, and then ran both Memtest86+ and Windows Memory Diagnostic before attempting to boot Windows. They both showed no errors. When I then tried to boot Windows my computer froze! Scared of blowing my PSU again, I shut it down and removed the RAM. It now seems to work fine.

What can I do? Surely my power supply is more than adequate for some RAM?

Thanks in advance

Best Bit Torrent Forum?

davidaugust111 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:32:45 -0800

Best Bit Torrent Forum? I'm having a problem, plus I'd like to learn more about torrents. Does anyone have any recommendation on an active forum board I could join? Thanks, David

Building a uber powerful gaming pc, need your help

spinko — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:03:44 -0800

Building a uber powerful gaming pc, what parts to buy as I don't want to be a sucker. Need your help. Intel Core i7 I currently own a Mac (macbook pro 4gb) for business, even through it is fast in bootcamp. I want better for MMO's and FPS games. This is strictly a gaming machine, and needs to be future proof. I haven't built a computer in 2 years, so I have gone abit rusty.

My budget is £2000 (~$3500) just for the box. I already have a 30inch Cinema display, so I want to play games at the natural resolution (2560 x 1600) with a good 60+ fps.

Here is my list of what I want.

CPU:
Core i7 940 (2.93ghz quad + hyperthreading) ~£470
I want to overclock this cpu as much as I can. I have seen this processor get to 3.4ghz with no problems. I will need a good Motherboard or fan to do this.

The extreme version, is it worth it?

Should I wait for a faster processor coming out in a few months?

HDD:
Raptor 300gb (10k rpm)
or
SAS Hdd's (15k rpm) I dont know too much about this, is it worth it?

Is their any benefit of having a solid state hard drive for bootup OS?

Im not too bothered about size, I don't need 1tb as I only need it for games (300gb max)

PSU:
750, 1000 or 1500 watt? do I need more power for overclocking? or is it just money down the drain.

Video card/s:
The new cards confuse me

SLI cards x2: Does this actually improve gaming performance, or shall I keep with a single 1gb graphics card? Nvidia or ATI?

Others:
Need a good Motherboard, memory (to match the mb) and video card.

Motherboard needs to be good for overclocking.

Also, I may go with Vista 64bit dual boot with XP 32bit. I have heard about something better than software dual boot. Cannot remember what it was.

Memory is limited to 3gb on XP 32bit, however can handle more that 3gb on Vista 64bit. Is it worth going for 64bit Vista for gaming or stick to 32bit non dx10 XP? (I went over to Mac due to Vista, last year for business).

Memory will have to match the top FSB if possible. Unless you cannot see any difference.

Anything extra that will improve performance?

Instead of building my own, could you recommend a pre-built spec. I live in Spain but go to the UK frequently. I know Falcon NW will ship to Spain for $400, but the benefit is the warranty, negatives are the power supply. However building it myself each equipment piece has warranty.

Thanks if you can help.

Ugly bittorrent ratio needs a facelift

alitorbati — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:03:31 -0800

Is there any software of Mac OS X that will protect my bittorrent seed/leech ratio? I'm looking for something like GreedyTorrent, but for mac. Obviously, freeware is preferred but I'm willing to hear any suggestions. Please don't use this post to encourage me to seed more. I seed as much as I can on one of my computers but my mac just won't do it.

Also, can anyone suggest any reasons that my mac is extremely finicky about seeding any torrents I get from what.cd? I'm using Transmission, if it matters.

Thanks!

0xUNDERSTAND

tmcw — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:42:15 -0800

Are there any scripting / cli-compatible languages which decently provide or at least pretend to provide bit-math? So, I'm in one of my last CS courses in college, and it involves a whole lot of bit-mangling. Writing, testing C code is all right, but I kind of want to tinker in my free time to get a deeper understanding, and I'd love some language that lets me use something like irb/python/hugs/etc to quickly test bit expressions (your usual ^, |, &, !, etc)

Is there anything? I kind of remember a C++ CLI a while ago, but I can't figure out where it is.

Thanks!

"Big hello to Refrigerator Jim, on the half-eaten tuba."

CommonSense — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:20:54 -0800

Can someone identify a British (I assume) musical comedy bit from the 1960s or 1970s that's nothing more than a several minutes-long introduction of the members of the most bizarre band in the world? Back in the 1980s, I used to listen to a syndicated radio show called "The Comedy Hour," and one bit they played a couple of times over the years was a favorite of mine. I have no clue who did it, or what it's called, and because of its nature, it's pretty much impossible to Google.

Basically, for the entire length of the bit (some 5-8 minutes, I guess), a British-accented announcer -- presumably a bandleader -- introduces the members of this band, one by one. The bit starts with extremely minimal instrumentation -- maybe just a bassline or something, but as the bandleader introduces each person, they join in with their instrument.

As the bit goes on, the instruments get progressively more unconventional and bizarre, and (I think) the names of the people being introduced do, too. It's pretty soon clear that you have something like 40-50 people playing a variety of bizarre instruments, and yet it sounds pretty good. (As you can imagine, as the bit goes on, the instrumental wall of sound gets thicker and thicker.)

Anybody have any clue what this thing is called? I'd love to find me a copy on The Tubes for further iPod enjoyment.

Quality Dedicated Hosting that allows Bittorrent Tracker? Have Budget.

mrflip — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:01:41 -0800

I will soon be distributing a bunch of large scientific and research datasets, all entirely legal for redistribution, many as large as a few gigabytes. Bittorrent is the best solution for this. Many respectable webhosting sites don't allow Bittorrent trackers; too many of those that do seem fly-by-night. I have a budget for this and want something respectable and reliable. Recommendations? My current host (Bluehost) has 6000GB/transfer a month, but I hear that these large caps can often be illusory; I want to be prepared for one to ten TB of traffic per month. I also need to be able to receive similarly large datasets, which I think will be much easier over bittorrent than asking folks to POST >1GB over ADSL and have it crap out after 3 hrs transfer (not to mention hitting CPU limits).

Amazon S3, at $0.18/GB, would be ~ $1000/mo for 6000 GB. I've reviewed most of the previous hosting q'ns, including Dealing with spikes in website popularity, but none of those suggestions make this work financially.

This clearly calls for bittorrent, but I've had real trouble finding dedicated hosting that will allow me to install a tracker. Bitrot has happened to the last question along these lines, and too many of the directories for tracker sites seem populated by rug merchants and fly-by-night operations.

I'm willing to spend money -- preferably in the $100-$200/mo range -- and want something respectable and reliable. If you tell me it will cost more than that then so be it. I'm figuring that the bittorrent solution (combined with throttling, ratios and a cooperative userbase) will keep me in the 1 TB/month range.

Can you recommend dedicated hosting that will allow me to run a tracker?

What do you call the doohickie that allows you to drill into dirt?

Tacos Are Pretty Great — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 08:25:42 -0800

I saw my landscape contractors using an extended drill auger bit, to drill holes for plants, rather than digging them manually. What are these called?

1/16" to 1/4" Converter

mr.dan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:57:43 -0800

Where can I find a 1/16" to 1/4" hex adapter? I recently bought a cordless electronic screwdriver, which only accepts 1/4" bits. However, I have a set of precision security bits which are 1/8". Where can I find some sort of adapter?

Alive...dead...alive...dead

yellowcandy — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:29:30 -0800

My Internet connection develops narcolepsy whenever I use Azureus... strange symptoms inside Here's the full scoop: when I start up Azureus (2.3.0.2, although I was having the same problems with earlier versions) with an active Internet connection (very fast cable broadband), it works really well for a little while-- this varies from a few seconds to an hour or so-- and I can sometimes even exceed 200 kb/sec down. So that's great. No complaints there.

The problem is that this NEVER lasts. At some point in the session, the connection goes completely dead. Literally nothing that uses the Internet from the same computer works (WWW, e-mail, IM, etc.). Other computers on the same router seem unaffected by this problem though. Then, to add to the strangeness, the connection will start up again once in a while and go at a good clip. Then of course, the cycle repeats itself.

I've got port 6881 forwarding on the router to my local IP, and sometimes I've gone so far as to even put my machine in the DMZ to see if this fixes the problem, which it never does. This doesn't sound to me like my ISP throttling my connection, since it's so sporadic.

Oh, one other piece of information, when I disconnect and reconnect to the router, that often helps, although it never solves the problem. I just get a brief respite.

Configuring a Zoom X3 5660A router/modem for Bit Torrent

Marquis — Sun, 08 May 2005 07:25:41 -0800

I recently bought a Zoom X3 5660A DSL router/modem/all-in-one to use with my Apple Airport Extreme Base Station for internet. Everything's working fine, except Azureus (Bit Torrent). Although I can download/share torrents, they've all got yellow smilies - and the configuration wizard shows a NAT Error when I test port 16881 (which I've configured Az. to use).

This, obviously, means that port forwarding isn't happening correctly. These are the things I've done so far:

1) I turned off Azureus' UPNP auto option, as suggested.

2) I changed my Azureus port to 16881, in case my ISP was blocking the default (6881).

3) Confirmed that the firewalls are off on the Airport and Modem/router.

4) I set up a static IP address by doing following some online instructions and doing this:

System Pref -) Network -) Airport -) TCP/IP
Configure: Manually
IP Address: 10.0.1.201
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 10.0.1.1
DNS Servers: 10.0.1.1

5) I configured my Airport's Port Mapping by adding a bunch of entries (16881-16889) like this:

Public Port: 16881
Private IP Address: 10.0.1.201
Private Port: 16881

6) I reset the airport.

Most of the forum-post support for configuring the Zoom X3 for BT is based on the 5660 modem, which has a "Virtual Server" button on the control panel which you can use to configure port forwarding. The 5660A does not have this feature. Sooo... I tried adapting these instructions, which are for another modem but were translatable.

8) I added IP Filtering rules, as here. (On my setup, unlike theirs, there were already many IP Filtering rules. Azureus didn't work any better with the existing ones + my new ones, the existing ones + only the BT-related one, or everything deleted except my three new rules.)

9) I added the NAT rule as here.

Anyway - no dice. Yellow smilies and NAT Errors.

At this point I've reset the modem/router to its default settings.

Some suspicions about things which still may be wrong:

A) On the IP Filtering page of my control panel, if I click the "Session" button, it states "IP Filter not enabled". I can't find anywhere that says "Enable IP Filter", though.

B) One of the problems may just be the interaction between my airport and the router side of the Zoom... Maybe I need to turn off its router features? I don't really know how to do this... I read somewhere that this was effected by "enabling Bridging", which I did, but that sort of broke everything and it's what spurred the hard-reset to defaults.

Sorry for all the complicated explanation - hopefully it's enough background that the problem can be solved by someone brilliant and insightful out there. Metafilter - please help me!

Bit my tongue

ssmith — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:24:24 -0800

Damn you chicken fajitas!
I bit my tongue really badly last night. [more]