Hitachi: Hard Drives Are Getting Better

This is quite ironic. This article comes out less than a week after I got my computer back from the awesome guys at Computer Experts when the defective Hitachi hard drive in my computer needed replacing.

In all fairness, the hard drive was replaced for free. I just found the timing of the article kinda funny. Find the original article here.

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Hitachi: Hard Drives Are Getting Better
Oct 15, 7:48 AM (ET)By MAY WONG

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Multimedia stockpilers need not worry about laptops, digital video recorders or portable music players hitting a storage capacity ceiling any time soon.

Hitachi Ltd. (HIT) (HIT) says its researchers have successfully shrunken a key component in hard drives to a nanoscale that will pave the way for quadrupling today's storage limits to 4 terabytes for desktop computers and 1 terabyte on laptops in 2011.

A terabyte can hold the text of roughly 1 million books, 250 hours of high-definition video, or a quarter million songs.

"It means the industry is making good progress to advance the capacity of disk drives and move to smaller form factors," said John Rydning, an analyst at market research firm IDC.

The feat, which Hitachi plans to present Monday at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo, revisits a technology known as giant magnetoresistance, or GMR, that was the basis of the work of two European scientists who won the Nobel Prize in physics last week.

A hard drive has a metal disk inside that spins as an arm with an electromagnetic head at its tip hovers over it. The head reads bits of data by registering the magnetic bearing of the particles on the disk.

Capacities of hard drives have grown as researchers have crammed more bits of data closer together while also making the heads sensitive enough to read the data. The industry looks to new technologies every time physical limitations kick in, and GMR - which allows for extremely thin layers of alternating metals to detect weak changes in magnetism - was one of the breakthroughs that led to the fastest growth rate in the early 2000s, allowing hard drives to double in capacity every year.

But GMR-based heads maxed out, and the industry replaced the technology in recent years with an entirely different kind of head. Yet researchers are predicting that technology will soon run into capacity problems, and now GMR is making a comeback as the next-generation successor.

"We changed the direction of the current and adjusted the materials to get good properties," said John Best, chief technologist for Hitachi's data-storage unit.

By doing so, Hitachi said it has created the world's smallest disk drive heads in the 30-nanometer to 50-nanometer range, or about 2,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair.

Other hard drive companies are working on similar technology as well, Rydning said. He predicted the entire disk drive industry will begin migrating to this new type of GMR-based technology in 2009.

Ring of Combat: Opponent for Brian McLaughlin?

For those who haven't heard, Eddie Fyvie had to pull out of his fight with Brian McLaughlin on October 26 due to a knee injury. As of last night when I last spoke to Brian, he didn't know who is opponent was, but he was sure that he was going to be provided one. The confusion lies where none of the fighters described as alternates in his contract are medically cleared to fight, as he understands right now.

Janicik Industries will keep you informed as to what's going on, as soon as we hear about it. Again, as of right now, Brian is fully anticipating a fight a week from Friday. See you all there!

Randy Leaves the UFC

First off, let me say that I'm a Randy fan - who isn't? But WTF, didn't you sign a contract? When you sign a contract you enter into a business relationship. If you sign the dotted line and agree to get paid X amount of dollars for X amount of fights, then that's what you do. If you start arguing about not getting paid enough money to fight, then its nothing but crying like a little kid who doesn't get his way. YOU signed the contract. Why would you expect to get whatever you want whenever you want? No, not even Captain America gets to do that. Your contract is your contract and you signed it. It is really none of your damn business what other people's contracts show.

The reason that seems more understandable to me for Randy having left is the fact that he won't likely be fighting Fedor. Randy wants to fight Fedor, fine. Fedor signs with M1, and now they can't fight. I can understand a fight with Fedor being one of the biggest reasons that Randy is still competing as a professional athlete at 44 years old. If that is what was driving me, I'd probably retire too.

Randy, please get off of the money and respect issues. You signed your contract, you agreed to the money. If a lack of respect is what you're calling Zuffa's lack of desire to pay you more than you agreed to, just stop it. Don't let your career end with an image like this. I hope we haven't heard the last of this issue.

For source links, see the sports column at the Janicik Report.

NAGA: NAGC 2007

I will be competing in this tournament as a featherweight. Here's the flyer, and here's the official site.

This is sweet on many levels, one of the biggest ones is the fact that we can weigh in the day before. It would be even nicer if the featherweight division topped out at 145, but I'll take 149.9. Time for me to start running and starving...

Boy, 6, Tries to Drive to Applebee's

I guess he was hungry...

MSNBC.com

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Boy, 6, tries to drive to Applebees

Hungry kid grabs car keys, booster seat, makes it about 75 feet in reverse

The Associated Press

Updated: 10:37 a.m. ET Oct 10, 2007

BROOMFIELD, Colo. - A 6-year-old boy was hungry and decided he'd go to Applebees. So he grabbed the car keys, took his booster seat from the back seat of his grandmother's car and placed it in the driver's seat, then made a go of driving himself to the restaurant Tuesday.

He made it about 75 feet. Unable to take the car out of reverse, he crossed the street and ran into a transformer and communication box, knocking out electricity and phone service to dozens of townhomes.

Nobody was injured and the boy, whose name was not released, got out of his car and told his grandmother what happened.

"He proceeded to start the car and started backing up," said Sgt. Colleen O'Connell of the Broomfield Police Department. "He went backward about 47 feet, hit the curb, then went backward another 29 feet."

Investigators couldn't figure out how the boy reached the accelerator.

No charges will be filed.

"I have five children of my own, so I know you cannot watch them every minute they're awake," said nearby resident Nancy Hollis, whose power was knocked out by the accident.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21216913/

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© 2007 MSNBC.com

Status of The Janicik Report, The Janicik Blog, and Me

In case anyone is actually keeping track of my online publishing stuff, it would seem right of me to give some sort of explanation to the sudden, drastic drop off in the keeping up of all my stuff.

Back in June, I got hit with the Vundo virus on my computer. It made my processor run ape shit, and burned out all the sectors of my hard drive. I had to replace the hard drive, which I did. Since then, everything had been going fine until a few weeks ago. Although I don't think that I have another virus, my computer has been running exponentially slower, and now its at the point that it simply doesn't work. I had the guys at the Student Help Desk here at New Paltz do a "fitness test" (something that I had never heard of with relationship to a computer's hard drive) and the results showed that there were many bad sectors on my 3 month old hard drive. WTF, right?

I brought my computer back to the guys who fixed it the first time, and everyone agrees that it is likely a defective hard drive that is the culprit. Chances are I'll have to go through the same stuff that I went through last time (reinstalling, etc.), but it will be free. It will also be easier this time around since I bought a 500 gig external hard drive to hold all of my files (music, videos, docs, etc.).

Other things that have been assailing me...nothing really all that serious, except that I can't seem to get a handle on my sleep patterns. Fortunately, I'm at my prime of day when it comes time to train, but I can't seem to get to sleep at reasonable hours. This is fine when I don't have classes, but when I do I'm dead for the entire day. This has been going on since I left UPS. Although it might make some sense that the whacked out sleep schedule I was on while at UPS would have a lasting negative impact on me, but I didn't think 4 months...anyway, I've got a banged up ankle and elbow from training and that's about it. Between that and the massive increase in fiber I've been taking to get ready to make weight at NAGA...well, at least I still know the difference between that issue and my elbow.

Anyway, that's whats going on with me right now for all those who keep up to date with my online stuff. Hopefully I'll have my computer back soon, and this sleep thing will go away sooner than later. Be safe out there...

Promotion

Last night, at HVJJ, I got a promotion. We had a great open mat session, and afterward learned a bunch of new stuff from the mount position. As well as learning the specific details on a few different things to do from mount, the philosophy of treating your mounted game the same as your guard game was instilled into us, and I'll try to think more along those lines from here on out. I've already used the triangle from mount many times before, but I'm looking forward to working on my gogoplata.

Anyway, the important point in this post is to announce that I got a promotion. I was awarded two stripes, bringing me up to three. I am now a three stripe white belt, and damn proud of it. So feel free to do the comment thing with your congratulations! HA! Anyway, that's that, go me.

Tony Janicik & Debbie Griffin

Congratulations to my ol' man and Debbie! Wednesday they announced to the family that they've tied the knot after about 13 years together!

Dad and Deb took us to the Westchester Broadway Theatre to see Little Shop of Horrors. Unfortunately, because I had school that day, I wasn't able to be there on time and arrived about half way through the play. From what I was told by everyone, they announced to the theatre a congratulations for not only them, but for Carol's graduation as well.

It was a great night; I only wish I was able to be there from start to finish. We had a private balcony that seated Dad, Deb, Gramma, Carol, myself, Cliff, Katlyn, and one of Dad and Debbie's friends from work (sorry I forgot your name!). It was nice to get all fancied up to celebrate rather than for work. We don't do things like that too often.

So, once again, congratulations to Dad & Debbie on the occasion of their marriage. All the best, I love you both!

Hackleman: Chuck Retiring Is Nonesence

During the post fight press conferences at UFC 76, Chuck was asked about retiring and gave an indecisive answer. He pretty much brushed off everything that was said to him. It was obvious that he was pissed off and just wanted to get it all over with and go home. I would too if I were in his shoes. Anyway, a report on MMA Junkie revealed Hack's thoughts on the matter. Here's the article.

Trainer: Chuck Liddell not Retiring
Posted by MMA Junkie on September 27, 2007 at 10:09 am ET
Despite what former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell told UFC President Dana White after his loss to Keith Jardine at UFC 76, Liddell’s trainer, John Hackleman, says his fighter will not be retiring anytime soon.
Hackleman made the comments during a radio interview with Steve “Mr. Sunshine,” who does a radio show in Las Vegas on FoxSportsRadio1460. The audio of the 15-minute interview is available at mrsunshinevegas.wordpress.com.
After a split-decision loss to Jardine in UFC 76’s main event, White told Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports that fighters need a certain hunger to be an elite fighter and “I just didn’t see a Chuck Liddell who was as hungry as he used to be.” White also said he felt a retirement was pending.
Nonsensness, said Hackleman.
He specifically mentioned Wanderlei Silva and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua as possible opponents for Liddell at UFC 79 in December. Additionally, Hackleman stated that Liddell would be back to training on Monday.
Liddell, who had held the UFC’s light heavyweight title since April 2005, suffered a first-round technical knockout to Quinton Jackson at May’s UFC 71 event. With his loss to Jardine, he has back-to-back defeats for the first time in his career.

Post UFC 76 Press Conference