95th Percentile = Lame

Mon Jun 4 04:40:57 UTC 2001

On Sun, 03 Jun 2001 21:26:22 PDT, Randy Bush said:
> 
> > In reading this thread. Does this mean that if I send an 0xFFFF bit pattern
> > to a network versus a 0x0000 pattern I'd be charged more for the energy
> > consumption since all the 1's are high and consume more elecetric
> 
> no, it's the transitions from 0 to 1 or vice versa that take the energy.
> that's why the nanog list is so repetitive, saves money.

In fact, it was exactly that (or more correctly, the entropy generated
by "forgetting" the previous state) that was finally used a few years
ago by an IBM scientist to explain why Maxwell's Demon(*) couldn't work....

/Valdis

(*) A quick summary for those who are not recovering physicists ;)

Maxwell proposed a thermodynamic thought experiment - take a hourglass
filled with gas at a uniform temperature, and a small demon sitting at the
constriction point that let slower-than-average molecules only pass in
one direction, and faster-than-average only pass in the other. This would
then result in one side heating up, and the other cooling, for what appears
to be no actual energy input, in violation of the laws of thermodynamics.