#difference between virtualization and cloud computing

Sam Winchester

Either plays with the princesses, Yoshi, or Toad. The princesses tower over everyone else - just like him, and to switch it up he'd sometimes pick Yoshi or Toad 'cause they're cute.

If he's playing Mario Kart World, he'd prefer their original designs over the different costumes - but if he's playing a race and passes one of the food bags, he'd still take it just to see what kind of costumes the characters get.

Overly not that competitive, but you bet there'll be a rivalry between him and Dean. Suddenly he knows where all the shortcuts are. Pure coincidence.

If he's playing by himself - it's just a quick Grand Prix to relax. But if he's playing against Dean, he'll make sure he has the best character-vehicle combination (will spend time googling the best combinations of vehicle, wheels and glider for Mario Kart 8).

Not the biggest fan of 200cc or time trials. He'd rather do a classic race where he doesn't fly out of the corners when he brakes too late. If he really feels like letting off some steam, he might even pick 50cc just to admire the scenery or learn the map.

Masterlist || Cosmic Production || Rhytm Link || New Dimension || Others

Astronomers take the first close-up picture of a star outside our galaxy

“For the first time, we have succeeded in taking a zoomed-in image of a dying star in a galaxy outside our own Milky Way,” says Keiichi Ohnaka, an astrophysicist from Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile. Located a staggering 160 000 light-years from us, the star WOH G64 was imaged thanks to the impressive sharpness offered by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI). The new observations reveal a star puffing out gas and dust, in the last stages before it becomes a supernova.

“We discovered an egg-shaped cocoon closely surrounding the star,” says Ohnaka, the lead author of a study reporting the observations published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “We are excited because this may be related to the drastic ejection of material from the dying star before a supernova explosion.”

While astronomers have taken about two dozen zoomed-in images of stars in our galaxy, unveiling their properties, countless other stars dwell within other galaxies, so far away that observing even one of them in detail has been extremely challenging. Up until now.

The newly imaged star, WOH G64, lies within the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the small galaxies that orbits the Milky Way. Astronomers have known about this star for decades and have appropriately dubbed it the ‘behemoth star’. With a size roughly 2000 times that of our Sun, WOH G64 is classified as a red supergiant.

Ohnaka’s team had long been interested in this behemoth star. Back in 2005 and 2007, they used ESO’s VLTI in Chile’s Atacama Desert to learn more about the star’s features, and carried on studying it in the years since. But an actual image of the star had remained elusive.

For the desired picture, the team had to wait for the development of one of the VLTI’s second-generation instruments, GRAVITY. After comparing their new results with other previous observations of WOH G64, they were surprised to find that the star had become dimmer over the past decade.

“We have found that the star has been experiencing a significant change in the last 10 years, providing us with a rare opportunity to witness a star’s life in real time,” says Gerd Weigelt, an astronomy professor at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany and a co-author of the study. In their final life stages, red supergiants like WOH G64 shed their outer layers of gas and dust in a process that can last thousands of years. "This star is one of the most extreme of its kind, and any drastic change may bring it closer to an explosive end," adds co-author Jacco van Loon, Keele Observatory Director at Keele University, UK, who has been observing WOH G64 since the 1990s.

The team thinks that these shed materials may also be responsible for the dimming and for the unexpected shape of the dust cocoon around the star. The new image shows that the cocoon is stretched-out, which surprised scientists, who expected a different shape based on previous observations and computer models. The team believes that the cocoon’s egg-like shape could be explained by either the star’s shedding or by the influence of a yet-undiscovered companion star.

As the star becomes fainter, taking other close-up pictures of it is becoming increasingly difficult, even for the VLTI. Nonetheless, planned updates to the telescope’s instrumentation, such as the future GRAVITY+, promise to change this soon. “Similar follow-up observations with ESO instruments will be important for understanding what is going on in the star,” concludes Ohnaka.

More information

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer is able to combine light collected by the telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), either the four 8-metre Unit Telescopes or the four smaller Auxiliary Telescopes, creating highly detailed pictures of the cosmos. Effectively, this makes the VLTI a “virtual” telescope with a resolution equivalent to the maximum distance between the individual telescopes. This process is highly complex and needs instruments especially dedicated to this task. Back in 2005 and 2007 Ohnaka’s team had access to the first generation of these instruments: MIDI. While impressive for its time, those observations with MIDI only combined the light from two telescopes. Now, researchers have access to GRAVITY, a second-generation instrument able to capture the light of four telescopes. Its improved sensitivity and resolution made the image of WOH G64 possible. But there is more to come. GRAVITY+ is a planned upgrade of GRAVITY which will be able to take advantage of different technological updates performed at the VLTI and VLT. With these, the VLTI will be able to see objects fainter and farther than ever before.

An operating system (OS) is an essential component of computer systems, serving as an interface between hardware and software. It manages system resources, provides services to users and applications, and ensures efficient execution of processes. Without an OS, users would have to manually manage hardware resources, making computing impractical for everyday use.

Lightweight operating system for old laptops

Functions of an Operating System

Operating systems perform several crucial functions to maintain system stability and usability. These functions include:

1. Process Management

 The OS allocates resources to processes and ensures fair execution while preventing conflicts. It employs algorithms like First-Come-First-Serve (FCFS), Round Robin, and Shortest Job Next (SJN) to optimize CPU utilization and maintain system responsiveness.

2. Memory Management

The OS tracks memory usage and prevents memory leaks by implementing techniques such as paging, segmentation, and virtual memory. These mechanisms enable multitasking and improve overall system performance.

3. File System Management

It provides mechanisms for reading, writing, and deleting files while maintaining security through permissions and access control. File systems such as NTFS, FAT32, and ext4 are widely used across different operating systems.

4. Device Management

 The OS provides device drivers to facilitate interaction with hardware components like printers, keyboards, and network adapters. It ensures smooth data exchange and resource allocation for input/output (I/O) operations.

5. Security and Access Control

 It enforces authentication, authorization, and encryption mechanisms to protect user data and system integrity. Modern OSs incorporate features like firewalls, anti-malware tools, and secure boot processes to prevent unauthorized access and cyber threats.

6. User Interface

 CLI-based systems, such as Linux terminals, provide direct access to system commands, while GUI-based systems, such as Windows and macOS, offer intuitive navigation through icons and menus.

Types of Operating Systems

Operating systems come in various forms, each designed to cater to specific computing needs. Some common types include:

1. Batch Operating System

These systems were widely used in early computing environments for tasks like payroll processing and scientific computations.

2. Multi-User Operating System

 It ensures fair resource allocation and prevents conflicts between users. Examples include UNIX and Windows Server.

3. Real-Time Operating System (RTOS)

RTOS is designed for time-sensitive applications, where processing must occur within strict deadlines. It is used in embedded systems, medical devices, and industrial automation. Examples include VxWorks and FreeRTOS.

4  Mobile Operating System

Mobile OSs are tailored for smartphones and tablets, offering touchscreen interfaces and app ecosystems. 

5  Distributed Operating System

Distributed OS manages multiple computers as a single system, enabling resource sharing and parallel processing. It is used in cloud computing and supercomputing environments. Examples include Google’s Fuchsia and Amoeba.

Popular Operating Systems

Several operating systems dominate the computing landscape, each catering to specific user needs and hardware platforms.

1. Microsoft Windows

 It is popular among home users, businesses, and gamers. Windows 10 and 11 are the latest versions, offering improved performance, security, and compatibility.

2. macOS

macOS is Apple’s proprietary OS designed for Mac computers. It provides a seamless experience with Apple hardware and software, featuring robust security and high-end multimedia capabilities.

3. Linux

Linux is an open-source OS favored by developers, system administrators, and security professionals. It offers various distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian, each catering to different user preferences.

4. Android

It is based on the Linux kernel and supports a vast ecosystem of applications.

5. iOS

iOS is Apple’s mobile OS, known for its smooth performance, security, and exclusive app ecosystem. It powers iPhones and iPads, offering seamless integration with other Apple devices.

Future of Operating Systems

The future of operating systems is shaped by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and edge computing. Some key trends include:

1. AI-Driven OS Enhancements

AI-powered features, such as voice assistants and predictive automation, are becoming integral to modern OSs. AI helps optimize performance, enhance security, and personalize user experiences.

2. Cloud-Based Operating Systems

Cloud OSs enable users to access applications and data remotely. Chrome OS is an example of a cloud-centric OS that relies on internet connectivity for most functions.

3. Edge Computing Integration

With the rise of IoT devices, edge computing is gaining importance. Future OSs will focus on decentralized computing, reducing latency and improving real-time processing.

4. Increased Focus on Security

“I’m more interested in looking for something transitory than in producing a conclusion.”

Pierre Huyghe

“I’m interested in contingency,” the French artist Pierre Huyghe has said. “Of what is not predictable. Of what is unknown. I think that has somehow been a core of my work.”1 Pursuing interests in contingency and unpredictability, Huyghe creates art forms that incorporate living organisms, such as dogs, turtles, spiders, peacocks, ants, and bees. Over the course of an exhibition, his living works of art grow, decay, and die. Huyghe said, “They are not made for us. They are not made to be looked at. They exist in themselves.”2

Throughout his career, Huyghe has experimented with many mediums and technologies, including film, sculpture, photography, music, and living ecosystems. At the outset of his career, Huyghe collaborated with artists whose work explored human relations and their social context; to describe their interests, the curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term Relational Aesthetics. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Huyghe’s works often reenacted notable artworks or popular footage from mass media. In Silence Score (English Version), a musical notation of John Cage’s pivotal composition 4'33", he created a readable score for the silent piece using a computer algorithm.

In 1997, with artists Charles de Meaux, Philippe Parreno, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and curators Xavier Douroux and Franck Gautherot, Huyghe cofounded a film production company called Anna Sanders Films. They named the company after a fictional character first developed in a magazine released in 1997. Blanche-Neige Lucie, the company’s first film, stars Lucie Doléne, the voice actor who dubbed the Disney character Snow White in French, and who won a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Corporation for the rights to the reproduction of her voice. The film features Doléne humming the melody of “Someday My Prince Will Come” in an empty film studio, facing the camera, while her story is told through the subtitles. The work explores how a voice can be used to create a character, and who then owns that product.

The Host and The Cloud fuses scripted action and improvised narratives generated by the actors. The yearlong project records theatrical events that took place in an abandoned museum in Paris on three holidays: the Day of the Dead, Valentine’s Day, and May Day. In a variety of fictional settings, 15 actors clad in LED masks perform alongside puppets and animation. These spontaneous elements reflect Huyghe’s interest in contingency and adding dynamic layers to his storylines.

Originally created for Documenta 13 in 2012, Huyghe’s Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) is a reclining female nude whose head is covered by a live beehive. The work was part of an entire ecological system the artist created in a composting area in Karlsaue Park in Kassel, Germany. In a video Huyghe filmed during the exhibition, his camera captured a wide range of beings at different scales, including minute species that are barely visible to the naked eye. Huyghe aims to “intensify the presence of things, to find its own particular presentation, its own appearance and its own life, rather than subjecting it to pre-established models.”3 With interest in “the transitory state, in the in-between,” his complex worlds blur the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, the physical and the virtual, and the real and the fictional.4 In 2015 and again in 2023, the statue found itself in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden, placed in a new context and in conversation with other works of art. During the summer, the bees travel in and out of the garden to pollinate and build their hive.

Huyghe’s artistic practice reflects his belief that life is in constant flux, and that all beings exist beyond the perceivable realm of human senses and knowledge. By engaging with unconventional materials and technologies, he provides us with a way to see, feel, and experience the wild, untilled world we are living in.

In the fast-paced world of forex trading, where markets are constantly fluctuating and opportunities arise at any hour of the day or night, having a reliable Virtual Private Server (VPS) is no longer just an option—it's a necessity. As traders strive to gain an edge in this highly competitive arena, the role of technology, particularly VPS hosting, has become increasingly crucial. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the importance of VPS solutions for forex traders and how Cheap Forex VPS can help you achieve your trading goals.

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Review of the Music Tapes performance, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 29 July 1999

transcript:

In between the planets, stars and other bits of rock and dust, space seems pretty much empty. But the super-spread out matter that is there follows a different set of rules than what we know here on Earth.

For the most part, what we think of as empty space is filled with plasma. Plasma is ionized gas, where electrons have split off from positive ions, creating a sea of charged particles. In most of space, this plasma is so thin and spread out that space is still about a thousand times emptier than the vacuums we can create on Earth. Even still, plasma is often the only thing out there in vast swaths of space — and its unique characteristics mean that it interacts with electric and magnetic fields in complicated ways that we are just beginning to understand.

Five years ago, we launched a quartet of satellites to study one of the most important yet most elusive behaviors of that material in space — a kind of magnetic explosion that had never before been adequately studied up close, called magnetic reconnection. Here are five of the ways the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) has helped us study this intriguing magnetic phenomenon.

1. Seeing magnetic explosions up close

Magnetic reconnection is the explosive snapping and forging of magnetic fields, a process that can only happen in plasmas — and it's at the heart of space weather storms that manifest around Earth.

When the Sun launches clouds of solar material — which is also made of plasma — toward Earth, the magnetic field embedded within the material collides with Earth's huge global magnetic field. This sets off magnetic reconnection that injects energy into near-Earth space, triggering a host of effects — induced electric currents that can harm power grids, to changes in the upper atmosphere that can affect satellites, to rains of particles into the atmosphere that can cause the glow of the aurora.  

Though scientists had theorized about magnetic reconnection for decades, we'd never had a chance to study it on the small scales at which it occurs. Determining how magnetic reconnection works was one of the key jobs MMS was tasked with — and the mission quickly delivered. Using instruments that measured 100 times faster than previous missions, the MMS observations quickly determined which of several 50-year-old theories about magnetic reconnection were correct. It also showed how the physics of electrons dominates the process — a subject of debate before the launch.

2. Finding explosions in surprising new places

In the five years after launch, MMS made over a thousand trips around Earth, passing through countless magnetic reconnection events. It saw magnetic reconnection where scientists first expected it: at the nose of Earth's magnetic field, and far behind Earth, away from the Sun. But it also found this process in some unexpected places — including a region thought to be too tumultuous for magnetic reconnection to happen.

As solar material speeds away from the Sun in a flow called the solar wind, it piles up as it encounters Earth's magnetic field, creating a turbulent region called the magnetosheath. Scientists had only seen magnetic reconnection happening in relatively calm regions of space, and they weren't sure if this process could even happen in such a chaotic place. But MMS' precise measurements revealed that magnetic reconnection happens even in the magnetosheath.  

MMS also spotted magnetic reconnection happening in giant magnetic tubes, leftover from earlier magnetic explosions, and in plasma vortices shaped like ocean waves — based on the mission's observations, it seems magnetic reconnection is virtually ubiquitous in any place where opposing magnetic fields in a plasma meet.  

3. How energy is transferred

Magnetic reconnection is one of the major ways that energy is transferred in plasma throughout the universe — and the MMS mission discovered that tiny electrons hold the key to this process.

Electrons in a strong magnetic field usually exhibit a simple behavior: They spin tight spirals along the magnetic field. In a weaker field region, where the direction of the magnetic field reverses, the electrons go freestyle — bouncing and wagging back and forth in a type of movement called Speiser motion.

Flying just 4.5 miles apart, the MMS spacecraft measured what happens in a magnetic field with intermediate strength: These electrons dance a hybrid, meandering motion — spiraling and bouncing about before being ejected from the region. This takes away some of the magnetic field’s energy.

4. Surpassing computer simulations

Before we had direct measurements from the MMS mission, computer simulations were the best tool scientists had to study plasma's unusual magnetic behavior in space. But MMS' data has revealed that these processes are even more surprising than we thought — showing us new electron-scale physics that computer simulations are still trying to catch up with. Having such detailed data has spurred theoretical physicists to rethink their models and understand the specific mechanisms behind magnetic reconnection in unexpected ways. 

5. In deep space & nuclear reactions

Although MMS studies plasma near Earth, what we learn helps us understand plasma everywhere. In space, magnetic reconnection happens in explosions on the Sun, in supernovas, and near black holes.

These magnetic explosions also happen on Earth, but only under the most extreme circumstances: for example, in nuclear fusion experiments. MMS' measurements of plasma's behavior are helping scientists better understand and potentially control magnetic reconnection, which may lead to improved nuclear fusion techniques to generate energy more efficiently.

This quartet of spacecraft was originally designed for a two-year mission, and they still have plenty of fuel left — meaning we have the chance to keep uncovering new facets of plasma's intriguing behavior for years to come. Keep up with the latest on the mission at nasa.gov/mms.