Apple will formally announce and show off a new version when it's ready, and usually has it available in the shops the next day. Everything else is just rumours, but it continues to surprise me how much Apple lives up to the rumours. They live up more to unofficial rumours, than MS lives up to their own pre-product announcements.
Everybody knows a company will not stop developing when a product is out. But announcing and starting to show off a successor changes the game a lot, as it gives people something concrete to wait for.
Obviously they'll take share and make money by making Windows not work as well on the hardware of their OEM competitors.
At least they still allow Windows to run on third-party hardware. Their major competitor in the tablet market, and second largest vendor of PCs and laptops, is not so generous. Yet no-one complains about that...
According to the linked article, they have two computers on board.
They're currently testing the computers to see everything works as intended, then upgrade the main computer, and if that goes fine upgrade the backup computer. Also the new software has been uploaded in transit, so at the moment they have both software systems (the landing system and the surface work system) on their craft.
What is not clear from the article, is how independent these computers are. E.g. what would happen if the upgrade fails partially, with the main computer trying to take over the craft, while the backup computer is still on the original program.
It's not that easy. Snow doesn't have constant thickness, there are always drifts. Snow still falling makes it even harder.
Actually one of the major clues I used in staying on that road was the simple knowledge that a road normally goes straight on, so forward is where you start searching. The presence of curves can be detected when you see some trees in your path. The trick is then to figure out where exactly the curve is...
Not sure how Google is going to solve it, but it makes me think on how I would approach it.
(1) Construction zone, worker standing with a temporary "slow/stop" sign indicating when cars can proceed on a one-lane section shared between both directions alternately.
Depends on how far they are with following roads and road signs by visual interpretation versus maps. Roads change all the time, obstacles may occur (tree fallen on the road, car broken down, whatever). This is effectively an obstacle.
The car should have some system to keep track of the actual road location and direction, and the width of the road. When a road is known to be bidirectional, and it is detected that it is narrower than the width of two cars, it has to be dealt with separately. Like looking for a sign showing which direction has the right of way, failing that slowly proceeding and dealing with oncoming traffic by using the expected passing places. If no passing places it's getting tough of course.
(2) Baseball rolls out into street in residential area, followed soon by child who was initially invisible behind a parked minivan. I knew ball might be followed by someone, and slowed way down so this wasn't a problem. At normal speed, it would have been.
Obstacle (baseball) detected; slow down. Size of obstacle may be a problem for detection system.
(3) Nearly invisible ice around curve, one other car had slid off road. I knew to greatly reduce speed even below normal winter operating conditions.
Very tough one. This is a type of situation that can not be pre-programmed, and actual intelligence comes into play. A technical way to deal with this may be to use IR cameras that detect where the temperature of the road surface is below freezing, combined with some optical system to detect water/ice/snow. The first should be easy, the second I don't know.
(4) Two lanes in each direction road. Noticed other car weaving around unpredictably, and later noticed driver occupied with cell phone. I then knew not to drive next to this vehicle even though that would have been fine in other conditions.
Obstacle. Erratic driver, call 911 to alert authorities.
I have a much harder one for you, that I've dealt with myself once (and admittedly not with 100% success): a road covered in fresh snow. No lines visible, everything white. In the dark, with the edge of the road only detectable by a small drop in the snow level and the occasional pole sticking out, snowed-over reflector optional.
I wouldn't say "better", which implies both the original and current situation are good. I'd call it "less bad". Every CO2 emission, and every road accident, is bad.
Interesting point you make. Anyone have any general input on how it's going with those law suits? It's been a long time since I've seen anything about it on this site.
The rest of the world (outside US) replaces their phone more like once a year on average. If not more.
And that's not counting the slowly but steadily increase in proliferation of Android tablets and hybrids (they are available in basically any size from 3" to 13" screen diameter - I don't know where the smartphone ends and where the tablet begins).
Currently there is such as service in Taiwan already. One can order books from a major local retailer, and then pick them up next day from their local 7-11 outlet. And with those shops available virtually everywhere (including smaller villages) that makes for a huge network of "package lockers".
Not to discount Russia's achievement of putting multiple probes on Venus, I have the idea that landing on Venus is easier than landing on Mars. The reason: Venus has a much thicker atmosphere, making a relatively simple parachute descent possible. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, and doesn't provide that much friction.
Now having one's lander survive after a successful soft landing, that's another matter... Venus is a bit less hospitable than Mars with its high temperature and surface pressure.
Getting there should be of a similar difficulty: it both involves getting away from Earth's gravity (this may be the hardest part even), navigating through space, and getting the correct speed to approach the other planet.
I agree. At least, it worked for me very well that way.
As a kid I learned Basic, later in college TurboPascal. After that I did not program for a decade, until the need arose. I needed to do something with my computer to help me send and receive faxes, and couldn't find anything useful at the time. Having read/. for a long time I figured Python would be easy to learn and up to the job, so I just grabbed Python, read a tutorial, and started working on my program. Now I know my way around Python quite well.
There was the need for a GUI, so I grabbed GTK2 and Glade, and it was actually great fun building and working with GUIs that way.
More recently I was in need of a very specific app for my phone that did not exist. Android requires Java, which I had never used before. But no choice in that. I checked the manuals on Google's Android pages, installed Eclipse with the recommended Android extensions, read a basic Java tutorial, and started working.
A lot of trial-and-error is involved, but the result is I know my way around the software and in the meantime have gotten a basic understanding of object-oriented programming and a few more of that. Stackoverflow was also a great resource for code snippets and general advice on how to solve things.
But to get a deep understanding of a language, reading books will be a requirement. Learning a language by just starting to work with it will let you scratch the surface, maybe get a bit deeper, but anything further than that I have learned from other sources - including stackoverflow discussions,/. discussions, and other sources.
Second, did you see that movie? Batman hardly committed any violence at all.
I may be able to find a watchable copy on The Pirate Bay (if there is some preview-DVD-rip available) but that'd be the only way for me to actually watch it in my part of the world. For the rest I'm limited to what the media informs me about it.
Not just management, you should also blame the developers that wrote it that way.
It's a manager's job to tell how to do it; it's a developers job to implement it properly. You can't expect a manager to write perfectly modular, readable software - that's the developer's task, and blame failing to fulfill that task should be largely on the developer.
1) 200K lines is not such a formidable size. If your average module size is 1000 lines of code, that's 200 separate modules. Or if the module size averages 2000 locs, that's 100 modules.
You make a very big assumption here, and that is that this code is written in neatly separated modules. The submitter asking for help; calling it "spaghetti code" that has been "cobbled together" over a long period and presumably by many different developers; those points make me doubt you can make such an assumption.
The acceptance of violence in the US is already much higher than in any other developed country that I can think of, and most of the rest of the world too (having a (civil) war going on does not mean there is an acceptance of violence).
Just look at the incredible amount of violence shown in children's cartoons (Tom&Jerry, Road Runner, etc) or your average Hollywood movie (the cinema massacre was nothing compared to the on-screen violence by the "hero" Batman).
I'm sure you can prove any cycle by being selective enough. Pretty much exactly mid-cycle in your suggested list there were the 9.11 attacks for example.
A large part of the cost may be due to accounting.
They use an existing rocket; zero development cost there. While Nasa would probably either develop a new rocket just for that mission, and put all the cost of development on the Mars mission, so they could re-use the rocket later at much lower cost for projects they don't have budget for.
And there are probably many more places were just accounting cost to one project or the other (little is developed exclusively for one project) can make or break a budget.
Today when I logged in to Facebook it said something about me having Timeline now. Whatever was my thought on that.
I never visited my Wall or my personal page, don't really know what the use of Timeline is - other than that it's at least as horrible, messy layout and unusable as the original Wall (this from looking at other people's personal pages). I'm one of those guys who doesn't even have a profile picture, largely because I just don't care enough to find a nice one.
I read the front page (with lots of nonsense from friends and acquaintances - and a total lack of a usable search function so don't bother giving a belated reply to a post of a friend), and one local group.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple will formally announce and show off a new version when it's ready, and usually has it available in the shops the next day. Everything else is just rumours, but it continues to surprise me how much Apple lives up to the rumours. They live up more to unofficial rumours, than MS lives up to their own pre-product announcements.
Everybody knows a company will not stop developing when a product is out. But announcing and starting to show off a successor changes the game a lot, as it gives people something concrete to wait for.
Obviously they'll take share and make money by making Windows not work as well on the hardware of their OEM competitors.
At least they still allow Windows to run on third-party hardware. Their major competitor in the tablet market, and second largest vendor of PCs and laptops, is not so generous. Yet no-one complains about that...
Linus should have patented his idea! He could have become a rich man.
No keyboard found. Press <F1> to continue.
(correcting for HTML... preview? What preview? Oh, that preview...)
No keyboard found. Press to continue.
According to the linked article, they have two computers on board.
They're currently testing the computers to see everything works as intended, then upgrade the main computer, and if that goes fine upgrade the backup computer. Also the new software has been uploaded in transit, so at the moment they have both software systems (the landing system and the surface work system) on their craft.
What is not clear from the article, is how independent these computers are. E.g. what would happen if the upgrade fails partially, with the main computer trying to take over the craft, while the backup computer is still on the original program.
It's not that easy. Snow doesn't have constant thickness, there are always drifts. Snow still falling makes it even harder.
Actually one of the major clues I used in staying on that road was the simple knowledge that a road normally goes straight on, so forward is where you start searching. The presence of curves can be detected when you see some trees in your path. The trick is then to figure out where exactly the curve is...
Tricky driving. Especially for a computer.
Not sure how Google is going to solve it, but it makes me think on how I would approach it.
(1) Construction zone, worker standing with a temporary "slow/stop" sign indicating when cars can proceed on a one-lane section shared between both directions alternately.
Depends on how far they are with following roads and road signs by visual interpretation versus maps. Roads change all the time, obstacles may occur (tree fallen on the road, car broken down, whatever). This is effectively an obstacle.
The car should have some system to keep track of the actual road location and direction, and the width of the road. When a road is known to be bidirectional, and it is detected that it is narrower than the width of two cars, it has to be dealt with separately. Like looking for a sign showing which direction has the right of way, failing that slowly proceeding and dealing with oncoming traffic by using the expected passing places. If no passing places it's getting tough of course.
(2) Baseball rolls out into street in residential area, followed soon by child who was initially invisible behind a parked minivan. I knew ball might be followed by someone, and slowed way down so this wasn't a problem. At normal speed, it would have been.
Obstacle (baseball) detected; slow down. Size of obstacle may be a problem for detection system.
(3) Nearly invisible ice around curve, one other car had slid off road. I knew to greatly reduce speed even below normal winter operating conditions.
Very tough one. This is a type of situation that can not be pre-programmed, and actual intelligence comes into play. A technical way to deal with this may be to use IR cameras that detect where the temperature of the road surface is below freezing, combined with some optical system to detect water/ice/snow. The first should be easy, the second I don't know.
(4) Two lanes in each direction road. Noticed other car weaving around unpredictably, and later noticed driver occupied with cell phone. I then knew not to drive next to this vehicle even though that would have been fine in other conditions.
Obstacle. Erratic driver, call 911 to alert authorities.
I have a much harder one for you, that I've dealt with myself once (and admittedly not with 100% success): a road covered in fresh snow. No lines visible, everything white. In the dark, with the edge of the road only detectable by a small drop in the snow level and the occasional pole sticking out, snowed-over reflector optional.
I wouldn't say "better", which implies both the original and current situation are good. I'd call it "less bad". Every CO2 emission, and every road accident, is bad.
Interesting point you make. Anyone have any general input on how it's going with those law suits? It's been a long time since I've seen anything about it on this site.
That is just the cultural difference between the nasty gun slinging New Zealanders versus the polite, peace loving Americans.
The rest of the world (outside US) replaces their phone more like once a year on average. If not more.
And that's not counting the slowly but steadily increase in proliferation of Android tablets and hybrids (they are available in basically any size from 3" to 13" screen diameter - I don't know where the smartphone ends and where the tablet begins).
Currently there is such as service in Taiwan already. One can order books from a major local retailer, and then pick them up next day from their local 7-11 outlet. And with those shops available virtually everywhere (including smaller villages) that makes for a huge network of "package lockers".
Not to discount Russia's achievement of putting multiple probes on Venus, I have the idea that landing on Venus is easier than landing on Mars. The reason: Venus has a much thicker atmosphere, making a relatively simple parachute descent possible. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, and doesn't provide that much friction.
Now having one's lander survive after a successful soft landing, that's another matter... Venus is a bit less hospitable than Mars with its high temperature and surface pressure.
Getting there should be of a similar difficulty: it both involves getting away from Earth's gravity (this may be the hardest part even), navigating through space, and getting the correct speed to approach the other planet.
I agree. At least, it worked for me very well that way.
As a kid I learned Basic, later in college TurboPascal. After that I did not program for a decade, until the need arose. I needed to do something with my computer to help me send and receive faxes, and couldn't find anything useful at the time. Having read /. for a long time I figured Python would be easy to learn and up to the job, so I just grabbed Python, read a tutorial, and started working on my program. Now I know my way around Python quite well.
There was the need for a GUI, so I grabbed GTK2 and Glade, and it was actually great fun building and working with GUIs that way.
More recently I was in need of a very specific app for my phone that did not exist. Android requires Java, which I had never used before. But no choice in that. I checked the manuals on Google's Android pages, installed Eclipse with the recommended Android extensions, read a basic Java tutorial, and started working.
A lot of trial-and-error is involved, but the result is I know my way around the software and in the meantime have gotten a basic understanding of object-oriented programming and a few more of that. Stackoverflow was also a great resource for code snippets and general advice on how to solve things.
But to get a deep understanding of a language, reading books will be a requirement. Learning a language by just starting to work with it will let you scratch the surface, maybe get a bit deeper, but anything further than that I have learned from other sources - including stackoverflow discussions, /. discussions, and other sources.
They should just use UTC. Or has Mars been cut up into time zones as well?
Second, did you see that movie? Batman hardly committed any violence at all.
I may be able to find a watchable copy on The Pirate Bay (if there is some preview-DVD-rip available) but that'd be the only way for me to actually watch it in my part of the world. For the rest I'm limited to what the media informs me about it.
Not just management, you should also blame the developers that wrote it that way.
It's a manager's job to tell how to do it; it's a developers job to implement it properly. You can't expect a manager to write perfectly modular, readable software - that's the developer's task, and blame failing to fulfill that task should be largely on the developer.
1) 200K lines is not such a formidable size. If your average module size is 1000 lines of code, that's 200 separate modules. Or if the module size averages 2000 locs, that's 100 modules.
You make a very big assumption here, and that is that this code is written in neatly separated modules. The submitter asking for help; calling it "spaghetti code" that has been "cobbled together" over a long period and presumably by many different developers; those points make me doubt you can make such an assumption.
It can very well be a single "module".
The acceptance of violence in the US is already much higher than in any other developed country that I can think of, and most of the rest of the world too (having a (civil) war going on does not mean there is an acceptance of violence).
Just look at the incredible amount of violence shown in children's cartoons (Tom&Jerry, Road Runner, etc) or your average Hollywood movie (the cinema massacre was nothing compared to the on-screen violence by the "hero" Batman).
I'm sure you can prove any cycle by being selective enough. Pretty much exactly mid-cycle in your suggested list there were the 9.11 attacks for example.
Assassination is a mere euphemism of murder.
They're not going to put a lander down. Saves heaps of cost.
A large part of the cost may be due to accounting.
They use an existing rocket; zero development cost there. While Nasa would probably either develop a new rocket just for that mission, and put all the cost of development on the Mars mission, so they could re-use the rocket later at much lower cost for projects they don't have budget for.
And there are probably many more places were just accounting cost to one project or the other (little is developed exclusively for one project) can make or break a budget.
Today when I logged in to Facebook it said something about me having Timeline now. Whatever was my thought on that.
I never visited my Wall or my personal page, don't really know what the use of Timeline is - other than that it's at least as horrible, messy layout and unusable as the original Wall (this from looking at other people's personal pages). I'm one of those guys who doesn't even have a profile picture, largely because I just don't care enough to find a nice one.
I read the front page (with lots of nonsense from friends and acquaintances - and a total lack of a usable search function so don't bother giving a belated reply to a post of a friend), and one local group.