Somewhat silly, but wouldn't you incur a bit of overhead mixing machines of different endian-ness? I suppose for non-communication intense algorithms this wouldn't be a big deal.
The chip includes a "Chromotion Video Display Engine" with advanced video rendering functions such as "Video De-blocking" and "Adaptive De-interlacing," which add to the user's "Hi-Def visual experience," according to VIA. The board supports displays including all HDTV formats, and NTSC or PAL TVs.
This sounds interesting. Possibly handling the motion vectors and a deblocking filter in hardware. I wonder if this is the extent of the 'MPEG-4' support, or if that refers to a separate MPEG-4 hardware decdoder. Regardless, the motion comp and deblocking should also be applicable to most other non-wavelet based codecs. Although that won't matter a bit unless they publish the specs so we can use it.
I also wonder if 'all HDTV formats' means the card can handle interlacing. I've been trying to drive a 1080i only HDTV lately and had a heck of a time finding a card that would drive it out the DVI. The only ones I found were the Matrox G550 and the Radeon AiW 9800(component, haven't tried DVI).
I think every engineer can relate to the post-project depression that comes after completing something you've totally immersing yourself in for months/years. Once you lose that strong sense of purpose it takes a bit to get interested in something else.
I don't think you understand the unbelieveable feeling you get when you follow the instructions, line by line, and everything works the first time. Really. I still can't believe it. It makes me want to go back and reinstall just to relive it...
There's a reason we're called Gentoo Zealots. You will be assimilated.
I spent 2 1/2 weeks in Tokyo and found their Mass Transit to be so wonderful I don't think I'd even want a car if I lived there. Not only can you get around the city, but once you get to a train station you can go practically anywhere in the country.
Unfortunately implementing a system like that in the US would require huge changes in city planning and personal attitudes towards growth. I love my suburban house, but I have to admit that California spawl is going to prevent the widespread use of Mass Transit for decades to come.
The cool thing about machinima is that it helps lower the barriers to entry for creating a movie. It looks a bit kitschy now, but with advanced HW acceleration coming down in price I think 10 years down the road we'll see some very interesting work.
Now what would be great is applying the open source model to work on larger productions. I'd love to see a faithful movie version of LOTR. Done by fans, so no one has to watch Legolas shield-surfing or pointless changes to fit it into a 9 hour trilogy.
Actually, I suppose you could start now as long as you picked open formats for storing the movie elements(dialog, movement, models, etc). Then you can change the renderer over time as things get better.
Imagine a machinima Gutenberg project - producing free versions of all the classic stories Disney ripped off.
Thank you! I couldn't have asked for a better response.
You post shows hints of the 'economist' attitude I was complaining about in the parent post. You hint that most laid-off workers unable to learn new skills are simply lazy('unwilling'). However it seems that any skill worth learning is going to take a significant investment of time and money. If it didn't, there probably would already be an abundance of trained workers in that field.
Really what I'm getting at is that the process of retraining, relocating, or accepting a lower standard of living working in unskilled labor all involve large amounts of emotional and sometimes physical suffering. In the long run, certainly things will work out, however I believe it is society's responsibility to address the transition humanely. Economic models, and by that I mean everything from a politicians mental model to a detailed simulation run on a supercomputer, don't seem to account for human suffering.
I could be horribly mistaken but isn't this kind of what England turned into?
IANAE, but I always had the impression that England had a strong class split with lots of white collar middle management types and accountants running old investments and lots of low wage blue collar typles with not much in the middle.
This isn't based off much fact, so would an Englishman care to comment?
You covered most of what I was going to say but let me elaborate a bit.
Most economists/capitalists used to say that the market will sort this sort of thing out. Their highly simplified models of humans tell them that when labor markets shift and jobs go overseas, unemployed workers can simply retrain. However real people aren't always retrainable. Sometimes the 52 year old factory worker can't go out and learn something new. Also, most jobs with a similar skillset might become filled rather quickly. For instance, many people suggest unemployed IT workers should start a local IT support business. That may work for a while, but soon that market is saturated.
I think in the end there is a real unavoidable cost for outsourcing and it would be great to hear an economist admit it instead of simply glossing over it with tales of the invisible hand. Then we can consider what measures society/government can take to bridge the gap between economic theory and reality.
I'm not against outsourcing, however I think there needs to be a great deal of focus on retraining, extending unemployment compensation, incentives for early retirement... whatever a more detailed study than I'm willing to undertake would prove effective in helping the newly unemployed.
Reminds me of something I've been thinking of putting in my house for a while.
Imagine a simple voice interface for limited internet functionality. Place microphones and speakers around the house. Now, when I'm sitting on the couch reading a book and I come across I word I haven't seen before, I can say "Hey Frank, lookup the word '...'." Need the weather? "Hey Frank, what's the weather report?".. Etc, etc..
It should be fairly simple to tie a speech recognition engine to some python scripts to perform simple queries and return a parsed result ready for text-to-speech conversion. One big problem the dictionary feature brings out is how the speech recognition would handle unfamiliar words. Even leaving that feature out, it would be nice to have a limited set of features I could use anywhere in the house.
Use some sort of unique gating phrase('Hey Frank!') and look for the nouns and verbs to give it some flexibility.
This is precisely the problem. I think linux users tend to like to switch 'operating systems' frequently. If not between different distros, between different versions. Sure, I'd love to spend $300 for a copy of Visual SlickEdit for linux, but I know I'll end up with problems when I upgrade, or change distros, so I'll stick with gvim and always have an editor that works. Its not that I'm cheap(well, ok, I'm cheap), but why pay for software that will only work for 3-4 months.
At work we have several guys using very expensive FPGA and ASIC design tools, and they're stuck using Redhat 7.3. Which means dealing with an unsupported OS and all of the bugs and quirks that were fixed years ago.
If a vendor wants to sell me software, first he'll have to convince me there isn't an Open Sourced equivalent that does the job nearly as well. Then he'll have to convince me that they'll stand behind the product and provide some limited email/forum support.
I've long since abandoned my cellulose encyclopedia collection for the information crack dealer known affectionately as Google. But when I was a kid, my favorite books were my collection of Encyclopedia Britannica. I used to spend hours following a thread from volume to volume, or just reading them straight through. It exposed me to a lot of diverse topics that I probably never would have come across by doing directed searches on Google. The information wasn't as current as whats available on the web, but it was much more complete and trustworthy. Also, I still don't think I absorb information from a CRT as easily as I do with a book.
Parents should really consider postponing their child's computer training and let them spend a few quiet afternoons with books. Besides, I want my kids to see computers as a tool to get things done, and not an end unto themselves(lest I create one more slashdot reader).
I love that show. Where else can you hear people who simultaneously believe in angels, aliens, christianity, ghosts, exorcism, satan, cow mutilation, bigfoot, mind control, underpants gnomes, psychic powers, the afterlife, etc..
At least if you're going to believe in a fantasy, pick one that's internally consistent.
Is there any reason the code, schematics and CAD designs aren't available for public viewing? Its a publicly funded project, and I don't think JPL has to worry about trade secrets.
If JPL would give us more information, I bet they'd have 50% of the entire engineering brainpower on the planet checking for races, inversions, memory leaks, hardware design flaws, etc.
If there was ever a project that could benefit from so many eyeballs, its space exploration. There are thousands of some of the most talented engineers on the planet who would jump at the chance to contribute to something like this.
This has already been said by other posters, but you should give gentoo a spin. It uses a package management system that I've heard is very similar to BSD ports. Its easy to constuct a system that is lean, and very customizable. I've been running it on my laptop and home server for some time and have been very impressed at how easy it is to maintain and upgrade. The portage system, as its version of ports is called, had over 5000 packages at last count(probably much more now). You can browse it here.
First, let me point out that the article was written by the president and CEO of Green Hills, a vendor of proprietary development tools and several RTOSes.
Second, let me point out a mistake made by many, many analysts when talking about 'embedded' linux. The 'embedded' market ranges from 8-bit microcontroller based devices, to PC style hardware, to cell phones and set-top boxes, satellites and mars rovers. So it is very difficult to come up with an assessment of any technology that applies uniformly to the entire space.
I've worked in practically every segment of the embedded market(DSP based consumer electronics, 8-bit control systems, headless PC's, set-top boxes, cell fones, networking appliances). I've used a variety of tools/solutions ranging from expensive and proprietary to free and open.
I recently had a client interested in using embedded linux for a cell fone design. They were put off by the $80k price tag for vxWorks, and so they decided to try linux. They were able to squeeze the system down to around 2MB on an ARM9/TI-OMAP. The realtime performance was acceptable. And to support the development they purchased several JTAG BDM debuggers. Its not that they were looking for a free ride, but $80k for a proprietary OS with limited features didn't seem like good business sense.
Also, the support I've received on mailing lists and IRC is above and beyond anything I've ever seen from a commercial vendor. In fact, I used to work for one of the biggest RTOS vendors around, and I found it more difficult to get answers out of my own company than the linux community.
Re:Is this really necessary?
on
Universal Goo
·
· Score: 1
Interesting... so if that's the case, why not do more subatomic research in space? Couldn't you just use a 'lens' of some sort to pick out ions with certain characteristics and focus a few on a target?
I know the detectors aren't very light, and therefore expensive to launch, but digging multi-kilometer tunnels lined with magnets isn't cheap either.
I think our chances of finding life are much higher on venus. Between primitive, subterranean archaebacteria like that found on earth, and the possibility of life in the upper atmosphere, I think Venus would be a very interesting destination. Unfortunately, Bushie will probably cut funding from all these stupid science missions so he can focus on giving his buddies a way to mine the asteroid belt.
$70/100k? So maybe apple buys 500k and gets it for $55.. Add in the electronics and case tooling... Probably costs apple $90 to make. That'd put the cost around $150-$180, unless they want to sell it at cost, but then its still pushing $125.
Definition: A protein particle that is capable of causing an infection or disease. Like viruses, prions are not capable of reproduction by themselves. Unlike viruses, prions do not contain genetic material (DNA or RNA).
I think they're an example of a self sustaining molecule - one that catalyzes the creation of itself from another molecule.
Slashdot Mirror
Somewhat silly, but wouldn't you incur a bit of overhead mixing machines of different endian-ness? I suppose for non-communication intense algorithms this wouldn't be a big deal.
This sounds interesting. Possibly handling the motion vectors and a deblocking filter in hardware. I wonder if this is the extent of the 'MPEG-4' support, or if that refers to a separate MPEG-4 hardware decdoder. Regardless, the motion comp and deblocking should also be applicable to most other non-wavelet based codecs. Although that won't matter a bit unless they publish the specs so we can use it.
I also wonder if 'all HDTV formats' means the card can handle interlacing. I've been trying to drive a 1080i only HDTV lately and had a heck of a time finding a card that would drive it out the DVI. The only ones I found were the Matrox G550 and the Radeon AiW 9800(component, haven't tried DVI).
I think every engineer can relate to the post-project depression that comes after completing something you've totally immersing yourself in for months/years. Once you lose that strong sense of purpose it takes a bit to get interested in something else.
I don't think you understand the unbelieveable feeling you get when you follow the instructions, line by line, and everything works the first time. Really. I still can't believe it. It makes me want to go back and reinstall just to relive it...
There's a reason we're called Gentoo Zealots. You will be assimilated.
I spent 2 1/2 weeks in Tokyo and found their Mass Transit to be so wonderful I don't think I'd even want a car if I lived there. Not only can you get around the city, but once you get to a train station you can go practically anywhere in the country.
Unfortunately implementing a system like that in the US would require huge changes in city planning and personal attitudes towards growth. I love my suburban house, but I have to admit that California spawl is going to prevent the widespread use of Mass Transit for decades to come.
The cool thing about machinima is that it helps lower the barriers to entry for creating a movie. It looks a bit kitschy now, but with advanced HW acceleration coming down in price I think 10 years down the road we'll see some very interesting work.
Now what would be great is applying the open source model to work on larger productions. I'd love to see a faithful movie version of LOTR. Done by fans, so no one has to watch Legolas shield-surfing or pointless changes to fit it into a 9 hour trilogy.
Actually, I suppose you could start now as long as you picked open formats for storing the movie elements(dialog, movement, models, etc). Then you can change the renderer over time as things get better.
Imagine a machinima Gutenberg project - producing free versions of all the classic stories Disney ripped off.
What I'm looking for is something similar, but which is run on a local machine and ftp's a static layout to the server.
Basically I want a script to take a big textfile and break it up and spread it over multiple pages along with some spiffy formatting.
Even better, a gnome applet that I can drag url's and text onto. Then it pops up a dialog to allow further editing.
Lemme get this straight..
Solar powered, in MONTREAL???
Guess the StrongARM takes less power than I thought...
Thank you! I couldn't have asked for a better response.
You post shows hints of the 'economist' attitude I was complaining about in the parent post. You hint that most laid-off workers unable to learn new skills are simply lazy('unwilling'). However it seems that any skill worth learning is going to take a significant investment of time and money. If it didn't, there probably would already be an abundance of trained workers in that field.
Really what I'm getting at is that the process of retraining, relocating, or accepting a lower standard of living working in unskilled labor all involve large amounts of emotional and sometimes physical suffering. In the long run, certainly things will work out, however I believe it is society's responsibility to address the transition humanely. Economic models, and by that I mean everything from a politicians mental model to a detailed simulation run on a supercomputer, don't seem to account for human suffering.
I could be horribly mistaken but isn't this kind of what England turned into?
IANAE, but I always had the impression that England had a strong class split with lots of white collar middle management types and accountants running old investments and lots of low wage blue collar typles with not much in the middle.
This isn't based off much fact, so would an Englishman care to comment?
You covered most of what I was going to say but let me elaborate a bit.
Most economists/capitalists used to say that the market will sort this sort of thing out. Their highly simplified models of humans tell them that when labor markets shift and jobs go overseas, unemployed workers can simply retrain. However real people aren't always retrainable. Sometimes the 52 year old factory worker can't go out and learn something new. Also, most jobs with a similar skillset might become filled rather quickly. For instance, many people suggest unemployed IT workers should start a local IT support business. That may work for a while, but soon that market is saturated.
I think in the end there is a real unavoidable cost for outsourcing and it would be great to hear an economist admit it instead of simply glossing over it with tales of the invisible hand. Then we can consider what measures society/government can take to bridge the gap between economic theory and reality.
I'm not against outsourcing, however I think there needs to be a great deal of focus on retraining, extending unemployment compensation, incentives for early retirement... whatever a more detailed study than I'm willing to undertake would prove effective in helping the newly unemployed.
What's next? Gravity lenses?
Reminds me of something I've been thinking of putting in my house for a while.
Imagine a simple voice interface for limited internet functionality. Place microphones and speakers around the house. Now, when I'm sitting on the couch reading a book and I come across I word I haven't seen before, I can say "Hey Frank, lookup the word '...'." Need the weather? "Hey Frank, what's the weather report?".. Etc, etc..
It should be fairly simple to tie a speech recognition engine to some python scripts to perform simple queries and return a parsed result ready for text-to-speech conversion. One big problem the dictionary feature brings out is how the speech recognition would handle unfamiliar words. Even leaving that feature out, it would be nice to have a limited set of features I could use anywhere in the house.
Use some sort of unique gating phrase('Hey Frank!') and look for the nouns and verbs to give it some flexibility.
This is precisely the problem. I think linux users tend to like to switch 'operating systems' frequently. If not between different distros, between different versions. Sure, I'd love to spend $300 for a copy of Visual SlickEdit for linux, but I know I'll end up with problems when I upgrade, or change distros, so I'll stick with gvim and always have an editor that works. Its not that I'm cheap(well, ok, I'm cheap), but why pay for software that will only work for 3-4 months.
At work we have several guys using very expensive FPGA and ASIC design tools, and they're stuck using Redhat 7.3. Which means dealing with an unsupported OS and all of the bugs and quirks that were fixed years ago.
If a vendor wants to sell me software, first he'll have to convince me there isn't an Open Sourced equivalent that does the job nearly as well. Then he'll have to convince me that they'll stand behind the product and provide some limited email/forum support.
I've long since abandoned my cellulose encyclopedia collection for the information crack dealer known affectionately as Google. But when I was a kid, my favorite books were my collection of Encyclopedia Britannica. I used to spend hours following a thread from volume to volume, or just reading them straight through. It exposed me to a lot of diverse topics that I probably never would have come across by doing directed searches on Google. The information wasn't as current as whats available on the web, but it was much more complete and trustworthy. Also, I still don't think I absorb information from a CRT as easily as I do with a book.
:)
Parents should really consider postponing their child's computer training and let them spend a few quiet afternoons with books. Besides, I want my kids to see computers as a tool to get things done, and not an end unto themselves(lest I create one more slashdot reader).
And no, I don't sell encyclopedias.
I love that show. Where else can you hear people who simultaneously believe in angels, aliens, christianity, ghosts, exorcism, satan, cow mutilation, bigfoot, mind control, underpants gnomes, psychic powers, the afterlife, etc..
At least if you're going to believe in a fantasy, pick one that's internally consistent.
Isn't that what student interns are for?
Is there any reason the code, schematics and CAD designs aren't available for public viewing? Its a publicly funded project, and I don't think JPL has to worry about trade secrets.
If JPL would give us more information, I bet they'd have 50% of the entire engineering brainpower on the planet checking for races, inversions, memory leaks, hardware design flaws, etc.
If there was ever a project that could benefit from so many eyeballs, its space exploration. There are thousands of some of the most talented engineers on the planet who would jump at the chance to contribute to something like this.
This has already been said by other posters, but you should give gentoo a spin. It uses a package management system that I've heard is very similar to BSD ports. Its easy to constuct a system that is lean, and very customizable. I've been running it on my laptop and home server for some time and have been very impressed at how easy it is to maintain and upgrade. The portage system, as its version of ports is called, had over 5000 packages at last count(probably much more now). You can browse it here.
Hello, Embedded Developer here.
First, let me point out that the article was written by the president and CEO of Green Hills, a vendor of proprietary development tools and several RTOSes.
Second, let me point out a mistake made by many, many analysts when talking about 'embedded' linux. The 'embedded' market ranges from 8-bit microcontroller based devices, to PC style hardware, to cell phones and set-top boxes, satellites and mars rovers. So it is very difficult to come up with an assessment of any technology that applies uniformly to the entire space.
I've worked in practically every segment of the embedded market(DSP based consumer electronics, 8-bit control systems, headless PC's, set-top boxes, cell fones, networking appliances). I've used a variety of tools/solutions ranging from expensive and proprietary to free and open.
I recently had a client interested in using embedded linux for a cell fone design. They were put off by the $80k price tag for vxWorks, and so they decided to try linux. They were able to squeeze the system down to around 2MB on an ARM9/TI-OMAP. The realtime performance was acceptable. And to support the development they purchased several JTAG BDM debuggers. Its not that they were looking for a free ride, but $80k for a proprietary OS with limited features didn't seem like good business sense.
Also, the support I've received on mailing lists and IRC is above and beyond anything I've ever seen from a commercial vendor. In fact, I used to work for one of the biggest RTOS vendors around, and I found it more difficult to get answers out of my own company than the linux community.
Interesting... so if that's the case, why not do more subatomic research in space? Couldn't you just use a 'lens' of some sort to pick out ions with certain characteristics and focus a few on a target?
I know the detectors aren't very light, and therefore expensive to launch, but digging multi-kilometer tunnels lined with magnets isn't cheap either.
I think our chances of finding life are much higher on venus. Between primitive, subterranean archaebacteria like that found on earth, and the possibility of life in the upper atmosphere, I think Venus would be a very interesting destination. Unfortunately, Bushie will probably cut funding from all these stupid science missions so he can focus on giving his buddies a way to mine the asteroid belt.
$70/100k? So maybe apple buys 500k and gets it for $55.. Add in the electronics and case tooling... Probably costs apple $90 to make. That'd put the cost around $150-$180, unless they want to sell it at cost, but then its still pushing $125.
Just my 2 cents...
I think they're an example of a self sustaining molecule - one that catalyzes the creation of itself from another molecule.