Well, Russian TV news said that the reason for the first failure was an unidentified interference with manual control system, which probably overrided the auto system. On the second try, they disabled the manual system, and the auto system worked great.
The procedure is always to try auto system first and switch to manual override only if it has problems.
I wouldn't trust this source at all. It's a completely crappy tabloid which regularly publishes complete BS under eye-catching titles. That's how they get profit.
I would call it lame. The robot isn't "solving" anything. The real impressive work is what happens before the robot does anything: the algorithm that determines a good solution for the given cube.
I guess that one wasn't an open problem.
But building it in Lego hardware was a first (or was it?).
Judging from your posts, you haven't used e-ink displays beyond "seeing it in person". I'm a regular user of a device marketed as EZ Reader in US, lBook here in Russia, so let me add some comments.
First off, you may have seen a bad contrast e-ink, it's true some are. Sony Reader is awful in this regard. Some devices are better, some worse, sometimes this is improved by firmware updates (seems like the screen is a very delicate device to control), and definitely newer batches of screens from E-Ink are getting better.
Second, I'm not comparing this to a CRT. I used a Pocket PC for this purpose before, with and withouth backlight and my desktop's LCD. The difference is huge. Backlit screens cause nasty strain fairly quick, and non-backlit screens are simply lacking the contrast - even worse than worst examples of e-paper. They are NOT suited to reflect external light, so white is very bleak. White is basically "mostly transparent", with a poor reflective surface below.
This device, though, uses (as seen from photos) a different kind of LCD screens - older one, like in calculators or LCD wrist watches, with a good reflective surface on the back specifically designed to use external light (and a possible backlight is only a desperate measure). It is close to E-Ink in its idea but reflexive surfaces below the screen are usually not very bright, and black here, alas, is not true black, but only a more-or-less good filtering of light using porarizing filters. They don't block all the light, so it appears grayish, or bluish, and when the device is low on power - more and more transparent. Worse yet, don't try to look at this display form a different angle - ghosting due to re-reflections in glass appear, and polarizers go weird. graying "white" areas.
E-Ink, in contrast, is all about reflecting light and being viewable from any angle. A white is a true white - white particles just below transparent thin plastic sheet. Black is black - black particles likewise. Just like the paper, hence the name. No viewing angle constraints, retains state without power. Disadvantage: impossibility of backlight, as the screen is opaque. I grant that, but the screen is readable even in low-light conditions.
I'm sure you're right. Still, a display of this minor size wouldn't be THAT much costly. 199$, maybe? For the sake of less eye strain, which should be a concern for children-oriented devices.
As suggested in Russian Wikipedia article, the system may require either "Button press by guy in bunker" or "Noone alive in the bunker" for that decision. Of coure there's no solid evidence that it's the case, but naturally such a system may work under assumption someone's on watch at all times unless something goes wrong.
And, to further explain it, programmers won't have a 'holiday ahead of other professions'. Well, unless corporate policy allows that. It's an official unofficial holiday.
No. They would be crazy to use this scheduler anyway since it won't scale to their 4096 cpu machines. The only way is to rewrite it to work that way, or to have more than one scheduler in the kernel. I don't want to do the former, and mainline doesn't want to do the latter. Besides, apparently I'm a bad maintainer, which makes sense since for some reason I seem to want to have a career, a life, raise a family with kids and have hobbies, all of which have nothing to do with linux.
I read the article title and thought that they're concerned with this closed-source protocol with possible backdoors open to foreign agents..
Well.. D'oh.
One of the problems mentioned seems the toughest to me - get 2 different applications on a same Windows system to use different input devices sets (keyboard+pointing device). Is that even possible?
Slashdot Mirror
Wake me up when it can physically move pieces for your opponent's moves. For now there are certainly tens of ways to do piece tracking.
Well, Russian TV news said that the reason for the first failure was an unidentified interference with manual control system, which probably overrided the auto system. On the second try, they disabled the manual system, and the auto system worked great. The procedure is always to try auto system first and switch to manual override only if it has problems.
You can't even make a proper table for d6 results..
Obligatory reference.
I wouldn't trust this source at all. It's a completely crappy tabloid which regularly publishes complete BS under eye-catching titles. That's how they get profit.
Anyone else thinking of World in Conflict after reading the summary?..
That was quite slow, you know.
I guess we have an Ig Nobel Prize candidate here..
I would call it lame. The robot isn't "solving" anything. The real impressive work is what happens before the robot does anything: the algorithm that determines a good solution for the given cube.
I guess that one wasn't an open problem. But building it in Lego hardware was a first (or was it?).
Judging from your posts, you haven't used e-ink displays beyond "seeing it in person". I'm a regular user of a device marketed as EZ Reader in US, lBook here in Russia, so let me add some comments.
First off, you may have seen a bad contrast e-ink, it's true some are. Sony Reader is awful in this regard. Some devices are better, some worse, sometimes this is improved by firmware updates (seems like the screen is a very delicate device to control), and definitely newer batches of screens from E-Ink are getting better.
Second, I'm not comparing this to a CRT. I used a Pocket PC for this purpose before, with and withouth backlight and my desktop's LCD. The difference is huge. Backlit screens cause nasty strain fairly quick, and non-backlit screens are simply lacking the contrast - even worse than worst examples of e-paper. They are NOT suited to reflect external light, so white is very bleak. White is basically "mostly transparent", with a poor reflective surface below.
This device, though, uses (as seen from photos) a different kind of LCD screens - older one, like in calculators or LCD wrist watches, with a good reflective surface on the back specifically designed to use external light (and a possible backlight is only a desperate measure). It is close to E-Ink in its idea but reflexive surfaces below the screen are usually not very bright, and black here, alas, is not true black, but only a more-or-less good filtering of light using porarizing filters. They don't block all the light, so it appears grayish, or bluish, and when the device is low on power - more and more transparent. Worse yet, don't try to look at this display form a different angle - ghosting due to re-reflections in glass appear, and polarizers go weird. graying "white" areas.
E-Ink, in contrast, is all about reflecting light and being viewable from any angle. A white is a true white - white particles just below transparent thin plastic sheet. Black is black - black particles likewise. Just like the paper, hence the name. No viewing angle constraints, retains state without power. Disadvantage: impossibility of backlight, as the screen is opaque. I grant that, but the screen is readable even in low-light conditions.
they wouldn't have been able to sell it for $99
I'm sure you're right. Still, a display of this minor size wouldn't be THAT much costly. 199$, maybe? For the sake of less eye strain, which should be a concern for children-oriented devices.
That device could've been a lot more awesome with an electronic paper display.
*switches attention back to e-book reader*
You can add Furmark to your "toolbox" to stress-test your GPU, free, built almost for that specific purpose and effective.
It sounds like the real problem would be the accidental launch of a "command missile" without it being ordered by perimeter. That would be bad news!
Think big. How about "accidental" launch of command missile replica?
As suggested in Russian Wikipedia article, the system may require either "Button press by guy in bunker" or "Noone alive in the bunker" for that decision. Of coure there's no solid evidence that it's the case, but naturally such a system may work under assumption someone's on watch at all times unless something goes wrong.
Mod parent up, please..
And, to further explain it, programmers won't have a 'holiday ahead of other professions'. Well, unless corporate policy allows that. It's an official unofficial holiday.
What's worse, it's not only a DoS attack, is potentially a remote-execution opportunity. In a kernel driver.
Oh yeah, and which other scheduler's, if any, did this guy write?
SD scheduler
Citing the FAQ:
Are you looking at getting this into mainline?
LOL.
No really, are you?
LOL.
Really really, are you?
No. They would be crazy to use this scheduler anyway since it won't scale to
their 4096 cpu machines. The only way is to rewrite it to work that way, or
to have more than one scheduler in the kernel. I don't want to do the former,
and mainline doesn't want to do the latter. Besides, apparently I'm a bad
maintainer, which makes sense since for some reason I seem to want to have
a career, a life, raise a family with kids and have hobbies, all of which
have nothing to do with linux.
I read the article title and thought that they're concerned with this closed-source protocol with possible backdoors open to foreign agents..
Well.. D'oh.
One of the problems mentioned seems the toughest to me - get 2 different applications on a same Windows system to use different input devices sets (keyboard+pointing device). Is that even possible?
Maybe, just maybe this will nudge Microsoft towards open-sourcing Windows, as discussed before.