In any case, I don't know what memory technology voyager uses. The (slightly) more modern space shuttles used magnetic core memory for essential systems. These are not affected by cosmic rays. If it isn't magnetic core, then it is likely to be static RAM. This too is not easily modified by a cosmic ray.
I'd hate to tell you this, but no one cares about openness except a handful of geeks.
This is why when I flew last weekend I saw two groups of devices being handled by passengers flying. E-ink readers and iPads.
Not tablets, slates, netbooks. iPads and Kindles/nooks.
Revolution isn't about what YOU as a super nerd can do with devices it's about what everyone can do with a device.
For the consumer end of things, yes, but the TFA is about commercial deployments. RunRev's client was apparently hoping to roll out a multi-thousand unit deployment of iPads to run their software. Now that they can't, I suspect they care very much about it.
While it might be good to hold commercial companies responsible for the software they sell it can place OSS developers in a very bad situation.
If you sell your software to someone using only a rigged demo to convince them, then yes - you'd be liable if it wasn't able to do in reality what it seemed to do in the demo. With OSS - and heck, many commercial apps - you can usually evaluate it first, in which case this law would not apply. AFAIK it was the fact that they weren't able to evaluate it properly which caused the problem.
Are you sure it was the right one?
There was a 'pre-release' version floating around that wasn't actually ChromeOS at all, it was just the Chrome browser stuck on a minimal SUSE distribution. That did allow native apps, but it wasn't actually Google's product, it was an unofficial 'demo' that someone hacked together.
The Casio IT500 (Windows CE 4) shipped out-of-the-box with running web, FTP and telnet services. I have no idea why, since it was the sort of thing you'd use to scan package barcodes in a warehouse.
I'm not sure what HDV is, but all the others were successes - either arguably or definitively - which I presume was his point. Some of these are obscure or may be misinterpreted so I'll elaborate on the ones I know:
I think digital Betacam is still in use, though it seems to be being replaced by video servers nowadays.
S/PDIF is on virtually every soundcard - higher end ones in particular.
DAT was eventually obsoleted but was the de-facto standard for professional audio and CD duplication for some years, though it was a flop in the consumer marketplace owing to the DRM.
The CD goes without saying. Hi8 and miniDV seemed to do okay and Hi8 was the medium which some of TASCAM's multitracks were built around, e.g. the DA38.
Second, malware spreading ads. I thought they were a myth at first, until I was tapped by one (spreading one of those annoying fake antivirus trojan things no less.) And these do turn up on otherwise reputable sites, so anyone trying to pull out the 'watch where you browse' or 'lay off the (porn/warez/music/movies) can sit and spin. The first infection I encountered on a system I used came from a tech support forum of all places, while running Firefox, with anti-virus and anti-malware application resident and up to date, and all applicable security patches to all involved software in place.
Amen. I was bitten by this in January. The prime suspects for that day were either Slashdot one of the linked articles. I'm thinking it was probably a flash exploit, because again, I had current AV software, firefox and a healthy sense of paranoia. When I came out of a meeting I found Antivirus XP 2010 or somesuch sitting in the system tray and screaming blue murder.
This was what finally pushed me over the edge to install adblock plus. While I feel kind of mean doing that, if it's a choice between the machine getting infected by some kind of drive-by attack, and the people running the ads, it would suck to be them. At home, I simply don't let Windows on the 'net at all...
Reading the article, the main thrust of it doesn't seem to be the fact that they're using 16-year-olds, though there is a part about 14-15 year-olds as well. The problem is mostly the way the factory is being run.
The workers – mostly women aged 18 to 25 – work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. They eat horrid meals from the factory cafeterias. They have no bathroom breaks during their shifts, and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
They sleep in factory dormitories, 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28-inch-wide plywood boards. They "shower" with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they're young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC alleges.
Are you including bespoke applications? To be honest, that is about the only thing WM is really decent for. For instance, these are all running either WM or bare Windows CE:
...that's just one manufacturer. There are dozens. Now that WM7 seems to have completely dropped the ball for this kind of stuff, I imagine most of them will be either sticking with Windows Phone 'Classic' (aka 6.5) or going over to pure Windows CE.
Having multiple stores is what nearly killed Windows Mobile until 6.5. The fact that users had to dig around and search for apps, find a website to download the.cab or.exe file, then install it manually made impulse buying of stuff (a big source of cash) impossible.
It also made it a viable platform for internal business applications. As far as I can see, Apple does not provide a mechanism for this, and WM7 taketh it away.
Absolutely. AFAIK this thing is so rock-solid that it's used for safety-critical things like medical equipment and aerospace stuff. I absolutely do not want to see it go down the pan, even though I don't use it myself.
Re:Can you name such an alternative?
on
iPad Jailbroken
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· Score: 1
I'm kind of curious about this myself - aside from the lockdown my own beef with the iPad is that it seems a little expensive for what it does. However, there seem to be a number of Android tablets appearing and no doubt there will be more - what the iPad does is basically what Chrome OS was intended to do, after all...
Anyway. A little googling revealed the following. I'm not suggesting they're a 1:1 replacement for the iPad, but they might be worth further investigation:
1. The Enso Zenpad. This seems to be about $250. It's 5" which is a little on the small side and runs Android. Not sure what the battery life is like, but it is apparently shipping now. It does not seem to have built-in 3G, but it can take an adaptor via USB and does support WiFi.
2. The HiVision Speedpad. I'm not sure this is shipping but it's a 7" 800x480 Android device, which claims to retail for $100(!) The battery life is allegedly 6 hours. Again, no internal 3G, but it can take a USB adaptor and it comes with WiFi built-in.
My main problem with most music player software today is the idea of a 'media library'. In order to play a file, you first have to put it in the library. I understand such a database has its benefits, but to me it is unnecessary complication of a simple operation.
This. I work with sound effects and speech clips a lot, usually ones that I've been sent as part of a project, and one of the things I want to be able to do is play a bunch of short files quickly and easily, with no messing around. I used to use XMMS, but it kind of faded away. I use mocp a lot now, more recently audacious. Having to register something into a database when I only want to listen to it once just quickly to make sure the recording was okay, that's just a pain in the ass.
It's probably better than most, but if you've ever climbed out of the Catacombs Entrance area in Paris, you'll probably have discovered that the large tower you were airdropped onto has a trap at the bottom to make you explode, most likely to try and prevent the player surviving if they jumped off. Similarly, forget about exploring the ravine in the Vandenberg base (see also the "Vandenberg effect" on youtube).
Frankly I tend to play medieval fantasy type games more because you have more of an excuse ("It's magic!"), but having said that I do kind of wish that DE's "Realistic" setting had gone for something more like "If you're shot, it will kill you". As opposed to... well, if you know what you're doing, you can blow yourself up just before the mission ends and start the next one as just a head with no limbs or body.
Processors, definitely. However the more boring part is the motherboard, graphics card and other supporting components.
New generation graphics cards are usually appallingly expensive so unless it's something entirely new and groundbreaking I don't usually pay very much attention (unless I'm looking at buying a graphics card).
New motherboards and memory technologies again are something I'm only really curious about when looking to buy a new system.
This. Also, during the 1990s computer performance increased dramatically, as in it went from 10MHz to 1000MHz. Since then things have sort of reached a level of "good enough". For instance, I kept my motherboard and processor the same from 2002-2007, simply because it was still able to run most current software just fine. The only things which really prompted an upgrade were Oblivion and a desire to play with a 64-bit OS.
And as the parent says, that was a long enough wait to have lost touch with motherboard, memory and graphics card technology.
True, but it's going to be fun if he wants to run the Natural Wildlife mod so the wolves and rats don't all have rabies, or if he wants to add wings to his character or make the levelling system not broken or something. It's not necessarily my opinion, but people do say that Bethesda release the games, and then the mod community makes them playable.
The UI and the program entry point have to be written in Java. However, since it supports JNI, you can reuse all the program logic from C/C++, assuming you haven't stuffed it full of win32-specific stuff.
At one point I was considering something like this as an alternative to a tape delay, something along the lines of the Binson echorec. However I didn't really have the electronics skill to pull it off unfortunately. I suspect you'd have an interesting time getting it the record bias right for a coating optimised for recording binary data rather than an analogue signal.
Slashdot Mirror
In any case, I don't know what memory technology voyager uses. The (slightly) more modern space shuttles used magnetic core memory for essential systems. These are not affected by cosmic rays. If it isn't magnetic core, then it is likely to be static RAM. This too is not easily modified by a cosmic ray.
I got curious and looked it up: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html
...apparently it uses Plated Wire memory which I had not heard of before, but seems to be a relative of core store.
I'd hate to tell you this, but no one cares about openness except a handful of geeks.
This is why when I flew last weekend I saw two groups of devices being handled by passengers flying. E-ink readers and iPads.
Not tablets, slates, netbooks. iPads and Kindles/nooks.
Revolution isn't about what YOU as a super nerd can do with devices it's about what everyone can do with a device.
For the consumer end of things, yes, but the TFA is about commercial deployments. RunRev's client was apparently hoping to roll out a multi-thousand unit deployment of iPads to run their software. Now that they can't, I suspect they care very much about it.
While it might be good to hold commercial companies responsible for the software they sell it can place OSS developers in a very bad situation.
If you sell your software to someone using only a rigged demo to convince them, then yes - you'd be liable if it wasn't able to do in reality what it seemed to do in the demo. With OSS - and heck, many commercial apps - you can usually evaluate it first, in which case this law would not apply. AFAIK it was the fact that they weren't able to evaluate it properly which caused the problem.
Really? The pre-release on that I tried did...
Are you sure it was the right one?
There was a 'pre-release' version floating around that wasn't actually ChromeOS at all, it was just the Chrome browser stuck on a minimal SUSE distribution. That did allow native apps, but it wasn't actually Google's product, it was an unofficial 'demo' that someone hacked together.
The Casio IT500 (Windows CE 4) shipped out-of-the-box with running web, FTP and telnet services. I have no idea why, since it was the sort of thing you'd use to scan package barcodes in a warehouse.
I'm not sure what HDV is, but all the others were successes - either arguably or definitively - which I presume was his point. Some of these are obscure or may be misinterpreted so I'll elaborate on the ones I know:
I think digital Betacam is still in use, though it seems to be being replaced by video servers nowadays. S/PDIF is on virtually every soundcard - higher end ones in particular.
DAT was eventually obsoleted but was the de-facto standard for professional audio and CD duplication for some years, though it was a flop in the consumer marketplace owing to the DRM.
The CD goes without saying. Hi8 and miniDV seemed to do okay and Hi8 was the medium which some of TASCAM's multitracks were built around, e.g. the DA38.
Second, malware spreading ads. I thought they were a myth at first, until I was tapped by one (spreading one of those annoying fake antivirus trojan things no less.) And these do turn up on otherwise reputable sites, so anyone trying to pull out the 'watch where you browse' or 'lay off the (porn/warez/music/movies) can sit and spin. The first infection I encountered on a system I used came from a tech support forum of all places, while running Firefox, with anti-virus and anti-malware application resident and up to date, and all applicable security patches to all involved software in place.
Amen. I was bitten by this in January. The prime suspects for that day were either Slashdot one of the linked articles. I'm thinking it was probably a flash exploit, because again, I had current AV software, firefox and a healthy sense of paranoia. When I came out of a meeting I found Antivirus XP 2010 or somesuch sitting in the system tray and screaming blue murder.
This was what finally pushed me over the edge to install adblock plus. While I feel kind of mean doing that, if it's a choice between the machine getting infected by some kind of drive-by attack, and the people running the ads, it would suck to be them. At home, I simply don't let Windows on the 'net at all...
Reading the article, the main thrust of it doesn't seem to be the fact that they're using 16-year-olds, though there is a part about 14-15 year-olds as well. The problem is mostly the way the factory is being run.
The workers – mostly women aged 18 to 25 – work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. They eat horrid meals from the factory cafeterias. They have no bathroom breaks during their shifts, and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
They sleep in factory dormitories, 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28-inch-wide plywood boards. They "shower" with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they're young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC alleges.
http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business+Product+and+Services/Mobile+Computers/Handheld+Computers
But only if they have more than 500 employees. In my experience, these apps are usually written bespoke by a smaller, outside company.
Having multiple stores is what nearly killed Windows Mobile until 6.5. The fact that users had to dig around and search for apps, find a website to download the .cab or .exe file, then install it manually made impulse buying of stuff (a big source of cash) impossible.
It also made it a viable platform for internal business applications. As far as I can see, Apple does not provide a mechanism for this, and WM7 taketh it away.
I never saw that. BeOS did have a boot CD, but I don't remember it all being squished onto a 1.44MB disk like QNX did.
Absolutely. AFAIK this thing is so rock-solid that it's used for safety-critical things like medical equipment and aerospace stuff. I absolutely do not want to see it go down the pan, even though I don't use it myself.
Anyway. A little googling revealed the following. I'm not suggesting they're a 1:1 replacement for the iPad, but they might be worth further investigation:
1. The Enso Zenpad. This seems to be about $250. It's 5" which is a little on the small side and runs Android. Not sure what the battery life is like, but it is apparently shipping now. It does not seem to have built-in 3G, but it can take an adaptor via USB and does support WiFi.
2. The HiVision Speedpad. I'm not sure this is shipping but it's a 7" 800x480 Android device, which claims to retail for $100(!) The battery life is allegedly 6 hours. Again, no internal 3G, but it can take a USB adaptor and it comes with WiFi built-in.
Given the massacres I committed there, I think we can safely say that it doesn't work, even in the game...
My main problem with most music player software today is the idea of a 'media library'. In order to play a file, you first have to put it in the library. I understand such a database has its benefits, but to me it is unnecessary complication of a simple operation.
This. I work with sound effects and speech clips a lot, usually ones that I've been sent as part of a project, and one of the things I want to be able to do is play a bunch of short files quickly and easily, with no messing around. I used to use XMMS, but it kind of faded away. I use mocp a lot now, more recently audacious. Having to register something into a database when I only want to listen to it once just quickly to make sure the recording was okay, that's just a pain in the ass.
If, as seems to be the case, they're reprinting wikipedia texts about Scientology, it could get very interesting to watch: http://www.amazon.com/Scientology-Legal-System-Intellectual-Defamation/dp/6130327315
This looks like the best one I've seen so far: http://www.amazon.com/USS-Dempsey-26-Insert-subtitle/dp/613037867X
Frankly I tend to play medieval fantasy type games more because you have more of an excuse ("It's magic!"), but having said that I do kind of wish that DE's "Realistic" setting had gone for something more like "If you're shot, it will kill you". As opposed to... well, if you know what you're doing, you can blow yourself up just before the mission ends and start the next one as just a head with no limbs or body.
New generation graphics cards are usually appallingly expensive so unless it's something entirely new and groundbreaking I don't usually pay very much attention (unless I'm looking at buying a graphics card).
New motherboards and memory technologies again are something I'm only really curious about when looking to buy a new system.
This. Also, during the 1990s computer performance increased dramatically, as in it went from 10MHz to 1000MHz. Since then things have sort of reached a level of "good enough". For instance, I kept my motherboard and processor the same from 2002-2007, simply because it was still able to run most current software just fine. The only things which really prompted an upgrade were Oblivion and a desire to play with a 64-bit OS.
And as the parent says, that was a long enough wait to have lost touch with motherboard, memory and graphics card technology.
True, but it's going to be fun if he wants to run the Natural Wildlife mod so the wolves and rats don't all have rabies, or if he wants to add wings to his character or make the levelling system not broken or something. It's not necessarily my opinion, but people do say that Bethesda release the games, and then the mod community makes them playable.
Fantastic... now I can finally have a Multitool...
The UI and the program entry point have to be written in Java. However, since it supports JNI, you can reuse all the program logic from C/C++, assuming you haven't stuffed it full of win32-specific stuff.
At one point I was considering something like this as an alternative to a tape delay, something along the lines of the Binson echorec. However I didn't really have the electronics skill to pull it off unfortunately. I suspect you'd have an interesting time getting it the record bias right for a coating optimised for recording binary data rather than an analogue signal.