You've nailed it. I've recently had to service a computer used by a chiropractor. The amount of quackery represented in the software installed there is beyond belief. Astrology, acupuncture "measurements", oh boy. The providers of this software surely must be making a good life for themselves. Sometimes I wish FDA had more teeth to stop it. Say what you want about the european Medical Directive, but if you want to market hardware or software that is classified as a medical device (anything directly used for treatment/diagnosis), it must have proven efficacy.
PS. I hate laws that come with a price tag attached just to view them -- many european directives include by reference national standards that cost thousands of dollars per single directive. I think this is completely broken and insane -- the U.S. has got it right: the courts have repeatedly ruled that if it's law, you can limit its distribution. Thus any code such as electrical, building, plumbing, etc. that got included in a law somewhere in the U.S. is available free of charge if you know where to look (resource.org is a good one).
As long as they can make that rocket affordably, they can just keep shooting it up till all the bugs get worked out. As to how many resources it takes: if they get labor comparably for "free", who knows -- they may just pull it off. I wish them well. I do worry that they're a cargo cult bunch at this point, like another reader aptly noted. Of course experience plays a big role: good luck in finding in Africa people that SpaceX could "snatch" from closing-up NASA-related programs. At lest those guys do some useful work, rather than, say, emigrating and helping out a potential adversary...
Probably yes. You'd need to make your own game engine, though, because the original is too slow and AFAIK non-scriptable. You'd end up wasting days waiting for just a few routines to execute.
I agree. But man, this 3D minecraft logic looks beautiful. Maybe someone needs to make a 3D language that looks like mineraft and translates into Verilog or VHDL:)
it would be tricky but nerdily rewarding to make a 16-bit ALU using discrete transistors and wires on a breadboard
Not very tricky. Much simpler than a 3D printer in minecraft. The problemw ith minecraft is that its simulator has glitches, and can mis-simulate when the machine load is high, etc. It's a game, and the simulation logic tries not to lag the display. This makes it non-deterministic AFAIK. It's unfortunate. If you watch the 3D printer video, he has to tweak things all the time -- almost just like with real-world Rube Goldberg contraptions that often work 1 out of 20 times end-to-end.
Mulally doesn't know how to design and build planes. He merely had the reins while competent people did just that. I'd credit him with not destroying Boeing while he was there, but that's about all the credit he deserves. He's no Steve Jobs nor Lee Iacocca. He didn't have to show some stunning executive acumen, just had not to mess with things too much. As far as I'm concerned, he's as clueless as they come.
Here's what will happen: in 10 years, Agilent will buy back the right to use the name HP from HP's smoldering shell. And engineers the world over will rejoice.
I've seen a jig just like they propose where fan air goes through a bunch of nozzles where it's mixing with external air, sort of like Dyson's "air multiplier" fan. No need for any cooling -- they planned on having some, but it worked well enough that they removed the heat exchanger. The temp rise was 25C. Toasty, but bearable.
As for rocketry: the first thing is to do is to model the heck out of everything, all the way to the test beds. That means hardware-in-the-loop test beds, software-in-for-hardware stand-ins where you verify that your behavioral model of actuators and engine matches the real thing, etc. They only need one guy who understands that, others can be pretty much organized grunts to do engineering. As long as they'll gain understanding over time, it'll be OK. There needs to be one person who read and understand Feynman, so to speak:)
Oh, the joy of dealing with dying old Dallas Semi battery-backed stuff. I just don't get it. Intel 2816 was available just fine in the early 80s. Xicor and OKI quickly picked it up and were second sources. Why the **** didn't the HP and other folk use it? It's 2 kilobytes and needs only 5V to operate. Writing one byte takes 10ms, but it's not the end of the world: it takes 20 seconds to fill the entire device. And erasure is done at a byte level, so you can efficiently modify single bytes.
I was suspicious, too, of the big fireball when it hit the ground. What the heck burned so violently? It should have had no fuel of any kind left at that stage? Or were there boosters that would activate once the tank had separated?
Assuming they're getting a turbofan: You can always direct the turbine exhaust elsewhere so that it doesn't mix with the fan air. Fan air can go through a heat exchanger if you really need to cool it down, I don't think it'd be necessary.
BBB is another scam. Completely pointless. No teeth at all. All good it can do for you is being an outdated place to post negative reviews of businesses. Spare yourself the hassle. Forget they exist.
The loader I've seen (a popular one) has two options you control: one is what bios is spoofs, and then what bios it sets up windows to look for. On a genuine machine, you don't have to do bios spoofs, just set up windows so that it'll look for the right bios. That's what I make of it.
The violin player is completely preprogrammed. It uses no audio feedback like any human would, and from what I could see at the demonstration in the Toyota plant, it doesn't use force feedback for anything but path-following control purposes. It doesn't use any sort of a learning algorithm. As far as "playing" goes, it only maintains reasonable pressure on the bow.
You're right about SMB. At least I know of one job I won't be doing. I never understood what went through the minds of people who make software bundled with most consumer-grade peripherals. Sigh.
I do appreciate keeping the costs down. I wish corporate world thought more like that.
I know what mercury is. So the problem is mercury, not HFCS. Let's be straight. If food is contaminated with mercury, it's bad no matter what the source of it. The problem is not really related to HFCS. You're just finding another scapegoat: butbutbut sometimes HFCS has mercury in it. Well, duh, use HFCS without mercury. It's really no different from cane sugar.
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You've nailed it. I've recently had to service a computer used by a chiropractor. The amount of quackery represented in the software installed there is beyond belief. Astrology, acupuncture "measurements", oh boy. The providers of this software surely must be making a good life for themselves. Sometimes I wish FDA had more teeth to stop it. Say what you want about the european Medical Directive, but if you want to market hardware or software that is classified as a medical device (anything directly used for treatment/diagnosis), it must have proven efficacy.
PS. I hate laws that come with a price tag attached just to view them -- many european directives include by reference national standards that cost thousands of dollars per single directive. I think this is completely broken and insane -- the U.S. has got it right: the courts have repeatedly ruled that if it's law, you can limit its distribution. Thus any code such as electrical, building, plumbing, etc. that got included in a law somewhere in the U.S. is available free of charge if you know where to look (resource.org is a good one).
As long as they can make that rocket affordably, they can just keep shooting it up till all the bugs get worked out. As to how many resources it takes: if they get labor comparably for "free", who knows -- they may just pull it off. I wish them well. I do worry that they're a cargo cult bunch at this point, like another reader aptly noted. Of course experience plays a big role: good luck in finding in Africa people that SpaceX could "snatch" from closing-up NASA-related programs. At lest those guys do some useful work, rather than, say, emigrating and helping out a potential adversary...
They were further broken up? Wow? Do you have link(s) to details? Thanks!
Probably yes. You'd need to make your own game engine, though, because the original is too slow and AFAIK non-scriptable. You'd end up wasting days waiting for just a few routines to execute.
So, now you know how it felt to be a scribe in the monastery, copying books all day :)
I agree. But man, this 3D minecraft logic looks beautiful. Maybe someone needs to make a 3D language that looks like mineraft and translates into Verilog or VHDL :)
it would be tricky but nerdily rewarding to make a 16-bit ALU using discrete transistors and wires on a breadboard
Not very tricky. Much simpler than a 3D printer in minecraft. The problemw ith minecraft is that its simulator has glitches, and can mis-simulate when the machine load is high, etc. It's a game, and the simulation logic tries not to lag the display. This makes it non-deterministic AFAIK. It's unfortunate. If you watch the 3D printer video, he has to tweak things all the time -- almost just like with real-world Rube Goldberg contraptions that often work 1 out of 20 times end-to-end.
That company has been spun off as Agilent. They are doing pretty well for themselves :)
This deserves a +5 Informative.
Mulally doesn't know how to design and build planes. He merely had the reins while competent people did just that. I'd credit him with not destroying Boeing while he was there, but that's about all the credit he deserves. He's no Steve Jobs nor Lee Iacocca. He didn't have to show some stunning executive acumen, just had not to mess with things too much. As far as I'm concerned, he's as clueless as they come.
Here's what will happen: in 10 years, Agilent will buy back the right to use the name HP from HP's smoldering shell. And engineers the world over will rejoice.
I've seen a jig just like they propose where fan air goes through a bunch of nozzles where it's mixing with external air, sort of like Dyson's "air multiplier" fan. No need for any cooling -- they planned on having some, but it worked well enough that they removed the heat exchanger. The temp rise was 25C. Toasty, but bearable.
As for rocketry: the first thing is to do is to model the heck out of everything, all the way to the test beds. That means hardware-in-the-loop test beds, software-in-for-hardware stand-ins where you verify that your behavioral model of actuators and engine matches the real thing, etc. They only need one guy who understands that, others can be pretty much organized grunts to do engineering. As long as they'll gain understanding over time, it'll be OK. There needs to be one person who read and understand Feynman, so to speak :)
Oh, the joy of dealing with dying old Dallas Semi battery-backed stuff. I just don't get it. Intel 2816 was available just fine in the early 80s. Xicor and OKI quickly picked it up and were second sources. Why the **** didn't the HP and other folk use it? It's 2 kilobytes and needs only 5V to operate. Writing one byte takes 10ms, but it's not the end of the world: it takes 20 seconds to fill the entire device. And erasure is done at a byte level, so you can efficiently modify single bytes.
I was suspicious, too, of the big fireball when it hit the ground. What the heck burned so violently? It should have had no fuel of any kind left at that stage? Or were there boosters that would activate once the tank had separated?
For that kind of money dear sire, you can get half a payload on Falcon 9, and have plenty leftover for kickbacks :)
Assuming they're getting a turbofan: You can always direct the turbine exhaust elsewhere so that it doesn't mix with the fan air. Fan air can go through a heat exchanger if you really need to cool it down, I don't think it'd be necessary.
Since Windows Vista, there's no such thing anymore.
Agreed. I stopped going there a year ago or so. Microcenter FTW.
BBB is another scam. Completely pointless. No teeth at all. All good it can do for you is being an outdated place to post negative reviews of businesses. Spare yourself the hassle. Forget they exist.
The loader I've seen (a popular one) has two options you control: one is what bios is spoofs, and then what bios it sets up windows to look for. On a genuine machine, you don't have to do bios spoofs, just set up windows so that it'll look for the right bios. That's what I make of it.
The violin player is completely preprogrammed. It uses no audio feedback like any human would, and from what I could see at the demonstration in the Toyota plant, it doesn't use force feedback for anything but path-following control purposes. It doesn't use any sort of a learning algorithm. As far as "playing" goes, it only maintains reasonable pressure on the bow.
You're right about SMB. At least I know of one job I won't be doing. I never understood what went through the minds of people who make software bundled with most consumer-grade peripherals. Sigh.
I do appreciate keeping the costs down. I wish corporate world thought more like that.
Sometimes we need a nagging bitch to wake up in the morning ;)
I know what mercury is. So the problem is mercury, not HFCS. Let's be straight. If food is contaminated with mercury, it's bad no matter what the source of it. The problem is not really related to HFCS. You're just finding another scapegoat: butbutbut sometimes HFCS has mercury in it. Well, duh, use HFCS without mercury. It's really no different from cane sugar.
Use a rearview mirror. A large one. 10+cm in diameter.