Maybe today open hardware is an esoteric industry. But with self-assembling circuits being the way things are heading (What? IBM's announcement of self-assembling FLASH didn't make Slashdot? Shame on the mods.) that'll change. Why? Because the most practical way to make dense circuits will be as an FPGA where the self-assembling units are not FLASH modules but FPGA cells. In effect, all major components become FPGAs.
But it won't stop there. Turning this new capability to its advantage, it will make sense to re-compile the CPU cores to perform the task at hand with maximum efficiency. If you're going to start doing that, an open design is nigh on essential.
We are rapidly entering an era where it is worth designing things that cannot yet be built, because the manufacturing technology is catching up very rapidly. Even now, Sony are designing their consumer device chipsets as FPGAs to shorten time to market. The trend will not decrease.
Nah, I just do modelling & design for TransOrbital. The tricky language bits (such as remembering to write "English" with a capital 'E') I do for IDG and other publishing houses.
The cheapest way with current technology might well be to use Russian rockets. 'Course that puts a big ding in the presidential pride, right? A bit like the way the last series of American rockets using Russian engines only worse.
International organisations such as The Artemis Society know a lot more about this kind of thing than you realise. I work for TransOrbital, so I know what I'm on about. I speak here in an unofficial capacity, by the way.
Resurrecting Saturn V won't work. The teams are disbanded or dead of old age, the buildings re-used, the launchpads were demolished for the shuttles, and they don't make the tools to make the bits anymore.
Personally, I'd be a lot happier if it was an international effort. That way when the US Government gets cold feet again, or is unable to meet its end of the bargain again, the mission will continue and mankind as a whole gets something out of it.
I don't much care if it's primary selection, clipboarding, inboarding or outboarding. What I know is that I can't cut and paste between X apps, and I'm tech-savvy. Those considering transitioning from Windows have a less forgiving attitude.
I worry about people who can't see it as a usability probem. Is there anything wrong with the attitude that it should just work? Perhaps it should be unnecessarily complicated to keep Windows users from switching to Linux? Not.
I work for PC World in New Zealand, and I use Linux for pretty much everything. Writing copy, editing images, web, e-mail, syncing Palm Pilots, the works.
In short, yes you can quite easily work in a PC magazine and use Linux. The problems come when you have to review Windows kit and programs, but fortunately I do the Linux column.
Oh, can't load MP3s into a Palm SD card from Linux yet, but I'm a-working on it:)
I must admit to using a full-sized CD for most of my rescue work. I'm very fond of Knoppix, and boot it in "blind" mode (text-only) with no swap. It has a lot more on it than the LNX-BBC, auto-detects everything and will mount all sorts of local and remote filesystems. Plus it has VNC, SSH, parted and so forth.
I did put a LNX-BBC in my wallet and it snapped in half. Given that business card CDs seem to be an expensive novelty in NZ and generally only hold 35MB I have yet to repeat the exercise.
'Cos LNX-BBC is Debian-based (lots of developers that way) and only about 60% of Debian works on The Hurd. If you need a tool for repairing stuffed machines, you want it all to work and reliably.
I'm fairly sure that The Hurd will be a major force in the Linux world one day, and that the current Linux kernel will morph into something that is not dissimilar to The Hurd. It'll be interesting to see what emerges as technology moves away from the concept of a single central processor.
I got Knoppix onto the cover CD of PC World in New Zealand and I hear there is a possibility it may go on the Australian version - write encouragement to the Ed and ask if it can be had from the Kiwis (the answer will be yes, I guarantee it:).
We had to cut it down to 350MB to fit the sponsor's Windows games and so forth on the CD too (thanks Eaden at Opentech) so no OpenOffice, but the reader response we got was incredible. See this and search for "Knoppix" for the feedback.
Yeah, but it comes with 2GB of apps, boots into KDE, GNOME or WindowMaker, and even sets itself up as a PXE boot network server for diskless machines.
To be honest, it also impresses the pants off Windows users and is very likely to convert them to Open Source software. There they are used to Windows products and have been told Linux is too hard. Then along comes this CD, they insert it, boot, and a fully-fledged Linux app with OpenOffice, Mozilla, network, sound and lots of toys rises before them without them having to type or do *anything*.
That's why I put it on the NZ PC World cover disk.
Vik:v)
Re:Ray tracer? - POV files
on
Blender Is GPL
·
· Score: 2
Yup, writing POV files would be a very, very handy feature. Remember also that parallel POV processing is an ancient and pretty much perfected art. It also gives the best raytraced output of anything I've come across, which is why I use it despite the lack of modelers.
To become truly cunning, integrate the POV script reading engine from Giram (another GPL modeller, based on the GTK), and add the ability to display camera views on different X desktops. This will allow people to add 3D VR modeling capabilites through stereo viewers etc.
I fancy making a stereo VR viewer from a couple of cheap LCD TVs, 2 VGA cards with video output and some magnifier goggles. I've waited too damned long for VR to go mainstream already.
Funny how the article doesn't even mention the only company to yet have actually got permission from the US Government to launch to the moon, TransOrbital Inc.
I hope my PlayStation 2 running Linux remains unaffected then.
I did actually think of using it as a firewall box at one point. That'd confuse the crap out of script-kiddies.
Vik:v)
Distribute TV Listings via Gnunet
on
PVR For Linux
·
· Score: 2
Wouldn't Gnunet make a dandy medium for spreading TV Listing updates around? One person enters a listing item, and the whole TV coverage area can get the update.
This monitor and the similar one from Philips use WinCE & Citrix to do remote display. But what if I want to use Linux/VNC, Linux/Citrix or even my own code to display the user's sceen wirelessly?
Well, then my customers can't use Windows XP, because the EULA says you can't display the screen on anything but a Windows PC.
Anyone from the anti-trust suit listening? No, didn't think so.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe today open hardware is an esoteric industry. But with self-assembling circuits being the way things are heading (What? IBM's announcement of self-assembling FLASH didn't make Slashdot? Shame on the mods.) that'll change. Why? Because the most practical way to make dense circuits will be as an FPGA where the self-assembling units are not FLASH modules but FPGA cells. In effect, all major components become FPGAs.
:v)
But it won't stop there. Turning this new capability to its advantage, it will make sense to re-compile the CPU cores to perform the task at hand with maximum efficiency. If you're going to start doing that, an open design is nigh on essential.
We are rapidly entering an era where it is worth designing things that cannot yet be built, because the manufacturing technology is catching up very rapidly. Even now, Sony are designing their consumer device chipsets as FPGAs to shorten time to market. The trend will not decrease.
Vik
Ironically the Russians launched my previous satellite.
:v)
Vik
Nah, I just do modelling & design for TransOrbital. The tricky language bits (such as remembering to write "English" with a capital 'E') I do for IDG and other publishing houses.
:v)
Vik
The cheapest way with current technology might well be to use Russian rockets. 'Course that puts a big ding in the presidential pride, right? A bit like the way the last series of American rockets using Russian engines only worse.
:v)
International organisations such as The Artemis Society know a lot more about this kind of thing than you realise. I work for TransOrbital, so I know what I'm on about. I speak here in an unofficial capacity, by the way.
Resurrecting Saturn V won't work. The teams are disbanded or dead of old age, the buildings re-used, the launchpads were demolished for the shuttles, and they don't make the tools to make the bits anymore.
Personally, I'd be a lot happier if it was an international effort. That way when the US Government gets cold feet again, or is unable to meet its end of the bargain again, the mission will continue and mankind as a whole gets something out of it.
Vik
I don't much care if it's primary selection, clipboarding, inboarding or outboarding. What I know is that I can't cut and paste between X apps, and I'm tech-savvy. Those considering transitioning from Windows have a less forgiving attitude.
I worry about people who can't see it as a usability probem. Is there anything wrong with the attitude that it should just work? Perhaps it should be unnecessarily complicated to keep Windows users from switching to Linux? Not.
I'm looking forward to 3 things in 2004:
:v)
Getting cut & paste unified between X apps.
Having Xface support in Evolution.
A 3D World/avatar interface to Jabber.
Everything else will just happen.
Vik
Er, you seem to have missed out the rest of the mission goals which are somewhat more technical in nature. Why did you do this?
I work for PC World in New Zealand, and I use Linux for pretty much everything. Writing copy, editing images, web, e-mail, syncing Palm Pilots, the works.
:)
:v)
In short, yes you can quite easily work in a PC magazine and use Linux. The problems come when you have to review Windows kit and programs, but fortunately I do the Linux column.
Oh, can't load MP3s into a Palm SD card from Linux yet, but I'm a-working on it
Vik
The English language already has an option for that. No need to invent more of 'em.
:v)
Vik
I must admit to using a full-sized CD for most of my rescue work. I'm very fond of Knoppix, and boot it in "blind" mode (text-only) with no swap. It has a lot more on it than the LNX-BBC, auto-detects everything and will mount all sorts of local and remote filesystems. Plus it has VNC, SSH, parted and so forth.
:v)
I did put a LNX-BBC in my wallet and it snapped in half. Given that business card CDs seem to be an expensive novelty in NZ and generally only hold 35MB I have yet to repeat the exercise.
Vik
'Cos LNX-BBC is Debian-based (lots of developers that way) and only about 60% of Debian works on The Hurd. If you need a tool for repairing stuffed machines, you want it all to work and reliably.
:v)
I'm fairly sure that The Hurd will be a major force in the Linux world one day, and that the current Linux kernel will morph into something that is not dissimilar to The Hurd. It'll be interesting to see what emerges as technology moves away from the concept of a single central processor.
Vik
A fishing shop in the UK. They attach them to the tops of fishing floats at night.
:v)
Vik
Cola usually. Wish they made 'em with caffeine in.
:v)
Vik
Of course. Would you want to dig all that lot out from your pockets every time you changed trousers or put on a firefighter's uniform?
:v)
Vik
OK, I think I can match that. I'm currently carrying in my bum-bag/utility belt:
:v)
Symbol SP17000 PalmOS PDA with laser barcode scanner, sunglasses, hair ties, cable ties, Leatherman wave, whistle, resusci-shield breathing mask, laser pointer, universal key, pen, surgical gloves, mini-blowtorch, lock-knife, magnifier/torch, cellphone, pager, 10m parachute cord, tape measure, various medications (figures, huh?), syringe, insulating tape, lockpicks, paperclips, magnesium flint block, mini-leatherman, wire probes, pins, needles, safety pins, wire saw, compass, fishing tackle, betalight, antiseptic, plasters, steristrips, pencil, waterproof matches, salt, snow-marker, comb, rescue shears, 2 marlin spikes, antiseptic wipes, wire saw, binder, Pez, cash and a major credit card.
This is all held on with a single quick-release clasp in case I fall in deep water!
By way of explaination I'm a volunteer First Responder occasionally known to the brigade as "Gadget".
Vik
I got Knoppix onto the cover CD of PC World in New Zealand and I hear there is a possibility it may go on the Australian version - write encouragement to the Ed and ask if it can be had from the Kiwis (the answer will be yes, I guarantee it :).
:v)
We had to cut it down to 350MB to fit the sponsor's Windows games and so forth on the CD too (thanks Eaden at Opentech) so no OpenOffice, but the reader response we got was incredible. See this and search for "Knoppix" for the feedback.
Vik
Yeah, but it comes with 2GB of apps, boots into KDE, GNOME or WindowMaker, and even sets itself up as a PXE boot network server for diskless machines.
:v)
To be honest, it also impresses the pants off Windows users and is very likely to convert them to Open Source software. There they are used to Windows products and have been told Linux is too hard. Then along comes this CD, they insert it, boot, and a fully-fledged Linux app with OpenOffice, Mozilla, network, sound and lots of toys rises before them without them having to type or do *anything*.
That's why I put it on the NZ PC World cover disk.
Vik
Yup, writing POV files would be a very, very handy feature. Remember also that parallel POV processing is an ancient and pretty much perfected art. It also gives the best raytraced output of anything I've come across, which is why I use it despite the lack of modelers.
:v)
To become truly cunning, integrate the POV script reading engine from Giram (another GPL modeller, based on the GTK), and add the ability to display camera views on different X desktops. This will allow people to add 3D VR modeling capabilites through stereo viewers etc.
I fancy making a stereo VR viewer from a couple of cheap LCD TVs, 2 VGA cards with video output and some magnifier goggles. I've waited too damned long for VR to go mainstream already.
Rant over.
Vik
Buying Chinese chips to remain free is not that stranger than having to buy tickets into space on Russian rockets.
:v)
Vik
Funny how the article doesn't even mention the only company to yet have actually got permission from the US Government to launch to the moon, TransOrbital Inc.
:v)
Vik
Is it odder that Linux boots of a CD, or that Windows does not?
:v)
Vik
Dillo just crashes for me.
:v)
I've been using the kfm (aka Konqueror 1.1) that comes with the Sony distro and having better luck.
Vik
I hope my PlayStation 2 running Linux remains unaffected then.
:v)
I did actually think of using it as a firewall box at one point. That'd confuse the crap out of script-kiddies.
Vik
Wouldn't Gnunet make a dandy medium for spreading TV Listing updates around? One person enters a listing item, and the whole TV coverage area can get the update.
:v)
Vik
This monitor and the similar one from Philips use WinCE & Citrix to do remote display. But what if I want to use Linux/VNC, Linux/Citrix or even my own code to display the user's sceen wirelessly?
:v)
Well, then my customers can't use Windows XP, because the EULA says you can't display the screen on anything but a Windows PC.
Anyone from the anti-trust suit listening? No, didn't think so.
Vik