What IS the point?
on
Hack Your Car
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· Score: 2, Informative
Hacking a car and getting an extra 5% power out of it has as much point as hacking a bus to get an extra 5%. Ooh, the zero to sixty time goes from 5.4 to 5.2 seconds. Big... fucking... deal... If you want speed do it properly in the first place.
Acceleration = Force/Mass
Get rid of all that extra, unnecessary mass.
Today's sports motorcycle weighs 175kg and produce 135kW. They rev to 16,000 rpm, do 0-60mph in under 3 seconds, 90+mph in first gear, 180mph in top. And you can buy one for $8,000.
THAT's how you go fast. Gravity and the size of your bollocks are the limiting factors.
Alternatively you put an insanely large engine in the thing, like this:
http://www.triumph.co.uk/site/bikes/page.cfm?Bik eI D=83
Compared to bikes, this fucking about with a car to try make it go faster is utterly pointless. Even when you've done it you might as well be driving a bus for all the difference it makes.
I love my revo and now my 9210, it's just a great platform but I don't see any reason Linux can't hide under the hood rather than Epoc or SymbianOS.
Psion have years of experience making consumer grade palmtops which just work. I have *no* idea what Epoc does under the hood on my 9210 and I have absolutely no desire to find out. They may well be able to do the same for Linux. As the article says, the Symbian development is heading all wireless while Psion want to do consumer/industrial PDA stuff. Probably in a similar direction with lesser emphasis on the wireless.
Psion on the other hand produced fantastic operating systems and understood exactly how a small device user interface should work. They could build a truly decent interface and set of applications onto a Linux base.
Linux + Psion could be fantastic. I'd certainly be willing to give it a go.
"Linux is more expensive, because it takes more qualified-man-hours to maintain"
Frankly this is bullshit. I'm a Unix sysadmin and a good one and under Unix or Linux, 1000 systems are as easy to administer as 10. If you get your architecture right the administrative effort increases logarithmically. If you're an idiot and put in a shite architecture then Linux will cost you as much as Windows. The difference is that Linux *allows* an efficient architecture. Hell, it *encourages* an efficient architecture if you listen to it. Horses/water/drinking and all that.
or something like your name resolution is shagged.
1st initialisation on my machine: 15 seconds an this is a laptop with a shite 4200rpm IDE drive. 2nd initialisation 3 seconds.
Course if you were doing Linux and properly there would be an OpenOffice server running all the instances so it never has to scan disk and 80% of the application RAM would be shared.
Called it freebase. In order to clean up all the Access shit that was lying around. Basically we took the small access datbases which are everywhere and loaded them into freebase and hand out the odbc drivers.
Once we had most of the databases on freebase, the access problem went away, anyone who wanted a database just had to ask. Instead we now had a registered set of centralised but not integrated applications and databases, most complete shit but a couple of nice ones.
Then we went through the applications and databases, grouped them and generated sets of requirements would replace these small [sh|b]itty applications. Let me tell you this is *not* easy, fun, fast or cheap, the levels of complexity were phenominal, this crap was running the business, it was a miracle anything got done. However we ended up with 3 main applications which would do the job of the rest and got management buy in to have them customised and rolled out. With an Oracle back end as it happens.
Freebase is still there but it's job is more testing and prototyping now.
I have no problem with Linux on a PDA. I own a Zaurus sl-5500 but... It sucks... It's really bad as a PDA, the user interface badly needs massive amounts of work to make it as usable as the competition. The integrated applications badly need to be... well... integrated.
e.g. The Symbian word processor supports embedding of objects from the other applications; sounds, images, spreadsheets, charts etc. It has a spell checker a thesaurus, styles, outline mode, templates.
The Symbian spreadsheet uses workbooks, named ranges, most functions, line/column/XY/etc charts.
The database is fairly straightforward but again supports embedding of objects like photographs, sounds, spreadsheets, charts as well as free text searching of the fields.
Best of all though is the agenda; Todo lists, anniversaries, appointments, events. Embed word documents, recordings, pictures. Switch to day, week, month, year, time, tasks, anniversary views
And... It's all smaller, more efficient than Linux, the interface is well designed for small screens and the user can do everything from the keyboard as well as the touch screen. It all backs up and synchronises with most PC desktop productivity apps automatically.
Add on reliability, massive amounts of handy 3rd party applications and the result is that machines like the Psion series 5, Revo and now the Nokia 9210/9290 are a thoughtless pleasure to *use* on a daily basis.
Linux *could* be fantastic on a PDA/smartphone, there's no reason it couldn't be but I haven't yet seen any implementation worth the pain of using it.
The 9210/9290 is a Revo with more RAM, colour display, multimedia and integrated into a mobile phone. If you're happy with a Revo you will be completely comfortable with a 92X0.
The keyboard isn't as nice, and no touch screen but otherwise it's spot on. It's Epoc version 6 rather than 5.
It's what Psion *should* have been doing and it's the only PDA/smartphone worth using, especially for a business. Bit pricey but easily worth it.
The engineering side of it should be closed completely leaving just an administrative arm for regulating space travel.
The the bilions of dollars of budget saved should be split into prizes like the X prize for specific achievements.
Does the FAA design, engineer, build and fly military, passenger and cargo aircraft? Do they bollocks.
The quest for profit drove terrestrial exploration
on
NASA's Own X Prize?
·
· Score: 1
And frankly science is the wrong reason to expand space exploration. It must be profitable, that means tourism, land ownership, mineral rights etc etc.
Where the presumption of innocence and the right to a jury has been removed[1] and I do believe that the current labour government really do want to make 1984 real in Britain today.
The CCTV cameras don't stop crime, the speed cameras don't stop speeding; The number of deaths on the roads was decreasing gradually year on year *until* they started rolling out thousands and thousands of speed cameras, the rate hasn't fallen since.
Those virus writers are poor misunderstood scientists. They are really just researchers into artificial life forms. Occasionally one or two are bound to escape into the wild. If you come across one in the wild you should leave it be, don't feed it or take it home as a pet.
If you watch motorcyclists, they perform a shoulder check, a quick glance over their shoulder to check their blind spot before they make a maneuver. It's called a lifesaver because that's exactly what it does. It's saved my life several times.
Most car drivers on the other hand are lazy, blind, incompetent morons who are safe in the knowledge that they have 2 tonnes of steel safety cage surrounding them, being completely safe they don't need to check their blind spots, too much like hard work. Radar will only increase the *impression* of safety and will otherwise be utterly irrelevant.
What's needed are 5 year re-testable licenses like those the HGV drivers have to pass every few years.
And you have $4 million that's straight off the bottom line, say your business is 10% profitable and that's $40 million in sales that you don't have to make to generate the same amount of profit.
Looking at MS solutions on an individual basis it certainly looks like a good idea "Hey it's only a thousand dollars" except it isn't only a thousand dollars. It's a thousand dollars multiplied by the number of times you have to implement it and to give MS credit, that's a linear increase in their revenue.
Open source systems on the other hand costs tend to scale logarithmically, assuming your IT guys are competent. The difference at the small scale isn't particularly compelling but as your business grows it becomes very very significant.
I've had them all, the Linux Zaurus stuff is among the worst of the bunch in terms of software. The hardware is fine but as a day to day PDA it is just the pits. My SL-5500 is acting as a coaster at the moment it's largeley useless on a day to day basis. You might just write me off as a troll, but I use Linux every day, my entire home network is Linux based and it is the wrong tool for PDA technology. Unless someone comes up with an entirely new user interface of course, qtopia is just dreadful.
So far, easily the best PDA by far is the Symbian based Nokia 9210. And hey, it's a phone too so you only have to carry one device.
Doesn't do much but tell time and work. No winding, big clear easy to read display, accurate to the second and still on the 1st battery after 3 years. It's easily the best, most reliable watch I've ever owned.
I have an expensive analog "dress" watch that sits at the back of my sock drawer ignored and unused because it's too much hassle.
While at the moment we seem to be the ultimate connection machines with 100 billion neurons and unimaginably large numbers of neural interconnections, that isn't necessarily going to last.
e.g. These guys are attempting to replicate the complexity of the human brain. Do I think they'll succeed? I wouldn't bet against them given the increasing understanding of the brain and the easy availability of cheap distributed processing.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-03o.html h ttp://www.ad.com/
Obsolescence isn't as far away as you think it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Hacking a car and getting an extra 5% power out of it has as much point as hacking a bus to get an extra 5%. Ooh, the zero to sixty time goes from 5.4 to 5.2 seconds. Big... fucking... deal... If you want speed do it properly in the first place.
k eI D=83
Acceleration = Force/Mass
Get rid of all that extra, unnecessary mass.
Today's sports motorcycle weighs 175kg and produce 135kW. They rev to 16,000 rpm, do 0-60mph in under 3 seconds, 90+mph in first gear, 180mph in top. And you can buy one for $8,000.
THAT's how you go fast. Gravity and the size of your bollocks are the limiting factors.
Alternatively you put an insanely large engine in the thing, like this:
http://www.triumph.co.uk/site/bikes/page.cfm?Bi
Compared to bikes, this fucking about with a car to try make it go faster is utterly pointless. Even when you've done it you might as well be driving a bus for all the difference it makes.
Liquid nitrogen engine...
Big backdoor.
= zd nn
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-527115.html?legacy
But this is a *very* interesting development.
I love my revo and now my 9210, it's just a great platform but I don't see any reason Linux can't hide under the hood rather than Epoc or SymbianOS.
Psion have years of experience making consumer grade palmtops which just work. I have *no* idea what Epoc does under the hood on my 9210 and I have absolutely no desire to find out. They may well be able to do the same for Linux. As the article says, the Symbian development is heading all wireless while Psion want to do consumer/industrial PDA stuff. Probably in a similar direction with lesser emphasis on the wireless.
We'll see I guess.
I think the 9290 is the USA model and 9210 the european GSM model.
o de :9290|from:combuy,00.html
http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/go/1,6796,phonec
Badly. I posted on the subject just the other day:
2 31 396
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=96128&cid=8
Psion on the other hand produced fantastic operating systems and understood exactly how a small device user interface should work. They could build a truly decent interface and set of applications onto a Linux base.
Linux + Psion could be fantastic. I'd certainly be willing to give it a go.
"Linux is more expensive, because it takes more qualified-man-hours to maintain"
Frankly this is bullshit. I'm a Unix sysadmin and a good one and under Unix or Linux, 1000 systems are as easy to administer as 10. If you get your architecture right the administrative effort increases logarithmically. If you're an idiot and put in a shite architecture then Linux will cost you as much as Windows. The difference is that Linux *allows* an efficient architecture. Hell, it *encourages* an efficient architecture if you listen to it. Horses/water/drinking and all that.
or something like your name resolution is shagged.
1st initialisation on my machine: 15 seconds an this is a laptop with a shite 4200rpm IDE drive. 2nd initialisation 3 seconds.
Course if you were doing Linux and properly there would be an OpenOffice server running all the instances so it never has to scan disk and 80% of the application RAM would be shared.
Called it freebase. In order to clean up all the Access shit that was lying around. Basically we took the small access datbases which are everywhere and loaded them into freebase and hand out the odbc drivers.
Once we had most of the databases on freebase, the access problem went away, anyone who wanted a database just had to ask. Instead we now had a registered set of centralised but not integrated applications and databases, most complete shit but a couple of nice ones.
Then we went through the applications and databases, grouped them and generated sets of requirements would replace these small [sh|b]itty applications. Let me tell you this is *not* easy, fun, fast or cheap, the levels of complexity were phenominal, this crap was running the business, it was a miracle anything got done. However we ended up with 3 main applications which would do the job of the rest and got management buy in to have them customised and rolled out. With an Oracle back end as it happens.
Freebase is still there but it's job is more testing and prototyping now.
I have no problem with Linux on a PDA. I own a Zaurus sl-5500 but... It sucks... It's really bad as a PDA, the user interface badly needs massive amounts of work to make it as usable as the competition. The integrated applications badly need to be... well... integrated.
e.g. The Symbian word processor supports embedding of objects from the other applications; sounds, images, spreadsheets, charts etc. It has a spell checker a thesaurus, styles, outline mode, templates.
The Symbian spreadsheet uses workbooks, named ranges, most functions, line/column/XY/etc charts.
The database is fairly straightforward but again supports embedding of objects like photographs, sounds, spreadsheets, charts as well as free text searching of the fields.
Best of all though is the agenda; Todo lists, anniversaries, appointments, events. Embed word documents, recordings, pictures. Switch to day, week, month, year, time, tasks, anniversary views
And... It's all smaller, more efficient than Linux, the interface is well designed for small screens and the user can do everything from the keyboard as well as the touch screen. It all backs up and synchronises with most PC desktop productivity apps automatically.
Add on reliability, massive amounts of handy 3rd party applications and the result is that machines like the Psion series 5, Revo and now the Nokia 9210/9290 are a thoughtless pleasure to *use* on a daily basis.
Linux *could* be fantastic on a PDA/smartphone, there's no reason it couldn't be but I haven't yet seen any implementation worth the pain of using it.
1: Make fabulous PDAs which are years ahead of the competition.
2: Don't tell anyone.
3: Give up on the PDA business as a silly idea and give away the technology.
4: ?????
5: Profit.
Pretty much the same story here.
The 9210/9290 is a Revo with more RAM, colour display, multimedia and integrated into a mobile phone. If you're happy with a Revo you will be completely comfortable with a 92X0.
The keyboard isn't as nice, and no touch screen but otherwise it's spot on. It's Epoc version 6 rather than 5.
It's what Psion *should* have been doing and it's the only PDA/smartphone worth using, especially for a business. Bit pricey but easily worth it.
The engineering side of it should be closed completely leaving just an administrative arm for regulating space travel.
The the bilions of dollars of budget saved should be split into prizes like the X prize for specific achievements.
Does the FAA design, engineer, build and fly military, passenger and cargo aircraft? Do they bollocks.
And frankly science is the wrong reason to expand space exploration. It must be profitable, that means tourism, land ownership, mineral rights etc etc.
Where the presumption of innocence and the right to a jury has been removed[1] and I do believe that the current labour government really do want to make 1984 real in Britain today.
2 5. stm
The CCTV cameras don't stop crime, the speed cameras don't stop speeding; The number of deaths on the roads was decreasing gradually year on year *until* they started rolling out thousands and thousands of speed cameras, the rate hasn't fallen since.
[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/34641
Those virus writers are poor misunderstood scientists. They are really just researchers into artificial life forms. Occasionally one or two are bound to escape into the wild. If you come across one in the wild you should leave it be, don't feed it or take it home as a pet.
But it's the guy standing there with howitzer pointing at your head who owns the land.
If you watch motorcyclists, they perform a shoulder check, a quick glance over their shoulder to check their blind spot before they make a maneuver. It's called a lifesaver because that's exactly what it does. It's saved my life several times.
Most car drivers on the other hand are lazy, blind, incompetent morons who are safe in the knowledge that they have 2 tonnes of steel safety cage surrounding them, being completely safe they don't need to check their blind spots, too much like hard work. Radar will only increase the *impression* of safety and will otherwise be utterly irrelevant.
What's needed are 5 year re-testable licenses like those the HGV drivers have to pass every few years.
And you have $4 million that's straight off the bottom line, say your business is 10% profitable and that's $40 million in sales that you don't have to make to generate the same amount of profit.
Looking at MS solutions on an individual basis it certainly looks like a good idea "Hey it's only a thousand dollars" except it isn't only a thousand dollars. It's a thousand dollars multiplied by the number of times you have to implement it and to give MS credit, that's a linear increase in their revenue.
Open source systems on the other hand costs tend to scale logarithmically, assuming your IT guys are competent. The difference at the small scale isn't particularly compelling but as your business grows it becomes very very significant.
So far, easily the best PDA by far is the Symbian based Nokia 9210. And hey, it's a phone too so you only have to carry one device.
Doesn't do much but tell time and work. No winding, big clear easy to read display, accurate to the second and still on the 1st battery after 3 years. It's easily the best, most reliable watch I've ever owned.
I have an expensive analog "dress" watch that sits at the back of my sock drawer ignored and unused because it's too much hassle.
"The Apple Macintosh was supposed to be a high-powered, low-cost personal computer"
Man you're showing your age.
The dollar will weaken and Americans will effectively become cheaper to employ.
Oh wait. It's already happening.
Sounds like a great idea to me. Lets have everyone able to install, modify applications and services.
While at the moment we seem to be the ultimate connection machines with 100 billion neurons and unimaginably large numbers of neural interconnections, that isn't necessarily going to last.
h ttp://www.ad.com/
e.g. These guys are attempting to replicate the complexity of the human brain. Do I think they'll succeed? I wouldn't bet against them given the increasing understanding of the brain and the easy availability of cheap distributed processing.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-03o.html
Obsolescence isn't as far away as you think it is.