They've had robots in one form or another for years. Until recently, it was relatively low tech...in the sense that much was done with programmable logic, relays, and the like.
Now they're staring at blinking lights, ethernet cable, and a linux box. They've been trained, but this is a young man's game to them.
It's somewhat hard to explain without knowing the "type".
GM is deploying these in some assebmly plants for parts picking/delivery and for carrying car bodies and frames from one assembly station to the next.
Their supervisory program runs on Linux which apparently really freaks out the 60 year old electricians who are assigned to maintain them (according to my father...a 60 year old electrician who is assigned to maintain them).
His whole point is that compact flash drives and hard drive technology is booming right now. More storage in a smaller footprint for a cheaper price. It's far outpacing DVD (the media not the format). His point is that content delivery in the next couple years is going to hard drives (in some form) not to DVDs. At least, that's what he thinks...I agree with him.
As a SIDENOTE, he mentions the benefit of delivering "really big movies" on "really small hard drives" via mail or rental or whatever is that it's a natural deterrant to internet based file sharing. He thinks buying these really big movie files on really small hard drives will be more cost effective and less of a hassle than creating the infrastructure for a 10x (or 30x) faster internet. Again, over the next 5 years I think he's right.
It won't stop people from getting pirated content, and he doesn't claim that in his blog.
The main things I remember were the "tests" he performed on the suits. Tests like the time honored "hit by a truck" test, the "rolling down a big friggin hill" test, and the "swing a giant log at my head" test. Forget the suit. I'll buy it for those tapes!
While everyone is waiting in line to ride this bad boy, I'll be riding the Millenium Force, Magnum, Mantis, Raptor, Mean Streak, Gemini, and Power Tower with no lines. Yay.
I never understood the depths of this man until now. That you Bill (may I call you Bill?), your clever anecdotes and witty banter is refreshing. Great interview.
Pacemakers run software, and (if not yet) could certainly be upgradable.
Imagine the future...
You wouldn't want to crack a guy to upgrade his pacemaker software, so you make it a low powered wireless device. For new software, doctors download the software and upgrade it via a special encryted transmitter in their office.
Even further in the future...
Pacemaker software upgrades are routine. Why do I need to go to the doctor's office to upgrade my pacemaker software? I download it at home and upgrade via my home transmitter. Maybe the upgrades are even automatic...whatever.
The point is that technology exists to make all sorts of devices accessible through the internet. It doesn't take much thought to come up with 1 plausible reason to actually do it.
Ok. So there's 10,000 traffic lights in your city. Each one is controlled by a plc on it's pole. If the city wants to modify the traffic pattern, someone travels to each site to program each plc individually.
Someone gets the idea to interconnect all the plcs onto a network so that they can be reprogrammed from a central location. There, now all the traffic lights in your city are on the internet.
Re:I think his judgement is much better than most
on
Linus Does Not Scale
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· Score: 1
The problem with this is that there are something like 300 "maintainers" and Linus only trusts ~10 of them implicitly.
The thing I always hated with past "universal" remotes was that they'd only cover about 90% of a component's functionality. If you needed to program the time on your vcr, you had to dig out its remote. The learning buttons on the 810 are perfect for those 2 or 3 really special functions.
Got mine on ebay too...
The future of wireless is in TM-UWB (Time Modulated - Ultra Wide Band). Follow this link for details. Basically, TM-UWB involves the transmission of precisely timed pulses which can be decoded by a receiver and compared to a standard pulse stream. The only thing that matters so far as data transfer is concerned is how much the actual pulse differs in time from the standard stream. There is no carrier frequency. With the ability to place pulses a trillionth of a second apart...the bandwidth is huge. There are a lot of details/issues that I don't yet comprehend, but it sounds fascinating.
Sure, studying/mimicking a gecko's unique feet and legs is interesting science. But, if the ultimate goal is to create a rover that can traverse vertical faces etc. etc., then why not use what mother nature has already provided...a real gecko (or cockroach or whatever). The control and feedback systems would certainly be complicated, but I'm confident that a gecko could be trained. It's all a matter of voltage.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the official name of the IETF working group that came up with the Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses draft. www.zeroconf.org
the linux part
They've had robots in one form or another for years. Until recently, it was relatively low tech...in the sense that much was done with programmable logic, relays, and the like.
Now they're staring at blinking lights, ethernet cable, and a linux box. They've been trained, but this is a young man's game to them.
It's somewhat hard to explain without knowing the "type".
Free Range On Grid (FROG) http://www.frog.nl/
GM is deploying these in some assebmly plants for parts picking/delivery and for carrying car bodies and frames from one assembly station to the next.
Their supervisory program runs on Linux which apparently really freaks out the 60 year old electricians who are assigned to maintain them (according to my father...a 60 year old electrician who is assigned to maintain them).
What are the other 2 on page 1?
WoW was more stable, polished, interesting, and entertaining during a BETA in which they were TRYING to abuse the servers than SWG is today.
:)
Congrats to Blizzard. I wish you success.
SOE, rot in hell.
Read the F'n Blog
His whole point is that compact flash drives and hard drive technology is booming right now. More storage in a smaller footprint for a cheaper price. It's far outpacing DVD (the media not the format). His point is that content delivery in the next couple years is going to hard drives (in some form) not to DVDs. At least, that's what he thinks...I agree with him.
As a SIDENOTE, he mentions the benefit of delivering "really big movies" on "really small hard drives" via mail or rental or whatever is that it's a natural deterrant to internet based file sharing. He thinks buying these really big movie files on really small hard drives will be more cost effective and less of a hassle than creating the infrastructure for a 10x (or 30x) faster internet. Again, over the next 5 years I think he's right.
It won't stop people from getting pirated content, and he doesn't claim that in his blog.
The main things I remember were the "tests" he performed on the suits. Tests like the time honored "hit by a truck" test, the "rolling down a big friggin hill" test, and the "swing a giant log at my head" test. Forget the suit. I'll buy it for those tapes!
While everyone is waiting in line to ride this bad boy, I'll be riding the Millenium Force, Magnum, Mantis, Raptor, Mean Streak, Gemini, and Power Tower with no lines. Yay.
I never understood the depths of this man until now. That you Bill (may I call you Bill?), your clever anecdotes and witty banter is refreshing. Great interview.
P.S. I liked you better when you were Kirk.
If I had mod points today, you, sir, would get them all.
Pacemakers run software, and (if not yet) could certainly be upgradable.
Imagine the future...
You wouldn't want to crack a guy to upgrade his pacemaker software, so you make it a low powered wireless device. For new software, doctors download the software and upgrade it via a special encryted transmitter in their office.
Even further in the future...
Pacemaker software upgrades are routine. Why do I need to go to the doctor's office to upgrade my pacemaker software? I download it at home and upgrade via my home transmitter. Maybe the upgrades are even automatic...whatever.
The point is that technology exists to make all sorts of devices accessible through the internet. It doesn't take much thought to come up with 1 plausible reason to actually do it.
Ok. So there's 10,000 traffic lights in your city. Each one is controlled by a plc on it's pole. If the city wants to modify the traffic pattern, someone travels to each site to program each plc individually.
Someone gets the idea to interconnect all the plcs onto a network so that they can be reprogrammed from a central location. There, now all the traffic lights in your city are on the internet.
The problem with this is that there are something like 300 "maintainers" and Linus only trusts ~10 of them implicitly.
The thing I always hated with past "universal" remotes was that they'd only cover about 90% of a component's functionality. If you needed to program the time on your vcr, you had to dig out its remote. The learning buttons on the 810 are perfect for those 2 or 3 really special functions.
Got mine on ebay too...
Does this mean the Browns will finally win the Super Bowl? Woo hoo!
The tele-marketing computer will hang up on me? I guess that'll save me the trouble.
The future of wireless is in TM-UWB (Time Modulated - Ultra Wide Band). Follow this link for details. Basically, TM-UWB involves the transmission of precisely timed pulses which can be decoded by a receiver and compared to a standard pulse stream. The only thing that matters so far as data transfer is concerned is how much the actual pulse differs in time from the standard stream. There is no carrier frequency. With the ability to place pulses a trillionth of a second apart...the bandwidth is huge. There are a lot of details/issues that I don't yet comprehend, but it sounds fascinating.
Sure, studying/mimicking a gecko's unique feet and legs is interesting science. But, if the ultimate goal is to create a rover that can traverse vertical faces etc. etc., then why not use what mother nature has already provided...a real gecko (or cockroach or whatever). The control and feedback systems would certainly be complicated, but I'm confident that a gecko could be trained. It's all a matter of voltage.
Refer to RFC 1149 - You might be able to work a solution by applying the standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers.