I've done QA on about a dozen apps based on a variety of databases, and one of the things I've often wanted is a tool that could read in the DDL for a database and spit out an ERD. Great for maintaining documentation on an RDBMS and for getting a quick idea of an undocumented one.
Heck, just being able to automatically layout a directed graph would be a big step in the right direction! Does anyone have know of any tools for doing this?
Like, come on! If they can do THIS, then they surely can read through that scratch-off coating they put on lottery tickets! Just think of the possibilities!
Well, not exactly, but I think it is illustrative to consider the extremes. First off, though, it's late, and I'm tired, so please bear me here. Also, before I forget, it sure seems to me like you are describing a need that is much like what is handled by the Scheduler and Dispatcher processes in the operating system of a multi-processor machine. Any good book on operating systems would be a good source of ideas.
Given: you have 20 jobs to process.
Case #1; slow but cheap:Use 1 computer, create a make file for the whole process (letting the computer keep track of the jobs' dependencies) and wait until it is done. That was obviously unacceptable as you are already dealing with multiple computers.
Case #2; fast but expensive:Get 20 computers, each with one job to process. When a job completes, it writes a sentinel file to a shared directory. If a job has dependencies, it waits for the sentinel files for each dependency to appear before it proceeds. Because of the dependencies, some of the computers are going to be sitting idle until all of the dependencies for its job has completed. And, while THIS job is running, all those machines that performed those dependent jobs are now sitting idle, too. So, this IS fast, but it wastes resources.
Case #3: fast and affordable:What is the maximum amount of parallelization that is possible in the WHOLE process? Let's say that, at best, you can have 7 jobs running in parallel.
If you have fewer than 7 machines, then there will be a serialization of tasks that could have been done in parallel -- a waste of time.
If you have more than 7 machines, you'll have machines sitting idle -- a waste of money.
So, I would recommend getting as many computers as you have tasks that can be performed in parallel and using the sentinel file approach described in case #2 to keep track of when jobs can begin.
This story is ridiculous. Whatever pseudo-scientific principles the study is based on, you shouldn't believe the results, even if they have a couple anecdotes to back them up.
I think you may be on to something. Take a look at this quote from the article (my emphasis added):
Dr David Cantor, director of the Psychological Services Institute in Atlanta, Georgia, who has treated patients for memory and attention problems for more than 20 years, said: "Many experts believe information overload is making it difficult for some people to absorb new information, as they have reached a limit of what they can store in their brains. These people forget things because they were too distracted to absorb them in the first place."
Is there such an organization? I've just done a bunch of queries on
google
and
dogpile.com
and
bigyellow.com
, but if they exist, I can't find 'em!
Are there any/.'ers from that area who can confirm/deny that there is such an organization?
Heh. Maybe they're hoping we'll enjoy the article, but not remember it?;)
This is how a serious benchmark should be done, with the machine state as similar as possible before each tests.
I agree. I think this post was on the right track in performing a number of tests to find out where the sweet spot is for the -j argument. There have been hypotheses posted here that caching effects may have interfered with the results. (I wonder if interim/final files' locations on the disk could vary the results, too -- longer seek/write times... maybe need to defrag the disk between iterations, too?)
BUT, it strikes me that EACH test should be repeated a sufficient number of times so that the durations measured vary within a desired confidence level (statistics term -- standard deviation and variance and other stuff whose name and vague conepts I recall but I learned too long ago to recall, now). At an absolute minimum, doing each test twice and having results that vary within, say, a couple seconds would counter the concerns that there was some unknown but suspected optimization happening
(e.g. disk cache, left over interim files, etc.).
Personally, I'd still prefer to see each test performed at least 3 times.
In my experience, I've seen very close 2-try results where the results on the 3rd time sometimes confirmed them,
but other times refuted them. (Yes, I know it's not "scientific", but I'd rather repeat an unnecessary test than omit a
necessary one!)
Then, to make sure there were no accumulated small effects from running all those tests, repeat the very first test one more time to confirm that its results fell in line with the orginal results.
I don't know about 10 years ago, but I do recall seeing a lot of coverage of Tamarack Storage Devices developing holographic storage in 1993. Here's a link:
http://www.manhattsci.com/technology/holographic_s torage/index.htm
for a brief summary and history of the company as well as a link to a page with an explanation of how the technology works.
Tamarack Storage Devices was later acquired by
Manhattan Scientifics, Inc.
For a wider overview of holographic storage, take a look at:
http://www.enteleky.com/holography/
(Note: The site's title is "Holoquest.com" even though that is not the name of the actual web site.)
Anyway, Yes, this technology has been talked about for seemingly forever. I'll believe it when I can buy one for my PC. My hope is they get it working soon enough that it isn't outstripped by "conventional" storage technology advances (remember bubble memory?). Back in 1993, a "HUGE" 1 GB drive cost $1000! Not only do they have to get the technology working reliably, but it must be able to compete economically in the marketplace.
Sure, an ad for child porn would not be allowed on that site, and an ad for a local hotel would be, right?
But what about an ad for pictures of children in "adorable poses"? Or an ad for a brothel?
Things may be "black or white" at first, but as time passes, and more and more ads push the boundary, it will be only a matter of time before they find themselves facing court battles on what is permitted and what is not.
in the meantime, right?
Now, what I'm waiting for, is for most of the ads to be blocked in public libraries, city hall, etc. because of mandated filters... they might never see the ads that were going to cause them problems!
It's often difficult for two people who speak the same language to
express themselves clearly enough to be understood by the other. It takes great
care and effort to express something so clearly that there is no possible
misunderstanding.
Two examples in the same language to consider for translation:
Here's an admittedly complex example:
In my nearly 20 years' experience in software quality assurance,
I've seen all kinds of problems arise in requirements documents,
functional specifications, and actual applications
where the author was uncertain about what was intended or,
though clearly understanding what was intended, was unclear in expressing that intention,
and so ended up expressing something that was either undesirable or even impossible;
this caused the result to be flawed, at best, or unusable, at worst.
Here's another expression of those concepts:
I work in software quality assurance.
I have performed this work for nearly 20 years.
I have seen problems in requirements.
I have seen problems in functional specifications.
I have seen problems in actual applications.
Authors sometimes do not fully understand their intentions.
Authors sometimes do not clearly express their intentions.
etc.
Which of these do you think would be more easily translated by an automatic device?
Interaction between the speaker and the translation device
What I've seen here on/. so far suggests this interaction with the device:
Person 1 says something.
The translator translates what was said.
The translator "speaks" what it translated.
It makes sense, to me, to have the translator express its difficulty and
to ask the speaker to rephrase the statement. There are a wide variety of
books and grammar checking tools to help writers detect and correct common mistakes.
There are readability tools to assess the grade level of a document based on the
length of sentences and the number of syllables in the words. These tools could
be used to help recognize the ambiguities, and to have the translation device
request help from the speaker.
Commercial Possiblities:
Why must the device be self-contained? I'd see great value in having the
users employ cell-phone-like devices to communicate with a central translator.
(We already use the same concept with X-window where the input and output can
be on a machine which could be far from the machine doing the processing.)
This approach has many advantages:
All of the computing power need not be carried around by the user.
Upgrades can be handled centrally.
The device becomes much simpler to develop and maintain.
Longer battery life is possible.
Much more computing power can be used to perform the translation.
Larger and more extensive dictionaries can be used.
NOTE: There's an obvious disadvantage in a military situation where the troops
would rather not broadcast their location to the enemy when they are trying
to communicate with a local. Hence, the desire for portability. But us
common folks are not under such constraints.
Do a search on-line. A quick query at google. For example, search for:
"structured programming" ISBN
brought up a couple thousand hits. Browse through the results until you find something YOU find interesting.
Check out book publishers web pages, for example: Addison-Wesley
Go to a library (ideally a college/university which has programming courses) but if you are nice to the folks at the information desk... well, I've been AMAZED at what they've been able to do to help me find information.
Think of organizations that would have promulgated this info in the past and check out what they have to offer. Places like the ACM - Association for Computing Machinery which has been around since 1947 and which published journals on the latest in research in computer systems.
Check the bibliographies of any books or articles you find for pointers to other works.
It's been about 10 years since I last was active in this area, so I don't even remember what some of these acronyms stand for, but here are a few that I remember:
DFD (Data Flow Diagram)
DMD (Data Model Diagram)
LDM (Logical Data Model)
SASD (not sure, but IIRC Systems Design - was bin in the United Kingdom)
Structure Charts
AD/Cycle (A huge undertaking by IBM to bring all the major CASE (computer aided software engineering) companies at the time (Intersolv, Bachman, Knowledgeware?) together and to provide a central repository for all of the vendor's modeling information.)
Take a course in Data Structures, too. Of all the courses I took in college, this is one whose principles I still use each day. Knowing when to use scalars, vectors (arrays), linear or circular lists (singly- or doubly-linked), hashes, and databases... if the DATA is organized RIGHT, writing the algorithms to access it is GREATLY simplified! Use the right tools for the job.
I've seen too many programmers who just hack away at code until it seems to work -- great to see you trying to use other's knowledge and experience to bring some design and order into your programming! Good Luck!
Based on what I can tell from the report, this "members only" group sends warnings only among its own. That means that if one of these companies finds this nasty virus, all the other companies find out but we don't.
Yes, that's true, but I have doubts about how long this group will LAST. Let me explain by first quoting from the article:
The 19 founders represent some of the industry's largest firms, but they come with historic rivalries. Cisco and Nortel Networks compete bitterly in sales of computer-networking hardware. Microsoft was found to have violated antitrust laws to influence contracts with AT&T and IBM; Oracle has admitted to hiring private investigators to dig through the trash of groups supportive of Microsoft. Can these companies, in an industry known for unusually aggressive executives, ever trust each other?
Distrust and fear will likely keep this group from taking off.
If a company with billions of dollars in revenue had some inside dirt on one of its multi-billion dollar competitors... "Hey! With this info, we could bring X to their knees. Nah, we couldn't do THAT!" Ya, right.
As soon as it even APPEARS that something like this has happened, the whole group would likely begin to collapse from distrust and fear of having the same done unto them. A little less is revealed, and then a little less. Heck the whole idea for the group is to keep information from others they don't trust... just how long can they trust their greatest competitors?
I'm not sure that equipping all aircraft with a GPS system could qualify them for IFR (Instrument Flight Rules, which means that in theory, you could fly the aircraft without looking out the window).
I agree, that's why if you take another look at the parent post:
Would it be useful to have something like this installed in all commercial aircraft?
(Emphasis added)
I could very well be mistaken but I thought commercial aircraft already have IFR equipment? My question was therefore whether there were any practical applications of this BlackJack GPS technology to augment the existing IFR instruments in commercial aircraft. The expense would likely be prohibitive in the small puddle-jumper sized craft, but in the larger jets (e.g. Boeing 7x7) I would expect that to be less of an issue.
Also, the GPS alone was to be used to avoid collsions, the data received/sent would have to be processed in real-time and then sent either to the controls or to the pilot, before the collision occured. In a one-on- one situation, this is simple. Around Heathrow, things get a little complicated. I'm not sure that a central/distributed system could actually solve this fast enough.
Good point about greater congestion around Heathrow, but aren't they managing to do this right now? Samples taken every few seconds (e.g. each radar sweep) would be sufficient to plot each plane's trajectory. Further, it's not like there's a cloud of planes swarming around the airport... I don't recall the exact elevations, but (pulling numbers out of the air) some subset of the flights might be given an elevation of 15,000 feet while others might be given an elevation of 10,000 feet, etc. So, it becomes less of a problem of solving all the trajectories in 3-dimensions to solving some finite number of trajectories in 2-dimensions.
Then again, if we need to measure how far one plane is from another using inches... methinks they may be in one BIG heap of trouble already!
Would it be useful to have something like this installed in all comercial aircraft? I'm thinking along the lines of better navigation aids to landing in inclement weather, to better collision avoidance systems, and to help avoid hitting the terrain under poor weather conditions.
Another use would be to mount receivers in each of the wingtips, the nose cone, and the tail and to record all this information in the "black box". This would permit a much-more detailed reconstruction of the plane's orientation and flight trajectory when investigating a crash.
Anyone else have some practical applications for these?
Just how fast can information be written to or read from this new storage medium? For that matter, for how long can information be retained -- think DRAM. If it needs to be periodically refreshed, then how often? How about power consumption? How reliable is the storage? Would a random gamma ray fry a whole lot of those bits?
The posts I've seen here so far suggest people have been thinking along the lines of CD or DVD kinds of storage with near-permanent storage attributes.
Honey? I don't know how to tell you this, but you know the Super-High-Ultra-Dense-Data Electronic Recorder (SHUDDER tm) you bought me? Well, the batteries ran down and it lost all those MP3s. Could you please record them again?
Even using a fast CD drive, that could take quite a while for the data transfer and all the disk shuffling!
Then again, if it proves to have high data transfer rates and low power consumption, sign me up to be the first for data cartridges for a Visor and a digital camera!
So who was making the fuss? Any legitimate reason other than "I don't like it"?
First off, it ain't just the people who have to learn to use the new numbers. It implies the need to update all the auto-dialing devices like alarm systems, speed dial numbers, ISP's numbers for modems, and fax machines. Yet, this isn't the whole of it.
These 10-digit phone numbers have to be processed by telecom switches to make the calls go through. Check out:
North American numbering Plan Administration for the latest
news about proposed changes and their implementations. As others have pointed out, there were choices made at the outset about the formatting of telephone numbers that permitted the switches to make optimizations in processing the number - as it was being dialed. For example: Starts with a '2'? Then it can't be long distance. Check the local NXXs that start with a '2'.
There is also the concept of permissive dialing. Even though it's NOT REQUIRED to dial the area code, I've long looked forward to being able to put in the whole telephone number (e.g. 1-212-345-6789) in my laptop's list of ISP's telephone numbers, and let the telco sort things out.
Once the people had grown accustomed to using 10-digit numbers everywhere, then it would make sense to me to change from PERMISSIVE 10-digit dialing to MANDATORY.
There are web sites and newsgroups dedicated to telephony (teh-LEF-oh-knee).
Here's a newsgroup that I've found helpful: "comp.dcom.telecom"
There's also a whole slew of useful sites accessible from google's telephony area.
...its neat that the first crew, all guys, are called the Alpha Males.
Talking about cute names for things, did you notice one of the modules is called the
Zenith Integrated Truss Structure?
They're having so much trouble getting all the blemishes out, because the space station has ZITS!
Yes! Definitiely perform periodic cleaning, maintenance, and testing of the public floppy drives! At least give your students a fighting chance to have a drive that CAN write reliably to their media.
But, it seems to me that the problem is that the errors were made SILENTLY. So, the real question may be: "How can a user know, immediately, when there's a problem?"
Under DOS or a Windows command prompt, you can use this command to copy a file, and, at the same time, verify the copy matches the source:
copy foo.txt a:\/v
Though I don't know if it is true, today, but one used to be able to issue this command (IIRC) under DOS in your autoexec.bat file to force the system to verify every single file that was written: (NOTE: I almost exclusively use the CLI so I have no idea if this setting is recognized when using drag-and-drop to copy files.)
SET VERIFY=ON
Further defensive techniques
Use good media. Make it easy and affordable for your users to get quality floppies. (For example, a pre-paid "lab" fee as part of the cost of a course. Students could easily buy floppies at the help desk by a deduction from their account.)
Copy the same file onto multiple floppies. If one of my disks dies, I still have the other one as a backup.
Make multiple copies of the same file on the same disk. More redundancy is a Good Thing.
Make data recovery easier. Norton Utilities has saved my butt a few times.
Use.ZIP files. I have also found it helpful to use PKZIP (or one of its relatives) to copy the file to the removable media. There are command line versions, at least, which have options to check the integrity of a.ZIP file, as well as try to recover a damaged.ZIP file.
Save early and often. Use different media and/or files for each version that has been saved.
Neither Pacific Bell nor Excite@Home provide their customers with such [firewall] software. Each company's officials said, though, that they would help its users install the software if they required it.
Xerox selling PARC??? Are they getting into real estate? I can just see them now, trying to sell not only Parc Place, but Boardwalk and Marvin Gardens, too!
First off, this sounds like a really interesting approach! It seems, at first, that it would go a long way to avoid problems with surface obstructions (e.g. large rocks).
But, on further thought, can you imagine one of these things trying to hop out of a valley of loose sand? Sand gets kicked around, all right, but it'd be just digging itself in deeper and deeper!
(It'd be even worse in an area where there was mud or a pond, but there's not too much of that on the moon <grin> and doubtful there'd be much on Mars.)
Sure, you could make a larger "base". That is, the part that gets thrust against the surface. But, then there's another issue. From the article:
On landing, the hopper's egglike shape allows it to pop back upright before reassessing its position, ready for the next leap.
If you made the base larger, how would you make sure that it was on the bottom?
Maybe a larger, birdcage-like superstructure? That might make it roll back into the proper orientation, but it would also add to the weight of the hopper and lessen its range.
Further, it would risk the possibility of it getting mired in a crater:
Hop!
Hit side of crater.
Roll to bottom of crater.
Repeat.
Same kinds of problems if it should land in a narrow ravine... it could hop itself right across to the other side of the ravine and imbed itself in that wall.
I'd like to think they've considered these problems, but I saw no mention of them in the article. Any other ideas on potential problems and their solutions?
Okay, even if you COULD get these punch cards read in, I'd expect you'd still have some language Issues:
Human language: German. If you
can't read German, it's not going to be of much use, will it? Sure, you could use BabelFish but it will certainly lose something in the translation.
Programng language and environment. I would expect the punch cards most likely would contain both application(s) and data. Do you have access to a machine that could RUN these? Imagine the application(s) were designed to be run on a Commodore 64 - could you even find an environment where you could run these applications?
Character Set.
Punch cards, IIRC, were generally encoded in EBCDIC. (At least they were when I used them in college.) Do you have access to a system that can even use this character set?
I'm not trying to disuade you from continuing to investigate this resource, but to point out there's more here than may be apparent at first glance.
This is indicative of the general class of problems that I've often run into when trying to locate information. When I've hit a rat hole, back up and THINK! Could someone else have run into this same problem, or am I the very first person who has run into this? That simple idea has helped me to stop what I had been doing, back up, and try another approach while making use of what I've learned so far.
I noticed others had posted here with some links that indicated these works have ISBN numbers. Search on those.
Hmmm ISBN? There's a good-sized library in Washington, DC. A search on google for : "Library of Congress" took me to a web site where I could search their collection in many different ways. Not only that, I found other works in the same subject area (Sobjects:):
Virgil--Versification.
Latin language--Metrics and rhythmics.
In short, when I hit a brick wall when searching for information, and I've got a headache from banging my head against that wall, it's a sign to me that maybe it's time to step back and try another approach. Hope this helps!
The usage of SSL like on http://www.Hushmail.com would be the only way to get around it
Not really. Sure, it'll keep things private from a sniffer, but as the article pointed out:
Keystroke monitoring is an even more extreme surveillance tool that enables employers to read every key employees push--from the URLs of Web sites to email and instant messages, including deletions or changes they make in the process.
Some programs, including the Silent Watch software that tracks employee computer use, retail for as little as $39.99. As many as 35 percent of all corporations already have these systems installed, according to Internet surveillance company Websense.
The keystroke monitors can capture what you type, even before it is encrypted!
Instead of engaging in a contest of cat-and-mouse with my employer, I look at it that I am there to provide a service for which I am paid. If I cannot realistically justify an on-line activity while I am at work, then I just wait until I get home. Keeps it simple.
For example, I had a close relative who recently had major surgery and made a few e-mails (and phone calls) to keep in touch as to how the surgery went, when the visiting hours were, etc. I can't imagine my employer having trouble with that. I wouldn't work for a company that was so lacking in compassion.
Slashdot Mirror
I've done QA on about a dozen apps based on a variety of databases, and one of the things I've often wanted is a tool that could read in the DDL for a database and spit out an ERD. Great for maintaining documentation on an RDBMS and for getting a quick idea of an undocumented one.
Heck, just being able to automatically layout a directed graph would be a big step in the right direction! Does anyone have know of any tools for doing this?
Scratch Tickets! :)
Like, come on! If they can do THIS, then they surely can read through that scratch-off coating they put on lottery tickets! Just think of the possibilities!
Well, not exactly, but I think it is illustrative to consider the extremes. First off, though, it's late, and I'm tired, so please bear me here. Also, before I forget, it sure seems to me like you are describing a need that is much like what is handled by the Scheduler and Dispatcher processes in the operating system of a multi-processor machine. Any good book on operating systems would be a good source of ideas.
Given: you have 20 jobs to process.
Case #1; slow but cheap:Use 1 computer, create a make file for the whole process (letting the computer keep track of the jobs' dependencies) and wait until it is done. That was obviously unacceptable as you are already dealing with multiple computers.
Case #2; fast but expensive:Get 20 computers, each with one job to process. When a job completes, it writes a sentinel file to a shared directory. If a job has dependencies, it waits for the sentinel files for each dependency to appear before it proceeds. Because of the dependencies, some of the computers are going to be sitting idle until all of the dependencies for its job has completed. And, while THIS job is running, all those machines that performed those dependent jobs are now sitting idle, too. So, this IS fast, but it wastes resources.
Case #3: fast and affordable:What is the maximum amount of parallelization that is possible in the WHOLE process? Let's say that, at best, you can have 7 jobs running in parallel.
So, I would recommend getting as many computers as you have tasks that can be performed in parallel and using the sentinel file approach described in case #2 to keep track of when jobs can begin.
I think you may be on to something. Take a look at this quote from the article (my emphasis added): Dr David Cantor, director of the Psychological Services Institute in Atlanta, Georgia, who has treated patients for memory and attention problems for more than 20 years, said: "Many experts believe information overload is making it difficult for some people to absorb new information, as they have reached a limit of what they can store in their brains. These people forget things because they were too distracted to absorb them in the first place."
Is there such an organization? I've just done a bunch of queries on google and dogpile.com and bigyellow.com , but if they exist, I can't find 'em! Are there any /.'ers from that area who can confirm/deny that there is such an organization?
Heh. Maybe they're hoping we'll enjoy the article, but not remember it? ;)
I agree. I think this post was on the right track in performing a number of tests to find out where the sweet spot is for the -j argument. There have been hypotheses posted here that caching effects may have interfered with the results. (I wonder if interim/final files' locations on the disk could vary the results, too -- longer seek/write times... maybe need to defrag the disk between iterations, too?)
BUT, it strikes me that EACH test should be repeated a sufficient number of times so that the durations measured vary within a desired confidence level (statistics term -- standard deviation and variance and other stuff whose name and vague conepts I recall but I learned too long ago to recall, now). At an absolute minimum, doing each test twice and having results that vary within, say, a couple seconds would counter the concerns that there was some unknown but suspected optimization happening (e.g. disk cache, left over interim files, etc.).
Personally, I'd still prefer to see each test performed at least 3 times. In my experience, I've seen very close 2-try results where the results on the 3rd time sometimes confirmed them, but other times refuted them. (Yes, I know it's not "scientific", but I'd rather repeat an unnecessary test than omit a necessary one!)
Then, to make sure there were no accumulated small effects from running all those tests, repeat the very first test one more time to confirm that its results fell in line with the orginal results.
I don't know about 10 years ago, but I do recall seeing a lot of coverage of Tamarack Storage Devices developing holographic storage in 1993. Here's a link: http://www.manhattsci.com/technology/holographic_s torage/index.htm
for a brief summary and history of the company as well as a link to a page with an explanation of how the technology works.
Tamarack Storage Devices was later acquired by
Manhattan Scientifics, Inc.
For a wider overview of holographic storage, take a look at: http://www.enteleky.com/holography/ (Note: The site's title is "Holoquest.com" even though that is not the name of the actual web site.)
Anyway, Yes, this technology has been talked about for seemingly forever. I'll believe it when I can buy one for my PC. My hope is they get it working soon enough that it isn't outstripped by "conventional" storage technology advances (remember bubble memory?). Back in 1993, a "HUGE" 1 GB drive cost $1000! Not only do they have to get the technology working reliably, but it must be able to compete economically in the marketplace.
Sure, an ad for child porn would not be allowed on that site, and an ad for a local hotel would be, right?
But what about an ad for pictures of children in "adorable poses"? Or an ad for a brothel?
Things may be "black or white" at first, but as time passes, and more and more ads push the boundary, it will be only a matter of time before they find themselves facing court battles on what is permitted and what is not. in the meantime, right?
Now, what I'm waiting for, is for most of the ads to be blocked in public libraries, city hall, etc. because of mandated filters... they might never see the ads that were going to cause them problems!
It's often difficult for two people who speak the same language to express themselves clearly enough to be understood by the other. It takes great care and effort to express something so clearly that there is no possible misunderstanding.
Two examples in the same language to consider for translation:
Which of these do you think would be more easily translated by an automatic device?
Another example, using two languages:
- In English:
- I am hot.
- This can be expressed in German as either of:
- Est ist mir heiss. (It is, to me, very warm.)
- Ich bin heiss. (I am sexually excited.)
(According to Babel Fish, I'm really excitedInteraction between the speaker and the translation device
What I've seen here on /. so far suggests this interaction with the device:
It makes sense, to me, to have the translator express its difficulty and to ask the speaker to rephrase the statement. There are a wide variety of books and grammar checking tools to help writers detect and correct common mistakes. There are readability tools to assess the grade level of a document based on the length of sentences and the number of syllables in the words. These tools could be used to help recognize the ambiguities, and to have the translation device request help from the speaker.
Commercial Possiblities:
Why must the device be self-contained? I'd see great value in having the users employ cell-phone-like devices to communicate with a central translator. (We already use the same concept with X-window where the input and output can be on a machine which could be far from the machine doing the processing.) This approach has many advantages:
NOTE: There's an obvious disadvantage in a military situation where the troops would rather not broadcast their location to the enemy when they are trying to communicate with a local. Hence, the desire for portability. But us common folks are not under such constraints.
Here's some ideas on how to get started.
- "structured programming" ISBN
brought up a couple thousand hits. Browse through the results until you find something YOU find interesting.Take a course in Data Structures, too. Of all the courses I took in college, this is one whose principles I still use each day. Knowing when to use scalars, vectors (arrays), linear or circular lists (singly- or doubly-linked), hashes, and databases... if the DATA is organized RIGHT, writing the algorithms to access it is GREATLY simplified! Use the right tools for the job.
I've seen too many programmers who just hack away at code until it seems to work -- great to see you trying to use other's knowledge and experience to bring some design and order into your programming! Good Luck!
Yes, that's true, but I have doubts about how long this group will LAST. Let me explain by first quoting from the article:
The 19 founders represent some of the industry's largest firms, but they come with historic rivalries. Cisco and Nortel Networks compete bitterly in sales of computer-networking hardware. Microsoft was found to have violated antitrust laws to influence contracts with AT&T and IBM; Oracle has admitted to hiring private investigators to dig through the trash of groups supportive of Microsoft. Can these companies, in an industry known for unusually aggressive executives, ever trust each other?
Distrust and fear will likely keep this group from taking off.
If a company with billions of dollars in revenue had some inside dirt on one of its multi-billion dollar competitors... "Hey! With this info, we could bring X to their knees. Nah, we couldn't do THAT!" Ya, right.
As soon as it even APPEARS that something like this has happened, the whole group would likely begin to collapse from distrust and fear of having the same done unto them. A little less is revealed, and then a little less. Heck the whole idea for the group is to keep information from others they don't trust... just how long can they trust their greatest competitors?
I know they aren't kidding when they say BASIC, but what do you want in markup that'll work on a wristwatch as well as my PC.
A sure sign that XHTML has become too BASIC(*) is when we start seeing markup like this: (grin)
* BASIC = Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
I agree, that's why if you take another look at the parent post:
I could very well be mistaken but I thought commercial aircraft already have IFR equipment? My question was therefore whether there were any practical applications of this BlackJack GPS technology to augment the existing IFR instruments in commercial aircraft. The expense would likely be prohibitive in the small puddle-jumper sized craft, but in the larger jets (e.g. Boeing 7x7) I would expect that to be less of an issue.
Also, the GPS alone was to be used to avoid collsions, the data received/sent would have to be processed in real-time and then sent either to the controls or to the pilot, before the collision occured. In a one-on- one situation, this is simple. Around Heathrow, things get a little complicated. I'm not sure that a central/distributed system could actually solve this fast enough.
Good point about greater congestion around Heathrow, but aren't they managing to do this right now? Samples taken every few seconds (e.g. each radar sweep) would be sufficient to plot each plane's trajectory. Further, it's not like there's a cloud of planes swarming around the airport... I don't recall the exact elevations, but (pulling numbers out of the air) some subset of the flights might be given an elevation of 15,000 feet while others might be given an elevation of 10,000 feet, etc. So, it becomes less of a problem of solving all the trajectories in 3-dimensions to solving some finite number of trajectories in 2-dimensions.
Then again, if we need to measure how far one plane is from another using inches... methinks they may be in one BIG heap of trouble already!
Would it be useful to have something like this installed in all comercial aircraft? I'm thinking along the lines of better navigation aids to landing in inclement weather, to better collision avoidance systems, and to help avoid hitting the terrain under poor weather conditions.
Another use would be to mount receivers in each of the wingtips, the nose cone, and the tail and to record all this information in the "black box". This would permit a much-more detailed reconstruction of the plane's orientation and flight trajectory when investigating a crash.
Anyone else have some practical applications for these?
Just how fast can information be written to or read from this new storage medium? For that matter, for how long can information be retained -- think DRAM. If it needs to be periodically refreshed, then how often? How about power consumption? How reliable is the storage? Would a random gamma ray fry a whole lot of those bits?
The posts I've seen here so far suggest people have been thinking along the lines of CD or DVD kinds of storage with near-permanent storage attributes.
Even using a fast CD drive, that could take quite a while for the data transfer and all the disk shuffling!
Then again, if it proves to have high data transfer rates and low power consumption, sign me up to be the first for data cartridges for a Visor and a digital camera!
My PHB ain't gonna get ME one unless HE gets one, too. So, are there 64-bit versions of Solitaire and Minesweeper? ;^)
So who was making the fuss? Any legitimate reason other than "I don't like it"?
First off, it ain't just the people who have to learn to use the new numbers. It implies the need to update all the auto-dialing devices like alarm systems, speed dial numbers, ISP's numbers for modems, and fax machines. Yet, this isn't the whole of it.
These 10-digit phone numbers have to be processed by telecom switches to make the calls go through. Check out: North American numbering Plan Administration for the latest news about proposed changes and their implementations. As others have pointed out, there were choices made at the outset about the formatting of telephone numbers that permitted the switches to make optimizations in processing the number - as it was being dialed. For example: Starts with a '2'? Then it can't be long distance. Check the local NXXs that start with a '2'.
There is also the concept of permissive dialing. Even though it's NOT REQUIRED to dial the area code, I've long looked forward to being able to put in the whole telephone number (e.g. 1-212-345-6789) in my laptop's list of ISP's telephone numbers, and let the telco sort things out.
Once the people had grown accustomed to using 10-digit numbers everywhere, then it would make sense to me to change from PERMISSIVE 10-digit dialing to MANDATORY.
There are web sites and newsgroups dedicated to telephony (teh-LEF-oh-knee). Here's a newsgroup that I've found helpful: "comp.dcom.telecom" There's also a whole slew of useful sites accessible from google's telephony area.
(Lord knows I've submitted enough posts to /. where I wished *I* had hit the preview button!)
Talking about cute names for things, did you notice one of the modules is called the Zenith Integrated Truss Structure? They're having so much trouble getting all the blemishes out, because the space station has ZITS!
Yes! Definitiely perform periodic cleaning, maintenance, and testing of the public floppy drives! At least give your students a fighting chance to have a drive that CAN write reliably to their media.
But, it seems to me that the problem is that the errors were made SILENTLY. So, the real question may be: "How can a user know, immediately, when there's a problem?"
Under DOS or a Windows command prompt, you can use this command to copy a file, and, at the same time, verify the copy matches the source:
Though I don't know if it is true, today, but one used to be able to issue this command (IIRC) under DOS in your autoexec.bat file to force the system to verify every single file that was written: (NOTE: I almost exclusively use the CLI so I have no idea if this setting is recognized when using drag-and-drop to copy files.)Further defensive techniques
Script Kiddies - hack our customers' computers.
Thanks for the info! I knew Parc Place was associated with PARC, but I'd not heard of them in the news for a while. Now I know why. Thanks again.
Xerox selling PARC??? Are they getting into real estate? I can just see them now, trying to sell not only Parc Place, but Boardwalk and Marvin Gardens, too!
First off, this sounds like a really interesting approach! It seems, at first, that it would go a long way to avoid problems with surface obstructions (e.g. large rocks).
But, on further thought, can you imagine one of these things trying to hop out of a valley of loose sand? Sand gets kicked around, all right, but it'd be just digging itself in deeper and deeper! (It'd be even worse in an area where there was mud or a pond, but there's not too much of that on the moon <grin> and doubtful there'd be much on Mars.)
Sure, you could make a larger "base". That is, the part that gets thrust against the surface. But, then there's another issue. From the article:
If you made the base larger, how would you make sure that it was on the bottom?
Maybe a larger, birdcage-like superstructure? That might make it roll back into the proper orientation, but it would also add to the weight of the hopper and lessen its range. Further, it would risk the possibility of it getting mired in a crater:
Same kinds of problems if it should land in a narrow ravine... it could hop itself right across to the other side of the ravine and imbed itself in that wall.
I'd like to think they've considered these problems, but I saw no mention of them in the article. Any other ideas on potential problems and their solutions?
Okay, even if you COULD get these punch cards read in, I'd expect you'd still have some language Issues:
I'm not trying to disuade you from continuing to investigate this resource, but to point out there's more here than may be apparent at first glance.
This is indicative of the general class of problems that I've often run into when trying to locate information. When I've hit a rat hole, back up and THINK! Could someone else have run into this same problem, or am I the very first person who has run into this? That simple idea has helped me to stop what I had been doing, back up, and try another approach while making use of what I've learned so far.
In short, when I hit a brick wall when searching for information, and I've got a headache from banging my head against that wall, it's a sign to me that maybe it's time to step back and try another approach. Hope this helps!
The usage of SSL like on http://www.Hushmail.com would be the only way to get around it
Not really. Sure, it'll keep things private from a sniffer, but as the article pointed out:
Keystroke monitoring is an even more extreme surveillance tool that enables employers to read every key employees push--from the URLs of Web sites to email and instant messages, including deletions or changes they make in the process.
Some programs, including the Silent Watch software that tracks employee computer use, retail for as little as $39.99. As many as 35 percent of all corporations already have these systems installed, according to Internet surveillance company Websense.
The keystroke monitors can capture what you type, even before it is encrypted!
Instead of engaging in a contest of cat-and-mouse with my employer, I look at it that I am there to provide a service for which I am paid. If I cannot realistically justify an on-line activity while I am at work, then I just wait until I get home. Keeps it simple.
For example, I had a close relative who recently had major surgery and made a few e-mails (and phone calls) to keep in touch as to how the surgery went, when the visiting hours were, etc. I can't imagine my employer having trouble with that. I wouldn't work for a company that was so lacking in compassion.