The fact that they won't deliver in kit isn't news*, it's more interesting to know that they have HW-accelerated versions of MPEG4 and H.264 (and only those), and that all these libraries are closed source.
HW-accelerated versions of MPEG4 and H.264 isn't news either except its on a board that cost $25! (and only those), well the last time I licensed MPEG2 it cost me $14.95, so getting a complete board and a codec that is hardware accelerated and including the license fee for $25 - I agree, that interesting and news.
That all the libraries are closed source - Not news since practically all commercial grade GPU libraries are closed, but since the API is public and directly mapped to the normal Linux Graphics Libraries as I understand it, seems like news to me.
(Just following the discussion not claiming to be an expert.)
This is what we do at my church also. Prior to implementing WPA2, (and "organic password sharing") we tried to have open access (isolated from the office LAN) for all guests, with OpenDNS to avoid accidental access to evil sites. The open access and leaky signal attracted war drivers who parked for hours outside the daycare center we operate during the week. Creepy.
Yes, it is. Impossible? No. This has been discussed at length on the PI forums. There is a delicate balance between size of the board, size of the components, and available real estate. Mounting holes add little value, but use up valuable real estate. There are a number of ways to mount boards without using holes.
Also explained in detail at the Pi site: When size, space and cost are not important, you can put connectors anywhere you want, but when these are paramount you put the connections in good enough locations. You just have to be a little cleverer with your box design.
The Pi is not intended for teaching GPU programming. The Pi's number one goal was to be cheap, very cheap so any school kid can own one. Adding even $.50 in cost was not an option. In the cost performance world of silicon, closed is the way to go.
Some of the key volunteers have an "In" with Broadcom. Broadcom is being very supportive, with inside information on which parts make the most production and cost sense.
I think you nailed it, they are being open in the most useful sense IMHO.
Not that many of us have the contacts and technical and business and financial and intestinal talents required to pull something like this off. People seem to be falling into several divergent camps. It's a major breakthrough in price/performance, that is impossible in the real world, or no big deal, I know of somebody else, almost able to do the same thing (only costing twice as much).
They also have laudable goals for the project.
Watching them disprove the naysayers post by post is quite entertaining.
Thanks for posting about the Simtec Entropy Key. At only $56 (Qty 1) for a FIPS-140-2 Level 3 compliance type device based on quantum tunnels is pretty amazing. Just the buzz words, are worth that for any system advertised as secure.
Good Point, but Thunderbolt is not so much a replacement for USB as a replacement for Firewire, DisplayPort, DVI, VGA, and eSATA. So I still think, Apple pushing USB over PS/2 is a much better analogy than the parent post having Apple pushing Firewire over USB (which never happened).
Hmm, this sounds just like the USB vs PS/2 competition with Apple pushing USB. We saw how that turned out. We all know that being better doesn't mean anything in this industry... except keep at it and you may be come the most or (second most) valuable company in the world.
Me too. No infections with my Win 7 machine that I know of, with a little over a year experience. No sticky infections for my XP or Vista machines either, and I leave them up and networked all the time. Unlike many people using PCs and practically all people using Macs I keep them updated, and make sure that I have a working copy of an antivirus going at all times. But I use them strictly for business and I find it pretty easy to spot fake updates, and never install software and drivers unless I absolutely trust the source. I'm pretty paranoid. Most people seem to be trusting and hate UAC, and anything they perceive as slowing down their experience including AV software. So I wind up helping 6 or more people a month clean their Windows computers, some of these are Win 7, I don't seek this business, they track me down.
And yes, even users that do everything right still get infected. I get one of those every other month or so, with no attack vector I can find, other than zero day google ad exploits, through IE 8 or Firefox. And some people who I thought had compromised their system by turning off UAC, though they denied it, and I doubted their ability to figure out how, may not have been the blame after all.
Anyway, good move getting Win 7. I'm hoping to get everyone I know to get new machines with Win 7, that is those who don't want an iPad or Mac. Win 7 machines are much less trouble. Mac and IOS machines, are a bit better IMHO, zero trouble from malware, and lesser trouble of any other kind. Ironically the users if anything are less trained, and do absolutely nothing to protect themselves. So yes, maybe people need to be taught how to take care of their computers, or get one that doesn't require so much care.
As you can with OSX (at least through SL, haven't tried it in Lion), but you (or your admin) must give yourself permission first. More funny or tragic is that any run of the mill malware can also change the logo to anything it wants, if using Windows.
I agree. LiveCode is the closest thing to HyperCard. For a few years I had a series of high school students come through my shop working part time. I would give them some simple programming projects with LiveCode (Revolution then), with minimal instruction, and they would learn it very quickly. One of the students caught the fever and went on get a Computer Science Degree.
Works on Mac, Win, and Linux
My second choice would be Javascript, giving care to use progressively interesting examples.
True, but all Lithium cells are also low voltage, and placed in series to get the higher voltage. So the ideal spot to augment the slow charging and low current battery cells, is with high current caps is at each battery cell. The low voltage super caps easily span one or two battery cells, without the extra circuitry required to protect series caps from over voltages.
Capacitors, like batteries, give more bang for the space (and buck) if designed for lower voltages. Lower voltage = more capacity.
Also Distance at high currents matters. Greater cable length = wasted power or greater cable length = bigger, longer and heavier cables.
So having a distributed (through the vehicle apart from the batteries), and/or high voltage capacitors is not the way to go.
Placing a low voltage capacitor next to or integrated with each battery unit or cell, allows for smaller size, greater capacity capacitors with more efficiency.
[Built my first electric car in 1975.]
If someone wanted to do a real life Space Age Indiana Jones documentary, they should check out the life and times of Dr. Tom Sever, of NASA. I was lucky enough to sit in on some informal debriefs, after he had returned from jungle adventures in the 80's and 90's.
He discovered "lost" cities using satellite imagery, and managed to stay one step ahead of treasure hunters and guerillas - most of the time. One technique used was to detect foot paths from hundreds to thousands of years ago that all came together at a central location.
There was much concern within NASA and archeological circles of keeping the sites secret, to avoid looting. Best I remember, he estimated it would take hundreds of years to investigate each of the sites discovered (by then) using all available archeologists.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that they won't deliver in kit isn't news*, it's more interesting to know that they have HW-accelerated versions of MPEG4 and H.264 (and only those), and that all these libraries are closed source.
HW-accelerated versions of MPEG4 and H.264 isn't news either except its on a board that cost $25!
(and only those), well the last time I licensed MPEG2 it cost me $14.95, so getting a complete board and a codec that is hardware accelerated and including the license fee for $25 - I agree, that interesting and news.
That all the libraries are closed source - Not news since practically all commercial grade GPU libraries are closed, but since the API is public and directly mapped to the normal Linux Graphics Libraries as I understand it, seems like news to me.
(Just following the discussion not claiming to be an expert.)
Mod this up. Good one!
This is what we do at my church also. Prior to implementing WPA2, (and "organic password sharing") we tried to have open access (isolated from the office LAN) for all guests, with OpenDNS to avoid accidental access to evil sites. The open access and leaky signal attracted war drivers who parked for hours outside the daycare center we operate during the week. Creepy.
Yes, it is. Impossible? No. This has been discussed at length on the PI forums. There is a delicate balance between size of the board, size of the components, and available real estate. Mounting holes add little value, but use up valuable real estate. There are a number of ways to mount boards without using holes.
Also explained in detail at the Pi site: When size, space and cost are not important, you can put connectors anywhere you want, but when these are paramount you put the connections in good enough locations. You just have to be a little cleverer with your box design.
The Pi is not intended for teaching GPU programming. The Pi's number one goal was to be cheap, very cheap so any school kid can own one. Adding even $.50 in cost was not an option. In the cost performance world of silicon, closed is the way to go.
Some of the key volunteers have an "In" with Broadcom. Broadcom is being very supportive, with inside information on which parts make the most production and cost sense.
I think you nailed it, they are being open in the most useful sense IMHO.
Not that many of us have the contacts and technical and business and financial and intestinal talents required to pull something like this off. People seem to be falling into several divergent camps. It's a major breakthrough in price/performance, that is impossible in the real world, or no big deal, I know of somebody else, almost able to do the same thing (only costing twice as much).
They also have laudable goals for the project.
Watching them disprove the naysayers post by post is quite entertaining.
Right, and no video.
Correction: There are 6 of us.
Every one thinks it was a Cannonball. Actually it was a large Wham-O SuperBall!
Thanks for posting about the Simtec Entropy Key. At only $56 (Qty 1) for a FIPS-140-2 Level 3 compliance type device based on quantum tunnels is pretty amazing. Just the buzz words, are worth that for any system advertised as secure.
Good Point, but Thunderbolt is not so much a replacement for USB as a replacement for Firewire, DisplayPort, DVI, VGA, and eSATA. So I still think, Apple pushing USB over PS/2 is a much better analogy than the parent post having Apple pushing Firewire over USB (which never happened).
Hmm, this sounds just like the USB vs PS/2 competition with Apple pushing USB. We saw how that turned out. We all know that being better doesn't mean anything in this industry... except keep at it and you may be come the most or (second most) valuable company in the world.
Me too. No infections with my Win 7 machine that I know of, with a little over a year experience. No sticky infections for my XP or Vista machines either, and I leave them up and networked all the time. Unlike many people using PCs and practically all people using Macs I keep them updated, and make sure that I have a working copy of an antivirus going at all times. But I use them strictly for business and I find it pretty easy to spot fake updates, and never install software and drivers unless I absolutely trust the source. I'm pretty paranoid. Most people seem to be trusting and hate UAC, and anything they perceive as slowing down their experience including AV software. So I wind up helping 6 or more people a month clean their Windows computers, some of these are Win 7, I don't seek this business, they track me down.
And yes, even users that do everything right still get infected. I get one of those every other month or so, with no attack vector I can find, other than zero day google ad exploits, through IE 8 or Firefox. And some people who I thought had compromised their system by turning off UAC, though they denied it, and I doubted their ability to figure out how, may not have been the blame after all.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218916/Malware_turns_off_Windows_UAC_warns_Microsoft?taxonomyId=17
Anyway, good move getting Win 7. I'm hoping to get everyone I know to get new machines with Win 7, that is those who don't want an iPad or Mac. Win 7 machines are much less trouble. Mac and IOS machines, are a bit better IMHO, zero trouble from malware, and lesser trouble of any other kind. Ironically the users if anything are less trained, and do absolutely nothing to protect themselves. So yes, maybe people need to be taught how to take care of their computers, or get one that doesn't require so much care.
As you can with OSX (at least through SL, haven't tried it in Lion), but you (or your admin) must give yourself permission first. More funny or tragic is that any run of the mill malware can also change the logo to anything it wants, if using Windows.
I agree. LiveCode is the closest thing to HyperCard. For a few years I had a series of high school students come through my shop working part time. I would give them some simple programming projects with LiveCode (Revolution then), with minimal instruction, and they would learn it very quickly. One of the students caught the fever and went on get a Computer Science Degree.
Works on Mac, Win, and Linux
My second choice would be Javascript, giving care to use progressively interesting examples.
True, but all Lithium cells are also low voltage, and placed in series to get the higher voltage. So the ideal spot to augment the slow charging and low current battery cells, is with high current caps is at each battery cell. The low voltage super caps easily span one or two battery cells, without the extra circuitry required to protect series caps from over voltages.
Capacitors, like batteries, give more bang for the space (and buck) if designed for lower voltages. Lower voltage = more capacity. Also Distance at high currents matters. Greater cable length = wasted power or greater cable length = bigger, longer and heavier cables. So having a distributed (through the vehicle apart from the batteries), and/or high voltage capacitors is not the way to go. Placing a low voltage capacitor next to or integrated with each battery unit or cell, allows for smaller size, greater capacity capacitors with more efficiency. [Built my first electric car in 1975.]
If someone wanted to do a real life Space Age Indiana Jones documentary, they should check out the life and times of Dr. Tom Sever, of NASA. I was lucky enough to sit in on some informal debriefs, after he had returned from jungle adventures in the 80's and 90's. He discovered "lost" cities using satellite imagery, and managed to stay one step ahead of treasure hunters and guerillas - most of the time. One technique used was to detect foot paths from hundreds to thousands of years ago that all came together at a central location. There was much concern within NASA and archeological circles of keeping the sites secret, to avoid looting. Best I remember, he estimated it would take hundreds of years to investigate each of the sites discovered (by then) using all available archeologists.