At the university I teach at (Michigan Tech), we have selected Verilog design for our Altera FPGAs, and have been using it for 5+ years. I used Verilog in private industry before I started teaching and it *seemed* to be more common at that time. When I did some time at IBM back around 1998, they were using VHDL. One of the companies that hires a lot of our grads uses VHDL, and I keep having to tell students, "Look, if you know Verilog, all you need to get a handle on is the syntax of VHDL. Tell them that!"
Knowing both, I find students struggle enough with the concepts of logic design and simulation when they have a familiar kind of syntax (the C-based syntax of Verilog), let alone adding the complexity of VHDL's strange ADA-based syntax. I suggest Verilog.
The relationship between voltage and current is not the same everywhere.
Umm.... The relationship between voltage and current is constant. Voltage is always current multiplied by resistance. That relationship is fundamental to all electrical engineering.
V=IR.
I would point you to this, where Joel Spolsky talks about what some would call "feature bloat". It's not. Different people use different features. Some people in accounting need certain features, some people in academia need other features, and leaving some of those features out alienates *somebody*. And if you want to write the most used piece of software in the world (read: MS Office), you don't alienate anybody.
The same is true of Linux distros. Some people need the server services provided (email, FTP, web), but I never did. Does that mean they should disappear? Certainly not! All of the things that are in the distros are there because somebody, somewhere uses them, and is a big part of Linux's soaring popularity.
Well, firstly we need more efficient solar panels. Most commercial-grade photovoltaic panels are (at best) 20% efficient. Meaning? Meaning you need a lot of panels to create a significant enough flow to power the car.
Secondly, we need smaller, more efficient batteries. The single greatest technological reason hybrid and electric cars are not all over our streets is because too much space and weight is lost to batteries. Make smaller, more efficient batteries, and these cars become more feasible.
And, we need to completely run out of dino oil for the world to put the internal combustion engine into the Smithsonian for good.
Coming from someone who has struggled with RSI/Carpal Tunnel/Dear-Lord-it-hurts-to-type for almost two years, this thing looks great. I certainly don't need to look at the keyboard to type, and I can't count the number of times I've been writing code, or typing an email and just wishing I could exert almost no force to put the character on the screen. I've used everything from old IBM clackety keyboards to the fanciest MS Naturals, and I know that a new keyboard with near-zero force is high on my list stuff to buy. Bottom Line: I put myself on the list to buy this sucker.
To those who have complained about the key layout and missing keys, I can't believe they would try to market a product that completely lacked so many useful keys. As the production runs don't start until August, I would assume they're getting all the key layouts finalized now, and we'll see all the Home/End/Page Up/Page Down keys as well as the less useful Windows keys, etc.
As mentioned in the last article on this mentioned, several key players in the OSS movement are "dropping hints" about.NET ports to Linux... Are we going to get a Gnome/KDE-like split, with GNet and KNet and GnuNet and.ORG, or will we get a unified effort to put forth an indisputably superior product?
My challenge to the Free Software People, the Open Source People, the OSDN, Slashdot, Red Hat, Caldera, GNU, Ximian, KDE and anybody else who cares to listen: Let's put forward one face and show them what we can really do!
Here's the problem: Nobody knows what.NET actually does! When I interviewed for a job at Microsoft in December (well after.NET announcements) I straight out asked, "What is.NET? What does it do?" The engineer replied, "They're still working that out." There's not much to reverse engineer.
However, I do believe that if/when somebody figures out what.NET is for, and if/when a Linux/Unix/BSD/MacOS port is developed, MS will throw a fit and get it declared a copyright violation...
Maybe it's just the places I've worked, but they had requirements for passwords... For example, one company required that your password begin with a letter, end with a letter and have at least 1 number in it, and be no less than 6 characters. Passwords were changed every 3 months, and any given password could have no more than 2 character sub-strings in common with the last two passwords. Another company requires your PIN for certain online tools cannot start with 0 (zero), as all employee numbers start with said character. They both had tools in place to insure these parameters were met.
It seems to me everybody should have such restrictions on passwords, to keep the family dog's name out of passwords.
Both of the companies I've worked for, IBM and Unisys, are quite liberal with allowing and encouraging employees to train.
IBM regularly contracted companies (especially Solutions Technology) to come in and give training classes on pertinent topics-- primarily standards. The cost of these classes was always picked up by the department... and each department's budget seemed to be more than large enough.
Unisys, on the other hand, takes it's training very seriously. Unisys University has determined what skills a person needs for every single position you can hold in the company, and if you don't have those skills, they require you to get them. Senior management makes sure the proper classes are available, and every dime is picked up by the company. Even for a hardware engineer, like me, these classes range from programming to project management to teamwork.
2 things:
1. People under 18 years of age have no rights. Constitutional amendments notwithstanding.
2. Once you walk onto public school property, you forfeit all rights you may have had. Your locker is subject to search, you're subject to questioning without an attorney.
So *if* he had any rights in the first place, he forfeited them the instant he walked onto that campus.
My sister's computer is certainly not that... It's got an internal floppy if nothing else. I would suspect that they upgrade the units each year...
But I've gotta be proud of my school!
I've seen my sister's school sponsored (and supposedly cheaper) laptop from Northern, and frankly, I was disgusted. It's something ridiculous, like a Pentium II 300, with a 2GB HDD... If you're going to make me dish out money for a computer, at least let me get something good!
Beyond that, I've heard that they've had no end of problems finding techs to support these things. As opposed to my university (Michigan Tech forever!!), the students don't know anything about their computers, and call up tech support when the screen saver won't turn off. If anybody out there likes snow, apply for a tech position at Northern...
For me, it's all about getting the most out of my money-- as a college student, resources are limited, and if I can pull my 466 Celerons up to 700's (or something similarly insane) I've saved money that I really can't afford to spend.
I think the second reason has to do with "stickin' it to the man", as with Linux. It's some people's way of telling Intel (or AMD or Cyrix or...) we don't have to take it anymore.
Beyond the comments on price, ($300k being a *low* quote) there are other problems with this thing. I was at SGI having this thing pitched to me and my boss. To get a nice threen-screen image, you need something like an SGI Onyx2 or Octane with multiple graphics pipes. Otherwise, it turns into three individual screens.
The sucker's got three Barco projectors in back, so you can get some sweet stereo graphics going though.....
Well, after the politically correctness people get to it, "X" will be replaced by "NC-17", and "men" will be replaced by "person", and we'll end up with: "NC17-People 2: Revenge of the Genetically Enhanced who are just as Worthy of Self-Esteem As Anybody Else"....
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At the university I teach at (Michigan Tech), we have selected Verilog design for our Altera FPGAs, and have been using it for 5+ years. I used Verilog in private industry before I started teaching and it *seemed* to be more common at that time. When I did some time at IBM back around 1998, they were using VHDL. One of the companies that hires a lot of our grads uses VHDL, and I keep having to tell students, "Look, if you know Verilog, all you need to get a handle on is the syntax of VHDL. Tell them that!"
Knowing both, I find students struggle enough with the concepts of logic design and simulation when they have a familiar kind of syntax (the C-based syntax of Verilog), let alone adding the complexity of VHDL's strange ADA-based syntax. I suggest Verilog.
The relationship between voltage and current is not the same everywhere.
Umm.... The relationship between voltage and current is constant. Voltage is always current multiplied by resistance. That relationship is fundamental to all electrical engineering. V=IR.
I would point you to this, where Joel Spolsky talks about what some would call "feature bloat". It's not. Different people use different features. Some people in accounting need certain features, some people in academia need other features, and leaving some of those features out alienates *somebody*. And if you want to write the most used piece of software in the world (read: MS Office), you don't alienate anybody.
The same is true of Linux distros. Some people need the server services provided (email, FTP, web), but I never did. Does that mean they should disappear? Certainly not! All of the things that are in the distros are there because somebody, somewhere uses them, and is a big part of Linux's soaring popularity.
Well, firstly we need more efficient solar panels. Most commercial-grade photovoltaic panels are (at best) 20% efficient. Meaning? Meaning you need a lot of panels to create a significant enough flow to power the car.
Secondly, we need smaller, more efficient batteries. The single greatest technological reason hybrid and electric cars are not all over our streets is because too much space and weight is lost to batteries. Make smaller, more efficient batteries, and these cars become more feasible.
And, we need to completely run out of dino oil for the world to put the internal combustion engine into the Smithsonian for good.
Kit
Oh, yeah. Go Michigan Tech!
Coming from someone who has struggled with RSI/Carpal Tunnel/Dear-Lord-it-hurts-to-type for almost two years, this thing looks great. I certainly don't need to look at the keyboard to type, and I can't count the number of times I've been writing code, or typing an email and just wishing I could exert almost no force to put the character on the screen. I've used everything from old IBM clackety keyboards to the fanciest MS Naturals, and I know that a new keyboard with near-zero force is high on my list stuff to buy.
Bottom Line: I put myself on the list to buy this sucker.
To those who have complained about the key layout and missing keys, I can't believe they would try to market a product that completely lacked so many useful keys. As the production runs don't start until August, I would assume they're getting all the key layouts finalized now, and we'll see all the Home/End/Page Up/Page Down keys as well as the less useful Windows keys, etc.
Either that, or nobody's going to buy the things.
Kit
YAD = Yet Another Division...
.NET ports to Linux... Are we going to get a Gnome/KDE-like split, with GNet and KNet and GnuNet and .ORG, or will we get a unified effort to put forth an indisputably superior product?
As mentioned in the last article on this mentioned, several key players in the OSS movement are "dropping hints" about
My challenge to the Free Software People, the Open Source People, the OSDN, Slashdot, Red Hat, Caldera, GNU, Ximian, KDE and anybody else who cares to listen: Let's put forward one face and show them what we can really do!
Kit
Here's the problem: Nobody knows what .NET actually does! When I interviewed for a job at Microsoft in December (well after .NET announcements) I straight out asked, "What is .NET? What does it do?" The engineer replied, "They're still working that out." There's not much to reverse engineer.
.NET is for, and if/when a Linux/Unix/BSD/MacOS port is developed, MS will throw a fit and get it declared a copyright violation...
However, I do believe that if/when somebody figures out what
Kit
Maybe it's just the places I've worked, but they had requirements for passwords... For example, one company required that your password begin with a letter, end with a letter and have at least 1 number in it, and be no less than 6 characters. Passwords were changed every 3 months, and any given password could have no more than 2 character sub-strings in common with the last two passwords. Another company requires your PIN for certain online tools cannot start with 0 (zero), as all employee numbers start with said character. They both had tools in place to insure these parameters were met.
It seems to me everybody should have such restrictions on passwords, to keep the family dog's name out of passwords.
Kit
Both of the companies I've worked for, IBM and Unisys, are quite liberal with allowing and encouraging employees to train.
IBM regularly contracted companies (especially Solutions Technology) to come in and give training classes on pertinent topics-- primarily standards. The cost of these classes was always picked up by the department... and each department's budget seemed to be more than large enough.
Unisys, on the other hand, takes it's training very seriously. Unisys University has determined what skills a person needs for every single position you can hold in the company, and if you don't have those skills, they require you to get them. Senior management makes sure the proper classes are available, and every dime is picked up by the company. Even for a hardware engineer, like me, these classes range from programming to project management to teamwork.
Kit
2 things:
1. People under 18 years of age have no rights. Constitutional amendments notwithstanding.
2. Once you walk onto public school property, you forfeit all rights you may have had. Your locker is subject to search, you're subject to questioning without an attorney.
So *if* he had any rights in the first place, he forfeited them the instant he walked onto that campus.
Kit
My sister's computer is certainly not that... It's got an internal floppy if nothing else. I would suspect that they upgrade the units each year... But I've gotta be proud of my school!
I've seen my sister's school sponsored (and supposedly cheaper) laptop from Northern, and frankly, I was disgusted. It's something ridiculous, like a Pentium II 300, with a 2GB HDD... If you're going to make me dish out money for a computer, at least let me get something good!
Beyond that, I've heard that they've had no end of problems finding techs to support these things. As opposed to my university (Michigan Tech forever!!), the students don't know anything about their computers, and call up tech support when the screen saver won't turn off. If anybody out there likes snow, apply for a tech position at Northern...
For me, it's all about getting the most out of my money-- as a college student, resources are limited, and if I can pull my 466 Celerons up to 700's (or something similarly insane) I've saved money that I really can't afford to spend.
I think the second reason has to do with "stickin' it to the man", as with Linux. It's some people's way of telling Intel (or AMD or Cyrix or...) we don't have to take it anymore.
Or if nothing else, it's something for nothing.
Kit
Beyond the comments on price, ($300k being a *low* quote) there are other problems with this thing. I was at SGI having this thing pitched to me and my boss. To get a nice threen-screen image, you need something like an SGI Onyx2 or Octane with multiple graphics pipes. Otherwise, it turns into three individual screens.
The sucker's got three Barco projectors in back, so you can get some sweet stereo graphics going though.....
Well, after the politically correctness people get to it, "X" will be replaced by "NC-17", and "men" will be replaced by "person", and we'll end up with:
"NC17-People 2: Revenge of the Genetically Enhanced who are just as Worthy of Self-Esteem As Anybody Else"....
Yikes.
Kit