I have a three year old IPAQ. It still goes, but the capacity is down to about 50% of the original. I try where possible to recharge about once a week.
Another problem is that most Li-Ion cells are only good for a couple of hundred recharge cycles. Unless you are into MP3 from your PDA, you may not need to charge everyday.
The problem is that a device that fails after just two-hundred working days isn't very useful, even if the battery is easily replaced.
I am a consulting gig at a bank. We have some hardware provided for office work that is pretty old so we keep running NT 4 on it. Not XP, not even 2000. Heck, our version of office is Office 97.
Not everyone can always afford to deploy the latest software and hardware on every system. However, if I installed say Fedora Core 2, which I run myself , I can easily tune it down to run on older systems.
Agreed, a friend has done this (well, Oracle and Sun Admin courses) in Australia. It cost him about 30% less than in western Europe. Another friend did this in Russia where he saved around 75% on some MS courses (and the course was in English). He was already living there so the visa wasn't a problem.
Personally, I think going to somewhere even more exotic like India, Malaysia or Thailand for certification would be great. The price is low and the opportunities for relaxation before or after the course are much better as you point out.
The real value of certification may be mixed, but it certainly does open doors and can allow you to move into a new field.
No, the problem with cheap aircraft is solved. Guidance/auto-pilots is also a done deal, think cruise missiles. A cheaper version based on GPS with a cheapo INS for attitude and backup (hey, they are using them in advanced RC models now).
Given waypoints, we can already navigate automatically anywhere within a plane's range. A flight management system that will do this currently costs about $100K. It could possibly be done for $5K, GPS is really cheap. The problem is attitude control.
However as mentioned there is a need for a massive ground infrastructure for traffic control.
I undrstand a lot of work has already been done by NASA on this including volunteers wearing an elasticated but not airtight garment in very low-pressure atmospheres. It worked and was easier to use than a conventional space suit. The prebreath is no longer necessary because the only pressurised part is a bubble over the head. A space suit has a low pressure so that it can be articulated. Without the need for articulation, the pressure can be raised.
They nuked the project on the grounds they already had a space suit design and didn't want to design another even though it would be a lot safer.
Space suits are a problem for the X-prize (the need for cheaper and lower weight). It is very likely that it is being solved.
The problem with cheap and easy personal flight is infrastructure *not* the plane itself. We can build a cheap plane now. We can even build a super-duper autopilot that will get it from A to B. It isn't hard. The price is then a matter of mass-production and the old bug-bear of product liability. I understand that is why many private planes are now available only as kits.
The problem is the infrastructure. NASA has their concept of 'highways in the sky', which essentiaally allows pilots to request flight clearance between two points and then to receive a flight plan in real-time which can be fed dircetly into an autopilot. The plan can then be updated depending upon the presence of other traffic.
Essentially the pilot no longer does much flying, it is the autopilot under guidance from air-traffic control and ATC must be automated to cope with the volume. At the moment ATC still comes under the category of computer assisted rather than a truely automated problem.
Ironically the problem of "highways in the sky" is actually somewhat easier than automating driving on the ground and a great deal of progress has been made there. However, while having a computer controlled car requires image recognition, a plane doesn't need that as no kid is going run after a ball in front of it.
In short, your problem is solvable, but it won't happen tomorrow because of the cost. Planes also remain a lot more vulnerable to bad weather than surface transport.
Lastly, I should add that flying is never a problem. Just be able to land and walk away!
The problem is dropping into an existing infrastructure. You have ordinary telephones as well to connect and that seems to be about $70 to $100/line connection then add the server cost.
The claim of calls for free across the world is disingenuous, it only works if you have a free VOIP termination point.
What will make it possible is specialised and cheap hardware, like we see for low-end PABXs and indeed routers at the moment.
A large PABX already speaks multiple protocols and has very interesting capabilities. The modern PABX definitely hasn't been standing still and there are APIs for intrefacing with other applications (i.e., call centre).
The small PABX is quite specialised. You can pick one up in Europe for a few hundred Euros which will talk ISDN on a standard line (i.e., 4 concurrent conversations), it has Least Cost Routing and all kinds of features but isn't aware of VOIP yet. It will support up to 4 analogue lines plus an internal ISDN bus.
It comes to about the same price as a single 4-line card for Asterisk and then you have to add the PC to build around it. It really is quite expensive for the small business unless you really need the extra functionality.
Ok, ten years is a *long* time. However, if I want to buy proerpty or sell insurance, then it is interesting to know this (not so if you already live there). However, effects of quakes are very difficult to predict, even if you know the strength. It depends upon local gound structure, and building construction.
on how to pick the pockets of their clients. I have just rolled off a(nother) major project that they screwed up. The offshored it to their own delivery centre in Manila and I guess the project plan was a result of mining the imagination and the offshore delivery centre was full of virtual resources.
Accenture and Andersen are now quite different organisations. However this should not be taken to imply that either is more competent than the other.
Nah, the "Scotty" prize would be good...
on
Win the X-Prize Cup
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· Score: 1
It honours the "designer", Gene Rodenberry as well as the "implementor", James Doohan. It also honours one or two of their countrymen who ended up as ship's chief engineers over the years.
NASA failed because of the bureaucracy
on
Win the X-Prize Cup
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Remember that both Challenger and Columbia were blamed on management errors rather than technical ones. The quote of your boss is reasonable as long as the management is aware of the risk and and the impact of a failure. A key failure of NASA is that the management didn't understand the problem.
One thing going about these programmes is that they are much smaller and easier to understand. The management / engineering is also correspondingly smaller so there are less likely to be issues about what a 1% chance of catastrophic failure actually means.
Re:Say it with me now: H T M L
on
Gmail Adds Features
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· Score: 2, Insightful
HTML is a convenient method of markup which is cross system. Yes, it can be used to inject crap, but you don't have to allow that. Markup gives a way of structuring texts visually and logically to make them easier to understand. For example, I may have a list of ten events, but each event has something like a paragraph. Not so easy to work with on the screen. Providing a simple TOC with each item linking to the description later in the page is an easy way to represent this.
Btw, I know this from past experience when I was running a newsletter for some six hundred or so members of our ski-club. We would send the full newsletter out as a pdf attachment. However before meetings we would send out a reminder without attachments. A lot of people, and for good reason, object to Outlook-style rich-text. HTML is a reasonable alternative and gives the ability to organise the information.
If HTML is allowed, then either you have no support for automatic following of external links (like IMG) or the ability to disable it based on contact.
Cruise control normally is linked to throttle and brake. If you hit either, it should disengage (also eliminating a single switch failure). This is totally separate to the control that turns it on or off or sets the speed.
The use of financial derivatives, risk management and hedge trading involves maths that doesn't look all that far from advanced thermodynamics. Physicists are numerate enough in a practical way that they are usually in demand by the banks.
Certainly an LCD display is lighter and requires a lot smaller carton for shipping. This must account for something too as these things are coming from the far-east.
There is a difference, the monitor would give you 1600x1200 but the TV will be much less, prob around 1024x768 native resolution (but at a multiple of the price).
Relays last for ages, but you should clean the contacts from time to time if they aren't in regular use.
Re:talk about retro
on
Mechanical Pong
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes and from 1958.
Many early computers used telephone system components as they were relatively sophisticated, bulk produced, reasonable quality and cheap.
52 Relays, all produced in 1958
on
Mechanical Pong
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Looking at the technical data page, it looks like the machine is using telephone relays from 1958. I don't know if they were ever used or were surplus spares.
What could we build now with electronics from 1958? Given the evils of silicon creep, it would be an interesting question whether the components would last 46 years.
Lastly, the power consumption is just a respectable 230w, about the same as a PC. Not bad!
Slashdot Mirror
I have a three year old IPAQ. It still goes, but the capacity is down to about 50% of the original. I try where possible to recharge about once a week.
The problem is that a device that fails after just two-hundred working days isn't very useful, even if the battery is easily replaced.
Not everyone can always afford to deploy the latest software and hardware on every system. However, if I installed say Fedora Core 2, which I run myself , I can easily tune it down to run on older systems.
they are called exoskeletons.
Personally, I think going to somewhere even more exotic like India, Malaysia or Thailand for certification would be great. The price is low and the opportunities for relaxation before or after the course are much better as you point out.
The real value of certification may be mixed, but it certainly does open doors and can allow you to move into a new field.
Given waypoints, we can already navigate automatically anywhere within a plane's range. A flight management system that will do this currently costs about $100K. It could possibly be done for $5K, GPS is really cheap. The problem is attitude control.
However as mentioned there is a need for a massive ground infrastructure for traffic control.
They nuked the project on the grounds they already had a space suit design and didn't want to design another even though it would be a lot safer.
Space suits are a problem for the X-prize (the need for cheaper and lower weight). It is very likely that it is being solved.
The problem is the infrastructure. NASA has their concept of 'highways in the sky', which essentiaally allows pilots to request flight clearance between two points and then to receive a flight plan in real-time which can be fed dircetly into an autopilot. The plan can then be updated depending upon the presence of other traffic.
Essentially the pilot no longer does much flying, it is the autopilot under guidance from air-traffic control and ATC must be automated to cope with the volume. At the moment ATC still comes under the category of computer assisted rather than a truely automated problem.
Ironically the problem of "highways in the sky" is actually somewhat easier than automating driving on the ground and a great deal of progress has been made there. However, while having a computer controlled car requires image recognition, a plane doesn't need that as no kid is going run after a ball in front of it.
In short, your problem is solvable, but it won't happen tomorrow because of the cost. Planes also remain a lot more vulnerable to bad weather than surface transport.
Lastly, I should add that flying is never a problem. Just be able to land and walk away!
The claim of calls for free across the world is disingenuous, it only works if you have a free VOIP termination point.
What will make it possible is specialised and cheap hardware, like we see for low-end PABXs and indeed routers at the moment.
The small PABX is quite specialised. You can pick one up in Europe for a few hundred Euros which will talk ISDN on a standard line (i.e., 4 concurrent conversations), it has Least Cost Routing and all kinds of features but isn't aware of VOIP yet. It will support up to 4 analogue lines plus an internal ISDN bus.
It comes to about the same price as a single 4-line card for Asterisk and then you have to add the PC to build around it. It really is quite expensive for the small business unless you really need the extra functionality.
Ok, ten years is a *long* time. However, if I want to buy proerpty or sell insurance, then it is interesting to know this (not so if you already live there). However, effects of quakes are very difficult to predict, even if you know the strength. It depends upon local gound structure, and building construction.
on how to pick the pockets of their clients. I have just rolled off a(nother) major project that they screwed up. The offshored it to their own delivery centre in Manila and I guess the project plan was a result of mining the imagination and the offshore delivery centre was full of virtual resources.
Accenture and Andersen are now quite different organisations. However this should not be taken to imply that either is more competent than the other.
It honours the "designer", Gene Rodenberry as well as the "implementor", James Doohan. It also honours one or two of their countrymen who ended up as ship's chief engineers over the years.
One thing going about these programmes is that they are much smaller and easier to understand. The management / engineering is also correspondingly smaller so there are less likely to be issues about what a 1% chance of catastrophic failure actually means.
Btw, I know this from past experience when I was running a newsletter for some six hundred or so members of our ski-club. We would send the full newsletter out as a pdf attachment. However before meetings we would send out a reminder without attachments. A lot of people, and for good reason, object to Outlook-style rich-text. HTML is a reasonable alternative and gives the ability to organise the information.
If HTML is allowed, then either you have no support for automatic following of external links (like IMG) or the ability to disable it based on contact.
Cruise control normally is linked to throttle and brake. If you hit either, it should disengage (also eliminating a single switch failure). This is totally separate to the control that turns it on or off or sets the speed.
The use of financial derivatives, risk management and hedge trading involves maths that doesn't look all that far from advanced thermodynamics. Physicists are numerate enough in a practical way that they are usually in demand by the banks.
Certainly an LCD display is lighter and requires a lot smaller carton for shipping. This must account for something too as these things are coming from the far-east.
There is a difference, the monitor would give you 1600x1200 but the TV will be much less, prob around 1024x768 native resolution (but at a multiple of the price).
Relays last for ages, but you should clean the contacts from time to time if they aren't in regular use.
Many early computers used telephone system components as they were relatively sophisticated, bulk produced, reasonable quality and cheap.
What could we build now with electronics from 1958? Given the evils of silicon creep, it would be an interesting question whether the components would last 46 years.
Lastly, the power consumption is just a respectable 230w, about the same as a PC. Not bad!
I thought that copyright infringement then became an issue for the distributor. I have certainly heard of this happening in Europe.