Seriously, why didn't they start with this like 20 years ago? Basic platform with propulsion, power and communication, with a few slots for special equipment, like cameras, radars, sample collection, or whatever is needed for that probe?
They've started with it, and subsequently dropped it, multiple times. Mostly because this is one of those ideas that seems great on paper, but doesn't actually work out too well in real life.
Some probes need 3 axis stabilization, others can simply spin, yet others can use gravity gradient. Some probes need to dissipate a lot of heat from their instruments, others much less. One probe has a handful of instruments each the size of your PC desktop, another probe has a single instrument the size of a small car. Etc... Etc...
The number of possible permutations is simply too large to be accommodated by any single standard bus, or even a reasonable number of standardized buses. To get an idea of the scale of the problem - imagine trying to base every wheeled vehicle on the road from an 18-wheeler down to a motor scooter off of a single standard bus
BTW, those bastards are letting the googlebot freely roam their pages, but when a user follows the resulting link, he's slapped with the registration page. It's dishonest if you ask me. I don't even click on a New York Times link anymore.
A) The newspaper under discussion here is the Washington Post, not the New York Times.
B) The Times dropped their registration required policy some time ago.
I'd have been more impressed if his argument, when distilled down, wasn't "Apple has Passion and Apple fanboys have Passion. And Passion Is Good. And therefore any company that doesn't kowtow to people with Passion must by definition, suck."
Ah yes, Iron Man has been around for a forty five years - nobody could possibly have been a fan before.
Not as many as now claim to be long time fans, which was my point. Look at the sales figures for the magazines, and you'll find that only a tiny fraction of a percent could possibly have read them on anything resembling a reoccurring basis.
I see. You, in your ignorance, make the mistake of conflating "fan" with "dedicated fan". In your universe, the casual fan does not exist.
As with your comments about Hollywood, the universe you inhabit is very different from the real world.
People really are that shallow and impressionable, and the few real fans are drowned by the mass of gasbag conformists blowing in the winds created by marketing.
Ah, yes. Nobody could see the movie and enjoy it (and thus become fans) without being brainwashed by eeevil marketing.
Once again, you haven't a clue as to what you are talking about. The shallowness in this discussion belongs to those who stereotype and then use that stereotype to set themselves above them.
Certainly the scientists of old were not idiots - but they also didn't have access to modern instruments, computers, etc... etc... This means that a certain percentage of the old data (and the old theories based on that data) are to some extent invalid due to imprecision.
For example - until the widespread deployment of GPS, obtaining highly accurate and precise time was expensive. Now, seismometers with accurate and precise clocks can be deployed much more widely and cheaply because all you require is a couple of hundred dollars for the clock rather than a couple of thousand dollars.
I never cease to be amazed at how people blindly swallow the latest fad pushed by Hollywood, and even pretend to have been fans all along. I guarantee you that there will be plenty of people out there now who will swear up and down how big a fan they were of Iron Man all along, and that they're not simply blowing with the wind like the gasbags they really are.
Ah yes, Iron Man has been around for a forty five years - nobody could possibly have been a fan before. Marvel has just kept publishing his comics out of the goodness of their hearts, and various companies committed around $200 million for the movie and marketing because they had it just lying around as spare cash.
I'm also disheartened by Hollywood's diminishing lack of new ideas
I didn't know they had computers back in 1918 - let alone that they could timewarp the messages posted on said computers forward 90 years. (Because that's about when you message sounds like it was written.) Or maybe you are a time traveler. Or cryogenically preserved.
Or maybe you simply are mistaken in your assumption that you know what the hell you are talking about.
to the point where actual innovation is pretty much dead by now.
Hollywood hasn't been about innovation since about 22 seconds after Edison tightened down the final screws on his movie camera. Hollywood has always been about putting butts in seats and cash in the bank.
How much longer can they milk the superhero genre before it's dry?
The milked the Western genre for damm near forty years, and still squeeze out a few drops even today. Then there is the War genre. The Romantic Comedy. The 'Road tox pictures, the Andy Hardy movies... Etc... Etc...
I shouldn't have to point the obvious to you - get a calendar, and check the date. Compare the date to when you took those tours. Notice they aren't the same.
This isn't designed for combat (front line) use - but rather for the guys behind the front lines humping ammo, changing engines, and dozens of other heavy physical tasks.
Abandoning open source means abandoning constructionism to some extent as well, since whatever closed-source binaries you use are opaque and unavailable for exploration.
So what? The purpose of the OLPC is to provide the kids (and their families) with access to the tools and information they require to improve their economic lot. From that point of view 'constructionism' barely makes the 'nice to have' grade.
Open source was not only a way to get cheap software for the laptop, it was also a means to enable constructionism. A key idea of OLPC, from the very beginning, was that children would have complete visibility into the software.
No, that was never a key goal of the OLPC (which is described above). That was a key political/philosophical goal of the OLPC's backers and supporters. This forced Negroponte and the OLPC foundation to hew to that party line - the same way a show on nutrition might be forced to alter their viewpoint a trifle if their sole sponsor was McDonalds.
Negroponte is now admitting that might have been a mistake. And I agree with him - as I've pointed out before OLPC's competitors offer a choice of operating systems. OLPC is the only product in this market that forces the user to use only what is decreed by the manufacturer.
What you're defending is the real-world version of security through obscurity.
Even though in the Slashdot world security through obscurity is much maligned - in the real world, security through obscurity works and is a valuable layer of defense. For example: Without a floor plan, an intruder cannot identify choke points and potential areas of camera coverage in advance. Nor can he plan his travel paths inside the facility.
If knowing the floor plan and guard rotations of a water plant is sufficient for a person with ill intent to gain access, then the security situation at this water plant is insufficient.
No. Having that information publicly available means you've lost a layer of defenses. Only a fool gives up layers of defense.
Physical security must be designed just like computer security: it works even against someone who knows exactly HOW the system works.
Physical security and computer security are completely different fields.
Another item is to ditch the grid tie for small systems. It goes down with the grid providing no security. Put the critical load on an Outback inverter.
The purpose of the grid tie isn't to provide security or to support a critical load. The purpose of a grid tie is to prevent the home power system from powering the grid when the grid goes down - if you pump power into the grid when it's down, you risk the health and life of workers trying to restore the grid.
For example - A line went down that supplies my road. Before workers started repairing the line, they isolated it at the substation, rendering it safe. Without a grid tie the line remains powered from the home systems - which can kill.
If you have a critical load, put it on a UPS. Don't skip the grid tie unless your home system is entirely isolated from the grid.
Seriously, there's times to home brew and jury rig and save a few bucks, this isn't one of them. Do it right and don't put lives and property at risk.
Memory that could survive power off is old hat, both with various forms of ROM as well as RAM (core memory for example). What makes this new component different?
i totally disagree, i know by experience that people who design for print always create unusable things when designing layouts for the web, (or any other interface for an application), simply because most of them are ignorant about the many things that really make a good website (good content, intuitive navigation and content structure, providing ways for the user to interact with the site by adding content to it etc...).
When you compare apples (design and presentation) with oranges (content), I can safely conclude you haven't the foggiest clue as to what I am talking about.
Instead of the really important aspects, graphic designers prioritize little stupid details like round corners, drop shadows etc... when designing for the web, and they are convinced that these details will make their site successful, they are clueless!
From the point of view of presentation - yes those things matter. But once again, you confuse site design with content design. Once again, I can see clearly who is clueless.
Take as an example this site, it's gorgeus, still most people don't know it and those who do probably visit it once and never come back.
I can see why people don't come back - it hits the perfect trifecta. It's ugly as fuck. It's poorly designed. It's content sucks.
The real reason the New York Times website looks so good? I bet it's not because they handcode, because coding (hand or WYSIWYG) is the final step... I bet it's because their page is designed by properly trained and experienced graphic artists along with trained typographers and layout artists. Newspapers have lived and died by their presentation and design for a couple of centuries now.
The problem with bad presentation on the web doesn't spring from bad tools or bad design - it springs from web designers who prefer the unsupported opinion of the usability guru of the month to this body of experience.
Efficiency? You mean like designing and building four different UVAs for each branch of the US military?
It's interesting - normally the Slashdot Mantra is that competition is a Good Thing by definition. Why not here? Now four may be a bit excessive - but you need at least two, probably three, because USN/USMC have different requirements than the Army/USAF. USN/USMC UAV's must operate off of carriers and LHxs and thus must be corrosion resistant and smaller. OTOH, the Army and USAF have different requirements as well - since the Army concentrates on tactical battlefield intelligence while the USAF works at a much longer range and loiter time.
They keep trying to shoehorn the services into using identical gear - which rarely work and almost always ends up a boondoggle.
There are plenty of "us nerds" that are far from being pacifists.
Ayup. And I'm probably not alone in being a nerd who is a veteran. (Volunteered and served back when being in the military wasn't "cool" like now. Ten years in the US Submarine Service.)
If it's Linux based then just about any hardware on the planet will do. This idea is where the Linux versus Windows question really becomes relevant.
In the same sense that "shall we have steak or lobster for dinner" only become relevant when one has sufficient wealth and free time to choose. The target market of the OLPC is being given computers because they cannot afford to buy them. If don't have money - it doesn't matter what obscure hardware the OS will run on.
You usually don't have to do it yourself because you aren't the only guy on the planet interested.
And this differs from non-F/OSS software how exactly? There isn't a bit of difference between downloading from a repository like SourceForge or sending a few bucks to a shareware author. (Other than the shareware author often actually provides documentation and bug fixes.)
But both are meaningless in this context because the oft touted advantage of the OLPC is that you can modify it yourself.
The first item in the list is give them independence - but what OLPC creates is dependence on a technological infrastructure whose sole source in the whim of OLPC and their national government.
How so? The entire platform is open. Literally, all the source, the specs for the hardware, *everything*. If OLPC vanished today, right now, people could still get along just fine. Can you say the same if MS vanished and left XP behind?
How, EXACTLY will a village in the Amazon continue to support their OLPC computers if OLPC were to vanish? Hell, I can't even do it here in the US... and I can afford to buy a new computer. (Unlike our notional villagers - who were given theirs because they can't afford to buy them.)
Additionally, I've always found the "they can modify it" argument a but specious
To you. Millions of kids growing up with computers with BASIC on them would tend to disagree.
Only if those millions of kids grew up some in alternate universe - because here in the real world, applications weren't written in BASIC nor source code provided. Additionally, here in the real world - the large majority of open source apps languish without a sufficient developer base to maintain them.
Why should it matter to some poor kid, just needing a way to afford schoolbooks, what OS his laptop is running?
It shouldn't. But, as I've said from the start, OLPC isn't about kids or education - it's about politics and philosophy. These considerations dominate the OLPC.
OLPC with Linux and other Open Source is #1 on Maimonides list.
The first item in the list is give them independence - but what OLPC creates is dependence on a technological infrastructure whose sole source in the whim of OLPC and their national government. At best, OLPC is 1d, at worst... 6 or 7.
It not only gives them textbooks, it gives them a structure that they can use to control their nation's own destiny - the free software on the system that they can use to communicate, plan, write, etc., and it gives them control over that structure so that they have independence.
Sorry, but F/OSS isn't magical pixie dust. There isn't anything that F/OSS allows them to that can't also be done on nonF/OSS software.
Additionally, I've always found the "they can modify it" argument a but specious - as modifying any non trivial software takes a considerable amount of technical background as well as free time that the target market for the OLPC doesn't have.
In contrast, giving them a Microsoft framework is giving them an addictive dependence. Not charity at all.
As I point out at the start of my reply - how is a Microsoft framework any different from a F/OSS framework? The real problem isn't the OS or the applications - the addiction starts with the hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
They've started with it, and subsequently dropped it, multiple times. Mostly because this is one of those ideas that seems great on paper, but doesn't actually work out too well in real life.
Some probes need 3 axis stabilization, others can simply spin, yet others can use gravity gradient. Some probes need to dissipate a lot of heat from their instruments, others much less. One probe has a handful of instruments each the size of your PC desktop, another probe has a single instrument the size of a small car. Etc... Etc...
The number of possible permutations is simply too large to be accommodated by any single standard bus, or even a reasonable number of standardized buses. To get an idea of the scale of the problem - imagine trying to base every wheeled vehicle on the road from an 18-wheeler down to a motor scooter off of a single standard bus
Weather balloons go where the wind goes - whether or not the weather of interest is in that direction.
A) The newspaper under discussion here is the Washington Post, not the New York Times.
B) The Times dropped their registration required policy some time ago.
I'd have been more impressed if his argument, when distilled down, wasn't "Apple has Passion and Apple fanboys have Passion. And Passion Is Good. And therefore any company that doesn't kowtow to people with Passion must by definition, suck."
Lordy, if you think Yahoo!'s stock is overvalued, I'd hate to think what your opinion of Google's is.
Just a hair over 11% as the market heads to a close - and it actually rebounded considerably over the day.
Or to put it more simply - you haven't a clue what you are talking about.
I see. You, in your ignorance, make the mistake of conflating "fan" with "dedicated fan". In your universe, the casual fan does not exist.
As with your comments about Hollywood, the universe you inhabit is very different from the real world.
Ah, yes. Nobody could see the movie and enjoy it (and thus become fans) without being brainwashed by eeevil marketing.
Once again, you haven't a clue as to what you are talking about. The shallowness in this discussion belongs to those who stereotype and then use that stereotype to set themselves above them.
Certainly the scientists of old were not idiots - but they also didn't have access to modern instruments, computers, etc... etc... This means that a certain percentage of the old data (and the old theories based on that data) are to some extent invalid due to imprecision.
For example - until the widespread deployment of GPS, obtaining highly accurate and precise time was expensive. Now, seismometers with accurate and precise clocks can be deployed much more widely and cheaply because all you require is a couple of hundred dollars for the clock rather than a couple of thousand dollars.
Science is guided by the past, not chained to it.
Ah yes, Iron Man has been around for a forty five years - nobody could possibly have been a fan before. Marvel has just kept publishing his comics out of the goodness of their hearts, and various companies committed around $200 million for the movie and marketing because they had it just lying around as spare cash.
I didn't know they had computers back in 1918 - let alone that they could timewarp the messages posted on said computers forward 90 years. (Because that's about when you message sounds like it was written.) Or maybe you are a time traveler. Or cryogenically preserved.
Or maybe you simply are mistaken in your assumption that you know what the hell you are talking about.
Hollywood hasn't been about innovation since about 22 seconds after Edison tightened down the final screws on his movie camera. Hollywood has always been about putting butts in seats and cash in the bank.
The milked the Western genre for damm near forty years, and still squeeze out a few drops even today. Then there is the War genre. The Romantic Comedy. The 'Road tox pictures, the Andy Hardy movies... Etc... Etc...
Hollywood hasn't changed one bit in decades.
I shouldn't have to point the obvious to you - get a calendar, and check the date. Compare the date to when you took those tours. Notice they aren't the same.
This isn't designed for combat (front line) use - but rather for the guys behind the front lines humping ammo, changing engines, and dozens of other heavy physical tasks.
So what? The purpose of the OLPC is to provide the kids (and their families) with access to the tools and information they require to improve their economic lot. From that point of view 'constructionism' barely makes the 'nice to have' grade.
No, that was never a key goal of the OLPC (which is described above). That was a key political/philosophical goal of the OLPC's backers and supporters. This forced Negroponte and the OLPC foundation to hew to that party line - the same way a show on nutrition might be forced to alter their viewpoint a trifle if their sole sponsor was McDonalds.
Negroponte is now admitting that might have been a mistake. And I agree with him - as I've pointed out before OLPC's competitors offer a choice of operating systems. OLPC is the only product in this market that forces the user to use only what is decreed by the manufacturer.
Even though in the Slashdot world security through obscurity is much maligned - in the real world, security through obscurity works and is a valuable layer of defense. For example: Without a floor plan, an intruder cannot identify choke points and potential areas of camera coverage in advance. Nor can he plan his travel paths inside the facility.
No. Having that information publicly available means you've lost a layer of defenses. Only a fool gives up layers of defense.
Physical security and computer security are completely different fields.
The purpose of the grid tie isn't to provide security or to support a critical load. The purpose of a grid tie is to prevent the home power system from powering the grid when the grid goes down - if you pump power into the grid when it's down, you risk the health and life of workers trying to restore the grid.
For example - A line went down that supplies my road. Before workers started repairing the line, they isolated it at the substation, rendering it safe. Without a grid tie the line remains powered from the home systems - which can kill.
If you have a critical load, put it on a UPS. Don't skip the grid tie unless your home system is entirely isolated from the grid.
Seriously, there's times to home brew and jury rig and save a few bucks, this isn't one of them. Do it right and don't put lives and property at risk.
Memory that could survive power off is old hat, both with various forms of ROM as well as RAM (core memory for example). What makes this new component different?
Slashdotters in general are very, er, 'flexible' when it comes to applying their principles to the real world.
It's also against the law - the contents of the hard drive belong to the estate.
When you compare apples (design and presentation) with oranges (content), I can safely conclude you haven't the foggiest clue as to what I am talking about.
From the point of view of presentation - yes those things matter. But once again, you confuse site design with content design. Once again, I can see clearly who is clueless.
I can see why people don't come back - it hits the perfect trifecta. It's ugly as fuck. It's poorly designed. It's content sucks.
The real reason the New York Times website looks so good? I bet it's not because they handcode, because coding (hand or WYSIWYG) is the final step... I bet it's because their page is designed by properly trained and experienced graphic artists along with trained typographers and layout artists. Newspapers have lived and died by their presentation and design for a couple of centuries now.
The problem with bad presentation on the web doesn't spring from bad tools or bad design - it springs from web designers who prefer the unsupported opinion of the usability guru of the month to this body of experience.
It's interesting - normally the Slashdot Mantra is that competition is a Good Thing by definition. Why not here? Now four may be a bit excessive - but you need at least two, probably three, because USN/USMC have different requirements than the Army/USAF. USN/USMC UAV's must operate off of carriers and LHxs and thus must be corrosion resistant and smaller. OTOH, the Army and USAF have different requirements as well - since the Army concentrates on tactical battlefield intelligence while the USAF works at a much longer range and loiter time.
They keep trying to shoehorn the services into using identical gear - which rarely work and almost always ends up a boondoggle.
Ayup. And I'm probably not alone in being a nerd who is a veteran. (Volunteered and served back when being in the military wasn't "cool" like now. Ten years in the US Submarine Service.)
How can you educate children with an open source product? The answer to both questions is the same.
*Yawn*. Come back to me when you can discourse intelligently rather than slinging buzzwords about.
In the same sense that "shall we have steak or lobster for dinner" only become relevant when one has sufficient wealth and free time to choose. The target market of the OLPC is being given computers because they cannot afford to buy them. If don't have money - it doesn't matter what obscure hardware the OS will run on.
And this differs from non-F/OSS software how exactly? There isn't a bit of difference between downloading from a repository like SourceForge or sending a few bucks to a shareware author. (Other than the shareware author often actually provides documentation and bug fixes.)
But both are meaningless in this context because the oft touted advantage of the OLPC is that you can modify it yourself.
How, EXACTLY will a village in the Amazon continue to support their OLPC computers if OLPC were to vanish? Hell, I can't even do it here in the US... and I can afford to buy a new computer. (Unlike our notional villagers - who were given theirs because they can't afford to buy them.)
Only if those millions of kids grew up some in alternate universe - because here in the real world, applications weren't written in BASIC nor source code provided. Additionally, here in the real world - the large majority of open source apps languish without a sufficient developer base to maintain them.
It shouldn't. But, as I've said from the start, OLPC isn't about kids or education - it's about politics and philosophy. These considerations dominate the OLPC.
The first item in the list is give them independence - but what OLPC creates is dependence on a technological infrastructure whose sole source in the whim of OLPC and their national government. At best, OLPC is 1d, at worst... 6 or 7.
Sorry, but F/OSS isn't magical pixie dust. There isn't anything that F/OSS allows them to that can't also be done on nonF/OSS software.
Additionally, I've always found the "they can modify it" argument a but specious - as modifying any non trivial software takes a considerable amount of technical background as well as free time that the target market for the OLPC doesn't have.
As I point out at the start of my reply - how is a Microsoft framework any different from a F/OSS framework? The real problem isn't the OS or the applications - the addiction starts with the hardware.