Maybe it's time to give them a second look then. I must admit I only did one project using PICs, and it was really a step back from other MCUs. But things may have changed since then.
For 32 bit controllers however, I really, really like using ARM, so I wonder if PIC could compete.
I recently met up with a few people from my alma mater, and they have bought a bunch of Arduino's to teach embedded programming. From what they told me, they seem to be a great educational tool. I've never worked with them personally, but I do have experience with the processor used in the board, the ATMega. It's a nice architecture, clean design, and advisable. Another hint: stay away from PIC, they have severe limitations (like a hard-wired call stack, memory access limitations).
Still, this won't help you with understanding elektronics as such, but will it will make a bridge from your programming world to the electronics world.
Other things you need are: a multimeter (a good one costs some money, and a cheap one is probably good enough for a while, but from what I have heared, the problem of the cheap ones is that the calibration drifts after a couple of years). And a breadboard. That's a board with holes where you can plug in electronic components easily without need for a soldering iron. Very handy for experiments. For an example, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HteDBfSJ9zo. (No idea if it's interesting, my flash audio doesn't work for some unknown reason:-( ). Later on, you might feel the need for an osciloscope, these things can be quite expensive but you don't need the latest model, just a second-hand model from 10+ years old will be a very handy tool for measuring clocks, signals etc.
A last advice I can give you: read Elektor (a magazine available in many languages), find a simple circuit you find interesting and try to understand it. Read the explanation, calculate the voltages at certain points, build the circuit, measure, etc. This will teach you a lot.
"search engine operators will need to show that such data is "strictly necessary" to offer the service."
If that is the law to follow, they will make it "strictly necessary" by adding features using that data, I guess. Just making it a bit harder is a lot of lawmaking for little effect.
Dispose of Windows, install a more secure OS, and take the time to learn to properly use your new OS. I've been using Linux since Slackware was the only distro around, and you had to dowload it and write it on 50 floppies. Also, I'm a programmer myself. So I do have some common sense about not clicking on everything even remotely clickable.
But still - and this might be a bit paranoid - I'm not 100% at ease. Any modern OS (together with its applications) consists of millions of lines of code. There can always be bugs, and any bug might be exploitable. Also, a misconfiguration could leave the door wide open without me knowing. Together with the fact that these botnets are getting more and more professional, it does not improve my comfort level.
A few years ago, you saw you were infected by all the popups that apperared out of nowhere. But now, there is no way to tell for sure, is there? Every time my computer does something strange, I'm worried that I might be infected.
Unless, of course, they need to dissipate so much energy that they need radiators. If those radiators get covered with dust, then heat transfer could become more difficult. But I'm guessing that it won't be a problem with MSL.
I'm not too sure about that. WP still had a following back then, a lot of companies still used it. Can you imagine how many company computers only run one application during their lifetime, i.e. a word processor?
So if WP could have made a decent Linux port, it could sell itself along with a free operating system. This would cut costs by not needing windows licenses anymore for those typewriters, while maintaining compatibility. Once linux gets a foothold, this would have spurred a whole lot of linux growth, with companies offering all kinds of support and custom linux tailoring. I don't think that's a risk MS was willing to take.
I think Adobe will never port Photoshop to Linux. Remember what happened to WordPerfect? They announced a Linux port, and a bit later it's assimilated^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H bought up by Microsoft, mind cleansed, and spit out. If Adobe were to announce a Linux port, it would draw a lot of unfriendly attention from Microsoft, and I'm sure they could make life a lot harder for them.
So true. This is a prime example of the difference between how science works and how religion works. Simply put, science = (observation + disprovable theories). If your theory conforms to the observations under certain conditions, you can apply that theory again as long as the conditions are met.
The driving force behind religion is - in my opinion - social pressure. If your parents are christian, you'll be a christian too. Not because it is testable that it is the only true religion, but a) because you are indoctrinated from day one, and b) because your environment won't allow you to think differently. You won't "fit in" anymore. Just think what happens when two people with different religions want to mary. In extremis, even today, young people are killed by their own family because they want to mary somebody with a different belief. Now that's an extreme case, but it clearly shows how strong social pressure can be. The family rather kills it's own than to have to go through the shame. The individual feels the pressure of the family, and the family feels the pressure of the community.
That's why they want to propagate ID by law instead of scientific proof. It's totally in line with how religion works.
While perhaps a bit unconventional, there's a lot to be said for our government's decisive action here that could prevent a small-scale disaster if the satellite were to hit the ground. It seems like the prudent thing to do. I am wondering if you are being sarcastic or if you really mean what you say. If you mean it, you must be one of the most gullible persons walking the earth. Of course this has nothing to do with safety concerns. Do you really think they care about the 1 in 1 billion chance of the satellite hitting some unfortunate guy?
This is just a way of showing that they have the same war capabilities as China, that's all. If you have a government that tells you that Sadam has recently been trying to buy plutonium(or was it uranium?), but "forgets" to tell you that "recently" means "in the eighties", that's a real good hint that your leaders are just lying to you to get what whatever they want.
If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it is most probably a duck. All these "safety reasons" smell alot like lies to me, and that's what they most probably are.
However, let's just assume you were making a joke, and that I was worried for nothing.
while the spy satellites which go shooting around really fast are at an orbit of more like 700 to 800 km (satellite heights from NASA http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/orbits.html). I seriously doubt that they are orbiting that high. You really want to get as low as possible: if you get 7m/pixel at 700km altitude, you would get 1m/pixel at 100km. Of course, at 100km the orbit would decay rapidly (or you would need to have fuel to counter the (small) air drag).
On the other hand, to get a satellite to a 700km orbit, you would need more fuel too, so if you settle for a lower orbit you could use that fuel to correct for the drag. Common sense says that's what they're doing. If their spy sat runs out of fuel, they just get some more money and buy themselves a brand new satellite.
By the way, the spy sat in question was launched on dec 14, 2006, and it is already coming down. At 700km altitude it could never come down in little more than a year.
I was going to make a remark about how Linus has made a distributed code management system with a focus on branching, so that one might assume that he wants to give everybody who disagrees with him all the tools to do better.
But then I read the blog. To those who didn't rtfa, don't bother. This, my friends, is the blog-equivalent of MST3000. The plot is non-existent and the acting is weak. Really, this guy has no understanding of Linus' sense of humor. If Linus says "I think [Mac] OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways, but neither can hold a candle to my own [Linux]. It's a race for second", it's not meant as propaganda, it's meant to be funny in a provocative way(*). He does it all the time, and personally, I like that kind of humor. The article, on the other hand, well.. my mind stays empty when I try to find a word to describe it.
(*): He could also be trying to be provocative in a funny way, I never figured that out.
PS: Earlier, I pointed out the linus git talk (search linus git on youtube or google video), you should really watch it if you want to know how he talks. At one moment he says "If you don't agree with me, it's because you're stupid and ugly". That sort of things should prove my point. Hell, just the fact that he called it "git" alone should prove it.
Low power means great efficiency? I'm shocked to learn this! Do you know what I'm shocked about? The fact that people, even on nerdish sites like this one, STILL don't know the difference between voltage and power. Man, you really made a fool of yourself!
Let me explain it once more: You can take running water as a model for electricity. In our model, the difference in height between two points correstponds to the voltage (U). The amount of water that is flowing between those two points corresponds to the current (I), and the resistance is.. well, the resistance (R) (determined by the size of the channel, its' smoothness etc).
Ohm's law states that U = I * R
The power, on the other hand, is the amount of energy per time-unit, and can be calculated as P = U x I. (Using Ohm's law we can substitute I by U/R, and we get P = U^2/R - the quadratic relation between power and voltage as stated in the article)
PS: That's why electricity companies charge you per KWh, i.e. (energy per time-unit) * time = energy consumed.
But a bit is a contracion of binary digit, and binary means two. In communications, you have the same distinction between bits per second and baudrate. Bits per seconds give you the amount of ones and zeros transmitted, while the baudrate gives you the amount of symbols per digit. If a symbol can be one of four possible tones (or phases), you get 2 bits per baud, and that's what happening here again.
Model checking surely has it's merits, but how are you going to check the model for errors? If I have learned one thing writing software, it is that there is a difference between what people want, and what people say they want. And there is, and never will be, no software that can check if those two are the same. Actually, I'm beginning to think there might be a lot to be gained if computer scientists team up with psychologists to get better specifications out of customers.
PS: Good news, guys: psychology has lots of female students, so we might solve two problems in one blow.
I wonder why they call it a "swarm approach". I'm always suspicious toward people using the latest buzzword, especially if what they are doing sounds like "sorting". The interesting part is the criterion they use, not how they sort the images.
I have to ask, if they refuse to participate in the process that could win their freedom and prove they shouldn't be held, then why should I care if they are being held? I mean it doesn't make them look less guilty by refusing to participate in the one thing that could secure their release. Who says they refuse to participate? Their lawyer? The judge? Or could it by any chance be the military who's holding them in the first place?
And I have to ask, how exactly are you supposed to defend yourself if you're not charged with anything?
PS: <sarcasm>They do have a lawyer, don't they?</sarcasm>
Slashdot Mirror
Just look at the article's icon. I even suspect there is a typo in "food storage technician".
I was more thinking of the very cheap analog multimeters you can buy for a small handful of change money :-).
Maybe it's time to give them a second look then. I must admit I only did one project using PICs, and it was really a step back from other MCUs. But things may have changed since then.
For 32 bit controllers however, I really, really like using ARM, so I wonder if PIC could compete.
I recently met up with a few people from my alma mater, and they have bought a bunch of Arduino's to teach embedded programming. From what they told me, they seem to be a great educational tool. I've never worked with them personally, but I do have experience with the processor used in the board, the ATMega. It's a nice architecture, clean design, and advisable. Another hint: stay away from PIC, they have severe limitations (like a hard-wired call stack, memory access limitations).
:-( ). Later on, you might feel the need for an osciloscope, these things can be quite expensive but you don't need the latest model, just a second-hand model from 10+ years old will be a very handy tool for measuring clocks, signals etc.
Still, this won't help you with understanding elektronics as such, but will it will make a bridge from your programming world to the electronics world.
Other things you need are: a multimeter (a good one costs some money, and a cheap one is probably good enough for a while, but from what I have heared, the problem of the cheap ones is that the calibration drifts after a couple of years). And a breadboard. That's a board with holes where you can plug in electronic components easily without need for a soldering iron. Very handy for experiments. For an example, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HteDBfSJ9zo. (No idea if it's interesting, my flash audio doesn't work for some unknown reason
A last advice I can give you: read Elektor (a magazine available in many languages), find a simple circuit you find interesting and try to understand it. Read the explanation, calculate the voltages at certain points, build the circuit, measure, etc. This will teach you a lot.
"search engine operators will need to show that such data is "strictly necessary" to offer the service."
If that is the law to follow, they will make it "strictly necessary" by adding features using that data, I guess. Just making it a bit harder is a lot of lawmaking for little effect.
But still - and this might be a bit paranoid - I'm not 100% at ease. Any modern OS (together with its applications) consists of millions of lines of code. There can always be bugs, and any bug might be exploitable. Also, a misconfiguration could leave the door wide open without me knowing. Together with the fact that these botnets are getting more and more professional, it does not improve my comfort level.
A few years ago, you saw you were infected by all the popups that apperared out of nowhere. But now, there is no way to tell for sure, is there? Every time my computer does something strange, I'm worried that I might be infected.
I heard it was a present from the Wizard of Oz, but it didn't help.
Unless, of course, they need to dissipate so much energy that they need radiators. If those radiators get covered with dust, then heat transfer could become more difficult. But I'm guessing that it won't be a problem with MSL.
I'm not too sure about that. WP still had a following back then, a lot of companies still used it. Can you imagine how many company computers only run one application during their lifetime, i.e. a word processor?
So if WP could have made a decent Linux port, it could sell itself along with a free operating system. This would cut costs by not needing windows licenses anymore for those typewriters, while maintaining compatibility. Once linux gets a foothold, this would have spurred a whole lot of linux growth, with companies offering all kinds of support and custom linux tailoring. I don't think that's a risk MS was willing to take.
I think Adobe will never port Photoshop to Linux. Remember what happened to WordPerfect? They announced a Linux port, and a bit later it's assimilated^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H bought up by Microsoft, mind cleansed, and spit out. If Adobe were to announce a Linux port, it would draw a lot of unfriendly attention from Microsoft, and I'm sure they could make life a lot harder for them.
So true. This is a prime example of the difference between how science works and how religion works. Simply put, science = (observation + disprovable theories). If your theory conforms to the observations under certain conditions, you can apply that theory again as long as the conditions are met.
The driving force behind religion is - in my opinion - social pressure. If your parents are christian, you'll be a christian too. Not because it is testable that it is the only true religion, but a) because you are indoctrinated from day one, and b) because your environment won't allow you to think differently. You won't "fit in" anymore. Just think what happens when two people with different religions want to mary. In extremis, even today, young people are killed by their own family because they want to mary somebody with a different belief. Now that's an extreme case, but it clearly shows how strong social pressure can be. The family rather kills it's own than to have to go through the shame. The individual feels the pressure of the family, and the family feels the pressure of the community.
That's why they want to propagate ID by law instead of scientific proof. It's totally in line with how religion works.
This is just a way of showing that they have the same war capabilities as China, that's all. If you have a government that tells you that Sadam has recently been trying to buy plutonium(or was it uranium?), but "forgets" to tell you that "recently" means "in the eighties", that's a real good hint that your leaders are just lying to you to get what whatever they want.
If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it is most probably a duck. All these "safety reasons" smell alot like lies to me, and that's what they most probably are.
However, let's just assume you were making a joke, and that I was worried for nothing.
On the other hand, to get a satellite to a 700km orbit, you would need more fuel too, so if you settle for a lower orbit you could use that fuel to correct for the drag. Common sense says that's what they're doing. If their spy sat runs out of fuel, they just get some more money and buy themselves a brand new satellite.
By the way, the spy sat in question was launched on dec 14, 2006, and it is already coming down. At 700km altitude it could never come down in little more than a year.
Because The military industry think they can sell it to congress. And I have to admit, they have come up with a nice threat to make it sellable.
I was going to make a remark about how Linus has made a distributed code management system with a focus on branching, so that one might assume that he wants to give everybody who disagrees with him all the tools to do better.
But then I read the blog. To those who didn't rtfa, don't bother. This, my friends, is the blog-equivalent of MST3000. The plot is non-existent and the acting is weak. Really, this guy has no understanding of Linus' sense of humor. If Linus says "I think [Mac] OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways, but neither can hold a candle to my own [Linux]. It's a race for second", it's not meant as propaganda, it's meant to be funny in a provocative way(*). He does it all the time, and personally, I like that kind of humor. The article, on the other hand, well.. my mind stays empty when I try to find a word to describe it.
(*): He could also be trying to be provocative in a funny way, I never figured that out.
PS: Earlier, I pointed out the linus git talk (search linus git on youtube or google video), you should really watch it if you want to know how he talks. At one moment he says "If you don't agree with me, it's because you're stupid and ugly". That sort of things should prove my point. Hell, just the fact that he called it "git" alone should prove it.
Let me explain it once more: You can take running water as a model for electricity. In our model, the difference in height between two points correstponds to the voltage (U). The amount of water that is flowing between those two points corresponds to the current (I), and the resistance is.. well, the resistance (R) (determined by the size of the channel, its' smoothness etc).
Ohm's law states that U = I * R
The power, on the other hand, is the amount of energy per time-unit, and can be calculated as P = U x I. (Using Ohm's law we can substitute I by U/R, and we get P = U^2/R - the quadratic relation between power and voltage as stated in the article)
PS: That's why electricity companies charge you per KWh, i.e. (energy per time-unit) * time = energy consumed.
Indeed, spy sats have orbits only a few 100km high. Geosynchonous orbit is 36.000km. Much too far for closeup images.
But a bit is a contracion of binary digit, and binary means two. In communications, you have the same distinction between bits per second and baudrate. Bits per seconds give you the amount of ones and zeros transmitted, while the baudrate gives you the amount of symbols per digit. If a symbol can be one of four possible tones (or phases), you get 2 bits per baud, and that's what happening here again.
Model checking surely has it's merits, but how are you going to check the model for errors? If I have learned one thing writing software, it is that there is a difference between what people want, and what people say they want. And there is, and never will be, no software that can check if those two are the same. Actually, I'm beginning to think there might be a lot to be gained if computer scientists team up with psychologists to get better specifications out of customers.
PS: Good news, guys: psychology has lots of female students, so we might solve two problems in one blow.
I wonder why they call it a "swarm approach". I'm always suspicious toward people using the latest buzzword, especially if what they are doing sounds like "sorting". The interesting part is the criterion they use, not how they sort the images.
There's an interesting talk about git on youtube, if you want an introduction to the program.
And don't believe Linus when he says he's not a good speaker.
And I have to ask, how exactly are you supposed to defend yourself if you're not charged with anything?
PS: <sarcasm>They do have a lawyer, don't they?</sarcasm>