I suspect the issue is increased with the size of the touchscreen. A 3.5" display is easy - all the controls are near an edge. A 15" display is trickier - there's a lot of space in the middle that is difficult to accurately hit.
If I were SpaceX, the first thing I would have done is tossed an engine in the water, recovered it, and studied it. Landing legs and cushioned landing are sexy and the whole process is very impressive on paper to the less well educated space fanboy (I.E. 99% of them)... but engine refurbishment is the key to the whole process.
Well, the goal is to eventually land them on, er, land so that they don't get dunked. Then you end up with 9 engines and a first stage in fairly good nick with 5 minutes of flight time on it.
I don't know of their timeline, but I'd expect a couple of sucessful water landings, then it'll be time to land somewhere on terra firma. Or a big-ass barge, that might do the job.
Have a read through the "technical notes on EEC IV MCU" document on this page
This was for a ecu used in the 80's to early 90's - it had things like the "limited output strategy" where basically if the CPU didn't get its act together in time to tickle the hardware watchdog, a very basic set of logic IC's take over which give you a fixed squirt of fuel for every engine revolution and static timing. Which would make your car run like a piece of crap, but still run (sorta).
Well it certainly looks better than CP/M. You could always emulate your way out of trouble on the low end I suppose, but then you'd suffer a pretty hideous performance/memory hit. But even the 'low end' is pushing 20MHz these days.......
Let's imagine you could buy a car that was $2000 cheaper without airbags - Would people buy them?
No need to imagine. People did. And people still do. I bought plenty of cars that didn't have airbags or abs or stability control or seatbelt pretensioners or emergency brake assist or power steering,even (the horror!).
But nowadays, people do give serious thought to their safety, which is why even the base model crapbox has ABS and airbags. If I had a choice between a car advertised as "5 STAR crash rating" and one without that was 5 grand cheaper, the one with the 5 stars gets my money every time. If one of those features saves me in an accident - or even better, helps me to avoid one - it's worth it.
, because of an unexpected register state, well, ooooooooooooooops.
oooooooooooops indeed, that'll be at least 50 milliseconds while the system watchdog reboots into previous firmware version.
These are not the people that do your phone updates. These are people that deal with real-time embedded systems that are safety-criticial. There will be something like a hardware watchdog set that is used for the next 100 times of vehicle operation that triggers the 'fail safe' option of returning to the previous firmware.
The problem with this is the person who is being executed can't come back and give an account of their execution.
Well, not if they're completely dead. If they're only mostly dead, they can be revived and recount their experiences. People have experienced pretty much all of the current methods of execution in other circumstances and have survived when given medical care. So yeah, you can ask them what it's like to be strangled / shot multiple times / gassed / shocked / etc and from what I've heard, there's not too many things that are actually free of some sort of suffering.
Depends on how your time machine works. If it's a 'jump' or sudden discontinuity between one time and another, you're in trouble.
If it's a 'linear' style time machine (a-la H.G. Wells) and you're merely pulling the 'flow of time' lever from it's rest postion of "Forwards at 1x speed" to something like "Backwards at 200x speed"..... then you're much more likely to remain attached to whatever continent you happen to be in.
SSD's from certain companies were crap. Unfortunately you couldn't tell straight away (and I guess, they couldn't tell either, otherwise they wouldn't have shipped them).
I don't believe in any particular God, but I'm starting to like this new pope. Not because he's tied to a particular religion, but because he's visibly out there trying to do some good instead of smiling and waving from a balcony.
I know it takes a while to move up the ranks to Popehood, but maybe they should try and get some younger popes on the scene. Give them a bit more time to grow into the job and get some stuff done themselves before becoming a bedridden old man in charge of a world religion.
That's my view from the outside looking in anyway.
Tenure is there so that you can go 'against the grain' of university higher-ups without fear of reprisals. It's to allow dissenting views to be held and debated.
It's similar to parliamentary privilege, where they can say whatever they want basically whilst talking in parliament.
and plugging in their power-hungry cars at roughly the same time every day
Into a circuit that should be running on an off-peak tariff.The power company can control them remotely.... which makes this not really that much of a hassle.
I wouldn't be suprised if they invent an 'electric vehicle' tariff that gives you enough charging time and them enough flexibility to switch it as needed. Cheaper for you, easier for them - everyone wins!
Depends where you are I guess. Something to note is that - generally - the less-polluting they are, the more efficient they get..... there gets a point where you end up saving on the time and effort of getting wood for it.
We've got a guy that goes around and basically checks out the smoke coming from your chimney. If he comes back your way in 15 minutes or so and there's still smoke, it's fine time.
But we live in a valley that's very prone to temperature inversions and thus smog of the highest order.... and local gov't do a scheme where they'll pay for a heat pump to replace your old heater..... so I dunno.
the fuel tank is protected by the entire length of the car , while the Tesla's battery is only minimally protected despite it's more exposed position to such hazards.
When you run over something, it's pretty much up to chance as to what it hits under your car, how it tumbles, when it gets flicked up, and what gets punctured as a result.
Also considering that the lithium battery is self contained , and not particularly explosive as such, and tends to (from what we've seen) burn in-situ and not spread fuel all over the place if punctured.... the two methods of energy storage probably come out equal.
Sure, things might be better if the batteries were more centrally located. And things might be better if all liquid-fueled cars used the F1-style fuel bladders to keep fires to a minimum during accidents, but here we are.
- Most bridge railings are pretty tough. Tough enough to withstand a vehicle that's trying to go slow enough to fit into what it thinks is a narrow driveway at a 90 degree angle.
- I presume this kind of problem only shows up when you're crossing major routes, so with 'normal' river crossings, there's no desire from the nav system to turn at that point.
- Not sure if the GoogleCar can sense the ground... if their LADARs are angled down a bit, they'd be able to see the void in front of them. I thought at some stage I saw a scan set that showed they could see the ground.
- It'd only take one car falling off a bridge to get the map updated pronto. Just think, you could be providing a valuable service to your fellow motorists! Report bridge accidents and get valuable GooglePoints(tm):-P
It's not just blindly following maps with GPS, you know.
*Nav system*: Ok, now turn left here to get onto the highway.
*Vehicle Guidance*: Um, when I look to the left, there's an obstuction in the way. It goes on for at least 4 or 5 car lengths. Could be a railing or a wall or something. I can't see an intersection anywhere?
*Nav system*: Shit. Keep going and I'll re-route. I'll beep and let the passenger know that something's up.
*Vehicle Guidance*: Fuck me, Nav system, you had ONE JOB. Now we have to deal with the passenger who's probably on Slashdot as we speak posting about his crappy self-driving car wanting to drive him off a bridge.
Certain electric motors have max torque at zero rpm. DC motors with series wound fields do (eg. Starter motors) . The AC motor in the Tesla will have a lot of torque at zero rpm, but I'll wager that there is a higher value somewhere above zero.
I'm thinking that seeing as PAs have never been used, when it does appear on your phone your impingement will be minor compared to the impingement from whatever the alert was impinging you for.
Impinge. That word gets weirder and weirder every time I type it. IMPINGE.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect the issue is increased with the size of the touchscreen.
A 3.5" display is easy - all the controls are near an edge.
A 15" display is trickier - there's a lot of space in the middle that is difficult to accurately hit.
If I were SpaceX, the first thing I would have done is tossed an engine in the water, recovered it, and studied it. Landing legs and cushioned landing are sexy and the whole process is very impressive on paper to the less well educated space fanboy (I.E. 99% of them)... but engine refurbishment is the key to the whole process.
Well, the goal is to eventually land them on, er, land so that they don't get dunked. Then you end up with 9 engines and a first stage in fairly good nick with 5 minutes of flight time on it.
I don't know of their timeline, but I'd expect a couple of sucessful water landings, then it'll be time to land somewhere on terra firma. Or a big-ass barge, that might do the job.
Have a read through the "technical notes on EEC IV MCU" document on this page
This was for a ecu used in the 80's to early 90's - it had things like the "limited output strategy" where basically if the CPU didn't get its act together in time to tickle the hardware watchdog, a very basic set of logic IC's take over which give you a fixed squirt of fuel for every engine revolution and static timing. Which would make your car run like a piece of crap, but still run (sorta).
Well it certainly looks better than CP/M.
You could always emulate your way out of trouble on the low end I suppose, but then you'd suffer a pretty hideous performance/memory hit.
But even the 'low end' is pushing 20MHz these days.......
Let's imagine you could buy a car that was $2000 cheaper without airbags - Would people buy them?
No need to imagine. People did. And people still do. I bought plenty of cars that didn't have airbags or abs or stability control or seatbelt pretensioners or emergency brake assist or power steering,even (the horror!).
But nowadays, people do give serious thought to their safety, which is why even the base model crapbox has ABS and airbags. If I had a choice between a car advertised as "5 STAR crash rating" and one without that was 5 grand cheaper, the one with the 5 stars gets my money every time. If one of those features saves me in an accident - or even better, helps me to avoid one - it's worth it.
, because of an unexpected register state, well, ooooooooooooooops.
oooooooooooops indeed, that'll be at least 50 milliseconds while the system watchdog reboots into previous firmware version.
These are not the people that do your phone updates. These are people that deal with real-time embedded systems that are safety-criticial. There will be something like a hardware watchdog set that is used for the next 100 times of vehicle operation that triggers the 'fail safe' option of returning to the previous firmware.
Sorry dude, it's a low-UID joke.
Actually, it's more of a late 70's pop-culture reference... BUT YOU WEREN'T THERE, MAN!
Some sort of Slashdot/Groklaw hybrid would be nice.....
I was disappointed the last time you shut down Technocrat, but come on Bruce, third time's the charm!
Bookmarks. I suggest you try them.
The problem with this is the person who is being executed can't come back and give an account of their execution.
Well, not if they're completely dead. If they're only mostly dead, they can be revived and recount their experiences.
People have experienced pretty much all of the current methods of execution in other circumstances and have survived when given medical care. So yeah, you can ask them what it's like to be strangled / shot multiple times / gassed / shocked / etc and from what I've heard, there's not too many things that are actually free of some sort of suffering.
Depends on how your time machine works.
If it's a 'jump' or sudden discontinuity between one time and another, you're in trouble.
If it's a 'linear' style time machine (a-la H.G. Wells) and you're merely pulling the 'flow of time' lever from it's rest postion of "Forwards at 1x speed" to something like "Backwards at 200x speed"..... then you're much more likely to remain attached to whatever continent you happen to be in.
SSD's from certain companies were crap. Unfortunately you couldn't tell straight away (and I guess, they couldn't tell either, otherwise they wouldn't have shipped them).
I don't believe in any particular God, but I'm starting to like this new pope. Not because he's tied to a particular religion, but because he's visibly out there trying to do some good instead of smiling and waving from a balcony.
I know it takes a while to move up the ranks to Popehood, but maybe they should try and get some younger popes on the scene. Give them a bit more time to grow into the job and get some stuff done themselves before becoming a bedridden old man in charge of a world religion.
That's my view from the outside looking in anyway.
1. Pick any android tablet.
2. Select "Font Size: Huge"
The interface is dumbed-down pretty well already because it's touch based.
(Yes, you could go an iPad I suppose. *rolls eyes* :-P)
Tenure is there so that you can go 'against the grain' of university higher-ups without fear of reprisals. It's to allow dissenting views to be held and debated.
It's similar to parliamentary privilege, where they can say whatever they want basically whilst talking in parliament.
and plugging in their power-hungry cars at roughly the same time every day
Into a circuit that should be running on an off-peak tariff.The power company can control them remotely.... which makes this not really that much of a hassle.
I wouldn't be suprised if they invent an 'electric vehicle' tariff that gives you enough charging time and them enough flexibility to switch it as needed. Cheaper for you, easier for them - everyone wins!
I'm sensing a lot of .... er, opposition here. :-)
Depends where you are I guess. Something to note is that - generally - the less-polluting they are, the more efficient they get..... there gets a point where you end up saving on the time and effort of getting wood for it.
We've got a guy that goes around and basically checks out the smoke coming from your chimney. If he comes back your way in 15 minutes or so and there's still smoke, it's fine time.
But we live in a valley that's very prone to temperature inversions and thus smog of the highest order.... and local gov't do a scheme where they'll pay for a heat pump to replace your old heater..... so I dunno.
You have no means to tax or stop it short of knocking on doors and you won't.
I think you're missing one of the key concepts of wood stoves, namely that the smoke generally goes outside the building.
Read Manna if you want a likely idea of how this will end up. But probably without the upside of The Australia Project.
the fuel tank is protected by the entire length of the car , while the Tesla's battery is only minimally protected despite it's more exposed position to such hazards.
When you run over something, it's pretty much up to chance as to what it hits under your car, how it tumbles, when it gets flicked up, and what gets punctured as a result.
Also considering that the lithium battery is self contained , and not particularly explosive as such, and tends to (from what we've seen) burn in-situ and not spread fuel all over the place if punctured.... the two methods of energy storage probably come out equal.
Sure, things might be better if the batteries were more centrally located. And things might be better if all liquid-fueled cars used the F1-style fuel bladders to keep fires to a minimum during accidents, but here we are.
Moderately serious answer:
- Most bridge railings are pretty tough. Tough enough to withstand a vehicle that's trying to go slow enough to fit into what it thinks is a narrow driveway at a 90 degree angle.
- I presume this kind of problem only shows up when you're crossing major routes, so with 'normal' river crossings, there's no desire from the nav system to turn at that point.
- Not sure if the GoogleCar can sense the ground... if their LADARs are angled down a bit, they'd be able to see the void in front of them. I thought at some stage I saw a scan set that showed they could see the ground.
- It'd only take one car falling off a bridge to get the map updated pronto. Just think, you could be providing a valuable service to your fellow motorists! Report bridge accidents and get valuable GooglePoints(tm) :-P
The old, "Associate your target with helping pedophiles" approach.
It's not just blindly following maps with GPS, you know.
*Nav system*: Ok, now turn left here to get onto the highway.
*Vehicle Guidance*: Um, when I look to the left, there's an obstuction in the way. It goes on for at least 4 or 5 car lengths. Could be a railing or a wall or something. I can't see an intersection anywhere?
*Nav system*: Shit. Keep going and I'll re-route. I'll beep and let the passenger know that something's up.
*Vehicle Guidance*: Fuck me, Nav system, you had ONE JOB. Now we have to deal with the passenger who's probably on Slashdot as we speak posting about his crappy self-driving car wanting to drive him off a bridge.
Certain electric motors have max torque at zero rpm. DC motors with series wound fields do (eg. Starter motors) . The AC motor in the Tesla will have a lot of torque at zero rpm, but I'll wager that there is a higher value somewhere above zero.
I'm thinking that seeing as PAs have never been used, when it does appear on your phone your impingement will be minor compared to the impingement from whatever the alert was impinging you for.
Impinge. That word gets weirder and weirder every time I type it. IMPINGE.