I've seen cdlu's comments for years and always respected his posts and insights. While I knew his name, I never connected the two.
Very nice to see that he's in a position to influence things in the Canadian government. Too bad there isn't a Ministry of Information Technology; it sound like Mr. Graham would be a great fit for the job.
I'm simply curious (not because I want to get into the business) as $15k plus $2k per month (or $8k plus $1.2k per month for the exploitless version) is not chicken feed.
Are there that many "halfwit developers" out there that are willing to make this a viable option? Or, is this a case of the developer selling the malware to (would be) criminals, to make money on the work but minimize the risk?
I'd be interested in seeing the contract in the case of the customer being caught and going to jail.
An obvious one for me is for solar cells. As small/flat as possible to minimize the size/mass of an array.
When I've looked at home arrays, the inverter is a large box that fits off to the side in its own enclosure. I can see that having a small inverter that is part of the array would be an advantage in terms of cost and installation workload.
The SCO lawsuit started in 2003 and, in comparison, Unicode version 1.0 was released in 1992. So, it's not like this is a new standard, preceding the lawsuit by ten years. Unicode support in Linux seems to be around 1999.
I guess somebody at/. (or, more likely submitters) are getting a perverse kick out of copy and pasting unicode characters on the SCO article and I'm trying to figure out why. Maybe/. article editor tools make the unicode characters invisible to them but this has been going on long enough.
Timothy, et al, could you take this back to your new masters and get it fixed - one way or another? I, like probably a lot of people who come to this site, when we see the acronym "SCO" immediately look to see how many unicode characters are embedded in the summary.
While a corporation should and needs to protect it's assets and petition sitting governments on various, I think it's a) inappropriate to monetarily support candidates and b) coerce employees to support and contribute to the cause. In the '80s, when I was working for IBM, they sent a letter to all (Canadian, at least) employees telling them to support NAFTA which I (and many of my coworkers) thought was inappropriate but the company felt that it was in its best interests to do this.
The situation is even more despicable when it comes to Disney, who clearly don't seem to care about their employees and really not good corporate citizens. There maybe honour & prestige working for Disney but if there is an option to reduce their costs, they will clearly take it, current employees be damned.
I don't think you've even seen a car on fire to think you can put it out - fire departments don't even try. If there is somebody inside the car, they'll work at getting them out, but they generally just keep people back and wait for the fire to go out.
This reminds me of an entrepreneur who approached me to help him design and code flat panel instrument panels for light aircraft. He felt that $25k+ for a panel and instruments was ridiculous when he could buy the parts for just a couple of hundred dollars. Then he looked into certifications (which included environmental testing) along with liability insurance and type certificates and suddenly that $25k wasn't so outrageous. This was around ten years ago - doing a quick check, it looks like Aspen Avionics has a fairly inexpensive PFD ($5k for a basic display).
Now that I'm over 50, my doctor has an ECG he rolls out every couple of years and doesn't seem to regard it as anything other than a piece of equipment like a stethoscope. It has a simple LCD display and it connects via WiFi to the office network where it sends jpgs of the waveforms.
So, how outrageous are the profits for ECGs and what are the dishonest distribution practices?
When I first read the headline it was "Russian Piece of Shit Pickpocket Generates Interest in RFID-Blocking Wallets"
I know it's "Point of Sale", but too many years of experience with the other version of the acronym has conditioned me to read it a certain way with often, as in this case, coming up with a different interpretation of a statement.
Seriously. If the technology is mature (regularly survives a 500 mile race) while providing tangible benefits (more horsepower meaning a faster car with better fuel economy which means fewer pit stops) customers will demand it.
Otherwise, it's of no perceived value to customers and might be seen as just another piece of electronic junk that is being foisted upon them (like anti-lock brakes for those of us who remember people who couldn't see their value).
At first thought, putting capacitors on the chip means that EVERYTHING for an application could be put on a piece of silicon and not require any interconnections. This could be very valuable for (very) high frequency RFID tags where the chip contains the logic, radio, antenna and power supply good for a few milliseconds of operation without any external components. This could easily halve (or more) the cost of an RFID tag and reduce it to just dropping a chip into the tag's (or even product's) plastic mold - it's been a number of years since I saw the state of the at on RFID tags, but they were to cost $0.15 to $0.25 each in quantity. Without any external parts, this cost could drop to a few pennies.
The other application I can think of are chips which need a defined power down sequence or else be damaged/lose data. The obvious example for this would be in a Flash chip with a write buffer - if power was lost, the contents of the write buffer would be saved to non-volatile storage before it was lost.
Others? I think the RFID tag is probably the application where this technology would be most valuable.
I'm sure there will be a lot of obvious applications for this technology, but I can see robotics being a big one.
GPS hasn't been practical for robotics but with this level of accuracy, I wouldn't be surprised to many robotic applications currently being done by humans.
It would be interesting to see how the algorithm keeps its accuracy over time and distance.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember hearing a robot saying somewhere that having a but with those attributes was a turn on.
Everybody thinks they should be punished for publishing images of a naked Hulk Hogan.
Imagine that instead of watching California go by, you could see... Barsoom or a land of dinosaurs or an alien landscape?
Would certainly provide some interesting entertainment to the hyperloop experience.
I got nothing to add after the pun in the subject line.
I've seen cdlu's comments for years and always respected his posts and insights. While I knew his name, I never connected the two.
Very nice to see that he's in a position to influence things in the Canadian government. Too bad there isn't a Ministry of Information Technology; it sound like Mr. Graham would be a great fit for the job.
pierced2x,
You're joke didn't resonate with this crowd.
I'm simply curious (not because I want to get into the business) as $15k plus $2k per month (or $8k plus $1.2k per month for the exploitless version) is not chicken feed.
Are there that many "halfwit developers" out there that are willing to make this a viable option? Or, is this a case of the developer selling the malware to (would be) criminals, to make money on the work but minimize the risk?
I'd be interested in seeing the contract in the case of the customer being caught and going to jail.
An obvious one for me is for solar cells. As small/flat as possible to minimize the size/mass of an array.
When I've looked at home arrays, the inverter is a large box that fits off to the side in its own enclosure. I can see that having a small inverter that is part of the array would be an advantage in terms of cost and installation workload.
Personally, I read it as "Anonymous Coward by its very nature inefficient".
Why are you feeding the troll?
As a good rule of thumb, ignore Anonymous Cowards.
The SCO lawsuit started in 2003 and, in comparison, Unicode version 1.0 was released in 1992. So, it's not like this is a new standard, preceding the lawsuit by ten years. Unicode support in Linux seems to be around 1999.
I guess somebody at /. (or, more likely submitters) are getting a perverse kick out of copy and pasting unicode characters on the SCO article and I'm trying to figure out why. Maybe /. article editor tools make the unicode characters invisible to them but this has been going on long enough.
Timothy, et al, could you take this back to your new masters and get it fixed - one way or another? I, like probably a lot of people who come to this site, when we see the acronym "SCO" immediately look to see how many unicode characters are embedded in the summary.
While a corporation should and needs to protect it's assets and petition sitting governments on various, I think it's a) inappropriate to monetarily support candidates and b) coerce employees to support and contribute to the cause. In the '80s, when I was working for IBM, they sent a letter to all (Canadian, at least) employees telling them to support NAFTA which I (and many of my coworkers) thought was inappropriate but the company felt that it was in its best interests to do this.
The situation is even more despicable when it comes to Disney, who clearly don't seem to care about their employees and really not good corporate citizens. There maybe honour & prestige working for Disney but if there is an option to reduce their costs, they will clearly take it, current employees be damned.
Have you ever tried to put out a carbequeue?
I don't think you've even seen a car on fire to think you can put it out - fire departments don't even try. If there is somebody inside the car, they'll work at getting them out, but they generally just keep people back and wait for the fire to go out.
This reminds me of an entrepreneur who approached me to help him design and code flat panel instrument panels for light aircraft. He felt that $25k+ for a panel and instruments was ridiculous when he could buy the parts for just a couple of hundred dollars. Then he looked into certifications (which included environmental testing) along with liability insurance and type certificates and suddenly that $25k wasn't so outrageous. This was around ten years ago - doing a quick check, it looks like Aspen Avionics has a fairly inexpensive PFD ($5k for a basic display).
Now that I'm over 50, my doctor has an ECG he rolls out every couple of years and doesn't seem to regard it as anything other than a piece of equipment like a stethoscope. It has a simple LCD display and it connects via WiFi to the office network where it sends jpgs of the waveforms.
So, how outrageous are the profits for ECGs and what are the dishonest distribution practices?
:^)
When I first read the headline it was "Russian Piece of Shit Pickpocket Generates Interest in RFID-Blocking Wallets"
I know it's "Point of Sale", but too many years of experience with the other version of the acronym has conditioned me to read it a certain way with often, as in this case, coming up with a different interpretation of a statement.
It's a very interesting design - the issue with using it in a car, as I understand it, is that it doesn't handle changes in load very well.
It's a competitor to turbine engines and, like a turbine, isn't well suited for automotive applications.
Seriously. If the technology is mature (regularly survives a 500 mile race) while providing tangible benefits (more horsepower meaning a faster car with better fuel economy which means fewer pit stops) customers will demand it.
Otherwise, it's of no perceived value to customers and might be seen as just another piece of electronic junk that is being foisted upon them (like anti-lock brakes for those of us who remember people who couldn't see their value).
Somebody who loves potatoes!
At first thought, putting capacitors on the chip means that EVERYTHING for an application could be put on a piece of silicon and not require any interconnections. This could be very valuable for (very) high frequency RFID tags where the chip contains the logic, radio, antenna and power supply good for a few milliseconds of operation without any external components. This could easily halve (or more) the cost of an RFID tag and reduce it to just dropping a chip into the tag's (or even product's) plastic mold - it's been a number of years since I saw the state of the at on RFID tags, but they were to cost $0.15 to $0.25 each in quantity. Without any external parts, this cost could drop to a few pennies.
The other application I can think of are chips which need a defined power down sequence or else be damaged/lose data. The obvious example for this would be in a Flash chip with a write buffer - if power was lost, the contents of the write buffer would be saved to non-volatile storage before it was lost.
Others? I think the RFID tag is probably the application where this technology would be most valuable.
Or is "x86" assumed to be 64 bit now?
Can anybody explain the terminology here?
No it's not; for the rest of the world it's accurate to 2.54cm.
I'm sure there will be a lot of obvious applications for this technology, but I can see robotics being a big one.
GPS hasn't been practical for robotics but with this level of accuracy, I wouldn't be surprised to many robotic applications currently being done by humans.
It would be interesting to see how the algorithm keeps its accuracy over time and distance.
Thanx for the chuckle.
"Silicon Valley has the highest H-1B use in the US, and they're primarily left-wingers out there."
Got any proof to support that assertion?
California (and SiValley) companies are generally quite right-wing - the MBAs have a pretty firm foothold there.
It's because of the entertainment industry that people think that the state is very socialist/left wing.