Even more frightful, I've seen embedded "designs" that actually made use of one task diddling in another tasks memory! It's so wonderful when companies are willing to hire anyone as an embedded designer...it's like 'doze, no?!?
And that research actually missed some other elements. For instance, the refresh rate of a TV is actually at a Beta frequency. It is also well known to researchers that the brain will tend to synchronize with any stimuli at a given frequency. So, perhaps TV induces more of the subconscious, but highly attentive state than just the subconscious state....so, would this mean that the cynics are actually consciously aware of the cruft being bombarded at them from the TV?
So, either way, what was an inexpensive universal service becomes one of rising costs and reduced availability.
Here's a business scenario: what if I'm not an AT&T customer and try one of the following:
1) Contact to enquire about services? Ok, they'll likely have some form of a hole for this...perhaps a web form.
2) I search the net and come up with technical article by an AT&T employee, it includes their email address. I have some comments on their article and wish to correspond.
O well, another day where commercialization continues to kill the net.
Uh huh, and I guess you're also the cheap sod that shelled out $10 for transistors so you could solder them up and play high fidelity in the audio scene too...
Degrees of quality cost. Lots of people whine that Apple is expensive. Well, yes it is, if all you care about is bang for the buck on the cheap buck side. That's fair game and that's where Linux and Intel H/W often fits in. But if you have the coin and are of the interest, the other side for that bang for the buck is pretty sweet too...but it is a good buck. Get over it. If it's not worth it too you fine....Apple's loss and yours. But, quite whining about it. I don't go on and on about not being able to afford a $10000 audio amp that gives me %20 better audio experience than the one that costs $500. Yes, you're going to whine on about Apple not providing %20 better performance. Ha, check out usability, check out fast development for general and specialized apps....etc.
Yadda yadda, so what? This means that the actual boot code will become even more basic or perhaps better as in Openboot (i.e. as per Suns or Macs). So in the end the OS actually carries a better set of system device drivers...so what?
Whoopi, it should only improve access to the systems. The threat of DRM at a lower level is a joke...reburn the FLASH if need be. And if that isn't "general" user friendly, we all know plenty of people willing to make a buck doing it for us.
I think commercially you have a point, but when it comes to free software as in open source you're way off base. You're ignoring the fact that people really should take responsibility to assess the risks involved. E.g. I download a motor control program that is free & open sourced, I plan to put said software in a paint ball toting robot. Now if I don't evaluate the software or assess the risks and the controller goes nuts and becomes partly responsible for putting a paint ball in someone's eye...who's really at fault? The original author or the idiot who did not evaluate the software for _their_ intended purpose?
Commercially of course I'd have been paying someone to allay a large portion of those risks.
Realistically, general use, commercial software will likely never carry very heavy liabilities because the cost of developing such software would become prohibitive.
I would also point out that legally and technically it may be very difficult to pinpoint the actual source of failure because this would require all software to be "provable" in a mathematical sense (cost again), and ignoring that, what if some transient gamma ray (or whatever) caused a minor hardware glitch that in turn caused the software to fail?
Not to mention that it's like outlawing screwdrivers which have a vast number of legitimate uses, but can be used to pry something open.
So, what falls into this category for S/W? All computer languages, I/O specs (that should be fun, have all the semiconductor manufacturers to pull specs from the web), editors (bvi is very handy tool for legitimate uses)...what else?
Crikey, why don't we just do a "permissive" law; i.e. you are allowed, heck, required to consume without questioning, or doing anything with an item other than it's explicitly stated use and license...and yes, you pay the lawyer fees to interpret the license...
Also, music takes less money to make than a movie. I.E. I will pay more for a movie.
I can't stop laughing. What would make you think that the production costs have much bearing on the end product price? Do you honestly think that investors stick $100 million into a movie for a measily 1% return? Also, keep in mind that big name actors account for a good chunk of such production budgets, so you might want to re-evaluate the bang for the buck theory.
And just to perhaps make you think, consider just some of the revenue streams for movies: box office (huge even for poorly received flicks), merchandising, book deals, sound tracks, video rentals (tapes and DVD's), video purchases (tapes and DVDs)...etc.
Also, not to mention that due to copyrights they be collecting on this $100 million investment for the next millium... "oooo look, that classic spiderman is being re-released on SuperDupper-DVD-III, must salivate and purchase..."
Sig: oh all right, "too many junk food people with television minds."
A license to go online....only if we require one for nose picking or running for office...
They pay people to come up with sort of thrum?!? No, really? I'm amazed. So, does this imply that it takes a bunch of daft script kiddies to induce mental ruptures in "CHIEF" technology officers of security firms?
Ok, so realistically, this bloke has realized that there is no such thing as a secure system, he's lost his grounding, he's grasping at anything....he needs a career change...
Oh well, funny that one can take daft suggestions from the likes of politicians, but when some supposedly educated or knowlegable individual comes out with this kind of cruft...you get my incredulous reaction...
All I can see is some future student historian saying, "...and in the information age, with all the wonderous things they could do with these vast amounts of information, they did what!?!?"
The longevity of these information sources is being pretty muched tossed in the garbage; just as some ignorant barbarian would do. I'm refering to more than music here of course, but musical culture is important too.
Forget the numbers and take 20 minutes to contemplate something along the lines of why the geometry of a tree is useful to trees (as plants). If you find any thoughts or ideas during this endevour interesting then you've discovered what math is truly about. Now you have motivation to understand the tools that math provides. This will take you further in your desire to learn and certainly in the need to understand.
Uh huh...right....sorry but equipment payback is something ridiculously short like 3 months (DSLAM side).
I don't feel for the telcos...they're milking me for network improvements and I can't even get DSL out here in the country. Not to mention that they still charge for DTMF/tone dialing when it would actually cost them more to provide pulse dialing.
And this is why a programmer will never be an engineer.
Would you honestly take this approach with a project like a flight control system? Some things require a little more fore thought than the wank & code approach offers.
To not have solid requirements and design process simply raises the real risk of catastrophic failures that will cost lives in such systems.
The company I work for designed some of the networking equipment used by the FAA. It is required to be operational 99.999% of the time. Show me a single project like this that was accomplished by quick & dirty methods and didn't fail.
Might want to check your math there: there are 32 DS0's (64kbps) channels in an E1 link, with one being used for signalling, I forget what the other channel is used for, but there are basically 30 channels for general usage.
Also, at 90kbps I would hope the call was crystal clear as that's more bandwidth than is fundementally required for voice (~8KHz which at baseband requires the infamous 64Kbps of bandwidth).
I don't know off hand which codecs H.323 recommends, but there are actually a few that are very decent at 16Kbps. There are also passable codecs at 8Kbps. It would be interesting if long distance became a quality of service fee based system, no?!? Not only the telcos could save money, but so could it's customers. Don't really want to know what the person on the other end is saying...buy a 2Kbps connection.
painfully obvious that anyone with half a mind and a bit of ingenuity can create a decent weapon. What's left? Perhaps we all stop being gready sods and start treating others in the world with respect...i.e. give them a fair shake.
The security issue is a classic excuse to eat ones own tail. Secrecy solves nothing as basic information and some intelligence is all that's required to come up with some new and nasty way to off your fellow human.
So, how do we manage to do group therapy on the national scale? It's obviously required. The fear, the paranoia, the willingness to become more ignorant and let others deal with your "freedom" is a sure sign that the island is sinking. Get help...now before you do something that you regret. Oh wait, that's already happened....drats!
That's a rather short sighted view for an engineer. I wouldn't hire you based on that comment alone.
Anyways, here's one idea: something that requires the size of the US economy to back (if not global economies)....space exploitation. Tada! Very expensive and very demanding engineering required, and incredible benefits to boot (nope, leavin' that one up to the rest of you to figure out).
Hmmm, I'd have to point out that american greed has made this downturn far more of a drop than it should be. The Europeans have managed the up and down swing far better. The only reason anything is going offshore is to boost profits.
Being an engineer I'll vouch that there is a decent dose of creativity in the field. As such, get off yer asses and create something useful. ie. no, we don't need a $100million bucks to produce some chunk of software to keep track of the hair colour of people's pets.... dot-coms were just too silly thanks.
Hmmm, my take on this is that if you are pretty much just on the musical side of things then get a Mac and whatever S/W that makes doing it simple and easy.
If on the other hand you are musical with deep technical tendancies or technical with musical tendancies then go with CSound and build whatever you require around it.
Personally, I think CSound is one of the greatest pieces of sound S/W available. Now, I'm far more on the technical side and often describe CSound as assembly language for music, so take take that all with a grain of salt. If you want to lay down some chords and rhythm and drum tracks go cakewalk or any sequencer for that matter. If you have sonic imagination that can meld with technical imagination then go with CSound and some of your own programming.
BTW, how come most music is so friggin' low in it's entropy?!? huh?!? Creative my *ss. (oops gone onto raning...appologies..etc.)
Two words: system instability. Nature as we know it is a honking huge complex system. The folks behing GE's have already proven that they do not have a complete grip on this. The simpliest example is finding the GE plant where they didn't expect it.
Now, mixing things like animal genes in with a plant is a funky kewl thing to do, but you've essentially just taken a "random", w.r.t. nature's ability, huge leap in genetic mutation (not selective breeding). Do we know how this will pan out in a large emergent system? Personally, I do not think that we understand nature at this level. I'm not sure we actually require GE's, but am not against them per se. However, as an engineer this type of thing smacks majorly as one of those things that's going to come back and bite us on the ass!
And of course there are all the economic/whoring factors too, but I'll leave that for others to point out.
From the description of this particular situation I would have to say this is 90% a project management issue.
Are there no schedule with individual milestones? Keep in mind that the designer (not coder as any schlock can lay down code) should provide input on time lines (e.g. sure, that date is reasonable for that goal...etc.).
Projects also have to be monitored and have schedules updated to reflect reality and/or make necessary changes in work division.
Also, use a tiered design approach; ie. high to low level. This way yes, the requirements & application domain are spelled out, but each design documentation layer brings the next level of gritty details to light. So, in terms of S/W design, a high level design document for the overall architecture. This makes it clear as to how components are connected and related. Then go down to document the individual module designs. These highlight the intent of how a module will perform it's function. With this in hand coding almost becomes trivial.
Now a documentation trick that I picked up from a great mentor in DSP was to use different levels of pseudo code in module design documentation. High level stuff that is to be implemented in high level languages and is not too harry (ie. not some convoluted DSP algorithm) can use a very general level of detail in the pseudo code. E.g. Enable echo canceller AND run state machine Y. However, if one is documenting something to be implemented in assembly (particulary harry DSP algorithms) then use a detailed level of pseudo code that is equivalent to say C or some other high level language. The idea is that the intent of the implementation becomes easier to verify prior to ever writing a line of code. Overall, this also means that people have thought out how things will work in great detail and this has been reviewed; ie. at the design documentation level. This also simplifies & improves the effectiveness of code reviews since the design intent is well documented.
Which reminds me: code comments should describe the _intent_ of the code and not what the code actually does.
As for bad code, that is what code reviews are for. Now bad code in DSP can be very nasty, particularly in assembly as one incorrect shift can cause huge problems and be very difficult to find.
BTW, I'd recommend simulating the code after a code review and it's fixes, to help ensure code sanity.
I've also seen enough DSP and other "interesting" domain code from people with Masters and even PhD's that is pathetic as far as good code is concerned. I have also worked with brilliant people with this kind of background that seriously put us mere mortals to shame.
If your designers are really that poor at coding and you do have the skills then I would suggest a frequent level of mentoring. A positive atmosphere and some mentoring can go a long distance in terms of improving a designer's abilities.
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It's called a DSP, otherwise it's a waste of silicon and expense in a general purpose CPU.
Even more frightful, I've seen embedded "designs" that actually made use of one task diddling in another tasks memory! It's so wonderful when companies are willing to hire anyone as an embedded designer...it's like 'doze, no?!?
And that research actually missed some other elements. For instance, the refresh rate of a TV is actually at a Beta frequency. It is also well known to researchers that the brain will tend to synchronize with any stimuli at a given frequency. So, perhaps TV induces more of the subconscious, but highly attentive state than just the subconscious state. ...so, would this mean that the cynics are actually consciously aware of the cruft being bombarded at them from the TV?
Oh, so does that mean that all those GigaWatts that they're pumping into the atmosphere via HAARP are having a detrimental effect?!?
Curiousity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back...but then again a cat's got nine lives right!?!
So, either way, what was an inexpensive universal service becomes one of rising costs and reduced availability.
Here's a business scenario: what if I'm not an AT&T customer and try one of the following:
1) Contact to enquire about services? Ok, they'll likely have some form of a hole for this...perhaps a web form.
2) I search the net and come up with technical article by an AT&T employee, it includes their email address. I have some comments on their article and wish to correspond.
O well, another day where commercialization continues to kill the net.
Uh huh, and I guess you're also the cheap sod that shelled out $10 for transistors so you could solder them up and play high fidelity in the audio scene too...
Degrees of quality cost. Lots of people whine that Apple is expensive. Well, yes it is, if all you care about is bang for the buck on the cheap buck side. That's fair game and that's where Linux and Intel H/W often fits in. But if you have the coin and are of the interest, the other side for that bang for the buck is pretty sweet too...but it is a good buck. Get over it. If it's not worth it too you fine....Apple's loss and yours. But, quite whining about it. I don't go on and on about not being able to afford a $10000 audio amp that gives me %20 better audio experience than the one that costs $500. Yes, you're going to whine on about Apple not providing %20 better performance. Ha, check out usability, check out fast development for general and specialized apps....etc.
Blah!
Yadda yadda, so what? This means that the actual boot code will become even more basic or perhaps better as in Openboot (i.e. as per Suns or Macs). So in the end the OS actually carries a better set of system device drivers...so what?
Whoopi, it should only improve access to the systems. The threat of DRM at a lower level is a joke...reburn the FLASH if need be. And if that isn't "general" user friendly, we all know plenty of people willing to make a buck doing it for us.
I think commercially you have a point, but when it comes to free software as in open source you're way off base. You're ignoring the fact that people really should take responsibility to assess the risks involved. E.g. I download a motor control program that is free & open sourced, I plan to put said software in a paint ball toting robot. Now if I don't evaluate the software or assess the risks and the controller goes nuts and becomes partly responsible for putting a paint ball in someone's eye...who's really at fault? The original author or the idiot who did not evaluate the software for _their_ intended purpose?
Commercially of course I'd have been paying someone to allay a large portion of those risks.
Realistically, general use, commercial software will likely never carry very heavy liabilities because the cost of developing such software would become prohibitive.
I would also point out that legally and technically it may be very difficult to pinpoint the actual source of failure because this would require all software to be "provable" in a mathematical sense (cost again), and ignoring that, what if some transient gamma ray (or whatever) caused a minor hardware glitch that in turn caused the software to fail?
Even if the model is good and it is implemented decently, there are still those nasty initial conditions that must be accurate.
Remember kids, life is noise!
Not to mention that it's like outlawing screwdrivers which have a vast number of legitimate uses, but can be used to pry something open.
So, what falls into this category for S/W? All computer languages, I/O specs (that should be fun, have all the semiconductor manufacturers to pull specs from the web), editors (bvi is very handy tool for legitimate uses)...what else?
Crikey, why don't we just do a "permissive" law; i.e. you are allowed, heck, required to consume without questioning, or doing anything with an item other than it's explicitly stated use and license...and yes, you pay the lawyer fees to interpret the license...
I can't stop laughing. What would make you think that the production costs have much bearing on the end product price? Do you honestly think that investors stick $100 million into a movie for a measily 1% return? Also, keep in mind that big name actors account for a good chunk of such production budgets, so you might want to re-evaluate the bang for the buck theory.
And just to perhaps make you think, consider just some of the revenue streams for movies: box office (huge even for poorly received flicks), merchandising, book deals, sound tracks, video rentals (tapes and DVD's), video purchases (tapes and DVDs)...etc.
Also, not to mention that due to copyrights they be collecting on this $100 million investment for the next millium... "oooo look, that classic spiderman is being re-released on SuperDupper-DVD-III, must salivate and purchase..."
Sig: oh all right, "too many junk food people with television minds."
A license to go online....only if we require one for nose picking or running for office...
They pay people to come up with sort of thrum?!? No, really? I'm amazed. So, does this imply that it takes a bunch of daft script kiddies to induce mental ruptures in "CHIEF" technology officers of security firms?
Ok, so realistically, this bloke has realized that there is no such thing as a secure system, he's lost his grounding, he's grasping at anything....he needs a career change...
Oh well, funny that one can take daft suggestions from the likes of politicians, but when some supposedly educated or knowlegable individual comes out with this kind of cruft...you get my incredulous reaction...
All I can see is some future student historian saying, "...and in the information age, with all the wonderous things they could do with these vast amounts of information, they did what!?!?"
The longevity of these information sources is being pretty muched tossed in the garbage; just as some ignorant barbarian would do. I'm refering to more than music here of course, but musical culture is important too.
The requirement to resync out grids is just daft! They aught to be decoupled via DC like they do in Europe (France & England I believe).
This would also avoid such a wide spread blackouts since the shutdowns can be isolated within smaller grids.
Oh well, hopefully few die due to this.
In the meantime I'm investing in diaper manufacturers....boom baby boom!!
Forget the numbers and take 20 minutes to contemplate something along the lines of why the geometry of a tree is useful to trees (as plants). If you find any thoughts or ideas during this endevour interesting then you've discovered what math is truly about. Now you have motivation to understand the tools that math provides. This will take you further in your desire to learn and certainly in the need to understand.
Enjoy.
Uh huh...right....sorry but equipment payback is something ridiculously short like 3 months (DSLAM side).
I don't feel for the telcos...they're milking me for network improvements and I can't even get DSL out here in the country. Not to mention that they still charge for DTMF/tone dialing when it would actually cost them more to provide pulse dialing.
Nope, no sympathy here.
And this is why a programmer will never be an engineer.
Would you honestly take this approach with a project like a flight control system? Some things require a little more fore thought than the wank & code approach offers.
To not have solid requirements and design process simply raises the real risk of catastrophic failures that will cost lives in such systems.
The company I work for designed some of the networking equipment used by the FAA. It is required to be operational 99.999% of the time. Show me a single project like this that was accomplished by quick & dirty methods and didn't fail.
Might want to check your math there: there are 32 DS0's (64kbps) channels in an E1 link, with one being used for signalling, I forget what the other channel is used for, but there are basically 30 channels for general usage.
Also, at 90kbps I would hope the call was crystal clear as that's more bandwidth than is fundementally required for voice (~8KHz which at baseband requires the infamous 64Kbps of bandwidth).
I don't know off hand which codecs H.323 recommends, but there are actually a few that are very decent at 16Kbps. There are also passable codecs at 8Kbps. It would be interesting if long distance became a quality of service fee based system, no?!? Not only the telcos could save money, but so could it's customers. Don't really want to know what the person on the other end is saying...buy a 2Kbps connection.
painfully obvious that anyone with half a mind and a bit of ingenuity can create a decent weapon. What's left? Perhaps we all stop being gready sods and start treating others in the world with respect...i.e. give them a fair shake.
The security issue is a classic excuse to eat ones own tail. Secrecy solves nothing as basic information and some intelligence is all that's required to come up with some new and nasty way to off your fellow human.
So, how do we manage to do group therapy on the national scale? It's obviously required. The fear, the paranoia, the willingness to become more ignorant and let others deal with your "freedom" is a sure sign that the island is sinking. Get help...now before you do something that you regret. Oh wait, that's already happened....drats!
That's a rather short sighted view for an engineer. I wouldn't hire you based on that comment alone.
Anyways, here's one idea: something that requires the size of the US economy to back (if not global economies)....space exploitation. Tada! Very expensive and very demanding engineering required, and incredible benefits to boot (nope, leavin' that one up to the rest of you to figure out).
Cheers
Hmmm, I'd have to point out that american greed has made this downturn far more of a drop than it should be. The Europeans have managed the up and down swing far better. The only reason anything is going offshore is to boost profits.
Being an engineer I'll vouch that there is a decent dose of creativity in the field. As such, get off yer asses and create something useful. ie. no, we don't need a $100million bucks to produce some chunk of software to keep track of the hair colour of people's pets.... dot-coms were just too silly thanks.
Start small, grow big.
Hmmm, my take on this is that if you are pretty much just on the musical side of things then get a Mac and whatever S/W that makes doing it simple and easy.
If on the other hand you are musical with deep technical tendancies or technical with musical tendancies then go with CSound and build whatever you require around it.
Personally, I think CSound is one of the greatest pieces of sound S/W available. Now, I'm far more on the technical side and often describe CSound as assembly language for music, so take take that all with a grain of salt. If you want to lay down some chords and rhythm and drum tracks go cakewalk or any sequencer for that matter. If you have sonic imagination that can meld with technical imagination then go with CSound and some of your own programming.
BTW, how come most music is so friggin' low in it's entropy?!? huh?!? Creative my *ss. (oops gone onto raning...appologies..etc.)
Cheers,
Tius
Two words: system instability. Nature as we know it is a honking huge complex system. The folks behing GE's have already proven that they do not have a complete grip on this. The simpliest example is finding the GE plant where they didn't expect it.
Now, mixing things like animal genes in with a plant is a funky kewl thing to do, but you've essentially just taken a "random", w.r.t. nature's ability, huge leap in genetic mutation (not selective breeding). Do we know how this will pan out in a large emergent system? Personally, I do not think that we understand nature at this level. I'm not sure we actually require GE's, but am not against them per se. However, as an engineer this type of thing smacks majorly as one of those things that's going to come back and bite us on the ass!
And of course there are all the economic/whoring factors too, but I'll leave that for others to point out.
From the description of this particular situation I would have to say this is 90% a project management issue.
Are there no schedule with individual milestones? Keep in mind that the designer (not coder as any schlock can lay down code) should provide input on time lines (e.g. sure, that date is reasonable for that goal...etc.).
Projects also have to be monitored and have schedules updated to reflect reality and/or make necessary changes in work division.
Also, use a tiered design approach; ie. high to low level. This way yes, the requirements & application domain are spelled out, but each design documentation layer brings the next level of gritty details to light. So, in terms of S/W design, a high level design document for the overall architecture. This makes it clear as to how components are connected and related. Then go down to document the individual module designs. These highlight the intent of how a module will perform it's function. With this in hand coding almost becomes trivial.
Now a documentation trick that I picked up from a great mentor in DSP was to use different levels of pseudo code in module design documentation. High level stuff that is to be implemented in high level languages and is not too harry (ie. not some convoluted DSP algorithm) can use a very general level of detail in the pseudo code. E.g. Enable echo canceller AND run state machine Y. However, if one is documenting something to be implemented in assembly (particulary harry DSP algorithms) then use a detailed level of pseudo code that is equivalent to say C or some other high level language. The idea is that the intent of the implementation becomes easier to verify prior to ever writing a line of code. Overall, this also means that people have thought out how things will work in great detail and this has been reviewed; ie. at the design documentation level. This also simplifies & improves the effectiveness of code reviews since the design intent is well documented.
Which reminds me: code comments should describe the _intent_ of the code and not what the code actually does.
As for bad code, that is what code reviews are for. Now bad code in DSP can be very nasty, particularly in assembly as one incorrect shift can cause huge problems and be very difficult to find.
BTW, I'd recommend simulating the code after a code review and it's fixes, to help ensure code sanity.
I've also seen enough DSP and other "interesting" domain code from people with Masters and even PhD's that is pathetic as far as good code is concerned. I have also worked with brilliant people with this kind of background that seriously put us mere mortals to shame.
If your designers are really that poor at coding and you do have the skills then I would suggest a frequent level of mentoring. A positive atmosphere and some mentoring can go a long distance in terms of improving a designer's abilities.
Anyhow, good luck!
there really is a crack problem in the states!