In your costs, don't forget to factor in a big pile of dollars to defend your patent in court, the stress it will cause you and the risk that your patent may be designed around or declared invalid after you have gone through all this.
Engineer-in-a-box wil lack the following functions:
Verifying models against the real world.
Understanding results so you know when the results are wrong
Investigating 'quirks', missing from the model, which lead to the real break throughs
'Real' engineers will always get jobs (or just become scientists) as simulations don't push the boundaries. 'Dumb' engineers who just push buttons and don't think about results will become extinct.
DVD and CSS are not the same thing. It is possible the have an unencrypted or non-CSS DVD.
The way to do it would be to write a DVD player with a custom (unrelated to CSS), possibly null, encryption module. This player would not be able to play 'MPAA DVDs'. Authors would be encouraged to cut companies related to the MPAA out of the loop and distribute their work in unencrypted form.
If a user choses to replace the non-CSS module with a CSS module, that is their business and the authors of the (non-CSS) DVD player should have nothing to do with it.
The short answer to your question is 'I wouldn't have a clue'!
I wonder if they are using some sort of a squeezed state? In a squeezed state, it is possible to temporarily 'violate' the uncertainty principle. The light is modified so there are periods of low uncertainty alternating with periods of high uncertainty. For short periods one can measure beyond limits predicted by the uncertainty principle, but the average uncertainty is still as predicted by the uncertainty principle.
Analogously they might be able to send some information faster at the cost of other information travelling slower, so the average signalling rate is still limited by the speed of light. Nothing to back this up, so it's only a wild theory.
I'm not sure how physically accurate this analogy is, but it gets the point across (I think)
Imagine a beam of light from a lighthouse shining on a wall. As the lighthouse turns, the spot of light sweeps across the wall with a certain speed. As you move the wall further away from the lighthouse, the speed of the beam across the wall will increase. At very large distances, the spot will be sweeping across the wall faster than the speed of light. Relativiity is not being violated here, as the beam of light is still travelling from the lighthouse to the wall at the speed of light. The motion of the spot is only an 'illusion' (no actual photons are travelling faster than light) as are effects due to group velocity.
What are your thoughts on merging GNUradio with octave (a Matlab like program)? After all, both can be viewed as programs to process number sequences (just that octave calls them matrices).
Could you please critique the following strategy?
Write drivers to dump matrices to a DAC or read matrices from an ADC.
Where necessary, put effort into improving the speed of octave to make it real time.
Extend octave to be multithreaded so streaming applications can be handled, such as reading from an ADC while processing data in real time.
The extended octave language would have features similar to a Hardware Description Language (concept of a process/module and integer/bit arithmetic). Do you think it would be possible an desirable to be able to transparently target designs to either software or hardware?
Such an arrangement might unify the 'free software' and 'free hardware' communities. Do you think this is a desirable objective?
I wonder if the sample rate could be increased by interleaved sampling?
To do this, one might scan the record multiple times at 600dpi. The information from the multiple images could be combined to interpolate the missing samples. Same priciple as 'interleave' mode on an oscilloscope. I guess it might also be necessary to deconvolute the image with the impulse response of the scanner.
For this to work, there would also have to be a way to 'review the reviewers'. Over time, perhaps a 'web of trust' would emerge where those who are competent in their field rise to the top, and their opinion carries more weight? I guess it could also go the other way, where competent people get dragged down into the quagmire.
Slashdot's 'metamoderation' is a step in this direction, though it is pretty crude.
It's unlikely the frequency response of the crappy speakers attached to most computers will extend to ultrasonic frequencies. Result: you can toggle bits in your sound card as fast as you want, but you will get no output from your speaker above a few kilohertz.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation flying about on this topic. Reed really is talking about a break through, not just about squeezing in more channels by adding repeaters or optimizing the gaps between frequency multiplexed channels.
Shannon's Law says that for a given signal to noise ratio, there is a maximum error free bit rate which can be supported. Recent advances have shown that Shannon's law applies on a per antenna basis. If your transmitter and receiver each have 'n' antennas, it is possible to transmit 'n' times the information which one tx/rx antenna pair can transmit. To my knowledge, there is no limit on how large 'n' can be. Researchers are currently trying to figure out if there is a limit.
Repeating myself in different words. It not only matters at what frequency you radiate (frequency diversity) and when you radiate (time diversity), it also matters where you radiate from (spatial diversity). Since available time and frequencies are limited, it was thought that spectrum was limited. Add space (of which there is lots) to the equation, as recent advances did, and the available spectrum becomes unlimited (though new boundaries may show up with more research).
This is not pie in the sky stuff. Space-Time coding techniques allow such capacities to be realised. Bell labs have already demonstrated a working system in the lab.
For the last two years, OpenCores has been designing a PC (among other things) from raw gates. The design is covered by a GNU license.
Blocks underway include a CPU (already running Linux), a video card, serial ports, ethernet, bluetooth, USB, wlan, PS/2 mouse interface and firewire. The rest of the modules are waiting for a developer to volunteer.
This design can be used, in conjunction with an FPGA, to build a working PC. With enough interest (and money), the same design files can be used to build custom chips.
While we are at it, shouldn't public travel on aeroplanes be banned as well? After all, if the public is not allowed on aeroplanes terrorists can't get on either. Of course, responsible users such as politicians should be allowed to fly.
I think it has much to do with the
web turning into a 'one way' medium.
Large entities own servers and publish
material. Most individuals are at the end
of a 56k link, or behind a firewall
run by their cable/ADSL provider. Result:
It is generally difficult to publish large files,
such as music,
on the Internet.
Perhaps one of the reasons
Napster took off was that it restored
the user as an information provider?
In place of a 'free label', it could be
more effective to shift the net back to
a model where users have high bandwidth
in BOTH directions (in the early web,
most users worked at universities/labs and had
high bandwidth in both directions).
I suspect symmetrical badwidth
will not happen until the
functions of ISP and server owner
are separated. Asymmetrical bandwidth
acts as a form of content control,
reducing competition to existing players.
I guess Columbus, certain members of the
Vikings and so on were placed in a similar
loony category by their peers. Is setting
off across an unknow sea in a small sailing
ship any different to blasting off into space
in a homemade rocket?
He'll probably kill himself in the attempt,
but good luck to him!
Slashdot Mirror
In your costs, don't forget to factor in a big pile of dollars to defend your patent in court, the stress it will cause you and the risk that your patent may be designed around or declared invalid after you have gone through all this.
'Real' engineers will always get jobs (or just become scientists) as simulations don't push the boundaries. 'Dumb' engineers who just push buttons and don't think about results will become extinct.
The way to do it would be to write a DVD player with a custom (unrelated to CSS), possibly null, encryption module. This player would not be able to play 'MPAA DVDs'. Authors would be encouraged to cut companies related to the MPAA out of the loop and distribute their work in unencrypted form.
If a user choses to replace the non-CSS module with a CSS module, that is their business and the authors of the (non-CSS) DVD player should have nothing to do with it.
Nah, your money is better spent on a beowulf cluster of 4004s.
The short answer to your question is 'I wouldn't have a clue'!
I wonder if they are using some sort of a squeezed state? In a squeezed state, it is possible to temporarily 'violate' the uncertainty principle. The light is modified so there are periods of low uncertainty alternating with periods of high uncertainty. For short periods one can measure beyond limits predicted by the uncertainty principle, but the average uncertainty is still as predicted by the uncertainty principle.
Analogously they might be able to send some information faster at the cost of other information travelling slower, so the average signalling rate is still limited by the speed of light. Nothing to back this up, so it's only a wild theory.
Imagine a beam of light from a lighthouse shining on a wall. As the lighthouse turns, the spot of light sweeps across the wall with a certain speed. As you move the wall further away from the lighthouse, the speed of the beam across the wall will increase. At very large distances, the spot will be sweeping across the wall faster than the speed of light. Relativiity is not being violated here, as the beam of light is still travelling from the lighthouse to the wall at the speed of light. The motion of the spot is only an 'illusion' (no actual photons are travelling faster than light) as are effects due to group velocity.
So is hitting the walkman with a hammer an offence under the DMCA...?
Could you please critique the following strategy?
The extended octave language would have features similar to a Hardware Description Language (concept of a process/module and integer/bit arithmetic). Do you think it would be possible an desirable to be able to transparently target designs to either software or hardware?
Such an arrangement might unify the 'free software' and 'free hardware' communities. Do you think this is a desirable objective?
To do this, one might scan the record multiple times at 600dpi. The information from the multiple images could be combined to interpolate the missing samples. Same priciple as 'interleave' mode on an oscilloscope. I guess it might also be necessary to deconvolute the image with the impulse response of the scanner.
Slashdot's 'metamoderation' is a step in this direction, though it is pretty crude.
Perhaps university ratings should include a rating of the university's academic independence, and a list of sponsors, as is done politicians?
Alternatively, there is the squares of newspaper hanging off the nail. Cheaper and you can refill it when it is half used!
It's unlikely the frequency response of the crappy speakers attached to most computers will extend to ultrasonic frequencies. Result: you can toggle bits in your sound card as fast as you want, but you will get no output from your speaker above a few kilohertz.
A worthy contender...
http://www.simputer.org/
Shannon's Law says that for a given signal to noise ratio, there is a maximum error free bit rate which can be supported. Recent advances have shown that Shannon's law applies on a per antenna basis. If your transmitter and receiver each have 'n' antennas, it is possible to transmit 'n' times the information which one tx/rx antenna pair can transmit. To my knowledge, there is no limit on how large 'n' can be. Researchers are currently trying to figure out if there is a limit.
Repeating myself in different words. It not only matters at what frequency you radiate (frequency diversity) and when you radiate (time diversity), it also matters where you radiate from (spatial diversity). Since available time and frequencies are limited, it was thought that spectrum was limited. Add space (of which there is lots) to the equation, as recent advances did, and the available spectrum becomes unlimited (though new boundaries may show up with more research).
This is not pie in the sky stuff. Space-Time coding techniques allow such capacities to be realised. Bell labs have already demonstrated a working system in the lab.
John
D.I.Y. isn't dead. It just moved to OpenCores, and other sites like it. Come along and give us a hand!
For the last two years, OpenCores has been designing a PC (among other things) from raw gates. The design is covered by a GNU license.
Blocks underway include a CPU (already running Linux), a video card, serial ports, ethernet, bluetooth, USB, wlan, PS/2 mouse interface and firewire. The rest of the modules are waiting for a developer to volunteer.
This design can be used, in conjunction with an FPGA, to build a working PC. With enough interest (and money), the same design files can be used to build custom chips.
New developers are welcome.
Also checkout gEDA and opencores' mailing lists, as such projects have been mentioned there in the past.
While we are at it, shouldn't public travel on aeroplanes be banned as well? After all, if the public is not allowed on aeroplanes terrorists can't get on either. Of course, responsible users such as politicians should be allowed to fly.
Perhaps one of the reasons Napster took off was that it restored the user as an information provider?
In place of a 'free label', it could be more effective to shift the net back to a model where users have high bandwidth in BOTH directions (in the early web, most users worked at universities/labs and had high bandwidth in both directions).
I suspect symmetrical badwidth will not happen until the functions of ISP and server owner are separated. Asymmetrical bandwidth acts as a form of content control, reducing competition to existing players.
He'll probably kill himself in the attempt, but good luck to him!