Yes I have. And if you step on the breaks in the snow it won't save you if you're in a curve. Yes, I do a good part of my driving in snow and I have ABS. Same thing as 4x4, if you go too fast you go off the road just the same. A tiny car is actually much easier to regain control of than a heavy SUV.
> Do you think - just maybe - that Honda may have actually TESTED their system?
Like they tested the first airbags that killed or disfigured a lot of people ?!? Hah !
> This sounds like it may save your life if you fall asleep at the wheel or are otherwise distracted.
I don't really see the correlation between falling asleep and having a radar on board. If I drive off a cliff, I can just imagine waking up to the 'beep!'of the radar: "you are going to hit something". Hmmm, yes, looks like it's the ground.
But this raises an interesting point. Why aren't there any security device that make sure that you don't fall asleep ?!? That seems a lot easier to design and that's what really terrifies me on those long drive back home on empty highways at 2am after a WE of exhauting climbing.
A system the watches your eyelids, your pupil motion, your overall body motion, you body temperature, heart rate, melanin level, reflex speed, anything that can indicate sleep. And then beeps, changes the radio channel, fglashes lights, changes the temperature, brew you a cup of capuccino, have your mother in law call you on the cell phone, anything to keep you awake...
Now I write radar software and I really don't have a clue how such a system can work reliably. A non-moving car 100m ahead ? That happens every time there's a parked car in a curb. Car radars are not like aircraft radars. The latter only has to see something ('anything') in the middle of a big mass of air. Nothing else around. A car radar would have to sort out lots of echos at various doppler: the ground is coming towards you (when it's far ahead), other cars going the same direction (slower in the right lane, faster in the left lane), cars coming the other way, parked cars, things hanging overhead (bridge, street lights. advertisement...)
Just imagine driving on a mountain road and out of a right curb comes a car driving the other way. The radar sees it right in front of you, coming your way. How does it react ? I'd hate to see it break suddenly, particularly if the road is wet or snowy.
Anyone remember the beta version of Outlook Express 5.0 ? There was a very good spam filter in it. I don't know if it was Bayesian or what, but it assigned weights to keywords and other properties of the message and would give a % probability of it being spam. You'd just have to set an threshold for elimination.
I used it for the duration of the beta, but then MS got sued by a 'email postcard company' because their junk got stamped as Spam. They removed it completely from the final, which I thought was really sad and set everyone back 4 years with respect to spam.
While testing equipment destined to go to Antarctica, a big tank (~100 liters) of liquid nitrogen blew up right above me (the necessary exhaust must have clogged). Everybody else in the room ran for their life but I was behind lots of wires and heavy equipment, trapped in a cloud of opaque white fumes. The liquid poured on my head, through my clothing... Weird sensation but not bad.
Then things got weird when small explosions, like firecrackers, started all over the ground: the tiles were breaking due to the cold. Fortunately I was wearing security shoes and could feel my feet okay, even though I couldn't see shit. After about a minute of standing still the cloud dissipated and the cow-workers looked cautiously through the door to see if I was still alive... Hey, thanks, guys !
> because software is one of the only things that could and should be theoretically perfect
Well, the way I see it, if you change a single bit in most programs, it will crash.
If you change a few grams of matter in whatever device (engine, wheel...) chances are it will still perform somewhat close to expectations. And you will get some warning as to what's about to go wrong (smoke, heating, sparks, vibrations, flat tire...)
Until genetic algorithms can come up with an underlying assembly language that's highly fault tolerant into which to compile your Ada or whatever safe high level language you wanna use, your systems will be the target of stray particles and other hardware glitches. Not to count human produced bugs of course.
A skill is useful only if it is used. Speaking latin is useless but can still be enjoyed by whoever wants to learn it. Chinese kids learn to do caligraphy with a brush but I doubt it does them much good in real life.
I've been using computers since I was 9 (and I'm now 34) and I can't write with a pen to save my life. The only time that it is a problem is in my country of origin where cover letters to any company must be handwritten otherwise they won't even consider you. Even for computer jobs. Guess why I work in the US ? (okay, it's not the only reason, they are always on strike, that's why)
Re:Clusters are a bit overhyped
on
ClusterKnoppix
·
· Score: 1
[...] you need your software to be cluster-aware
This is true for Beowulf clusters where you need to use libraries like PVM or MPI, but not so with OpenMosix, which is what makes it so interesting and simple to use. It makes your cluster act like one giant SMP machine. If you start many jobs they migrate to whatever node is not busy and distributes the load. Not all software can migrate but most can.
I just setup a 24 CPU OpenMosix cluster, and besides the fact that the UPS melted when my boss first turned it on yesterday, it works great...;-)
Some of my notes are online and I'm working on adding more.
What they needed to do was get snakes to kill the rats, and then get some monkeys to kill the snakes.
Well, don't laugh, but it's been done before... Rats and mice were introduced (from boats) on Kerguelen, a large island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. When it was discovered that they ate the birds, eggs and chicks of many species, you know what those geniuses did ? Introduce cats !
Cats that soon figured out it was easier to eat birds that nest on the ground and have to fighting habits than rats that hide underground...
Results: many birds are now extinct, cats and mice are everywhere: they litterally crawl over you, researchers in the only station have shooting contests with BB guns numbering in the thousands per hour, cats have reverted to a rogue state and taken possession of the island...
A lot of effort has been put into exterminating rats and cats from a tiny island no bigger than a football field, but it took years. Years! And plenty of $$$.
...have been paying a lot of money to get the same thing done above their lands for many years now. But no one has been able to statistically prove that it indeed changes something.
Existing projection-reflected-from-windshield systems use lenses to project the image focussed at infinity
Hmmm... Do you know if any computer monitor has this focusing ability ? I'm far sighted and even with glasses I like my monitor as far away from my nose as possible. If it's a big CRT, I need 2 desks. With a flatscreen it can be right against the wall, but I'd feel better with a screen at infinity...
I'm slightly disapointed by this trick. It's just like the faucet hanging up in the air with water flowing out of it... The transparent plastic tube inside the flow actually carries the water up. Nothing new here.
A more geeky, and more satisfying, way to do it could use magnetohydrodynamics. With an appropriate association of electric current and magnetic field running through the water, you can force it to flow in the direction you like, even uphill. I don't know what kind of angle you could get out of it, nor how much flow, but I'd think it'd work for the 'slow relaxing garden waterfall'.
Anyone with a better memory of that physics field than me cares to comment ?
What about mailing lists ? I use this method of creating a new email for every time you need one to give away, but mailing lists reject your messages if you do not post with the email you subscribed with. And they often have web archive, making youre real email very visible...
I'm fairly knowledgeable in computer architecture and PC hardware, but the one thing where I've always been lacking are memories.
Could someone please post a link to a page with good overview of what PC2100/PC2700/... are, SDRAM/DDRAM/... On what kind of motherboards they should go ? What bus ? With which processors, etc...?
And also what all the little tweaks in the BIOS are (latency, ECC, scrubbing...) I tried searching google, but it's always vendors' hype.
May I suggest something more than this ? If you have static IPs and you are running linux, why not install OpenMosix ? It's a cluster patch to the kernel, very easy to install and use. Not only does it turn your pile of hardware into one giant SMP system, it also comes with a special filesystem on top of ext3, so that you can see all drives from all nodes. I have it running on 24 processors, but I don't know how well it would perform through the Internet.
Many earlier posts have pointed out that there are already several ways to do that, without adding an extra layer. One way which works well on an Intranet is to do a cluster of worstations (COW) running Linux+OpenMosix.
I do software and sysadmin for scientists. Those with simulation or data analysis needs usually work either:
connecting remotely to a main computer (say SGI in many cases) to run their jobs, at a high price for hardware and support and at the risk of saturating the machine when everyone wants in;
or, with the more recent increase in computer power in PCs, running directly on their own PCs.
In both cases the PCs are underutilized most of the time. OpenMosix is a patch to the Linux Kernel allowing you to transform your workstations into a cluster. No software modification is necessary. OpenMosix balances the load automagically. No more expensive mainframe. No more powerful but underutilized PCs.
OpenMosix has been featured on/. before: here, here, here, and here
I'm surprised that no one posted the imdb link yet. And as someone stated, the voices did sound familiar, both in french and english: Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston...
A bit off-topic, but here goes: I seem to have a hard time to find proper 'extended ATX' cases.
I got some Lavita ATX cases which were advertised as Extended ATX, but I had to cut a hefty 10cm corner off the 5.25 bay to make the motherboard fit (it's okay, it's for a cluster).
On second attempt I got a Antec PlusView but the beast is huge !
Question: what are the smallest/lighest Extended ATX cases around ?
Great, how do we do that...? Seems like a good idea, and I'd love to test many of the antispam ideas I see floating on slashdot and usenet, but the problem is that translating them into sendmail config files is incredibly complex; at least to me: I spend one hour in 'man sendmail' and then give up. Yes, I admin a bunch of small machines but sendmail is a nightmare that I touch only in the most dire circumstances.
If there was either a bunch of well documented sample config scripts for sendmail or a sendmail replacement with a much easier config method, I'd love to hear about it...
Could someone please post a link or a explaination of the various practical differences between a, b, g, n... I know someone posted something about the various task groups, but it is very theorical. I want to know things like average trhoughput, distance, built-in security...
What should an average joe like me who wants to have his laptop access files and the 'net onto the main home 'puter should choose ? Is it the same thing that for going on a road trip and hoping to find access points ?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes I have. And if you step on the breaks in the snow it won't save you if you're in a curve. Yes, I do a good part of my driving in snow and I have ABS. Same thing as 4x4, if you go too fast you go off the road just the same. A tiny car is actually much easier to regain control of than a heavy SUV.
> Do you think - just maybe - that Honda may have actually TESTED their system?
Like they tested the first airbags that killed or disfigured a lot of people ?!? Hah !
> This sounds like it may save your life if you fall asleep at the wheel or are otherwise distracted.
I don't really see the correlation between falling asleep and having a radar on board. If I drive off a cliff, I can just imagine waking up to the 'beep!'of the radar: "you are going to hit something". Hmmm, yes, looks like it's the ground.
But this raises an interesting point. Why aren't there any security device that make sure that you don't fall asleep ?!? That seems a lot easier to design and that's what really terrifies me on those long drive back home on empty highways at 2am after a WE of exhauting climbing.
A system the watches your eyelids, your pupil motion, your overall body motion, you body temperature, heart rate, melanin level, reflex speed, anything that can indicate sleep. And then beeps, changes the radio channel, fglashes lights, changes the temperature, brew you a cup of capuccino, have your mother in law call you on the cell phone, anything to keep you awake...
Just imagine driving on a mountain road and out of a right curb comes a car driving the other way. The radar sees it right in front of you, coming your way. How does it react ? I'd hate to see it break suddenly, particularly if the road is wet or snowy.
I used it for the duration of the beta, but then MS got sued by a 'email postcard company' because their junk got stamped as Spam. They removed it completely from the final, which I thought was really sad and set everyone back 4 years with respect to spam.
Didn't work for me though... Or if it did, I must have been pretty dumb and weak before !
While testing equipment destined to go to Antarctica, a big tank (~100 liters) of liquid nitrogen blew up right above me (the necessary exhaust must have clogged). Everybody else in the room ran for their life but I was behind lots of wires and heavy equipment, trapped in a cloud of opaque white fumes. The liquid poured on my head, through my clothing... Weird sensation but not bad.
Then things got weird when small explosions, like firecrackers, started all over the ground: the tiles were breaking due to the cold. Fortunately I was wearing security shoes and could feel my feet okay, even though I couldn't see shit. After about a minute of standing still the cloud dissipated and the cow-workers looked cautiously through the door to see if I was still alive... Hey, thanks, guys !
While researching cluster software for my current project, I read some whitepapers showing the differences between Plan 9, Beowulf, Mosix and others. I recommend that read.
...for my personal penguin page. Yes, I did coding and hardware butchering down in Antarctica for about 2 years.
Well, the way I see it, if you change a single bit in most programs, it will crash.
If you change a few grams of matter in whatever device (engine, wheel...) chances are it will still perform somewhat close to expectations. And you will get some warning as to what's about to go wrong (smoke, heating, sparks, vibrations, flat tire...)
Until genetic algorithms can come up with an underlying assembly language that's highly fault tolerant into which to compile your Ada or whatever safe high level language you wanna use, your systems will be the target of stray particles and other hardware glitches. Not to count human produced bugs of course.
Yes, I'm a software engineer, why ?!?
I've been using computers since I was 9 (and I'm now 34) and I can't write with a pen to save my life. The only time that it is a problem is in my country of origin where cover letters to any company must be handwritten otherwise they won't even consider you. Even for computer jobs. Guess why I work in the US ? (okay, it's not the only reason, they are always on strike, that's why)
This is true for Beowulf clusters where you need to use libraries like PVM or MPI, but not so with OpenMosix, which is what makes it so interesting and simple to use. It makes your cluster act like one giant SMP machine. If you start many jobs they migrate to whatever node is not busy and distributes the load. Not all software can migrate but most can.
I just setup a 24 CPU OpenMosix cluster, and besides the fact that the UPS melted when my boss first turned it on yesterday, it works great... ;-)
Some of my notes are online and I'm working on adding more.
Well, don't laugh, but it's been done before... Rats and mice were introduced (from boats) on Kerguelen, a large island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. When it was discovered that they ate the birds, eggs and chicks of many species, you know what those geniuses did ? Introduce cats !
Cats that soon figured out it was easier to eat birds that nest on the ground and have to fighting habits than rats that hide underground...
Results: many birds are now extinct, cats and mice are everywhere: they litterally crawl over you, researchers in the only station have shooting contests with BB guns numbering in the thousands per hour, cats have reverted to a rogue state and taken possession of the island...
A lot of effort has been put into exterminating rats and cats from a tiny island no bigger than a football field, but it took years. Years! And plenty of $$$.
Yes, I work in atmospheric research.
Hmmm... Do you know if any computer monitor has this focusing ability ? I'm far sighted and even with glasses I like my monitor as far away from my nose as possible. If it's a big CRT, I need 2 desks. With a flatscreen it can be right against the wall, but I'd feel better with a screen at infinity...
Any such device ?
A more geeky, and more satisfying, way to do it could use magnetohydrodynamics. With an appropriate association of electric current and magnetic field running through the water, you can force it to flow in the direction you like, even uphill. I don't know what kind of angle you could get out of it, nor how much flow, but I'd think it'd work for the 'slow relaxing garden waterfall'.
Anyone with a better memory of that physics field than me cares to comment ?
What about mailing lists ? I use this method of creating a new email for every time you need one to give away, but mailing lists reject your messages if you do not post with the email you subscribed with. And they often have web archive, making youre real email very visible...
Could someone please post a link to a page with good overview of what PC2100/PC2700/... are, SDRAM/DDRAM/... On what kind of motherboards they should go ? What bus ? With which processors, etc...?
And also what all the little tweaks in the BIOS are (latency, ECC, scrubbing...) I tried searching google, but it's always vendors' hype.
It's been featured on slashdot before.
I do software and sysadmin for scientists. Those with simulation or data analysis needs usually work either:
- connecting remotely to a main computer (say SGI in many cases) to run their jobs, at a high price for hardware and support and at the risk of saturating the machine when everyone wants in;
- or, with the more recent increase in computer power in PCs, running directly on their own PCs.
In both cases the PCs are underutilized most of the time. OpenMosix is a patch to the Linux Kernel allowing you to transform your workstations into a cluster. No software modification is necessary. OpenMosix balances the load automagically. No more expensive mainframe. No more powerful but underutilized PCs.OpenMosix has been featured on /. before: here, here, here, and here
I'm surprised that no one posted the imdb link yet. And as someone stated, the voices did sound familiar, both in french and english: Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston...
THis is a shameless plug, but still on topic: I have 23 AMD heatsinks + fans for sale, without the processors. Anyone interested contact me...
I got some Lavita ATX cases which were advertised as Extended ATX, but I had to cut a hefty 10cm corner off the 5.25 bay to make the motherboard fit (it's okay, it's for a cluster).
On second attempt I got a Antec PlusView but the beast is huge !
Question: what are the smallest/lighest Extended ATX cases around ?
If there was either a bunch of well documented sample config scripts for sendmail or a sendmail replacement with a much easier config method, I'd love to hear about it...
Or like my grandfather once told me: "In Auschwitz, nobody was fat except the gards."
What should an average joe like me who wants to have his laptop access files and the 'net onto the main home 'puter should choose ? Is it the same thing that for going on a road trip and hoping to find access points ?
And today's contain 5 patches.
So please gimme a break with weekly MS updates. At least those are easy and quick to install.