The higher the mass production, the cheaper the beer (or anything else for that matter). And how is cheapness relevant to quality ? I'd say the GP has a good point: what kind of beer did they compare ? Is it the cheapest piss available or some kind of 'agreed to level of quality', whatever that means ? The poor alcoholics get drunk on washer fluid too, so should we compare that ?!? I'd say YOU shut up.
In WWII all the German beer brewers were run out of business in the US, after which locals had to pick up the slack and essentially start from scratch, so all the skill and knowledge was lost.
Funny, I never heard this excuse as to why the beer sucked so bad in the US. So after which war did you run the french restaurants out of business to explain why the food is so bad in the US ? Yeah, flamebait, but having live 6 years in the US I still stand by it. But you now have great microbrews nowadays.
And back to the topic at hand, how many hours of stoning does it take to have a pint in Saudi Arabia ?
BTW, the cheapest brew is in my home: I brew my own. It's cheap and fun and good (small print: apart from the occasional screw up or too 'experimental' recipe).
Just look at how it works in all other western countries. Not that complicated really. And with the amount of money you save by not needing people paid to deny claims, you can provide better care. Yup that sentence is true.
How does a person get into this area without dropping their job, moving to the other side of the country to the only University that has a good Nuclear Physics program and spending forever getting a PhD and kicking off a research project on my idea?
Well, there are 3 domains: military, industrial and research. For the first two, yes, you need to have worked into the right university and then entered the right industry. I doubt there are side entrances but I don't know much about them. As for research, where I work, I got in after 15 years of working in atmospheric science. I'm just an engineer that builds acquisition systems, so there's not much of a difference to me. There are a lot of people that come and go at the lab but they are either associate researchers from other institutions coming for a time, or students at varying levels. In your case the only way I can think of would be like mine: get in via a technician / engineer recruitment, and then show that you have ideas and try to get a project off the ground with the help of interested researchers.
This is really neat. So is the current control software in Mol using your code?
Yes.
Will MYRRHA use the same code base or does it require a complete re-write?
Myrrha is only a concept so far: no development yet. It will most likely be a complete rewrite looking as to how far the code has diverged from the original specs.
Are you using a real-time kernel?
No. Everything that needs to be real-time is done on FPGAs and then transmitted to the kernel and user app via GPIOs.
What kind of quality control are you using to ensure the software performs exactly as designed?
Basically years of testing. Anyway, since it is a subcritical reactor, the security requirements are much less stringent. Some purely security stuff (read: not the control/command and or acquisition), is handled by other systems which have no interaction with mine. And as for the original 'design', well, it is research, meaning that specs start from a white sheet and build from there as we add pieces to the machine.
Are you using a functional programming paradigm?
All in C.
Are the reactors computer systems networked to the outside world? If so what kind of security measures do you have in place to safeguard access?
They are indirectly accessible (2 sets of firewalls). Like I said it is a research system with much less stringent security requirements, and quite a few researchers work on it and need remote access.
Is your software a critical component of the control feedback loop e,g. reduces beam intensity based on the measured neutron flux? If so what kind of redundancy is build into the system?
One set of software runs on the cards themselves: a minimalist BuildRoot install with a basic software that does as few things as possible (transferring acquired data to the network, reacting to commands from the Control/Command, sanity checks, basic security, going into security mode in case contact is lost,...). One or more linux PCs run the C/C software and communicate with those cards and tell them what to do. If this soft crashes, nothing actually happens, the system keeps running for a while. You can actually shut down one PC and start another and everything keeps running like nothing happened.
But all the 'real' security is done in hardware: thermal shutdowns, beam intensity shutdowns, etc... It's actually difficult to turn the system on: everything has to be just right and there are plenty of little things that do stop the process.
I'm the guy who write the software for the reactor (and the accelerator) of TFA. And yes, it run Linux, on embedded Xilinx cards with custom FPGAs. I can't vouch for the ability of the system to transmute long-life waste in a semi-industrial way as it's only a research reactor, not even a demonstrator. But it's the 3rd prototype of its kind and it's working well enough. More information is available here in french, and, as a long time/. member, if you have questions about the control/command software, I'll be happy to answer when I wake up in the morning ! Yeah, the name of the experiment is somewhat confusing: Genepi/Guinevere/3C/Venus/Ganddalf. One is the accelerator, one is the reactor, one is the data acquisition, one is the combined experiment... I get lost too.
However, the apartment complex I live in has no charging facilities in its car-park, so even though I own a parking space there
Well, in Alaska, every parking spot has a power cable to plug into your car to keep it warm (resistor around the engine block or something). If they can do it, I guess others can too. And it keeps you motivated to pay the parking meter otherwise your car won't start at -50!
I thought about something similar a long time ago: in a company the highest salary (+bonuses+shares) cannot be over X times the lowest salary, X being a number best determined by economic models or trial and errors. And recently I have been surprised to hear politicians begin to use this or similar ideas. I recently heard Mélenchon, head of the french Front de Gauche which has 20% support, suggest this very idea, with X=5.
In a similar vein, if you redistribute the wealth in the US so that X=5 for the whole country, you get a lowest 'salary' (even for the unemployed or the retirees) of 50000$/year. Bill Gates would still get 250k$. I guess your political spectrum shows immediately upon deciding what to do with this method. Either "It's crazy, leeches would get almost as much as me and Bill Gates would have no incentive to work anymore", or "that would build an even and peaceful society at once".
It seems that there are a lot of old, verified, almost showstopper bugs that just get ignored.It seems that there are a lot of old, verified, almost showstopper bugs that just get ignored.
Well, sometimes it takes a while. For the last few years Firefox in Ubuntu would grow in memory and then challenge the machine to a marathon in molasses. With 3 windows of 30 tabs and quite a bit of Web 2.0 browsing, it would start after only a few hours of use with 8 gigs of RAM. A few weeks ago they implemented a new memory retrieval process for plugins. Now it works like a charm. Took a few years though.
Anywhere you stand in an airport you hear a repeated announcement every two minutes. Basically an authoritative voice telling you [...]
When I saw Strange Days in 1995, with its constant authoritative announcements in the background, I thought it was bad science fiction. Then it happened.
You are forgetting one 'use case' scenario: virtual machines. I've long converted to Linux all work and family computers, but there are a few tasks that can only be performed in Windows. A virtual machine works fine for that and I'm not going to waste time and money (and CPU cycles) on the latest version for that.
Yeah, I once read the introduction to a "sport encyclopedia" where the author gave a long winded definition of what a sport is (mostly based on 'team' and 'opponent'). He concluded by saying that according to his definition, chess playing is a sport and mountain climbing isn't. As a mountain climber I had a big 'fuck you' for him: a sport is simply an activity that makes you sweat. A lot. And it's not because chess player stink under the arms that they fit _my_ definition.
Anchor them so that they are above the ocean or a big lake or a permafrost area or a tundra forest or a desert. Here. Risk minimized to acceptable level.
In Vernor Vinge "A fire upon the Deep", humans are marooned in orbit around a low-tech civilization and do what they can to bootstrap a starfaring civilization there. As soon as the first computers are invented, they start sending pseudonymous messages and create and contribute to software projects to speed things up, acting like they are 'groups of students' (like Bourbaki) or anonymous contributors... How would we even know if half the contributors to Linux didn't even exist in real life ? Come to think of it, many of the project leaders are indistinguishable from aliens. RMS anyone ?
I've been wondering why they didn't do that DECADES ago. Having used hard drives at 4000m altitude and seeing them fail after a month or so. What's so hard to sealing a small box ? If not helium, use nitrogen or even air at standard pressure so that they can be serviced by anyone. Not that anyone still services hard drives anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
The higher the mass production, the cheaper the beer (or anything else for that matter). And how is cheapness relevant to quality ? I'd say the GP has a good point: what kind of beer did they compare ? Is it the cheapest piss available or some kind of 'agreed to level of quality', whatever that means ? The poor alcoholics get drunk on washer fluid too, so should we compare that ?!? I'd say YOU shut up.
In WWII all the German beer brewers were run out of business in the US, after which locals had to pick up the slack and essentially start from scratch, so all the skill and knowledge was lost.
Funny, I never heard this excuse as to why the beer sucked so bad in the US. So after which war did you run the french restaurants out of business to explain why the food is so bad in the US ? Yeah, flamebait, but having live 6 years in the US I still stand by it. But you now have great microbrews nowadays.
And back to the topic at hand, how many hours of stoning does it take to have a pint in Saudi Arabia ?
BTW, the cheapest brew is in my home: I brew my own. It's cheap and fun and good (small print: apart from the occasional screw up or too 'experimental' recipe).
-- Roman law maxim
Who's going to pay for it?
Just look at how it works in all other western countries. Not that complicated really. And with the amount of money you save by not needing people paid to deny claims, you can provide better care. Yup that sentence is true.
Thank you very much! Very interesting stuff.
Two follow up questions:
How many coders have been working on the software?
What kind of version control system do you use?
The bus factor is 1 for the software and 2 for the hardware. A lot more people work on the mechanics and obviously on the research. I use SVN.
(BTW your site www.gdargaud.net rocks!)
Haven't updated it much recently. It's a lot less photogenic to do nuclear software than polar software...
How does a person get into this area without dropping their job, moving to the other side of the country to the only University that has a good Nuclear Physics program and spending forever getting a PhD and kicking off a research project on my idea?
Well, there are 3 domains: military, industrial and research. For the first two, yes, you need to have worked into the right university and then entered the right industry. I doubt there are side entrances but I don't know much about them. As for research, where I work, I got in after 15 years of working in atmospheric science. I'm just an engineer that builds acquisition systems, so there's not much of a difference to me. There are a lot of people that come and go at the lab but they are either associate researchers from other institutions coming for a time, or students at varying levels. In your case the only way I can think of would be like mine: get in via a technician / engineer recruitment, and then show that you have ideas and try to get a project off the ground with the help of interested researchers.
This is really neat. So is the current control software in Mol using your code?
Yes.
Will MYRRHA use the same code base or does it require a complete re-write?
Myrrha is only a concept so far: no development yet. It will most likely be a complete rewrite looking as to how far the code has diverged from the original specs.
Are you using a real-time kernel?
No. Everything that needs to be real-time is done on FPGAs and then transmitted to the kernel and user app via GPIOs.
What kind of quality control are you using to ensure the software performs exactly as designed?
Basically years of testing. Anyway, since it is a subcritical reactor, the security requirements are much less stringent. Some purely security stuff (read: not the control/command and or acquisition), is handled by other systems which have no interaction with mine. And as for the original 'design', well, it is research, meaning that specs start from a white sheet and build from there as we add pieces to the machine.
Are you using a functional programming paradigm?
All in C.
Are the reactors computer systems networked to the outside world? If so what kind of security measures do you have in place to safeguard access?
They are indirectly accessible (2 sets of firewalls). Like I said it is a research system with much less stringent security requirements, and quite a few researchers work on it and need remote access.
Is your software a critical component of the control feedback loop e,g. reduces beam intensity based on the measured neutron flux? If so what kind of redundancy is build into the system?
One set of software runs on the cards themselves: a minimalist BuildRoot install with a basic software that does as few things as possible (transferring acquired data to the network, reacting to commands from the Control/Command, sanity checks, basic security, going into security mode in case contact is lost, ...). One or more linux PCs run the C/C software and communicate with those cards and tell them what to do. If this soft crashes, nothing actually happens, the system keeps running for a while. You can actually shut down one PC and start another and everything keeps running like nothing happened.
But all the 'real' security is done in hardware: thermal shutdowns, beam intensity shutdowns, etc... It's actually difficult to turn the system on: everything has to be just right and there are plenty of little things that do stop the process.
I'm the guy who write the software for the reactor (and the accelerator) of TFA. And yes, it run Linux, on embedded Xilinx cards with custom FPGAs. I can't vouch for the ability of the system to transmute long-life waste in a semi-industrial way as it's only a research reactor, not even a demonstrator. But it's the 3rd prototype of its kind and it's working well enough. More information is available here in french, and, as a long time /. member, if you have questions about the control/command software, I'll be happy to answer when I wake up in the morning ! Yeah, the name of the experiment is somewhat confusing: Genepi/Guinevere/3C/Venus/Ganddalf. One is the accelerator, one is the reactor, one is the data acquisition, one is the combined experiment... I get lost too.
However, the apartment complex I live in has no charging facilities in its car-park, so even though I own a parking space there
Well, in Alaska, every parking spot has a power cable to plug into your car to keep it warm (resistor around the engine block or something). If they can do it, I guess others can too. And it keeps you motivated to pay the parking meter otherwise your car won't start at -50!
"Let the gods avenge themselves." — Roman law maxim on blasphemy.
In a similar vein, if you redistribute the wealth in the US so that X=5 for the whole country, you get a lowest 'salary' (even for the unemployed or the retirees) of 50000$/year. Bill Gates would still get 250k$. I guess your political spectrum shows immediately upon deciding what to do with this method. Either "It's crazy, leeches would get almost as much as me and Bill Gates would have no incentive to work anymore", or "that would build an even and peaceful society at once".
applaud them taking steps in the right direction
And as usual Linus was right. Just like RMS. I hope they name some constellations after those guys once they are gone like at the time of the greeks.
It seems that there are a lot of old, verified, almost showstopper bugs that just get ignored.It seems that there are a lot of old, verified, almost showstopper bugs that just get ignored.
Well, sometimes it takes a while. For the last few years Firefox in Ubuntu would grow in memory and then challenge the machine to a marathon in molasses. With 3 windows of 30 tabs and quite a bit of Web 2.0 browsing, it would start after only a few hours of use with 8 gigs of RAM. A few weeks ago they implemented a new memory retrieval process for plugins. Now it works like a charm. Took a few years though.
Anywhere you stand in an airport you hear a repeated announcement every two minutes. Basically an authoritative voice telling you [...]
When I saw Strange Days in 1995, with its constant authoritative announcements in the background, I thought it was bad science fiction. Then it happened.
"Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat." — Alex Levine.
You're welcome
Well, from that list I gather that the french are the only ones who like varied tastes on their food...
You are forgetting one 'use case' scenario: virtual machines. I've long converted to Linux all work and family computers, but there are a few tasks that can only be performed in Windows. A virtual machine works fine for that and I'm not going to waste time and money (and CPU cycles) on the latest version for that.
The NRA is a charity ?!? Mind blown.
Well, for a decade, everything was compared to the original IBM PC XT.
Yeah, I once read the introduction to a "sport encyclopedia" where the author gave a long winded definition of what a sport is (mostly based on 'team' and 'opponent'). He concluded by saying that according to his definition, chess playing is a sport and mountain climbing isn't. As a mountain climber I had a big 'fuck you' for him: a sport is simply an activity that makes you sweat. A lot. And it's not because chess player stink under the arms that they fit _my_ definition.
Hunting permits on the stupid. Now that's an idea... They should make a book about it. Call it the hunter games. Or something like that.
Anchor them so that they are above the ocean or a big lake or a permafrost area or a tundra forest or a desert. Here. Risk minimized to acceptable level.
In Vernor Vinge "A fire upon the Deep", humans are marooned in orbit around a low-tech civilization and do what they can to bootstrap a starfaring civilization there. As soon as the first computers are invented, they start sending pseudonymous messages and create and contribute to software projects to speed things up, acting like they are 'groups of students' (like Bourbaki) or anonymous contributors... How would we even know if half the contributors to Linux didn't even exist in real life ? Come to think of it, many of the project leaders are indistinguishable from aliens. RMS anyone ?
Wireless signals travel extremely well over water. Getting a signal 6 miles out is not too surprising.
Well, good thing for her.
I've been wondering why they didn't do that DECADES ago. Having used hard drives at 4000m altitude and seeing them fail after a month or so. What's so hard to sealing a small box ? If not helium, use nitrogen or even air at standard pressure so that they can be serviced by anyone. Not that anyone still services hard drives anyway.