And what I think is funny is that Verizon and Sprint offer better quality devices with more capabilities, on faster networks, on larger networks, that they can't brick at their discretion for less money than an iPhone.
It appears to be a few FPGAs. With FPGAs, you can optimize the logic to represent algorithms for faster execution that on general purpose processors. Simply, you use more of the gates available on the chip. That appears to be what these guys are doing. It also appears that there is a single memory controller (I think that is what the QuickLogic chip is) and there is only one DRAM module installed on the board. It would be interesting if the board had a unified memory architecture. There is a separate Xilinx Spartan FPGA on the board that does who-knows-what, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was involved in communication with the processing chips. Of course, this is speculation, but it would seem logical for a board layout.
Please tell me the first production system will be named "Enterprise." There have to be enough people that will work on it that will be proponents of this.
The 787 isn't exactly a redesign, it is a completely new aircraft, designed from the ground up. As a composite aircraft, the same design and manufacturing principles are not the same as an aluminum aircraft.
No, a loyalty plan isn't the same as these AT&T plans. Does AT&T have plans like this for current customers who want an iPhone? The guy I work with who is getting an iPhone doesn't seem to think there are, but I'd hardly consider him an authority on the subject. The bottom line is that it doesn't appear that AT&T and Apple have any qualms screwing the fanboys and early adopters for a product that has been kept so secret that nobody even knows how well it works.
I don't think any wireless company is ethical in the US, but AT&T is certainly well known to be abusive and unethical, and people are going to flock to them anyway. People have questioned the value of Apple hardware relative to its cost for decades, the iPhone will similarly be questioned.
Sprint will give you better deals that are not advertised the longer you stay with them. They also have a set of plans that are not advertised which are used to keep customers from leaving (retention plans). Whatever you see is usually negotiable, you just have to actively negotiate. And yes, I do get 100 SMS messages included with the unlimited data option.
If you want to use the phone in GSM areas, there are HTC OMAP based phones that are very similar to the 6700 (although with slower CPUs) that have every feature of the 6700 and are GSM/EDGE compatible. I have a friend who uses his on T-Mobile here in the US and has no problem using it in India.
I'm impressed that I said "it even runs linux!" and still got modded flamebait.
I get 750 minutes, free nights/weekends, unlimited data (EVDO), and insurance (if the phone dies or starts acting weird, I get a new one at no charge) for $68.00/month from Sprint, and the HTC 6700 will do just about everything the iPhone does, is easily hackable, can be safely overclocked, has a wide variety of compatible software, has an easy to develop for platform (Windows Mobile), and it will even run linux.
And Apple/AT&T want the general public to pay HOW much for WHAT again?
I can't wait to laugh at my friend's iPhone when he gets it.
I don't know what Kansas you're talking about, but the Kansas that I live in never had anyone "who got intelligent design into schools." We had a few Board of Education members that insisted upon stating that evolution was only a theory, and that there are other possible explanations for life. They also wanted stickers in biology textbooks warning students that the topic of evolution was discussed, and that they should keep an open mind to alternate theories. It was the implication of intelligent design as science that was troubling. Never was it pushed into schools. The constituents of these board members saw the potential for all kinds of issues that were inappropriate for a science classroom and rightfully voted out the troublesome board members.
Everyone who doesn't live in Kansas thinks that a few crackpots tried shoving ID down children's throats, despite the opposition of thousands of Kansans. In reality, a few crackpots tried getting their collective foot in the door to do this later on, and were successfully stopped.
Why are slashdot readers more prone to going apeshit insane over a blog post? Here is the website of the actual FBI group that works to protect domestic research and technology. It is a good read and will communicate far more useful, accurate information than a blog post.
I have the exact same printer and have the exact same problem. I print color on CDs, but mostly blues, and you're right, it will spaz out about other cartridges being empty when I know damn well they aren't. You can even pull the "empty" cartridge out, shake it and HEAR the ink sloshing around inside it. Also, its the only printer I've ever had to perform "cleaning" operations on once a month. I print off *maybe* 10 CDs every month. The cleaning operation uses a bunch of ink, and fills up the ink pad. Epson got sued bigtime over this, and they settled. You know what customers got? A $25 off coupon to BUY EPSON SUPPLIES. Yes, for ripping you off for the entire life of the printer, they refund you the cost of ONE ink cartridge, tax, and gas to go to the store and buy it. As much as I hate Epson and find this practice both despicable (not to mention illegal) this is the best printer I have found for my needs.
This is accounted for by the design of the safety cage, which is hardened and designed to utilize the crumple zone of the OTHER car for deceleration. If the other car crumples, you decelerate.
Mercedes has lifetime roadside assistance on all of their cars, regardless of how many owners it has had. If something goes boom, you can call them up, and they will tow your car (for free) to a dealer. So I guess you pay for it that way.:) If you have a weak battery and need a jump, call them up and they will send a guy out to jump you for free. I wonder if this will be extended to smart car owners. I've used the roadside assistance for jumpstarts on my 84 300SD a few times in the winter.
As far as service goes, Mercedes doesn't care how old of a car you show up with at a dealer. I brought my 73 450SL in for a recall repair (which they honored) and was provided with bottled water while I waited for paperwork, and then an E320 loaner car for a few days while the work was done. Nothing out of my pocket. Volvo provided me with a 2007 S60 2.5T AWD at no charge when I brought my beater 1988 740 in for a clutch job. I live in the middle of nowhere in the heartland of America, and finding a mechanic who is worth his salt AND willing to work on a European car can be difficult, so it is worth it to go to the dealer sometimes. I happily drove the S60 for a week, and when I went back to pick up my 740, an even older 240 was there. Volvo and Mercedes stand by their products forever, and support them forever.
"But it could easily "make or break" the overall "value" of your purchase if something major like a transmission fails 2 or 3 years into the vehicle ownership."
If a transmission in any car fails in 2 or 3 years, it either had more miles put on it than it was designed for, was abused, or was garbage to begin with. After 19 years and 174900 miles, the factory original clutch was replaced in my Volvo 744. After 32 years and 156000 miles, the original transmission in my 450SL was replaced. The odo died on my 300SD at 190000 miles two years ago, but I'm still happily running on the original transmission. My brother's 1992 Volvo 745 Turbo has 225000 miles on the original transmission, and it runs just like the day it was new. If a transmission ever failed in 2 or 3 years on a car that I had, I would raise hell over it.
"...the assurance that my new car doesn't have some worn out part just waiting to fail and greatly inconvenience me when I need my car the most..."
That's why engineers design things called "failure modes." The engineers can come up with a mode in which a part will fail and give you minimal problems. Part of component failure mode design in automotive engineering is developing warnings of impending failure. We commonly have brake pad wear sensors to alert you to change the brake pads so you can stop, exhaust manifold temperature sensors and boost pressure sensors to alert you to a problem with a turbocharger before the pistons melt, knock sensors to indicate that there is an ignition or fuel issue before you cause damage to the engine, coolant temperature sensors so you can be warned that the engine is not being cooled and you can shut it down before it blows, wobbling from a ball joint that is worn and needs replacement so a wheel doesn't shear off, creaking and bouncing from suspension that is worn and needs replacement so the car doesn't bounce around everywhere, vibration from a worn bearing that could cause a wheel to shear off, the list goes on. In a correctly engineered car, there are very few items that can break down that couldn't give you ample warning that something was wrong beforehand.
In my opinion, its environmentally unethical to continually purchase new cars when hundreds of thousands are on the road that work just fine or only require simple maintenance. Cars are lasting longer now in the US than they did 20 years ago (notice the change from 100k mile odometers to 1M mile odometers) and are easier to diagnose problems on now thanks to the myriad sensors onboard. My daily driver is a 2002 Volvo V70, that I bought used, but you can't tell it isn't brand new. I paid less than half what it cost new, and much less than half of what a new V70 costs. The best part is there are only minor differences between the 2002 and a new one. So why buy the new one?
is evident in many of these posts. The demonstrated lack of understanding in topics such as statics and dynamics, mechanics, mechanical engineering, crash dynamics, and automotive technology is astounding. Before anyone decides to flame me, I am an aerospace engineer, I build airplanes for one of the greatest living aircraft designers in the world. I am well educated in how cars are supposed to work. I am amazed at the number of Honda/Toyota fanboys that post in here saying things like tantamount to "my Corolla is teh greatest car evar and gets awesome mileage lol" and "my Civic can get the same mileage as the Smart so OBVIOUSLY the Smart car is stupid roflhehe." You just don't get it. What is the size of the engine in your Corolla or your Civic? How much power does it provide? How much power does the car require to maintain 60mph on a straight and level road on a standard day? You're talking about cars over 2,000 pounds. The gas engine in the Fortwo is a turbocharged 700cc 3-cylinder. There are motorcycles with higher displacement engines. And yet the Fortwo is still capable of dealing with traffic. Remember, the car is freaking tiny. It only needs 50-60hp to drive around and still be a useful car.
And don't give me this crap about "zomg the mileage of my corolla is fantastic." Its a load of bullshit. Take a lightweight econobox and you're sure to get decent mileage. Take some good engineering and you can give it a run for its money. I'll take the 27mpg that I get in a 300hp AWD turbocharged 4,000 pound station wagon any day over your Civic. I get a far more useful, safe, fun, and long-lasting vehicle than you ever will. Sure, I paid more for that wagon used than a new Civic, but I can drive _through_ a brick wall unscathed (Top Gear has demonstrated this in a Volvo 740) and you cannot. Are you willing to put a price tag on your life and the lives of your passengers? I'm not.
The safety of Civics and Corollas has never been their selling point. Why do you think they cost so much less than a comparably equipped VW, Volvo, or Mercedes? The cost cutting has to be somewhere, and it is in the safety engineering. I have been in or witnessed accidents with Volvos and Mercedes several times, and in most cases, the Volvo or Mercedes driver comes out ok. Sometimes the Volvo or Mercedes can even drive away from the crash. The same cannot be said for the other vehicle. There was time and effort put into safety by companies like these, and it shows. Mercedes has been a pioneer in safety systems forever; hell, they INVENTED the automobile. Mercedes has been using antilock brakes for over 70 YEARS. ABS isn't even standard on the Corolla. Volvo INVENTED the three point seatbelt almost 50 years ago, but look how long it took before other car companies gave enough of a damn to actually implement them. These are companies that know what they are doing, and are informed, and most of you clearly are not informed.
Wake the fuck up slashdot, this lack of education and knowledge is disturbing.
You've obviously never seen what happens to a Yaris when it t-bones a Volvo XC90 at 45mph. Just happened here in town yesterday, scared the heck out of me. The Volvo had some bent metal, and the driver walked away. The Yaris was scattered across the intersection, and the driver was pulled out on a stretcher and taken to a hospital by helicopter.
The Smart car has Mercedes engineering behind it, and crashworthiness is superior to anything put out from Toyota.
Iran has decided to impose the death penalty on porn stars. And every news station you'll see tells you that Iran is EEEEEVVILLL and is completely backwards. With a bill like this in Congress, what does that make us?
Its times like these when I am just plain disappointed in our country.
I dumped all my mp3s in a "shared" directory accessible via http so that I could listen to my music anywhere on campus. This was before the ipod craze, and I only had a Rio500 and a Minidisc player. I set the.htaccess file in Apache to only allow connections from the university network. Any time I was in a lab, all I had to do was open a browser, enter my dorm computer's IP, and I could rock out the whole time I was working. The university networking and telecom people never gave me any trouble because of it.
"I really wish people would keep their imaginations in check and accept the reality that a lot (at the very least) of these students in similar cases are doing exactly what the RIAA is accusing them of."
Whether or not they are doing exactly the things they are accused of has lost its relevance lately. What is more relevant is the flagrant and irrefutable violation of numerous laws that civil entities have committed and are continuing to commit in an attempt to circumvent the judicial system in place to further their unjust enrichment. I'd like to see a US District Attorney that gives a damn about that.
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And what I think is funny is that Verizon and Sprint offer better quality devices with more capabilities, on faster networks, on larger networks, that they can't brick at their discretion for less money than an iPhone.
"Kansas is where anybody who's anybody crashes."
Precisely. And no, that is not smoldering wreckage you see in my yard. No, you may not get a closer look at it.
It appears to be a few FPGAs. With FPGAs, you can optimize the logic to represent algorithms for faster execution that on general purpose processors. Simply, you use more of the gates available on the chip. That appears to be what these guys are doing. It also appears that there is a single memory controller (I think that is what the QuickLogic chip is) and there is only one DRAM module installed on the board. It would be interesting if the board had a unified memory architecture. There is a separate Xilinx Spartan FPGA on the board that does who-knows-what, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was involved in communication with the processing chips. Of course, this is speculation, but it would seem logical for a board layout.
Just my thoughts.
Ya, I realized this after clicking post. Thanks. Insufficient caffeination.
My UltraSPARC boxes just seemed to be running better after hearing this news. :)
Please tell me the first production system will be named "Enterprise." There have to be enough people that will work on it that will be proponents of this.
...but will it run linux?
Losing a little bit of lift is far preferable to a preventable structural failure.
The 787 isn't exactly a redesign, it is a completely new aircraft, designed from the ground up. As a composite aircraft, the same design and manufacturing principles are not the same as an aluminum aircraft.
Well the rear of the engine nacelles will have a funky jagged edge to them to make the aircraft quieter. Is that close enough?
No, a loyalty plan isn't the same as these AT&T plans. Does AT&T have plans like this for current customers who want an iPhone? The guy I work with who is getting an iPhone doesn't seem to think there are, but I'd hardly consider him an authority on the subject. The bottom line is that it doesn't appear that AT&T and Apple have any qualms screwing the fanboys and early adopters for a product that has been kept so secret that nobody even knows how well it works.
I don't think any wireless company is ethical in the US, but AT&T is certainly well known to be abusive and unethical, and people are going to flock to them anyway. People have questioned the value of Apple hardware relative to its cost for decades, the iPhone will similarly be questioned.
Sprint will give you better deals that are not advertised the longer you stay with them. They also have a set of plans that are not advertised which are used to keep customers from leaving (retention plans). Whatever you see is usually negotiable, you just have to actively negotiate. And yes, I do get 100 SMS messages included with the unlimited data option.
If you want to use the phone in GSM areas, there are HTC OMAP based phones that are very similar to the 6700 (although with slower CPUs) that have every feature of the 6700 and are GSM/EDGE compatible. I have a friend who uses his on T-Mobile here in the US and has no problem using it in India.
I'm impressed that I said "it even runs linux!" and still got modded flamebait.
I get 750 minutes, free nights/weekends, unlimited data (EVDO), and insurance (if the phone dies or starts acting weird, I get a new one at no charge) for $68.00/month from Sprint, and the HTC 6700 will do just about everything the iPhone does, is easily hackable, can be safely overclocked, has a wide variety of compatible software, has an easy to develop for platform (Windows Mobile), and it will even run linux.
And Apple/AT&T want the general public to pay HOW much for WHAT again?
I can't wait to laugh at my friend's iPhone when he gets it.
I don't know what Kansas you're talking about, but the Kansas that I live in never had anyone "who got intelligent design into schools." We had a few Board of Education members that insisted upon stating that evolution was only a theory, and that there are other possible explanations for life. They also wanted stickers in biology textbooks warning students that the topic of evolution was discussed, and that they should keep an open mind to alternate theories. It was the implication of intelligent design as science that was troubling. Never was it pushed into schools. The constituents of these board members saw the potential for all kinds of issues that were inappropriate for a science classroom and rightfully voted out the troublesome board members.
Everyone who doesn't live in Kansas thinks that a few crackpots tried shoving ID down children's throats, despite the opposition of thousands of Kansans. In reality, a few crackpots tried getting their collective foot in the door to do this later on, and were successfully stopped.
Why are slashdot readers more prone to going apeshit insane over a blog post? Here is the website of the actual FBI group that works to protect domestic research and technology. It is a good read and will communicate far more useful, accurate information than a blog post.
I have the exact same printer and have the exact same problem. I print color on CDs, but mostly blues, and you're right, it will spaz out about other cartridges being empty when I know damn well they aren't. You can even pull the "empty" cartridge out, shake it and HEAR the ink sloshing around inside it. Also, its the only printer I've ever had to perform "cleaning" operations on once a month. I print off *maybe* 10 CDs every month. The cleaning operation uses a bunch of ink, and fills up the ink pad. Epson got sued bigtime over this, and they settled. You know what customers got? A $25 off coupon to BUY EPSON SUPPLIES. Yes, for ripping you off for the entire life of the printer, they refund you the cost of ONE ink cartridge, tax, and gas to go to the store and buy it. As much as I hate Epson and find this practice both despicable (not to mention illegal) this is the best printer I have found for my needs.
This is accounted for by the design of the safety cage, which is hardened and designed to utilize the crumple zone of the OTHER car for deceleration. If the other car crumples, you decelerate.
Mercedes has lifetime roadside assistance on all of their cars, regardless of how many owners it has had. If something goes boom, you can call them up, and they will tow your car (for free) to a dealer. So I guess you pay for it that way. :) If you have a weak battery and need a jump, call them up and they will send a guy out to jump you for free. I wonder if this will be extended to smart car owners. I've used the roadside assistance for jumpstarts on my 84 300SD a few times in the winter.
As far as service goes, Mercedes doesn't care how old of a car you show up with at a dealer. I brought my 73 450SL in for a recall repair (which they honored) and was provided with bottled water while I waited for paperwork, and then an E320 loaner car for a few days while the work was done. Nothing out of my pocket. Volvo provided me with a 2007 S60 2.5T AWD at no charge when I brought my beater 1988 740 in for a clutch job. I live in the middle of nowhere in the heartland of America, and finding a mechanic who is worth his salt AND willing to work on a European car can be difficult, so it is worth it to go to the dealer sometimes. I happily drove the S60 for a week, and when I went back to pick up my 740, an even older 240 was there. Volvo and Mercedes stand by their products forever, and support them forever.
"But it could easily "make or break" the overall "value" of your purchase if something major like a transmission fails 2 or 3 years into the vehicle ownership."
If a transmission in any car fails in 2 or 3 years, it either had more miles put on it than it was designed for, was abused, or was garbage to begin with. After 19 years and 174900 miles, the factory original clutch was replaced in my Volvo 744. After 32 years and 156000 miles, the original transmission in my 450SL was replaced. The odo died on my 300SD at 190000 miles two years ago, but I'm still happily running on the original transmission. My brother's 1992 Volvo 745 Turbo has 225000 miles on the original transmission, and it runs just like the day it was new. If a transmission ever failed in 2 or 3 years on a car that I had, I would raise hell over it.
"...the assurance that my new car doesn't have some worn out part just waiting to fail and greatly inconvenience me when I need my car the most..."
That's why engineers design things called "failure modes." The engineers can come up with a mode in which a part will fail and give you minimal problems. Part of component failure mode design in automotive engineering is developing warnings of impending failure. We commonly have brake pad wear sensors to alert you to change the brake pads so you can stop, exhaust manifold temperature sensors and boost pressure sensors to alert you to a problem with a turbocharger before the pistons melt, knock sensors to indicate that there is an ignition or fuel issue before you cause damage to the engine, coolant temperature sensors so you can be warned that the engine is not being cooled and you can shut it down before it blows, wobbling from a ball joint that is worn and needs replacement so a wheel doesn't shear off, creaking and bouncing from suspension that is worn and needs replacement so the car doesn't bounce around everywhere, vibration from a worn bearing that could cause a wheel to shear off, the list goes on. In a correctly engineered car, there are very few items that can break down that couldn't give you ample warning that something was wrong beforehand.
In my opinion, its environmentally unethical to continually purchase new cars when hundreds of thousands are on the road that work just fine or only require simple maintenance. Cars are lasting longer now in the US than they did 20 years ago (notice the change from 100k mile odometers to 1M mile odometers) and are easier to diagnose problems on now thanks to the myriad sensors onboard. My daily driver is a 2002 Volvo V70, that I bought used, but you can't tell it isn't brand new. I paid less than half what it cost new, and much less than half of what a new V70 costs. The best part is there are only minor differences between the 2002 and a new one. So why buy the new one?
That's right AC. Except that post was back when they still gave out UIDs around 500000. Nice try.
is evident in many of these posts. The demonstrated lack of understanding in topics such as statics and dynamics, mechanics, mechanical engineering, crash dynamics, and automotive technology is astounding. Before anyone decides to flame me, I am an aerospace engineer, I build airplanes for one of the greatest living aircraft designers in the world. I am well educated in how cars are supposed to work. I am amazed at the number of Honda/Toyota fanboys that post in here saying things like tantamount to "my Corolla is teh greatest car evar and gets awesome mileage lol" and "my Civic can get the same mileage as the Smart so OBVIOUSLY the Smart car is stupid roflhehe." You just don't get it. What is the size of the engine in your Corolla or your Civic? How much power does it provide? How much power does the car require to maintain 60mph on a straight and level road on a standard day? You're talking about cars over 2,000 pounds. The gas engine in the Fortwo is a turbocharged 700cc 3-cylinder. There are motorcycles with higher displacement engines. And yet the Fortwo is still capable of dealing with traffic. Remember, the car is freaking tiny. It only needs 50-60hp to drive around and still be a useful car.
And don't give me this crap about "zomg the mileage of my corolla is fantastic." Its a load of bullshit. Take a lightweight econobox and you're sure to get decent mileage. Take some good engineering and you can give it a run for its money. I'll take the 27mpg that I get in a 300hp AWD turbocharged 4,000 pound station wagon any day over your Civic. I get a far more useful, safe, fun, and long-lasting vehicle than you ever will. Sure, I paid more for that wagon used than a new Civic, but I can drive _through_ a brick wall unscathed (Top Gear has demonstrated this in a Volvo 740) and you cannot. Are you willing to put a price tag on your life and the lives of your passengers? I'm not.
The safety of Civics and Corollas has never been their selling point. Why do you think they cost so much less than a comparably equipped VW, Volvo, or Mercedes? The cost cutting has to be somewhere, and it is in the safety engineering. I have been in or witnessed accidents with Volvos and Mercedes several times, and in most cases, the Volvo or Mercedes driver comes out ok. Sometimes the Volvo or Mercedes can even drive away from the crash. The same cannot be said for the other vehicle. There was time and effort put into safety by companies like these, and it shows. Mercedes has been a pioneer in safety systems forever; hell, they INVENTED the automobile. Mercedes has been using antilock brakes for over 70 YEARS. ABS isn't even standard on the Corolla. Volvo INVENTED the three point seatbelt almost 50 years ago, but look how long it took before other car companies gave enough of a damn to actually implement them. These are companies that know what they are doing, and are informed, and most of you clearly are not informed.
Wake the fuck up slashdot, this lack of education and knowledge is disturbing.
You've obviously never seen what happens to a Yaris when it t-bones a Volvo XC90 at 45mph. Just happened here in town yesterday, scared the heck out of me. The Volvo had some bent metal, and the driver walked away. The Yaris was scattered across the intersection, and the driver was pulled out on a stretcher and taken to a hospital by helicopter.
The Smart car has Mercedes engineering behind it, and crashworthiness is superior to anything put out from Toyota.
Mach number is variable. It depends upon temperature and is only valid in a fluid environment, not a vacuum. You can't have "Mach 10" at 330 miles.
I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I do play one at work.
Its times like these when I am just plain disappointed in our country.
Still, doesn't the act of taking a snapshot of the contents of memory modify the contents of memory?
I dumped all my mp3s in a "shared" directory accessible via http so that I could listen to my music anywhere on campus. This was before the ipod craze, and I only had a Rio500 and a Minidisc player. I set the .htaccess file in Apache to only allow connections from the university network. Any time I was in a lab, all I had to do was open a browser, enter my dorm computer's IP, and I could rock out the whole time I was working. The university networking and telecom people never gave me any trouble because of it.
"I really wish people would keep their imaginations in check and accept the reality that a lot (at the very least) of these students in similar cases are doing exactly what the RIAA is accusing them of."
Whether or not they are doing exactly the things they are accused of has lost its relevance lately. What is more relevant is the flagrant and irrefutable violation of numerous laws that civil entities have committed and are continuing to commit in an attempt to circumvent the judicial system in place to further their unjust enrichment. I'd like to see a US District Attorney that gives a damn about that.