Well..first off, you generally don't run an embedded system with a desktop OS.
A "5 year Window" does not mean that at the end of 5 years the system magically turns itself off.
There are people out there still running DOS 6 for day to day critical business apps. There are still many implementation of NT 3.51 or NT4. Support? What support is needed? Build the system, install it, and run your application on top of it. If a huge hole crops up years later, after MS cuts off 'support' for it, you have the option. Ignore it, or upgrade. Same as with Linux. You wouldn't continue to run Linux 1.1 if it were unstable, would you? No, You'd upgrade the OS to a newer, more stable, more secure version.
Nothing says you have to upgrade after MS cuts off support. That only means that MS will no longer provide updates to the base OS. You can change or rewrite your applications all you want.
And, just as with Linux...MS is not the sole point of 'support'. Have a question? There are newsgroups with millions of people ready and waiting to answer. Just like with Linux.
There is no 'remote off switch'. (as of yet, anyway)
DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying Win or Linux is better or worse. But please don't spread misinformation and incorrect assumptions.
Re:I'd like to see actual CAMERAS, please.
on
Smart Kindergarten
·
· Score: 1
Hey, up yours, buddy. This is PRECISELY what I wanted as a kid.
This is PRECISELY why we don't let children vote.
So if you don't give a poop about the nerdy little kids getting the snot beat out of them just because they're nerdy... well, I guess that's your problem.
If you'd rather give up some basic privacy for some pseudo-freedom, well..I guess that's your problem. Don't presume to force your non-solution on the rest of us.Do you live at the school? Do you never go outside for fear of being beat up?
Be better parents, hire competent teachers, know your neighbors.
P.S...I was one of those nerdy little kids, too.
Re:I'd like to see actual CAMERAS, please.
on
Smart Kindergarten
·
· Score: 1
Yes. 24/7 monitoring of everywhere we go, and everything we do, so we can feel "safe".
No thanks.
Re:How's it "low pressure" when you're watched?
on
Smart Kindergarten
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
If you were to ask people from many cultures around the world, you'd find a LOT do not want to be photographed at all.
Now...think back about 75-100 years. Europe and the US. If you told your grandfather he would be on camera 20 or 30 times a day, he may well be outraged. "WTF do they need my picture for?!?"
Jump forward 50 years from now. These kindergarteners have been 'on camera' almost constantly, wherever they go, since they can remember. Don't even think twice about it.
And now, those 'kids' are in positions of power. They will find it very easy to enact 24/7 monitoring rules.
The cost of the technology is a non issue. 25 years ago, who would have thought you could put a powerful computer on your desk for $200 retail? Or 4GB postage stamp?
Currently, in any Western city, you *are* on camera quite a lot of the time. Go shopping, you're on. Drive through a lot of intersections, you're on. Walk *past* a gas station...you're on.
Some cities (London) more than others. It's just that they are good at hiding the cameras.
And how will the little darlings day to day behavior be modified in response to all this monitoring?
Students will wear caps with sensors called "iBadges" pinned to them,
"Mom!! Do I hafta wear the stupid hat? All the other kids make fun of us!"
as well as capture their speech with small microphones. (sotto voce)"Billy is a poopyhead. I'm gonna make him eat dirt at recess."
And then the teacher may jump in..."Johnny...it's not nice to talk bad about Billy"
[Johnny] "WTF? Get outta my head, Lady!"
Objects, such as puzzle pieces or board games, will be wired with sensors So the child cannot take the puzzle piece across the room and show his friend?
"The problem for teachers is that they cannot usually pay attention to each student across all groups," he said. "The feedback will allow teachers to better instruct their students." Obviously. You're not supposed to pay equal attention to each and every kid. SOme kids can get on with things themselves. Others need to be hald by the hand. That is why you hire competent teachers. And pay them a respectable wage. A competent teacher can recognize the attributes and students needing extra attention, by use of the best data mining tool yet discovered, the brain.
"This will be an example of how humans will use computers to create smart environments," he said. "The use of sensors in this manner will allow people to talk and interact with the physical world."
umm....haven't we been talking and interacting with the physical world for a few million years?
When and who is supposed to do this data mining? The person who is in constant contact with these kids every day? When is s/he supposed to have time to do that? Or does she just get a report at the end of the week?
"Johnny doesn't like Billy"
"Jose' needs a little more help in English" "Mary is a little behind the curve in motor skills development"
I can see a competent teacher saying "No shit, Sherlock! I see these kids every day, all day, and I know this."
Whereas in the hands of an incompetent teacher....Johnny, Mary, and Jose' will be concentrated on even more, to the exclusion of the other kids.
Kids are not data to be mined. Interaction, play, instruction are what grows respectable adults from these little darlings.
How much could an extra $1.8M do for one classroom for a year?
The model where individual vendors write proprietary code to run our elections appears to be unreliable, and if we do not change the process of designing our voting systems, we will have no confidence that our election results will reflect the will of the electorate....
This is not a case of open vs proprietary, but rather a case of idiot design and implementation vs competent design and imlementation.
There are quite a lot of "closed source" tools and programs that are good, stable, reliable. All done by competent s/w engineers, using good design practices.
Yes, closed source is somewhat easier to screw up and get past the buyers, but also, closed source does not preclude good s/w tools.
Is the F-16 FCC computer code open source? No. Is it bug free? Pretty much, yeah. Is the Shuttle engine control software open source? No. Is it bug free? Yes.
Is the OBDII software in your car open source? No. Is it bug free? Yes, so far. Otherwise, we would have had some major recalls lately.
There are many examples of good quality closed source programs. Even in the government.
There is no reason to accept substandard, bug ridden software, except for cost/time consideration. Elections would seem to rise above that. Poor requirement specification and management leads to poor software.
Build to a competent standard, and we'll have no problems.
mice keyboards joysticks
wide range of games, incl FlightSim MSMoney Windows CE ActiveX FrontPage Encarta Exchange
MSProject
Not all wildly sucessful, but not doing too bad.
There are others.
But the main thing they have is mindshare. Ask anyone outside of a few select communities (/. for one), and who makes software? Microsoft. And maybe IBM.
That is a glib and reactionary set of comments. By your rationale, we should spare no expense because it is radioactive.
No, what I meant was, the original comment seemd as if 'filtering' was a very acceptable solution to the problem, except that it is 'rather expensive'.
Ok...it may well be expensive. But if filtering is the best way to reduce the level of radioactivity...then that is what should be used. Screw the expense, and don't use a less expensive solution if it does not work as well. If the microbe solution works out to be the best...then use that.
Cost should be at most a secondary consideration for such a potentially far reaching problem.
It would probably be more cost effective to put it in some ziplock bags, and dump it overboard in Lake Superior.
Hey, I'll take a radioactive hazard that may kill me 30 years from now over gasoline leaking from a pipeline into my basement and exploding
How about we store some of the radioactive waste in your basement? You won't have to wait the 30 years. Probably be cheap as well.
Current treatment procedures generally involve pumping out the contaminated groundwater, filtering it, and pumping it back, which is rather expensive.
I want these guys to use whatever works the best. Microbes, filtering, shooting it off into the sun...
Really...this is one of the places where is has to be done right. Screw the expense.
Unfortunately, profits and stockholders will get in the way of doing it right.
How long will it take for ( some unknown number ) of our ( unknown skill and experience level ) developers to write a driver of complexity level ( X ).
What resources will be devoted to maintaining it? Documenting it? Adding features?
Will it be as fully supported as the current Win drivers?
"The Web Team does not answer or forward e-mail, but all messages pertaining to the technical operation and usability of the White House web site are read."
Car manufacturers, airline companies, engineering firms, construction companies, NASA - the product better do what it's supposed to first time, every time and the designers had better think of every conceivable way someone might break or misuse (abuse) it.
Car manufacturers issue recalls and product updates all the time. Sometimes, the problem is so severe, people die. Sometimes, they have to take aa particular product off the market, before any more people die from it.
Airlines. Their products get hacked, cracked and taken over all the time, unfortunately with spectacular, flaming results. And rare is the flight that lands with zero writeups. Most minor, but still there.
NASA? Flagship product - 2% catastrophic failure rate. After every use, it needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt.
Toys, bridges, buildings, cars...all fail. Computers are no worse.
At $900, it's too expensive. But remember, VCR's started out at $1k.
A next gen one of these (cheaper, more features..DVD-RW, pause live video, etc etc) will bring Linux to the masses. Easy network with the house LAN, bigger HD for general storage, web server and access from anywhere, reasonable GUI...
But they won't know or care. The guts of the GUI and Linux kernel will be hidden, so Joe TV can't screw it up.
Root access? What's that? Oh...the 'Config' button on the remote that asks for a password so I can change some settings? ok...THAT thing. Gotcha.
the x-15 originally was dropped from a b-52. i don't believe i've heard a satisfactory reason why this isn't a compelling alternative.
Size. The X-15 was tiny. The B-52 has a max lifting capacity of well under 75,000lbs. Something not much bigger/heavier than a fueled, unarmed F-14/F-15. They could try something like what we do with bring the Shuttle back to florida, on the back of a 747. But that's done empty, with no boosters. Put fuel in it, and it would probably strain the lifting capacity.
or heck, we have mid-air refueling capabilities.
The refueling jets (KC-135, KC-10, KC-767) are quite slow, in comparison. A proposed space plane would have to take off, then hold at ~350-400 knots to allow refueling, then zoom up to orbit. What have you gained? And I'd expect that refueling a jet with regular JP-4 is quite different than refueling an orbital vehicle with whatever they may choose for fuel.
I have the added benefit of knowing that if my car gets stolen, then someone is tracking it for me.
If that is important to you, fine. Go out and buy an aftermarket system. LoJack or similar. Having the government do it for us opens up so many possibilities for abuse, it's not funny.
I don't do anything illegal online (warez, stealing music, etc) so I've nothing to worry about.
Doesn't have to be 'illegal'. Just something you'd rather not have be made public information.
Would you like for your insurance company to find out you've been researching breast cancer? Or your boss finding out you've been job searching? Is your wireless network open and available for anyone's use? Or do you have it secured?
It's not a case of not having anything to worry about. It's a case of "It's nunya dam bidness!"
Slashdot Mirror
Well..first off, you generally don't run an embedded system with a desktop OS.
A "5 year Window" does not mean that at the end of 5 years the system magically turns itself off.
There are people out there still running DOS 6 for day to day critical business apps. There are still many implementation of NT 3.51 or NT4. Support? What support is needed? Build the system, install it, and run your application on top of it. If a huge hole crops up years later, after MS cuts off 'support' for it, you have the option. Ignore it, or upgrade. Same as with Linux. You wouldn't continue to run Linux 1.1 if it were unstable, would you? No, You'd upgrade the OS to a newer, more stable, more secure version.
Nothing says you have to upgrade after MS cuts off support. That only means that MS will no longer provide updates to the base OS. You can change or rewrite your applications all you want.
And, just as with Linux...MS is not the sole point of 'support'. Have a question? There are newsgroups with millions of people ready and waiting to answer. Just like with Linux.
There is no 'remote off switch'. (as of yet, anyway)
DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying Win or Linux is better or worse. But please don't spread misinformation and incorrect assumptions.
Hey, up yours, buddy. This is PRECISELY what I wanted as a kid.
This is PRECISELY why we don't let children vote.
So if you don't give a poop about the nerdy little kids getting the snot beat out of them just because they're nerdy... well, I guess that's your problem.
If you'd rather give up some basic privacy for some pseudo-freedom, well..I guess that's your problem.
Don't presume to force your non-solution on the rest of us.Do you live at the school? Do you never go outside for fear of being beat up?
Be better parents, hire competent teachers, know your neighbors.
P.S...I was one of those nerdy little kids, too.
Yes. 24/7 monitoring of everywhere we go, and everything we do, so we can feel "safe".
No thanks.
If you were to ask people from many cultures around the world, you'd find a LOT do not want to be photographed at all.
Now...think back about 75-100 years. Europe and the US. If you told your grandfather he would be on camera 20 or 30 times a day, he may well be outraged. "WTF do they need my picture for?!?"
Jump forward 50 years from now.
These kindergarteners have been 'on camera' almost constantly, wherever they go, since they can remember. Don't even think twice about it.
And now, those 'kids' are in positions of power. They will find it very easy to enact 24/7 monitoring rules.
The cost of the technology is a non issue. 25 years ago, who would have thought you could put a powerful computer on your desk for $200 retail? Or 4GB postage stamp?
Currently, in any Western city, you *are* on camera quite a lot of the time. Go shopping, you're on. Drive through a lot of intersections, you're on. Walk *past* a gas station...you're on.
Some cities (London) more than others. It's just that they are good at hiding the cameras.
Multiple virtual desktops, for instance - I feel so limited under Windows for not having this simple feature.
So go get one. There are many virtual desktop apps, some even free, for Windows.
What we really need is a computer operation license like a driving license :)
We already have that. It's called Linux. It even requires a test before you can use it.
If the children are under surveillance from an early age, they would most likely become accustomed to it. We're an adaptive species ;)
And then 24/7 monitoring when they are adults won't be such a bad thing.
They're accustomed to it, right?
And how will the little darlings day to day behavior be modified in response to all this monitoring?
Students will wear caps with sensors called "iBadges" pinned to them,
"Mom!! Do I hafta wear the stupid hat? All the other kids make fun of us!"
as well as capture their speech with small microphones.
(sotto voce)"Billy is a poopyhead. I'm gonna make him eat dirt at recess."
And then the teacher may jump in..."Johnny...it's not nice to talk bad about Billy"
[Johnny] "WTF? Get outta my head, Lady!"
Objects, such as puzzle pieces or board games, will be wired with sensors
So the child cannot take the puzzle piece across the room and show his friend?
"The problem for teachers is that they cannot usually pay attention to each student across all groups," he said. "The feedback will allow teachers to better instruct their students."
Obviously. You're not supposed to pay equal attention to each and every kid. SOme kids can get on with things themselves. Others need to be hald by the hand. That is why you hire competent teachers. And pay them a respectable wage.
A competent teacher can recognize the attributes and students needing extra attention, by use of the best data mining tool yet discovered, the brain.
"This will be an example of how humans will use computers to create smart environments," he said. "The use of sensors in this manner will allow people to talk and interact with the physical world."
umm....haven't we been talking and interacting with the physical world for a few million years?
When and who is supposed to do this data mining? The person who is in constant contact with these kids every day? When is s/he supposed to have time to do that?
Or does she just get a report at the end of the week?
"Johnny doesn't like Billy"
"Jose' needs a little more help in English"
"Mary is a little behind the curve in motor skills development"
I can see a competent teacher saying "No shit, Sherlock! I see these kids every day, all day, and I know this."
Whereas in the hands of an incompetent teacher....Johnny, Mary, and Jose' will be concentrated on even more, to the exclusion of the other kids.
Kids are not data to be mined. Interaction, play, instruction are what grows respectable adults from these little darlings.
How much could an extra $1.8M do for one classroom for a year?
The questions for me is more like: Why aren't you making open content?
You answered your own question...
I've even spend a good deal of money on it, and the returnes from amazon(co.uk/.com) has been nothing compared to my expenses (mostly books/hosting).
Airline prices. The procedure seems to be to ensure that no airline passenger pays the same rate for a ticket as any other passenger.
All depends on who you are, and where and how you buy it.
The model where individual vendors write proprietary code to run our elections appears to be unreliable, and if we do not change the process of designing our voting systems, we will have no confidence that our election results will reflect the will of the electorate....
This is not a case of open vs proprietary, but rather a case of idiot design and implementation vs competent design and imlementation.
There are quite a lot of "closed source" tools and programs that are good, stable, reliable. All done by competent s/w engineers, using good design practices.
Yes, closed source is somewhat easier to screw up and get past the buyers, but also, closed source does not preclude good s/w tools.
Is the F-16 FCC computer code open source? No. Is it bug free? Pretty much, yeah.
Is the Shuttle engine control software open source? No. Is it bug free? Yes.
Is the OBDII software in your car open source? No. Is it bug free? Yes, so far. Otherwise, we would have had some major recalls lately.
There are many examples of good quality closed source programs. Even in the government.
There is no reason to accept substandard, bug ridden software, except for cost/time consideration. Elections would seem to rise above that. Poor requirement specification and management leads to poor software.
Build to a competent standard, and we'll have no problems.
and his argument was that Maggie can open Bob's spreadsheet... this as opposed to Maggie running StarOffice and Bob running OpenOffice or something.
OSS, in this regard, is little different from MS
Will Maggie, using OO.o v1.1 be able to open Bob's spreadsheet, created with OO.o v4, created 5 years from now??
Yes, but only if Bob saves it in the appropriate format/version. Same as with MSOffice. Office XP can save back to Office 97 format.
Add to that:
mice
keyboards
joysticks
wide range of games, incl FlightSim
MSMoney
Windows CE
ActiveX
FrontPage
Encarta
Exchange
MSProject
Not all wildly sucessful, but not doing too bad.
There are others.
But the main thing they have is mindshare. Ask anyone outside of a few select communities (/. for one), and who makes software? Microsoft. And maybe IBM.
That is a glib and reactionary set of comments. By your rationale, we should spare no expense because it is radioactive.
No, what I meant was, the original comment seemd as if 'filtering' was a very acceptable solution to the problem, except that it is 'rather expensive'.
Ok...it may well be expensive. But if filtering is the best way to reduce the level of radioactivity...then that is what should be used. Screw the expense, and don't use a less expensive solution if it does not work as well.
If the microbe solution works out to be the best...then use that.
Cost should be at most a secondary consideration for such a potentially far reaching problem.
It would probably be more cost effective to put it in some ziplock bags, and dump it overboard in Lake Superior.
Hey, I'll take a radioactive hazard that may kill me 30 years from now over gasoline leaking from a pipeline into my basement and exploding
How about we store some of the radioactive waste in your basement? You won't have to wait the 30 years. Probably be cheap as well.
Current treatment procedures generally involve pumping out the contaminated groundwater, filtering it, and pumping it back, which is rather expensive.
I want these guys to use whatever works the best. Microbes, filtering, shooting it off into the sun...
Really...this is one of the places where is has to be done right. Screw the expense.
Unfortunately, profits and stockholders will get in the way of doing it right.
That's the question.
How long will it take for ( some unknown number ) of our ( unknown skill and experience level ) developers to write a driver of complexity level ( X ).
What resources will be devoted to maintaining it? Documenting it? Adding features?
Will it be as fully supported as the current Win drivers?
If spammers are forced to use correct return addresses, then you would be too.
Kenshiro70&hotmail,com is not a valid address.
....send a message to the Whitehouse Web dev team, and let them know what you think.
"The Web Team does not answer or forward e-mail, but all messages pertaining to the technical operation and usability of the White House web site are read."
Magnesium reacts violently when it gets wet? WHEW!!! Thanks for telling us. I guess we'd better not drive cars with mag wheels anymore.
Car manufacturers, airline companies, engineering firms, construction companies, NASA - the product better do what it's supposed to first time, every time and the designers had better think of every conceivable way someone might break or misuse (abuse) it.
Car manufacturers issue recalls and product updates all the time. Sometimes, the problem is so severe, people die. Sometimes, they have to take aa particular product off the market, before any more people die from it.
Airlines. Their products get hacked, cracked and taken over all the time, unfortunately with spectacular, flaming results. And rare is the flight that lands with zero writeups. Most minor, but still there.
NASA? Flagship product - 2% catastrophic failure rate. After every use, it needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt.
Toys, bridges, buildings, cars...all fail. Computers are no worse.
Presumably, this includes a support contract. 144,000 pc's for 5 years. Only $125/year each. It always sounds worse in aggregate.
How much would RedHat charge to equip and support 144,000 PC's for 5 years? (not counting the massive migration costs associated)
At $900, it's too expensive. But remember, VCR's started out at $1k.
A next gen one of these (cheaper, more features..DVD-RW, pause live video, etc etc) will bring Linux to the masses. Easy network with the house LAN, bigger HD for general storage, web server and access from anywhere, reasonable GUI...
But they won't know or care. The guts of the GUI and Linux kernel will be hidden, so Joe TV can't screw it up.
Root access? What's that? Oh...the 'Config' button on the remote that asks for a password so I can change some settings? ok...THAT thing. Gotcha.
the x-15 originally was dropped from a b-52. i don't believe i've heard a satisfactory reason why this isn't a compelling alternative.
Size. The X-15 was tiny. The B-52 has a max lifting capacity of well under 75,000lbs. Something not much bigger/heavier than a fueled, unarmed F-14/F-15.
They could try something like what we do with bring the Shuttle back to florida, on the back of a 747. But that's done empty, with no boosters. Put fuel in it, and it would probably strain the lifting capacity.
or heck, we have mid-air refueling capabilities.
The refueling jets (KC-135, KC-10, KC-767) are quite slow, in comparison. A proposed space plane would have to take off, then hold at ~350-400 knots to allow refueling, then zoom up to orbit. What have you gained?
And I'd expect that refueling a jet with regular JP-4 is quite different than refueling an orbital vehicle with whatever they may choose for fuel.
I have the added benefit of knowing that if my car gets stolen, then someone is tracking it for me.
If that is important to you, fine. Go out and buy an aftermarket system. LoJack or similar. Having the government do it for us opens up so many possibilities for abuse, it's not funny.
I don't do anything illegal online (warez, stealing music, etc) so I've nothing to worry about.
Doesn't have to be 'illegal'. Just something you'd rather not have be made public information.
Would you like for your insurance company to find out you've been researching breast cancer?
Or your boss finding out you've been job searching?
Is your wireless network open and available for anyone's use? Or do you have it secured?
It's not a case of not having anything to worry about. It's a case of "It's nunya dam bidness!"
And most enlightened IT shops that push the installs out, do not install Clippy either.