Actually it clearly states it cooked the battery not the whole craft. So why don't you go RTFA instead of attempting some lame karma whoring you cretin.
... if man hasn't found out a way to deal with this problem by then , then its a fair bet theres been a major collapse of civilisation already taking technology, healthcare etc with it, so there probably won't be very many people around to worry about it and those that are will probably have more important things to worry about than buried nuclear waste - such as finding food and not dying from [insert common medieval cause of death here] for example.
Surely it can still function on its solar arrays when its on the daylight side of the planet? Or would it drift too much out of alignment when in the dark? Or is there some other issue?
And the reasons you cite above are some of them. People think Pat and the team are stuck in the past but he probably has a better handle on how linux kernel dev has gone down the toilet with 2.6 than many people.
A large number of countries have already been running digital broadcast radio services for a while now, the most popular being DAB. Here in the UK it covers (I believe) 90% of the population. Then of course you have satellite broadcasting not to mention all the internet based services.
I suspect in 20 or 30 years the the FM waveband will contain only non broadcast services in most countries or maybe even nothing at all except hiss and static.
"If they were really interested in finding and contacting us, they would have done so by now"
Some people say they already have! Though why they only ever contact toothless rednecks in pickups in Arkansas at nighttime on lonely roads is perhaps a mystery for another day.
"Physical media is going to become less and less important as our content is now being delivered over the wire"
Speak for yourself. Call me old fashioned but I like having physical copies of stuff I've paid for. Renting a car is not the same as owning one even if the end result is the same.
"Buy original Xbox for £50, perform softmod, install XBMC, rejoice!"
I can just see Joe Public managing that. Not. These devices are meant for average people to use , not technophiles with plenty of knowledge and time on their hands.
"Really these stories are very mundane now I've been watching content from my PC on my TV for over a year now, even streaming content directly from the net onto my TV for just as long. It's not wireless, but you already had cat5 running to the tv area right?"
Well the article was talking about using Pentiums. Anyway, less power at doing what? Executing one assembly instruction? Yes quite possibly. Executing code that performed the same operation (which could be 1 DSP instruction vs 10 ARM instructions)? Possibly not.
"Steven Murdoch and myself took the chassis of a real terminal and replaced much of the internal electronics such that it allows us to control the screen, keypad and card-reader"
Umm , how exactly does that prove the actual terminal is vulnerable? Other than if you get hold of one and have some tools at hand and lots of time then yes you can open the lid and get to the electronics inside. But I think we all knew that already.
Using higher level abstractions doesn't get rid of the pointers , it just covers them up. They're still there in the lower level code. Whereas in java there is no concept of a pointer to start with. Anyway , you don't always want to hide pointers , they exist for a good reason.
"You have no idea about the subject you are commenmting on, do you?"
Wrong.
"You might want to actually go read some of the literature on the subject"
Thanks for the advice, but I've been there and done that.
So , please do tell, how would software running on say a pentium be more efficient in terms of power consumption than using a specialised DSP? I'm all ears...
Agreed , its highly likely to use far more power than specialised hardware which these guys might not think is an issue but when it means the different between 2 hours talk time on a normal cellphone or 20 mins talktime on theirs then they'll soon find out that perhaps the general public isn't as enthused about their technology as they are. Of course some major improvement in battery technology might offset this but I don't see any indication of this yet.
Not necessarily , all I'm saying is that the STL can introduce bugs of its own that can be a lot harder to find than old style buffer overruns so its not a solution that will get rid of obscure coding (as opposed to logic) bugs.
C/C++ are very powerful languages because they let you do pretty much what you like. But with this freedom comes the ability to shoot yourself in the foot badly either due to design errors, sloppy programming or just genuine mistakes. Personally I don't mind this risk but other people (usually the types who knock C/C++) can't really function in an enviroment that doesn't hold their hand and protect them from their own mistakes. Horses for courses.
Err, how much C++ have you written? I've yet to see any complex C++ *without* pointers since you cant reference or use dynamically created objects using the new operator without them. Not to mention in 101 other instances where they're useful.
The mostly STL gets rid of the old problems such as buffer overflows but introduces new ones that can a lot more subtle and harder to track down such as deep/shallow copy issues. Personally (and I'm probably in the minority) I prefer to deal with the old fashioned bugs since you can usually guess where they're happening whereas in a highly abstracted C++ program using the STL with lots of objects being copied and references flying around it can be a LOT harder to figure out whats really going on , especially since different compilers do different things under the hood.
CDE looks nothing like Windows, stop pretending it does. Its been years since I used it but from what I remember it had 4 screen switch buttons in the centre of a large control bar on the bottom and had menus thagt scrolled up from said bar when you clicked on the icon underneath. So tell me , how is that anything like MS Windows??
CDE didn't have any of the features i mentioned above. KDE may have been derived from it originally but they converted it into a windows-a-like. You might as well say XP looks like DOS because it grew out of it.
It has a start button and menu. It has a control panel. It has a task bar. It has clickable icons in the task bar. It lines up its main icons on the left by default. It even implements global icon grab in the same way. Right click for desktop properties.
I'm sorry , in what way does the above differ from the main features of the windows desktop? Stop kidding yourself that KDE is anything other than a windows rip off.
"If you've never used KDE before don't bother commenting on it."
Thats right I never used it in the 2 years I had it as a desktop in my last job. I love it when people karma whore but pretend they're making a valid counterpoint.
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Actually it clearly states it cooked the battery not the whole craft. So why don't you go RTFA instead of attempting some lame karma whoring you cretin.
Only if you want to use it. AFAIK it can be switched off.
... if man hasn't found out a way to deal with this problem by then , then its a fair bet theres been a major collapse of civilisation already taking technology, healthcare etc with it, so there probably won't be very many people around to worry about it and those that are will probably have more important things to worry about than buried nuclear waste - such as finding food and not dying from [insert common medieval cause of death here] for example.
Unless the rocket taking it there happens to blow up on launch and spreads radiaoactive waste over a few thousands square miles.
Surely it can still function on its solar arrays when its on the daylight side of the planet? Or would it drift too much out of alignment when in the dark? Or is there some other issue?
And the reasons you cite above are some of them. People think Pat and the team are stuck in the past but he probably has a better handle on how linux kernel dev has gone down the toilet with 2.6 than many people.
A large number of countries have already been running digital broadcast radio services for a while now, the most popular being DAB. Here in the UK it covers (I believe) 90% of the population. Then of course you have satellite broadcasting not to mention all the internet based services.
I suspect in 20 or 30 years the the FM waveband will contain only non broadcast services in most countries or maybe even nothing at all except hiss and static.
"If they were really interested in finding and contacting us, they would have done so by now"
Some people say they already have! Though why they only ever contact toothless rednecks in pickups in Arkansas at nighttime on lonely roads is perhaps a mystery for another day.
"Physical media is going to become less and less important as our content is now being delivered over the wire"
Speak for yourself. Call me old fashioned but I like having physical copies of stuff I've paid for. Renting a car is not the same as owning one even if the end result is the same.
"He's a techie and enjoys getting his hands dirty working with technology."
So loafing around watching TV is getting down & dirty with technology? Thats certainly a new spin on it.
"Buy original Xbox for £50, perform softmod, install XBMC, rejoice!"
I can just see Joe Public managing that. Not. These devices are meant for average people to use , not technophiles with plenty of knowledge and time on their hands.
"Really these stories are very mundane now I've been watching content from my PC on my TV for over a year now, even streaming content directly from the net onto my TV for just as long. It's not wireless, but you already had cat5 running to the tv area right?"
You definately have too much time on your hands.
Well the article was talking about using Pentiums. Anyway, less power at doing what? Executing one assembly instruction? Yes quite possibly. Executing code that performed the same operation (which could be 1 DSP instruction vs 10 ARM instructions)? Possibly not.
"Steven Murdoch and myself took the chassis of a real terminal and replaced much of the internal electronics such that it allows us to control the screen, keypad and card-reader"
Umm , how exactly does that prove the actual terminal is vulnerable? Other than if you get hold of one and have some tools at hand and lots of time then yes you can open the lid and get to the electronics inside. But I think we all knew that already.
This is a non-event.
Using higher level abstractions doesn't get rid of the pointers , it just covers them up. They're still there in the lower level code. Whereas in java there is no concept of a pointer to start with. Anyway , you don't always want to hide pointers , they exist for a good reason.
"You have no idea about the subject you are commenmting on, do you?"
Wrong.
"You might want to actually go read some of the literature on the subject"
Thanks for the advice, but I've been there and done that.
So , please do tell, how would software running on say a pentium be more efficient in terms of power consumption than using a specialised DSP? I'm all ears...
Agreed , its highly likely to use far more power than specialised hardware which these guys might not think is an issue but when it means the different between 2 hours talk time on a normal cellphone or 20 mins talktime on theirs then they'll soon find out that perhaps the general public isn't as enthused about their technology as they are. Of course some major improvement in battery technology might offset this but I don't see any indication of this yet.
Not necessarily , all I'm saying is that the STL can introduce bugs of its own that can be a lot harder to find than old style buffer overruns so its not a solution that will get rid of obscure coding (as opposed to logic) bugs.
C/C++ are very powerful languages because they let you do pretty much what you like. But with this freedom comes the ability to shoot yourself in the foot badly either due to design errors, sloppy programming or just genuine mistakes. Personally I don't mind this risk but other people (usually the types who knock C/C++) can't really function in an enviroment that doesn't hold their hand and protect them from their own mistakes. Horses for courses.
"simply because it doesn't use pointers "
Err, how much C++ have you written? I've yet to see any complex C++ *without* pointers since you cant reference or use dynamically created objects using the new operator without them. Not to mention in 101 other instances where they're useful.
The mostly STL gets rid of the old problems such as buffer overflows but introduces new ones that can a lot more subtle and harder to track down such as deep/shallow copy issues. Personally (and I'm probably in the minority) I prefer to deal with the old fashioned bugs since you can usually guess where they're happening whereas in a highly abstracted C++ program using the STL with lots of objects being copied and references flying around it can be a LOT harder to figure out whats really going on , especially since different compilers do different things under the hood.
Well , with a large V8 engine they've *obviously* got fuel economy at the top of the list with this vehicle. /sarcasm.
CDE looks nothing like Windows, stop pretending it does. Its been years since I used it but from what I remember it had 4 screen switch buttons in the centre of a large control bar on the bottom and had menus thagt scrolled up from said bar when you clicked on the icon underneath. So tell me , how is that anything like MS Windows??
CDE didn't have any of the features i mentioned above. KDE may have been derived from it originally but they converted it into a windows-a-like. You might as well say XP looks like DOS because it grew out of it.
It has a start button and menu.
It has a control panel.
It has a task bar.
It has clickable icons in the task bar.
It lines up its main icons on the left by default.
It even implements global icon grab in the same way.
Right click for desktop properties.
I'm sorry , in what way does the above differ from the main features of the windows desktop? Stop kidding yourself that KDE is anything other than a windows rip off.
"If you've never used KDE before don't bother commenting on it."
Thats right I never used it in the 2 years I had it as a desktop in my last job. I love it when people karma whore but pretend they're making a valid counterpoint.