I often wonder why I bother to post comments as they normally just make me sound as stupid as the rest of you. But I feel like plucking some shit from my ass and smearing it across your intellectual black bridge over the great divide.
Simpler, a 100MHz pentium, 68000, or ARM ~1.5M transistors, should be sufficient for most applications.
Expandable, storage, communications, and display
Interfacing, think what other uses can be made, weather/crop/medical/water/energy how could these be controlled/monitored what sort of interfaces would be required.
Communcations, would a longwave or multiband reciever be useful for one way data comms, what about packet radio for longer distances.
Economics, how can the systems be made to pay?, can we get the third world to decode captchas for us or work as a typing pool using the systems?
As regards power 1.5M transistors on a.2micron die running at 100MHz at 2.3V should draw average.5W if properly designed. It's possible to get north/south bridges processor and a basic gfx adaptor in 1.5M transistors.
About 3 three years ago I bought a palm iiixe for around £28 brand new, so according to moores law a pentium spec handheld should be available at the same price now, where is it?.
Would a computer be useful for monitoring the environment in an effluent digester controlling PH and chemical additives to optimize the system for producer gas generation. Can crop production be improved on a small scale farm by monitoring the weather or the soil condition?. What type of control systems can be cheaply produced and interfaced to the computers that would improve third world techniques?
I don't think we should just give computers with no idea how they can best be used and how they can benefit us as well as the poor we are giving them to. If we can give something that can be used to earn and learn then there will be something the poor can offer to trade.
I do like to see people trying to do things whether they are right or wrong progress is always made by those who try something new. I am sure there is much more to say but I don't think I should say it, make your own minds up.
Don't let the bastards grind you down, do what you enjoy, etc...
"To be fair, they do seem to have gone to great pains to make sure their victims are emotionally stable and will appreciate the joke."
Noone is REALLY "emotionally stable", most mental health practitioners couldn't tell a bannana from half a fruit loop.
You also seem to be assuming that I am wrong in my supposition that all involved are actors. Most can easily be traced to the backgrounds of east enders, hollyoaks, and some even seen in other so called "reality shows" such as dragons den, how clean is your ass, etc.....
I suppose it is true that the only people with the spare time to go to these type of show auditions are students, the unemployed, and out of work actors. But these type of people would generally go along with anything if there is the chance of earning a crust. Even if there is no direct collusion with the producers I am sure the 'victims' realise that the longer they keep up the pretense the more they earn.
Channel 4 seems to come up with the most awful spirited programming, I don't know why? maybe it's what the yoof of today want?.
But I guess this program maybe a double bluff, I have not really followed the program other than when I was channel surfing the first episode where the victims were chosen. I spotted 12 actors, more actors than "victims" which did not make the grade. I cannot believe that they would audition actors without letting the viewer know, so I therefore assume that they were all actors and were paid to pretend to be gullible "victims".
Some of these TV shows have had problems with the aftermath of these sort of twisted humiliation programs. I have heard of a suicide that was linked to this sort of TV humiliation, and I think jerry springer was linked to some murder, all sorts of law suits with that transexual miriam thing, etc....
I cannot believe that the producers would leave themselves open to these possibilitys?
But then again I could be wrong, I have been told there is no lower limit to human intelligence?.
The thing I have always wanted is client side image handling added to the img tag, this would make many things more efficient and simpler, you would only need an extra two attributes. Adding a frame= attribute and a subimage=x,y:x,y would reduce all the server requests needed for the cut up table images and gallery pages. Possibly a mask image attribute might help also?
Posting your hard earned methods of seo to slashdot is a sure fire way to have search engines change their algorithms to remove any vulnerabilitys to bad search results. Anyone who would do that would be a fool as they would stop themselves from earning from their scarce knowledge, and would be in effect working for the search engines for free. The only circumstances where this may be done is when new unknown methods become available and ones competitors can be eliminated by publishing the old methods that they use making them ineffective, whilst only you have new methods that make the value of your knowledge vastly higher.
I don't want to give anyhing away but google currently has 12 vulnerabilitys and msn 9 these are the only engines we currently research.
Still you also always need 'some' content but once you have something reasonable, certain seo methods can boost its rank way above the others.
Oh i may give a clue about something that maybe coming to the end of its useful life, cache!
I looked at doing something like the debian boot floppys library mklibs.py script with a glue layer. The basic concept is :
write your program
run script to:
scan for required stubs
all custom lib code copied to custom dir and procnames renamed to xxx_callname.
glue layer library created where callname -> xxx_callname
compile custom lib
compile glue layer
compile your program, link it to glue layer
distribute program binary, source code to the glue layer, the code for the custom library, and a script to check dependency for the glue layer.
the user then runs dependency check script and compiles only missing lib calls and links to those available when the glue layer is compiled
advantages
This allows you to avoid the GNU licence problems as you only link to your glue layer library.
You make it simple for the user to compile all required library code as you distribute everything and avoid the possibility of missing librarys.
You still have the advantage of shared library
most useful thing for physical prototyping
on
Fast Robot Prototyping
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Some stuff called polymorph (a trade name I think?) it's a thermo plastic that becomes maleable in boiling water and sets tougher than most other plastics. Perfect for making parts for almost anything that is not heated above 50'C.
Tools wise a dremmel type drill, lathe, set of files, hacksaw, and a screwdriver.
I haven't read all the comments so someone may have beaten me to the answer?.
But here is my answer based on the current state of the art and numerous industry studies for reliability and lowest TCO.
Call Microsoft and ask for a copy of exchange server!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to keep this short so I will just say this.
People don't understand what dimensions are!
String theory has always been a joke based around the old question "how long is a piece of string?", scientists have always used this addage to extract "money for old rope" from those who are "thick as two short planks"
There is no lower limit to a mans stupidity.
Ask yourself how is this knowledge going to help you?
This sort of research has been done over and over since the 1970's, with various levels of success. Not to say that it isn't good, but a cure is always 10 years away and I don't see any real cure available for at least 50-60 years.
Mice are different from humans and just connecting nerves don't work as you have to connect the right severed nerves together. Mice can't tell us how the "repair" feels is the movement just relex is it controlled?, it has been shown that a human can still walk if only 5% of his spinal cord still functions (which 5% i don't know?, but that don't mean he is not affected in other ways and functionality is severly impaired ). With nerve repair you could get a case of reflexes wired incorectly and constant spasm occuring or your soft touch nerve conected to the pain nerve channel causing extreme discomfort at the slightest touch. The grey matter of the spinal cord does alot of processing of nerve signals before it gets to the brain and how can this processing be programmed correctly?
Apparently salamanders can fully regrow lost limbs and their entire nervous system, this don't mean that humans can though.
in summary: research = good spinal injury = bad mice!=men
Warning independant examinations have shown that upto 48% of what I say can be WRONG
I was considering creating a well balanced and thoughtout analysis of the article but couldn't be bothered to read it.
so instead i will babble incoherently about a case for something based upon some other things:
1)people don't like bad things. 2)people do like good things. 3)life is too complicated to get things right. 4)people are lazy.
The development of weasle words and managment speek has evolved from the fact that managers may face a number of bad situations in bussiness:
1)they maybe unable to understand the the complexitys of a problem.
2)they may have bad news to give
3)They may have to justify an action
In order to conquer these situations they have to use language as a weapon. By making statements that are ambiguous, complicated, and hard to understand they hope to reduce any loss of face, interogation of the facts, etc...
Most people don't have the time/intelligence/need to decrypt the language and it won't make any difference anyways.
Unfortunatly capitalism (in fact any heirarchy) is all about the top level making decisions for the lower levels. The top have it good but if your at the top you cannot be seen to be fallible or you loose your position in the heirarchy and that means you must hide your errors and never promise anything you can't produce, whilst at the same time appearing to promise good thing for everyone.
I really don't care if those at the top are ripping me off, so long as i'm reasonably well off, which most people are in the first world(slashdot) are, so stop whining.
There has always been technical jargon that people use to protect their positions and profesions.
It's just that modern information exchange and education makes it a little more noticable and easier to decrypt.
I listened to the The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Whilst developing a transadjunctive superset of newspeak and esperanto, but where did it get me?.
It's kewl that this got on CNN we need more sophism, BS, and trumpet tooting. It at least stimulates discussion, intrest, and someone might actually propose something that really works.
but.....
It all depends what type of machine you are talking about?
For a self replicating machine you need it to produce:
1) some type of motor unit 2) a method of extrusion/deposition/milling of solid components. 3) production of control/energy transmission conduits 4) control logic.
We did some work with haex on hadron confined focused plasma extrusion of alloys, basically you create a magnetic vortex to contain your plasma (similar to electron microscope focusing system) with Tcut berylium crystals modulating the output field topology. Then you just squirt in your alloy powder components into the vortex, control the plasma temperature and focus topology then draw off the required extrusion on to a x,y,z cnc build platform. Obviously the plasma can be modulated for fine deposition, cutting/milling operations allowing extremly precise and complex solids to be formed. We initially worked with Al/Zn/Cu/Mn/Mg/Si Particles to produce standard alloy types but never managed to get correct crystaline granular alloys (components had very high IGC levels). The current developments are looking at fullerines with Al/Cu.
This sort of thing may oneday become a selfreplicating system but it wont be cheap or portable (unless there are some huge leaps in heat dissipation and energy costs?)
I havent read the article(why should I?) but i will post some redundant, irrelevant, and misinformed spam. Development sux when more than one person is involved.
What would improve open source development would be:
Every project MUST have a concise description of objectives.
A concise architecture overview.
Some flow charts?
Modularity.
What would be nice is if someone designed a nice CVS like system where anyone could submit patches. The system would force submitters to create a useful description of:
what the patch does,
how it works
why the patch is needed,
what sections of architecture it may effect
possible future improvements required
documentation
other notes
The system would workout what files the patch effects and any other stats and create a database entry, then post a report on a relevant section of the projects web site. Patches could then have a rating system so users could vote on quality of patches, quality of patch documentation, add comments, improvments, etc..
Would this be better than the typical mailing list?
I dunno but i think sometimes when people make patches they are often hacks that are not of sufficient quality for inclusion in a project or are only of use for a very narrow audience. If a project allows all submissions to be shown and rated it would give more democratic control and make it easier for project leaders to sift the wheat from the ergot.
This has probably been done already(I just havent seen it yet), tho I doubt this helps anyone and complex things are never going to be made easy.
i love making offtopic posts:
i saw this the other day: some muppet head
and it made me think of something about government tax systems ruining the market system that i wont go into here. -> goats
but anyway what people who "want to get rich" need to think about it what people "with money" want and need and then produce it cheaper and better than anyone else. What they must then do is make sure that they trap their customers into a cycle of buying more products or services from you.
If people dont buy your product its your own fault, you either dont have a good enough product, dont sell it cheap enough, have not forced your current customers into sufficient dependence, or aren't a good liar.
The market is king., living on welfare is VERY comfortable in most first world economies. You should only work if you're enjoying it. a sense of humour always helps.
system stripping was SOP for high level embedded
on
Windows 95 in 4.47MB
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It's all about cost really.
Smaller software requires cheaper hardware to run.
If you are producing highlevel embedded software applications (e.g. for epos or media devices), you require a reasonable graphical user interface to optimize HCI. Many older operating systems were used before OS developers realized high level embedded OS were a large market. Then came embedded linux distributions followed by embedded windows. Now there is little need to strip down an older OS when you can have all the new features in roughly the same size as a stripped older OS.
Incidently Mungkie used win95 at one point for a number of epos projects. Using win95 we managed to create an uncompressed OS image of ~3.9Mb which meant we could normally fit our entire system and application on a 32Mbit ROM (we can half that size with compression but more system RAM is then required). Now using linux we can get the system in the same ROM but we get far far better features, security and a more stable system. We have now switched to linux only development on all work (unless a customer insists on a MS platform).
Now just to reiterate the exact reasons for reducing system size!!!. SMALLER SYSTEMS ARE CHEAPER AND SIMPLER TO DEVELOP, PRODUCE, AND MAINTAIN.
The savings made in development time mean we have more time to eat bananas.
The savings made on hardware costs make our systems (that we sell!) more competetive and increase our profit margins.
The savings made in maintenance mean our products are reliable and our customers want to buy from us again, and saves us time and money in supporting customers and paying for call centers.
humm....... stuff is really all about efficiency, which is about cost. This system costs too much all development can now be done in software. form thermal tests to logic to board design to power consumption analysis.
If your working on a project that will produce more that 10k units software synthesis and an ASIC will be cheaper. And development in synthesis software is always the best and cheapest route before looking at the implementation on silicon.
I believe good development and innovation is all about experimentation which is a scientific approach.
Engineering is about following the rules.
That's why computer scientists are better that software engineers.
Slashdot Mirror
I often wonder why I bother to post comments as they normally just make me sound as stupid as the rest of you. But I feel like plucking some shit from my ass and smearing it across your intellectual black bridge over the great divide.
Simpler, a 100MHz pentium, 68000, or ARM ~1.5M transistors, should be sufficient for most applications.
Expandable, storage, communications, and display
Interfacing, think what other uses can be made, weather/crop/medical/water/energy how could these be controlled/monitored what sort of interfaces would be required.
Communcations, would a longwave or multiband reciever be useful for one way data comms, what about packet radio for longer distances.
Economics, how can the systems be made to pay?, can we get the third world to decode captchas for us or work as a typing pool using the systems?
As regards power 1.5M transistors on a .2micron die running at 100MHz at 2.3V should draw average .5W if properly designed. It's possible to get north/south bridges processor and a basic gfx adaptor in 1.5M transistors.
About 3 three years ago I bought a palm iiixe for around £28 brand new, so according to moores law a pentium spec handheld should be available at the same price now, where is it?.
Would a computer be useful for monitoring the environment in an effluent digester controlling PH and chemical additives to optimize the system for producer gas generation. Can crop production be improved on a small scale farm by monitoring the weather or the soil condition?. What type of control systems can be cheaply produced and interfaced to the computers that would improve third world techniques?
I don't think we should just give computers with no idea how they can best be used and how they can benefit us as well as the poor we are giving them to. If we can give something that can be used to earn and learn then there will be something the poor can offer to trade.
I do like to see people trying to do things whether they are right or wrong progress is always made by those who try something new. I am sure there is much more to say but I don't think I should say it, make your own minds up. Don't let the bastards grind you down, do what you enjoy, etc...
"To be fair, they do seem to have gone to great pains to make sure their victims are emotionally stable and will appreciate the joke."
Noone is REALLY "emotionally stable", most mental health practitioners couldn't tell a bannana from half a fruit loop.
You also seem to be assuming that I am wrong in my supposition that all involved are actors. Most can easily be traced to the backgrounds of east enders, hollyoaks, and some even seen in other so called "reality shows" such as dragons den, how clean is your ass, etc.....
I suppose it is true that the only people with the spare time to go to these type of show auditions are students, the unemployed, and out of work actors. But these type of people would generally go along with anything if there is the chance of earning a crust. Even if there is no direct collusion with the producers I am sure the 'victims' realise that the longer they keep up the pretense the more they earn.
NOTHING is real on TV even reality.
Channel 4 seems to come up with the most awful spirited programming, I don't know why? maybe it's what the yoof of today want?.
But I guess this program maybe a double bluff, I have not really followed the program other than when I was channel surfing the first episode where the victims were chosen. I spotted 12 actors, more actors than "victims" which did not make the grade. I cannot believe that they would audition actors without letting the viewer know, so I therefore assume that they were all actors and were paid to pretend to be gullible "victims".
Some of these TV shows have had problems with the aftermath of these sort of twisted humiliation programs. I have heard of a suicide that was linked to this sort of TV humiliation, and I think jerry springer was linked to some murder, all sorts of law suits with that transexual miriam thing, etc....
I cannot believe that the producers would leave themselves open to these possibilitys?
But then again I could be wrong, I have been told there is no lower limit to human intelligence?.
The thing I have always wanted is client side image handling added to the img tag, this would make many things more efficient and simpler, you would only need an extra two attributes. Adding a frame= attribute and a subimage=x,y:x,y would reduce all the server requests needed for the cut up table images and gallery pages. Possibly a mask image attribute might help also?
Yes you are correct, this is what is needed!!! but this concept could be taken further
Posting your hard earned methods of seo to slashdot is a sure fire way to have search engines change their algorithms to remove any vulnerabilitys to bad search results. Anyone who would do that would be a fool as they would stop themselves from earning from their scarce knowledge, and would be in effect working for the search engines for free. The only circumstances where this may be done is when new unknown methods become available and ones competitors can be eliminated by publishing the old methods that they use making them ineffective, whilst only you have new methods that make the value of your knowledge vastly higher.
I don't want to give anyhing away but google currently has 12 vulnerabilitys and msn 9 these are the only engines we currently research.
Still you also always need 'some' content but once you have something reasonable, certain seo methods can boost its rank way above the others.
Oh i may give a clue about something that maybe coming to the end of its useful life, cache!
I don't get it, what was the PC running as its original OS? Why change?
- write your program
- run script to:
- scan for required stubs
- all custom lib code copied to custom dir and procnames renamed to xxx_callname.
- glue layer library created where callname -> xxx_callname
- compile custom lib
- compile glue layer
- compile your program, link it to glue layer
- distribute program binary, source code to the glue layer, the code for the custom library, and a script to check dependency for the glue layer.
- the user then runs dependency check script and compiles only missing lib calls and links to those available when the glue layer is compiled
advantagesThis allows you to avoid the GNU licence problems as you only link to your glue layer library.
You make it simple for the user to compile all required library code as you distribute everything and avoid the possibility of missing librarys.
You still have the advantage of shared library
Some stuff called polymorph (a trade name I think?) it's a thermo plastic that becomes maleable in boiling water and sets tougher than most other plastics. Perfect for making parts for almost anything that is not heated above 50'C.
Tools wise a dremmel type drill, lathe, set of files, hacksaw, and a screwdriver.
I haven't read all the comments so someone may have beaten me to the answer?. But here is my answer based on the current state of the art and numerous industry studies for reliability and lowest TCO. Call Microsoft and ask for a copy of exchange server!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to keep this short so I will just say this.
People don't understand what dimensions are!
String theory has always been a joke based around the old question "how long is a piece of string?", scientists have always used this addage to extract "money for old rope" from those who are "thick as two short planks"
There is no lower limit to a mans stupidity.
Ask yourself how is this knowledge going to help you?
everyone knows a million monkeys are better than one programmer!
This sort of research has been done over and over since the 1970's, with various levels of success. Not to say that it isn't good, but a cure is always 10 years away and I don't see any real cure available for at least 50-60 years.
Mice are different from humans and just connecting nerves don't work as you have to connect the right severed nerves together. Mice can't tell us how the "repair" feels is the movement just relex is it controlled?, it has been shown that a human can still walk if only 5% of his spinal cord still functions (which 5% i don't know?, but that don't mean he is not affected in other ways and functionality is severly impaired ). With nerve repair you could get a case of reflexes wired incorectly and constant spasm occuring or your soft touch nerve conected to the pain nerve channel causing extreme discomfort at the slightest touch. The grey matter of the spinal cord does alot of processing of nerve signals before it gets to the brain and how can this processing be programmed correctly?
Apparently salamanders can fully regrow lost limbs and their entire nervous system, this don't mean that humans can though.
in summary:
research = good
spinal injury = bad
mice!=men
Warning independant examinations have shown that upto 48% of what I say can be WRONG
I was considering creating a well balanced and thoughtout analysis of the article but couldn't be bothered to read it.
so instead i will babble incoherently about a case for something based upon some other things:
1)people don't like bad things.
2)people do like good things.
3)life is too complicated to get things right.
4)people are lazy.
The development of weasle words and managment speek has evolved from the fact that managers may face a number of bad situations in bussiness:
1)they maybe unable to understand the the complexitys of a problem.
2)they may have bad news to give
3)They may have to justify an action
In order to conquer these situations they have to use language as a weapon. By making statements that are ambiguous, complicated, and hard to understand they hope to reduce any loss of face, interogation of the facts, etc...
Most people don't have the time/intelligence/need to decrypt the language and it won't make any difference anyways.
Unfortunatly capitalism (in fact any heirarchy) is all about the top level making decisions for the lower levels. The top have it good but if your at the top you cannot be seen to be fallible or you loose your position in the heirarchy and that means you must hide your errors and never promise anything you can't produce, whilst at the same time appearing to promise good thing for everyone.
I really don't care if those at the top are ripping me off, so long as i'm reasonably well off, which most people are in the first world(slashdot) are, so stop whining.
There has always been technical jargon that people use to protect their positions and profesions.
It's just that modern information exchange and education makes it a little more noticable and easier to decrypt.
I listened to the The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Whilst developing a transadjunctive superset of newspeak and esperanto, but where did it get me?.
hmmm...............
It's kewl that this got on CNN we need more sophism, BS, and trumpet tooting. It at least stimulates discussion, intrest, and someone might actually propose something that really works.
but.....
It all depends what type of machine you are talking about?
stereolithography cost around $2 per cc
resinmetal cast http://www.prometal.com/equipment.html $10 per cc
this is != cheap
this is != self replicating
For a self replicating machine you need it to produce:
1) some type of motor unit
2) a method of extrusion/deposition/milling of solid components.
3) production of control/energy transmission conduits
4) control logic.
We did some work with haex on hadron confined focused plasma extrusion of alloys, basically you create a magnetic vortex to contain your plasma (similar to electron microscope focusing system) with Tcut berylium crystals modulating the output field topology. Then you just squirt in your alloy powder components into the vortex, control the plasma temperature and focus topology then draw off the required extrusion on to a x,y,z cnc build platform. Obviously the plasma can be modulated for fine deposition, cutting/milling operations allowing extremly precise and complex solids to be formed. We initially worked with Al/Zn/Cu/Mn/Mg/Si Particles to produce standard alloy types but never managed to get correct crystaline granular alloys (components had very high IGC levels). The current developments are looking at fullerines with Al/Cu.
This sort of thing may oneday become a selfreplicating system but it wont be cheap or portable (unless there are some huge leaps in heat dissipation and energy costs?)
but i will post some redundant, irrelevant, and misinformed spam.
Development sux when more than one person is involved.
What would improve open source development would be:
Every project MUST have a concise description of objectives.
A concise architecture overview.
Some flow charts?
Modularity.
What would be nice is if someone designed a nice CVS like system where anyone could submit patches. The system would force submitters to create a useful description of:
what the patch does,
how it works
why the patch is needed,
what sections of architecture it may effect
possible future improvements required
documentation
other notes
The system would workout what files the patch effects and any other stats and create a database entry, then post a report on a relevant section of the projects web site. Patches could then have a rating system so users could vote on quality of patches, quality of patch documentation, add comments, improvments, etc..
Would this be better than the typical mailing list?
I dunno but i think sometimes when people make patches they are often hacks that are not of sufficient quality for inclusion in a project or are only of use for a very narrow audience. If a project allows all submissions to be shown and rated it would give more democratic control and make it easier for project leaders to sift the wheat from the ergot.
This has probably been done already(I just havent seen it yet), tho I doubt this helps anyone and complex things are never going to be made easy.
i love making offtopic posts:
i saw this the other day: some muppet head and it made me think of something about government tax systems ruining the market system that i wont go into here. -> goats
but anyway what people who "want to get rich" need to think about it what people "with money" want and need and then produce it cheaper and better than anyone else. What they must then do is make sure that they trap their customers into a cycle of buying more products or services from you.
If people dont buy your product its your own fault, you either dont have a good enough product, dont sell it cheap enough, have not forced your current customers into sufficient dependence, or aren't a good liar.
The market is king., living on welfare is VERY comfortable in most first world economies. You should only work if you're enjoying it. a sense of humour always helps.
Incidently Mungkie used win95 at one point for a number of epos projects. Using win95 we managed to create an uncompressed OS image of ~3.9Mb which meant we could normally fit our entire system and application on a 32Mbit ROM (we can half that size with compression but more system RAM is then required). Now using linux we can get the system in the same ROM but we get far far better features, security and a more stable system. We have now switched to linux only development on all work (unless a customer insists on a MS platform).
Now just to reiterate the exact reasons for reducing system size!!!. SMALLER SYSTEMS ARE CHEAPER AND SIMPLER TO DEVELOP, PRODUCE, AND MAINTAIN.
The savings made in development time mean we have more time to eat bananas.
The savings made on hardware costs make our systems (that we sell!) more competetive and increase our profit margins.
The savings made in maintenance mean our products are reliable and our customers want to buy from us again, and saves us time and money in supporting customers and paying for call centers.
Win95 was OK in its time but things have changed.
humm....... stuff is really all about efficiency, which is about cost. This system costs too much all development can now be done in software. form thermal tests to logic to board design to power consumption analysis. If your working on a project that will produce more that 10k units software synthesis and an ASIC will be cheaper. And development in synthesis software is always the best and cheapest route before looking at the implementation on silicon. I believe good development and innovation is all about experimentation which is a scientific approach. Engineering is about following the rules. That's why computer scientists are better that software engineers.
new version of 1diskxwin available at:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/natld
check out 2diskxwin I thinmk they are developing sumthing like this