If your embedded system can't be allowed to crash, you shouldn't be calling malloc(). At least, not once you've booted up and started running the main code.
The embedded software I work with typically has fixed-size arrays allocated at startup, and explicitly handles cases where it doesn't have enough space in the array.
I remember a plan some years ago to use a cube of cheap processors. Most times you'd lose one or two to a single high-energy particle event, in the expected worst case, you'd lose three, and the others would keep running while the others rebooted.
Don't think it ever went anywhere.
Going back to the Apollo Guidance Computer, it used checkpointing so you could reboot it at any time and it would just continue where it left off. The developers used to randomly reboot while running tests, and the boot was so fast you'd barely notice anything happening.
That's the problem: I'm trying to find a replacement for when "hardware [I] do own" dies.
But... but... but... the fanboys kept telling us that Microsoft would never, ever allow OEMs to make Windows Boot mandatory on PCs. It was a slippery slope argument, which, as every SJW kno, is a logical fallacy, so it can't possibly happen.
I'm guessing my next laptop will be from somewhere like System 76, as PCs rapidly become Windows-only.
The real question is "How many are blocking adds completely?"
The problem with a forum like Slashdot is that there is never any feedback from the greater mass of users.
Let's see:
1. Don't know about today, but as soon as iOS 9 was released with ad blocker support, the most popular app on the app store was... an ad blocker. 2. We're seeing more and more stories with journalists whining about the EVIL AD BLOCKERS.
So I think the answer is 'quite a lot, and growing all the time'. I block numerous ad sites on every computer I use, I run an ad blocker on my iPad, and I block the worst offenders for every device with firewall rules in my home router.
I am referring to the ones that, obviously, weigh more than an ounce, especially considering I stated "higher than 10m."
1. You said 'drones'. You didn't say 'drones that cost $40 or less' (and, BTW, my tiny drone cost a lot more than $40). 2. You clearly know nothing about drones, because mine weighs about an ounce and can climb to around 50m before it loses signal.
So you don't know what you're talking about, but believe you have the right to tell everyone else what to do. If you're not a politician already, you're clearly a prime candidate.
We already require license to fly planes, even remote controlled ones. It's time to require them for drones (if they don't already) and to require code certification for any object flying more than 10 meters off the ground.
Yeah, let's totally cripple a new industry by requiring kids to get a pilots' license for a drone that weighs an ounce and flies for five minutes between charges.
This kind of knee-jerk reaction to innovation is the reason America is in deep decline.
If you had to charge a cellphone every five minutes, they wouldn't be very popular either.
Before personal drones become ubiquitous, they need to become smaller, more capable, and run for at least a few hours on a charge (or be powered wirelessly by their owner somehow). That's not going to happen in the next week.
Helo style drones are highly energy inefficient for transportation. Once the greenies realize that, the party is over.
History doesn't care what reactionary Greenists think, and drones are the wave of the future. They'll be more common than cellphones in a couple of decades.
Actually, in the UK, electricity is increasingly produced by diesel generators, because they need backup power which can start fast when the wind drops.
So the UK 'electric' VWs may well be diesel-powered after all, just with an extra layer of transmission losses on top.
What's to stop me opening the file and saving as PNG, then uploading?
The operating system won't let you. Any operating system which does let you will be banned under the 'free trade' treaty for breaking DRM.
It's hard to tell whether the DRM fanatics are insane or just plain evil. But, either way, they have to destroy general-purpose computing to make it work.
Adobe software has been bugware for as long as I remember. Adobe Premiere was the software that taught me to hit CTRL+S every few seconds, and save a backup copy every half hour.
'Crap, Premiere just crashed again.' 'Double crap. It corrupted my save file just before it crashed.'
The day every cars are fully autonomous, is the day we get rid of car crashes for good.
The only to eliminate car crashes is to eliminate cars.
In the real world, just imagine what happens when Microsoft accidentally release a 'test update' on Windows For Cars Update, and millions of cars download it before they set off for work.
There are fully automated spacecraft now as well, in fact the shuttle was widely considered to be impossible to manually land as it is pretty much a flying brick.
Most, if not all, shuttle landings were flown manually. I believe at least one was flown manually from orbit to touchdown, though that mostly just involved following the pointers the computer displayed on the screen.
The mixed environment for the next 2-3 decades will be quite challenging for all involved.
In 2-3 decades, hardly anyone will travel on Earth. Why waste time transporting your body hundreds of miles when you can just rent a drone body at your destination? Travel will only be required over distances too large for remote control.
This is why the whole 'self-driving car' thing is attacking the wrong problem. It's like someone in 1900 trying to figure out how to clean up all the horse crap that will be clogging up our cities by the year 2000, when everyone will be able to afford a horse.
The main reason we never automated those is that their need for accuracy was much much higher than we have for automobiles and up until recently, computers have not had the real ability to beat a trained, expert human.
Uh, automating aircraft is vastly simpler than automating cars, because nuns rarely run out into the middle of the road at 40,000 feet.
We haven't done it yet, because then everyone dies when the sensors fail. Whereas, with current autopilots, the pilots only sometimes fly the plane into the sea when the sensors fail.
Slashdot Mirror
If your embedded system can't be allowed to crash, you shouldn't be calling malloc(). At least, not once you've booted up and started running the main code.
The embedded software I work with typically has fixed-size arrays allocated at startup, and explicitly handles cases where it doesn't have enough space in the array.
Paywalls are fine. The problem is when search engines send me to paywalled sites.
I remember a plan some years ago to use a cube of cheap processors. Most times you'd lose one or two to a single high-energy particle event, in the expected worst case, you'd lose three, and the others would keep running while the others rebooted.
Don't think it ever went anywhere.
Going back to the Apollo Guidance Computer, it used checkpointing so you could reboot it at any time and it would just continue where it left off. The developers used to randomly reboot while running tests, and the boot was so fast you'd barely notice anything happening.
That's the problem: I'm trying to find a replacement for when "hardware [I] do own" dies.
But... but... but... the fanboys kept telling us that Microsoft would never, ever allow OEMs to make Windows Boot mandatory on PCs. It was a slippery slope argument, which, as every SJW kno, is a logical fallacy, so it can't possibly happen.
I'm guessing my next laptop will be from somewhere like System 76, as PCs rapidly become Windows-only.
The real question is "How many are blocking adds completely?"
The problem with a forum like Slashdot is that there is never any feedback from the greater mass of users.
Let's see:
1. Don't know about today, but as soon as iOS 9 was released with ad blocker support, the most popular app on the app store was... an ad blocker.
2. We're seeing more and more stories with journalists whining about the EVIL AD BLOCKERS.
So I think the answer is 'quite a lot, and growing all the time'. I block numerous ad sites on every computer I use, I run an ad blocker on my iPad, and I block the worst offenders for every device with firewall rules in my home router.
The stick could download crap from the network and send it out over the Internet first, then fry the computer when it's done to destroy any evidence.
Uh, no, it doesn't. You just drop a few of these in the parking lot outside a company, and wait for people to pick them up and stick them in their PC.
Dont use a smart phone, don't use google products, and dont use social media.
Good God, man! How could I survive without my daily dose of mildly amusing cat pictures?
I am referring to the ones that, obviously, weigh more than an ounce, especially considering I stated "higher than 10m."
1. You said 'drones'. You didn't say 'drones that cost $40 or less' (and, BTW, my tiny drone cost a lot more than $40).
2. You clearly know nothing about drones, because mine weighs about an ounce and can climb to around 50m before it loses signal.
So you don't know what you're talking about, but believe you have the right to tell everyone else what to do. If you're not a politician already, you're clearly a prime candidate.
I've crashed mine into me a few times. Lucky I bought a pack of spare propellers.
We already require license to fly planes, even remote controlled ones. It's time to require them for drones (if they don't already) and to require code certification for any object flying more than 10 meters off the ground.
Yeah, let's totally cripple a new industry by requiring kids to get a pilots' license for a drone that weighs an ounce and flies for five minutes between charges.
This kind of knee-jerk reaction to innovation is the reason America is in deep decline.
Note that drones don't necessarily have to fly. I was looking at a demo video of a spider drone on the web a while back.
If you had to charge a cellphone every five minutes, they wouldn't be very popular either.
Before personal drones become ubiquitous, they need to become smaller, more capable, and run for at least a few hours on a charge (or be powered wirelessly by their owner somehow). That's not going to happen in the next week.
Helo style drones are highly energy inefficient for transportation. Once the greenies realize that, the party is over.
History doesn't care what reactionary Greenists think, and drones are the wave of the future. They'll be more common than cellphones in a couple of decades.
Whatever method Putin tried to control the internet probably involved him not wearing a shirt.
It always worked for Captain Kirk...
We're so lucky we have Great Leader Obama to protect us from Putin's Evil Plans.
Actually, in the UK, electricity is increasingly produced by diesel generators, because they need backup power which can start fast when the wind drops.
So the UK 'electric' VWs may well be diesel-powered after all, just with an extra layer of transmission losses on top.
What's to stop me opening the file and saving as PNG, then uploading?
The operating system won't let you. Any operating system which does let you will be banned under the 'free trade' treaty for breaking DRM.
It's hard to tell whether the DRM fanatics are insane or just plain evil. But, either way, they have to destroy general-purpose computing to make it work.
Adobe software has been bugware for as long as I remember. Adobe Premiere was the software that taught me to hit CTRL+S every few seconds, and save a backup copy every half hour.
'Crap, Premiere just crashed again.'
'Double crap. It corrupted my save file just before it crashed.'
There is no proof she had a server. No one except the people that hate women are claiming that. You are falling for the Republican's war on women.
They're all part of the Vast Right-Wing CONSPIRACY!
The day every cars are fully autonomous, is the day we get rid of car crashes for good.
The only to eliminate car crashes is to eliminate cars.
In the real world, just imagine what happens when Microsoft accidentally release a 'test update' on Windows For Cars Update, and millions of cars download it before they set off for work.
There are fully automated spacecraft now as well, in fact the shuttle was widely considered to be impossible to manually land as it is pretty much a flying brick.
Most, if not all, shuttle landings were flown manually. I believe at least one was flown manually from orbit to touchdown, though that mostly just involved following the pointers the computer displayed on the screen.
The mixed environment for the next 2-3 decades will be quite challenging for all involved.
In 2-3 decades, hardly anyone will travel on Earth. Why waste time transporting your body hundreds of miles when you can just rent a drone body at your destination? Travel will only be required over distances too large for remote control.
This is why the whole 'self-driving car' thing is attacking the wrong problem. It's like someone in 1900 trying to figure out how to clean up all the horse crap that will be clogging up our cities by the year 2000, when everyone will be able to afford a horse.
The main reason we never automated those is that their need for accuracy was much much higher than we have for automobiles and up until recently, computers have not had the real ability to beat a trained, expert human.
Uh, automating aircraft is vastly simpler than automating cars, because nuns rarely run out into the middle of the road at 40,000 feet.
We haven't done it yet, because then everyone dies when the sensors fail. Whereas, with current autopilots, the pilots only sometimes fly the plane into the sea when the sensors fail.
Even if you own the car doesn't mean it should be permitted to run over pedestrians just because you want it to.
What if they're terrorists shooting up a bus full of nuns?