This has been done in Canada for years. Although it was started with a bar code ear tag with a registration number rather than RFID it allowed a cow to be tracked from birth to market shelf. With RFID in place since 2005 the process is even easier and probably faster.
http://www.cbef.com/cattle_identification_system.htm
Albeit true that there is a cadre of self proclaimed hackers in America that forsake all and any form of maintainability in the code they write this is generally not true of professionals that are trained at places like MIT, Waterloo, CalTech, or BCIT. My experience as a gun for hire project saving consultant is that generally the absolute crappiest of source code comes from overseas out-sourcing (although, in all fairness, the worst examples I've come across are made in America). It's not because the programmers in India, Vietnam, Romania are bad - some, if not many are outstanding. It's because the managers are forcing poor work habits to increase productivity (and profit) - they are not paid for comments and proper variable names, only for the lines of code.
Professional computer programming is only about 50 years old. As a profession it is virtually brand new and standards, except for core, common sense axioms, are mostly short lived fads ("Scrum" is about the most inane yet). Even the basic tool, programming language, changes every few years. LISP, Clarion, Delphi, PL/1, FORTRAN, C, C++, Java, and now C# were and are touted as the standard to work from. I was first taught assembler and then COBOL (shows my length of time in the trenches).
A new kind of computer engineering degree is not needed an established set of standards is required. When a body of standardization is in place and true universal standards are established, then the quality of coding will become uniform. I do doubt that this will happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
I installed the Win7 Beta on a netbook as a test. It works surprising well (Vista did not, XP or Linux far better than Win7), except the video is screwed up for high end graphics applications like those silly new games that require the graphics capacity of a combined Pixar and Dreamworks production.
One more more thing: Use mofo or some other less offensive term. The rest of us are able to maintain etiquette even when anonymously corresponding on line.
I wrote an operating system and hardware drivers for a Z80 based embedded system in 1986. It was and still is a great processor as long as you only need 8 bits.
It seems to be more of a manufactured coincidence than synchronicity that Obama announces major push for new funding for science and alternative power sources and this snake oil pops up again. I wish I was a self deluded fourth rate physicist with a sociopathic business partner - there are so many ignorant people out there to scam. I'm sure a low cost, high temperature super-conductor is soon to be announced by a scientist associated with some of the executives from AIG. Hey, it's more plausible than the $10 laptop computer project (http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/indian-planning.html) the Indian government is burning the tax payers' money on.
I design and program database systems for sensitive data that have full auditing. Nothing can be changed without being able to tell who did it, when, from where, and what was changed (before and after images). Any competent programmer can do this. What Diebold has done is inexcusable but may not be criminal, it depends on what the specifications of the software were and if intent can be established. This may be just another case of bad project management and cheap, crappy offshore assigned work by another corporation maximizing profits at any cost. My gut reaction in any case is to hang the bastards.
Please note: If you worked as a programmer or project manager for Diebold leave it off of your resume if you had nothing to do with this. Fill in the work gap with "Voluntary Commitment to a Mental Hospital". It will look better.
Lie to the students and convince them that scientists get huge paychecks, huge bonuses, huge respect, and girl/boy friends with huge (place favorite body part here) just like Wall street traders that destroy World economies or rap/hip hop "artists" that preach (and often preform) misogyny and violence.
Sadly, science is a road to becoming an underpaid lab rat or high school instructor. I gave up designing computer systems and portable devices to pursue systems analysis and programming. The opportunity, hours, and money are better.
The problem with new CS/IT grads is that they mostly do not know how to design software or even how a computer works at a basic level. In the last ten or more years most of these computer science majors are familiar with Java but know no assembly and very little C and have more training in Web design than in systems analysis.
This, however, works well for me. I work as a consultant that is parachuted into projects that are past due and over budget and fix them. True, I have thirty years of experience and that can not be duplicated in four years of college, but I mostly fix very basic mistakes made by people that are ignorant of the technology or the methodology.
Hopefully the universities and colleges will start teaching the basics (especially documentation) and train truly professional IT people. It's frustrating and unnerving to have someone who does Visual Basic Scripts in Excel call themselves a software engineer and are in charge of a large ERP project.
Linux with ARM is superior to Windows with Intel x86 in this platform and target user group. I have worked with both and ARM is not powerful (comparatively) but is exceedingly power efficient.
P.S.
Keep your customers happy and your employees happy and your business will be happy and can last forever. If you are not happy, you are the problem.
Circuit City is text book example of what attempting to become very rich very quickly almost always results in. It is a perfect analog of the national and world economy. The blue print for demise Circuit City followed:
Action: Remove staff with knowledge and ability and start paying less to less capable people.
Reason: Keep immediate profits high.
Outcome: Reduced sales due to less customer service.
Action: Leave prices high.
Reason: Keep immediate profits high.
Outcome: Failing to see that the consumer electronics market is shifting to a Walmart model (aggressive pricing, low profit, high volume) sales go down.
Action: Eliminate deep discounts on open box, out of production, or discontinued merchandise.
Reason: Keep immediate profits high.
Outcome: Reduced repeat and casual traffic resulting in reduced sales.
This is what happens when any business runs itself based on the principle of "Keep immediate profits high" rather than "Keep customers coming back".
Gordon Gecko was wrong - greed is bad.
The Volt can work. It's simply designed not to. This is the EV-1 (Impact) all over again. GM seems to be run by people that are determined to ruin it. It would not surprise me if that is the plan. Take the free taxpayers' bailout money, steal it, bankrupt General Motors and get hired by the new owners who planned the whole thing out. This could also be planned to break the Detroit unions that cost so much and make American cars so uncompetitive.
Oddly, well.. not so oddly, Microsoft steals anything they really need and just throws lawyers at the complaining parties until those they stole from give up. A good example is Stac Electronic's product Stacker hard drive compression. Although in this case MS did eventually lose but Stac went under.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
Exactly, what I was thinking. But the Macbook Pro is not a Wintel PC (although it is now Intel based) and I am sure it must have a way to do a complete reset. Is there anyone out there with a Macbook Pro that knows?
I like to complain with my dollars. If I can't swap batteries I will not but a Macbook no matter how nice it is. I can change the battery in my HP laptop in a few seconds with one latch. The non-user-serviceable battery is a bad design in my opinion but it is Apple's choice. We have lots of options available.
It does look that way but I suggest downloading and trying the beta. Vista added a lot of clutter, didn't fix much, needed a lot more hardware power, and slowed down everything. If Windows 7 cleans up the interface, works on older, less leading edge hardware, and speeds up the processing I may buy it.
No second beta and an expiry on the current download of August 2009 tells us two things:
The changes are not very significant and the release will be (barring extreme problems) late this year.
I'm installing the Windows 7 beta as I write this. If it is viable my planned new desktop will run it. If not, Linux or Macintosh are options.
With the current economy a dud version of Windows will mark the end of Microsoft dominance.
A desktop unit would be safer and more practical for a two year old. The CPU and screen can be placed out of reach and sticky fingers and tantrum fists will only ruin cheap keyboards and mice.
If you must get a portable the OLPC would be the best for a child and the G1G1 program will provide another child with a learning tool.
At two years of age a child should be learning all sorts of things. However, ingraining and encouraging the child to become a socially isolated, sedentary keyboard potato is not recommended.
Wooden blocks, simple musical instruments, crayons and paper, large packing boxes, pillows to build a fort, dolls, picture books - these will encourage learning and imagination. Computers, not so much at that age.
Children need a environment that is rich in physical and mental stimulus, is stable, and is reassuring. A computer couldn't hurt (if proper precautions are taken) but is the least necessary learning tool at two years of age.
Slashdot Mirror
This has been done in Canada for years. Although it was started with a bar code ear tag with a registration number rather than RFID it allowed a cow to be tracked from birth to market shelf. With RFID in place since 2005 the process is even easier and probably faster. http://www.cbef.com/cattle_identification_system.htm
Albeit true that there is a cadre of self proclaimed hackers in America that forsake all and any form of maintainability in the code they write this is generally not true of professionals that are trained at places like MIT, Waterloo, CalTech, or BCIT. My experience as a gun for hire project saving consultant is that generally the absolute crappiest of source code comes from overseas out-sourcing (although, in all fairness, the worst examples I've come across are made in America). It's not because the programmers in India, Vietnam, Romania are bad - some, if not many are outstanding. It's because the managers are forcing poor work habits to increase productivity (and profit) - they are not paid for comments and proper variable names, only for the lines of code.
Professional computer programming is only about 50 years old. As a profession it is virtually brand new and standards, except for core, common sense axioms, are mostly short lived fads ("Scrum" is about the most inane yet). Even the basic tool, programming language, changes every few years. LISP, Clarion, Delphi, PL/1, FORTRAN, C, C++, Java, and now C# were and are touted as the standard to work from. I was first taught assembler and then COBOL (shows my length of time in the trenches).
A new kind of computer engineering degree is not needed an established set of standards is required. When a body of standardization is in place and true universal standards are established, then the quality of coding will become uniform. I do doubt that this will happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
I installed the Win7 Beta on a netbook as a test. It works surprising well (Vista did not, XP or Linux far better than Win7), except the video is screwed up for high end graphics applications like those silly new games that require the graphics capacity of a combined Pixar and Dreamworks production. One more more thing: Use mofo or some other less offensive term. The rest of us are able to maintain etiquette even when anonymously corresponding on line.
Quit. You're not doing yourself or anyone else any good and eventually you will be fired.
This is like taxing marriage to fund prostitution.
I wrote an operating system and hardware drivers for a Z80 based embedded system in 1986. It was and still is a great processor as long as you only need 8 bits.
Best April Fools ever!
It seems to be more of a manufactured coincidence than synchronicity that Obama announces major push for new funding for science and alternative power sources and this snake oil pops up again. I wish I was a self deluded fourth rate physicist with a sociopathic business partner - there are so many ignorant people out there to scam. I'm sure a low cost, high temperature super-conductor is soon to be announced by a scientist associated with some of the executives from AIG. Hey, it's more plausible than the $10 laptop computer project (http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/indian-planning.html) the Indian government is burning the tax payers' money on.
I design and program database systems for sensitive data that have full auditing. Nothing can be changed without being able to tell who did it, when, from where, and what was changed (before and after images). Any competent programmer can do this. What Diebold has done is inexcusable but may not be criminal, it depends on what the specifications of the software were and if intent can be established. This may be just another case of bad project management and cheap, crappy offshore assigned work by another corporation maximizing profits at any cost. My gut reaction in any case is to hang the bastards.
Please note: If you worked as a programmer or project manager for Diebold leave it off of your resume if you had nothing to do with this. Fill in the work gap with "Voluntary Commitment to a Mental Hospital". It will look better.
Lie to the students and convince them that scientists get huge paychecks, huge bonuses, huge respect, and girl/boy friends with huge (place favorite body part here) just like Wall street traders that destroy World economies or rap/hip hop "artists" that preach (and often preform) misogyny and violence.
Sadly, science is a road to becoming an underpaid lab rat or high school instructor. I gave up designing computer systems and portable devices to pursue systems analysis and programming. The opportunity, hours, and money are better.
The problem with new CS/IT grads is that they mostly do not know how to design software or even how a computer works at a basic level. In the last ten or more years most of these computer science majors are familiar with Java but know no assembly and very little C and have more training in Web design than in systems analysis.
This, however, works well for me. I work as a consultant that is parachuted into projects that are past due and over budget and fix them. True, I have thirty years of experience and that can not be duplicated in four years of college, but I mostly fix very basic mistakes made by people that are ignorant of the technology or the methodology.
Hopefully the universities and colleges will start teaching the basics (especially documentation) and train truly professional IT people. It's frustrating and unnerving to have someone who does Visual Basic Scripts in Excel call themselves a software engineer and are in charge of a large ERP project.
Linux with ARM is superior to Windows with Intel x86 in this platform and target user group. I have worked with both and ARM is not powerful (comparatively) but is exceedingly power efficient.
P.S.
Keep your customers happy and your employees happy and your business will be happy and can last forever. If you are not happy, you are the problem.
Circuit City is text book example of what attempting to become very rich very quickly almost always results in. It is a perfect analog of the national and world economy. The blue print for demise Circuit City followed:
Action: Remove staff with knowledge and ability and start paying less to less capable people.
Reason: Keep immediate profits high.
Outcome: Reduced sales due to less customer service.
Action: Leave prices high.
Reason: Keep immediate profits high.
Outcome: Failing to see that the consumer electronics market is shifting to a Walmart model (aggressive pricing, low profit, high volume) sales go down.
Action: Eliminate deep discounts on open box, out of production, or discontinued merchandise.
Reason: Keep immediate profits high.
Outcome: Reduced repeat and casual traffic resulting in reduced sales.
This is what happens when any business runs itself based on the principle of "Keep immediate profits high" rather than "Keep customers coming back".
Gordon Gecko was wrong - greed is bad.
The Volt can work. It's simply designed not to. This is the EV-1 (Impact) all over again. GM seems to be run by people that are determined to ruin it. It would not surprise me if that is the plan. Take the free taxpayers' bailout money, steal it, bankrupt General Motors and get hired by the new owners who planned the whole thing out. This could also be planned to break the Detroit unions that cost so much and make American cars so uncompetitive.
We should have also had Alan Rock change his name to Rock Hudson.
Even by stupid standards this is stupid.
Oddly, well.. not so oddly, Microsoft steals anything they really need and just throws lawyers at the complaining parties until those they stole from give up. A good example is Stac Electronic's product Stacker hard drive compression. Although in this case MS did eventually lose but Stac went under. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
Exactly, what I was thinking. But the Macbook Pro is not a Wintel PC (although it is now Intel based) and I am sure it must have a way to do a complete reset. Is there anyone out there with a Macbook Pro that knows?
I like to complain with my dollars. If I can't swap batteries I will not but a Macbook no matter how nice it is. I can change the battery in my HP laptop in a few seconds with one latch. The non-user-serviceable battery is a bad design in my opinion but it is Apple's choice. We have lots of options available.
It does look that way but I suggest downloading and trying the beta. Vista added a lot of clutter, didn't fix much, needed a lot more hardware power, and slowed down everything. If Windows 7 cleans up the interface, works on older, less leading edge hardware, and speeds up the processing I may buy it.
No second beta and an expiry on the current download of August 2009 tells us two things: The changes are not very significant and the release will be (barring extreme problems) late this year. I'm installing the Windows 7 beta as I write this. If it is viable my planned new desktop will run it. If not, Linux or Macintosh are options. With the current economy a dud version of Windows will mark the end of Microsoft dominance.
But Vista is pretty, and then it crashes...
A desktop unit would be safer and more practical for a two year old. The CPU and screen can be placed out of reach and sticky fingers and tantrum fists will only ruin cheap keyboards and mice. If you must get a portable the OLPC would be the best for a child and the G1G1 program will provide another child with a learning tool. At two years of age a child should be learning all sorts of things. However, ingraining and encouraging the child to become a socially isolated, sedentary keyboard potato is not recommended. Wooden blocks, simple musical instruments, crayons and paper, large packing boxes, pillows to build a fort, dolls, picture books - these will encourage learning and imagination. Computers, not so much at that age. Children need a environment that is rich in physical and mental stimulus, is stable, and is reassuring. A computer couldn't hurt (if proper precautions are taken) but is the least necessary learning tool at two years of age.
Does this mean Kevin Costner gets forgiven for that movie?
Very cool, the Altair 880 was the first computer I programmed with, back in 1978.