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User: Omega+Hacker

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  1. HDL on Why Reactive Programming For Databases Is Awesome · · Score: 1

    Tl;DR [yet], but initially this sounds a lot like HDL's like Verilog and VHDL. The two fundamental constructs there are things that happen continuously (collections of simple logic gates) and things that happen based on a clock (registers, built around flip-flops). At a high level, this sounds like A = B+C is a continuous adder, and A is changed instantaneously with B and C. In the HDL world, this gets "compiled" down to silicon, but in a software world this would be radically harder to do, because you have to notify anybody listening to A that B and/or C has changed. Yes, it's like a spreadsheet in that sense.

  2. Re:Skyjack only works for WiFi drones! on How To Hijack a Drone For $400 In Less Than an Hour · · Score: 1

    I *highly* doubt the Amazon drones will be operated by some hobbyist Futaba or Spektrum protocol. Doing such a thing would be absolutely ludicrous from just about every angle possible. First of all, such protocols are nothing more than "stream-of-servo" positioning commands, and very badly suited to autonomous drone control. Honestly they're pretty badly suited to manual drone control IMO. Second, they are even less secure than WiFi. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the Amazon drones will be cellular-controlled, with high-end SSL used to send the drone a set of GPS coordinates (waypoints, etc.), and the drone will handle *every* control aspect from there on out, as it should.

  3. Re:My lab on Ask Slashdot: What's On Your Hardware Lab Bench? · · Score: 1

    Marvin the domestic shorthair (humane society acquisition). His younger "sister" Kaylee was probably curled up on our bed at the time, plotting sneak attacks on Marvin in her sleep...

    The mess is a consequence of the ongoing debugging of the primary project being interrupted by a bug that crept into a previous product and took over my desk with various levels of fix development for that. I'm cleaning up right now because the primary project may have just had a breakthrough and I need space to test it in full scale.

  4. My lab on Ask Slashdot: What's On Your Hardware Lab Bench? · · Score: 2

    First of all what I'm doing: I'm designing industrial embedded hardware, using funky data busses and high-resolution ADC's. I do all the hardware design, layout, prototype fabrication, and *all* firmware and host-side software. I'm pretty much a one-stop shop for this project (and the only engineer on it...). The hardware is all "slow" stuff at this point, with the fastest clock being the 32MHz driving the 8-bit microcontrollers scattered throughout the system.

    Panorama of my office

    First off I've got my computer in the "middle", nothing special except the monitor's on an arm to free up desk space. A second monitor to the right is used for debugging consoles etc. (and WoW). Several USB hubs are scattered around (some mounted) for use by both tools and the product under development.

    To my left up on a shelf I have a (rented...) Agilent MSO-X 3014A scope, 4-channels plus 16 digital, unfortunately only the 100MHz version. I have a second-hand cheapy 5MHz signal generator next to that for occasional use (impedance checking etc). A simple Protek 3006B power supply (Fry's?) handles everything I can't run off USB 5V or from an LDO.

    A Saleae Logic and Logic16 do quite a bit of work for me, and there's the occasional use of a BusPirate. An AVR-ISP MkII handles direct programming of the microcontrollers when possible, while the vast majority of my programming and test jigs are built around my own STK500v2 implementation multiplexed with serial debug.

    To my immediate left is the main project space, while to my right is space for whatever projects crop up and don't have to have direct access to the scope.

    In the window against the desk would be one or both cats.

    To the far left is my soldering environment, which includes a regular temp-controlled soldering iron as well as an Aoyue Int968 hot-air soldering station (with its own soldering iron). A $25 toaster oven is used for reflowing most simple boards. Bins of loose parts cover the shelving above.

    Behind me is a desk that holds a "proper" reflow oven, albeit the cheapo $300 unit from eBay, as well as a rework station of the kind used for XBox repairs (some of my boards have a *lot* of thermal mass that hot air alone can't handle). Reels upon reels of SMT parts are piled under the desk...

    Lighting is provided by 2x 60/meter LED strips that side-fire to each side along the camera-window axis, plus an overhead Ikea quint-MR12 set over the main workspace when needed.

  5. Sounds like an execellent idea! on Why Not Fund SETI With a Lottery Bond? · · Score: 1

    Let's use the Search for Terrestrial Intelligence to fund the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence! Only seems fair.

  6. Shockingly... on NJ Gamblers May Be Locked Out By Flaws In Virtual Fence · · Score: 2

    ...nothing of value was lost. And I mean that in both senses.

  7. Re:There are none on Ask Slashdot: Good Satellite Internet For Remote Locations? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm also looking for options for South America, and it's pretty clear from the Wikipedia description of ViaSat-1 that they have no transponders pointed anywhere other than the US and Canada. That puts it out of the running for both the OP's primary goal and mine.

  8. Not exactly a new concept on Linking Mass Extinctions To the Sun's Journey In the Milky Way · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've got a novel by John Brunner written in 1982 called The Crucible of Time (), which documents a (very non-human) species through its scientific awakening. Throughout the book they're discovering that their planet is getting closer to a cloud of debris dense enough to massively devastate the surface, possibly shatter the planet. In the end they manage to build enough arks to save the species. The foreward reads:

    "It is becoming more and more widely accepted that the Ice Ages coincide with the passage of the Solar System through the spiral arms of our galaxy. ..."

  9. Agreed, I'm just pointing out that the "capital" absolutely exists on this planet, if enough of it is concentrated in just 25 people to achieve the task. Not saying they would personally, but debunking the implication that "it can't be done, it's too expensive".

  10. Stuck?? on Former Director of the ISS Division At NASA Talks About Science Behind 'Elysium' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I just totaled up the net "worth" of the top 25 people on Forbes 2013 billionaires list, and I got $839.8 billion. Not quite sure how $828.11bn is out of reach if certain people were sufficiently motivated, when it only takes the top 25. Now, if we were talking about something that cost $10 trillion or so, then I might consider it functionally out of reach, as that probably surpasses the net worth of the top several thousand.

  11. Re:xkcd is overrated on Creator of xkcd Reveals Secret Back-story of His Epic, 3,099-Panel 'Time' Comic · · Score: 1

    and it appears I'm not alone in thinking this.

    Nope, there are two of you. You should start a (the?) local chapter.

  12. Re:Congress is "angry" on NSA Admits Searching "3 Hops" From Suspects · · Score: 1

    Bias? Sounds to me like he hit the nail on the head: she supports the crap the NSA is pulling, and is up for re-election. The correct answer is to *not* re-elect here. It absolutely has everything to do with elections.

  13. Re:Signed integer overflow on PayPal Credits Man With $92 Quadrillion · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not sure you quite get the concept of underflow.... If it's a 64-bit field in cents and he had $1, an unsigned subtract of $2 would result in a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,757.08 (give or take a few cents).

  14. Safety issue! on Researchers Now Pulling Out of DEF CON In Response To Anti-Fed Position · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I honestly think there's a significant aspect to the move to "ban" Feds that people are overlooking: safety and liability. DEFCON gets a bit rowdy at the best of time, in the current climate re: PRISM, Snowden, etc. I seriously think the move will save a few bloody noses, possibly broken bones, and likely lawsuits and criminal charges stemming from the same. The conference also shields itself from the associated liability. A lot of people, especially in the hacker/DEFCON community, are *seriously* pissed at the US gov't right now, and that's gonna cause a lot more friction than normal.

  15. Re:Heat on Intel's Haswell Moves Voltage Regulator On-Die · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ohm's law is completely irrelevant to this situation *in the form you describe*. "Burning a hole through the board" would be possible and a simple function of Ohm's law only if they were using a linear regulator to generate the Vcore. But VRM's have been switching DC/DC converters since the 486 days. They achieve a voltage conversion by switching the incoming voltage on and off *very fast*, which results in an output voltage that's a function of the input voltage and the duty cycle of the on/off switching. An inductor (current-smoothing) and capacitor (voltage smoothing) give a nice clean DC voltage.

    The differences between on-motherboard VRMs and this new in-package (it's technically a separate chip...) are significant. First off, physically moving it closer means that you're not sending 100+ Amps of current over the 3-4 centimeters of generally very thin copper traces on the PCB, they're sent millimeters through die-bond wires, or even through a solid substrate (no idea what Intel does at that level). There's your Ohm's law coming into play at that level, but the power losses there are relatively minimal since you're talking maybe a few tenths of an ohm. Die-bond wires are going to drop that to 10's of milli-ohms probably, so nothing major but still a positive effect.

    The main reason this will generate a lot less heat is because of the *frequency* of the switching. Because this on-board VRM is so much smaller, it can switch the input faster (shorter wires, less parasitic capacitance, less ringing, etc.). This in turn means smaller value components required, e.g. the switch from the monster inductors seen on the motherboard (at maybe 1-2MHz switching) in the slide to the tiny chip-scale inductors on the FIVR (at 10's or 100's of MHz). The end result of all of this is that switching losses get significantly smaller. It's those losses that create heat local to the regulator. If they can for example go from an 80% efficient VRM to an 90% efficient FIVR for a 100W CPU load, they reduce the switching losses from 25W to 11.1W.

  16. Re:Forensically secure? on Ask Slashdot: Encrypted Digital Camera/Recording Devices? · · Score: 1

    Given how much "revenue" city police get from traffic violations, I'd think they'd be all for this. Get the population that's fed up with jackass drivers to buy and install cameras that do the cops' job for them in court, bringing in additional fines without adding more traffic cops.

    I'd call that a win for everybody except the jackass drivers.

  17. Forensically secure? on Ask Slashdot: Encrypted Digital Camera/Recording Devices? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The scenario I'm more interested in is having a camera running at all times that catch the various idiot drivers all over the place. Hit a button and the last 5 minutes and anything until the next press are permanently stored. Then send the file to the traffic cops.

    The challenge is making the video admissible in court with sufficient weight to be enough to actually convict somebody of the traffic violation they're on tape performing. Currently "we" consider a cops' word as overwhelming evidence in such a case, with police dashboard cameras being a "bonus".

    If there's some way to ensure that *I* don't tamper with the recording at a level that the courts would trust, I'd install one in a heartbeat.

  18. Re:"Stole" or "confiscated"? on Homeland Security Stole Michael Arrington's Boat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd tend to say that when the "confiscation" has no legal basis whatsoever, we can very accurately call it "stolen".

  19. Just Kickstarter??? on Most Kickstarter Projects Fail To Deliver On Time · · Score: 5, Insightful

    *ALL* projects have a high rate of blowing deadlines, that's what happens with complex stuff. Show me numbers that Kickstarter projects have a worse rate of being late than any other comparable projects out there, and then we can talk.

  20. Re:Two dirty words harry reid on How Yucca Mountain Was Killed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Old vaults of waste have been found to be developing cracks and been reinforced.

    It's faaaaar worse than that. One of our borehole geophones came back from a job at Hanford with the 1/2" thick aluminium tube so eaten away that it had to be replaced. That would be 100's of meters down a hole (I think they had a 500m cable...).

  21. Badly written, but essentially correct on GOP Brief Attacks Current Copyright Law · · Score: 1

    Read through the entire thing, but am very unimpressed with the quality of the writing. If re-written at a higher skill level and otherwise massaged, I think it would make an ideal document (stamped by the GOP of all groups) to send around to our local congresscritters as a talking point. Wonder if the sponsor could be convinced to let it be "fixed" without changing the content or message, and updated?

  22. Re:Headers on Ask Slashdot: AT&T's Data Usage Definition Proprietary? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah but if someone gives you a bag containing 1000 pounds of (minced) beef, then you empty the beef out and some of the beef is stuck to the insides of the bag, and you throw the bag away you can't claim that you didn't originally receive 1000 pounds of beef.

    I think you've got that wrong. If they're measuring DSL overhead, error correction, etc then the proper analogy would be:

    Somebody sells you a crate of apples they claim is 1000 pounds. What they neglected to tell you was that the crate itself weight 200 pounds, and they included that in their calculation. You only got 800lbs of actual apples.

  23. MIGHT???? on Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Calls For Governments To End Patent Wars · · Score: 1, Redundant

    See subject.

  24. Re:All on consumer grade drives..... on How To Add 5.5 Petabytes and Get Banned From Costco · · Score: 1

    Any even marginally architected system can deal with disk failures, and indeed *must*. The difference between using masses of consumer disks and a few enterprise disks is that while a failed consumer disk in a massive pool might cause a slight slowdown spread across all of your users, a failed enterprise disk in a business-critical system can ruin your whole day even if you *don't* lose any data. Remember how Google just lets hardware die and replaces it on repeated passes through the datacenter? Same thing.

  25. Re:Psychoacoustics and perceptual coding on Neil Young Pushes Pono, Says Piracy Is the New Radio · · Score: 2

    sorry, but you are wrong.

    for people like me (50's) I can't hear the details. beyond a point, it sounds 'good enough' for me. we each have our own threshold of where 'good enough' is enough.

    BUT, don't assume that a mastering engineer is going to have as dull a set of senses as you or I typically do. master chefs can taste their cooking creations to fine levels. pro photographers can obsess about micro-contrast and details. a lot of fields have sensitive observers.

    I've known people who can detect absolute polarity (phase wiring on the back of your spkrs). I can't, but I've seen someone be able to tell, almost right off. people are not faking it! some have very good hearing. most don't, but don't judge by JUST your own experience.

    Um, I'm not going by "my experience" at all, this is fundamental and *very* well-understood physiology, not to mention basic physics. *All* human ears exhibit the masking effect, because (as expanded on by someone else below) there is a fixed dynamic range possible in the construction of the ear. Actual muscles and bones *move* to "change the input gain" in the ear, just like your pupils change size when it's bright or dark out. Some people have a wider intrinsic dynamic range than others, but only by a narrow margin. If you can show me somebody who's pupils never change size yet they can see perfectly well in both extreme dark and full sunlight, then we can talk.

    As for detecting speaker polarity, I can absolutely guarantee you that they are detecting *mixed* polarity: wire the left speaker one way and the right speaker "backwards" and they can sense it (I bet I could too). Wire *both* speakers "backwards" and there is no possibility anybody is going to be able to detect it. Anybody who insists otherwise is also going to refuse a double-blind confirmation.