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User: ajedgar

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  1. All Hail The Elon! on Ask Slashdot: What Kind of Societies Will the First Mars Colonies Be? · · Score: 4, Informative

    "The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled 'Elon.' Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet."
        Wernher von Braun
        The Mars Project, Page 177

  2. Because robots. Please stick around to assemble and train the robots....
    https://electrek.co/2017/04/25/tesla-model-3-robot-production-line-pictures/

  3. Re:Video of the accident on First Satellite in Facebook's Plan For Global Internet Access Exploded With Falcon 9 (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    It does kind of look like an electrical arc. There is definitely a really bright, really regular shaped flash before the next frame where it's already looking like a regular explosion.

  4. Re:If this part is true, then it's unprofessional on Linux Kernel Dev Sarah Sharp Quits, Citing 'Brutal' Communications Style · · Score: 1

    Outside of Earth, the most widely used kernel and OS is VxWorks from Windriver Systems. But that too will change over the next 10 years.

  5. Re:Science Fiction Vs Science Fantasy on Review: The Martian · · Score: 1

    Other hard sci-fi authors: Arthur C Clarke (Rendezvous with Rama), Poul Anderson (Tau Zero), Larry Niven (Ring World), Vernor Vinge (Rainbow's End), Carl Sagan (Contact), Joe Haldeman (The Forever War).

  6. Re:Compustick on Ask Slashdot: Best Wireless PC-to-TV Solution? · · Score: 1

    Seconded. The computestick can stay attached to one of your HDMI ports, with keyboard and mouse tucked away somewhere until you need them, then you can simply share a drive or do remote desktop, VNC or run standalone.

  7. Linux gets +30 Points of FAIL on Why Your Software Project Is Failing · · Score: 2

    "You've written your own source control for this code [ +30 points of FAIL ]"

  8. Project Management 101 on Why Your Software Project Is Failing · · Score: 1

    This is a checklist from any decent software project management book. Here's a good one written over 40 years ago:
    Mythical Man Month

    And the issue of managing a large code base can be handled by a modern VCS system like Perforce that let's fetch and work with only the portion of the code base you're interested in.

  9. There is another theory... on How To Store Your Data For 1 Million Years · · Score: 1

    ...which states that this has already happened.

    Our _past_ selves created life from the archived data....

  10. Re:Really? on MenuetOS, an Operating System Written Entirely In Assembly, Hits 1.0 · · Score: 2

    That is true. Microkernel, POSIX Filesystem, TCP/IP stack, GUI, auto hardware detection, web browser and web server, terminal, command line tools, demo apps including 3D vector graphics. And it was all written in C/C++ except for about 200 lines in the kernel where Dan Dodge (co-founder and CTO) found he could do task switching faster with hand coded assembly instead of using TSS. We studied the output of the Watcom C/C++ compiler with full optimization enabled and register passing, there's no way a human could make tighter code, and that was 25 years ago.

    As others have questioned I can't think of any other reason why you would want to right an entire OS in assembly language except as an academic exercise. QNX is tiny and portable, it currently runs on x86, ARM, PPC, and MIPS.

  11. Remember those memory cartridges on Star Trek TOS? on Fifty Years of Moore's Law · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember watching Star Trek (TOS) and thinking how fantastic it would be to have all that storage in that little cartridge the size of a matchbook; books, movies, medical records, the Encyclopedia Galactica, all on one little memory device. I never expected it happen in my lifetime.

    Then in 1985 once the initial glow of the original Macintosh had worn off a little, my brother and I brainstormed on what our _ultimate_ computer would be: 1024x768 TrueColor display, a whole _8_ megabytes of memory, and a 50 Mhz 68000 series CPU. Wheee!

    Now we have 128 GB microSD cards smaller than your fingernail. And that super-computer in your pocket that happens to make phone calls? It's more powerful than a 4 processor Cray YMP M90 circa 1992.

    We've come a long way!

    --aj;

  12. Libre/Open office is programmable in Python on Ask Slashdot: Spreadsheet With Decent Programming Language? · · Score: 1

    According to the feature comparison page LibreOffice has bindings for multiple languages including: LibreOffice Basic, JavaScript, BeanShell and Python.

  13. The most ridiculous Slashdot posting ever? on GNOME 3.8 To Scrap Fallback Mode · · Score: 0

    "Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!"

    As Birdy said:
    "It means context sensitive. It's sensitive to context. Try it over there."

  14. Re:Honorable mention: BeOS on Name Your Favorite Bloat-Free Software · · Score: 1

    It isn't just a GUI, browser and web server on that 1.44MB floppy. It's: boot loader, QNX real-time micro-kernel, process manager with full Unix/POSIX semantics, device manager, network manager, Unix filesystem, TCP/IP stack, ramdisk, auto hardware detection, XVGA graphics drivers, full windowing GUI, 3D vector graphics, web browser, web server, and demo applications. And with a little hacking you can open up a shell too. All in 1.44MB. Yes. Really.

    Here's a link to the original demo:
        http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html

    Here's the slashdot article on it:
        http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/10/06/073421 3

    And to all those Amiga folks who will jump in and say, "The Amiga could do that too!", no the Amiga had most of the graphical stuff in ROM...

    Cheers,
    AJ

  15. RTLinux is now owned by Wind River on Who Owns The Linux Trademark? · · Score: 1

    The registered mark RTLinux, and RTLinux Pro, RTCore, and LNET, are now owned by Wind River. a.

  16. Re:How close minded can one be? on Extraterrestrials Probably Haven't Found Us - Yet · · Score: 1

    Easy:
    http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Immortality-Modern-C osmology-Resurrection/dp/0385467990

    Besides the usual tag lines of "proving the existence of God" the core of his thesis is more surviving the next big bang.

    And as Douglas Adams is fond of pointing out, "some think this has already happened"...

    a.

  17. _We_ are the probes on Extraterrestrials Probably Haven't Found Us - Yet · · Score: 1

    Hence our inate desire to find the _source_.

  18. 128 foot notes? on Judge Calls SCO On Lack of Evidence · · Score: 2, Funny

    128 foot notes? Curious.

    Coincidence? I think not...

    aj.

  19. Re:Oil Cartels, just like diamonds. A Horror Story on Out of Gas · · Score: 1


    Haha! Indeed... :-)

    Drill a hole in your backyard, get oil.

    Regards,
    aj

    p.s.
    There is quite possibly more oil in the earth then water...

    p.p.s
    The first law of thermodynamics says what? So why exactly are we paying 2 pennies for every 1000 BTUs? I wish I had that business!

  20. Re:Obligatory java response... on C, Objective-C, C++... D! Future Or failure? · · Score: 1

    Nor Groovy either...

    AJ

  21. Re:phones on More on Cisco Building Surveillance into Routers · · Score: 1

    And if it's not going through a Comverse/Verint box it's going through a Verisign or SS8 box.

    Google for "CALEA"

  22. Re:From the horse's mouth... on More on Lenses with a Negative Index of Refraction · · Score: 1

    Fair Dinkum. We're in violent agreement. :-)

    It's apparent to me that Open Source projects using a system like SourceForge are managed better and have a greater chance of success than many, many private corporate developments.

    Something else to think about; corporate projects that fail are mothballed and completely forgotten, in many cases the documentation and hardware/software source code eventually is completely lost -- literally thrown in the dumpster. I've witnessed it too many times myself. With systems like SourceForge, a project that doesn't gain critical mass, or remains dormant may find renewed life another day. And if nothing else there are dozens, hundreds or thousands of copies of it downloaded on individual machines. Way cool.

  23. Re:From the horse's mouth... on More on Lenses with a Negative Index of Refraction · · Score: 1

    Indeed. Brooke's "Mythical Man Month" should be required reading for all developers (I bought a copy for each member of my team a few years back). Fourty years has passed and the lessons are still being "re-learned" every day.

    My point is simply that yes, if it takes 20 minutes for one person to dig a post hole, 5 people aren't going to dig one in 4 minutes; however, if you have a lot of post holes to dig, more workers is a Good Thing(tm).

    Many software development managers don't understand software development, and the higher up the management chain you go the worse it seems to get. Hence bad decisions are made, like assigning too many people to a simple tasks (post holes) or not having dedicated people for other tasks such as library coordination and release engineering; having features come in after the feature freeze date; text changes; insufficient coordination with tech-pubs; etc. etc. etc....

  24. Re:From the horse's mouth... on More on Lenses with a Negative Index of Refraction · · Score: 1


    >"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter >how many women you assign to the job."

    But once you've filled the pipeline of 24 women you can have a baby every 2 weeks...

    Four hundred women- a baby every day.

    Superscalar.

  25. The LongNow.org on Dying Languages, Fading Formats · · Score: 1

    Check it out.