"Which is the direct fault of the parents"
But then if you do not let your child sit in front of the TV watching the junk, do you have a right to tell the parents of every other child not to allow them to watch the same junk? Remember that peer pressure is something that a child will experince outside of the home.
That is a difficult one, unless of course you only allow your child to play with children from families of a similar background. One way of ensuring that they don't play inappropriate computer games though.
I have done a six-sigma green belt course as part of my job in the aerospace industry. I have also recently read the book "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.
What the course and the book have both taught me is that statistics are not politically correct and do not meet up with some kind of moral background. These are useful tools in finding a root cause to a problem by predicting an outcome based on data that has already been captured. Understanding statistics is really not that difficult, the problem is that it isn't normally taught to a level that gives an appreciation on the subject, and people let themselves go blind by being scared of the maths.
When somebody comes up with the figure that says xx% of people are likely to die of new fangled method of dying, I will always question whether the data is correct as there does not appear to be any supporting data. The statistic might actually relate to people dying by fangled new method of dying in the next 100 years, a fact that is probably utterly meaningless unless you think you are going to live that long. Until you have the full information, you don't really know what you are looking at, and even then you need to understand how data analysis is carried out.
I had a "heated debate" with my girlfriend about the subject of computer games and children this evening. Before you ask, we are not married (we don't even live together) and we don't have children. She is vehemently opposed to children using computers at home, even though I am trying to tell her that there are benefits. She feels that to many kids are sat in front of their Playstation playing games when they could be playing more interactively with other children.
The problem is with games like San Andreas, who could blame her for thinking in this way? Far too much publicity is placed on "Action" games where the consequences of you actions are not felt, and the press is to blame for both glamorising and complaining about violent games. Perhaps if the games were not prompted at all, then there would be little interest in them, as they would not be seen as cool.
The problem is that consumerism as taken away the right of childhood. These days everybody must have the right clothes, gadgets, vehicles, food etc... and they are being targeted at a younger audience than ever before. It is no wonder then that children now take to violent computer games, especially as there is a lot more violence on TV.
Some people would like to "Blame it on the Parents", but in many respects that is only part of the problem. The problem is that peer pressure (from other children) has a far greater impact, especially if some of the children are bombarded with hours of endless junk on TV. As a child, you want to feel belonging, especially at school, and if one child starts telling all the other children about some thing have seen/possess/played/eaten, then there is a good chance that other children will want to follow. The popular Cartoon Series "South Park" (which is definitely for adults) and "The Simpsons" have had episodes which have shown this problem of children copying children, and has anybody taken the slightest bit of notice of their observations of children at play?
The bottom line is that it is all too easy to blame a single factor for the problems in society. Yes I think that the Hot Coffee mod in San Andreas is very very sad, and is aimed at young teenage lads that need to be dealing with their problems and not venting them out in computer games and on other people.
Can anybody please tell me if there is anything good about using computers these days? Nothing was this violent in the days of the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 back in the 1980's (except I suppose for the odd alien being blasted).
There was a TV Horizon programme in the UK shown by the BBC that fully explianed the art of card counting during the game of Blackjack. It was found that a game that works in favour of the dealer, could be turned around to work in favour of the player.
The programme also explained how the casinos fought back, initially by deliberately working against the player and distracting them in order to ensure that they are not actually trying to use it.
The programme also explained how teams of players could circumvent the method used by the casinos, until they wised up and used CCTV recognition to stop known card counters from playing Blackjack altogether.
The bottom line is card count once, and you might get away with it, but do it twice, and you are likely to be shown the door and will not be welcome in any other casino across the world.
Something similar happened earlier this year, a riot occurred when a new Ikea store was opened on 10th February. The store, in Edmonton, London, which offered store opening bargins, had to be closed under Police advice after 6000 people turned up to buy such bargins as a leather sofa for £45 ($81), when the store only expected 2000 people at the opening.
Amusing though: iKea? they do sell office furniture!
I have had a thought about DirectX, and the fact that Apple are transerring from PPC to Intel Processor. I saw a report last week on ZDNET, which was going on about Intel's DRM IC being used on the protype Intel Macs. One thing that was pointed out was the fact that the new Mac hardware runs games and software a lot quicker than the old hardware.
The upshot is this; the hardware will be virtually identical to a Wintel PC. Effectively the only real difference between them will be the operating system.
To prevent Apple from gaining from a better operating system, Microsoft are going to have to play every trick in the book. Playing with DirectX and Open GL is one of these tricks, as this could make it more difficult for a software vendor to write 3D graphics software for both platforms.
The problem is here is that this could seriously backfire on Microsoft, if the insistance on using DirectX uses more processing power against the advantages of integration with the OS. If the public find that the resulting software works better on a lower specification MAC than PC, then Microsoft will have trouble to justify that its operating system is better, especially as Apple will be only need to a charge a slight premium over most PC vendors, for a similar specification system, that is siginificantly more reliable.
If you are using Linux, in theory you can recompile the kernal on a system of your choice.
Now if those users who insist on running Windows 98/ME/2000 on an old system are affected by any loss of functionality by Microsoft not providing an updated version of IE, they will:-
1) Buy a new computer (if they can afford it)
2) Install Firefox
3) Install Linux
4) Buy XP (very unlikely as it may not work)
The software industry may be constantly evolving, but sometimes manipulating the market so that you force your customer to buy new product when his current product previously worked to an acceptable level is another.
On the other hand, if Microsoft sold IE as a product rather than a freebie with Windows, they would be looking to ensure backwards compatibilty back to Windows 95!
The problem with today's innovation marketplace is that due to the way these developments have been funded in the last 25 years; they must be firstly safe, and secondly make money quickly. Think about it this way, 25 years ago the fastest jet airliner in service was Concorde; today there isn't anything that fast in service. Also nobody in 25 years has bothered to go to the moon.
During this period the amount of money invested into pure research into technology has been significantly reduced as GDP of most Western states, as a result the experience in the fields is being lost as scientists and engineers move on with no replacements being trained. NASA have even lost the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket, so to go to the moon, they either have to reverse engineer what 40 year hardware they have left or design a complete new platform at a very great expense.
When you consider that Brunel made a hudge loss on the Great Western Railway for its shareholders, and that his SS Great Eastern (which held the record for the largest ship ever built for 50 years) was a commercial failure, you being to understand that innovation does not necessarily make money quickly.
In the past 10 years, great performance increases have been made in computer performance with reducing costs. The way this has happened is due to the electronics industry ditching the high tech Military and Aerospace markets, and cutting corners to produce very fast electronics that suit only consumer devices that only need to operate for the lifetime of the warranty. In addition the goods have been manufactured in low cost countries, which has meant that the cost of these good has dropped. But I can clearly tell you one thing now, like the crazy situation with the dot com bust, low cost electronics are not going to last much longer, as the electronic devices currently being developed meet their physical limits and the costs of going further get very much higher. Nanotechnology may be the answer, but unless a lot of money is thrown at it, don't expect to see anything seriously useful for about 15 to 20 years.
Believe it or not, we will have to think about the technology and how it may help us.
If DRM becomes more commonplace, then there will actually be less business for the large Entertainment companies. The reason is very simple, if DRM is sucessful, and more importantly becomes open to everybody to publish their own material and ensure that it is protected online, what is the point in using a large Entertainment company to distribute your product? None - you don't need to produce CDs/DVDs and distribute them to shops, you just need a website and a method of accepting payment.
Yeah, you might need to organise the publicity, yourself, but then so many large organisations have poor understanding of publicity that they leave to to independent agents anyway. And I'm sure if you talked to these agents in the right manner, they may do a deal on future profits.
There is also a question of whether a pirate could then use DRM to build a virus that is undeletable from your system. As I understand DRM is about restricting the movement of files, which in turn may cause considerable problems with virus checkers in the future.
Away, call me old fashioned, but if I really want to buy a piece of music, I would much rather go and order the CD from Amazon, or go round the corner to my local record store or supermarket. At least then I am reasonable confident that I will have music to play the day after the all the PCs in the world with DRM enabled connected to the internet mysteriously fail causing complete chaos.
Douglas Adams did wish that he had taken out a patent for the PDA as a direct result of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The device in the TV series was very similar in design to the early Psion Organiser.
I hate to tell you this, Flight 961 was lost due to the incorrect use of the rudder during flight, while flighing through the wake of a 747. The blackbox recorder recorded that the stresses on the rudder as well in excess of the designed breaking point. New guidleines for pilots were released by all the major plane manufacturers after the enquiry was closed, including Boeing and Airbus.
I also hate to tell you that the 787 will have the same carbon fibre technology, but this time throughout the aircraft to reduce weight and running costs. So I guess you wont be getting on one of them either.
Why do this, when there are suitable particle accelerators that can perform this on the ground?
Actually, my former manager is working on a project to perform this type of task for the aerospace industry (using particle accelerators and high altitude aircraft), as we have similar problems on aircraft.
As someone whom works in the aerospace industry working on engine controllers for mainly commercial jet engines (such as Rolls Royce RB211 and Trent), we have to take similar precautions to protect against atmospheric radiation, yet at the same time we need to keep out costs down. Currently we have our own microprocessors built as ASICs, which are based on a PowerPC core. Even then we have to be very careful with the design of the SRAM embedded in these designs, as they are the element most at risk from single event upset. My former manager is a world class expert in this field, and now works very closely with the likes of Boeing and Airbus on this matter
The aerospace industry is now very small in comparison to the consumer electronics, where the big money is deemed to be. Modern commercial components are designed for a fairly short life at room temperature (10 years at room temperature), and do not see vibration, temperature and radiation extremes that would be seen in our application. Using a faraday cage doesn't work either, as the radiation is not dissipated in the same manner as radio frequencies (this isn't an EMC problem). As mentioned elsewhere in this thread the only way forward is to design the silicon to withstand the radiation requirements.
Next time you take your standard laptop on a plane, and it crashes during the flight, please remember in this case it might not be the software's fault; it might be the hardware has been affected by a radiation event, especially if there is sunspot activity. This might be a minor irritation to you, be would not be acceptable if it caused an engine surge.
Some of Sony's stylish computers do look very nice, but then they should be as they are now more expensive than similar equipment produced by Apple (just compare the prices of their laptops and slimline monitor solutions and you will see what I mean).
This says a lot about Sony's computers at the moment, yes they look nice, but they are still PCs after all, and Dell can produce something similar at a lower cost. Apple's computers not only look good, but actually work better by not using Windows.
Sony have a choice, learn either from Dell or Apple, or stick to making Playstations that allow you to play games.
As somebody whom works in the Aerospace industry, Commercial Off The Shelf products are getting a very bad name - why ? - Product support and reliability.
If you create a product that relies on fully commercial product, you are open to the whims of that product manufacturer, irrespective of whether it is hardware or software. Many of these products have a lifespan governed in a few years at best (and in the case of mobile phone product 6 months), but the average life of a commercial jet airliner is 25 years, and the life of a military jet is 40 years.
If the vendor calls you product obsolete, or goes bankrupt, you may have an even bigger support issue. On a commercial jet, you have to support any electrical product for the rest of its service life. You are not going to re-qualify an old unit because the software has to be updated by spending big money, and the aircraft operators aren't going to be happy with big bills because you've chosen the wrong type of software.
Also, if the vendor writes software that shows up to a have a vulnerability, it they have stopped supporting the product, you are sure going to have to pay for the support ($2 million per line of code, if you can get it of course, they might not be interested in your business anymore). Believe me, as a Component Engineer, we go to great lengths to ensure that we get still use 15 year old microprocessor families, as we are not going to get the software re-written without huge expensive.
In essence we are talking about the attitude of non-engineering people that don't see the benefits or long term cost savings of using in house software for specific applications. If they want to get on an aircraft run on Windows XP, it's up to them. I'd prefer not to have a crash due to poor product support thank you very much.
Perhaps these people should talk to people such as the Component Obsolescence Group (www.cog.org.uk), and then they might think again about their bright ideas.
Fully automated car driving systems exist, I worked on such a system for a previous employer who manufactured rolling roads. It stopped the need for the car manufacturer to pay somebody to seat in the driver's seat and drive the car while going nowhere. It also didn't need to have the seat removing.
Working in the Aerospace industry, the biggest problem with building reliable electronics is the quality of the electronic components, and that is before you start to consider the quality of the controlling software. This adds a considerable extra expense to any potential system.
The other issue is that the hardware and software would have to be very tightly controlled. You have to be certified to work on the electrical system of an aeroplane; similar controls would be required for automated systems on cars, as the implications for a failing system are probably greater (especially as there are far more cars than aeroplanes).
However, a fully automated car would be a great boon in reducing drink driving and a reduction in road rage.
Garfield The Movie gets my vote for the worst movie of the year, and probably the worst I've ever seen. There is nothing in the movie that couldn't have been done in thirty a second commercial. Bill Murray must be in for a raspberry for his singing alone.
The only film on the imdb top 100 I have seen is Highlander II, and that is the second worst movie I have seen (Highlander being one of my all-time favourites).
The big tip I have been given, if the trial tells the whole story, then the film is BAD.
This means computer cases are fitted with Mickey Mouse screws with a Donald Duck thread! And probably made out of cream cheese as well.
So no changes to the design of cheap domestic electrical goods then, apart from the addition of a system that makes the equipment break down if non-DRM enable meadia is used.
I work in the Aerospace Industry myself. Just changing two or three lines of code can cost an aerospace business $2-3,000,000 (£1,500,000 to £2,000,000) due to qualification costs to re-certify the equipment afterwards. But believe me, if the software ever was wrong, and something major failed causing loss of life, the resulting costs would run into $100's of millions.
The company I work for will even go as far as continuing to use very outdated microprocessors (like Motorola 68020), as the re-qualification costs to port the software to a newer platform would be horffic.
About time the company that suffered the $1,000,000 loss on their chin, and take corrective action to ensure that it does happen again.
Slashdot Mirror
The lawsuit will probably be a "miserable failure". Perhaps they should look up miserable failure on Google.
"Which is the direct fault of the parents" But then if you do not let your child sit in front of the TV watching the junk, do you have a right to tell the parents of every other child not to allow them to watch the same junk? Remember that peer pressure is something that a child will experince outside of the home. That is a difficult one, unless of course you only allow your child to play with children from families of a similar background. One way of ensuring that they don't play inappropriate computer games though.
I have done a six-sigma green belt course as part of my job in the aerospace industry. I have also recently read the book "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.
What the course and the book have both taught me is that statistics are not politically correct and do not meet up with some kind of moral background. These are useful tools in finding a root cause to a problem by predicting an outcome based on data that has already been captured. Understanding statistics is really not that difficult, the problem is that it isn't normally taught to a level that gives an appreciation on the subject, and people let themselves go blind by being scared of the maths.
When somebody comes up with the figure that says xx% of people are likely to die of new fangled method of dying, I will always question whether the data is correct as there does not appear to be any supporting data. The statistic might actually relate to people dying by fangled new method of dying in the next 100 years, a fact that is probably utterly meaningless unless you think you are going to live that long. Until you have the full information, you don't really know what you are looking at, and even then you need to understand how data analysis is carried out.
I had a "heated debate" with my girlfriend about the subject of computer games and children this evening. Before you ask, we are not married (we don't even live together) and we don't have children. She is vehemently opposed to children using computers at home, even though I am trying to tell her that there are benefits. She feels that to many kids are sat in front of their Playstation playing games when they could be playing more interactively with other children.
The problem is with games like San Andreas, who could blame her for thinking in this way? Far too much publicity is placed on "Action" games where the consequences of you actions are not felt, and the press is to blame for both glamorising and complaining about violent games. Perhaps if the games were not prompted at all, then there would be little interest in them, as they would not be seen as cool.
The problem is that consumerism as taken away the right of childhood. These days everybody must have the right clothes, gadgets, vehicles, food etc... and they are being targeted at a younger audience than ever before. It is no wonder then that children now take to violent computer games, especially as there is a lot more violence on TV.
Some people would like to "Blame it on the Parents", but in many respects that is only part of the problem. The problem is that peer pressure (from other children) has a far greater impact, especially if some of the children are bombarded with hours of endless junk on TV. As a child, you want to feel belonging, especially at school, and if one child starts telling all the other children about some thing have seen/possess/played/eaten, then there is a good chance that other children will want to follow. The popular Cartoon Series "South Park" (which is definitely for adults) and "The Simpsons" have had episodes which have shown this problem of children copying children, and has anybody taken the slightest bit of notice of their observations of children at play?
The bottom line is that it is all too easy to blame a single factor for the problems in society. Yes I think that the Hot Coffee mod in San Andreas is very very sad, and is aimed at young teenage lads that need to be dealing with their problems and not venting them out in computer games and on other people.
Can anybody please tell me if there is anything good about using computers these days? Nothing was this violent in the days of the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 back in the 1980's (except I suppose for the odd alien being blasted).
There was a TV Horizon programme in the UK shown by the BBC that fully explianed the art of card counting during the game of Blackjack. It was found that a game that works in favour of the dealer, could be turned around to work in favour of the player.
The programme also explained how the casinos fought back, initially by deliberately working against the player and distracting them in order to ensure that they are not actually trying to use it.
The programme also explained how teams of players could circumvent the method used by the casinos, until they wised up and used CCTV recognition to stop known card counters from playing Blackjack altogether.
The bottom line is card count once, and you might get away with it, but do it twice, and you are likely to be shown the door and will not be welcome in any other casino across the world.
Something similar happened earlier this year, a riot occurred when a new Ikea store was opened on 10th February. The store, in Edmonton, London, which offered store opening bargins, had to be closed under Police advice after 6000 people turned up to buy such bargins as a leather sofa for £45 ($81), when the store only expected 2000 people at the opening.
Amusing though: iKea? they do sell office furniture!
I have had a thought about DirectX, and the fact that Apple are transerring from PPC to Intel Processor. I saw a report last week on ZDNET, which was going on about Intel's DRM IC being used on the protype Intel Macs. One thing that was pointed out was the fact that the new Mac hardware runs games and software a lot quicker than the old hardware.
The upshot is this; the hardware will be virtually identical to a Wintel PC. Effectively the only real difference between them will be the operating system.
To prevent Apple from gaining from a better operating system, Microsoft are going to have to play every trick in the book. Playing with DirectX and Open GL is one of these tricks, as this could make it more difficult for a software vendor to write 3D graphics software for both platforms.
The problem is here is that this could seriously backfire on Microsoft, if the insistance on using DirectX uses more processing power against the advantages of integration with the OS. If the public find that the resulting software works better on a lower specification MAC than PC, then Microsoft will have trouble to justify that its operating system is better, especially as Apple will be only need to a charge a slight premium over most PC vendors, for a similar specification system, that is siginificantly more reliable.
Vista best be perfectly formed on release then!
If you are using Linux, in theory you can recompile the kernal on a system of your choice.
Now if those users who insist on running Windows 98/ME/2000 on an old system are affected by any loss of functionality by Microsoft not providing an updated version of IE, they will:-
1) Buy a new computer (if they can afford it)
2) Install Firefox
3) Install Linux
4) Buy XP (very unlikely as it may not work)
The software industry may be constantly evolving, but sometimes manipulating the market so that you force your customer to buy new product when his current product previously worked to an acceptable level is another.
On the other hand, if Microsoft sold IE as a product rather than a freebie with Windows, they would be looking to ensure backwards compatibilty back to Windows 95!
Don't forget the number of times that Apple Records have tried to sue Apple Computers; especially now since Apple Computers sell music!
The problem with today's innovation marketplace is that due to the way these developments have been funded in the last 25 years; they must be firstly safe, and secondly make money quickly. Think about it this way, 25 years ago the fastest jet airliner in service was Concorde; today there isn't anything that fast in service. Also nobody in 25 years has bothered to go to the moon.
During this period the amount of money invested into pure research into technology has been significantly reduced as GDP of most Western states, as a result the experience in the fields is being lost as scientists and engineers move on with no replacements being trained. NASA have even lost the blueprints for the Saturn V rocket, so to go to the moon, they either have to reverse engineer what 40 year hardware they have left or design a complete new platform at a very great expense.
When you consider that Brunel made a hudge loss on the Great Western Railway for its shareholders, and that his SS Great Eastern (which held the record for the largest ship ever built for 50 years) was a commercial failure, you being to understand that innovation does not necessarily make money quickly.
In the past 10 years, great performance increases have been made in computer performance with reducing costs. The way this has happened is due to the electronics industry ditching the high tech Military and Aerospace markets, and cutting corners to produce very fast electronics that suit only consumer devices that only need to operate for the lifetime of the warranty. In addition the goods have been manufactured in low cost countries, which has meant that the cost of these good has dropped. But I can clearly tell you one thing now, like the crazy situation with the dot com bust, low cost electronics are not going to last much longer, as the electronic devices currently being developed meet their physical limits and the costs of going further get very much higher. Nanotechnology may be the answer, but unless a lot of money is thrown at it, don't expect to see anything seriously useful for about 15 to 20 years.
Believe it or not, we will have to think about the technology and how it may help us.
The article should be called:-
"How to turn a potential classic computer into a piece of junk"
Now taking an original IBM XT and turning it into a powerful Apple computer would be far more interesting
Next patient please!
=
Just because you can do something, does mean that you should do it....
The non-dictionary word of the moment in the UK is Chav - or at least it isn't in the Oxford Dictionary yet, although it might be tomorrow.
If DRM becomes more commonplace, then there will actually be less business for the large Entertainment companies. The reason is very simple, if DRM is sucessful, and more importantly becomes open to everybody to publish their own material and ensure that it is protected online, what is the point in using a large Entertainment company to distribute your product? None - you don't need to produce CDs/DVDs and distribute them to shops, you just need a website and a method of accepting payment.
Yeah, you might need to organise the publicity, yourself, but then so many large organisations have poor understanding of publicity that they leave to to independent agents anyway. And I'm sure if you talked to these agents in the right manner, they may do a deal on future profits.
There is also a question of whether a pirate could then use DRM to build a virus that is undeletable from your system. As I understand DRM is about restricting the movement of files, which in turn may cause considerable problems with virus checkers in the future.
Away, call me old fashioned, but if I really want to buy a piece of music, I would much rather go and order the CD from Amazon, or go round the corner to my local record store or supermarket. At least then I am reasonable confident that I will have music to play the day after the all the PCs in the world with DRM enabled connected to the internet mysteriously fail causing complete chaos.
Douglas Adams did wish that he had taken out a patent for the PDA as a direct result of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The device in the TV series was very similar in design to the early Psion Organiser.
I hate to tell you this, Flight 961 was lost due to the incorrect use of the rudder during flight, while flighing through the wake of a 747. The blackbox recorder recorded that the stresses on the rudder as well in excess of the designed breaking point. New guidleines for pilots were released by all the major plane manufacturers after the enquiry was closed, including Boeing and Airbus.
I also hate to tell you that the 787 will have the same carbon fibre technology, but this time throughout the aircraft to reduce weight and running costs. So I guess you wont be getting on one of them either.
Why do this, when there are suitable particle accelerators that can perform this on the ground? Actually, my former manager is working on a project to perform this type of task for the aerospace industry (using particle accelerators and high altitude aircraft), as we have similar problems on aircraft.
As someone whom works in the aerospace industry working on engine controllers for mainly commercial jet engines (such as Rolls Royce RB211 and Trent), we have to take similar precautions to protect against atmospheric radiation, yet at the same time we need to keep out costs down. Currently we have our own microprocessors built as ASICs, which are based on a PowerPC core. Even then we have to be very careful with the design of the SRAM embedded in these designs, as they are the element most at risk from single event upset. My former manager is a world class expert in this field, and now works very closely with the likes of Boeing and Airbus on this matter
The aerospace industry is now very small in comparison to the consumer electronics, where the big money is deemed to be. Modern commercial components are designed for a fairly short life at room temperature (10 years at room temperature), and do not see vibration, temperature and radiation extremes that would be seen in our application. Using a faraday cage doesn't work either, as the radiation is not dissipated in the same manner as radio frequencies (this isn't an EMC problem). As mentioned elsewhere in this thread the only way forward is to design the silicon to withstand the radiation requirements.
Next time you take your standard laptop on a plane, and it crashes during the flight, please remember in this case it might not be the software's fault; it might be the hardware has been affected by a radiation event, especially if there is sunspot activity. This might be a minor irritation to you, be would not be acceptable if it caused an engine surge.
Is anything with Windows installed on it a good buy?
Some of Sony's stylish computers do look very nice, but then they should be as they are now more expensive than similar equipment produced by Apple (just compare the prices of their laptops and slimline monitor solutions and you will see what I mean). This says a lot about Sony's computers at the moment, yes they look nice, but they are still PCs after all, and Dell can produce something similar at a lower cost. Apple's computers not only look good, but actually work better by not using Windows. Sony have a choice, learn either from Dell or Apple, or stick to making Playstations that allow you to play games.
As somebody whom works in the Aerospace industry, Commercial Off The Shelf products are getting a very bad name - why ? - Product support and reliability.
If you create a product that relies on fully commercial product, you are open to the whims of that product manufacturer, irrespective of whether it is hardware or software. Many of these products have a lifespan governed in a few years at best (and in the case of mobile phone product 6 months), but the average life of a commercial jet airliner is 25 years, and the life of a military jet is 40 years.
If the vendor calls you product obsolete, or goes bankrupt, you may have an even bigger support issue. On a commercial jet, you have to support any electrical product for the rest of its service life. You are not going to re-qualify an old unit because the software has to be updated by spending big money, and the aircraft operators aren't going to be happy with big bills because you've chosen the wrong type of software.
Also, if the vendor writes software that shows up to a have a vulnerability, it they have stopped supporting the product, you are sure going to have to pay for the support ($2 million per line of code, if you can get it of course, they might not be interested in your business anymore). Believe me, as a Component Engineer, we go to great lengths to ensure that we get still use 15 year old microprocessor families, as we are not going to get the software re-written without huge expensive.
In essence we are talking about the attitude of non-engineering people that don't see the benefits or long term cost savings of using in house software for specific applications. If they want to get on an aircraft run on Windows XP, it's up to them. I'd prefer not to have a crash due to poor product support thank you very much.
Perhaps these people should talk to people such as the Component Obsolescence Group (www.cog.org.uk), and then they might think again about their bright ideas.
If the Chinese decided that they could salvage hubble and planned a mission, I think the Americans would have a shuttle ready in a couple of days.
Hubble is old, it is NOT obsolete.
Fully automated car driving systems exist, I worked on such a system for a previous employer who manufactured rolling roads. It stopped the need for the car manufacturer to pay somebody to seat in the driver's seat and drive the car while going nowhere. It also didn't need to have the seat removing.
Working in the Aerospace industry, the biggest problem with building reliable electronics is the quality of the electronic components, and that is before you start to consider the quality of the controlling software. This adds a considerable extra expense to any potential system.
The other issue is that the hardware and software would have to be very tightly controlled. You have to be certified to work on the electrical system of an aeroplane; similar controls would be required for automated systems on cars, as the implications for a failing system are probably greater (especially as there are far more cars than aeroplanes).
However, a fully automated car would be a great boon in reducing drink driving and a reduction in road rage.
Garfield The Movie gets my vote for the worst movie of the year, and probably the worst I've ever seen. There is nothing in the movie that couldn't have been done in thirty a second commercial. Bill Murray must be in for a raspberry for his singing alone.
The only film on the imdb top 100 I have seen is Highlander II, and that is the second worst movie I have seen (Highlander being one of my all-time favourites).
The big tip I have been given, if the trial tells the whole story, then the film is BAD.
This means computer cases are fitted with Mickey Mouse screws with a Donald Duck thread! And probably made out of cream cheese as well. So no changes to the design of cheap domestic electrical goods then, apart from the addition of a system that makes the equipment break down if non-DRM enable meadia is used.
I work in the Aerospace Industry myself. Just changing two or three lines of code can cost an aerospace business $2-3,000,000 (£1,500,000 to £2,000,000) due to qualification costs to re-certify the equipment afterwards. But believe me, if the software ever was wrong, and something major failed causing loss of life, the resulting costs would run into $100's of millions.
The company I work for will even go as far as continuing to use very outdated microprocessors (like Motorola 68020), as the re-qualification costs to port the software to a newer platform would be horffic.
About time the company that suffered the $1,000,000 loss on their chin, and take corrective action to ensure that it does happen again.