Remember the Slashdot posting on the Boston Globe article about how Mir is being overrun by Teenage Mutant Ninja Fungi?
Consider that if Mir was to be deorbited, it would not burn up completely (remember Skylab?). Consider also that fungi are remarkably resiliant, and could potentially survive the stresses and heat inside a reentering spacecraft. Consider, too that Mir, if deorbited, will probably have a trajectory that sets it squarely into some ocean, making it impossible for human to control and monitor the wreckage and its tiny passengers.
I wonder if the powers that be have even thought to consider the potential ramifications of introducing these new strains into the Earth's ecosystem, unmonitored and unchecked.
On the one hand, if you think about it, Mr. Walker not really breaking any new ground, here. He's established some reasonable milestones, not quite as lofty as the first US venture into space. He's using "off-the-shelf" parts to build his vehicle. The technical breakthrus required to achieve a trajectory peak of 30mi is some 40 years old.
I remember back in da' Day when I was studying to be a *real* engineer. <grynn> The theory to achieve what Walker is aiming for is understandable and appliable by a 3rd year BS Aerospace Engineering student.
My concern would be that $250K seems pretty light, even for the limited scale of this *MANNED* rocket (and required flight systems). I recall projects in college requiring larger budgets for the design and building the of systems to launch and control unmanned vehicles. Seems to violate the first rule of engineering - make sure you leave PLENTY of margin for error.
All the same, if he *does* do this without turning into human crater residue, I think I will have a new hero. Got to admire a man who sets his sights on something in childhood, and works tirelessly for decades to achieve it.
...anactofgod...
<Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of their women.>
If you are interested reading about a company that in the business of creating *real* wearable computers, check out xybernaut. They are even marketing Linux capable versions.
...anactofgod...
{Xybernaut + Linux + Bluetooth + Beowulf...hmmmm...}
Linus has gone on record stating that he believes the big growth industry for Linux is in embedded systems.
Linus is associated with Transmeta.
Transmeta has filed for (and received) a number of patents that could be related to the development of... * a uP that can emulate "non-native" instructions (either another uP's instruction set or some languages byte codes) via hardware. * an ultra-high-speed uP. * a uP that can detect error states before executing the instructions that would cause them * a uP that should be able to do parallel processing with shared memory.
Hmm...what does that add up to?
*I* think we should be expecting some cool new ultra-high speed, parallel processing, embeddable chip...perhaps for use in kick-ass routers (as the article suggests), and/or a new class of PDA. It will probably be a design that can "scale up" to be used in a desktop/server/mainframe environment.
LOL...agreed! Nothing funnier that a bunch of "softies" trying to make head-or-tails of a *real* hardware spec...albeit one obscured by American legalese...
Hey! Now that is an idea for unbreakable encryption!
Exercise for the hardware literate...search the Patent database for other Transmeta patents that have been granted, and look for a pattern in the documents...
The question that I have is what uP tech is Transmeta looking to use to get these fantastic speed gains? How about a VLIW architecture? I seem to recall reading about a chip (called "Viper"??? created by an English company???) a couple of years ago that was supposed to be RISC-spanking, CISC-go-crying-to-mamma fast...
Any other idle speculation? Hmmmm???
...anactofgod...
{Personally, I believe the post that stated... "Actually, it's a way to run any application for any processor and any OS, straight from Emacs." except I suspect that it will emulate vi on a native Emacs processor...}
Slashdot Mirror
Palm issued a Press Release this morning stating that they purchased Be for $12M. ...anactofgod...
Consider that if Mir was to be deorbited, it would not burn up completely (remember Skylab?). Consider also that fungi are remarkably resiliant, and could potentially survive the stresses and heat inside a reentering spacecraft. Consider, too that Mir, if deorbited, will probably have a trajectory that sets it squarely into some ocean, making it impossible for human to control and monitor the wreckage and its tiny passengers.
I wonder if the powers that be have even thought to consider the potential ramifications of introducing these new strains into the Earth's ecosystem, unmonitored and unchecked.
Remember the movie "The Blob"? *Grynn*
...anactofgod...
On the one hand, if you think about it, Mr. Walker not really breaking any new ground, here. He's established some reasonable milestones, not quite as lofty as the first US venture into space. He's using "off-the-shelf" parts to build his vehicle. The technical breakthrus required to achieve a trajectory peak of 30mi is some 40 years old.
I remember back in da' Day when I was studying to be a *real* engineer. <grynn> The theory to achieve what Walker is aiming for is understandable and appliable by a 3rd year BS Aerospace Engineering student.
My concern would be that $250K seems pretty light, even for the limited scale of this *MANNED* rocket (and required flight systems). I recall projects in college requiring larger budgets for the design and building the of systems to launch and control unmanned vehicles. Seems to violate the first rule of engineering - make sure you leave PLENTY of margin for error.
All the same, if he *does* do this without turning into human crater residue, I think I will have a new hero. Got to admire a man who sets his sights on something in childhood, and works tirelessly for decades to achieve it.
...anactofgod...
<Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of their women.>
If you are interested reading about a company that in the business of creating *real* wearable computers, check out xybernaut. They are even marketing Linux capable versions.
...anactofgod...
{Xybernaut + Linux + Bluetooth + Beowulf...hmmmm...}
Well, I'm curious to know what is sticking out of this shiny happy person's bag. Is that a Banana 2000 I see?
...anactofgod...
{Insert banana joke of choice here...}
{I didn't know that bananas are used to inspect poultry. Poor chickens...}
I know it's not "technical", but it does fall under the MIT definition of a "hack".
What was more brilliant than this?
...anactofgod...
Hmm...let's analyze the evidence...
Linus has gone on record stating that he believes the big growth industry for Linux is in embedded systems.
Linus is associated with Transmeta.
Transmeta has filed for (and received) a number of patents that could be related to the development of...
* a uP that can emulate "non-native" instructions (either another uP's instruction set or some languages byte codes) via hardware.
* an ultra-high-speed uP.
* a uP that can detect error states before executing the instructions that would cause them
* a uP that should be able to do parallel processing with shared memory.
Hmm...what does that add up to?
*I* think we should be expecting some cool new ultra-high speed, parallel processing, embeddable chip...perhaps for use in kick-ass routers (as the article suggests), and/or a new class of PDA. It will probably be a design that can "scale up" to be used in a desktop/server/mainframe environment.
It's the Mother of all Chips!!!
...anactofgod...
Or, I could be *completely* off base, here...
LOL...agreed! Nothing funnier that a bunch of "softies" trying to make head-or-tails of a *real* hardware spec...albeit one obscured by American legalese...
Hey! Now that is an idea for unbreakable encryption!
Exercise for the hardware literate...search the Patent database for other Transmeta patents that have been granted, and look for a pattern in the documents...
The question that I have is what uP tech is Transmeta looking to use to get these fantastic speed gains? How about a VLIW architecture? I seem to recall reading about a chip (called "Viper"??? created by an English company???) a couple of years ago that was supposed to be RISC-spanking, CISC-go-crying-to-mamma fast...
Any other idle speculation? Hmmmm???
...anactofgod...
{Personally, I believe the post that stated...
"Actually, it's a way to run any application for any processor and any OS, straight from Emacs."
except I suspect that it will emulate vi on a native Emacs processor...}
***BROAD GRYNN***