There are also other considerations that would be factored into building a government system. One is spares. Even though the numbers being quoted here to make ASIC cost effective may be much higher than what is actually used in the system, the government may have decided to go ahead and purchase enough spares to last for the life of the program, and then some.
Second is testing. Government specs may require that the system be "fully tested", and ASIC may give more flexibility to the designers to build the system to be testable.
And don't forget that this will be a highly classified super-duper secret system, and even the very thought of a Field-PROGAMMABLE Gate Array is enough to invoke fear and dread into the minds of those who approve these things. And I happen to agree, btw. It'd be much harder to compromise the system.
Personally, I'd hate to think what it'd be like to work on this project. Getting info on some aspect of your little task is probably a nightmare. I bet that overall, the cost of ASIC versus FPGA doesn't matter.
Conformal coating is standard procedure for military electronics. It makes repair a pain in the ass, but it's not like consumer electronics gets much component-level repair anyhow. It also protects against fungus, which is important since most of us are kept in the dark and fed fertilizer.
Most of our "scientists" are brown-nosing yes men that jump on whatever bandwagon is convenient to get government funding. And once married to a certain point of view, it can be very painful to accept defeat and throw away ones "life's work". Earth's climate is primarily governed by changes in solar activity, and there's buggerall we can do about it. It's time we redirected funding to more fruitful endeavors, like recovering methane hydrates.
Well, the problem I've got with this is that things just don't happen instantly with an analog watch, the hands move slowly. The passage of time itself is necessary to reveal the function.
Not much instant gratification with a watch. It could take a few days for the uninitiated to notice the pattern. And they'd have to be paying attention. It's not as if the watch taps you on the shoulder at dawn and dusk to say "Look at me!".
To be honest, I don't think that people corelatate the sun's position with time at all, unless forced.
Western society spends most of its time indoors, so it's hard for us to relate.
Don't look at me that way, somebody had to say it. Surely I'm not the first to recognize the potential of licensing this technology to the Japanese entertainment industry.
And I suppose you'd also claim a sundial is not intuitive? The sundial is graphical, and most homo sapiens spending their days in the presence of one would figure out the correlation. Same with an analog wristwatch. Strap one on the wrist of some lost-society tribal person, and he'll eventually figure it out.
It's intuitive because the hour hand is not far removed from the natural phenomenon of a cast shadow. The main difference is that the function extends beyond daylight hours. Minute and second hands quickly reveal their function as being subsets of the hour hand.
So yes, it is intuitive. It is an instrument whose human interface is modelled on a universally-shared human experience. How more intuitive could you possibly make it?
They'll just use the deductions to write off archaic and useless code, like drivers for ports that no longer exist. Do you really need punchcard access?
Ugh, you stole my subject line. I couldn't help but think that by 2103, some librarian will find a collection of old cigar boxes from Mrs. Pennington's 1973 first grade class full of chewed crayons and uneaten boogers. Imagine the excitement of 22nd century cootie researchers.
Why don't we just call it what it is, a hardware license. If it works just until the warranty expires, then great, you got your money's worth. But if it lasts longer, say two whole years, then you make out like a bandit.
Parent's post is informative, but grandparent's post is still a good joke. Of course no one concentrated on an impotency drug while there are so many serious illnesses around (cancer, alzheimer, parkinson, etc.). But it still sounds funny the way it was worded.
It may simply be a patent on "methods for researching non-coded, or "junk", DNA."
So what's the problem with that? I'd like to see a little evidence that they've indeed "patented the non-coded DNA of all living creatures", and not just come up with some convenient way to analyze it.
Especially if they could figure out some way to download images in the background, and maybe throw in some chat rooms. Linux types would also appreciate a command line interface, so they could just jump directly to any part of the service by typing in a keyword. Yeah, that'd be cool.
But nobody can ever perfectly "steal" any of your biometrics. Sure, they can make gloves that contain fingerprint whorls good enough to fool the scanners of 2005... but the scanners made in 2006 might also feature a chemical sniffer that determines if its real skin or latex.
Well fine then, I'll just have my gloves made from real skin.
Being isolated from the rest of the world apparently blocks those penguin probers from grasping the reality of the situation. It's a Jerry Springer world here, and that guy just bought himself a backstage pass. If they'd just given him the damn fuel, we wouldn't be reading this on/. Everyday he stays there equates to ten more armchair quarterbacks coming to the conclusion that they could do it, yet not be so stupid as to go without extra fuel.
All who are familiar with the ATM scams know why it is inherently insecure. The more likely scenario is that eventually you will all be tagged like cattle. GPS tracking will ensure security by monitoring to make sure you are never in two places at the same time, or making quantum leaps through space-time.
Re:I try to avoid them altogether.
on
Fake ATM Fraud Expose
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
If they integrated some other forms of identification that couldn't be forged, such as biometrics or retinal scans, perhaps I'd be a bit less worried.
What difference will biometrics make if some criminal has installed a modified machine to intercept and record your biometric data?
Yeah, the brain's pretty amazing when it comes to pattern-matching, ain't it?
Spectacular how it's pollution filters zero in on the substring PORN and it just jumps out at you like it's in big bold letters or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that's the long and short of it.
That's silly. It's not either/or, do both.
There are also other considerations that would be factored into building a government system. One is spares. Even though the numbers being quoted here to make ASIC cost effective may be much higher than what is actually used in the system, the government may have decided to go ahead and purchase enough spares to last for the life of the program, and then some.
Second is testing. Government specs may require that the system be "fully tested", and ASIC may give more flexibility to the designers to build the system to be testable.
And don't forget that this will be a highly classified super-duper secret system, and even the very thought of a Field-PROGAMMABLE Gate Array is enough to invoke fear and dread into the minds of those who approve these things. And I happen to agree, btw. It'd be much harder to compromise the system.
Personally, I'd hate to think what it'd be like to work on this project. Getting info on some aspect of your little task is probably a nightmare. I bet that overall, the cost of ASIC versus FPGA doesn't matter.
Conformal coating is standard procedure for military electronics. It makes repair a pain in the ass, but it's not like consumer electronics gets much component-level repair anyhow. It also protects against fungus, which is important since most of us are kept in the dark and fed fertilizer.
Most of our "scientists" are brown-nosing yes men that jump on whatever bandwagon is convenient to get government funding. And once married to a certain point of view, it can be very painful to accept defeat and throw away ones "life's work". Earth's climate is primarily governed by changes in solar activity, and there's buggerall we can do about it. It's time we redirected funding to more fruitful endeavors, like recovering methane hydrates.
Well, the problem I've got with this is that things just don't happen instantly with an analog watch, the hands move slowly. The passage of time itself is necessary to reveal the function.
Not much instant gratification with a watch. It could take a few days for the uninitiated to notice the pattern. And they'd have to be paying attention. It's not as if the watch taps you on the shoulder at dawn and dusk to say "Look at me!".
To be honest, I don't think that people corelatate the sun's position with time at all, unless forced.
Western society spends most of its time indoors, so it's hard for us to relate.
Don't look at me that way, somebody had to say it. Surely I'm not the first to recognize the potential of licensing this technology to the Japanese entertainment industry.
And I suppose you'd also claim a sundial is not intuitive? The sundial is graphical, and most homo sapiens spending their days in the presence of one would figure out the correlation. Same with an analog wristwatch. Strap one on the wrist of some lost-society tribal person, and he'll eventually figure it out.
It's intuitive because the hour hand is not far removed from the natural phenomenon of a cast shadow. The main difference is that the function extends beyond daylight hours. Minute and second hands quickly reveal their function as being subsets of the hour hand.
So yes, it is intuitive. It is an instrument whose human interface is modelled on a universally-shared human experience. How more intuitive could you possibly make it?
They'll just use the deductions to write off archaic and useless code, like drivers for ports that no longer exist. Do you really need punchcard access?
Ugh, you stole my subject line. I couldn't help but think that by 2103, some librarian will find a collection of old cigar boxes from Mrs. Pennington's 1973 first grade class full of chewed crayons and uneaten boogers. Imagine the excitement of 22nd century cootie researchers.
... that stealing cable TV would be such a problem in a Communist country?
Why don't we just call it what it is, a hardware license. If it works just until the warranty expires, then great, you got your money's worth. But if it lasts longer, say two whole years, then you make out like a bandit.
Shhhh! Keep it down, or you'll have every nerd in the world bragging on his alt.com profile that he suffers from color blindness.
Parent's post is informative, but grandparent's post is still a good joke. Of course no one concentrated on an impotency drug while there are so many serious illnesses around (cancer, alzheimer, parkinson, etc.). But it still sounds funny the way it was worded.
Yep, it was funny because he was serious.
It may simply be a patent on "methods for researching non-coded, or "junk", DNA."
So what's the problem with that? I'd like to see a little evidence that they've indeed "patented the non-coded DNA of all living creatures", and not just come up with some convenient way to analyze it.
Try altavista.com.
Click on the video tab.
Turn Family Filter off.
Fap away.
Especially if they could figure out some way to download images in the background, and maybe throw in some chat rooms. Linux types would also appreciate a command line interface, so they could just jump directly to any part of the service by typing in a keyword. Yeah, that'd be cool.
But nobody can ever perfectly "steal" any of your biometrics. Sure, they can make gloves that contain fingerprint whorls good enough to fool the scanners of 2005... but the scanners made in 2006 might also feature a chemical sniffer that determines if its real skin or latex.
Well fine then, I'll just have my gloves made from real skin.
Oh please, say it isn't so! You don't mean to imply that /. is whoring out link placement to subscription-based news services, do you?
We have the technology.
Now *umph* hold still, dammit.
Being isolated from the rest of the world apparently blocks those penguin probers from grasping the reality of the situation. It's a Jerry Springer world here, and that guy just bought himself a backstage pass. If they'd just given him the damn fuel, we wouldn't be reading this on /. Everyday he stays there equates to ten more armchair quarterbacks coming to the conclusion that they could do it, yet not be so stupid as to go without extra fuel.
What happens to the doctors who want to keep using Windows?
You do realize that Britain's health system is socialist don't you? Under socialism, you take what is given to you.
All who are familiar with the ATM scams know why it is inherently insecure. The more likely scenario is that eventually you will all be tagged like cattle. GPS tracking will ensure security by monitoring to make sure you are never in two places at the same time, or making quantum leaps through space-time.
If they integrated some other forms of identification that couldn't be forged, such as biometrics or retinal scans, perhaps I'd be a bit less worried.
What difference will biometrics make if some criminal has installed a modified machine to intercept and record your biometric data?
Yeah, the brain's pretty amazing when it comes to pattern-matching, ain't it?
Spectacular how it's pollution filters zero in on the substring PORN and it just jumps out at you like it's in big bold letters or something.