1) Every project of significance would have a serious requirements document. By that I don't mean heavy on details, but enough there so that everyone know _why_ we are doing what we are doing. Identify stakeholders, customers etc. Vision statement!
2) Every project will have a preliminary design review. Take the requirements, interpret them, come up with a 'solution' and give a presentation to all the stake holders (or representative stakeholders) and make sure that they understand what they are going to get. Don't just e-mail this around and say "If you have any comments make them now or forever hold your peace"
3) Once the code starts comming together, a critical design review. This is for the technical people. Again, no e-mailing. This is a boring meeting where you pick the brains of experts to make sure you have your bases covered.
4) I'm not big on coding standards. A loose one that governs naming and maybe indentation. I would add perhaps a template for things like header files etc. Maybe the standard copyright notice.
5) Up front, think about unit testing. Having working on a project where the only way you could unit test was to litterally include/link in _all_ the libraries (a hell of a make file) I would think that 'modular' should be in the volcabulary early on.
6) All projects need a follow up plan. Software people need to observe, in the field, how their product works. Hearing about complaints once they've been raised high enough is not effect learning. For me, just recently found out that since one of my dialog boxes was too complicated (it had too much backup information) it was simply being ignored... The title "Database Exception" and the first line "Failed to update database" was being lost (and ignored) in the noise. I would have found out later when the data was all coorupted... fortunately I caught it early. Rather than fixing the code, I instituted a policy of training and beatings for those that didn't comply (in case you were curious).
One drive for backup on day 1, the next drive for backukp of day 2, third drive for day 3. Each day, 1 drive is taken off the premisis. Maybe bank safe deposit box? Or archival service. Drives are aged out after a year or so. So, what's 3 200+ GByte SCSI drives cost these days?
There was a story run in Car and Driver about a lawyer who tried to negotiate a fine for a speeding ticket on behave of a friend of his. Upon learning that New Jersey doesn't negotiate, he got pissed and decided to teach NJ a lesson. He brought out all the big guns....
Basically, when it comes to scientific evidence there are three things that must happen for it to get into court.
1) it must be proven technology. Horoscopes aren't going to cut it. Peer reviewed is typical standard.
2) the device in question must be built to this technology and be in good working order. Most Judges allow the state to show 'calibration' records and proof.
3) it must have been operated by a competent person. That would be the cop with x years of traing etc.
What is interesting about LIDAR is that it only "measures" time. Based on the time measurement, coorelation of multiple measurements, etc it "_calculates_" distance and ultimately speed.
So this lawyer wanted to see the calculations, equations etc. LIDAR company refused, ticket thrown out _and_ for some period LIDAR was not allowed as evidence in NJ speeding ticket cases (or I guess anyother case).
Thank god I mostly eat meat from the grocery store - there they only kill the guilty animals!
"whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."
Oh, and I here they only pluck guilty vegitables as well. Don't want to kill the innocent type.
The way I understand it:
Some creationalist believe that dinosaur bones are from creatures described as 'dragons' in myth and in the Bible (don't ask me what section, don't know, don't care). So they existed concurantly with man. As for fossilization, they claim that the process can be accelerated. I believe someone found a hat that was fossilized by Mt. St Helens.
The biggest problem they have is not any artifact on earth, but the existance of star-light. (We can see a star 30,000 light years away so the light originated 30,000 years ago) Take that to us being able to see other galaxies and you are able to at least put an lower limit on the age of the universe. The young earth creationalists will tell you either a) we don't know everything about the speed of light or b) light seems to be slowing down (in fact it isn't, just our measurements seem to be getting more accurate and we tend to round down more than round up).
Considering RADAR dectectors are illegal in most European contries, this network should be a boon.
Now a network algorithm to determine which roads are conjested.... "too many nodes up ahead"
Lets say you make 1,000,000,000 pills at a factory of medicine A. Well, you also know that you had a mechanical failure at 12:00pm to 1:00pm that contaminated the sample. Well, you already shipped most of the supply, how can you tell which ones to return/recall? Current system, you can't, you need to send out messages to everyone.
RFID is typically more accurate than barcode (barcode scanners need to be aimed and or need human intervention).
So, with RFID, you read the label as you fill the bottle, updating the database. And as it goes out on the delivery truck, you read the tag again (at the dock door). Now when you have a inventory problem you can quickly determine which delivery truck it went out on, notive just that one store that got the bad batch, and possible prevent millions in loss.
BTW, read range on a 900Mhz tag that is small enough to fit on a bottle is about 3 ft with a 1 Watt (max FCC allows). Relistically there are diminishing returns when the power is turned up and the transmitter tends to drown out the receiver at some point. Bigger tags (4"x4") can be read at 45ft - more like 20ft reliably.
Beginner - bolt on the exhaust and make vroom vroom noises. Do you really want to pay someone $70/hr to install this?
Intermediate - replacing engine components - camshaft heads; Bolting on superchargers. Almost everything in kit form. Requires an investment in tools (Sear Craftsman - not too bad)
Advanced - Fabrication! Welding in roll cages (maybe even bending them yourself). Welding up your own exhaust because no one makes it off the shelf and you can't afford custom ($3000). You find yourself asking what the hydraulic ratio of a particular brake master cylinder is. You know you are at this level where part of your long term plans is to repaint the car "when you are done". Lets just say tool costs have gone up a bit. $3000 for a TIG welder, $1000 in tube bender (including dies), about $1000 in saws, grinders, shapers, and real car hackers of course have the modified tools - example - a band saw that can cut pre-bent tubing perfectly along radiuses. Other clues are being on a first name basis with the sales and tech people at companies like OTC, Miller, and Kent Moore
There's an old hotrodder saying "Nothing beats cubic inches"... and the lesser known other half... "Except cubic dollars"
Moreover, many lab studies show low-frequency EMF disrupt living cells, Milham asserts. Critics like McBride say such results are often difficult to reproduce at other labs. Milham says that's because of differences in the Earth's magnetic field and stray EMF.
Difficult to reproduce is sign No. 1.
I remember one swedish study that found if they simply drew the lines a little different, living near low frequency RF sources actually decreased the likelyhood of cancer. More importantly, once Sweden decided to move all schools away from low frequency RF (just in case), they were fortunately stopped when someone pointed out the additional milage on school buses would make the move away from RF sources more dangers (higher chances of car/bus accidents vs. any potental decrease in cancer risk.
I think 'effects too small to measure' is sign No. 2 of junk science.
Of course, all these AM radio antennas are probably on towers, and all these towers have red flashing lights.... The real culprit.
Well, there is 96bits on info on the tag (the 64bit tags are already just about dead). The reprogrammable tags (unsecure) will have something like 196 bits of scratch space. Secure tags are laser programmed. Of those 96bits, some are dedicated to the same functions as the old UPC codes. But you can imagine 48 bits as a serial number. There are various EPC standards proposed that will dictate how many bits are dedicated to each data type.
Re:Wouldn't you take the car to a mechanic?
on
Debugging
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately the average mechanic isn't so bright.
Car needs a few things to run. Good mechanical condition (compression), fuel, air, and spark. If the car won't run (assuming battery is good and the motor turns on the starter) one is guaranteed to be missing (or way out of spec). Unless the car magically fixes itself, you can pretty much rule out mechanical or air. That leave spark or fuel. Spark can be measured pretty easily and on old cars, a quick kick of the throttle would squirt gas from the accelerator pump (for those that remember a carberator).
Any tech/mechanic who assumes vapor lock is an idiot and will end up costing you extra money while they replace parts in vain trying to make it work.
Actually Bill Clinton reasoned it was COITUS. So in his mind he felt he was being truthful (well sorta-kinda) The courts did not make that distinction. When congress failed to convict, Ken Starr lost interest and decided the low pay wasn't worth the hassles.
Ironically enough, Hillary Clinton, back during Watergate/Nixon said that lying to Congress was enough to impeach and convict a president. Bill never did that, he just lied when he gave testimony in his sexual harrasment lawsuit. If it was you or I, we would have been slammed. Slick Willey essentially got away with it.
I'll have to find the missions, but NASA used sold state recorders that replaced tape recorders to log mission data (scientific and operational spacecraft health etc). And yes, we would record while we did playback all the time.
Million dollar memory boards (1987 timeframe)
Its been done. At the very least, Fairchild Space (now part of Orbital Sciences) did it.
So recording TV programs has been done, playback has been done, simultanious record and playback has been done. So what is the patent really about?
I guess there is a real risk to defending a patent, you might just find out it isn't valid. I guess holding an untested (in courts) patent is more valuable - for catching investors
Last time I saw the numbers, it was much more likely in Europe to be burglarized at night, when the unarmed (practically anyway) homeowner was at home than in the US.
Daytime burglaries are the norm in the USA, when the homeowner (gun owning or not) is away.
I suspect any sane burglar would run in the face of a homeowner (why even deal with a witness if you can avoid it) and for those insane ones, I'd prefere the option to defend my family and myself rather than count on the good graces of the criminal.
Last note: Since the introduction of anti-theft devices such as alarms and ignition cut-outs, it has become much easier to steal a car via 'car jacking' than the conventional (traditional?) means. You get the keys and the alarm disabler all in one shot (so to speak). And you can count that the car owner is unarmed (in most areas of the US)
In the past the court has ruled that it is too much of a burden on a child to have to stand up for his/her principles and "opt out" of prayer like before football games etc.
Going to school should not require a child to have to make daily moral decisions. "Do I look like an outcast to my friends/fellow students or do I lie and swear false allegence?" There's enough indoctrination in school as it is (and not enough real education).
Lets do job No. 1 first. Then maybe we can honestly debate the existance of god or God.
Make a rough estimate on how long it will take you to do something, double that, multiply that by $100/hr and ask for that. Offer fixed deadlines for what and when you will deliver. Make sure acceptance test is spelled out. Make the deadlines easy to hit, and deliver early.
If you can't negotiate this, ask for a small fixed price to come up with a detailed proposal - say $100. You should already know approximately what they want. Then spend a day or so going back and forth until you can come to an agreement.
Maybe negotiate a bonus to have it done early.
The key point of your negotiation is who will own the 'work product' when you are done. If it's you, you can release it open source again.
Copyright law covers derivative works. Doesn't really make a difference how you made the 'other' song, unless you can demonstrate that the other song can be made independant of the first.
Now were is that spell checker.
"They said it was from another hardware vendor, but they didn't say who,"
Uhm, hardware vendor? Same code in Unix and Linux? Now that I can believe. Now the question is who ownes the copyright of hardware specific code. Can't imagine a company writing a driver and turning over the driver (and all rights) to SCO.
Yes, know the attitude well.
Need to beg IT to use _their_ network.
Reminds me of the Burt Renalds "Smokey and the Bandit" movie where the officer pulls over the nemisis and says "You can't drive that POS on MY highway" (emphasis slightly added).
At a larger company that I worked for there was an underground engineering conspiracy. We'd watch the IT drones _attempt_ to properly configure routers etc - but more importantly we'd pickup the passwords (and laugh about some - company name backwards?) and when they leave, configure the stuff ourself. They'd arrive the next day to complete the fix after 'reading up on it', and the stuff was magicly working already. We'd say "Great job yesterday, Lets just leave it and see it keeps working"
I also did IT support. Learned early on, its impossible to monitor all configurations all the time. Also figured out it didn't make a damn bit of difference. So I tightly managed the machines of the less technical people and got out of the way of the engineers and designers. A brown bag lunch once a month was enough to get the security message out - and the people that cared not only came, but had enough smarts to contribute to the discussion. Critical information should be protected from insiders as well (more so) than from the script kiddie surfing the web.
Blanket hard-nose policies are for non-dynamic companies. Companies, with security in mind, need to continually advance and look for new areas and higher productivity in the old areas. If you think you can do that with an IT department that keeps the clamps down on the LAN, let me know which company and I'll make sure I don't invest in them in the long run.
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1) Every project of significance would have a serious requirements document. By that I don't mean heavy on details, but enough there so that everyone know _why_ we are doing what we are doing. Identify stakeholders, customers etc. Vision statement!
2) Every project will have a preliminary design review. Take the requirements, interpret them, come up with a 'solution' and give a presentation to all the stake holders (or representative stakeholders) and make sure that they understand what they are going to get. Don't just e-mail this around and say "If you have any comments make them now or forever hold your peace"
3) Once the code starts comming together, a critical design review. This is for the technical people. Again, no e-mailing. This is a boring meeting where you pick the brains of experts to make sure you have your bases covered.
4) I'm not big on coding standards. A loose one that governs naming and maybe indentation. I would add perhaps a template for things like header files etc. Maybe the standard copyright notice.
5) Up front, think about unit testing. Having working on a project where the only way you could unit test was to litterally include/link in _all_ the libraries (a hell of a make file) I would think that 'modular' should be in the volcabulary early on.
6) All projects need a follow up plan. Software people need to observe, in the field, how their product works. Hearing about complaints once they've been raised high enough is not effect learning. For me, just recently found out that since one of my dialog boxes was too complicated (it had too much backup information) it was simply being ignored... The title "Database Exception" and the first line "Failed to update database" was being lost (and ignored) in the noise. I would have found out later when the data was all coorupted... fortunately I caught it early. Rather than fixing the code, I instituted a policy of training and beatings for those that didn't comply (in case you were curious).
One drive for backup on day 1, the next drive for backukp of day 2, third drive for day 3. Each day, 1 drive is taken off the premisis. Maybe bank safe deposit box? Or archival service.
Drives are aged out after a year or so.
So, what's 3 200+ GByte SCSI drives cost these days?
There was a story run in Car and Driver about a lawyer who tried to negotiate a fine for a speeding ticket on behave of a friend of his. Upon learning that New Jersey doesn't negotiate, he got pissed and decided to teach NJ a lesson. He brought out all the big guns....
http://www.imprezars.com/techtalk.htm
Basically, when it comes to scientific evidence there are three things that must happen for it to get into court.
1) it must be proven technology. Horoscopes aren't going to cut it. Peer reviewed is typical standard.
2) the device in question must be built to this technology and be in good working order. Most Judges allow the state to show 'calibration' records and proof.
3) it must have been operated by a competent person. That would be the cop with x years of traing etc.
What is interesting about LIDAR is that it only "measures" time. Based on the time measurement, coorelation of multiple measurements, etc it "_calculates_" distance and ultimately speed.
So this lawyer wanted to see the calculations, equations etc. LIDAR company refused, ticket thrown out _and_ for some period LIDAR was not allowed as evidence in NJ speeding ticket cases (or I guess anyother case).
I assume NJ has since fixed this "problem"
Sorry shameless "Get Smart" reference.
Thank god I mostly eat meat from the grocery store - there they only kill the guilty animals! "whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine." Oh, and I here they only pluck guilty vegitables as well. Don't want to kill the innocent type.
The way I understand it: Some creationalist believe that dinosaur bones are from creatures described as 'dragons' in myth and in the Bible (don't ask me what section, don't know, don't care). So they existed concurantly with man. As for fossilization, they claim that the process can be accelerated. I believe someone found a hat that was fossilized by Mt. St Helens. The biggest problem they have is not any artifact on earth, but the existance of star-light. (We can see a star 30,000 light years away so the light originated 30,000 years ago) Take that to us being able to see other galaxies and you are able to at least put an lower limit on the age of the universe. The young earth creationalists will tell you either a) we don't know everything about the speed of light or b) light seems to be slowing down (in fact it isn't, just our measurements seem to be getting more accurate and we tend to round down more than round up).
Considering RADAR dectectors are illegal in most European contries, this network should be a boon. Now a network algorithm to determine which roads are conjested.... "too many nodes up ahead"
Lets say you make 1,000,000,000 pills at a factory of medicine A. Well, you also know that you had a mechanical failure at 12:00pm to 1:00pm that contaminated the sample. Well, you already shipped most of the supply, how can you tell which ones to return/recall? Current system, you can't, you need to send out messages to everyone. RFID is typically more accurate than barcode (barcode scanners need to be aimed and or need human intervention). So, with RFID, you read the label as you fill the bottle, updating the database. And as it goes out on the delivery truck, you read the tag again (at the dock door). Now when you have a inventory problem you can quickly determine which delivery truck it went out on, notive just that one store that got the bad batch, and possible prevent millions in loss. BTW, read range on a 900Mhz tag that is small enough to fit on a bottle is about 3 ft with a 1 Watt (max FCC allows). Relistically there are diminishing returns when the power is turned up and the transmitter tends to drown out the receiver at some point. Bigger tags (4"x4") can be read at 45ft - more like 20ft reliably.
That's it, you are out of the hacker club! :)
There are different levels of mods.
Beginner - bolt on the exhaust and make vroom vroom noises. Do you really want to pay someone $70/hr to install this?
Intermediate - replacing engine components - camshaft heads; Bolting on superchargers. Almost everything in kit form. Requires an investment in tools (Sear Craftsman - not too bad)
Advanced - Fabrication! Welding in roll cages (maybe even bending them yourself). Welding up your own exhaust because no one makes it off the shelf and you can't afford custom ($3000). You find yourself asking what the hydraulic ratio of a particular brake master cylinder is. You know you are at this level where part of your long term plans is to repaint the car "when you are done". Lets just say tool costs have gone up a bit. $3000 for a TIG welder, $1000 in tube bender (including dies), about $1000 in saws, grinders, shapers, and real car hackers of course have the modified tools - example - a band saw that can cut pre-bent tubing perfectly along radiuses. Other clues are being on a first name basis with the sales and tech people at companies like OTC, Miller, and Kent Moore
There's an old hotrodder saying "Nothing beats cubic inches"... and the lesser known other half... "Except cubic dollars"
From the article:
Moreover, many lab studies show low-frequency EMF disrupt living cells, Milham asserts. Critics like McBride say such results are often difficult to reproduce at other labs. Milham says that's because of differences in the Earth's magnetic field and stray EMF.
Difficult to reproduce is sign No. 1.
I remember one swedish study that found if they simply drew the lines a little different, living near low frequency RF sources actually decreased the likelyhood of cancer. More importantly, once Sweden decided to move all schools away from low frequency RF (just in case), they were fortunately stopped when someone pointed out the additional milage on school buses would make the move away from RF sources more dangers (higher chances of car/bus accidents vs. any potental decrease in cancer risk.
I think 'effects too small to measure' is sign No. 2 of junk science.
Of course, all these AM radio antennas are probably on towers, and all these towers have red flashing lights.... The real culprit.Well, there is 96bits on info on the tag (the 64bit tags are already just about dead). The reprogrammable tags (unsecure) will have something like 196 bits of scratch space. Secure tags are laser programmed. Of those 96bits, some are dedicated to the same functions as the old UPC codes. But you can imagine 48 bits as a serial number. There are various EPC standards proposed that will dictate how many bits are dedicated to each data type.
Unfortunately the average mechanic isn't so bright.
Car needs a few things to run. Good mechanical condition (compression), fuel, air, and spark. If the car won't run (assuming battery is good and the motor turns on the starter) one is guaranteed to be missing (or way out of spec). Unless the car magically fixes itself, you can pretty much rule out mechanical or air. That leave spark or fuel. Spark can be measured pretty easily and on old cars, a quick kick of the throttle would squirt gas from the accelerator pump (for those that remember a carberator).
Any tech/mechanic who assumes vapor lock is an idiot and will end up costing you extra money while they replace parts in vain trying to make it work.
Actually Bill Clinton reasoned it was COITUS. So in his mind he felt he was being truthful (well sorta-kinda) The courts did not make that distinction. When congress failed to convict, Ken Starr lost interest and decided the low pay wasn't worth the hassles.
Ironically enough, Hillary Clinton, back during Watergate/Nixon said that lying to Congress was enough to impeach and convict a president. Bill never did that, he just lied when he gave testimony in his sexual harrasment lawsuit. If it was you or I, we would have been slammed. Slick Willey essentially got away with it.I'll have to find the missions, but NASA used sold state recorders that replaced tape recorders to log mission data (scientific and operational spacecraft health etc). And yes, we would record while we did playback all the time.
Million dollar memory boards (1987 timeframe)
Its been done. At the very least, Fairchild Space (now part of Orbital Sciences) did it.
So recording TV programs has been done, playback has been done, simultanious record and playback has been done. So what is the patent really about?
I guess there is a real risk to defending a patent, you might just find out it isn't valid. I guess holding an untested (in courts) patent is more valuable - for catching investors
whatever
Last time I saw the numbers, it was much more likely in Europe to be burglarized at night, when the unarmed (practically anyway) homeowner was at home than in the US.
Daytime burglaries are the norm in the USA, when the homeowner (gun owning or not) is away.
I suspect any sane burglar would run in the face of a homeowner (why even deal with a witness if you can avoid it) and for those insane ones, I'd prefere the option to defend my family and myself rather than count on the good graces of the criminal.
Last note: Since the introduction of anti-theft devices such as alarms and ignition cut-outs, it has become much easier to steal a car via 'car jacking' than the conventional (traditional?) means. You get the keys and the alarm disabler all in one shot (so to speak). And you can count that the car owner is unarmed (in most areas of the US)
Forget the A-team approach, just remotely disable the vehicle, re-enable when you've taken over (or disable the disabler)
BTW, with all the video taped car chases, this kind of device gets proposed for _all_ California cars every year or so.
The odds of me leaving any such device intact in my car is exactly 0.
In the past the court has ruled that it is too much of a burden on a child to have to stand up for his/her principles and "opt out" of prayer like before football games etc.
Going to school should not require a child to have to make daily moral decisions. "Do I look like an outcast to my friends/fellow students or do I lie and swear false allegence?" There's enough indoctrination in school as it is (and not enough real education).
Lets do job No. 1 first. Then maybe we can honestly debate the existance of god or God.
Negotiate a contract
Make a rough estimate on how long it will take you to do something, double that, multiply that by $100/hr and ask for that. Offer fixed deadlines for what and when you will deliver. Make sure acceptance test is spelled out. Make the deadlines easy to hit, and deliver early.
If you can't negotiate this, ask for a small fixed price to come up with a detailed proposal - say $100. You should already know approximately what they want. Then spend a day or so going back and forth until you can come to an agreement.
Maybe negotiate a bonus to have it done early.
The key point of your negotiation is who will own the 'work product' when you are done. If it's you, you can release it open source again.
Copyright law covers derivative works. Doesn't really make a difference how you made the 'other' song, unless you can demonstrate that the other song can be made independant of the first.
Now were is that spell checker.
"They said it was from another hardware vendor, but they didn't say who,"
Uhm, hardware vendor? Same code in Unix and Linux? Now that I can believe. Now the question is who ownes the copyright of hardware specific code. Can't imagine a company writing a driver and turning over the driver (and all rights) to SCO.
That which hits the fan is not evenly distributedMiddle mouse button is reload... Except in unreal - then middle mouse == the teleporter. That which hits the fan is not evenly distributed.
Its O.K. to lie under oath as well, Remember Clintion got off.
Yes, know the attitude well. Need to beg IT to use _their_ network. Reminds me of the Burt Renalds "Smokey and the Bandit" movie where the officer pulls over the nemisis and says "You can't drive that POS on MY highway" (emphasis slightly added). At a larger company that I worked for there was an underground engineering conspiracy. We'd watch the IT drones _attempt_ to properly configure routers etc - but more importantly we'd pickup the passwords (and laugh about some - company name backwards?) and when they leave, configure the stuff ourself. They'd arrive the next day to complete the fix after 'reading up on it', and the stuff was magicly working already. We'd say "Great job yesterday, Lets just leave it and see it keeps working" I also did IT support. Learned early on, its impossible to monitor all configurations all the time. Also figured out it didn't make a damn bit of difference. So I tightly managed the machines of the less technical people and got out of the way of the engineers and designers. A brown bag lunch once a month was enough to get the security message out - and the people that cared not only came, but had enough smarts to contribute to the discussion. Critical information should be protected from insiders as well (more so) than from the script kiddie surfing the web. Blanket hard-nose policies are for non-dynamic companies. Companies, with security in mind, need to continually advance and look for new areas and higher productivity in the old areas. If you think you can do that with an IT department that keeps the clamps down on the LAN, let me know which company and I'll make sure I don't invest in them in the long run.