Am I the only one who read that as Tactical Missle Robot? I guess I'm just thinking of the LOCAAS system I saw at Lockheed Martin. They had a realtime simulation setup where a swarm of these devices took out targets. The targets are preloaded into the system so that the device looks for say, a scud missle truck or a tank, and it could have several targets. Several LOCAAS are launched from aircraft and fly about autonomously until it IDs a target. Then it homes in and destroys it w/ a shaped warhead. It has a really neat mode called swarm, where if one LOCAAS IDs a target, it calls the other ones to come attack the target - they'll keep swarming until the target is so destroyed it can't be recognized as a target. In the simulation, they took out almost all 10 targets without any user input other than the original targeting from a simulated aircraft flyover. The simulation is nondeterministic, so every time they run it, the outcome is different - just like real life. After seeing this simulation, I'd hate to be on the recieving end of these things!
Since it only requires a name, I guess you could give them a fake one and they'd never know. Just don't go with a famous name, becasue they'd want to see some ID then - I mean how many people out there are named Optimus Prime. You might also want to stay away from professional athlete names also, since too many seem to be having legal problems. So just be creative and give them a name that you want to touch, but you musn't touch! - Max Power
It is stored in firmware, so it is more secure from viruses and other types of attack than past BIOSes [sarcasm] Yeah, there were real virus problems w/ BIOS back when it was non-flashable. Those pesky viruses would pop my BIOS chip out and install a new one before I knew it.[/sarcasm]
Extra or additional drivers and code functions can be stored on the hard drive and accessed there. Seems like this would increase the vulnerability of the BIOS.
Other than this problem and maybe not being able to control some of the OEM preboot (an odd word when you think of it) "features" (DRM, etc.), this doesn't sound too bad of a plan. Sounds like we're on the way to having the OS run off a FLASH disk or some type of firmware. It'd be ironic if, because of advanced DRM technology, we have to go back to the oldest mod trick - yank out the old chip and solder in the new, as was once done to upgrade BIOS.
Easy to learn, maybe, but I wouldn't call it programming.
Not programming? Maybe not OOP or High-level Language, but it is definitely programming at the most raw (well except for machine code!) level. I'll agree that it's not the best place for someone to jump into, especially if they're afraid of higher level languages. To code anything useful, you really need to know what's going on w/ the system, whereas with BASIC you can write a very nice program w/o caring how the system works at a low level.
All in all, I'd recomend QBASIC or something similar for the beginning programmer. Some might argue that BASICs lead to spaghetti code, but w/ careful instruction and guidance that tendance can be overcome and some very nice code can be produced.
Hope this doesn't sound too trollish, but this hardly seems like a challenging senior design project, but that may just be beacuse I've just finished working and demostrating our project: a shipping shock indicator which records acceleration and timestamp data in 3 axes for at least 5 days and is bluetooth enabled. We have over 2k of assembly code for our PIC16 microcontroller and a nice GUI written in C#. After our project, i just feel like I could knock their's out in a weekend, except for maybe the antenna issues. Anyhow that's my two Abe Lincoln protrait's worth, take it or leave it.
If the language you use has no control structors other than Jumps and Labels, then obviously you have no choice. But I would argue that even if that's the case, you're probably using an old language for one of two reasons:
That or you are using assembly language because it is more efficient in operation speed and size. That might not mean much to anyone developing on today's PC's, but if you're doing any embedded programming for microcontrollers, speed and size are very important. My senior design project is coded in PIC asm and takes less than 3Kb, whereas another group used PICbasic and have more than 23Kb of code to do a less coplex project. Maybe a good C compiler can match straight asm at this level, but it probably won't come cheap. Anyhow, in assembly GOTO's are very necessary.
At the congregation I assemble with, we have too many people to fit in the main auditorium, so we overflow into a large classroom in the back. We pipe back video of the preacher and songleader, etc, and project it on a screen as well as send some singing from mics in the auditorium, but something's just missing. It's like watching an event on TV instead of actually being a part of it. So, I for one, would not like to see this become more common.
Drexler wrote Engines of Creation back in 1986. This is where a lot of the ideas of world destruction by a mass of self assembling nanobots - aka "grey goo" - came from. It is a rather scary thought, but its rather unlikely, IMHO. Btw, we are already using nanotechnology in PC's, according to Scientific American.
Too bad you don't have high voltage lines running across your property. If you did, then you could do like a farmer who roofed his barn in copper and got "free" power via induction from the overhead HV lines. I recall that the power company didn't like it, but the court ruled in the farmer's favor.
Yeah its got DOS in it, but there were planty of DOS like programs such as Dr. DOS, QuickDOS, etc. So if M$ has exclusive use of DOS then why didn't they sue them also? Oh wait, thats right M$ ripped DOS off from someone else. Oh, then there is also the ever popular DoS attacks:) So LindOS or Lindos shouldn't be a problem, but I'm no lawyer - I only play one on/.:)
This might be slightly off topic, but the feeling I get is that SCO is floundering financially and all this suing is an attempt to get some cash on the way out. If that's the case, then why bother unless you truely beleive you have a cash cow to milk, since lawyers are not cheap. What ever happend to just bowing out gracefully when you run out of money?
I wonder how sensitive this media is to ESD. Shocks like you get when walking across carpet can be on the order of at least 4kV (the treshold for feeling it), so if you had a particularly stong static discharge could it damage the media? The article uses a 50kV beam, so such a ESD might not be very easy to generate. I guess it'd be no worse to guard against than magnetic media and stray magnetic fields.
Considerable time has elapsed since then, but sources say Microsoft developers finally appear to be reaching the finish line. Beta, or test, versions of the software have gone out to some developers within the past month, industry sources say. The software is expected to be released by late summer or early fall, with some citing a date as soon as July.
I have a friend who worked for the US Census Bureau who found a woman named T9C (pronounced "Tee-nine-cee"). He also ran across a pair of twins, Lemonjello ("Lem-on-gell-o") and Orangejello ("Or-an-gell-o"), as well as a girl named Syphilis ("Sue-phillis").
When I saw this article, I thought I would need to set the record straight, but I'm glad to see that my fellow/.er's are well versed about Nikola Tesla. You'd be suprised how few of my fellow electrical engineering majors have never heard of the man who laid the foundation for much of the EE field.
That reminds me of the OEM version of XP that I saw for sell in the Philippines. It was just a bag with the CD's and a "computer" consisting of one little screw.
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only one who read that as Tactical Missle Robot? I guess I'm just thinking of the LOCAAS system I saw at Lockheed Martin. They had a realtime simulation setup where a swarm of these devices took out targets. The targets are preloaded into the system so that the device looks for say, a scud missle truck or a tank, and it could have several targets. Several LOCAAS are launched from aircraft and fly about autonomously until it IDs a target. Then it homes in and destroys it w/ a shaped warhead. It has a really neat mode called swarm, where if one LOCAAS IDs a target, it calls the other ones to come attack the target - they'll keep swarming until the target is so destroyed it can't be recognized as a target. In the simulation, they took out almost all 10 targets without any user input other than the original targeting from a simulated aircraft flyover. The simulation is nondeterministic, so every time they run it, the outcome is different - just like real life. After seeing this simulation, I'd hate to be on the recieving end of these things!
Since it only requires a name, I guess you could give them a fake one and they'd never know. Just don't go with a famous name, becasue they'd want to see some ID then - I mean how many people out there are named Optimus Prime. You might also want to stay away from professional athlete names also, since too many seem to be having legal problems. So just be creative and give them a name that you want to touch, but you musn't touch! - Max Power
bah come back later
Not thats a fun server too busty message
MOV AX, BX
ADD CX, DX
XOR DX, 0x64
mov ax, bx
add cx, dx
xor dx, 0x64
Maybe I just like shouting at the CPU :)
I also like doing my HTML tags in caps.
[sarcasm] Yeah, there were real virus problems w/ BIOS back when it was non-flashable. Those pesky viruses would pop my BIOS chip out and install a new one before I knew it.[/sarcasm]
Extra or additional drivers and code functions can be stored on the hard drive and accessed there.
Seems like this would increase the vulnerability of the BIOS.
Other than this problem and maybe not being able to control some of the OEM preboot (an odd word when you think of it) "features" (DRM, etc.), this doesn't sound too bad of a plan. Sounds like we're on the way to having the OS run off a FLASH disk or some type of firmware. It'd be ironic if, because of advanced DRM technology, we have to go back to the oldest mod trick - yank out the old chip and solder in the new, as was once done to upgrade BIOS.
Not programming? Maybe not OOP or High-level Language, but it is definitely programming at the most raw (well except for machine code!) level. I'll agree that it's not the best place for someone to jump into, especially if they're afraid of higher level languages. To code anything useful, you really need to know what's going on w/ the system, whereas with BASIC you can write a very nice program w/o caring how the system works at a low level.
All in all, I'd recomend QBASIC or something similar for the beginning programmer. Some might argue that BASICs lead to spaghetti code, but w/ careful instruction and guidance that tendance can be overcome and some very nice code can be produced.
Looks like his server is running on a chihuahua.
Sorry, let the karma burn...
Hope this doesn't sound too trollish, but this hardly seems like a challenging senior design project, but that may just be beacuse I've just finished working and demostrating our project: a shipping shock indicator which records acceleration and timestamp data in 3 axes for at least 5 days and is bluetooth enabled. We have over 2k of assembly code for our PIC16 microcontroller and a nice GUI written in C#. After our project, i just feel like I could knock their's out in a weekend, except for maybe the antenna issues. Anyhow that's my two Abe Lincoln protrait's worth, take it or leave it.
That or you are using assembly language because it is more efficient in operation speed and size. That might not mean much to anyone developing on today's PC's, but if you're doing any embedded programming for microcontrollers, speed and size are very important. My senior design project is coded in PIC asm and takes less than 3Kb, whereas another group used PICbasic and have more than 23Kb of code to do a less coplex project. Maybe a good C compiler can match straight asm at this level, but it probably won't come cheap. Anyhow, in assembly GOTO's are very necessary.
Well, if you put too much gas into it, the only place it'll go is up in flames! :)
At the congregation I assemble with, we have too many people to fit in the main auditorium, so we overflow into a large classroom in the back. We pipe back video of the preacher and songleader, etc, and project it on a screen as well as send some singing from mics in the auditorium, but something's just missing. It's like watching an event on TV instead of actually being a part of it. So, I for one, would not like to see this become more common.
Drexler wrote Engines of Creation back in 1986. This is where a lot of the ideas of world destruction by a mass of self assembling nanobots - aka "grey goo" - came from. It is a rather scary thought, but its rather unlikely, IMHO. Btw, we are already using nanotechnology in PC's, according to Scientific American.
Too bad you don't have high voltage lines running across your property. If you did, then you could do like a farmer who roofed his barn in copper and got "free" power via induction from the overhead HV lines. I recall that the power company didn't like it, but the court ruled in the farmer's favor.
Great, just what the Man in the Moon needs - acne! Next thing we know, NASA will be ordering a giant dose of Noxima! =)
Magic is real, unless declared integer. :)
Does it say Al Gore created the internet? =)
Yeah its got DOS in it, but there were planty of DOS like programs such as Dr. DOS, QuickDOS, etc. So if M$ has exclusive use of DOS then why didn't they sue them also? Oh wait, thats right M$ ripped DOS off from someone else. Oh, then there is also the ever popular DoS attacks:) So LindOS or Lindos shouldn't be a problem, but I'm no lawyer - I only play one on /. :)
This might be slightly off topic, but the feeling I get is that SCO is floundering financially and all this suing is an attempt to get some cash on the way out. If that's the case, then why bother unless you truely beleive you have a cash cow to milk, since lawyers are not cheap. What ever happend to just bowing out gracefully when you run out of money?
after surviving a Damage Area concert - the galaxy's loudest sound!
I wonder how sensitive this media is to ESD. Shocks like you get when walking across carpet can be on the order of at least 4kV (the treshold for feeling it), so if you had a particularly stong static discharge could it damage the media? The article uses a 50kV beam, so such a ESD might not be very easy to generate. I guess it'd be no worse to guard against than magnetic media and stray magnetic fields.
So it will come out when Longhorn does? :)
said the blind man to the deaf woman as her lame son walked by!
I have a friend who worked for the US Census Bureau who found a woman named T9C (pronounced "Tee-nine-cee"). He also ran across a pair of twins, Lemonjello ("Lem-on-gell-o") and Orangejello ("Or-an-gell-o"), as well as a girl named Syphilis ("Sue-phillis").
When I saw this article, I thought I would need to set the record straight, but I'm glad to see that my fellow /.er's are well versed about Nikola Tesla. You'd be suprised how few of my fellow electrical engineering majors have never heard of the man who laid the foundation for much of the EE field.
That reminds me of the OEM version of XP that I saw for sell in the Philippines. It was just a bag with the CD's and a "computer" consisting of one little screw.