Vast generalization here (I'm not a legal scholar)- but it looks like laws have been put in place to 1) encourage something viewed as good by the legislature or 2) discourage something viewed as bad by the legislature. What is viewed as "good" or "bad" is up to the legislator, the folks that the elected the legislator, the folks that the legislator represents, and most important to our current system of campaign finance, the folks that pay for the legislator's campaign. Airbnb is ostensibly a mechanism to allow people to profit from use underutilized space. Unfortunately some of the underutilized space is contained in clauses in lease agreements that the Airbnb hosts chose to ignore.
The hotel laws were put in place because of abuses. Rent control was put in place because of abuses and to encourage affordable housing. The "bad actors" are those that are abusing the system at the potential risk to their customers- and they are customers, not guests. Because of the immense amount of money moving around, there will be abuses and bargains. Leave it up to a company to determine the bad actors, and they will invariably call out those that pose the greatest risk- and since it is a profit driven company, risk is about money, with no consideration given to public welfare (ostensibly the government's arena).
It most definitely is *NOT* 100W with 5V- the power delivery is negotiated to figure out what each end (and the cable) can handle, and it boosts the voltage (decreasing the resistive heating in the cable). The USB Forum has been working on this for quite a while- don't know how it will all work out, but as most things committee based, nothing was put in the specification without a great deal of discussion and analysis.
Microchip's ICD is awful? Well, it isn't JTAG (for most chips, but the PIC32 does support JTAG debugging), but the ICD hardware supports all PICs (8, 16, 32 bit) and is available at what appears to be competitive to Atmel's tools (Atmel as an example- their low-end programmer the AVRISP is about the same price at Digikey as the PICKIT3) You can spend more and get more capability no matter what. It seems to me that the debugger that people complain about the most is the one they use the most, no matter the architecture. An ICD is not an ICE- and it doesn't seem like a true ICE exists anymore since nobody was willing to pay the huge price for the development system- ICDs pretty much rely on hardware in the part itself. The cheap generic JTAG debuggers at sparkfun don't get stellar reviews. My experience is that debuggers are a lot like Camaros- everybody has one, and all of them are limited by the person in control.
Higher speed? The max speed on a 32 bit AVR is 66MHz, with 1.5 DMIP/MHz, the max speed on a PIC32MX is 80MHz at 1.65 DMIP/MHz. You can do development on Windows, Mac or Linux with MPLABX for every 8, 16, and 32MHz PIC in Microchip's stable. Microchip's 16 and 32 bit compilers are GCC based (but free versions are limited to -O1 optimization). The newest PIC32, the MZ, will do up to 200MHz.
If you prefer using AVR, great, but at least make your comparisons based on reality. The hard part of doing any development is not the core you're working on, but the code you put into it.
This is anecdote, not data. The median wage for all approved H1B visas during FY2011 was $70,000, the median wage for in the category that includes engineers was $78,000, $72,000 for computer related (source data, www.uscis.gov). Companies like H1B holders, because, in terms of total cost, they are less expensive to employ than US citizens/green card holders/otherwise legal residents. Without H1B, more jobs would be offshored, we do get the benefit of the money the H1B holder being spent in the US.
Believe me, if they could find an American to do this job, they would have, and believe me, there's no one passing up $3-400,000 a year engineering positions at top flight companies. There really are jobs that need immigrant workers to fill, because there really are no Americans to do them.
You left out a very important part, after "there really are no Americans to do them" at a salary companies are willing to pay.
This doesn't use the VGA output from the Raspberry Pi- it uses the composite video output. 75 ohm coax isn't necessarily thin, but for short distances and the type of video they are talking about, even audio cables may be "good enough." As in "good enough" to get the resolution you would expect from composite video.
In Forstchen's book (and according to what I've read) it would take a minimum of well placed 3 nukes in the upper atmosphere to cover the continental US- basically line of sight. I believe it doesn't take a particularly big nuke.
A Faraday cage may protect your devices, but only if the cage is complete- any wires in or out could defeat the purpose and propagate the high field strength (at least high enough to do damage) inside the cage. Since the risetime of the signal is very, very fast, even a tiny crack in the cage would be enough to let in a damaging amount of energy.
Oh my, AC has absolutely no idea about how electricity works.
Electricity always flows in a loop, every time, without exception, period. No loop, no current. No current, no energy. Sometimes the loop includes the capacitance of one disconnected piece of metal next to another, but that also limits the current, and therefore, energy. Sometimes the insulation breaks down, or the field is strong enough to cause an arc to jump the gap.
If welding on your vehicle caused a problem it is because you put the ground clamp in the wrong place, and current passed through something it shouldn't have, which could be because something you thought was a good ground wasn't. Battery connected or disconnected makes no difference.
Yes, we can actually physically disconnect the transformers- that's what circuit breakers do- and pretty much, they're automated- given the warnings that the satellites give, I suspect that a Carrington event sized CME, at least for modern systems (like in the US) won't be a surprise and can be accommodated- maybe taking significant time to switch everything back on, but without major damage to the infrastructure.
No, you're not the only one. As a punishment, this is simply torture, but I wonder how the mind really acts under this type of drug- how much more the great thinkers (think Einstein and his thought experiments) could have done. It would take a special kind of mind to actually take advantage of this, though.
This seems to be a return to some very old models of research- think Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, where research was not government supported, but either the hobby of the very rich, or the very rich paying someone. I suppose that it could be considered as government supported, as the very rich *were* the government. The institutional government supporting research appears to be a 19th or 20th century change, and that is dominated by military motives.
The super rich have more money than they could possibly spend- why not let them spend that money in the way that they want? Be it driven by guilt or by the desire to make more money... I'd much rather them spend the money on science as opposed to spending their money on becoming part of the government (think Mitt Romney and Michael Bloomberg in the US and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy).
I'm guessing that the one big reason that they aren't prescribing- they are scared of legal action- remember the Fen-Phen debacle. Fen-Phen also worked, but apparently caused cardiac issues, resulting in lawsuits and legal damages of over $13B USD.
A hidden compartment in the car, is, essentially, security through obscurity. If someone knew enough that the supervisor had the receipts, they probably know enough to tear the car apart looking for the safe. What you get with the Brinks truck (or the big vault door at the bank) is a big showy way of saying that what I have is protected- which would draw in the folks that don't really know what they are looking for- think "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"
I think the primary thing being left out of all the lists is the knowledge gained by experience. If you don't have it, nothing will replace just doing it yourself. Good tools are nice- but face it- EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF TEST EQUIPMENT LIES. Or maybe just doesn't tell you everything. Experience helps in figuring out what really matters. A 100 MHz analog scope is nice, but useless when it comes to a parasitic 1GHz oscillation. A logic analyzer is great, but misses a lot if two outputs are in contention.
The tools I use depend on the job I'm doing. Debugging serial comms? I love my Saleae. Looking at a fast edge? DSA602A.
Very few computers actually have a switch to cut off current and can actively say 'no' - it is usually done with a thermal fuse- too much current, the fuse gets hot, goes up in resistance, limits the current to the device. The thermal fuses aren't meant to trigger as a matter of course- trigger it too often, and you have to replace it. For most people, that means replacing the motherboard.
Consistency? Not needing to have a specific cable for a specific phone? The USB spec with respect to charging is not incredibly complex, but it is there to give some consistency and assurance you're not going to destroy your device or computer, and still be able to charge at the maximum rate available.
On a computer connected device, the client being well behaved is important- if every port draws the maximum available (before the on-board fuse triggers), there won't be enough current to go around, and can cause functionality on the computer itself.
This brings to mind the quote (and variants) that have been variously attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Michael Faraday: "What is the use of an infant?" Science is about discovering these things.
Yay! Someone that actually understands the technology and effort behind this. So many self styled experts that really don't understand the technology and effort behind this- thanks for being a voice of reason and reality, tibit!
Computers do math. They just do math. Yes, it is important to learn, both from a practical aspect (can you predict the entire arc of your career right now?), and probably the most important- getting through these classes show you have the ability to take on complex subjects in a relatively short amount of time and apply them.
Beyond anything else, a degree is a method of showing potential employers that you can learn.
They *could* produce the firmware and updates forever, but how are they going to pay the salaries of the people and infrastructure to deliver it? Yes, they could build it into the price, but if they built in 'everlasting support' into the original purchase price, it would be too expensive for you to buy in the first place. It's not only up to the SonicWalls of the world, but also the chipmakers (and every other supplier up the line).
The folks that front the money (so you don't have to fork out the purchase price 2 years ahead of time) want some return on their investment. If technology was static, the 'perfect' product could be made, it would be flawless the first time out and never need replacing. But technology isn't static, and there is no such thing as infinite patience.
Slashdot Mirror
Vast generalization here (I'm not a legal scholar)- but it looks like laws have been put in place to 1) encourage something viewed as good by the legislature or 2) discourage something viewed as bad by the legislature. What is viewed as "good" or "bad" is up to the legislator, the folks that the elected the legislator, the folks that the legislator represents, and most important to our current system of campaign finance, the folks that pay for the legislator's campaign. Airbnb is ostensibly a mechanism to allow people to profit from use underutilized space. Unfortunately some of the underutilized space is contained in clauses in lease agreements that the Airbnb hosts chose to ignore.
The hotel laws were put in place because of abuses. Rent control was put in place because of abuses and to encourage affordable housing. The "bad actors" are those that are abusing the system at the potential risk to their customers- and they are customers, not guests. Because of the immense amount of money moving around, there will be abuses and bargains. Leave it up to a company to determine the bad actors, and they will invariably call out those that pose the greatest risk- and since it is a profit driven company, risk is about money, with no consideration given to public welfare (ostensibly the government's arena).
It most definitely is *NOT* 100W with 5V- the power delivery is negotiated to figure out what each end (and the cable) can handle, and it boosts the voltage (decreasing the resistive heating in the cable). The USB Forum has been working on this for quite a while- don't know how it will all work out, but as most things committee based, nothing was put in the specification without a great deal of discussion and analysis.
Microchip's ICD is awful? Well, it isn't JTAG (for most chips, but the PIC32 does support JTAG debugging), but the ICD hardware supports all PICs (8, 16, 32 bit) and is available at what appears to be competitive to Atmel's tools (Atmel as an example- their low-end programmer the AVRISP is about the same price at Digikey as the PICKIT3) You can spend more and get more capability no matter what. It seems to me that the debugger that people complain about the most is the one they use the most, no matter the architecture. An ICD is not an ICE- and it doesn't seem like a true ICE exists anymore since nobody was willing to pay the huge price for the development system- ICDs pretty much rely on hardware in the part itself. The cheap generic JTAG debuggers at sparkfun don't get stellar reviews. My experience is that debuggers are a lot like Camaros- everybody has one, and all of them are limited by the person in control.
Higher speed? The max speed on a 32 bit AVR is 66MHz, with 1.5 DMIP/MHz, the max speed on a PIC32MX is 80MHz at 1.65 DMIP/MHz. You can do development on Windows, Mac or Linux with MPLABX for every 8, 16, and 32MHz PIC in Microchip's stable. Microchip's 16 and 32 bit compilers are GCC based (but free versions are limited to -O1 optimization). The newest PIC32, the MZ, will do up to 200MHz.
If you prefer using AVR, great, but at least make your comparisons based on reality. The hard part of doing any development is not the core you're working on, but the code you put into it.
This is anecdote, not data. The median wage for all approved H1B visas during FY2011 was $70,000, the median wage for in the category that includes engineers was $78,000, $72,000 for computer related (source data, www.uscis.gov). Companies like H1B holders, because, in terms of total cost, they are less expensive to employ than US citizens/green card holders/otherwise legal residents. Without H1B, more jobs would be offshored, we do get the benefit of the money the H1B holder being spent in the US.
Believe me, if they could find an American to do this job, they would have, and believe me, there's no one passing up $3-400,000 a year engineering positions at top flight companies. There really are jobs that need immigrant workers to fill, because there really are no Americans to do them.
You left out a very important part, after "there really are no Americans to do them" at a salary companies are willing to pay.
This doesn't use the VGA output from the Raspberry Pi- it uses the composite video output. 75 ohm coax isn't necessarily thin, but for short distances and the type of video they are talking about, even audio cables may be "good enough." As in "good enough" to get the resolution you would expect from composite video.
In Forstchen's book (and according to what I've read) it would take a minimum of well placed 3 nukes in the upper atmosphere to cover the continental US- basically line of sight. I believe it doesn't take a particularly big nuke.
A Faraday cage may protect your devices, but only if the cage is complete- any wires in or out could defeat the purpose and propagate the high field strength (at least high enough to do damage) inside the cage. Since the risetime of the signal is very, very fast, even a tiny crack in the cage would be enough to let in a damaging amount of energy.
Counter-rotate the flywheels and #4 isn't an issue, no matter what the orientation is.
I thought the biggest failure in pedal placement on the Tesla was placing them in a $75,000 car.
Oh my, AC has absolutely no idea about how electricity works.
Electricity always flows in a loop, every time, without exception, period. No loop, no current. No current, no energy. Sometimes the loop includes the capacitance of one disconnected piece of metal next to another, but that also limits the current, and therefore, energy. Sometimes the insulation breaks down, or the field is strong enough to cause an arc to jump the gap.
If welding on your vehicle caused a problem it is because you put the ground clamp in the wrong place, and current passed through something it shouldn't have, which could be because something you thought was a good ground wasn't. Battery connected or disconnected makes no difference.
Yes, we can actually physically disconnect the transformers- that's what circuit breakers do- and pretty much, they're automated- given the warnings that the satellites give, I suspect that a Carrington event sized CME, at least for modern systems (like in the US) won't be a surprise and can be accommodated- maybe taking significant time to switch everything back on, but without major damage to the infrastructure.
No, you're not the only one. As a punishment, this is simply torture, but I wonder how the mind really acts under this type of drug- how much more the great thinkers (think Einstein and his thought experiments) could have done. It would take a special kind of mind to actually take advantage of this, though.
This seems to be a return to some very old models of research- think Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, where research was not government supported, but either the hobby of the very rich, or the very rich paying someone. I suppose that it could be considered as government supported, as the very rich *were* the government. The institutional government supporting research appears to be a 19th or 20th century change, and that is dominated by military motives.
The super rich have more money than they could possibly spend- why not let them spend that money in the way that they want? Be it driven by guilt or by the desire to make more money... I'd much rather them spend the money on science as opposed to spending their money on becoming part of the government (think Mitt Romney and Michael Bloomberg in the US and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy).
One thing Austin does *NOT* have a lot of is Texans. They are about as rare here as liberals are in the rest of Texas.
I'm guessing that the one big reason that they aren't prescribing- they are scared of legal action- remember the Fen-Phen debacle. Fen-Phen also worked, but apparently caused cardiac issues, resulting in lawsuits and legal damages of over $13B USD.
A hidden compartment in the car, is, essentially, security through obscurity. If someone knew enough that the supervisor had the receipts, they probably know enough to tear the car apart looking for the safe. What you get with the Brinks truck (or the big vault door at the bank) is a big showy way of saying that what I have is protected- which would draw in the folks that don't really know what they are looking for- think "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"
I think the primary thing being left out of all the lists is the knowledge gained by experience. If you don't have it, nothing will replace just doing it yourself. Good tools are nice- but face it- EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF TEST EQUIPMENT LIES. Or maybe just doesn't tell you everything. Experience helps in figuring out what really matters. A 100 MHz analog scope is nice, but useless when it comes to a parasitic 1GHz oscillation. A logic analyzer is great, but misses a lot if two outputs are in contention.
The tools I use depend on the job I'm doing. Debugging serial comms? I love my Saleae. Looking at a fast edge? DSA602A.
That said, here's some of my vital lab equipment:
Saleae Logic
Tektronix DSA602A
Temperature controlled soldering Iron
Stereo Microscope
Credit Card
ebay
Obscure? You can buy a MIPS based embedded CPU right now from Digikey for $2.50 ea in single qty- the PIC32MX110 - it is M4K core based.
Very few computers actually have a switch to cut off current and can actively say 'no' - it is usually done with a thermal fuse- too much current, the fuse gets hot, goes up in resistance, limits the current to the device. The thermal fuses aren't meant to trigger as a matter of course- trigger it too often, and you have to replace it. For most people, that means replacing the motherboard.
Why do these solutions need to be soo complex?
Consistency? Not needing to have a specific cable for a specific phone? The USB spec with respect to charging is not incredibly complex, but it is there to give some consistency and assurance you're not going to destroy your device or computer, and still be able to charge at the maximum rate available.
On a computer connected device, the client being well behaved is important- if every port draws the maximum available (before the on-board fuse triggers), there won't be enough current to go around, and can cause functionality on the computer itself.
This brings to mind the quote (and variants) that have been variously attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Michael Faraday: "What is the use of an infant?" Science is about discovering these things.
Yay! Someone that actually understands the technology and effort behind this. So many self styled experts that really don't understand the technology and effort behind this- thanks for being a voice of reason and reality, tibit!
Computers do math. They just do math. Yes, it is important to learn, both from a practical aspect (can you predict the entire arc of your career right now?), and probably the most important- getting through these classes show you have the ability to take on complex subjects in a relatively short amount of time and apply them.
Beyond anything else, a degree is a method of showing potential employers that you can learn.
In mathematical terms, technical proficiency is orthogonal to managerial proficiency.
They *could* produce the firmware and updates forever, but how are they going to pay the salaries of the people and infrastructure to deliver it? Yes, they could build it into the price, but if they built in 'everlasting support' into the original purchase price, it would be too expensive for you to buy in the first place. It's not only up to the SonicWalls of the world, but also the chipmakers (and every other supplier up the line).
The folks that front the money (so you don't have to fork out the purchase price 2 years ahead of time) want some return on their investment. If technology was static, the 'perfect' product could be made, it would be flawless the first time out and never need replacing. But technology isn't static, and there is no such thing as infinite patience.