I do agree with you that industrial computers generally are cheaper for data processing. I'm not so sure that means that PLCs will totally disappear though. There are quite some smallish PLCs that are cheaper than a PC, althogh their computation power is severly limited. I have worked with $100 PLCs and although they aren't any powerhouses they are totally acceptable for simple tasks, like controlling a small machine. And they are far easier to program for the typical person to get the task. The graphical programming languages that PLCs use are far easier to learn IMHO, and you don't have a hassle with having to learn Linux, or stand up with Windows bluescreens.
As I see the future, general-purpose computers will take a big chunk of the PLC market, but I doubt the PLC manufacturers won't let SoftPLCs take the whole market. A scenario which looks interesting to me is using a computer for the heavy-lifting data processing and external communication, and using a PLC for I/O control and interlock checks. You have to buy distributed I/O for an IPC anyway (and if the application doesn't have any usual I/O, only networks, a PLC never were in question to begin with).
Check your facts, please. Sweden hasn't ever been even close to a two-party-system, and no Swedish party at all in recent times has been even close to 48%. The 96% not held by the Green party was split as follows:
Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna) 39,85% Moderates (Moderaterna) 15,26% Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet Liberalerna) 13,39% Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) 9,15% Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) 8,39% Centre Party (Centerpartiet) 6,19% and some smaller parties as well, mainly the Sweden Democrats (nationalistic), and Swedish Senior Citizen Interest Party.
Thanks, I just took my favorite online store and checked its prices. I happened to get the prices of the extra-expensive extra-high-speed ones. They have some for approximately $200 as well.
the OP that I was responding to wasn't saying anything about SSD. I was referring to that and nothing else. As you correctly point out, TFA is about SSD disks, why I wanted to point out that there are hard drives with compact flash form factor (like the ones the OP managed to find)
Those are real hard drives, with flash memory interfaces. Good try though, and $6400 probably is too high anyway (4 GB CF flash cards can be found for approximately $300).
I never proposed making non-IE-compatible websites - IE is so big you better make it work at least decently in IE. What I'm complaining about is that the fact that IE isn't very compliant makes you do a bunch of extra work (as all people I'm lazy).
Also your example isn't the equivalent at all. A better one would be to have to write the chip design so it is compatible with both the slightly different HDLs, as you want the design to be manufacturable at two different plants. This would indeed add a lot of not really needed overhead, wouldn't it? It's exactly the situation the web designers have to live with...
Finally, no one in their right mind releases any kind of project without at least some kind of proper testing - be it websites or chips. Especially very expensive custom chips. And please don't forget the classic Verilog-vs-VHDL-flamewar here as well!:)
Please read my reply to the other answer. I did exaggarate, and quite a lot, but that was on purpose. Basically, even non-web-slashdotter IMHO shouldn't be so shortsighted that they only look at what the users think about the technology. Basically, as a geek (any type) you should also be able to appreciate the benefit of standards in this situation. Compare the current state of web standards with connecting all of your nice TTL logic, only you have to add 5 ECL chips as well...
I do know that I was generalizing, perhaps even a bit too much - it was on purpose I did that. I'm a robotics geek myself - but I still did some web development. Anyway, even if you really haven't done any web development - if you're a geek I'm pretty sure you would be able to appreciate the advantage anyway.
You miss a little, tiny bit of fact. You're on Slashdot. If you haven't ever done any kind of web development, WTF are you doing here? And if you have done any kind of web development, how can you not appreciate consistent behavior between different kinds of web browsers?
So yeah, the end users probably won't care. But that doesn't mean we should jump to the conclusion that slashdotters won't care - because at least many of them will.
Hmm, you need to check your facts, with an infinite number of type-writing monkeys, the time wouldn't actually be longer then the shortest possible time for a monkey to write the longest Shakespeer piece.
Yeah, Esrange indeed is the only place AFAIK in Europe where rockets are shot. Or perhaps you heard about French Guyana? Even if it's not exactly in Europe (well, it IS in France, so you could argue that politically, it is), it's a lot closer to the equator, where it is a lot more efficient to launch rockets - you can use the earth's rotation as a help to save rocket fuel. And indeed, ESA has a base there. Surprising.
Probably the OP meant making the drawings open sourced and available under no-cost licensing for anybody to use...;-)
Also, they don't really have to weld the hood shut. There is only a single car available - it would be quite sufficient to lock the garage door properly...
No, they couldn't, but that's just because of how Alfred Nobel wrote his testimony - the prizes are awarded in the following areas: physics, chemistry, pshysiology/medicine, literature, and finally, the peace prize. None of them really seem appropiate. Possibly, it could be awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, for making a big-scale effort of avoiding a worldwide recession, but that also seems a bit far-stretched.
Following MS's grammar engine, and your prose turns into a boiling little bowl of turds.
What you're totally missing is that my (Spanish, and partle German as well) grammar isn't even close to a bowl of turds. It is FAR worse. I don't disagree with you on the fact that the grammar checker indeed could be improved a lot - but as long as my own grammar could be improved A LOT MORE it doesn't really matter that much (this is certainly correct for very rigid languages where grammar is more rules-bound than in English - German and Spanish actually ARE AFAIK better suited for grammar checking). And quite possibly, I suppose the grammar checkers of the different languages are not equally good at their tasks. English is indeed a complicated language, and perhaps it's worse than the others (I don't use grammar checking when writing in English). The Swedish one doesn't seem to be really obnoxius - the only things it regularly irritates me about is that I write too long sentences, and it gets confused from technical mumbo-jumbo and tables, which it doesn't consider proper sentences.
No, for me grammar checking isn't a showstopper, but when I have it available it tends to save me a heck of work, thanks to not having to look for the dictionary every time I have to know the correct article of a German noun, or recheck the declinations of the verbs in my Spanish grammar book.
I'm not the original poster, but I do actually indeed think you yourself named that single feature yourself - grammar correction (!).
My motivation: Try to write something in foreign languages. Spanish, or German, or whatever. I don't need it at all in Swedish, and hardly in English, but it sure is a great help when I try to produce something that at least vaguely resembles correct grammar in my third and fourth language, which I, sorry to say, unfortunately lack some skill in...
It outright refused to install on PII and lead people to throw out lesser hardware.
Sorry, even though I agree with most of your other criticism that part is pure FUD. I successfully installed Windows XP to a P2 233 MHz (albeit with 320 MB of memory - server). It was kind of slow though (surprise) but not totally unusable at least.
Graph based programming is OLD too. It just didn't surface in the area of traditional computing first. PLCs have been using graphical programming languages for a LONG time (>20years). These include ladder diagrams, sequential flow charts and function block diagrams. The probable reason PLCs started with evolving in this direction probably is because they started with targeting electricians (who are very used to circuit diagrams) and not university educated professors (ie math wizards).
As a matter of fact, at least with Omron PLCs (the ones I use), the development today is going towards including more of the textual languages, more similar to traditional computer languages. They are a lot more suitable for the general purpose programming that PLCs increasingly have to do.
Basically, some problems lend themselves to a graphical description (boolean expressions, sequences), some not (mathematical calculations). Probably the golden middle (some of each) is the road to choose to be choosing "right".
Yup, just what I also thought. It's actually one of the very few functions in IE that is miles ahead of Mozilla - and it shouldn't even be hard to implement!
Slashdot Mirror
Internet != Internet users
Internet can actually be really mature, even though I do agree with you that most Internet users aren't. They are distinct concepts...
I do agree with you that industrial computers generally are cheaper for data processing. I'm not so sure that means that PLCs will totally disappear though. There are quite some smallish PLCs that are cheaper than a PC, althogh their computation power is severly limited. I have worked with $100 PLCs and although they aren't any powerhouses they are totally acceptable for simple tasks, like controlling a small machine. And they are far easier to program for the typical person to get the task. The graphical programming languages that PLCs use are far easier to learn IMHO, and you don't have a hassle with having to learn Linux, or stand up with Windows bluescreens.
As I see the future, general-purpose computers will take a big chunk of the PLC market, but I doubt the PLC manufacturers won't let SoftPLCs take the whole market. A scenario which looks interesting to me is using a computer for the heavy-lifting data processing and external communication, and using a PLC for I/O control and interlock checks. You have to buy distributed I/O for an IPC anyway (and if the application doesn't have any usual I/O, only networks, a PLC never were in question to begin with).
Sweden hasn't ever been even close to a two-party-system
Replying to myself: On second thought, we have. In the 18th century (sic) control over Sweden shifted between the parties of caps and hats...
Check your facts, please. Sweden hasn't ever been even close to a two-party-system, and no Swedish party at all in recent times has been even close to 48%. The 96% not held by the Green party was split as follows:
Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna) 39,85%
Moderates (Moderaterna) 15,26%
Liberal People's Party (Folkpartiet Liberalerna) 13,39%
Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) 9,15%
Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) 8,39%
Centre Party (Centerpartiet) 6,19%
and some smaller parties as well, mainly the Sweden Democrats (nationalistic), and Swedish Senior Citizen Interest Party.
More info at Wikipedia (as usual, of course).
Uhm, too late, it's already ten past midnight. At least here...
RTFP (Parent). I wasn't talking about the article goddammit.
Thanks, I just took my favorite online store and checked its prices. I happened to get the prices of the extra-expensive extra-high-speed ones. They have some for approximately $200 as well.
the OP that I was responding to wasn't saying anything about SSD. I was referring to that and nothing else. As you correctly point out, TFA is about SSD disks, why I wanted to point out that there are hard drives with compact flash form factor (like the ones the OP managed to find)
Those are real hard drives, with flash memory interfaces. Good try though, and $6400 probably is too high anyway (4 GB CF flash cards can be found for approximately $300).
I never proposed making non-IE-compatible websites - IE is so big you better make it work at least decently in IE. What I'm complaining about is that the fact that IE isn't very compliant makes you do a bunch of extra work (as all people I'm lazy).
:)
Also your example isn't the equivalent at all. A better one would be to have to write the chip design so it is compatible with both the slightly different HDLs, as you want the design to be manufacturable at two different plants. This would indeed add a lot of not really needed overhead, wouldn't it? It's exactly the situation the web designers have to live with...
Finally, no one in their right mind releases any kind of project without at least some kind of proper testing - be it websites or chips. Especially very expensive custom chips. And please don't forget the classic Verilog-vs-VHDL-flamewar here as well!
Please read my reply to the other answer. I did exaggarate, and quite a lot, but that was on purpose. Basically, even non-web-slashdotter IMHO shouldn't be so shortsighted that they only look at what the users think about the technology. Basically, as a geek (any type) you should also be able to appreciate the benefit of standards in this situation. Compare the current state of web standards with connecting all of your nice TTL logic, only you have to add 5 ECL chips as well...
I do know that I was generalizing, perhaps even a bit too much - it was on purpose I did that. I'm a robotics geek myself - but I still did some web development. Anyway, even if you really haven't done any web development - if you're a geek I'm pretty sure you would be able to appreciate the advantage anyway.
No seriously why should I ?
You miss a little, tiny bit of fact. You're on Slashdot. If you haven't ever done any kind of web development, WTF are you doing here? And if you have done any kind of web development, how can you not appreciate consistent behavior between different kinds of web browsers?
So yeah, the end users probably won't care. But that doesn't mean we should jump to the conclusion that slashdotters won't care - because at least many of them will.
Also shown: tools to test IE compatibility. But with what? Standards or IE 6?
Most probably neither, if we're to judge by history...
Hmm, you need to check your facts, with an infinite number of type-writing monkeys, the time wouldn't actually be longer then the shortest possible time for a monkey to write the longest Shakespeer piece.
you forgot the link: Cool tree harvester robot.
Yeah, Esrange indeed is the only place AFAIK in Europe where rockets are shot. Or perhaps you heard about French Guyana? Even if it's not exactly in Europe (well, it IS in France, so you could argue that politically, it is), it's a lot closer to the equator, where it is a lot more efficient to launch rockets - you can use the earth's rotation as a help to save rocket fuel. And indeed, ESA has a base there. Surprising.
Probably the OP meant making the drawings open sourced and available under no-cost licensing for anybody to use... ;-)
Also, they don't really have to weld the hood shut. There is only a single car available - it would be quite sufficient to lock the garage door properly...
they could be future Nobel candidates IMO.
No, they couldn't, but that's just because of how Alfred Nobel wrote his testimony - the prizes are awarded in the following areas: physics, chemistry, pshysiology/medicine, literature, and finally, the peace prize. None of them really seem appropiate. Possibly, it could be awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, for making a big-scale effort of avoiding a worldwide recession, but that also seems a bit far-stretched.
Following MS's grammar engine, and your prose turns into a boiling little bowl of turds.
What you're totally missing is that my (Spanish, and partle German as well) grammar isn't even close to a bowl of turds. It is FAR worse. I don't disagree with you on the fact that the grammar checker indeed could be improved a lot - but as long as my own grammar could be improved A LOT MORE it doesn't really matter that much (this is certainly correct for very rigid languages where grammar is more rules-bound than in English - German and Spanish actually ARE AFAIK better suited for grammar checking). And quite possibly, I suppose the grammar checkers of the different languages are not equally good at their tasks. English is indeed a complicated language, and perhaps it's worse than the others (I don't use grammar checking when writing in English). The Swedish one doesn't seem to be really obnoxius - the only things it regularly irritates me about is that I write too long sentences, and it gets confused from technical mumbo-jumbo and tables, which it doesn't consider proper sentences.
No, for me grammar checking isn't a showstopper, but when I have it available it tends to save me a heck of work, thanks to not having to look for the dictionary every time I have to know the correct article of a German noun, or recheck the declinations of the verbs in my Spanish grammar book.
I'm not the original poster, but I do actually indeed think you yourself named that single feature yourself - grammar correction (!).
My motivation: Try to write something in foreign languages. Spanish, or German, or whatever. I don't need it at all in Swedish, and hardly in English, but it sure is a great help when I try to produce something that at least vaguely resembles correct grammar in my third and fourth language, which I, sorry to say, unfortunately lack some skill in...
It outright refused to install on PII and lead people to throw out lesser hardware.
Sorry, even though I agree with most of your other criticism that part is pure FUD. I successfully installed Windows XP to a P2 233 MHz (albeit with 320 MB of memory - server). It was kind of slow though (surprise) but not totally unusable at least.
Graph based programming is OLD too. It just didn't surface in the area of traditional computing first. PLCs have been using graphical programming languages for a LONG time (>20years). These include ladder diagrams, sequential flow charts and function block diagrams. The probable reason PLCs started with evolving in this direction probably is because they started with targeting electricians (who are very used to circuit diagrams) and not university educated professors (ie math wizards).
As a matter of fact, at least with Omron PLCs (the ones I use), the development today is going towards including more of the textual languages, more similar to traditional computer languages. They are a lot more suitable for the general purpose programming that PLCs increasingly have to do.
Basically, some problems lend themselves to a graphical description (boolean expressions, sequences), some not (mathematical calculations). Probably the golden middle (some of each) is the road to choose to be choosing "right".
København Stegt Kylling would be KSK, not KFC...
Yup, just what I also thought. It's actually one of the very few functions in IE that is miles ahead of Mozilla - and it shouldn't even be hard to implement!