Having worked with numerous UAV programs, the small- and micro-UAV research areas have several clear advantages:
Hand launchable and backpackable.
One man operation
Quiet. Obviously some care must be taken to select the propeller, but think about your quiet PC fans; it's the same idea. Also remember that the UAV doesn't need to get closer than 100 feet.
Now, invisibility. This is a significant advancement if it pans out. Previous UAVs would rely on camouflage but mainly on being too quiet to hear. A small, fast-moving object would be very difficult to spot, and small UAV's are primarily for surveillance.
So it may be difficult to get camera images without motion blur from the constant rotation, but that's really a very small problem. This has real potential.
What every small UAV really, really needs though is a highly reliable, low power radio link to the ground station. Even if it's just one man on the ground and the UAV operates on its own, the UAV is essentially useless until it can radio back imagery. Often, it's the live images that are the most valuable. That also means the radio link must be high bandwidth. This is the achilles' heel of small UAV's.
I'm happy to see you got modded up, as I think your post is insightful myself (but no mod points today).
I'm a heavy linux user, but I agree (sort of) with what you're saying.
A lot of people on Slashdot will complain that it takes too much memory, is heavy on the CPU, doesn't have enough settings/parameters, have DRM in store-bought songs.
So people on slashdot place more value on memory usage, CPU usage, (in other words, overall efficiency), and lack of DRM. These do not necessarily preclude what normal users want:
Normal users see a pretty program that's easy to use, that does everything that they want, including buying a single tune for 0.99$ on an otherwise 10-20$ CD. Add "connect cable to sync iPod automatically without doing anything else" and you've got a winner.
You have said it pretty well. iTunes appeals to a wide market, and part of that is how easy it is to use and also has all the features most people want. iTunes and iPod should not (and probably will not) ever have a monopoly on media players. Even achieving 99% market share would be remarkable. There are so many variations possible that there will always be room for competitors, if they understand what some customers want that the iPod doesn't offer.
When the linux community finally understands that (too many) choices are bad (and that automated everything isn't evil), linux on the desktop will be a real viable alternative. In the meantime, OS X is the only real-world alternative to Windows.
It's not an all-or-nothing choice. Just like iTunes+iPod, there's room for variations. It is absolutely possible to design an iTunes that meets the demands of linux users -- but it would not play the DRMed files from the iTunes music store. Apple hasn't decided that there's enough profit to do this, but it's definitely possible.
In other words, most of the things slashdot or linux users want are not actually the opposite of what normal users want. The two markets just value different features highly. It would be possible to please both. I don't think any customers would shed any tears if the iTunes music store offered DRM-free music. And I think even casual Joe User would rather have DRM-free media, but I'm sure the RIAA and MPAA will continue to sway public opinion in their favor.
Polish is something that many people can hear subconsciously, even if they can't explain exactly why they like one podcast over another. And, TFGeditor, if you're reading this, you're doing a podcast, aren't you? You just don't want apple to sue you, huh? I understand.
The Ubisoft "Leak" and the 360-exclusive titles are bad PR and bad marketing.
If you want your customers to pay attention, a normal press release will do just fine. If you want your customers to buy your product, either the 360 or Splinter Cell, normal marketing techniques work just fine. Microsoft's Vendor Lock-In (TM) ends up destroying their profits. It's really simple, though I can see why they miss this point: the same tech market that propelled Microsoft to its current size so quickly has the power to reinvent them too. Why aren't there more Microsofts around? Because the other companies that are successful do not engage in anti-competitive tactics.
Look at the Xbox. Without Halo, Xbox sales would probably be only half what they are. So, a Halo exclusive license will only limit Xbox sales. People buy the Xbox to play Halo, get it? Not the other way around.
Oh, and I already know Sony does the same console-exclusive licensing and attempts to achieve vendor lock-in. But I don't consider Sony a serious monopolist. They may try, but they'll never get to where Microsoft is. And I don't think Microsoft should have a monopoly, either.
Huh. And the real close calls are declassified and available to the public, right? And all the details reported for the close calls are what was really happening, and not just a cover story. Maybe you should make friends with someone who worked on nuclear weapons during that era. Of course, they may be lying to you.
Just to clarify, when I read your post, this is what I think you're saying:
that it would raise temperatures in the past as well!
Because 12,000 years ago, the temperature was as high as current measurements. You are saying that if US emissions of CO2 are the cause of the current rise in temperature, it must be the cause of the ancient high temperatures as well.
This is the kind of information that I try to show
You show them what? A slashdot article? I take it you give them verbal statements alone, such as this one.
I'm not saying that pollution is okay, but I do think that it has less to do with long term global climate shifts than others would have you believe.
Are you referring to the Big Tobacco article? Some would tell me there is no global warming. Others would tell me the world is about to end. Some even tell me that tobacco companies want me to believe there is no global warming.
That's what I mean when I say, "The debate is heating up!"
On the other hand, the guides appeared when games that were too hard appeared. Too hard? Yeah, some people are too weak to actually figure out the game. But then, there were some really hard games too...
In the development environment I work in, we use entirely C++, and combine embedded Linux, desktop Linux, and several server OSes. There are six engineers working on my part of the project (the embedded part), and a similar number working on the other parts.
Although we have enough freedom to switch over to a Design By Contract if we all agree to do it, we currently use documentation as a semi-formal contract, starting with design meetings where we verbally define the contract, which we write up piecemeal as we implement sections of code. Obviously, when multiple companies are collaborating on a business system, Design By Contract may be necessary to nail down the project requirements for each participating company. But in-house, what are the advantages of a formalized system over verbal, face-to-face communication? Wouldn't the meetings be held and the documentation be written anyway? As the project evolves, design changes can be implemented in an organized way, but again, the formal definitions would be redundant with the design change meetings.
Encrypting an email, SSH, SSL,... any encrypted connection. (Note the Federal Government says "If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't need to encrypt it." Whether you believe that or not, encrypting a connection is a form of DRM which does not restrict the end-user's access to content.)
Two-token authentication, hardware dongles for per-seat licensing, etc. (Note that F/OSS tends to make some of these difficult to use, because they can be easily circumvented by modifying the source code.)
Encrypted files, encrypted filesystems, encrypted disks or USB keys, etc. (Again, some governments fight these forms, but they allow the end-user to access their content.)
Sneakernets (computers not electronically connected to the internet) provide DRM by preventing outside access to the computer. Firewalls also do this in another sense.
Read-only media provides DRM by restricting write access.
I think, in summary, that any kind of data protection which prevents unauthorized access to content is a form of DRM. Protection which is used to prevent the end-user access to the content they have voluntarily placed on their computer gets into the gray area. Does the end-user really want something that is infected in this way? Protection voluntarily placed on the content by the end-user is legitimate DRM.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 will have it. (Processors that have hardware encryption to only boot a signed kernel.) So when you pop in an mp3 CD and try to play a file, it will say, "Cannot play an unprotected file."
Microsoft and the RIAA are just waiting until the masses have more DRM media than non-DRM media. Then they will send out the "Critical Update."
Cisco will talk sweet to you all day long. But my experience with CCM has been pretty negative. It breaks as often as Asterisk, or more often. It has echo problems. It is incompatible with some SIP phones. So it has the same warts as Asterisk.
The only difference is the one the PHB's can see. That is, as you say, "Having one neck to choke." (And Cisco will come to them and market to them, and their golf buddies and beer buddies will nod and smile when they say something like, "I just closed the deal on our new $25K Cisco phone system.") PHB's these days lack the guts to fire the Network Admin if the phones are down. Solution: buy the PHB a POTS line. He'll have the five-nines uptime he wants. If your company is too uptight to roll a new technology like VOIP, tell them so and stick with the many PBX solutions that work just fine.
The problem is, the distinction isn't entirely artificial. Most end users for most projects won't be developers, and most of those who are developers don't want to spend their time working on that project.
Agreed, though personally, this might just be a cost of entry type of thing. If it were easier to write the project, I think more people would jump in. (And, on that tangent, I think Free Open Source Software focuses more on the bottom-line costs such as the difficulty to develop and debug and manages to avoid some of the management costs like payroll, deadlines, and contracts. In other words, when a good idea comes up, the code can fork and parallel development can amortize the R&D costs.)
Good UIs and documentation often fall on this list, but they're not the only items on it.
Other things: internationalization, cross-platform compatibility, obscure bugs. However, just for the sake of argument, I think many commercial software packages have these same weak points. The law of diminishing returns makes the "small stuff" less and less worthwhile. Perhaps as software development techniques become more efficient and effective, the cost of entry will go down and more of the corner cases can be taken care of.
I think the open source paradigm and community is still evolving, and I can imagine ways in which someday there might be solutions to these problems, but we're not there yet.
The ideal is relevant to lots of areas. International politics and/or economics, student-teacher interactions, employee-boss interactions, programming, lots of stuff: when we figure out how to do it more efficiently and effectively, we'll see better performance in the corner areas that don't get a lot of attention right now. I'm looking for deep changes in thinking and methodology. The move to free open source software is a significant change in thinking. Some people oppose it, looking at the short term benefits and maybe not understanding the whole picture. If we're lucky, we'll keep moving forward.
So I have to ask, is the reason Slashdot is refusing to let me log in, and meta-moderation has been down for four days now...because CowboyNeal and CmdrTaco are waiting for the eBay auction to close. I think I'll bid $0.25 for all the users and passwords on slashdot.
very few companies still source components for their flagship products from ebay.
I was just pricing GPU between US$30 and US$50. Nintendo has contracted with ATI to build them a custom GPU, so they could spend anything the two companies can agree on.
The GameCube GPU would be a good reference point; Nintendo will probably spend more than that on the Wii GPU.
xbox360: Xenon CPU $106, ATI GPU $141, total mfg cost $525 (the high end model) ps3: Cell CPU $230, nVidia GPU $70, total mfg cost $800 (remember the debate? I think $350 for the BD-ROM is too high.)
Wii: there's no information out there on what components will cost. But the total price tag will be $250, and an educated guess says that only at most $125 of that can be the Broadway CPU and ATI GPU. Maybe Nintendo will sell the Wii as a loss leader, but they've never done that before.
Now, I'm going to use these specs which are unreliable, but speculation is all there is right now:
Total System Memory: 88 Mb RAM, 512 Mb Flash
Broadway CPU: 729 MHz
ATI GPU: 243 MHz
So the GPU probably has 32 Mb RAM or less. What this means is that it's equivalent to an ATI Radeon 9700, which fetches $30-$50 on eBay.
That leaves at most $95 for the CPU, and as little as $75. That's not a lot of money for a dual-core CPU. IBM's not going to make much money on Wii sales, and neither is Nintendo. On the other hand, Nintendo will probably make a killing when the economies of scale kick in and the prices come down. I could see the GPU dropping to $10, the CPU dropping to $50, etc.
Since this is just my speculating, I'd expect someone will reply with more info.
Grammar Nazis everywhere will rejoice at the potential this new innovation has to eliminate all kinds of error with the number, case, tense, and person of a verb. Microsoft again demonstrates to their shareholders their ability to embrace, extend, exterminate, and extort^W^W^W^W^W...innovate, while at the same time rendering useless^W^W showing an olive branch to slashdot readers who seem to have a hard time understanding Microsoft innovation(TM).
DGPS does the correction on a satellite-by-satellite basis. The GPS receiver must support DGPS corrections, which are uploaded to the receiver to include in its internal calculations before the separate satellites are combined to form the final result.
Remember when GPS itself was thought to be in danger back in 2000? Remember when there was talk of balancing the budget? Read this article all the way from 1996 about the military importance of GPS technology. It's worth the read.
About the NDGPS vs. WAAS debate: I work for a group that relies heavily on GPS for aviation purposes. As the number of uses for GPS expand, as they inevitably will, new technologies will spring up. NDGPS vs. WAAS is like 802.11g vs 802.11a. I think they both have a place. If the government won't support NDGPS, perhaps there is a commercial application? What are the FCC regulations on the 300KHz spectrum? If no one will pay for it, let it die, I think.
Okay, <rant>
I laughed when I read, "Therefore, when it comes to cutting the budget during tight times, programs like NDGPS are prime targets." How are we cutting costs when we just ran up a record high deficit in the last two years? I like it that we're cutting costs. Let's cut some of the really big ones, like military spending! </rant> Couldn't resist.
California has more warning stickers than just about any other state. WARNING: This post may cause reproductive harm, as it has been used on a website where counter-reproductive agents known to the State of California exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's an interesting short fiction on the subject.
How did you convince your Pointy Haired Bosses to stick with Office XP? Office 2003 introduces DRM on documents.
How will you convince them not to buy Aero Glass? Ooh, shiny...
These are the things that are troubling me the most.
So it may be difficult to get camera images without motion blur from the constant rotation, but that's really a very small problem. This has real potential.
What every small UAV really, really needs though is a highly reliable, low power radio link to the ground station. Even if it's just one man on the ground and the UAV operates on its own, the UAV is essentially useless until it can radio back imagery. Often, it's the live images that are the most valuable. That also means the radio link must be high bandwidth. This is the achilles' heel of small UAV's.
I'm a heavy linux user, but I agree (sort of) with what you're saying. So people on slashdot place more value on memory usage, CPU usage, (in other words, overall efficiency), and lack of DRM. These do not necessarily preclude what normal users want: You have said it pretty well. iTunes appeals to a wide market, and part of that is how easy it is to use and also has all the features most people want. iTunes and iPod should not (and probably will not) ever have a monopoly on media players. Even achieving 99% market share would be remarkable. There are so many variations possible that there will always be room for competitors, if they understand what some customers want that the iPod doesn't offer.
It's not an all-or-nothing choice. Just like iTunes+iPod, there's room for variations. It is absolutely possible to design an iTunes that meets the demands of linux users -- but it would not play the DRMed files from the iTunes music store. Apple hasn't decided that there's enough profit to do this, but it's definitely possible.
In other words, most of the things slashdot or linux users want are not actually the opposite of what normal users want. The two markets just value different features highly. It would be possible to please both. I don't think any customers would shed any tears if the iTunes music store offered DRM-free music. And I think even casual Joe User would rather have DRM-free media, but I'm sure the RIAA and MPAA will continue to sway public opinion in their favor.
Parent is right on the money.
Polish is something that many people can hear subconsciously, even if they can't explain exactly why they like one podcast over another. And, TFGeditor, if you're reading this, you're doing a podcast, aren't you? You just don't want apple to sue you, huh? I understand.
The Ubisoft "Leak" and the 360-exclusive titles are bad PR and bad marketing.
If you want your customers to pay attention, a normal press release will do just fine. If you want your customers to buy your product, either the 360 or Splinter Cell, normal marketing techniques work just fine. Microsoft's Vendor Lock-In (TM) ends up destroying their profits. It's really simple, though I can see why they miss this point: the same tech market that propelled Microsoft to its current size so quickly has the power to reinvent them too. Why aren't there more Microsofts around? Because the other companies that are successful do not engage in anti-competitive tactics.
Look at the Xbox. Without Halo, Xbox sales would probably be only half what they are. So, a Halo exclusive license will only limit Xbox sales. People buy the Xbox to play Halo, get it? Not the other way around.
Oh, and I already know Sony does the same console-exclusive licensing and attempts to achieve vendor lock-in. But I don't consider Sony a serious monopolist. They may try, but they'll never get to where Microsoft is. And I don't think Microsoft should have a monopoly, either.
Huh. And the real close calls are declassified and available to the public, right? And all the details reported for the close calls are what was really happening, and not just a cover story. Maybe you should make friends with someone who worked on nuclear weapons during that era. Of course, they may be lying to you.
Just to clarify, when I read your post, this is what I think you're saying:
that it would raise temperatures in the past as well!
Because 12,000 years ago, the temperature was as high as current measurements. You are saying that if US emissions of CO2 are the cause of the current rise in temperature, it must be the cause of the ancient high temperatures as well.
This is the kind of information that I try to show
You show them what? A slashdot article? I take it you give them verbal statements alone, such as this one.
I'm not saying that pollution is okay, but I do think that it has less to do with long term global climate shifts than others would have you believe.
Are you referring to the Big Tobacco article? Some would tell me there is no global warming. Others would tell me the world is about to end. Some even tell me that tobacco companies want me to believe there is no global warming.
That's what I mean when I say, "The debate is heating up!"
You said it.
On the other hand, the guides appeared when games that were too hard appeared. Too hard? Yeah, some people are too weak to actually figure out the game. But then, there were some really hard games too...
Do I need to say it?
./|\ ./ \ /.ers don't go fishing.
Joke
* ***==> (Whoosh)
. . . O <-- Moderators
. .
. .
I guess
In the development environment I work in, we use entirely C++, and combine embedded Linux, desktop Linux, and several server OSes. There are six engineers working on my part of the project (the embedded part), and a similar number working on the other parts.
Although we have enough freedom to switch over to a Design By Contract if we all agree to do it, we currently use documentation as a semi-formal contract, starting with design meetings where we verbally define the contract, which we write up piecemeal as we implement sections of code. Obviously, when multiple companies are collaborating on a business system, Design By Contract may be necessary to nail down the project requirements for each participating company. But in-house, what are the advantages of a formalized system over verbal, face-to-face communication? Wouldn't the meetings be held and the documentation be written anyway? As the project evolves, design changes can be implemented in an organized way, but again, the formal definitions would be redundant with the design change meetings.
I think, in summary, that any kind of data protection which prevents unauthorized access to content is a form of DRM. Protection which is used to prevent the end-user access to the content they have voluntarily placed on their computer gets into the gray area. Does the end-user really want something that is infected in this way? Protection voluntarily placed on the content by the end-user is legitimate DRM.
I'd mod you up if I had points. That's a short, sweet explanation.
I'd just add a really minor thing: you can change the 5-star rating to any rating right on the iPod, and next time you sync it's updated in iTunes.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 will have it. (Processors that have hardware encryption to only boot a signed kernel.) So when you pop in an mp3 CD and try to play a file, it will say, "Cannot play an unprotected file."
Microsoft and the RIAA are just waiting until the masses have more DRM media than non-DRM media. Then they will send out the "Critical Update."
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad.
Lame.
That's FUD.
Cisco will talk sweet to you all day long. But my experience with CCM has been pretty negative. It breaks as often as Asterisk, or more often. It has echo problems. It is incompatible with some SIP phones. So it has the same warts as Asterisk.
The only difference is the one the PHB's can see. That is, as you say, "Having one neck to choke." (And Cisco will come to them and market to them, and their golf buddies and beer buddies will nod and smile when they say something like, "I just closed the deal on our new $25K Cisco phone system.") PHB's these days lack the guts to fire the Network Admin if the phones are down. Solution: buy the PHB a POTS line. He'll have the five-nines uptime he wants. If your company is too uptight to roll a new technology like VOIP, tell them so and stick with the many PBX solutions that work just fine.
The problem is, the distinction isn't entirely artificial. Most end users for most projects won't be developers, and most of those who are developers don't want to spend their time working on that project.
Agreed, though personally, this might just be a cost of entry type of thing. If it were easier to write the project, I think more people would jump in. (And, on that tangent, I think Free Open Source Software focuses more on the bottom-line costs such as the difficulty to develop and debug and manages to avoid some of the management costs like payroll, deadlines, and contracts. In other words, when a good idea comes up, the code can fork and parallel development can amortize the R&D costs.)
Good UIs and documentation often fall on this list, but they're not the only items on it.
Other things: internationalization, cross-platform compatibility, obscure bugs. However, just for the sake of argument, I think many commercial software packages have these same weak points. The law of diminishing returns makes the "small stuff" less and less worthwhile. Perhaps as software development techniques become more efficient and effective, the cost of entry will go down and more of the corner cases can be taken care of.
I think the open source paradigm and community is still evolving, and I can imagine ways in which someday there might be solutions to these problems, but we're not there yet.
The ideal is relevant to lots of areas. International politics and/or economics, student-teacher interactions, employee-boss interactions, programming, lots of stuff: when we figure out how to do it more efficiently and effectively, we'll see better performance in the corner areas that don't get a lot of attention right now. I'm looking for deep changes in thinking and methodology. The move to free open source software is a significant change in thinking. Some people oppose it, looking at the short term benefits and maybe not understanding the whole picture. If we're lucky, we'll keep moving forward.
There are more people than Ed trying to Save The World (TM). They are my heroes.
And they usually have enough money to live on, too.
Oh man! *wipes tears from eyes* Is it just how late it is here? Did I really use up my last mod point? Sorry, that was funny!
So I have to ask, is the reason Slashdot is refusing to let me log in, and meta-moderation has been down for four days now...because CowboyNeal and CmdrTaco are waiting for the eBay auction to close. I think I'll bid $0.25 for all the users and passwords on slashdot.
I kid, I kid.
very few companies still source components for their flagship products from ebay.
I was just pricing GPU between US$30 and US$50. Nintendo has contracted with ATI to build them a custom GPU, so they could spend anything the two companies can agree on.
The GameCube GPU would be a good reference point; Nintendo will probably spend more than that on the Wii GPU.
A little googling turns up the following info:
There's a really good Ars Technica article that breaks down the prices for the xbox360 and ps3.
xbox360: Xenon CPU $106, ATI GPU $141, total mfg cost $525 (the high end model)
ps3: Cell CPU $230, nVidia GPU $70, total mfg cost $800 (remember the debate? I think $350 for the BD-ROM is too high.)
Wii: there's no information out there on what components will cost. But the total price tag will be $250, and an educated guess says that only at most $125 of that can be the Broadway CPU and ATI GPU. Maybe Nintendo will sell the Wii as a loss leader, but they've never done that before.
Now, I'm going to use these specs which are unreliable, but speculation is all there is right now:
Total System Memory: 88 Mb RAM, 512 Mb Flash
Broadway CPU: 729 MHz
ATI GPU: 243 MHz
So the GPU probably has 32 Mb RAM or less. What this means is that it's equivalent to an ATI Radeon 9700, which fetches $30-$50 on eBay.
That leaves at most $95 for the CPU, and as little as $75. That's not a lot of money for a dual-core CPU. IBM's not going to make much money on Wii sales, and neither is Nintendo. On the other hand, Nintendo will probably make a killing when the economies of scale kick in and the prices come down. I could see the GPU dropping to $10, the CPU dropping to $50, etc.
Since this is just my speculating, I'd expect someone will reply with more info.
Grammar Nazis everywhere will rejoice at the potential this new innovation has to eliminate all kinds of error with the number, case, tense, and person of a verb. Microsoft again demonstrates to their shareholders their ability to embrace, extend, exterminate, and extort^W^W^W^W^W...innovate, while at the same time rendering useless^W^W showing an olive branch to slashdot readers who seem to have a hard time understanding Microsoft innovation(TM).
DGPS does the correction on a satellite-by-satellite basis. The GPS receiver must support DGPS corrections, which are uploaded to the receiver to include in its internal calculations before the separate satellites are combined to form the final result.
Remember when GPS itself was thought to be in danger back in 2000? Remember when there was talk of balancing the budget? Read this article all the way from 1996 about the military importance of GPS technology. It's worth the read.
About the NDGPS vs. WAAS debate: I work for a group that relies heavily on GPS for aviation purposes. As the number of uses for GPS expand, as they inevitably will, new technologies will spring up. NDGPS vs. WAAS is like 802.11g vs 802.11a. I think they both have a place. If the government won't support NDGPS, perhaps there is a commercial application? What are the FCC regulations on the 300KHz spectrum? If no one will pay for it, let it die, I think.
Okay, <rant>
I laughed when I read, "Therefore, when it comes to cutting the budget during tight times, programs like NDGPS are prime targets." How are we cutting costs when we just ran up a record high deficit in the last two years? I like it that we're cutting costs. Let's cut some of the really big ones, like military spending!
</rant> Couldn't resist.
California has more warning stickers than just about any other state. WARNING: This post may cause reproductive harm, as it has been used on a website where counter-reproductive agents known to the State of California exist.