> Perhaps when gas costs more, people will choose to drive more efficiently.
Maybe, maybe not. Over here in the UK our petrol (US:gas) prices are currently roughly around the 7USD/USgallon mark. Yet we're actually seeing an increase in SUV use in urban/suburban environments.
One of the biggest reasons? Celebrities here are driving SUVs, so they're seen as "cool". Which means that everyone is buying them.
I think the solution is to get the celebrities to drive economic vehicles economically of their own accord. Good luck with that one, most of them are still in the "my dick size is related to my car size" school of... I use the term loosely "thought";)
Is our driving better than that in the US? Possibly somewhat, but it's not massively better IMO.
> In being reactive not proactive, everything is a crisis.
Simple cause: Too few staff. No-one has time to be proactive if they're always trying to fix whatever broke yesterday.
Simple solution: Employ more good staff. Of course that's not easy either, we're usually seen as a business cost, rather than an asset - even in software companies, so headcount is near impossible to find. Even when you get headcount, the candidates are chosen at the first round by HR, and then filtered by PHB's. Such is life...
How cheap/easy would it be to make a distributed radio telescope if we had lots of small systems scattered around?
I was envisioning a small unit that plugs into a PC and has GPS location ability so we know where it is in the array, and the software reports data and location back to the central system. If everyone interested in astronomy picked one up we'd soon have a big array, and it would be reasonably low cost too if everyone paid to cover some of the cost of their antenna.
I suspect if we have enough bases then localized "noise" should be easily enough filtered.
Is radio astronomy doable with thousands of small devices?
To be honest, as a kid I never found the "500 in 1" kits to be up to scratch, but maybe that was just me.
A good textbook a decent breadboard and a good selection of components would be far more useful IMO.
My first ever book was Adventures with Electronics which was fun, but didn't really explain what happened well enough, so I'd combine it with something by M.W. Brimicombe to explain the why's and wherefore's (mine was a GCSE textbook) - unfortunately I can't track down the exact title as it seems to be out of print:(
Moving upwards though the book of choice has to be The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - it's excellent!
Actually, I had to do something similar at work a while back.
We needed to replace a dead server that was running, of all things, Win 3.11 - but the only box spare at the time was a dual-P3/933 box with FireGL and 10k SCSI, and the server needed to be up and running "yesterday". In the end I think the only bit I couldn't get working in a realistic timeframe was the sound. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone's already done it. Stranger things have happened;)
Let me tell you, Win 3.11 really flew on that box!
> Next they'll want to photograph people in toilets in case they decide to take drugs in them.
Someone clearly hasn't been in the City of London lately - there are already CCTV installs in the toilet facities in some of the underground stations there...
One question - is there any way to make the menus move at a reasonable speed? Moving between each menu [File | Add] etc takes around three seconds on this 3.6GHz P4. I'm not having problems with any other applications, just Blender. Running Vista RC1, if that's relevant.
Hint: I'm not about to learn the keyboard shortcuts just to put together one test scene, before anyone helpfully says "but the keyboard shortcuts are so powerful";)
Reliability data for desktop drives can be found here: StorageReview
Unfortunately you need to register to see it, but that's what bugmenot was invented for;)
I'm afraid I disagree with you though - I think Google and everyone else should make their data public. It would save everyone a lot of pain, and make the manufacturers of unreliable drives actually improve their game.
Places like tomshardware only review one drive, and most likely for a couple of days - so I don't think that's really their responsibility.
Why does anyone still use Acrobat Reader anyway? Try downloading Foxit Reader instead - it's faster, smaller, and works just fine under Vista.
I didn't have any driver issues with this Shuttle box, but then it's only a 3.6GHz toaster (sorry P4) anyway;)
Xbox360 = ~1TFLOPS
PS3 = ~2.18TFLOPS
According to Wikipedia
Also, why does the article compare to a BlueGene variant, when in supercomputer terms it's really competing against things like MDGRAPE-3 which are already in the PFLOP range?
For anyone who wants to see the original article, which is without ads, and with links, there's always the original site: Panda Software Virus Yearbook 2006
Not sure that strange really covered it. The fastest machines went to the salespeople because they were "revenue generating heads". Dev had the slowest because we were a "business cost". Great model for a software company wouldn't you say?
I mentioned that 386 preventing my colleague from doing any work? Wanna know what the MD drove? A brand new Ferrari, a Range Rover and a new Aston Martin. Seriously screwy company, that's why I left - well that and I was headhunted;)
You want to know the really strange part? They're still in business... That's the bit I can't wrap my head around!
Computers, like most complex devices have a failure rate that forms a bell curve - most failures either occur at the start of the product lifespan (in which case it'll be covered by the warranty), or towards the end. Those 1GHz machines are starting to get into unreliable territory.
Usually around the time that machines start failing, spare parts also become harder to find. When did you last see a new PII-400? Or perhaps a new Slot1 motherboard? If you can find a new one it'll probably cost more than a whole new machine!
You may also find that new perhiperals may not be compatible - maybe the drivers require a recent OS to install, or you need a port that those old machines don't have.
Finally, as has already been mentioned, given a choice between two identical companies, one with the latest computers and flat screens, and another with crap machines and blurry 15" CRT's - it's not rocket science to work out which I'd prefer. A few years ago, I worked at one of the latter - my developer friend had a 386DX40 w4Mb/RAM as his NT4 devbox, logon might take 15mins, compilation may happen overnight - the target customer boxen were dual P133 w/128Mb. I was alpha testing the software under Win95, and the customer was running NT - needless to say sometimes something that tested fine on my system wouldn't even install on theirs... New computers are pretty cheap compared with the losses of key staff turnover, and frustrated clients!
The reason they're playing up the radioactivity is because it's by far the most likely cause of death. A lethal radiation dose can be obtained through ingesting as little as 50 nanograms of Po210 - 50ng is a spectacularly small amount.
Compare that to the batrachotoxin found in the Golden Poison Dart Frog, something which is regarded as highly toxic, which has a lethal dose of around 40 micrograms.
In other words ere talking nearly a thousand times less material required to kill someone with Po210, than a serious neurotoxin...
I agree that there's too much news coverage though, but then most news stories in the past few years have aimed to scare the population.
As for who did the deed? Unlikely to be the FSB, particularly not if the Po210 traced back to Russia;)
According to the Sony Japan website the affected models are the: DSC-F88, DSC-M1, DSC-T1, DSC-T11, DSC-T3, DSC-T33, DSC-U40 and DSC-U50
It looks like it's just another installment of the ongoing Sony CCD assembly problems that affected a large number of manufacturers a year or so back though.
Since I shoot RAW, I also burn a copy of dcraw.c onto every disc - so even if the current platforms get lost by the wayside, there will be code to convert them still.
Storage itself? Currently burning onto Delkin Archival Gold, storing cool and dark, and in two physically distant locations.
They're also stored on my harddisk, and the best are backed up onto a USB drive.
If it looks like the DVD-ROM drive is becoming obsolete I'll burn them on to whatever comes along next.
If you're truly paranoid you can always print them on archival quality paper using pigment based inks;)
Unfortunately the 3-key mini-Optimus only supports a refresh rate of 3fps, which I suspect will be too slow for anything other than strategy type games. Of course the full size one might be quicker, but somehow I doubt it...
P.S. Anyone who wants to see what developer tools/information they already have, click here. Good news is it looks like they have a protocol description, for the mini at least.
Actually I think it could work for NYC, if they put a roundabout at each intersection. The advantage of roundabouts is they're essentially self-arbitrating. They'd probably save millions in electricity too;)
The thing people miss out is: Who's actually watching the stuff?
Something went missing from my workplace a while ago, and they had CCTV everywhere, but because I didn't know the exact time of the theft no-one would check the tapes. Too much manpower required apparently, but heck it was only an item worth 5000 GBP;)
In reality all CCTV does is provide the illusion of safety to gullible people. Well, that and potential tracking for anyone with the manpower to use it - like, say, the government, or perhaps major corporations. Yet most people welcome it with open arms as improving "safety". *sigh*
I guess PT Barnum's competitor was right - there really is one born every minute...
Slashdot Mirror
> Perhaps when gas costs more, people will choose to drive more efficiently.
;)
Maybe, maybe not. Over here in the UK our petrol (US:gas) prices are currently roughly around the 7USD/USgallon mark. Yet we're actually seeing an increase in SUV use in urban/suburban environments.
One of the biggest reasons? Celebrities here are driving SUVs, so they're seen as "cool". Which means that everyone is buying them.
I think the solution is to get the celebrities to drive economic vehicles economically of their own accord. Good luck with that one, most of them are still in the "my dick size is related to my car size" school of... I use the term loosely "thought"
Is our driving better than that in the US? Possibly somewhat, but it's not massively better IMO.
> In being reactive not proactive, everything is a crisis.
Simple cause: Too few staff. No-one has time to be proactive if they're always trying to fix whatever broke yesterday.
Simple solution: Employ more good staff. Of course that's not easy either, we're usually seen as a business cost, rather than an asset - even in software companies, so headcount is near impossible to find. Even when you get headcount, the candidates are chosen at the first round by HR, and then filtered by PHB's. Such is life...
How cheap/easy would it be to make a distributed radio telescope if we had lots of small systems scattered around?
I was envisioning a small unit that plugs into a PC and has GPS location ability so we know where it is in the array, and the software reports data and location back to the central system. If everyone interested in astronomy picked one up we'd soon have a big array, and it would be reasonably low cost too if everyone paid to cover some of the cost of their antenna.
I suspect if we have enough bases then localized "noise" should be easily enough filtered.
Is radio astronomy doable with thousands of small devices?
Sometimes I wonder whether we did actually win the Cold War - it looked like we did, but if you're smart enough, and you control the media...
What if all we really have is the illusion of victory?
To be honest, as a kid I never found the "500 in 1" kits to be up to scratch, but maybe that was just me.
:(
A good textbook a decent breadboard and a good selection of components would be far more useful IMO.
My first ever book was Adventures with Electronics which was fun, but didn't really explain what happened well enough, so I'd combine it with something by M.W. Brimicombe to explain the why's and wherefore's (mine was a GCSE textbook) - unfortunately I can't track down the exact title as it seems to be out of print
Moving upwards though the book of choice has to be The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - it's excellent!
Actually, I had to do something similar at work a while back.
;)
We needed to replace a dead server that was running, of all things, Win 3.11 - but the only box spare at the time was a dual-P3/933 box with FireGL and 10k SCSI, and the server needed to be up and running "yesterday". In the end I think the only bit I couldn't get working in a realistic timeframe was the sound. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone's already done it. Stranger things have happened
Let me tell you, Win 3.11 really flew on that box!
> Next they'll want to photograph people in toilets in case they decide to take drugs in them.
Someone clearly hasn't been in the City of London lately - there are already CCTV installs in the toilet facities in some of the underground stations there...
One question - is there any way to make the menus move at a reasonable speed? Moving between each menu [File | Add] etc takes around three seconds on this 3.6GHz P4. I'm not having problems with any other applications, just Blender. Running Vista RC1, if that's relevant.
;)
Hint: I'm not about to learn the keyboard shortcuts just to put together one test scene, before anyone helpfully says "but the keyboard shortcuts are so powerful"
Reliability data for desktop drives can be found here: StorageReview
;)
Unfortunately you need to register to see it, but that's what bugmenot was invented for
I'm afraid I disagree with you though - I think Google and everyone else should make their data public. It would save everyone a lot of pain, and make the manufacturers of unreliable drives actually improve their game.
Places like tomshardware only review one drive, and most likely for a couple of days - so I don't think that's really their responsibility.
By "increases consumer value", they mean "we can charge them more". Also remember that the end user isn't always the customer.
And yes, DRM is a total pain in the proverbial...
Why does anyone still use Acrobat Reader anyway? Try downloading Foxit Reader instead - it's faster, smaller, and works just fine under Vista. I didn't have any driver issues with this Shuttle box, but then it's only a 3.6GHz toaster (sorry P4) anyway ;)
Xbox360 = ~1TFLOPS
PS3 = ~2.18TFLOPS
According to Wikipedia
Also, why does the article compare to a BlueGene variant, when in supercomputer terms it's really competing against things like MDGRAPE-3 which are already in the PFLOP range?
White LED's are probably the exception - most use a YAG phosphor/scintallation layer on top of the chip. More here.
Interesting. I wonder whether anyone's trialled it as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease yet?
For anyone who wants to see the original article, which is without ads, and with links, there's always the original site:
Panda Software Virus Yearbook 2006
Not sure that strange really covered it. The fastest machines went to the salespeople because they were "revenue generating heads". Dev had the slowest because we were a "business cost". Great model for a software company wouldn't you say?
;)
I mentioned that 386 preventing my colleague from doing any work? Wanna know what the MD drove? A brand new Ferrari, a Range Rover and a new Aston Martin. Seriously screwy company, that's why I left - well that and I was headhunted
You want to know the really strange part? They're still in business... That's the bit I can't wrap my head around!
Computers, like most complex devices have a failure rate that forms a bell curve - most failures either occur at the start of the product lifespan (in which case it'll be covered by the warranty), or towards the end. Those 1GHz machines are starting to get into unreliable territory.
Usually around the time that machines start failing, spare parts also become harder to find. When did you last see a new PII-400? Or perhaps a new Slot1 motherboard? If you can find a new one it'll probably cost more than a whole new machine!
You may also find that new perhiperals may not be compatible - maybe the drivers require a recent OS to install, or you need a port that those old machines don't have.
Finally, as has already been mentioned, given a choice between two identical companies, one with the latest computers and flat screens, and another with crap machines and blurry 15" CRT's - it's not rocket science to work out which I'd prefer. A few years ago, I worked at one of the latter - my developer friend had a 386DX40 w4Mb/RAM as his NT4 devbox, logon might take 15mins, compilation may happen overnight - the target customer boxen were dual P133 w/128Mb. I was alpha testing the software under Win95, and the customer was running NT - needless to say sometimes something that tested fine on my system wouldn't even install on theirs... New computers are pretty cheap compared with the losses of key staff turnover, and frustrated clients!
The reason they're playing up the radioactivity is because it's by far the most likely cause of death. A lethal radiation dose can be obtained through ingesting as little as 50 nanograms of Po210 - 50ng is a spectacularly small amount.
;)
Compare that to the batrachotoxin found in the Golden Poison Dart Frog, something which is regarded as highly toxic, which has a lethal dose of around 40 micrograms.
In other words ere talking nearly a thousand times less material required to kill someone with Po210, than a serious neurotoxin...
I agree that there's too much news coverage though, but then most news stories in the past few years have aimed to scare the population.
As for who did the deed? Unlikely to be the FSB, particularly not if the Po210 traced back to Russia
Similar in concept to the BartPE disc, you can create an official Vista based WindowsPE 2.0 disc using:
BDD (Business Desktop Deployment) 2007
Here's a link to WinPE2 itself: Windows PE 2.0 Overview
> Often on XP, 2000, NT and 95 I would hit control-esc then R for run and type frequently used programs into run.
:)
Just hit the WindowsKey-R, that still brings up the Run dialog. No search required
According to the Sony Japan website the affected models are the:
DSC-F88, DSC-M1, DSC-T1, DSC-T11, DSC-T3, DSC-T33, DSC-U40 and DSC-U50
It looks like it's just another installment of the ongoing Sony CCD assembly problems that affected a large number of manufacturers a year or so back though.
Since I shoot RAW, I also burn a copy of dcraw.c onto every disc - so even if the current platforms get lost by the wayside, there will be code to convert them still.
;)
Storage itself? Currently burning onto Delkin Archival Gold, storing cool and dark, and in two physically distant locations.
They're also stored on my harddisk, and the best are backed up onto a USB drive.
If it looks like the DVD-ROM drive is becoming obsolete I'll burn them on to whatever comes along next.
If you're truly paranoid you can always print them on archival quality paper using pigment based inks
Unfortunately the 3-key mini-Optimus only supports a refresh rate of 3fps, which I suspect will be too slow for anything other than strategy type games. Of course the full size one might be quicker, but somehow I doubt it...
P.S. Anyone who wants to see what developer tools/information they already have, click here. Good news is it looks like they have a protocol description, for the mini at least.
Actually I think it could work for NYC, if they put a roundabout at each intersection. The advantage of roundabouts is they're essentially self-arbitrating. They'd probably save millions in electricity too ;)
The thing people miss out is: Who's actually watching the stuff?
;)
Something went missing from my workplace a while ago, and they had CCTV everywhere, but because I didn't know the exact time of the theft no-one would check the tapes. Too much manpower required apparently, but heck it was only an item worth 5000 GBP
In reality all CCTV does is provide the illusion of safety to gullible people. Well, that and potential tracking for anyone with the manpower to use it - like, say, the government, or perhaps major corporations. Yet most people welcome it with open arms as improving "safety". *sigh*
I guess PT Barnum's competitor was right - there really is one born every minute...