I agree, although I felt the journal article was just about right for my two years rusted EMC and Communications stuff.
The main thing that I picked up on was the sheer lack of spacing between the transitions of the final data and the original clock. As I read it, this means that the clock recovery circuitry is going to have to be spot on every single cycle.
Admittedly things may well have changed since I last saw them, but PLLs were notoriously unstable when I played with them. I wonder how they're going to make the receivers sufficiently portable to make this worthwhile in a mobile situation.
What we probably need is the original StrongARM design crew from DEC and give them something like a DSP32 to play with;-)
Yes, all very interesting, but this is hardly a new project! I have a recollection of reading about the Amulet project back in the heady days of the ARM 3. I think it might have even had a fairly large lump of magazine dedicated to it when it was still called Micro User! But ancient history aside, it's good that people are still pushing ARM processors even though x86 seems to have all but won the war. Even Intel seem to think so as there's a 400Mhz StrongARM due real soon now, I hear.
Wearing my environmentally aware hat for a change, I'll have to agree with you on this point. To take a marginally more economic view point here:
If everyone has to buy this 200 pound device (this can be checked for at the annual MOT) then somebody, somewhere gets a fair chunk of profit margin. The government probably has several reasons for the annual 6% (I think) petrol tax increase. It increases their coffers, attempts to discourage needless driving and generally makes people think 'cor blimey, this is costing me a fortune'. Which in a country our size is fair enough.
As this wonderful gizmo is going to limit people to, well, the limit, fuel consumption is going to plummet. For example, my 10yr old 1.6l petrol engine does about 29 miles to the gallon for a typical 20 mile haul to work. Over long distances (where this device is going to really count) that increases to about 35 when I'm doing a near constant 75. There were occasions where I was obliged to drive at 65 for most of the distance and the economy shot up to about 40. That's a 30% saving for about 13% increase in time taken. I'll bet that 30% of the fuel tax income is going to huge, hence the slightly high cost of the device.
And as a quick rejoiner to our transatlantic friends. You might all be thinking "oy my goodness, how can people stand to have their driving limited". After looking briefly at the differences in culture and geography, I can say that for the most part, if you want to actually go somewhere the only viable option is to drive there. Despite peoples viewpoints, this simply isn't true in large parts of the UK. Yes, if you live more than 10 / 15 miles from a major town / city, or don't live on a major road then you're limited to the car. But, and this is the major but, if you have the patience to use, say, the bus, it is often a viable alternative.
Another point that would add argument to your theory of New Labour trying to get more data on individuals movements etc. is that not so long ago, the police had a concerted attempt at getting the speed limit uniformly reduced across the board. Which after much discussion got promptly tossed out with no chance of appeal. This would seem to me that the government isn't really serious about actually reducing peoples speed, it's got some sort of ulterior motive. I wonder if this has anything to do with John Prescott having just distanced himself from the Transport Agency after an extended and well publicised stint holding the reins?
Oh yes, don't forget that the vast majority of HGVs and PCVs have speed limiters fitted as standard and have done for many years.
Well, then. This is one that as a UK resident I can speak out upon.
As a bit of background information, in the UK (well, England certainly) there are at least three different implementations of what you term 'photo-radar', or what we call 'speed cameras' (the terminology is largely irrelevant).
1) The first widespread instance. A camera armed with a radar speed gun, accurate timer, flash and trigger was put in a large grey box on top of a 6ft chunky post and aimed at the nearest side of the road. In the field of view of the camera, a series of lines were painted on the road at known intervals (more on this in a minute). If a car was belting along at speed x where x is over the threshold set for the camera then the camera is triggered. As I understood it, two photos were taken very close together at known intervals (using the onboard accurate timer). This is due to the fact that time is simple to measure. Now, at the time the radar technology alone was insufficient evidence to present to a court as proof that Joe Bloggs was doing 101mph in a 70mph zone (national speed limit on dual carriageways and motorways). The lines on the road (remember these) were then used to determine how far the car had moved in the interval between photographs and therefore how fast it was travelling. If any of you are still with me after all that, you may be interested to know they were incredibly successful and popped up all over the country. As the police turned out to be non-stupid, they started turning out lots of empty boxes on poles with painted stripey roads as a deterrant.
2) More recently, the radar technology got approved by some court or another, so the stripey roads were done away with (in newer installations, the old ones are still in use). These were different in that the cameras faced the front of oncoming cars rather than the rear of them. I suspect this was due to people covering up their licence plates. This means that the camera took the photo of the driver as well as any stickers in the windscreen. It also heralded the start of the faith in technology that lead to the 3rd instance.
3) The newest and most nastiest. As I'm getting bored of typing and I'm sure you lot are bored of reading. Essentially 3 cameras at 1 mile intervals. They take photos of each and every car that passes in whatever lane and the time stamp. If you cover the 2 mile distance too quickly, you're speeding and are therefore nicked. The cunning part is that there's a computer sat there reading the number plates as the cars go by. This is particularly scary for two reasons:
a) these cameras can be miniaturised and therefore hidden on gantries, bridges and behind signs etc..
b) if enough get installed then some bright spark could correlate the data and monitor journeys around the country.
Anyway, to put this bunch into context. If the thresholds are set sensibly, i.e. about 20% over the limit, then about 25% of drivers will get caught and would almost certainly slow down. This leaves the actual man power of the police to respond to emergencies and so forth, meaning more resources to use on useful things.
To respond to the Canada case:
I just happened to spend a fortnight in Ontario this September past and had this precise same discussion with my girlfriend and her family. Much to my surprise, such a scheme had been deployed and then removed! Something to do with it catching too many people. Said people got narked because they were caught doing something wrong and didn't like it, promptly did the North American thing (probably wrong, but it's a perceived stereotype) and took the provincial police to court over it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that rather than fight this and thereby use up more resources than this was saving and so scrapped the whole affair.
And finally (on a last point). If this forces everybody to drive at 70 rather than 90, think of all the fuel that'll be saved (about 35% by my estimages). I suspect that the oil corp's won't like it either.
Hmmmm. I was wondering when details about what's going on were going to surface.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm seriously sorry that I'm in the wrong country to be able to attend personally. Actually, I've been flicking from news site to news site periodically today and wondering why there's nothing new breaking. Of course, PST is somewhat behind GMT and all the key people were soundly asleep at the time. But I digress.
What I really wanted to chat about was the lack of media coverage so far. Obviously, there'll be details about who and what turn up at the courthouse itself later on, but I've not seen linkage on any front pages of any news sites so far. I'm just hoping that such a fundamental legal battle gets television coverage this evening.
Good luck for the proceedings and hopefully someone will have brought a nokia communicator or somesuch to enable them to give a slightly live feed of their 'notes' from the court room. Or isn't that sort of behaviour allowed over thar.
Redhat 6.1 working on sparcs? Hmm, interesting notion. I've spent the better part of the past couple of weeks trying to persuade RH61 to get itself onto a SparcStation 2. Yes I know it's elderly and obsolete, but it'll do for running a few bits and bats off (MySQL, Apache SSL, PHP, etc..) It kept just stopping during the package install in the text mode version and didn't even get as far as starting X up for the GUI. Wonderful. As has been said, 6.0 got installed in 15minutes flat (after a couple more days downloading). Hmmmph.
Back on topic, however. I realise this might be pointing out the obvious, but the KB article wasn't particularly correct. Anyone else heard of the linux fdisk being able to drive a device called/MBR? Or even being able to issue the 'q' command after the 'w' (without firing up fdisk again). Silly Microsoft, silly.
Slashdot Mirror
You haf meta-FUD! Hmm, sounds like a new window manager to me..
PS: I daren't imagine what the constellation diagram would look like for such a creation.
I agree, although I felt the journal article was just about right for my two years rusted EMC and Communications stuff.
;-)
The main thing that I picked up on was the sheer lack of spacing between the transitions of the final data and the original clock. As I read it, this means that the clock recovery circuitry is going to have to be spot on every single cycle.
Admittedly things may well have changed since I last saw them, but PLLs were notoriously unstable when I played with them. I wonder how they're going to make the receivers sufficiently portable to make this worthwhile in a mobile situation.
What we probably need is the original StrongARM design crew from DEC and give them something like a DSP32 to play with
Yes, all very interesting, but this is hardly a new project! I have a recollection of reading about the Amulet project back in the heady days of the ARM 3. I think it might have even had a fairly large lump of magazine dedicated to it when it was still called Micro User! But ancient history aside, it's good that people are still pushing ARM processors even though x86 seems to have all but won the war. Even Intel seem to think so as there's a 400Mhz StrongARM due real soon now, I hear.
Still, long live Arthur!
Wearing my environmentally aware hat for a change, I'll have to agree with you on this point. To take a marginally more economic view point here:
If everyone has to buy this 200 pound device (this can be checked for at the annual MOT) then somebody, somewhere gets a fair chunk of profit margin. The government probably has several reasons for the annual 6% (I think) petrol tax increase. It increases their coffers, attempts to discourage needless driving and generally makes people think 'cor blimey, this is costing me a fortune'. Which in a country our size is fair enough.
As this wonderful gizmo is going to limit people to, well, the limit, fuel consumption is going to plummet. For example, my 10yr old 1.6l petrol engine does about 29 miles to the gallon for a typical 20 mile haul to work. Over long distances (where this device is going to really count) that increases to about 35 when I'm doing a near constant 75. There were occasions where I was obliged to drive at 65 for most of the distance and the economy shot up to about 40. That's a 30% saving for about 13% increase in time taken. I'll bet that 30% of the fuel tax income is going to huge, hence the slightly high cost of the device.
And as a quick rejoiner to our transatlantic friends. You might all be thinking "oy my goodness, how can people stand to have their driving limited". After looking briefly at the differences in culture and geography, I can say that for the most part, if you want to actually go somewhere the only viable option is to drive there. Despite peoples viewpoints, this simply isn't true in large parts of the UK. Yes, if you live more than 10 / 15 miles from a major town / city, or don't live on a major road then you're limited to the car. But, and this is the major but, if you have the patience to use, say, the bus, it is often a viable alternative.
nuff said for now as it's hometime
Absolutely right on, Nem!
Another point that would add argument to your theory of New Labour trying to get more data on individuals movements etc. is that not so long ago, the police had a concerted attempt at getting the speed limit uniformly reduced across the board. Which after much discussion got promptly tossed out with no chance of appeal. This would seem to me that the government isn't really serious about actually reducing peoples speed, it's got some sort of ulterior motive. I wonder if this has anything to do with John Prescott having just distanced himself from the Transport Agency after an extended and well publicised stint holding the reins?
Oh yes, don't forget that the vast majority of HGVs and PCVs have speed limiters fitted as standard and have done for many years.
Well, then. This is one that as a UK resident I can speak out upon.
As a bit of background information, in the UK (well, England certainly) there are at least three different implementations of what you term 'photo-radar', or what we call 'speed cameras' (the terminology is largely irrelevant).
1) The first widespread instance. A camera armed with a radar speed gun, accurate timer, flash and trigger was put in a large grey box on top of a 6ft chunky post and aimed at the nearest side of the road. In the field of view of the camera, a series of lines were painted on the road at known intervals (more on this in a minute). If a car was belting along at speed x where x is over the threshold set for the camera then the camera is triggered. As I understood it, two photos were taken very close together at known intervals (using the onboard accurate timer). This is due to the fact that time is simple to measure. Now, at the time the radar technology alone was insufficient evidence to present to a court as proof that Joe Bloggs was doing 101mph in a 70mph zone (national speed limit on dual carriageways and motorways). The lines on the road (remember these) were then used to determine how far the car had moved in the interval between photographs and therefore how fast it was travelling. If any of you are still with me after all that, you may be interested to know they were incredibly successful and popped up all over the country. As the police turned out to be non-stupid, they started turning out lots of empty boxes on poles with painted stripey roads as a deterrant.
2) More recently, the radar technology got approved by some court or another, so the stripey roads were done away with (in newer installations, the old ones are still in use). These were different in that the cameras faced the front of oncoming cars rather than the rear of them. I suspect this was due to people covering up their licence plates. This means that the camera took the photo of the driver as well as any stickers in the windscreen. It also heralded the start of the faith in technology that lead to the 3rd instance.
3) The newest and most nastiest. As I'm getting bored of typing and I'm sure you lot are bored of reading. Essentially 3 cameras at 1 mile intervals. They take photos of each and every car that passes in whatever lane and the time stamp. If you cover the 2 mile distance too quickly, you're speeding and are therefore nicked. The cunning part is that there's a computer sat there reading the number plates as the cars go by. This is particularly scary for two reasons:
a) these cameras can be miniaturised and therefore hidden on gantries, bridges and behind signs etc..
b) if enough get installed then some bright spark could correlate the data and monitor journeys around the country.
Anyway, to put this bunch into context. If the thresholds are set sensibly, i.e. about 20% over the limit, then about 25% of drivers will get caught and would almost certainly slow down. This leaves the actual man power of the police to respond to emergencies and so forth, meaning more resources to use on useful things.
To respond to the Canada case:
I just happened to spend a fortnight in Ontario this September past and had this precise same discussion with my girlfriend and her family. Much to my surprise, such a scheme had been deployed and then removed! Something to do with it catching too many people. Said people got narked because they were caught doing something wrong and didn't like it, promptly did the North American thing (probably wrong, but it's a perceived stereotype) and took the provincial police to court over it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that rather than fight this and thereby use up more resources than this was saving and so scrapped the whole affair.
And finally (on a last point). If this forces everybody to drive at 70 rather than 90, think of all the fuel that'll be saved (about 35% by my estimages). I suspect that the oil corp's won't like it either.
ttfn
Dav
Hmmmm. I was wondering when details about what's going on were going to surface.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm seriously sorry that I'm in the wrong country to be able to attend personally. Actually, I've been flicking from news site to news site periodically today and wondering why there's nothing new breaking. Of course, PST is somewhat behind GMT and all the key people were soundly asleep at the time. But I digress.
What I really wanted to chat about was the lack of media coverage so far. Obviously, there'll be details about who and what turn up at the courthouse itself later on, but I've not seen linkage on any front pages of any news sites so far. I'm just hoping that such a fundamental legal battle gets television coverage this evening.
Good luck for the proceedings and hopefully someone will have brought a nokia communicator or somesuch to enable them to give a slightly live feed of their 'notes' from the court room. Or isn't that sort of behaviour allowed over thar.
Cheers,
Dav Stott
Redhat 6.1 working on sparcs? Hmm, interesting notion. I've spent the better part of the past couple of weeks trying to persuade RH61 to get itself onto a SparcStation 2. Yes I know it's elderly and obsolete, but it'll do for running a few bits and bats off (MySQL, Apache SSL, PHP, etc..) It kept just stopping during the package install in the text mode version and didn't even get as far as starting X up for the GUI. Wonderful. As has been said, 6.0 got installed in 15minutes flat (after a couple more days downloading). Hmmmph.
/MBR? Or even being able to issue the 'q' command after the 'w' (without firing up fdisk again). Silly Microsoft, silly.
Back on topic, however. I realise this might be pointing out the obvious, but the KB article wasn't particularly correct. Anyone else heard of the linux fdisk being able to drive a device called