Came here hoping the article would talk about deeply embedded firmware, CPU constraints, low power tradeoffs, etc. (I'm an embedded systems kinda guy). Left disappointed.

It blows my mind that something which on the surface screams of "deeply embedded system" is characterized as "similar to building a website".

Don't get me wrong, I know there's a lot of stuff underneath to make it all work, that's the stuff I find cool, I'm not an app developer... but for example when the Kinect came out, some of the first articles were really detailed embedded-systems level articles about the product.

So I saw one video where apparently a normal passerby was simply video'ing one of the suspects, bloody hands and all, rant about how necessary it was. And during the filming, another lady just pushes past the guy, cleaver & knife in hand, with a goddamn baby stroller!!! Who would be comfortable casually filming such a thing? And who would be comfortable walking by with your baby???

Then on the linked article above, I see another picture, this one of the other suspect, holding a bloody knife, talking to a woman who doesnt appear to be very threatened or worried.

I just find this to be bizarre. Could be totally wrong, but after 9/11, Boston, New York attempts, etc. I would imagine in America such an attack would result in a mob surrounding these guys and "neutralizing" them. Maybe not politically correct, but I think Americas tolerance for this kind of thing is zero now. I just find the British citizens reactions extremely strange. (Yes, I know they had knives, etc. but I would expect people to either avoid them, or surround & neutralize them.)

North Korea's about to follow. They've got their best Photoshop team on the job right now!

Wow. Cutting out free sodas would lower your morale? I'm not digging you but...

What would lower my morale? Working on boring, unchallenging projects. Working on pointless, avoidable death-marches. Working with insecure, stupid people. Using inferior, productivity-crippling tools. Working in small, loud, cramped cube. Having reduced free time. Seeing less of my kids. Working out less frequently (tied into the death marches, etc.)

But sodas? I don't think would really rate for me.

Not trying to hijack your thought, its just that something like sodas are so inconsequential **to me** that I just cant relate.

Somehow, mysteriously, 3 months from now, we'll see a massive leak of the Utah Governor's browsing history which contains rubber fetish sites and online gambling, and we'll see the Salt Lake City mayor's private emails exposed.

I'm really saddened and angered by the continuous erosion of our civil liberties. I've seen this decline for a while 9/11, but it keeps getting worse & worse. And sadly, it really seems to be independent of the party in power. Total government overreach.

Security in these things, from what I understand, is pretty shabby.

So what's going to happen? Civilians will resent being monitored and harassed by drones. They will start trying to figure out ways to confuse, disrupt and hack drones. There is this wonderful thing called the internet. Information tends to spread on the internet. Smart researchers will speak at Black Hat & Defcon about fuzzing, confusing and otherwise disrupting drones (which they have every right to do). And this information will eventually find its way to the battlefield.

My personal opinion is that regardless of which administration or party is in power, the trend towards more control, monitoring and scrutiny is irreversible. Unfortunately.

As a competitive American, I'm very upset that these Belgians seem to have out-assholed our biggest copyright clowns. Damn, they beat us. For now.

Although I'm not too worried... our bench is very deep, I'm sure we've got some even more insane idiots waiting in the wings.

This whole desparate, pathetic money grab is just so degrading. Have they no shame?

I've heard this argument ("Locks keep honest people honest") so many times, and I'd like to relay a little story from a couple days ago.

I do firmware development for deeply embedded systems. Typically each platform has a selection of cross-development toolsets. For example, for ARM Cortex M3, you can use a GCC variant (Code Red, RIDE, etc.), IAR, Keil, or a few others. These are niche markets, relatively speaking. Instead of buying a $199 Visual Studio license, we're talking $5K-$10K per development seat, unless you go the whole open-source route (right now, let's just duck that issue).

I recently bought a license for one of the commercial/proprietary offerings, it works very well and more importantly it's mandated by the customer. Fine.

Here's where it gets tricky. The USB security dongle, and the associated PC software, was such a pain in the balls, I spent almost 3 hours messing with the thing, re-installing, calling tech support (who was helpful and sympathetic, FWIW). I finally got everything working, just moments before I started crushing granite in my bare hands.

At the end of my last phone call with tech support I remarked, jokingly but seriously, "You know, it's stuff like this that makes me want to just pirate the software." Tech support laughed, apologized, and all was good.

This experience and this concept wasn't new to me, but please let me re-iterate: (1) Good, honest people will pay a fair price for things that warrant it; (2) Pirates/criminals never will pay, almost regardless of price; (3) DRM and anti-piracy measures that frustrate, insult and infuriate your paying customers really do backfire.

You mean besides the ones with blue hair driving at 30 MPH on a 45 MPH divided highway? Because we've had those for a while.

...about 67 BTC/day at the current difficulty. About $1,000/day, or $30,000/month.

WUT?

67 BTC/day == $1,000/day? In other words - $16/BTC?

I thought it was more like $140 or so?

Maybe just add another zero in there...

Why? What's the point of this "feature"? Sounds like some ass-clown in marketing has a hard-on for social media.

Stories like this make me wonder why RIM is hurting so badly. Not.

Isn't Fisker swirling the drain?

Fisker's always struck me as "all sizzle, no steak".

I didn't know you could peddle $80 HDMI cables from the comfort of your living room - how does that work?

Engineering isn't a secret club, but it is a discipline.

Like you, I'm also very happy to see non-engineers tinker with things like this, but I'm glad that engineers are designing airplanes, implantable cardiac devices, and elevator controls.

There is a big difference between a "one off" hobby endeavor and a safety-critical product that has to be manufactured and sold.

BTW, I've never met an engineer who believes that his/her discipline is some kind of "secret club"... Serious question: are you a non-engineer who has been spurned by some elitist engineer or something? I just find the title of the post a bit angry. Tinkerers have been around forever; the technology is constantly changing and making innovation easier and more accessible, which I see as a good thing.