Light Peak isn't really a port standard like USB or Firewire, it's a consolidator. You can run USB over Light Peak, same with Firewire, HDMI, Audio, Networking, etc. The goal with Light Peak is to connect two cords to your laptop (power and Light Peak) and have everything connected to the other end of Light Peak (Monitor, USB keyboard/mouse, Firewire drive, Ethernet, etc), making it much less cluttered around your laptop and enabling you to pick it up and go fairly quickly. This really shows off in smaller devices, take a Netbook or a Tablet, instead of needing all that space and hardware for USB, and the like you can simply route it over Light Peak and have one connector take care of it all.

Since this is an Intel standard (albeit sponsored and pushed by Apple) it doesn't come with the restrictions that Apple would have placed on it if it were their own standard. This should be fairly open and available. I bet within a year, two at most, nearly all laptops will have this port, and there will be expansion cards available for PC's to add the port. That is, unless it's a total flop, which is possible.

I looked into microcomputer's to experiment with and finally went with the ARMmite Pro, only to find out later that it is a Arduino-compatible device and what Arduino is, somehow in all my microcomputer searching I had totally missed that device. The ARMmite Pro is a great little board to play with, ARM 7 running at 60mhz, can be programmed using Basic or C, and (apparently) pin compatible with Arduino, all for $30. Not an Arduino killer, but a great way to 'upgrade' from Arduino without loosing form-factor or add-on boards.

yah, you have no clue.

If you were able to sit down and listen in to any of our peer reviews or look through our test cases and procedures you might get an understanding. We work on Safety Critical software, there are no 'qualms about lying', and just 'saying it's all good' will in fact cause you to lose your job and fast. We regularly work on DO-178B Level A projects, that's the kind of project where if something fails people will die. As it stands I doubt there is an airline in the USA that doesn't have some code we've either developed or reviewed. We lie on something and we have a good chance of being on the airplane that lie is going to effect. We also do a bunch of medical project (pacemakers), one of our top managers made sure that when his father got a pacemaker that we worked on.

Bottom line is we will not lie on safety critical software, to the degree where we have stopped working with customers that have repeatedly requested us to lie to get a project done in time or under budget. There business wasn't worth our reputation or peoples lives.

I work for a company does full life-cycle development and verification of safety-critical software, the main areas we work in are aircraft instrumentation, smart munitions, and medical equipment (including pacemakers). The amount of testing and verification that goes into these software categories often exceed the development cost, and at every level it is documented and traced. What on earth do Doctors think they will see in the source code? We do verification, peer review, tracing, etc. what would an MD find that a room full of software, system, and QA engineers wouldn't? About the only thing that they would be able to look at and have a hope in understanding is criteria for taking action, and that is in the requirements and should be reviewed at that level, not at the code level.

Next thing they know Pilots will demand the ability to review the code for their cockpit management system and soldiers the ability to review the code for their Anti-Tank rockets!

Microsoft, it has nothing to do with those other words. :)

Something to remember as you look at this, the LightPeak connection isn't just a connector onto itself, it's also designed to handle all other connector types (eSATA, USB, Firewire, DVI, etc). It's designed to be the one port you plug into your laptop while at the other end a dozen different devices are connected to it, all using different protocols.

I'm guessing here, but I suspect that the difficulty of keeping the hydraulic fluid from freezing, coupled with the hydraulics itself made for too much weight/complexity to the system, so they decided on the deploy-once option.

It's not as if there will be multiple takeoffs and landings between servicing, the system is designed around one takeoff, one landing, service, rinse, and repeat.

I haven't updated to the 3.21 firmware (the one that disables Other OS), and I suspect many others have ignored the update as well. I'm betting Sony sees this and in response has decided the best way to go is to force future updates down our throat, not giving us the option.

I wouldn't be surprised if it has more to do with the gaming laws, every transaction from every slot machine/gambling device needs to be recorded and stored for a long time (over 5 years I think) that makes for a Lot of storage.

Eh, it's not that bad. in Wisconsin (or at least my part of it) it costs $150 to register a company as a LLC. That's a fairly low barrier.

It actually goes both ways, if the mosquito detection is perfectly inline with the laser then you don't need to know distance, if the mosquito detection is offset from the laser you need to know distance in order to correctly compensate for the difference of detecting it at x-y when at z height vs hitting at x-y when at z-10 height.

Actually that isn't the case, I've been keeping an eye on the porting of GCD to other OSs and there are build options for with and without blocks (the non-standard C extension).

As of right now I think the status is that FreeBSD (and other BSDs) can compile GCD with or without block support, Solaris is 90% there (again with and without blocks), and Linux is about 70% there (can compile and parts work, but not all of it).

Yah that did kinda end up going a bit far on that tack....

the point I was trying to make was that having a central, government controlled, education system is inherently bad news and can lead to brainwashing being worked into the curriculum. With many options for education, with only one under the control of government, and basic requirements on the others (X hours per year, to minimum of X level math, reading, science, etc) you end up with a robust educational system that can stand up to pressures of the nutjobs.

If you are using their presence on slashdot to disprove their statement on not being socially awkward, why is it then that the majority of people on slashdot are likely from public schools and homeschoolers are in the minority here? (judging by the harsh treatment all home schooling topics seem to get).

"He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
Adolf Hitler

"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
Adolf Hitler

These two quotes alone are worth getting a child out of public schools and into private, religious, or home schools. It is very bad for the government to have total control of all child education, the freedom to teach your child in the way you think is best is a big part of what keeps the US government in check, they don't own the youth.