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Comment Re:Xilinx (Score 1) 63

Biggest problem THERE would be that they'd have to open up the X86 kimono a bit more than they'd really want to do that with NIOS.  I won't be surprised in one way (your meaning of the situation) if they do it and surprised all the same- because they're giving stuff out that can be more readily reverse engineered through the tools, etc. that people would get as a result of that decision.

Comment Re:Conflict of interest (Score 1) 63

Not a conflict of interest.  Just that a competitor just bought your supplier.  Big difference.  It's a problem that you need to find a new supplier.  The drawbacks with FPGAs is that there's nothing other than your sole supplier is just that.  You can't readily or easily swap out the FPGAs like you can SoC's in the ARM or MIPS space- or like RAM or eMMC's.  There's a bit of "standard" and "open" involved with things there.  I consider it necessary evil to be using them because they're not as open or "standardized" as the other stuff- but the moment someone wises up, even though it'll be a race to the bottom like the other plays, they will be the "king" there.

Comment Re:So, what's the plan? (Score 2) 63

They're big and slow compared to an ASIC, yes.  But the thing is, they're not big and slow overall- they're reconfigurable and you can dynamically change the logic (Witness Altera's OpenCL offering on the higher-end stuff they offer...  You don't offer that unless you're competitive with GPUs...) on the fly.  They have a place and it's not always custom logic.  It's adaptable custom logic- which ASICs **CANT** do.  CPUs are slow and plodding in many of the tasks you're talking about in that space- and GPUs are cumbersome and painful to use compared to them for that use.

Comment Re:Crap hardware, not surprising (Score 0) 192

Define "better". So very few devices work well for things in the $35 category. You typically have to spend double that for similar gear- and IT isn't any better- they're all bare boards and each have gotchas gallore for their use.

Most people aren't going to shell out $500 or more for the board that accounts for all the possible concerns- which is what you get to pay for someone to have done most of the gotcha removals on the design. Well, unless they're building a system to commercially control an industrial CNC machine or the like...

Comment Re:He-3 mining? (Score 3, Interesting) 283

SMH... You do know what He3 is, right? It's a Helium Isotope.

Helium's melting point

Absolute Zero

Helium freezes at just a degree above Absolute Zero. The dark side of the moon's entirely too warm for frozen He3. It's sequestered in the regolith of the Moon's Surface and is constantly replenished over time by the Solar Wind.

I guess I shouldn't expect better...it is /. after all.

Comment Re:He-3 mining? (Score 2) 283

It's sequestered in the regolith and rock on the surface. You could call it mining, since that's the same premise behind most mining- you peel rock/sand out, you extract what you were after and leave behind tailings. Fortunately it's largely in the regolith, so you wouldn't disturb it too much and the Sun's always in the process of replacing it over time. You could also call it extraction- which would also be accurate.

Comment Re:Demand (Score 5, Insightful) 224

They're all fatally flawed. The biggest problem with biofuels as they currently are is that we're not really doing them right. We're taking food and converting it to fuel- when we should be producing the fuel as a recycling process which isn't the same thing and isn't as "polluting" and the like. It's not a solution, per se, to fuel- but it is a solution to convert what'd go into landfills and the like into something else useful as it can be used for fuel and feedstock for plastics, medicine, etc.

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