Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Fail Safe? (Score 1) 253

Did anyone ever hear of distributed systems? One simple computer to run evey critical system all networked together. Each and everyone can keep it's device functioning with manual command if everything else fails. The only way to upgrade the system is to physically remove it an plug in a new one.

It's embedded programming 101!!

Comment Computer Locks (Score 1) 258

Back when D-RAM cost a mint and the first faster CPUs were comiming out the college was considering putting locks on all their public computers at a cost of &100.00 per computer. One other fellow and I were able to convence them to replace one or two screws in the computer cabnets with aluminum pop rivets at a cost of $40.00 a department for a drill, pop rivet tool & pop rivets.

Red

Submission + - The joker behind the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory chip hoax

st1lett0 writes: Now and in years past, electronic engineers and hobbyists alike have enjoyed the classic 1972 April Fool's joke by Signetics of the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory chip. Now it seems that the previously anonymous practical joker has identified himself and stepped forward with new information to correct and complete the story.

Comment No matter if thier Hybrids or GMO good seed Pays! (Score 1) 377

I own a dry land farm in Southwest Oklahoma. I don't like the price of GM or Hybrid seed but I sure pay it every time. I need less fertilizer, fuel, insecticide, water and herbicide than with public domain seed. The patents on seed don't last forever and they will still be good in coming years as they are rotated to preserve the patents and to stay ahead in the arms race between insects, weeds and GM plants. Twenty or thirty years form now the GM genetics we use now will be useful again as the pest will have lost most of the resistance the developed to them.

If you look on the drought monitor http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ there is a dark red spot in Oklahoma that been there for years. My place is in the middle of that. Some years have been a bust but the fellow that farms it has harvested the best crop of both cotton and wheat off it ever made in the last 5 years on an unbelievably small amount of rain.

The only thing different is being able to farm it no till due to GM Cotton in rotation with conventional bred alfalfa hay and Hard Red Winter wheat. He kept what little moisture he had by not disturbing the soil. My family has farmed that place for right at 100 years with better average yields almost every year until the last 7 year drought. It will make that up when the drought breaks as they always do. I've been though 3 and my family has been thou 9 and 2 really bad weather events. My grandfather was very impressed by his grand fathers stories of the Year with out a summer. My great grand mother's stories of the winters of 1885-1886 and 1886-1887 when 75% to 80% of the cattle on the range in the USA froze to death in the "Great Dieup" kept the winter of 1899 from killing even more cattle when Galveston Bay froze over in a 5 day cold spell at 9 degrees F.

I'll take modern farming thank you as the world was on the edge of starvation using organic methods in 1900 before the Fritz Haber invented an efficient way to make ammonia from natural gas and electricity.

Red

Submission + - Shady car dealers install secret GPS trackers. 1

FarnsworthG writes: A news story about the capture of a kidnapper mentioned that he was caught because a car dealer had secretly installed a GPS device on his car. Apparently this is becoming common for "buy-here-pay-here" dealers. The devices are sold by Spireon and Jalopnik among many others. Raises interesting privacy questions.

Submission + - I don't know about causing fatalities, but it's definitely tedious. (time.com)

gbcox writes: Personally, I favor year 'round DST — I like the extra sunlight in the evening... but regardless, I just wish we'd pick one and stop futzing with the time twice a year. As it is right now, we only have about 4 months of standard time as it is... is it really worth the effort to switch the clocks for only four months? I think not.

Comment Re:Suspension of Disbelief (Score 1) 193

Its very interesting fiction. I have worked with a couple of folks with IQ's that were off the chart that worked outside the box and delivered wonderfully elegant solutions. They can't deliver them on cue or deliver every time. One took two years to write 20 lines of code.

Only idiot savants deliver on cue and they do it every time. I knew one rather well with an IQ in the 60's he followed simple instructions very well. He could keep track of the location, moment, ownership and place in the ginning rotation of at least 2,000 cotton trailers, all in his head. I don't think he could read or write. He was one of the cotton gins greatest human asserts.

Red

Comment Re:Same as humans ... (Score 1) 165

Let's propose a real incident. Put a robot in the place of the driver of semi-trailer truck hauling rock that comes over a hill at 55 miles an hour and sees a human driven school bus pulling off a side road in fount of the truck. The truck driver can't stick it the ditch on the right becaus of a concrete overpass that will throw him right back in front into the bus.

Ten kids were killed both drivers and the truck were cited and used the limits of liability of all insurance companies. I know the father of one of the kids he thought the truck diver did the best he could. What he thought of th bus diver anyone can visualize.

Robots have to solve problems like those before the drive cars.

The problems for the robot should be more complex. Try a robot driven taxi with 3 passengers going fast enough it can't stop in time and if it runs off the road at least 50% of it occupants die, an oncoming bus with 4 people in it and 5 drunks in the cabs lane on a 2-lane bridge in the fog. The adjust the number in each group and see how many of winch group the robot kills.

Red

Comment Re:Obvious Reason (Score 1) 579

You have a point. The format at best is an annoying way to both read an write, but at least it is reasonable consistent. I have been pleasantly surprised the the shrill, green, progressive, skin headed, vegan voices haven't manged to take over Wikipedia as they try to anywhere someone will listen to them. To do that kind of work and then get the abuse that come with it take rhino hide.

search term AND wiki
Is a good way to get a start on researching most subjects as most give a decent bibliography to use to start looking. Many have a good collection of data one can use to start working with to try their hypothesis to see if passes the smell test.

Red

Slashdot Top Deals

If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly.

Working...