Comment Re:All I see is (Score 3, Insightful) 282
There's an assumption there that Georgian prisons have either of those things. I'm not holding my breath.
Comment what to pick... (Score 1) 264
60 exactly (one nice 26in 16:10 flanked by two neat 17in pretty bang on a4 size ones), so what do I pick?
Smart Grid Brings Powerline Broadband Back? 120
judgecorp writes "The UK is giving powerline broadband a serious trial once again, in up to 1000 homes in Liverpool. The technology was once hailed as an alternative to ADSL, delivered over the electricity mains, but lost out because of radio interference and price. The UK government is backing the installation of smart meters across the country, and it seems a new generation of 200Mbps powerline broadband could ride on that, cutting the installation costs. What about the interference issues? A recent FAQ from the regulator, Ofcom, says it has not found any evidence of a breach of EMC rules, but is keeping an eye on it."
Comment Re:Everyone focuses on the engine.... (Score 1) 227
Neither do the french ones.
This looks on the surface similar to the Ariane-5 failure in '96. Which, as we all know, was eventually traced to an unprotected 64-bit double to 16-bit integer conversion overflow ...
This looks on the surface similar to the Ariane-5 failure in '96. Which, as we all know, was eventually traced to an unprotected 64-bit double to 16-bit integer conversion overflow
The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza 282
iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."
Hand Mounted Flame Thrower 30
emeraldd writes "Everett Bradford's 'Prometheus Device' is a hand-mounted appliance that shoots fire."
Comment Branching out (Score 1) 211
Reduce pollination? What, on earth, does plant birth control have to do with toyota? Unless they're going for umbrella corporation status, that sort of thing would be way outside their usual line of business.
Of course, if they ARE...
Oh wait. Pollution.
Oh wait. Pollution.
Comment What I did - and recommend (Score 5, Informative) 185
1. Get a (the) Spartan-3 starter board. It's got the 500 variant of the Spartan-3 on it which is big enough to implement even small processors. The board also has some very limited VGA output, and a heap of other things that makes it fun to work with (Serial I/F, etc). The manual for this board is one of the better ones for beginners, as well. I broke my own teeth on this board. It's 149 US schmucks from digilent.
2. Get Xilinx's free tool suite; its nicely compatible with that board. Free download from the web. Heck, you can even download and play with it without the / any board (but then you don't, of course, get the blinkenlights.) You can however try out and simulate designs before going to FPGA, and thus figure out why the (redacted) it doesn't (redacted) work. Simulations are your main way of verifying your design once you're past 20-odd gates.
3. Learn the HDL of your choice. Read the books. One warning only: it is NOT a programming language - the entire model in your head about how software works needs to be replaced. Case statements are king. Productivity with HDL's are generally way lower than software; don't be surprised by this.
4. Do points 1 through 3 in reverse order. Having a shiny 150 schmucker board won't help anything if you still have to spend two weeks grokking HDL's.
HTH.
2. Get Xilinx's free tool suite; its nicely compatible with that board. Free download from the web. Heck, you can even download and play with it without the / any board (but then you don't, of course, get the blinkenlights.) You can however try out and simulate designs before going to FPGA, and thus figure out why the (redacted) it doesn't (redacted) work. Simulations are your main way of verifying your design once you're past 20-odd gates.
3. Learn the HDL of your choice. Read the books. One warning only: it is NOT a programming language - the entire model in your head about how software works needs to be replaced. Case statements are king. Productivity with HDL's are generally way lower than software; don't be surprised by this.
4. Do points 1 through 3 in reverse order. Having a shiny 150 schmucker board won't help anything if you still have to spend two weeks grokking HDL's.
HTH.
Faction Changes Coming To World of Warcraft 209
A Blizzard representative today announced that they're working on a service for players to switch factions in World of Warcraft, going from Horde to Alliance or vice versa. "There's still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we're pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it." They also said there would be "some rules involved with when and how the service can be used."
Comment I'd do that. (Score 3, Insightful) 13
I'd set that exercise. Its a perfectly good educational exercise, both in critical thinking and security.
To be a white hat you need to think like a black hat.
To be a white hat you need to think like a black hat.
Comment Re:Sex? (Score 1) 511
I know I'd like to catch it via sex.
I, for one, would like to compain about the lack of options in this regard.
So I picked 'Something else'. And am now making a comment about it.
Comment Re:Yeah! (Score 1) 251
erm.
A beowulf cluster won't perform worse than any individual machine in it. The limitation is the cpu to memory path, which becomes saturated when you have N cores. And in a beowulf, you'd have many many of those paths, meaning you would still get a speedup - BUT each individiual machine is limited as per TFA.
Age of Conan Servers To Merge, Funcom Sees Layoffs 109
Two ominous signs have come recently for Age of Conan fans; developer Funcom went through a round of layoffs, and they announced plans to merge some of the game's servers in order to maintain a "healthy" population. Despite this, Funcom has maintained that development will continue for both the PC version and the upcoming Xbox 360 version of the game, confident that Age of Conan won't follow Tabula Rasa into oblivion. A writer at Vox ex Machina doesn't share that view, pointing to several of the game's flaws as reasons why it didn't maintain the popularity it enjoyed at launch.
Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom 137
souls writes "The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a 'global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and will not be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community.'"
How to Turn Your PC into a Mac 492
An anonymous reader writes "CNet is running a Mac fanboy's idea of a nightmare feature entitled 'Mock OS X: Five ways to make your PC more like a Mac'. While the idea of turning my PC into a Mac-like machine does get my juices flowing, I'm not sure the user experience would be exactly the same but I'm going to spend this afternoon trying it out anyway. "To borrow a metaphor from Spartacus, some people like oysters and some people like snails. Except what if there was a way to make your snail do some of the cool things oysters can do, like make pearls? And what if you could make your PC do some of the cool stuff that Macs do so well?"" Seems to me that this would be a lot easier if step one was install linux...
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How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's a known problem... don't worry about it."
