Comment Re:Profit is the challenge (Score 2) 95
I think you'll find that it is very profitable.
https://electrek.co/2018/01/23...
Comment The desktop is dead! Long live the desktop! (Score 1) 692
I think the day is close where you could buy TV/Monitors that have docking facilities for smart phones. With dual/quad processor phones coming on stream that are capable of most day to day computer activities, the days of the old desk top are numbered. The new desktop is the phone docking station (aka TV/Monitor) + wireless mouse/keyboard. Tablets are too big to be pocket portable, not big enough to do get stuff done.
Comment Early warning for Earthquakes (Score 1) 129
http://www.roam3.com/ are developing a system to give early warning of earthquakes to USAR here in Christchurch.
Comment A guillotine (Score 1) 247
Use a guillotine. A big foot operated version has no problems going thru pcb's.
Submission + - Studying the Impact of Lost Shipping Containers (failuremag.com) 3
swellconvivialguy writes: Looking at a picture of the world’s largest container ship it’s easy to visualize how 10,000 containers fall overboard from these vessels every year. Now scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute are undertaking the Lost Container Cruise, an attempt to gauge the effects of shipping containers lost at sea by studying a tire-filled container, which marine biologists discovered in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. ( The research is being funded by a multi-million dollar settlement with the operators of the Med Taipei, the ship that lost the cargo.) The work is not unlike studying a deep water shipwreck: Use robotic submarine to take pictures and collect sediment samples; repeat.
Submission + - U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors (nytimes.com) 1
snydeq writes: The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks, according to a report from The New York Times. 'Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe. The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.'
Submission + - Aquarius 'salt mapper' hits orbit
oxide7 writes: NASA launched a satellite featuring an brand-new instrument which will be able to measure the saltiness of Earth's oceans. Data from the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft will help scientists understand better the processes that drive ocean circulation and the movement of freshwater around the planet.
Comment Always avoid a .0 release! (Score 1) 293
Based on past experience then the 3.0 release will be faster but buggier than the 2.6.40 release would have been.
Comment Re:Hubble telescope, anyone? (Score 1) 244
I got it right. The mirror was precisely inaccurate - by one inch. It was manufactured to a very tight tolerance ( high precision ) but to the wrong shape - accuracy. In this case the 'truthfulness' of the mirror is the shape. The wrong shape won't work.
Comment Re:Hubble telescope, anyone? (Score 1) 244
Accuracy and precision are different see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision. In this case you should have said "...was incredibly precise one inch out of position."
Comment Re:Bashing for the sake of Bashing... (Score 1) 125
"...The only bad news? It runs XP."
OK, don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good old fashioned bashing against the almighty iSteve with my Ballmer signature series chair thrower, but c'mon, seriously? Do we have to consider every damn application that runs XP a bad thing?
Seems the "damned" OS has managed to survive in the corporate world years past Vista (we're STILL ordering brand-new systems with XP), and Netbooks have seen their own resurgence of support for the aging yet stable and predictable OS.
I run a Macbook for school. What do I have loaded on Fusion? Yup, you guessed it. XP, for when I MUST run a Windows app. Every student comes marching in every year with a new Vista or OSX-loaded laptop, yet my entire computer lab is still running...yup, right again. Good ol' XP. Old, yet functional.
And rounding out this volley back to the subject at hand, some simple applications (like a microscope) I would rather NOT have to worry about the bullshit bloat of some other OS, especially when you consider your target audience is USED to seeing XP.
Ok. I'll bite. I am a Scientific Instrument Engineer. I have worked in government and Universersity labs. When you have an expensive instrument like a NMR or mass spec with a price in excess of $100K then you would expect a long service life. And in fact the more you use and instrument the more valuable it becomes as you gain 'trust' in the instrument capabilities through multiple calibrations. When the instrument is controlled through a OS like XP then you limit the life time of the instrument. Also you have manufactures unwilling to provide support on untested variations of the OS (installing service packs etc). A solution I have seen is to put instruments with ancient ( i have seen win98 and SunOS 4.0 in current use ) on a subnet that is nated and firewalled off from the rest of the network.
Comment Re:There is reason to be concerned. (Score 4, Informative) 147
As someone who works for a startup, I cannot empathize how WRONG you are. Almost every aspect of what we do to bring our particular product to market is new and needs to be thoughtfully researched and developed. It isn't easy but the potential rewards make it worthwhile. We spend a lot of time 'proving' our ideas with prototypes to provide proof that we know what we are doing and that the risk for investors is reduced.
How Will Recent Financial Downturns Affect IT Jobs? 372
An anonymous reader writes "So, with the financial crisis and loss of jobs everywhere, what are the chances of getting a good IT job? I'm going to graduate this year with a BS in Software Engineering majoring in Network Security. I'll be looking for a job as a penetration tester eventually, but I hear that is hard to get right out of college so I'll be looking for a job as a Junior Network Admin or similar type of job to start off in. Is there a lack of jobs in this field? I figure computers always need fixing so they have to have some sort of IT personnel on staff to maintain the core of their business. Anyone have a good insight on this issue?"
Comment A world without patents. (Score 1) 481
A world without patents would look a lot like the FOSS world. Hardware/drugs/machinery would be ripped apart with immunity played with, improved, and refactored for different needs and roles. Hardware would rapidly evolve to niche markets, new hardware service companies and R&D houses would cater for not only maintenance and service contracts but for R&D and specialization tasks. The pace of development seen in the computing/software/FOSS world would transfer to the bulk of manufactured goods. Survival for manufacturers in this world means being the fastest and fittest. This also plays into the development of rapid prototyping tools into small scale manufacturing plants. Power/profit would go to the people who could innovate best/fastest.
So the question is how do we go from this stupid situation ( of inane patents and patent trolling ) to my dream world?
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