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Comment Re:Who this time? (Score 2) 22

by fdragon (#60324961) Attached to: Garmin Services and Production Go Down After Ransomware Attack

But do any of those depend on connected services back to the mothership? I'm guessing not, that those are standalone systems and they're still running just fine, even if they can't reach support or a website to download firmware updates.

Software for Air is down. This is going to have the effect breaking the ability to get accurate data needed to file a flight plan. Depending on the plane, this could result in effective grounding of a number of flights for the duration.

Truck Electronic Records Keeping used by long haul truck driving is likely effected (no article mentions Garmin is in this industry, but their website does mention the products). Depending on jurisdiction, and cargo, this could result in the trucks having to be halted for the duration as they would not be able to provide proof of compliance with the laws any longer. Sure paper log books do exist, but not all jurisdictions allow them.

From the article :

Pilots have told ZDNet today that they haven't been able to download a version of Garmin's aviation database on their Garmin airplane navigational systems. Pilots need to run an up-to-date version of this database on their navigation devices as an FAA requirement. Furthermore, the Garmin Pilot app, which they use to schedule and plan flights, was also down today, causing additional headaches.

Comment Re:Ever heard of the parking brake? (Score 1) 365

What we may be seeing here is a repeat of what happened in the motorcycle industry happening to the car industry.

Motorcycle shift patterns have been standardized in US specification bikes since the 1960s due to http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/C... to enforce the 1N234 pattern on the left foot peg. Prior to this, it was not uncommon to find UK spec bikes with 32N1 and 1N234. Norton and Triumph are good examples of manufactures that changed during the 1960s when this standard came out.

Where things get interesting is there are scooter segments that use a N12345 pattern instead of the motorcycle pattern of 1N2345.

Because of this, I always ask what shift pattern is used on motorcycles when riding a new on for the first time.

But if you want some safety' changes that got taken off subsequent year models, BMW during the 1980s put a spring loaded auto retract side stand on at least the R series bikes to prevent you from riding off with the side stand down. No idea how many of these bikes got dropped on their side because owners looking to get off their bike would put the stand down, lean the bike over, and find the stand had already come back up. Another I actually liked was middle 1990s through early 2010s (model refresh time dependent) BMW had 3 different buttons for turn signals, Left handlebar for left, right handlebar for right, and a cancel instead of the 3 position toggle switch found on nearly every other bike before and since. Hazard was to hit both left and right at the same time. Midway, the bikes got auto cancel as a number of complaints came in that the cancel switch was hard to reach when wearing some types of gloves.
Ubuntu

Submission + - Linux on an 8 Bit micro (ubuntuvibes.com)

Submitted by dartttt
dartttt writes: Dmitry Grinberg has successfully booted Ubuntu 9.04 on an 8 bit micro machine with 6.5 KHz CPU and 16 MB RAM.

Grinberg did this experiment on a ATmega1284p, 8-bit RISC microcontroller clocked at 24MHz and equipped with 16KB of SRAM and 128KB of flash storage. Since the RAM was too low, he added 30-pin 16MB SIMM to the machine and a 1 GB SD card to host Ubuntu image.

Minimum system requirements for running Linux are considered to be a 32bit system with proper Modern Memory Management Unit (MMU) and 1 MB RAM. The experiment was done to prove that Linux can successfully run on an 8 bit micro.

To get the world's slowest Linux Computer running, he had to write an ARMv5 emulator which supports 32bit processor and MMU. A similar machine can be made very easily and everything should come in about $20. He has also provided full source code and a porting guide.

Submission + - The placebo effect not just on drugs

Submitted by dvdme
dvdme writes: It seams like the placebo effect isn't just valid on drugs. It's also a fact on elevators, offices and traffic lights. An article by Greg Ross on http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/11/04/placebo-buttons/ says, and I quote:
"In most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the “close door” button has no effect. Otis Elevator engineers confirmed the fact to the Wall Street Journal in 2003.

Similarly, many office thermostats are dummies, designed to give workers the illusion of control. “You just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat,” said Illinois HVAC specialist Richard Dawson. “Guess what? They quit calling you.”

In 2004 the New York Times reported that more than 2,500 of the 3,250 “walk” buttons in New York intersections do nothing. “The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on.”

Submission + - Is Telstra violating the GPL? (delimiter.com.au)

Submitted by daria42
daria42 writes: Uh oh ... looks like Australia's largest telco Telstra hasn't exactly been paying attention to its responsibilities under the GNU GPL. Australian coder Angus Gratton has been investigating the company's branded T-Hub, T-Box and T-Touch products — all based on Linux, and all without any source code or GPL license attached. Naughty. However it's not as though Telstra is the only one to blame — the goods are manufactured by Sagem, Netgem and Huawei respectively.

Comment Re:Attempt to delaying uptake of competing product (Score 1) 657

by fdragon (#33864466) Attached to: GM Criticized Over Chevy Volt's Hybrid Similarities

Texas has a speed limit of 80 mph between San Antonio and El Paso on Interstate Highway 10. Other roads in that area have similar day time speed limits. Texas is also quirky in that it is a Reasonable and Prudent state which means under various conditions the posted speed limit means nothing and you can be giving a speeding ticket for driving too slow, or too fast when driving the posted speed limit all depending on what other traffic or the weather is doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States

All of this means that in Texas, you can be a very short trip away from a road where the only safe speed to drive is over 70 mph. Never mind the large number of private race tracks people use with various club events like SCCA, or various performance car owners clubs.

And having the gas engine kick in and drive the wheels directly at 70 mph or with low batters is an interesting issue in and of itself. If you are in the middle of turning the car to a new direction, the results could even potentially cause the car to suddenly change handling characteristics.
Technology

Submission + - Computing in the new world: Scaling to 1e6+ Cores (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by mattaw
mattaw writes: In my* blog post I describe a system designed to test a route to the potential future of computing. What do we do when we have computers with 1 million cores? What about a billion? How about 100 billion?

None of our current programming models or computer architecture models apply to machines of this complexity (and with their corresponding component failure rate and other scaling issues). The current model of coherent memory/identical time/everything can route to everywhere just can't scale to machines of this size. So where did the scientists** at the University of Manchester (including Steve Furber one of the ARM founders) and the University of Southampton turn for a new model? They took one straight out of their own heads. Quite literally: their brains.

Our brains just don't work like any computers we currently make. Our brains have a lot more than 1 million processing elements (more like the 100 billion), all of which don't have any precise idea of time (vague ordering of events maybe) nor a shared memory and not everything routes to everything else but anyone who argues the brain isn't a pretty spiffy processing system ends up looking pretty silly (assuming they have one). In effect modern computing bears as much relation to biological computing as the ordered world of sudoku does to the statistical chaos of quantum mechanics.

Read the article*** to see a preview of the brain turned into hardware (and of course you will read all the papers from Manchester's website before posting won't you). Who says science is boring?

* Note the subtle declaration of interest. I also work at the University of Southampton, UK.
** I am not and have never been one of these mighty people trying to change the world. I claim no credit. At best I helped some of the PhD students and staff with a few bits and bobs plus the odd ARM development kit.
*** No free lunch here /. You may have to actually read the source article.

Submission + - New Air Conditioner Process cuts energy use 50-90% (nrel.gov) 2

Submitted by necro81
necro81 writes: The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has announced that it has developed a new method for air conditioning that reduces energy use by 50-90%. The DEVap system cools air using evaporative cooling, which is not new, but combines the process with a liquid dessicant for pulling the water vapor out of the cooled air stream. The liquid dessicant, a very strong aqueous solution of lithium chloride or sodium chloride, is separated from the air stream by a permeable hydrophobic membrane. Heat is later used to evaporate water vapor back out — heat that can come from a variety of sources such as solar or natural gas. The dessicants are, compared to typical refrigerants like HCFCs, relatively safe for the environment.
Science

Submission + - Why Being Wrong Makes Humans So Smart 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Kathryn Schulz writes in the Boston Globe that the more scientists understand about cognitive functioning, the more it becomes clear that our capacity to make mistakes is utterly inextricable from what makes the human brain so swift, adaptable, and intelligent and that rather than treating errors like the bedbugs of the intellect — an appalling and embarrassing nuisance we try to pretend out of existence, we need to recognize that human fallibility is part and parcel of human brilliance. Neuroscientists increasingly think that inductive reasoning undergirds virtually all of human cognition. Humans use inductive reasoning to learn language, organize the world into meaningful categories, and grasp the relationship between cause and effect in the physical, biological, and psychological realms and thanks to inductive reasoning, we are able to form nearly instantaneous beliefs and take action accordingly. But our use of inductive reasoning comes with a price. "The distinctive thing about inductive reasoning is that it generates conclusions that aren’t necessarily true. They are, instead, probabilistically true — which means they are possibly false," writes Schulz. "Because we reason inductively, we will sometimes get things wrong." Schulz recommends that we respond to the mistakes (or putative mistakes) of those around us with empathy and generosity and demand that our business and political leaders acknowledge and redress their errors rather than ignoring or denying them. "Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity, or evil intent, we can liberate ourselves from the impossible burden of trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition that we could be in error, without deeming ourselves idiotic or unworthy.""
Biotech

FDA Approves Vaccine For Prostate Cancer 194

Posted by timothy from the where-you-can-stick-it dept.
reverseengineer writes "The US Food and Drug Administration has given its first first approval for a therapeutic cancer vaccine. In a clinical trial 'involving 512 men, those who got Provenge (sipuleucel-T) had a median survival of 25.8 months after treatment, while those who got a placebo lived a median of 21.7 months. After three years, 32 percent of those who got Provenge were alive, compared with 23 percent of those who got the placebo. ... "The big story here is that this is the first proof of principle and proof that immunotherapy works in general in cancer, which I think is a huge observation," said Dr. Philip Kantoff, chief of solid tumor oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the lead investigator in Dendreon's largest clinical trial for the drug. "I think this is a very big thing and will lead to a lot more enthusiasm for the approach."'"
Image

Hollywood Stock Exchange Set To Launch In April 100

Posted by samzenpus from the put-me-down-for-$10-on-portman dept.
You can buy and sell actor or movie "stock" for virtual cash on the website Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX). Starting in April the company plans on letting you turn those movie performance predictions into real dollars. HSX filed with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for approval as an active trading site in November 2008 and has just entered the final phase of regulatory review. Richard Jaycobs, president of HSX's parent company, said, "The number of people who visit movie theaters each year and form opinions about a film's success is in the tens of millions. We believe that's the reason the public response to this product has been very positive."
Transportation

Porsche Unveils 911 Hybrid With Flywheel Booster 197

Posted by timothy from the yeah-well-I-get-better-mileage dept.
MikeChino writes "Porsche has just unveiled its 911 GT3 R Hybrid, a 480 horsepower track vehicle ready to rock the 24-hour Nurburgring race this May. Porsche's latest supercar will use the same 911 production platform available to consumers today, with a few race-ready features including front-wheel hybrid drive and an innovative flywheel system that stores kinetic energy from braking and then uses it to provide a 160 horsepower burst of speed. The setup is sure to offer an advantage when powering out of turns and passing by other racers."
Java

Sun's Project Darkstar Game Server Platform No More 82

Posted by timothy from the dropped-off-the-moving-truck dept.
sproketboy writes "Project Darkstar, an open source software platform from Sun labs that simplifies the development of horizontally scalable servers for online games, is being discontinued as of the Oracle acquisition. This project, mentioned a couple of years back on Slashdot, was a unique concept for building an application server specific to on-line gaming. Sadly they were so close at version 0.9.11 (which is still very stable). Hopefully the open source community can get involved and help continue work on this project."

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The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. Seek simplicity and distrust it. -- Whitehead.

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