Posts by Simon Harris 2773 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2007
"That actual computation isn't directly affecting your quality of life - what you do with that computation might do... but not by a factor of a squillion."
The ability to do computations fast enough that you can do 2D FFTs in real time in an MRI scanner might affect your life if it allows a life-threatening condition to be found and treated in time. Some might say that avoiding a premature death makes you a squillion times better off.
How does teaching them Linux help if the system they're using (and it looks a pretty basic system) may well not have nearly enough memory to hold the kernel? Remember, we're talking about a cheap microcontroller here to sense buttons, light LEDs, and possibly interface to other hardware experiments.
As far as teaching them to fish goes, Linux here might be like trying to cast trawling nets off the side of a pedalo.
Possibly the ARM microcontroller wouldn't be that much cheaper than a PIC.
I'm not sure the starting kids out by learning the PIC architecture and instruction set is such a good idea (I've done it, but only because I've needed it for particular projects) - there are so many different microcontrollers that abstracting such things as programmable timers, IO ports, etc. is a better idea so they will get a general idea of how software can be used to control hardware than exactly how it is implemented on one type of processor. Of course, it doesn't stop the keen ones from delving into the hardware if they want.
If a high level language is available, it seems to make sense to use it rather than assembly code - how many kids will have the patience, for example, to write their own long division or multiplication subroutines instead of having it already there in the compiler?
Can someone tell me which widely used high level languages cannot do boolean logic - just about every one I have ever used does.
It could well be that with a PI, giving away a million of them a year is not doable, but giving away a million of these might be.
Sure, the PI is a more capable computer in that it has enough connectivity to do video, ethernet, USB and sound straight out of the box - it's this connectivity that probably pushes it outside of the budget for the programme. This machine seems to focus more on direct hardware control (viz, the two buttons and grid of LEDs built in - although as we've only seen a prototype, who knows what we'll end up with!), which would require daughter-boards on the PI pushing the budget further out of reach, assuming you're not going to build them yourself.
When I was 11 (this was in 1976), I had an electronics set for Christmas - this just had 2 transistors, a handful of resistors and capacitors, lightbulb, LDR and piezoelectric earpiece, and came with instructions for about 15 or so projects - of course I outgrew this and extended it and by 13 I was soldering together digital logic and at 15 had my first computer. The point is, something simple can spark an interest in a subject - it's a starting point, not the whole journey.
As has been mentioned, one major difference between this initiative and the original BBC computer is the reliance on a host computer to do the programming.
I'm not sure what desktop/laptop facilities the average 11 year old has available full time, but a lot seem to have Android or i-things these days - I wonder if the project developers could produce a version of the programming tools for tablets and phones, and have a bootstrap loader to pull in the code to Flash ROM, possibly over BlueTooth, to enable kids to tinker with their boards wherever they are.
I think the point is not so much pure programming (which could, as you say, be done solely on the host computer), as it is programming devices and teaching how they can interact with the physical world.
If students can see that the same programming languages and methods can be used to program the desktop (or laptop) computer as can be used to program something that responds to button presses and other sensors, switches lights on and off, etc. then it gets them used to the idea that computers may be at the centre of many everyday objects that they may not have thought of as being computerised before, and are not necessarily boxes with screens, keyboards, etc.
"Mains lead, USB plug. Simple."
A rewired laptop 'brick' power supply might be an easier root to blow up someone's computer - and easier to socially engineer if you're going to go the mains lead route, particularly if you know your mark's computer and can just surreptitiously swap PSUs when they're not looking.
If course, if it's a new Macbook, the PSU is a USB device so your idea's not far off the mark!
"I have yet to come across a USB stick ...or been given one at a trade show."
You must have been going to the wrong trade shows - at the ones I've been to they give them away like smarties. They tend to be the 1 or 2GByte varieties and are usually filled with company brochures and suchlike. I've had some in the shape of little robots, bones and joint replacements in the past.
I don't imagine that it's unlikely for a physics researcher to have experiments needing at least a MVolt. A quick google for "high voltage research" or "ultra high voltage research" will yield plenty of examples.
One possible scenario would be for there to be a fairly large number of capacitors, charged in parallel, each to a somewhat lower voltage (hence you don't need a huge gap between terminals of individual capacitors) and then switched into series, so the voltages in each are added together to something big.
I think I've seen something like this before...
http://squeezeboxstories.com/background/accordion-101-types-of-the-accordion/
"A sabot round from the Challenger 2 tank will make a bigger mess of the car than the laser did too. And it would take about 1 second."
Assuming the problem is to immobile the target rather than obliterate it, there might be less chance of getting any useful intelligence out of the occupants afterwards with a sabot round than a laser aimed at the engine.
Why is el Reg giving this odious site the time of day again? Lester already wrote about them, more amusingly, a few years ago.
Maybe, although GSM did originally stand for Groupe Spécial Mobile and was developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute based in Sophia-Antipolis, France.
However, the GSMA board is listed at http://www.gsma.com/aboutus/leadership/gsma-board so that's quite a multi-lingual cheeseboard.
CSIRO have a nice article about what actually happened here - it focuses on Parkes, but includes some information about Honeysuckle Creek too:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/apollo11/
Honeysuckle Creek's images were the first to be used, but the feed was switched over to use Parkes' output after a few minutes as the image quality from there was better.
You can choose whatever color you want.’ And I believe that’s abdicating your responsibility as a designer.”
So why do so many people I see with iPhones choose to have clip on covers with all manner of colourful designs, or made to make your phone into some cute animal shape? Are they saying they aren't happy with Ive's design as it stands, and want to change it to their preference?
If Ive had his way, would you even be allowed to change your phone wallpaper and ringtones - surely that's part of the design too?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
