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Comment: Next step - Semiconductors (Score 4, Interesting) 69

by mykepredko (#48464355) Attached to: ISS's 3-D Printer Creates Its First Object In Space

Things will start to get interesting when astronauts can create semiconductors in in space. I believe there are some demonstration technologies using ink-jet printers.

I would imagine it will be a long time before we can see the amazingly tiny devices that can be built on Earth, but I would expect that replacement electronics for communications and actuator drivers should be achievable in fairly short order. I would guess that replacement solar panel segments and power supply components (including batteries) would be on the menu as well.


+ - Sierra Nevada Protest Halts Production Of SpaceX And Boeing Space Taxis->

Submitted by mykepredko
mykepredko (40154) writes "Popular Science reports that Sierra Nevada is protesting it's exclusion from NASA's CCtCap program – and it looks like they’re taking their competitors down with them. Both SpaceX and Boeing have been told to halt production of their NASA-funded space taxis until the space agency resolves a legal protest issued by SNC. Last month, NASA finally announced the winners of its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program, an initiative aimed at fostering the development of private spaceflight. The two winning companies, SpaceX and Boeing, received contracts with NASA and a combined sum of $6.8 billion to build and operate their own space taxis, which would ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station starting in 2017."
Link to Original Source

Comment: This a question that Microsoft should answer (Score 4, Informative) 272

by mykepredko (#47482957) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Many Employees Does Microsoft Really Need?

This week, I got a real WTF when dealing with Microsoft products and the amazing amount of redundancy that is possible in the company.

We have a robot product that we can communicate to using Bluetooth SPP and we are creating an application that can control it remotely. We originally went with a serial interface (after pairing, recording the "com#" of the device and then passing it to our application), this is somewhat cumbersome so we wanted to pair from our app and connect directly (saving the user from doing those operations manually).

Logically, this would be one set of APIs, but it seems there are five depending on the OS - the only ones that are common are for Vista/Win7. I would think that right here there are four teams that are redundant - pick a single, consistent API, add it in Service Packs for all supported OSes and assign one team to the job.

I would expect there are many more examples out there of similar inefficiencies that somebody within Microsoft should be able to answer with the ability to make things easier for developers and make developers available for squishing bugs.

Sorry about the rant, but standard IO interface APIs should be just that, standard.


Comment: Still a ways to go (Score 3, Interesting) 131

I saw an interesting graph in Aviation Week some time ago about the energy density of batteries versus the same mass of hydrocarbon fuel. The article was in relation to the idea of creating (plug-in) hybrid airliners.

The batteries used in the 787 store four orders of magnitude less energy than the equivalent mass of jet fuel.

I'm mentioning this because it looks like these batteries would bring the difference up to three orders of magnitude.

Still a ways to go before batteries can compete against hydrocarbon/fossil fuels.


Comment: You're not alone (Score 5, Informative) 212

by mykepredko (#43884029) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Supporting "Antique" Software?

Hi Timothy,





Once you have the program in a media that you can work with, you may have problems with the installation. You will probably have to create a virtual machine on your PC AND there may be 16 bit programs that you have to convert to 32 bit - here's a great resource that's saved me a couple of times: http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=10988


Good luck!


Comment: The correct answer is ... maybe (Score 1) 170

by mykepredko (#42983815) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Will Cars Eventually Need a Do-Not-Track Option?

Wouldn't the best answer for an individual be based on their driving habits and history?

If you tended to stay at the speed limit (or reasonably above according to traffic), were a defensive driver and were reasonably confident that you wouldn't cause an accident, wouldn't you want tracking on to show that it's the other guys fault?

Depending on your hubris level, the next step is a dashboard camera because clearly you are never going to cause an accident - right?


+ - Elon Musk Lays Out His Evidence That New York Times Tesla Model S Test Drive Was-> 1

Submitted by
mykepredko writes "Tesla Motors CEO and founder Elon Musk definitely isn’t the best guy to try to pull a fast one on. The visionary entrepreneur set Twitter a titter when he claimed earlier this week that New York Times writer John Broder had fudged details about the Tesla Models S car’s range in cold weather, resulting in what he termed a “fake” article. Musk promised evidence, and now he has delivered, via the official Tesla blog."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Bring in your team lead (Score 1) 507

by mykepredko (#42549347) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To React To Coworker Who Says My Code Is Bad?

Interesting question and one I've thought about for a bit since the original question, from the other side came out.

I would say, bring in the team lead as an arbitrator. It's their job to direct the work and (hopefully) develop team members - this guy sounds like he needs a bit of development and level setting.


Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught.