Viewing profile — morcheeba

AC is only popular because it works with transformers to step up/down the voltage, and it would be more expensive to step up/down a DC signal using electronics (which usually invol…

Ah, that explains why there is so much electronics in the cartridge! It seemed a bit like overkill, but returning the cartridge will get them their data.

>lower the respin costs You might be interested in structured ASICs, which allow for substantial reuse of masks between different products. At the extreme was a via-only definition…

Not OP, but I looked in to this a few years ago. It was more expensive then, and only went to 20 kHz. Higher frequencies are helpful if you're listening for the hiss of leaking gas…

The testing for aerospace is extremely rigorous ... For DO-178C level A (Catastrophic failure that can cause a crash or many fatal injuries) we're estimating 2 years to do MC/DC te…

+1 for RTEMS, another happy user!

Originally it was because iMessages were free, while SMS were $0.15-$0.20 each. So glad Apple broke that monopoly, along with many other anti-consumer wireless provider restriction…

Shmoocon had it right providing Shmoo balls.

hexdump will automatically does "squeezing" of repeated lines. Follow this with a line count and multiply by the bytes/line and you'll get a rough number of non-repetitive bytes. h…

Two issues to consider: - GPS positioning is more accurate if the satellites it sees come from a variety of angles (GDOP), so the satellites near the horizon are valuable. - Aircra…

>the console manufacturer is actually adding significant value and taking a fair (or not so fair) margin in exchage. I don't get this. What does a game console manufacturer do that…

That's essentially what he's doing. The patch antenna he's using have a null at the horizon, where ground-based jammers would be.

The AVP isn't sold in the EU yet.

Yep. The 65C02 has a SYNC output that goes high to indicate an instruction is being fetched on the current cycle. Since there is no cache, it's pretty simple to use this to determi…

Related question: I've seen news reports that the plane had experienced three recent pressurization issues (cabin pressure warnings). Does anyone know what kind of warning this was…

Is it the same as this video? https://vimeo.com/853557623

This is the sensor for the custom camera used to film content for The Sphere - a 316MP sensor capable of shooting HDR at 120FPS. The single CMOS chip is about the size of a 3.5" fl…

That was my first thought, too. My ideas was to make the plastic UV-curable so it would become rigid and not require inflation. I looked it up, and that's what they're doing - UV-c…

There was a company that did this circa 2003 - SMaL. Their "autobrite" sensor is built to capture log-scale natively. They've switched owners twice since then, but it seems like th…

That's really interesting. Chirality is one of the six indicators[1] we'll use to detect life on Titan when we land there in 2034. But Titan doesn't have its own magnetosphere; the…

SPARC is still alive, thanks to its open licensing & established toolchain, for the niche rad-hard space market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEON#LEON3FT_processor_core Although …

>How do we even know the money will be put to good use? The IBWC is its own thing, directly run under the State Department, with its own engineering staff and field offices. When w…

Good explanation! For completeness: In an Ion jet, the energy comes from (usually) solar power and the gaseous fuel provides the bulk. These are even weaker because of the limited …

Favorite Dale story: I had a booth at the first Maker Faire. As things were closing down on the last night, I was waiting at the front gate for a taxi back to the hotel. Dale saw m…