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Replacing the CPU on on one host often puts every system in the rack at risk. Most household systems can stand a loss of a few % of performance with a patched kernel. Server rooms filled with racks and blades, such as a major data center hosts, can mean unscrambling rats' nests of cabling to extract a host, opening it up, edging blocking components out of the way, releasing the heat sinks, replacing the CPU, _replacing the thermal paste_, and re-attaching the heat sink, closing the system up, and testing it. Much like taking your car in for an oil change, this creates a real risk of making mistakes and requiring additional effort or replacement parts. It also creates a risk of failures in the weeks after the CPU replacement, especially if the installer mishandles the thermal paste.

The risk is compounded in environments with poorly configured cabling, such as those shone here: https://www.cepro.com/photo/th...

Completely halting and then cold booting servers is not a zero risk operation. Hosts, or arrays, that have been stable for years will fail to reboot and may even be unrecoverable in an environment where systems are not rebooted regularly and discovered earlier. Mechanical parts, such as fans, and spinning hard drives, are most likely to fail during such a restart. Old clock batteries can expire and fail to set time properly on reboot, old power supplies can fall out of spec and fail to handle start-up voltage requirements, the list of potential problems is extensive.

Replacing CPU's in a production environment can be as great a risk as the security issues of these Intel bugs.

I'm sorry but this barely looks similar to this.

Yeah, a red shirt would never live long enough to sit in a captains chair.

The theater is a reconstruction of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise from "Star Trek: Next Generation".

I'm sorry but this barely looks similar to this.

It does not work — despite decades of efforts, Blacks and womyn still earn less than others — for whatever reasons.

It causes ugly discrimination of other kinds — with government contracts officially favoring womyn-run businesses and colleges openly penalizing certain races.

It costs businesses billions to avoid such lawsuits, and millions more in damages and fees when the avoidance-efforts fail. And not just businesses — government agencies too pay (with our monies) to avoid being sued. Even worse, the prosecutions by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are of the "guilty until proven innocent" variety, with most targets agreeing to settle because the Executive can run them out of business before Judiciary gets to even hear the accusations.

And finally, even if it weren't for the failures and abuses, the whole idea is immoral, because it seeks to punish thoughtcrimes — one is guilty, because one had (or is suspected of having had) certain illegal thoughts.

Can we just stop this nonsense? If Tata — or anyone — want to discriminate, let them...

You wouldn't say Apple has as strong or a stronger hold on the music and mobile phone markets?

No. I wouldn't. The market share numbers are in some cases nearly an order of magnitude different. Suggesting Apple has a comparable hold on their markets has no basis whatsoever in reality.

Google's search market share: roughly 90%

Apple's global smartphone market share: roughly 10% to 20% (it varies based on iPhone launch dates)

Apple's music market share: roughly 30% for retail sales and 10% for streaming

I wish I could find more recent numbers for music sales, since I suspect the iTunes share of the overall music sales market is much lower now, what with streaming services knocking the legs out from digital downloads. It's also worth pointing out that, as one of the earlier links shows, Android makes up roughly 75-80% of the global smartphone market, so if you want to suggest that Apple has a monopolistic hold over the phone market, what does that say about Google, given that their share is roughly 4x greater?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

http://www.cepro.com/article/t...

Mark my words, within the next 36 months there will be an explosion in that marketspace

Indeed. Both Lowe's and Staples have been farting around with standards-based (zigbee, z-wave and wi-fi) home automation equipment for about a year and it looks like they are ramping up for 2014.

The history of Home Automation is littered with the bodies of business that have come in and then left when they realized it's a very difficult place to make money, unless you just carve out the high-end systems used by rich people. If you are building a McMansion type home there are always options available. If you are a middle class home owner looking for a good way to retrofit, no one wants to talk to you. So you end up going down the path of tried-and-true technologies like X10 that have spotty vendor support but a strong hobbyist community.

I'm not saying X10 is perfect, but it does let me control my sprinklers from a crontab file. Any system that can't do that is beneath my contempt. :)

Take a look over here, this is what the industry looks like...

http://www.cepro.com/

Less tomorrow.

It wasn't that long ago that dumb LED bulbs cost about $50 apiece. I just replaced a couple of PAR 30 floodlight bulbs with LED units (dimmable). Cost: $12 each.

The article raises some interesting issues. It's probably better to install smart switches and plugs than smart LED bulbs. Better yet, a smart switch that interrogates the bulb (or other fixture) for capabilities. If it sees an incandescent lamp, it just dims. If the bulb replies with an RGB capability, the switch forwards it the appropriate messages from your iDevice.

None of this will be worth a damn until the industry develops some standards (or the bad standards get washed out). I have an X10 system in my house (archaic by today's standards). But it works with any X10 manufacturer's components. Microsoft Home or Google Home aren't going to sell if customers have to buy Google Bulbs and Google Toasters.

3D What's next?

4D, of course.

From the summary: "At issue: Is an iPhone, iPad or iPod a 'computer.' The judge says they aren't."

From page 13 of the memorandum and order: "This Court declined to construct the term 'computer'." Instead, the ruling is based on where the DAC is located. The DAC in this case is inside the iDevice, rendering the claimed infringing "interface" a fancy headphone jack.

So you are against a company that tries to obey the law (per the DMCA) and instead suggest they should have been breaking the law (cracking encryption/not paying DVD license fees). That is illogical.

Another article worth reading. It does sound similar to a cartel, but I suppose it's no different than the Matsushita/JVC/Mitsubishi/Sharp cartel (which controlled licensing for VHS VCRs): http://www.cepro.com/article/industry_insider_dvd_cca_is_an_innovation_stifling_cartel/

I was confused too so I read this article: http://www.cepro.com/article/kaleidescape_ruling_on_dvd_copying_could_quash_innovation QUOTE: "It is a sad day for innovation when it comes to American-made consumer electronics manufacturers that try to abide by the intent of the law. Kaleidescape makes expensive servers that transfer DVDs âoebit-for-bitâ with CSS encryption intact."

It sounds like it is the equivalent of an iPod or other music server, which rips music from CDs and stores them in digital memory for playback. Except the Keleidoscape does it with DVDs.

And yes it is bogus that this judge thinks that is illegal. Could this case be used for precedent to block US from ripping our DVDs and CDs to home servers or iPods?

Here's a slightly better lawn, btw: http://www.cepro.com/story/alanparsons.html but still no google cache of it :(

Most of you buffoon, never-had-a-second-date-in-your-life commentators are so enamored with yourselves that you are ignoring the facts. There ARE differences in HDMI cables. Read this. http://www.cepro.com/article/why_2_short_hdmi_cables_yield_different_results/K35

Ok, ok we know that Sony isn't liked around here because of the rootkit but lets not be naive here with the market and history of the DVD player pricing.

REPEAT AFTER ME
"HARDWARE GETS CHEAPER OVER TIME LIKE ANY TECHNOLOGY"
Simple economics, although applied to todays situation it will be a slower adoption. I see combo units coming out and DVD's being slowly phased out like VHS but even longer.

This is silly this argument that people are going to watch movies over the internet; what exacty would a person want to watch the show on a tiny 17" screen.
I think Satellite users are screwed the most in the long run by the alloted bandwidth of a satellite, you can't beat FIOS/TWC/Charter/etc's fiber lines and superior streaming capabilities.

You know, the average person knows how to connect their computer to their TV's or wants to drag it over there. Maybe in lala land with captain Hook, but that is not the reality of the market you keep referring to..

I saw so much hoopla around here during the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war, that when it became overwhelming evident that BR was gonna be the winner. All of a sudden you got all these posts claiming streaming over broadband was gonna actually be the next winner and BR was already dead.

Just wait for the sub $200 player before jumping the gun.

http://www.cepro.com/article/blu_ray_adoption_wont_happen_until_2009_research_finds/

Thankfully HD-DVD and all its fanboys have died off, unfortunately the bitterness still hangs in the air from them getting paddled by their silly arguments.
I still laugh when I go to FRY's and see the full stocked shelf of HD-DVD players for sale. Add to it all the people who bought the disc must feel like suckers for buying one of the shortest mass produced technology in awhile.

I can count how many times I've rooted for Real on a one-bit integer. Yesterday, I didn't even need that.

What does this even mean? I guess it means you aren't rooting for Real.

Well, you damn fucking well should.

RealNetworks are the good guys here. They are trying to make DVDs more convenient and useful, and they fucking bent over backwards trying to make this thing be totally obviously not a piracy tool. If RealDVD cannot win this court case, that means no-one will be able to do anything, no matter how fair use it is, without the permission of the big movie studios and organisations like MPAA.

Why does RealDVD encrypt the saved DVD images? So it won't be a useful piracy tool. And because Kaleidescape encrypt their saved DVD images, and that may have helped them to win their case.

I've actually had a chance to see RealDVD and it's a good program. It's actually kind of Apple-like, in that it does one thing well and does it pretty. I'd buy it for my Grandmother to use.

So, I'm rooting for RealNetworks on this one and you should too.

Check out Lagotek, they have ready built this.

Can I archive rented or borrowed DVDs?
No. The ReQuest server has a built-in physical verification system that will ask for physical DVDs at random times to verify ownership.

What the fuck? I understand trying to cover your asses and all, but who in their right mind would produce such a crippled piece of hardware? And who would buy it?

Yes, this was discussed in an earlier Slashdot story, " RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized", and in a bunch of other places:

* Boing Boing p2pnet reddit Heise Online (German) Truemors BlogRunner/Digital Rights Hugh Casey IDG (Polish) Geek News Central CE Pro Gizmodo TechDirt Read/Write Web Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection TDPRI WhatReallyHappened.com Slyck Root.cz (Czech) Craigslist Forums Hard OCP Wired.com Uneasy Silence Overclock.net Wake World SpaceBattles.com Hydrogen Audio BrickFilms.com Hockey Zombie iLounge Zune Scene AllmanBrothersBand.com Golem (German) PC Magazin (German) Tweakers (Dutch) Mackauf (German) Wake Space Kino-eye.com Digital Copyright Canada Northwest Progressive Institute Louisville Music News Frant

The full story behind the theater can be found at: http://www.cepro.com/article/the_batcave_home_theater_room_by_dc_audio_video_systems Link also has original size images.

Actually, no you can't burn a copy of a commercial, CSS-encrypted disc to a new disc. The section that would hold the CSS key on DVD-R's is not writeable, so you can copy the entire encrypted DVD image, but not the encryption key. That leaves you with a coaster. But you can mount the image on your hard drive and watch it.

I didn't think the DVD Jon stuff was so retarded just because it was a chance to show the MPAA/DVDCCA and the judicial officials of the world that CSS is not an effective encryption system.

The one that's retarded is the Kaleidescape debacle. To sum it up, a company called Kaleidescape puts together a fantastic DVD ripper/server system. It is easy and simple to use, it's locked down so movies that are ripped can't be accessed by any non-Kaleidescape device, it stores bit-for-bit CSS-encrypted copies of the DVDs on the server, and only decrypts them in the player (a separate box connected by a network connection), just like any other DVD player does. And best of all, Kaleidescape was granted a license by the DVDCCA to use CSS in the player. Oh yeah, and Kaleidescape also gives you the option to bundle large movie collections preloaded on a system, thereby providing revenue for the MPAA. Pretty soon the DVDCCA realizes what the product is, and since the DVDCCA is partially made up of consumer electronics manufacturers who never thought to create such a great device, they tried to lay the smackdown on Kaleidescape, saying they violated the terms of the license... Even though the Kaleidescape system offers less for would-be "pirates" than any PC with a $30 DVD drive... Oh, and the whole system, in the beginning, had a base price of $27,000. These days a basic system can go for about $10,000, but that's still out of reach of the kid in his mom's basement copying his friends movies. All the while, the only "legitimate" competitors to Kaleidescape make DVD servers which are not locked down, and which require the end-user to install DVD Decryptor or libdvdcss themselves (but the software is already set up to automatically integrate with DVD Decryptor). So the DVDCCA goes after the legally-licensed company and legitimizes the ones using the actual "pirate" software. And now that Kaleidescape won the lawsuit, the DVDCCA is amending their license agreement to require DVD players to actually be physically holding the original DVD.

Now that is retarded. Take an innovative, easy-to-use product, which if it won mass acceptance and became a common everyday system, would revolutionize the home movie experience, and try to cripple it, thereby keeping home movie viewing in the stone age.

well you did not include the software like this which can cost up to 5 grand. while Best buy would still make insane profit margin off of it, they are also not catering to people like you who are a bit more knowledgeable. They are actually catering to people who have the money and do not have the time or knowledge to do it themselves. My point is that wealthy people do not care about prices for high end stuff like this.

Before you mod this "redundant", at the time of this posting, no one else has actually done the math, just guessed...


For that you get a Media Center PC
Averages around $900, but they use the HP z560 at $1800...

Lifeware automation software from Exceptional Innovation
This one took some work. The closest I could get to a price, $5000, includes hardware. But it puts us at an upper limit, at least.

an Xbox 360
The easiest to find, at $400

IP surveillance cameras
They use a pair of Panasonics (not sure of the model number), around $380 each.

automated light switches
FTA: "five dimmers, five switches, two keypads". Home Depot, $80.

a thermostat
Again, no model number given, but the standard model goes for $270

and installation.
Not really - They want you to have the "hard" parts done yourself, by a privately contracted licensed electrician.



The package costs $15,000.

Total so far, $8310 (not counting your own electrician).

So, not counting needing to hire your own electrician, that puts the cost of their installation at roughly ... $6690.



I've made some pretty damned good wages doing contract work, but over $6k for less than a day's work? Wow, talk about a dream job...

Anyone that wants this system - Hunt me down for contact info. I'll do it for a third less (you pay airfair outside the continental US, and though I know how to work safely with home AC systems , you'll probably still need a licensed electrician to do this legally in most places).

Mebbie they don't like messy racks, but their site is messy. It's back up now, but you'll notice that page is 800k in size. No wonder it went down. Also, for those who want to know what the first link was supposed to point to, try this http://www.cepro.com/search/keyword/Bad%20Installs .html

"The HDMI format allows for transmitting and receiving a 1080p signal, but only if the manufacturer takes advantage of this capability with the right electronics." From Group Quashes Notion that HDMI 'Can't Do' 1080p