All depends on you. A class "A" rig with a "toad" (towed behind car) is good for a lot of people who fulltime because hooking and unhooking is easier. However, a 1 ton pickup with a fifth wheel is also a nice solution, especially if the RV will be parked for longer periods of time (fewer things to maintain on a trailer than a motorcoach).
If you like getting away from it all, a truck camper (some truck campers like the Chalet ones have multiple slideouts, and can give more usable inside space than travel trailers) or a "toy hauler" travel trailer may be the thing.
Lots of different RV types, as no two people are alike.
I use FDE on everything, be it a laptop, server, or desktop. Right now, I'm not worried about police (although with events going on, who knows what might become illegal next. I'm sure there is a bill on someone's desk making it a felony to have media files that are not DRM protected, or stored on a machine/drive with a hardware DRM stack.)
My real worry is the fact that thieves are smart enough that once they get a laptop from the front-line crackheads, they know enough to be able to browse through the machine and/or drives and find usable data that can be used for extortion or blackmail. Laptop thefts are very common, and with this economy, more people are turning to crime to pay the bills.
If a thief steals a laptop [1], proper FDE turns what would be a hardware, data, and license key theft into "just" a hardware theft that insurance will reimburse. If I had business data on the laptop, encrypted, I don't worry... unencrypted, I might have to have to go to the press and tell the world that I let a laptop with confidential data on it get stolen.
[1]: Probably the most secure implementation of FDE I've found is using BitLocker with the TPM chip on, a PIN, and a USB flash drive. If I have the USB flash drive, and my laptop gets stolen, I will be sure the laptop isn't going to be decoded anytime soon. The second most secure is something that uses a cryptographic token like an Aladdin eToken. However, TrueCrypt, LUKS, or FileVault 2 comes very close, assuming one uses a very long passphrase.
The downstream end can be completely rooted, but it won't affect the upstream in any way, other than perhaps putting up fake alerts to try duping people on site to do something, or trashing/modifying the data as it comes down the serial connection. There is no connection other than signal ground that is common and can push data from downstream to upstream.
The ironic thing, there is a secure way to get GIS info out, although it isn't the fastest method. I did this on a lab network that needed to be air-gapped from everything else:
1: Build two machines, each has a NIC, and both have a serial card ($60 from NewEgg for a PCIe to Serial.)
2: Build a custom cable with the RX wires cut, so data only goes one way. I did this so an intruder has no chance of being able to send anything to the box on the secure network, much less create a SLIP or PPP connection.
3: Configure one box on the secure network. It scrapes input from the embedded boxes, formats it (so stuff from one device is marked as such so it can be told apart from a different one and to help keep both machines in sync), then pushes it over the serial device.
4: The other box is configured to passively take what comes over the serial port, un-format it (so stuff from one device goes to one web server, stuff from another device gets E-mailed to an admin, alerts get set if something is wrong, etc.)
The result of this is being able to get reports from the embedded boxes on a real-time basis, but without any way of a remote intruder ever getting on the network. Since the physical serial cable cannot send any data to the machine on the embedded network, it would take a physical attack in order to compromise the boxes.
I'm sure there are faster ways to get data across a cable one-way, but this was ideal, as the data obtained was not much, and the latency of the multiple steps to shoot it to a box, stuff it across a serial pipe, then on the other side, send it where it needs to go was just fine.
Only thing I can think of that can detect a fridge would be a watt meter monitoring all PDU output, so someone who is familiar with signatures of electrical appliances might be able to find the plug the fridge is in, then follow it back. The dorm fridge is a must have -- I've seen them placed inside unused Sun-3 enclosures, mounted in the wall, under the raised floor (one location had a 'pit' where the raised floor was about 3-4 feet above the actual foundation in one place, so the refrigerator nestled perfectly out of sight.)
Mute button stories are comedy gold sometimes. I just tell people to make sure the light is lit or the phone actually is in mute.
An example of this is when I worked in an internal IT department at a SMB. Someone called up from the field, got a cow-orker and she muted the phone (so she thought), then yelled, "Argh, I should just hang up on this guy. Anyone want to take him and put him on speaker so I can have a shot of Jaegermeister and snicker at him?" I took the call. Next thing the guy on the other phone asked: "Mind if I have a swig of Jaeger if any is left?"
Depends on what type of sysadmin you are. I'd expect a proper corpsepaint application on the AIX and some of the BSD guys. The Windows admins, it just doesn't fit at all. The Linux guys, might get away with it, depending on their administration philosophy.
Other items, it depends. It does require black magic to get some networks working and keep them up, so seeing corpsepaint on the Cisco guys wouldn't be too out of the question.
This may not be as high tech as a decent work controlled vibrator, but if one has a big enough place, perhaps crash on the couch, or a separate room. This way, one can deal with the on call bit and not wake the SO if something comes through. Then once the rotation changes, put up the bed and go back to the usual bed.
Very true. I wonder if this can be done on a hypervisor level. If done right, the hypervisor can present the OS a dynamic amount of CPUs, depending on what processes are using what resources behind the scene, as well as rebind a task to a different core (say the task was using a lot of FPU, then swapped to needing mainly integer manipulations.)
It would work on the OS level too, but would take a revised scheduler to take advantage of it.
Very true. However, most places wouldn't need a bunker that can resist a bunker-buster. They just need something to be able to deal with street crime -- small arms fire, some explosives, and strikes from automobiles. Not everyone needs something that can withstand a burrowing tac nuke, as opposed to keeping marauders out, and being able to keep people inside surviving for months, if not years.
Disclaimer: I've never built a bong shelter, so I could be completely wrong on this.
You are exactly right. This is why there should be cores that are high speed and high power for the tasks that cannot be broken down into bits to distribute. This way, low-energy cores take care of most tasks, while a task that cannot be distributed can be handed to the bigger cores which consume energy.
The more different types of cores available, the more flexible the architecture would be, and the better energy savings (in theory) can result.
I know some businesses which are still dependent on Windows 3.1 programs written in 1993-1994. When machine upgrade time came around, I ended up just P2V-ing their old boxes, sharing the application's document folders with the host OS, and to the end user, the creaky old application functions the same as anything else on Windows 7. To boot, if the creaky application gets corrupted, it only takes either a reloading of a snapshot, or grabbing an archive of the VM disk file to get back in business. (I also made sure images of the program's install media were stored with the VM for safety reasons.)
Even Apple which will toss a port of a feature out the second they feel it isn't important made the switch to x86, so the ability to run legacy apps is a major factor with machines these days.
What i would like to see is a CPU architecture that can have asymmetric cores:
When the machine is idle, one low-power core handles the OS idle functions while another handles the IP stack, another core handles I/O, and another handles the hypervisor aspect.
When the machine is running database stuff, first cores that are made for integer operations get used, then the FPUs and GPUs come in.
Flip to a game, and the cores that mainly are used as GPUs come into play.
Fire up a modeling task, and the FPU heavy cores take the load first.
All this while cores dedicated to AES and RSA deal with the hard disk encryption as well as SSL/TLS items.
As for instructions, I agree with you there. Intel knows that the x86 needs to go, but has to keep that architecture going for legacy reasons. Ideally the best solution would be an Itanium chip with a ton of registers (128 general, 128 FP, etc.) This makes operations easier because all the fetches can be done first, the registers used, then the results stuffed back into memory, making caching easier.
Even more ideal is putting the x86 emulation into hardware so operating systems that are legacy can run on that and a hypervisor, while programs using the new architecture can run optimally. It might even be good to put the hypervisor on the CPU.
Bunkers are not bank vaults. From what I've seen a number of underground bunkers tend to have multiple entrances, even if some are just used for ventilation. Even smaller bunkers tend to have at least two ways out, as some are designed to deal with someone trying to put car exhaust down the vent shaft.
If a bunker just had one entrance, people inside would suffocate shortly after the main door is slammed shut.
More options -- you can customize access roles per app with CM. With stock rooted firmware, options are more limited for limiting access to apps, mainly using DroidWall so apps that don't need to phone home don't have that ability.
The problem with electric cars is that they solve problems for some people, but are not useful at all for others.
If one lived in the city and never saw rural areas, an electric car is great. It only uses charge for the climate control and radio when idling at stoplights, gets its max torque at low RPMs, quiet, and can be topped off easily either at home or at work once an infrastructure is in place. The short range of an electric car doesn't matter when the only real trips one might do is across town.
However, there are areas where 109 miles driving range makes a pure electric vehicle useless. For people who live in the country where the nearest store is 20-30 miles away, a day's shopping at best would have to be pre-planned around making sure to go home to make sure the vehicle is charged. A detour, road closure, or bad traffic can mean the vehicle will be too discharged to continue. To boot, if the vehicle is discharged, getting it back on the road means a lot more than just getting a gallon or two of gas; it means having the vehicle towed.
Housing prices in the US have forced people further and further out (even for renting) in a number of areas of the country, so that 109 miles may not cover people's commute there and back, especially if the commute is a heavily trafficked one.
There is also the fact that until "supercap" batteries become available that can take very large amps in a short time period (their electricity storage is physical, not chemical) even the best charging station will charge significantly slower than the time it takes to fill a car up with gasoline. This means longer lines at the "pumps", and with fewer people that can be served per hour, per plug/"pump", it may not be profitable for service stations to remain in business, or the cost for a recharge on the road may be prohibitive.
This isn't to say that electric cars are pointless, but for a lot of people they are not a solution. However, what would cover more of the population would be a series hybrid where the generator part was able to be selectable and changed out. This way, one could use diesel, gas, propane, or even CNG from a compressor from their house to give them a better extended range. If one was in a city and didn't need the extended range, swap out the generator for more storage space or another battery pack.
Reminds me of the current propane business. I buy a 20# tank and when it is depleted, I can either refill it at a propane place, or just go to any Lowe's or some gas stations and exchange the tank out for one that is full.
Of course, there are a few faults with this system:
1: If someone exchange a crappy, rusty propane tank with a smashed valve, it isn't going to cost Blue Rhino that much relatively since moving tanks out of service is part of the cost, and propane tanks are worth something even when scrapped. However, batteries are a lot more expensive, and if customers exchanged an empty battery case (while keeping the cells), this can be costly for the battery exchanger.
2: On the other hand, it is harder to tell if a battery pack will be defective or not. If a battery pack doesn't hold a charge, is that the fault of the leasing company, or will the customer have to buy a new one? On Priuses, these can go into the tens of thousands.
3: Battery technologies are not just swap-in and swap out. For example, flooded cell lead acid batteries require periodic adding of deionized water. However, gel cell batteries don't need this, but they need special charging circuitry that will not overcharge these. Then batteries charge at different rates. If someone uses a charger meant for AGM jars that is made to stuff large amounts of amperage, it will boil a plain old lead-acid battery which can only take a fraction of its amp-hours when charging. This is important because a new battery technology will have its own issues, and if a charging/discharging circuit isn't designed to deal with it, it can cause heavy damage.
3: How does one deal with battery theft? Propane exchange places work because a propane tank isn't that costly, and it is heavy/bulky. However, if battery packs cost $5000 each, thieves will be smashing the rack, or jacking the guy at the gas station counter to take them at gunpoint. Would the batteries have circuitry on them to only work if electronically activated?
I wonder if Intel is taking a page from IBM's playbook.
Upper end POWER7 CPUs have the ability to have half their cores turned off. The cores that are on can then use the disabled neighbor's caches, and run at a higher clock speed. For some things, this switch actually speeds up some tasks that can't be evenly broken up into balanced threads.
I can see Intel doing this where some cores are disabled due to manufacturing defects (which happen to all dies), and having the operable cores use nearby caching which would otherwise go to waste.
Nail, head hit. To the unwashed masses, DRM is made to be just like a lock on a vending machine or a fish-resistant guard on a deposit box. It is something that sucks, but people dismiss as part of what they get.
I doubt this mentality will go away anytime soon. Just like how people compare copyright infringement with theft (or murder). Infringement [1] is more akin to Beavis and Butthead sneaking into an empty theater to watch Twilight than someone shoplifting a DVD of it.
So, we will deal with the DRM cycle where new stuff comes out that is Draconian, and it gets cracked or people just don't buy it, and the content producers go for another notch.
The ironic thing is that in markets where DRM wins, such as consoles... prices for stuff are always increasing. Weren't we promised lower prices if the pirates went away?
[1]: Infringement on a non commercial nature. Of course, copying someone's CD to sell it is a completely different ballgame and is actual theft (as it removed legitimate revenue from the IP holder).
There are two reasons why I am speccing RedHat over CentOS, and neither have to do with support:
1: Application support for production systems. Yes, it shouldn't make a difference, but if I call in for support on an application that specifies the list of supported operating systems, and its not RedHat, there is a good chance I'll get laughed off the phone with "sorry, no app support until you have a supported OS".
2: FIPS, Common Criteria, and other certifications. These can mean the difference between "due diligence" in IT versus bad faith when it comes to an audit. Yes, this is pure legal eagle stuff, just like the requirement that the 64 CPU POWER7 box in the rack has to run McAfee, but it means the difference between passing an audit, or perhaps getting a contract terminated.
This doesn't mean CentOS is bad. It just means that having the certificates that come with the commercial version of RedHat may mean success or failure when the CPAs and the JDs are done extracting their pounds of flesh.
Bubble or no, it might be the impetus to get things shaken up in research in improving existing energy sources. Yes, I'm meaning nuclear. The problem is that virtually all reactors on line today are 1960s/1970s technology.
To use a car example, it would be like using pushrod engines with breaker points and still fighting it out over cubic inches as opposed to better ignition systems, with no car maker wanting to use any engine design improvements in the past forty years like EFI or OHC.
I'm hoping there is a green energy boom. This way, other energy sources might get looked at, and possibly improved. Solar is great, but what we need is improvement to nuclear and a phase-out of fossil fuels. Ideally production level fusion would be the best long-term, but until then, might as well work on thorium reactors and better idiot resistant (not idiot-proof, as there is no such thing) designs.
With my IT pro hat on, this active MITM is a good thing. It will substitute its SSL cert for the other one and actively inspect traffic. Of course, you have to add the Blue Coat cert into the domain root, as well as other web browsers.
The benefit of this is that confidential info can't just be kicked to an exploit site via SSL, or someone isn't going to be trying to make a proxy via SSL (since traffic that isn't decrypted gets blocked.) This is important because an intruder can create a SSL connection and use that as a proxy.
Of course, wearing the concerned individual hat, the same technology that keeps confidential data from leaking could be used by ISPs for nefarious reasons, such as Phorm over SSL. At least people will start complaining if a SSL cert gets replaced, but if the ISP's CA makes it into the root stash of Web browsers, this would be a field day for them.
What I see happening is that other means will be used, if cash becomes verboten. Take the scrap metal places who do the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" thing when someone comes in with copper windings and wire "obtained" from "defunded" construction projects. Instead of getting cash, the recycler would hand out debit cards with no name on them, but with the amount of cash on it ready to go. They might be tracable, but it would take a lot more time.
Another workaround would be to use a different exchange medium. The recycler pays the guy who comes in with the truckload of sawed off catalytic converters with poker chips from a local casino. If someone is smart enough not to exchange chips for cash at the exact amount, there is virtually no way to trace the transaction.
If push really came to shove, there is always barter, provided that people kept tax records to make the IRS happy.
This law was not thought out. All it means is that more people hit casinos for poker chips, and there is no way the lawmakers are going to ban/restrict those, unless they want Federal lawsuits from native American reservations.
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All depends on you. A class "A" rig with a "toad" (towed behind car) is good for a lot of people who fulltime because hooking and unhooking is easier. However, a 1 ton pickup with a fifth wheel is also a nice solution, especially if the RV will be parked for longer periods of time (fewer things to maintain on a trailer than a motorcoach).
If you like getting away from it all, a truck camper (some truck campers like the Chalet ones have multiple slideouts, and can give more usable inside space than travel trailers) or a "toy hauler" travel trailer may be the thing.
Lots of different RV types, as no two people are alike.
I use FDE on everything, be it a laptop, server, or desktop. Right now, I'm not worried about police (although with events going on, who knows what might become illegal next. I'm sure there is a bill on someone's desk making it a felony to have media files that are not DRM protected, or stored on a machine/drive with a hardware DRM stack.)
My real worry is the fact that thieves are smart enough that once they get a laptop from the front-line crackheads, they know enough to be able to browse through the machine and/or drives and find usable data that can be used for extortion or blackmail. Laptop thefts are very common, and with this economy, more people are turning to crime to pay the bills.
If a thief steals a laptop [1], proper FDE turns what would be a hardware, data, and license key theft into "just" a hardware theft that insurance will reimburse. If I had business data on the laptop, encrypted, I don't worry... unencrypted, I might have to have to go to the press and tell the world that I let a laptop with confidential data on it get stolen.
[1]: Probably the most secure implementation of FDE I've found is using BitLocker with the TPM chip on, a PIN, and a USB flash drive. If I have the USB flash drive, and my laptop gets stolen, I will be sure the laptop isn't going to be decoded anytime soon. The second most secure is something that uses a cryptographic token like an Aladdin eToken. However, TrueCrypt, LUKS, or FileVault 2 comes very close, assuming one uses a very long passphrase.
The downstream end can be completely rooted, but it won't affect the upstream in any way, other than perhaps putting up fake alerts to try duping people on site to do something, or trashing/modifying the data as it comes down the serial connection. There is no connection other than signal ground that is common and can push data from downstream to upstream.
If the upstream end is compromised; game over.
The ironic thing, there is a secure way to get GIS info out, although it isn't the fastest method. I did this on a lab network that needed to be air-gapped from everything else:
1: Build two machines, each has a NIC, and both have a serial card ($60 from NewEgg for a PCIe to Serial.)
2: Build a custom cable with the RX wires cut, so data only goes one way. I did this so an intruder has no chance of being able to send anything to the box on the secure network, much less create a SLIP or PPP connection.
3: Configure one box on the secure network. It scrapes input from the embedded boxes, formats it (so stuff from one device is marked as such so it can be told apart from a different one and to help keep both machines in sync), then pushes it over the serial device.
4: The other box is configured to passively take what comes over the serial port, un-format it (so stuff from one device goes to one web server, stuff from another device gets E-mailed to an admin, alerts get set if something is wrong, etc.)
The result of this is being able to get reports from the embedded boxes on a real-time basis, but without any way of a remote intruder ever getting on the network. Since the physical serial cable cannot send any data to the machine on the embedded network, it would take a physical attack in order to compromise the boxes.
I'm sure there are faster ways to get data across a cable one-way, but this was ideal, as the data obtained was not much, and the latency of the multiple steps to shoot it to a box, stuff it across a serial pipe, then on the other side, send it where it needs to go was just fine.
Only thing I can think of that can detect a fridge would be a watt meter monitoring all PDU output, so someone who is familiar with signatures of electrical appliances might be able to find the plug the fridge is in, then follow it back. The dorm fridge is a must have -- I've seen them placed inside unused Sun-3 enclosures, mounted in the wall, under the raised floor (one location had a 'pit' where the raised floor was about 3-4 feet above the actual foundation in one place, so the refrigerator nestled perfectly out of sight.)
Mute button stories are comedy gold sometimes. I just tell people to make sure the light is lit or the phone actually is in mute.
An example of this is when I worked in an internal IT department at a SMB. Someone called up from the field, got a cow-orker and she muted the phone (so she thought), then yelled, "Argh, I should just hang up on this guy. Anyone want to take him and put him on speaker so I can have a shot of Jaegermeister and snicker at him?" I took the call. Next thing the guy on the other phone asked: "Mind if I have a swig of Jaeger if any is left?"
Depends on what type of sysadmin you are. I'd expect a proper corpsepaint application on the AIX and some of the BSD guys. The Windows admins, it just doesn't fit at all. The Linux guys, might get away with it, depending on their administration philosophy.
Other items, it depends. It does require black magic to get some networks working and keep them up, so seeing corpsepaint on the Cisco guys wouldn't be too out of the question.
This may not be as high tech as a decent work controlled vibrator, but if one has a big enough place, perhaps crash on the couch, or a separate room. This way, one can deal with the on call bit and not wake the SO if something comes through. Then once the rotation changes, put up the bed and go back to the usual bed.
Very true. I wonder if this can be done on a hypervisor level. If done right, the hypervisor can present the OS a dynamic amount of CPUs, depending on what processes are using what resources behind the scene, as well as rebind a task to a different core (say the task was using a lot of FPU, then swapped to needing mainly integer manipulations.)
It would work on the OS level too, but would take a revised scheduler to take advantage of it.
Very true. However, most places wouldn't need a bunker that can resist a bunker-buster. They just need something to be able to deal with street crime -- small arms fire, some explosives, and strikes from automobiles. Not everyone needs something that can withstand a burrowing tac nuke, as opposed to keeping marauders out, and being able to keep people inside surviving for months, if not years.
Disclaimer: I've never built a bong shelter, so I could be completely wrong on this.
You are exactly right. This is why there should be cores that are high speed and high power for the tasks that cannot be broken down into bits to distribute. This way, low-energy cores take care of most tasks, while a task that cannot be distributed can be handed to the bigger cores which consume energy.
The more different types of cores available, the more flexible the architecture would be, and the better energy savings (in theory) can result.
I know some businesses which are still dependent on Windows 3.1 programs written in 1993-1994. When machine upgrade time came around, I ended up just P2V-ing their old boxes, sharing the application's document folders with the host OS, and to the end user, the creaky old application functions the same as anything else on Windows 7. To boot, if the creaky application gets corrupted, it only takes either a reloading of a snapshot, or grabbing an archive of the VM disk file to get back in business. (I also made sure images of the program's install media were stored with the VM for safety reasons.)
Even Apple which will toss a port of a feature out the second they feel it isn't important made the switch to x86, so the ability to run legacy apps is a major factor with machines these days.
What i would like to see is a CPU architecture that can have asymmetric cores:
When the machine is idle, one low-power core handles the OS idle functions while another handles the IP stack, another core handles I/O, and another handles the hypervisor aspect.
When the machine is running database stuff, first cores that are made for integer operations get used, then the FPUs and GPUs come in.
Flip to a game, and the cores that mainly are used as GPUs come into play.
Fire up a modeling task, and the FPU heavy cores take the load first.
All this while cores dedicated to AES and RSA deal with the hard disk encryption as well as SSL/TLS items.
As for instructions, I agree with you there. Intel knows that the x86 needs to go, but has to keep that architecture going for legacy reasons. Ideally the best solution would be an Itanium chip with a ton of registers (128 general, 128 FP, etc.) This makes operations easier because all the fetches can be done first, the registers used, then the results stuffed back into memory, making caching easier.
Even more ideal is putting the x86 emulation into hardware so operating systems that are legacy can run on that and a hypervisor, while programs using the new architecture can run optimally. It might even be good to put the hypervisor on the CPU.
Bunkers are not bank vaults. From what I've seen a number of underground bunkers tend to have multiple entrances, even if some are just used for ventilation. Even smaller bunkers tend to have at least two ways out, as some are designed to deal with someone trying to put car exhaust down the vent shaft.
If a bunker just had one entrance, people inside would suffocate shortly after the main door is slammed shut.
More options -- you can customize access roles per app with CM. With stock rooted firmware, options are more limited for limiting access to apps, mainly using DroidWall so apps that don't need to phone home don't have that ability.
The problem with electric cars is that they solve problems for some people, but are not useful at all for others.
If one lived in the city and never saw rural areas, an electric car is great. It only uses charge for the climate control and radio when idling at stoplights, gets its max torque at low RPMs, quiet, and can be topped off easily either at home or at work once an infrastructure is in place. The short range of an electric car doesn't matter when the only real trips one might do is across town.
However, there are areas where 109 miles driving range makes a pure electric vehicle useless. For people who live in the country where the nearest store is 20-30 miles away, a day's shopping at best would have to be pre-planned around making sure to go home to make sure the vehicle is charged. A detour, road closure, or bad traffic can mean the vehicle will be too discharged to continue. To boot, if the vehicle is discharged, getting it back on the road means a lot more than just getting a gallon or two of gas; it means having the vehicle towed.
Housing prices in the US have forced people further and further out (even for renting) in a number of areas of the country, so that 109 miles may not cover people's commute there and back, especially if the commute is a heavily trafficked one.
There is also the fact that until "supercap" batteries become available that can take very large amps in a short time period (their electricity storage is physical, not chemical) even the best charging station will charge significantly slower than the time it takes to fill a car up with gasoline. This means longer lines at the "pumps", and with fewer people that can be served per hour, per plug/"pump", it may not be profitable for service stations to remain in business, or the cost for a recharge on the road may be prohibitive.
This isn't to say that electric cars are pointless, but for a lot of people they are not a solution. However, what would cover more of the population would be a series hybrid where the generator part was able to be selectable and changed out. This way, one could use diesel, gas, propane, or even CNG from a compressor from their house to give them a better extended range. If one was in a city and didn't need the extended range, swap out the generator for more storage space or another battery pack.
Reminds me of the current propane business. I buy a 20# tank and when it is depleted, I can either refill it at a propane place, or just go to any Lowe's or some gas stations and exchange the tank out for one that is full.
Of course, there are a few faults with this system:
1: If someone exchange a crappy, rusty propane tank with a smashed valve, it isn't going to cost Blue Rhino that much relatively since moving tanks out of service is part of the cost, and propane tanks are worth something even when scrapped. However, batteries are a lot more expensive, and if customers exchanged an empty battery case (while keeping the cells), this can be costly for the battery exchanger.
2: On the other hand, it is harder to tell if a battery pack will be defective or not. If a battery pack doesn't hold a charge, is that the fault of the leasing company, or will the customer have to buy a new one? On Priuses, these can go into the tens of thousands.
3: Battery technologies are not just swap-in and swap out. For example, flooded cell lead acid batteries require periodic adding of deionized water. However, gel cell batteries don't need this, but they need special charging circuitry that will not overcharge these. Then batteries charge at different rates. If someone uses a charger meant for AGM jars that is made to stuff large amounts of amperage, it will boil a plain old lead-acid battery which can only take a fraction of its amp-hours when charging. This is important because a new battery technology will have its own issues, and if a charging/discharging circuit isn't designed to deal with it, it can cause heavy damage.
3: How does one deal with battery theft? Propane exchange places work because a propane tank isn't that costly, and it is heavy/bulky. However, if battery packs cost $5000 each, thieves will be smashing the rack, or jacking the guy at the gas station counter to take them at gunpoint. Would the batteries have circuitry on them to only work if electronically activated?
I wonder if Intel is taking a page from IBM's playbook.
Upper end POWER7 CPUs have the ability to have half their cores turned off. The cores that are on can then use the disabled neighbor's caches, and run at a higher clock speed. For some things, this switch actually speeds up some tasks that can't be evenly broken up into balanced threads.
I can see Intel doing this where some cores are disabled due to manufacturing defects (which happen to all dies), and having the operable cores use nearby caching which would otherwise go to waste.
Probably your best bet will be a Nexus series with CyanogenMod ROM. That is as close to open as you will find on any smartphone since the N900.
Using TOR isn't risky (yet) in the US, although can be in other places. However, the real risk is on the people running the TOR exit nodes.
Nail, head hit. To the unwashed masses, DRM is made to be just like a lock on a vending machine or a fish-resistant guard on a deposit box. It is something that sucks, but people dismiss as part of what they get.
I doubt this mentality will go away anytime soon. Just like how people compare copyright infringement with theft (or murder). Infringement [1] is more akin to Beavis and Butthead sneaking into an empty theater to watch Twilight than someone shoplifting a DVD of it.
So, we will deal with the DRM cycle where new stuff comes out that is Draconian, and it gets cracked or people just don't buy it, and the content producers go for another notch.
The ironic thing is that in markets where DRM wins, such as consoles... prices for stuff are always increasing. Weren't we promised lower prices if the pirates went away?
[1]: Infringement on a non commercial nature. Of course, copying someone's CD to sell it is a completely different ballgame and is actual theft (as it removed legitimate revenue from the IP holder).
There are two reasons why I am speccing RedHat over CentOS, and neither have to do with support:
1: Application support for production systems. Yes, it shouldn't make a difference, but if I call in for support on an application that specifies the list of supported operating systems, and its not RedHat, there is a good chance I'll get laughed off the phone with "sorry, no app support until you have a supported OS".
2: FIPS, Common Criteria, and other certifications. These can mean the difference between "due diligence" in IT versus bad faith when it comes to an audit. Yes, this is pure legal eagle stuff, just like the requirement that the 64 CPU POWER7 box in the rack has to run McAfee, but it means the difference between passing an audit, or perhaps getting a contract terminated.
This doesn't mean CentOS is bad. It just means that having the certificates that come with the commercial version of RedHat may mean success or failure when the CPAs and the JDs are done extracting their pounds of flesh.
Bubble or no, it might be the impetus to get things shaken up in research in improving existing energy sources. Yes, I'm meaning nuclear. The problem is that virtually all reactors on line today are 1960s/1970s technology.
To use a car example, it would be like using pushrod engines with breaker points and still fighting it out over cubic inches as opposed to better ignition systems, with no car maker wanting to use any engine design improvements in the past forty years like EFI or OHC.
I'm hoping there is a green energy boom. This way, other energy sources might get looked at, and possibly improved. Solar is great, but what we need is improvement to nuclear and a phase-out of fossil fuels. Ideally production level fusion would be the best long-term, but until then, might as well work on thorium reactors and better idiot resistant (not idiot-proof, as there is no such thing) designs.
Call me a devil's advocate here:
With my IT pro hat on, this active MITM is a good thing. It will substitute its SSL cert for the other one and actively inspect traffic. Of course, you have to add the Blue Coat cert into the domain root, as well as other web browsers.
The benefit of this is that confidential info can't just be kicked to an exploit site via SSL, or someone isn't going to be trying to make a proxy via SSL (since traffic that isn't decrypted gets blocked.) This is important because an intruder can create a SSL connection and use that as a proxy.
Of course, wearing the concerned individual hat, the same technology that keeps confidential data from leaking could be used by ISPs for nefarious reasons, such as Phorm over SSL. At least people will start complaining if a SSL cert gets replaced, but if the ISP's CA makes it into the root stash of Web browsers, this would be a field day for them.
What I see happening is that other means will be used, if cash becomes verboten. Take the scrap metal places who do the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" thing when someone comes in with copper windings and wire "obtained" from "defunded" construction projects. Instead of getting cash, the recycler would hand out debit cards with no name on them, but with the amount of cash on it ready to go. They might be tracable, but it would take a lot more time.
Another workaround would be to use a different exchange medium. The recycler pays the guy who comes in with the truckload of sawed off catalytic converters with poker chips from a local casino. If someone is smart enough not to exchange chips for cash at the exact amount, there is virtually no way to trace the transaction.
If push really came to shove, there is always barter, provided that people kept tax records to make the IRS happy.
This law was not thought out. All it means is that more people hit casinos for poker chips, and there is no way the lawmakers are going to ban/restrict those, unless they want Federal lawsuits from native American reservations.