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User: crunchy_one

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Comments · 97

  1. Re:How do people optimise their designs? on iPhone 6s's A9 Processor Racks Up Impressive Benchmarks · · Score: 1

    You kids make me feel really old. My first assembly language was written for the IBM 1130. It unloaded an IBM 2315 disk cartridge (512k x 16 bit word) to punched cards. It chewed up about 1/3 less cards than the IBM supplied utility, and so ran about 1/3 faster, the limiting factor being the speed of the card punch.

  2. Re:Faster..? on Light-Based Memory Chip Is First To Permanently Store Data · · Score: 3, Informative

    Absolutely. Another huge problem is skew, where dissimilar wire lengths result in signals (for example, the bits making up a word) arriving at their destination at different times. This is not a problem exclusive to integrated circuits: Seymour Cray addressed this problem in the CDC 6600 (circa 1964, discrete Si transistors) by using wires of identical lengths for interconnections. If you look for a photo of the CDC 6600 back plane, you'll readily see what I mean.

  3. Williams Tube Memory on Light-Based Memory Chip Is First To Permanently Store Data · · Score: 4, Informative

    Could this not be done the same way CRTs scan a grid of pixels, just on a micro scale with higher resolution?

    This reminds me of an early computer memory, the Williams tube, that enjoyed a brief period of popularity in some first generation machines. It worked by storing bits as charged spots on the phosphor face plate of an oscilloscope tube. Although access was random and fast (12 microsecond read/write cycle as implemented by the IBM 701), its refresh requirements effectively halved its performance, and it was notoriously unreliable. Positioning the electron beam was by electrostatic deflection, requiring accurate sub-microsecond switching of high voltages. IBM's implementation used precision counter-wound resistors to achieve the required control, the counter-winding preventing the resistors from also behaving like inductors. Unfortunately, the counter-winding also led to occasional electrical arcing inside the resistors, mispositioning the beam and causing the "Navajo Blanket" effect where the resulting data corruption had a visual appearance like its namesake woven blanket. Error-free operation seldom exceeded a handful of hours, and the Williams tube was quickly supplanted by magnetic core memory.

  4. Code Audit by Regulators on How Did Volkswagen Cheat Emissions Tests, and Who Authorized It? · · Score: 1

    My strong suspicion is that VW is not the only auto maker up these shenanigans. I'd like to see source code placed in the hands of the appropriate regulators, along with the tools necessary to build it. Then the EPA, or their European analogs, could audit the code, build it, and compare it with the object code in randomly selected test vehicles. Obviously there would be some technical glitches to overcome to get a system like this working, but it's definitely doable and most certainly worth the effort.

  5. Re:This is why I don't go to movie theatres on British Movie Theater Staff To Wear Night-Vision Goggles To Combat Movie Piracy · · Score: 1

    The thing that drove me out of the commercial theaters many years ago was their insistence that I sit through ad after ad before the film. Fuck that.

  6. Re:Very, very sad, Coca-Cola on Coke Discloses Millions in Grants for Health Research and Programs · · Score: 1
    Yup. I got the fiscal year wrong, too. Should be 2014. Just had my first coffee of the day and now I see clearly...

    Factoring out my sleepy brain, the fact remains that Coca-cola Co. is sleazy.

  7. Re:Very, very sad, Coca-Cola on Coke Discloses Millions in Grants for Health Research and Programs · · Score: 1

    I'm not quite awake yet, I meant to type .042% of their gross profit.

  8. Very, very sad, Coca-Cola on Coke Discloses Millions in Grants for Health Research and Programs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Keep in mind that the Coca-Cola company had a gross profit of $28,010,000,000.00 for fiscal year 2015 with a profit margin of 66%. $120,000,000.00 in grants amounts to .042% of their gross. For them, this is cheap window dressing. Do no mistake this for good corporate citizenship.

  9. All Advertising is Evil on AdBlock Plus Defends Ad Blocking, Applauds Marco Arment · · Score: 2

    I find it very sad that anyone would take the side of advertisers. Advertising is now, and always has been a gangrenous cultural wound; a filthy puss filled carbuncle on the ass of capitalism. Advertisements not only manipulate the ignorant and the weak minded, they actively seek to produce ignorance and weak mindedness. Whether or not it moves, plays sound, or just sits there, advertisements are an evil that should be expunged by any means necessary.

  10. Re:What's that saying???? on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Probably needs both. Lean in for a kiss, and oink, what a smell.

  11. Re:Spike and pesticide correllation on More Than 40% of US Honeybee Colonies Died In a 12-Month Period Ending In April · · Score: 1

    It would seem that bee deaths due to pesticide interaction should be relatively steady or steadily increasing if pesticide use is also steady

    You may want to read up on how a dose-response curve works. As the dose increases, the affected population increases following a sigmoid curve (i.e., the rate of change increases).

  12. Re:As an OS X/iOS dev who has used Swift... on Swift Vs. Objective-C: Why the Future Favors Swift · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of the time a salesman came through and gave us a presentation for a COBOL optimizer (CAPEX, iirc). Everyplace in the script he was supposed to say "COBOL" he instead said "cobalt". Q&A was fun.

  13. Re:They didn't user in the era of graphics on Microsoft Celebrates 40th Anniversary · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On that score, let's not forget Xerox PARC. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

  14. Re:And to think on Microsoft Celebrates 40th Anniversary · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I did. Microsoft was the big dog in the world of BASIC. My second personal computer, an Apple II Plus, came with Applesoft BASIC in ROM, a Microsoft product, of which I have fond memories. Happy birthday Microsoft!

  15. I'll Be Back on Tatooine Youth Suspected In Terrorist Attack · · Score: 0

    Tomorrow, when this day o' /. bullshit is over.

  16. Astroturfing on How Professional Russian Trolls Operate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I believe the term is astroturfing, i.e., when someone is paid to write commentary in support of some other entity.

  17. Re:Better link on LightEater Malware Attack Places Millions of Unpatched BIOSes At Risk · · Score: 1

    Bah to that. I prefer to have stories filtered through at least two poorly informed sources and then commented on by the clueless masses.

  18. Re:In Soviet Russia... on LightEater Malware Attack Places Millions of Unpatched BIOSes At Risk · · Score: 1

    An interesting article about Intel virtualization and the author's attempt to write a hypervisor.

  19. Re:Your missing the point of this article on LightEater Malware Attack Places Millions of Unpatched BIOSes At Risk · · Score: 1

    EFI was actually invented and specified by Intel. The specification for UEFI, its successor, is maintained by a consortium of manufacturers.

    If you think UEFI is the baddest thing out there, check out SMM. It can be used to silently subvert any Intel-based machine going all the way back to some '386 parts.

  20. Re:How to "fix" some African Nation... on Zuckerberg and Gates-Backed Startup Seeks To Shake Up African Education · · Score: 1

    cheap on gas

    As a serial bug owner, I can tell you that 18 MPG was the best you could expect.

  21. Re:Missionaries on Zuckerberg and Gates-Backed Startup Seeks To Shake Up African Education · · Score: 1

    Gatea and Zuckerberg. Yeah, I trust them about as much as I would King Leopold II of Belgium, were he still with us.

  22. Re:Case will flop. on Uber Sued Over Driver Data Breach, Adding To Legal Woes · · Score: 2

    Drivers are not employed by Uber, rather they are employed by the person whom they are giving a lift to. Uber is simply the intermediate of which the two connect to one another - much like a telephone company. On that basis alone this case will flop as Uber does not owe drivers the same duty of care that an employer would owe an employee.

    You may be able to outsource the work; but, the responsibility is still yours. Hopefully the courts will see through this shell game fiction.

  23. Re:Blast from the Past on SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Dual Satellite Mission · · Score: 1

    ...and the clock is running!

  24. Brain and Brain, What is Brain? on Surgeon: First Human Head Transplant May Be Just Two Years Away · · Score: 1

    Saw 'Bones do this on TV. See, Spocks' brain was cut out by bimbos to run a planet-sized HVAC system. "Brain and brain, what is brain?" demanded the head bimbo when Kirk requested it back. Fortunately, 'Bones put a colander on his head and hooked the brain back up with a nerve hooker upper.

    So, that's how it's done.

  25. US Monopoly on Use Astrology To Save Britain's Health System, Says MP · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd like to remind David Treddinick, and any other non-US citizens contemplating similar actions, that we in the US take our intellectual property rights seriously. We believe that we and we alone enjoy the right to use or sell crackpot politicians. Unless Mr. Teddinick has a license for our technology, he's set himself up to be on the receiving end of some very strongly worded letters from our attorneys.