Looking for a pattern, that's why it takes an hour. You're looking for a pattern in the noise that repeats, then looking for subtle variations in the pattern to pick out the specific bits. There's a lot of other noise from other sources, but if you listen long enough, you know the length and frequency of the pattern you're looking for, you'll still be able to pick it out.
This won't work as something that happens in a one off, and you still need the target machine to be compromised to be repeatably getting the pattern to be created in the first place. That said, it is still impressive, and it shows that the target algorithm needs more randomization, which is the fix that was mentioned. I do this in firmware that I write, I don't hide the private keys all in one variable, I have them cut apart in pieces so that you can't just read my firmware and try every contiguous 4,096 bit block and see if it's my private key.
Just to help expand on the noise source, it's coming from the change in current associated with the transistors, I'm not sure why the paper didn't mention that as clearly. For example, a transistor is going to be either on (value = 1) or off (value = 0). As you might guess, it takes more current to have a transistor in the on position! When there's billions of transistors, the amount of current for each transistor is pretty small. But if you get a bunch of them to line up all at once (lots of 1's or lots of 0's, as they mention), you start to get a measurable current change.
That's what's being heard. In points of the math algorithm, the current drawn by those 1's and 0's is changing, and it's changing in a repeatable way because of the math loops. That change in current draw is seen by the power supply, and pieces of the power supply end up making noise as a result, because the change in current draw is large enough for a long enough period of time.
An easy example you might recognize is a fluorescent light that's running on the 60Hz signal. If the light starts to die, you're starting to see varying amounts of current being drawn, which translate to a noise being heard. The CPU is doing exactly the same thing.
As far as the signal specs itself, the paper was looking up to ~300kHz, iirc. I don't remember the dynamic range, but because they were examining the frequency content and not just the overall signal power, it gets a lot easier to pick up on the tones.
For those that didn't want to RTFA, this works by letting the target computer spin on a carefully chosen piece of text. That text is chosen such that the CPU will do some predictable math (such as big equations that == 0). Then, those places where the CPU hits 0 can be heard through a sensitive microphone.
The neat part is that you're not looking for a 4096-bit key. Computers don't actually handle things with that large of a size, they have to break it down into 32-bit/64-bit chunks to be able to do the math. That's the real vulnerability - despite the key length itself being massive, because the number gets broken down into small chunks, you can start to handle it. The paper goes through a very complicated way of sensing each section of a large key, and then piecing it all together. This is not a case of hearing a specific noise, and looking it up in a table. It's not even a case of looking up 32-bit chunks in a table.
So, it is a real attack, that is mostly dependent on the breakdown of the 4096bit key into bitesize chunks, that go through known math routines. If you can get the target to nicely decrypt several well-crafted messages for you, and you can get a good microphone near their CPU while they do it, and you can let this process go on long enough (so the attack program can listen to the CPU for a while to build up a profile, etc.), it really can work.
I'll say that it needs kind of an ideal scenario to get all those things lined up, but it's not impossible.
Preventing it fully is really only possible with two ways. Either switch your CPU to not use those bite-size chunks, and have the decryption take place all in one massive math operation (not realistic), or change the math that occurs on the bite-size chunks to be irregular in terms of any recognizable patterns (very realistic).
Costs are somewhat protected right now, but it was less than 75k. And since it's a prototype and not a full company, yes, there really is no warranty (unlike the motorbike project, where there is).
Range is also a negotiable thing, to a point - this doesn't get as much as the Tesla (yet?) but it doesn't need to. He can commute to and from work, and then some, and charge up. Considering charge times take in the minutes with the right setup, that's plenty. It's a pretty small group of people that are driving more than 200 miles everyday without stopping for a charge.
The other nice thing is that since we already have the gas station infrastructure in place, it can be converted to charging stations. With the right setup, you can charge this kind of car in mere minutes (think 15 minutes). All this means is that while the 200 mile range is nice, it's unneeded and a waste of money.
I certainly grant that Green Vehicles aimed too high, but that was their error. There are already 3 wheel vehicles around, why not use one of those? What about starting with one of the new Can-Am Spyder and turning that into an electric?
The question here isn't whether or not the entire car concept sucks - it doesn't. 100 years have proven that car transportation works pretty well to get from place to place. The only issue is how to propel it. Trying to start "ground up" on that is pretty silly.
I'm not claiming that my buddy has made a brand new car. I'm claiming that for under $500k, he has made a road worthy prototype, nothing more. Clearly he needs more work and investment if it's going to become the next Tesla (or better, hopefully!).
The thing people forget is that we have 100 years of car design - why throw that out the window? Certainly there are cheaper cars he could have picked to start from. Regardless, it's a prototype, nothing more.
And I certainly knew he did the conversion, duh. Though how much of it is a conversion and how much is a new design starts to blur when you remove half the stuff inside. He didn't design the chemical composition in the battery packs either, would those count as conversion? At some point, every company buys parts from another to make their product when it comes to consumer stuff. In his case, he bought a car "shell" and used that to hold everything else.
Ok the Porche comment was a bit much I guess, but you get the idea.
But why bother designing an entire auto? Yes he started with a stock car, but there's nothing wrong with that. The question here isn't whether or not you can design something ground up, it's whether you can make a good electric car. Same deal for his electric bike - motorbike design is decades old, don't mess with that section, just do the electric parts.
The OP was trying to make a prototype for under $500k - that's what this is, nothing more. I'm only saying that they failed miserably in that task, and should not have. I don't claim that this car is the end-all of electric car designs, or that it is going to be the next big company. But to not have a prototype means they squandered the money, since it clearly could have been done.
It's not impossible. My co-worker has produced, for far less than $500,000 a fully functional, 100% legit, electric-only vehicle. He uses it to commute to work, or at least he did, until he quit to pursue creating more with his new company. And oh by the way, he drives it on public roads because it's DMV certified. And it will also beat a porche at a drag race. Fun, eh?
I'll start with the open admission that I've worked on Tektronix scope platforms, including software UI development, for the last 7 years or so. That said, our scopes really are the best! Here's why.
Many of the Tek scopes, especially the lower bandwidth ones, really shy away from loads of options menus to get at items. We still have the knob-per-channel ideas, and I know from user testing that's always heavily favored.
Recently (last 2 years) we've also gotten into the pan/zoom knob that makes it far, far easier to look at record lengths. I personally use that feature a lot when I've got high speed stuff over a long time (like SPI transactions compared against analog signals moving around)
Most of the Agilent/Lecroy stuff don't have these two big items (those are my big payoffs).
Also, although I can't speak to Agilent/Lecroy, I know that we release updated firmware on a very regular basis, and have no plans to stop. We continue to improve the UI, performance, applications, etc., long after the product is released. Many of the changes are often directly from user feedback (internal and external).
Another nice part is the Tektronix instruments are very well plugged in driver wise to communicate with them. We've got IVI drivers for labview/teststand, as well as a host of others.
What some of the other posters said is true as well - what really defines what you should get isn't always the UI, but the bandwidth and other features that you need. If you just need slow speed (~10 MHz) then a cheap solution might be just fine.
Our designs do have their flaws, but usability is rarely one I hear of.
Ok, this really isn't that complicated - why nearly every comment is demanding a precise GB limit is kind of depressing to me. I've been on both sides of this for a long time (large network admin, Comcast subscriber) so this debate is pretty old to me (at least 10+ years old).
Lots of people are demanding a precise bandwidth limit - it's just not that simple. Or rather, they could, but doing so would actually provide a lesser product to you in the end. A few people have mentioned this - it's when you use it and where you live that matters. Comcast's network capacity is tremendous, but it's not completely even across all customers, which is normal of any large network. So, while some customers would actually be ok with 25TB/month, others can't get that without disrupting their (and only their) area of the network. You could argue that they should have even network capacity for all, but that's just not financially realistic.
So enough people have demanded that they give some kind of limit, so they're doing what they can to appease the customers - but to avoid the people who toe the line as was mentioned above, that just makes it worse, really. This is them doing the best they can while still giving themselves legal reason to kill off the ones doing the real damage.
Everyone here knows that P2P is mostly mp3s and movies and junk, and that it's what is causing the problem. It's been like that since P2P started in the 90s. Yes, there are legal reasons for P2P and all that, but, y'all know that most of the traffic isn't that. Don't get me wrong - I'm no better here, I use P2P also. But I know if I max my peering all day I'll move TB and impact others so I don't do that.
Bottom line - there is no hard limit, there isn't going to be, and you don't want there to be, since that would mean people that right now get to have great nighttime and other bandwidth won't have that luxury at the cost of the few guys that leave P2P running all day. Comcast is doing the Right(tm) thing here.
There is one other possible, though unlikely option, which is for Comcast to implement dynamic per-connection bandwidth reduction, so that if you try to hog bandwidth at times when others are trying to get their share, they slow you down just for the moment. There is hardware to do things like that, but, Comcast has what they have now and the amount of profit they will get as a company just by doing this kind of solution is likely pretty small. In time, as they do normal upgrades, you may see things like this improve, but it won't happen overnight with what's out there now.
I work for a high tech company that makes expensive hardware, far pricier than the xbox, and I've come to understand a lot more about the cost of warranties from the supplier end. Extending warranties is essentially a loss for the the manufacturer - you're essentially betting when what you made will fail. That's weighed against the cost of making more durable components and the cost that a customer would not buy your product in the first place.
When the 360 first came out, someone made a decision that beyond one year it would cost the company too much to repair the consoles relative to the increased sales than would be had by having a longer warranty. They also had to take into account the bad publicity that could (and did) occur.
I'll be pure engineer here - someone at Microsoft redid the formula, given the knowledge of failures that have happened since release. This time around, the math said that enough future sales would be lost to outweigh the cost of extending the warranty. It's really that simple. It's also interesting to note here that they didn't make it a lifetime warranty (20 years or something). They probably ran that formula too, and decided that the math tips the other way if you let it last forever.
So did they NEED to do this? If by need you mean "saving face", then no. Being the retrospective hero doesn't help anything, only in the sense that it might affect future sales.
Since I finished school myself in 2001, I've been working for the same company doing programming and other various tasks. In that time, I've had a chance to sit down with the other folks from my school (Cornell) to go over the various resumes that we pick up each year, looking for interns and/or full time hires. So I'm certainly not a HR person with loads of hiring experience, but I've had some with the sort of thing you're asking.
So I'll start with the good news - the bottom line is that what's on your resume only matters to a degree, and who you really "are" and what you can do and have done matters far more, especially after your first job. I'll give you total benefit of the doubt here - if you really bombed those classes because you needed the time to work to get money, than that's a very solid excuse to a recruiter (or at least, to me), and I would happily forgive it. What's more, grades in of themselves are only so important - I finished with about a 2.9 GPA or so, and landed what is for me a dream job. I didn't even list my GPA on my resume (though many folks will flag that, 'why isn't it listed, must be hiding something').
In your specific case, if the bad grades are in classes that matter, like core CS programming, etc., and you are 100% sure you would ace or do well in them the next go around, I would stay. The reasoning is it proves your excuse, and that you didn't just slack. If they're mostly in classes that don't "matter", like creative writing, then don't bother. I personally had to repeat two classes to graduate (though I still finished in 4 years).
Given all that though, I wouldn't focus on your classes anyway as far as getting a job. Remember, every kid from your major has taken more or less the same classes and done the same in-class projects. What else have you done? You said you worked on some OS stuff - emphasize that. You had to work full-time - if that's CS related, emphasize that. If you've got a strong personality that works well, show it off. Those are the things that stick in my mind when I'm going through the paper resumes later on. A good example of that was one I saw last year - on paper, this guy was sharp, near 4.0, etc., etc., seemingly a clear winner. But in person, next to no verbal skills, unfriendly, etc. He was immediately tossed in the bad pile.
I thought about exactly this today on the way to work, and it occurred to me that although Republicans and Democrats are the only major parties, I usually find myself associated with one or the other most of the time (which one isn't important here). If there was a third party candidate that was closer in line to my personal beliefs, I'd vote for them without a second thought.
The problem is most third party candidates (at least where I am) are so extreme or so focused on a single topic that voting for them simply doesn't make sense. I research my votes heavily before deciding, and I've yet to find anyone that was even ballpark close to what I'd like to see in office that wasn't a Republican or Democrat.
I also suspect this is how most of America feels too. Most people I know tend to polarize their political beliefs, so you naturally end up with two parties that are essentially opposites from one another.
We do in fact elect third-party candidates on a relatively regular basis, for example Jesse Ventura. In his case, he wasn't "extreme", had a stated opinion on a broad spectrum of topics, and was otherwise a fairly "normal" type of candidate.
Excellent article, and I agree with everything he wrote. I've thought about this too, as although I'm still quite young (26) I know from family history and my own personality I'll work until I literally drop dead. It would drive me insane to just sit at home "retired" because I love my work so much.
Don't get me wrong, I don't really care what my company does or doesn't do after I'm gone, but I have some great friends here and I do care quite a bit about them. I wouldn't want to suddenly drop tons of work on them when I know a 10 minute conversation or copying code would have saved the day.
Perhaps it's a bit selfish, but I would like to leave the impression when I'm gone that "Yeah, he was a great guy" rather than "He was a great guy, but now we're screwed". I try not to leave projects unfinished and I see no reason why my career as a whole needs to be any different.
Of course! That's one of the beauties of the American legal system. You can sue anyone, at any time, for anything, for any reason. I stress the word "any" in my sentance... there really are no limits. Now, the case will get thrown out of court if it's silly (sue you for 20 cheeseburgers because I don't like your shirt color), but you are ALWAYS allowed to sue somebody.
When I was young, we just held our fingers against the wire, and felt the electic pulses.
Kids these days...
You had wires? Boy, when I was young, we just held metal rods up to the sky and felt the lightning run through us! You young whipper-snappers don't know the pain of trying to read a program through electric pulses. Our "1" was when the guy went stiff as a board, a "0" was if he couldn't handle it and fell to the ground and curled up. Boy, those were the days...
I can't find it now, but about a year ago or so I read up on a guy's website about the project he was trying to create a home-built guided missile, through GPS. It was down under, either in Australia or New Zealand. He was doing real well for a while, until the authorities caught wind of it, then he got all legal hell. He was making some real strides though. And that was no joke!
Yucca Mountain has too many unknowns? How about this - we have already set off over 500 nuclear test explosions in that mountain range, yet that somehow seems to not be an issue. Nuclear detonations are far worse than your everyday waste, and the range has clearly shown it can handle that.
Oh, that and 20 years of scientific studies to back up those claims with detailed analyses of thousands of rock/soil samples...
There are some obvious big brother concerns here. The GPS tracking can of course discover where you're going, speeding tickets you should get, etc. But it might lead to recovery of kidnap victims, murder victims, stolen cars, etc., and already has. It might make liars fess up in court when challeneged on the speed they were driving during an accident. (which has already happened).
So you know what? Stop committing crimes. If you use your car to drive to work, go on vacations, take the kids to the mall, etc., it won't be an issue. If you don't commit crimes, there won't be a problem, and if you do commit crimes, you should be caught!!!
Now of course, I speed a little like everyone else. But you know what? I do it because I know I won't get caught, most likely. I know I'm braking a law. I know I'm in the wrong. And if I thought I'd get caught, I'd stop. These devices are a good thing. We do have laws for a reason, you know.
I like the spider web looking maps of the internet that are thrown around every now and then. But I think it would be far more interesting to see a map of what it looked like during the last major northeast blackout. It would perhaps be a good show of just how capable the internet really is of rerouting itself.
What if when cleaning you realize you have all this old computer junk that you want to get rid of? If it's too old, charities won't even want it. Then where? Not to the landfill, i trust...
Slashdot Mirror
Looking for a pattern, that's why it takes an hour. You're looking for a pattern in the noise that repeats, then looking for subtle variations in the pattern to pick out the specific bits. There's a lot of other noise from other sources, but if you listen long enough, you know the length and frequency of the pattern you're looking for, you'll still be able to pick it out.
This won't work as something that happens in a one off, and you still need the target machine to be compromised to be repeatably getting the pattern to be created in the first place. That said, it is still impressive, and it shows that the target algorithm needs more randomization, which is the fix that was mentioned. I do this in firmware that I write, I don't hide the private keys all in one variable, I have them cut apart in pieces so that you can't just read my firmware and try every contiguous 4,096 bit block and see if it's my private key.
Just to help expand on the noise source, it's coming from the change in current associated with the transistors, I'm not sure why the paper didn't mention that as clearly. For example, a transistor is going to be either on (value = 1) or off (value = 0). As you might guess, it takes more current to have a transistor in the on position! When there's billions of transistors, the amount of current for each transistor is pretty small. But if you get a bunch of them to line up all at once (lots of 1's or lots of 0's, as they mention), you start to get a measurable current change.
That's what's being heard. In points of the math algorithm, the current drawn by those 1's and 0's is changing, and it's changing in a repeatable way because of the math loops. That change in current draw is seen by the power supply, and pieces of the power supply end up making noise as a result, because the change in current draw is large enough for a long enough period of time.
An easy example you might recognize is a fluorescent light that's running on the 60Hz signal. If the light starts to die, you're starting to see varying amounts of current being drawn, which translate to a noise being heard. The CPU is doing exactly the same thing.
As far as the signal specs itself, the paper was looking up to ~300kHz, iirc. I don't remember the dynamic range, but because they were examining the frequency content and not just the overall signal power, it gets a lot easier to pick up on the tones.
Ok, I'm impressed.
For those that didn't want to RTFA, this works by letting the target computer spin on a carefully chosen piece of text. That text is chosen such that the CPU will do some predictable math (such as big equations that == 0). Then, those places where the CPU hits 0 can be heard through a sensitive microphone.
The neat part is that you're not looking for a 4096-bit key. Computers don't actually handle things with that large of a size, they have to break it down into 32-bit/64-bit chunks to be able to do the math. That's the real vulnerability - despite the key length itself being massive, because the number gets broken down into small chunks, you can start to handle it. The paper goes through a very complicated way of sensing each section of a large key, and then piecing it all together. This is not a case of hearing a specific noise, and looking it up in a table. It's not even a case of looking up 32-bit chunks in a table.
So, it is a real attack, that is mostly dependent on the breakdown of the 4096bit key into bitesize chunks, that go through known math routines. If you can get the target to nicely decrypt several well-crafted messages for you, and you can get a good microphone near their CPU while they do it, and you can let this process go on long enough (so the attack program can listen to the CPU for a while to build up a profile, etc.), it really can work.
I'll say that it needs kind of an ideal scenario to get all those things lined up, but it's not impossible.
Preventing it fully is really only possible with two ways. Either switch your CPU to not use those bite-size chunks, and have the decryption take place all in one massive math operation (not realistic), or change the math that occurs on the bite-size chunks to be irregular in terms of any recognizable patterns (very realistic).
Costs are somewhat protected right now, but it was less than 75k. And since it's a prototype and not a full company, yes, there really is no warranty (unlike the motorbike project, where there is).
Range is also a negotiable thing, to a point - this doesn't get as much as the Tesla (yet?) but it doesn't need to. He can commute to and from work, and then some, and charge up. Considering charge times take in the minutes with the right setup, that's plenty. It's a pretty small group of people that are driving more than 200 miles everyday without stopping for a charge.
The other nice thing is that since we already have the gas station infrastructure in place, it can be converted to charging stations. With the right setup, you can charge this kind of car in mere minutes (think 15 minutes). All this means is that while the 200 mile range is nice, it's unneeded and a waste of money.
I certainly grant that Green Vehicles aimed too high, but that was their error. There are already 3 wheel vehicles around, why not use one of those? What about starting with one of the new Can-Am Spyder and turning that into an electric?
The question here isn't whether or not the entire car concept sucks - it doesn't. 100 years have proven that car transportation works pretty well to get from place to place. The only issue is how to propel it. Trying to start "ground up" on that is pretty silly.
I'm not claiming that my buddy has made a brand new car. I'm claiming that for under $500k, he has made a road worthy prototype, nothing more. Clearly he needs more work and investment if it's going to become the next Tesla (or better, hopefully!).
The thing people forget is that we have 100 years of car design - why throw that out the window? Certainly there are cheaper cars he could have picked to start from. Regardless, it's a prototype, nothing more.
And I certainly knew he did the conversion, duh. Though how much of it is a conversion and how much is a new design starts to blur when you remove half the stuff inside. He didn't design the chemical composition in the battery packs either, would those count as conversion? At some point, every company buys parts from another to make their product when it comes to consumer stuff. In his case, he bought a car "shell" and used that to hold everything else.
Ok the Porche comment was a bit much I guess, but you get the idea.
But why bother designing an entire auto? Yes he started with a stock car, but there's nothing wrong with that. The question here isn't whether or not you can design something ground up, it's whether you can make a good electric car. Same deal for his electric bike - motorbike design is decades old, don't mess with that section, just do the electric parts.
The OP was trying to make a prototype for under $500k - that's what this is, nothing more. I'm only saying that they failed miserably in that task, and should not have. I don't claim that this car is the end-all of electric car designs, or that it is going to be the next big company. But to not have a prototype means they squandered the money, since it clearly could have been done.
It's not impossible. My co-worker has produced, for far less than $500,000 a fully functional, 100% legit, electric-only vehicle. He uses it to commute to work, or at least he did, until he quit to pursue creating more with his new company. And oh by the way, he drives it on public roads because it's DMV certified. And it will also beat a porche at a drag race. Fun, eh?
http://evdrive.com/
If they couldn't turn $500k into a prototype, then they did not have the required skills to create the prototype in the first place.
I'll start with the open admission that I've worked on Tektronix scope platforms, including software UI development, for the last 7 years or so. That said, our scopes really are the best! Here's why.
Many of the Tek scopes, especially the lower bandwidth ones, really shy away from loads of options menus to get at items. We still have the knob-per-channel ideas, and I know from user testing that's always heavily favored.
Recently (last 2 years) we've also gotten into the pan/zoom knob that makes it far, far easier to look at record lengths. I personally use that feature a lot when I've got high speed stuff over a long time (like SPI transactions compared against analog signals moving around)
Most of the Agilent/Lecroy stuff don't have these two big items (those are my big payoffs).
Also, although I can't speak to Agilent/Lecroy, I know that we release updated firmware on a very regular basis, and have no plans to stop. We continue to improve the UI, performance, applications, etc., long after the product is released. Many of the changes are often directly from user feedback (internal and external).
Another nice part is the Tektronix instruments are very well plugged in driver wise to communicate with them. We've got IVI drivers for labview/teststand, as well as a host of others.
What some of the other posters said is true as well - what really defines what you should get isn't always the UI, but the bandwidth and other features that you need. If you just need slow speed (~10 MHz) then a cheap solution might be just fine.
Our designs do have their flaws, but usability is rarely one I hear of.
Ok, this really isn't that complicated - why nearly every comment is demanding a precise GB limit is kind of depressing to me. I've been on both sides of this for a long time (large network admin, Comcast subscriber) so this debate is pretty old to me (at least 10+ years old).
Lots of people are demanding a precise bandwidth limit - it's just not that simple. Or rather, they could, but doing so would actually provide a lesser product to you in the end. A few people have mentioned this - it's when you use it and where you live that matters. Comcast's network capacity is tremendous, but it's not completely even across all customers, which is normal of any large network. So, while some customers would actually be ok with 25TB/month, others can't get that without disrupting their (and only their) area of the network. You could argue that they should have even network capacity for all, but that's just not financially realistic.
So enough people have demanded that they give some kind of limit, so they're doing what they can to appease the customers - but to avoid the people who toe the line as was mentioned above, that just makes it worse, really. This is them doing the best they can while still giving themselves legal reason to kill off the ones doing the real damage.
Everyone here knows that P2P is mostly mp3s and movies and junk, and that it's what is causing the problem. It's been like that since P2P started in the 90s. Yes, there are legal reasons for P2P and all that, but, y'all know that most of the traffic isn't that. Don't get me wrong - I'm no better here, I use P2P also. But I know if I max my peering all day I'll move TB and impact others so I don't do that.
Bottom line - there is no hard limit, there isn't going to be, and you don't want there to be, since that would mean people that right now get to have great nighttime and other bandwidth won't have that luxury at the cost of the few guys that leave P2P running all day. Comcast is doing the Right(tm) thing here.
There is one other possible, though unlikely option, which is for Comcast to implement dynamic per-connection bandwidth reduction, so that if you try to hog bandwidth at times when others are trying to get their share, they slow you down just for the moment. There is hardware to do things like that, but, Comcast has what they have now and the amount of profit they will get as a company just by doing this kind of solution is likely pretty small. In time, as they do normal upgrades, you may see things like this improve, but it won't happen overnight with what's out there now.
I work for a high tech company that makes expensive hardware, far pricier than the xbox, and I've come to understand a lot more about the cost of warranties from the supplier end. Extending warranties is essentially a loss for the the manufacturer - you're essentially betting when what you made will fail. That's weighed against the cost of making more durable components and the cost that a customer would not buy your product in the first place.
When the 360 first came out, someone made a decision that beyond one year it would cost the company too much to repair the consoles relative to the increased sales than would be had by having a longer warranty. They also had to take into account the bad publicity that could (and did) occur.
I'll be pure engineer here - someone at Microsoft redid the formula, given the knowledge of failures that have happened since release. This time around, the math said that enough future sales would be lost to outweigh the cost of extending the warranty. It's really that simple. It's also interesting to note here that they didn't make it a lifetime warranty (20 years or something). They probably ran that formula too, and decided that the math tips the other way if you let it last forever.
So did they NEED to do this? If by need you mean "saving face", then no. Being the retrospective hero doesn't help anything, only in the sense that it might affect future sales.
Since I finished school myself in 2001, I've been working for the same company doing programming and other various tasks. In that time, I've had a chance to sit down with the other folks from my school (Cornell) to go over the various resumes that we pick up each year, looking for interns and/or full time hires. So I'm certainly not a HR person with loads of hiring experience, but I've had some with the sort of thing you're asking.
So I'll start with the good news - the bottom line is that what's on your resume only matters to a degree, and who you really "are" and what you can do and have done matters far more, especially after your first job. I'll give you total benefit of the doubt here - if you really bombed those classes because you needed the time to work to get money, than that's a very solid excuse to a recruiter (or at least, to me), and I would happily forgive it. What's more, grades in of themselves are only so important - I finished with about a 2.9 GPA or so, and landed what is for me a dream job. I didn't even list my GPA on my resume (though many folks will flag that, 'why isn't it listed, must be hiding something').
In your specific case, if the bad grades are in classes that matter, like core CS programming, etc., and you are 100% sure you would ace or do well in them the next go around, I would stay. The reasoning is it proves your excuse, and that you didn't just slack. If they're mostly in classes that don't "matter", like creative writing, then don't bother. I personally had to repeat two classes to graduate (though I still finished in 4 years).
Given all that though, I wouldn't focus on your classes anyway as far as getting a job. Remember, every kid from your major has taken more or less the same classes and done the same in-class projects. What else have you done? You said you worked on some OS stuff - emphasize that. You had to work full-time - if that's CS related, emphasize that. If you've got a strong personality that works well, show it off. Those are the things that stick in my mind when I'm going through the paper resumes later on. A good example of that was one I saw last year - on paper, this guy was sharp, near 4.0, etc., etc., seemingly a clear winner. But in person, next to no verbal skills, unfriendly, etc. He was immediately tossed in the bad pile.
I thought about exactly this today on the way to work, and it occurred to me that although Republicans and Democrats are the only major parties, I usually find myself associated with one or the other most of the time (which one isn't important here). If there was a third party candidate that was closer in line to my personal beliefs, I'd vote for them without a second thought.
The problem is most third party candidates (at least where I am) are so extreme or so focused on a single topic that voting for them simply doesn't make sense. I research my votes heavily before deciding, and I've yet to find anyone that was even ballpark close to what I'd like to see in office that wasn't a Republican or Democrat.
I also suspect this is how most of America feels too. Most people I know tend to polarize their political beliefs, so you naturally end up with two parties that are essentially opposites from one another.
We do in fact elect third-party candidates on a relatively regular basis, for example Jesse Ventura. In his case, he wasn't "extreme", had a stated opinion on a broad spectrum of topics, and was otherwise a fairly "normal" type of candidate.
Excellent article, and I agree with everything he wrote. I've thought about this too, as although I'm still quite young (26) I know from family history and my own personality I'll work until I literally drop dead. It would drive me insane to just sit at home "retired" because I love my work so much.
Don't get me wrong, I don't really care what my company does or doesn't do after I'm gone, but I have some great friends here and I do care quite a bit about them. I wouldn't want to suddenly drop tons of work on them when I know a 10 minute conversation or copying code would have saved the day.
Perhaps it's a bit selfish, but I would like to leave the impression when I'm gone that "Yeah, he was a great guy" rather than "He was a great guy, but now we're screwed". I try not to leave projects unfinished and I see no reason why my career as a whole needs to be any different.
That depends on what grade you got in physics ...
Of course! That's one of the beauties of the American legal system. You can sue anyone, at any time, for anything, for any reason. I stress the word "any" in my sentance ... there really are no limits. Now, the case will get thrown out of court if it's silly (sue you for 20 cheeseburgers because I don't like your shirt color), but you are ALWAYS allowed to sue somebody.
Ain't the U.S. grand?
You first have to get the Anvil, Catapult, and Boulder modules from ACME corporation
If electronic voting is allowed, can we use Dibold machines?
Could they vote for themselves?
Ack! *Vanishes into a paradox*
When I was young, we just held our fingers against the wire, and felt the electic pulses.
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Kids these days...
You had wires? Boy, when I was young, we just held metal rods up to the sky and felt the lightning run through us! You young whipper-snappers don't know the pain of trying to read a program through electric pulses. Our "1" was when the guy went stiff as a board, a "0" was if he couldn't handle it and fell to the ground and curled up. Boy, those were the days
I can't find it now, but about a year ago or so I read up on a guy's website about the project he was trying to create a home-built guided missile, through GPS. It was down under, either in Australia or New Zealand. He was doing real well for a while, until the authorities caught wind of it, then he got all legal hell. He was making some real strides though. And that was no joke!
Anyone know where that site went off to?
Yucca Mountain has too many unknowns? How about this - we have already set off over 500 nuclear test explosions in that mountain range, yet that somehow seems to not be an issue. Nuclear detonations are far worse than your everyday waste, and the range has clearly shown it can handle that.
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Oh, that and 20 years of scientific studies to back up those claims with detailed analyses of thousands of rock/soil samples
There are some obvious big brother concerns here. The GPS tracking can of course discover where you're going, speeding tickets you should get, etc. But it might lead to recovery of kidnap victims, murder victims, stolen cars, etc., and already has. It might make liars fess up in court when challeneged on the speed they were driving during an accident. (which has already happened).
So you know what? Stop committing crimes. If you use your car to drive to work, go on vacations, take the kids to the mall, etc., it won't be an issue. If you don't commit crimes, there won't be a problem, and if you do commit crimes, you should be caught!!!
Now of course, I speed a little like everyone else. But you know what? I do it because I know I won't get caught, most likely. I know I'm braking a law. I know I'm in the wrong. And if I thought I'd get caught, I'd stop. These devices are a good thing. We do have laws for a reason, you know.
the automated telephone system swears at YOU!
I like the spider web looking maps of the internet that are thrown around every now and then. But I think it would be far more interesting to see a map of what it looked like during the last major northeast blackout. It would perhaps be a good show of just how capable the internet really is of rerouting itself.
What if when cleaning you realize you have all this old computer junk that you want to get rid of? If it's too old, charities won't even want it. Then where? Not to the landfill, i trust ...