that all Giggle was doing was recording aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum that was hitting their equipment:
What's the limit to that?
The limit is the expectation of privacy. I do not expect my 200ft range non encrypted WiFi to be private. I do not expect the SSID & MAC broadcasts of my router to be private. Turn on your wifi, view available networks. See any that arn't yours? Guess what? You just did EXACTLY what Google has done -- except that Google logged the WiFi data from all over the world. I don't expect sound, light and/or RF waves that can be clearly discerned from more than 200ft away from my house to be private -- The police can use such emanations (e.g. gun fire) as probable cause to enter without a warrant; If I was broadcasting FM radio signal at the range my router does for 2.4Ghz, without a license, the FCC could use such recordings as evidence against me and ticket me for having a pirate radio station....
Such emanations are not considered private.
Once I set up a new WRT54GL. The SSID was "linksys" by default. I connected to it via my laptop, later I changed the SSID & enabled encryption. Two days latter I was at a friends house using my laptop -- It automatically connected to my friend's neighbor's WIFI -- their router SSID was "linksys" and was not password protected or encrypted. I disconnected, but meanwhile, did I just break the law because someone is too stupid to setup their router? Should I be fined? NO.
Is it also OK to record faint sound waves emitted from a given StreetView address?
Google did not do this. A more equivalent question would be: Is it also OK to stand in the street with a microphone and record the very loud shouting match that is occurring in a house 50 ft away, behind closed doors, yet is easily discernible to normal human hearing at the same range?
Is it also OK to record GSM cell phone transmissions (recently shown vulnerable to cracking)?
Yep! It's OK to record any EM you can build an antenna to detect. Is it OK to aim a satellite dish at a satellite that is broadcasting encrypted data? Yes. Is it OK to decrypt the data? No. Is it OK to access unencrypted transmissions without express permission If the data is not encrypted? Yes (Hint: TV & AM/FM radio).
I have never been comfortable revealing login credentials over any phone system -- wireless or otherwise. I know it's not private.
Is it also OK to set up a listening device to log the electromagnetic signature emitted by monitors and keyboards, and then associate that with a given StreetView address in your database?
Should It be illegal to walk around the neighborhood and take pictures and films of birds and trees? What if a house is in the background? Should it be illegal to geo-tag my video of a blue-jay attacking a cat and upload it to Youtube? What if your monitor is causing interference with my camera's audio recording? I would have captured some EM signal -- Where does the insanity begin?
Would it also be OK to use a high-power lens to record photons leaking beyond a window that you thought you had pulled the curtain on?
Would it be illegal for me to testify that I heard screams and gunshots coming from a house, and describe the person I caught a glimpse of via a window that the murderer thought they had pulled the curtain on? Would it be illegal if I had picked up my video recorder and used it to record the same information?
Would it also be OK to record infrared heat signatures of building occupants walking around or doing whatever?
Yep. In my town the cops use infrared cameras and do flyovers to find hot-spots where folks are growing marijuana in their attics... All energy is information. If it is escaping into the public -- it's public information.
Sadly, My Model M is no longer with us due to an incident involving a wedge of dried pineapple and a chinchilla.
I know my new Model S isn't trying to replace my Model M, but I find comfort in the sound of its buckling spring key switches with gold-plated contacts none the less.
I have a Laser Keyboard. It's neat, but it's a toy. Doing any amount of work is painful due to the repeated pounding of my fingers against the surface with no resistance.
My buckling spring blank keyboard is my "serious" keyboard. Keys need to provide a cushion for fingers. No touch screen keyboard provides this much needed resistance, and "air typing" (which you can do with the Laser Keyboard if you set it up just so), lacks the feedback I need to type accurately and quickly.
I fear that a foam-like sponge keyboard would only collect even more of the disgust that we must not name than a traditional keyboard -- At least when I clean my blank keyboard I don't have to worry about putting the key caps back on the correct posts, and I can rotate my key caps to allow even wear...
The problem is with the "obviousness" requirement of the patent system.
This requirement was included in order to prevent "well duh" patents, but there is no scientific way to quantize "well, duh, that's simple iteration". Its not as if the patent office has a staff of technicians "ordinarily skilled in the art" that proclaim "well, duh" upon seeing a rediculous patent... No, instead they must PROVE that the ideas are obvious by discovering prior art... The sad thing is, there is no way to search the entire world of prior art. Much prior art is unknown of, yet still does exist and IS prior art. A small group of patent examiners will never be able to search through the entire world of prior art, and they will not let the rest of the world help -- patent applications are submitted in secret!
I have written code in 1994 for the game Doom that simulates an IPX network over a modem connection, and allows BBSes to host 4 player Doom competitions. It also allows multiple matches and tournaments being part of a larger ladder. I used this software on my Depths of the Vortex BBS in 1994 and offered Cash prises for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place (taken from the entry tournament entry fees). Try searching for these event and you will not find them -- It wasn't on the Internet, and advertising was on my BBS only. Another local Houston BBS, Pinnacle, had an IPX simulator for Doom, ran tournaments, but did not use an automated solution...
I would posit that if X exists and is not patentable, then X on a computer, or X on the Internet is obvious and therefore not patentable. Games exist (Football, for example). Game tournaments exist. Game tournaments where you win money exist. Is it really that hard to believe game tournaments for money via computer on the Internet is obvious?
The problem is that "obviousness" can not be proven, we instead search for "prior art". I did not think my software was patentable... It was an obvious iteration to me... X, now online! The "obviousness" requirement of patents gave me the impression that my obvious "invention" should not be patentable.
However I was wrong... Any idea, no matter how obvious, can be patented if it has not yet been patented!
Patents are not awarded because they are unique ideas that no one has done before... Patents are awarded because no one has patented the idea yet, no matter the number of implementations of the idea that exist; If it's not already patented, the examiners can not find prior art.
Another problem is that it costs so much less to win a patent than to get a patent invalidated... It should be much harder to win a patent, IMHO.
The entity that you permeate is: [ ] - Inanimate [x] - Animate
The living entity you inhabit is: [ ] - Vertebrate [X] - Invertebrate...
You are drifting in the blood stream of a Death-Star Trash Compactor Monster.
[ ] Begin Mitosis. [ ] Generate Force. [x] Draw nutrients from your host. [ ] Die
----
Every player is a Midi-chlorian. The goal of the game is to remain undetected throughout the original trilogy followed by the prequel trilogy in order to avoid becoming a ridiculous explanation.
The problem is that Java has a built in garbage collector that runs when it wants to -- even occasionally in the middle of your code that is delivering an animation.
The current solution is to Never allocate or deallocate anything if you require smooth frame-rate. Any time an object is 'new'd or all references to it are lost Java may take the opportunity to garbage collect.
I've written several GCs for games and real-time applications. IMHO, Java (or Davlik) really just needs a System.deferGC( true ); method that will tell Java (or Davlik) to try NOT to run GC unless it is absolutely necessary.
Although you can try to make sure your code doesn't accidentally trigger garbage collection -- WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE TO? Not having to worry about GC is one thing, but not giving the developers even a smidge in of control over the GC is one of Java's most frustrating aspects.
I also delete my browsing history periodically....
It doesn't matter. The data's likely still there.
1. Deleting files (your browsing history) only unlinks them from the file system. I routinely recover partial and entire lost files. With magnetic media: Even with multiple rewrites before deletion you are not guaranteed that the disk didn't swap out that sector before it was overwritten. SSD is a different beast...
2. Your ISP knows all the sites you've been visiting online.
If you really want to browse anonymously, boot up a Linux live CD & use TOR.
It seems today that you have to go boot your chosen machine from a LiveCD to have any idea whether it will work properly.
I carry a portable $current_distro Linux in a bootable USB drive on my keychain.
I prefer to assemble my own computers using hardware that is known to work with Linux. However, I've helped some of my friends and relatives migrate to Linux, and they like to buy pre-assembled computers from $electronics_store.
My bootable Linux USB has come in handy for the purpose you describe: I've helped my friends purchase new PCs that are Linux friendly several times. I recently helped my neighbor buy a Linux-ready Toshiba laptop. The MicroCenter sales person didn't let me boot Linux and lost the sale because the kids at Best Buy did...
I know that most stores will sell the floor model once it is discontinued, so from a security standpoint I can understand why booting a stranger's USB is a very bad idea. I could have flashed the BIOS with malicious firmware, corrupted the recovery partition, and/or installed malware to the OS.
It would be nice if the stores would set up a Linux dual boot on their display models to avoid the security problem mentioned above, and still allow me to test out Linux on the hardware.
Note: Best-Buy's computers were largely untestable without booting my own OS because all the PCs were running the stupid in-store advertizing apps. This was a shitty experience; The incessant up-selling of warranties, additional peripherals, and pre-installed crapware & AV from Geek Squad was a strong reminder as to why I don't shop for my own computers in these big chain stores...
P.S. I've used my Linux key-fob to save my friends' data from rotting Windows installations on many occasions -- That's how they were first exposed to Linux on the desktop, and being able to boot the full OS from a USB or CD drive is the reason that 4 'em switched to Linux.
I've always wondered why all the content producers don't just sue all the ISPs for copyright infringement.
Think of all the routers in each ISP that are regularly making many copies of every piece of media their user's request...
Surely the entire iTunes catalog has been copied many thousands of times simply due to ISP routers that duplicate the copyrighted content!
(Seriously folks, the concept of Copyright is utterly broken due to the technology we now use.)
Copyright (c) 2010 - VortexCortex All rights reserved.
Electronic distribution of this content is only permitted en-route to Slashdot.org. Any other re-distribution of this content in electronic form, including but not limited to duplication and/or caching by routing hardware is not allowed.
(Yes, "All rights reserved" is redundant, that is the default when you produce any content (US automatically slaps a copyright on everything) -- ALL duplication is disallowed without written consent by default under US Copyright law. See... Utterly broken)
We first need to break a lock of x86 instruction set
Yep. All hail ARM.
There's a reason why embedded devices use ARM over x86. The x86 instruction set has a lot of instructions that no compilers (and therefore hardly anyone) ever use. Those unused instructions are just sitting there in the silicon, charged up with electrons, draining power, generating heat, and making it harder to create smaller & faster x86 chips. Some of these "deprecated" instructions are microcoded, but that just means they're slower and even less likely to be used by an optimizing compiler.
Chips run fast when you can keep the cache full and just shove instructions down the pipeline.
Branch prediction is needed to guess which branch of instructions to cache. Miss a prediction on x86 and the processor has to flush the unneeded instructions and load in the correct ones from memory.
On many ARM implementations, instructions have an execute bit. Let's say you make a prediction that a JNZ will branch. So you set a prediction register to "1", and shove that branch of code along with a "1" execute bit for all instructions. If you fail the prediction, the register gets set to "0" and all the "1" flagged instructions are skipped right over -- execution bits don't match, then don't execute.
Instead of flushing the pipeline as on x86, on ARM we can just start shoving the correct instructions down the pipe with execution bits set to "0". The pipeline continues as normal, no exceptional case occurs. The interesting part is that we can load both branches into the pipeline and set their execution bits ahead of time on ARM, on x86 we have to wait to see if the prediction was correct or not.
You gain speed when you keep that pipeline stuffed full.
Seriously, x86 is SO FREAKIN' OLD, it needs to die already. It's showing it's age so much that we actually design around its shortcomings to get faster chips! It's ancient, on its last leg, and it's slowing down the whole herd. I can't wait for it to get taken out by a predator.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w ##################### # File: money-test.pl # Desc: Tests if Money is Saved. #####################
use strict; use FileHandle;
# This Should Save Money! sub saveMoney {
my $tout = new FileHandle( "> test-output.txt" ) or return 0;
$tout->print( "Money\n" );
$tout->close();
$tout->open( "< test-output.txt" ) or return 0;
die "Lost Money!" if ( <$tout> !~/^Money/ );
return 1; }
saveMoney() or die "Money not saved: $!\n"; print "Money Saved.\n";
Antivirus software is not for surfing the Internet. Antivirus software is for scanning for and removing viruses.
1. My "anti-virus" scans all inbound Internet data -- ergo, I use it while I'm surfing the web. 2. Antivirus software can not be used to remove viruses. How is an antivirus running on a root-kitted system supposed to remove the rootkit? How can you ever be 100% sure that your infected system really is disinfected without scanning from another untainted OS and/or machine? Once you're infected, it's wipe & re-image time...
P.S. Modern bot-nets run silently -- You could be infected right now & not know it. My gateway alerts me to suspicious network activity...
Why should you move functionality from where it makes sense, to where it doesn't?
I can update just the gateway and all machines behind it benefit, instead of having all the machines install new AV signatures.
Granted, I primarily use Linux, but I have several Windows boxes I use for compatibility testing. It's a pain to keep them all up to date (even with VMs & disk images), or to scan them all via net-boot or boot CD periodically. I can avoid the entire mess if I scan all inbound data.
From there, it's just a short step to unmaintainable spaghetti code.
I disagree... It doesn't have to be spaghetti code (really a moot point: No matter how pristine and elegant the code is, it's always one developer away from becoming spaghetti code).
Considering that the alternatives are praying to $deity that MS will patch your systems before they're infected, or keeping a large, invasive, processor intensive AV software suite up to date & running on each machine, I think an external real-time network AV is an elegant solution.
(If performance is needed I place my Fedora system or Game Console in the DMZ).
"The main change, though, is that YouTube and similar sites will be legally responsible of all published content as long as they have any form (even if automated) of editorial control."
Fine. Get rid of editorial control. All of it.
But then the Italian version of the RIAA/MPAAA/ASCAP/Insert your acronym here, are barred from suing, because there isn't any responsibility for the content except by the posters themselves.
Sounds fine by me.
-- BMO
Won't work. Some *AA shill will upload kiddie porn, then someone else reports it.
Now, does YouTube breach the "no editorial control" loophole or get taken offline for knowingly distributing child porn?
The loophole doesn't exist because there is no such thing as "absolutely no editorial control" so long as absolute freedom of speech (however heinous it may be) is disallowed.
you're ignoring the obvious... comparison methodology could be optimized, thus cutting the relative required resources significantly.
I see, it's apparent that you haven't done any research on cryptography or crypto-analysis since your previous comment.
in short, you're an idiot.
It's better to stay silent and have people think you're a troll than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Even if you reduce the complexity required by many orders of magnitude (something that no one has done yet, and few cryptographers believe can be done) our current public key cryptography would still be very secure.
Let's just say that the purely hypothetical breakthrough in "comparison methodology" of which you speak allows us to compare the output of a chosen private key to the target public key in only a single clock cycle. Let's also suppose that this breakthrough enables us to build computers that calculate 1000 times the speed of our fastest supercomputers of today resulting in a 2.5 exaflop processor. Let's also say that this breakthrough allowed us to harness the power of lightning to turn every single grain of sand on this planet into such an exascale computer. Let's also assume that every one of these magnificent machines, in concert, attempted to break my 2048 bit RSA private key (assuming there is enough energy in our solar system to power such a beastly bot-net)...
... This mind-boggling massive network of machines with enormous computing potential utilizing your fantastical "comparison methodology" would still take many TRILLIONS of years to complete it's task!
I thought I had made the assumption of several huge and impractical breakthroughs painfully obvious in my previous post...
cower behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.
This statement is a testament to your ignorance; Your implied superiority through transparency has no teeth.
Aliases aren't always used to conceal an identity.
I've had this handle since 1987. Those who know me by the pseudonym frequently also know be by my given name...
I'm not "cowering" behind a pseudonym; Those that care to search the web for that particular keyword can discover my name and even contact me in various ways... including via snail-mail!
You can lead a troll to Google, but you can't make them search...
I think that navigating away from those pathetic pages is much more efficient than continuing my patronage and using plugins to make the site less appalling. Vote with your back button, or else such sites won't see a loss in hits -- i.e. you've just found a way to remain part of the problem.
If every grain of sand on Earth were a super computer that could perform a public/private key signature check once every clock cycle (not possible, takes many cycles), and those super computers ran at 1000 times the speed of our current fastest supercomputers, it would take trillions of years to crack our current public key crypto systems (when implemented correctly -- something Sony failed to do).
The universe is estimated to be about 13.75 billion years old. One trillion years is a truly Epic timescale. Given that there are many correctly implemented public key cryptographic libraries with source code available I find that Sony did, in fact, fail on an epic scale...
These enormously large metrics are meant to drive home to laymen just how impractical it is to brute force correctly implemented public key cryptography with the hardware we have today.
In short, "Epic Fail!" is an accurate exclamation. If you disagree, I suggest you go read up on the subject of public key cryptography a bit more before making baseless claims as to the "feeb"ness of others' well informed comments (failing this, you could just troll harder).
The human arrogance of thinking we as a species are capable of knowing everything, machine assisted or otherwise, is the source of many of the most serious mistakes we have made. Everything from the introduction of insects from other countries to control our pests (and having the introduced species run wild) to plans to fertilize the oceans to address global warming -- arrogance, the root of much of the worlds bad deeds.
The drive to "know everything" is what has lengthened our lifespans and bettered our quality of living.
Look at the big picture: The missteps you site will aide us in the decisions we make while colonizing & terraforming other lands and planets.
What you would call "arrogance" I would call "making uninformed decisions without performing adequate testing first". Applying an untested hypothesis is indeed folly in any case except experimentation.
A simulation test bed will be a great tool to help test the global impact of hypotheses that involve modifying our ecosystems.
It seems to me you strongly believe, "What you don't know can't hurt you"; I assure you, that belief is seriously flawed.
Slashdot Mirror
that all Giggle was doing was recording aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum that was hitting their equipment:
What's the limit to that?
The limit is the expectation of privacy. I do not expect my 200ft range non encrypted WiFi to be private. I do not expect the SSID & MAC broadcasts of my router to be private. Turn on your wifi, view available networks. See any that arn't yours? Guess what? You just did EXACTLY what Google has done -- except that Google logged the WiFi data from all over the world. I don't expect sound, light and/or RF waves that can be clearly discerned from more than 200ft away from my house to be private -- The police can use such emanations (e.g. gun fire) as probable cause to enter without a warrant; If I was broadcasting FM radio signal at the range my router does for 2.4Ghz, without a license, the FCC could use such recordings as evidence against me and ticket me for having a pirate radio station....
Such emanations are not considered private.
Once I set up a new WRT54GL. The SSID was "linksys" by default. I connected to it via my laptop, later I changed the SSID & enabled encryption. Two days latter I was at a friends house using my laptop -- It automatically connected to my friend's neighbor's WIFI -- their router SSID was "linksys" and was not password protected or encrypted. I disconnected, but meanwhile, did I just break the law because someone is too stupid to setup their router? Should I be fined? NO.
Is it also OK to record faint sound waves emitted from a given StreetView address?
Google did not do this. A more equivalent question would be: Is it also OK to stand in the street with a microphone and record the very loud shouting match that is occurring in a house 50 ft away, behind closed doors, yet is easily discernible to normal human hearing at the same range?
Is it also OK to record GSM cell phone transmissions (recently shown vulnerable to cracking)?
Yep! It's OK to record any EM you can build an antenna to detect. Is it OK to aim a satellite dish at a satellite that is broadcasting encrypted data? Yes. Is it OK to decrypt the data? No. Is it OK to access unencrypted transmissions without express permission If the data is not encrypted? Yes (Hint: TV & AM/FM radio).
I have never been comfortable revealing login credentials over any phone system -- wireless or otherwise. I know it's not private.
Is it also OK to set up a listening device to log the electromagnetic signature emitted by monitors and keyboards, and then associate that with a given StreetView address in your database?
Should It be illegal to walk around the neighborhood and take pictures and films of birds and trees? What if a house is in the background? Should it be illegal to geo-tag my video of a blue-jay attacking a cat and upload it to Youtube?
What if your monitor is causing interference with my camera's audio recording? I would have captured some EM signal -- Where does the insanity begin?
Would it also be OK to use a high-power lens to record photons leaking beyond a window that you thought you had pulled the curtain on?
Would it be illegal for me to testify that I heard screams and gunshots coming from a house, and describe the person I caught a glimpse of via a window that the murderer thought they had pulled the curtain on? Would it be illegal if I had picked up my video recorder and used it to record the same information?
Would it also be OK to record infrared heat signatures of building occupants walking around or doing whatever?
Yep. In my town the cops use infrared cameras and do flyovers to find hot-spots where folks are growing marijuana in their attics... All energy is information. If it is escaping into the public -- it's public information.
And if a "normal"
. . . nothing but a newer Model M that is!
Sadly, My Model M is no longer with us due to an incident involving a wedge of dried pineapple and a chinchilla.
I know my new Model S isn't trying to replace my Model M, but I find comfort in the sound of its buckling spring key switches with gold-plated contacts none the less.
I have a Laser Keyboard. It's neat, but it's a toy. Doing any amount of work is painful due to the repeated pounding of my fingers against the surface with no resistance.
My buckling spring blank keyboard is my "serious" keyboard. Keys need to provide a cushion for fingers. No touch screen keyboard provides this much needed resistance, and "air typing" (which you can do with the Laser Keyboard if you set it up just so), lacks the feedback I need to type accurately and quickly.
I fear that a foam-like sponge keyboard would only collect even more of the disgust that we must not name than a traditional keyboard -- At least when I clean my blank keyboard I don't have to worry about putting the key caps back on the correct posts, and I can rotate my key caps to allow even wear...
The problem is with the "obviousness" requirement of the patent system.
This requirement was included in order to prevent "well duh" patents, but there is no scientific way to quantize "well, duh, that's simple iteration". Its not as if the patent office has a staff of technicians "ordinarily skilled in the art" that proclaim "well, duh" upon seeing a rediculous patent... No, instead they must PROVE that the ideas are obvious by discovering prior art... The sad thing is, there is no way to search the entire world of prior art. Much prior art is unknown of, yet still does exist and IS prior art. A small group of patent examiners will never be able to search through the entire world of prior art, and they will not let the rest of the world help -- patent applications are submitted in secret!
I have written code in 1994 for the game Doom that simulates an IPX network over a modem connection, and allows BBSes to host 4 player Doom competitions. It also allows multiple matches and tournaments being part of a larger ladder. I used this software on my Depths of the Vortex BBS in 1994 and offered Cash prises for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place (taken from the entry tournament entry fees). Try searching for these event and you will not find them -- It wasn't on the Internet, and advertising was on my BBS only. Another local Houston BBS, Pinnacle, had an IPX simulator for Doom, ran tournaments, but did not use an automated solution...
I would posit that if X exists and is not patentable, then X on a computer, or X on the Internet is obvious and therefore not patentable. Games exist (Football, for example). Game tournaments exist. Game tournaments where you win money exist. Is it really that hard to believe game tournaments for money via computer on the Internet is obvious?
The problem is that "obviousness" can not be proven, we instead search for "prior art". I did not think my software was patentable... It was an obvious iteration to me... X, now online! The "obviousness" requirement of patents gave me the impression that my obvious "invention" should not be patentable.
However I was wrong... Any idea, no matter how obvious, can be patented if it has not yet been patented!
Patents are not awarded because they are unique ideas that no one has done before... Patents are awarded because no one has patented the idea yet, no matter the number of implementations of the idea that exist; If it's not already patented, the examiners can not find prior art.
Another problem is that it costs so much less to win a patent than to get a patent invalidated... It should be much harder to win a patent, IMHO.
Welcome to Star Wars - Inner Force!
The entity that you permeate is:
[ ] - Inanimate
[x] - Animate
The living entity you inhabit is: ...
[ ] - Vertebrate
[X] - Invertebrate
You are drifting in the blood stream of a Death-Star Trash Compactor Monster.
[ ] Begin Mitosis.
[ ] Generate Force.
[x] Draw nutrients from your host.
[ ] Die
----
Every player is a Midi-chlorian. The goal of the game is to remain undetected throughout the original trilogy followed by the prequel trilogy in order to avoid becoming a ridiculous explanation.
Power Sipping belongs in the same family as Speed Walking.
OTOH, sounds like someone might have a case of Powerthirst.
So, the question I have, is: Would moving to a dual processor negatively affect the batter life of a cellphone?
Dual cores will likely increase the battery life since one core can be underclocked or disabled when appropriate (saves battery life).
However, I have no idea how multi-core hardware will affect batter... Hmmm, are you planing a fast food themed competitor to "Will it Blend?"
http://www.xkcd.com/841/
(esp. the alt text.)
If only Android could be rewritten in Javascript..
Better throw in some XML for good measure...
Good idea! I propose we call this monstrosity WebOS.
What is the difference between a rat and a mouse?
One is stack based, the other is register based, DUH!
To be fair, OpenGL context switching is pretty damn fast... It's switching resolutions & color depth that takes ages... even with DirectX.
You're right, the GPU isn't the problem.
The problem is that Java has a built in garbage collector that runs when it wants to -- even occasionally in the middle of your code that is delivering an animation.
The current solution is to Never allocate or deallocate anything if you require smooth frame-rate. Any time an object is 'new'd or all references to it are lost Java may take the opportunity to garbage collect.
I've written several GCs for games and real-time applications. IMHO, Java (or Davlik) really just needs a System.deferGC( true ); method that will tell Java (or Davlik) to try NOT to run GC unless it is absolutely necessary.
Although you can try to make sure your code doesn't accidentally trigger garbage collection -- WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE TO? Not having to worry about GC is one thing, but not giving the developers even a smidge in of control over the GC is one of Java's most frustrating aspects.
I also delete my browsing history periodically....
It doesn't matter. The data's likely still there.
1. Deleting files (your browsing history) only unlinks them from the file system.
I routinely recover partial and entire lost files. With magnetic media: Even with multiple rewrites before deletion you are not guaranteed that the disk didn't swap out that sector before it was overwritten. SSD is a different beast...
2. Your ISP knows all the sites you've been visiting online.
If you really want to browse anonymously, boot up a Linux live CD & use TOR.
It seems today that you have to go boot your chosen machine from a LiveCD to have any idea whether it will work properly.
I carry a portable $current_distro Linux in a bootable USB drive on my keychain.
I prefer to assemble my own computers using hardware that is known to work with Linux.
However, I've helped some of my friends and relatives migrate to Linux, and they like to buy pre-assembled computers from $electronics_store.
My bootable Linux USB has come in handy for the purpose you describe: I've helped my friends purchase new PCs that are Linux friendly several times. I recently helped my neighbor buy a Linux-ready Toshiba laptop. The MicroCenter sales person didn't let me boot Linux and lost the sale because the kids at Best Buy did...
I know that most stores will sell the floor model once it is discontinued, so from a security standpoint I can understand why booting a stranger's USB is a very bad idea. I could have flashed the BIOS with malicious firmware, corrupted the recovery partition, and/or installed malware to the OS.
It would be nice if the stores would set up a Linux dual boot on their display models to avoid the security problem mentioned above, and still allow me to test out Linux on the hardware.
Note: Best-Buy's computers were largely untestable without booting my own OS because all the PCs were running the stupid in-store advertizing apps. This was a shitty experience; The incessant up-selling of warranties, additional peripherals, and pre-installed crapware & AV from Geek Squad was a strong reminder as to why I don't shop for my own computers in these big chain stores...
P.S. I've used my Linux key-fob to save my friends' data from rotting Windows installations on many occasions -- That's how they were first exposed to Linux on the desktop, and being able to boot the full OS from a USB or CD drive is the reason that 4 'em switched to Linux.
I've always wondered why all the content producers don't just sue all the ISPs for copyright infringement.
Think of all the routers in each ISP that are regularly making many copies of every piece of media their user's request...
Surely the entire iTunes catalog has been copied many thousands of times simply due to ISP routers that duplicate the copyrighted content!
(Seriously folks, the concept of Copyright is utterly broken due to the technology we now use.)
Copyright (c) 2010 - VortexCortex
All rights reserved.
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We first need to break a lock of x86 instruction set
Yep. All hail ARM.
There's a reason why embedded devices use ARM over x86. The x86 instruction set has a lot of instructions that no compilers (and therefore hardly anyone) ever use. Those unused instructions are just sitting there in the silicon, charged up with electrons, draining power, generating heat, and making it harder to create smaller & faster x86 chips. Some of these "deprecated" instructions are microcoded, but that just means they're slower and even less likely to be used by an optimizing compiler.
Chips run fast when you can keep the cache full and just shove instructions down the pipeline.
Branch prediction is needed to guess which branch of instructions to cache. Miss a prediction on x86 and the processor has to flush the unneeded instructions and load in the correct ones from memory.
On many ARM implementations, instructions have an execute bit. Let's say you make a prediction that a JNZ will branch. So you set a prediction register to "1", and shove that branch of code along with a "1" execute bit for all instructions. If you fail the prediction, the register gets set to "0" and all the "1" flagged instructions are skipped right over -- execution bits don't match, then don't execute.
Instead of flushing the pipeline as on x86, on ARM we can just start shoving the correct instructions down the pipe with execution bits set to "0". The pipeline continues as normal, no exceptional case occurs. The interesting part is that we can load both branches into the pipeline and set their execution bits ahead of time on ARM, on x86 we have to wait to see if the prediction was correct or not.
You gain speed when you keep that pipeline stuffed full.
Seriously, x86 is SO FREAKIN' OLD, it needs to die already. It's showing it's age so much that we actually design around its shortcomings to get faster chips! It's ancient, on its last leg, and it's slowing down the whole herd. I can't wait for it to get taken out by a predator.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#####################
# File: money-test.pl
# Desc: Tests if Money is Saved.
#####################
use strict;
use FileHandle;
# This Should Save Money! /^Money/ );
sub saveMoney {
my $tout = new FileHandle( "> test-output.txt" ) or return 0;
$tout->print( "Money\n" );
$tout->close();
$tout->open( "< test-output.txt" ) or return 0;
die "Lost Money!" if ( <$tout> !~
return 1;
}
saveMoney() or die "Money not saved: $!\n";
print "Money Saved.\n";
Great idea.
I agree, so does my Security Gateway.
Antivirus software is not for surfing the Internet. Antivirus software is for scanning for and removing viruses.
1. My "anti-virus" scans all inbound Internet data -- ergo, I use it while I'm surfing the web.
2. Antivirus software can not be used to remove viruses. How is an antivirus running on a root-kitted system supposed to remove the rootkit? How can you ever be 100% sure that your infected system really is disinfected without scanning from another untainted OS and/or machine? Once you're infected, it's wipe & re-image time...
P.S. Modern bot-nets run silently -- You could be infected right now & not know it. My gateway alerts me to suspicious network activity...
Why should you move functionality from where it makes sense, to where it doesn't?
I can update just the gateway and all machines behind it benefit, instead of having all the machines install new AV signatures.
Granted, I primarily use Linux, but I have several Windows boxes I use for compatibility testing. It's a pain to keep them all up to date (even with VMs & disk images), or to scan them all via net-boot or boot CD periodically. I can avoid the entire mess if I scan all inbound data.
From there, it's just a short step to unmaintainable spaghetti code.
I disagree... It doesn't have to be spaghetti code (really a moot point: No matter how pristine and elegant the code is, it's always one developer away from becoming spaghetti code).
Considering that the alternatives are praying to $deity that MS will patch your systems before they're infected, or keeping a large, invasive, processor intensive AV software suite up to date & running on each machine, I think an external real-time network AV is an elegant solution.
(If performance is needed I place my Fedora system or Game Console in the DMZ).
"The main change, though, is that YouTube and similar sites will be legally responsible of all published content as long as they have any form (even if automated) of editorial control."
Fine. Get rid of editorial control. All of it.
But then the Italian version of the RIAA/MPAAA/ASCAP/Insert your acronym here, are barred from suing, because there isn't any responsibility for the content except by the posters themselves.
Sounds fine by me.
--
BMO
Won't work. Some *AA shill will upload kiddie porn, then someone else reports it.
Now, does YouTube breach the "no editorial control" loophole or get taken offline for knowingly distributing child porn?
The loophole doesn't exist because there is no such thing as "absolutely no editorial control" so long as absolute freedom of speech (however heinous it may be) is disallowed.
When has dumping a chemical into our biosphere such that it reaches many times the natural level been a good thing?
Please give one example. I can site many, many cases where it was a bad.
Well, The Great Oxygen Catastrophe comes to mind.
It was a very good thing for all of us oxygen breathing lifeforms...
(Not such a good thing for lots of Earth's anaerobic life; It "was likely the largest extinction event in Earth's history" for them.)
Not to worry: Life as a whole is far more resilient than any one strain of life, including that of our human race.
you're ignoring the obvious... comparison methodology could be optimized, thus cutting the relative required resources significantly.
I see, it's apparent that you haven't done any research on cryptography or crypto-analysis since your previous comment.
in short, you're an idiot.
It's better to stay silent and have people think you're a troll than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Even if you reduce the complexity required by many orders of magnitude (something that no one has done yet, and few cryptographers believe can be done) our current public key cryptography would still be very secure.
Let's just say that the purely hypothetical breakthrough in "comparison methodology" of which you speak allows us to compare the output of a chosen private key to the target public key in only a single clock cycle. Let's also suppose that this breakthrough enables us to build computers that calculate 1000 times the speed of our fastest supercomputers of today resulting in a 2.5 exaflop processor. Let's also say that this breakthrough allowed us to harness the power of lightning to turn every single grain of sand on this planet into such an exascale computer. Let's also assume that every one of these magnificent machines, in concert, attempted to break my 2048 bit RSA private key (assuming there is enough energy in our solar system to power such a beastly bot-net)...
I thought I had made the assumption of several huge and impractical breakthroughs painfully obvious in my previous post...
cower behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.
This statement is a testament to your ignorance; Your implied superiority through transparency has no teeth.
Aliases aren't always used to conceal an identity.
I've had this handle since 1987. Those who know me by the pseudonym frequently also know be by my given name...
I'm not "cowering" behind a pseudonym; Those that care to search the web for that particular keyword can discover my name and even contact me in various ways... including via snail-mail!
You can lead a troll to Google, but you can't make them search...
Reminds me of this Live action Pac-Man stunt.
I think that navigating away from those pathetic pages is much more efficient than continuing my patronage and using plugins to make the site less appalling. Vote with your back button, or else such sites won't see a loss in hits -- i.e. you've just found a way to remain part of the problem.
Actually, I think the metric is fair.
If every grain of sand on Earth were a super computer that could perform a public/private key signature check once every clock cycle (not possible, takes many cycles), and those super computers ran at 1000 times the speed of our current fastest supercomputers, it would take trillions of years to crack our current public key crypto systems (when implemented correctly -- something Sony failed to do).
The universe is estimated to be about 13.75 billion years old. One trillion years is a truly Epic timescale. Given that there are many correctly implemented public key cryptographic libraries with source code available I find that Sony did, in fact, fail on an epic scale...
These enormously large metrics are meant to drive home to laymen just how impractical it is to brute force correctly implemented public key cryptography with the hardware we have today.
In short, "Epic Fail!" is an accurate exclamation. If you disagree, I suggest you go read up on the subject of public key cryptography a bit more before making baseless claims as to the "feeb"ness of others' well informed comments (failing this, you could just troll harder).
The human arrogance of thinking we as a species are capable of knowing everything, machine assisted or otherwise, is the source of many of the most serious mistakes we have made. Everything from the introduction of insects from other countries to control our pests (and having the introduced species run wild) to plans to fertilize the oceans to address global warming -- arrogance, the root of much of the worlds bad deeds.
The drive to "know everything" is what has lengthened our lifespans and bettered our quality of living.
Look at the big picture: The missteps you site will aide us in the decisions we make while colonizing & terraforming other lands and planets.
What you would call "arrogance" I would call "making uninformed decisions without performing adequate testing first". Applying an untested hypothesis is indeed folly in any case except experimentation.
A simulation test bed will be a great tool to help test the global impact of hypotheses that involve modifying our ecosystems.
It seems to me you strongly believe, "What you don't know can't hurt you"; I assure you, that belief is seriously flawed.