Correct, with sponsers such as HP, Sun & Red Hat, Gnome is aimed squarely at the corporate desktop where consistency and manageability are watch words. It seems also, that Gnome appeals to those who prefer simplicity (or usability, if you prefer) to versatility.
KDE is more volunteer driven, hence it aims to appeal to fellow developers and home power users, for whom configurability and features are wanted.
As a biased KDE user, I think it has the potential to be better than Gnome on the corporate desktop. However this study is right, there are too many 'in your face' options. I agree that KDE needs to cut back on the number of buttons, menu entrys, context menu entries and configuration options shown at the top level. Examples:
The default konqueror toolbar has cut, copy and paste buttons - these are unnecessary and clutter the interface.
The settings menu on most KDE menu is a mess, 4 different 'Configure <x>' entries in the case of konqueror, and what is 'Full Screen Mode' oding there? There may be a case for scrapping the menu entirely and placing the items in other menus.
File context menu in konqueror is too overloaded, there are so many that it slows down 'quick access' to the commonly wanted functions. For instance there are entries for both 'Move to Recycle Bin' and 'Delete'. Only the first should be displayed by default, the latter perhaps appearing on 'Shift+Right Click', ala MS Windows.
The number of KDE Control Panel panels needs rationalising, particularly sprawled, is the Look'n'Feel branch.
There are items in the study I think are dumb, KMail is a fine name for the KDE email client, much better than Kamel (or whatever the suggestion was).
The KDE project is making movements in the right direction, there is a nascent KDE-Usability project. Gnome has gone too far in usability through streamlining, KDE hasn't gone far enough, yet.
Of course all that's opinion, but I say it anyway.
I never claimed SPF will be an end to spam, as long as we have the possibility of unsolicited mail some of that unsolicited mail will be unwanted (spam, malware or other).
SPF is intended to vastly reduce spam from it's current levels. If it's use were widespread then all the zombies spewing out mail with forged addresses & all the open relays become much less effective.
Basically by making From address spoofing much much harder it becomes much easier to identify spammers and stomp on them.
We can never completely remove the incentive to spam, it's a very extreme example of the Last Mile Problem. There will always be a few morons out of the millions, who pay money for PEN!S 3NL4RGM£NT P!LL5 after receiving a piece of Spam. All we can do is reduce the incentive and increase the costs to the spammers - by identifying then blacklisting, suing, arresting and cluebatting them into the ground.
It'll cut down on problems where forged senders are the main symptom, dramatically. That both includes viruses ( virii ) and some spammers
And there in lies the wonderful synergy of SPF and blacklists. Without From address forging it becomes much to perform the follow sequence: 1. I received a Spam message from domainx.com, either:
(a) sender was a verified user of domainx.com, spf records check out
(b) no spf, sender likely forged In case (a) inform the ISP of domainx.com, if further verified Spam messages are received from domainx.com, blacklist it. In case (b) if SPF is in widespread use for ligitimate mail then the soam message is easier to mark as such (less need to resort to expensive statistics on the body). If SPF is not widespread there is less benefit.
Apparently He is one of the harsher compromises in the design. It's completely non-reactive but so light it leaks out of even the most tightly sealed container. Hence I guess it would need 'topping up',
However it's a coolant, not consumed by the reaction hence probably wouldn't need to much replenishment after the initial charge. I've no idea how He is produced or gathered, but they must use a good amount in alll those blimps & kid's balloons.
If it's gathered from the atmosphere then it is kinda renewable, cause that's where any leaked gas goes, only require energy to recapture and recompress.
I don't claim to be an expert in these matters, I'm just channelling wikipedia.org.
I believe helium is used because it's very good and not absorbing neutrons from the fission and it's a noble gas, hence doesn't burn or chemically react with anything (more-uber-than-inside-a-nuclear-reactor extreme conditions excluded).
Re:Nuclear energy works!
on
China Goes Nuclear
·
· Score: 5, Informative
These are not your traditional nuclear reactors, they don't suffer from a run-away failure mode, they're designed such that even if all control rods are removed and the coolant gets shut off the increased temperature itself slows down the reaction to a stable idle - below the temperature at which the fuel or reactor melts. Ie they inherently can't blow up or go into meltdown.
Additionally the coolant used is helium, an atom that has very low neutron absorbtion, meaning in the case of a leak there is no atmospheric or groundwater contamination.
Additionlly-additionally the nuclear fuel is at a much lower density, compared to a conventional reactor, greatly simplifying refueling and disposal. Each 210 g pebble contains 9g of uranium grains, sealed inside an exetremely tough ceramic casing that doesn't burn or break - hence no radioactive dust or smoke in an accident.
These things seem very safe and very clean. My main concern will be the lack of public criticism and independant oversight in a country such as China.
I totally agree (from all reports, I've no longterm direct experience) that they're sturdy, robust, of high build quality and generally good.
I just don't think they look it, to me the rubberised black with red trim looks awful - it reminds of how 'portable computers' looked in the pre-pentium days. It doesn't look the part compared to just about any other laptop.
This isn't a flame, I'm curious whether my aesthetics are different to the majority. Also everything I've read and heard says IBM laptops rock, which I don't doubt. I'd love to have a Thinkpad X31
However, does anyone else find the design of all IBM Thinkpads to be absolutely butt ugly? Yes they're distinctive & not just another silvery Powerbook ripoff, but they just look so cheap and plasticy - like something out of the bargain bin.
Basically it was a highend RISC architecture, dependant on smarts in the compiler to achieve good performance, it flopped. Quote:
Paper performance was impressive for a single-chip solution; however, real-world performance was anything but. One problem, perhaps unrecognized at the time, was that runtime code paths are difficult to predict, meaning that it becomes exceedingly difficult to properly order instructions at compile time
Designing a compiler which allows the Itanium to perform up to its potential has proved to be a difficult task and a very serious issue. Improvements are steadily being made; still, porting software to Itanium has a reputation for difficulty.
No, I don't consider double clicking freecell to be programming.
My glib one liner was too general as a formal definition, wikipedia describes programming thus:
Programming is the art of creating a computer program, a concrete set of instructions for a computer to carry out.
Which is also over generalised IMO. I'm not sure I could pin down a complete and exact definition, but it would definitely include that the instructions were stored, loaded and interpreted directly by the computer, without the need for external input (note that doesn't programs that accept external input).
I still class writing HTML as programming, not procedural programming certainly (declarative would be closest), but still programming according to my understanding.
The computer that does the interpretation is remote, and the internal structure used by the browser to represent the page isn't native machine code. Those are attributes are equally applicable to a Java applet (delivery over the wire as bytecode or source work equally well).
Everyone who said HTML is not a programming language is worried that they are not actually competent programmers. You're missing the big picture.
First of all, let me say: Agreed, HTML is programming, just as C++ is - the computer is interpreting coded instructions to process data.
Being able to code well is not a viture, it's a talent. You're not holy because you can make more efficient use of the EAX register than your neighbor. And being able to code simple things is not out of the realm of ANYONE. It may be VERY simple things, but people can learn to fend for themselves in simple matters. Macros, mail filters, PowerPoint animation -- these things are ALL programming! Maybe not as holy as you all would like, but they are programming. Many developers feel like they are the priests of the code, and they have to prevent the laity from THINKING that they have anything figured out, because if the laity could figure any one thing out for themselves, then they might figure out OTHER things, and soon, what would they need priests for?
Please don't tar everyone with the same brush though. There is merit in making more efficient use of the EAX register, or shaving 20ms of that inner loop. Programming is a mix of latent talent, personal drive & learned skill, hence performing it well is an accomplishment that one should be proud in. Some are better, in one speciality or another, than others, many are better than me or (going with the statistical odds) you. (You're-new-here jokes aside I don't think most of us are that elitist, just some.
Sorry if I got the wrong end of your rant, but I just felt the need to say that.
Regards.
Alex
PS you (intentionally?) didn't close your rant tag, probably for the best, so I'll leave it open too, just in case of any replys.:)
Also, I don't think people realize how strong cryptography is today. There are cryptographic methods available to the public at large (such as RC5 and PGP) that are proven to require more computing power than is theoretically possible in the universe. Not just more computing power than is possible with current hardware, but the theoretical limits of computation given the entire resources of the universe.
Oh dear, fallen into own trap have you. PGP and the public key crypto it's based on is in no way proven to be hard or unbreakable. It is conjectured that factoring the private key (hence breaking the code) of RSA is NP hard, and hence would require more computing power than we can conceive to brute force a properly encrypted message. But no encryption method, other than one time pads has been proven to be secure.
Given superior mathematical theory and/or blind luck, someone such as Ms A Genius, aliens, the NSA or l33td00d386 may have already broken RSA, DSA, Elgamel and disporven General Relativity. They are all only theorems that have withstood public scrutiny and attack thus far, they've in no sense been proven, other than in practise, they're the best we (you and me) have so far.
When you're adversery is someone with the resources to run Echelon, a point to point, line level only, but intrinsically untappable, line from the embassy back to HQ might be a the only trustworthy option.
My point, and your point in the linked post, are that bicycles are much more efficient for urban transport than cars, as you've demonstrated. My additional point is any transportation method has zero benefit if it's not used. E-bikes are more likely to be used because of convenience; the rider can travel an average 10-15mph without the need to have a shower/change of clothes upon arriving.
Green transportation? These things definitly aren't designed to replace cars. Look at the min/max speeds! And the comparison was made with bikes, not cars.
No they're not designed to replace cars as general pupose transporation, they're intended to be the only option other than walking, or as a supplement to a car (in a case the person can afford a car). The min/max speed is not comparable to a car on open road, but it beats the pants off anything that's sitting a traffic jam, something cars are very adept at creating, this is for urban use remember.
What's greener, a bike powered by human-power, or a bike powered by electricity (which has to come from somewhere....fossil fuels, anyone)? I vote human-powered bikes.
One human powered bike is greener than an electric one, but both are greener than a car, particularly in urban, stop-start traffic. If someone would choose a electric bike over a car, but a car over a normal bike, then the electric bike is greener than the car. As with most many environmental issues it is a balance between impact, hassle & motivation. Also remember the motor supplements the pedalling, it doesn't replace it.
I vote electric bikes, for wide spread adoption.
Alex
They've had them the last few months, unfortunately their 3D performance sucks (as compared to the Windows drivers) & updates are sporadic. I'd recommend you stick with Nividia for 3D on Linux (assuming of course you can bare to use closed source drivers).
Regards
Alex
PS I'm not affiliated with Nvidia, ATI or Linus Torvalds. YMMV.
Exactly, the reason there is no such thing as a Personal Car platform is the Internal Combustion Engine forces all the power transfer to be mechanical. So for any hope of a lightweight & efficient car, the steering, transmission, weight distribution, Air Conditioning, brakes, engine block etc have to be tightly coupled & completly unmodular. Their dimensions & relative positions are fixed & inflexible, the chassis is necessarily bespoke for that model.
PCs can be made in any shape from a cardboard software box to a rack mount case, using only off the shelf standardised components - because the coupling between them is loose.
The HyWire is drive by wire - control and power are carried electrically, hence parts are loosely coupled. This means items can be interchangeable, with only the power unit being constant across designs. It also makes car autopilots simpler to develop (no need to add servos or actuators).
I don't dispute that. What ever effort and ingenuity is required to make a backplane carrying 80 conductors / 2 drives (PATA 133). It will be cheaper and simpler to create the same backplane with 4 conductors/device.
Rounded IDE is a hack. the length of the cable is even more limited than normal because of increased cross talk (interference between signal wires). Also, in my experieince, the rounded cables are even less flexible than the ribbons.
SATA can go longer distances, at faster speeds, with less bulk, more routing flexiblity & it works for all drives (PATA is too big for 2.5" drives). Additional it's electrically safe for hotplugging. As a bonus we finally get rid of those damn molex connectors.
At the moment it's more expensive, that will change.
Where SATA will of most use is in compact form factor machines - mini/nano-itx, micro-atx, laptops, high density rackmount storage servers etc.
Elektroschock (659467): "This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law."
sir_cello (634395) in reply: "you misunderstood mean: you can patent an algorithm as embodied in a software program, but you cannot patent the algorithm itself - I certainly didn't mean the latter."
Perhaps I misunderstand the terminology used here. However, sir_cello, are you certain that a patent is what you use for protection of "an algorithm as embodied in a software program"? In my understanding that would fall under copyright protection.
By this I mean:
Patent - protects an idea, demonstrated for a specific physical implementation exists eg a centrifuge based vacuum cleaner (the Dyson Cleaner)
Copyright - protects a specific expression or recording, EG the likeness of Micky Mouse, the OS Microsoft Windows XP, the Linux Kernel
Since an algorithm/recipe/method, such as an improved compression algorithm, is an idea for which all expressions are equivalent it was commonly understood to unpatentable. However, I believe sir_cello, that your "algorithm as embodied in a software program" would be a specific implementation, hence protected by copyright.
However, the GIF/LZW patent existing in the UK, and companies being charged to use it, has me uneasy about the above. Is (a) my understanding wrong, (b) the UK-LZW patent not enforcable or (c) something else the truth?
This thread struck a nerve for me, so I'm interested to hear any responses.
If it works, it will push the envolope, improving not just total power consumption, but weight, volume & temperature also.
We already have water cooling at the macro level - a radiator + pump + heat exchanger + resevoir system will give a lower temp and less noise for the same or better heat removal capacity eg . these.
The improvement this would provide is watercooling at the micro level, just to the most critical components. The improvement in heat conductivity from the chip to the cooler should mean lower temps for the same transfer. Cooler.
The bore of the tubes implies 50 ml liquid, rather than upto 1 litre (2 pints) currently used. Lighter.
Less water for the same heat transfer means a smaller pump. Lower resistance in the chip due to lower temps would mean less power disipation. Longer running on batteries.
On the air side (dissipation from the cooler to the environment), heat exchanger tubing with ~100 micron diameter (the artivle soesn't say they've done this, but it seems a logical extension) gives enourmous surface area/unit volume, giving better dissipation for the same airflow. Quieter.
So I would surmise this is ideal for laptops, it improves all 3 of the key features - weight, longevity and actually-able-to-use-it-on-my-lapiness.
That's just the risk of attachments. The only way to be quite safe is not to open _or_ view any attachment that is sent to you by someone you do not know (and if course disable things like a preview pane).
I disagree, software does no have to be so bugridden that opening a data only file, without being patched to within a nanosecond, is dangerous. [1]
Running attachments that are inherently executable is a design flaw. Hiding file extensions when they determine executablity is a design flaw. A system that allows everything unless positive action is taken to stop it (auto preview with execution of scripts by default, user accounts created as administrator by default) is a design flaw
A buffer overflow vulnerability is a bug. [2]
Running random code from an untrusted source can never be totally safe, and only the terminally lazy or misinformed would do it. Viewing a document can and should be safe, if you never view attachments from people you don't absolutely trust with your machine's integrity then the computer has become a burden rather than a labour saver.
I believe Outlook (97-2000) is inherently more insecure in these respects, more recent email clients - including Outlook - have cleaned up their act, but the core architecture of Windows and Outlook will show through many more times to come. I believe security remains an afterthought at Microsoft, whereas it should be a topmost design principle.
Alex
[1] This flaw is shared by nearly all current software, secure by default and multilayered redundant protection are only beginning to trickle through as concepts. [2] Some would argue buffer overflows are a design flaw of C and current mainstream compilers. However the methods to avoid buffer overflows, and techniques to find existing at risk code paths are now standardised - there's no excuse not to find them when the impact of their exploitation is so widespread.
You're thinking about this in the terms of an affluent person with some disposable income. I thought similar things when first reading the slashdot blurb. My first reaction was 'Yeah but thick will they be? Bet the refractive index sucks and they weigh a few hundred grams'.
Think about this as though $50 for a pair of glasses is an unobtainable luxury. The price that must be aimed for is $5-10, that means one style, less 'perfect' finishing, bare essentials across the board. Nasty, thick rimmed, heavy, affordable glasses are better than perfect but unaffordable ones - ie none at all.
Think M16 vs AK47. One is American: more accurate, has greater range and is generally higher performing but is dearer. The other is Russian: doesn't require prior training (simply point and shoot), can be mass produced with minimal technology or know how, but is lower performing. The russian gun is to be found all around the world, in every back water squabble and glorious revolution going.
The most appropriate solution as I see it would be to watermark all captchas generated, with the logo/domain of the free webmail provider. Ideally some easily readable text would be included to say something like -
If you've been presented with this test and you're not currently visiting hotmail.com, then do not complete it. The website you are at is using you to fraudulently create an email account for spamming, hacking and or terrorism.
But I'm not sure that much text could be embedded without it being trivial to remove by cropping/blanking.
Slashdot Mirror
KDE is more volunteer driven, hence it aims to appeal to fellow developers and home power users, for whom configurability and features are wanted.
As a biased KDE user, I think it has the potential to be better than Gnome on the corporate desktop. However this study is right, there are too many 'in your face' options. I agree that KDE needs to cut back on the number of buttons, menu entrys, context menu entries and configuration options shown at the top level. Examples:
There are items in the study I think are dumb, KMail is a fine name for the KDE email client, much better than Kamel (or whatever the suggestion was).
The KDE project is making movements in the right direction, there is a nascent KDE-Usability project. Gnome has gone too far in usability through streamlining, KDE hasn't gone far enough, yet.
Of course all that's opinion, but I say it anyway.
Alex
I never claimed SPF will be an end to spam, as long as we have the possibility of unsolicited mail some of that unsolicited mail will be unwanted (spam, malware or other).
SPF is intended to vastly reduce spam from it's current levels. If it's use were widespread then all the zombies spewing out mail with forged addresses & all the open relays become much less effective.
Basically by making From address spoofing much much harder it becomes much easier to identify spammers and stomp on them.
We can never completely remove the incentive to spam, it's a very extreme example of the Last Mile Problem. There will always be a few morons out of the millions, who pay money for PEN!S 3NL4RGM£NT P!LL5 after receiving a piece of Spam. All we can do is reduce the incentive and increase the costs to the spammers - by identifying then blacklisting, suing, arresting and cluebatting them into the ground.
And there in lies the wonderful synergy of SPF and blacklists. Without From address forging it becomes much to perform the follow sequence:
1. I received a Spam message from domainx.com, either:
(a) sender was a verified user of domainx.com, spf records check out
(b) no spf, sender likely forged
In case (a) inform the ISP of domainx.com, if further verified Spam messages are received from domainx.com, blacklist it.
In case (b) if SPF is in widespread use for ligitimate mail then the soam message is easier to mark as such (less need to resort to expensive statistics on the body). If SPF is not widespread there is less benefit.
Regards
Alex
Apparently He is one of the harsher compromises in the design. It's completely non-reactive but so light it leaks out of even the most tightly sealed container. Hence I guess it would need 'topping up',
However it's a coolant, not consumed by the reaction hence probably wouldn't need to much replenishment after the initial charge. I've no idea how He is produced or gathered, but they must use a good amount in alll those blimps & kid's balloons.
If it's gathered from the atmosphere then it is kinda renewable, cause that's where any leaked gas goes, only require energy to recapture and recompress.
I don't claim to be an expert in these matters, I'm just channelling wikipedia.org.
I believe helium is used because it's very good and not absorbing neutrons from the fission and it's a noble gas, hence doesn't burn or chemically react with anything (more-uber-than-inside-a-nuclear-reactor extreme conditions excluded).
Read up on the reactor design they're using, Pebble Bed Reactors.
These are not your traditional nuclear reactors, they don't suffer from a run-away failure mode, they're designed such that even if all control rods are removed and the coolant gets shut off the increased temperature itself slows down the reaction to a stable idle - below the temperature at which the fuel or reactor melts. Ie they inherently can't blow up or go into meltdown.
Additionally the coolant used is helium, an atom that has very low neutron absorbtion, meaning in the case of a leak there is no atmospheric or groundwater contamination.
Additionlly-additionally the nuclear fuel is at a much lower density, compared to a conventional reactor, greatly simplifying refueling and disposal. Each 210 g pebble contains 9g of uranium grains, sealed inside an exetremely tough ceramic casing that doesn't burn or break - hence no radioactive dust or smoke in an accident.
These things seem very safe and very clean. My main concern will be the lack of public criticism and independant oversight in a country such as China.
Alex
Sorry, I knew I wouldn't be clear enough.
I totally agree (from all reports, I've no longterm direct experience) that they're sturdy, robust, of high build quality and generally good.
I just don't think they look it, to me the rubberised black with red trim looks awful - it reminds of how 'portable computers' looked in the pre-pentium days. It doesn't look the part compared to just about any other laptop.
Great laptops, just very bad looking.
Alex
This isn't a flame, I'm curious whether my aesthetics are different to the majority. Also everything I've read and heard says IBM laptops rock, which I don't doubt. I'd love to have a Thinkpad X31
However, does anyone else find the design of all IBM Thinkpads to be absolutely butt ugly? Yes they're distinctive & not just another silvery Powerbook ripoff, but they just look so cheap and plasticy - like something out of the bargain bin.
Anyone else?
Intel i860
Basically it was a highend RISC architecture, dependant on smarts in the compiler to achieve good performance, it flopped. Quote:
.The parallels with the Itanium are striking.
My glib one liner was too general as a formal definition, wikipedia describes programming thus:
Which is also over generalised IMO. I'm not sure I could pin down a complete and exact definition, but it would definitely include that the instructions were stored, loaded and interpreted directly by the computer, without the need for external input (note that doesn't programs that accept external input).I still class writing HTML as programming, not procedural programming certainly (declarative would be closest), but still programming according to my understanding.
Alex
So what?
The computer that does the interpretation is remote, and the internal structure used by the browser to represent the page isn't native machine code. Those are attributes are equally applicable to a Java applet (delivery over the wire as bytecode or source work equally well).
Sorry if I got the wrong end of your rant, but I just felt the need to say that.
Regards.
Alex
PS you (intentionally?) didn't close your rant tag, probably for the best, so I'll leave it open too, just in case of any replys. :)
Oh dear, fallen into own trap have you. PGP and the public key crypto it's based on is in no way proven to be hard or unbreakable. It is conjectured that factoring the private key (hence breaking the code) of RSA is NP hard, and hence would require more computing power than we can conceive to brute force a properly encrypted message. But no encryption method, other than one time pads has been proven to be secure.
Given superior mathematical theory and/or blind luck, someone such as Ms A Genius, aliens, the NSA or l33td00d386 may have already broken RSA, DSA, Elgamel and disporven General Relativity. They are all only theorems that have withstood public scrutiny and attack thus far, they've in no sense been proven, other than in practise, they're the best we (you and me) have so far.
When you're adversery is someone with the resources to run Echelon, a point to point, line level only, but intrinsically untappable, line from the embassy back to HQ might be a the only trustworthy option.
Totally agreed.
My point, and your point in the linked post, are that bicycles are much more efficient for urban transport than cars, as you've demonstrated. My additional point is any transportation method has zero benefit if it's not used. E-bikes are more likely to be used because of convenience; the rider can travel an average 10-15mph without the need to have a shower/change of clothes upon arriving.
They've had them the last few months, unfortunately their 3D performance sucks (as compared to the Windows drivers) & updates are sporadic. I'd recommend you stick with Nividia for 3D on Linux (assuming of course you can bare to use closed source drivers).
Regards
Alex
PS I'm not affiliated with Nvidia, ATI or Linus Torvalds. YMMV.
Exactly, the reason there is no such thing as a Personal Car platform is the Internal Combustion Engine forces all the power transfer to be mechanical. So for any hope of a lightweight & efficient car, the steering, transmission, weight distribution, Air Conditioning, brakes, engine block etc have to be tightly coupled & completly unmodular. Their dimensions & relative positions are fixed & inflexible, the chassis is necessarily bespoke for that model.
PCs can be made in any shape from a cardboard software box to a rack mount case, using only off the shelf standardised components - because the coupling between them is loose.
The HyWire is drive by wire - control and power are carried electrically, hence parts are loosely coupled. This means items can be interchangeable, with only the power unit being constant across designs. It also makes car autopilots simpler to develop (no need to add servos or actuators).
HyWire is definately something to watch.
Seconded
I call parody (product number 2 from the same site.)
I don't dispute that. What ever effort and ingenuity is required to make a backplane carrying 80 conductors / 2 drives (PATA 133). It will be cheaper and simpler to create the same backplane with 4 conductors/device.
Rounded IDE is a hack. the length of the cable is even more limited than normal because of increased cross talk (interference between signal wires). Also, in my experieince, the rounded cables are even less flexible than the ribbons.
SATA can go longer distances, at faster speeds, with less bulk, more routing flexiblity & it works for all drives (PATA is too big for 2.5" drives). Additional it's electrically safe for hotplugging. As a bonus we finally get rid of those damn molex connectors.
At the moment it's more expensive, that will change.
Where SATA will of most use is in compact form factor machines - mini/nano-itx, micro-atx, laptops, high density rackmount storage servers etc.
"This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law."
sir_cello (634395) in reply:
"you misunderstood mean: you can patent an algorithm as embodied in a software program, but you cannot patent the algorithm itself - I certainly didn't mean the latter."
Perhaps I misunderstand the terminology used here. However, sir_cello, are you certain that a patent is what you use for protection of "an algorithm as embodied in a software program"? In my understanding that would fall under copyright protection.
By this I mean:
Since an algorithm/recipe/method, such as an improved compression algorithm, is an idea for which all expressions are equivalent it was commonly understood to unpatentable. However, I believe sir_cello, that your "algorithm as embodied in a software program" would be a specific implementation, hence protected by copyright.
However, the GIF/LZW patent existing in the UK, and companies being charged to use it, has me uneasy about the above. Is (a) my understanding wrong, (b) the UK-LZW patent not enforcable or (c) something else the truth?
This thread struck a nerve for me, so I'm interested to hear any responses.
If it works, it will push the envolope, improving not just total power consumption, but weight, volume & temperature also.
We already have water cooling at the macro level - a radiator + pump + heat exchanger + resevoir system will give a lower temp and less noise for the same or better heat removal capacity eg . these.
The improvement this would provide is watercooling at the micro level, just to the most critical components. The improvement in heat conductivity from the chip to the cooler should mean lower temps for the same transfer. Cooler.
The bore of the tubes implies 50 ml liquid, rather than upto 1 litre (2 pints) currently used. Lighter.
Less water for the same heat transfer means a smaller pump. Lower resistance in the chip due to lower temps would mean less power disipation. Longer running on batteries.
On the air side (dissipation from the cooler to the environment), heat exchanger tubing with ~100 micron diameter (the artivle soesn't say they've done this, but it seems a logical extension) gives enourmous surface area/unit volume, giving better dissipation for the same airflow. Quieter.
So I would surmise this is ideal for laptops, it improves all 3 of the key features - weight, longevity and actually-able-to-use-it-on-my-lapiness.
I disagree, software does no have to be so bugridden that opening a data only file, without being patched to within a nanosecond, is dangerous. [1]
Running attachments that are inherently executable is a design flaw. Hiding file extensions when they determine executablity is a design flaw. A system that allows everything unless positive action is taken to stop it (auto preview with execution of scripts by default, user accounts created as administrator by default) is a design flaw
A buffer overflow vulnerability is a bug. [2]
Running random code from an untrusted source can never be totally safe, and only the terminally lazy or misinformed would do it. Viewing a document can and should be safe, if you never view attachments from people you don't absolutely trust with your machine's integrity then the computer has become a burden rather than a labour saver.
I believe Outlook (97-2000) is inherently more insecure in these respects, more recent email clients - including Outlook - have cleaned up their act, but the core architecture of Windows and Outlook will show through many more times to come. I believe security remains an afterthought at Microsoft, whereas it should be a topmost design principle.
Alex
[1] This flaw is shared by nearly all current software, secure by default and multilayered redundant protection are only beginning to trickle through as concepts.
[2] Some would argue buffer overflows are a design flaw of C and current mainstream compilers. However the methods to avoid buffer overflows, and techniques to find existing at risk code paths are now standardised - there's no excuse not to find them when the impact of their exploitation is so widespread.
You're thinking about this in the terms of an affluent person with some disposable income. I thought similar things when first reading the slashdot blurb. My first reaction was 'Yeah but thick will they be? Bet the refractive index sucks and they weigh a few hundred grams'.
Think about this as though $50 for a pair of glasses is an unobtainable luxury. The price that must be aimed for is $5-10, that means one style, less 'perfect' finishing, bare essentials across the board. Nasty, thick rimmed, heavy, affordable glasses are better than perfect but unaffordable ones - ie none at all.
Think M16 vs AK47. One is American: more accurate, has greater range and is generally higher performing but is dearer. The other is Russian: doesn't require prior training (simply point and shoot), can be mass produced with minimal technology or know how, but is lower performing. The russian gun is to be found all around the world, in every back water squabble and glorious revolution going.
The most appropriate solution as I see it would be to watermark all captchas generated, with the logo/domain of the free webmail provider. Ideally some easily readable text would be included to say something like -
If you've been presented with this test and you're not currently visiting hotmail.com, then do not complete it. The website you are at is using you to fraudulently create an email account for spamming, hacking and or terrorism.
But I'm not sure that much text could be embedded without it being trivial to remove by cropping/blanking.
Alex