I wonder how long until people are downloading hacked versions that either brick your processor permanently or permanently make your processor part of a botnet?
Yeah, I've used a paint-stripping heat gun to remove surface mount ICs before. I'd use some cut sheets of copper bent as required to shield the surrounding components from the heat. If you need to salvage the part it's OK so long as you get it off the board fast enough that it doesn't fry it; you definitely know you screwed up if the board delaminates.:-(
Imagine my face the first time I saw something with surface-mount ICs. What the hell, there's no way to socket these things! How I am supposed to repair.. oh, I see now. Planned obsolescence! Bastards!! Surface mount technology may have been a giant leap forward in miniaturization, but it's also more or less killed electronics for the hobbyist, unless you're willing to use a prototyping service to make a PC board for every project you're interested in building. It's also more or less destroyed any possibility of technologically-enabled end-users repairing their own electronics due to the expense and specialized skills necessary to R&R BGAs and QFP ICs (especially BGAs).
As stated, I used a desoldering station, which has a vacuum pump, not something like a Soldapullt or similar manual desoldering pump. No way I'd do that manually!
My first PC was built on an XT clone motherboard. Being an electronics tech and having built the S100 bus-based computer I'd been using for years, I decided to borrow a desoldering station from work over a weekend, and desoldered every chip on the motherboard so I could install sockets for all the chips against the eventual need for troubleshooting and repair. I never did have to replace a single chip on that board the entire time I used the thing.
It's encouraging to me to see that I'm not the only person left on the planet that questions these things, and refuses to "conform" just because the rank-and-file of the world just blindly fall in line like so many demented sheep. Our private, personal lives are precisely that: private and personal. It's not the business of government, corporations, or employers to be demanding access to our non-public lives, and we must continue to make it clear that it is NOT acceptable.
As soon as Nvidia hears about this, they'll probably buy the technology -- and market their GPUs to Eskimos with the selling point that they double as space-heaters.
Believe me I thought that of anybody the Japanese would be meticulous and cautious in managing something like nuclear power, but Mother Nature caught them with their pants down, apparently. What has happened there is regretable, but I don't think the knee-jerk reactions I've been hearing about from all over the world are appropriate or warranted. We need to learn from incidents like in Japan, yes, but we do not need to abandon nuclear power at this time, like Germany is planning on doing.
Read my reply to the comment above yours, if you like. I had more to say on the subject.
I have an electronics and engineering background, so I understand the point you're trying to make; however if we had more power plants then distribution wouldn't be a problem anymore. One of the major hurdles preventing more power plants from being built is environmental concerns. I also understand that your average environmentalist would rather have his right arm cut off rather than allow a nuclear power plant to be built, but let's face it: they don't want any power plants built. The more extreme environmentalists don't even want solar or wind generating facilities built because they think even that harms the environment (think of the poor animals!). What I'm saying is that people need to stop having these knee-jerk reactions to nuclear power, and we need to operate them in the most conscientious way possible, because they can and will be a major hazard if mis-managed. Additionally there are cutting-edge designs out there for smaller-scale nuclear reactors that are, compared to current-generation plants, virtually intrinsically-safe, cost a fraction to construct and install, would take a fraction of the time to complete, and could be more widely distributed.
The space program suffered numerous setbacks before we landed men on the moon. Few can debate the benefits we've reaped because of those achievements. I am cognizant that "setbacks" with nuclear power have much longer-lasting and wider-ranging ramifications, but we cannot continue the way we are; we cannot go backwards, we must go forwards.
What we need to do is stop being superstitious about nuclear power and build safe nuclear power plants, and actually operate them with the emphasis on safety, rather than the emphasis on cost-cutting (read as: profitability). "Alternative" energy solutions are fine and dandy, but they'll either never catch up with demand, or will catch up too slowly. We may yet have fusion power, but it's still far enough away that we can't make that part of the equation. Nuclear fission may not be the best long-term solution, but it's the best solution we have right now.
You know, having had a few minutes to think about it, here's what's really wrong with what you're saying: You're posting as Anonymous Coward. Tell you what, asswipe: Post a photo of your driver's license, so all other Slashdotters who care to do so can dig up every little thing from your past and slather the internet with all of it, including their opinions concerning said past. Then I'll take anything you have to say seriously. What's that? No way, you say? That's what I thought.
I say congratulations to the guy for thinking up a way to make some bank on freely available information, it's a masterful marketing move.
Do you have to be such a blindingly obvious troll?
Let's see what someone like you has to say when you're one of the people affected by it. I can guarantee that you'll be singing a different song, then.
The reason they can do something like the site you mention is because enough of the people whose pictures it features haven't seen them yet, got together as a group, and sued the site.
They'll either get sued out of existence, someone will discover that what they're doing is illegal (or will be made illegal) and they'll be shut down, or someone will find them and beat the living shit out of them and/or burn them to the ground. One way or another, don't think they'll be around long.
Haven't you heard? It's the New Order as dictated by AT&T and Comcast: You receive the digital content we decide you need to receive; no need for you to transmit anything.
I really don't have much faith in the idea that the average Chinese citizen is being encouraged to get a higher education. So far as I know the vast majority of them are just trying to find some way to exist, and their own government isn't doing much to help them in that.
..and I, for one, do not welcome our robotic replacements, regardless of being in the U.S. and not in China. It's a really bad precedent to set on any continent. "You're complaining about working conditions? You want more money? Fuck you, you're fired, we'll replace you with a robot. Enjoy watching your family starve to death, asshole". That's the message this sort of thing sends to me. Of course it's China we're talking about. I guess when you've got a billion-plus people in your country, it's easy to consider them to be expendable; who cares if a bunch of them are starving to death? We've got plenty more..
"Go right ahead and do that." Seriously. If you claim to need social networking so much that you're willing to compromise your right to privacy, then what you really "need" is psychotherapy and possibly anti-psychotic medication(s). Face the fact: It can be fun, but your life really isn't any less meaningful without it.
Facebook, Google+, etc: Go fuck yourselves, OK? Didn't need you before, don't need you and your bullshit now, either. I have real, actual friends that I see and converse with in person on a regular basis. I don't "need" legions of pseudo-friends, 99% of which I've never actually met in person, in order to have a meaningful, productive life.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how long until people are downloading hacked versions that either brick your processor permanently or permanently make your processor part of a botnet?
Yeah, I've used a paint-stripping heat gun to remove surface mount ICs before. I'd use some cut sheets of copper bent as required to shield the surrounding components from the heat. If you need to salvage the part it's OK so long as you get it off the board fast enough that it doesn't fry it; you definitely know you screwed up if the board delaminates. :-(
BGAs
Imagine my face the first time I saw something with surface-mount ICs. What the hell, there's no way to socket these things! How I am supposed to repair.. oh, I see now. Planned obsolescence! Bastards!! Surface mount technology may have been a giant leap forward in miniaturization, but it's also more or less killed electronics for the hobbyist, unless you're willing to use a prototyping service to make a PC board for every project you're interested in building. It's also more or less destroyed any possibility of technologically-enabled end-users repairing their own electronics due to the expense and specialized skills necessary to R&R BGAs and QFP ICs (especially BGAs).
As stated, I used a desoldering station, which has a vacuum pump, not something like a Soldapullt or similar manual desoldering pump. No way I'd do that manually!
My first PC was built on an XT clone motherboard. Being an electronics tech and having built the S100 bus-based computer I'd been using for years, I decided to borrow a desoldering station from work over a weekend, and desoldered every chip on the motherboard so I could install sockets for all the chips against the eventual need for troubleshooting and repair. I never did have to replace a single chip on that board the entire time I used the thing.
These days, especially in the United States, your statement is an oxymoron.
So what's to stop me from sticking a couple of AAA-size maglites in my ears for a while and calling it good?
It's encouraging to me to see that I'm not the only person left on the planet that questions these things, and refuses to "conform" just because the rank-and-file of the world just blindly fall in line like so many demented sheep. Our private, personal lives are precisely that: private and personal. It's not the business of government, corporations, or employers to be demanding access to our non-public lives, and we must continue to make it clear that it is NOT acceptable.
OK, where do you want to meet publicly, so I can call you an asshole to your face?
Don't even joke around like that. You're just encouraging the poop-eaters who actually believe things like you're saying.
As soon as Nvidia hears about this, they'll probably buy the technology -- and market their GPUs to Eskimos with the selling point that they double as space-heaters.
Actually, wouldn't it be a really, really huge loupe? For lots of magnification?
..actually, the article states that this technology could be manufactured with current machinery, just modified to do so in a vacuum.
Believe me I thought that of anybody the Japanese would be meticulous and cautious in managing something like nuclear power, but Mother Nature caught them with their pants down, apparently. What has happened there is regretable, but I don't think the knee-jerk reactions I've been hearing about from all over the world are appropriate or warranted. We need to learn from incidents like in Japan, yes, but we do not need to abandon nuclear power at this time, like Germany is planning on doing.
Read my reply to the comment above yours, if you like. I had more to say on the subject.
I have an electronics and engineering background, so I understand the point you're trying to make; however if we had more power plants then distribution wouldn't be a problem anymore. One of the major hurdles preventing more power plants from being built is environmental concerns. I also understand that your average environmentalist would rather have his right arm cut off rather than allow a nuclear power plant to be built, but let's face it: they don't want any power plants built. The more extreme environmentalists don't even want solar or wind generating facilities built because they think even that harms the environment (think of the poor animals!). What I'm saying is that people need to stop having these knee-jerk reactions to nuclear power, and we need to operate them in the most conscientious way possible, because they can and will be a major hazard if mis-managed. Additionally there are cutting-edge designs out there for smaller-scale nuclear reactors that are, compared to current-generation plants, virtually intrinsically-safe, cost a fraction to construct and install, would take a fraction of the time to complete, and could be more widely distributed.
The space program suffered numerous setbacks before we landed men on the moon. Few can debate the benefits we've reaped because of those achievements. I am cognizant that "setbacks" with nuclear power have much longer-lasting and wider-ranging ramifications, but we cannot continue the way we are; we cannot go backwards, we must go forwards.
What we need to do is stop being superstitious about nuclear power and build safe nuclear power plants, and actually operate them with the emphasis on safety, rather than the emphasis on cost-cutting (read as: profitability). "Alternative" energy solutions are fine and dandy, but they'll either never catch up with demand, or will catch up too slowly. We may yet have fusion power, but it's still far enough away that we can't make that part of the equation. Nuclear fission may not be the best long-term solution, but it's the best solution we have right now.
You know, having had a few minutes to think about it, here's what's really wrong with what you're saying: You're posting as Anonymous Coward. Tell you what, asswipe: Post a photo of your driver's license, so all other Slashdotters who care to do so can dig up every little thing from your past and slather the internet with all of it, including their opinions concerning said past. Then I'll take anything you have to say seriously. What's that? No way, you say? That's what I thought.
I say congratulations to the guy for thinking up a way to make some bank on freely available information, it's a masterful marketing move.
Do you have to be such a blindingly obvious troll?
Let's see what someone like you has to say when you're one of the people affected by it. I can guarantee that you'll be singing a different song, then.
The reason they can do something like the site you mention is because enough of the people whose pictures it features haven't seen them yet, got together as a group, and sued the site.
They'll either get sued out of existence, someone will discover that what they're doing is illegal (or will be made illegal) and they'll be shut down, or someone will find them and beat the living shit out of them and/or burn them to the ground. One way or another, don't think they'll be around long.
Haven't you heard? It's the New Order as dictated by AT&T and Comcast: You receive the digital content we decide you need to receive; no need for you to transmit anything.
I really don't have much faith in the idea that the average Chinese citizen is being encouraged to get a higher education. So far as I know the vast majority of them are just trying to find some way to exist, and their own government isn't doing much to help them in that.
..and I, for one, do not welcome our robotic replacements, regardless of being in the U.S. and not in China. It's a really bad precedent to set on any continent. "You're complaining about working conditions? You want more money? Fuck you, you're fired, we'll replace you with a robot. Enjoy watching your family starve to death, asshole". That's the message this sort of thing sends to me. Of course it's China we're talking about. I guess when you've got a billion-plus people in your country, it's easy to consider them to be expendable; who cares if a bunch of them are starving to death? We've got plenty more..
..but I wouldn't bother, now.
"Go right ahead and do that."
Seriously.
If you claim to need social networking so much that you're willing to compromise your right to privacy, then what you really "need" is psychotherapy and possibly anti-psychotic medication(s). Face the fact: It can be fun, but your life really isn't any less meaningful without it.
Facebook, Google+, etc: Go fuck yourselves, OK? Didn't need you before, don't need you and your bullshit now, either. I have real, actual friends that I see and converse with in person on a regular basis. I don't "need" legions of pseudo-friends, 99% of which I've never actually met in person, in order to have a meaningful, productive life.