Ok, I'll talk. I got a call from a guy who said his name was Steve Jobs, and he told me all this stuff. He sent me an email (see, the "From:" line says "SteveJobs@apple.com"!) with the pictures and stuff. I figured he should know, right? What? The headers say the email comes from an anonymizer in the Netherlands? Sorry, I don't know what that means.
I've used so many different platforms over the last 30 years that it's hard to remember them all. DEC, CDC, Honeywell, IBM, Amdahl, Apple, Radio Shack, Sun, and about a dozen PC manufacturers (32-bit and 64-bit). Each one going through many OS.
Of all of them, two stand out as being incredibly productive for me. IBM's VM (Virtual Machine) operating system (from Version 6 BSEPP through VM/ESA), and Linux (about a dozen distributions, finally landing on Fedora Core).
I find it particularly interesting that these two co-exist now in the mainframe world, and that Xen virtualization is now making its way into the next Fedora Core release.
How can the music industry justify charging more than about $0.05/track?
I get my DVDs through Netflix, and pay about $1 per DVD (the whole thing, with any extras that may be on the disk). Netflix recently lowered their price (so now I pay about $0.90/DVD). Those are regular, effectively unprotected DVDs to watch anyway and on any device I choose (I sometimes rip them and watch them on my PDA).
Blockbuster and Walmart are competing for the same customers, and they charge even less.
CD music costs a lot of money to produce, but it doesn't cost 100th as much as a major movie (probably less than 1000th). Why are people paying so much for so little? Where is the perceived value?
I stopped buying major label CDs a few years ago, but increased my DVD rentals dramatically. There's no value in pirating DVDs at those prices. Studios are even moving the DVD release data closer to theatrical release (to reduce their costs).
While movie industry seems to be adapting, the music industry seems to be engineering their own demise. Not that anyone will miss them. Independent artists seem to be where the good music is these days, and they are much more reasonable in pricing their product.
You folks all seem to be be keeping your eyes on the magician assistant's short skirt, and not watching his hands. Look at 90% of the posts here... Broadcast flag? Why just buy loads of HDTV equipment now (which ignores the flag), while it's legal!
HDTV has an abysmally slow take-up in the US. For most folks cable and DVD quality is good enough. So what do they do? They bring out the broadcast flag boogyman, and get everyone to buy HDTV equipment before the deadline, solving the chicken and egg problem.
It would be great if Microsoft could document all the security problems it finds. After all, the software is open source, and Microsoft has such great developers. This would help Microsoft prove to the world that Linux isn't secure!
Of course, the developers would be happy to get such information.
Welcome to the community, Microsoft. You've been assimilated.:-)
Yeah... how you were able to get a deadly currently through a phone line, for 1.
Oh, and why a puddle at your feet has any effect in a DC telephone system for another.
The telephones should be designed so that they do not cause danger to the user. The 48V DC voltage in telephone lines does not cause immediate danger to the user, but the AC ring signal (70-120V AC) can give a nasty shock. Telephone wires are also exposed to any different environmental effects (nearby lightning, ground potential differences in buildings, interference from power lines) which can cause that there are sometimes high voltage spikes on the telephone wires.
That's not innovation, that's stapling random features onto existing products. Without basic R&D, which too many companies have abandoned in order to get improved stock prices, there can be no new products and technologies.
The economy will have to get much worse before companies have no choice but to invest in basic R&D. Those that do will recover first, and the stock market will start rewarding them for their "long term view".
A lot of the suggestions seem like overkill to me. I use a Palm Tungsten C, which has WiFi and a web browser built-in (though you probably want to upgrade the browser). Slip it in a zip-lock bag, and it's water/dust/grease proof.
Actually, we're at the point where multi-processing would help people do the type of function that they want more CPU power for, like video transcoding and computer generated graphics. Using SMP configurations of low-power CPUs (like the XScale) would dramatically reduce power and heat, while improving throughput for these easily parallelized functions. A 16-way XScale configuration would dissipate only about 8 watts for the CPUs, yet provide the 10GHz effective processing.
Am I the only one who likes 5400rmp drives because he thinks they will last 72/54 times as long as 7200 rpm drives? We use large drives for backup, and since the access is all sequential, the high rotation speed isn't that important to us.
Especially external drives (USB 2.0 and Firewire). Faster than 5400rpm makes no sense, since the interface is the bottleneck. The 5400rpms are quieter, use less power, generate less heat (no fan), and as you say are likely more reliable (especially with fluid bearings). The move to faster rotation speeds for these drives is strictly a marketing issue. It's become almost impossible to find the 5400rpm external drives anymore, and they are selling for more that the 7200rpm drives. That alone should tell people something.
I recently completed a survey for Maxtor on the subject, and gave them an earful on the subject (for which they gave me a $10 discount at Amazon - Woo Hoo! O'Reilly's SELinux on its way).
The best way is to pop the cover off, and bend/destroy the platters with a plier if you are going to trash it.
You can also swap the on-drive controller with another drive of the same model (I've done this). There's usually a small DIP connector and ribbon cable connecting the drive to the electronics. I was able to repair a "dead" drive that way (with another drive that died due to a bad bearing).
Bulk tape erasers, at least the consumer types, don't generate enough of a magnetic field to bother hard drives. I tried, for about 5 minutes, with no effect.
if you had a dual, would it be more efficient to have each processor run 50% of two OS'es or each CPU running one OS?
It depends on your definition of efficiency.
If each OS is running on a separate CPU, they can use a UP (uniprocessor) configuration eliminating the overhead in SMP. This buys back typically 5-10% CPU resource, depending on the OS's SMP implementation. However, if one of the OS's CPU demands exceed a single processor's capacity, it will max out extending the transactions (even if the other CPU is idle). However, if you have need for strict separation of resource (e.g., you sell a guarantee of a CPU's processing to a customer), this may be the only way to achieve it.
If both OS share both CPUs, there is additional overhead from the SMP effects, so some CPU resource is "wasted" (not processing the transactions). However, both OS can utilize the resources of both CPUs completely. This would be great for a desktop environment; as you switch between one OS and another, the switched away OS likely goes mostly idle (aside from background processes). In a multiple virtual server environment, it would be useful too; a virtual server that gets "Slashdotted" would be able to obtain on-demand addition resources.
In a CPU contention situation where both OS want to utilize all of both CPUs, the VM (virtual machine here) scheduler will allocate the resource evenly, unless it has a prioritization/capping capability. This is really an inefficient situation, since you have two (or more) OS with SMP overhead and no available CPU resource (maximum CPU going to non-productive use).
You also need to remember when running in a shared CPU mode, there is no guaranteed response time. Applications that need near-realtime response will see an increase in latency variability.
Yup, I used to do Heathkits as well. But the schematics that manufacturers included were useful for hobbyists as well. Twenty years ago, I even modded a new-fangled thing called a "CallerID" unit to interface it to my computer. What Neuros is doing isn't really new. It's the statement in their announcement that I found weird:
"The release of such documentation is a relatively new practice and one that remains quite controversial..."
Maybe it's new to kids running businesses today, but it was standard practice twenty years ago.
I remember when every electronic device you bought came with its schematic in the back of the owner's manual. Manufacturers didn't give up any rights by doing this back then. What's changed?
For less than the price of a high-end remote, you can get a Palm PDA and run NoviiRemote or similar programs. Newer Palms have strong IR transmitters, and work at normal distances from the device being controlled. Odds are that you already have a PDA, so just buy the software and control everything for less than $30.
As an extra bonus, you can backup your remote control when you hotsync. Have you ever lost the programming in your programmable remote control (dropped on the floor, batteries pop out)?
True hackers wouldn't need an SDK, they'd just create their own binary and upload it. Uploading is the hard part I suspect if you don't have an EPROM blower (assuming the EPROM in the IPOD can even be removed from the circuit board).
The firmware is in the first partition of the disk drive, so updating the firmware (from Linux) is just:
dd if=new-ipod-firmware of=/dev/sda1
(where sda1 is replaced with the actual device on your system). The iPod expands the firmware and then reboots to use it.
The only tricky part is that Apple doesn't distribute the firmware file outside of their updater application, so you have to download the Windows updater and then use a resource hacking tool to extract it.
Subpoena a dozen random machines of the type implicated. Have the guy run through the magic sequence on invisible buttons. If the screens appear as he indicates, then vote fixing may have occurred. Otherwise, where's the crime?
Remember that all the solutions to powerline noise will also block powerline transmission of data. If you were thinking of using X10, power line networking, or any other transmission over the power lines it will be blocked.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, unless you've already invested in this technology.:-)
I can't understand why companies that make digital product like this don't post samples so we can see the quality. Even 10-second video clips would be enough to see what the camera electronics and optics can do. A few photo samples would be a good idea too. They have a download section on their web page, but all it has is a brochure in PDF. WTF? Is it so hard to transfer the images and video that their own marketing people can't figure it out?
Depending on the nature of the application, you can give the vendor a UML machine and its root access. This lets them do what they want/need to, without compromising your environment.
I don't disagree that Linux might have been a better choice for a government agency but what really would have saved them here was telling EDS where to shove their Junk Bond status and hiring some competent technicians.
The process you've described does not involve overwriting your old kernel. There's the right way to do things and there's the wrong way. Doing things the wrong way on any OS will screw you over.
Well it's been a while since I used Win2K/WinXP, but as far as I remember, there was no way to switch between kernels. The architected limitations of the OS they chose forced a situation where an error could lead to a fatal situation.
I agree that EDS did not use due diligence in planning their upgrade considering the risk with Windows' maintenance limitations in mind.
I was simply commenting that for Linux, overwriting the kernel as opposed to installing an additional kernel is an aberation (there's no reason to do it, and most (all?) package managers will prevent it). For Windows, it's your only choice.
Slashdot Mirror
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps
Ok, I'll talk. I got a call from a guy who said his name was Steve Jobs, and he told me all this stuff. He sent me an email (see, the "From:" line says "SteveJobs@apple.com"!) with the pictures and stuff. I figured he should know, right? What? The headers say the email comes from an anonymizer in the Netherlands? Sorry, I don't know what that means.
I've used so many different platforms over the last 30 years that it's hard to remember them all. DEC, CDC, Honeywell, IBM, Amdahl, Apple, Radio Shack, Sun, and about a dozen PC manufacturers (32-bit and 64-bit). Each one going through many OS.
:-)
Of all of them, two stand out as being incredibly productive for me. IBM's VM (Virtual Machine) operating system (from Version 6 BSEPP through VM/ESA), and Linux (about a dozen distributions, finally landing on Fedora Core).
I find it particularly interesting that these two co-exist now in the mainframe world, and that Xen virtualization is now making its way into the next Fedora Core release.
Folks, start your engines.
How can the music industry justify charging more than about $0.05/track?
I get my DVDs through Netflix, and pay about $1 per DVD (the whole thing, with any extras that may be on the disk). Netflix recently lowered their price (so now I pay about $0.90/DVD). Those are regular, effectively unprotected DVDs to watch anyway and on any device I choose (I sometimes rip them and watch them on my PDA).
Blockbuster and Walmart are competing for the same customers, and they charge even less.
CD music costs a lot of money to produce, but it doesn't cost 100th as much as a major movie (probably less than 1000th). Why are people paying so much for so little? Where is the perceived value?
I stopped buying major label CDs a few years ago, but increased my DVD rentals dramatically. There's no value in pirating DVDs at those prices. Studios are even moving the DVD release data closer to theatrical release (to reduce their costs).
While movie industry seems to be adapting, the music industry seems to be engineering their own demise. Not that anyone will miss them. Independent artists seem to be where the good music is these days, and they are much more reasonable in pricing their product.
You folks all seem to be be keeping your eyes on the magician assistant's short skirt, and not watching his hands. Look at 90% of the posts here... Broadcast flag? Why just buy loads of HDTV equipment now (which ignores the flag), while it's legal!
HDTV has an abysmally slow take-up in the US. For most folks cable and DVD quality is good enough. So what do they do? They bring out the broadcast flag boogyman, and get everyone to buy HDTV equipment before the deadline, solving the chicken and egg problem.
Duh.
It would be great if Microsoft could document all the security problems it finds. After all, the software is open source, and Microsoft has such great developers. This would help Microsoft prove to the world that Linux isn't secure!
:-)
Of course, the developers would be happy to get such information.
Welcome to the community, Microsoft. You've been assimilated.
This last year's news.
From: Telephone line audio interface circuits
Safety issues of telephones
The telephones should be designed so that they do not cause danger to the user. The 48V DC voltage in telephone lines does not cause immediate danger to the user, but the AC ring signal (70-120V AC) can give a nasty shock. Telephone wires are also exposed to any different environmental effects (nearby lightning, ground potential differences in buildings, interference from power lines) which can cause that there are sometimes high voltage spikes on the telephone wires.
That's not innovation, that's stapling random features onto existing products. Without basic R&D, which too many companies have abandoned in order to get improved stock prices, there can be no new products and technologies.
The economy will have to get much worse before companies have no choice but to invest in basic R&D. Those that do will recover first, and the stock market will start rewarding them for their "long term view".
Yes, we've been here before.
A lot of the suggestions seem like overkill to me. I use a Palm Tungsten C, which has WiFi and a web browser built-in (though you probably want to upgrade the browser). Slip it in a zip-lock bag, and it's water/dust/grease proof.
Actually, we're at the point where multi-processing would help people do the type of function that they want more CPU power for, like video transcoding and computer generated graphics. Using SMP configurations of low-power CPUs (like the XScale) would dramatically reduce power and heat, while improving throughput for these easily parallelized functions. A 16-way XScale configuration would dissipate only about 8 watts for the CPUs, yet provide the 10GHz effective processing.
Especially external drives (USB 2.0 and Firewire). Faster than 5400rpm makes no sense, since the interface is the bottleneck. The 5400rpms are quieter, use less power, generate less heat (no fan), and as you say are likely more reliable (especially with fluid bearings). The move to faster rotation speeds for these drives is strictly a marketing issue. It's become almost impossible to find the 5400rpm external drives anymore, and they are selling for more that the 7200rpm drives. That alone should tell people something.
I recently completed a survey for Maxtor on the subject, and gave them an earful on the subject (for which they gave me a $10 discount at Amazon - Woo Hoo! O'Reilly's SELinux on its way).
The best way is to pop the cover off, and bend/destroy the platters with a plier if you are going to trash it.
You can also swap the on-drive controller with another drive of the same model (I've done this). There's usually a small DIP connector and ribbon cable connecting the drive to the electronics. I was able to repair a "dead" drive that way (with another drive that died due to a bad bearing).
Bulk tape erasers, at least the consumer types, don't generate enough of a magnetic field to bother hard drives. I tried, for about 5 minutes, with no effect.
It depends on your definition of efficiency.
If each OS is running on a separate CPU, they can use a UP (uniprocessor) configuration eliminating the overhead in SMP. This buys back typically 5-10% CPU resource, depending on the OS's SMP implementation. However, if one of the OS's CPU demands exceed a single processor's capacity, it will max out extending the transactions (even if the other CPU is idle). However, if you have need for strict separation of resource (e.g., you sell a guarantee of a CPU's processing to a customer), this may be the only way to achieve it.
If both OS share both CPUs, there is additional overhead from the SMP effects, so some CPU resource is "wasted" (not processing the transactions). However, both OS can utilize the resources of both CPUs completely. This would be great for a desktop environment; as you switch between one OS and another, the switched away OS likely goes mostly idle (aside from background processes). In a multiple virtual server environment, it would be useful too; a virtual server that gets "Slashdotted" would be able to obtain on-demand addition resources.
In a CPU contention situation where both OS want to utilize all of both CPUs, the VM (virtual machine here) scheduler will allocate the resource evenly, unless it has a prioritization/capping capability. This is really an inefficient situation, since you have two (or more) OS with SMP overhead and no available CPU resource (maximum CPU going to non-productive use).
You also need to remember when running in a shared CPU mode, there is no guaranteed response time. Applications that need near-realtime response will see an increase in latency variability.
"The release of such documentation is a relatively new practice and one that remains quite controversial..."
Maybe it's new to kids running businesses today, but it was standard practice twenty years ago.
I remember when every electronic device you bought came with its schematic in the back of the owner's manual. Manufacturers didn't give up any rights by doing this back then. What's changed?
As an extra bonus, you can backup your remote control when you hotsync. Have you ever lost the programming in your programmable remote control (dropped on the floor, batteries pop out)?
The firmware is in the first partition of the disk drive, so updating the firmware (from Linux) is just:
dd if=new-ipod-firmware of=/dev/sda1
(where sda1 is replaced with the actual device on your system). The iPod expands the firmware and then reboots to use it.
The only tricky part is that Apple doesn't distribute the firmware file outside of their updater application, so you have to download the Windows updater and then use a resource hacking tool to extract it.
I don't get it. I've been staring at the images for about 15 minutes, and aside from the hair on the lens, I don't see anything interesting.
Subpoena a dozen random machines of the type implicated. Have the guy run through the magic sequence on invisible buttons. If the screens appear as he indicates, then vote fixing may have occurred. Otherwise, where's the crime?
Remember that all the solutions to powerline noise will also block powerline transmission of data. If you were thinking of using X10, power line networking, or any other transmission over the power lines it will be blocked.
:-)
That's not necessarily a bad thing, unless you've already invested in this technology.
You want VideoLAN. You've probably used the vlc client software, but there's a server too.
I can't understand why companies that make digital product like this don't post samples so we can see the quality. Even 10-second video clips would be enough to see what the camera electronics and optics can do. A few photo samples would be a good idea too. They have a download section on their web page, but all it has is a brochure in PDF. WTF? Is it so hard to transfer the images and video that their own marketing people can't figure it out?
Depending on the nature of the application, you can give the vendor a UML machine and its root access. This lets them do what they want/need to, without compromising your environment.
Well it's been a while since I used Win2K/WinXP, but as far as I remember, there was no way to switch between kernels. The architected limitations of the OS they chose forced a situation where an error could lead to a fatal situation.
I agree that EDS did not use due diligence in planning their upgrade considering the risk with Windows' maintenance limitations in mind.
I was simply commenting that for Linux, overwriting the kernel as opposed to installing an additional kernel is an aberation (there's no reason to do it, and most (all?) package managers will prevent it). For Windows, it's your only choice.