I think it's a shame that Tolkien created such a dynamic, complex, intriguing world, but all that people know about it is four books and three movies.
Tolkien wrote more, but it honestly feels like reading Genesis in the Bible: disjointed background stories that put everything else in perspective.
While I understand your sentiment about originality, why shouldn't we (at least on occasion), build on the creative works that have been developed before us?
Tolkien created a whole new universe to explore: we might as well get started.
The point of 3D is to provide an experience you can't get at home. Nothing more, nothing less. Theaters have been dropping in popularity as DVD sales go up and home theater systems get better -- 3D is trying to pull viewers back to the theater.
APOD has a good description and picture (well, computer-generated visualization) of dust:
By studying how dust absorbs, emits, and reflects light, astronomers do know that interstellar dust is much different than the cell and lint based dust found around a typical house. Interstellar dust grains are composed mostly of carbon, silicon, and oxygen and are usually less than about 1/1000 of a millimeter across. Recent work indicates that most dust grains are not spherical. The above picture shows the result of a fractal adhesion model for dust grains involving random conglomerates of spherical compounds of different properties, here artificially highlighted by different colors.
You're mostly right, but only because the technology is young. LEDs have been around for nearly 50 years, but it's only been recently that we've been ramping up the power to general lighting requirements.
That said, here are the potential advantages over CFL:
1) Higher efficiency. Yes, CFLs and LEDs are roughly equivalent right now, but the potential for LEDs is much greater. As added incentive, heat is a limiting factor for LEDs, so there's more than one motivation to improve efficiency.
2) Longer life. This is related to the efficiency, as too much heat decreases life. Expect life to increase dramatically as time goes on.
3) Dimming control. Still in its infancy, but some LED bulbs can be dimmed in the same way as incandescents. I can't use CFLs in touch lamps for the same reason.
4) Color control. Currently sucks, but the technology allows for better control than CFLs, especially when it comes to dimming.
5) Manufacturing capability. This is a big unknown, but many are predicting that the price will drop dramatically, just like we've seen with other semiconductor products. Personally, I think this might take a while since we don't really know what it will take to make bright, color-corrected LED bulbs.
6) Form factor. LEDs can conform better to the incandescent form factor. This advantage is also slightly debatable because of heat controls: liquid cooling and heat sinks are being put on LED bulbs right now... if that's continues to be the case then the shape of the bulb might be quite odd for some time. The nature of using a collection of individual lights also places strange limitations on the form factor, which is why flood lighting is one of the early form factors that works well.
7) Public image. CFLs have (mostly wrongfully) gotten a bad reputation for bad color quality, flickering, warm-up, and mercury. It remains to be seen how the public views LEDs, but many of these (except for color, for now) don't apply.
8) Rugged. I've saved this one for last. Incandescent and CFL light bulbs are much more fragile than LED bulbs, which makes shipping them from overseas (where manufacturing costs are lower) much more effective. It also increases the applications that can use LEDs.
Notice that most of these are still only theoretical. Stick with CFLs for now, or expect to pay a lot more for something with few advantages.
Maybe by the time your CFLs burn out the LED technology will have caught up.
Not if you're relying on it to keep your brand name around and relying on it for revenue.
If a Chinese company makes a Nexus One knock-off with Android software, modified to strip out Google's name, advertising, and applications... there's nothing left to keep Google in the Chinese market.
On the other hand, if they make the hardware and keep the software intact, it's a good thing for Google. But which do you think the government will encourage, if Google sticks to its guns?
(Sorry, I thought IANAMD, just like IANAL, is implied at the end of all slashdot posts.)
I think there's a distinct difference: you're being held to a specific standard by the court system (on top of any other oath). In China, the system pushes the other way, requiring unethical behavior.
The analogy falls apart here, of course: we don't have any doctors being sued because they wouldn't provide a dangerous service.
But, then again, I could be wrong about that. IANAMD, after all.
Sorry. Re-reading my statement it seems that I was too quick to submit -- that's not quite what I meant to say. And the result is that the comment got modded as a troll.
I don't have a reference or any reputable source -- only an inkling or gut feeling.
What it comes down to is Google stopped censoring results (admitting that google.cn will probably be shut down) because of a hacking attempt. This reasoning always seemed a bit dubious to me.
Google doesn't have many ways of getting back at the Chinese government: refusing to censor is one of the few. More to the point is that it provided a means to make waves in China: "If you're not going to play by the rules, neither will we!"
So, yeah. Maybe an excuse to "leave" isn't quite what I should have said. Let me edit my statement:
It seems to me that they were looking for an excuse to threaten to leave.
Except products have a way of getting duplicated in China. Knock-off hardware will appear very quickly, and at a much cheaper price. Even the software will be the same or very close.
Even good products have a hard time competing in China.
"Do no evil" is a good mantra for Google, but it also means they will lose business in China, and somebody else will gain a virtually monopoly as the "default" search engine - namely Microsoft
A doctor pledges to "do no harm."
Hypothetical situation: a patient asks for a dangerous treatment. The doctor has to chose between providing this treatment himself or letting the patient go to a second-rate doctor. In the first case, he might be harming the patient, but more harm might be done by letting him go.
Google has a similar situation: either provide the censored results or let someone else do it. Either way the Chinese are harmed... but maybe it's better for Google to do the harm and fight for better protections as time goes on.
So, 20% of the world's population doesn't affect the other 80%?
You're right that other places have a tighter cultural connection, but you can only ignore an elephant in the room for so long. Google may only be a mouse, but that's enough to make the elephant pretty mad.
I've wondered the same thing, if only because digital circuits can be created in much the same way as software (VHDL, verilog, etc).
If you can take software and implement it in hardware, and then patent it... is that OK? What about patentable hardware that is reimplemented in software?
It could also be that WikiLeaks is seen as a valuable source of intelligence, too. If there is sufficient benefit to leaving it be, and if the government can protect its information from finding it's way there, then you can bet that this plan was never used.
But of course it'll be filed away for future reference.
Majority of things I've heard about that were leaked, were only classified to avoid embarrassment and prevent protests against things people disagree with.
Which, ironically, is why they were leaked.
Maybe we have a partially self-correcting system: the stuff that should get leaked is, while the stuff that shouldn't isn't. I say "partially" because there are obviously many exceptions.
Or in the case of government clearances, you read (out loud) and sign a statement to that effect, with the penalty of imprisonment if you reveal the secret.
The article is assuming the malware is actively trying to hide itself from the scanner by remaining in RAM even after being swapped out.
Of course, there's no reason the malware needs to do that, as far as I know. This scheme might be one piece of the puzzle, but it's not the final solution that the author seems to claim.
As near as I can tell, the article makes a HUGE assumption: the malware is actively trying to hide itself. This is not an unreasonable assumption, but it makes everything more clear. Let's go through his steps:
1) The algorithm swaps out memory. 2) The malware decides to stay active in RAM. 3) Random bits are written to memory. 4) Optional: The malware masks its presence by falsifying the memory reads. 5) A bad hash or delay reveals the presence of something trying to stay hidden.
For the special case that malware hides itself in memory that won't get swapped out, this might work. But a special case is a far cry from the claims in the article:
We can guarantee detection of malware. And that includes zero-day attacks and rootkits. We can even guarantee that we will detect malware that infected a device before we installed our detection program.
What if the malware is fine with being swapped out to disk? This algorithm detects nothing, of course, and the malware continues as normal, and can only be detected by traditional means.
I find the analogy from the paper quite revealing:
An analogy of our approach is that of an air marshal that at given time intervals demands of all travelers to take a step out on the wing, reporting to an authority on the ground who was there, providing them evidence that the plane is empty -- and first then, allows everybody to come in again. Our solution works even if the air marshal was delivered to the plane after takeoff.
So... what happens if the marshal is clubbed over the head when entering the plane? What if the traveler carrying the bomb just leaves with everybody else? What if, what if...
Even if we take Iran's claim to be true, these sites aren't going to have the protections a normal CIA site would have (if for no other reason than to obfuscate the connection between the site and the CIA). Conversely, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA has "honeypot" sites set up just to find the "Iranian script kiddies."
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's a shame that Tolkien created such a dynamic, complex, intriguing world, but all that people know about it is four books and three movies.
Tolkien wrote more, but it honestly feels like reading Genesis in the Bible: disjointed background stories that put everything else in perspective.
While I understand your sentiment about originality, why shouldn't we (at least on occasion), build on the creative works that have been developed before us?
Tolkien created a whole new universe to explore: we might as well get started.
1) Licensing; the producers would have to pay even more money to Tolkein's estate;
The source is a 404 on Wikipedia now, but that seems to be one of the driving factors behind the second hobbit film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(2011_film)#Second_film
They probably can't even reference many events as background material.
This comment will probably be modded funny, but in a few years the mods will wished they'd modded it insightful.
The point of 3D is to provide an experience you can't get at home. Nothing more, nothing less. Theaters have been dropping in popularity as DVD sales go up and home theater systems get better -- 3D is trying to pull viewers back to the theater.
APOD has a good description and picture (well, computer-generated visualization) of dust:
By studying how dust absorbs, emits, and reflects light, astronomers do know that interstellar dust is much different than the cell and lint based dust found around a typical house. Interstellar dust grains are composed mostly of carbon, silicon, and oxygen and are usually less than about 1/1000 of a millimeter across. Recent work indicates that most dust grains are not spherical. The above picture shows the result of a fractal adhesion model for dust grains involving random conglomerates of spherical compounds of different properties, here artificially highlighted by different colors.
(from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap961119.html)
You're mostly right, but only because the technology is young. LEDs have been around for nearly 50 years, but it's only been recently that we've been ramping up the power to general lighting requirements.
That said, here are the potential advantages over CFL:
1) Higher efficiency. Yes, CFLs and LEDs are roughly equivalent right now, but the potential for LEDs is much greater. As added incentive, heat is a limiting factor for LEDs, so there's more than one motivation to improve efficiency.
2) Longer life. This is related to the efficiency, as too much heat decreases life. Expect life to increase dramatically as time goes on.
3) Dimming control. Still in its infancy, but some LED bulbs can be dimmed in the same way as incandescents. I can't use CFLs in touch lamps for the same reason.
4) Color control. Currently sucks, but the technology allows for better control than CFLs, especially when it comes to dimming.
5) Manufacturing capability. This is a big unknown, but many are predicting that the price will drop dramatically, just like we've seen with other semiconductor products. Personally, I think this might take a while since we don't really know what it will take to make bright, color-corrected LED bulbs.
6) Form factor. LEDs can conform better to the incandescent form factor. This advantage is also slightly debatable because of heat controls: liquid cooling and heat sinks are being put on LED bulbs right now ... if that's continues to be the case then the shape of the bulb might be quite odd for some time. The nature of using a collection of individual lights also places strange limitations on the form factor, which is why flood lighting is one of the early form factors that works well.
7) Public image. CFLs have (mostly wrongfully) gotten a bad reputation for bad color quality, flickering, warm-up, and mercury. It remains to be seen how the public views LEDs, but many of these (except for color, for now) don't apply.
8) Rugged. I've saved this one for last. Incandescent and CFL light bulbs are much more fragile than LED bulbs, which makes shipping them from overseas (where manufacturing costs are lower) much more effective. It also increases the applications that can use LEDs.
Notice that most of these are still only theoretical. Stick with CFLs for now, or expect to pay a lot more for something with few advantages.
Maybe by the time your CFLs burn out the LED technology will have caught up.
Not if you're relying on it to keep your brand name around and relying on it for revenue.
If a Chinese company makes a Nexus One knock-off with Android software, modified to strip out Google's name, advertising, and applications ... there's nothing left to keep Google in the Chinese market.
On the other hand, if they make the hardware and keep the software intact, it's a good thing for Google. But which do you think the government will encourage, if Google sticks to its guns?
(Sorry, I thought IANAMD, just like IANAL, is implied at the end of all slashdot posts.)
I think there's a distinct difference: you're being held to a specific standard by the court system (on top of any other oath). In China, the system pushes the other way, requiring unethical behavior.
The analogy falls apart here, of course: we don't have any doctors being sued because they wouldn't provide a dangerous service.
But, then again, I could be wrong about that. IANAMD, after all.
Sorry. Re-reading my statement it seems that I was too quick to submit -- that's not quite what I meant to say. And the result is that the comment got modded as a troll.
I don't have a reference or any reputable source -- only an inkling or gut feeling.
What it comes down to is Google stopped censoring results (admitting that google.cn will probably be shut down) because of a hacking attempt. This reasoning always seemed a bit dubious to me.
Google doesn't have many ways of getting back at the Chinese government: refusing to censor is one of the few. More to the point is that it provided a means to make waves in China: "If you're not going to play by the rules, neither will we!"
So, yeah. Maybe an excuse to "leave" isn't quite what I should have said. Let me edit my statement:
It seems to me that they were looking for an excuse to threaten to leave.
Except products have a way of getting duplicated in China. Knock-off hardware will appear very quickly, and at a much cheaper price. Even the software will be the same or very close.
Even good products have a hard time competing in China.
Advice to Google:
Don't spend too much time "readying" to pull out. I've made that mistake too many times, and the child support payments are killing me!
"Do no evil" is a good mantra for Google, but it also means they will lose business in China, and somebody else will gain a virtually monopoly as the "default" search engine - namely Microsoft
A doctor pledges to "do no harm."
Hypothetical situation: a patient asks for a dangerous treatment. The doctor has to chose between providing this treatment himself or letting the patient go to a second-rate doctor. In the first case, he might be harming the patient, but more harm might be done by letting him go.
Google has a similar situation: either provide the censored results or let someone else do it. Either way the Chinese are harmed ... but maybe it's better for Google to do the harm and fight for better protections as time goes on.
So, 20% of the world's population doesn't affect the other 80%?
You're right that other places have a tighter cultural connection, but you can only ignore an elephant in the room for so long. Google may only be a mouse, but that's enough to make the elephant pretty mad.
It seems to me that they were looking for an excuse to leave, and the hacking provided exactly that.
Who says they need to "completely abandon" anything? There's more than one way to make a buck in this world.
I've wondered the same thing, if only because digital circuits can be created in much the same way as software (VHDL, verilog, etc).
If you can take software and implement it in hardware, and then patent it ... is that OK? What about patentable hardware that is reimplemented in software?
It could also be that WikiLeaks is seen as a valuable source of intelligence, too. If there is sufficient benefit to leaving it be, and if the government can protect its information from finding it's way there, then you can bet that this plan was never used.
But of course it'll be filed away for future reference.
Example of a reputable source? I'd say WikiLeaks, but the CIA seems to have discredited them....
The best plan would be to embrace Wikileaks as a valuable informant ...
I bet we already do, even if there's no official relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if CIA analysts regularly browse Wikileaks for information.
You can also destroy the credibility of a government by leaking a document. Who's to say that China didn't leak this to make the USA look bad?
It doesn't even have to be real. That's the problem with unsourced information.
Majority of things I've heard about that were leaked, were only classified to avoid embarrassment and prevent protests against things people disagree with.
Which, ironically, is why they were leaked.
Maybe we have a partially self-correcting system: the stuff that should get leaked is, while the stuff that shouldn't isn't. I say "partially" because there are obviously many exceptions.
Or in the case of government clearances, you read (out loud) and sign a statement to that effect, with the penalty of imprisonment if you reveal the secret.
The article is assuming the malware is actively trying to hide itself from the scanner by remaining in RAM even after being swapped out.
Of course, there's no reason the malware needs to do that, as far as I know. This scheme might be one piece of the puzzle, but it's not the final solution that the author seems to claim.
As near as I can tell, the article makes a HUGE assumption: the malware is actively trying to hide itself. This is not an unreasonable assumption, but it makes everything more clear. Let's go through his steps:
1) The algorithm swaps out memory.
2) The malware decides to stay active in RAM.
3) Random bits are written to memory.
4) Optional: The malware masks its presence by falsifying the memory reads.
5) A bad hash or delay reveals the presence of something trying to stay hidden.
For the special case that malware hides itself in memory that won't get swapped out, this might work. But a special case is a far cry from the claims in the article:
We can guarantee detection of malware. And that includes zero-day attacks and rootkits. We can even guarantee that we will detect malware that infected a device before we installed our detection program.
What if the malware is fine with being swapped out to disk? This algorithm detects nothing, of course, and the malware continues as normal, and can only be detected by traditional means.
I find the analogy from the paper quite revealing:
An analogy of our approach is that of an air marshal that at given time intervals demands of all travelers to take a step out on the wing, reporting to an authority on the ground who was there, providing them evidence that the plane is empty -- and first then, allows everybody to come in again. Our solution works even if the air marshal was delivered to the plane after takeoff.
So ... what happens if the marshal is clubbed over the head when entering the plane? What if the traveler carrying the bomb just leaves with everybody else? What if, what if ...
There's just too many holes to count.
The list of domains confirms what you're saying:
EN-HRANA.COM
EN-HRANA.INFO
EN-HRANA.ORG
HRAICP.COM
HRAICP.INFO
HRAICP.NET
HRAICP.ORG
HRAIRAN.INFO
HRA-IRAN.INFO
HRA-IRAN.ORG
HRA-NA.INFO
HRANEWS.INFO
HRA-NEWS.INFO
HRA-NEWS1.INFO
HRA-NEWS2.INFO
HRA-NEWS3.INFO
HRA-NEWS4.INFO
HRA-NEWS5.INFO
K-RAFIEE.INFO
LC-HRA.COM
NEWS-HRA.INFO
RADIO-HRA.INFO
hra-iran.com
hra-news.org
hrairan.org
hra-iran.net
kamangar.info
hra-news.org
bsc-iran.org
Even if we take Iran's claim to be true, these sites aren't going to have the protections a normal CIA site would have (if for no other reason than to obfuscate the connection between the site and the CIA). Conversely, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA has "honeypot" sites set up just to find the "Iranian script kiddies."