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User: markov_chain

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Comments · 1,391

  1. Re:See I told you! ITS WORKING!! on Universal Music To Cut CD Prices · · Score: 1

    He reminds me of Rowan Atkinson in "Ratrace": "I'm weening, I'm weening!"

  2. Moderation grievance on SCO: FSF Reply To GPL Claims, Conference Sponsors Back Off? · · Score: 1

    The parent post brings up some very important points, and touches some very important issues. It does not deserve a Flamebait mod. At best, it is offtopic to the SCO/GPL/FSF discussion.

  3. Re:Bending the standards on CD Burners with Built in Compression · · Score: 1

    Actually for audio discs, he found two car CD players that could play the entire 1GB disc flawlessly. One an OEM Nisan player, one a fancy AIWA.

  4. Re:very linux friendly, yes on Speakeasy Introduces Broadband WiFi Sharing Plan · · Score: 2, Informative

    man xwd

  5. Re:Privacy issues with google on KaZaA Wants to Be An Official Content Distributor · · Score: 1

    Not disputing the use of the word-- just pointing out what it means :D

  6. Do your part to improve /.'s English today! on KaZaA Wants to Be An Official Content Distributor · · Score: 3, Informative


    inexorable

    \In*ex"o*ra*ble\, a. [L. inexorabilis: cf. F. inexorable. See In- not, and Exorable, Adore.] Not to be persuaded or moved by entreaty or prayer; firm; determined; unyielding; unchangeable; inflexible; relentless; as, an inexorable prince or tyrant; an inexorable judge. ``Inexorable equality of laws.'' --Gibbon. ``Death's inexorable doom.'' --Dryden.

    (courtesy dictionary.com)

  7. Re:Nothing new... on Nimble V5 - The OQO Killer? · · Score: 1

    Yes, but capuccinos have fans, and are damn noisy.

  8. How about memory protection? on Is (Embedded) Linux Worth The Effort? · · Score: 1

    The article didn't seem to say much about the difficulty of developing a system whose modules all run in the same address space, perhaps because the project it describes seems like a one-man deal. An advantage of a Linux system is the ease with which userland apps can be developed and debugged, and consequently delegated even to programmers who don't have kernel hacking experience. This is nice in multi-person projects.

    As for the comments about disadvantages of userland (latency, different interface to hardware, etc.), much of this can be avoided through correct design. For example: the memory-mapped registers can be exposed through a block device; dealing with hardware interrupts on time can be solved by factoring out the latency-sensitive part into a kernel driver, and access it via sockets. I guess the author is right about the embedded developers' mindset which finds it alien to separate drivers from the application :)

  9. Re:I got a plan!! on The Power Behind the SCO Nuisance · · Score: 1

    No, no, no, that would help their company. Instead, we must all sell their stock short! ;)

  10. Re:hotmail spam on Spammers Exploiting Hotmail Vulnerability · · Score: 1

    You're right, the RFC does mandate this, and it's reasonable for small servers. But if I were a mail provider serving millions of users, more than half of whose incoming mail consisted of spam, I would skip the strict standard conformance in favor of what makes sense.

  11. hotmail spam on Spammers Exploiting Hotmail Vulnerability · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hotmail seems to receive more spam than other free email providers. I believe this may be due to how they handle recipient verification in SMTP. When a mail client attempts to send a message to an unknown username, the hotmail mail server will reply with an error message, indicating that the user doesn't exist. As a result, it is possible for a single spammer to spend some time just once to brute-force user names, and then distribute the list of known-good user names.

    Yahoo generates the same reply regardless of whether the recipient exists or not. Thus, to guess user names, spammers would have to brute-force every mailing, as opposed to just the initial one like in the hotmail case.

    Why hotmail would do something like this is completely beyond me.

  12. Credit cards??? on Walmart to Push RFID · · Score: 1
    I can't begin to express how much it amuses me when people who whine about privacy loss use credit cards for their transactions. The entertainment value of the irony is... priceless.
    • RFID tags on stuff are no different than UPC codes, as far as traceability of purchases is concerned. Walmart could tie your purchase history with your CC# as it is-- why do you think this will change with RFID?

    • If you can design a portable reader for passive RFID tags that works at greater than 10 meter distances through obstacles, I encourage you to patent it and start a company immediately-- you will make out like a bandit.

  13. Re:Just expanding pipes != works well and cheap on VoIP, WiFi and the Future of Traditional Telecom · · Score: 1
    Thanks for the interesting points.

    Let me give some more context to the original post. By "complex protocol design" I mainly think of the way classic telcos run things: e.g. run SS7 signaling, use expensive 5ESS switches, ATM, circuit switching, etc. In comparison, an IP network is much simpler, and cheaper; there are only datagrams forwarded through stateless routers. (Though to run a voice network, there will have to be some signalling protocol like SIP, and the VoIP traffic separated from best effort traffic).

    The question is, why does a telco like Sprint switch its backbone to IP? What's the payoff?
    • No need to run two parallel networks (SS7 + IP), run everything over IP

    • Eliminate expensive telco switching equipment, replace with cheaper IP routers + VoIP equipment

    I don't know what the real costs are of the two sides. Since there are companies switching to VoIP, I'm guessing there is a cost advantage.
  14. Re:Copyrighted works ARE 'designs'. on Public Domain Enhancement Act petition · · Score: 1

    Copyright isn't ownership of ideas. It's the exclusive right to make copies.

    No other party is permitted to distribute copies of the blueprint. However, they can copy it to their heart's content, privately, or build the object contained in the blueprints on their own property. Remember fair use?

  15. Re:Why it's dieing... on VoIP, WiFi and the Future of Traditional Telecom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The problem is that it's much more expensive to engineer complex protocols that provide guaranteed qualities of service-- both in startup cost and maintenance in the long run-- than to just expand the pipes until the link utilization is low enough to make latency problems of IP disappear. It is a simple and stupid solution, there is no sexy protocol design that gets papers published, but it works well enough and is cheap.

  16. Re:why even bother? on Chinese Moon Base by 2012 - or 2006? · · Score: 1

    Raiding Western Russia would be pure suicide; it's in Europe. Let's hope they don't miss the Moon.

  17. did you write this? on RTCW: Enemy Territory Full Version Released · · Score: 1

    See original article: Egg Troll's Guide to FPS Games

  18. Re:Am I the only one... on Google US Puzzle Championship · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What fnord red colors are fnord you talking about? fnord I don't see fnord anything unusual with the story.

  19. Re:Life is too short on Spring Cleaning For Your Hard Drive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One step further: buy a new hard drive every spring. Their capacity doubles every year, so you don't even need to back anything up, just copy to the new hard drive and stash the old one somewhere.

  20. Re:Cord... on Wristwatch USB Drive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wouldn't hold my breath for it. Using Bluetooth will require some serious battery power (at least, compared to what is ordinarily put into watches). USB is nice because it can power the device from the host (and perhaps even recharge the watch).

  21. keyloggers on The Story of the tech.net.ru Crackers · · Score: 5, Funny

    I like this snippet:

    Unbeknownst to Gorshkov and Ivanov, the agents had installed onto the "company's" computers a program that logged the young men's keystrokes as they were accessing the tech.net.ru systems in Russia. That allowed U.S. law enforcement to obtain the hackers' passwords.

    0wned by FBI's keylogger, har har!

  22. Re:A more technical analysis/critique on Students Use 802.11g To Save Cable Industry · · Score: 1

    Problem 1: UDP and Congestion

    Um, no. TCP's congestion control doesn't get used in single-hop connections such as between nodes on a LAN. If there is overlap in the coverage of the 802.11 access points, they will share the air by nature of the collision avoidance mechanism in the MAC layer. If everyone is blasting UDP at full speed, they should get equal shares of the medium (for some definition of "equal," har har).

  23. Re:Missed bandwidth by a few orders of magnitude on Students Use 802.11g To Save Cable Industry · · Score: 1

    They still won't fit into 802.11G, but not by the factor that you suggest.

    Um, no. 802.11g has a raw bitrate of 54 Mbps, which should give around 30Mbps effective TCP throughput. Plenty of bandwidth even for MPEG2.

    And I can already stream divx over 802.11b, it only takes 2 Mbps or so for the standard 700 MB movies.

  24. Re:No IPv6 huh? on Nmap Featured in The Matrix Reloaded · · Score: 5, Funny

    Recall the first Matrix, where Agent Smith rants about the humans' deficiencies, and mentions the failure of an early beta version of the Matrix. It failed because they made the simulation too good, and people were missing all the pain and suffering.

    So they put IPv4 back in.

  25. Re:Fan for computer. on NASA Ames Research To Close Largest Windtunnels · · Score: 1

    Hey, neat idea. Let's see what they've got:

    The tunnel is driven by six 40-foot diameter fans that are powered by six 22,500 horesepower motors.

    22,500 horsepower... now that, my friends, is what I call a fan!