I am not a lawyer, and this is only for the United States, but copyright law explicitly permits parodies. Fan Films that are not parodies however are in violation of IP law.
A professor of mine once examined the power use of a laptop but disassembling it, and reassembling it on sheet of plywood. He added ammeters between the major components and discovered that 1/3 of the power is used by the hard drive, 1/3 by the LCD, and 1/3 by the processor. Even if the processor's power were reduced to nothing, there would only be a 30% savings in consumed power.
The Transmeta chip should not be targeted towards conventional laptops, but instead should be used to improve the performance of PDA's. Imagine a Windows CE or Palm device with as much processing power as an Intel PII-300.
I really don't want to see Transmeta die, it has a novel concept. It would really shine if they developed a native Java-VM for it that would translate the byte code just as it does 80x86 instructions.
BTW for all the anti-Intel people out there, don't forget unlike M$ they do a real competitor or two (AMD, for a while Cyrix, for a while IBM, TI on occasion, and now possibly Transmeta). Also don't forget when a problem is discovered in their product they have to fix it (unlike the 65,000 problems another company hasn't fixed). The actual product that reaches 99% of the public is a good and reliable. Yes its sad that now their marketing department runs the company, and that they haven't modified the core integer pipeline in 5 years, but the engineers working for them are good.
Superintendent Davis said that if Griffiths didn't like the homecoming court selection process, he could have spoken to student government leaders, the school newspaper or any administrator on campus
True, but no one would have heard about it. When making a political statement it is important to be seen, and heard. How does one win the congressional election? By out spending all the other candidates in advertising.
The suspension was probably more an act of self defense by an insecure school official that a response to a legitimate threat to the learning atmosphere. How dare someone make a political statement at my school. What would happen if the students realized they have more power in the school than me? Although extreme there are probably the thoughts running through the official's heads. They couldn't tolerate not having control. And to think, the reason America has public schools is to ensure that we have an education so we participate in a democracy
The way I understand it my school district had a similar thing happen. They were promised a grant from a large nameless corporation in the one million-dollar range for computer equipment, and of course they purchased the equipment from the large corporations educational subsidiary. Well the machines arrived, but the grant didn't (I never did find out why they bought the machines without the grant first). Since I was only a student I wasn't in on the full details, but I did get a ear full whenever I went to help fix one of the 'broken' computers.
P.S. For any local computer genius, be careful when offering help to your school. After getting pulled out of class three times in one week for an 'emergency' I had to politely explain that it was inappropriate. Yes it was fun for a while, but trust me, it will get worse than your grandparents/uncle/any other relative asking for computer help.
I don't think it's a matter of heat production, but more an issue of power consumption.
Actually, no. Heat and power consumption are directly related, lower one and the other is lowered. Think about it: what 'work' is done by the electricity in a microprocessor? From the physics standpoint nothing. It is not converted to light, sound, motion, and the RF is negligible. All of the energy is converted to heat. If you think about it a computer is nothing more than a space heater.
A associate once mentioned the key to miniaturization of consumer devices is heat. The more heat, the larger the chip itself (to transfer heat), the larger the heat sink (to dissipate heat), and the larger the battery (to store the energy to generate the heat). As heat goes down size goes down.
Also don't forget that merely securing the data isn't enough, you need to secure any device that accesses the information as well as the environment where the device is used.
Example: Yes you remove your encrypted hard drive and put it into a safe, however a cleaning crew put a small device between the computer and the keyboard that logs all your keystrokes. When you power your machine up everything you type, all your passwords, and all e-mail replies will be logged. Next time your office is cleaned all you keystrokes are taken as well. I have seen devices that do this and the are SMALL (you could fit a several of them on a dime!)
Also you need to make sure devices are not added to your organization. Think of what the effects would be if every room was bugged. Every conversation, either in executive's offices, or in the break room was taped and examined.
Either a common thief stole the laptop or an amateur spy. Anyone who knew what they were doing would have copied the information, bugged the device, and would not have been so foolish to make a whole laptop disappear (unless they accidentally damaged the devices and thought this was the best way to cover it up).
BTW If anyone knows of a security company who is looking for someone like me, let me know.
Although most of the Slashdot community will suggest different technological solutions (encryption, thermite on top of the hard drive) it is just as important, perhaps even more to consider physical security.
Get a several specialists to your site. First start with a locksmith. Have good quality Medeco locks installed (you won't be able to find a locksmith that can pick them). They are not that much more expensive than normal locks, but worth the money. Pick resistance is only one of their features. These things are extremely reliable.
As with computer security don't just lock the front door, look at other methods of entry. How big of a gap is there under the door, could a agent put a tool under the door to unlock the door from the other side (hint, hint). Are there windows? What about an alarm? A good locksmith can take you through all these steps.
Second if you are serious about protecting your corporate secrets look into Technical Surveillance Counter Measures (TSCM). A good starting point is www.tscm.com. After your are comfortable that your site is secure look into ways of keeping it that way.
Flaky RAM would be very useful for caching. Simply add a checksum to all data stored in the flaky RAM. If when reading the data the checksum is invalid just pretend that it was a cache miss. Most of the functionality and almost no chance of failure. Note that only the storage of the actual cached data should be put into the bad RAM, not the translations tables.
I once had a motherboard that had a problem refreshing RAM above the 1MB boundary. You could write and read just fine, but as time passed you would watch individual bits revert back to 1's. It was kind of amusing watching all the graphics in doom change;^). I 'fixed' the problem by writing a TSR that tricked all software into thinking I only had 640k of memory. That memory would have been fine for cache if the data was protected by a checksum/CRC.
When I downloaded the test files, I never clicked on the 'I agree' button. I simply used a URL that would get me to the files without agreeing to their contract. Note that they said in the legalize 'by CLICKING you agree'. Well I never clicked. I typed. Also just to make sure I appended '?Never_clicked_do_not_agree_to_terms' to the URL. Well guess what, they let me download the test data and submit to the oracle anyway.
Actually the game required quite a few changes. While visiting Sierra On-Line's offices a few years ago (back when they were will making classic games and Space Quest III was their latest and greatest) one of the programmers explained some of the process to me. Games are first developed for the PC, then are ported to other machines. Parts of the original code are platform specific despite the interpreter. In addition there are memory and speed limitations that must be accounted for, then there are differences in sound hardware....
This is why Sierra would release the PC version first, and then other versions would follow. Also note that there are some significant differences between some games on different platforms. Look at combat in Hero's Quest I (uh...Quest for Glory I) in the PC vs. other platforms.
Emulation is when you have a target platform and the code runs naitivly, then another platform will simulate the hardware provided by the first. Since we are talking about the NEXT generation gaming systems this approach seems unlikely.
What he is really talking about is something like Java, or Pascal's p-code, or Sierra On-Lines AGI and SCI interpreter, you could even think PostScript. The word emulation was probably used so that teenage snotbags would understand it.
As a geek, there is nothing new here. I would have done the same thing their shoes.
My question mark key appears to be broken. Please insert appropriate questions marks into the previous post. I am on my way to go buy a new keyboard;^). Sorry for the typographical inconvenience.
If parents are able to check which pages their children have viewed then there are serious privacy implications. If the ISP has the records then the government can obtain a warrant for their disclosure. Will the ISP log just children's accounts, or all accounts. Most families today all share one account with the ISP. Also what happened to the law that prohibits collecting information on children under the age of 13.
Actually I had the same idea, and posted it to Slashdot. Oddly enough I had come up with the idea a few minutes before reading Slashdot and an article was just posted regarding the Amazon patent.
Unfortunately someone thought it was a troll and moderated it down to -1, and its now archived.
Here is the basic idea, buy a product only using the mouse down message. It is clearly more efficient that previous single or multiple clicking techniques (1/2 the time required). I suggested that someone (perhaps the EFF) patent the technique and place the patent into the public domain.
Note that the half click technique ignores the mouse up event therefore it is compatible with the patented one-click process yet because it uses a different process and is not covered by their patent (patents protect processes, not physical things, however our patent lawyers have found some really creative ways of stretching this).
An odd collection of groups, including state chapters of the Christian Coalition and American Family Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and Internet industry trade organizations, is opposing the initiative. They say it is a bad way to stop youngsters from viewing online pornography at school.
Considering who is against it (the Christian Coalition for one) these senators will be hard pressed to get this one through. We should commend these organizations for being so sensible. Even when offered legislation that would promote their ideals they realized that such a tyrannical proposition would be detrimental and are condemning it.
I am not going to jump on the cell phones good, cell phones bad debate (I rather have fun with toys that will kill me then die of boredom) but here are my comments concerning several/. readers arguments.
1) Yes RF may be non-ionizing, but it does get absorbed by the human body, and it must be converted into something (usually heat). I have heard that exposure to strong RF energy will cause cataracts (the eyes are apparently the most sensitive to RF energy). See this WHO page. Note we talking about power levels in the hundreds of watts. Kinda like your microwave oven, but not enough for you head to explode like an egg or any other immediate effects. The strongest handheld transmitter I have used is 5 watts.
2) Even with the same power level different antennas radiate different amounts of energy towards the human head. Energy that is absorbed by the head is lost and is useless for communication, in addition to possible health hazards. The EE department at my University was doing research in the area. I saw 3D models of the human head and the power absorbed by the different tissues due to particular cell phones. They were working on antennas that radiated less power towards the head, and more away.
Hey CmdrTaco, if you are in the mood to fix-up the moderation system, why not add a new feature, moderate the editors. Imagine, the editors that post good articles (not repeats) would receive promotions and bonuses, and those who karma drops too low will get fired.
Seriously, the editors need to start reading Slashdot more often. I know timothy posted this at 5:23 AM and he probably wasn't thinking clearly, but the quality of the articles is becoming a joke.
I have lost count of the number of duplicate articles that appeared on the same day. Or is this a side effect of Slashdot getting hacked (rouge processes non-deterministically posting articles)
Lets see. There is a mention of this that is still on the front page. Uhm... you guys really need to get together and talk, or at least read Slashdot before you post new articles.
You are perfectly correct. Unfortunately like I said I didn't have access to any information regarding the power consumption of these new displays. (If you were curious the punch line was about the blue screen of death). However I was trying to make the point that just because its LED doesn't mean its power efficient. I would think the contrary would be true.
An EE friend of mine told me that if you made the emitting part of an LED the same size as a neon tube (the emitting plasma part that is), both would use equivalent power. Unfortunately I am unable to confirm this. But if you follow this logic, an LED display panel will use as much power an equivalent plasma display. And if memory serves they stopped using plasma displays years ago due to the power they consumed.
One of the problems with LED's is they draw a lot of power. Ever wonder why wristwatches use LCD instead of LED? It's the power draw. Let's do a little convoluted math:
Typical power draw of a Panasonic blue led (LNG91LCFBW) 20ma, typical voltage 3.5 Volts, typical current 20ma. Ok now lets look at your 1024x768 LED display panel
1024x768 = 786432 LEDs (just for blue)
20ma X 3.5 volts = 70mw per LED
786432 elements * 70mw each = 55 kWatts. Uhm... that's one power hungry blue screen of death.
But seriously their new technology must be more energy efficient, but I would like to see some real specs. Most of the energy savings are going to be from the smaller surface area, but like I said, don't get your hopes up.
It took me a few months to get used to working with a Trinitron but now I love it.
The point I was trying to make was there is more to a display than size and resolution. Like I said I love the feel of a Cinematic display, and the desk space is wonderful, but I can't get over the grid lines. If they could add another layer to the display to blur the lines it would be perfect. Then if they would get the cost down it would be ideal.
I really do like the 'feel' of sitting in front of one of the Apple Cinematic displays (having your whole field of view occupied is very nice). The extra desk space is wonderful as well. However I can't get over the grid look due to the LCD cells. Even from a moderate distance I can ee the thin black outline of each LCD element, and it drives me up the wall.
If you can't stand the thin black lines on a Trinitron display, I don't know how you can stand an LCD display.
There is nothing surprising about Intel's fastest chip being a loser when it comes to price. Intel isn't dumb, this chip is targeted towards the people that will pay any price for that fastest machine on the block (at least fastest in their minds). Other companies do this as well. In the past hard drive manufactures did the same thing. The largest harddrives had a terrible cost per megabyte ratio.
When buying new hardware you need to look at two price points and choose in the middle. There is the point when the price takes off to catch those who will pay through the nose to get the 'best' (only to realize in two months that something better came out), and the other price point is where they catch those who try to be cheap (yea, it's the cheapest, but for $5 more you can get something twice as big/fast). Those who go the cheap way get disappointed and lose money on upgrades.
When I buy a new machine I mentally graph out cost vs. performance. Usually you will see a slow rise in price and performance takes off. Then it will level out somewhere in the middle and then about 2 generations from the top the price will skyrocket while the performance just creeps along. I buy at the point just before where the price takes off. This way I get very good hardware that only a little behind the best, and it doesn't cost much more then the junk I would get if I was cheap. I can then use the money on peripherals (a good monitor is better than a 50 MHz jump any day).
I have a second rule of computer buying: When you own a computer you need to put $XXX into it every year. The more you put into it the closer to cutting edge it will be. If you put $1000 into you machine every year you will have the best machine on the block. If you only put $50 or less into the machine you will be facing obsolesce. Custom PC's don't become obsolete, they only become obsolete through neglect. They are more like a car than a VCR.
Yes, I know my two rules sound obvious to any geek, but there is wisdom in there. This is the same spiel I give to anybody who comes to me for advice in buying a computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok.. I just checked the acutal law and there is nothing in it mentioning pariodies, but there have been several Suprime Court cases. Go to http://www.publaw.com/parody.html for a good discussion on the topic of parodies. Also check out Copyright Law of the United States of America
-After you read, then post
I am not a lawyer, and this is only for the United States, but copyright law explicitly permits parodies. Fan Films that are not parodies however are in violation of IP law.
The Transmeta chip should not be targeted towards conventional laptops, but instead should be used to improve the performance of PDA's. Imagine a Windows CE or Palm device with as much processing power as an Intel PII-300.
I really don't want to see Transmeta die, it has a novel concept. It would really shine if they developed a native Java-VM for it that would translate the byte code just as it does 80x86 instructions.
BTW for all the anti-Intel people out there, don't forget unlike M$ they do a real competitor or two (AMD, for a while Cyrix, for a while IBM, TI on occasion, and now possibly Transmeta). Also don't forget when a problem is discovered in their product they have to fix it (unlike the 65,000 problems another company hasn't fixed). The actual product that reaches 99% of the public is a good and reliable. Yes its sad that now their marketing department runs the company, and that they haven't modified the core integer pipeline in 5 years, but the engineers working for them are good.
True, but no one would have heard about it. When making a political statement it is important to be seen, and heard. How does one win the congressional election? By out spending all the other candidates in advertising.
The suspension was probably more an act of self defense by an insecure school official that a response to a legitimate threat to the learning atmosphere. How dare someone make a political statement at my school. What would happen if the students realized they have more power in the school than me? Although extreme there are probably the thoughts running through the official's heads. They couldn't tolerate not having control. And to think, the reason America has public schools is to ensure that we have an education so we participate in a democracy
P.S. For any local computer genius, be careful when offering help to your school. After getting pulled out of class three times in one week for an 'emergency' I had to politely explain that it was inappropriate. Yes it was fun for a while, but trust me, it will get worse than your grandparents/uncle/any other relative asking for computer help.
Actually, no. Heat and power consumption are directly related, lower one and the other is lowered. Think about it: what 'work' is done by the electricity in a microprocessor? From the physics standpoint nothing. It is not converted to light, sound, motion, and the RF is negligible. All of the energy is converted to heat. If you think about it a computer is nothing more than a space heater.
A associate once mentioned the key to miniaturization of consumer devices is heat. The more heat, the larger the chip itself (to transfer heat), the larger the heat sink (to dissipate heat), and the larger the battery (to store the energy to generate the heat). As heat goes down size goes down.
Example: Yes you remove your encrypted hard drive and put it into a safe, however a cleaning crew put a small device between the computer and the keyboard that logs all your keystrokes. When you power your machine up everything you type, all your passwords, and all e-mail replies will be logged. Next time your office is cleaned all you keystrokes are taken as well. I have seen devices that do this and the are SMALL (you could fit a several of them on a dime!)
Also you need to make sure devices are not added to your organization. Think of what the effects would be if every room was bugged. Every conversation, either in executive's offices, or in the break room was taped and examined.
Either a common thief stole the laptop or an amateur spy. Anyone who knew what they were doing would have copied the information, bugged the device, and would not have been so foolish to make a whole laptop disappear (unless they accidentally damaged the devices and thought this was the best way to cover it up).
BTW If anyone knows of a security company who is looking for someone like me, let me know.
As with computer security don't just lock the front door, look at other methods of entry. How big of a gap is there under the door, could a agent put a tool under the door to unlock the door from the other side (hint, hint). Are there windows? What about an alarm? A good locksmith can take you through all these steps.
Second if you are serious about protecting your corporate secrets look into Technical Surveillance Counter Measures (TSCM). A good starting point is www.tscm.com. After your are comfortable that your site is secure look into ways of keeping it that way.
I once had a motherboard that had a problem refreshing RAM above the 1MB boundary. You could write and read just fine, but as time passed you would watch individual bits revert back to 1's. It was kind of amusing watching all the graphics in doom change ;^). I 'fixed' the problem by writing a TSR that tricked all software into thinking I only had 640k of memory. That memory would have been fine for cache if the data was protected by a checksum/CRC.
When I downloaded the test files, I never clicked on the 'I agree' button. I simply used a URL that would get me to the files without agreeing to their contract. Note that they said in the legalize 'by CLICKING you agree'. Well I never clicked. I typed. Also just to make sure I appended '?Never_clicked_do_not_agree_to_terms' to the URL. Well guess what, they let me download the test data and submit to the oracle anyway.
Actually the game required quite a few changes. While visiting Sierra On-Line's offices a few years ago (back when they were will making classic games and Space Quest III was their latest and greatest) one of the programmers explained some of the process to me. Games are first developed for the PC, then are ported to other machines. Parts of the original code are platform specific despite the interpreter. In addition there are memory and speed limitations that must be accounted for, then there are differences in sound hardware.... This is why Sierra would release the PC version first, and then other versions would follow. Also note that there are some significant differences between some games on different platforms. Look at combat in Hero's Quest I (uh...Quest for Glory I) in the PC vs. other platforms.
What he is really talking about is something like Java, or Pascal's p-code, or Sierra On-Lines AGI and SCI interpreter, you could even think PostScript. The word emulation was probably used so that teenage snotbags would understand it.
As a geek, there is nothing new here. I would have done the same thing their shoes.
An ISP is a compnay
My question mark key appears to be broken. Please insert appropriate questions marks into the previous post. I am on my way to go buy a new keyboard ;^). Sorry for the typographical inconvenience.
If parents are able to check which pages their children have viewed then there are serious privacy implications. If the ISP has the records then the government can obtain a warrant for their disclosure. Will the ISP log just children's accounts, or all accounts. Most families today all share one account with the ISP. Also what happened to the law that prohibits collecting information on children under the age of 13.
Unfortunately someone thought it was a troll and moderated it down to -1, and its now archived.
Here is the basic idea, buy a product only using the mouse down message. It is clearly more efficient that previous single or multiple clicking techniques (1/2 the time required). I suggested that someone (perhaps the EFF) patent the technique and place the patent into the public domain.
Note that the half click technique ignores the mouse up event therefore it is compatible with the patented one-click process yet because it uses a different process and is not covered by their patent (patents protect processes, not physical things, however our patent lawyers have found some really creative ways of stretching this).
Considering who is against it (the Christian Coalition for one) these senators will be hard pressed to get this one through. We should commend these organizations for being so sensible. Even when offered legislation that would promote their ideals they realized that such a tyrannical proposition would be detrimental and are condemning it.
1) Yes RF may be non-ionizing, but it does get absorbed by the human body, and it must be converted into something (usually heat). I have heard that exposure to strong RF energy will cause cataracts (the eyes are apparently the most sensitive to RF energy). See this WHO page. Note we talking about power levels in the hundreds of watts. Kinda like your microwave oven, but not enough for you head to explode like an egg or any other immediate effects. The strongest handheld transmitter I have used is 5 watts.
2) Even with the same power level different antennas radiate different amounts of energy towards the human head. Energy that is absorbed by the head is lost and is useless for communication, in addition to possible health hazards. The EE department at my University was doing research in the area. I saw 3D models of the human head and the power absorbed by the different tissues due to particular cell phones. They were working on antennas that radiated less power towards the head, and more away.
Seriously, the editors need to start reading Slashdot more often. I know timothy posted this at 5:23 AM and he probably wasn't thinking clearly, but the quality of the articles is becoming a joke.
I have lost count of the number of duplicate articles that appeared on the same day. Or is this a side effect of Slashdot getting hacked (rouge processes non-deterministically posting articles)
Lets see. There is a mention of this that is still on the front page. Uhm... you guys really need to get together and talk, or at least read Slashdot before you post new articles.
An EE friend of mine told me that if you made the emitting part of an LED the same size as a neon tube (the emitting plasma part that is), both would use equivalent power. Unfortunately I am unable to confirm this. But if you follow this logic, an LED display panel will use as much power an equivalent plasma display. And if memory serves they stopped using plasma displays years ago due to the power they consumed.
Typical power draw of a Panasonic blue led (LNG91LCFBW) 20ma, typical voltage 3.5 Volts, typical current 20ma. Ok now lets look at your 1024x768 LED display panel
1024x768 = 786432 LEDs (just for blue)
20ma X 3.5 volts = 70mw per LED
786432 elements * 70mw each = 55 kWatts. Uhm... that's one power hungry blue screen of death.
But seriously their new technology must be more energy efficient, but I would like to see some real specs. Most of the energy savings are going to be from the smaller surface area, but like I said, don't get your hopes up.
The point I was trying to make was there is more to a display than size and resolution. Like I said I love the feel of a Cinematic display, and the desk space is wonderful, but I can't get over the grid lines. If they could add another layer to the display to blur the lines it would be perfect. Then if they would get the cost down it would be ideal.
If you can't stand the thin black lines on a Trinitron display, I don't know how you can stand an LCD display.
When buying new hardware you need to look at two price points and choose in the middle. There is the point when the price takes off to catch those who will pay through the nose to get the 'best' (only to realize in two months that something better came out), and the other price point is where they catch those who try to be cheap (yea, it's the cheapest, but for $5 more you can get something twice as big/fast). Those who go the cheap way get disappointed and lose money on upgrades.
When I buy a new machine I mentally graph out cost vs. performance. Usually you will see a slow rise in price and performance takes off. Then it will level out somewhere in the middle and then about 2 generations from the top the price will skyrocket while the performance just creeps along. I buy at the point just before where the price takes off. This way I get very good hardware that only a little behind the best, and it doesn't cost much more then the junk I would get if I was cheap. I can then use the money on peripherals (a good monitor is better than a 50 MHz jump any day).
I have a second rule of computer buying: When you own a computer you need to put $XXX into it every year. The more you put into it the closer to cutting edge it will be. If you put $1000 into you machine every year you will have the best machine on the block. If you only put $50 or less into the machine you will be facing obsolesce. Custom PC's don't become obsolete, they only become obsolete through neglect. They are more like a car than a VCR.
Yes, I know my two rules sound obvious to any geek, but there is wisdom in there. This is the same spiel I give to anybody who comes to me for advice in buying a computer.