Slashdot Mirror


User: willaien

willaien's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
218
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 218

  1. Re:Supply chains on FTDI Driver Breaks Hardware Again (eevblog.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And why is this the end-user's fault, again? Why do they feel that they need to cause it to malfunction or (in the case of a year ago), brick the device with an official driver from microsoft that gets pushed on the end user without them asking for it (or agreeing to their onerous T&C)?

    Why punish the end user who doesn't even know what FTDI is or what a USB chipset even does for buying a product?

  2. Re: What? on FTDI Driver Breaks Hardware Again (eevblog.com) · · Score: 0

    And what if both FTDI themselves, and their official distributors are out of stock? This happens in the real world. A company needs a half billion units, and buy up all of the available "official" supply.

    So, you buy from a "trusted" source, but who did they get it from? All it takes is one mistake in the supply chain, and now you have parts you think are genuine, but are fake. For some of these fakes, they're very hard to tell from the real deal.

    You've now built a device with implicit trust between all of the components, and suddenly with a windows driver update, your device is now getting garbage data, which if you've designed your device well, just means that your device shuts down and does nothing. If you've designed it poorly, it does something completely unexpected and potentially dangerous.

    Friends don't let friends buy FTDI.

  3. Re:Supply chains on FTDI Driver Breaks Hardware Again (eevblog.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    MCP2221, CH340G, etc. Just see:

    http://www.eevblog.com/forum/r...

  4. Re:Crash Mitigation on Google Self-Driving Car Rear-Ended In First Injury Accident · · Score: 2

    Why should the car leave the relatively safe road and go off-road to prevent a collision that isn't its own fault, anyways? And what happens when it plows into a bystander to avoid a crash with a drunk driver? Note in the video the stuff off to the right of the car (where it could feasibly dodge): there were objects there that it may have collided with if it tried to do this.

    Having the robotic car not only drive well, but correct for the mistakes of other drivers on the road adds immense complexity and may end up causing more harm than good.

  5. Re:Something wrong there on Google Self-Driving Car Rear-Ended In First Injury Accident · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are 50ish cars with over 200 "drivers" of them in California. These are used by more than one person, and get a lot of miles on them. And this is just in California. With the amounts of miles these cars get on them, they're not typical driving patterns: Google claims that their fleet has clocked over 1 million miles on the road. 11 "not at fault" accidents over 1 million miles doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility.

  6. Re:Impossible. on Old Apache Code At Root of Android FakeID Mess · · Score: 1

    And a lot of android is open source. And it's used by many parties.

  7. Re:Get it right on Two Earth-Like Exoplanets Don't Actually Exist · · Score: 1

    To be able to visually see, and audibly hear each other, we would have to figure out how to even communicate with each other to begin with - video and audio file formats.

  8. Re:One of those I did it to show I could things ? on 3D Printed PiGRRL - Raspberry Pi Gameboy · · Score: 1

    There's no particular reason why it can't play gameboy games (or any of the older generation games), just needs emulator support for them.

  9. Re:Get it right on Two Earth-Like Exoplanets Don't Actually Exist · · Score: 1

    But, we learn it from pure saturation and situational awareness. We had to have access to the Rosetta stone to make sense of Ancient Egyptian.

    There has to be at least some sort of context to work with.

  10. Re:Get it right on Two Earth-Like Exoplanets Don't Actually Exist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You joke, but, there exists a problem with that idea.

    How do you even establish a communication protocol with an entirely alien (technologically) civilization?

    We can possibly work on showing a basic data format with numbers first, but after that, what then? Send Fibonacci sequences at each other ad nauseum?

    There's some interesting ideas, but, how would we even move beyond mere shouting math at each other? How would we establish even a more advanced data format capable of handling characters? And then, how would we develop an intermediary language?

    All of this with hundreds of years in gaps between sending and receiving communications, at that. It's not just hard, it's going to be effectively impossible within the lifespans of the people who sent the first message.

  11. Re:Politics as usuall on Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed? · · Score: 1

    I'm curious about this. It seems to me that millions might--or might not--be better off by not being denied health care INSURANCE, but were people really denied health care (note the difference between insurance and care) previously? Aren't ERs and the like forbidden from turning away anybody who needs care, even if they can't pay? Do you think ER usage will change post-Obamacare?

    Ahh, the good old "If they have no insurance, let them use the ER!" nonsense again. Well, let's see, the working poor who has to use this as their primary means of healthcare gets:
    1) Overpriced healthcare (Ever seen an ER bill?)
    2) Outstanding debts (Ever seen an ER bill?)
    3) Garnished wages when the hospital inevitably wins their lawsuit. (And they will - remember, it's a debt and they went to them for treatment)
    4) No healthcare beyond immediate emergencies. A diabetic might get an insulin shot if they're in a coma, but no treatment for the underlying condition, for example.

    "Let them use the ER" is as vapid as "If they have no bread, then let them eat cake!"

  12. Ignore the elephant in the room on Killing Net Neutrality Could Be Good For You · · Score: 5, Informative

    "No, you shouldn't worry about prioritization, in fact it can help startups."

    What? Wasn't that what everyone was worried about to begin with? That those with all the purse strings would be able to lock out these very startups you're claiming will benefit the most from this setup?

  13. Re:Really? on Shots Fired At US Capitol · · Score: 1

    B) Barack Husein Obama staged the whole thing himself for sympathy, no doubt using his Muslim Atheist friends

    Nono, Muslim Atheist Nazi Commie friends.

  14. Re:SSH? on NSA Foils Much Internet Encryption · · Score: 1

    Due to the compiler chicken and egg problem, even analyzing excruciatingly the source code of a project doesn't mean it is 'safe', because even though the source code is safe, if your compiler is compromised (and can inject its infected code into the compiled version of any detected compilers), then your compiled binary might not be safe.

    It takes a very careful inspection to determine if your compiler is affected.

  15. Re:SSH? on NSA Foils Much Internet Encryption · · Score: 1

    Not even open source software is safe, see: Ken Thompson, etc.

    http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack

  16. Re:Not just Win8 on German Government Warns Windows 8 Is an Unacceptable Security Risk · · Score: 1

    Open Source stuff tends to be more secure because it has so many people looking at it, from many different perspectives, both professionals and amateurs, all working together to improve the code and make it more secure.

    Why, exactly, did it take 2 years to discover the Debian SSL Keys weakness, then? If we have so many pouring over every aspect, why was this allowed to slip through, with a crippling bug that makes the very security and privacy of the internet something that can be easily broken? Why did it take so long?

  17. Re:No Seeders anymore? on Demonoid Resurrection Dismissed As Malware Was Legitimate · · Score: 1

    It looks like this iteration won't even have a tracker, so, there will be no need to announce the tracker.

  18. Re:Or an economic drain? on Is Bitcoin Mining a Real-World Environmental Problem? · · Score: 1

    There being a lot of mining resources in bitcoin will always be important to the security and stability of bitcoin. This isn't a problem that you can just wish away to the cornstalks: if the total computing power used in bitcoin drops significantly, then there will be much less security, due to the ability of a malicious agent gaining 51% or more of the network's total computing power being able to double spend, etc.

  19. Re:Countermeasures Deployed on AdTrap Aims To Block All Internet Advertising In Hardware · · Score: 1

    Not really applicable if you browse on the SSL version of google, since your browser won't send the referrer over.

  20. Re:And just who can "sue" on Red Hat Developer Demands Competitor's Source Code · · Score: 1

    If RedHat has contributed any code to the source code, it becomes a shared copyright holder of that source code.

  21. Re:If there was a Bad at Math Map... on Secession Petitions Flood White House Website · · Score: 1

    Could be argued? Yes.

    Accurate? Probably not. They would then be responsible for everything that the federal government does for its citizens.

  22. Re:It's the server that's not on Hacked BitCoin Exchange Sued By Customers · · Score: 1

    You have insurance on the money currently in your wallet? I'm referring to paper money.

  23. Re:This obviously calls for escalation: on Federal Appeals Court Orders TSA To Explain Delay In Body Scan Public Hearing · · Score: 1

    If only I had mod points.

  24. Re:Fair Warning on CIOs Dismissed As Techies Without Business Savvy By CEOs · · Score: 1

    Obviously, this may require a restructuring and/or more headcount in various areas in the organization

    Or, a head hunt against problematic users (which may include an overbearing CEO)

  25. Re:Let this be a message to the unpatriotic on Waterboarding Whistleblower Indicted Under Espionage Act · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Still worthy of ridicule, due to the context of the statement. That you can, in just the right places, see Russia from Alaska does not equate to Foreign Policy experience.