I think Irvine's text was a good middle-of-the-road read. Duntemann's "Assembly Step By Step" was very informative and helped me learn some more varied aspects of assembly which Irvine's text was a bit short-sighted with...but otherwise, for a college textbook, it's head and shoulders above many others I've read. Uffenbeck, anyone?
The first time I took Microprocessors, my instructor actually recommended that we use Uffenbeck's text to learn x86 ASM. Thankfully, when I retook the course, we had Irvine's text to accompany it. Don't get me wrong...Uffenbeck's book is good for comparative architecture analysis and the hardware side of things, but it's useless for learning ASM programming.
So, what do you recommend for home users then? I've got an ipchains/NATted box that serves most of my house with Cat5 strung about the place. I was thinking of adding in WiFi just to eliminate some wiring and make our portable devices (laptop, PDA) genuinely *portable*.
Should I just add in MACs to the WiFi allow list by hand? It's not a lot of trouble to do so if you're only hosting one or two visitors at a time, after all, and they will probably never use more than one MAC/adapter. I presume this is something that you can do with a WiFi basestation, a la DHCP. I don't have any equipment yet, so I don't actually know.
Then I can keep the WiFi behind the firewall, and I don't have to worry about a VPN or any of that mess. Does this sound reasonably safe?
And, provided that the functionality I mentioned above *is* available in WiFi basestations, is it present in the AirPort? That's likely the basestation I'd wind up getting, unless someone tells me it's a really bad idea.
But given how many people on Slashdot and elsewhere were saying that the image was all anime-like and looked really cool, I'd not be surprised if this brought a lot of new-found interest into Radix.
So, in the end, while it was still wrong for MIT to steal the artwork and they should compensate for it, Ray Lai is probably going to get a lot of new readers over this incident.
1. Enter the 2002 ICFP Programming Contest. 2. Submit the site to Slashdot after downloading/caching all the instructions and requirements. 3. Be the only person to actually have a copy of the directions, therefore, the only person to submit a solution at all, let alone a working one. 4. ??? (Presumably, win the contest) 5. Profit!
This was a copy/paste from another person's post from the article from three days ago. Not that the moderators have any way of knowing this, but it's not insightful if it's not *your* insight.
You raise good points, but the fact is that most of the "bonus" software that you don't already have is part of what you're paying for when you buy the OS upgrade, and many people purchasing that upgrade already have solutions for some of those apps.
iChat = AIM iTunes=MacAmp or XMMS
Outside of those, the rest of the software is functional enough for toying around and playing as a home user. iPhoto isn't taking any business away from Adobe. iMovie and iDVD are low-end versions of high-end software that Apple already dominates the market in.
The big thing is that, mostly because of the way that the OS works, nothing in any of those programs keeps you from using an alternative solution, and they do nothing to hinder the performance or sabotage operation of other apps. If you don't like iMovie, drag its folder to the Trash.
Also, with the sole exception initial-purchase-consumer-attraction, and Internet Explorer, I can't think of any way that Apple uses its installed base for business reasons. They don't take you to their own ISP for a search engine when your DNS lookup fails. They don't advertise partners and services in iChat's windows. They don't put all sorts of other ads and offers on the screen when you use iTunes. Internet Explorer defaults to Apple's Netscape homepage (ironically enough), and it comes with a default set of saved URLs, but all that's easily changed.
Here's Kyle's 4th Edition post from yesterday. Excerpts from Van's comments are in italics.
VansHardware & AMD:
There is a report on VansHardware this morning that visits the differences between BAPCo's SysMark 2001 and SysMark 2002. The report's basic theme is that SysMark 2002 is skewed towards making the Intel Pentium 4 results look better than the AMD CPU results could have looked. It basically shows examples of things that were changed in SysMark 2002 that cherry pick areas in certain programs that the Pentium 4 excels at. While the article might seem to be work done by VansHardware there is something you need to know. All of the data shown in that article has been put together by AMD and not VansHardware. Take note of this one statement in the article.
However, AMD has been able to "pick the lock" on SysMark to gain a much keener understanding into the internal workings of these tests.
VansHardware is not the one with the "keener understanding", AMD is.
The original PDF document from AMD is linked for download so the fact that this data is not Van's is not exactly hidden either.
Also their opening paragraphs state this.
At this moment we will pause from the long march through our benchmark results to revisit the significant issues regarding BAPCo's SysMark 2002 brought up by AMD during our recent meeting with representatives from that chipmaker.
We must state up front that despite the condemning information divulged to us, the AMD spokesmen repeatedly expressed support and guarded optimism for the reformation of BAPCo.
The "significant issues" and "condemming information" shown were not harvested by VansHardware, actually all they do is interject a little bit of commentary.
AMD has verified to me this morning that all of the graphed and tabled data shown on the VansHardware report is data that has been mined by AMD. Does this make the data inaccurate? Of course not, but I am sure that it hardly shows both sides of the story. AMD is not going to supply VansHardware with information that makes Intel look good. VansHardware represents to me, nothing more than an AMD fansite that takes shots at Intel every chance they get. I think they are far from what anyone could consider objective journalist and reporters. Them doing a cut and paste job with AMD's data goes to show that as true in my opinion. Websites get fed information all the time, trust us, we know. It is our jobs to go back and prove data and claims in our labs on our own time, not to repost corporate data, that can be considered far from objective. Independent sites in our hardware community should not be reposting PR spin in such a way as this. There is a fine line here but I think this is stepping across it.
VansHardware does not exactly hide the fact that the data shown is not theirs but rather AMD's, but they certainly did not seem to represent that in an upfront manner so the reader sees the information for being exactly what it is...data released by the AMD PR machine.
I am a huge AMD fan but I just don't like big companies being able to pump their corporate data into our community when it is not presented as such. I think AMD should have the balls to post information like this on their own website and not try and "slip it in" through a back door. In fact, I would consider the information to be much more credible if it were posted on AMD's own website as AMD research.
I know Van has gotten upset here recently with his past employer removing his name from articles he has written. It seems to me that Van has done little to deserve his name being on this article and it should show authored by AMD.
(ED NOTE - This is referring to some allegedly plagiarised articles that Tom's Hardware published after removing Van's name from them)
Also worthy of mentioning is that AMD is now fully working with BAPCo, which they have not done in the past. AMD has had the ability to work with BAPCo for a long time now to make sure their products get represented properly and we are certainly happy to finally see AMD join the party to give the boat a more even keel.
Lastly, another tidbit worth throwing into the mix is that Van Smith, owner of VansHardware, possibly either works for or is contracted to VIA as a CPU validation tester. We are working on a confirmation of this from VIA now. Do we need hardware websites that do work for the companies they end up reporting on? Just another thing to consider when objectivity is in question.
First we'll have exceptions for candidates for public office.
Then we'll have demands for party affiliates and candidate support groups to have their own equivalent exceptions added, since they speak on behalf of the candidates (purely nonprofit, of course).
Then we'll have demands from the lobbyists to have their exceptions added, since they push the issues that the candidates deal with on a daily basis, and if a candidate is, say, pro-life, why shouldn't the pro-choice lobbyists get equal say?
And finally, since many lobbyists are on corporate payroll, the corporations can just take the gloves off and ask for their own exemptions, since they might want to support a particular candidate, and as a legal "individual" (without voting rights, of course), they are entitled to endorse a particular candidate in means outside of the normal campaign contributions.
But, of course, once they get their hands on the e-mail lists of a certain group of constituents, you can bet that it will accidentally fall into the wrong hands, along with the demographic/geographic data that accompanies it.
Marketer heaven. And, before long...Spammer heaven.
The court also held that, pursuant to the contract, the company owned full legal right, title and interest to what Henderson called Brown's "solution," which he defined as the process and method developed by Brown for converting machine-executable binary code into high-level source code; reverse-engineering the intelligence from existing programs and recoding it into high-level language; and converting certain machine code into C language source.
Excellent! Alcatel won the right to violate the DMCA!
However, anyone looking to make money on it had best look out. id might lose a few bucks here and there on some small indie developers, but you can bet that id's lawyers will be watching anything that breaks $10K in sales and do some checks to verify if it's using the engine. If they find out that it is, you can bet that the suits will fly.
Bear in mind - You're not paying $250K for a license to use the software. You're paying $250K for a license to redistribute works based on the software. If someone tried to jump the gun, id might find the beans spilled with their new graphics engine, but you can bet that legally, they'll have every right to stop people from publishing anything moneymaking based on it without prior consent (Read: payment)
8-13 meant "Including 8 and 13". Trust me. Coke bottles and cans have 8-digit barcodes, and we could scan those just fine. The register printouts even showed an 8-digit barcode, so there's no padding or anything going on.
CueCats don't scan *only* UPCs. They can scan any barcoding, regardless of its coding scheme, as long as it has the start and ending components that it recognizes (and it recognizes quite a few). What *you* make of the resulting data is your deal. I've scanned 20-digit printed barcodes with my Cat.
For simple proof, scan an ISBN. Those are 13 digits by default. CueCats can read those.
Some shortsighted chains *cough*Kmart*cough* may be caught with their pants down in late 2004
I used to work in Kmart. Our IBM Type III registers say the following when you scan an invalid barcode - "ERR: Must be between 8-13 digits". With a message like that, once can presume that the registers *are* capable of scanning the 13 digit UPCs...and that it's a back-end (IE - Receiving, distribution, inventory) change that's needed.
Considering that I've not seen a Kmart that *wasn't* using these old Type III's, I hardly say that Kmart is getting caught "with their pants down". They're further along the transition than some other companies that have *no* 13-digit capable equipment.
It's getting bad out there. I was alarmed when I bought a DVD player at Wal Mart and they entered the serial # into the register!
This has been done for some time now - I think the trial runs were done with the Nintendo Game Boy (the old grey one). If you look on the back, they all have barcodes, and there was a hole in the box through which you could see it. Every Game Boy sold through retail chains has been scanned. Has anything bad come of it yet?
The truth is that the retail chains do this to help reduce shrink and monitor returns. If a shipment disappears or never gets sold, the supplier has a list of all the IDs that never got rung up at the register, and he knows where the buck stopped at. It's not like the DVD players phone home or anything - It's just used to help nail the people in the stock room that aren't doing their jobs.
Oh, but wait, what about the people living on the border between the new Border State and the other states? Let's create another...ouch. **Brain implosion**
Wow...Infinitely recursive bureaucracy! Maybe this is how we can fix those nitwits in Congress!
I mean, most of them have hairpieces, so they wouldn't fall prey to the old robot trap of "Lather-Rinse-Repeat"...
VeriSign, ENIC, and Nominet UK today released a letter to the U.S. Commerce Dept. urging Uncle Sam to 'scale back the powers of the body that manages the Internet's global addressing system.'
"Hello, pot? Yes, hi there, pot. This is your old friend, kettle."
All those girl ninjas running around stealthily tucking Dreamcasts under their arms - They weren't trying to steal them. They were trying to deploy them!
As Timothy points out, this only prevents script kiddies from being able to modify existing content using a backdoor or whatnot. However, it won't do anything about denial of service attacks, since the server software and its modules/plugins are all in RAM, and will still be receiving inputs. Buffer overflows and whatnot are still possible.
However, defacements will at least go away, and those are the second-most high-profile types of attacks, as they're visible to the general public. Database attacks would be the worst, though, since, as Timothy again points out, they must be writeable.
For best effect in Quake-based games...
on
Gaming on the IMAX
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I wish I could believe that, but most iTools webpages are in the form
http://homepage.mac.com/~username
Trying out http://homepage.mac.com/~1/ doesn't go anywhere, and WebObjects reports that the user account doesn't exist.
I agree, it doesn't seem very characteristic of Apple to do something like this, and the URL looks strange. If they were to make an announcement like this, I'd think it'd be somewhere else.
I guess we'll know the truth 18 hours from now. If Apple doesn't announce anything today by midnight PST, then we'll know it was fake.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Irvine's text was a good middle-of-the-road read. Duntemann's "Assembly Step By Step" was very informative and helped me learn some more varied aspects of assembly which Irvine's text was a bit short-sighted with...but otherwise, for a college textbook, it's head and shoulders above many others I've read. Uffenbeck, anyone?
The first time I took Microprocessors, my instructor actually recommended that we use Uffenbeck's text to learn x86 ASM. Thankfully, when I retook the course, we had Irvine's text to accompany it. Don't get me wrong...Uffenbeck's book is good for comparative architecture analysis and the hardware side of things, but it's useless for learning ASM programming.
So, what do you recommend for home users then? I've got an ipchains/NATted box that serves most of my house with Cat5 strung about the place. I was thinking of adding in WiFi just to eliminate some wiring and make our portable devices (laptop, PDA) genuinely *portable*.
Should I just add in MACs to the WiFi allow list by hand? It's not a lot of trouble to do so if you're only hosting one or two visitors at a time, after all, and they will probably never use more than one MAC/adapter. I presume this is something that you can do with a WiFi basestation, a la DHCP. I don't have any equipment yet, so I don't actually know.
Then I can keep the WiFi behind the firewall, and I don't have to worry about a VPN or any of that mess. Does this sound reasonably safe?
And, provided that the functionality I mentioned above *is* available in WiFi basestations, is it present in the AirPort? That's likely the basestation I'd wind up getting, unless someone tells me it's a really bad idea.
But given how many people on Slashdot and elsewhere were saying that the image was all anime-like and looked really cool, I'd not be surprised if this brought a lot of new-found interest into Radix.
So, in the end, while it was still wrong for MIT to steal the artwork and they should compensate for it, Ray Lai is probably going to get a lot of new readers over this incident.
1. Enter the 2002 ICFP Programming Contest.
2. Submit the site to Slashdot after downloading/caching all the instructions and requirements.
3. Be the only person to actually have a copy of the directions, therefore, the only person to submit a solution at all, let alone a working one.
4. ??? (Presumably, win the contest)
5. Profit!
This was a copy/paste from another person's post from the article from three days ago. Not that the moderators have any way of knowing this, but it's not insightful if it's not *your* insight.
You raise good points, but the fact is that most of the "bonus" software that you don't already have is part of what you're paying for when you buy the OS upgrade, and many people purchasing that upgrade already have solutions for some of those apps.
iChat = AIM
iTunes=MacAmp or XMMS
Outside of those, the rest of the software is functional enough for toying around and playing as a home user. iPhoto isn't taking any business away from Adobe. iMovie and iDVD are low-end versions of high-end software that Apple already dominates the market in.
The big thing is that, mostly because of the way that the OS works, nothing in any of those programs keeps you from using an alternative solution, and they do nothing to hinder the performance or sabotage operation of other apps. If you don't like iMovie, drag its folder to the Trash.
Also, with the sole exception initial-purchase-consumer-attraction, and Internet Explorer, I can't think of any way that Apple uses its installed base for business reasons. They don't take you to their own ISP for a search engine when your DNS lookup fails. They don't advertise partners and services in iChat's windows. They don't put all sorts of other ads and offers on the screen when you use iTunes. Internet Explorer defaults to Apple's Netscape homepage (ironically enough), and it comes with a default set of saved URLs, but all that's easily changed.
Here's Kyle's 4th Edition post from yesterday. Excerpts from Van's comments are in italics.
VansHardware & AMD: There is a report on VansHardware this morning that visits the differences between BAPCo's SysMark 2001 and SysMark 2002. The report's basic theme is that SysMark 2002 is skewed towards making the Intel Pentium 4 results look better than the AMD CPU results could have looked. It basically shows examples of things that were changed in SysMark 2002 that cherry pick areas in certain programs that the Pentium 4 excels at. While the article might seem to be work done by VansHardware there is something you need to know. All of the data shown in that article has been put together by AMD and not VansHardware. Take note of this one statement in the article.
However, AMD has been able to "pick the lock" on SysMark to gain a much keener understanding into the internal workings of these tests.
VansHardware is not the one with the "keener understanding", AMD is.
The original PDF document from AMD is linked for download so the fact that this data is not Van's is not exactly hidden either.
Also their opening paragraphs state this.
At this moment we will pause from the long march through our benchmark results to revisit the significant issues regarding BAPCo's SysMark 2002 brought up by AMD during our recent meeting with representatives from that chipmaker.
We must state up front that despite the condemning information divulged to us, the AMD spokesmen repeatedly expressed support and guarded optimism for the reformation of BAPCo.
The "significant issues" and "condemming information" shown were not harvested by VansHardware, actually all they do is interject a little bit of commentary.
AMD has verified to me this morning that all of the graphed and tabled data shown on the VansHardware report is data that has been mined by AMD. Does this make the data inaccurate? Of course not, but I am sure that it hardly shows both sides of the story. AMD is not going to supply VansHardware with information that makes Intel look good. VansHardware represents to me, nothing more than an AMD fansite that takes shots at Intel every chance they get. I think they are far from what anyone could consider objective journalist and reporters. Them doing a cut and paste job with AMD's data goes to show that as true in my opinion. Websites get fed information all the time, trust us, we know. It is our jobs to go back and prove data and claims in our labs on our own time, not to repost corporate data, that can be considered far from objective. Independent sites in our hardware community should not be reposting PR spin in such a way as this. There is a fine line here but I think this is stepping across it.
VansHardware does not exactly hide the fact that the data shown is not theirs but rather AMD's, but they certainly did not seem to represent that in an upfront manner so the reader sees the information for being exactly what it is...data released by the AMD PR machine.
I am a huge AMD fan but I just don't like big companies being able to pump their corporate data into our community when it is not presented as such. I think AMD should have the balls to post information like this on their own website and not try and "slip it in" through a back door. In fact, I would consider the information to be much more credible if it were posted on AMD's own website as AMD research.
I know Van has gotten upset here recently with his past employer removing his name from articles he has written. It seems to me that Van has done little to deserve his name being on this article and it should show authored by AMD.
(ED NOTE - This is referring to some allegedly plagiarised articles that Tom's Hardware published after removing Van's name from them)
Also worthy of mentioning is that AMD is now fully working with BAPCo, which they have not done in the past. AMD has had the ability to work with BAPCo for a long time now to make sure their products get represented properly and we are certainly happy to finally see AMD join the party to give the boat a more even keel.
Lastly, another tidbit worth throwing into the mix is that Van Smith, owner of VansHardware, possibly either works for or is contracted to VIA as a CPU validation tester. We are working on a confirmation of this from VIA now. Do we need hardware websites that do work for the companies they end up reporting on? Just another thing to consider when objectivity is in question.
Yet six more reasons why I dont allow my family to connect to the internet using MS. They can't be trusted.
:-)
Who? Microsoft, or your family?
First we'll have exceptions for candidates for public office.
Then we'll have demands for party affiliates and candidate support groups to have their own equivalent exceptions added, since they speak on behalf of the candidates (purely nonprofit, of course).
Then we'll have demands from the lobbyists to have their exceptions added, since they push the issues that the candidates deal with on a daily basis, and if a candidate is, say, pro-life, why shouldn't the pro-choice lobbyists get equal say?
And finally, since many lobbyists are on corporate payroll, the corporations can just take the gloves off and ask for their own exemptions, since they might want to support a particular candidate, and as a legal "individual" (without voting rights, of course), they are entitled to endorse a particular candidate in means outside of the normal campaign contributions.
But, of course, once they get their hands on the e-mail lists of a certain group of constituents, you can bet that it will accidentally fall into the wrong hands, along with the demographic/geographic data that accompanies it.
Marketer heaven. And, before long...Spammer heaven.
Two Slashdottings, in a row. :)
Good thing their servers appear to be able to handle it. Either that, or nobody gives a damn about anything reported on CNet...
The court also held that, pursuant to the contract, the company owned full legal right, title and interest to what Henderson called Brown's "solution," which he defined as the process and method developed by Brown for converting machine-executable binary code into high-level source code; reverse-engineering the intelligence from existing programs and recoding it into high-level language; and converting certain machine code into C language source.
Excellent! Alcatel won the right to violate the DMCA!
However, anyone looking to make money on it had best look out. id might lose a few bucks here and there on some small indie developers, but you can bet that id's lawyers will be watching anything that breaks $10K in sales and do some checks to verify if it's using the engine. If they find out that it is, you can bet that the suits will fly.
Bear in mind - You're not paying $250K for a license to use the software. You're paying $250K for a license to redistribute works based on the software. If someone tried to jump the gun, id might find the beans spilled with their new graphics engine, but you can bet that legally, they'll have every right to stop people from publishing anything moneymaking based on it without prior consent (Read: payment)
8-13 meant "Including 8 and 13". Trust me. Coke bottles and cans have 8-digit barcodes, and we could scan those just fine. The register printouts even showed an 8-digit barcode, so there's no padding or anything going on.
Enjoy your :CueCats while they last...
CueCats don't scan *only* UPCs. They can scan any barcoding, regardless of its coding scheme, as long as it has the start and ending components that it recognizes (and it recognizes quite a few). What *you* make of the resulting data is your deal. I've scanned 20-digit printed barcodes with my Cat.
For simple proof, scan an ISBN. Those are 13 digits by default. CueCats can read those.
Some shortsighted chains *cough*Kmart*cough* may be caught with their pants down in late 2004
I used to work in Kmart. Our IBM Type III registers say the following when you scan an invalid barcode - "ERR: Must be between 8-13 digits". With a message like that, once can presume that the registers *are* capable of scanning the 13 digit UPCs...and that it's a back-end (IE - Receiving, distribution, inventory) change that's needed.
Considering that I've not seen a Kmart that *wasn't* using these old Type III's, I hardly say that Kmart is getting caught "with their pants down". They're further along the transition than some other companies that have *no* 13-digit capable equipment.
It's getting bad out there. I was alarmed when I bought a DVD player at Wal Mart and they entered the serial # into the register!
This has been done for some time now - I think the trial runs were done with the Nintendo Game Boy (the old grey one). If you look on the back, they all have barcodes, and there was a hole in the box through which you could see it. Every Game Boy sold through retail chains has been scanned. Has anything bad come of it yet?
The truth is that the retail chains do this to help reduce shrink and monitor returns. If a shipment disappears or never gets sold, the supplier has a list of all the IDs that never got rung up at the register, and he knows where the buck stopped at. It's not like the DVD players phone home or anything - It's just used to help nail the people in the stock room that aren't doing their jobs.
from the first-post dept.
/. posters to be able to mod down editors...
Geez...that's as good an excuse as any for
PVP, July 18, 2001
Oh, but wait, what about the people living on the border between the new Border State and the other states? Let's create another...ouch. **Brain implosion**
Wow...Infinitely recursive bureaucracy! Maybe this is how we can fix those nitwits in Congress!
I mean, most of them have hairpieces, so they wouldn't fall prey to the old robot trap of "Lather-Rinse-Repeat"...
Disclaimer: No, I did not read the article.
VeriSign, ENIC, and Nominet UK today released a letter to the U.S. Commerce Dept. urging Uncle Sam to 'scale back the powers of the body that manages the Internet's global addressing system.'
"Hello, pot? Yes, hi there, pot. This is your old friend, kettle."
"You're black."
"That is all. Goodbye."
All those girl ninjas running around stealthily tucking Dreamcasts under their arms - They weren't trying to steal them. They were trying to deploy them!
Now I understand the tagline... It's thinking...
MEN, of course, means Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia.
Who cares? I wanna see the WOMEN of Wireless!
As Timothy points out, this only prevents script kiddies from being able to modify existing content using a backdoor or whatnot. However, it won't do anything about denial of service attacks, since the server software and its modules/plugins are all in RAM, and will still be receiving inputs. Buffer overflows and whatnot are still possible. However, defacements will at least go away, and those are the second-most high-profile types of attacks, as they're visible to the general public. Database attacks would be the worst, though, since, as Timothy again points out, they must be writeable.
set fov reallyreallyreallyhigh
I wish I could believe that, but most iTools webpages are in the form
http://homepage.mac.com/~username
Trying out http://homepage.mac.com/~1/ doesn't go anywhere, and WebObjects reports that the user account doesn't exist.
I agree, it doesn't seem very characteristic of Apple to do something like this, and the URL looks strange. If they were to make an announcement like this, I'd think it'd be somewhere else.
I guess we'll know the truth 18 hours from now. If Apple doesn't announce anything today by midnight PST, then we'll know it was fake.