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User: tietokone-olmi

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  1. Re:details? on Why Xbox One Backward Compatibility Took So Long (ign.com) · · Score: 1

    What's that got to do with emulating LL/SC? Look it up; the issue is a "little bit" more involved than emitting the right instruction.

  2. Re:details? on Why Xbox One Backward Compatibility Took So Long (ign.com) · · Score: 2

    In particular, how they're emulating PowerPC LL/SC on x86 without heavyhanded methods such as virtualizing all memory accesses to LL'd pages with the MMU.

  3. That's to say: on Why Xbox One Backward Compatibility Took So Long (ign.com) · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    As software goes, console games are architecturally horrible. This is mainly because of the legacy of 8- and 16-bit consoles where it was actually significant whether a program took a syscall (generally implemented as data-dependent branches), so optimizations like inlining are looked upon favourably even as they fix program to platform down to the hardware register. Those optimizations have been worthless since the race to half a gigahertz ended and RAM latency began to really get out of control, because since then syscall stubs (etc.) have been cacheable just like any hot-path thing, so doing a massive amount of them in a loop turns from an obstacle to effective utilization of hardware.

    The lesson here is that one can always trust Microsoft to code like an obsessive twentysomething.

  4. Indeed, enforcement is too cheap if it's only a cost of doing business the next time around.

  5. Programmer time isn't fungible. on Ask Slashdot: What Are Some Hard Truths IT Must Learn To Accept? (cio.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Software engineering cannot be squeezed into formulas for plugging and chugging.

  6. Re:The Stasi was not the beginning of this on Dutch Police Build a Pokemon Go-Style App For Hunting Wanted Criminals (csoonline.com) · · Score: 1

    >It may start out with "crime", but the crimes tend to evolve because citizens routinely think people with different belief systems need to be punished and feel empowered to do it themselves.

    Yep. This is why the police is the police, and everyone else is not.

  7. They got caught listening in! on Google Permanently Disables Touch Function On All Home Minis Due To Privacy Concerns (bbc.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    And they had an excuse ready in case they did.

  8. Re: Slashdot Died when CmdrTaco Left on 20 Years of Stuff That Matters · · Score: 1

    >, eventually giving birth to the alt-right

    Every alternative movement is given birth by its establishment. Everything else is but a substrate. This applies to the alt-left exactly.

  9. It's a verb, it means skullfucking. As in, making a hole in a skull and fucking it. (the Japanese Adult Video interpretation came along only later.)

    No bowdlerization please, we're on Slashdot.

  10. Vanish from GPS, eh? on Russia Suspected In GPS-Spoofing Attacks On Ships (wired.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    I thought all the satellites were too old to receive anything from earth, let alone from puny handheld units like as early smartphones were. Maybe that's why it's not called Wireless magazine?

  11. Well they would. on IBM Now Has More Employees In India Than In the US (newsindiatimes.com) · · Score: 1

    It's five for the price of one!

  12. These companies should wait until the matter becomes a regulation, because only that can be contested in court. Legislation can also be contested in court, but not before it's subject to the whole parliamentary transparency process; which is what the commission (executive) is trying to avoid with these threats.

    Those companies have already seen this a couple of times from various governments. It's all bluster; the commission can of course put pressure on them, but that's likely either inconsequential or outright illegal.

  13. Re:Just not worth supporting any longer on Google Quietly Discontinues NFC Smart Unlock Without Explanation (betanews.com) · · Score: 2

    It's also obscure as heck, and insecure in the face of "cops can force you to biometrically unlock your phone" type legislation.

  14. Re:Computer security. on CEO Catches Stranger After Hours, Prompting Espionage Charges (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    In the laptop I carry in my bag most times I have a mSATA SSD and two hard disk drives. My work requires me to have the "office phone" in my pocket during office hours, which puts it next to my own phone, for two total. My everyday digital camera is next to the computer, and has two SD cards in it while not being downloaded. I also have extra cards in a bag next to a ND filter, a polarizing filter, and a gorillapod. The digital camera will take video if you press the button with a red dot in the center.

    I'm no spy, but if what I've got on me is sign of espionage, then I could easily pass for a non-spy with less gear.

    Heck, every cellphone has a video camera. Regular cellphone cameras are used frequently for scanning and mailing documents instead of telefax. None of the stuff you mention is in any way requisite, or preferable, for corporate and/or industrial espionage -- unless the spies are technologically underskilled mooks, which ain't the way this stuff's being billed.

  15. Re:Computer security. on CEO Catches Stranger After Hours, Prompting Espionage Charges (wsj.com) · · Score: 0

    The presented scenario also seems highly unlikely. A competent spy (or one that had competent handlers) with access enough to linger around for too long (by accident, supposedly) would just leave a thumbdrive-sized wi-fi bridge in the physical network and download from the parking lot at his leisure. Risk of detection is 100% eventually, but with proper op-sec such as not leaving fingerprints or DNA evidence on the device, that should be no issue at all.

    I'd wager what happened here is that there was a gap in communication in the company, some bigwig got scared and overreacted, and now they're sticking with it out of embarrassment and liability. I mean, the guy's been in a federal pound for a while, for what looks like Red Peril once again.

  16. Re:I'm normally against overcharging on CEO Catches Stranger After Hours, Prompting Espionage Charges (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, right. Then the next time around, when questioned the spy will pull a gun, or a plastic knife that didn't show up in a metal detector. Two days later he's a different Dong Liu in a different part of the country, still a Chinese Canadian...

  17. Hell no. on Will Linux Innovation Be Driven By Microsoft? (infoworld.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is Microsoft we're talking about. The company that engages in behind-the-scenes extortion of Android device brands and manufacturers using their (seriously aging) VFAT patents. I'm sure they're able to say "b-but, we're the good guys now!", but in dealing with people like these one must always understand there's nothing stopping "the bad guy" from saying that as well.

    On a practical level, collaboration with Microsoft causes companies to die. Look at Nokia: it never had a chance. I only hope that Red Hat lets Microsoft in balls-deep.

  18. Oh I'll tell you on Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Business Model for An Open Source Developer? · · Score: 1

    The best business model is busking.

  19. Or, rather, on Neural Networks Can Auto-Generate Reviews That Fool Humans (arxiv.org) · · Score: 4, Informative

    The expected quality of product reviews is so bad that a human doing mediocrely is indistinguishable from a neural net doing very well.

  20. Re:Sample data on AI Can Detect Sexual Orientation Based On Person's Photo (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Ah ha -- it detects self-described non-heterosexuality in a sample set.

    Nothing to see here. Won't tell you if you need to ritually murder your son, or something.

  21. >, and not a single one of them can resist.

    It's like certain journalists from the SF bay area: leftie critic of power one day, typing up hit lists of heretics for Der Stürmer the other.

  22. Power is most easily apparent when it's being abused.

  23. There's a manufacturing problem. To solve this, they've come up with a stress test that gets them enough CPUs known to run the provocation test without failing, that they can ship those to people complaining about that problem. CPUs being sold continue to be as buggy as before, since in Windows such bugs get excused as video card shittiness or w/e.

  24. It's the same old Microsoft on Microsoft's Open Invitation To Valve, Nintendo and Others To Join Xbox One and PC Crossplay (vg247.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Inviting everyone to come join them in a walled garden Microsoft itself controls. It's not like their online service wasn't available to paid subscribers only, the low-level protocols undocumented and proprietary.

  25. Re:Hasn't This All Happened Before? on As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    This is funny, because MSCE was considered a difficult certification to attain. People would buy very expensive books and take expensive courses to that end.

    And none of that ended up teaching the practice of programming at all.