Absolutely correct. The only thing that's changed is that MS redirected auto.search.msn.com, search.msn.com, and all of live.com to bing.com. So the old MSN Live Search domain not found page (Which should be familiar to anyone who ever misspelled 'getfirefox.com' shortly after installing a new windows system) now says Bing.com instead. Everybody panic!
I'm a programmer, not even a hobbyist in physics, but I'll take a stab at that.
So, Time Dilation. Let's say that we've got the other end of our shiny new instantaneous teleporter on a space ship, moving away from Earth at a significant fraction of the speed of light, so much so that there's 2:1 time dilation being observed on both ends. (The same thing works with lesser relative motion, and non-instantaneous FTL, but this makes it clearer.)
The spaceship has been travelling for 10 years already, haveing left Earth at a point we'll call year 0.
From the spaceship's point of view, it's year 10 for them, and year 5 on Earth.
From Earth's point of view, it's year 10 for them, and year 5 on the Spaceship.
You've volunteered to be the guinea pig. So you hop in the instant transporter on Earth, and get teleported, it being 'instant' from Earth's frame of reference. Which means that it was year 10 on Earth when you left, and you arrive in the spaceship in their local year 5.
You shake hands all around, get congratulated on your bravery, then hop back in for the return trip. You are instantly teleported back, this time in the reference frame of the spaceship. You leave the spaceship still in their local year 5, and arrive on Earth at local year 2.5, 7.5 years before you left.
There are all sorts of problems with this scenario, of course (like hos to define 'instant' in relative frames)... and the solution to all of them is to realize you can't move faster than the speed of light.
Scientists are extremely alarmed over a new phenomenon recently observed in the arctic glaciers. Melt water, which normally flows through micro rivers deep in the glacier until it reaches the sea, has started to flow over the surface instead, accelerating the rate at which the ice melts. "It's like something went and plugged up the flow, and now it's backing up like a giant toilet with a rubber duck stuck in it." remarked one researcher.
The researchers are currently seeking a $10 million grant to investigate the cause of this disturbing event.
Oooh, I remember that one. If a train leaves Chicago at 8:30 headed for Denver traveling at 45 MPH, and at 8:45 it's parent company declares bankruptcy because Congress refused to bail out the bank that owned a controlling stake in them, and it's going the wrong direction due to a glitch in one of the two data centers that handle the entire nations routing, and the train derails in Pennsylvania at 9:00 due to track damage that was never repaired from the last hurricane, killing most of the people on board, where do they bury the survivors?
So you can use this new nano-titanium paint with a UV light and kill bacteria within 96 hours... or you can use the nano-silver paint to kill them with no light needed in 2 hours. And it's been around for around 4 years.
We use planet names for the actual hostnames of our machines, from the real universe or fictional ones depending on domain. However, end users *never, ever* see those names. The end user sees a function name (with a number if there's more than one), and a location subdomain (or one of our 'special' subdomains.demo for VMs suitable for showing customers, and.wan for VPN services.)
They don't need to know that 'crm.pdx' is really terra, and 'sharepoint.wan' is really luna, or that 'allproducts1.demo' is VM gallifrey running on vmware server mars.
That animation is actually cut off. The main sublimation that was observed is below the frame of that picture. There's a better one here, where you can actually see the small chunks farther down disappearing completely.
Actually it sucks. Now the lime won't kill the bacteria on the beer bottle. Yeah, you'll have to put something else in your beer to kill them. Alcohol, maybe.
The fact that lines of OSS code produced are growing exponentially doesn't tell us anything useful about how much useful stuff can now be done with OSS.
No, but it means we're going to get there eventually. Or haven't you heard the theory that a million code monkeys hammering at random on a million open source projects for infinity will eventually produce user friendly software to complete any imaginable task?
The performance hit appears to be from the way the coalescing is implemented. Specifically, a fully coalescing solution would have to handle the case where one app makes multiple updates between frames, and use all of them (or only the latest if it's a full window flush). This shouldn't really be much harder than coalescing the updates from all the running apps, essentially an app updating 4x per frame is no more complicated than 4 apps updating once per frame.
That doesn't seem to be how Apple implemented it though. Instead it seems they implemented it in such a way that when an app requests a flush while it's already made one during this frame, it blocks the app until the next full display flush. So if Firefox does a bit of rendering that takes 10ms then flushes, it's blocked for the rest of the current ~32.5ms frame. Repeat that for a while (only running 10ms out of every 32.5ms), and you've got an app that's spent over 2/3 of it's runtime waiting on the OS to flush the screen.
Those numbers aren't just random either, that's the top end of the benchmark in the article. That roughly 69% performance hit is why the red line is a bit over 3x the result of the blue line at the 10ms render mark. That's also why the 'elbow' in the performance graph is around 32ms. If you take longer than that to render before each flush, then you're making less than one flush per frame, and you don't run into this issue.
I'm in the pro-gamer crowd, but with limits. I know there are some people that believe introducing your kids to gaming is OK right up to (or even past!) the point of live birth, but I firmly believe that it's just immoral to not have it done by the third trimester.
As far as Office and iTunes go, aren't the Mac-native versions of both programs better, anyway? Why would anyone want to run the Windows versions of either?
The compatibility database also covers CrossOver for Linux.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about that wgacheck thing phoning home, I'm worried about the off chance that it fubars the box. The windows servers aren't my domain, and I don't really feel like explaining to their admin that I was running some supposed "internal microsoft tool" on one of his fragile boxes when it crashed.
Besides, I'm not supposed to know the admin password he hasn't changed in 3 years.
That building's connection is provided by a company on the top floor that NATs everything but the server rooms. There are something like 1500 users on that outgoing IP, including the open wireless network in the coffee shop on the first floor (and boy does it cause some interesting problems sometimes.) And a 7 digit alphanumeric hash of a 25 digit alphanumeric product key means there are roughly 8x10^19 collisions for each hash. (Less that that because not all the keys are valid, of course, but still.)
I did the same thing, went to a test machine with an old blocked VLK and tried it, no dice. Then I realized... Hey, wait a minute. This looks like it's just a shortcut to inputting your product ID by using a hash... I wonder what would happen if I just replaced the hash with one from a valid system?
Not having a valid windows system handy I was willing to run a somewhat questionable executable on, where could I get a valid hash? Oh hey, look at that. Right there in the article it says "(example &Hash=6VJPCR9)". I appended that to the URL, and bingo. "Genuine Microsoft Software".
Lots of other people have pointed out that as soon as they 'work it out' people will start spoofing it, but I'd question whether it's realistic to detect such a thing outside a lab environment in the first place. The paper says they are detecting differences in transient characteristics accurately enough to distingush between the same model device from the same manufacturer. But, there are other factors that will effect the apparent transient signal far more than the manufacturing differences.
The temperature of the device is a major one. The current power setting on a laptop will affect the signal. The relative antennae orientation. Any other environmental signal degradation, like a microwave getting turned on nearby.
Some of those won't effect the 'actual' transient the device transmits, but they will effect the 'apparent' transient as it's received by your router.
They briefly touch on this, saying that to avoid losing accuracy in the fingerprint they recommend constantly updating it (which they call a 'dynamic profile') to account for "factors, such as transceiver aging". But there are so many factors that could change the apparent transient signal, I strongly suspect the only way to avoid kicking off legitimate devices constantly as the signal degrades will be to include so much 'slack' in your dynamic profile, that another device of the same model (or possibly just the same chipset) will be able to take over seamlessly.
They might be on to something, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, BASIC doesn't use semicolons at the end of lines.
Absolutely correct. The only thing that's changed is that MS redirected auto.search.msn.com, search.msn.com, and all of live.com to bing.com. So the old MSN Live Search domain not found page (Which should be familiar to anyone who ever misspelled 'getfirefox.com' shortly after installing a new windows system) now says Bing.com instead. Everybody panic!
I don't know about their fusion reactor, but as far as web servers go that startup appears to be way ahead of LANL.
They're trying to steal readers by catering to the attention span of The Sun's traditional audience, obviously.
From checking out a handful of users, it looks to me like 'The Maker' is for subscribing.
This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix.
Nah, they'll be fine, as long as it doesn't make Slashdot.
There are automated ones out there that solve this in under a second, but if you want to figure it out yourself try this page:
http://www.esg.montana.edu/meg/consbio/cryptogram/crypto.html
Here's the puzzle text to copy:
VFWTDLCSWV. YD NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF DLNIGTFBSL.
KBVBF YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ FS EDF WV QLSY SA GSWI VWNNDVV.
I'm a programmer, not even a hobbyist in physics, but I'll take a stab at that.
So, Time Dilation. Let's say that we've got the other end of our shiny new instantaneous teleporter on a space ship, moving away from Earth at a significant fraction of the speed of light, so much so that there's 2:1 time dilation being observed on both ends. (The same thing works with lesser relative motion, and non-instantaneous FTL, but this makes it clearer.)
The spaceship has been travelling for 10 years already, haveing left Earth at a point we'll call year 0.
From the spaceship's point of view, it's year 10 for them, and year 5 on Earth.
From Earth's point of view, it's year 10 for them, and year 5 on the Spaceship.
You've volunteered to be the guinea pig. So you hop in the instant transporter on Earth, and get teleported, it being 'instant' from Earth's frame of reference. Which means that it was year 10 on Earth when you left, and you arrive in the spaceship in their local year 5.
You shake hands all around, get congratulated on your bravery, then hop back in for the return trip. You are instantly teleported back, this time in the reference frame of the spaceship. You leave the spaceship still in their local year 5, and arrive on Earth at local year 2.5, 7.5 years before you left.
There are all sorts of problems with this scenario, of course (like hos to define 'instant' in relative frames)... and the solution to all of them is to realize you can't move faster than the speed of light.
Scientists are extremely alarmed over a new phenomenon recently observed in the arctic glaciers. Melt water, which normally flows through micro rivers deep in the glacier until it reaches the sea, has started to flow over the surface instead, accelerating the rate at which the ice melts. "It's like something went and plugged up the flow, and now it's backing up like a giant toilet with a rubber duck stuck in it." remarked one researcher.
The researchers are currently seeking a $10 million grant to investigate the cause of this disturbing event.
if your design process is easy then you're making a boring or derivative game.
Shhh, that's an EA trade secret! You could get sued!
Oooh, I remember that one. If a train leaves Chicago at 8:30 headed for Denver traveling at 45 MPH, and at 8:45 it's parent company declares bankruptcy because Congress refused to bail out the bank that owned a controlling stake in them, and it's going the wrong direction due to a glitch in one of the two data centers that handle the entire nations routing, and the train derails in Pennsylvania at 9:00 due to track damage that was never repaired from the last hurricane, killing most of the people on board, where do they bury the survivors?
I can't believe they left that off the list!
So you can use this new nano-titanium paint with a UV light and kill bacteria within 96 hours... or you can use the nano-silver paint to kill them with no light needed in 2 hours. And it's been around for around 4 years.
You're right that there's a decent amount of competition, but the examples you selected suck.
We use planet names for the actual hostnames of our machines, from the real universe or fictional ones depending on domain. However, end users *never, ever* see those names. The end user sees a function name (with a number if there's more than one), and a location subdomain (or one of our 'special' subdomains .demo for VMs suitable for showing customers, and .wan for VPN services.)
They don't need to know that 'crm.pdx' is really terra, and 'sharepoint.wan' is really luna, or that 'allproducts1.demo' is VM gallifrey running on vmware server mars.
That animation is actually cut off. The main sublimation that was observed is below the frame of that picture. There's a better one here, where you can actually see the small chunks farther down disappearing completely.
No, but it means we're going to get there eventually. Or haven't you heard the theory that a million code monkeys hammering at random on a million open source projects for infinity will eventually produce user friendly software to complete any imaginable task?
The performance hit appears to be from the way the coalescing is implemented. Specifically, a fully coalescing solution would have to handle the case where one app makes multiple updates between frames, and use all of them (or only the latest if it's a full window flush). This shouldn't really be much harder than coalescing the updates from all the running apps, essentially an app updating 4x per frame is no more complicated than 4 apps updating once per frame.
That doesn't seem to be how Apple implemented it though. Instead it seems they implemented it in such a way that when an app requests a flush while it's already made one during this frame, it blocks the app until the next full display flush. So if Firefox does a bit of rendering that takes 10ms then flushes, it's blocked for the rest of the current ~32.5ms frame. Repeat that for a while (only running 10ms out of every 32.5ms), and you've got an app that's spent over 2/3 of it's runtime waiting on the OS to flush the screen.
Those numbers aren't just random either, that's the top end of the benchmark in the article. That roughly 69% performance hit is why the red line is a bit over 3x the result of the blue line at the 10ms render mark. That's also why the 'elbow' in the performance graph is around 32ms. If you take longer than that to render before each flush, then you're making less than one flush per frame, and you don't run into this issue.
I'm in the pro-gamer crowd, but with limits. I know there are some people that believe introducing your kids to gaming is OK right up to (or even past!) the point of live birth, but I firmly believe that it's just immoral to not have it done by the third trimester.
The compatibility database also covers CrossOver for Linux.
The top 3 most-ranked apps on their compatibility list are Office 2003, iTunes, and... Lotus Notes 6.5.1+.
To whoever is tasked with trying to make Notes run... on Linux... on a Mac...
We feel for you man.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about that wgacheck thing phoning home, I'm worried about the off chance that it fubars the box. The windows servers aren't my domain, and I don't really feel like explaining to their admin that I was running some supposed "internal microsoft tool" on one of his fragile boxes when it crashed. Besides, I'm not supposed to know the admin password he hasn't changed in 3 years.
That building's connection is provided by a company on the top floor that NATs everything but the server rooms. There are something like 1500 users on that outgoing IP, including the open wireless network in the coffee shop on the first floor (and boy does it cause some interesting problems sometimes.) And a 7 digit alphanumeric hash of a 25 digit alphanumeric product key means there are roughly 8x10^19 collisions for each hash. (Less that that because not all the keys are valid, of course, but still.)
Not worried.
I did the same thing, went to a test machine with an old blocked VLK and tried it, no dice. Then I realized... Hey, wait a minute. This looks like it's just a shortcut to inputting your product ID by using a hash... I wonder what would happen if I just replaced the hash with one from a valid system?
Not having a valid windows system handy I was willing to run a somewhat questionable executable on, where could I get a valid hash? Oh hey, look at that. Right there in the article it says "(example &Hash=6VJPCR9)". I appended that to the URL, and bingo. "Genuine Microsoft Software".
Lots of other people have pointed out that as soon as they 'work it out' people will start spoofing it, but I'd question whether it's realistic to detect such a thing outside a lab environment in the first place. The paper says they are detecting differences in transient characteristics accurately enough to distingush between the same model device from the same manufacturer. But, there are other factors that will effect the apparent transient signal far more than the manufacturing differences.
The temperature of the device is a major one. The current power setting on a laptop will affect the signal. The relative antennae orientation. Any other environmental signal degradation, like a microwave getting turned on nearby.
Some of those won't effect the 'actual' transient the device transmits, but they will effect the 'apparent' transient as it's received by your router.
They briefly touch on this, saying that to avoid losing accuracy in the fingerprint they recommend constantly updating it (which they call a 'dynamic profile') to account for "factors, such as transceiver aging". But there are so many factors that could change the apparent transient signal, I strongly suspect the only way to avoid kicking off legitimate devices constantly as the signal degrades will be to include so much 'slack' in your dynamic profile, that another device of the same model (or possibly just the same chipset) will be able to take over seamlessly.
They might be on to something, but I'm not going to hold my breath.