Just because ARM processors don't have this security bug it doesn't mean that there aren't any Broadcom ARM processor hardware (or its kernel) security issues lurking out there that are as bad or worse.
When the first STN displays came out, there were a lot of issues with non-working and marginal pixels. How often do you see modern phone or TV displays with *any* defective pixels? I don't know if you're old enough to remember TV sets with CRTs - but you'd go to a store and see a wall of them, all displaying somewhat different colours and brightness (even between the same model). A big reason why they went away was because LCDs provided much better colour management at a lower manufacturing cost.
If you think 100 million "light bulbs" or LEDs, which are diodes, is an issue from a failure standpoint what do you think about an i7 processor which has over 700 Million of more complex devices using the basically same technology? What about a 128GBit DDR4 chip?
Back when I did memory testing, two of the things we discovered was that: a) memory chips are actually analog devices made up of arrays of capacitors with current "gates" (which have PN junctions, like a diode, built in). Which each capacitor and gate having different electrical characteristics. b) the electrical parameters of each device changes over time.
There was a lot of work done to ensure that these devices work reliably for years within spec and, from the perspective of the user, they were digital devices - why would you think that the same approach wouldn't be done for OLEDs with the end result being a technology that works when required for years on end and provide (moving) images that are superior (in terms of size, density, colour reproduction, black levels and cost).
This is an interesting study, but I don't know if the results can be extrapolated to include closed source software.
My problem with this is that I don't see any evidence of: a) Projects in the study have a published project plan with somebody managing it at a high level (I would think the Linux Kernel could be thought of as having a plan with strong central management ). I tend to believe that projects in which multiple individuals (with varying levels of understanding of the software, the app's background and issues experienced during development) would be at a much lower quality level than something managed by a strong, continuous team - this doesn't seem to be a consideration when I RFTA (popularity of projects seems to be a bigger issue). b) Different development tools used by different developers. In terms of the C/C++ typing issues, Windows software developed and built in Visual Studio, Eclipse Text Editor with MinGW or something like Komodo Edit with Cygwin and user written make files will identify different typing issues and may generate code that works differently, especially in regards to identifying and handling typing issues. I would like to know how many bug fixes are the result of something that isn't flagged and works fine on VS and doesn't work when built in MinGW, leading to a fix. b.1) I'm not 100% sure of the methodology used in this study, but wouldn't a file that originally had tabs for indentation that an editor automatically changes it into spaces be misidentified as a "fix" if it's uploaded back into the repository? This is a combination of b) and c). c) Different coding styles. I know of several Open Source projects in which a developer has re-formatted code simply because they don't think it's in the "correct" style and they have difficulty reading it resulting in them changing it so they can follow it better. To be fair, I'm sure a lot of us have done that because some people have very different and strongly felt ideas about how code should be formatted. d) Lack of formal testing methodologies. I don't think many Open Source projects have strong, automated regression testing processes and methodologies before allowing a new release. e) Difference in functional use of different languages. I would think that methods written in C, C++ and Objective C would be providing more low-level functionality than Clojure, Haskell or Scala. Ruby probably fits somewhere between the two groups.
The corporatization of comics along with the yearly "big event" (bigger than the year before) in which heros, die, are reborn, lose powers (and maybe limbs), gain powers (and maybe limbs), are transported to alternative realms and the Earth, humanity or the universe is fundamentally changed in some way. These big events seem to be set up simply for having a movie that people can look forwards to down the line. Over the past 15 years or so, there's been a real loss of character driven stories and arcs which are what made comics great in the first place. I know Disney/Warner won't give up Marvel/DC as they drive movie and TV profits which means that they drive the comics to create properties/stories for these mediums.
So, where are the great independents that can drive stories away from the corporate oligarchs? There really needs to be some new life/blood brought in.
It's not the height - it's the energy. When the Falcon first stage is jettisoned, the second stage and payload is moving at 7,000+ kmh. If you assume that the aircraft releases the rocket stack at 900 kmh, it only has about 1.6% of the energy which means that the rocket must make up the remaining 98.4% itself. I don't have the background to do all the math, but I would think that saying air launch provides 5% of the energy of a traditional first stage is being generous.
Air launching is an idea that seems to make sense intuitively, but when you run the numbers (even in terms of a simplistic back of the envelope calculation) and look at the practical issues in terms of required precision at launch and stress on the launching aircraft, it doesn't seem like an efficient way to get payloads into orbit.
I remember reading a great article in Aviation Week years ago about Orbital ATK flying Pegasus missions from their converted L-1011.
The cost reduction of using an aircraft as the first stage wasn't very significant and there was actually less flexibility in terms of launches than if you were taking off from the ground. The only significant savings was in infrastructure - you can launch from a runway, not a complex.
The lack of cost reduction is due to the fact that an (converted) airliner provides less than 5% of the energy and altitude normally provided by a traditional first stage - the economics change more in favour of a launch aircraft when you get above Mach 5 and 200k feet but there are no aircraft with this capability.
I was surprised by the flexibility issue. "Minor" course corrections require a lot higher percentage of fuel after dropping the rocket than if the rocket was in the early stages of launch. This means that the launch window (which involves time, position of the carrier aircraft, it's speed, attitude and direction) is much more critical. If you miss any of the window parameters, then you have to plan another flight - when you're starting from the ground, dealing with the launch window trends towards a single variable problem.
Another thing that I was surprised at was that the acoustic vibration (noise) of the released rocket was also a significant issue - in the article, it stated that everybody on board wore ear protection during launch and after each launch the airframe has to be inspected for stress damage.
I should point out that Orbital ATK is still flying the Pegasus from their L-1011 (according to their website, they've done 43 launches) so clearly the issues listed above don't completely make an air launch approach impractical.
It would be interesting to see how Stratolaunch deals with these issues - I suspect that if they have eliminated them then the solutions will be proprietary and if they haven't, then they don't want to talk about it as it will discourage investors and customers.
I remember earlier in 2017 that Mr. Musk was hoping to launch a Dragon capsule, with astronauts around on a Falcon Heavy and have it fly around the moon on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8.
Is there updates/plans/announcements about this?
That would definitely be an inspiring and depressing (it took 50 years to repeat Apollo 8) mission.
I had the same reaction - but I rationalize a 1% attrition rate when the Indian tech bubble was in full swing and companies were desperate for people and needed somebody that could do basic, necessary, tasks (like setting up computers for individuals that could code).
Now that the market is saturated, companies will start taking a sharper look at their hiring practices and employees on staff.
When we catch a UFO on the ground occupied by extra-earth aliens, UFOs proven to contain intelligent beings from elsewhere in the universe is not proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Roswell.
You simply don't have "Majestic" security clearance.
Reading this reminded me of Stalin ordered that the Soviet Union never published accurate maps of the country for fear of spying/invasion/bombing. This went on until the USSR's break up.
Not surprisingly, Stalin ordered the creation of very detailed maps of the rest of the world to aid in spying/invasion/bombing: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/...
Interesting all the comments regarding malware being distributed by Excel. Doing a quick search, the amount of malware distributed by Excel is on the rise.
I guess it comes from downloading pre-made spreadsheets - something I guess I'm immune to because other than an expense spreadsheet mandated by an employer, I don't think I've ever taken a spreadsheet where I didn't know it's creator personally. In terms of adding macros from other sources, the one or two times I've done that they've ended up being more work to get functioning properly than writing them on my own.
Could anybody comment on why this is such a big issue?
I heartily agreed with Edsger Dijkstra when he said "the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery."
The only reason why I've kept my VBA skills up is Excel - I find that I have to do a macro or two every three to six months and the process of getting my head around BASIC never seems to be simple and makes going back to C/C++/Python a chore.
Hopefully WebAssembly will help me get rid of that other programming abomination that I have to deal with - Javascript.
When I RTFA, it's not very clear who this is for: IT drones or coders. If you do a search in the article on "code", "writing", "engineer" and you won't find anything. There is talk of a 23 year old team "technology team leader" but nothing to say that he's actually writing any code.
I'm pointing this out because "IT" to me means the people who (reluctantly) answer phone calls for system and internet problems and (even more reluctantly) go to a user's desk and help them. I'm being somewhat disparaging because of personal history in which I've seen behaviour at many organizations where IT staff's general surliness and poor responsiveness would lead to fast termination in any role but IT. To be fair, I know they fulfill an important role in overall organization security as well as support for less technical users. From their perspective, they don't get recognized for having the unique training and skills that ensures the organization works without Russian hackers turning the company's servers into a Bitcoin farm while not getting paid as well as the coders which means that an attitude that's less than "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" is warranted.
But, they still get a way with behaviour, actions and attitudes that would kill a career in just about any other job.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's a Canadian thing but I wouldn't consider this until I could get an unlimited bandwidth plan.
I'd only use the browser minimally except when I had WiFi access which means I would use it the same as any other laptop.
Maybe Google or Microsoft could take on the bit providers here in Canada (Bell, Rogers & Telus) and open up the market(s) for this type of device.
Thanx for the link - it looks like there is some performance impact on the ARM64s. Noted here: http://lists.infradead.org/pip...
Never think what you are using is perfect.
Just because ARM processors don't have this security bug it doesn't mean that there aren't any Broadcom ARM processor hardware (or its kernel) security issues lurking out there that are as bad or worse.
Modern electronics as a whole is pointless.
When the first STN displays came out, there were a lot of issues with non-working and marginal pixels. How often do you see modern phone or TV displays with *any* defective pixels? I don't know if you're old enough to remember TV sets with CRTs - but you'd go to a store and see a wall of them, all displaying somewhat different colours and brightness (even between the same model). A big reason why they went away was because LCDs provided much better colour management at a lower manufacturing cost.
If you think 100 million "light bulbs" or LEDs, which are diodes, is an issue from a failure standpoint what do you think about an i7 processor which has over 700 Million of more complex devices using the basically same technology? What about a 128GBit DDR4 chip?
Back when I did memory testing, two of the things we discovered was that:
a) memory chips are actually analog devices made up of arrays of capacitors with current "gates" (which have PN junctions, like a diode, built in). Which each capacitor and gate having different electrical characteristics.
b) the electrical parameters of each device changes over time.
There was a lot of work done to ensure that these devices work reliably for years within spec and, from the perspective of the user, they were digital devices - why would you think that the same approach wouldn't be done for OLEDs with the end result being a technology that works when required for years on end and provide (moving) images that are superior (in terms of size, density, colour reproduction, black levels and cost).
This is an interesting study, but I don't know if the results can be extrapolated to include closed source software.
My problem with this is that I don't see any evidence of:
a) Projects in the study have a published project plan with somebody managing it at a high level (I would think the Linux Kernel could be thought of as having a plan with strong central management ). I tend to believe that projects in which multiple individuals (with varying levels of understanding of the software, the app's background and issues experienced during development) would be at a much lower quality level than something managed by a strong, continuous team - this doesn't seem to be a consideration when I RFTA (popularity of projects seems to be a bigger issue).
b) Different development tools used by different developers. In terms of the C/C++ typing issues, Windows software developed and built in Visual Studio, Eclipse Text Editor with MinGW or something like Komodo Edit with Cygwin and user written make files will identify different typing issues and may generate code that works differently, especially in regards to identifying and handling typing issues. I would like to know how many bug fixes are the result of something that isn't flagged and works fine on VS and doesn't work when built in MinGW, leading to a fix.
b.1) I'm not 100% sure of the methodology used in this study, but wouldn't a file that originally had tabs for indentation that an editor automatically changes it into spaces be misidentified as a "fix" if it's uploaded back into the repository? This is a combination of b) and c).
c) Different coding styles. I know of several Open Source projects in which a developer has re-formatted code simply because they don't think it's in the "correct" style and they have difficulty reading it resulting in them changing it so they can follow it better. To be fair, I'm sure a lot of us have done that because some people have very different and strongly felt ideas about how code should be formatted.
d) Lack of formal testing methodologies. I don't think many Open Source projects have strong, automated regression testing processes and methodologies before allowing a new release.
e) Difference in functional use of different languages. I would think that methods written in C, C++ and Objective C would be providing more low-level functionality than Clojure, Haskell or Scala. Ruby probably fits somewhere between the two groups.
Comments?
The corporatization of comics along with the yearly "big event" (bigger than the year before) in which heros, die, are reborn, lose powers (and maybe limbs), gain powers (and maybe limbs), are transported to alternative realms and the Earth, humanity or the universe is fundamentally changed in some way. These big events seem to be set up simply for having a movie that people can look forwards to down the line. Over the past 15 years or so, there's been a real loss of character driven stories and arcs which are what made comics great in the first place. I know Disney/Warner won't give up Marvel/DC as they drive movie and TV profits which means that they drive the comics to create properties/stories for these mediums.
So, where are the great independents that can drive stories away from the corporate oligarchs? There really needs to be some new life/blood brought in.
It's not the height - it's the energy. When the Falcon first stage is jettisoned, the second stage and payload is moving at 7,000+ kmh. If you assume that the aircraft releases the rocket stack at 900 kmh, it only has about 1.6% of the energy which means that the rocket must make up the remaining 98.4% itself. I don't have the background to do all the math, but I would think that saying air launch provides 5% of the energy of a traditional first stage is being generous.
Air launching is an idea that seems to make sense intuitively, but when you run the numbers (even in terms of a simplistic back of the envelope calculation) and look at the practical issues in terms of required precision at launch and stress on the launching aircraft, it doesn't seem like an efficient way to get payloads into orbit.
I remember reading a great article in Aviation Week years ago about Orbital ATK flying Pegasus missions from their converted L-1011.
The cost reduction of using an aircraft as the first stage wasn't very significant and there was actually less flexibility in terms of launches than if you were taking off from the ground. The only significant savings was in infrastructure - you can launch from a runway, not a complex.
The lack of cost reduction is due to the fact that an (converted) airliner provides less than 5% of the energy and altitude normally provided by a traditional first stage - the economics change more in favour of a launch aircraft when you get above Mach 5 and 200k feet but there are no aircraft with this capability.
I was surprised by the flexibility issue. "Minor" course corrections require a lot higher percentage of fuel after dropping the rocket than if the rocket was in the early stages of launch. This means that the launch window (which involves time, position of the carrier aircraft, it's speed, attitude and direction) is much more critical. If you miss any of the window parameters, then you have to plan another flight - when you're starting from the ground, dealing with the launch window trends towards a single variable problem.
Another thing that I was surprised at was that the acoustic vibration (noise) of the released rocket was also a significant issue - in the article, it stated that everybody on board wore ear protection during launch and after each launch the airframe has to be inspected for stress damage.
I should point out that Orbital ATK is still flying the Pegasus from their L-1011 (according to their website, they've done 43 launches) so clearly the issues listed above don't completely make an air launch approach impractical.
It would be interesting to see how Stratolaunch deals with these issues - I suspect that if they have eliminated them then the solutions will be proprietary and if they haven't, then they don't want to talk about it as it will discourage investors and customers.
I remember earlier in 2017 that Mr. Musk was hoping to launch a Dragon capsule, with astronauts around on a Falcon Heavy and have it fly around the moon on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8.
Is there updates/plans/announcements about this?
That would definitely be an inspiring and depressing (it took 50 years to repeat Apollo 8) mission.
Ford just announced that the software for all 1964 Mustangs are at the latest level.
I had the same reaction - but I rationalize a 1% attrition rate when the Indian tech bubble was in full swing and companies were desperate for people and needed somebody that could do basic, necessary, tasks (like setting up computers for individuals that could code).
Now that the market is saturated, companies will start taking a sharper look at their hiring practices and employees on staff.
If you're a parent, it's a book you have to read.
Even better when Samuel L. Jackson reads it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If you read, you read 12 books on average a year.
If you don't read, you're not a "reader".
When we catch a UFO on the ground occupied by extra-earth aliens, UFOs proven to contain intelligent beings from elsewhere in the universe is not proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Roswell.
You simply don't have "Majestic" security clearance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Purple haired moon babes!
Reading this reminded me of Stalin ordered that the Soviet Union never published accurate maps of the country for fear of spying/invasion/bombing. This went on until the USSR's break up.
Not surprisingly, Stalin ordered the creation of very detailed maps of the rest of the world to aid in spying/invasion/bombing: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/...
Of all the suggestions put forward - I think this captures how to explain programming the best.
Nicely done.
Totally agree with you - the only thing I might comment on the suggestion that rather than Python, .NET languages would make more sense.
VBA in Excel has always been horrible.
Interesting all the comments regarding malware being distributed by Excel. Doing a quick search, the amount of malware distributed by Excel is on the rise.
I guess it comes from downloading pre-made spreadsheets - something I guess I'm immune to because other than an expense spreadsheet mandated by an employer, I don't think I've ever taken a spreadsheet where I didn't know it's creator personally. In terms of adding macros from other sources, the one or two times I've done that they've ended up being more work to get functioning properly than writing them on my own.
Could anybody comment on why this is such a big issue?
I heartily agreed with Edsger Dijkstra when he said "the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery."
The only reason why I've kept my VBA skills up is Excel - I find that I have to do a macro or two every three to six months and the process of getting my head around BASIC never seems to be simple and makes going back to C/C++/Python a chore.
Hopefully WebAssembly will help me get rid of that other programming abomination that I have to deal with - Javascript.
When I RTFA, it's not very clear who this is for: IT drones or coders. If you do a search in the article on "code", "writing", "engineer" and you won't find anything. There is talk of a 23 year old team "technology team leader" but nothing to say that he's actually writing any code.
I'm pointing this out because "IT" to me means the people who (reluctantly) answer phone calls for system and internet problems and (even more reluctantly) go to a user's desk and help them. I'm being somewhat disparaging because of personal history in which I've seen behaviour at many organizations where IT staff's general surliness and poor responsiveness would lead to fast termination in any role but IT. To be fair, I know they fulfill an important role in overall organization security as well as support for less technical users. From their perspective, they don't get recognized for having the unique training and skills that ensures the organization works without Russian hackers turning the company's servers into a Bitcoin farm while not getting paid as well as the coders which means that an attitude that's less than "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" is warranted.
But, they still get a way with behaviour, actions and attitudes that would kill a career in just about any other job.
That's a sexist statement - Why would you assume that only the male cheerleaders are the Scientists and Engineers?
Man, my 15 year old self is sporting a big woody.
It's actually spelled "Nikola" - assuming you're talking about the Tesla the company is named for.
It does.