I honestly have to wonder why most vendor firmware isn't just thinly-skinned Open or DD WRT out of the box
They think: 1) we can save a nickel on RAM if we don't use linux 2) we sell tens of millions of devices 3) that's millions of dollars of savings
and if they contract out the firmware to the lowest bidder and don't actually provide any support, maybe they're right. What I find surprising is that the linux-based routers didn't take over years ago at a $10 premium for their good reputation. Then again, I've never seen any marketing for any of these devices other than Cisco's rebranded Linksys stuff.
Agreed, but it also sounds like nVidia has unquestionably reached the "big corporation" stage. A scrappy startup would have found a way to make the business happen - today's nVidia says, "nah, not a big enough margin" like IBM would. Some of the more interesting corps would have thrown a skunkworks or subsidiary at it if it was that thin of an effort.
The trouble is, large slow-moving corporations aren't known for innovation, which is essential in this product space. Ordinarily I'd say nVidia ought to watch out for its relevance, but the video card space is fairly tightly locked up with patents. So, perhaps we ought to watch out for an approaching market stagnation.
aka "The Path to Idiocracy". It's true, though, and it should be an object lesson that technically sound software needs to be trivially easy to install and configure as well if it's to do much societal good.
I appreciate Tom taking a stab at my question, though lawyering procedure wasn't what I'd hoped engineers would be interested in. By searching on 'wildside jar blendtec' I wound up at the specifications page that says "Patented 5-sided jar that produces a better blending vortex", and Tom mentioned cavitation - so I'm assuming that a standard 4-sided jar like I have now sets up a cavitation in the fluid and that the asymmetrical 5th side is the invention that interrupts the cavitation, imparting more energy into the blending itself. I think I learned something!
Maybe next somebody will read the patent and/or this thread can wind up being a geek-out about blending mechanics.
Maybe the Boomer who knew the process inside and out recently retired. I've seen this happen in a few tech/manufacturing industries lately. There's a chance he was hired back as a consultant to fix this mess.
That was a possible theory. The research from last year about the tao protein being a zinc-dependent molecule pretty much ushered it out as the likely cause. There was even a Slashdot article about the discovery.
I had a P4 2.6 GHz SOHO server (1 hard drive) that cost $50/mo to run. My total household electric bill was typically $95-$115 before and after that machine.
What kind of problems do you see? I use Roundcubemail for webmail and it's on a vanilla CentOS 6 box running under stock PHP under Apache and Apache Traffic Server in front of that. I haven't noticed performance problems. I'm no fan of PHP either - just calling it as I see it.
That was a possible theory. The research from last year about the tao protein being a zinc-dependent molecule pretty much ushered it out as the likely cause. There was even a Slashdot article about the discovery.
I think you'd be surprised at what CPUs I run SSH on.
I recall benchmarking an old Pentium-75 at 17Mbps with rsync over ssh, and that was, I think, 2001 (for an embedded x86 appliance I was working on). That was a 150MIPS machine. But, yes, the NetBSD folk do some amazing things, and anybody running a 16MHz Atmel is going to have a hard time pushing serious crypto. The new embedded chips with AES on-die are also lovely.
Anyone know what Cipher Suite configuration is the "safest" now?:)
You're screwed. You have the PCI people who are freaked out over CBC ciphers because of BEAST, you have lots of LTS distros not offering TLS 1.2, and you have people under FIPS who are your customers, so you wind up having to offer RC4 as a cipher to meet all of the above requirements. And even if you assume FIPS-managed clients will be controlling their ciphers to meet their internal requirements, you have to explain this to the PCI scanner vendor every. single. time.
If the LTS vendors could backport TLS 1.2, that would solve many headaches.
On the other hand, I often see distros that are little or no more than what can be accomplished with a vanilla distro and a custom package group and/or puppet script.
These sorts of distros are putting all kinds of resources into maintaining a distro when they should be spending that energy improving their core benefits instead. There are more ways to market a unique solution than starting a distro.
Sure, if you want to change some real fundamentals of the OS, by all means fork, but it really shouldn't be anybody's first choice.
Would it be possible to have an app in the Play Store that had two modes?:
1) if the presence of a certain code bundle was detected, exec that. 2) if it's missing, bring up a web browser and point to the website for the user to download it, then provide for a guided copy/install.
I'm assuming the Play Store already prohibits direct code downloads, but if not that would be even easier.
The Progressive Mind (in some hyper-partisan precients):
(1) Rand Paul holds numerous horrendous positions. Therefore, it is impermissible ever to agree with or support him on any one specific issue. The minute one agrees with him on any one issue, one is infected with all his other views, no matter how much one disagrees with those other views.
(2) Barack Obama not only holds numerous horrendous positions, but actually does numerous heinous things (eg http://is.gd/5tKFC4,http://is.gd/GrHG86, http://is.gd/FpAt7a, http://is.gd/kNa9D0, http://is.gd/CmXP4F). Nonetheless, it is not only permissible - but mandatory - to support him not just on an issue-by-issue basis but for his general empowerment. One is free to support him and cheer for him without being infected by any of his heinous views and actions with which one disagrees.
I would give a big prize to anyone who can come close to reconciling those lines of reasoning.
It's extremely simple: you support politicians in those instances when you agree with their views, and oppose them in those instances when you disagree with those views.
Literally, I could live to be 500 years old and never comprehend how so many progressives, who (by the way) reside in the reality-based community, are unwilling and/or unable to process this very basic proposition.
That you can only spend in multiples of 50 (aka "$5.00") or 500 (aka "$5.00") respectively
Yeah, but that's only because the backing transaction network (credit cards, mostly) have very high transaction costs because the market is so heavily regulated and controlled that there's no competition to speak of.
Do the micropayments in fractional bitcoins. Once there's a substantial amount in the wallet, then cash it out if need be. The GUI for the masses ought to be here pretty soon.
I was looking at an online chart and it showed a stopping distance for a poor truck driver with standard brakes on the flat as 344 feet at 40MPH. Could you comment about how that kind of distance and time relates to the deceleration value? I'd like to talk to the local highway guys about it, and I don't think they do any of the engineering themselves, but I'm happy to work the problem with them (assuming I understand it).
Fact is, when you live with other people, you can't do everything you want.
There are two basic ways to measure whether there is tyranny:
1) are you prohibited from doing any thing that harms no others? For example, we have half a million political prisoners from the so-called 'Drug War' (war can only be made against people, not things - in this case *The* People).
2) are there certain people who are allowed to do things that you are not? This speaks to Bastiat's basis for a just government and his test for legal plunder.
If neither of these is true, then liberty is the predominant theme in the society.
Slashdot Mirror
I honestly have to wonder why most vendor firmware isn't just thinly-skinned Open or DD WRT out of the box
They think:
1) we can save a nickel on RAM if we don't use linux
2) we sell tens of millions of devices
3) that's millions of dollars of savings
and if they contract out the firmware to the lowest bidder and don't actually provide any support, maybe they're right. What I find surprising is that the linux-based routers didn't take over years ago at a $10 premium for their good reputation. Then again, I've never seen any marketing for any of these devices other than Cisco's rebranded Linksys stuff.
Agreed, but it also sounds like nVidia has unquestionably reached the "big corporation" stage. A scrappy startup would have found a way to make the business happen - today's nVidia says, "nah, not a big enough margin" like IBM would. Some of the more interesting corps would have thrown a skunkworks or subsidiary at it if it was that thin of an effort.
The trouble is, large slow-moving corporations aren't known for innovation, which is essential in this product space. Ordinarily I'd say nVidia ought to watch out for its relevance, but the video card space is fairly tightly locked up with patents. So, perhaps we ought to watch out for an approaching market stagnation.
aka "The Path to Idiocracy". It's true, though, and it should be an object lesson that technically sound software needs to be trivially easy to install and configure as well if it's to do much societal good.
I appreciate Tom taking a stab at my question, though lawyering procedure wasn't what I'd hoped engineers would be interested in. By searching on 'wildside jar blendtec' I wound up at the specifications page that says "Patented 5-sided jar that produces a better blending vortex", and Tom mentioned cavitation - so I'm assuming that a standard 4-sided jar like I have now sets up a cavitation in the fluid and that the asymmetrical 5th side is the invention that interrupts the cavitation, imparting more energy into the blending itself. I think I learned something!
Maybe next somebody will read the patent and/or this thread can wind up being a geek-out about blending mechanics.
What the hell happened here?
Maybe the Boomer who knew the process inside and out recently retired. I've seen this happen in a few tech/manufacturing industries lately. There's a chance he was hired back as a consultant to fix this mess.
Debian for pogoplug is just a repo and an installer script and it works brilliantly.
Thanks - that's a great example. And, look, people know about PogoPlug, without them having to create their own distro!
That was a possible theory. The research from last year about the tao protein being a zinc-dependent molecule pretty much ushered it out as the likely cause. There was even a Slashdot article about the discovery.
If you run the numbers, you might be surprised.
I had a P4 2.6 GHz SOHO server (1 hard drive) that cost $50/mo to run. My total household electric bill was typically $95-$115 before and after that machine.
What kind of problems do you see? I use Roundcubemail for webmail and it's on a vanilla CentOS 6 box running under stock PHP under Apache and Apache Traffic Server in front of that. I haven't noticed performance problems. I'm no fan of PHP either - just calling it as I see it.
oops, improper nesting.
That was a possible theory. The research from last year about the tao protein being a zinc-dependent molecule pretty much ushered it out as the likely cause. There was even a Slashdot article about the discovery.
I think you'd be surprised at what CPUs I run SSH on.
I recall benchmarking an old Pentium-75 at 17Mbps with rsync over ssh, and that was, I think, 2001 (for an embedded x86 appliance I was working on). That was a 150MIPS machine. But, yes, the NetBSD folk do some amazing things, and anybody running a 16MHz Atmel is going to have a hard time pushing serious crypto. The new embedded chips with AES on-die are also lovely.
I doubt you can peg your CPU with '-c blowfish'.
Anyone know what Cipher Suite configuration is the "safest" now? :)
You're screwed. You have the PCI people who are freaked out over CBC ciphers because of BEAST, you have lots of LTS distros not offering TLS 1.2, and you have people under FIPS who are your customers, so you wind up having to offer RC4 as a cipher to meet all of the above requirements. And even if you assume FIPS-managed clients will be controlling their ciphers to meet their internal requirements, you have to explain this to the PCI scanner vendor every. single. time.
If the LTS vendors could backport TLS 1.2, that would solve many headaches.
On the other hand, I often see distros that are little or no more than what can be accomplished with a vanilla distro and a custom package group and/or puppet script.
These sorts of distros are putting all kinds of resources into maintaining a distro when they should be spending that energy improving their core benefits instead. There are more ways to market a unique solution than starting a distro.
Sure, if you want to change some real fundamentals of the OS, by all means fork, but it really shouldn't be anybody's first choice.
Would it be possible to have an app in the Play Store that had two modes?:
1) if the presence of a certain code bundle was detected, exec that.
2) if it's missing, bring up a web browser and point to the website for the user to download it, then provide for a guided copy/install.
I'm assuming the Play Store already prohibits direct code downloads, but if not that would be even easier.
Maybe they'll tell him it's Joker Venom.
via Glenn Greenwald:
That you can only spend in multiples of 50 (aka "$5.00") or 500 (aka "$5.00") respectively
Yeah, but that's only because the backing transaction network (credit cards, mostly) have very high transaction costs because the market is so heavily regulated and controlled that there's no competition to speak of.
Do the micropayments in fractional bitcoins. Once there's a substantial amount in the wallet, then cash it out if need be. The GUI for the masses ought to be here pretty soon.
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates
That's one whopper of a half truth.
Thank you, Firethorn, much appreciated.
10 ft/s decel - 5.7 seconds
I was looking at an online chart and it showed a stopping distance for a poor truck driver with standard brakes on the flat as 344 feet at 40MPH. Could you comment about how that kind of distance and time relates to the deceleration value? I'd like to talk to the local highway guys about it, and I don't think they do any of the engineering themselves, but I'm happy to work the problem with them (assuming I understand it).
Perhaps, but I have never been ticketed often enough by any municipality for me to ever see any savings from following your plan.
Right, but the town we're talking about has over 6000 tickets for ~2000 residents.
So a book that is revised 3 times and ships in 5 formats needs 15 different ISBN's.
Thanks for the answer. So perhaps a crypto hash isn't a bad method for indexing.
> bad for inventory control
Just the opposite. The way you can identify the older versions of a book is by their unique ISBN's.
Agreed - I argued that sharing an ISBN would be bad for inventory control.
Fact is, when you live with other people, you can't do everything you want.
There are two basic ways to measure whether there is tyranny:
1) are you prohibited from doing any thing that harms no others? For example, we have half a million political prisoners from the so-called 'Drug War' (war can only be made against people, not things - in this case *The* People).
2) are there certain people who are allowed to do things that you are not? This speaks to Bastiat's basis for a just government and his test for legal plunder.
If neither of these is true, then liberty is the predominant theme in the society.
Thanks for the link with the formula. My Google Fu failed to find it.
I just did the grade on Google Earth, and it's 6%, so I'll have to try to run the numbers and see what it should be.