I'm struggling a bit with the comment that "1GB is in fact completely unacceptable."
At the risk of i) showing my age and/or ii) getting laughed off the page... I started my career in technology being paid to write software for the 1980s era BBC Micro, a computer that shipped with 32Kb of RAM, of which only 27Kb was usable in the best possible scenarios, and which disappeared rapidly if you wanted anything as high-spec as a graphical display mode...
But behind the ridicule I expect the above comment to attract, I think there lies an important point. Most of us today experience an entire technology stack that has been developed in accordance with some of the rules personified by Eric Raymond in The Art of Unix Programming, specifically things like, "Rule of Economy: Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time". Or "Rule of Generation: Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can"
As a result of this, the technology we use gradually loses sight of the purpose for which it was created. I use a word processor because it is a quick and simple way to allow me to edit a document, layering my thoughts, editing content until I am happy with it, without having to re-type it from scratch each time I want to make a change. There is/was an extremely capable word processing application called Wordwise [which shipped on a ROM chip] for the BBC Microcomputer and which took no RAM [because its code executed in ROM] and which allowed me to edit and maintain documents. Sure, Wordwise doesn't have the features of Microsoft's Word 2016, or LibreOffice Writer 5.0.3.2 [both of which I use], but it gave me word processing with a fraction of the resources demanded today.
I think that we sometimes lose sight of the absolutely insane improvements in system performance over the last 20-30 years - and the complete lack of progress that we see at the human interface. My suspicion - going back to the works of Eric Raymond - are that our developers are writing code that is increasingly inefficient, that the environments that run that code are increasingly wasted [do I really need an animated "ribbon" in my Word Processor - i.e. something that actually slows the software down? No.].
Today we find ourselves arguing that a computer with more than thirty-two thousand times the capacity offered by that fully-functional 1980s BBC micro is "completely unacceptable."
Let's just pause for a moment and consider whether today's 1Gb system is north of 30,000 times faster, better, or cheaper than that 1980s system. Today's machine will surely have many improvements over such early-era systems, but will still fall far short of the orders-of-magnitude improvements that simplistic comparative analysis would suggest. Why is that? Because we have become lazy and inefficient, and so has our technology.
In other words, "If you can't do it in 1Gb of RAM, you are doing it wrong."
Would anyone familiar with the reported conditions/requirements be kind enough to translate this into likely/theoretical points of existence given our understanding of the wider universe?
For example, we've long speculated that the heat and mass of Jupiter might be such that hydrogen in the gas giant's atmosphere might be "condensed out" in liquid form, although if I understand correctly there will be other factors [such as gas densities and the prevalence of free hydrogen at the depths necessary for it to be transformed] remain speculation at this point...
However, what about other locations? Does our understanding of stars [containing lots of hydrogen] suggest that they might contain it. For example, could it exist at a boundary layer between the outer portion of the star and denser core materials? Given it's prevalence in the universe and the gravitational force of black holes, could it exist somewhere around the event horizon?
Just curious really.
Also, the difference between projected and discovered conditions required for formation seem quite significant. Wondering if that is an indication that our understanding of the physics is still a little way off?
If I had "Mod Points", I'd mod you up for that observation...
Several things interest me about this particular piece of legislation:-
1. It Doesn't Work [1] - When the United States located Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it was revealed that no telephone line, no internet connection and no cell phone was connected to the compound in which he lived. In fact, it was a "black spot" for services. Instead, trusted couriers carried encrypted USB sticks by hand. Pretty good OpSec, by all accounts. In other words - the really dangerous terrorists out there do not use the internet to plan their activities or communicate with each-other; they are too smart for that
2. It Doesn't Work [2] - When major incidents have happened [such as was the case with the Paris Attacks, the monitoring of the perpetrators [which had been taking place] was not effective in *STOPPING* the atrocity, it was only useful for telling us that within 24 hours of the incident, the partner of one of the terrorists had fled the country and entered Syria via Turkey. Yes, this might be useful at stopping secondary or tertiary attacks, or at finding the support network, but it won't actually stop the event itself.
3. It Doesn't Work [2] - When investigators looked into the perpetrators of the Boston Bombing in the wake of the marathon attacks, it was again discovered that the perpetrators had been monitored by the security agencies, but that even though they had been "red flagged", the responsible agency had discounted the information because they had so much other data to review. The blanket dragnet meant that they spent all their time triaging initial cuts of data, not enough time following up on reasonable leads.
4. It's An Erosion of the Presumption of Innocence - The fact that *everyone* is caught up in the net [unless you are an MP or member of the judiciary, etc] means that every single person in the UK is presumed guilty of an offence - without being charged. The data is being collected "in case you do something bad"...
5. The Damaging Risk Of Leaks - There have been too many examples of data theft or accidential leakage to bother citing examples here; the fact is that such a treasure-trove of data would be too tempting for organised criminals. In the United States, insurance companies reported that in the wake of the TSA requirement for "approved locks" on all airline luggage, claims against theft of valuables from checked luggage have sky-rocketed. A system set up for one benefit - passenger safety - is being abused by another threat - light-fingered airport staff - resulting in millions being claimed, and tens or hundreds of thousands of passengers becoming victims every year. We should expect the same sort of widespread damage once the data is being collected. Remember - it is not being collected and held by a government agency, but by the telecommunications providers. Like TalkTalk. [ Data Leak Central ].
6. Erosion of Basic Freedoms - Perhaps the most significant change, however, is the way that the relationship between the state and the citizen changes as a result of this. Unlike, say, the US [which has a constitution], the UK has no such basic safety net for human rights. What this means is that more and more powers are being given to government and which are being mis-used.
As an example of this, when researchers looked into a similar and previously enacted piece of legislation [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act], it was discovered that among the more notable and widespread uses of the law came from actions taken by local councils who were spying on residents suspected of "cheating" the school catchment area process. This is a mechanism by which children are enrolled in schools based on their home address. In other words, they way that legislation is "sold" to voting MPs and the way that it is actually used are two entirely different things.
But lastly, perhaps, is the fact that this would/will put so much power in the hands of the state that it makes the individual citizen defenceless against abuse by that state. And that is a very frightening place for us to be.
I'm not [yet] sure that Mint 18 is taking us in the right direction...
I am a big fan of the Mint distribution, having switched from ubuntu 12.04 when I read that Mark Shuttleworth and ubuntu were adopting "monetization" of the dash. I have not had reason to look back - until I switched my most-used system to 18.0 earlier this year.
My system is based around an Asus z170 Pro Gaming mini-ITX motherboard, with an Intel 6700T Skylake processor, 16Gb RAM and a 1Tb Samsung SSD. However, after switching from Mint 17.3 to 18.0 [clean installation to a new SSD] I have experienced a range of issues for which I've been unable to get support or resolution. Examples include:-
1. A sound configuration that will reset itself during a session, within a couple of minutes of being set. I want my audio to exit the system via Digital Output (S/PDIF), but each time I boot the system, and usually after about 10-15 minutes of no active audio - the system unilaterally resets the audio channel to HDMI/DisplayPort Built-in Audio...
2. I have an infrequent, but major and annoying system stability issue, in which an attempt to cold-boot my system generates the following:-
[ 1.377121] [drm:i915_gem_init-stolen [i915_bpo]] *ERROR* conflict detected with stolen region:
[0xc6000000 - oxc8000000]
Welcome to emergency mode!
Having seen the drm portion of the message I wondered if this was related to any Intel drivers, so got in touch on the Intel forums. I've been trawling the net looking for help with this for a month now, without joy, although I am beginning to suspect that this specific issue might either be related to systemd, or possibly to the latest Asus firmware.
I've been exceptionally happy with every single edition of Mint that I have tried since 2012, have donated to the project and had generally positive experiences on the forums. Mint is a slick, clean, efficient and it-works-beautifully [as opposed to it-just-works] distribution. However, with the introduction of 18.0, things have started to look just a little flaky. Let's hope that 18.1 addresses these issues!
The interesting/frustrating thing about the issues I've seen is that I am 99.9999% certain that none of them are caused by software developed directly by the Mint project. Rather I am near-certain that they are brought to this release through selected packages, which unfortunately can make isolation and resolution of the more esoteric issues an exercise in patience, persistence and luck. I just hope that Mint continues to develop via evolution and not revolution...
... if the best we can say about Firefox, the "lean, lightweight browser without the bloat" that brought it into existence, is that version 50 has "emojis for everyone", then I think we've completely lost the plot.
So sorry, FF developers; you have a great platform [it's my browser of choice] but we're losing our way here...
There are clauses written into the recent, secretly-drafted international trade agreements (like TTIP and CETA) which allow a commercial company to sue the government of any signed-up nation, if that government acts in a way that harms the profits of the company. Yes, this is totally retarded, but then that's what you get when you allow companies to write laws.
Just wondering, however, if any legislation like this already exists in the United States? Companies like Apple might be able to use it against any government that makes such a sweeping action as the one described in the linked article. The reason is simple: if Apple promote the use of the fingerprint technology as enhanced security for their device - and if people purchase that device because in part of it's enhanced security - then the actions taken by the FBI in this case [effectively circumventing that technology] devalues the technical solution. So Apple and other companies may have poured thousands or millions of dollars into developing technology for their phones which has just been rendered obsolete by a government over-reach...
Although, having said that, an entire *building*? I can't imagine that any court would sign a warrant unless the building was, say, a House-In-Multiple-Occupation. This could not stand against an office block, or an apartment building.
One more thing. You have to ask: what led the investigators to the location of the building? I'm guessing Stingray, or equivalent? Any admission of use? Or does this just go to prove that Stingray is part of "dragnet surveillance" in which everyone is guilty until proven innocent...
Exactly - and that is 16% profit from the company that owns the "last mile", i.e. the most expensive part to maintain...because all the unreliability in domestic telecoms concentrates at that "last mile"...Trunk links, which are buried/protected and not serviced by minimum-wage out-sourced college students, tend to be reliable... So they can turn that profit from the least profitable part of the network...
... is when you realise that the infrastructure serving the homes in these areas are all capable of the same performance. It is the companies themselves who layer different "speeds" on top, which they do with throttling technology, purely to make more profit.
For example... I live in an apartment building and have been at the same address for 24 years.When my telco first offered internet connectivity, it was via V90 modems at 56kbps. This cost me £8.99 monthly. [UK based].
Then, over the years, I've migrated from ADSL1 (512kbps) to ADSL1.5 (2Mbps) to ADSL2 (8Mbps) and I am now running VDSL1 (80Mbps). I am now paying £50/month for a combined VDSL ("Infinity") service that comes bundled with a call package.
All my telco has had to do in that time has been the odd upgrade, in their local exchange, of the back end circuit boards to convert my "last mile" signal to their backbone. This is done on a modular basis with slot-in cards in a chassis, which they can swap, one at a time, as demand swings from the slower service to the faster one. In May of this year the telco announced profits of £3 billion on revenues of £18 billion. That might not sound like much in comparison with US companies, but remember that the UK is a tiny island [less cabling to run] with a much smaller population.
It is a rip-off, start to finish.
Oh, and relatively recently I happened to notice that my telco has started to sell geolocation data to advertisers based on the dynamic IP address they serve me with my VDSL line. That's good for my personal security - not!
There are 2 reasons Apple stand to profit from the removal of the 3.5mm plug from the 7. First, a little thing, they have just cut the cost of manufacture, through fewer parts and simpler assembly. It will not be a huge saving, but these devices are cheap to make, so a few cents could represent a reasonable saving.
Second, Apple owns Beats, a vendor of Bluetooth headphones. Yes, there are some excellent top-end retailers out there, like Bose and Sennheiser, but neither are high-volume, mass-market sellers. So the inference was that by cutting the 3.5mm socket, Apple are giving an advantage to their own Beats product in a market.
Annoyingly, this seems to side-step a much more topical issue, which is audio quality. A German research company published a comparative (lab) analysis of the audio quality from the 3.5mm socket compared to the lightning adapter socket and noted a measurable and audible drop in the signal, which lowers the audio towards the noise floor, which means that in simple terms you will hear more hiss at the same volumes.
The thing that bugs me is that we go to all this trouble of having the capability to have Apple Lossless audio formats and a really terrific sound quality in a compact and mobile form factor, only to degrade the quality of the connector. Nuts.
The linked article makes interesting reading [even to a non-tekkie like me, when it describes how systemd is bloating with all sorts of additional [and buggy] functionality that takes it far beyond being an init replacement.
I am reminded of Edward Snowden's disclosures from the NSA, in which we learned that the NSA had deliberately submitted a weakened PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) to an encryption scheme with the deliberate intent to weaken it so that they could crack it easily.
When you look at the sprawling scope-creep, the poor testing and bugs like this, you have to start wondering if this wouldn't be a perfect trojan to be able to subvert an otherwise robust, secure OS...
It is not too far different from the scenario where two companies merge...
Company "A" merges with company "B" and for a while a lot of the internal politics is driven by which heritage company you came from. Then, company "AB" merges with company "C".
This is often a watershed moment. The employees from company "AB" no longer think of themselves as coming from Company "A" or Company "B", but now the internal division is between Company "AB" and Company C.
The final act needed to cement a merger is a new merger...
Very simple. Suppose you have a job in the US government and a foreign state wants access to your government data. They can't achieve a direct assault, because government security is too strong. So they pick a weak target - a user. They figure many govt employees use yahoo ang may reuse passwords. So they crack yahoo, grab the password file and brute-force it.
Now they can use that password to access you professional accounts.
For all we know, this could have been the pre-cursor to the OPM hack.
Agree that this is a good idea - and something we need to try for regardless. However, because we are a planet of many discrete nations and governments, we cannot simply issue global edicts such as "one child per family" or "no more fossil fuels" in isolation. That takes global agreement. We only need to look around to realise that we're pretty rubbish at that...
I don't know, but I got the impression that Elon has factored this into his planning. He is working on the basis that mankind is incapable of "doing the sensible stuff first", as you suggest. Instead, he is working on the premise that by the time that we realise that the Earth has been harmed beyond the point of recovery, then it will be too late to start a colonisation program. He's basically saying that we need those colonies to exist and be stable for the day that mankind wakes up and realises that the planet is doomed.
There might be (I don't know for sure) some practical reasons why Mars makes more sense than the moon.
A few random examples I could think of might include:-
Ambient surface temperatures - and the need to power heating/cooling systems
Atmospheric pressure - and the implications that will have on the integrity of structures built by settlers [i.e. stop them popping]
The effect of the local gravity field on the long-term health of the settlers
Atmospheric protection from cosmic radiation
Availability of and ready access to raw materials [such as ice] needed for the generation of oxygen and/or fuel for return journeys
I am not in any way suggesting that it would be wrong to try for a Moon Colony before a Mars Colony, just that we might be missing the point if we base that observation solely on proximity to Earth...
But the challenge for all of us who purchase our connections to the internet is that the performance we see [throughput, download speeds and latency] are all variable because the traffic on the internet itself is variable.
As a consequence of this, my ISP might not change the terms of my contract, but they could easily change the performance I see, simply by throttling my connection somewhere upstream (thereby reducing the amount of trunk bandwidth they need to supply or pay for). That would not be covered by my terms and conditions - and I don't see how I could know they were doing it unless they were so ham-fisted that they tried to give me say 5Mb/s down my 80Mb/s service...
This is an economic argument, plain and simple. What these companies are really saying is, "If we have to provision you the bandwidth we offer in our advertisements and commercials, then we'll have to spend all this money we're charging you on installing it. That will decimate our profits. We need our profits more than you need this bandwidth. Even though you paid for it. Suck it up."
One of the things that puzzles me with respect to debates on internet throttling is nonsense being spouted by the providers with respect to bandwidth and contention ratios...
When I choose my ISP, I select both a provider and a tiered level of service that meets my requirements, then pay the price they ask. In the UK, the previously state-owned provider British Telecom offer an FTTC service (Infinity), giving me unlimited bandwidth and line speeds of up to 76MB/s for £25/month. A similar decision [although obviously a different price scale and bandwidth package] is on offer to the media companies such as NetFlix and Amazon Prime. In other words, we both respectively choose and pay for the bandwidth we want.
For the ISP to come along afterwards and start to impose throttling or bandwidth restrictions, *after* I have selected and paid for a package, is a bit like asking me to pay twice for something I've already bought. Their argument to the FCC appears to be the equivalent of stating that they are surprised to learn that customers are now expecting to be able to use bandwidths that they have been purchasing for years but never really using.
ISPs have become fat, lazy and rich. They have made their margins and their obscene profits from low-demand contention ratios. Now that more and more people are actually wanting to use the internet, these same companies have been found out. They have failed to invest sufficiently in infrastructure over the years, preferring instead to slice off huge profits and pay large dividends to their investors.
CEOs look at the popularity of services like NetFlix and realise that, suddenly, their companies are going to have to work for a living. The CEOs are worrying that if they are expected to actually deliver the service that their customers are paying for, shock horror, then this might put a squeeze on their fat profits, hitting share prices and their generous bonus packages...
It is not my fault that their company chose to extract profits when it should have been investing in infrastructure.
But it should be illegal for a connectivity provider/ISP to be allowed to charge customers twice for the same service.
In other words, somewhere, in a piece of legislation enacted within U.S. Law, there will be something to the effect that "The United States Dollar, issued and enacted by the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, is the acceptable currency of the nation". That statement will make the Dollar the "fiat currency" of the United States. But it also implicitly means that any *other* currency is *not*...
( We could envisage a scenario in which, absent such a decree/requirement, you and I could agree some complex scheme to defraud the Federal Government of tax revenue. I could sell you a car for "ten bananas" and when asked for taxes by the government, could give them a couple of pieces of fruit to cover the tax. )
However, it does sound as though the two rulings might be very subtly different. If one question was, "Does bitcoin perform a function equivalent to money?" then the answer would be "Yes". If the other question was, "Is Bitcoin a fiat currency within the United States?" then the answer would be "No". We'd need a lawyer to interpret the potential differences between the two rulings, however, because context will be everything...
Footnote: crypto-currencies create a huge headache for the big (multinational) banks, because they allow private individuals to exchange funds between currencies without paying currency exchange fees. Given that this is one of the most lucrative forms of income for banks [think about the amount of international trade that needs to be converted between currencies - and you will see that even a small "spread" will generate vast profits] and it is clear why they are so keen to see these definitions go "their way"... We'd need to look, but perhaps if Bitcoin is ruled a "fiat currency", then anyone offering financial services such as deposit or exchange would have to have a proper, Federal-Reserve-Issued "Banking Licence". Existing Banks might like that...
I didn't say that I hated 16:9 screens. For me the issue isn't so much ration as resolution and pixels. I take a lot of digital photographs, so having the extra 120 pixels in the vertical just gives me more space to work with. In a perfect world I'd go even bigger - I like the idea of something like the Apple 27" display, but am constrained by space. I'm lucky that the Dell's just happen to fit my workspace.
But it's a completely irrelevant debate anyway - for as long as the manufacturers continue to provide us with the choice between the two. As long as you can find and buy the display you need and want, let's just be thankful for the choices. After all, we don't have to look that far back for times when a colour screen was a bonus; and anything with more than 800x600 pixels was more likely to be a case of someone lying to you than actual technology.
The fact that we're here at all, with flat screens, amazing dynamic range, subtle colours, bonkers refresh rates... Let's just enjoy what we've got, eh?
Love it. Currently sat in front of a triple set of Dell 2415s... Narrow bezels, good connectivity, low power, excellent dynamic range, low latency. What's not to like?
I think you might be on to something, not because of the email itself, but because of the potential content that the impersonator sought to obtain.
You see, if Tesla had fallen for the trick and had sent back any form of confidential and financial information, then the recipient would have effectively received "Insider Information" pertaining to Tesla's finances. The SEC takes a *VERY* dim view of this sort of thing [hint: illegal-level dim view] on the basis that a person who trades on the basis of "Insider Information" has, effectively, a massive advantage over the whole of the rest of the market.
The precise law under which a prosecution might be considered might vary, but this easily has the potential to fall within the scope of specific trading laws, but also basic fraud, because "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception" is the [a] textbook definition of fraud.
Now, for a successful prosecution, the SEC/DoJ would have to be able to show intent, to which the defence would doubtlessly be, "But I did it for the lolz"... However, the one thing that goes in the SEC's corner for that dispute would be that Mr Katz is himself a CFO. He cannot possibly disclaim any knowledge of the seriousness of an attempt at gaining insider information.
This is the sort of test case that I would personally like to see prosecuted, with the DoJ asking for punitive damages. The only way to stamp out this sort of thing is to "catch people at it" and then throw the book at them, to make it crystal clear that such underhand practices will not be tolerated by the market. Further, if Quest Integrity Group have even a shred of the decency that they claim in their name, they will immediate dismiss their CFO for Gross Misconduct. How they react to this will be a very clear indicator of their corporate culture...
This isn't so much a question about the rights or wrongs of Google deciding they have the right to track a user's phone if it runs Android, but more about the implications for the user.
The introductory text, above, suggests that the Google Store will send your location data to Google, *without giving you the choice*. Now, if it also does this without explicitly telling you, without explicitly asking you to acknowledge and agree, then what happens if your monthly data usage cap is exceeded thanks to this "network chatty" application?
What will *definitely* happen is that your mobile phone provider will slap you with a usage charge, which may contain a punitive "excess" for going above an agreed limit. Will Google indemnify all Android phone users against excess charges?
I can't believe that they wouldn't have considered this, so either usage is trivially low, and/or there really is an opt-out with warning. If not this could be another class action waiting to happen...
The Directors of Apple are legally required to "always act in the best interests of the shareholders". This includes, among other things, maximising the profitability and returns of the company. Bear in mind that Apple and other major companies have activist investors like Carl Icahn who are entirely happy to aggressively go after Boards of Directors in attempts to influence them to do their bidding, or make efforts to get them booted off the boards of companies in which they invest.
It's by no means certain, but most companies have a charter in which they affirm their corporate manifesto is to look after 1) their shareholders; 2) their clients, and 3) their employees, in that order.
It is highly unlikely that such a charter would contain "4) the Government Agency charged with collecting Corporation Tax)"...
For the Directors, a failure to do *everything* they can to minimise the tax burden of the company they serve could easily result in a massively ugly shareholder lawsuit. I suspect [I certainly don't know, this is just supposition] that this is one of their prime motivators to act this way... Well, that and greed.
Although his later works (such as Anathem) felt like they went off the edge of the world, Cryptonomicon combines a clever story, a prescient look at the emerging internet age, and some thoughtful nods to encryption schemes, all in a decent story. IMHO one of his best, and a good all-round sci-fi yarn...
I think you're right, but - and this thinking applies to ALL nations, not just PRC - $21 Billion spent on pure scientific research is $21 Billion not spent on arms or armaments.
Hey, if it were me, I would like to see more money diverted to alleviating the abject poverty and suffering of so many across the world, in ensuring that everyone has enough to eat, a roof over their heads.
But I also respect that sometimes we also need positive, aspirational developments to inspire our schoolchildren and stretch our university students. I would rather they built this than guns or bombs. And the cost projected is a small portion of what powerful nations spend on their military budget in one single year.
Finally, there is always the possibility of ground-breaking discovery. A better understanding of gravity; the possibility of propulsion systems that do not rely on reaction mass; these are the development see will need if we are to reach for the stars. Bring it on.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm struggling a bit with the comment that "1GB is in fact completely unacceptable."
At the risk of i) showing my age and/or ii) getting laughed off the page... I started my career in technology being paid to write software for the 1980s era BBC Micro, a computer that shipped with 32Kb of RAM, of which only 27Kb was usable in the best possible scenarios, and which disappeared rapidly if you wanted anything as high-spec as a graphical display mode...
But behind the ridicule I expect the above comment to attract, I think there lies an important point. Most of us today experience an entire technology stack that has been developed in accordance with some of the rules personified by Eric Raymond in The Art of Unix Programming, specifically things like, "Rule of Economy: Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time". Or "Rule of Generation: Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can"
As a result of this, the technology we use gradually loses sight of the purpose for which it was created. I use a word processor because it is a quick and simple way to allow me to edit a document, layering my thoughts, editing content until I am happy with it, without having to re-type it from scratch each time I want to make a change. There is/was an extremely capable word processing application called Wordwise [which shipped on a ROM chip] for the BBC Microcomputer and which took no RAM [because its code executed in ROM] and which allowed me to edit and maintain documents. Sure, Wordwise doesn't have the features of Microsoft's Word 2016, or LibreOffice Writer 5.0.3.2 [both of which I use], but it gave me word processing with a fraction of the resources demanded today.
I think that we sometimes lose sight of the absolutely insane improvements in system performance over the last 20-30 years - and the complete lack of progress that we see at the human interface. My suspicion - going back to the works of Eric Raymond - are that our developers are writing code that is increasingly inefficient, that the environments that run that code are increasingly wasted [do I really need an animated "ribbon" in my Word Processor - i.e. something that actually slows the software down? No.].
Today we find ourselves arguing that a computer with more than thirty-two thousand times the capacity offered by that fully-functional 1980s BBC micro is "completely unacceptable."
Let's just pause for a moment and consider whether today's 1Gb system is north of 30,000 times faster, better, or cheaper than that 1980s system. Today's machine will surely have many improvements over such early-era systems, but will still fall far short of the orders-of-magnitude improvements that simplistic comparative analysis would suggest. Why is that? Because we have become lazy and inefficient, and so has our technology.
In other words, "If you can't do it in 1Gb of RAM, you are doing it wrong."
Would anyone familiar with the reported conditions/requirements be kind enough to translate this into likely/theoretical points of existence given our understanding of the wider universe?
For example, we've long speculated that the heat and mass of Jupiter might be such that hydrogen in the gas giant's atmosphere might be "condensed out" in liquid form, although if I understand correctly there will be other factors [such as gas densities and the prevalence of free hydrogen at the depths necessary for it to be transformed] remain speculation at this point...
However, what about other locations? Does our understanding of stars [containing lots of hydrogen] suggest that they might contain it. For example, could it exist at a boundary layer between the outer portion of the star and denser core materials? Given it's prevalence in the universe and the gravitational force of black holes, could it exist somewhere around the event horizon?
Just curious really.
Also, the difference between projected and discovered conditions required for formation seem quite significant. Wondering if that is an indication that our understanding of the physics is still a little way off?
If I had "Mod Points", I'd mod you up for that observation...
Several things interest me about this particular piece of legislation:-
1. It Doesn't Work [1] - When the United States located Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it was revealed that no telephone line, no internet connection and no cell phone was connected to the compound in which he lived. In fact, it was a "black spot" for services. Instead, trusted couriers carried encrypted USB sticks by hand. Pretty good OpSec, by all accounts. In other words - the really dangerous terrorists out there do not use the internet to plan their activities or communicate with each-other; they are too smart for that
2. It Doesn't Work [2] - When major incidents have happened [such as was the case with the Paris Attacks, the monitoring of the perpetrators [which had been taking place] was not effective in *STOPPING* the atrocity, it was only useful for telling us that within 24 hours of the incident, the partner of one of the terrorists had fled the country and entered Syria via Turkey. Yes, this might be useful at stopping secondary or tertiary attacks, or at finding the support network, but it won't actually stop the event itself.
3. It Doesn't Work [2] - When investigators looked into the perpetrators of the Boston Bombing in the wake of the marathon attacks, it was again discovered that the perpetrators had been monitored by the security agencies, but that even though they had been "red flagged", the responsible agency had discounted the information because they had so much other data to review. The blanket dragnet meant that they spent all their time triaging initial cuts of data, not enough time following up on reasonable leads.
4. It's An Erosion of the Presumption of Innocence - The fact that *everyone* is caught up in the net [unless you are an MP or member of the judiciary, etc] means that every single person in the UK is presumed guilty of an offence - without being charged. The data is being collected "in case you do something bad"...
5. The Damaging Risk Of Leaks - There have been too many examples of data theft or accidential leakage to bother citing examples here; the fact is that such a treasure-trove of data would be too tempting for organised criminals. In the United States, insurance companies reported that in the wake of the TSA requirement for "approved locks" on all airline luggage, claims against theft of valuables from checked luggage have sky-rocketed. A system set up for one benefit - passenger safety - is being abused by another threat - light-fingered airport staff - resulting in millions being claimed, and tens or hundreds of thousands of passengers becoming victims every year. We should expect the same sort of widespread damage once the data is being collected. Remember - it is not being collected and held by a government agency, but by the telecommunications providers. Like TalkTalk. [ Data Leak Central ].
6. Erosion of Basic Freedoms - Perhaps the most significant change, however, is the way that the relationship between the state and the citizen changes as a result of this. Unlike, say, the US [which has a constitution], the UK has no such basic safety net for human rights. What this means is that more and more powers are being given to government and which are being mis-used.
As an example of this, when researchers looked into a similar and previously enacted piece of legislation [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act], it was discovered that among the more notable and widespread uses of the law came from actions taken by local councils who were spying on residents suspected of "cheating" the school catchment area process. This is a mechanism by which children are enrolled in schools based on their home address. In other words, they way that legislation is "sold" to voting MPs and the way that it is actually used are two entirely different things.
But lastly, perhaps, is the fact that this would/will put so much power in the hands of the state that it makes the individual citizen defenceless against abuse by that state. And that is a very frightening place for us to be.
I'm not [yet] sure that Mint 18 is taking us in the right direction...
I am a big fan of the Mint distribution, having switched from ubuntu 12.04 when I read that Mark Shuttleworth and ubuntu were adopting "monetization" of the dash. I have not had reason to look back - until I switched my most-used system to 18.0 earlier this year.
My system is based around an Asus z170 Pro Gaming mini-ITX motherboard, with an Intel 6700T Skylake processor, 16Gb RAM and a 1Tb Samsung SSD. However, after switching from Mint 17.3 to 18.0 [clean installation to a new SSD] I have experienced a range of issues for which I've been unable to get support or resolution. Examples include:-
1. A sound configuration that will reset itself during a session, within a couple of minutes of being set . I want my audio to exit the system via Digital Output (S/PDIF), but each time I boot the system, and usually after about 10-15 minutes of no active audio - the system unilaterally resets the audio channel to HDMI/DisplayPort Built-in Audio...
2. I have an infrequent, but major and annoying system stability issue, in which an attempt to cold-boot my system generates the following:-
[ 1.377121] [drm:i915_gem_init-stolen [i915_bpo]] *ERROR* conflict detected with stolen region:
[0xc6000000 - oxc8000000]
Welcome to emergency mode!
Having seen the drm portion of the message I wondered if this was related to any Intel drivers, so got in touch on the Intel forums. I've been trawling the net looking for help with this for a month now, without joy, although I am beginning to suspect that this specific issue might either be related to systemd, or possibly to the latest Asus firmware.
I've been exceptionally happy with every single edition of Mint that I have tried since 2012, have donated to the project and had generally positive experiences on the forums. Mint is a slick, clean, efficient and it-works-beautifully [as opposed to it-just-works] distribution. However, with the introduction of 18.0, things have started to look just a little flaky. Let's hope that 18.1 addresses these issues!
The interesting/frustrating thing about the issues I've seen is that I am 99.9999% certain that none of them are caused by software developed directly by the Mint project. Rather I am near-certain that they are brought to this release through selected packages, which unfortunately can make isolation and resolution of the more esoteric issues an exercise in patience, persistence and luck. I just hope that Mint continues to develop via evolution and not revolution...
... if the best we can say about Firefox, the "lean, lightweight browser without the bloat" that brought it into existence, is that version 50 has "emojis for everyone", then I think we've completely lost the plot.
So sorry, FF developers; you have a great platform [it's my browser of choice] but we're losing our way here...
There are clauses written into the recent, secretly-drafted international trade agreements (like TTIP and CETA) which allow a commercial company to sue the government of any signed-up nation, if that government acts in a way that harms the profits of the company. Yes, this is totally retarded, but then that's what you get when you allow companies to write laws.
Just wondering, however, if any legislation like this already exists in the United States? Companies like Apple might be able to use it against any government that makes such a sweeping action as the one described in the linked article. The reason is simple: if Apple promote the use of the fingerprint technology as enhanced security for their device - and if people purchase that device because in part of it's enhanced security - then the actions taken by the FBI in this case [effectively circumventing that technology] devalues the technical solution. So Apple and other companies may have poured thousands or millions of dollars into developing technology for their phones which has just been rendered obsolete by a government over-reach...
Although, having said that, an entire *building*? I can't imagine that any court would sign a warrant unless the building was, say, a House-In-Multiple-Occupation. This could not stand against an office block, or an apartment building.
One more thing. You have to ask: what led the investigators to the location of the building? I'm guessing Stingray, or equivalent? Any admission of use? Or does this just go to prove that Stingray is part of "dragnet surveillance" in which everyone is guilty until proven innocent...
Exactly - and that is 16% profit from the company that owns the "last mile", i.e. the most expensive part to maintain...because all the unreliability in domestic telecoms concentrates at that "last mile"...Trunk links, which are buried/protected and not serviced by minimum-wage out-sourced college students, tend to be reliable... So they can turn that profit from the least profitable part of the network...
... is when you realise that the infrastructure serving the homes in these areas are all capable of the same performance. It is the companies themselves who layer different "speeds" on top, which they do with throttling technology, purely to make more profit.
For example... I live in an apartment building and have been at the same address for 24 years.When my telco first offered internet connectivity, it was via V90 modems at 56kbps. This cost me £8.99 monthly. [UK based].
Then, over the years, I've migrated from ADSL1 (512kbps) to ADSL1.5 (2Mbps) to ADSL2 (8Mbps) and I am now running VDSL1 (80Mbps). I am now paying £50/month for a combined VDSL ("Infinity") service that comes bundled with a call package.
All my telco has had to do in that time has been the odd upgrade, in their local exchange, of the back end circuit boards to convert my "last mile" signal to their backbone. This is done on a modular basis with slot-in cards in a chassis, which they can swap, one at a time, as demand swings from the slower service to the faster one. In May of this year the telco announced profits of £3 billion on revenues of £18 billion. That might not sound like much in comparison with US companies, but remember that the UK is a tiny island [less cabling to run] with a much smaller population.
It is a rip-off, start to finish.
Oh, and relatively recently I happened to notice that my telco has started to sell geolocation data to advertisers based on the dynamic IP address they serve me with my VDSL line. That's good for my personal security - not!
Disclaimer: I bought an iPhone 7 on Sunday.
There are 2 reasons Apple stand to profit from the removal of the 3.5mm plug from the 7. First, a little thing, they have just cut the cost of manufacture, through fewer parts and simpler assembly. It will not be a huge saving, but these devices are cheap to make, so a few cents could represent a reasonable saving.
Second, Apple owns Beats, a vendor of Bluetooth headphones. Yes, there are some excellent top-end retailers out there, like Bose and Sennheiser, but neither are high-volume, mass-market sellers. So the inference was that by cutting the 3.5mm socket, Apple are giving an advantage to their own Beats product in a market.
Annoyingly, this seems to side-step a much more topical issue, which is audio quality. A German research company published a comparative (lab) analysis of the audio quality from the 3.5mm socket compared to the lightning adapter socket and noted a measurable and audible drop in the signal, which lowers the audio towards the noise floor, which means that in simple terms you will hear more hiss at the same volumes.
The thing that bugs me is that we go to all this trouble of having the capability to have Apple Lossless audio formats and a really terrific sound quality in a compact and mobile form factor, only to degrade the quality of the connector. Nuts.
[tinfoil hat]
The linked article makes interesting reading [even to a non-tekkie like me, when it describes how systemd is bloating with all sorts of additional [and buggy] functionality that takes it far beyond being an init replacement.
I am reminded of Edward Snowden's disclosures from the NSA, in which we learned that the NSA had deliberately submitted a weakened PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) to an encryption scheme with the deliberate intent to weaken it so that they could crack it easily.
When you look at the sprawling scope-creep, the poor testing and bugs like this, you have to start wondering if this wouldn't be a perfect trojan to be able to subvert an otherwise robust, secure OS...
Just sayin'
[/tinfoil hat]
Yes.
It is not too far different from the scenario where two companies merge...
Company "A" merges with company "B" and for a while a lot of the internal politics is driven by which heritage company you came from. Then, company "AB" merges with company "C".
This is often a watershed moment. The employees from company "AB" no longer think of themselves as coming from Company "A" or Company "B", but now the internal division is between Company "AB" and Company C.
The final act needed to cement a merger is a new merger...
Very simple. Suppose you have a job in the US government and a foreign state wants access to your government data. They can't achieve a direct assault, because government security is too strong. So they pick a weak target - a user. They figure many govt employees use yahoo ang may reuse passwords. So they crack yahoo, grab the password file and brute-force it. Now they can use that password to access you professional accounts. For all we know, this could have been the pre-cursor to the OPM hack.
Agree that this is a good idea - and something we need to try for regardless. However, because we are a planet of many discrete nations and governments, we cannot simply issue global edicts such as "one child per family" or "no more fossil fuels" in isolation. That takes global agreement. We only need to look around to realise that we're pretty rubbish at that...
I don't know, but I got the impression that Elon has factored this into his planning. He is working on the basis that mankind is incapable of "doing the sensible stuff first", as you suggest. Instead, he is working on the premise that by the time that we realise that the Earth has been harmed beyond the point of recovery, then it will be too late to start a colonisation program. He's basically saying that we need those colonies to exist and be stable for the day that mankind wakes up and realises that the planet is doomed.
There might be (I don't know for sure) some practical reasons why Mars makes more sense than the moon.
A few random examples I could think of might include:-
Ambient surface temperatures - and the need to power heating/cooling systems
Atmospheric pressure - and the implications that will have on the integrity of structures built by settlers [i.e. stop them popping]
The effect of the local gravity field on the long-term health of the settlers
Atmospheric protection from cosmic radiation
Availability of and ready access to raw materials [such as ice] needed for the generation of oxygen and/or fuel for return journeys
I am not in any way suggesting that it would be wrong to try for a Moon Colony before a Mars Colony, just that we might be missing the point if we base that observation solely on proximity to Earth...
Agreed.
But the challenge for all of us who purchase our connections to the internet is that the performance we see [throughput, download speeds and latency] are all variable because the traffic on the internet itself is variable.
As a consequence of this, my ISP might not change the terms of my contract, but they could easily change the performance I see, simply by throttling my connection somewhere upstream (thereby reducing the amount of trunk bandwidth they need to supply or pay for). That would not be covered by my terms and conditions - and I don't see how I could know they were doing it unless they were so ham-fisted that they tried to give me say 5Mb/s down my 80Mb/s service...
This is an economic argument, plain and simple. What these companies are really saying is, "If we have to provision you the bandwidth we offer in our advertisements and commercials, then we'll have to spend all this money we're charging you on installing it. That will decimate our profits. We need our profits more than you need this bandwidth. Even though you paid for it. Suck it up."
One of the things that puzzles me with respect to debates on internet throttling is nonsense being spouted by the providers with respect to bandwidth and contention ratios...
When I choose my ISP, I select both a provider and a tiered level of service that meets my requirements, then pay the price they ask. In the UK, the previously state-owned provider British Telecom offer an FTTC service (Infinity), giving me unlimited bandwidth and line speeds of up to 76MB/s for £25/month. A similar decision [although obviously a different price scale and bandwidth package] is on offer to the media companies such as NetFlix and Amazon Prime. In other words, we both respectively choose and pay for the bandwidth we want.
For the ISP to come along afterwards and start to impose throttling or bandwidth restrictions, *after* I have selected and paid for a package, is a bit like asking me to pay twice for something I've already bought. Their argument to the FCC appears to be the equivalent of stating that they are surprised to learn that customers are now expecting to be able to use bandwidths that they have been purchasing for years but never really using.
ISPs have become fat, lazy and rich. They have made their margins and their obscene profits from low-demand contention ratios. Now that more and more people are actually wanting to use the internet, these same companies have been found out. They have failed to invest sufficiently in infrastructure over the years, preferring instead to slice off huge profits and pay large dividends to their investors.
CEOs look at the popularity of services like NetFlix and realise that, suddenly, their companies are going to have to work for a living. The CEOs are worrying that if they are expected to actually deliver the service that their customers are paying for, shock horror, then this might put a squeeze on their fat profits, hitting share prices and their generous bonus packages...
It is not my fault that their company chose to extract profits when it should have been investing in infrastructure.
But it should be illegal for a connectivity provider/ISP to be allowed to charge customers twice for the same service.
I think the issue that the Courts may be struggling with is whether or not Bitcoins are fiat currency in the United States.
... We'd need to look, but perhaps if Bitcoin is ruled a "fiat currency", then anyone offering financial services such as deposit or exchange would have to have a proper, Federal-Reserve-Issued "Banking Licence". Existing Banks might like that...
See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In other words, somewhere, in a piece of legislation enacted within U.S. Law, there will be something to the effect that "The United States Dollar, issued and enacted by the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, is the acceptable currency of the nation". That statement will make the Dollar the "fiat currency" of the United States. But it also implicitly means that any *other* currency is *not*...
( We could envisage a scenario in which, absent such a decree/requirement, you and I could agree some complex scheme to defraud the Federal Government of tax revenue. I could sell you a car for "ten bananas" and when asked for taxes by the government, could give them a couple of pieces of fruit to cover the tax. )
However, it does sound as though the two rulings might be very subtly different. If one question was, "Does bitcoin perform a function equivalent to money?" then the answer would be "Yes". If the other question was, "Is Bitcoin a fiat currency within the United States?" then the answer would be "No". We'd need a lawyer to interpret the potential differences between the two rulings, however, because context will be everything...
Footnote: crypto-currencies create a huge headache for the big (multinational) banks, because they allow private individuals to exchange funds between currencies without paying currency exchange fees. Given that this is one of the most lucrative forms of income for banks [think about the amount of international trade that needs to be converted between currencies - and you will see that even a small "spread" will generate vast profits] and it is clear why they are so keen to see these definitions go "their way"
I didn't say that I hated 16:9 screens. For me the issue isn't so much ration as resolution and pixels. I take a lot of digital photographs, so having the extra 120 pixels in the vertical just gives me more space to work with. In a perfect world I'd go even bigger - I like the idea of something like the Apple 27" display, but am constrained by space. I'm lucky that the Dell's just happen to fit my workspace.
But it's a completely irrelevant debate anyway - for as long as the manufacturers continue to provide us with the choice between the two. As long as you can find and buy the display you need and want, let's just be thankful for the choices. After all, we don't have to look that far back for times when a colour screen was a bonus; and anything with more than 800x600 pixels was more likely to be a case of someone lying to you than actual technology.
The fact that we're here at all, with flat screens, amazing dynamic range, subtle colours, bonkers refresh rates... Let's just enjoy what we've got, eh?
Love it. Currently sat in front of a triple set of Dell 2415s... Narrow bezels, good connectivity, low power, excellent dynamic range, low latency. What's not to like?
I think you might be on to something, not because of the email itself, but because of the potential content that the impersonator sought to obtain.
You see, if Tesla had fallen for the trick and had sent back any form of confidential and financial information, then the recipient would have effectively received "Insider Information" pertaining to Tesla's finances. The SEC takes a *VERY* dim view of this sort of thing [hint: illegal-level dim view] on the basis that a person who trades on the basis of "Insider Information" has, effectively, a massive advantage over the whole of the rest of the market.
The precise law under which a prosecution might be considered might vary, but this easily has the potential to fall within the scope of specific trading laws, but also basic fraud, because "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception" is the [a] textbook definition of fraud.
Now, for a successful prosecution, the SEC/DoJ would have to be able to show intent, to which the defence would doubtlessly be, "But I did it for the lolz"... However, the one thing that goes in the SEC's corner for that dispute would be that Mr Katz is himself a CFO. He cannot possibly disclaim any knowledge of the seriousness of an attempt at gaining insider information.
This is the sort of test case that I would personally like to see prosecuted, with the DoJ asking for punitive damages. The only way to stamp out this sort of thing is to "catch people at it" and then throw the book at them, to make it crystal clear that such underhand practices will not be tolerated by the market. Further, if Quest Integrity Group have even a shred of the decency that they claim in their name, they will immediate dismiss their CFO for Gross Misconduct. How they react to this will be a very clear indicator of their corporate culture...
This isn't so much a question about the rights or wrongs of Google deciding they have the right to track a user's phone if it runs Android, but more about the implications for the user.
The introductory text, above, suggests that the Google Store will send your location data to Google, *without giving you the choice*. Now, if it also does this without explicitly telling you, without explicitly asking you to acknowledge and agree, then what happens if your monthly data usage cap is exceeded thanks to this "network chatty" application?
What will *definitely* happen is that your mobile phone provider will slap you with a usage charge, which may contain a punitive "excess" for going above an agreed limit. Will Google indemnify all Android phone users against excess charges?
I can't believe that they wouldn't have considered this, so either usage is trivially low, and/or there really is an opt-out with warning. If not this could be another class action waiting to happen...
Unfortunately, there's a major complication.
The Directors of Apple are legally required to "always act in the best interests of the shareholders". This includes, among other things, maximising the profitability and returns of the company. Bear in mind that Apple and other major companies have activist investors like Carl Icahn who are entirely happy to aggressively go after Boards of Directors in attempts to influence them to do their bidding, or make efforts to get them booted off the boards of companies in which they invest.
It's by no means certain, but most companies have a charter in which they affirm their corporate manifesto is to look after 1) their shareholders; 2) their clients, and 3) their employees, in that order.
It is highly unlikely that such a charter would contain "4) the Government Agency charged with collecting Corporation Tax)"...
For the Directors, a failure to do *everything* they can to minimise the tax burden of the company they serve could easily result in a massively ugly shareholder lawsuit. I suspect [I certainly don't know, this is just supposition] that this is one of their prime motivators to act this way... Well, that and greed.
Although his later works (such as Anathem) felt like they went off the edge of the world, Cryptonomicon combines a clever story, a prescient look at the emerging internet age, and some thoughtful nods to encryption schemes, all in a decent story. IMHO one of his best, and a good all-round sci-fi yarn...
Developments we will need... Doh!
I think you're right, but - and this thinking applies to ALL nations, not just PRC - $21 Billion spent on pure scientific research is $21 Billion not spent on arms or armaments.
Hey, if it were me, I would like to see more money diverted to alleviating the abject poverty and suffering of so many across the world, in ensuring that everyone has enough to eat, a roof over their heads.
But I also respect that sometimes we also need positive, aspirational developments to inspire our schoolchildren and stretch our university students. I would rather they built this than guns or bombs. And the cost projected is a small portion of what powerful nations spend on their military budget in one single year.
Finally, there is always the possibility of ground-breaking discovery. A better understanding of gravity; the possibility of propulsion systems that do not rely on reaction mass; these are the development see will need if we are to reach for the stars. Bring it on.