Also, if it relies on a chip on the motherboard, what happens if the m/b gets toasted? Would all the data be history?
I haven't seen the details but I would guess that there is a way to backup the TPM key in the corporate environment. Then if the TPM is fried, or there is a need to move the disk to another system, you could transfer the key. This would still provide protection for lost or stolen systems.
Right, the DMCA is not what makes this parody site a violation of copyright (if it is). That is a standard provision of other copyright law.
The relevant part of the DMCA, in fact, is just the opposite. Sec 512, "Limitations on liability relating to material online" provides a means to ESCAPE liability for copyright violation. Specifically, it allows an ISP not to be held liable as long as it follows a certain procedure. The ISP has to publish an address for complaints; upon receiving a complaint from a copyright holder, it has to take down the material and notify the client who posted it; and then the client has the option to contest the takedown order, in which case the ISP has to put the material back up, absent a court order.
This part of the DMCA is actually end-user- and ISP-friendly. Without it we would see much less support for possibly copyrighted materials appearing online.
I've heard that the help desks at TV companies never get calls from parents wanting to know how to activate the V chip so they can control their children's TV viewing. All the calls are from parents whose kids were playing with the TV and enabled the V chip, and the parents are calling to find out how to turn it off so they can watch their own grown-up shows.
In this year of the Einstein centenary, these skydivers have managed to rediscover the Principle of Relativity - that it matters not how fast you are moving, the laws of physics are the same. Indeed, if radio waves failed to propagate for skydivers the entire structure of physics would have to be re-created from scratch.
The authors of this test misread Turing. Turing starts off by discussing a game in which an interrogator tries to distinguish a man from a woman via an online chat. He uses this to introduce the idea of distinguishing a human from a computer in the same way.
Unfortunately the authors read this as saying that the interrogator thinks he is distinguishing a man from a woman, when he is actually offered a choice between a human and a computer! What an absurdity! Of course Turing meant no such thing. That would be an utterly bizarre test.
Based on this misreading, they set up a test and told everybody they were to try to guess if they were talking with a man or a woman; then they gave them a choice between a man and the Alice bot. The results are going to be meaningless. Everyone is just going to be confused. Some people will think they have to express their results in the form that was explained to them, man vs woman. Others will be more flexible and go outside the experimental parameters to say that the one was obviously a computer.
All the results will reveal is how people respond when presented with a situation where the experimenters have lied to them. Will they go along with the lie, so as not to make trouble, or will they defy the experimenters and tell the truth? It may be an interesting psychological test but it has nothing to do with Turing's paper.
The whole thing about the web is it's based on trust... it's amazing it works as well as it does... I can see providors not obeying TTL simply to keep their DNS servers from being stuffed (or whatever the word du jour is)... It's all about trust, and the lack of it nowadays on the web... get used to this sorta thing happening more and more.
What a trivial comment... and yet it's rated 5. The author has a habit of posting two and three line comments within the first 5 minutes after a topic appears, and many of them end up with ratings of 5. In this case, the comment was posted at 8:32 AM on a topic that appeared at 8:30.
Please, moderators, use your judgement more carefully. Don't give a 5 rating to these generic and nearly content-free postings. The web is based on trust... well, duh. That's not insightful or interesting! It's only because it was posted early that moderators gave it a boost, and then other moderators followed suit.
Let's save high level moderation for comments that actually offer some unexpected information or unusual insights, not ones that just restate platitudes that anyone could see are true.
Usually, "reverse engineering" means that I've written code that does what someone else's code does, and I wrote it after studying the other code's behavior but not the code itself.
No, that's too narrow a definition. RE means more than writing code to duplicate another's functionality. It refers instead to the process of deducing how another program works by studying its behavior.
A program is engineered by starting with goals and writing code to achieve those goals. A program is reverse engineered by starting with a program and studying how it works in order to achieve its goals.
In this case, Tridge had to study the behavior of BK, its files and data structures, in order to write this new component. That process, of studying a program's behavior and deducing how it works, is by definition reverse engineering.
I saw Episode IV (the first one, at the time just called Star Wars) on its premier at the Chinese Theater (then called Mann's before the name went back to Graumann's). We didn't camp out but we did spend a couple hours in line.
Science fiction wasn't a big deal in those days. Probably the biggest sci fi film previously was 2001 from almost 10 years earlier. The last "line around the block" movie was Love Story. I was hoping it wouldn't be too crowded, but the weekend before it opened Time magazine had a big spread on the movie, with pictures that made it look fantastic. So we did have to wait pretty long.
But we got good seats, and as the lights went down I heard a couple of guys talking in the row behind us. Apparently they were in the industry and had already seen the movie in pre-release.
"I really envy the people here," he said.
"Why?" asked his buddy.
"Because they're about to see Star Wars for the first time."
I was at CodeCon this year and almost everybody had Mac laptops.
However, I disagree that this portends a wave of Mac specific software. Hackers are using these computers to write cross platform software that will run on the whole range of free Unix systems, the BSDs, and Linux. They're not writing in Objective C or putting in Mac specific code, because they know that limits their audience to the few percent who have Macs.
They get the benefit of a good looking, easy to use development platform while developing code that can run anywhere (except Windows). It's the best of both worlds.
The markup on that page uses for superscripts. But it's supposed to be . The result is we read things like inflation blowing up the universe by "a factor of 1050 in 10-33 seconds". That's supposed to be a factor of 10 to the 50th power in 10 to the -33rd power seconds. It's surprising to see a professional outfit like New Scientist making such an important and fundamental error.
Or is it a problem in my browser? Are they doing something so that <UP> should be treated as a synonym for <SUP>, and Firefox isn't handling it right?
I'm working up a p2p MMOG protocol as a hobby project... it could work if the networking code could be run in a sufficiently secure context.
That's a good example. Some people would already consider this an "undesirable" use. It keeps them from hacking their computer and cheating at your game, which is something they can do today. You said you did not want to "stop the owner of the system from doing anything they could previously do" but actually that is what you are proposing, you want to stop them from being able to cheat at network games, which is something they could previously do.
The real lesson from this example is more subtle. It is that there is a conflict between our individual, short-term interest, and our long-term group interests. It is in my individual interest to be able to cheat at network games. But it is in my social, long-term interest that no one can cheat, so we can all play the game fairly and have fun. Cheaters spoil the game for everyone.
This is the paradox. By giving up a bit of power and freedom, I actually make myself happier, as long as everyone else does it too.
This is really nothing new. It is the foundation for a lawful society. We each give up the right to murder others, and in response we as a group live freely and without fear.
Many applications of trusted computing can be expressed in these terms. TC lets us give up the right to manipulate data in certain ways. This means giving up some individual freedom. But the hope is that we would gain group benefits that compensate for this loss.
The great thing about the design of trusted computing, once you understand it, is that it doesn't have to be mandatory in order for those benefits to arrive (unlike the legal system). The reason is because you can prove that you have a trusted computer and you're participating in the system, using some crypto protocols. People who don't have TC's can't pretend they do. This allows the TC users to form a sort of closed world, an exclusive club, and only to interact with one another for certain protocols or games or activities. Nobody else can join in unless they have a TC, and once they do, they'll automatically follow the rules.
In this way people can get the social benefits that accrue from people accepting certain limitations, without having to force everyone to participate. It's like receiving the benefits of government, but without the coercion. It's a dream come true for those who respect diversity and want to see maximum freedom of choice. I hope that we will be allowed to make this dream a reality, and that skeptics of this technology do not scuttle the opportunities for everyone.
I have two 19" monitors running dual display, because I decided I needed more desktop. Turns out I just have one app maximized to both monitors at once all the time, in stead of 60 small windows. The reason for it is pretty simple, I don't want to continually be scrolling. It's just much more comfortable to have everything laid out in front of me. If I need access to something else, Alt+Tab is just a click away.
Yeah, it must be really convenient to drag those two 19 inch monitors around WITH YOUR LAPTOP which is what this power-minimization technology is for.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
Since they've started distributing this, that means they have to make the source code available to any third party who requests it, right? So why can't I get it? Are they allowed to delay for a while before making it available?
Aren't they supposed to make this stuff generally available, when it's based on GPL'd software? It looks like right now the only way to get access to it is to join their ydl.net program.
But now, the links point to a different page. It is no longer about "Google AdWords Support: How do I use the Traffic Estimator?". Now the page is, "Why do traffic estimates for my Ad Group differ from those given by the standalone tool?" It's a completely different page on a completely different topic. And for this page, there is no difference between the cached and direct views.
That's why people are scratching their heads.
I don't know whether Google did this to cover up their actions when they got caught, or whether it was a simple and routine rebuild of their help database which caused page numbers to change so that the links no longer point to where they did before.
Truth is that the *AA's can sue with impunity because of the vast difference in resources between the *AA's and a private individual. In all cases it is cheaper to pay the "protection money" than fight it in court, even if you are in the right. It is unfortunate that this form of extortion is 100% legal
You're exaggerating how much power these companies have. If it were that easy, any big company could just go through the phone book and start suing people on any pretext they wanted. Since it would be cheaper for the end users to pay the protection money than fight, the big companies could make money at will.
But that doesn't happen, does it? The RIAA isn't just suing random people. They're suing file sharers, and those of us who have a firm grasp on reality know that almost everyone they sue is guilty of breaking the law. We all know it's illegal, but we continue to do it because the chance of getting caught is so low.
Don't try to con yourself into believing that this is a case of big evil companies using their power to railroad innocents. It's obvious to anyone who uses these networks that that's not what is happening here. You're just fooling yourself if you try to pretend that's what is going on.
That torrent certainly works, but there's no MD5 on the lg3d site...
You don't need an md5sum with bittorrent. The.torrent file contains SHA-1 hashes of every piece of the file (usually pieces are 256K bytes, for big files). These hashes are checked as the pieces download. So if the download completes, you know you got a good file.
I thought BitTorrent would speed things up but this download is barely crawling. In two hours I've downloaded only 20 MB (and uploaded over 90 MB!). I don't have the fastest connection in the world but I get 90 kB/sec downloads on a good day.
Well, just in the last couple of minutes it's gone from 1 seed to 8 as a bunch of other people have finished their downloads. So I guess it's working for some people anyway. Maybe my download will start going faster as other people finish.
It looks to me like he's going to divert to Hawaii. The plane has continued to head south on the map, when a great circle route would carry it northward. According to the site, the next landing site after Hawaii is Catalina Island. I know a lot of people who have flown to that island and it is a notoriously difficult airport to land at. The airport is on top of a plateau and the winds can be tricky. Plus, it's stormy in California today and there is no ILS at Catalina. No sane pilot would want to fly there in these conditions.
Further, there are another 2 hours of daylight in Hawaii. It's already night in California. So he'd be landing at night, in stormy weather, if he has to land in California. I don't think he'll do it.
I'm watching this live as Fossett is still quite a ways north west of Hawaii. Look at the map and it is clear that Hawaii is a long ways off course. Fossett would want to stay probably 500 miles north of Hawaii on a great circle route to Kansas. They haven't said anything yet about whether he will abort, but if so he will have to change course to the south.
The Virgin web site has an interesting story about Branson giving Fossett a fancy watch to aid him on the flight, Watch to the rescue: "When speaking at a press conference the day before take-off of the emergency systems in place in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer if something were to go drastically wrong, Sir Richard Branson promptly took off his watch and gave it to his great friend Steve Fossett." But here's the rest of the story.
According to people who were there, Richard Branson walks into the press conference holding two huge and obviously heavy suitcases when the topic came up about issues regarding the timing of the flight.
Branson sighs, puts down the suitcases and glances at his wrist. "It's now a quarter to six," he says, and goes on to explain the planned timing for the next day's flight.
"Hey, that's a pretty fancy watch!" exclaims Steve Fossett, the pilot.
Branson brightens a little. "Yeah, it's not bad. Check this out" - and he shows him a time zone display not just for every time zone in the world, but for the 86 largest metropoli. He hits a few buttons and from somewhere on the watch a voice says "The time is eleven minutes to six" in a posh British accent. A few more buttons and the same voice says something in Japanese. Branson continues, "I've put in regional accents for each city". The display is unbelievably high quality and the voice is simply astounding.
Fossett is struck dumb with admiration.
"That's not all," says Branson. He pushes a few more buttons and a tiny but very hi-resolution map of central London appears on the display. "The flashing dot shows our location by satellite positioning," explains Branson. "View recede ten," Branson says, and the display changes to show the whole of Greater London.
"I need this watch!" says Fossett.
"Oh, no, it's not ready for sale yet; this is a prototype and the inventor is still working out the bugs," says Branson. "But look at this," and he proceeds to demonstrate that the watch is also a very creditable little FM radio receiver with a digital tuner, a sonar device that can measure distances up to 125 meters, a pager with thermal paper printout and most impressive of all, the capacity for voice recordings of up to 300 standard-size books," though I only have 32 of my favourites in there so far" says Sir Richard.
"I've got to have this watch!" says Fossett. "It's just what I need for my flight!"
"No, you don't understand; it's not ready."
"I'll give you whatever you want for it! I'll give up my share of the royalties for the promotional tour after the flight!"
Branson abruptly makes his decision. "OK," he says and peels off the watch, handing it to Fossett, who starts happily away, heading to the plane.
"Hey, wait a minute," Sir Richard calls after Fossett, who turns around warily. Branson points to the two suitcases he'd been trying to lug into the press conference. "Don't forget your batteries."
An important optimization many programmers overlook is the use of short variable names. They write:
for (loop_index = 0; loop_index < number_of_items; loop_index++)
when they could write:
for (i=0; i<n; i++)
What most programmer's don't realize is that compilers use something called a "peephold optimizer". This means that the compiler looks at your program through a "peephole" like those found in hotel room doors, only without the fish-eye effect. So it can only see a little bit of your program at a time.
When teh compiler looks at the first example, it sees something liek:
_index=0; loop_index < number_of_it
and what's it supposed to do with that? But with the short version it can see the whole thing and it all fits in the peephole.
So remember, shorten those variable names! And keep using !ptr, that helps too.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, if it relies on a chip on the motherboard, what happens if the m/b gets toasted? Would all the data be history?
I haven't seen the details but I would guess that there is a way to backup the TPM key in the corporate environment. Then if the TPM is fried, or there is a need to move the disk to another system, you could transfer the key. This would still provide protection for lost or stolen systems.
Right, the DMCA is not what makes this parody site a violation of copyright (if it is). That is a standard provision of other copyright law.
The relevant part of the DMCA, in fact, is just the opposite. Sec 512, "Limitations on liability relating to material online" provides a means to ESCAPE liability for copyright violation. Specifically, it allows an ISP not to be held liable as long as it follows a certain procedure. The ISP has to publish an address for complaints; upon receiving a complaint from a copyright holder, it has to take down the material and notify the client who posted it; and then the client has the option to contest the takedown order, in which case the ISP has to put the material back up, absent a court order.
This part of the DMCA is actually end-user- and ISP-friendly. Without it we would see much less support for possibly copyrighted materials appearing online.
I've heard that the help desks at TV companies never get calls from parents wanting to know how to activate the V chip so they can control their children's TV viewing. All the calls are from parents whose kids were playing with the TV and enabled the V chip, and the parents are calling to find out how to turn it off so they can watch their own grown-up shows.
In this year of the Einstein centenary, these skydivers have managed to rediscover the Principle of Relativity - that it matters not how fast you are moving, the laws of physics are the same. Indeed, if radio waves failed to propagate for skydivers the entire structure of physics would have to be re-created from scratch.
The authors of this test misread Turing. Turing starts off by discussing a game in which an interrogator tries to distinguish a man from a woman via an online chat. He uses this to introduce the idea of distinguishing a human from a computer in the same way.
Unfortunately the authors read this as saying that the interrogator thinks he is distinguishing a man from a woman, when he is actually offered a choice between a human and a computer! What an absurdity! Of course Turing meant no such thing. That would be an utterly bizarre test.
Based on this misreading, they set up a test and told everybody they were to try to guess if they were talking with a man or a woman; then they gave them a choice between a man and the Alice bot. The results are going to be meaningless. Everyone is just going to be confused. Some people will think they have to express their results in the form that was explained to them, man vs woman. Others will be more flexible and go outside the experimental parameters to say that the one was obviously a computer.
All the results will reveal is how people respond when presented with a situation where the experimenters have lied to them. Will they go along with the lie, so as not to make trouble, or will they defy the experimenters and tell the truth? It may be an interesting psychological test but it has nothing to do with Turing's paper.
The whole thing about the web is it's based on trust... it's amazing it works as well as it does... I can see providors not obeying TTL simply to keep their DNS servers from being stuffed (or whatever the word du jour is)... It's all about trust, and the lack of it nowadays on the web... get used to this sorta thing happening more and more.
What a trivial comment... and yet it's rated 5. The author has a habit of posting two and three line comments within the first 5 minutes after a topic appears, and many of them end up with ratings of 5. In this case, the comment was posted at 8:32 AM on a topic that appeared at 8:30.
Please, moderators, use your judgement more carefully. Don't give a 5 rating to these generic and nearly content-free postings. The web is based on trust... well, duh. That's not insightful or interesting! It's only because it was posted early that moderators gave it a boost, and then other moderators followed suit.
Let's save high level moderation for comments that actually offer some unexpected information or unusual insights, not ones that just restate platitudes that anyone could see are true.
Usually, "reverse engineering" means that I've written code that does what someone else's code does, and I wrote it after studying the other code's behavior but not the code itself.
No, that's too narrow a definition. RE means more than writing code to duplicate another's functionality. It refers instead to the process of deducing how another program works by studying its behavior.
A program is engineered by starting with goals and writing code to achieve those goals. A program is reverse engineered by starting with a program and studying how it works in order to achieve its goals.
In this case, Tridge had to study the behavior of BK, its files and data structures, in order to write this new component. That process, of studying a program's behavior and deducing how it works, is by definition reverse engineering.
...because 'Gimp is not Photoshop'.
Shouldn't that be 'GIMP Is Mot Photoshop'?
I know you guys like these old timer stories...
I saw Episode IV (the first one, at the time just called Star Wars) on its premier at the Chinese Theater (then called Mann's before the name went back to Graumann's). We didn't camp out but we did spend a couple hours in line.
Science fiction wasn't a big deal in those days. Probably the biggest sci fi film previously was 2001 from almost 10 years earlier. The last "line around the block" movie was Love Story. I was hoping it wouldn't be too crowded, but the weekend before it opened Time magazine had a big spread on the movie, with pictures that made it look fantastic. So we did have to wait pretty long.
But we got good seats, and as the lights went down I heard a couple of guys talking in the row behind us. Apparently they were in the industry and had already seen the movie in pre-release.
"I really envy the people here," he said.
"Why?" asked his buddy.
"Because they're about to see Star Wars for the first time."
I was at CodeCon this year and almost everybody had Mac laptops.
However, I disagree that this portends a wave of Mac specific software. Hackers are using these computers to write cross platform software that will run on the whole range of free Unix systems, the BSDs, and Linux. They're not writing in Objective C or putting in Mac specific code, because they know that limits their audience to the few percent who have Macs.
They get the benefit of a good looking, easy to use development platform while developing code that can run anywhere (except Windows). It's the best of both worlds.
The markup on that page uses for superscripts. But it's supposed to be . The result is we read things like inflation blowing up the universe by "a factor of 1050 in 10-33 seconds". That's supposed to be a factor of 10 to the 50th power in 10 to the -33rd power seconds. It's surprising to see a professional outfit like New Scientist making such an important and fundamental error.
Or is it a problem in my browser? Are they doing something so that <UP> should be treated as a synonym for <SUP>, and Firefox isn't handling it right?
How does it display for other people?
I'm working up a p2p MMOG protocol as a hobby project... it could work if the networking code could be run in a sufficiently secure context.
That's a good example. Some people would already consider this an "undesirable" use. It keeps them from hacking their computer and cheating at your game, which is something they can do today. You said you did not want to "stop the owner of the system from doing anything they could previously do" but actually that is what you are proposing, you want to stop them from being able to cheat at network games, which is something they could previously do.
The real lesson from this example is more subtle. It is that there is a conflict between our individual, short-term interest, and our long-term group interests. It is in my individual interest to be able to cheat at network games. But it is in my social, long-term interest that no one can cheat, so we can all play the game fairly and have fun. Cheaters spoil the game for everyone.
This is the paradox. By giving up a bit of power and freedom, I actually make myself happier, as long as everyone else does it too.
This is really nothing new. It is the foundation for a lawful society. We each give up the right to murder others, and in response we as a group live freely and without fear.
Many applications of trusted computing can be expressed in these terms. TC lets us give up the right to manipulate data in certain ways. This means giving up some individual freedom. But the hope is that we would gain group benefits that compensate for this loss.
The great thing about the design of trusted computing, once you understand it, is that it doesn't have to be mandatory in order for those benefits to arrive (unlike the legal system). The reason is because you can prove that you have a trusted computer and you're participating in the system, using some crypto protocols. People who don't have TC's can't pretend they do. This allows the TC users to form a sort of closed world, an exclusive club, and only to interact with one another for certain protocols or games or activities. Nobody else can join in unless they have a TC, and once they do, they'll automatically follow the rules.
In this way people can get the social benefits that accrue from people accepting certain limitations, without having to force everyone to participate. It's like receiving the benefits of government, but without the coercion. It's a dream come true for those who respect diversity and want to see maximum freedom of choice. I hope that we will be allowed to make this dream a reality, and that skeptics of this technology do not scuttle the opportunities for everyone.
http://degreez.net/Batman_Net.mov.torrent
Sorry, that torrrent file is slashdotted. Is there such a thing as a BitTorrent download of a torrent file?
I have two 19" monitors running dual display, because I decided I needed more desktop. Turns out I just have one app maximized to both monitors at once all the time, in stead of 60 small windows. The reason for it is pretty simple, I don't want to continually be scrolling. It's just much more comfortable to have everything laid out in front of me. If I need access to something else, Alt+Tab is just a click away.
Yeah, it must be really convenient to drag those two 19 inch monitors around WITH YOUR LAPTOP which is what this power-minimization technology is for.
We all know the real point of this - to let you see through clothes like the infrared video cameras that came out a few years ago.
Aren't they supposed to make this stuff generally available, when it's based on GPL'd software? It looks like right now the only way to get access to it is to join their ydl.net program.
The original article said:
But now, the links point to a different page. It is no longer about "Google AdWords Support: How do I use the Traffic Estimator?". Now the page is, "Why do traffic estimates for my Ad Group differ from those given by the standalone tool?" It's a completely different page on a completely different topic. And for this page, there is no difference between the cached and direct views.
That's why people are scratching their heads.
I don't know whether Google did this to cover up their actions when they got caught, or whether it was a simple and routine rebuild of their help database which caused page numbers to change so that the links no longer point to where they did before.
Truth is that the *AA's can sue with impunity because of the vast difference in resources between the *AA's and a private individual. In all cases it is cheaper to pay the "protection money" than fight it in court, even if you are in the right. It is unfortunate that this form of extortion is 100% legal
You're exaggerating how much power these companies have. If it were that easy, any big company could just go through the phone book and start suing people on any pretext they wanted. Since it would be cheaper for the end users to pay the protection money than fight, the big companies could make money at will.
But that doesn't happen, does it? The RIAA isn't just suing random people. They're suing file sharers, and those of us who have a firm grasp on reality know that almost everyone they sue is guilty of breaking the law. We all know it's illegal, but we continue to do it because the chance of getting caught is so low.
Don't try to con yourself into believing that this is a case of big evil companies using their power to railroad innocents. It's obvious to anyone who uses these networks that that's not what is happening here. You're just fooling yourself if you try to pretend that's what is going on.
That torrent certainly works, but there's no MD5 on the lg3d site...
.torrent file contains SHA-1 hashes of every piece of the file (usually pieces are 256K bytes, for big files). These hashes are checked as the pieces download. So if the download completes, you know you got a good file.
You don't need an md5sum with bittorrent. The
I thought BitTorrent would speed things up but this download is barely crawling. In two hours I've downloaded only 20 MB (and uploaded over 90 MB!). I don't have the fastest connection in the world but I get 90 kB/sec downloads on a good day.
Well, just in the last couple of minutes it's gone from 1 seed to 8 as a bunch of other people have finished their downloads. So I guess it's working for some people anyway. Maybe my download will start going faster as other people finish.
It looks to me like he's going to divert to Hawaii. The plane has continued to head south on the map, when a great circle route would carry it northward. According to the site, the next landing site after Hawaii is Catalina Island. I know a lot of people who have flown to that island and it is a notoriously difficult airport to land at. The airport is on top of a plateau and the winds can be tricky. Plus, it's stormy in California today and there is no ILS at Catalina. No sane pilot would want to fly there in these conditions.
Further, there are another 2 hours of daylight in Hawaii. It's already night in California. So he'd be landing at night, in stormy weather, if he has to land in California. I don't think he'll do it.
I'm watching this live as Fossett is still quite a ways north west of Hawaii. Look at the map and it is clear that Hawaii is a long ways off course. Fossett would want to stay probably 500 miles north of Hawaii on a great circle route to Kansas. They haven't said anything yet about whether he will abort, but if so he will have to change course to the south.
The Virgin web site has an interesting story about Branson giving Fossett a fancy watch to aid him on the flight,
Watch to the rescue: "When speaking at a press conference the day before take-off of the emergency systems in place in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer if something were to go drastically wrong, Sir Richard Branson promptly took off his watch and gave it to his great friend Steve Fossett." But here's the rest of the story.
According to people who were there, Richard Branson walks into the press conference holding two huge and obviously heavy suitcases when the topic came up about issues regarding the timing of the flight.
Branson sighs, puts down the suitcases and glances at his wrist. "It's now a quarter to six," he says, and goes on to explain the planned timing for the next day's flight.
"Hey, that's a pretty fancy watch!" exclaims Steve Fossett, the pilot.
Branson brightens a little. "Yeah, it's not bad. Check this out" - and he shows him a time zone display not just for every time zone in the world, but for the 86 largest metropoli. He hits a few buttons and from somewhere on the watch a voice says "The time is eleven minutes to six" in a posh British accent. A few more buttons and the same voice says something in Japanese. Branson continues, "I've put in regional accents for each city". The display is unbelievably high quality and the voice is simply astounding.
Fossett is struck dumb with admiration.
"That's not all," says Branson. He pushes a few more buttons and a tiny but very hi-resolution map of central London appears on the display. "The flashing dot shows our location by satellite positioning," explains Branson. "View recede ten," Branson says, and the display changes to show the whole of Greater London.
"I need this watch!" says Fossett.
"Oh, no, it's not ready for sale yet; this is a prototype and the inventor is still working out the bugs," says Branson. "But look at this," and he proceeds to demonstrate that the watch is also a very creditable little FM radio receiver with a digital tuner, a sonar device that can measure distances up to 125 meters, a pager with thermal paper printout and most impressive of all, the capacity for voice recordings of up to 300 standard-size books," though I only have 32 of my favourites in there so far" says Sir Richard.
"I've got to have this watch!" says Fossett. "It's just what I need for my flight!"
"No, you don't understand; it's not ready."
"I'll give you whatever you want for it! I'll give up my share of the royalties for the promotional tour after the flight!"
Branson abruptly makes his decision. "OK," he says and peels off the watch, handing it to Fossett, who starts happily away, heading to the plane.
"Hey, wait a minute," Sir Richard calls after Fossett, who turns around warily. Branson points to the two suitcases he'd been trying to lug into the press conference. "Don't forget your batteries."
An important optimization many programmers overlook is the use of short variable names. They write:
for (loop_index = 0; loop_index < number_of_items; loop_index++)
when they could write:
for (i=0; i<n; i++)
What most programmer's don't realize is that compilers use something called a "peephold optimizer". This means that the compiler looks at your program through a "peephole" like those found in hotel room doors, only without the fish-eye effect. So it can only see a little bit of your program at a time.
When teh compiler looks at the first example, it sees something liek:
_index=0; loop_index < number_of_it
and what's it supposed to do with that? But with the short version it can see the whole thing and it all fits in the peephole.
So remember, shorten those variable names! And keep using !ptr, that helps too.