I want a computer in my head that I can tell to do discrete calculations for me, since humans are so slow at them and mistake-prone. I'd love to be able to do 4096-bit RSA encryption in my head. Then the rest of my brain could concentrate on the problems the computer isn't good at.
On Windows NT, you can fork a process by calling NtCreateProcess[Ex] with a NULL image section handle, then using NtCreateThread to create the initial thread in the new process (set the initial context to the same as the current one except 0 in EAX).
exec() is the hard one. NT can't start a new executable without assigning a new PID. In theory, you could deallocate all the memory in the current process then map a new executable in, but that's a total hack.
Windows NT has many semantic differences, but the reality is that for the most part, NT has close to a superset of what is available in UNIX. The debugging API is massively better than what's available in Linux.
The Win32 API is a horrible mess, but the NT API underneath it is very good. It's much more self-consistent than the Win32 wrapper. I wish Microsoft would sanction its use, because it's really much better.
It is in the best interest of casinos for their games to be fair. They want their machines to follow the rules exactly, and be as random as possible - the math takes care of the rest. If they weren't following the rules, Nevada and the public would get them shut down very quickly.
I really don't like the way such places try to manipulate people. The near misses aren't manipulated by the machine's operation, but the game's layout is designed such that near misses are a natural result. The methods used by casinos very much the same crap as supermarkets micromanaging item placement to trick you and your children into buying more items and more expensive items. I dislike that more than the idea of going somewhere to lose money.
By the way, I'm one of those Vegas winners you speak of. I was bored and waiting for a show so I sat and played quarter video poker. I got a royal flush on the 4th hand - $1000. Walked away immediately, and haven't gambled since then. Lost a total of maybe $30 in my life before then on similar cheap games.
The virus's life depends on getting around such a cure - it will evolve to evade the cure. In only takes one copy of the virus in one person out of millions to randomly have a resistant strain.
Windows NT itself has a great API that is much more self-consistent than Win32 ever was. It's also somewhat simpler to understand.
Win32 is actually a user-mode wrapper around the native NT API. CreateFile calls NtCreateFile. NT has a single root directory named "\"; the Win32 drive letters are actually symbolic links within the native namespace.
Many things in the NT API have no equivalent within Win32. For example, forking a process is NtCreateProcess[Ex] with a null image handle.
Microsoft's extremism in console security trumps any such wish for user-generated content. Microsoft knows that if user-generated content is allowed, it won't be long before someone finds a bug in a game and exploits it to run Linux. After all, this happened repeatedly on Xbox, and on 360's King Kong, even without true user-generated content.
Sony doesn't really have this problem. The system is already hacked, and it ran Linux to begin with. They couldn't keep up with such exploits on PSP.
Companies doing hardware digital signature lockdown never get it right the first time. Look at the Xbox. Xbox was hacked to hell. The 360, however, was not, having exactly one exploit against it that was patched before t was made public.
Expect iPhone 2.0 to be unhackable, putting the per-phone keys to the boot loader in fuses inside the CPU.
I'm surprised that a company like Apple wouldn't design the iPhone such that when you opened it, an encryption key in SRAM is cleared. Opening it would disable the phone until serviced by Apple, who can legitimately claim the warranty is void. They can claim that this feature is for copy protection and send anyone who dares to work around it to Club Fed.
FF3 - Overworld FF4 - Underworld FF4 - Tower of Babel FF4 - Giant of Babel FF5 - World 2 overworld / Unknown Lands FF6 - World of Balance / Tina's theme FF6 - World of Ruin after airship / Searching for friends FF6 - Cayenne's theme FF7 - Boss music FF7 - Cid's theme FF7 - Pre-Meteor overworld FF7 - Wutai FF9 - Nova Dragon (FMV at beginning of disk 4)
I never liked FF5's music much. FF6 was by far the best for music; too many to list above. I never played FF8 or FF10 because I didn't like them; never got around to 1 or 2. His Chrono Trigger songs weren't any among the memorable ones.
I hate Bush in office as much as any other Slashdotter, yet I agree with his decision here.
I don't think it's fair that Libby goes to prison while the others in the administration do not. I'd rather have Libby get away with it than for only him to take the rap. Washington scapegoats are a tradition, and I'm glad to see it not perpetuated here.
The real culprits, Dick Cheney and several others, should be impeached and charged.
Games not working on Win64 on their own accord is basically unheard of. It's the copy protection kernel drivers that won't work. The cracked versions typically work fine on Win64!
Legal disclaimer: I'm not recommending that anyone crack anything.
You can't get the "Designed for Windows" logo or the WHQL driver signature anymore without running on Win64. In the WHQL case, that means a 64-bit driver.
Steroids were found in his home. Given that so many athletes have autistic children, has there been any inquiry into whether steroids are linked to having autistic children?
I should say that I would consider a scientifically complete model of the universe that includes no "extra" variables to be a sufficient proof.
Such a model would not be enough to disprove the existence of God. For the universe inside Super Mario Brothers, there exists a scientifically-complete model; it happens to be 40960 octets long. However, when I hex edit a saved state, I am the god of that universe. I can modify the state of the game at will, without modifying the rules. Despite a self-consistent and fully-accurate model of the universe, God exists and can perform miracles.
Similarly, a god of our universe would be able to create objects without regard to the standard rules, and discovering those rules would not disprove her existence.
Note that I'm an atheist. I just want to make sure the logic on all sides is valid.
Sorry, but I don't want to have to get the administrator's permission to write my own program that makes self-modifying code. This is also why a user-local install of Wine is impossible when SELinux is enabled.
Of course, SELinux does nothing about the problem that a rogue program could pipe out to gdb, a program flagged for ptrace(), and do that stuff anyway.
When I play World of Warcraft, I walk by pressing both buttons on the mouse. This gives a lot more turning precision than you get with the keyboard. However, you can't do that on a Mighty Mouse. Its physical design can only distinguish whether you're pressing the left side or the right side - it can't recognize pressing both sides at once.
I'm sure WoW's not the only game that has a use for left+right.
The biggest problem with removing "net neutrality" is that Internet service is for the most part a natural monopoly. You pretty much either have to pay the one phone company or the one cable company. It's unrealistic for competitors to join the market, because laying a second set of wires to your house isn't going to happen. Alternative companies offering DSL service are still at the mercy of the phone company.
Internet customers don't really have a choice who to go to for Internet service. When service to popular sites gets slow, or when sites charge customers on certain ISPs more money, people can't get fed up and leave to a different provider. There are no market forces.
As much as everyone hates it, the only way to keep natural monopolies in check is to regulate them. Regulation is the difference between the current AT&T and the AT&T of the 1970's, and hardly anyone will argue that things are worse now. We don't have to rent phones anymore. Regulation sucks, but abusive monopolies suck worse.
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I want a computer in my head that I can tell to do discrete calculations for me, since humans are so slow at them and mistake-prone. I'd love to be able to do 4096-bit RSA encryption in my head. Then the rest of my brain could concentrate on the problems the computer isn't good at.
On Windows NT, you can fork a process by calling NtCreateProcess[Ex] with a NULL image section handle, then using NtCreateThread to create the initial thread in the new process (set the initial context to the same as the current one except 0 in EAX).
exec() is the hard one. NT can't start a new executable without assigning a new PID. In theory, you could deallocate all the memory in the current process then map a new executable in, but that's a total hack.
Windows NT has many semantic differences, but the reality is that for the most part, NT has close to a superset of what is available in UNIX. The debugging API is massively better than what's available in Linux.
The Win32 API is a horrible mess, but the NT API underneath it is very good. It's much more self-consistent than the Win32 wrapper. I wish Microsoft would sanction its use, because it's really much better.
It is in the best interest of casinos for their games to be fair. They want their machines to follow the rules exactly, and be as random as possible - the math takes care of the rest. If they weren't following the rules, Nevada and the public would get them shut down very quickly.
I really don't like the way such places try to manipulate people. The near misses aren't manipulated by the machine's operation, but the game's layout is designed such that near misses are a natural result. The methods used by casinos very much the same crap as supermarkets micromanaging item placement to trick you and your children into buying more items and more expensive items. I dislike that more than the idea of going somewhere to lose money.
By the way, I'm one of those Vegas winners you speak of. I was bored and waiting for a show so I sat and played quarter video poker. I got a royal flush on the 4th hand - $1000. Walked away immediately, and haven't gambled since then. Lost a total of maybe $30 in my life before then on similar cheap games.
The virus's life depends on getting around such a cure - it will evolve to evade the cure. In only takes one copy of the virus in one person out of millions to randomly have a resistant strain.
I get the same feeling on planes... What causes that? Is the fuselage actually tilted?
Windows NT itself has a great API that is much more self-consistent than Win32 ever was. It's also somewhat simpler to understand.
Win32 is actually a user-mode wrapper around the native NT API. CreateFile calls NtCreateFile. NT has a single root directory named "\"; the Win32 drive letters are actually symbolic links within the native namespace.
Many things in the NT API have no equivalent within Win32. For example, forking a process is NtCreateProcess[Ex] with a null image handle.
Microsoft's extremism in console security trumps any such wish for user-generated content. Microsoft knows that if user-generated content is allowed, it won't be long before someone finds a bug in a game and exploits it to run Linux. After all, this happened repeatedly on Xbox, and on 360's King Kong, even without true user-generated content.
Sony doesn't really have this problem. The system is already hacked, and it ran Linux to begin with. They couldn't keep up with such exploits on PSP.
Companies doing hardware digital signature lockdown never get it right the first time. Look at the Xbox. Xbox was hacked to hell. The 360, however, was not, having exactly one exploit against it that was patched before t was made public.
Expect iPhone 2.0 to be unhackable, putting the per-phone keys to the boot loader in fuses inside the CPU.
I'm surprised that a company like Apple wouldn't design the iPhone such that when you opened it, an encryption key in SRAM is cleared. Opening it would disable the phone until serviced by Apple, who can legitimately claim the warranty is void. They can claim that this feature is for copy protection and send anyone who dares to work around it to Club Fed.
FF3 - Overworld
FF4 - Underworld
FF4 - Tower of Babel
FF4 - Giant of Babel
FF5 - World 2 overworld / Unknown Lands
FF6 - World of Balance / Tina's theme
FF6 - World of Ruin after airship / Searching for friends
FF6 - Cayenne's theme
FF7 - Boss music
FF7 - Cid's theme
FF7 - Pre-Meteor overworld
FF7 - Wutai
FF9 - Nova Dragon (FMV at beginning of disk 4)
I never liked FF5's music much. FF6 was by far the best for music; too many to list above. I never played FF8 or FF10 because I didn't like them; never got around to 1 or 2. His Chrono Trigger songs weren't any among the memorable ones.
I hate Bush in office as much as any other Slashdotter, yet I agree with his decision here.
I don't think it's fair that Libby goes to prison while the others in the administration do not. I'd rather have Libby get away with it than for only him to take the rap. Washington scapegoats are a tradition, and I'm glad to see it not perpetuated here.
The real culprits, Dick Cheney and several others, should be impeached and charged.
Games not working on Win64 on their own accord is basically unheard of. It's the copy protection kernel drivers that won't work. The cracked versions typically work fine on Win64!
Legal disclaimer: I'm not recommending that anyone crack anything.
XP 64 is a non-server build of 2003. It calls itself NT 5.2, and its service pack 2 installer is literally the same
Longs are 32-bit in Win64. Only long longs are 64-bit. This means that long's size is different between x86-64 Windows and x86-64 Linux.
In 10.5, Carbon was not ported to 64-bit. Its sole alternative, Cocoa, requires Objective C. DLLs using Objective C cannot be unloaded, period.
You can't get the "Designed for Windows" logo or the WHQL driver signature anymore without running on Win64. In the WHQL case, that means a 64-bit driver.
Steroids were found in his home. Given that so many athletes have autistic children, has there been any inquiry into whether steroids are linked to having autistic children?
Such a model would not be enough to disprove the existence of God. For the universe inside Super Mario Brothers, there exists a scientifically-complete model; it happens to be 40960 octets long. However, when I hex edit a saved state, I am the god of that universe. I can modify the state of the game at will, without modifying the rules. Despite a self-consistent and fully-accurate model of the universe, God exists and can perform miracles.
Similarly, a god of our universe would be able to create objects without regard to the standard rules, and discovering those rules would not disprove her existence.
Note that I'm an atheist. I just want to make sure the logic on all sides is valid.
Wasn't that "pilot program" called Maxis?
Sorry, but I don't want to have to get the administrator's permission to write my own program that makes self-modifying code. This is also why a user-local install of Wine is impossible when SELinux is enabled.
Of course, SELinux does nothing about the problem that a rogue program could pipe out to gdb, a program flagged for ptrace(), and do that stuff anyway.
Cue website installing a WoW password stealer in 3, 2, 1 ...
When I play World of Warcraft, I walk by pressing both buttons on the mouse. This gives a lot more turning precision than you get with the keyboard. However, you can't do that on a Mighty Mouse. Its physical design can only distinguish whether you're pressing the left side or the right side - it can't recognize pressing both sides at once.
I'm sure WoW's not the only game that has a use for left+right.
The biggest problem with removing "net neutrality" is that Internet service is for the most part a natural monopoly. You pretty much either have to pay the one phone company or the one cable company. It's unrealistic for competitors to join the market, because laying a second set of wires to your house isn't going to happen. Alternative companies offering DSL service are still at the mercy of the phone company.
Internet customers don't really have a choice who to go to for Internet service. When service to popular sites gets slow, or when sites charge customers on certain ISPs more money, people can't get fed up and leave to a different provider. There are no market forces.
As much as everyone hates it, the only way to keep natural monopolies in check is to regulate them. Regulation is the difference between the current AT&T and the AT&T of the 1970's, and hardly anyone will argue that things are worse now. We don't have to rent phones anymore. Regulation sucks, but abusive monopolies suck worse.