Parent should be moded down, not up.
Obviously rantings from a affected and disapointed user.
Princeton are well within their rights to ban devices which case network disruptions to other (innocent) users. If malfunctioning devices were not disconnected from the internet when detected, internet would probably not be working at all today.
Princeton have performed their task exemplary of maintaining network reliability for users with well behaved devices, combined with excellent bug reports to google. Bug reports which google however has chosen to ignore.
The responsibility for any problems this causes for you is entirely Google's. They are the ones you should blame.
I have a HTC Desire, and I have been having the same issue in my home network since I bought the phone. My internet provider has a 4 hour DHCP lease, and refuses internet access to devices with expired DHCP IP leases. I am not blaming my ISP. They are not doing anything wrong.
Google however are to blame, since they have been ignoring this very serious bug report for a long time.
No. That is incorrect. People seems to automatically associate fiber with high speeds and long distances. But in reality, plastic fiber does not have those capabilities. A plastic fiber intended for 100Mpbs will work with 100Mpbs, but it cannot be upgraded to higher speeds in the future. The multimode characteristics of the fiber limits the bandwidth.
You only get the super high performance if you use single mode glass fiber. And that stuff is very expensive and complicated to work with. The end equipment is also quite expensive. The single mode glass fiber itself is cheap thou..
Fiber has bend radius limitations, and will not work well if you bend the fiber sharply. CAT5/CAT6 also has bend radius limitations, but is more forgiving. It will work fine even if you make a sharp 90 degree bend.
In general, plastic fibers are no better than CAT5/CAT6. Sometimes it is even inferior to CAT5/CAT6. The only technical advantage plastic fiber has over CAT5/CAT6 is the eletrical isolation, which makes it more or less immune to lightning.
But unlike viruses spread by regular executable code, buffer overflow attacks are easy to fix.
First of all, it should never be possible for a buffer overflow to occur. It one does occur, then there is a bug in the media player. Fix the bug and you stop the virus permanently.
And buffer overflow attacks are not generic. You cannot make a "infected" mpeg file which will affect both windows media player and quicktime. First you have to find a buffer overflow bug in a media player (assuming there are any to be found), and then you must craft a video file which is targeted at that specific bug found in that specific media player.
And as soon as you "release" your newly crafted "video virus", the author of the media player will become aware of the buffer overflow bug, fix it, and then your virus can no longer spread.
Because of this, viruses spreading using video files will never become common.
It is much much easier to spam every stupid user on the internet with E-mails asking people to click on "BritneyNude.jpg.exe" links.
Politicals messing with the justice system is highly illegal in Sweden.
They cannot "contribute/bribe/whatever you call it" prosecutors to take up certain cases.
However, it has actually already been suggested that american political forces may have influenced some Swedish polticians who then may have suggested that some procecutor should take a look at TPB. This made the headlines because of the legal implications if it is true. But how do you prove it?
Of course you can appeal to a higher court.
There are three court "levels" in Sweden. And in some cases, like fundamental human rights and stuff, you can appeal the verdict of the highest Swedish court to the European court.
They did.
The police emptied the entire server hall which hosted the pirate bay. They shut down the pirate bay, and a large number of totally unrelated companies who just happened to have their servers in the same server hall.
"The pirate bay" was restored from backups to new servers (located abroad) a couple of days later. Some of the other companies previously hosted in the server hall had to wait months before their systems were fully up and running again.
Agreed.
This is one of the better solutions without the use of goto. But the goto solution is cleaner/easier to read, produces fewer assembly instructions, and is faster to execute.
If a solution based on GOTO happens to be the cleanest solution, then that's the solution you should use.
Of course, GOTOs are rarely the cleanest solution, but in some cases..
Automatic resource freeing is not a static problem. It must be done in runtime.
When you are writing embedded software, or any hardware-near software, you don't have too many languages to choose from.
You can use assembly, and for projects with only a couple of kB of binary code, that works OK.
For larger projects it quickly becomes a major code maintenance problem.
Most of the "modern" high level languages typically lacks compiler support for the hundreds of different processor architectures used in embedded systems.
Java cannot really be used to talk directly to hardware, but some high level java applications on top of a C-based core is possible. But the problem with java is that it is extremely slow, and uses alot of memory.
At work, we have a small embedded java application running in a embedded system. The 8bit CPU runs at 20MHz. All this small java application really does is copy 256 bytes from memory mapped device A, to memory mapped device B.
This java application is however phased out of our products since someone relised that it is much faster to send 256bytes across a 57600bps serial line, than to copy 256 bytes of data in the java application.:)
Some, but far from all, embedded CPUs have compiler support for C++, but C++ can easily consume alot of resources if you are not careful. But yes, C++ works if you know what you are doing.
Your code fails to handle the case when "char *a = malloc(100);" is successful, but "char *b = malloc(100);" is not. Additionally, your code will go on and try to perform "char *b = malloc(100);" even if the previous allocation has failed. Not very nice.
In your code, the same default case is used for when both allocations are successful, and when both allocations failed. Took me a moment to figure that one out. To me, that is not a good example of clear code.
The previously posted "goto solution" handles all possible error cases in a optimum way. I think forward error handling is a generally accepted use of goto..
2. Your high-level language compiler is better at optimisation than you.
I know people think that is true. The very same people are usually writing very inefficient high level code.
A compiler will never become better than the human brain.
By manually optimising the checksum calculation in a TCP/IP stack, I can pretty much double the performance of the entire TCP/IP stack. No compiler can come even close to that.
Battery powered tools like screwdrivers and such don't generally have any processors in them. They are very simple devices.
There are however more advanced construction tools like laser distance measurement devices and digital calipers. These do have built in processors.
One could also claim that a pocket calculator is a computer. (They may or may not contain a generic processor, but all calculators do "compute") Most people have used those.
Modern cars have about 20 built in computers on average.
TVs, DVDs, digital set-top-boxes and other such home entertain systems obviously contains at least one processor each.
Just because you cannot see something, doesn't mean it's not there (quote from "Small Soldiers").
You can't see the picture on the harddrive, but the information is there. Just like it is stored in the RAM of your computer when you are actually using the jpg.
It is however NOT in any way "stored" in the monitor. A monitor contains no memory at all.
Let's say you print this jpg to a transparent sheet of plastic, and use a lightsource to project it against a wall. I'am sure you agree that by doing this you are not copying the picture from the transparent sheet of plastic to the wall. If you on the other hand for example take a photo of the sheet, then you have made a copy. (a copy of the information has been stored in your digital camera).
"copying to a monitor / TV"
Actually there is no copying going on when you display something on your monitor or TV, because there is no memory in the monitor. It is beeing displayed "live" from the graphics memory of your graphics card (or DVD-player).
You are correct in that the abolition of capital punishment is a requirement of all signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, and that this is even more widespread than and predates the EU.
The ECHR is also a condition for EU membership.
I did not know that your little "exception" in the case of high treason had been corrected. That's great. However, when I did a search on the subject I found that some 68% of your population wish to reinstate it?!
Just don't come complaining when you realize that you go other places in the world, even other Europeon countries, and don't enjoy the same freedoms.
Exactly which freedoms do you refer to?
I know of no freedoms/rights in the United states which we do not have in Sweden.
I do however know of several rights we have in Sweden which are lacking in the United states.
A few examples:
We have something called human rights. Perhaps you have heard of it? One example of this is that in Sweden the government cannot put a person in jail without trial. Torture as a interrogation method is also forbidden.
We also abandoned the death sentence a long time ago. In fact, the death sentence does not exist in any EU country. It is one of the conditions for EU membership.
In Sweden we have a right called "the right of public access". Basically this means everyone has the right to be out in the countryside. The only condition is that you act responsible and do not disturb or destroy the nature.
Today "American freedom" is little more than a shadow from the past.
Thoose are rather small spacecraft, and as far as I know they are not pressurised.
Such spacecrafts are designed with multiple redundancy to all critical systems.
If one of theese probes are hit by a particle, chances are low the particle will hit a critical component, and even if it does, the redundancy will take over.
I have met one of the engineers who built the power supply system for the SMART-1 probe. He told me they tested the reliability of the power supply system by powering it up, and then attack it with a big metal drill. The system continued operating without interruptions even while they were drilling straight into critical components making plenty of short circuits.
A pressurised manned spacecraft on the other hand presents a big target for particles. A tiny hole anywhere in the spacecraft will most likely put a end to the entire mission.
No.
Take a electric motor. You can easily turn the motor freely if it is not connected to a powersource.
Now, short the motor out and try turning it.
You can't. It will be locked hard in place.
If you want to try something more advanced, put a resistor between the two poles of the motor. Now you should be able to turn the motor, but with some "friction"
The energy you used to turn the motor is converted into electricity, and then it is converted into heat in the resistor.
Use a lower value resistor to generate more heat, which of course means you will need more energy to turn the motor.
A maglev elevator is nothing but a linear motor. It works the same way as a normal electric motor.
The maglev elevator will not move if you short it out.
Do I read this right? There is no counterweight? That would make it VASTLY more inefficient.
Maglev trains consumes electricity when accelerating and regenerates electricity when breaking. I don't see why a maglev elevator would work differently. Yes, it takes more energy when the elevator goes up, but all that energy (minus some losses due to imperfect conductors and magnets) can be regenerated when the elevator goes down.
The advantages of maglev elevators are obvious. They can be made without any critical moving parts. Conventional elevators on the other hand needs frequent cable replacemens and checkups. So, service costs for maglev elevators should be quite low compared to conventional elevators.
About safety.. Since the elevator requires zero power to go down in a normal fashion, nothing would really stop the elevator designers from making the elevator operate normally even without power. With the simple limitation of not beeing able to go up, of course. A conventional elevator can not be made to operate without power since it requires power to move at all. Imagine not beeing stuck in the elevator for hours when there is a blackout. A nice possible bonus feature for maglev elevators. I also don't seen any reason why maglev elevators would not have the same mechanical emergency breaks conventional elevators have for extra safety. Theese breaks could easily be triggered on loss of power or increased acceleration (freefall).
At some point the raw video data must be made available and decrypted. The reason for this is that our eyes and brains do not come equipped with DRM software (yet..).
If there is no external unencrypted signal available, then just open up the TV and pick up the video signal directly from the circuitboard.
Granted, it is not for everyone, but it only takes _one_ person. Because if one person in the entire world can make a unencrypted copy of the disc, then all the DRM crap is for nothing. All it will do is annoy law-obiding customers. It will do nothing to prevent piracy.
The engineers at the moviemakers of course know this, but the decision is not up to them. And the decisionmakers do not seem to understand the world very well..
Blu-ray is an awful format. Even Microsoft understands that it is rendered completely useless by all the DRM crap.
I agree with Tony... If this thing is ever launched, then it will be very interesting to see what happens when a top-of-the-line model from one of the major blu-ray backing corporations gets hacked.
Here in Europe the primary resolution for normal digital broadcast is 720x576, 25Hz (or 50Hz interlaced). 704*576 and 768*576 seems to be common as well. And that's just the standard resolution digital content.
Sounds about right.
And yes, of course I'am aware that only two agencies curently have spacecrafts capable of manned space flights. The US shuttles and Russian Soyuz spacecrafts.
They really should build a personnel capsule/module/shuttle/whatever for the very sucessful Ariane rocket, but I'am guessing the telecommunication satellite market is way more profitable than sending people into space..:)
I'am quite sure I have read something long ago that there is in fact an agreement between the various space agencies in the world that if a crew is in danger, any agency with an available spacecraft will make a rescue attempt.
I might be wrong. But it would make alot more sense to have an inter-agency cooperation regarding space rescue then for each agency to have backup spacecrafts and crews ready at all time.
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Parent should be moded down, not up. Obviously rantings from a affected and disapointed user. Princeton are well within their rights to ban devices which case network disruptions to other (innocent) users. If malfunctioning devices were not disconnected from the internet when detected, internet would probably not be working at all today. Princeton have performed their task exemplary of maintaining network reliability for users with well behaved devices, combined with excellent bug reports to google. Bug reports which google however has chosen to ignore. The responsibility for any problems this causes for you is entirely Google's. They are the ones you should blame. I have a HTC Desire, and I have been having the same issue in my home network since I bought the phone. My internet provider has a 4 hour DHCP lease, and refuses internet access to devices with expired DHCP IP leases. I am not blaming my ISP. They are not doing anything wrong. Google however are to blame, since they have been ignoring this very serious bug report for a long time.
No. That is incorrect.
People seems to automatically associate fiber with high speeds and long distances.
But in reality, plastic fiber does not have those capabilities. A plastic fiber intended for 100Mpbs will work with 100Mpbs, but it cannot be upgraded to higher speeds in the future. The multimode characteristics of the fiber limits the bandwidth.
You only get the super high performance if you use single mode glass fiber. And that stuff is very expensive and complicated to work with. The end equipment is also quite expensive. The single mode glass fiber itself is cheap thou..
Fiber has bend radius limitations, and will not work well if you bend the fiber sharply. CAT5/CAT6 also has bend radius limitations, but is more forgiving. It will work fine even if you make a sharp 90 degree bend.
In general, plastic fibers are no better than CAT5/CAT6. Sometimes it is even inferior to CAT5/CAT6. The only technical advantage plastic fiber has over CAT5/CAT6 is the eletrical isolation, which makes it more or less immune to lightning.
Since Sony obviously objects to someone making a copy of a CD for the own peronal use... Does this mean that RIAA is lying on their webpage?
Shocking...
But unlike viruses spread by regular executable code, buffer overflow attacks are easy to fix. First of all, it should never be possible for a buffer overflow to occur. It one does occur, then there is a bug in the media player. Fix the bug and you stop the virus permanently.
And buffer overflow attacks are not generic. You cannot make a "infected" mpeg file which will affect both windows media player and quicktime. First you have to find a buffer overflow bug in a media player (assuming there are any to be found), and then you must craft a video file which is targeted at that specific bug found in that specific media player.
And as soon as you "release" your newly crafted "video virus", the author of the media player will become aware of the buffer overflow bug, fix it, and then your virus can no longer spread.
Because of this, viruses spreading using video files will never become common.
It is much much easier to spam every stupid user on the internet with E-mails asking people to click on "BritneyNude.jpg.exe" links.
Would not that be quite dangerous for epileptic ?
More dangerous than running the Tex-Mex border in the blast-furnace heat of midsummer? More dangerous than a gun shot wound?
Yes. An epileptic attack combined with puking is likely to be more dangerous than that.
Politicals messing with the justice system is highly illegal in Sweden.
They cannot "contribute/bribe/whatever you call it" prosecutors to take up certain cases.
However, it has actually already been suggested that american political forces may have influenced some Swedish polticians who then may have suggested that some procecutor should take a look at TPB. This made the headlines because of the legal implications if it is true.
But how do you prove it?
Of course you can appeal to a higher court.
There are three court "levels" in Sweden. And in some cases, like fundamental human rights and stuff, you can appeal the verdict of the highest Swedish court to the European court.
They did.
The police emptied the entire server hall which hosted the pirate bay. They shut down the pirate bay, and a large number of totally unrelated companies who just happened to have their servers in the same server hall.
"The pirate bay" was restored from backups to new servers (located abroad) a couple of days later. Some of the other companies previously hosted in the server hall had to wait months before their systems were fully up and running again.
Agreed.
This is one of the better solutions without the use of goto. But the goto solution is cleaner/easier to read, produces fewer assembly instructions, and is faster to execute.
If a solution based on GOTO happens to be the cleanest solution, then that's the solution you should use.
Of course, GOTOs are rarely the cleanest solution, but in some cases..
Automatic resource freeing is not a static problem. It must be done in runtime. :)
When you are writing embedded software, or any hardware-near software, you don't have too many languages to choose from.
You can use assembly, and for projects with only a couple of kB of binary code, that works OK. For larger projects it quickly becomes a major code maintenance problem. Most of the "modern" high level languages typically lacks compiler support for the hundreds of different processor architectures used in embedded systems.
Java cannot really be used to talk directly to hardware, but some high level java applications on top of a C-based core is possible. But the problem with java is that it is extremely slow, and uses alot of memory.
At work, we have a small embedded java application running in a embedded system. The 8bit CPU runs at 20MHz. All this small java application really does is copy 256 bytes from memory mapped device A, to memory mapped device B.
This java application is however phased out of our products since someone relised that it is much faster to send 256bytes across a 57600bps serial line, than to copy 256 bytes of data in the java application.
Some, but far from all, embedded CPUs have compiler support for C++, but C++ can easily consume alot of resources if you are not careful. But yes, C++ works if you know what you are doing.
Your code fails to handle the case when "char *a = malloc(100);" is successful, but "char *b = malloc(100);" is not.
Additionally, your code will go on and try to perform "char *b = malloc(100);" even if the previous allocation has failed. Not very nice.
In your code, the same default case is used for when both allocations are successful, and when both allocations failed. Took me a moment to figure that one out. To me, that is not a good example of clear code.
The previously posted "goto solution" handles all possible error cases in a optimum way.
I think forward error handling is a generally accepted use of goto..
Same here.
I never use any anaesthetic at the dentist.
The drill is not that bad if the dentist goes easy on the tooth.
2. Your high-level language compiler is better at optimisation than you.
I know people think that is true. The very same people are usually writing very inefficient high level code.
A compiler will never become better than the human brain.
By manually optimising the checksum calculation in a TCP/IP stack, I can pretty much double the performance of the entire TCP/IP stack. No compiler can come even close to that.
Battery powered tools like screwdrivers and such don't generally have any processors in them. They are very simple devices.
There are however more advanced construction tools like laser distance measurement devices and digital calipers. These do have built in processors.
One could also claim that a pocket calculator is a computer. (They may or may not contain a generic processor, but all calculators do "compute") Most people have used those.
Modern cars have about 20 built in computers on average.
TVs, DVDs, digital set-top-boxes and other such home entertain systems obviously contains at least one processor each.
Just because you cannot see something, doesn't mean it's not there (quote from "Small Soldiers").
You can't see the picture on the harddrive, but the information is there. Just like it is stored in the RAM of your computer when you are actually using the jpg.
It is however NOT in any way "stored" in the monitor. A monitor contains no memory at all.
Let's say you print this jpg to a transparent sheet of plastic, and use a lightsource to project it against a wall. I'am sure you agree that by doing this you are not copying the picture from the transparent sheet of plastic to the wall. If you on the other hand for example take a photo of the sheet, then you have made a copy. (a copy of the information has been stored in your digital camera).
"copying to a monitor / TV"
Actually there is no copying going on when you display something on your monitor or TV, because there is no memory in the monitor. It is beeing displayed "live" from the graphics memory of your graphics card (or DVD-player).
You are correct in that the abolition of capital punishment is a requirement of all signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, and that this is even more widespread than and predates the EU.
The ECHR is also a condition for EU membership.
I did not know that your little "exception" in the case of high treason had been corrected. That's great. However, when I did a search on the subject I found that some 68% of your population wish to reinstate it?!
Just don't come complaining when you realize that you go other places in the world, even other Europeon countries, and don't enjoy the same freedoms.
Exactly which freedoms do you refer to?
I know of no freedoms/rights in the United states which we do not have in Sweden. I do however know of several rights we have in Sweden which are lacking in the United states.
A few examples:
We have something called human rights. Perhaps you have heard of it? One example of this is that in Sweden the government cannot put a person in jail without trial. Torture as a interrogation method is also forbidden.
We also abandoned the death sentence a long time ago. In fact, the death sentence does not exist in any EU country. It is one of the conditions for EU membership.
In Sweden we have a right called "the right of public access". Basically this means everyone has the right to be out in the countryside. The only condition is that you act responsible and do not disturb or destroy the nature.
Today "American freedom" is little more than a shadow from the past.
Thoose are rather small spacecraft, and as far as I know they are not pressurised. Such spacecrafts are designed with multiple redundancy to all critical systems. If one of theese probes are hit by a particle, chances are low the particle will hit a critical component, and even if it does, the redundancy will take over. I have met one of the engineers who built the power supply system for the SMART-1 probe. He told me they tested the reliability of the power supply system by powering it up, and then attack it with a big metal drill. The system continued operating without interruptions even while they were drilling straight into critical components making plenty of short circuits. A pressurised manned spacecraft on the other hand presents a big target for particles. A tiny hole anywhere in the spacecraft will most likely put a end to the entire mission.
No. Take a electric motor. You can easily turn the motor freely if it is not connected to a powersource. Now, short the motor out and try turning it. You can't. It will be locked hard in place. If you want to try something more advanced, put a resistor between the two poles of the motor. Now you should be able to turn the motor, but with some "friction" The energy you used to turn the motor is converted into electricity, and then it is converted into heat in the resistor. Use a lower value resistor to generate more heat, which of course means you will need more energy to turn the motor. A maglev elevator is nothing but a linear motor. It works the same way as a normal electric motor. The maglev elevator will not move if you short it out.
Do I read this right? There is no counterweight? That would make it VASTLY more inefficient.
Maglev trains consumes electricity when accelerating and regenerates electricity when breaking.
I don't see why a maglev elevator would work differently. Yes, it takes more energy when the elevator goes up, but all that energy (minus some losses due to imperfect conductors and magnets) can be regenerated when the elevator goes down.
The advantages of maglev elevators are obvious. They can be made without any critical moving parts. Conventional elevators on the other hand needs frequent cable replacemens and checkups. So, service costs for maglev elevators should be quite low compared to conventional elevators.
About safety..
Since the elevator requires zero power to go down in a normal fashion, nothing would really stop the elevator designers from making the elevator operate normally even without power. With the simple limitation of not beeing able to go up, of course. A conventional elevator can not be made to operate without power since it requires power to move at all.
Imagine not beeing stuck in the elevator for hours when there is a blackout. A nice possible bonus feature for maglev elevators.
I also don't seen any reason why maglev elevators would not have the same mechanical emergency breaks conventional elevators have for extra safety. Theese breaks could easily be triggered on loss of power or increased acceleration (freefall).
At some point the raw video data must be made available and decrypted. The reason for this is that our eyes and brains do not come equipped with DRM software (yet..). If there is no external unencrypted signal available, then just open up the TV and pick up the video signal directly from the circuitboard. Granted, it is not for everyone, but it only takes _one_ person. Because if one person in the entire world can make a unencrypted copy of the disc, then all the DRM crap is for nothing. All it will do is annoy law-obiding customers. It will do nothing to prevent piracy. The engineers at the moviemakers of course know this, but the decision is not up to them. And the decisionmakers do not seem to understand the world very well.. Blu-ray is an awful format. Even Microsoft understands that it is rendered completely useless by all the DRM crap. I agree with Tony... If this thing is ever launched, then it will be very interesting to see what happens when a top-of-the-line model from one of the major blu-ray backing corporations gets hacked.
Here in Europe the primary resolution for normal digital broadcast is 720x576, 25Hz (or 50Hz interlaced). 704*576 and 768*576 seems to be common as well.
And that's just the standard resolution digital content.
Sounds about right. And yes, of course I'am aware that only two agencies curently have spacecrafts capable of manned space flights. The US shuttles and Russian Soyuz spacecrafts. They really should build a personnel capsule/module/shuttle/whatever for the very sucessful Ariane rocket, but I'am guessing the telecommunication satellite market is way more profitable than sending people into space.. :)
I'am quite sure I have read something long ago that there is in fact an agreement between the various space agencies in the world that if a crew is in danger, any agency with an available spacecraft will make a rescue attempt. I might be wrong. But it would make alot more sense to have an inter-agency cooperation regarding space rescue then for each agency to have backup spacecrafts and crews ready at all time.