Take a look at the high breeders in your country.... them that start at age 12 and keep popping them out until death or menopause (whichever comes first). Even if you live in a so-called first world country, it is more likely that the third-world element of that country is a growing % of the population. Give it another generation or two and pretty much any first world country has a third-world future.
You, Yes, I mean YOU! can easily build your own CPU using FPGAs.
Many FPGA houses provide free ARM cores etc for inclusion on their FPGAs. You can build an ARM-based (or other core based) device using free download tools and run it on an FPGA that costs a few bucks. To do this the licensee need to pay a heft licencing fee to ARm or whomever. Now they can also distribute GPL cores.
But is this really useful? To use a GPL core would mean that all the rest of the chip design would have to be released too. Very few hardware builders will be prepared to release their silicon source code because that is often the only way they have of preventing mass knock-offs etc.
Parent is right. Make this an incentive. That way, people who care will get a discount.
Punitive measures will backfire due to human nature. If you're paying the extra $10 for being 5 pounds overweight you are likely to think: Oh well, I'm paying to be fat so I may as well get 20 pounds overweight.
When a SCUBA diver decompresses, the important numbers to whatch are not so much the actual pressures as the ratio between the saturated and new pressure. A 15 PSI (1 atmoshere) change is not a problem on its own, you get that by changing depth by 10m/33ft.
You can approximately halve your saturated pressure withouth getting bends. In other words, if you have suturated to 30m (4 atm), you can rise to 10m (2 atm) without bends. If you go to the surface you're quartering your pressure which is a Bad Thing.
I've done a lot of SCUBA, some of it at high altitude (over 6000 ft). At 6000 ft, the surface pressure is far lower, so the effective decompression becomes a lot more complicated. A dive to 65m is equivalent to diving to 80+m at sea level.
In space (0 atm or thereabouts), the ratios become far harder to maintain and you would not want to be in 0atm for very long.
Bends is not something you'd want to piss about with. I know a few people who have had mild bends, even had very mild bends myself, but I also know a person who had pretty severe bends when he ran out of air at 40m or so. He was in hospital for a week or so and struggled walking for many months. In more serious cases people have died due to tissue damage in major organs/brain.
Most Geeks feel very lucky if they get laid once a month or so. Therefore ten fucking days is about ten months or so. Should be able to roll out a patch in that time, especially since we get so many days to work on software rather than having sex.
While many people have an intuitive feeling as to what constitues a Good Programmer from a Bad Programmer, there are very few quantitative measures. Bad software does not look vastly different from Good Software.
By some estimates, Good Programmers can be a factor of ten or more productive than Bad Programmers, yet they are seldom paid more than a few tens of % higher. It would be far better for most companies to pay double the going salary to attract only the best, but unfortunately business thinking does not seem to be structured that way.
Most organisations base their planning on some convenient notions like programmer-months etc, using some standardised measure for programmer capability. These measures are great because they make the spreadsheets look neat and tidy. They also make all the outsourcing logic work: "I can get programmers in country xxx for $10 per hour". Untimately they are flawed because you get what you measure. If you don't pay a premium for good programmers you won't get them. You end up spending mucch more on crappy programmers.
That has nothing to do with IT. That's just millions of years of programming checking out the gene pool. THat will happen if you're in any occupation or even just walking in the mall.
How many people contact Linus and the other thousand or so Linux contibutors when they load up Linux?
I release some kernel code under GPL. This is used in many Linux-based products (cell phones etc). I probably only get to hear from 5% or so of the people that actually use it.
GPL violations aside, there is no need to notify the developers if you intend to use code under GPL.
The only time you'd need to contact the developers is if you want to get an alternative license. Quite often people will release code under GPL and also be prepared to release it under alternative licenses, perhaps for a fee.
I worked in the physical security industry for a while... designing and installing card-swipe style security systems for buildings etc. What we found with some of our research was that no matter what your physical security set up, the major holes in the operating security system were due to people. Security staff would buzz people through with no card. Tailgaters would get through on someone elses card. People would pass back their card for someone else to get in.
The greatest security measure of all time was probably the Great Wall of China. That got breached by bribing a gate guard (OK, bribing him with his life...).
With all the fancy immobilisers etc, many cars still get ripped off because people leave their doors open or their keys in the lock.
Security in computing etc only changes where the action happens. People still fundamentally operate the same way.
We've all heard Linus' view on microkernels being computer science masturbation. Just because he explains it in terms that are familiar to most geeks does not make his argument right.
Many high performance OSs (including OSX, QNX etc) are based on microkernels. Many of these have been happily doing work on CPUs as low as 286s since the 80s.
It is also interesting to see how the various OSs change. Linux has grown more micro-kernel-like features (user space drivers and user space file systems). Windows CE (a microkernel OS) has added monolythic kernel features such as in-kernel drivers and in-kernel file systems.
Basically we're seeing that there is no "one true path" and system integrators need different features for different systems.
The purpose of this gun was to save lives. Dr Gatling figured that a gun that would shoot faster would mean that an army would need less soldiers to spray out the same number of buttets and therefore there would be less soldiers on the field getting killed and injured. Therefore the machine gun would save lives.
Of course it did not work out that way.
So now we have a bunch of robots running around. That should mean less soldiers getting killed, right?
Wrong: Bot soldiers will eventually be used to do suicide missions that the meat variety won't do. That means more intense and grubby conflict which means more injury and deaths - not less.
The linked document is not from MS directly and is not binding on MS. No doubt all the small print with the hooks is in the actual legal docs.
MS has a track record of submitting its specs/patents to standards bodies and then trying to gouge people later. Look at FAT and SmartMedia for instance.
He allegendly downloaded at 1266 files * $750 per file * approx 0.5 GBP per $ = approx GBP 475k
All bank vaults and locks have also been cracked
on
The DRM Scorecard
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
There is no uncrackable security technology. This does not make them worthless.
A mechanism that is difficult to crack (whether that is a physical lock or DRM or password) makes it harder for the cracker and reduces the likelihood of someone actually doing the cracking. That removes casual crackers from the equation.
It also makes the cracking act more deliberate and makes it far harder for someone to claim: "That diamond got in my pocket.... I just found it on the sidewalk and thought it had been thrown out." or "Oh that music on my MP2 player... I thought it was free!"
"Microsoft, they are one of the few entities that have the capital to bring a device like this to the market."
That is very true. Unfortunately that is not what they do with their fantastic resources. Rather than try make things better by putting their efforts into improved products, they seem to put their efforts into gaining marketshare through destructive behaviour. Look at Zune and Vista. Look at WinCE.
Imagine how cool computing could be if MS instead put their efforts into competing by making better products.
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Take a look at the high breeders in your country.... them that start at age 12 and keep popping them out until death or menopause (whichever comes first). Even if you live in a so-called first world country, it is more likely that the third-world element of that country is a growing % of the population. Give it another generation or two and pretty much any first world country has a third-world future.
Many FPGA houses provide free ARM cores etc for inclusion on their FPGAs. You can build an ARM-based (or other core based) device using free download tools and run it on an FPGA that costs a few bucks. To do this the licensee need to pay a heft licencing fee to ARm or whomever. Now they can also distribute GPL cores.
But is this really useful? To use a GPL core would mean that all the rest of the chip design would have to be released too. Very few hardware builders will be prepared to release their silicon source code because that is often the only way they have of preventing mass knock-offs etc.
Punitive measures will backfire due to human nature. If you're paying the extra $10 for being 5 pounds overweight you are likely to think: Oh well, I'm paying to be fat so I may as well get 20 pounds overweight.
That introduces a punitive measure, but also offsets the medical costs associated with supporting these vices.
Couple of rolls sounds like a reasonable makeshift pressure suit.
Groovy baby!
You can approximately halve your saturated pressure withouth getting bends. In other words, if you have suturated to 30m (4 atm), you can rise to 10m (2 atm) without bends. If you go to the surface you're quartering your pressure which is a Bad Thing.
I've done a lot of SCUBA, some of it at high altitude (over 6000 ft). At 6000 ft, the surface pressure is far lower, so the effective decompression becomes a lot more complicated. A dive to 65m is equivalent to diving to 80+m at sea level.
In space (0 atm or thereabouts), the ratios become far harder to maintain and you would not want to be in 0atm for very long.
Bends is not something you'd want to piss about with. I know a few people who have had mild bends, even had very mild bends myself, but I also know a person who had pretty severe bends when he ran out of air at 40m or so. He was in hospital for a week or so and struggled walking for many months. In more serious cases people have died due to tissue damage in major organs/brain.
Most Geeks feel very lucky if they get laid once a month or so. Therefore ten fucking days is about ten months or so. Should be able to roll out a patch in that time, especially since we get so many days to work on software rather than having sex.
Some people really don't think these things through very well.
By some estimates, Good Programmers can be a factor of ten or more productive than Bad Programmers, yet they are seldom paid more than a few tens of % higher. It would be far better for most companies to pay double the going salary to attract only the best, but unfortunately business thinking does not seem to be structured that way.
Most organisations base their planning on some convenient notions like programmer-months etc, using some standardised measure for programmer capability. These measures are great because they make the spreadsheets look neat and tidy. They also make all the outsourcing logic work: "I can get programmers in country xxx for $10 per hour". Untimately they are flawed because you get what you measure. If you don't pay a premium for good programmers you won't get them. You end up spending mucch more on crappy programmers.
Flop or not, most places are still pushing Vista because that is what Microsoft tells them to do. Those that also offer XP have a differentiator.
That has nothing to do with IT. That's just millions of years of programming checking out the gene pool. THat will happen if you're in any occupation or even just walking in the mall.
Bud ain't beer so it's hardly on topic.
I release some kernel code under GPL. This is used in many Linux-based products (cell phones etc). I probably only get to hear from 5% or so of the people that actually use it.
The only time you'd need to contact the developers is if you want to get an alternative license. Quite often people will release code under GPL and also be prepared to release it under alternative licenses, perhaps for a fee.
The greatest security measure of all time was probably the Great Wall of China. That got breached by bribing a gate guard (OK, bribing him with his life...).
With all the fancy immobilisers etc, many cars still get ripped off because people leave their doors open or their keys in the lock.
Security in computing etc only changes where the action happens. People still fundamentally operate the same way.
Many high performance OSs (including OSX, QNX etc) are based on microkernels. Many of these have been happily doing work on CPUs as low as 286s since the 80s.
It is also interesting to see how the various OSs change. Linux has grown more micro-kernel-like features (user space drivers and user space file systems). Windows CE (a microkernel OS) has added monolythic kernel features such as in-kernel drivers and in-kernel file systems.
Basically we're seeing that there is no "one true path" and system integrators need different features for different systems.
This article should not have the Linux Tux logo. Tux only came much later. I suggest an egg or something.
The purpose of this gun was to save lives. Dr Gatling figured that a gun that would shoot faster would mean that an army would need less soldiers to spray out the same number of buttets and therefore there would be less soldiers on the field getting killed and injured. Therefore the machine gun would save lives.
Of course it did not work out that way.
So now we have a bunch of robots running around. That should mean less soldiers getting killed, right?
Wrong: Bot soldiers will eventually be used to do suicide missions that the meat variety won't do. That means more intense and grubby conflict which means more injury and deaths - not less.
MS has a track record of submitting its specs/patents to standards bodies and then trying to gouge people later. Look at FAT and SmartMedia for instance.
He allegendly downloaded at 1266 files * $750 per file * approx 0.5 GBP per $ = approx GBP 475k
A mechanism that is difficult to crack (whether that is a physical lock or DRM or password) makes it harder for the cracker and reduces the likelihood of someone actually doing the cracking. That removes casual crackers from the equation.
It also makes the cracking act more deliberate and makes it far harder for someone to claim: "That diamond got in my pocket.... I just found it on the sidewalk and thought it had been thrown out." or "Oh that music on my MP2 player... I thought it was free!"
That is very true. Unfortunately that is not what they do with their fantastic resources. Rather than try make things better by putting their efforts into improved products, they seem to put their efforts into gaining marketshare through destructive behaviour. Look at Zune and Vista. Look at WinCE.
Imagine how cool computing could be if MS instead put their efforts into competing by making better products.