That was the one that caused Java processes to run away and use 100% CPU, wasn't it? From what I remember, it was only in a small subset of recent kernels, and older ones were fine.
At work we have a PC which runs with no ad-blocking. Opening a web site often involves staring at a blank window for thirty seconds or more with a status bar saying something like 'Waiting for ads.bollockx.com'.
If the web wasn't such an ad-infested Swamp Of Suck, people wouldn't be blocking them.
There are so many laws today that you've probably committed six crimes before breakfast. If laws were actually enforced, not only would everyone be in jail, but they'd rapidly discover that the laws are so inconsistent that they can't even tell whether or not some things are crimes.
My Android tablet takes 30 seconds or more to boot. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except the battery only lasts about a day in standby, so it has to be shut down when we're not using it. The result is that, if we need to look something up quickly on the web, we boot the netbook, which takes half as long.
That's akin to turning off Flash to get rid of ads. Sounds like a good - no, great - idea, until you run into the problem of so many sites depending on it.
I uninstalled Flash a while ago. Other than youtube, I run into maybe one site a month that won't work without Flash, and they're clearly run by retards so I'm better off not going there.
Because it's Apple who won this move, patents are important to the Slashdot crowd. Funny that.
Most of us would be happy if patents were to go away.
What we object to is the US President telling US courts that he's going to ignore the law for Apple, but not for everyone else. Either the law applies to everyone, or it should be repealed, not just ignored by executive fiat.
Why would PBS write an app? Not trying to be snarky, I just have no idea why a producer of TV programming would make one. Is it for showing TV schedules?
It's an app. You've got to write apps.
Just like, a few years ago, you had to replace local applications with web pages because everything was going to 'web apps'. Fads come, fads go.
Things are different now. With flat panel monitors, you don't need to stick it up vertically in front of you. You can stick it flat on the desk, or have it in your lap, or have it in some way that rests your arms. So gorilla arm is a solvable problem.
I totally want to work with a 24" monitor flat on my desk or lap and my arms continually moving to touch it.
At the end of the day with C/C++ you have to deal with memory management and that's just one additional piece of work that you don't have to be so concerned with with Java.
You're funny.
I think we have about a dozen calls to new and free in a few hundred thousand lines of code in our server. The vast majority of memory allocation in C++ is hidden in libraries like STL, which we presume have been debugged.
In Java, on the other hand, you have to be very careful with memory management or you'll either end up pausing for long periods for garbage collection or crashing with out of memory errors. Instead of worrying about whether people remember to call free after allocating something, you end up putting in caches so you can reuse objects rather than reallocate them. We've used some Java libraries designed for high-performance financial uses and they try very hard not to allocate any objects that they'll later need to clean up.
Programmers believing that 'you don't have to worry about memory management in Java' is the reason so many Java programs are a slug-like mass of memory bloat.
If you're sufficiently distant from ground zero, where the primary hazard is from falling debris then yes, it can be effective.
In the UK, at least, there would have been few places 'sufficiently distant from ground zero'. Realistic predictions of a Soviet attack put most of the country in a blast zone powerful enough to damage a house badly enough that you'd die from fallout.
That isn't anywhere near what any war plan of the USSR would have entailed, and the USA and UK governments knew that quite well, so what the hell was the point of the war-gaming exercise?
Read 'War Plan UK', if you can find a copy.
Much of it seems to have been PR. Much of the rest seems to have been self-delusion. The remainder seems to have been 'What do you mean, why do we have war games? You've got to have war games,' and planning for everyone to die within two days wasn't much fun.
When I was writing Windows device drivers, we so, really loved stupid games that detected a debugger and refused to run.
Fortunately most developers stopped doing that once they realised that their customers would have to wait for bug-fixes until they'd reported it to us and then we'd contacted the developers and they'd sent us a special version without the retarded code that stopped us debugging the problem.
The, um, person who said that CAs would be providing their keys to governments?
The only thing the government can do with a CA key is create fake keys for other sites, signed by that CA. And then, when someone sees one in the wild and publishes the key across the Internet, the CA is toast.
The issue is not that there is anything wrong with the keys, but that you are trusting the provider of them to not be sharing them.
A trusted CA can just generate a new private key for the site and go MITM.
And you can see the key has changed, and post it all over the Internet to show that 'trusted CA' is issuing fake keys. And 'trusted CA' goes bust.
It's a really, really, really, really, freaking really dumb way to perform an MITM attack, because an end user can easily prove the attack happened, and show the CA is broken.
Slashdot Mirror
That was the one that caused Java processes to run away and use 100% CPU, wasn't it? From what I remember, it was only in a small subset of recent kernels, and older ones were fine.
Ha-ha-ha.
At work we have a PC which runs with no ad-blocking. Opening a web site often involves staring at a blank window for thirty seconds or more with a status bar saying something like 'Waiting for ads.bollockx.com'.
If the web wasn't such an ad-infested Swamp Of Suck, people wouldn't be blocking them.
There are no innocent people.
There are so many laws today that you've probably committed six crimes before breakfast. If laws were actually enforced, not only would everyone be in jail, but they'd rapidly discover that the laws are so inconsistent that they can't even tell whether or not some things are crimes.
Microsoft Office 2013 interface ... hurts my eyes just looking at it
Holy Carp! That makes even the new Hotmail UI look good.
I'll try that. Thanks.
'Cause tablets run on batteries.
My Android tablet takes 30 seconds or more to boot. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except the battery only lasts about a day in standby, so it has to be shut down when we're not using it. The result is that, if we need to look something up quickly on the web, we boot the netbook, which takes half as long.
But when you ACTUALLY USE ONE every day you realise that MS are on to something, even if it's not the perfect mix yet.
People have been saying that about Windows tablets since about 2001.
There's only so long you can 'double down' on a losing strategy before you have to admit defeat and fix it. Or go bust.
Where do you expect this Windows 8 and Surface fiasco will ultimately take Microsoft? What will happen?
Windows 9 will be 'The best Windows ever! Now with NEW mouse and Start Menu support!'
It therefore has probably the largest developer support base of any desktop platform.
Which might be good, if it wasn't a tablet that tries to be a crappy laptop.
That's akin to turning off Flash to get rid of ads. Sounds like a good - no, great - idea, until you run into the problem of so many sites depending on it.
I uninstalled Flash a while ago. Other than youtube, I run into maybe one site a month that won't work without Flash, and they're clearly run by retards so I'm better off not going there.
If you trust something a company promises to do for you decades in the future, you're a fool.
Pensions have been a collosal ponzi scheme, and are about to collapse.
Because it's Apple who won this move, patents are important to the Slashdot crowd. Funny that.
Most of us would be happy if patents were to go away.
What we object to is the US President telling US courts that he's going to ignore the law for Apple, but not for everyone else. Either the law applies to everyone, or it should be repealed, not just ignored by executive fiat.
Good God, man, this isn't just "one US corporation".
This is Apple.
Why would PBS write an app? Not trying to be snarky, I just have no idea why a producer of TV programming would make one. Is it for showing TV schedules?
It's an app. You've got to write apps.
Just like, a few years ago, you had to replace local applications with web pages because everything was going to 'web apps'. Fads come, fads go.
Things are different now. With flat panel monitors, you don't need to stick it up vertically in front of you. You can stick it flat on the desk, or have it in your lap, or have it in some way that rests your arms. So gorilla arm is a solvable problem.
I totally want to work with a 24" monitor flat on my desk or lap and my arms continually moving to touch it.
Bingo. When I was growing up, the 'masses' had a Sinclair ZX81 or Spectrum. Apples, or even Commodore 64s, were for the rich kids.
But I guess they must have had a good Reality Distortion Field even in those days.
If we weren't supposed to eat animals, they wouldn't taste so good.
At the end of the day with C/C++ you have to deal with memory management and that's just one additional piece of work that you don't have to be so concerned with with Java.
You're funny.
I think we have about a dozen calls to new and free in a few hundred thousand lines of code in our server. The vast majority of memory allocation in C++ is hidden in libraries like STL, which we presume have been debugged.
In Java, on the other hand, you have to be very careful with memory management or you'll either end up pausing for long periods for garbage collection or crashing with out of memory errors. Instead of worrying about whether people remember to call free after allocating something, you end up putting in caches so you can reuse objects rather than reallocate them. We've used some Java libraries designed for high-performance financial uses and they try very hard not to allocate any objects that they'll later need to clean up.
Programmers believing that 'you don't have to worry about memory management in Java' is the reason so many Java programs are a slug-like mass of memory bloat.
If you're sufficiently distant from ground zero, where the primary hazard is from falling debris then yes, it can be effective.
In the UK, at least, there would have been few places 'sufficiently distant from ground zero'. Realistic predictions of a Soviet attack put most of the country in a blast zone powerful enough to damage a house badly enough that you'd die from fallout.
That isn't anywhere near what any war plan of the USSR would have entailed, and the USA and UK governments knew that quite well, so what the hell was the point of the war-gaming exercise?
Read 'War Plan UK', if you can find a copy.
Much of it seems to have been PR. Much of the rest seems to have been self-delusion. The remainder seems to have been 'What do you mean, why do we have war games? You've got to have war games,' and planning for everyone to die within two days wasn't much fun.
it's even more drastic than you say. eyes are focused on the car 100 feet away, then GG 1 cm away. attention nightmare.
I don't know the details of Google Telescreen, but presumably the image is focussed at infinity, like previous wearable displays?
When I was writing Windows device drivers, we so, really loved stupid games that detected a debugger and refused to run.
Fortunately most developers stopped doing that once they realised that their customers would have to wait for bug-fixes until they'd reported it to us and then we'd contacted the developers and they'd sent us a special version without the retarded code that stopped us debugging the problem.
huh? who said anything about providing fake keys.
The, um, person who said that CAs would be providing their keys to governments?
The only thing the government can do with a CA key is create fake keys for other sites, signed by that CA. And then, when someone sees one in the wild and publishes the key across the Internet, the CA is toast.
The issue is not that there is anything wrong with the keys, but that you are trusting the provider of them to not be sharing them.
CAs don't provide keys. They just sign them.
A trusted CA can just generate a new private key for the site and go MITM.
And you can see the key has changed, and post it all over the Internet to show that 'trusted CA' is issuing fake keys. And 'trusted CA' goes bust.
It's a really, really, really, really, freaking really dumb way to perform an MITM attack, because an end user can easily prove the attack happened, and show the CA is broken.