Re:Time Zone preferences-- legal battle awaits?
on
MacOS X DP3
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· Score: 1
It wasn't a legal issue. MS in their first release of W95 accidently left India out of the timezone drawings. This raised enough of a stink in India that the (Indian) government was on the verge of banning the sale of W95. Rather than fix it, MS apparently decided to play it safe and not draw timezones for anybody.
Ok ok, they only moved JIT techniques a bit closer to the hardware. You're right, it's still software, even if in the end it is shown to be hardware assisted software.
My first attempt to post got lost in the Ether..does that make me a nonfirst post or a first nonpost?:)
It seems that what Transmeta has done is to take the ideas developed for JIT compilers and apply them all to hardware. Pretty neat stuff.
Re:To tap, or not to tap
on
CALEA update
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· Score: 1
So the question really is not, "hey, to tap or not to tap?" but rather "is the FBI mature enough to use their new power appropriately?"
No, that is not the question. Look at this scenerio: Suppose the FBI is `mature enough' today. That is no guarantee they will remain `mature enough' as administrations and personnel gradually change over the years.
An effective privacy safeguard does not depend on handing out bully powers to a group and then depend on the potential bully remaining `mature enough' not to abuse his powers.
Given the racheting nature of the molecular wheel, it might be able derive power from the effects of Brownian motion.
It would therefore convert temperature to mechanical motion without a temperature gradient. I believe that the 2nd law of thermodynamics makes that impossible, yet.. I can't see why it wouldn't work.
Given that GnuPG is open source, which means it will be peer-reviewed with eyeballs from all over the world, I wonder what would happen to its export status if the maintainers received and applied even one bug fix or ehancement derived from a USofA based reviewer/user.
I seem to remember from long ago that the switching time for neurons is the same as that for mechanical relays.. on the order of milliseconds. Such low switching time makes it impossible for vision to be operating in anything other than a massively parallel manner.
Given this, the article will have to do better than just state `vision is serial' w/o specifying how that is possible when using slow neurons.
All of the posts I have read are missing the point. This guy is doesn't want to be a voyeur, he doesn't want to be a babysitter, he doesn't want to be a tattletale. He doesn't want to be any part of any implementation of a privacy policy. His question is: can my employer *force* me to do this distasteful, snoopy job?
The answer to that is: yes. If your goal is to keep the job no matter what, and they are really insistant and will not let you back out, then you will have to leave or you will have to get fired. Most states have employment-at-will, which means that you can be fired anytime, for any reason or for no reason, and they are not required to tell you what the reason is.
What would I do? Well, first, I am such a straight-laced cuss it may be that no one would even dream of putting that kind of request to me. But if they did, I would firmly state, immediately, that I would not do that, and they could do whatever they want, but it won't get done, get someone else or fire me or whatever they want to do. Basically, I would let them know in No Uncertain Terms what my position is. Then I would leave it up to them.
What Congress gives, Congress can take away. This capriciousness without consequences is the definition of True Power.
The three-year moratorium on new Internet tax may end prematurely if a new bill is passed... Hollings' proposed bill infringes on the Internet Tax Freedom Act, enacted into law last October.
Perhaps it is time to come out with GIFv2. This would be identical with GIFv1, except that the compression step would be replaced with an unpatented algorithm. zlib comes to mind. Such a simple, nobrainer transformation would give web site developers a GIF indistinguishable in functionality from the old, and at the same time give the maintainers of GIF tools an ultra-easy enhancement they could do to improve the salability of their work.
As nice as it might sound to get rid of those damn animated GIFs as banner ads, this might lead to something far more annyoing and evil: Java banner ads.
That would be a wonderful development. I like to run my browser with Java disabled. Doesn't everyone??:)
So why haven't we seen these chips before, if the news is old?
For the simple reason that, though a multithreaded machine is in the aggregate faster, though it makes more efficient use of chip resources, though it promotes fast context switching at the microinstruction level, any single thread will run *slower* on such a chip than on a chip optimized to run a single thread. This kills benchmark results for all the typical highly publisized benchmarks.
Until now, no one wanted to run a chip which had a lower benchmark rating. Nowdays, there is a greater appreciation for multiprocessing, and, due to the high performance of todays chips, the single-thread benchmark race is finally loosening its grip on the mind of purchasing agents and of the computing public.
Just because the original OS/2 NT specs are being donated to the Smithsonian doesn't mean that they will be displayed. Most of the Smithsonian's treasures are stored in the basement and will never see the light of day. Many basement treasures are of questionable value since the Smithsonian will accept most any donation that has any chance, however remote, of someday being significant.
people like Bob Young, Larry Augustin and Co. will make HUGE amounts of *PERSONAL* money from yelling "Linux is for Everyone" and letting you fools code for FREE. OSS == Freedom == MONEY FOR THEM AND NOT YOU.
And how is that different from the commercial world? A select few make all the bucks there too. At least with OSS the drudges have freedom of choice in what they will drudge in.
The most useful (and boring) way to look at this chip is to think of it as an ordinary 2-processor symmetric multiprocessor. Run a normal SMP OS on it, no problem. Same benefits, same disadvantages.
No need to complicate this debate with statements like `this will be *useless* unless we solve the dynamic autothreading problem of single apps!'. SMP is useful for running unrelated threads/apps concurrently today. Tomorrow's single chip form will be just as useful.
The only complication I see this chip introduce is that, because the two instruction streams share the same resource units (fpu units, barrel shifters, alus), heavy use of resources by one of the threads will slow the other thread down. Traditional SMPs don''t have this problem.. *all* resources are duplicated.
Thats fine by me. There is some pretty neat scheduling advantages to that restriction. For example, if the chip is designed right, one could schedule thread #1 to get 75% of the instruction microcycles, while #2 gets 25%, and whatever microcycles each can't use the other gets. Alternatively, one could schedule thread #1 to get 100% of the microcyles while #2 gets whatever of those microcyles #1 wasn't able to use.
Ahhhhhh heaven. True realtime scheduling at the instruction level, no overhead. Who could ask for more? No wonder why this chip is directed at the embedded market. They could really use this feature.
A bit of history: I believe this idea was floated at Xerox PARC, at the time those folks were inventing mice and desktops and shared printers.
All this shows is that it's crushing competition that brings in the productivity increases, not particular tricks that may or may not offer the chance of productivity, such as the use of computers.
Certainly Fred is off-base in blithly assuming it's brokenWindows penchant to crash which is at fault. He might be right, he just has no proof. Just guesses.
The three Turning chapters are in encryped pdf, darn it. Xpdf doesn't support that format, on purpose, due to a perhaps-misguided attempt to avoid being sued by the US gov for exporting munitions (ie, encryption software). Wonder how Adobe AcroReader avoids that problem? Guess I will have to wait until tonite to read this stuff on my trusty rusty old home PC.
The wording is pretty reasonable. The terms are unenforcable for your first/whois until the UCITA passes, and then only in the USofA in those states where it passes. Until then, your first/whois is license-free and all following/whois's are not.. since by then you know what the license terms are:)
The 4-minute install time is, of course, valid only for people so experienced, they could do it in their sleep. What really counts is the install time for clueless novices, or slightly clueful novices. That is the true measure of ease-of-install.
> The main difference is that if I'm looking for > "1996 Budget Report" and I ask Altavista I'm > going to get everything that even mentions it.
And how is the CNRP better? Someone pays to get a CNRP name attached to their `1996 budget report' URL, what is the likelihood that the returned report is the one that you wanted to retrieve? Damn poor, IMHO. Even when restricted to a company/intranet, which department's 1996 report should be returned? I'd rather not have a CNRP mechanism silently winnowing down my choices, thank you.
As far as the Intranet angle goes, the Intranet administrator has the option of setting up a private search engine database, utilizing any of the search engine database building software that is available, some of it GPLed. This would enable you, the user, to search for all 1996 reports restricted to just your Intranet, thereby automatically ignoring those 1996 reports out on the WWW. It's just too easy.
Clearly, the proposers of CNRP are either clueless about what can be done today, or they are pushing something slimy.
And.. Internet standards have historically been a community-driven peer-reviewed process, done via RFCs. The RFC process is the precurser to today's OSS methodology. Who gave the CNRP people the authority to usurp this?
This common-name-to-URL-mapping technology already exists. It's called `Altavista'.
Seriously, who ever types in URLs these days? I don't. They are all generated by Altavista searchs, following links, saved bookmarks. I don't think I am unusual in this either.
This common-name proposal seems to be Yet Another One of those marketing schemes designed to raise money without providing value in return.
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't a legal issue. MS in their first release of W95 accidently left India out of the timezone drawings. This raised enough of a stink in India that the (Indian) government was on the verge of banning the sale of W95. Rather than fix it, MS apparently decided to play it safe and not draw timezones for anybody.
Ok ok, they only moved JIT techniques a bit closer to the hardware. You're right, it's still software, even if in the end it is shown to be hardware assisted software.
:)
My first attempt to post got lost in the Ether..does that make me a nonfirst post or a first nonpost?
It seems that what Transmeta has done is to take the ideas developed for JIT compilers and apply them all to hardware. Pretty neat stuff.
No, that is not the question. Look at this scenerio: Suppose the FBI is `mature enough' today. That is no guarantee they will remain `mature enough' as administrations and personnel gradually change over the years.
An effective privacy safeguard does not depend on handing out bully powers to a group and then depend on the potential bully remaining `mature enough' not to abuse his powers.
Given the racheting nature of the molecular wheel, it might be able derive power from the effects of Brownian motion.
.. I can't see why it wouldn't work.
It would therefore convert temperature to mechanical motion without a temperature gradient. I believe that the 2nd law of thermodynamics makes that impossible, yet
Given that GnuPG is open source, which means it will be peer-reviewed with eyeballs from all over the world, I wonder what would happen to its export status if the maintainers received and applied even one bug fix or ehancement derived from a USofA based reviewer/user.
I seem to remember from long ago that the switching time for neurons is the same as that for mechanical relays .. on the order of milliseconds. Such low switching time makes it impossible for vision to be operating in anything other than a massively parallel manner.
Given this, the article will have to do better than just state `vision is serial' w/o specifying how that is possible when using slow neurons.
Joe
It appears that this ruling criminalizes the use of Linux as a home operating system. This would be true if every approved filter ran only on W95/NT.
All of the posts I have read are missing the point. This guy is doesn't want to be a voyeur, he doesn't want to be a babysitter, he doesn't want to be a tattletale. He doesn't want to be any part of any implementation of a privacy policy. His question is: can my employer *force* me to do this distasteful, snoopy job?
The answer to that is: yes. If your goal is to keep the job no matter what, and they are really insistant and will not let you back out, then you will have to leave or you will have to get fired. Most states have employment-at-will, which means that you can be fired anytime, for any reason or for no reason, and they are not required to tell you what the reason is.
What would I do? Well, first, I am such a straight-laced cuss it may be that no one would even dream of putting that kind of request to me. But if they did, I would firmly state, immediately, that I would not do that, and they could do whatever they want, but it won't get done, get someone else or fire me or whatever they want to do. Basically, I would let them know in No Uncertain Terms what my position is. Then I would leave it up to them.
What Congress gives, Congress can take away. This capriciousness without consequences is the definition of True Power.
The three-year moratorium on new Internet tax may end prematurely if a new bill is passed
Perhaps it is time to come out with GIFv2. This would be identical with GIFv1, except that the compression step would be replaced with an unpatented algorithm. zlib comes to mind. Such a simple, nobrainer transformation would give web site developers a GIF indistinguishable in functionality from the old, and at the same time give the maintainers of GIF tools an ultra-easy enhancement they could do to improve the salability of their work.
As nice as it might sound to get rid of those damn animated GIFs as banner ads, this might lead to something far more annyoing and evil: Java banner ads.
:)
That would be a wonderful development. I like to run my browser with Java disabled. Doesn't everyone??
So why haven't we seen these chips before, if the news is old?
For the simple reason that, though a multithreaded machine is in the aggregate faster, though it makes more efficient use of chip resources, though it promotes fast context switching at the microinstruction level, any single thread will run *slower* on such a chip than on a chip optimized to run a single thread. This kills benchmark results for all the typical highly publisized benchmarks.
Until now, no one wanted to run a chip which had a lower benchmark rating. Nowdays, there is a greater appreciation for multiprocessing, and, due to the high performance of todays chips, the single-thread benchmark race is finally loosening its grip on the mind of purchasing agents and of the computing public.
Joe
Just because the original OS/2 NT specs are being donated to the Smithsonian doesn't mean that they will be displayed. Most of the Smithsonian's treasures are stored in the basement and will never see the light of day. Many basement treasures are of questionable value since the Smithsonian will accept most any donation that has any chance, however remote, of someday being significant.
Isn't this the third time this site has been featured in /. ????? Geesh.
And how is that different from the commercial world? A select few make all the bucks there too. At least with OSS the drudges have freedom of choice in what they will drudge in.
The most useful (and boring) way to look at this chip is to think of it as an ordinary 2-processor symmetric multiprocessor. Run a normal SMP OS on it, no problem. Same benefits, same disadvantages.
.. *all* resources are duplicated.
No need to complicate this debate with statements like `this will be *useless* unless we solve the dynamic autothreading problem of single apps!'. SMP is useful for running unrelated threads/apps concurrently today. Tomorrow's single chip form will be just as useful.
The only complication I see this chip introduce is that, because the two instruction streams share the same resource units (fpu units, barrel shifters, alus), heavy use of resources by one of the threads will slow the other thread down. Traditional SMPs don''t have this problem
Thats fine by me. There is some pretty neat scheduling advantages to that restriction. For example, if the chip is designed right, one could schedule thread #1 to get 75% of the instruction microcycles, while #2 gets 25%, and whatever microcycles each can't use the other gets. Alternatively, one could schedule thread #1 to get 100% of the microcyles while #2 gets whatever of those microcyles #1 wasn't able to use.
Ahhhhhh heaven. True realtime scheduling at the instruction level, no overhead. Who could ask for more? No wonder why this chip is directed at the embedded market. They could really use this feature.
A bit of history: I believe this idea was floated at Xerox PARC, at the time those folks were inventing mice and desktops and shared printers.
All this shows is that it's crushing competition that brings in the productivity increases, not particular tricks that may or may not offer the chance of productivity, such as the use of computers.
Certainly Fred is off-base in blithly assuming it's brokenWindows penchant to crash which is at fault. He might be right, he just has no proof. Just guesses.
I wonder how this thing stops?
I wonder how it can head cattycorner to the wind?
I wonder how it can tack?
It has no keel like a real sailboat has. The counterforces developed by the keel is what enables sailors to sail in directions the wind is not going.
All in all, an interesting idea and one with lots of potential. Even if the only thrust possible is radially outward from the sun.
The three Turning chapters are in encryped pdf, darn it. Xpdf doesn't support that format, on purpose, due to a perhaps-misguided attempt to avoid being sued by the US gov for exporting munitions (ie, encryption software). Wonder how Adobe AcroReader avoids that problem? Guess I will have to wait until tonite to read this stuff on my trusty rusty old home PC.
The wording is pretty reasonable. The terms are unenforcable for your first /whois until the UCITA passes, and then only in the USofA in those states where it passes. Until then, your first /whois is license-free and all following /whois's are not .. since by then you know what the license terms are:)
The 4-minute install time is, of course, valid only for people so experienced, they could do it in their sleep. What really counts is the install time for clueless novices, or slightly clueful novices. That is the true measure of ease-of-install.
Joe
> The main difference is that if I'm looking for
.. Internet standards have historically been a community-driven peer-reviewed process, done via RFCs. The RFC process is the precurser to today's OSS methodology. Who gave the CNRP people the authority to usurp this?
> "1996 Budget Report" and I ask Altavista I'm
> going to get everything that even mentions it.
And how is the CNRP better? Someone pays to get a CNRP name attached to their `1996 budget report' URL, what is the likelihood that the returned report is the one that you wanted to retrieve? Damn poor, IMHO. Even when restricted to a company/intranet, which department's 1996 report should be returned? I'd rather not have a CNRP mechanism silently winnowing down my choices, thank you.
As far as the Intranet angle goes, the Intranet administrator has the option of setting up a private search engine database, utilizing any of the search engine database building software that is available, some of it GPLed. This would enable you, the user, to search for all 1996 reports restricted to just your Intranet, thereby automatically ignoring those 1996 reports out on the WWW. It's just too easy.
Clearly, the proposers of CNRP are either clueless about what can be done today, or they are pushing something slimy.
And
[sarcasm ON] Where's the RFC? It cannot become an internet standard without being an RFC.
This common-name-to-URL-mapping technology already exists. It's called `Altavista'.
Seriously, who ever types in URLs these days? I don't. They are all generated by Altavista searchs, following links, saved bookmarks. I don't think I am unusual in this either.
This common-name proposal seems to be Yet Another One of those marketing schemes designed to raise money without providing value in return.