why dont they just send a self destruct/uninstall command and kill it or would that be too simple ?
Because that would be highly illegal. Just as illegal as creating the botnet in the first place. You can't just make modifications to 180,000 computers without their owners knowledge or consent.
Some governmental agency should man up and do it, though. Researchers have been hijacking botnets to study them for a while now, they almost have it down to a science. Someone in Homeland Security should just grow some balls and hire a team of professionals to hijack and destroy botnets.
Yeah, that's right. Even if they're on a private LAN, or firewalled to hell, all the workstations are using legitimate public IPs. And back in the olden days, when most of these companies bought their blocks, if you needed more IPs than a class B there was no other option. Remember, NAT was still a long ways from being trivial to implement back then.
And it's not just workstations. I imagine for Ford, all their assembly robots have their own IP addresses. You'd need a few thousand IPs per factory. Similar situation at Halliburton, I bet there's thousands of network connected controllers in a single chemical plant.
How about they take back the Class A address space owned by companies who probably aren't even utilizing it
Sure you can say "they don't need them", but so what. They've been purchased. You can't just take back their address space.
Car analogy: That's like telling a soccer mom that because doesn't NEED her mammoth Hummer H2 to go buy a gallon of milk, that you are going to repossess it and give her a Chevy Aveo5 instead. Sure, it might be wasteful, but it's their legal right to own and use what they have purchased.
I'm sure once we're out of IPv4 addresses, some of these companies with old class A allocations will start selling off chunks of them for a tidy profit. But until that day, they've been purchased and allocated, and are not coming back.
It was also hosting the torrent tracker server that tracks the file chunks users were trading with each other. They offer the torrents, and they offer the server connecting the users
Neither of which are illegal under Swedish law. Under Swedish law, the ONLY people breaking the law are those downloading and uploading the pirated content. Citizens of Sweden are free to index and publish sources of illegal items (in this case, illegally shared files). Law enforcement is just as free to prosecute the provider of the illegal items (or files), but absolutely not the messenger.
To reiterate: under current Swedish law, the way to enforce copyright law is to prosecute users who are downloading/uploading copyrighted content, and NOT the operator of the tracker, who has not trafficked in any copyrighted content at all. Unless you can copyright an SHA1 hash, now (Maybe you could consider it a derivative work? That would be a frightening world).
This may be different in your country; I know it is different in mine. However, the guilty verdict this judge gave represented a drastic change in the way the Swedish judiciary interprets the existing law, one which runs counter to all prior decisions.
As an aside, a technical correction to your statement. A bittorrent tracker does not track file chunks. It does not monitor or arrange file transfers in any meaningful way. All it does is provide a list of IP addresses and ports of bittorrent clients who are trading in a particular torrent. Arranging transfers and piece swaps is entirely between the clients. Often a bittorrent client only checks in with the tracker a few times an hour, to get an updated list of IPs.
As I recall, there was a bit of a shitstorm back in 1997 over the use of a digitally generated Bill Clinton in the movie Contact. Apparently they forgot to ask permission.
First, LTI has stopped selling cars in the US. I imagine it's just too expensive to try to engineer a car to meet two completely different sets of crash tests. Cars that pass the european staggered impact test usually fail the US full frontal impact test, and vice versa.
But otherwise, if I'm doing my currency conversion right, a new London black cab costs well over $40,000. The price of a new base model Crown Victoria (by far the most popular taxicab in the US) is right around $25,000. Good luck selling the TX to a fleet manager.
As for the legroom, those damn safety partitions they put in are a major offender. Without the partition, and with the driver's seat adjusted into a reasonable location, there's usually enough room for your legs directly in front of you.
Also, since 2002, Ford has been offering an extended wheelbase version of the Crown Vic with 6 more inches of legroom in the rear. However, the vast majority of taxi outfits still buy the short wheelbase model. Probably out of frugality, but I'll go ahead and blame malice and masochism.
In NYC, there are two classes of taxi's, Medallion taxis and Livery taxis. Medallion cabs are only allowed to pick up fares who flag them down (and are required to be painted yellow), and Livery cabs are only allowed to pick up customers who have called a dispatch service (and are not allowed to be painted yellow).
A system like you suggest would only be possible for the livery cabs, as it would be illegal to summon a medallion cab remotely.
Even though most NYC taxis are in use 24 hrs/day, the drivers are not. Taxis already have to return to base at least 3 times a day to switch drivers. Just switch batteries when you switch drivers.
The catch would be getting a car company to invest in building these things, when they're going only going to sell a few thousand a year. Sure there's 13,000 cabs in New York, but they're only replaced at 3 year intervals. Most other metro areas allow much older cabs, and don't have nearly as many.
This is why Checker Motors went under in the 80's - there is just no way to sell enough taxicabs in America to pay for the R&D costs, not to mention factory tooling. The incremental design and tooling updates required to keep up with current safety and emissions regulations, not to mention ever-changing customer expectations, completely kill the business model.
Part of the cops reason for making a big deal out of Linux, is the DHCP lease logs. In addition to the MAC address, they record the OS and computer name. The OS is listed as "UNIX/LINUX Ubuntu", and the officer states there are only a couple students on the campus using Linux. Also the computer names match his.
It's just another way to tie the DHCP lease to this student, 3 pieces of matching information rather than just a MAC address.
Granted, every single one of those pieces of data can be changed or forged; change your MAC address and configure your DHCP client to report a different computer name/OS, and you could easily frame someone. This is probably the angle the EFF will take regarding this evidence in the trial.
Alternately, you could just configure your machine to use a static IP, which just happens to be the one currently assigned to your target.
As incriminating as these DHCP lease logs are, I would hate for them to be held up as conclusive proof of wrongdoing, given how easily they could be manipulated.
Due to Washington State's somewhat draconian Liquor Control Board, all bars have kitchens here. You can't get a license to serve alcohol in Washington State unless you also serve "full meals" which are prepared on the premises.
Some local bars are in trouble for skirting the rules by serving overpriced TV dinners that no one orders; most simply have a small grill and deep fryer to make burgers and jalapeño poppers. A few even just serve microwaved chicken wings, which probably wouldn't be enough if the L.C.B. wanted to challenge their liquor permits.
So the big deal wouldn't be adding a kitchen, the big deal would be removing the bar/taps, and the associated renovation of the dining area. As well as a near-total change of staffing.
But if he was accusing police officers of breaking the law, then it is his duty as a citizen to present his evidence to whatever the local equivalent of the Internal Affairs Department is.
He was. Some of the officers feel that bringing such complaints to the Professional Standards Bureau (PPD's equivalent of Internal Affairs) constitutes harrassment. Hence the search warrant for Computer Fraud with the intent to Harass. How on earth Computer Fraud plays into this, I don't know, other than it gives them an excuse to take his computers.
The warrant the judge signed was for Petty Theft, and "Computer Fraud with the intent to Harass".
The blogger is suing the City of Phoenix over it, which means the judge and the police will both be examined, if the case goes anywhere.
The alleged petty theft was for several officer's nameplates, which are actually copies made at a local trophy shop. Etched black lettering on a silver 2x8" plaque, Times New Roman, 48pt for the title, 72pt bold for the name.
Seriously, this is what most 360 owners do if they have a hardware failure that's not a RROD and thus not covered under the extended warranty. Either subject it to a hairdryer, or wrap it in towels and run it until it RROD's.
The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.
Either:
1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners
2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic
1 is the most likely - the owners of the more expensive console are freer with their money, and are more likely to buy a big stack of games.
It is also worth mentioning that the best selling games on PS3 are multiplatform games. GTA IV is the best selling ps3 game to date, and has sold 5.5 million copies worldwide. The top selling title on 360 is an exclusive (Halo 3), as are it's #4,#6,and #9 selling titles.
Actually, on reviewing the sales numbers, I'm beginning to doubt your statement that multiplat titles are selling better on PS3. Top selling PS3 games vs. top selling 360 games
Just from a quick examination of the numbers for the PS3's top multiplatform titles:
GTA4 PS3: 5.5m, 360:,6.9m Call of Duty 4 PS3: 4.1m, 360: 7.1m Assassin's Creed PS3: 3.3m, 360: 4.5m Call of Duty: World at War PS3: 3.0m, 360: 5.5m
Of course, there may be a boatload of small sellers at the bottom of the list which swing it back to the PS3's side, but that would require a much deeper examination, so I'll just ask for your source.
I don't doubt that some people are buying new 360's rather than redeeming their warranties, I just doubt your method for measuring how many.
fast dual-cores are going to blow away slow quads in gaming because most games are not programmed for multiple threads and take advantage of a higher clock core
This is becoming less true, things are beginning to change now. New PC games are coming out which are heavily multi-threaded.
Left 4 Dead, for example, performs better on a slow quad-core than on a fast dual-core. To be fair, this is an extremely recent game, but we can only expect this trend to continue.
Because the US government hasn't actually been voting their shares. They've been leaving the control of the company to the minority shares; to actually vote the government's shares and take control of the company smacks of nationalization, which is a dirty word right now.
Only NEW business apps are written in.NET, Visual BASIC and Java.
Most business apps found in the wild are old and unmaintained, written in a variety of elderly languages. They're still functional either in modern Windows installs, or on dedicated boxes running some free/cheap DOS variety.
Business offices don't upgrade their specialized, custom apps. They keep buying more licenses as they expand, but avoid upgrades at all costs while the original is still functional. Tour any large office with a specialized "business app", you will see lots of very antiquated user interfaces; some of them won't have mouse support.
It's no different than the automobile industry stating "EPA Estimated MPG city/highway" which is not based on a dynamometer test or actual performance measurement but instead is calculated based on the amount of CO2 which exits the exhaust pipe of the car!
I'm sick and tired of hearing this repeated over and over, and even on a website that's supposed to be read by geeky, sciency type people.
Yes, fuel consumption is measured by analyzing exhaust. However, this is an extremely accurate way of measuring it. Calculating the amount of C8H18 required to produce a given quantity of CO2 is a simple problem, one which a high school chemistry student could easily figure out. And it's certainly simpler than ripping apart the fuel system to try and measure every missing drop of fuel. And you don't have to worry about losses from evaporation or spills. If anything, it errs on the side of inefficiency, because of the extra CO2 introduced from any engine oil that is burned.
They DO perform the tests on a dynamometer, you are simply wrong. They use wind resistance values from wind tunnel testing of the vehicles to ensure that the dyno is programmed correctly for each car.
The only real fault in the system is that the "virtual driver" in the test is not nearly as aggressive as a typical driver today. Hard 0-70 acceleration and 85 MPH cruise speeds are not represented in these tests. The stop and go city portion of the simulation has the car stopping and going at legal, sedate speeds; no full throttle dashes from one stop light to another.
A new set of test procedures were instituted in for model year 2008 by the EPA, which are significantly more realistic. The previous tests were established in the late 70's and represented the typical driving conditions at that time. The old "highway" test routine had an average speed of only 45MPH and a top speed of 60MPH. Maximum acceleration in any of the old tests was 3.3 MPH/second The new "high speed" test has a top speed of 80 MPH and a acceleration rate of 8.5 MPH/second. The average speed is unchanged, though; I don't know many people who average 48 MPH on the freeway.
Most cars rated fuel economy has plummeted between '07 and '08, reflecting these new test procedures.
The microsoft campus is not some freeform corporate campus. The land was all bought up and developed piecemeal as the company grew. Most of the buildings are seperated by (small, old) public roads. Both of the roads that will be connected in this case (36th and 31st, to be connected on a diagonal because of a bend in the freeway) are old, public roads, which currently end in a T at the freeway. Through traffic from 148th to 156th will probably use it heavily, although it provides extra good Microsoft access (just 1 block east of the main arterial, 31st becomes Microsoft Way.)
I delivered pizza in Redmond, Wa. I grew up there. I knew all of this from my time there, but you could have easily figured it out from reading the article and looking at a map.
The only real reason I don't use it anymore? Lack of 48-bit LBA support
When I hit that barrier on one of my older machines, I just slapped in a cheap PCI IDE controller (SI680-based, also does raid 0/1). It was around $10.
A lot of legal questions surrounding patents arise when discussing multimedia technology. This mini-FAQ attempts to address these issues. Note that much of this discussion is based on precedent, or what has happened in the past under similar circumstances. Very little consideration is given to what could happen. If you use your imagination, you can visualize any dire scenario and cease doing any productive work.
Q: Does FFmpeg use patented algorithms? A: We do not know, we are not lawyers so we are not qualified to answer this. Also we have never read patents to implement any part of FFmpeg, so even if we were qualified we could not answer it as we do not know what is patented. Furthermore the sheer number of software patents makes it impossible to read them all so no one (lawyer or not) could answer such a question with a definite no, those who do lie. What we do know is that various standards FFmpeg supports contain vague hints that any conforming implementation might be subject to some patent rights in some jurisdictions, examples for such statements are: For H.264:
ITU draws attention to the possibility that the practice or implementation of this Recommendation may involve the use of a claimed Intellectual Property Right. ITU takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of claimed Intellectual Property Rights, whether asserted by ITU members or others outside of the Recommendation development process.
And for MPEG-4:
The user's attention is called to the possibility that, for some of the processes specified in this part of ISO/IEC 14496, conformance with this specification may require use of an invention covered by patent rights. By publication of this part of ISO/IEC 14496, no position is taken with respect to the validity of this claim or of any patent rights in connection therewith.
Q: Is it legal to use such patented algorithms? A: Patent laws change wildly between jurisdictions. Besides, even in places where software patents are recognized, there is serious doubt about the legitimacy of such legislation. Note that patents on algorithms are illegal in many countries. Plus the use of patents to prevent the usage of a format or codec on a specific operating system or together with specific other software might violate antitrust laws.
Q: Bottom line: Should I be worried about patent issues if I use FFmpeg? A: Are you a private user working with FFmpeg for your own personal purposes? If so, there is remarkably little reason to be concerned. Are you using FFmpeg in a commercial software product? Read on to the next question...
Q: Since FFmpeg is licensed under the LGPL, is it perfectly alright to incorporate the whole FFmpeg core into my own commercial product? A: You might have a problem here. Sure, the LGPL allows you to incorporate the code. However, there have been cases where companies have used FFmpeg in their projects, usually for such capabilities as superior MPEG-4 decoding. These companies found out that once you start trying to make money from certain technologies, the alleged owners of the technologies will come after their protection money. Most notably, MPEG-LA (licensing authority) is vigilant and diligent about collecting for MPEG-related technologies.
Q: You called the patent license fee protection money, is this a joke? A: No. The legal validity of these patents is highly questionable. Still in many current legal systems it is very easy to ruin a company with patents even if the patents are invalid. Paying the (small) license fee is much cheaper than a patent lawsuit during which you would not be able to sell your product as the patent would be valid until you win the lawsuit 5+ years in the future. That is assuming you did not go bankrupt in the meantime...
Q: Can I be safe if I have paid my protection money. A: You can never be safe as long as your country recognizes
Symantec has (finally) responded with a sticky on the forum from "davecole".
It's a statistical reporting tool that is normally included in patches, however due to an internal screwup, it was not signed. Because it was unsigned, the firewall looked at it quite skeptically.
They also attempt to explain their actions on the forum; from their description, it sounds like a typical Ebaums/YTMND raid. Their admin response was to carpet bomb the forums with bans and deletions indiscriminately. I don't think this is very professional of the admins; it reminds me of how Habbo responded back in the day. When you're the mouthpiece of a company that size, you should know that a overly aggressive response to a raid will do you more PR damage than just letting it go.
Furthermore 4chan's/b/ seems to have a field day with this. Norton discussion boards appear very slow.
Having/b/ come over for a visit will slow any forum to a crawl and make their admins resort to extreme measures. IIRC, 4chan saturates a gigabit link under normal conditions; having a fraction of that population attempt to inhabit a run-of-the-mill php forum will have it's operators crying for mercy.
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why dont they just send a self destruct/uninstall command and kill it or would that be too simple ?
Because that would be highly illegal. Just as illegal as creating the botnet in the first place. You can't just make modifications to 180,000 computers without their owners knowledge or consent.
Some governmental agency should man up and do it, though. Researchers have been hijacking botnets to study them for a while now, they almost have it down to a science. Someone in Homeland Security should just grow some balls and hire a team of professionals to hijack and destroy botnets.
Ford has serious stockpiles of cash and is in no danger of going out of business any time soon, especially with the strength of their European sales.
You must be thinking of GM and Chrysler.
a public IP address for every workstation
Yeah, that's right. Even if they're on a private LAN, or firewalled to hell, all the workstations are using legitimate public IPs. And back in the olden days, when most of these companies bought their blocks, if you needed more IPs than a class B there was no other option. Remember, NAT was still a long ways from being trivial to implement back then.
And it's not just workstations. I imagine for Ford, all their assembly robots have their own IP addresses. You'd need a few thousand IPs per factory. Similar situation at Halliburton, I bet there's thousands of network connected controllers in a single chemical plant.
How about they take back the Class A address space owned by companies who probably aren't even utilizing it
Sure you can say "they don't need them", but so what. They've been purchased. You can't just take back their address space.
Car analogy: That's like telling a soccer mom that because doesn't NEED her mammoth Hummer H2 to go buy a gallon of milk, that you are going to repossess it and give her a Chevy Aveo5 instead.
Sure, it might be wasteful, but it's their legal right to own and use what they have purchased.
I'm sure once we're out of IPv4 addresses, some of these companies with old class A allocations will start selling off chunks of them for a tidy profit. But until that day, they've been purchased and allocated, and are not coming back.
It was also hosting the torrent tracker server that tracks the file chunks users were trading with each other. They offer the torrents, and they offer the server connecting the users
Neither of which are illegal under Swedish law. Under Swedish law, the ONLY people breaking the law are those downloading and uploading the pirated content. Citizens of Sweden are free to index and publish sources of illegal items (in this case, illegally shared files). Law enforcement is just as free to prosecute the provider of the illegal items (or files), but absolutely not the messenger.
To reiterate: under current Swedish law, the way to enforce copyright law is to prosecute users who are downloading/uploading copyrighted content, and NOT the operator of the tracker, who has not trafficked in any copyrighted content at all. Unless you can copyright an SHA1 hash, now (Maybe you could consider it a derivative work? That would be a frightening world).
This may be different in your country; I know it is different in mine. However, the guilty verdict this judge gave represented a drastic change in the way the Swedish judiciary interprets the existing law, one which runs counter to all prior decisions.
As an aside, a technical correction to your statement. A bittorrent tracker does not track file chunks. It does not monitor or arrange file transfers in any meaningful way. All it does is provide a list of IP addresses and ports of bittorrent clients who are trading in a particular torrent. Arranging transfers and piece swaps is entirely between the clients. Often a bittorrent client only checks in with the tracker a few times an hour, to get an updated list of IPs.
You're right, this is hardly the first instance of an actor aging out of a role.
Brent Spiner has noted that he has visibly aged out of the role and that it would be implausible for him to continue playing an android whose appearance should not change with time
T-1000, like Data, should not age.
As I recall, there was a bit of a shitstorm back in 1997 over the use of a digitally generated Bill Clinton in the movie Contact. Apparently they forgot to ask permission.
First, LTI has stopped selling cars in the US. I imagine it's just too expensive to try to engineer a car to meet two completely different sets of crash tests. Cars that pass the european staggered impact test usually fail the US full frontal impact test, and vice versa.
But otherwise, if I'm doing my currency conversion right, a new London black cab costs well over $40,000. The price of a new base model Crown Victoria (by far the most popular taxicab in the US) is right around $25,000. Good luck selling the TX to a fleet manager.
As for the legroom, those damn safety partitions they put in are a major offender. Without the partition, and with the driver's seat adjusted into a reasonable location, there's usually enough room for your legs directly in front of you.
Also, since 2002, Ford has been offering an extended wheelbase version of the Crown Vic with 6 more inches of legroom in the rear. However, the vast majority of taxi outfits still buy the short wheelbase model. Probably out of frugality, but I'll go ahead and blame malice and masochism.
In NYC, there are two classes of taxi's, Medallion taxis and Livery taxis. Medallion cabs are only allowed to pick up fares who flag them down (and are required to be painted yellow), and Livery cabs are only allowed to pick up customers who have called a dispatch service (and are not allowed to be painted yellow).
A system like you suggest would only be possible for the livery cabs, as it would be illegal to summon a medallion cab remotely.
Even though most NYC taxis are in use 24 hrs/day, the drivers are not. Taxis already have to return to base at least 3 times a day to switch drivers. Just switch batteries when you switch drivers.
The catch would be getting a car company to invest in building these things, when they're going only going to sell a few thousand a year. Sure there's 13,000 cabs in New York, but they're only replaced at 3 year intervals. Most other metro areas allow much older cabs, and don't have nearly as many.
This is why Checker Motors went under in the 80's - there is just no way to sell enough taxicabs in America to pay for the R&D costs, not to mention factory tooling. The incremental design and tooling updates required to keep up with current safety and emissions regulations, not to mention ever-changing customer expectations, completely kill the business model.
Part of the cops reason for making a big deal out of Linux, is the DHCP lease logs. In addition to the MAC address, they record the OS and computer name. The OS is listed as "UNIX/LINUX Ubuntu", and the officer states there are only a couple students on the campus using Linux. Also the computer names match his.
It's just another way to tie the DHCP lease to this student, 3 pieces of matching information rather than just a MAC address.
Granted, every single one of those pieces of data can be changed or forged; change your MAC address and configure your DHCP client to report a different computer name/OS, and you could easily frame someone. This is probably the angle the EFF will take regarding this evidence in the trial.
Alternately, you could just configure your machine to use a static IP, which just happens to be the one currently assigned to your target.
As incriminating as these DHCP lease logs are, I would hate for them to be held up as conclusive proof of wrongdoing, given how easily they could be manipulated.
Due to Washington State's somewhat draconian Liquor Control Board, all bars have kitchens here. You can't get a license to serve alcohol in Washington State unless you also serve "full meals" which are prepared on the premises.
Some local bars are in trouble for skirting the rules by serving overpriced TV dinners that no one orders; most simply have a small grill and deep fryer to make burgers and jalapeño poppers. A few even just serve microwaved chicken wings, which probably wouldn't be enough if the L.C.B. wanted to challenge their liquor permits.
So the big deal wouldn't be adding a kitchen, the big deal would be removing the bar/taps, and the associated renovation of the dining area. As well as a near-total change of staffing.
But if he was accusing police officers of breaking the law, then it is his duty as a citizen to present his evidence to whatever the local equivalent of the Internal Affairs Department is.
He was. Some of the officers feel that bringing such complaints to the Professional Standards Bureau (PPD's equivalent of Internal Affairs) constitutes harrassment. Hence the search warrant for Computer Fraud with the intent to Harass. How on earth Computer Fraud plays into this, I don't know, other than it gives them an excuse to take his computers.
The warrant the judge signed was for Petty Theft, and "Computer Fraud with the intent to Harass".
The blogger is suing the City of Phoenix over it, which means the judge and the police will both be examined, if the case goes anywhere.
The alleged petty theft was for several officer's nameplates, which are actually copies made at a local trophy shop. Etched black lettering on a silver 2x8" plaque, Times New Roman, 48pt for the title, 72pt bold for the name.
Why is parent modded funny?
Seriously, this is what most 360 owners do if they have a hardware failure that's not a RROD and thus not covered under the extended warranty. Either subject it to a hairdryer, or wrap it in towels and run it until it RROD's.
The problem for Microsoft is the sales numbers from major console game publishers is showing equal to or greater sales rates for multiplatform games on the PS3 even though the 360 supposedly having a huge installed base amount in the US.
Either:
1. PS3 owners are buying massively more multiplatform games relative to 360 owners
2. The number of duplicate 360 consoles owned in the US is gigantic
1 is the most likely - the owners of the more expensive console are freer with their money, and are more likely to buy a big stack of games.
It is also worth mentioning that the best selling games on PS3 are multiplatform games. GTA IV is the best selling ps3 game to date, and has sold 5.5 million copies worldwide. The top selling title on 360 is an exclusive (Halo 3), as are it's #4,#6,and #9 selling titles.
Actually, on reviewing the sales numbers, I'm beginning to doubt your statement that multiplat titles are selling better on PS3.
Top selling PS3 games vs. top selling 360 games
Just from a quick examination of the numbers for the PS3's top multiplatform titles:
GTA4
PS3: 5.5m, 360:,6.9m
Call of Duty 4
PS3: 4.1m, 360: 7.1m
Assassin's Creed
PS3: 3.3m, 360: 4.5m
Call of Duty: World at War
PS3: 3.0m, 360: 5.5m
Of course, there may be a boatload of small sellers at the bottom of the list which swing it back to the PS3's side, but that would require a much deeper examination, so I'll just ask for your source.
I don't doubt that some people are buying new 360's rather than redeeming their warranties, I just doubt your method for measuring how many.
fast dual-cores are going to blow away slow quads in gaming because most games are not programmed for multiple threads and take advantage of a higher clock core
This is becoming less true, things are beginning to change now. New PC games are coming out which are heavily multi-threaded.
Left 4 Dead, for example, performs better on a slow quad-core than on a fast dual-core. To be fair, this is an extremely recent game, but we can only expect this trend to continue.
Because the US government hasn't actually been voting their shares. They've been leaving the control of the company to the minority shares; to actually vote the government's shares and take control of the company smacks of nationalization, which is a dirty word right now.
Only NEW business apps are written in .NET, Visual BASIC and Java.
Most business apps found in the wild are old and unmaintained, written in a variety of elderly languages. They're still functional either in modern Windows installs, or on dedicated boxes running some free/cheap DOS variety.
Business offices don't upgrade their specialized, custom apps. They keep buying more licenses as they expand, but avoid upgrades at all costs while the original is still functional. Tour any large office with a specialized "business app", you will see lots of very antiquated user interfaces; some of them won't have mouse support.
It's no different than the automobile industry stating "EPA Estimated MPG city/highway" which is not based on a dynamometer test or actual performance measurement but instead is calculated based on the amount of CO2 which exits the exhaust pipe of the car!
I'm sick and tired of hearing this repeated over and over, and even on a website that's supposed to be read by geeky, sciency type people.
Yes, fuel consumption is measured by analyzing exhaust. However, this is an extremely accurate way of measuring it. Calculating the amount of C8H18 required to produce a given quantity of CO2 is a simple problem, one which a high school chemistry student could easily figure out. And it's certainly simpler than ripping apart the fuel system to try and measure every missing drop of fuel. And you don't have to worry about losses from evaporation or spills. If anything, it errs on the side of inefficiency, because of the extra CO2 introduced from any engine oil that is burned.
They DO perform the tests on a dynamometer, you are simply wrong. They use wind resistance values from wind tunnel testing of the vehicles to ensure that the dyno is programmed correctly for each car.
The only real fault in the system is that the "virtual driver" in the test is not nearly as aggressive as a typical driver today. Hard 0-70 acceleration and 85 MPH cruise speeds are not represented in these tests. The stop and go city portion of the simulation has the car stopping and going at legal, sedate speeds; no full throttle dashes from one stop light to another.
A new set of test procedures were instituted in for model year 2008 by the EPA, which are significantly more realistic. The previous tests were established in the late 70's and represented the typical driving conditions at that time. The old "highway" test routine had an average speed of only 45MPH and a top speed of 60MPH. Maximum acceleration in any of the old tests was 3.3 MPH/second The new "high speed" test has a top speed of 80 MPH and a acceleration rate of 8.5 MPH/second. The average speed is unchanged, though; I don't know many people who average 48 MPH on the freeway.
Most cars rated fuel economy has plummeted between '07 and '08, reflecting these new test procedures.
Actually, we voted on this last November, and it passed.
East Link from the Seattle transit tunnel to Redmond, via I-90 and downtown Bellevue. Construction begins 2013, estimated completion 2020.
Roads of this nature are usually private.
The microsoft campus is not some freeform corporate campus. The land was all bought up and developed piecemeal as the company grew. Most of the buildings are seperated by (small, old) public roads. Both of the roads that will be connected in this case (36th and 31st, to be connected on a diagonal because of a bend in the freeway) are old, public roads, which currently end in a T at the freeway. Through traffic from 148th to 156th will probably use it heavily, although it provides extra good Microsoft access (just 1 block east of the main arterial, 31st becomes Microsoft Way.)
I delivered pizza in Redmond, Wa. I grew up there. I knew all of this from my time there, but you could have easily figured it out from reading the article and looking at a map.
The only real reason I don't use it anymore? Lack of 48-bit LBA support
When I hit that barrier on one of my older machines, I just slapped in a cheap PCI IDE controller (SI680-based, also does raid 0/1). It was around $10.
From the FFMPEG website:
Patent Mini-FAQ
A lot of legal questions surrounding patents arise when discussing multimedia technology. This mini-FAQ attempts to address these issues. Note that much of this discussion is based on precedent, or what has happened in the past under similar circumstances. Very little consideration is given to what could happen. If you use your imagination, you can visualize any dire scenario and cease doing any productive work.
Q: Does FFmpeg use patented algorithms?
A: We do not know, we are not lawyers so we are not qualified to answer this. Also we have never read patents to implement any part of FFmpeg, so even if we were qualified we could not answer it as we do not know what is patented. Furthermore the sheer number of software patents makes it impossible to read them all so no one (lawyer or not) could answer such a question with a definite no, those who do lie. What we do know is that various standards FFmpeg supports contain vague hints that any conforming implementation might be subject to some patent rights in some jurisdictions, examples for such statements are:
For H.264:
ITU draws attention to the possibility that the practice or implementation of this Recommendation may involve the use of a claimed Intellectual Property Right. ITU takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of claimed Intellectual Property Rights, whether asserted by ITU members or others outside of the Recommendation development process.
And for MPEG-4:
The user's attention is called to the possibility that, for some of the processes specified in this part of ISO/IEC 14496, conformance with this specification may require use of an invention covered by patent rights. By publication of this part of ISO/IEC 14496, no position is taken with respect to the validity of this claim or of any patent rights in connection therewith.
Q: Is it legal to use such patented algorithms?
A: Patent laws change wildly between jurisdictions. Besides, even in places where software patents are recognized, there is serious doubt about the legitimacy of such legislation. Note that patents on algorithms are illegal in many countries. Plus the use of patents to prevent the usage of a format or codec on a specific operating system or together with specific other software might violate antitrust laws.
Q: Bottom line: Should I be worried about patent issues if I use FFmpeg?
A: Are you a private user working with FFmpeg for your own personal purposes? If so, there is remarkably little reason to be concerned. Are you using FFmpeg in a commercial software product? Read on to the next question...
Q: Since FFmpeg is licensed under the LGPL, is it perfectly alright to incorporate the whole FFmpeg core into my own commercial product?
A: You might have a problem here. Sure, the LGPL allows you to incorporate the code. However, there have been cases where companies have used FFmpeg in their projects, usually for such capabilities as superior MPEG-4 decoding. These companies found out that once you start trying to make money from certain technologies, the alleged owners of the technologies will come after their protection money. Most notably, MPEG-LA (licensing authority) is vigilant and diligent about collecting for MPEG-related technologies.
Q: You called the patent license fee protection money, is this a joke?
A: No. The legal validity of these patents is highly questionable. Still in many current legal systems it is very easy to ruin a company with patents even if the patents are invalid. Paying the (small) license fee is much cheaper than a patent lawsuit during which you would not be able to sell your product as the patent would be valid until you win the lawsuit 5+ years in the future. That is assuming you did not go bankrupt in the meantime...
Q: Can I be safe if I have paid my protection money.
A: You can never be safe as long as your country recognizes
Symantec has (finally) responded with a sticky on the forum from "davecole".
It's a statistical reporting tool that is normally included in patches, however due to an internal screwup, it was not signed. Because it was unsigned, the firewall looked at it quite skeptically.
They also attempt to explain their actions on the forum; from their description, it sounds like a typical Ebaums/YTMND raid. Their admin response was to carpet bomb the forums with bans and deletions indiscriminately. I don't think this is very professional of the admins; it reminds me of how Habbo responded back in the day. When you're the mouthpiece of a company that size, you should know that a overly aggressive response to a raid will do you more PR damage than just letting it go.
Furthermore 4chan's /b/ seems to have a field day with this. Norton discussion boards appear very slow.
Having /b/ come over for a visit will slow any forum to a crawl and make their admins resort to extreme measures. IIRC, 4chan saturates a gigabit link under normal conditions; having a fraction of that population attempt to inhabit a run-of-the-mill php forum will have it's operators crying for mercy.