Grovers search algorithm which can give a small speed boost to any classical algorithm...
I wouldn't call the step from O(N) to O(sqrt(N)) a small speed boost. You can even be pretty fast when your qubits are ramdomly (but not too fast) change state using error correction techniques. So you don't even need a perfect quantum computer to do usefull work.
That said; I know a few people who do actual research on quantum computing and I've never even heard them talk about D-Wave.
There's malware out there that takes advantage of security holes in Windows that are only known to the malware authors (and never reported to Microsoft). That dwarfs my earlier 10% number by potentially increasing it to 90+% of the PCs out there.
If mallware attracts attention the bugs in Windows will get fixed. By keeping a low profile the can continue to exploit these bugs. Intel does _not_ fix all the errata and even if they would do so, who will update their CPU microcode?
To add, CPU errata can be worked around by the BIOS and software.
Again, not all errata get fixed by Intel and who updates their BIOS? As for the OS/Application level:
As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be
worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially
exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them
are.
Think of it this way... If the programmers of Adobe Illustrator found that specific CPUs were unable to properly calculate/draw a circle correctly due to CPU errata, the responsibility would fall on those programmers to come up with a workaround.
The bugs are in Intel hardware (or microcode), why would Adobe be responsible for a workaround?
I doubt any such errata would encompass more than 10% of the PCs out there.
Even if 0.1% of all PC's/servers where affected, that would have a huge impact. The problem with most of these errata is that they can't be patched by the OS.
Now that you mention OpenBSD, I recall an email from Theo de Raadt (2007-06-27 17:08:16 - source):
Note that some errata like AI65, AI79, AI43, AI39, AI90, AI99 scare
the hell out of us. Some of these are things that cannot be fixed in
running code, and some are things that every operating system will do
until about mid-2008, because that is how the MMU has always been
managed on all generations of Intel/AMD/whoeverelse hardware. Now
Intel is telling people to manage the MMU's TLB flushes in a new and
different way. Yet even if we do so, some of the errata listed are
unaffected by doing so.
As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be
worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially
exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them
are.
And from TFA:
"It's possible to fix most of the bugs, and Intel provides workarounds to the major BIOS vendors," Kaspersky said, referring to the code that controls the most basic functions of a PC. "However, not every vendor uses it and some bugs have no workarounds."
I think I agree with you on the definition of a soul, but many people have a more supernatural definition.
My point was: "Make op your own mind about what a soul is. Then using your definition of a soul determine if a synthetic human has enough differences with us to make it a soulless being."
My answer would be: Yes, we have souls and so would these synthetic humans.
There is also software that is annoying even when you don't use it, like Microsoft Office. It is the only piece of closed source software that I still HAVE TO use regularly.
Want to send me some text? Why not send me some text instead of a huge.doc file. Or even pdf, postscript, html, rtf, odf... are acceptable. Why do people keep sending me.doc files and force me to buy Microsoft Office and probably Windows too?
'We've stayed very pure,' Mr. Negroponte said. Yet from their core principles:
There is no inherent external dependency in being able to localize software into their language, fix the software to remove bugs, and repurpose the software to fit their needs. Nor is there any restriction in regard to redistribution; OLPC cannot know and should not control how the tools we create will be re-purposed in the future. And they seem to have adapted their "core principles" to be more positive towards closed source. A real shame is you ask me.
source: Core Principles (Renamed to "Five principles" instead of "Core principles" as the seem to value their principles less and less).
Who would choose a licence based on how much Microsoft dislikes it? I prefer to choose a licence based on the contents of the licence and how they fit the project.
Just ignore Mirosoft and write/use the best open source software you can.
How is this modded +5 Insightful?
Can you point to evidence that "they" are taking over the west?
I agree that freedom of speech is very important and that you should be able to say offensive things. But suggesting that there is one coherent group called "Muslims" and that they are all are participating in an effort to take over "the west" is just stupid.
yes there are some people, who happen to be Muslim, who want to force their view on the rest of the world. But this is not limited to Muslims. Does "No integration. Assimilation!"[1] ring a bell?
[1] "Niks integratie. Assimilatie!" - HP/De Tijd (6 februari 2004)
I work on distributed cosmic ray detectors. The patent is very sparse with details, so it's difficult to say much about it.
The biggest problems I see are timing and data analysis. The detectors need to have a synced clock to within a few nanoseconds. This is possible with GPS if you know all the circuitry and the delays therein. But I don't think you could do it in normal pc's. Now each pc needs at least two detectors to do some triggering before you send the data. If you don't you'll end up with huge amounts of "noise" data. After that you still have a huge pile of raw data collected from a collection of (probably crappy) detectors who are not calibrated.
The Microsoft Robotics Studio is supposed to be really good. And why provide drivers? I hope the interface to the sensors is really simple and fully documented.
I wish I knew more about this. But I think this is still an issue they need to work on. Does anybody know where to find official documents related to this matter?
I was at the meeting too. The Christian Democrats didn't really understand open source, but seemed positive towards open standards.
OOXML was not mentioned, but ODF was. The Dutch government is getting positive results from trials with Linux and OpenOffice. Open source will be preferred when the quality is equal. And getting rid of Microsoft seemed to be thought of as a positive thing. I think there will be more change than a simple plugin.
Although the primary goal is the use of open standards for documents, they are working on promoting open source software.Last Wednesday I attended a meeting in Den Haag where this plan was discussed. The general attitude of the different political parties was very positive. Most questions where about details. This is going to happen, and I expect most of the government will be switched in between 2 and 5 years.
Now open source: It will be used if the quality is equal to the current closed source alternative. All software written for the government will be the intellectual property of the gouvernment and the plan is to release it as open source. But this will probably be more difficult because of vendors using closed source components in the software.
And for OOXML: I never heard OOXML in the meeting. They used ODF as example of open documents and did not seem to be happy with Microsoft.
I don't know what Theo de Raadt has to do with this, I certainly did not see his reaction about this on one of the OpenBSD mailinglists.
Can you at least explain what this erratum has to do with security. Because it does look like you're trolling.
I do think this is not an isolated event and we can expect more and more processor bugs in the coming years. It's time to leave the antiquated x86 design behind us and move to a cleaner architecture.
I see your point on the fax, telephone and email, but why executables? Executables are not a way to contact people, they are data and code. I'm happy with the fact that my executables don't have to be signed.
Most crypto will sign your messages. So now the government can take your friend's computer and mathematically prove you signed the messages talking about conspiracies. OTR provides encryption and authentication without the ability to prove to anyone else what you wrote.
And talking about government conspiracies: I would not trust closed source crypto if I where you.
I log all my IM messages too.
But you can not prove those messages are written by some specific person. They are plaintext and everyone can edit them. The "problem" with most encryption protocols is signing. If I write a message to you and I sign it, you can prove I wrote it. OTR provides encryption and authentication that can't be used to prove to anyone else you wrote it. I suggest you watch the video for more information.
On the olpc wiki site, there is a page called "Core principles" (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Core_principles/lang-en). This page lists five "principles" that, judging from the page titles seem to be the core principles of the project. The fifth "core principle" is titled "Free and Open Source", from wich I got my quote. Maybe they should create a page called "things that would also be nice" and put "Free and Open Source" on that page.
My opinion is that the page of core principles is actually correct, but they could not find a practical solution that fits all their needs and decided too loosen their principles.
The OLPC is suppost to be completely open and user maintainable. But the wireless drivers are blobs.
From the OLPC "Core principles"
There is no inherent external dependency in being able to localize software into their language, fix the software to remove bugs, and repurpose the software to fit their needs. Nor is there any restriction in regard to redistribution; OLPC cannot know and should not control how the tools we create will be re-purposed in the future. I like the project, but I wish they could stick to their core principle. I would really like a completely open computer, especially such a cool looking, low power, rugged laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
Grovers search algorithm which can give a small speed boost to any classical algorithm...
I wouldn't call the step from O(N) to O(sqrt(N)) a small speed boost. You can even be pretty fast when your qubits are ramdomly (but not too fast) change state using error correction techniques. So you don't even need a perfect quantum computer to do usefull work.
That said; I know a few people who do actual research on quantum computing and I've never even heard them talk about D-Wave.
There's malware out there that takes advantage of security holes in Windows that are only known to the malware authors (and never reported to Microsoft). That dwarfs my earlier 10% number by potentially increasing it to 90+% of the PCs out there.
If mallware attracts attention the bugs in Windows will get fixed. By keeping a low profile the can continue to exploit these bugs. Intel does _not_ fix all the errata and even if they would do so, who will update their CPU microcode?
To add, CPU errata can be worked around by the BIOS and software.
Again, not all errata get fixed by Intel and who updates their BIOS? As for the OS/Application level:
As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them are.
Source.
Think of it this way... If the programmers of Adobe Illustrator found that specific CPUs were unable to properly calculate/draw a circle correctly due to CPU errata, the responsibility would fall on those programmers to come up with a workaround.
The bugs are in Intel hardware (or microcode), why would Adobe be responsible for a workaround?
I doubt any such errata would encompass more than 10% of the PCs out there.
Even if 0.1% of all PC's/servers where affected, that would have a huge impact. The problem with most of these errata is that they can't be patched by the OS.
Note that some errata like AI65, AI79, AI43, AI39, AI90, AI99 scare the hell out of us. Some of these are things that cannot be fixed in running code, and some are things that every operating system will do until about mid-2008, because that is how the MMU has always been managed on all generations of Intel/AMD/whoeverelse hardware. Now Intel is telling people to manage the MMU's TLB flushes in a new and different way. Yet even if we do so, some of the errata listed are unaffected by doing so.
As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them are.
And from TFA:
"It's possible to fix most of the bugs, and Intel provides workarounds to the major BIOS vendors," Kaspersky said, referring to the code that controls the most basic functions of a PC. "However, not every vendor uses it and some bugs have no workarounds."
Sounds like the the same issues to me.
You can read ZFS on a standard Mac OS X 10.5 installation. You can even write ZFS if you download some files from Apple: http://zfs.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/?page_id=5
I think I agree with you on the definition of a soul, but many people have a more supernatural definition.
My point was: "Make op your own mind about what a soul is. Then using your definition of a soul determine if a synthetic human has enough differences with us to make it a soulless being."
My answer would be: Yes, we have souls and so would these synthetic humans.
Does this organism have a soul?
Do you (or anyone else) have a soul? Why would a "synthetic" human be any different?
There is also software that is annoying even when you don't use it, like Microsoft Office. It is the only piece of closed source software that I still HAVE TO use regularly. Want to send me some text? Why not send me some text instead of a huge .doc file. Or even pdf, postscript, html, rtf, odf... are acceptable. Why do people keep sending me .doc files and force me to buy Microsoft Office and probably Windows too?
Who would choose a licence based on how much Microsoft dislikes it? I prefer to choose a licence based on the contents of the licence and how they fit the project. Just ignore Mirosoft and write/use the best open source software you can.
How is this modded +5 Insightful? Can you point to evidence that "they" are taking over the west?
I agree that freedom of speech is very important and that you should be able to say offensive things. But suggesting that there is one coherent group called "Muslims" and that they are all are participating in an effort to take over "the west" is just stupid.
yes there are some people, who happen to be Muslim, who want to force their view on the rest of the world. But this is not limited to Muslims. Does "No integration. Assimilation!"[1] ring a bell?
[1] "Niks integratie. Assimilatie!" - HP/De Tijd (6 februari 2004)
http://cisx1.uma.maine.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk132.ogg (@ 22 min 10 sec)
I work on distributed cosmic ray detectors. The patent is very sparse with details, so it's difficult to say much about it. The biggest problems I see are timing and data analysis. The detectors need to have a synced clock to within a few nanoseconds. This is possible with GPS if you know all the circuitry and the delays therein. But I don't think you could do it in normal pc's. Now each pc needs at least two detectors to do some triggering before you send the data. If you don't you'll end up with huge amounts of "noise" data. After that you still have a huge pile of raw data collected from a collection of (probably crappy) detectors who are not calibrated.
The iPhone does support removable storage.
It's SIM card can probably hold a few kilobytes of data.
The Microsoft Robotics Studio is supposed to be really good. And why provide drivers? I hope the interface to the sensors is really simple and fully documented.
Judging from my UID only 1% of the users have 4 or less digits.
I wish I knew more about this. But I think this is still an issue they need to work on. Does anybody know where to find official documents related to this matter?
I was at the meeting too. The Christian Democrats didn't really understand open source, but seemed positive towards open standards. OOXML was not mentioned, but ODF was. The Dutch government is getting positive results from trials with Linux and OpenOffice. Open source will be preferred when the quality is equal. And getting rid of Microsoft seemed to be thought of as a positive thing. I think there will be more change than a simple plugin.
Although the primary goal is the use of open standards for documents, they are working on promoting open source software.Last Wednesday I attended a meeting in Den Haag where this plan was discussed. The general attitude of the different political parties was very positive. Most questions where about details. This is going to happen, and I expect most of the government will be switched in between 2 and 5 years. Now open source: It will be used if the quality is equal to the current closed source alternative. All software written for the government will be the intellectual property of the gouvernment and the plan is to release it as open source. But this will probably be more difficult because of vendors using closed source components in the software. And for OOXML: I never heard OOXML in the meeting. They used ODF as example of open documents and did not seem to be happy with Microsoft.
I don't know what Theo de Raadt has to do with this, I certainly did not see his reaction about this on one of the OpenBSD mailinglists. Can you at least explain what this erratum has to do with security. Because it does look like you're trolling. I do think this is not an isolated event and we can expect more and more processor bugs in the coming years. It's time to leave the antiquated x86 design behind us and move to a cleaner architecture.
I see your point on the fax, telephone and email, but why executables? Executables are not a way to contact people, they are data and code. I'm happy with the fact that my executables don't have to be signed.
Most crypto will sign your messages. So now the government can take your friend's computer and mathematically prove you signed the messages talking about conspiracies. OTR provides encryption and authentication without the ability to prove to anyone else what you wrote. And talking about government conspiracies: I would not trust closed source crypto if I where you.
I log all my IM messages too. But you can not prove those messages are written by some specific person. They are plaintext and everyone can edit them. The "problem" with most encryption protocols is signing. If I write a message to you and I sign it, you can prove I wrote it. OTR provides encryption and authentication that can't be used to prove to anyone else you wrote it. I suggest you watch the video for more information.
On the olpc wiki site, there is a page called "Core principles" (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Core_principles/lang-en). This page lists five "principles" that, judging from the page titles seem to be the core principles of the project. The fifth "core principle" is titled "Free and Open Source", from wich I got my quote. Maybe they should create a page called "things that would also be nice" and put "Free and Open Source" on that page. My opinion is that the page of core principles is actually correct, but they could not find a practical solution that fits all their needs and decided too loosen their principles.