Not every skilled sysadmin is going to bother compiling their own kernel.
Many linux distros can automatically update the stock kernel/modules (debian, fedora, redhat, etc).
Most linux distros don't really handle custom kernels well. [When there are kernel updates, the custom kernel updated by the admin manually]. I don't see this as likely to change, since each new kernel often contains more options (the same.config file cannot be used without admin intervention).
Many linux admins manage more than one linux system and can't bother to manually compile a kernel for each system.
Interestingly, the much-reviewed TrueCrypt engine seems to slow to a crawl if you create a bunch of files (and therefore keys) in a hurry - presumably it has an RNG that actually blocks waiting until it has enough new "really random" bits for each new key. This is a cool idea for a crypto library, but not usable for a general-purpose RNG, which suggests that the system libraries should probably provide *two* RNGs.
Lol. Linux has/dev/urandom and/dev/random. (second is blocking). I've been bitten on some headless systems where there was not enough entropy to prevent the thing from blocking. (This is an isuse that probably has been fixed by now either in the kernel, or perhaps some distos use/dev/urandom).
even with tricks like blowing a fan across the charging battery to air cool it
Some primitive recharagable Ni-cad/ni-mh battery chargers look for an increase in battery temperature to know when to stop charging.
There is a fine point where a battery stops charging and starts cooking. This is sometimes measured either by temperature or by looking a subtle changes in way the charging current varies over time. Other chargers are more stupid and either always charge or charge for a fixed amount of time.
Li-ion batteries are much more delicate and require more complex rechargers...
. But from the theistic perspective, it seems obvious that if God exists He would build the brain with some capacity to detect His presence under certain circumstances
If got were to sit down at a computer, would He need a keyboard?
I think not... Then again, I don't believe in Him.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Big 10"? Isn't that a football division?
What exactly are you researching? Is it a hot/warm area or something purely academic?
I was in one of the "Top 10" (or maybe "Top 11") ranked Universities for Electrical Engineering. We had brand-new computers, desk with fully adjustable chairs (the really good kind), and even VOIP phones. But yes, 95% of the EE grad students were NOT from the United States.
Then again, the deptartment had strong industrial ties. A fair amount of research done was actually directly useful and rewarded as such.
The question should be why do universities treat their domestic engineering grad students like crap. Probably because of your advisor. He needs to either convince others that his research area is important for find a new area.
More importantly, 90% of American engineering students realize that the only reason for getting an MS in engineering is to teach. I'm yet to find someone who thinks he learned something worthwhile in post-grad engineering school.
I'm going to guess that you don't know anyone who studied Electrical Engineering. A BS degree means someone knows how to integrate a function and what truth table is. How to apply these things to do complex stuff is NOT taught in undergrad classes. (At least not to the level where someone could go and fully create the thing on their own).
Frankly I think people from the United States (I'm one) expect too much to be handed to them. Yes, ~4 years of college is not always easy, but it is not exactly always enough in industry. We're too content to start making the big bucks and buy that first nice car.
Others come from other countries and fought much harder to get where they are. They faced more competition. They know what they need to do. And many actually do it. Others learn to how game the system and do extremely well.
Yes, most academic research is bogus. But the techniques in use are extremely useful to know. The understanding gained of a topic/field is extremely valueable. It allows once to technically be more versatile.
don't complain when someone needs a few hundred bucks, more than you need a PORTABLE INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE!!!!! He was held up AT GUNPOINT! This wasn't a "broke the car window and swiped a laptop" type of crime, this was someone brandishing an instrument of death. Yes, sir, I want that person locked up until such time(if any) as they can be rehabilitated.
Wait a minute... Who needs rehabilitation? The guy with the gun?.... OR the guy with the *laptop* or *PDA*????
There is so much crap being published, shame on you for not publishing this...
Someone was willing to FUND your work, you did the work and got a working prototype, *AND* you think it isn't worth publishing? (I can see if your grant doesn't allow you to publish the work, but that seems very odd).
There are entire conferences/journals that just focus on how to build things we already know (theoretically) how to do. The way they handle the practicle issues is what makes it publish-worthy. It sure sounds like your thing is... Even if it only took a semester... Even if it was designed by someone else...
For me, my first publication was a somewhat theoretical somewhat practical contribution that originated as a result of a project I did for a class. I spent about 5 weeks finding the solution to the problem. When I presented it at a conference, people asked me if this was my dissertation topic. And in hindsight, it could have been if I had believed that.
Unfortunately, I didn't believe that, I felt it wasn't very meaningful and lost interest. A few years later (after considering other topics), I left the PhD program entirely without finishing.
**Truly** innovative ideas don't belong in dissertations. People should start their own companies and overtake the industry with them... This was basically the message given to me by my (former) advisor!
[And no, I didn't get idea worthy enough of my starting a company]
1/64" of an inch of intense heating is enough to cook your cornea
True.. But if this is radio/microwave based the cornea is probably NOT going to absorb much....
I would expect much of the waves would directly heat the retina of the eye (if aimed toward it).
Which would seem to cause one of two possibilities: 1) Your retina gets cooked, you go permanently blind instantly (upon a direct pulse to the eye).
2) I'm guessing the retina has no pain receptors.... Overstimuling the retina might cause (painless) damage and probably very strange visual sensations. This can't be good....
Losing a few nerves on arm/leg skin is one thing... Eye/brain damage is a bit different and probably difficult to prove. (No, your eyesight was never as good as you claim (20/20), we the raygun didn't damage it).
I've only had 3-4 physicals, and I've never seen an optomitrist (bad spelling, eye doctor). Since my eyesight was better than the minimum for 20/20 it would be difficult for me to pr ove any degradation. Plus I don't have the health records anymore or know who the doctors were (its been a while). I suspect many people are like me in this regard.
And what about people who have metal implants as a result of surgery? (e.g. from broken bone, etc)...
If they really want to convince us that this thing is safe, they should do the following: 1) Sedate the CEO and CFO of Raytheon, and possibly pain-blocking drugs. 2) Fire the full-size raygun at them for 5 minutes continously. 3) See what happens to them over the next few years/months.
Does one hardware hack give him qualifications that graduating CS majors don't have?
Since when do CS majors pick up soldering irons?
Heck, most EE's don't do that and wouldn't know how. (Yes, I'm an EE).
I saw the guy's website... I wonder how he is as a software/hardware developer... He's clearly talented, but does he document his code? Does he follow established best practices? Does he interact well with others? Probably is a bit unbalanced...
I had this really stupid class in college called "Organizational Behavior". To this day, I still don't know what I was supposed to learn in that class. Despite the class being boring and pointless, the professor was actually a very interesting guy. He said something one time that always stuck with me: "Leadership is the reduction of uncertainty."
Damn. I took a similar class. The main things I remember is that "competent employees are promoted until they become uncompetent" and "It is more advantageous to have a technical person doing technical work and an incompetent person doing mangerial work instead of vice-versa".
I used to salivate at the Jade mountain magazines and dream of running on solar.
But then I realized a few things. It is difficult (expensive) to power an air conditioner on solar power, and it IS a necessity in southern US. (And no, evaporative coolers don't work here).
Even if I lived in the same place for more than 10years, would the panels still function as well after that time? They will get dirty and weathered. The surface will probably become less clear/scratched due to the elements. What does 10 years of UV shining on a panel do to it? What if a tree branch falls on it? Hurricane? Wind storm? Really bad tropical storm? Kid down the street hits a baseball into a panel?
Here it sometimes rains for 5 days at a time. And the electric company doesn't pay the same rate it charges for generating electricity.
Solar is a neat idea. And it would be a labor of love installing and setting them up. But right now, I agree. It just doesn't (economically) make sense.
Even worse -- people easily overlook the cost of the resources required in the manufacture/transportation/installation of these things!
I did a napkin calculation a year or so ago and at that time, you could give 100k houses free 1.5mw solar power (with inverters, trackers, and batteries) each year for the cost of the Iraq war
Isn't the Iraq war cost in the hundreds of billions? Aren't there only ~100 million homes in the US?
You only need a few kilowatts to power a home (for day and night). Megawatts is overkill unless you are planning to install an IBM BlueGene in your home.
I think for the cost of the war, *every* residence in the country could have been converted to solar. And in the process of doing so, we would probably learn a thing or two.
Later the cops say "give us the SSL keys for that exchange".
If the cops ask this question, fully realizing that SSL keys are not metal keys that can be put in your pocket, then things will have greatly improved from today.
But yes, I agree that government-mandated logging of SSL keys would be disasterous... And probably for government officials too... Someone just might see what they are up to!
By snapshotting the ram, it would require a program with root access to snap this and lots of data to be archive.
Even this wouldn't work completely.
Main memory RAM is used for several things: program storage, operating system stack, file cache, and other buffers (for video,sound,etc), and other things.
A program that reads/dev/mem and writes it to disk will obliterate the file cache and modify other areas in RAM (due to kernel processes and hardware interrupts).
This may be avoided if the program bypasses all kernel calls and directly writes a raw stream of data by directly accessing I/O ports of the EIDE controller. This would be terribly slow, especailly without DMA. It would probably have to run as part of the kernel (not root) to do things like disable interrupts, manipulate the scheduler, etc, etc.
And even if this were accomplished, it could only take snapshots. It cannot guarantee that data will not be written and then overwritten before being snapshotted. [It would be somewhat feasible for an evil program to clear the juicy parts of its memory space and/or move things around to avoid being snapshotted).
And even if you find a genie in a bottle and he grants you a wish to capture all data arising from the RAM.. There is still several layers of CPU cache! Data may never even hit the real RAM, it could just read and written in the cache.
No act of government, teenagers, or even God Himself is going to be able to access and generate a complete record of all data that passes through a CPU cache over any reasonable timeframe (hours,days,etc).
And even if you do that, wait there's more!
Don't forget to log the activity of the CPU registers!
Wouldn't Ford love to only have you put Genuine Ford Advantage replacement parts in your car? They can't. Nor can they force you to only buy Ford approved gasoline from licensed dealers.
Well, I think most judges in the US are aware of the crappy way most American cars (*cough*GM*cough) are built. Otherwise, we probably would be talking to a salesman at the gas pump...
Unfortunately, the general public (and legal community) doesn't really understand software or hardware. After all, I own the medium which contains the binaries of Windows, but I can't disassemble them under the EULA? WTF!?!. Even Visual Studio disassembles executables at runtime during debugging... I guess this isn't really permitted...
Believe-you-me... if terrorism could be linked to cheap imported automobile parts, things would change for the worse!
If when you buy an iPhone you are actually buying the ownership to the phone, you can do what the hell you like to it as its yours.
but...
If Apple are just selling a licence to use the iPhone (kinda like what Microsoft do with Windows) rather than actually selling the ownership of the iPhone itself, then they could legally and justifiably require you not to unlock it as they still own it.
I believe in the US, it's called "First Sale".
Manufacturers cannot restrict the consumer's use of a product.
Unfortunately software somehow is not a product and is not sold, it is licensed... Then again, the licenses are SOLD...
But the phone, I can't see how this isn't a product sold to the consumer... What a wireless carrier can do is restrict your usage of their NETWORK (services). I have a feeling they know each and every phone on their network. (After all, some phones can be re-programmed over the air).
But since other carriers (besides AT&T) can't sell the iPhone and they probably aren't under contract with Apple, I can't see why they would mind iPhones on their network. It is generally a bad business model to turn customers away and/or punish them needlessly.
To summarize, "unlimited" is an old term from the days of dialup modems, and refers to the maximum amount of time you are allowed to stay dialed in and connected: minutes per session, hours per month, and so on.
Erm.. In the late 1990s, for me "Unlimited" meant no more than 150 hours per month on dialup (irregardless of traffic).
And with a dedicated phone line, 150hrs/month is really was easy to hit.
And no, I wasn't on AOL. I believe AT&T Worldnet and/or SpryNet were doing this crap.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen power outages reset the settings on a router. (Yes there is a backup battery, no it doesn't always work).
Problem is if people are using wired ethernet on it, they don't realize it has been reset (still works).
Interestingly, the much-reviewed TrueCrypt engine seems to slow to a crawl if you create a bunch of files (and therefore keys) in a hurry - presumably it has an RNG that actually blocks waiting until it has enough new "really random" bits for each new key. This is a cool idea for a crypto library, but not usable for a general-purpose RNG, which suggests that the system libraries should probably provide *two* RNGs.
/dev/urandom and /dev/random. (second is blocking). I've been bitten on some headless systems where there was not enough entropy to prevent the thing from blocking. (This is an isuse that probably has been fixed by now either in the kernel, or perhaps some distos use /dev/urandom).
Lol. Linux has
Random things.. happen.
Normally I would agree... But given the history of Las Vegas:
Tommy! Guewss what?
It -
ain't -
your -
luckwy -
day.
Let's take a ride.
even with tricks like blowing a fan across the charging battery to air cool it
Some primitive recharagable Ni-cad/ni-mh battery chargers look for an increase in battery temperature to know when to stop charging.
There is a fine point where a battery stops charging and starts cooking. This is sometimes measured either by temperature or by looking a subtle changes in way the charging current varies over time. Other chargers are more stupid and either always charge or charge for a fixed amount of time.
Li-ion batteries are much more delicate and require more complex rechargers...
HAND ON? I am quite curious...
In practice, it'd be a piece of cake to implement a safeguard against that.
Tinfoil hat?
Need I say more?
. But from the theistic perspective, it seems obvious that if God exists He would build the brain with some capacity to detect His presence under certain circumstances
If got were to sit down at a computer, would He need a keyboard?
I think not... Then again, I don't believe in Him.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Big 10"? Isn't that a football division?
What exactly are you researching? Is it a hot/warm area or something purely academic?
I was in one of the "Top 10" (or maybe "Top 11") ranked Universities for Electrical Engineering. We had brand-new computers, desk with fully adjustable chairs (the really good kind), and even VOIP phones. But yes, 95% of the EE grad students were NOT from the United States.
Then again, the deptartment had strong industrial ties. A fair amount of research done was actually directly useful and rewarded as such.
The question should be why do universities treat their domestic engineering grad students like crap.
Probably because of your advisor. He needs to either convince others that his research area is important for find a new area.
More importantly, 90% of American engineering students realize that the only reason for getting an MS in engineering is to teach. I'm yet to find someone who thinks he learned something worthwhile in post-grad engineering school.
I'm going to guess that you don't know anyone who studied Electrical Engineering. A BS degree means someone knows how to integrate a function and what truth table is. How to apply these things to do complex stuff is NOT taught in undergrad classes. (At least not to the level where someone could go and fully create the thing on their own).
Frankly I think people from the United States (I'm one) expect too much to be handed to them. Yes, ~4 years of college is not always easy, but it is not exactly always enough in industry. We're too content to start making the big bucks and buy that first nice car.
Others come from other countries and fought much harder to get where they are. They faced more competition. They know what they need to do. And many actually do it. Others learn to how game the system and do extremely well.
Yes, most academic research is bogus. But the techniques in use are extremely useful to know. The understanding gained of a topic/field is extremely valueable. It allows once to technically be more versatile.
don't complain when someone needs a few hundred bucks, more than you need a PORTABLE INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE!!!!!
.... OR the guy with the *laptop* or *PDA*????
He was held up AT GUNPOINT! This wasn't a "broke the car window and swiped a laptop" type of crime, this was someone brandishing an instrument of death. Yes, sir, I want that person locked up until such time(if any) as they can be rehabilitated.
Wait a minute... Who needs rehabilitation? The guy with the gun?
There is so much crap being published, shame on you for not publishing this...
Someone was willing to FUND your work, you did the work and got a working prototype, *AND* you think it isn't worth publishing? (I can see if your grant doesn't allow you to publish the work, but that seems very odd).
There are entire conferences/journals that just focus on how to build things we already know (theoretically) how to do. The way they handle the practicle issues is what makes it publish-worthy. It sure sounds like your thing is... Even if it only took a semester... Even if it was designed by someone else...
For me, my first publication was a somewhat theoretical somewhat practical contribution that originated as a result of a project I did for a class. I spent about 5 weeks finding the solution to the problem. When I presented it at a conference, people asked me if this was my dissertation topic. And in hindsight, it could have been if I had believed that.
Unfortunately, I didn't believe that, I felt it wasn't very meaningful and lost interest. A few years later (after considering other topics), I left the PhD program entirely without finishing.
**Truly** innovative ideas don't belong in dissertations. People should start their own companies and overtake the industry with them... This was basically the message given to me by my (former) advisor!
[And no, I didn't get idea worthy enough of my starting a company]
1/64" of an inch of intense heating is enough to cook your cornea
True.. But if this is radio/microwave based the cornea is probably NOT going to absorb much....
I would expect much of the waves would directly heat the retina of the eye (if aimed toward it).
Which would seem to cause one of two possibilities:
1) Your retina gets cooked, you go permanently blind instantly (upon a direct pulse to the eye).
2) I'm guessing the retina has no pain receptors.... Overstimuling the retina might cause (painless) damage and probably very strange visual sensations. This can't be good....
Losing a few nerves on arm/leg skin is one thing... Eye/brain damage is a bit different and probably difficult to prove. (No, your eyesight was never as good as you claim (20/20), we the raygun didn't damage it).
I've only had 3-4 physicals, and I've never seen an optomitrist (bad spelling, eye doctor). Since my eyesight was better than the minimum for 20/20 it would be difficult for me to pr ove any degradation. Plus I don't have the health records anymore or know who the doctors were (its been a while). I suspect many people are like me in this regard.
And what about people who have metal implants as a result of surgery? (e.g. from broken bone, etc)...
If they really want to convince us that this thing is safe, they should do the following:
1) Sedate the CEO and CFO of Raytheon, and possibly pain-blocking drugs.
2) Fire the full-size raygun at them for 5 minutes continously.
3) See what happens to them over the next few years/months.
Does one hardware hack give him qualifications that graduating CS majors don't have?
Since when do CS majors pick up soldering irons?
Heck, most EE's don't do that and wouldn't know how. (Yes, I'm an EE).
I saw the guy's website... I wonder how he is as a software/hardware developer... He's clearly talented, but does he document his code? Does he follow established best practices? Does he interact well with others? Probably is a bit unbalanced...
I don't think changing management every 3 months makes for a healthy company.
I had this really stupid class in college called "Organizational Behavior". To this day, I still don't know what I was supposed to learn in that class. Despite the class being boring and pointless, the professor was actually a very interesting guy. He said something one time that always stuck with me: "Leadership is the reduction of uncertainty."
Damn. I took a similar class. The main things I remember is that "competent employees are promoted until they become uncompetent" and "It is more advantageous to have a technical person doing technical work and an incompetent person doing mangerial work instead of vice-versa".
I didn't know Stirling Engines could use "liquid hydrogen" to transfer energy.
How the hell, does one buy "liquid hydrogen". And how the hell do they keep it confined?
I used to salivate at the Jade mountain magazines and dream of running on solar.
But then I realized a few things. It is difficult (expensive) to power an air conditioner on solar power, and it IS a necessity in southern US. (And no, evaporative coolers don't work here).
Even if I lived in the same place for more than 10years, would the panels still function as well after that time? They will get dirty and weathered. The surface will probably become less clear/scratched due to the elements. What does 10 years of UV shining on a panel do to it? What if a tree branch falls on it? Hurricane? Wind storm? Really bad tropical storm? Kid down the street hits a baseball into a panel?
Here it sometimes rains for 5 days at a time. And the electric company doesn't pay the same rate it charges for generating electricity.
Solar is a neat idea. And it would be a labor of love installing and setting them up. But right now, I agree. It just doesn't (economically) make sense.
Even worse -- people easily overlook the cost of the resources required in the manufacture/transportation/installation of these things!
I did a napkin calculation a year or so ago and at that time, you could give 100k houses free 1.5mw solar power (with inverters, trackers, and batteries) each year for the cost of the Iraq war
Isn't the Iraq war cost in the hundreds of billions? Aren't there only ~100 million homes in the US?
You only need a few kilowatts to power a home (for day and night). Megawatts is overkill unless you are planning to install an IBM BlueGene in your home.
I think for the cost of the war, *every* residence in the country could have been converted to solar. And in the process of doing so, we would probably learn a thing or two.
Later the cops say "give us the SSL keys for that exchange".
If the cops ask this question, fully realizing that SSL keys are not metal keys that can be put in your pocket, then things will have greatly improved from today.
But yes, I agree that government-mandated logging of SSL keys would be disasterous... And probably for government officials too... Someone just might see what they are up to!
By snapshotting the ram, it would require a program with root access to snap this and lots of data to be archive.
/dev/mem and writes it to disk will obliterate the file cache and modify other areas in RAM (due to kernel processes and hardware interrupts).
Even this wouldn't work completely.
Main memory RAM is used for several things: program storage, operating system stack, file cache, and other buffers (for video,sound,etc), and other things.
A program that reads
This may be avoided if the program bypasses all kernel calls and directly writes a raw stream of data by directly accessing I/O ports of the EIDE controller. This would be terribly slow, especailly without DMA. It would probably have to run as part of the kernel (not root) to do things like disable interrupts, manipulate the scheduler, etc, etc.
And even if this were accomplished, it could only take snapshots. It cannot guarantee that data will not be written and then overwritten before being snapshotted. [It would be somewhat feasible for an evil program to clear the juicy parts of its memory space and/or move things around to avoid being snapshotted).
And even if you find a genie in a bottle and he grants you a wish to capture all data arising from the RAM.. There is still several layers of CPU cache! Data may never even hit the real RAM, it could just read and written in the cache.
No act of government, teenagers, or even God Himself is going to be able to access and generate a complete record of all data that passes through a CPU cache over any reasonable timeframe (hours,days,etc).
And even if you do that, wait there's more!
Don't forget to log the activity of the CPU registers!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! ROTFL! LMAO!
Wouldn't Ford love to only have you put Genuine Ford Advantage replacement parts in your car? They can't. Nor can they force you to only buy Ford approved gasoline from licensed dealers.
Well, I think most judges in the US are aware of the crappy way most American cars (*cough*GM*cough) are built. Otherwise, we probably would be talking to a salesman at the gas pump...
Unfortunately, the general public (and legal community) doesn't really understand software or hardware. After all, I own the medium which contains the binaries of Windows, but I can't disassemble them under the EULA? WTF!?!. Even Visual Studio disassembles executables at runtime during debugging... I guess this isn't really permitted...
Believe-you-me... if terrorism could be linked to cheap imported automobile parts, things would change for the worse!
I guess it comes down to who owns the phone.
If when you buy an iPhone you are actually buying the ownership to the phone, you can do what the hell you like to it as its yours.
but...
If Apple are just selling a licence to use the iPhone (kinda like what Microsoft do with Windows) rather than actually selling the ownership of the iPhone itself, then they could legally and justifiably require you not to unlock it as they still own it.
I believe in the US, it's called "First Sale".
Manufacturers cannot restrict the consumer's use of a product.
Unfortunately software somehow is not a product and is not sold, it is licensed... Then again, the licenses are SOLD...
But the phone, I can't see how this isn't a product sold to the consumer... What a wireless carrier can do is restrict your usage of their NETWORK (services). I have a feeling they know each and every phone on their network. (After all, some phones can be re-programmed over the air).
But since other carriers (besides AT&T) can't sell the iPhone and they probably aren't under contract with Apple, I can't see why they would mind iPhones on their network. It is generally a bad business model to turn customers away and/or punish them needlessly.
To summarize, "unlimited" is an old term from the days of dialup modems, and refers to the maximum amount of time you are allowed to stay dialed in and connected: minutes per session, hours per month, and so on.
Erm.. In the late 1990s, for me "Unlimited" meant no more than 150 hours per month on dialup (irregardless of traffic).
And with a dedicated phone line, 150hrs/month is really was easy to hit.
And no, I wasn't on AOL. I believe AT&T Worldnet and/or SpryNet were doing this crap.
echo "$PARENT" | sed 's/RISC/Republican/g' | sed 's/CISC/Democrat/g'
and you just described politics in the US for the last decade or two....