I was looking for a digital camcorder a while back. Sony sure has some nice, high-quality digital camcorders. I ended up getting a JVC camcorder because I explicitly refused to buy a Sony product.
I made sure my father didn't buy a Sony HDTV. He got a Samsung instead.
I haven't bought a PS3 and I tell others not to, either. The Wii is better anyway.
You bring up a fantastic point with the speed. Let's take it one step further.
This thing is pretty cool as far as making precise, small, or fine-grained motions. What if you combined it with a Wiimote, and used the Wiimote for fast motions?
It would be difficult, but an innovative combination of pointing approaches would allow one to take advantage of each approaches strengths.
So, if we can corrupt the TLB, then we can essentially skip all of the memory protection mechanisms? I know that you'd be able to skip around the whole invalid page fault stuff, but wouldn't a protected memory model keep you from reading/writing into memory that you shouldn't be touching? Or is memory protection applied before the CPU gets the physical address?
That exploit wouldn't work because the OS would trap the invalid page access and generate a blue screen or kernel panic.
Just because the TLB returns an erroneous translation doesn't mean that the OS isn't still going to check to make sure your process has access to the address space in question.
Remember - an M-rated game is still only appropriate for audiences 17 and over. An AO rated game is for 18+. So, not giving it an AO rating is not the same as saying that kids should be able to buy the game.
So, I have a better question: is there any compelling reason why a 17 year old (and ONLY 17 year olds) shouldn't be able to buy this game?
SRAM only consumes "large currents" (for ambiguous definitions of large) whenever it needs to switch states.
DRAM, however, consumes "large currents" every time it charges a row of capacitors. However, the large current is very brief (on the order of several ns) but happens frequently and periodically (on the order of several us).
DRAM is smaller, simpler and power hungry BECAUSE of all the refresh's required.
Er, it's power hungry because of the refreshes, but it's smaller because it's 1 capacitor and 1 transistor, as opposed to several transistors.
As far as simpler....I wouldn't go that far. SRAM is WAY simpler to interface to than DRAM, because the SRAM doesn't need an intelligent memory controller which understands how to burst large amounts of data, and how to handle the latency for the first access. Oh, yeah, and don't forget that the memory controller needs to send refresh commands periodically to the DRAM...
Not in modern DRAM. Modern DRAM is basically [sic] a capacitor.
Sure, forgetting about the whole row and column stuff, and the sense amps...
However, due to the natural resistance of silicon there is always some leakage current leaving the capacitors.
Incorrect. Capacitors lose charge because dielectrics are not perfect insulators, and thus some current actually leaks through from one plate to the other.
This means that RAM left alone for more than a few tenths of a milisecond will lose enough voltage to drop to a logical 0
Disturbingly wrong. Most manufacturers specify that a row of DRAM must be refreshed at least every 64 milliseconds. In fact, Wikipedia cites a pdf saying that some information can be retained for up to minutes in a cell of DRAM - though you will get some bit errors.
TO prevent this, RAM is constantly refreshed- the ram chip will spend spare cycles writing its own value to itself.
Actually, the memory controller will issue a refresh command to the DRAM chip. This is probably what you were thinking about before...a row refresh must happen every 7.8 microseconds or so (depending on the RAM chip). But, that's because the refresh operation only refreshes a single row. The DRAM chip usually has an internal address counter, so you just say "refresh the next row" and the DRAM chip already knows what the "next row" is, and afterwards it increments it so the next time you issue the refresh command, it refreshes the next row. If you execute these refresh operations every 7.8 microseconds, then in 64 milliseconds you will refresh every row of memory on the DRAM chip.
Oh, and by the way, reading from any cell of DRAM will refresh the entire row that cell is on, because reading from DRAM is a destructive operation. Therefore, there's actually a row of latches at the bottom of the columns, and the values from those latches are placed back into the capacitors while the bit of interest is being shuffled out onto memory bus.
Writing to a cell also requires reading the entire row, which means that writing also refreshes that row.
I'm saying that habits from real life tend to find their way into online life, and I postulated on the habit which could have resulted in the emergence of the word "addy".
Here, have your words back. You tried putting them in my mouth, but they don't fit.
Actually, in some computer disciplines it is useful to shorten long words, like address.
Say you have an address bus and a data bus. You're drawing a schematic. "Data" fits in just fine, but "address" would run into one of the two boxes. "Addy" is four letters long, just like data.
Re: thinkofthechildren, I think that a lot of these "protect children" laws are being passed because some parents these days are raising children when they are blatantly incapable of doing so. These laws are then being used to make up for a lack of parental ability.
Or maybe the kid will grow up and realize the parent actually cared enough to set limits.
Or maybe the kid will grow up and realize that the limits that the parent set were unreasonable (because, frequently, they are) and they will think not that their parents care, but that their parents just get off on authority.
Not all parents are like that, mind you. But, there are more like that than you think.
Not doing anything because you can't do it all is kinda stupid.
Punishing people for committing "crimes" that have not hurt anyone just because some other people who commit these "crimes" might hurt someone is kinda stupid.
Wouldn't it be better to prevent the real world crimes? Especially where children are the victims? Why does one person's right to travel a slippery slope override the right of any child to a reasonable degree of security?
Ah, so this is where we come into a conflict over "a reasonable degree of security".
The world is not a safe place. How, then, do you draw the line of "reasonable", if nothing you can do will ever ensure the safety of anyone, child or not?
To me, punishing someone for being on a slippery slope is the same as saying they're guilty until proven innocent.
I still don't think you can justifiably punish "thought crimes" though. Wouldn't it be better to mandate treatment to reduce or eliminate the possibility that these people will actually act on their fantasies?
I will agree that "treatment" is a superior solution to "imprisonment". However, I fear that "treatment" would be forced on some people simply because they're different, and not because they're a threat to anyone.
If a human being is perfectly okay with being attracted to children, and understands the ramifications and why this type of behavior isn't accepted by society, should you really put them through that kind of treatment? What if it destroys their self-esteem (because they think they're a sick freak now), and their life becomes ruined? Was it worth it to potentially save a child, in order to destroy some adult's life? Yes, I know, it's all hypothetical, but remember, this pedophile is only hypothetically going to go after children.
Until a true ability to reason the wisdom of certain behavior develops, resentment is the typical response. That doesn't mean you don't limit childrens behavior at all. [snip] There's a vast gray area between guiding your kid safely through their childhood and youth, and locking them in the dungeon.
Yes, I agree, but more and more I see parents trying to lock their kids in a dungeon to protect them. To me, it's far more reasonable to demonstrate why a particular behavior is dangerous to discourage it, rather than to have draconian rules.
I have another friend whose parents never really told her what she can and cannot do. For blatantly stupid things, she would get a no, but she was probably given more freedom than she needed. Instead of telling her she's not allowed to do something, her mom would say "What you're about to do is stupid, for the following reasons:" and then let her daughter proceed to do the stupid thing. The daughter would then learn that, of course, mom is right. And, now, that is a lesson that's actually learned. And to top it off, there's less resentment involved.
Isn't that just running away from the problem? (re: if you can't stop the problem, don't punish victimless crimes)
No, it's not running away from the problem. The problem is adults who abuse children, not adults who are attracted to children.
By saying that we should treat pedophiles who have harmed no one, you're effectively expanding the problem beyond its true bounds.
Speeding is a victimless crime: are you suggesting that because people still fly down the highways and through neighborhoods and kill people, we should just stop handing out speeding tickets? Forgive my bluntness, but that's a very bad idea. Speeding is illegal because it puts people in danger, not because you shouldn't be able to drive how you want.
Do you really, truly believe speed limits exist for safety? Why is it, then, that speed traps and speed cameras are usually in high-traffic places and at the bottom of hills and on expressways, and very rarely in neighborhoods or near schools or at dangerous intersections?
The purpose of speed limits is to generate revenue. That it discourages some people from driving dangerously is a minor side effect.
If someone kills someone else because they were speeding (or even if they aren't speeding!), we have laws to deal with that. Vehicular mansla
Have you considered that what was acceptable in the past isn't today?
Yes. The question was, where were the morals back then? This leads to the question, when did the morals arise, and what caused them to suddenly be important? I mean, Christianity was still all the rage in that day, so you can't say it was religion.
Something had to be responsible for society's shift in beliefs. The women's civil rights movement, maybe?
Who knows where the psychological line is with these things?
I say that drawing a psychological line is the wrong approach. Punish real world transgressions, not thought-crimes.
As for the little girls "sluttin' it up" in the local mall, yeah, I notice that. Makes me sick too, but I don't blame the kids. It's really the parents and the media. More the parents, because they ultimately have the greatest degree of influence on their children
Yeah, but if the parents start saying "You can't wear that!", then little Jane is just going to wear acceptable clothing overtop of her skank clothes, and then once she's outside of daddy's watchful eye, she strips down to the near-nude. Punishing the behavior you don't find acceptable is not a good way to prevent that behavior.
I've heard all the horror stories about the preacher's daughter going bonkers once she realizes she's old enough to do what she wants, and wanting to try everything dear old dad said was "evil" while she was growing up
Exactly! In our world, that's what most parents think being a good parent is - ruling your child's life with an iron fist. This usually inspires resentment and rebellion.
I know one girl whose mother will not let her do the things that she (the mom) wouldn't do. Things like going to an anime convention. All this does is make the daughter resent the mother; I'm pretty sure once she's old enough to move out, she'll be gone, and the mother will hardly ever hear a word from her daughter. That's the bed mom made, though; now she's gotta sleep in it.
Does refusing to ignore such behavior mean making it illegal? Maybe not, but I can't think of any reasonable alternatives yet.
Even if you make this sort of behavior illegal, it's not going to protect everyone. People will continue to be perverted. If you can't stop the problem entirely, then I see no point in punishing people for victimless crimes.
Some people say drugs should be illegal because they lead to crimes (theft, etc), even though taking a drug harms only the user. But the crimes they commit are already illegal; they should be punished under those laws for crimes they did commit, and not because they might loot, rape, or pillage.
It's nobody's business what fantasies people have, and it's nobody's business who sleeps with who, but it is everyone's business when someone becomes a danger - especially to children.
Back in the day, men took wives who were, what, 14-16? Where was the OMGKIDDIEPORN crowd then?
Besides that, have you walked around an American mall lately? It makes me sick at times. 12-16 year olds sluttin' it up. I see a girl walking along, and she's in some pretty hot clothes, and then I get within range to determine that she's way too young, and I start to gag. It's amazing how overtly sexual these young girls are. And they know it, too.
The fact that clothes like that are made in sizes for children of that age should be illegal, too, shouldn't it? After all, a mall is a pedophile's ideal hunting ground - look at all that underage skin the girls so willingly show.
This means restricting certain behaviors, preferably by way of cultural norms, but if necessary, by legislation.
Be careful. Some people think you should legislate certain behaviors, like violent video games. That's a pretty slippery slope you're on there.
But with all due respect, that is predicated on the rather naive assumption that people will keep these predatorial fantasies locked within the rather unsatisfying realm of virtual reality.
With all due respect, that is predicated on the rather naive assumption that all people who engage in this sort of virtual fantasy are going to seek to live it out.
Sure, some will. Some already do, regardless of the existence of the virtual world. Some people also try to live out GTA.
Those who are mentally unstable will be mentally unstable whether or not you give them the virtual world to explore their instability with.
Slashdot Mirror
Extinction is the reduction in the probability of a learned response ( http://www.google.com/search?q=extinction+psycholo gy ) Perhaps this can be used to reduce other learned responses, as well.
Perhaps, in some sick way, people with PTSD or other "fear disorders" are addicted to fear?
I was looking for a digital camcorder a while back. Sony sure has some nice, high-quality digital camcorders. I ended up getting a JVC camcorder because I explicitly refused to buy a Sony product.
I made sure my father didn't buy a Sony HDTV. He got a Samsung instead.
I haven't bought a PS3 and I tell others not to, either. The Wii is better anyway.
Quicksort, which is O(n^2), generally outperforms the O(nLog(n)) algorithms.
I hate to burst your bubble (sort), but quicksort is O(nLog(n)).
While I find your post informative (up until now I had never heard of "gorilla arm"), I suggest reading this other informative sibling post.
= 19687103
Mid-air mouse is somewhat of a misnomer...you don't have to hold it in mid air. In fact, it does not require arm motion of any sort.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=243159&cid
Also, I think touch screens kind of suck because you're finger is blocking the view of your hand. >.<
You bring up a fantastic point with the speed. Let's take it one step further.
This thing is pretty cool as far as making precise, small, or fine-grained motions. What if you combined it with a Wiimote, and used the Wiimote for fast motions?
It would be difficult, but an innovative combination of pointing approaches would allow one to take advantage of each approaches strengths.
So, if we can corrupt the TLB, then we can essentially skip all of the memory protection mechanisms? I know that you'd be able to skip around the whole invalid page fault stuff, but wouldn't a protected memory model keep you from reading/writing into memory that you shouldn't be touching? Or is memory protection applied before the CPU gets the physical address?
That exploit wouldn't work because the OS would trap the invalid page access and generate a blue screen or kernel panic.
Just because the TLB returns an erroneous translation doesn't mean that the OS isn't still going to check to make sure your process has access to the address space in question.
Remember - an M-rated game is still only appropriate for audiences 17 and over. An AO rated game is for 18+. So, not giving it an AO rating is not the same as saying that kids should be able to buy the game.
So, I have a better question: is there any compelling reason why a 17 year old (and ONLY 17 year olds) shouldn't be able to buy this game?
Doh. You are correct, my usage of [sic] was wrong.
However, I do not understand what you mean by "You keep using that word." I only used [sic] once.
SRAM only consumes "large currents" (for ambiguous definitions of large) whenever it needs to switch states.
DRAM, however, consumes "large currents" every time it charges a row of capacitors. However, the large current is very brief (on the order of several ns) but happens frequently and periodically (on the order of several us).
DRAM is smaller, simpler and power hungry BECAUSE of all the refresh's required.
Er, it's power hungry because of the refreshes, but it's smaller because it's 1 capacitor and 1 transistor, as opposed to several transistors.
As far as simpler....I wouldn't go that far. SRAM is WAY simpler to interface to than DRAM, because the SRAM doesn't need an intelligent memory controller which understands how to burst large amounts of data, and how to handle the latency for the first access. Oh, yeah, and don't forget that the memory controller needs to send refresh commands periodically to the DRAM...
Not in modern DRAM. Modern DRAM is basically [sic] a capacitor.
Sure, forgetting about the whole row and column stuff, and the sense amps...
However, due to the natural resistance of silicon there is always some leakage current leaving the capacitors.
Incorrect. Capacitors lose charge because dielectrics are not perfect insulators, and thus some current actually leaks through from one plate to the other.
This means that RAM left alone for more than a few tenths of a milisecond will lose enough voltage to drop to a logical 0
Disturbingly wrong. Most manufacturers specify that a row of DRAM must be refreshed at least every 64 milliseconds. In fact, Wikipedia cites a pdf saying that some information can be retained for up to minutes in a cell of DRAM - though you will get some bit errors.
TO prevent this, RAM is constantly refreshed- the ram chip will spend spare cycles writing its own value to itself.
Actually, the memory controller will issue a refresh command to the DRAM chip. This is probably what you were thinking about before...a row refresh must happen every 7.8 microseconds or so (depending on the RAM chip). But, that's because the refresh operation only refreshes a single row. The DRAM chip usually has an internal address counter, so you just say "refresh the next row" and the DRAM chip already knows what the "next row" is, and afterwards it increments it so the next time you issue the refresh command, it refreshes the next row. If you execute these refresh operations every 7.8 microseconds, then in 64 milliseconds you will refresh every row of memory on the DRAM chip.
Oh, and by the way, reading from any cell of DRAM will refresh the entire row that cell is on, because reading from DRAM is a destructive operation. Therefore, there's actually a row of latches at the bottom of the columns, and the values from those latches are placed back into the capacitors while the bit of interest is being shuffled out onto memory bus.
Writing to a cell also requires reading the entire row, which means that writing also refreshes that row.
How it is that people assume that it is a matter of oil, when the oil producing nations are the ones which end up with windfall profits is beyond me.
Exxon is an oil producing nation?
If you have sex with your clone, is that
A) Masturbation
B) Incest
C) Homosexual
D) All of the above
but isn't this Salon article revealing state secrets in some way.
They may be state secrets, but they're Iraqi state secrets.
One way to solve the inadequacy of your finger's capacitance 'signature' is to grab on to a wet naked woman with your other arm.
Where exactly are you grabbing this "wet naked woman"?
For that matter, where do you expect a slashdotter to find one?
Size only matters if it's too big or too small.
I'm saying that habits from real life tend to find their way into online life, and I postulated on the habit which could have resulted in the emergence of the word "addy".
Here, have your words back. You tried putting them in my mouth, but they don't fit.
Actually, in some computer disciplines it is useful to shorten long words, like address.
Say you have an address bus and a data bus. You're drawing a schematic. "Data" fits in just fine, but "address" would run into one of the two boxes. "Addy" is four letters long, just like data.
Re: thinkofthechildren, I think that a lot of these "protect children" laws are being passed because some parents these days are raising children when they are blatantly incapable of doing so. These laws are then being used to make up for a lack of parental ability.
Or maybe the kid will grow up and realize the parent actually cared enough to set limits.
Or maybe the kid will grow up and realize that the limits that the parent set were unreasonable (because, frequently, they are) and they will think not that their parents care, but that their parents just get off on authority.
Not all parents are like that, mind you. But, there are more like that than you think.
Not doing anything because you can't do it all is kinda stupid.
Punishing people for committing "crimes" that have not hurt anyone just because some other people who commit these "crimes" might hurt someone is kinda stupid.
Wouldn't it be better to prevent the real world crimes? Especially where children are the victims? Why does one person's right to travel a slippery slope override the right of any child to a reasonable degree of security?
Ah, so this is where we come into a conflict over "a reasonable degree of security".
The world is not a safe place. How, then, do you draw the line of "reasonable", if nothing you can do will ever ensure the safety of anyone, child or not?
To me, punishing someone for being on a slippery slope is the same as saying they're guilty until proven innocent.
I still don't think you can justifiably punish "thought crimes" though. Wouldn't it be better to mandate treatment to reduce or eliminate the possibility that these people will actually act on their fantasies?
I will agree that "treatment" is a superior solution to "imprisonment". However, I fear that "treatment" would be forced on some people simply because they're different, and not because they're a threat to anyone.
If a human being is perfectly okay with being attracted to children, and understands the ramifications and why this type of behavior isn't accepted by society, should you really put them through that kind of treatment? What if it destroys their self-esteem (because they think they're a sick freak now), and their life becomes ruined? Was it worth it to potentially save a child, in order to destroy some adult's life? Yes, I know, it's all hypothetical, but remember, this pedophile is only hypothetically going to go after children.
Until a true ability to reason the wisdom of certain behavior develops, resentment is the typical response. That doesn't mean you don't limit childrens behavior at all. [snip] There's a vast gray area between guiding your kid safely through their childhood and youth, and locking them in the dungeon.
Yes, I agree, but more and more I see parents trying to lock their kids in a dungeon to protect them. To me, it's far more reasonable to demonstrate why a particular behavior is dangerous to discourage it, rather than to have draconian rules.
I have another friend whose parents never really told her what she can and cannot do. For blatantly stupid things, she would get a no, but she was probably given more freedom than she needed. Instead of telling her she's not allowed to do something, her mom would say "What you're about to do is stupid, for the following reasons:" and then let her daughter proceed to do the stupid thing. The daughter would then learn that, of course, mom is right. And, now, that is a lesson that's actually learned. And to top it off, there's less resentment involved.
Isn't that just running away from the problem? (re: if you can't stop the problem, don't punish victimless crimes)
No, it's not running away from the problem. The problem is adults who abuse children, not adults who are attracted to children.
By saying that we should treat pedophiles who have harmed no one, you're effectively expanding the problem beyond its true bounds.
Speeding is a victimless crime: are you suggesting that because people still fly down the highways and through neighborhoods and kill people, we should just stop handing out speeding tickets? Forgive my bluntness, but that's a very bad idea. Speeding is illegal because it puts people in danger, not because you shouldn't be able to drive how you want.
Do you really, truly believe speed limits exist for safety? Why is it, then, that speed traps and speed cameras are usually in high-traffic places and at the bottom of hills and on expressways, and very rarely in neighborhoods or near schools or at dangerous intersections?
The purpose of speed limits is to generate revenue. That it discourages some people from driving dangerously is a minor side effect.
If someone kills someone else because they were speeding (or even if they aren't speeding!), we have laws to deal with that. Vehicular mansla
Have you considered that what was acceptable in the past isn't today?
Yes. The question was, where were the morals back then? This leads to the question, when did the morals arise, and what caused them to suddenly be important? I mean, Christianity was still all the rage in that day, so you can't say it was religion.
Something had to be responsible for society's shift in beliefs. The women's civil rights movement, maybe?
Who knows where the psychological line is with these things?
I say that drawing a psychological line is the wrong approach. Punish real world transgressions, not thought-crimes.
As for the little girls "sluttin' it up" in the local mall, yeah, I notice that. Makes me sick too, but I don't blame the kids. It's really the parents and the media. More the parents, because they ultimately have the greatest degree of influence on their children
Yeah, but if the parents start saying "You can't wear that!", then little Jane is just going to wear acceptable clothing overtop of her skank clothes, and then once she's outside of daddy's watchful eye, she strips down to the near-nude. Punishing the behavior you don't find acceptable is not a good way to prevent that behavior.
I've heard all the horror stories about the preacher's daughter going bonkers once she realizes she's old enough to do what she wants, and wanting to try everything dear old dad said was "evil" while she was growing up
Exactly! In our world, that's what most parents think being a good parent is - ruling your child's life with an iron fist. This usually inspires resentment and rebellion.
I know one girl whose mother will not let her do the things that she (the mom) wouldn't do. Things like going to an anime convention. All this does is make the daughter resent the mother; I'm pretty sure once she's old enough to move out, she'll be gone, and the mother will hardly ever hear a word from her daughter. That's the bed mom made, though; now she's gotta sleep in it.
Does refusing to ignore such behavior mean making it illegal? Maybe not, but I can't think of any reasonable alternatives yet.
Even if you make this sort of behavior illegal, it's not going to protect everyone. People will continue to be perverted. If you can't stop the problem entirely, then I see no point in punishing people for victimless crimes.
Some people say drugs should be illegal because they lead to crimes (theft, etc), even though taking a drug harms only the user. But the crimes they commit are already illegal; they should be punished under those laws for crimes they did commit, and not because they might loot, rape, or pillage.
It's nobody's business what fantasies people have, and it's nobody's business who sleeps with who, but it is everyone's business when someone becomes a danger - especially to children.
Back in the day, men took wives who were, what, 14-16? Where was the OMGKIDDIEPORN crowd then?
Besides that, have you walked around an American mall lately? It makes me sick at times. 12-16 year olds sluttin' it up. I see a girl walking along, and she's in some pretty hot clothes, and then I get within range to determine that she's way too young, and I start to gag. It's amazing how overtly sexual these young girls are. And they know it, too.
The fact that clothes like that are made in sizes for children of that age should be illegal, too, shouldn't it? After all, a mall is a pedophile's ideal hunting ground - look at all that underage skin the girls so willingly show.
This means restricting certain behaviors, preferably by way of cultural norms, but if necessary, by legislation.
Be careful. Some people think you should legislate certain behaviors, like violent video games. That's a pretty slippery slope you're on there.
But with all due respect, that is predicated on the rather naive assumption that people will keep these predatorial fantasies locked within the rather unsatisfying realm of virtual reality.
With all due respect, that is predicated on the rather naive assumption that all people who engage in this sort of virtual fantasy are going to seek to live it out.
Sure, some will. Some already do, regardless of the existence of the virtual world. Some people also try to live out GTA.
Those who are mentally unstable will be mentally unstable whether or not you give them the virtual world to explore their instability with.