The only time I've seen something like this is back in the day when software companies marked floppy disk sectors as bad for copy protection. The OS wouldn't touch them so when you copied the disk it either wouldn't copy due to read errors, or it would copy but the crucial data written in the bad sectors would be missing so the software wouldn't run.
So first you bash people's legitimate desire for privacy, than you claim to have a legitimate reason for anonymity? You *do* realise, don't you, that anonymity is just another aspect of privacy?
So, either you're for privacy, or you're not, but stop pretending you have a legitimate reason for abolishing it while taking full advantage of it.
As I see it the problem isn't so much that it's just another "picture", it's the fact that your fingerprint is high-value.
The huge level of implicit trust given to fingerprints by the government means that a fingerprint is considered absolute proof of identity. Show me a company that produces a foolproof fingerprint scanner and I'll show you a company who has only ever had themselves test their product. Anyone can invent security that they cannot crack, it takes a whole hell of a lot more work to create security that nobody else (or a reasonably high proportion of everybody else) can crack.
These things are not infallible, and when they fail, or are cracked/bypassed, well if it was your fingerprint - too bad, you've just been pwned for the rest of your life. You can't get another fingerprint.
I'm sorry to break this to you, but no biometric is reliable, either in the capture, or the matching to a database. The systems are vulnerable to attack and abuse. The privacy angle isn't always about what you are giving up today - it's about what you will be giving up tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. It's about the appalling level of trust given to so called high-tech products that claim to give everything but in reality give nothing of practical value.
Sorry, but up to Server 2008, Windows still doesn't handle partition alignment. Unless I'm completely mistaken, that's largely same kernel in Vista and Win7 too...
It's not so much a problem with track-to-track seeking, as it is a problem with the misaligned I/O itself.
If your on-disk structures do not align with the physical structures, then you experience a penalty for every host I/O to that disk. It's exactly the same issue with enterprise class storage arrays. the volume on the array is offset from the very beginning of the physical disk so is correctly aligned. However, every x86 style partition table laid down on those volumes consume the first 63K of the disk, meaning the data starts at the 64K mark - 1K before the start of the next disk track.
So, in a nutshell - for every host I/O, you will generate at least one additional I/O for the disk due to the badly aligned start of the partition table. Worst case, you'll generate two additional disk I/Os (for multi-track I/O) since the last track is also misaligned. For large block sequential I/O, you can pretty much ignore this effect, for small block random I/O - it's gonna kill performance. Align your partitions to 64K and the problem goes away - of course, this has to be done before you put any data on the partition and is not done by default with any OS I'm aware of today, which explains why nobody ever does it.
Note, since I mentioned storage arrays I'll clarify that this is not the same as the RAID write penalty.
Note also, this is usually only a problem for x86 style partitioned disks.
It doesn't take too many applications configured to run using 256M, 512M or even 1024M - and you've literally sucked down all the memory in your machine and need to add another box.
Except the host OS will most likely use lazy memory allocation - i.e. it will allocate virtual address space, but will only allocate physical memory when it is actually used. The end result is that even after requesting 4GB of memory, if I've only written to 128MB of it, then I've only got 128MB allocated from the host.
On the other hand, if you request, and then immediately use all that memory, then yes, you are going to have issues (which is why a C malloc followed by memset is bad).
I see what you're saying - I guess I'm just not convinced that high compression (lossless or otherwise) of a higher definition source is necessarily better than a much lower compression of a lower definition source.
Of course, I'm not necessarily convinced that it isn't better either since I know next to nothing about the details of codecs and how humans interpret the end result.
My point isn't so much that an absolute difference of 10% in the actual vs. the reported compression is large, it's that it's inappropriate to say "almost" when the discrepancy is 25% of the actual value.
Don't forget, that 10% isn't 10% of the compressed stream, it's 10% of the uncompressed stream. By reporting 50% compression, that's stating a compression ratio that is 25% greater than it actually is. Due to the non-linear response of biological systems such as eyes and ears, I wouldn't expect many to notice a difference of 10% either. 40% well, possibly there'd be plenty of people who'd notice that. An additional 25% compression and I certainly would expect that to be noticed.
I personally agree with another comment that what they probably did was displayed the comparison pictures on SDTV equipment, hence the "typical" home equipment line.
For my part, when I had Sky+ (SD), I could usually spot the compression artefacts on a SDTV. Now that I have Sky+HD with a HDMI connection to my 1080p HDTV, it's like the difference between VHS and DVD. The low resolution of SDTV just makes it look appalling. Of course, most HD shows just look *too* sharp, but that's another matter.
While I agree in principle with you, there comes a time when "almost" is simply hyperbole.
When the difference between the actual percentage and the "almost" percentage is a quarter of the original figure, then that's just plain silly. (there's a 10% difference between 40% and 50%, which happens to be 25% of the actual value)
You do understand though, that the lost information in your example is lost at the capture stage not the compression stage don't you?
Lossless compression is just that - lossless. Try compressing your copy of notepad.exe with WinZip, extract it and tell me if it still works. That's lossless compression. The result of compression then decompression is bitwise identical to the original. It has nothing to do with whether the original data is an accurate representation of what it claims to be.
Second: If you take something away, it's not there any more.
Something like having exclusive use of that code?
And the argument that some people do something for a living doesn't tell you anything about if that should be legal. In the times of slavery, some people were trading slaves for a living. Professional killers kill for a living. By your logic, slavery and killing should be legal.
Well, technically that's a matter of opinion. But since (I hope) we're all of the opinion that slavery and killing SHOULD be illegal, I'll disqualify slavery and killing from the category of "real, tangible products" due to the fact that they necessarily violate another human being's rights.
Right there, you've just destroyed your own argument. Having "exclusive use" of your code is not a "real, tangible product". The instant you sell or supply your code to anyone else, you necessarily lose the ability to have "exclusive use" of that code.
What copyright gives you is the exclusive right to control the copying and distribution of your code.
Now, what you almost touch on is that theft concerns "real, tangible products", not abstract concepts like software. Regardless of what all the armchair lawyers on Slashdot think, you cannot steal an idea. How many copyright cases do you think include the word theft? I'll give you a hint - it's probably zero. No, they use words like infringement and violation. The simple reason is, despite what they want you to believe, there is no such thing as stealing non-tangible concepts. The copyright owners know it, the courts know it, everybody knows it except the people who are taken in by Big Content's rhetoric.
Copyright infringement may or may not be immoral. It may or may not be unethical. One thing it is not, however, is theft.
Oh, one more thing - we've always been at war with Eurasia.
Although you are trying to ignore this fact, there is a difference between having competitors in a market, and that market being competitive. It's a subtle difference, but it is there.
I gave you an example of how software patents might stifle competitors - I did not claim they can be used to eliminate competitors and thus create a purely uncompetitive market, though surely even you can see how that can happen.
Well, at least we agree about how patents are supposed to be. If patents were granted only for the specific implementation, and not for things that are "obvious, for someone skilled in the art", or indeed in the face of prior art that just hasn't been researched properly, as so many are, then I agree, it would be very difficult to use a patent portfolio to manipulate the market. We both know that's not how it works in reality.
Without wanting to drift too far off topic, you only have to look at how companies use their overly broad and vague software patent portfolios to stifle competition.
If patents were specific to a particular implementation and not overbroad, I might be able to agree, but as it stands, in many areas they've devolved into government sponsored strangleholds, effectively removing competition by raising the barrier to entry due to the threat of expensive patent litigation.
I totally agree, but part of being a professional is conducting yourself ethically at your job. I do not agree that he could ethically divulge critical passwords to personnel he knew to be unqualified to use them, especially when company policy tells him not to.
No, he is still responsible because he still has access to the administrative accounts. Now, if the passwords had been changed to prevent access by him, and it was formally noted - that would be better, but he was still obligated by his responsibilities and company policy to not divulge sensitive information to unqualified morons.
Except when his boss screwed something up using that account, who do you think will take the fall? His boss?
He's taking the fall anyway, but he did the right thing and will be ultimately vindicated. Oh, and the city will face a hefty legal bill plus compensation. It wouldn't surprise me if he pressed criminal charges over his arrest and detainment.
When the owners asked for the password, he should have noted his concerns, and given them up.
Except he was following sensible security precautions and the official policy of the owners of the equipment - they don't have a leg to stand on. They required him to agree to the policy as part of the terms of his employment, and now they're trying to ruin him in criminal court because they wanted to bypass that policy. BZZZZZZT! Wrong answer!
Wow, that's the first time I've been called a troll or Apple fanboi on slashdot. I must be new around here, huh?
Not only did I agree the iPhone has insufficient resources, but I said I'm replacing mine as soon as the contract is up. If that makes me a fanboi, well, all hail Steve Jobs.
It's interesting that your only contribution to the discussion is to call me a troll. What can I say... well said?
Slashdot Mirror
The only time I've seen something like this is back in the day when software companies marked floppy disk sectors as bad for copy protection. The OS wouldn't touch them so when you copied the disk it either wouldn't copy due to read errors, or it would copy but the crucial data written in the bad sectors would be missing so the software wouldn't run.
Replying to cancel a fat-fingered mod. Sorry...
So first you bash people's legitimate desire for privacy, than you claim to have a legitimate reason for anonymity? You *do* realise, don't you, that anonymity is just another aspect of privacy?
So, either you're for privacy, or you're not, but stop pretending you have a legitimate reason for abolishing it while taking full advantage of it.
Required reading for those 'I've got nothing to hide' people.
Also, perhaps you can explain how somebody chooses not to be born in a particular country?
Not posting anonymously because I'm not scared of what people have to say.
As I see it the problem isn't so much that it's just another "picture", it's the fact that your fingerprint is high-value.
The huge level of implicit trust given to fingerprints by the government means that a fingerprint is considered absolute proof of identity. Show me a company that produces a foolproof fingerprint scanner and I'll show you a company who has only ever had themselves test their product. Anyone can invent security that they cannot crack, it takes a whole hell of a lot more work to create security that nobody else (or a reasonably high proportion of everybody else) can crack.
These things are not infallible, and when they fail, or are cracked/bypassed, well if it was your fingerprint - too bad, you've just been pwned for the rest of your life. You can't get another fingerprint.
I'm sorry to break this to you, but no biometric is reliable, either in the capture, or the matching to a database. The systems are vulnerable to attack and abuse. The privacy angle isn't always about what you are giving up today - it's about what you will be giving up tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. It's about the appalling level of trust given to so called high-tech products that claim to give everything but in reality give nothing of practical value.
anime-expo.org engadget.com anishshaikh.com schneier1 schneier2 schneier3 schneier4
Sorry, but up to Server 2008, Windows still doesn't handle partition alignment. Unless I'm completely mistaken, that's largely same kernel in Vista and Win7 too...
It's not so much a problem with track-to-track seeking, as it is a problem with the misaligned I/O itself.
If your on-disk structures do not align with the physical structures, then you experience a penalty for every host I/O to that disk. It's exactly the same issue with enterprise class storage arrays. the volume on the array is offset from the very beginning of the physical disk so is correctly aligned. However, every x86 style partition table laid down on those volumes consume the first 63K of the disk, meaning the data starts at the 64K mark - 1K before the start of the next disk track.
So, in a nutshell - for every host I/O, you will generate at least one additional I/O for the disk due to the badly aligned start of the partition table. Worst case, you'll generate two additional disk I/Os (for multi-track I/O) since the last track is also misaligned. For large block sequential I/O, you can pretty much ignore this effect, for small block random I/O - it's gonna kill performance. Align your partitions to 64K and the problem goes away - of course, this has to be done before you put any data on the partition and is not done by default with any OS I'm aware of today, which explains why nobody ever does it.
Note, since I mentioned storage arrays I'll clarify that this is not the same as the RAID write penalty.
Note also, this is usually only a problem for x86 style partitioned disks.
And if you are driving down the road with a smoking car
Sounds pretty willingly to me. It's not like you can unwillingly drive down a road.
Ummm, because WINE is a compatibility layer of libraries and ReactOS is an entire Windows compatible operating system? They are different beasts.
Oh! This is Abuse. You want room 12-A next door.
Stupid Git!
It doesn't take too many applications configured to run using 256M, 512M or even 1024M - and you've literally sucked down all the memory in your machine and need to add another box.
Except the host OS will most likely use lazy memory allocation - i.e. it will allocate virtual address space, but will only allocate physical memory when it is actually used. The end result is that even after requesting 4GB of memory, if I've only written to 128MB of it, then I've only got 128MB allocated from the host.
On the other hand, if you request, and then immediately use all that memory, then yes, you are going to have issues (which is why a C malloc followed by memset is bad).
I see what you're saying - I guess I'm just not convinced that high compression (lossless or otherwise) of a higher definition source is necessarily better than a much lower compression of a lower definition source.
Of course, I'm not necessarily convinced that it isn't better either since I know next to nothing about the details of codecs and how humans interpret the end result.
My point isn't so much that an absolute difference of 10% in the actual vs. the reported compression is large, it's that it's inappropriate to say "almost" when the discrepancy is 25% of the actual value.
Don't forget, that 10% isn't 10% of the compressed stream, it's 10% of the uncompressed stream. By reporting 50% compression, that's stating a compression ratio that is 25% greater than it actually is. Due to the non-linear response of biological systems such as eyes and ears, I wouldn't expect many to notice a difference of 10% either. 40% well, possibly there'd be plenty of people who'd notice that. An additional 25% compression and I certainly would expect that to be noticed.
I personally agree with another comment that what they probably did was displayed the comparison pictures on SDTV equipment, hence the "typical" home equipment line.
For my part, when I had Sky+ (SD), I could usually spot the compression artefacts on a SDTV. Now that I have Sky+HD with a HDMI connection to my 1080p HDTV, it's like the difference between VHS and DVD. The low resolution of SDTV just makes it look appalling. Of course, most HD shows just look *too* sharp, but that's another matter.
While I agree in principle with you, there comes a time when "almost" is simply hyperbole.
When the difference between the actual percentage and the "almost" percentage is a quarter of the original figure, then that's just plain silly. (there's a 10% difference between 40% and 50%, which happens to be 25% of the actual value)
You do understand though, that the lost information in your example is lost at the capture stage not the compression stage don't you?
Lossless compression is just that - lossless. Try compressing your copy of notepad.exe with WinZip, extract it and tell me if it still works. That's lossless compression. The result of compression then decompression is bitwise identical to the original. It has nothing to do with whether the original data is an accurate representation of what it claims to be.
Second: If you take something away, it's not there any more.
Something like having exclusive use of that code?
And the argument that some people do something for a living doesn't tell you anything about if that should be legal. In the times of slavery, some people were trading slaves for a living. Professional killers kill for a living. By your logic, slavery and killing should be legal.
Well, technically that's a matter of opinion. But since (I hope) we're all of the opinion that slavery and killing SHOULD be illegal, I'll disqualify slavery and killing from the category of "real, tangible products" due to the fact that they necessarily violate another human being's rights.
Right there, you've just destroyed your own argument. Having "exclusive use" of your code is not a "real, tangible product". The instant you sell or supply your code to anyone else, you necessarily lose the ability to have "exclusive use" of that code.
What copyright gives you is the exclusive right to control the copying and distribution of your code.
Now, what you almost touch on is that theft concerns "real, tangible products", not abstract concepts like software. Regardless of what all the armchair lawyers on Slashdot think, you cannot steal an idea. How many copyright cases do you think include the word theft? I'll give you a hint - it's probably zero. No, they use words like infringement and violation. The simple reason is, despite what they want you to believe, there is no such thing as stealing non-tangible concepts. The copyright owners know it, the courts know it, everybody knows it except the people who are taken in by Big Content's rhetoric.
Copyright infringement may or may not be immoral. It may or may not be unethical. One thing it is not, however, is theft.
Oh, one more thing - we've always been at war with Eurasia.
Although you are trying to ignore this fact, there is a difference between having competitors in a market, and that market being competitive. It's a subtle difference, but it is there.
I gave you an example of how software patents might stifle competitors - I did not claim they can be used to eliminate competitors and thus create a purely uncompetitive market, though surely even you can see how that can happen.
Well, at least we agree about how patents are supposed to be. If patents were granted only for the specific implementation, and not for things that are "obvious, for someone skilled in the art", or indeed in the face of prior art that just hasn't been researched properly, as so many are, then I agree, it would be very difficult to use a patent portfolio to manipulate the market. We both know that's not how it works in reality.
Without wanting to drift too far off topic, you only have to look at how companies use their overly broad and vague software patent portfolios to stifle competition.
If patents were specific to a particular implementation and not overbroad, I might be able to agree, but as it stands, in many areas they've devolved into government sponsored strangleholds, effectively removing competition by raising the barrier to entry due to the threat of expensive patent litigation.
I'd hazard a guess that software patents have something to do with that.
I totally agree, but part of being a professional is conducting yourself ethically at your job. I do not agree that he could ethically divulge critical passwords to personnel he knew to be unqualified to use them, especially when company policy tells him not to.
At the very least I'd imagine you'd be liable for aiding and abetting.
No, he is still responsible because he still has access to the administrative accounts. Now, if the passwords had been changed to prevent access by him, and it was formally noted - that would be better, but he was still obligated by his responsibilities and company policy to not divulge sensitive information to unqualified morons.
Except when his boss screwed something up using that account, who do you think will take the fall? His boss?
He's taking the fall anyway, but he did the right thing and will be ultimately vindicated. Oh, and the city will face a hefty legal bill plus compensation. It wouldn't surprise me if he pressed criminal charges over his arrest and detainment.
When the owners asked for the password, he should have noted his concerns, and given them up.
Except he was following sensible security precautions and the official policy of the owners of the equipment - they don't have a leg to stand on. They required him to agree to the policy as part of the terms of his employment, and now they're trying to ruin him in criminal court because they wanted to bypass that policy. BZZZZZZT! Wrong answer!
My bad - clearly I don't understand how threading works on /.
Obviously I *am* new around here ;-)
Wow, that's the first time I've been called a troll or Apple fanboi on slashdot. I must be new around here, huh?
Not only did I agree the iPhone has insufficient resources, but I said I'm replacing mine as soon as the contract is up. If that makes me a fanboi, well, all hail Steve Jobs.
It's interesting that your only contribution to the discussion is to call me a troll. What can I say... well said?
Actually, they usually terminate the process that's using the most memory, or at least that has been my experience.
While that may tend to be the end result, Linux at least does try to be a bit intelligent about what the OOM Killer terminates.