Posts by K. Adams

Interesting. Matt Asay posited a while back...

... people wouldn't be interested in pirating financial market software...

-- -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/24/piracy_open_source_bsa/

-- -- -- About half-way down:

-- -- -- "While the BSA is concerned with paid-for, proprietary software, most of the world's software is not written by proprietary software firms, but instead by enterprises whose primary business is not software, but rather finance, pharmaceutical and so on. The software written by Morgan Stanley for Morgan Stanley simply isn't going to be pirated."

... while I indicated that the potential profits of successful industrial espionage against a market trading firm make it worth-while to some:

-- -- http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/09/24/piracy_open_source_bsa/

-- -- -- Again, about half-way down:

-- -- -- "To use Morgan Stanley as an example: A slightly-off-center firm could "buy" a chunk of code from a disgruntled Morgan Stanley IT wonk, reverse-engineer the code to gain insight into Morgan Stanley's trading algorithms, and look for routines related to arbitrage transactions**. They could then design more efficient, lower-latency routines that take better advantage of price difference windows, thereby gaining a competitive advantage with regard to automated trades.

Never underestimate the power of (successful) industrial espionage."

The alleged perpetrator could (conceivably) made a lot of cash from his misdeed, except he used the wrong tools and facilities to commit the crime: He used the company's network to transfer the stolen material to servers across the Big Pond. Even if he encrypted the code, libraries, etc. before transmission, I venture that sending what was likely a substantial amount of data to a foreign IP address threw up a lot of red flags, and quickly caught the attention of the network/security admins at Goldman Sachs.

Not to mention that the Bourne-Again Shell keeps command history in a file, which means, ostensibly that the command history is written to a storage device of some sort. I doubt the developer's workstation ran from a RAMdisk, and depending on the underlying filesystem, the history of his entire session may have still been recoverable, even if he took care to erase it; some filesystems use a Copy-on-Write process which maintains earlier versions of files in their entirety until a lack of space mandates the used blocks be reclaimed.

Hey, Lewis: Let me buy you a pint...

... if I ever get a chance to amble past Vulture HQ.

"They could be used ... in space to remove unwanted hair."

Black holes have no hair:

-- -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-hair_theorem

'Twas dead before Jobs and iTunes

The music business was dead long before that.

As soon as the music conglomerate lobbyists learned to sign artists to captive "for-hire" contracts, and then got copyright terms extended to "from date of publication for 95 years" (in the United States; your country may vary), the music industry died.

The over-reaching length of copyright terms means that culture stagnates: Works of creativity which have a pronounced effect on an individual's present culture will rarely enter the Public Domain within that individual's own lifetime. This prevents him or her from (legally) taking that work and playing with it, bending it, warping it, twisting it, and integrating it into other creations, thereby advancing culture and making something new or better out of it.

So while "from date of publication for 95 years" does, technically, meet the criteria of the U.S. Constitution's "for a limited time" clause, I am quite sure that a 9.5-decade lock on a creative work is NOT what the Framers intended...

Doctor?

I would like The Doctor to opine on the matter, before drawing any conclusions...

Optical Interconnects

Well, I've often thought that in-core optics would be taking off by now, but that also seems to be a technology that the Big Fabs (Intel, Global Foundries, TSMC, etc.) have sidelined for the time being.

With recent advances in avalanche photodiodes, and since beams of light can cross each other at right angles with hardly any interference, one would think that building chips where circuit "traces" can cross each other at right angles ** and on the same layer ** would do wonders for latency and transistor density.

I guess the problem is deciding on what one could use as a photon carrier. Silicon dioxide (SiO2), which is the primary component of common glass, doesn't exactly have a small molecular cross-section when compared against the junction sizes of the nanoscale devices in today's processors. Phosphate, borosilicate, and ZBLAN glasses have optical properties that in some ways make them much more desirable than plain-old SiO2, but the cross-sections of their component molecules are even larger than those of common silica. I suppose one could try to leave "empty" space as a light lane, and then try to seal the lane off in a vacuum, but again, quantum nanoscale effects would probably put the kibosh on that idea, too...

Salute!

Not much more to say, really. As opined by Admiral Kirk (TWOK), anything else would be "just words"... </teary-eyed-sniffle>

"... would reduce ... the performance requirements, ... by truncating the output."

Say wha...?

Umm, back in the old days, web browsers developed in the US received export permission by taking 128-bit SSL and using only the 40 least significant bits, weakening the crypto considerably.

How is this any different?

Yeah, but how long...

... can a Kal-El-based tablet push those pixels until it sucks the battery dry?

More isn't always better, if it ends up being less...

In the words of Mirror Universe Dr. Phlox (In a Mirror, Darkly)...

To SCO: "Would you KINDLY DIE...?!"

Nothing like...

... Government swag.

Badgers, because, well, just because.

Lumbering Giants

With regard to the comments posted by JaitcH, etc.:

The problem with today's news outlets isn't laziness; instead, it's a combined lack of agility, a propensity to pander to special interests, political correctness, and dilution of product. I'll explain each in turn.

-- -- Lack of agility: Each of today's news/media giants is a big, corporate bureaucracy with continental and/or global reach. Because of this bureaucratic overhead, such a news outlet often cannot react quickly enough to get a legitimate "scoop" on breaking news. And once the news outlet does have its hands on a chunk of newsworthy information, it gets "edited by committee" before it's turned into a publishable article, further delaying its dissemination. A topical blog (or website like WikiLeaks) has the advantage in that it's small and nimble, often with only one person (or very few people) making editorial decisions. This speeds time to market.

-- -- Pandering to special interests: A large, world-reaching news outlet means Big Money, and to keep things running, it needs Big Friends (i.e., major investors, shareholders, and advertising clients). This means that there are undoubtedly cases where prescient and newsworthy info is withheld or ignored, so the news outlet doesn't embarrass the "wrong people." A blog operator often has the advantage in that his/her work is a personal endeavour, and has few ties to commercial interests. This means he/she doesn't have to "please" anyone other than him-/herself.

-- -- Political correctness: In today's hair-trigger, litigious climate, with lawyers just itching to get their hands on a fat, juicy award, a large news organisation will often delay publication of and/or water down its articles so as to not offend parties mentioned in its publications, or to gain assurance that it can back up its defences against libel/slander suits. This is similar to "pandering to special interests" (above), but approaches the "offensiveness" issue from the other end. In this case, a blog operator may have the advantage in that he/she has little in the way of resources or capital that could be awarded in a lawsuit. This makes bringing suit against a given blog's owner much less appetising.

-- Dilution of product: In order to keep circulation revenue up, a large news outlet will try to cater to a wide readership. This often prevents it from dedicating a substantial portion of its resources to a specific topic of interest (or prescience), since doing so could (over the long term) alienate a sizeable portion of its readers, due to the readers' lack of interest, or perceived bias of the news outlet in question. A blog operator, on the other hand, often limits his/her missives to a specific range of topics, allowing for more thorough analyses.

"...trained to handle any kind of a threat that comes over that border."

So, no cavalcade of troops departing in angst, yelling "Run away! Run away!" then?

Pity. That would have been fun to see reported on the evening news...

V & G

You know, V and The Goog have been spending a lot of time together, lately. Think they're an item? I wonder what their kid(s) will be like...

Domo Arigato, T & R!

Thank you very much, Thompson and Ritchie,

-- - for writing an O.S. that will not crash easily.

Thank you very much, Thompson and Ritchie

-- -- for building a protocol to bring my packets to me.

Domo (Domo)!

Domo (Domo)!

[RotM, in tribute.]

"On-screen barcodes aren't as secure as proximity payment systems..."

ORLY?

Try to read that on-screen bar code through my jacket pocket.

As for NFC security, we have seen, time and again, that radio-based payment systems are rarely as secure as the manufacturers (and the organisations that implement them) make them out to be. MiFARE was/is a perfect example of this.

The only way to ensure your NFC device isn't remotely compromised is to:

-- -- 1. never use it.

and

-- -- 2. store it in a Faraday cage (metal mesh sleeve/wallet/box).

Cue Chorus of Conspiracy Theorists

5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Go!

275K --> 100K for IBM i / i5/OS / OS/400

It's a shame that so many organisations appear to be/have been moving away from IBM's AS/400 platform (in all of its various flavours).

The AS/400 is, by-and-large, the best box that IBM ever designed, its OS having been developed by a team specifically chosen for their "lack of exposure" to UNIX and other POSIX-like operating systems.

I would venture to say that in our relatively short history of computerdom, there have been few other boxes that "just work" after being removed from the shipping crate, moved into the server room, plugged in, and powered on.

Long live the 400!

Big Blue skies...

... smiling at me...

(To crib from Irving Berlin.)

sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get upgrade

Problem solved!

(For APT-based distros, anyway...)

:-)

Chiclet KB?

How's the keyboard?

Real, hard-surfaced keycaps? Or rubbery, gooey, chiclet-style caps?

A chiclet keyboard could have some comfort advantages, especially with the limited keystroke distance, but could be a right pain to keep clean.

Otherwise, the Slider and Transformer both look like pretty cool kit...

Barf: What was that?

Lone Star: An HP Mini 210...

Barf: They've gone to plaid!

TravelStar Z5K500...

... utilising an impressive^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H dangerous 636Gbit/in^2 areal density.

Packing 'em in a bit too tightly, methinks. If I have to use a mechanical laptop drive, I think I'll play it safe(r) and stick with units in the 250GB range...

"My kids decided my hard drive was a bath toy."

Wow! That brings back memories...

My cousin's kids were visiting my dad's place one day, and after it got dark they quit playing outside and came indoors.

Being sequestered in the den to keep them from being underfoot, they decided to stuff rubber bands into the 5.25" floppy drives in my dad's KayPro II.

He turned it on the next morning, and instead of hearing the pleasant "whirr" of diskette drives waiting for media, he heard a "twang-twang-twang" as the rubber bands kept fighting the read/write heads as they tried to seek to track zero...

Write Endurance

Still not keen on the idea of using MLC flash for enterprise-grade storage...

Even the best 2-bit MLC flash has a relatively short lifespan compared to most single-level cell devices (note that this assertion does not take into account wear-levelling and the use of TRIM commands to extend life).

STT-MRAM (Spin Torque Transfer Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) shows quite a bit of promise

-- -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_Torque_Transfer

-- -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAM

but is some years away from production, and with fab construction (or conversion) costing billions of dollars, you can bet that flash manufacturers are going to milk the technology for everything they can get before they're forced to switch to a different technology by nano-scale quantum effects.

Ironic? Yes. Unfortunate? Possibly...

People will be quick to jump all over Assange's legal Counsel and cry "Hypocrites!"

After all, the whole "Goose/Gander" thing seems to make up a sizeable portion of a lot of peoples' moral genome.

However, there is quite a difference (in my mind) between exposing a Government's alleged collective misdeeds and/or internal policy, and releasing material that is liable to taint the jury pool and damage an individual's defence in a Criminal Court of appropriate jurisdiction.

To me, it's a matter of scale: Releasing a cache of documents about the actions or thoughts of a Government as a whole has a lot less of an impact against the Government in question (relative to its power, and the associated privilege of Sovereign Immunity), than the impact a leaked collection of documents can have with regard to a judicial proceeding directed at a specific individual.

To wit, the Cablegate affair is unlikely to have the effect of toppling the Federal Government of the United States from power, whereas a leaking of confidential info relating to Mr. Assange's sexual assault cases could very well impact his future status as either a free man (or prisoner).

Disclaimer: I am not stating this as an indictment of the actions of the Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, the United States, or Mass Media; not having read any of the leaked documents, and knowing only as much about Julian Assange and Bradley Manning as most other well-read folk keeping current with prescient events, I am not in any position to either support or oppose their actions or motivations in releasing the Cables. I am attempting to observe events objectively, and to provide analyses based upon the outcome of similar, prior events and legal precedent.

Lasers?

Pity...

Creatures of this size could have had some pretty frickin' heavy lasers attached to their heads... Could have been useful.

"... w/out having to worry [if] the data ... is ... transmitted wirelessly, over wires or both."

Isn't that what a networking stack is for?

VASIMR-powered hydrocarbon freight service

We should start building the infrastructure needed to support atmospheric hydrocarbon mining operations on Titan, and use VASIMR-powered freighters to push the collected hydrocarbons back to earth.

Now, before anyone gets all hot-and-bothered over the Greenhouse Gas potential of said hydrocarbons (being methane, propane, and ethane), let me just say that we need the hydrocarbons for a lot more than just fuel. Plastics, synthetic alkaloids for medicine, lubricants, electronics, and many other materials that have become practically indispensable to our developed (and developing) world rely on easily cracked and re-arranged hydrocarbon molecules, and Titan has enough to sustain us for a good, long time, and doesn't require that we dig up and pollute our own ocean waters and natural landscapes to get to it.

And the abundant supply of cold nitrogen could be used to power and maintain the orbital infrastructure near Titan needed to conduct operations; nitrogen has a fairly high vapour pressure, and the evaporation of massive quantities of liquid N2 could be used to spin power turbines during periods when solar arrays are shaded from sunlight. The orbital platforms' electronics and life support systems could provide the waste heat necessary to evaporate the LN2, and the N2 could, in turn, be used to cool platform systems and to provide orbital station-keeping thrust.

I like the idea of ChromeOS...

... I just don't think it's going to make much headway.

I doubt very many ChromeOS netbooks/tablets are going to debut with a 3G (E-EDGE/EV-DO/HSPA) or 4G (LTE/WiMax) wireless connection, which would limit its utility to places where an Ethernet/Wi-Fi connection is available, and to voice-chat apps that can be executed completely within the confines of the browser.

Android, by contrast, is a much more flexible (and, to a certain extent, much more complex) OS, with a true mobile connectivity stack included from the get-go.

The two places where ChromeOS has the advantage, in my mind, are boot speed and battery life: Since the browser IS (in essence) the OS, booting should be (relatively) instantaneous, and if paired with netbook-sized batteries (and no extra cellular comms gear sucking electrons), a single charge should last quite a long time.