Posts by Dadz

RHPS

I see you shiver, with antici..

..pation.

Baby cow flavoured ice cream

To make ice cream you need to impregnate cows, and the male babies are kept in plastic igloos (isolated from their mothers and each other) until a year of age to be sold as veal; the meat and milk industries are economically and hence ethically linked. So, I see no real ethical problem with adding meat to ice cream, other than forced pregnancy, imprisonment of babies, and eventual killing of said mothers and babies.

stolen phones

There's a great way for Apple to monetize stolen phones; license the OS per user, not per device. When you buy the phone you have to "activate" it; you get one free license. If you wipe, upgrade or jailbreak the phone you lose the license. The iPhone's carrier lock is already crytographically protected by Apple-controlled servers; you can't permanently unlock a phone without your carrier accessing Apple's servers; as soon as you upgrade the OS on the phone, the carrier lock is defeated. It's only a small extension of the carrier lock to a whole-phone lock.

It's already done with used computer games. You have to pay $10 to "activate" certain used games for online play.

Mobile Paypass tags

In Canada we have this new thing called a Mobile PayPass Tag by Bank of Montreal - it's a sticker with a

paypass chip in it. You're expected to slap it on your mobile phone. The ads tout the ability to "pay with your mobile phone"

It's embarassing.

Paying with a mobile phone is done by

1) nfc (on or off sim)

2) on screen barcodes

3) modulated encrypted hypersonic sound exchange

4) wifi/bluetooth

5) exchanging stolen phones for drug money

It's not done with a sticker!

Girls Generation

If you don't understand how K-Pop could be a sign of the apocalypse, just watch some Girls Generation music videos on YouTube. You'll be glad you did, but you won't be able to get the lyrics out of your head, because the Korean language sounds like you should be able to understand it, but you can't, unless you do. It's more mind-blowing than Beyoncé's "Put a ring on it" video. Aliens, because I think GG are aliens.

Shocker

Two fingers?

That's a shocker

toasted waffle vending machine

I'd buy a toasted waffle vending machine! You'd think with the surname "Cook" he would have the business sense to come up with it! It has a freezer and a toaster, and I can choose whether I want waffles or french toast. Frozen waffles are stored in a magazine; each compartment has a silicone lid to prevent freezer burn; a tape robot retrieves food and loads it into the tape drive, I mean toaster conveyor, dumps the waffle onto a paper tray, pours some HFCS on top, and emits a loud "bing!" noise to wake up the fatty who has dozed off during the 90 seconds it took to cook it.

Spray-on cameras

Reminds me of the spray-on cameras (with fractal antennas) used by the Pierson's Puppeteer in the Ringworld novels by Larry Niven.

"even your DNA"???

New DNA-based system: There is a pinkie finger-sized hole. It says "insert finger here."

When I insert a finger, a clamp locks the finger in place, then a solenoid pricks the finger - drains out some blood for a DNA test - then the clamp unlocks. Five minutes later, the DNA test is complete and I have access. (The system would also check for a pulse and oxygen in the blood to ensure I'm not putting someone else's finger in; it could also scan the fingerprint).

another evil accessory

We can install malicous code in Apple keyboards that can't be removed. (2009)

We can install updated potentially malicious firmware in Apple batteries (July 2011).

Now we have a new power supply with built-in firmware and processor....

Perhaps we can coordinate the firmware in the battery and power supply to blow up the battery, perhaps through charging it too quickly.

Shakedown

Promise not to hack your internetz if you censorz them for us plz.

In the wild already

Found two in the wild already. In Vancouver, one stuck to the wall of the City Centre subway station, "Win a fantastic iPad 2" with a QR code - that points to an unrecognizable URL. Another one under a wiper, "Pizza Hut - Win your Pizza" asking me to download a getmobio app then scan the QR code to order the pizza - but the URL is also unrecognizable. The first one is a scam, the second one may be legitimate, but I don't trust either.

robot wars

Quantum should take the Nokia approach: Several competing teams design robots. Quantum puts all of them into production simultaneously. If the robot designs are completely different then the chance of a bizarre firmware bug or bearing failure would be unlikely to take out both robots at once. (but if the competition was too intense, perhaps the teams would design the robots to destroy each other, like Robot Wars) If one design fails, all the failing design's team members will be...

...made redundant!

Profit & environment

1) When process yields are low, nobody minds that chips with defective cores or cache are sold as lower end models. A Phenom X4 sells for 100% over cost, and Athlon X2 might only sell for 15% over cost.

2) When process yields are high, every chip could be made into a Phenom X4 but there is still demand for Athlon X2 for use in low-end systems. System builders won't pay and don't need so much power, so some chips are made into Athlon X2s, so that AMD can sell more chips and make more overall profit.

3) To prevent remarking and other arbitrage, the disabling mechanism is a combination of shorting some fuses (permanent damage.) In addition, a code on the CPU instructs the BIOS which cores on the CPU are usable.

4) Intel has developed a software-based system that can make a static change to the CPU's configuration. "The upgrade enables changes to the firmware (driven by the Intel® Active Management Technology Management Engine in the chipset) that in turn modify the hardware."

The actual mechanism is not described but I would guess that the chipset is shorting some fuses on the CPU to *enable* the cache and hyperthreading.

This means that it is no longer necessary for the CPU manufacturers to permanently limit a CPU for marketing reasons. It's the same business model, just with more flexibility.

5) This is a positive change. It's better for the environment. If we can upgrade our CPUs there will be fewer CPUs created. If a consumer doesn't want to give Intel the full profit margin upfront, the consumer can pay later for it.

6) If people hate the idea of buying CPUs with locked features, they are not obligated to do so. I recently even paid about $10 extra to buy a Phenom X2 965 with no multiplier locks. But I do have an i7 920 with a locked multiplier, and a Pentium D 905 with locked hyperthreading, and a Celeron D with a locked cache. I got what I paid for. However, I wish this tweak of the business model had arrived earlier so I could unlock my other CPUs.

"bigged-up"

You have unwittingly used the phrase "bigged-up." This is not the Queen's English. Perhaps it is Caribbean slang.

bluetooth

It's an Apple marketing feature. By breaking the proximity sensor feature, this will discourage you from holding it to your head. You will find that the best way to use it is with a BT headset. You will find that you necessarily must hold it in your hand and constantly admire it. After all, If you can't admire it and wave it around and show it off, what's the point of having an Apple device? In case you need to use both hands at once, you can fasten it around your neck as a medallion. Have more faith, fanboys! It works the way it was designed for your benefit, in the same way that its lack of Flash support, file management, and multitasking are for your benefit.

wireless auctions

Bandwidth was auctioned off for extremely high prices. Only huge carriers could afford to trategically reserve bandwidth to shut out smaller competitors. They then charge very high prices to recover the cost of bandwidth. The wireless market is anti-competitive by design. It's time for a spectrum breakup. Any wireless company not currently using blocks of spectrum they are not using should be refunded what they paid for it and the spectrum assigned to competition. The FCC/FTC should be able to use anti-competitive legislation to accomplish this. It's a shame that there is not such legislation in Canada.

That's fantastic

For several years Coraid has posted a note at http://support.coraid.com/support/solaris/

" Users of ZFS should be aware that a bug exists in ZFS causing system crashes when a ZFS disk encounters persistent I/O errors. This bug has been verified using AoE targets as ZFS disks. Sun is aware of the problem and is said to be working on a solution."

I have wanted to use ZFS over AoE for a while now; perhaps the bugs have been fixed and we can now use it.

Uh oh

How long until Apple implements a system to lock out unauthorized power supplies? Dell's Latitude D series of laptops talk to the AC adapter and report on bootup if they are using an incorrect power supply. The laptop draws power from the incorrect adapter (such as an HP nc8430 adapter) but runs in battery mode (dim screen, etc). All it would take is a firmware update to lock out the adapter - just like how Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 locked out third-party video cables recently.

Arm and a leg

I knew that Windows 7 would cost an arm and a leg. It appears to be costing some cows their arms and legs.

We don't own it

We don't own Windows 7. We own Vista. Most of our 35,000 desktops/laptops, recently replaced, have Vista stickers. Why would we pay to upgrade to Windows 7 when it is just a prettier version of Vista?? We will move to Vista from XP.. next year maybe. If Microsoft gives us Windows 7 for free.. we might consider that.