Posts by Charles 9 16605 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
If they're THAT nasty, it doesn't matter WHERE you put it. Some idiot takes the whole bloody case, there's little hope for you. Remember, we're not talking about preventing theft of the case and/or its contents. We're simply talking about a better way of keeping track of it as it moves out of your sight. The handle is just the most convenient location because EVERY suitcase has a handle.
Tag chips aren't that big these days. The one for pets is about as big as a grain of rice. Perhaps a manufacturer can use this as a selling point: an RFID embedded in the handle with a 64-bit UID (20 for the manufacturer, 44 for a serial number). Especially now with more phones containing RFID readers.
The article specifically mentions Japan has no GSM coverage. By that, I think they mean GPRS/EDGE. It would make sense for the device to go low-tech to save battery (higher gen=higher drain) while it would make sense for Japan to drop old tech frequencies to make room for newer ones.
Ergo, the thing uses tech too old for Japan.
Point is that if ANY part of the system can be arm-twisted by the US, they can perform MITM attacks to obtain your private key. This combined with hoovering the raw encrypted data would allow them to decrypt your emails. And since they can squelch, there's no way for you to know they've done it.
That's the thing about the computer industry vs. other industries: they move at different paces. In most other industries, it's pretty common to obtain a very expensive piece of equipment and expect this equipment to last a few decades at least (otherwise, amortizing the cost over the life of the equipment isn't worth it). Many of these industries are small, highly-competitive, and wary of the competition. This means there are no standards in them since no one trusts the other to agree on anything. End result: the machines become black boxes, and the computers that control them (part of this black box and the point of contention here) are full of proprietary trade secrets. It's a Hobson's Choice since all the players do the same thing; you have to put up with it or you can't play in the industry.
"I want it to be designed for things I don't have yet."
The trouble is that reality never throws a straight ball (or to use cricket lingo, it's a nasty spin bowler). You try to anticipate technology going one way, you suddenly find out it's gone somewhere entirely different, making your spec useless. For example, there's a distinct likelihood monitor cables in and of themselves will be obsoleted in the near future with short-range high-bandwidth wireless. That's probably why tech companies are leery to plan for the future: the plan tends to go awry.
The problem ISN'T fear of malware and such. THAT can be alleviated with a backup regimen.
The REAL problem is EOL'd hardware support. The example I gave noted that XP was the last Microsoft OS to support the ISA. The firm isn't worried about a bug; they're worried the ISA controller gives up the ghost since it can no longer be replaced. If that board goes, the entire CnC (which is a specialist machine full of proprietary trade secrets; therefore, nothing about it is public) would have to be replaced just because of that one controller. Because no machine beyond XP supports ISA, and since the controller is proprietary, it can't be virtualized, so just replacing the computer is not an option.
Thing is, IT lifecycles and industrial machine lifecycles differ by scale of about 10:1. Industrial machines typically run for decades, but the computers and software that control them aren't designed to work that long--their industry moves too fast to allow for building something with a 30-year working life. Another thing is that these industrial machines are expensive. It's their long working lives that make the investments worth it since the cost can be amortized over that long period. Short-lived controller computers are rapidly becoming weak links in industry.
Given the repeated findings that people give up their own passwords under the flimsiest of pretexts, the ideal system would contain features unknown to the very people to whom the credentials do in fact belong.
Which kind of puts you in a dead end since a credential has to be presented in order to be used as a credential. How can someone present a credential they don't even know about?
Plus, as I've previously mentioned, who authenticates the authenticator?
The US doesn't have a sales tax. That's assessed at the state level and depends on the state. Oregon, for example, doesn't have a sales tax (Oregon's more of a "settle down" state, so they get you with the income tax and other fees instead), while New York and Florida have historically high sales taxes (due to high levels of tourism and/or visiting traffic--you can nail out-of-staters with a sales tax).
Besides, one key difference between sales tax and VAT is the point of application. VAT is applied at the wholesaler level (it's the retailer and any middlemen that are charged the tax--they just pass the cost down). Sales taxes are applied at the retail level (the customer gets hits for the tax and the retailer has to report and pay that tax to the government). I've noted that one advantage to a VAT is that it encourages honesty since anyone trying to evade the tax is likely to get reported by the next higher link (lest they get caught up in it).
PS. As of present, states lack the authority to force a business to charge a sales tax for its residents unless the business has a brick-and-mortar presence in that state, as that runs into the Commerce Clause, meaning they can't do it without authorization at the federal level. Congress has yet to pass an act providing such authorization, and they're pressured by e-tailers like Amazon to not pass one. Some states like New York can pressure some firms like Amazon by targeting affiliations established within the state, but not every state can use that angle.
If nothing else at least legal teams seem to have a little more sense but it shouldn't have to come to that to get the most basic of service.
Unfortunately, it's only when the legal team (very expensive) gets involved that the cost outruns the benefit of ignoring you. Any other situation, they could probably leave you high and dry 24/7/365.25 and they'd still turn a profit from the terminally stupid.
IOW, they make a killing selling you the stuff but would get killed the moment they have to support it. Now imagine this being status quo through a whole industry.
42 languages of user manual that's mostly disclaimers or warning about incorrect battery insertion (they ignore the excellent battery manufacturer's app notes on how to design battery compartments so batteries CAN'T be inserted wrongly!).
Because what you describe is impossible. At least some small but significant percentage of the help calls will be for people, in the sheer depths of stupidity, who somehow managed to cram a battery the wrong way into a compartment only designed to accept the battery one way.
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams
At least most of them are toll-free now. Imagine if you had no choice but to put up with this on a toll number. And since it's likely a vendor in a captive market, the only alternative to give the vendor the finger would be to walk away with nothing at all.
What you're seeing are "defensive" patents, taken out on things they're currently inventing to make sure no one beats them to the punch. Defensive patents are prevalent in many industries, particularly pharmaceuticals where companies can't risk BEEELION-dollar-plus investments on new drugs on being stolen by the competition. So they take out patents on new drugs before they're ever made. Because of the time limit on patents, this puts the drug companies on the clock. To maximize their profit potential, they need to get the drug to market ASAP. However, they have to get past the testing the regulatory stages first. On average, by the time a drug actually gets to market, the patent clock only has a few years remaining on it.
Interesting discussion. Perhaps you can enlighten us with a related discussion. Compare what you've just described to photosynthesis: the energies, inputs, outputs, and efficiencies in comparison to the raw C from CO2 discussion you've just given.
Another possible discussion would be attempting to do what you described using non-grid sources like photovoltaic cells. Instead of money, perhaps time would be a good measurement to see just what it would take to crack CO2.
FireWire isn't THAT asymmetric. I've has my share of having plugs upside-down.
I think the main problem is that it's hard to be very asymmetric when one of your dimensions (in this case, height) is very limited. No matter how much you try, it's hard to make something of Micro's size other than something relatively flat on both sides. KISS principle would dictate that if one can't make the two sides easy to distinguish (which you really can't with a necessarily-flat plug), the next best choice is to design it so that it shouldn't matter which way you do it (that's what Lightning does and what Type C will do).
*Facepalm* 10 as in 10 (decimal) Gbit/sec raw throughput. Future iterations could then use its maximum raw throughput as its identifier. Does a twofer: differentiates versions and tells you right off how far one can take a particular version.
PS. Remember, we're talking a spec that lay people have to understand, so it's best to stick to good ol' decimal.
I have one big beef about USB On-The-Go: using it prevents charging. I would like the IF to, while they're at it, modify the OTG standard such that a charging pigtail can be standardized, allowing users to do OTG and still keep their phone topped up (which can actually be important if the device being attached is a high-draw device like a portable hard drive--say you keep your video collection on it but you face a dilemma--it draws too much to be practical, and charging means you can't use the drive).
PS. As for a spec, perhaps it's time to stop using adjective names and start using numbers. USB 10 sounds like a good starting point, in any event.
I had trouble finding the actual thread. I see, so it's also custom hardware. At this stage, it's only "good enough" until it's "not good enough anymore". It isn't broke now, but it will break eventually, at which point one's lost the paddle needed to stay out of Crap Creek. A similar thing happens when a piece of hardware goes to EOL because a key component is no longer manufactured. It happens in every industry sooner or later. About the only thing that can probably be done is to start putting aside for some sort of migration plan while there is still revenue being generated.
In this case, it's still an option since the CnC is communicating via a network protocol. As long as the protocol can pass through the virtual network adapter, it should be fine. It's when you get to a direct-hardware controller (or other things that simply can't be virtualized) that things get dicey.
Proprietary PC hardware is going to come to a head no matter what simply because the hardware and its maker will eventually run out of time. In a situation like that, the only option is to start saving up ahead of time since the day of reckoning is a question of "WHEN", not "IF".
The idea of using the VM is pretty sound in this case since it means the machine can be upgraded (as needed) without having to lose the XP functionality. It's something that should at least be considered and perhaps planned for by, say, imaging the current machine in a known-good state and recording important details such as IPs and MACs. It at least opens a migration path that is not possible directly, and the good news is that it's not something that has to be done right away or in one go. Get the machine at some point, start putting things together bit by bit so that it becomes a useful redundancy in case the actual controller PC does fall over.
"North Korea is increasingly turning out to be the short tempered, retarded cousin of the international community."
Problem is this retarded cousin still managed to wrap himself with dynamite and grip a detonator switch. Meaning we don't want to tick him off since if he hits that switch, regardless of the circumstances, things are bound to get mighty ugly.
"What they could have done is pushed the reasons why the customer should stick with a Blackberry on T-Mob and not be tempted by the iPhone; instead they cut off their nose to spite their face."
I think the logic is that they'll concentrate on AT&T and start touting, "You want a Blackberry? Go with AT&T!" IOW, Blackberry loyalists (and it has a history because of its enterprise focus) may start defecting from T-Mobile as they change models, assuming they are on T-Mobile.
Without looking, who was the Captain of the Mary Rose? Ok, who was the captain of the #23 Hudson Auto Ferry? Don't look at me, I don't fucking know. But the Captain of the Mary Rose went down with his ship and the Captain of the #23 Hudson River Ferry got to shore. Guess which one got future job offers and became extremely desirable because he had successfully navigated (Ha!) a very dangerous situation? Here's a hint: It wasn't the dead guy.
You assume the captain of the Mary Rose had the CHANCE to get to shore. Truth is, we don't know for certain just why she sank. All we can conjecture by the remains was that she sank very rapidly: probably too rapidly to make any difference. Also, the Mary Rose was engaged in battle, meaning it was under a different operating procedure. Put it this way, whatever befell the Mary Rose would probably be considered "unsurvivable" regardless of who was at the helm at the time.
To correlate, if anti-matter has mass (and it should given it's composed of the same kinds of sub-sub-atomic particles as regular matter, just arranged differently, then it should react to gravity in the same way. We're just being sure in this case.
According to prevailing theory, negative matter would fall up, but the same theory holds that negative matter has negative mass and can never exist in our universe just as our matter cannot exist in a universe of negative matter (either would break a large number of fundamental scientific laws if it occurred: conservation of energy, for one thing).
But what if you're just starting out, trying to scrape buy, and need every honest buck you can get in a dishonest world? Being blase may seem like a move toward loyalty, but in the end, does it really pay the bills? There seem to be concrete examples at both ends of the spectrum (as the developer of World of Goo, for example).
The hint is that you can't buy a phone that has BOTH Qi charging AND a removeable battery at the same time. Reason being the QI coil has to be near the back to be effective and needs a decent amount of surface area: enough that fixing it in place would block battery placement. Even now, all the Qi chargers for S4 and up have to be placed ON TOP of the battery, requiring them to be removeable. That makes for some fiddly stuff, so save them for people who know what's involved.
We could really do with more watch-eyes pointed at our decision-makers (since they are so keen on recording our every movement for future use, it's obvious they need careful watching for the inevitable other signs of delusion and meglomania).
Trouble was, people already saw a problem with that approach, thus the question, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (or "Who watches the watchers?"). For anyone set as a watcher, who watches her, and then you have to wonder who watches that watcher and so on.
The 3.5" drives were mostly either 720K or 1.44M. The Mac version used variable-speed rotation to squeeze 800K on an otherwise 720K disk, which made the older disks incompatible with newer drives. We ran into that when we got our first iMac--the 800K floppies for Civilization wouldn't work with any USB drives.
I recall that the floppy drives on Commodore Amiga computers were powered by a programmable controller. In its normal mode an 3.5" Amiga disk could hold some 800KB, but since the controller was programmable, you could do some peculiar formats if you dared. This not only allowed for exotic formats but also for rather unique forms of copy protection.
Other way.
A 5/14" floppy disk provided up to 180KB of data per side. A double-sided disk had the potential to store up to 360KB per disk. I remember the days when I routinely had to handle them on a 486, and I recalled their formatted capacity to be in the ~350KB range. This is also consistent with other computers of the time like the Commodore. A single-side-formatted Commodore disk reported 664 256-byte blocks free, which equals 169984 bytes.
If you're thinking a DSDD floppy has 720KB on it, you're thinking of 3 1/2" floppies, which did indeed have that capacity rating in MFM formatting.
That was something I wanted to bring up. IBM may have flopped with the PCjr, yet Tandy was able to get on the map with the 1000, basically a clone of the jr. It gained enough traction that the sound and graphics systems it uses, again the same as the PCjr, tended to be identified as Tandy graphics and sound rather than PCjr graphics and sound.
Vandals are good at throwing things. Arm's reach is irrelevant.
It still is relevant since how else do you blind the camera without getting yourself in its eye? Laser pointers only work temporarily, plus you normally have to get in the camera's eye to get a good line of sight. Throwing things only work on exposed cameras. How do you blind a shielded/domed camera without getting in its eye? Plus like I said, good camera arrangement covers the blind spots so that in trying to avoid one camera, you usually end up in another camera's view.
"Besides, the proliferation of CCTV tends to encourage vandalism: specifically, people will try to vandalise the CCTV cameras. This means you’d need a second CCTV system with cameras pointing at the first CCTV system, and a second set of bored security guards to watch live video feeds of motionless video cameras."
I always thought that was part of the art of CCTV arrangement.You tried to position cameras with two ideas in mind:
1. The cameras are out of arm's reach (since spray paint isn't effective much beyond that). That way, any attempt to paint the camera involved a climb or other endeavor which inevitably meant significant face time (defeating the purpose of painting the camera).
2. The cameras had overlapping coverage, meaning as well as covering various complementary areas, the cameras also covered each other's danger zones: places where another camera could be attacked, perhaps even from a distance (using say a paintball gun). That way, any attempt to attack a camera puts you in the view of another one. I know the quote mentions this, but I'm saying this "watch the watcher" doesn't necessarily have to mean you cover just that camera. A good field of view means you can see plenty else besides that camera.
Singapore has been providing their citizens wired Gigabit ethernet connectivity for years now. Why can't the rest of the world's nations follow suit?
Probably because the entirety of Singapore comprises a tiny little flyspeck island off the tip of the Malay Peninsula. Geography matters when it comes to wiring up a place. South Korea is relatively small in itself, thus their high-speed rollout didn't cost so much. OTOH, the United States is huge (one of the biggest countries in the world) with tons of rural area. In order for New York to be able to talk to Los Angeles at gigabit speeds, you needs a gigabit link all the way down, across two mountain ranges and more than a few rivers.
It depends on the type of scene you're watching, particularly in terms of travel (motion in gross that is not dependent on head motion--for example, going forward). If travel is limited and the head tracking is good, the brain can usually cope, and you don't suffer ill effects. OTOH, if your travel is significant and unusual (such as experiencing a first-person roller-coaster ride), the senses get mixed up. Your eyes say you're twisting and turning, but your ears (which carry organs that help the brain sense orientation) don't agree, saying you're still upright and motionless. As a TV show once put it, the senses are "not singing from the same song sheet." Then you're probably going to start feeling simulation sickness.
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