Slashback: Moon Footage, KillerNic, ZFS Leopard 207
Direct answers to Slashdot KillerNIC questions. Emptynest writes "A bit over a week ago, Slashdot linked a story on GDHardware.com and it was filled with a bunch of 'hard questions from the Slashdot Community" regarding Bigfoot Network's pending 'killer' Network card that promises to reduce in-game lag. It looks as if Bigfoot isn't backing down and has hand-picked several of the questions from the Slashdot Community and answered them in a new article."
Recap of stolen laptop identity theft. Kn10 writes to tell us Technibble has a brief recap of some of the major laptop thefts resulting in personal information being leaked from major organizations. From the article: "According to the FBI, laptop theft is the second most common computer crime and less than 2 percent of those stolen laptops are ever recovered. Four in five (81%) of US firms have had at least one laptop stolen containing sensitive information according to a recent study."
A victory for on PayPal user. Not-So-Anonymous Coward writes "According to his site, 'silic0nsilence', who was featured in the Summer 2006 issue of 2600, has won his long battle with PayPal Fraud. On August 15th, 2006 in Small Claims court, he was awarded $671.12 after almost a year-long war with PayPal and a user. He also successfully won a small claims suit against PayPal to commence in his case with the user."
Missing moon footage surfaces. denis-The-menace writes "Film producer and rock video director Peter Clifton was sitting watching television when he saw NASA was searching for original Apollo 11 footage. He had forgotten that in 1979 he ordered footage from The Smithsonian for use in The Dark Side of The Moon demo film. He had all but forgotten a pristine 16-millimeter film of the moon landing was part of his vast personal film catalogue"
Dell laptops unwelcome on Quatas flights. Thomas Henden writes "The Australian airline company Quantas, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, banned the in-flight use of Dell laptops on battery power. The security personnel even went so far as taping over the contacts in the batteries according to an agreement between Dell and Qantas. However the security is now somewhat relaxed — all you need to do now, is to get in touch with the personal aboard, and tell you want to use your Dell laptop, and then you will be 'advised individually.'"
More ZFS new from the Leopard front. nezmar writes "From the AppleInsider forum comes an interesting discovery about Sun's ZFS and Apple. A user who has the Leopard developer preview searched the system with Spotlight and found a mention of ZFS. He says: 'There is no file system bundle for it, nor is there a mount utility or any other one (no fsck, now newfs, etc.). There is, however, a changed vnode.h.' Looks like the story back in May might have some truth after all."
PayPal article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PayPal article (Score:4, Informative)
And the WMD thing is from an old meme [blueyonder.co.uk].
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From here, they fly North for the winter. And it's because they have magnets in their heads (this was proven before P.E.T.A found out).
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I didn't say anything about winter.
. . . it's because they have magnets in their heads. .
The magnet is the earth. Not all birds have the iron to make use of it for navigation; apparently relying on good ole VFR. Navigation methods do not address the metaissue of why they fly south.
KFG
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I guess we'll just have to accept that nature still has its mysteries.
KillerNIC responds (Score:5, Funny)
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While you may no see the need for such a product in a PC gaming system, to dismiss the technology described as "fluff" is innacurrate at best.
Re:KillerNIC responds (Score:4, Informative)
Describing the benefits of a TCP offload engine as the answer to a question about how they can claim reduced UDP latency is fluff. It's like the magician getting you to look at his assistant's chest while he moves a hidden card to the top of the deck.
Besides, TCP offload is a technology to increase throughput, not to reduce latency.
We are agreed that TCP is not UDP, right?
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You will actually find that TOE frequently refers to TCP/IP Offload Engine, which includes the IP packet checksum. If this is quick enough, it would indeed also improve the latency, as less (slower) code has to be run in the OS IP stack (although I certainly agree with you that this would most likely not be noticable in a gaming environment).
TCP is indeed not UDP, however the IP checksum falls under TCP/IP.
Re:KillerNIC responds (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is not immune to worms, it all depends on the apps that are running in the background. If *their* code is crappy, then it can break down the Linux permissions, and voila, worm. And while users may have complete control to choose which FNApps run on their card... um... they already have that option on real PCs, yet things get run without them knowing. Spyware and Adware are things that work around issues such as "you choose what to run".
This is also neglecting the idea of a root kit, such that an app could hide itself from the user.
This can yield multi-millisecond benefits, even on the fastest of today's computers.
Ok, now granted this is a Mac to a Linux box, but:
23 packets transmitted, 23 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.169/0.230/0.416/0.074 ms
This is between two computers on a gigabit network through a switch. Now, please, explain to me how I'm supposed to be expecting these multi-millisecond benefits from bypassing the UDP stack? I mean, if he seriously would like to tax me on this, I suppose I could write a UDP ping program and prove that my network gets that sort of a response regularly even over UDP.
And as the perfect finale, their question number 1 was from me:
1) Seriously, who else but a marketing department would think that it's a good idea to trademark a name describing everything "new" that your product does? And the page is so full of TLAs (three letter acronyms) that you need a glossary to read it.
Bigfoot: Virtually all technology companies trademark their features, including Intel, AMD, nVidia, Razer, and us! But we understand you want to understand the technology, so check out Killer's new product page at our website. You will find that it is much more detail driven in terms of how the technology works. Also, you'll find plenty of meat in our FAQ here.
I'd like to point out that my issue was that they're trademarking EVERYTHING, not just NetBurst, or SSE, or AltiVec, etc, or any other of the individual names that companies have thrown out to describe their new products. But when I look at an ad for a product and there literally is nothing describing the card or product that doesn't have a little (tm) next to it, I get suspicious.
When you have to go to such great lengths to make something sound so totally rad, that's usually the biggest indication that something is wrong with it.
As a personal rule of thumb: the slimier the salesman, the more seriously you need to consider what he's trying to offer you.
If they feel that they have to trademark a word "MaxFPS(tm)" that provides absolutely no information about what it does, rather than just say "Network Process Offloading" be warry.
Oh, and then the creativity of all their new trademarks. I mean, they're just words squished together. It's not like you're getting a cool name like "NetBurst" or "AltiVec" or something new, no, you get "PingThrottle", and "GameFirst", or "UltimatePing". Who did they have working as the creative director on these names? Nim Chimpsky? They are so uninteresting, and bland, that it just smacks of "We didn't want to even try to be cool, because we didn't care."
Personally, I for one welcome our new NetworkOverlords(tm), with their NiftyTrademarks(tm), with their SuperCreativity(tm).
Tell you what Bigfoot, send me a KillerNIC to review, and we'll start talking about if any of your lame lame lame marketing is worth anything at all. Until then, I'll slam it anytime I can. With my patent pending HyperDis(tm) technology.
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bigfoot networks (Score:2, Funny)
you think that's bad? (Score:5, Funny)
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Careful there. This is an ASP site, and soon enough, the GLGA may make sure that there is a real goatse on there...
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can use the battery, or use the cord, but you can't use both.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
You may use it with a battery in it. OR you may use it with a power cord and no battery in it.
You may not use it with a power cord and a battery in it, i.e. no charging.
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My understanding is that in common English, "or" is the inclusive variety. That's why the logical operation for inclusive OR isn't called something like "IOR."
If they mean XOR, they should append "but not both" or clarify it in some equivalent way.
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Still not buying the KillerNIC story. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the "network stack" is a bit more complex than you seem to be implying. I'm sure that most people here are familiar with the old OSI model:
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data Link
Physical
Now, explain how those "hardware interrupts" substitute for the processing that needs to happen.
I'm not saying that the Windows TCP/IP stack could not stand some optimization. I'm sure that it could.
I just don't see how claiming "hardware interrupts" are the solution is an answer if you don't explain how those "hardware interrupts" handle the processing and where/when they are called.
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Which is good enough to have plenty of "hardcore gamers" lining up to buy this snake-oil. You know the type. The ones that shell out several thousands of dollars on a high end machine, spend hours hand-picking watercooling components to get another 5 MHz out of their overpriced CPU, fork over $100+ for a 36gb HDD because it's 10,000rpm... all in an effort to shave a quarter of a second off their load times and gain a few FPS in what usually ends up being Quake 3 or CS.
Re:Still not buying the KillerNIC story. (Score:5, Informative)
You don't avoid hardware interrupts- HOW do you let the OS know that you've sent the data or got it?
Optimizing the stack- optimizing WHAT? It's allegedly speeding up UDP traffic; there's little to "optimize" there.
I'd buy TCP Offload maybe needing to be done- for 10 Gigabit Ethernet hardware. I should know;
I work with that sort of hardware for a client. UDP's not needing diddly at any lower speeds than that-
the offloads that make sense and work are scatter-gather DMA of the packet instead of needing an assembly
buffer and checksum calculation. Most modern cards worth their salt do this already.
They might be offering something- I won't call it as totally bogus until I see proof either way. But the
problem REALLY is that the thing bypasses ALL of the system security. In this case, they're
allegedly using Linux to provide the core of the network stack, so it's less problematic than it could be
but what kinds of exploits are present in the interface between the Killer and the Windows OS.
Re:Still not buying the KillerNIC story. (Score:5, Funny)
8: Operator
So many network problems I've had to troubleshoot have been tracked to layer 8.
Unfortunately it's also the hardest layer to debug.
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9. Politics
No system runs without them.
e.g. "We're an all Cisco shop..."
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9: Political
8: Financial
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Not at all. Like any other flaky component, you swap it out with a known-good one for testing, and if you determine the original was defective, you dispose of it.
Note to self: Buy more heavy-duty trash bags.
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The problem here, is that they aren't actually attempting to answer the questions, just produce the appearance of answering the questions, for the benefit of their target demographic (who likely don't understand either side of the exchange).
They also managed to get another link posted from slashdot in the process. *Cough*.
From the "answers":
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I've got an nForce4 motherboard with on board NIC, it comes with drivers for windows that offload some of the processing. I assume there is a higher level interface in the driver model that you can replace.
However it's only with a recent driver revision that I've been able to ftp files without corruption. Any TCP based protocol that didn't have another layer of checksum's would result in errors.
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Could this just be low level packet prioritization? Maybe utilizing some tweaked out optimizations for checksum offloading or perhaps some clever optimization of TCP windows?
Still, sounds like snake oil to me (just like some video card specs).
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Actually, my favouite part was that he ignored the fact that clients and servers have vastly different requirements - namely that servers process much more network data.
"Oh, it's useful on a server, therefore it must be useful on a client!"
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Games suffer from latencies. Servers are Ok with latencies - they are made so and pipelining (used to improve overall performance) is the cause of the latencies.
Another point, nobody payed attention to, is that KillerNIC "literally bypasses the Windows network stack and uses hardware interrupts to get data directly to the game". That might sound find (in fact I was personally doing something similar with Intel's e1000 adapters) but with one major problem: the network traffic reaches the game directly, b
Not much of a victory, and nought to do with paypa (Score:4, Insightful)
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Something to note: He didn't actually tell us the terms of his settlement with PayPal, so who knows... maybe PayPal threw some money his way to avoid being dragged into a lawsuit.
Re:Not much of a victory, and nought to do with pa (Score:2)
AFAICT, PayPal's only course of action after that is to take him to court - surely he could just sit back and say "Fine. Take me to court"?
Qantas flights and Dell (Score:3, Informative)
ZFS Port (Score:3, Insightful)
* example only, I imagine these exist already.
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It does all three better than what Apple currently has. I agree about the complexity, but coming up with a good filesystem isn't as easy as it used to be.
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Actually, early released versions of OS X (10.0 for sure) ran on [apple.com] either HFS+ *or* UFS. UFS wasn't used so much and I think had some issues (case sensitivity & classic OS 9 support), and I believe at some point (10.2?) UFS-based installation was dropped.
W
ZFS on FreeBSD (Score:2, Informative)
The start of a port to FreeBSD has been started, and after ten days there has been demonstratable progress:
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/ 2006-August/004609.html [opensolaris.org]
Of course you're generally correct: ZFS goes into '
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That said, I hope ZFS makes it to Leopard. And FreeBSD.
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From this comment [slashdot.org]:
Which had me thinking (and you folks probably know more about this than I do) — could ZFS power elements of Time Machine [apple.com]? I mean, probably for 10.6 (Ocelot?), but still... If Time Machine was not onl
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You don't need ZFS for that--any file system will do.
Furthermore, lots of operating systems have these capabilities already, but they are not popular and are generally not enabled. It may be that it's the right thing for Apple's consumer OS to do, but in most other settings, universal version control and automatic restore simply aren't desirable features.
unproven (Score:2)
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IBM, for example, have had all RAID, block-level and partitioning integrated into their LVM under AIX for years. IIRC, you can't have any disk which isn't ultimately handled by the AIX LVM system in some way - even the root "partition" is held as a logical volume.
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I believe you could; LVM just took physical devices and presented another set of virtual block devices. It was up to you if you wanted to make your file systems on the physical device or the logical device.
The fact that LVM was a module that stayed within the standard UNIX framework of devices, rather than an all-encompassing replacement of everything, meant
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Offloads the network stack? (Score:2)
(Yes, this was posted with Safari. I don't have as much as Solitaire on here.)
DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
As an aside - is
NASA and copyright. (Score:4, Informative)
Some matierials produced by NASA may have copyrights. (For instance: movies with copyrighted music in the background which was licensed for NASA's use and needs an additional license if it gets cloned elsewhere).
More a NASA web site [nasa.gov].
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I never did like that Guns 'n Roses soundtrack NASA put in the moon landing footage... Seemed out of place somehow.
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Tell me how a movie producer who licenses/purchases the use of stock footage from the Smithsonian becomes an "untrusted third party."
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The real problem isn't the DRM (which is simply an annoyance), but the special legal status that DRM is given. If DRM encourages an
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DRM may not be bad in and of itself, but DRM backed by the DMCA certainly is bad as it allows copyright owners to circumvent copyright law, so carefully balanced (HA!) to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by completely dictating what can and cannot be done and with no apparent mechanism to revert to the public domain.
Dark Side of the Moon (Score:5, Funny)
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What are the sync points? Curious from a multimedia production pov.
Re:Dark Side of the Moon (Score:5, Funny)
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Nefarious Wheel asked for the sync points between The Wizard of Oz and something else. Here they are [wikipedia.org].
Bigfoot nonanswers (Score:2)
No so fast (Score:3, Informative)
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"It is hoped documentation associated with Mr Clifton's reel will help direct researchers to the warehouse or museum where the missing tapes are stored - if they still exist."
This wasn't missing (Score:2)
KillNIC?? (Score:5, Funny)
1. CONNECT DIRECTLY TO THE NET
2. TURN OFF YOUR ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Yeah I'm gonna get right on that.
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I also liked their amazingly intuitive suggestion that was doubtless the fruit of much in-depth research:
No kidding, professor!
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You mean those AOL disks? They're the internet, right?
**shudder**
Not here, I only have the kind of latency that doesn't affect lag. You know, "Good Latency(tm)".
Its 'QANTAS' - not 'Quantas' (Score:2, Redundant)
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Not really, it is an acronym.
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The submitter and editors are supposed to RTFA, not just guess. It's the first word of the story.
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Those Austrians are just trying to confuse you.
Anyway, no one was talking about apocalypses. Just unprofessionalism and carelessness.
Meet Detective Bookman of the NASA Library (Score:5, Funny)
CLIFTON: Oh, I'm glad you're here, so we can get this all straightened out. Would you like a cup of tea?
BOOKMAN: You got any orange drink?
CLIFTON: Orange drink?
BOOKMAN: Yeah. Orange drink.
CLIFTON: No, I don't drink orange drink.
BOOKMAN: Yeah, you don't drink orange drink? How about instant orange drink?
CLIFTON: No, I don't...
BOOKMAN: You don't have any instant Tang?
CLIFTON: Well, I don't normally--
BOOKMAN: Who doesn't have instant Tang?
CLIFTON: I don't.
BOOKMAN: You buy a jar of Tang, you put it in the cupboard, you forget about it. Then later on when you need it, it's there. It lasts forever. It's freeze-dried. Freeze-dried orange drink.
CLIFTON: Really? I'll have to remember that.
BOOKMAN: You took the moon landing movie out in 1979.
CLIFTON: Yes, and I returned it in 1979.
BOOKMAN: Yeah, '79. That was my first year on the job. Bad year for libraries. Bad year for America. Hippies burning library cards, the Betamax decision letting everybody steal movies. I don't judge a man by the length of his hair or the kind of music he listens to. Rock was never my bag. But you put on a pair of shoes when you walk into the NASA Film Library, fella.
CLIFTON: Look, Mr. Bookman. I--I returned that movie. I remember it very specifically.
BOOKMAN: You're a Rock cinematographer, you entertain people, make them have fun.
CLIFTON: I try.
BOOKMAN: You think this is all big fun, don't you?
CLIFTON: No, I don't.
BOOKMAN: I saw your name in the credits once; I remembered your name--from my list. I looked it up. Sure enough, it checked out. You think because you're a celebrity that somehow the law doesn't apply to you, that you're above the law?
CLIFTON: Certainly not.
BOOKMAN: Well, let me tell you something, music fun boy. Y'know that little stamp, the one that says "NASA Film Library"? Well that may not mean anything to you, but that means a lot to me. One whole hell of a lot. Sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to. I've seen your type before: Flashy, making the scene, flaunting convention. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. What's this guy making such a big stink about old moon movies for? Well, let me give you a hint, junior. Maybe we can live without libraries, people like you and me. Maybe. Sure, we're too old to change the world, but what about that kid renting a movie, right now, in a branch at the local library and finding X rated porn taped over the middle of The Dark Crystal and Finding Nemo? Doesn't HE deserve better? Look. If you think this is about overdue fines and missing movies, you'd better think again. This is about that kid's right to borrow a movie without getting his mind warped! Or: maybe that turns you on, Clifton; maybe that's how y'get your kicks. You and your good-time buddies. Well I got a flash for ya, joy-boy: Party time is over. Y'got seven days, Clifton. That is one week!
Was all Apollo footage lost or just Apollo 11? (Score:2)
Re:Was all Apollo footage lost or just Apollo 11? (Score:4, Informative)
PayPal fraud? Er, not according to his own words (Score:2)
Since I transferred the funds to my bank account, my PayPal account was empty,
Then:
On March 23, 2006 I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau against PayPal. I told them I was down $600 and that PayPal made no effort to get my laptop back.
and:
My PayPal account is frozen with a -$615 balance
So they didn't ding his bank account for the $615.
In other words, he deliberately lied in the complaint to the BBB. And he wonders why PayPal locked the account. He's lucky they don't sue his ass for libe
Re:PayPal fraud? Er, not according to his own word (Score:2)
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The REAL killer app for KillerNIC (Score:5, Insightful)
I especially like this part of one of their answers:
WTF? The ping program does use the network stack; how else would it talk with the network? ICMP is still a protocol that needs to be encapsulated with a header and traverse down through your stack to the wire...
The only people that will be using this card are losers that have more money than brains, and cheaters. Yes, that's right, once again, cheating is the REAL killer app for the KillerNIC. You see, after playing a lot of PvP on Guild Wars I realized one thing about lag: Game designers intentionally account for player lag and compensate for it in interesting ways. Guild Wars PvP becomes a very serious game about skill interruption. An enemy spell caster could be casting a spell that will take 1 second to cast and obliterate you when it lands. You have a skill that will interrupt their spell if you click the button fast enough, during that 1 second time period. Well, the server has to accomodate dialup users and those users that are on laggy connections, so there are times when I've casted a spell, had the progress bar go all the way to completion, and then half a second later, the spell is interrupted (after it was done casting on my end). This is because the person on the other end actually interrupted the spell in time according to their game client, but because of network lag (they're on a slow connection), the interrupt didn't get to the server for a while. The server still honored their interrupt, and eventually my spell failed. By increasing their lag, the server has to give them "extra time", which means their reaction time doesn't need to be as good to win. People will write custom FNapps or whatever they're called to do this.
I can foresee cheaters intentionally increasing in game lag just to trigger this kind of a cheating mechanism. If you could add 100-200 ms of latency to your line, you could actually gain an advantage in games like this. I'm thinking WoW PvP is probably the same, although I'm not sure if skill interruption is a big part of that or not. If I remember correctly, WoW has a lot of insta-cast spells.
ZFS Commands (Score:5, Informative)
You are wrong (Score:2)
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why is it people who don't understand a saying scream about it not making sense?
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Where X is an adjective the phrase "all but X" implies "almost completely X". You can think of it as "just about ALL the way to being X, BUT not quite".
On the other hand, "anything but X" has the opposite meaning--it is not even close to X.
Re:Pedant es "thupid"... (Score:3, Informative)
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Laser, radar, scuba. . .
KFG
Queansland? (Score:2, Informative)
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Oh the Irony (Score:4, Funny)
What next, Nobby giving advice on hygiene? Rincewind talking about the virtues of a famous last stand?
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"Qatar" is the English transliteration of the Arabic, so is pronounced "k".
Australia's national language is English, so the "Q" of QANTAS - with its implied "u" - is pronounced "kw".
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Explicit in words - not acronyms [wikipedia.org].
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You haven't really rebutted anything at all; you just made a counter-assertion. I suggest you consult your OED. "Colour" may date from the 14th century, but "color" came into use in the 15th. It's not an American innovation, and is certainly not Webster's. The spellings of "labor" and "favor" were never consistent from the 14th century.
These words are of French origin which itself only settled on the "u" consistently in recent centuries. But who cares about that? If we speak neither Latin nor German, then
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Maybe someone with a broom tidied up Tranquility Base.