Because it costs a non-trivial amount of real resources to "produce". Dollars cost little and less to make and move. Even physical dollars don't take that much, and most dollars are just accounting entries in computers. So there isn't much resources spent on shuffling them around, no more than any of the myriads of other data we shuffle around.

However bitcoins require energy, lots of it and an ever increasing amount, to "mine". So creating them, and moving them around needs energy to be spent playing math games with no benefit. However it still needs real resources to generate the power to do it. It is an extremely wasteful idea, particularly if it were ever scaled up to the massive worldwide economic scale the BTC proponents want (it can't scale that high for a lot of reasons, but then logic isn't their strong suit).

The amount of power supercomptuers take is IMMENSE. Like let's say he was using Stampede, the supercomputer at University of Texas. That thing draws 3 MEGAWATTS when fully spooled up. That is just what it draws, not what its cooling system takes, which could easily be another half a megawatt. Now we dunno what they pay for electricity precisely, but looking at industrial rates in Texas with the PUC it runs somewhere around the realm of $73/MWh. So running this thing for just one hour spun up costs $250ish. Just the raw power cost is a lot.

Now I'll grant you, it uses some of that at idle. However even if all the systems just drop to idle power, and it doesn't shut down unused nodes, it'll still easily be 10% of that based on what our Dell servers use (the system uses a bunch of Dell servers with Sandy Bridge Xeons in them).

So never mind CPU time costs, maintenance, wear, other research getting delayed, etc, which is all very real, pure power usage is a lot for a big supercomputer.

Power costs is something many coin miners never seem to factor in. They'll crow on about their "profits" but if they deduct anything, it is just hardware costs. They don't seem to bother to analyze how much power their computers are using to do the mining, and then further how much power is being used to cool those computers, if applicable.

The claim made was reinfection via audio. However, as I said, I've seen no proof. Nor, for that matter, any proof on the audio exfiltration malware. Just the one sensationalist preliminary article and no followup.

Hence why I'm interested if there is actually any more information, or if this is just more Internet echo chamber where one unfounded report becomes an Absolute Truth(tm).

Is there any evidence of this "air gap malware" crap? Yes I remember there was a preliminary story on Slashdot... I don't remember any followup, any proof, just some wild ass speculation.

Is there any evidence that such a thing actually exists?

"That because he released non-ilegal things that Snowden was not a whistle blower? And therefore he should be prosecuted?"

Well ya, that could certainly be argued. When you get a security clearance it is made very clear to you that it is illegal for you to release classified information, under penalty of law. You sign plenty of documents to that effect and so on. So if you do, you should be prosecuted because you broke the law.

Now, the twist in that comes from if you revealed the government was involved in something it shouldn't be. That is what it means to be a "whisteblower" you are "blowing the whistle" on an illegal activity (as a referee blows their whistle on an illegal play in sports). Most people would say in that case you deserve protection from prosecution, because while you agreed to keep information a secret, that is different than keeping information of a crime secret.

Hence why someone can argue that the leaks of information about foreign spying aren't whistleblowing. I mean that is why America has the NSA, CIA, NRO, and so on: To spy on other nations. That is their express purpose and if they aren't doing that, there is little reason to keep them around. So revealing classified details about that isn't whistleblowing, at least not by a normal definition of the term.

Also trying to argue semantics about the journalists releasing information is silly. After all, Snowden is the one who originally got his hands on it, and chose what to give to the journalists. He maintains some responsibility for what they choose to release. If there was things he didn't want out, he shouldn't have given that information over. You can't hand information over to someone, with the intent of them releasing it, and then later say "Well but I didn't want them to release THAT!"

So the grandparent is being quite logical. I'm not saying you have to agree with them, but the point they make is valid.

But both are gimmick based. The Wii's gimmick was the motion controller. That interested a lot of people, they thought it looked really neat and wanted to try it. Of course you discovered that it wasn't quite as cool as it first seemed, and many games really didn't play that well with it, but it drove console sales pretty well. People liked the gimmick and wanted in, so that sold a lot of consoles at least initially.

However gimmicks are fickle things, and there's no guarantee of what people will be interested in. The Wii U's gimmick is a tablet. That just isn't working out. People aren't that interested. Makes sense, since most people who wish to have a tablet already have one in another form and a game console with a tablet isn't all that interesting.

It also made the price less attractive. That tablet isn't trivial cost wise, so Nintendo couldn't be quite as low priced. That was something else that helped the Wii. It was low cost enough compared to the other two to be interesting to people who didn't want to spend as much, as well as people to get it as an "and a" console in addition to whatever other one they liked. The Wii U wasn't quite as price competitive and so didn't see as much of that.

Basically Nintendo got lucky with the Wii. It was the right gimmick at the right time to catch on and sell a ton. This time around, they missed big time.

Now, if you think the regulations are unreasonable, ok, fair enough. But the correct answer then is to push to change the regulations. It isn't ok to say "Oh no those regulations are necessary for the NORMAL economy but our special SHARING economy should be exempt". That is just being greedy and trying to have unfair competition. Either it is good for all or it needs to be changed.

Also, if you think it should be changed, you might first want to look and see why said regulations exist in the first place. Sometimes they are bullshit, but often there is a good reason why a regulation comes in to force. There was a problem, and regulations were created to solve it. OHSA regulations are a good example. For anyone who's had to deal with them they can seem a little onerous, but then you study history and find out why we have them and it seems like a pretty damn good idea.

A business that can only be competitive and offer a lower price by skirting regulations isn't something to be proud of.

Probably a little of both. In the long run, it is likely to be an amazing jet. Pilots say the thing is just amazingly capable, and near impossible to fight against. So while it is expensive, it pays for itself in terms of a force multiplier. Like say it could take enemy jets 11:1 which cost 10% of the price (I'm not saying it can, just say). It is actually superior then, since you spend less on it. Even more so because you keep your people safe and that has all kinds of repercussions.

However, it isn't very likely to be needed. A major conflict against another large power is pretty much out of the question and barring that, the jets already available are more than fine. So it is going to be a big pricey powerful toy, that does a job expensively that something else could do much cheaper.

Also the cost could potentially equalize out a bit in the long run if everybody uses them. If lots of services from lots of nations use them, that'll help reduce the over all cost.

So my guess is it'll be seen as just another jet in the long run, nothing particularly disastrous, or particularly great.

Their interface is stable per version of Windows. They freeze the ABI and it is set until the next one. They don't change it much usually anyhow, Vista being a notable exception. Now of course when new DX features come out you have to update your drivers to support it if you want those features, but it isn't necessary to make your driver work, the old driver continues to work.

It does not get updated with every kernel patch, ala Linux.

The reason is the categories, specifically the "YouTube(tm) HD Verified" one. Sounds like "Do what we like to get official cred or else."

Also seems to be what is happening in my area. We are on their results list. However Comcast Xfinity is the only "HD Verified" ISP. Cox is listed as SD...

But then you look at the results and you see that Cox's graph looks basically the same as Comcasts in terms of HD/SD video plays. Also my informal surveys of people seem to support that Cox does a better job around here. I find way more people who hate Comcast than Cox.

And of course it highly depends on package. Cox has everything from a "ultimate suck cheapy" service which maxes out at 5mbps, and thus might have poor streaming, up to a 150mbps service that I have for which Youtube streams are less than 10% of available bandwidth. Anywhere you can get their service in town you can get those two or anything in between so people's experience can vary greatly.

Heck even Century Link, which is fairly crap service as phone companies often are, has many more HD than SD views and still qualifies as an "SD" provider.

So something smells fishy. Unless there's clearer definitions as to what it means to be "HD Verified" I'm wondering if this isn't more of a "pay us and/or do what we want to get verified" kind of thing. Otherwise, what's the deal? Like at this time period, they claim Comcast has 93% HD streams and Cox has 90%. Shit that is easy within a margin of error accounting for differences in speeds of connections, computers, and even choice of video (I watch a number of videos that don't have HD). Yet somehow that 3% is enough for a difference in classification?

I'm all for better streaming video, but I am a little suspicious about this.

I don't have Watch Dogs but I was playing Far Cry 3, which uses it, and it seemed to work fine.

If you want absolutely guaranteed bandwidth, go buy it. You can buy lines that have committed information rates, where they guarantee, by contract, that you'll get a certain speed. You'll find many companies willing to sell them to you (Cox included).

Just don't bitch about the price.

Internet can be cheap because we share. Normal Internet usage doesn't require all of the bandwidth all of the time, so having it committed to one person is wasteful. Hence we oversubscribe and share.

This happens with everything, yes even Google Fiber. Look up GPON to find out how it works. Everyone on a segment is sharing a 1 gbit laser. So if one user is slamming all that, then the rest don't get any. For it to be fast, people have to share. If that doesn't work for you, you don't want a PON, you want a traditional active fiber connection which you can have, it just costs more.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cox+data+...

It takes one Google search, and the first result, to find their policies on this shit. Perhaps if you can't be bothered to do that, you shouldn't bother to type up a Slashdot post.

In terms of speeds, of course ti is oversubscribed. That doesn't mean that it'll be slow. Outside of torrent heads who feel the need to download anything they can find, most people use their connection in a bursty fashion, meaning infrequently and for small periods. Hence you can oversubscribe a line and still get good speed.

I'm not sure how much total bandwidth they have per segment, but it is at least 300mbps since they use 8 channel modems. Could be more, the CMTS can have more channels per segment, each modem can just only use 8 at one time.

Regardless, it is enough I've never had speed issues.

I have yet to see them lie about their service. They advertised 150/20mbit Internet here and I took them up on it. It's great, fast downloads abound. It gets the promised speed, even during fairly peak times. They do not slow any services I can see, and indeed have Netflix cache engines in their data centers so Netflix streaming is great.

They have a bandwidth cap, but it is fairly reasonable, 400GB/month, which I've yet to get anywhere near. I'd prefer a little higher, but this is high enough that even with regular Netflix/Youtube streaming, downloading from Steam, etc, it is still enough. The cap is stated in their literature clearly, and you have a meter you can use to see your usage.

If you go over? No charge, no slowdown. If it is a little and not that often, they'll send you a message, nothing more (I have friends with lower tier accounts that have gone over). Enough over and they'll call you about it and bitch at you. I don't know anyone who's been shut off, though Cox says they can do that in extreme cases.

So I'm gonna say you don't know what you are talking about. Cox are not saints or anything, but their service is fast and operates as promised, they don't seem to pull any BS, and they keep upgrading it.

For various (often stupid) reasons most brands don't want to be associated with "porn" even in a very passing way. So advertisers will pull their ads if you have what they deem to be porn.

Fark had this problem. They used to run stories now and again with a "boobies" or "wieners" tag to denote photos/videos of either women or men respectively that others might find attractive and want to look at. They were always clearly marked, and flagged NSFW if that was an issue. It wasn't a large part of the content

However advertisers kept complaining and pulling ads, and so Fark spun that content off in to a separate site. It was that, or watch ad revenue dry up.

This sort of thing is also why ads on places like the Pirate Bay and such tend to be so scummy: Most brands aren't willing to associate with those sites so they have to take whatever they can get.