I was wrong about XP needing to map all 3 GB of video RAM.

It is more accurate to say that Windows XP limits the GPU to a 256 MB window. The GPU would perform a lot better if all of its memory was mapped for direct access.

The newer pieces of GPU hardware and drivers are using zero-copy direct memory access with addressing that is the same on the GPU and the CPU which allows sharing of data structures without copies or modifications. That can't be done in a 256 MB window, or if it can, not well.

Just saw the bit about epoxy. MAYBE the keyboard started out epoxied in place but when I saw it it sure wasn't. IT needs to put in a new keyboard, they probably chipped it out and replaced it. Not much would stop the user from doing that either.

How do you expect the keyboard is attached? USB. I've actually seen this, in person. A machine with sealed USB ports ... and a USB keyboard and mouse. Really. What was IT thinking?

I bet the IT guy who did the job was a contractor. 'Uh yeah, here's a work order to seal up all the open USB ports.' "What about the keyboard?" "Doesn't say. Don't ask questions: its 20 hours of easy work at $60/hr."

No the problem is in the hardware.

If there are super specific timing requirements then invent a new standard with the commands you need. Then put a little microprocessor on the serial port end in charge of waiting for some particular signal and responding in precisely 23 milliseconds. Or whatever.

Mine never has.

Well, if I was really into industrial espionage I might do something like bring a USB stick loaded with my zipper program, but instead of storage set to look like a keyboard. Plug it in, open Notepad and have it type the executable out into a file.

I've noticed that a lot of places disable USB storage but don't disable file execution from writable directories.

Sounds like the real answer to this problem is an improved USB to serial dongle. If this is a serious problem for electronics engineers, they are the perfect people to fix it. Whatever the problem with the USB to serial interface is, fix it. Then sell your improved serial port adapter for $100. Profit!

Windows 8 doesn't slow anything down. Check some benchmarks. It is faster than XP in most things. Here's one from a casual Google: http://itnews2day.com/2013/02/...

Windows XP is 32-bit only. Windows XP does not like hyperthreading or quad core CPUs. XP doesn't perform well on high bandwidth WAN connections. Its old SMB file transfer speeds are atrocious on gigabit LANs. It doesn't allow threaded GPU accesses and only supports old DirectX versions. It doesn't understand Advanced Format hard drives or SSDs. USB 3 on XP is buggy as hell. (in my experience)

If you installed a super modern GPU with 3 GB video RAM on XP, it would fall over and die because it has to map those 3 GB into 4 GB of space.

So, in at least this case, the OS didn't slow down. And without it new hardware wouldn't work at all.

Sure you can. But what is Chrome on iOS? It is a user interface skin over Safari is all it is. Not actually Chrome.

Of course you have rights. So does your employer. And using your employer's network gives your employer the right to see what is traveling over his network.

They shouldn't. A simple second level of encryption such as an encrypted ZIP file defeats any automatic scanning for confidential keywords or anything similar.

Eh. Except that a blue screen or if you have to do a forced power-off will lose data and require a chkdsk run. I ran my desktop that way for a little while (with a UPS) but it had problems.

"White Flight"

What a racist term. As if it is white people that keep an area valuable and crime free.

It's actually middle class and upper class flight, as well-off black, asian and hispanic people don't want to live in a blighted crime-ridden area either.

People are in general, morons. Worried about Google Glass? People can be recording video from a cell phone in a pocket RIGHT NOW. I walked around with mine recording for 3.5 hours just to see what it was like. (Boring and bounced worse than the Blair Witch video.) People have dash cams in their cars. People have their houses and offices wired with security cameras that do motion detection and upload 1080p high-def video to the cloud.

Every store you walk into, every car you walk in front of, anybody holding a cell phone...

If you aren't alone inside a building that you control, you have no privacy and your face can end up on Youtube at any moment. Get over it.

Directly providing the power to vaporize a person is not the elegant way to do it. The correct, elegant mad scientist method is to use the power contained in the vaporized mass to power the vaporization.

Consider if you develop a means to "program" a plasma such that it generates a contracting magnetic field that causes fusion inside the vaporizing object and then absorbs some of the energy from this fusion reaction to power itself.

Now you're talking! Now you've got an effect that can vaporize any object provided you can provide the initial energy requirement.

There could be variants on this. Perhaps you've got an effect that flips matter into antimatter and absorbs some of the released energy to continue the effect.

If this is an expanding effect instead of a collapsing effect you've got a world killer like the weapons in Ender's Game.