Comment Re:Do I get at least a pair of rubber gloves? (Score 1) 135
That's happening right now. I'm seeing the same performance from a virtualized 4-CPU 16GB machine as a real one. (Didn't use to be like that).
Comment Re:Real Programmers... (Score 1) 660
Your code should be a narrative. How about
checkParamaters(...);
setupConnection(...);
submitQueries(...);
checkReturnValues(...);
Comment Re:No. (Score 2, Insightful) 1174
I'm no electrician
Thank goodness for that!
Thank goodness for that!
Comment Re:Net Neutrality (Score 1) 131
Try this:
Would any of the currently proposed net neutrality laws prevent Cablevision from charging other people for cable tv that it gives to its own ISP customers for free? Or is this considered an acceptable competitive practice?
Comment Re:You're obliged to pay for it (Score 5, Funny) 267
It's not a tax. It is a toll for a service.
Comment Re:Hmm, I would add the 80386 and the 3dfx Voodoo (Score 1) 185
The 68000 didn't have virtual memory so can't be compared with the (later) 80386. The 68010 (which I programmed on in the 80s in a Torch XXX) had virtual memory and was the 'mainframe on a chip'.
Also I question this idea of IBM considering the 68000 for the IBM PC. The 68k had a 16-bit data bus so would have meant a more expensive mainboard design than the (8-bit bus) 8088. The Motorola chip to compare with the 8088 is the 68008 (Sinclair QL anybody?).
Comment Re:fun with statistics (Score 4, Insightful) 435
The material world doesn't understand seconds either. Should we drop the whole of physics? A year is just a sampling period which can be compared to previous periods. Any natural cycles will be apparent regardless of the period chosen (nyquist notwithstanding).
Comment Re:I prefer X-Plane (Score 1) 162
Not all third-party aircraft are hideously expensive.
MSFS is worth the entry price for David Maltby's exquisite (and free) models of classic 60s British jets.
Superb graphics and models. Check out this pic:
dmflightsim
MSFS is worth the entry price for David Maltby's exquisite (and free) models of classic 60s British jets.
Superb graphics and models. Check out this pic:
dmflightsim
Comment Re:Well, duh! (Score 1) 672
but it contains none of the information encoded in the original consumed matter or energy
Surely it must, otherwise unitarity would be violated?
Surely it must, otherwise unitarity would be violated?
New Type of Particle May Have Been Found 281
An anonymous reader writes "The LHC is out of commission, but the Tevatron collider at Fermilab is still chugging along, and may have just discovered a new type of particle that would signal new physics. New Scientist reports that the Tevatron's CDF detector has found muons that seem to have been created outside of the beam pipe that confines the protons and anti-protons being smashed together. The standard model can't explain the muons, and some speculate that 'an unknown particle with a lifetime of about 20 picoseconds was produced in the collision, traveled about 1 centimeter, through the side of the beam pipe, and then decayed into muons.' The hypothetical particle even seems to have the right mass to account for one theory of dark matter."
Submission + - Sony cuts prices on PS3
An anonymous reader writes: Sony has announced price cuts on the high-end model, and also is introducing a new low-end model in the US($399). The new model has lost the ability to play PlayStation 2 games, a decision based on the "extensive" lineup of PlayStation 3 games. The 80GB model, which retains backward compatibility, will now retail for $499.
Submission + - Computing with Heat (blogspot.com)
BuzzSkyline writes: "Thermal logic gates could soon lead to computers that run purely on heat, according to research to be published October 24th in the journal Physical Review Letters. The proposed thermal AND, OR, and NOT gates would be built of newly developed heat transistors, which were first announced this past July."
Submission + - Unlocked iPhones to go on sale in France
Lugor writes: Macworld has a short blip that along with the deal with Orange, unlocked iPhones will be sold at a premium as "...French law that forbids bundling the sale of a mobile phone and a mobile operator."
Submission + - Radiohead offers "pay what you want" digit
SilentChris writes: Radiohead has announced that in 9 days they will be releasing their latest album through their website. The interesting part: you'll pay what you want. A physical version will be released in December for $82. No word yet on DRM, but given Radiohead's recent penchant for selling on MP3 sites, there's a good chance there won't be any. The best part: the record labels are completely uninvolved with this new venture.
Submission + - VM-based rootkits proved easily detectable (stanford.edu)
paleshadows writes: A year and a half has passed since
SubVirt, the first VMM (virtual machine monitor) based rootkit, was introduced.
The idea spawned two lively slashdot discussions:
the first, which followed
the initial report about SubVirt,
and
the second, which was conducted after
Joanna Rutkowska
has
recycled the idea (apparently without giving credit to the initial authors).
Conversely, in this year's HotOS workshop,
researchers from Stanford, CMU, VMware, and XenSource have published a paper titled
"
Compatibility Is Not Transparency: VMM Detection Myths and Realities"
which shows that VMM-based rootkits are actually easily detectable.
The introduction of the paper explains that
"While commodity VMMs conform to the PC architecture, virtual implementations of this architecture differ substantially from physical implementations. These differences are not incidental: performance demands and practical engineering limitations necessitate divergences (sometimes radical ones) from native hardware, both in semantics and performance. Consequently, we believe the potential for preventing VMM detection under close scrutiny is illusory — and fundamentally in conflict with the technical limitations of virtualized platforms."
The paper concludes by saying that
"Perhaps the most concise argument against the utility of VMBRs (VM-based rootkits) is: "Why bother?" VMBRs change the malware defender's problem from a very difficult one (discovering whether the trusted computing base of a system has been compromised), to the much easier problem of detecting a VMM."
"While commodity VMMs conform to the PC architecture, virtual implementations of this architecture differ substantially from physical implementations. These differences are not incidental: performance demands and practical engineering limitations necessitate divergences (sometimes radical ones) from native hardware, both in semantics and performance. Consequently, we believe the potential for preventing VMM detection under close scrutiny is illusory — and fundamentally in conflict with the technical limitations of virtualized platforms."
The paper concludes by saying that
"Perhaps the most concise argument against the utility of VMBRs (VM-based rootkits) is: "Why bother?" VMBRs change the malware defender's problem from a very difficult one (discovering whether the trusted computing base of a system has been compromised), to the much easier problem of detecting a VMM."
