Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Headline does not match subject (Score 2) 34

So you can register an account with an email from another domain? Still I know of no-bugzilla where security bugs are allowed to be seen by everybody from a certain domain. They are allowed to be seen by certain number of emails, and since they are already registered, you can't create a new account with one of those.

So, not really that much of an issue unless you have really wide permission to everybody from specific email domains.

Bug

Bugzilla Bug Exposes Zero-Day Bugs 34

tsu doh nimh writes A previously unknown security flaw in Bugzilla — a popular online bug-tracking tool used by Mozilla and many of the open source Linux distributions — allows anyone to view detailed reports about unfixed vulnerabilities in a broad swath of software. Bugzilla is expected today to issue a fix for this very serious weakness, which potentially exposes a veritable gold mine of vulnerabilities that would be highly prized by cyber criminals and nation-state actors.
Science

Is an Octopus Too Smart For Us To Eat? 481

An anonymous reader writes: The New Yorker is running a piece on the ethical dilemma we face when considering octopus intelligence alongside our willingness to eat them. "Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage employed by several members of Cephalopoda (a class that also includes squid and cuttlefish)." While humans eat animals ranging widely in mental faculties, the octopus remains one of the smartest ones we do consume. And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive. As our scientific understanding of intelligence grows, these ethical debates will only come into sharper focus. Where do we draw the line?

Comment Re:Why do people still care about C++ for kernel d (Score 1) 365

The importance of this is underestimated. With a sanely written C++ program (merely sticking to the modern approaches) memory and resource leaks are a thing of the past, but you still get the completely predictable and deterministic resource management of C.

Unfortunately, you can't use any of that in the kernel [overloading create/destroy new/delete operators won't cut it]. Spinlocks, rwlocks, RCU, slab allocation, per cpu variables, explicit cache flush, memory fence operations, I/O device mappings, ISRs, tasklets, kmalloc vs vmalloc, deadlocks, livelocks, etc. are the issues a kernel programmer has to deal with. Nothing in C++ will help with these and some C++ constructs are actually a hindrance rather than a help.

For instance, copy constructors must be disabled. This was part of a proposal a few years back to make a C++ subset suitable for realtime/embedded. It isn't acceptable to have "x = y" invoke an unexpected amount of code simply because you inadvertantly invoked a copy constructor.

Kernels by their nature are messy. Anybody writing kernel code must be fully aware of the implications of doing something and must be aware of the state they're being called in. Abstraction just makes this job harder not easier.

For example, all kernel code must be compiled with -mno-red-zone because of the threat that any base code could receive an interrupt at any time [even between 2-3 machine instructions that comprise the red zone setup code].

Linux already does a pretty fair job of keeping things clean. If you don't believe that, actually go read the kernel source code. And, if something ends up being crufty, it gets cleaned up. Even if that means that some 100 or so modules need corresponding changes.

As someone who have tought kernel programming and C++ at the same time, I call bullshit on all of that.

Overloading allocation is exactly one of the useful features of C++, and copying is no different than on C. You can in fact even explicitly disable copying or explicitly enforce default copying in C++11. Things that is error-prone and boiler plate code in C is easy in C++. As for memory barriers and all that, C++ is again no different from C. Usually you use compiler extensions or assembler for kind of feature, but it is much easier in C++ where you can create templates and wrappers do use all of this correctly, convientenly and safely.

The abstractions of C++ makes handling most kernel issues easier, but it does require more skill as C++ is greater language, this is also why it was great to teach students C++ by letting them write a kernel, they had to learn what C++ features actually did and which to use and what not to use.

Unfortunately C programmers are a religous sect at this point. The believe C++ is witchcraft because they don't understand it, and refuse to learn.

Comment Re:People I've seen don't upgrade Windows (Score 1) 554

Microsoft does not make money on making hardware obsolete, on the contrary, as long as it doesn't take them too long to support something, they make MORE money on supporting old hardware.

Unless they use only the version of Windows that shipped with the computer and don't buy a new version for use on the same computer. In my experience, people stick with outdated Windows until it's time to replace the hardware.

True, but I would give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that they know how many on average upgrade, and can calculate whether it is worth to support or not. Since most cases where iOS or Mac doesn't support older hardware is increased defaults for fancy graphical effects, and can't imagine it is too hard for Microsoft tone down new unnecessary graphical effects, especially since fancy graphical effects has never really been their thing (and the extremely wide difference in even modern PC hardware means they still have to support some pretty shitty integrated Intel GPUs).

Comment Re:Apple has no problem leaving old hardware behin (Score 4, Insightful) 554

My Mac is no longer supported (hasn't been for a couple of releases) by OS-X because the CPU doesn't do 64-bits. It's not even 10 years old yet, and it isn't supported by OS-X.

.

It was the first Apple computer I bought. It will be the last Apple computer I ever buy.

Apple is a hardware seller. They make money on leaving old hardware behind in their software. Microsoft does not make money on making hardware obsolete, on the contrary, as long as it doesn't take them too long to support something, they make MORE money on supporting old hardware.

Comment Re:The problem with double standards. (Score 1) 292

Global Warming isn't a rational/scientific debate. If it was, the idea wouldn't have taken off as a result of Al Gore's film. That's not science, it's a popularity contest.

I'm not debating whether the science is there or not. I'm simply pointing out that the idea of Global Warming didn't take off because of the science. And Karmashock is right in saying that when in doubt (there is contradicting evidence for or against some event being caused by Global Warming) the Global Warming crowd goes nuts when people dare to question it. You need to be able to admit that not everything is caused by Global Warming.

Science is not well served by shouting down people who disagree with you. It's served by providing evidence to back up your claims and explaining why your opponent's claims are factually incorrect. Labeling people skeptics without actually proving them wrong is counterproductive.

What the fuck are you talking about?

The movie was a cash in on the already substantial interest and science in global warming. Stop lying, and start opening your eyes.

No need for profanity.

In my personal experience, there was no "substantial interest" in global warming before the movie. No one was talking about it. I never heard about it once in the news or mainstream documentaries in the preceding 20 years.

It might have been all over the place for people looking for it, but it wasn't mainstream in the sense that same sense that search engines didn't pick up popularity before Google came on the block (there were plenty of them before Google but your parents didn't ever mention their name).

So the Kyoto agreement never happened and was never signed by president Clinton? You were either a kid not watching news in 90s, or you are still lying.

Comment Re:Also interesting for what they missed out (Score 1) 68

At least it's not illegal to [circumvent technical measures].

Yes, it still is. That's the point. Almost all of the theoretical benefits of these changes can immediately be nullified, because all the content provider has to do is apply technical measures and then breaking those measures remains against the law even if the copy would otherwise now be legal.

This is not America, there is no DMCA. Though there is a murky EU rule saying otherwise to placate the US, that rule hasn't held up in court and even if it did, any clearer law saying something is specifically allowed would overrule it.

Comment Re:The problem with double standards. (Score 0) 292

Global Warming isn't a rational/scientific debate. If it was, the idea wouldn't have taken off as a result of Al Gore's film. That's not science, it's a popularity contest.

I'm not debating whether the science is there or not. I'm simply pointing out that the idea of Global Warming didn't take off because of the science. And Karmashock is right in saying that when in doubt (there is contradicting evidence for or against some event being caused by Global Warming) the Global Warming crowd goes nuts when people dare to question it. You need to be able to admit that not everything is caused by Global Warming.

Science is not well served by shouting down people who disagree with you. It's served by providing evidence to back up your claims and explaining why your opponent's claims are factually incorrect. Labeling people skeptics without actually proving them wrong is counterproductive.

What the fuck are you talking about?

The movie was a cash in on the already substantial interest and science in global warming. Stop lying, and start opening your eyes.

Comment Re:Finally (Score 2) 120

It's not a race to the bottom, it's an optimization. If corporate tax rate is X and total tax revenue is Y, past a certain point as X goes up, Y goes down because of competitive forces elsewhere.

Yeah, but if you give away more free stuff than you ever get back in revenue you will be losing money. This is what Ireland did. They got less than a thousand jobs out of it, and would lose them in an instant if they ever tried to make Apple or Google pay for what they actually use of public resources. Selling for less than cost is BAD BUSINESS.

Comment Re:Finally (Score 2) 120

What lesson is that? Would Ireland have been better off if Apple and Microsoft and Google moved those jobs to Wales or France or Spain? Ireland is collecting income tax from all those employees, and sales tax from everything those employees buy. Why push employers away out of some fashionable drive for 'social justice'?

I made no comment on social justice. I said it was bad business. A race to the bottom leaves you at the bottom, and since the rest of the EU was not racing against Ireland, they just raced themselves to the bottom. It was bad business and economically idiotic.

Slashdot Top Deals

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire

Working...