Did you read the part in the article where they're actually doing the matching based on the ASTs (abstract syntax trees), and so are able to identify authors even after the code goes through an obfuscator? Relevant quotes:

Their real innovation, though, was in developing what they call “abstract syntax trees” which are similar to parse tree for sentences, and are derived from language-specific syntax and keywords. These trees capture a syntactic feature set which, the authors wrote, “was created to capture properties of coding style that are completely independent from writing style.” The upshot is that even if variable names, comments or spacing are changed, say in an effort to obfuscate, but the functionality is unaltered, the syntactic feature set won’t change.

Accuracy rates weren’t statistically different when using an off-the-shelf C++ code obfuscators. Since these tools generally work by refactoring names and removing spaces and comments, the syntactic feature set wasn’t changed so author identification at similar rates was still possible.

Regarding the first quote: The author of the article probably didn't realize that ASTs aren't a new thing; it's just this application of ASTs that's new. ASTs are as old as the hills. I learned about them from the Dragon Book, and by the time that was written they were old hat.

"Try to kick ass at least once a week."

I try to do similar things. But then there are last minute meetings (scheduling 8 am meetings at 630 am? Really?), an overnight patch breaks my IDE, a bad switch in the blade farm hoses up routing so I can't make it to my test and development server, a new standard is implemented in coding tools, a new coding paradigm is adopted, HR says we need to get our compliance reports in RIGHT NOW, "Fred" get sick and I have to cover for him, etc.

So good luck with that.

Footnote: most of what I listed and seem to experience day-to-day is shiney new tech not working. Doing a good job is hard when you must constantly fight your tools.

You mean that the cost savings of rolling out internal websites didn't drive the cost to zero, and there is a small, periodic maintenance cost to this otherwise scalable communication medium? *shock* *horror*

Maybe we should go back to mimeographed inter-office memos. Quick, someone take dictation and get this to the typing pool stat!

Why do you use IE 8? You should be using IE 6, according to your own sig. IE6 won't be wasting your time with modern YouTube videos, I bet. If that wasn't true, it probably will be true soon...

So where's youtube.com? It's not a web page on the web is it? Oh, wait...

I think we can agree that the original article has some supremely sloppy writing. What they meant to say, if I interpreted everything correctly, is this:

* Modern browsers visiting YouTube directly will get HTML5.

* Folks embedding YouTube videos into other websites will be nudged toward HTML5 by encouraging folks to use the the embedded frame API, as opposed to embedding a flash app.

Does that decompress the situation properly?

Yeah, I was sorta wondering this too. Do people browse YouTube in Chrome/IE/Safari/etc. on DVD or something?

Or is there a direct web interface that allows directly watching HTML5 videos, but doesn't involve a browser? And, presumably, doesn't involve spiders.... I'm interested in the World Wide Web, not a spiderweb.

Note that I don't really count wget / curl, since they just transfer files from the web server. There's no good reason to get web assets with wget / curl, and then browse them (sans web) with Chrome / IE / Safari / etc. on the local disk. It's a victory for pedantic semantics but also spectacularly missing the point.

Yep, that's how it was, and how I think it ought to be again.

I run Linux on the desktop, but my game machines run BSD based operating systems.

Yep, I personally think SteamOS is really going nowhere. You're better off going BSD, because while EA/Origin and Ubisoft don't do games for SteamOS....they DO release them for BSD. Admittedly those BSD machines are PlayStations. But essentially PS3's/PS4's were Steam Machines before Gabe Newell decided to make them. Gabe hates walled gardens...except Valve's of course.

That is true, but if I was on "vacation" in another country, buying videogames would be a rather low priority compared to enjoying the things that are unique to that country.

Perhaps it is in part due to the fact that I'm a console gamer, who remembers the time of consoles with regions and would think: "Why buy something that isn't guaranteed to work back home".

Of course with modern console games no longer being region locked, I wouldn't have to worry. It's only PC gamers with "keys" and using proxies and VPN's to authorize said cheap Russian/Polish key they bought, that have issues.

That's why we need space colonies, so they can leave this planet after they have sucked it dry.

They are not mutually exclusive. Regulation can in fact spurn innovation by forcing people to rethink how they have always done things and trying to invent new technologies to replace it. Regulation can in fact force out old technology which is only in place due to inertia and open a niche for real innovation. Example, smog regulations can spur research into electric cars or better mass transit, or labor regulations can spur interest in more efficient industrial processes.

I predict I will be moderated 'troll' for this post as it is not politically correct.

First World Problem.

That is correct, I don't. The niche is people doing "work" on their computing devices at home.

I've always believed that the old distinction between "business computers" and "home computers" was a good one, and that the Microsoft/Intel/IBM hegemony that said to home users that they needed a "Business computer" at home (and the computer reviewers/pundits who also encouraged going MIcrosoft/Intel/IBM platform for home users) was a bad thing.

While the Geforce 4 MX's do accelerate MPEG2 video, most video these days is MPEG4/H264, you want at least a 7xxx series card to hardware accelerate that. If you've got AGP, then a 7950 GT is the best you can get.

No, it's not equal to some onboard video, unless that video is old. Even the motherboard graphics on this machine, a Nvidia 6150SE, is better. That 4MX is running around 500MFLOPS. A 6150SE runs around 850MFLOPS. An intel HD 4600 runs around 432GFLOPS. I can understand not wanting to just throw the thing away, but there comes a time when an old card can't keep up.

How old is that GPU, considering that the rpmfusion builds for fedora 21 support everything back to the Geforce 6xxx series. Perhaps it's time to upgrade the video card?