I haven't looked at this fix in detail, but from the sounds of it, I'm not convinced that the fix is complete.

The attacker, for example, could request 999,999 individual one byte ranges of a 1,000,000 byte document. In a partial range response, each individual partial range gets wrapped into a separate MIME entity. The response from the server is basically a multipart MIME document. There's significant overhead per MIME section. Each single byte of the document gets attached to a header that, perhaps would be around 40-50 bytes long. Still quite a bit of bandwidth amplification.

Thank you for parroting the union's talking points. You can report back to Da Boss that you've done what he wanted you to do.

All of those profits that the striking union believe entitles them to fat paychecks were coming from Verizon's wireless division, which is not unionized, and growing rapidly. The unionized wireline side of Verizon has been a losing money pit, losing 30% of its wireline subscribers, over the last decade. The wireline unions struck because they wanted the profitable side of Verizon to subsidize the money-losing side's salaries, benefits, and pensions. But faced with the prospect of losing their free medical benefits (for some strange reason, Verizon decided they didn't want to continue paying their striking workers), and suddenly faced with the prospect of actually paying their own way, the union folded. They're trying to spin it as some sort of a victory, but it's a complete, 100%, total loss.

From TFA:

"D" trains are the first generation of bullet trains in China, with an average speed of just short of 100mph (160km/h).

Feh. Amtrak, and even some commuter trains in the Northeast, routinely exceed 110-125mph.

Yes, I'm sure they find the experience of having one's face buried in a hairy scrotum amusing. Whatever lets them get their kicks, I suppose.

Sure, and there's no reason for you to show any proof that you're smarter than either Palin or Bachman, here. Your intellectual powers are beyond dispute. In fact, they're so overpowering, that mere mortals like us can never hope to understand the logical reason you've concluded that Mme Palin and Bachmann are "twits and morons".

Sure -- would you care to refresh my memory with some examples of "gay-bashing" and "other religious issues" that you've heard from either Mme Palin or Bachmann? Thanks! Sorry to have to force you to go back and search Huffington Post, or the Daily Kos, for some material that you can repost here, but I haven't checked up on those left-wing kookblogs recently, so I'm kind of curious to see what they've been up to, recently.

Certainly, I have no problem accepting the fact that you truly believe that. Really, can't really expect much more from the radical Left. I mean, running an entire state is just peanuts, compared to the difficult task of posting frothing rants on Slashdot. Any "ditz" can run a state government, we all know that. But there's just no way Mme. Palin could possibly hope of matching your contributions to Slashdot. Not even close!

There was a show on the Discovery Channel, I think it's off the air now, because my Tivo hadn't found it in a while, "Dirty Jobs". The host, Mike Rowe, went around the country, talking to folks whose jobs are the menial, thankless tasks that actually make civilized life possible for the rest of us. Like garbage collectors and people who work in sewer treatment plans. People who build highways, or maintain the nation's bridges and tunnels.

I can't help but to notice a somewhat curious thought experiment here. What happens if we try a word association game, here. What would be the first thing that comes to one's mind, at the mention of the word "Tea Party". I'd bet that if you were to ask this to the average, salt-of-the-earth people that I've seen profiled on "Dirty Jobs", the typical answer we'll hear are things like "Boston Harbor", "The Liberty Bell", "George Washington crossing the Potomac", "taxation without representation", and many other historical images that relate and recall our nation's violent birth.

But if the same thing were to be asked of you, or many other left-wing extremists, the first thing that comes to their mind is their face being slapped by a hairy scrotum.

Just some food for thought.

Oh, and 4.8kg of plutonium-238

Oh goody! My explosive space modulator has finally been delivered! Now I can blow up Mars. Because it's obstructing my view of Jupiter!

If anything, we should be surprised that anyone's surprised. Whether or not TFA's theory is true, one thing is absolutely clear: .NET, like any Microsoft technology, has an expiration date.

Anyone remember COM, VBX, and other MS-Windows technologies of yesteryear? Or the Visual Basic debacle of more recent vintage. For as long as I can remember, there's been a steady churn of Microsoft technologies, coming and going.

Microsoft makes a lot of money from selling its development tools, documentation, etc... to its developer base. Microsoft simply runs the whole show. They are in full control, and call all the shots. And they understand perfectly well that if they keep the same technology platform in place, over time, they lose a good chunk of their revenue stream. That's why they have to obsolete their technology platforms, time and time again. They need revenue. It makes perfect sense. If you are a Microsoft Windows developer, one of your primary job functions is to generate revenue to Microsoft. Perhaps not from you, directly; maybe from your company. Whoever pays the bills for Visual Studio, MSDN, and all the other development tools. Maybe it's not you, personally, but it's going to be someone, that's for sure.

So, perhaps this is the death knell for .NET. Perhaps not. If not this time, maybe next year. But it's inevitable. It's a certainty. If you are a .NET developer, your skills will be obsolete. If you were a COM developer, or a VB6 developer, your skills became obsolete a long time. I see no reason why .NET developers will escape the same fate. It's only a matter of time, but that's ok: all you have to do is invest some time and money to retrain yourself on the replacement Microsoft Windows technology, whatever it's going to be, when its time comes. But, it'll come.

Originally I came from a Unix background. Many, many moons ago I explored the possibility of boning up on the MS-Windows ways of doing things. But, after a bit of some exploratory peeks and pokes, this became painfully clear to me; that whatever I learned, all of it was going go to waste, in its due time. And that was pretty much the end of my venture into the Windows landscape.

Well, I'm happy to report that read(2), write(2), and all the other syscalls that make up POSIX, and its derivatives, still work the same as they did decades ago. Everything I have learned, as the sands of time have rolled on and on, I still put to good use today, and I make a pretty good living using them. Nothing has gone to waste. Honestly, this is more than I could say for my peers who practice their craft on MS-Windows. A lot -- not everything but a lot -- they learned decades ago is now completely and totally worthless to them, and to anyone else.

So, whether Windows 8 is Longhorn reborn, as TFA says, or not, one thing can be said for certain. .NET is dead. It's just a matter of time. Good luck learning its eventual replacement. Of course, you understand that it'll be dead too, some years after that, of course; just keep that in mind, as you make your long term plans.

From TFA:

the proposed steps would increase transparency and make it easier for consumers to understand the meaning of charges on their monthly phone bills.

BS. Sheer nonsense. The problem is not that the bills are hard to "understand". The problem is the cramming in the first place. Remove the ability for any arbitrary fly-by-night op to place charges on anyone's bill, if they know their phone number, and the problem will mysteriously disappear.

Cramming takes advantage of social engineering. "Wanna a HOT NEW LADY GAGA ringtone!!!! Just type in your phone number on our web site. (tiny font: $9.99 per month charge applies)".

And that's how a "simple-minded" acquaintenance of mine ended up with $40 bucks worth of charges on her bill, some years ago.

Get rid of the ability for anyone to cram charges, without a written notice by YOU, to YOUR cellphone carrier, and there's no more cramming. Of course, the cell-phone carriers will fight tooth and nail. I'm sure they make a nice profit skimming off their share of all the crammed charges.

In the US, drivers have to buy their own RFID transponders just for the privilege of being able to pay tolls electronically.

Not necessarily. I did not pay for my EZ-Pass transponder. At least in New York and New Jersey, two of the states that use the EZ-Pass transponder that I can vouch from personal experience, the transponder is given to you free if you have the tolls billed automatically to your credit card.

Which is, pretty much, is the only practical approach. If you take the other option of getting a prepaid transponder, they'll charge you for it. But, having to constantly prepay is just not worth the hassle, in my opinion. It's much more convenient to have the agency automatically bill you. With the tolls being as high as they are, you'll be spending all your time adding money to the account. It's just not worth it.

There are some states in the EZ-Pass system that charge for transponders. But you do not have to buy a transponder from your state's agency. New York will give EZ-Pass to any state's resident. If your state's EZ-Pass gives discounts on some in-state tolls, you won't get them from New York though.

If somehow it's discovered that a particular author earned a high pagerank, what exactly would prevent linkfarms from tagging that author on every one of their pages?

Gee, I didn't know that the cost of flogging a dead horse is still that expensive. I'd think that Lucas could command a hefty discount, based only on volume.

There's one aspect of this competition that, for some reason, is not widely reported: an optional million dollar bonus to this competition.

The bonus gets awarded if the tricorder is designed so that when can't detect the patient's vital, it flashes "He's dead, Jim" on its display.

would be, IMHO, a large black rectangular monolith in orbit against one of the outer planets...

Sure they do! I've had health insurance for the last fifteen years as a consultant. I incorporated and got myself the same group health policy that big companies get. Of course, I pay a little bit more, but I'm not really paying that -- my client is paying that :-)

Plus I have a retirement plan too.

And the best thing is, if I don't like my health insurance, or a retirement plan, I can switch any time. If you don't like what your employer offers, your only option is to change jobs.