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Comment Windows sucks (Score 1) 137

by byrtolet (#65664910) Attached to: Consumer Reports Asks Microsoft To Keep Supporting Windows 10
Just yesterday, My wife needed an extra computer for her work (One computer broke and was sent for repair). She has an old laptop (from around 2011) originaly with windows 7, which was upgraded to windows 10 & 16GB RAM. I thought she could use the old one.

I've started it. Waited for updates to finish (3-4 hours). And then the computer became unusable. It just randomly froze!

I really cannot see any sane person using windows these days. Nowadays even games run better on linux using proton.

Windows has got may wanderful features during the years - video drivers instantly activated, wsl, (I also love windows 8 interface). But it is also terribly bloated to the point of being unusable.

Comment Re:But is it suitable for long term archival stora (Score 1) 113

I have perfectly readable CD's written 25 years ago (OK, I last checked if they are readable a year ago). And some of them used to be heavyly used - they have plenty of scratches.

I have also some with their reflective layer pealing off. And among those ones which are also still readable. But I've always invested in quality disks, and I store them in cases.

In my experience optical storage is much more reliable than magnetic storage. When I was student I usualy wrote my homework multiple times in multiple folders on a floppy disk in a hope that at least one would be readable. And I had several harddisk failures of course.

Submission + - Four-day week made permanent for most UK firms in world's biggest trial (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Most of the UK companies that took part in the world’s biggest ever four-day working week trial have made the policy permanent, research shows. Of the 61 organisations that took part in a six-month UK pilot in 2022, 54 (89%) are still operating the policy a year later, and 31 (51%) have made the change permanent. More than half (55%) of project managers and CEOs said a four-day week – in which staff worked 100% of their output in 80% of their time – had a positive impact on their organisation, the report found. For 82% this included positive effects on staff wellbeing, 50% found it reduced staff turnover, while 32% said it improved job recruitment. Nearly half (46%) said working and productivity improved. The report’s author, Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College, said the results showed “real and long lasting” effects. “Physical and mental health, and work-life balance are significantly better than at six months. Burnout and life satisfaction improvements held steady,” she said. But Matthew Percival, a director at the Confederation of British Industry, said the four-day week was not a “one size fits all answer” and would be “unlikely to pay for itself in many industries”.

Comment Life is not fair (Score 1) 251

I don't think it is a good idea to make the life more miserable, for the people already quite unlucky in life.

I know, there might be some lazy & dumb among them. They have probably made some bad decisions in their life. I'm sure that most of them simply had bad luck.

But I don't see the point of punishing them even more.

Comment Re:Oh no! (Score 1) 80

by byrtolet (#63070756) Attached to: Windows 8.1 Support Ends January 10

Windows 8.1 wasn't all that terrible, once you get past the start screen.

Yes, I would even say that Windows 8.1 was the best windows version.

It uses less memory than both Windows 7 & Windows 10. You had instant app cycle with a single click (in the topleft corner) or a single swipe.

I actually liked the start screen. The live tiles gave instant information whether necessary.

I might not be a typical windows user though. I use linux for about 20 years. I'm really disappointing Microsoft didn't stick with windows 8's UI. And with the windows phone - it was much better than android as well.

Comment Re:This is a topic I've given a lot of thought to (Score 1) 391

by byrtolet (#62159217) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Why Do Programmers Make So Many Mistakes?

Stack-based buffer overflows could be mitigated by a CPU design that tags each machine word stored in memory with an auxiliary tag for exactly how the data that is stored at that address came to be there (and perhaps even where it came from) , Reading or modifying these tags would require utilizing a special mode in the CPU which might utilize instructions only ordinarily be found in kernel level code.

Just a stack which grows up would make buffer overflows a lot less dangerous. I still don't know why this isn't the default (even on CPUs which do support this). I doubt there will be some measurable impact even on x86 for not using the hardware stack instructions.

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Rails At Intel For 'Killing' the ECC Industry (theregister.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linux creator Linus Torvalds has accused Intel of preventing widespread use of error-correcting memory and being "instrumental in killing the whole ECC industry with its horribly bad market segmentation." ECC stands for error-correcting code. ECC memory uses additional parity bits to verify that the data read from memory is the same as the data that was written. Without this check, memory is vulnerable to occasional corruption where a bit is flipped spontaneously, for example, by background radiation. Memory can also be attacked using a technique called Rowhammer, where rapid repeated reads of the same memory locations can cause adjacent locations to change their state. ECC memory solves these problems and has been available for over 50 years yet most personal computers do not use it. Cost is a factor but what riles Torvalds is that Intel has made ECC support a feature of its Xeon range, aimed at servers and high-end workstations, and does not support it in other ranges such as the Core series.

The topic came up in a discussion about AMD's new Zen 3 Ryzen 9 5000 series processors on the Real World Tech forum site. AMD has semi-official ECC support in most of its processors. "I don't really see AMD's unofficial ECC support being a big deal," said an unwary contributor. "ECC absolutely matters," retorted Torvalds. "Intel has been detrimental to the whole industry and to users because of their bad and misguided policies wrt ECC. Seriously. And if you don't believe me, then just look at multiple generations of rowhammer, where each time Intel and memory manufacturers bleated about how it's going to be fixed next time... And yes, that was – again – entirely about the misguided and arse-backwards policy of 'consumers don't need ECC', which made the market for ECC memory go away."

The accusation is significant particularly at a time when security issues are high on the agenda. The suggestion is that Intel's marketing decisions have held back adoption of a technology that makes users more secure – though rowhammer is only one of many potential attack mechanisms – as well as making PCs more stable. "The arguments against ECC were always complete and utter garbage. Now even the memory manufacturers are starting to do ECC internally because they finally owned up to the fact that they absolutely have to," said Torvalds. Torvalds said that Xeon prices deterred usage. "I used to look at the Xeon CPU's, and I could never really make the math work. The Intel math was basically that you get twice the CPU for five times the price. So for my personal workstations, I ended up using Intel consumer CPU's." Prices, he said, dropped last year "because of Ryzen and Threadripper... but it was a 'too little, much too late' situation." By way of mitigation, he added that "apart from their ECC stance I was perfectly happy with [Intel's] consumer offerings."

Submission + - Transparent solar panels for windows hit record 8% efficiency (umich.edu)

Submitted by Bodhammer
Bodhammer writes: "In a step closer to skyscrapers that serve as power sources, a team led by University of Michigan researchers has set a new efficiency record for color-neutral, transparent solar cells.

The team achieved 8.1% efficiency and 43.3% transparency with an organic, or carbon-based, design rather than conventional silicon. While the cells have a slight green tint, they are much more like the gray of sunglasses and automobile windows."

Hopefully this will not take 5-10 years to commercialize.

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