Dick Cheney Admits to Torture Conspiracy | | AlterNet:
On Sunday, Cheney pronounced himself 'a big supporter of waterboarding,' a near-drowning technique that has been regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War II."
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Mark's Blog : The Machine SID Duplication Myth
Mark's Blog : The Machine SID Duplication Myth: "The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that machine SID duplication – having multiple computers with the same machine SID – doesn’t pose any problem, security or otherwise."
Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in r... [J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999] - PubMed result
Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in r... [J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999] - PubMed result: "Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities"
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do | Psychology Today
Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do Psychology Today
One of my all-time favorites among all the scientific papers that I have ever read in my life is “Why your friends have more friends than you do,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1991 by my old sociology friend Scott L. Feld, who is now Professor of Sociology at Purdue University
One of my all-time favorites among all the scientific papers that I have ever read in my life is “Why your friends have more friends than you do,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1991 by my old sociology friend Scott L. Feld, who is now Professor of Sociology at Purdue University
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
ProtectKeyWithTPM Method of the Win32_EncryptableVolume Class (Windows)
ProtectKeyWithTPM Method of the Win32_EncryptableVolume Class (Windows)
A platform validation profile consists of a set of Platform Configuration Register (PCR) indices ranging from 0 to 23, inclusive. Repeat values in the parameter are ignored. Each PCR index is associated with components that run when the operating system starts. Each time the computer starts, the TPM will check that the components you specified in the platform validation profile have not changed. If any of these components change while BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) protection remains on, the TPM will not release the encryption key to unlock the disk volume and the computer will enter into recovery mode.
If this parameter is specified while the corresponding Group Policy setting has been enabled, it must match the Group Policy setting.
If this parameter is not specified, the default of 0, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 is used. The default platform validation profile secures the encryption key against changes to the Core Root of Trust of Measurement (CRTM), BIOS, and Platform Extensions (PCR 0), Option ROM Code (PCR 2), the Master Boot Record (MBR) Code (PCR 4), the Master Boot Record (MBR) Partition Table (PCR 5), the NTFS Boot Sector (PCR 8), the NTFS Boot Code (PCR 9), the Boot Manager (PCR 10), and the BitLocker Drive Encryption Access Control (PCR 11). For the security of your computer, we recommend the default profile. For additional protection against early startup configuration changes, use a profile of PCRs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11.
A platform validation profile consists of a set of Platform Configuration Register (PCR) indices ranging from 0 to 23, inclusive. Repeat values in the parameter are ignored. Each PCR index is associated with components that run when the operating system starts. Each time the computer starts, the TPM will check that the components you specified in the platform validation profile have not changed. If any of these components change while BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) protection remains on, the TPM will not release the encryption key to unlock the disk volume and the computer will enter into recovery mode.
If this parameter is specified while the corresponding Group Policy setting has been enabled, it must match the Group Policy setting.
If this parameter is not specified, the default of 0, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 is used. The default platform validation profile secures the encryption key against changes to the Core Root of Trust of Measurement (CRTM), BIOS, and Platform Extensions (PCR 0), Option ROM Code (PCR 2), the Master Boot Record (MBR) Code (PCR 4), the Master Boot Record (MBR) Partition Table (PCR 5), the NTFS Boot Sector (PCR 8), the NTFS Boot Code (PCR 9), the Boot Manager (PCR 10), and the BitLocker Drive Encryption Access Control (PCR 11). For the security of your computer, we recommend the default profile. For additional protection against early startup configuration changes, use a profile of PCRs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11.
Clean smells promote generosity and fair play; dark rooms and sunglasses promote deceit and selfishness : Not Exactly Rocket Science
Clean smells promote generosity and fair play; dark rooms and sunglasses promote deceit and selfishness : Not Exactly Rocket Science: "Now, Zhong, together with Katie Liljenquist and Adam Galinsky, have expanded on these studies by showing that clean smells can make people behave more virtuously. They ushered 28 volunteers into a room that was either unscented or that had been lightly sprayed with a citrus air freshener. In either case, they had to play a trust game, where a 'sender' has a pot of money and chooses how much they want to invest with a 'receiver'. The investment is tripled and the receiver decides how much to give back.
The volunteers were all told that they had been randomly chosen as receivers. Their anonymous partner had invested their entire $4 pot with them, which had been tripled to $12. Their job was to decide how much to give back. On average, they returned a measly $2.81in the unscented rooms but a more equitable $5.33 in the scented ones. The single spray of citrus nearly doubled their tendency to reciprocate.
In a second experiment, the trio again ushered 99 students into either a scented or unscented room. They were given a pack of miscellaneous tasks, including a flyer requesting volunteers for a charity called Habitat for Humanity. Those in the citrus-scented rooms were more likely to be interested in volunteering, and almost four times more willing to donate money to the cause."
The volunteers were all told that they had been randomly chosen as receivers. Their anonymous partner had invested their entire $4 pot with them, which had been tripled to $12. Their job was to decide how much to give back. On average, they returned a measly $2.81in the unscented rooms but a more equitable $5.33 in the scented ones. The single spray of citrus nearly doubled their tendency to reciprocate.
In a second experiment, the trio again ushered 99 students into either a scented or unscented room. They were given a pack of miscellaneous tasks, including a flyer requesting volunteers for a charity called Habitat for Humanity. Those in the citrus-scented rooms were more likely to be interested in volunteering, and almost four times more willing to donate money to the cause."
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
The Religion Virus: The Tea Party: The Sarah Palin Sycophant Party
The Religion Virus: The Tea Party: The Sarah Palin Sycophant Party: "My favorite line from Palin's speech at the Tea Party convention: When asked what she'd do to improve national security, a key point in her strategic plan was to 'pray for divine intervention.' Seriously! She actually believes that asking for magical intervention from God should be part of our military and diplomatic strategy. If she is ever elected, we'll need some magic, that's for sure."
Monday, February 08, 2010
Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked - Yahoo! News
Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked - Yahoo! News
Using off-the-shelf chemicals, Tarnovsky soaked chips in acid to dissolve their hard outer shells. Then he applied rust remover to help take off layers of mesh wiring, to expose the chips' cores. From there, he had to find the right communication channels to tap into using a very small needle.
The needle allowed him to set up a wiretap and eavesdrop on all the programming instructions as they are sent back and forth between the chip and the computer's memory. Those instructions hold the secrets to the computer's encryption, and he didn't find them encrypted because he was physically inside the chip.
Even once he had done all that, he said he still had to crack the "huge problem" of figuring out how to avoid traps programmed into the chip's software as an extra layer of defense.
"This chip is mean, man — it's like a ticking time bomb if you don't do something right," Tarnovsky said
Using off-the-shelf chemicals, Tarnovsky soaked chips in acid to dissolve their hard outer shells. Then he applied rust remover to help take off layers of mesh wiring, to expose the chips' cores. From there, he had to find the right communication channels to tap into using a very small needle.
The needle allowed him to set up a wiretap and eavesdrop on all the programming instructions as they are sent back and forth between the chip and the computer's memory. Those instructions hold the secrets to the computer's encryption, and he didn't find them encrypted because he was physically inside the chip.
Even once he had done all that, he said he still had to crack the "huge problem" of figuring out how to avoid traps programmed into the chip's software as an extra layer of defense.
"This chip is mean, man — it's like a ticking time bomb if you don't do something right," Tarnovsky said
Dell BIOS Flash codes
Documentation
System Flash Codes
When errors that occur during the boot routine cannot be reported on the display or on an external monitor (if attached), the Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock indicators (see Figure 1) may flash together in a pattern of lights (or flash code) that identifies the problem. For example, one flash, followed by a second flash, and then a burst of three flashes (code 1-1-3) means that the computer was unable to read the data in nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM). This information is important to the Dell support staff if you need to call for technical assistance.
The Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock indicators flash briefly when the computer is turned on. The flash codes, if needed, occur after the boot routine.
System Flash Codes
When errors that occur during the boot routine cannot be reported on the display or on an external monitor (if attached), the Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock indicators (see Figure 1) may flash together in a pattern of lights (or flash code) that identifies the problem. For example, one flash, followed by a second flash, and then a burst of three flashes (code 1-1-3) means that the computer was unable to read the data in nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM). This information is important to the Dell support staff if you need to call for technical assistance.
The Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock indicators flash briefly when the computer is turned on. The flash codes, if needed, occur after the boot routine.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Denim and Tweed: Dethroning the Red Queen?
Denim and Tweed: Dethroning the Red Queen?: "This competing model should also lead to a roughly constant rate of species formation and extinction, but it predicts a different pattern of variation around that constant rate than the coevolutionary Red Queen does. If most speciation and extinction events are caused by coevolution, then the time periods between speciation events should follow a normal distribution – forming a 'bell curve' with most periods close to the average length, and symmetrical tails of longer and shorter periods of time. On the other hand, if many different, individually rare geological events are the most common cause of speciation and extinction, the periods between speciation events should follow an exponential distribution, with most periods being shorter than the average, but a long tail of longer periods as well."
Apple’s A4 chip: Engineers correct stupid journalist | VentureBeat
Apple’s A4 chip: Engineers correct stupid journalist | VentureBeat: "“With the A4 Apple has taken an ARM CPU core and married it with exactly the IP they need. They needed a memory controller, a display controller, a 3D graphics engine, a WiFi core, etc. etc. etc. There are no (well, not exaclty, but for all practical purposes) unnecessary blocks in the A4 chi"
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor - Microsoft’s Creative Destruction - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Contributor - Microsoft’s Creative Destruction - NYTimes.com: "why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter."
Always Sign Your PGP Public Key
Always Sign Your PGP Public Key
Here's how the attack works. I take your unsigned public key, and (using a suitably powerful editor, such as Emacs) I edit the userid string so that it still has your name but my email address on it. Then I distribute this modified key widely. Note that the modified key continues to have the same key fingerprint as the unmodified key, so it appears to be your key to all who do not know your email address
Here's how the attack works. I take your unsigned public key, and (using a suitably powerful editor, such as Emacs) I edit the userid string so that it still has your name but my email address on it. Then I distribute this modified key widely. Note that the modified key continues to have the same key fingerprint as the unmodified key, so it appears to be your key to all who do not know your email address
Server Processors: Chapter 2009 (Part 2)
Server Processors: Chapter 2009 (Part 2)
One possible answer is that the trend is unstoppable. Interest in non-x86 high-end processors will continue to decline until it vanishes entirely. POWER, Itanium, and SPARC will simply take their places as the final three victims in a long line of failed high-end processor architectures: Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC, Clipper, the 88000, the 29000, the i960, and a host of other largely forgotten architectures that once vied for performance leadership.
One possible answer is that the trend is unstoppable. Interest in non-x86 high-end processors will continue to decline until it vanishes entirely. POWER, Itanium, and SPARC will simply take their places as the final three victims in a long line of failed high-end processor architectures: Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC, Clipper, the 88000, the 29000, the i960, and a host of other largely forgotten architectures that once vied for performance leadership.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
On Faith Panelists Blog: The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy - Richard Dawkins
On Faith Panelists Blog: The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy - Richard Dawkins: "I gather that Tim Tebow is extremely good at football. That's just as well, for he certainly isn't very good at thinking. Perhaps the fact that he was home schooled by missionary parents is to blame.
The following is what passes for logic in the Tebow mind. His mother was advised by doctors to abort him, but she refused, which is why Tim is here. So abortion is a bad thing. Masterful conclusion."
The following is what passes for logic in the Tebow mind. His mother was advised by doctors to abort him, but she refused, which is why Tim is here. So abortion is a bad thing. Masterful conclusion."
PC Client Implementation for BIOS.pdf (application/pdf Object)
PC Client Implementation for BIOS.pdf (application/pdf Object)
The PARTIES Partition is a hidden partition on the hard drive that BIOS can use for
additional storage space and as a virtual drive. In the PARTIES Partition, there is a small
1455 section called the BEER.
-- TCG PC Client Specific
Implementation Specification
For Conventional BIOS
Version 1.20
The PARTIES Partition is a hidden partition on the hard drive that BIOS can use for
additional storage space and as a virtual drive. In the PARTIES Partition, there is a small
1455 section called the BEER.
-- TCG PC Client Specific
Implementation Specification
For Conventional BIOS
Version 1.20
Organizing for America | BarackObama.com
Organizing for America | BarackObama.com: "we need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together, and pass the Farm Bill immediately."
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to ’stray animals’ « - Blogs from CNN.com
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares poor to ’stray animals’ « - Blogs from CNN.com: "'My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals,' Bauer told an audience in the town of Fountain Inn, according to the Greenville News. 'You know why? Because they breed.'
'You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply,' Bauer continued. 'They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.'
Bauer said recipients of government assistance should undergo drug testing or be forced to attend parent-teacher conferences, or else lose their benefits."
'You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply,' Bauer continued. 'They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.'
Bauer said recipients of government assistance should undergo drug testing or be forced to attend parent-teacher conferences, or else lose their benefits."
PUT or POST: The REST of the Story « Open Sourcery
PUT or POST: The REST of the Story « Open Sourcery
After that discussion, a more realistic mapping would seem to be:
Create = PUT iff you are sending the full content of the specified resource (URL).
Create = POST if you are sending a command to the server to create a subordinate of the specified resource, using some server-side algorithm.
Retrieve = GET.
Update = PUT iff you are updating the full content of the specified resource.
Update = POST if you are requesting the server to update one or more subordinates of the specified resource.
Delete = DELETE.
After that discussion, a more realistic mapping would seem to be:
Create = PUT iff you are sending the full content of the specified resource (URL).
Create = POST if you are sending a command to the server to create a subordinate of the specified resource, using some server-side algorithm.
Retrieve = GET.
Update = PUT iff you are updating the full content of the specified resource.
Update = POST if you are requesting the server to update one or more subordinates of the specified resource.
Delete = DELETE.
Redis Virtual Memory: the story and the code
Redis Virtual Memory: the story and the code: "Using memcached in order to cache SQL queries is a well established pattern. My SQL DB is slow, so I write an application layer to take the frequently accessed data in memcached (handling invalidation by hand), so I can query this faster cache instead of the DB. The idea is to take data on disk, but to cache the hotspot in memory for fast access.
Redis + VM is exactly the reverse. You take your data in memory, but what is not the hot spot is disk-backed in order to free mem for more interesting data. In both models the frequently accessed data will stay in memory, but the process is reversed, with the following benefits:"
Redis + VM is exactly the reverse. You take your data in memory, but what is not the hot spot is disk-backed in order to free mem for more interesting data. In both models the frequently accessed data will stay in memory, but the process is reversed, with the following benefits:"
Saturday, January 30, 2010
State of the Union 2010 « Whatever
State of the Union 2010 « Whatever: "As for the Republicans, a recent reader was distressed when I said they were “hopped-up ignorant nihilists,” but you know what, when your Senate operating strategy is “filibuster everything and let Fox News do the rest,” and the party as a whole gives it a thumbs up, guess what, you’re goddamned nihilists. There’s no actual political strategy in GOP anymore other than taking joy in defeating the Democrats. I don’t have a problem with them enjoying such a thing, but it’s not a real political philosophy, or at least shouldn’t be."
Kernel Planet
Kernel Planet: "ntelligent Power Sharing (IPS). Core i7-6xx and 7xx chips are MCP (multi-chip packages); both the CPU and GPU/MCH are in the same physical processor package, but not on the same die. This means they share a thermal and power design domain. In many cases, only one of the components will be very busy, and thus generating much heat or drawing much power, and it would be a waste to let any extra thermal or power headroom go unused. IPS allows one component to use more than its share of power or thermal budget so long as the other component is idle enough to allow it. One of the key parts of this technology is so-called “graphics turbo', in other words the capability of the GPU to exceed its default frequency (and therefore thermal and power budget) when possible."
Friday, January 29, 2010
Benlog » Don’t Hash Secrets
Benlog » Don’t Hash Secrets: "So, again, don’t hash secrets. HMAC them."
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Apple A4 SOC unveiled - It's an ARM CPU and the GPU! - Bright Side Of News*
Apple A4 SOC unveiled - It's an ARM CPU and the GPU! - Bright Side Of News*
A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon] with graphics silicon [ARM Mali 50-Series GPU], and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon - not unlike what Intel is trying to achieve with its future "Moorestown" Atom processor that debuted inside LG's Smartphone. http://scoop.intel.com/2010/01/intel-moorestown-smartphones-at-ces.php
A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon] with graphics silicon [ARM Mali 50-Series GPU], and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon - not unlike what Intel is trying to achieve with its future "Moorestown" Atom processor that debuted inside LG's Smartphone. http://scoop.intel.com/2010/01/intel-moorestown-smartphones-at-ces.php
Monday, January 25, 2010
CommsDesign - Who's in $1 billion capex club?
CommsDesign - Who's in $1 billion capex club?
According to IC Insights, the $1 billion spenders include the following IC firms in 2010: Samsung ($6 billion), Intel ($5.3 billion), TSMC ($3 billion), Hynix ($2 billion), Toshiba ($1.95 billion), AMD/GlobalFoundries ($1.9 billion), Micron ($1.3 billion), Nanya ($1.1 billion) and Elpida ($1 billion).
According to IC Insights, the $1 billion spenders include the following IC firms in 2010: Samsung ($6 billion), Intel ($5.3 billion), TSMC ($3 billion), Hynix ($2 billion), Toshiba ($1.95 billion), AMD/GlobalFoundries ($1.9 billion), Micron ($1.3 billion), Nanya ($1.1 billion) and Elpida ($1 billion).
Friday, January 22, 2010
SSL for free - step by step - The H Security: News and Features
SSL for free - step by step - The H Security: News and Features: "Israeli vendor StartSSL offers free SSL server certificates that are valid for a year."
Internal Memo: Sun CEO Jon Schwartz to Staff | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD
Internal Memo: Sun CEO Jon Schwartz to Staff John Paczkowski Digital Daily AllThingsD
to the engineers and marketers who’ve fostered a perpetual belief that innovation creates its own opportunity – thank you. You’re right. Innovation does create its own opportunity. Like Oracle, we’re an engineering company in our heart and soul, our potential together is limitless.
to the engineers and marketers who’ve fostered a perpetual belief that innovation creates its own opportunity – thank you. You’re right. Innovation does create its own opportunity. Like Oracle, we’re an engineering company in our heart and soul, our potential together is limitless.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Cloud Best Practices
cloudbestpractices-jvaria.pdf (application/pdf Object)
For several years, software architects have discovered and implemented several concepts and best practices to build highly scalable applications. In today’s "era of tera", these concepts are even more applicable because of ever-growing datasets, unpredictable traffic patterns, and the demand for faster response times. This paper will reinforce and reiterate some of these traditional concepts and discuss how they may evolve in the context of cloud computing. It will also discuss some unprecedented concepts such as elasticity that have emerged due to the dynamic nature of the cloud.
This paper is targeted towards cloud architects who are gearing up to move an enterprise-class application from a fixed physical environment to a virtualized cloud environment. The focus of this paper is to highlight concepts, principles and best practices in creating new cloud applications or migrating existing applications to the cloud.
For several years, software architects have discovered and implemented several concepts and best practices to build highly scalable applications. In today’s "era of tera", these concepts are even more applicable because of ever-growing datasets, unpredictable traffic patterns, and the demand for faster response times. This paper will reinforce and reiterate some of these traditional concepts and discuss how they may evolve in the context of cloud computing. It will also discuss some unprecedented concepts such as elasticity that have emerged due to the dynamic nature of the cloud.
This paper is targeted towards cloud architects who are gearing up to move an enterprise-class application from a fixed physical environment to a virtualized cloud environment. The focus of this paper is to highlight concepts, principles and best practices in creating new cloud applications or migrating existing applications to the cloud.
Coachella - Official News
Coachella - Official News: "COACHELLA VALLEY MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL
ANNOUNCES 2010 LINE-UP
JAY-Z, MUSE AND GORILLAZ HEADLINE
3-DAY FESTIVAL WITH MORE THAN 130 ACTS
ROUNDING OUT LINE-UP"
ANNOUNCES 2010 LINE-UP
JAY-Z, MUSE AND GORILLAZ HEADLINE
3-DAY FESTIVAL WITH MORE THAN 130 ACTS
ROUNDING OUT LINE-UP"
Apple & LaLa
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/19/apples-secret-cloud-strategy-and-why-lala-is-critical/ "An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user’s catalog to the net making it available from any browser or net connected ipod/touch/tablet. The Lala upload technology will be bundled into a future iTunes upgrade which will automatically be installed for the 100+ million itunes users with a simple “An upgrade is available…” notification dialog box. After installation iTunes will push in the background their entire media library to their personal mobile iTunes area. Once loaded, users will be able to navigate and play their music, videos and playlists from their personal URL using a browser based iTunes experience"
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Apple Share
ShareThis: "Apple's year-over-year growth at 23%, and also put it in fifth place, behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Toshiba. Apple's new position is down one from the same quarter in 2008."
Monday, January 11, 2010
Who-T: git patches from tarballs
Who-T: git patches from tarballs
It is quite easy though to create git patches from your tarballs. Simply run the following command in the extracted directory:git init && git add --ignore-errors .; git commit -m "`basename $PWD`"
It is quite easy though to create git patches from your tarballs. Simply run the following command in the extracted directory:git init && git add --ignore-errors .; git commit -m "`basename $PWD`"
LoJack For Laptops- New York Times
LoJack for LapTops: "Intel’s newest line of notebook chipsets for 2010 have an extra security feature: They can be ordered remotely to lock up at a below-the-operating-system level, so the laptop will only boot a notice that it’s not available. It can optionally display, say, the owner’s name and email, in case it’s brought into a pawn shop. To turn it back on, it needs an extra-special password that only the user, an IT worker, or Absolute can provide."
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Rethinking artificial intelligence
Rethinking artificial intelligence: "The project is being funded by the Make a Mind Company, whose chairman is Richard Wirt, an Intel Senior Fellow."
Saturday, January 09, 2010
What's the Best Way to Share Files Across Multiple Home Computers? - File Sharing - Lifehacker
What's the Best Way to Share Files Across Multiple Home Computers? - File Sharing - Lifehacker: "ou could also put together your own network-attached storage (NAS); FreeNAS is an extremely popular free and open-source NAS worth checking out.
One of our absolute favorite ways to swap files is with Dropbox. For the low cost of free, you can install a folder on any Window, Mac OS X, or Linux-based computer, then just drag and drop files right into it that you want to share with others. Once you stick a file into the folder, it instantly syncs to Dropbox's server and is available to the rest of your family on their own computers in just a couple of clicks."
One of our absolute favorite ways to swap files is with Dropbox. For the low cost of free, you can install a folder on any Window, Mac OS X, or Linux-based computer, then just drag and drop files right into it that you want to share with others. Once you stick a file into the folder, it instantly syncs to Dropbox's server and is available to the rest of your family on their own computers in just a couple of clicks."
I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Microsoft 2010 SP1 - Cringely on technology
I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Microsoft 2010 SP1 - Cringely on technology: "For a company with 10,000 employees, setting them up to use Microsoft technology will cost you $3,360,000. Over half of that will be for Office and you’ll pay that Office tax every year."
Fabulous Adventures In Coding : First Cousins Once Removed
Fabulous Adventures In Coding : First Cousins Once Removed: "Take two different people who have a common ancestor but who are not related by direct succession (that is, neither is the mother, father, grandmother, and so on, of the other):
Degree of cousin-hood is the minimum of the numbers of generations back that you have to go to find the nearest common ancestor, minus one.
Removed-ness is the absolute difference between the numbers of generations back you have to go to find the nearest common ancestor."
Degree of cousin-hood is the minimum of the numbers of generations back that you have to go to find the nearest common ancestor, minus one.
Removed-ness is the absolute difference between the numbers of generations back you have to go to find the nearest common ancestor."
Friday, January 08, 2010
A Software Insider’s Point of View » Event Report: 2009 SAP Influencer Summit - SAP Must Put Strategy To Execution In Order To Prove Clarity Of Vision
A Software Insider’s Point of View » Event Report: 2009 SAP Influencer Summit - SAP Must Put Strategy To Execution In Order To Prove Clarity Of Vision
Technology strategy: “C+”. Middleware strategy remains murky at best. SAP should revamp NetWeaver or junk it. NetWeaver is to Blackberry as Salesforce.com’s Force.com is to iPhone. It’s so much easier to build apps on Force.com and iPhone than it is for SAP’s NetWeaver and RIM’s Blackberry. The decision to emphasize the NetWeaver ABAP stack over the NetWeaver Java stack will leave customers and partners confused despite how much more efficient it is to build on ABAP. In addition, the lack of good business process orchestration at both run time and design time remains a critical hole for investment and gives vendors such as IBM and Cordys opportunities to sit on-top of SAP apps. Mobile strategy at first seems less emphasized with the rare mention of native apps development on Blackberry and other platforms. Nevertheless, SAP’s decision to leave mobile platform integration of Blackberry and others at the NetWeaver Mobile layer may prove to be the most efficient and effective approach. The move to in-Memory will help with future development, yet customers lack confidence in SAP’s execution of the Timeless Software argument, despite its best intentions. It appears that SAP will have 2 OnDemand strategies. Lighter applications will be built on Java. More complex applications to be built on the OnDemand stack.
Technology strategy: “C+”. Middleware strategy remains murky at best. SAP should revamp NetWeaver or junk it. NetWeaver is to Blackberry as Salesforce.com’s Force.com is to iPhone. It’s so much easier to build apps on Force.com and iPhone than it is for SAP’s NetWeaver and RIM’s Blackberry. The decision to emphasize the NetWeaver ABAP stack over the NetWeaver Java stack will leave customers and partners confused despite how much more efficient it is to build on ABAP. In addition, the lack of good business process orchestration at both run time and design time remains a critical hole for investment and gives vendors such as IBM and Cordys opportunities to sit on-top of SAP apps. Mobile strategy at first seems less emphasized with the rare mention of native apps development on Blackberry and other platforms. Nevertheless, SAP’s decision to leave mobile platform integration of Blackberry and others at the NetWeaver Mobile layer may prove to be the most efficient and effective approach. The move to in-Memory will help with future development, yet customers lack confidence in SAP’s execution of the Timeless Software argument, despite its best intentions. It appears that SAP will have 2 OnDemand strategies. Lighter applications will be built on Java. More complex applications to be built on the OnDemand stack.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
blog.reddit -- what's new on reddit: Why did we take reddit down for 71 minutes?
blog.reddit -- what's new on reddit: Why did we take reddit down for 71 minutes?: "We use a lot of the EBS disks. All of our databases were each using one EBS. This worked really well for us up until a week or so ago. Then all of you came back from holiday and decided that work was just too boring or something, and our traffic spiked, essentially breaking the camel's back, if you will.
In response, we started upgrading some of our databases to use a software RAID of EBS disks, which gives drastically increased performance (at a higher cost of course). This worked really well, but there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.
Part of our setup uses what we call a 'permacache', which uses Memcachedb. Memcachedb is Memcached with a built-in permanent storage system using BDB. One of the 'features' of this system is that it saves up its disk writes and then bursts them to the disk. Unfortunately, the single EBS volumes they were on could not handle these bursting writes. Memcachedb also has another feature that blocks all reads while it writes to the disk. These two things together would cause the site to go down for about 30 seconds every hour or so lately."
In response, we started upgrading some of our databases to use a software RAID of EBS disks, which gives drastically increased performance (at a higher cost of course). This worked really well, but there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.
Part of our setup uses what we call a 'permacache', which uses Memcachedb. Memcachedb is Memcached with a built-in permanent storage system using BDB. One of the 'features' of this system is that it saves up its disk writes and then bursts them to the disk. Unfortunately, the single EBS volumes they were on could not handle these bursting writes. Memcachedb also has another feature that blocks all reads while it writes to the disk. These two things together would cause the site to go down for about 30 seconds every hour or so lately."
Getting Good IO from Amazon's EBS
Getting Good IO from Amazon's EBS: "Now, I just need to take a moment to point something out. Performance testing on EBS is very hard. The disks speed up and slow down on their own. A lot. Telling when your tweak is helping vs it just being luck is not easy. It feels a bit like trying to clock the speed of passing cars with a radar gun from the back of a rampaging bull. I fully expect to find that some of my discoveries here are just a mare’s nest, but hopefully others will prove enduring."
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Windows 7 RTM God Mode (GodMode) - Windows client deities are actually in short supply - Softpedia
Windows 7 RTM God Mode (GodMode) - Windows client deities are actually in short supply - Softpedia
The trick lies in a fully documented Windows 7 shell feature that developers can leverage, namely “Using File System Folders as Junction Points” according to BrandonLive. Devs have the possibility to use MyFolder.{Extension CLSID} in order to transform file system folders into junction points. This means that folders created in this manner will feature the MyFolder label in Windows Explorer, in the search box in the top right hand side corner.
The trick lies in a fully documented Windows 7 shell feature that developers can leverage, namely “Using File System Folders as Junction Points” according to BrandonLive. Devs have the possibility to use MyFolder.{Extension CLSID} in order to transform file system folders into junction points. This means that folders created in this manner will feature the MyFolder label in Windows Explorer, in the search box in the top right hand side corner.
Mark Nandor's Solution to the Longest Line Question
Mark Nandor's Solution to the Longest Line Question: "Our journey starts at Ocean Creek by the Makah Indian Reservation in Washington (124° 41' 38'' W, 48° 21' 44'' N), and our amazing journey ends near 1 Ocean Drive, Jupiter, Florida, 33469 (80° 4' 29'' W, 26° 57' 11'' N). The distance between these two points is an impressive 2802 miles"
Saturday, January 02, 2010
FT.com / Books - Books of the year
FT.com / Books - Books of the year: "Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon
By Craig Nelson
John Murray, £18.99
This punchy, popular history focuses on the Apollo programme within the context of the space race – the US and the USSR’s contest to outdo each other in space technology. Gripping, geekily detailed accounts of what it was like to ride a Saturn V or walk on another world are interspersed with a lively take on the cold war rivalry that made it happen."
By Craig Nelson
John Murray, £18.99
This punchy, popular history focuses on the Apollo programme within the context of the space race – the US and the USSR’s contest to outdo each other in space technology. Gripping, geekily detailed accounts of what it was like to ride a Saturn V or walk on another world are interspersed with a lively take on the cold war rivalry that made it happen."
Friday, January 01, 2010
Is aviation security mostly for show? - CNN.com
Is aviation security mostly for show? - CNN.com: "Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them."
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Writing Debug and Trace Messages :: BlackWasp Software Development
Writing Debug and Trace Messages :: BlackWasp Software Development: "Debug messages are created using the Debug class in the System.Diagnostics namespace. By default, when using the debugger within Visual Studio, these messages are displayed in the Output window if running software in debug mode. However, listeners can be added that write messages to other locations, such as text files. The methods used to generate the messages are decorated with the Condition attribute and the DEBUG symbol, so are not called when the program is compiled in release mode. This ensures that debug messages are not seen by the end-user and do not cause any performance impact.
Trace messages are written using the Trace class in the same namespace. They are different to Debug messages because they are included in the code when the TRACE symbol is defined, as it is by default for Visual Studio users. Trace messages can exist in code that has been compiled in either debug or release mode. They are useful when you do wish to log information from the software that you distribute to end-users."
Trace messages are written using the Trace class in the same namespace. They are different to Debug messages because they are included in the code when the TRACE symbol is defined, as it is by default for Visual Studio users. Trace messages can exist in code that has been compiled in either debug or release mode. They are useful when you do wish to log information from the software that you distribute to end-users."
Friday, December 25, 2009
Jeffrey Richter's Blog : Receiving notifications when garbage collections occur
Jeffrey Richter's Blog : Receiving notifications when garbage collections occur: "ool little class that will raise an event after a collection of Generation 0 or Generation 2 occurs."
How the brain encodes memories at a cellular level
How the brain encodes memories at a cellular level: "'One reason why this is interesting is that scientists have been perplexed for some time as to why, when synapses are strengthened, you need to have proteins degrade and also make new proteins,' said Kosik. 'You have the degradation of proteins going on side by side with the synthesis of new proteins. So we have now resolved this paradox. We show that protein degradation and synthesis go hand in hand. The degradation permits the synthesis to occur. That's the elegant scientific finding that comes out of this.'"
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Restaurants Use Menu Psychology to Entice Diners - NYTimes.com
Restaurants Use Menu Psychology to Entice Diners - NYTimes.com: "Allen H. Kelson, a restaurant consultant, wrote, “If admen had souls, many would probably trade them for an opportunity every restaurateur already has: the ability to place an advertisement in every customer’s hand before they part with their money.”"
Git: The Lean, Mean, Distributed Machine
Git: The Lean, Mean, Distributed Machine
Good overview presentation -- nice form, nice data.
Good overview presentation -- nice form, nice data.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Atheist Ethicist: Climate Change: The Need for Proof Argument
Atheist Ethicist: Climate Change: The Need for Proof Argument
You are the first mate on an ocean liner, when the Captain gives the following order. "You are to proceed at full speed without any deviation in course and speed unless and until you have absolute proof that there is an iceberg straight ahead. Then and only then are you permitted to take preventative action."
Or, you are an adult supervisor on a bus trip with a bunch of school children. The bus is approaching a train crossing. Yet, the driver says, "I am not slowing down unless and until I have absolute proof that the bus will not be across the tracks before the train gets here."
We know these people to be guilty of the moral crime of reckless endangerment.
If these types of people wish to take actions that risk their own lives, we may leave that up to them. They pay the costs for their own mistakes. However, when they put the lives of others at risk, then they are guilty of a moral crime.
We have good reason to condemn people like this and to condemn them in very harsh terms. They are responsible for the deaths and suffering of a great many people every year.
Now, we have a whole slew of these types of people engaging in reckless endangerment of whole cities and whole populations. They have already maimed and killed a great many people and destroyed a great deal of property, and they seem to have no qualms about continuing along the same course of action. In all cases, they behave as people who are almost if not entirely indifferent to the death and suffering of others - because they are not motivated to take any action that would avoid potential death and suffering.
The morally responsible person would not demand proof that there is an iceberg straight ahead before slowing down and taking precautions. The mere possibility of an iceberg is good enough. His responsibilities to his passengers demands that he take precautions to reduce the possibility of catastrophe - not that he act as if there is no risk until catastrophe is certain.
The responsible bus driver will not risk racing the train at the crossing. She will take precautions to protect the well-being of the children trusted to her, which means slowing down and avoiding the possibility of harm coming to them.
These same principles of moral responsibility demands that, in the face of risk of massive destruction due to climate change, that people slow down and reduce the risk. It does not require absolute proof.
Principles of rationality give us a simple formula for determining how much caution to use in the face of risk. The basic form states that the amount that it is rational to spend avoiding risk is equal to the cost times the probability.
It is worth spending up to $250 billion to avoid a 1% chance of suffering $25 trillion in harm.
It is worth spending up to $2.5 trillion in avoiding a 10% chance of suffering $25 trillion in harm.
It is worth spending $12.5 trillion to avoid a 50% chance of suffering $25 trillion in harm.
It is worth $22.5 trillion to avoid a 90% chance of suffering $25 trillion in harm.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
EETimes.com - How much of a lead does Intel have at 32nm?
EETimes.com - How much of a lead does Intel have at 32nm?
We plotted (Figure 1 online) the minimum interconnect line pitch for all three manufacturers as a function of the technology node. All three players had comparable critical dimensions, illustrating that Moore's law is alive and well with no sign of slowing.
Interestingly, TSMC has slightly smaller dimensions than the two other manufacturers, probably because TSMC's customers are mainly SoC manufacturers, such as graphics processor and FPGA makers. With the latest graphics processors having more than a billion transistors, any reduction in chip size is highly beneficial to foundry clients, even though the individual transistors may not be as fast as Intel's or AMD's.
Every new technology node both reduces critical dimensions and improves process. Two fundamental process innovations being adopted by the main semiconductor companies are embedded silicon-germanium source/drain regions (eSiGe) and high-k metal gate technology (HKMG). eSiGe increases the performance of the slower type of transistors (PMOS), while HKMG helps the transistors switch faster and reduces the gate leakage.
We plotted (Figure 1 online) the minimum interconnect line pitch for all three manufacturers as a function of the technology node. All three players had comparable critical dimensions, illustrating that Moore's law is alive and well with no sign of slowing.
Interestingly, TSMC has slightly smaller dimensions than the two other manufacturers, probably because TSMC's customers are mainly SoC manufacturers, such as graphics processor and FPGA makers. With the latest graphics processors having more than a billion transistors, any reduction in chip size is highly beneficial to foundry clients, even though the individual transistors may not be as fast as Intel's or AMD's.
Every new technology node both reduces critical dimensions and improves process. Two fundamental process innovations being adopted by the main semiconductor companies are embedded silicon-germanium source/drain regions (eSiGe) and high-k metal gate technology (HKMG). eSiGe increases the performance of the slower type of transistors (PMOS), while HKMG helps the transistors switch faster and reduces the gate leakage.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Red Hat Open Sources Desktop Application Protocol - PC World Business Center
Red Hat Open Sources Desktop Application Protocol - PC World Business Center
SPICE can be used to deploy virtual desktops from a server out to remote computers, such as desktop PCs and thin-client devices.
It resembles other rendering protocols used for remote desktop management and deployment, such as Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or Citrix's Independent Computing Architecture (ICA). Brennan said SPICE has advantages over those other protocols, in that SPICE can dynamically customize desktop instances to fit specific operating environments.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Crossbow Virtual Wire: Network in a Box
tripathi.pdf (application/pdf Object)
and so on. These components can
be combined to build an arbitrarily complex virtual network
called virtual wire (vWire) which can span one or
more physical machines. vWires on the same physical
network can be VLAN-separated and support dynamic
migration of virtual machines, which is an essential feature
for hosting and cloud operators.
vWires can be reduced to a set of rules and objects
and so on. These components can
be combined to build an arbitrarily complex virtual network
called virtual wire (vWire) which can span one or
more physical machines. vWires on the same physical
network can be VLAN-separated and support dynamic
migration of virtual machines, which is an essential feature
for hosting and cloud operators.
vWires can be reduced to a set of rules and objects
Natural selection 150 years on : Article : Nature
Natural selection 150 years on : Article : Nature
But can speciation be observed? Yes. Field biologists have witnessed speciation in action among several plant, amphibian, bird and fish species18. What matters for Darwin's theory is that the process by which populations of interbreeding individuals split into two non-interbreeding populations follows straightforward routes of natural selection. One good example is that females of a cichlid fish species vary genetically in their preferences for males of red and blue colours. Biologists are witnessing red males occupying the lower depths of Lake Victoria, in Africa, and females with matching preferences are following them. These mating preferences are causing this single species to split into two19.
But can speciation be observed? Yes. Field biologists have witnessed speciation in action among several plant, amphibian, bird and fish species18. What matters for Darwin's theory is that the process by which populations of interbreeding individuals split into two non-interbreeding populations follows straightforward routes of natural selection. One good example is that females of a cichlid fish species vary genetically in their preferences for males of red and blue colours. Biologists are witnessing red males occupying the lower depths of Lake Victoria, in Africa, and females with matching preferences are following them. These mating preferences are causing this single species to split into two19.
Monday, November 30, 2009
What Does it Really Take to Maintain Weight Loss « Correct Weight Loss Blog
What Does it Really Take to Maintain Weight Loss « Correct Weight Loss Blog: "According to data collected by the NWCR, people who have been able to maintain weight loss had the following characteristics.
* 78% eat breakfast every day
* 75% weigh them self at least once a week
* 62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week
* 90% exercise on average, about 1 hour per day"
* 78% eat breakfast every day
* 75% weigh them self at least once a week
* 62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week
* 90% exercise on average, about 1 hour per day"
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
HPCwire: An Ethernet Protocol for InfiniBand
HPCwire: An Ethernet Protocol for InfiniBand
The catch is that it will be based on Ethernet, so performance will initially be constrained to 10 gigabits/second throughput and multi-microsecond latencies. InfiniBand, of course, already offers much better performance, which is why it continues to expand its footprint in the HPC market. But since the technology behind lossless Ethernet is coming to resemble InfiniBand, vendors like Voltaire and Mellanox are using the convergence as an opportunity to enter the Ethernet arena. "We're not naive enough to think the entire world is going to convert to InfiniBand," says Mellanox marketing VP John Monson, who joined the company in March.
Voltaire has announced its intention to build 10 GigE datacenter switches, which the company plans to launch later this year. Meanwhile at Interop in Las Vegas, Mellanox demonstrated a number of Ethernet-centric technologies, including an RDMA over Ethernet (RDMAoE) capability on the company's ConnectX EN adapters.
RDMAoE is not iWARP (Internet Wide Area RDMA Protocol), which is currently the only RDMA-based Ethernet standard that has a following with NIC vendors like Chelsio Communications and NetEffect (now part of Intel). Mellanox never jumped on the iWARP bandwagon, claiming that the technology's TCP offload model makes the design too complex and expensive to attract widespread support, and that scaling iWARP to 40 gigabits per seconds (datacenter Ethernet's next speed bump) would be problematic. More importantly, for a number of reasons Linux support for TCP offload never materialized.
The catch is that it will be based on Ethernet, so performance will initially be constrained to 10 gigabits/second throughput and multi-microsecond latencies. InfiniBand, of course, already offers much better performance, which is why it continues to expand its footprint in the HPC market. But since the technology behind lossless Ethernet is coming to resemble InfiniBand, vendors like Voltaire and Mellanox are using the convergence as an opportunity to enter the Ethernet arena. "We're not naive enough to think the entire world is going to convert to InfiniBand," says Mellanox marketing VP John Monson, who joined the company in March.
Voltaire has announced its intention to build 10 GigE datacenter switches, which the company plans to launch later this year. Meanwhile at Interop in Las Vegas, Mellanox demonstrated a number of Ethernet-centric technologies, including an RDMA over Ethernet (RDMAoE) capability on the company's ConnectX EN adapters.
RDMAoE is not iWARP (Internet Wide Area RDMA Protocol), which is currently the only RDMA-based Ethernet standard that has a following with NIC vendors like Chelsio Communications and NetEffect (now part of Intel). Mellanox never jumped on the iWARP bandwagon, claiming that the technology's TCP offload model makes the design too complex and expensive to attract widespread support, and that scaling iWARP to 40 gigabits per seconds (datacenter Ethernet's next speed bump) would be problematic. More importantly, for a number of reasons Linux support for TCP offload never materialized.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Copenhagen Diagnosis
The Copenhagen Diagnosis: "If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2oC above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society – with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – need to be reached well within this century."
Saturday, November 21, 2009
crosby-timing2009.pdf (application/pdf Object)
crosby-timing2009.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Many algorithms can take a variable amount of time to complete depending on the data being
processed.
Many algorithms can take a variable amount of time to complete depending on the data being
processed.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Microsoft denies it built 'backdoor' in Windows 7
Microsoft denies it built 'backdoor' in Windows 7
The compliance management toolkit provides a set of security configurations that address additional levels of risks beyond those addressed out of the box, as well as tools to deploy these configurations and monitor what Microsoft calls "configuration drift." The toolkit is aimed at enterprises, government agencies and other large-scale organizations.
The compliance management toolkit provides a set of security configurations that address additional levels of risks beyond those addressed out of the box, as well as tools to deploy these configurations and monitor what Microsoft calls "configuration drift." The toolkit is aimed at enterprises, government agencies and other large-scale organizations.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Microsoft and SAP Again Team Up Against Oracle - Digits - WSJ
Microsoft and SAP Again Team Up Against Oracle - Digits - WSJ
Microsoft will name the German software maker the “preferred provider” to its customers of software for budgeting, planning and forecasting.
Microsoft will name the German software maker the “preferred provider” to its customers of software for budgeting, planning and forecasting.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Levi's commercials, now starring Walt Whitman. - By Seth Stevenson - Slate Magazine
Levi's commercials, now starring Walt Whitman. - By Seth Stevenson - Slate Magazine: "From the moment we see that 'America' sign half-sunk in inky water, we know we're watching something new. The campaign inhabits a different universe from the one depicted in 'Live Unbuttoned.'
For one thing, it's a universe in which the ever-present soundtrack is Walt Whitman poetry. This spot uses a wax cylinder recording believed to be audio of Whitman himself reading from his poem 'America.' The second spot in the campaign employs a recording of an actor reading Whitman's 'Pioneers! O Pioneers!'"
For one thing, it's a universe in which the ever-present soundtrack is Walt Whitman poetry. This spot uses a wax cylinder recording believed to be audio of Whitman himself reading from his poem 'America.' The second spot in the campaign employs a recording of an actor reading Whitman's 'Pioneers! O Pioneers!'"
Intel's newest lawyer..
antitrust:
http://www.wilmerhale.com/files/Publication/ad127e35-c391-4c32-af63-67a840080b61/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/e4c04a7f-c942-4923-af07-6cb5a18dca9c/Melamed_ExclusiveDealingAgreements.pdf
Market power, while a necessary condition of illegality, should not be
sufficient to condemn such exclusionary agreements because they might
be the most efficient form of distribution, even if used by a monopolist.
In that event, the market power gained by the manufacturer can be said
to be the result of its “superior skill, foresight and industry” and would
not provide a sufficient basis for condemning the agreement.
http://www.wilmerhale.com/files/Publication/ad127e35-c391-4c32-af63-67a840080b61/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/e4c04a7f-c942-4923-af07-6cb5a18dca9c/Melamed_ExclusiveDealingAgreements.pdf
Market power, while a necessary condition of illegality, should not be
sufficient to condemn such exclusionary agreements because they might
be the most efficient form of distribution, even if used by a monopolist.
In that event, the market power gained by the manufacturer can be said
to be the result of its “superior skill, foresight and industry” and would
not provide a sufficient basis for condemning the agreement.
IBM Reveals New Security Product for Virtual Environments
IBM Reveals New Security Product for Virtual Environments
the product provides virtual network access control as a means to prevent network access from a virtual server until its security posture is confirmed. It also features virtual infrastructure monitoring and reporting to identify vulnerabilities, as well as autodiscovery and virtual network segment protection to provide visibility and control of the virtual infrastructure.
the product provides virtual network access control as a means to prevent network access from a virtual server until its security posture is confirmed. It also features virtual infrastructure monitoring and reporting to identify vulnerabilities, as well as autodiscovery and virtual network segment protection to provide visibility and control of the virtual infrastructure.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Intel places barbed wire fence ahead of haredi protest - Israel News, Ynetnews
Intel places barbed wire fence ahead of haredi protest - Israel News, Ynetnews: "'After what happened in Jerusalem, can't Intel see the responsibility lies on their shoulders? If Intel is first, other factories will come and do the same. This cannot come at the expense of the Shabbat. Shabbat is above all,'"
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Remus
Remus: "Remus provides transparent, comprehensive high availability to ordinary virtual machines running on the Xen virtual machine monitor. It does this by maintaining a completely up-to-date copy of a running VM on a backup server, which automatically activates if the primary server fails. Key features:
* The backup VM is an exact copy of the primary VM. When failure happens, it continues running on the backup host as if failure had never occurred.
* The backup is completely up-to-date. Even active TCP sessions are maintained without interruption.
* Protection is transparent. Existing guests can be protected without modifying them in any way.
For a full description and evaluation, see our NSDI paper."
* The backup VM is an exact copy of the primary VM. When failure happens, it continues running on the backup host as if failure had never occurred.
* The backup is completely up-to-date. Even active TCP sessions are maintained without interruption.
* Protection is transparent. Existing guests can be protected without modifying them in any way.
For a full description and evaluation, see our NSDI paper."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Samsung Launches Open Mobile Platform | bada
Samsung Launches Open Mobile Platform bada: "The name ‘bada’, which means ‘ocean’ in Korean, was chosen to convey the limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform"
Twitter-equipped bathroom scale tells the world how much you weigh | Technology | Los Angeles Times
Twitter-equipped bathroom scale tells the world how much you weigh Technology Los Angeles Times
But weight, there's more. Today the French company behind the scale, Withings, announced it has added Twitter capability to the scale, enabling the user to automatically tweet the weight/fat info to followers.
But weight, there's more. Today the French company behind the scale, Withings, announced it has added Twitter capability to the scale, enabling the user to automatically tweet the weight/fat info to followers.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Virtualization Changes Application Deployment But Not Development
Virtualization Changes Application Deployment But Not Development: "Virtual machines virtualize the operating system; a complete environment. They do not virtualize an application, nor even an application server environment. Indeed, one could successfully argue that web application servers have long virtualized applications through the automated provisioning and management of isolated, virtual instances of applications. At lease enterprise-class web application servers have, the story is very different when you look at scripting-based languages like ASP, PHP, and Ruby and their deployment on web-servers where isolation is not provided for nor considered."
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Intel's cloaking driver reveled
Intel graphics drivers employ questionable 3DMark Vantage optimizations - The Tech Report - Page 2
Intel appears to be offloading some of the work associated with the GPU tests onto the CPU in order to improve 3DMark scores. When asked for comment, Intel replied with the following:
Intel appears to be offloading some of the work associated with the GPU tests onto the CPU in order to improve 3DMark scores. When asked for comment, Intel replied with the following:
We have engineered intelligence into our 4 series graphics driver such that when a workload saturates graphics engine with pixel and vertex processing, the CPU can assist with DX10 geometry processing to enhance overall performance. 3DMarkVantage is one of those workloads, as are Call of Juarez, Crysis, Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions, and Company of Heroes. We have used similar techniques with DX9 in previous products and drivers. The benefit to users is optimized performance based on best use of the hardware available in the system. Our driver is currently in the certification process with Futuremark and we fully expect it will pass their certification as did our previous DX9 drivers.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
The Higher Arithmetic » American Scientist
The Higher Arithmetic » American Scientist: "The incident of the Debt Clock brings to mind a comment made by Richard Feynman in the 1980s—back when mere billions still had the power to impress:
There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."
There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."
The "NoSQL" Discussion has Nothing to Do With SQL | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM
http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/50678-the-nosql-discussion-has-nothing-to-do-with-sql/fulltext
Using either stored procedures or embedding, the useful work component is a very small percentage of total transaction cost, for today’s OLTP data bases which usually fit in main memory. Instead, a recent paper [1] calculated that total OLTP time was divided almost equally between the following four overhead components:
Logging: Traditional databases write everything twice; once to the database and once to the log. Moreover, the log must be forced to disk, to guarantee transaction durability. Logging is, therefore, an expensive operation.
Locking: Before touching a record, a transaction must set a lock on it in the lock table. This is an overhead-intensive operation.
Latching: Updates to shared data structures (B-trees, the lock table, resource tables, etc.) must be done carefully in a multi-threaded environment. Typically, this is done with short-term duration latches, which are another considerable source of overhead.
Buffer Management: Data in traditional systems is stored on fixed-size disk pages. A buffer pool manages which set of disk pages is cached in memory at any given time. Moreover, records must be located on pages and the field boundaries identified. Again, these operations are overhead intensive.
Using either stored procedures or embedding, the useful work component is a very small percentage of total transaction cost, for today’s OLTP data bases which usually fit in main memory. Instead, a recent paper [1] calculated that total OLTP time was divided almost equally between the following four overhead components:
Logging: Traditional databases write everything twice; once to the database and once to the log. Moreover, the log must be forced to disk, to guarantee transaction durability. Logging is, therefore, an expensive operation.
Locking: Before touching a record, a transaction must set a lock on it in the lock table. This is an overhead-intensive operation.
Latching: Updates to shared data structures (B-trees, the lock table, resource tables, etc.) must be done carefully in a multi-threaded environment. Typically, this is done with short-term duration latches, which are another considerable source of overhead.
Buffer Management: Data in traditional systems is stored on fixed-size disk pages. A buffer pool manages which set of disk pages is cached in memory at any given time. Moreover, records must be located on pages and the field boundaries identified. Again, these operations are overhead intensive.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
What the Cisco/EMC/VMware Trinity Means For Cloud Computing
What the Cisco/EMC/VMware Trinity Means For Cloud Computing
Cisco, EMC and VMware, the trifecta of companies putting their own proprietary stamp on cloud computing for the enterprise, today created a partnership to offer equipment called Vblocks and support a new joint venture called Acadia that will help business customers and service providers build out clouds based on the Vblock gear packages. The partnership can be read as an attack on hardware providers building gear for the clouds and a potential threat to cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s cloud services that aren’t building VMware clouds.Cisco, EMC and VMware, the trifecta of companies putting their own proprietary stamp on cloud computing for the enterprise, today created a partnership to offer equipment called Vblocks and support a new joint venture called Acadia that will help business customers and service providers build out clouds based on the Vblock gear packages. The partnership can be read as an attack on hardware providers building gear for the clouds and a potential threat to cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s cloud services that aren’t building VMware clouds.
Cisco, EMC and VMware, the trifecta of companies putting their own proprietary stamp on cloud computing for the enterprise, today created a partnership to offer equipment called Vblocks and support a new joint venture called Acadia that will help business customers and service providers build out clouds based on the Vblock gear packages. The partnership can be read as an attack on hardware providers building gear for the clouds and a potential threat to cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s cloud services that aren’t building VMware clouds.Cisco, EMC and VMware, the trifecta of companies putting their own proprietary stamp on cloud computing for the enterprise, today created a partnership to offer equipment called Vblocks and support a new joint venture called Acadia that will help business customers and service providers build out clouds based on the Vblock gear packages. The partnership can be read as an attack on hardware providers building gear for the clouds and a potential threat to cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s cloud services that aren’t building VMware clouds.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Discovery Blog: Archives
Discovery Blog: Archives: "'Mother Theresa spent her whole life saying (that what Calcutta needs) is a huge campaign against family planning. I mean, who comes to that conclusion who isn't a complete fanatic? She took - and I would directly say stole...millions and millions of dollars and spent all the money not on the poor, but on the building of nearly 200 convents in her own name around the world to glorify herself and to continue to spread the doctrine that, as she put it -- when she got her absurd Nobel Peace Prize -- that the main threat to world peace is abortion and contraception. The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it's a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to.'"
Monday, November 02, 2009
cbrumme's WebLog : Asynchronous operations, pinning
cbrumme's WebLog : Asynchronous operations, pinning: "Along the same lines, managed Delegates can be marshaled to unmanaged code, where they are exposed as unmanaged function pointers. Calls on those pointers will perform an unmanaged to managed transition; a change in calling convention; entry into the correct AppDomain; and any necessary argument marshaling. Clearly the unmanaged function pointer must refer to a fixed address. It would be a disaster if the GC were relocating that! This leads many applications to create a pinning handle for the delegate. This is completely unnecessary. The unmanaged function pointer actually refers to a native code stub that we dynamically generate to perform the transition & marshaling. This stub exists in fixed memory outside of the GC heap."
Vastus Medialis Oblique - VMO
Vastus Medialis Oblique - VMO: "Holding the Contraction:
Sitting on a chair with the knees bent, palpate the VMO
Start to slowly straighten the knee and ensure the VMO contracts
Maintain the contraction throughout the movement as you fully straighten the knee and bend it again
Repeat this twice daily until you can maintain a strong constant contraction 10 times in a row"
Sitting on a chair with the knees bent, palpate the VMO
Start to slowly straighten the knee and ensure the VMO contracts
Maintain the contraction throughout the movement as you fully straighten the knee and bend it again
Repeat this twice daily until you can maintain a strong constant contraction 10 times in a row"
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
H1N1 Flu Shot: 3 Major Fears Debunked | Magazine#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn
H1N1 Flu Shot: 3 Major Fears Debunked Magazine#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn#&mbid=cnn
Attacks on the vaccine boil down to three major arguments, each playing on different fears. These arguments may seem persuasive on the surface, but they’re not supported by the science.
Attacks on the vaccine boil down to three major arguments, each playing on different fears. These arguments may seem persuasive on the surface, but they’re not supported by the science.
Monday, October 26, 2009
CouchDB Implements a Fundamental Algorithm : Daytime Running Lights
CouchDB Implements a Fundamental Algorithm : Daytime Running Lights: "To get to the core of how CouchDB provides these properties in a lockless way requires understanding the append-only file format, but I'll give you the basic picture: Each db file has a single writer process and multiple reader processes. Readers can proceed independently of the writer, getting a consistent snapshot of the data, even as changes are being made."
Friday, October 23, 2009
Technology Review: Vulnerability Seen in Amazon's Cloud-Computing
Technology Review: Vulnerability Seen in Amazon's Cloud-Computing
Ron Rivest, a computer science professor at MIT and pioneer in cryptography, says the four researchers have "discovered some troubling facts" about cloud-computing services, which rent out computing resources, including storage and processing power, on a by-the-hour basis. Specifically, the potential weaknesses were found in the basic computing infrastructure services that are provided by Amazon and Rackspace and are widely used within many in-house corporate datacenters.
These technologies involve "virtual machines"--remote versions of traditional onsite computer systems, including the hardware and operating system. The number of these virtual machines can be expanded or contracted on the fly to meet demand, creating tremendous efficiencies. But the actual computing is, of course, performed within one or more physical data centers, each containing thousands of computers. And virtual machines of different customers sit on the same physical servers.
The attack involves first figuring out which physical servers a victim is using within a cloud, then implanting a malicious virtual machine there, and finally attacking the victim.
Hunting down a victim who might be on any of tens of thousands of servers might seem a needle-in-haystack enterprise. But the paper concludes that with some simple detective work, "just a few dollars invested in launching [virtual machines] can produce a 40 percent chance of placing a malicious [virtual machine] on the same physical server as a target." They dub this mapping process "cartography."
Ron Rivest, a computer science professor at MIT and pioneer in cryptography, says the four researchers have "discovered some troubling facts" about cloud-computing services, which rent out computing resources, including storage and processing power, on a by-the-hour basis. Specifically, the potential weaknesses were found in the basic computing infrastructure services that are provided by Amazon and Rackspace and are widely used within many in-house corporate datacenters.
These technologies involve "virtual machines"--remote versions of traditional onsite computer systems, including the hardware and operating system. The number of these virtual machines can be expanded or contracted on the fly to meet demand, creating tremendous efficiencies. But the actual computing is, of course, performed within one or more physical data centers, each containing thousands of computers. And virtual machines of different customers sit on the same physical servers.
The attack involves first figuring out which physical servers a victim is using within a cloud, then implanting a malicious virtual machine there, and finally attacking the victim.
Hunting down a victim who might be on any of tens of thousands of servers might seem a needle-in-haystack enterprise. But the paper concludes that with some simple detective work, "just a few dollars invested in launching [virtual machines] can produce a 40 percent chance of placing a malicious [virtual machine] on the same physical server as a target." They dub this mapping process "cartography."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
CommsDesign - Symbian opens source microkernel, ahead of schedule ....
CommsDesign - Symbian opens source microkernel, ahead of schedule ....
The release of the microkernel demonstrates three vital, guiding principles of the foundation: first, the commitment of many community members to the development of the platform - in this case, Accenture, ARM, Nokia and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) all made contributions; second, progress in fulfilling our commitment to a complete open source release of Symbian; and third, a tangible example of providing the most advanced mobile platform in the world," said Lee Williams, Executive Director, Symbian Foundation.
To enable the community to fully utilize the open source kernel, Symbian is providing a complete development kit, free of charge, including ARM's high performance RVCT compiler toolchain.
The release of the microkernel demonstrates three vital, guiding principles of the foundation: first, the commitment of many community members to the development of the platform - in this case, Accenture, ARM, Nokia and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) all made contributions; second, progress in fulfilling our commitment to a complete open source release of Symbian; and third, a tangible example of providing the most advanced mobile platform in the world," said Lee Williams, Executive Director, Symbian Foundation.
To enable the community to fully utilize the open source kernel, Symbian is providing a complete development kit, free of charge, including ARM's high performance RVCT compiler toolchain.
IBM tackles the virtual data center | The Pervasive Data Center - CNET News
IBM tackles the virtual data center The Pervasive Data Center - CNET News
The new product, IBM Systems Director VMControl Enterprise Edition, is focused on virtualized environments. It supports IBM's PowerVM and z/VM as well as x86 virtualization technologies such as VMWare, Hyper-V and open x86 virtualization solutions. IBM plans to first offer it on IBM Power Systems running AIX in December, 2009 with other platforms coming next year
The new product, IBM Systems Director VMControl Enterprise Edition, is focused on virtualized environments. It supports IBM's PowerVM and z/VM as well as x86 virtualization technologies such as VMWare, Hyper-V and open x86 virtualization solutions. IBM plans to first offer it on IBM Power Systems running AIX in December, 2009 with other platforms coming next year
Cloud Testing Comes to the Fore
Cloud Testing Comes to the Fore
CSC also provides "Testing as a Service" (TaaS) within its Trusted Cloud Services offering. Testing as a Service is available on-demand in public, private and hybrid cloud networks to meet customers' business requirements, security needs and regulatory standards."
CSC also provides "Testing as a Service" (TaaS) within its Trusted Cloud Services offering. Testing as a Service is available on-demand in public, private and hybrid cloud networks to meet customers' business requirements, security needs and regulatory standards."
Monday, October 19, 2009
Colleagues Finger Billionaire - WSJ.com
Colleagues Finger Billionaire - WSJ.com: "Some of the allegations describe trading based on advance knowledge of developments at Intel Corp., where the federal criminal complaint alleges Mr. Rajaratnam boasted of having a source. One of those facing conspiracy and securities-fraud criminal charges, as well as civil insider-trading charges, is Intel executive Rajiv Goel, an executive in Intel's treasury department. The SEC complaint alleges he gave Mr. Rajaratnam information about impending Intel earnings releases and also information related to Intel's dealings with Clearwire Corp. That wireless Internet carrier was recapitalized as part of a transaction that included an Intel investment. Clearwire declined to comment.
The criminal complaint says that in a call intercepted in 2008, Mr. Goel asked Mr. Rajaratnam to get him a job 'with one of your powerful friends,' as he was 'tired' of working at Intel."
The criminal complaint says that in a call intercepted in 2008, Mr. Goel asked Mr. Rajaratnam to get him a job 'with one of your powerful friends,' as he was 'tired' of working at Intel."
Federal Bureau of Investigation - The New York Division: Department of Justice Press Release
Federal Bureau of Investigation - The New York Division: Department of Justice Press Release: "From approximately March 2008 until around October 2008, RAJARATNAM and GOEL engaged in insider trading schemes involving the stock of Clearwire. GOEL obtained Inside Information regarding investments in Clearwire made by his employer in Spring 2008, and provided it to RAJARATNAM in violation of duties of trust and confidence he owed to Intel. RAJARATNAM caused Galleon to trade on the basis of this Inside Information, earning a total profit of approximately $579,000. In exchange for the Inside Information RAJARATNAM received from GOEL, RAJARATNAM placed profitable trades for the benefit of GOEL in a personal brokerage account maintained by GOEL at Charles Schwab."
Friday, October 09, 2009
Cloud Standards are Misunderstood | Cloudscaling
Cloud Standards are Misunderstood | Cloudscaling: "the short term standards that matter are the simple control & management APIs for the lower layers of the ‘cloud stack’. Obviously, that means standards for controlling infrastructure are of pre-eminent importance with platforms (PaaS) following right behind. Standards for control of applications (SaaS) will be difficult and probably vertical driven."
Dr. Dobb's | Protecting Critical Applications on Mobile Platforms | July 10, 2009
Dr. Dobb's Protecting Critical Applications on Mobile Platforms July 10, 2009
P-MAPS is a processor-measured service layer that reduces the trusted computing base and improves the runtime security of user applications
The authors are research scientists and engineers for Intel Labs. They can be contacted at ravi.sahita@intel.com, ulhas.warrier@intel.com, and prashant.dewan@intel.com, respectively. Copyright (c) 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved
P-MAPS is a processor-measured service layer that reduces the trusted computing base and improves the runtime security of user applications
The authors are research scientists and engineers for Intel Labs. They can be contacted at ravi.sahita@intel.com, ulhas.warrier@intel.com, and prashant.dewan@intel.com, respectively. Copyright (c) 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Linux and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) - The H Open Source: News and Features
Linux and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) - The H Open Source: News and Features
You can check a Linux machine for its level of TPM support with the following command line –
ls -la /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/char/tpm
You can check a Linux machine for its level of TPM support with the following command line –
ls -la /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/char/tpm
Linux and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) - The H Open Source: News and Features
Linux and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) - The H Open Source: News and Features
You can check a Linux machine for its level of TPM support with the following command line –
ls -la /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/char/tpm
You can check a Linux machine for its level of TPM support with the following command line –
ls -la /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/char/tpm
PGP/GPG for GMail « The Life of a Silicon Valley Rockstar
PGP/GPG for GMail « The Life of a Silicon Valley Rockstar
It’s a Firefox extension and pushes itself right into Gmail. I wish they’d make a solution for IE7 as well since for better or worse it’s still the de facto standard web browser. You’ll note I said it’s a firefox extension. It’s not a key manager. For that you’ll need to download GNUPG or my preference, GPG4Win which also has a file encryption plugin GPGee and an Outlook 2003 plugin, GPGol.
It’s a Firefox extension and pushes itself right into Gmail. I wish they’d make a solution for IE7 as well since for better or worse it’s still the de facto standard web browser. You’ll note I said it’s a firefox extension. It’s not a key manager. For that you’ll need to download GNUPG or my preference, GPG4Win which also has a file encryption plugin GPGee and an Outlook 2003 plugin, GPGol.
Getting an SMIME certificate - MozillaZine Knowledge Base
Getting an SMIME certificate - MozillaZine Knowledge Base
Certificate Authorities
Sources of Free SMIME Certificates
Free certificates usable for S/MIME are available from:
Thawte
Verisign
InstantSSL / Comodo
TC TrustCenter and ChosenSecurity
ipsCA
CAcert (CAcert is NOT one of the trusted authorities built-in to FireFox and ThunderBird)
StartCom
Certificate Authorities
Sources of Free SMIME Certificates
Free certificates usable for S/MIME are available from:
Thawte
Verisign
InstantSSL / Comodo
TC TrustCenter and ChosenSecurity
ipsCA
CAcert (CAcert is NOT one of the trusted authorities built-in to FireFox and ThunderBird)
StartCom
LYSP
"result is LYSP: is a tiny, lightweight
Lisp interpreter following closely the tradition of the earliest Lisp
implementations."
http://www.piumarta.com/software/lysp/lysp-1.0/00_README
Lisp interpreter following closely the tradition of the earliest Lisp
implementations."
http://www.piumarta.com/software/lysp/lysp-1.0/00_README
"The Silicon Age: Virtual I/O
Since 2005, VMware and Xen have gradually reduced the performance overheads of virtualization, aided by the Moore’s law doubling in transistor count, which inexorably shrinks overheads over time. AMD’s Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI – 2007) and Intel’s Extended Page Tables (EPT – 2009) substantially improved performance for a class of recalcitrant workloads by offloading the mapping of machine-level pages to Guest OS “physical” memory pages, from software to silicon. In the case of operations that stress the MMU—like an Apache compile with lots of short lived processes and intensive memory access—performance doubled with RVI/EPT. (Xen showed similar challenges prior to RVI/EPT on compilation benchmarks.)
Some of the other performance advances have included interrupt coalescing, IPv6 TCP segmentation offloading and NAPI support in the new VMware vmxnet3 driver. However, the last year has also seen two big advances: direct device mapping, enabled by this generation of CPU’s (e.g. Intel VT-D first described back in 2006), and the first generation of i/o adapters that are truly virtualization-aware.
Before Intel VT-D, 10GigE workloads became CPU-limited out at around 3.5GB/s of throughput. Afterwards (and with appropriate support in the hypervisor), throughputs above 9.6 GB/s have been achieved. More important, however, is the next generation of i/o adapters that actually spin up mini-virtual NIC’s in hardware and connect them directly into virtual machines—eliminating the need to copy networking packets around. This is one of the gems in Cisco’s UCS hardware which tightly couples a new NIC design with matching switch hardware. We’re now at the stage that if you’re using this year’s VMwar"
Since 2005, VMware and Xen have gradually reduced the performance overheads of virtualization, aided by the Moore’s law doubling in transistor count, which inexorably shrinks overheads over time. AMD’s Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI – 2007) and Intel’s Extended Page Tables (EPT – 2009) substantially improved performance for a class of recalcitrant workloads by offloading the mapping of machine-level pages to Guest OS “physical” memory pages, from software to silicon. In the case of operations that stress the MMU—like an Apache compile with lots of short lived processes and intensive memory access—performance doubled with RVI/EPT. (Xen showed similar challenges prior to RVI/EPT on compilation benchmarks.)
Some of the other performance advances have included interrupt coalescing, IPv6 TCP segmentation offloading and NAPI support in the new VMware vmxnet3 driver. However, the last year has also seen two big advances: direct device mapping, enabled by this generation of CPU’s (e.g. Intel VT-D first described back in 2006), and the first generation of i/o adapters that are truly virtualization-aware.
Before Intel VT-D, 10GigE workloads became CPU-limited out at around 3.5GB/s of throughput. Afterwards (and with appropriate support in the hypervisor), throughputs above 9.6 GB/s have been achieved. More important, however, is the next generation of i/o adapters that actually spin up mini-virtual NIC’s in hardware and connect them directly into virtual machines—eliminating the need to copy networking packets around. This is one of the gems in Cisco’s UCS hardware which tightly couples a new NIC design with matching switch hardware. We’re now at the stage that if you’re using this year’s VMwar"
The Black Art of Optimising -- www.volker-lanz.de
The Black Art of Optimising -- www.volker-lanz.de: "static unsigned int itoa(char* p, unsigned int n)
{
char tmp[MAX_DIGITS + 1];
char* s = tmp + MAX_DIGITS;
*s = 0;
do
{
*--s = '0123456789'[n % 10];
n /= 10;
} while (n > 0);
strcpy(p, s);
return tmp + MAX_DIGITS - s;
}"
{
char tmp[MAX_DIGITS + 1];
char* s = tmp + MAX_DIGITS;
*s = 0;
do
{
*--s = '0123456789'[n % 10];
n /= 10;
} while (n > 0);
strcpy(p, s);
return tmp + MAX_DIGITS - s;
}"
Win32_Tpm Class (Windows)
Win32_Tpm Class (Windows): "Win32_Tpm Class
The Win32_Tpm class represents the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a hardware security chip that provides a root of trust for a computer system."
The Win32_Tpm class represents the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a hardware security chip that provides a root of trust for a computer system."
Windows Trusted Platform Module Management Step-by-Step Guide
Windows Trusted Platform Module Management Step-by-Step Guide: "Windows Trusted Platform Module Management Step-by-Step Guide"
Monday, October 05, 2009
Rewriting the rules: Intel's software chief challenges convention | Oregon Business News - - OregonLive.com
Rewriting the rules: Intel's software chief challenges convention Oregon Business News - - OregonLive.com
Even so, Intel has repeatedly sought to branch out in software as a complement to its chips and as a tool for breaking into new technologies. “The results have been very consistent,” Grove, now 73 and retired, says. “They amounted to nothing.” It’s James’ job to break that losing streak.
Even so, Intel has repeatedly sought to branch out in software as a complement to its chips and as a tool for breaking into new technologies. “The results have been very consistent,” Grove, now 73 and retired, says. “They amounted to nothing.” It’s James’ job to break that losing streak.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Share your favourite nerd, geek, science jokes! : funny
Share your favourite nerd, geek, science jokes! : funny
The past, the present, and the future walk into a bar. It was tense
The past, the present, and the future walk into a bar. It was tense
Improbable Research
Improbable Research: "'Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?' Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42. DOI:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013."
Bertrand Meyer's technology blog » Blog Archive » The CPU Clock principle of software releases
Bertrand Meyer's technology blog » Blog Archive » The CPU Clock principle of software releases: "CPU Clock principle: release at fixed frequency."
Amicus Curiae: Bilski v. Kappos - Software Freedom Law Center
Amicus Curiae: Bilski v. Kappos - Software Freedom Law Center: "In Microsoft v. AT&T, this Court recognized that “[a]bstract software code [uninstalled in a machine] is an idea without physical embodiment.” 550 U.S. 437, 449(2007). The court below correctly decided that, on the basis of this Court’s prior holdings, such abstract ideas without physical embodiment cannot be the subject of a statutory patent monopoly."
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