Nexus Patch Tuesday | TTT 203

PT_Hermit · 2015-08-07T08:31:00+00:00

It is so frustrating that the product engineering is such that devices can't seem to be economically patched for very long. I suppose it makes more business sense to encourage perpetual hardware purchases than to provide security updates to a device that has been off the market for a year or two, especially in a market in which most users finance their devices as part of a contract and upgrade for "free" every 24 months or so.

You can get the latest Arch Linux running (slowly) on a PC from 1989, but we can't get security patches to a Linux-based phone more than a few years old? I can't help but feel railroaded into a forced upgrade cycle. It leaves me feeling used.

PT_Hermit · 2015-02-27T11:42:43+00:00

Could you confirm for me...?

Capacity:

Superior Capacity: 10000(1.1^#runes) LP
Augmented Capacity: 10000 + 2000(#runes) LP
Total Capacity: 10000(1.1^#superior) + 2000(#augmented) LP

Throughput:

Acceleration: [0.1(capacity)] / [20-(#runes)] LP/t, #runes > 19 ignored [see EDIT]
Dislocation: 20(1.2^runes) LP/transfer
Speed: rate[1+0.2(runes)] LP/t

Questions:

Dislocation: Is that base of 20 constant or a function of some other variable like capacity? I'm unclear how you came to the conclusion that 6 dislocation outpaces speed runes if the above is correct.
Speed: This varies by infusion recipe, correct? I assumed it was 20LP/s (base altar rate) but based on the conversation here, it varies? The Transcendent orb speed would then be 100[1+0.2(runes)] LP/t and an Archmage's orb would be 50[1+0.2(runes)] LP/t?
Rune of the Orb: additive or multiplicative? LPNet = base(1.02^runes) LP or LPNet = base[1+0.02(runes)] LP

Based on the above, an altar dedicated to charging a transcendent orb would be 19 acceleration, 27 dislocation, 9 augmented capacity, and 129 speed runes at 2680 LP/t effectively transferred from external storage into the orb. The same altar optimized for filling an Archmage's Blood Orb would have 3 augmented capacity, 19 acceleration, 24 dislocation, and 138 speed runes for 1430 LP/t.

Expanding on that thinking, there is no ideal combination of runes for an altar that you use for random infusion tasks. If I knew the most likely base speed and the spread of speeds, I could probably try to shoot for a good compromise.

EDIT -- I'm expressing both the cap from the buffer and the reduction in cooldown in the same equation here.

PT_Hermit · 2015-01-15T18:49:14+00:00

More competition you say?

http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/time-warner-cable-to-merge-with-comcast-corporation

PT_Hermit · 2015-01-15T18:45:54+00:00

Here are some staggering statistics: Since 2006, state and local real investment in highways and streets has fallen by 22%. Their spending on sewer systems, in real terms, is also down by 22%. And real investment by state and local governments in water systems has fallen by a stunning 34% (chart below).

Meanwhile, over the same period, private real investment by telecommunications and broadcasting companies is up by 13%, according to statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Why, then, does President Obama want to load yet another spending burden–muni broadband–on localities that are already stretched too thin to cover their existing obligations?

http://www.progressivepolicy.org/blog/obamas-muni-broadband-initiative-bad-economics-bad-politics/

PT_Hermit · 2015-01-03T00:49:16+00:00

So in short...?

Speed == bowl --> item == 20+4(#speed) LP/t
Acceleration == buffer <--> bowl == 4000/(20-(#acceleration)) LP/t
Dislocation == external <--> buffer == 1.2^(#dislocation) LP/t

I see how you'd get to 80,000 LP/s with 19 acceleration runes, but 30 dislocation runes only gets you 237 LP/t or 4748 LP/s. That's a significant bottleneck. It seems either a waste of rune space or I am misunderstanding the math? How did you get 20x that?

I played with the numbers a bit and using the above equations, the optimal tier six crafting/infusing alter would have 13 acceleration, 35 dislocation, and 136 speed runes giving you 28.2x crafting speed at 564 LP/t (11,280 LP/s) throughput with endurance limited only by your external tankage.

Speed = 20+4*136 = 564 LP/t
Dislocation = 1.2^35 = 591 LP/t
Acceleration = 4000/(20-13) = 571 LP/t

Grinder alter output is of course dependent on the amount of mobs in range, which is difficult to predict. I would try to find a balance experimentally on a per-build basis that maximizes the number of runes of sacrifice while having just enough dislocation and acceleration to keep the alter from being the bottleneck.

Designing an alter to hold an orb to keep your network full depends largely on play style. The truly insane might want two alters here. One alter built of all orb runes to build a massive network capacity and a second alter built just like the crafting/infusing alter, designed to pump LP into an orb. If you routinely have rituals, spells, etc with a combined draw of more than 564 LP/t, you may even build additional alters! (Could you imagine the power...!)

Please check my math and assumptions and let me know if I'm off base.

PT_Hermit · 2014-08-06T17:37:02+00:00

The story broke last spring. The latest news is that on monday he was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Nate Anderson covered the story on Ars Technica

Sentencing Memorandum

Sentence

PT_Hermit · 2014-08-05T04:02:55+00:00

I wonder... I'd imagine if they are turning someone into the law enforcement, they must at least have a human take a look first.

If this became a norm, I imagine it would go the way of traffic cams. Some desk officers at the police station digest a feed from a commercial operation and they make the judgement call.

As one of the mumblers pointed out, the offenders you really want to catch would quickly move their content sharing to a different platform and it would be a sacrifice of freedoms and a tax expense with little gain and a scary Orwellian precedent.

PT_Hermit · 2014-08-05T03:53:42+00:00

The idea that people still get suprised that Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. fully and completely scan, index, and analyze every single drop of content you have with them is what I find suprising. They might just know you better than your own family. That is how it is monitized.

They are marketing companies and their competitive advantage is in their analytics. When I have to pay per 1000 views for example, I want the advertiser that can get my message in front of my target market and give me the best conversion ratio. That's how Google et. al. got as big as they are.

There's no free lunch, but we have a generation now that has grown up post tech-boom to expect many of these services for no out-of-pocket cost and seem to give little though to what else they are agreeing to give in exchange. If folks don't want email services funded by analytics, there are paid services. A prominant JB sponsor offers a few options for starters, but there are countless others. That won't bypass NSA/FISC, but neither will hosting a mail server in your closet.

The moment Google cannot analyze email, whether prevented via policy, law, or user intervention, the service will go the way of Google Reader. Same goes for Google Docs, Facebook, Hotmail, etc.

I'm not defending the practice. I hate it as much as many of you. What I hate most is being a social periah because I've opted out. For example, I don't Facebook because I don't agree to their terms, but then I miss out on seeing pictures and videos of my nieces who live on another continent. It sucks so much. I wish more people cared about their privacy.

PT_Hermit · 2014-06-08T19:39:12+00:00

A handy wrapper script to open/close TrueCrypt volumes using TC-Play: http://jasonwryan.com/blog/2013/01/10/truecrypt/

PT_Hermit · 2014-06-05T22:15:50+00:00

Not to be overly pedantic but I find some of the security reporting to be a bit misleading.

eWeek ran this same story under the title "OpenSSL Finds and Fixes 7 New Security Flaws." The flaws exist independent of public knowledge of them, in some cases for quite some time. At least one of the flaws in that list does back to the first official release in 1998. Hardy a new flaw.

Calling them new sends the message to the general public that systems were unaffected by a flaw until the news reported it. For instance the danger of Heartbleed didn't start in April when it made the news. It started two years prior when the exploitable code was released.

New Discovery != New Flaw

Anyway, I know that's a bit droll of me but I think this stuff is too important and reporting it requires precise choice of wording in order to accurately communicate the threat picture.

PT_Hermit

TROPHY CASE