258
The metric does not measure what it is claimed it does, and even if it did it would be meaningless for assessing the role of Dr. Kate Bouman in creating the image. I'll go on to why, but I first want to draw particularly attention to the fact that Dr. Bouman has explicitly rejected the idea that she deserves sole credit:
But Dr Bouman, now an assistant ...
131
Technically, that is the percentage of the code she contributed, 2410 lines in 90 commits.
From https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/graphs/contributors
But that tells us nothing about what the code does. Andrew Chael, the man who is credited with doing the work in that article, has spoken up against the rhetoric used against her.
From https://www....
111
Yes, most modern computer processors include hardware with the capability to fully control all components of the computer (regardless of the power state of the system as a whole), to access all data while the computer is running, and to connect to the internet (in any power state).
However, the remote control aspect of the functionality this hardware ...
65
It is true that you do not need numbers, special characters, etc for a strong password. If you instead increase the length of the password, the entropy will increase as well. See for example this entropy table. To get 64 bit of entropy, you could have a 14 character lowercase password, or you could have a 10 character password with all printable ASCII ...
53
No; however, this is partly due to semantics, the actual log entry is as follows:
First actual case of a bug being found.
This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to the term "bug" that was in use at the time meaning:
The term "bug" is used to a limited extent to designate any fault or
trouble in the connections or working of electric apparatus.
...
50
Apple Inc. did sue NYC, however it was not about "Big Apple" nickname, but the logo that went along with it — a stylized apple.
Apple filed a federal challenge to New York's trademark application
for a new "Big Apple" logo, saying it's too similar to the stylized
emblem found on iPhones, iPods and iMac computers.
Cupertino, Calif.-based ...
47
TL;DR: It seems that data densities on HDs have increased to the point where it's not feasible to recover data from zeroed drives.
The process of recovering data from a "zeroed" hard drive revolves around the concept of residual magnetism. Essentially, the idea is that if you examine the drive using a magnetic force microscope, there is some tiny ...
39
The old title asked "Did researcher Katie Bouman only contribute 0.26% of code that created Black Hole image," and the existing answers do a good job explaining why it isn't true and why lines of code aren't a useful metric. The new title, however, asks "Was credit for the black hole image misappropriated?" and the correct answer should appear rather ...
38
There is a significant amount of anecdotal evidence that supports the claim that, not only did this happen once, but that it happens rather frequently. Unfortunately, most of these claims appear to come from members of the security industry, which may have a vested interest in convincing people that this type of activity is taking place.
The type of theft ...
36
It's unlikely that Apple's support for USB had any significant impact on the adoption of the standard.
There are two other events that, in combination, "jump started" USB adoption.
1. Windows 98 release provides comprehensive USB support
Windows 98 was released in June 1998. Prior to Windows 98, USB support in Windows was flaky at best. Support was ...
29
According to Ken Thompson, he built the compiler that did this, and never distributed it.
From: Ken Thompson <ken@google.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: Was compiler from "Reflections" ever built or distributed?
To: Ezra Lalonde <ezra@usefuliftrue.com>
build and not distributed.
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Ezra ...
29
The claim is false. The soldier does not have evidence of unlicensed software.
The claims are based entirely on photographs and witness statements from an anonymous source. There are a number of problems with the claim:
The photos show computers which have not been activated. This is not the same thing as unlicensed.
The US Army negotiates to license ...
28
According to Quote Investigator, the evidence is inconclusive.
In 1985 InfoWorld quoted him as saying
When we set the upper limit of PC-DOS at 640K, we thought nobody would ever need that much memory.
(The quote was not sourced)
The way I would interpret this is that he thought PCs and PC-DOS would be dead before the memory limit would be a problem. ...
27
Nobody knows.
None of the sources for total LOC provide any means or methods.
Sources for hard numbers after 2008 were a little hard to come by, my apologies.
Total number of lines of all code in use?
One trillion (2001).[19]
C/C++: 180 billion, Assembler: 140-220 billion, Other: 280 billion.
Total number of lines of COBOL code in use?
200 billion (...
27
It's likely a scam:
Apple's products have fixed prices and, for example, a MD711CH costs around 1000US$ in China:
Also, there is a large "fakes" industry in China. They even have tons of fake Apple stores!
26
The story with regards Bill Gates scheduling classes is true, although if this would be considered "tampering" is best left to the reader. According to Bill Gates, he actually wrote a computerized class scheduler for Lackside School in which he included an extra feature,
Of course, a whole new dimension of relevance came when I was asked to
do a ...
22
USB 1.x introduction
Market share
OS market shares of that time (Source):
Windows 95/98 69.4%,
Windows NT Workstation 9.2%,
Windows 3.x (with DOS) 7.7%,
Mac OS 4.6%,
Linux 2.4%,
DOS (IBM, Digital Research, Microsoft) 2.3%,
Unix 1.0%,
OS/2 Warp 0.8%,
other 2.7%
Windows 95 OSR2 released on 27 August 1997 included USB support and Windows 98 ...
20
Are Lawful Interception Features considered "flaws" or "backdoors"?
Many developers and organizations include flaws quite consciously to allow government intelligence and law enforcement as well as other purported stakeholders (usually copyright and software-patent vigilantes) multiple layers of to access end-user systems.
There is a misclassification ...
20
This article claims that in 2010, the "Bill Of Material" for the cheapest MacBook Air was $718. So if, for example, Foxconn decided to buy some extra parts and do an extra shift to produce some MacBook Airs on their own and sold them at cost, they would cost $718.
The Bill Of Materials has probably gone down since then, but even so there is no way that a ...
20
Brian Krebs (noted and respected infosec analyst and blogger) reported this on 27th Jan.
27
Jan 18
First ‘Jackpotting’ Attacks Hit U.S. ATMs
ATM “jackpotting” — a sophisticated crime in which thieves install malicious software and/or hardware at ATMs that forces the machines to spit out huge volumes of cash on demand — has long been a threat for ...
19
The word "scam" suggests fraudulence - a deliberate intention to deceive. It is a strong accusation, and we should be careful about wielding it without evidence.
Given Leap Motion claim that they will not charge until the product is shipped and that they bill via credit-card, which enables consumers and the banks to recover their money if they charge ...
19
Yes in the sense that it uses quantum properties to perform computations, but no in the more general case since it is not a Turing machine (i.e. universal computer).
This answer is somewhat complicated by the fact that what the general public thinks of as a computer and what computer scientists formally define as a Turing machine. Turing machines are ...
18
No, the text was not generated entirely by a computer program. Humans worked with the algorithm to generate the sentences, selected the ones they liked best, edited them into a story, and even added some of their own.
Botnik's tweet describes their code as "predictive keyboards"--the same sort of technology that phones without full keyboards use to guess ...
17
Is there evidence to support that the decrease in time slice duration
causes the dramatic battery use increase claimed in the article?
Yes.
Quoting a technical paper released by Microsoft as part of their hardware developer documentation, Timers, Timer Resolution, and Development of Efficient Code:
If the system timer interval is decreased to less ...
17
SUMMARY:
No, it does not make your computer hardware run any faster.
It may make the common software applications they provide for you run faster, depending on how your old machine is configured.
As indicated in their How It Works page, it is actually a USB key holding a Live USB Linux Distribution.
There is thus no hardware involved to make the computer ...
16
The Register article was most likely a feed from this very brief and unsourced InformationWeek article, dated two days before the article in The Register.
The story has the ring of urban legend to it. People who work behind the scenes have sometimes gruesome stories about lost equipment, lost machinery, and even lost people showing up years after the fact.
...
16
The "damage" done by screens is in the form of eye strain. Your eyeball focuses by using muscles in the eye to change the shape of the lens within the eye, to properly focus incoming light onto the correct portion of the retina.
It is the second part of your eye, after the cornea, that helps to focus light and images on your retina. Because the lens is ...
15
Yes, there are many documented advantages.
Copied from here and then adapted:
...the adjustable keyboard was more comfortable...in comparison with the conventional keyboard.
—Tittiranonda, Rempel, et al. (1999) “Workplace use of an adjustable keyboard: adjustment preferences and effect on wrist posture”
...split keyboards place the wrist closer to a ...
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