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Thursday Afternoon
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(link) Thursday, 15-March-2018 16:47:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Professor Stephen Hawking has died aged 76 - this despite at one point not being expected to survive beyond his mid-20s. He died on Albert Einstein's birthday, but shares his birthday with Elvis Presley, so perhaps we shouldn't read too much into that kind of thing. I think his legacy to most people will be his ability to convey the joy and passion of exploring and understanding the universe, to share his incredible knowledge in widely understandable language, and to demonstrate that it is possible to excel and succeed despite even incredible obstacles. In my early teens I happened to be given two copies of "A Brief History of Time" for one birthday and read it a few times over the following years. He certainly helped shape my early interest in science and technology, and I have followed his career and public output ever since. Let's hope that we can collectively get our act together and avoid fulfilling some of his more cautionary predictions of recent times. Rest in peace. People are sharing their thoughts in this thread.
There's a slightly odd story doing the rounds about AMD CPU security issues. Israeli security research firm CTS-Labs has published a white paper detailing nine flaws in AMD processors that they claim leave users open to devastating attacks with no mitigation strategies; these attacks include a range of manufacturer-installed backdoors. However, the way they were disclosed was unconventional and has attracted a backlash. The security community tore into the company, who quickly became a subject of jokes and ridicule. Discussions on social media quickly moved to theories that CTS Labs was trying to short AMD stock using "manufactured" vulnerabilities in an attempt to buy shares at lower values. But the flaws have been independently confirmed and currently there are no patches, so stay tuned. Discussion in this thread.
There's also a widespread Samba security issue. On a Samba 4 AD DC the LDAP server in all versions of Samba from 4.0.0 onwards incorrectly validates permissions to modify passwords over LDAP allowing authenticated users to change any other users' passwords, including administrative users and privileged service accounts (eg Domain Controllers). Patches are available.
HardOCP checked out a 10-year old PSU. Doing computer PSU reviews for over a decade, and keeping full documentation on those, gives us ability to do something that whets computer PSU enthusiasts' appetites. We get to take some of those PSUs that have been in service for 10 years and retest those. Cooler Master is back on the load bank! How does it look after a decade of service?
Amiga fans might want to roll themselves up in this article about the Amiga consciousness, which is part history, part, uh, philosophy. There exists a global community, a loosely knit consciousness of individuals that crosses boundaries of language and artistic disciplines. It resides in both the online and physical space, its followers are dedicated, if not fervent. The object and to some extent, philosophy that unites these adherents, is a computer system called the Commodore Amiga.
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All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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