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Well, I recently found the Cortex-M SoCs to be a blessing in that regard: no MMU, no need to run a fully fledged operating system, but still with LwIP, FreeRTOS&friends, they can handle surprisingly complex software tasks, while the lack of MMU and privilege-separation means that all the hardware: DMA-engines, communication interfaces and accelerator facilities (2-D GPU) are right at the tip of your hands.

Yes, looks like they added a few bits to the PSR register to capture the internal state of LDM/STM . Like a small version of x86's CS register.

In fact the Cell CPU [1] had a DMA facility accessible from the SPU cores by non-privileged software [2]. This worked cleanly, as all DMA operations were subject to normal virtual memory paging rules.

But then the SPU did not have direct RAM access (only 256 kB of local S-RAM addressible from the CPU instructions), so DMA was something that followed naturally from the general design. Also not having any cache meant there were none of the usual cache coherency problems (though you may run into coherency problems during concurrent DMA to shared memory from multiple SPUs).

[edit] note also that the SPUs did not usually do any multitasking / multi-threading, which also simplified handling of DMA. Otherwise task switches would have to capture and restore the whole DMA unit's state (and also potentially all 256 kB of local storage as these cannot be paged).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)

[2] https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/a...

Note that in ARM-based controllers, LDM/STM also have a non-negligible impact on interrupt latency. These are defined in a way that they cannot be interrupted mid-instruction, so worst-case interrupt latency is higher that would be expected with a RISC CPU (especially if LDM/STM happen to run on a somewhat slower memory region)

AFAICS x86 "rep" prefixed instructions are defined so that they can in fact be interrupted without problems. The remaining count is kept in (e)cx, so just doing an iret into "rep stosb" etc. will continue its operation.

I think VIA's hash/aes instruction set extension also made use of the "rep" prefix and kept all encryption/hash state in the x86 register set, so that they could in fact hash large memory regions on a single opcode without hampering interrupts.

I think copyright is inherited by the heirs (in most cases relatives of the deceased) and carries on quite a long time after death. So the relatives may actually sue you, and any discussion WRT relicensing would have to be addressed to them.

I actually consider putting something into my will that states that all my open-source contributions are relicensed to "public domain" (CC0 [1]) once I die.

[1] https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc...

IMO it's not "GPL virality" that is at the root of the issue here. The authors' decision to license theis works this way causes the problem. You can still ask both libraries' authors for relicensing their work in a less restricted / more compatible way.

If they don't want to do that, then being authors and owning their copyrights, that's their right to do. That's nothing I would blame on the GPL.

I mean we should be grateful that these authors made their works available free of cost in the first place.

If you travel close to C, those photons will be blue-shifted into (depending on velocity) very energetic photons (x-ray, gamma spectrum) that may be rather difficult to shield against.

Yes, the global cost function of standard of living may likely have other comparable optimimums at other points in parameter-space (which may be less damaging to the planet).

The question is whether we can move around in parameter-space to reach another optimum, without having to transition trough rather sub-optimal areas of the cost-function for some time.

We may be caught in some local minimum, without society having enough "energy" to climb out of it.

In germany (and I'd assume standardized throughout europe) COVID vaccination digital certificate is just that: a digitally signed certificate (encoding your name+vaccination meta-info) passed around via QR code. While you can use an App to read and present it, just having a paper-copy of the QR code (plus some ID document proving that the name on the certificate matches your person) should be enough to prove your vaccination status.

I'm regularly using chipTAN with a stand-alone TAN generator (similar to [1], based on optical flicker-code) for a DKB account. No problems so far.

Deutsche bank uses PhotoTAN, which supports hardware TAN generators [2].

Some banks use different but similar TAN generators (e.g. SecurePlus [3]), and I also witnessed Postbank accounts operated with USB-based TAN generators [4] called "BestSign".

[1] https://www.voelkner.de/products/476429/REINER-SCT-tanJack-o...

[2] https://genostore.de/db/phototan-lesegeraet/92/phototan-lese...

[3] https://cb.kobilshop.com/secureplus-generator/1/secureplus-g... securePlus Generator

[4] https://www.seal-one.com/devices.en#DiVc3100KLink BestSign

AFAICS, no, they don't. If you don't install the bank's app, you are usually offered to use a stand-alone hardware TAN generator. I currently have 4 TAN generators for different bank accounts (because everybody seeems to use a different protocol).

On the positive side, a stand-alone air-gapped TAN generator feels much saver than using a (possibly back-doored) smart-phone to do on-line banking.

Where I live, tankless heaters are pretty wide-spread. They connect to 3-phase power supply, heating at a variable power level up to 24 kW [1]. They need almost no maintenance, nobody I know has ever descaled one. I think the better units directly run the heating wires through the water, so they do not calcify due to small surface area (or maybe the huge temperature gradient when operated breaks the calcification layer).

Usually you operate them until they break (maybe around 10 years), then get a replacement heater for like 400 €.

[1] https://www.stiebel-eltron.co.uk/en/products-solutions/dhw/i...

I cannot share this optimism. I wonder how a society would look like, where young people are the absolute minority and their demands and ideas drowned by the number and power of those who have lived for centuries, amassing fortunes, having used all the resources of the planet, so that there is no place for a next generation?

But then maybe my thinking is influenced by having watched Altered Carbon [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series)

I think what you're trying to define by example may just be Normalization of Deviance [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance

I think, in case you delete all your cookies, you will get a new cookie popup the next time you visit a web-site. As I usually configure browsers to not keep cookies between browser-restarts, I'm quite used to being asked anew about cookie consent every single time I visit a page :/

There may be some grandfathering of old accounts: accounts that have email notification enabled, can still access the Packstation using mTAN transmitted by email. However, once the email notification is disabled, there seems to be no way to re-enable it (and maybe it is disabled per default for new accounts) [1]

[1] https://www.giga.de/tipp/dhl-mtan-anfordern-ohne-handy-das-s...

You can get this sort of satisfaction for much less money. Try a Volla phone [1] or a KaiOS based phone [2]. That's always funny when some services assume that just having an iOS or Android App (and no equivalent web-page) is enough to cater to everyone.

Especially in the corona-virus crisis it will prove interesting whether some mandated "contact tracing" or "vaccination pass" style Apps are going to effectively turn into an Android/iOS Smartphone requirement for everyday life.

In Germany it's e.g. already impossible to use the DHL parcel receival stations without Android/iOS. Loss of some ticket options for public transport also seems to be on the horizon. Also forget about car- and bike-sharing.

Also some banks try to force you to install their own proprietary TFA app for online payment (even if you just use your credit card in an online shop).

[1] https://volla.online/en/index.html

[2] https://sites.google.com/view/bananahackers/devices/nokia-81...

It's also possible without any energy transmission using lasers etc. as long as you are in some non-flat spacetime (i.e. there is some mass in your vincinity). It's called "swimming in spacetime" [1]

[edit] You can find a less scientific / more illustrative introduction to the concept here [2].

[1] http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/wisdom/swimming.pdf

[2] http://www.brophy.net/Downloads/AIL%20Class%20on%20Reality%2...

Note how this problem of "sufficient complexity" is an asymmetric problem between code author and compiler. A rather simple transformation implemented by the author to make the code constant-time may require NP-hard effort for the compiler to undo.

(but then the compiler may still do other unrelated transformations that end up making the code non-constant time again)

I just started wondering, if things were any better if security libraries were written in higher level languages, depending on on a huge run-time support system that is written in what is essentially a portable assembly language, doing silly things like pointer arithmetic, manually allocating memory and so on... :)

I think we have already "lost" similar amounts of knowledge when the mechanical typewriters went away. And the mechanical calculators (and mechanical clocks?).

Or have you recently looked through a book on vacuum tube circuit design? Even more modern transistor-based analog circuit design is going to fade somewhat, as more and more parts of devices are moved to digital circuits.

It is a little terrifying and sad to see how many incredible ideas, that took a lot of smart people to develop, are basically thrown away over time.

Unfortunately, changing weight of the helicopter changes also changes inertia and the moment of inertia [1]. On mars, only the gravitational force changes, while inertia stays the same.

That will be somewhat more tricky (or impossible) to emulate on earth.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia

Also a minor hardware re-design may change mic switch behaviour in the future without that change being noticeable to the buyer. You'd really need regular tear-downs of a sufficient sample-size of devices to make sure that you can actually trust newly bought devices with sufficiently high confidence.

I think this approach quickly enters the realm of transcomputational problems [1], which, given the limits of this universe is equivalent to "undecidable" for all practical considerations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcomputational_problem

You mean you're using online services to provide you with trusted timestamp? [1]. But you need to consider how a trusted timestamp merely proves that some photo was definitely taking at or before the attested time. It does not prove that a photo was not actually taken a day earlier and then merely submitted at the attested time. To prove something was not recorded earlier is a little trickier. Need something like a newspaper headline that would not have been available earlier. And then how do you defend against claims that you took the photo early, but photoshopped the newspaper headline at the time it was attested?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping

But everybody can give his/her smartphone to a 3rd party to carry around, right? Your Google location history only proves where your phone was, it doen't prove where you were.

Also with the advent of deep fakes [1] I'm not so sure that this is going to be a winning strategy for long.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

I think you are too optimistic WRT how forensic "science" is generally applied in the US [1] (one prominent example is e.g. [2]). Now imagine this is you standing in front of a scientifically untrained jury trying to argue against junk-science presented by a "forensic expert" testimonial. Not sure an alibi is going to help you much in that case.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-forensic-science-...

[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-08-25-chi-09...

I remember the name Philip Glass only due to watching the movie "Hamburger Hill", which started with an opening theme [1] that seemed so unusual that I looked up the composer on wikipdia.

[1] https://youtu.be/YeD4b2L1iNU

The pessimistic side of me would like to point out that in this kind of future, criminals will know how to leave sufficient fake DNA at the crime scene, and random people will suddenly be thrown in jail, because some criminal deliberately used their DNA to cover their tracks...