Posts by Rich Webb

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

RTFM

Too much FUD being spread here. Read the fine manual, specifically IS-GPS-200. The GPS ephemeris message (Message Type 10) has a 13-bit field for the GPS week: "30.3.3.1.1.1 Transmission Week Number. Bits 39 through 51 of Message Type 10 shall contain 13 bits which are a modulo-8192 binary representation of the current GPS week number at the start of the CEI data set transmission interval (see paragraph 6.2.4)." And no, that field wasn't added just last year. One might additionally speculate that there may be additional fields with a longer span outside the domain of IS-GPS-200 but even a rollover after some 150 years is probably adequate for practical purposes.

Yes, it's entirely possible that some poor coder relied on the 10-bit week number (there are also fields which represent the week number in 8 bits i.e., modulo 256! Panic!!!) but there's no excuse for having done so.

If only 3D desktop printers could 3D print sales! Units crash in Q1

Make stuff!

3D printers are like your garage wood shop. You make stuff that you could buy, but which it's more fun to make. Not to mention the time spent doing things on the printer to make things for the printer to make the printer print better, as compared to cutting a new rip fence or feather board for the saw.

To really get use out of a 3D printer, it helps to be able to design one's own parts for those unique around-the-home (or office) gizmos which just aren't available over the counter (or, because it's just more fun to design and print one's own).

I can't believe that nobody has yet included the obligatory link to Shitty Gifts (trigger warning: impolite language ;-) http://shittygifts.com/3d-printers-the-ultimate-rage-machine/

MS warns over zero-day IE bug

Public?

Interesting phrasing in the linked MS technet article "the only public ways to evade ASLR and DEP is through..."

So, presumably then MS has non-public techniques to get around those protections. Not a real surprise, I guess, but is this another case of security through obscurity? That always works out so well...