How MIT and Caltech’s coding breakthrough could accelerate mobile network speeds

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An RLNC transmission can recover from errors with neither sender nor receiver retaining and updating transmission-state information and requesting lost packets to be retransmitted. This is because RLNC can recreate any packet lost on the receiving side from a later sequenced packet. In over-simplified terms, each RLNC encoded packet sent is encoded using the immediately earlier sequenced packet and randomly generated coefficients, using a linear algebra function. The combined packet length is no longer than either of the two packets from which it is composed. When a packet is lost, the missing packet can be mathematically derived from a later-sequenced packet that includes earlier-sequenced packets and the coefficients used to encode the packet.

Since the RLNC encoding sender doesn’t need to listen for acknowledgements of successful transmission and perhaps retransmit, the sender can continuously transmit at near-wire speed optimized for latency and network throughput.

via How MIT and Caltech’s coding breakthrough could accelerate mobile network speeds.

Update:  After posting this I remembered I had read about an algorithm recreating earlier lost packets from future packets.  So I clicked on the mit tag and on 10/25/2012 I posted this blurb:  A Bandwidth Breakthrough

… The technology transforms the way packets of data are sent. Instead of sending packets, it sends algebraic equations that describe series of packets. So if a packet goes missing, instead of asking the network to resend it, the receiving device can solve for the missing one itself. …

That must mean they’re still working on it.

Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks

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The FCC classifies broadband (such as FiOS) as an information service under Title I of the Communications Act, resulting in less strict rules than the ones applied to common carrier services (such as the traditional phone system) under Title II. But since both services are delivered over the same wire, Verizon FiOS is able to reap the benefits of utility regulation without the downsides.

via Report: Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks | Ars Technica.

“The companies’ affiliates have acted together and have taken control of the customer-funded wires and networks, which are Title II, in multiple ways that allow the company to control both the end-user connection—speed, access, and use of the Internet—as well as the competitor side of attaching to the wire and delivering services to the end users,” Kushnick wrote in an e-mail. “We will be asking for the FCC to open the networks to all forms of competition because customers paid for it and they are Title II, and because the affiliate companies have created a bottleneck that controls the wires and blocks competitors.”

Crushing Blow for Copyright Trolls: Appeals Court Halts AF Holdings’ Extortion Scheme

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This same coalition has fought for years in courts around the country to explain how the trolls were abusing the legal process to extort settlements from unsuspecting John Does.  While several district courts have agreed, this is the first time a federal appeals court has weighed in.

via Crushing Blow for Copyright Trolls: Appeals Court Halts AF Holdings’ Extortion Scheme | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Once a troll gets the names it’s looking for, then it already has what it needs to put its shakedown scheme in motion,” EFF Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz said.

The threat facing online comments

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Thus, according to the ECtHR, a news website should anticipate types of stories that might attract defamatory or insulting comments and be prepared to remove them promptly – or even before the comment has been reported, which might mean websites will be forced to pre-moderate any comment it publishes. One only has to look at the type and volume of comment posted below the line on websites from the FT’s to the Daily Mail’s to see the implications of this ruling. And, as any moderator will tell you, controversial comments can appear in the unlikeliest of places.

via The threat facing online comments – FT.com.

Be a kernel hacker

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In this tutorial, we’ll develop a simple kernel module that creates a /dev/reverse device. A string written to this device is read back with the word order reversed (“Hello World” becomes “World Hello”). It is a popular programmer interview puzzle, and you are likely to get some bonus points when you show the ability to implement it at the kernel level as well. A word of warning before we start: a bug in your module may lead to a system crash and (unlikely, but possible) data loss.

via Be a kernel hacker | Linux Voice.

RStudio – About

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RStudio provides open source and enterprise-ready professional software for the R statistical computing environment. We started RStudio because we were excited and inspired by R. RStudio products, including RStudio IDE and the web application framework RStudio Shiny, simplify R application creation and web deployment for data scientists and data analysts.

via RStudio – About.

Speeding Up Grep Log Queries with GNU Parallel

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Enter GNU Parallel, a shell tool designed for executing tasks in parallel using one or more computers. For my purposes I just ran in on a single system, but wanted to take advantage of multiple cores.

Having enough memory on my system, I loaded the entire massive file into memory and pipe it to GNU Parallel along with another file consisting of thousands of different strings I want to search for in the “PATTERNFILE”:

cat BIGFILE | parallel –pipe grep -f PATTERNFILE

via Speeding Up Grep Log Queries with GNU Parallel – The State of Security.

On MetaFilter Being Penalized By Google

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The truth is more likely that it’s less to do with his site and more to do with Google seeing a pattern of what it considers to be unnatural linking by the publishers it is contacting. As Haughey guesses, it’s more likely that MetaFilter is “collateral damage,” with the damage being the annoying link removal requests rather than any real distrust of the site. That’s especially since its ranking drop seems to well predate these requests.

But it is worrisome, especially when Haughey writes about how much care apparently goes into trying to ensure all links are relevant:

via On MetaFilter Being Penalized By Google: An Explainer.

Earn respect. That’s your best defense if things go south with Google. It’s also your best offense for doing well in Google