I've been using Preview Web Skipe on Firefox (actually Waterfox) for a few months now. All you need is to use "User Agent Switcher" and to pretend to be Chrome.
I don't use it to make calls, just occasional chat. So far I have not encountered any kind of problem or issues.
Given the rumors that you need special Chrome plugin for the voice and video calls, there is absolutely no reason to oust FF or Opera.
Microsoft are deliberately blocking these browsers.
The only thing that Youtube/Google cannot do is claim that this is their own video. By removing the authors logo and all identifying information, they have done just that.
To be fair, there is a legal line connecting those dots, and there is a legal reason it doesn't matter.
The key is that the resale of like-new products is fine because it's not going to cause any brand confusion. The old iPhone you're selling is still an iPhone, and (assuming everyone plays by the rules) still has Apple's hardware inside the case. Legally, you're just selling an intact product (as you're entitled to under the first-sale doctrine), and you're not claiming to have changed its value in any way.
However, once you do something that changes the product's value, you have to be absolutely clear what that change was. If you replaced the battery or otherwise refurbished the product, you're supposed to declare that, so customers know exactly what they're buying. You could upgrade or overclock some components, and call it "modified", and even charge more for it. That's all fine, as long as you're making effort to say "this isn't exactly what that label might make you think".
You see, you are claiming first sale doctrine, but then you are completely undermining it. Once I buy something it is completely mine. Every part of it is mine. I can do whatever I want with it. Including reselling it. You are talking about changing value and declaring it. What is the legal authority I should declare these things to? What is the law that mandates I do that? What even "value" means in this context!!
If you as consumer accept such erosion of the first sale doctrine, soon there will be no first sale doctrine. The moment you remove the product from its wrapping, its "value" is diminished. Apple may not allow you to resale product with diminished "value" that bears the Apple logo.
If you don't fight such interpretation, soon they will become the norm.
I can buy iMac, take its battery out and sell it. All I have to do is say that it is a second hand. Been second hand means I have bought it legally, I own it, and its "value" is diminished.
There is something more. The batteries are not visible part of the product. You cannot find out what is the logo on the battery of a working MacBookPro. You have to use special screws to open it and look inside. The brand recognition is completely useless if it cannot be seen.
The only reason these parts have Apple trademark logo on them, is to claim counterfeit if they are been resold.
At the point where he is repairing computers that Apple WILL NOT repair themselves I don't care if the batteries are legit or counterfeit. He is not costing Apple anything.
Every repair of old Apple product is a missed sale of new Apple product.
They may have come from the same manufacturer as actual Apple batteries, or even been part of a batch made under an Apple contract with Apple designs, but they still have the Apple logo on them. Since Rossmann isn't buying the batteries (even indirectly) from Apple, nor is he himself allowed to use the Apple logo, it's indeed illegal to use the Apple logo on them.
Your argument sums up to that only Apple could sell goods with Apple logo.
Do you understand how far this reasoning could be applied to? For example, you will not be allowed to sell your old iPhone, or iMac to somebody else, because it has Apple logo and you are not Apple and you are not allowed to use the Apple logo.
If these batteries has been sold as part of Apple product, then removed and then sold second hand, they are definitely not counterfeit. (To be honest, this doesn't seem to be the case here.)
If parts are bought from manufacturer who has contract with Apple, then their status would depends on that contract. It is very likely that Apple would explicitly forbid the manufacturer from selling these part to others. And that would make them counterfeit. (Still, you never know with the Chinese.)
The argument is that if you release CO2 that has been (recently) captured from the atmosphere you are not increasing the carbon in active circulation, thus not breaking the existing balance.
The current problem with Global Warming / Climate Change is the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the fact that a lot of fossil carbon is been released as gas in the atmosphere (faster than it can be captured by plants). That fossil carbon has been turned into solid or liquid form eons ago and has remained inert, burred deep underground.
So the carbon in plants comes from the atmosphere and it can safely be ignored when it goes back into the atmosphere. The carbon in animals comes from other animals or plants.
The plants can grow without synthetic fertilizers and food can be processed transported without burning fossil fuel.!!
So taxing/limiting the exhaling of CO2 is absurd and won't change anything. Taxing transportation that uses fossil fuel might lead to use of cleaner solutions, like fully electric trains/trucks, powered by renewable or nuclear power. Fertilizer production could also use clean energy sources, methane from organic sources or another source of Hydrogen.
PCID should help with this kind of vulnerability too.
When mitigating Meltdown, one way was to separate completely the kernel memory from user process memory, this involved switching the virtual paging memory and this flushed TLB entries. This causes speed decrease. To mitigate this, (some) CPUs have a feature where it writes the process ID into the TLB entry, so it could remain in the cache, but it would remain inactive while another process is running. While this sound like the perfect solution, the problem is that the ID field is not big enough and should be switched and recycled.
Meltdown affect only Intel, because only Intel CPU allow userland process to successfully load a register with supervisor (kernel) data, when the page flags indicate that data should not be readable by userland.
There is absolutely no reason to allow the read to complete. Checking the permission flags is just a couple logical operators and should be done at the same time as TLB lookup. TLB is special kind of cache that hold essential data from the Page Table. TLB contains the access flags, cache type, and the physical memory address. You need that info first, before you can check the caches and do the actual read.
This is why AMD processors are not affected by Meltdown.
I do recommend you to try "Tree Style Tabs" and place them on the side of the window.
The extension is been ported to WebEx, but it seems that FF57 doesn't have the API to hide the original tab bar and you have to do that manually. That API is scheduled for FF58.
If you stay with FF56, then AMO will offer you the XUL version, not the WebEx one. That's what I run now.
The patches themselves are not derivative, because they are entirely owned by their authors.
The patch can just check if the executable binary is original by using checksum, then write the new binary data at fixed locations.
There is absolutely no reason for the patch to contain portions of the old executable, since these portions could just be copied by the patching program to their new location(s).
The patched executable would be derivative work and this means that it cannot be distributed. But it can still be used by its legal owner.
The first sale doctrine states that once a person had obtained legal copy (aka he has paid for it) then he can do whatever he wants with it, except distribute other copies of it (or its derivatives) - thus copy-right.
Unfortunately the article does not support your claim. What it says is:
It was not until April 2008, at the height of the intensely bitter Democratic presidential primary process, that the touch paper was properly lit.
An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obamaâ(TM)s main rival for the partyâ(TM)s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight â" that he had not been born in Hawaii.
Do you have evidence that Mrs Clinton or her staff have supported or spread these rumors/emails?
About the "Washington Post" articles, I couldn't find them with google. Would you kindly provide links to them?
I also hope you know the difference between investigating a rumor and spreading it.
According to Gnome developers, removing of the system tray is so insignificant, that it is not even worth mentioning in the short list of changes. It is mentioned at the end of the long list, outside of the bullet points.
GNOME 3.26 no longer shows status icons in the bottom-left of the screen. This prevents the status icon tray from getting in the way and is expected to provide a better overall experience. The lack of status icons is not expected to cause serious issues for users. However, if you do find that you need to access them, they can be restored using the TopIcons extension. More information about this change can be found in a blog post on the subject.
This means that if you don't have the latest TopIcons extension already installed, a lot of programs that minimize to Status Bar will become inaccessible. That's mainly non-Gnome programs.
Gnome developers are trying to force application developers to not use the "pretty old" standard that "predated Gnome 2.0" and instead to use Gnome specific API's like their notification.
The big problem is that they do not seem to understand what is the purpose of the Status Bar, how people use it and why it exists in all Desktop platforms - Linux, Windows and Mac. The Status Bar is for checking the status of an application, with single glance, without need for any actions from the user, like moving mouse to specific position on the screen, having to click, switch desktops or open the program window. In comparison, notification are for signaling change or event. Their use is not only different, they also could be quite annoying and actively ignored.
Your observation is truly insightful. But I have two nitpicks:
Are you sure the bugs don't have space flight capabilities? They do appear to colonize planets and in the movie it is said that they spread by spores. This implies that bugs do have a way for space travel. As their home planet is surrounded by asteroids belt, it is only natural to use them as spaceships. They just have to drill the inside and put engine(s) on the outside. Landing may be hard but spores survive a lot of punishments.
Of course, none of this disproves the false-flag theory. I just checked and the movie says "The meteor was shut out of orbit by bug plasma that derived from Kleondathu - the arachnid home planet". So it definitely was not bug's colonization ship. Even if the asteroid comes from the arachnid quarantine zone, most likely by warp. (It also had no visible engines and rotated under "wrong" angle.)
Here comes the second nitpick, the female "heroine" doesn't get "bollocked" (whatever that is), she is actually flirting with the instructor in the changed course scene. The captain is never shown to comment about the course.
As for the sequels... you know that there are other Starship Troopers movies... they definitely don't follow that scenario. (That probably explains why they are not so good.:))
At first the system trims the "fat" and it seems to improve the things, because corporations tend to accumulate fat. However soon the system becomes victim of its own success. There is no more fat to cut. So it starts to trim more and more "muscle" and less and less fat. This goes until the corporation collapses when it can not support its own weight anymore. In the mean time it may show symptoms of anemia and massive internal infection.
This article talks about how in England there has been a huge increase in the number of measles cases since Wakefield published his claptrap about vaccines causing autism and other nonsense.
For those not bothering to read the article, this is part which you need to know:
This year, the U.K. has had more than 1,200 cases of measles, after a record number of nearly 2,000 cases last year. The country once recorded only several dozen cases every year. It now ranks second in Europe, behind only Romania.
Here is the graph om measles incidents in England and Wales, . As you can see even the 2,000 cases from the last year are still less than the measles cases from 1998, when everybody was vaccinated and the fraudulent study was published.
I'd like to see the stats for the last 5 years too, but for me it is quite clear that this "outbrake" is more PR scare than real epidemic.
Without setting up a revenue sharing contract with the original publisher (which would be incredibly messy for reasons I'd be happy to elaborate if you can't think of them on your own), or else selling the rights to the Mac version back, they'd have no way to earn money from purchases on Steam. Thus, your grousing is entirely misplaced, since this is a problem with the way Steam is structured.
And why is Aspyr not setting up such a deal with the original publishers? Honestly, what you said may apply for old titles, but if they know that this is the problem they may start pushing this clause in their new contracts.
Now, Steam could add their ports as a new separate title from the main title. The problem is that in order to play same game on two different devices you'll have to purchase it twice. People are not happy when they have to pay twice.
Hum... maybe Steam could add the Mac port as DLC, they depend on the original title and they can be from another publisher. Of course the idea is the "DLC" to cost only as Aspyr share. However depending on their contract they may not be allowed to sell it separately.
1. Usually digital sound recoding is lossy. This means that a lot of "information" is discarded. Good audio codec would try to eliminate the noise before going on to simplify the "relevant" audible information. You will need to have raw PCM recoding for proper analysis. This method makes a lot more sense with analog recoding.
2. The method rely only on variation of the 50Hz main frequency used for the power grid... it is definitely not as precise. First, low frequencies cause low induction. That's why ac/dc adapters (PC PSU too) usually upscale frequency to 50'000Hz before using small transformer. Second, the grid frequency deviations are changing slowly because of the inertia of the dynamos that generate the electricity. High power consumption tries to slow down the rotation and automatic feedback compensates with increasing power (aka more steam in the turbine). This method may be good enough to pin-point the possible time of the day when the conversation happened, but it would not be good enough to say if few seconds here and there have been removed. Even the article says "if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations."
Actually the method may detect the point of a cut, if the 50Hz main frequency suddenly changes phase. However this could easily be avoided if the one doing the edit does the cuts in lengths of 1/50second (or just a whole seconds).
3. Since the forensic scientist logs the noise, he is in the excellent position to manipulate the recoding so it appears from any time period he desires. Also... to disprove his analysis one needs access to the same noise logs, but preferably done by somebody else.
As others have pointed out, you can take previous recordings, clear the noise from them, edit them, then add current hum from the power grid. Then present the result as evidence that this conversation just happened.
When it comes to police recoding suspects... there are much better digital methods to ensure that the recoding is not manipulated by a non-expert.
What the udev guys are suggesting is that in the "module init" stage (where modules are loaded into the kernel) the module should not block waiting for firmware (because there may not be a filesystem yet, especially if the module is actually compiled into the kernel rather than loaded later). Rather the firmware should be loaded at "device open" time.
This is actually a reasonable position to take.
Unfortunately it breaks a number of (arguably misbehaving) modules, and among most linux kernel developers it is a BIG DEAL to break existing code.
No, this is not reasonable positions and these modules were not broken in any arguable fashion.
First, udev didn't block firmware loading until filesystems are activated. It blocked until the parent module init completes.
The case scenario happened with a dvb-c/t capture dongle. It consist of (among other things) USB multimedia controller (em28xx), demodulator that needs firmware (drx-k) and tuner connected to the demodulator (all with separate modules). The problem is that in order to finish the initialization, the device needs to know what the tuner is, but it can't init the tuner until the firmware is loaded. However if the firmware is blocked by udev until em28xx finishes init, we just get a deadlock (that is resolved by 30 second timeout). To avoid this deadlock, the driver have to stop init at firmware loading, create the device files pretending that it knows what the actual device is. When it is opened, it would load the firmware, finish the init. The minor problem is what happens if at this point it finds out that the tuner is not supported and thus the whole device is not supported. There is a reason why device initialization must be done at initialization.
Actually, there is no case where a firmware could be loaded and its loading would cause any kind of problem. Yet udev enforced completely unneeded serialization, that prevented exactly that.
As for having to load only the firmware from the filesystem? Why would you do that? If you compile-in module, then do the same with the firmware. And if you don't, then load the firmware from the same filesystem as the module.
"If patent litigation caused by the U.S. patent system stifled innovation, U.S. software companies would not be the most successful in the world."
He is right. Patent litigation doesn't stifle innovation, it stifles competition. And IBM know that because they've stomped enough businesses back in the days when they were the big evil monopoly.
Innovation happens as byproduct on working on a given problem. It will happen despite somebody having patented portion or the whole of it. However the patent may prevent the innovative company from selling its product or increase the cost. The innovation then could be bought or outright stolen. Then the big and successful patent holders would become bigger and even more successful.
This is what NVidia wants removed. These functions are not special in any legal way. All kernel functions called by any module are covered under GPL, because the whole kernel (including the files from BSD) is GPL.
This is incorrect. The Linux kernel is GPL, but has exemptions for calling functions/syscalls that are part of the public interface (otherwise all Linux apps would have to be GPLv2). Binary-only drivers that call non-public code are only allowed so long as they are not distributed with the kernel.
The exact text is " NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". "
As you can see there is nothing about calling kernel functions from kernel modules. NOT A THING. It is not specially excepted. Kernel functions are not exempt depending on whatever they are public or private interface, because a) modules are not user(space) programs; b) modules are not using system calls (sysctl).
There is not a single non-GPL binary-only kernel module that could be distributed with the kernel, no matter what API is used. This is even true for firmware, that by its nature doesn't run on the host CPU and doesn't use _any_ kernel api functions. (There is firmware that have been allowed to be included in GPL code.)
You are correct that binary-only drivers are only allowed so long as they are not distributed with the kernel, but this is exactly what the problem is. The license explicitly allows separate distribution, but the kernel DRM system enforces additional arbitrary rules on top of that.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using Preview Web Skipe on Firefox (actually Waterfox) for a few months now.
All you need is to use "User Agent Switcher" and to pretend to be Chrome.
I don't use it to make calls, just occasional chat. So far I have not encountered any kind of problem or issues.
Given the rumors that you need special Chrome plugin for the voice and video calls, there is absolutely no reason to oust FF or Opera.
Microsoft are deliberately blocking these browsers.
I think that they did exactly that, lowered the precision of the timers.
However if you have threads, you can make your own high precision timer by running a loop in a single thread while doing the side channel in another.
By Copyright law.
The only thing that Youtube/Google cannot do is claim that this is their own video. By removing the authors logo and all identifying information, they have done just that.
To be fair, there is a legal line connecting those dots, and there is a legal reason it doesn't matter.
The key is that the resale of like-new products is fine because it's not going to cause any brand confusion. The old iPhone you're selling is still an iPhone, and (assuming everyone plays by the rules) still has Apple's hardware inside the case. Legally, you're just selling an intact product (as you're entitled to under the first-sale doctrine), and you're not claiming to have changed its value in any way.
However, once you do something that changes the product's value, you have to be absolutely clear what that change was. If you replaced the battery or otherwise refurbished the product, you're supposed to declare that, so customers know exactly what they're buying. You could upgrade or overclock some components, and call it "modified", and even charge more for it. That's all fine, as long as you're making effort to say "this isn't exactly what that label might make you think".
You see, you are claiming first sale doctrine, but then you are completely undermining it. Once I buy something it is completely mine. Every part of it is mine. I can do whatever I want with it. Including reselling it.
You are talking about changing value and declaring it. What is the legal authority I should declare these things to? What is the law that mandates I do that? What even "value" means in this context!!
If you as consumer accept such erosion of the first sale doctrine, soon there will be no first sale doctrine.
The moment you remove the product from its wrapping, its "value" is diminished.
Apple may not allow you to resale product with diminished "value" that bears the Apple logo.
If you don't fight such interpretation, soon they will become the norm.
I can buy iMac, take its battery out and sell it.
All I have to do is say that it is a second hand.
Been second hand means I have bought it legally, I own it, and its "value" is diminished.
There is something more. The batteries are not visible part of the product. You cannot find out what is the logo on the battery of a working MacBookPro. You have to use special screws to open it and look inside.
The brand recognition is completely useless if it cannot be seen.
The only reason these parts have Apple trademark logo on them, is to claim counterfeit if they are been resold.
At the point where he is repairing computers that Apple WILL NOT repair themselves I don't care if the batteries are legit or counterfeit. He is not costing Apple anything.
Every repair of old Apple product is a missed sale of new Apple product.
It's the Broken Window fallacy.
Your argument sums up to that only Apple could sell goods with Apple logo.
Do you understand how far this reasoning could be applied to? For example, you will not be allowed to sell your old iPhone, or iMac to somebody else, because it has Apple logo and you are not Apple and you are not allowed to use the Apple logo.
If these batteries has been sold as part of Apple product, then removed and then sold second hand, they are definitely not counterfeit. (To be honest, this doesn't seem to be the case here.)
If parts are bought from manufacturer who has contract with Apple, then their status would depends on that contract. It is very likely that Apple would explicitly forbid the manufacturer from selling these part to others. And that would make them counterfeit.
(Still, you never know with the Chinese.)
The argument is that if you release CO2 that has been (recently) captured from the atmosphere you are not increasing the carbon in active circulation, thus not breaking the existing balance.
The current problem with Global Warming / Climate Change is the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the fact that a lot of fossil carbon is been released as gas in the atmosphere (faster than it can be captured by plants). That fossil carbon has been turned into solid or liquid form eons ago and has remained inert, burred deep underground.
So the carbon in plants comes from the atmosphere and it can safely be ignored when it goes back into the atmosphere. The carbon in animals comes from other animals or plants.
The plants can grow without synthetic fertilizers and food can be processed transported without burning fossil fuel.!!
So taxing/limiting the exhaling of CO2 is absurd and won't change anything.
Taxing transportation that uses fossil fuel might lead to use of cleaner solutions, like fully electric trains/trucks, powered by renewable or nuclear power. Fertilizer production could also use clean energy sources, methane from organic sources or another source of Hydrogen.
PCID should help with this kind of vulnerability too.
When mitigating Meltdown, one way was to separate completely the kernel memory from user process memory, this involved switching the virtual paging memory and this flushed TLB entries.
This causes speed decrease. To mitigate this, (some) CPUs have a feature where it writes the process ID into the TLB entry, so it could remain in the cache, but it would remain inactive while another process is running.
While this sound like the perfect solution, the problem is that the ID field is not big enough and should be switched and recycled.
Not exactly.
Meltdown affect only Intel, because only Intel CPU allow userland process to successfully load a register with supervisor (kernel) data, when the page flags indicate that data should not be readable by userland.
There is absolutely no reason to allow the read to complete. Checking the permission flags is just a couple logical operators and should be done at the same time as TLB lookup. TLB is special kind of cache that hold essential data from the Page Table.
TLB contains the access flags, cache type, and the physical memory address. You need that info first, before you can check the caches and do the actual read.
This is why AMD processors are not affected by Meltdown.
I do recommend you to try "Tree Style Tabs" and place them on the side of the window.
The extension is been ported to WebEx, but it seems that FF57 doesn't have the API to hide the original tab bar and you have to do that manually. That API is scheduled for FF58.
If you stay with FF56, then AMO will offer you the XUL version, not the WebEx one. That's what I run now.
The patches themselves are not derivative, because they are entirely owned by their authors.
The patch can just check if the executable binary is original by using checksum, then write the new binary data at fixed locations.
There is absolutely no reason for the patch to contain portions of the old executable, since these portions could just be copied by the patching program to their new location(s).
The patched executable would be derivative work and this means that it cannot be distributed. But it can still be used by its legal owner.
The first sale doctrine states that once a person had obtained legal copy (aka he has paid for it) then he can do whatever he wants with it, except distribute other copies of it (or its derivatives) -
thus copy-right.
Unfortunately the article does not support your claim.
What it says is:
Do you have evidence that Mrs Clinton or her staff have supported or spread these rumors/emails?
About the "Washington Post" articles, I couldn't find them with google. Would you kindly provide links to them?
I also hope you know the difference between investigating a rumor and spreading it.
According to Gnome developers, removing of the system tray is so insignificant, that it is not even worth mentioning in the short list of changes. It is mentioned at the end of the long list, outside of the bullet points.
This means that if you don't have the latest TopIcons extension already installed, a lot of programs that minimize to Status Bar will become inaccessible. That's mainly non-Gnome programs.
Gnome developers are trying to force application developers to not use the "pretty old" standard that "predated Gnome 2.0" and instead to use Gnome specific API's like their notification.
The big problem is that they do not seem to understand what is the purpose of the Status Bar, how people use it and why it exists in all Desktop platforms - Linux, Windows and Mac.
The Status Bar is for checking the status of an application, with single glance, without need for any actions from the user, like moving mouse to specific position on the screen, having to click, switch desktops or open the program window.
In comparison, notification are for signaling change or event. Their use is not only different, they also could be quite annoying and actively ignored.
Here are few more links to read:
https://blogs.gnome.org/aday/2017/08/31/status-icons-and-gnome/
https://lwn.net/Articles/732622/
Your observation is truly insightful.
But I have two nitpicks:
Are you sure the bugs don't have space flight capabilities?
They do appear to colonize planets and in the movie it is said that they spread by spores. This implies that bugs do have a way for space travel. As their home planet is surrounded by asteroids belt, it is only natural to use them as spaceships. They just have to drill the inside and put engine(s) on the outside. Landing may be hard but spores survive a lot of punishments.
Of course, none of this disproves the false-flag theory. I just checked and the movie says "The meteor was shut out of orbit by bug plasma that derived from Kleondathu - the arachnid home planet". So it definitely was not bug's colonization ship. Even if the asteroid comes from the arachnid quarantine zone, most likely by warp. (It also had no visible engines and rotated under "wrong" angle.)
Here comes the second nitpick, the female "heroine" doesn't get "bollocked" (whatever that is), she is actually flirting with the instructor in the changed course scene. The captain is never shown to comment about the course.
As for the sequels... you know that there are other Starship Troopers movies... they definitely don't follow that scenario. (That probably explains why they are not so good. :))
At first the system trims the "fat" and it seems to improve the things, because corporations tend to accumulate fat. However soon the system becomes victim of its own success. There is no more fat to cut. So it starts to trim more and more "muscle" and less and less fat. This goes until the corporation collapses when it can not support its own weight anymore. In the mean time it may show symptoms of anemia and massive internal infection.
This article talks about how in England there has been a huge increase in the number of measles cases since Wakefield published his claptrap about vaccines causing autism and other nonsense.
For those not bothering to read the article, this is part which you need to know:
This year, the U.K. has had more than 1,200 cases of measles, after a record number of nearly 2,000 cases last year. The country once recorded only several dozen cases every year. It now ranks second in Europe, behind only Romania.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Measles_incidence_England%26Wales_1940-2007.png
Here is the graph om measles incidents in England and Wales, . As you can see even the 2,000 cases from the last year are still less than the measles cases from 1998, when everybody was vaccinated and the fraudulent study was published.
I'd like to see the stats for the last 5 years too, but for me it is quite clear that this "outbrake" is more PR scare than real epidemic.
"I'm sorry... I can't let you do that Dave."
Without setting up a revenue sharing contract with the original publisher (which would be incredibly messy for reasons I'd be happy to elaborate if you can't think of them on your own), or else selling the rights to the Mac version back, they'd have no way to earn money from purchases on Steam. Thus, your grousing is entirely misplaced, since this is a problem with the way Steam is structured.
And why is Aspyr not setting up such a deal with the original publishers?
Honestly, what you said may apply for old titles, but if they know that this is the problem they may start pushing this clause in their new contracts.
Now, Steam could add their ports as a new separate title from the main title. The problem is that in order to play same game on two different devices you'll have to purchase it twice. People are not happy when they have to pay twice.
Hum... maybe Steam could add the Mac port as DLC, they depend on the original title and they can be from another publisher. Of course the idea is the "DLC" to cost only as Aspyr share. However depending on their contract they may not be allowed to sell it separately.
1. Usually digital sound recoding is lossy. This means that a lot of "information" is discarded. Good audio codec would try to eliminate the noise before going on to simplify the "relevant" audible information. You will need to have raw PCM recoding for proper analysis.
This method makes a lot more sense with analog recoding.
2. The method rely only on variation of the 50Hz main frequency used for the power grid... it is definitely not as precise.
First, low frequencies cause low induction. That's why ac/dc adapters (PC PSU too) usually upscale frequency to 50'000Hz before using small transformer.
Second, the grid frequency deviations are changing slowly because of the inertia of the dynamos that generate the electricity. High power consumption tries to slow down the rotation and automatic feedback compensates with increasing power (aka more steam in the turbine).
This method may be good enough to pin-point the possible time of the day when the conversation happened, but it would not be good enough to say if few seconds here and there have been removed.
Even the article says "if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations."
Actually the method may detect the point of a cut, if the 50Hz main frequency suddenly changes phase. However this could easily be avoided if the one doing the edit does the cuts in lengths of 1/50second (or just a whole seconds).
3. Since the forensic scientist logs the noise, he is in the excellent position to manipulate the recoding so it appears from any time period he desires.
Also... to disprove his analysis one needs access to the same noise logs, but preferably done by somebody else.
As others have pointed out, you can take previous recordings, clear the noise from them, edit them, then add current hum from the power grid. Then present the result as evidence that this conversation just happened.
When it comes to police recoding suspects... there are much better digital methods to ensure that the recoding is not manipulated by a non-expert.
What the udev guys are suggesting is that in the "module init" stage (where modules are loaded into the kernel) the module should not block waiting for firmware (because there may not be a filesystem yet, especially if the module is actually compiled into the kernel rather than loaded later). Rather the firmware should be loaded at "device open" time.
This is actually a reasonable position to take.
Unfortunately it breaks a number of (arguably misbehaving) modules, and among most linux kernel developers it is a BIG DEAL to break existing code.
No, this is not reasonable positions and these modules were not broken in any arguable fashion.
First, udev didn't block firmware loading until filesystems are activated. It blocked until the parent module init completes.
The case scenario happened with a dvb-c/t capture dongle. It consist of (among other things) USB multimedia controller (em28xx), demodulator that needs firmware (drx-k) and tuner connected to the demodulator (all with separate modules).
The problem is that in order to finish the initialization, the device needs to know what the tuner is, but it can't init the tuner until the firmware is loaded. However if the firmware is blocked by udev until em28xx finishes init, we just get a deadlock (that is resolved by 30 second timeout). To avoid this deadlock, the driver have to stop init at firmware loading, create the device files pretending that it knows what the actual device is. When it is opened, it would load the firmware, finish the init. The minor problem is what happens if at this point it finds out that the tuner is not supported and thus the whole device is not supported.
There is a reason why device initialization must be done at initialization.
Actually, there is no case where a firmware could be loaded and its loading would cause any kind of problem. Yet udev enforced completely unneeded serialization, that prevented exactly that.
As for having to load only the firmware from the filesystem? Why would you do that? If you compile-in module, then do the same with the firmware. And if you don't, then load the firmware from the same filesystem as the module.
"If patent litigation caused by the U.S. patent system stifled innovation, U.S. software companies would not be the most successful in the world."
He is right. Patent litigation doesn't stifle innovation, it stifles competition.
And IBM know that because they've stomped enough businesses back in the days when they were the big evil monopoly.
Innovation happens as byproduct on working on a given problem. It will happen despite somebody having patented portion or the whole of it. However the patent may prevent the innovative company from selling its product or increase the cost. The innovation then could be bought or outright stolen. Then the big and successful patent holders would become bigger and even more successful.
Your wish is granted (kind of..).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20146942
This is exactly the reason for the existence of the First Sale Doctrine.
Dear Business,
Please upgrade your WindowsXP to Windows7 now. You may not have that option once we release Windows8.
This is what NVidia wants removed. These functions are not special in any legal way. All kernel functions called by any module are covered under GPL, because the whole kernel (including the files from BSD) is GPL.
This is incorrect. The Linux kernel is GPL, but has exemptions for calling functions/syscalls that are part of the public interface (otherwise all Linux apps would have to be GPLv2). Binary-only drivers that call non-public code are only allowed so long as they are not distributed with the kernel.
The exact text is " NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". "
As you can see there is nothing about calling kernel functions from kernel modules. NOT A THING. It is not specially excepted. Kernel functions are not exempt depending on whatever they are public or private interface, because a) modules are not user(space) programs; b) modules are not using system calls (sysctl).
There is not a single non-GPL binary-only kernel module that could be distributed with the kernel, no matter what API is used. This is even true for firmware, that by its nature doesn't run on the host CPU and doesn't use _any_ kernel api functions. (There is firmware that have been allowed to be included in GPL code.)
You are correct that binary-only drivers are only allowed so long as they are not distributed with the kernel, but this is exactly what the problem is. The license explicitly allows separate distribution, but the kernel DRM system enforces additional arbitrary rules on top of that.