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User: Florian+Weimer

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  1. Re:Link to the paper on Scientists Have Discovered a Shape That Blocks All Sound (fastcompany.com) · · Score: 3

    The third images from the preview indicates that there is only dampening by 14 dB. This doesn't seem like much.

    If this works by reflection, is it even possible to stack more of these in several layers to achieve higher dampening (because the layers would themselves reflect the sound)?

  2. Re:If MariaDB Cared on MariaDB CEO Accuses Large Cloud Vendors of Strip-Mining Open Source (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    They used the AGPL for the server, but also told their users that it would not affect client code (the applications the users write). As a result, it was rather unclear whether you would even have to distribute modified server sources if you offered a public database service using the software.

    Furthermore, the AGPL is only a deterrent against competition if the competition needs to modify the source code and does not want to share the modifications (assuming the the source code disclosure obligation actually kicks in at all). Neither of the cited organizations is vehemently opposed to sharing source code, so I do not think the AGPL (even applied as intended, which the original authors of the database software did not do) actually deters commercial competition here. It probably would not have prevented revenue seeping towards third parties offering services related to the software, either.

  3. All this is going to do is now make people more comfortable running a little bit of red.

    Right. People will adapt, and that's why it's unclear if there's going to be a change in revenue at all.

  4. Re:How come html5 but not on firefox? on Firefox for Linux is Now Netflix Compatible (betanews.com) · · Score: 1

    HTML 5 video has many mechanisms to restrict media access based on client properties. For example, there is a robustness parameter which implementations are expected to evaluate according to their perceived ability to prevent user-controlled access to content.

    I suspect that Widevine (the DRM plugin used by Firefox) did not provide a robustness level on Linux which Netflix was comfortable with. To a degree, this is still ongoing. I think the maximum resolution you can get on Linux still is 720p, while Windows will go to at 1080p at least.

  5. Compose key on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Caps Lock Key Still So Prominent On Keyboards? · · Score: 1

    It's generally useless, but fairly convenient to reach, so it makes perfect sense to map it to the Compose key instead.

  6. Re:What bug? on New Unicode Bug Discovered For Common Japanese Character "No" · · Score: 1

    “-” looks very differently in text and formulas, too. I don't get why people assume that you can get nice rendering without additional markup.

  7. Re:Won't everything need to be recompiled? on IBM and OpenPower Could Mean a Fight With Intel For Chinese Server Market · · Score: 1

    Future efforts are likely to concentrate on the ppc64le architecture variant, which is little endian. There are still some differences to x86_64 at the C level (chars are unsigned by default, but you can compile with -fsigned-char), but it is reportedly not too difficult to port over C/C++ application code.

  8. Re:Actually game companies can fight this on Online "Swatting" Becomes a Hazard For Gamers Who Play Live On the Internet · · Score: 1

    These companies can also share data with law enforcement that points to the perpetrators, helping to identify them. After all, the perpetrators will just move on to a new tactic if they can no longer abuse the police for their purposes.

  9. Re:What's the point of the NSA knowing everything? on Online "Swatting" Becomes a Hazard For Gamers Who Play Live On the Internet · · Score: 1

    The NSA capabilities are still classified (leaks do not change that). Using classified capabilities for law enforcement purposes is difficult, both for operation reasons (you don't want to document publicly what is possible) and legal reasons (parallel construction is required to avoid disclosure).

  10. Ask others with the same condition on Ask Slashdot: Mouse/Pointer For a Person With Poor Motor Control · · Score: 1

    It is likely that your friend is not alone with her condition. Try to discuss it with others who are affected, and who have already been through the stages that lay ahead of her. People with motor control issues successfully use vertical mice, touch screens, keys for navigation, gaze trackers, voice recognition, non-standard input methods such as the Dasher accessibility tool, or tailored input methods.

  11. Content library? on Netflix Cracks Down On VPN and Proxy "Pirates" · · Score: 2

    Does the U.S. version of Netflix really use a library model, where they strive to keep content available indefinitely? Video streaming services here in Germany continually change the content they are offering, so it's more like a TV with very many channels and random access, and not really a replacement for a collection of your favorite movies and shows.

  12. Re:Ask the project community on Ask Slashdot: Aging and Orphan Open Source Projects? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It also makes sense to raise the issue with downstreams such as Debian, OpenSuse, or Fedora (assuming they exist for the project). Or if it is in one of the enterprise GNU/Linux distributions, approach those vendors.

  13. Re:FYI: remove from Youtube not from 'Google' on Google: Indie Musicians Must Join Streaming Service Or Be Removed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the video is only hosted on Youtube (and I suspect many such videos are, otherwise the uploaders wouldn't make such a fuss), it will be gone from the Google search engine as well, so the net effect is the same.

  14. Bad analogy on R Throwdown Challenge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An Argentinian chef is more likely to make great sushi than a Japanese automotive engineer.

    You generally want to use programming languages designed by experienced programmers (even better, experienced language designers) who work closely with subject matter experts. Left to their own devices, experts are likely to get a lot of things wrong, and if the language is sufficiently popular, you are stuck with their mistakes for a long time to come.

  15. Re:Precisely how... on Shuttleworth Wants To Get Rid of Proprietary Firmware · · Score: 1

    The reference implementation of UEFI is open source, and some vendors use it as a basis for their firmware.

    Unfortunately, most Coreboot-using devices are tied down and do not allow non-interactive booting with custom firmware (if they allow custom firmware at all).

  16. Google spamming on Elsevier Opens Its Papers To Text-Mining · · Score: 1

    Isn't this called search engine spamming, and several publishing outfits have been doing it for about a decade, with varying degree of success?

  17. Re:Mozilla NSPR on Chrome Is the New C Runtime · · Score: 3, Informative

    And Apache has the Apache Portable Runtime, with similar goals, but probably geared more towards writing server code.

  18. Re:Need more mental health centers not prisons on A Review of the "Mental Illness" Definition Might Prevent Crime · · Score: 2

    The trouble with mental health is that there isn't any kind of magic bullet treatment like there can be with just about any other disease.

    Pulling those people out of poverty should help a lot (as it does with a lot of illnesses).

  19. Re:Open source still requires license fees on Cisco Releases Open Source "Binary Module" For H.264 In WebRTC · · Score: 1

    That's actually missing a key piece of information. Patent licenses can be very narrow in scope, which allows an owner to charge different parties for different aspects how a device uses a patented technology.

    Does anybody know why I wouldn't need a separate licensing deal with MPEG LA if I built a web application using WebRTC? Their typical licensing agreement (as used in Windows and Flash, for instance) does not extend to third-party applications that use the codecs through APIs.

  20. Re:What's wrong with Lua? on The Most WTF-y Programming Languages · · Score: 1

    Bingo. I agree that's the most likely explanation.

  21. What's wrong with Lua? on The Most WTF-y Programming Languages · · Score: 1

    Is there any indication why Lua scores so highly here? It seems a rather benign little language to me. Certainly, nil-terminated arrays are can be tricky, and a missing local keyword can ruin your day, but that seem minor annoyances. And for the local-vs-global issue, there are now editors with semantics highlighting that clearly disambiguate the two cases.

  22. Re:Enterprise? on Will Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Stay With MySQL? · · Score: 5, Informative

    And the article confirms the large-scaler users aren't part of that elusive group, either:

    Many of the largest MySQL users — Twitter included — do not currently pay Oracle for an enterprise licence. Twitter, like Facebook, prefers to build their own extensions and customisations off the community version.

  23. Re:Old Codger Reveals All on How Amateurs Destroyed the Professional Music Business · · Score: 2

    With classical, it's worse because current performers are directly competing with the big names from the past. Glenn Gould's original recording of the Goldberg variations even went out of copyright in some European countries (and has been re-copyrighted in others).

  24. Re: so-called summary on Quantum Cryptography Is Safe Again · · Score: 1

    The relays in that networking protocol are decrypt-and-encrypt, so it enables even more (undetectable) eavesdropping.

    Quantum key distribution has a strange security model where it is assumed that someone inside the network cannot run two instances of the protocol and give the two parties in a communication the illusion of talking directly to each other, when they in fact talk each to the attacker. In other words, it is assumed that there is confidentiality without authentication. All kinds of strange things follow if you make that kind of a mistake.

  25. Re:Truth in advertising? on FiOS User Finds Limit of 'Unlimited' Data Plan: 77 TB/Month · · Score: 1

    77 TB per month is an average bandwidth usage of around 230 Mbps (more if the TB are actually TiB). That's not too bad for someone who has 365 Mbps of nominal bandwidth available.