July 2018 - wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

For quite a while now, I’ve been annoyed by the system notification volume going to 100% on my Debian systems, regardless of my attempts to set it to a lower level. For example, when I open the KDE System Settings app, change something, then try to close the window, the sound that accompanies the save/discard/cancel alert is always startlingly loud. I think I have finally found a fix: in your /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, put in a line saying flat-volumes = no (You should find an existing comment “; flat-volumes = yes” that indicates the default.) You can make this new setting take effect in the current session immediately without having to logout or reboot, by executing the following as the currently-logged-in user: pulseaudio -k (This kills and restarts the PulseAudio daemon for your user session.) There are several discussions of the pros and cons of this issue online, going back some years. For example, here <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267>. Also a mention about the “flat-volumes” setting in the ever-reliable Arch Linux Wiki here <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio>.

4 days, 7 hours

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Does Wi-Fi Security Really Matter?

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Seems the Wi-Fi Alliance is having yet another crack at coming up with a really secure protocol, this time to be called WPA3 <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/09/wi_fi_wpa3/>. Does anybody care? Remember that on the Internet, security is implemented between the endpoints, the protocols are designed not to care that everything in-between might be pawed through by eavesdroppers, or even active attackers trying to inject fake data.

1 year, 9 months

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Microsoft Fixes Notepad

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Windows Notepad has never been able to handle any newline convention other than the old DOS/Windows/CP/M one (CR-LF). Now, after so many decades, Microsoft has finally decided to give it “universal newline” capability, so it can handle lines ending in LF-only (Unix/Linux) and CR-only (old MacOS) <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/08/windows_notepad_unix_macos_line_end…>. Gee, I wonder how many lines of code that took...

2 years, 1 month

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Aussie Law >> Maths

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

"The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that," [Malcolm Turnbull] said on Friday. "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170714/10385237789/aussie-prime-ministe…>

2 years, 3 months

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Wellywood’s Digital Edge Has Dulled

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

You may have seen an item in the news lately about a report into the large amount of subsidies that the Government puts into the local film industry. This latest report says that these subsidies pay off in jobs and revenue elsewhere, but independent reviewers question this, saying such conclusions are very sensitive to initial assumptions <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=120795…>. This extract from one of the linked documents caught my eye: Weta Digital executives ... considered that 10 years ago they were at the forefront of technology and that studios were forced to use them to achieve particular effects, they said that this is no longer true: “the degrees of difference in technology are almost imperceptible”. It is no longer technical capability that wins work, it is price point; they consider themselves a price taker. “If the grant were to disappear tomorrow it would call into question the business itself…the subsidy allows us to compete.” There is “no scenario” where the US studios would pay 20% more for Weta Digital than its competitors. VFX have long been a commodity; it’s actually surprising that Weta Digital has managed to last this long, compared to, say, Rhythm & Hues, which went bust shortly after winning an Oscar for “Life Of Pi” <http://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article128729769.html>. I guess it’s all down to those Government subsidies...

2 years, 3 months

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PB Tech Pleads Guilty To Extended Warranty, Advertising Shenanigans

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

PB Tech has admitted not properly informing customers of their rights over extended warranties, and also promoting a special offer on Apple watches to 100,000 people when it only had 14 in stock at that price. <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=120824…>

2 years, 3 months

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sudo Or su?

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Found this piece <https://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,90479.0.html> in the PCLinuxOS forums, courtesy of a reader link from <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/01/ncsc_ubuntu/>. Basically it says that “sudo”, when used “In The Manner Of the Buntus”, i.e. to be able to run arbitrary commands as root, is a bad idea. Instead, it should be carefully restricted to allow access only to functions needed by a particular user. To get blanket root access, it is better to use “su”, which means having a separate root password. Actually, it goes further than that: it decrees that anybody posting instructions on the PCLinuxOS forums involving “irresponsible” use of sudo (i.e. contrary to the philosophy above) is subject to having their posts deleted, being reprimanded, and ultimately having their account cancelled altogether. Thoughts?

2 years, 5 months

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UK’s National Cyber Security Centre Weighs In On Ubuntu

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Advice for both users and admins about Ubuntu 18.04 LTS <https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/eud-security-guidance-ubuntu-1804-lts>, from the arm of the GCHQ charged with looking after the security of the computers of ordinary mortals. Points out some gaps in software-only disk encryption, and recommends enabling Secure Boot, among a remarkable amount of other detail. Found from <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/01/ncsc_ubuntu/>.

2 years, 5 months

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If You Buy Something, Do You Own It?

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Raglan man Niall Darwin discovers that assurances by electric-car company Tesla’s own official representatives aren’t worth a darn. And so, the question needs to be asked for the hundredth or thousandth time: when you buy a consumer item with essential proprietary software at its heart, what actually do you own? <https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/07/waikato-man-suing-tesla-…>

2 years, 5 months

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Now They Need To Fix The TV Sets ...

by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

YouTube has adopted a more responsive page layout to cope with videos having different aspect ratios <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/youtube-picks-up-dark-mode-on-andro…>. To no-one’s surprise, this has annoyed a few people who have become accustomed to the old design. When 16:9 widescreen TVs were being conceived way back in the 1990s, the aim clearly was to allow us all to view cinematic movies full-screen, making maximum use of available screen area with minimal or no black bars. Nobody foresaw the widespread popularity of smartphones with built-in cameras, and of the common use of footage captured with such devices in TV broadcasts. But while such phones commonly have 16:9 screens and their cameras capture 16:9 footage, their users often hold them vertically, so the image ends up in just about the worst shape for display on a regular widescreen TV. There seems to be a common convention nowadays of filling in the gaps with blurred portions of the actual image -- which I agree looks less jarring than black bars. Hmmm ... there have been computer monitors that can be rotated to portrait or landscape orientations, with automatic adjustment of the display to match (aka “xrandr” <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xrandr>). Wouldn’t it be useful if a TV could do the same...?

2 years, 5 months

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wlug July 2018