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, 1 month
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=1207...>.
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...
1 year, 8 months
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?
1 year, 10 months
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-and...>.
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...?
1 year, 10 months
Ubuntu 18.04.01 now released for most flavours
by Ian Stewart
Hi,
A few days ago Ubuntu 18.04.01 was released for most flavours (e.g. Desktop, Server, Mate, Budgie, Kylin, Xubuntu, Kubuntu)
You can get your flavour, in 32 or 64 bit, from here...
https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
<https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop>
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases/18.04.1/release/
<http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases/18.04.1/release/>
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/18.04.1/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-budgie/releases/18.04.1/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/18.04.1/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/18.04.1/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/18.04.1/release/
My understanding is that if you are running 16.04.xx LTS and you have enabled "Notify me of a new updated version of Ubuntu", then you should now start to get pop-up's prompting you to do an on-line update to 18.04.01.
I'm hopeful that it will bring some stability to Mate that seemed to be lacking in 18.04.00.
cheers,
Ian.
1 year, 10 months