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Libre Content Creation: 2018 In Perspective
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Mar '18

05 Mar '18

Nice roundup <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/2018-in-perspective> from Alexandre Prokoudine on where a bunch of Free graphics/audio/video projects have gone and where they are likely to go over the coming year. Gimp 2.10 continues to be delayed, but in return the list of goodies promised continues to lengthen: The team initially intended v2.10 to be more or less a GEGL-based upgrade of v2.8 plus high bit depth precision support. Needless to say, the plan hasn't exactly worked: there will be a lot more than that. In fact, even now, when only critical bugs are supposed to be worked on, the team cannot resist making improvements that aren't blocking the release. Another interesting one is an initiative in Germany to come up with a nonproprietary alternative to common colour specifications like Pantone: In December 2017, FreieFarbe e.V. announced that their initiative for „Open Colour Communication“ standard was supported by DIN and will become a DIN SPEC (which is the first step towards DIN Norm). It is claimed that DIN intends to turn this into an international standard via ISO later. The FreieFarbe / FreeColour initiative aims to provide an open alternative to Pantone, HKS, and other proprietary colour systems. They argue that unlike Pantone and some other proprietary manufacturers like RAL, FreiFarbe has an actual color system. On the music-production front, Zyn-Fusion seems to be developing as the successor to the venerable ZynAddSubFX, while VCV Rack is the candidate for the ultimate software modular synth, complete with rat’s nest of (virtual) connecting wires. (I’ve seen a demo or two on YouTube.)

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Re: [wlug] FreeBSD's New Code of Conduct
by William Mckee 27 Feb '18

27 Feb '18

virtual contact! none of that. more sjw bs. cheers, william. On 21/02/2018 7:08 pm, "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 11:25:31 +1300, Peter Reutemann quoted: > '> Physical contact and simulated physical contact (e.g., textual > descriptions like "hug" or "backrub") without consent or after a > request to stop.' From <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/21/freebsd_code_of_ conduct_controversy/>: OpenSUSE board member and YouTuber Bryan Lunduke has used his YouTube channel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54> to ask if FreeBSD also wants to regulate virtual high fives or fist bumps. Lunduke's video is a rather more polite expression of comments found in corners of the Internet where gender politics is derided and debate is sometimes infamously uncivil. _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: https://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Mozilla Removes Individual Cookie Management in Firefox 60
by Peter Reutemann 26 Feb '18

26 Feb '18

'The most recent version of Firefox Nightly, currently at version 60, comes with changes to Firefox's cookie management. Mozilla merged cookie settings with site data in the web browser which impacts how you configure and manage cookie options. If you run Firefox 59 or earlier, you can load about:preferences#privacy to manage privacy related settings in Firefox. If you set the history to "use custom settings for history" or "remember history", you get an option manage cookie settings and to remove individual cookies from Firefox. A click on the link or button opens a new browser window in which all set cookies are listed. You can use it to find set cookies, look up information, remove selected or all cookies. Mozilla engineers changed this in recent versions of Firefox 60 (currently on the Nightly channel).' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/02/26/1853203 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Firefox - turning off processes per tab
by Peter Reutemann 26 Feb '18

26 Feb '18

Hi everyone In case you don't like Firefox's new feature of separating tabs into separate processes (far more resource hungry), change the following setting in "about:config" to "false": browser.tabs.remote.auto Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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OpenBSD Releases Meltdown Patch
by Peter Reutemann 25 Feb '18

25 Feb '18

'OpenBSD's Meltdown patch has landed, in the form of a Version 11 code update that separates user memory pages from the kernel's -- pretty much the same approach as was taken in the Linux kernel. From a report: A few days after the Meltdown/Spectre bugs emerged in January, OpenBSD's Phillip Guenther responded to user concerns with a post saying the operating system's developers were working out what to do. Now he's revealed the approach used to fix the free OS: "When a syscall, trap, or interrupt takes a CPU from userspace to kernel the trampoline code switches page tables, switches stacks to the thread's real kernel stack, then copies over the necessary bits from the trampoline stack. On return to userspace the opposite occurs: recreate the iretq frame on the trampoline stack, switch stack, switch page tables, and return to userspace." That explanation is somewhat obscure to non-developers, but there's a more readable discussion of what the project's developers had in mind from January, here.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/02/23/1519245 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Botched npm Update Crashes Linux Systems, Forces Users to Reinstall
by Peter Reutemann 22 Feb '18

22 Feb '18

'A bug in npm (Node Package Manager), the most widely used JavaScript package manager, will change ownership of crucial Linux system folders, such as /etc, /usr, /boot. Changing ownership of these files either crashes the system, various local apps, or prevents the system from booting, according to reports from users who installed npm v5.7.0. -- the buggy npm update. Users who installed this update -- mostly developers and software engineers -- will likely have to reinstall their system from scratch or restore from a previous system image.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/02/22/2034213 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Ricoh MP C3003 or similar wanted
by Gregory Machin 22 Feb '18

22 Feb '18

Hi, This is very off topic. I'm working on script (currently powershell, my port to python)to manage (backup and restore) the addess book on Ricoh printers. The idea is to be able to manage large number of printers address books. I'm looking for a printer I can use for my dev work. It I don't care if the printer or scanner are faulty just need to brains to be functional. If anyone has such I could have or loan for a couple of months, that would be great. If not all good. Many thanks G

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Google To Cease “Offshoring” Local Revenue
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Feb '18

21 Feb '18

Wonder of wonders <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11999548>: Government moves to crack down on tax avoidance by multinational firms are already bearing fruit, with Google telling Parliament it will no longer funnel New Zealand revenues via low-tax jurisdictions such as Singapore. ... The practice saw Google's New Zealand subsidiary provide only services as part of the sales process - paying just $356,000 in tax on only $12.2m in revenue. Estimates of Google's sales revenue from New Zealand range in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

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uTorrent Client Affected by Some Pretty Severe Security Flaws
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '18

21 Feb '18

'A Google security researcher has found multiple security flaws affecting the uTorrent web and desktop client that allow an attacker to infect a victim with malware or collect data on the users' past downloads, reports BleepingComputer. From the report: The vulnerabilities have been discovered by Google Project Zero security researcher Tavis Ormandy, and they impact uTorrent Web, a new web-based version of the uTorrent BitTorrent client, and uTorrent Classic, the old uTorrent client that most people know. Ormandy says that both uTorrent clients are exposing an RPC server -- on port 10000 (uTorrent Classic) and 19575 (uTorrent Web). The expert says that attackers can hide commands inside web pages that interact with this open RPC server. The attacker only needs to trick a user with a vulnerable uTorrent client to access a malicious web page. Furthermore, the uTorrent clients are also vulnerable to DNS rebinding -- a vulnerability that allows the attacker to legitimize his requests to the RPC server.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/02/21/180206 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Intel Has a New Spectre and Meltdown Firmware Patch For You To Try Out
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '18

21 Feb '18

'The Spectre/Meltdown debacle continues to rumble on, and now the chip manufacturer has announced the availability of a new 'microcode solution' to the vulnerability. The updated firmware applies to 6th, 7th and 8th Generation Intel Core devices, and the release sees the company crossing its fingers and hoping that everything works out this time. This is Intel's second attempt at patching the vulnerability, and this time around both the company and its customers will be praying that the fix for Skylake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake chips actually does the job.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/02/21/186257 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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