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Comment: Re:More Bloat ? (Score 3, Informative) 341

by salahx (#45814427) Attached to: Kernel DBus Now Boots With Systemd On Fedora

hHe short version: http://lwn.net/Articles/551969/

At first, this sounds like the kernel developers have raided LP's "private stash", but it turns out the reason for kdbus is preceeds it - in fact in even preceeds d-bus itself. Specifcally, kdbus is intended to be a alternative version of Android's binder. Android doesn't use d-bus, because it didn't exist (or was too immature) back when it was concieved. While binder is in the staging tree, it'll never be part of the kernel proper for various - some fixable, other unfixable. Binder is not just a hard pill to swallow for the kernel developer, its a spiked ball the size of a fist in a bottle labelled "NOT TO BE TAKEN ORALLY".

There's a NEED for something like kdbus independt of systemd. We needs a new IPC type, like domain sockets, except with reliable multicast and filtering. Linux domain sockets do not support multicast, much elss reliable multicast. Approaches to add this have been tried: Both by directly adding multicast to domain sockets or by adding an ew address family (AF_DBUS), but patches adding that to unix domain sockets have been rejected, as has AF_DBUS.

No one suggesting putting the entire dbus-daemonm and protocol in the kernel with kernel XML parser (and so dbus-daemon will still be needed for authentication and the inital connection setup, but then steps out of the way after that), kdbus is "just enough" to implement an accelerated and robust message bus.

Comment: Re:Just remember: No Transfers! (Score 1) 147

by salahx (#45342467) Attached to: Nintendo Announces $99 Wii Mini For US Release

I do admit it sucks that purchases are bound to the system and not to an account, leaving you at Nintendo's whim in a catastrophe, but that having been said I've been one of the lucky ones to get Nintendo's assistance in having my purchases moved to a new system after mine was stolen. The rep was very helpful, and although it was far from trivial (they required a letter, including documentation of the theft, they needed the old and new serial numbers) and good circumstance (My Nintendo account was linked to my Wii, and it apparently it was important that I NOT run the Wii Store app, something i could have not of known in advance; it was fortunate I called Nintendo early in the system setup process) I am very grateful for Nintendo's help in this.

Comment: Re:Even the GeForce 256? (Score 5, Informative) 159

The nouveau driver supports everything from NV04 upwards - NV01 and NV03 (NV02 never made it to production) are very different. In particular, PFIFO (the engine on the card that submits command the GPU) on NV01 doesn't support DMA at all, and NV03 has broken DMA. For that (and other) reasons, if support were desired for these cards, it would be in a separate driver. However such a driver would essentially be of academic interest, since these cards only accelerate simple shapes (like triangles and curves).

That having been said, one of the nouveau developers has done some reverse engineering of the NV01, the finiding of whic hare in the envytools notes.

Comment: Re:Security thoughs about EFI. (Score 1) 532

by salahx (#32506574) Attached to: BIOS Will Be Dead In Three Years
This is already true under BIOS, since at least the mid 90's. As far back as the 386SL, there been a System Management Mode, which does exactly that. It performs important tasks like checking the processor and shutting it off/slowing it down if its get too hot, and emulating legacy hardware. It interrupts at indeterminate times, for an undetermined amount of time, and it can't be disabled (usually, but you wouldn't want to even if you could). this why "hard" real-time is impossible on x86 platforms.

Comment: Nintendo DOES transfer, I've had it done (Score 1) 116

by salahx (#32195790) Attached to: New Hardware Models Highlight Nintendo's No-Transfer Policy
I've posted this before but it bears repeating here. I my case, my apartment was burgled, and my Wii was stolen. I bought a new one and called Nintendo. I did not have to re-mail both Wiis like in the story (which would have been impossible, of course). I explained the situation, and I was instructed to write a small letter with the police report and serial #'s of both Wiis. They transferred it. Now, I admit the certainly not very convenient, but its a far cry from shipping a pair of Wii's to Nintendo.

Comment: Re:How Console DRM Works for digital downloads. (Score 4, Informative) 240

by salahx (#31956448) Attached to: <em>Final Fight</em> Brings Restrictive DRM To the PS3

You should have called Nintendo to explain the situation.

In my case, my Wii was was over a year old, and it wasn't damage - my apartment was burgled and my Wii stolen. (Fortunately I carry renter's insurance). I got a new Wii, called Nintendo explained the issues. I had not yet signed into the Wii Shop channel on the new Wii (which is good, becasue its important to NOT do so) They me send a letter with thep police report and the serial # of the old and new Wii. And sure enough, they moved all my old content to the new Wii.

Comment: Re:Does anyone know... (Score 5, Informative) 166

by salahx (#29915579) Attached to: New Improvements On the Attacks On WPA/TKIP

WEP is "Wired Equivalent Privacy". It wasn't supposed to be very strong - about a secure a regular wired network. However, it wasn't known back then just HOW weak it was. As a stopgap measure, WPA PSK (TKIP) was created. Since it uses the same algorithm as WEP, (RC4), existing equipment could be easily upgraded with just a firmware/software update. A long-term solution WPA2 PSK (AES) was created as well.

WPA-PSK (TKIP) is still far, far better than WEP by many order of magintude, but WPA2-PSK is better, and if all you wireless devices support it (in particular the Nintendo DS DOES NOT, The DSi does, but not for DS games), then that preferred.

Social Networks

+ - Measuring Real Time Public Opinion with Twitter

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that statisticians from the University of Vermont are hoping to harness the stream of messages flowing through twitter to read public opinion and sentiment in real time. ""Twitter is a reflection of what people are interested in right now," says Peter Dodds adding that the goal is to establish an index, akin to the Dow Jones industrial average, that can "give an overall sense of how a collective body of people are feeling at any given point in time." Dodds says he and his colleague are analyzing about 1,000 tweets each minute, or about a million a day, looking for trends in descriptive words and phrases that indicate moods and emotions. In addition, the two can monitor the public reaction to news or policy announcement and track it over time. The tool is still in its early stages, but eventually Dodds hopes that it could work similarly to Google Flu Trends, a Web tool that doubles as an early-warning system for flu outbreaks by detecting spikes in certain search terms. Since relationships and conversations are so intrinsic to how people communicate on Twitter, the researchers hope that observing how one user's mood is affected by another might shed some light on crowd behavior and emotional contagion. "All of this data serves as a remote sensor of well-being," Dodds says."

User hostile.