Users get a service, so it can be argued they are paid in kind. That’s the price of their “free” services.
Whether you agree with that or not, websites are unlikely to pay users to use their services (unless they’re at least providing content) any more than a coffee shop would pay its customers to drink their coffee.
I was once asked by our CTO to remove all instances of the word “nonce” from our crypto code. (British slang for paedophile/pervert)
And writing code to find, kill, and reap orphaned children is routine stuff. I mean, you wouldn’t want to risk pesky zombie orphans running amok in your system!
Oh, please enlighten us, oh wise one. You might want to google “power draw” before you reply.
In this thread: people who don’t understand what power is.
Power isn’t something that is “pushed” into a device by a charger. Power is the rate at which a device uses energy. Power is “consumed” by the device, and the wattage rating on the charger is a simply how much it can supply, which is determined by how much current it can handle at its output voltage. A device only draws the power it needs to operate, and this may go up or down depending on what it’s doing, e.g. whether your screen is on or off.
As long as the voltage is correct, you could hook your phone up to a 1000W power supply and it will be absolutely fine. This is why everything’s OK when you plug devices into your gaming PC with a 1000W power supply, or why you can swap out a power-hungry video card for a low-power one, and the power supply won’t fry your PC. All that extra power capability simply goes unused if it isn’t called for.
The “pushing force” that is scaled up or down is voltage. USB chargers advertise their capabilities, or a power delivery protocol is used to negotiate voltages, so the device can choose to draw more current and thus power from the charger, as its sees fit. (If the device tries to draw too much, a poorly-designed charger may fail, and in turn this could expose the device to inappropriate voltages and currents being passed on, damaging both devices. Well designed chargers have protections to prevent this, even in the event of failure. Cheap crappy chargers often don’t.)
In the latest version of the emergency broadcast specification (WEA 3.0), a smart phone’s GPS capabilities (and other location features) may be used to provide “enhanced geotargeting” so precise boundaries can be set for local alerts. However, the system is backwards compatible – if you do not have GPS, you will still receive an alert, but whether it is displayed depends on the accuracy of the location features that are enabled. If the phone determines it is within the target boundary, the alert will be displayed. If the phone determines it is not within the boundary, it will be stored and may be displayed later if you enter the boundary.
If the phone is unable to geolocate itself, the emergency message will be displayed regardless. (Better to display the alert unnecessarily than to not display it at all).
The relevant technical standard is WEA. Only the latest WEA 3.0 standard uses phone-based geolocation. Older versions just broadcast from cell towers within the region, and all phones that are connected to the towers will receive and display the alerts. You can read about it in more detail here.
Have you been to an IMAX? Every seat can see the whole screen.
I don’t understand this comment… Why do you think I’m implying that people can’t see the whole screen from every seat? I don’t see how it’s related to what I said.
I was simply jokingly observing the irony of sitting at the back to reduce the size of the screen in your field of vision because you have difficulties observing a wide field – a problem that is exacerbated by going to a larger screen in the first place.
So you pay extra to go to the largest screen possible, then sit as far away as you can to make it small enough for you to see? That seems… suboptimal.
Open source software is also notably lacking from the impact assessment documents, but I suspect this is because it was intended to not impact open source software at all. It seems the legislation intends to exclude open-source software, but doesn’t clearly and unambiguously exclude open source software that is developed or contributed to in a commercial setting (e.g by paid contributors).
I think the wording seems clear enough to determine the intent, but the ambiguity surrounding the “commercial activity” part might necessitate trial (which nobody wants to risk), or might lead to poor implementation of this directive in the laws of member states. I think we should be campaigning to improve the wording, not reject it outright.
Ah, OK. So it seems it’s a case of the spirit of the text not matching the precise technical wording used. IMO, the legislation clearly intends to exclude freely-distributable open-source software, but the issue lies with what constitutes a commercial activity. (I’ve not yet checked the rest of the document to see if it clearly defines “commercial activity” in relation to the legislation.)
TBH, it seems that what is needed here is a clarification and tightening up of definitions, not wholesale rejection of the legislation.
Why is everyone up in arms about this?
The legislation specifically excludes open source software. Has nobody in this discussion actually read the proposed legislation?
From the current proposal legislation text:
In order not to hamper innovation or research, free and open-source software developed or supplied outside the course of a commercial activity should not be covered by this Regulation. This is in particular the case for software, including its source code and modified versions, that is openly shared and freely accessible, usable, modifiable and redistributable.
There is also a clause that states those using open source software in commercial products must report any vulnerabilities found to the maintainer.
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