So it turns out politicians can pass legislation that helps people.

Mamdani has been doing a lot of it.

Of course, it was too hard for the "other" politicians because they were being paid off. Mamdani ran on a platform that those other politicians were describing as something that would destroy the state.

Finding a new encrypted filesystem must be upsetting you.

Apple's official method is multi-step.

First, you decrypt the volume - you control-click the disk and click Decrypt. Wait for it to decrypt (takes hours).

Then you convert it to APFS, the current filesystem Apple uses.

Then you enable encryption on APFS and wait for it to encrypt.

Chances are the HFS+ encryption is likely outdated and weak and sometimes it's better to not pretend. Or it was a hacked addon to HFS+ which didn't support it initially. Like how fscrypt is on Linux where support is added to ext filesystems. APFS natively supports encryption and getting rid of a filesystem layer to simplify things would add security.

Yes, but you have to have a magnetic field to push against.

In Earth orbit the device can interact with the Earth's magnetic field, but propulsion to the moon or Mars?

What will it push against? How powerful is the sun's magnetic field at that distance?

Maybe it's just for Earth's orbital use? The key reason satellites age out in orbit right now is because they run out of fuel to keep them in orbit. So they have to have a reserve amount for a burn to deorbit or to enter a parking orbit.

If this means satellites have basically unlimited fuel as long as they have power, this could mean satellites are smaller, lighter and last basically forever. It certainly removes the main reason a satellite has to be decommissioned.

The ISS gets routine fuel shipments so it can stay in orbit. But satellites don't and various ideas have been proposed to refuel satellites so we don't have to junk otherwise working equipment.

Why would this be surprising? They know if is or has been registered right?

Exactly - how else would Microsoft be doing it? I would say this started in the Windows XP era where they tied your Windows activation key to the hardware IDs. Change your CPU and you might have to re-activate Windows. Or change your motherboard. Or change your network card.

Microsoft always hashed your hardware IDs to form a unique hardware ID they used to tie to your activation key. If you tried to install Windows XP on multiple PCs and use the same key Microsoft would notice and disable your key.

You can do what one guy did in Washington - do a FOIA request. The photos and data are public records after all.

Don't make it a big FOIA request, just make it something targeted like an intersection on a date between two times, an hour apart. You travelled through it and want to see what information the camera got about you.

And maybe do more FOIA requests for other intersections as well.

The reason for the targeting is highly focused FOIA requests are less likely to be rejected as over broad requests and thus you are more likely going to get your images and data you requested.

What happened in Washington was the city councils got worried because the courts have started saying the FOIA request was perfectly valid and they have no reason to withhold the information requested. Councils were worried that the requests could contain information that stalkers might want. The courts kept saying to release the information, council kept pushing back, and then council cancelled the agreements because they saw they were going to have to release the information and they could not restrict who got a hold of it.

In other words, having the information available turned it into a liability for council because they had to release it as public records and there would be plenty of people like stalkers who would just love to get their hands on the information. So the only solution was to not collect the data in the first place.

If 250K is exceeding expectations, then the expectations are wrong and haven't been supported by the data for a long time.

I think the feeling is that most people don't drive vehicles much beyond 10 years or 100K miles. Because generally speaking once you get to that point in a car's life, repair costs skyrocket.

Sure, there are plenty of cars that if treated right will get you way beyond 100K with minimal problems (it's where Toyota gets their reputation), but many will start having issues around 150K or so.

The problem is, many people don't own vehicles that old so they never see it. After 150K, most vehicles are treated as "beaters" that get minimal service knowing that they're basically going to be scrapped on the first major failure.

It also doesn't help that most people's experience with batteries are ones that are basically useless after 5 years - cellphones, music players, laptops, etc., you get around the 5 year mark and the battery is expected to be relatively useless. So it's not unexpected that they would expect a car with a battery to be severely degraded after 5 years because everything else is too.

Microsoft is also a Delaware company, just like a few million other companies (thousands of which exist at the same address).

There's a reason why DE is the chosen state for many companies to incorporate.

(They were a WA company until 1986)

It is NOT universally required. Incidentally, the FSF may well go after getting that.

That would severely limit where your device can be sold and used, though.

Intentional emitters of signals have to be certified if using a licensed band. That is the law in basically every country around - even tin-pot dictatorships don't want you emitting RF they don't know about.

Now, there are bands the FSF is free to use an unlicensed transmitter on - bands where the owners require licensing (i.e., the owners take on the job of certifying the design) like ham radio. Or the unlicensed bands, like 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz ISM. Here the regulations are basically along the lines of "do not have spurious emissions in the licensed bands next door".

The problem for the FSF is basically they can get it done, but then no one would touch it. If you wanted to produce a device and used the firmware, you likely couldn't put any blocks on what firmware your device runs (GPLv3), which means you cannot get your product certified because you cannot guarantee someone will run authorized firmware. You can put in hardware limiters (i.e., filters), but those things generally make your product perform worse.

The FSF is right on one thing - the firmware blobs are basically identical across users of the same chipset. The simple reason is that the chipset was certified with that firmware already, so if you want the least amount of trouble, you keep the firmware and hardware design the same so you can get through the gauntlet of certifications with the least amount of trouble. (They aren't cheap, you're looking at 5 and 6 figure costs just to do one certification pass so you want to minimize the number of passes you do. And for that you need to hire pre-certification labs which can do the runs and provide the analysis on what you need to fix before you run the gauntlet.

People do sell cellular chips as modules where the RF stuff is done on the module itself which reduces your need for certification and firmware blobs, but phone makers don't use them as generally they are more expensive overall. Chips from Qualcomm and such integrate everything in the SoC from WiFi and Bluetooth to the cellular RF into the main processor so all you need are some RF front ends which means you need only a minimal amount of extra chips. And those chips rely on firmware blobs to be loaded on boot, and those blobs are often binary to the vendor as well. (A place I worked at we had source code access to those blobs, it wasn't pretty).

Well, we know what it's good for theoretically, but that's it.

We don't know if a quantum computer that's useful and practical can be made. We don't know if a quantum computer is even able to accelerate computations over existing technologies.

So far, the only working machines haven't proven either is true - either working on problems so small classical computers easily handle it or can do it just as fast.

And unfortunately that's where we stand - in theory a quantum computer can accelerate all sorts of computations that would take classical computers a long time to do. But there has been no evidence to date that a practical realizable machine would accomplish those goals. Nor has it been proven such a machine can be built.

(It also discounts any possibility of a major algorithm breakthrough on classical computations - so it may not be quantum computers that force the necessity of using quantum-safe algorithms but simply classical computation).

Without piracy, a person's right to go with an older game for half price will be gone

Where is that right enumerated? It's not in the US Constitution, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, or any other document.

There is no such right, anywhere. If you don't want to buy a game at the price offered, there's the other option - walking away. You don't need that game to live and there are likely dozens more in your price range.

You want to lower prices, then increase competition. Sure a game has natural monopolies like IP, but there are likely dozens of other games that have the same basic mechanics or other things.

And there are many ways to legally acquire the game - you could buy a used copy - it's a PC game, a Mac game, and a PS2 game. All of which have used markets especially since it was physical. You do not need to pirate it, it's available legally and legitimately. Now, maybe the price has shot up because people really like it, but that again is a free market thing.

I refuse to believe you won't leave your current employer if a new employer offered you more money, better working conditions or otherwise, which means for you that is also the same market decision.

The only thing piracy has done is maybe deflate the commercial value of the IP.

They could have allowed it and they didn't. They and you are assholes.

Yes, they could have. But business is rarely done along the "it is easier to ask forgiveness later than seek permission now" principle.

You don't build a Mickey Mouse watch first, advertise the heck out of it, then come to Disney expecting to get a license agreement hammered out after spending all that money. In fact, Disney is more likely to screw you over knowing you spent all that money in the first place,

What you do is ask Valve first to license the IP - you have this brilliant idea and would like to acquire the license to produce it. Chances are, Valve will make a commercial license agreement and we'd have our sides.

It doesn't mean dbrand can't make their own sides - unlike what Sony did to their PS5 replacement plates.

In fact, the law generally gives those who try to ask forgiveness a huge disadvantage - sometimes allowing for treble (triple) damages. Or even meaning a forced license agreement - that is, the other party gets to make all the commercial terms and you're forced to agree to them (this can happen on things like stolen land - where your neighbor builds on your land by accident. You have many options, including selling them that land - at your price, Your neighbor basically is forced to buy your land at your price, or vacate.)

And we don't know. Maybe they did try to reach out to Valve and after Valve saw they put so much time and effort into it, they demanded a huge licensing fee. Remember - you license first then build and if it goes well, everyone benefits. You build first, then try to license it and now the IP owner sees you're going to make a lot of money, and they can demand a lot of money in return.

Maybe Valve would normally demand say, 20% of the retail price for licensing. Now they see it's successful, they could demand 50% because they know you're desperate for the license and have the marketing information (pre-orders) to justify it.

Commercial licenses are pure business transactions. dbrand's big mistake was not licensing it before making it public. Valve likely saw the publicity and offered them a "take it or leave it" licensing deal that basically was "you saw the demand, we saw the demand, now pay up". And they ran the numbers and likely Valve's fees would've meant they made almost no money on the things.

Remember, asking forgiveness in business usually means getting screwed over. Even the least crafty businessman in the world knows if you're desperate for a deal, there's more profit to be made. dbrand went from "licensing potential" to "desperate to license" which means easy money.

And given what we know, this is exactly what happened - they showed it off first, got a ton of pre-orders, then tried to ask Valve for a license. Valve saw what happened, decided to go for easy money and offered a license at rates above normal because they saw the public numbers and would be an idiot not to take advantage of a golden goose that landed on your lap. dbrand refused to accept the terms, Valve refused to negotiate, knowing dbrand was in the weaker position overall (they were desperate, and they had a ticking clock).

That's just business. They probably should've asked first, not ask later. And no one will convince me otherwise that they'd do the opposite - you'd leave your job the instant someone offered you a significant amount of money or better things like WFH or other things - because it's all about money.

FireTV devices are probably sold at a loss - the goal is to addict you to Amazon services so you'll purchase them. It's why Amazon Prime Video has special offers with practically every streaming service so if you subscribe through Amazon they get a cut.

Of course, pirate apps hurt this business model - they want you paying for Amazon Prime Video, not getting a cheap media plyer.

No, chances are it went to Tata has they were one of the few companies able to actually build the iPhone. Remember, many countries have laws saying if you want in on the market, you have to spend a certain amount of money in the market. If Apple wanted to sell iPhones in India, they would have to make investments in production with Indian companies.

Chances are Foxconn or other Chinese contractors introduced Apple.

How does that make sense? They almost did something illegally anti-competitive but then didn't. What's the settlement for? If you spend 3 months planning a bank robbery and then call it off, you didn't commit a crime. Likewise, they didn't ship the offending code.

Actually, if you planned the bank robbery with anyone else, you can still be charged in a criminal conspiracy, even if the bank robbery never happened.

And the code DID ship. It didn't ship in the final retail build that customers bought, but many customers did get a hold of the beta version that did have the code. That's why that information was public.

Finally, it's partially true in the end there were incompatibilities. You might not realize it, but Windows isn't just a graphical shell In Standard Mode, yes it was a graphical shell on top of DOS - using DOS to provide all the system support functions like file handling.

But in 386 Enhanced mode (which existed as Windows/386 in previous versions), Windows actually became an operating system. It hoisted the current MS-DOS into its own VM (similar to how VMWaare worked where the booting Linux kernel gets hoisted into a VM to serve as the administrative console). In the meantime, it also meant that Windows needed to "extract the brains" from MS-DOS so it reached down into MS-DOS memory and copied all the open file lists and statuses from MS-DOS into its open file handle list. Everything that could was then converted to VxD drivers which were native Windows drivers, and everything that couldn't ran in the MS-DOS VM with Windows moderating between it and the BIOS calls.

It's what Windows 9x would later call "compatibility box" mode or if it could be completely virtualized in enhanced mode.

Things like CD-ROMs wihch in MS-DOS were handled with a network redirection (CD-ROM drives were "network drives"), disk caches like smartdrv.sys, and other things that would interfere with Windows is what the Windows launch code had to extract and take over - disk caches needed to be flushed and disabled, memory managers need to be disabled (but they also need to be examined to make sure DOS drivers weren't missed), etc.

It doesn't help we're Making Parasites Great Again https://farmpolicynews.illinoi...

One needs to remember that USAID was actually the agency keeping screwworm at bay. It was listed as agricultural aid - and that aid was in keeping the parasites from spreading. Sure, it helps the other countries, but it also means the parasite doesn't hit US soil.

This is likely to cost US beef ranchers way more than what USAID cost to run, and even if you funded USAID now, it will take years to eradicate.