Author Archives: pappp

Precursor: Mobile, Open-Hardware, RISC-V System-on-Chip Development Kit

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Neaaaat. A Xilinx Spartan 7 + Lattice ICE40-UltraPlus FGPA (Both at least mostly supported by FOSS tools) designed to be used as a RISCV system, all integrated in a blackberry-type formfactor with USB-C and a decent sized battery and such.
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ARM is now backing Panfrost Gallium3D as open-source Mali graphics driver

Source: OSNews

Article note: This is a delightful change of pace. Nvidia better not fuck it up.

Most information presented during the annual X.Org Developers’ Conference doesn’t tend to be very surprising or ushering in breaking news, but during today’s XDC2020 it was subtly dropped that Arm Holdings appears to now be backing the open-source Panfrost Gallium3D driver.

Panfrost has been developed over the past several years as what began as a reverse-engineered effort by Alyssa Rosenzweig to support Arm Mali Bifrost and Midgard hardware. This driver had a slow start but Rosenzweig has been employed by Collabora for a while now and they’ve been making steady progress on supporting newer Mali hardware and advancing the supported OpenGL / GLES capabilities of the driver.

This is a major departure from previous policy for ARM, since the company always shied away from open source efforts around its Mali GPUs.

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Stanislaw Lem’s The Invincible being made into a videogame

Source: Boing Boing

Article note: Oh shit, that sounds fun. Good pedigree both for the setting and the adaptation team.

Polish author Stanislaw Lem's 1964 sci-fi thriller, The Invincible, is being made into a videogame by Polish game company, Starward Industries. Sayeth PC Gamer: The Invincible is a 1964 hard sci-fi novel by Polish author Stanislaw Lem about the crew of a powerful deep-space vessel that lands on the planet Regis 3 and learns some…

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Ed-Tech Mania Is Back. It won’t solve academe’s problems

Source: Hacker News

Article note: I generally use the phrase "Carpetbaggers" for ed-tech companies because they're primarily profiteering from change and unrest and lemming "leaders." Every now and then we get genuinely useful bits of instructional technology, and some of them are _very_ useful, but the ratio of rent-seeking to actual utility is not something to be impressed by.
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Raspberry Pi can finally boot directly from USB

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Yesss. Direct USB Booting in the default ROM, so SD cards are avoidable. USB storage is often much cheaper and more convenient.
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Study shows proof that a safer UV light effectively kills virus causing Covid-19

Source: Hacker News

Article note: I've been running light-tight reflective lined containers (repurposed low-end soft side coolers) with mercury vapor lamps for sterilization of lab equipment all semester, continuing to feel validated that that works, even though COVID-19 surface transmission seems to be low risk. Downside: photokeratitis in a matter of seconds if you look at them out of the enclosure. Having that kind of material-safe, easy sterilization without the whole "254nm UVC is terrible for humans" problem is awesome, though I'm not sure how the ramp up of 222nm light sources will go, I think the only 222nm narrow-band source that's commercially viable are KrCl Excimer lamps, which are slightly exotic.
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FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Interesting thread just for the discussion of alternatives. I haven't had great luck with FreeCAD (I find it awkward, and it has been pretty crash-y, especially the path toolbench), but it is aimed right where I want there to be something. I end up doing a lot of simple pieces in OpenSCAD for 3D printing, or NativeCAM (a conversational direct-CAM tool) for subtractive machining, but I'd really like a decent dependable, free parametric CAD/CAM setup that would take care of my whole set of needs.
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Autodesk Announces Major Changes to Fusion 360 Personal Use License Terms

Source: Hack a Day

Article note: The "free until we suppress the Free / non-saas competition" suspicion is now confirmed. It's a shame, the CAM suite really was impressive, enough that I wasted some energy learning it.

Change is inevitable, and a part of life. But we’re told that nobody likes change. So logically, it seems we’ve proved nobody likes life. QED.

That may be a reach, but judging by the reaction of the Fusion 360 community to the announced changes to the personal use license, they’re pretty much hating life right now. The clear message from Autodesk is that Fusion 360 — the widely used suite of CAD and CAM software — will still offer a free to use non-commercial license for design and manufacturing work, with the inclusion of a few very big “buts” that may be deal-breakers for some people. The changes include:

  • Project storage is limited to 10 active and editable documents
  • Exports are now limited to a small number of file types. Thankfully this still includes STL files but alas, DXF, DWG, PDF exports are all gone
  • Perhaps most importantly to the makerverse, STEP, SAT, and IGES file types can no longer be exported, the most common files for those who want to edit a design using different software.
  • 2D drawings can now only be single sheet, and can only be printed or plotted
  • Rendering can now only be done locally, so leveraging cloud-based rendering is no longer possible
  • CAM support has been drastically cut back: no more multi-axis milling, probing, automatic tool changes, or rapid feeds, but support for 2, 2.5, and 3 axis remains
  • All support for simulation, generative design, and custom extensions has been removed

Most of these changes go into effect October 1, with the exception of the limit on active project files which goes into effect in January of 2021. We’d say that users of Fusion 360’s free personal use license would best be advised to export everything they might ever think they need design files for immediately — if you discover you need to export them in the future you’ll need one of the other licenses to do so.

To be fair, it was pretty clear that changes to the personal use license were coming a while ago with the consolidation of paid-tier licenses almost a year ago, and the cloud-credit system that monetized rendering/simulation/generative design services happening on the Autodesk servers. Features removed from the free license in this week’s announcement remain in place for paid subscriptions as well as the educational and start-up license options.

The problem with these personal use licenses is that it’s easy to get used to them and think of them as de facto open-source licenses; changing the terms then ends up leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. To their credit, Autodesk is offering a steep discount on the commercial license right now, which might take some of the sting out of the changes.

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A Bug In Joe Biden’s Campaign App Gave Anyone Access To Millions of Voter Files

Source: Slashdot

schwit1 shares a report from TechCrunch: A privacy bug in Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's official campaign app allowed anyone to look up sensitive voter information on millions of Americans, a security researcher has found. The campaign app, Vote Joe, allows Biden supporters to encourage friends and family members to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election by uploading their phone's contact lists to see if their friends and family members are registered to vote. The app uploads and matches the user's contacts with voter data supplied from TargetSmart, a political marketing firm that claims to have files on more than 191 million Americans. When a match is found, the app displays the voter's name, age and birthday, and which recent election they voted in. This, the app says, helps users find people you know and encourage them to get involved." While much of this data can already be public, the bug made it easy for anyone to access any voter's information by using the app. The App Analyst, a mobile expert who detailed his findings on his eponymous blog, found that he could trick the app into pulling in anyone's information by creating a contact on his phone with the voter's name. The Biden campaign fixed the bug and pushed out an app update on Friday. "We were made aware about how our third-party app developer was providing additional fields of information from commercially available data that was not needed," Matt Hill, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, told TechCrunch. "We worked with our vendor quickly to fix the issue and remove the information. We are committed to protecting the privacy of our staff, volunteers and supporters will always work with our vendors to do so."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Windows exploit lets you instantly become admin. Have you patched?

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: Ohh. _This_ is why Microsoft was so pushy about that most recent round of patches.
A casually dressed man smiles next to exposed computer components.

Enlarge (credit: VGrigas (WMF))

Researchers have developed and published a proof-of-concept exploit for a recently patched Windows vulnerability that can allow access to an organization’s crown jewels—the Active Directory domain controllers that act as an all-powerful gatekeeper for all machines connected to a network.

CVE-2020-1472, as the vulnerability is tracked, carries a critical severity rating from Microsoft as well as a maximum of 10 under the Common Vulnerability Scoring System. Exploits require that an attacker already have a foothold inside a targeted network, either as an unprivileged insider or through the compromise of a connected device.

An “insane” bug with “huge impact”

Such post-compromise exploits have become increasingly valuable to attackers pushing ransomware or espionage spyware. Tricking employees to click on malicious links and attachments in email is relatively easy. Using those compromised computers to pivot to more valuable resources can be much harder.

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