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Having done some quick googling...

Gimp runs on the N800, tho it's quite short of ram:
http://net9.blogspot.com/2007/04/gimp-running-on-n800.html

I couldnt find openoffice for it, tho there is aparrently a non maemo specific version for linux/arm available in debian repositories.. There is a version of abiword for the n800 tho, as well as gnumeric.
gnumeric -> http://www.mail-archive.com/maemo-users@maemo.org/msg04128.html
abiword -> http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5423

Don't think anyone has ported VLC, but there is a port of mplayer which pretty much uses the same codecs. I always used mplayer on linux anyway.

I ported a few of my own programs (mostly console based) very easily, so i can't imagine other apps would be especially hard. The only real problem is the hardware resources available.

The newer OS2008 from nokia apparently uses a firefox based browser too.

What other desktop linux apps are you after?
Some apps are too heavy for the hardware, that's not linux's fault but rather the individual apps and the hardware. A program designed for a supercomputer with a terabyte of ram won't work very well on even a high end gaming pc.

The 10.n upgrades to Mac OS X are more like MS service packs than new operating systems. The underlying unix does not change all that much. The significant changes are mostly at the windowing level, in the graphics, and in the software. So yes, the service pack analogy is a good one.

http://mrsquid.blogspot.com/

Someone else.

You can download a preview here

Sent this email to license-violation@gnu.org :)

Hi!

I have recently seen a website http://universitytoolkit.com/, where universities are encouraged to download a software, called "MPA University toolkit".

Altourh according to the TaoSecurity blog http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2007/11/examining-mpaa-university-toolkit.html, the software seems to run on the top of the Xubuntu GNU/Linux distribution, i didn't found any mention about GNU/GPL license on the website.

A am not a layer, but as far as i understand, one MUST mention somwhere on site or in the documentation, that the piece of software is covered by the GNU/GPL and make a hyperlink to the source code. In this case, website has 3 hyperlinks, 2 of which are links to documentation, and 1 is a link to an iso image.

I have carefully read both documents, but didn't found any mention about GNU/GPL. Also, as it may be seen in the one of those documents (http://universitytoolkit.com/MPAA_University_Toolkit_Admin_Guide.pdf), the software itself doesn't requires the user to agree to any license.

p.s. Sorry for my bad english.

--
Nikolay Naymushin

Mr Biffle alleges that Asus also appears to have attempted to hide what it was doing by removing all references to asus-apc.

GPL violation or not, that's a bizarre claim and one Cliff doesn't actually make. The "asus-acpi stripping" he mentioned was, rather, stripping the source from the source package that Asus offers for download. I mean, does this look like "removing all references" to you?:

Actually, "NewYorkCountryLawyer" is the Slashdot ID of Ray Beckerman, attorney at Vandenberg & Feliu and long standing pain in ass of the RIAA. Charles Nesson and John Palfrey wrote the original Harvard response to the RIAA which was orignally covered at Information Week, then picked up by P2PNet and Ray Beckerman's own blog, amongst others.

No he isn't? http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

First, my reaction to the UN's declaration was that yes, a Taser can be used as a torture device. So can't a gun, knife, lead pipe, car battery, bamboo splinters, fire, torches, soldering irons, rubber shirts, spoons, etc...

Heck, even bare hands and feet can be used.

Used properly(1), a taser is not only supposed to be a substitute for a gun, it's also a substitute for pepper spray(2), baton(3), and various forms of barehanded submission techniques like beating the subject on the head until he's too disoriented to resist being handcuffed while three or four officers put their weight on him.

As for risk of death - people die suddenly all the time; for reasons that make you go 'huh'. It's kinda like how sex can kill somebody with a heart problem. The trick is, the sex was frequently just the 'last straw'. It could have been the flight of stairs a few days later, that slammed door resulting in a shock and adrenaline burst, or just going to wake up, or even just out of the blue. Heck, nominally healthy people like highschool football players have a nonzero chance of dying of heart attack. A simple hit, merely bruising could dislodge a clot or something and result in a lethal stroke. There's 300 million people in the USA. I can't find the number of arrests other than '800k' for weed. Marijuana arrests are a big chunk, but I don't think that's the majority. Most arrests are non-violent on the other hand. Let's go with 500k-1M physical force arrests - that's enough that you'll have some weird stuff pop up.

At least some tasers have recording devices in them - the police can tell how many shocks were delivered, the length of each, how far apart, etc... In at least one of the cases it WAS used as a torture device - how else can you explain 30 shocks over a 5 minute period? Still, go after that officer for torture, not ban the device. Make sure there's good training as well.

Interesting post by Lawdog on the subject of tasers and force usage.

My conclusion? Taser usage needs to be monitored; should not be used alone, should be used for it's purpose: disrupt the individual enough that other physical controls such as handcuffs can be emplaced. Should definitely not be used as a torture device. As you're using a taser, you should be arresting somebody - have the details of the usage, along with justification, be in the report.

(1)As we've already determined that improper usage can turn more devices into torture implements than can't be.
(2)Still a nonzero risk of death; asthma, patients with breathing problems, and pain is longer than necessary
(3)You're clubbing the person into submission - risk of death is very real, as is lasting injuries.

The Naked Man Story (from my friend's blog).

I recommend to view these videos to a get a more objective opinion. http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.com/2007/11/die-klimaerwrmung-ist-co2-wirklich.html The site is in German, but the videos are in english.

That's because no one puts in the time to do any research into if their systems will cope. I just watched this Google video the other day on how they make sure Gtalk would cope with all the data they needed to give out.

I love the XO project - the idea, what the product is shaping into, its goals.

But I'm cynical - a lot. If you care to see another point of view, or just have a good laugh, I suggest:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/hundred-dollar-laptop-now-400-and-for.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/ibm-plans-1-billion-commitment-to-xo.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/finally-customer.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/search/label/OLPC

I love the XO project - the idea, what the product is shaping into, its goals.

But I'm cynical - a lot. If you care to see another point of view, or just have a good laugh, I suggest:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/hundred-dollar-laptop-now-400-and-for.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/ibm-plans-1-billion-commitment-to-xo.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/finally-customer.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/search/label/OLPC

I love the XO project - the idea, what the product is shaping into, its goals.

But I'm cynical - a lot. If you care to see another point of view, or just have a good laugh, I suggest:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/hundred-dollar-laptop-now-400-and-for.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/ibm-plans-1-billion-commitment-to-xo.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/finally-customer.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/search/label/OLPC

I love the XO project - the idea, what the product is shaping into, its goals.

But I'm cynical - a lot. If you care to see another point of view, or just have a good laugh, I suggest:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/hundred-dollar-laptop-now-400-and-for.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/ibm-plans-1-billion-commitment-to-xo.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/finally-customer.html

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/search/label/OLPC

I guess my point about permanence is that once a good wind site is developed you are going to stick with it while a nuclear of coal plant will not outlast the fuel supply. A number of nuclear plants may not make it past sea level rise either: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/cliffhanger.html

RFE: "He was beaten by a computer! Isn't that amazing?!"
SO. http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/03/fischer-kasparov-karpov.html
"Kasparov will never give bobby fischer his due but what do you expect. This is a guy Bobby calls a gangster and a complete crook." http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/03/fischer-kasparov-karpov.html
Hmmm.
RR

RFE: "He was beaten by a computer! Isn't that amazing?!"
SO. http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/03/fischer-kasparov-karpov.html
"Kasparov will never give bobby fischer his due but what do you expect. This is a guy Bobby calls a gangster and a complete crook." http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/03/fischer-kasparov-karpov.html
Hmmm.
RR

Utah cop tasers a guy without provocation and then lies about it.

Robert Dziekanski died in Vancouver after senseless tasering by four cops. The Vancouver police department later lied about what happened.

To me it looks like the pigs are using the tasers not as less-lethal instruments to be used against dangerous suspects instead of guns, but as whips are used to herd the cattle by a bunch of cowboys (or jackals, that's what it looked like in case of Dziekanski.)

We are the cattle, and the pigs are the cowboys herding us. We are not human to them.

I always saw cops as the force used by those in power to control the masses and not for public protection, now it is only more apparent.

Some people say some weird things about Eee and GPL, see here and here... I don't know whether what they say is true, but I guess it would be of interest to consumers who care about the GPL.

...Oh, good readers, you SO have to read this story out of Houston about police doing a secret test/demonstration of those unmanned military spy drones for use in civilian policing. Not only did the Houston Police Department try to keep the media from finding out about the big shindig, but they surrounded the test areas with cop cars; and when they realized that a news team was filming the whole thing from a helicopter, they even lied through their teeth that the FAA had restricted the flight area. (Knowingly misrepresenting a federal rule is, by the way, not only stupid, it's unlawful; so here we have a police department of a major American city willfully breaking federal law.)

...Just read the article. By the end, you'll see the Houston police representatives dancing all around, doing everything they can to avoid admitting to what this latest militarization of civilian law enforcement is all about. And once you've finished reading the article, ask yourself which candidates for local, state, and/or national office are promising that they'll stop this whole, Orwellian madness right in its tracks. (PREDICTION: I'll bet you end up saying, "None that I can recall.")

...Insitu's people and products bring unique capabilities and benefits to our customers:

Experience--Over 60,000 ScanEagle(TM)UAV flight hours in theater since 2004

Service--Our growing team is experienced, seasoned, innovative, and responsive like no other

Endurance--Over 20 hours possible per flight, day & night

Low Cost--Economical operations and systems permit selective expendability

Persistence--Insitu's inertially stabilized camera turret, plus endurance, plus Insitu's ObjectTracker target tracking technology, keep objects of interest in view

Weather--Wide envelope. Reliable operations in winds over 35 knots, through significant precipitation, and beneath clouds

Crosswind--Good. Operates in crosswinds that ground other UAVs, needs no runway

Runway--None. Unprepared terrain or shipboard operations made easy with Insitu's SuperWedge(TM) Launcher and SkyHook(TM) Retrieval System

Stealthy--Nearly impossible to hear or see an Insitu UAV even at close range

Modular--Modular design means components are easily replaced in the field

Lean--Small, light weight UAV, compact ground support equipment, no runway, and autonomous operations mean low personnel requirements and very small footprint

Expandable--Avionics bay has available slot for easy integration of new UAV payloads...

...Oh, good readers, you SO have to read this story out of Houston about police doing a secret test/demonstration of those unmanned military spy drones for use in civilian policing. Not only did the Houston Police Department try to keep the media from finding out about the big shindig, but they surrounded the test areas with cop cars; and when they realized that a news team was filming the whole thing from a helicopter, they even lied through their teeth that the FAA had restricted the flight area. (Knowingly misrepresenting a federal rule is, by the way, not only stupid, it's unlawful; so here we have a police department of a major American city willfully breaking federal law.)

...Just read the article. By the end, you'll see the Houston police representatives dancing all around, doing everything they can to avoid admitting to what this latest militarization of civilian law enforcement is all about. And once you've finished reading the article, ask yourself which candidates for local, state, and/or national office are promising that they'll stop this whole, Orwellian madness right in its tracks. (PREDICTION: I'll bet you end up saying, "None that I can recall.")

...Insitu's people and products bring unique capabilities and benefits to our customers:

Experience--Over 60,000 ScanEagle(TM)UAV flight hours in theater since 2004

Service--Our growing team is experienced, seasoned, innovative, and responsive like no other

Endurance--Over 20 hours possible per flight, day & night

Low Cost--Economical operations and systems permit selective expendability

Persistence--Insitu's inertially stabilized camera turret, plus endurance, plus Insitu's ObjectTracker target tracking technology, keep objects of interest in view

Weather--Wide envelope. Reliable operations in winds over 35 knots, through significant precipitation, and beneath clouds

Crosswind--Good. Operates in crosswinds that ground other UAVs, needs no runway

Runway--None. Unprepared terrain or shipboard operations made easy with Insitu's SuperWedge(TM) Launcher and SkyHook(TM) Retrieval System

Stealthy--Nearly impossible to hear or see an Insitu UAV even at close range

Modular--Modular design means components are easily replaced in the field

Lean--Small, light weight UAV, compact ground support equipment, no runway, and autonomous operations mean low personnel requirements and very small footprint

Expandable--Avionics bay has available slot for easy integration of new UAV payloads...

Actually you have not quite got it. Continent scale wind can provide 60% of demand before you have to figure out what to do with excess generation: http://www.belfercenter.org/files/uploads/Continental_Wind_web_Nov07_opt.pdf.

It is your concepts of baseload and peak which are hindering your thinking. It is obvious that wind is forecastable and has slow variations in availability when many regions are connected. Thus, fuel based plants such as coal plants can be used as infrequent additions to the system but not necessarily as spinning reserve. But, if you think about it, hydro plays a role in flood control, so we don't get all uptight if we happen to let water out of a dam without generating some power. We paid for the dam, not the rain. Similarly, increasing wind capacity to the point where we throw 15% away is not a big deal especially if it is done in a way that extends the life of turbines and towers, just as hydro works to preserve dams. But, the situation with wind is even better than hydro. If you look at Fig. 3, as you mentioned, meeting a constant demand, as can be estimated from the hatched areas, greater geographical diversity leads to substantially less "wasted" generation. Comparison with the up time of a single coal or nuclear plant is entirely appropriate in the context of the exercise. It is just the baseload concept that is limiting because it is so closely associated with fuel use now that is causes us to think backwards. One ought to be using fuel as sparingly as possible rather than wasting it on loads that can be covered without fuel use.
--
Rent solar power for your home and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html

this is a pretty good link too http://skepticalsurfer.blogspot.com/2007/09/cult-of-autism.html

It's not just Vista though. Microsoft Office 2007 on Windows Vista consumes over 12x as much memory and nearly 3x as much processing power as Office 2000.

Some interesting facts.

http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2007/11/examining-mpaa-university-toolkit.html

They are using an old version of snort that has vulnerabilities. I didn't realize the version of snort they are running is from over two years ago!

I sure hope this version they are running isn't vulnerable to this. http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/175500 If so, someone could totally own the box and sniff whatever traffic they want to. All of it including the content.

of sources for non-RIAA music here in the sidebar of my blog, under the heading "Liberated Music".

Permissive Action Links (PALs) were introduced in the 1960s in America to prevent a mad General or pilot launching a nuclear war on their own

Wow, that glosses over reality very nicely. The codes were all zeros until the 80's, because said generals refused to implement a system that would prevent them from "hitting back".

He rightly insisted on Permissive Action Links for the US Strategic Air Command Minuteman missiles and bombs - so that they could only be armed and detonated by the the correct codes from the President or the rest of the chain of command. However, it turns out, that whilst McNamara was nominally in charge, that SAC decided to secretly order all the PAL codes to be set to eight zeros, so that there would not be any delays caused by communications problems during a nuclear war.

(From http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-not-to-write-about-uk-nuclear.html)

What's hilarious is that there were extensive efforts to implement PAL securely; all sorts of tamper-proofing and obfuscation in the weapons to make it such that you'd have to have a fair bit of training to have any hope of setting one off. Roughly the equivalent of installing high-security deadbolts throughout your property, and leaving the key in the front door lock.

Sometimes, it's about right and wrong

Couldn't agree more. The problem is that you seem confused about who is right. Your comment indicates a certain lack of awareness of the real societal issues (check out some of Ray Beckerman's writings if you want to get a handle on them.) Perhaps you work for a media company. Regardless, there's a lot more going on here that meets the eye.

I would also recommend reading the relevant portions of the Constitution, the history of copyright and its true purpose, current copyright law (what I was able to understand of it as a non-lawyer is depressingly unbalanced), and most important of all discover what the Founders (Jefferson in particular) believed is the proper role of copyright in our society. Once you understand that, you will see just how damaged we have been by the recent divergence in purpose, from promoting "the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" to "securing endless revenue streams for companies that have effectively stolen rights to the works whose authors they claim to represent." The power of Copyright has been conscripted by some particularly evil individuals, with the willing complicity of certain members of Congress. I presume you're an American: given our traditions of freedom and respect for individual rights I am amazed that you could take the position you have. Bankrupting college kids is not a solution: if you think it is you are in error, and are part of the problem.

The problem here is not copyright infringement: it's media companies setting themselves up as private police forces, with unchecked surveillance and enforcement capabilities, and no due process. That goes very much against the grain of, well, pretty much every civilized nation on the planet. These are powers that should be reserved for legitimate government, not the private sector. And don't even start with "they'll have their day in court" or "if they're innocent they have nothing to worry about." Would that were true, but of the thousands of people sued by the RIAA, how many people have actually fought back? How many had the resources to even try to fight back? A tiny fraction: the rest settled out-of-court regardless of actual guilt, the RIAA having served as judge, jury and executioner, using "evidence" (and I use the term loosely) that is largely manufactured out of thin air. Furthermore, the RIAA (and the MPAA) is much like the Internal Revenue Service ... it's composed of a bunch of bad dudes, not the kind of people you want having any power over you whatsoever. The facts are thus: the media companies and their "trade organizations" have behaved very irresponsibly all down the line, and have hurt a lot of people. They absolutely should not be granted one iota more power. If anything they need to have their wings clipped. Period. END OF STATEMENT.

Furthermore, you seem to have forgotten that this is supposed to be a nation by, of and for The People. If we, as a nation, have decided that extended copyright and strict enforcement is not something we need or want then nobody, certainly not a bunch of mere copyright holders who themselves have created nothing have any moral high ground here whatsoever. It's a blind, unfounded assumption on your part that we need to get tough on copyright infringement, indeed that we need such extreme laws in the first place. I would argue that we never have, and do not now.

What we have here is a classic example of unenlightened capitalism, the kind of no-holds-barred screw-everyone-but-ourselves school of business management that does nothing but enrich a few at the expense of everyone else, causing a fair amount of collateral damage in the process. Worse yet, our entertainment industry (which at the present time is composed largely of foreign-owned corpor

I'm surprised TFA didn't link to his blog.

SLM

I like live music too. I work at a bar that has bands. Sometimes we have bands that sing original stuff. Like these guys called Reckoning http://odomsbar.blogspot.com/2007/11/saturday-3rd.html I like this guy called Jason Crysell http://odomsbar.blogspot.com/2007/10/jason-crysell-is-on-air.html I, personally, make sure that I don't run afoul of the RIAA by only listening to live performances. If you like these guys, drop me a line and let me know. I'll pass your message on to them.

I like live music too. I work at a bar that has bands. Sometimes we have bands that sing original stuff. Like these guys called Reckoning http://odomsbar.blogspot.com/2007/11/saturday-3rd.html I like this guy called Jason Crysell http://odomsbar.blogspot.com/2007/10/jason-crysell-is-on-air.html I, personally, make sure that I don't run afoul of the RIAA by only listening to live performances. If you like these guys, drop me a line and let me know. I'll pass your message on to them.

"Instead of copyright law biased to the media companies, how about FAIR copyright?"

Yes, and how about having some counter proposals for laws. Ones that might scare the other side. Ones that we might be able to compromise on if necessary and still be better off than now after the compromise.

I invite your thoughts:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html [blogspot.com]

Someone must not like these suggestions.

Two off topic mods for something that is right on topic. Way to go guys...

all the best,

drew

So, we need some ideas for laws to lobby for that will scare the pants off of these guys. And yet ones that are reasonable and even perhaps wildly beneficial for the actual creative people.

See for instance some ideas here:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html

Hello! This is not off topic. It is specifically suggesting a counter tactic to counter act the tactics outlined in the main article. And this is OFF TOPIC? It may be something the person who modded the original post disagrees with, but it is hardly off topic.

This is the first time I have ever reposted in response to a moderation I disagreed with, but this was so blatant it was not even a second thought...

all the best,

drew

This is very much true. The market place establishes fair price for the value provided by the asset. But the actual value, in the case of copyrighted work, is derived from 2 aspects -- usefulness and time until copyright expiration. The first is inherent property of the work and the second is established by the government. If most of the value ends up being in the second (as it does now), then by comparison only a very small part of the value of work comes from its usefulness.

So how is the government determine that fair sweet spot where the value of copyrighted work would be relatively equally composed of the value that comes from usefulness and the value that comes from time until expiration? The link from one of your responses has a brilliant idea http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html. He says have a property tax on holding a copyright. I can't believe no one has said this before. But I'd say make it more subtle.

There will always be the argument that you have starving artists who rely on copyrights to be compensated by the time they "make it" to incentivise them. Ok. So how's this. Allow for copyright to be held freely for 10 years (not sure what's really fair) from the date of creation. After that, impose a property tax on them which would grow with every year of holding a copyright. The tax should approximately double every 10 years. This way copyrighted materials that are bringing more and more revenue because the owners spend more resources to increase the value of the material would be still copyrightable in 10,20,30,40 years. But since most of the value at that point would be derived from copyright rather than usefulness, they would be paying tax which would grow 2,4,8,16 times. Start the tax at something small... say $1000 a year. After all if you can't spend $1000 a year on something that you created 10 years ago, you probably will never make any money off of it. So you might as well let the public domain benefit from it. And it's not really unfair for Madonna to pay $2000 for songs that she wrote 30 year ago. Of course, if some corp wants to keep ownership of something copyrighted 80 years ago, there is not reason not to demand they shell out 128k a year for it.

Oh, and $1000 a year is too arbitrary. It should be some "base line" number that is adjusted every year by Congress.

"Instead of copyright law biased to the media companies, how about FAIR copyright?"

Yes, and how about having some counter proposals for laws. Ones that might scare the other side. Ones that we might be able to compromise on if necessary and still be better off than now after the compromise.

I invite your thoughts:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html

all the best,

drew

"I think that about covers it. Any more that I missed?"

They are good ones, especially the first, but you might want to look at these:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html

all the best,

drew

So, we need some ideas for laws to lobby for that will scare the pants off of these guys. And yet ones that are reasonable and even perhaps wildly beneficial for the actual creative people.

See for instance some ideas here:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html

all the best,

drew