It is like self deportation. If Microsoft makes conditions miserable enough on Windows 7, they hope people will upgrade to Windows 8. It won't work because going form Windows 7 to Windows 8 is like going from Mexico to Guatemala.
You're right, but I think you got it backwards. There is no way MS can make W7 worse than W8. Stop updates alltogether, people will live with only 3rd party AV, trust me. W8 will make people want to go back to W7, or wait for W9. MS knows W8 is a disaster, they'll do what everyone (even Lawmakers & Facebook) does -- Make something so vile that it can never be embraced, then back off and apologize and give everyone something not as horrible that will be better by comparison (the next OS, W9).
I installed Windows 8 (dual boot) on my mother's PC, and when I showed it to her she couldn't say anything at all initially. She just kept strongly shaking her head left and right -- tight-lipped with anger and wide-eyed in fear -- A fear that the software somehow might not be able to be removed, or worse -- That she would actually have to use that software at work one day.
"NO. Just, No...", that's all she said about Windows 8 before leaving the room. I felt as if I'd disappointed her greatly by doing something that wasn't anyones fault -- It was exactly like when I started my truck while the cat was sleeping on the engine block, and got caught in the fan-belt... Everyone just felt horrible, and there was a terrible mess to clean up afterwards. I began re-formatting the partition immediately, and assured her she had nothing to fear since no sensible IT staff would install Windows 8 and the Interface formally known as Metro.
Going from W7 to W8 is more like going from The Bronx to Gotham City. Somewhat similar levels of (cyber) crime, sense of security, and it still has some basic elements an OS should. However, with Windows 8 there's a necessary cognitive leap: A profound Suspension of Disbelief must be maintained whereby you understand everything is pointlessly exaggerated and fake feeling; Where it's clear you're not completely in control, and the most simple tasks become just irritating enough not to balk outright, but to slowly drive you Mad as you routinely try to perform them.
Or, if you prefer: It's like when you see a PC screen on CSI -- It's vaguely recognizable as a computer OS, but you know it's only really usable for exactly that one thing they're doing: Playing make-believe, pretending to use a real OS.
You're developping an OS because the UI had problems ?
If your coffee machine fails you start designing a nuclear power plant ?
And if your car is having tire problems you probably start building your own refinary...
It was something I'd wanted to do for a while, and instead of just complaining I'm actually doing something about it now. Don't get me wrong, I can use any OS fine, but that doesn't mean that I won't be frustrated while doing so, and thinking of all the ways everything could be improved, if only they did it differently... UI issues with Ubuntu Unity was just the tipping point. Without them it may have been years before I got fed up enough to start a whole new OS -- I might have even been content with just making a new window manager (or improving XFCE), but the proverbial camel has now broken its back.
I have a sligtly different take on OSs inspired by shortcomings that most modern OSs have... Some things I want to do just aren't possible using Linux or BSD. Some things I want to do could be implemented in a POSIX OS, like these, but just aren't being done. For instance: Set up groups for capabilites, and run every program as its own user. So, you'd have Firefox, wget, IRC clients, etc in the "WAN" group, IRC, ThunderBird, etc in the "Identity" and "WAN" Groups, groups for managing different services, etc. Each program also gets its own group. This way, no program can read any other program's data (or your data) unless they have permission. ThunderBird can't access your IRC chat logs, the IRC client can't access your Internet History files, etc. If you wanted to give Firefox access to say, run say Steam clients: You'd add Firefox to the "Steam" group.
Apache is often configured to run as its own user -- Everything else needs to do this too, IMO. Without a policy to enforce this behavior in the distro or OS itself it just takes too much effort to keep re-configuring things this way. If the OS enforced such behavior natively then many other things become possible, like trusted Agents, fully sandboxed plugins, and being able to automatically query for capabilites regardless of the particular programs installed...
My way isn't for everyone, but it suits me. I'm a "Focus on the Solution, not on the Problem" sort of guy.
One of the other commenters quoted Linus, "Talk is cheap, Show me the Code". I have that on my coffee mug right now:-)
Unfortunately most of my work is in machine code and although it works for me, it isn't well tested since that's not my main concern just yet. When I get to the point of having more stable code in a more readable form than raw op-codes or half-implemented ASM, then I'll be sure to release it. Until then, here's the raw memory bootable hex editor I mentioned: Hexabootable. This one has a couple more features and a Visual interface rather than my first EDLINE like input method; Although it fits in a 512 byte boot sector there's no room for a drive partition table (meh, those are really more of a reccomendation, not an essential rule). You should still be able to boot it from a drive via: dd if=hexboot.img of=$YOUR_DRIVE or using a VM (which you should use instead if you value your hardware).
I went through and heavily commented EVERYTHING, so even folks who don't know x86 assembler can follow along. There's 26 bytes left of space in the image, so when I have time I'll see about squeezing in the text input mode I've implemented in machine code on a live instance; Till then it's Hexadecimal all the way.
On yesterday's PCs, I could just write raw machine code in Hex, save it to the 1st sector of a drive, boot the disk and be in full control of my own hardware with my own code. Many new-ish PCs now use EFI. To boot from EFI I have to write my machine code within a FAT (32) container, which means implementing MS's proprietary and patent encumbered File Allocation Table format... Tomorrow's PCs will use UEFI to boot, which requires a cryptographically signed EFI boot process. That means signing my own bootloader and installing my own keys, or paying for a key for each bootable from MS (some UEFI systems allow booting w/o signature via special boot mode, some do not) -- On ARM platforms shipping Win RT, MS has said the option to boot unsigned code or install user specified keys must be removed.
So, you can see how it's slowly gotten a bit harder to play with my own new hardware thanks to the increasingly high hoops I've got to jump through. If Microsoft has their way you won't be able to boot any OS that doesn't fork over the cash to them. In fact, even the Linux Foundation is planning to pay MS for the right to sign a bootloader so you can still boot your own software on UEFI hardware. I think that's horrible. I understand they want to make it easy for users to run free software but IMO, paying MS one red cent to give us back the freedom to use our own software with our own hardware is just vile and disgusting. Instead, I'll buy from vendors that respect my freedom. The subject line say MS + Secure Boot == PC Death, but really Apple, and many other vendors who don't let us unlock our devices to run arbitrary code are equally as evil in my book.
Recently a longing for the good ol' days of unfettered computing led me to creating Hexabootable. It's a 512 byte boot sector that contains a Hex editor. With it you can edit raw memory then execute the memory you just edited. Using only this minimal tool you can extend the program's features (eg: disk I/O), write any other program, even create a whole new Operating System -- Indeed that's exactly what I'm doing.
None of my hardware or software hacking hobbies will be possible if the OEMs get their way and lock us out of our own hardware. It's all under the guise of Security, but that's not really the reason. Think about it: OS code is huge and bug ridden; If there's even one kernel level arbitrary code execution vulnerability then the whole effort is useless. If the OS makers could write secure (read: bug free) OS's they would be just as secure with and without secure boot! If they can't write secure OSs then secure boot is pointless! Truly, I can use known exploit vectors against every modern OS, secure boot or not, to run my own unsigned machine code, and so can malware writers... So it's not a boot for normal end user security, it's just digital shackles. The real reason Secure Boot Chains exists is to keep you from tampering with your own computer.
Now, what I do find hopeful is the cool work in the embedded systems fields. There are several projects that strive to be as transparent to the user as possible, and get their code up and running controlling everything. Unfortunately you don't always get to run plain machine code on all of the hobbyist devices. Open hardware initiatives give me a warm fuzzy feeling -- That's what will save the "PC" (Personal Computer) in my opinion. Protip: If you can't personalize the machine code and/or hardware, then it's really an Impersonal Computer -- An impostor of the worst kind...
Here's a fun aside: Since I write software in machine code, I could release it under the GPL and provide no other "source code" but the binaries:-P Conversely, if you know Machine Code, every (non encrypted) binary executable is Open Source!
That's the big question - is it a coincidence? It's entirely possible that, just as the CNO cycle is a common method of fusion in stars, that DNA, RNA or close analogues.
I think that amino acid chains aren't the only way to form life, but amino acids do form and form chains when you take an environment that is like Earth's early history, and blast it with electricity (and cosmic rays).
However, If we find viable DNA on Mars it makes it much more likely that we share a common ancestor.
My concern with bringing DNA here from a now "lifeless" world is that we may find out what made that world lifeless, first hand...
[...] whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
What's that they say of the cyclic nature of history? I put it to you that it's not enough to know history to avoid repeating it; We must also be mindful of it always. Otherwise, in the end there will be lots of, "sorry, but you leave us no choice" on both sides of the double edged sword of power.
They already do this. It's why there's a levy (Pirate Tax) on blank media. As a content creator who doesn't infringe copyrights, I think that I'd be justified if I did -- I mean. That we ALL are paying taxes on blank media to compensate for copyright infringement is a free license to pirate if you ask me.
Kaspersky is foolish. I make OSs too, and there can be no Exploit Proof OS. You can't make an exploit proof OS on insecure hardware. DMA == Direct Memory Access. Any device that uses DMA (and there are tons: PCI, Firewire, etc.), can read and write all memory everywhere in the system without any software being able to stop them. Look, I'm all for creating a very secure OS, but first we must create secure HARDWARE. It's not as if the OS can protect itself from exploitable hardware with firmware bugs.
If Kaspersky's not foolish, the the definition of "secure", "OS" and "exploit" in TFS are all extremely suspect...
After trying to use the beta, and now release, and after months of fighting Unity in the the prior versions: I got so fed up that I actually started creating my own OS from scratch! Well, from Assembly... Initially anyway.
First I made a Hex editor for RAM (in under 446 bytes) that can call into the edited memory. I wrote that to a USB drive, plugged it into a spare computer which is now Dev Machine Zero. After booting the MBR hex editor I created a "Save RAM Segment to Disk" by manually inputting binary op codes (machine code). Once I could save my work from RAM to disk, I began work on a simple 2 stage chaining boot loader -- It already lets me multi-boot and supports my extensible hash-based encryption, which I use for signing/decrypting the 2nd stage loader and primordial kernel. As soon as I'm done implementing keyed SHA3 I'll use it to support full drive encryption at boot. It been little over a week of evenings and my bootstrap loader now replaces GRUB on all my systems. I'm also about 1/4th of the way through my new assembler language (it's currently a subset of 8086 only); When it's done I'll extend the Assembler using itself to support macros and finally begin bootstrapping myself into a compiler for a higher level language, like C (or maybe a C-ish lang of my own design).
I sometimes do low level work on custom embedded systems programming, so I know a bit about OS development / design. I could use a cross compiler and/or a VM in a host OS, but I where's the fun in that? Besides, I can PROVE my bootstrap and compiler process didn't inject any back doors (as in Ken Thompson's Trusting Trust). There simply was no room for back-doors; I can "trust no one" because every last byte is accounted for.
It's been forever since I wrote any Real Mode code; Ah fond memories: Outputting MOD files to the PC speaker, low res 320x200 256c graphics, direct disk IO, 640K + "High Memory"... I'll almost be sad to make the switch into Protected Mode and write the device drivers & file systems.
Well, Thanks Ubuntu! I've had this idea for an Agent oriented OS kicking around for a while -- If it weren't for your usability failures pushing my frustrations over the edge I would still just be thinking, "Any idiot could do better than this!" instead of actually giving it a shot. Also, to all those "why re-invent the wheel" types: When's the last time you saw a wagon wheel on a sports car, eh?
I'm still a loyal NetBSD & Slackware luser, but screw Ubuntu. I still have to use Ubuntu for testing packaging of my other projects, but instead of fighting the UI or glitches now I just take a deep breath, get a fresh cup of coffee and add a new feature to the only OS developed with my usability in mind.
I've never been wrong when I've said: I can tell you're not dreaming about this picture I drew of the mobile drilling machine I piloted while trying to head off a subterranean nuke-missile and save the world, before I decided to take a detour and visit my "middle-earth" high-school, which is why the pic shows the Magma-Men and I gathered 'round the rig with glowing smiles.
Honestly, you could monitor my dreams and accurately compare every photograph of everything in the entire Universe and you'd still never find a match for what's going on in my head -- Unless, on the off chance you have a picture of a gorgeous nude demon girl with charcoal skin and lidless black eyes with her arm around me sitting on the basket ball bleachers while we watch a swarm of angelic and infernal beasts play a celestial game of hoops with my flaming immortal soul...
We sleep because there is a Day and Night. Sun = More Energy & More Visibility. It leads to cycles of activity, which leads to traits which take advantage of these cycles. It's not a mystery. Activity and Rest cycles exist because that's how cells work at the chemical level... It would be like saying: "Daisies and many plants close up after the sun goes down, but WHY!?! It's a mystery!" Protip: Plants don't think; There is no reasoning with plants.
Well, I like graphics, so what about all the work that went into MESA3 OpenGL drivers? Most people I ask "So, what's keeping you from using Linux 100% full time?" Their answer is crappy graphics drivers and no games. In my spare time I'm working to help fix the latter part, so are many other game devs, and a working OpenGL stack is essential.... Think about it, everyone knows Linux is really strong in the server market, so it's these desktop (read: Graphics) users where there's room to grow in a "socially benefiting" way. Now, if only ATI & NV would catch up with Intel on the Linux support front...
Well, maybe I can clear this up. You see, they're both Open Source, but OpenOffice.org required code writing contributors (like me) to jump through hoops and assign my copyright over to the OpenOffice.org folks (Oracle), or else my contributions were denied. LibreOffice doesn't require copyright assignment to accept my contributions. So, that means it's easier to contribute to LibreOffice, and it gets updates faster. So, OpenOffice.org is missing some things that LibreOffice has. Bonus, because they're both from a common code-base, LibreOffice can just pull in anything that OpenOffice has -- The requirement of OO.o's copyright assignment meant that they could not incorporate LO code though. When Oracle decided to kill off the development of OO.o, instead of just gifting the name / trademark over to the newly forked LO folks (where most of the developers went) they gave us all the finger one more time for good measure by making OO.o an Apache project. I don't know if the Official Apache oversight of the project now means they're doing away with copyright assignments, nor do I care at this point. The name itself brings back infuriating memories of frustration and wasted efforts squandered on bureaucracy. LibreOffice already exists, so if it weren't for the older install base, it would be complete waste of time to re-do the work of merging the code back into OpenOffice.org... From a developer's perspective it IS a complete waste of time. That and there's the trademark issue where OpenOffice is owned by someone else, so you have to say OpenOffice.org when you're talking about it.
TL;DR: Stay with LO, it's actually better and not a waste of time like OO.org is.
A useless (and homophobic) response to an informative comment. Well done.
I assure you I'm not afraid of homosexuals... What I do fear is that humans may be well on their way to Idiocracy.
My fears were justified by the GGP's informative comment, which is remarkably similar to certain scenes in that movie...
I'd "woosh" you, and the down-modder, but I was rather tactless, I can see how the reference would be easily missed (it wasn't a very good one) -- I blame my inability to give a damn about being P.C. or my slashdot comments. Also note: Just because someone says Fag, doesn't mean they're a homophobic. It's similar to how I can say "Nigger" without being racist.
Spekking of bubble... Perhaps the man is right, and data is the new oil [...]
If they want to mine my ass for data I'll expect to be reimbursed with a percentage of the take -- I know the difference between my ass and a hole in the ground... It's time we put an end to all this "I drink your Milkshake!" crap.
While it is possible to write in Chinese characters using Cantonese, Minnan or Wu grammar, it's quite rare and considered strange or wrong, even in regions where those dialects are spoken.
So what you're saying is: The words would sound "pompous" and "faggy" to you?
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL was at war with properiety softwware. And thank the GPL and Stallman open source won.
Amen.
It is like self deportation. If Microsoft makes conditions miserable enough on Windows 7, they hope people will upgrade to Windows 8. It won't work because going form Windows 7 to Windows 8 is like going from Mexico to Guatemala.
You're right, but I think you got it backwards. There is no way MS can make W7 worse than W8. Stop updates alltogether, people will live with only 3rd party AV, trust me. W8 will make people want to go back to W7, or wait for W9. MS knows W8 is a disaster, they'll do what everyone (even Lawmakers & Facebook) does -- Make something so vile that it can never be embraced, then back off and apologize and give everyone something not as horrible that will be better by comparison (the next OS, W9).
I installed Windows 8 (dual boot) on my mother's PC, and when I showed it to her she couldn't say anything at all initially. She just kept strongly shaking her head left and right -- tight-lipped with anger and wide-eyed in fear -- A fear that the software somehow might not be able to be removed, or worse -- That she would actually have to use that software at work one day.
"NO. Just, No...", that's all she said about Windows 8 before leaving the room. I felt as if I'd disappointed her greatly by doing something that wasn't anyones fault -- It was exactly like when I started my truck while the cat was sleeping on the engine block, and got caught in the fan-belt... Everyone just felt horrible, and there was a terrible mess to clean up afterwards. I began re-formatting the partition immediately, and assured her she had nothing to fear since no sensible IT staff would install Windows 8 and the Interface formally known as Metro.
Going from W7 to W8 is more like going from The Bronx to Gotham City. Somewhat similar levels of (cyber) crime, sense of security, and it still has some basic elements an OS should. However, with Windows 8 there's a necessary cognitive leap: A profound Suspension of Disbelief must be maintained whereby you understand everything is pointlessly exaggerated and fake feeling; Where it's clear you're not completely in control, and the most simple tasks become just irritating enough not to balk outright, but to slowly drive you Mad as you routinely try to perform them.
Or, if you prefer: It's like when you see a PC screen on CSI -- It's vaguely recognizable as a computer OS, but you know it's only really usable for exactly that one thing they're doing: Playing make-believe, pretending to use a real OS.
You're developping an OS because the UI had problems ? If your coffee machine fails you start designing a nuclear power plant ? And if your car is having tire problems you probably start building your own refinary...
It was something I'd wanted to do for a while, and instead of just complaining I'm actually doing something about it now. Don't get me wrong, I can use any OS fine, but that doesn't mean that I won't be frustrated while doing so, and thinking of all the ways everything could be improved, if only they did it differently... UI issues with Ubuntu Unity was just the tipping point. Without them it may have been years before I got fed up enough to start a whole new OS -- I might have even been content with just making a new window manager (or improving XFCE), but the proverbial camel has now broken its back.
I have a sligtly different take on OSs inspired by shortcomings that most modern OSs have... Some things I want to do just aren't possible using Linux or BSD. Some things I want to do could be implemented in a POSIX OS, like these, but just aren't being done. For instance: Set up groups for capabilites, and run every program as its own user. So, you'd have Firefox, wget, IRC clients, etc in the "WAN" group, IRC, ThunderBird, etc in the "Identity" and "WAN" Groups, groups for managing different services, etc. Each program also gets its own group. This way, no program can read any other program's data (or your data) unless they have permission. ThunderBird can't access your IRC chat logs, the IRC client can't access your Internet History files, etc. If you wanted to give Firefox access to say, run say Steam clients: You'd add Firefox to the "Steam" group.
Apache is often configured to run as its own user -- Everything else needs to do this too, IMO. Without a policy to enforce this behavior in the distro or OS itself it just takes too much effort to keep re-configuring things this way. If the OS enforced such behavior natively then many other things become possible, like trusted Agents, fully sandboxed plugins, and being able to automatically query for capabilites regardless of the particular programs installed...
My way isn't for everyone, but it suits me. I'm a "Focus on the Solution, not on the Problem" sort of guy.
One of the other commenters quoted Linus, "Talk is cheap, Show me the Code". I have that on my coffee mug right now :-)
Unfortunately most of my work is in machine code and although it works for me, it isn't well tested since that's not my main concern just yet. When I get to the point of having more stable code in a more readable form than raw op-codes or half-implemented ASM, then I'll be sure to release it. Until then, here's the raw memory bootable hex editor I mentioned: Hexabootable. This one has a couple more features and a Visual interface rather than my first EDLINE like input method; Although it fits in a 512 byte boot sector there's no room for a drive partition table (meh, those are really more of a reccomendation, not an essential rule). You should still be able to boot it from a drive via:
dd if=hexboot.img of=$YOUR_DRIVE
or using a VM (which you should use instead if you value your hardware).
I went through and heavily commented EVERYTHING, so even folks who don't know x86 assembler can follow along. There's 26 bytes left of space in the image, so when I have time I'll see about squeezing in the text input mode I've implemented in machine code on a live instance; Till then it's Hexadecimal all the way.
Happy Hacking!
On yesterday's PCs, I could just write raw machine code in Hex, save it to the 1st sector of a drive, boot the disk and be in full control of my own hardware with my own code. Many new-ish PCs now use EFI. To boot from EFI I have to write my machine code within a FAT (32) container, which means implementing MS's proprietary and patent encumbered File Allocation Table format... Tomorrow's PCs will use UEFI to boot, which requires a cryptographically signed EFI boot process. That means signing my own bootloader and installing my own keys, or paying for a key for each bootable from MS (some UEFI systems allow booting w/o signature via special boot mode, some do not) -- On ARM platforms shipping Win RT, MS has said the option to boot unsigned code or install user specified keys must be removed.
So, you can see how it's slowly gotten a bit harder to play with my own new hardware thanks to the increasingly high hoops I've got to jump through. If Microsoft has their way you won't be able to boot any OS that doesn't fork over the cash to them. In fact, even the Linux Foundation is planning to pay MS for the right to sign a bootloader so you can still boot your own software on UEFI hardware. I think that's horrible. I understand they want to make it easy for users to run free software but IMO, paying MS one red cent to give us back the freedom to use our own software with our own hardware is just vile and disgusting. Instead, I'll buy from vendors that respect my freedom. The subject line say MS + Secure Boot == PC Death, but really Apple, and many other vendors who don't let us unlock our devices to run arbitrary code are equally as evil in my book.
Recently a longing for the good ol' days of unfettered computing led me to creating Hexabootable. It's a 512 byte boot sector that contains a Hex editor. With it you can edit raw memory then execute the memory you just edited. Using only this minimal tool you can extend the program's features (eg: disk I/O), write any other program, even create a whole new Operating System -- Indeed that's exactly what I'm doing.
None of my hardware or software hacking hobbies will be possible if the OEMs get their way and lock us out of our own hardware. It's all under the guise of Security, but that's not really the reason. Think about it: OS code is huge and bug ridden; If there's even one kernel level arbitrary code execution vulnerability then the whole effort is useless. If the OS makers could write secure (read: bug free) OS's they would be just as secure with and without secure boot! If they can't write secure OSs then secure boot is pointless! Truly, I can use known exploit vectors against every modern OS, secure boot or not, to run my own unsigned machine code, and so can malware writers... So it's not a boot for normal end user security, it's just digital shackles. The real reason Secure Boot Chains exists is to keep you from tampering with your own computer.
Now, what I do find hopeful is the cool work in the embedded systems fields. There are several projects that strive to be as transparent to the user as possible, and get their code up and running controlling everything. Unfortunately you don't always get to run plain machine code on all of the hobbyist devices. Open hardware initiatives give me a warm fuzzy feeling -- That's what will save the "PC" (Personal Computer) in my opinion. Protip: If you can't personalize the machine code and/or hardware, then it's really an Impersonal Computer -- An impostor of the worst kind...
Here's a fun aside: Since I write software in machine code, I could release it under the GPL and provide no other "source code" but the binaries :-P
Conversely, if you know Machine Code, every (non encrypted) binary executable is Open Source!
That's the big question - is it a coincidence? It's entirely possible that, just as the CNO cycle is a common method of fusion in stars, that DNA, RNA or close analogues.
I think that amino acid chains aren't the only way to form life, but amino acids do form and form chains when you take an environment that is like Earth's early history, and blast it with electricity (and cosmic rays).
However, If we find viable DNA on Mars it makes it much more likely that we share a common ancestor.
My concern with bringing DNA here from a now "lifeless" world is that we may find out what made that world lifeless, first hand...
I have never once worried about cellphones causing cancer. I understand how non-ionizing radiation works, and have built a suitable tin-foil hat.
Unfortunately we in the developed countries that are in decline are not unhappy enough in large enough numbers to effectuate change at this time.
Unfortunate indeed. FTUSDI:
[...] whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
What's that they say of the cyclic nature of history? I put it to you that it's not enough to know history to avoid repeating it; We must also be mindful of it always. Otherwise, in the end there will be lots of, "sorry, but you leave us no choice" on both sides of the double edged sword of power.
Australia has been the US's lap dog for quite a few decades now. They say jump, we say 'how high?'.
... Then I look at you crosswise and say: "I said JUMP, not Ask Questions!"
They already do this. It's why there's a levy (Pirate Tax) on blank media. As a content creator who doesn't infringe copyrights, I think that I'd be justified if I did -- I mean. That we ALL are paying taxes on blank media to compensate for copyright infringement is a free license to pirate if you ask me.
Kaspersky is foolish. I make OSs too, and there can be no Exploit Proof OS. You can't make an exploit proof OS on insecure hardware. DMA == Direct Memory Access. Any device that uses DMA (and there are tons: PCI, Firewire, etc.), can read and write all memory everywhere in the system without any software being able to stop them. Look, I'm all for creating a very secure OS, but first we must create secure HARDWARE. It's not as if the OS can protect itself from exploitable hardware with firmware bugs.
If Kaspersky's not foolish, the the definition of "secure", "OS" and "exploit" in TFS are all extremely suspect...
After trying to use the beta, and now release, and after months of fighting Unity in the the prior versions: I got so fed up that I actually started creating my own OS from scratch! Well, from Assembly... Initially anyway.
First I made a Hex editor for RAM (in under 446 bytes) that can call into the edited memory. I wrote that to a USB drive, plugged it into a spare computer which is now Dev Machine Zero. After booting the MBR hex editor I created a "Save RAM Segment to Disk" by manually inputting binary op codes (machine code). Once I could save my work from RAM to disk, I began work on a simple 2 stage chaining boot loader -- It already lets me multi-boot and supports my extensible hash-based encryption, which I use for signing/decrypting the 2nd stage loader and primordial kernel. As soon as I'm done implementing keyed SHA3 I'll use it to support full drive encryption at boot. It been little over a week of evenings and my bootstrap loader now replaces GRUB on all my systems. I'm also about 1/4th of the way through my new assembler language (it's currently a subset of 8086 only); When it's done I'll extend the Assembler using itself to support macros and finally begin bootstrapping myself into a compiler for a higher level language, like C (or maybe a C-ish lang of my own design).
I sometimes do low level work on custom embedded systems programming, so I know a bit about OS development / design. I could use a cross compiler and/or a VM in a host OS, but I where's the fun in that? Besides, I can PROVE my bootstrap and compiler process didn't inject any back doors (as in Ken Thompson's Trusting Trust). There simply was no room for back-doors; I can "trust no one" because every last byte is accounted for.
It's been forever since I wrote any Real Mode code; Ah fond memories: Outputting MOD files to the PC speaker, low res 320x200 256c graphics, direct disk IO, 640K + "High Memory"... I'll almost be sad to make the switch into Protected Mode and write the device drivers & file systems.
Well, Thanks Ubuntu! I've had this idea for an Agent oriented OS kicking around for a while -- If it weren't for your usability failures pushing my frustrations over the edge I would still just be thinking, "Any idiot could do better than this!" instead of actually giving it a shot. Also, to all those "why re-invent the wheel" types: When's the last time you saw a wagon wheel on a sports car, eh?
I'm still a loyal NetBSD & Slackware luser, but screw Ubuntu. I still have to use Ubuntu for testing packaging of my other projects, but instead of fighting the UI or glitches now I just take a deep breath, get a fresh cup of coffee and add a new feature to the only OS developed with my usability in mind.
I've never been wrong when I've said: I can tell you're not dreaming about this picture I drew of the mobile drilling machine I piloted while trying to head off a subterranean nuke-missile and save the world, before I decided to take a detour and visit my "middle-earth" high-school, which is why the pic shows the Magma-Men and I gathered 'round the rig with glowing smiles.
Honestly, you could monitor my dreams and accurately compare every photograph of everything in the entire Universe and you'd still never find a match for what's going on in my head -- Unless, on the off chance you have a picture of a gorgeous nude demon girl with charcoal skin and lidless black eyes with her arm around me sitting on the basket ball bleachers while we watch a swarm of angelic and infernal beasts play a celestial game of hoops with my flaming immortal soul...
Divisionists are Categoriacally Flawwed. Once you see through the Illusion of Choice, it's hard to accept the government as legitimate.
We sleep because there is a Day and Night. Sun = More Energy & More Visibility. It leads to cycles of activity, which leads to traits which take advantage of these cycles. It's not a mystery. Activity and Rest cycles exist because that's how cells work at the chemical level... It would be like saying: "Daisies and many plants close up after the sun goes down, but WHY!?! It's a mystery!" Protip: Plants don't think; There is no reasoning with plants.
Well, I like graphics, so what about all the work that went into MESA3 OpenGL drivers? Most people I ask "So, what's keeping you from using Linux 100% full time?" Their answer is crappy graphics drivers and no games. In my spare time I'm working to help fix the latter part, so are many other game devs, and a working OpenGL stack is essential.... Think about it, everyone knows Linux is really strong in the server market, so it's these desktop (read: Graphics) users where there's room to grow in a "socially benefiting" way. Now, if only ATI & NV would catch up with Intel on the Linux support front...
So you won't be content with Vaseline'ed Viper?
Nope, that comes after - Unisex Uruk-Hai Ubuntu Unity, At which point I'd prefer an Unlimited Ulcerated Uvula than Ultimately Using Ubuntu fUrther.
Well, maybe I can clear this up. You see, they're both Open Source, but OpenOffice.org required code writing contributors (like me) to jump through hoops and assign my copyright over to the OpenOffice.org folks (Oracle), or else my contributions were denied. LibreOffice doesn't require copyright assignment to accept my contributions. So, that means it's easier to contribute to LibreOffice, and it gets updates faster. So, OpenOffice.org is missing some things that LibreOffice has. Bonus, because they're both from a common code-base, LibreOffice can just pull in anything that OpenOffice has -- The requirement of OO.o's copyright assignment meant that they could not incorporate LO code though. When Oracle decided to kill off the development of OO.o, instead of just gifting the name / trademark over to the newly forked LO folks (where most of the developers went) they gave us all the finger one more time for good measure by making OO.o an Apache project. I don't know if the Official Apache oversight of the project now means they're doing away with copyright assignments, nor do I care at this point. The name itself brings back infuriating memories of frustration and wasted efforts squandered on bureaucracy. LibreOffice already exists, so if it weren't for the older install base, it would be complete waste of time to re-do the work of merging the code back into OpenOffice.org... From a developer's perspective it IS a complete waste of time. That and there's the trademark issue where OpenOffice is owned by someone else, so you have to say OpenOffice.org when you're talking about it.
TL;DR: Stay with LO, it's actually better and not a waste of time like OO.org is.
A useless (and homophobic) response to an informative comment. Well done.
I assure you I'm not afraid of homosexuals... What I do fear is that humans may be well on their way to Idiocracy.
My fears were justified by the GGP's informative comment, which is remarkably similar to certain scenes in that movie...
I'd "woosh" you, and the down-modder, but I was rather tactless, I can see how the reference would be easily missed (it wasn't a very good one) -- I blame my inability to give a damn about being P.C. or my slashdot comments. Also note: Just because someone says Fag, doesn't mean they're a homophobic. It's similar to how I can say "Nigger" without being racist.
What level of access do they have? I need details explaining more.
Ah, how quick the fools are to simply forget about Carrier IQ.
Verizon's the first, but watch Google and others to follow now that it's mainstreamed.
Introducing: Google Now!
Interdasting, its almost like you can predict the past.
Spekking of bubble... Perhaps the man is right, and data is the new oil [...]
If they want to mine my ass for data I'll expect to be reimbursed with a percentage of the take -- I know the difference between my ass and a hole in the ground... It's time we put an end to all this "I drink your Milkshake!" crap.
While it is possible to write in Chinese characters using Cantonese, Minnan or Wu grammar, it's quite rare and considered strange or wrong, even in regions where those dialects are spoken.
So what you're saying is: The words would sound "pompous" and "faggy" to you?
"Shirley"? you jest...
BONSAI!!