OK, listen up guys. What are you discussing now is actually the designer feature thoughtfully provided by Steve Jobbs himself. Imagine, just imagine - you're listening to the iTunes music on your iPhone. Do you want to be distracted in such a wonderful moment? No! *Especially* not by a phone call!
Well, socialism isn't the "friendly" version of communism. It wasn't even mentioned by Marx. The original idea has seen communism as next evolutionary step of society after capitalism. The idea of socialism - the transitional state on the route to communism - was "invented" later. There were plans in the USSR to build the communism by, AFAIK, 1980. In the 1980 there were still no communism around, but the Party had to report some achievements. So they simply said "we now have socialism".
I'll try to put it simple - the actual idea of communism is a fair society. There is no money in such society. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.". Of course, in the material world such society is impossible - people tend to take more and give less.
But there is a realm where such model is not only possible, but also very effective. Think again -- "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Looks familiar, isn't it? In the software world, one may take as much as he wants - is costs virtually nothing to produce another copy of particular software. That is "to each according to his need" part. As for "from each according to his ability", well few people program, some more translate and write patches, many more write bug reports.
It's sad, that the communism is viewed as a synonym for tyranny, the idea is actually nice. If the perception of communism wasn't that bad, FSF could be the SCP - Software Communism Party:-)
The *correct* description would be something like "first human in space". And it would be nice to mention what country he is from - in respect to all the people who made this achievement possible, don't you think?
I do remember the outcry from some us-senators when google has put the Sputnik on its logo. Just as I thought, some US-Americans (unfortunately, many of them hold some power in the country) desperately want to forget and deny the simple fact, that it was the Soviet Union who made it first - Sputnik, first manned space journey, first space station - and not their precious US of A.
[offtopic]I bet, none of them even knows what communism means, they believe it's for "big bad evil with GULAG inside"[/offtopic]
Yeah, sure...
And who was flying back and forth supplying the ISS after Columbia disaster? The Russians with their "outdated" and "commie-made" yet robust, reliable and simple enough spacecrafts. How many months did it take to find out the cause for the crash and a way to fix (not a good one though if you think about later open-space repairs) remaining overpriced and overgloried but also highly complex and not-so-reliable shuttles? Without "Progress" spacecrafts the ISS would join the "Mir" soon enough.
They might take the index from Windows/Google Desktop search and send only the information they want to see.
But that's not the main question. More interesting is, how exactly the will implement the whole thing. there are three variants:
- "classic" trojan provided by the same methods as today's criminals do. Threat - minimal provided you're not stupid.
- by-default-enabled backdoor in operating system. Threat - critical! If the government is able to install and run software through this backdoor, criminals will find out how to use it too.
- "physical" installation: the operatives come to your place (with a search warrant of course) and install the spying software manually. Threat - medium. In fact it is not much different from bugging your phone. The downside is that technically-skilled criminals will find soon enough if they're bugged.
GIMP and Blender have something I call "intuitive interface". You try to do something, you fail once, twice and eventually you'll intuitively understand that you have to read the manual:-)
To be serious, if you manage to get through the learning curve, you'll see that it is indeed comfortable.
is now fighting back against security researchers that seek to destroy it and has them running scared
From "Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say": Our users will know fear and cower before our software.
Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!
No more GIMP vs Photoshop, please!
on
GIMP 2.4 Released
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
GIMP was NEVER intended to replace, duplicate or mimic photoshop. Neither was it created to draw users from photoshop. Unfamiliar doesn't mean bad or uncomfortable. They go their own way. Some like it, some don't. You are free to use gimpshop if you like to.
I really see no points in this interface discussion.
In Russia (not the Soviet Russia, the modern one) there is a Linux distribution called Linux XP. They sell it without opening source codes and they are clearly against the GPL. http://www.linux-xp.com/ These bastards have indeed put the activation into the kernel. It is by all means most windows-like distribution - you even run as root by default. Too bad the legal situation with the GPL isn't clear in the country so they can carry on. Hope it'll change soon.
I don't get it why people complain about OOO's lack of incompatibility with MSO. OK, I do understand the complaints but it is by all means NOT an OOO's issue. They are doing good job instead trying to support closed, obfuscated and buggy format. So while the incompatibility issues are true, isn't it better to say that it's Microsoft's fault? They refuse to open their formats and protocols, they refuse to support open formats after all.
I sure wish that EU antitrust commission takes care of this mess. Incompatibility is important, so forcing MS to open their Exchange protocols and even format's specs would be the right thing to do and essential to create an Office-killer in the business world.
Future versions are promised to include a camera as well. In the meantime one may connect an USB camera although it is not an elegant solution.
But a camera is not on the list of wanted features for me. I'll buy myself such Neo for Christmas (hope it'll be ready till then).
The people behind openmoco are really awesome - they were willing to give up WLAN because there were no chipsets with open drivers. Luckily they have found aetheros chipset afterwards, so 1973 will support wireless networking. Such approach is very rare in the times of profit-at-all-cost companies. They have earned my respect by having principles.
Sure, one just have to wait till openmoko's Neo 1973 is ready. It has almost everything an iPhone has (safe for camera), plus GPS, plus no vendor-locking.
AND you can replace the battery if you like!
A very creative solution to say the least. Although, it sounds to me that this isn't a "Windows" problem as much as it is the unstable application that's bringing the system down. Either way, the solution is impressive.
I just couldn't resist and add some "lin vs. win" salt to the story.
If they make it possible to make interface work better if I am stressed, I will have only one question - why not turn the "stressed" option on by default? I simply don't get it, if they think they can make programs work safer/faster/better, why can't they do this without the need for me to be stressed.
I am concerned whether someone is allowed to see what ads do I get. Sure, if google will publish my search terms or any other private information, it will be illegal. But is it legal for google to tell e.g. government agencies about the ads I get? Not a tinfoil hat fan, just curios.
A couple of years ago a friend of mine asked me for an advice. He has just started to work as a sysadmin at some middle-sized bank. They have had a lot of *NIX servers that were working just fine. But there was also one Windows NT-based server there with a *very* special application which was absolutely crucial for bank's business processes. The very special "feature" of this application was that it crashed quite often and took the whole server to the realm of BSODs with every crash. The old sysadmin was working in the server room and has had no problem resetting the server manually if needed. My friend, however, preferred remote administration from his sunny office (yea, i know, how weird it sounds:) ) so walking down to server room in order to restart a server was hardly an option for him.
Fixing a program was not possible - no source code was available.
After a weirdest brainstorming i have ever participated at, he finally found a solution - he has built together a crappy PC with linux 2.4 on board and connected it to the server via a crossover cable. The sole task of this PC was to ping the alleged server and if it wasn't responding - eject/dev/hdc. The cd-rom drive opened itself and pressed the Reset button on the server. Fool-proofed system and the funniest linux-based solution to solve windows proglems I've seen in my life.
This IS censorship. I've seen too much of this in my life... Wouldn't expect it to happen in Great Britain - the country claims to be very liberal on human rights (a way too much in some cases).
One tip to the British government - if you want to fight some real terrorists, you better start with all the Chechen "rebels" you have given asylum to, not some teenagers.
It really pisses me off, when extremists were (are?) able to openly recruit new volunteers to fight in Chechnya right in the heart of London, when obvious criminals like Pinochet and Beresowsky play with British justice while enjoying their stay in most comfortable apartments in the City, but 17-year old teenagers are prosecuted for a single BOOK they possess.
How long will it take till the government starts to burn forbidden books?
...to protect the end user from himself. Programs do require chmod +x to be run, but there in another opportunity I like very much: it is possible to forbid the end user to execute programs from a folder which owner isn't root. So the user would need to:
1. download malware
2. chmod +x malware
3. su
4. cp./malware/bin/
5./bin/malware/
6. ???
7. Profit! (Sorry, couldn't stand it)
As for me, I don't have any anti* software. I have a firewall (the real one, not some "this app is trying to connect to the internet Cancel/Allow" one), Gentoo Linux with portage-only software, no custom installations, recompiled kernel and Common Sense as the major line of defence against phishing and trojans. I know that my system is well-protected yet I still don't click those stupid links and don't open attachments in suspicious mails anyway even although the malware will not work on my system.
I like the idea of computer user's licence similar to driver's license, but, unfortunately it is not possible.
I really enjoy reading all the comments from US/.ers immediately recalling their moon program. Come on! As much as you would like to think that USA was and remains a superior country, you have to admit, that your precious country wasn't the first one to explore space.
That always reminds me of NASA referring to Yuri Gagarin as to "The first European in space". Even 50 years later the US-American ego is badly hurt by Soviet supremacy in space.
Nevertheless, it is one of the greatest achievements of mankind.
Customers don't care if it works. I prefer open-source drivers - they don't get unsupported because some company wants me to buy their new products and doesn't release drivers for old hardware to work with new specs (see legacy nvidia drivers and X.org 7.3).
I've been working at a casino for about three years and I must say, that Asian people are more likely to get addicted to gambling than Europeans. I don't know why it is so, but for some reason Asians are more focused on the game itself, forgetting just about anything else. This phenomena is widely known in the gambling industry yet there were only games of chance before online MMORPG's come. So it is nothing new here, it just an Asian peculiarity (genetic, perhaps) moved to another realm.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, listen up guys.
What are you discussing now is actually the designer feature thoughtfully provided by Steve Jobbs himself.
Imagine, just imagine - you're listening to the iTunes music on your iPhone. Do you want to be distracted in such a wonderful moment? No!
*Especially* not by a phone call!
Hans Reiser?!
"If the tunnels collapse how will you get to and from the servers for maintenance?"
man ssh
Well, socialism isn't the "friendly" version of communism. It wasn't even mentioned by Marx. The original idea has seen communism as next evolutionary step of society after capitalism. The idea of socialism - the transitional state on the route to communism - was "invented" later. There were plans in the USSR to build the communism by, AFAIK, 1980. In the 1980 there were still no communism around, but the Party had to report some achievements. So they simply said "we now have socialism".
:-)
I'll try to put it simple - the actual idea of communism is a fair society. There is no money in such society. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.". Of course, in the material world such society is impossible - people tend to take more and give less.
But there is a realm where such model is not only possible, but also very effective. Think again -- "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Looks familiar, isn't it? In the software world, one may take as much as he wants - is costs virtually nothing to produce another copy of particular software. That is "to each according to his need" part. As for "from each according to his ability", well few people program, some more translate and write patches, many more write bug reports.
It's sad, that the communism is viewed as a synonym for tyranny, the idea is actually nice. If the perception of communism wasn't that bad, FSF could be the SCP - Software Communism Party
The *correct* description would be something like "first human in space". And it would be nice to mention what country he is from - in respect to all the people who made this achievement possible, don't you think?
I do remember the outcry from some us-senators when google has put the Sputnik on its logo.
Just as I thought, some US-Americans (unfortunately, many of them hold some power in the country) desperately want to forget and deny the simple fact, that it was the Soviet Union who made it first - Sputnik, first manned space journey, first space station - and not their precious US of A.
[offtopic]I bet, none of them even knows what communism means, they believe it's for "big bad evil with GULAG inside"[/offtopic]
Yeah, sure...
And who was flying back and forth supplying the ISS after Columbia disaster? The Russians with their "outdated" and "commie-made" yet robust, reliable and simple enough spacecrafts. How many months did it take to find out the cause for the crash and a way to fix (not a good one though if you think about later open-space repairs) remaining overpriced and overgloried but also highly complex and not-so-reliable shuttles? Without "Progress" spacecrafts the ISS would join the "Mir" soon enough.
They might take the index from Windows/Google Desktop search and send only the information they want to see.
But that's not the main question. More interesting is, how exactly the will implement the whole thing. there are three variants:
- "classic" trojan provided by the same methods as today's criminals do. Threat - minimal provided you're not stupid.
- by-default-enabled backdoor in operating system. Threat - critical! If the government is able to install and run software through this backdoor, criminals will find out how to use it too.
- "physical" installation: the operatives come to your place (with a search warrant of course) and install the spying software manually. Threat - medium. In fact it is not much different from bugging your phone. The downside is that technically-skilled criminals will find soon enough if they're bugged.
GIMP and Blender have something I call "intuitive interface". You try to do something, you fail once, twice and eventually you'll intuitively understand that you have to read the manual :-)
To be serious, if you manage to get through the learning curve, you'll see that it is indeed comfortable.
is now fighting back against security researchers that seek to destroy it and has them running scared
From "Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say":
Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!
GIMP was NEVER intended to replace, duplicate or mimic photoshop. Neither was it created to draw users from photoshop. Unfamiliar doesn't mean bad or uncomfortable. They go their own way. Some like it, some don't. You are free to use gimpshop if you like to. I really see no points in this interface discussion.
In Russia (not the Soviet Russia, the modern one) there is a Linux distribution called Linux XP. They sell it without opening source codes and they are clearly against the GPL.
http://www.linux-xp.com/
These bastards have indeed put the activation into the kernel. It is by all means most windows-like distribution - you even run as root by default.
Too bad the legal situation with the GPL isn't clear in the country so they can carry on. Hope it'll change soon.
Sure. Do you know someone who is working as non-admin on XP? It's a bit of very bad user experience. The system is a single-user one.
I don't get it why people complain about OOO's lack of incompatibility with MSO. OK, I do understand the complaints but it is by all means NOT an OOO's issue. They are doing good job instead trying to support closed, obfuscated and buggy format. So while the incompatibility issues are true, isn't it better to say that it's Microsoft's fault? They refuse to open their formats and protocols, they refuse to support open formats after all.
I sure wish that EU antitrust commission takes care of this mess. Incompatibility is important, so forcing MS to open their Exchange protocols and even format's specs would be the right thing to do and essential to create an Office-killer in the business world.
Future versions are promised to include a camera as well. In the meantime one may connect an USB camera although it is not an elegant solution.
But a camera is not on the list of wanted features for me. I'll buy myself such Neo for Christmas (hope it'll be ready till then).
The people behind openmoco are really awesome - they were willing to give up WLAN because there were no chipsets with open drivers. Luckily they have found aetheros chipset afterwards, so 1973 will support wireless networking.
Such approach is very rare in the times of profit-at-all-cost companies. They have earned my respect by having principles.
Sure, one just have to wait till openmoko's Neo 1973 is ready. It has almost everything an iPhone has (safe for camera), plus GPS, plus no vendor-locking.
AND you can replace the battery if you like!
I just couldn't resist and add some "lin vs. win" salt to the story.
If they make it possible to make interface work better if I am stressed, I will have only one question - why not turn the "stressed" option on by default?
I simply don't get it, if they think they can make programs work safer/faster/better, why can't they do this without the need for me to be stressed.
I am concerned whether someone is allowed to see what ads do I get. Sure, if google will publish my search terms or any other private information, it will be illegal. But is it legal for google to tell e.g. government agencies about the ads I get? Not a tinfoil hat fan, just curios.
A couple of years ago a friend of mine asked me for an advice. He has just started to work as a sysadmin at some middle-sized bank. They have had a lot of *NIX servers that were working just fine. But there was also one Windows NT-based server there with a *very* special application which was absolutely crucial for bank's business processes. The very special "feature" of this application was that it crashed quite often and took the whole server to the realm of BSODs with every crash. The old sysadmin was working in the server room and has had no problem resetting the server manually if needed. My friend, however, preferred remote administration from his sunny office (yea, i know, how weird it sounds :) ) so walking down to server room in order to restart a server was hardly an option for him.
/dev/hdc.
Fixing a program was not possible - no source code was available.
After a weirdest brainstorming i have ever participated at, he finally found a solution - he has built together a crappy PC with linux 2.4 on board and connected it to the server via a crossover cable.
The sole task of this PC was to ping the alleged server and if it wasn't responding - eject
The cd-rom drive opened itself and pressed the Reset button on the server. Fool-proofed system and the funniest linux-based solution to solve windows proglems I've seen in my life.
This IS censorship. I've seen too much of this in my life...
Wouldn't expect it to happen in Great Britain - the country claims to be very liberal on human rights (a way too much in some cases).
One tip to the British government - if you want to fight some real terrorists, you better start with all the Chechen "rebels" you have given asylum to, not some teenagers.
It really pisses me off, when extremists were (are?) able to openly recruit new volunteers to fight in Chechnya right in the heart of London, when obvious criminals like Pinochet and Beresowsky play with British justice while enjoying their stay in most comfortable apartments in the City, but 17-year old teenagers are prosecuted for a single BOOK they possess.
How long will it take till the government starts to burn forbidden books?
...to protect the end user from himself. Programs do require chmod +x to be run, but there in another opportunity I like very much: it is possible to forbid the end user to execute programs from a folder which owner isn't root. So the user would need to:
./malware /bin/
/bin/malware/
1. download malware
2. chmod +x malware
3. su
4. cp
5.
6. ???
7. Profit! (Sorry, couldn't stand it)
As for me, I don't have any anti* software. I have a firewall (the real one, not some "this app is trying to connect to the internet Cancel/Allow" one), Gentoo Linux with portage-only software, no custom installations, recompiled kernel and Common Sense as the major line of defence against phishing and trojans.
I know that my system is well-protected yet I still don't click those stupid links and don't open attachments in suspicious mails anyway even although the malware will not work on my system.
I like the idea of computer user's licence similar to driver's license, but, unfortunately it is not possible.
I really enjoy reading all the comments from US /.ers immediately recalling their moon program. Come on! As much as you would like to think that USA was and remains a superior country, you have to admit, that your precious country wasn't the first one to explore space.
That always reminds me of NASA referring to Yuri Gagarin as to "The first European in space". Even 50 years later the US-American ego is badly hurt by Soviet supremacy in space.
Nevertheless, it is one of the greatest achievements of mankind.
Customers don't care if it works. I prefer open-source drivers - they don't get unsupported because some company wants me to buy their new products and doesn't release drivers for old hardware to work with new specs (see legacy nvidia drivers and X.org 7.3).
I've been working at a casino for about three years and I must say, that Asian people are more likely to get addicted to gambling than Europeans. I don't know why it is so, but for some reason Asians are more focused on the game itself, forgetting just about anything else. This phenomena is widely known in the gambling industry yet there were only games of chance before online MMORPG's come. So it is nothing new here, it just an Asian peculiarity (genetic, perhaps) moved to another realm.