Agreed, the fantastic new Ubuntu was crap on my desktop computer and totally unusable on this little 10" Toshiba Atom netbook I'm using right now, with Linux Mint 17/Mate. It was worse than the win 7 that said netbook was supplied with.
Mint 17 with Mate was like a breath of fresh air after all the bloatware rubbish that was being dumped on us i.e. both my computers with GUI desktops plus the quite old laptop of a friend are all running responsively, like a computer should.
There's nothing wrong with the Ubuntu Server distribution AFAICT - I was running the last LTS version 24/7 at home for nearly five years and I'm now running the current LTS version again with no issues.
I have a Cinnamon virtual machine installed on the desktop which I update and play around with once in a while, to see if I want to swap to Cinnamon next time I upgrade. At the moment I prefer Mate but Cinnamon has definitely improved since I first tried it out...
....free thinking citizens of the world pulled together to put an end to this nonsense.
Microsoft is nothing more than a money gathering machine, so the best way to attack it would be to cut off the money supply. The only legal way I can think of to attempt this is to spread knowledge of free solutions as widely as possible.
My suggestion would be to approach some media production company, preferably one that depends upon open source because they might do it for free, and persuade them to work with a well known personality, perhaps somebody like Steven Fry (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) who might also do it for free. Produce a short public information type film demonstrating how to use Windows to download a good Linux desktop OS and burn the ISO file to a DVD, then use that DVD to install Linux onto a computer.
It might take a kick-starter campaign to raise funds to put it onto TV.
Just this morning, after it's not been driven for about six years for various reasons, I paid a very large garage bill for fixing up my 1991 Honda Civic.
This car has no engine ECU, no ABS, no airbags, no lane assist, no automatic braking, no shit at all. What it DOES have is four wheels, brakes, lights and something to steer it with. It also has twin carburettors and a manual choke.
First job was to fill it with petrol, and as the engine warmed up I started to remember just how good this old car is to drive. The large garage bill was well worth every single penny. It puts a huge grin on my face every single time. There's not many '91 Civics around these days, but if you have the opportunity to buy a decent one, do so and care for it. You will be rewarded.
So, as I started to say at the top, Google and Tesla, you can take your autonomous vehicles and shove them high up where the sun don't shine.
Over here in the UK for example, every vehicle has to have an MOT certificate to be used on the road. No certificate, no go. ANPRS cameras check that passing vehicles have certificates and insurance.
Part of the MOT certificate is the emissions test. There will most likely be a requirement that VW diesels have to have their ECU firmware updated before they can pass the emissions test.
because I ALWAYS let my banks know when I'm travelling abroad, and where I'm going to. That means that when I use a credit or debit card in a foreign country, they know that it's unlikely to be a fraudster with a cloned card, and if a withdrawal is made from my card in, say, Hong Kong when I've not told the bank I'm travelling there, then they know it's fraudulent.
Therefore I have absolutely no problem with them knowing from, say, a hotel IP address, where I'm located if I use my laptop to log in to my accounts.
The reason for electricity mains operating at a dangerously high voltage is that it reduces the current flowing through the wiring which therefore reduces voltage drops and wasted energy due to heat dissipation in the wiring.
IMHO the best way to maximise power efficiency is to use a decent quality switching power supply, either a wall wart or built in, which is correctly matched to the requirements of the equipment. I think manufacturers are getting better at this, for example my Virgin Media "Superhub" which is supplied with what appears to be a decent quality switching supply so both the hub and the wall wart are only slightly warm to the touch, certainly not hot.
I recall purchasing, something like 10 years ago, a small 5 port Ethernet switch which was supplied with the usual cheap wall wart with a simple transformer and rectifier inside. Both the switch and the wall wart ran uncomfortably hot with, I assume, a linear voltage regulator inside the switch which would have slowly roasted itself to death sometime after the warranty period expired. Not satisfied, I tried powering the switch with a laboratory supply which I adjusted to the minimum voltage required for the switch to operate reliably. Then I purchased from CPC a decent quality switch mode wall wart of the same voltage, which I think cost me several quid more than the switch did, and the switch has been running with no problems, just a little warm, ever since. Having used a plug in power meter on both wall warts I reckoned that the switch mode unit paid for itself in two years and the switch has lasted several times longer than I would have expected it to with he cheap over voltage supply. WIN-WIN!
My main problem is with the jerks who put out fake booze made from industrial methanol, dangerous fake electrical products, fake brake parts, fake aircraft parts etc. Any of these can cause injury or death, so the perpetrators, when caught, need to be put away where they can do no harm for a damn sight longer than 10 years.
I don't think that to us, the sight of a space ship from another world would be such a shock as, say, a portable generator, DVD player and flat screen TV would be to people in the 16th century. We have historical records, so we know how technology has advanced during the past few centuries and assume that it will continue during the next few centuries. Assuming that we don't wipe ourselves out, which I think is much more likely than interstellar visitors.
We already know how to build rudimentary space ships. We just need a better drive system which may or may not be possible.....
I am quite sure that if you went back 500 years and took modern technology with you, it would look quite "godlike" to those people.
I don't think I'd recommend a 500 year jump. You'd likely find yourself burning on a large stake, or drowning in the nearest body of water. OTOH it would be fun to go back and take Henry Ford for a spin in a GT40 or a Shelby Mustang. He and the other people around at the time would understand the engineering principles so you'd be perfectly safe.
But I've never had an account with them, so they must have harvested my address from somewhere else. Same as the criminals that keep trying to sell me fake blue pills perhaps?
I now avoid all supermarket fuel, since the last time I bought a tank full (not saying where) that drove like all the staff had pissed into it and I really thought the poor car was going to give up and break down on it. Until then, mileage per gallon seemed to vary from tank full to tank full, suggesting to me that quality varies, so now I avoid the stuff altogether.
What surprised me recently, though, was that when I filled my 2003 Honda Jazz at a particular station on the way home from a weekend visit to a friend, and started driving off after resetting the trip counter as usual, the mpg indicator immediately started showing a far higher number than usual. So, I tried driving for economy for the rest of the 20 or so miles journey home which has a variety of level and hills, and when I got home it had done 64.5 miles per imperial gallon. What the hell was going on? I usually get more like 47 or 48 mpg.
I can only assume that the tanker driver accidentally dumped the "good stuff" super unleaded into the ordinary unleaded tank, because last weekend I purposely bought the more expensive super unleaded (again I'm not saying which brand) and achieved exactly the same mpg on the way home. If this is consistent, it's actually worth buying the more expensive grade of fuel to get the extra mpg.
My friend who has a 2005 Jazz is going to try the same experiment with the same fuel from the same filling station to do the same journey. We'll see!
My very limited experiment of three tanks of fuel also suggests that you get more mpg with the fuel from one brand than from others. So, I know what I'm buying in future.
At 55 years old I'm one of the youngest members of my walking club.
The guy I maybe admire most (although I would never tell him that!) is 75 years old now, and goes striding up hills that would defeat many 20 year olds. Most of the members are retirees, and absolutely loving and living life to the full.
Life is partly reaping what you sow, partly luck.
If you eat crap, smoke, don't exercise, you can look forward to a miserable and early death. If your parents taught you to cook, and instilled in you enjoyment of exercise and the great outdoors rather than sitting on a fat arse in front of a games console eating chips and burgers, then you're off to a flying start.
On the other hand, you can be just plain unlucky. My wife started developing MND at maybe 45, and suffocated to death at 50.
The lady customer of 92 who I drove to her home last week, after a holiday to the USA, is a little slow these days and has to use a walking stick to get around, but I hope that at 92 my mind is still as sharp as hers is today. Will I still be able to code in C++? Who can tell?
Looking on the bright side, I have a photo of my great grandfather who, also at 92, was looking very dapper, dressed up in his suit, out in the countryside with his bicycle. He got it exactly right - he went to bed one night, slept peacefully, and didn't wake.
Don't expect and look forward to death, be good to yourself and with good luck, look forward to a long and fulfilling life.
I've got some Fuji Provia 400 and Velvia 50 in the the back of the fridge, in 120 roll format. I keep promising myself that I'll get it out one day and run it through my Bronica. Load the finished film into slide carriers and project it for the ultimate image quality. So long as you can tolerate some inevitable dust contamination nothing else comes close.
It's always nice to get at least one item of good news in a day. I guess this is it.
I've also had the snail mailed fake invoices from them, which I can only suppose is an illegal use of the whois database. I guess their strategy is to land these on the desks of overworked administrators who are more likely than me to rubber stamp them and pass them along for payment. Me? I always put them in the shredder.
Why did it take so long? I really don't know. Why is it not a permanent shut down? Don't know that either, but at least they're shut down for now.
As another contributor suggested, build everything from reinforced concrete. That way, there's no lengths of timber for the violent winds to tear off and fling around as deadly missiles in the first place. Also, perhaps some wind tunnel research could help with tornado resistance.
Or, just build underground! Yes it initially costs more, but surely it's better to have property that you only need to build once rather than risk having it destroyed by weather. I bet the insurance would be damned cheap too compared to conventional building. Climate control is also going to be far easier and cheaper - anybody who's ever visited a show cave knows that the temperature stays almost constant throughout the year.
As for the person who suggested the tornado wall, there are special places for people who are this confused......
Me too, especially when the tossers keep sending six messages the same in one day. They totally loose all feasibility. There's always somebody there though who's stupid enough to click the link otherwise we wouldn't all be suffering.
We could probably put a good dent in illegal drug sales such as fake Viagra by randomly putting detection dogs in post delivery offices and prosecuting anybody caught ordering the crap.
Slashdot Mirror
...by my apathy towards this.
I'm mid-Pacific and they're almost through the bottom of my yacht.
Agreed, the fantastic new Ubuntu was crap on my desktop computer and totally unusable on this little 10" Toshiba Atom netbook I'm using right now, with Linux Mint 17/Mate. It was worse than the win 7 that said netbook was supplied with.
Mint 17 with Mate was like a breath of fresh air after all the bloatware rubbish that was being dumped on us i.e. both my computers with GUI desktops plus the quite old laptop of a friend are all running responsively, like a computer should.
There's nothing wrong with the Ubuntu Server distribution AFAICT - I was running the last LTS version 24/7 at home for nearly five years and I'm now running the current LTS version again with no issues.
I have a Cinnamon virtual machine installed on the desktop which I update and play around with once in a while, to see if I want to swap to Cinnamon next time I upgrade. At the moment I prefer Mate but Cinnamon has definitely improved since I first tried it out...
....free thinking citizens of the world pulled together to put an end to this nonsense.
Microsoft is nothing more than a money gathering machine, so the best way to attack it would be to cut off the money supply. The only legal way I can think of to attempt this is to spread knowledge of free solutions as widely as possible.
My suggestion would be to approach some media production company, preferably one that depends upon open source because they might do it for free, and persuade them to work with a well known personality, perhaps somebody like Steven Fry (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) who might also do it for free. Produce a short public information type film demonstrating how to use Windows to download a good Linux desktop OS and burn the ISO file to a DVD, then use that DVD to install Linux onto a computer.
It might take a kick-starter campaign to raise funds to put it onto TV.
Could it work?
Just this morning, after it's not been driven for about six years for various reasons, I paid a very large garage bill for fixing up my 1991 Honda Civic.
This car has no engine ECU, no ABS, no airbags, no lane assist, no automatic braking, no shit at all. What it DOES have is four wheels, brakes, lights and something to steer it with. It also has twin carburettors and a manual choke.
First job was to fill it with petrol, and as the engine warmed up I started to remember just how good this old car is to drive. The large garage bill was well worth every single penny. It puts a huge grin on my face every single time. There's not many '91 Civics around these days, but if you have the opportunity to buy a decent one, do so and care for it. You will be rewarded.
So, as I started to say at the top, Google and Tesla, you can take your autonomous vehicles and shove them high up where the sun don't shine.
Over here in the UK for example, every vehicle has to have an MOT certificate to be used on the road. No certificate, no go. ANPRS cameras check that passing vehicles have certificates and insurance.
Part of the MOT certificate is the emissions test. There will most likely be a requirement that VW diesels have to have their ECU firmware updated before they can pass the emissions test.
That's what I reckon will happen.
I'd love to have a decent telescope but won't buy anything that depends on the Dark Side.
at the Fletcher Memorial Home.
because I ALWAYS let my banks know when I'm travelling abroad, and where I'm going to. That means that when I use a credit or debit card in a foreign country, they know that it's unlikely to be a fraudster with a cloned card, and if a withdrawal is made from my card in, say, Hong Kong when I've not told the bank I'm travelling there, then they know it's fraudulent.
Therefore I have absolutely no problem with them knowing from, say, a hotel IP address, where I'm located if I use my laptop to log in to my accounts.
just like the prisoner who sent an email to get out, by using proper open source email clients and GPG digital signatures.
The reason for electricity mains operating at a dangerously high voltage is that it reduces the current flowing through the wiring which therefore reduces voltage drops and wasted energy due to heat dissipation in the wiring.
IMHO the best way to maximise power efficiency is to use a decent quality switching power supply, either a wall wart or built in, which is correctly matched to the requirements of the equipment. I think manufacturers are getting better at this, for example my Virgin Media "Superhub" which is supplied with what appears to be a decent quality switching supply so both the hub and the wall wart are only slightly warm to the touch, certainly not hot.
I recall purchasing, something like 10 years ago, a small 5 port Ethernet switch which was supplied with the usual cheap wall wart with a simple transformer and rectifier inside. Both the switch and the wall wart ran uncomfortably hot with, I assume, a linear voltage regulator inside the switch which would have slowly roasted itself to death sometime after the warranty period expired. Not satisfied, I tried powering the switch with a laboratory supply which I adjusted to the minimum voltage required for the switch to operate reliably. Then I purchased from CPC a decent quality switch mode wall wart of the same voltage, which I think cost me several quid more than the switch did, and the switch has been running with no problems, just a little warm, ever since. Having used a plug in power meter on both wall warts I reckoned that the switch mode unit paid for itself in two years and the switch has lasted several times longer than I would have expected it to with he cheap over voltage supply. WIN-WIN!
My main problem is with the jerks who put out fake booze made from industrial methanol, dangerous fake electrical products, fake brake parts, fake aircraft parts etc. Any of these can cause injury or death, so the perpetrators, when caught, need to be put away where they can do no harm for a damn sight longer than 10 years.
I don't think that to us, the sight of a space ship from another world would be such a shock as, say, a portable generator, DVD player and flat screen TV would be to people in the 16th century. We have historical records, so we know how technology has advanced during the past few centuries and assume that it will continue during the next few centuries. Assuming that we don't wipe ourselves out, which I think is much more likely than interstellar visitors.
We already know how to build rudimentary space ships. We just need a better drive system which may or may not be possible.....
I am quite sure that if you went back 500 years and took modern technology with you, it would look quite "godlike" to those people.
I don't think I'd recommend a 500 year jump. You'd likely find yourself burning on a large stake, or drowning in the nearest body of water. OTOH it would be fun to go back and take Henry Ford for a spin in a GT40 or a Shelby Mustang. He and the other people around at the time would understand the engineering principles so you'd be perfectly safe.
But I've never had an account with them, so they must have harvested my address from somewhere else. Same as the criminals that keep trying to sell me fake blue pills perhaps?
...that bloody LinkedIn would stop spamming my mail box with fictitious contacts from people I've never had anything to do with.
Why the hell they think they have some right to use my address when I've never had anything whatsoever to do with them I don't know.
Firstly, I use petrol.
I now avoid all supermarket fuel, since the last time I bought a tank full (not saying where) that drove like all the staff had pissed into it and I really thought the poor car was going to give up and break down on it. Until then, mileage per gallon seemed to vary from tank full to tank full, suggesting to me that quality varies, so now I avoid the stuff altogether.
What surprised me recently, though, was that when I filled my 2003 Honda Jazz at a particular station on the way home from a weekend visit to a friend, and started driving off after resetting the trip counter as usual, the mpg indicator immediately started showing a far higher number than usual. So, I tried driving for economy for the rest of the 20 or so miles journey home which has a variety of level and hills, and when I got home it had done 64.5 miles per imperial gallon. What the hell was going on? I usually get more like 47 or 48 mpg.
I can only assume that the tanker driver accidentally dumped the "good stuff" super unleaded into the ordinary unleaded tank, because last weekend I purposely bought the more expensive super unleaded (again I'm not saying which brand) and achieved exactly the same mpg on the way home. If this is consistent, it's actually worth buying the more expensive grade of fuel to get the extra mpg.
My friend who has a 2005 Jazz is going to try the same experiment with the same fuel from the same filling station to do the same journey. We'll see!
My very limited experiment of three tanks of fuel also suggests that you get more mpg with the fuel from one brand than from others. So, I know what I'm buying in future.
...on one of those amusing plaques that hang on the walls of gents toilets in pubs:-
"May you live for as long as you want to, and want to for as long as you live"
At 55 years old I'm one of the youngest members of my walking club.
The guy I maybe admire most (although I would never tell him that!) is 75 years old now, and goes striding up hills that would defeat many 20 year olds. Most of the members are retirees, and absolutely loving and living life to the full.
Life is partly reaping what you sow, partly luck.
If you eat crap, smoke, don't exercise, you can look forward to a miserable and early death. If your parents taught you to cook, and instilled in you enjoyment of exercise and the great outdoors rather than sitting on a fat arse in front of a games console eating chips and burgers, then you're off to a flying start.
On the other hand, you can be just plain unlucky. My wife started developing MND at maybe 45, and suffocated to death at 50.
The lady customer of 92 who I drove to her home last week, after a holiday to the USA, is a little slow these days and has to use a walking stick to get around, but I hope that at 92 my mind is still as sharp as hers is today. Will I still be able to code in C++? Who can tell?
Looking on the bright side, I have a photo of my great grandfather who, also at 92, was looking very dapper, dressed up in his suit, out in the countryside with his bicycle. He got it exactly right - he went to bed one night, slept peacefully, and didn't wake.
Don't expect and look forward to death, be good to yourself and with good luck, look forward to a long and fulfilling life.
I've got some Fuji Provia 400 and Velvia 50 in the the back of the fridge, in 120 roll format. I keep promising myself that I'll get it out one day and run it through my Bronica. Load the finished film into slide carriers and project it for the ultimate image quality. So long as you can tolerate some inevitable dust contamination nothing else comes close.
Unless anybody here uses large format?
It's always nice to get at least one item of good news in a day. I guess this is it.
I've also had the snail mailed fake invoices from them, which I can only suppose is an illegal use of the whois database. I guess their strategy is to land these on the desks of overworked administrators who are more likely than me to rubber stamp them and pass them along for payment. Me? I always put them in the shredder.
Why did it take so long? I really don't know. Why is it not a permanent shut down? Don't know that either, but at least they're shut down for now.
As another contributor suggested, build everything from reinforced concrete. That way, there's no lengths of timber for the violent winds to tear off and fling around as deadly missiles in the first place. Also, perhaps some wind tunnel research could help with tornado resistance.
Or, just build underground! Yes it initially costs more, but surely it's better to have property that you only need to build once rather than risk having it destroyed by weather. I bet the insurance would be damned cheap too compared to conventional building. Climate control is also going to be far easier and cheaper - anybody who's ever visited a show cave knows that the temperature stays almost constant throughout the year.
As for the person who suggested the tornado wall, there are special places for people who are this confused......
Me too, especially when the tossers keep sending six messages the same in one day. They totally loose all feasibility. There's always somebody there though who's stupid enough to click the link otherwise we wouldn't all be suffering.
We could probably put a good dent in illegal drug sales such as fake Viagra by randomly putting detection dogs in post delivery offices and prosecuting anybody caught ordering the crap.
....for me not being able to go to a web site and use a vehicle number plate to look up the address of the jerk who cut me up in traffic today.
Similar reasons surely need to apply to domain registrations.
Maybe that's why I've had no more notices to appear in court the last couple of days.
The magistrate was getting pissed off telling me to go away!