I don't know what the default look{s,ed} like. It's fairly customizable, so I've found+hacked a theme that keeps me happy.
I just dread upgrades, because it's always hard to get everything back the way I want it. Plus the continual change of default applications... I still use the good stuff from GNOME 1 (Sawfish, Balsa, etc.)
I thought Ubuntu 12.04 already supported Classic. I upgraded one laptop to 12.04 a couple of months ago, and tried whatever it was that they were offering that was supposed to be like the old GNOME. I didn't like it because you can't make the thin panel across the top go away: I always use vertical panels on either side.
I installed the third-party GNOME reversion, and it *almost* lets me recreate my desktop, but it looked like they were forking every GNOME application too, so I wasn't too enthusiastic about it.
offered a frightening insight into the world of government IT spending this week.
Is there some reason he thinks government employees waste any more time dicking around with computers than private sector computers do?
Also, whenever people start screeching about how much computers are costing us, stop to think how much it would cost us to go back to doing things the way we did 50 years ago. Want to run a government agency or a megacorporation with typewriters and filing cabinets?
Actually I make a very big deal about the second amendment because I care so much about the other amendments. The second is the last line of defense in the protection of the others. It is the only amendment that gives the people a physical recourse should the three branches of government fail to up hold the Constitution.
I suspect that that's what the Founders had in mind when they wrote that amendment (though apparently nothing in the Federalist papers supports that notion).
Be that as it may, thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
Presumably if you got enough people to participate, some "friendly" countries would offer to help you out with SAMs and RPGs, but that's just going to result in the unending-violence-for-naught that has become endemic in so many other places.
Better, IMO, to speak your mind about civil liberties, and hope that you and other likeminded individuals will eventually educate enough of the public to stop voting for whoever offers you the biggest tax break or wants to force your values on everyone else, and vote for someone who thinks of you as a citizen rather than a consumer/drudge born to keep the 1% fat and happy.
This is from 2012, before Boston. He says they've intercepted at least 15 TRILLION communications with the system.
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston. The claimed purpose doesn't work.
I'm very skeptical about the utility of "grab everything" evidence collection. After 9/11 - back when we weren't collecting anywhere near as much information as we are now - there was a feeling of "we should have caught that", based on after-the-fact understanding of clues. But IMO it simply wasn't a realistic expectation: intelligence agencies are pyramidal, so lots of details get filtered out when the 10,000 people at the bottom pass their reports up to the handful at the top. If two closely related clues are separated enough that they don't get put together at the bottom, odds are that they'll both seem irrelevant and not get passed up.
With 15 trillion intercepts, I'm sure the emphasis has shifted to computational analysis, but I'm not convinced that that makes any difference. Even the NSA can't do combinatoric crosschecks on 15 trill intercepts, so stuff is going to have to get digested and pushed upward just like with people.
And so I'm utterly unsurprised to read:
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston
Shoes on the ground catch a phenomenal amount of stuff.[*] Is Big Data catching anything?
[*] I remember ~10 years ago a redneck couple in Texas was going to blow up some chemical plant when the wind was blowing the right direction to kill everyone in the adjacent company town (for obscure reasons). Somehow an undercover cop was on to them, got recruited into their plot, and hid a microphone/camera in their dashboard. The news televised the footage of the three of them sitting in their truck on a hillside overlooking the plant, discussing the plot, when the men with handcuffs came to take two of them away.
If they allowed knives back on, and any kind of terrorist attack occurred with knives, then someone would be held responsible for that decision, no matter how wise it seemed at the time.
If they allowed little knives on planes, and someone was foolish enough to try to hijack the plane with one, they would arrive at the next airport as a pile of thinly sliced pieces.
IMO they should allow anything that won't endanger the integrity of the cabin.
No, the argument is that we'll end up with a global GMO monoculture, which will lack the variety to withstand some new pest or other threat, and then we'll have a global famine.
IMO it's a rotten way of doing it, because having the people who want to sell the drug do the trials introduces a motive to overreport effectiveness and underreport side effects.
And it's not just a hypothetical concern; we know of instances where companies have done both.
A murder that is not related to child porn. For him to decrypt those drives, he would be incriminating himself for the murder.
I have mixed feelings on this. Is it analogous to requiring him to tell where the body is buried, or analogous to requiring him to let them enter his house with a search warrant?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what the default look{s,ed} like. It's fairly customizable, so I've found+hacked a theme that keeps me happy.
I just dread upgrades, because it's always hard to get everything back the way I want it. Plus the continual change of default applications... I still use the good stuff from GNOME 1 (Sawfish, Balsa, etc.)
I thought Ubuntu 12.04 already supported Classic. I upgraded one laptop to 12.04 a couple of months ago, and tried whatever it was that they were offering that was supposed to be like the old GNOME. I didn't like it because you can't make the thin panel across the top go away: I always use vertical panels on either side.
I installed the third-party GNOME reversion, and it *almost* lets me recreate my desktop, but it looked like they were forking every GNOME application too, so I wasn't too enthusiastic about it.
As a naive individual with little to no business knowledge or training, could somebody please explain how Steve Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft?
A literal interpretation of your sentence is that you are asking someone with little to no business knowledge or training to answer your questions.
(Which is probably what you'll get on Slashdot.)
What knowledge is the board of directors privy to that the entire rest of the world isn't that has kept him employed for so long?
Maybe it's something that *he* knows about the Board of Directors.
When will Microsoft wake up the fact they release crap, users are getting fed up with it.
People have been putting up with it for over 20 years; why would MS change their strategy now?
We could call this Factorial Design...
Sounds more like Agile...
(I, like any true /.er haven't read it)
Read what?
offered a frightening insight into the world of government IT spending this week.
Is there some reason he thinks government employees waste any more time dicking around with computers than private sector computers do?
Also, whenever people start screeching about how much computers are costing us, stop to think how much it would cost us to go back to doing things the way we did 50 years ago. Want to run a government agency or a megacorporation with typewriters and filing cabinets?
The only real surprise is that the NSA needs Verison to give it to them.
Actually I make a very big deal about the second amendment because I care so much about the other amendments. The second is the last line of defense in the protection of the others. It is the only amendment that gives the people a physical recourse should the three branches of government fail to up hold the Constitution.
I suspect that that's what the Founders had in mind when they wrote that amendment (though apparently nothing in the Federalist papers supports that notion).
Be that as it may, thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
Presumably if you got enough people to participate, some "friendly" countries would offer to help you out with SAMs and RPGs, but that's just going to result in the unending-violence-for-naught that has become endemic in so many other places.
Better, IMO, to speak your mind about civil liberties, and hope that you and other likeminded individuals will eventually educate enough of the public to stop voting for whoever offers you the biggest tax break or wants to force your values on everyone else, and vote for someone who thinks of you as a citizen rather than a consumer/drudge born to keep the 1% fat and happy.
William Biddy, who was involved in the early part of this data grab, explaining why he became a whistleblower:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuET0kpHoyM
This is from 2012, before Boston. He says they've intercepted at least 15 TRILLION communications with the system.
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston. The claimed purpose doesn't work.
I'm very skeptical about the utility of "grab everything" evidence collection. After 9/11 - back when we weren't collecting anywhere near as much information as we are now - there was a feeling of "we should have caught that", based on after-the-fact understanding of clues. But IMO it simply wasn't a realistic expectation: intelligence agencies are pyramidal, so lots of details get filtered out when the 10,000 people at the bottom pass their reports up to the handful at the top. If two closely related clues are separated enough that they don't get put together at the bottom, odds are that they'll both seem irrelevant and not get passed up.
With 15 trillion intercepts, I'm sure the emphasis has shifted to computational analysis, but I'm not convinced that that makes any difference. Even the NSA can't do combinatoric crosschecks on 15 trill intercepts, so stuff is going to have to get digested and pushed upward just like with people.
And so I'm utterly unsurprised to read:
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston
Shoes on the ground catch a phenomenal amount of stuff.[*] Is Big Data catching anything?
[*] I remember ~10 years ago a redneck couple in Texas was going to blow up some chemical plant when the wind was blowing the right direction to kill everyone in the adjacent company town (for obscure reasons). Somehow an undercover cop was on to them, got recruited into their plot, and hid a microphone/camera in their dashboard. The news televised the footage of the three of them sitting in their truck on a hillside overlooking the plant, discussing the plot, when the men with handcuffs came to take two of them away.
And Wolverine eschews air travel.
If they allowed knives back on, and any kind of terrorist attack occurred with knives, then someone would be held responsible for that decision, no matter how wise it seemed at the time.
If they allowed little knives on planes, and someone was foolish enough to try to hijack the plane with one, they would arrive at the next airport as a pile of thinly sliced pieces.
IMO they should allow anything that won't endanger the integrity of the cabin.
Lost the /satire tag...
Thanks... I've been trying to interpret your .sig as some kind of satire warning.
The funny part is that this technology has already been invented multiple times... they just keep erasing it.
If they erase it from history, doesn't that mean the recipient forgets it too?
There goes one more reason to get out of the house.
Maybe answering the door should count...
Can I have them download breakfast to my Kindle?
No, you'll be printing your breakfast on your 3D+flavor printer.
Look on the bright side, lots of possible organ donors.
And Amazon will deliver them while they're still fresh!
I suppose that depends on how much genetic variety there is in in the GM crop.
No, the argument is that we'll end up with a global GMO monoculture, which will lack the variety to withstand some new pest or other threat, and then we'll have a global famine.
IMO it's a rotten way of doing it, because having the people who want to sell the drug do the trials introduces a motive to overreport effectiveness and underreport side effects.
And it's not just a hypothetical concern; we know of instances where companies have done both.
A murder that is not related to child porn. For him to decrypt those drives, he would be incriminating himself for the murder.
I have mixed feelings on this. Is it analogous to requiring him to tell where the body is buried, or analogous to requiring him to let them enter his house with a search warrant?
The second police got inside one of them he is no longer self incriminating himself because at that point he's a criminal, he's guilty
According to the prosecution.
I'm sure the lawyer's motivation is pure as gold.
We actually have a far better arsenal of anti-depressants than we had 30-40 years ago.