Mixing binary packages works, but is generally held to be asking for trouble sooner or later. However, it's normally a matter of two commands to "backport" a package from a more recent branch like testing or unstable, which will compile them against the stable libraries. There are also tools like apt-src to help with this.
If you could point to source repositories, daring end users could download the source packages when they hit a new version, bump up the number, see if it works untweaked, fix it if not, and send the info back to the maintainer.
A Debian source package normally contains the "pure" upstream source of the software, a bunch of Debian-specific patches, and a few control files to set consistent compile-time options, which are used by the dpkg-buildpackage tool.
Often if you need a shinier version than even Unstable has to offer, you can download the source package, strip out the old upstream source, chuck in the new, and create a working.deb out of it.
Debian makes a big mistake (IMO) by not letting power users handle part of the workload of package update.
Have you tried updating a package and sending it back to a maintainer? I'm sure that most of them would be very happy for you to do so. Hell, if it's a bit of software you care about enough, try to get yourself registered as a co-maintainer for the package...
RFID detectors can detect RFID tags from much further away. If your RFID detector operates at the maximum legally permitted power emission, then that range is about five feet. But if you want to abuse RFID for illegal purposes, you're not going to be interested in legal power emissions:)
I think the paranoia isn't really directed at the stores. Wal-Mart or Tesco knowing how much you spend isn't really a problem. Cross-store cards like Nectar aren't really a problem either.
The problem comes when this information is abused. Some people have a problem with shopping information being used to target junk mail etc.
Others have a problem with credit information being centrally controlled - personally, I'm blacklisted through no fault of my own, and haven't yet been able to find out the right shadowy organisation to address to get the information corrected. I consider this to be very annoying.
The really scary stuff comes from programs like TIA - governments taking this information from private corporations and "combining" it. The scary thing there is accountability - does buying the food I buy make me more likely to be flagged as a terrorist? Does buying guacamole flag some database somewhere that I might be a Zapatista sympathiser? Does buying a Michael Moore book make a difference? What about my payments to the Liberal Democrat Party?
Of course, opinion differs widely as to how realistic these scenarios are. I'm not ragingly paranoid, personally. The only store card I use is my OSG Co-Op card, because I like the co-op and it encourages me to spend my money with a retailer who seems to be more ethically sound than most supermarkets.
But I'm sure there are people in government like Poindexter who want access to this information, and I'm sure that their machine-defined algorithms will make mistakes and cause trouble for innocent citizens. When "trouble" can involve things like Guantenamo, that's a risk I want to avoid no matter how unlikely it is. And soon we Brits will have nice anti-terrorist legislation which includes life inprisonment without trial and secret arrests...
This actually happened to a friend of mine - a sewer line broke and flooded his basement server room ankle-deep in shit. After a lenthy clean-up operation, all was well for another few months, until he cracked open the fibre ducting to install a new line only to discover that it was full of the contents of the sewer, which had been lying stagnant for a couple of months...
I recently played through DE:IW twice - once on medium difficulty as a female character, and once on hard as a male, making some other decisions about which factions I supported.
Without wanting to give too much away, playing as a female is actually a disadvantage - there aren't any situations that I came across where I could get any benefit from being a female, but as a male one fairly major mission early in the game is made easier by being able to chat a couple of guys back and get yourself promised a gay threesome. Kudos to the developers for bucking the trend a little!
GNOME has proven that you can make a good clean interface that is user friendly, newbie friendly, and has all the access a "power user" could want.
I don't know what Gnome you've been using. I had to use it about a month ago (at least until I figured out how to fix my broken KDE dependencies) and it was a royal PITA. I ended up dropping out of X entirely and using the CLI rather than have to suffer Gnome a minute longer.
On the other hand, I've sat computer newbies (not just Linux newbies, people who are just about capable of using Word and IE in XP) in front of KDE and had them get along with no problems.
"Just Lycos it" - the S at the end flows straight into the 'it' and can therefore become confusing unless you have an annoying gap to separate the two words.
Although "just like a shit" might be good for searching out constipation cures...
I found some instructions on disabling MSHTML.DLL a while ago, but the bookmark is on a machine currently without a net connection. It should help.
Then again, IIRC Explorer uses the default application to generate the preview. I know that JPG images in Explorer on my Windows box have the Mozilla icon on the thumbnail, I don't know about HTML files though.
According to my housemate, who works in the aviation industry, the problems inherent in the language barrier are being addressed at the moment. This is also exacerbated IIRC by Air France pilots and French ATC being legally obliged to communicate in French, which confuses non-French-speaking pilots listening in to ATC communications.
The new system basically has a sensible number of common operations (changing altitude and direction etc.) with numerical values assigned to each. ATC sends these numerical commands to planes, which are translated into each pilot's language within the cockpits.
Is there really any point to dealing with SCO any longer? It just wastes our time, and frankly, if I'm going to waste an hour of my life, I'd rather do it playing a video game or modeling something or writing software or cooking something than agonizing over SCO.
I've reached much the same conclusion you have - when SCO stories are posted on/., I read the summary and then move on to something more valuable to me. It's not like I can do anything about it, ranting in/. comments is just a waste of time. I like to be informed about things so when somebody asks me about the issue I can reply sensibly, but other than that I don't need to know.
but how is it any different from the kernel developers refusing to freeze a driver API, which in turn occassionally causes drivers for some hardware to break?
The difference is that with an Open Source kernel, you can see and change the API you're using, and with Open Source applications, you can change the things which are breaking yourself. Also, with Open Source, you can apply the security fixes which won't break your system and hold back on the ones that will, meaning you can come to compromises - at the end of the day, you have more control over your system. And with Free Software, you can distribute these changes yourself so others can benefit.
I'm not saying that Microsoft causing these breakages is not a necessary step, or an unwelcome one, but I don't think it's directly comparable to the Open Source and Free Software world.
Are you sure? From reading his autobiography, "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell", I'm pretty sure that it was their first EP, "Smells Like Children", which had the problems with the photograph in the inlay. That was also censored for several other reasons...
Unfortunately I'm at work so don't have a copy to hand...
I tried re-encoding some mp3s to oggs just to see what the difference in quality is. I suspect that unless you're a total audiophile, you won't really notice anything. And if you're a total audiophile, why would you be using a lossy format in the first place?;)
Slashdot Mirror
Still, why does this not happen more often, then?
Because it's always easier to bitch about things than to try and fix them. Frequently, people will do both, but you only see the bitching.
figure out how to use dpkg-buildpackage.
It might be worth reading the APT HOWTO, specifically the section on Working with source packages.
Furthermore, the Beyond Packaging section of the Debian Developer's Reference contains useful info on contacting package maintainers and reporting bugs.
Mixing binary packages works, but is generally held to be asking for trouble sooner or later. However, it's normally a matter of two commands to "backport" a package from a more recent branch like testing or unstable, which will compile them against the stable libraries. There are also tools like apt-src to help with this.
If you could point to source repositories, daring end users could download the source packages when they hit a new version, bump up the number, see if it works untweaked, fix it if not, and send the info back to the maintainer.
.deb out of it.
A Debian source package normally contains the "pure" upstream source of the software, a bunch of Debian-specific patches, and a few control files to set consistent compile-time options, which are used by the dpkg-buildpackage tool.
Often if you need a shinier version than even Unstable has to offer, you can download the source package, strip out the old upstream source, chuck in the new, and create a working
Debian makes a big mistake (IMO) by not letting power users handle part of the workload of package update.
Have you tried updating a package and sending it back to a maintainer? I'm sure that most of them would be very happy for you to do so. Hell, if it's a bit of software you care about enough, try to get yourself registered as a co-maintainer for the package...
I've found nothing so far on Debian which helps me get the config files right.
I take it you know about dpkg-reconfigure?
Microsoft is the Scientology of the software world?
RFID detectors can detect RFID tags from much further away. If your RFID detector operates at the maximum legally permitted power emission, then that range is about five feet. But if you want to abuse RFID for illegal purposes, you're not going to be interested in legal power emissions :)
Wouldn't you say that religious fervor is preventing those distros from realizing the benefits of a very good language?
You could say that common sense is helping those distros from suffering from the perils of non-Free software...
(NB: IANAJavaProgrammer, but there are two sides to every argument)
I think the paranoia isn't really directed at the stores. Wal-Mart or Tesco knowing how much you spend isn't really a problem. Cross-store cards like Nectar aren't really a problem either.
The problem comes when this information is abused. Some people have a problem with shopping information being used to target junk mail etc.
Others have a problem with credit information being centrally controlled - personally, I'm blacklisted through no fault of my own, and haven't yet been able to find out the right shadowy organisation to address to get the information corrected. I consider this to be very annoying.
The really scary stuff comes from programs like TIA - governments taking this information from private corporations and "combining" it. The scary thing there is accountability - does buying the food I buy make me more likely to be flagged as a terrorist? Does buying guacamole flag some database somewhere that I might be a Zapatista sympathiser? Does buying a Michael Moore book make a difference? What about my payments to the Liberal Democrat Party?
Of course, opinion differs widely as to how realistic these scenarios are. I'm not ragingly paranoid, personally. The only store card I use is my OSG Co-Op card, because I like the co-op and it encourages me to spend my money with a retailer who seems to be more ethically sound than most supermarkets.
But I'm sure there are people in government like Poindexter who want access to this information, and I'm sure that their machine-defined algorithms will make mistakes and cause trouble for innocent citizens. When "trouble" can involve things like Guantenamo, that's a risk I want to avoid no matter how unlikely it is. And soon we Brits will have nice anti-terrorist legislation which includes life inprisonment without trial and secret arrests...
This actually happened to a friend of mine - a sewer line broke and flooded his basement server room ankle-deep in shit. After a lenthy clean-up operation, all was well for another few months, until he cracked open the fibre ducting to install a new line only to discover that it was full of the contents of the sewer, which had been lying stagnant for a couple of months...
I never shut down my browser, you insensitive clod!
Hey, you could have put the IP addresses of the local DSL lines in your DNS SPF records, because everybody uses SPF, right? *sigh*
And where does Richard E Grant's voice acting as the Doctor fit into the canon? Is it ignored?
I recently played through DE:IW twice - once on medium difficulty as a female character, and once on hard as a male, making some other decisions about which factions I supported.
Without wanting to give too much away, playing as a female is actually a disadvantage - there aren't any situations that I came across where I could get any benefit from being a female, but as a male one fairly major mission early in the game is made easier by being able to chat a couple of guys back and get yourself promised a gay threesome. Kudos to the developers for bucking the trend a little!
Hmm, I downloaded GTA from eMule, the copy I got off Kazaa didn't work...
GNOME has proven that you can make a good clean interface that is user friendly, newbie friendly, and has all the access a "power user" could want.
I don't know what Gnome you've been using. I had to use it about a month ago (at least until I figured out how to fix my broken KDE dependencies) and it was a royal PITA. I ended up dropping out of X entirely and using the CLI rather than have to suffer Gnome a minute longer.
On the other hand, I've sat computer newbies (not just Linux newbies, people who are just about capable of using Word and IE in XP) in front of KDE and had them get along with no problems.
"Just Lycos it" - the S at the end flows straight into the 'it' and can therefore become confusing unless you have an annoying gap to separate the two words.
Although "just like a shit" might be good for searching out constipation cures...
Goddamn those Commie makeup artists!!!
But with Linux, everybody can be a developer, because everybody has access to the source.
I found some instructions on disabling MSHTML.DLL a while ago, but the bookmark is on a machine currently without a net connection. It should help.
Then again, IIRC Explorer uses the default application to generate the preview. I know that JPG images in Explorer on my Windows box have the Mozilla icon on the thumbnail, I don't know about HTML files though.
According to my housemate, who works in the aviation industry, the problems inherent in the language barrier are being addressed at the moment. This is also exacerbated IIRC by Air France pilots and French ATC being legally obliged to communicate in French, which confuses non-French-speaking pilots listening in to ATC communications.
The new system basically has a sensible number of common operations (changing altitude and direction etc.) with numerical values assigned to each. ATC sends these numerical commands to planes, which are translated into each pilot's language within the cockpits.
Is there really any point to dealing with SCO any longer? It just wastes our time, and frankly, if I'm going to waste an hour of my life, I'd rather do it playing a video game or modeling something or writing software or cooking something than agonizing over SCO.
/., I read the summary and then move on to something more valuable to me. It's not like I can do anything about it, ranting in /. comments is just a waste of time. I like to be informed about things so when somebody asks me about the issue I can reply sensibly, but other than that I don't need to know.
I've reached much the same conclusion you have - when SCO stories are posted on
but how is it any different from the kernel developers refusing to freeze a driver API, which in turn occassionally causes drivers for some hardware to break?
The difference is that with an Open Source kernel, you can see and change the API you're using, and with Open Source applications, you can change the things which are breaking yourself. Also, with Open Source, you can apply the security fixes which won't break your system and hold back on the ones that will, meaning you can come to compromises - at the end of the day, you have more control over your system. And with Free Software, you can distribute these changes yourself so others can benefit.
I'm not saying that Microsoft causing these breakages is not a necessary step, or an unwelcome one, but I don't think it's directly comparable to the Open Source and Free Software world.
Are you sure? From reading his autobiography, "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell", I'm pretty sure that it was their first EP, "Smells Like Children", which had the problems with the photograph in the inlay. That was also censored for several other reasons...
Unfortunately I'm at work so don't have a copy to hand...
Please let us know when you do, I'm very interested in this.
I tried re-encoding some mp3s to oggs just to see what the difference in quality is. I suspect that unless you're a total audiophile, you won't really notice anything. And if you're a total audiophile, why would you be using a lossy format in the first place? ;)