Finally, if the above headline is correct, then how is it different from "Linux Designed to Make Malware Easy"? Anyone can bundle a rootkit with a Linux distro and put a torrent of it up somewhere. Heck, it's even easier, since Linux is free and open to start with. The bottom line is, if you're not getting your software from a trusted source, then you have no reason to trust it. I agree with almost all of your posting, but "easier" doesn't really hit it. There are public (and well-advertised) MD5 checksums of most distro's ISO files, there's almost no way of getting malware in so easily. But then of course, regular users never check their MD5s and they don't apply to customized distro images either... so you definitely got a point.;)
Thunderbird is not installed by default. Yes, one could simply install it using synaptic, but that's one of the points of Automatix - to install the packages you will need anyway.
I'm not familiar with the details of automatix, but I lurk quite much in the Ubuntu channels, and it's generally seen as some virus-like script with all kinds of disadvantages and shortcomings.
Or to make it short (from IRC): [...] !automatix [ubotu] it has been said that automatix is unsafe, it overwrites configuration files, and does things like "echo -e 'ynYn'" that are considered risky. Please do not use it. There are alternative applications, but it's often best to read the documentation.
I'm not really sure why you're talking about Ubuntu. It's not like this new system comes from the distro (which consists of Canonical plus a whole lot of volunteers and users), it comes from Canonical.
I'm an Ubuntu user and feel a slight aggravation in your posting directed towards my distro of choice, while the software on topic is developed by Canonical and I don't really care what they do with their time.;)
My current laptop (HP/Compaq NX9030) doesn't run any kernel of the current Knoppix version well - driver modprobing crashes, one of them gets the laptop to just hang, the other one won't start X automatically and most stuff doesn't seem to work right. I haven't tried out the many boot options, but that also implies that it doesn't work that well.
However, the main OS on that laptop is Ubuntu Warty. I've never had a single problem concerning the hardware, everything works like a charm since the installation, the current Hoary LiveCD runs perfectly.
I agree to using Knoppix to test a laptop at the store, because if it works well it'll be a great Linux machine - but you might miss out on a few deals.
I guess the conclusion is: Try the LiveCD of the distro you want to install. If you want to install Ubuntu later, don't try Knoppix on the machine, it might make a difference.
I don't know how it is in $YOUR_COUNTRY, but in Germany, if a city/state/federal government doesn't play by the rules of a big company, they usually say stuff like "You won't do this? Oh yeah? Well then we'll go to another country that will appreciate our efforts!"
You're right, this is far from being physically dangerous, but it could cost the city lots of money in lost taxes, jobs and the image of the city. Getting Linux into their offices doesn't mean abandoning Microsoft altogether, and losing money in the process.
Considering my city's moves towards Daimler-Chrysler (Stuttgart), I think it is courageous of Munich to not give in to the demands of a big corporation.
About Microsoft being the Mafia: Most big corporations here behave like the Mafia, not only Microsoft. What Daimler-Chrysler demanded here was outrageous considering how much money they earn.
The fields' descriptions are as follows (top to bottom): Name Given name Location E-Mail Topic (use "Sonstiges" = Miscellaenous) Comments / Questions / Suggestions
"Buying used is equivalent to the game not selling at all in the eyes of developers and publishers, and when games don't sell, they don't get sequels and excellent concepts and, therefore, opportunities are lost."
And this is exactly why you should always buy used CDs of bands you like. Legal music - and no additional money for the industry.
Too bad that most eBay CDs now come from powersellers who sell new ones.:(
Re:No need to re-invent the wheel
on
Open Maps?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I attended a speech of the inventor of Map24 - the CEO of Mapsolute.
- They get their data from three companies, TeleAtlas, NAVTEQ and AND. For quite some money you can get their databases consisting of GBs of maps, and use it the way you want. This is true at least for the EU version, different conditions might exist for the US maps (see map24.com bottom).
- The Map24 applet connects to their map server directly (just over a proxy), using their own Map Transport Protocol (MapTP). So in theory you are able to connect like the applet, and query the whole country at the highest zoom - getting GBs of vector information to use. But they'll probably notice, so don't try it.:)
Anyway, the conclusion is: Like most mapping websites, Map24 (Mapsolute) use commercial maps of mapping companies, they didn't start from scratch. But using it without shelling out a lot of money won't work.
You never know what exactly it does, while it's really beneficial to know it in this particular case.
I don't know how it is with Open Source solutions, but the help files of commercial apps with "encrypt" buttons usually keep to the unmeaning phrase "encrypts the session / the mail / the upload / whatever", so you never know if you're safe. And false security is worse than no security sometimes.
But I guess stuff like this is needed for Joe Luser.:-\
I really wonder how this will work with Open Source...
I mean, if the law says this kind of DRM has to be in $FILESHARING_APP, but $FILESHARING_APP's license says the code has to be open source, what will they do?
I doubt the company that created Audible Magic wants their precious "industry secrets" open sourced...?
The adventure genre right now is far from being dead. Good titles are released every few months. I wonder if everybody keeps thinking the adventure genre is dead because Slashdot is US centric or what? The adventure genre is not strong but at least thriving a bit again in the EU...
Recent titles: - Runaway (*great* 2d point&click) - Syberia (3d characters in front of 2d backgrounds, point&click) - The Longest Journey (3d chars / 2d back, point&click)
Upcoming titles: - Runaway 2 - Syberia 2 - The Westerner - The Moment of Silence - The Longest Journey 2 (the only one in this list that might not be a 100% point&click adventure game)
Sorry for the missing links, I'm too lazy right now to search for them. Just google for the names + adventure or something. You'll be surprised.
And these games *do* come out in the US too! You just have to look harder than you'd have to for the latest EA Sports game.
It's not enought to say "we have an alternative scheme." It's probably not even enough to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make equivalent money." Instead, you need to credibly be able to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make superior money." If you can't do that, you got nuttin.
I doubt it's about the money, it's about control for the RIAA and its members.
So the only way to get them to use this scheme is to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make superior money and have more control over the music distribution than for CDs."
And that isn't going to happen with free (as in beer and as in freedom) file formats that the EFF is proposing.
I would expect that the porn industry would have a much more difficult time if they did want to take the same stance as the music business. Can you imagine US politicians standing up and proudly supporting them in the same way as they do for the music distributors?
I couldn't agree with You more. This raises another interesting way to get out of the P2P vs legislation dilemma:
1) Porn copying = copyright infringement 2) Get major porn producers to try and get support from politicians also backing the movie and music industry 3) Wait for politicians to slowly back off and run 4) Wait for P2P legislation to go away because porn business just saved P2P:)
For me, it wasn't about the "online" part of Uru Live that I cared about. And in that light your views are beside the point.
Uru Live was advertised to me much less as an MMORPG, but rather as "new content for the game delivered via the Internet", and that's what I would've liked.
The Myst world in single player mode is great to look at, has great puzzles and overall an amazing feeling and atmosphere. The single player portion got pretty good reviews everywhere. And that's where I wanted Uru Live to step in.
I didn't want to wander around the worlds together with a bunch of sidekicks. I wanted new "ages", new adventures, new puzzles. That's what I wanted to pay for.
With the upcoming expansion packs, I guess I'm getting everything I wanted out of Uru Live.:)
Dev: It wasn't a moment too soon, man. See, for a while we had been using the Internet from the spaceship, but the farther we got from the Earth the harder and harder it got to find a good server. Once we got to Mars, it took a good seven minutes for a signal to reach the Earth and seven minutes to get back to us. That's a 14 minute lag. I tried to play Quake 3 Rocket Arena like that. Ever play a game with a 14 minute lag? You shoot a rocket, then the map changes before you find out if it hit. It's whack.
Google News just started in Germany, and 90% of the German news websites I read appreciated it and wrote articles about it (Stuff like "We are being indexed by Google News!!!"):-)
To add to the article, the ScummVM Team got the source code of Beneath a Steel Sky from Revolution, so we'll soon see a version of ScummVM supporting this game to the fullest!
Kudos to Revolution for opening the source at least to the guys at ScummVM!
It's a website about some people who want to bring the issue of banning these games in Germany to the EU courts, because it restricts free trading between EU countries.
Have a look at it, these guys really need your support!
Slashdot Mirror
"I fixed your post for you"
From http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/IFYPFY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplex_City
Thunderbird is not installed by default. Yes, one could simply install it using synaptic, but that's one of the points of Automatix - to install the packages you will need anyway.
I'm not familiar with the details of automatix, but I lurk quite much in the Ubuntu channels, and it's generally seen as some virus-like script with all kinds of disadvantages and shortcomings.
Or to make it short (from IRC):
[...] !automatix
[ubotu] it has been said that automatix is unsafe, it overwrites configuration files, and does things like "echo -e 'ynYn'" that are considered risky. Please do not use it. There are alternative applications, but it's often best to read the documentation.
I'm not really sure why you're talking about Ubuntu. It's not like this new system comes from the distro (which consists of Canonical plus a whole lot of volunteers and users), it comes from Canonical.
;)
I'm an Ubuntu user and feel a slight aggravation in your posting directed towards my distro of choice, while the software on topic is developed by Canonical and I don't really care what they do with their time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiniband
You're welcome.
My current laptop (HP/Compaq NX9030) doesn't run any kernel of the current Knoppix version well - driver modprobing crashes, one of them gets the laptop to just hang, the other one won't start X automatically and most stuff doesn't seem to work right. I haven't tried out the many boot options, but that also implies that it doesn't work that well.
However, the main OS on that laptop is Ubuntu Warty. I've never had a single problem concerning the hardware, everything works like a charm since the installation, the current Hoary LiveCD runs perfectly.
I agree to using Knoppix to test a laptop at the store, because if it works well it'll be a great Linux machine - but you might miss out on a few deals.
I guess the conclusion is: Try the LiveCD of the distro you want to install. If you want to install Ubuntu later, don't try Knoppix on the machine, it might make a difference.
FUCK ACTIVISION (at least for today)
I don't know how it is in $YOUR_COUNTRY, but in Germany, if a city/state/federal government doesn't play by the rules of a big company, they usually say stuff like "You won't do this? Oh yeah? Well then we'll go to another country that will appreciate our efforts!"
You're right, this is far from being physically dangerous, but it could cost the city lots of money in lost taxes, jobs and the image of the city. Getting Linux into their offices doesn't mean abandoning Microsoft altogether, and losing money in the process.
Considering my city's moves towards Daimler-Chrysler (Stuttgart), I think it is courageous of Munich to not give in to the demands of a big corporation.
About Microsoft being the Mafia: Most big corporations here behave like the Mafia, not only Microsoft. What Daimler-Chrysler demanded here was outrageous considering how much money they earn.
I just expressed my respect to those people a minute ago. It takes a lot of courage to do this, having Microsoft Germany in your city and all that...
m l and put in your thanks!
If you want to show them respect, go to http://www.muenchen.de/home/81124/contact_form.ht
The fields' descriptions are as follows (top to bottom):
Name
Given name
Location
E-Mail
Topic (use "Sonstiges" = Miscellaenous)
Comments / Questions / Suggestions
And this is exactly why you should always buy used CDs of bands you like. Legal music - and no additional money for the industry.
Too bad that most eBay CDs now come from powersellers who sell new ones.
I attended a speech of the inventor of Map24 - the CEO of Mapsolute.
:)
- They get their data from three companies, TeleAtlas, NAVTEQ and AND. For quite some money you can get their databases consisting of GBs of maps, and use it the way you want. This is true at least for the EU version, different conditions might exist for the US maps (see map24.com bottom).
- The Map24 applet connects to their map server directly (just over a proxy), using their own Map Transport Protocol (MapTP). So in theory you are able to connect like the applet, and query the whole country at the highest zoom - getting GBs of vector information to use. But they'll probably notice, so don't try it.
Anyway, the conclusion is: Like most mapping websites, Map24 (Mapsolute) use commercial maps of mapping companies, they didn't start from scratch. But using it without shelling out a lot of money won't work.
I hate those buttons...
:-\
You never know what exactly it does, while it's really beneficial to know it in this particular case.
I don't know how it is with Open Source solutions, but the help files of commercial apps with "encrypt" buttons usually keep to the unmeaning phrase "encrypts the session / the mail / the upload / whatever", so you never know if you're safe. And false security is worse than no security sometimes.
But I guess stuff like this is needed for Joe Luser.
I really wonder how this will work with Open Source...
I mean, if the law says this kind of DRM has to be in $FILESHARING_APP, but $FILESHARING_APP's license says the code has to be open source, what will they do?
I doubt the company that created Audible Magic wants their precious "industry secrets" open sourced...?
A bit off topic, but I have to get this out.
The adventure genre right now is far from being dead. Good titles are released every few months. I wonder if everybody keeps thinking the adventure genre is dead because Slashdot is US centric or what? The adventure genre is not strong but at least thriving a bit again in the EU...
Recent titles:
- Runaway (*great* 2d point&click)
- Syberia (3d characters in front of 2d backgrounds, point&click)
- The Longest Journey (3d chars / 2d back, point&click)
Upcoming titles:
- Runaway 2
- Syberia 2
- The Westerner
- The Moment of Silence
- The Longest Journey 2 (the only one in this list that might not be a 100% point&click adventure game)
Sorry for the missing links, I'm too lazy right now to search for them. Just google for the names + adventure or something. You'll be surprised.
And these games *do* come out in the US too! You just have to look harder than you'd have to for the latest EA Sports game.
It's not enought to say "we have an alternative scheme." It's probably not even enough to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make equivalent money." Instead, you need to credibly be able to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make superior money." If you can't do that, you got nuttin.
I doubt it's about the money, it's about control for the RIAA and its members.
So the only way to get them to use this scheme is to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make superior money and have more control over the music distribution than for CDs."
And that isn't going to happen with free (as in beer and as in freedom) file formats that the EFF is proposing.
I couldn't agree with You more. This raises another interesting way to get out of the P2P vs legislation dilemma:
1) Porn copying = copyright infringement
2) Get major porn producers to try and get support from politicians also backing the movie and music industry
3) Wait for politicians to slowly back off and run
4) Wait for P2P legislation to go away because porn business just saved P2P
For me, it wasn't about the "online" part of Uru Live that I cared about. And in that light your views are beside the point.
:)
Uru Live was advertised to me much less as an MMORPG, but rather as "new content for the game delivered via the Internet", and that's what I would've liked.
The Myst world in single player mode is great to look at, has great puzzles and overall an amazing feeling and atmosphere. The single player portion got pretty good reviews everywhere. And that's where I wanted Uru Live to step in.
I didn't want to wander around the worlds together with a bunch of sidekicks. I wanted new "ages", new adventures, new puzzles. That's what I wanted to pay for.
With the upcoming expansion packs, I guess I'm getting everything I wanted out of Uru Live.
Mars Needs Gamers - 3 part series with 2 pages each
Very good read! Funny as hell.
Excerpt:
Even if the story was true - here's the way:
Doom9's Forum - DivX5 Adware summary
The lines are ready and the technology works according to this RFC:
RFC 3251 (rfc3251) - Electricity over IP
Google News just started in Germany, and 90% of the German news websites I read appreciated it and wrote articles about it (Stuff like "We are being indexed by Google News!!!") :-)
To add to the article, the ScummVM Team got the source code of Beneath a Steel Sky from Revolution, so we'll soon see a version of ScummVM supporting this game to the fullest!
Kudos to Revolution for opening the source at least to the guys at ScummVM!
People living in Germany might want to check out this page: Initiative gegen die Indizierung von Computerspielen
It's a website about some people who want to bring the issue of banning these games in Germany to the EU courts, because it restricts free trading between EU countries.
Have a look at it, these guys really need your support!