I confess that I have not [yet] looked in Preferences but this may be of interest...
in.config/google-chrome/Default link/dev/null to the following files
ln -s/dev/null xxx where xxx is
History
History Index
Thumbnails
Web Data
Chrome will complain when you start up but will still work. This stops it creating new tabs with a list of 'favourite pages' and removes the history stored on your machine. It obviously will not store any tracked data held by sites visited.
Reminds me of an incident which happened in my youth on the mud flats at Southend-on-Sea [Thames Estuary - England].
For those that don't know the area... Southend has the world's longest pleasure pier (over 1.3 miles long) -- it has to, to reach out past the mud flats at low tide!
People used to go out on the mudflats at low tide digging for bait (for fishing).
One day someone thought it would be a good idea to drive out. About 500 yards from the shore the van sank to its axles in wet clay like mud. A local garage went out with a tow truck. That too got stuck. A few tide changes later, the local army base sent out a recovery truck. No prizes for guessing what comes next, the pattern's too obvious. A few days later (and thus several immersions by the incoming tides) the collection of vehicles was eventually towed back by an army vehicle fitted with extra wide tracks to spread the load.
Quite entertaining for the local press.
At least in this case the whole thing was in easy sight of the shore -- if you took your shoes off and didn't mind the mud you could even walk out and see it close up.
If I can remember the year (it was around 1972 I think) I may be able to find a suitable reference.
Somehow strolling out to a satellite 36000 km away doesn't seem so easy:-(
I like the look ok, but want simple access to root (and a root that actually works as "root"),
You can achieve this by using sudo bash.
If you want the good old su functionality which we all know and love from Unix and other Linux distros then that is simple too:
sudo bash
passwd give new root password in response
^D
Thereafter the su command (with no parameters) will change you to root
This, together with putting a launcher for the terminal on the taskbar is practically the first thing I do after a new Ubuntu based installation -- even before the reference backup.
I have sympathy with your views on fluff (aka bloat) -- in defence of the distro makers though, your subset of "essential items" probably differs from mine and other people's as well. They're caught between complains of "fluff & bloat" on one hand and "Linux is lacking in xyz" moans on the other.
Speaking purely personally, I prefer the lean and add items yourself approach [which is why I love Gentoo] -- I can even forgive Ubuntu 10.4 leaving out Gimp as it was trivially easy to install it later.
If I had the time, I'd set up a "what's the best distro for you?" website and then promote the variety and ability to give "bespoke, custom built" offerings based on "standardised components" as a real selling point - give users what they want/need (real or perceived) and offset the FUD from suppliers and corporate IT through using known, well supported packages.
I think you mean "Other Days, Other Eyes" by Bob Shaw
Thanks for reminding me -- I read it many years ago and enjoyed it - may re-read it now:-)
It also appeals to another Slashdot meme - an evil government using crop-dusters to sow millions of shards of 'slow glass' to act as passive surveillance.
(You can, of course, recycle this with any of the Mail's current list of hate targets [BBC, the EU, Muslims, Labour Party, Environmentalists, Unions,.... the list is long)
Even if we ignore the more significant safety aspects of driving for 12 hours at an average of over 80 [which means with stops you are travelling faster than that] a battery based solution is still achievable with lower capacities.
Provide a "standard fit battery" for all cars.
Then you just drive to a recharge station, hand over your flat battery and some cash and pick up a freshly charged new one. The recharge station can charge up the flat batteries at their leisure (e.g. overnight on lower cost tariffs)
Stopping for 10 - 15 minutes every 100 - 150 miles is no bad thing - it will force you to take a break (avoid hunger/dehydration), stretch legs (to avoid DVT) and unwind (to rest yourself and help get your concentration back).
Biggest challenge is getting manufacturers to agree a common form factor - it works for household items (think AA batteries [or whatever they're called in your country] used for radios, remote controllers, torches...) - whether auto manufacturers would follow the mobile phone makers and try to get lock-in with specific battery shapes would depend on market forces and/or legislation.
OK but also make it possible for me to have a reduction at businesses which advertise on channels I don't watch.
Why should I pay a supplement on life's essentials such as food to subsidise overpaid celebrities on adverts on channels with lowest common denominator rubbish?
I signed up for Be a few years back after absolutely APPALLING service from my previous "broadband supplier"*** and the router supplied by Be is totally configurable.
Furthermore they have always been very open in announcing changes to the network (even such things as a potential slow down during the middle of the night on a date a week away whilst they upgrade - thus giving you a chance to reschedule cron jobs etc). They have also been very helpful over the phone.
*** in quotes because the use of both words would be ironic in that context
That addresses the easy half of the equation - how to balance the other half though? It's easy (and populist)to go for the obvious target and leave the much larger 'hidden' one alone.
How about a discount from Tescos, Sainsburys, Halfords....... etc for those that don't watch commercial TV ?
And to ward off the inevitable comments - when virtually all supermarkets and major suppliers advertise on TV it's just as difficult to avoid paying for commercial stations - "shop elsewhere" doesn't work when there are precious few opportunities to find a non advertising "elsewhere".
I agree that the way in which the licence fee is managed could be a lot better and that the presumption of owning a TV dictates the approach is bad.
But, and I have no interest in the BBC here, I am always amazed at the one-sided arguments put forth - it's rare to hear the other view.
True some people pay for TV licences and rarely watch BBC - they feel "cheated"
What of the counter argument? The people who rarely watch commercial television are still paying for it in their purchases -- the TV is funded by advertisers; the advertisers take the money (plus their cut) from the companies featured; these companies take their money from.... Joe Public
So we all pay for all TV - it's just the mechanism/visibility that differs.
And don't get me started on paying for cable or satellite -- a monthly fee and you still have to sit through adverts!! -- not for me thanks
If they keep naming things with coffee references (including Java), what would happen if it's discovered that coffee causes cancer or shrunken balls or what not?
Don't have to wait - in the UK one of the more egregious papers regularly publishes a scare story about cancer. So much so that there are sites dedicated to Daily Mail Oncology Ontology.
Besides, the British are part of the EU too, and they insist on using the imperial system too...
This has not been true for science and engineering for many many years.
Please don't assume that, because the bulk of the population exhibits the natural human characteristics of unwillingness to change when the current system 'works', and are encouraged by the more rabid press (who have such a distrust of 'Johnny Foreigner' and his evil doings) that we don't do real work in metric.
BTW there was a parliamentary select committee (in 1862) recommending a switch to metric units so this is not a new thing -- we just don't like to rush into things too quickly:-)
Indeed a lot of our shopping is done in kilogrammes, litres... and legal work uses hectares rather than acres.
It's just some older measures are retained - partly for nostalgia [beer in pints], partly because pandering to sentiment / distrust of the new is [sadly] seen as a vote winner.
There is also the psychological issue that comparative measures tend to be slightly bigger in metric units (eg 500g is approximately 10% bigger than 1 lb) so shops selling packaged items had a 'perceived' price hike when switching over to metric - again another resentment easily stoked up as a price increase soundbite (without the compensating increase in delivery being mentioned) is always a winner in newspaper circulation.
A lot of people (me included) work quite happily with both systems - sometimes even mixing them in creative ways (eg fuel consumption in miles/litre). For practical purposes I use metric - for domestic use then either metric or imperial or both
not sure how this 'translates' so for avoidance of doubt - in the UK calling someone a "drip" equates to accusing them of being ineffectual and/or incompetent
I wouldn't want to go back to the days of trying to cram everything into a 16 bit address space with no virtual memory support but.... having to create trees and manually specify which parts of a program could swap when was an interesting and useful education.
Going back a few years (OK 25+ -- ouch that makes me feel my age!) I remember working on a system which had a tool to manipulate key data files and effectively had one module per screen. To fit it in we had to capture data and store it in a root node and then allow the module to swap out and let the next screen's one swap in. (There was a bit more to it than that, but I'm simplifying for brevity)
It could be a right pain, trying to work out why something wasn't picking up the right values, only to discover an execution scenario where a vital chunk was swapped out when least expected.
Having multiple trees in the same program -- now that was 'fun' -- lost art nowadays with big address spaces, loads of memory, automated virtual memory management as a "don't worry about it - it just works" feature.
(Cue IT version of Monty Python's four Yorkshire men sketch....)
I also wish I had mod points as this is a constructive response rather than the mean spirited "I'm so great, you're a waste of space" answers. We all started out once (some of us some years ago!!)
Remember when trying stuff out -- take plenty of backups. There are two types of people: those who back up fervently and those who haven't yet had a disaster !
One other point of personal experience I'd add (which no-one else seems to have mentioned) is buy yourself a notebook (a paper one, not a PC) and a pen. Then whenever you make any change, install anything or otherwise fiddle with your set-up, write down WHAT you did (and why?, what were you expecting to happen).
Keep it pencil & paper (rather than as a blog or text file) then you won't lose it if your disc or network crash.
You'll be glad you did when you want to roll back to a known working state; it's also interesting to look back on events of a few months / years ago and see how things have changed and what you've learned:-) Items highlighed in red with annotations such as "NEVER, EVER DO THIS AGAIN!" bring a wry smile.
Good luck !
Re:Beer joke?
on
LHC Success!
·
· Score: 4, Informative
From the BBC news website
"Full beam ahead
Engineers injected the first low-intensity proton beams into the LHC in August. But they did not go all the way around the ring.
Technicians had to be on the lookout for potential problems.
Steve Myers, head of the accelerator and beam department, said: "There are on the order of 2,000 magnetic circuits in the machine. This means there are 2,000 power supplies which generate the current which flows in the coils of the magnets."
If there was a fault with any of these, he said, it would have stopped the beams. They were also wary of obstacles in the beam pipe which could prevent the protons from completing their first circuit.
Mr Myers has experience of the latter problem. While working on the LHC's predecessor, a machine called the Large-Electron Positron Collider, engineers found two beer bottles wedged into the beam pipe - a deliberate, one-off act of sabotage.
The culprits - who were drinking a particular brand that advertising once claimed would "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach" - were never found. "
The "beer that refreshed the parts..." was an advertising slogan for Heiniken
Interesting point -- and one presaged by EM Forster nearly 100 years ago (in "The Machine Stops")
First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by live and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine - the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution. Through the medium of these ten great minds, the blood that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another. Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And in time' - his voice rose - 'there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation seraphically free From taint of personality, which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine.'
I'm not convinced that it's Google or the Internet that is wholly responsible; what is true is that the rapidity with which these tools allow people to create, modify, access and use information also allows the ill informed, bigoted or malicious to "pollute" human knowledge easily.
Tough judgement call - freedom of expression of thought & opinion vs protecting current/past knowledge -- and that's before religion is brought into the debate:-)
Slashdot Mirror
... Bullshit!
in
link
ln -s
Chrome will complain when you start up but will still work. This stops it creating new tabs with a list of 'favourite pages' and removes the history stored on your machine. It obviously will not store any tracked data held by sites visited.
I want to know how they made the radio blow hot air.
Simple!
Just tune it to the local talk radio channel covering politics/religion/sport**...
** select / delete according to your views
Reminds me of an incident which happened in my youth on the mud flats at Southend-on-Sea [Thames Estuary - England].
For those that don't know the area... Southend has the world's longest pleasure pier (over 1.3 miles long) -- it has to, to reach out past the mud flats at low tide!
People used to go out on the mudflats at low tide digging for bait (for fishing).
One day someone thought it would be a good idea to drive out. About 500 yards from the shore the van sank to its axles in wet clay like mud. A local garage went out with a tow truck. That too got stuck. A few tide changes later, the local army base sent out a recovery truck. No prizes for guessing what comes next, the pattern's too obvious. A few days later (and thus several immersions by the incoming tides) the collection of vehicles was eventually towed back by an army vehicle fitted with extra wide tracks to spread the load.
Quite entertaining for the local press.
At least in this case the whole thing was in easy sight of the shore -- if you took your shoes off and didn't mind the mud you could even walk out and see it close up.
If I can remember the year (it was around 1972 I think) I may be able to find a suitable reference.
Somehow strolling out to a satellite 36000 km away doesn't seem so easy :-(
I like the look ok, but want simple access to root (and a root that actually works as "root"),
You can achieve this by using sudo bash.
If you want the good old su functionality which we all know and love from Unix and other Linux distros then that is simple too:
Thereafter the su command (with no parameters) will change you to root
This, together with putting a launcher for the terminal on the taskbar is practically the first thing I do after a new Ubuntu based installation -- even before the reference backup.
I have sympathy with your views on fluff (aka bloat) -- in defence of the distro makers though, your subset of "essential items" probably differs from mine and other people's as well. They're caught between complains of "fluff & bloat" on one hand and "Linux is lacking in xyz" moans on the other.
Speaking purely personally, I prefer the lean and add items yourself approach [which is why I love Gentoo] -- I can even forgive Ubuntu 10.4 leaving out Gimp as it was trivially easy to install it later.
If I had the time, I'd set up a "what's the best distro for you?" website and then promote the variety and ability to give "bespoke, custom built" offerings based on "standardised components" as a real selling point - give users what they want/need (real or perceived) and offset the FUD from suppliers and corporate IT through using known, well supported packages.
I think you mean "Other Days, Other Eyes" by Bob Shaw
Thanks for reminding me -- I read it many years ago and enjoyed it - may re-read it now :-)
It also appeals to another Slashdot meme - an evil government using crop-dusters to sow millions of shards of 'slow glass' to act as passive surveillance.
Reminds me of an old joke:
"How do you confuse a Daily Mail reader?"
"Tell them immigrants kill paedophiles!"
(You can, of course, recycle this with any of the Mail's current list of hate targets [BBC, the EU, Muslims, Labour Party, Environmentalists, Unions, .... the list is long)
Even if we ignore the more significant safety aspects of driving for 12 hours at an average of over 80 [which means with stops you are travelling faster than that] a battery based solution is still achievable with lower capacities.
Provide a "standard fit battery" for all cars.
Then you just drive to a recharge station, hand over your flat battery and some cash and pick up a freshly charged new one. The recharge station can charge up the flat batteries at their leisure (e.g. overnight on lower cost tariffs)
Stopping for 10 - 15 minutes every 100 - 150 miles is no bad thing - it will force you to take a break (avoid hunger/dehydration), stretch legs (to avoid DVT) and unwind (to rest yourself and help get your concentration back).
Biggest challenge is getting manufacturers to agree a common form factor - it works for household items (think AA batteries [or whatever they're called in your country] used for radios, remote controllers, torches...) - whether auto manufacturers would follow the mobile phone makers and try to get lock-in with specific battery shapes would depend on market forces and/or legislation.
OK but also make it possible for me to have a reduction at businesses which advertise on channels I don't watch.
Why should I pay a supplement on life's essentials such as food to subsidise overpaid celebrities on adverts on channels with lowest common denominator rubbish?
I wish I hadn't used mine up yesterday -- this is possibly the most insightful view on Slashdot for quite a while.
We've gone from 5 main channels (of which 2 aren't worth watching) to about 30 (of which 23 or 24 aren't worth the electricity spent on them).
Interesting...
I signed up for Be a few years back after absolutely APPALLING service from my previous "broadband supplier"*** and the router supplied by Be is totally configurable.
Furthermore they have always been very open in announcing changes to the network (even such things as a potential slow down during the middle of the night on a date a week away whilst they upgrade - thus giving you a chance to reschedule cron jobs etc). They have also been very helpful over the phone.
*** in quotes because the use of both words would be ironic in that context
I agree it is a well known joke but is it impossible to marry your widow's sister?
Not necessarily so!!
Consider a Scotsman Angus and two sisters Betty and Clare
Angus marries Betty.
He then divorces her (or she dies) and marries Clare (who is Betty's sister).
Angus dies.
Clare is his widow.
During his marriage to Betty he HAD married his widow's sister :-)
That addresses the easy half of the equation - how to balance the other half though? It's easy (and populist)to go for the obvious target and leave the much larger 'hidden' one alone.
How about a discount from Tescos, Sainsburys, Halfords....... etc for those that don't watch commercial TV ?
And to ward off the inevitable comments - when virtually all supermarkets and major suppliers advertise on TV it's just as difficult to avoid paying for commercial stations - "shop elsewhere" doesn't work when there are precious few opportunities to find a non advertising "elsewhere".
I agree that the way in which the licence fee is managed could be a lot better and that the presumption of owning a TV dictates the approach is bad.
But, and I have no interest in the BBC here, I am always amazed at the one-sided arguments put forth - it's rare to hear the other view.
True some people pay for TV licences and rarely watch BBC - they feel "cheated"
What of the counter argument? The people who rarely watch commercial television are still paying for it in their purchases -- the TV is funded by advertisers; the advertisers take the money (plus their cut) from the companies featured; these companies take their money from .... Joe Public
So we all pay for all TV - it's just the mechanism/visibility that differs.
And don't get me started on paying for cable or satellite -- a monthly fee and you still have to sit through adverts!! -- not for me thanks
Face it - they're all after your money
If they keep naming things with coffee references (including Java), what would happen if it's discovered that coffee causes cancer or shrunken balls or what not?
Don't have to wait - in the UK one of the more egregious papers regularly publishes a scare story about cancer. So much so that there are sites dedicated to Daily Mail Oncology Ontology.
Curiously coffee falls into both the good and bad camps.
actually it's not that curious - never let consistency spoil a good rant
Besides, the British are part of the EU too, and they insist on using the imperial system too...
This has not been true for science and engineering for many many years.
Please don't assume that, because the bulk of the population exhibits the natural human characteristics of unwillingness to change when the current system 'works', and are encouraged by the more rabid press (who have such a distrust of 'Johnny Foreigner' and his evil doings) that we don't do real work in metric.
BTW there was a parliamentary select committee (in 1862) recommending a switch to metric units so this is not a new thing -- we just don't like to rush into things too quickly :-)
Indeed a lot of our shopping is done in kilogrammes, litres... and legal work uses hectares rather than acres.
It's just some older measures are retained - partly for nostalgia [beer in pints], partly because pandering to sentiment / distrust of the new is [sadly] seen as a vote winner.
There is also the psychological issue that comparative measures tend to be slightly bigger in metric units (eg 500g is approximately 10% bigger than 1 lb) so shops selling packaged items had a 'perceived' price hike when switching over to metric - again another resentment easily stoked up as a price increase soundbite (without the compensating increase in delivery being mentioned) is always a winner in newspaper circulation.
A lot of people (me included) work quite happily with both systems - sometimes even mixing them in creative ways (eg fuel consumption in miles/litre). For practical purposes I use metric - for domestic use then either metric or imperial or both
Expert, n:
Ex = "has been"
Spurt = "drip under pressure"
not sure how this 'translates' so for avoidance of doubt - in the UK calling someone a "drip" equates to accusing them of being ineffectual and/or incompetent
Ahh RSX11M -- happy days :-)
I wouldn't want to go back to the days of trying to cram everything into a 16 bit address space with no virtual memory support but.... having to create trees and manually specify which parts of a program could swap when was an interesting and useful education.
Going back a few years (OK 25+ -- ouch that makes me feel my age!) I remember working on a system which had a tool to manipulate key data files and effectively had one module per screen. To fit it in we had to capture data and store it in a root node and then allow the module to swap out and let the next screen's one swap in. (There was a bit more to it than that, but I'm simplifying for brevity)
It could be a right pain, trying to work out why something wasn't picking up the right values, only to discover an execution scenario where a vital chunk was swapped out when least expected.
Having multiple trees in the same program -- now that was 'fun' -- lost art nowadays with big address spaces, loads of memory, automated virtual memory management as a "don't worry about it - it just works" feature.
(Cue IT version of Monty Python's four Yorkshire men sketch....)
Only in the sense that a dorky undoes the lock and let you inside.
Sorry !!
Obligatory 3 stereotypes/pub joke...
An Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman walked into a bar
You'd have though one of them would have seen it!
I also wish I had mod points as this is a constructive response rather than the mean spirited "I'm so great, you're a waste of space" answers. We all started out once (some of us some years ago!!)
Remember when trying stuff out -- take plenty of backups. There are two types of people: those who back up fervently and those who haven't yet had a disaster !
One other point of personal experience I'd add (which no-one else seems to have mentioned) is buy yourself a notebook (a paper one, not a PC) and a pen. Then whenever you make any change, install anything or otherwise fiddle with your set-up, write down WHAT you did (and why?, what were you expecting to happen).
Keep it pencil & paper (rather than as a blog or text file) then you won't lose it if your disc or network crash.
You'll be glad you did when you want to roll back to a known working state; it's also interesting to look back on events of a few months / years ago and see how things have changed and what you've learned :-) Items highlighed in red with annotations such as "NEVER, EVER DO THIS AGAIN!" bring a wry smile.
Good luck !
From the BBC news website
"Full beam ahead
Engineers injected the first low-intensity proton beams into the LHC in August. But they did not go all the way around the ring.
Technicians had to be on the lookout for potential problems.
Steve Myers, head of the accelerator and beam department, said: "There are on the order of 2,000 magnetic circuits in the machine. This means there are 2,000 power supplies which generate the current which flows in the coils of the magnets."
If there was a fault with any of these, he said, it would have stopped the beams. They were also wary of obstacles in the beam pipe which could prevent the protons from completing their first circuit.
Mr Myers has experience of the latter problem. While working on the LHC's predecessor, a machine called the Large-Electron Positron Collider, engineers found two beer bottles wedged into the beam pipe - a deliberate, one-off act of sabotage.
The culprits - who were drinking a particular brand that advertising once claimed would "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach" - were never found. "
The "beer that refreshed the parts..." was an advertising slogan for Heiniken
Interesting point -- and one presaged by EM Forster nearly 100 years ago (in "The Machine Stops")
:-)
First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by live and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine - the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution. Through the medium of these ten great minds, the blood that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another. Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And in time' - his voice rose - 'there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation seraphically free From taint of personality, which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine.'
I'm not convinced that it's Google or the Internet that is wholly responsible; what is true is that the rapidity with which these tools allow people to create, modify, access and use information also allows the ill informed, bigoted or malicious to "pollute" human knowledge easily.
Tough judgement call - freedom of expression of thought & opinion vs protecting current/past knowledge -- and that's before religion is brought into the debate
Disclaimer - not humour impaired (or disagreeing at all with the sentiments expressed) - just "nerdy pedantry"
pushing water uphill with a sharp stick
Not impossible -- if you freeze it first (the water, not the stick)
Like many others - I missed my "dose" of Slashdot this morning.
:-)
You can tell I'm an addict because my first reaction was "How on earth did Slashdot manage to inflict the "slashdot effect" on themselves?
The second reaction was "However they did it was really clever/stupid - not sure which!"
Good to see it back up