This sounds correct, but it isn't. Unfortunately. It does contain relevant information, but kind of mixed up.
Length can be a helper when statistics comes into perspective. And when the one-time pad is a non-random piece of letters (book, e.g.) the ciphertext can display statistic non-uniform properties.
On the other hand, imagine a purely random sequence, then random + [non-random] plaintext = random. Or, as example, the ciphertext 'qgrmy' that I have just generated in this manner (so-called Vernam Cipher), could represent any 5 letter-word, or two words with an intermediate blank, or "a pad" or whatever. Continue on this thought, and length and statistics are no remedy. A ciphertext of length N produced with this method can represent any other text of length N. And brute-force does not help at all, because brute-force would come up with any possible text of length N; be it Shakespeare's Hamlet or the latest news from BBC. The likelihood of all those texts are all identical. The major setback of this method is of course that the recipient would need the one-time pad of length N as well to decrypt the message, so it is not feasible for real-world cryptography. Using a book-cipher as source of the random sequence is dangerous, because letters are usually unevenly distributed in books. Make it a Vignière of length N of random letters, and nobody will ever be able to decrypt it.
Nice. You got a positive modding so far. Had I mod points, I might have given 'redundant', since this is what anyone could have read on/. since its inception. And as a GNULinuxer myself, I have to state clearly that W8(XP/7) has a few things that give it a distinct advantage. Like running MS office (for those who probably wrongly assume they need it), running a lot of software exclusively (in my case OrCAD).
This is not only true (Buffet and his statement), it is valid and proven. Since 2000 the share prices of MS have been hoovering around then same level. Gee, apply some common sense, that's enough. Like Facebook. How many people can be sustained by this planet? And even if every single one has a Facebook account, there is a natural limit of potential users. And then?? MS was similar. A huge advance in the 1990, no competition, effectively. (IBM was just too half-hearted with OS2) Something had to come. And it came. MS was even lucky that IBM bungled, the BSDs bungled, Linux kind of failed to unify in the struggle to the desktop of the year. And yet, as we are approaching the post-desktop-period ['desktop' as a PC in a huge separate casing], MS is not there, but others.
I for one could not exclude totally that MS will foster similar activities as described in the news deliberately to flood the world with its otherwise not-too-kindly-perceived W8. Giving it effectively for free (as in beer), it will be adopted globally, quickly. Since mankind has taken a lot of crap from MS (and others) since its early days, chances are for a resurgence of Windows due to its unified UI on and for any machine. Free Of Charge.
Absolutely true! - I only miss the mod points. I have tried to use Word for academic papers (or whatnot else), but it just doesn't work (without a lot of hassle). I work in academia and people are sitting in front of Word for three days (we did, few month ago), to format some 12 pages properly. All my suggestions to use anything else were shot down. I was informed that Word was just 'the' standard, and the problems my/our mistake, and so forth. People are willing to spend unlimited amount of time for their beloved office software. There is one thing that is lightyears better in Word, compared to Writer, to be totally honest: Bibliography. This point is lousy-lousy in Writer.
Though in a municipality, this is no demand and no argument.
Yep, exactly what I wrote. Look at the properties: "Kopie von Entwässerungsantrag_11-12-13.dot". What now? I have a two-inch bolt and a metric nut. Doesn't fit, does it. And what?!? Is the bolt broken and wrong or the nut? What a s**t, altogether; this 'news'. I suggest to just move on. Freiburg municipality has found out, that a format based on a proprietary format can't be opened properly by some other software? So what! Who the f**k told them wrongly that a[ny] Word template can be opened and processed in OpenOffice!? So how is the whole matter any "prove" that OpenOffice cannot fulfil the requirements of Freiburg? Bastards!! Sure, there was some hanky-panky involved. Otherwise they would as well have complained about Word, which does not open PDF properly, by default, and neither allows a 1:1 editing of the.pdf-document. And so forth.
Reading the report, they state that Writer can only be used for 80% of the tasks; Impress and Calc even less. That sounds very fishy in the ears of someone who has made complete layouts for real books and real publishers (no Internet-crap), of hundreds of pages, including automatic TOC, blabla, plus articles in traditional Chinese and Japanese. Now tell me, please, what sorts of daily work a municipality needs to do, what sorts of letters need to be written, that can't be written in Writer!? I bet a 5-digit-sum in € that this is simply untrue. I cannot exclude, though, that some templates created in Word cannot be filled in Writer. But then the numbers would be misleading, and some wishy-washy of hands could not be excluded. I correct myself, I take a bet of 6 digits of €, that all writing work of a municipality can be done in Writer, if done in any proper manner; if and only if done from a proper set of basics of OpenOffice. Nobody expects the OpenOffice Writer to run 100% compatible with Word Macros, to give an example.
Invite me, pay me a reasonable fee, and I'll show those half-wits 'wo die Glocken hängen'.
Nevermind the inside and outside information and all the shills and the naysayers. We need to w8 a tad for the final outcome of success or failure for W8. From all accounts, Sinofsky was not laid off for 'the failure that was called Metro'. What we all can see, and agree [sorry. no , we are/. !] is the intention to unify all sorts of computing UI, from your watch through your toaster to your smartphone. And, as usual, Microsoft was about the last one to enter the station hall in this respect. Something needed to be done, and a marriage of convenience was enforced: the quite well-developed W7 interface had a nuptial with Metro, a test interface for touchy topics. And so both sit close to each other; not yet knowing much about the newly found partner. Therefore we need to be patient. If W8 becomes a success, UI-wise, Microsoft will swing to new heights. Because a single UI written once and run anywhere is a success by default. Screw all competition. Should, however, the market react with too much hesitation at acceptance levels, Microsoft will not only by Micro and soft, but also cooked.
It simply is a nice past-time to speculate wildly on the demise of Redmond's premier organisation; and I enjoy this speculation. In reality, we just have to w8. With some luck (or dismay; for others), we might have watched MS shooting itself not in the foot, but through its own heart.
I do wish someone had taken responsibility for my friend before he jumped in front of a train. And no that isn't the responsibility of the state government. It is the responsibility of every citizen.
That's what I meant with 'spontaneous', exactly. It is like we ought to take the responsibility when a hot-blood in a rage tries to beat up someone else, or two people get into rage against each other, and step in between and calm them down. But when someone, despite of calm and quiet constitution and despite of counselling wants to switch herself off in cool blood, we can only accept that wish. Nobody must be able to determine for me that I have to continue to live against my persistent desire.
I'm neutral on the issue, but I think it's worth looking at an alternate view on the issue: [...] To be sure, there are noble intentions behind the “assisted death” proposals, but I can’t help wondering why we’re in such a hurry to ensure the right to die before we’ve done all we can to ensure that those of us with severe, untreatable, life-threatening conditions are given the same open-hearted welcome, the same open-minded respect and the same open-ended opportunities due everyone else.
Who the heck says they shouldn't be given the same open-hearted everything?? What should and must be the priority is the self-determination of people and their inalienable rights to choose their own, personal, style of life, including handling suffering. If this was the case, and I very much wished it was, you'd have your Code Blue and I wouldn't. Trouble is, too many people consider me unhealthy, and the governments of this world do likewise try to nanny me into a prolonged life of their desire, in case.
If someone is "healthy" but wants to commit suicide that indicates they are not healthy. Something is wrong (usually mentally)..
Thanks. I hope you'll never be responsible for others. I can only agree as far as 'spontaneous' is missing in your proposal. A constant and consistent wish to die cannot be linked to the sanity of a person. On the contrary, it should be everyone's right to de-terminate his life. Because it doesn't belong to anyone else, least the state government.
While I am fully for this legislation, I'd want to go one step further. With 18 / 21 a human is allowed to vote, to marry, to become a bankrupt. You name it. What this person is not allowed, is to switch herself off. That is already wrong. Of course, we can't allow this out of a temporary misery; like being left by the partner, losing at the roulette table or just boredom. Off the cuff I'd argue for 3 counselling sessions, 2 with a doctor and 1 with a psychologist, with a fortnight in between each, to obtain a certificate to legally terminate one's own life. All this 'suicide is wrong' mantra stems from ancient times, and is inherited through religion. The trouble of linking it with a terminal disease is obvious: Who could certify that the life expectancy is 6 months or below? Plus, there are cases when suffering is not necessary terminal (living consciously in an iron lung could be). So, let's not be arbitrary and vague and nannying. Let us legislate what fits into the 21st century, and that is the legal right to fully determine one's own destiny. From cradle (better: adolescence) to grave. Over.
And I'll be pleased to shake the hand of a 3-digit-Slashdotter! Hopefully a few more people can make it? And maybe-maybe we can get a T-shirt? Who knows!
Okay, I somehow have been living with Slashdot for the last 10+ years, sharing some part of my life with it, through good and bad. So I want some 'party', maybe not the usual, outgoing splurge; it is getting cold in Germany anyway. And yet, I will be sitting in my favourite place in Duisburg that evening, and wonder if anyone wants to come along? Just check the parties, and find your way!
Partially I agree with you. At least on the W95/XP et al thingy. Actually, W98 was my favourite of that family. I can't agree with you on the 'stupid', because that's not what the parent was. Also, I can't agree with the default KDE being the best since sliced bread. And I have shown / given this to a number of users. It does not lead the uninitiated user to the fountain of awesomeness. At least, I have yet to see that single first-time user. I can agree that conceptually the KDE menu makes most sense. Being a KDE user myself, though, I still see how the KDE people are engineers, not usability oriented. And that runs the project down like SUN was run down by crappy management despite of great engineering. As I said, in KDE it is usability (if not plain ugliness : the dirty-blueish-grayish default colours). Qt is the toolkit of choice. And with respect to the original topic: notifications ARE a bore on KDE. And the musings to which the summary leads, are quite okay; though long overdue. I myself hate to have sometimes a double-digit of messages, of an insane agglomeration of people being online, an important incoming mail, another incoming set of SPAM, a security update, 3 of my files copied to the thumb drive finished, the printer out of paper (though solved in the meantime). Sick. Did it even deserve a spot in/., to mention that finally someone with KDE-fame was enlightened enough to start pondering about this?
As much as I adore the resolve of some individuals to advance science and technology, and invest all available resources exactly for that, and as much as I like to give my small contribution to this dedication and resolve, to advance the ongoing project and maybe even mankind, though: Do we really need a next generation suborbital space capsule??
I don't think Microsoft really cares about the 1% Linux PC market enough to spend any money on exclusivity
Hmm. In what year are you living? I for one live in 2012 these days, and the PC has long been abandoned as target. Look at smartphones and tablets, and it rather is Microsoft hoovering around the one-digit market share. Therefore, and without saying that I am convinced that they do, they surely would have a very good reason to even pay Intel each day that the Linux kernel can't take the same economics that Windows does.
I take it you are what your name says: unknowing. Nevermind. I see where you are coming from (and where you are headed). It is true that what you write would be correct if it was correct. But nobody asks to write drivers. It is only very normal procedure to write documentation on the power shutdowns. Documentation that is needed and will probably asked for by the Windows coders. And documentation that the Microsoft lawyers will want to make sure it exists; they can't afford to have Windows running on verbal information on the features of these CPUs fresh from a drink at the pub. And if this contains third party intellectual property, they can't pass it on to MS neither.
But now, what would happen if Intel came out with an Atom that ran on a significantly reduced power? Yes, it maybe able to make it through as many hours as an ARM-based device. And what if that Atom-based device had Linux support? It would see Android running on it with possibly faster response times. Or the normal x86 of Debian (that is ABCbuntu). Imagine an Atom the size of a BeagleBoard, or Pandaboard. The latter two need no cooling. And, as everyone knows by now, Dick, Tom and Harry have largely accepted Android the interface. The result would be a sales bump up. But not necessarily for Windows (only).
Talking from where? Surely not from experience. Are you? The same argument crept up a century ago, in Europe. If, so was the reasoning, one can get her hands on 2 million books in a very well-maintained library, classes could just as well go. And the next generation would be significantly better off, education wise. Has not materialised, has it? Then, some 50 years ago, it was the radio that would bring hours and hours of instructive material; and with the least interference (you can listen in many situations). Draw. Radio has instead ventured onto 100% mass-class bang-bang-music source. Maybe you don't agree with the last sentence, but medium of instruction, it is not. And I myself remember the onslaught of TV. Now, finally THE medium to reach the rural areas and educate Tom, Dick and Harry. No more demographic divides. I myself remember a good number of real good and instructive broadcasts. 40 years ago. All gone. I have watched and listened carefully to a number of highly-rankled YouTube clips from eminent personalities. At least in my field, electrical engineering, I have to say "chapeau"! - partially very well done. Do my students burn the midnight candle to watch and take notes? Forget it. The large majority of us still needs a good portion of pressure, plus a personal contact - even if only the same old chap on stage -, maybe an attendance list, an eye-contact, an immediate answer to a question, in order to be motivated. You may strike the inflamed ego. It doesn't have to be me in front of my university students. But playing back a pre-recorded video into the lecture hall simply doesn't cut it. And don't come running with the argument "at their own sweet convenience in their privacy". Then, there are always a million items more tempting than meticulously listening during a longer span of time, following up, taking notes. Fantasy, that's what this is for me.
Sure cards are better from any educated point of view. In principle. But that's not the question. The question is about the availability, the licence and most of all the devices to run this thing on. I have ICS on my tablet, but that doesn't make me a fan-boy. Show me a download location from where I can get firmware for my device and I will gladly download and try. See, this is why WebOS is just vaporware, sorry. Okay, I compromise: I have root on my ICS. Where can I download a version to run from the root command prompt? What next is it that you want me to do? HP is in some trouble, has never played really nice with the FOSS community, went out of the tablet business by selling under-priced tablets. Plus, HP was always in the business of selling their hardware together with software, and vice versa. What are they up to now?
Take my five imaginary mod points. "We" (in the west) take things overly pragmatic. 'Overly' in comparison to people from Iraq, Syria, and many other countries not at a 'western level'. Pride in one's country is much more prevalent than we imagine in many parts of the world. That includes dying for it in a war with another country as well as in an internal dispute for governance. You invade Syria today, and will see the larger part of the "Freedom Fighters" turn against you. The Libyans wanted to do it on their own, with minimal outside help. And so feel the majority of the Iranians. By the way, I know a good number of Iraqi people, and neither has ever appreciated the US invasion to 'liberalize' the country. What we see today is a total disrespect of that invasion. The Iranians wanted and want to battle it out among themselves - much more than being artificially unified under the government of a Western puppet. Why can't we accept everyone's and everypeople's right to self-determination of the fate?
That's totally correct and is highly 'insightful' at this moment of the discussion. Not insightful per se, but in perspective what was commented in the 100 comments earlier. To my 2 sen, the discussion was lacking the necessary dialectics to be truly inspiring. There are always two sides to the coin. There are the Christian fundamentalists in the bible belt in the USA, and there is - currently underreported due to news more relevant from a global perspective - a drive in Malaysia before the impending elections to hammer out a path to hudud law in that country. And Malaysia is not a theocratic dictatorship. It is the feeling of a sizable portion of the population that feels the need to combat the insecurities of the 'new world' with recipes of the seventh century. And I know a good number of educated people in Malaysia, including western educated people, who long for hudud, if not an Islamic theocracy. I wonder if they are so much different (lower??) than their counterparts in the west, who also feel deep inside that strict adherence to the bible would line out a splendid future for them and their kids. And there were many a people who liked and still like Mr. A. from Iran for his decisive stand for a strong country and against the incessant efforts of the West to dominate the globe. Hitler was swept into power, not exactly by a true majority in 1933; but his party was voted in with a good number of votes. And he was voted in by the right as well as the left for his promises of a brighter future. What we fail to see - and discuss - is the sociology aspect of these happenings. They are not restricted to Iran, Islamic countries. There seems to be a great personal and societal insecurity looming for many of us 7 billion people. And the promises and perspectives do not seem to come forward from the progressive groups, parties and communities; rather from those who are stuck in partially overcome and outdated ideas of yesterday.
So, uhm, what else can this bootloader load? Say Windows but modified in a malicious way? Certainly it would seem that GRUB should be able to do that, if nothing else?
I must say I dont really see this making much sense from any kind of security perspective.
[My probably first reply to an AC here.]
All right. I'd mod you insightful if you were no AC. But you are a dreamer. Microsoft isn't really interested in Security. If they were, they'd already thrown in the towel and had de-registered themselves as company. The intention is to effectively close the market to competitors. Think, and think hard: Which percentage of the computer-buying population would actually even consider fiddling with some boot options to make anything else but Windows running? As of today, you can throw in a Ubuntu-CD and just give it a try (actually, many did, and most revert to Windows). As of tomorrow, you simply can't do this this simply. Oh, sorry, wrong example here: Ubuntu == Canonical.
As Ex-Sysadmin I can tell you that you'd be fired for the next malware problem, any next malware problem, if only you dared to remove the Secure-Boot-Lock. Because pointy-haired bosses do not think that thinking is required for their jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds correct, but it isn't. Unfortunately.
It does contain relevant information, but kind of mixed up.
Length can be a helper when statistics comes into perspective. And when the one-time pad is a non-random piece of letters (book, e.g.) the ciphertext can display statistic non-uniform properties.
On the other hand, imagine a purely random sequence, then random + [non-random] plaintext = random. Or, as example, the ciphertext 'qgrmy' that I have just generated in this manner (so-called Vernam Cipher), could represent any 5 letter-word, or two words with an intermediate blank, or "a pad" or whatever. Continue on this thought, and length and statistics are no remedy. A ciphertext of length N produced with this method can represent any other text of length N. And brute-force does not help at all, because brute-force would come up with any possible text of length N; be it Shakespeare's Hamlet or the latest news from BBC. The likelihood of all those texts are all identical.
The major setback of this method is of course that the recipient would need the one-time pad of length N as well to decrypt the message, so it is not feasible for real-world cryptography.
Using a book-cipher as source of the random sequence is dangerous, because letters are usually unevenly distributed in books. Make it a Vignière of length N of random letters, and nobody will ever be able to decrypt it.
Nice. You got a positive modding so far. Had I mod points, I might have given 'redundant', since this is what anyone could have read on /. since its inception. And as a GNULinuxer myself, I have to state clearly that W8(XP/7) has a few things that give it a distinct advantage. Like running MS office (for those who probably wrongly assume they need it), running a lot of software exclusively (in my case OrCAD).
It is a pity that I have no mod points anymore.
This is not only true (Buffet and his statement), it is valid and proven. Since 2000 the share prices of MS have been hoovering around then same level.
Gee, apply some common sense, that's enough. Like Facebook. How many people can be sustained by this planet? And even if every single one has a Facebook account, there is a natural limit of potential users. And then??
MS was similar. A huge advance in the 1990, no competition, effectively. (IBM was just too half-hearted with OS2) Something had to come. And it came. MS was even lucky that IBM bungled, the BSDs bungled, Linux kind of failed to unify in the struggle to the desktop of the year. And yet, as we are approaching the post-desktop-period ['desktop' as a PC in a huge separate casing], MS is not there, but others.
I for one could not exclude totally that MS will foster similar activities as described in the news deliberately to flood the world with its otherwise not-too-kindly-perceived W8. Giving it effectively for free (as in beer), it will be adopted globally, quickly. Since mankind has taken a lot of crap from MS (and others) since its early days, chances are for a resurgence of Windows due to its unified UI on and for any machine. Free Of Charge.
Absolutely true! - I only miss the mod points.
I have tried to use Word for academic papers (or whatnot else), but it just doesn't work (without a lot of hassle). I work in academia and people are sitting in front of Word for three days (we did, few month ago), to format some 12 pages properly. All my suggestions to use anything else were shot down. I was informed that Word was just 'the' standard, and the problems my/our mistake, and so forth. People are willing to spend unlimited amount of time for their beloved office software.
There is one thing that is lightyears better in Word, compared to Writer, to be totally honest: Bibliography. This point is lousy-lousy in Writer.
Though in a municipality, this is no demand and no argument.
Yep, exactly what I wrote. Look at the properties: .pdf-document. And so forth.
"Kopie von Entwässerungsantrag_11-12-13.dot".
What now? I have a two-inch bolt and a metric nut. Doesn't fit, does it. And what?!?
Is the bolt broken and wrong or the nut?
What a s**t, altogether; this 'news'. I suggest to just move on. Freiburg municipality has found out, that a format based on a proprietary format can't be opened properly by some other software? So what! Who the f**k told them wrongly that a[ny] Word template can be opened and processed in OpenOffice!? So how is the whole matter any "prove" that OpenOffice cannot fulfil the requirements of Freiburg?
Bastards!! Sure, there was some hanky-panky involved. Otherwise they would as well have complained about Word, which does not open PDF properly, by default, and neither allows a 1:1 editing of the
Reading the report, they state that Writer can only be used for 80% of the tasks; Impress and Calc even less.
That sounds very fishy in the ears of someone who has made complete layouts for real books and real publishers (no Internet-crap), of hundreds of pages, including automatic TOC, blabla, plus articles in traditional Chinese and Japanese.
Now tell me, please, what sorts of daily work a municipality needs to do, what sorts of letters need to be written, that can't be written in Writer!? I bet a 5-digit-sum in € that this is simply untrue. I cannot exclude, though, that some templates created in Word cannot be filled in Writer. But then the numbers would be misleading, and some wishy-washy of hands could not be excluded. I correct myself, I take a bet of 6 digits of €, that all writing work of a municipality can be done in Writer, if done in any proper manner; if and only if done from a proper set of basics of OpenOffice. Nobody expects the OpenOffice Writer to run 100% compatible with Word Macros, to give an example.
Invite me, pay me a reasonable fee, and I'll show those half-wits 'wo die Glocken hängen'.
[I have no clue how the previous post came out as AC - nothing of my making]
Nevermind the inside and outside information and all the shills and the naysayers. We need to w8 a tad for the final outcome of success or failure for W8. From all accounts, Sinofsky was not laid off for 'the failure that was called Metro'. /. !] is the intention to unify all sorts of computing UI, from your watch through your toaster to your smartphone. And, as usual, Microsoft was about the last one to enter the station hall in this respect. Something needed to be done, and a marriage of convenience was enforced: the quite well-developed W7 interface had a nuptial with Metro, a test interface for touchy topics.
What we all can see, and agree [sorry. no , we are
And so both sit close to each other; not yet knowing much about the newly found partner. Therefore we need to be patient. If W8 becomes a success, UI-wise, Microsoft will swing to new heights. Because a single UI written once and run anywhere is a success by default. Screw all competition. Should, however, the market react with too much hesitation at acceptance levels, Microsoft will not only by Micro and soft, but also cooked.
It simply is a nice past-time to speculate wildly on the demise of Redmond's premier organisation; and I enjoy this speculation. In reality, we just have to w8. With some luck (or dismay; for others), we might have watched MS shooting itself not in the foot, but through its own heart.
I do wish someone had taken responsibility for my friend before he jumped in front of a train. And no that isn't the responsibility of the state government. It is the responsibility of every citizen.
That's what I meant with 'spontaneous', exactly. It is like we ought to take the responsibility when a hot-blood in a rage tries to beat up someone else, or two people get into rage against each other, and step in between and calm them down.
But when someone, despite of calm and quiet constitution and despite of counselling wants to switch herself off in cool blood, we can only accept that wish. Nobody must be able to determine for me that I have to continue to live against my persistent desire.
I'm neutral on the issue, but I think it's worth looking at an alternate view on the issue:
[...]
To be sure, there are noble intentions behind the “assisted death” proposals, but I can’t help wondering why we’re in such a hurry to ensure the right to die before we’ve done all we can to ensure that those of us with severe, untreatable, life-threatening conditions are given the same open-hearted welcome, the same open-minded respect and the same open-ended opportunities due everyone else.
Who the heck says they shouldn't be given the same open-hearted everything??
What should and must be the priority is the self-determination of people and their inalienable rights to choose their own, personal, style of life, including handling suffering. If this was the case, and I very much wished it was, you'd have your Code Blue and I wouldn't. Trouble is, too many people consider me unhealthy, and the governments of this world do likewise try to nanny me into a prolonged life of their desire, in case.
If someone is "healthy" but wants to commit suicide that indicates they are not healthy. Something is wrong (usually mentally). .
Thanks. I hope you'll never be responsible for others. I can only agree as far as 'spontaneous' is missing in your proposal. A constant and consistent wish to die cannot be linked to the sanity of a person. On the contrary, it should be everyone's right to de-terminate his life. Because it doesn't belong to anyone else, least the state government.
While I am fully for this legislation, I'd want to go one step further. With 18 / 21 a human is allowed to vote, to marry, to become a bankrupt. You name it. What this person is not allowed, is to switch herself off. That is already wrong. Of course, we can't allow this out of a temporary misery; like being left by the partner, losing at the roulette table or just boredom.
Off the cuff I'd argue for 3 counselling sessions, 2 with a doctor and 1 with a psychologist, with a fortnight in between each, to obtain a certificate to legally terminate one's own life. All this 'suicide is wrong' mantra stems from ancient times, and is inherited through religion. The trouble of linking it with a terminal disease is obvious: Who could certify that the life expectancy is 6 months or below? Plus, there are cases when suffering is not necessary terminal (living consciously in an iron lung could be). So, let's not be arbitrary and vague and nannying. Let us legislate what fits into the 21st century, and that is the legal right to fully determine one's own destiny. From cradle (better: adolescence) to grave. Over.
And I'll be pleased to shake the hand of a 3-digit-Slashdotter!
Hopefully a few more people can make it? And maybe-maybe we can get a T-shirt? Who knows!
Okay, I somehow have been living with Slashdot for the last 10+ years, sharing some part of my life with it, through good and bad.
So I want some 'party', maybe not the usual, outgoing splurge; it is getting cold in Germany anyway. And yet, I will be sitting in my favourite place in Duisburg that evening, and wonder if anyone wants to come along?
Just check the parties, and find your way!
Partially I agree with you. At least on the W95/XP et al thingy. Actually, W98 was my favourite of that family. /., to mention that finally someone with KDE-fame was enlightened enough to start pondering about this?
I can't agree with you on the 'stupid', because that's not what the parent was. Also, I can't agree with the default KDE being the best since sliced bread. And I have shown / given this to a number of users. It does not lead the uninitiated user to the fountain of awesomeness. At least, I have yet to see that single first-time user.
I can agree that conceptually the KDE menu makes most sense. Being a KDE user myself, though, I still see how the KDE people are engineers, not usability oriented. And that runs the project down like SUN was run down by crappy management despite of great engineering. As I said, in KDE it is usability (if not plain ugliness : the dirty-blueish-grayish default colours). Qt is the toolkit of choice.
And with respect to the original topic: notifications ARE a bore on KDE. And the musings to which the summary leads, are quite okay; though long overdue. I myself hate to have sometimes a double-digit of messages, of an insane agglomeration of people being online, an important incoming mail, another incoming set of SPAM, a security update, 3 of my files copied to the thumb drive finished, the printer out of paper (though solved in the meantime). Sick. Did it even deserve a spot in
nevermind ...
As much as I adore the resolve of some individuals to advance science and technology, and invest all available resources exactly for that,
and as much as I like to give my small contribution to this dedication and resolve, to advance the ongoing project and maybe even mankind, though:
Do we really need a next generation suborbital space capsule??
I don't think Microsoft really cares about the 1% Linux PC market enough to spend any money on exclusivity
Hmm. In what year are you living? I for one live in 2012 these days, and the PC has long been abandoned as target. Look at smartphones and tablets, and it rather is Microsoft hoovering around the one-digit market share. Therefore, and without saying that I am convinced that they do, they surely would have a very good reason to even pay Intel each day that the Linux kernel can't take the same economics that Windows does.
I take it you are what your name says: unknowing. Nevermind. I see where you are coming from (and where you are headed). It is true that what you write would be correct if it was correct. But nobody asks to write drivers. It is only very normal procedure to write documentation on the power shutdowns. Documentation that is needed and will probably asked for by the Windows coders. And documentation that the Microsoft lawyers will want to make sure it exists; they can't afford to have Windows running on verbal information on the features of these CPUs fresh from a drink at the pub. And if this contains third party intellectual property, they can't pass it on to MS neither.
But now, what would happen if Intel came out with an Atom that ran on a significantly reduced power? Yes, it maybe able to make it through as many hours as an ARM-based device. And what if that Atom-based device had Linux support? It would see Android running on it with possibly faster response times. Or the normal x86 of Debian (that is ABCbuntu). Imagine an Atom the size of a BeagleBoard, or Pandaboard. The latter two need no cooling. And, as everyone knows by now, Dick, Tom and Harry have largely accepted Android the interface. The result would be a sales bump up. But not necessarily for Windows (only).
Mods, bugger off! How can 437 be a troll?
Plus, he's right. There is no need for VB compiled for other systems. And no, there is no need for C-code compiled with VC on other systems.
Now mod me down as well, please, to be consistent.
Talking from where?
Surely not from experience. Are you?
The same argument crept up a century ago, in Europe. If, so was the reasoning, one can get her hands on 2 million books in a very well-maintained library, classes could just as well go. And the next generation would be significantly better off, education wise. Has not materialised, has it? Then, some 50 years ago, it was the radio that would bring hours and hours of instructive material; and with the least interference (you can listen in many situations). Draw. Radio has instead ventured onto 100% mass-class bang-bang-music source. Maybe you don't agree with the last sentence, but medium of instruction, it is not. And I myself remember the onslaught of TV. Now, finally THE medium to reach the rural areas and educate Tom, Dick and Harry. No more demographic divides. I myself remember a good number of real good and instructive broadcasts. 40 years ago. All gone. I have watched and listened carefully to a number of highly-rankled YouTube clips from eminent personalities. At least in my field, electrical engineering, I have to say "chapeau"! - partially very well done. Do my students burn the midnight candle to watch and take notes? Forget it.
The large majority of us still needs a good portion of pressure, plus a personal contact - even if only the same old chap on stage -, maybe an attendance list, an eye-contact, an immediate answer to a question, in order to be motivated.
You may strike the inflamed ego. It doesn't have to be me in front of my university students. But playing back a pre-recorded video into the lecture hall simply doesn't cut it. And don't come running with the argument "at their own sweet convenience in their privacy". Then, there are always a million items more tempting than meticulously listening during a longer span of time, following up, taking notes. Fantasy, that's what this is for me.
Sure cards are better from any educated point of view. In principle.
But that's not the question. The question is about the availability, the licence and most of all the devices to run this thing on. I have ICS on my tablet, but that doesn't make me a fan-boy. Show me a download location from where I can get firmware for my device and I will gladly download and try.
See, this is why WebOS is just vaporware, sorry. Okay, I compromise: I have root on my ICS. Where can I download a version to run from the root command prompt?
What next is it that you want me to do? HP is in some trouble, has never played really nice with the FOSS community, went out of the tablet business by selling under-priced tablets. Plus, HP was always in the business of selling their hardware together with software, and vice versa. What are they up to now?
Take my five imaginary mod points.
"We" (in the west) take things overly pragmatic. 'Overly' in comparison to people from Iraq, Syria, and many other countries not at a 'western level'. Pride in one's country is much more prevalent than we imagine in many parts of the world. That includes dying for it in a war with another country as well as in an internal dispute for governance. You invade Syria today, and will see the larger part of the "Freedom Fighters" turn against you. The Libyans wanted to do it on their own, with minimal outside help. And so feel the majority of the Iranians. By the way, I know a good number of Iraqi people, and neither has ever appreciated the US invasion to 'liberalize' the country. What we see today is a total disrespect of that invasion. The Iranians wanted and want to battle it out among themselves - much more than being artificially unified under the government of a Western puppet.
Why can't we accept everyone's and everypeople's right to self-determination of the fate?
That's totally correct and is highly 'insightful' at this moment of the discussion. Not insightful per se, but in perspective what was commented in the 100 comments earlier. To my 2 sen, the discussion was lacking the necessary dialectics to be truly inspiring. There are always two sides to the coin.
There are the Christian fundamentalists in the bible belt in the USA, and there is - currently underreported due to news more relevant from a global perspective - a drive in Malaysia before the impending elections to hammer out a path to hudud law in that country. And Malaysia is not a theocratic dictatorship. It is the feeling of a sizable portion of the population that feels the need to combat the insecurities of the 'new world' with recipes of the seventh century. And I know a good number of educated people in Malaysia, including western educated people, who long for hudud, if not an Islamic theocracy. I wonder if they are so much different (lower??) than their counterparts in the west, who also feel deep inside that strict adherence to the bible would line out a splendid future for them and their kids. And there were many a people who liked and still like Mr. A. from Iran for his decisive stand for a strong country and against the incessant efforts of the West to dominate the globe. Hitler was swept into power, not exactly by a true majority in 1933; but his party was voted in with a good number of votes. And he was voted in by the right as well as the left for his promises of a brighter future.
What we fail to see - and discuss - is the sociology aspect of these happenings. They are not restricted to Iran, Islamic countries. There seems to be a great personal and societal insecurity looming for many of us 7 billion people. And the promises and perspectives do not seem to come forward from the progressive groups, parties and communities; rather from those who are stuck in partially overcome and outdated ideas of yesterday.
So, uhm, what else can this bootloader load? Say Windows but modified in a malicious way? Certainly it would seem that GRUB should be able to do that, if nothing else?
I must say I dont really see this making much sense from any kind of security perspective.
[My probably first reply to an AC here.]
All right. I'd mod you insightful if you were no AC. But you are a dreamer. Microsoft isn't really interested in Security. If they were, they'd already thrown in the towel and had de-registered themselves as company.
The intention is to effectively close the market to competitors. Think, and think hard: Which percentage of the computer-buying population would actually even consider fiddling with some boot options to make anything else but Windows running? As of today, you can throw in a Ubuntu-CD and just give it a try (actually, many did, and most revert to Windows). As of tomorrow, you simply can't do this this simply.
Oh, sorry, wrong example here: Ubuntu == Canonical.
As Ex-Sysadmin I can tell you that you'd be fired for the next malware problem, any next malware problem, if only you dared to remove the Secure-Boot-Lock. Because pointy-haired bosses do not think that thinking is required for their jobs.