Asus have probably put some bodged-up crappy version of Linux on it. They've done this before - my eeePC 1000 came with a crapped-up version of Xandros on it, e.g. weird disk setup, the WiFi dropped out every 10mins, loads of linux bits 'missing' and not easily added - I replaced it with Ubuntu and it has worked perfectly (adn faster) with 100% hardware support ever since.
Asus are paid lots on money by MS; it's almost as if they deliberately screw up their Linux setups...
Why don't you try a live USB of a standard distro (probably Mint) - it might be a very pleasant surprise.
If you are referring to US law, it looks like the consensus is that to download and use libdvdcss etc. as an individual in order to watch your own DVDs is legal; but to *distribute* it is not. So if you obtain your copy of libdvdcss from a country with no DMCA then it is probable that no illegality is involved.
In other words, it's perfectly legal to use Linux to watch DVDs in the US; you just have to take some simple action to obtain libdvdcss from outside the US, rather than have it pre-installed.
Let me ask you something. How much dicking about did your perfect desktop require with such things as graphics cards and wifi drivers not being recognised?
OK, here's my specific example: Ubuntu 10.4 LTS: Desktop, DELL 530: Graphics card Nvidia 8300gs: Worked OK on first boot with OSS driver, but Ubuntu suggested Nvidia binary driver, accepted, click, click, reboot, done. No wireless card. Netbook, eeePC 1000: Graphics card and WiFi both worked with no issues.
Does your printer work well with it? If so what model is it and did you have to spend some time researching which one would work with your PC rather than just buying one and knowing it will work?
Printer HP880c, works fine with all Linux versions, originally bought for Windows. Scanner Cannon Canoscan 620u, works fine with all Linux versions, originally bought for Windows, does not work in current Windows versions (Vista or later).
Obviously, no cutting edge hardware here; but this is a good illustration of one area where Linux excels: reasonably popular hardware from fairly recent to many years back (like my 11 year old scanner and 13 year old printer), carry on working, potentially for many years after Windows drops support.
To that extent, it stands that there ought to be some pretty serious repercussions for what he did.
The guy's 92. What sort of 'serious repercussions' do you suggest would be appropriate for him and his 'crime'? Bankruptcy? Prison? If I was 92 I wouldn't consider anything much less to be 'serious'.
And no, I don't mean to argue that old people should generally be immune from punishment because they're old. I'd just like to know what sort of thing you had in mind.
My experience is that it depends - using cheapo freeview boxes it was appallingly slow; using integrated digital TVs it's now *really* snappy. Probably depends on the signal quality as well (our signal quality is very high now the analogue's turned off and they've boosted the digital output).
I've used the excellent and fast Algol 68 compiler long long ago on a CDC Cyber computers
I've never used Algol 68 'in anger', only played with it, but it always stuck me as rather elegant in an uber-nerd sort of way.
On a fairly trivial note, I always likely the keyword reversal - IF...FI, CASE...ESAC. I found it makes the code logic stand out more than other schemes. Although that does seem to create a potential problem if you want to use a palindromic word...
If the CE certification body uses a different definition of 'finished product' to the relevant tax authority, (as they almost certainly do, being effectively totally unrelated bodies), there is absolutely *no* reason that you can't 'have it both ways'.
EVERY TIME YOU USE PLASTIC, YOU ARE PAYING ABOUT 3% TO BANKS.
More like 'every time you use credit cards'.
I believe it varies by country but certainly in the UK Debit cards typically have a small fixed fee (maybe 20-40p) per transaction - effectively irrelevant for large transactions, not so good for small transactions, which is why some retailers won't accept them for (e.g.) less than GBP5
Eventually, the equipment will be mandatory (like safety belts in cars), and it will be illegal to bypass (like copy protection).
No, this won't happen. Political opponents: "The government is forcing you and your children to be spied on while naked in your bedroom (*lots* of people have TVs in their bedroom).
Not even the most brain washed sheep-like voters will accept this; and not even the stupidest government will try it.
In fact, any TV manufacturer who enables such a feature by default, and in particular does not make it clear when it is enabled etc. will soon be on the receiving end of a damaging (at least publicity wise) lawsuit for privacy invasion if any pictures from such a TV leak out, particularly if they are intimate pictures which end up online.
I've also heard USA banks are the last system to use checks, or paper checks anyway.
You've heard wrong.
We still have paper cheques in the UK. The banks wanted to abolish them by 2018 but abandoned the plan when it was pointed out that they were the only effective payment method for certain transactions. I'm sure they'll try again in a few years though.
It's true that they are no longer accepted in many shops, but they are still the normal payment method if you (say) want a £1000 fence put up and your fencer is not a tax-dodger.
Note that while this guy was not convicted: a/ His life was seriously fucked up b/ The police only queried the test when he repeatedly insisted he had never been to Manchester, where the crime was committed. If he *had* been (innocently) to Manchester at around the 'right' time this would not have occurred. c/ The lab initially denied there were any issues and insisted the match was correct, and the police proceeded to charge him based on this denial. d/ the lab *later* confessed to the contamination
If it was not for d/, he would probably be banged up now, because the Jury know that "DNA is 100% reliable". He was *incredibly* lucky that the lab confessed - they could easily have covered this up, and I believe most organizations would do just that and see an innocent man jailed rather than risk losing lucrative police work.
Also note they are now investigating to see if the same thing has already happened in previous cases and led to false convictions.
ALL DNA testing laws should at the very least require that the crime scene DNA is tested at a seperate lab to the samples taken from possible perpetrators. But that won't happen because it costs money, which outweighs justice any day (certainly in the UK at present).
I just set up a new gmail account as a test. There is a field for mobile phone number, and it is *optional*. I left it blank, and the account was set up and confirmed to be working.
So, you either you are wrong and the AC is right, in that Google does not *require* a phone number, or (possibly) the requirements vary by country (or something) and you are both 'right' for your own experiences.
Last year, I tried writing a game in JavaScript, since all the cool kids are dropping Flash nowadays. It worked fine on Chrome, but was completely unusable on FF.
Which Firefox version was this though? 'Last year' could mean anything from V3.6 to V9. FF JavaScript speed started to improve significantly at around V7 and by V9 the tests below show it as better than Chrome in 2 out of 3 standard tests (although you could call it a draw since it's still significantly slower in 1 out of the 3 tests).
I'd far prefer to pick up a CD at the store and rip it than to log on to iTunes or somewhere and buy intangible bits that can disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed.
If you back up your (now non-DRMed) iTunes, Amazon, etc. purchases to (say) multiple external drives, they will never "disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed." If you *just* relied on your CDs it is inevitable that given sufficient numbers of them and enough time passing that some will succumb to 'CD rot' (in my case, about 1% of all my commercially pressed CDs dating back over 25 years have 'gone bad' - visible pin prick holes, no longer recognized as valid optical discs).
However, I would agree that iTunes etc. is a potential disaster area for people who can't be bothered to or don't know how to make proper backups.
I don't know about in the US, but here in the UK you should be able to get an analogue-tuner CRT TV with composite input for next to nothing. I've got two such 28" TVs sitting idle awaiting disposal - although the power consumption's probably not good, and they are very bulky and heavy. Even though you can still use them with a digital converter box most people have (or will soon have) disposed of them in favour of digital tuner LCD TVs.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, just noticed your mention of Xubuntu so you obviously have tried other stuff than Linpus. That's what you get trying to speed-read too fast...
Asus have probably put some bodged-up crappy version of Linux on it. They've done this before - my eeePC 1000 came with a crapped-up version of Xandros on it, e.g. weird disk setup, the WiFi dropped out every 10mins, loads of linux bits 'missing' and not easily added - I replaced it with Ubuntu and it has worked perfectly (adn faster) with 100% hardware support ever since.
Asus are paid lots on money by MS; it's almost as if they deliberately screw up their Linux setups...
Why don't you try a live USB of a standard distro (probably Mint) - it might be a very pleasant surprise.
If you are referring to US law, it looks like the consensus is that to download and use libdvdcss etc. as an individual in order to watch your own DVDs is legal; but to *distribute* it is not. So if you obtain your copy of libdvdcss from a country with no DMCA then it is probable that no illegality is involved.
In other words, it's perfectly legal to use Linux to watch DVDs in the US; you just have to take some simple action to obtain libdvdcss from outside the US, rather than have it pre-installed.
Let me ask you something. How much dicking about did your perfect desktop require with such things as graphics cards and wifi drivers not being recognised?
OK, here's my specific example:
Ubuntu 10.4 LTS:
Desktop, DELL 530: Graphics card Nvidia 8300gs: Worked OK on first boot with OSS driver, but Ubuntu suggested Nvidia binary driver, accepted, click, click, reboot, done. No wireless card.
Netbook, eeePC 1000: Graphics card and WiFi both worked with no issues.
Does your printer work well with it? If so what model is it and did you have to spend some time researching which one would work with your PC rather than just buying one and knowing it will work?
Printer HP880c, works fine with all Linux versions, originally bought for Windows.
Scanner Cannon Canoscan 620u, works fine with all Linux versions, originally bought for Windows, does not work in current Windows versions (Vista or later).
Obviously, no cutting edge hardware here; but this is a good illustration of one area where Linux excels: reasonably popular hardware from fairly recent to many years back (like my 11 year old scanner and 13 year old printer), carry on working, potentially for many years after Windows drops support.
To that extent, it stands that there ought to be some pretty serious repercussions for what he did.
The guy's 92. What sort of 'serious repercussions' do you suggest would be appropriate for him and his 'crime'? Bankruptcy? Prison?
If I was 92 I wouldn't consider anything much less to be 'serious'.
And no, I don't mean to argue that old people should generally be immune from punishment because they're old. I'd just like to know what sort of thing you had in mind.
I'm still wondering how to select a table in Libre/OpenOffice Writer...
Table menu->select->Table
or Ctl-A x 2
Tricky eh?
and feels slower than what it replaces.
My experience is that it depends - using cheapo freeview boxes it was appallingly slow; using integrated digital TVs it's now *really* snappy. Probably depends on the signal quality as well (our signal quality is very high now the analogue's turned off and they've boosted the digital output).
Nothing like this in the UK. Nothing currently proposed AFAIK.
The patents are freely licensed for any GPL software; see link for details.
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/offer.htm
Mosh appears to be GPL:
https://github.com/keithw/mosh/blob/master/COPYING
I've used the excellent and fast Algol 68 compiler long long ago on a CDC Cyber computers
I've never used Algol 68 'in anger', only played with it, but it always stuck me as rather elegant in an uber-nerd sort of way.
On a fairly trivial note, I always likely the keyword reversal - IF...FI, CASE...ESAC. I found it makes the code logic stand out more than other schemes. Although that does seem to create a potential problem if you want to use a palindromic word...
You can't have it both ways.
If the CE certification body uses a different definition of 'finished product' to the relevant tax authority, (as they almost certainly do, being effectively totally unrelated bodies), there is absolutely *no* reason that you can't 'have it both ways'.
Actually I was going to put che[ques|cks] but I decided that was a bit anal.
EVERY TIME YOU USE PLASTIC, YOU ARE PAYING ABOUT 3% TO BANKS.
More like 'every time you use credit cards'.
I believe it varies by country but certainly in the UK Debit cards typically have a small fixed fee (maybe 20-40p) per transaction - effectively irrelevant for large transactions, not so good for small transactions, which is why some retailers won't accept them for (e.g.) less than GBP5
Eventually, the equipment will be mandatory (like safety belts in cars), and it will be illegal to bypass (like copy protection).
No, this won't happen. Political opponents: "The government is forcing you and your children to be spied on while naked in your bedroom (*lots* of people have TVs in their bedroom).
Not even the most brain washed sheep-like voters will accept this; and not even the stupidest government will try it.
In fact, any TV manufacturer who enables such a feature by default, and in particular does not make it clear when it is enabled etc. will soon be on the receiving end of a damaging (at least publicity wise) lawsuit for privacy invasion if any pictures from such a TV leak out, particularly if they are intimate pictures which end up online.
I've also heard USA banks are the last system to use checks, or paper checks anyway.
You've heard wrong.
We still have paper cheques in the UK. The banks wanted to abolish them by 2018 but abandoned the plan when it was pointed out that they were the only effective payment method for certain transactions. I'm sure they'll try again in a few years though.
It's true that they are no longer accepted in many shops, but they are still the normal payment method if you (say) want a £1000 fence put up and your fencer is not a tax-dodger.
There's nothing unreliable about DNA testing. They even employ controls to rule out laboratory contamination.
Of course, these controls are perfect:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17324912
Note that while this guy was not convicted:
a/ His life was seriously fucked up
b/ The police only queried the test when he repeatedly insisted he had never been to Manchester, where the crime was committed. If he *had* been (innocently) to Manchester at around the 'right' time this would not have occurred.
c/ The lab initially denied there were any issues and insisted the match was correct, and the police proceeded to charge him based on this denial.
d/ the lab *later* confessed to the contamination
If it was not for d/, he would probably be banged up now, because the Jury know that "DNA is 100% reliable".
He was *incredibly* lucky that the lab confessed - they could easily have covered this up, and I believe most organizations would do just that and see an innocent man jailed rather than risk losing lucrative police work.
Also note they are now investigating to see if the same thing has already happened in previous cases and led to false convictions.
ALL DNA testing laws should at the very least require that the crime scene DNA is tested at a seperate lab to the samples taken from possible perpetrators. But that won't happen because it costs money, which outweighs justice any day (certainly in the UK at present).
I am actually getting tired of this fad of posting videos to make a case.
Also, many corporate networks block all streaming videos to save bandwidth, even when they allow 'reasonable' personal internet use.
(not the AC)
I just set up a new gmail account as a test.
There is a field for mobile phone number, and it is *optional*. I left it blank, and the account was set up and confirmed to be working.
So, you either you are wrong and the AC is right, in that Google does not *require* a phone number, or (possibly) the requirements vary by country (or something) and you are both 'right' for your own experiences.
Refutation: Mint
What about the language at the bottom of the document saying the agreement is not modifiable except by agreement of the CEO or Board or somesuch?
Good point; make sure you strike out and initial this bit as well...
Last year, I tried writing a game in JavaScript, since all the cool kids are dropping Flash nowadays. It worked fine on Chrome, but was completely unusable on FF.
Which Firefox version was this though? 'Last year' could mean anything from V3.6 to V9. FF JavaScript speed started to improve significantly at around V7 and by V9 the tests below show it as better than Chrome in 2 out of 3 standard tests (although you could call it a draw since it's still significantly slower in 1 out of the 3 tests).
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5260/firefox-9-released-brings-javascript-speed-improvements
Why don't you try your game again in V9 and report back?
I'd far prefer to pick up a CD at the store and rip it than to log on to iTunes or somewhere and buy intangible bits that can disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed.
If you back up your (now non-DRMed) iTunes, Amazon, etc. purchases to (say) multiple external drives, they will never "disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed."
If you *just* relied on your CDs it is inevitable that given sufficient numbers of them and enough time passing that some will succumb to 'CD rot' (in my case, about 1% of all my commercially pressed CDs dating back over 25 years have 'gone bad' - visible pin prick holes, no longer recognized as valid optical discs).
However, I would agree that iTunes etc. is a potential disaster area for people who can't be bothered to or don't know how to make proper backups.
Under the false floors of data rooms across the world lie millions of miles of unused cable.
And many mummified mice, in my experience...
Are all UK citizens now living under US law, to be extradited at any time?
In effect, yes.
Any further questions?
I don't own a composite TV.
I don't know about in the US, but here in the UK you should be able to get an analogue-tuner CRT TV with composite input for next to nothing. I've got two such 28" TVs sitting idle awaiting disposal - although the power consumption's probably not good, and they are very bulky and heavy. Even though you can still use them with a digital converter box most people have (or will soon have) disposed of them in favour of digital tuner LCD TVs.