Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot system lets you verify that your own vote was counted, without being able to prove to anyone else how you voted (so you can't sell your vote). Amazingly, it does it without cryptography, in a way that any high-school student could understand.
The reboot option is displayed only for kernel updates, as you suggested. Users of released Ubuntu versions receive updates only to fix security holes and other critical bugs, so it's probably a good idea to recommend that they reboot into the new kernel as soon as possible.
It's not an ideal e-book reader, but it works. You either have to use big fonts (and scroll a lot), or use normal fonts and hold the device a lot closer to your face than you would with a printed book.
I tend to hold my 770 about 6 inches from my face when I'm reading lots of text. That works fine for me, but I must look more like I'm playing a GameBoy than reading a novel.
If wanted a device mainly for reading e-books, I'd go for something with a bigger screen, like a Sony Librie.
"I guess this might appeal to PDA people, but don't they have everything that this offers for less, in a smaller package with the same or better battery life?"
Have you tried to browse the Internet on a PDA for three hours?
Exactly. I just got my Nokia 770 developer device on Monday. I was never interested in a PDA-type device before, but I love the 770. The 800x480 screen makes all the difference. On the Nokia I can view any web page easily. I can read web comics without scrolling in every direction just to see a single panel! And it turns on instantly, and is small enough to carry around and use at the breakfast table or in an elevator or on the bus (unlike my 5-pound work laptop).
The 770 isn't the perfect device for me, I admit. I would love to have an 8- or 9-inch screen and more storage space. When something like the Flybook is available for less than US$1000 then I might get one. But the Nokia 770 does most of what I want, and I can afford it *now*.
Your computer's sound input and output are buffered in both software and hardware. This means that there will be a minimum latency measured in tens or hundreds of milliseconds between reading input from the microphone and being able to send corresponding output to the speakers. You can make this latency smaller and more predictable with well-designed hardware, drivers, and applications software, but you'll never be able to do the same "real-time" processing that you can do with dedicated hardware.
"The transition kit is not the same as the final version of OS X for x86. One of them runs on generic x86 systems and one doesn't."
No, neither of them will run on generic x86 systems. The transition kit includes an x86-based Mac tower, and Apple's Phil Schiller (VP of marketing) said today that Mac OS X will not run on generic x86 systems.
(Of course, I'm sure that VMWare and other hacks will be available to get OS X running in virtual machines on x86, but it won't install out of the box on a generic PC.)
According to this News.com article, Apple's senior vice president Phil Schiller said, "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."
Dynamic Compression with Audacity
on
Normalizing Music?
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· Score: 5, Informative
What you want is a compressor. Audacity (GPL software for Linux, Mac, Windows) includes a simple built-in compressor, and also works with compressor plug-ins like SC4 by Steve Harris. (You can get SC4 by installing the swh-plugins collection on Linux or Unix; it's also included with the Windows version of Audacity).
"So, whats your point? Are you saying you disklike people re-branding your software and selling copies of it? If so, might I suggest you do not release it under the GPL."
To clarify, I don't mind people re-branding and selling our software. One Linux distributor did this for a while, and I didn't object (although I did point out some practical problems with it, and they later stopped re-branding their version of Audacity).
I know that the vendors are not stealing the software, and that I have given them full permission to modify and sell it. However, I think that these particular vendors are being unethical and deliberately deceptive in a way that is harmful to their customers. I wanted to point out the problems they cause, but I recognize that these some of these problems are unavoidable with free licensing.
I'm interested in finding ways to prevent some of the harm while preserving the freedom of the software. One answer may be eBay's Brand Name Misuse Policy, which requires sellers not to use a different brand name than the product's manufacturer.
In the US at least, the FTC's advertising regulations can prohibit omission of information critical to the buyer's decision. I don't have the legal expertise to tell whether particular vendors are violating those laws.
These eBay vendors are using the "bottled tap water" business model, just like companies that take municipal tap water and market it at high prices as "natural mineral water." (And in the US, bottled water companies are actually required by law to include a notice on their packaging if their product is from a municipal source.)
Open source software on eBay
on
P2P vs. The Clones
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I work on the Audacity sound editor, a free software project that is being re-branded and sold on eBay under names like LuxuriousitySound. Most of the sellers try to conceal the app's identity, and of course they don't mention that it's free and open-source. The same vendors are also selling rebranded versions of Open Office and GIMP. We get a lot of messages from angry users who find out that they payed $15 for software that's free for everybody.
The vendors are obeying the GPL, so they aren't guilty of copyright infringement. They're careful not to use the software's real name, so of course they aren't guilty of misusing our trademarks. They might be in violation of deceptive advertising laws, or eBay's own "Brand Name Misuse Policy," but eBay hasn't yet acted on any of the buyers' complaints.
You fool. Microsoft's Internet Explorer sets the only "Standards" worth following. Who do you want to view your pages...95% of all users out there, or some wierdo from flyover territory with his pre-paid cell phone?
I'll take the bait: I want Google to index my site, and Googlebot isn't one of the "95% of all users" running MSIE. Making full use of web standards helps search engines index my pages, saves bandwidth costs, reduces development and maintenance effort, and makes pages load faster for MSIE users, in addition to helping users of other browsers, portable devices, and assistive technologies for the disabled.
Why are we quarantining people over something with a 4% mortality rate?
It's too early to state a mortality rate for SARS. Most of the people who have the syndrome were diagnosed much more recently than the first batch of victims, and we don't know how many of the current patients will survive. Simply looking at the number of people who have already died compared to the number of current cases (like some reporters have tried) does not give you reliable statistics in this case.
Also, the seriousness of an epidemic is determined by communicability as well as mortality. A disease that infects half the world population with 4% mortality is much more serious than one that infects just a few people with 50% mortality.
Slashdot Mirror
Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot system lets you verify that your own vote was counted, without being able to prove to anyone else how you voted (so you can't sell your vote). Amazingly, it does it without cryptography, in a way that any high-school student could understand.
They pay Guido's salary.
The reboot option is displayed only for kernel updates, as you suggested. Users of released Ubuntu versions receive updates only to fix security holes and other critical bugs, so it's probably a good idea to recommend that they reboot into the new kernel as soon as possible.
Here are some things Ubuntu has that (many) other distributions don't:
It's not an ideal e-book reader, but it works. You either have to use big fonts (and scroll a lot), or use normal fonts and hold the device a lot closer to your face than you would with a printed book.
I tend to hold my 770 about 6 inches from my face when I'm reading lots of text. That works fine for me, but I must look more like I'm playing a GameBoy than reading a novel.
If wanted a device mainly for reading e-books, I'd go for something with a bigger screen, like a Sony Librie.
The browser does have a popup blocker, but it's not enabled by default. You can enable it in the Settings window (in the "Tools" menu).
It's not available yet, but someone is working on the Tremor fixed-point Vorbis decoder for the Nokia 770.
Exactly. I just got my Nokia 770 developer device on Monday. I was never interested in a PDA-type device before, but I love the 770. The 800x480 screen makes all the difference. On the Nokia I can view any web page easily. I can read web comics without scrolling in every direction just to see a single panel! And it turns on instantly, and is small enough to carry around and use at the breakfast table or in an elevator or on the bus (unlike my 5-pound work laptop).
The 770 isn't the perfect device for me, I admit. I would love to have an 8- or 9-inch screen and more storage space. When something like the Flybook is available for less than US$1000 then I might get one. But the Nokia 770 does most of what I want, and I can afford it *now*.
Your computer's sound input and output are buffered in both software and hardware. This means that there will be a minimum latency measured in tens or hundreds of milliseconds between reading input from the microphone and being able to send corresponding output to the speakers. You can make this latency smaller and more predictable with well-designed hardware, drivers, and applications software, but you'll never be able to do the same "real-time" processing that you can do with dedicated hardware.
"The transition kit is not the same as the final version of OS X for x86. One of them runs on generic x86 systems and one doesn't." No, neither of them will run on generic x86 systems. The transition kit includes an x86-based Mac tower, and Apple's Phil Schiller (VP of marketing) said today that Mac OS X will not run on generic x86 systems. (Of course, I'm sure that VMWare and other hacks will be available to get OS X running in virtual machines on x86, but it won't install out of the box on a generic PC.)
According to this News.com article, Apple's senior vice president Phil Schiller said, "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."
What you want is a compressor. Audacity (GPL software for Linux, Mac, Windows) includes a simple built-in compressor, and also works with compressor plug-ins like SC4 by Steve Harris. (You can get SC4 by installing the swh-plugins collection on Linux or Unix; it's also included with the Windows version of Audacity).
"According to this post, Slashdot plans to help Wikipedia by using up bandwidth and adding to their increasing load."
"So, whats your point? Are you saying you disklike people re-branding your software and selling copies of it? If so, might I suggest you do not release it under the GPL." To clarify, I don't mind people re-branding and selling our software. One Linux distributor did this for a while, and I didn't object (although I did point out some practical problems with it, and they later stopped re-branding their version of Audacity). I know that the vendors are not stealing the software, and that I have given them full permission to modify and sell it. However, I think that these particular vendors are being unethical and deliberately deceptive in a way that is harmful to their customers. I wanted to point out the problems they cause, but I recognize that these some of these problems are unavoidable with free licensing. I'm interested in finding ways to prevent some of the harm while preserving the freedom of the software. One answer may be eBay's Brand Name Misuse Policy, which requires sellers not to use a different brand name than the product's manufacturer.
In the US at least, the FTC's advertising regulations can prohibit omission of information critical to the buyer's decision. I don't have the legal expertise to tell whether particular vendors are violating those laws. These eBay vendors are using the "bottled tap water" business model, just like companies that take municipal tap water and market it at high prices as "natural mineral water." (And in the US, bottled water companies are actually required by law to include a notice on their packaging if their product is from a municipal source.)
I work on the Audacity sound editor, a free software project that is being re-branded and sold on eBay under names like LuxuriousitySound. Most of the sellers try to conceal the app's identity, and of course they don't mention that it's free and open-source. The same vendors are also selling rebranded versions of Open Office and GIMP. We get a lot of messages from angry users who find out that they payed $15 for software that's free for everybody.
The vendors are obeying the GPL, so they aren't guilty of copyright infringement. They're careful not to use the software's real name, so of course they aren't guilty of misusing our trademarks. They might be in violation of deceptive advertising laws, or eBay's own "Brand Name Misuse Policy," but eBay hasn't yet acted on any of the buyers' complaints.
"In Soviet Russia, copyright violates YOU!"
Yes, native ALSA and JACK support are being developed for PortAudio (the input/output layer used by Audacity).
The Python programming language and all of its standard library modules make extensive use of unit tests and TDD.
The web server hosting the BitTorrent files is Slashdotted, so I am mirroring the ISO torrent here: http://limpet.net/files/TheOpenCD-1.2.iso.torrent
That's what the knx-hdinstall command does.
Abiword 2.0 was released today.
Paul Graham put together a brief list along those lines, titled What Languages Fix.
It's too early to state a mortality rate for SARS. Most of the people who have the syndrome were diagnosed much more recently than the first batch of victims, and we don't know how many of the current patients will survive. Simply looking at the number of people who have already died compared to the number of current cases (like some reporters have tried) does not give you reliable statistics in this case.
Also, the seriousness of an epidemic is determined by communicability as well as mortality. A disease that infects half the world population with 4% mortality is much more serious than one that infects just a few people with 50% mortality.