I've taken my laptop across the border 4 times, my wife has done so many times more, neither of us have had our laptops searched. I've been pulled aside by customs and asked questions once, but even then they did not request to see my laptop.
I think the bottom line is, if you act shady they'll look at your stuff, if you're just getting your business done then you're fine.
Just to calibrate this anecdote, what are you? i.e. nationality, race, age, class, political opinion, how smartly do you dress, etc.?
As rationale for this question, I seem to recall some informal tests where the same person will effortlessly pass customs while clean-shaven and dressed in a suit, yet be reliably (over several tests) taken aside for extra questioning when they grew a beard or dressed in cheaper clothes
Once you've cleaned your laptop of everything you don't want seen, encrypt a goatse image renamed to something like documents.tar.gz.gpg and leave that in your home directory.
Bonus 1: you get to punish the bastard who violated your privacy. "get this image out of my mind!"
Bonus 2: you get to find out whether they're capable of detecting an encrypted file and capable of making you decode it, without risking any significant data.
If you know enough about US authorities' attitudes to be worried about the border searches, then surely you also know enough about the US internal authorities to realise that it's not a safe place to visit?
Just tell your employer that you won't visit an active war zone
It's the same one as the "I must be allowed to have my cell phone on in the hospital" argument. Put simply, in safety-critical situations, particularly highly-regulated ones, the default answer is "no". If you can't actively prove that it's safe, you don't do it.
So we should ban all non-approved electronics in cars?
When the article starts by saying that PC components are the same as auto/industrial components (therefore don't worry about flicking their power supply on and off lots) -- is it even worth reading further?
Just look at auto components' datasheets, they handle wild swings of power supply, temperature and everything else an order of magnitude worse than the consumer-electronics equivalent.
Suggesting that your PC is as robust as industrial controllers is even worse! I don't know about their claim that PCs use the same components as medical devices though - anyone here know how accurate that is?
I've had two netbooks so far, and on both, the Linux installations sucked. One came with Xandros, the other with SuSE. Both were poorly installed, neither of them updated correctly over the network, and neither of them was properly adapted to the device (screen, keyboard, etc.). If I hadn't been able to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, I would have returned the machines myself.
Out of curiosity the xandros one wasn't eee was it? I thought the OS on that was quite good
Multiple windows are great for multiple monitors and / or multiple documents being edited at once.
Talking of which, it would be nice if selecting 20 documents in Windows and "open with... GIMP" didn't launch 20 separate GIMP tasks (each with its own long-winded "loading plugins..." startup sequence)
I just love Gimp. But why does Gimp have to separate the windows like that? Can't it have everything as a multi-document all under one window?
I thought that was the whole point of:
This enables window managers to do a much better job of managing the GIMP windows, including omitting the Toolbox and Docks from the taskbar and ensuring that the Toolbox and Docks always are above image windows.
I guess they weren't counting on retarded window-managers like Mac OS X...
"yes, really I wanted you to totally ignore my click on that window just because it wasn't focused at time. gee, thanks I'm glad you saved me from inadvertantly doing something useful with only one mouseclick!"
Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now
on
GIMP 2.6 Released
·
· Score: 1
No, what I want instead is a GIMP/Inkscape hybrid;)
Like the most excellent Macromedia Fireworks? Being able to edit vector-shapes and see immediately what they look like in bitmap space was so useful - if there were anything free which could do that it would be awesum!
Perhaps it could be an Inkscape plugin, so you view the vector image at certain bitmap resolution? When you zoom-in it would show you the pixels of your destination image instead of staying in infintely-scaleable SVG mode.
Re:Any chance we can draw circles and boxes now
on
GIMP 2.6 Released
·
· Score: 1
Example: Take a family photograph and circle somebody. Or add a cartoon speech bubble.
Someone has already mentioned you can select a circle and stroke it to get the line. I'll add that you can also take the border of your circle ("select, border" I think) and fill that. To make it look nicer, you can even feather the selection before you fill so that it fades-in nicely with the background. Unlike stroke, this lets you use patterns and gradients and stuff.
The other common way of highlighting someone in a photo is with your circular selection, invert it (to select everything other than your circle) and darken it, so the highlighted portion stands-out as brighter than the rest of the picture. Again, this works best if you feather the selection so it blends nicely.
Don't forget when doing stuff like darken, that "tools, colour, curves" is way easier to use and more flexible than the various slider-bar dialogs - just drag the graph to adjust gamma, and you can see if you're saturating anything out (or choose to do so if you want blank sky etc. behind people).
"Some very old windows programs refused to work when gfx was set to more than 256 colors."
And some things (e.g. the installation programs for drivers) would refuse to work in 16/256 colour mode, or in VGA mode... obviously it is a very graphics-intensive process to copy a modem driver onto your PC?
It's the opposite of what free software stands for, it is an awful shock to people when they see linux distributions attempting to restrict their freedom (e.g. Mandrake used to have a EULA - I thought I must have downloaded the wrong OS by mistake)
On a literal, hair-splitting note, I'm sure build scripts do not have to be provided if the build guru in question has not actually scripted the build.
I guess you'll just have to supply your guru to anyone who obtains the binary code then;)
(just kidding, I know GPL explicitly lists the types of files which are considered 'corresponding source')
Complexity isn't the issue with the GPL: it's the legalese. And because of the legalese, I am not confident to use it or any software using that license for commercial use without legal advice; which increases the cost of using GPL software on a commercial level. This extra cost is factored in when evaluating and comparing against software under other licenses.
I dread to think how long it takes your organisation to install a typical proprietary program... the legalese in any EULA is at least two orders of magnitude worse than the GPL (and those are expected to be understood by children, teenagers, and people with no IT nor legal knoweledge...
e.g. take iTunes. Required to use an ipod. How many people know that you've signed a contract with someone other than Apple, and given that company permission to modify the contract at any time without them even having to notify you?
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I've taken my laptop across the border 4 times, my wife has done so many times more, neither of us have had our laptops searched. I've been pulled aside by customs and asked questions once, but even then they did not request to see my laptop.
I think the bottom line is, if you act shady they'll look at your stuff, if you're just getting your business done then you're fine.
Just to calibrate this anecdote, what are you? i.e. nationality, race, age, class, political opinion, how smartly do you dress, etc.?
As rationale for this question, I seem to recall some informal tests where the same person will effortlessly pass customs while clean-shaven and dressed in a suit, yet be reliably (over several tests) taken aside for extra questioning when they grew a beard or dressed in cheaper clothes
Great advice, but one suggestion to add:
Once you've cleaned your laptop of everything you don't want seen, encrypt a goatse image renamed to something like documents.tar.gz.gpg and leave that in your home directory.
Bonus 1: you get to punish the bastard who violated your privacy. "get this image out of my mind!"
Bonus 2: you get to find out whether they're capable of detecting an encrypted file and capable of making you decode it, without risking any significant data.
If you know enough about US authorities' attitudes to be worried about the border searches, then surely you also know enough about the US internal authorities to realise that it's not a safe place to visit?
Just tell your employer that you won't visit an active war zone
It's the same one as the "I must be allowed to have my cell phone on in the hospital" argument.
Put simply, in safety-critical situations, particularly highly-regulated ones, the default answer is "no". If you can't actively prove that it's safe, you don't do it.
So we should ban all non-approved electronics in cars?
JFGI?
The solution used is to shield the calculators and use robust communication protocols such as ARINC A429 between them.
Where "robust" = a parity bit per message?
It is a classic attitude of the British to not want to keep (unconvicted) criminals
Uhh, no such thing in British law?!?
When the article starts by saying that PC components are the same as auto/industrial components (therefore don't worry about flicking their power supply on and off lots) -- is it even worth reading further?
Just look at auto components' datasheets, they handle wild swings of power supply, temperature and everything else an order of magnitude worse than the consumer-electronics equivalent.
Suggesting that your PC is as robust as industrial controllers is even worse! I don't know about their claim that PCs use the same components as medical devices though - anyone here know how accurate that is?
I've had two netbooks so far, and on both, the Linux installations sucked. One came with Xandros, the other with SuSE. Both were poorly installed, neither of them updated correctly over the network, and neither of them was properly adapted to the device (screen, keyboard, etc.). If I hadn't been able to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, I would have returned the machines myself.
Out of curiosity the xandros one wasn't eee was it? I thought the OS on that was quite good
Multiple windows are great for multiple monitors and / or multiple documents being edited at once.
Talking of which, it would be nice if selecting 20 documents in Windows and "open with... GIMP" didn't launch 20 separate GIMP tasks (each with its own long-winded "loading plugins..." startup sequence)
I just love Gimp. But why does Gimp have to separate the windows like that? Can't it have everything as a multi-document all under one window?
I thought that was the whole point of:
This enables window managers to do a much better job of managing the GIMP windows, including omitting the Toolbox and Docks from the taskbar and ensuring that the Toolbox and Docks always are above image windows.
I guess they weren't counting on retarded window-managers like Mac OS X...
"yes, really I wanted you to totally ignore my click on that window just because it wasn't focused at time. gee, thanks I'm glad you saved me from inadvertantly doing something useful with only one mouseclick!"
No, what I want instead is a GIMP/Inkscape hybrid ;)
Like the most excellent Macromedia Fireworks? Being able to edit vector-shapes and see immediately what they look like in bitmap space was so useful - if there were anything free which could do that it would be awesum!
Perhaps it could be an Inkscape plugin, so you view the vector image at certain bitmap resolution? When you zoom-in it would show you the pixels of your destination image instead of staying in infintely-scaleable SVG mode.
Example: Take a family photograph
and circle somebody. Or add a cartoon speech bubble.
Someone has already mentioned you can select a circle and stroke it to get the line. I'll add that you can also take the border of your circle ("select, border" I think) and fill that. To make it look nicer, you can even feather the selection before you fill so that it fades-in nicely with the background. Unlike stroke, this lets you use patterns and gradients and stuff.
The other common way of highlighting someone in a photo is with your circular selection, invert it (to select everything other than your circle) and darken it, so the highlighted portion stands-out as brighter than the rest of the picture. Again, this works best if you feather the selection so it blends nicely.
Don't forget when doing stuff like darken, that "tools, colour, curves" is way easier to use and more flexible than the various slider-bar dialogs - just drag the graph to adjust gamma, and you can see if you're saturating anything out (or choose to do so if you want blank sky etc. behind people).
Remember kids, talking to police is not usually in your best interest. Be polite and complicit within your rights, but don't volunteer information.
It's worse thatn that - don't even be polite to the police until you've watched that.
Tasers work!
Just the other day there was a man on a ledge and the police were afraid he'd jump.
He wouldn't come down, so they Tasered him!
He came down quickly after that, I assure you. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080925/world/stun_gun_death_2
Tasers seem like an excellent way to prevent people at height from harming themselves by bringing them very rapidly to the ground.
I'm curious though, is it preferred to use the taser or a firearm to make people fall out of trees?
> which don't provide unlimited plans: Australia, New Zealand.
UK,...
uhh, what?
3rd world = not allied with USSR or USA?
PC LOAD LETTER
What the fuck does that mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Load_Letter
"Some very old windows programs refused to work when gfx was set to more than 256 colors."
And some things (e.g. the installation programs for drivers) would refuse to work in 16/256 colour mode, or in VGA mode... obviously it is a very graphics-intensive process to copy a modem driver onto your PC?
Palin?
http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/
Besides, displaying a EULA is common practice..
It's the opposite of what free software stands for, it is an awful shock to people when they see linux distributions attempting to restrict their freedom (e.g. Mandrake used to have a EULA - I thought I must have downloaded the wrong OS by mistake)
Exactly. Surely the choice is between "could not exclude the possibility of a breach" and "deluded about their own security"?
If someone outsmarted them to get access to the data, why do these other x% believe that they would somehow find out about it?
Why does a dog always have to be kicked? Why can't it be a cat or a rabbit?
http://www.theagitator.com/2006/01/23/they-always-shoot-the-dog/
On a literal, hair-splitting note, I'm sure build scripts do not have to be provided if the build guru in question has not actually scripted the build.
I guess you'll just have to supply your guru to anyone who obtains the binary code then ;)
(just kidding, I know GPL explicitly lists the types of files which are considered 'corresponding source')
Complexity isn't the issue with the GPL: it's the legalese. And because of the legalese, I am not confident to use it or any software using that license for commercial use without legal advice; which increases the cost of using GPL software on a commercial level. This extra cost is factored in when evaluating and comparing against software under other licenses.
I dread to think how long it takes your organisation to install a typical proprietary program... the legalese in any EULA is at least two orders of magnitude worse than the GPL (and those are expected to be understood by children, teenagers, and people with no IT nor legal knoweledge...
e.g. take iTunes. Required to use an ipod. How many people know that you've signed a contract with someone other than Apple, and given that company permission to modify the contract at any time without them even having to notify you?