For what it's worth, the Cyanogen guys said they plan to make it a dual-boot option, allowing TouchPad owners to continue to use WebOS alongside Android. I was lucky enough to pick up a TouchPad, and I've been pleasantly surprised by WebOS. Out of the box, it was extremely disappointing (the WiFi wouldn't work for more than 30 sec at a time), but it's been outstanding after upgrading to 3.0.2.
Is Preware to WebOS what Cyanogen Mod is to Android? I'll have to check that out, thanks!
Indeed. Pease crashed on Pierce Rd. in Saratoga and I had a very close call myself several years back near the intersection of Pierce Rd. and Hwy 9 in my 1967 VW Karmann Ghia, so I have some experience here. The early VWs (up to 1969 for the Ghia, and I think '70 for the Beetles) had swing axle rear ends that jack up the rear end in turns so that the tires are riding on their edges. Since the engines are in the back, this causes the car to lose control very quickly on tight turns like those on Pierce Rd. and Hwy 9. After '69/70 or so, VW put IRS in their vehicles to fix this problem, keeping the wheels relatively perpendicular to the road in turns.
IIRC, it was the swing axle rear ends in the Corvairs that led to Nader's "Unsafe at any speed" suit.
This is a bit off topic, but having a technical discussion about the cause of the crash is probably what Pease would do too;) Rest in peace.
I've been researching my family tree for over 10 years now and I've tried very many genealogy software programs. Choosing an open source genealogy program was extremely important to me since all the research I've done could be lost if it were locked up in a proprietary file format that is inaccessible 20 years from now. However, it is equally important that my genealogy database be easily accessible by as many family members as possible - family members who may not be very computer literate.
GRAMPS is an outstanding piece of software. When I first began using it a few years ago, it was a little rough and it was difficult to install on Windows. This made it great for me while running Ubuntu, but difficult for me to recommend to family members. It seems to have much better support now under Linux, Windows and Mac. It also uses an open XML-based file format that at least one working group is looking at as the basis for an updated standard to replace the aging GEDCOM format. I think this is definitely the candidate for best OSS Genealogy.
PHPGedView is another good, open-source, web-based genealogy package. This is a good one to use if you're planning to build your family tree collaboratively among several family members. My biggest complaint about it is that it's a little clunky looking and some family members seem a bit intimidated by it, so they don't make changes or additions when they could. I began building a new theme and layout for it, but I put it on hold when I felt like it was taking time from working on the family history itself. Of course, it also requires that you have a server to host it on.
A similar online family tree is Wikitree.com. It looks promising, but I haven't yet found a good way to sync changes between it and my local genealogy software. It's still in its infancy though.
All that said, my favorite genealogy software is the closed-source Legacy Family Tree. The standard edition is free and the full "deluxe" version is inexpensive. Unfortunately, it's Windows only (I've had mixed luck running it through WINE). It's advantage though is that it's very easy to install and use and has some powerful tools for sourcing and merging trees. It also creates some very impressive, customizable family tree charts that can be saved in a variety of formats or printed through their mail-order service. It also saves your genealogy database in several formats including GEDCOM.
Ancestry.com is the necessary evil of the genealogy world. They have many records on their site that aren't available elsewhere on line, but they have made quite a few business decisions over the years that don't sit well with many family historians. They also produce the "Family Tree Maker" software which I recommend avoiding.
There's an Android Tricorder app that I've got on my Nexus One. It's easily one of my favorite apps - I use it to check all the phone's functions and the basic environmental data can be used to replace many other basic apps (Wifi searching, GPS/compass data, Accelerometer for leveling, etc.). The LCARS theme is the icing on the cake.
I second the vote for Buffalo. I've been running my WHR-HP-G54 for a couple years with no problems and I've been using the Tomato firmware.
I was just shopping last night for a similar router that would support 802.11n and I found the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH router. It looks like this router supports DD-WRT and it appears that it will even ship with DD-WRT as the default firmware in a month or two. That's what I'll be buying.
Well, you can't buy this one in BestBuy, but you can buy it in the US. I'm planning to order one after I recover monetarily from christmas. It's an ARM based notebook running Linux, and it converts in to a tablet.
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
While an ad is playing on Hulu, there are two buttons to the left of the video: "Like ad" and "Dislike ad". These are only visible in the windowed video though, not full screen. I make a point of clicking on the "Dislike ad" button any time a commercial is too loud and/or obnoxious like the [rum company] ad you are referring to. I don't know if Hulu tracks these clicks on a per user basis, but after clicking on the "dislike ad" button a few times, I don't see that ad any more. Even if it doesn't track it on a per-user basis, I'd like to at least believe that it sends Hulu and advertisers the message that we won't tolerate these kinds of games.
It is the incessant, obnoxious commercials on cable TV that lead to me disconnecting it as soon as I learned about Hulu. Now I've been spreading the word about Hulu and even my older parents and some retirees I know are using it rather than pay for cable.
I don't know if you were going for sarcasm or missed it in the article, but the machines in question (the flawed machines in Humboldt County) ARE optical scan machines. They are made by Diebold and they have software flaws that cause errors in how the votes are tabulated. For example, their software was in some cases dropping the entire first batch of scanned ballots (batch 0).
However, it is precisely because they are optical scan ballots - with a paper trail - that led to the flaw being found. Mitch Trachtenberg, a volunteer AFAIK, was able to scan all of the ballots post-election and tabulate them using his own open-source software. The discrepancy between his results and the official results is what led to the discovery of the flaw in Diebold's software.
I'm glad that they were using optical-scan ballots and that they saved the paper copies (and made them accessible), but it's still vulnerable to software flaws, "errors", etc., even if it is optical scan.
I would still have to boot into windows to update my Iphone, and use Itunes. I have gone completely legit in the music, movie and software areas and I like being able to download DRM free music whenever I feel like it. Bottom line, you can't do that with Linux.
It was once true that you couldn't buy the Macintosh OS on its own, but it has been possible to buy OSX without an Apple computer for some time now. Example at amazon.
For what it's worth, the comments in the linked article say, "What Victor Deeb was working on is the elimination of Bisphenol A, Bisphenol F, (used in container closure coatings) PVC, pthalates (used in food container sealants) BisPhenol A, Bisphenol F and pthalates ( carcinogens) have been detected in baby food, and Dioxin( a very powerful carcinogen the product of incinerating food container closure to recover the metal) from the environment"
I'm not sure what kinds of eBooks the OP plans on reading, but using the Linux-based Nokia N800 or N810 internet tablets as eBook readers using FBReader is pretty popular. You can use the tablet for lots of other cool stuff too. You won't be able to read DRM'd stuff though.
I have an N800 and I love it. I'm really considering upgrading to the N810 because of the keyboard, but as it is I do a fair amount of stuff over SSH on the N800 just fine (if a little slow typing). The N800 can be paired with a bluetooth keyboard too.
The N810 isn't really all that much smaller. The screen is the exact same size as on the N800. Nokia just made the N810 a little narrower by moving the Dpad to the slide-out keyboard.
Check out MicroB, a mozilla-based browser for the Maemo platform on the N800. I prefer it to the default Opera-based browser that the N800 ships with. It's based on Gecko 1.9.
I just put together some options for the E1505N for myself and it gave me the option of "256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7300 TurboCache(TM)". Not sure why that option doesn't show up for you...
ASCAP and BMI only collect fees for the artists (technically, writers) that they represent. For example, if I own a radio station, I could choose to only pay licensing fees to ASCAP as long as I only play songs that are written by artists who are represented by ASCAP and if I make damn sure I never play any songs that are written by artists covered by BMI or SESAC. Since most stations/venues don't want to have to be so careful about each and every song they play, most opt to just pay the licensing fees for all three if for no other reason that they know they won't be sued. You could also choose not to pay licensing fees to any organization if you work it out with each band individually and don't let them play any cover songs.
As an aritist, you can choose not to register with any of those licensing agencies, but then you never get a cut of the fees that those agencies collect. For most artists, they don't see much of those fees anyway though since it's based on sampled reporting from radio stations, TV, etc.
What the RIAA is doing is so much worse because they are saying that you must pay fees to them whether you play artists they represent or not. As a station, you can't choose to only play indie stuff and not pay SoundExchange. As a band, you don't have a choice about whether or not the RIAA is collecting fees in your name.
Let's be fair. The reasons for those two organizations being against LPFM are very different. Clear Channel doesn't want competition. NPR realizes that the only place where first adjacents are likely to work reliably is in the lower power non-comm band, which means it will disproportionately hurt NPR and its member stations by causing harmful interference. You can't really fault them for that.
Yes, let's be fair. If the FCC allows full power stations and translators on second adjacent channels (which NPR affiliates use extensively) then why would they have any legitimate concerns about interference from LPFMs that are relegated to third adjacent channels?
I believe that NPR's campaign against LPFM motivated by the same fears as Clear Channel's campaign; NPR (affiliates) feared the competition. Since NPR stations and LPFMs both rely on listener contributions for funding and market themselves as "community stations", NPR affiliates fear a loss of contributions from the community should more people decide to spend their donation capital on the LPFM instead of the NPR affiliate.
I agree with you that the FM (3 meter band) spectrum could possibly be used more efficiently, but I also think it's important that communities be able to build and maintain local radio stations, whether they be commercial, non-commercial, high- or low-power. FM is easily implemented and "open-source", if you will. Current digital models are proprietary; they require expensive new tech and licensing for both the transmitter and receiver and this makes it very difficult to adopt. If there were an open-source digital broadcasting model that could be widely implemented and make for more efficient (and fair) use of the spectrum, I'd be all for it. I'm not holding my breath for it though.
Yeah, I had a U3 drive before, but I didn't like it because the interface always loads (autoruns) and it is difficult to uninstall. Also, you have to buy a USB stick with U3 already on it whereas you can install the portableapps package on any old USB stick. Functionally, the Portable Apps Menu is a lot like the U3 menu except that it's up to you if you want it to autorun (or want the menu to run at all). I also prefer it over U3 because it's open source.
I agree that there is not (yet) a lot of software to choose from, but there was a lot more then I needed. Wikipedia has a rather extensive list of portable applications as well.
I just looked into something like this for myself and found portableapps.com. You can load up your standard OSS on a USB stick and then use them on any windows computer. I went out and bought the fastest USB stick I could find and loaded a few of my favorites on there (Firefox, 7Zip, OpenOffice and a few others). It's been really helpful to have the software I want when I am in a variety of locked-down university computer labs and I can do things with this software that the other students around me can't like open some obscure types of compressed files, save documents as PDFs, and browse the internet ad-free. Highly recommended if you often use public computers or work on other peoples' machines.
There is a free Acrobat Reader alternative called "Foxit", but alas, it is not open source. I gave it a try a few months ago and it was snappier than Acrobat Reader but it didn't play nice with Firefox. It looks like it's been updated since then, so YMMV.
If and when robots get "right" (more like protections in IMO), it won't be to protect the robots, but to protect people from witnessing the violence done to the robots.
It doesn't matter whether or not the robot dog is sentient or can feel pain; what matters most is other humans emotional response to the perceived violence. If you kick an Aibo around your house, no big deal. But let's say to take your Aibo out to a park and kick it around in a violent fashion; do you think people might be bothered? What if it was a slightly more advanced robot then the Aibo and it was covered in a realistic-looking skin. Then, if you took your realistic dog-bot to the park and started kicking it violently, people would probably ask you to stop.
Now imagine that in 5 years, some company makes a realistic-looking robodoll; it is not sentient, does not feel pain, and isn't any more intelligent then a RoboSapien. What if you took that out in public and began to yell at it or treat it violently. Even if everyone knows that it isn't real, they would probably object to violence against this robot. I think this is really a "think of the children" kind of thing. Laws will probably be made not to protect the robots, but to protect us from seeing robot abuse. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I'll bet that's how robots gain "rights".
Sorry if I slippery-sloped your comment; I'm not disagreeing, just observing.
When I was a kid, the only way we could convince our parents to buy us an NES was to convince them that the Power Pad (I think that's what it was called) would encourage us to be more active. I don't know if they really believed us, but that christmas, there was a brand new NES under the tree with the Power Pad. We actually used it for a little while too, though the only game we had for it was some kind of olympic sports game. It soon gathered lots of dust though after we discovered much more fun games.
Here's to the new generation of kids who get to convince their parents to get them a Wii "because it will keep them active". And here's hoping that these newer games might be fun enough to keep he kids interested and active.
If I recall correctly, Steven Colbert's Word for that skit was "wikiality", a new word that would mean something like, "a reality that may or may not exist but is accepted as true because a majority of people believe it to be true."
This is kind of like his word "truthiness". I, for one, like the word "wikiality" as a way to describe that concept and I think I'll start using it!
Slashdot Mirror
For what it's worth, the Cyanogen guys said they plan to make it a dual-boot option, allowing TouchPad owners to continue to use WebOS alongside Android. I was lucky enough to pick up a TouchPad, and I've been pleasantly surprised by WebOS. Out of the box, it was extremely disappointing (the WiFi wouldn't work for more than 30 sec at a time), but it's been outstanding after upgrading to 3.0.2.
Is Preware to WebOS what Cyanogen Mod is to Android? I'll have to check that out, thanks!
IIRC, it was the swing axle rear ends in the Corvairs that led to Nader's "Unsafe at any speed" suit.
This is a bit off topic, but having a technical discussion about the cause of the crash is probably what Pease would do too ;) Rest in peace.
GRAMPS is an outstanding piece of software. When I first began using it a few years ago, it was a little rough and it was difficult to install on Windows. This made it great for me while running Ubuntu, but difficult for me to recommend to family members. It seems to have much better support now under Linux, Windows and Mac. It also uses an open XML-based file format that at least one working group is looking at as the basis for an updated standard to replace the aging GEDCOM format. I think this is definitely the candidate for best OSS Genealogy.
PHPGedView is another good, open-source, web-based genealogy package. This is a good one to use if you're planning to build your family tree collaboratively among several family members. My biggest complaint about it is that it's a little clunky looking and some family members seem a bit intimidated by it, so they don't make changes or additions when they could. I began building a new theme and layout for it, but I put it on hold when I felt like it was taking time from working on the family history itself. Of course, it also requires that you have a server to host it on.
A similar online family tree is Wikitree.com. It looks promising, but I haven't yet found a good way to sync changes between it and my local genealogy software. It's still in its infancy though.
All that said, my favorite genealogy software is the closed-source Legacy Family Tree. The standard edition is free and the full "deluxe" version is inexpensive. Unfortunately, it's Windows only (I've had mixed luck running it through WINE). It's advantage though is that it's very easy to install and use and has some powerful tools for sourcing and merging trees. It also creates some very impressive, customizable family tree charts that can be saved in a variety of formats or printed through their mail-order service. It also saves your genealogy database in several formats including GEDCOM.
Ancestry.com is the necessary evil of the genealogy world. They have many records on their site that aren't available elsewhere on line, but they have made quite a few business decisions over the years that don't sit well with many family historians. They also produce the "Family Tree Maker" software which I recommend avoiding.
There's an Android Tricorder app that I've got on my Nexus One. It's easily one of my favorite apps - I use it to check all the phone's functions and the basic environmental data can be used to replace many other basic apps (Wifi searching, GPS/compass data, Accelerometer for leveling, etc.). The LCARS theme is the icing on the cake.
I was just shopping last night for a similar router that would support 802.11n and I found the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH router. It looks like this router supports DD-WRT and it appears that it will even ship with DD-WRT as the default firmware in a month or two. That's what I'll be buying.
Well, you can't buy this one in BestBuy, but you can buy it in the US. I'm planning to order one after I recover monetarily from christmas. It's an ARM based notebook running Linux, and it converts in to a tablet. http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
While an ad is playing on Hulu, there are two buttons to the left of the video: "Like ad" and "Dislike ad". These are only visible in the windowed video though, not full screen. I make a point of clicking on the "Dislike ad" button any time a commercial is too loud and/or obnoxious like the [rum company] ad you are referring to. I don't know if Hulu tracks these clicks on a per user basis, but after clicking on the "dislike ad" button a few times, I don't see that ad any more. Even if it doesn't track it on a per-user basis, I'd like to at least believe that it sends Hulu and advertisers the message that we won't tolerate these kinds of games.
It is the incessant, obnoxious commercials on cable TV that lead to me disconnecting it as soon as I learned about Hulu. Now I've been spreading the word about Hulu and even my older parents and some retirees I know are using it rather than pay for cable.
I don't know if you were going for sarcasm or missed it in the article, but the machines in question (the flawed machines in Humboldt County) ARE optical scan machines. They are made by Diebold and they have software flaws that cause errors in how the votes are tabulated. For example, their software was in some cases dropping the entire first batch of scanned ballots (batch 0).
However, it is precisely because they are optical scan ballots - with a paper trail - that led to the flaw being found. Mitch Trachtenberg, a volunteer AFAIK, was able to scan all of the ballots post-election and tabulate them using his own open-source software. The discrepancy between his results and the official results is what led to the discovery of the flaw in Diebold's software.
I'm glad that they were using optical-scan ballots and that they saved the paper copies (and made them accessible), but it's still vulnerable to software flaws, "errors", etc., even if it is optical scan.
I would still have to boot into windows to update my Iphone, and use Itunes. I have gone completely legit in the music, movie and software areas and I like being able to download DRM free music whenever I feel like it. Bottom line, you can't do that with Linux.
For what it's worth, I've been buying DRM free music from Amazon using Ubuntu for a while now. They even offer a handy downloader for Linux.
It was once true that you couldn't buy the Macintosh OS on its own, but it has been possible to buy OSX without an Apple computer for some time now. Example at amazon.
For what it's worth, the comments in the linked article say, "What Victor Deeb was working on is the elimination of Bisphenol A, Bisphenol F, (used in container closure coatings) PVC, pthalates (used in food container sealants) BisPhenol A, Bisphenol F and pthalates ( carcinogens) have been detected in baby food, and Dioxin( a very powerful carcinogen the product of incinerating food container closure to recover the metal) from the environment"
I'm not sure what kinds of eBooks the OP plans on reading, but using the Linux-based Nokia N800 or N810 internet tablets as eBook readers using FBReader is pretty popular. You can use the tablet for lots of other cool stuff too. You won't be able to read DRM'd stuff though.
The N810 isn't really all that much smaller. The screen is the exact same size as on the N800. Nokia just made the N810 a little narrower by moving the Dpad to the slide-out keyboard.
Check out MicroB, a mozilla-based browser for the Maemo platform on the N800. I prefer it to the default Opera-based browser that the N800 ships with. It's based on Gecko 1.9.
I just put together some options for the E1505N for myself and it gave me the option of "256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7300 TurboCache(TM)". Not sure why that option doesn't show up for you...
As an aritist, you can choose not to register with any of those licensing agencies, but then you never get a cut of the fees that those agencies collect. For most artists, they don't see much of those fees anyway though since it's based on sampled reporting from radio stations, TV, etc.
What the RIAA is doing is so much worse because they are saying that you must pay fees to them whether you play artists they represent or not. As a station, you can't choose to only play indie stuff and not pay SoundExchange. As a band, you don't have a choice about whether or not the RIAA is collecting fees in your name.
Yes, let's be fair. If the FCC allows full power stations and translators on second adjacent channels (which NPR affiliates use extensively) then why would they have any legitimate concerns about interference from LPFMs that are relegated to third adjacent channels?
I believe that NPR's campaign against LPFM motivated by the same fears as Clear Channel's campaign; NPR (affiliates) feared the competition. Since NPR stations and LPFMs both rely on listener contributions for funding and market themselves as "community stations", NPR affiliates fear a loss of contributions from the community should more people decide to spend their donation capital on the LPFM instead of the NPR affiliate.
I agree with you that the FM (3 meter band) spectrum could possibly be used more efficiently, but I also think it's important that communities be able to build and maintain local radio stations, whether they be commercial, non-commercial, high- or low-power. FM is easily implemented and "open-source", if you will. Current digital models are proprietary; they require expensive new tech and licensing for both the transmitter and receiver and this makes it very difficult to adopt. If there were an open-source digital broadcasting model that could be widely implemented and make for more efficient (and fair) use of the spectrum, I'd be all for it. I'm not holding my breath for it though.
I agree that there is not (yet) a lot of software to choose from, but there was a lot more then I needed. Wikipedia has a rather extensive list of portable applications as well.
I just looked into something like this for myself and found portableapps.com. You can load up your standard OSS on a USB stick and then use them on any windows computer. I went out and bought the fastest USB stick I could find and loaded a few of my favorites on there (Firefox, 7Zip, OpenOffice and a few others). It's been really helpful to have the software I want when I am in a variety of locked-down university computer labs and I can do things with this software that the other students around me can't like open some obscure types of compressed files, save documents as PDFs, and browse the internet ad-free. Highly recommended if you often use public computers or work on other peoples' machines.
There is a free Acrobat Reader alternative called "Foxit", but alas, it is not open source. I gave it a try a few months ago and it was snappier than Acrobat Reader but it didn't play nice with Firefox. It looks like it's been updated since then, so YMMV.
Or how about this one? It's not just blurred out, it is completely blacked out up in Alaska.
It doesn't matter whether or not the robot dog is sentient or can feel pain; what matters most is other humans emotional response to the perceived violence. If you kick an Aibo around your house, no big deal. But let's say to take your Aibo out to a park and kick it around in a violent fashion; do you think people might be bothered? What if it was a slightly more advanced robot then the Aibo and it was covered in a realistic-looking skin. Then, if you took your realistic dog-bot to the park and started kicking it violently, people would probably ask you to stop.
Now imagine that in 5 years, some company makes a realistic-looking robodoll; it is not sentient, does not feel pain, and isn't any more intelligent then a RoboSapien. What if you took that out in public and began to yell at it or treat it violently. Even if everyone knows that it isn't real, they would probably object to violence against this robot. I think this is really a "think of the children" kind of thing. Laws will probably be made not to protect the robots, but to protect us from seeing robot abuse. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I'll bet that's how robots gain "rights".
Sorry if I slippery-sloped your comment; I'm not disagreeing, just observing.
When I was a kid, the only way we could convince our parents to buy us an NES was to convince them that the Power Pad (I think that's what it was called) would encourage us to be more active. I don't know if they really believed us, but that christmas, there was a brand new NES under the tree with the Power Pad. We actually used it for a little while too, though the only game we had for it was some kind of olympic sports game. It soon gathered lots of dust though after we discovered much more fun games. Here's to the new generation of kids who get to convince their parents to get them a Wii "because it will keep them active". And here's hoping that these newer games might be fun enough to keep he kids interested and active.
It was also announced (a couple days ago) that the code name for the next Ubuntu will be "Feisty Fawn"
This is kind of like his word "truthiness". I, for one, like the word "wikiality" as a way to describe that concept and I think I'll start using it!