Apple and Microsoft say that the PC is dead or on its way out. There's no way to make the Linux desktop a better Windows tablet than windows 8 or a better iPad than an iPad, but there will be a large number of people who *don't* want to give up the PC/Dekstop. Be it for the input devices, higher display resolution or because people want general purpose computing, there will be a large need for exactly what Linux currently is. It would be good to have more applications, and a better, all-encompassing API would be nice, but there's no crisis like the summary makes it out to be. Also , it would be like the xkcd about standards, unless it's a beautiful wonder of an API.
.. And why does Slashdot and especially commenters keep giving creationism PR? Even on a story about the extremely interesting anomaly in nuclear decay rate, one of the first threads was about "Oh no, the creationists". Is it really that big of an issue, or are geeks just picking on an easy enemy?
They better not post reviews from people who got different prices then. Star ratings aren't that useful anyway, but when rating something there is an implicit assumption that it's for a given price. A phone may be five stars at $50, but someone buying it at $150 would be disappointed. There will probably be independent services to keep track of the prices (Firefox extension, anyone?).
That said, if they can get rid of the stupid.99 prices, I'll consider it.
2. Google provides lots of different services, and can combine the data.
By that, I didn't just mean provides services [to you] . There's a lot of "collateral" data collection, for situations like when slashdot uses Google Analytics or when I write an email to someone with gmail (the gmail address on my slashdot profile isn't my primary one, but I do use it). In a technical sense, I am a first party, because my browser actually goes and contacts Google's servers to load the analytics scripts, but in practice I'm more of a third party.
If you don't want google to know about it, use a different service provider (but then that service provider knows...). This is no different from how its always been, whether on the internet or not - the telco knows when you made a phone call through their network, the baker knows when you bought a loaf of bread from him.
The difference between Google and other companies is that
1. Most companies don't claim to be interested in collecting data. You effectively have to trust them to delete the information when they no longer need it for billing and accounting. Google does save the data, and you have to trust them not to do anything evil with the data. The difference is that you have to trust the telephone company (ugh) for a short time, while you have to trust Google until its demise.
2. Google provides lots of different services, and can combine the data. There can be a "synergy" effect, where small pieces of data are not useful to anyone, but if you have lots of pieces you get a detailed picture, and with good algorithms, a deeper knowledge of the person in question.
As you said below, having lots of detailed information is not necessarily bad. Looking at how law enforcement and the military are grasping for this kind of info, it's tempting to conclude that the info itself grants power, but that's not correct. The government already has the power to use force on people, but only on people who break the law. Having more data just increases the likelihood of them being able to prove that you broke a law. My concern is that there is a similar scenario where Google can use their data in a way that I don't agree with, but I can't think of such a scenario.
I would say that Google's attitude seems to be "lets collect as much data as we can, we might find a neat way of analysing it in the future". There are, of course, good and bad things about that. Afterall, people use Google's services precisely because they work really well, and a lot of that is down to Google figuring out how to analyse your data in new and useful ways (useful to *you* as well as them).
That said, I don't really see the big deal with the whole wireless logging thing.
Absolutely agree that the wireless sniffing thing is overblown. It was just meant as a well known example of systematic collection of data.
Why on earth did you think you could use an amazon tablet outside of its home country?
That's just common sense, and the comparison is bogus. I can use a computer I bought in France with a printer I bought in Norway in the UK (with some power adapters). The printer was made by a South Korean company.
If I copied some DLLs from Windows XP to Windows 2000 to get a game working on 2000, I'd be happy if the theme and keyboard language was the only thing that didn't work!
Uhm.... First of all - Google collects data about my VOIP calls? I don't think so.
on Google Volce (not technically VoIP) and Google chat sure. They also sync your contacts for android, not sure about the call history
Google is mostly only present on the web, not the rest of the internet.
I'll give you that one. They have DNS and email, but it's all optional. For email, they aren't saving anything more than any other webmail provider. For DNS, you have no idea what they save.
Even then, you have to be logged into a Google account.
For them to save data? No. Just no.
Even then, they don't collect data they don't care about.
When they care about *logging wireless packets* from their Streetview cars, we can conclude that they care about almost all data
Even then, Google is one of the few countries that won't just hand whatever data over to the government that they ask for with no questions.
You can have this one too. But we don't know if they have deals with CIA et al.
Even Google wouldn't want to retain every detail of everything a user does - ISPs certainly don't.
ISPs aren't in the advertisement or world domination business. If Google thinks that a piece of data may help them target ads better in 5 years, they store it.. Disk space is chap (they have petabytes of satellite images and streetview images coming in all the time, for example).
I'm surprised that you didn't use the argument that people could just avoid Google, Chrome, etc., but they can't avoid the government. You probably know, then, that between AdSense, Google Analytics, Google plus buttons, Custom search, they know about most sites you visit.
Well it does say "blur-free" and that's technically different than jitter. They are probably using the term incorrectly, but they could be referring to ghosting, which would be a seen as a kind of motion blur. I've never seen that problem before though. Also , smooth scrolling will be standard on Android 4.1.
You absolutely must have a Windows install, and a virtual machine won't cut it.
Are you sure? I find that most USB devices work fine in VirtualBox. For example, I had a Windows Mobile phone and that worked, but it was a bit buggy. Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't use it in Linux with a VM, it's pretty shitty to have a 2GB "sync application" constantly running and doing nothing
Just like with credit cards, it's inherent in the system that phones have to be tracked, so that calls and data can be routed to the right tower. Mobile phones provide a lot of benefit, and there is no credible alternative, so people will use them.
It's not just "insecure" applications, it's *malicious* applications. If you use Linux, how many packages do you have installed? Imagine how easy it would be for someone to slip some backdoor into a single one of those. And if you ever download small pieces of software for a one-off task, do you read all the source to make sure it's clean? Current OSes are incredibly insecure: any appliaction run as your user basically has access to all your data, your network and all devices. Making different users is perhaps sufficient for terminal applications, but for GUI applications you are limited by X11, which is not designed to isolate clients.
Would this be reasonable to implement for ISPs? I thought that their systems were designed to route packets, and in some cases to throttle traffic, not to scan for malware. It seems that the memory and CPU required for consumer ISPs to implement this would be too great. Maybe that's the reason why speeds aren't faster, they're trying to put all this intelligence in the network.
Legal question: Say I buy a CD, rip it, then it gets broken or I destroy it and throw it away. Do I still have a right to that music? I'm currently keeping the CDs, but next time I move I'm tempted to get rid of them, as I have 3 redundant copies of the FLAC files. Can I give the copy to someone else if I delete all my copies, if the CD no longer exists? As long as we're discussing common sense things that are technically illegal, I'd be interested to know..
This isn't something anyone is going to get in any kind of legal trouble over, and Apple knew that when they decided to go DRM free. If you take your iTunes music collection and throw it up on PirateBay that might be different, but in a case like this no one is going to care.
The same argument could be made against torrenting. The chance of getting caught is vanishingly small. Same with renting DVDs and ripping them. It is possible and trivially easy to do undetected, but that doesn't make it legal. (I have heard some intelligent people debate whether it could be legal to do things like that in your own house, when there is no chance of detection, because copyright is only a civil matter. I think it was more of a practical argument than a legal one though.)
It's bizarre at first sight, but it does make sense to treat it differently than real property. Does he intend, for example, that each kid gets a copy? Copyright infringement, he got 3 for the price of 1. It would be "fair" if a single copy could be passed on, and I really hope that will be the law.
> There is an extension to save all pages automatically: Shelve.
There's also squid, a caching proxy server. I'd shelve shelve and use squid iiwy.
I stand corrected, that's a much better option for the OP, assuming it serves up old pages when there's no internet connection. It will also cut down the amount of data you transfer. good idea AC!
Damn, another reply to self: There is an extension to save all pages automatically: Shelve. I just installed it , it seems to work well. Add "file:" to the list of URLs which are not saved if you access docs from file: URLs (you have them locally anyway, no need to save them). This works best if you have lots of storage and/or your filesystem supports compression and deduplication. I will enable it here, just in case I want to go back to a page that has been taken off line (it's like a mini-archive.org for the things I'm interested in)
Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Microsoft say that the PC is dead or on its way out. There's no way to make the Linux desktop a better Windows tablet than windows 8 or a better iPad than an iPad, but there will be a large number of people who *don't* want to give up the PC/Dekstop. Be it for the input devices, higher display resolution or because people want general purpose computing, there will be a large need for exactly what Linux currently is. It would be good to have more applications, and a better, all-encompassing API would be nice, but there's no crisis like the summary makes it out to be. Also , it would be like the xkcd about standards, unless it's a beautiful wonder of an API.
Why on Earth is this even an issue ?
.. And why does Slashdot and especially commenters keep giving creationism PR? Even on a story about the extremely interesting anomaly in nuclear decay rate, one of the first threads was about "Oh no, the creationists". Is it really that big of an issue, or are geeks just picking on an easy enemy?
They better not post reviews from people who got different prices then. Star ratings aren't that useful anyway, but when rating something there is an implicit assumption that it's for a given price. A phone may be five stars at $50, but someone buying it at $150 would be disappointed. There will probably be independent services to keep track of the prices (Firefox extension, anyone?).
That said, if they can get rid of the stupid .99 prices, I'll consider it.
2. Google provides lots of different services, and can combine the data.
By that, I didn't just mean provides services [to you] . There's a lot of "collateral" data collection, for situations like when slashdot uses Google Analytics or when I write an email to someone with gmail (the gmail address on my slashdot profile isn't my primary one, but I do use it). In a technical sense, I am a first party, because my browser actually goes and contacts Google's servers to load the analytics scripts, but in practice I'm more of a third party.
If you don't want google to know about it, use a different service provider (but then that service provider knows...). This is no different from how its always been, whether on the internet or not - the telco knows when you made a phone call through their network, the baker knows when you bought a loaf of bread from him.
The difference between Google and other companies is that
1. Most companies don't claim to be interested in collecting data. You effectively have to trust them to delete the information when they no longer need it for billing and accounting. Google does save the data, and you have to trust them not to do anything evil with the data. The difference is that you have to trust the telephone company (ugh) for a short time, while you have to trust Google until its demise.
2. Google provides lots of different services, and can combine the data. There can be a "synergy" effect, where small pieces of data are not useful to anyone, but if you have lots of pieces you get a detailed picture, and with good algorithms, a deeper knowledge of the person in question.
As you said below, having lots of detailed information is not necessarily bad. Looking at how law enforcement and the military are grasping for this kind of info, it's tempting to conclude that the info itself grants power, but that's not correct. The government already has the power to use force on people, but only on people who break the law. Having more data just increases the likelihood of them being able to prove that you broke a law. My concern is that there is a similar scenario where Google can use their data in a way that I don't agree with, but I can't think of such a scenario.
I would say that Google's attitude seems to be "lets collect as much data as we can, we might find a neat way of analysing it in the future". There are, of course, good and bad things about that. Afterall, people use Google's services precisely because they work really well, and a lot of that is down to Google figuring out how to analyse your data in new and useful ways (useful to *you* as well as them).
That said, I don't really see the big deal with the whole wireless logging thing.
Absolutely agree that the wireless sniffing thing is overblown. It was just meant as a well known example of systematic collection of data.
Why on earth did you think you could use an amazon tablet outside of its home country?
That's just common sense, and the comparison is bogus. I can use a computer I bought in France with a printer I bought in Norway in the UK (with some power adapters). The printer was made by a South Korean company.
If I copied some DLLs from Windows XP to Windows 2000 to get a game working on 2000, I'd be happy if the theme and keyboard language was the only thing that didn't work!
Uhm....
First of all - Google collects data about my VOIP calls? I don't think so.
on Google Volce (not technically VoIP) and Google chat sure. They also sync your contacts for android, not sure about the call history
Google is mostly only present on the web, not the rest of the internet.
I'll give you that one. They have DNS and email, but it's all optional. For email, they aren't saving anything more than any other webmail provider. For DNS, you have no idea what they save.
Even then, you have to be logged into a Google account.
For them to save data? No. Just no.
Even then, they don't collect data they don't care about.
When they care about *logging wireless packets* from their Streetview cars, we can conclude that they care about almost all data
Even then, Google is one of the few countries that won't just hand whatever data over to the government that they ask for with no questions.
You can have this one too. But we don't know if they have deals with CIA et al.
Even Google wouldn't want to retain every detail of everything a user does - ISPs certainly don't.
ISPs aren't in the advertisement or world domination business. If Google thinks that a piece of data may help them target ads better in 5 years, they store it.. Disk space is chap (they have petabytes of satellite images and streetview images coming in all the time, for example).
I'm surprised that you didn't use the argument that people could just avoid Google, Chrome, etc., but they can't avoid the government. You probably know, then, that between AdSense, Google Analytics, Google plus buttons, Custom search, they know about most sites you visit.
Wait a minute... Isn't the Department of Homeland Security the one that *wants* backdoor access to everything?
From TFS: "A researcher at Cylance discovered the hidden account and warned the ICS-CERT." If it's out in public, it's of no use to them.
It would be refreshing to have a similar level of objectivity as in this story the next time a backdoor is found in a Chinese switch..
Well it does say "blur-free" and that's technically different than jitter. They are probably using the term incorrectly, but they could be referring to ghosting, which would be a seen as a kind of motion blur. I've never seen that problem before though. Also , smooth scrolling will be standard on Android 4.1.
You absolutely must have a Windows install, and a virtual machine won't cut it.
Are you sure? I find that most USB devices work fine in VirtualBox. For example, I had a Windows Mobile phone and that worked, but it was a bit buggy. Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't use it in Linux with a VM, it's pretty shitty to have a 2GB "sync application" constantly running and doing nothing
Just like with credit cards, it's inherent in the system that phones have to be tracked, so that calls and data can be routed to the right tower. Mobile phones provide a lot of benefit, and there is no credible alternative, so people will use them.
But you'll only be able to use one at a time
And of course, I assume it uses encryption?
I really want this. One problem: The storage VM seems to be running Linux, but can you use any filesystem you want, and can you use software RAID?
It's not just "insecure" applications, it's *malicious* applications. If you use Linux, how many packages do you have installed? Imagine how easy it would be for someone to slip some backdoor into a single one of those. And if you ever download small pieces of software for a one-off task, do you read all the source to make sure it's clean? Current OSes are incredibly insecure: any appliaction run as your user basically has access to all your data, your network and all devices. Making different users is perhaps sufficient for terminal applications, but for GUI applications you are limited by X11, which is not designed to isolate clients.
There is no right to force others to publish your free speech. You can't sue me if I don't put your video on my server.
Would this be reasonable to implement for ISPs? I thought that their systems were designed to route packets, and in some cases to throttle traffic, not to scan for malware. It seems that the memory and CPU required for consumer ISPs to implement this would be too great. Maybe that's the reason why speeds aren't faster, they're trying to put all this intelligence in the network.
The Raspberry Pi was designed so it can be used with old CRT monitors which you can get for free in many places
Legal question: Say I buy a CD, rip it, then it gets broken or I destroy it and throw it away. Do I still have a right to that music? I'm currently keeping the CDs, but next time I move I'm tempted to get rid of them, as I have 3 redundant copies of the FLAC files. Can I give the copy to someone else if I delete all my copies, if the CD no longer exists? As long as we're discussing common sense things that are technically illegal, I'd be interested to know..
This isn't something anyone is going to get in any kind of legal trouble over, and Apple knew that when they decided to go DRM free. If you take your iTunes music collection and throw it up on PirateBay that might be different, but in a case like this no one is going to care.
The same argument could be made against torrenting. The chance of getting caught is vanishingly small. Same with renting DVDs and ripping them. It is possible and trivially easy to do undetected, but that doesn't make it legal. (I have heard some intelligent people debate whether it could be legal to do things like that in your own house, when there is no chance of detection, because copyright is only a civil matter. I think it was more of a practical argument than a legal one though.)
So he can't be bothered to just copy his music out of iTunes and do whatever he wants with it?
That's what Apple claims is illegal and a breach of the licence he got for the files.
It's bizarre at first sight, but it does make sense to treat it differently than real property. Does he intend, for example, that each kid gets a copy? Copyright infringement, he got 3 for the price of 1. It would be "fair" if a single copy could be passed on, and I really hope that will be the law.
> There is an extension to save all pages automatically: Shelve.
There's also squid, a caching proxy server. I'd shelve shelve and use squid iiwy.
I stand corrected, that's a much better option for the OP, assuming it serves up old pages when there's no internet connection. It will also cut down the amount of data you transfer. good idea AC!
Damn, another reply to self: There is an extension to save all pages automatically: Shelve. I just installed it , it seems to work well. Add "file:" to the list of URLs which are not saved if you access docs from file: URLs (you have them locally anyway, no need to save them). This works best if you have lots of storage and/or your filesystem supports compression and deduplication. I will enable it here, just in case I want to go back to a page that has been taken off line (it's like a mini-archive.org for the things I'm interested in)