Just last week we received a call from a customer (well, a customer’s teenage son) who decided to try some “Will it Blends” while his mom was on vacation. He called in asking to receive a replacement jar before his mom returned because he knew his life was on the line after almost destroying his mom’s favorite kitchen appliance after trying to blend a crowbar.
The customer service replied: what are you doing, Gordon?
If I keep hearing Linux is no more inherently secure than OSX or Windows, then why should one presume that there's some reason that OpenDD or OpenWRT should inherently be any more secure than standard router firmware?
I don't know how the comparison to Mac/Win makes applies here, but anyway, here's my theory... OpenWRT is developed by a larger, open community which also wants to offer long-term support for older devices. A manufacturer stock firmware of a router (even if Linux-based) can be slapped together quite sloppily and the manufacturer moves on to next projects, leaving security holes and router-crashing bugs behind.
Well, yeah. It seems that many of Ask Slashdots these days could be solved by just some simple research by the author himself. "What kind of adjustable monitor stand would I need..." Then take a look in the offerings of a computer store and do this mysterious, magical thing of choosing yourself.
Try the YouTube+ app for Windows 8 Modern UI. It uses video overlay to play the videos (just like MPlayer) and thus is much faster than Flash plugin. Has very smooth UI too.
Yeah, there's one in my house with XP, Adobe Flash, and maybe an nVidia 6800? Stutters constantly. I suppose it might have more to do with flash not liking the video driver, than the hardware itself not being fast enough. But it's got the most current versions of the drivers available, so considered as a system it's crap.
Try IE and the ActiveX Flash Plugin. It's usually a nudge faster than other browsers.
No, that makes no sense at all. The name Amazon long pre-dates the river, being the name of a mythological tribe of warrier women who removed a breast so they could better shoot a bow.
But the name Amazon, as the name of the river, long pre-dates the website. So it does make sense.
Not to be too pedantic about it, but I'm very touchy about biological metaphors being inappropriately applied to technology (lets we forget how amazingly complex evolved biology really is compared to even our most advanced tech). FTFA, it sounds like they don't really "heal," they just reroute around the damage.
Some of the biological processes also route around the damage, the brain being a good example.
If it really is possible to detect adblocking (I do not know the technical details), it might be a good idea to pop up a thin banner at the top of the page explaining the situation.
"Your web browser has been detected to be blocking advertisements. Please notice that this website is made possible by advertising. We gratefully ask you to allow advertising to support this website."
My idea allows you to not pay any fees and continue watching advertisements just like before.
I am not talking about a complete paywall system, just a feature to throw a dime in the guitar case to disable the ads instead of being a "AdBlock freeloader".
I have a simple and good solution. Allow visitors to pay some (reasonably small) sum to get rid of advertisements. You would send $5 via PayPal to disable advertisements for 6-12 months, something like that.
The website gets its funding and users get rid of advertisements. Maybe throw in some little extra goodies to subscribers.
Video games are a form of art. We must be allowed to express anything in the boundaries of art. If someone however mixes up real world with fantasy, and for example gets violent against real people, it's his own fault and he oughta be punished. If someone can not make the clear distinction between the two, something is wrong with the person, not in games.
Not to forget that there's many successful pacific games too, such as the Portal series.
Let's not kid ourselves. Most Slashdot readers don't really know how computers work either. (At least not beyond screwing the parts together and blundering their way through various installers.)
Well, let's throw some carrots then. FPGAs are a good, modern and fun way learn about digital technology. You use VHDL or Verilog to describe your hardware. Combine that with a general electronics hobby and along the way I'm sure you will be enlightened on how computers work. Try this stuff if it sounds interesting.
If Linux simply focused on being a free replacement for Windows XP, and kept all the fancy bells-and-whistles for 'bolt-on' APIs and optional whizzy 3D shells, it would already have complete dominance. While Linux fights the 'fashion' war and always wants to keep up with the latest 'whiz' from Microsoft and Apple, it is not going to make any real progress.
I've had the same vision every now and then. Focus on the basics and make a robust system. The whizbang desktops end up just being buggy, slow and awkward to use.
This is probably also why classic, simple, just-works desktops like XFCE and MATE are doing so damn well right now.
You know, a Unified interface. It's a hard problem--you need only look at Windows 8 to see how badly it can go wrong.
Thankfully Unity is still much less disaster than the Win8 twin UI system. Unity gives you a normal task bar and window management to handle all things -- I don't see why people see it to be that extreme. Except for the sad fact that the Unity desktop just runs very slow even on relatively good hardware...
He's actually talking about the Noni language, also called Noone, an Eastern Beboid language of the Niger–Congo family in Cameroon. In that language, the word "linux" means same as the word "hard" in English.
Slashdot Mirror
Just last week we received a call from a customer (well, a customer’s teenage son) who decided to try some “Will it Blends” while his mom was on vacation. He called in asking to receive a replacement jar before his mom returned because he knew his life was on the line after almost destroying his mom’s favorite kitchen appliance after trying to blend a crowbar.
The customer service replied: what are you doing, Gordon?
Man, it would be so refreshing if more often the case was "${company_name} responded immediately and is working on a security fix"...
Where's the pride behind the products?
If I keep hearing Linux is no more inherently secure than OSX or Windows, then why should one presume that there's some reason that OpenDD or OpenWRT should inherently be any more secure than standard router firmware?
I don't know how the comparison to Mac/Win makes applies here, but anyway, here's my theory... OpenWRT is developed by a larger, open community which also wants to offer long-term support for older devices. A manufacturer stock firmware of a router (even if Linux-based) can be slapped together quite sloppily and the manufacturer moves on to next projects, leaving security holes and router-crashing bugs behind.
Well, toilet paper works every time.
Well, yeah. It seems that many of Ask Slashdots these days could be solved by just some simple research by the author himself. "What kind of adjustable monitor stand would I need..." Then take a look in the offerings of a computer store and do this mysterious, magical thing of choosing yourself.
We've got Solaris boxes that were last rebooted in the 90's. Yes. Really. Running Solaris 2.6, even.
Do they do anything important?
Additionally, concrete is the most used material by man, by volume.
Try the YouTube+ app for Windows 8 Modern UI. It uses video overlay to play the videos (just like MPlayer) and thus is much faster than Flash plugin. Has very smooth UI too.
Yeah, there's one in my house with XP, Adobe Flash, and maybe an nVidia 6800? Stutters constantly. I suppose it might have more to do with flash not liking the video driver, than the hardware itself not being fast enough. But it's got the most current versions of the drivers available, so considered as a system it's crap.
Try IE and the ActiveX Flash Plugin. It's usually a nudge faster than other browsers.
No, that makes no sense at all. The name Amazon long pre-dates the river, being the name of a mythological tribe of warrier women who removed a breast so they could better shoot a bow.
But the name Amazon, as the name of the river, long pre-dates the website. So it does make sense.
So now a chip with built in redundancy can bypass damage, but without allowing for the bad section to be replaced. FAIL.
Fail? There's again some typical /. thinking: an invention can't be useful if it's not perfect in all ways, thus it's a complete fail.
This is still an invention that can add a nice amount of robustness to mission-critical chips.
Or maybe it was the same AC who just couldn't resist the urge. ;)
Not to be too pedantic about it, but I'm very touchy about biological metaphors being inappropriately applied to technology (lets we forget how amazingly complex evolved biology really is compared to even our most advanced tech). FTFA, it sounds like they don't really "heal," they just reroute around the damage.
Some of the biological processes also route around the damage, the brain being a good example.
We present you RuuviTracker, an open GPS tracker.
If it really is possible to detect adblocking (I do not know the technical details), it might be a good idea to pop up a thin banner at the top of the page explaining the situation.
"Your web browser has been detected to be blocking advertisements. Please notice that this website is made possible by advertising. We gratefully ask you to allow advertising to support this website."
My idea allows you to not pay any fees and continue watching advertisements just like before.
I am not talking about a complete paywall system, just a feature to throw a dime in the guitar case to disable the ads instead of being a "AdBlock freeloader".
I have a simple and good solution. Allow visitors to pay some (reasonably small) sum to get rid of advertisements. You would send $5 via PayPal to disable advertisements for 6-12 months, something like that.
The website gets its funding and users get rid of advertisements. Maybe throw in some little extra goodies to subscribers.
Yup. Behind the horrible crust of DRM and connectivity problems, there's a fine game inside.
Video games are a form of art. We must be allowed to express anything in the boundaries of art. If someone however mixes up real world with fantasy, and for example gets violent against real people, it's his own fault and he oughta be punished. If someone can not make the clear distinction between the two, something is wrong with the person, not in games.
Not to forget that there's many successful pacific games too, such as the Portal series.
Let's not kid ourselves. Most Slashdot readers don't really know how computers work either. (At least not beyond screwing the parts together and blundering their way through various installers.)
Well, let's throw some carrots then. FPGAs are a good, modern and fun way learn about digital technology. You use VHDL or Verilog to describe your hardware. Combine that with a general electronics hobby and along the way I'm sure you will be enlightened on how computers work. Try this stuff if it sounds interesting.
If Linux simply focused on being a free replacement for Windows XP, and kept all the fancy bells-and-whistles for 'bolt-on' APIs and optional whizzy 3D shells, it would already have complete dominance. While Linux fights the 'fashion' war and always wants to keep up with the latest 'whiz' from Microsoft and Apple, it is not going to make any real progress.
I've had the same vision every now and then. Focus on the basics and make a robust system. The whizbang desktops end up just being buggy, slow and awkward to use.
This is probably also why classic, simple, just-works desktops like XFCE and MATE are doing so damn well right now.
You know, a Unified interface. It's a hard problem--you need only look at Windows 8 to see how badly it can go wrong.
Thankfully Unity is still much less disaster than the Win8 twin UI system. Unity gives you a normal task bar and window management to handle all things -- I don't see why people see it to be that extreme. Except for the sad fact that the Unity desktop just runs very slow even on relatively good hardware...
So why did he force unity down the users' throats? XFCE is much easier to use!
By your logic, then he would have forced XFCE through users' throats.
He's actually talking about the Noni language, also called Noone, an Eastern Beboid language of the Niger–Congo family in Cameroon. In that language, the word "linux" means same as the word "hard" in English.
You might like KDE too. Stable and very customizable.