Posts by Zolko 177 posts • joined 10 Nov 2010
@ Oh Homer : you didn't get it, did you ?
The point is not to consolidate the Internet social universe, but to offer an open solution for Internet chat. And one that would be easy to disseminate on a large scale. Which might or might not consolidate the social media chat services as a side-effect. Even if it's easy, many people refuse to joint proprietary data-slurping mega-corp networks.
"It's not like if you don't accept it, we'd be shutting down your device or intentionally bricking it."
Sir Runcible Spoon : "Lying turds. "
same here: if you don't update the software at their notice, the system will still function but with reduced functionality, like, for example, you can't re-scan your music library, meaning you can't listen to new music.
Lot of long and complex arguments here by AC posters.
yes ... and all with the same visual effects (bold for quotes) and all defending GRsecurity. Strange, isn't it ?
The potential liability won't become a fact until sometime in the future when a Grsecurity customer gets sued
so ... now that GRsecurity did sue Perens, doesn't that prove that dealing with GRsecurity can indeed bring legal trouble ?
That's why I use another browser for banking. My main browser is Firefox with Ghostery, blocking all trackers, and my banking browser is something else, with 1% market-share, where they can track me all they want there is nothing to see since I don't use it for anything else. And then there is my Tor-browser for when I really want to be on the safe side.
I don't say that NSA can't see me, but I'm making their life more difficult.
"In fact the US would not issue any sort of warrant or extradition request of Assange while he's in the UK."
very true, they'd probably just grab him on the streets and take him to the US in an anonymous Citation jet taking off during night. Actually, probably not the US, but Saudi Arabia or some other dictatorship with secret prisons.
You seem imply that Assange would get a fair legal case, but all evidence points to the contrary. You did read the newspapers about Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, secret Citation flights, black prisons run from US bases in some random countries, the plane of the Ecuadorian president downed over Austria because they thought that Snowden was in there, didn't you ? So, very clearly, Assange can fear much more than the UK justice.
Uber's use of the tool to evade police detection should be considered a criminal act
why is there even a doubt about this ? Identifying legal prosecutors and then feeding them false information to evade inspection cannot be seen as anything else than illegal in any jurisdiction. Except Luxembourg, may-be.
systemd-free Devuan Linux hits RC2
So should programming languages be translated from English - "if", "else", "break" etc translated into your local language?
Actually, it has been done, with BASIC, to French: it's horrible, and unreadable. A very good candidate for "bloody Hell, did you really think this will be used ?"
Did anyone seriously think that data in some US concerns database was safe and private ? Make that "data on the Internet" actually. I never believed that any my data I want to have private was to be on Internet. I also assume that if I travel to the US, all my personal data will be given to the US spy agencies, but since I don't go there I don't really give a toss. Well, they might also have it if I don't go there, but unless they want to kidnap me on the streets in Europe I should be safe (and I don't think I'm an important enough fish for that).
It's quite simple: if you don't like the way the US is turning into a fascist state - and that was way before Trump - don't go there. There are many other nice places in the world.
… and a big guy with a cigar ...
I think that such a big guy with a cigar would have an unfortunate hunting accident quite soon. There are many opinions among secret services, and they're not all sold to Wall Street. Some actually believe in what they're doing.
But I thought we'd just voted to take back control?
from Europeans only, you're still the Yankees servants.
it's the F-104 Starfighter or the F-16 Fighting-Falcon. And it's the F-16 Fighting-Falcon that is superior to the F-35 for air-to-air combat.
Drivers should be shipped as source code and built with a compiler at install time.
Drivers should be in userspace, not in kernelspace. Why in hell should the driver for a user-pluggable USB joystick run in the kernel ? Why shouldn't it be possible to make drivers for industry-standard devices have a stable ABI ? If it's that eternal context-switching argument, give the choice:
- do you want to compile this driver
<k> in the kernel
<m> as a loadable module
<u> as a user-space driver.
Linus has become too comfortable, someone else with new energy should step in.
That's how UNIX always have worked.
yeah, and thinks never ever change, that's it ? We shouldn't have come down of those trees in the first place.
CM-browser, Opera-mini are those I use. Sometimes Firefox or Dolphin. Chrome is also installed, only use it if I don't care Google spying on me
tell me how you would pronounce "INSTALL" differently to "Install" ?
I never did such a thing. Did you actually ever pronounce "install" ? I only have typed it.
I would be genuinely interested to know of any real-world use case where case sensitivity actually serves a purpose or provides some benefit.
"A.xpm" and "a.xpm", the first file referring to a pixmap representing the letter "A" and the second the letter "a". Real-world project. How would you have called these 2 files ?
"try to tell them why they've got a file named "amadán" and another named "amadán" and these really are two separate, distinct, files"
Are you kidding ? Do you also have the problem to explain them that IO.txt and l0.txt are distinct files ? Why do you think was the 0 (zero) written as Ø on matrix printers 20 years ago ? When I see activation codes like 3KOA I always wonder whether that's an O or an 0.
So it's trivial to explain that just because 2 letters look the same they might be different. I have much more trouble explaining why Moo.txt MOO.txt and moo.txt should be the same file: their names are composed of obviously different characters.
"From HMD we can expect a range of Android phones and tablets"
says who ? If they only make Android phones, they can stop right here, there are already too many concurrents. But if they use another OS (MeeGo, Tizen, Sawfish, whatever it's called now) then that changes the market. And I'll buy one right away.
Would the manufacturer be happy to help knowing that they can't claim their vaults are now secure?
whether they would be happy or not is not the question: if they can, help, don't they have to ? And anyway, if they can help crack the vault means that their device is unsecure, independently from they providing the help or not. In Apple's case someone else provided the help, meaning it was possible.
the only people who think the FBI has a case here are those who stand to gain from Government over reach.
actually, I don't understand:
If I'm a convicted and dead murderer, and the FBI finds in my house a vault that they want to open, would the manufacturer of the vault have to help the FBI open the vault ? Suppose it has a numerical lock, which they cannot open since I'm dead and they don't know the code, but the manufacturer knows a way to disable the built-in self-destruct mechanism so the FBI can brute-force themselves in, would they have to help ?
Is that any different than the Apple-vs-FBI case ? Keyword being convicted murder not merely accused.
this is UNIX. When the fuck do we actually reboot?
my current uptime is 6 days, and that's because I installed the (then) new 4.4.6 kernel. Before that it was 36 days. On a laptop. Admittedly, sometimes I have to log-out and back-in because Kmail messes up.
the Linux kernel guys might not be able to react quickly enough in response.
That's because the kernel guys have dropped the stable/development duality, and have now a unique stablopment approach with 10 flavours of dead branches and 1 unstable tree.
If Linux came back to the good old days, the kernel guys could react quickly, but under current circumstances they will not be able to. I guess Linus became conservative and comfortable with age.
My next system will be a BSD. After 19 years of love with Linux, may-be time has come. I just hope KDE runs well on *BSD.
From the command line, in / I accidentally typed " rm -f * " on a production server.
someone Iknow did rm -rf * in an remote login, wanted to clean a working directory full of garbage .... but somehow the ssh session terminated, didn't notice, and the command was executed locally in the $HOME directory.
"We don't need them or want them and we can make remote controlled drones for 1/100th the price"
or you can buy some Grippens from your neighbours for 1/10th of the price. Because drones are not any useful for air superiority, which is what you would want against an invasion. Drones are good as attack aircraft, but hopefully you don't want to attack anybody, do you ?
What I want is a blocker that sticks it to their trackers.
Ghostery, an add-on for Firefox. With FlashBlock, you can have quite a clean WWW experience. These are the 2 add-ons that I install on every Firefox install.
I used to work there also (on the WHT), it's a great place with sometimes superb conditions, but usable only 1/2 of the year. The other half (winter) the weather conditions are too bad to observe, and that would be unacceptable for a new BBT (Bloody Big Telescope).
The two 15 meter telescopes (the MAGICs) are Cherenkov-types, not for astronomy. But it still hosts the largest telescope on Earth: the GranTeCan, a copy of the Kecks, but 10cm larger (with the Gemini's dome)
"punch cards" ? Hah, luxury, WE had to save data in memory by setting the transistor gates through jumpers on the motherboard !
"That said, if you do want to dig in, we would point you to the sections on Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property."
so I did, to find that:
"Keeping Generic Terms Available For U.S. Producers: The chapter helps address the potential for inappropriately “overprotecting” geographical indications in ways that shut out U.S. agricultural and food producers"
so for example Hungary would not be able to protect "Tokai" wine - from the region of Tokai - because some US wine producer deams that too geographical overprotection, or France to protect "Champagne" or "Camambert" because they're generic terms for sparkling wine and smelly cheese. This paragraph is especially ridiculous wen thinking about "Windows" for a windowing system. Or rounded corners for a phone.
And you want the pitch-forks to be put away ? This treaty is as bad as people have thought it would be.
"The deal is long and complex: it stretches to 2,000 pages and is written in largely technical and legal language, making quick analysis difficult."
directly contradicts:
"It's about simplifying trade rules between countries."
"The term basically means that you as a (powerful, e.g. state) customer cannot demand to see the source code for an executable as a precondition of importing/purchasing the product."
No, the term basically means that if an administration or company asks for a global offering for an office suite or operating system, they cannot put in as precondition that the software must be open-source. For example, if the UK government wants to replace all MS-Office installs in all offices with something new, they cannot require open-source products. Or schools.
This is specifically an anti-Linux or anti-OpenOffice or anti-MySQL term.
... apart in a VM, when necessary.
My only Windows machine (7 pro) is not connected to the Internet, and the latest install I did at work (on another machine) was WinXP, because of old driver issues.
Apart from that, people around here only use Linux or Mac. And Android or iOS. The discussions turn more around Debian -vs- Ubuntu -vs- SuSE -vs- others.
Mr Worstal, nice article overall, thank-you.
But you forgot to mention that when money is created when taking a credit, the corresponding debt is actually higher that the amount of money created in the process, because of the interests: the assets are the principal of the credit, but the debt is the principal plus the interests, meaning that there is more debt than assets in the world, and this difference is increasing because of the interest on the interests.
As long as the economy expanded, the expanding amount of money was not a problem, even a feature, but now that the economy is stabilizing – because of limited resources and a stabilizing demography – the pyramid scheme implodes.
a) Most people only ever have one battery and never swap?
I did that on many phones (and laptops)
b) Most people never upgrade their storage?
Upgrade, I don't know, but I have often removed the SD card of my Android(s) and placed directly into the laptop; this allows to rapidly upload/backup/restore stuff, like photos or music.
c) ...an important safety device
Safety device ? WTF, it's a bloody gadget with farting apps !
d) Software developers should be paid, and paid well?
And for that, Apple takes 30% of the Apps price ? Where they already charge insulting amount on the price of the phone itself ?
Earth orbit is the only sensible starting point for a Mars mission
Moon is actually much much better: you have proper gravity, but still no atmosphere. You can start building the mega-spaceship and spend 10 years doing it, interrupting when funds are low, without having to worry what will happen to it in the mean time.
The Moon, definitively.
they're ISIS
yeah, exactly here lies the problem: what is the proof for that ?
so in the end, for me, the user experience wasn't that different from buying a machine with windows pre-installed.
except that you were sure all hardware had proper Linux drivers, which is not certain if another OS is pre-installed (looking at Apple)
yup, had to use this one, cause only this version supports completely the Macbook Pro 13 retina. Only worked on second try though, on Linux Mint 17.2. Uptime 2 hours, let's see how stable it is.
Can anyone explain why the unit "litres per 100 km" was chosen
not sure, but one explanation could be that this is the info that you're interested in: "If I have 300km to drive, how much fuel do I need/use ?"
That is because the ABI compatibility that Linux it talking about is *userland* ie programs.
not to mention that people have asked userspace drivers for ages. Now claiming that the kernel is compatible with userland when they refuse to let drivers in userland is a bit rich.
The problem being: userland ie programs. No, userland is whatever is not kernel space, and in Linux userland is programs, but that doesn't have to be. There was a thesis by a German guy who made changes to the FreeBSD kernel to allow userspace drivers, seamlessly.
This could happen with Linux if the even&odd naming scheme had been preserved, instead of the current lazyness à-la Windows: "Hey, let's put everything in the kernel, it's sooooooooo much easier". If a user can plug and unplug a device, that's userland: what is there not to understand about that ? A USB stick driver, a USB joystick driver, a video screen driver, must logically be in userspace: they are industry standards, FFS ! Of course that scheduler and memory management must run in kernel space.
If I had time, I would dump Linux and switch over to FreeBSD. The systemd debacle might actually provide the necessary incentive. Yeah, monolithic kernel my arse.
X has had a pregnancy, suicide from a bully terrorist
you're missing the words Al Quaeda, Ben Laden, bomb, drugs. I suggest:
"Ben Laden has committed suicide with a bomber terrorist from Al Quaeda because of a pregnant bully on drugs."
If I'm paying for the network use and the device then it's reasonable for me to...
I'm paying for the house, including his room, the toilets and the bathroom, therefore it's reasonable for me to install spy cameras to see what he's up-to. Sounds creepier, doesn't it ? But it's exactly the same. Leave the kids alone, we did look at porn magazines when we were 15, even though it was also forbidden.
The positive side-effect could be that the kids learn computing (in order to bypass the spyware).
Baron Harkonnen was so fat he needed - actually, he will need, it's SciFi - suspensors to move around. While this man looks quite skinny. More like Nefud then, but that one was - will be, ouch, confusing - younger.
@ AC: with what are you planning to replace you Macbook with?
No need to replace the machine, it's the OS that sucks. The machine (assuming it's a unibody) is awesome. As for the OS, Debian stable (Wheezy) is a good choice, I also know people using Ubuntu or Mint. Guess that Slackware or LinuxFromScratch would be overkill.
Install Debian. Works like a charm. Haven't booted MacOS-X since ... well, ever, used it only to partition the drive and install rEffit.
"PCs and laptops do get booted, because they are turned off"
my uptime currently is 46 days, with Debian stable on a MacBook Pro, launching heavy-dute 3D CAD in Windows virtual machine, external monitor sometimes, kids playing Minecraft or Dofus, put to sleep each evening.
Self-compiled kernel, goes without saying.
No, really, booting is for sissies. But even then, with an SSD, boot-time is less than 10 seconds, KDE takes more time to load than the boot process. And in the boot process, rEffit and GRUB take up most of the time. So what is the gain of 2-3 seconds boot ?
"Everything was flat, until the CPU/GPU power existed to give a UI a faux 3D look"
no, it all begun with MacOS System 8, when the window borders and UI buttons took that 3D shape. Before that, with System 7, it was all flat. And there where no GPUs then, hey, some CPUs didn't even have the math coprocessor. You're confusing with 3D CAD, but on UIs it's only pixmaps, no GPUs needed. I even remember having installed a System 7 "extension" giving my System 7 a System 8-ish look.
it was 1995 (or 1997 ?)
Or go back to windows 3.1, where there was a distinctive 3D effect on buttons when pressed.
This "flatness" thing was (re)invented by Microsoft and the Metro interface. It's just the new rage, until the next trend comes (diagonals ? you heard it first here)
What GPUs allow is transparency, alpha-blending, translucent menus.
I use KDE with 1 click (to open files and folders), and I also configured my Win7 workstation to function like that. To drag, rename ... you click and hold, and it knows that you're not opening. Also, make good use of right-click, and now I feel that double-clicking is soooooo old-school.
Much less clicking overall.
"Let's call it a £1M transaction to keep the numbers small and easy. You tax that at 1%."
ok, lets. Why would I tax it to 1% ? If this money goes to a "friendly" place, I might indeed tax it at 1%, or even 0.1%, but if it's going to a place where I know you're going to leverage 100:1 and do HFT that destroys my economy, you can bet I won't let you get away that cheap. Let's rather talk about a 30% tax here.
"If I repatriate a small slice of the profit, you might get to tax that.... then again, you might not. I'd just buy the Rolex abroad and wear it home.
sure. Then I'll see you travelling, and my custom agents might ask you to open your bag. And how are you going to transport that Porsche, that Bose home-cinema, those boxes of fine Champagne, that private jet ... that you want to buy with your hard earned money ? Because they are manufactured by people living here and thanks to good infrastructure and education, all paid-for by taxes.
"All you've really achieved is to drive the vast bulk of financial transactions offshore"
no, I have effectively made them unprofitable, but not only here, in many places. Because even if the financial world pretends to have its own life, at some point there is collateral, and a financial transaction tax is effective when you need that collateral, so it will, in effect, starve the financial world of real-world collateral. Especially as most collateral is government bonds, which are geographically bound.
offshored a lot of bank workers job
good riddance. But it's also funny in a historic perspective.
The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing
Join our daily or weekly newsletters, subscribe to a specific section or set News alerts
Subscribe
