I thought this was a Slashdot story from years ago when China was supposed to ditch Windows...so here we are again and China still has no viable homegrown distro. I thought years ago they phased out Windows and used GNU/Linux. Not so. I know a Chinese insider who tells me that the Government handed out bales of cash to develop a GNU/Linux distro of their own and all Red Flag Linux is, is Fedora with a some Catonese/Mandarin. It was a scam of public funds. They really did not develop their own GNU/Linux distro properly. was interested because, in a racist way, I thought--wow, Asians doing GNU/Linux, it must be AWESOME and kick the other distro's ass. Asians are hard working and fastidious and the distro will intall without a hitch and it will be great. Not really. One of the issues with investing in China when it comes to business are corrupt officials and lack of accountability. In China, you pay off the right people, you do what you want--until you get caught and are made an example of for the press. Linus Torvalds mentioned something about how GNU/Linux could not really come out of places like India and China as the peole are far too concerned about trying to survive, and Linux is something that came about 'just for fun'.

Adobe is filled with issues, among them when I am compelled to sign in to verify I am an authentic user each time I use the software. This does not bode well when I am in transit and have no access to wifi. I used the forums and asked about this issue but receive a robotic response that you do not need to sign in each time you use the product. My experience proved the contrary. I call Adobe tech support, who asks to log onto my computer, and over several days it feels like half of India is lgging onto my computer to try to repair this issue. I figure a reinstall would do the trick, several reinstalls later, no change. India still needs to get on my machine to try to figure out what the hell is going on and the engineers over at Adobe are laughing because they tell their outsourced labour nothing. You get the forums and get little help or call in and get no help either. Adobe has the largest market share in their industry, so they do not care. Only when an upstart gives them a run for their money will you see Adobe shake a leg.

oh, pfff, excuse me. I forgot how tiny Netflix is. Just one puny little streaming company with barely any marketshare.

As long as the drone targets are persons of color and poor ones at that, it does not matter about so-called "collateral damage". The US of A is militarily superior and therefore in their legal rights to do as they wish, without concern of consequences. We are on a mission to bring freedom and democracy to these people, and if it takes a lot of drones and a lot of collateral damage, than so be it. Here is an important link on the topic: http://drones.pitchinteractive...? These people in Pakistan/Afghanistan need to be educated about freedom, the hard way. http://www.clowncrack.com/wp-c... America is doing all it can to correct these people and those who contest her policies are a bunch of unpatriotic cowards.

Have you actually seen what is on Netflix? I used a free trial this month for a Bluray player I got about a year ago. There is nothing to watch on Netflix. Really. It is the lowest form of film/tv show programming. I scour the directory for ages to look for something to watch. For THIS we need DRM? Man, you're giving away a wealth of freedom for a flaming bag of dogshit? I figure, 'okay, maybe there are some ground breaking programs that are worth this sacrifice.' But there is nothing. NOTHING.

I run a Libre version of Linux called Trisquel, and already know what being DRM-free is like. I noticed a lot of websites do use Flash, A LOT. I thought Flash was on its way out. Clearly this is not the case. Then, sites like Vimeo show that it is possible to run HTML5 videos that work or Ogg videos that run on Archive.org. The videos look nice too. Non DRM OS' can work well, I think Trisquel is more stable than Ubuntu. If a Libre OS can surface, then the same can be said for browsers. I e-mail the likes of AlJazeera, BBC, and other news sites to ask they stop with DRM. It seems they may migrate to more open standards...here's hoping...

Most do not understand about DRM, and that is what Mozilla is acting upon--complacency. Sure, you have a handful who understand the dangers of DRM, and why it is important to have a free internet and free open software but not enough. That is why Mozilla caves in, not enough users hold them accountable. Most of their funding comes from Google anyway. More need to be educated about this. When Stallman started the GNU operating system, their numbers were few. Now GNU is a bigger force. It may be time for another browser that respects the users' freedom. To Mozilla, I say, Fork You!

What is to stop someone from creating a blog and posting from various public hotspots? From using VPS's and a whole whack of other tools. As much as the State likes to play the Almighty Knower Of All, there are still plenty of ways you can evade them. Think of it as the Samizdat of our day. If you have purpose and some trustworthy people, you can speak truth to power.

Please allow me to explain. When I first got an Android phone some years back, I was appalled when my service provider told me that I could not update any firmware unless I had Widows. At the time, I was only running GNU/Linux on my desk and latop. My phone would be howling for updates and experienced all sorts of glitches, while I looked for someone with Windows. I wondered, 'how the hell is this a GNU/Linux OS when I need freaking Windows to update it?' Could the service provider not have released a tar ball update? How hard would that be? Then I learned that Android comes loaded with proprietary software blobs. That you have to do pretty much what the service provider wants you to do, and not what you want to do. Also, the Android phone howls for a gmail account or it gets very moody. That is why Replicant is around, but my understanding is that most of the features re disabled (like mobile internet--not wifi) once you install. So I figure, you really have to do what companies say if you want the fraking thing to work, which does not look/feel like GNU/Linux to me. I might as well get any number of other phone OS', like a Windows, Blackberry, or whatever. I am still waiting for a GNU/Linux tablet, phone, and the like. It will happen...any day now...yes..any day...one day...I hope...

What does the alpha look like?

Your notes can be as detailed or as slim as you want. This is some pretty good project management software.

Please, give me even more reason to not buy food-like substances. I also appreciate another reason to not use Facebook. It's time we support sustainable economies and the slow-food movement and leave prepared crap behind. These companese use legalese because their products are not real food anyway. Eat a healthy breakfast, chomp on an apple or banana if you don't have time. Just don't support these cancers to society. I am giving GNU Social a try, bring power back to the users, to the people.

Have you heard of an old cliche that goes "learn from your mistakes". By your logic, no errors can ever be made and learned from.

How can you be a good chess player if you do not lose the odd game? So the opensource code got a strike against it, I am sure GNU/Opensource teams are coming back at this with a vengeance, developing better protection methods. Stuff like this will rally security teams. Sure, not all bugs/vulnerabilities can be caught, but the ones that are...will have the living s--t kicked out of it. Chalk it up to valuable experience. I am sure developers are whipping themsleves into a mea culpa frenzy. A bit of humility will go a long way to making something superior.

It is far better to get a laptop with local software and storage. Laptops are mobile devices. If you are mobile, you may not always have a net connection. Therefore local program/storage is far more productive then some cloud crap. Why not a nice netbook with a light GNU/Linux flavor like Puppy? Heck, even Slackware can run on modest environs. Go L/K/Ubuntu if you have to. You will have a far more useful device with a lot more tools at your disposal. Rasberry Pi can run GNU/Linux, and it is wayyyy cheaper. Depends on what you want the kids to do, but more tools and functionality is better than something tethered not only to the cloud, but one specific company. Heck, even when I search on the 'net, I use other search engines like Wolfram Alpha, Blekko, Duckduckgo and on besides the big turd.