Go back to Windows. If you can't cope with people wanting to choose how to run their system, you don't deserve software that's all about choice. If insults are the best reason you have for living, do everyone a favour.

Doesn't matter. It's not tested or validated for every possibility. Hell, given how easily I can break Debian, I wonder if it's tested at all these days. There is no point in using unvalidated setups with a distro, if you're at that point then you should roll your own.

Software that is designed correctly separates out what it does, how it does it, and how it interacts with the outside world.

Ergo, software that is correctly designed is user-agnostic. If the user thinks in a particular way, whatever that way happens to be, it is the job of the software to accommodate that. If it does not, it is not software for users, it is software that has users. Possession is everything.

Software that is correctly designed is configuration-agnostic. If the configuration file states something is enabled, then that is enabled. It is not the job of the software to say the file really means something else. If the configuration is broken, state how and why. Clearly. If the configuration is old, import and update. But don't tell me, or anyone else, what Joe Bloggs thinks would look better. I don't care. And the more other people's preferences get shoved in my face, the less I will care.

Theo clearly has the right idea - the only way to get past the morons is with an attitude of utter contempt. Bugger all else matters, apparently.

It's definitely one of the cleanest. It needs a rewrite, though.

Linux-From-Scratch is easier to use, less user-hostile and less determined to tell me how to think.

ANY software that pretends to know better than me how I want things done is software that deserves to burn. And then sink into the swamp. It is that precise attitude that got me to kick the Windows habit and led me away from the early ix86 BSDs.

I not only think better than a mere machine, I think better than your average distro compiler. I can spec better, I can build better, I can test better. Debian had, up till now, been acceptable, the packages are convenient and it's no great pain to tune. Now, Debian ranks lower than Fedora. I'd recommend the MCC distribution before either and that was last updated during the Ice Age.

After something like 20 years I finally found a system that won't run Debian unstable right now. My Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 magnesium tablet + iKey Jumpseat magnesium keyboard. Systemd and GDM break. Bought (for less than full price) because I am a frequent traveler and speaker and really do need something you can drop from 6 feet and pour coffee over have it keep working.

But because of this bug I have ubuntu at the moment, and am not having fun and am eager to return to Debian.

Don't Blink.

Obviously it's for publicity, but their claim is clearly tongue in cheek. Let me put it this way. Everyone is taking this way more seriously than Nvidia is.

I've used the site longer and reserve the right to use Doctor Who references where I'm suspicious of technical details, especially as relate to timing vulnerabilities. This is allowed, as per The Hacker's Dictionary. Bonus points for finding the Doctor Who references included.

That was pretty much my interpretation as well. Which would be great for ad-hoc encrypted tunnels - the source and destination can have keys that are valid only until the tunnel's authentication expires (typically hourly) and where the encryption is based on the identity the other side is known by. Ad-hoc tunnels need to generate keys quickly and efficiently, but also don't need to be super-secure. In fact, they can't be.

If RIBE isn't useful in ad-hoc, then you'd end up having to ask when it would be useful.

Anything that depends on a third party, including PGP/GPG with keyservers, is vulnerable to some form of compromise, SSL/TLS certificates all have a third party signer and Kerberos depends on all kinds of behind-the-scenes work being secure. However, although they're imperfect, they're considered adequate for what they do. Well, except for SSL, perhaps.

RIBE presumably therefore also has a niche where it's good. Rapid key turnover is what's wanted for conversation-based protocols with timeouts. That makes RIBE sound promissing for IPSec ad-hoc and SSL, as it makes store and crunch by attackers less likely to work. But is that the right niche?

How dare those academics use math, specialized jargon, and peer-review! Witchcraft, I tell thee, witchcraft!! (Quick hint for whatever PR firm submitted this: science is extremely complex and extremely specialized these days. Sorry if your marketing degree didn't prepare you for anything better than spreading FUD.)

Yah, we only have one earth at the moment, so it's sort of hard to directly test the effects of (1) implementing or (2) NOT implementing a carbon excise tax on the next 100 years of climate change. Science can't do that. Of course, neither can lobbyists or SIG's or true believers or anyone else.

What science can do (for a sincere policymaker) is provide the firmest foundation of knowledge to work with. And science quite confidently tells us a lot of things we don't want to hear (like "all this carbon is going to make the environment go wack, do something about it" or "your ass is getting fat on all that sugar and processed foods", or "life arose thru such-and-such set of processes and not ex post nihlo, sorry if that challenges your theology LOL").

don't need 16Megs. People on slashdot criticize apple for forcing you to buy features you don't need. Now you critize apple for making the base model something not geek worthy. they are offering what their customers need. Chances are the number of songs or photos you want to keep stored on your iphone at any time isn't geoing with time. and that's the majority of the space usage on most people's phones. With icloud and beats streaming that need is going to dramatically shrink as well. The only thing likely to really be a space hog is more tricked out games and things that use the greater pixels of the large phones. But as I said, at the moment it's photos and music that dominate the storage needs and those will be going down not up.

Yes alibaba is a theives market. Alibaba does little to root this out too. Moreover the entire china small items trade competiveness relys on the rediculous postage rates (low) that allows delivery in the US for a mere $1 worth of postage. Finally all the small vendors lie about the item in the postage to evade customs charges.

Amazon could make great noises and will.

On the other hand who owns Alibaba's 120 billion? Americans now. If the congress sicks their dogs on ALibaba it's the same as pilfering 120 billion from investors.

Meanwhile amazon has a PE nearing 1000 (who are they kidding?). AMazon's 1000 PE is justifed only on the basis of their growth rate not their earnings. If their growth is threatened (enter alibaba) their stock price crashes. if it crashes to a P/E ratio of 30 or 100 then 90% of the stockholder calue is whiped out. Gone. Not transfered. Gone.

So what's your poor bribed congressman to do. Act on alibaba's theivery to save Amazon, or not?

tough choice.

Alibaba's stock price over the next year will be a race between their growth in value, and the trees Amazon and E-bay fell in their path. I predict it goes up for 1/4 then down in response to regulatory pressure after the elections. THen eventually back up if their revenues grow,.