I agree, although the USA is not alone in misguided attempts at nation building (USA's biggest failures: Supporting Saddam, training Osama, supporting the Taliban etc). Britain (to pick one) has a fairly glorious history of screw-up in this department, who do you think carved up the Middle East to cause many of the preblem we now face? Basically when any nation for a very different culture tries to "help" (for relatives values of "Doing whatever Big Money wants") it seems to blow-up in their face about 15 years down the line.
Maybe there's a lesson here?

And guess what is not covered in getting a license? Checking the oil, changing a tyre, finding and replacing a blown fuse, changing a bulb, correctly inflating tyres or any number of other actions which could be considered "administration" of the car.
If there were an equivalent driving test to routers/Internet it would be thus:
Can you
1) plug the router in?
2) press the shiny button?
3) connect your PC to the router (cable or wireless)?
4) find the router's administration page (no actual use of page is required)?
5) get teh download codez?
Depressing.

I just checked my re-bradged Netgear router and WPS was on by default (it's now off). Why is it so hard to have these things off by default and a clear explanation of what they are? The "help" on the Netgear is useless. For WPS it tells me "An external registrar can only configure the Super Hub's wireless settings through WPS when the Super Hub's PIN is enabled. When it's disabled, users still can add a wireless client through WPS with either Push Button or PIN Number method." Eh? So if I disable the PIN I can still use the PIN? That makes no fucking sense. WTF is WPS? Oh, not going to tell me.
And the push button...what push button? There's no button on the router. Oh, wait, do they mean one of the buttons on the web page? Which one? Is it beyond their wit to tell me? Seems it is.
Then there is this gem "Keep Existing Wireless Settings - This option shows whether the Super Hub is in the WPS configured state." How does the explanation relate to the topic? The two seem totally unrelated. Which wireless setting? My own wireless? if I uncheck that will my wireless access be disabled?
The same repeats for WPA vs WEP - there is nothing about what these actually are and it contains stuff like this as an explanation: "Primary Radius Server IP Address - This field is required. Enter the IP address of the Radius Server on either WAN side or LAN side. "
Really? Wow. The "help" for the techno-babble contains yet more techno-babble with no further explanation. I have an understanding of what all the above means, but only because I have a passing interest in tech and not being cyber-raped by the script kiddies. Joe Average won't and the use of techno-babble will just freak them out on making changes, thus they are likely to leave everything at the insecure defaults.

I'm not asking for the above to be explained (my router is configured and works correctly), I am just pointing out that what precious little documentation is provided is utterly pathetic and totally useless. The little 12 page leaflet I got with the new washing machine contained lots of pertinent information on how it works, how to install it (which I did, the clear instructions made it really easy) and basic trouble shooting. If they can do it for a washing machine, they can do it for a router. There is no excuse.

Linux Format

Well, a friend. Their HDD had died and they asked me what to do. "Buy a new one" says I. Turns out they had no back-ups of pictures etc, so I offered to try a recovery (no promises and I warned them everything could be lost). Anyhoo, the recovery worked with the failed HDD working as a slave to the new one. I picks up loads of deleted pictures and felt rather chuffed with my little self.

"You seems to have made loads of friends on that Egypt trip." I say.
"Never been to Egypt." they reply.

It takes 5 seconds for me to twig that donkey-boy here had done the recovery on the wrong HDD and more stuff was still being found. School reports, banking spreadsheets, tonnes of stuff. Not really what one expects to find on a "new" HDD. Once I had the pictures recovered from the correct drive (and backed-up) my friend took the "new" HDD back to the shop for a bit of a word.

Selling hooky equipment to a police officer? Not one of the storekeeper's greatest ideas. And for the previous owner, there was enough information on there for someone to do them serious ill. Luckily for them, my friend made the storekeeper physically destroy the drive (and got a full refund).

There's no issue with selling 2nd hand kit, just advertise it as such and make sure it's properly wiped first.

Almost time to play "plug-in roulette". Which ones will work, which ones not? Where the compatibility is, no one knows!
Still this is just a Beta, maybe I'm being overly pessimistic.

How much do you want to pay? Average price is around $5-$6. You take a look, decide what it's worth, pay that.
You can increase your donation later on if you like.

I've had to do the odd wee bodge to get sound to work on Ubuntu, but that's mostly because sound is still a joke on GNU/Linux.
As for .debs everywhere, that'll keep the Fedora users happy. :)
I'm not buying this one for no other reason that I'm still playing through all the games I bought on the others and there's simply too many Humble Bundles coming. They're ruining a great idea through over-use. Which is kind of a shame as I really like the general idea and the fact these devs are playing fair. No DRM, ports to new platforms and even the source at times. Can't say fairer than that really!
Hmm...maybe as a stocking filler....

Really? Really, really?
Here are some devs playing the fair and open game (you can pay one cent if you want) and you have to be a total shit and still rip them off? Exactly where do you get off being such a cock?
It's people doing exactly this kind of venture you should be supporting!
If you can afford your monthly broadband, you can afford a few dollars to pay them. If you can't, don't play. It really is that simple.
And as for "free", you do know that doesn't necessarily mean "without charge" don't you? I guess not, otherwise you would be acting like such a total fuckwad.
You're probably such a clueless shit-head that you torrent songs from Mangatunes and Jamendo to "fight the man, man".
Piss off.

Ah, an ad hominem as the very first thing. It's kind of hard to offer support (which I wasn't trying to do) without knowing which VM and I would suggest a forum dedicated to that VM would be a more appropriate place rather than /. especially as there are conflicting comments about 3D working/not working under OS X depending on the exact VM and OS X. Perhaps some combinations are simply a no-go.

3D Acceleration has been available in VBox since around version 2.1, they're now on 4.1.6. One does need to have the guest additions installed
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#guestadd-video

As to VMWare, one of the things that kept me on VMWare Workstation for so long as the fact that it did 3D accelerations whilst VBox did not. It seems that even Server offers 3D acceleration (I have not tried it myself) although server hardware is not usually known for its killer graphics card.
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/virtualization-3d-support-vmware.html

You are quite correct on remote/shared images. Whilst the server might be able to do the acceleration and the guest set-up to run the acceleration, it simply will not work/appear on the remote client. There may be some help in getting that to work, but I'm afraid I don't have the time to look into it just now
http://blogs.oracle.com/vizsun/entry/hardware_accelerated_remote_3d_windows

I have run Mint 12 and Fedora 16 (Gnome 3 Shell) and Arch (KDE) amongst others without issue (not as a remote, obviously). All with full transparencies, eye candy etc. One can even run 3D games in these virtualised environments without issue (as a quick test, "Extreme Tux Racer" at 60fps, Saurebraten [high settings] at 20fps in a Mint 12 guest).
XPsp3 (checked via dxdiag) had failures for DirectX 7 and 8, but the test for 9 worked perfectly.

The acceleration offered isn't as good as native hardware acceleration and one doesn't get all the latest features due to the nature of the virtualised hardware exposed to the guest.
Hardware: Dell Dimension 9200, 4GB with a NVidia GT240, Ubuntu 10.10 (proprietary NVidia drivers installed); not cutting edge by any means.

Even under the likes of VMWare one needs to install the guest utils to get all the features (host folder shares, proper mouse focus etc). I installed Mint 12 yesterday under VBox 4.1.6 with Ubuntu 10.10 as the host - no issues with Gnome 3. Even Arch with KDE4 in the same environment is quite happy.
Windows uses DirectX and Gnome/Unity OpenGL, the fact that both of those do not seem to work well on your Mac points more to something environmental rather than a fault with Gnome/Unity. As I don't use a Mac, I am not sure if the hardware or OS could be the cause.
Disclaimer: I am using the evil, anti-freedom extension pack with VBox, but I do not think that affects 3D.

I am not sure which VM you are using, but Gnome Shell has been available under VirtualBox for a while now. I would guess that the same is true for VMWare as well.
I don't like Gnome Shell (or Unity) for the same reason; they are a touch interface for a desktop and that is fairly silly IMHO. A monitor should be beyond arm's length, so why the hell do I want it to behave like a touch interface?
KDE is processor heavy and has so many switches/options/gadgets that workflow is interfered with and required functionality masked. Yes I could RTFM and configure to be the way I want, but like is too short to waste days pissing around with GUI options. Obviously "KISS" is a concept that has passed KDE by entirely.
For now I'll stick with Gnome 2 for GUI until I have to change. Gnome 2 is the worst desktop environment imaginable, apart from all the others.

Thanks for the names and info.
After reading the links I'm saddened to say I am not really surprised. The USA has regularly engaged in acts of outrage (e.g. extraordinary rendition, torture). Not that this makes the USA the dark evil of the world, various countries have also engaged in outrages (UK, France etc) in the name of defence/war on terror/whatever.
It's a sick sad world.

Care to share the name? News reports? Evidence? If you have evidence, go to the press, or Cryptome or...

The only suspected terrorist I can think of right now who was effectively summarily executed is Jean Charles de Menezes, and that did not happen in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

I could go on and on about the crazy, anti-freedom, anti-democratic laws being passed in my own country; but so could anyone in their own state. There's always been crazy laws (either through malice or ignorance). What you'd need to do to convince anyone of anything is cite actual references and instances. I do not think my state is "out to get me", just pig ignorant at times and running a bit of an "old boy's club". Corporations...yeah, I might give credence to the idea that democracy is being eroded by the increasing power of tax evading mega corps via lobbying and media control. Representation and no taxation? Gotta love that.

The main worry I have about Obama (and in general I'd say he's a lot better than Bush, but I'm on the outside looking in so a lot of the internal politics goes unreported here) is how cosy the Democrats are with the MAFIAA. SOPA is a stupid act and needs to be killed dead. But once again the USA thinks it is fit to lord it's policies, laws and culture over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

So, back to the point, citations please.

At last! Something to run Flash at an acceptable frame rate!

(Any more for any more?)