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Nothing new to add, but did want to emphasize that if a text-only terminal is all you need, 'screen' is the way to go. It is one of the lesser known unix goodies, and a true "wonder tool": a tool you cannot live without once you use it.

The quick primer:

First time:
    ssh mymachine
    screen
    <do some work>
    CTRL-a-c <create another login session>
    <do some more work in diff dir>
    CTRL-a-1 <back to first login session>
    CRTL-a-d <disconnect>
    exit

Future times:

    ssh mymachine
    screen -r <resume screen>
    CTRL-a-2 <back to second login session>
    <do some work>
    CTRL-a-d <disconnect>
    exit

You can create many login sessions inside one screen instance or launch multiple instances of screen on the same box by giving them a name. See the man page for all the goodness.

If this makes it past vaporware, I'll dance a jig.

!!!

Elektroschock writes "At a Red Hat retrospective panel on the ODF vs. OOXML struggle panel, a Microsoft representative, Stuart McKee, admitted that ODF had 'clearly won.' The Redmond company is going to add native support of ODF 1.1 with its Office 2007 service pack 2. Its yet unpublished format ISO OOXML will not be supported before the release of the next Office generation. Whether or not OOXML ever gets published is an open question after four national bodies appealed the ISO decision."

You do realize that you probably just signed yourself up for some hate from the Sony Fanclub? I really liked the PS1 and PS2, but Sony seems to be back to inspecting their own colon again. Beta, Minidisk, MemoryStickDuo, and now BluRay. It's like these assholes can't get enough of themselves. Not to mention my Sony fanboy friend has a Sony digital camera on top of all his other Sony shit and that piece of crap that uses some strange video codec. I have been able to play videos off of that damned camera without headache on ONE computer out of 6 so far. Most don't have the codecs and even the "just works" Windows installs fail on finding the appropriate codec most of the time. All of this coupled with their dealings with the RIAA lawsuit mess. Oh and the PS3 flops of "oh well our stuff is so sensitive we can't make the controller vibrate cuz 6 axis is too good" when the real story was "lawsuits are kicking us in the balls and we can't do it without getting in trouble...so all of you need to forget the fact that the Wii can do everything we can't in a controller and believe our stupid lines about why it won't work". Sony really needs to pull their heads out of their collective ass and get with the program.

Personally, I still want my money for that stupid ass claim about "if you can find a PS3 on the shelves we will pay you!" In the mean time, years later and I am still having a damned hard time finding the latest Wii accessory and I am apparently some kind of luck God for just walking into a Gamestop and buying a Wii because they are STILL perpetually sold out.

But I actually read the article.

Its just a DVD player with built in upscaling capabilities.

See where it says

"One Japanese report appeared to suggest that the new technology would be able produce much higher-resolution images from existing DVDs, but did not address the apparent impossibility of this claim.

The modified DVD format relies on a newly-developed large scale integrated circuit chip to rapidly convert the stored video, but no technical details were released."

Not a new format, just HD-DVD/Blu-Ray resolution output

Basically doing in the DVD Player what many TV's do internally.

I order all of our new Business PC's with Vista licenses, however I then load them with my volume licensing copy of XP excercising the downgrade rights that come with the Vista Business edition... I figure I may as well get the newest license, does not mean that I'm going to use it, as much as M$ would like to think that I am.

*Four* digits? Wow, this site sure has grown during my trip to New Zealand.

I would use Opera but I just can't bring myself to use a proprietary browser. Now, I'm not RMS and I do use some proprietary software, for example Flash is installed on all my Linux boxes and I have a few proprietary games I play via WINE and some non-free Linux software such as Google Earth too. But when you think of all the information you enter on a web browser (credit card numbers, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, Social Security Numbers, etc.) I just can't bring myself to use a non-free browser. It also doesn't help that Opera used to be Adware and that also makes me hesitant to use Opera as a full time browser. I don't hate Opera (in fact I use it on non-personal sites on the Wii all the time) but I just don't trust a proprietary browser when there are several good free alternatives around (Firefox, Epiphany, Konqueror, Seamonkey, Etc.). If Opera ever comes out with a free version of their browser (As in open-source free) I will be one of the first to download it, but until then Opera is mostly restricted to browser-testing and the Wii.

FutureMap: This program hoped to use a kind of terrorism futures market to predict key developments and even attacks. It was thought market valuations of possible future events could reflect the probability of their occurring. However, FutureMap was scrapped in 2003 after the notion of betting on terrorist atrocities was called "ridiculous and grotesque" by US politicians.

I really wanted to see if it would work - grotesque or not. It intrigued me that a "market" could be formed for things that aren't being bought and sold. And I wanted to see if the market could predict things.

Why does dual boot require extra hardware??

To make sure the one with Linux costs more...

Bulldust writes "Regular readers will recollect the recent story that eBay is forcing Australian users over to PayPal or COD as the only forms of payment in June 2008: eBay Australia Makes PayPal Mandatory. It now appears that the Australian Reserve Bank will consider throwing its weight behind users, should the eBay policy be deemed to breach trade practice and competition laws."

In a recent CBR interview about his new continuation of the Marvel comic book series "Invincible Iron Man," Matt Faction provides a information about the debut (which will be May 7). In the new series, the villain is Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah Stane (who happens to be the villain of the new Iron Man movie opening on May 2). Whereas his father Obadiah was a ruthless billionaire who fought as the Iron Monger, 'Zeke' "rejects the strategies of his father as being the crude tactics of Attila the Hun." Instead, he will be "a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist". As the author puts it, "Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop." Apparently the work has gone over well on the CBR forums, where several members applaud the idea of an open source supervillain.

adolf writes "A couple of days ago, Slashdot changed its comments interface. Gone is the whitespace in its previously easy-to-read format. Gone are the simple textual links for replying and navigation. New is grey boxes surrounding each comment with a set of large grey buttons at the bottom of each. It is ugly and hard to read. Why the change? Why is it not user-selectable? Why do I find myself not reading comments anymore?"

theodp writes "The Department of Homeland Security stepped up to the plate Friday for corporate H-1B visa interests as it changed immigration rules without notice to allow employers to hire an unlimited number of foreign students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math to work in the U.S. for 29 months after graduating with a bachelor's degree or higher — longer if an H-1B visa is pending — provided they studied in the States for one academic year under an F-1 visa and their employer enrolls in the Department's e-Verify program. 'This rule will enable businesses to attract and retain highly skilled foreign workers, giving U.S. companies a competitive advantage in the world economy,' said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in justifying the change, which the DHS made without notice or comment by exploiting a 'good cause' exception that allows procedural rules to be bypassed to prevent 'serious damage to important interests.' In explaining its motivation, the DHS cited testimony by Bill Gates ('I don't think there should be any limit') as well as the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, which counts major H-1B stakeholders Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft among its members."