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Comment Re:If they hadn't brought their drone (Score 5, Informative) 1127

Given that the article says it crashed onto the highway, and helicopters aren't known for gliding, I'd say they were on top of the highway.

Their video shows the drone flying away from the highway, then returning towards the highway presumably after it was shot at; around 2:15 in the video, it looks like it took some damage to one of the rotors, so it was perhaps damaged enough to no longer maintain altitude, but not enough to prevent them bringing it back under some control.

Comment Re:Git could use revision numbers (Score 1) 442

To those who are unfamiliar, each commit in Git has a SHA1 hash which is used as an identifier instead of a revision numbers. Unfortunately, they are very unwieldy to communicate to others. At work we always use the name and date-time instead, but that has problems as it doesn't convey the branch for instances when it matters.

You don't have to use the entire SHA - e.g. for a long unwieldy SHA like a809deeb979c33a7cc9ac48da72a2a22eaa7dc62, you can simply refer to it as, say, commit a809deeb, or even a809 - as short as you like, as long as it's still unique. In most repositories, the first 8 characters should be a pretty safe bet.

Comment Re:because the others still suck (Score 2) 442

I checked out the full repository of an open source project I have been tinkering with in both SVN and Git (libgdx). The SVN was MUCH larger than the Git repository on my hard drive (i think 33% more, but I can't remember).

I think the point being made was that, in Subversion, you can check out just a small part of the repository if you want to do so, rather than the whole thing. I'm not aware of that possibility in Git.

Comment Re:Recursion fail? (Score 1) 152

If they use ProFTPD for hosting the code too, why wouldn't the Hackers just use that same exploit on that? Why do they need to insert another way in?

I suspect whatever vulnerability was used allowed the attackers to upload files, but didn't give them actual control over the machine; their backdoored version, as stated in the article, allowed attackers to gain root on the box.

Sony

Submission + - Sony Refuses to Sanction PS3 Other OS Refunds (thinq.co.uk)

Stoobalou writes: Sony says that it has no intention of reimbursing retailers if they offer fat PS3 users partial refunds.

Last week, the first PS3 user successfully secured a partial refund from Amazon UK as compensation for the removal of the ability to run Linux on the console.

The punter quoted European law in order to persuade the online retailer that the goods he had bought in good faith were no longer fit for purpose because of the enforcement of firmware update 3.21, which meant that users who chose to keep the Other OS functionality would lose the ability to play the latest games or connect to the PlayStation Network.

Comment Re:What if, for a start... (Score 1) 265

[What if, for a start...] the OpenOffice "effort" split into the (clumsy) user interface and (not that good) underlying render library? And make the whole thing available in a more free license?

Instead of coming up with such an ergonomical disaster?

[...] Such a pointless effort from the OO staff just makes me wonder whether Sun (or is that Oracle?) just want to ditch OpenOffice altogether.

Their FAQ says:

Is the OOMouse part of OpenOffice.org?

No, the OOMouse is produced by a private company called WarMouse. OpenOffice.org is a open source software community. The OOMouse comes with profiles designed specifically for use with the five primary OpenOffice.org applications utilizing information gathered by OpenOffice.org's Usage Tracking group.

It was produced by a private company, it seems the most OO had to do with it was providing stats on which features were most commonly used, and agreeing for their "brand" to appear on it.

Comment Re:Try IRC. (Score 4, Informative) 336

IRC in itself is pretty good, but it misses a couple of features, like offline backlogging and some kind of more direct integration with pastebins, source code repository and such.

If you want offline backlogging, an IRC bouncer like ZNC can take care of that for you. As for pastebins, pasting the URL to a post is dead easy; there's plenty of IRC bots out there which can automatically post a "$user has made a new pastebin post at $url" message to a channel as soon as someone posts.

At work, we use IRC to communicate, we have a copy of the codebase from pastebin.com with a small modification to report pastebin posts to our development channel, and a script run from a Subversion post-commit hook which reports commts to the channel with a link to view the diff.

Works pretty well for us!

Comment Re:How can it still be a zero day exploit... (Score 1) 286

[How can it still be a zero day exploit]...if everyone knows about it?

Being an attack against a vulnerability for which a patch has not yet been released qualifies it as a 0-day attack.

From Wikipedia's Zero day attack article:

A zero-day (or zero-hour) attack or threat is a computer threat that tries to exploit computer application vulnerabilities that are unknown to others, undisclosed to the software vendor, or for which no security fix is available.

(Of course, one security fix is available: disable Flash, or use Flashblock :) )

Windows

Amazon UK Refunds Windows License Fee, With Little Hassle 194

christian.einfeldt writes "Alan Lord, a FOSS computer consultant based in the UK, has announced that Amazon UK honored his request for a refund of the Microsoft license fee portion of the cost of a new Asus netbook PC that came with Microsoft Windows XP. Lord details the steps that he took to obtain a refund of 40.00 GBP for the cost of the EULA, complete with links to click to request a refund. Lord's refund comes 10 years after the initial flurry of activity surrounding EULA discounts, started by a blog post by Australian computer consultant Geoffrey Bennett which appeared on Slashdot on 18 January 1999. That Slashdot story led to mainstream press coverage, such as stories in CNN, the New York Times Online, and the San Francisco Chronicle, to name just a few. The issue quieted down for a few years, but has started to gain some momentum again in recent years, with judges in France, Italy, and Israel awarding refunds. But if Lord's experience is any indication, getting a refund through Amazon might be as easy as filling out a few forms, at least in the UK, without any need to go to court."

Comment Re:Why another small car (Score 1) 3

Public transport doesn't work for everyone. It's of little use in rural areas, or to people who need to travel at times when it is unavailable (night shift workers, for instance).

Even when it's available, I could leave my house, walk about 10 minutes to a bus stop, then spend 30-40 minutes on a bus that travels a convoluted route across town, stopping every minute or two. Or, I could walk outside, get straight in my car, and drive directly to the same destination in about 10 minutes in comfort, with no waiting for the bus, easily carrying whatever I need, with control over the temperature in the cabin, the music, happy in my own little world. I can return whatever time I want to, without wondering if it's too late for the last bus.

Public transport still has a long way to go.

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