having screwed half the planet up already, the US Govt is screwing up tech too for everyone else .. thanks..

I guess the OP means the USA Government .. but the fact that some actually think the US *IS* the world, is ironically, exactly the problem to begin with.. so nothing new there then.. move along..

Thats exactly the sort of unaware, insular and ignorant typical hive-mind group think that the world dislikes about You. - my guess as to if it were put to a poll who gets it first, i think the US would come out top, as this attitude stinks and causes harm and intolerance for those ill educated belligerent remarks. Accidents aside, also be aware that the US also tops the charts for atmospheric a-tests, thereby increasing the global cancer rate to innocent life on the planet, Thanks.

or maybe i just bought crap hardware, but, and this is going to prompt the usual 'well it works alright here' ries, but Linux, My OS of choice since 1997 - isn't perfect of course, and i'm interested in power management, i just am, so imagine my dismay (ok - outright anger) as on my 2009 AMD Turion x2 64 laptop, overheated as i was installing Linux, Slackware to be precise. Halfway through the install the laptop went off, and wouldn't come back on until, during fault-finding, a 2GB RAM stick was removed. The damn laptop got so hot, the ram socket failed, taking the RAM with it, new RAM proved the socket or possibly worse, was dead. for good. Linux Fail. It hurt the Packard Bell hardware. t was sold as a 2GB Windows laptop. Cooling on many laptops needs to be fixed. Some *nux distro's worked well. Mainly the *buntu ones, they were a little less evil to the hardware, Yes, some will say it was a hardware fault, and you are wrong. The hardware worked well on the OS it was designed for, Linux, of course, even tweaked and prodded, still heated the laptop beyond what was normal, and even sometimes it cut out, performance was acceptable, but battery life was reduced. Not a good OS for *that* laptop. I had enough of cheap crappy keyboards, poor build quality, squeaky cabinets and all that nonsense, wanted a solid dependable non-windows laptop with decent battery life, quality build (which in my book, means metal) great keyboard and was well designed. after months or reading, a Macbook Pro from early 2009 replaced the overheated plastic laptop i sold on. 30 minutes after i waked in with it, Kubuntu 10.04 booted, Mactel's PPA tweaks were done and i was happier. hardware support was okay, obviously the usual Broadcom tweaks were done, manual fan speeds were implemented, propriety 'drivers' installed and it was ok. i ignored OS X. performance would sometimes be dreadful, sometimes excellent, i think the dual-graphics of the MBP were confusing Linux, as EFI booting / BIOS emulation weirdness meant Linux only really saw the Nvidia 9600, with the consequent higher heat generation and lower battery life associated using the so called 'performance' card. ah well. Fast forward to *buntu 12.04 .. oh dear. There's a Mac ISO that Canonical make for Intel Mac users, with better support (they say) for Mac Owners. well, first, dont download it on a OSx system, or if you do, especially dont bother trying to mount or burn it in OSX. It'll likely not work. Canonical's ISO for Macs is unmountable - for most people using er, Macs. Are you serious ? Grub *EFI* is mostly pointless on Canonical's Mac ISO so i installed generic 12.04 .. after burning it on my other Linux box. I Love Linux, have done since 1997when i first installed it (and Yes, it was Redhat!) and its my OS of choice, its on all my machines, I give back, i have sent money to free and open source devs, and will continue to do so, .. because i think the way Windows and OS X are going, its going to be very sad for anyone with anything other than a passing interest in *using* computers, to do anything that the OS disagrees with, worse still if you're not using a touch screen interface that seems to be the fashion at present, or god help us, is also 'cloud centric' Linux, BSD et al, will of course be the only refuge from this buzzword controlled direction the two other main OS' seem to be heading. but for gods sake, lets get power management right, on all laptops for a start, desktops are usually much less of a pain in this direction, lets also leave stuff like pulseaudio and the dumbed down interfaces to those that need them, and let us Linux users use Free software on our paid-for-cash hardware, until then i shall keep looking for the ultimate distro i can make run the hardware as efficient as OS X does on my Macbook, as frustrating though as OS X is. until

frikkin creepy ...

Well, here on the west coast of the UK, if you were to look at all the litle fault lines it'd look like a smashed car windscreen, but, here, on the waters edge i can see across the bay where outside my window, 'they' are going to resume fracking soon. Last year they did it, there was a small earthquake, this year they're back, i guess they found something, so we will all be looking forward to another earthquake, hope the folks at nuke plant 3 miles down the coast are all wearing hard hats .. wouldn't want to stand in the way of a wonderful business like oil. me ? .. i'm taking the pills and have a fast 2 wheeled exit strategy ..

what colour are they ?

Sweeping generalizations ahead.. The Emperor's New clothes.. Mac users vs security.. I bought a 2009 Macbook pro last year, not because i'm an Apple lover, I'm really not.. I'm a long-time Linux user, well, since 1997 anyway, who got fed up with plastic laptops and all that kind of thing, so i wanted a metal laptop with back-lit keyboard and so the Macbook pro arrived. its a Linux PC. job done. get on with Linux. I thought I'd have a play with OS X seeing as its still on a partition somewhere, & i had questions,.. try as i might, as a secret Linux user on Mac forums, i was staggered, indeed disgusted at some of the smug attitudes and total denial displayed on some of their forums. and don't get me started on Steve worship. Apple stopped being cool when Woz left. I don't exactly welcome the news of any OS exploits, but Fisher Price, sorry, 'average Mac users' really need to wake up and stop 'the big lie', the cognitive dissonance displayed only seems to reinforce their cult-ish views that the non-Mac proletariat really are 'out to get them' - achieving nothing worthwhile. Cast your mind back a short while, when the fake AV thing hit Macs, did they change ? most did not. the same old lie, Macs don't get infected was peddled again in response. How can a shiny toy get virus ! even forget the pwn2own, average Mac user wont know about this, and so will not accept it as proof. they miss Slashdot, dont know what Linux is, never heard the word, and with little or no knowledge are joining in on the Windows Sucks bandwagon, probably because its fashionable to do do, ironically though many windows users are actually (now) aware how susceptible PC's are to attacks, thereby putting, or rather with Mac users putting *themselves* at a distinct disadvantage from the 3 main OS camps, while (often) effecting an assumed knowledge.. such an obvious disconnect is rare, and i now have little empathy for Mac users. - most win users know they are on a vunerable OS, Mac users generally don't, Linux users are generally busy fixing everyone else's computers. Hmmm.. there's more, but i think everyone's already fell asleep if they're reading.. ./Randy

Indeed the sun does have the main impact on the 'usability' of some bits of the radio spectrum, as do seasons, the time of day, locations, receiver interference, (man made or natural) but there's plenty of other factors too. My main worrys are (as far as the sun and our electrical systems are concerned are) Satellites, as more and more, formerly terrestrial communications are now becoming space based, these are likely going to be the first items to ' cook ' - yes i know they can 'harden' them, but the systems that civilization depends upon, rely's upon them, and as far as i am concerned, no reason is good enough for critical systems to internet-linked. lets talk system redundancy vs. single points of failure. I will just say i think the mass media's reporting of these 'The sky is falling' type of stories are disingenuous, apocryphal, or just plain lazy reporting, at best. - it seems to be that there is a all too-ready market, and indeed an increase in 'doomsday' type reporting in recent years, what with terrorists 'round every corner, global warming, asteroids, alien invasions, bird flu, aids, sars, whooping cough, boils, etc and FUD being spread like manure on a windy day, you get the picture...

oops , i didn't mean to post that anonymously ..it was me. thought i was logged in LOL /Randy

Lennart Poettering isn't relevant anymore .. nice chap though he seems to be, in interviews i've heard, lock him in a room. please.

surely he meant Linux audio isn't relevant anymore ?

if it runs Windows i wouldn't be too scared ,,

they are, er, tripping.

Yes .. yet more proof, if it were needed, that the UK and its ' total control vortex ' is creeping into operation, good old Orwell style. sure, big business and media interests are dictating policy, but thats nothing new here in the UK, but likely far more sinister, is the fact that this is likely another tool in the arsenal of many, which could potentially be re-interpreted and then used to quell freedoms.. i know Hollywood and 'music' companies want to protect their cash cow, but this seems like thin end of (another) nasty wedge heading our way. the 'glory days' of the internet have passed folks, make hay while the sun shines, the web will just ultimately become a corporate outlet and information gathering excersize .. some cynics may well say its well underway already ..