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Comment Re:A Debian release! (Score 1) 386

by rbochan (#26862645) Attached to: Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny" Released

Sarge really was the source of these endless jokes. Almost three years, on a Linux that was considerably less mature than it is today was forever...

Sure, the release time from Woody to Sarge was funny until you realized that even with the umpteen thousands of packages included with Sarge, the Debian team still beat release times between Microsoft's bare-bones desktop OSes Windows XP and Vista.
Movies

Submission + - DreamWork's Linux rendering farm

Submitted by
stoilis
stoilis writes: "(Via LWN) Linux Journal takes a look at how Linux helps make movies. "All the big film studios primarily use Linux for animation and visual effects. Perhaps no commercial Linux installation is larger than DreamWorks Animation, with more than 1,000 Linux desktops and more than 3,000 server CPUs.""
Privacy

Submission + - Parents monitoring teenagers as they drive (usatoday.com)

Submitted by hsqueak
hsqueak writes: A U.S. insurance company has brought out a package where parents can monitor their teenagers' driving habits remotely. The package can notify parents if the driver is speeding, if the car is in use after curfew or used outside an agreed-upon area. Parents can also use GPS to find their car over the internet. Safeco maintain that the driving information, being collected by an independent firm, will not be used to determine fault or eligibility in the event of an insurance claim.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Talking paper made by scientists (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
avengex
avengex writes: "Digital paper that can speak to you has been created by scientists. Researchers from Mid Sweden University have constructed an interactive paper billboard that emits recorded sound in response to a user's touch.

Finally! Something better than those blasted musical birthday cards.."
Businesses

Submission + - No-Vacation Nation

Submitted by reno
reno writes: Reuters reports on a new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research that found that the United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holiday time: 'Most U.S. firms do in fact give employees vacations, but the lack of government guarantees means one in four private sector workers does not get paid leave... [According to economist John Schmitt,] "It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays."'
Security

Submission + - $16,000 Bounty for Sendmail, Apache 0Day Flaws

Submitted by Famestay
Famestay writes: Verisign's iDefense is putting up a $16,000 prize for any hacker who can find a remotely exploitable vulnerability in six critical Internet infrastructure applications. The bounty is for a zero-day code execution hole on the following Internet infrastructure technologies: Apache httpd, Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) daemon, Sendmail SMTP daemon, OpenSSH sshd, Microsoft Internet Information (IIS) Server and Microsoft Exchange Server.
Space

Submission + - Polar ocean 'soaking up less CO2'

Submitted by
gollum123
gollum123 writes: "One of Earth's most important absorbers of carbon dioxide (CO2) is failing to soak up as much of the greenhouse gas as it was expected to, scientists say ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6665147. stm ). The decline of Antarctica's Southern Ocean carbon "sink" — or reservoir — means that atmospheric CO2 levels may be higher in future than predicted. This effect had been predicted by climate scientists, and is taken into account — to some extent — by climate models. But it appears to be happening 40 years ahead of schedule. As CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, it makes them more acidic, harming populations of marine organisms such as coral. The latest study suggests that phenomenon will only get worse over the century."
The Internet

Submission + - Pandora limits service to U.S. and U.K only

Submitted by
Felix P. Dau
Felix P. Dau writes: "On May, 2nd Tim Westergren, Founder of the Pandora Radio and Music Genome Project, announced in an eMail to all listeners, that due to licencing restrictions, will cease to function for international users outside the U.S.

Here's a transcript of the eMail sent:

Dear Pandora listener,
Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S.
It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.
We show your IP address is '84.xx.xx.xx', which indicates you are listening from Germany. If you believe you are seeing this by mistake, we offer our sincere apologies and ask that you please reply to this email.
Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music — we have always believed in honoring the guidelines as determined by legislators and regulators, artists and songwriters, and the labels and publishers they work with. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world. Other than in the U.K., we have not yet been able to make significant progress in our efforts to obtain a sufficient number of international licenses at terms that would enable us to run a viable business. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.
Until now, we have not been able to tell where a listener is based, relying only on zip code information provided upon registration. We are now able to recognize a listener's country of origin based on the IP address from which they are accessing the service. Consequently, on May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
We will be posting updates on our blog regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding. "
Power

Submission + - British PM's PC hacked...

Submitted by
Xemu
Xemu writes: "British Prime Minister Tony Blair's computers have been "hacked" by London law enforcement to find evidence of party political corruption. The police "hacked" the PCs because they were deeply frustrated by the "very slim" pile of documents that they received after it twice asked the administration for all emails, letters and other material relating to the system of awarding seats in Britain's unelected upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, in return for financial support."

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