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Comment Linux/BSD ...kthxbye (Score 1, Interesting) 292

by ilikenwf (#42719911) Attached to: Officials Warn: Cyber War On the US Has Begun
This wouldn't happen near as much if every corp, govt, person, and entity otherwise had a hardened multi-layer, stateful packet inspection firewall, with obscurity on the internal network, good policies, and Linux/BSD client machines. I blame Cisco and their crappy software on their great hardware, Microsoft for their substandard OS and applications, and Apple for their elitist "you can't touch this" attitude towards security on their OS.

Submission + - Adrian Lamo Discusses His Decision to Expose Bradley Manning (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by ilikenwf
ilikenwf writes: Whether you agree with his rationale for doing so or not, Adrian Lamo has come forward to discuss his reasoning for exposing Bradley Manning. Manning, now in federal custody, leaked thousands of US intelligence files and documents. Lamo's side of the story shows that he was concerned for Manning's mental health and stability, and for the lives Manning was risking by releasing classified material — Afghan informants, for instance. Either way, this goes to show that if you're going to release stolen/hacked documents, it's best you do it anonymously and don't brag about it.
The Military

Submission + - The New Eyes in East Asia's Skies: Japan and S.Korea Purchasing American UAVs (thediplomat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: South Korea and Japan seem set to purchase the advanced American Grumman RQ-4 Block 30 Global Hawks. The UAVs will be a major upgrade to both nations intelligence gathering capabilities in light of recent regional tensions.

Japan and South Korea would not be the only non-US user of the advance UAV, "The Global Hawk is in U.S. and German service (the latter under the Eurohawk name) and is one of the largest UAVs in operation. Basically an unmanned U-2, it operates from 15,240 meters to 19,810 meters (50,000 feet to 65,000 feet) and has a loiter time on station of 24+ hours. The U.S. Air Force used it to monitor the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant after the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake, while the Japanese government is also believed to have “borrowed” Global Hawks to monitor areas of the East China Sea close to Okinawa Prefecture. (Japan is also interested in buying the UAV, with reports out of Tokyo saying that two to three could be inducted by FY 2015)."

Submission + - Monsanto Cucumbers Cause Genital Baldness (thelapine.ca) 1

Submitted by FoolishBluntman
FoolishBluntman writes: Monsanto Cucumbers Cause Genital Baldness — Immediately Banned in Nova Scotia.

A six-month study by AgriSearch, an on-campus research arm of Dalhousie University, has shown that genetically modified (GM) cucumbers grown under license to Monsanto Inc. result in serious side effects including total groin hair loss and chafing in "sensitive areas", leading to the immediate and total ban of sales of all that company's crop and subsequent dill pickles.

http://www.thelapine.ca/monsanto-cucumbers-cause-genital-baldness-immediately-banned-nova-scotia
Science

Submission + - Quantum gas goes below absolute zero (nature.com)

Submitted by mromanuk
mromanuk writes: It may sound less likely than hell freezing over, but physicists have created an atomic gas with a sub-absolute-zero temperature for the first time. Their technique opens the door to generating negative-Kelvin materials and new quantum devices, and it could even help to solve a cosmological mystery.
AI

Submission + - Leap Motion Minority Report Interface Prepped For 2013 (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by
kkleiner
kkleiner writes: "Mid-2012, Leap Motion unveiled the most accurate motion sensing technology on the market to date. The Leap detects every subtle finger flick and hand gesture with up to 1/100th of a millimeter precision. All that for just $70. A round of Minority Report and Prometheus references ensued—and then a round of skepticism. Now it appears the company is geared up for a major launch in 2013 with a large fleet of 3rd party app developers on its side."
Transportation

Submission + - Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax on Fuel Efficient Vehicles 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Facing a $10 billion dollar revenue shortfall for transportation financing, the Oregon Legislature is expected to consider a bill to require drivers with a vehicle getting at least 55 miles per gallon of gasoline to pay a per-mile tax after 2015 to offset the loss in tax revenue for fuel efficient cars at the gas pump where the government has traditionally collected money to build and fix roads. Oregonians currently pay 30 cents per gallon, a tax that is automatically added at the pump but as cars become more fuel efficient and alternative fuel sources are identified, state officials project gas tax revenue will decline. "Everybody uses the road, and if some pay and some don't, then that's an unfair situation that's got to be resolved," says Jim Whitty of the Department of Transportation. Opponents of the Oregon proposal say it will hurt a new industry. "It will be one more obstacle that the industry and auto dealers will face in convincing consumers to buy these new cars," says Paul Cosgrove, a lobbyist for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Other states, such as Nevada and Washington, are also looking at a per-mile charge and a Washington law that would charge electric car owners an annual fee goes into effect in February. Oregon did a pilot study of the mileage tax (PDF) where participants paid 1.56 cents per mile and got a credit for any gasoline tax they paid at the pump. According to the study although initial media portrayals of the system were almost uniformly negative 91% of test participants preferred the mileage tax to paying gas taxes."

Comment Usage Scenarios, Retardation of Linux Community (Score 4, Insightful) 72

by ilikenwf (#42465867) Attached to: Quad-Core Stick PC Runs Ubuntu
Were it me, I'd want one for a media center on the TV, running Android for the native Netflix support and XBMC, and then I would keep the other in my backpack or pocket or something for a go-anywhere backup machine. That said, it would have Debian or Archlinux arm installed, since Ubuntu is a steaming pile.

I really wish that bloggers and promoters would stop saying something "runs Ubuntu" without regard to other Linux distros. No device is exclusive to Ubuntu. If it runs a Linux kernel, it can run any Linux distro compiled for it's given architecture. This blind devotion to Canonical's sub-par distro is why we have so many retards clogging up Slashdot, various mailing lists, and forums with stupid questions beginning with "my Ubuntu is broken," or "Help me fix my Ubuntu." These people think Ubuntu is the end-all, be-all Linux without having tried anything else.

These ignorant people need mentors and education so that they can grow and evolve, trying other distros, and maybe even go back and improve Ubuntu to make it a bit less of an abortion than it is now. If you're a Linux vet, you've already gone through that circle, and need to pay it forward by helping educate the n00bs so that we don't get so many retarded questions - or over simplified crap - from Ubuntu and it's users.
Mars

Submission + - Blue, Not Red: Did Ancient Mars Look Like This? (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Using elevation data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, software engineer Kevin Gill was inspired to create a virtual version of the red planet with a difference. "I had been doing similar models of Earth and have seen attempts by others of showing life on Mars, so I figured I'd give it a go," Gill told Discovery News. "It was a good way to learn about the planet, be creative and improve the software I was rendering it in." He included oceans, lakes, clouds and a biosphere — a view of a hypothetical ancient Mars that looks wonderfully homely."

Comment Re:the one redeeming feature (Score 1) 248

by ilikenwf (#42452869) Attached to: Ubuntu Phone OS Unveiled
Yes, it's a nice concept, and you can do similar (without all the MMS, etc integration) with a chroot and VNC, though you'd need a PC to do it...

That said, I definitely don't want this if the OS is Ubuntu. Give me Debian, Archlinux, or the option to do it myself and install the integration applications separately.

Comment Re:n00b (Score 5, Interesting) 303

by ilikenwf (#42245033) Attached to: How To Use a Linux Virtual Private Server
I just can't support an over commercialized, inferior, bloated distro. Debian Stable is the epitome of long term support as a result of the slow release cycle. As a result, you get security updates indefinitely and can install newer software if you want it from backports or source, or install the packages DotDeb for lamp stacks.

As a side note, I have to mention that I have never had an Ubuntu install of any type - desktop or server - that didn't fall into dependency hell upon doing a dist-upgrade. Archlinux for desktops, Debian for servers.

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