Comment Gatekeep aggressively (Score 1) 53
Volume is not quality. Those who object can go elsewhere.
Comment GOOD. Stupidity should hurt. (Score 1) 65
Only destructive attacks can coerce wise choices.
Submission + - AskSlashdot: What educational computer game would you like to play? (warisagame.com) 1
shanen writes: The start of this AskSlashdot about games was actually Amazon because I think Bezos is playing and cheating in at least three different games. One of them is the monopoly game where Amazon controls the sales, and there is a famous and somewhat education game called "Monopoly" that teaches a little bit about how that economic imbalance works. I'm pert' shure there are computerized versions even though I haven't played them.
But Amazon is also playing monopsony games where the sales from suppliers or manufacturers are controlled and manipulated for higher profits. Start with a narrow focus, but I think it is now impossible to have a bestselling book unless you "work with" Amazon. I was not aware of any such game, but there are many big gamers on Slashdot who could say more? The obvious search did produce a hit, and I've included that link as the URL for this submission, but I haven't played it and the webpage did not tilt me in that direction.
And I think there is a third category for a possible game involving shipping, but I think it makes the TSP and related decision problems look trivial... Possibly a game called "Logistics"? Or "Death to Brick and Mortar"? The obvious websearch on this one didn't seem to get anything close.
I also thought about a more specific version of the question. Perhaps the Slashdot editor would prefer "What is the most educational computer game you've played and why do you think it was educational?" I even have partial answers to that question from my game-related experiences and possible answers for related future games that I want to play. In particular, I sometimes fantasize about a literacy development app/game...
But Amazon is also playing monopsony games where the sales from suppliers or manufacturers are controlled and manipulated for higher profits. Start with a narrow focus, but I think it is now impossible to have a bestselling book unless you "work with" Amazon. I was not aware of any such game, but there are many big gamers on Slashdot who could say more? The obvious search did produce a hit, and I've included that link as the URL for this submission, but I haven't played it and the webpage did not tilt me in that direction.
And I think there is a third category for a possible game involving shipping, but I think it makes the TSP and related decision problems look trivial... Possibly a game called "Logistics"? Or "Death to Brick and Mortar"? The obvious websearch on this one didn't seem to get anything close.
I also thought about a more specific version of the question. Perhaps the Slashdot editor would prefer "What is the most educational computer game you've played and why do you think it was educational?" I even have partial answers to that question from my game-related experiences and possible answers for related future games that I want to play. In particular, I sometimes fantasize about a literacy development app/game...
Submission + - AlpineBSD announced – an AI-free FOSS OS (theregister.com)
Lproven writes: I wrote about Drew DeVault's new project, combining NetBSD's kernel and libc with a port of the Alpine Linux userland.
Submission + - GarageJam 8.0.1 released -- Norwegians writes GNOME Music Recording Software (garagejam.org)
ole writes: GarageJam is the Free, Norwegian open-source music recording studio for GNOME, allowing musicians to compose, record, and share original music seamlessly on the Internet, while GarageJam Studio is a commercial music and audio recording app for the World Wide Web written by Aamot Innovation from Norway.
The latest release, GarageJam 8.0.1, is available in C and Python. It records audio immediately to Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) files in the current working directory and lets you edit metadata in .gjxml XML files from a GTK/GNOME wizard — all built on the Gingerblue Recording Studio API.
The latest IETF GarageJam XML draft is available at https://www.garagejam.org/rfc/... and the latest C and Python implementation is available from https://www.garagejam.org/src/... (C) and https://www.garagejam.org/src/... (Python).
Source available from https://github.uio.no/olekaa/g... at University of Oslo, Norway.
The latest release, GarageJam 8.0.1, is available in C and Python. It records audio immediately to Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) files in the current working directory and lets you edit metadata in
The latest IETF GarageJam XML draft is available at https://www.garagejam.org/rfc/... and the latest C and Python implementation is available from https://www.garagejam.org/src/... (C) and https://www.garagejam.org/src/... (Python).
Source available from https://github.uio.no/olekaa/g... at University of Oslo, Norway.
Submission + - GNU Photo 3.0.1 released, supports 2,500+ camera models via libgphoto2 2.5.34 (sourceforge.net)
ole writes: After 25 years, libgphoto2 2.5.34 now supports more than 2,500 camera models, and GPhoto 3.0.1 is built on it.
GPhoto 3.0.1 is now available for download:
http://www.gnomephoto.org/src/...
SHA256: f76d347cd013062ee1fdfcc86f9dee4890e89854d95e975ac92a883bba2ca449
This is a stable release for the 3.0 series.
Changes since 3.0.0:
* Fix segmentation fault
Note for testers: on GNOME desktops, gvfs may claim the camera before
GPhoto can access it. If GPhoto cannot open your camera, stop the gvfs
processes first:
pkill gvfs
This matches gvfsd, gvfsd-fuse, gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor and the
other gvfs daemons. To stop only the main daemon:
pkill -x gvfsd
To stop only the gphoto2 backend:
pkill -f gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
pkill -f gvfsd-gphoto2
If a process does not exit, force it with:
pkill -9 gvfs
The gvfs daemons are D-Bus activated and will respawn when another
application (e.g. Nautilus) needs them, so re-run the command if the
camera is claimed again. If a stale mount remains afterwards, unmount it
with:
fusermount -u /run/user/$UID/gvfs
Please give it a try and report any problems on this list or on the bug tracker.
Thanks to everyone who contributed patches, testing and translations.
Downloads
libgphoto2 2.5.34: https://sourceforge.net/projec...
GPhoto 3.0.1: https://www.gnomephoto.org/gph...
More information
GPhoto: http://www.gnomephoto.org/
gPhoto: http://gphoto.org/
Best regards,
Ole Kristian Aamot
https://www.aamot.org/ole/ole....
GPhoto 3.0.1 is now available for download:
http://www.gnomephoto.org/src/...
SHA256: f76d347cd013062ee1fdfcc86f9dee4890e89854d95e975ac92a883bba2ca449
This is a stable release for the 3.0 series.
Changes since 3.0.0:
* Fix segmentation fault
Note for testers: on GNOME desktops, gvfs may claim the camera before
GPhoto can access it. If GPhoto cannot open your camera, stop the gvfs
processes first:
pkill gvfs
This matches gvfsd, gvfsd-fuse, gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor and the
other gvfs daemons. To stop only the main daemon:
pkill -x gvfsd
To stop only the gphoto2 backend:
pkill -f gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
pkill -f gvfsd-gphoto2
If a process does not exit, force it with:
pkill -9 gvfs
The gvfs daemons are D-Bus activated and will respawn when another
application (e.g. Nautilus) needs them, so re-run the command if the
camera is claimed again. If a stale mount remains afterwards, unmount it
with:
fusermount -u
Please give it a try and report any problems on this list or on the bug tracker.
Thanks to everyone who contributed patches, testing and translations.
Downloads
libgphoto2 2.5.34: https://sourceforge.net/projec...
GPhoto 3.0.1: https://www.gnomephoto.org/gph...
More information
GPhoto: http://www.gnomephoto.org/
gPhoto: http://gphoto.org/
Best regards,
Ole Kristian Aamot
https://www.aamot.org/ole/ole....
Comment Well put^ (Score 1) 27
Slopflooding is sabotage under guise of assistance.
Comment Laws against homicide have many exceptions (Score 1) 53
Violence including war is an accepted therefore acceptable method of resolving various human problems, including social parasites like the people who sold adulterated infant formula with fatal results in China. Their public liquidation sent a healthy message some people are refuse to get when asserted by lesser means.
If some life is precious it follows other lives are the opposite.
Comment How might the customers study surveillance? (Score 2) 31
Schools have plenty of inquiring student minds capable of studying how existing camera systems affect criminal acts, for example if and how they deter crime or improve speed and quality of security response.
Students are school customers with an obvious need to know. They could contribute useful studies from their service consumer perspective.
We cannot precisely understand real impact without valid information. Cameras in public space are not cameras in private space. Colleges could precisely compare situational impact, study relevant laws and precedents, and much more. Students could be ideal evaluators since they unlike surveillance system businesses are not selling anything.
What might student study of these systems look like? Humanity needs third party (not sellers, not criminals) investigation and neutral explanation of subjects technically and legally uninformed people cannot easily understand. Education is civilization's continuity.
Submission + - SGI IRIX Indigo Magic Desktop recreation with AI: Cyanotype Blueprint Desktop (niten.irix.expert)
MIPSPro writes: Someone has re-created the Indigo Magic Desktop for the SGI IRIX operating system as a rather large scale undertaking with dozens of applications and preferences straight out of 2006. It's a BSD licensed affair with an actual IRIX port and several other platforms including Solaris SPARC and x86_64 BSD and Linux systems. It's based on man custom extensions to MOTIF much like SGI's SGM libraries for notebook widgets and non-MOTIF goodies. It runs on many x11 platforms including Xorg and X11Libre as well as forthcoming ports to Tru64 Alpha, and AIX 6.1 on POWER4 or better, and HP-UX 11iv3 Integrity and PA-RISC HP-UX 11.31. There is also a Citrix clone "CyThrough" and a CalDAV desktop calendar, Sunbeam.
Submission + - Recycling ANSI art: Tracing the origins of Fire Escape's BBS logon screens (breakintochat.com)
Kirkman14 writes: Whether you call it "ripping" or "remixing", the BBS scene had a long tradition of adapting and reusing much older ANSI art.
Fire Escape, curator of the authoritative list of bulletin board systems in St. Louis, Missouri's 314 area code, and sysop of the area's most popular board, was a perfect example.
Like many sysops of that time, Fire Escape enlivened her bulletin board by finding and repurposing older ANSI art. Eventually her BBS had 18 different logon screens in its rotation, many of which featured flames or mushroom clouds or made liberal use of red and yellow.
The folks who created this so-called "public domain" ANSI art in the late 1980s and very early 1990s — such as Michael C. Ling, Lora Ruffner (aka “Ebony Eyes”) and Violet Stymacks — certainly intended their work to be seen, and shared it publicly on networked messageboards.
Were they okay with other people using their art? Or would they have considered such borrowing or adapting as "ripping" or just plain "stealing"?
In my latest retrocomputing essay on Break Into Chat, I explore this widespread practice by tracing the origins of several ANSI art screens from Fire Escape's BBS, and finding how different people later transformed the original images.
Fire Escape, curator of the authoritative list of bulletin board systems in St. Louis, Missouri's 314 area code, and sysop of the area's most popular board, was a perfect example.
Like many sysops of that time, Fire Escape enlivened her bulletin board by finding and repurposing older ANSI art. Eventually her BBS had 18 different logon screens in its rotation, many of which featured flames or mushroom clouds or made liberal use of red and yellow.
The folks who created this so-called "public domain" ANSI art in the late 1980s and very early 1990s — such as Michael C. Ling, Lora Ruffner (aka “Ebony Eyes”) and Violet Stymacks — certainly intended their work to be seen, and shared it publicly on networked messageboards.
Were they okay with other people using their art? Or would they have considered such borrowing or adapting as "ripping" or just plain "stealing"?
In my latest retrocomputing essay on Break Into Chat, I explore this widespread practice by tracing the origins of several ANSI art screens from Fire Escape's BBS, and finding how different people later transformed the original images.
Comment Turbines are efficient, simple and noise-optional (Score 1) 53
They're not popular by accident. How quiet they are is up to the humans who spec their enclosures. (Ditto with large diesels which are routinely made sufficiently quiet for cruise liners.)
Industrial flue gases were traditionally exhausted by tall stacks whose draught pulled fresh air into the furnace at the base. A more recent reason that's done is to reduce ground-level pollution.
Turbines need not be run open like an engine on an outdoor test stand. That's why Air Force bases have sound suppressors to test engines in and out of airframes. Those "Hush houses" could be much quieter but are mostly located on operating air bases where other, installed engines running in afterburner for takeoff are normal.
Submission + - Candy Corn Is Made of Bug Secretions (archive.is)
know-nothing cunt writes: The Atlantic reports:
Here's a tip if you ever want to ruin a Halloween party. Seek out the most squeamish-seeming adult or child you can find in the act of consuming candy corn. Then tell them they just filled their mouth with bug secretions. If this fact alarms you — or if you’re an inveterate hater of candy corn and thus think that you have been spared — I regret to inform you that by eating many classic Halloween candies, you are, to some extent, eating bugs. More precisely, you are eating a bug by-product that is in many cases listed on the package as "confectioner’s glaze." This glaze is used on jelly beans, Milk Duds, Junior Mints, Whoppers, Lemonheads, and Sugar Babies, to name a few.
Submission + - Meta Staff Notes Discussed a 'Whisper Strategy' Against Jonathan Haidt
An anonymous reader writes: Meta Staff Notes Discussed a ‘Whisper Strategy’ Against Jonathan Haidt
“Notes from Meta meetings in March 2023 show staff discussing how to “turn academics against Haidt”, meaning Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist who blames social media for rising anxiety and depression among teenagers.”
‘The notes, headed “Well-being Meeting Sound-check Notes”, were filed in public on 23 October as Exhibit E in the large US federal case over social media and young people’s mental health. ’
--
"How do we get the academic community to disavow Haidt?"
"Can't co-opt them, so how do we enrage them... So the media finds him not credible."
"Whisper strategy – turn academics against Haidt."
“Notes from Meta meetings in March 2023 show staff discussing how to “turn academics against Haidt”, meaning Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist who blames social media for rising anxiety and depression among teenagers.”
‘The notes, headed “Well-being Meeting Sound-check Notes”, were filed in public on 23 October as Exhibit E in the large US federal case over social media and young people’s mental health. ’
--
"How do we get the academic community to disavow Haidt?"
"Can't co-opt them, so how do we enrage them... So the media finds him not credible."
"Whisper strategy – turn academics against Haidt."
Submission + - The Tragedy of Losing Your Wikipedia Page (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: What do you need to know—need to know—about Xavier Trudeau? The eldest son of former Canadian prime minister Justin, the teenage Trudeau has recently begun performing R&B under the mononym Xav. But, with all due respect to Xav, do those facts make him a person of note? Should you expect to be able to read about him on Wikipedia? What about Evanescence guitarist Tim McCord, or 2012 Yachtmaster of the Year Rainer Holtorff? All three have had a biography on Wikipedia; all three of those biographies were considered for deletion this year on the grounds that the subjects were not notable enough to warrant a biography at all. Every day, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of Wikipedia biographies—of child actors turned LA realtors, retired ambassadors, soccer players who have played less than 10 minutes of professional soccer—are purged from the world’s free encyclopedia.
It’s not as though Wikipedia, which hosts over 7 million articles in the English language, doesn’t have the space. But Wikipedia has only so many volunteers to monitor its contents. To this day, Wikipedia editors are discovering hoaxes that have gone undetected for decades. The time it takes to verify the release dates of Xav’s three singles is better spent—the logic goes—by asking whether the American Civil War officer Nathaniel Lyon really drank mustard during battle, as was claimed in his Wikipedia biography for 17 years. Wikipedia removed the mustard claim, not because it was proven wrong, but because there was no reliable evidence for it. “We’re not really looking for what’s true,” Britta Gustafson, who has been editing Wikipedia since 2001, told me. “We’re looking for what’s verifiable.” Wikipedia editors do not themselves decide that a person is not notable, only that there is a lack of reliable evidence to support the claim...
It’s not as though Wikipedia, which hosts over 7 million articles in the English language, doesn’t have the space. But Wikipedia has only so many volunteers to monitor its contents. To this day, Wikipedia editors are discovering hoaxes that have gone undetected for decades. The time it takes to verify the release dates of Xav’s three singles is better spent—the logic goes—by asking whether the American Civil War officer Nathaniel Lyon really drank mustard during battle, as was claimed in his Wikipedia biography for 17 years. Wikipedia removed the mustard claim, not because it was proven wrong, but because there was no reliable evidence for it. “We’re not really looking for what’s true,” Britta Gustafson, who has been editing Wikipedia since 2001, told me. “We’re looking for what’s verifiable.” Wikipedia editors do not themselves decide that a person is not notable, only that there is a lack of reliable evidence to support the claim...
